Chapter 7: Learning on the Fly

Late-February, 1986

Dad and TJ began barking out orders like the commanders of the D-day Invasion, with nearly that amount of urgency.

Dad started, “Guys, put on your black flight suits and your night vision helmets, you’re going to need them. You guys also need to assume different identities and/or remain invisible until this whole thing is over. I’m not sure how invisibility will work trying to use your helmets. Bob, you and Greg need to ‘pop’ to the boat and hopefully take TJ and me with you.”

They told Dad that was no problem. Greg added, ‘Pops, I got the full scoop from you and a vision of my own, so I’m up to speed. Give Bob and me three minutes and we’ll be ready.”

“Great. TJ is calling Janet. Charlie, I need you to pick her up and take her to FBI Headquarters ASAP. She’s at home right now and you’ll probably have to give her one of your ‘GoCs’ so she can communicate with us. You may have to consider pushing a temporary one on Agent Brock Leeman too, as he’s the most familiar with the situation and is also our liaison with the CIA and NSA. We don’t need Janet to get a gut ache trying to work with Brock. Okay?”

“Got it, no problem. I was planning on giving Janet one, anyway. If TJ says Brock is cool, I’ll give him one too. We don’t need him forgetting everything if he accidentally screws up. The gut ache will be better than sudden amnesia.”

As I ran to my bedroom to get into my flight suit, TJ confirmed that he felt Brock was infinitely trustworthy. I was also pretty sure myself, after last summer’s experience with him.

The girls were all wanting to go with us, but I had to shut them down hard and fast.

“Look, sweethearts, Greg, Bob and I can’t afford to be distracted for even a second, worrying if you’re okay or not. Please, just stay here. Linda, IF we need you to ‘fix’ someone, then and ONLY then, you can pop into Melody’s office to help, okay?”

Their faces portrayed their lack of agreement and concern for our safety. Linda exclaimed, “OKAY, but, you guys gotta PROMISE to take as few of chances as possible and make sure you come back to us ... promise?”

I could see the concern in their eyes, especially Mary’s. “You have my word. I love you all, but I’ve got to go, time is of the essence and our friends’ lives may lie in the balance.”

The three of us engaged in short, but fiercely intense hugs and kisses before hurriedly heading off to our destinations. I pictured Janet and popped in a few feet in front of her.

Even though TJ had tried to warn her, I still startled her when I suddenly appeared right in front of her.

She hadn’t been told yet that we had our powers back. I quickly pushed a temporary CG on her before explaining the full GC. She was confused about the necessity of the consequence, but accepted it readily; realizing that we didn’t have time for a lot of discussion.

I then put my arm around her and we ‘popped’ into her office. Amazed didn’t EVEN begin to describe her reaction to our short trip. Luckily, Brock was already in his office, coincidentally looking over files pertaining to the ‘Caribbean Piracy’ case.

It was a VERY large file.

He greeted me warmly and I told him that he could regain his telepathy, if he agreed to the consequence. Janet assured him that she had to do it too and showing his trust in me, agreed immediately.

I told him that TJ and Dad were also ‘online’ and that they would bring him up to speed on what we felt was going down. His eyes were like pie plates when he realized we were about to intervene into the heart of the CIA’s biggest case. He of course wanted to go, but I told him we needed him here to coordinate any intel we might get, or need, and that time was of the essence. He had never seen me fly or obviously, teleport, so I’m guessing he was about to freak out when I disappeared to go to the boat.

I had a sudden thought.

I had already popped to two different locations and going to the boat would be three. I decided I needed to pop home, to reset, before going to the boat.

The girls questioned my sudden appearance. I told them it was to reset my ‘pop’ allotment. I flashed Bob and Greg, reminding them to limit their ‘pops’ and to keep track of them. At least we would all be on the same count when I got there, which I did, two seconds after I flashed them.

They flashed that Bob had already pushed a temporary ‘Spell’ on Adam and would also do that with anyone else who wasn’t covered yet.

I was in Melody’s deserted office and the boat was amazingly quiet. I flashed as to everyone’s whereabouts and found they were all up on the bridge on the inside helm area. I was tempted to just ‘pop’ there, but decided to run instead.

It occurred to me that with the time change, it was 2am here and everyone was asleep. Melody was the first to be alerted of the imminent danger and had told Adam (Captain Adam Morgan) who was piloting the yacht. So far, they were the only ones awake. Melody flashed me, asking if she should awaken any more of the crew, and added that our girls had already given Jessica and Mike the full ‘GoC’.

I flashed Mike, asking him to quietly come to the bridge and to bring Brian, the yacht’s engineer with him.

Everyone on the bridge was looking at the radar, trying to figure out what was going down. Adam was trying to explain what we were seeing.

