Moon Lover

A new novel by

Vance Dick

Copyright

2015-2019

and

in perpetuity.

All rights reserved.

“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”

- Carl Jung

{CHAPTER 1

13 Lovers, friends

37 The family

4:00am Saturday December 3

U.S. Route 71 north of Mountainburg, Arkansas

Robert Lee lit a cigarette and cracked the window to let the smoke out as he drove the nondescript American sedan north on the old road, keeping to the speed limit to avoid attracting the attention of the police.

This night he had put his life on a new course, and he was thinking about the fact that his death would now be coming soon, which was all right with him.

He took a deep drag, then slowly let the smoke out through his nose. “Old enough,” he said aloud and smiled.

He saw the lights of a car behind him, way back on a straight stretch of the highway. It seemed to be gaining on him, and fast.

Robert stubbed out the cigarette in the ashtray and looked again into the mirror.

Yes, the car was coming up much too fast, no doubt about it.

He had anticipated that they would be on to him already, so he had scrambled his route out of Dallas, turning onto less traveled roads on impulse, until he had ended up here.

He stuck the Browning down tight between his thighs, butt up, half-cocked and ready to go.

The approaching car had to be doing well over a hundred. In a few seconds, it would be on him. Probably a pass and spray, he guessed. Two or three man team. He put his window all the way down. The cold winter air cleared the smoke and his mind. He took the Browning into his right hand and thumbed the hammer all the way back.

As the rocketing car roared alongside, Robert’s screeched the brakes, swerved right toward the shoulder and brought the pistol up.

The old Charger flew past him and was gone. Not a threat. Three or four young men having their Saturday night, that’s all.

The front seat passenger had waved a can of beer out his window and Robert had heard laughter and the Charger was now far ahead of him.

He chuckled and said, “Happy Saturday night.” He wished he had a beer too.

They were probably amused by his evasive maneuver, Robert thought, which they judged to be plain weird driving. 

“It was weird, indeed,” Robert laughed as he eased back up to the speed limit.

Far ahead, the Challenger hit the brakes, then turned off the road.

Robert let his foot off the gas and looked to the right into the darkness of the Ozark mountains, where the Challenger was heading. He could see the tail lights climbing the mountain.

Robert saw a bonfire and some cars up at the top.

A party? he wondered. Looked like one, but it was awfully late for a party. He glanced at his watch.

He turned onto the cinder road and his headlights caught the remnants of the dust cloud the Challenger had made hurrying toward the mountain top. Robert followed toward the bonfire.

There were maybe twenty cars, including the Challenger, pulled off the road near a ranch house, and the four boys were walking toward the house and the fire beyond.

Robert parked next to the Challenger and took in the scene. It looked congenial enough. He holstered the Browning under his jacket and got out of the car.

He approached the few people in lawn chairs near the house.

“Evening,” he said, friendly. “Nice night. Kinda late.”

“Evening,” a white-bearded man answered. He had a beer in his hand. “She hasn’t started yet. Probably start pretty soon. She’s up there on top on the other side of the fire. You can go on up. Just be respectful.”

“Yeah. I will,” Robert said. “Mind if I help myself to one of those beers?”

“Coolers are right over there.”

The old man turned in his chair to watch Robert bend down to reach into a cooler.

“Just one question,” the old man said. “Are you L.E.O.? You’re printin’ pretty good.”

Robert laughed as he popped open the beer. “Yessir, you got me. But I’m not on duty. Nothing like that. I was drivin’ by and saw the bonfire. Figured it was a party goin’ on and I’m feelin’ kinda down, so I thought I’m come and have a look. I’m just here to try to have a little fun.”

“Are you PD or SO?”

          “Neither,” Robert said. “Air Force.”

          “Air police?” the old man asked.

          “Well, they don’t call us that any more. We’re ‘defenders.’ Air Force Security Forces.”

The old man nodded. “I see. Well, I don’t know what kind of legal footing that would give you here. You seem like a nice guy, but I don’t want any trouble,” the old man said plainly. “Some of the kids up there are smoking a little weed, but that’s all they’re doin’.” They’re good kids and I don’t want ‘em in any trouble.”

          “You’ll get no problems from me,” Robert said. “Really. In fact, if you’d rather, if it’d make you feel better, I’ll just be on my way and you won’t even have to worry about it.” Robert gestured toward his car with the beer.

          “No. That’s all right,” the old man said. “You say you’re off duty and you’re just here to join the party. I believe you. Go on up there. It’s all right. But don’t let those kids see that you’re carryin’. It might spook ‘em, ‘cause you really do look like the ‘man.’”

Robert smiled. “Ok, thanks.”

“But it’s not really a party,” the old man said. “You really don’t know what’s goin’ on, do you?”

“I guess not.”

“There’s a young woman up there that makes some kind of magic with the moon. She’s really something. You’ll see. That’s why I say to be respectful.” With a nod of head in the direction of the trail, he said, “Go ahead. Go on up.”

The fire was a hundred yards up the trail. As the old man had said, it wasn’t really a party. There were about thirty people sitting and standing in the vicinity of the bonfire, drinking and smoking. The four youngsters from the Challenger were sitting on logs back a ways from the fire. The smell of marijuana was in the air.

          “Evening,” Robert said to a particular group of four or five couples.

          “How you doin’,” a man answered.

          A drunk cleared his throat. “Are you a moon lover or just another pussy lover?”

          “Craig!” his woman said. “Shut the fuck up.”

          “You here for the show?” another young man asked.

          “Yeah,” Robert said. “Is this it?”

          “No, this isn’t it. It’s up there. Up on top. Just follow the trail. I think she’s going to start in a minute.”

          Then, Robert heard a woman’s voice singing a lilting chant, carried in a gentle, uneven wind, almost inaudible at first, then clear and sweet, from the direction of the mountaintop. The melodic chant rose and now sounded clearly in the peaceful scene.

“There she is,” a woman said.

“That’s not Valerie. That’s Nicole.”

“I know.”

The young man finished his beer and tossed the can into a garbage can. “C’mon,” he said to Robert.

Robert headed up the trail with the young man. Most of the fire crowd also got up and slowly started toward the top.  Two or three women’s voices were singing together now.

Those that remained around the fire turned their eyes up to the last quarter moon, which was near its zenith in the clear, cold night sky. There was the faintest hint of light along the eastern horizon, where the unseen sun was approaching with the day.

There was a grassy field encircled by trees at the top of the mountain. As Robert approached, he saw a few indistinct figures of people gathered, sitting in the grass in the faint moonlight. The chant was rising in volume now with three or four women’s voices now, and a man’s voice softly trying to hit the notes right.

As Robert listened, he felt a trance forming in the air around him, inviting him in. He sipped the beer and let himself slip into the exotic sensation of the trance, which deepened in gentle waves like the waves of the chant.

Another woman’s voice joined into the strange melody. And another. Then a few more, with a man or two also joining in.

Robert felt emotion stirring in his chest.

He gazed at the half-moon high in the sky a long time. He noticed he felt a faint attraction to the moon. As if it wanted him. And he wanted it.

He gave himself to the feeling. What did he have to lose?

As it took him over, he felt emotion now swell in his chest with a sudden jolt of strong energy, like a flooding river of passion flowing through him. Tears spilled out of his eyes and he trembled as if some sudden chill suffused him.

He was in it and it was in him.

Time slowed down, then stopped.

The chant revealed to Robert the relationship between the earth and the moon. They were lovers, and had been forever, eternally meant for each other. Robert was impressed that he had never realized it before.

Tree tops swayed and hissed a little in a rising wind.

Robert glanced at the people around him. Most were with him in the magic, gazing at the moon; a few were not.

He studied the figures in the middle of the clearing, indistinct in the moon’s half-silvery light. He stepped closer.

He saw two women and a man chanting and looking up at the moon.

There was a man watching Robert’s approach and not chanting.

The last figure was a woman in the center, chanting, but looking down.

“Valerie,” Robert guessed softly.

She raised her eyes and Robert felt that she was looking at him.

She couldn’t have heard me, he thought. Too far away.

He stepped closer through the moonlight until he felt a chill of shock when he recognized that she while she chanted, she was gazing into his eyes.

Time stopped then.

Robert and Valerie met in the magic. From some moment in the infinitude of eternity they recognized each other. Felt an ancient bond.

Now she seemed to be singing to him. The chant wove waves of magic in the space between the moon and the earth and, now, as if in a dream, Robert soared hand in hand with Valerie through timeless depths and dimensions.

He woke up looking into her eyes.

Then Valerie looked up at the moon and Robert did the same.

The half-moon was now very bright and it looked bigger than before, as if it was closer.

Robert observed that the crowd was nervous, fearful, as if the moon really was closer. As if it might come down on top of them.

In fact, it did now seem to Robert that maybe the moon really was drifting down closer to earth.

The chanting women saw it too, and, at first, their singing faltered, and then grew stronger as they accepted that the moon really was coming down to them.

As Robert studied the half-moon, he saw a small black dot appear, seemingly on its surface, at the edge of the light and shadow, that quickly grew in size, and its shape was roughly circular, but its edges were indefinite. Now, it was gray, not black, and getting bigger, its edges fluttering like gray flames. Robert realized that—whatever it was--it was coming down very fast, heading straight for the mountaintop.

The other onlookers saw it too. First dismay, then terror flashed through the crowd. Most ran away, down the trail toward their cars.

The chant was strong and the moon was close, but the growing gray turbulence now appeared bigger than the moon, changing from gray to churning white.

For an instant, Robert imagined he saw a strong, giant young woman jumping off the moon to land on the earth. Then she landed, here, on the mountaintop. And disappeared.

Crashing, roaring through the night as it arrived, the lightless white mass now  soared, criss-crossing the near sky, and swooped down near the ground, howling through the leafless winter trees, snapping some like sticks while other, stronger trees pitched and swayed like delirious dancers in a wild wind.

Robert realized he was the only person still standing, awe-struck though he was by the magic show. The other onlookers who had remained were flat on the ground.

Fascinated, Robert realized he felt no fear, but, rather, something else. But what? Something familiar.

In the sky, on the earth, and everywhere else, the time-space continuum found a rare, primal configuration and the eternal revelations were available for any who cared to perceive them.

Magic, eternity, and love prevailed.

Robert looked at Valerie. She was watching him.

          Later, when they let the chant quiet down with each round until all was silent, the spell, though it could not be seen, gave the impression of floating upward, then slowly spreading across the whole moon-beamed sky.

Then it was gone.

The spectators were leaving and the sun was about to break the horizon.

Robert and Valerie were sitting a few yards apart in the places where they had first seen each other, now preoccupied with each other, now aware that destiny had brought them together, and that they had significant issues to attend to with each other. With that fact now settled, they let their attention drift to the temporal trivialities of getting on with the developing day.

Her entourage had pulled their two cars up near the mountain top and were getting ready to go.

The sun rose above the horizon and warmed the cool air.

The middle aged man who had been among those closest to Valerie, who had been watching Robert approach during the chanting, now came up to Robert, smiling with his hand out for shaking, “Hi. I’m Herman.”

Robert took the hand. “Robert.”

“So, quite an event, eh?”

“Yeah.”

Herman hunkered down near Robert. “What brought you here?” he asked. “How did you hear about us?”

“Was just driving by. Saw the fire.”

“You a cop?”

Robert looked at him. “Military police.”

“So what’s your interest in us?”

On a hunch, Robert took a wild shot. “The moon show,” he said. “Who’s running it?”

Herman stood up. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said and walked away.

Fuckin’ spooks are everywhere, Robert thought. And we sure spotted each other.

         Valerie was in the sun, standing over Robert. “You take me home?” she asked.

         “Sure.”

         He got to his feet and they started down the trail.

         The chant women were in one car, waiting for Valerie to join them. Herman was standing near his car with the door open and the other man was inside.

         “You’re not going with that guy are you?” Herman said. “He’s a cop. Or some kind of spy”

        Valerie didn’t answer. Robert opened the car door for her and she got in.

         Robert started the car and drove down the cinder road until he stopped at the main highway, U.S. Route 71.

         “Which way?” he asked.

         “Louisiana,” Valerie answered.

6:30am; 2^nd Special Intelligence Detachment compound, South Florida

   A visiting lord had arrived in a Bell Jet Ranger, and as he got out, William Driver, having managed to get through security to the helipad, carrying an army alice bag, and dressed in a two-star general’s uniform, got right in and stuck a gun in the pilot’s ribs.

“Take me to Miami,” William snarled. “Now!” He was convincing, and the pilot took the craft up fast, leaving the Big Cypress National Preserve turning below as he tilted the fast chopper toward Miami and hit the gas.

A few minutes later, William was deposited at an empty soccer field a couple of blocks north of Calle Ocho inside the city limits of Miami.

After changing into jeans and a polo shirt, William went to the back doors of several restaurants before he got a job cleaning the kitchen.

