Chapter 20

Once we were finally relaxing at home, I waved Eve over so she could sit on my lap. “Tell your mother I sincerely apologize, for not asking how she did yesterday. I was tied up destroying the Colombian drug cartels. How’d she do today?”

Eve giggled. “Mom says you’re forgiven. She was listening in while golfing to some of the conversations, of course, and says you have every right to be upset. She was a little off yesterday and finished at thirteen under for both rounds, and is nineteen under now. Tomorrow will prove interesting.”

I leaned back in the recliner, just holding Eve close to me. “Thank you, all of you. Today was more stressful than I thought it would be, quite honestly.”

“Considering you weren’t the only one concerned that Melissa was going to ask to become a member of the family, I wonder why. Oh, don’t get us wrong, she’s a lovely woman, but she’s just reacting to everything right now,” Eve said.

From another chair, Beth said, “I bet you didn’t see Cindy was out there today, did you?”

“Honestly, I was so damn focused, I wouldn’t have noticed a lot of things.”

“One thing’s for sure, Lover. You’ve made one hell of an impression on the Stanford faculty, certain pharmaceutical company representatives, NASA, and the head of the FDA. Not to mention your entire security force, including the people that know you, but don’t know all about us, which, don’t forget, is most of them,.”

“Yeah, I could see that, but what kind of impression did I make?”

Margie walked into the room and flopped down into the recliner, on top of Beth.

“I swear, some of the people in this state need a serious attitude adjustment. How can they make it so hard to try to do a good thing? Oh, that feels good, Beth, yeah, I’m tense right there.”

“What’s going on, my sister-wife?”

“We had a huge amount of food left over, even after sending more than a hundred pounds of beef and pork home with all of Dora’s cousins. I thought we’d just donate it to the local homeless shelter, so they’d have a good meal. They couldn’t take it, because health department regulations said it had been cooked in an unsanitary way. Fine, I’ll donate it to a church, so they can feed hungry people with it. They’re not allowed to take it, because the state only allows them to take food donations from certified sources. The local food bank can’t take the meat because it’s already cooked, and they don’t have anywhere to store it. I couldn’t even donate the unopened buckets of potato salad or anything else, even though it’d all been kept refrigerated, because we’re not a retailer. I couldn’t even donate it to the sheriff to feed their prisoners!”

I was puzzled. “Is that because we’re in California? What would have happened back in Kansas, if we’d had all that food left over?”

“It would have gone to the churches, for them to distribute to the families in Reno County that actually need help. Even with everything we’re doing, there’s still a few families ... not many anymore, thank goodness ... that are having a tough time making it. Anything else goes to the sheriff and the jail, to feed prisoners. For fuck’s sake, you hit a damn deer driving on the highway, you call the sheriff, they send a deputy out to pick it up, he takes it back to the jail and they butcher it and cook it there. The Salvation Army finally took it here, because they have slightly different regulations, but damn, that was irritating. Two hundred pounds of beef, a hundred pounds of pork, fifty pounds of potato salad, and another fifty pounds of the other stuff we had. It would have gone to waste.”

Marcia had come in and stretched out as well. “That’s one thing I don’t miss about here. Washington wasn’t as bad, at least people up there have some common sense, although they’re starting to get stupider about things. The studios had that problem for years. They’d have food from an event leftover, and they couldn’t do anything with it, because the health department regulations wouldn’t let them. From the county government perspective, it was better to throw the food away than feed people, because it might make someone who was starving sick from a bacteria.”

I shook my head. “What’d they do?”

Marcia snorted. “Same thing the casinos in Vegas do with all of their extra buffet food. They ship it to a pig farm.”

“For the casinos, with what I’ve read about their buffets, I could see that. Regular restaurant food, that’s pushing it, I think. As long as we helped needy people, that’s good with me at this point. What were you going to answer before, Beth?”

“Cindy is somewhere between scared to death of you, and totally in awe of you.” She paused. “Come to think of it, that’s pretty much the same response every one else had, too. At no time did you shirk your duty, you did what was needed and to hell with whatever the consequences, and you’re damned good at leading. Which all of us already knew, but I think you just got a much larger audience.”

“I really wanted to kill that bastard, you know.”