“It looks like there’s two very large ships being followed by ... wow ... possibly 15 to 20 smaller vessels. They’re about 15 miles southeast of us and moving at about 15 to 17 knots. Since we’d had been traveling on a perpendicular course, I wasn’t alarmed. I simply adjusted my course to cross about a mile behind them. I hadn’t noticed all of the smaller craft, thinking they were just ground clutter. It looks like there’s 4 of them changing course and coming up on us very fast now. They must be coming after us! What do you want me to do?”

Dad thought for a second, then told him, “Turn around to a heading of northeast at about 120 degrees away from their approach and motor as fast as you can. We need to put as much distance as possible between that big group and us. How fast can we go?”

“Max 32 knots for us, the 4 bogies are moving at around 34 to 37 knots.” Adam advised as we felt the yacht lean into a tight turn and we heard the engines roar to full speed.

I sent a ‘Mayday’ to the Coast Guard. They advised that they were over an hour out, but were bringing 2 Cutters and possibly a Naval Destroyer that they said was near the area on maneuvers.”

We were still looking at the radar when Adam said it appeared the smaller boats had just overtaken the two large vessels. They had just sent out a mayday of their own, identifying themselves as two Venezuelan fuel tankers. One of the tankers said that pirates were attempting to board them.

If we were to help the tankers’ crew, we had to go ... now. We may already be too late to save all of them. We were trying to decide if all three of us should go, knowing we’d be leaving the yacht defenseless.

Adam chuckled, “Well, we’re not TOTALLY defenseless. We still have those M-16s and 8 of those RPGs. Our male crewmembers are pretty good with the M-16s.”

TJ grinned, “Cool! I forgot about those! Go guys, we’ll hold down the fort ... or ship!”

We cinched down our helmets and hit the sky. We tried going invisible but when we did, the gizmos in our helmets became invisible too. The visors still kept the wind off of our faces, but the telescope and infrared disappeared.

We decided to go into our aliases. We elected to use characters from the movie “Police Academy”. It was hokey, but we loved the movie as it was hilarious. I was ‘Mahoney’, played by Steve Guttenberg, Bob was ‘Tackleberry’, played by David Graf and Greg was ‘Hightower’, played by Bubba Smith. Greg was glad his flight suit was stretchy, as he was now nearly 7 foot tall.

It also gave us names to call each other.

When we came upon the northernmost Tanker, the pirates were just beginning to board, using grappling hooks and rope ladders. There was no one on deck and it appeared the Tanker was deserted.

Very strange.

I would have thought they’d be trying to defend their ship. We heard the end of an announcement. “ ... And I repeat, all crew remain in your quarters and no one will be hurt. This is the Captain, remain in your quarters.”

Dad even agreed that was very strange. There had to be at least 20 crewmembers on a ship this size and they weren’t even putting up a fight? Meanwhile, we could see the second tanker and could both see the flashes and hear the reports of gunfire there. We decided to turn invisible and try to dispatch the borders here, first.

It was also disturbing that the boarders didn’t seem to be in any big hurry. When we went to the railings, we noticed there were only 3 small boats and only about 15 pirates. We each flipped over a boat and mentally threw everyone we saw as far from the tanker as we could. Then we threw all the hooks into the ocean, preventing any surviving pirates from climbing back on the tanker.

Without wasting any time, we flew to the other tanker to see if we could help.

This time, we flew directly into a major firefight. There were at least 12 boats and it appeared the tanker crew were outnumbered and outgunned.

Being invisible almost made it too easy.

We just had to stay out of the crossfire.

Three by three we began flipping over the pirates 25 to 35-foot motor launches, turning them into floating coffins for those who couldn’t swim. The tankers crew began cheering loudly when they realized their assailants were out of the fight and were now fighting for their own lives to keep from drowning.

Many of the crew were still taking pot shots at the now haplessly floundering pirates.

I flew up to the bridge, hoping to get the Captain to call a cease-fire. I DID want to try and get some prisoners if possible.

I was hoping he spoke English because my Spanish was pretty dreadful. Still invisible, I announced myself as ‘Jonah’, the Invisible Spirit. He was looking around, frantically, not understanding that he wasn’t going to find me. As he reached for his sidearm, I took it from him and threw it across the floor. I told him I was a friend and wasn’t there to hurt him.

Thank God he spoke English. He asked if I was the one who caused the pirate’s boats to capsize. I told him I was and asked for him to tell the crew to rescue and tie-up as many survivors as they felt they could safely handle. I assured him that they were going to have to answer for their crimes. He seemed relieved that the United States Coast Guard was on their way.

