“It seems strange to have to lie,
About a world so bright.
And tell instead a made-up story,
From the world of night.”

[Genesis \\ Keep It Dark]

88/666

He always enjoyed this stretch of Highway 79. The mountains here reminded him of the High Sierra, especially the jagged spires beyond Mammoth Lakes, yet for some reason the air here felt cleaner, more pure than California, while even the villages here seemed like something out of a distant, though somehow more comforting past. He leaned back in the limousine’s plush rear seat and rolled down the window, letting gales of crisp Andean air wash over his jet-lagged body, and he closed his eyes and sighed. 

He felt the Mercedes slowing and barely opened his eyes; he could make out the first rustic chalets of the Colonia Suiza just ahead and he asked the driver to stop at his favorite little bistro — as he usually did after so long a trip.

“I’m sorry, sir,” the driver replied. “I’ve been instructed no stops allowed today. I’m to take you directly to the Eagle’s Lair.”

Ted Sorensen nodded and closed his eyes again. ‘They’ll probably kill me,’ he thought — yet he really didn’t care one way or another. Not now. Everything was coming together nicely, on time and under budget. Beyond that…nothing else really mattered.

+++++

Moloch was waiting for him. Moloch was always, or so it seemed, waiting for him.

“We lost her again,” Moloch sighed as they met, and Sorensen nodded.

“Where was she this time?”

“British Columbia. North of Vancouver. And she had help…sophisticated help.”

“Such as?”

“Air support. Planted assets designed to throw us off.”

“So…military — or an intelligence service?”

“More than likely both, so yes,” Moloch grumbled.

“So, you underestimated Taggart. Again.”

“I’m not so sure this was his operation.”

“Oh? Who do you…?”

“I’m not sure yet. What happened in California? I’ve heard it did not go well…”

“That’s a long story, and I’d only like to tell it once.”

The Chancellor’s secretary summoned them, asked them to follow him to the conference room off of the Chancellor’s suite, and Sorensen stood and followed Moloch through several layers of security to the distant room. The Chancellor and his advisors were waiting, and they did not appear to be in a good mood.

And the first thing Sorensen noted was the absence of a chair for either Moloch or himself. ‘So, we are to be made an example of,” he sighed. ‘What else does he have in store for us?’

So the two men entered the conference room and just stood there, waiting, for the Chancellor turned away from them and picked up a telephone and talked for about ten minutes, angry one minute then laughing hysterically the next. Sorensen shifted weight from one leg to the other while trying not to appear too put out, but this callous reception was simply unwarranted…even it they had failed.

Then the Chancellor hung up the phone and turned to Moloch.

“We have gone over your report. Anything to add?”

“There are no new leads at this point, sir.”

“Very well. You may leave us.”

Moloch turned to leave, and whatever moral support Sorensen might have hoped for evaporated. The Chancellor remained silent until the door closed behind Moloch. Then:

“What happened?”

“I’m still not sure, sir. We assumed the boy was guarded only by the ex cop, Harry Callahan, but that appears to have not been the case.”

“You are saying he too had outside help? By any chance do you know who?”

Sorensen shook his head. “No sir, and we have no leads. As far as we can ascertain at this point, the boy is no longer on site — yet despite having assets in the area watching every possible egress route, we did not see him, or Callahan, leave.”

“You are sure they are gone?”

“Yessir, and there is an additional element we weren’t counting on.”

 “And that is?”

“We literally destroyed the man’s home, yet a half hour later one of our drones photographed the area and there’s no visible damage — anywhere. Even our assets on the ground disappeared, and the area looks completely untouched, like nothing there ever happened.”

“So, it’s true. The boy can manipulate time.”

“So it would appear.”

“You have a different assessment?”

“I think it’s possible Callahan may have similar capabilities.”

“You knew him, did you not? As a child, I mean?”

“Yessir. But if he did have such abilities they were unknown to me.”

“You were friends at one point, were you not?”

“Not really a friend, sir. At one point I considered him something more like a big brother.”

The Chancellor’s left eyebrow arched. “Indeed. And you were willing to kill him?”

“He’s simply an obstacle now, sir.”

“Unless he has knowledge we need, you mean?”

“Of course.”

“Then perhaps we may need to focus our attentions on this Harry Callahan for a while?”

“Possibly. But first I’d say we need to determine who’s assisting him, and what their capabilities really are.”

“When I was a boy, Ted, I hunted with my father. We used dogs, of course. We used them to flush our prey, to scare them from the safety of their place of hiding. Perhaps you could do the same, no? Perhaps you could find a few of Herr Callahan’s oldest friends…and perhaps do something terrible to them?

© 2016-22 adrian leverkühn | abw | and as always, thanks for stopping by for a look around the memory warehouse…image: Lucifer, by Franz Stuck.

A little snippet to add to the previous little snippet. Come to think of it, isn’t life just a series of little snippets?

[Begin the Beguine \\ Artie Shaw]

88/66.5.1

The Huey landed at the CAThouse adjacent to the old Presidio, and the Doc escorted Deborah and Brendan to a waiting Land Rover — and then, after DD and the Doc got in, the four of them drove over to the Wharf for lunch. Deborah had a million questions she wanted to ask, but all DD was willing to talk about was the unseasonably warm weather the Bay Area was experiencing. After arriving at Scoma’s the Doc studied his menu with assiduous effort, finally settling on a coquille St. Jacques and the Dover sole amandine, recommending the same to Brendan. DD had her usual seafood Louie — while Deborah watched the unfolding proceedings with something akin to astonished agony bubbling away just under the surface of a steaming caldron.

Then she finally broke down and blurted: “I thought Frank Bullitt had passed on?”

“So he did,” the Doc replied casually.

“But…” she cried, “he was there!”

“So he was,” the Doc replied, again without so much as a sniffle.

“But…how can you explain that!?”

“I can’t.”

“Aren’t you at all curious?” Deborah wailed.

And after both DD and the Doc shook their heads Deborah just shrugged and let the matter drop. Brendan, of course, had no idea who Frank Bullitt was — beyond what was revealed in his sky-bound equations — so he really didn’t care at all. Yet Deborah waded through the stultifying lunch with more and more questions boiling to mind with each passing minute…

But when lunch was over, and after the Doc paid the bill, DD drove them back to the CAThouse and everyone re-boarded the Huey — and a few minutes later they were northbound passing the Golden Gate. Forty minutes later the Huey circled Harry’s house and Deborah stared at the scene in disbelief — and she was soon about to burst as the scale of things began to unveil before her eyes…

…for it looked as though nothing had happened earlier that day. The wrecked house and the burning studios were now intact and, apparently, undamaged. There were no mangled helicopters and no crumpled bodies in the street, no shattered glass and the copper roof on the house looked brand new.

And as the Huey settled on the old asphalt pavement she saw Harry and Didi walk out of the house, and Harry was Harry again. He was old now and his stainless steel prosthetic gleamed in the midday sun, while Didi too seemed her cheerful older self once again. Harry came up to the Huey as the rotors spooled down and he helped everyone out before walking back up to the house, and for some reason even Brendan wanted to let bygones be bygones as he sidled up to Didi and walked back to the house — only now he was holding her hand!

‘Has the world suddenly gone crazy?’ Deborah thought, walking along behind Didi and Brendan, and with DD and the Doc bringing up the rear.

And yet the insanity continued once back inside the house. Nothing was damaged. Harry’s Bösendorfer was right where it had been yesterday and the day before that. The slate floors were as new, undamaged and almost looking at they might have the day they were laid, and it was the same everywhere she looked. Curious now, she went to the bedroom and the palm scanner in Harry’s closet was gone, and now there was absolutely no sign it have ever been there…

She sighed and went back to the kitchen and was about to put on water for tea when she noticed that everyone was down on the rocks and headed for the beach — so she followed them as quickly as she could. At one point she heard the helicopter taking off and turned to watch it leave, then she resumed following everyone down through the rocky passageway to the beach…

…yet when she arrived on the beach no one was to be found…not even a footprint in the sand…

…yet now there was only a lone orca waiting beyond the nearest line of breaking surf, and it seemed to be waiting for her… 

© 2016-22 adrian leverkühn | abw | and as always, thanks for stopping by for a look around the memory warehouse…

[Loggins & Messina \\ Watching the River Run]

Still keeping the snippets rather small. Apologies.

