Chapter 26

Chuck

When I woke, it took me a second to get my bearings. We had been moving around so much lately it was difficult to remember where I was. The clock said it was only five fifteen, but I was wide awake and needed the bathroom.

After the bathroom, I put my peg on and went into the kitchen to heat up some of yesterday's coffee in the microwave. With cup in hand, I walked out to the patio and it seemed as if the studio was calling me. I reached inside the patio door, took the studio keys, and walked to the studio door. Once there, I opened the storage room with the password 'Lisa or 5472' on the keypad and pulled out my Blues King. Something was running around in my head and I wanted to let it out.

It only took a minute to tune the guitar before I sat on a folding chair in the main studio and began picking. What came out was a gentle string pulling, full of vibrato, unplugged piece that wanted to sing, cry, and dance all at the same time. As I played, I felt a tear run down my face and wondered at how emotional I get at times while playing my music.

I played this new theme through multiple times and began internally hearing other instruments as they added to what was playing. A bass would be good, as would be gentle keyboards, perhaps B-3 to add in. Some of the soulful chorus would sound good, with violin accompanying the sustain of the guitar.

My head wandered to my past while I played. My sister's face smiled at me. She had loved to listen to my music. With her memory, I added a new phrase that unleashed my emotions for her loss. I played that through a few times and couldn't help but think about how happy I was to have Aunt Etta and the two girls with me. Another phrase was added that had a happy quality to it.

The Blues King was perfect for this piece as I tried to put it all together and play it through while I heard it in my head. About the third time through, I was seeing the notes on clefs and thought I needed to write it all down while it was fresh. I needed the controller to work with the midi to write the music for me. I could add the other instruments the way I heard them later.

Movement caught my eye and I saw Lisa and Elmer in the control booth. Lisa noticed me looking and smiled at me. She came through the door and asked, "That's new, isn't it? I haven't heard you play that before. Some of it is pretty deep, isn't it?"

With a smile, I answered, "It's something that came to me, and I sort of put it together sitting here. You know how it is when you hear some music in your head and need to let your fingers make it happen. I wish I knew how to make the controller and midi work so I could have the music without writing it down again. I'm always afraid I'll miss some of the nuances of what I hear in my head. I can add the other instruments, but having the initial piece on paper would help."

Lisa grinned and waved at Elmer. The speakers from the control room popped, and Elmer said, "I have all of the last couple of times through. I'm running one through the midi as I speak. I'll give you a copy so you can do what you want with it. The recording is mine though. I want this to be added to our doodling album. I have a bunch of Lisa, some of both of you together, and a couple of you, Chuck. Add in some of the neat stuff that comes from the patio, and I have a very saleable piece of music."

With a smile and a tug at my sleeve, Lisa told me, "Come on, put your guitar up and let's go to breakfast. The rest of the household has already gone to Steve's. They could see you through the windows and didn't want to disturb you while you were playing." Lisa took my hand and pulled me toward our storage closet.

Elmer joined us as we walked out the studio door and locked it. He was carrying a DVD with him as we went through the kitchen to hang up the studio keys and lock up on the way to the patio for breakfast.

I asked Lisa, "Did anyone get Ace up? He's going to be hungry if we don't get him over there."

Lisa smiled. "He's up and went over with the rest of the family."

When we walked into the patio, Tiny was waving at me from the bar. As I passed by all my ladies, I did some hugging and kissing to let them know I thought of them all of the time. At the bar, Tiny handed me a tall glass with red liquid and said, "Hey, it's Saturday and I doubt you'll be flying today. Enjoy one of these with us."

Upon looking around, I realized it was Saturday and a voyeur's paradise with all of the revealing robes and gowns. Steve was standing next to me when Sue came up and rubbed one of her giant boobs on his arm and stood on tiptoes to give him a kiss. She smiled at me and brushed a long protruding nipple on my arm. It must have had the desired effect as a hand brushed across my instantly growing interest. Lisa said, "Now those are some nice toys."

