by Linda Hawley
Thirty minutes later, we ate our dinner of assorted cheese and crackers, a tossed salad, and warm apple cider in the cockpit under the boom lanterns, as we talked about our day of sailing. After dinner, we cleaned up and played Scrabble together, giving Elinor some help, although she did quite well without it. A couple of hours later, the three of us stargazed in the cool, clear night while lying on the cockpit cushions. Armond was a gifted storyteller, and he had been planning to tell us the history of Sucia Island. With warm apple cider in our hands, we were ready.
“The main island of Sucia measures over five hundred acres,” he began.
“Wow, that’s big,” commented Elinor.
“You’re right, lovey,” he responded.
“There are only four residents of the island, though. Sucia Island is actually designated as a park within the Washington State Marine Park system, so there’s no community here—it’s just nature. If you’re on the north shore of the island, there are steep cliffs that drop straight into the water. The rest of the island shore has coves and caves. You know about the Lummi Indians, right Elinor?”
“Yes, Daddy.”
“There are shell middens around the island that prove that the Lummi Indians used this island.”
“I forget what middens are,” Elinor said.
“It’s a mound of mussel shells that is very old. Finding middens here proves that native people used the island for thousands of years before other people ever found it. Also, the Lummi’s used to hunt seals here once a year.”
“They didn’t eat them, did they? ’Cause that’s kinda gross.”
Armond and I laughed.
“Yes, lovey, I think they did. But I’m sure they used every part of the seals and didn’t waste any of it.”
“Well, I guess they could’ve thrown the guts and other gross stuff overboard from their canoes, and that would feed the fish,” Elinor reasoned.
“I do know that they made pouches from seal fur, and they would put salmon eggs in there.”
“Cool.”
“In the 1900s, a thousand workers came here to mine the stone to pave the streets of Seattle. They finally realized that sandstone was too soft for streets and abandoned the mining. Sometimes you can find fossils in the sandstone here while exploring rock formations, because the rock is soft.”
“Oh, that’s really cool. I want to find a fossil,” Elinor yearned.
“Tomorrow we’ll go ashore in our dinghy to go hiking. You can look for fossils. Sucia has great trails that go through evergreen forests and wetlands. We can go beachcombing, which your mom loves.”
“Oh, it's gonna be so fun.”
“You’re right. It’ll be great fun, sweetie,” I agreed, smiling.
Armond continued telling stories long into the night.
We slept peacefully in the V-berth in Woohoo’s bow, snuggled together in our double sleeping bag, while Elinor slept on the long cushion on the starboard side of the main cabin. The boat rocked gently with the tide.
That night I dreamed of skiing with Armond and Elinor at Mount Baker near Bellingham, and in the dream I couldn’t find Armond. Elinor and I were looking for him everywhere. There was a storm—a whiteout—and Elinor and I took shelter in the lodge, but Armond was not with us. We were both crying and afraid, and I didn’t understand why I couldn’t find him. I awoke with a start, sitting bolt upright in the V-berth, hitting my head in the process.
“Are you okay?” Armond asked sleepily.
“I had a horrible dream. We were skiing on Mount Baker, and I couldn’t find you anywhere.”
“Oh, come here. It’s okay, babe,” he said, pulling me close.
“I think this was a warning dream,” I said in his ear, remembering the eerie dream. “I need to get you an emergency beacon before we go skiing again,” I whispered to him.
“Okay—we’ll get it, then,” he agreed.
“It was horrible. Elinor and I were so sad and afraid,” I said to him, near tears.
“It’s gonna be okay, babe. It’s gonna be okay,” he reassured me, holding me firm.
It took me half the next day before I could shake the terrible feeling I had.
We spent the next two days hiking and beachcombing Sucia, and Elinor was elated to find three fossils. Each night, we stayed on the island long enough to witness the sunsets, which started with pinks, then purples, and then ended in bright orange colors. Just before it all left, we would get into the dingy and motor back to the Woohoo, seeing the colors reflecting off the calm sea like a mirror.
We left Sucia to make our way to North Pender Island in British Columbia, about eleven nautical miles west of Sucia. Because of the winds and currents, we ended up doing a lot of tacking and sail adjustments. The going was slow, so Armond pulled up the dinghy, and Elinor and I climbed down the transom ladder into it, while Armond clipped himself into the cockpit for safety. He steered Woohoo while Elinor and I had a two-hour ride together in the dinghy. It was wonderful on a day of slow sailing. Late in the afternoon, we entered Otter Bay Marina from the Swanson Channel.
Elinor and I set to showering on shore, and then we washed clothes while Armond settled our moorage, topped off our water-storage tank, and looked over the Woohoo. We had dinner at the marina after we had all showered. During the meal, we decided that the next day we’d hire someone to help us explore North Pender Island’s coastline in kayaks.
