“I am your servant,” the King replied, even as his eyes feasted on her delicate features, her blond hair, her pert breasts poking through her nearly transparent white silk gown. “If your desire is to own the world, then I shall get it for you…”
Chloe smiled for the first time in many days. She was not that much older than the Kid King, yet eons separated them in maturity. Still, there was a warm place in her heart for him.
“My desire is to save the world, not own it,” she told him.
He stared back at her and began to laugh. “Save the world?” he asked. “That’s a tall order for someone like you, is it not?”
Chloe nodded and smiled again. She realized how strange it had sounded as soon as the words left her lips. But they were true. She believed nothing less than the fate of the planet rested with her, and the words she knew from the swami and The Book of Thirteen.
“I must go on a long journey,” she began again, knowing it would be best to keep it simple at this point. “I must get to the other side of the world very quickly. I believe there are people there who can help me… help us all. I have information that they must know. And only I can tell it to them.”
The Kid King’s face screwed up into an expression of confusion and disappointment. “You mean you are not here to stay?” he asked, his voice cracking a little.
Chloe shook her head no.
“I have to get to America,” she told him again. “As soon as possible. That’s why I have come. I know you of all people, would help. And that you have the means to help.”
“You need an airplane,” the Kid King said, after allowing it all to sink in. “A fast one, yet one that can make the journey with few stops, or without any stops at all.”
“Yes, yes,” Chloe said, her hand inadvertently landing on his knee.
The Kid King’s face lit up like he’d just been plugged into an electrical outlet.
“And you will need someone to fly this plane for you,” he continued, his voice cracking for other reasons now. “Someone who is trustworthy and brave.”
“Yes,” Chloe said, intentionally moving her hand upward from his knee now. “Do you have such a plane? One that will go fast and get me to America quickly? And a pilot to bring me?”
The Kid King gasped at her hand movement.
“Yes, I do,” he said quickly.
Her hand moved higher.
“Can I leave right away? Is this pilot available?”
The Kid King felt like he was about to explode. These things happened very quickly and without much stimulation.
“Yes, the plane… can be… made ready,” he groaned. “And the pilot. He is my second cousin. He will be able to… my God, I’m going to make a mess!”
The Kid King exploded a moment later. His eyes closed at the intensity of it. He shuddered once, twice, a third time. Then it was over. Chloe’s hand never made it halfway up his thigh. It didn’t have to.
“I must leave now,” she whispered to him as he floated back down to earth. “Every minute counts…”
He finally caught his breath and opened his eyes again.
“Yes, of course,” he replied, his voice deeper than just a moment before. “I will make the necessary preparations. You can leave within the hour.”
Exactly fifty-five minutes later, Chloe and the Kid King arrived at the huge imperial airport, riding in one of the teenager’s sleek Rolls Royces, accompanied by an armed escort and palace entourage that numbered in the hundreds.
It was still early morning and the last of the fog had yet to lift from the air base or the five-mile-long runway it boasted as its centerpiece. In this part of Asia, as well as around the world, length was everything. The Rangoonese were extremely proud of their runway, claiming that it was the longest in the world, and not being too far off. Whenever the long runway was to be used, it served as a kind of instant national holiday. This is why many of the civilian population was on hand, too.
At the far end of the base, past the rows of MIGs, Alpha Jets, Mirages, and Jaguars that the Kid King had collected as his own, there was a huge flight hangar surrounded by a veritable forest of SAM positions. This place was the equivalent of the Kid King’s top-secret toybox. Inside were his most prized aerial possessions, aircraft that even the closest members of his family and imperial staff rarely got to see. The hangar was quite nearly a sacred place in the city; ordinary citizens were warned not to even look in its direction without permission. No surprise, then, that it was probably the most-guarded place in the country.
