Eldad’s apartment – 5:00 AM - IDT
Mila strained her ears trying to listen to the voices at the other side of the door. She glanced at Ifat for reassurance and walked in.
“Eldad! Gadiel, Leo, Amidor, Hadi!” Mila ran to Eldad and embraced him then she pulled apart to inspect him and the four Sachapuyo.
“I’m fine, thanks to timely unnatural intervention and a last second change of hearts…” Eldad smiled and nodded to the four ancient Warriors.
Mila stood in front of Gadiel whose towering presence seemed really angelical. “Where are your wings?” Mila asked them with a huge grin.
“They take too much space,” answered Leo with a smile and shrug. “It wasn’t us, although the doctor without borders believed so.”
Gadiel faced the team dispersed around the living room. “We are a team. Each of us played an important part in last night’s aid.”
She nodded in understanding and agreement. “But, where is the doctor?”
“She didn’t want to come with us,” Svend said, pensive. “She just needs time.”
“But she left us a parting gift!” Eldad shared with Mila a map with highlighted locations of more smuggling tunnels and weapons storages through the city. “And there you have it, millions of dollars invested in the building of hate and death. I’ve already sent this, along with the pictures of the tunnels in the hospital, to those in charge of dealing with the attack.”
Mila read the last line on the map the doctor had left in Hebrew: If angels are involved in saving lives, my cause must be the wrong one. “She really believed you were supernatural!”
“And we are…some…Don’t have the specifics yet.” Hadi joked, sitting awkwardly on a chair like an adult in a kindergarten classroom.
“Our doctor had been recruited in France. She had been fed an unhealthy diet of radical views and defamations, as other young minds in the west,” explained Gadiel, saddened.
“And it turns out that she volunteered to be strapped to the bomb jacket, she was ready to blow up for her cause,” Eldad continued.
“Now, her life is in danger!” Mila shouted, seeking a reaction from someone in the group. “We must find her and help her.”
“There was an explosion, just not on her. For all the terrorists know, she is dead. She has a new beginning ahead of her. Who knows? We might see her again,” Gadiel answered, gripping Mila’s shoulder. “Now, we have other pressing matters, don’t we?”
“Right! I have an urgent flight to Singapore waiting for me. My memory is returning—unfortunately, too slowly for the urgency of the next steps,” she said, standing beside Kei. “I don’t have all the details of our affinity, but I know that just like last night, we fought Shinji Norfolk, Masae’s son. I saw the end of the confrontation.”
“Did you move through time?” asked Eli, gazing into her eyes, full of hope.
“I did. So, I take it this is something I normally do?” Mila replied, excited to see that being moved by Time was part of her former self and they knew about it. “As shots resounded, three men went down. Shinji fired his gun intending to kill you, Kei.” Mila was pacing through the room from person to person, talking as if recreating the scene. “But David was badly wounded, therefore Eli, Gadiel, and you shielded him. When David saw Shinji’s intention, he threw himself in front of you and took the bullet right in his chest.”
“That man, David Bosco, was your father.” Kei stopped her.
“Yes, I recently found out.” She nodded, looking into Kei’s eyes, wishing to absorb everything he knew. Mila remembered the conversation with Alexander and the Time visit to the laboratory. David Bosco had a very complex history. “He was Shinji’s right-hand man. He was in charge of recruiting scientists like Dr. Alexander Lyashenko. He was also in charge of planning the elimination of those who denied their services to the Norfolks,” Mila exposed the facts, grimacing. Her limbs hung as if defeated. “This is something I have to deal with later. As a dear person has said to me, I don’t yet know the other side of his story. But I don’t excuse him. Just look at the reality displayed: like father, like daughter, some would say.”
“Your father was a good man and just like any of us, he had difficult decisions to make. But one thing I am sure about, he did those things to protect his family and a bigger cause,” Svend, the team leader, added, glancing at Kei, the second founding leader of Cherut.
She gazed at the sea briefly, needing air. The swaying waves and the white foam left on the shore relaxed her. The street noise, sirens and strong coffee brewing in the kitchen wafted in and brought her back. “Svend shot Shinji, but the bullet was diverted by one of Shinji’s men and went in Eli’s direction.” Mila touched Eli’s shoulder as she recreated the moment. “And Leo pushed him, taking the bullet in the arm. Three bullets in unison. The third bullet came out, imperceptible and subtle, like the person who fired it. Two dropped dead. David by Shinji’s bullet, and Shinji by a bullet fired by his mother hiding in the thicket of the forest.”
