Chapter 16

Earl and I spent the rest of the round discussing a few things, with a promise to discuss things in full later tonight, in our room, with someone watching Toby.

Jennifer showed that youth AND experience make a huge difference. Apparently the first 18 holes, she’d just been getting used to something she already knew how to do, which was play golf. She really cut loose on this one, putting out drives that matched mine in length. The minor detail that she was playing from the women’s tees meant that she was out-driving me.

I could have pretty much put it on the green on each and every hole, but that would have looked ... bad, especially since we had a bit of an audience. Not just our security, but two more of the Disney club pros had come out to watch.

I had to be careful where my tee shot on number 8 went. There were trees on the left, and a single tree in the middle of the fairway with bunkers to the left of the tree, but that was the shortest route. From there, you could hit the green in two. I chickened out, because everything between 290 and 310 yards would be in a bunker, so I shot to the right of the tree.

Jennifer didn’t, clearing the bunkers and giving her an easy shot to be putting for eagle, on the 610 yard par 5. Her ace on 12, followed by another eagle on 14, ended up with a curious examination of our scorecard in the clubhouse. She and I had tied for 36 holes, at 39 under par. Elroy and Earl both finished tied as well, at 19 under.

The pros at the golf course couldn’t believe what they had witnessed. “That’s just insane. You’re all playing more than well enough to win major tournament events. How come we’ve never heard of you before?”

“Um, because we don’t play professionally? Seriously, I’m just in high school, going to start college in January. And my two Grandpas here are judges for their full time jobs, so just play the occasional amateur round.”

“Wow! Well, surely wherever you’re going to college, you’re going to be on their golf team, right?”

I shook my head. “Not unless they let me start in January. When it gets to be summer, I’ll be playing football, through the rest of the fall and winter. I doubt I’ll be able to do two sports and still attend classes like I need to do.”

The third pro said, “College? With your kind of golf skills, if you’re smart enough, you ought to go to Stanford and play for their golf team. That’s where Tom Watson went, and look how good he is.”

That got a laugh from our entire group. “I’m going to be a Cardinal.” I turned to Elroy. “I suppose it won’t hurt to talk to President Kennedy about that.”

It took us a little while to finally get away from the golf course, but it wasn’t that much of a hassle. There was a small shuttle bus that took us back to the Contemporary Resort. Once we were back to the resort hotel, with our golf clubs stored in Earl and Elroy’s room, the four of us went down to the dining room. We were met there by some women that I almost didn’t recognize.

“Wow! I mean, you’re all beautiful to me, but ... I’m just speechless.”

I’d never really seen any of the women truly dressed up. They were all drop dead gorgeous. They’d all had their hair professionally done, nails perfectly manicured, and the subtlety of the makeup that had been applied to them almost made it look like they weren’t wearing any makeup, simply enhancing all of their natural beauty.

“I think it’s a good thing that we have a lot of security right now,” Elroy said. “Otherwise, we’d have to go back up to the suite and get our golf clubs, so we would have sticks to beat all of their admirers off with.”

Earl simply nodded. “I think the three of you are the loveliest sight I’ve seen in ages.”

Jennifer smiled. “Come here, Eve. Let me take a look at you.” The girls were all wearing slightly more formal clothes than before. Eve was wearing a dress that stopped about 2 inches above her knees, that was a simple cut, but had varying width bands in different shades of green running diagonally. “That dress, with those shoes, makes you look at least five or six years older, much more mature.”

Margie was also wearing a dress, with high heels. I noticed and approved of the way the heels made her legs look. Her face was positively glowing, and while I didn’t completely understand fashion, I did understand the way the dress made her hips and breasts look even more feminine. The minor detail that she was showing quite a bit of cleavage, but not looking slutty, and instead looking sexy by doing so, made me approve even more.

Marcia was wearing a chic pantsuit, but it had panels that were translucent. She was showing off her belly, and her legs, while still being covered.

I only had eyes for my women, so I didn’t hear the comments that Earl, Elroy, and Chuck made to Mary and Angela. However, the squeals that Beth and Dora made when they walked in a few seconds later escorting a tired Toby told me they’d all been talking.

Dave and Sharon both asked at the same time, “Angela?”

