The Sixth Station, page 15
I reclined my seat to the full, yes, full sleeping position, which almost worked wonderfully, but then I tossed, turned, and tried to make myself comfortable enough to sleep. As I was drifting off, I remembered. The envelope!
I put the seat back up, turned on my reading light, and dug into my red bag and pulled out the faxes from Dona.
The large Best Rate Motel envelope did indeed hold five pages. And each one was so explosive, I could have been arrested as a mad bomber.
The first was a photocopy of an old clipping from the New York Post that was probably half a tabloid page in its original size, including the photo of a somber, freckle-faced girl with medium-length, medium-colored hair, wearing a dark crewneck sweater over a light shirt. It was clearly her school picture, but the child wasn’t smiling.
“Theotokos Bienheureux in happier times,” the caption read. That was her “happier times” face? The story was a shocker—for me at least.
New York Post
April 14, 1981
Honors Student Goes Missing: Cops Seek to Question Parents
By Marsha Kranes
A twelve-year-old brown-haired, freckle-faced seventh grader, Theotokos Meryemana Bienheureux, a student at the Friends Seminary Quaker school on Seventeenth Street, has been missing since Thursday.
When the girl, known affectionately by classmates as “Theo,” did not show up for school either on Friday or Monday, her teacher, Ms. Debbie Chasen, became concerned and called the child’s parents, Leah and William Bienheureux, at home.
Chasen’s concern turned to worry when messages left on the family’s answering machine were not returned. Two days ago, she tried reaching personnel at the Catari Relief Services Worldwide offices, located in Rockefeller Center, where the Bienheureux couple works.
The CRSW is a philanthropic organization that sends missionaries, teachers, emergency relief workers, and supplies to third-world countries around the globe.
Chasen told the Post, “When I still hadn’t heard back from Mr. and Mrs. Bienheureux, I called the CRSW office. Theo has never missed class. Ever. She’s a top student who has a perfect attendance record.
“I spoke to a receptionist, who said the Bienheureuxs were out of the country, but that someone would return my call,” Chasen added. “But I never heard back. I tried again and was put through to Mr. Bienheureux’s answering machine, which indicated that they were no longer working at the New York City offices and have been reassigned to Indonesia. I know that they move around a lot, and right now Indonesia is suffering through a terrible drought. We at Friends are working with relief organizations there as well. But still, the Bienheureuxs never signed Theotokos out of school.
“I’ve asked Quaker relief workers in Indonesia if there is any way they can find out more for us.”
Lt. Det. Richard Marino, of the NYPD Missing Child task force, told the Post that the bureau is investigating the strange disappearance of the girl.
“The child has not been seen for over a week. The parents, however, were going about their normal activities until three days ago, even though the messages on their answering machines had been placed probably six days earlier,” he told the Post exclusively.
“This sends up a red flag for us, because in that period of time—from the last time Theo was seen leaving Friends Seminary on Thursday until today—nothing. It’s like she disappeared off the face of the earth.”
Since her parents were French nationals, he said, the disappearance took on all sorts of international complications, if they chose to go that route.
That being said, immigration has no record of Leah, William, or Theotokos Bienheureux leaving this country. They did not, as far as we can determine, ever enter Indonesia, either.
The question then, is “Where is Theotokos Bienheureux?”
The story went on to describe the parents’ prestigious Fifth Avenue apartment building, where, it was stated, they occupied—get this—a ten-room spread.
Why would missionaries live in that kind of Wall Street hedge-fund luxury? It made no sense.
Also quoted were the comments by neighbors who spoke about the “strange” Bienheureux family, who seemed to have only late-night visitors and who often took in children from other countries for short periods of time.
The story finished with this quote from one of the building’s doormen, Frank Wilson, thirty: “Theo? She was a good kid, never in trouble, always behaving,” he said. “I thought she had come home from school that day, but I can’t be positive. But I know I never saw her after that day. That I know for positively sure. I’m scared for her. I hope she knows she can call the building if she’s in trouble. I’ll personally go get her and bring her home.”
When questioned about the parents, Wilson would only say, “I don’t know anything about them. Quiet. You have to ask my supervisor.”
I wondered if this Wilson guy was still alive—if I could find him, or better yet, if Dona or Donald could find him—he might be a source of untapped info.
I reluctantly put the faxed document down and picked up the next one.
On the top of the story—though very badly distorted by time and the old faxing method—were three headshots of young men in various religious garb.
March 27, 1982
Special to the International Herald Tribune
Blackout Blamed on Explosion of Comet
A comet, visible only in the skies over Turkey, which had unexpectedly emerged, then brightened and exploded in record time, was the cause of the blackout that affected most of Turkey and parts of Europe, it was reported by the International Astronomical Union.
Three astrophysicists who are credited with being the first to discover the astral phenomenon late last week—Professor Gaspar Bar-Cohen, director of astronomy at the Wise Observatory in Tel Aviv, Israel; Dr. Mikaeel Hussein, astrophysicist-in-residence, University of Cairo, Egypt; and Dr. Balaaditya Pawar, head of the Mount Abu Observatory, Rajasthan, India—admit that the massive size of the comet led them to believe at first that they were witnessing the emergence of a new star.
