Aphrodite Shuddered - Chapter 13

Chapter 13:

Submarine Races

I didn't dwell on the nightmare Megan and I had shared last night, since I had long ago come to terms with my unconscious mind. At any rate, I had to concentrate on learning as much about the SR-71 as I could in a short time - a guy could get killed if he didn’t take it seriously enough (or at least risk feeling the wrath of Colonel Wahoo McCoy). Fortunately no SR-71s had ever been shot down, which is why the Air Force would even consider using Wild Blue Yonder amateurs like Megan and me on such an operation. Even so, prior to my test missions I had spent hours on the Ejection Simulator, which shot me up a tower with the force of 7 Gs, as well as getting repeatedly dunked in the survival training pool while wearing a full pressure suit.

In the second week of August, after Megan and I performed our final test missions prior to going to Iraq, I was surprised to see all of the wing’s crews assembled in the ready room when we reported for our post-sortie debriefing. Colonel Harder then walked to the lectern, raised his hands and said, "Okay, pipe down. Now that you’re all here, I have some disappointing news for you. The sorties to Iraq have been postponed until further notice, because the navy has requested that our wing participate in naval exercises tomorrow. Our next mission shall be to detect US nuclear attack-submarines operating off the Gulf Coast of the United States. They are playing the role of Soviet submarines in this exercise. You'll get a full briefing in a few hours, after we work out the details with the navy. As of now, all aircrews are confined to the base until at least 0600 tomorrow, due to reasons of National Security.” Harder then dismissed us for the time being.

I turned to Wahoo and asked in confusion, "What's going on?"

"Beats me, Sarge. Hurry-up and wait, I guess. Come on, lets go to the break room - I'll buy ya a candy bar."

Trying to relax in the break room before getting called back to work, I kicked back and watched the evening news: "...This just in - the Pentagon this evening announced that a nuclear powered U.S. Navy attack-submarine possibly sank to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico during naval maneuvers off the coast of Mississippi early this morning. A sonar survey of the area has so far failed to turn up a trace of the USS Silverfish and her complement of 127 crewmen. Details are rather sketchy at this time - more on that story later.” Before I could digest that information, the next news item tied my guts in knots: “On Capitol Hill today, rumored presidential candidate Cliff Williamson, member of the House Ways and Means Committee, denounced the so-called Remote Viewer Project, which he called, quote, 'a monumental waste of taxpayer money' unquote. Congressman Williamson revealed that according to a recently declassified report by the General Accounting Office, the US Army ran an off-the-books psychic-spying program in the 1980s, and, as recently as 1990, a psychic training school at a US Army facility in northern Nevada.” I shook my head in disbelief and anger.

Then the squawk box in the break room came to life: "All flight crews are to report to Wing briefing room 'A' immediately."

Distracted by the stressful job at hand, it didn't immediately occur to me that my old nemesis Mr Webb, DISC’s Chief of Security, would soon put two-and-two together, since he knew I had been working on a Top Secret project at the Sagebrush Army Munitions Depot - in northern Nevada of course. Webb, a natural paranoiac, probably now believed that since I must be a psychic, I “knew too much”, even though I was willfully ignorant about any illegal activities that he was up to. The only thing I knew for sure was that a Las Vegas hotel was somehow involved in his schemes, and very probably the LIFE Club as well. As for the rest, I only knew what I had read in the papers. Since 1989, stories had leaked out that DISC’s parent company - Quackenbush Detective Agency, Inc. (QDA) - had been deeply involved in the Iran/Contra scandal, helping the Roland Regulus administration trade arms for hostages by allegedly laundering Contra cocaine profits through front companies, banks like BCCI - the notorious “Bank of Crooks and Criminals”, and Native American casinos, to pay for the arms shipped to Iran in exchange for American hostages. When I had been employed by DISC, any memoranda or verbal discussions about the Iran/Contra scandal by employees was cause for immediate termination. Exactly what was meant by termination was left to the imagination.