But now, on this day, the doors to the hangar were open, and a great beam of light was flowing out from the inside. To mark the honor of the occasion of Chloe’s return to the city, the Kid King was about to reveal his latest prize possession, an aircraft that was at once very rare, very expensive, yet capable of flying very fast, very far, without the need for refueling. It was, in effect, the answer to Chloe’s prayers.
It was a B-58G Hustler, an enormous supersonic jet bomber that had first flown back in the mid-1950s. The Hustler was the fastest bomber ever built. With its delta-wing design, its four huge underwing engines, its needle nose, and its extremely high tail, it looked like a stretched-out, pumped-up fighter plane, which, in reality, it was. When it was first designed, the Cold War creators of the Hustler needed an airframe that could go fast with a heavy load of bombs. Instead of starting from scratch, they took portions of designs from existing jet fighters, expanded them to twice or three times their normal size, added more power and more fuel capacity, and came up with the B-58. On its worst day, the Hustler could do 1600 mph, nearly two-and-a-half times the speed of sound.
On a good day, it could book at Mach 3.3.
This was the Kid King’s favorite toy, and if anyone other than Chloe had asked for its use, they would probably have been beheaded. But she was the spiritual mistress of Rangoon these crazy days, garnering equal to, or even surpassing, the respect given the Kid King’s overbearing mother. Chloe could have asked for the Kid King’s entire collection of fighter jets and the Hustler and gotten them all. That was the power of giving someone his first taste of sex.
The huge bomber was towed out to the end of the long runway; no less than six APCs were needed to do the job. Riding in the entourage behind the Kid King’s Rolls was a small car bearing his second cousin, a man nicknamed Budda-Budda. He was considered the best pilot in the kingdom and the man who flight-tested and supervised all of the aircraft acquisitions for his cousin the King. He was also a eunuch, a sacrifice he’d made years before as a sign of loyalty to his royal cousin.
Now Budda-Budda emerged from his car and walked to the ladder set up beside the cockpit of the B-58. The Kid King and Chloe alighted from the Rolls and met the pilot at the bottom of the steps. The crowd cheered at this, and a seven-gun salute was heard in the background. The mistress Chloe was leaving on a mission to the other side of the globe, the purpose of which was no less than saving the entire human race. And the Kid King’s own cousin, the much-beloved Budda-Budda would be taking her on this most important journey in the King’s most precious airplane. What a glorious day for Rangoon! The fate of all civilization now lay in their hands.
But for royal second cousin Budda-Budda, other things were taking precedent. His eyes, having first fallen on Chloe, now would not let go. He’d never seen such a beautiful creature. Even in her bulky flight suit, the curves of her body, the porcelain quality to her skin, her luminescent hair—it was all quite apparent, quite real. Budda-Budda barely listened as his cousin the King introduced her to him and explained what Budda-Budda must now do.
“Take her where ever she wants to go,” the Kid King was explaining to him. “Protect her. Keep her safe. Lay down your life for her, if need be.”
Budda-Budda still could not pull his eyes away. She smiled at him and he glowed. Quite impossibly, he felt a stiffening between his legs.
“I will do all that and more, my King,” he was finally able to gasp.
The Kid King reached out and
put his hand on Budda-Budda’s shoulder. The crowd, now swelled to several thousand, let out an enormous cheer.
As if in response, the Kid King leaned in and whispered something else in his cousin’s ear: “Take good care of my airplane, too…”
Ten minutes later, the huge B-58 was at the opposite end of the extra-long runway, its four enormous 16,000-pound-thrust engines screaming with power and creating a hurricane of smoke and exhaust in their wake. The crowd never stopped cheering as the big plane began its take-off roll, the smoke behind it so thick now, it all but obscured the picturesque view of the grand mountain ranges beyond.
About halfway down the strip, Budda-Budda hit the throttles to max. The huge jet bomber suddenly leapt into the sky, the roar of its engines completely drowning out the cheers of the crowd and the ongoing cannon salutes. The big plane rose straight up, almost like a rocketship on its way to the stars, finally disappearing into the clouds at 20,000 feet.
