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  Noting that she opted for the regular tea the man said, “Are y’all up here for the weekend?”

  Colleen replied, “No, we are staying at a friend’s house on the lake for a few weeks.”

  “Where bouts?”

  “North end, not too far from the bridge,” replied David in his best southern accent.

  “We’re down by the dam, been there for over forty years. My pappy built the place in sixty-seven and we took it over when he passed ten years ago. Came by boat tonight, best way to get here.”

  “Yeah-yes,” drawled David as Colleen nudged him under the table.

  The little girl was asking them to pass the corn bread and asked if Colleen wanted any black-eyed peas. And so on it went, through the evening. When the main meal was over, the servers brought out peach cobbler and apple pie with ice cream and coffee.

  Afterward, they drove home at a leisurely pace. David watched a private helicopter, similar to the Senator’s, bank over the lake and head south. They arrived after dusk, parking the Jeep in front of the house. Inside, they locked up, turned off the lights in the kitchen and went upstairs.

  Chapter 30

  Colleen pulled the tiniest of nightgowns from her bag, enticingly waved it at David and slinked into the bathroom. He felt a rush of desire roll through him as he undressed. Gone was the cold fear of being hunted. Tonight they were free to love and explore each other in this peaceful setting.

  As Colleen emerged, David’s pupils dilated and there was a stirring in his loins as she seductively walked toward the bed.

  “I love you and your body with all that red hair tumbling down to your shoulders.”

  She moved to him, placed her hands on his chest and began kissing his forehead, his nose and finally his lips.

  “I feel wild and impulsive tonight.”

  “I like wild and impulsive.” He drew her to him stroking her hair, her neck and her breasts as her sighs seeped through him like music.

  “David.” With a soft sweetness, she caressed his face and kissed him deeply. “I love you.”

  His hands worked their magic, awakening in her a feral desire. He nibbled on her ears, her eyebrows, her nipples and slowly worked his way down her body as gentle waves of pleasure seeped through her. Her fingernails dug into his back, heightening his pleasure and driving him onward. Their kisses deepened and she floated on a river of pleasure as he entered her. She felt his hardness inside her, like steel on velvet.

  They began to move gently, at first, as kisses and caresses ranged around their bodies, touching, feeling, enjoying; then slowly, as desire reached out to overcome them, it quickened, rising to a symphonic crescendo as waves of pleasure convulsed and stormed through their very being.

  Afterward, a feeling of peace and well-being spilled over them as they lay spent on the bed, drifting slowly into a deep and peaceful sleep.

  Chapter 31

  Brookstone Farm: Thursday, June 21, 2:45 AM.

  David felt a presence in the room. Fear crept over him like a cold blade pressed to his cheek. Numbness began to spread along his arms. The room froze in silence. Shadows began to move. A flash of light struck him like a hammer and his tongue thickened in his throat. Dizziness clawed at him as he fought to comprehend what was happening.

  “David, what…” Her face seemed to collapse and a terrible wail burst from her throat. A big hand covered her mouth.

  “What, what do you want?” David stuttered.

  “We want to talk to you.”

  There were three of them, two standing by the bed and a third holding a gun near the door.

  “Who are you and what do you want with us?”

  “Get dressed and come down stairs and don’t try anything. Bobby the Pock will be right outside your door.”

  “Are you with the government?”

  “No, we just want to talk to you about something.”

  Colleen began to cry softly. “David, if they are not with the government then who are they and what do they want with us?”

  “I don’t know, but they could have killed us right here if they wanted to. I think we better cooperate.”

  They dressed and tentatively came down stairs.

  The three men were sitting around the kitchen table. They looked to be Italian and were dressed in sinister dark clothing. The one holding the gun, Bobby the Pock, smiled as they entered the room.

  Tears welled up and filled Colleen’s eyes. She covered them with a shaking hand.

  “Stop the balling, Sis; we aren’t going to hurt you. We just want a little information, that’s all, a little information about the Aratusa.”

  “The Aratusa how did you…,” David trailed off.

  “Anthony Carbonara, Tony for short, this here is Vinnie Saporito, an associate of mine and Bobby the Pock Vaccaro, another associate of mine. Like I said, we only want to ask you a few questions.”

  “But its 3:00 AM.”

  “I’m sorry about that, but you two have been playing hard to get and sometimes we find it’s better to work at night. Anyway, you are in danger, just not from us. Consider us your friends,” advocated Tony.

  David was thinking, with friends like these, who needs enemies.

  “But we haven’t done anything,” sniffed Colleen.

  “Look, please allow me to explain something. My father, Seaman Angelo Carbonara was in the U.S. Navy during the Second World War. Near the end of the war, he was sent back to the States and assigned to a vessel named the Aratusa. The Department of the Navy told my mother the ship went down and all hands were lost in December of 1944. I was not born until several months later in April 1945. As I was growing up, my mother always told me my father died when his ship sank during the war. Anyway, a while back, a cousin of mine by the name of Mario Russo got himself wacked at a scrap yard we own. Our family is in waste management so to speak, strictly legit and I actually work in a different area of the company. It was a messy job and they tortured him to get information out of him. Bad business, but apparently he gave them your names. Originally we thought it had to do with another business we ran until one of the workers told us he overheard them asking Mario who was messing around the USS Morgan. Why they would care about that old tub, I do not know. All I know is we was supposed to scrap it. They were government goons. I figured maybe Mario had a thing going on the side we didn’t know about.”

