VI. Confessions

Henry sat in the confession booth. He had never been to confession before. Raised with neither church nor scripture, he was just a hitchhiker trying to get out of the rain. His old campsite up in Portland was battered by weeks of unrelenting rain, and they said that it seldom rained in California. But the rain here was hard and furious, unlike the six months of unrelenting drizzle he was trying to escape.

During the worst of it, Henry spent four hours sheltering in a tunnel on the interstate. Just as the rain paused for a few minutes, the Highway Patrol came along and kicked him out. The surly officers expected gratitude because he was not given a ticket. Henry just shrugged and walked on – his only gratitude was to the weather gods who had provided some temporary respite.

After wandering about with intermittent episodes of yet more rain, he came upon some unused blue tarps. They made an excellent makeshift rain poncho. This enabled him to keep moving, but by the time he made it as far as the monastery, he was exhausted. He counted himself lucky when he saw a notice that public confession was open, but he was the only person there to confess to anything. He wanted an excuse to enter the building and get out of the rain, but he was not sure what to say. He didn’t feel any particular guilt about the matter, but he admitted that he had taken something that didn’t belong to him.

“I stole a tarp from a construction site. I needed it to build a temporary tent.”

There was silence from the other side of the confession booth. Henry continued.

“It was either that or sleep out in the rain.”

“You could have gone to the county shelter, couldn’t you have now?”

“I didn’t know where it was. Probably pretty far away. There’s diseases goin’ round in those places. And bullies. Even the staff are bullies.”

“You’re not afraid of bullies, are you?”

“Sometimes cops are bullies…”

“They’re the sheep dogs protecting society from the wolves among us.”

Henry was silent. One doesn’t argue in the confession booth. Even he knew that, instinctively. What would be the point of the confession rite?

“Father it’s cold out there.”

“Jesus suffered the cold, the wind and the rain. Jesus suffered, so we must suffer.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Jesus walked carrying a heavy wooden cross while the Roman soldiers beat him. You’re a healthy young man, I am sure you can make it to the rescue mission. Once you make it to downtown Santa Barbara just ask around, any homeless person will be able to tell you where it is. I will call and tell them you are coming.”

“Isn’t it like five miles?”

“It is more like ten. You can make it there in three hours. A small price to pay for a nights’ free lodging.”

Henry started to say something but the abbot cut him off.

“That is all. I must attend to my monastery.”

The abbot simply got up and left the confessant sitting there, unsure of himself Shortly thereafter, an acolyte came into the room, where \Henry was still sitting.

“Sir I need to close the chapel. You have to leave now.”

Henry could see the rain coming down, but he left anyway. He paused for a moment in the vestibule, zipping up his jacket. He pulled his felt hat down hard so it would blow away in the wind. He had a stick leaning in the corner, with a sack tied to it. His “hobo” pack. He hoisted it over his shoulder and walked out into the wind and rain.

“God bless you.”

Henry just grunted and kept walking. Some blessing, he thought. The rain was coming down hard. As soon as he heard the door to the chapel close, he huddled under a large eucalyptus tree where the rain wasn’t hitting so hard.

Someone was chanting in a small outbuilding. The window was open; it was “Kyrie eleison.” Henry recognized it as some kind of simple Christian hymn. He was a big fan of Sting, who had done a popular cover of the ancient Greek. He couldn’t resist walking in closer, despite the rain.

He was shocked to see a monk chanting with two hypodermic syringes beside him. A hermit? Why two?

“Hey that sounds really cool. I know that song, it’s from The Police.”

The monk laughed.

“People have been chanting the Kyrie long before rock and roll.”

For a moment only the rain spoke.

“You’re getting soaked. Why don’t you come in and dry off?”

Henry jumped at the offer. Brother Tomas greeted him with a towel and a monk habit. It was coarse but clean, dry and neatly folded.

“Here, you need some dry clothes.”

Gratitude swelled in Henry’s chest. He felt a tightness in his chest, as if he could cry.

“Thank you.” He pulled off his wet tramp attire – black denim trousers with a plethora of patches and unpatched tears, a wool shirt that was expensive when new but was now a survivor of decades of use and abuse.

