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home-made halva, wrapped in oil-soaked paper.

"There are still a few people joining, but things have slowed down," said Vaishnu. "We came here to meet one of our newest members."

Chaim frowned. "Now? Today? With me here? I really shouldn't..." he began.

"This one is different," Vaishnu said, holding his hand up. "You know him."

Ben grinned widely, exposing his missing teeth. At the last moment, Chaim realised that Ben was not grinning at him, but at someone approaching from behind. He turned in his seat to see Geoffrey Baum creeping up on him.

"Geoffrey! What're you doing here?" Chaim asked.

"I'm part of the team now," Baum replied.

"So you're staying here at the hotel?"

"Oh no, not here," Geoffrey said. "I'm an interloper, same as you. No, I'm staying with a group of believers out in Chankyapuri. The BBC pays me enough to stay at the Oberoi, but it keeps Vaishnu in lungis if I give the money to him instead."

"You'll be pleased to know that he doesn't waste it on autos," Chaim remarked.

Vaishnu chipped in. "We are thinking he will be most help if he stays with the BBC... for now. They give him much freedom."

"They liked the report I sent from Australia," said Baum. So I asked for, and received, permission to spend a whole year living with the Twelve Tribes as a member. Research, you know." And he winked.

"They don't know he really is a member," Ben added.

"Well, what can I say!" exclaimed Chaim. "Welcome, Geoffrey. Welcome to the family."

Vaishnu tendered the water bottle, and Geoffrey tilted his head back, Indian-style, so he could squirt water into his mouth without his lips touching the bottle.

"Thanks for that," he said. And then he turned to Chaim.

"I've been travelling all over the world, Chaim, documenting this movement. It's early days yet, but here in India, things seem to be progressing well ahead of everywhere else. That's why my focus is here. I think it's going to be huge when the media wakes up to it.

"I don't think anyone else grasps the importance or the extent of the movement outside of India."

"That reminds me," Chaim said, addressing his thoughts to Vaishnu, "Could you put together something that summarises what you've learned so far, so we can send it out to the other tribes? Practical stuff, including any mistakes you've made, so they won't be so likely to repeat them?"

"I am not a writer," said Vaishnu; and then he paused. Slowly, he and the others turned their heads toward Baum.

"Me?" he said. "Yeah. Sure, I could do it ... if Vaishnu can instruct me."

Just then Chaim's mobile rang. The call was from Tokyo. It must have been quite late over there.

"Hello?

"Bobbi! What's the problem?

"She has? When?"

"Do you have someone with you there?

"Nancy? You mean, the one you met at the Embassy? Yeah, I remember you telling me about her. Good. Just stay together. You may need to change pincodes, locks, that sort of thing... just to be safe, you know.

"Move? Well, not immediately, but do think about it.

"What are the chances she'll change her mind and come back?

"Yeah, she seemed pretty set when I was there.

"Okay, I'll send you an email tomorrow, and you do the same for me, okay? God bless you, Bobbi! Give Nancy my love."

"Problems in Tokyo," Chaim said to the others when he was finished. "Seems Sheree has left."

Talk shifted to reports on how things were going in India, but Chaim was distracted with worries about Sheree. His first instinct had been the security of others in the movement. How could he be so hard, when Sheree herself was in danger, and when she meant so much to him? But then he had the welfare of everyone to consider.

"The people do not understand why we leaders are so secret," said Vaishnu. "But the first members here, those who returned after our problems with Krishnamurthy, they can see. They teach the others.

"Even now, they could be watching us," added Vaishnu. "The media has been helping us get the message out; but politicians... they read papers too."

"Don't become paranoid on me," Chaim joked. "They're not as smart as the movies make them out to be. But we do need to plan ahead, develop good habits now, for when the trouble starts."

* * *

"Shall we duck down to the gym for a workout and a swim before we go?" asked Geoffrey, when they had just about finished their business.

"Let's not push our luck," Chaim said with a smile.

"Only joking," said Baum as they all rose to face the heat out on the street... and a night without air conditioning in a crowded flat.

 

(Table of Contents)

 

 

Sheree Returns

Chapter Twenty-Five--Sheree Returns

Apart from two more calls from Bobbi, the visit in Delhi finished up without incident. Vaishnu was the most experienced of all the judges, and that included experience in resisting the temptations that come with power. He listened well to Ben's advice, and co-operated with Chaim in any way that he could.

The problem with Sheree, however, weighed heavily on Chaim's mind, both then, and after he returned to Sydney. Bobbi called to say that Sheree had been contacting members in Japan and Korea, in an effort to get them to leave the movement and follow her.

"Bobbi, if this movement is really of God," promised Chaim, "then he'll make it clear to each person what they should do."

"But if Sheree could lose the plot, others can too," Bobbi reminded him.

"That's true," agreed Chaim. "But it doesn't mean that anything is out of control. When we get off the phone I want you to read this verse: Daniel 11:35. Have you got that?"

