Chapter 16

"Sweet love's showin' us a heavenly light, never seen such a beautiful sight!"

We woke up and Aimee ordered room service for breakfast. When she put down the phone, Aimee told me that there was a package for Patricia James, her alias, at the front desk and that it would be delivered with our meal.

I wondered what present our friend Mr. Voder had for us today. I idly wondered if he might have our room bugged, since he obviously knew where we were staying. It was a paranoid thought, but I was taught well that one doesn't survive in the military if one is an unnecessary optimist. I thought back to the conversations that we had since we arrived, and realized that nothing had been said that would have revealed anything that would jeopardize us, except the obvious fact that all three women considered me their husband. Even when Mary and I made our amazing discovery, I realized that Mary and I were communicating on two levels: our words alone might not make sense to anybody listening. Of course, it all depended on how much whoever was listening already knew or suspected.

Despite that, I decided that we would wait for a better venue that gave less opportunity for eavesdropping.

Room service arrived with a complimentary newspaper and Patricia's package. Aimee took the large padded mailer and I grabbed the newspaper.

Normally, newspapers didn't interest me much. The novelty of having an actor as president had worn off. In addition, the upcoming political election didn't appeal to me, since I only knew George Bush as the ex-CIA chief, and had no idea who Michael Dukkakis was. Even most of the names in the sports section were totally foreign to me. The world had changed while I had slept, and I found that I had little taste in being reminded about what I had lost. This lack of desire would eventually diminish as I got reacquainted to the world as it now existed, but it would take time before this happened.

On this day, however, I was interested in checking out the weather forecast--the day seemed nice, but I just wanted a second opinion. The forecast for that day, and the next few days as well, was for clear and mild weather. I smiled. It would be perfect weather to enjoy Washington, DC. There were plenty of public places to visit and opportunities to hold a quiet family conversation.

The girls were sitting around eating breakfast when I joined them. The coffee was delicious and removed any vestiges of fatigue that I had from our workout last night.

"So where did you find those awesome gowns, Debbie?" I asked, trying to make small talk.

"We found a place in our travels yesterday," Debbie shrugged. "For some extra cash, we had them tailored on the spot. The place probably has a lot of important clients who need outfits at the last minute. Aimee loved hers, and I preferred the color pink."

Aimee smiled. "How did you know the color for my corsage?"

"I didn't know what you'd be wearing, Precious," I smiled. "I just knew that purple orchids have always been your favorite. I felt that I needed to apologize to you for not telling you that I loved you when you called. Red roses say 'I love you, ' but I thought that orchids would say it just a bit louder, if only to you, Precious. Mary told me that I had been remiss after the call."

Aimee's response was a simple nod with a big smile.

"We should do some shopping when we're done with our breakfast and showers," I suggested.

This was greeted by nods.

"Our friend has some gifts for everybody today," Aimee announced cryptically. She passed some envelopes around the table.

I opened mine, which contained a driver's license and an American Express card. Debbie's had the same, plus close to two thousand dollars in twenty and fifty dollar bills. Mary had a Visa card and a license.

Debbie's license was from New York. Mine and Mary's was from the state of California, and Aimee already had one from Vermont. All of these looked quite legitimate to me. I wondered what would happen if any of us were stopped by a highway patrolman and the licenses were checked. Somehow, I figured that they would pass any type of scrutiny.

Before we used the credit cards, though, I figured it would be a good idea to discuss it with Aimee, who was the one that knew Mr. Voder the best, and Mary, who I had now suspected was more than a little familiar with intelligence affairs.

I put my credit card and the new license in my wallet, hiding my prized Hawaiian license that Aimee had procured for me. The girls, seeing what I had done, each did the same.

Excusing myself from breakfast, I showered with Mary, and Debbie and Aimee showered together afterward. Unfortunately, there was no way to logistically fit four adults into the shower stall without creating a major accident hazard.

