by Tom Holloway
The lead fighter pilot is excited and blurts out, “Come in, this is Charlie Nine…Holy hell! I can’t believe it. What is this thing? It’s huge…just massive…never seen anything like it! Covered with some kind of weird metal; totally black yet it glows in the sun. Wow!…Look at the aft frontal spear…hard to believe…it’s a long pointed sword blade like an old-time cavalry saber. This is definitely a military ship! Over…and stand by.”
Captain Gawlik, the command officer, reacts from the aircraft carrier: “Copy that; this is T-bone, request ID…Start video of the craft with starboard cameras…Report back…Say again? And over.”
“Wilco,” responds the pilot. Then, after a few seconds, “Come back T-bone, this is Charlie Nine…Video in progress…It has enormous outer-space rocket burners off the rear; looks like it’s used for off-planet thrust, probably nuclear, and really strange-looking. Copy?…Come back…You should be getting a visual off my nose camera…Stand by.”
“Roger that; this is T-bone! And stand by,” the captain responds.
“Charlie Nine here…What do you think? Over…Come in…Should we try to make contact?”
The aircraft carrier captain responds, “T-bone here; I copy, we see it…The starboard camera video is transmitting…Be careful. It’s massive…Don’t do anything hostile…Zoom the camera in on it if you can. Scan to the starboard, then port, back again…We can see it clearly and are searching our database…Nothing like I’ve ever seen…No one here can recognize it, and our systems analysis report says it’s not known. It could be experimental from somewhere. You’re now in Mexican airspace. We will notify the Mexican authorities…Copy?”
“This is Charlie Nine, copy that…”
“Roger, T-bone here, we will stand by…Try to make radio contact. Ask for identification…Over.”
The pilot replies, “Charlie Nine…copy…will do…I’m tuning in all wavelengths and frequencies…Stand by…Could it be Mexican experimental? It’s freaky strange or a major weird-looking rocket ship…My guess, it’s not Mexican…No country could build this. It has massive fusion burners…A real chance this is not from this planet. No one today could build those nuclear thrusters off the stern. They must weigh tons. We have a real UFO. Maybe it really is an alien ship. Certainly not a Chevy, guys. Definitely built for outer-space travel, lots of thrust; looks like it’s powered for massive speed. Just really look at those red-hot nuclear burners pushing it…amazing! I am transmitting now on all frequencies…I will try to make contact. Stand by.”
The pilot then says through his intercom, “Attention…Come in…Come in…Attention, starboard aircraft…Please identify your craft and origin…Need for you to respond…Do you copy? Affirm…Come in, black ship! Do you copy me?…Please confirm your identity.”
No response.
The other pilot, the second F-16, shouts, “George Two here…Roger that…we have no reply…T-Bone, none of this is good; it knows we’re here…It has to be military and real lethal, built to kill, really scary, one bad-looking dude! I don’t like this. Come back…Over…Affirm.”
Captain Gawlik shouts over the radio, “Roger that, George Two…T-bone here…You’re right! We do not engage! It’s looking like extraterrestrial time, guys, Time to call Section 58. The big boys need to know about this one. I’m relaying your visual to the Pentagon. Over and out.”
My turn to look them over; it’s time to change the game. I hit the brakes using Saber’s antigravity traction force field. They zoom on by me. I hit the gas, and I’m up behind them. I smile as I hear their chatter saying I’ve vanished.
Of course then the AWACS controller sees me behind them. He panics, yells that I’m about a hundred feet behind them, maybe twenty feet higher, right on top of them. I’m now following them really close, so close I might be able to read their name tags. I’m for sure in position for looking them over, good to see them up close. The ships are slow, with primitive technology and simple weapons. All three pilots panic, each peeling off in a different direction, scattering fast.
