Lost Yesterday td-65

by Warren Murphy

  This was too much. Especially when international terrorists had dared to take credit for obliterating Bayonne, New Jersey.

  “We are surrounded, isolated, and ignored. Rubin, I have come to a conclusion,” said Beatrice in the main house of Home Island Lodge, waiting for her breakfast of fried grouper and bananas.

  Rubin coughed out the smoke of his first cigarette of the day. It was noon. He had just woken up and taken the cotton out of his ears. He needed the cotton here because the place was filled with Powies now, and one of the ways they showed they had overcome their negativity was by greeting the sun. Since many of them had paid for the course that got them away from “lazy body syndrome,” none of them wanted to show they hadn't overcome that negativity.

  Which left Rubin with an island full of chirpy six a.m. lunatics.

  Cotton out, phlegm making its way around his lungs, Rubin listened to Beatrice.

  “Rubin, I have come to the decision that we are not taking it anymore.”

  Rubin nodded. The phlegm came out like a tidal wave. Beatrice turned away in disgust.

  “No more nice guys for us. Our only problem is that we've been too soft.”

  “Dearest dove,” said Rubin, “I guarantee we will not be ignored after today.”

  “Don't play softy.”

  “You'll be happy, dear.”

  “Can you imagine an entire city destroyed and not a word about the persecution of our beliefs, about poor Kathy Bowen, about us, about me? Me, Rubin. Not a word about me.”

  “By tomorrow there won't be a household in America unaware of how you have been mistreated.”

  “Television?”

  “I promise.”

  “A chance to trash that bum President who won't make a deal?”

  “You'll have help.”

  “You're not just getting my hopes up, are you?”

  “The Warriors of Zor are ready.”

  “And I'm the queen.”

  “Right,” said Rubin.

  “But that doesn't make you king.”

  “Right, dear.”

  “Don't fail me, Rubin,” said Beatrice. “Don't fail our marriage.”

  “You said you wanted us to be heard. You didn't say sex, dear,” said Rubin, worried. He looked at his watch. His plan was beginning. He walked down to Pink Beach with his commanders, one of whom fortunately happened to be an engineer.

  The beach had a faint pink tinge because of the crushed red coral mingled with the sand. It was most noticeable as the sun broke, coming up from the European side of the world, making the Caribbean blue into a delicate pastel mirror.

  A few Bahamians had private homes on the beach. These had been commandeered by his Powies. A rumor had gone around among them that the decrepit middle-aged man with the smoker's hack was Rubin Dolomo himself, which caused some of those who had purchased the “Be Free of Nicotine” course to feel some doubts. This was quickly squashed by the informers, who reported the doubters to the counselors.

  Ordinarily the counselors would work out the negative feelings of Powies, but now there was an easier way than tracing back through one's life to find where the negativity deposits were. Several strong men threw those in need of retraining into a small cabin with bars and beat them until they apologized for thinking such thoughts.

  The cabin was hot, and in the Caribbean sun it smelled rancid. Even without the beatings the Powies who dared think such seditious thoughts would have changed their minds about the man with the cigarette cough.

  Rubin asked the engineer if he thought Pink Beach would do for the landing.

  “It depends how fast they'll be going. You might be able to bring it in. But what about them?” asked the engineer, nodding to the patrol boats cruising on the Atlantic side of Harbor Island. Above them Navy tomcat fighters flew close formations, letting the island know that whenever they wished they could bomb and strike, but that they chose not to do so at this moment.

  This little island was in the palm of the American Navy and was being reminded of it constantly. Rubin had shrewdly ordered more consciousness sessions to remind Powies the aircraft were only an illusion of power. They themselves, in themselves, were the real power. They had to have a lot of sessions because Navy jets breaking the sound barrier every twenty minutes were hard to call an illusion.

  “Don't worry about the planes or the ships or the guns. They won't matter.”

  “I hope you're right,” said the engineer, who had been having headaches until he joined Poweressence and had learned that keeping his eyes closed a half-hour a day while concentrating on his power source would relieve him of the pain. His own doctor had said this was a standard way of relieving some minor forms of headaches. But ever since he had joined, he felt better about everything, especially when counselors would listen to his problems and help him trace them, reminding him that he was good in himself.

  Like a true Powie he refused to listen to those who said it was just amateur therapy and group mind control.

  It was the one thing in his life that seemed free of everything, free of all the constraints of his entire life. But looking now at the two-mile strip of beach and the naval power all around them, he had doubts whether the man who had made him a Warrior of Zor could pull it off. Even this man, this great mind in a poor frail body hacking up the results of four packs a day of unfiltered cigarettes, could not make the beach larger, or the U.S. Navy disappear.

  “Don't worry,” said Rubin. “It'll work. It'll work like it's always worked. It works all the time. That's not the problem.”

  “If that's not the problem, what is?”

  “What I'm going to have to do if it doesn't.”

  The engineer shuddered. No matter how frail this man looked, he was a genius of organization. Whether it came from his thoughts about planets the engineer did not know. But the man understood what great generals knew about reinforcing and contingency plans. What bothered him was that there was nothing that seemed to bother Rubin Dolomo, since he came out from behind the screen and told the engineer that now he and other Warriors of Zor could know his true identity.