I kissed Mary after she left the bathroom, where Aimee and Debbie were doing an enthusiastic job of getting each other clean. I was already dressed in some dress slacks and a short sleeve shirt.

I heard the two girls exit their shower, and Aimee was the first out of the bathroom. I met her with a kiss, and she returned it lovingly.

Debbie came out of the bathroom soon afterward, and I kissed her as well. Her mouth tasted minty of mouthwash, and I think my breath would be very fresh as well, since Debbie's tongue made sure that it reached just about everywhere possible inside my mouth.

"Get a room, you two!" Mary laughed as she witnessed our kiss.

Debbie and I broke off our kiss at that, grinning at Mary. I was pleasantly amazed at Mary's transformation from a person that doubted her role in our relationship to one that understood that she was an equal and very important partner for the four of us.

Aimee had an outfit picked out for Debbie, and apparently, Debbie approved. Debbie nodded at her co-wife, and she put on the suit. I watched her dress, of course. Debbie is a knockout and every movement she made, even when doing the most mundane things, emanated her eroticism. I found myself joined by Mary, who also seemed to like watching Debbie dress.

When Debbie was finished, she grinned at Mary and I, knowing that we had been watching her. I pulled the two of us into a three-way kiss, and we were soon joined by Aimee, making the kiss most satisfactory.

After leaving the hotel, Mary surprised me by telling me that she had already scouted the address that Mr. Voder had given us. It was an office building on a major thoroughfare through Falls Church near I-66 and across the street from a shopping center. There was a bank of elevators inside the building, as well as two fire escapes that were locked from the outside, but weren't locked from the stairways to each floor.

I was happy that I had this extra information and smiled at my having realized that Mary did seem to have a head for intelligence work.

We took a cab to the shopping mall, and then walked as two couples into the shopping center opposite the building. Our initial plan was to slowly wind our way through the shopping center and toward the office building, meeting eventually near the back of the building.

Mary got a strange feeling and sent me a silent message that somebody was watching us. She slightly changed her direction to appear as if we were going back toward the stores to see if the person would follow us. We didn't want to be discovered so close to the office where this Colonel was headquartered.

The man that Mary had spotted appeared to be near a brown sedan when he looked up and visibly noticed Debbie and Aimee.

"Patricia!" the man said loudly and enthusiastically, looking straight at Aimee.

Years of training put Mary and me into immediate alert. I was about to try to deflect this person from Aimee by putting myself between him and my wife.

Then I heard Debbie gasp. "Uncle William!" Debbie shouted, completely surprised. She ran up and actually kissed the man.

"Uncle William" addressed each of us by our aliases from our new licenses, confirming to me that this person was Aimee's Mr. Voder. Aimee didn't seem to recognize the man, though. The fact that Debbie recognized him as an uncle was another interesting twist in the situation.

Mary looked at this person with suspicion clearly evident in her eyes. He immediately introduced himself as "William Voder," calling Mary once again by her own alias. He handed me a business card with the name that he gave us.

"I work for Debbie," Mr. Voder said. "And, by extension, this means that I am working for all of you."

I looked at my wives, trying to get a feel for this person. I knew that Debbie recognized this person as an uncle, but Debbie was also a very trusting person. Of my other two wives, Aimee gave me a slight nod and Mary still seemed undecided.

"Let's find some place a little more private for our family reunion," Uncle William said. "There's a MetroRail station over there." William was pointing toward an orange sign indicating the Washington DC subway system.

"Where do you suggest we go?" I asked.

"There are a lot of nice places in Foggy Bottom," William said. "It's near George Washington University, and you can find a lot of places around there that are pretty private. Another idea is the Smithsonian Institute."

"OK."

We took the subway inbound toward central Washington, DC.

After looking at the station map, I decided that L'Enfant Plaza might be even better than the places that William suggested, and I suggested that. William shrugged and readily agreed.

