The Gypsy Queen: A Matt Preston Novel (Matt Preston Series Book 3)

by Paul Shadinger

  I wanted to know where things stood between Melissa and Ralph before I told her the whole story of my search for her. I knew how Ralph felt about her, but I had no idea how she felt about him.

  “I started the search for you because of Ralph. We’re poker buddies.” What else was I going to call him? “He asked me to see if I could locate you.”

  “Why you? Who are you exactly?”

  “Let me explain that later. Were you aware Ralph’s been looking for you?” She nodded. “I don’t understand. Why have you been avoiding him?”

  “I was afraid for Ralph.”

  I know I had a puzzled look on my face. “Sorry, I don’t understand. Why were you afraid for Ralph?”

  Melissa looked down at the table for a moment and then looked back up at me. “How much has Ralph told you about…” She paused and with her finger made a circle, “Us?”

  I could see no reason not to be up front with her. “When he asked me to find you, he told me how you two met at a conference in Orlando and how you hit it off. After I agreed I would look for you, John Orchard contacted me and also asked me to look for you.”

  “I don’t understand, first Ralph and then Admiral Orchard. Why would they have you look for me? I don’t understand. What are you?”

  “John and I go back to Viet Nam. We’re old friends and he thought it was important enough to find you that he asked me to help. Because of MacDonald, Orchard couldn’t use some of the agencies to look for you he normally would. He needed the search for you to be a secret from a lot of people.”

  “I guess I understand.”

  “John’s agency, and others, are very concerned about the program your team developed. I know you’re aware now of how frightening it is. John could not allow any information about you and Roberts get out. The hunt for you had to be done as quietly as possible. No other agency could be brought in to help with the search. John needed somebody he could trust. Somebody from his past that he could rely on, and I ended up being that person. That’s why Orchard recruited me.

  “Ralph asked me because he knew of an incident in an old abandoned lighthouse and he thought I might be the person he wanted to ask for help.”

  Melissa gave me a strange look. “One evening Ralph told me a story about a friend of his who was involved in a gunfight on an island in an old fort or something and how he saved a bunch of people. That was you?”

  “That’s not quite accurate, but it’s close enough. There were two reasons to see if I could find you. When Ralph told me about you he said the two of you spent a lot of time together at the conference and that you two were… ah, umm … intimate. He misses you and wants you.” I could not believe how difficult it was to try and explain. And here I always thought I was the crude one!

  I continued, “He also mentioned that during your time together the two of you chatted about his new software project, his new game. He said it was during your pillow talk.” Melissa smiled at me and in that moment, I saw a spark of what had drawn Ralph to Melissa. Her eyes softened and her face seemed to glow. “He told me you’d shared some ideas with him regarding details of his game program and now he thinks you should be compensated for your help, for your ideas.” I paused and she could tell I still had more to say.

  “And that was it?” she prompted.

  I took a deep breath. “This isn’t easy.” She gave me a shy smile. “I already knew this, but he told me anyway how he normally immediately loses interest in a woman after he has been with them … you know …” I waved my hand in the air and Melissa smiled again. “Sometimes Ralph might find the lady interesting enough for a second time, but I know he was never interested in any sort of long term relationship.

  “When he talked about you, it was like a kid at Christmas. He told me with you it was as exciting the last time, if not more than with the first time. He also told me about the airport and what you guys did before you parted ways.” Melissa’s cheeks took on a rosy red. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to embarrass you. I’m only telling you all of this to let you know how much Ralph confided in me and why he trusts me, and how much he cares about you. Ralph asked me to find you because, well, your actions made such an impression on him. When you put your panties in his pocket, I think at that moment he was hooked; he was totally in love with you.” I had to laugh as I told her that and she smiled.

  When she spoke, her voice was very soft and difficult to hear. “Okay, since this is confession time, a little about me.” She stared down at the table for bit and then finally looked me in the eye. “This is difficult for me because I really don’t know you. This is so personal,” I could tell how embarrassed she was. She took a deep breath and said, “But since Ralph trusted you with so much information about us, I guess I can let you know a little about me.

  “Without sharing too many details, I have a kind of female problem.” Now her face was really red. “I have a large… ah… well, let’s say I have a difficult time when I… ah… you know … have sex and try and climax… and… um… or at least I haven’t had much success in the past. I think I could count the number of times I climaxed in my life with just one finger. Ralph is… ummm… built so that my problem seems to be taken care of. Do you follow?” I hoped my face wasn’t as red as it felt. Those little Kopf Kino’s kept running in my brain and they were not doing me any good!

  “With him, when we make love it’s like one continuous climax.” I held up my hand to try and stop her. She continued, “Okay, anyway the reason I bring this up is because I think the world of him. I guess in a way I’m also in love with him. As for sexual matters, he’s opened physical doors for me I didn’t even know existed. I’d kill to feel that again. Mentally we’re like the same people about computers. There are other interests we share but the physical gate he opened is unbelievable. My God, I don’t want to see him killed.”