Still, it wasn’t until five long minutes later that the roar of its engines completely faded away.
Thirteen
Off Cape Cod
THE BRIGHT YELLOW GRUMMAN J4F-1 seaplane came in for a very bumpy landing on the very choppy seas.
Though the small amphibian was more than 60 years old, it held its own against the high waves, rolling with the big ones and going through the small. Inside, the pilot tried to steer the one-man seaplane toward the beach, barely visible in the windy murk about 150 feet away. He hoped he could make the shoreline without destroying the precious little airplane. But if not, then that was how it would have to be.
At the moment, saving the classic Grumman was the least of his concerns.
It was now close to midnight and the tide was running extremely high here off Nauset Beach. The gigantic storm churning up the Atlantic was drawing closer to land by the hour, and the growing waves were just a small precursor of things to come. The wind was up to 40 knots and blowing out of the east, a most unusual direction for this time of year. The gale would not make the job of getting the small J4F-1 in to shore any easier.
It was not the typical coastline facing the sputtering airplane, either. For the most part, Cape Cod was flat, if irregular. From the Canal all the way up the crooked arm to P-town, the highest things were the dunes and the occasional steep hill. But here, at Nauset, there was a ridgeline that soared over everything else. They called it the Heights, and it was the highest point on the entire cape; as a result, the view of the Atlantic was spectacular. From here, the old-timers used to say, you could see France on a clear day.
But awe-inspiring and fanciful views were not on the mind of the Grumman’s pilot, either. At that moment, all he was concerned with was getting to dry land in one piece.
He steered the old seaplane to a course roughly parallel with the pounding surf. He was now about 100 feet out from the beach; a dangerous-looking jetty was nearby. There were only two ways he could do this: Pick a wave, ride it in, and hope for the best, or…
He didn’t even think much about the second option. He instinctively gunned his engines, twisted the nose of the seaplane directly toward the ocean shoreline, and pushed to full throttle. The wave that came along was a big one. It lifted the tiny seaplane up, its wings caught the roaring mist of the wave’s chicane, and the aircraft went into a brief, stuttering hover. Finally the engines kicked in and with one last burst of power, lifted the seaplane up and over the crashing surf.
It came down hard just a few seconds later and began skidding wildly on the soft white sand. The pilot quickly killed the engines, shutting down all power even before the plane stopped bouncing. The propellers fluttered as the seaplane lurched to the left and commenced to dig its portside wingtip into the ground. Around and around it went, once, twice, three times, and almost a fourth before finally coming to a stop in a cloud of smoke, exhaust, and billowing sand. Finally it lay still.
The abrupt touchdown had given a nasty crack to the head of the pilot, but he hardly felt it. The first part of his strange mission had been accomplished. He’d made it onto Nauset Beach alive.
Now for part two.
He popped the canopy door and climbed out onto the wing and down into the blowing sand. He was instantly soaked by the spray from the raging surf only about 20 feet away—but again, he hardly noticed it. Using a tie line, he secured the plane as best he could to the nearby jetty. Then he looked to the south, where the land rose up dramatically into a long line of heavily-vegetated bluffs called the Heights.
If he started running now, he thought, he could probably reach the top in less than an hour.
The long strands of salt hay billowed in the brisk wind like waves on the stormy ocean.
There were four and a half acres of hayfields in all; the northern edge of the largest one ran right up against the peak of Nauset Heights. From there, it was a sharp drop to the rocky beach some 500 feet below. The wind was always the strongest here.
In the middle of the hayfield was a small farmhouse. It was rustic, weatherbeaten to a picture-perfect pitch. A porch ran all the way around it; a set of creaky wooden steps led up to the front door. It was dark inside, except for the light from a candle. The wind, traveling through a porous section of the ancient chimney, gave off an eerie whistling sound. Somewhere off in the distance, an animal was howling.