We rode silently into the station and after we exited, I silently led our party. I knew that there was a hotel at the Plaza, and it had a few lobbies within. Mary was looking at me expectantly. I entered her mind and silently said, "Yes?"

"Things seem pretty safe here," Mary said.

"How do you know?" I asked.

"Just a feeling."

There were hundreds of questions that I had running through my head. Was this really Debbie's uncle? What was his relationship to the Department of Defense and/or various intelligence agencies? How much did he know about us? How many people did he have monitoring us?

After about five minutes after entering the hotel, I found an area that was pretty secluded. We sat on comfortable chairs.

"So, Captain Montgomery," William finally said to me. "I'm sure you're treating my niece appropriately. I'm sorry that I wasn't invited to the wedding."

William was telling me that he had been keeping tabs on us. "There wasn't any official ceremony," I said.

William nodded. "It appears that only fair Aimee had any sort of ceremony. Am I correct?"

That confirmed that he had been investigating us. "It was informal." I didn't want to give this man too much information until I knew exactly whose side he was on.

"Aimee is a wonderful and very mysterious person," William said to me. He turned to her and said, "It has been a real privilege working for you and with you, my dear."

"The feeling is mutual," Aimee said. I could see from her eyes that she was still appraising this person, although she seemed generally in favor of him. This raised my own opinion of him, since I really valued Aimee's feelings about whether a person is "good" or "bad."

"And this is the faithful and devoted Lieutenant Cadley," Voder said, indicating Mary.

"As you know, I resigned my commission quite a while ago," Mary said, a little stiffly.

William nodded. "May I have your permission to refer to you by your given name, then, Ms. Cadley?"

"Mary would be fine."

William took Mary's hand, and said "Pleasure to meet you again, Mary."

"Again?" Mary asked, a bit surprised.

"I met you in the hospital seven years ago."

This was interesting. William seemed to be implying that he had been investigating me before I had even come out of my coma!

"In what capacity?" Mary asked, instantly suspicious.

"I had a temporary job as an administrator at the hospital where Jim was residing."

"Why?" I asked.

"It was the best place to access his records, of course," William said.

"Under whose orders?"

"James Malen."

Ahh, how the road twists and turns.

"Your brother was investigating me?"

"Normally, I don't comment on investigations except to the party that hires me. However, since you are 'married' to the only surviving daughter of my client, I will make an exception. Yes, you were being investigated."

"Why?"

"That is a good question," William said.

"Is Colonel DiPietro involved in that investigation?" Aimee asked.

"He was not," William answered. "His investigation is more recent, based on some information that I thought had been destroyed."

"What information was destroyed?"

"Some medical and non-service related information on Captain James Montgomery, especially any information that relates to a certain Doctor Larson."

I turned to Mary.

Without me asking the question, Mary said, "I met a Doctor Larson a few years ago at the hospital. I only saw him once or twice. The last time I heard from him, he told me that he was going to interview me and give me an update on your condition. I showed up for the meeting, but he didn't. I never heard from him again."

"Doctor Larson probably died very soon after you met him," William said.

"He died?" Mary asked. "I had been hoping he could have given me some more detailed information about Jim's condition. I asked about him afterward, and somebody told me he had just been a visiting doctor and that he had already left."

"Actually, Mary, it was probably for the best that you didn't meet with him for that interview. You probably wouldn't be here now."

"Why?"

"With one exception, all of Larson's surgical patients died under the experimental treatment that he had advocated. He probably would have found a reason to treat you as well."

"Jim was the exception," Aimee stated.

"Indeed."

"Why would I have been treated?" Mary asked.

"I thought you'd know that answer," William said. He looked at me and saw me nod my head very slightly.

"It's not general knowledge in our family yet. Only Mary and I know for sure right now, although I also suspect that Aimee knows. We were going to update Aimee and Debbie today."

Debbie and Aimee seemed surprised by my statement.

William sighed. "I am unarmed, Captain Montgomery..."

