Chapter 11

"So you are pleased with the arrangements?" Barnabas tried to sound professional. Which wasn't easy, as they were making plans for Xavier's U.F.O. lecture.

"You don't like this, do you?"

"I..."

"I would think that with your experience you'd be more broadminded. In fact you are a sort of U.F.O."

"I am an I.F.O. Identified flying object." Barnabas managed to laugh "All right, I do not mind seeing things in the sky. But those people who are joining cults that say that flying saucers will come to Earth to guide us and save us, and what not..."

This time it was Xavier who laughed. "It has nothing to do with the evidence. Only the people involved. Well, for the record, I don't like them either."

"You don't?" Barnabas was surprised.

"You mean you took me for one of those nuts?"

Barnabas nodded.

"And now your next question is, if I am not one of them, why do I do what I do? Well, there is something odd going on, and it should be investigated, that's all."

"And what do you expect to find?"

"If I knew that, I wouldn't be investigating, would I? Now, let me make this perfectly clear..."

"Crystal clear, as Nixon would say."

"All right. Crystal clear. People have world views. They are frameworks that serve them to organize what they see and hear. They fit the facts in those frameworks as they can. But if they don't fit, then so much the worse for the facts. Every now and then someone decides to rebuild the framework. But not often. It is much easier to pretend that the bothersome facts do not exist."

"You mean the people who deny the existence of U.F.O.s?"

"And the ones that join the cults you mentioned. And the fundamentalist Christians who insist that U.F.O.s come from the devil. As for myself. I am just a guy who has connected some facts that do not fit."

Aristide reviewed the steps that Kira had outlined. If things according to plan, kidnapping Sebastian Shaw would be no problem.

But if they didn't...

It was using the kids that disturbed him. There was something about it that he didn't like...Like how much could you trust a kid for that kind of job.

Also, he wasn't such an expert at kidnapping. Sure, he had helped Petofi hold Barnabas, but that was an easy job. Sebastian Shaw could prove a different proposition.

Still, he had to try. Like the old man, Kira was generous. But like the old man, she could be unforgiving if you tried to disobey her.

"Joshua fought in Jericho, Jericho, Jericho" Kira hummed. The children out there would hear her and come to her.

She waited, unhurriedly, preparing the wooden swords for them to see. But they would not carry them this time.

She wanted Sebastian Shaw alive and in one piece.

The smile in Sabrina's face told Frank that she had already read the newspaper. And if he needed confirmation. she was holding it folded at the right page.

"What is it now?" he asked. As if he didn't already know.

"Did you read the paper today?"

"Just the headlines."

"Maybe you should read this." he forced the paper under his eyes. He had to reread it, much as he hated it.

"Fifty dead. In a place that passed the OSHA inspection less than a month ago."

"It wasn't my section" he stammered.

"Is that what you are fighting to preserver? Is this worth all the pain you are going through?

Sebastian Shaw picked his mail. Nothing but junk mail and bills there. Maggie was getting late with her check again.

Well, they would find a way to remind her of that...

He opened one of the sales announcements. He liked the sweaters. And some of those things would look good on Roxie.

Maybe the two of them could go shopping later.

As he was making coffee, he noticed the children playing ball outside. He munched on the cookies. Chocolate chip..,.. Roxanne had remembered to buy these for him...And she had cooked for him...

He had tried to tell her that she need not do that, but she wouldn't bulge. "Left to yourself you'd live on junk food and worse."

There was only one way to keep her from cooking. If he didn't need food, she'd stop.

He rubbed his neck. He had only to tell her that he was willing. That would certainly make her happy. Yet, if he didn't like it, if it proved to be a mistake, it couldn't be undone.

The ball crashed through the window.

He picked it up, among the broken glass. A few more inches and the glass would have hit him...

The children were gone. Out of sight. Probably hiding in the bushes, waiting for him to come chasing after them.

He shrugged. Children will be children. He took the broom and swept the broken glass, so as not to cut himself when he decided to walk barefoot there. Later he's see how to get that pane fixed.

He kept drinking the coffee, and had barely finished it, and was about to wash the cup when the doorbell rang.

It was one of the kids. Being held in a tight grip by a man with a cruel look in his face.

"I understand that my son broke your window, and that he ran away. I want him to apologize to you for that."

Sebastian felt pity for the browbeaten kid and hatred for the self-righteous father. "There's no need to" he said.

"No. He did something wrong and he should learn not to do it again."

"I think that he knows that already" Sebastian knelt to pat the child's head and reassure him.

And, as he did, Tommy caught him by the collar and forced his head down.

"Hey! What are you doing?"

"Not a sound" Aristide hissed, while pressing the point of his knife against Sebastian's throat "Not a sound Mr. Shaw."

They made him walk to the chair. Aristide pushed him on it, brutally, and held him while Tommy tied his hands.,

"You teach your child to do this?" Sebastian asked futilely.

"He isn't mine." Aristide said, while pushing a folded cloth into Sebastian's mouth. "We will take a look around to see what we can find. Then we'll ask you some questions."

Delia listened patiently to Roger.

"Quentin says that they are going to disrupt the flying saucer lecture that Davenport is giving."

"Is he?" Delia decided to tell Derek that as long as she was doing his undercover work, she should be paid for it. Listening to Roger could be extremely tiresome."

"The way he talks about it, it is important. But I cannot figure out why."

"Then you should attend the lecture. Find out what it is about. Maybe you'll find out why they are so afraid of it."

"Well, what have we got here?" Aristide looked at the placid face of Roxanne. "Another one of those."

Well, those he knew how to handle. With a couple of twigs and some duct tape, he fashioned a cross, and using more tape, fastened it over Roxanne's heart.

"All we need now is some ropes, kids."

In a few minutes Roxanne's coffin was wrapped like Christmas package.

"You got a pretty girlfriend." he said to Sebastian. "And don't count on her rescuing you. We are taking her along."

It would have seemed impossible for Sebastian to look sicker, but he did, at those words.

"But we have a problem getting her out of here. We cannot take her as the car is across the street. I need the garage keys so that I can bring my car here.

There was a bare flicker of hope in Sebastian's eyes as he shook his head.

"So you want to be a hero?" Aristide shrugged "Well, be my guest. Tommy, remove his shoes."

When Aristide finally brought the car into the garage, Sebastian no longer could use his feet. But he didn't need to. Aristide carried him over his shoulder, like a potato sack and threw him on the floor of the car, where the children sat on him all the way to Collinsport.