Chapter 14: Conspiracy Of Dreams Defined

Four identical vehicles sped along the old Interstate 10 westbound from Eglin Air Base in Florida. These armored limousines had three axles and six tires. They had three doors per side. At seven meters long, two meters high and almost three meters wide, they appeared too massive to be cruising at 150 kilometers per hour. In the fading Florida daylight the four vehicles seemed to change color from dark blue to brilliant red. In the third vehicle from the front a woman drove. Her name was Toni and she was an indentured servant. The passenger compartment contained a man and seven women--all eight passengers were nude. The man was Dr. Hank Dalton. The free women were Dr. Joan Jakefield, three free citizen bodyguards named Alex, Belle and Sugar, and three slaves named Amanda, Gordi and Phyllis.

"Where are you taking me?" Hank asked. Hank was sandwiched between Gordi and Phyllis.

"Headquarters," Joan replied as she stroked the dozing Amanda's face. "Operation Goldfish Bowl is blown. I have a platoon in position to rescue Kandi and the girls. Deputy Director Robin Tyson demands to know what went wrong."

While Hank mulled over his answer, the other three women sat facing out. Sugar watched the rear. Alex looked at things on the right of the car and Belle was watching out the driver's side. Bodyguards are watchful. It is their life. Their vigilance means their principal, the protectee, is safe.

"The team hasn't been withdrawn? Is there security for the Bakers?" Hank chuckled. "Of course there is. You learned from the best."

"The Bakers aren't safe yet," Joan admitted. "The enemy has the Baker family captive. No, Hank, I didn't tell Director Tyson that we have a hostage situation. You know how she is. Director Tyson would call the real police and somebody would die."

"Not only that," Hank added, "all of the bad guys would either die or escape. Police can't afford the high-speed low drag stuff we have. Crime is low despite what the newspapers say so the priority to get the best equipment isn't. Tax dollars are limited. Standard stun guns work well enough most of the time and are cost effective for the few times police encounter resistance. Direct energy weapons are too expensive for police so they have only those short-range stun guns. What's the opposition look like?"

"They seem to have six men," Joan said. "They took over the Baker's general store and closed its doors. Kandi was in the store at the time. She slipped out unnoticed. Megan and Ginger caught the phone calls out. Mrs. Baker has already signed permission for us to monitor their landline phone. Kandi was very persuasive."

"What did Kandi tell Mrs. Baker?" Hank asked.

"Mrs. Baker asked Kandi what she did for a living. With my permission, and after Mrs. Baker signed a non-disclosure agreement, Kandi showed Mrs. Baker our operations." Joan paused, and then resumed speaking. "We are only contractors working under a warrant, we are not the government. Mrs. Baker was told about the warrant but Mrs. Baker hasn't seen it. Kandi asked permission to tap the store phone because that general store was the ideal staging area for an assault on our listening post. It paid off. Their assault team will attack our listening post after midnight. We are going to take them down right after the sun sets. Oh, and Hank, we don't tell the boss everything. Director Tyson doesn't need to know about our counter-strike until after it succeeds."

"Good call, Joan," Hank said. "I really am not needed here."

"Don't say that," Joan said. "We need you here. You make us feel good. Morale is very important."

"I didn't mean that," Hank said. "I concede your point on morale--you are all important. What I meant is that you can carry out everything here without me. I do have an idea to keep Director Tyson occupied until we capture and deal with the assault party. I'll tell her about the Conspiracy of Dreams."

"Robin Tyson is no fool," Joan warned, "even if she specialized in preventing shoplifting."

"Director Tyson is why we had Project Goldfish Bowl in the first place," Hank countered. "I don't think that only commandos are human, Joan."

"What is the Conspiracy of Dreams?" Amanda asked.

"The first time I mentioned the Conspiracy of Dreams to someone official," Hank said, "I wound up in psych eval for three weeks. At the time Ned, your father, was a lance corporal. Major Harold was being promoted and decorated for valor in two actions. Major Harold commanded the commando unit that seized those nuclear-armed Snakefly missiles from Aztlan forces and then he commanded the raid that freed the Capitallian delegation from the sailing frigate USS Constitution, a 19th Century warship of the United States Navy."

"I was the kidnapper," Gordi said. "One moment I was sitting on my butt all fat and stupid and happy, and the next instant there were all these Capitallian Marines and Sailors kicking ass on my fellow conspirators. A lot of good it did to have a sentry posted on the dock!"

