by Linda Hawley
I nodded again, doing my best to win the Academy Award.
She returned only a few minutes later.
“I explained it to the hotel manager, and he’s allowing you to check in with cash only, as long as you have government ID and pay for the room up front, plus a two-hundred-dollar deposit. Your room is prepaid, and I see you have the ID, but do you have enough cash for the deposit?” she said, leaning towards me again.
“Thank goodness, Samantha, I have just enough,” I said, playing along. “Here you go,” I said, sliding across two hundred-dollar bills.
She took the cash, gave me the room key, and returned my ID.
Success.
“I know how you feel,” she said with a wink.
“I appreciate your help, Samantha. Thank you,” I said sincerely. She had no idea that she just helped me keep my anonymity.
Crossing the plush lobby to the elevators, relief exuded from me as I let the breath that I didn’t even realized I’d been holding go. Riding the elevator up the tower with three others, my heart began to slow down from its race.
When I entered my room, I immediately was drawn into the view. Framed before me was the Pentagon building, clear as day.
It was as if I was given this room to remind me of why I was fighting the good fight in the first place. Standing there with memories of my days with the CIA washing over me, I dropped my bag on the floor beside me as I stared ahead.
It’s been a long time, old adversary.
Chapter 15
LANGLEY, VIRGINIA
The Year 1995
I was in the large remote-viewing room, waiting for John O’Brien.
“This one comes in urgent, directly from the Pentagon,” John said to me as he sat down across the table.
“The Pentagon?” I asked in surprise, looking at him. “How do they even know about our program here?”
“Grace. After she left Project Stargate, she moved to an anti-terrorism group at the Pentagon. It’s from her group that the request has come.”
“I didn’t realize she went to anti-terrorism.”
“Yes. So it’s urgent, but no pressure, Ann.”
“Right…no pressure,” I said sarcastically. “Okay, John. Let’s do it.”
“That’s what I love about you,” he said sincerely.
“What’s that?” I asked, looking at him.
“You…your attitude. Once you vent your thoughts, usually in sarcasm, then you let it go and get on with the business at hand. You are the most remarkable woman that way—you just don’t hold a grudge.”
“Thank goodness, otherwise we certainly wouldn’t be friends,” I said to him in jest.
“See, that’s what I mean. Very funny, lass,” he said with a wink.
“I’m ready when you are.”
We moved out to the remote-viewing room and took our seats.
“Okay, here we go,” John said, handing me a piece of paper with map coordinates, minutes, and seconds typed on it.
John didn’t know anything about the target, in order to keep the remote-viewing session clean.
On my lap sat a clipboard with a plain piece of paper clipped in, and I had a pencil in my hand. I studied the information on the paper that John had given me until I felt that I remembered it, handed the paper back to him, and then closed my eyes. I started the Transcendental Meditation technique. After twenty minutes, John lightly tapped my hand, which indicated that he would start asking me questions.
“What do you see?” he asked softly.
Opening my eyes, I began to sketch the images floating in the back of my mind. I was drawing fast, with impressions of a tense situation flooding my senses. John knew enough to leave me to it and was not prompting me.
I drew the seven men present and the interactions I was sensing. In the remote view, I not only saw the group, but I myself was standing directly behind them, watching, not two feet behind the soldiers. Four Asian men dressed as civilians stood in front of three American soldiers—all of them Navy SEALs—dressed in black from head to toe. It was clear that the SEALs were captives of the four men and had been disarmed.
The lead SEAL was arguing with his captors not in English, but in Chinese. He was clearly pleading for their lives. The man in charge was pressing the SEAL leader to answer a specific question, but the SEAL said something that agitated him, and he responded by using the butt of his pistol against the SEAL’s head. He fell flat on his face, unconscious. The intensity in the room built. Another SEAL took the leader’s place in begging for mercy. A look passed between the captors, and the man in charge pointed his gun at the runner-up SEAL leader and calmly pulled the trigger.
As the gun went off, I felt something wet on my right arm. I looked to the right and saw the blood and brains of what had been the SEAL splattered on my arm. As I noticed the deep, dark red color, the gun went off again, then once again.
“They’re dead…they’re dead…they’re all dead!” I screamed at John.
John moved to within a few inches of my face, peering into my eyes. “Ann…lass…tell me what you’re seeing,” he pressed quietly.
“They knew,” I screeched, looking intently at him, my adrenaline peaking with the images still flooding my mind.
“Who knew what?” John asked with concern.
“The Pentagon!”
Bob Hadley was suddenly sitting beside John, within a breath of me.
“Calm down, Ann,” John said, putting his hands on both of my forearms.
“Don’t tell me to calm down, you Irish bloke,” I hissed, shaking off his hands. “They knew,” I said looking at him and then Bob, anger filling out where adrenaline once was.
“Tell me what the Pentagon knew,” John asked, brushing off my words.
I was silent, trying to make sense of the remote view.
As I fit the pieces of the puzzle together in my mind, I relayed them to John and Bob.
“They wanted me to remote view the assassination of three American SEALs so that I would be their witness, confirming the killings,” I said flatly. “They already knew the soldiers would be executed,” I added, shivering violently.