A few days after I had arrived at Beale AFB, the national news media reported that a freelance investigative journalist - Danny Casseroli - had been found dead, with his wrists hacked in a dozen places, in a room at the Stardust Hotel/Casino in Las Vegas. He had been investigating DISC's (among other government contractors') role in the Iran/Contra affair prior to what the Clark County Coroner ruled was his suicide. A suicide note - supposedly in Casseroli’s handwriting - was found, but his wife insisted that he must have been tortured into writing it. His friends and family claimed that one of his whistle blowing informants - a former employee of the US Justice Department - had arranged a meeting with him at the Stardust on the day he died, and that Casseroli had recently received threatening phone calls warning him to back off. Because of the Vegas connection, it would not have been surprised me if DISC was somehow involved in his death, but I had absolutely no desire to find the truth. Because if I did find it, I would undoubtedly learn the precise meaning of "termination".

As I expected, Gall called me immediately after Williamson's ill-timed announcement. "Denny we got a huge fucking problem!"

"I got about a minute before a briefing, so be quick. You're talking about Williamson, I guess. I just saw the news - "

"Please tell me that you had nothing to do with it! Did you ever mention anything about the RV project to him?"

"Of course not, John. I never say shit about my work - to anybody."

"You're positive about that."

"Look, the only thing I told him is that I worked for the government, but that I couldn't talk about what I do. Hey I had to tell him something, since you guys red flagged all my background records for the past 3 years. You should ask the GAO - ask how RV files got declassified in the first place."

"We're doing that, but who gave Williamson the idea to look into it? I tend to believe you, Denny, but don't be surprised if you get called in for a polygraph examination when the operation is over."

"I'll be happy just to make it back in one piece."

"Good luck finding the sub - I'd bet even money that you'll find it before anybody else."

"That missing sub? I'm going on that operation too? Man, you guys are putting me on the spot - I have no idea where to look!"

"There's nothing to lose, so the Air Force wants you and Megan to tag along. Think of it as just another training mission. Got any objections?"

"No, but don't expect miracles."

Ten minutes later, all five aircrews got briefed by Colonel Harder: "...All Ninth Recon crews shall take part in the search for the missing submarine, the USS Silverfish, which is lost somewhere south of Biloxi, Mississippi, in the Gulf of Mexico. Since the navy's sonar search hasn't turned up anything, and no emergency dye markers or emergency radio buoys have been found, our wing has been ordered to perform low altitude, narrow infrared and magnetic scans over the Gulf, between 30 and 31 degrees north latitude. The sorties will be spaced 20 minutes apart. Colonel McCoy gets the first sortie, which will run west-to-east between New Orleans to the western coast of Florida, at exactly 30 degrees latitude..." It was hoped that since Silverfish had sunk at such a shallow depth (about 100 feet), its heat signature or magnetic field could be picked up by the Blackbird's sensors. The problem was that nobody knew the last position of Silverfish, since its role in the naval exercise had been to evade detection.

* * *

Three hours later, over New Orleans:

Approaching the Gulf of Mexico from the west, Wahoo said over the Interphone, "Sarge, I'll buy ya a bottle-a Jack Daniel's if ya find that suckah. Shoot, I might retire a full-bird colonel if ya do."

Francona announced, "Coming up on 30 degrees latitude in 30 seconds."

"Start the infrared and magnetic field scan, Frankie. Okay Sarge, git comfy and see if yer ESP brain is workin' today."

Flying at 600 mph over the Gulf of Mexico, fifty miles south of Biloxi, my body suddenly felt as if it were dissolving into quarks. Effortlessly I “fell” through the fuselage and then I hovered over the Gulf. Within a few seconds of four-dimensional space-time, I surveyed a 6,000 square-mile area of the Gulf. EC-130 aircraft passed close by me in slow motion as they dropped sonobuoys into the water. Sonobuoys can detect very faint undersea sounds, such as trapped crewmen banging on a steel bulkhead. I looked for debris or dye markers from Silverfish, but even though the weather was perfect, I failed to spot any trace of the 360-foot long, Los Angeles Class attack sub.

I dropped myself into the Gulf, which was only 80 feet deep in this search area. I roamed the sandy seabed for what seemed like an hour, even though mere seconds had passed. Acting on a hunch, I then traveled under the seabed, at which point a humorless female voice droned inside my disembodied mind: "You must end your search operation immediately! Because of your government's repeated incursions on our facilities, the hostile sea weapon of your government has been temporarily detained. This hostile sea weapon is now undergoing extensive repairs due to the recklessness of the vessel’s commander, who blundered much too close to one of our vessels and severely damaged his vessel's crude electron/copper wire systems. We re-iterate to your government that we are dismayed at the recent incursions, which bode ill for the re-establishment of treaty negotiations."