[Loggins & Messina \\ Angry Eyes]

88/66.5

As strained as the moment was, Deborah Eisenstadt did not feel violated or even used; instead she was relieved when the man-child found release and wilted away from her. He was openly weeping by that point, crushed under the weight of a self-loathing few ever experience, and she couldn’t help but feel pity for the stunted soul within. She had experienced more than her fair share of such men in both Soviet Russia and during her escape through Armenia, little men who relied on the weight of their encroaching bureaucracies to force their way between a woman’s thighs, yet she more than understood that wasn’t exactly the case with Brendan Geddes. Other, far more insidious forces had shaped his soul, and when she had chanced a glance into his eyes she had only then grown fearful. The man-child wasn’t what he at first had seemed; no…she had suddenly realized that he was far more dangerous than any of them had previously realized.

He was, she could now plainly see, quite morally unhinged. Right and wrong simply did not exist when numbers were standing-by to provide an answer to every single question. “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should” had never entered his hierarchy of thought.

Yet his actions just now had broken through that barrier, and laying there on top of Eisenstadt she could feel his confusion. He was careening back and forth between guilt and anger, his fists clinched and intertwined in the bedding as he looked away one moment before he tried to return and apologize the next. Yet he never really could bring himself to say he was sorry…and that was what had frightened her so.

…and just then a roaring sound surrounded them…a deep, hideously loud roar like a jet fighter running up its engine before takeoff, and Eisenstadt turned in time to see a wall of steam emerging from the bathroom… 

…and a moment passed before Harry emerged from the steam, now apparently dripping in seawater, and the first thing he saw was a barely clothed Brendan lying spent between Deborah’s thighs.

And he appeared to be not in the least amused.

+++++

Yet he ignored them. He was toweling himself off now, then quickly drying his hair before Deborah realized this was a totally different Callahan. This Harry was not yet thirty years old. This Harry Callahan still had two legs — two intact legs. His eyes were clear, focused, and full of an easy malevolence she didn’t recognize. Yet she saw his fury wasn’t directed at Brendan, or even at herself…

“Get under the bed,” Harry growled, “now!”

“What?” she said…just as Didi Goodman and another man came out of the steam-filled bathroom.

“Get the boy under the bed,” Harry repeated as he walked to his closet. She noted there was some kind of optical palm scanner installed there now, a device that hadn’t been there yesterday, and she watched as Callahan put his hand on the scanner and waited. A moment later a vault opened and Callahan passed assault rifles over to Didi and the other man, along with several magazines, before he grabbed one for himself.

Deborah was pushing the boy under the bed as Harry ran from the room, but before she got under the bed she went to the bathroom to have a look around…

Hot water was still coming from the shower head, yet the floor was covered with briny smelling sea-ice, so she bent over and touched a large shard of ice then brought her finger to her mouth…

“…sea water…” she whispered before she turned and scurried under the bed.

They heard gunfire after that, and a lot of it. The sound of shattering glass filled their ears, then came two explosions and moments later smoke poured into the bedroom. Helicopters, several of them, roared by overhead and she cringed when heavy machine gun fire ripped through the ceiling, the bullets slamming into the slate floor with calamitous effect. Then a blinding flash followed a gut-wrenching lurch — before silence returned to the house.

Then — footsteps, running their way. Sounds of boots on crushed glass and shattered cabinetry falling away before she heard Harry’s voice:

“You guys okay?” Callahan snarled as he entered the room.

“Yes, I think so,” Eisenstadt mewed.

“Okay, you can come out now,” he said as he leaned over and took her hand. “We need to get you two away from here for a while.”

She followed him through the wreckage of his house — yet he seemed curiously detached from the carnage, almost like he’d never seen this place before. The living room was a shattered wreck, and the piano room was simply gone, blown away. And now, as they walked out of the ruins and down to the street, she saw that two of the studios were in flames, then she saw the bodies of dead men laying in the street. Dozens of them, and at least two helicopters were down, their mangled wreckage again leaving Callahan totally unimpressed.

She saw smoke coming from beyond Liz’s house, then the man she’d seen walk from the shower was now walking from Liz’s house towards Harry. Meanwhile, Didi Goodman was walking among the corpses, lifting each head and looking at the revealed face — as if she was looking for someone in particular — and Brendan could hardly reconcile this image of her with the Didi he’d come to know over the last few weeks.

The man walking up from Liz’s house walked up to Harry and Deborah Eisenstadt tried her best not to scream in fright. She recognized him now, noted the same tweed jacket and the wavy dirty blond hair — and that grin! It was Liz’z father, and she knew because she’d seen photos of the same man at both Liz’s place and in the living room at Harry’s.

“Everything okay?” Harry asked Frank Bullitt.

But Bullitt just nodded and grinned, tossing a handheld radio to Harry as he passed.

And Harry turned on the unit and called — but who, exactly?

Yet a minute later a Callahan Air Transport Bell 412 circled and landed in the cul-de-sac, and who slid open the door and beckoned them inside? Of course, it had to be DD and the Doc, and as soon as they were inside the helicopter and buckled in they were airborne and headed for The City.

Yet Harry hadn’t joined them. Neither had Didi — or Frank.

“What the hell is going on?” she asked DD.

Who only shrugged before turning away.

Brendan, however, looked beyond the far side of the sky and all he could think to do was smile.

© 2016-22 adrian leverkühn | abw | and as always, thanks for stopping by for a look around the memory warehouse…image: Guido Reni, Archangel Michael Trampling Lucifer.

[Genesis \\ Dance On A Volcano]

A very brief look inside the darkness. Perhaps you’ll see why, even without a lantern.

[Estupenda Graca \\ Pat Metheny]

88/66.4

Brendan looked on helplessly as the Titanic disappeared within banks of swirling black mist, but Deborah Eisenstadt looked at the sight feeling both curiosity and revulsion.

“I think what we just witnessed was some kind of wormhole formation,” she sighed warily, “but what was that ship doing there?”

“What were they doing there?” Brendan cried — before angrily turning away from Deborah and running to his bedroom.

‘My God, he has fallen in love with that spy!’ she thought, now seriously unnerved by the all the dawning implications such an emotional upheaval might bring. She couldn’t imagine anyone less emotionally secure than Brendan, and certainly not if rejection was part of the formula, and especially as Didi and Harry were the only two people in the world he seemed to care about now. Yet there was nothing to do now but go to the man-child and try to pick up the pieces; this was about all she could think to do. Try to salvage what she could and get ready to deal with whatever fallout came their way.

Yet when she knocked Brendan came to the door and held it open for her, then he stood aside and let her pass. She was curious now, yet on guard as she walked inside and sat in a little chair beside a small, built-in desk. Brendan came back to his bed and sat there with his arms crossed over his stomach, looking down at the floor.

“You like her, don’t you?” Deborah started, innocently enough. “I mean, more than a little?”

He nodded. His downward gaze remained unfocused, his voice a flat wasteland.

“She’s almost twice your age, Brendan.”

“I can’t help the way I feel.”

“That’s okay, I understand. How about Didi? Do you know how she feels — about you?”

He shook his head. His arms seemed to constrict around his midsection.

“Have you asked her how she feels?”

Tightening constrictions. Clinching teeth. Flexing fingers.

“What do you think has happened?”

His arms broke free and with his hands now free he pulled back the sky: “This!” he cried.

Deborah came and sat next to him, and from this vantage she could see what he had revealed. Didi pushing Harry to the rock-strewn beach. Her grasping hands pulling Harry free before she mounted him, her back arched and her arms outstretched as if taking flight. Streams of auburn riding the wind in contrapuntal harmony to some deep reservoir of need, then their hands came together in grinding supplication…

Deborah wanted to look away — yet she couldn’t.

