PSI/Net

by Rob MacGregor

  PSI/NET

  By Billy Dee Williams and Rob MacGregor

  A Mystique Press Science Fiction Novel

  Mystique Press is an imprint of Crossroad Press

  Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press

  Copyright 2013 / Billy Dee Williams and Rob MacGregor

  Cover photography courtesy of: Zane Wilson Photography

  Cover design by: David Dodd

  LICENSE NOTES

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to the vendor of your choice and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Meet the Authors

  Rob MacGregor is an Edgar-winning author, who has been on the New York Times bestseller list. He is the author of nineteen novels, thirteen non-fiction self-help books. He writes both adult and young adult mysteries, adventure, and science fiction/ fantasy. He's best known for his seven Indiana Jones novels. He and his wife, Trish, maintain a blog on synchronicity and have written two non-fiction books on the topic. In his spare time, Rob teaches yoga and meditation, and he's an off-road mountain biker and windsurfer.

  Book List

  Young Adult Novels

  Double Heart

  Hawk Moon

  Prophecy Rock

  Adult Novels

  Time Catcher

  Romancing the Raven

  Crystal Skull

  Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

  The Peril at Delphi

  Dance of the Giants

  The Seven Veils

  The Genesis Deluge

  The Unicorn’s Legacy

  The Interior World

  Peter Benchley’s Amazon: Ghost Tribe

  JUST/IN TIME with Billy Dee Williams

  PSI/NET with Billy Dee Williams

  Non-Fiction Books (with Trish MacGregor)

  Aliens in the Backyard – UFO Encounters, Abductions & Synchronicity

  The 7 Secrets of Synchronicity: Your Guide to Finding Meaning in Signs, Big and Small

  Synchronicity and the Other Side: Your Guide to Meaningful Connections with the Afterlife

  www.trishjmacgregor.com

  www.robmacgregor.net

  www.synchrosecrets.com

  www.synchrosecrets.com/synchrosecrets

  William December "Billy Dee" Williams, Jr. (born April 6, 1937) is an American actor, artist, singer, and writer best known for his work as a leading man in 1970s African-American cinema, in movies including Mahogany and Lady Sings the Blues, and for playing the character of Lando Calrissian in the movies Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back and Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi.

  DISCOVER CROSSROAD PRESS

  Visit our online store

  Subscribe to our Newsletter

  Visit our DIGITAL and AUDIO book blogs for updates and news.

  Connect with us on Facebook.

  Join our group at Goodreads.

  PSI/NET

  To Mom—Loretta Anne Williams

  and my children—Corey, Dee, and Hanako Anne

  To my late father, Donald MacGregor,

  who always listened and encouraged and who

  shared my interest in the realms of

  the unknown

  Special thanks to remote viewers

  Joseph McMoneagle, David Moorehouse,

  and Angela Thompson Smith for their

  encouraging comments on the manuscript

  THURSDAY

  Chapter One

  The raft surged through the rapids, water splashing over the bow. Four sets of oars flailed the air and slashed the foaming white river. Helmets glinted in the midday sunshine and orange life vests bobbed across the rough waters. The rafters bantered back and forth.

  "Now don't fall out again, Sam. I'm getting tired of dragging your ass back in here," chided a broad-shouldered man with hair tied in a ponytail to the chunky, bearded man on his right.

  "Knock it off, Art. It's getting old. At least I keep my screw-ups to the river and not the office."

  "Oh, touchy, touchy."

  At the stem, river guide Trent Calloway tightened his grip on the rudder. His annoyance surged with each caustic exchange; he wanted to tell them both to shut up. Take it easy, he told himself. He'd talk to them as soon as they reached the rest stop. He shifted the rudder, moving the raft closer to the right side of the river. All the rafters, except Calloway, worked for a California software company and the trip was a company perk that they'd chosen.

  Calloway peered out at the sandstone walls that rose on either side of the river. The rushing waters had etched out shallow caverns so that the walls seemed to lean over the river. He spotted a well-known petroglyph of Kokopelli, the ever-present hunchbacked flute player whose image had been carved on walls throughout the Southwest by the ancients—the Anasazis.

  Not far now to the last rest stop, he thought. Then, they would make the final run to Mexican Hat, the end of the two-day trip from Sand Island.

  Calloway had been hired as a guide last summer after taking a trip down the San Juan River with a local outfitter. The company had been short of help for the high season and Calloway simply said he wanted the job. He'd told Ed Miller, the outfitter, that he was retired from the air force and that was good enough. If Miller wondered why the Afro-American, who was still in the prime of his life, lived alone in a twenty-foot Airstream that he hauled behind an aging pickup, he didn't ask and that was fine with Calloway.

  The San Juan ran high and fast, good for thrills and less chance of hitting rocks, but there was always the danger of losing a rafter or two over the side. The men wore helmets and life vests, but a tumbling rafter could still be seriously injured. The eight men with him, all in their twenties and thirties, enjoyed the challenge. But Calloway was glad this one was almost over. Twice now, Sam had fallen over the side. Fortunately, he'd clung to the lines and had been pulled back into the raft. The last incident had happened an hour ago and he was still taking heat from Art. Calloway was ready to tie him down and maybe stick a rag in Art's mouth.