“We regret this error and apologize for having misled our colleagues with premature announcements we inadvertently passed along to the IAU,” they wrote. “The comet’s collapse resulted in its ‘coma’—a cloud of gas and dust illuminated by the sun—to grow bigger even than the planet Jupiter. Furthermore, unlike most comets, VCH1244 [self-named by the three astrophysicists] lacked the tail usually associated with such celestial bodies. This resulted in our mistakenly jumping to an inaccurate conclusion.”
As for the blackout, the Gazette Journal of the Astronomical Union explained, “Because there are sinkholes in the nucleus of VCH1244, which gives it a honeycomb-like structure, and because this comet had grown to such astounding proportions, it created a brief energy vacuum.”
In a conference call to the three scientists yesterday, the International Herald Tribune also learned, “This energy drain occurred as VCH1244 collapsed, which then exposed the comet’s ice to the sun, which in turn transformed the ice into gas,” Professor Bar-Cohen explained.
On March 23, the comet, which had been visible in the night sky over certain parts of Turkey, suddenly erupted and expanded as it lit up the skies over all of Turkey.
Added Professor Hussein,“What comets do when they pass near the sun is very unpredictable. We expected to see a ‘coma cloud’ and a tail, but this was more like an explosion, and we saw the bubble of gas and dust as it expanded away from the center of the blast.”
Experts estimated that the comet’s show and the ensuing energy drain it created would last for several weeks and perhaps as long as several months.
However, the dire predictions proved to be completely, if inexplicably, wrong. In fact, the comet self-destructed within hours of exploding, and by late last night all power had been restored throughout Turkey and the affected areas of Europe.
Dr. Pawar concluded, “This was a once-in-a-lifetime event to witness, similar, I expect, to what observers must have experienced in the night sky during the birth of Christ.”
I was astounded that a far-fetched explanation, the ridiculous story, and its accompanying apology—by three astrophysicists who actually said that they mistook a comet for a star—was published without question. And that was back in the day when investigative reporters actually were allowed the time to investigate a story.
But even more interesting than the cock-and-bull that those three distinguished star-men had carefully scripted for whatever reason, was Pawar’s one unguarded comment. You could almost feel his companions kicking him under the table.
He had actually compared the star or comet or whatever the heck it was to the Star of Bethlehem at the time of the birth of Jesus.
Why? And why would they embarrass themselves by admitting that they’d been so stupid as to not know the difference between a star and a comet?
Fear? Intimidation? All of the above?
I hoped to God (or whomever) that those astrophysicists were still alive and that I could find them. The story didn’t give their ages, so they could be sixty, ninety, or dead and buried.
A sidebar to the piece, which I almost didn’t read because I thought it was unrelated, actually detailed some of the reactions—and predictions—to the comet’s appearance. In addition to all the Regular Joe “loonies” who predicted it presaged the Second Coming were these bulleted items:
• Canadian prophet Doug Clark called the comet a “star” and said that it signaled that Jesus was to return and lure Christians away from the Tribulation by April 1982. His basis was something called “The Jupiter Effect,” a theory put forth in a best-selling book by John Gribbin and Stephen Plagemann. The book claimed that on March 10, 1982, an alignment of the planets was supposed to trigger earthquakes and fires that would kill millions.
• On March 22, psychic Benjamin Torre took an ad in the Los Angeles Times proclaiming, “The Christ is now here.”
• Rev. Pat Robertson took to the airways to declare on his 700 Club TV show, “I guarantee you by the end of 1982 there is going to be a judgment on the world.”
My first thought was: freaky, rapture-obsessed loonies. My second thought was even crazier: These freaky, rapture-obsessed loonies were all only off by a few decades!
I started thinking, and couldn’t stop, and turned on the screen on the pop-out computer terminal attached to the seat. No log-in was required for searching, and I keyed in “disasters of the new millennium.”
Christ!—no pun intended. It reads like the end of the world, for real!
There are too many to cite here, but it was the new millennium that had kick-started the chain of natural and unnatural disasters, right off the bat with devastating floods in 2000 in Southeastern Africa, which killed nearly 1,000 people. This was followed in 2001 by the World Trade Center attack, which in turn triggered the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, followed by constant war and unrest around the world—particularly in the Mideast—which have killed millions.
On Boxing Day 2004, there was the giant tsunami along the coasts of landmasses bordering the Indian Ocean, killing something like 230,000 people in I-don’t-know-how-many countries and destroying thousands of acres of land.
In 2005 there was Hurricane Katrina, which killed nearly 2,000, displaced millions, and ruined forever thousands of acres of land in the South.
In 2010–2011, the devastating floods in Australia, the 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and subsequent nuclear plant disaster in Japan …
As the info was flowing, it all started blurring together in my tired brain: earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, plagues, pestilence, floods, forest and city fires, which had killed millions. No country was immune.
In fact, world-changing disasters had become so common that we had begun, I realized, to lose our collective memory about what “normal” was supposed to be.
Tabloids hardly even put giant disasters on the front pages anymore, unless they killed at least 500.