Ned Hawkins was an expert kayak guide whose recommendation preceded him. Ned insisted that Elinor kayak with him, and Armond and I took the second vessel together. We were not disappointed when we discovered seals, herons, and five separate sightings of bald eagles. Our trip turned to pure joy, however, when we were joined by harbor porpoises and then a little later by Dall's porpoises. After Ned explained the difference between the two, it was easy to identify the Dall’s porpoises because of their uniquely thick bodies and small heads, as well as the white markings on their flanks. Their coloring resembled that of Orcas. The peak of our expedition came, though, when we spotted a pod of Orcas from our kayaks.
“Orcas!” Ned shouted as though he suddenly had a bullhorn. “Kayak paddles up,” he instructed sharply.
We all lifted our paddles, then froze as he’d shown us before we started.
The killer whales seemed huge from our low vantage point. Ned reached forward and gave Elinor’s shoulder a squeeze and said something to her. I immediately was appreciative that he had insisted that Elinor kayak with him. As we drifted together silently, the pod of seven came very close, within about ten feet of us. I couldn’t believe how straight and tall their dorsal fins were. Ned pointed out a very large male. It was about twenty-five feet long, with a dorsal fin that must have reached over five feet high. I watched in awe as it smoothly swam past us, both breathtaking and frightening at the same time. The black and white of its shiny skin, the way the salt water slid from its sides…I knew this was something I would always remember.
I glanced toward Elinor, and I could tell she felt the same way. In all the years that Armond and I had kayaked the islands, we had never seen an Orca from the water. Armond reached to me and took my hand in his, linking us forever in this snapshot of time. For the few minutes that the pod swam near us, I marveled at the adventure I’d never expected to have. As the Orcas moved away, Ned explained that the core Orca habitat is the entire Georgia Basin, which included the South Puget Sound, the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Rosario Strait, Georgia Strait, and the entire San Juan Islands. The whales travel in large groups, chasing salmon in the summer months.
Later, I asked Elinor what Ned had said to her when he squeezed her shoulder. He had said, “Prepare yourself for the most beautiful sight you’ll ever see.”
He was right.
We were high after that experience—none of us could stop smiling. We spent the next two days exploring North Pender Island, swimming in the heated pool at the marina, and eating.
On the third day, we headed out.
We were fortunate to catc
h a tide on our route back to Bellingham harbor. Woohoo’s theoretical hull speed was six knots, but we were able to hit nine knots when we sailed in the current. It was a wild, fun, exhilarating, and fast sail back to Bellingham.
Chapter 22
BELLINGHAM, WASHINGTON
The Year 2015
Remembering those perfect days was a balm to me. When Armond was alive, I was cocooned in his trust and protection. I felt that nothing could harm me when I was with him. Remembering those perfect days in the San Juan Islands, I could now see that my dreams were warning me even then.
Bob called me on my cell phone just after I arrived in Bellingham from the Washington, D.C., conference.
“Ann?”
“Hi, Bob. Good timing—I just got in.”
“Everything go okay on the flight?”
“You mean besides the fact that the TSA is completely out of their mind?” I exclaimed.
“Did something happen?”
“I got shuffled into the see-through-your-clothes x-ray machine at the airport,” I said sarcastically.
“Oh, is that all?”
“Nope, that’s not all. You gotta hear this.”
“Okay.”
“I get through the obnoxious machine, and I’m standing next to the conveyer, putting all my electronics away, and I hear these TSA guys talking. I look over, and these two dweebs are hitting the color and enhance button whenever women pass through the machine. A couple of perverts. Then, as I keep watching, I see one guy look at his boss, who is standing just behind them, and he turns to him and says, ‘Two.’ The boss looks over at the next person in line, who is a huge Tongan-looking man, and the boss says, ‘Three and you’re on.’”
“What?” Bob asked.
“Listen. So the first guy says, ‘Twenty bills.’ The boss nods yes. When the Tongan comes into the scanner, the two TSA guys and their boss lean forward, looking at the screen closely. The boss says, ‘One…two.’ He’s counting. One TSA guy tells the Tongan to raise his arms above his head. The boss again says, ‘One…two…three.’ And the TSA guy dejectedly passes his boss a twenty. Then I realize what they’re betting on, Bob. It was the fat rolls on the guy,” I exclaimed.
“Oh brother. The TSA have never been the brightest bulbs in the pack. You know that.”
“I couldn’t believe it. And these are the guys that are supposed to be protecting us from another 9-11.”
“The TSA are babysitters, nothing more,” Bob replied.
“Anyway, enough about our national voyeur security. Did you find out anything about my pursuers?”
“Yes, I did learn a few things.”
“Yeah, what?”
“First, the project is still live.”
“What? Did you know about that, Bob?” I accused.
“No, I didn’t. I had no idea. It was moved to another agency, like I told you in D.C. And I think you know which agency it went to, Ann.”
“The only one that cared about it.”
“Yes.”
“Are they the ones who’ve been asking my friends why I was in that other place we spoke about?”
“Well, kind of. They sent private contractors. So it’s not them, but it is them.”
“Oh great.”
“Ann, I think I’ve persuaded them that the information they received was faulty and that you weren’t there. So none of your friends should be hearing from them anymore.”
I sighed in relief. “One thing I remembered that I didn’t tell you before was that I thought I saw a man.”