  “When we had our midnight chat that one evening, as we discussed one of the problems he was having with the development of his game, I started to realize exactly what I was working on. I started to see it was not what it was represented to be. I was being used for more than just making sure the program couldn’t be hacked. I was doing something that frightened me. Ralph was just developing a game, I had been misled.

  I interrupted, “I understand what I was told about your Silent Sentinel program, what’s your understanding of a Black Hand project?”

  “It’s a program that once it’s installed, basically takes over any computer it comes in contact with. Presently there are no computer firewalls in existence that can stop it. Nothing keeps the program out of a computer except not going onto the internet, that is except for the program I designed. If any one county tries to start any sort of a war, the computers know instantly and will totally destroy any county starting the conflict. I was supposed to develop an unbeatable firewall. I was to develop a program that could not be hacked and I think for the time being, I may have. The thing is, anything I can think up, somebody will eventually find a way around.” Melissa frowned at me. “That was more or less the original concept, but I realize now it actually was a lot more. Because of the chat Ralph and I had, I realized that evening I was in danger and just how deeply I was involved.

  “Once I figured things out, I knew I was a marked woman and I had no choice but to run. I heard about the death of my roommate and I also was aware my supervisors knew about my tryst with Ralph. I saw an email about Ralph. Because of our midnight talk, Ralph was to be liquidated if our relationship continued. Even though I wanted him so much, I also knew if I took a chance and saw him again, I’d signed his death warrant. I couldn’t live with that. To protect both of us, I’ve been on the run.”

  I leaned back in my chair and considered what I had just been told. Basically, she had confirmed for me what Johnny A had told me on his plane. And the rest I had more or less figured out. The problem was as far as I could tell, Silent Sentential had been a lot closer t
o being a done deal than I had thought. If on the off chance there was still a copy of that program, I realized Ralph was in danger… big time danger. The first thing I needed to do was get Melissa safely away. “I want you to do something for me. And I need for you to do this without asking me any questions. I guess the first question I need to ask is, do you trust me now?”

  She said, “Ilox trusts you and if Ralph trusts you, then so do I.”

  “Completely and without reservation?”

  “Yes.”

  “We need to get out of here. Even though MacDonald is dead, there are other agencies, both ours and foreign ones that are looking for you. I need to get you to a safe place. Understand? Right now, I need for you to get up and go to the ladies’ room. Stay there a couple of minutes and when you come back out, go down the hallway to the back of the building instead of coming up here. Go through the door leading out to the alley and I’ll be waiting for you behind the building.”

  “But—”

  “Melissa, remember, you said you trusted me? You need to do as I say and not argue with me. Do it now.”

  As Melissa stood, I watched one of the two construction workers look up and follow her with his eyes as she walked down the hall. I stood and walked out the front door. As I passed the two fellows at the table, I noticed they were trying to decide who should follow me and who should wait to see what Melissa was doing.

  One of the men stood up and followed me to the door. As quickly as I could, I ducked down the alley between the two buildings and I was ready for him when he came running around the corner. My hand caught his throat and I spun him around and slammed him against the wall. I felt him slump towards the ground and as quickly as I could, I pulled him towards me one more time and slammed him against the wall again. Maybe it wasn’t very sporting of me, but I wasn’t interested in making friends with the gentleman. He fell to the ground just as Melissa walked up to me.

  “Let’s go,” I told her.

  “Where?” she asked.

  “To the airport. I have a plane standing by for us.” We walked down the alley to the next street and then cut over a couple of more streets. I flagged down a passing taxi and told the driver to take us out to the private airfield where the plane was parked. I had called ahead told the pilot to have our plane sitting on the tarmac ready to roll as soon as we pulled up.

  I demanded the cab driver drive us up as close to the plane as he could and then Melissa ran to the plane and I hobbled the best I could after her. The stairs were down and we ducked into the plane and before we were seated, the plane was moving towards the runway. I glanced out the window just in time to see two vehicles come screaming through the gate and try to cut us off. Our plane had just enough speed so it could not be caught and shortly we were airborne. I knew there was a phone in the armrest of my seat and it would connect me to the pilot.

  I asked the pilot if he’d seen the two vehicles trying to cut us off. He said he had seen them and wondered what it was all about. I explained that the passenger aboard his aircraft was very important and I wondered if he could take any sort of evasive maneuvers so we couldn’t be traced. He informed me Orchard had told him not to file a flight plan. The pilot had told the tower he would file one once they were airborne. I asked him if he could make up a destination and then go a different way. His reply was it was already done. Mentally I gave a big thank you to Johnny A.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Remember the stupid dating site I once signed up on as a lark? During one of our poker games, I remembered hearing Ralph mention he’d also joined the same site. The other players started giving him a hard time about it. They teased him that of all the guys in the world who weren’t getting laid, he wasn’t one of them. He was asked if he’d ever met any of the women on the site and he refused to answer. While we were all joking around with him, for some reason Ralph volunteered that his online persona, his avatar was “Biggest Dickes.” That cracked up the table. Considering all of us had heard about Ralph, and the size of his Johnson, it wasn’t too difficult to remember that avatar. I decided as soon as I got a chance I would log on to the site and try a search for his persona. If I could find him there, I’d leave a message for him, and tell him I’d found Melissa. This way seemed to me to be the safest. I just had to hope he might still troll the site once in a while.

