by Al Macy
“Yes, yes. There is one unusual thing that we saw. I’m pretty sure this is related to the sneeze.” He looked at the different faces on the videoconference screens at his end, as if waiting for someone to say “And?”
“First,” he continued, “I should mention that there’s been no increase in UFO sightings recently. But there is something …”
Everyone sat up a bit.
“We have an asteroid-detection system that watches for objects that might hit Earth. A computer program continually examines successive CCD images of space, watching for anomalies that indicate—”
“Seth, let’s save that background for later,” Charli said. McGraw had a tendency to get bogged down in technical explanations.
He looked up. “Right. Well, a few weeks ago, a computer that searches for incoming asteroids, said ‘Hey humans! I’ve found something you may like. Check this out.’ It had located an object that wasn’t following the path you’d expect an asteroid to follow. When we looked closely, we found this object had an unusual light curve as well. I’m going to need to give you some background here.
“All asteroids tumble and all asteroids are irregularly shaped. So, as they tumble, the light reflected from their surface changes. We call this their light curve. But this object, now about as far from us as Jupiter, didn’t have a typical light curve. Not at all. Based on the light reflection, we think it has a multi-faceted surface, like a diamond. The guys call it ‘Diamond Jim,’ or ‘DJ1’ for short.”
“DJ1?” Guccio asked, “What, are we expecting a DJ2 soon?”
“No, it’s just that ‘DJ’ sounded like someone’s initials, like a person. ‘DJ1’ sounds like a thing, so it seemed more appropriate. Anyway, back to the light curve. The light curve tells us that it jerks quickly from one orientation to another.” McGraw paused as if figuring out how to explain it.
“Let’s say you’re in a forest, searching for bird nests. As you walk, you jerk your head to look at one crook of a tree, stare for a second, then jerk to a new tree.” McGraw moved his head around, rotating or tilting it quickly, holding it in position and then moving it again.
“Well,” he continued, “There’s one flat surface on DJ1 that’s much bigger than the others, again, like most diamonds. Since we’re pretty much between the sun and DJ1, whenever that surface is facing us, more sunlight is reflected than when it’s facing a different direction. There’s a big blip in the light curve. Now, it had never faced toward us and paused. We only saw that blip briefly when it was jerking from one orientation to another. Understand?”
Nods all around.
McGraw’s face lit up as he delivered the payoff. “When we sneezed, that big flat surface was pointed right at us. And from then on, it hasn’t stopped pointing at us.”
“Speculation?” asked the president.
“Maybe when it stared at us it did something that caused us to sneeze. I think that DJ1 was looking for something, and at the moment we sneezed, it found it.” That was greeted with hundred-yard stares.
“However,” McGraw continued, “There’s something even more important going on here.”
“More important than a huge diamond-shaped thing in outer space making people on Earth sneeze?” Young was now tapping the tip of his nose with his pen.
“Yes, and here it is. You guys ready for this?” McGraw’s eyebrows were as high as they could go. “It takes light 42.2 minutes to get from DJ1 to Earth. The sneeze happened 42.2 minutes before the light curve indicated that DJ1 was pointing at us.”
“Wow.” Charli nodded. Now we’re getting somewhere.
“Hold on, I don’t get it.” Guccio held his hand in a stop gesture. “You said that they happened at the same time. Now you say they didn’t.”
“No, they did happen at the same time. We just didn’t see DJ1’s movement until the light from DJ1 reached us 42.2 minutes later. It’s like lightning. You see the lightning, but the sound doesn’t reach you until later.”
“Okay. Why is that so significant?” asked Guccio.
“It means,” Charli said, “that DJ1 is capable of generating a wave that travels faster than the speed of light.”
McGraw threw out his hands. “Ta-daa!”
* * *
May 26, 2018
Charli put her feet up on her desk, leaned back, and scrolled through the file photos of Jake Corby. His nose was one size too large for his face, as if someone had photoshopped it in but gotten the size wrong. He had a timeworn look, like a favorite old tool that had been used frequently.
