Crooked Lines

By Jeffrey F Meyer

Can an ordinary person, relying on faith and the help of friends, escape a secret intelligence organization in an era where the trappings of surveillance are everywhere?

It is the late 2020s. Authoritarian governments have gained power around the world and the planet heads toward a climate disaster. An international sc

• Language: English
• Publisher: IngramElliott
• Release date: Sep 18, 2020
• ISBN: 9781952961021

Jeffrey F Meyer

In Jeffrey F. Meyer's new novel, Crooked Lines, Brendan Donovan is an ordinary man, neither brilliant nor possessed of heroic virtue. Set in the late 2020s, this visionary work of fiction asks the question: Can our hero and his strange band of friends find the courage to strike a blow for democracy as they confront the world's authoritarian governments? Their lives hang in the balance. A professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte for thirty-five years, Jeffrey taught Asian religions in the Religious Studies department, with a focus on Buddhism and Daoism. He is married with three grown children, currently living in Davidson, North Carolina. His first novel, A Call to China, is a Silver winner in the 30th Annual Benjamin Franklin Awards and a finalist in the 13th Annual National Indie Excellence Awards and the 2019 NextGen Indie Book Awards.

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PROLOGUE

A Grand Vegetarian Feast Disrupted

The historic meeting took place in the main courtyard of the Lingxian Temple in Kowloon, across the bay from Hong Kong Island. The Buddhist delegation of three nuns was headed by Abbess Hukong, charismatic and guiding spirit of the Extending Compassion Society. She was flanked by two other nuns, Kaiguang and Cihai. Their heads were shaved in the Buddhist fashion, and they wore the plain gray robes of their order.

The other five at the table were delegates sent by the Government in Beijing, all members of the newly created Board of Religious Supervision. They wore dark suits and power ties in the Western style. Each side wanted to finalize the arrangement, but on its own terms. After three days of discussion, they were still not in full agreement. The banquet was meant to provide a gracious celebration that would bring them to unity on the issues that remained.

Two monks brought a succession of platters loaded with vegetarian delicacies, placing them on the rotating tray in the middle of the round table. Abbess Hukong acted as host. She was known all over Asia for her charitable work with the poor, the homeless, the abused, and the otherwise despised members of society. In recent years, her main efforts had been focused on helping the victims of sex trafficking. Her success in this mission was so inspiring that people had begun to call her the Mother Theresa of Buddhism.

Abbess Hukong gently spun the rotating tray with her index finger, stopping the shrimp in front of Delegation Chairman Zhang. You have come such a long way to pay us this visit. Please take a little more.

Your ‘shrimp’ is skillfully made, Zhang said, waving off the dish in front of him and rising to his feet. It has the correct crescent shape, it is white in color, and it even has the orange tinge of real cooked shrimp. Quite amazing, really. But it does not taste like shrimp.

The nuns looked at him, shocked.

And the ‘chicken’ is the same, he continued. It is the correct shape and color, it has a good sauce, it even has a skin with the tiny puncture holes left when the feathers have been removed from the fowl. How amazing that your cooks attend to that small detail! But it does not taste like chicken. Why do Buddhists make such a point of giving up the consumption of living creatures, but then strive so hard to make the vegetables they do eat look like the seafood, chicken, and pork they have given up? Is that not hypocritical?

A sudden silence descended on the table. Hukong showed no emotion, but Kaiguang’s fingers tightened around the glass of flower tea she had just begun to raise to her lips. She replaced it on the table next to her plate and waited to see what would happen.

The group of eight was being served by two monks, one a podgy old man who had just retired to the kitchen, the other a younger one who stood at attention behind the guests. His head was shaved clean, and his facial features were vaguely simian, with a sloping forehead, big ears, and an undershot jaw. But it was his eyes that arrested. They were light brown, almost yellow, giving his face a strange intensity. He had been about to pour more plum wine into Chairman Zhang’s glass when the insult was delivered. He stopped, looking toward Hukong for guidance.

Chairman Zhang banged his glass on the table, a rough gesture demanding that the server fill it. The monk did so with a show of reluctance. Zhang picked up his glass of plum wine and bellowed, "Ganbei! Bottoms up! The three nuns lifted their tea glasses just slightly off the surface of the table. So, Zhang said loudly, again we have reluctant courtesy and hypocrisy. You invite us here, serve this inferior wine, and won’t even make a pretense of toasting us." He poured the plum wine onto the table.

