A short riff today, just a little connective tissue so hardly time for tea.

Music? Sure, why not? Have a go at some well aged Cream, a little well worn Badge.

5.16

Baris Metin got Peter Weyland to the shower on American Eagle’s aft deck and then to his stateroom, and there he left him with Britney, Weyland’s personal assistant, before he made his way up to the bridge. He wanted to go through all the security camera footage, and quickly, because he still couldn’t believe what he’d seen.

Metin had been keeping an eye on Weyland, wanting to be ready when Weyland and his new guest left the restaurant, but then he’d seen Weyland and the woman disappear while seated at their table, only to reappear not quite a minute later, preceded by a flash of blueish light and a thunderclap – inside the restaurant! – and then the two of them were flowing through the air down to their table and onto the patio floor. He’d been too stunned to move – until he’d seen them thrown out of the restaurant and started their way to lend a hand.

He cycled through the CCTV camera views from the aft deck until he found one with a clear vantage point of the patio, then he rewound the playback about 15 minutes and watched intently. ‘Good, but not great,’ he sighed, but the next camera’s sightline had been perfect. He played the event over and over, then he inserted a thumb drive and transferred a copy of the file.

The engineer’s mate, Heinrich, came in from hanging Weyland’s latest acquisition in the owner’s stateroom, and Baris played the event for the Austrian – who simply shrugged before he retreated down the access way to the engine room, and all without saying a word. That shocked Baris almost as much as the event in the restaurant, and it left him wondering…why? Was Heinrich simply dull? Did the man lack imagination? Or had he already seen so much while working on this yacht that this was just one more bolt out of the blue – and so nothing to get worked up about?

So just who the hell was this new passenger?

Captain Mendelssohn came onto the bridge in a huff. “Prepare to get underway,” he muttered.

“What? I thought we were staying the night?”

“Plans change.”

“What about our fuel?”

“We’ll refuel at the yard,” Mendelssohn said angrily. “Now, go and standby on the stern.”

“Aye, sir.”

It took a few minutes to get the fuel pre-heated and polished, but soon both MANN diesels rumbled to life – though in truth you could hardly hear them anywhere on the yacht – and after the engines heated a little Mendelssohn gave the order to cast off all lines. American Eagle moved slowly, almost imperceptibly through the tiny harbor, and Baris helped secure their lines and fenders before returning to the bridge…

…but he stopped on the bridge deck and looked at three men swimming in the crystal clear water off the little rocky headland to starboard. He was a little surprised, as it seemed that at least one of the men was talking to a dolphin.

+++++

Spudz MacKenzie  was simply annoyed. 

One moment Frank Bullitt had been talking to him and the next he was gone. No preamble, no warning, just here one moment and gone the next. Callahan had pulled the same stunt a few times, and he’d been just as annoyed.

Yet he was learning to see there was a kind of meaning behind their mayhem. They’d ‘seen’ something, as hard as it still was to wrap his head around the concept. The CIA had been conducting ‘remote viewing’ operations for decades through Operation Grey Fox, and he’d read synopses of several viewing operations, including the retrieval of an America General kidnapped by the Red Brigade in Italy, that had convinced him that there was something to this stuff, yet at heart he remained a skeptic. Just the idea that someone could close their eyes and concentrate – and then listen in or even see conversations taking place halfway around the world – had clouded and befuddled his sense of reality.

Obviously, both Callahan and Bullitt were doing so, whether they were consciously aware of the process or not. MacKenzie had seen enough now to accept this new reality, and he hated it.

And, sure enough, about a minute later Bullitt reappeared inside the VW Golf, and MacKenzie did his best not to jump out of his seat.

“God damnit! Can’t you at least warn me when you’re going to do that?”

Frank grinned sheepishly. “Sorry. No. Sometimes when I get these flashes, well, if I don’t act I lose it.”

“Flashes?”

“Yeah, that’s about the best I can do to describe it. I saw Sorensen, uh, Deborah, make a jump. She was with Peter Weyland, and that’s Junior, not Senior, and I think they were in Italy. A restaurant, they were in a restaurant called Lo Stella, and when they returned she followed Weyland onto a yacht. Big fucker, too, maybe two hundred feet. Name is American Eagle. It was cool outside, some leaves turning, small harbor, I mean real small.” Bullitt looked over, saw Spudz entering a name into a search window and a moment later he nodded. Restaurant by that name in Portofino, Italy, and he held up his iPad and showed Frank the posted images of the place.

“Yup, that’s it.”

“It’s too early for the leaves to be turning there,” MacKenzie muttered under his breath – as he pulled up an AIS tracking program, one used to track maritime movements globally. “American Eagle,” he mumbled as he hunted and pecked his way across the little virtual keypad, and a few seconds later he nodded. “Currently near Izmir, that’s in southwestern Turkey…and God Damn!” Spudz screamed as Bullitt disappeared again. “Fuck! I hate this shit!”

It wasn’t just that Harry and Frank were zipping everywhere with just a thought, no, they were jumping through time as well. Back in time, and even into the future, as improbable as that at first seemed…and then it hit him.

Frank had just said he’d watched Deborah Sorensen make a jump, so did she too possess these capabilities? His stomach rumbled and he pulled out a roll of Maalox tablets and popped two of the antacids onto his tongue…when just like that, Bullitt was back again.

“They left Portofino but just went a few miles across the bay, to a place called Sestri Levante, to something called…” he was saying as he pulled out a tiny notepad, “…the Cantiere navale di Riva Trigoso.”

MacKenzie sighed. “That’s a Fincantieri shipyard. What are they doing there?”

“Sorensen, uh, Deborah, transferred to another yacht waiting there. I think maybe some modifications are being done? – and Weyland sent one of the ship’s officers with her. A young kid, maybe Turkish or from the mid east. Anyway, she’s onboard now and on her way to Rio.”

“Rio de Janiero?”

Bullitt nodded dryly as he rolled his eyes. “Yup. That’s the one.”

MacKenzie leaned back in the Volkswagen’s seat and sighed as another piece of the puzzle slipped into place, then he started the motor and drove back to airport outside of Bariloche.

“Why are you returning the car? You could just leave it in town, you know?” Bullitt asked.

“Because I put it on my credit card,” Spudz grinned.

“Leavin’ a paper trail, man. You shouldn’t do that, ya know?”

Mackenzie turned to an almost microscopically small blue sphere floating in the narrow space between the rear view mirror and the car’s headliner, then he nodded and said “Abracadabra”; a woman walking from the car rental return office watched as two men inside a dirty VW disappeared right in front of her of her eyes. She stopped in her tracks but did not seem in the least surprised, then she pulled out her cell phone and made a call.

+++++

Ted Sorensen picked up the phone and looked at the display; the call was from the security office in town so he answered.

“Yes?”

“Security at the airport witnessed a jump, at the airport, in the car rental return.”

“Leased to?”

“Last name MacKenzie, first name Everett. Annapolis, J-2, SecDef, last seen in Georgetown, South Carolina on his yacht. Name is Amaranth, current location unknown.”

“So they’ve shut down their AIS?”

“Yessir.”

He said not a word but merely hung up the call and speed-dialed the Reichskanzler’s office. “Sorensen here. I need a meeting of the executive committee first thing in the morning. Yes, this concerns Dr Weyland too, so he’ll need to attend, as well.” 

© 2024 adrian leverkühn | abw | adrianleverkuhnwrites.com | this is fiction plain and simple, and nothing but.

You might top this off with Here Comes the Sun, just to see how sharp your memory and listening skills are.