"Gordi, you were a landlubber," Hank said. "You did have a watch out for boats, but there was a fog that night. It was cold. And we approached from the dock side in boats--the police cruiser on the dock was looking out to land, your guys were looking fore and aft and starboard to the bay, and we just came across the dock and swarmed up the side. If you would have had a real sailor aboard, you would have cast off and anchored elsewhere. I didn't get to interrogate you as much as I wanted, but you were part of the Conspiracy of Dreams."

"Some conspiracy," Gordi muttered.

"I have bad news," Hank said, "your grandson Trey is part of that conspiracy. He just doesn't know it. Trey does have knowledge that will help roll it up, but he doesn't know that he was part of the Conspiracy of Dreams."

"I don't believe in your conspiracy, Master," Gordi said. "I will admit that you found me out and raided me almost as soon as I had secured my hostages in that old frigate's brig. At my trial my defense attorney tried to discredit you."

"Yes," Hank said, "I was on the stand and he asked me why I was raiding a foreign country on a whim. I pointed out that you were on trial for kidnapping, that the victims identified you, and that a rescue team had caught you with the goods. He kept insisting that the Massachusetts state government had to free you because the kidnap victims were illegally freed from captivity. He earned himself a contempt of court ruling. I wasn't on trial--you and your co- conspirators were. Gordi, you were also the scapegoat. That is why I'm seeking your freedom. You have suffered enough."

"My master isn't just trying to get rid of me?" Gordi quipped with a wry smile. "When you rescued me from death, I didn't know who you were at first. You rebuilt my body and you healed my psyche. I almost died when you told me who you were, Henry James Dalton. For a moment I thought that you had made me whole so that you could hurt me some more. I misjudged you. You aren't that kind of man."

"Hank doesn't show enemies any mercy," Joan said, "but when you became his property, Gordi, you weren't his enemy any more. You were just a broken soul."

"You were a soldier that your government threw to the wolves," Hank said. "You should have been treated as a soldier. Capturing enemy leaders is expected conduct for soldiers. You didn't torture them, you didn't do anything except declare that they would go on trial for crimes against humanity."

"You didn't give Gordi time for anything else, Hank," Joan said. "The operations against the Constitution and in pursuit of the Snakefly missiles are studied by special operations personnel worldwide. That's nothing compared to what you've done since--you've truly achieved the standard of the best generals. You win without fighting."

"Fighting means letting the other guy win," Hank said. "I quit fighting long ago. Your ladies won't give the enemy raiding party any chance to resist, will they?"

"Of course not," Joan scoffed. "You trained me and I trained them. An enemy is someone who is an immediate threat to me and my girls. Fighting means aiding and abetting the enemy. They're going down and they won't know what hit them."

"You are programming the synthetic memories, of course?" Joan nodded in response to Hank's query. "We take one, we injure one, and we let them get away thinking that they've destroyed the station. It's only money, Joan. We've gotten our money's worth out of that station. Five or six implanted RFID tags and we let the rats lead us back to their lair."

"That's the plan, Hank. Standard stuff." Joan giggled. "We'll pump the prisoner dry of everything he knows and turn him over to the deputy director. We've caught them with their hands in our cookie jar. It won't be any problem to prosecute. Not as long as we keep the information we stole from his mind from the police."

"What information, Joan?" Hank asked. "We're supposed to turn him over to the real police immediately, but I have a better idea. How about changing the body a bit so that he appears to be someone else? Let the enemy take care of him. His official ID will no longer be valid, he will be an illegal resident instead of a citizen or legal resident non-citizen, and if he should show up on his employer's doorstep odds are that will be a fatal encounter."

"You play dirty, Hank!" Joan chuckled. "I like it. If I had time, I'd do all of them that way."

"The best thing is that they won't know anything," Hank smirked. "I want to learn more about our enemy before we plant a false memory in our latest victim. The other five will believe that their comrade died and will have reported that. What can we do to someone that tried to kill my ladies?"

"What will Director Tyson say about stripping that man of his rights?" Amanda asked. "I don't want you to get into any trouble."

"Robin Tyson thinks outside the box," Hank replied. "Didn't you know? Robin Tyson came up with an alternative to prosecution of shoplifters when she was the executive officer for loss prevention of the Pick-Up Mart chain. Usually it is a short period of indentured service--a sexual indenture lasting less than ten days, usually more like three or four days. Except for a superficial injury of some sort, all we are doing is planting a false memory as a replacement for them actually committing a crime. They've already kidnapped a citizen, her son, two slaves and an indentured servant and odds are they'll kill them. What did Kandi say after she escaped?"