Standing behind Chairman Zhang, the younger monk turned red-faced with rage. He took what looked like a brass tube from under his robe and snapped it with a flick of his wrist. The tube lengthened immediately, telescoping to a rod about eight feet long. The monk whirled around the table like a mad dancer, swinging his brass rod with surgical precision as he toppled or broke the wine glasses of each of the five visitors. It all happened so fast that no one at the table had been able to react, but sat in their places, gaping. In front of Zhang, a nest of broken glass on the red-stained tablecloth made it look like some bloody disaster had just happened.

Abbess Hukong stood up, looked fixedly at the offending monk and, in a quiet but firm voice, said, Leave.

The monk was trembling with anger and excitement, but her voice calmed him. He placed the bottle of plum wine on the table, to the left of Chairman Zhang, and walked back into the shadows of the temple near the kitchen door. Then, with complete composure, Hukong took charge and repaired the potential catastrophe. She knew of Zhang’s reputation as a brusque, obnoxious negotiator. She knew that his outburst was a tactic, so she said to their guests, Wukong, our server, was trained at Shaolin Temple in the martial arts. His skills with the rod are great, as you have seen, but he sometimes gets overly excited. She laughed merrily. "I suppose we have overdone the entertainment this evening.

Comrades, I know that it is time for you to go, but I want to assure you that we shall acquiesce to all your demands—government supervision, your ultimate control of our temple locations, the architecture, the number of personnel in each, the need for us to be self-sustaining. We agree to all those conditions, and we look forward to extending our work all over mainland China, the motherland we all share. I know that Chairman Xi Jinping, though soon to retire, is favorably inclined toward this project, and, as soon as you leave us, I shall call him to express our gratitude.

She walked around the table to Chairman Zhang and shook his hand in the Western fashion. It has been a pleasure working with you. Zhang and the other members of the delegation looked at one another in confusion. Anticipating some kind of blowup, they now saw that, on the contrary, an agreement had been reached. No one made a move until, finally, Chairman Zhang rose and bowed toward Hukong and led his delegation toward the front gate of the temple. The Party has done great things in bringing prosperity to many of our people, the Abbess said as they walked toward the exit. Our wish is to help those unfortunates in our society who have not shared in it.

When all the handshakes and farewells were finished, and the guests had left, Abbess Hukong summoned the server. Wukong, you must learn to control yourself. You disrupted our banquet and almost ruined our chances to take our mission to the Mainland.

Yes, Teacher, but why did you agree to all his demands? the monk said, his voice still vibrating with anger.

When I look at all the poor and suffering people in the cities of China and hear their cries of distress, the conditions set by the government seem inconsequential. Fighting over such details is nothing more than saving face, and we don’t concern ourselves with face. She pointed to the statue of the bodhisattva, and said to the monk gently, The waters of compassion pour freely from Guanyin’s vase. You and I must extend them to every corner in our suffering world.

But couldn’t you have held firm against some of their demands?

Not after what you did today. Have you never heard our wise men say, ‘Yield and overcome?’

Of course. It’s the basis of my martial arts training.

And where did you yield today?

Realizing the justice of her question, the monk dropped to his knees, bowed his head, and answered, I am sorry. Teacher, please forgive me.

I shall, but first I give you an assignment. You’ll have to make reparation for your sin, and for that I am sending you on a journey to America, to help a colleague of mine who lives there. He faces powerful enemies in both his government and his church. When you have found him, and helped him in his work, you will be free again. She looked solemnly at Wukong. Your life will be a series of such assignments, I think, big and small.

You have taught me that in the realm of the great bodhisattva there is no big and no small. Only compassion.

You’ve learned well the great lesson. Your days of training are over.

CHAPTER 1

The Hospital Intensive Care Unit

December 2027

Gloria Stengler, a head nurse at the ICU, was entering data at the nurses’ station. Feeling tired, she paused for a moment and closed her eyes. Some words came to her. Love is, after all, a matter of paying attention, her life coach had said at last night’s meeting. So, when we sit and meditate, we are paying attention to everything and learning to love everything.