“How many SEALs were there?” John asked, trying to get me to focus on the details to pull me away from my emotions.
“Three…and there were four Chinese civilians,” I answered, the images clear in my mind.
John was writing down the details.
“One of the men was in charge with control over the three SEALs,” I continued. “The Americans were unarmed and pleading for their lives in Chinese. Then the civilian leader suddenly pulled up his pistol and shot the soldier nearest me in the head, point blank.”
“What do you mean the SEAL nearest you?” John said softly.
“He was the soldier who was closest to my position in the room.”
“Ann—you were in the room?” Bob asked in surprise.
“Yes. I wasn’t just seeing the room from the outside this time. This time, I was actually in the room itself. I saw everything from my viewpoint just behind the SEALs.”
A look passed between Bob and John.
“And then when he shot the SEAL, the spray from it was on my arm,” I said, looking at my arm now. “I had blood and brains on my arm, John,” I exclaimed.
Bob and John looked at one another again, a silent communication underway.
“What was that?” I protested. “Why was I in the room, instead of just observing it?” I said, agitated.
Bob answered me.
“I don’t know, Ann. We haven’t had this happen before.”
“Red. It was deep red…” I started. “The blood on my arm was such deep red,” I said quietly, looking at my arm again. “It was just here,” I said, pulling my sleeve away from my arm and rubbing it with my hand.
“Could it be that she was truly present?” John asked Bob.
“It’s not anything we’ve ever imagined could happen,” Bob replied, intrigued.
“Don’t get any ideas, Bob.
I was there. I wasn’t observing an event impassively in the background. Three guys were shot point blank in front of my face,” I said, exasperated.
John looked at me curiously. “Ann?” he cried out.
“I don’t feel so good…” I said, my gut twisting with the image of brains on my arm. Nausea filled me. I jumped up and ran to the other side of the room, just reaching the bathroom in time.
As the vomit spewed from me, so did the tears as I vividly recalled the executions in slow motion.
The guns were so loud, deafening me, then the red blood, and seeing the three bodies fall to the floor, with parts of their heads missing. The bullets should’ve hit me, but they didn’t. How could the bullets not hit me when the blood did?
I rose from the toilet and washed my face and hands in the sink. As I looked up at the mirror and saw my face, it was clear that I was in shock from what I had just witnessed.
As I opened the bathroom door to leave, John and Bob flanked it, waiting for me.
“Let’s go to my office,” Bob instructed.
“How could the blood hit me, but not the bullets?” I asked them.
They didn’t reply.
John and I followed Bob, with John holding my arm protectively. When we reached his office, Bob closed the door behind us. He then took the seat behind his desk, and John and I faced him in two additional chairs. It smelled like pipe tobacco.
I felt as though I were in a bad dream, and I spoke before I finished sitting. “Why wasn’t I hit with a bullet?” I asked Bob directly.
Bob just looked at me.
I turned and looked at John, questioning with my eyes. He was also silent.
“We’ve never had anyone in the history of Project Stargate be directly affected by the events they were viewing,” Bob said to me, matter of fact.
My mind was reeling.
“She was there,” John said to Bob, as though I weren’t in the room.
“She just flew over across space and time—to Shanghai?” Bob asked John.
“Why not? Look at all the other things she’s accomplished,” John said, with his hand on my arm.
“How is that even possible?” I said, my eyebrows arched.
“We didn’t know it was possible, Ann. This is new ground you’ve just broken,” Bob said enthusiastically.
I jumped up reflexively and leaned into Bob’s desk.
“I just witnessed the execution of three American soldiers,” I screamed, trying to get as close to Bob’s face without crawling over his desk. “The Pentagon knew they would be executed, and I was their witness.”
“Tell me how you know that, Ann,” Bob said calmly, standing to face me.
“I just know. It’s a feeling I had as they were being executed. It was so strong…more like knowledge that was pouring into me. I just knew.”
“Let me make a call,” Bob said, sitting down again.
John tugged on my arm for me to sit. I snatched my arm away from him angrily, continuing to stand, but I backed away from the desk slightly.
Bob pulled a small leather book from the middle drawer of his desk and laid it open before him. He picked up the secure phone on his desk and dialed a number from the book.
“Charles…it’s Bob Hadley,” he started.
“Yeah, we finished. Before I give you the results, can you confirm something for me?” Bob asked.
“As you know, Charles, in order for us to view it, we have the same need-to-know that you do. We already viewed it, so need-to-know is not an issue,” he justified to Charles.
“Thank you. My question is simple. What did you think would occur during the meeting?” Bob asked.
Bob listened, and as I watched his face, it betrayed no information, impassive as if he’d pulled up a shield of armor.
“Okay. Give me fifteen, and I’ll call you back with the results,” Bob replied and then hung up the secure phone.
“What was their expectation?” John asked Bob.
Bob looked at John, eyes narrowing. “Ann’s right. They knew.” Bob looked at me. “You were the confirmation of death,” he said to me, grimly looking into my eyes, his mouth contracted.
