Chapter 10 – Making a Stand

So, over the next couple of weeks we researched our friend Melehan. We found out where his town house and his country house were located. We discovered that he had a wife and family and further research showed that it was a productive, if not a happy, marriage.

I also tried to research his family tree and what I found made me shudder. One side of his family had been active in the I.R.A. and another had been a pal of Moseley and a staunch Brownshirt. Going back further I found names that all seemed to have been involved in the badder side of politics. I did find that he had taken the name Melehan when he was in his teens after reading about the Arthur legend and subsequent events. Prior to that, the family name had been Moyahan, no doubt a change made centuries ago to detach the family from their Melehan past. Looking at video of him I could feel that he was descended from Mordred, he had the same way about him. It was like looking at my own son. That made me think; Morgan was probably his great grandmother by about sixty times. That made Arthur his great grandfather by the same number – what on earth had we let loose on the world through our love.

About ten days in, we got a letter from Gwen. I had to smile at the idea of us working with older methods of communication. She told us that they had got back to London and had managed to contact Sir Lionel by leaving a note for him at Whitehall. They told him not to use his car and to leave his phone in his office and to meet them at a café on the other side of the river. She said that he had done as they asked and that she was pretty sure he had not been followed. They had a serious meeting with him and had brought him up to speed on the seriousness of the situation. She said that he was shocked when he was told that he had been tracked for five years but he promised to get all their cars looked at by an outside garage, preferably one used by the police. We had deduced that the trackers had been put in while the cars were being serviced in the government garage so taking them there would only end up with another tracker put further out of sight. He would have been even more shocked if she had told him the details of our Bodmin encounter. I wrote back, telling her to keep low and to make sure they would be able to move around. I said to watch out for odd things happening around Melehan.

The guys from the school had organised a one month course for Merilyn, live in at a college for special pupils. At the end of the month she would be assessed again and also would be turning five. Her being away would leave me free to do the little chores I had set myself. One was to go to the country house with the Volvo and to mess with his systems; another to go into London on the train and mess with his life. Merilyn was not happy at letting me loose on Melehan but conceded that she would be a burden and I would have an easier time without her. I promised that she would be there for the finale if we could get to that.

Once she was away I looked up the country house on Google maps and saw that it was near a village and that there was a hill close by as well as a walking track. I got myself rigged out in hiking gear, backpack, boots; the lot. I drove to the village and parked the car outside the pub. I walked the hiking path but veered off to take me past his house. I knew he wouldn’t be home as the House was sitting. When I got to the gate a tough looking guy came out and asked “Are you lost, madam?” I said “I think so; I seem to have mislaid the hiking path.” He told me which way I should go and wished me good day. All that would have been all right except for the beam of a laser sight that ended with a spot on my chest. My eyes followed the beam and I could just see where the sniper was situated in an upper window. I thanked the guard and, as we both turned from each other, I sent a small ball of energy up the laser beam. I was out of his sight line in seconds but it didn’t matter any longer, the beam was out.

As the guard went into his little shelter I put another pulse of energy into the telephone line. That would fry his communications with the house. I walked quickly until I found the hill that overlooked the house and the village. I pulled out some binoculars and looked at the house. There was an array on the roof with a satellite dish and microwave transmitter aerials. I also scanned the village and picked out the mobile phone tower that covered the local area. I had only intended to do a little damage but having a sniper ready and willing to shoot me was the one thing that tipped me towards something more.

Being in sunshine it would be difficult to see my energy balls. The first I made appeared over the mobile phone tower and dropped straight down onto it, taking out all mobile services for miles around. The second, much larger ball, I manifested over the house and dropped it on their dish and aerials. I was gratified when an upper window blew out; very likely his office with all of his own communications equipment. I waited until I could see smoke coming out of several windows before carrying on to continue my walk back into the village and making my way to the car. I put my pack in the car and then went inside the pub for a drink and a meal. I was there when the fire engines raced past with the sirens and lights; no phones would have given the fire plenty of time to take hold.

