Falling Star (The Watchers)

by Philip Chen

  The old man knelt toward the beckoning dawn, resting on the heels of his naked feet. His arms rested easily on the rough cloth of his trousers. His wrinkled hands lay on his knees -- palms up as if in supplication. He had welcomed the morning at this place and in this manner numerous times over the ninety-plus seasons he had walked the Earth. It was not just a fascination with ceremony that called him to this place; it was his solemn duty as the medicine man, the Shaman, to understand the earth and its place in the cosmos. The constellations in the rich darkness would guide his people through the many dangers that faced them on earth.

  Like the hawk floating effortlessly in the sky, the old man sought sustenance from the life-giving rays. The urgency of this particular morning gave even more purpose to his entreaties. It was the certainty of this date -- a certainty known only to Johnny Thapaha.

  Johnny Thapaha's white hair fell gently to his shoulders and was kept off his wrinkled face by a red bandanna tied around the crown of his head. Around his neck was a turquoise bead necklace that ended in a silver and turquoise breastplate in the shape of an eagle with outstretched wings.

  His shirt was made from the flaxen cloth favored by older members of his tribe and was loosely gathered at his waist by a leather belt, with an intricate buckle of hammered silver. On the third finger of each hand was a silver ring in the shape of an eagle about to strike.

  The chill of the early morning did not deter him from the duty which he had done every morning for many years.

  The carefully opened sacred bundle, the symbol of his faith and his position, lay on his lap. His ceremonial pipe rested next to his right knee. Before him, traced in the hard soil of the mesa, was a circle displaying the four points of the compass, the four cardinal directions.

  Johnny Thapaha faced the rising sun, encroaching warmth he could only feel but could not see because cataracts had taken away his sight a long time ago. He yearned to know and to understand what had been and what would surely be. Johnny Thapaha's blindness served to intensify his mental capabilities on the painful images. Lasting images that had been given to him by the traveler so many years ago.

  Even at his advanced age and on this lonely windswept mesa, his head was held high and straight. His eyes remained fixed to some distant point only they could see.

  Suddenly, Johnny Thapaha's face tightened. His aged chin lifted toward the rising sun. His sightless eyes focused. His arms rose outstretched as if in welcome. Over the horizon came the long awaited sign. A single shaft of golden light. It was disturbing.

  "Cha-le-gai!" bellowed the old man into the solitary ray of rising sun. The sound of his voice reverberated through the hard-surfaced mesas and the canyon below.

  The old man's face sagged in exhaustion. His arms dropped limply to his legs.

  A tear formed in the corner of the old man's right eye, coursed over his weathered-bronzed cheek, hung on the hard edge of his jaw, and finally fell onto the breast of his shirt. The aged head dropped forward, avoiding the rising sun -- the giver of life, the messenger of things to come.

  The quiet voice of a child came from the shadows just below the crest of the mesa. "Grampa, it's cold and it's getting late."

  "Yes, Little Dove, it is getting late. We must prepare to leave."

  Only his grandfather called ten-year-old Jimmy MacLaren by his Navajo name. Jimmy's Navajo heritage was evident in his brown skin, his straight black hair, and his deep-set, dark eyes that seemed to glow in the morning light. Shivering in his nylon parka, jeans, and running shoes, Jimmy could have been any kid in any neighborhood in America, but he was here on this bleak mesa participating in a ceremony that was as old as his people.

  The old man rose slowly. He stretched out his left hand to search for the secret place while clutching the sacred bundle and ceremonial pipe to his breast.

  His efforts to locate the secret place were at best struggled and guided only by instinct. Jimmy studiously avoided looking at his grandfather. Even at this young age, Jimmy knew that only the medicine man can know the sacred place. With some effort, the practiced hand found the familiar rock and Johnny Thapaha started to return the sacred bundle to its resting-place.

  He hesitated and, in a furtive move, placed the sacred bundle inside the loose folds of his shirt.

  "Little Dove, please take my hand."

  Slipping the gnarled, callused hand of his grandfather into his own smooth hand, Jimmy started down the worn path to the ground below and the warmth of his grandfather's hogan. Johnny Thapaha followed with a labored gait, his back bent by the weight of too many seasons.