Sue gave Lisa a kiss and went back to the other scantily dressed women. That's when I noticed Lisa was dressed in the exact same translucent gown Sue had on. Sue was great to look at, but Lisa looked absolutely delicious.

I had not taken a drink of Tiny's gift yet when DeDe came up and asked, "Could you give a couple of lessons this morning? Saturday morning is always crazy for lessons and we sort of overbooked. I can give you either an instrument or beginner, whatever you want." I sighed, nodded my approval, and handed Tiny back the drink.

Lisa told DeDe, "I can take one. How soon do we need to be out at the airpark?"

Indicating Star and Wes standing next to her, DeDe explained, "We're getting ready to go out right now. Betty is watching the desk, and the rest of us are giving lessons. Hurry, eat, and come out. Lisa, you might want to put on something that isn't quite as revealing." That brought a laugh from those around us, as we thought of Lisa showing all of her charms while giving a lesson to some unsuspecting student.

Lisa and I quickly ate and when we headed for the house, Ace asked if he could come with us to the airpark.

At the airpark, Betty set Lisa and me up with students as they checked in. Outside the office I noticed five new low wing LSA coupes waiting for students. Wes saw me looking at the aircraft and said, "Those all have instrumentation for lessons in them, and all have the required hours on them and have been certified. Use one of those and be pleasantly surprised if you haven't been in one of the LSAs yet."

Lisa and I took our students and the logbooks out to the LSAs and began the lesson with the usual preflight inspections, using the cards with a step by step checklist. Ours needed fuel, so we were either going to have to go to the fuel dock first or get the fuel truck over where the aircraft were.

Lisa complained, "This thing doesn't have much fuel. What's with putting an aircraft out to use without fuel?"

Star walked up and said, "Part of the preflight for students is to check the fuel level. Now they know that an aircraft on the ground may not have fuel. The truck is on the side of the building waiting for everyone to see that they needed fuel. Let's watch to make sure everyone checks."

My student said, "That's a good way to impress me that a preflight inspection is necessary. Do you always do one when you fly?"

Smiling, I replied, "Every time in every aircraft. If I've asked for an aircraft to be prepped, I trust the guys out here to have the aircraft in takeoff condition. But with rotary wing, I still go over everything, regardless.

"While we're waiting for the fuel truck, let me show you the primary fuel gauge for any airplane." I raised my right index finger as if I were pointing to the sky, and held up my left hand with my watch facing the student.

"Well, where's the fuel gauge?" he asked.

"Right in front of you. You stick your finger in the fuel filler port, and if it doesn't come out wet, your tank isn't full. Once it's topped up, you check your timepiece to see how much fuel you're really burning – about 15 lb., 2.5 gallons, per hour on these LSAs – because the fuel gauge on your instrument panel just isn't all that reliable."

Ace was hanging with the student and me and asked, "That airplane doesn't have any extra seats. Do you think you could get a bigger aircraft so I could ride along?"

"Sure," I replied, "we have several Cessna 172s we can use. Let's get one and do another preflight."

Betty didn't have a problem with us changing aircraft, so we went out to the hangar and pushed the assigned 172 out to the tarmac. It only took five minutes or so to thoroughly check the aircraft. Inside the aircraft, I put the student in the left seat and we began with the cockpit preflight. The guy hollered "Clear," checked all around the aircraft, and started the engine. We watched the instruments as they began registering the correct readings.

This was about the twentieth hour of in-flight instruction for the student, so I let him do all of the radio coordination getting out to the end of the runway in more ground traffic than was usual at the airpark. When it was our turn to get on the runway, we rolled out, ran up the engine, and rolled down the runway. Lift off was smooth, and the student did the proper trim as we climbed up to our nine thousand feet assigned altitude.

Today the flight was supposed to be some navigation and stalls, so we were headed south toward Sarasota Brandenton International airport. This is the airport serving Sarasota and Manatee, built right on the border of the two counties and was known as the Manasota airport years and years ago. This airport isn't that busy and is a perfect place to use their instrument landing system to do a touch and go.