800am Jones Jutter, New York City

As U.S. President Jerome Paul Jones sat down at his desk with his first cup of coffee, a Night Services courier was admitted through the front door.

   “Good morning, Sir!” He placed the cipher hide on the desk.

   The courier hurried out as Jones extracted a document from the hide.

   He sipped the hot black coffee as he glanced at the short handwritten note. “Mm.” he mumbled.

   The note was from Justin Rake, Night Services CEO and a close friend and advisor of Jones. It related the information that a new member of Jones’s staff, Allen Duncan, was a spy for Six and a liar to boot.

   As Jones flamed the doc, he mumbled, “Guess we’ll have to promote Duncan.” After he drank a bigger swig, he added, “Wait a month so he doesn’t get suspicious.”

2:21pm - Watergate Hotel, Washington D.C.

Kina always put her shoes on first when she got dressed.

          “Shoes before panties?” General Wilson commented.

“But you like to look at it, don’t you Darling?”        

“Yes. I do. I never get to see enough of it. In fact—” he cleared his throat, “I wanted to ask if you’d go with me down to SF for a while.”

She laughed. “I can’t go to any FEMA parties. Long story. But I can’t. What, are you going down for, games?”

“It’s an alert. Very serious. Don’t know what it’s about. Might be games. Might be real. We don’t know. Could be over in a few hours. Could last a month. If you go with me, I’d guarantee you a big Christmas.” He raised his eyebrows with the tone of his voice. “A big, big Christmas. C’mon! Make me happy.”

“Well, making you happy is what I’m about, Darling. But I’m booked. I’m going missionary tomorrow, and I don’t know when I’ll even be back in town.”

“What do you mean? You’re going on a mission?”

“We just call it ‘missionary’,” she explained as she slipped her arms into a cocktail dress that quickly covered her slender body to mid-thigh. “Going on a mission would mean I’m a spy. Spies go on missions. But sex slaves just go ‘missionary’. It means getting passed around for sex by a lot of important men.”

His face turned unhappy. “Are you still doing that? I thought you were done with that program.”

“Of course I still do it. I love doing the service. I keep up my contacts. Like you. All you important guys. I love to be around you.”

“Well,” he sniffed. “I didn’t realize you were still doing that. I don’t know if I like you seeing a lot of other guys, no matter how important they are.”

“Of course you like me to see other guys. You know how it turns you on when I tell you about them. I actually only see one or two others. But I know you like me to talk about fucking lots of customers. It turns you on. Right?”

“Hmp. Are you going to see someone now? After me?”

“In about a half hour a general, one of your colleagues, whose name I won’t mention will be slamming me from behind bent over his desk. He’s hung like a horse, too. Afterward, I’ll probably take a nap with him, then he’ll treat me to a sensual fuck on the couch. I gotta tell you, Darling, the long, slow strokes of his big dick make my pussy quiver in orgasmic spasms over and over. I come eight or nine times. Then I--” Kina stopped speaking and put her hand on Wilson’s stimulated anatomy. She knelt between his open legs and looked lovingly up into his eyes. “I love you, Darling. You know how special our thing is.”

Five minutes later, he lay spent on the couch. He lit a cigarette and began to talk softly. “If you really are expecting to see a general in a little while, I think you’re going to be stood up. All the generals I know are going down to SF for the alert. Orders just came down an hour ago. Hundreds of C.O.G people are heading down to SF right now. You ought to go with me. It’s a big deal. Who knows? Maybe it’ll go live.”

Kina was dressed and ready to leave. “I’m taking all your money, Darling,” she said, then flipped his empty wallet onto the dresser. “I’ll call you when I get back. If I find out you’ve been with another woman, you’ll never see me again. Understand?”

“I understand,” he whispered.

“It’s a joke, Darling. See whoever you want. You know I can’t live without you. I want you to have fun with other girls if you want to. I love you, Darling. Really. I’ll call you.” She blew him a kiss and closed the door behind her.

The unnamed general stood her up, having flown down to SF in a helicopter with his staff.

She discovered that all her Washington appointments were cancelled.

Kina tried to call her lover, William Driver, to see if he knew what was going on, but his phone just rang to message. She called Janice, William’s other lover.

“William escaped this morning.” Janice explained. “They’re out looking for him right now,”

“Something big’s going on,” Kina said ”I wonder if that’s why William took off. Right this minute, Continuity of Government people are closing in on Mount Weather by the hundreds. Do you know anything about this alert?”

“We’ve been told it’s games,” Janice said. “But William’s bust out doesn’t have anything to do with that. He just wants to be free. You know.”

“Yeah.” Kina said. “I know.”

3:45pm Alexandria, Virginia

Brandon DeVille called his secretary, Marianne Cook, to his office. She was a pretty young woman, expensively dressed in a dark blue pinstripe business suit, who now stood at attention in front of Brandon seated at his desk, his eyes studying her face.

“Well? Did you do it?”

She hesitated a second. “Yes.”

“All the way?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“At your place?”

“Yes.”

“A total success?” he asked. “You got everything”

“Yes.”

      “Undress.”

Marianne stripped naked in less than a minute, but left her high heels on for Brandon’s approval.

Brandon took off his pants and his underwear, and sat back down in his padded desk chair. “Let me see the photos first,” he said.

Marianne handed him a thick stack of prints.

“Goa ahead and start,” he said as he began to view the photos.

Marianne knelt between his open legs and began to suck his penis.

“Nice,” he said, showing her a close-up photo of her face with a big cock deep in her mouth. “Dick took most of these, right?”

She nodded while she worked.

“And you told him you wanted these photos to masturbate to, like we said?”

She nodded. “Mm,” she added for emphasis.

“Excellent!”

He sorted through the photos as he glanced at them, putting a few favorites aside. These included various oral and genital sex positions as well as some full length nudes of Marianne taken by Dick, and a few of Dick taken by Marianne. They both were smiling and laughing in those photos.

Brandon smiled and held a photo for Marianne to view while she toiled. It showed her on the bed with her legs wide open and a generous serving of thick white sperm oozing out of her vagina. In the photo, she was looking at the camera with a big grin.

“Did you enjoy yourself?” Brandon asked.

She removed his penis from her mouth to speak. “I did what you told me to do.” She then re-inserted his pulsating member into her wet lips.

“Yes. And I told you to enjoy yourself so that he would believe it was all real. So, did you enjoy yourself?”

“Mm,” she assented with a nod and a little shrug to communicate to Brandon that the fun she had with Dick meant nothing.

“I’ll look at the videos later,” he said. “How many times did you climax?”

She shrugged with his cock swollen big in her lips and tried to speak. “Oneth or twithe.”

He lifted her head to pull mouth off his throbbing penis. “I’m very close,” he mumbled, breathing hard. “I want to hold off.”

Marianne sat her butt back on her heels.

“Is it arranged for tonight?” he asked.

“Yes. He’ll arrive at eight o’ clock.”

“At the cabin?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“And you’re fully prepared for what we’re going to do?”

She gave him a serious expression. “Yes.”

“Good.” He raised his eyes and looked off into the distance, imagining what it was going to be like tonight at the cabin. His penis began to soften and waver a little bit.

“Are you going to fuck me?” she asked.

“Not now. Later. After. I want to leave you horny now so you give a good performance for Dick tonight. Give him a good time. The best time of his life.”

She smiled. “And you and I’ll fuck royally after.”

He smiled back at her. “That’s right. You’ll be all gooey and loosened up from him. I’ll like that.”

“It’ll be a long, very exciting night,” she said. She licked her lips. “Want me to finish you off now?”

“No,” he said, getting up to put on his underwear and pants. “I want to save it for after.”

She smiled. “You’ll really be horny by then. Me too. I can’t wait.”

“Yes. It’ll be wonderful. Make sure your pussy is full of his sperm by then.”

They got dressed on opposite sides of his desk.

“Are you sure all this doesn’t make you jealous, Brandon?” she asked.

He chuckled. “You’ve asked me that so many times now. So many times. I’ve told you. I thought you got it.”

“I know, but… most men would be jealous.”

He sighed, straightened his tie in the mirror, and put on his jacket. “I’ll tell you again. That’s all right. You’ll get it eventually. Like I’ve told you a hundred times, I want to swing. That’s why I’m divorcing my wife. She’s so uptight. That’s why I’m going to marry you. We’re going to be a great couple. We’re going to use my brains and your pussy to be the happiest, richest, most powerful couple in Washington.

“I love you, Brandon,” she said

“I love you too, Marianne. Now you better get going and make sure everything is ready.”

“Yes. I will.” She turned at the door to face him. “Have fun with the alert.”

“See you soon,” he said.

After she had gone, he concentrated on catching up his paperwork.

At 5:45pm, he sent the order declaring the alert to be a mere drill.

830pm at a secluded cabin, about 55 miles west of Washington.

It was a cold, cloudy night. As he walked up the long, cinder driveway that curved through the woods, Brandon was glad he had brought a heavy coat. He had parked his rental car off the driveway in an enclave of trees that he had previously scouted out in preparation for this event.

He was watchful that no cars came along in either direction. There shouldn’t be any. The driveway led only to the cabin. But if Dick was late, or if for some reason, he left Marianne early, Brandon didn’t want to be spotted on the driveway. If he heard a car coming, he was ready to duck into the woods.

When the cabin came into view, he saw two cars parked in front, Marianne’s and Dick’s. The lights in the cabin were on, according to plan.

Brandon had previously cleared the area around the cabin so that nothing would crackle as he approached the windows.

He carefully peeked into the bedroom. Dick was fucking Marianne, belly to belly. Brandon could hear Marianne moaning and groaning, her open legs moving to the rhythm of the extraordinary oscillations Dick’s organ was administering to her open orifice, nearing orgasm.

Presently, Dick joined her in ecstatic exclamations while he pumped her slit harder and faster. Both uttered vocal declarations of climax. Then it was over. They were still, except he kissed her mouth long and lovingly. A minute later, he rolled off.

That was Brandon’s cue. He took his cell phone from a pocket and called her number. He heard her phone ringing inside.

She picked up her cell from the night table. “Hi!” she said amiably.

“It’s time,” Brandon said. “Do it now.”

“You’re what?” Marianne acted her part, the unfaithful wife caught in the act. “Oh, no, don’t---”

“What is it?” Dick asked.

“My husband is coming!”

“What? That’s impossible! I thought you didn't have a husband!”

“I'm sorry!" Marianne slowly shook her head. "But you’ve got to get out of here. He’s passing through Warrenton right now. He’ll be here in a few minutes.”

“Shit!” Dick yelled. He jumped out of bed and scrambled to put on his clothes. “I don't understand!" he roared, hopping on one foot to get into his pants. "This doesn't make any sense!"

His back was to her, so he didn’t see the small .380 automatic in her hand.

She shot him twice before he fell.

Brandon watched it all through the window. Dick was on the floor, trying to crawl away.

Brandon went in through the unlocked door. Marianne was sitting up in the bed. She looked pale and was beginning to shake.

“You have to finish him,” Brandon said. “Come over here and shoot him in the head.”

“I can’t,” Marianne mumbled. She put the gun down on the bed next to her.

“You have to show me you can do this,” Brandon yelled. “One more shot and it’s done!”

She lay back in the bed, shaking her head and covering her face with her hands.

Brandon grabbed her wrist and pulled her up off the bed toward the moaning Dick. He put the automatic in her hand. “Just one in the head,” Brandon said, almost tenderly. “Just get close and pull the trigger and it’s all over.”

Marianne was wobbly. She sat down on the edge of the bed with the gun in her hand. She looked up at Brandon, then down at the dying Dick. She leaned forward until the gun was about a foot from Dick’s head and fired. He jerked, then blood pumped out of a hole in the back of his head for a few heartbeats, then spurts that got weaker and weaker. He was dead.

“Oh, God!” Marianne dropped the pistol and crawled back on the bed and covered herself with a blanket.

Brandon picked up the automatic.

“Are you full of his sperm?” he asked.

She was sobbing and didn’t answer.

“Marianne, you have to shake yourself out of it. We have to get going. We can’t stay here. You’ve got to get dressed. Let’s go.”

She wiped her face on the sheet, sat up in the bed and tried to smile at Brandon.

Brandon waved the gun at the window. “Look at that!” he sounded frightened, and she turned her head to look.

He put the gun near her right temple and blasted her. She flopped off the bed and onto the floor, faint smoke rising from the bloody hole in her head. He left the automatic on the bed, as if she had dropped it there when she shot herself. He peeled off the latex glove he had worn to kill her.

Until now, he had succeeded in fighting the urge to vomit, but now it was going to come. He had brought a strong plastic bag for that purpose, and hurried outside with it.

He had thought it all through many times. It was a simple scene. He stood there a few minutes making sure they were both really dead.

On a shelf of knickknacks, he positioned a micro spy camera that was disguised as a cheap ceramic canary. The bird’s head was cocked so that one of its beady little eyes surveilled the dead bodies. He tossed the camera’s transmitter into the woods outside.

