The Dream Jumper's Secret

by Kim Hornsby

  After ten minutes of searching, Tina hadn’t found a flight to Kandahar. No airlines flew to Afghanistan, and travelling by car was suicidal because of land mines and groups of insurgents along the road.

  Then, she saw it.

  Civilian flights landed at Kandahar International Airport daily from Dubai. A visa was needed to fly in. There was red tape involved, but it could be done. Her heart rate sped up. Then, she typed in Ramstein Air Base in Germany. Jamey had told her that after a dream jump, he sometimes flew there to decompress. His solitary existence at the Airbase was enough to drive anyone crazy without the occasional weekend away, he’d confessed. He’d also said that anytime he hooked up with a woman, it had been in Germany.

  “It had to be mindless sex,” he’d told her apologetically. “And not with a civilian. Just in case.” She understood that his identity’s secret held the key to him being able to leave the army, and conduct a normal life eventually. If the enemy or anyone with ulterior motives knew who he was. . .

  They’d been lying in her bed on Maui when she asked about his past lovers. “It was always just a night of sex, nothing more. A connection during the craziness of war.” Because of secrecy, he’d never told anyone his name, what his rank was, where he was stationed. He called himself Craig, and the women he’d been with didn’t ask any more than that.

  “I bet women thought that was sexy,” Tina said, a little bit jealous, but mostly sad that Jamey led this type of life.

  “Not sure. There was a club I used to go to on Ramstein base. I’d buy someone a few drinks. We’d leave together. We both knew it was nothing but sex. Protected,” he’d added.

  Tina thought about the possibility of Jamey ending up in Germany after his attempts at jumping failed. Ensheim International Airport in Germany wasn’t far from Ramstein Base. A civilian couldn’t fly into the army base of course, but could get close. She bit her nails. How hard would it be to get on to the base in Germany? Or Kandahar? Did she have a hope in hell of getting a message to an undercover, top secret, Sixth Force member? Not very likely, when no one knew about Sixth Force, and those who did, would never admit it. Jamey said once that the name was similar to a SEAL team Special Elite force and if anyone slipped up and mentioned Sixth Force, the listener would think they were talking about the SEALs. What she wanted Jamey to know was that she loved him, and waited for his return. All messages that would have to wait.

  Before heading off to bed that night, Tina checked in with her mother who was watching an old Bob Hope movie on TV, chuckling to herself. “I’m going to bed, Mom.” She’d recently stopped calling her “Mother.”

  “Have a good sleep. Sweet dreams,” her mother said, barely looking over.

  Sweet Dreams. Little did she know about her daughter’s dreams.

  When Tina found sleep, she dreamed of Jamey. She consciously knew she was dreaming, lucid, they called it, but didn’t remember falling backwards, or getting sucked into the dream so it wasn’t a jump.

  She and Jamey were seated at a table, eating dinner on a balcony overlooking a city. It was nighttime and the table was lit by a silver candelabra. She wore white linen pants and a matching tunic top. Jamey wore a loose white shirt and jeans. The lights below them illuminated a scene that looked different enough to suggest they weren’t in America. Even though she’d never been to the Mid-East, Tina guessed it was maybe Egypt, or someplace similar, with Mosque’s lights dotting the cityscape. Possibly Afghanistan. Or nowhere in particular, because the dream was born of her own imagination.

  Jamey raised his glass, smiling seductively. “To my love. How could I do any of this without you?” He held a glass of champagne in front of him, the look in his eyes enough to melt her heart, the expression on his lips suggesting something sexual.

  She held her own glass in front of her. “I love you Jamey. I have always loved you. Everything that came after the first time with you, was me trying to make a life without you. Will you marry me?”

  Across the table, Jamey chuckled, and set his glass down. He tilted his head as though contemplating the proposal, then took off the ring he wore on his right hand. He moved to kneel beside her chair. “Yes, I will marry you, Kristina Elizabeth Greene.” He took her left hand in his, the ring between their hands. “But will you be the wife of a dream jumper, my darling?” He kissed her knuckles. “That’s the real question here.”