Brendan wanted to run from these images — yet he dare not. Not now. Not yet.

Then in a flash she watched a milky run of seed seeking new life — just before the image flickered and disappeared.

“That’s what happened,” Brendan said, his voice a ladle of despair. “Now she’s going to have his baby. A girl. Another Dana.”

“What?”

“Another one of…them.”

“Them? Brendan, what are you talking about?”

“The baby will be one of theirs, just like the other Dana. They’re part of the plan.”

“The plan?”

“I can’t see it yet, but it’s taking shape now.” He turned to Deborah and awkwardly, timidly put a hand on her breast…

And she looked at the boy, then at his hand — before she took a deep breath. “Brendan, you don’t need to do this.”

“I have to. He took her from me, so I have to take you from him.” He pushed her down to the bed.

“Do you have any idea how old I am, Brendan?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Brendan — we aren’t equations, you know? You can’t balance human behavior that way.”

“Of course I can.” He started to unbutton her blouse and within the cresting waves of the broken hearted she felt him mounting her so she looked up into his eyes… 

He was a wilderness, barren and unclaimed, yet she could think of nothing to do now but cradle his face with her hands. It was, she soon realized, easier to wipe away his tears.

© 2016-22 adrian leverkühn | abw | and as always, thanks for stopping by for a look around the memory warehouse…image: Jean-Léon Gérôme of Diogenes (gee, see a trend here, like maybe a subtle hint…?)

Deeper is darker. Or is it, really? Kind of hard to tell sometimes, ya know? Maybe you need a lantern?

[My Man’s Gone Now \\ Gershwin \\ Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong]

88/66.3 — Walpurgis Nacht III

And wherever they were…it was still dark — and no matter where they looked. With no way to see, Callahan wondered what in this place was an illusion, or was truth the illusion?

But they were inside some “place” now and no longer adrift in deep space, and as his eyesight grew used to the dim light he could just make out the contours of a long steel-gray corridor ahead, and within a few moments he began to see shapes moving their way. Impossibly thin shapes he soon realized, but living beings nonetheless. As one of them approached he was startled by the apparent height of the creature, until he recognized Jim walking their way — or was it Jim’s identical twin — only the creatures with him did not appear to be his family. No, they were all as tall as Jim, and they all appeared equally curious.

‘We are sorry for the abrupt nature of your coming,’ Jim thought to Callahan, ‘but there was little time to indulge in formalities.’

“Okay,” Callahan said aloud to Jim.

“Okay…what?” Didi asked, clearly confused by Callahan appearing to talk to himself — and she was still clearly cold as could be, at least — if her breasts were any kind of indication…

‘She cannot hear my thoughts,’ Jim explained. ‘These were not directed at her.’

“Alright,” Harry said.

“Alright, what? Who are you talking to, Harry?” Didi added.

“We’ll need something for this woman to wear,” Harry said to Jim.

“You know what? I’m just going to shut up and let you have at it for a while,” Didi sighed.

“Probably a good idea. Jim? Could you say something to her?”

Jim turned to Didi and she suddenly felt as if she was the one under the magnifying glass, and now she felt very small indeed. Not only that, but this creature was positively Spielbergian in appearance — a spindly creature that seemed to have evolved in deep space, a creature bred to endure millennia in transit between stars and now, as he focused his attention on her she didn’t know what to expect. 

Then she heard from somewhere deep inside the unknown recesses of her mind ‘Take me to your leader,’ and she had to laugh.

“I see. You’re a comedian, right?”

‘I couldn’t help myself. Oh yes, I need you to come with me now,’ Jim thought.

“Okay, but you need to know something first.”

‘Oh?’

“I don’t kiss on the first date.”

That seemed to stump Jim, but he only nodded and then turned to face his companions — who one by one came forward to look her over.

‘May I touch you?’ one of them asked, and for some reason Didi knew this one was female, or whatever passed for female around this place.

“Knock yourself out,” Didi grinned. “All of you. Go for it.”

‘We have never seen a human female in your condition,’ one of them said.

“That’s alright,” Didi sighed. “I’ve never seen an alien — so that makes us even.”

Callahan stood back as the mob surrounded Didi, who began pulling gently on her arms then flexing her fingers and wrists and elbows, marveling at the anatomical complexity that they, apparently, did not share. Another examined her spine, then her shoulder blades, while another bent low and probed her knees and ankles — then her toes.

‘The gross morphology is not all that different from the male,’ one of them said. ‘How do you account for that?’ this one asked Jim.

‘Sexual differentiation takes place hormonally, before either androgenesis or gynogenesis takes place,’ Jim said. ‘So both the male and the female contribute hereditary characteristics,’ he added.

‘Do you mean,’ another cried, ‘that sexual differentiation is a simple matter of chance?’

‘I do.’

‘Then how do they control population growth?’

‘War and disease, primarily,’ Jim sighed.

They all turned to face Didi and Callahan, and both could sense the others’ feelings of astonishment and pity.

‘How do you mate?’ one of them asked next — out of the blue.

“What do you mean?” Callahan growled.

‘I mean, how do you physically join?’ this one asked.

“Privately, and that means without an audience, Butthead,” Callahan snarled.

‘I see. She is with child now, and we wanted to understand how this happened.’

“What do you mean, I’m with child?” Didi cried.

‘You mated,’ this one said patiently, ‘therefore you are with child. Is this not correct?’

“Not always,” Didi said, now clearly relieved.

‘But we have seen fertilization occur. Are you saying this may not lead to pregnancy?’

“What do you mean by you saw fertilization occur?”

‘We have observed a fertilized egg in your womb? Does this not mean you are with child?’

“I don’t know,” Didi replied, confused again.

‘We must keep both of you here until the child is born,’ Jim told Harry.

“I beg your fucking pardon?” Harry barked.

And that really seemed to confuse Jim. ‘You ask me for pardon? What does this mean, please?’

“It means we ain’t staying here, period. You need to send us back, and I mean now.”

‘We need your offspring.’

“Tough shit.”

‘Your feces is tough?’ one said.

‘May we collect a sample, please?’ another asked.

“No. You need to send us back. Now.”

Jim stepped close again: ‘I will send you back, but not now. A year from now, by your method of time keeping.’

“Harry,” Didi whispered, “I don’t think we’re in much of a position to argue.”

‘When you return,’ Jim added, ‘no time will appear to have passed, and neither of you will have aged.’

Callahan seemed to think about that one for a moment, then he asked: “And just what the Hell are we supposed to do here — for a year? And oh, by the way, where is here, exactly?”

‘You will find we are interested in you, and so it is possible you will find us more than sympathetic students,’ one of the others said.

Didi turned to the group and shrugged: “Any chance I might get something to wear? Ya know, sometime in the next year or so?”

‘Apologies,’ Jim stated. ‘Come with me.’

They started to walk down the dimly lit passageway, but then Jim paused before he walked over to a wall and held a hand up to a sensor — and then a hundred meter long section of the passage turned translucent. Callahan could hardly grasp what had happened — because now it appeared as if their entire group was suspended in deep space. Yet…Callahan could feel the same floor underfoot, and he could still breathe, so…where were they?

“Jim? I hate to ask, but just what is this place?” he asked.

‘Your scientists call this a Dyson Sphere.’

“Is this your home?” Didi asked.

‘Home? Ah, no, this is not our home world,’ Jim said. He pointed at a spot and a tiny illuminated square appeared in the ether— almost as if it was hovering in space — then he turned to Didi. ‘Your home world is here,’ he said — but all either Harry or Didi could see was a faint smudge inside the illuminated square.

“That’s earth?” Harry sighed, his voice full of wonder.

‘What you see here is what you call your Milky Way, the galaxy where your home is currently found.’

Callahan swallowed hard and briefly, gently shook his head.

And then Jim turned and “walked” across the chasm until he came to a place he seemed to recognize, then he pointed again and another identical red square appeared — this one hovering in an area beyond a huge, densely packed cluster of stars and galaxies. ‘This region,’ Jim thought, first pointing to the clustered formation of galaxies, ‘is the approximate center of our current universe. This region, this one inside the illuminated square, is where our home galaxy is currently located.’