That made me finally shift my eyes. I hadn’t been around Mary enough to know how much of an improvement they’d made on her. But I was used to what Angela looked like; short brown hair, no makeup other than a bit of lipstick at times, always wearing pants and some kind of jacket, to conceal her shoulder holster. If it weren’t for the fact she had breasts, you could almost think she was a man.

This was a stylish beauty queen, wearing a skin-tight dress that barely covered her butt. Elegant stockings, her hair done in spikes, full eye-shadow, eye-liner, lip gloss, earrings, and a gold necklace, with a medium sized purse that matched the blue of her dress and her eyes. I used my vision to look; her pistol was in her purse. I didn’t look for her backup weapon, there was really only one place it could be. How it fit between her breasts was beyond me.

Angela chuckled. “I don’t think this is quite the approved uniform, but it certainly lets me blend in with our clients.”

Chuck shook his head. “Mike lets us get away with a lot of stuff because, well, of Cal and the family. There is no way he’s going to let this be in our budget, though.”

Before Angela could say anything, Margie said, “That’s because it’s not part of your budget. It’s part of ours.” She held up a finger. “Before you say anything, Charles Allen, the six of you have been, and are going to be, an integral part of our family, for at least the next two years. Jenny’s on duty tonight; that’s why she’s not here now. That means tomorrow, she goes to the spa with Beth. Sharon will go the next day with Eve, then Wendy and Jennifer the day after that. You’ll all get classes on how to apply makeup, as well, just like we did. You and Dave don’t get the spa treatment, you just get the wardrobe change.”

“Wardrobe change?”

“Oh, you don’t think this is the only dress or otherwise casual or formal outfit that we got for Angela, do you? Or, for that matter, the only makeup and accessories? We’re going to be back in Florida for the Wackenhut Christmas party. Plus Christmas and New Year’s parties in Kansas. Then you can be certain that we’re going to be mingling with a lot of people in California. Not just the industrialists in Silicon Valley. With Salthawk One where ever Cal is, plus at least two helicopters, it’ll be easy for us to go to Los Angeles and Hollywood. Or Hawaii, or Tokyo, because I’m certain we’ll be visiting Japan a lot.”

I looked a little bemused at that. “We will?”

“Of course we will. If I know you ... and I do ... you’ve not been idle, even while you were riding around killing pars, or whatever it is you do playing golf. You know that my Dad has already figured out that General Motors is in a world of hurt and they just don’t know it yet. He listened to what you said, so Siemens is already working to set up a magnetic bearing factory in Japan, for the automotive industry there. With the transplanted auto assembly plants that are already here, and the ones yet to come, you’ve already revolutionized the auto industry.”

“You’re set up to tour the maintenance facility for the monorail trains tomorrow morning. I figure that’ll give you the opportunity to figure out how to make a high-speed maglev train based upon their wheeled design. Japan already has the bullet train, but those run on conventional rails. Europe has some high-speed rail already as well. The thing is, with our wind turbines, generating the amount of power that is needed for high-speed electric, whether it’s on a track or a maglev sort of becomes a moot point.”

I nodded. “You been using your business acumen, haven’t you? Studying into where things are going to be in a few years.”

Marcia grinned. “You don’t think that all that time that we’ve spent in Margie’s office has just been taking care of her clients, do you? That only takes a few minutes every day.”

Elroy coughed into his hand. “Pardon me, but should we be discussing these things around Mary? No offense meant, of course.”

Eve chuckled then. “Since we hired her as our transportation and travel specialist, and had her sign all of the relevant NDAs, I don’t see why not.”

I had a puzzled look on my face. “For some reason, I thought that’s what SJ and possibly Ramona were going to do.”

“No, SJ is going to be in charge of vehicles, maintenance, and general transportation needs. He’ll make sure we have enough airplanes, jeeps or other vehicles, and also be in charge of our portion of the Hutchinson airport. Mary will be making sure that our fleet of small jets is being utilized appropriately, that we have transportation where one of our partners needs it to be, and also arranging for ground transportation and support services wherever they end up. We’ll probably have Ramona working with her, because I can see this being at least a two-person office just to begin with. Once things take off, it’ll probably be half a dozen people in that office,” Margie said.

