The Hand of Christ (26 page)

Years of distance running – a mutual love between them – and advanced yoga had left her with a chiseled body that still had all of the necessary feminine curves for her husband’s desires.

Catching a glimpse of her naked reflection, she would wear something additionally inviting for Michael tonight.

Sonia entered the shower and began to wash off the accumulation of hard day’s work. Wearing the lather of expensively perfumed soap, she heard the disturbing faint ring of the doorbell; Michael must have forgotten his key again.

Turning off the shower, she rushed down the three flights of stairs free from any semblance of Victorian chastity. Sonia was barely wearing the small towel that had hung nearest to the shower door – wearing much less then she should have been. She burst open the door expecting her husband on the other side.

“
Michael! Get your fine backside in her and take me now you…”

She flung the door open and realized much too late that it wasn’t Michael on the other side of the door; instead, she was now facing two Denver policemen.

Dripping wet with the small towel nearly unable to cover up her nudity, a sudden wave of fear struck her. With a trace of trepidation she said, “What’s wrong? Is it my husband? What happened? What’s going on?”

As a doctor, most of her day deals with the less than desirable aspects of life. Rarely did anyone visit a doctor for something good; she was used to this. Her first reaction at the sight of two policemen at her door had been clinical, and those thoughts, mixed with the thought of her husband on a plane, had been the worst.

A hand from the officer nearest to her reached out, his face was flushed blood red; doing his best to look away, the enormous and tall public servant lifted the towel to cover her exposed breast and said, “Ma’am, we are really sorry for the intrusion. We don’t know anything about your husband, that’s not why we are here.”

Taking control of the towel, Sonia could feel her face growing hot from the awareness of how she had just appeared to the young men. Relieved that Michael was fine, but now extremely embarrassed at her state of undress, she had no desire to remain standing there, but listened patiently as the officer continued.

“
We are here because of some recent thefts in the neighborhood.”

Sonia had already retreated behind the front door attempting to hide her body and her shame as she responded to the tall policeman, “Thefts? I wasn’t aware of any.”

“
Ma’am, if you don’t mind, we wanted to ask a few questions. Perhaps you could put on a robe while we wait?”

Sonia was now becoming a bit annoyed with the unwanted intrusion, but accommodatingly replied to the officers, “Yes, of course. Why don’t you wait here for a minute? I will be right back.”

Closing the door and leaving the officers outside, Sonia retreated back to the bedroom to put on something a bit more proper.

After she left, the two officers looked at each other. The officer that had spoken with Sonia said, “We couldn’t have asked for a better scenario.”

“
A hot, naked woman at the door?” the other smirked.

Smiling at his partner’s retort, the first officer ordered back, “Get inside and sweep the first level, I will do the second floor. Remember to put the bugs near a source of electricity and keep quiet.”

The two officers opened the unlocked door and went inside. Quickly and quietly, they strategically placed four digital listening devices in the home, two on each level, and took care to ensure they each were placed close to an electronic household device. Unable to get to the third floor, the first two levels would have to do for now.

The bugs were small; no larger in diameter than a common pencil eraser, the bugs were also as flat as ten pages of paper. The operational life of the traditionally used small bugs is measurably finite given their size and the inability of small conventional batteries to produce power for lengthy periods of time. These ones, however, were different and have a lifespan that was theoretically infinite.

A young graduate from MIT had become convinced that there was a way to apply electro-magnetic theory to create wireless electricity. Although resonant inductive coupling had been shown to work on a small scale by other brilliant minds, it still required a second device to tunnel the wireless energy needed to power an electronic device.

The young man’s theory was that he could design internal resonant collecting mechanisms that have their own method of harnessing electro magnetic energy from the air; one that could work on its own without the need for the secondary tunneling device. His work allows the harmless low wave energy in the air to resonate perfectly with miniscule copper wires implanted in his devices and, thus, created wireless energy.

He dreamed of a world without cords, free from the annoyance of the tangled wires that were hidden behind every desk and TV in every office and home.

His theories were phenomenal and, more importantly, they were real. Originally, he had holed himself up in the apartment over his parent’s pizza shop in Pennsylvania, and was intent on revolutionizing the power industry by creating “cordless electricity.”

He wanted to go public and make billions. He approached a number of investors for funding, but there were no takers. Everyone he met with laughed in his face, and just before slamming the door. No one believed that his theories could be put into practice. He was the butt end of the joke of everyone he had met – everyone except for the Company; they made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.

The man was able to produce small devices that did, in fact, find their source of power from the air, so long as the devices were near anything that was connected to a power source that emitted low frequency electromagnetic waves: a TV, lamp, computer, even a hair drier would do.

The commercial sector wanted TV’s, lamps, computers, and hair driers to be cordless; however, the Company saw another application. Every small electronic device, including listening devices, used by the Company now uses this man’s technology. He didn’t receive the billions he had initially dreamed of, but was compensated more than handsomely, and tax-free.

In her third-floor bedroom, Sonia put on a long-sleeved, loose button-down shirt and still flush with embarrassment she buttoned it to the collar. The jeans that she put on were modest and far from form fitting; it was an effort to hide her shame. Believing that the officers had seen enough of her naked body, Sonia returned to her front door completely clothed and overdressed. Opening it she was confused when the two officers weren’t there.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Flight 369

SFO to DIA

Michael stared at himself from inside of the plane’s cramped restroom; his face was a mess. One of his cheeks was littered with small scratches from the tiny shards of shrapnel that had barely hit their mark. His other cheek displayed the slightly burned path of the bullet that had grazed it. His eyes were sunken from a lack of sleep, and his face gray and shallow from the horror of the attack at Umayyad he had experienced.

