The Cyclic Cross

“I was not born in Hendaye exactly.”

Gabriel was watching the huge body of the hovercraft skipping over the surface of the English channel as he had turned to face Amanoyama.

“Oh, I was sure you had said Hendaye, Gaburieru san.”

Amanoyama looked perplexed. He had mentioned the name of this French town, the last South Western one before Spain, to Mary as well as to the others. This was why Mary had suggested going to Gabriel’s birthplace.

“Hendaye is now world famous among occultists for its cross. I wrote about it extensively in one of my books. Since I am Basque by blood and it is so well known I thought it would be easier for people to place me. I was actually born just across the border in a small town called Irun.”

This now made total sense of course. When Gabriel was born there had been no European Union and thus Spain and France were totally separated by the border. Gabriel was just barely Spanish geographically speaking. But he was most definitely a Basque. They had a strong sense of uniqueness among the Europeans and had produced many outstanding figures throughout history. Like Gabriel, most had emigrated. Now the Basque nationalists were getting a lot of press for their political activity.

“I know a little about the Basque story from my husband.”

Mary was sitting with Masami across from the three men on one of the large, comfortable chairs on this ‘flight’ from Dover. The minibus they had rented fitted with another 200 vehicles inside its enormous hull comfortably.

“Aren’t they terrorists or something like that?’ Offered Nijitora sarcastically.

Mary returned him a wistful smile. Freedom fighters on the side of a minority are usually labeled terrorists by the government they want to be relieved of. She knew this very well, working as she did for one of he largest terrorist groups on the planet-the USK governments.

Britain and America had long since ceased to actually function separately as governments. Some extremists would still say that the war of independence in America had been won not by Washington and his men, but by the crown. The money was always going to be in London, no matter which bank it was withdrawn from. President Bash himself had been a direct blood relative of a British King. But that was not her concern at this point. Hendaye was.

“In fact this little town connects us all in strange and wonderful ways.”

She gave them all a look of feigned amazement as she continued,

“My husband was a Jesuit and so were you Gabriel. The Jesuits opened up Japan to the West in the 16th century when the people were ruled by bloodthirsty shoguns.”

Then, looking directly at Gabriel first she asked,

“So who was the man who created the first Christians in Japan, and where was he from?”

“Is this a quiz Mary? Of course it was Francisco Xavier, born near Pamplona in the Basque area not too far from my town.”

“And who founded the Jesuits?”

For the benefit of the three Japanese Gabriel shared what they were saying and replied to Mary that of course it was another Basque born man, Ignatius Loyola who had founded the Society of Jesus, later known worldwide as the Jesuits.

Turning to Nijitora in particular Gabriel added,

“They were so successful at converting foreigners under very difficult conditions that became known as ‘God’s marines’.”

“That’s cool Gaburieru san. We will need a few more marines around here if your 2012 theories are right. And in your case, it looks like the Japanese converted the marines to me so what does that make us?”

He had a mischievous look in his eyes. Gabriel knew exactly what Nijitora was getting at.

“I guess that makes you Mr. ‘samurai persuasion’ Nijitora san.”

Amanoyama and Nijitora burst into laughter at this inside joke. The two women looked at each other and sighed as if to say that men were hopeless in any generation when it comes to matters of religion or politics. The fact was that Japan’s conversion record was dismal compared to other Asian countries like the Philippines for example. When a warrior culture actually makes death an ideal, like in Japan, it is ferociously difficult to scare them into conversion with stories of hell and damnation.

“There’s Calais. We’ll ‘land’ in France soon.”

Gabriel motioned to the group with his head.

The huge, billowing skirt of the Hovercraft was soon deflated to sea level and they drove off the ramp. They would be in Hendaye by nightfall.

“Oh, one other thing that Hendaye connects us all to that I forgot to mention. 2012!”
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The Circle of the Sun

Nijitora was an amazingly skillful driver. He had told Gabriel that he was doing enough work already interpreting all day long and would be needed in the back of the minibus to communicate between Mary and the others. Since Nijitora was not a big fan of talking for talking’s sake, he had hooked up his ipod. He was easily following the highway signs in French as he grooved to hip hop. His favourite was gangster rap though. It figured.

Gabriel was once again pleasantly surprised by this man. He could see that Nijitora was pouring liquor from the small bottles he had picked up on the Hovercraft and it never seemed to make any difference to his abilities. In fact it was on that day that he decided to nickname Nijitora ‘the booze alien’. It was, he imagined, a new species of extraterrestrial that used alcohol as its main fuel on Earth. Gabriel would later find out that his joke was not that wide off the mark.

Mary was quite remarkable herself. There she was suddenly on her way to a small Pyrenean foothills town after a snap decision in Cornwall. She was seventy years old, yet had the energy of a much younger woman. Her mind was as sharp as a razor and unbeknownst to everybody else, her Japanese ability had been known as ‘legendary’ during her time at the Royal Institute. She had the brilliant talent of playing dumb when she needed to. Yet under all her giggles and smiles there was an incredibly tough individual. All of her training with the USK ‘psychic task force’ had begun as a direct result of the ‘Russian transmissions’ as they had become known.

One item of information she had not mentioned to the group yet concerned the source of the light that the Russians had encountered. Basically they had been on the verge of death in Northern Siberia when the light began to appear in the utter blackness of the salt mine. Guards made sure that every day after they had received their meager rations there were no sources of light available to them. Light deprivation was part of their sentence. Darkness has a way of sapping a man’s strength.

She realized now that Gabriel needed to know more and that by the same measure the Japanese did not. There would be no point in confusing them with concepts that belonged squarely in the tradition of the West. She decided to give her notebook to Gabriel to read that night. It would help him greatly in deciding where to place his final alliances.

“What do you both know about Hendaye if I may ask?” Gabriel translated for Mary.

Amanoyama looked at Masami and she back at him as though they were not sure who would tell the answer.

“In a word Mary san, since we did not read Gaburieru san’s book on it, nothing.”

He was lying.

“Perfect!” Replied Ann

“That is always the best place to start when you have to understand something that is almost impossible to accept.”

“Impossible?” Masami looked bewildered. Her dyed hair had been ruffled by the trip.

“Tomorrow we will let Gabriel tell you the whole story. I already know. So if you don’t mind I will sleep in and catch up with my knitting so to speak.”

“Of course Mary san. You must be tired from all this traveling. We will meet you in the afternoon after our tour of the village with Gaburieru san.”

“Not the village, Masami. Just the village square. All you need to see here in Hendaye is in that square. It is only three blocks from our hotel.”

Pointing across the road they were now driving along Mary pronounced the name of their reserved accommodation.

“Le Cercle Du Sol- that means the Circle of the Sun. A bit like the ‘cycles of the Sun’ isn’t it?”

Mary was already preparing the Japanese ‘guests’ for the alchemical version of the apocalypse. But the Japanese were born into a solar culture and had their own prophecies. She would be finding out about the Sun Moon prophecy in due time.

“And now for some of that French Armagnac!”

Nijitora clapped his hands as he locked up their vehicle and followed Gabriel’s lead in to their ‘Sun’ hotel. The synchronicity of this particular hotel having been chosen was not lost on the yakuza. After all, Japan was a Sun worshiping culture and the Emperor himself was the ‘Sun God’ on Earth.

Mary had been wrong to think that mentioning the source of the Russian light would confuse the Japanese. They had always thought of the Jesus myth as being an allegory of the Sun God tradition. Father Sun had a representative on Earth after all…
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