PROLOGUE

1989 - Honolulu Hawaii

     A sharp sound woke Pam Jarvis from a deep sleep. The moon reflecting off the tranquil Pacific cast a glow through the open balcony doors. Shadows cast by palms swaying in the trade winds did a mystical dance on the bedroom walls.

     She was groggy with sleep when she heard it again. Now it sounded like a scream.

     Pam was exhausted after a day of fishing with her mother aboard her fathers' yacht. It was a sport that both mother and daughter loved and they kept the yachts crew busy in her father's absence.

     Bernie Jarvis was a wealthy industrialist whose business interests kept him away from his Honolulu home much of the time. It was a situation that secretly gave the daughter great comfort. Pam, sixteen years old and of striking beauty loved her mother dearly but cared little for her cold harsh father. 

     Another scream and this time a chill shot through her body when she realized the scream came from her mother. She reached for the lamp on her bedside table, missed and knocked it to the floor. Ignoring the lamp she jumped from her bed and bounded down the circular stairway to the marble foyer below. She stopped in the foyer when she heard her father in the library cursing, and her mother sobbing hysterically. A crash and her mother screamed again. Pam ran to two large walnut sliding doors that closed off the library from the foyer and slid them open. Her mother saw Pam and tried to use her hands to hide her bloody face.

     "Mama" Pam screamed and ran into the room. Her father turned to Pam, grabbed her arm, slung her back into the foyer and slammed the doors together.  

     Pam smelled alcohol on his breath. He drank heavily and became brutal in an alcoholic rage. The young girl stood in the foyer, frightened and shaking. Her mother screamed again and again until her screams became muffled.

     Pam was terrified of her father but now rage at her mother's brutalization nullified that fear. She grabbed the door handles and slid them open. Her father had his hands around her mother's throat. His face was distorted in an evil sneer. The muscles in his arms were tight from the squeeze his powerful hands applied to his wife's neck.

     A ladder-back chair sat behind a small desk in the corner of the room. The frightened girl picked up the chair, turned to her father and brought it down across his back. He turned; looked at her and slammed his left arm into her side. The powerful blow knocked her down and across the polished hardwood floor. She crashed into a built-in bookcase where she laid Stunned for several seconds before being able to grab the shelves and get up.

     Pam was horrified. Her mother's face was blue and she no longer resisting her father. He still had his hands around her neck when Pam raced across the floor and jumped on his back scratching at his face and eyes. Jarvis then released his wife and let her now dead body crumple to the floor. His rage turned to insanity. Jarvis grabbed his daughter, tore off her gown and threw her to the floor. He unfastened his belt and shoved down his trousers and underwear. Then Bernard Jarvis, international industrialist, billionaire, confidant to presidents, preformed the most heinous and despicable act known to man before he raced from the house and fled Hawaii.

    Pam was hysterical. She felt like her arms and legs were paralyzed. Clawing at the floor she tried to get to her mother but her efforts seemed to be in slow motion. She reached her side and wrapped her arms around her mother's lifeless body.

    Now in shock, the screaming and loss of oxygen took their toll and she fainted. She came to in the arms of their housekeeper, Cora Kenna, who cried softly as she rocked Pam. Cora, had wrapped a robe around Pam and her long golden light brown hair was matted with her mother's blood.

     Pam saw men in the room that she didn't recognize, men who looked stern and unfriendly. Men who Cora seemed to be afraid of, men like her father. One of the men came to Cora and spoke in her ear as he pointed upstairs. Cora then helped Pam up and to her upstairs bedroom. She locked the bedroom door, took Pam to the bathroom, ran her shower and helped her in. Then she very gently helped her wash her private area. Pam noticed blood on the white wash cloth which was not unusual since she had been having her period for almost three years, but that wasn't due for over a week and she did hurt there. Cora was being very gentle with her as she finished her bath by shampooing her hair.

     Pam felt like she was floating, everything seemed surreal; even Cora's quiet voice seemed far away. Cora put her to bed then sat in a chair beside the bed and held Pam's hand until she drifted off to sleep; it was something Cora would do every night for many months to come. 

Chapter 1     

2008 - Northumberland County Virginia

     Pam Jarvis, now a beautiful thirty three year old woman, and her sixteen year old daughter Jill, sat on the patio of their cottage suite. For the last nine months Virginia's elegant Great River Resort served as their east coast home.

     Jill sat on a small stool in front of her mother while Pam brushed her daughter's waist length golden hair. Jill shared her mother's and her grandmother's beauty. However, the child suffered from a mild mentally challenged condition, a result of the rape seventeen years earlier.

     Pam felt both blessed and cursed that Jill so resembled her grandmother in looks and manner. With Jill she would always not only have a daughter but also a part of her mother. But then there were times when she looked at Jill and saw those hands around her mother's throat, that image, seared into her mind, her father's hands, her mother's blue face and her eyes intense with fear and death. The image came again as Jill sat on the patio reading a child's story book. For some reason the swish of the brush through her daughter's soft hair seemed to be a salve that helped sooth the anguish of this vision. She had Jill bring the brush. The demons, too many and too deeply ingrained to go away, suicide was the answer, she thought of it often but it was not an option. Jill needed her mother.