“
You look like shit, and now you smell like puke; how are you going to explain this to your wife?” he asked his reflection while furiously wiping the remnants of his last supper from his front side. The little paper towels that the airline stocks in the bathrooms were of very little help to his cause. Once wet, they had a lifespan of about twelve seconds; it seemed like that for every residual of vomit he cleaned from his shirt it was replaced by a piece of wet paper towel.

“
Jesus Christ!” Michael spat, using his name uncaringly in vain, and somewhat appropriate given the situation. “These things aren’t worth a damn!”

Having muttered the name of Christ out loud, Michael stopped cleaning himself and looked at the book that now stared back at him from the small shelf next to the airplane’s bathroom sink. “Yousef, just what the hell were you involved in?”

A knock at the door startled Michael’s thoughts back to the confines of the airplane’s bathroom; he answered, “Yes? Just a minute please.”

“
Sir, I hope everything is alright,” asked the inquisitive voice of the flight attendant.

Quickly shoving the book back into his pants Michael told the flight attendant, “Everything is fine; I will be finished in just a minute. Thank you.”

“
Sir, the Captain has illuminated the seatbelt sign; I have to ask you to return to your seat. We are preparing to land.”

Given the obvious,
get your ass back to your seat signal,
Michael quickly finished and opened the bathroom’s tiny, folding collapsible door, and found himself face to face with the really pretty brunette that had welcomed him aboard a little over an hour ago.

Her suddenly cringed but exquisite nose made it clear that she had just caught a whiff of his bilious smell, Michael embarrassingly said, “Sorry, I must have had some bad fish in San Francisco.”

“
It happens more than you realize. Please, sir,” pointing down the aisle and obviously in a hurry to get the smelly man from in front of her back to his seat, “if you could take your seat.”

As he slid himself past her, she thought to herself,
too bad, such a good-looking guy – even with the wedding ring.

As Michael labored his way back to his seat, he noticed that the large man from the middle seat was standing in the aisle and with his back to him. He was apparently ignoring the critically important
Captain’s illumination of the seat-belt sign.

He closed the overhead bin above their row just as Michael reached him.

“
Oh, hey, buddy,” the startled man from the middle said as Michael approached their seats, “everything come out okay?”

This was not a time for a double entendre.

“
Yeah, man, thanks for your help; I appreciated it. I think I got most of it out. Just be thankful that we are landing, I wouldn’t want to sit next to me right now.”

Patting Michael’s back, perhaps a bit too hard, and with a hearty laugh the man from the middle sat down to retake his seat. So did Michael, although with a little more difficulty.

PART II

Chapter Twenty-Six

Phantom Canyon Micro Brewery

Colorado Springs, Colorado

CPL York couldn’t remember a time that the cold and frothy Hefe-Weizen – or any drink – had ever tasted so good. Setting down the tall glass and wiping the frosty remnants from his upper lip, York – the Army’s newest Corporal – stared without wavering at the miniscule spheres of carbon dioxide that cascaded upwards in his beer. Somehow the crisp golden color of the drink took on a new, more profound meaning. As the bubbles broke the surface creating the foamy head, CPL York imagined that each atom that made up the ceaseless streams of carbon dioxide was now free, and perhaps somehow happier after having fulfilled its purpose.

It hadn’t been more than half a day since York had rescued CIA Officer Dr. Michael Sterling – codenamed Professor – from a severe attack by soldiers of Hezbollah in Damascus.

Men had died and one had lived based on his work, on his instincts and commands.

Looking around the room, he sensed that he was different than everyone else. Deep within York there was a change, a shift in his demeanor. He could feel it, albeit couldn’t really quite comprehend it, at least not yet.

Nonetheless, the feeling was palpable.

The excitement and tension of those moments in the CORe center were coupled with the outright fear that comes with holding a man’s life in ones hands. York had saved Michael’s life by guiding him to safety; the entire event had ended with the most exhilarating feeling that York had ever experienced in his twenty-two years of life. He was smart enough to know that much of what he felt could be attributed to the adrenaline that had coursed through his veins during those tense moments; however, be that as it may, the Corporal knew there was something different within him.

He was changed.

Oblivious to the other patrons around him, York didn’t see the man that hovered next to him; he was still entranced in his thoughts of earlier and the sudden profoundness of his Hefe-Weizen sitting on the bar before him.

“
Corporal York,” the hovering man said.

Not so much a question as it was a statement that announced the man’s presence, York immediately recognized the voice of Captain Scott. Instinctively, York jumped off his stool and snapped to attention, “Yes, sir! Sorry, sir, I didn’t notice you standing there.”

“
As you were, Corporal; please, take your seat, no need for this to be so formal.”

There was an unexpected ease in CPT Scott’s voice, as if it were lined with a trace of respect for the young soldier.

CPT Scott helped himself to the stool next to the new Corporal and said, “Listen, York, I don’t mean to intrude on your evening; I just wanted to talk for a couple of minutes if that’s alright with you? The guys back at the center thought I might find you here.”

“
Of course, sir, you aren’t intruding. I was going to meet a friend here, but with everything that happened I am late and she obviously didn’t wait.”

“
Occupational hazard, York, one of the hardest things about the job: the ladies rarely understand.”