“I don’t see anything?” Didi sighed.

‘This region is beyond the resolving power of the current instrument.’

“How far away is it?” she asked.

‘From your earth it is approximately twenty billion light years.’

“But the universe isn’t that old,” Didi mumbled, “so how is that even possible?”

‘Your world is twelve point three nine billion light years from the center of this universe, but my world is another seven billion light years distant, only on the far side of the center of the universe relative to your home.’

“So…are you telling me you’re twenty billion years old?” she scoffed.

‘Me? No. I am seven of your years old.’

“Okay,” Didi whispered, “I give up.”

“Say Didi, did you know your headlights are showing…” Harry whispered.

“In case you’ve forgotten, Harry, I am completely naked. And I’m still cold as shit.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” he said — looking away, though now trying to ignore a certain stiffness coming on.

Jim grinned then turned away and took off down the passageway, and Didi followed — gratefully — while Callahan turned and looked around the translucent passageway once again. The first thing he noted was the little illuminated red squares — and he watched as those disappeared first — then the dull gray color returned to the surfaces and once again it looked like he was inside a long metal corridor of some sort. Completely baffled, he just shook his head and turned to follow Jim and Didi. He didn’t understand all that stuff about light years and time, but he did understand what a year felt like.

And right now a year felt like an awful lot of time to spend wandering around in the dark.

© 2016-22 adrian leverkühn | abw | and as always, thanks for stopping by for a look around the memory warehouse…image: John William Waterhouse, Diogenes, open source.

And so another journey into night begins.

[Neil Young \\ Harvest Moon]

88/66.2

The Air Force C-20H flared over the numbers at San Jose’s Mineta International and settled on the runway, exiting left and turning onto the Victor taxiway on its way to a general aviation apron just south of the tower. Two more black Suburbans met the aircraft and all the passengers scurried rapidly down the airstairs and into the waiting SUVs without so much as a glance, then the caravan headed for the northbound 101, the two vehicles eventually making it to Sand Hill Road in Palo Alto. The Suburbans skirted the Stanford campus and passed the linear accelerator center as they crossed the 280, and at that point four more identical Suburbans entered the mix, escorting the caravan to a small group of unmarked office buildings inside a gated, self-contained campus overlooking Searsville Lake. All six SUVs pulled into a locked sally-port off to one side of a low, one story building, and once all the overhead doors were secure everyone exited and walked into a heavily fortified and secured entrance foyer before getting into an unmarked elevator.

One of the escorting guards hit the ‘Down’ button and once the doors slid-to the elevator car began a minutes long descent down into the earth, and after several seconds passed Debra Sorensen wondered just how far down they were going. Dana Richardson began fidgeting nervously, holding onto her father’s hand so tightly he grimaced. Sumner Bacon cast a nervous, sidelong glance her way and he grinned cheerfully, if a little stoically, when he too realized just how deep they were going.

But little Dana simply held onto the General’s hand and stared up at him. If she had any concerns at all she gave no voice to them.

When the doors finally slid open the were confronted by yet another security team, and at this point even the General had to produce credentials. Then, with this minutiae out of the way, the group was led past living quarters in a small wing, and Debra guessed there must have been sleeping facilities for several hundred people down here — yet the group passed these by and were ushered into a small office. Everyone but the General and Tracy Abernathy was fingerprinted and photographed, color-coded ID badges were handed out and security oaths were meticulously recorded.

“What the hell is this place?” Ralph Richardson finally asked the General, perhaps when he couldn’t stand the suspense any longer.

“It’s an engineering facility, Mr. Richardson,” the General replied. “That’s all you need to know at this point.”

“Why are we here?” Richardson asked, still a little flummoxed.

“We’re here to figure out why Dana is here, and if there is, indeed, any commercial opportunity afforded by her presence with us.”

“I hate to ask,” Debra asked now, “but are we prisoners?”

“I’d really rather you didn’t think of it in quite those terms, Miss Sorensen, but your movements for the next few weeks will be closely monitored. At least until we know what your father is up to, anyway; once we have a handle on that situation we’ll reassess your status.”

“I’m not sure I like the sound of that, General,” Debra sighed.

“Understandable,” the General stated matter-of-factly. “But I’d ask that you consider my point of view. First, Dana claims you as her mother. Second, you have been demonstrating certain, shall we say, unusual abilities for not quite ten years, and these abilities may or may not be related to your…daughter. And, quite frankly, until I know more about these abilities I’m not certain I understand exactly what kind of security risk you may or may not represent.”

“Me — a security risk?” Debra cried, now clearly exasperated. “What on earth do you…”

But the General simply held up his hand, in effect stopping her before she could complete her thought. “At this point, Miss Sorensen, I’m most concerned about the implications of your falling into the wrong hands, and by that I mean the people your father seems to be working for, and until I do I need to keep you out of their reach.”

“Just who is my father working for?” she added.

“We can talk about that some other time,” he said — his voice suddenly hard with an edge of finality. “We’ve all had a long day. I suggest we head to our rooms and get cleaned up for dinner. We’ll have plenty of time to talk later this evening.”

Debra remained fixed in place, yet everyone else walked off to the wing they’d been assigned to…until she noticed Tracy Abernathy had remained behind and was now just standing there — while looking at…her.

“There’s a lot going on here,” Abernathy said, “and a lot I still don’t understand, but take it from me, he only has your best interests in mind.”

Debra turned to face her: “I noticed they didn’t print you, or take your picture…?”

“I’ve been here a time or two.”

“With Richardson?”

Tracy shook her head. “No. With the General.”

Debra seemed taken aback by this revelation. “So, do you know what’s going on around here?”

“No, not really. Just the broad strokes, mainly because my area of expertise is very peripheral to the undertaking.”

“So…what are ‘the broad strokes?’” 

Abernathy hesitated for a moment, then she just shrugged — and grinned, though now a little impishly: “New technologies, I guess you could say. Now, let’s find your room. I’m sure a shower would do us both a world of good.”

“After six weeks at sea? My-oh-my Miss Scarlet, whatever do you mean…?”

+++++

Callahan came to, quite suddenly — and painfully — aware that it was blistering cold out…here. Wherever here was. He was curled up in a fetal ball, only now Didi was beside him — and she was as naked as the day she was born, and just now coming to.

She tried to sit up then realized how cold it was out here, then she noticed Callahan was sitting beside her, that his lips were blue, and that his teeth were beginning to chatter. She looked around and realized they were sitting inside a large wooden bucket, but the sky overhead was so clear that the view overhead was almost surreal.

They felt it then. A distinct humming vibration that seemed to be coming from someplace well below, and then it hit her: Callahan appeared to be about twenty years old — and both his legs were intact.

It took a moment for Harry to notice, and when he did he simply smiled then began to stand and help Didi up.

But before that could happen he looked around and gasped. “Holy mother-fuckin’ son of a bitch,” he mumbled as he pulled Didi up… 

“Jesus,” she whispered. “Is this for real?”

As far as either could tell they were in the forward lookout tower aboard the Titanic, but there wasn’t a single light burning anywhere, and the bridge appeared to be completely unmanned. Smoke was coming from the stacks and the ship was easily cutting through the water at what felt like a decent pace, so Callahan concluded someone had to be aboard…if only because someone had to be tending the boilers.

Then he heard Didi again.

“Oh…no…” she moaned…

…and he knew without asking what was out there. It had to be…

Yes, a huge iceberg, now dead ahead.

He’d seen all the movies, knew what happened next and he reflexively reached for the bell’s lanyard but then the absurdity of the situation hit him. There was no one on the bridge to hear the bell, no one to command the helmsman to turn the wheel, so he braced himself on the leading edge of the crow’s nest and waited for the inevitable impact…

…yet it never came.

The great ship plowed dead ahead — hitting the iceberg with her slender rivet-plated bow — yet there was no sound of grinding metal, no explosion of shattering ice raining down on the foredeck — only a gathering darkness as the great ship plowed on her way into another night all her own.

