Chapter 35

Moaning in pleasure, Cathy said, “You are amazing.”

“Thank you.”

Another sigh of pleasure escaped from her mouth. She said, “You can do this to me every day.”

Kim worked on a particularly tight muscle in Cathy’s back and said, “When you marry Mike, I will do this for you every day.”

Cathy sighed, but this sigh wasn’t one of pleasure. She said, “I don’t think he’ll marry me.”

“Yes, he will,” Kim said working the muscles along the spine with her thumbs. She wondered what Cathy did at her job that made her so tense.

“He still loves his first wife,” Cathy said.

Kim knew there was an element of truth to that statement. She said, “That is true, but that doesn’t prevent him from loving you. Now be quiet and enjoy.”

Cathy fell asleep about fifteen minutes later. She didn’t remember waking enough to roll over onto her back. Her eyes shot open when she felt Kim diddling her clit with just the right touch. She arched her back and came, totally surprised by the climax.

She sat up and asked, “How dare you?”

“Massage is not complete until all sources of tension in the body have been relaxed. You are now relaxed,” Kim said.

“But...”

“It means nothing. Now go get in the bathing pond. Mike will be home soon,” Kim said dismissing any chance for objection. She turned and started packing away the massage oils. Seeing that Cathy hadn’t moved she used ‘the voice’ to command, “Go, now.”

Cathy found that she was seated in the bathing pond waiting for Mike without realizing how she had gotten there. She wondered if it was possible to package that voice and sell it. She didn’t exactly like the idea of a woman bringing her to orgasm, but she had to admit that she was a lot more relaxed after the massage.

Just as Sanjay had predicted, the Premier of China declared war on the United States stating that it was a rogue country that had to be stopped. The President of China had backed him in the declaration of war. It was one of the few speeches of the Premier of China to actually be covered by the American news services.

The world waited for the reaction of President Archer, but he never addressed the declaration of war in one of his speeches. Finally, in a news conference one of the reporters shouted out, “What do you say about the fact that China has declared war on us?”

“He declared war on America. We haven’t declared war on him,” President Archer answered with a shrug of his shoulders.

“What are you going to do about it?”

“Nothing.”

“What do you mean? You’ll do nothing?”

President Archer looked at the reporter and answered, “It’s very simple. Countries can jump up and down all they want. They can yell at us all they want. I don’t care. I’m taking care of America. If anyone attacks us, then we’ll come down on them like a ton of bricks. They won’t survive. Declaring war is China’s way of yelling at us. Big deal. China is not attacking us so I will do nothing to it.”

“Are you saying that if China attacks us, that we’ll respond?”

“I’m saying that if anyone kills an American, we’ll respond without restraint to make sure that the guilty party is punished,” President Archer answered.

To say that China was puzzled by his answer would be an understatement. They had expected some sort of significant reaction. They had expected a little saber rattling. There had even been a chance that he would have sent a diplomat to discuss the matter. To be ignored was just insulting. The Premier was furious. He was the head of the Communist Party in China. As a result of the failure of the capitalist experiment his power was on the rise. He had expected to be taken seriously by the United States.

Mike studied the situation board at the front of the room with a frown. There was a map of the Asian Pacific Rim on the main screen. They used a red dot to identify each location where a known terrorist was being tracked. A huge number of red dots had disappeared from the map on the day of the funeral of Jamal bin Laden. All of the remaining dots had moved to Pakistan and they had stayed there ever since that day.

Cathy watched Mike from across the room. She noticed that his coffee had gone cold and wondered what he was thinking. She filled a cup and took it over to his workstation. She left with his cold cup of coffee. He leaned forward and stared at the screen some more.

Charlie had a dozen Predator Drones flying over Thailand. Shirley had another dozen flying over the Philippines. Jim had another dozen flying over Indonesia. Other analysts had drones flying over Malaysia and Brunei. They were looking for any sign of Islamic radicals. They had been doing that for two weeks and had found no one that triggered any alarms.

After studying the information recovered on the disks that had been found in the hotel room of one of the key figures at the Jamal bin Laden funeral, Harold McKinsey sat back in his chair and said, “All of the information that I found says that they were going to take over the government of the Philippines during the funeral. Our attack destroyed their attempt to stage a coup.”

“Tell me something we don’t know,” Shirley said.

Mike gestured to Cathy without taking his eyes off the situation board. She went over to him and he said, “I need your fingers.”

“Sure,” Cathy said sitting down at a terminal.

Mike said, “Link: Jamal, Pakistan, Jihad, Revolution, Tape, India.”

Cathy typed in the words and hit return after Mike had stopped speaking. A dozen articles were found. She said, “We’ve got a dozen articles.”

“Select Link Death.”

After Cathy typed in the words, she said, “There’s one article.”

“What does it say?” Mike asked.

“It says that Jamal bin Laden made a tape in Pakistan vowing that he would carry forth Jihad and remove the leader who had supported the Americans. The tape appeared shortly after his death,” Cathy said summarizing the article.

Mike asked, “What’s the India connection?”

“India was to be taken by forces attacking from Pakistan and by Muslims inside the country,” Cathy answered.