“Just look at that Milky Way!” he said as he started down the driveway toward his car. “It’s great to be alive.”

11:30pm Miami

Charming and hard-working, William Driver made such a good impression that the boss gave him a small advance on his wages and a co-worker took him home as a new roommate.

Exhausted from a long, hard days work in the restaurant, William would have to sleep a little, but knew he would have to wake in a couple hours and run before the dawn with a hundred dollars in his pocket.

1

# # #

{Chapter 2

48 The well

51 Distant thunder

3:00am Sunday December 4

Little Havana, Miami Florida

The military police woke William Driver about three hours before dawn. The four of them surrounded him in the government car for the ninety minute drive back to the 2^nd Special Intelligence Detachment compound. Nobody spoke for the whole ride.

6:00am

2^nd Special Intelligence Detachment compound, South Florida

Worship services were provided for those interested in participating. Regular attendees were surprised to see Colonel Bird, three generals and twenty members of the generals’ staff in the front pews.

Most of them prayed fervently and looked as if they really needed to.

7:00am. 2^nd Special Intelligence Detachment compound

Colonel Bird opened the session of the assembled Vision Group by welcoming Kina back from Washington. She sat next to the drowsy, scruffy-looking William Driver. Janice was seated on his other side.

“Jose Rodriguez.” Bird declared, “An American turned terrorist. Locate and assess for the Special Action Group. He is the current vision target.”

Then the thirty-two psychics currently present worked themselves into a frenzy to channel prime cosmic ecstasy into real-world visions and information. As part of the process, most of them drank the liquor and took the drugs that were issued to them by Support. Occasionally, Bird had some of them publicly beaten to whip up fear, which can enhance psychic function. Frequently, experimental methods were utilized to try to optimize the psychic product.

A few hours later, the Vision Group Target Report, given by Stephanie, speculated the likelihood of apprehending Jose Rodriguez in Buenos Aires. As was often the case, the recommendation was to use The Tender Trap Strategy, that is, to lure him out with a female sex-slave. A pair of lovers, Olivia and Renee, quickly volunteered for the Buenos Aires assignment and left the assembled group for an in-depth briefing about where, in “the city of fury,” they would most likely encounter Jose Rodriguez in order to direct the Special Action Group.

Sex slaves were everywhere. Kina was open about it. Proud of it.

“That’s humanity,” she observed to William Driver. “Sex is the best commodity. It’s cheap to make, always in demand, and brings a good price. And it never gets used up. The owner of a vagina can use it quite a few times most days and, after a night’s sleep, it’s as good as new. Well,” she smiled. “Almost as good as new.”

The morning’s business done, the VG broke for lunch.

 “Distant Thunder,” William Driver said. “Hexagram 51”

“Yes, something big is rumbling,” Kina added. “Trouble is coming.”

8:00am Laurel, Maryland

Darian Reagan had awakened early and left his love slave asleep in bed to go downstairs to make coffee and try to find a way out of his predicament.

          Life was good for Darian, parleying his knowledge of occult lore into a lucrative position as benefactor and head of his own private foundation, Thaumaturgucal Systems, Incorporated. The problem was it was beginning to unravel. The whole enterprise was actually financed by a private intelligence group known as Cosmic Strategies, Incorporated, which was the major consumer of Reagan’s product, psychologically modified personnel and slaves of all kinds. Thaumaturgical Systems also placed well-trained, non-tranced spies in powerful organizations around the world.

          In September, he had sent a beautiful, eighteen year old  female unit named Radiance to a powerful man in the American arms industry, Woodrow Steelbender. So far, so good. But Radiance had drowned while on a Caribbean cruise with Steelbender on his giant, tricked out yacht. So what? People drown every day. But it looked as if Radiance had been drowned on purpose, and, from behind the scenes, a well-connected enemy of Steelbender’s had pressured the FBI to investigate. They found out that the day before the ship left with Radiance, she had called one of her girlfriends and said she was afraid for her life. Two days later, her dead body was cremated in Nassau, Bahamas. A coincidence. Darian, himself, had been visited by FBI agents. They knew what was going on, but declined to press Darian even a little.

          Ordinarily, this kind of inconvenience to a powerful man could be resolved and forgotten with the filing of a report and the passing of a few days. But complications arose. The girlfriend who received Radiance’s phone call was also murdered, the victim of a stabbing on a street in Miami. She happened to be the niece of a Miami police detective who was intent on getting answers, and, as a byproduct of the investigation, became interested in the activities of Thaumaturgical Systems.

Another complication was Radiance’s parents, who were whipping up a big stink. They weren’t interested in money and were insensible to threats. They were unable to penetrate Steelbender’s screen, so they turned their fury on Darian’s foundation. They were scheduled to be interviewed on WOF-TV’s popular scandal sniffing show, “Stinky Laundry.”

Darian’s friend and contact at Cosmic Strategies had told him that the heat was even reaching them and it was making people there unhappy.

“What can I do?” Darian whined.

“Maybe you ought to shut it down and disappear for a while. A long while. You don’t want people looking too closely at what’s going on there, and neither do we.”

But Darian didn’t want to shut it down and disappear. He was pulling down a few million a year tax-free and was up to his penis in beautiful young female sex slaves.

“It’ll blow over,” he mumbled into his coffee cup.

Jasmine shuffled sleepily into the dining room and threw her naked self on Darian with a big hug.

“Why did you leave me all alone?” she cooed. “You know I can’t live without you.”

9am Alexandria, Virginia

Brandon attended the New Golgotha Church of The Word with his wife and daughter. The whole congregation joined in for the hymn, “In The Sweet By and By,” but Brandon could be heard above the others, singing with a fine, full volume baritone enthusiasm, which always attracted admiring looks from other members of the congregation.

   While the minister delivered his sermon, entitled “Where will you spend eternity?” Brandon let his mind wander to a splendid vision of his wife, naked in the fires of Hell, writhing sensuously in agony, sorry for the trouble she caused Brandon. He especially enjoyed imagining the sight of her pubic hair bursting into flame. She refused to shave it despite Brandon’s repeated requests.

   Then his fantasy went to heaven, where he would be. He automatically included the idea that his sweet daughter, Penny, would be there in heaven with him, but she would serve Glory in a different apartment, on the other side of Heaven City, so that she wouldn’t interfere with his enjoyment of his own eternal reward.

   Brandon’s heaven contained a number of different settings, but every setting included mostly teen-age women who idolized Brandon, although a few were older, in their twenties, and in some cases, even their thirties. Brandon’s wife was in her thirties, and occasionally, she was allowed to briefly visit Brandon to try to atone for her sins against him by giving herself up to his deadly whims. In one setting, the beautiful young women were dressed in virginal white downs, immediately got to their knees and begged Brandon to let them suck his penis out of his unzipped pants. They always loved to do that, and sucked it deeper than real-life female oral anatomy would allow. Others could not refrain from lifting their dresses to tempt him with their cute, shaved genitalia. In his more violent version of heaven, women destroyed themselves for his pleasure. While he dined on divine delicacies in a grand dining room, the naked lovelies would lovingly serve him and fellate him. While he enjoyed his dessert, preferably cherry cobbler, they would cheerfully hang themselves, entertaining him with their death throes, kicking their feet, then twitching in the final stage of dying, their tongues sticking way out of their mouths as their bodies grew still and turned blue.

After church, Penny was chauffeured across town to do homework with her girlfriends. Brandon showered and went downstairs naked to where his wife was watching an Italian cuisine cooking show on television.

“Succulent sausage,” he said as he stood in front of the TV, pointing with both index fingers at his meat waiting to be served.

“Get out of the way!” his wife yelled angrily. “I’m missing the sauce!”

“It’s been a week,” he retorted.

“Maybe later,” she snapped. “Not now!”

While he dressed for work, he reflected that murdering his wife slowly with a sharp knife would be a great pleasure. The only snag would be getting it past his daughter. Nonetheless, he allowed his creative juices to flow and had an imaginative fate in mind for her. The trouble with his wife was that she wasn’t afraid of him. He had been too careful to conceal his real nature. She had no idea what he was capable of.

 It was time to give her a taste. A good punch in the stomach, where it wouldn’t show, would do it. Maybe that would open up her vulnerability. Besides, she certainly deserved a beating.

Dressed in his three piece suit, he stood next to his wife while she was watching the fine points of boiling linguini.

   “Stand up a second,” Brandon said.

   Barbara gave him an annoyed look, but she slowly stood up and put her hands on her hips to express her irritation.

      Brandon turned away from her, then pivoted around with his fist low to deliver maximum impact to Barbara’s stomach, sending her sprawling on the tile floor, gasping for breath.

“Don’t ever talk to me like that again!” Brandon stood over her, accenting his words by shaking his index finger at her. “And when I come home tonight, I want you waiting for me in the bedroom dressed in that Alice in Wonderland outfit I got for you.”

He stopped at the door and added, “And you better act like you like it!”

At work, no Marianne was at her desk, waiting for him.

He started to go into his office, but stopped and turned to look at her vacant desk. Dick’s wife would be worried by now. Perhaps she had called the police. But Marianne’s body was probably still undiscovered, still lying on the floor, getting colder and colder. Brandon smiled, thinking of her naked body exposed, helpless on the floor. “Fun,” he whispered.

Brandon waded through the dozens of secure communications from Group. His “908” security clearance, pronounced “ninety-eight,” was limited to the top five members of Group.

“More spam from Group,” he mumbled as he scanned the titles of orders, reports, memos, speculations, and gossip. Among the multitude were “Final report: Present Feasibility of Lunar Domicile,” “Uluru Construction Terminated Due to Time Constraints,” “Outlooks and Projections for Human Population in the next 30 years,” “Updated Compartmental Epidemiological Models,” and the update he, himself, had added to the cryptographic stew, “On Track (N/T)” in which “N/T: meant “no text.” The title was sufficient to those who would read it. The topic it addressed was so secret and so central to their plans they didn’t even like to use its code name.

He glanced at the com named “Alert: Darian Reagan.” It discussed the various liabilities associated with Reagan’s enterprises and contacts, with a menu of detailed summaries on each one. Brandon scanned the items with little interest since he was already familiar with most of them, but his attention was drawn to the Earth Moon Gnostic Devotees, because his eye was attracted to a photo of Valerie Broussard, the leader of the cult. She resembled a girl he had seen earlier that day in his fantasy about heaven. “Wow,” he mumbled. Perhaps it was a sign.

          Stimulated by this fortuitous association, Brandon checked the progress coms of a human trafficking operation he was running through proxies in west Africa, and he was encouraged to see there was an increase in the number of white slaves on the market there.

This very morning, after he awoke, lying in bed, he had given thought to the possibility of buying a few women just for their disposability, but then inspiration struck. Perhaps he could somehow sell his wife into slavery. Later, whether days, weeks or months, after she was roundly used and broken, buy her back to enjoy the fruits of the unbearable humiliation she would suffer. It didn’t bother him that she would probably be used wantonly by men while she was a slave; quite the contrary; he would make sure it happened by arranging that her sale would be to a brothel.. The idea of it gave him a strong twitch.

          But he would have to take her back eventually. After all, she was the mother of his child.

          He could rehearse the procedure by selling Dick’s wife to a brothel, just to see how it went. He could manipulate her into a vulnerable situation where the slavers could abduct her.

10am U.S. Route 63 near Mena Arkansas

Valerie woke up when Lee stopped the car at a gas pump. While she stretched and yawned, he slipped a hoodie over his jacket, put the hood up and changed to different sunglasses than the ones he had been wearing while he was driving.

          “Need anything from inside?” He asked. “Food? Coffee?” 

          She shook her head.

          While he was pumping gas, Valerie went into the station and came out a few minutes later with two big styro cups and a bag of hot food.

          Lee moved the car from the pump to park in front of the store.

          “I didn’t know how you like your coffee,” Valerie said, holding up one of the styro cups, “but I got sugar and creamer for you.”

          “I drink it black. Thanks,” Lee said as he opened the car door.

          “I also got three hamburgers and three chicken burritos,” Valerie added.

          “Sounds good,” Lee said. “Did you also get some Marlboros?”

Valerie shook her head.

He was opening a pack as he came back out, and when he got into the car, he smiled as he shook a few up to proffer one to Valerie.

She took one and pushed in the car’s lighter.

“Thought you weren’t hungry,” Lee said as he pulled out into traffic.

“Changed my mind.”

“Is Marlboro your regular brand?” he asked.

“No. Camels.” She smiled.

He glanced at her. “Filtered or un?”

“Un,” she smiled wider.

“Mm,” he grunted as he lit a cigarette and cracked a window.

Valerie studied Lee for a few minutes.

“Herman said you were a cop,” Valerie said. “But you’re  not a cop, are you?”

“No.”

“You’re a soldier.”

“Kind of a soldier,” Robert said.”