"The kidnappers were allowing the store slaves to keep the store open," Joan said, "obviously to make things look normal. Kandi just picked up her purchases and left with the coded distress signal from Nora--she's the indentured servant. Nobody pays much attention to slaves."

"Sun will be down soon. How far are we from PAM headquarters?" Hank asked. A moment later, he said, "Thank you, Tina. She just told me through these implants that we're on the road another 15 minutes. That should be enough time. I'm speaking aloud for Amanda's benefit. It will take how long for your raid to take down the bad guys?"

"We just rehearsed it," Joan replied. "That's a virtual rehearsal, Amanda, another feature of those implants. Hank, those are city boys and they had no idea that the doggie they've been playing with is actually a coyote. Our rehearsals got the time down to four seconds before all six are down. It seems like magic until you know the equipment. Remember, I invented the Jakefield Unitary System for slave control. Hank improved it with a removable interface module and then we worked on using it to coordinate commando team operations."

"Why not just use radios?" Amanda asked.

"With the commando package, the commandos can talk to each other without vocalizing, without moving their lips," Joan explained. "They can see through each others' eyes. They know exactly where every team member is and what they hear. They also can operate electronic equipment without moving a finger. As a cover story, the Capitallian Defense Organization claimed to be working on telepathy. The funny thing is that Aztlan government officials believe Capitallian commandos are really telepathic. You may have seen them wearing aluminum foil skullcaps. That's why. They're trying to prevent Hank and his commandos from reading their minds."

"Or from putting thoughts in their minds," Hank added. "It was one of my better deception operations. President Lee told the President of the United States the truth about our secret weapon, but the secret is safe because President Larsen thought our last president was lying to her. I was there. I asked President Larsen if she really thought that I was capable of putting thoughts in her mind. The truth is that any psychologist can do that. We don't need to be psychic. It's part of the psychologist's trade, a skill we share with lawyers and ad men. Anyway, we have about ten minutes.

"Amanda, I need you to give the director a short presentation on Operation Bandaid's progress. We've been attacked five times since we left Silver Orb. On the way out someone jumped me in the bathroom at one of the fuel stops. There was that missile-carrying drone over Alabama. Trey snagged you, Amanda, but he seems to have been a witless pawn. Someone was exploiting his hate for a Doctor Henry James Dalton. Colonel Chamberlain is helping us figure out who that person was without compromising her soldier's defense. The attack on Project Goldfish Bowl is number four. And if Ned and the lead car can manage it, we're being trailed by another car. I suspect that it is a robot car driven by the same people who launched the drone. Ned has summoned the highway patrol, but I would rather not get any cops killed. If it is a robot, and I am certain it is a robot, it will blow up on the highway patrol. Ned is passing that along to the Florida Highway Patrol. If these limousines weren't equipped with the ability to change external appearance it would have gotten us by now. We just passed the Number Two car. Too predictable, having me in the third car. With four lanes of traffic each way we can't block off that sports car with these limousines. That reminds me, what's the deputy director's protection detail look like?"

"She has her two personal assistants," Joan said, "and the three of them have the agency-issue 6.5mm select-fire pistols. There is an advance agent that scouts out her destinations and prepares things such as cars and hotel suites. She has a pair of driver/bodyguards and two regular close-protection agents. The Deputy Director thinks that she is well protected. My girls could peel away her protection and kidnap her. Or two of my girls could make Director Tyson very dead. Hank, if you are certain that it is a robot car bomb, why don't we just blow it up on the highway?"

"Too much collateral damage," Hank said. "They've got to be aware that we are armored. I'm guessing an explosive-formed penetrator--a platter charge propelled by as much as a hundred kilograms of plastique. More likely only fifty kilos because otherwise that light sports car would be too sluggish to follow us. If it were human-crewed, we might not have spotted it. Fifty to a hundred kilos will leave a crater in the road and in this traffic several dozen innocent people will die. Ned is going to try decoying the sports car while we fade out of the convoy and slip in alone. I understand we're being watched by a fisher eagle named Binky right now."

"Yes, he's one of our A/H CID avians. We have an owl and a flamingo as well. Our alternate route is protected." Joan shook her head and stared at Hank. Her voice was hushed as she told him, "Times like this I do believe you are psychic."

"I just know the Conspiracy of Dreams well enough to accurately guess their next actions," Hank explained. "The detour will delay us a few minutes. Joan, congratulations again. Your commando detachment is flexible and responsive. I think that you've used up all your assets. Not complaining, but what do you have in reserve?"