  I pulled out one of the laptops onboard and hooked it up. I logged onto the dating site Ralph and I belonged to and looked for the name, Biggest Dickes. I found it and when I read Ralph’s description of himself, I had to laugh. “Well hung male seeks horny women who crave total satisfaction. Check me out, you will not be disappointed.” Someday if I remembered, I wanted to ask him if it worked. I left him a message explaining he needed to contact me on this site. I told him under no circumstances was he to try and call me on his cell. I signed it, “Poker playing buddy who finds lost loves.” If he read what I had just sent him, he could answer me back on this site and we could set up a meeting place.

  Melissa and I discussed various places we could meet up with Ralph and that would be safe. I explained the plane had filed a bogus flight plan and once we heard from Ralph, we would file another one to another location we would not be going to. With a little luck, there was a good chance of being able to disappear for the time being.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  We eventually landed on some godforsaken landing strip in the middle of Kansas and we waited to hear from Ralph. I made sure Melissa understood she could not power up either her cell phone or her laptop as I was positive the people looking for her could get a trace on her as soon as her signal reached a cell tower. All communications in the plane went to some satellite and the signal was bounced around a few times before it ended up where it belonged and was very difficult to trace. I had been told by Melissa that there was no such thing as a perfectly safe way to communicate nowadays. Everything could be traced eventually. It was early evening when I finally got a message from Ralph. I wrote back and told him to go and purchase a throw away phone and the number he was to call. I told him not to use any phone that could possibly be traced back to him. I told him I had Melissa and that even though MacDonald was dead, the two of them might still be in danger. Less than an hour later I heard from him. “Matt, what’s going on?”

  “I have Melissa and I need for you to do exactly as I tell you. Can you do that?

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I don’t care, just do what I tell you or I hang up and you can find Melissa on your own.”

  “Let me talk to her.”

  I swore at him as I handed the phone to Melissa and told her he wanted to talk to her, but she was to cut it short. They chatted for a moment and then I took the phone away. “You’ll have lots of time to talk later. Right now I need you to do what I tell you.”

  “Okay!”

  I told him to go and get a couple of more throw away cells and make sure they were charged up. When he had done everything I’d told him, he was to call me. He agreed. I called the cockpit. “There’s a small town north of Seattle called Arlington. There is a very small airport located there. Do you have any way of finding out if there is enough room for you to land?” He asked me to wait a moment.

  The pilot called me back, “No, it’s too small. But there is a town to the south of Arlington called Snohomish and their airport is just big enough for us to land… barely. I can do it, but it’s going to scare the crap out of you.” I thought that was just great. I hate to fly anyway and now I’m told we’re going to land on a postage stamp and I’m going to shit my pants. Yippie skippy.

  My phone rang, it was Ralph. I told him how to get to Scott’s apartment and about the Lincoln Town Car with the blacked-out windows. I instructed him to be very careful when he changed cars and not be seen. I told him to go to the Snohomish airfield and wait there. “Do not get out of the car,” I admonished him. “I don’t give a shit how bored you get, stay in
that car until I come and get you out. Do you understand?” He started to argue and I cut him off. “Ralph, listen to me, do you understand what I’ve just told you?” Sheepishly he told me did. “Then shut up and do it. Now!”

  After Ralph hung up I called Scott and asked him if he minded if I borrowed his car. As I expected, he had no problem with me taking it. Now we needed to get to Snohomish as quickly as we could.

  ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~

  The pilot had invited me to come and ride in the left seat as we landed. The son of a bitch was correct. As we approached the airfield I thought there was no way we were going to be able to land on that itty-bitty piece of blacktop down there. I was positive, we were going to crash and I was going to die. I was going to die in some farmer’s cornfield. What a great epitaph to have on your tombstone, “Killed in a farmer’s field trying to land on a runway too short!”

  Landing felt like we came down at a ninety degree angle and at the last possible second, we straightened out. The end of the runway came rushing up and somehow the plane stopped before we plowed into a farmer’s field. I know I was covered in cold sweat and I wondered if perhaps I needed new whitey-tightys.

  I jumped out of the plane as soon as the stairs were down and ran over to Scott’s Lincoln. Ralph was sitting in the car just like I’d told him. I told him to get out, reached in and pulled the keys from the ignition and dropped them on the floor of the car. I pushed two of the keys on the door that locked the car and Ralph and I ran back to the plane. Melissa was standing in the doorway and I hollered for her to go and sit down and buckle up. I made Ralph to do the same and I leaned into the cockpit and told the pilot to roll. Landing to starting our takeoff could not have been more than three minutes. Sitting back down in the co-pilot seat, I watched in terror now as the plane blasted down the short runway. As we flashed past the small terminal I noticed two men standing at the edge of the tarmac watching our plane with great interest.

  The plane ate up the undersized runway and I just knew we were going to die, but somehow at the last possible second, the plane lifted and we were airborne. I thanked the pilot and God in that order and wondered if there was any Scotch onboard. After that takeoff I needed a drink.