“Hello, I was wondering if I would be able to speak to Reverend Peter Thomas?” Windsor asked.
“I’m sorry, but Monday is his day off. Could anyone else help you?”
Monday was the busiest day, yet the Reverend had the day off. What was the world coming to? Windsor took some deep breaths. “Would I be able to make an appointment to see him?”
“He’s a busy man at the moment. Could I ask the nature of your meeting?”
The lady was irritating Windsor. “It’s a private matter.”
“Well, sir, as you can appreciate, Reverend Peter is somewhat popular at the moment. I need to assess his appointments for him.”
Windsor translated this to mean filter his appointments. “I understand. Look, my name is Grant Windsor. You may know my name; I’m the Minister for Urban Movement. I wanted to have a chat with the Reverend about traffic control around the Church on Sundays.”
She was silent for a moment. “The best I could do would be Thursday at ten o’clock.”
“That would be fine. Thank you.”
Well, maybe Thursday was better as he needed to relocate some equipment that he had borrowed. Yes, Thursday would be better. It would give him some time.
On Tuesday evening, he would go for a drive and visit his son. He would leave the equipment there then.
<°)))><
Aaron stared at the pile of magazines on the table next to his seat. He bent over and looked at the spines—they covered every topic known to man: fishing, gardening, golf, house ideas, cars, boats, gossip . . . the list went on. None grabbed Aaron’s attention, not today anyway. He looked over at Mackenzie’s parents. He was happy to accompany them to the hospital. Hopefully Mackenzie would be coming home today.
Aaron got up and walked over to a drink machine. He had two choices: Coke or water. He pondered. His mind was elsewhere. He looked down the corridor. The security guard at the entrance to Mackenzie’s room reminded him of Lucas—not his physical appearance, but his uniform. The guard nodded to Aaron. Another guard stood further down the corridor, next to the door at the adjacent room. Aaron saw the door to the second room open. An officer from Department of Defence walked out. He looked familiar.
He was just about to pass Aaron when he stopped. “Fitzpatrick?” he asked.
“Yes.” Aaron remembered him from the tour of Afghanistan, but couldn’t remember his name.
“Johnson . . . Ted Johnson.” He shook Aaron’s hand. “What are you doing here?”
“I know the girl. She’s a close friend.”
The officer nodded. “Apparently she’s fit and well. I’ve just been in with the man. He’s also fit and well. Not sure what they’ve been through. Can’t say too much, but it’s pretty weird. We’ve been here a couple of days and now have to go write a detailed report . . . good to see ya . . . take care, see you around.”
Aaron watched Johnson walk over to the nurses’ bay and start taking notes. Aaron sensed movement, turned, and saw the other officer come out of Mackenzie’s room. He didn’t know him. Still at the drink machine, Aaron pushed the button, retrieved a bottled water and walked back over to Mackenzie’s parents—they didn’t want a drink.
The other officer walked over to the nurses’ bay and joined Johnson. They had a brief chat with a nurse, who must have been in charge. The officers then walked over to one of the security guards. Nodding of heads and handshakes took place, and the defence officers left. Johnson gave Aaron a nod before he departed.
The head nurse came over to Aaron and Mackenzie’s parents. “Looks like your daughter will be able to leave today. We just have to finalise some paperwork, but you can go in and see her now.”
Aaron’s heart jumped a few beats. They headed towards the room. He looked over to the other room and saw some police officers enter the room. That must be the man the police were chasing at the time of the disappearance. What had he done?
<°)))><
Mackenzie was sitting up in the bed, no wires attached. She smiled at them as they entered. She gave her mum and dad big hugs. She looked at Aaron and told him to give her a hug. He did.
She started crying. Her mum comforted her.
“It’s okay, Mum. I’m fine. I really don’t know where to start. I know about Paul.”
“You do?” asked her mum.
Aaron wondered how she found out.
“This will be hard for you to understand. And I’m still coming to grips with it, but we were separated from our bodies through whatever those crazy people were doing. We ended up in another dimension or something like that. We saw angels and we saw nasty things transporting bodies to—”
Mackenzie’s mum held her hand, she gave a squeeze. “Mackenzie, before you get too much into it, we’ve also been through some things that are hard to understand. You need to know that we’ll believe whatever you’re going to tell us.”
Mackenzie smiled.
“In fact, Aaron has some new friends I’m sure he would be keen to tell you about.”
It was a good hour before the paperwork was finalised. A police officer came into the room and asked a number of questions. He told them that it was a joint investigation with the Department of Defence. They wanted to track down who was behind all this, particularly now deaths had occurred. He stumbled when talking about deaths, as originally Mackenzie was one of those. Mackenzie agreed to drop in to the Police Station tomorrow to see if she could identify those involved or the location of where they ended up. She did say they wore President Nixon masks, which would make identification tricky.
Aaron wondered if he should contribute but decided to say nothing. What proof did he have?
A nurse came in at one stage to check if all was okay. The Rev walked past the open door, but Aaron was too infatuated with Mackenzie to go and say hello.
They wheeled Mackenzie out in a wheelchair and got her comfortable in the car. Aaron sat in the back with her. She placed her hand on his lap and gave him a lovely smile.
“You better be a believer now, Aaron, because I have seen where the lost go, and you don’t want to end up there.”
“It’s close, Mackenzie.”
“Best we not have a car accident then.”