“Where?”
“In my dream, right after I found the crystal.”
“Explain it to me.”
“Well, I picked up the Herkimer and realized what it was to me, and then I thought I saw a man out of the corner of my eye, and when I turned that way to get a look at him, he wasn’t there. It felt strange.”
There was no response from Bob.
“Bob?”
“I’m here.”
“Well?”
“It was someone live, Ann.”
“Looking at me?”
“Yes.”
A remote viewer was watching me dream?
“We need to be careful with this part,” Bob said, discreetly warning me about discussing classified information on an unsecured line.
“Okay.”
“Do you remember your first day going live?”
“Of course.”
“Do you remember the coordinates?”
“I think I can recall them.”
“Remember those skills we taught you. They will help you now.”
“Okay.”
“When you do so, Ann, take the information and compare it to the recent earthquake. Do that. You might come up with something interesting.”
“All right,” I agreed.
“Be careful,” he warned me.
“Of what?”
“Sweet dreams. Remember that. Do you have people you can trust there?” he asked, sounding worried.
“I have one, maybe two here.”
“Find out. Confirm it. If not, remember you’ve got me, but I’m pretty far away.”
“Well I hope I won’t need anyone’s help.”
He paused.
“I hope so too, Ann.”
After hanging up, I thought about the phone call for a while. I first tried to reason through what I knew so far. The remote-viewing project was still live—but at another government agency. If another group had Project Stargate, it meant that it was being used, because we’d already proven that it worked. So they were likely using it on active targets. They were using it knowing that it would kill most of the viewers.
They’d had a viewer active while I was dreaming of being in Shanghai. Of everything, that probably scared me the most. I had just discovered the now non-existent boundary between my conscious and subconscious minds. The new remote-viewing group, it seemed, had found the connection much earlier, and I was reaching to understand the implications. The new viewers could see my dreams as if they were with me—as if they were viewing the same location at the same time I was dreaming.
I’ve lost my anonymity. I felt sick. I barely made it to the toilet in time before everything inside my guts turned inside out. Sitting on the bathroom rug, I thought. I’ve worked for so long to maintain my privacy. I deserve it. Now, every time I dream, they could be watching me. I was starting to get angry.
Getting up, I washed my face and brushed my teeth, then went in my bedroom, kicked off my shoes, and crawled into bed. Emotionally exhausted and deeply drained, I fell asleep.
I woke up soon after, fear spearing through me. My face felt sweaty, and I looked around the room for the threat, but then I remembered: the threat was in my mind. Had I dreamed? I looked at the clock and saw that I had only dozed off for a little over a half hour. I didn’t remember dreaming.
It had been twenty years since I’d tried to remote view. I tried to tell myself that it was like getting back on a horse after being bucked off.
But horses don’t generally inflict an early death on their riders.
I was nervous, but I decided that now was as good a time as any to remount.
Moving to the living room, I sat on the sofa with my clipboard and pencil, preparing myself to start the Transcendental Meditation. Even after I’d left Project Stargate, I practiced TM and had found it to be an extremely effective tool for reducing stress in my life. After Armond’s death, I even attended an Ayurvedic healing retreat at the clinic on Salt Spring Island in the San Juans. They taught me that TM could open an infinite reservoir of creativity and intuitive intelligence. I became even more devoted to meditating after that, practicing it daily.
After twenty minutes of meditation, I slowly opened my eyes to the clipboard paper and wrote the time and the word BEGIN. I then imagined that day, twenty-five years ago, when I conducted my first live remote view.
On my paper, I drew the large remote-viewing room at the CIA, where small groups of people sat q
uietly, all with clipboards in their laps. I sketched a man sitting, with another man sitting behind him. There was also a woman. The man nearest the woman handed her a piece of paper. On that paper were numbers…coordinates. I wrote them down.
Latitude: N 31° 14' 10.7712
Longitude: E 121° 29' 9.9126
Finished, I wrote END, along with the current time. I had successfully viewed my original target coordinates. The feeling of being a passive observer of my own self in the past was surreal.
“Sinéad, tell me the latitude and longitude for the epicenter of the Shanghai earthquake.”
She began, “Latitude: N 31° 14' 10.7712, Longitude: E 121° 29' 9.9126”
“Stop.” The coordinates were the same. Oh my goodness. My first live target at the CIA was the Bund Hotel. Did I see the future, or did I create it? Did the swinging door in my mind carry my subconscious to reality and, through my dream, generate the epicenter of the earthquake at the Bund?
The phone rang, pulling me away from my thoughts.
“Sinéad, take a message,” I abruptly instructed her. I wasn’t ready to talk to anyone. After a few moments, the phone stopped ringing.
“Message ready, Ann.”
“Replay the message.”
“Ann…it’s Paul. I know you’re back from D.C. Now…about that date…”
“Stop.”
My brain was tired. I didn’t want to deal with this right now. Then I thought of Bob’s reminder. I needed to know whom I could trust. It would have been easy to tell myself that didn’t apply to Paul…but I wasn’t sure anymore.