Yet Callahan blinked as a glowing numbness spread through his limbs to his chest and finally to his face and eyes; he felt Didi by his side for most of this but within moments she disappeared in the dark. He reached out in total blindness, his hands seeking the rails of the crow’s nest, but that too was gone and he suddenly felt very disoriented, almost unsteady on his feet — until he realized that there was now literally nothing underfoot.

Little pinpricks of streaking light began to resolve but then stark terror gripped his chest as he realized he was adrift — in what appeared to be infinite space. His body slowly tumbling, there was nothing to reach out for, no way to steady himself, no way to stop this insane motion. Tentatively he took in a deep breath but he felt, again, nothing. No air flowed into his lungs — yet he did not in the least feel like he was suffocating. ‘That’s not possible,’ he thought — as his mind scrambled to make sense of this new reality. He brought his wristwatch to his face and hit the little button to illuminate the face — and though the light worked he saw that the second hand wasn’t moving — and that too made no sense.

‘Unless,’ he reasoned, ‘time has stopped.’

He looked at the streaking pinpricks of light for a moment before he realized all those streaks were headed in one direction, then he realized he too was moving in the very same direction — like he was falling with the stars, only without any sense of motion beyond this lone visible cue.

He looked around as best he could, trying to pinpoint Didi inside the glowing maelstrom — and while he thought he saw something he couldn’t be sure. And he soon discovered sound didn’t convey here; his attempts at speech were pointlessly unsuccessful — but just then his mind began struggling with what he thought must be the onset of something like claustrophobia. Panic settled, the inability to breathe buffeted him like a vulture’s beating wings and then he wanted to scream — and realized he couldn’t even do that…

Then in an instant as sudden as a returning heartbeat he was surrounded — by light — but he was breathing again and the first thing he wanted to do was cry. To scream out at the light and cry.

‘Is this what it feels like to be born?’ he said to himself — as Didi appeared by his side. And when she saw Callahan she flew into his arms.

Then he realized nothing had ever felt so good as her skin on his.

© 2016-22 adrian leverkühn | abw | and as always, thanks for stopping by for a look around the memory warehouse. The painting above is by John William Waterhouse, titled Circe Offering the Cup to Ulysses. The image is in the public domain.

Perhaps you are unfamiliar with Walpurgis Nacht, or the Walpurgis Night celebration of medieval times. Aside from being an ancient custom arising in and around the Baltic states (and do recall that modern Germany is a creation of 19th-century politics, and that many such areas, notably those not belonging to Poland, were originally considered Germanic territories, including East Prussia); the use of the term has been subsequently employed by many writers, especially of the Romantic period of the 19th and early twentieth centuries. More generally, I’d call your attention to Goethe’s Faust and Mann’s Magic Mountain as most relevant to my intent with this chapter, but Mann’s specifically. Without going into nauseatingly grievous detail, suffice to say that on the night in question powerful magic is afoot, and great transformations await the unwary.

This will be slow going on my end, though hopefully less arduous on yours. Breaking this up into small sections is easier for me at this point and I hope you don’t mind. Time for tea? Probably. Oh, the last refrains in the piece below (Juliet’s Death) may be the most evocative notes ever put to paper; certainly the last two or so minutes are among the most vivid in terms of sheer cinematic intensity.

Sergei Prokofiev \\  Romeo and Juliet, Op. 64 – Act 4 – Juliet’s Funeral – Juliet’s Death

Chapter 66: Walpurgis Nacht

Part I

Callahan helped Didi into her bedroom in the little studio, but he couldn’t help but feel a little embarrassed by what had just passed between them. Still, he himself hardly understood what had happened, and he was still confused. 

In his mind one moment he was trying to help her stand and the next she was pushing him down and mounting him, and yet he’d never experienced such a frantic coupling in his life. Didi had seemed possessed and even now, back in the studio’s bedroom, she was acting strangely — like a caged tigress pacing back and forth in a suddenly too small enclosure.

Deborah had come in with them and she’d helped Didi into the shower, and once they were free of her Deborah commented on the utter strangeness of the girl’s behavior. “Did something happen while Brendan and I were gone? When we went to get the car?” Deborah asked.

Callahan hated liars more than anything, just as he hated all deceit — for any reason given — but events on the beach now stood to put this to the test. “She was aggressive,” Harry said as they left the studio and began the short walk back to his house.

“Aggressive? How so?”

“Sexually, I think you could say.”

“Well, I was curious. I think there’s a little semen on your trousers.”

“I had no idea…” he sighed, looking away.

“No idea of what? That she is attracted to you? My goodness, Harry, any woman could see that.”

“Oh, no. I, well, you see…I had no idea I could still get it up.”

Deborah shook her head. “I’m afraid I haven’t been a good enough companion to you, Harald. ”You aren’t that old, but I think you definitely are too young to be living with an old spinster like me.”

“You mean enjoying your company and finding you to be an excellent partner aren’t enough?” he said, perhaps a little too sarcastically.

“I enjoy being with you too, Harald, but now you must excuse me if I feel a little inadequate.”

“Hey, it takes two to tango, Deborah, so don’t put all this on you. I haven’t exactly been hot to trot, you know?”

“You have been through a lot.”

“That’s no excuse,” he added with a sigh, opening the front door to the house and stepping aside to let her pass.

Brendan was standing on the deck looking out to sea, shielding his eyes from the sun with one hand — when Callahan heard someone playing the piano. His piano. Suddenly furious, he ran through the living room only to find his son Lloyd at the keyboard…

…who looked up from the piano, smiled his Cheshire Cat grin — and once again disappeared.

“Did you hear that?” Callahan barked as he walked over to the Bösendorfer.

“Yes, of course,” Deborah replied as she came up to Harry, “but…who was playing…?”

“Lloyd was here again.”

“Lloyd…? Oh, Harry, what’s going on?”

Brendan walked in and looked around the room, then he shook his head. “There are too many people interested in you, Harry. Trouble is coming, and soon – I think.”

“What are you talking about, Brendan?” Callahan asked. “What do you mean by too many people…?”

“Maybe ‘people’ isn’t the right word,” Brendan replied, grinning as he pointed at a blue mote loitering in the shadow of a ceiling beam. “You’re making a lot of enemies.”

“Enemies? Why do say that?” Eisenstadt asked.

“The orca told me. He also told me to tell you to be careful.”

“Wait a minute…” Callahan growled. “Are you telling me you were having a conversation with a fucking fish…?”

“No, I was having a conversation with a fucking mammal.”

Callahan grumbled as he walked away, bound for his bedroom and the infinite promise of a beckoning shower, but Eisenstadt turned and looked at the blue mote hovering inches from the ceiling, then she saw another one across the room, and this one was pink — and then she sighed, if only because the pink mote seemed to be hiding from the blue one.

‘This is getting complicated,’ she thought.

“You’re not kidding,” Brendan said — before he walked up to the little studio where Didi Goodman was staying. He hoped she was not through in the shower, because suddenly he wanted to join her there.

+++++

When a new aircraft rolls off one of Boeing’s Seattle area assembly lines, either in Renton or Everett, Washington, that aircraft will usually transit to nearby Boeing Field, located halfway between downtown Seattle and Sea-Tac, the main international airport. At Boeing Field, or BFI, airline specific avionics are installed and tested and, after passing internal company checks, delivery flights to the ordering airline commence. Boeing Company test pilots join pilots from the ordering airline on a series of test flights that are structured to allow for a thorough testing of all the airliner’s various systems, especially those systems typically utilized during day-to-day operations. The first flight is usually a routine familiarization flight, and typically the Boeing test pilot acts as the pilot-in-command, this company pilot’s job being to ensure that the airline’s acceptance pilot is indeed up to snuff on all the airliner’s systems.

This flight typically departs BFI and turns east, where the new aircraft flies along the US-Canadian border just inside US airspace before turning south and shooting a touch and go at the international airport in Great Falls, Montana (GTF), then turning west and returning to BFI. If any of the the airline’s pilots seem rusty or in need of systems remediation, the Boeing pilot may have the airline’s offending pilot shoot an additional approach at the Boeing Co. airfield located in Moses Lake, Washington, before returning to BFI. More flights are scheduled, any bugs are run down and fixed, and only then is the aircraft delivered to the airline in question.

