“We all serve the Master. Perhaps He has willed that the time for these Earth people to join the rest of the universe has come. Perhaps they are needed.”
“I feel that too. They will grow and come to understand much more than even we about the universe. They are a new race. I think we have been guided to bring them out from their planet to walk among others.”
The Brigade had been welcomed by the Parmans. It was as if they knew that those they called integrators, those who would teach them about the known universe, would themselves be new to space travel. The two species got along famously, and the entire Parman orientation took less than two years. During that time several Antarean spaceships were adapted to use Parman guides in their propulsion and navigation systems.
When the orientation and integration process was completed, Parman guides were installed in the Antarean ships and, along with several human crew members, began expanded inter-galactic exploration. Many of the Geriatric Brigade chose to crew with the Antareans who regularly visited planets. Other served aboard Motherships that explored new planetary systems, while some stayed behind as permanent ambassadors to Parma Quad 2.
And so the Geriatric Brigade was scattered throughout our galaxy. Human influence was now and forever to be a part of the universal experience.
CHAPTER THREE – DOWN TO BUSINESS
The shopping center in Kendall was busy as the storm ended and gray skies gave way to patches of blue and sunshine. The mall parking lot showed signs of the rain, with several areas still badly flooded from poor drainage. Shoppers that the rain had kept away, honked and fought for parking spaces near the main mall entrance that was away from the flooded areas.
Ben Green and Joe Finley made their way cautiously through the parking lot toward the blue glass and ceramic tile building that housed the First Bank of Coral Gables. An elderly couple in a 1973 Cadillac Coupe DeVille that had seen better days raced through the lot toward a parking spot that was being vacated by another elderly couple in a new Buick LeSabre. Ben saw the Caddy pick up speed as another car, a 1982 Corvette convertible containing two teenage boys, headed for the same parking spot from the opposite direction. He reached over and pushed Joe Finley back as the Caddy roared into a flood pool of rainwater caused by the drain backup. A wall of spray spewed up into the air on both sides of the car, obscuring it from Ben and Joe’s view. The splash was followed by the screeching of brakes as the Corvette tried to avoid the oncoming Cadillac that was now behaving more like a motorboat than an automobile. As the teenagers swerved away, their car, with the top down and the radio blasting irritating, monotonous punk rock, was deluged with warm dirty rainwater from the Caddy’s wash. The two boys wound up stalled in the middle of the flood, soaking wet and cursing at the top of their lungs as the couple in the Cadillac slipped into the now empty spot, oblivious to the epithets being hurled at them by the teenagers.
“In some way I really miss Florida,” Ben mused, observing the couple as they locked the car, gazed momentarily at the Corvette awash in muddy water above its hubcaps, and strolled toward Burdine’s.
“Just some senior citizens asserting their rights out for an afternoon of shopping,” Joe said as they approached the bank building, which was sandwiched in between Harvey’s, a classy home furnishings store and Loehmann’s, a women’s discount dress shop.
“Amos must be here,” Ben told his friend. “The girls are at it already.” Joe Finley looked ahead and saw his wife, Alma, firmly planted in front of the furniture store window, while Ben’s wife, Mary, was carefully studying the latest New York fashions in the dress shop window display.
“You can take the woman away from the shopping, but you can’t take shopping out of the woman!” Ben laughed as they waved a greeting to their wives.
If John DePalmer was surprised to see Amos Bright, he kept it to himself. Even though five years had passed, he remembered with absolute clarity every transaction he had processed on behalf of Mr. Bright. Of course Mr. DePalmer had no idea that Amos was an extraterrestrial, although he did suspect the man was not your ordinary, run if the mill, entrepreneur.
At their first meeting Amos Bright had asked to speak to then Assistant Manager DePalmer in private. He handed the banker several million dollars worth of diamonds, that DePalmer had then taken to Amsterdam and Tel Aviv and sold for cash and a generous commission. He had also purchased the Antares condominium complex, then an unfinished construction project, for Mr. Bright. And he had staffed it, managed it and eventually sold it on behalf of the last owner, Jack Fischer, to whom Amos Bright had signed over the ownership. Now as his old business associate sat across the table in the bank’s private conference room, DePalmer studied Amos and the two elderly couples with him.