“But not the Army,” Valerie said.

“Air Force.

“Why are you carrying a gun?”

“Sometimes my job gets rough.”

          Valerie put her cigarette out in the ashtray and brought a couple of hamburgers out of the bag. “Want me to unwrap one of these hamburgers for you? Or a burrito?”

“Thanks, but I’m not hungry.”

She gave him a glance and unwrapped a burrito for herself.

They were silent a long time then. They drank their coffee and Valerie at the burrito.

Later, in his peripheral vision, Lee noticed Valerie unabashedly studying him, which she did, on and off, for the rest of the day. Once, he turned to look at her, and their eyes met. She smiled. He turned back and looked at the road.

For the rest of the drive, Lee mostly kept his eyes on the world outside the car, staying alert for the kind of hazards that sometimes made his job rough.

5:30pm National TV broadcast news

The TV network news moos kept the American viewing public quite concerned about various important matters. Football was the biggest worry. Of course, basketball, golf and horse racing were also problematic. Even boxing caused some preoccupation among the TV public.

The news moos also lowed on and on about federal employees, both appointed and elected, selling their part of the national trust to the highest bidders. Most viewers didn’t really care, but they did enjoy the delicious stench of public scandal. Graft and theft were good, but adultery, fornication, prostitution, homosexuality and pedophilia vied for top ratings in the TV viewers’ appetite. Curiously, murder in the United States for political motives was virtually unknown.

Admittedly, there were plenty of Americans who were aghast at the national lies lowed every day by the news moos. There are always a few unhappy souls out of step with the national march toward new, improved progress.

The TV news few always ended on a high note.

On the Sunday night edition of “All the news that gives you fits,” Chauncey Underfelt closed his show with this: “On a humorous note, Ernest Geldhammer, the tellurium tycoon, has successfully landed a self-contained chicken ranch pod near the lunar south pole. Steven Smith, the spokesman for Geldhammer, said, ‘Mr. Geldhammer wanted to beat NASA to that prime real estate, but he said that when the astronauts set down in a few years with their fancy moon domes, he’ll give them a good price on fresh eggs and fried chicken.’ Smith went on to say that Geldhammer believes that soon suburbs of Earth cities will spring up around the lunar south pole, and there’s money to be made in fresh food and flexible fabrication.

“‘More pragmatically,’ Smith said, “Geldhammer anticipates that his chicken ranch will be near the planned NASA moon base slated for construction in nearby Shackleton Crater.” Underfelt grinned through the camera to TV land. “How about it, folks? Ready for a Monday morning commute to work from the nose of the man in the moon?”

1030pm Southern Louisiana

Lee was driving southwest out of Houma. Traffic was light. Valerie was watching the road.

          Lee and Valerie had talked a little from time to time, but most of the trip had been silent, Lee driving, and Valerie gazing at the passing landscape. She had slept a lot.

          The last three hours or so, she had guided Lee through the interstates around New Orleans until they headed southwest on U.S. Route 90, toward Houma, Louisiana, and bayou country.

          Now they were on State Route 315. Lee noticed the smell of crude oil.

          “Turn to the right on that road coming up,” Valerie said. “And we’ll be going about 14 miles.”

          Then, she had him turn right onto a shell road, and follow it for six miles.

          “Now, do you see that little road coming up on the left where the fence ends? Turn in there.”

It was a bumpy shell road with plenty of deep holes and washed out here and there. Lee slowly steered around the holes the best he could for three miles.

“That’s it,” Valerie said. “That’s my house.”

Lee saw the small wood frame house in the headlights.

          Valerie chuckled, “We don’t have any luggage to bother with. Come on in.”

          She unlocked the door and turned lights on.

Robert walked into the one, big, bright incandescent-lit room and glanced around. There were a couple of hundred books in bookcases, herbs hanging on the walls and dozens of little hand-labeled bottles of different colored liquids on shelves.

“Take the rocking chair,” Valerie said. “Hungry? There’s still the hamburgers and the rest of the burritos.”

“Thanks. No,” Robert said softly as he settled into the wooden rocker.

Valerie smiled. “Would you like a glass of wine? I’m going to have one.”

“No. I need to go soon. Still have a long drive ahead of me.” He was still looking around.

“Well, thank you very much for bringing me home. I didn’t figure you were going to takeoff right away after bringing me all that distance. Where are you going?”

“Up north.”

“Aren’t you tired?”

“Not particularly.”

She studied him. “Are you taking uppers?”

He chuckled. “Yeah, sometimes I do.”

“Are you some kind of secret agent?”

He smirked and shook his head.

She looked away and laughed ironically. “I have some secret agents already spying on me.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Really.”

“Why are they spying on you?”

“My super powers,” she said, and bringing a bottle of red wine down from a shelf and setting up two glass tumblers. “You sure you don’t want some wine?”

“No thanks. Who’s spying on you?”

She poured half a glass of wine. “Well, you met Herman. His assistant is Bruce, the guy that sings so off-key. And a couple of the women that Herman brought in. He says he recruited them.”

“How do you know they’re spies?”

She laughed. “Well, I sense something malevolent about them. And they’re obviously up to something. At first I thought they were just ordinary hucksters who wanted to make money off my abilities. But I came to realize it was more than that.” She sipped the wine.

“How so?” Robert asked.

“Oh, lots of things,” Valerie said. “But that’s enough about that. Enough about scary secret agents.” She sipped her wine, then gave Robert a long look with a faint smile on her lips. “Besides, I think some secret agents are probably good guys.”

Robert fully took her in with his eyes. She was sexy and he liked her, felt very drawn to her. Wanted her. He remembered the magical circumstances of their meeting.

“You should stay here tonight,” Valerie said. “Get some sleep. Rest up. I have two beds. No big deal.”

He shook his head. “No. I’m going to go.”

He rose from the rocking chair and realized he wasn’t sure how to say good bye to her. He moved toward the door.

Valerie said, “You yourself know that fate brought us together. You should honor that.”

He made no answer except an almost imperceptible nod, and he put his hand on the doorknob.

“Fate has brought us together,” she said, “and, fate will bring you back.”

Robert felt he needed to explain. “My life is a mess,” he said, “I don’t want my mess to spill over onto anybody else.”

“Fate brings gifts meant for our souls. Fate will not be denied.”

Robert opened the door and Valerie said, “Remember the way to my house. I will be waiting for you.”

Outside it was chilly, and pitch black dark. Robert started the car and turned the lights on, illuminating a thick fog.

He slowly picked his way a few miles through the opaque fog, unable even to see the big holes in the road before falling into them, banging the undercarriage of the car and almost getting stuck in the middle of nowhere.

Finally he stopped and thought for a few minutes. “Fate,” he said softly.

He carefully turned the car around on the narrow road and headed back.

“I shouldn’t,” he said.

Valerie heard his car and stood by the open door as Robert climbed the stairs and stopped before her.

“Good,” Valerie said.

“I shouldn’t be doing this,” he said clearly.

“You are doing exactly what you should be doing.”

“We’ll have to leave tomorrow.”

She nodded. “Ok.”

She had prepared a trundle bed that pulled out like a drawer from under her twin bed. “That’s for me,” Valerie said. “The bed is for you.”

“I’ll take the rocker,” he said as he sat down. “You sleep in the bed.”

“You can take a shower if you want. Or a bath?”

He smiled and shook his head.

Valerie took a shower and came out of the bathroom in a teeshirt and panties with her wet hair wrapped in a towel.

Robert admired her sexiness with his eyes and his face showed his appreciation..

Valerie took his face in her hands and bent down to kiss him on the mouth. “You can join me in bed if you want.”

“Maybe next time.”

Valerie nodded. She unwrapped the towel from her hair and bent over to comb it from the back of her head. She straightened a few things out around her little house, then turned off the ight and got into bed.

Robert rocked in the chair a tiny amount. His eyes were closed. He couldn’t sleep, but he was resting.

After a while he heard an owl hooting near the house. He thought of the line in the book when Huckleberry Finn said he heard an ‘owl who-whoing for somebody that was going to die.’

2

# # #

{Chapter 3

38 Opposites, the estranged

31 Attraction. Sensation

Monday 5 December

3:00am Chicago

It was a clear night, so, after months of fabrication, the First End Times Salvation Church, headed by the Most Reverend Peter White, known to his millions of TV fans as “Pastor Peter,” was ready to fire up the technology for his long awaited “Salvation On The Moon Project.”

“Let ‘er rip!” he commanded proudly into his phone.

          At his Protect All Souls From Evil compound outside Peoria, Illinois, the Reverend’s second-in-command closed the circuit on the “Moon printer,” a big, state of the art, high-gain laser system, which blazed the brilliant red word “REPENT” clearly onto the surface of the moon, visible from the earth three seconds later, after light from the new message bounced back. Applause went up from the 999 protected souls who had been assembled in the snowy fields, waiting for an hour in the freezing wind to witness this miracle. After the initial glow of admiration had worn off a minute later, they were led in singing “Are You Washed in the Blood?” The spirit of their performance quavered because most of them were shivering. Some wished they could stand closer to the laser, because it was radiating so much heat, despite its massive cooler, that the small crew of troubleshooters near it weren’t even wearing coats.

“Praise the Lord,” exclaimed Pastor Peter as he gazed at his good work from the rooftop of his big church in Chicago. Spread out in front of him, lining the railing, the twelve young men and boys of His Chosen Few All-Male Choir were marveling at the magnificent moment, their young faces upturned toward the legible moon. Each young man and boy wore a red, full-length beaver fur coat, with matching hats, identical to Pastor Peter’s, save his was pure white, and, bolstered by his fervent faith, he needed no hat.

“Sing boys!” Pastor Peter instructed the choir as he raised his arms in humble appreciation of his achievement. “Sing ‘Alas, And Did My Savior Bleed?’”

They sang with full volume and harmony.

Since the moon was illuminated by the sun only on the left side, the “REP” part of the word “REPENT” gleamed brightly on the lighted side, while the “ENT” part was against the dark background of the shadowed side.

600am - NSA Utah Data Center, near Salt Lake City

Among seven new analysis programs inaugurated today, an algorithmic “Disarticulator” sucked down every electronic communication in the world and, drawing on its long-established language and lexicon archives, began “word stacking profiles” on every person involved in those communications, whoever they were and wherever they were. By 4:00 P.M., when the NYSE closed, the Disarticulators had stacked an average of 512 words for each of the 2 billion people whose communications it had intercepted in those few hours. An unexpected bonus for the program tinkers was that the word “moon” appeared in almost 6,000 different languages, which provided a factorable commonality which could be manipulated mathematically to provide an affective tonal baseline.

The “stacked” words flowed straight into “personality extrapolation software” that could begin to estimate “character portraits” from even one word, and extended and sharpened its portrait in real-time as more words came in. This process served to locate not only terrorists, but also those who would become terrorists.

6am Ft. Marcy Park, Washington D.C.

Brandon met with one of his secret agents, Harry "Curly" Moore, in a parking lot. There were a few other cars around, left by joggers and walkers in the park.

             In addition to being one of Brandon’s loyal conspirators, Harry was a plainclothes sergeant in the metropolitan police. His loyalty was based on the fact that Brandon's surveillance had turned up Harry as a buyer and seller of child pornography. Given a choice between patriotic service or exposure and prison, Harry opted for service. Besides, Brandon had a generous fiber in his character, so there were perquisites for Harry from time to time, as in this particular assignment.

             "Today, you'll snatch this woman," Brandon explained as he handed Harry an envelope with a gloved hand, "Mrs. Richard Smith, also known as Beverly Jean Smith. Take her to Safehouse G. Lock her in the small bedroom. Make certain she’s rendition-ready, except for togs. Leave her nude. SOP. You’re free to use her until 3:01am Tuesday morning. That’s tomorrow morning. Then, Wednesday, you’ll take her to BWI and hand her over to our friends for containerized transpo.”

             Harry opened the envelope and viewed the photos. “Nice,” he said with feeling.

             “Just don’t make any marks on her,” Brandon said. “She’ll be contacting the police today, so that’s a possible avenue for your interdiction. If you can get her early today, there’s more time for us to have fun with her.”

             “Why will she be contacting the police?”

             “Her daughter is missing. Ran off with her boyfriend yesterday. She’s a student at Strayer.”

             “Mm,” Harry said.

             Brandon handed Harry a cell phone. “When she’s in the darkroom, call me on this burner. My number is for Patricia Henry.”

             Harry smiled as he put the phone in his coat pocket. “Give me fucking or give me head.”

             Without acknowledging the joke, Brandon looked straight ahead through his windshield. “Questions?”

             “No.”

             “Then, get going.”

             Brandon, himself, had to get going. He had to clean up and bring his work up to date for a telemeeting with the big fish at 8am.

By 700am, the TV News moos reported the writing on the moon. They weren’t sure yet which way to jump on this story, so they merely told the simple facts without comment and moved on.