However…not all “commercial” aircraft manufactured by Boeing go to the airlines.

The Boeing Company’s Airline Delivery Center is located at the northwest end of the airport, the Museum of Flight located about midway along the west side of the main runway (14R/32L), while tucked away in a nearly forgotten area near the southwest corner of the airport is a small apron typically packed with P-8A Poseidon maritime surveillance aircraft and the occasional KC-46 aerial refueling tanker. Security here is tight.

One morning in late January, 2009, a small group of people drove up to this small apron in two blacked out Chevrolet Suburbans and they quickly boarded an unmarked Boeing P8. The aircraft immediately took off on runway 32Left and flew to the Canadian border before turning east, apparently heading for GTF on a typical Navy acceptance flight, but then this P8 descended and disappeared from radar just east of Leavenworth, Washington. Ten minutes later the P8 reappeared on radar and continued, unquestioned, to Great Falls before returning to Boeing Field later that morning. Two pilots departed the aircraft, leaving no one else on board.

+++++

The De Havilland Beaver carrying Debra Sorensen and Daisy-Jane landed on Turner Bay, in Desolation Sound, British Columbia, and it taxied in to the floating dock at Bliss Landing and tied off. Debra and Daisy walked up to the little store above the docks; the pilot carrying her lone duffel bag following a few paces behind. A few minutes later the pilot re-emerged and soon departed, returning to Vancouver, and Ted Sorensen’s team, the team following Debra, arrived by helicopter a few minutes later. 

When the team went into the store they found the woman and her dog were indeed still there, only it wasn’t Debra, and now reports were coming in that the Beaver had reportedly disappeared from radar.

Word was relayed to Delbert Moloch, and he was not amused.

+++++

Dana stood next to the General on the flat concrete apron, and for some unknown reason she had decided to hold his hand. He looked at her and returned her smile, yet he was uncertain of her motives — and after talking with Taggart he was fairly certain he was being manipulated. With his free hand he looked at his wristwatch and noted the time once again and sighed, only now he noted she was staring at him. 

Then he heard the rumbling motor of an old Pratt & Whitney nine cylinder radial Wasp Jr throttling down and he looked to the northwest and could just make out a little seaplane lining up to land on the Columbia River. Another few minutes passed before a Huey lifted off from the river, and this helicopter landed on the apron in front of the General a few minutes later.

Debra Sorensen and Daisy-Jane slid out of the Huey; Daisy ran up to Dana and gave her a kiss while the General met Debra halfway and then escorted her to the waiting C-20H. Ralph and Dana Richardson were already on board, as was Sumner Bacon, and within a minute the airstairs closed and the jet began taxiing to the active runway. The jet took off and turned to the southwest, bound for San Jose, California.

Debra briefly wondered what had come of Daniel Wingren, but after one look at the General’s sour demeanor she decided she really didn’t need to know just then.

+++++

Deborah Eisenstadt heard the shower running and running and eventually decided she’d had enough; she walked into Harry’s bathroom and found the shower was indeed running – but that Callahan wasn’t in the shower. His towel was untouched, and she noted there were no wet footprints on the bathroom floor. She called his name and this was met with silence. She looked for his prosthesis and found it propped up beside the laundry hamper, and his cane was there too, right beside it, and suddenly she grew concerned…

+++++

Brendan walked into the small studio expecting to find Didi Goodman there, but after he walked in he saw her lycra skin crumpled up on the floor outside the bathroom and he heard the shower running. He didn’t want to intrude but he very much wanted to talk to her now so he called out her name.

Nothing. He heard…nothing.

He called her name out a second and a third time, and silence remained the only reply.

He poked his head into the bathroom, not really knowing what to expect but half certain he would find Didi passed out on the shower floor — but no, the shower was running but was otherwise empty. Now confused, he walked around the little apartment attached to the studio, then he searched the studio proper — both with no success.

And now he was scared.

So he turned to face the far side of the sky and his fingers went to work, peeling back layer upon layer of time and space until he came upon something so unexpectedly frightening he literally passed out.

When he came to Deborah was shaking him, commanding him to wake up, to “snap out of it!” — and she too seemed agitated, almost scared.

“Where am I?” he asked.

“In Didi’s studio…where did you think you were?”

“I’m not sure. Why are you here?” he asked.

“Harry’s disappeared. Where’s Miss Goodman?”

“They’re gone. Both of them.”

“What do you mean, gone?” she cried. “Do you know where they are?”

He shook his head. “No. I don’t think that’s possible.”

“What does that mean, Brendan?”

“I saw something. We can’t go there.”

“What did you see! Tell me!”

“Come close,” he said as he peeled away the sky once again.

And when Deborah Eisenstadt looked she tried to understand what she was seeing, and when understanding finally came to her she began to cry.

© 2016-22 adrian leverkühn | abw | and as always, thanks for stopping by for a look around the memory warehouse…

And even though the sun is shining will I still feel the rain? Time for tea, perhaps?

[Supertramp \\ Even in the Quietest Moments]

Chapter 65.4

Didi Goodman was spooked. She did not understand what had happened out there on the waves, and she had no frame of reference to process events as they transpired. When she fell into Callahan’s arms it was not, she realized, an act. She had been – for those last moments of the life she had known before – when the shark moved in, convinced her life was at an end — and after all the madness she’d been through the past seven years that was saying something.

She’d had the presence of mind to crawl past the grenade and had just made it to the sidewalk when the Land Rover caught fire. Her lower jaw was a fragmented wreck in the shattered aftermath of the assassin’s attack, yet even so she’d managed to find a taxi and get to the Israeli embassy, and she was back in Tel Aviv before the story hit the afternoon papers the next day. Her shattered jaw couldn’t be reconstructed without grafts of her own bone and tissue, so now she had chiseled fragments of her right hip embedded in her face, and skin from her thighs had been used to repair her neck and cheek. Her mouth had been wired shut for months while the grafts settled, and by the time her mouth was set free she had lost far too much weight, most of it in the form of muscle mass. She’d been weak, of course, but her unbroken will was as strong as ever.

The four-man team that had been sent to kill her had flown in from Bulgaria as soon as she left Israel for London, though the men involved were eventually identified as Russian and Serbian mercenaries. After the attack, the team discretely moved to London Luton and boarded a private jet bound for Cluj Napoca, Romania, where the men disembarked and got into four waiting cars. Now on full alert, Mossad agents picked them up and tailed the men into the city, photographing their activities for two days before they flew commercially to Madrid and then on to Buenos Aires. After holing up for a day at an airport hotel, the four men staged elaborate evasive cut-outs to shake any potential tails, yet they did not count on Mossad now having more than fifty agents in place to monitor their movements. After a half-day of such evasive maneuvering, the team converged on what appeared to be a safe house in the Monte Grande neighborhood on the southern outskirts of the city, and one by one the men entered the house. Five minutes after they entered the house exploded, and there the trail ended. Whether the team had in fact been eliminated was now a matter of some conjecture, but at the time Colonel Goodman felt certain they were still alive.

Colonel Benjamin Goodman suffered his first heart attack when he learned what had happened to his daughter, yet it was his group in Mossad that moved assets into place to pick up the mercenary team and shadow them over the next several days. Only one agent, however, had the presence of mind to follow the private jet that had carried the assassins from London to Cluj Napoca. 

She was a Danish Jew from Copenhagen. Her name was Ida.

The getaway jet, a Bombardier Challenger 650, refueled and filed a flight plan for Zurich Kloten, and Ida boarded an old Dassault Falcon 20 registered in Belgium and told the pilots what the new mission was. They took off before the Challenger, heading for Geneva but listening to all the communications between the Challenger and air traffic controllers along its route, and not surprisingly the Challenger filed a new flight plan en route, changing its destination to Madrid. As the Falcon didn’t have enough fuel to make Spain non-stop, Ida alerted agents on the ground, and these agents were able to photograph the Challenger’s lone remaining passenger when he disembarked in Madrid.

