The Zul Enigma (50 page)

Thank God, Greg thought,
Zul hadn’t mentioned anything about bodies.

He then opened the floor
for discussion, the main thrust of which, unsurprisingly, revolved around
identifying whether Zul’s contact and his message were real or a hoax.

After two hours of
heated talks that went nowhere as members asked the same questions and came up
with the same answers time and time again like a pack of dogs chasing their own
tails, no one was the least bit nearer achieving the goal of verifying whether
Zul was what he claimed or a human imposter.

Two hours, two days, two
weeks, two months or even two years – it wouldn’t have mattered how long
they spent – the only thing they could all agree was that the Zul enigma
was unfathomable.

Having reached that
unsatisfactory point, the next task was to decide what united face to put
forward to the world. This was when the temperature inside the great hall
really began to skyrocket and tempers were irretrievably lost as furious words
were exchanged.

The Europeans were all over the place. Some leaders wanted to tell their people
the truth, that no one knew if Zul was an entity from the sixth density or a
human with a hidden agenda, while others were convinced Zul was definitely
human. Greg shared his theory of humanism with which the leaders of a few South
American countries aligned themselves, but for which Bob harangued him and
anyone else who dared suggest Zul was an alien or a human with the good of the
planet on his mind.

After a further hour of
bitter arguments, Greg called the meeting to order and read out the first
motion on which the members were to vote: whether or not the heads of state
should admit to their people that they had no idea who or what Zul was.

Before Greg could
finish, Bob Anderson was shouting, ‘This is a joke! Between the three of us,’
Bob bawled into his microphone, motioning towards the Indian President, the
Chinese Premier and himself, ‘we represent three billion people on this planet.
Three billion people
!’ he repeated. ‘That’s nearly half its population
and yet we only have one vote each out of one hundred and ninety-two?’ He had
to raise his voice over the clamour to make himself heard. ‘It’s abominable… an
absolute outrage.’

‘An absolute outrage,’
repeated the Chinese Premier, leaping to his feet and thumping the table with
both fists. On the other side of the hall, the Indian President screamed her
alliance with the two gentlemen, while representatives of smaller nations
howled in disagreement.

‘The vote is not
representative of our populations,’ the Indian President insisted, adjusting
her sari over her shoulder, but her raised voice could scarcely be heard in the
midst of the furore that threatened to bring down the very walls of the huge
hall.

‘I propose a motion,’
Bob went on, waving his right arm in the air and pointing his finger. ‘I
propose a motion,’ he repeated louder, ‘that as this contact is a threat to the
planet’s security, the issue should be reassigned to the Security Council and
debated in an emergency Session,’ he shouted louder trying to make himself
heard, ‘in an emergency Session to be called by the Council within twenty-four
hours.’

All those who were not
members of the Security Council became incensed and shrieked their displeasure
by taking up a chant of, ‘No, no, vote now, vote now.’

‘I agree with the
American President,’ roared the Chinese Premier. ‘There are fifteen votes in
the Security Council and Mr Anderson and I have two of them. I second the
motion,’ he bellowed.

A tempestuous commotion
greeted their words and members left their seats to storm the floor as utter
pandemonium erupted. It took Greg a long time to regain control.

***

‘That fuck! That fuck!’

Before leaving New York,
Bob had called Anita, demanding she meet him in the Oval Office the moment he
got back to Washington. She was sitting on the couch waiting for him, filled
with dread, when he stormed through the door, ripped off his jacket and began
pacing up and down yanking at his hair. She had never seen him out of control.
She could hardly bear look at him, let alone dare speak to him.

His usually handsome
face was contorted and the tendons stood out on either side of his neck like
ropes straining to anchor a bucking ship in the midst of a tempest.

‘What’s going on,
Anita?’ he roared, spinning round to glare at her, accusing her, his icy eyes
piercing through her head, his index finger jabbing at her face with a
vehemence that made her mouth go dry. ‘What’s that fuck up to?’