"Jim."

"Jim," William continued. "And my knowledge of self-defense would probably not match the abilities of three of you."

"Four," Debbie said, her voice steady and her eyes shooting fire.

"All four of you," William corrected. "I do know your secret. Shall I explain it to your other two wives?"

"I'm interested in hearing how much you know."

William took a deep breath. "Your ability was discovered by Larson. Your quick promotion to Captain didn't go unnoticed. The Zulu Squad was a fiction. You would have been part of the Larson Project, and you would most likely have died as a result of Larson's experimentation."

"This is news to me," I said.

"Do you want the rest of the story?" William asked.

"Yes," answered our four voices as if they were one.

Mr. Voder told us the story.

Doctor Larson was a loner that worked in a special unit within the Defense Intelligence Agency (DoDIA). He was a certified genius, although his methods were quite unusual.

Most of Larson's colleagues thought that Larson's research on telepathy and telekinesis was hogwash, but Larson had actually found that some people seemed to have what he called an inherent "psi-potential," or ability to communicate from person to person without any physical means of communicating. For most people, it was very faint, such as a mother that could sense that her child was in danger without seeing or hearing anything. For a few people, it was a bit more distinct, like the ability to sense emotions or other vague concepts. So far, nobody had ever been able to provably transmit or receive concrete thoughts, such as a "blue Chevy Nova."

Nevertheless, Larson created a file of people in the military that he classified as "Empaths." These were people that can pick up the emotions of others without any sensory clues. He checked the various tests that the military tended to issue, and suggested some others until he found a quite remarkable, simple, and non-intrusive test that could predict if a certain person had this Empathic psi-potential. He had arranged that this test be administered at a few military bases, and he managed to find a couple of dozen of these Empaths. He monitored these people surreptitiously, following their careers without interference.

During the late 1960's, the Vietnam war resulted in many American casualties. Among these casualties were a few people that were on Larson's lists. Using his medical credentials, he managed to get himself assigned to perform unnecessary autopsies on these Empaths, a morbid practice that was not officially sanctioned by the military, but his superiors in the Agency looked the other way.

It is not exactly known what Larson discovered during these autopsies, but he seemed to find some common deviations in the brains belonging to the late Empaths that he examined.

Apparently, one of the Empaths that he tested showed deviations more pronounced than the others. Since the patient was dead, there was no way to determine if the patient had a higher psi-potential than the others, other than by the initial testing that Larson had done earlier, which didn't indicate the amount of psi-potential, but rather just the presence of it. However, the fact that the patient was returning home as a fallen hero, having been awarded many distinctive medals including the silver star posthumously, Larson thought that it was quite possible that this person may have had a stronger ability than the others.

It was also apparent that the deviations that Larson discovered could be found with a mere brain scan, which was much less invasive than cutting into a person's brain during an autopsy.

Larson returned to his list of Empaths and now monitored them more closely. If any of them fell ill, he would reassign himself to the hospital where they were staying in order to get brain scans and perform additional tests.

At the same time Larson was testing his Empaths, he was working on experiments with mice to find any with the "Empathic deviations" and, finding success, he tried breeding them to see if the deviations were hereditary. It turned out that deviations could possibly be an extremely recessive trait, as certain lines of mice seemed to be more prone to express the deviation, but there wasn't any provable cause and effect.

Another field of research that Larson tried was performing live surgery to try to enhance the deviation in the mice. The results were dismal: most of the mice died. Larson studied his successes and his failures, and eventually developed a "treatment" that had a much higher incidence of success with the rodents.

By the mid-1970's, Larson had a list of three or four of his Empaths that had higher psi-potentials, and altered his non-intrusive tests to help isolate these "Super Empaths." He decided to create the Zulu Squad to collect them into a single place where they could be observed interacting with one another.

Tragedy struck before the Zulu Squad was put together when the selected leader, Captain James Montgomery, was accidentally hit by a jeep, and his situation wasn't well. He was in a coma, and after a few weeks, it was obvious that his condition wasn't going to improve.