Delbert Moloch was easily identifiable in these photographs as he walked to another aircraft, boarding a private Boeing 707 currently registered to Eagle Networks of Los Angeles, California. The Boeing departed Madrid on a non-stop flight to Teniente Luis Candelaria Airport, located in San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina, and in the hours after, Goodman’s team set about implementing the next phase of their surveillance operation against the Adler Gruppe.

+++++

In the seven years since no Israeli operative had managed to penetrate the Adler Gruppe, but then again neither had MI6 or the CIA — nor any other intelligence agency, for that matter — while Didi Goodman had spent almost three years in physical therapy recovering from her wounds and injuries before returning to active duty.

Now, standing in the sun in Callahan’s arms, she suddenly found a sense of peace that had eluded her for years. Images of the shark’s gaping maw began to fade, and even the startled state of mind she found when the orca cupped her body protectively and carried her almost all the way to shore began to slip away. Standing there on the pebbled beach with her face buried in Callahan’s warm, clean-smelling shirt, about all she could see were stuttering images of the shark’s exploding body, then a fragmenting carcass somersaulting through the air before splattering on the crest of the next breaking wave. 

She felt his arms encircle her and an electric shimmer passed between them, then darkness came for her as she slid down towards the rocks — until, that is, Harry stopped her fall. 

“Maybe you’d better go get the Rover,” he said to Deborah. “I’m not sure I can carry back to the house on that damn trail.”

But as Deborah turned to leave, the pod in the water surrounding Brendan began making strange whistling sounds, then they too turned and disappeared under the water, leaving Brendan out there with the lone big male. Who then came close again, watching with keen interest as the boy peeled away a layer of the sky, revealing some kind of hidden secret beyond before he too vanished under a breaking wave. Brendan made his way through shallow surf to the beach, and only then did he notice that Didi had passed out…

“What’s wrong?” he asked, suddenly and now very clearly concerned. “What happened to her?”

“I’m not sure, but I think she may be a little hypothermic,” Deborah said. “Would you come with me, please?” she said to the boy. “I’m off to fetch the Land Rover and I may need your help.”

Brendan nodded and they took off up the trail for Harry’s place, leaving Harry and Didi there on the beach. He felt her stirring so he helped her find her footing, but he continued to hold onto her…just in case.

“You smell like sunshine,” he heard her say.

“Sunshine? Well, that’s a first.”

She pushed back from him a few inches then cradled his face in her hands and she looked into his eyes for the longest time before she pulled his face to hers. 

She came to him as an explosion of kaleidoscoping lightness and inside the span of a single heartbeat, she pushed him to the beach and mounted him, fumbling with his belt and trousers then guiding him inside. Their sudden union was a spontaneous, furious thing borne of need and fear, and the translucent pink mote hovering overhead spun up and jumped to the L3 Lagrange point at ten times the speed of light.

© 2016-22 adrian leverkühn | abw | and as always, thanks for stopping by for a look around the memory warehouse…

Another brief walk into the sea, and who knows, perhaps you’ll find time for tea.

[Sting \\ Valparaiso]

Chapter 65.3

Didi Goodman continued insinuating herself into Brendan’s daily routine, guiding a gentle transformation from the dependency of childhood into something more closely resembling manhood. She ran with him on the beach, helped him develop a more appropriate level of physical coordination for his age, and she listened to him. Listened, as he began to express hopes and dreams for the first time in his life, and as he turned these expressions into music. She seemed to care. Seemed to grasp what he was looking for.

Didi had a natural affinity for the ocean and loved to both Scuba dive and surf, and she began to pass these loves on to Brendan, as well. She had started by teaching him how to body surf, surfing by, in effect, holding your body in a rigid plane and shooting out along the crest of a breaking wave. She bought a couple of ‘boogie-boards’ next, short little surfboards that let you surf waves a little more gracefully – though still not standing up – and lycra skins to ward off the cold. 

Yet Sea Ranch was not an ideal place for these activities.

There was but one beach where surfing was somewhat practical, when conditions were ideal, anyway, and the rest of the shoreline was crenellated with small rocky headlands and tiny coves — all lined with spires of sharp, spiny rocks. So, when the sun came out and the wind rushed onshore, Didi and Brendan could be seen rushing down to the beach, loaded down with beach towels and boogie-boards.

Yet, as Harry had mentioned to Deborah, sharks roamed these shores, for their favorite food often basked on all those rocky points. Sea Lions, or fur seals, had at one point been hunted to near extinction, yet they had made a dramatic recovery since California had enacted strict environmental protections — and all that much to the delight of the local population of Great White sharks. The sharks roam about a quarter mile off the rocks and beaches of the Pacific coastline from Washington State to Baja California and their habits are generally well understood by locals. And yet as Didi Goodman was anything but a local she dismissed Harry’s concerns about the predators.

So he always watched Didi and Brendan traipse off to the beach with a kind of icy fear clutching at his throat, and he heaved a sigh of relief every time they returned intact. Yet soon enough his fear was palpable enough that Deborah Eisenstadt questioned him. “Why don’t you go along and see if they are taking enough precautions?” she asked.

“I don’t want to be an overbearing old fart,” he growled. “No one needs that bullshit.”

“So you’re going to sit up here and pick on your fingernails all afternoon — while they’re gone?”

“I do not pick on my fingernails!”

“Oh, really?”

“Well, maybe I do just a little…”

Eisenstadt shook her head while she finished making lunch. “I thought you were working with Pat in the studio this afternoon?” she said as she put his plate down on the small kitchen table.

“No. His flight was canceled so he’s stuck in Boston.”

“Oh? That’s nice. It’s such a sunny day, perhaps we could go for a walk?”

“Yeah, that sounds good.”

She smirked. Men were so predictable it was almost painful sometimes. “Why don’t you bring your camera?” she added.

“You must be reading my mind again,” he grinned.

And so Deborah grinned too, much as she hated to gloat.

So they walked south along the coast trail until they came to a beach access trail beneath Black Point Reach — and the first thing Harry noticed was how far offshore the two surfers were. Well beyond the quarter mile mark, anyway, and yes, there were lots of seals frolicking out there among the three and four-foot combers, and then Harry saw Brendan riding a five-footer on a boogie-board and he was screaming in delight as he rode the wave in for a hundred or so feet.

So Harry aimed his old Nikon F and rattled off a few shots through his equally old 300mm, catching the excited grin on the boy’s face right up to the point where he pointed to the shark’s dorsal fin lazily scything through the water beyond the surf — now headed right for Didi Goodman.

“Goddammit to mother-fucking hell,” Callahan snarled.

“What is it?” Deborah responded, and then she followed Harry’s pointing finger. “Oh, no,” she sighed. It was impossible not to notice the fin now, and Brendan had just turned and was shouting out a warning to Didi when Callahan saw a half dozen more dorsal fins streaking in towards the White.

“What the hell?” Callahan muttered.

“Are those more sharks?” Eisenstadt asked.

“I don’t think so. Look…the fins are a different shape than the shark’s,” Harry said as he now quite instinctively brought the Nikon up to his eye and began shooting.

One of the larger animals broached the surface and the black and white markings were unmistakeable now…

“Are those Killer Whales?” Deborah asked.

“Yup.”

“They’re not friendly, are they?”

“Nope.”

“Oh, dear…”

“Yup.”

Didi was doing exactly the right thing, facing the shark and holding quite still, and even Brendan seemed to have caught on as he too was now quietly treading water, yet the lead orca, a huge male, submerged and disappeared from view.

The shark was circling Didi now, still about twenty feet away when the water around the shark exploded, and the next thing Callahan saw through the lens was the Great White’s body coming apart in midair, and he tried his best to keep focus as he snapped away – soon coming to the end of his roll. He continued watching the unfolding anarchy as the rest of the pod of orcas moved in and thrashed the remnants of the shark…

…but then the large male turned on Didi…

…and the next thing Callahan saw was Didi cupped protectively inside the orcas pectoral grasp, and he was bringing her closer to the beach. Brendan paddled in as quickly as he could, but then the rest of the pod surrounded him, kept him from going ashore.