From there, we headed toward Sebring, and I was impressed that the student was paying attention and identified other aircraft above and below us. We did another touch and go at Sebring and headed back north to do a landing on a grass runway north of Orlando.

When we radioed to advise we were going to land at the unattended park, there was a response from another pilot, "The runway is a little soggy, so if you don't have to land, how about going somewhere else? We don't need any more ruts than we have already made today."

The student asked me where to go, so I checked our time and suggested setting us up for Apopka. He did the setup with the Garmin flight controller, and we were headed there with a revised flight plan called in. We climbed to five thousand feet and went north of the airport to swing around to make an approach to their cinder runway from the north.

After switching the intercom to Ace and I only as the student needed to monitor the local frequencies, I asked Ace, "How you doing back there Ace? Enjoying the ride?"

"You know it, Chuck. I haven't been in a little aircraft for a long time. I'm going to have to rent one of those little air coupes and do some local flying. I'll bet a pass along the beach is fun."

I asked, "Are you rated for multi-engine and commercial?"

Ace replied, "I'm rated and checked out in a King Air, but no jets. I don't have enough hours for a commercial ticket, but the last time I was out west they began giving me rotary wing instruction. I noticed a couple of helicopters at the airpark. Do they give lessons out there on those too?"

"You bet. We have some really experienced instructor pilots for rotary wing. You'll have to make Betty aware that you want instruction. You know the service will pick up your fees and aircraft rental cost. Get some time in while you're here and get some more instruction in rotary wing. Lisa and I need some time in the funny birds ourselves."

We did a full landing at Apopka and turned around to takeoff again. I checked to see if we might be able to get into one of the little grass runway airports and found one near Ocala that was perfect. The student was nervous as it is different to land on grass rather than a runway with a center line. He did fine and I'm sure he picked up a lot of confidence. We landed back at the airpark right at our three hour lesson time. We refueled the aircraft and parked it back by the hangar before pushing it in. I filled out the lesson paperwork and had the student fill out both the aircraft logbook and his own. I initialed his logbook and we turned everything in to Betty.

Ace talked to her about aircraft rental and helicopter lessons. He said he would bring his logbook out with him next time so she could set him up with his next step of learning how to fly whirlybirds. I asked Ace, "If you want some time in one of the LSAs, go sign one out using your service card and get check ride. You get twenty hours a month for general aviation competency, and more for lessons, as needed."

That gave me a thought. "Have you done your instrument training yet?"

Ace answered, "Not yet, I have the ground school done, but not the in flight instruction."

I turned to Betty. "Set up a schedule for an instructor for Ace's instrument training. He has to have that before he does a lot of other things. I'm surprised the service didn't insist you get that done, Ace. I'll bet they overlooked your training level."

They didn't need me or Lisa for the day any longer, so we drove back home. Ace was going to need transportation, so I asked Lisa, "What do you think about letting Ace use your Escape? You don't drive much at all lately, and when you do, it's usually one of the Expeditions."

Lisa handed Ace the keys and said, "It's the red Escape in the near stall on the back side. I think the gas tank is full, but you should check it. I haven't driven it in a month so it will be good for you to use it."

Ace said, "I think I'll take the car to check out the area. I do need to familiarize myself."

I told him, "Lisa and I need to spend some time with the new mothers, so we'll be here. We do have lunch around noon and supper around six. Beer flows anytime on Saturday afternoon, so come back to enjoy being with everyone. I'm sure there are a lot of people you'll want to meet."

Lisa and I watched Ace as he brought out the Escape and headed out of the area.

No one was home, but we did hear noise from the studio. As we entered the control room, we saw Rags standing with his Stratocaster slung over his shoulder next to Pop at his piano. Rags looked at Lisa and me and said, "You're just the guy. Elmer said this is something you were working on this morning. Pop likes it, but it is a little strange for me."

I said, "This is for an acoustic. I was playing it with my Blues King."

Pops said, "Ah, I can see why. These are all very smooth transitions. I like the way you put the breaks in as if you're going to add instruments."

"Right you are, Pops. Did Elmer give you a CD to listen to or just the score?"