Eve nodded, saying, “We know. So did we. As it was, he was injured in what’s being considered an industrial accident. It’s unfortunate, but he was messing with some fireworks and chemicals he got from one of the science labs. He’s just fortunate to be alive.”

“Really?”

“That’s the official hospital report. There won’t be a police report filed, since it was just an accident. Of course, Stanford can’t have someone so clumsy working here, so he’s been terminated for cause as well, with a recommendation that he move far away. Oh, and there may have been a little bird telling him that if he considers saying anything other than what was officially reported, or breaks the law wherever he moves even by spitting on the sidewalk, he’ll find out how hungry the alligators in Florida can get. At least briefly.”

I blinked. “Oh,” I softly said.

“Oh, indeed. You’ve corrupted the State Department. It was Cain and Abel that told him that.”

“You’re kidding!”

“Nope.” She rubbed her butt on my crotch a little. “Hey, we’re going to have another busy day tomorrow. Think maybe we ought to try to get a little play time in before sleeping?” She hopped up, off of me.

“Dammit!”

“What’s wrong, Margie?” I asked as I got up out of the chair.

“Oh, I just got comfortable here. This is going to sound bad, but Beth’s rib cage supports my back better than laying on anyone else with bigger boobs does. I don’t want to get up.”

“You don’t have to move,” I said.

She said with some suspicion in her voice, “I don’t?”

I shook my head. “Nope.” I didn’t even have to point with my hands, I simply picked her up as she was laying using what I was now calling my telekinetic power, and floated her into the bedroom. I continued to hold her in the air, while Beth used her telekinetic powers to strip Margie naked.

That made her incredibly aroused, as we figured.

It was fun doing that with all of the girls, stripping them, and holding them up. One of the positions we ended up trying was for one of the girls to lay on the edge of the bed, while I was standing and having regular sex, while using telekinesis to hold another one, with her thighs on my shoulders, while I gave her massive oral loving. We kept that up for quite some time, before finally getting showers and going to sleep.

We got to irritate the folks at the Santa Monica airport when we showed up.

Apparently, Mike had figured out that I’d want more guards than we had. Either that, or he was incredibly paranoid. Half the equipment that the Marines had given us was never shipped to Kansas. Instead, it’d simply been stored at Moffett Field pending ... whatever. The Navy didn’t care, since it was Marine gear, and by the time NASA took over the whole field at the start of the year, our camel already had its nose under their tent.

So not only did we have more than a dozen jeeps, most of which were still armed with pedestal mount machine guns and half a dozen LAV-25s sitting there, not quite half the helicopters were also still there. I hadn’t given it much thought, with us flying out to the photo shoot, but Jennifer had also taken a helicopter down to Santa Monica. I just figured we’d take the 737 and be done with it.

It was possible that Salthawk One could have landed and taken off again from Santa Monica, but at forty-nine hundred feet, that was a little iffy. We didn’t have enough JetStars for everyone. But we did have two Sea Stallions and two Sea Knights, all freshly refurbished for carrying passengers and painted in Salthawk colors, while still retaining certain hardware that made them very lethal, specifically all their door guns. So we took one of each, Sunday morning. Straight line distance was only three hundred ten miles.

Mike had sent three of our buses down the night before, so we’d have ground transportation. With the forty people we brought, neither helicopter was at more than half weight capacity. It was a fun, two hour flight.

When they’d first built the Santa Monica airport, it was pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Then the town grew up around it. Everyone knows that airplanes taking off and landing, especially jets, make a certain amount of noise. The people of Santa Monica didn’t like this annoying airport now sitting in the middle of their city, bothering them with all the noise from jets and helicopters.

They especially didn’t like having what appeared to be two military helicopters flying in formation right over their peaceful little city and landing fairly early Sunday morning.

Most of the way down, we’d been hanging around seven hundred feet above ground, or at least the sharp edges of the sky, since it was fairly mountainous terrain. Everyone was fairly well glued to the windows on either side of the helicopters, just looking at the different scenery. During the refit, they’d put some sound insulation in, so it wasn’t as noisy as riding in the back of a C-130, but still loud enough you had to yell to be heard.