     Jill turned and looked at Pam. "Mama, will we ever go home to Hawaii?"

     Pam spoke quietly as she turned Jill around and continued to brush her hair.

     "Yes baby, just as soon as our business here is complete."

     "How long Mama?"

     "I don't know baby, soon I hope!" She whispered.

     There were times when Pam felt she approached insanity. She seemed to have no control over her mind and thoughts of her father. She was obsessed with her hatred for him, even now after his death. It had consumed her and she knew that unchecked it would eventually destroy her.

     Movement on the brick path in front of the suite interrupted Pam's thoughts. Ruth Carter, wife of resort CEO Ted Carter, on her way to the main hotel offices saw Pam and Jill on the patio. Both Ruth and Ted got to know Pam well in the last nine months.

     "Hi Pam, how are you doing today sweetie?"

     Pam smiled, but it was a sad smile. "About the same Ruth, it's peaceful here, not like the hustle and bustle of Honolulu, and that helps. But now it's the nightmares. I have them once a week or more. I wake up screaming and it just scares the hell out of Jill and Anna."

     Jill got off the stool and walked to the edge of the patio. She watched a motor yacht slide under Tippers Bridge on its way to the resort marina. The child turned and put her arms around Ruth's waste.

     "Aunt Ruth would you and Uncle Ted take Mama and me for a ride on Uncle Ted's new boat? I've never been on a boat in my whole life, please Aunt Ruth?"

     Pam said, "Jill, that's not polite"

     Ruth held up her hand to silence Pam.

     "Sweetie, you've never been on a boat?"

     Jill shook her head flinging her long blond hair around her body.

     "Well we'll put an end to that about five this afternoon. Uncle Ted is taking two men to Lawton's boat yard. We'll all go and get Uncle Ted to give us a ride down the river while they talk boat building."

     "Ruth, please no, that's interfering with your business or Ted's business."

     "Oh stop Pam; it is just a little added service to a well healed guest, the Reverend Luther Laveau and his son Matt. The Reverend will arrive this afternoon and Matt has been here for a couple of days talking with Lawton about a new boat."

     "Luther Laveau, the television minister from Texas?"

     "That's him."

     "Oh goodness Ruth, Jill's nurse Anna thinks he's wonderful. She sends him donations and watches him every week on TV."

     "Well we've never met the Reverend but Ted says Matt is really a nice young fellow who wants to sell his dad on having Lawton build them a 65' boat."

     Ruth smiled and made a little head shake. "Ted just thinks Lawton walks on water so he wants to help the sale along if he can. Believe me Pam, you and Jill won't interfere."

     Jill was pulling on Pam's arm. "Please, please mama, please".

     "Ruth if you are sure then OK but if Ted has any problem with it let me know, I promise there'll be no hard feelings."

     Jill threw her arms around Ruth and kissed her on the cheek. Ruth kissed the top of the child's head.

     "I've got to get over to Ted's office. We'll see you both on the dock at five."

     Pam watched her new friend walk off. She thought back to a night just after she, Jill, and Anna arrived at the resort, a horrible night of fear, terror and death that would forever bond Pam to Ted and Ruth and them to her.

•          *          *          *          *          *

Five thousand miles to the west and 20 miles from downtown

Honolulu near Barbers Point stood the modern stone and glass office of Oahu Experiment, Inc. Lush native foliage obscured any view of the building from the street. Behind the foliage a reinforced stone wall backed up by a chain link fence topped with razor wire sealed the property. Only the people who worked there knew about the work performed by Oahu Experiment or its insider name, Oahu X. And even the workers knowledge was on a need to know basis and compartmentalized. Outsiders thought it was a secret military operation.

     Although not military, this very secret World Dynamic Resources Company handled some of the country's most highly classified military research projects.

     It was early morning and six men were meeting. The company president and his five department heads, brilliant men, evil men, worried men. The president spoke: "Gentlemen, government inspectors will be here mid-afternoon. We no longer have Bernie to cover and run interference for us. If we are to survive, if Genesis is to survive we will need to combine our intellect to overcome this......this threat. The concealment of Genesis and section 12 is paramount to our survival."

     He stopped speaking and looked outside toward Pearl Harbor and the Pacific. After a few moments he spoke again.

     "How could Bernie allow this to happen? How could a smart man have been so stupid, so goddamn stupid? We are so close and now this, his death and...a daughter...out of thin air. One silly damn girl and ten years of planning is in peril."

     His voice trailed off and he clenched his fists. Perspiration glistened on his forehead. He slammed his fists on the top of his desk. "This will not happen!"

     The five men he addressed behind locked doors looked at him and nodded in agreement.