I sat down hard. I felt a betrayal of the country I had served. I was a pawn in the defense department’s game.
With eerie calmness, I said to Bob, “I’m done.” Then I looked into John’s eyes. “I’m tired, John,” I said, exhaling.
“What?” asked Bob, looking bewildered.
“When I come in tomorrow, I’ll bring my resignation,” I said to Bob flatly.
“Now, Ann…there’s no need to resign. We’ve had one bad day here—” Bob started.
“A bad day? Those Pentagon idiots used me to confirm a kill of American SEALs!” I yelled. “During my time on this project as Air Force, and since then as a CIA employee, I’ve only remote viewed situations that helped America defend itself. Everything I’ve done until today, I’ve done for the cause of democracy in the world. But today…today…I was a pawn of the Pentagon,” I said.
I looked over to John, who remained still, and he gazed back with soft eyes that seemed to have aged.
Closing my mouth, I stood and left without uttering another word or looking back.
Chapter 16
ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA
The Year 2015
Remembering my last day at the CIA as I stared down my nemesis through the hotel window was a vivid reminder of what I was fighting against. That day was my last remote view, until recently.
Many years later, Armond and I were discussing my work with the CIA, and he thought I was denying my God-given talent. I remember he asked me, “Can’t you just believe in your gift?” That made me mad, and we ended up having a huge fight.
I closed my eyes to the view of the Pentagon, took the few steps to the hotel bathroom, and quickly stripped off my clothes, trying to shed the bold images in my mind of those Navy SEALs.
I had an hour until I had to be at the GOG meeting. I stepped into the shower, and as the hot water streamed over me, I let the memories drip away.
Thirty-five minutes later, I was dressed in Patagonia black hemp pants, a wrapped gray-blue cotton blouse, and Keen walking shoes. I exited the hotel with my messenger bag draped across my body and headed to the Pentagon City entrance, which was connected to the Ritz via a long corridor.
Entering the mall area at the third floor, I headed toward the escalators, which would take me to the main floor. Since the ceiling above me was glass, the mall was flooded with bright natural light. I was supposed to meet my contact at the food court on the main floor.
It was easy to find, for the reek of grease. Making my way through the crowds, I approached the Orange Julius. I was second in line. My contact was supposed to find me by my order.
“One plain hot dog, please,” I said louder than usual, because I didn’t see anyone near the counter who could be my contact.
The previous customer had already left.
“What to drink?” the tall, stocky black man asked with a pleasant smile.
“Nothing.”
“You can’t just eat a plain hot dog without a drink,” the thirty-something pressed again with a smile.
“Just the dog.”
“You know how the bun gets stuck to the roof of your mouth when you eat it plain?” he asked, leaning toward me. “If you don’t have a drink, how’re you gonna get it off?” he asked in all seriousness.
He was right.
As I laughed, he leaned farther over the counter, entering my personal space, and whispered, “Code?”
The laughter froze in my throat.
After taking a moment to think, I whispered, “Cherry blossoms.”
“D.C.,” he confirmed. “Give me a minute. I’ll come around,” he said quietly.
That was a surprise.
Standing off to the side, my hot-dog vendor joined me less than a minute later, having shed his messy apron. He approached me with a hot dog and a drink, handed them over, and then led me away
by the elbow. I reluctantly dumped the hot dog and drink in a garbage can once we had cleared the food court.
He was at least a foot taller than me and must have weighed two hundred sixty pounds; he was all muscle. Dressed in a yellow polo shirt, khaki pants, and Docker shoes, he fit the D.C.-area uniform. I could see that he was leading me towards the metro entrance; I knew better than to speak to him while we walked. Occasionally he looked casually back over his shoulder. The third time he checked, I could feel in my gut that we were being followed. Mr. hot-dog vendor was serious and sober, watchful and wary.
He leaned toward me as we walked faster. “Tag,” he said quietly, looking forward.
I knew the protocol. We had to split up. “How many?” I asked quietly.
“One that I can see. You take the blue line going into D.C., and I’ll take the yellow line heading the opposite way. Stay safe,” he whispered.
Looking over at him for just a moment, his face looked serious. He reached up and squeezed my elbow. We reached the entrance to the down escalator, where we immediately split up; I took it alone, heading for the blue metro line.
I’m on my own now.
I walked down the escalator as it moved, passing as many people as possible, briskly walking towards the metro card scanner. Thank goodness I had bought a card at the airport when I arrived. Holding it up, the barrier slid open, and I rushed to catch the blue-line train, which had just arrived at the station. I slipped in the doors just before they closed and then exhaled as I looked out the door’s window. No one seemed to be focused on me or trying to follow.
Maybe he’s on the train with me.
Sitting in a bench seat near the door, I slumped down as low as possible. The train was a little more than half-full, with people standing. That’ll help disguise me.
“You’re on the blue line. Next stop, Pentagon Station,” the announcer informed us.
It figures.
I turned and looked at the metro map above my head and, seeing brochures, quickly grabbed one. Upon opening up the map, I could plan where to go.
Where can I get lost among a crowd?
It came to me quickly.
Union Station…lots of people from the metro, plus the railroad.