We came in from the north, just to the east of the Riviera Country club. The terrain below went from rugged right into houses. At a hundred fifty miles per hour of ground speed, it barely took us two minutes to be over the airport, in some tight circles to lose altitude. They had a lot of smaller aircraft parked off the south side, so we landed on the north side of the runway, just a little down from where the helicopter that Jennifer had used was sitting.

We lowered the back ramps for everyone to get out, and were starting to head for the nearby parking lot where our buses were parked when a pickup truck with a flashing light on top came speeding up. A middle-aged man wearing a jacket that read, ‘Santa Monica Airport Authority,’ got out.

“Who the hell authorized you to land these here?”

One of our pilots was already out of the cockpit and making sure things were okay. “That would be the FAA and our approved flight plan,” he said. “We’ve made arrangements for refueling all our birds already, how soon will the truck be here?”

“What the hell? The tower called me and said they suddenly had two helicopters handed off to them by LA Central, and didn’t know anything about you coming in. By that time, you were already here.”

“Here’s a copy of our flight plan. Filed direct from Moffett Field to Santa Monica, maintain minimum altitude above ground, visual flight rules the whole way, and it’s been on file for more than a week. All three of us will be leaving after the golf tournament is over.”

The airport man looked at it, nodding. “Okay, no issues from my perspective, then. I’ll have the truck head over here as soon as he’s done. We’ve got more traffic than the city likes here with the golf tournament, so don’t be surprised if there’s not a police officer waiting for you when you get ready to leave.”

Jeremy heard that, and turned around. “If a police officer shows up and tries to write any kind of citation, or give you any grief, tell him that I’ll talk to him. Mike, were you leaving security here, anyway?”

“Of course. Come on, we’ll deal with it.”

We made it in time for me to give both Jennifer and Jasveer ‘good luck’ kisses, and for everyone else in the family to do the same. Our group headed out to wait. She was six strokes ahead of her partner, Lanny Wadkins. Corey Pavin and Hal Sutton were tied for fourth place at eleven under, and were waiting to tee off as we got into position.

I noticed there were three men standing together, watching as well. It looked like they were arguing between themselves, and finally they agreed, before walking over. Chuck moved to intercept them.

“How can we help you gentlemen?”

“Nothing bad, we’re just ... we’ve seen your group at other courses this year, but never before this year. I’m Ben Crenshaw, this is Greg Norman, and that’s Nick Faldo. We would like to talk, if that’s okay.”

I said, “Come on over. I’m guessing you’ve talked to Arnie, and are wondering what the heck is going on, right?”

Norman said, “That’s putting it mildly, yes. We’re confused. Nick and I turned pro in ‘76, Ben turned pro in ‘73. I’ve won thirty-one international tournaments since I started, including back-to-back Australian Masters in ‘83 and ‘84, Ben won the PGA Masters last year and has twelve tournament wins, Nick’s also got a dozen tournament wins. This is a game of skill and luck, something we’ve been practicing at our whole lives. How does someone show up like Jennifer has, without any history?”

“Oh, she’s got a history of golfing, when she was young. It’s also a sport she kept up, too. She just never got to really play, like she wanted,” I said.

“When she was young? She’s barely old enough to have graduated from college!” Faldo exclaimed.

That got a laugh from our entire group. Eve held Toby’s hand and walked over to join me. All three men did a double take when they saw Eve.

“Gentlemen, this is Eve Patrick, one of my girlfriends, and her younger brother, Toby. Eve, Toby, this is Ben Crenshaw, Greg Norman, and Nick Faldo. They’re all pro golfers and are wondering about how your Mom does it.”

“Their mom?”

“That’s right, Mister Crenshaw. I’m the second oldest. My other brother, SJ, just turned twenty-two. I’m seventeen, and Toby is ten.”

“She’s your bleedin’ twin sister,” Norman said.

Eve smiled again. “Good genetics, and one other detail. You’re from Queensland, right?”

“The Isa, that’s right. Mount Isa City, for those who don’t know it. What’s the other detail?”

“She’s also a part of me family,” Helen said, stepping up and smiling. Her hair was pulled back a little and the triangles on her forehead were showing.

Norman looked a little surprised. “But you’re ... pardon me, just a second. I almost put my foot really deep into my mouth.”