          Many in the human herd were outraged by this “defacing” of Luna, which belonged to all the herd, not just the church herd. Pastor Peter called them “sinners” in his morning TV sermon.

          “You better get right with the Lord while you can,” he threatened, “because one morning soon, me and mine will have disappeared, having been taken up to heaven by the Rapture, and you’ll know then it’s too late!”

          Official agencies around the world were silent on the matter, not yet having arrived at a policy statement, but the general reaction of most people everywhere was negative.

          Of course, since the “Moon Printer” was located in Illinois, it could beam its lunar preaching only when the moon was over the U.S. But Pastor Peter had a back-up feature. The laser could be diffused and projected on clouds. Depending on the kinds of clouds in the sky, people, certainly in Peoria, and as far away as Chicago were warned in writing to change their ways before it was too late. Those in St. Louis and Indianapolis would have to find other ways to be saved, preferably by sending donations to Pastor Peter.

800am 2^nd Special Intelligence Detachment compound, South Florida

The moon news caused so much excitement among members of the Vision Group that Colonel Bird had to order an impromptu beating just to get the silent attention he needed to run the morning meeting. The male victim, a seer Bird openly despised, was lashed to a chair on the podium and worked over by two beefy military policemen while Bird micromanaged the beating with a smile on his face. He was quicker to order brutality this morning because there was a new lord sitting at the back of the “management” side of the room, behind Bird. 

“Olivia and Renee have been kidnapped,” Bird announced through his lapel microphone. “According to their shadows, they developed a good lead that Rodriguez would turn up late in a certain park which was a known gathering place for transvestite prostitutes. The shadows hung back, of course, too far as it turns out, because they saw our girls forced into a van that stopped in the street alongside the sidewalk. We haven’t heard from them since.”

William Driver put his mouth to Janice’s ear and whispered that Bird, together with Olivia and Renee, were probably scamming the operational funds. “He gave Olivia a hundred thousand, I hear.”

“That’s what I heard, too,” Kina put in from her side.

William looked around at her in surprise, amused. “The molls have ears,” he quipped. “Big ears!”

“Big deviation from standard operating procedure,” Janice contributed. “Fifty thousand is pretty standard seed for this kind of manhunt.”

Jose Rodriguez had not been located.

“Isolation until noon,” Colonel Bird announced. “Then I’ll expect lip service and two handwritten pages from each of you speculating about where we’ll locate Jose Rodriguez. Whoever nails it will win five thousand dollars and a two week furlough.”

A sigh went up from most of the members of the assembled Vision Group as they got up and drifted for their individual soundproof cells, which were decorated to resemble solitary confinement prison cells. There was a bed, a chair and a desk with ten pencils and a hundred sheets of notebook paper. The required format for today’s two pages would make it easy for analysts to scan them quickly.

There had been occasions in which Bird had left some of the psychics confined for days.

“I’m going to eviscerate that man one of these days,” William muttered.

“When you do, use a butter knife,” Janice said, “so it really, really hurts him.”

“I’m horny,” Kina said. “I know how I’m going to stoke my psychic powers for the next four hours.”

“You mean stroke your powers,” William said. “Save it for later. I’m horny, too!”

“Don’t worry,” Kina retorted. “There’ll be plenty left over for anybody interested.”

In his cell, William napped for an hour, then tackled the writing assignment, for which he lied that he had had a dream in which a Latin-looking man swinging a boleadora over his head was fleeing south on horseback, pursued by a caravan of several black SUVs, but they were so far behind him that he had a good chance for escape. The horse was wearing a garland made of big pink flowers. In his writing, William interpreted this dream to mean that Rodriguez was in southern Argentina, probably arranging a drug deal. William chuckled as he dotted the “i’s” and crossed the “t’s” of his creation. Then he lay on the bed and stared up at the ceiling, figuring ways he might escape from the compound. “Maybe I’ll win the furlough,” he muttered to himself, “and use that to get a head start.”

Janice diligently wrote a sensible, well-reasoned essay which stated that she had a hunch that Jose Rodriguez was in the old Coconut Grove part of Miami, and that there was no doubt that she, herself, if she were given a car and allowed to wander through Coconut Grove alone on a dark night, would be able to sense where he was hiding. Or even on foot. She read the essay over checking for grammatical errors, then flattened the paper on the desk. “Even Bird’s not that stupid,” she murmured, “but it’s worth a shot.” Then she stared off into space, trying to think of a way that she, William and Kina could escape from the compound.

Kina worked up a sweat lying on the bed, fantasizing that she was swimming naked in a swampy lagoon as the sun was setting, and a handsome, muscular young man with long, beautiful, golden air and a friendly, understanding face, came through the foliage and saw her in the water. He grinned at her and nodded, then slowly, tantalizingly, undressed, folding his clothes in the thick grass as he shed them, shirt, then shoes and socks, then pants, then briefs. Kina breathed faster as he slowly entered the water and gracefully swam toward her. The water wasn’t too deep. She was standing on the sandy bottom

“I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” he said softly as he drew close to her.

“Where have you been looking?” she asked.

“In heaven,” he answered as he brought his lips softly to hers.

She felt his right hand on her belly, then it slowly, sensuously moved southward.

“Tell me,” she said, breathing hard, “tell me one city on earth where you were looking for me.”

He looked deeply into her eyes, and with his left hand in the small of her back, brought their naked bodies together. He kissed her again and positioned himself, and her, to enter her.

“Tell… me!” she gasped. “The name of one city where you were looking for me!”

“Don’t you know?” he smiled.

She felt his big, thick penis slowly, smoothly slide into her, and she quickly had her first orgasm.

“No.” She wrapped her legs around him in the water and he clasped his hands behind her back and pulled her close to take it deeper. She moaned and had a second orgasm.

“You’re psychic,” he said as he gave her slow, deep strokes. “You should know.”

“I… I don’t know,” she gasped. “Tell me … tell me… tell me the name of of the city.”

“Fucking,” he grinned. “The city of Fucking, in Austria.”

Shouting “Fucking!” for each one, Kina managed to squeeze out six soul-searching, back-wrenching, clitoris-convulsing climaxes before the fantasy dissolved and left her to slowly become aware of her surroundings, especially the wet bed under her.

She hesitated to write such a speculation—even that Rodriguez was in Austria, let alone the city named Fucking. It sounded so silly. And the intelligence said Argentina.

“Maybe it was a real psychic vision,” she mumbled. “I do have some, sometimes.”

Eventually, she wrote that she had good reason to believe that Jose Rodriguez was either in Fucking, Austria or, possibly, Intercourse, Pennsylvania.

As she put the pencil down, she said quietly, “I hope William is taking a nap so he’s good for tonight.”

800am Alexandria, Virginia

The power group that secretly met “off the record” was informally called “the forum,” but Brandon referred to them as “the big fish,” and, sometimes, “the untidied nations.”

The telemeeting was routinely scheduled for the first week of every month, unless there was an emergency necessitating additional meetings. The time of the meeting changed as a democratic gesture toward “equality,” but since most of the members were in North America, convenience favored them. For the Asians, it was night, and for the Eurasians, it was the afternoon.

Of the twenty men represented in the power group, eight were heads of state, six were bankers, two were oilmen, two were media moguls, one was an American military man who had managed to elbow his way into the group, to the embarrassment of the American President, and one was a bishop in the church.

          The eight heads of state included Wang Zoom, a financial wizard who appointed himself prime minister of China, Vladimir Shirkash, a Russian oligarch who had jockeyed his way into the prime minister’s slot for that nation, French Prime Minister Bastien Dubois, Britain’s Prime Minister John Smith, India’s Prime Minister Arjun Kumar, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Kamran Khan Saleem, North Korea’s Foreign Minister Seulgi Park, who was not present for today’s meeting, and U.S. President Jerome Paul Jones.

          Brandon had no speaking rights at these meetings, but he kept track of the principals and their issues. Actually, but secretly, Brandon’s most important and immediate employer was the world’s most powerful banker, Niccolo Sienno, who usually remained silent during the meetings of “the forum.” Ostensibly, President Jerome “Romeo” Paul Jones was the chairman of the group, but there were usually interruptions and shouting that sabotaged his attempts to conduct an orderly meeting.

          There was much unfavorable comment about the word written on the moon, but silence on that matter from the theocratic states, since their governments had not yet had time to form a policy on that one-word sermon.

          The meeting opened with exchanged reckless insults and profane warnings about thwarted assassination plots against heads of state during which all members were individually named as instigators by others, and to which each indignantly claimed to be victims of others, some fervently swearing innocence and victimhood with tears in their eyes.

          Then the meeting moved on chaotically to the other usual issues: territorial disputes, complaints about intelligence operations, re-stated warnings, rhetorical questions, carefully crafted insults between certain members, and some humorous discussion about the G-7 meeting held three weeks ago in November. One of the members commented that “old whores get fussy about what little property they’ve managed to hang on to.” The G-7 members present turned a deaf ear to the scattered laughter.

930am – New York City

Ten billion shares of General Electric stock were sold on the New York Stock Exchange at an average market price of $76.94 per share. The dump began at the opening 9:30 A.M. bell and trickled off to normal volume by 2:00 P.M. The startling sell-off shook the confidence of the market and the Dow Jones Index was down 739 points when the day’s trading stopped at 4:00 P.M.

1000am Alexandria Virginia

Brandon greeted Marianne’s replacement, Jennifer Thomas cheerfully as he walked into the office.

“Good morning, Sexy!” he said. “Did you read the moon this morning?

Jennifer had been promoted from within the company to try out as Brandon’s assistant. She was glad to get the big pay boost, and considered herself sexy enough and willing enough that she responded cheerfully to Brandon’s greeting. Besides, she would always respond positively to anything Brandon said or did because he possessed complete and total power over her fate. Through his spying on American citizens, courtesy of the Patriot Act, he had uncovered her embezzlement of almost half a million dollars of “defense” money. He had informed her that he would make certain that she would remain in prison for fifty years, or she could work for him and have more fun and make more money than she had ever imagined she could.

“Good morning! Yes, I did read the moon. But I don’t think I’m going to repent,” she said, shaking her head slightly and letting her eyes wander down the front of Brandon’s body.

Brandon liked her evident ambition. “It makes me think,” he said, tilting his head to the side, “maybe I really should change. Good as I am, there’s always room to improve.”

In his office, he checked the bird camera. The cabin was undisturbed, the bodies still as he had left them. He examined Marianne’s body closely, looking for signs of puffiness or decay, and saw that flies had found her, especially her eyes, mouth, and genitals.

Later, just before lunch, Brandon wandered out of his office and gave Jennifer a speculative gaze. She quickly read the meaning of that signal and promptly informed him how happy she was in her new position and she invited him to inform her of any way that she could do her job better.

Brandon bent her over her desk, lifted her dress up, slid her panties down, and fucked her from behind. As a kind of welcome wagon gesture, he loaded her up with a generous serving of semen.

Afterward, she cleaned him up with her mouth.

“I think you’ll do very well here,” Brandon said.

“I thertainly hope tho,” she answered.

10:30am west, of Theriot Louisiana

At first, when Robert woke up, he didn’t know where he was. Then he remembered.

He heard the wind whistling around the corners of the house.

As he sometimes did after sleeping upright in a sitting position, he felt a little sick. He rose from the rocking chair and looked around. Valerie was not there.

She had left hot coffee for him as well as a fresh towel and a new toothbrush travel pack with a tiny tube of toothpaste.

He poured himself a cup of coffee and looked out the windows to find Valerie, but she was not around. He took the coffee out to his car and pulled his bag out of the trunk, searching for Valerie as he did so. In front of the house, he stopped and gazed toward the west, from which a strong wind was coming, rushing over a large plain of delta land, mostly devoid of vegetation except for little clumps of weeds here and there and stands of trees in the distance. He wondered if Valerie was out there.

He showered and put on the only clean clothes he had left. The browning went on his belt in a high rig and he donned a clean, long sleeve pullover shirt to cover it.

He went back outside to find Valerie. A few yards behind the house was a natural line of small trees and thick underbrush that extended a long ways in both directions. She was not there.

He had noted last night that she didn’t have a car, and wondered how she could live way out here without one.

In front of the house, as he gazed over the delta plain, the wind seemed to be picking up.

Robert saw her, then, maybe a thousand yards away, walking slowly toward the house.

While he watched her approach, he wondered about the strange way they had met, and the strange bond between them. He felt like he knew her from a long time ago. His friend, Luther, might say that Robert and Valerie had, perhaps, been lovers in a past life, maybe in many past lives.

“Past lives,” Robert mumbled aloud.

He saw the wind playing with her hair and tearing at her long black dress, pulling it fluttering out to the side and showing her legs.

He let his imagination lend a timeless feeling to the vision of her mysterious presence, walking alone in the spirited wind across the emptiness of the delta. Yes, he thought, maybe he had seen her in a past life, just like this. Maybe they had lived many lives together. Just like this.

