13 Trust Is Enough
This was a first: Flying across America in a sleek C-20 Gulfstream III aircraft at 600 mph with a beautiful psychic by my side as the fate of the planet hung in the balance. We had taken off at dawn from the runways of Luke Air Force Base, home of the 56th Fighter Wing, forty-five hundred acres of hair-trigger military readiness located in the suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona.
The C-20 is a twin-engine, turbofan aircraft whose mission is to shuttle high-ranking government and Defense Department officials. It is the Rolls Royce of military transports, and is, in fact, powered by two Rolls engines. Our plane featured pure luxury throughout, with wooden interiors and cabinets, roomy, comfortable seats, two bathrooms, one with shower and tub.
In the rear was a small bedroom with a queen-size bed, surround stereo system, and large-screen TV with a collection of the latest movies. And, of course, a high-speed Internet connection. There were fourteen seats and a crew of three, two pilots and a foxy stewardess in Air Force uniform, Staff Sergeant Annabelle Hunter.
As we flew over the ragged checkerboard squares of the “united” states, my eyes glazed over and I visualized Jill and I having hot sex on the queen-size. My hand drifted to her thigh. She let it rest there for a few seconds, then politely removed it, snapping me back to reality. I had forgotten that I was with a psychic.
“Don’t go there,” she whispered in my ear. “I am not having sex with you on this plane, Marty. Don’t rush me. Behave yourself. We are on a military mission, remember?”
Our mission, right. The U.S. State Department had arranged our trip on this fancy VIP flying machine after Jill convinced her boss of the gravity of Leela’s predicament. Our mission was to find Leela, appraise said predicament, and rescue her if possible. That was it. If Jill and I thought we couldn’t pull it off by ourselves, we were to call in an elite American special ops unit ready and waiting somewhere in Europe. In other words, Plan B would be a covert operation to rescue my wife, featuring a gang of sharpshooters with a take-no-prisoners attitude.
The whole idea made my blood run cold. Yet, I have to admit, it also was tremendously exciting.
Oh yes, we also each carried our own PDA’s—Personal Digital Assistants. I had the latest version of Mojo Corporation’s Amigo, which had about a gazillion gigs of memory and could do just about anything, including downloading and projecting holos. But Jill carried the ultimate PDA: the brand-new Psi-Fi handset, which could do anything any other PDA on the market could do, and more. And—get ready for this—the Psi-Fi had the ability to translate Jill’s thoughts into text onto the handset’s huge LCD!
Crude translations, yes, Spelling errors, yes. Grammar, sometimes awkward. But it actually worked, it freakin’ worked! We beta-tested it during our flight.
“Jill,” I said softly, when we were well underway, “I’m really curious about what Benny Bravo saw at Kali’s temple. Want to play the chip that Benny made for me?”
She whispered in my ear, “Don’t talk. Just think it. Leave the rest to me. Check out the screen of my Psi-Fi. You know we are being monitored, right? There is a vid camera in the light above your seat and there is an audio bug in the window shade button on my side. Pretty cool setup.”
I suspected as much, I thought. Guess our government doesn’t trust us yet. I’ll run the chip on my Amigo. Let’s put on the wireless headphones and I’ll hold the screen away from the vid cam.
Carefully, Jill showed me the LCD on her Psi-Fi. Words, her thoughts, were actually materializing! Gotcha! Loud + clr. Run da chip, deer.
It was quite a show at Kali’s Tantric Temple. All of the craziness described by Benny was right there on the data chip: Kali on her golden throne, the levitating, the various rooms and chambers, the “private” Tantra sessions, Benny’s wild Tantra session with Satori, nude swimming, Kali in more than one place at a time (not too convincing), the gorgeous temple grounds and dormitories.
Whadda think about that, Jill? Instantly her thoughts appeared as words on the Psi-Fi LCD: Imprsive & ominas. May-be sum iz fake but obvsly th womn haz great pwr.