  The ring slipped easily onto her middle finger, it being too big for the others. “I want to marry you, give you babies.” Her heart filled with emotion. “And love your girls like they’re my own.”

  A group of bearded men burst through a door. They pointed their guns erratically and barked indecipherable orders to each other. No one seemed to be in charge as they argued amongst themselves. Two men grabbed Jamey. Then, Tina looked down to see that the ring had turned into a handgun. She lifted it hoping the safety was off, and then aimed at the man who dragged Jamey to the balcony’s railing. She pulled the trigger. It made a deafening sound, but she ignored it. The man closest to her went down just as the other man lifted Jamey to throw him over the balconies’ edge to the city, ten stories below. She shot again. He slumped to the floor and Jamey fell with him. The remaining men had guns on her, ready to shoot. “Wait. You can take me. I’ll go with you. Just don’t hurt him.” Before they had a chance to think, she shot the remaining men.

  Jamey was left standing by the railing of the balcony, looking incredulously at her. Finally he spoke with hatred in his eyes.

  “I don’t need you to fight for me. You’ve ruined everything.” He jumped over the balcony’s edge to his death below.

  Chapter 21

  Tina bolted upright in her bed. The walls of her bedroom were shadowed from the street light filtering through the maple tree by her window. The clock said 12:45 a.m. It was a dream, not a dream jump, and nothing precognitive. Thank God. Those dreams had a definite look to them, like a photograph not quite developed. This had just been a bad dream, born from her mind playing tricks on her. War happened to be on her mind, that day as she studied photos of Kandahar online, thinking about Jamey being in danger. She’d fallen asleep worrying about Jamey’s safety in Afghanistan, and strangely enough, sympathizing with Carrie’s refusal to be a cop’s wife.

  Her breathing eventually calmed, and she lay back on the feather pillows. Attempts to go back to sleep were met with resistance as she thought about Jamey. Wide awake ten minutes later, Tina swung her legs over the side of the bed and left her room. It had been a rough week. No wonder she was having bad dreams. The dream hadn’t involved her father. She’d stopped dreaming of the staircase. A crack of light showed under her mother’s bedroom door. When she knocked, her mother spoke. “Come in Kristina.”

  “How did you know it was me?” She smiled and crossed to her mother’s king-sized bed. Elizabeth was propped up on a pile of pillows, reading a book.

  “Wild guess. Couldn’t you sleep?” Elizabeth set the book face down on her lap. Two young lovers embraced on the cover.

  Tina shrugged. “I had a bad dream. I just wanted to check on you,” she said and got into bed with her mother, something she never would’ve done a month earlier. Or ever. Pulling the covers up, she turned to her mother. “Is it a good book?”

  “They’re all good right now because they’re distracting.” Her mother’s smile was tentative.

  Tina propped herself up on her elbow.

  “I started with a mystery,” Elizabeth gestured to her bedside table, “but it was morbid and I need something light right now. I’ll give it to Amy. Dad was reading the mystery when he went back into the hospital.” She smiled sadly. “It made me feel connected to him to read the same book. I wonder how far he got with the story, that sort of thing.”

  Tina nodded and smiled. “I loved him so much.”

  “He loved you.” Elizabeth reached over and smoothed Tina’s hair back from her face, something she never remembered her mother doing before now. It was comforting. “He was a good man, an
d a wonderful person.” Her mother took a deep breath. “I wanted that for you, Kristina. I wanted you to have the happy marriage I have. Had. The knowledge that no matter what happens, he’s there for you. Always your safety net.”

  The lump in Tina’s throat made it hard to swallow. “Me too.”

  “Do you think you would’ve had that with Hank?” Her mother’s voice was weak, careful, like she didn’t want to know the answer.

  “I don’t know. The marriage was too new. We had a lot working against us, now that I know the truth.” The fingers of her right hand made little circles in the coverlet. “But, I think I may have a happy future with Jamey. We’ve known each other for ten years. He loves me, and I can’t imagine my life without him.” She looked up to see tears in her mother’s eyes--nothing new, but the reason for these tears was new. She hoped they were happy tears.