Finally, she was within speaking distance. “Taking a walk?” Robert asked.

          “Saying good bye,” she said.

          Robert’s face looked pained. He opened his mouth to speak, but decided to say nothing.

“I’m ready to go,” Valerie said.

Within minutes, they were in the car, bouncing down the bad road toward the highway.

“Do the spies in your moon cult know about this house?” Robert asked.

“No, but I’m sure they’re looking for me. They must have their ways. They found me last time I tried to ditch them.”

“Where did they find you?”

“I have a house in New Orleans.”

“Are all those people in your cult spies?”

“It’s not a cult,” Valerie said. “Most of those people are old friends of mine.”

“And spies keep their ears open around your friends.”

In New Orleans Robert drove into a multistory parking lot attached to a shopping mall to find his next sterile car parked by itself in one of the upper floors.

“This is our new ride,” he said to Valerie as he parked next to it.

“Mm. Sportier than this one,” Valerie commented.

Robert moved their bags into the trunk of the new car, then checked the old car for anything left behind.

Valerie gathered herself up and got into the new car. “So, this is what secret agents do, right? Change cars a lot?”

“Sometimes?”

“Did you kill anybody lately?”

Robert shook his head a little as he kept his eyes on the road merging onto northbound Interstate 10.

He could feel Valerie studying him.

As soon as possible, he thought, I need to tell her about things.

He didn’t like lying to her. Besides, she probably knew he was lying.

Somehow, they knew each other very well.

And as we know each other, Robert thought, what do I know about Valerie?

Strong feeling swelled in his chest and he had to dab at his eyes with a handkerchief as he set the cruise control for seventy miles per hour.

“May I know where we’re going?” Valerie asked.

“Tennessee.”

6:30pm TV News “News Dip with Tiffany Bottoms”

Tiffany blinked into the camera and chattered her way through the usual fluffed up headlines with her customary serious facial expression, calculated by her “credibility consultants” to deliver gravitas to the delivery of every cover story. But she smiled, at last, as she gave her viewers a tongue-tickling with the half-hour’s last story.

          “On the other side of the world, in more ways than one, in Australia, Glen Avidsmith, one of the richest men in the world who, jokingly calls himself the ‘CEO of the military-industrial complex,’ revealed that he has been building an underground city for a million people which encompasses a subterranean territory of one thousand square miles near the famous landmark known as Ayers Rock, but that now, he’s changed his mind about finishing the project. Our correspondent, Rolf Burger has the story.”

          The video cut to Avidsmith speaking on camera. “It’s just costing too much money!”

          Burger’s voice ran under video of the ultramodern underground construction, “The town, which Avidsmith says is almost complete, includes full-spectrum artificial lighting, shopping centers, supermarkets, schools, parks—in short, as Avidsmith says, “Everything a million people need to live a good life. Five golf courses, a professional baseball stadium, the whole works. And the architects have designed a city with a space-ratio of 30 parts green vegetation to one part concrete. It would have been like living in jungle.”

Avidsmith led a tour of the empty town for three busloads of reporters from around the world. Asked why he had built this odd complex, Avidsmith answered, “It was to be a week-end getaway for my friends all over Australia, and their friends.”

“Mr. Avidsmith, it looks like the construction is all done and ready for people to move in. Why quit now when you’re so close to completing this magnificent enterprise?”

Avidsmith gazed off into the subterranean distance at a park with lush, green rolling hills. “Well, I’m tired of it, to be honest. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but not now.”

“We’ve been told you started this project eight years ago and it has cost you 22 billion dollars. And you’re going to stop now?”

“Yup. Going to move on, you know?

“What are you going to do with this vast, buried, empty metropolis?”

“Well, I’ll be coming down here sometimes with my friends to play golf. We put in five nice golf courses, you know. The one named after my daughter, “Kylee Mounds” is quite beautiful.”

“Was it you who sold so much GE stock today?” Burger asked.

“Heavens, no! I’d never sell my GE stock,” Avidsmith answered.

11:00pm about 40 miles southeast of Knoxville

When Robert turned into the driveway of the house, Valerie woke up.

          “Are we home?”

          “Yeah,” Robert said. “Home.” He turned off the engine. “C’mon in,” he said. “It’s cold out here. I’ll bring the bags in in a minute.”

          As soon as she was inside the big ranch house, Valeria called out, “Hello?” She turned to Robert and said, “Did you hear the echo? Is this a safe house? Nobody lives here, right?”

Robert chuckled.

“Have you ever been here before? Or is this your first time.”

Robert nodded and smiled. “First time.”

“Great way to live.”

When he returned with the bags, she was gone. The back door was open but she was nowhere in sight.

“Valerie!” Robert called.

“It’s wonderful! Come on out!”

“Aren’t you cold?”

“Yeah.”

He selected one of the women’s coats in a closet and walked out into the night air.

“Look at the stars!” Valerie said.

Robert looked. “Nice.”

“C’mon.” She took his hand and pulled him farther away from the house, toward the darkness of woods some distance away in the starry night.

“No moon tonight,” Robert observed as they walked hand in hand across the grassy field.

“It’s not up yet,” Valerie said. “Anyway, I don’t want to see it right now. “What presumptuous people they are, shining their silly nonsense on Luna. Who do they think they are?”

“It is a crass thing to do, sullying your moon like that,” Robert said. “But they probably think they’re doing a good thing.”

“How could it ever be the good thing to deface our beautiful Luna with a buzzword?” Valerie said. “Oh, it doesn’t matter. She’ll cast it off and be her beautiful self again in a few days.”

“I don’t think so, Valerie. Not unless they blow a big fuse on that laser.”

“Maybe that’s what will happen.”

“Don’t get your hopes up.

“My hopes are up.”

She brought them to a stop and brought his hand up for a kiss.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Did you kill somebody?”

He drew back.

“Don’t be afraid. You can tell me. I saw the signs. I know we were brought together. That’s why I’m here. I know you’re a good man. I just want to know about you.”

“I’m not sure I’m such a good man.”

“So, you did kill somebody?”

He nodded slightly.

“Why?”

“He was a very evil man.”

“What did he do?”

“Murder. Lots of murders. Selling women. Selling children. Killing children.”

“So, you’re a like a professional killer?”

“I don’t do it for money.”

“What do you do for money?”

“I’m a security consultant.”

“Robert—what in the world does that mean? Just be straight with me. Do you keep people safe? Do you install burglar alarms? Don’t waste our time. We may not have much time. Don’t waste what time we do have. Just tell me. You saw the signs just like I did. Luna brought us together. We’re meant to be! That’s why you brought me with you.”

Robert said nothing.

“You’re not really sure, are you?” she said.

Robert lit a cigarette and looked at Valerie. He looked up at the stars.

          “Why did you bring me with you, Robert?”   

          He looked at her and kept on smoking. Finally, he dropped the butt, stubbed it out with his shoe, and blew out that last of the smoke from his lungs.

“It’s hard to say it.”

“That we’re meant for each other?” she said.

He nodded.

“That’s right.”

“All right,” Robert said. “All right.”

“Tell me about yourself. You’re a force for good, aren’t you?”

“I damn sure try to be.”

She kissed him on the lips. “I know.”

          They stood looking into each other’s eyes.

          “What do we do now?” he asked.

          “We live our life together. Starting now.”

          She pulled him by the hand into the deep darkness of the trees on the hill that sloped up the mountainside.

          She drew him close and kissed him a few times with passion.

“I’m afraid that by being with you, I’m endangering you,” Robert said. “They’re looking to kill me, and if you’re with me, they’ll kill you too.”

“There is no safety in this world,” she answered. “You are my destiny.”

She embraced him and kissed him and the fire of passion grew. She moved his entwining hands from her back down to the small of her back, and she pushed her pubis close to his. “I am already yours,” she said. “Do you want me?”

“Of course.”

“Then feel me.” She put his hands on her breasts. He quickly took her shoulders and turned her back to him, kissing the side of her neck as he held her close, feeling her breasts and caressing the front of her body from her neck to her thighs.

“Let’s go inside,” she said.

She found two boxes of emergency candles in one of the drawers in the well-stocked kitchen and turned out the lights.

“Surprised there’s no jasmine incense in there,” she said. “They’ve got everything else. Including food and wine.”

She lit eight candles and placed them around the house, including the bathroom and the bedroom.

“Open this bottle of wine,” she said.

Robert found two wine glasses in the cupboard and poured the merlot. “We should eat something,” he said.

They sat at a corner of the table in the dining room with scrambled egg sandwiches and the two glasses of wine, their faces glowing in the candlelight.

He touched his glass to hers and said, “To us.”

“Yes,” she said. “To us.”

In the bedroom, he played streaming romantic music on his laptop.

          “Let’s get into bed naked,” she said.

          Passionate kissing and eager touching quickly aroused amorous commingling of their heavenly souls and physically correlated cooperative consummation of sexual climaxes which commoved and convulsed their earthy bodies in ecstasy.

          Slow to separate, their genitals eventually withdrew from each other and they then lay side by side silently in bed for quite awhile,

          Finally, she got up to go to the bathroom.

          As he was sipping wine by candle light, he noticed a spot on the bed where she had been. It was sex juice, of course, but there was a little blood in it.

          “Blood?” he queried when she returned.

She dabbed at it with a wet towel and said nothing.

“You’re surely not a virgin,” he said.

“Not anymore.”

He got out of bed, opened another bottle of wine in the kitchen, and poured himself a tumbler full.

Later they made love again. Two more times.

3

# # #

{Chapter 4

20 Contemplation; looking down

62 The small get by

500am Tuesday December 6, Washington D.C. near the corner of Atlantic St SE and 4th St SE

Brandon let himself into Safe House G. He slipped a SWAT-style ski mask over his head before he opened the door to the bedroom where Beverly Smith should be tied with a black bag over her head, if Curly Moore had followed standard operating procedure.

          Peeking through the slightly opened door, he saw that Moore had followed orders. She was lying on her side, hogtied, naked, with her head bagged in black.

          Brandon had planned for this encounter, but on one detail he had not yet made up his mind. The question was whether to deliver the news of the murder of her husband and daughter before, or after he raped her. Now that it was time, he decided on before.

          He fitted a voice-changing mask over his ski mask and pulled the bag off her head. Her mouth was taped shut.

          “Beverly,” his deep electronic voice said. “Look at these photographs.” He displayed eight photos near her face on the bed. Four of her husband, shot dead on the floor with his naked lover, and four of her daughter hanging dead. There were close-ups of the husband’s face with his dead eyes open, and close-ups of the daughter’s reddish-purple face with the rope tight under her chin, her eyes bulging open and her dark purple tongue hanging out of her mouth.

At first, Beverly didn’t look at the photos. Her eyes had to adjust to the light. She was distracted by great physical pain. She had doubtless been traumatized by her abduction and probable rape by Curly Moore. Now, her first reaction to the removal of the bag was to look at her surroundings, her situation, and Brandon, the present threat, the masked man with the bizarre voice. But, eventually, she did look at the photos.

Brandon then propped up a big android tablet on a pillow in front of her and started the video of Beverly’s daughter standing naked on the stool with the noose around her neck when Brandon jabbed her legs with the stiletto forcing her off the stool, and she screamed until the tightened noose choked off her breath, and she swung back and forth, kicking and dying.

Beverly’s face changed from fear to horror. She struggled against her bonds, breathing hard with exertion, trying to scream through the tape.

“They’re dead, Beverly. Your husband was shot by his girlfriend. She was tired of him. She put three bullets in him, then blew her own brains out.”

Brandon studied her shocked reaction.

“Your daughter was raped and then hung. She died a slow, choking death. Look at her face there.”

Beverly closed her eyes and tried to turn away.

“Now, I’m going to have some fun with you. Fucking you. And when I’m done with you, I’m going to sell you to a brothel in Africa, so the rest of your days, you’ll be fucked by a hundred niggers a day. But for now, just me.”

Brandon told her the bad news before fucking her because he wanted to enjoy her utter hopelessness. He smeared plenty of lubricant on his penis, and easily penetrated her deeply from behind.

She wept and had difficulty breathing because of her taped mouth.

Brandon was very stimulated and climaxed after only a couple of minutes. Besides, he couldn’t tarry; Beverly was only one of the items on his full schedule.

630am 2^nd Special Intelligence Detachment, Big Cypress National Preserve

One of the MPs pounded on the door of their apartment until Janice responded vocally, “OK, ok, we’re up! We’ll be there in a minute!”

          “You have ten!” the MP yelled, then went on down the hall where he had a few other mavericks to awaken

          Janice touched William on the shoulder. “William? William! Wake up! C’mon.” She raised herself on her elbows and looked at him. “Time to get up and do your duty.”

He stirred, and slowly slurred. “My duty? We did that last night.” He turned on his other side and snuggled comfortably deeper into the sheet. “Tell him I can’t make it today. I’m sick.”

