The Zul Enigma (49 page)

Drew tipped up her chin
and pushed the strands out of her eyes. ‘You deserve some adult time,’ he said.

She leaned forward and
kissed him. ‘I haven’t been treated like this for years,’ she said, ‘probably
not since I dated you back in… wow… when was it now? Can you remember?’

‘’97.’

‘That’s right… the year
Bill Clinton was re-elected.’

‘And the year the Brits
gave Hong Kong back to China.’

‘And the year Princess
Diana died. I was only twenty-four back then.’

‘And you still only look
twenty-four.’

‘Ooh, you smooth talker,
you.’

‘We had some fun though,
didn’t we? Why did we break up again? Remind me.’

‘You met someone else.’

‘That’s funny, I thought
you did.’

Erika shrugged. ‘I don’t
know – it’s so long ago.’ She leaned over and gave him another kiss.

‘Hey! Hey!’

Erika slipped off her
chair to make room at the bar for the man standing behind her but when she
caught a glimpse of who it was she did a double take. ‘Carlos!’ she exclaimed.

‘Erika? Hey! What are
you doing here?’ Carlos took a step towards her and gave her a kiss on each
cheek.

‘I’m here for the launch
– like everyone else in the world it seems.’

‘It’s good to see you.
Let me introduce my friend, Rebecca Marshall,’ and he gestured to a pretty
woman in her late twenties with shoulder length honey-coloured hair who was
standing next to him. ‘Rebecca, an old friend from Goddard days, Erika Stone,’
and the two women smiled and nodded at each other. ‘It’s really good to see you,’
Carlos repeated. ‘I’ve been meaning to call. I owe you a dinner.’

‘I thought you’d
forgotten,’ Erika said.

‘No,’ he shrugged, ‘just
so busy. Let me buy you a drink now. It’s the least I can do.’

‘Thanks Carlos, but I’ve
got one coming. In fact… I’m here with Drew.’

Drew, who’d noticed
Carlos the exact same moment Erika had, used the time they were chatting to
steel himself for this unexpected meeting, but for poor Carlos it came as a
terrible shock. Hemmed in by the crowd, he was trapped and had little choice
but to acknowledge Drew, which he did with the tiniest of nods.

The barman chose that
moment to serve the drinks. Erika held up her hand asking him to wait and
picked up a glass. ‘Rebecca, have a Mojito. House specialty.’

‘Thank you.’ Rebecca
said, accepting the drink. ‘Wow! That’s delicious!’

‘Carlos, the same or
something different?’

There was no way Carlos
could get out of accepting a drink without making a scene, so he shrugged and
scowling at Drew muttered, ‘Hey, I’ll follow the crowd.’

Erika made Drew give his seat to Rebecca and in no time the women were chatting
like old friends. Erika was fascinated by Rebecca’s work as a scientific
journalist and, exchanging phone numbers, they promised to look each other up
when they got back to Vienna.

The men on the other
hand regarded each other with terse unease. Drew tried to break the ice by
apologising again. ‘Listen mate, I don’t know what to do other than say I am
really sorry…’

But Carlos cut him off.
‘It’s bad enough I have to look at you,’ he said, ‘for Christ’s sake don’t go
on about it as well.’

‘Okay. But we can’t
stand here all night ignoring each other like a couple of complete wankers. At
least let me congratulate you on the Global Consciousness initiative. You’ve
pulled off an amazing job.’

Carlos jerked his head
in acknowledgment.

‘Are you all set for the
launch at the Grand Dinner tomorrow night?’

‘It’s under control.’

‘What kind of support do
you expect from the members at the Special Session?’

‘Good.’

‘You really have done
well, Carlos. To get all this off the ground in such a short time.’

‘It was important to
me.’

‘It’s still all about
Zul, isn’t it?’

‘Nothing changed there.’

‘You still believe he’s
real?’

Carlos gestured with his
glass, ‘No one, not the techies at the UN, not ITU-T, no one at NASA, not even
the Dryden lads…
no
communications expert in the world… knows where the
contact came from. So what do you think?’

‘I suppose you’re right.
Until someone admits it and proves they’re responsible, what else can we
believe?’

‘I don’t believe I’m
hearing this,’ Carlos said, shaking his head. ‘You agree with me?’

‘Hold your horses
– I don’t want to. To be quite honest, I find it impossible to believe.
But there’s no escaping the logic.’

‘Hey… you’ve really
backed down. I can’t let
that
go unrecognised. Let me buy you a drink,’
he said, waving his hand at the barman.

***

‘Nice move, babe.’

‘What’s that?’ Erika
replied.

They’d had two rounds of
drinks with Carlos and Rebecca before eating at the hotel restaurant. After
finishing their meal they withdrew to the loft, tired and full, for a nightcap.
It was a beautiful night and they sat on the balcony with a balmy breeze
blowing their hair, looking over to the New York skyline.

‘How you suckered Carlos
into having a drink with us.’

‘Was it that obvious?’
she asked.

‘Not to Rebecca… which,
I guess, is all that matters.’

‘He was so ticked off
with me.’

‘Yeah well – it
won’t last long. I’m the one he’s got it in for.’

‘He seemed to be okay
with you at the end. I saw you guys laughing.’

‘It took a lot of bowing
and scraping on my part.’

‘You did good. It can’t
have been easy for him.’

‘What about me? I feel
terrible every time I think about it.’

She took his hand and kissed
it. ‘Poor baby. Screwing someone else’s wife. It does make life kinda awkward.’

He pulled his hand away.
‘Don’t take the piss. I’ll never forgive myself.’

‘What did you make of
Rebecca?’ Erika said, changing the subject.