I forced myself to think. "I'm certain that it was just a bureaucratic mix-up. In my government, these things occur all the time. I can verify that peaceful naval maneuvers were taking place - "

"Yes-yes-yes," answered the annoyed voice. "Inform your government to recover its so-called property at these Earth Space-Time co-ordinates: 1615 hours Coordinated Universal Time, on what you refer to as tomorrow, at precisely 30 degrees latitude, precisely 88 degrees 33 minutes 33 seconds longitude. All persons, ships and aircraft must stay clear of these co-ordinates until 1615 hours, and they must not use underwater sensing devices until after 1625 hours. You are a most curious young man. Perhaps our Space-Time lines shall again intersect." Then, as if clinging to a giant rubber band, I snapped back to the Blackbird. According to my watch, I had been “gone” for only 45 seconds.

I nonchalantly joked , "Well, the base liquor store closes in about three hours, Wahoo, so we'd better start back now. I found the sub - I think. The bad news is I can't tell anybody the details yet - for the safety of those guys in the sub. I have to go straight to the top."

"We ain't pickin' up squat on the scanners, but I'll take yer word for it, Sarge. From what I seen so far, you got a better nose than my Blue-tick hound dog." When the western shore of Florida came into view, we turned 180 degrees and scanned the ocean one-mile further south as planned, before returning to base.

I waited until we landed two hours later before calling John Gall. The first thing he said after I told him my code name was: "This is Atlas. What the hell took you so long to call back?"

"I ran into a damned alien, so I stayed off the phone. The one I talked to was a total bitch, but at least they are fixing the sub - or, as she called it, 'so-called property'."

"God damned commie! It must be the Grays."

"This info's got to go straight to the president - she said we can't approach the coordinates until 1615 GMT, tomorrow."

After I had read-off the coordinates to him, he said, "Thank God you didn't transmit your report to the navy yet - they might rush in there like gangbusters and fuck-up everything - we had no idea ETs were involved. Now let's go over those numbers again..." Then he disconnected and got hold of the president.

This mission had been a virtual repeat of the Glass Mountains incident one week earlier, so I had difficulty believing that the government didn't suspect aliens at that location either, since the first scanning sortie began exactly at 30 degrees latitude. How else to explain why I had found the sub so quickly?

* * *

After a two-hour debriefing by Major Mel Function at Wing Headquarters, I returned to the BOQ to fall onto my creaky metal frame bed. But first I knocked on Megan's door to check up on her. When she didn't answer, I remotely viewed the inside of her room: all of her belongings were gone now. She probably had moved to another building, in order to get away from an awful sicko: me.

While sipping Jack Daniel's directly from the bottle which Wahoo had given me, I watched the late news in my tacky little room: "The US Navy reports that the USS Silverfish has been located at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico in about 100 feet of water. The Navy declined further comment except to announce that the submarine's nuclear reactor is undamaged, with no reports of crew deaths or injuries. The fate of these 127 courageous young submariners hangs in the balance…”

Either the government believed my story or they were merely buying time by lying to the media. If I had had a hallucination - which could not be ruled out - then the Navy would look like fools and I would walk the plank. After restlessly flopping around in bed with such thought churning in my mind, I got up and chain-smoked Camels in the dark. Then someone rapped on my door at 4am. It was Gall, delivering a message in person: "Denny, the recovery time is in four hours - according to you. Assuming you're correct, I want you to attempt to monitor the release of the sub and find out exactly where it was hidden.”

“Hidden? I might be wrong about that, you know. It might be just bullshit.”

“Yeah, but there’s no way the U.S. Navy wouldn’t be able to find a sub in only 80 feet of water, especially one that wants to be found. That's why they're taking your report seriously - they're getting desperate at this point. Anyway, Denny, we need to keep the Grays in the dark as much as possible, so I want you to drive to a secret location of your own choosing - make sure it's far from military bases, in case they can trace your location using telepathy. Now when you get there, wait for my next call before RV'ing the recovery site. The timing is critical, so if I tell you to stand down, abort the operation and go home - not back to Beale."