The verse appeared in the midst of a prophecy about the last days, which said:

The people who do know their God will be strong, and will do exploits... but some of them of understanding will fall, to try them and to purge, and to make them white.

Bobbi reported that in the few days between Chaim's departure from Tokyo and Sheree's departure from her, there had been little problem getting believers in Tokyo to accept the possibility that what they were doing was a fulfillment of something predicted in the Christian Bible. In fact, that was what seemed to anger Sheree most. People were not siding with her against Chaim and Rayford. Some had been looking for a Buddhist messiah, called Maitreya, but they had little difficulty relating that to the Christian message. What a shame that Sheree had not been able to do the same.

"She kept talking about listening," Bobbi said, "but she wasn't doing it. She thought we had fallen away from our ideals, but she was the one who had lost it."

The movement had grown in such a way that even the judges did not have direct access to many believers, apart from those to whom they had been personally led from the start. Because of this, Sheree had only been able to contact a limited number of leaders in Asia, and over the next few weeks it did not seem that any of them had been convinced by her. In the meantime, leaders in Tokyo and Korea were quickly setting up new locations, where Sheree would not be able to find them.

Meanwhile, back in Australia, Chaim was making some changes of his own. Things were going smoothly with the Quakers, as long as no one tried to swing the organisation over to Chaim's point of view. Half a dozen Friends had become part of the Twelve Tribes movement, while others supported them in principle. The Society as a whole seemed to be thriving, more as a result of worldwide interest in religious unity than as a result of the spiritual renewal that grew out of Chaim's former local meeting in Newcastle.

Chaim gradually laid down whatever commitments he had in the Society, and he changed his address again, without informing others of where he was living. He still attended meetings, but maintained a distance from individual members, most of whom seemed happy to have it that way.

It went like this for more than a year, with no major upsets anywhere in the movement. Even in Tokyo, Bobbi and her new assistant, Nancy Irakawa, were moving ahead with teaching programs for the thousands who depended on them for guidance. Sheree appeared to have given up.

Then, one night in early December, Chaim returned to his room near Strathfield Railway Station, in Western Sydney, after an evening at the library. Like others in the movement, he had been learning to "live poor" as Charmane put it. His new home was an unlocked side room in a deserted house. Chaim was squatting there. There was no electricity, so each day he would take his laptop computer with him to public buildings around the city, where he could communicate with the various tribes in Australasia, and with Rayford, in London. Sometimes he would simply use library computers, but at other times he would get on the Internet through unsecured WI-FI hot-spots.

The library had been open until nine that night, and Chaim had stopped off at a bakery on the way home, where he had been able to pick up free bread and cakes that were discarded at the end of the day.

He sensed something strange the moment he pushed the door open and set down his bags on the floor. He stood there in the dark for a few seconds, trying to figure out what it was.

"Hi Chaim," he heard, coming from the far right corner of the room. It was Sheree.

"Sheree!" he said excitedly. "How did you find me?"

"The voices," she answered. "Remember? It's what we do."

Could she have returned to her senses? he thought. She must have had some kind of spiritual guidance to have located him here.

"Hang on while I get a match and light a candle," he said, fumbling in his pocket and turning to a shelf on his left.

"Sure," said Sheree. "I want you to know that I've been missing you terribly, Chaim. I'm sorry that I hurt you."

"Oh, don't think anything of it," Chaim answered. "It's just good to have you back. Tell me what you've been doing."

He had been lighting the candle with his back to her, and he turned around to put it on the table, which was between them in the crowded room. In the dim light he could see that she had lost a lot of weight. She was dressed in a light blue summer pantsuit that included a halter top that gave maximum display to her ample bosom. She was tastefully made up as well, something that had never been typical of Sheree.

She stood up from the chair in the corner and walked around the foot of Chaim's bed to approach him, reaching out to give him a hug.

When Chaim stood to return the hug, Sheree broke into tears, holding him close as she wept. Chaim did not know what to do or say, so he just let her cry for a few moments.

"I need you," she said, when she was able to talk. "I need you so badly."

Was she saying what he thought she was saying?

"You do love me, don't you Chaim?" she asked, still holding him close.

"Sheree, yes, I do love you, of course," Chaim said, at the same time that he set about untangling himself from her arms.

"I've lost weight," she said. "Do you think it makes a difference?" She stepped back to display her body.

"Yeah, sure, of course. You look great. But you've got to understand..."

"I've seen it in your eyes," she said. "We had something special, didn't we?"

"Yes... and no," Chaim answered. "If I could have ever been interested in a woman, you may have been the one. But things are different now, and honestly, Sheree, I'm not even sure if I'm straight." He smiled as he said it, and Sheree broke out in a loud laugh in response.

"There's only one way to find out," she said, and she reached up to undo the strings tied behind her neck.

"No, it's more than that, Sheree," he said. "It would be wrong. I don't want this. There are other things that we need to discuss."

"You mean about what happened in Tokyo?" she asked. "Maybe I just wasn't cut out for the job. Believe me, Chaim, I'm much happier now. I just