“These past five years have treated you well, Mr. Bright. You don’t look a day older than when we last met.”
“I try to keep in shape. Let me introduce Mr. and Mrs. Green and Mr. and Mrs. Finley. They’re good friends of mine. We have some business we’d like you to help us. I assume that is if you’re still able to, shall we say, approach things with perhaps some unorthodox methods.”
DePalmer smiled and greeted the two couples. If only Mr. Bright knew how unorthodox things were now in South Florida. The banks were loaded with cash, mostly as a direct result of the drug traffic. But now that the federal government was cracking down on money laundering, the larger operators were moving their cash offshore, using the same “donkeys” - human carriers who brought drugs into the country and took millions of dollars in cash out. Recently twenty employees of a South American airline had been detained with more than seventy million dollars in cash on them collectively. Since the maximum amount allowed out of the country per person is ten thousand dollars, arrests were made and the money was confiscated. With that kind of pressure, DePalmer was sure that the major drug dealers would be seeking the bank’s anonymity again in the near future.
In the past, John DePalmer had not been in a position to deal with drug money. Actually, he was not sure he could go through with it now if the opportunity presented itself. He had friends in the banking community who had laundered money for huge fees. They hid their profits in Swiss and Cayman accounts, but deep down they knew they belonged to the ruthless dealers they served. DePalmer was still his own man, but he wondered if he could resist. The interest rates had fallen, the condo market was overbuilt and oversold, depositors had withdrawn huge sums to seek better returns through the stock and bond markets and he had several marginal loans that were now in doubt. Business wasn’t great, and his bosses were down on him, pressing for a better bottom line.
As those thoughts raced through DePalmer’s mind they were read by Amos and his four companions who were commanders. They silently approved of DePalmer’s honesty and agreed to help the man as best they could.
“We have two things we’d like to accomplish today, John,” Amos began. “The first is to locate Jack Fischer.”
“That’s no problem. I speak to him from time to time. Nice young man, although with all his wealth I think he should make more growth investments than he does.”
“Living the good life, is he?” Ben Green asked.
“Very much so. Wine, women and song, as the expression goes. Not to tell tales out of school. I like the young man. He just seems so lost…so aimless.”
“Well,” Alma Finley said, “maybe we’ve come along at the right time. I think we’ve got a business proposition for him that he just can’t refuse.” They all smiled. DePalmer laughed nervously.
“Let me give you his address and phone number. It’s unlisted, but I’m sure he’d want Mr. Bright to have it.” DePalmer wrote both down on a white pad, tore off the paper and handed it to Amos. “You said two things, Mr. Bright.”
Amos reached for the small leather case he’d kept tucked under his arm and placed it on the table. He unzipped it, opened the first compartment and withdrew a thin black Lucite box placing it on the table. He looked up at DePalmer.
“I still like to use
the same currency we began our business dealing with,” he said as he opened the box, revealing more than fifty Class-D, blue-white, six-carat diamonds, each worth more than fifty thousand dollars on the wholesale market.
“They’re beautiful. And perfect as usual?” DePalmer asked.
“Yes. We’d like to sell these, wherever you think best, open a few accounts, obtain some credit cards and the services of a first-rate travel agent.”
“I can arrange that,” DePalmer said as Amos Bright slid the case of diamonds across the table to him. He looked down at the stones just one more time and then snapped the box shut. “We can open the accounts now and a complete line of credit. My estimate is at least two million, possibly two point five in today’s market. Our corporate travel department will handle all your needs.”
“Excellent,” Amos answered, “Handing the banker a paper. “Each of us will want an account. These are the names. Divide the money evenly.” He stood up as did the others. DePalmer knew the meeting was over.
“If there is anything else you need, Mr. Bright…anything…I am at your disposal. You still have my home number?”
