Chapter 36 Beijing

Wednesday 11th August

Li Xiu Ying looked out from a small bulletproof window onto Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. Her view could have been better had larger windows been installed in the headquarters of the Ministry of Public Security. The intelligence, security and secret police agency of the People's Republic of China was a potential target for foreign and counter-revolutionary forces, however, so defence had been the key factor in all design considerations for the building.

A short, smartly dressed man entered the office. ‘I have all the reports about the monastery of Balapuspika in Tibet.’

‘What do they conclude, Zhang Wei?’

‘It was hit by a long-range missile of a type such as a CJ-10. Small components recovered at the edge of the blast zone could indicate an American cruise missile, but that means nothing. Any power could have fired it. Even the Russians have been known to use American-made cruise missiles to conceal who fired them. We have no idea who destroyed the monastery.’

‘Anything from radar or satellites?’

‘It looks like the missile may have been fired from somewhere in the south. It then flew very low, following ground contours. It’s been so difficult to infer its flight-path that nothing’s certain.’

‘And the labs?’

‘Totally destroyed, Li Colonel. The missile carried a tactical nuclear warhead. There’s just a crater where the complex stood. It was the perfect weapon for the task. The surrounding land is uninhabited except for a few herders, and it’s so mountainous that the effects of the blast wouldn’t be obvious without close examination.’

Li Xiu Ying turned from the window and looked at Zhang Wei. ‘As things have turned out, Balapuspika was the worst possible location for the labs. Is there any prospect of obtaining more Teterodat before the fourth of September? I know that our own supplies will not be available for nearly three more years. I also recall that our agents were very conscientious in obtaining partially processed batches from Haiti, the Amazon rainforest and other locations where local people were manufacturing it. I imagine there may be none left anywhere now.’

‘We don’t think there are any partly processed indigenous supplies left, Li Colonel. As you say, our agents went to great lengths to remove all there was from the sources we’d identified. Sadly, all that material was destroyed at Balapuspika. We believe, however, there is one remaining box of one hundred doses at the Tlalpan pharmaceutical plant in Mexico City.’

‘How is that? I thought the British procured all remaining supplies from Mexico last year before production at the factory ceased,’

‘We have an agent in the Mexican factory, Li Colonel. It appears that one last box had been overlooked and only came to light when the British were urgently trying to source a supply a couple of days ago.’

‘That’s interesting. We believed the British had sourced all they needed. I wonder if they’ve a supply shortage for some reason.’

‘An agent in the UK, Li Colonel, has reported that the British possess less Teterodat than they had thought. It’s possible the remaining supply in Mexico should have been part of the consignment delivered to them last year.’

‘So, if Rogers and his team are urgently sourcing Teterodat and Balapuspika’s destroyed, the box in Mexico may be the last supply in the world for at least a couple more years – or at least the last supply we can locate.’

‘Yes, Li Colonel.’

‘Can we intercept it?’

‘A plan is being progressed, Li Colonel.’

Chapter 37 Getting reacquainted

Wednesday 11th August

Sam and Sahadeva sat on the floor in meditation postures in Sam’s room at Bodhiisha. A closed cardboard box stood on the table next to the window.

‘I’ve had a reply from Stephen Henson in Southampton,’ said Sam. ‘He said his brother was very pleased that we’d been able to collect the remainder of John’s personal things from the unit.’ She pointed towards the cardboard box. ‘He said it was very fortunate that I happened to be coming to Southampton next Saturday and they’d be very pleased if I had lunch with them.’

‘That’s good. How are you getting there?’

‘Ben said he’d lend me his car. If I leave here at eight in the morning, I’ll be there by lunchtime and can drive back in the early evening.’

‘I certainly think it’s worth trying to get clues from John Henson about what’s been happening and also try to find out why on earth he ended up taking what was presumably Teterodat. If anyone can discover that information, then it’s you.’

‘Hopefully, I’ll get lucky in some way. I don’t have any obvious reason to be interested in any of this from his point of view, so I can’t ask too many direct questions – although, of course, I did find him in the underground lab.’

Sahadeva nodded in agreement and then sat quietly for a few moments. ‘This situation’s all developed so quickly that we haven’t really had time to talk. What have you been doing with yourself since Fort Meade, Sam?’

‘I left the military when I came back to the UK. My physics doctorate at MIT was mostly focused on practical research, and I’d joined the military because their research into electronic, robotic and AI systems was cutting edge. I hadn’t expected to be assigned to Stargate, but Halbeck and Rogers seemed to think that clear scientific thinking was needed to develop the project.’