Maybe we do need a Second Coming. Shut up; you sound like a moron!
That was the last thought I had before I nearly jumped out of my seat when the cabin lights came on and the flight attendants started passing out hot towels, as dawn was beginning to break.
18
Yes, for the first time in recent memory I had actually fallen dead asleep on an overseas flight. My mouth was hanging open, and I could feel drool down the side of my chin. The Best Rate Motel folder was on the seat next to me, but all the news clippings were scattered under the footrest on the floor.
I felt like those people that you pray are never seated next to you on a flight, let alone an overnighter. I opened the shade and could see that the sun was starting to rise and the sky was turning orange.
The captain informed us that it was currently 6:00 A.M. local time and that it was a glorious day in Paris. That announcement would have gladdened my heart and excited my senses at any other time in my life. Now, it just gave me anxiety.
I made my way to the lavatory and used everything in the bag of goodies they still offered in the expensive seats: mini sizes of toothpaste, hand sanitizer, a tiny oxygen spray, and a comb that no one who wasn’t sporting a St. Anthony haircut could possibly get through their hair.
We landed on time, and as I figured, I had to shuttle it to another terminal, but thank God Turkey had just entered the EU finally, and I didn’t have to go through French customs, just passport control, which was a breeze.
I actually made the next flight, although it required begging my way through security so that I arrived just as they were closing down the gate and taking the last passengers aboard. I was able to board quickly after a brief check of my passport and e-ticket by the gate agents.
Same business-class deal for the three-and-a-half-hour flight—more coffee and a basket of croissants, which I planned not to eat, but did.
No one will ever recognize me after these last two days: I must have gained forty pounds!
The hours spent flying gave me a false sense of security—as though I were just that same old reporter being sent somewhere terrific to cover something horrific. But no news organization had my back any longer. In fact, no one had my back any longer.
Not true. Dona and Donald …
I read and then re-read all the news clippings in the envelope. Two were follow-ups on the missing child, Theo Bienheureux.
One detailed the police investigation, in which an elderly neighbor who’d been walking her two Yorkies at dawn on the Saturday in question swore that she saw a sleepy child with a blanket around her being taken into a car, along with a man, a woman, and a priest!
She said the priest even tipped his fedora hat to her. It looked a little odd, but since the chauffeur carried and then loaded several suitcases into the car, she assumed it was just another nouveau riche family off to meet their private plane to take them somewhere “fabulously sacred,” the woman acidly stated. Her disgusted sniff practically jumped off the page.
The dawn episode, I knew, was a good cover, but it seemed like really bad news for the child.
Someone—and it sounded like the trio that Wright-Lewis had described to me—had abducted the girl from her apartment. But what about her damned parents?
The next clip was supposed to have explained it all:
People Magazine
April 27, 1981
Exclusive
“Missing” Theo Isn’t Missing After All!
By Harry Francescani
Little Theotokos Bienheureux, who had been reported missing by her teacher at the prestigious Friends Seminary school in NYC, has been found alive and well, and as it turns out, was not missing at all!
The twelve-year-old, who hasn’t been seen since she disappeared from school in March, had simply moved to a remote region of the Amazon with her parents, Leah and William Bienheureux, who are missionaries with the Catari Relief Services Worldwide.
According to Leah, thirty-five, in a letter to People magazine, which was forwarded to our offices from the CRSW Brazilian office:
“We wish to thank all our New York friends and neighbors for their concern about the whereabouts of our beloved daughter, Theo, who is safe and sound with us in our new missionary post.
“Our organization, you see, was the first to be informed by the Brazilian government last month that two lost tribes consisting of just twenty and twelve people, respectively, had been discovered deep in the Amazon rain forest by two engineers working on a dam project in the area.
“The Brazilian relief organization Indigenous Peoples Relief and Rescue contacted our group, the CRSW, who then negotiated with the Brazilian government to secure for these indigenous peoples a protected area consisting of twenty square miles, deep within the Amazon.
“Our hope is that they can form a new clan together and begin to rebuild their families.
“As you can see from the attached photos, Theotokos is thriving in our new jungle home. Although she is only twelve, she is the official ‘teacher’ of the group and is working with the five children who are clan members.
“We have much work to do and we will remain here as long as needed. When Theo comes of college age, she can choose to attend a university or remain here doing what we think of as ‘God’s work.’”
The rest of the article was an apology from the mother, who said both she and her husband were distressed that they had caused concern, but because they were (supposedly) not American-born, they therefore didn’t understand our customs.
Like pulling a kid out of school without formal paperwork or even an explanation? Right. They knew how to enroll her in school, but they didn’t know how to terminate that enrollment.
The story was accompanied by grainy photos of the family in their new home, which looked like a bunch of thatched-roof, open-sided huts amidst giant vegetation. The child in the pictures looked like Theo Bienheureux, but black-and-white photos of a twelve-year-old with her hair all frizzy from the Amazon air and wearing native dress could make any differences between the real deal and an imposter hard to decipher. And since the story had been reduced to fit the 8½ × 11-inch fax paper, the photos were very small.
