Chapter 17
Stanford House
Wednesday Midnight, November 2004
It had been less than forty-eight hours since Jason was seen in the cancer ward at Marsdan Hospital and he was still trying to make sense of the reaction to that event. He wandered through the rooms of his apartment, going from the parlor to the comfortable family room. He sat at the country table and booted up Lillian’s computer. He went on the Internet and typed his name in the Google search box. About a million results came up in a fraction of a second. Jason looked at all the statistics on him—birthdate, nationality, spouse, and education—and shut the iBook in disgust. He looked for the television remote, found it, and turned on the TV set. The channel that came on aired an advertisement about his broadcast coming up on Friday. He couldn’t escape the news about himself. He turned the television off, grabbed a hoodie, and left his apartment.
Thomas Parker stood at his post outside Jason’s door. When Jason came out, he jumped.
“Let’s get a cup of coffee, Tommy.” Jason strode down the hall toward the elevator. Thomas followed reluctantly, not sure what he should do. A moment later his earpiece came to life with the voice of the watch captain: “What’s going on?”
“We’re going to the dining room for coffee.”
“The dining room is closed.”
“The dining room is closed,” Thomas repeated.
The elevator door opened, and Jason entered. “Then we’ll open it.”
When the elevator arrived on the main floor, Jason got out and walked quickly to the dining hall. Thomas, on his heels, muttered into his mouthpiece and asked his boss what to do. The dining room wasn’t closed. The large hall had a dozen people in it. A buffet of pastries, cold cuts, and hot drinks were available for the night shift working in the security and media departments. Jason chose a table away from the others and Thomas sat across from him.
“Who’s the watch captain tonight?” Jason asked.
“Terry Dolan.”
“Tell him to join us on your little mouthpiece there. I’m surprised he didn’t know the dining room is open twenty-four hours.”
“I think he’s coming in now.”
An overweight man in his mid-forties with pasty skin and a shaved head walked quickly over to Jason.
“Sit down. Terry is it?” Jason said.
Terry Dolan remained standing. “You’re not allowed to be down here, sir.”
“Allowed? Do you know who I am?”
“Yes, sir. Mr. Howell prefers that you remain in your flat for your own safety.”
“Is Mr. Howell running things around here?”
“He runs the ISD and I just follow orders, sir.”
“Tom, were your orders to keep me in my apartment?” Jason asked.
“I was just told to keep an eye on you because of the heightened threat due to the increased crowds,” Thomas replied.
“Are there hostile crowds in here?”
“No.”
“Am I in danger? Here in the compound?”
“No.”
“Then I’m going to have a cup of coffee and some pie and find out more about young Thomas here before I retire. You may go back to the security bunker, Terry.”
Terry didn’t leave. After a moment, Jason got up and walked over to the buffet. He poured himself a cup of coffee, grabbed a piece of pumpkin pie, returned to the table and sat down. He told Thomas to get something if he wanted. Thomas looked at both Jason and Terry, got up, went over to the buffet and made himself some tea.
Terry stepped behind Jason and put his hand on Jason’s shoulder. “I must take you back to your flat. Please don’t make me get physical.”
“Take your hands off me!” Jason shoved the table away, stood up, and turned to face Terry. They could smell each other’s breath. The spattering of conversation around the room stopped. Jason said very softly to Terry, “You don’t seem to get the dynamics of the situation, Mr. Dolan. You work for me. If you want to continue working for me, you’ll leave now.”
Terry Dolan thought for a moment and then said, “Whatever I do I’m fucked.” He grabbed Jason by his shirt, spun him around, and twisted his arm up behind his back. At the same time, he pulled a pair of handcuffs from his belt and applied one part of the cuffs to Jason’s twisted arm. Jason bent over in pain and Terry secured the other arm.
Thomas ran back to the table and pushed Terry away from Jason. “What is wrong with you?” he shouted. “We’re not running a jail.”
“Don’t be insubordinate, Parker.”
Thomas grabbed Terry’s hand and interlocked their fingers, bending Terry’s fingers backwards until Terry dropped to his knees and handed over the keys to the cuffs.
Thomas freed Jason, and Jason grabbed Terry’s mobile and called Gary.
“Gary, get down to the dining hall now.”
Terry hung around for a second, looking to exert his authority, but everybody in the room had already seen what he had done. He walked out projecting a righteous attitude that nobody cared about.
Jason paid no attention to Terry. Instead he learned all he could about Thomas. Thomas had spent five years in the Royal Army with the Queen’s Life Guard before he quit to join the St. John Ministries after a riding accident forced him to change jobs.
By the time Gary grabbed a cup of coffee and joined them, Thomas had told Jason his life story.
Gary dismissed Thomas.
Jason could barely keep his voice under control. “Gary, the fucking guy handcuffed me!”
“I apologize for Dolan’s behavior.”
“Apologize!? Get rid of the creep!”
“He can be overzealous, but he’s a good man.”
“I don’t want him in anyway connected to this ministry.”
“Okay, I’ll sack him.”