‘Rogers was always pretty scathing about what he called New Age pseudo-science, I recall.’

‘Yes, I remember he was. As you know, being involved with Stargate led me to think more deeply about the nature of reality. How could someone instantaneously perceive, just with his or her own brain, something that was physically located on the other side of the world?’

‘I felt the same way. As I said when we had lunch last week at the Aashirya Temple, I never really understood how Halbeck and Rogers could view it all as so dispassionately. To them, remote viewing was just a property of the world like any other that had the potential to be weaponised.’

Sam nodded in agreement. ‘That’s why I left. Planning the best ways to dominate or kill other people seemed a bit incompatible with being one with Reality. Maybe tribal attitudes were useful for survival during human evolution, but they definitely passed their sell-by date on July the sixteenth, nineteen forty-five when the first atomic bomb was exploded on the Alamogordo bombing range, two hundred miles south of Los Alamos.’

‘So you left the army and left physics and turned to spiritual teaching.’

‘I taught quantum physics for a bit at Imperial College in London and then at Cambridge, but I was leading retreats more and more frequently and realised that spirituality was the direction in which I needed to go. I think I moved on quite quickly. I now understand how influences from previous lives bore on that. About ten years ago, I bought a derelict barn on Lindisfarne. I had it renovated and started a retreat centre.’

‘No love life, then?’ Sahadeva smiled mischievously. ‘I seem to recall you had a partner in the UK at the time of Stargate. You’re clearly not romantically involved with anyone at the moment.’

Sam smiled back at him. ‘I changed, as I’ve just said. John and I drifted apart and eventually split in two thousand. More precisely, it was December the thirty-first, nineteen-ninety-nine. We both agreed that we wanted different things from life and decided that midnight at the start of the new millennium was a good time to seek new beginnings.’

‘For the sake of auld lang syne,’ Sahadeva ventured.

‘We said goodbye and walked away from each other at the end of the millennium fireworks display in London. We’ve never met since. He’d booked a flight to Australia for the first of January. We’re still in touch. We talk a couple of times a year.

‘I’ve made a lot of friends in the last twenty years, men and women, and I’m really close to a lot of them, but I’ve not wanted to have an exclusive relationship with anyone. As you’ve detected, there’s no one special at the moment – or no one more special than anybody else.

‘What about you? You mentioned, when we had lunch at Aashirya, that you and your wife had divorced.’

‘My story’s broadly similar to yours. I engaged with spiritual practice as a result of the Stargate experience and left the army for the same reason – remember, I was a psychologist by training. Bhavna and I grew apart. We separated in two thousand and three, and we divorced in two thousand and five. She lives in America now with a new husband. We parted on good terms, but we were very different people. We exchange a card and letter at Christmas.

‘In two thousand and three, after Bhavna and I separated, I moved to Hampshire and became involved with the Aashirya temple as a paid administrator. I became increasingly involved with the spiritual life of the temple after that and became abbot in twenty-sixteen. And no, there’s no one more special than anyone else in my life at the moment either.

‘Oh, by the way, Sam,’ added Sahadeva, changing the subject. ‘When I was in Diss the other day, I saw a very interesting specimen in a shop. I bought it, and I’d like your opinion because I know you’re an expert on such things.’

Sahadeva reached into a holdall that was on the floor beside him and withdrew a paper bag. He passed it to Sam.

She glanced inside and laughed. ‘It’s hard to say from just an external examination of the specimen. I’ll have to get my teeth into it and fully digest the results.’

Sam withdrew a giant Toblerone from the paper bag. She had always had rather a soft spot for the Swiss chocolate while at Fort Meade – possibly too much so. She was touched that Sahadeva had remembered and wanted to surprise her. ‘Thank you so much,’ she said. ‘This reminds me of the old days.’

Chapter 38 Al Smith

Thursday 12th August

As Ben reached the outskirts of Cambridge, he began to refer to his satnav to guide him to the home of Al and Jenny Smith. Five minutes later, however, he found himself confronted by a diversion sign.

He had assumed the Cambridgeshire police and the local council would have tidied up the high street in the thirty-six hours since Al and Joe had untidied it, but clearly not.

It took a further ten minutes of driving along back streets, made narrow by parked cars, before he finally pulled up outside his destination.

Jenny Smith answered the door.

‘Hello, I’m Ben Clarke.’

‘Hello, Mr Clarke. I’m Jenny Smith. Thank you so much for coming. Please come in.’

Five minutes later, Ben was sitting with Al and Jenny Smith in their front room and drinking coffee that Al had made for them all.

