Chapter 8

Washington, DC congressional office building

Jessie hung up the phone and rubbed his tented pants and quickly left his desk. Sarah's description of the young Cuban girl had excited him so much that he rushed to his restroom to relieve himself.

As he grasped his manhood and pumped, his mind reenacted all the training sessions he had dispensed and remembered the excitement he had with his young girls and what he called his sissy boys. In this state, climax came quickly and came again as he continued.

When Jessie returned, he found Sal sitting at his desk. Sal removed a thick envelop from his jacket, opened the center drawer and dropped it into the Jessie's desk. "Jessie, my friend, this is just a little something to cover the expense of your wife's body guard. Keeping her in line is very important to all of us, so we feel we should help. We are covering the expense of incarcerating the young spy directly. We are grateful that you will help us break her down so we can question her."

"Thank you Sal. You are always looking out for me."

"I like to help you. It would hurt me very much if we had to use other means to help our people. This is much better, don't you think?"

Jessie fought down the resentment he felt for the slime ball sitting in his chair. He thought of those poor children who died in the Cuban video. What a waste that was. There was nothing he could do about it now, and since Shannon's father had cut off the money stream, he had to do something.

Cutting off the money really pissed Jessie off. It wasn't Jessie's fault Shannon was captured by the demon gin. God knows he's preached to her about bad habits. She wouldn't listen to him. The more he preached, the more drinking she did.

He wished he had taken his father's advice and took a razor strap to her when she started getting out of hand. It was too late now. The devil had her beautiful body and rotting soul. All Jessie could do now was to keep her under control. If that redneck pile of testosterone, Reynolds, couldn't keep her in line for what he was getting paid, he would have to talk to Sal about other options. In fact, maybe other options would be better.

"Yes, Sal, I think friendship works much better."

"What have you learned about the Cowboy of the Caribbean?"

"I had a briefing this morning. The C2 was in Havana Harbor until last night. She was missing this morning. The Coast Guard is looking for her now. We have no idea how she slipped out without us catching her. We are gathering up some possible suspects now. The first one we are searching for is a Coast Guard officer who grew up with the Stephens family."

"You think he helped them?"

"Could be, but Homeland Security is also keeping all the family and business partners under surveillance. Something's not right here."

"I agree with you. I am Cuban by birth, but in my heart I love your country, my friend. This is why this problem is important to us as well as you."

"That's why we get along so well. Your problems are my problems, and my problems are your problems. This makes for a very interesting and strong friendship, don't you think?"

Florida Key, Jeff's island, after the C2 arrived.

The kids were astounded at the size of the building entryway. They had never seen a building this large, or this gilded. "Captain, where did they get all of this gold? There must be tons of it in the walls."

"I have no idea kids. What you know about this place Maria? You seem to have known where this was all along."

"Paul, this building and island has a long and proud history. As you can see from its height above sea level it is not the typical Key's island. When we have more time, I'll tell you all about it. Right now I need to speak to Bai and find out what is going on. Bai is the building's artificial intelligence. He is self aware and treated like a human. Granted, he is treated like a human with a giant ego, but a human nonetheless."

"I do not have a giant ego," came a voice from the ceiling. "I am just that good. You care to argue with me Maria?"

"Did I say a giant ego? I must've meant justifiably large ego."

"That's much better. Maria, there may be hope for you yet."

"Oh. Thank you, oh great pile of post bovine processed oats. I live to make you happy."

"Young lady, I believe that was sarcasm. Try as I will. I have not succeeded. You have still not learned your manners."

The children looked to the ceiling and asked, "Why are you being nasty to Maria? She is our friend."

"Because I can!" came the answer from Bai. "I am very powerful and very smart. I eat children for breakfast. Do you taste good?"

KT embraced the children and looked around and asked, "Who is that arrogant ass hole that you are talking to?"

"That was just Bai. He is been here for so long by himself that he is forgotten how to act around people. No one is willing to stay with him long enough to teach him how to be civil."

"Well, he'd better stay out of my way or I will kick his god damn ass."

The voice from the ceiling replied, "Who is this foulmouthed youngster? I cannot believe she has such a lack of manners. Maria, you must be a very bad influence to teach this impressionable girl such language."

KT looked again and replied, "Where's the god damn plug for this piece of shit? He won't be so uppity once I have turned his power off."

Maria held up her hand. "As tempting as it is KT. We need the thing's help. He really is the world's greatest computer, and he can make our lives much easier. Bai, what do you know about the missing girl from Cuba?"

"She was kidnapped."

Maria sighed. "Bai, we've talked about this before. People do not understand how sensitive you are would it help any if KT apologized to you? I'm sure she didn't mean anything when she said that. Did you KT?"

"Oh, of course not, I was just kidding with you, Bai. My father has always said that I have a very strange sense of humor. I'm sure we'll get along famously once we get to know each other."

"I guess I could let it go this time. Because you did not know how great I really am. Yes I'll just let it go. Now where were we? The young girl was kidnapped by the Cuban resistance movement in Miami. We don't know exactly where she is, but we think that she's somewhere in the Florida Keys. We are searching various bank accounts, credit cards, transportation receipts and hotel receipts to see if we can find some relationship. The Queen has made this a very high priority and has allowed me to lower the safety protocols against discovery. This does not happen very often, so the girl must mean a lot to you. If she means a lot to you, Maria, than she means a lot to me."

Paul looked at the computer speaker. "You may want to look for some kind of relationship between the US government and the Cubans. We tried to get Maria back to Cuba and that raised a hornet's nest at Homeland Security. I'm really just not sure why this has happened. No one I can talk to has an answer, either."

Bai responded, "I heard about that Paul. You don't mind my calling you that?"

"No, feel free to call me what you wish. My ego is justifiably small."

Maria asked, "What do we know about the old world technology that has been brought out of storage?"

"It is, as we feared. Someone must have found one of our older bases and figured out how to use the equipment. This could be very bad, and I am concerned about this more than anything else that we're looking at. I can only hope that the people who escaped Lattice will use the technology intelligently. If they don't, we could start a tragedy like the fall of Atlantis all over again because the portal never healed. That is something I do not want to go through again."

Maria sighed. "Nor do I."

Later that night, across the dinner table, Paul brought the girls up to date on the circumstances that brought them to this location. "So you see your dad is just a figurehead for the Lattice monarchy. I think you're going to see a lot of changes in him from what I heard. He is much younger now, much stronger, faster, and terribly in love."

"What do you know about this woman with whom my dad has fallen in love?"

"I," said Maria, "know her better than anyone around here. We have known each other for thousands of years. We grew up as children together and have been friends forever. In my opinion, they both have found the perfect mate. They are very happy and very much in love. I don't think you can ask for anything more than that."

"I certainly hope you are right. When my father called and told me about this place, I thought he had gone off the deep end. What do we need with an island in the Florida Keys? What do we need with an island at all? Now it makes a lot more sense."

Betty laughed. "Sera, I told you that rich people are not crazy. They are just eccentric. I have a question, though. Maria, if you are thousands of years old how can Fidel Castro be your uncle?"

"I was adopted into his family. It really happened some time ago. I saved him from an assignation attempt. We were talking at my recognition banquet and I mentioned that I wished I had a family as strong as his, so he said, "You do now." The country thought it was great, so everyone accepted it.

Jamison Home Miami, Florida

For the last week Max had put up with Shannon Jameson's drunken wrath. The entire time they were together she cursed him, spat on him and tried every way she knew to take out her frustrations on her protector.