In one picture, taken at the top of a ski resort with Lake Tahoe in the background, he held his wife as if carrying her over a threshold. He supported her effortlessly even though she was wearing skis and poles. At first glance it looked like he was kissing her, but on closer inspection his puffed out cheeks were clear. He was blowing a raspberry against her face, and she was laughing. Goofing around. Charli pulled on her ear as she stared at the photo. So much love and happiness. She looked at the date on the back. Jake’s wife was murdered soon after that shot was taken.
Charli’s office was a few doors down from the Oval Office. It was the smallest one in the West Wing. That suited her fine: less space for clutter. The surface of her desk contained a telephone, a picture of her grandmother, and a photo of a favorite nephew. Nothing else.
Charli tore herself away from the image of Jake when NSA agent Chandra Bark entered her office and sat in the visitor’s chair. Bark could have passed for a Bollywood star and wore traditional Indian clothing.
“Jake Corby is dead,” she said. “He spent time in Canada on a cycling trip, sailed across the Atlantic, solo, then down around The Cape of Good Hope and up past Madagascar toward India. He hasn’t been heard from since, and his boat was found drifting, empty. That was two years ago.”
“So, what do you think? Pirates?” Charli leaned back in her chair, her palms together with her chin resting on her fingertips.
“Pirates, yes.”
“No,” Charli said after a pause. “I don’t buy it. Not yet anyway. You’re giving up too easily. Any unidentified bodies wash up over there?”
Bark’s face reddened. “We haven’t looked into that, but you wouldn’t expect … it’s a big ocean. An investigation found signs of violence.”
“What signs?”
“There were gunshot holes in the hull and blood in the cockpit.”
“Corby’s blood?”
“We don’t know. We didn’t do the investigation,” Bark said.
“Who goes on a sailing holiday in the most dangerous, pirate-infested waters on the planet?”
“Granted.” Bark began to sweat, and her voice sounded strained. “But adventurers, such as those traveling around the world, have done dangerous things like that for years. And pirate attacks on private yachts, especially tiny ones like his, are actually rare.”
“But if you wanted to fake your death,” Charli said, “That would be one way to do it.”
“I can think of lots of easier ways than sailing around the world.”
“Yeah, good point. Let’s not give up on this, though. Is there no money trail?”
“No. He has lots of money, but—”
“How much?”
“We figure at least thirty million.”
Charli whistled. “That’s all from his kidnap-proofing consulting company?”
“Yes, plus royalties from his books. The company, Corby Solutions, based in Mexico City, provided seminars and training to help executives become harder to kidnap. It also had a rapid-response team available whenever a kidnapping did occur. Even if a corporation ended up paying, Jake’s company usually brought the ransom way down. For those reasons, they could charge top dollar.”
“And his books?”
“He has one for corporations, Kidnap-Proofing, and one for families, Safe Kid: The 25 Steps You Must Take Today to Keep Your Child From Being Abducted. The latter gets onto the best-seller list every time a child kidnapping gets nation
al attention.”
“Interesting. Any good?”
“Both of them are excellent. Despite the alarmist title, the family book is thoughtful and smart. I’ve implemented some of the ideas.”
Charli looked down at her legal pad. Everyone she worked with had at least one child. There’s no way I would be where I am today if I’d married and had children. Maybe with a house-husband—
“Miss Keller?”
“Sorry.” Charli looked up then back down to her pad. “What about the money trail? I assume he stopped paying taxes?”
“Everything was consistent with him disappearing and dying, but the money trail is complicated. We have an expert working on it, but he hasn’t made much progress.”
Charli stood up and paced to the window and back. “Okay, what else are we doing to find him?”
“I’m not sure you want to know.”
Charli stopped and looked at Bark. “Ah. That would be wiretaps?”
Bark blushed again. “Yes. Friends, relatives, people he used to work with.”
