SPECTRUM: The Emergence

Chapter 2 - CSIS' Operation Rainbow Connection

A glass of water was not enough to calm him down. Not quite especially when he was expected to report on the developments of the task force. It was futile. The trip to Orlando was just a waste of time, not to mention depressing how humanity can be, he thought of a word but in his desperation, "cruel to the nth level" was all he could blurt out. Everything else, the drama amidst the chaos, the hysteria, the media hype, all of it was of no use to him at this point. As far as he was concerned ideologies are both the cause and the effect of all the shit in the world. The testimonies of the survivors, the witnesses, the family of the victims, of Matel, their friends, all of them, their testimonies were not helpful at all to support the mandate of the task force he was assigned to lead. Create a countermeasure, it states. And it means just about any war on terrorism. He was looking for a reason and there was nothing there. He could not support the mandate with sentiments. He needed facts, grave ones, high extinction level event kind of facts, to make it sound worse than it is now, than it has already been. Frustrated of himself, he just had to work with nothing or pray to all the gods in the world to rain down something to him, anything, Lord, Allah, Yahweh, Sha-la-la-la-la, Zeus, he called out.

He gulped his third glass of cold water. That's what his grandmother did when he was in a panic. "Oh, sunny boy, come here. Drink this," she would say and he would waddle toward her as she, picturing it in his mind, shove the glass into his mouth and just pour it, yes, he reiterated, pour it all the way down. But right now, with the sweating, the shaking, a tank of cold water is just no help at all.

He tossed the plastic cup to the trash and tried to wipe the sweat off his temples. He checked the time. It was quarter to 3. He got some good precious fifteen minutes before he was to be roasted to death by the board. Shit and fuck, he cursed as he marched to his office, threw himself to the chair and tapped some digits into his keyboards to access his computer.

"Please, Lord, give me something." He mumbled, playing with his fountain pen. "Give me something, a word or something. Anything. Google, please!"

Suddenly, random words flashed in his mind. It came like static zapping him. He typed in: "Orlando massacre" and randomly added: "Conspiracy". "Huh," he sighed as he pressed Enter, "Never thought I'd go to that angle. Orlando massacre conspiracy," he mumbled as the search was progressing.

"Close to half a million pings, eh," he said to himself. For some reasons he adapted this method of self-talk to keep him focused. He would say it is his own personal socratic method, to dig deep into the soul, he would say. Sometimes it works; sometimes it makes him look crazy, especially when out of impulse he does that even during meetings, even when presenting a report, just the same, to keep him focused. But he needed more than focus this time, he self-talked mostly like gibberish as he read through the search results until he got to:

SHRINK SAYS PATIENT MANIFEST HORROR OF ORLANDO MILES AWAY

Conspiracy eh, he thought with a smirk on his face, and clicked it. Scanning through the article half-way, he called for his secretary over speaker phone, "Virgie, can you forward everything you can know of Dr. Manesh Viraj and," he skimmed to look for the other name, "and Victor de la Cruz, please?"

"Okidoki, sir! And meetings,"

And before she can finish it, "Yes, in 10 minutes, Virgie, so get on that information I am asking and forward it to me ASAP. Thank you!" He continued on reading. His eyes, as conspiracies can trigger, widened both of disbelief as well as of curiosity.

"Virgie," he called over speaker phone, scribbling a note, "call Davis. Tell him to postpone the presentation. I have something to check. Just tell him it was important, related to the task force and I was running and you could not catch up with me."

"What? Why?" Virgie fumbled, scratching her head, as she patched a call to Director Davis.

BRADLEY CHAN, Officer-in-Charge of Extrajudicial Concerns, stood up, loosen his tie and marched out of his office. Passing by Virgie still talking to DIRECTOR CHEKOV, he smiled and said, "Good luck!" He got in the elevator to the parking lot and checked his time: 09:58, sweet exit, he thought, now, this should be good or pray I'll be retired two decades earlier than planned. He took out the note from his pocket and called the number he scribbled.

It took only a few rings before a high-pitched voice answered, "Hello! Manesh Viraj's clinic!" It sounded that the woman from the other line stumbled hearing her curse some shits and fucks and then she continued on, "Sorry. How may I help you?"

"I am Bradley Chan. Just wanted to know if Dr. Viraj is in."

"Obviously, he is. This is also his residence. So practically he works from home. You know, that kind of set up. People nowadays..." The woman on the other end just talked on and on.

He cut in, "Am sorry," he could hear a pause and what seem to be an aghast, like a silence that seem to also sound as, "fuck off, he cut me off". But he continued on, "Who is this, please?"

"Monica, his secretary," she answered, sounding sour.

"Monica, can I set an appointment with Dr. Viraj today? Urgent."

"I'll have to call back to confirm his schedule today. So can I get yours," and then he heard Monica just swallowed what she was about to say like something got her attention and she blurted out, "Shit!" But realizing she was still on the phone she had to apologize.

And then, Bradley heard a click and then the dial tone sounded. "Shit, indeed!" He cursed as he got into his car and drove out of the headquarters. He was willing to work with what he thinks was his instincts or intuition, whatever that is, or, he sighed desperate to get some reasons to keep his job all the more after escaping the meeting, wherever it came from. He felt moved towards it, or called, he said to himself as he took a deep breath and speeded up.

Image taken from reuters.com