by Linda Hawley
What a day. I was fired from my job not because I wasn’t doing it well, but because I am a member of GOG. And Bennett’s a supporter of GOG. I pulled out the paper Edwin had given me and looked at it again. Edwin is Chow’s brother. Does that mean that Edwin is also GOG? But the biggest surprise of the day was Paul.
The phone rang, pulling me away from my thoughts.
“Sinéad, take a message,” I asked, then the phone immediately stopped ringing.
“Message ready, Ann.”
“Replay the message.”
“Ann…it’s Paul…I just found out. Call me.”
“End of message,” Sinéad informed me.
“Liar,” I yelled at the top of my lungs.
I hadn’t even tapped the pain I felt from Paul’s betrayal. Bolting up from the bay window seat, I stomped into the bathroom, stripped off all my clothes, leaving them in a pile on the floor, and stepped into the shower. I was eager to scrub away my memories of him. Turning the water on as hot as I could stand it, I let the water stream over me, washing away the dirtiness I felt from my association with the man who had betrayed me.
I was overcome with grief, tears mixing with the water running over my cheeks. Sinking to the shower floor, I sobbed until I exhausted myself, remembering all the moments with Paul that I had treasured but now knew were all lies. He baited me, then used me. Nothing that ever came out of his mouth was honest. Paul was a black-hearted scoundrel, and I vowed to never let him near my heart again.
Chapter 14
ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA
The Year 2015
Flying into Reagan National Airport in Arlington, Virginia, I arrived just after three PM. From my Seattle connection, I was able to upgrade to first class, which allowed me to plug in my iPod, soothing me to sleep with the aid of three extra-strength Tylenol. Sleep had evaded me last night after the many shocks of the day, coupled with my slight anxiety about flying using a false identity.
After deplaning, I stopped at the Faber News & Gifts and picked up a Mountain Dew. Drinking it down as I walked through the airport terminal, I thought about the meeting. I was supposed to make contact in the Pentagon City fashion mall of all places. Since there was direct access to the mall from the Washington Metro, we would be able to easily move to a new location after our meet-up. I assumed that’s why I was meeting my contact at a mall, rather than a Macy’s shopping excursion.
This was a fly-in fly-out trip; I would return to Bellingham tomorrow. Clearly this would be a discussion-only meeting about my future role in the cause. Of course, I needed to discuss my recent discoveries about Paul and make a plan on how to handle him upon my return to Bellingham.
After collecting my single bag, I was in a taxi heading to the Ritz-Carlton in Pentagon City. I didn’t know why GOG booked me there. Perhaps it was because high-profile clients frequented, which meant that they would be less likely to scrutinize my fake identification. The taxi pulled up to the high-rise entrance, and a doorman had my door open, seemingly before the wheels even stopped. I paid the driver in cash and stepped out.
The lobby was opulent, from its huge imported rugs, to the lead-glass chandeliers, which were suspended within recessed ceilings. Painted wood in warm colors made me feel like I was in a gentleman’s club. There were three front desk clerks available; two were male and one was female. I took a deep breath, then approached the woman.
“Good afternoon, Miss. How may I help you?” the woman wearing the Samantha nametag asked. She was all business with her forced smile on thin lips.
“I have a reservation; the last name is Jones,” I said with a smile, reaching for my new ID.
“And the first name is?”
“Julie,” I answered, forcing eye contact with her round brown eyes to refute the lie.
“Yes, I see it here,” she said, looking at the computer screen.
She could be practicing to be my old bank manager.
“Credit card and identification,” she said matter of fact, staring me down with the pasted-on smile.
“I’ll pay cash,” I said, sliding my new ID across the black marble counter.
“Miss Jones, I see that your room is prepaid, but we’ll need a credit card for incidental charges to the room,” she said politely as she distractedly straightened her skirt.
“I don’t plan to charge anything to the room, so there won’t be a need for a credit card,” I countered softly, with a smile and eye contact thrown in.
“Miss Jones, I cannot check you in without a credit card,” she said sternly.
I leaned into the counter and gently explained, “Samantha, my purse was stolen at the airport, and there are only two things that were not in it: the ID that I just gave you—because I had to show it to airport security and had put it in my pocket—and the cash I had in my pocket. If you’ve ever had your purse stolen, you know all the personal things we women keep in there…my photos…my special heirloom necklace from my grandmother…”
“Don’t you just hate losing all that?” she said, interrupting, mirroring my lean-in and speaking quietly. “I once was mugged in D.C.—this was years ago—but I never got those pictures back,” she said, confiding in me. “Not to mention that it took me a week to get replacement cards and a new ID. It felt terrible,” Samantha said, with her eyebrows pursed.
I nodded. “I know…isn’t it a horrible feeling?” I said, screwing up my face to appear pitiful.
She looked at me for a moment and then quietly offered, “Let me speak to the hotel manager for you.”
I nodded again, doing my best to win the Academy Award.
She returned only a few minutes later.
“I explained it to the hotel manager, and he’s allowing you to check in with cash only, as long as you have government ID, pay for the room up front, plus a $200 deposit. Your room is prepaid, and I see you have the ID, but do you have enough cash for the deposit?” she said leaning towards me again.
