Chapter 8

'Darren!' Sun's warning in my head wasn't necessary, this time, as I was anticipating the pass. I caught the ball behind my back while my eyes kept Frank occupied. My chi told me that Wei was open, so I shot a bounce-pass in front of her as she passed behind and to my left, headed toward the goal. She caught it just as she started her leap and made another easy layup.

The basketball game had been my idea. The Gemini Girls had been searching for a way to sharpen our ability to use each other's senses to greater advantage, but it was hard to design an exercise that would do that. It was after Frank and I had a little one-on-one game that I realized basketball would be the perfect way to accomplish what my mind-mates wanted, and have a little fun while we were at it.

Our first practices were laughable. It is very difficult to coordinate your own movements based on what someone else is seeing, and the temptation to use your own eyes is tremendous. Mei proposed that we take turns wearing a blindfold to remove that temptation, one at a time, starting with me, since my chi would give me a little help. Since my 'energy vision' could not work on inanimate objects all it could do for me was let me know where the others were and approximately what they were doing. If one passed the ball to me, I had to depend on someone else's eyes to catch it.

Sounds simple, right? Wrong! It took a LOT of practice to get to where I could convert what the others were seeing into something my muscles could use, but gradually I started getting the knack. When I became reasonably proficient at it, I passed the blindfold to Jun, who went through the same process. The disadvantage the ladies shared was that they also had to interpret what my chi was telling them about what everyone was doing. Their advantage, however, was that they had been there with me as I learned, and already had a headstart.

Finally, after many hours of practice, chasing missed balls, and suffering not a few bruises, balls in the face and jammed fingers, we felt that this 'secondary vision' thing was becoming second nature to us, even without the blindfold, so we challenged the rest of the Gemini team to come up with a basketball team to play against us. The game was scheduled for a Saturday, and the entire Hastings household, as well as many off-duty employees from Gemini and Hastings' company had come to watch.

We didn't have that big an advantage on defense, though being able to see the person you're defending through other eyes makes it more difficult for him or her to fool you. On offense, however, they couldn't touch us. Time and again, we made impossible plays that baffled our opponents and threw their defense into disarray. Being the big guy on our team, I was, naturally, low post for most plays, and my chi helped to keep us all informed of how the defense was configured, and where the weaknesses were.

Some of our play must have looked like something from a Harlem Globetrotters game. We weren't anywhere near as good at handling the ball as the Globetrotters, but then, I don't recall ever seeing them do a no-look catch, and that was what kept confounding the team against which we were playing.

Our opponents were pretty good, and in a normal match might actually have beaten us, despite the G-Girls' athletic prowess and superhuman stamina. As it was, however, the game was blowout for us. Since no one but Hastings and his daughter knew our little secret, our performance must have been astounding to watchers and opponents alike. Frank McKenzie approached me after the game.

"Damn, squid!" The ex-CIA agent told me. "You five act like you've got eyes in back of your heads or something! I've never seen that kind of teamwork! No wonder three of you were able to take my team so easily back in that hotel in Frankfurt!"

"Now, see what loving your work can do for you?" I laughed.

"I don't know, man," he replied, shaking his head. "That's got to be more than just loving your work. That was spooky!"

"These ladies are awesome, aren't they?" I said, trying to deflect his curiosity a bit. "They've kind of taken a liking to me, and taught me some things the SEALS never dreamed of. By the way - doesn't the losing team owe the winners a few drinks or something?"

"Drinks, my ass!" he snorted. "This was a setup from the start! If anybody owes anyone drinks, you guys oughta be buying!"

"How about a rain check?" I grinned. "Let's get through this CIA interview next week, and if everything comes out all right, I'll buy you, Talibah, her mom, and your whole team a drink!"

He slapped me on the shoulder as we headed for the shower. "You got a deal! Hey, thanks for putting in a good word with Hastings and my bosses about letting me go with Talibah for this interview. She's going to need a friendly face nearby, and since I know these guys' tricks, I can kinda keep 'em from getting too nasty."

"No problem, jarhead." I replied, "You just take care of my girl, huh?"

I couldn't tell him that I also thought it would be a good idea for him to carry a couple of the Proteus bugs with him. It would be harder to detect them if there were only a couple on each body. Besides, he might go visiting old pals and get into places that Talibah couldn't get close to.

After my own shower, I met with Hastings and the G-Girls for a final planning session. I was a little leery about sending those devices in with Talibah, especially without her knowledge. For that matter, I wasn't all that thrilled about doing it to Frank, either, but we figured they'd be less likely to tip someone off, deliberately or accidentally, if they didn't know they were carrying spyware with them. Hastings compromised and swore that if either of them was caught, he would take responsibility. I didn't say so, but he wasn't the only one who would be running interference for them if they were discovered.