His hair was standing on
end where he’d pulled at it and his eyes were unnaturally wide.

‘Sir,’ she said, trying
to swallow, drawing on all her resources to appear calm in the presence of such
terrifying rage, ‘it’s as much a mystery to me as it is to anyone…’ but the
sincere tone she tried so hard to strike came out sounding sickly-sweet and
weak.

It angered Bob even
more.

He exploded, shattering
her sentence like a bullet splinters glass. ‘Where the hell have you been?
Didn’t you watch the broadcast? Don’t you get what’s happening here? Some
goddam asshole’s got it in for me and it’s going to ruin my career!’

He threw himself onto
the couch opposite her, his head in his shaking hands.

‘Get out,’ he mumbled
into his palms. ‘Just get out of here.’

Anita stared at him.
‘Sir…’ she hesitated, screwing up the courage to go on, ‘try and get some rest,
sir. It’s been a terrible day. We’ll work all night, if that’s what it takes.
We’ll have a statement ready for you first thing tomorrow morning.’

She stood up.

‘Is there anything I can
get you? Before I go?’

He didn’t look up. ‘Just
get out of here and leave me the fuck alone.’

CHAPTER 12

‘And I wanna make it quite clear to all Americans and to the rest of the world
that I do not believe there is any possibility or probability that the
interloper you saw on your screens yesterday is anything other than a human
being like the rest of us.

‘I also wanna stress
that I voted against and continue to stand steadfastly against the motion
passed at the United Nations General Assembly yesterday afternoon. This motion
was carried through because the majority of the
members
voted for it.
However, let me remind you that it does not represent the view held by leaders
of those countries whose populations make up the
majority
of the people
on this planet.

‘Therefore, I wanna
state in the most emphatic terms possible that I will never sanction or in any
way condone a resolution that can be interpreted as accepting even the
possibility
of the existence of extraterrestrial beings, as did the one endorsed
yesterday.’

Bob stared stony-faced
and unblinking into the camera as his statement was transmitted live from the
Oval Office. In the adjoining office Amanda, Bob’s secretary, sat by her desk
with Anita and Barbara standing behind her as they all watched Bob’s broadcast
on Amanda’s flat screen TV.

‘And you stayed up all
night writing that?’ Barbara asked, raising her eyebrows. She looked like an
exotic bird staring down at Anita, the dowdy sparrow.

Anita gave her head a
little shake. ‘After he read what I prepared, he tore it up and threw it in the
bin. ‘This,’ she gestured to the TV screen, ‘is all his own work.’

‘I read the headlines
and watched the news,’ Barbara said. ‘I’m sure you both did too, so you know as
well as I do the commotion “Zul’s” appearance has caused.’

‘Most people are
welcoming him with open arms,’ Amanda added.

Barbara shrugged. ‘Well,
our President certainly isn’t.’

‘The media’s cashing in
on their recent run of positive reporting,’ Anita said. ‘They’re piggybacking
the story onto the success of the UN initiative and heralding “Zul” as the
guarantee for a happy future for everyone, saying we’re going to ascend to
heaven. People are drinking it up.’

‘And there’s Bob,’
Amanda nodded at the TV, ‘taking the diametrically opposite position to the
majority. He’s isolating himself… leaving himself standing out in the cold.’

Anita nodded. ‘It’ll be
his political downfall.’

‘Why’s he being so
damned pig-headed about “Zul”?’ Barbara asked.

Although Anita’s
expression was impassive, the muscles in her face tightened and Barbara could
sense the strain she’d been under. ‘When he first proposed those NASA cuts back
in March, we all warned him it was a mistake. We pleaded with him to test
public opinion before making the announcement, but he wouldn’t listen.

‘When he saw the public
reaction and realised instead of being hailed as a hero Americans everywhere
were denouncing him for trying to bring down one of their favourite
institutions, it infuriated him. It dented his ego big time.’

‘He’s been like a bear
with a sore head ever since,’ Amanda said.

‘So you’re telling me all
this posturing is an ego thing?’ Barbara asked.