  "Okay, work hard now, concentrate," he barked. "This is a tricky rapids coming up. We're going to drop down fast so hang on tight."

  "Hear that, Sam. That means keep your fat butt down," Art yelled.

  "You too, pal!" Calloway shouted, then impulsively leaned forward and smacked the palm of his hand against Art's shoulder. At the same moment, the raft dropped down. The dip was faster and steeper than even Calloway expected. Icy water sprayed over everyone. The raft bounced hard, everyone lifted up, and when the raft came down, Art was gone.

  "Oh, shit!''

  He jammed hard against the rudder to keep the raft from going into a spin and when he looked over his shoulder, he glimpsed a blob of orange surrounded by foam ten feet away. He hurled a safety line back, but Art missed the rope. The raft hurtled through the white water and Calloway lost sight of him.

  "Great. Just great," he muttered to himself.

  "Art went over!" Sam yelled. "Where'd he go? I don't see him."

  Calloway veered around a rock and into a pool of quiet water near the wall. He spotted Art floundering in the rapids fifty yards downstream. The others shouted and pointed. "Okay, paddle hard. Let's go get him."

  He nudged the rudder, turning the raft out into the middle of the river. Art still bobbed in the strongest part of the current and drifted farther and farther away. Then he disappeared around a bend. They paddled furiously. When they rounded the sandstone wall, the cho
p diminished, the water turned so calm that it felt as if the place were under a spell.

  A flat, sandy area opened on the right, sheltered by low cliffs—the rest area. Calloway knew it as one of the better sites for viewing Anasazi petroglyphs on the cliff walls. Art stood in knee-deep water. He waved and hooted when he saw them and the sound echoed eerily around them.

  "What a rush! That was great!" Art chortled.

  But Calloway didn't pay any attention to him. Ten yards beyond Art stood three Indians—a man, woman and boy—near a fire. One of them, the man, held a fish on a stick, and all three ignored the rafters, acted as if they weren't even there. The man and boy wore loincloths, the woman was bare-breasted and garbed in a skirt that looked like deerskin. Long, scraggly hair added to their primitive appearance; they looked as if they'd just stepped out of the past. Suddenly, the man locked gazes with him and Calloway felt a sharp jabbing pressure against his solar plexus.

  Feeling like an interloper, he looked away, and turned to Art, who trudged up to the raft. "Are you okay?"

  "I'm fine. Did you push me?"

  Calloway ignored the question. "C'mon. Get in. Let's go."

  "Hey, why don't we stop here?" Sam said. "This place looks great."

  "No, let's not bother them."

  "Bother who?" someone asked.

  Calloway looked up. No Indians. No fire. As if they'd never been there.

  Chapter Two

  Retired Colonel Gordon Maxwell stood in front of the full-length mirror, a towel slung low around his waist. After staying fit all of his life, he now had trouble keeping the extra pounds off, even when he stayed with the goddamned low-fat diet. He could only imagine what he'd look like if he still ate all those big, juicy steaks, the baked potatoes slathered in butter and sour cream, even the salads covered with high-caloric dressings. In the old days, he could get away with it. Not anymore.

  Maybe it was part of the male menopause thing. If the hormonal change in men actually existed, as some people claimed, Maxwell figured he was experiencing the symptoms. He never slept eight hours anymore and he got up to go to the bathroom once or twice. Then there was the usual aging process, the graying around his temples, the balding spot at the crown of his head, and the loss of his ability to focus on anything in front of him without reading glasses.

  He fought hard against the slow physical deterioration. He worked out regularly, even though he kept straining muscles and ligaments that seemed to take forever to heal. He looked at his long face, straight, thin nose, and his gray, hooded eyes. He smiled. At least he remained handsome in the same mysterious sort of way that had always intrigued women. But how much longer would that last?

  He didn't like thinking much about the future, at least not when it dealt with his own mortality. The irony, of course, was that he called himself a futurist, someone deeply concerned about coming events. When he spoke tomorrow at the Western Governors Conference, he'd be introduced as a retired air force colonel and a futurist who had served government agencies during his military career. Upon retirement, he had started a private consulting business and had begun teaching part-time at the University of Colorado.

  He straightened his back, inhaling deeply, smiled as he imagined the crowd applauding as he approached the podium. This was clearly his chance to make an impact, one that would ripple across the nation, and he wasn't about to pass it up. He stared into the mirror, tightened his hold on the towel, and practiced his opening lines.

  "Not long ago, one of my students asked me a curious question," he began. "She said, 'What good is the future, anyway? Every day we wake up to the present. The future always remains out of our reach—in the future.'

  That was when he expected to hear a few laughs. A silly story, but it would loosen them up. Then he would continue. "She made a good point. What good is the future? More specifically, what she meant to say, is: 'What good is studying the future?'