The Zulu Squad was abandoned before it even began, a decision made due to budget cuts as well as to the questionable nature of its inception, which caused Larson a setback.

Larson had wanted to see if he could apply his "treatment" to Montgomery, but since the captain had already had most of his broken bones and head injuries treated, Larson was too late.

Larson resumed his monitoring of all his Empaths, not just the "super Empaths" and within two years, there were a couple of other incidents of head injuries. On each occasion, Larson prescribed his "treatment" to be performed on the Empath during surgery as a "way to treat concussions." During both attempts, the Empath had died.

Investigation of these two deaths resulted in the discovery that modified procedures were at fault, and worse, nobody could find out where the orders for the modified treatment had come from, since Larson had covered his tracks very well. Of course, the Agency knew about it, but desired to keep their involvement in the possible death of American soldiers secret.

This resulted in a crackdown in the hospitals and stricter safeguards were issued to prevent modification of procedures in the future.

Things were turning desperate for Larson. Even people in the Agency were now starting to question the research he was doing.

Instead of laying low, Larson reassigned himself to work as head of neurosurgery at the hospital where Captain Montgomery was still in a coma. It was an act of desperation for Larson. He actually forged an impressive resume showing outstanding success in coma research, and was easily assigned to Montgomery's case. He would be able to perform the surgery for the "treatment" on Montgomery himself, since he had felt that the incompetent surgeons at the other hospitals had been responsible for the deaths of the two other Empaths.

The Agency was catching up with Larson, and during the surgery, two M.P.s showed up with orders for Larson's arrest. The surgery was halted and the doctor was escorted out of the hospital for interrogation by the army. Unfortunately, as he was escorted out of the hospital, Larson tried to escape. From somewhere, he produced a weapon and aimed at one of the M.P.s. The other one immediately shot the doctor in self defense, killing Larson instantly.

The hospital was told to make sure that Captain Montgomery was closely monitored for any reaction to the surgery, and his brain wave activity was compared from before and after the surgery. The biggest and most alarming change was that the simple and normal deviations in brain activity, usually associated with patients dreaming, were no longer happening to the captain. It was as if the captain had just stopped dreaming. The doctors wondered what this meant, and whether this was a foreshadow of bad news for the captain's condition.

Most of the Agency's records involving Doctor Larson's research were ordered destroyed. There is no longer any official information on how Doctor Larson had been caught, nor who had been responsible for the destruction of his research.

While the captain was in a coma, both of his parents had passed away. The only "family" he had was the former Lieutenant Mary Cadley who visited the captain every day. The lieutenant was the person who was driving the jeep that hit the captain, and her visits were attributed to massive feelings of guilt at nearly killing the captain, although nobody in the hospital had ever heard of somebody as devoted as the lieutenant was seen to be. She seemed to visit the captain nearly every day including holidays, talking with him, and reading to him. The nurses' hearts went out to Ms. Cadley, and allowed her extended visiting hours, hoping for her sake that the captain's condition, despite the negative outlook, would improve.

Captain Montgomery spent twelve years in a coma, and actually came out of his coma while being visited by the former lieutenant. The hospital staff had been starting to get concerned when Cadley kept insisting that the captain was coming out of his coma for a couple of weeks before he actually did, seemingly against all evidence to the contrary. They were about to recommend a therapist for the lieutenant when, during one remarkable visit, the captain actually did come out of his coma!

A large battery of tests were performed on the captain. He was told what had happened, and that his awakening was indeed astonishing. After a few months, the captain starting getting more and more restless as time wore on, since he was now quite healthy and didn't want to spend his whole life in a hospital. Finally he was discharged and put on disability, mostly due to notes added to his file by Intelligence that the captain had been put in harm's way when some unauthorized treatment may have been performed on him, although the captain was never informed of this unnecessary operation.

