Ordained - a novel. Part I.

The candidate

Three people were sitting in the restaurant of the Scandic Hotel in Copenhagen, Denmark. The hotel used to be a Sheraton until it had gone out of business in 1994 and been taken over by the Scandic chain.

"Do we have a candidate?" the man in the business suit asked.

The one who had spoken looked like an executive, young, smart, effective. The second person was a young woman with short black hair, dressed in jeans and unremarkable sweater. Some make-up, but not much. The third looked like a backpacking student, a wiry tall man with unkempt hair and a stubble.

"Here's what I got, Malcolm," the backpacker said, as he spread some photos on the table. His name was Jack.

"He's not bad-looking," said the girl, pulling one of the pictures toward herself.

"Focus, Noordje, focus," said Malcolm with some exasperation. "Are we wasting our time here or not?"

"Impossible to say," Jack said. He pushed over a data sheet. Dates, education, marriage details, nationality. There was a second sheet that seemed to contain a list of books with their authors and a 'date purchased' column.

"So he has a Danish passport?" asked Malcolm. "That should help."

"Are we going to contact him?" asked Noordje, as if volunteering.

"No, we are not. Not yet. This project is a slow burner, it may take years before we get somewhere. What I meant was, are we wasting our time with this one?" He tapped the photos with his right index and middle fingers held together. "Or do we need to keep looking?"

"I have been looking. This is not only the best I found. It's the only one I found," Jack said. "We wanted a Swede, ideally. Because of the Swedenborg connection. No one has come on the scanner. I looked into this Norwegian guy for some months, but he... there were clear signs he wouldn't do. Too fundamentalist, too hung-up somehow... Then I found Stephen here. And..." He searched for words, a bit embarrassed suddenly. "OK, this is gonna sound unprofessional." He paused. "I had a dream a few nights ago."

He stopped to measure the reaction from the other two. They just looked at him, listening. Across the street the oddly-shaped, cylindrical Omnimax planetarium could be seen.

"It was a white meeting room, I think in Stockholm," he continued. "This guy," pointing at the pictures, "was standing in front of a screen or maybe it was a whiteboard and he was showing me codes, reams of numbers, many numbers." He shrugged his shoulders. "That's what I got..." he finished lamely.

"I love astrology," Noordje said and laughed.

Malcolm didn't laugh. "I think you're mixing up some things there, Noordje..." he said absentmindedly. He leaned back and pondered for a moment. He had known Jack for some years. Long enough, he decided.

"Alright, let's run with it. Noordje, you are off on your other projects and on standby for this one. Jack, stay in Denmark for another week. Collect whatever further data you can. Then, put it on the back burner, and keep an eye on him. It's your project, I want updates every 2-3 months."

When they left Malcolm paid their tab with the company credit card. They didn't say goodbyes. The moment they hit the pavement in front of the hotel it was as if three strangers had coincidentally exited at the same time. Each went their own way.