  * * *

  He kept telling himself that his fear was the negative voice from the past. He saw that his partner, too, was trying to get in contact with his positive self.

  Perhaps because he had been a classics scholar, Robert Kranz felt especially nervous this day. Athens, Greece, had once been the center of Western intellectual thought. But that was twenty-five hundred years ago.

  Now it was home to revolutionary groups and had an airport that was, to hijackers, what an engraved invitation was to a dinner guest.

  Robert Kranz and his fellow warrior in the cause of Poweressence had a choice of either bringing the weapons on board the plane and stashing them, or buying them outside the open gate from a dissident group of Palestinians who had seized the concession from the Red Army Brigades of Revolution.

  More hijackings had originated in Athens, the Arab assured Kranz and his companion, than any other airport in the world.

  “And for good reason. Not only do they not care, you've got people in power here who hate America. And who hijacks planes? The British? The Israelis? The French? No. So why should they change things? My friend, you have come to the right place.”

  “I don't know,” said Robert Kranz. “I couldn't bring my weapons in on an American plane so I had to buy them here in Athens. I just don't know if I should pay premium price at the airport sale.”

  The Arab pulled Robert Kranz closer to him so the noise from the jet engines would not drown out what he was about to say. They were just outside the perimeter gate, which was a loose connection of links that could be walked through.

  “Friend,” said the Arab. “You look like a smart boy. You wouldn't come here if you didn't know what you were doing. Right?”

  “Actually, we were sent,” said Robert. His partner still had his eyes closed, working on his fear.

  “Smart people. They know the business. If you're going to
do your business, Athens is the place to do it. Now you can put your bombs and guns in a valise, wrap them up in fiberglass, and walk right through their metal detectors. You could make them look like other things.”

  “We had thought of that,” said Robert.

  “Or you could have your friend here walk through the gate and give some ground-crew guy a hundred dollars and maybe the weapons will be left where you want them. And maybe not. Maybe he'll take your money and keep your weapons and sell them again.”

  “That's possible,” said Robert.

  “But with me you have a guaranteed weapons placement you can count on. I take credit cards. If the weapons aren't there, you can cancel payment.”

  Robert thought about that for a moment. But he remembered what Mr. Dolomo said:

  “In an operation like this, the more people involved, the more chances for it not to work. Get your guns and grenades there, but test them. Test them anywhere you won't get arrested, but test them. There are certain places on the plane where you can stash them. Here is a list drawn up by our engineer.”

  Robert looked at the list. He looked at the Arab. He decided against letting the Arab place the weapons.

  “I'll pay cash, but I've got to have weapons that work.”

  “Actually they don't have to work, you know. The pilot only has to think they work.”

  So that was why Mr. Dolomo had told him where to fire the guns so the plane would not be disabled in flight, thought Robert. He was not to kill anyone, but to make the crew think they were capable of killing someone.

  “I want real working weapons.”

  “That'll cost more. But don't be crazy. Don't take a real hand grenade. Those things can go off and take down the whole plane with you. You really want the dummy in a grenade. I can give you the American pin-pull and lever-release or the popular Russian. I don't like the Russian myself, because once you pull the pin it really is all over. It reflects their national character. On the other hand, with the American grenade you can even put the pin back. I would go American for your grenade,” said the Arab.

  “American for the grenade, without the powder in it,” said Robert. He tried to keep his stomach from jumping around by remembering a positive part of his body that would put it all back into calm control. It wasn't working. But brilliant Mr. Dolomo had an answer for that too. In his wisdom he had said:

  “Never mind that shit, Robert. Just get on board the plane with the weapons. It'll work fine. If you're scared, to hell with it.”

  The Arab had a nice assortment of handguns and field guns.

  “There is nothing like the Kalashnikov rifle, except in airplane aisles the barrel can get in the way. And a passenger can grab it, although I must say, if you are dealing with American passengers you often have help. We had a fine hijacking to Beirut recently where an American actually reminded one of us that we had forgotten a gun in the lavatory. You just can't beat that in passenger cooperation.”

  “You're talking pistols,” said Robert.

  “I definitely am,” said the Arab. “And let me recommend a heavy butt. You don't want to go onto an aircraft with a flimsy butt that can only be used to hold. You want heft because you are going to have to be beating people over their heads with it. It's your crowd control.”

  “We already knew that.”

  “So you've done this before?”

  “No. First time.”

  “Well then, you know you need at least two guns apiece, one for the belt and another for the hand. You can always use one in each hand. You've got to appear somewhat hysterical so they will think you're really going to go through with any insane thing, like killing yourselves too.”

  “But you see, we will if we have to,” said Robert, who, after he had paid an exorbitant price for the guns and dummy grenades, offered to clean a bit of dirt from the salesman's hand with a cotton swab that he held in a rubber glove. The Arab gun salesman never looked happier as Robert Kranz took back the money for Dr. Dolomo, who had explained that they were all at war and that money was the main ingredient for that war.