Where’s the logic in that? she wondered, thinking particularly about her husband. She stopped mid-task and sat quietly in front of the computer screen, attentive. She noticed that unpleasant blend of hospital smells: disinfectant, half-wilted flowers, the odors of sickness and old age. The fluorescent lights hummed and glared overhead. She heard the squeak of food trolleys moving in both corridors, the click-clack of forks scraping plastic plates in nearby rooms, the quiet words of staff as they delivered meal trays and offered encouragement to their patients. What was there to love in all of this? She quickly answered her own question. The patients, of course.

Just then, Gloria heard the loud footsteps of Nurse Melissa Overcash running down the corridor. She shouted, The bishop’s come back! He’s awake!

Gloria was jarred out of her brief meditation. She bolted from her seat, almost colliding with Overcash.

Shush! Calm down. She took Melissa by the elbow and guided her back toward the bishop’s room.

I was taking his vitals, Melissa said breathlessly, when he opened his eyes and looked at me. I squeezed his hand, and I could feel him respond. I swear he did.

All right, Melissa, we’ll see, she said as the two of them entered his room. Gloria saw that the patient’s intravenous and oxygen tubes were in place and working, fluid moving, O2 at three liters. His eyes were closed as usual. Vitals normal.

Bishop Donovan, can you hear me? Gloria said.

No response. He seemed to be sleeping. She squeezed his hand, but it remained limp.

Melissa said, He was awake. I know he was.

Gloria nodded. She knew this could change everything. Just yesterday, he had been pronounced brain-dead by a visiting specialist. We’re both about to go off shift, she said, but I’ll write this up before I leave tonight, and I’ll be back early tomorrow morning. I’ll see that everything is done to test him and recheck his condition. Thanks, Melissa. Now you go home and get some rest.

Their patient was Brendan Donovan, the bishop of Charlotte. After the terrible explosion, the story of the man and his doomed companions was all over the media. Five of them had died; four well-known religious leaders and their limo driver were found dead in a remote area of Northern Maryland. They were returning to Washington from some kind of secret meeting when it happened. The bishop had been somehow thrown out of the vehicle. The police reported finding him in a ditch at the bottom of an embankment, unconscious, badly burned, bruised, and lacerated. Near death. He was taken to Johns Hopkins, and, when his condition stabilized, medevacked to his home, Charlotte, where they presumed he would soon die.

But he didn’t, and soon various military medicine experts from up north were sent to consult. None held out much hope for him. The most recent was a Doctor Stephen Henry from Bethesda Naval Hospital who had arrived in Charlotte the previous week. He had ordered a new MRI and, after he looked at it, announced that he did not expect the bishop to recover. They were now taking steps to remove him from life support, he told her.

Gloria Stengler was not a Catholic, but was intrigued by the bishop’s case. She found everything about it disturbing: the mysterious and tragic explosion, the official statement that put the blame on terrorists without any real evidence, and the treatment plan being devised somewhere up north while local hospital personnel had no say. And now this decision to take him off life support. They were waiting, Dr. Henry told her, for word from a very high official of the Catholic Church, the cardinal primate of the United States, Archbishop Cajetan Majewski of Baltimore.

Gloria checked with the hospital’s Catholic chaplain, who explained to her that such life-and-death decisions were made by family, but that the bishop had no such qualifying relatives. Monsignor Finney, a good friend of the bishop’s, who is currently administrator of the diocese, has been arguing again termination. He pleaded with them not to withdraw life support, but in the eyes of the law, ‘friends’ do not make such decisions. They are saying that the cardinal will consult with the Vatican and make the final determination.

The next morning, Gloria followed up on her report regarding the bishop, calling for a battery of tests. The hospital administrators complied. At eleven o’clock, she went to the bishop’s room, where she found him as she had left him the previous night, seemingly asleep. She was suspicious, wondering who was really pulling the strings when it came to the bishop’s treatment, but she was determined to provide him the best care possible, no matter who was calling the shots.

Gloria was not convinced that the bishop had really regained consciousness. Melissa Overcash was new and inexperienced, and might have been mistaken about the miracle she saw. People were always looking for miracles in hospitals. She bent down and spoke directly into the bishop’s right ear: Are you awake? Can you hear me? She waited, but there was no response. Then she repeated the questions more slowly, in a lower and stronger voice: Are you awake? Can you hear me?

His eye lids flickered, blinked, and he spoke very weakly but distinctly. Yes.

That startled her. Oh my God, Melissa was right.