“Chandra, you’ve got to step up the effort on this thing. Act as if you know that he’s alive. Pretend he called you on the phone yesterday and taunted you. Can you do that?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good.” Charli had a flash of an idea and wrote the words “Jake magazine” on her pad. “Mrs. Bark, let’s meet again tomorrow. Right now I’m meeting with my psychic—and that’s something I never thought I’d hear myself say.”
“One other thing.”
Charli looked at her watch. “Yes?”
“Corby has a brother, name of Louis Corby. He’s been hospitalized for mental illness twice and is now the top producer of methamphetamine in Kansas City.”
“Whoa. You have a tap on his phone?” Charli walked Bark over to the door.
“His phones have been tapped for a while.”
“Okay, we’ll start with that tomorrow, I really have to go now.”
* * *
Charli sat in her office reading through the background information on Adina Golubkhov, shaking her head occasionally. What a story!
Golubkhov had osteogenesis imperfecta, sometimes known as brittle-bones or glass-bones disease. Only four feet tall, her body looked like something a demented toddler might make out of clay. While she read, Charli held her hand over the grotesque photo that accompanied the file.
Born to Russian parents in Finland, Golubkhov had received a normal education and was an above-average student, proving that her disabilities were physical only. She walked, with her two crutches, like an overly-cautious four-legged spider.
Despite her caution, at age thirty, one of her crutches slipped on a discarded candy wrapper, and the spider’s head went down hard onto a cement curb in Helsingborg. Her brain bounced around in her skull so violently she sustained multiple subdural hematomas and spent the next year in a coma with little hope of recovery.
But one day, when a nurse was turning her over to prevent bedsores, Golubkhov opened her eyes and rasped, “The cafeteria is burning the rice, you had sex this morning, and the doctor in the hall had oatmeal with blackberries and an avocado for breakfast.” The statement was especially surprising since the cafeteria was four levels below, the nurse had taken a shower following sex, and the doctor in the hall was at least forty feet away.
Adina Golubkhov’s newfound olfactory ability was astounding but not controversial. Several other cases of vastly improved sense of smell related to brain damage had been written up in medical journals.
Her psychic abilities, on the other hand, were controversial. She claimed to have gained a second sight and was famous for predicting that Michael Jackson would die of a drug overdose. Of course, she also predicted that Lindsay Lohan would die in a car crash and that Bono would run for a political office.
Her file included a transcript from a radio show during which Golubkhov talked with callers:
Golubkhov: Your mother died.
Caller: Yes, that is true.
Golubkhov: She died on a Friday.
Caller: No, she actually died on a Saturday morning.
Golubkhov: She die Friday at 3 a.m.
Caller: She died early morning on Saturday, so perhaps you meant—
Golubkhov: Yes, Friday night. And never said goodbye.
Caller: Well, we talked for a long time that day.
Golubkhov: On Friday.
Caller: Yes. But you’re right, she never actually said the word “Goodbye.”
“I hate this,” Charli said to her assistant, who had come in to announce the arrival of the clairvoyant. “Do people still fall for this stuff? Reminds me of arguing about ESP in high school. This is the best we could come up with?”
“Remember that you did say you were going to have to change your beliefs. You asked for someone relevant. She appeared on a talk show and made the host cry.”
“But not sneeze.”
Her assistant laughed. “No, that would be asking a little too much.”
“I saw the recording of that show. I thought it was open to different interpretations. She is in reception now?”
Charli walked down the hall. High heels would have helped with her height problem, but she preferred sensible shoes. She moved with the mindless grace of a dancer, still reading her notes as she went.
In the reception area she approached her visitor. “Ms. Golubkhov, thank you for coming on such short notice.”
Golubkhov eased herself up onto her crutches. “I knew you were going to say that.”
Charli grinned, seeing that the woman’s charisma was part of her appeal. Somehow Charli hadn’t expected a sense of humor from someone with such grotesque deformities. She walked behind her guest during the painfully slow trek back to Charli’s office.