“Thank goodness, Samantha, I have just enough,” I said, playing along. “Here you go,” I said, sliding across two hundred-dollar bills.
She took the cash, gave me the room key, and returned my ID.
Success.
“I know how you feel,” she said, with a wink.
“I appreciate your help Samantha; thank you,” I said, sincerely. She had no idea that she just helped me keep my anonymity.
Crossing the plush lobby to the elevators, relief exuded from me as I let the breath go that I didn’t even realized I’d been holding. Riding the elevator up the tower with three others, my heart began to slow down from its race.
When I entered my room, I immediately was drawn into the view. Framed before me was the Pentagon building, clear as day.
It was as if I was given this room to remind me of why I was fighting the good fight in the first place. Standing there with memories of my days with the CIA washing over me, I dropped my bag on the floor beside me as I stared ahead.
It’s been a long time, old adversary.
Chapter 15
LANGLEY, VIRGINIA
The Year 1995
I was in the large remote viewing room, waiting for John O’Brien.
“This one comes in urgent, directly from the Pentagon,” John said to me as he sat down across the table.
“The Pentagon?” I asked in surprise, looking at him. “How do they even know about our program here?”
“Grace. After she left Project Stargate, she moved to an anti-terrorism group at the Pentagon. It’s from her group that the request has come.”
“I didn’t realize she went to anti-terrorism.”
“Yes. So it’s urgent, but no pressure, Ann.”
“Right…no pressure,” I said sarcastically. “Okay John, let’s do it.”
“That’s what I love about you,” he said sincerely.
“What’s that?” I asked, looking at him.
“You…your attitude. Once you vent your thoughts, usually in sarcasm, then you let it go and get on with the bus
iness at hand. You are the most remarkable woman that way; you just don’t hold a grudge.”
“Thank goodness, otherwise we certainly wouldn’t be friends,” I said to him in jest.
“See, that’s what I mean. Very funny lass,” he said with a wink.
“I’m ready when you are.”
We moved out to the remote viewing room and took our seats.
“Okay, here we go,” John said, handing me a piece of paper with map coordinates, minutes, and seconds typed on it.
John didn’t know anything about the target, in order to keep the remote viewing session clean.
On my lap sat a clipboard with a plain piece of paper clipped in, and I had a pencil in my hand. I studied the information on the paper that John had given me until I felt that I remembered it, handed the paper back to him, and then closed my eyes. I started the Transcendental Meditation technique. After twenty minutes, John lightly tapped my hand, which indicated that he would start asking me questions.
“What do you see?” he asked softly.
Opening my eyes, I began to sketch the images floating in the back of my mind. I was drawing fast, with impressions of a tense situation flooding my senses. John knew enough to leave me to it and was not prompting me.
I drew the seven men present and the interactions I was sensing. In the remote view, I not only saw the group, but I—myself—was standing directly behind them watching, not two feet behind the soldiers. Four Asian men dressed as civilians stood in front of three American soldiers—all of them Navy SEALs—dressed in black from head to toe. It was clear that the SEALs were captives of the four men and had been disarmed.
The lead SEAL was arguing with his captors not in English, but in Chinese. He was clearly pleading for their lives. The man in charge was pressing the SEAL leader to answer a specific question, but the SEAL said something that agitated him, and he responded by using the butt of his pistol against the SEAL’s head. He fell flat on his face, unconscious. The intensity in the room built. Another SEAL took the leader’s place in begging for mercy. A look passed between the captors, and the man in charge pointed his gun at the runner-up SEAL leader and calmly pulled the trigger.
As the gun went off, I felt something wet on my right arm. I looked to the right and saw the blood and brains of what had been the SEAL splattered on my arm. As I noticed the deep, dark red color, the gun went off again, then once again.
“They’re dead…they’re dead…they’re all dead!” I screamed at John.
John moved to within a few inches of my face, peering into my eyes. “Ann…lass…tell me what you’re seeing,” he pressed quietly.
“They knew,” I screeched, looking intently at him, my adrenaline peaking with the images still flooding my mind.
“Who knew what?” John asked with concern.
“The Pentagon!”
Bob Hadley was suddenly sitting beside John, within a breath of me.
“Calm down, Ann,” John said, putting his hands on both of my forearms.
“Don’t tell me to calm down, you Irish bloke,” I hissed, shaking off his hands. “They knew,” I said looking at him, then Bob, anger filling out where adrenaline once was.
“Tell me what the Pentagon knew,” John asked, brushing off my words.
I was silent, trying to make sense of the remote view.
As I fit the pieces of the puzzle together in my mind, I relayed them to John and Bob.
“They wanted me to remote view the assassination of three American SEALs, so that I would be their witness, confirming the killings,” I said flatly. “They already knew the soldiers would be executed,” I added, shivering violently.
“How many SEALs were there?” John asked, trying to get me to focus on the details to pull me away from my emotions.
“Three…and there were four Chinese civilians,” I answered, the images clear in my mind.
John was writing down the details.
“One of the men was in charge with control over the three SEALs,” I continued. “The Americans were unarmed and pleading for their lives in Chinese. Then the civilian leader suddenly pulled up his pistol and shot the soldier nearest me in the head point-blank.”