‘Are you employed by the MOD, Mr Clarke?’ Jenny asked.

‘Please call me Ben. No, I’m a freelance psychologist. I was actually commissioned to review the work of the Bodhiisha unit. I never worked there.’

‘Ah, that’s why I don’t remember you,’ said Al. ‘And please call us Al and Jenny.’

‘The unit closed in early May,’ Ben explained. ‘The only staff member who remained was John Henson, the head of rehabilitation, but he was taken ill a fortnight ago. I may not be that much help to you, but the MOD wanted to respond to your concerns, and I was the only one available who might be able to shed some light on things.’

His final sentence was the first untruth he had told to the Smiths. Ben had thought it best to stick to the truth as far as possible because truth would always be self-consistent.

‘I’m sorry to hear John’s been ill,’ said Al. ‘Is he OK now? He was a good bloke. I got the impression he was looking out for the patients. His boss, Lieutenant General Rogers, didn’t seem very interested in us as people.’

‘John’s recovering. I can’t say more than that, I’m afraid.’

‘Of course not,’ Al replied. ‘Thank’s very much for taking the time to see us, anyway.’

Jenny cast a sideways glance at her husband. ‘I’m really pleased you’ve come round to the idea of talking to someone, Al.’ She looked back at Ben. ‘When I told Al I’d written to Diss, he said he thought I was making a fuss over nothing and didn’t want to see anyone. When I told him yesterday that you were coming, he surprised me by being very keen to see you.’

Ben nodded and looked towards Al. ‘What changed your mind?’

‘Jenny was away on Monday and Tuesday of this week, and a friend I met at Diss, Joe, came to stay. We got talking, and we agreed that something wasn’t right. When Jenny said yesterday that you were visiting, I thought it couldn’t do any harm to talk to you and try to get to the bottom of what happened.’

‘When you say “get to the bottom of what happened”, do you mean a specific incident?’

Al paused to consider what he had just said – particularly whether he had accidentally revealed a clue to his and Joe’s activities early on Tuesday morning. It didn’t seem so. ‘No, no, I mean get to the bottom of why we – Joe feels the same – why we feel as if there’s something missing inside us. It sounds ridiculous, but I don’t feel as if I’m myself anymore.’

‘Do you think that’s an effect of the PTSD?’

‘It’s happened since I went to Diss. In many ways, I’ve felt better since I was there. I’m calmer, and I don’t have so many flashbacks to the explosion. It’s just that something else has gone away. You probably think I’m mad.’

Jenny took hold of Al’s hand. ‘No one thinks you’re mad, Love. I’m so pleased you’re admitting to something being wrong.’ She looked again at Ben. ‘What Al’s just said is new to me, too. I’d realised he’d been different since Diss, but he was never prepared to talk about it. It was only when I came home yesterday that it all came out. Lauren, Joe's wife, has said the same thing about Joe. He wanted to talk to her too.’ Jenny smiled and glanced back at Al. ‘It obviously did both of you the world of good having some time together.’

Ben picked up his cup from the table and took a sip of coffee. He then looked at Jenny. ‘Al’s described feeling as if something inside him has been missing since his time at the Bodhiisha unit. What have you noticed?’

‘It’s been like living with dozens of slightly different people. Mostly nice people, I would say, but there’s no consistency. You probably wouldn’t notice it unless you knew Al well, but it’s very unsettling if you’re close to him. It’s hard to know what reaction to expect. What he likes and what he dislikes – it all keeps changing.’

‘So, it’s as if each new thought and feeling arrives with a new person,’ Ben ventured.

Al leaned forward in his chair. ‘That’s exactly it. Do you know what might have caused it?’

‘Changes in electrical impulses in the brain can lead to that kind of effect. Can you tell me a bit about the treatment you received at the Bodhiisha unit?’

‘We were offered a choice of either doing mindfulness with the monks at the temple or trying this new treatment that involved computers. Most of the lads went for the new treatment. A lot of us had tried mindfulness before going to Diss – it was recommended in the leaflets we were given. The trouble is, your concentration isn’t too good with PTSD. A new, non-invasive treatment that involved electronics and computers seemed like an easier thing to do. We thought they wouldn’t have wanted to try it on us if they didn’t think it’d work.’

‘Couldn’t you do both the new treatment and mindfulness with the monks?’

‘No. I guess they wanted to see if there were any differences in what happened. I assumed by completely separating the treatments, they were creating a control group.’

‘What did the new treatment consist of?’