Helen laughed. “I’ve heard the term aborigine before, but I don’t think it applies.”

“Not bloody likely. Not if those markings mean what I think they mean. When I was growing up, I had some friends that were native. I’ve spent some time in the bush.”

“I am the Guardian of the Sacred Souls of Uluru, Mister Norman. This young lady is the Guardian of the Sacred Souls of Mount Moffett. Jennifer Lewis is a member of our family. Cal here, is our King.”

Faldo and Crenshaw were looking at Greg Norman like he’d lost his head when he turned to me, and bowed.

“Your Majesty, it is my honor to meet you in person,” he said.

“It sounds like you have been paying attention to some of the news from home, Mister Norman. We have not necessarily been keeping things quiet, but we have not truly been advertising it, either,” I said.

“Cal Lewis? Aren’t you the kid who’s going to play football at Stanford this fall?”

“Yes, Mister Crenshaw, I am. But I am a bit more than that.”

“Jesus, guys. This is the kid that Arnie said destroyed his record,” Faldo said.

“Forgive them, Your Majesty. They’re not really aware of who you are.”

“That is fine, Mister Norman. We are used to it, as we are only sixteen years old. We are also not quite this formal most of the time, but when matters of state or other things require it, especially as our lineage dates back to the Dreamtimes, then we are able to handle the duty of court,” I said.

Faldo still didn’t get it. “Greg, why are you talking to this kid like he’s the bloody King of Australia, or something?”

“Because he is, you idiot. One of the things I learned from my friends is that their people lived in Australia for ten thousand years before any white men showed up. You know how we’ve been talking over drinks about all the stuff going down in the world. This past weekend, ninety thousand square miles, right smack in the middle of Australia, was declared to be sovereign territory of the A ... Indigenous Peoples, and the leader of those people is the equal so far as Australia and the world is concerned to our Prime Minister. The markings this young lady wears tell me exactly what her position with her people is, and you don’t dare declare you’re a Guardian and not be, not if you want to live. The Dreams will get you.”

Crenshaw looked puzzled. “I didn’t think you could be American and have a foreign title.”

Eve said, “The US government isn’t allowed to grant any titles. There’s nothing against a citizen accepting one. That’s why Cal is also the Prince of the Punjab, and a member of the Saudi Royal family.”

Faldo shook his head. “That still doesn’t explain how your bird can play golf so well.”

“Nick, shut the hell up before you get into something you can’t handle,” Norman said. “Remember the story about the golf ball getting cut in half? It weren’t no story.”

“We are aware that people don’t know how to take us, Mister Norman. However, it’s also quite simple and easy to answer Mister Faldo’s question. What year were you born, Mister Faldo, and when did you start playing golf?”

“I was born in ‘57, but didn’t start until I was fourteen.”

“So, at twenty-eight, you’ve been playing golf for fourteen years. I’m sure in the last fourteen years, you’ve learned a few things that have improved your game, but at the same time, you’re not necessarily as strong or capable as you were even six or seven years ago, am I correct?”

“I’ve learned how to hit the ball better, to make up for what I’ve lost,” he said rather defensively.

“Of course you have. All of you have. Jennifer is fourteen years older than you are, Mister Faldo, yet is physically in the same shape as Eve, her daughter, who is seventeen. There’s an old adage that age and treachery will defeat youth and skill. What happens when you combine age, treachery, youth, and skill?”

“None of us are going to win a single tournament this year, are we?”

“I’m not prescient, Mister Crenshaw. I do know that Jennifer doesn’t plan on playing much past the middle or end of April, as she’ll be too far along in her pregnancy then. That’ll give you about thirty tournaments or so after that.”

Our conversation hadn’t been all at once, it happened as we walked around, following Jennifer and Wadkins around. Jennifer was having a rough day, it seemed. She was gradually losing ground, basically playing par golf, while Wadkins was burning the course up almost like he had on the first day.

Greg Norman watched as they teed off on sixteen. “He’s not going to have some kind of miraculous ‘come from behind’ win, is he?”