I think it’s a good time for me to go, too. I hit my burners, blasting forward, feeling that tremendous surge, vanishing again as I head up into the skies. The fiery blast is trailing behind me for miles, and I’m moving fast enough to feel the pain of gravity, making it hard to breathe with the massive chest pressure. Climbing at seven miles a second, I’m up fifty miles from Earth in seconds, beyond reach, and heading cross-country to have a delicious lunch at my favorite restaurant in Manhattan. I need to make it there by eleven thirty. The reservation was made ten years ago. It would sure be disappointing to miss it and wait another ten years for the next one. I know my law firm has called them to remind them I’m coming and to confirm my reservation.
Chapter 3
Day One—Visit to New York City
In Manhattan, in a paneled van, pulled off into a vacant lot, two men are making the life of one teenage girl really miserable.
Heidi is sobbing, afraid, fighting for her life, trying to break free; as they bind her with duct tape, she cries out, “Why are you doing this? Please don’t hurt me. I’m supposed to be home; my mother expects me. Please let me go. I’ll tell no one. I can’t see you. My eyes are taped shut. Please, please, please don’t hurt me.”
The blows are coming fast and hard, hitting her face with loud smacks, her cries now muffled by the tape over her mouth.
Heidi feels overwhelming terror, knowing she is doomed; she tries to struggle against the tape on her wrists and ankles. She wails, “Someone please help me! Please, God, I pray to you in my time of need—please save me,” yet the cries are muffled by the tape. Again she feels a painful blow against the side of her head, then more against her face, to her chest, and a hard blow to her stomach. She passes out.
Her name is Heidi Nealfertie. She is fourteen and a freshman at Saint Patrick’s High School, a good student and well liked. She helps out at the school’s food bank one evening a week, coming home later, when the streets are not so busy. She walks many times to save money and because she loves to walk.
She wasn’t paying attention, as she was on her cell phone with her best friend, Kati, who has many problems—being sick and in a poor family are just two. Heidi helps Kati with everything. As she has no sisters, Kati is her sister, and they share everything, including cell phones—Heidi pays for Kati’s. Heidi works cleaning her grandmother’s apartment every Saturday. She loves her grandmother dearly, and her grandmother adores her and is delighted by the weekly visits. Heidi then helps Kati with the money her grandmother pays her. Kati would go hungry except Heidi pays for her lunches without her knowing it.
The men caught Heidi by surprise on her way home from the food bank, grabbed her, and put her in the van. She never had a chance. They kidnapped her roughly off a side street, at an alley entrance, making a quick getaway. She happens to be the only daughter of a New York City Department of Health worker. He inspects restaurants and has the power to evaluate them or even shut them down.
Heidi comes to, still dazed, dried blood on her nose and mouth, now in a filthy old abandoned warehouse. The duct tape is gone; her wrists are shackled with metal chains, a collar around her neck, chained to a beam, and she is naked. She immediately feels sick, vomits. Then, looking at herself, shocked, then looking around, terrified of what she sees, and she knows her nightmare is coming, her papa had warned her so many times. The men see her, knowing she is looking at them, and they have taken off their masks; she sees their faces. Heidi now knows she will not survive this. She braces herself as they come for her. The next couple of hours are as bad as she imagined: she is beaten, then she is strung up by her wrists, hung from a beam, her feet barely able to touch the floor.
Normally Heidi is a bright, happy girl, is fun to be around, and loves her parents and her friends. They appreciate her for her kindness; she is always there for them. She’s pretty with long dark hair. She’s always been sheltered, surrounded by kind people, never had much in material things, yet she is lo
ved dearly by her family and friends.
Now she is naked, petrified, severely bruised, in a lot of pain, humiliated, and sobbing, desperately pleading for her life, looking small and fragile. One of the men is taking a video as another one is whipping her hard with a belt. She is suffering, each hit painful; her screams are loud and woeful. She is frantic, begging them to stop, trying to evade the blows, hysterical from the belting. Red welts are covering her body, her face bruised, bloody, and more pain added with the loud smack of each hit.
One of these two men is in charge, yells at her: “Look at the cell phone camera, you little bitch!” Then he tells her to ask her father to save her, to start talking and look directly at the cell phone camera’s eye. She wails with clenched teeth, tears rolling down her cheeks, and then begs for her life as she looks directly at the phone camera. She cries out, “Papa, Papa, please help me.” Then, sobbing: “I love you, Papa. Tell Mama I love her.”