Jason looked at Gary, trying to understand when Gary had changed. He seemed more authoritarian than Jason remembered.
“I understand that you and Tony don’t want to deal with controversy. But we’ve always been controversial. And now more than ever you need to understand that the way this Ministry progresses is not up to you.”
“I just don’t want you to destroy the credibility and the respect you’ve built.”
“Handcuffing me in my own dining room will destroy the Ministry’s credibility more than I ever will. The TV conference will explain everything.”
“Will you emphatically state that you weren’t in the hospital room with those girls?”
“That’s not what the program will be about. Besides, the phenomenon of apparitions is relatively common throughout history, and our program will bring many perspectives to it. You shouldn’t worry.”
“It’s what everyone wants to know.”
“Everyone wants to know how I heal, and with all my books and videos, and even with private instruction, I’m surprised by how few people catch the secret. We’ll give people a sufficient rationale for what they thought happened at Marsdan.”
“If you’re not going to categorically state that you were not in the room with those girls, I better increase the security for this place. The zealots that want to kill you are not going away.”
“I don’t give a shit about them.”
“You can’t be serious. They are the barbarians at the gates. If we don’t neutralize them, they will destroy us.
“I am serious. To ‘resist not evil’ is the core of our work.”
“Sometimes you have to confront evil with the flaming sword of truth.”
Jason realized that Gary didn’t get it. The Sword of Truth wasn’t a military weapon; it was the light of the Word that dispelled the darkness.
“I want you to rescind this stupid order to keep me confined to the compound.”
“The board will have to rescind it.”
“The board has nothing to do with it. This is you, Gary.”
“The board voted on it,” Gary said.
“The board voted on having the symposium. You and Tony did not. No one is to interfere with my freedom whatsoever. Is that clear?”
Gary was still for a moment, thinking. “I’ve admired you from the time I regained my sanity and became whole. You are a gift to the world, really a gift. You changed my life and I’ve credited that to you. And that’s why your security is so important to me.”
Jason laughed. “What your goon did here tonight shifted the focus of our TV show. You think this won’t get out? People won’t care about apparitions; they’ll want to know why Jason St. John was handcuffed in the dining room of his own headquarters. You and Barbara and all those in the media department will not be answering questions about the nature of reality; not answering questions about healing. You’ll have the crowds asking why I was handcuffed. Is he mentally unstable? Is he violent? Do you think that’s going to enhance the Ministry?”
Gary looked down at his hands and they were shaking.
“You better make up some story to tell all these people.” Jason gestured to those still in the room as he got up. “Make up something good, like this was some kind of test. Tell them I’m not really Jason, but a look-a-like imposter. I’m going to bed.”
Jason left Gary sitting at the table with his head in his hands.
After a few hours of fitful sleep, Jason got up. His mind was filled with the rehash of the day, which bothered him more than the actual confrontations. He always thought that he was in control of his mind, but he felt helpless at this particular moment. He believed that he had mastered a level of detachment so that he did not have to relive the events of the past and project them into the future. He understood the mystical principle of now. But could he really maintain that? Was he fearful about this current challenge? Was he fearful of his board and how they appear to have such power over his life? He remembered an Indian guru telling him that there is no fear in the now. Fear only exists in memory—those events in the past that seem to dictate one’s current life—or in imagination, which is fear projected into the future.
Mainly he was angry, angry with himself for reacting to what happened today, and for thinking himself above conflict. He hadn’t been this fraught since his grand voyage to the South Pacific. Was Tony just another incarnation of Larry, coming back into his life to be purged? How often must he face this type of power? Would he ever be free and able to soar unhampered into the infinity of spiritual creation? Overcoming the barriers of material power had been the core of his teaching and had set him on the road to where he was now. Obviously, he wasn’t as purged as he thought.
And now David was coming back, he thought—hoped. Again, his mind ran between the past and the future, bringing to mind images and feelings he thought he’d been rid of for years. Jason still felt that David had betrayed him when he quit the organization and the board. But he couldn’t blame David for Tony Bass. He thought that the first words from David would be, “I told you so.” Jason knew that this was the typical human response to the dilemma he was in, and he mentally beat himself up for falling into that state of consciousness. Jason had to admit that his ego was raging.
He couldn’t stay in bed. He got up, threw on some jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt, and walked into his parlor. It didn’t feel like his home anymore. Thinking about it, it never really did. When he, Lillian, David, Melanie, and Dorothy decided they needed a proper organization, the first thing the board did was purchase this property for their headquarters. Lillian loved London and chose Stanford House to be the center of the world where they all would live and work as one—a new kind of cloister. He liked the idea at the time. So did Lillian. Now he understood why she hated it so.
The arguments kept going on in his head. It wasn’t just Gary. They needed the staff. They needed to invest the money and make it work for the Ministry. Ministry? Jason had never been religious, nor did he accept religious dogma and theology as relevant to modern life. Now, he could debate the most learned of scholars about many of the world’s sacred texts and point out the differences between doctrine and mystical principle. But that was not what he was about. His mantra was freedom! Ironically, he had become a prisoner of his own creation.
