Chapter 7: The Tropics

The next few weeks were busy ones. We had to do lots of coordination with our agents up north, to move the things we wanted with us in Florida, from our northern home.

We kept our home up north and paid to have caretakers live in it and maintain it. The home had been built by my parents and we moved in when they retired many years ago. It held a lot of sentimental memories for us.

We shipped those things we wanted to have with us during the colder months we planned on spending in Florida. We planned to look for another place up north, possibly on the North Shore of Lake Superior for the summer months. The scenery up there is awesome and it is beautiful there in the summer. If things quieted down, we would still use our old home transitionally.

We didn't have to do a lot of remodeling or re-decorating in our Jupiter home. The place basically looked like someone had built it and never moved in.

I asked Julie if she knew the history of the house. She did some checking around with the locals including the construction folks she was friendly with and told us the story.

The house had been built by an entertainment industry mogul. He had been flush with his success, and the house was just one of many properties and toys he bought, including airplanes, yachts, and ski lodges.

The problem was he was living on his speculated earnings in the future. His empire came crashing down, during the market adjustments surrounding the shift in music from strictly over the counter CD's, to the Internet download market. He wasn't diversified enough to survive.

Well, we thanked Mr. Mogul for his lack of foresight. We were very happy with the design of our house. I could have just dragged a beach chair down to the sandy edge of the ocean and sat and looked at Africa all day. (It's out there; you just have to keep looking.)

The ladies hit me alongside the head and got me going again on the important things like shopping, and buying things for our home, and shopping, and finding the best deals on linens and towels, and shopping... You get the idea.

Women are never satisfied they have everything they need for a home, but I will admit, things slowed down after a few weeks. It was lucky the house had a basic complement of furniture to begin with. It seemed to be quality furniture and was of a design suitable to Florida's climate.

I personally got a kick out of the kitchen. It was set up like a commercial kitchen, with large coolers and freezers and commercial size stoves and ovens. It had a large work space island and a cozy breakfast nook off one end, where we ate most of our meals. The dining room in this place was too intimidating.

We managed to hire some good people to take care of the cleaning and maintenance of the house and grounds. I was concerned about the security aspects of having people come in who we didn't know, but An and Mai fixed that.

It seems An had maintained contact with Hoa, the restaurant owner back home. I don't pretend to understand it all, but here goes; Hoa had a cousin who lived in West Palm Beach, Florida. The cousin had extended family from Vietnam and they sponsored them to come here.

They now had the extended family living with them and were trying to get them a place to live and find work for all of them. The family consisted of a mother and father, a teen age girl, and a younger boy. There surname was Pham, a common Vietnamese name.

We interviewed them, at least An and Mai did. They learned that the father was a mechanic in Vietnam and the mother was a seamstress. They wanted to come to America and work to send their children to school, and get them a decent education, so they would have a future.

An told them we had a private apartment on the grounds, with three bedrooms and a small kitchen and living room, and that we were looking to hire someone that would live on the grounds and take care of the place year round.

They told An they would take the job and do all the work we had just for the place to live, and try to make enough money on the side to get their children an education.

When I heard this, I told An, if she hired them, she would be in charge of supervising and monitoring them and their duties would be determined by her. I also told her that, while I was aware that this seemed like heaven to these people, if they worked for us they would be paid money in addition to room and board.

We wanted loyal employees, and I insisted that the children be evaluated and tutored, if necessary, to get them the best education they could get with their abilities.

The same went for the parents. If there was training or schooling they desired to help them do a better job, we would sponsor it. I also tasked An with working on acclimating them to our society and culture. Heather would assist with that.

While on the subject of education, I should mention that we didn't just blithely go on our merry way when Mai joined our family without considering her education. When Mai and I discovered her talents and realized she could learn anything without interaction in a school, I set up an approved curriculum and registered her as being home schooled.

Of course, that was a joke. She was so far beyond high school subjects when she was thirteen that she would have been bored to death in any school.

Which brings me to Mai; over the winter in Jupiter, her abilities were growing.

One day An came to me and said, "Mai is a woman now."

After I got my heart out of my throat, I realized she meant Mai had reached puberty.

"Too much information," I thought.

"OK, you ladies know how to deal with these things; I'll leave it to you. Give her the talk or whatever."

Of course, that was stupid. Mai probably knew more about biology and reproduction than most graduate students of medicine.

A few weeks later, I was lying on one of the chaise lounges on the upstairs balcony looking out to sea. Mai came up and asked if she could talk to me.

"Of course, Smidgen."

She crawled up on my lap and laid her head on my shoulder. We just sat there looking at the ocean for awhile.

Finally she sighed and said, "This is so peaceful. I could just go on living like this forever. Of course, I can't."

I rubbed her back and hugged her.

"Grandpa, since I reached puberty, my abilities have been growing by leaps and bounds. Its happening so fast, I can hardly keep up. I don't even know where to begin explaining what is happening to me."

"Are you uncomfortable with what is happening?"

"No, it's just a bit confusing. When I need a talent it just appears and it's full blown and I completely understand it, instantly. Something will happen and I will react using a new ability, and when it's over it's like; oh, I knew I could do that."

"I haven't been able to categorize the abilities either. I don't seem to have any limitations on the type of talent I have. Anything you can imagine, I seem to be able to do."

"What do you think this is all about, Smidgen?"

"I think there is a purpose for these abilities. I am meant to use them. I don't know what the purpose is exactly but I am sure I will know when I need to."

"You're scaring me, Smidgen."

"Don't be scared Grandpa, I can't be hurt, and I will protect Grandma, Mom, and you."

"What do you need from me now?"

"Grandpa, I think you should see if you could hire a special security person, for our home here, and to go with Grandma and Mom, when they are out without you. This is mostly because of the threat of kidnapping or extortion because of the lottery winnings. I don't think it's a huge threat and just one person should be sufficient. Also, do you need more money? I can get you all you want."

I laughed, "No Smidgen, I think we have enough for now. I don't think I want anymore information about how you could do that."

She hugged me and we laid there just watching the ocean for quite awhile. I had a feeling she would be going away soon and I was feeling an empty spot in my heart already.

She tipped her head up and whispered in my ear, "It may seem like I'm gone but I will always be with you, Grandpa. Just think about me if you need me."

I took Mai at her word. Right away, I thought of Tim. I made a few phone calls and in a short time I was talking to a candidate for our security. My only question is whether he could handle the slow pace.

Tim Gallagher had been a junior man on one of my teams and was a natural. He had a sense of situational awareness that was unequaled by anyone I worked with over the years. His intuition was spooky. He saved a lot of lives because we listened when he got one of his twinges.

Tim would be in his late twenties now. I wondered if he was still with the teams.

I ran through my contacts and found that Tim had left the service short of retirement, less than a year ago. My contact told me Tim just couldn't take the bullshit and budget cuts that put our people in extreme danger and got them killed for nothing, not to mention wasting the resources that cost so much to train.

The senior leadership was starting to micro manage just like they did in Vietnam, rather than using the chain of command. Seasoned company level officers and highly skilled NCOs were leaving in droves.

"Such a shame," I thought.

I finally tracked Tim down in a small coastal town in North Carolina. He was working for a sporting goods store and still single and hanging out. I told him I might have an opening that would pay a little more than sporting goods down here in Florida working for me.

He said, "When do I start?"

"Whoa, don't you want to know what the job is?"

"I don't care if its shoveling shit back and forth, if it's working for you, I'm your man."

"Let me fly you down here and we can talk about it."

"Sergeant Major, give me your address and I will appear on your doorstep as soon as I can load my car and get on the road."