“What the fuck is going on now?” Callahan growled.

“It’s almost as if they are trying to talk to him, Harry…?”

“Let’s get down there,” Harry snarled, his prosthetic leg a real nuisance in sand and on the loose, rocky scree the trail was made of. He relied on his cane now but made it down to the rocky beach just as Didi came trembling out of the water. Her skin was pale now, but whether from the cold water or fright Callahan couldn’t tell. He found her towel and handed it to her — just as she fell into his arms, still too numb to cry.

“Where’s Brendan?” she finally managed to say.

“With his new friends, I’d say,” Deborah said, pointing to the pod.

And Brendan was drawing on the sky, pointing out his efforts to the huge male…

…who seemed…

…interested. To say the least.

© 2016-22 adrian leverkühn | abw | and as always, thanks for stopping by for a look around the memory warehouse…

Another short break for tea today.

[Pat Metheny \\ Cathedral in a Suitcase]

Chapter 65.2

Henry Taggart was at the wheel on aquaTarkus, with Daisy-Jane now hugging his side, as they passed West Race Rock just ten miles out of Victoria, British Columbia. Debra was down below, packing duffels and getting ready for a quick getaway. The latest plan the General had cooked up had Debra heading one way and Dana leaving with Ralph and Dana Richardson and heading to one of Boeing’s less well known facilities outside of Everett, Washington. Once her boat was secure Henry would head to Seattle, and Daniel Wingren could go to Hell – at least as far as Taggart was concerned, anyway.

The General had another plan, of course.

And that one involved Tracy Abernathy and Ralph Richardson — and of course, Dana.

And still Henry didn’t know how he felt about all that. He was conflicted. Dana still claimed she was his daughter yet what on earth was she, really? She wasn’t human, yet machines didn’t physically grow — at least not the way she had during the course of these two ocean crossings. So what did that leave? A genetically manipulated human variant, or a human-machine hybrid of some sort…? Some as yet unknown sort? Yet Henry could hardly believe the General’s overall plan was on morally sound footing.

For if Dana was indeed human, even partially human, the kinds of deconstruction he and Abernathy had in mind were nothing short of torture.

But then Dana had gotten involved in the discussion, and she had her own ideas how to proceed, ideas that had at once proven unimaginably ambitious and financially lucrative beyond anyone’s wildest imaginings.

And that was when all the pieces of the puzzle began to fall in place, at least as far as Henry Taggart was concerned. Dana might not have been lying, at least strictly speaking — he told himself, when she said he was her father, but it was clear now she was on a mission that did not include him. And now something else was very clear to him; neither he nor Debra would not be allowed to stand in her way. She was guiding the discussion now, she was declaring what the nature of her confinement would be like, not to mention what the end purpose was, and right then and there Henry had simply let go. He turned her loose, cut himself free from the notion that he was somehow responsible for her well-being. Or that he was her father.

Because he wasn’t. It had to have all been a ruse and now he felt used.

Her parents, if the word had any meaning at all in her case, resided somewhere else. The place where the spheres reigned. Who or whatever controlled the spheres was controlling her destiny now. And he was no longer needed.

Even Debra felt it now, this feeling of being used, and over the course of the last week she had pulled back from Dana. Slowly at first, then it was like a rapid decompression took hold and staying away became an act of self-preservation. As Dana grew, both physically and intellectually — let alone emotionally — the more obscene the idea of parentage became to Debra.

Yet Dana hadn’t been in the least upset by these sudden changes. Like everything else, this unwinding seemed to be just one part of some grand plan that only she knew about, and in that one regard her growing attachment to Ralph Richardson now seemed only too natural. This too had left Debra feeling used, bereft and used.

Perhaps Henry and Debra might have consoled one another, yet the opposite had seemed destined to occur — and only Daisy-Jane remained to bridge the chasm between them. Despite that bridge, Debra had remained in her cabin unless needed for watch standing, and Henry hadn’t objected. Between Dana’s and Debra’s aura and mind reading abilities, he no longer felt comfortable around either and was content to finish the voyage in comparative isolation…

+++++

Didi Goodman’s instructions were clear and to the point: continue to observe and report, and be prepared to help Callahan defend the premises if an unknown but presumed hostile force approached and tried to apprehend Brendan Geddes. If that appeared impossible, she was to take Brendan by any means possible to SFO for transfer to Israel, and if possible get Callahan and Eisenstadt to join them.

“But I think that Brendan and Harry are working together,” she told her father. “In fact, I’m not sure Brendan can do much of anything without him.”

“Are you sure?” Colonel Goodman had asked his daughter.

“At this point, I think I am. The boy may learn how on his own, at some point, but as of right now I think he’s dependent on Harry.”

“Then getting Callahan back to Israel may become a priority.”

“I don’t think he’ll come, father. Not voluntarily, anyway.”

The colonel had grumbled on hearing that. “What about his assets? Any leverage there?”

“No, none. His assistant has secreted all his fungibles beyond my reach. The only assets I might be able to manipulate are his properties in Switzerland, but I doubt he’ll be using those again anytime soon.”

“Well, I’m sending Ida to you. She’ll remain undercover for now, but she will be nearby should the need arise.”

“Understood.”

“And keep working on Harry. His life may depend on his relocating here.”

“I will.”

+++++

“Where’s the kid?” Harry asked Deborah Eisenstadt.

“Down on the beach, with Miss IDF.”

“You really don’t like her, do you?” Harry sighed.

“No, but then again, neither do you.”

“True,” Callahan said, grinning. He was making smoked chicken salad, adding finely diced pecans and cranberries as well as a dash of garam masala to his usual mix of mayonnaise, green onions, and celery, and he was taking his time today, glad to be back in his kitchen and doing mundane chores like this. “What are they up to today?”

“Somersaults again, and she’s teaching him him to body surf, I think.”

“Too many sharks out there. She ought to cut that crap out.”

“Do you know what happened to her?”

“No. Last time I saw her she hadn’t had all those reconstructive surgeries.”

“She won’t tell you what happened?”

“I haven’t asked, and I don’t plan to, either.”

“Do you think she’s been spying on us? Like…last night, when Jim was here?”

“That’s her job, Deborah. And she’s good at it, so I doubt we’d know if she had. She’s not the type to make mistakes.”

“Why do you think she’s here?”

“To take the kid.”

“Where? To Israel?”

“Yup.”

“You don’t seem too concerned about that, Harry.”

“I’m not.”

Which meant, Deborah knew, that Harry had been making a few explorations on his own. So, at least he was trying to stay a couple of moves ahead on the board.

+++++

Henry backed aquaTarkus into a slip in front of the Empress, then he and Debra tied her off and hosed the salt encrusted hardware down before heading below for their duffels, and then Debra and Daisy-Jane literally stepped off the boat and into a waiting De Havilland Beaver seaplane and took off for parts unknown. Henry powered down systems and hooked the boat up to shore power, then he stepped off the boat and into another Beaver, his heading to Lake Union in downtown Seattle.

Daisy-Jane had loved on him big time before she left, but Debra hadn’t even said goodbye, and he hadn’t been in the least surprised.

‘So, that’s that,’ he sighed as he watched Vancouver Island recede into the mist. ‘The end of the affair. Oh well, c’est  la vie.’

The next part of the General’s plan would see the Swan heading into Vancouver, only now everyone else was going to the secret lair outside of Everett before splitting up. That is, everyone but Daniel Wingren. The General, apparently, had something special in mind for Wingren, but when Henry had asked about all Henry could make out was a mumbled flurry of words concerning plausible deniability. Henry decided it was better not to ask.

After he returned to Seattle, Henry Taggart withdrew into the world he knew best but liked the least; the world of work. He would never see Debra Sorensen, or Daisy-Jane, again. Not in this life, anyway.

© 2016-22 adrian leverkühn | abw | and as always, thanks for stopping by for a look around the memory warehouse…