  “My son, Joey Carbonara, is in the Navy and he works in demolitions. On June twentieth, he received a rush assignment to prepare an old ship for scuttling off the continental shelf. The ship was in our scrap yard and the name of the ship was the USS Morgan. He called me up and said, ‘Hey Pop didn’t Grandpa serve on that ship, the Aratusa?’ We got to talking and he says the name Aratusa is in a lot of places on that ship and USS Morgan is only on the side and the back.”

  “Okay, so now I think there is something funny going on and if the ship didn’t sink, then what happened to my father? Therefore, like now, I am taking it somewhat personal. My mother, she is 92, never remarried and her memory from back then is very poor, so she can’t tell me much.”

  “So, what I want to know from you is what is going on and why is the government so interested in you and the samples of metal from that old ship, whatever its name is?”

  “How did you find us?”

  “Let’s just say we have some very sophisticated equipment for finding people. We also have people in the telephone business. It was not too hard. Vinnie here put a GPS tracker on your chopper, but we got a little lost up in these mountains with the car, what with all those dirt roads. Oh, by the way, there was another GPS tracker already on your chopper so Vinnie removed it and dropped it off in the North Carolina Mountains on the way down here.”

  “Look kid, like I said we aren’t going to hurt you, we just need a little information and in return, we
can offer you protection, which, I assure you, you are going to need.”

  David figured they had them beat five ways to Sunday. He looked at Colleen and she nodded.

  “Okay, here is what we know. Back in 1944 there was an experiment called Project Rainbow that later became known as the Philadelphia Experiment. The government tried to make the USS Eldridge invisible, invisible to radar that is. They were using Albert Einstein’s Unified Field Theory, which Einstein thought was too dangerous for humans to mess with and supposedly never finished his theory. As the legend goes, the ship disappeared and later turned up in Norfolk, VA with several of the crew missing. Some of the other crew were somehow partially fused into the ship itself, right into the metal. The government totally denied it, and today it remains a legend; not unlike the Roswell Incident in New Mexico about flying saucers.”

  “We think they tried it again with something called Project Bright Star, with the Aratusa and again the ship totally disappeared, but they could not find it for several months and when they did, the entire crew was most likely dead. Again, apparently, some of them were actually stuck in the metal of the ship and the ship would no longer run. Those who lived through the experiment apparently died of starvation. The Government covered it up and announced the Aratusa sank, then renamed it the USS Morgan. End of story, they hoped. After the War, it just sat in the old Packer Marine Terminal for years, rusting away. Fairly recently, it was to be quietly taken out to the Continental Shelf and sunk as an artificial reef. For some reason, it went to De Costa Scrap Yard instead. When I did the alloy analysis, which the Department of the Navy requires, I found human cells and DNA wound into the molecular lattice. This is something which cannot be, but we checked and rechecked our results and it was always the same.”

  “Right after I sent the report to the Department of the Navy, someone must have realized a long-kept secret might somehow have gotten out. That’s when all the trouble started.”

  “You did good kid, real good. Now let me tell you something else I found out. That ship was under the command of one William Casey, Jr. You got it; he is the father of Governor Bill Casey III who is going to run for the Presidency next year. They want this swept under the rug and fast.”

  “There were 47 people on that ship that did not come home and my father was one of them. My mother has a picture of the crew taken on the deck of the Aratusa several days before it disappeared. Funny thing though, Captain William Casey, Jr. was not on board when the experiment was done.

  “Just to let you know, we do not exactly like the Casey family. They give many of our legitimate businesses a hard time, but they are as crooked as they come, even more so because they are messing with my country. We would like nothing more than to discredit them and perhaps even punish them for what they did to my father and his crew in 1944.”

  “Now let me explain something else to you: If we could find you, they will also find you. You are going to need protection. David, you seem like a nice, smart kid, remind me a little of my Joey, so I would not want to see you and your pretty girl friend get hurt. How well can you fly that chopper, David?”

  “I can’t, Colleen is the pilot.”

  “Well, ain’t that something now, a lady pilot. Look Colleen, in the morning I am going to ask you to fly up to a place we have in New York State. A place where you will be safe.”

  “It’s not my aircraft; it belongs to Senator Land,” bargained Colleen.

  “I know and he will be lucky to escape them also. Look kid, these are nasty people and they work under the cover of the government. They can get you and they will get you and you are not going to live to tell about it if they do.”

  “Where are we going?” questioned David.

  “Upstate New York in the lakes region. I have a large compound there with a heliport and a hangar. You will be safe until we can figure out our next move. Look, I need you to get to the Casey family and you need us to stay alive. Now go back upstairs and get some sleep. We will be right down here so don’t try anything.”

  A somber David took Colleen by the hand and led her upstairs.