“Yes. We’ll be in touch. Thank you, Mr. DePalmer.”
They left after the accounts had been opened. Amos returned to the submerged spacecraft to advise those on Antares that the mission was well underway.
Mary Green headed for Miami Airport to catch a flight to New York. It had been more than five years since she had seen her daughter, Patricia Keane, and her three grandchildren. A reunion with them was a joy she had anticipated from the moment they’d left Earth. Her reunion would also be be a test to see how a family might react to a returning space traveler. Their acceptance of her story would affect others who wanted to…who had to return themselves.
Alma Finley hired a car and driver to take her to the Fort Lauderdale airport, where she would get the first flight out to Washington, D.C. She was going to call on an old friend and ex-boss from the days when she was an editor for NBC network television news. Caleb Harris was now the Washington Bureau Chief for the entire NBC news network. Alma hoped that she could convince Caleb that her fantastic story was true, and use his influence to arrange a meeting with the President of the United States.
At the same time Ben Green and Joe Finley, having rented a car, drove north on I-95 toward Boca Raton for their own meeting with an unsuspecting Jack Fischer. Jack was about to be folded back into the world of Antarean visitors from outer space and the Geriatric Brigade he’d helped to organize, process and depart Earth five years ago.
CHAPTER FOUR – TENACIOUS DETECTIVES
While Ben and Joe made their way along the crowded Interstate, Jack Fischer was saying goodbye to Cathy Chung in the driveway. He helped her put down the tattered roof of her bright orange VW Beetle.
“It’s gonna clear up,” he said, looking at the fleeting rain clouds as they gave way to patches of blue.
“Then you’ll be fishing with Doyle, huh?”
“I think so.” He opened the door on the driver’s side for her. She started to get in, then stopped and gave him a long, tender kiss.
“You’re a sweet man, Jack Fischer. Sweet but flighty.”
He laughed as she jumped into the car, started the little engine and backed out of his driveway, gears grinding and brakes squealing.
“I’ll call you,” he shouted after her, knowing his words were lost in the air rushing around her oval face and long black hair as it fluttered in the wind. “Later . . .” Jack turned and went back into the house to try to reach Phil Doyle again.
A block away, parked under a drooping poinsettia tree, Detective Sergeant Matthew Cummings, serving out his last year with the Dade County sheriff’s office before retirement, sat in his Olds Cutlass munching on a half-filled box of Fruit Loops. When the Oriental girl in the orange VW drove past him he slid down in the driver seat to hide. Cathy was concentrating on an old Stones tune and noticed nothing. After she passed Cummings put aside his snack and attentively watched Jack’s house.
The ritual of spying on Jack Fischer had been a part of Detective Cummings’s life for nearly four years, ever since all charges against Jack, regarding the strange disappearance of scores of old people from the South Miami area, had been dropped.
The worst part of Cummings’s frustration was that he, along with several Coast Guard vessels and helicopters, had chased Jack Fischer’s and Phil Doyle’s boats, loaded with old people, out toward the open sea in an area known as the Stones. It was obvious that the old people were being tossed into the sea, but when the police and Coast Guard had tried to stop them and make an arrest, their vision had somehow been obscured, the helicopters had malfunctioned and, except for Cummings, no one seemed to have a clear memory of what had happened.
When the area was cleared the old people were gone. Fischer and Doyle were there, outriggers spread with bait in the water as they fished the calm night sea. Above them, unnoticed, an Antarean Mothership loaded with hundreds of volunteer human senior citizens was but a flashing speck in the Florida night sky as the most fantastic human experience ever recorded, travel into deep space, had begun.
Cummings had pressed charges against Fischer and Doyle - kidnapping, transporting illegal’s, smuggling and even murder. There were people missing, but no evidence they had been on Jack’s or Phil’s boat. The eyewitnesses, mostly Coast Guard pilots and sailors, could not swear that they had seen these old people aboard. It was all confusing and vague in the pursuer’s minds. They had been in sight of two sport-fishing vessels, the Manta III and the Razzamatazz, and a small helicopter. The weather became foggy and an electrical disturbance caused their instrumentation to go haywire. Divers found no evidence and no one could actually confirm the fanciful story that Cummings told to the Coral Gables district attorney was true.