“I’m sure that’s what they’re talking about in the announcers booth. I can about imagine they’re talking about his miracle comeback, how he’s scratched and clawed so that he’s now even with her at nineteen under par. But consistency is going to be the winner. Look at the duo ahead of them. They both came into this round eleven under. Pavin had a round that was seven under yesterday. If he’d come on strong again like that, he’d be sitting at eighteen under right about now. Instead, he’s only one under for this round. Look at the leaderboard for the people that are finished. Larry Mize finished one under, then got nine under to come in at ten under par. Then he shot par yesterday, and is done, with one over par for today. If you can hit nine under, consistently, then you can give Jennifer some competition.”

At the same time I said that, Jennifer sank her putt for her first birdie of the round.

“I’m just curious about something,” Norman asked. “How good are you?”

“Did Arnie tell you our scores?”

“No, he simply said that either one of you was better than any golfer alive now.”

“His record on that course was sixty-three, for eighteen holes. Jennifer and I both played from the blacks. She got four aces, I got three, and she finished twenty-three under, I finished twenty-five under. For eighteen holes. At Arnie’s Bay Hill, she finished fourteen under for eighteen holes. I only played one hole on that course, the number six. Are you familiar with it?”

“That’s the long par five that loops around the lake.”

“You can get a double eagle on it if you put your tee shot onto the green, though. It’s only four hundred yards, that way.” I grinned.

Norman shook his head. “Jesus, I’ve never gotten an albatross before.”

Crenshaw had been listening for a bit. “You said something earlier. Jennifer, your ... what, wife, girlfriend? She’s pregnant?”

“Girlfriend. One of eight, with eight body servants, due to being the Prince of Punjab.”

“If she’s fourteen years older than Nick, that puts her about forty-two. You’ve just said you’re sixteen. Isn’t that statutory rape?”

“Since one of the things I’m studying at Stanford is law, the usual joke is, if I’d known she was a statue, I wouldn’t have raped her. Totally irrelevant. Our home of residence is Kansas. Age of consent there is sixteen.”

“But we’re in California now.”

“I believe you’re from Texas, aren’t you?” I asked.

“Yeah, so what?”

“Is your driver’s license from California or Texas?”

“Texas.”

“Ah, so just because you happen to be in California, you don’t have to get a new driver’s license for being here, because California has to recognize the laws of Texas that issued you that license.”

He nodded. “I get where you’re coming from, now. Sorry.”

“No need to be sorry. Certainly not like Lanny Wadkins is feeling since he just got par on number eighteen, and while he’s now at twenty under par for the tournament, if Jennifer misses this putt and only gets par for the hole, that’ll still leave her tied ... never mind. Twenty-one under par.”

“I sort of feel like we’re being played with out there,” Crenshaw said.

“You all individually compete against each other. If you were on a team, don’t you imagine you’d do a bit better as a group, because you’d all always be helping each other?”

“Something to think about. Pleasure meeting you.”

While Crenshaw had been talking to me, Greg Norman had been talking to Helen and Carrie. Now that the tournament was over, I saw their rings briefly light up. Norman smiled upon seeing that.

“Next time I get back home, I’m going to look my old mates up and have a chat. It’s been a long time, but I think we ought to visit Uluru again, if you don’t mind,” he said.

“It’s our pleasure, Mister Norman. Have a good week, and maybe we’ll see you next Sunday.”

Jennifer accepted the trophy and the winners check. This time she presented a check for two hundred sixteen thousand dollars to the Santa Monica Boys and Girls Club. She got caught on camera giving me a big kiss, too. She and Jasveer had already checked out of their hotel, so it was simple for all of us to load onto our buses after the rest of the pictures were taken and head back to the airport.

There were three police cars sitting on the apron, near our helicopters. Another car was with them, with two policemen standing around looking somewhat amused while a man in a slightly gaudy uniform who had to be the police chief was arguing with someone.

When the buses pulled up, the man arguing with the police chief yelled out, “There! You won’t do anything here, they’re obviously the ones in charge! Deal with them!”

The police chief very casually sauntered over, the man right behind him. “How we doing, folks? I’m guessing that you’re the ones renting these choppers?”

“You don’t have to rent what you already own, Chief,” Mike said. “All three of these birds belong to my boss.”

The man yelled out, “Good! Then you can tell your boss that none of these helicopters are going to move a single inch until the fine for violating our noise ordinance has been paid! That’s going to cost him two thousand dollars apiece!”

