If anything changed, someone would summon him immediately.
The call came nine hours into his sleep. A young boy, Abeeku, an orphan who lived at the convent and did odd jobs for the nuns, stood shaking the priest’s shoulder. “Come, Father, come quickly,” he said, flipping the blanket off the priest and grabbing Father Russo’s forearm, helping him to stand. As Father Russo put on his glasses and slipped on a pair of sandals, Abeeku handed him his robe. Father Russo struggled to put it on with one hand as Abeeku, holding his other, earnestly began to lead the priest down the steps from his room, toward the hospital.
Silently, Father Russo mumbled a prayer, as he was led toward the hospital. “Another grave to dig,” he thought to himself, picturing the white crosses in the field near the chapel. Once at the hospital, he was surprised to see the atmosphere wasn’t one of sadness or loss. Several nuns met Father Russo with a smile and a bow. Abeeku led the priest to where an older, small-framed Benedictine nun, Sister Nutina Grace, sat rocking the baby in her arms. Wearing the traditional black and white habit of her order, she looked up with a huge smile.
“God has sent us a miracle,” Sister Nutina said quietly to the priest in French. “He has snatched a beautiful soul away from Satan and given her to us.”
Bending down, Father Russo placed a hand upon the baby’s forehead. It was cool. The baby made a smacking noise, but continued to doze.
“God spared this angel. There is no fever, no disease,” Sister Nutina said, rocking the baby slowly. Father Russo patted the nun’s small hand and let out a long breath. Stepping out into the cool African air, he made his way toward the chapel. Abeeku held a heavy wooden door open for him and then stepped back into the dark. Inside, the candles were burning on the walls, and the altar in front sent shadows dancing across the rows of pews. Father Russo sat, and in the silence, gave a prayer of thanks. He wondered what would happen to the baby now. The nuns had decided to name her Shade, which meant “singing wind” in African. “After all, Father,” one nun explained, “if she hadn’t been singing, you never would have found her.”
The answer to Shade’s future would come a few days later, when Charlie and his parents paid a visit to the convent and met Father Russo and his staff. Charlie’s parents fell in love with the small baby in the nun’s care. His mother rocked and talked quietly to the baby for a long time before she held the little bundle out to Charlie. “Go ahead Charlie,” she said smiling, “why don’t you hold her? See if she grows on you.”
Shade did grow on him, and Charlie was thrilled when his parents told him that his new baby sister would be joining their family, and traveling back to the U.S. with them.
Growing up in the U.S., Shade blossomed from a near-dead victim of the Ebola virus to a tough, “see the hill, take the hill,” type of woman. In school, her mind worked like a sponge, soaking up everything she saw and read. She aced every test and exam. Charlie remembered her throwing a fit in high school when she received a B+ on an exam. She acted as if the world had ended. She didn’t take crap from anyone and never backed down from a fight, even taking on the school bully in a brawl that left both of them bruised and bloody. Shade was as sharp physically as she was mentally. She lettered eleven times in track and basketball and challenged the school board until they let her compete on the “boys only” wrestling team.
After graduating high school, Shade immediately applied to the police department. She easily breezed through the exams and physicals, and once in the Academy, found her calling. She worked the streets, kicked doors down at drug houses, fought drunks twice her size, and worked her way up the career ladder, landing in an officer position in the Criminal Intelligence Division.
Now, visibly disturbed, Shade began to pace around Charlie’s apartment with her arms crossed. “Sit down, guys,” she suddenly ordered. Maggie and Charlie sat together on the couch, as Shade pulled a kitchen chair into the room and sat in front of them.
Shade, looking down at the walkie-talkie on her gun belt, turned one of the knobs, and the sound of police traffic went silent. Facing them again, she jabbed her index finger threateningly and scooted forward to the edge of her chair. “Listen up, both of you. What I say here, what I tell you, everything is top secret and never, ever leaves this room. Do you understand?” Shade asked, looking at both of them. Maggie gave a short burst of nervous laughter, realizing that her world of reality had been turned on its side and things were somehow never going to be the same.
They both anxiously nodded in agreement, and Shade began to talk in a low voice, the same tone she used when sending a warning to some young hoodlum on the streets. “There is serious shit going down. Bad stuff, and I only know part of it. Last night, they called in all the command staff, everybody, on duty, off duty, on vacation, everyone,” Shade emphasized, poking her index finger at the palm of her hand. “The word is that the U.S. is under some kind of cyber attack, and that martial law is being put into effect. We are supposed to keep doing our jobs, but now the army and the National Security Force is in charge.”
“That’s bizarre,” Charlie said to Shade, leaning forward on the couch. “So, what do you think is going to happen?”
“It’s total bullshit,” Shade snapped. “First, cyber attacks don’t hit on this kind of scale and affect this many areas of communication. Even our IT guys at the station were shaking their heads and asking questions. Second, why do our police radios still work, and the 911 lines still function, but no one can make any inbound or outbound calls? Here’s the major clue that something rotten is going on behind the scenes. Our guys saw military convoys on the move hours before this alleged cyber attack ever happened. We were getting directions from the command staff to help the army set up road blocks and clear the streets right after rush hour.”
“Oh my God, Shade. This whole thing is really weird,” Charlie said.
“We’re under orders not to say anything to anyone. If a citizen asks what’s going on, our response is supposed to be the cyber attack crap line. On top of that, our patrol people are to keep everyone off the streets, with no group assembly of any kind. If anyone starts asking questions, we are supposed to say it’s for their own safety. If they push the issue, we arrest them,” Shade said, tapping the handcuff case on her gun belt.
“Wait a minute,” Maggie chimed in suddenly. “Your commanding officers are telling you this? Does the chief of police really think this is a cyber attack? What do these restrictions on the public have to do with it?”
Shade began shaking her head, and then looked at Maggie with a smirk. “It’s not the chief giving these orders, or our captains, majors, or anyone else in the command staff. It’s the earpiece guys.”
“Who . . . what are the earpiece guys?” Charlie asked, leaning closer toward his sister.
“Good question, big brother. Seems it’s a government agency we’ve never heard of. That is why I don’t believe this national emergency is anything more than a smoke screen. At about six o’clock, when all of this stuff started happening, all of our division commanders were sitting in a meeting room. Nobody knew anything, and the chief and his staff were sitting like statues. Then, all of a sudden, these three big goony dudes, wearing black battle dress utilities and sidearms, like the SWAT guys, come in, followed by a dozen armed soldiers. They have no insignia, except a patch on their shoulders. The chief was acting really weird, almost as if he was scared. He said the men were with the National Security Force. The National Security Force, kids. Have you ever heard of them?”
Maggie and Charlie looked at one another, confused, and shook their heads in unison. “We might have heard of them, Sis,” Charlie added.
“I’ll break it down for you,” Shade said. “These guys