Then, in a faint raspy voice he mumbled, Where am I? He then coughed and gagged, reached for the ventilator and began pulling at the tube. She made the quick decision to remove it correctly. When she had finished the process, he gasped a few times, then began to breathe on his own.

You are at the hospital in Charlotte, she said with careful emphasis on each word. I am Nurse Stengler, head of the ICU. There was a terrible accident. You were the only survivor. If there was a miracle in all this, she thought, that was it, and it had taken place two months ago. He had somehow been thrown from the vehicle while the other occupants had died, their bodies burned and dismembered in the smoldering wreckage. Do you recall anything about the explosion?

He shook his head slightly and, after a pause, said, I’m…I’m…Who am I?

Well, she thought, might as well tell him the answer to that. You are the Reverend Brendan Donovan, bishop of Charlotte and Western Carolina.

He stared at her, looking first puzzled, then distraught, and she wondered whether she had said too much. His eyes blinked, focused, then closed, as if he could not process the information. In a few moments, his heavier breathing told her he was, once again, asleep. She slipped ventilator cannulas into his nostrils, believing that he no longer needed full intubation.

As she walked out of his room, she almost physically collided with the visiting specialist, Dr. Henry. Oh, sorry doctor, she said, unable to disguise a bit of sarcasm in her voice.

He looked irritated. I’m here to make final arrangements for taking the good bishop off life support, he said. Very regrettable, but we are planning to have it done tomorrow morning. We have received the permission to proceed from Cardinal Majewski, who has had clearance from the Vatican.

She looked at him steadily. Dr. Henry, she said, holding his glance. That is not going to happen. Why don’t you just have a chat with Bishop Donovan about your plan?

Under the expert care of the ICU staff, the bishop improved steadily. Each day, he was awake more often and for longer periods of time, but he said almost nothing. When he did speak, it was slowly. His first outside visitor was Monsignor Gerald Finney, vicar general for the Diocese of Charlotte, and Donovan’s closest friend. Nurse Stengler was encouraged to hear her patient say clearly, Finn.

Thought we’d lost you, Brendan. Welcome back to the world.

The bishop smiled weakly. Yes…back.

You’ve got a lot of friends, Brendan, said Monsignor Finney, seeing all the cards and notes on the top of the chest of drawers. Gloria and the other nurses read them to him as they came in. He listened to the words of his well-wishers and seemed to be pleased, but said nothing in reply.

He was a kind man and a real pastor. A few folks complained that he was away too much, the Monsignor told Gloria, but that’s why they appointed me as his vicar, to set him free to give his talks. Most of them were given out of town, but he was planning to speak on his favorite topic, devotion to the Virgin Mary, here in Charlotte. Some of the higher authorities were not pleased…and then the explosion…

Gloria tried to take this in, but being a Baptist herself, could not understand what Finney was getting at. Devotion to the Virgin Mary?

Dr. Henry left Charlotte shortly after the bishop came out of his coma, and a local physician took over his medical supervision. The ICU staff held a meeting with him and discussed how to proceed with Bishop Donovan’s physical and mental therapy. As his condition improved, the bishop began to eat by mouth, at first taking soups and gruel-like things such as oatmeal and grits.

With each day, Bishop Donovan was able to remember a little bit more about his past and became more comfortable with his surroundings. But he drifted in and out of consciousness, and his memory was unreliable. He held up his hands one morning, flexed his fingers and looked at them intently. Were these his hands? They looked boney, with slack and wrinkled skin, the hands of an old man. His fingers trembled and he could not make them stop. I’m useless! he thought. He asked the nurse to bring a mirror. He shook his head as he looked at the image in the glass. He did not recognize himself. How could such a wreck of a man run a diocese? Thank God for Finn.

It was about a week later that he woke midmorning, feeling nauseated, dazed by the glaring white light that seemed to fill his room. He was hot, the bed linen irritated his skin, his head throbbed, and he couldn’t seem to think clearly, as though part of his brain were still not functioning. The brightness hurt his eyes, and he blinked a lot, trying to make the pain go away. He found relief when he closed his eyes, but did not sleep. A bit later, he heard a noise and opened his eyes again. There were two dark figures in his room, men in suits sitting opposite his bed. He could not see them clearly, but sensed that their presence meant danger.