‘Of course he was
furious at the public backlash,’ Anita replied, ‘but that wasn’t the only
thing. Not only did he look like a fool for not knowing where the loyalty of
the voters lay, he looked an even bigger fool for ignoring his advisors.’

Barbara had never heard
Anita utter one critical word about Bob before. Ever.

‘Trouble was,’ Anita
continued, ‘he knew he’d gone too far to back off without it looking like he
was backing down…’

‘… then the Secretary-General
and Maiz came along with their story about “Zul”…’ Barbara added, ‘… and that
was that.’

‘Exactly. You know
better than anyone how the President took against Dr Maiz. But what you
probably don’t know is he also saw it as a chance to neutralise him and his
passion for keeping outer space for peaceful purposes. The only reason he
backed off destroying him was because he quit from OOSA.’

‘Ah ha!’ Barbara said,
‘now I’m starting to understand. You see, once my Agency was off the case, I
lost touch.’

‘We’ve spent the past
few weeks stalling him, trying to persuade him to soften his stance about the
cuts, but he wouldn’t budge,’ Anita explained, glancing at Amanda who was
nodding in support. ‘He refused point blank to back down. The best we could do
was try and slip the legislation through this week – you know –
when we knew everyone would be focusing on the General Assembly and the launch
of the campaign. We drafted press releases justifying his intention to
reallocate NASA’s funds to DARPA – to try and contain the backlash before
it happened – though God knows how the liberals would have reacted to
DARPA getting the money.’ Anita shrugged her narrow shoulders and shook her
head. ‘Then, look what happens?’ She glanced up into Barbara’s face with a despairing
look on her own.

‘Oh my!’ Barbara said
sighing, ‘what a mess.’

‘”Zul” showing up on TV
in front of the whole world – that was the final straw,’ and as Barbara
looked down at Anita, she saw her eyes were misting with tears.

‘Come on, now,’ Barbara
said, putting a hand on her shoulder. ‘Bob’s tough. And resourceful. He’ll get
through this somehow.’

‘I don’t think so. Not
this time. I’m afraid he’s painted himself into a corner he won’t be able to
get out of,’ she whispered.

The connecting door
opened and the television crew filed out of the Oval Office. Then the phone
rang. It was Bob.

‘He wants to see you.
Now,’ Amanda said to Barbara.

‘I don’t often bet,’
Barbara said with a crooked smile on her shiny red lips, ‘but I have one
hundred bucks here in my pocket says, when I walk back out of there,’ she
pointed to the door with a crimson talon, ‘I’ll be looking for a new job.’ She
glanced from Anita to Amanda. ‘Either of you game for a bet?’ But neither of
the other two women said a word, which was just as well because if they had
they would have ended up one hundred dollars poorer.

***

The following morning, Amanda opened the door to the Oval Office. ‘Mr
President, sir?’ she called, peering inside. Contrary to his usual preference
for the upright chair Bob was draped over a sofa, his right hand grasping his
forehead and the morning papers scattered round his feet. ‘Sir, are you
alright?’ Amanda asked walking towards him.

He just snorted in
reply.

‘Do you have a headache?
Can I get you something? Your Press Conference is starting in fifteen minutes.’

‘No Amanda. There’s
nothing you can get me.’

She gave him a long hard
look. ‘Are you sure you’re alright?’

‘I will be,’ he said,
and smiled, ‘once all this is over,’ and he made an effort to sit up.

‘I’ll come back and get
you in ten minutes… there are a couple of things I need to attend to.’

‘Don’t trouble coming
back yourself, Amanda. Send Tony. There’s something I need to check with him.’

As Amanda left the room,
Bob picked up one of the newspapers and once again scanned the headlines
berating him for the televised statement he’d made the previous day. Every
front-page story centred on his broadcast and linked it with an exposé of his
plan to sneak resolutions regarding the NASA budget cuts through the House, which
because of the furore Zul’s appearance had caused the previous day, had not
been voted on as scheduled.