Time seemed to stand still. No one moved. Each one recreated the last moment of the confrontation from the vantage point Mila had presented.
“Why did she do it?” Kei asked, knowing the answer in his heart. The heaviest of truths crushing his soul: Shinji was erratic and Masae wanted absolute control over the empire. The murderer of his half-brother was the woman who had brought them both into the world: their own mother.
“Power before blood!” exclaimed Svend, shaking his head.
Mila watched the anguish on Kei’s face, and didn’t understand why it seemed so personal.
“Mila, Masae Norfolk was once Masae Sato,” explained Eli, understanding her concerned expression.
She realized that she was in the presence of survivors with broken stories of suffering and sacrifices similar to her own, or worse.
“I am sorry, Kei. But there is more,” Mila carried on, trying to lighten her voice. “I know we fought at the foot of a very high mountain in a place of great vegetation in the Amazonas region…”
“Masae had planned every detail while we were distracted with going after Shinji…” interrupted Kei, coming out of his deliberations. “Masae wanted you, Mila, all along. Masae must have found out who David was and about you. Then she saw her opportunity to get even with David and to create a bruised and hopeless soul, a reflection of her own. Imagine what a broken spirit and a genetic alteration could do. She didn’t need Shinji, because she could be reborn in you.”
“And you have shown us during the Super Bowl attack, then taking Yasser Fariah out of Guantanamo Bay and probably worse things, that you are her best representative in her power craze!” Yana said with a smirk on her face. “Just stating the facts, people.”
Ifat jumped and stood face to face with Yana, ready to choke her in an arm lock. But Eldad and Eli stepped between them.
“She is right, Ifat. I was Masae’s weapons delivery girl,” Mila offered to the group, facing them with her head high. There wasn’t any need to tiptoe around the truth. In fact, it was better for wrong doings to be brought to light. “I’m not excusing myself. I know who I was these past two years, but aren’t we all capable of being the hero and the villain? Could they both live and struggle inside one shell? Isn’t it the daily war within?” She faced them, transparent and open. There had been a new life germinating in the darkness. “Please, allow me to take part in the repair that needs to happen. I’m going to Peru, to—”
“Is Masae sending you to Amazonas?” Gadiel asked although he already knew that would be the case, but he wanted to know if Mila understood where she was going.
“That’s right. How did you know?”
“I’ve been monitoring the area for a while. The outrageous deforestation and atmospheric change is causing heavy rains which in turn has exposed a corner of an ancient building.”
“Are you talking about this place?” Mila took out her smartphone and showed them the latest images and information she’d received from Masae.
“It’s time to go back!” roared Leo, enlarging the images on the screen.
“What is Masae’s plan? Tell us everything you know, please!” urged Svend, receiving the smartphone and looking at the pictures of the Cloud Forest, and of the high structure emerging in between the giant tree trunks.
“Unfortunately, I don’t have much more than having to meet a couple Swedish brothers. But, could you tell me what is my relation to that place and this ring?” Mila looked at Gadiel and pulled the chain from underneath her t-shirt and jacket, and removed the precious jewel. “It’s similar to the one you have.”
“Yes, indeed. It’s a Healer’s ring,” answered Gadiel, stretching his hand so she could compare her ring with his. The oval-shaped stone hosted a leafy tree chiseled with fire as was the writing on its edge: Choose Life so you may live.
“It belonged to your great-grandmother. Tzofia gave it to you when you were little,” Kei explained as the man who had raised her.
“And she trusted you with the secret of the Sacred Garden and her race. She was an ancient being like us,” Gadiel replied, nodding to the rest of the Warriors and the Cherut agents. “Each of us here is connected to that first seed who, despite our violent origins, turned around and pursued life and peace for centuries.”
“I understand.” Mila put her ring on with new excitement pounding in her chest. She shared what she knew about what Masae, from the moment Shinji died, to following the archaeological piece found in French Polynesia, to appointing spies to go after Søren and Jesper Håkansson, to her new mission.
“So, Masae is sending you there to get whatever the Swedes find,” Amidor said, standing poised to go out of the door, to the plane and back into the jungle.
“That’s the idea,” replied Mila with her hands on her hips.
“Well, what is the plan?” asked Kei, testing his daughter’s intentions.