  “I love you so much, Kristina. I always had to hold back all this love I have, to not smother you. When Kristoffer died. . ..” Elizabeth cleared her throat. “Well, I haven’t been the best mother in the world, I know that, but I’ve probably worried about you more than most mothers worry about their thirty-year old children.”

  Tina smiled. “Thirty-five.”

  Elizabeth nodded. “I keep thinking of the dinner on Maui last month and your birthday surprise party. I’m so sorry about slipping you a sedative.” She did look regretful. “I was desperate to get you back here to find the best possible help with your grief, and your hallucinations.” She took Tina’s hand and squeezed.

  “I know, Mom.” Tina squeezed back. “I see how it all backfired on you.”

  Elizabeth shrugged. “Parenting is difficult even at the best times. We worry even when our children are adults. Even a grownup thirty-five year-old. How old is your Jamey?”

  She liked the sound of “your Jamey.” “He’s forty-two.”

  Her mother nodded like she approved of his age.

  “We met when I taught him scuba ten years ago. We really liked each other, but it didn’t work out, and I was heartbroken. He did an honorable thing by leaving me, believe it or not. But he never stopped loving me. And now, it turns out that one of my employees is his niece. Katie.” She smiled, remembering Katie. “And when Jamey walked into the shop months ago, I was really thrown for a loop to see him again. He offered to help me look for Hank’s body. I was so thankful because everyone had given up at that point. Everyone but me.” She stared out the window, remembering how much Jamey meant to her.

  “Well, I suppose if he loves you, and you feel the same way, you need to hold on to that young man and never let go.” The bedside clock ticked off the seconds. Outside, a dog barked.

  “Trouble is, that we broke up. This time, I broke up with him.” She had to tell her mother why. “He wrote that letter to warn you about Hank. He’s Anonymous.” She looked up at her mother whose eyes had widened. “I just found out.”

  “And you broke up with him over that?”

  “The way I saw it, he caused the death of my husband.”

  “Your criminal husband,” her mother said firmly. “How did he know Hank had a record?”

  Tina took a deep breath, bought herself a moment to think about how much to reveal. “He met Hank on Maui, years ago. They went diving, hung out afterwards, and Jamey sensed something wasn’t right by what Hank said that day about his new girlfriend. Jamey got his cop friend to run a check on him.” It hurt to say it out loud. To think that all this was going on while she was blissfully in love with her new husband, wanting to start a family. “Jamey typed the letter, sent it from Maui, and never knew if you got it, or did anything with the information. Not until I saw him two months ago in the dive shop, and he found out Hank had died.”

  All was silent in the room, until Elizabeth took a deep breath. “And you love him?”

  Tina nodded. “I do. He’s a good man. Ten years ago when he left me, he went back to his old girlfriend, married her, and they had twins.” She was saving Jamey’s reputation with her mother by only revealing certain aspects of the story. “His wife didn’t like being married to a cop, and they weren’t happy. She asked for a divorce five years later. They’re still close. They co-parent the girls.”

  “In Carnation?”

  “Yes, it’s a big extended family. The ex-wife, her new husband, their two children, Jamey’s twins, his father and various other relatives, all live within a few miles of each other.” She smiled at her mother. “They exist in each other’s back pockets, but it seems to work.”

  Elizabeth smiled genuinely for the first time in days. “Why are you here, and not with him in Carnation? He wrote the letter because he was concerned.” She gave her daughter a reproachful look. “I don’t need you to stay and grieve with me, Kristina. Amy will be here tomorrow.”

  Tina sat up, her heart heavy in her chest “He went back to Afghanistan a few days ago. They wanted him for a specific mission. He’s on an elite team. He left without knowing I still love him, and I’m so sorry I doubted his motives.” Tears spilled and her voice sounded feeble. “He doesn’t know that, and he may die over there.”

  “Come here.” Elizabeth held out her arms, and Tina slumped in to her mother’s warm body and let her stroke her hair. “He must know you love him. Love is like that. They know.” She sounded so sure.

  “I said awful things about how he ruined my chance for happiness.”

  “Oh, I’d wager a bet he saw through those words, and is only waiting for that temper of yours to die down. He’s not gone for a year?”

