Stone of Fire: An ARKANE Thriller (Book 1)

Chapter 35

Biosphere 2, Oracle, Arizona, USA
 May 27, Pentecost Sunday, 6.32am

      As the day dawned, Joseph Everett walked up through the Biosphere to check on the final preparations for his Pentecost enactment. He would wait for the evening when the flames from the pyre would be the most stunning, and he was sure Morgan Sierra would come with the stones. Her sister and niece were the perfect bait. The comet would reach its zenith at 8pm so he would perform the sacrifice then but for now, he wanted to survey his chosen location for the ritual.
     The Biosphere had been constructed in the little town of Oracle, Arizona, between Tucson and Phoenix. It was a shining white mini city bleached by the high Sonoran desert, overshadowed by the Santa Catalina Mountains. Joseph was proud to own this place and often brought business colleagues here for meetings to impress them with the complexities of its habitat.
    Biosphere 1 was the earth’s own living system and Biosphere 2 was a radical experiment based on recreating life on earth. It gave him more than a few business metaphors to use in negotiation. The complex stretched over three acres housing a complete self-sustaining ecosystem, built in the late 1980s as a research facility to investigate the possibility of living in such closed environments in space. The weather could be manipulated and the effects monitored on the five separate bio-systems within. Joseph had kept it running partly as a research facility so it could continue to fund itself.
    The main Biosphere experimental area was enclosed in a modern ziggurat of stepped triangular glass and steel panels, each designed to withstand impact from outside and pressure from inside. Joseph walked up the main path, looking down on the ocean complete with coral reef and passing the savannah, mangrove swamp and fog desert. He headed towards the human habitat, a small but self-supporting pod within the tiny world. Several experiments had been carried out where people were locked within the dome, the longest for two years. After closed system research was halted, the Biosphere was eventually sold for development. Joseph had put up the most substantial funding that had bought the Biosphere in 2007 which gave him access whenever he wanted and his own private casita for when he wanted to stay. It was a peaceful place for him, especially at night when he wandered around the ecosystem thinking and staring at the stars through the great glass ceiling. He had even brought a few of the young female researchers here at night. They were keen to see the habitat in darkness, lit only by the stars, and they all knew about his money and connections. The airlocks meant the place was also sound-proof, and they were paid well not to talk of abuses in the dust of the savannah.
     The glass panels opened the area to the wide expanse of Arizona sky. The quality of light was stunning inside the complex and, as he walked through the rainforest, Joseph smiled. He particularly loved being there during the extreme weather that the area was famous for. In summer, the heat pounded the land, but when storms came, it was glorious. Web lightning slashed the sky, thunder crashed and rolled down the Sonoran hills, torrential rain bringing the red dust in streams along the roads. The rain on the glass roof was a reminder of the power of nature to destroy and renew again. This was an inhospitable landscape and here Joseph Everett felt peace for today he would use it to welcome a new Pentecost.

En route to Oracle, Arizona, USA
 May 27, Pentecost Sunday, 5.35pm

      With her shoulder patched and out of a sling, Morgan drove towards the Biosphere, going over the plan in her head. After unlocking the cuffs and finding Jake and his team had indeed left, she had escaped Clark University by stealing a baseball cap and jacket from a student locker room. She had pulled the cap low and passed for a student on the grounds, only just missing the FBI team who pulled up to escort her. She knew that the authorities would never make it in time to save her family. She had cursed Jake’s betrayal but knew she still had time to find Faye and Gemma, even without the stones to trade for their lives.
     Away from the University, she had called Ben and told him what had happened. He had been calm and reassuring in the face of her rage, as if he had expected the deception. He had said not to trust ARKANE from the beginning and sure enough, they had cheated her of the stones and betrayed her trust. She was livid with anger at Jake, ashamed of herself for trusting him. She had almost let him through her barriers, had reached out to him, but her fury would have to wait. First, she must save Faye and Gemma from Everett’s fire.
    Ben had contacts all over the Christian world and had sent her to the Teresian Carmelite convent in a nearby town. He had called in a few favors and arranged for the nuns to provide a flight to Arizona, as well as cash for the journey. It was amazing what a spiritual network could arrange at short notice. She had rented a car at the airport and would still be able to make it to the Biosphere by the early evening of Pentecost.
     The desert was scrubland near the city, but as Morgan drove out from Tucson towards Catalina and then Oracle, the hills began to overshadow the road. Clouds scudded across the sky, the wind whipping them into peaks of fluffy white. A red-tailed hawk hovered overhead, wings barely moving as it rode the currents. This was a landscape that Morgan felt she knew. It was like the desert around the cities of Israel. She knew the terrain and she understood driving into danger. This was where she felt most alive and it stunned her to feel this way now after closeting herself in the safety of academia for the last few years. Now she channeled her anger at Jake and ARKANE into planning her next move.
     At the convent she had collected a number of stones from the garden, roughly the size of the Pentecost stones. It wouldn’t fool Everett for long, but it would at least get her into his presence and might buy her some time. She felt the gun in the holster at her back and the cool of the knife strapped against her calf under her jeans. She had swapped the blood soaked top for a Clark U t-shirt. The nuns had dressed her shoulder wound and given her painkillers, but she would need more serious medical help in the next twenty-four hours if she was to recover full use of her arm. Right now, she had to get to Faye and Gemma.
    She thought back over the time she had known her sister. She didn’t understand Faye’s faith or her lack of ambition. She aspired to be a good mother, a wife and member of the church but she seemed to want nothing more than this. In one argument Morgan had raged at her, shouting that she just didn’t know what she wanted. How could she give up her own life to just live it for other people? But deep down she knew her sister was like the reeds that grew by the river Cherwell, anchored deep in faith, bending but never breaking in the storms and hail. She remembered Faye had worn that smile of patience and understanding, and poured Morgan more tea, explaining what her life meant in God’s eyes. She had a fulfillment in life that Morgan would never understand. Was that why she had taken David from her sister, even for one night?
    As she saw the Biosphere in the distance she realized that the guilt would continue to drive her until the end, until they were safely back home.
***

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