  The hawk caught the first rising thermals caused by the warming air and soared higher and higher. This would surely be a good hunting day.

  1993: The Coffee Shop

  0730 Hours: Thursday, June 10, 1993: In a Small Coffee Shop along Cambridge Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

  The two men sat in the booth in the back of the small coffee shop in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Each had a mug of steaming coffee in front of him; purchased at the counter.

  There was a steady flow of customers looking for morning coffee and pastries. The dingy shop was busy.

  An unlikely couple. The older of the two had a professorial air. Busy tamping tobacco into his burlwood pipe, he would stop every so often to sip steaming hot, black coffee from his porcelain mug.

  The younger man had a large round face upon which sat a curiously small pair of round, rimless glasses. He looked very uncomfortable; his small beady eyes constantly surveyed the patrons and other goings-on of the busy shop. His coffee was heavily laden with cream and sugar. He bolted down his Cherry Danish.

  Occasionally, the younger man would look up at this companion as if he were looking for a sign of recognition, familiarity. None came.

  "When did you come up?"

  "L-Late last night."

  "When are you going back?"

  "Immediately." The younger man fidgeted nervously.

  "Why did you call - you know that you aren't supposed to ever call me," said the older man impatiently.

  "Yes, I know, but…"

  "We shouldn't be meeting in person. Why the rush?"

  "Y-you need to see these," stammered the younger man as he took out a manila envelope and surreptitiously handed it to his booth mate. "Something big is happening."

  The older man took the envelope and put it into his soft leather attaché, without as much as a glance.

  The younger man ventured, "How are things?"

  He received no response. The older person did not meet his gaze and busied himself with his burlwood pipe.

  With that, the younger man got out of the booth and with a sweep of his eyes, shuffled out of the coffee house, and disappeared into the bustling crowd of people heading to work. With luck he could catch the 11:20 AM flight at Logan for his trip south.

  The older man quietly watched his companion depart, and, after waiting a few more minutes, causally gathered his belongings, walked up to the cash register and paid the bill. Exiting the coffee shop, the older man calmly glanced up and down Cambridge Street and walked to his parked car.

  1993: Mildred

  1000 Hours: Thursday, June 10, 1993: Gate 26 Red Concourse, Minneapolis St. Paul International Airport

  "May I help you?"

  "Yes, ma'am. I'm on Flight 504 to New York's La Guardia Airport. Can I get an aisle seat?" said the tall blond boy dressed in Levi jeans, a white sweat shirt with the St. Olaf College crest in royal blue on the front, and Puma running shoes. "Do we get lunch on this flight?"

  "You bet. How about Seat 16C? We'll be boarding in about ten minutes."

  Behind Eric Johanson, a line of people was waiting patiently for their turn to get seats on Flight 504. About three people back from Eric stood a thin woman dressed in a navy blue business suit with a white silk blouse and red bow tie.

  The black-haired woman was attractive, looked as if she were in her early thirties, and seemed bored by the routine of boarding the Northwest Ai
rlines flight. She had the most beautiful blue eyes, something that Eric had noted earlier while waiting for the gate agents to open up shop. He also remembered the scent of lavender when she walked past. It was the same scent that his favorite aunt used.

  Boy, he thought, if the older women in New York look that good, I wonder how girls my age will look?

  A loud metallic voice rumbled through the din at the gate. "Attention, Northwest Flight 504 to New York's La Guardia Airport will be ready for general boarding in a few minutes. We would like to …. As usual, we invite our first-class passengers and our Gold and Preferred Card Worldperks members to board at their leisure."

  "Flight 504 is now available for general boarding."

  Handing his boarding pass to the gate agent, Eric started down the metal passageway to the Boeing 727-200 jetliner and was met at the doorway by a pert blond flight attendant who looked at his boarding card and waved him toward the rear of the aircraft with a smile.

  Waiting for the crowd before him to find their seats, Eric soaked in the ambiance of the first class cabin. The familiar noise and smell of coffee percolating in the galley were intoxicating to the haggard passengers lining up to take their seats. The mostly middle-aged, white male passengers sitting in the spacious first-class seats were already absorbed in their reading material and pre-flight beverages.