“Really? Why?”

“You’ve violated the Santa Monica Municipal Code, is why! City Code Section, Chapter, and Subchapter 10.04.04.010, Aircraft Noise Abatement Code. Your helicopters are too noisy for this airport, and not only that, under 10.04.01.100, no one is authorized to use this airport as a base for any operation involving substantial use of helicopters.”

Mike looked at our group, then pointed to Jeremy, who was doing about all he could to not break down into laughter.

As Jeremy walked over, Mike stepped back, and made motions for us to load up.

The airport director looked at Jeremy. “You’re the owner, then, that’s going to pay this fine, or face further civil and possibly criminal charges? Hey, I haven’t authorized anyone to load up yet! Chief, stop them!”

“Mister Pettigrew, did you serve in Vietnam, or in any military service?” the Chief asked.

“Certainly not! I’m a man of peace!”

The Chief nodded. “I see. Well, Mister Pettigrew, since those three helicopters have more firepower than all of the police departments in this area combined, how do you propose that I stop them?”

“What do you mean?”

Jeremy said, “What he means is that, right now, there are eight fifty caliber machine guns on those helicopters that at a single word from me will be locked, loaded, and used however I see fit. You have a nice airport. Be a shame if anything happened to it. How you doing, Chief? Supervisory Deputy US Marshal Jeremy Gage, in charge of diplomatic security.”

“That sort of answers that question of mine, which was just exactly how is it that civilian birds happen to have full military hardware.”

“Yeah. If we were needing full protection, we would have had to make a refueling stop, because our Sea Cobras only have a three hundred mile range, which is how far it is from here to Moffett Field.”

“Fully armed up?”

“Of course! What use is having something like that and not having all the fun things that go with it? Nothing says ‘I love you’ quite like a three barrel twenty millimeter Gatling cannon, after all.”

“Shit! You don’t have Sidewinders on them, do you?”

“And rocket pods, too. You look like you’re a reasonable man, Chief. I’m certain that Mister Pettigrew will be a reasonable man as well.”

“What are you talking about? I’ll be quite reasonable once you pay this fine!”

“May I see that?” Pettigrew handed it to Jeremy. “Huh. How about that. This is a fine from the City of Santa Monica. Amazing.” Jeremy very carefully tore the fine in half, then turned it and tore it in half again. He leaned forward and stuck the pieces of paper into Pettigrew’s pocket.

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned to dislike, it’s people who think they have authority, when they really don’t. I’m not upset with you, Chief, obviously. You’re out here having to deal with a situation created by a moron. Oh, and Mister Moron, I mean, Mister Pettigrew? Have a nice evening, and if we want to, we’ll be back with our entire fleet. Your noise ordinances mean nothing and you have no authority so far as we’re concerned.”

“Chief? I don’t get it. What’s he mean?”

“Those may be private helicopters, but the guards before showed me Wackenhut Federal security identification. He’s a US Marshal, in charge of diplomatic protection. That means you can take those papers out of your pocket and throw them in the trash.”

I had been standing on one of the ramps, just listening to Jeremy talk. When I saw I wasn’t needed, I made a wind it up motion with my finger. All three of our helicopters started their engines at the same time. Jeremy got onto my helicopter.

“You enjoyed that, didn’t you?”

“Of course I did,” he said. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

We completely violated all of their noise ordinances again by turning slightly, going light on the skids, then taking off like we were doing combat missions, all three at the same time. We continued to climb, turning north over the city, with the two 53s taking station on the 46.

It was dark by the time we landed at Moffett. We had other transportation back to the house. This time, though, Mike and Jeremy came into the house with us.

There was a full meal prepared and waiting for us. Toby and Carrie took their meals into the other room, mostly so that as soon as they finished eating, they could get ready for bed. Once we all had food and were at the table, I looked at Mike.

“Nicely done in Santa Monica. I take it you didn’t know about their noise ordinance?”

“Not in the least. No one threw a fit when Jennifer flew down there, or said anything about us leaving a bird there while she was playing in the tournament. Probably because she flew down there during the week, and didn’t shake someone out of bed on Sunday morning, would be my guess,” Mike explained.