I turned off the Amigo and we removed our headphones. “I’m tired of this game,” I whispered in Jill’s ear. “Why don’t we continue this conversation in the bedroom? We’ll crank up the stereo. I’ve got some nice romantic tunes on my Amigo. We can talk in there. With impunity.”
“You’re a hopeless case, Marty,” whispered Jill. “Let’s just go silent and meditate for awhile. We can talk more openly when we make our refuel stop.”
Jill was right: I was a hopeless case. Probably a sex addict. Mental note: Get into one of those twelve-step programs for the terminally horny when things get back to normal. If ever.
Meanwhile, we were on our way to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, the home base of our Gulfstream. We were scheduled to refuel there and have about a half hour break to stretch our legs and breathe some real air. Our destination was the American embassy in Nicosia, Cyprus, a distance of seven thousand, two hundred eight miles from Phoenix. The C-20 has a range of forty-one hundred nautical miles. Total trip time, not counting refueling stop: twelve hours.
Andrews is a huge military installation just ten miles from the Pentagon, and even today a cloud of suspicion hangs over the base after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Many conspiracy theorists say the two squadrons of fighter jets at Andrews assigned the job of protecting the skies over Washington D.C. failed to do their job. Not a single Andrews fighter was ordered to take off to protect the city despite a one hour advance warning of a terrorist attack in progress.
On this day, the 9/11 attacks seemed like ancient history. Jill had turned her head away from me and appeared to fall asleep. I meditated for awhile, or at least tried to help my mind go silent and give me a break, but it was a beehive of thoughts, fantasies, memories, analyses, and on and on and on. Soon it led to a light, troubled sleep.
I was awakened with a hand softly shaking my shoulder and a female voice whispering, “Mr. Powers, Mr. Powers. Please, Mr. Powers.” I awake to the not-unpleasant face and presence of Sergeant Annabelle Hunter. She was holding a tiny data chip in her right hand. “Urgent message for Miss Appleton from the State Department. It came over the secure server in the cockpit. The pilot put the message on the chip for her. He has a Top Secret clearance; I don’t. Would you give the message to Miss Appleton?”
I nodded a sleepy “yes.” Sgt. Hunter left quickly. Jill was not in her seat. I figured she must have gone to the bedroom to sleep. Oh well, later for her. I felt that I needed to look at the message immediately, so I popped the chip into my Amigo. I didn’t worry about the bugs monitoring our every move. I didn’t have a Top Secret security clearance, or any security clearance, but I didn’t worry about that either.
URGENT. TOP SECRET, flashed across the screen. ATTENTION JILL APPLETON. EYES ONLY. Came the message in smaller type: “Leela Powers has been located via GPS by Agent Anderson using helicopter overflights. Location: Davos, Switzerland: Black Swan Beta headquarters. Your assignment: Infiltrate their operation. Rescue agent Powers if possible. Your cover: software designers from USA. We are preparing background profiles for Web + corporate creds. Advise you begin studying Internet protocols. Details @ Cyprus. Gambit foolproof.”
Incredible! Where was Jill? I left the chip in the Amigo and dashed to the back of the plane and the bedroom. Not there. She had to be in one of the bathrooms. One had been designated as my bathroom; it was fairly drab and ordinary, with just a toilet and a sink. The other was Jill’s. It had a large tub and a shower. I was so excited I ripped open the door without knocking.
“Jill! I’ve got some good news and some bad news! I just saw—”
“Eeeeeeek!” screamed Jill, a stage scream. She didn’t attempt to cover her semi-nudity, which was masked with a tapestry of bubbles. “What’s with you, Marty?” she scolded. “Can’t a girl have any privacy? What’s up?
”
I told her the good news about Leela and she shrieked again, this time with joy. I told her about our assignment. Suddenly she stood up in the bathtub. It was the first time I had seen Jill’s nakedness, partially concealed as it was with the bubbles. Her body was awesome; I gasped in spite of myself.
“Throw me that towel, would you Marty?” she said, seemingly unconcerned about the effect she was having on me. “And then give me a minute or two to get dressed. I wanna see that message. We’re supposed to be software designers? Sheeeeeeeeee!”