He closed his eyes and tried to think. Why was he afraid? Something about the contrast of dark and light. Then a childhood memory came back to him, dreamlike yet clear and vivid. He was in a boat. He remembered the fierce heat. His eyes were almost blinded by the sun glittering angrily on the surface of the turquoise water. He looked over the side of the boat and could see dark forms down below, moving through the water like living torpedoes.

There was one other person in the boat with him, his Uncle Jeb. Why hadn’t his father come along? The bishop couldn’t remember, but he did recall some argument between them that morning in their dingy motel room. They were on their guys-only fishing trip. His father went somewhere, and, after he left, Uncle Jeb said, Come on, boy. I’ll show you how a real man goes fishing. Enough of this sissy stuff under the bridge. Can’t catch nothin’ down there but grunts and pinfish.

Uncle Jeb had rented a small boat with a black outboard motor and headed through the sound and out into the Gulf. He felt somehow disloyal to his father but was excited by the prospect of catching big fish in the deep water. They kept going away from the land, until the shoreline contracted to a narrow line of thread that seamed together earth and sky. The boat rocked and pitched in the waves, and that’s where the fear began. He wished Uncle Jeb would stop before the land disappeared for good.

Finally, his uncle cut the throttle, and it was quiet. He baited their hooks with whole mullets, letting them drift away from the boat as it was pushed by the wind. For a long while, nothing happened. Then a fish struck Jeb’s line. His uncle was a powerful, big-chested man with knotty, muscular arms. Brendan watched the muscles tighten as his uncle jerked the rod back to set the hook. The reel screamed as the line peeled off into the water. He fought the unknown monster for what seemed like fifteen or twenty minutes, and finally brought a five-foot hammerhead shark to the side of the boat. Now we’ll see some action, he said as he gaffed the exhausted shark and held it against the boat’s hull. He took a knife from his tackle box and began to stab at the creature’s soft, white belly. The bishop remembered clearly how the shark’s blood spilled like a red dye staining the water.

The violence of the attack, the sweat beading on his uncle’s torso, the feeling of fear—Brendan Donovan remembered it all. He was nine or ten that summer and had never seen such deliberate killing before. He felt a horrible revulsion as he watched his uncle’s vicious knife strokes and saw the fish’s blood dripping from his hairy forearm when he finally released the shark’s mangled body and let it drift away. Then, a few minutes later, a shark frenzy erupted. Sheee-it, boy, Jeb said. Now we’re gonna have some fun!

The murdered fish was torn into shreds, chunks ripped out of the body by larger sharks eight to ten feet long, the water seething with triangular fins cutting the surface and dark forms gliding swiftly below the boat. One rammed the stern. The boat skidded sideways, and Brendan had to grab the gunwale to keep himself from falling into the bloody broth. Jeb woke up to the danger, cranked up the motor, and headed back toward shore.

His father and Uncle Jeb had a horrible argument that night. He sat on his cot, frightened by their anger. But old Jeb only laughed. Don’t you worry, boy, more people killed by falling coconuts than sharks.

The bishop was relieved as the memory faded. He opened his eyes again, and they were not as dry as before. He was able to see the outline of the furniture in his room: the bed table, the chest of drawers, and the two chairs—now occupied—to the left of the chest. He blinked as his two visitors came into focus. One wore a blue tie and white shirt, the other a Roman collar over a black vest. The bishop felt he knew that priest, but could not recall his name. A biblical phrase came to mind, neither Principalities nor Powers… and he thought, That’s who they are, the powers. But why are they here in my room? What do they want with me?

Do not let the suits know. His thoughts were intuitive, not rational. Remembering the nurse’s words about his companions being blown to bits on that terrible day, Bishop Donovan was afraid. He wanted to ask who his visitors were, but some inner instinct told him not to speak in their presence. He pretended to be asleep.

Regaining his memory became the main goal of his life as he lay in bed, now free of the tubes that supported his life and devices that recorded his vital signs. It was like filling in the spaces of a jigsaw puzzle. The older memories came back first, then the more recent ones.

He noticed that the two suits were in his room for at least an hour every day, but not always together. Sometimes, their visits overlapped, sometimes not, but he could tell from their mumbled asides that they knew each other and were working together. Occasionally, they would ask him questions, but he always responded vaguely. What happened? No, I don’t remember. They said my name is Donovan. The nurse told me I was a bishop. He made his words halting, and spoke as little as possible, and always with careful deliberation.

Then he remembered the name of the man with the