Rags said, "I wandered in early this morning and Elmer gave me this, saying it was something new. I came by and got Pops to come over and see what it sounded like."

I went for my Blues King and brought out one of my basses. Lisa picked up her acoustic and we went out to join the two men. I handed the bass to Rags and said, "Listen to the piece once, then put a simple soft bass line down. Lisa is going to give me some rhythm background, and, Pops, I haven't written your side yet, but see if you hear what I hear."

The four of us were sitting next to Pops at his piano as I played the piece through the way I had played it earlier. When I finished the piece, Pops said, "You put a lot of your soul in that boy. That is beautiful. It's like a complete concert in a small package. Do you hear it, Rags? I do need to play the synthesizer with the B-3 sound."

"What's up with the B-3?" I asked.

Rags said, "The old girl decided to quit during practice yesterday. I've got a guy coming to fix it, but that thing is getting old. The synthesizer has a great tone, and Pops likes the keyboard on it. Imagine that, Pops playing keyboards."

I said, "Let's do it with a bass line first, Rags. Just make it a straight, but soft, blues line. Lisa, you just chord through a rhythm background to fill it in, and can you score the base line for me, Pops? Listen to the piece one more time and we'll add the B-3 in next."

I was picking up extra notes for expression each time we played it through. With Lisa giving me a back and Rags keeping a slow soft line going, the piece became a living thing. As soon as we finished, Pops said, "Let me play it through with you this time. There isn't too much I want to add, but there is an area or two that needs some accent."

When we finished that time, Pop's busily wrote on some staff score paper to put what he played down. I looked it over and concurred that was what I heard. Rags said, "This is one of those pieces you could sit on a stage and play it by yourself then turn right around and add in the other instruments to give it a totally different flavor."

I could see him looking over my shoulder when he said, "Let's do this one more time to make sure it's what you want, Chuck."

We played it through completely with some unplanned breaks that Rags filled, followed by Pops, and Lisa who could play some gentle blues riffs with the best of them. When we brought it to a close, Pops' and Rags' eyes were closed, feeling the music as they played.

The control room speakers came on, "Damn, that is awesome, Chuck. This morning's recording was great, but this is wonderful. How about doing something else for me? What do you know that would be only you playing? The bass and rhythm can come in later."

I was smiling. "How about something from Duane Allman? He called it 'Little Martha'. It isn't very long, but it is gentle and almost happy."

Everyone was smiling when I finished that, and Lisa asked, "How about another voice from the grave? Pops, do 'Try a little Tenderness' the way Etta always did it." Pops and Rags followed Lisa's guitar lead in and Lisa sang the old song perfectly. Some backup vocals would have been nice, but this was just for fun. I sat at the studio drum set and gave the piece a pace with soft rim shots with brushes and high hat.

It was fun watching Lisa sing and play lead with Rags and Pops playing the backup flavor. Pops used the synthesizer to make some horn sounds to accent the piece making the music real classy. He had tears running down his cheeks as he remembered the wonder of the now deceased singer.

We were sitting back with smiles when Lisa said to me, "Get over here and play that Eric Clapton thing you like so much. You called it 'Hey, Hey' and you were always picking it on your acoustic and singing the lyrics."

When I frowned at her, Lisa said, "Oh, come on, this is for fun and I think you like that piece; it's gentle and happy."

It was one of my favorites and the notes would spill from the guitar with ease. This was a perfect acoustic light blues piece. When I finished with that, I said, "I'm done. I want something to eat and a beer. What do you think, Guys, how about taking a break? If we're lucky we can raid the fridge for something to eat."

"One more," Lisa urged. "You're on a roll, and this will top off my day. I've heard you doing this dozens of times." Leaning toward me, she requested, "Do that George Harrison piece; you know, 'My guitar gently weeps'."

I had to pick it through a few bars to get the feel of something that had a lot of vocals. This was an ancient Beatles piece; or rather something that George Harrison wrote and performed. Several other musicians did this one too, but the original had some real feeling to it.

When we finished doing that through twice, as I missed some words the first time through, I declared, "Okay, that's it. I'm done."