The boss scans her naked body with the cell phone camera, the lens showing the ugly marks on her. He laughs! He is a cruel man enjoying her pain; he has done this before with other young girls. He knows it works.
He e-mails the video to her father, and then Marco, the one they call the boss, calls him. The call is answered on the second ring.
In a heavy Italian accent he says, “George, my name is Marco; do you hear me? Did you see the video? You know who she is, right? Do you love your daughter?”
Heidi’s father shrieks, “You son of a bitch! My daughter, why? Who are you? You have her? You’ve hurt her! Why? Why are you doing this? I am not a rich man. I am just a city worker. I can’t pay you much. Have I done something to you? What do you want? Why would you hurt a child? Do I know you?”
Marco laughs, responds, “No, you don’t know me. You have the video? Good! Yeah, I have your daughter. Stop talkin’! Be careful what you say. Now listen carefully! Yes, your daughter, Heidi, is still alive, and yes, I sent you the video. If you want this to stop, and if you want to save Heidi’s life, you need to do exactly what I tell you. If not, believe me, she will suffer badly because of you. First of all she will be whipped again many times. She will be raped. She will suffer. We will then drug her with our best heroin; she will become addicted. I personally promise you she will end up in a brothel in Thailand, as she will be sold. She will bring a good price, and you will never see her again. You understand, right?”
George, with much fear in his voice, says, “Yes, yes. Why did you do this? Please, I will do whatever you want. Please, she is our only daughter! I beg you, please don’t hurt her! What do you want from me?”
Marco tells him, fortunately for him, he does not need money to save his daughter, just to follow his instructions exactly. He continues, “George, listen carefully! It’s easy. There are three restaurants you will inspect for me. Make the arrangements as soon as possible. I will e-mail their names and contact information. You will give them bad marks after your inspections. You will call and threaten each restaurant with shutting it down due to health violations. You will tell them if they cooperate their problems will go away. You will call and tell them they will be contacted by me, then hang up. That’s it. George, it’s easy, your daughter comes back to you when this is done. For her sake hurry, and no police. No police! You understand, right?”
The father is crying on the phone, begging Marco not to hurt his daughter. He moans in misery, frantic to save his daughter, then blubbers out that he will take care of it exactly as requested, and no police.
Marco smiles and says, “Call when you make first contact with the restaurants and then when it is done. Call me at this phone number. I will make arrangements to give your daughter back then. Her life depends on you.”
After the phone conversation, the men take Heidi down from the rafters, clean her up, and put her in a steel cage the size of a big closet, over in a corner of the warehouse. There is a filthy mattress and a thin dirty blanket on the floor and a bucket to perform toilet needs. A small worn-out table with a lamp with a bare bulb is in one corner. A pitcher of water and a cheap plastic glass sit next to the lamp. There is a sack of candy bars and some packages of chips on the table. Heidi’s backpack and books are on the concrete floor. She sits on the mattress, naked under the blanket, shivering, sobbing hysterically, and then she slowly lies back on the mattress, wrapping her arms around her legs, pulling the blanket around her, exhausted.
Marco closes up the warehouse, locking all doors. The warehouse is his, in a deserted bad neighborhood. No one will ever hear Heidi, and she will be sold off soon, at one of the foreign storeroom auctions, and probably for a nice price, just like the other girls. She will clean up well and probably be a quick sale; virgins sell better. He smiles and thinks how easy this was; young girls are his specialty. The father will have to be taken care of, too, and the mother, no loose ends. Dead people can’t talk.
It is good to enjoy one’s work; rewarding, too. His plan is working well so far. All three of these restaurants will be paying him, and the current management will be gone in time. Eventually he will put in his guys to run the operations. He laughs in anticipation, thinking money is a good thing. He smiles at the thought of one more small chore. He needs to revisit one restaurant today, a little Italian place on West Ninety-Fifth Street in Manhattan. The real owner does not live in New York yet will be there today. He will be surprised by this visit. Smiling, Marco is thinking it will not be a good surprise for the owner. He laughs. These rich guys are all the same when cornered. Sometimes they even cry and beg. It’s something to look forward to. He laughs.