“We’ve already made arrangements with Bill, for example. This way he has somebody specific to call, or more appropriately Adrienne has someone to call. That way we always know where all of our jets are,” Marcia said.

“I don’t think I want to know how many jets we’re going to end up having, do I?”

Margie smiled sweetly at me. “It turns out that there’s an awful lot of pilots that are being laid off, or are facing being laid off, from the military. It also seems that there’s a few military jets becoming available on the market as well.”

Elroy said, “Good Lord. I thought it was bad enough with the armored vehicles we have in Kansas, then I heard about the list of what’s going to be delivered to California. Having three airplanes made us a decent little Air Force. Then you added more than a dozen helicopters. Now you’re talking about surplus military transport aircraft? What’s next? The CEDEM Navy?”

Margie laughed. “Not yet, anyway. Or not much of one, at this point. I don’t know if you’ve all seen the movie ‘Apocalypse Now’, especially you two because of how you both feel about Vietnam, but we do have a line on four Navy riverine patrol boats. Basically updated versions of the PT boats from World War II. And who said anything about strictly being transport aircraft?”

“Okay, now I’m really confused. I thought we were getting some of the stuff from the Marines as surplus because they’d liked what we’d done for the Toys for Tots program. This doesn’t just sound like surplus equipment, this sounds like were getting front-line combat gear. Why would they be doing that?”

“Cal, I wish the answer was simple. Unfortunately, it’s not. Part of it has to do with the connections that Mike Douglas has made, through Wackenhut,” Marcia said. “Certainly the initial shipment of Marine gear to our house was due to the Toys for Tots. Then, when I went to California and talked to the Logistics Base Officer, he said there were some directives coming down from the Assistant Commandant. Since then, well, Uncle Leonard is still in the Reserves. This can’t go anywhere but our group.”

“Obviously, you don’t have to worry about any of us,” Chuck said.

“Mary, this may affect, at least a little bit, how you do your job. The US military is scared. The Messenger from Above has told each country that they are free to be able to protect themselves. The problem is, corporations like us, which are multinationals. Just for an example, let’s say that Allen and Randall from Siemens go down to Mexico to help set up a blade factory for turbines. Just because the drugs are gone doesn’t mean there won’t still be criminals down there. And Mexico still has corruption issues with the police and the Army.”

I nodded. “I don’t think you have to go any further, Marcia. Or at least not here, in the dining room. Like you said, sweetie, it’s tough for me to turn the old noggin off. Give me just a second, and everyone enjoy your dessert, I need to do a little bit of thinking.”

We’d had dinner during the time we were talking, enjoying blackberry cobbler with ice cream as our desserts. I ate mine with my left hand, because I was using my right hand to help figure out whether or not I needed to do anything. Mary and Earl were the only ones who had never seen me in this kind of thinking mode, and the others quietly told them about it.

It actually didn’t take me that long to come to the only logical conclusion that I could.

“Marcia, I hate to have you do this, since we are on vacation. But, tomorrow, while I’m touring the maintenance facility here, make whatever phone calls that you need to make. I’m quite certain that there are only a few corporations like us that they are offering hardware to. We’ll take anything, and everything. And by that, I’m not talking about just hardware. I’m also talking about facilities. Definitely the four that are closest to us, Fort Riley, Fort Leavenworth, McConnell and Vance Air Force Bases, without any problem.”

Elroy nodded. “That’s actually brilliant. I’ve been paying way too much attention to what the Messenger from Above has been doing, and the way he’s been affecting American politics. For either good or bad, I am still a retired three-star general. The military is going to be going through a huge downsizing. They can only stick so many airplanes out into the desert. I don’t think they’re going to want to take all of the main battle tanks and other equipment and do that with them. If for no other reason than every bit of rubber on them will be bad within six months.”

“That’s great for all of the gear, but what about the troops? You’ve got the First Division stationed at Fort Riley; that’s 12,000 troops. I’ve had to visit Leavenworth for some federal cases. There’s about 800 troops there. Vance is a training facility, so there’s maybe 2000 personnel there. I can’t see them divesting themselves of McConnell, so round numbers, that’s 15,000 military personnel, not including families or civilians that work on post,” Earl objected.