‘There was this basement room below the unit. It must have been something from the Second World War. They had a load of computers down there. When you went there, you’d sit in a comfortable, reclining chair, and they’d put a helmet on your head.

‘I can’t really say much about what happened after that because when they turned on the helmet, it made you very dozy, and you quickly went to sleep. When I woke up, I was often back in my own room. I actually felt pretty good though when I woke up – as if I’d had the best night’s sleep. That was one good reason to carry on with the treatment.’ Al smiled at a recollection. ‘There was one time I woke up, and I was standing on the airfield. Major Mackenzie said I must have been sleepwalking.’

‘Did they give you any medication as part of the treatment?’

‘Not at first. After about a month, they asked if I minded having an injection when I was under the influence of the helmet because they wanted to see if that enhanced the effect, so I agreed to that.’

‘How were they monitoring the effect of the treatment?’

‘The headset also provided plots of brainwaves. John Henson showed me mine. It didn’t make much sense to me, of course, but he said that disturbances in the patterns on the graphs that correlated to the effects of PTSD were reducing over time. And it seemed true. I was gradually feeling calmer.’

‘Do you remember anything of what happened during the treatments?’

‘It was just like being asleep, I guess.’

‘Did you dream?’

‘I think I did, but you know what dreams are like. I don’t remember very much about them.’

‘Do you remember anything?’

‘A few bits. Oddly, I remember buildings with foreign lettering on them. Chinese or Japanese or something like that, but that’s about all. There was one occasion when I dreamt I was in the lab and explaining something about these foreign buildings to Major Mackenzie. When I’d finished, I heard Rogers’ voice say that I wouldn’t remember any of it when I regained full consciousness. It sticks in my mind because it seemed so real.’

‘It’s helpful to know about the dreams as they might give a clue to why you feel as you do now.’

‘What about this feeling that part of me is missing?’ Al returned to his main interest. ‘Do you know anything about that?’

‘It can happen with some types of hallucinogens,’ said Ben, fishing for what Al knew about the injections he had been given.

‘Funny you should say that. Major Mackenzie said the drug they injected was a bit like LSD. Is there a cure?’

Ben put his hand in the pocket of his jacket, withdrew a business card and handed it to Al. ‘I want to talk to some other experts who have experience in this sort of thing. I’ll get back to you after that. I don’t want to speculate at the moment in case I say something wrong or misleading.’

Al was a little disappointed that Ben could not give some information or advice on the spot about how to deal with the feeling of not being himself. He was nevertheless pleased that the problem was being taken seriously and that Ben would be making enquiries. ‘Thanks, I appreciate that,’ he said.

‘If anything else comes to mind about this, or you or Jenny want to just talk about it, don’t hesitate to contact me directly.’ Ben pointed at the business card. ‘I’ve just one other question, Al. You mentioned waking up one time on the airfield at Diss after what Major Mackenzie described as sleepwalking. Has anything similar happened to you since?’

Al paused thoughtfully for just long enough to confirm to Ben that Al and Joe had caused the vandalism on the local high street.

‘I can’t remember anything like that,’ Al replied.

Chapter 39 Dharma Talk

– Interconnectedness

Thursday 12th August

Sam took up her now-familiar position at the front of the meditation hall.

There were many more people in the hall this evening. There were the participants on the retreat, as usual, but there were also monks and staff from the temple and some others who were associated with Bodhiisha as a result of other courses or regular meditation sessions.

Sam had delivered five previous talks in this hall, and very positive reactions to them had been spread by those who had attended. This had given Sam, in less than one week, a reputation for explaining difficult teachings in a fresh and inspired way.

‘Good evening, everybody,’ she began. ‘This evening, I want to talk about interconnectedness. This is a topic which is closely related to the exploration of the Unity which I mentioned last Saturday. In many ways, however, it’s more down to earth.

‘When spiritual teachers talk about the unity of all things, of everything being one, it’s an impossible idea to intellectually conceive. I have spoken previously about verbal, intellectual descriptions of spiritual insights being a very different thing from the reality of the experiences the words try to represent. The full realisation that everything which appears to exist is an illusion arising within the Universal Consciousness is as hard to capture in words as it gets. If you’d really realised such an experience and abided within it, you’d have experienced it all. In fact, there wouldn’t be a you to experience it all, and there wouldn’t be an it all for you to experience. That type of language is just a product of our very ingrained dualistic thinking. You’d be it all.’ Sam smiled. ‘And, as there wouldn’t be a separate you, existence would be all there was.