Or at least, it sounded like an animal…
It was now about 45 minutes after his dramatic beach landing and the pilot was exhausted. The climb up to the Heights had been much harder than expected, even though he’d found a helpful path early on. He hadn’t slept in nearly two days, and this hadn’t helped his ordeal any. Nor had he eaten or taken any fluids. So intense was his desire to come to this place, all thoughts of food and drink had vanished.
But now, finally, he was here.
He reached the gate of the rickety fence that ringed the small farm and paused at the sign that hung flaking and crooked to one side.
It read, Skyfire.
The pilot took a deep breath and then walked the 50 feet to the front steps of the farmhouse. The wind was blowing even harder now, and the waves crashing on to the shore at the bottom of the bluffs sounded like cannonfire coming from very far away. He was crazy for coming here, he knew—crazy that he would think the answers to a slew of unanswerable questions might be found at this place.
He went up the stairs nevertheless; unbalanced or not, he had to go through with this. He cringed at each squeak of the porch boards but was finally an arm’s length from the door. Another gust of wind, another deep breath. Then he reached out and knocked twice.
There was no answer. He knocked again, this time a little harder. Again, no response. He rapped a third time, stronger, louder. At last he heard a stirring inside. A fourth and final knock.
That’s when the door finally opened and a beautiful blond vision appeared inside.
“Hello, Dominique…” he said with a weary smile.
“My God… Frost? Is that really you?”
Yes, it was him, and yes, he was insane—this he was sure of at that moment. He’d left his post up in Gander nearly 48 hours before, practically stealing the little seaplane to fly down here, in the worsening bad weather. And for what? To find out if he was really seeing ghosts?
“Frost… are you all right?” Dominique asked him; it was evident she was as surprised to see him as he was to be here.
“Yes, I’m all right,” he finally answered. “At least, I think so.”
She led him inside and eased him into the nearest chair. One small candle illuminated the room, though the embers in the fireplace were still aglow. The house smelled of cedar and hay and salt air. Crystal seemed to be sparkling from everywhere. Outside, the wind was picking up again.
Dominique went to her knees in front of him and took his hands in hers. A look of horror came across her face.
“My God, it’s not Hawk, is it? Is he… dead?”
Frost hastened to reassure her. “No, no, not at all. That’s not why
I’m here…”
A wave of relief washed through the room. Dominique disappeared only to return a few moments later with a bottle of brandy and a larger candle. She poured a huge glass for Frost then lit the candlewick with a straw from the fireplace. Frost drained the brandy before she could put the candle on the table. She poured him another.
“So, then,” she asked, “to what do I owe this occasion?”
Frost smiled wanly and shifted in his seat. This was the part he’d been dreading. It seemed a dream to him now. Here he was, in Hawk Hunter’s house, talking to his beautiful girlfriend, and still he did not quite know why.
“It’s going to sound very crazy,” he stuttered.
Dominique tapped him lightly on the knee.
“Nothing could be crazier than what’s happening here,” she said. “Please, tell me…”
Frost sucked in another deep breath.
“We’ve known each other a long time,” he began. “True?”
“Yes, of course…”
“And have you ever known me to be—how shall I say it?—not normal?”
Dominique shook her head, her long blond hair swishing beautifully as she did so.
“You are one of the sanest people I know, Frost,” she replied.
He gulped down some more brandy.
“I know you’ve studied the mystics,” he began again. “I know you’ve searched for truths among all the nonsense.”
Dominique gave a little shrug. It was true. The house at Skyfire was filled with books on mysticism, magic, the supernatural, and the paranormal. She’d been reading about such things ever since coming here. Not because she believed in all of it—much of it was pure bunk. What she was looking for, what she was hoping to find, were instances of legitimate extraordinary events. Just one piece of proof would, in effect, make it all true.
“I’ve read about a lot of things,” she finally replied. “But why do you ask this? Did you come all the way here just because…”
Frost held up his hand and gently interrupted her.
“Have you ever seen any proof of the actual existence of ghosts?” he asked her starkly.
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