The real sticking point was retrieval of the devices after they had done their work. There was no reason to expect that the spooks would be able to detect them, but it wouldn't be wise to leave them laying around the grounds - somebody, someday, would come across them and put two and two together.

Since the grounds of the Langley compound weren't quite as secure as the buildings, we decided that Mei, Wei, Sun, Jun, and I would be the pickup team. Once a day, starting three days after insertion, we would drive by and blip the devices electronically, after seven days or when all devices answered, we would go in at night and retrieve them.

The last blip before we entered the grounds would give us rough positioning. Each of us would be equipped with something that looked a bit like a flat black janitor's dustpan, but was small enough to fit in a pocket. Each of these 'garages, ' when activated, would emit a low-level signal that the bugs would home in on. We would each make our way to the vicinity of one of the bugs, as reported by the blip, and activate our dustpan. When a bug 'docked' in its garage, the dustpan would send a signal to its wielder's headset. Theoretically, each garage could retrieve up to a dozen bugs, but we only planned to send half a dozen, and the less time we spent on the grounds of the CIA compound, the better. With five of us going, if all six bugs made it out, one of us, whichever was closer, would have to pick up the extra bug. With any luck two of them would be close together and could be retrieved with a single stop.

Talibah's interview went well enough, though the CIA wasn't happy with what she told them. She was forthcoming about Ghalib, the Chinese, and the involvement of the agents in Germany and Salzburg, but would not give up names or other information about living members of her organization. Frank, true to his word, protected her from some of the worst things they could have thrown at her. She didn't, for instance, get packed off to Guantanamo Bay, but short of physical abuse, they used every weapon in their arsenal against her.

When we collected them in the evening, Talibah looked drained but not too much the worse for wear. A quick sweep picked up CIA bugs that had been planted on both of them, but no trace of the Proteus devices. Our 'bugs' had apparently crawled away without being noticed. Since Hastings Company manufactured security devices, the listeners probably weren't too surprised when their bugs died.

Three days later, in a different vehicle, Sun drove by the Langley compound and got responses from four of our devices that had made it out of the buildings with their loads of data.

The next night, yet another vehicle, and five responded. We hoped we might be able to make our pick up earlier than expected. It wasn't until the seventh day, however, that the sixth bug responded to our signal.

That night was moonless and overcast - a perfect night for infiltrating one of the most secure places on earth. We were using a combination of techniques I had learned in SEAL training and spec-ops, and stuff that the G-Girls had gotten as part of their training and experience.

We wore headsets for communication with our control - one of the most trusted of Gemini's people - and to hear the signal from our 'garages' when our bugs came home, but our communication with each other was, naturally, through our 'personal' hookup. It was much faster and more reliable, but it drove the woman chosen as our control batty, since she had no idea what was going on unless one of us bothered to tell her.

The place was a maze of optical, laser, and other detectors, but we had one advantage. To avoid having too many false alarms from wildlife, patrolling dogs and such, the point of detection had to be a certain distance above ground, and motion sensors were not used at all. Our progress was slow, but Sun, Jun, Mei, Wei and I slowly made our way from our widely dispersed insertion points to our respective pick up points. My 'chi vision' came in handy more than once, as guards or dogs passed near one of us. Thanks to the early warning, we all managed to stay downwind of the dogs and not raise any alarms.

I made my pickup without incident and started back out. I had almost reached the fence when my luck ran out. One of the dogs - a Doberman Pinscher, picked up my scent and came straight for me. I could have killed him, but if I could neutralize him without leaving evidence of my passing it would be much better.

Instinctively, my chi reached out to him, tasting the white hot anger and fear that my scent had aroused in him. The fear was for his trainer's wrath, I realized, as he charged silently upon my position. I sat cross-legged on the ground, checking my tell-tales to be sure we were out of range of sensor and camera sweeps. My energy flowed outward, flooding the dog's anger with affection, and soothing his fear. I had never tried this before and I could feel the girls watching tensely as the dog paused, whining, sniffing the air around me. It was hard to remain calm and keep the proper energies flowing, so I was grateful for the steadying presence of Sun and Jun. Mei and Wei kept track of what my chi was 'seeing.' I continued sending out soothing energies while sitting perfectly still. In fits and starts, the dog inched closer, ears erect now, curious about what I might be. It took a couple of minutes that seemed like hours, but soon, the dog was happily licking my face! I scratched him behind the ears and under his collar, then resumed my progress toward the compound fence.