Janice reached over William to gently rock Kina on the other side of the bed. “Kina? Kina! Time to get up.”

          Kina stirred.

          Janice sat up on her side of the bed. William was snoring softly again.

The trio strolled across the grassy square of the compound, William sipping coffee and looking around in the quiet, foggy morning. Kina was responding to messages on her phone. Janice gazed at the ghostly tree tops.

          “Those ‘25s must have just come in,” William said, waving his coffee at five army trucks. “Wow! Look at the size of those dream spinners.” With winches, a squad of soldiers was off-loading heavy electronic equipment onto forklifts and conveying them to the “mystic” complex. “Bet we’ll be receiving new protocols tomorrow.”

          “I’ve got appointments,” Kina mumbled.

          William looked over at her with an eyebrow raised.

          Kina saw the eyebrow. “That’s just the way it is.”

          William nodded. “That’s just the way it is.”

          A huey was rattling in the distance, on approach.

          “Probably your ride,” Janice said. “Where are you going?”

          Kina sighed, “Washington, of course.”

The huey’s take-off could faintly be heard in the soundproof meeting room as Bird stepped onto the podium; he made a point of smirking at William as he made eye contact. “Appointments, eh?”

          William made no response. Janice took his hand and squeezed it.

          “Well, you got back-up,” Bird sniggered. “Unless I rent her out too.”

          William was in the third row, but there were empty chairs in front of him, so he was on Bird before anyone could react, pounding his face with a strong right. Four MPs took him away.

          Three corpsmen took Bird away.

930am about 40 miles southeast of Knoxville

Robert Lee’s sleep was troubled with a dream of smoky fields strewn with dead children.

The children haunted his dreams as if they expected him to deliver justice, to avenge them. As a soldier, Robert had always intended to do good. He thought of himself as an agent of “good.” But he knew life was more complicated than that.

          An angel spoke to Robert in his dream.

          “You are the warrior who saves the people.”

          Dreaming, he shook his head. “I have no people.”

          “The time has come that devils are strong. The evil time. But you are a warrior for the goodness.

He shook his head.

“Your ordeal is coming. Be ready. You will have to save the world from fire.”

Lee shook his head. “The world is evil. Let it burn.”

Robert awoke with those words in his mind. Looking at his watch, he was surprised it was so late.

          He found hot coffee waiting for him and looked out the windows for Valerie. Not finding her, he knew she had gone up the mountain in whose woods they had courted last night.

          The coffee cup next to the pot had a white ribbon tied to its handle.

          He put on a jacket and took a scoped M-14 rifle from a hidden safe all Osiris shelters had and, after taking a look around with binoculars, he set off across the open field toward the woods, feeling vulnerable every step.

          Valerie had left short white ribbons tied to branches, marking her path. Robert smiled as he followed. She had taken a trail a good distance up the east side of the mountain.

          “The moon is rising now, behind these clouds,” Valerie told him.

          He leaned the rifle against a tree and sat down beside her.

          “I enjoyed your ribbons,” he said. “But I would have found you anyway.”

          “Part Indian?” she jested.

          “No. I’m just drawn to you,” he said. “I think we’ve proven that.”

          She kissed him and he met her affection with his own.

          They gazed at a mountain to the east, behind which the unseen waning crescent moon was rising.

          She turned to him and said, “I’m afraid if I tell you the things I want to tell you, I may drive you away. Or frighten you.”

He smiled. “Do I look like a man who is easily frightened?”

“In some ways, yes. Not of soldiers, but of smiles.”

“You can tell me anything you want.”

She looked toward the distant moon, invisible behind thick gray clouds. “I dreamed last night that you and I were in a beautiful mansion on a mountain. I woke up in bed with you. Sunshine was streaming in through big windows. When I turned to look at you…” She stopped and looked directly into his eyes.

“Yes?”

“There was a baby in bed between us.”

She kept her eyes locked on his. He didn’t look away.

“So, are you telling me you think you’re pregnant?”

“That was my first idea. But it could mean something else.”

“Like what?”

“Like a baby could come between us. Or maybe that we are starting a new life together. A new venture.”

“A new creation,” Robert added.

She nodded.

Robert looked away to the east and Valerie turned her eyes there too.

“I never thought about a baby,” he said softly.

“Maybe you should think about it.”

He lit a cigarette and gazed east.

“Can I have one?” she asked.

“No.”

He laughed at her surprised face, then lit a cigarette for her.

“What do you dream about?” she asked. Or do you not remember your dreams?”

Robert chuckled. “I remember them sometimes.” He inhaled a chest full of smoke and released it into the fresh mountain air. “There’s one dream that comes back from time to time. As a matter of fact, I woke up to it this morning.”

“Tell me.”

“Talk about your scary dreams. You sure you want to hear it?”

“Tell me.”

He shook his head slightly, then said, “The the main idea is usually the same. First, I see fields of dead children. Endless fields. In the dream, this makes me angry. Very angry. Like I want to find out who killed them and… and do away with them. Then there’s an angel there. It’s not like she has wings or anything, but in the dream I just know she’s angel. A woman of light. Sometimes I see her and sometimes I just hear her voice, but it’s always the same angel. She tells me mostly the same thing each time even though the words are a little different.”

“What did she tell you today?”

He shook his head. “It’s crazy stuff.”

“Tell me. Tell me the whole dream.”

He smoked. “First I see all the dead children and it makes me angry. Then the angel says I have to save the people. I say ‘No. I have no people.’ Then she said it’s an evil time. Like an evil age. That the devils are strong now. They’re running it. Then she says… she says I’m a warrior for goodness. That was her word. Goodness.” He shook his head and inhaled smoke.

“It’s true,” Valerie said.

“You don’t even know me.”

“I know you. I’ve known you forever. Is that the end of the dream?”

He looked at her.

“Tell me the rest.”

“It’s embarrassing.”

“Tell me.”

    “She said my ordeal is coming and that I should be ready for it. She said I will have to save the world from fire.”

Valerie looked at Robert a long time. “Sometimes dreams like that, when we have them over and over, are about something that bothers us deeply. Like those dead children. You’re a sensitive man.”

Robert put out the cigarette and said nothing.

“But saving the world from fire. That’s something else. I mean, that’s pretty specific. Do you ever worry about nuclear war?”

“Sometimes I worry that it won’t happen.”

“That’s a terrible thing to say.”

“That’s what I say in the dream. ‘The world is evil. Let it burn.’”

“Now you’ll have to save the world in it. Because our life together is in this world. And…”

“Yes,” Robert said softly. “And…”

100pm Knoxville Tennessee

Interstitial Industrial park: Transitions Moving and Storage

Robert was buzzed in the front door of the big building and found Luther coming around the reception desk. They embraced.

          “Still old enough?” Luther asked.

          “Old enough!” Robert replied cheerfully. “Surely old enough!”

          They climbed the stairs to Douglas Kirk’s office.

          Kirk got up from the library table he used as a desk to embrace Robert. “Glad you made it,” he said.

          “It wasn’t too bad,” Robert said.

          “The too bad is yet to come,” Kirk said, sitting back down. He motioned for Robert and Luther to sit down at the chairs on the other side of the table. “As a result of this volunteer work you did in Dallas, you earned a big promotion. Now you’ve got a special designated AI Task Force after you. They want you more than they even want me.”

          Robert smiled. “Well, it’s good news if they put those AI dogs on my trail. Artificial stupidity is even worse than the human version. As for Dallas, it was the right thing to do.”

          “I’m not talking right and wrong,” Kirk said. “Of course it was the right thing to do, but it was not the wise thing to do. Not now. We have more pressing issues to address.”

“He was torturing and murdering children and selling children for that purpose to others. That is a most pressing issue.”

“You sound like one of the thousand hacking at the branches of evil instead of striking at the root,” Kirk said. “I understand your taking this action, but it wasn’t the best move at this time. It’s not efficient. He replacement is already in place. Our moves need to be more strategic.”

“Strategic moves for me us means using bullets to eject bigger devils from their human skins,” Robert said. “You find them for me, and I’ll send them back to hell.”

There was silence, then Kirk said, “Luther, go ahead.”

Luther handed papers to Kirk and Robert. “We know artificial intelligence is a joke, but we have to keep an  eye on it anyway. We’ve got our own AI developer constellations running metacognitive diagnostics and resonant parallels on everything they’re doing. And we’ve got people on the inside, of course. I know artificial intelligence is a joke at this time, but even so, we’re involved in a very fast game now. I want you to at least look at our own AI forecasts to make sure you avoid their AI snares.

Robert chuckled. “I suppose you’re going to tell me to stay out of Dallas for a while.”

“As a matter of fact…” Luther smiled. “But there’s more. Their resonant parallels are starting to trend south. Like Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama. This is all new. A few hours ago they had you drifting into Los Angeles. Now we’re wandering around in the Old South. Anything you could tell me about this?”

“I met a woman and drove her to her home in Louisiana.”

Luther gave a significant glance to Kirk, then turned back to Robert. “Well, then they’ve got your scent, don’t they?”

 Kirk said, “You’re going to have to lead them northwest for a few days. Is this woman a new girlfriend?”

“Apparently.”

Kirk arched his eyebrows and shook his head slightly. “Dangerous Liaisons.”

“I’ll give our people what I know about her to get them started on who she is, but I think she’s ok.”

“Of course, and you’re a completely disinterested judge of that, right?” Luther said.

“I know it fits the occult-intelligence profile, so I’ll tell you right now she has some kind of mystic relationship with the moon and some cult followers. Somebody already has planted at least two spies in her entourage that she told me about herself. And I admit she knows a little black-op jargon that she picked up from the movies. But I think she’s an innocent.”

Luther shook his head and made a face. “She certainly sounds like an innocent to me.”

Robert looked from Luther to Kirk, then down at the papers in his hand. “What have we got here?”

“Our next little adventure,” Kirk said with a tight smile. “It started on 4chan. An anonymous poster, tripcode ‘wallfly,’ insisting she’s an insider among top government muck-a-mucks who are planning to start an operation named ‘Silverdoor’.”

“She?” Robert asked. “Another 4channer, eh? So who is she?”

“A woman named Kina Jackson,” Kirk said, “A product of the zombie factory.  MK-Ultra all the way. Evidently, she’s primarily a courier sex slave, moving in the top circles of powerful men, with her eyes and ears wide open day and night.”

“So, maybe she knows what she’s talking about, if it isn’t a honeypot ruse.”

“Looks like it,” Luther interjected. “We think it’s serious. Her client roster includes the top guns in the War Party, public and private.”

“So what are we going to do?” Robert asked.

“Well,” Luther cleared his throat, “she’s an inmate at some kind of secret Army installation in south Florida, attached to and run by the Holding Company, of course. They call it an intelligence detachment. Now, get this. They conduct what they call ‘psychic research’ there. Gotta be some kind of crazy scene. Anyway, she’s based out of there when she’s not balling gorillas in Washington.

“This intelligence detachment has quite a few customers coming and going, looking for God knows what at that freak show, and quite a few of them are war party principals.

“Now, we have it on good intelligence that this weekend several of the top guys in the war party are going to stay there a couple of nights. We intend to crash the party and invite them to  come with us so that we can have an exchange of views.”

“What about ‘wallfly?’”

“Our information is that most of the inmates really are imprisoned there. We’re going to set them free. Including ‘wallfly’.”

“And their security? What’s the plan? Not a gunfight?”

“Of course not. Well, there may be a little armed resistance. But we have major diversions and effective neutralization planned. We’re going to take their analysts and their AI for a vacation in Paris. You also will lead them, perhaps to Alaska.”

“Alaska in December? They won’t buy it.”

“We have a target up there for you to look at. A real scumbag. You’ll be glad you went.

“Then we’ll surprise this Florida Army installation on Sunday. It’ll remind you of home. It’s in a cypress swamp. The Big Cypress National Preserve, as a matter of fact.”

Kirk got up and said, “Let’s look at it now.”

The three of them went into the map room to iron out the details.

100pm Colonel Bird’s office, 2^nd Special Intelligence Detachment, Big Cypress National Preserve

Bird’s assistant, Lieutenant “Big” Jane Moore electronically unlocked the cipher door to Bird’s office so that Janice could go in. Jane was smug. “He’s been waiting for you.”

Sunglasses covered Bird’s eyes, but the purple bruises on the left side of his face showed clearly under the fluorescent lights.

“Well,” he smiled. “Here to blow me to get William out of the trunk?”

“Don’t be vulgar,” Janice said, sitting in a chair across from him. “You know, I’ve been keeping track of your—what shall we call them—felonies? Treasons?—for some time now. I have been waiting for the perfect occasion to turn you in. Seems that time has come.”

Bird smiled. “Oh yeah? What you gonna do?”

“I’m going to send documentation of your embezzlements to a friend of mine at the GAO. Also the DOD Comptroller and the JAG. Not to mention abuse of power.”