I shrugged. “So, maybe an expenditure of five hundred million per year for payroll and benefits, if they’re doing nothing else. You know, we’ve already maxed out the turbine factory, and it hasn’t even been built yet. They’re going to need another one, and those only get made in Kansas. Harry is going to need land, because the Ice–X plant, even taking up the whole section, can only make 20,000 gallons a day. Current projections are that we’ll need at least 50,000 gallons, every day. That pretty much takes care of about, oh, maybe twenty-five hundred of those troops, with nice civilian jobs. We’re going to need an aircraft maintenance facility, mechanics, and pilots. That’s just from what we’ve come up with so far.”

Earl was smiling, shaking his head. “I knew that you were planning on helping Kansas. I didn’t think you were planning on buying all of it.”

Marcia was laughing a little, looking at Mary’s glazed expression. “Don’t worry about it, Mary. You’ll get used to it. Look at the bright side.”

“The bright side? I took a simple request to be the personal travel advisor for a group that, to be perfectly honest, I’ve never heard of, and within three days I’ve gone from being a simple travel agent and advisor to suddenly being the corporate travel coordinator for a company that doesn’t think twice about a five hundred million dollar payroll that’s run by a 16-year-old.”

“That’s sort of why Marcia and I were talking to you during the massage and spa treatment. I hope the cognitive dissonance isn’t just too much for you.”

“No Margaret, it’s not. It’s just rather unsettling, because I almost feel like that since we’re in the Magic Kingdom, the fairy godmother is going to come along with her magic wand and tap me on the head, telling me that this is all been a dream.”

Elroy chuckled. “The CEDEM corporate headquarters, which will be where your office will probably be located, is in Hutchinson, Kansas. Trust me on this, after the first winter, you’ll wish it was only a dream. Sunny South Florida, it’s not.”

Mary chuckled. “I’m originally from Buffalo, New York. I think I can handle any winter where there’s less than two feet of snow on the ground. No, I’m just shocked at how quickly this has happened, is all.”

Margie smiled. “We wouldn’t have it any other way.”

We completely finished up dinner, with Toby barely able to keep his head up. Mary followed us up to our rooms, where everything had been delivered that they purchased today. I sent Dave to get a luggage cart, so he could help Mary take everything of hers down to her car. Jennifer and Eve got Toby changed into his pajamas, then tucked him into bed. Dave came back with the luggage cart, then escorted Mary out to her car.

There was a knock at our bedroom door before the girls could start any kind of fashion show for me with the things that they purchased for themselves today. Earl and Elroy came in.

“Close the door to the bedroom, so we don’t bother Toby. Come on in and gather around, everyone take a seat. Earl has a few questions that he’d like to have answered,” I said.

Elroy had brought with him some travel bottles of whiskey. Jennifer got he and Earl glasses, while the rest of us got cans of pop from the refrigerator.

“You’re not thinking small, are you?” Earl asked.

“I can’t. I have to make sure that my wives in all but name, plus our children, have a safe world to grow up in.”

“Speaking of our children, thanks for wearing Toby out. He’s exhausted. How are you two holding up?” Jennifer asked.

Beth chuckled. “We’re both fine. It was daylight, so there were no issues. Toby got a huge kick out of Tom Sawyer Island, and running around there. He’s wanting to go to River Country tomorrow, but ... I didn’t know what your plans were.”

“Apparently, Chuck and I will be going to the Monorail maintenance facility tomorrow. I really don’t think Earl and Elroy should go back to the golf course tomorrow. It’s not like they broke the course record senior scores today, or anything.”

Elroy laughed. “Earl and I have been playing two or three times a week for the last, what, thirty some-odd years? This isn’t the first time we’ve messed over the minds of a course professional.”

“Speaking of messing over the minds of a professional, can we have that discussion you mentioned now?”

“Of course, Grandpa Earl. Cal Lewis is my legal name, courtesy of Elroy. My birth name is Kalikulo. Pretty much everything that the Messenger from Above has said publicly is fiction, although I’m finding out that there’s an actual large amount of reality behind what was being made up and what really happened. Shiva, or whatever his name was, really was from the same planet I came from. I’m not here as any kind of invading force or emissary from a Galactic Council; I’m an orphan. My planet was destroyed by a rogue white dwarf star.”