"You'll have to listen to us," Rags announced. "We've been putting some neat stuff together that you could probably do better than I can. Little Bonita has worked with us a little on one of the pieces and really shines. She knows how to make a synthesizer really sing."

"I know you like Santana," Pops added. "He does an instrumental called 'Aqua Marine' that is really laid back with a lot of neat synthesizer and rhythm backgrounds. There are some decent riffs, but the whole piece is nice. Maybe Bonita will play the DVD for you."

We locked up and went to the patio where people were feeling a little cooped up because it had started raining. I could hear a lot of music coming from the living room and figured Bonita was holding court with the people who enjoyed the music. They were doing some country, complete with steel guitar and fiddle. Lisa wanted to see what was going on and went inside, but I joined Steve, Tiny, Henry, and Ben to have a beer.

Steve said, "Star and DeDe are having a fit as the students they had for this afternoon didn't want to fly in the rain. Can you believe it, like they're never going to get caught in the rain?"

Before I could reply, my cell phone rang and I answered, "Johnson."

"Ace here. Are you on the patio?"

"Yes Sir, just pulled a mug."

Ace said, "I'm coming by in a minute. Be outside and take a ride with me. If you want, you can bring Lisa along. I have something interesting to show you."

I went for Lisa and motioned for her to come to me. I didn't want to say anything, as I really didn't want to explain to Bonita why I wasn't playing with them.

At the patio's outside door, I told Lisa, "Ace just called and wanted to show us something. The way he sounded I thought it would be a good idea to see what he's talking about."

Lisa hugged my arm and said, "Glad I have my purse. Do you have your piece on your prosthetic?"

I nodded as Lisa's red Escape pulled up. I had an idea and told Lisa to run out and tell Ace to park the car. I went to Tiny and asked, "Can I borrow your big black Expedition? I want to look important for a few minutes."

Tiny grinned at me and tossed me his keys. I took Ace and Lisa through the trailers to get at Tiny's SUV parked in front of his home. Giving Ace the keys, I instructed, "Show me, you know where you're going."

"Good idea," Ace acknowledged, smiling, "that red Escape is pretty noticeable."

We drove out past the sports complex and around the drive past the R&D and Education buildings. Ace pointed at a couple of cars sitting in the Quality Wear parking lot. That wouldn't be a big deal except there were people in both vehicles. Both were black Chevrolet Suburbans, reminding us service people of vehicles straight out of the motor pool.

We drove out to highway 41 where Ace pointed to the Denny's across the street. There were two more of the black Suburbans, with more people in them. He didn't stop, but turned back up the highway toward the main gate of the trailer park and drove past it to the little shopping center with the Publix. There were two more black Suburbans with more people in them.

I used my cell phone to call our contact and explain where we were and what we observed. There was a long pause before he replied, "Go get ready for something. We heard there may be someone looking for you, but they have obviously not seen you or they would have come for you already."

I asked, "Who? Do you know?"

Another long pause before he answered, "These are probably people related to those you just put away up in Atlanta."

I said, "I thought that was an isolated cell. These look like trained hoods that are going to make an attack."

The contact said, "They are, and I'll scramble all of the resources we have. You and Lisa stay out of sight and get your family somewhere safe. If Ace is with you, he can be of use to you. Now I wonder how someone found you. This is not good."

I told him, "Tell you what; have any help you can scare up begin cleaning up the trucks that are sitting, waiting to find me. I'm going for some equipment and to get everyone into my house where it will be safe. I'm concerned about all of the patio people being out in the open the way they are."

The man said to me, "I'll call the Sheriff's office and have them put some cars out at the patio. I'll also get the Marshal's Service out for you. This is definitely not good. Go do what you have to do to prepare and I'll call you back."

I hung up and instructed Lisa, "Call Brandy and tell her to have everyone go to the house for an important meeting. Tell her you want everyone from our place there, including Peaches and the girls."