“He had a plan and someone is following it,” Mike said nodding his head.

For two weeks he had been trying to figure out why there were so many terrorists in Pakistan. At first he thought they would try to have a coup in Pakistan, but questioned that hypothesis since it was the most terrorist friendly country in the entire area. He laughed when he realized just how far off base his thoughts had been.

He said, “They aren’t planning on taking over Pakistan. The government there already supports them. They are after India.”

Harold asked, “So what do we do?”

“The key is in India,” Mike said. Looking over at the rest of the crew, he said, “I want a copy of that tape.”

“Does Kim give you massages?” Cathy asked one night while they were out at dinner together.

“Yes,” Mike answered wondering why she was suddenly asking about massages.

He felt a little guilty about how they always ended, particularly now that he had a girlfriend. He had asked Kim not to end them as she did, but she ignored his requests saying that a massage was not complete until all sources of tension were relieved.

With a sinking feeling in her stomach, Cathy asked, “How often?”

“Maybe once a month or so,” Mike answered.

“Is that all?” Cathy asked amazed that he wasn’t getting one every night. If she were him, she’d be begging for a massage every chance she got.

“Yes,” Mike answered. Seeing that she wanted more than one word answers to her questions, he said, “She gives me a massage when I’ve been particularly tense or there is some important event coming up. She does it only when she thinks that I should be relaxed. I don’t ever ask her for one. She just decides that it’s time.”

“Oh,” Cathy said staring down at her plate. She had a half of a tuna steak remaining on her plate but the fact was that she wasn’t all that hungry.

“Is there something the matter?” Mike asked.

Licking her lips, Cathy said, “She gave me a massage the other day.”

“Oh,” Mike said. Curious, he asked, “How was it?”

“It was heavenly,” Cathy answered staring at her plate. She counted the pieces of asparagus left on the plate trying to figure out how to say what was bothering her. Mike had started to take a sip of water when she added, “She gave me a happy ending.”

Despite being very surprised by the admission, Mike didn’t choke on his sip of water. He swallowed it feeling his heart pounding hard in his chest. Rather than admit that his massages ended the same way, he said, “I’m surprised to hear that. I didn’t know that there was such a thing as a happy ending for women.”

“Don’t be so surprised,” Cathy said looking at Mike. With a little ice in her voice, she asked, “Did you think that women couldn’t come at the end of a massage just like a man?”

“I hadn’t really thought about it,” Mike answered not knowing what to say.

“Oh,” Cathy said feeling awkward at her slight outburst of anger. She asked, “Why don’t you get massages more often?”

“Um, I just don’t feel comfortable asking for a massage. She is the one who insists on giving them to me. She has this voice she uses and I can’t say no,” Mike said.

Having experienced the voice, Cathy nodded her head and said, “I know what you mean about ‘the voice.’”

“You’ve heard it?” Mike asked.

“At the end of the massage I kind of objected to the happy ending. She shut me down so fast it made my head spin,” Cathy said. She looked over at him and asked, “Does she give you happy endings?”

There weren’t too many ways to duck that specific of a question. He answered, “Yes, but it’s very clinical on her part.”

Having experienced it, she wouldn’t have believed any other answer. Biting her lower lip, she asked, “Would you mind if she occasionally gave me a massage in the future?”

“No,” Mike answered wondering if it was the answer she wanted to hear.

Feeling relieved, Cathy said, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Mike said wondering if she was going to ask him not to get happy endings from Kim.

“Have you had any news about when we’re moving to Texas?” Cathy asked changing the subject.

Confused by the sudden change in subject, Mike answered, “No.”

Mike finished the report on the Pakistan/India situation. The two countries were not in his jurisdiction, a fact that irritated him. The terrorists were there and nothing was happening in his part of the world. His team had devastated the terrorist organizations operating in that area. Even the small but very active group in Thailand had been taken out at the Jamal bin Laden funeral. The government of Thailand had used the opportunity to round up the remaining suspected terrorists.

It had taken him forever to type up the report, but he had wanted full authorship of it. Using the mouse, he sent off the report. Sitting back, he sighed. He looked around the room and saw that everyone was just idly browsing the database looking for something that would require their attention.

When the situation status board started flashing, everyone looked up to see what was happening. The alert level shifted from the normal high level to the highest level in one jump. The message that China had just launched fourteen missiles appeared on the alert window.

Everyone turned to their computer to get more information, but Mike said, “Hold on. Don’t tax the system.”

Totally freaked at the messages on the board, Charlie asked, “What’s going on?”

“China has launched some missiles. Let the groups that are dealing with China do their jobs,” Mike said watching the screen.

Another message saying that a missile had been destroyed showed up on the alert screen. Then another message to the same effect showed up. Mike watched as the first alert scrolled off the screen as more messages scrolled past stating that missiles were being destroyed. The last message said that all missiles launched had been destroyed.

“What’s going on?” Jim asked staring at the board.

“All of the missiles that were launched were destroyed,” Mike said stating the obvious. The messages had been military SITREP messages that came directly from military feeds, rather than the civilian feeds.