  Sleep, for now, was out of the question. They lay in bed discussing their options. Tony seemed sincere; but on the other hand, he looked like trouble and that Bobby the Pock character looked like a mobster right out of central casting, gun and all. Still, the government people were after them and perhaps they even shot Senator Land. Colleen felt a heaviness settle over her.

  “We may be asking for trouble by going with them, but I don’t think we have a lot of other options,” warned David. “Look what happened to the foreman at DeCosta.”

  “I know, but the paper said it was some kind of drug deal.”

  “Yes, but you and I know there is more to it than that. If it were a drug deal, what would this guy Tony want with us? He could have killed us anytime tonight if he wanted, but like he said; he needs us and we need him.”

  “But,” Colleen stammered, “What happens to us after he gets what he needs? Wouldn’t he just kill us?”

  “Somehow, I think not. He wants to take Casey down in front of the whole country and to do that he needs our help. If we were to disappear suddenly afterward, the first person the cops would look at is Tony Carbonara. Somehow I believe him and, after all, he would not be doing anything illegal, I hope.”

  Sleep for the remainder of the night came in fits and spurts and all too soon there was a knock on the bedroom door. “You both better get up now,” a raspy voice indicated.

  In the kitchen, the men sat around the table eating breakfast. “I took the liberty of ordering for you two. There is pepper and eggs, bacon, some rolls and coffee. Sit and eat, please. You are going to need your strength; it’s not good to start the day on an empty stomach,” motioned Tony.

  Colleen managed a smile and a “Thank you.”

  As they ate, Tony explained his plan. “As I see it, you have almost a full tank since you filled up at Charlie Brown Airport just northwest of Atlanta and we are only about ninety air miles from there. Still, not enough fuel to get to my place so we will have to make several stops. We will need three fuel stops. The trip is close to 1200 miles. Vinnie here is my pilot, flew in Nam and really knows his shit. My chopper is back at Charlie Brown and it’s a Bell 430. The 430 is larger and has a little more power than yours, but is similar in overall performance and range. Vinnie has already checked out your instruments and will plot the course for you including the stops for fuel. In a half hour, he will drive to Charlie Brown and fly back up here. He will radio when he is in range and we will take off and follow him north to New York State. Bobby and I will accompany you on the way.”

  Chapter 32

  Vinnie radioed at about 9:15 AM. He was airborne and had just passed over Lake Lanier. Less than twenty minutes later, he would be over Lake Burton. Colleen was ready in the Jet Ranger and had finished her pre-flight checklist. Their bags were loaded and she started the engine. David and the others were closing up the house as Colleen completed her radio check and called Vinney for his location. She signaled the others to board and they lifted off. There were to be three fuel stops, one in Hendersonville, North Carolina, one in West Virginia near Summit Point and another at Morristown Airport in New Jersey. From there, they could make it to their final destination near Lake Skaneateles, NY. Estimated time of arrival would be about 6:30 PM.

  The weather was almost perfect for flying and at each stop Tony paid for the fuel. They ate lunch at the airport in West Virginia and reached Morristown, by a little after four in the afternoon. The scenery on the last leg of their journey was spectacular as the choppers wound their way through the Finger Lake Region of New York State.

  Following the eastern shoreline of Lake Seneca, just past the town of Union Springs they made a 90 degree turn east and soon passed over Owasco Lake. Fifteen minutes later, Vinnie slowed the Bell 430 and began to hover over what loo
ked like a large farm. Off to the east was Lake Skaneateles.

  “Jet Ranger, this is Bell 430, come in.”

  “This is Jet Ranger, go ahead.”

  “Jet Ranger, do you have a visual on the helipads below?”

  “Roger that.”

  “Proceed to landing on pad 1.”

  “Roger.”

  Colleen slowly descended and settled the Senator’s Jet Ranger on pad 1 and shut the aircraft down. Vinnie followed shortly landing on pad 2.

  Chapter 33

  Defense Intelligence Agency: Friday, June 22.

  Commander Camp returning from a briefing on the situation in Iran found Chief Petty Officer Doyles sitting in his office.

  “I trust there is some good news, Doyles?”

  “Well, Sir, they did not actually get on United Flight 597 to Seattle. They sort of took another flight.”

  “What do you mean sort of?”

  “They took the Senator’s helicopter, but we had a GPS tracker on it just in case we needed it.”

  “Who the hell was the pilot and where are they now? Why do I always have to drag information out of you?”

  “The girl was flying it when they left and the tracking device shows it to be located in the North Carolina Mountains near Cashiers. But here is the thing, Sir, it is still working and it shows the chopper to be on the side of a mountain.”

  “You mean it went down? Now, that would be good news.”

  “I don’t know Sir, we sent a search chopper and we cannot find any debris, but the tracking device is still sending out a signal.”

  “I don’t like this one bit, Doyles! How does that damn girl know about flying a chopper? She seems a little bit too slick for me; perhaps she is some kind of government agent with the FBI or something. Christ, I hope they aren’t involved. You know there is no love lost between the Casey’s and the FBI Director. You had better send someone down on the ground to make sure about the chopper’s location.”