Golubkhov dropped into the visitor’s chair, a controlled crash landing, and leaned her crutches against the desk. “I sense you are skeptical. Do not worry. I was non-believer before my accident. I am used to skepticism.” Although she spoke with an accent, sounding like a Russian gangster, her voice was clear and strong, unaffected by her disability.
“Good. Thank you for saying that, because I don’t have time to sugarcoat my comments. To be blunt, I see you as either the worst kind of fraud, or more likely, someone who has deluded herself.”
Golubkhov nodded. “I hope your indigestion will not influence this interview.”
“My what?” Charli asked as she sat down behind the desk.
“You had too much orange juice with breakfast this morning. It triggered heartburn.”
Charli froze and her mouth dropped open. “Well. You are right.” Could there be something here after all? “Is this a psychic thing, or are you picking up … ah, your sense of smell.”
“Yes. Sorry to be coarse. You burped in office before coming to meet me.”
“Wow.” She adjusted some things on her desk, lining them up. “That is an amazing gift.”
“Is curse.”
“Yes, I can see how it could be. Let’s start with that, something that we can agree on.”
Golubkhov shifted in the chair. “Imagine you were color blind and woke up one day able to view all colors. Is how it was for me but with smells. Every other sense—sight, sound, touch—is like nothing compared to sense of smell. Each person’s ‘smell face’ is much more … distinct … than sight face. Put twenty people I have met in room, I tell you who is there from smell alone. But is much more. I can tell emotional states in way that is impossible through vision.”
“Yes, I’ve seen videos of you demonstrating that.”
“It goes with ability to influence emotion. Smell and emotion. Closely related.”
“Do you think you could make someone sneeze?” Charli asked.
“No. Since event I have tried. No success.”
“Could I ask you to influence my emotion right now?” Charli stared at her to see if the request would elicit a hesitant response.
“I am not carnival performer.”
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“Something simple. Make me laugh, cry, feel scared, anything. I would like to be convinced. It could help our investigation.”
“Very well.” Golubkhov raised her arms toward Charli and waggled her fingers, exaggerating her accent. “You are under my power, Dahlink. You vill be hungry, like bear.”
Charli laughed in spite of herself. “Please be serious.”
Ms. Golubkhov became still and stared at Charli.
“Wait,” Charli said. “Which emotion are you going for?”
“Tell me what you feel.”
Charli smiled. “No, most people are aware of some emotion at any time, perhaps you could write it down, and then we can check it.” She came out of her chair and handed a pad and pencil over the desk. After writing, Golubkhov became still again and stared for sixty seconds.
At the end of the minute, Golubkhov asked “What did you feel?”
“Absolutely nothing. Frankly, I’m getting irritated and annoyed with how this is going. We are not getting anywhere, and I’m afraid I’m wasting my time. You are charismatic and funny, and I like you, but this all seems silly.”
Golubkhov held out the paper, and Charli reached over the desk to get it. Written on it: “Annoyance, impatience.”
Charli let out a whoop of laughter. Her guest was smiling. Charli said, “Oh, that’s rich. Are you serious? Of course anyone would have predicted those emotions. Anyone could see that’s how I was feeling.” She went over to the wall and tacked the piece of paper to the bulletin board and returned to her desk. “I’ll get a laugh out of that every time I look at it.”
“Turn paper over.”
“What?”
“Turn paper over. Look what I wrote on other side.”
Charli got up again, went to the board, and turned the paper over. She read “Laughter.” She laughed again. “Well, that’s a little better, but anyone with a sense of humor could also have predicted that. Ms. Golubkhov, I’m sure you play chess?”
“I do. Please call me Adina.”
“Well I think you always see several moves ahead.” They were both laughing now, and Charli wasn’t sure whether Golubkhov had been serious or joking. “But Adina, we have a serious problem to resolve. Do you know anything about the sneeze?”