  Eric looked forward to being an analyst at Franklin Smedley Associates. He was sure they flew everywhere first-class.

  Finally, the logjam freed up as the passengers before him found their seats and Eric was able to reach seat 16C. As he approached his seat, he noted that the attractive black haired woman with the startlingly beautiful blue eyes was seated in 12D; she was already busy reading a magazine and didn't look up as other passengers passed by.

  Eric looked over his row and smiled at his row mate. In 16A sat a spinsterish older woman who had already started her knitting project. Her white hair was pulled tightly in a bun. Mildred Swensen was traveling to New York on her way to Oslo, Norway, to shop for her Scandinavian craft shop in Crookston, Minnesota.

  She was dressed like every Norwegian aunt or grandmother Eric had ever known. Mildred wore a pale yellow silk print dress with a high collar and a light blue summer blazer. She carried the unmistakable scent of lilac. A cameo pin adorned her blazer. Large silver bangles hung from her left wrist. She carried her purse but also carried a large straw bag from which knitting needles of various sizes and yarn protruded. She was working on a project, quite absorbed in her task. From the looks of it, the project was going to be a sweater, probably a Christmas gift for a grandchild.

  Eric knew how efficient these Scandinavian grandmothers could be, for example, knitting Christmas sweaters in June. If the visit was at Christmas time, the menu was always the same: fruit soup, boiled potatoes, lutefisk, Swedish meatballs, lefse, and, if you're lucky, Johnson's temptation, a mixture of scalloped potatoes, onions, and anchovies. The smell of freshly baked cookies, evergreen branches, the smoky fire, Yule kaka, sprits, and thumbprint cookies made up for the annual ordeal of lutefisk.

  Lutefisk starts life swimming in the North Atlantic as cod. When caught, the cod is dried and salted. To prepare lutefisk, the dried and pungent cod is soaked in caustic soda for several months. The soaking revivifies the flesh of the dried fish. When boiled or baked and served with white sauce, lutefisk becomes a tender, flaky seafood delicacy. Norwegian aficionados of lutefisk compare it to lobster.

  Detractors compare it to death.

  Comedians have said that the best recipe for lutefisk is to soak the fish, then drain it for two hours on a wood cutting board, and, when drained, throw away the fish and eat the cutting board.

  Eric stopped himself. Why am I thinking about Christmas in June he thought, and then he realized how much the lady sitting in Seat 16A looked like his grandmother.

  Eric had been hoping that he would get a chance to sit next to the cute young woman with her pale hazel eyes and blond hair pulled in a ponytail. The one who he thought was trading glances with him in the gate area. He wasn't sure, but the coed had looked awfully familiar. Maybe he had seen her around Northfield. Maybe she was an Ole, as St. Olaf students are called, or, heavens forbid, a student at Carleton College, St. Olaf's arch-rival in the small college town of Northfield, Minnesota.

  Damn! Here I'm about to become a big gun on Wall Street and I still can't get the nerve to chat up some girl. I've got to get over this hang-up, thought Eric.

  At least he wasn't going to have to sit with the greasy hippie with long smelly hair who immediately preceded him down the aisle.

  Sliding into his seat, Eric turned to the older woman and said, "Hi, I'm Eric Johanson."

  "Hello, I'm Mildred Swensen. I see from your sweatshirt that you're an Ole. How is Northfield these days? I graduated from St. Olaf College in the fifties."

  "I graduated just last month. I'm going to New York to join Franklin Smedley Associates as an analyst."

  "How nice. What does an analyst at Franklin Smedley Associates do?"

  "I'll be working in the project finance group for a guy named Mike Liu, probably the best project finance banker on Wall Street. As an analyst, I get to examine the financial credibility of many different types of industrial projects. Franklin Smedley Associates has one of the biggest domestic and international project financing practices around, so I hope I get to go overseas as well. I'm really excited; it's the chance of a lifetime."

  "Sounds like such an adventure for a boy so young. Liu? What kind of name is that -- oriental?"

  "I think so, Chinese."

  "Johanson, that's Norwegian. Are you from Minnesota?"