I had quite a nice evening in the pub, being chatted up by a couple of locals and joining in when they started the quiz night to make up numbers in a team. I was almost part of the community when I left to go home. It had been a very satisfactory day. I was not totally happy at killing the sniper but he would have shot me had I made a move towards the guard. The story took up a bit of the morning news. It was surmised that a freak summer lightning strike had taken out the phone tower and the house. A policeman showed the cameras a radio set taken from the office and said that it would have taken several thousand volts to have caused that much damage. The house had burned to the ground and Melehan was quoted as being extremely upset that his collection of medieval artefacts and weapons had been totally lost. He didn’t say that he was happy his wife and children had made it out until he was asked that direct question.

I left him alone for a few days and then went into Exeter to take the train to London. I had a bag with enough for a week. When I got there I checked into a hotel and asked about all of the tourist sites and was given a bunch of brochures. I had now found that I could manifest the ball of power at the place I wanted it to be so did not have to be in line-of-sight when I created one. I walked around Whitehall until I could locate all of the local mobile towers and, most important, where the main transformer was that catered for the House. Of course, they would have back-up generators but the problems caused by losing the mains input would be significant.

I was on the other side of the river when I manifested a large ball of energy inside the main transformer of Parliament. It was quite spectacular as far as the fireworks went. There was quite a crowd of us as the fire engines and police arrived, several of the crowd cheering whenever there was a subsequent bang from inside the building. My next stop was Whitehall where I was a block away when I did the same thing to their main power input. Once again a crowd gathered and once again there were cheers as the firemen tried to put out various blazes. I was on a river ferry heading for the Tower Bridge when I put small balls of energy into every mobile tower I had located. What made me laugh was when more than three quarters of the passengers started complaining that they had lost their connection. Spend thousands to come and look at the sights and all you do is look at your phone? Not my idea of a holiday.

The last thing on my list was his town house. Two days later I was walking along the road when he came out and got into a waiting car. He had no servants so I waited until he was well away and then manifested a large ball of energy in the house, then turning and walking away with a map to my face as if I was lost. The newspaper on the next day was still full of follow-up stories about the damage to the House and Whitehall but there was also a significant article about the blaze that destroyed Melehans’ town house. I was not happy that a body of a woman had been found in one of the rooms. His wife had been spoken to and obviously had some idea who the woman was as she said that it was the last straw; she was going home to her mother and taking the children with her. I think I had messed with his life enough for the moment so spent the last couple of days in the British Museum, looking at artefacts from the fifth and sixth century.

Of course, the upshot of all this made him angry and there started to be reports of marches of AA followers, each getting more violent than the last. As the days passed a sort of method emerged, as well as a few names being repeated; one name that was prominent was a chap called Jack Spriggs and the marches were organised through social media with just one day notice. This meant that the bulk of the marchers were already primed and just needed the time and place given to them. I thought that it may be time to start talking to the monkeys; it may prod the organ grinder into making rash movements.

I found out all I could about our friend Jack. He lived out Bicester way and, a couple of days later I strolled into the pub where he was having his lunch-time drink with a few of his mates. I took my time to check out the room; Jack sat with four other skinheads in a secluded alcove, he was on a chair while the others sat on a semi-circular bench. It was a perfect situation as anything that happened was partially hidden from the rest of the drinkers. I expected that it was already the custom of the regulars to ignore him and his crowd. I walked up behind him, slightly levitating his friends as I went. “Hello, Mister Spriggs, I would like a word, in private” I said.

He turned and took a look at me, saying “There is only one thing I would like to do with you in private, sweetheart, and chatting is not part of that.” I smiled and said “What would your darling wife say about that, or maybe you have done the dirty on her before?” He scowled and said “Never mind that, I don’t have secrets from my mates; say what you came here to say.” I looked into his eyes and I said “What had Melehan promised you, Jack? Is it a place in his cabinet, a plum job; or is he just paying you well? You do have a fancy car for someone who is out of work.”

Anger flared in his eyes and one of his ‘mates’ said “Hey, Jack! You didn’t tell us we were doing this for that nutter Melehan!” Another one said “Yeah, we like to fight but he is something else again. He is after control of the country, as far as I can see. That is either being in charge and hated or else being at the end of a rope and hated.” Jack snarled “Bitch! How do you know about Melehan?” I laughed and said “I know a lot of things, Jack, and one thing that I do know is that you guys are in over your heads on this one. Melehan is not a man who will share anything and he would never share power. By the way, did you gentlemen read about the troubles that have befallen him? I think the papers were full of it.”

Marianne G © 2021