They retired to the study hall. Tomas forgot about the syringes.

“What are those for? Do you get high…” Henry realized the absurdity of his question and felt a twinge of embarrassment. “Oh, sorry. Not my business. My brother is diabetic, I should…”

“No, you have every right to wonder what they are for. To be direct, I am thinking of ending my life.”

Henry was stunned. His uncle had commit suicide, as had a couple of friends. He had a firm opinion against it.

“Why would someone like you do the hari-kari bit?”

There was a pregnant silence. The rain continued.

“We all die. I would rather be in control of the event than be ambushed by it.”

Henry let that sink in. Ambush? Is that what death was? An ambush? Putting it like that, it kind of made sense to direct the event. But still.

“OK but I have something that might turn your head around.”

Brother Tomas was puzzled. What was this kid talking about?

“Did you ever hear of psilocybin?”

Brother Tomas momentarily thought he saw a bolt of lighting through the window.

“Psilocybin! You mean magic mushrooms.”
“Yes.”

“You have some.”

Henry pulled out a zip-lock bag with an assortment of dry mushrooms.

“All you might want.”

Tomas’s mind was working overtime. End-of-life counselors used the ‘sacred mushrooms’ with terminally ill patients. Why had he not thought of trying that before? He could hardly believe the words coming out of his mouth.

“I ... just...might…I just might give that a try.”

***

A conference room in Icefjord, Iceland.

Dr. Joanna Smythe stood before a room full of colleagues. Behind her, a large screen showed a map of the western USA. Scattered about the map were various icons.
“The little fires represent the arson events. The little mushroom clouds are the explosions. All of them at vaccination facilities – schools, hospitals, nursing homes and public health offices. I fed the coordinates into the AI program along with a data mine along multiple vectors.”

The screen changed to a spread sheet listing names, addresses and comments. The comments were a list of crimes.

Several variables were coordinated with the locale of the incidents of concern. She hit a button on her remote. Some of the rows on the spreadsheet changed to red.

“The highlighted individuals had high scores on the risk-of-re-offense index. Of these,” she hit another button on the remote. “We narrowed the search to three individuals who had links with the anti-vaccine movement.”

There was a murmur of appreciation among the viewers.
“Thanks to the implementation of California’s vehicular monitor system, we were able to place one such individual in the general proximity of the incidents.”

She clicked another button on the remote. A mugshot-style picture of a young man appeared on the screen. It was a booking photograph from the Volusia County jail in Daytona Beach, Florida.

“This is Ozias Jay Walker, aka “Ozzie”, “The Wizard” and “Mad Dog Oz”. This is his booking photo from violation of a domestic violence restraining order against his former girlfriend. She was a nurse employed by the Florida Department of Health.”

There was a rumble of appreciation as the connection between the character pictured on the screen and the vaccine bombings started to become apparent.

“It became apparent at trial that he targeted her in advance.” She clicked another button.

A video appeared with a white triangle in the middle of the screen. The mouse moved over the triangle and she clicked the remote. The camera focused on a woman in a navy blue suit, questioning a man in the witness box. She was the prosecutor, and she riveted her attention on the witness.

“Mister Walker, in previous testimony you indicated that you found Ms. Roland, as you put it, you ‘hooked up’, by using Facebook. Please explain for the court how exactly you did this.”

“Um. I just used the search engine.”

“What did you search on?”

“I dunno. Nurses, I guess. I just wanted to date a nurse.”

“Any particular reason for that?”

The witness looked up at the ceiling.

“Any particular reason to search on nurses?”

“I dunno. I think they’re sexy. I like the uniforms they wear. The old fashioned ones. White stockings. White garters.”
“That’s enough, Mister Walker. So it’s your testimony that your search term was “nurses”? Did you use other search terms.”

“I don’t remember. No. I didn’t. I just wanted to date a sexy nurse.”

“Exhibit fourteen.”

A screen beside the judge displayed a memo on the letterhead of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Internet Cyber Crime unit. It listed an assortment of search terms and attested that they were the result of a forensic audit of the defendant’s phone.

“Mister Walker do you recognize any of these search terms.”