The Saber is hovering above Manhattan, about two thousand feet up, in stealth mode, maneuvering for my visit, now over my destination on West Ninety-Fifth Street.
I say to myself, “Good to be in New York City.”
I’ve barely arrived on time. I plan for one hour to eat lunch at my little Italian restaurant in Manhattan. The food is fantastic. I love the spaghetti! The place is not far from Central Park, and I plan to walk in the park, too; I will enjoy seeing it again. I’ve already called my law firm to let them know I’m here and will be having lunch at the restaurant.
It’s surprising to me even now, sixty years later, that I still own this restaurant. On my first trip back to Earth in 1954, I stopped to eat at this little family Italian eatery in New York. My law firm recommended it and gave me directions. It was late in the evening. Wanting some really good spaghetti and not having had any for ten years, I finally found the restaurant on Ninety-Fifth Street in Manhattan. I sat at a well-worn table and ordered spaghetti, and the meal was terrific. I loved the place.
The restaurant was mostly empty in the late evening when I finished. Sitting there waiting for the bill, the dining room quiet, I could not help noticing there was much crying in the kitchen. So I left my table and found a young couple, both in tears—Alfonzo and Rosa, the owners of the establishment. Both were dressed in worn-out, weathered clothing; both with faded, stained aprons; standing among all the pots and pans; both in great despair. They were an attractive couple yet aged more than their youth, lines on their faces from worry, yet still fine-looking people.
Neither could speak English well, and they were alarmed at my presence. Before they could say much, I asked what was wrong, and with a lot of coaxing they told me their story. They had emigrated from Italy four years previously, looking for work in the United States. Italy had been a mess, as it had been not long after the war, so they had come to Manhattan. They had struggled to start their restaurant and had two more children, adding to the three they had brought from Italy. Unfortunately one child had become very ill and required extensive hospital care. The huge medical cost was bankrupting them. After all their efforts, they said, they were going to have to sell the restaurant to pay the medical bills and might lose their children, as they were unable to feed them.
There was lots of discussion between us. I met the whole family, and there were more tears, many tears. The end result was that I bought the
restaurant. I gave them twice their asking price. I also leased it back to them for a dollar a year on a ninety-nine-year lease. I gave them complete control, and they would receive all the revenue. It was a very good deal for them.
I made only two requests. I asked for free spaghetti dinners on my visits there, as every ten years I would be back. The second condition was secrecy. They needed to close the restaurant for the hour I would be there. It would be critical to always keep me a secret and confidential partner, to never ask questions, and to tell no one when I would be there for a visit. Alfonzo and Rosa were stunned by my offer, even suspicious, not sure about me, questioning why I was so generous, why I was helping them. Yet after a while, they took the deal. Later, through the years, they were happy and grateful for the partnership. I became part of the family, and they gave me credit for saving them—for being sort of their guardian angel. They forgave me for the ten-year absences and were delighted to see me on every visit back.
At the time I had my law firm follow up after the deal. The next day the firm gave the couple the money, drew up the contract, and worked out the details. The law firm also took care of all their legal issues as the years went by, for no charge—rather, I paid for it. The law firm was there to advise them.
Now it’s time once again for an excellent lunch! I am looking forward to the wine, too. I hope Alfonzo and Rosa are well.
The Saber, in camouflaged mode, drops altitude, down to two hundred feet, to allow me to use a power beam. When no one is around, I quickly take a single-person power beam down. It’s invisible. I drop off in the alley behind the restaurant, close to the back door, look around. I see no one in the alley and hear people talking, voices coming from the door. It’s open, maybe waiting for me. I immediately smell the wonderful aromas of the Italian kitchen: the tomato sauce, the different cheeses, garlic, coffee, baking bread. I know Alfonzo and Rosa are expecting me, as my law firm arranged the time and notified them of my arrival. I smile, walk in the door.