“Harry and Beth found me, took me in, and made me family. I don’t have ... or didn’t have, anyway ... the same moral and ethical code as the people from the United States. I still don’t, to a certain extent. Ours was both more refined, and at the same time, also rather similar to that of some of the more primitive tribes here, in that, to be blunt, if you screwed with family, you’re fair game. We had a complex set of rules. When I began dating Eve and Dora, SJ became family to me; real family. So, what I did was take action against those that harmed a family member, which was allowable under my personal code.”

I chuckled. “I think the expression is, things sort of snowballed from there. Yes, I really am this smart, naturally. The people of Earth are all actually descended from the people of my planet. I’d originally thought we were cousins, seeded from the people that went around the galaxy half a million years ago. We’re closer than that. We sent people here to see about colonizing this planet two hundred fifty thousand years ago, because of an issue with the radiation from my home star. We ended up making a genetic change; the organ you’ve heard the Messenger mention. That’s really the only difference between me and you, Grandpa.”

“That, and a few years,” Earl said. “That doesn’t explain how Elizabeth is your ... or the Messenger’s ... assistant. Or ... God, there’re lots of questions I have.”

Earl and Elroy killed a dozen of the airplane bottles while all of us answered questions for the next two hours.

Finally, Earl said, “So, just to sum things up, you really are effectively sixteen, the three of you are pregnant with Cal’s children, while the other three of you have super powers just like Cal due to some kind of weird magical stones that aren’t, Hindu religions and their gods actually have a basis in reality, and there really is a global conspiracy to run the world behind the scenes. Oh, and you’ve been making up this whole Messenger from Above thing.”

“Yeah, pretty much,” I said. “We’re doing more research, so I can’t say for sure that all the other ancient gods aren’t, or weren’t, the same person. If Shiva really was just an asshole, or just had a severe personality disorder, then he could have been beneficial to one people, while being cruel to another.”

“I’ve been going through things in my own mind,” Earl said. “I need to mull some things over in my mind. I feel like I’m missing something.”

“Only one thing? Gee, if that’s all, then I don’t feel bad,” Elroy jibed. “We’re only looking at changing our whole world, and literally the way of life for everyone around the world, and there’s one thing you’re missing?”

“Well, of course. This is almost like when we were looking into Jack Ruby’s finances. It’s not about Cal or any of the ladies. Something else doesn’t add up. It’s about the stones and the ancient gods, and how that knowledge could have survived for a hundred centuries without the stones themselves. But, totally unrelated to that, I have a question about your performance today on the golf course. Specifically, you’ve said that you have a certain mental ability to move things now.”

I shook my head. “If you’re asking if I was cheating, using that power, then the answer is no. Was I pulling my shots? Of course. Alan Shepard hit a golf ball on the moon. If it could survive, I could hit a golf ball from here to the moon.”

He looked puzzled. “Then how is it that you were so good, Jennifer? You’ve not been enhanced with the stones.”

She smiled. “I think we left that out. Having sex with Cal, his semen causes physical enhancements, too, not just the mental ones. Eve was playing basketball better than the whole Stanford female team, combined, before her enhancement by the stones. Margie could win the Tour de France. I’ve noticed how much mentally sharper that I am, such that I’m looking forward to going back to school. I really was a 15 handicap player, before I made love to Cal. Now ... this is the first time I’ve swung a club in four months.”

Earl shook his head. “And you’re good enough to win the LPGA, or even the PGA.”

Marcia chuckled, almost sounding evil when she did so. “That’s perfect.” She had a huge grin on her face.

Earl asked, “What is?”

“Second week of January is the Bob Hope Classic, in southern California. It’s a Pro-am tournament, normally with celebrities as the amateurs. And I for damned sure can make sure our Jennifer is one of the amateurs. Two weeks after that is the LA Open, which is an invitational. You finish well in the Hope, and I can get one of the studio slots. Then the next week is the Bing Crosby Pro-Am.”