  “No. They work from mission to mission. He might be home in as early as a week.”

  “Well then, you’ll just have to wait, won’t you?” Her mother rested her cheek on the top of Tina’s head. “You never were a very patient child, but now you have no choice.”

  Her mother was right. She wasn’t very patient.

  By the time Amy was comfortably settled at the house, had a cup of tea in front of her, and Elizabeth beside her, Tina was sure that their new houseguest would be a breath of fresh air to their state of mourning.

  All day, Tina fought the burning desire to jump on a plane and try to get to Kandahar. It was a stupid notion because even if she could find a flight to Afghanistan, she’d never get a message to Jamey. If she could phone him, tell him she was sorry. . .

  After the dream about him jumping off the balcony, Tina had worried about all the horrible possibilities of what might happen. It didn’t help to recall the dreams on Maui where she struggled up the staircase to her father. He’d turned into Jamey. A version of him in fatigues with chapped lips and sand crusted in his eyes. What if Jamey died over there and she never got a chance to tell him she loved him? What if he came back from Afghanistan a changed man, and didn’t want her anymore? What if he decided to stay over there without knowing he was wanted at home, needed by her?

  As the day went on, the need to get to Jamey became so strong, Tina could hardly sit still during the roast chicken dinner that Millie had painstakingly prepared. Pushing the potatoes around her plate and pretending to eat the carrots and chicken, she couldn’t stop thinking about Jamey. When she phoned Pops, he suggested she try to jump into Jamey’s dreams.

  “If you can jump without touching the dreamer, I’d say give it a try, Kiddo.”

  She agreed that was a good idea. The time difference between Seattle and Kandahar was 12 ½ hours and the best time to try a jump into Jamey’s sleep would be early afternoon for her-- the middle of the night in Kandahar. Did Sixth Force soldiers sleep at normal hours? If he was on a mission, he might be on a strange schedule.

  Once Amy and her mother were settled by the fireplace drinking a brandy, talking about Amy’s grandchildren, Tina slipped upstairs. First, she called the dive shop to check in, and once satisfied that everything was under control in Lahaina, she laid down on her bed to try the relaxation breathing exercises that sometimes put her in a wake-induced lucid dream. Although it was a long shot, she’d been successful this way be
fore.

  It would be just after ten in the morning in Kandahar, not a great time to bet that Jamey was asleep, but she’d give it a try. Breathing in and out methodically, Tina thought of Jamey. She remembered what he looked like when sleeping, and willed herself to drop into his dream.

  After several minutes of this, with no results, she gave up. Being extremely opposed to this dream jumping stuff, she hadn’t ever experimented with what worked and what didn’t, and she wasn’t entirely sure what she was doing. All she knew was that sometimes, without knowing how it happened, she ended up in Jamey’s dreams when they slept together. Or him in hers. Or in the twins’ dreams now.

  She got into the shower and washed her hair, still thinking about how she could get a message to Jamey. Patience, her mother said, but that wasn’t one of her strongest attributes, especially when the feeling that something could happen to Jamey had dogged her all day. She’d asked Pops earlier that if Jamey called or emailed, or anything, to tell Jamey that she was waiting for him to come home and she loved him.

  Pops had paused on the line, then said, “I’ll tell him all that, if I hear from him, but you’re going to be able to tell him yourself in another few days.”

  She hoped so.

  Chapter 22

  Jamey and the team sat at the long table in the antechamber off Atash’s room. A map of Southern Afghanistan and Pakistan was laid out before them. Another with the streets of Kandahar. Jamey sipped a cup of herbal tea and listened to the mission’s briefing.

  Milton began. “First we’ll have you try a jump while he’s under sedation. The stuff we have the dreamer on right now doesn’t allow him to dream because he might be able to transfer information to someone on his side, you understand?”

  Jamey nodded. Months ago he’d told Milton his theory that involved a young Taliban member wanting to be captured to get into the jail and jump into people’s dreams to relay information to the enemy. “He’s been sedated since I left?” Somewhere deep down in his morals, Jamey prayed that the prisoner hadn’t been unconscious for three months. But then, there were lots of atrocities at war that Jamey preferred to not think about.