He asked about the situation on his sister ship. I told him they were out of danger and that we had already ‘rescued’ it from 3 pirate boats. When I told him about the message we heard he was astounded, “What do you mean he was telling his crew NOT to fight?”

“Yes, the deck was deserted and if I didn’t know better, it seemed like the Captain was surrendering his ship.”

“That’s outrageous! He was the Captain of another ship that was taken by pirates not long ago and every crewmember was killed! I would have thought he would be fighting for revenge, if nothing else.”

Something really felt wrong now. I asked him, “How long have you worked for this company? You seem to speak very good English.”

“Thank you. My mother sent me to school in Florida and I earned my Captains license there when I turned 21. I’ve worked for BP, British Petroleum, for 5 years as a First Mate. When I heard of an opening working for Venezuelan Petroleum, I took it. This is my first command.”

“Well, I’d love to talk some more, but could you please make that announcement before your crew runs out of targets?”

He laughed a loud belly-laugh then made the announcement. I told him to wait for the Coast Guard because they would take any prisoners his crew managed to pluck out of the ocean. He agreed and I flashed Bob and Greg to see what was happening.

Greg said they had managed to retrieve 4 prisoners so far and he had ‘questioned’ three of them. One appeared to be Russian and spoke no English.

Greg was confused by the thoughts of two of them. He said that they BOTH wished they would have been on one of the boats that was taking over the other tanker because it was supposed to have been easier.

I found Greg was now visible as ‘Hightower’ and was quickly making friends with the tanker crew.

He said Bob had headed back to the other tanker, to see if he could figure out what was going on. He was planning to stay invisible and just observe. He too felt that something was very odd that the other Captain wasn’t even going to put up a fight, especially after hearing what this guy had told me.

We were just getting ready to fly when we heard the Captain announce for ‘Jonah’ to see him on the bridge, immediately.

Since I was still invisible, I just popped up there.

I announced my presence so I wouldn’t startle him.

He said, “Something is very strange. The other Captain just called the Coast Guard and told them to NOT attempt a rescue, or his whole crew would be killed. I thought you said they were out of danger?”

I flashed Bob, “Hey, what’s up? Did you hear what the Captain of your boat just said?”

“Yeah! Something’s really messed up! There aren’t any pirates onboard and the ship is turning now. The Captain is all by himself on the bridge and he’s still telling the crew to remain in their quarters! What the hell is going on?”

I heard Brock flashing Bob, “See if there’s some way you can disable that boat. I think that Captain might just be the one who our contact with the NSA thinks was working with the pirates! Nobody believed him because he didn’t have any tangible proof. He only said his ‘gut’ was sure the guy was a traitor.”

“I would, but I don’t know shit about boats!” Bob told him. “And this one is waaay too big to tip over!”

I asked Dad how things were going on the yacht.

He chuckled, “Splash 4 pirate ships! The second they announced they were taking the ship, they discovered that 8 RPGs had a slightly different idea. We snatched three prisoners and we’ve got them secured with wire ties and locked in a steel locker in the launch area. We’re moving away from the area so any remaining survivors won’t be able to get to us. The Coast Guard is only 10 minutes out and closing fast. TJ made a special frequency call, alerting them about the suspicious nature of that other Captain’s radio call. Why don’t you and Greg go and assist Bob?”

“Okay Dad, everything is secure here and the Captain is awaiting the Coast Guard’s arrival. They have at least 4 prisoners at this time and are searching for any more survivors.”

Greg and I ‘popped’ over, invisible, just behind wherever Bob was. We flashed our presence and touched him so everyone would know where we each were.

We decided to just watch and listen, knowing that TJ and Dad could see and hear everything.

The Captain was on a SAT (Satellite) phone, talking to someone. He was frustrated, trying to tell whoever it was that something had gone horribly wrong. He said he was taking his tanker directly to their base and was planning on doing what he had done ‘last time’!

He became animated and started shouting into the phone, “Yes DAMMIT. Every one of their boats just suddenly capsized! I DON’T KNOW WHO OR WHAT DID IT. I’M GOING TO NEED HELP. I CAN’T KILL THE WHOLE CREW BY MYSELF AND STILL PILOT THE BOAT. I’m at 23°30’55.0”N, 76°56’17.5”W right now, sailing southwest at 17 knots. I DON’T KNOW about what happened with that yacht we hoped to capture. I think your men all got themselves killed! One of them called me saying the yacht was launching some kind of rockets at them. Suddenly, I lost all contact with them.”

I flashed Brock, letting him know that the NSA guy’s ‘gut’ was right on! This guy WAS working for the pirates. Brock asked if we could get the SAT phone so the NSA or CIA could possibly trace the call that was just made. He had a feeling the guy on the other end was quite possibly the head of the whole organization. He was going to contact the NSA right now and would keep me posted.