‘She’s very pretty. And
very young. What’s she do?’

‘She’s a science
journalist. They met when she interviewed him for an article and they became
friends.’

‘Just friends? Don’t
make me laugh.’

‘That’s what she said.
Not all men are like you, trying it on with every woman they meet.’

‘A chance would be a
fine thing these day.’

‘Oh ho!’ Erika retorted,
‘don’t start that. You wanted to commit. I didn’t force you.’

Drew took a sip of his
drink. ‘Dangerous ground,’ he said grinning. ‘Better get back to Rebecca. So
what’s she doing in Vienna?’

‘She’s been travelling
round Europe and using Carlos’s place as a base. I don’t think there’s anything
going on, although she’s obviously besotted by him. She hangs on his every
word.’

‘No shit?’

‘It was pretty obvious,
wasn’t it?’

‘Just looked normal to
me.’

‘Men!’ Erika said
narrowing her eyes.

‘Not surprising though…
it must be a real head trip for a kid her age to be knocking about with the
bloke who introduced Global Consciousness to the world.’

CHAPTER 11

The previous night’s Global Consciousness Grand Dinner was a huge success as
was the General Assembly Special Session, which Greg was just wrapping up.
Carlos, observing from one of the press booths, was overjoyed at the support
the member countries had shown and was confident the backing of the general
public would prove just as strong.

After its initial knee
jerk response in criticising the initiative, the media had reversed its
position and now praised the drive.

The tide had turned from
the negative direction in which it had been running for so many depressing
years. People were eager to empower themselves and take individual
responsibility, not just for their own actions but for global issues too.

The pre-launch publicity
was doing its job.

Carlos arranged for his team to watch the satellite transmission on the
television in the conference room down the corridor from Greg’s suite of
offices. This, the official launch aimed at the public, was expected to break
global viewer records for any previously televised event. Faith had arranged for
cases of champagne to be put on ice – Carlos’s treat – and everyone
who had worked on the campaign from Vienna to New York was crammed into the
room.

The atmosphere was
electric. A current of excitement charged every person present. Running on the
heels of the Grand Dinner and the General Assembly Special Session the
television launch, just minutes away, would channel the vitality of the earlier
triumphs through to the grass roots of the people.

As Carlos popped corks,
Faith poured the champagne. When all the glasses were charged, Greg made a
stirring speech and everyone raised their drinks in a toast. The room was a
mass of people standing, sitting on chairs, balanced on windowsills and perched
on tables, with a few even sitting cross-legged on the floor.

 
The cacophony of voices threatening to
blast out the windows began to lull as one by one people noticed Faith had
turned up the volume in readiness for the transmission. By the time the opening
credits were running, the room had fallen into complete silence. Carlos sat
next to Greg, holding his champagne flute by the stem. After all the weeks of
hard work, the first phase of the initiative was nearly at an end.

As the world watched,
footage of royalty, heads of state and religious leaders meditating before the
Grand Dinner the previous night, instead of returning to America’s best loved
film couple, the joint face of the campaign, another figure appeared.

Zul.

‘Jesus Christ!’ Carlos
said.

‘What the hell’s he
doing?’ Greg whispered, transfixed to his seat.

‘Humans of the planet
Earth,’ Zul said in a deep warm baritone. He looked like an image of Jesus
Christ. ‘What you see before you,’ he raised his hands from his lap and opened
his arms on either side of his body, the wide sleeves of his indigo kaftan hanging
down so low they disappeared out of the frame, ‘is a manifestation of sixth
density consciousness representing the Galactic Federation. We apologise for
interrupting this transmission, but it is in connection with the message being
delivered that we need to speak to all you humans.

‘Everything you just
heard is correct. Your global organisation named the United Nations is speaking
the truth. However, there is an imperative to their message that has yet to be
shared with you.

‘That is why we are
here.

‘Your galaxy is due to
reach a very special state on the 21st December this year. Some of you humans
are aware of this, whilst many are not. We are, therefore, interrupting this
broadcast to explain the evolutionary process that drives your universe and why
it is so important that each one of you pays heed to the call from your group,
the United Nations, to practise meditation and prayer around your planet.’

‘
¡Dios mío!
’
Carlos exclaimed leaping up ‘He’s going to talk about the resettlement
programme.’

‘Oh my!’ Greg said,
struggling out of his chair. ‘Can you stop him?’

Carlos was running for
the door. ‘I need to speak to the Chief Engineer.’

While everyone else sat
in silence, hypnotised by Zul, Carlos, Faith and Greg rushed into Greg’s
office.

‘So what
are
you
doing about it?’ Carlos roared down the phone. ‘Jesus!’ he bellowed slamming
down the receiver.

Greg sat on the edge of
his chair gripping the desk so hard the knuckles of his small hands began to
turn white. ‘What did he say?’ he muttered.

‘Our transmission’s been
blocked. They don’t know how. The one of Zul is being beamed out in its place.
They’ve got no idea where it’s coming from.’

‘Who’s doing this?’ Greg
asked in a flat voice, as Carlos sank down into a chair.

***

For the rest of that day, the whole world went mad.

Never before in the
history of man had the Internet or the phone lines carried such intensive
traffic. Cables heated to near melting point.

The Secretary-General
called an emergency follow-up meeting to the General Assembly Special Session
held earlier in the day. All the heads of state, many of whom had gone back to
their hotel rooms to watch the UN broadcast, responded to the summons and
returned to the General Assembly hall bewildered.

After a pre-meeting
meeting with a livid Bob Anderson, Greg opened the follow-up Special Session by
giving a concise run-down on the previous communications from Zul. He explained
why he and the President of the United States of America had not deemed it
prudent to inform anyone else about this contact.