Jason sat before the large windows in his parlor looking out into the darkness. He was in his meditation chair and he started to clear his mind. Although the thoughts and judgments came like Niagara Falls, he struggled to keep them at bay. He kept focusing on the spaces between the thoughts until they slowed down and he found moments of stillness. He settled into his chair and experienced deeper and longer moments of complete mental stillness. But a thought came that jarred him back to the chaos of the past two days.
He opened his eyes and looked down at his arms. They were still on top of the armrest. He got up and walked over to Lillian’s chair. He moved it a little; so that it wasn’t in the exact place the maid had put it. He didn’t want to admit to superstition, but his last few meditations in that room had led to events out of his control. Was there some kind of portal here? He rejected that thought. What he’d experienced was an activity of his consciousness and it was about his quest to know spiritual oneness. That was the foundation of mysticism, oneness—one life, one substance and one love.
He turned on the light. Satisfied with his preparations, he sat in Lillian’s chair and it didn’t take long to still his mind completely. Jason then entered the deep realm of silence.
Voices talking softly around him caused him to open his eyes. Jason didn’t know where he was. He was in a different room. It had wood framed sofas up against the walls and a large Persian carpet on the floor. He saw a kitchen through an open door where people talked in quiet but anxious conversation. Jason couldn’t understand the language, but thought they were an extended family—two men, two women, a few children and an older man with a white beard. He closed his eyes again, contemplating his purpose for being there.
Outside the building he heard the popping sounds of gunfire.
He opened his eyes again, stood up and walked into the middle of the room. That movement caught the eye of the two girls in the kitchen. They were in their late teens, and when they saw Jason they jumped.
The men in the kitchen reacted to the girls and also saw Jason. They panicked and pushed their women and younger children into a corner. The older man ran into the living room yelling at Jason. The other men followed and joined the old man, who was in Jason’s face. Jason put his hands across his chest in a prayfull gesture.
“I come in peace,” Jason said, not knowing what else to do.
Automatic weapon fire exploded outside on the street. And then another blast rattled the windows and sent plaster dust falling from the ceiling. The older man turned from Jason and drove everyone out through the kitchen. One of the girls darted back into the living room, followed by the other girl and the men.
“You’re the English healer!” the first girl cried out in accented English.
Everything stopped. The girl’s recognition of Jason brought a moment of peace. The men put their arms around the girls, and things seemed normal for an instant.
The mood was broken when more gunfire slammed into the walls and shattered the windows. The girls dropped to their knees. The men blocked the front door just as it exploded into the room, throwing them backwards onto the floor. A squad of British soldiers burst in, ducking and weaving and clinging to the walls just like in the movies.
The old man was again shepherding the rest of the family out the back door.
“Stop!” the first soldier in the house shouted as he ran toward the kitchen. He aimed at the fleeing family, but Jason crashed into him. He missed his shot and shot up the kitchen instead. Chunks of plaster fell from the walls and the cupboards and appliances were destroyed.
Jason grabbed the soldier. “They’re unarmed!” he shouted.
The soldier twisted free, ready to shoot Jason, but two of his buddies stopped him.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” one of the soldiers demanded.
“Where are we?”
“Baghdad, you idiot.”
“These are just ordinary people, a terrified family,” Jason said.
The squad leader pushed his men aside and threw Jason into a chair. “How would you know, you fuck? This whole street is nothing but fucking Al Qaeda.” The sergeant turned to his men and shouted, “Search the house for weapons. Secure the people on the floor and find those who ran away!”
“They were little boys and an old man.” Jason stood up and the sergeant pushed him back down with the butt of his rifle.
“Shut up. We’ve been attacked by women in hijabs hiding suicide belts.”
“Do you know who’ve you got here, Sarge?” said the corporal pointing his carbine at the people on the floor.
“Probably some fucking reporter from the Guardian doing a human interest on the poor suffering people of Baghdad.”
“No. He’s Jason St. John! The healer!”
“The fucking Antichrist. Wouldn’t you know he’d be in Baghdad, stirring up trouble?”
The sergeant lifted his C-8 carbine and fired a line of bullets from the floor to the ceiling right where Jason sat. The corporal tackled the sergeant, wrestled his gun from him while screaming at him to stop.
The men chasing the escaping Iraqis rushed back and stopped in shock. The chair Jason had been sitting in was empty. A line of bullet holes had cut it in two.
The sergeant, recovering from his anger, turned to his men and pointed to the chair. “This is fucking insane!”
The corporal cried, “But you shot him.”
“We all saw it!” another soldier yelled.
“Then where’s the body?” The sergeant walked around behind the shattered chair.
“No. He grabbed me. I felt his body,” said the soldier Jason had seized. “You did too! You shoved him into that chair and shot him.”
“It was a fucking hallucination,” the sergeant said. “You all got that?”
“We’ve been here too long. We’re seeing things.” The corporal said lowering his weapon.