  "Yes, ma'am, I grew up in Ely."

  "Ely? What a nice town."

  Eric and Mildred settled in for a leisurely conversation. The flight to New York was made that much more enjoyable. After a while the conversation, as it always does with Minnesotans the world over, turned to weather. The soon-to-be Wall Street mogul and the grandmother from Crookston tried to top each other with the worst winter storm story they could think of. Finally, Mildred regaled the youngster with Olav and Lena anecdotes, keeping alive the traditional Norwegian culture.

  When the flight attendants brought lunch, Mildred offered her carrot cake to Eric.

  "Airlines just don't serve enough food for growing boys."

  Eric accepted the dessert, as he always had accepted extra helpings of dessert from his grandmother.

  "We are now making our final approach to New York's La Guardia Airport. Please return your seat backs and tray tables to their original upright position."

  Eric's thoughts were now focused on getting into Manhattan and contacting another Ole who had preceded him by one year and was working as a paralegal at a Wall Street law firm. They were planning to share an apartment in New York.

  "Good-bye, Eric, best of luck to you in your new venture," Mildred said as she and Eric gathered their belongings.

  "Thank you very much, Mrs. Swensen."

  After deplaning, Eric hurried to the baggage area to collect his suitcase, duffel bag and sport bag.

  Despite her comments to the young Eric about going on to Oslo, Mrs. Swensen proceeded to the inter-terminal shuttle bus for the short trip to the Washington shuttle. She was trying to get the 2:00 p.m. shuttle to Washington, D.C., even though the connection was very close, due to the late arrival of the Minneapolis flight. Settling down in the shuttle bus, Mildred did not pay any attention to others from the Minneapolis flight who also got on the bus, including the blue-eyed, black-haired woman from seat 12D.

  After deplaning from the shuttle in Washington, Mildred took the escalator up from the shuttle gate and turned left toward the rental car stands and the door to the taxi stand. As she turned, she noticed the restroom to her right. Mildred went in.

  Almost immediately after she entered, the heavy door slammed shut. Simultaneously, a wire garrote was thrown around her neck. Instinctively, Mildred grabbed the thin wire with her left hand and,
in the process, got her silver bangles jammed between her hand and neck, but the grip of her unseen assailant was strong and the wire cut into the flesh of her left hand. Gagging, choking, Mildred tried to think. Stay cool. Try to think. Don't act hastily. God, that hurts. The rush of the kill. Uncontrollable ecstasy.

  The unseen foe tightened the garrote. Mildred drew upon strength she had forgotten she had to combat her attacker. Frantically kicking backward with her high heels, Mildred tried to find a vulnerable spot. Her efforts to break free of the death grip were ineffective and her strength started to wane. Mildred's attacker was too well positioned to be pushed off. The attacker exerted maximum power, tightening the garrote while avoiding Mildred's flailing legs.

  Mildred was dragged into one of the toilet stalls, powerless to resist the backward pull of her assailant. Desperately, Mildred's right hand raced through her straw bag, searching, hoping, struggling to find the knitting needle. As Mildred's mind started to cloud from pain and the lack of oxygen, she found and gripped the special knitting needle, a number 10.

  With one desperate swing, Mildred's right hand jammed the needle into the soft area under her attacker's sternum.

  As soon as the tip of the knitting needle, which had been modified by DARPA, the think tank research agency of the Department of Defense, penetrated the attacker's abdominal cavity, the chemical pellet stored in the tip was released. Immediately reacting to the warm, moist environment of the human body, the pellet exploded, releasing gases into the attacker's abdominal cavity. The expanding gases and the shock wave of the explosion pushed the attacker's diaphragm upward into the chest cavity. This had the effect of immediately collapsing the attacker's lungs, deflating them much as a swift blow to the chest might do.

  The swift upward pressure of the expanding gas was also a death kick to the attacker's heart, causing instantaneous cardiac arrest. With cardiac arrest, the attacker's body convulsed uncontrollably. The attacker never knew what had happened. The death grip on the garrote encircling Mildred's neck loosened as the attacker's lifeless body slumped toward the wall of the toilet and slid into a sitting position on the stool.