"I still have the trainees," Joan said, "but I have to rely on being able to reposition assets. We have a platoon at the governor's mansion on contract. I can call in favors, but it takes only a few minutes for me to change my girl commandos around. Help from outside will take 23 minutes because of our isolation."

"Okay. Gordi, I want you to update the deputy director on Project Goldfish Bowl." Hank directed. "Watching people raiding our station is like watching a shoplifter--store detectives cannot act until certain overt acts have been committed. Even after that, the store detective can elect to let the shoplifter off with a warning--after recovering stolen property. Put it in terms the deputy director can relate to. You must observe the shoplifter select an item, conceal it, and exit the store without paying for it. And then you confront the shoplifter when you have the tactical advantage. Shoplifters almost never get violent, but some do try to flee and if a shoplifter gets hurt, you have the potential for an excessive force charge. We're not dealing with mere shoplifters--they are dangerous armed criminals. They will resist."

"Hank, may I have Phyllis do that presentation?" Gordi asked. "That way I can weigh in as the bad example. I was enslaved for life for doing what those raiders in Tampa are attempting."

"I only drew a 20 year sentence for bribery," Phyllis said. "Let's give Gordi a shot at being heavy artillery."

"Good suggestions," Hank said. "Do that."

"What will I do?" Joan asked.

"Simple. After Amanda makes a progress report on Operation Bandaid and Phyllis reports on Project Goldfish Bowl, I'll divert the deputy director until you can report on the successful capture of the intruders."

"Why are Phyllis and Gordi reporting on Project Goldfish Bowl?" Amanda asked.

"We're the liaisons between Tampa and Pensacola," Gordi explained. "We make a trip once a week to the station, stay overnight, and return here."

"We're off the interstate," Hank reported. "Again, I'm relaying from Toni for Amanda. We have another ten minutes. Toni can delay a few more minutes if you need the time to prepare."

"I'm ready," Amanda said. "I have most of the slides I need. I just need a place to show the presentation and then answer questions."

Ten minutes later the single limousine drove through a back gate held open by a uniformed commando. It was the back gate of a private militia base. Capitallia had a very small standing army--the fewer soldiers on active duty, the less tax dollars spent and the less chance that a 'man on horseback would use his office to stage a coup d'etat. Private militia bases were small and funded entirely by the militia members, and so had less protection than federal bases or state militia headquarters. The Pensacola Amazon Militia (PAM) was well funded and its headquarters had been designed by professional commandos. Barely visible was a machine gun bunker covering the gate. The commando shut the gate behind the limousine and Tina drove directly into the yawning garage door. As soon as the limousine's rear bumper cleared the doorway, the roll-up door slowly slid shut.

Sugar, Belle and Alex bailed out, formed a phalanx around Hank as he stepped out of the armored vehicle. Joan was immediately behind Hank. Bringing up the rear were Amanda, Gordi and Phyllis.

A trim woman in a slate gray pants suit strode purposely forward to intercept the parade of naked people.

"I'm Director Tyson's personal assistant, Ms. Gregory," the woman announced. "Which one of you is Doctor Dalton?"

"That would be me."

"This way," Ms. Gregory commanded. She maintained her regal bearing even though the woman's face had reddened in embarrassment. "You're late. Why don't you put some clothes on?"

"I guess it doesn't work," Joan said. Ms. Gregory shot Joan a puzzled look. "It is a common nightmare to imagine yourself naked in a room full of clothed people. The standard advice is to imagine that you are clothed and they are all naked. Doesn't work, does it?"

The clothed Ms. Gregory gaped at the naked people in the large room, shook her head, and walked to a door. Joan, Hank and the rest followed Ms. Gregory into a conference room.

"You're late!" The speaker was a slender, middle-aged woman in an olive-colored pants suit. Two men in trench coats stood on either side of her. "You're naked!"

"And this is unexpected, Director Tyson?" Hank asked. "You want to know what is going on. Amanda will update you on Operation Bandaid, the new contract to find the people who are killing our senators. Another one died, I hear, in Las Vegas. Amanda?"

Amanda briefly covered the discovery of two men discussing murder by cell phone while seated ten meters away from each other in a public restaurant. Names, dates, places. The five attempts on Hank in the last 12 hours.

"AS I speak," Amanda concluded, "my father is trying to disarm that robot car bomb."

As if on cue the sound of a muffled explosion shook the building.

"Agent Saunders reports that the robot exploded in a safe place," Joan told the deputy director. "Chalk up another failed attempt."

"I was warned that this would be dangerous," Director Tyson commented, "but I don't believe what happened to you in just one day."