“What do you mean the SEAL nearest you?” John said softly.
“He was the soldier who was closest to my position in the room.”
“Ann—you were in the room?” Bob asked in surprise.
“Yes. I wasn’t just seeing the room from the outside this time. This time I was actually in the room itself. I saw everything from my viewpoint just behind the SEALs.”
A look passed between Bob and John.
“And then when he shot the SEAL, the spray from it was on my arm,” I said, looking at my arm now. “I had blood and brains on my arm, John,” I exclaimed.
Bob and John looked at one another again, a silent communication underway.
“What was that?” I protested. “Why was I in the room, instead of just observing it?” I said, agitated.
Bob answered me.
“I don’t know, Ann. We haven’t had this happen before.”
“Red. It was deep red…” I started. “The blood on my arm was such deep red,” I said quietly, looking at my arm again. “It was just here,” I said, pulling my sleeve away from my arm and rubbing it with my hand.
“Could it be that she was truly present?” John asked Bob.
“It’s not anything we’ve ever imagined could happen,” Bob replied, intrigued.
“Don’t get any ideas, Bob. I was there. I wasn’t observing an event impassively in the background. Three guys were shot point blank in front of my face,” I said, exasperated.
John looked at me curiously. “Ann?” he cried out.
“I don’t feel so good…” I said, my gut twisting with the image of brains on my arm. Nausea filled me. I jumped up and ran to the other side of the room, just reaching the bathroom in time.
As the vomit spewed from me, so did the tears, as I vividly recalled the executions in slow motion.
The guns were so loud, deafening me, then the red blood, and seeing the three bodies fall to the floor, with parts of their heads missing. The bullets should’ve hit me, but they didn’t. How could the bullets not hit me when the blood did?
I rose from the toilet and washed my face and hands in the sink. As I looked up at the mirror and saw my face, it was clear that I was in shock from what I had just witnessed.
As I opened the bathroom door to leave, John and Bob flanked it, waiting for me.
“Let’s go to my office,” Bob instructed.
“How could the blood hit me, but not the bullets?” I asked them.
They didn’t reply.
John and I followed Bob, with John holding my arm protectively. When we reached his office, Bob closed the door behind us. He then took the seat behind his desk, and John and I faced him in two additional chairs. It smelled like pipe tobacco.
I felt like I was in a bad dream, and I spoke before I finished sitting. “Why wasn’t I hit with a bullet?” I asked Bob directly.
Bob just looked at me.
I turned and looked at John, questioning with my eyes. He was also silent.
“We’ve never had anyone in the history of Project Stargate be directly affected by the events they were viewing,” Bob said to me, matter of fact.
My mind was reeling.
“She was clearly there,” John said to Bob as though I weren’t in the room.
“She just flew over across space and time—to Shanghai?” Bob asked John.
“Why not? Look at all the other things she’s accomplished,” John said, with his hand on my arm.
“How is that even possible?” I said, my eyebrows arched.
“We didn’t know it was possible, Ann. This is new ground you’ve just broken,” Bob said enthusiastically.
I jumped up reflexively and leaned into Bob’s desk.
“I just witnessed the execution of three American soldiers,” I screamed, trying to get as close to
Bob’s face without crawling over his desk. “The Pentagon knew they would be executed, and I was their witness.”
“Tell me how you know that, Ann,” Bob said calmly, standing to face me.
“I just know. It’s a feeling I had as they were being executed. It was so strong…more like knowledge that was pouring into me. I just knew.”
“Let me make a call,” Bob said, sitting down again.
John tugged on my arm for me to sit. I snatched my arm away from him angrily, continuing to stand, but I backed away from the desk slightly.
Bob pulled a small leather book from the middle drawer of his desk and laid it open before him. He picked up the secure phone on his desk and dialed a number from the book.
“Charles…it’s Bob Hadley,” he started.
“Yeah, we finished. Before I give you the results, can you confirm something for me?” Bob asked.
“As you know, Charles, in order for us to view it, we have the same need-to-know that you do. We already viewed it, so need-to-know is not an issue,” he justified to Charles.
“Thank you. My question is simple. What did you think would occur during the meeting?” Bob asked.
Bob listened, and as I watched his face, it betrayed no information, impassive as if he’d pulled up a shield of armor.
“Okay. Give me fifteen, and I’ll call you back with the results,” Bob replied, then hung up the secure phone.
“What was their expectation?” John asked Bob.
Bob looked at John, eyes narrowing. “Ann’s right. They knew.” Bob looked at me. “You were the confirmation of death,” he said to me, grimly looking into my eyes, his mouth contracted.
I sat down hard. I felt a betrayal of the country I had served. I was a pawn in the defense department’s game.
With eerie calmness, I said to Bob, “I’m done.” Then I looked into John’s eyes. “I’m tired, John,” I said, exhaling.
“What?” asked Bob, looking bewildered.
“When I come in tomorrow, I’ll bring my resignation,” I said to Bob flatly.
“Now Ann…there’s no need to resign. We’ve had one bad day here…” Bob started.