Jack Fischer, Phil Doyle and Madman Mazuski, the helicopter pilot who swore he was fish spotting for Jack and Phil, were brought in and questioned. The Antares condominium complex was in Jack Fischer’s name, and he was a man of financial means. He hired a top lawyer and things quickly cooled down.
Eventually, in an embarrassing confrontation in the DA’s office, Sergeant Cummings testified about old people jumping over the side in an act of mass suicide. His credibility became strained when he went on to talk about a huge underwater craft that emerged from beneath the sea just as a dense fog suddenly appeared. The DA rolled his eyes and looked at Jack’s lawyer apologetically. When the Dade County detective insisted that this was a “spaceship that took off into the sky” the DA halted testimony and asked to speak to Cummings alone. A week later the charges were dropped. Cummings was assigned to a desk for a year, along with his partner, Coolridge Betters.
But whenever he could, especially while Jack lived at the Antares complex, Cummings kept an eye on him, convinced that the greatest mass murder in the history of the nation had taken place. He believed that Jack Fischer, and his two cohorts, were responsible. After the condos were sold and Jack moved to Boca Raton, Cummings would still make the long trip north whenever he could. Someday, he swore to Betters, these killers would make a mistake, and he would be there to nail them.
Something in the air, a tingle down his spine, told Cummings that today might be that day. Moments later, as Ben Green and Joe Finley pulled into Jack’s driveway and got out of their car, the disgraced detective knew his vindication was at hand.
“I’ll be goddamned,” he gasped, sliding down out of sight once again; his balding head and bloodshot brown eyes barely visible above the dashboard. “It’s two of those old farts that were on Fischer’s boat. They jumped over the side, but they’re back. Alive. It’s going down again. I can feel it. Okay, you old murdering farts, this time I’m gonna be ready for you!”
Ben and Joe heard Cummings’s thoughts. They made a mental note to deal with him later. Right now they had more pressing business with their old friend, Jack Fischer. As they approached the front door,
Jack hung up the phone. He had
reached Phil and told his friend he’d be at the dock in a half hour. Something turned him around as he walked to his bedroom to dress for fishing. Something pulled him toward the front door; then the doorbell rang. He shuddered and slowly opened the door. Before he saw them, he knew who was there.
Ben Green smiled broadly across his ageless face. “Hello, Jack. How the hell are you?”
“Good to see you again,” Joe Finley added quickly, extending his hand in greeting.
“Oh my God!” Jack knew they were there, but he couldn’t believe it. “Is it really . . . are you two who I think you are . . . who I know you are?”
“In the flesh,” Ben answered.
“May we come in?” Joe asked, feeling Cummings’s inquisitive eyes burning a hole in his back.
“Sure . . . sure. Christ, you guys look great!” The two men stepped into the house. Jack closed the door and stared at them. “I never thought I’d see you guys again. Well, not so soon anyway. So, how is everyone? Jesus, you’ve actually been out there? What’s it like? Where did you go? How’s Amos and Beam . . . and . . .” He stopped abruptly, realizing that he was babbling and the two old men were staring at him with broad grins.
“Let’s sit down, Jack,” Joe suggested, “and we’ll tell you everything.”
They went into the living room, and as the two older men sat on a white silk couch Jack went to the bar and poured himself a stiff scotch on the rocks.
“You guys want one?” he asked.
“No thanks,” Ben said.
“Maybe a beer?” Joe asked. “It’s been a while since I had a cold brew.”
“No beer out there, huh? Sounds like a good business to open.” Jack reached into the bar refrigerator. “Heineken?”
“Perfect.”
He brought the beer over to the couch and settled in an easy chair nearby, taking a slug of his scotch.
“You live alone?” Joe asked, taking a long draw on the frosty green bottle.
The Cocoon Trilogy Page 26