While driving off the base 20 minutes later, I glanced at the two small motels located right outside the main gate. Megan's car was parked at one of them, so, against my better judgment, I turned into the motel’s parking lot. Breathing deeply and concentrating on the inside of her room, a shaky image formed in my mind: Megan was in bed with a tall, muscular airman, who was dozing at her side.

In dim light, she tried to awaken her bed mate by mouthing his scrotum. The big, young white guy with acne scars then woke-up with a guttural groan. His short black hair, beetle brow, and his beefy six-foot six-inch frame made him look a bit like The Frankenstein Monster.

My curiosity having gotten the better of me, I wished I had minded my own business: my skin crawled when Megan, who was now blowing the airman, looked straight at me and flipped me the middle finger. Blushing, my face tingled as I backed out of the parking lot and sped away. Now why did I do that? You got a job to do, stupid!

That was the last time I ever saw Megan. Weeks later, Gall informed me that she had been involuntarily committed to a CIA sanitarium in rural Virginia, to recover from severe depression and schizophrenia (thanks to me?).

* * *

I crossed the fog-bound Golden Gate Bridge, and then I parked near Fishermen's Wharf, where I mixed with the tourists who peered at Alcatraz Island through pay-telescopes. Forty-five minutes remained until the Silverfish was supposed to surface.

I watched a televised press conference while drinking coffee in a tiny waterfront diner. A small black-and-white set showed the Chief of Naval Operations gesticulating behind a podium and addressing a reporter. "...Well, Sam, the last radio report from the Silverfish indicated that the repairs will be completed by 1600 hours GMT, which would be 11am, Eastern Daylight Time. No fatalities or injuries have been reported at this time - no, I'm sorry - no further comment - Ensign Flagg from the Office of Press Relations will have a statement for you in one hour.” The next news story reported: “Geneticists at the Periwinkle Medical Research Institute announced today that human mitochondrial DNA is inherited exclusively from the female line of descent, opening huge opportunities for research in the study of mankind's origins...” This news distracted me momentarily, but I forced the subject from my mind and concentrated on doing my job. After swallowing two THC pills and washing them down with lukewarm coffee, I left the cafe and took a walk along the waterfront. Sitting on a bench in Golden Gate Park , I meditated on the scooting sailboats and cackling gulls. The reflections of the morning sun on the bay now hypnotized me - I was ready to go to work.

At 8:13am Pacific time (1613 GMT), my cell rang. "Great fucking news, Denny! The sub is surfacing. The satellite feed is coming in now. Jeez - right where you said it'd be!"

"No shit - damn," I said in awe and happiness. I could almost feel my head swelling with self-importance, but I quickly refocused my attention on the rest of the operation.

"Okay...wait a few seconds...all right, our ships have surrounded it. Make a quick RV trip underwater to those co-ordinates. If the Grays give you any static, end the remote view immediately."

"Yeah all right, but what am I looking for, exactly?" The line was dead. "Shit! Well, here goes." While staring for a few minutes at the flickering lights which played on the surface of San Francisco Bay, I felt my body seemingly rising straight up, rising miles high until I could see the curvature of the Earth and the familiar outline of the Gulf Coast. I then pointed myself at crescent shape of New Orleans, which happens to lie at exactly 30 degrees latitude.

Turning due east at New Orleans, I looked down on the Gulf of Mexico. On the eastern horizon were the silhouettes of at least a dozen navy destroyers and a sub tender. Instantly I raced to the ships, which had formed a corral around the Silverfish. When the sub tender barge started moving forward, I attempted to pinpoint the location of the undersea alien outpost, but the water at this depth was murky with oil, hampering my vision. The Gulf was (and still is) peppered with huge oil rigs.

As I scanned the sea floor a few miles east of where the submarine had surfaced, a section of the sea floor was sliding shut like a giant patio door over an open space about 500 feet long x 200 feet wide - an enormous airlock, I assumed. I was tempted to observe what lay under the sliding door, but as soon as I thought it, a sting of pain shot through my head, ruining my trance-like concentration.