‘There is, however, a complementary way to look at interconnectedness that doesn’t run the risk of anyone’s head exploding.’ There was subdued laughter from the room. ‘In fact, once heard, it’s obvious to anyone who comes from any social or cultural perspective.

‘I’m only able to sit here in front of you this evening because of the chair that’s supporting me. That chair requires the floor, and that floor ultimately requires the Earth. The Earth requires the solar system, and ultimately, the solar system requires the entire universe. The existence of all of us here today is contingent on the existence of everything else that there is.

‘A word of warning here. The interconnectedness that I’ve just described is not the same thing as the unity of everything. I’ve heard even advanced spiritual teachers talk as if it is, and that’s misleading. What I just described, however, is a complementary and comprehensible form of interconnectedness. Also, because it’s not hard to understand, it can lead us away from the notion that each of us is a discrete independent entity who is somehow living alongside, but separate from, the rest of the Universe. That broader perspective, at the very least, points us in the direction we want to be heading.

‘Another similar example relates to our connection with cyanobacteria. These are the organisms that evolved two point four billion years ago and were responsible for manufacturing the free oxygen on the planet that ultimately allowed the evolution of more complex life-forms – including us. We wouldn’t be here in our current forms if it wasn’t for cyanobacteria.

‘There are many more examples I can quote or you could think up for yourselves that all lead to the obvious conclusion that everything requires everything else. Even if the Universe was different and life had evolved in a different way, it would still be true that everything in that universe would be dependent on the existence of everything else in that universe.

‘Of course, cyanobacteria weren’t the only stop on our cosmic journey to this hall this evening. There were countless other interconnected causal factors within the overall system. Everything arises due to multiple causes and conditions. This is sometimes referred to as interdependent co-arising or dependent co-origination.

‘There is another aspect of this process that is useful to consider, and this is the feedback loops that exist at all levels within the overall process. You have been brought about by the interaction of everything else, but you can also interact with everything else to evolve the system. Everything is connected to everything – top-down, bottom-up and on all the diagonals.

‘To conclude this evening, I want to touch upon the question of approaching a state of simply being. First, however, I’d like to consider why the things I have just said about interconnectedness come as such a revelation to some people – and particularly people in the West.

‘The way we view our own existence and our place in the world is highly conditioned by the culture in which we were raised.

‘It’s a gross oversimplification, though may be helpful to make my point, if I suggest that in Japan, people are more likely to see themselves as a part of society. Society is the important thing, and the individual is secondary to that. In the Middle East, people are more likely to see themselves as part of a family. The family is the important thing, and the individual is secondary to that. In the West, people are more likely to see themselves as independent individuals. The individual is the important thing, and everything else is secondary to that.

‘If it’s possible to visualise those different perspectives, one at a time, then it’s possible to imagine how my stereotypical Western perception of the supremacy of the individual might morph into my Middle Eastern perception and then into my Japanese perception and then onwards into a sense of being part of larger and larger interconnected groupings.

‘This isn’t a perfect analogy to seeking to be one with everything, but visualising those transitions can highlight social and cultural constructs that stand in the way of you moving towards a state of simply being, and I would propose them as the subject for this meditation session.

‘Thank you.’

Chapter 40 Friday 13th – unlucky for some

Friday 13th August

The armoured van drove out through the front gate of the Tlalpan pharmaceutical complex.

There was no unusual degree of security for the British consignment. All drug consignments were treated in the same low key manner so that each betrayed no more significance than the next. This had proven to be the most effective way to reduce hijacks.

When they chose to, it was very easy for criminal gangs to intercept shipments. Most drugs could be sold somewhere – some on the streets of Mexico City and others via the international connections of cartels in countries to the south. In support of the latter, there were numerous places where a light aircraft could land just to the south of Mexico City, and stolen goods could be across the Guatemalan border within five hours.

The van headed west towards the international airport and was soon travelling through one of the sparsely populated national parks to the south of Mexico City.

The vehicle turned left off the main highway and continued along a track towards Desierto de los Leones. A mile along from the turnoff, a Mercedes-Benz S Class was parked on gravel to the right side of the track. The van stopped behind the car and the driver turned off the engine. He got out of the van and walked to the rear. He then opened a back door of the vehicle and removed a wooden crate that was the size of a medium suitcase. The van driver began to carry the crate towards the Mercedes as a man in a dark suit got out of the car.

As they met, the van driver bent over and placed the crate on the ground. When he stood up, he was handed a white envelope, which he quickly opened to count the money inside. With no words having been exchanged, the van driver then turned to walk back to his vehicle.

Less than two seconds later, an intense burst of machine-gun fire meant that both men were dead.