Bird chuckled. “What? Not the FBI and the IRS?”

Janice continued, “And before you get any stupid ideas—I know you specialize in stupid ideas—I’ve provided that if something happens to me, that documentation will automatically be dispatched to a number of agencies that would be interested in your crimes, not just embezzlement, and not just the GAO, not just the DOD Comptroller, and not just the JAG.”

Bird cleared his throat, but his voice came out higher than he meant it to be. “Like who else?”

“Use your imagination,” Janice replied.

“I have nothing to fear,” Bird said. “I’m a straight-arrow career Colonel in the U.S. Army, proud of my unblemished record of high achievement. And I’ve done nothing wrong. And I have powerful friends of my own,” he added with raised eyebrows and a forward nod of his head.

“Right,” Janice said. “Now, I want William released this minute.” She pointed to his telephone with her eyes. “Now!” she snapped.

“I was about to spring him anyway,” Bird said. “I had already decided that. He had his punishment.” He picked up the phone. “Not because of your silly threat.”

“Right.”

Bird made the call. “They’re taking him to the infirmary,” he said. “William’s having a little trouble walking at the moment.”

Janice leaned forward to make her point stronger. “You better hope I don’t lose my temper when I see what you did to him.”

“It’s not too bad,” Bird mumbled. “He’s all right. ”

“And you need to apologize to William” Janice said. “You know, you don’t ‘rent’ anybody out, least of all, me and Kina. You do what you’re told. You’re just a little shit at the bottom of a pile of big shits. Aren’t you?”

Bird frowned, but said nothing.

“Aren’t you?” Janice said.

He remained silent.

Janice leaned back in her chair. “Now, there are a few other things. We need a furlough. The three of us. For a month. And some spending money. Fifty thousand will do. For now. From your own account. And a raise in grade.”

Bird smiled. “You seem to think you have four aces and a king.” He leaned forward and steepled his hands on the desk. “You don’t even have a pair of deuces.”

“Right.”

“But, sometimes, you three do contribute good window, and I want you to be happy in your work.”

“Of course.”

Bird cleared his throat, but his words came out deeper than he intended, “You want furloughs? Granted! I’ll need a little time to arrange it. Like you said, I’m just—a cog among bigger wheels.”

          “Right. But the fifty thousand you can hand me now—from your safe.”

          “I can’t do that.”

          Janice smiled. “No?”

          “I mean, not fifty thousand. I can give you ten—in an hour.”

Janice rose from the chair and leaned forward on her knuckles on his desk. “You’ll give me fifty, like I said. In mixed bills. Send the package over in an hour. Here’s how I want it broken down.” She read from a piece of paper. “Four hundred one-hundred dollar bills. One hundred fifties. Two hundred-fifty twenties.”

She smiled at him, then slammed the door behind her with a startlingly loud bang that made Bird jump in his chair.

He used a secure line to call a colleague in New Zealand. After niceties were exchanged, Bird got to the point. “I’ve got a problem, Mason. I need a favor—no questions asked.”

          “If I can,” Mason replied. “You’d do the same for me. What is it?”

“I need a ‘gamut run” on one of my subordinates.”

“Oh,” Mason sounded disappointed. “No big. Name?”

“She has four names. Janice Anne Monica Black.”

“When do you need it?”

“As soon as possible.”

“Well,” Mason said. “There’s no load on. Wee hours Wednesday morning here, you know. Get it to you in two or three hours. How do you want it?”

          “Electronic. ASCII. Searchable. And, Mason, I mean I really need everything attached to her. Tumbled of course.”

          “Of course. Jaywicks or supernet?”

“Supernet.”

Bird summoned his most trustworthy military policeman.

“Bernie, Janice Black is spying for someone, selling secrets about our operations here. For cash.”

“How do you know?”

“Snitch.”

“Who?”

Bird shook his head.

“Who’s buying?” Bernie asked.

“Who knows. Maybe the Russians.”

“Maybe the navy,” Bernie said softly. “How’s she getting the hushy out?”

 “She may have drops scattered around the campus. Some double on our team with outside access retrieves and delivers.”

Bernie nodded. “What do you want to do?”

“I want you to put a dependable man on reviewing the base ‘surv’ archive.”

Bernie frowned. “For how far back? The cameras log over 1400 hours of video each day. We can view the files fast forward, but still--”

“Just start with the grounds around her apartment. Hers and Driver’s. And Kina Jackson’s. Go back until you find something. You know. Suspicious behavior. Hiding something on the grounds. You can put three men on it, but compartmentalize them and compartmentalize their instructions from you.”

Bernie nodded, at the same time mentally analyzing this new, assignment while his policeman’s eyes studied Bird’s nervous manner. “Right,” he said. “Shouldn’t we toss her apartment?”

“I’ll take care of that myself,” Bird said. “Oh, and one more thing. If anything turns up on those videos, bring it to me. Don’t move on it. That’s important. Bring it to me.”

“Yessir,” Bernie snapped.

When he had his office to himself again, he opened the safe and counted out Janice’s money. “Most of my Christmas bonus,” he mumbled. “Got to buy some time.”

“Big” Jane took the flat “special delivery” box of money over to Janice an hour later.

Forty-five minutes after that, a Sunshine taxicab was admitted through the front gate and found its way to the apartment. Janice and a wobbly William climbed in with some baggage. As the cab exited the gate, William stuck his arm out the window and gave the finger to the compound and the perimeter security personnel.

200pm Mayflower Hotel, Washington D.C.

Kina answered the knock at the door naked, except for red high heels with ankle straps.

          “Darling!” She threw her arms around General Wilson before he could close the door. “I told you I can’t live without you. I just can’t stay away from you.”

          He smiled and drew back from her so that he could fill his eyes with her naked body. “I’m glad you called me,” he said. “I was surprised. I thought you were going to be unavailable for a while.”

          “And I thought you said you were going to be down at S.F. for a month.”

“I said I might. It turned out to be a drill. I still wish you had come with me.”

Kina raised herself an inch more than the heels gave her and kissed him on both sides of his neck. “I was summoned to Washington this morning so that some three-letter agencies could decide if I was any kind of a security risk.”

          “And are you?” he asked.

          “No. Not at all.”

          “So, is that what they decided?”

          “They said they’ll be in touch, and the official who said it,” she put her hand lightly between her breasts and slid it, then, smoothly down the front of her body to her shaved pubis, “looked like he really want to touch and be inside me!”

He laughed.

“Since I’m in town, I wanted you to touch me. I’m always touched by you. But maybe you won’t want to touch me after I confess something to you.”

“What is that?”

          She stuck her lower lip out to make a sad face. “I’ve been a bad girl,” she said. “I hope you won’t be angry with me.”

“Oh?” He sat down on the bed. “What have you been up to? You told me you were still having sex with a lot of important men.”

She stood in front of him, took his hands in hers, made a grumpy face and imitated a stodgy, disapproving voice. “Still having sex with a lot of important men,” she grumbled. Grinning, then, she knelt between his legs. “It’s not having sex, Darling. That sounds so impersonal. It’s naked men between my spread open legs, on top of my naked body, sliding their big wet dicks in and out of my tight little pussy, making me yelp and quiver and come all over, again and again.” She put her hand on his clothed penis. “You know I have a thing for you. May I?”

He nodded.

She undressed the rigid aspirant and came face to face with it. “Mm, I love you,” she said to it, and inserted it into her mouth while she beamed up at the general with her eyes.

The general arched his back and held onto the edge of the bed. Kina smiled up at him with her eyes and slowly, sensuously pumped her mouth with the fleshy entrée.

“Ah-ah-ah!” he ejaculated, as Kina orally began the process of metabolizing his seed. He squirmed and grunted as she cleaned up his physical contribution to the intimate congress.

When they were both done, Kina leaned back with her butt on her heels and looked into the general’s eyes and said with a big grin, “I really loved that! I wish we could do that every day.”

“Me… too,” he sighed.

She began to gently tuck the sated athlete back into its uniform. “I have something special to ask you,” she said with a serious expression on her face as she carefully zipped the little locker room shut.

“Uh-oh. Here it comes,” he mumbled.

“You ready?”

“I suppose.”

“I want you to marry me.”

He stared at her.

“I’ve thought it all through,” she said. “Of course, you’re surprised, I know. Shocked, maybe. Maybe you think I’m joking. I’m not. Our thing is really special. I’ve told you that before. Maybe you always thought I was just scamming you, but I wasn’t. I really like to be with you. And don’t worry. I’ll give up those other men. I want to settle down and have children with you. We can have sex every night—

“Kina—” he interrupted softly.

“I know you think you’re too old for me, but that’s one of the things I adore about you. You’re really mature. The young guys that hit on me all the time are just—”

“Kina—” he said smiling.

She stopped and looked up at him. “What?”

“I’m flattered, but we’re not going to get married.”

“Why not? You don’t want me? I think I’d make a good wife and mother.”

He shook his head and smiled. “I think you’re wonderful, but I’m afraid marriage is out of the question.”

“At least think about it,” she said, pouting, now with a single tear spilling out of each eye and rolling down her fair cheeks.

“Kina—” He gave her his handkerchief. “You’re really sweet, and if I were about a hundred years younger, I’d marry you in a minute.”

She chuckled at his hyperbole.

“But that’s not the case,” he continued.

She put the clean handkerchief back in his lap and hurried into the bathroom, closing the door behind her.

A few minutes passed. The general had just begun to suspect she might not come out of the bathroom when she came out.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

She nodded and took her dress from the bed and slipped it over her head.

“I do really like you,” he said. “You wouldn’t believe how much I look forward to our rendezvous. I’d do anything for you.”

She shot him a look that accused him of empty words.

“It wouldn’t be good for you to marry me,” he said. “You wouldn’t be happy. It just wouldn’t work out.”

She wiggled into her panties.

“When can I see you again?” he asked.

“I don’t know, but I hope it’s soon,” she replied. “This security investigation will probably lead to me getting passed around in a higher circle of bureaucrats and baby-kissers. So I won’t have a lot of time. But I’ll call you every chance I get.” She slung the long strap of her bag over her shoulder.

He reached for his wallet.

“Please don’t!” she said. “This is not about money. I know I’ve taken money from you in the past, but that was just for fun. I thought you understood. And I’m not giving up on us getting married.”

She hugged him, kissed him, and headed for the door.

“Can I buy you something? A present?”

“Not this time,” she said.

“Can I do something for you? Any kind of favor?”

“No. But thanks.”

“Until next time,” he said softly.

“Until next time,” she echoed, as she opened the door, then stopped as if struck by a new thought. She stepped back into the room and closed the door. “Maybe there is something you could do for me.”

“Yes?”

“Maybe you could pull a few strings and get this bastard colonel off my back at our little outpost in Florida. He’s targeted me and my friends for prejudicial treatment and outright abuse.

“Give me his name and the name of the installation. I’ll look into it.”

500pm about 40 miles southeast of Knoxville

“We’re going to Alaska Anchorage.” Robert told Valerie.

          “In the middle of winter? That’ll be fun,” Valerie said. “What do you have business to conduct with the Russkies?”

          “I have a Christmas present for you.” Robert handed her a little box wrapped with Santa Claus paper and a red ribbon bow.

          “Let’s get a Christmas tree and put it under the tree,” she said.

          “We don’t have time for that. We’ve got to head northwest this evening. Why don’t you open your present now?”

          “I want to save it for Christmas.”

          “Open it. I want you to see it.”

          Inside the box, Valerie found a glass jar full of small jewel-cut gemstones, red, green, pale blue, and clear.

She help the jar up to her eyes for a better look. “What is this?”

“Rubies, emeralds, sapphires, and diamonds,” Robert said.

“Are they real?”

“I would think so.”

“Very pretty. Where do you get them?”

“My boss gave them to me for you when I said I needed to find a nice present for you.”

“Your boss? You mean your handler, right?”

“And I want you to stop talking like a spy movie. It jeopardizes my low profile.”

“I want to get you something. When can we go shopping?”

“We’ll spend a couple of days in Chicago.”

Three hours later, Valerie asked, If we’re going to Anchorage, Alaska why are we heading toward Atlanta, Georgia?”

“Little detour,” Robert answered. “We’ll continue toward Anchorage tomorrow.”

630pm 2^nd Special Intelligence Detachment

Bird received the gamut report from Mason via SIPRNet. He decrypted it on his own office computer.

“Shit!” Bird exclaimed. “Fuck! How did she get to be so connected?”

The gamut report revealed metadata linking Janice with regular calls to four numbers at the GAO, two at the DOD comptroller, and three at the JAG. There were also more than twenty other contacts among the intelligence community that she called at least once a week.

“Who the fuck is she working for?” Bird closed the file. There was no point in searching her emails. The telephone numbers alone indicated that Janice was probably not bluffing.

“She has got to go,” Bird muttered, shaking his head. “Got to go.”

4

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