A little red-haired boy was tugging at my sleeve as I sat slumped on the park bench. "Mister - hey, mister. Are ya okay? You look sick or somethin'."

"Johnny, you leave that man alone!" yelled his harried pregnant mother.

I immediately walked back to my car and began the trip back to Las Vegas, 600 miles from San Francisco. Soon Gall phoned me as I sped down the freeway. After I told him about the underwater alien base and gave him the approximate co-ordinates of its location, he said, "Denny, you've had enough training. I think you deserve a three-day pass. You can catch up on your sleep - or your sex."

"That's a lot better reward than an attaboy from the Old Man."

"You'll get one of those, too, I'm sure. All joking aside, your buddy Williamson could've thrown a monkey wrench into the Iraq overflights with his big mouth, but I just got the word that we're going through with them no matter what, now that they've really seen you in action." Nervously he asked, "You're sure you never told him about remote viewing? Just talking about it theoretically, perhaps?"

"Again, hell no I never told him anything about it, so don't worry - our jobs are safe. I'm more worried about my cover being blown to my old friends Webb and Lock. They knew I was working at the Sagebrush facility, but they didn't know what I was doing there. Hell, even a child could figure it out, now. If they think I'm an actual psychic, I've had it. They already suspected that I'm a government mole trying to dig-up dirt on the illegal shit they do. Now do you believe that I kept my mouth shut about RV? You need to get to them somehow and warn them off."

"Holy shit, I never even thought of that - today's been crazy as hell. If those clowns manage to interfere with the Iraq operation, they are fucking doomed!"

"I'll let them know in so many words, if I run into them on the way home. Right now I'm about 50 miles west of Reno, eastbound on I-80."

"Yeah, I'm getting the GPS data off your phone, so we'll have agents watching you 24 hours a day until we straighten this out. I'd love to flush those private security agencies down the toilet, but you know how hot the administration is to privatize government functions."

* * *

Back home, seven hours later:

Late that night, Angie’s and Tina’s limbs were coiled around me as they snoozed. My arms were falling asleep, but I managed to operate the TV remote. Finding no tacky horror movies, I settled on a tacky tabloid show: On National Rag on the Air, the reporter was breathlessly intoning: ”In a bizarre incident three days ago at Ramstein Air Force Base in German, six members of the U.S. Air Force Intelligence Service mysteriously abandoned their posts, and today the airmen are in custody at Keesler Air Force Base in Mississippi, charged with desertion. Staff Sergeant Mark Jarvis, a close friend of Master Sergeant Alan Bergman, one of the missing airmen, claims that the group flew to the United States in order to meet with gray extra-terrestrials with whom they had communicated via Ouija board!” Now a video clip of Jarvis appeared on-screen. He said, “Before he left Germany, Alan told me his office had been ordered to experiment with an Ouija board in order to obtain intelligence about future air attacks on the United States. The gray aliens sent a message through the Ouija board that Japanese religious fanatics carrying nerve gas will stage a kamikazi attack on skyscrapers in New York City, by crashing commercial jetliners into them. When they asked the aliens for the exact date, the answer was 110901 - November 9, 2001. Alan said they then set up a personal meeting with the grays in Biloxi, Mississippi in order to give classified information to the aliens - one of the guys they arrested had strips of microfilm taped to his leg. [Biloxi was not far from where the Silverfish had sunk.] But the meeting never took place because they were arrested by Air Force security agents as soon as they set foot in the United States. It's like they were waiting for them."

I mumbled drowsily to myself, "Maybe they were using an Ouija board too," and idly wondered if the microfilm contained classified data on the Remote Viewing Project. I fell asleep at this point, with the numbers 119 and 911 repeating in my mind as I drifted off. Five minutes later, Tina shook my shoulder. I groaned, "Jesus, Amazon, gimme a few hours to recover, will ya?"

"Shut-up, you. I just found out today that Chesty's got AIDS - from shootin' fuckin' heroin."

"God, I'm sorry. I really like him." Tina sobbed on my neck while I stroked her short afro. In the six years we had been together, I had never seen her cry before.

COPYRIGHT 2011 BY K.D. BISHOP