Jennifer shook her head. “That presumes I can hit from the golds or blacks. I was playing from the reds.”

I sighed. “In that case, disregard what I said. All three of you need to go play the other course tomorrow morning, and from the blacks. Let’s say that on the long par 5 holes, you end up with par instead of birdie. You tied me at 39 under par, for 36 holes. Even if you add 18 strokes to that because of the blacks, you’d be 21 under for 36, so figure 42 under for 72. You think that won’t make anyone sit up and take notice? Especially dressed in some nice whites, with CEDEM, Siemens, Microsoft, Ice-X, and Cisco on them?”

Jennifer was frowning and shaking her head until the last comment I made. Then her eyes opened. “Oh, I hadn’t thought of that. Televised coverage of someone wearing our logos, meaning free advertising.”

Elroy just plain laughed. “By that time, your name change will be permanent. So, you’ll be participating as Jennifer Lewis. And you’re not due until August. I realize that you wouldn’t want to be gone all of the time, since most of those tournaments have qualifying rounds, and cuts. At the same time, you’d probably do for women’s golf what Billie Jean King did for tennis.”

Earl shook his head. “Hopefully more. Carlos Marcello made sure that match was fixed.”

At the shocked looks from everyone in the room but me, since I had no idea what they were talking about, he continued.

“One thing about being a federal judge. A lot of times, you’re limited on who you can go drinking with. So, when you take the new section chief for the FBI out, and find out that he can’t hold his liquor, you get to learn all sorts of interesting things.”

“Obviously, Jennifer wouldn’t do this as a career, or anything, unless she wanted to. But that might also help with the branding and advertising. Especially if I talk to my sister and have them put on all the Ice-X bottles and branding that it’s a subsidiary of CEDEM. You know that Microsoft, Siemens, H&H, Offshore Power, and Cisco are putting on their advertising ‘in partnership with CEDEM’, didn’t you?”

I leaned forward, rubbing my eyes. “So much for a simple vacation. No, I didn’t. I had told Harry that because our original plan fell through, that the Ice-X plant was his, so that he, Emily, and their baby were well taken care of, regardless of how much money Elroy was putting in trust for the child.”

“Just curious, what was the original plan?”

Beth said, “That Dad would be the public figure, spending Cal’s money, and getting ten percent of whatever treasure he found, since Cal and I were too young to actually enter into contracts and such. That was when we only had a few million. Then we started dealing simply with stock, which is when Uncle Elroy decided to let Cal run things and where you came into the family ... literally, because within ten years, we would have taken less than two hundred million and turned it into a couple of billion. Now ... where are we?”

“Entering into the field of the completely ridiculous. We’re looking at earning more than a billion dollars, just next year, without anything from Ice-X. I’m not even bothering to project for year two, because of what you were talking about with the military property now. I used the spreadsheet program, and had Mike check some of my assumptions. In ten years, if we don’t do any more than we already have, Siemens is going to be generating two billion per year,” Margie said.

I frowned. “I thought they’d be making more than that.”

“No, you misunderstand. That’s OUR share, based upon ten percent ownership. Both power groups will be generating income for us of half a billion, each. Cisco will generate a couple billion, and the Microsoft projection was just completely stupid, but with the lead they have, almost makes sense. You’re looking at CEDEM earning ten billion a year, in ten years, or less. Without doing anything more than we’re doing now. Now, add in another turbine factory, and more than doubling the Ice-X, since that’s got to be reapplied every five years?”

“HOLY FUCK!”

“That was my thought, Elroy. We’re seriously on pace to become the first trillionaires in history?”

“Yeah. Easily,” Margie told me.

I flopped back into my chair. I noticed that both Earl and Elroy’s hands were shaking as they slammed back the last bit of whiskey. I looked across the table at my women. I was surprised how calmly they were sitting. I didn’t smell anything more than the normal arousal that they always had when we were in the same room together.

“Is it just me, or are the six of you taking this remarkably calmly?”

“This is one of those times where being able to talk without moving our lips ... and if you don’t want to sleep on the couch, you’ll NOT make a comment about that ... helps,” Beth said. “This is also letting us carry on our conversation regarding our future as a family while you’re getting the public recognition to be elected leader of the world.”