  "I answered by telling her that we are presently living in yesterday's future and yesterday we wondered how we could be better prepared for today. Of course, that's what futurists attempt to find out."

  He would start soft and touch on the academic world's perspective, and show how the futurists of the mid-sixties had accurately predicted a "greening" of America. "Over the past thirty years, we've seen a growing interest in the environment, holistic medicine, natural foods, and vegetarian diets. We recycle our garbage, work to save our rivers and wetlands and celebrate Earth Day. We spend billions of vitamins and herbs each year. We eat far less meat, and watch our diets as never before. Meditation, relaxation, and yoga are practiced by millions. Blah, blah, blah.

  Then he'd tell them how inaccurate the futurists had been regarding technology. "For the most part, the futurists of the sixties did not foresee the widespread use of computers in the home or the development of the Internet as a viable mass communications system. They saw people living on large space stations and colonies on Mars, but they didn't foresee that millions of us would spend hours each day in something called cyberspace. That was a big miss, a very big one. So how can we expect anything better from today's futurists?"

  He would move on to the hard-edged, life-and-death scenarios of the military and their use of psychics. He would give them several examples of how remote viewers—many of them military officers—had tuned into future events as well as present events occurring elsewhere. Then he would finish with a startling prediction that would leave them buzzing. By evening, he would be featured on the national news, then the interviews would follow. He would gain national stature, the visibility and power that he longed for. Of course, he couldn't talk about everything. His most important projects could never come to the public's attention. But the publicity would bring in new clients interested in remote viewing.

  He glanced once more at his reflection, then moved over to the closet, where he pulled on a robe. Maxwell expected a waiter to arrive with his dinner at any moment. He walked across the luxurious room and looked out the eighth-floor window of the Brown Palace Hotel onto downtown Denver. He'd never stayed here before, yet there was something about this hotel, something from the past, something significant, that he was forgetting. He'd been trying to remember it ever since he'd checked in two hours ago, but for some reason he couldn't pull it out of his memory banks.

  A tap on the door distracted him. He walked over, opened it for a man in a white coat with a dinner cart and covered platters. The waiter kept his head obsequiously bowed, as if he were studying the carpeting. He muttered something about dinner.

  Maxwell frowned, stepped aside. "Okay, bring it in."

  The waiter moved into the room, then slowly unloaded the cart onto the table. Maxwell slipped a couple of dollars from his billfold. "Okay, I'll take it from here," he said impatiently. "Here ya go."

  The man turned and stared at him, but didn't take the tip. A handsome, but tough-looking man of forty or so, the waiter looked more like somebody's security chief than a food server. "Hiya, Max. How are ya?"

  Maxwell, stunned, took a step back and stared at the stranger. "Who are you?"

  Then he recognized the icy pale blue eyes. He couldn't believe it. His heart pounded, his face flushed. He felt confused, disoriented. "General... ! I mean, George. Is that you?"

  George Wiley laughed. "You can still call me 'general.' Most people I see these days do. But to them, I am their general." He turned his head to the side. "So what do you think of my new look? It's a work in progress."

  Several seconds passed and Maxwell started to recover, but now his surprise shifted to fear. Any moment, federal agents might burst into the room. His hands trembled. His stomach twisted in knots. They would drag both of them away and Maxwell's hopes and plans would be instantly extinguished, forever gone.

  "Jesus Christ. What the hell are you doing here? I'm trying to protect you and you intentionally walk right into a hornet's nest."

  Wiley, whose picture graced the top of the FBI's most wanted list, just smiled. His nose appeared t
hinner, his dark hair several shades lighter and longer, and his mouth seemed fuller. But if Maxwell recognized him, so might his pursuers.

  Hell, everyone knew about him. His notorious career had all the making of a Sunday night television movie. The young officer who had risen rapidly under the wing of General Norman Schwarzkopf during the Gulf War. A general at thirty-five. But two years later, he'd faced charges of sexual battery by four women officers. He'd evaded conviction, but had been forced to resign his commission in disgrace. He'd disappeared from sight for a year before emerging as the elusive leader of a white separatist militia based in several western states. Within months, he faced two murder charges in the death of men associated with Freedom Nation, the political umbrella group associated with the militias.

  During the Gulf War, Wiley had secretly engaged Maxwell's remote viewers—psychic spies—to gather information that he used to make his recommendations to General Schwarzkopf. By the time Wiley had gone underground, Maxwell had retired and had started his private remote viewing operation. When one of the ex-general's lieutenants in Freedom Nation had approached him, Maxwell at first had begged off. But the money had been too good to turn down and the challenge of using remote viewers to protect someone like Wiley had intrigued him. Besides, he had missed the feel of power, the sense that he could manipulate historic events.

  But now, just as Maxwell was about to make his big break, Wiley showed up. He wanted nothing to do with him. He had to get rid of him.

  "Don't you understand the danger, George? The president is going to be here tomorrow. The place is probably swarming with Secret Service agents by now."