  As ordered, Robert dropped the swab away from himself and carefully removed the rubber glove. Then with four pistols and an American grenade apiece, Robert and the other Powie, who was still working on his fear, went into the terminal and bought tickets for a flight filled with American passengers headed back to an American airport. According to plan, they returned to the outside perimeter and walked through an open spot in the linked fence.

  The biggest danger was getting run over by one of the planes taking off. Once they found their plane, however, Athens security, already scorched by the world press for laxness, moved in.

  Two burly guards surrounded them.

  “You two. You just walk through fence?”

  “No,” said Robert.

  “You got guns?”

  “No,” said Robert.

  “Okay. You good guys. Go ahead.”

  Athens security having been breached, Robert Kranz and the other Powie entered the plane.

  Five miles above the Atlantic, as prescribed, they screamed hysterically that it was a hijacking, ran up and down the aisles hitting people with the butts of their guns, and then told the captain of the aircraft that he would either fly to Harbor Island or they would all be dead. A real shot into a real aircraft seat with a person's thigh in between convinced the pilot they were all going to die unless he did what Robert Kranz said.

  “There's no airport at Harbor Island,” said the captain, looking at his charts. “We've got to land at Nassau. It's the only one big enough for us.”

  “Look at your map. You will land here,” said Robert, pointing to the Atlantic side of Harbor Island.

  “That's a beach. How the hell can we take off from a beach?”

  “I don't know. Do what you're told and you won't be hurt. We don't want to hurt you. We won't hurt anyone if you cooperate.”

  Before they got to Harbor Island the pilot was met by naval aircraft warning him to veer away from the quarantined airspace.

  “I can't. A lunatic has got a gun at my head and I can lose all my passengers.”

  “Veer.”

  “Sorry, no,” said the pilot, whose first responsibility was for the safety of those aboard.

  “Veer,” came the order again from the naval aircraft.

  “No,” said the pilot.

  Below on Harbor Island the engineer watched the Navy tomcats backing away from the passenger jet.

  Rubin Dolomo coughed and didn't even bother to look up.

  “They've backed down,” said the engineer.

  “Of course,” said Rubin. He knew the Navy world. It would have to. He had figured out what made hijackings against America so successful. It wasn't who the hijackers were, it was who the Americans were. They were people who cared enough to protect human life. In the real world that made them very vulnerable.

  Could anyone imagine a Russian plane being hijacked?

  Rubin Dolomo watched the large Boeing 707 come down on Pink Beach. That was a show. With surgical precision, the pilot skillfully brought the center of the plane down on the hard-packed sand at the edge of the water, palm trees on one side and open sea on the other, and the belly met the sand as gently as a soap bubble.

  It was a bright morning on Harbor Island as Powie guards moved in to relieve Robert Kranz and his quaking partner. The crew was kept on the plane while the passengers were taken to prearranged spots around the island so that if any part of the island were bombed, the passengers would be hit. They were, as Rubin had figured out, “our living sandbags.”

  It was noon before the news media arrived by boat from Eleuthera Island, having used political clout to break through the naval quarantine. As soon as it was learned that the Navy was blockading Harbor Island, almost every major commentator was accusing the Navy of suppressing news. Was America at war with a Bahamian island? If so, why wasn't it declared?

  The American government did not have a right to hamper the freedom
of the press, and the Navy patrol boats were ordered to give way to the throngs of cameramen and reporters.

  Rubin was ready for them. He put the television cameramen in old cattle pens and the newspaper reporters in lamb pastures, with the news photographers assigned to goat pens. Anyone leaving the prescribed route was whipped by Powie guards.

  One reporter, in an effort to establish the humanity of the Poweressence movement, was lacerated so severely that he passed out. Another Powie threw a glass of water in his face, bringing him to, and immediately it became a story of Powie medical care for the wounded.

  When he was ready, Rubin Dolomo called Beatrice.

  “It's all yours, precious dove,” he said. “They're going to give you the world.”

  * * *

  In the White House the President and Smith watched as Beatrice Dolomo spoke live to the American people. Almost every station across the country broke into programming to broadcast the live announcement of the Harbor Island hijacking.

  “Good people of America,” said Beatrice Dolomo, her face in even heavier makeup for the cameras. “I have never had anything against the American people. In fact, I am an American. I do not wish to harm the innocent passengers, because we like the passengers. What I seek, and what we all seek, is religious freedom. Today, languishing in American jails are people whose only crime was that they dared to be positive instead of negative. I refer to one who is dear to our hearts. Our good friend Kathy Bowen from Amazing Humanity. What is her crime? What is our crime? We seek only peace and comfort for all of us.”

  Beatrice finished reading the prepared statement, smiled especially broadly at a very handsome reporter, and then nodded to Rubin.

  Rubin assured everyone that the passengers were safe and feeling better than ever before because some initial Poweressence was being given to them.

  “This amazing new form of reaching our ancient power roots has given help to millions, solved sleeping problems, cured eye defects, made success out of failure, and given people a new lease on life. For your free character test that will tell you who you are and how you can be stress-free forever, all you have to do is contact the Poweressence temple in your neighborhood.”