At about the same time that Montgomery was being discharged from the hospital, databases within the military were being upgraded. Some new cross checks in the software discovered an anomaly in some records, all referring to a mysterious "Doctor Larson," although there was no correlation to the actual work that he did, who he worked for, or anything else, for that matter.

"Fascinating," I said, hearing the story.

"Wow!" exclaimed Aimee and Debbie together.

Mary was silent, and continued staring at Mr. Voder.

"There's more," William said.

Not too long ago, during a computer system upgrade, the new software discovered some discrepancies concerning a Doctor Larson. It appeared that some important records had been destroyed. Since operations was being closely monitored due to some recent intelligence SNAFU's, such as the arms for hostages scandal, the destruction of records was investigated.

Some backup tapes revealed some of the information that had been lost, and it wasn't pretty. Apparently, somebody had been running unauthorized experiments on three American soldiers who had been injured, and two of the three cases were fatal. The only survivor was a Captain James Montgomery, who had been in a coma for nearly twelve years.

This information was dutifully reported to the Senate armed services committee, and a senator ordered a complete investigation. Doctor Larson's name came up, he became the focus for the new investigation.

Colonel DiPietro was assigned the task to find out more about Doctor Larson, and he assembled a small intelligence team, as well as a number of field investigators.

As details were coming in about Doctor Larson, Captain Montgomery woke up from his coma.

As he was the only living link to Doctor Larson, a dossier was compiled about the captain and his illness and treatments. The captain was now apparently living with the lieutenant that had been visiting with him at the hospital. It was suggested that both people be followed, to see what interest this mysterious Doctor Larson had in the former captain.

Montgomery and Cadley were living together at her apartment. Although he had purchased and paid two months' rent on another apartment, it was never used. Montgomery and Cadley were sometimes spotted in the company of her apartment's landlord, Debbie Malen and/or her associate, Miss Aimee Porter.

There was one report of a weird incident that happened in a park involving James Montgomery, Mary Cadley, and Debbie Malen involving a person named Jeff Parker, who is currently in basic training, stationed at Fort Benning. An investigation is currently underway on that person, but nothing of any importance has yet been found.

Soon after the incident in the park, there is a report of a wedding reception for Montgomery and Porter, and attended by Cadley and Malen. No further details on this reception are available. This reception shows as an anomaly, since up until this time, it had been suggested that Montgomery and Cadley had been romantically involved. No marriage licenses have ever been issued for Montgomery and any of his three companions.

Almost immediately after this reception, the four flew to Hawaii to a location that was owned by Malen near Big and Little Makena Beach on the island of Maui, Hawaii. It was suggested that since Porter was born in Hawaii, this might be a honeymoon trip, although the presence of the other two companions makes this suggestion questionable.

There is a report that a driver's license was issued to James Montgomery, giving the location of Debbie Malen's house as his residence, further confusing the investigation.

An investigative team was assembled in Hawaii to ascertain what these four people were doing when the four subjects unexpectedly split up. Montgomery and Cadley left for the big island, leaving open the question of whether Montgomery and Porter had actually gotten married. Malen and Porter remained behind. Suggestion was made that a domestic argument between Montgomery and Porter had him leaving her and her employer behind.

On the big island, Montgomery and Cadley were reportedly acting as if they were on honeymoon together, renting hotel rooms together, and eating at romantic restaurants. The only military place of interest visited was the memorial at Pearl Harbor. The investigation of the four, up until this point, was strictly low-key, and it was decided to perhaps follow everybody more closely.

At the time this decision was made, the two couples met up together unexpectedly at the airport in Honolulu. They departed on Malen's private jet with a flight plan to take them to Texas. Witnesses said that the four parties seemed worried, although there was no evidence of any domestic disturbance. A team was quickly assembled in Texas, but when the plane landed at its destination, the only people aboard were two employees of Debbie Malen, and none of the four principals were on board.