Frawley nodded. “My Lord Bishop, I’m not too keen on taking you along on this, although I understand that some were not too keen on me so I have to reserve judgment. You are determined?”
Bishop Whitely nodded soberly. “I am.”
“All right, then. You all know, or should know, that is unlikely that I will see another Chrismas, nor do I want to. It’s a good thing this is in ten days, for if it were thirty, as much as we need the time, I might not be able to manage it. I will manage it now, though. And that leaves us with our two younger folks here. I ask the newcomers not to judge the young lady. She is older, I suspect, than the three of you and a victim of their powers.”
Maria smiled, welcoming that. She had dressed informally for this, but had kept her made up face and manner.
MacDonald had swallowed both his pride and his inhibitions and had spent most of the previous evening with her, mostly, as Whitely had suggested, making her feel like an adult woman. Nothing serious—he’d arranged a candlelight dinner for the two of them at a small private beach house, including champagne, and they had just talked and then walked on the beach, discussing everything but the situation at hand or her own limitations, and he’d found, just as he had with Angelique, that it was possible for him to remember who and what she really was and look beyond the physical. Ultimately, when they had returned to the house, he had told her that they were going back, and soon, and that they needed guides for the island itself.
“You’re going with them?” she’d asked him.
“I may have to. There’s no one else who knows the island as well in our group.”
“And—it’s one way, isn’t it? They’ll either kill or capture everybody in the end no matter how much damage you do.’’
“Yes,” he’d admitted.
“Then I’ll be the guide. I’m small, light, and I know the places you never found. I—appreciate tonight, more than you can ever know, but I don’t have any future. I have nothing to live for, really, and I’d love to get back at them. You— they’ll be looking for you, expecting you. What they’ll do to you will make what they did to Angelique and me seem like nothing. You can have a future.”
“But you’ll die.”
She’d whirled and faced him. “Don’t you see? All my life I’ve made the wrong choices. All my life I’ve messed up everything and everyone I’ve come in contact with. It’s my last chance. I want a chance as my instructors in the convent put it, to redeem myself. This is it. I can wipe the slate clean if I do this right. Besides—who knows if I die or not? Anything’s possible the way this thing’s been going.”
He hadn’t been able at that point to really go through with it. He just wasn’t that much of a heel. “Don’t think you have to for me.”
“No, if they’ll let me, I’m going. Oh, I know why you’re doing all this, but that’s O.K. You’re the only one who’ll ever treat me like this, though, so I’m going to enjoy it and pretend it’s all real as long as it lasts, but I’m not just going for you. I’ve got to go—for myself.”
“As you may know, Miss, I’m not too keen on having you along,” Frawley was saying. “It’s neither a matter of age or size or any sort of gallantry. I simply do not consider you reliable under pressure. Still, I have been overruled on this, and I accept it, but you must understand this. I do not believe in the life beyond and I do not believe we are dealing with anything not somehow explainable by science, but if you betray us or fail us in the slightest way at all, I will come out of my grave, if need be, to make certain that you will do no more harm.”
She nodded grimly. “I understand, sir. I won’t fail anyone this time. I betrayed my church and my god, I betrayed my charge, and I betrayed you all. It’s only right I should share what you have to go through because of me.”
“She’ll do just fine, Pip. I’ll see to that,” the Bishop said confidently.
“My name’s Greg MacDonald,” the younger man interjected. “I’m the chief of this operation but, as it stands, I’ll not be actually with you through to the end. I will, however, be working with you all the way and it’s on my shoulders to get you in there safe and undetected. I’ll be with you all the way to the landing, so I’m not risk free. First, I want to fill you in on the entire story so far, in as much detail as I can, so you can understand what sort of power and madness we’re really dealing with here. After that, we’ll go in and look at the model, diagrams, and photographs and see what our major problems are and what our objectives have to be…”
He took them through it, sparing nothing, occasionally throwing it to Maria or the Bishop or Frawley for confirmation and elaboration. He was impressed that none of the three newcomers seemed particularly shocked or dubious about it all. They did, of course, ask questions, but they tended to be of the practical sort and involved, in the main, understanding the powers that they were facing.
The model and the photographs were a great help, too, in seeing just what they were up against.
The Sikh mountaineer did not seem fazed by the sheer cliff; in fact, he seemed somewhat relieved at the scale and noted that he’d thought it would be a far taller and more difficult climb.
Once on top, they would bring up the supplies and equipment and then lower and drop the rope and ladder assembly that was now being made for them. The small sailboat would take everything out and leave no trace that anyone had been there.
“We need darkness, and we need some time to set up and reconnoiter,” MacDonald told them. “As a result, going in on the thirty-first would be cutting it too fine even though it would minimize detection. We can assume that protection, too, of the island perimeter would be at its height during the key night. As a result, we have to go in on the thirtieth. The first objective will be to neutralize the single camera near the cabin and in particular the sound monitoring devices. We have equipment to do just that, thanks to the fact that we know the makes and models and thus all the characteristics of that equipment. We then have to move Lord Frawley’s equipment very near this cave mouth. The equipment will cause a massive explosion going up the tube and with any luck will fry that computer and blow the Institute from the bottom up.”
They all liked that idea, and not a single one seemed to suspect the true nature and power of the weapon in question. It was better they didn’t know, at least for now.
“The next day,” MacDonald continued, “will be the most difficult, since we can expect something of a human security sweep. They won’t be as thorough with our staging area as with others simply because it’s considered inaccessible and well covered, and they will be mostly concerned with their back door, the cave, which I’m certain is riddled with monitors and detection devices. The main task during the day will be to get some rest and avoid any detection.
“That night,” he continued, “Lord Frawley will arm his weapon, which will then be put in place and he will become, in effect, a human bomb. The device has both a timer and a dead man’s switch, so it will go off at exactly twenty-three thirty hours that night, while their ceremonies are in full swing but before they climax. By that time, the combat team must circle up and if possible in back of the Institute, so there is no clear indication of our entry point. At twenty-two hundred hours, the team will enter the Lodge, which is the key building housing the important people and containing direct access to the library and computer complex below. The primary objective is to reach and, if possible, blow the computer and/or its power plant. To give you an edge, we’re going to first lower a time bomb to the pipe at the rear and blow it. That explosion might ignite the oil tanks. In any case it will cut the general power and cause a hell of a bang, drawing security and everyone else to that point, outside and in.