I called Steve. "Steve, don't react but there could be some iminent danger right now. Clear the patio. Send everyone home. Tell them you have to get the place ready for a party tonight. Take all of your family up to the rec center for a while, or go to my house with my family. You will be safe there. Oh, and take some help along with you. If you go to the house, go into my office and get some rifles out of the closet for the Chinese girls. They know what to do with them if necessary. Brandy will show you the video wall. You'll have plenty of notice if someone gets near the house. Now go do this, it's important."

I told Ace, "Lisa and I need our equipment cases. They are in the Impala trunk. There is enough spare ammo, so we should be okay. Let's get to the house. When we get to the garage, I'll get out to open it, get our cases, and we'll go back out."

Ace asked, "What the fuck have you gotten me into? Hopefully, those are the only ones. That's six vehicles with at least three men in each of them. Christ, that's scary. I don't know whether three of us can handle eighteen trained men."

I told Ace, "Let's get our cases and decide the level of the threat. If we have to be proactive, I'll use the fifty with the exploding rounds."

"Holy shit, do you have one of those neat fifties from the training center out west?"

"I do, plus both of us have good sniper rifles, as well as collapsible MP5s. I don't have three, but you can use mine along with the .308. I know you're experienced with one of those."

Ace nodded as he pulled up to the garage, I got out and opened the door. As I was getting the cases from the trunk of the Impala, carts were parking at the back door. Steve and his family were there and I noticed Steve, Sue, Kathy, and Juanita all had rifles. Mercy had a shotgun slung over her shoulder and a pistol in a holster belted on her waist.

We paused to tell Steve that they should lock up, stay inside, and we were going to evaluate what else had to be done. I told Steve, "Watch for traffic from the visitor's parking lot of Quality Wear. They are the closest. There are more across the street and over at Publix. We're going to position ourselves to watch the two cars at the restaurant. We can see if the others come toward the park."

Steve said, "I have Hap, and everyone he can get, ready around the park. They are set."

Wanda came out and said, "Take my Chrysler. It's protected. From what you're acting like, that might be a good idea. It has a sunroof, so there is a firing port if you need it. I'll be on the phone with our contact. Should I call Nightfox?" She paused before continuing, "There is armor in the trunk if you want some for Ace."

I told her, "The contact is probably aware of the situation by now. I'm waiting for a bunch of county cars before I get crazy."

We traded vehicles again, but into a car this time. The SUV would have been better, but the protected vehicle did give us some safety. Before we left, I had Ace put on the armor from the trunk, while Lisa and I suited up with ours.

We drove out past the two SUVs at Quality Wear. They looked like they were waiting for something. That was good, as we might be able to do some other damage to the other four vehicles. We drove out of the business park and across the street to park where we had a view up the street and of the cars in the restaurant parking lot.

I asked Lisa and Ace, "What do you guys think? Our contact thinks these are related to the goons in Atlanta. I'm all for eliminating all of them as fast as possible, with minimum collateral damage. What do you two think?"

In her usual combat voice, Lisa said, "Let's just take them out where they sit. Put a fifty round in both cars and we'll go in search of the two up at Publix. We can double back for the ones in the business park."

Ace asked, "You mean kill them all? Isn't that a little extreme?"

Lisa said, "They want to kill you. How do you want to stay alive? Run like a rabbit, or outfox them and eliminate the problem."

You could see the wheels turning in Ace's head. "Damn, everything I've been on has been pretty milk toast compared to this. Putting it that way, that they want to kill me, does make me reevaluate the situation."

I said, "Tell you what; we can try to disable them and tie-wrap their hands if we get up close. Surprise may be on our side." I handed Ace a silencer and screwed one on my Glock 22. Lisa screwed hers on and I told them, "I'm going to walk right up to this side of nearest vehicle and put a round through the glass into an arm or something. I need the window out as well as to startle them. One of you needs to be doing the exact same thing to the other vehicle from the far side. Don't hesitate, just walk up and put a round in one of them. Don't miss and watch the others. I can see four people in one of the Suburbans, but I can't tell if there are four in the other."

Lisa said, "I'll do the other. Ace you take these tie-wraps and as I disable them, put their hands together and pull tight. Don't worry about their circulation."