The defendant looked up at the screen.

“Not really. I don’t recognize any of that.”

“Do you have any cognitive impairments that might…”

Smythe clicked the remote, and the video stopped.

“As you can see, he searched specifically looking for a phlebotomist. He located the time and location of vaccine administration and researched the names of personnel who worked at the site. As the report indicated in other exhibits, he also hacked into the Volusia County Medical Center and downloaded confidential employee records.”

The listeners looked at one another , impressed by the iron logic with which the defendant was being roped in.

“All this occurred before he ever dated Stacy Corelli. And it wasn’t long after their first date that the abuse started. He almost set a record for time between first date and time a restraining order was ordered.”

“As a result of the CCI investigation, Ms. Corelli was protected and a person-of-interest entry was made into the Federal Vaccine Terrorism database, the FVT.”

Applause broke out. It was Dr. Smythe’s signature on the FBI memo admitted into evidence

“Mister Walker moved to California where he continues to seek out and prey upon women employed as health care workers. We have reason to, we have correlated his location to the general vicinity of the arson and the explosions.”

She paused and took a sip of water. There is a catch. We have not been able to link his vehicle to any of the crimes. In fact, his vehicle…”
She clicked the remote and a Chevy van appeared on screen.
“His van has been confirmed to have been far away from the actual scenes of the crimes.”

She clicked the remote again. “Interestingly, DIGITPOL indicates high incidence of vehicle thefts on the day of these crimes. Each such theft was some kind of souped-up hot rod, and in a high percentage of the cases there was also a burglary.”

She clicked off the remote and stepped in closer to her audience.

“The vehicles were each found abandoned in the proximity of the arson events – something we never would have figured out without the deep learning artificial intelligence software. We call the program SOFI – Serious Offense Forensic Indexing. Sifting through mountains of data, the program, affectionately nicknamed SOFI also indicates that nothing was stolen during the car thefts and burglaries except for firearms. At this time, Mr. Walker is under a 24/7 watch and we have an unrestricted electronic surveillance warrant. We believe that it is only a matter of time before we have an arrest.”

“Excellent work, Dr. Smythe.” Ali triggered another round of applause. He stood before the group and continued.

“Thank you for this excellent presentation. As you already know, Joanna has correlated viral outbreaks in Russia with fanatical supporters of the Russian President. She is here in Icefjord for the first quarterly meeting of the NATO Task Force on BA-7, coinciding with the annual Iceland Sea Security Assessment Conference. We look forward to some interesting break out sessions, for now, help yourself to some refreshments and we will see you at the plenary this afternoon.”

The conferees dispersed and mingled at a buffet highlighting fresh-caught haddock, Greenland halibut, lemon sole and witch flounder. Joanna Smythe gave Ali a big hug. Drink options included dark coffee and bjórlíki, a local favorite consisting of Pilsner beer with vodka added.

“You are too kind, Ali! You wrote the program for SOFI. I totally forgot to give you credit!”

“You are the one who implemented it so well Joanna. Without you, it’s just zeros and ones.”

They laughed and clinked glasses.

* * *

Two nautical miles away, a Russian spy submarine lurked. The Losharik, hull number AS-31, was a small craft which transmitted intercepted signals to its mother ship. There, Vice Admiral Boris Ulanov berated a technician who was wearing headphones and frantically typing away on a laptop.

“What is the SOFI? Who is this man Ali Badr? Find out everything you can about him and this … this woman Joanna Smythe. I want a full report in two hours.”

He stormed off, staring at his phone as he read Russian Navy reports on American artificial intelligence. He needed results, because his submarine, nominally under the command of the Russian Navy, was really controlled by the submarine intelligence service, GUGI. The Main Directorate for Deep-Sea Research was, in essence, the marine arm of the old KGB, refashioned for the melting of the ice caps and, Ulanov hoped, the Russian century.

Memoir #7 They Burnt the Heretics

Memoir #5: Ship of Fools

Memoir #4: Hammer of Witches

Memoir #3: The Crusader

Memoir #2: Rendevous in Icefjord

Memoir #1: Vector

Prologue:1348, The End of Time

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