Chapter 3

Breakfast was a very relaxed affair, with everyone lounging around in robes. It was made much simpler by room service simply bringing a rolling buffet into our common room and then leaving, while Beth and I used our telekinetic powers to fill everyone’s plates for them.

While I was resting with my head on Mina’s leg I asked, “Just curious, Jennifer. How’d they have a suite available with this big of a room attached to it?”

“Technically, they didn’t. You know how at Disney, we had the Presidential Suite for us, and the Vice-Presidential next door? This is a step up. It’s their Royal Suite, with this common area, and then their Presidential Suite next door that can have access to this room. There are heads of state that fly here to play this course fairly often, and you can’t put them in the local Motel 6. First two nights, Jasveer and I were in a regular suite, but with everyone coming in, they moved us in here yesterday. Both of these suites were rented out by groups that the resort owners moved for us.”

I frowned. “That doesn’t sound like it’d make good business sense.”

“The local resort management wasn’t given a choice by the owners.” She held her hand up with the Saudi ring on it.

“Yeah, that would pretty much take care of any objections. Changing things slightly, is there anything I should know in advance before Reagan shows up today? I sort of understand why things happened in Switzerland like they did. I would have liked some advance notice, but you also needed my reactions to be genuine. You know, I can’t complain when my planning group ... all of you ... actually makes plans like this, because that’s what I depend on you to do.”

Helen shook her head. “Regarding Reagan, no. Whatever he talks about with you is going to be his own agenda. As for Elroy and Earl, me Mother has her hands full with the two of them. Those two have been thick as thieves for more than forty years. She said they’ve both told her they’re having more fun now than they’ve had at any time in the last two decades, and of course, they have you to thank for it.”

“Yeah, but...” I sounded a little whiny, even to myself. “All these layers upon layers? Landing as a baby from outer space, then kidnapped by the CIA, and finally escaping with serums that I gave them?” I asked as I waived at Beth, Dora, Eve, and Jennifer.

“Would you have them get to layer six?” asked Beth. “The real truth? That when you showed up at my home, you were just a clueless dork, who’s been stumbling through things ever since.”

“Not really. I sort of prefer that no one find that out, other than all of you. It’s not like you don’t know it. I’m just sort of amazed that you all love me in spite of it.”

Eve and Jennifer immediately started laughing, with the other fifteen joining them within moments.

After they wound down, Margie said, “Speaking for the seventeen of us ... be amazed that the Hutchinson JV won their season. Be amazed that corn grows in Kansas. Like you mentioned last night before we ravished your body for hours ... you have our hearts, our souls, and our love.”

There was a knock on the door just then. I looked through it, and mentally turned the knob. Sayel and Yagyu were both waiting. Yagyu’s eyes popped open wide at our display.

Sayel said, “Good morning, slothful ones. While I realize that many of you truly have nothing better to do than lounge in the harem, apparently there are people who work for a living that will wish to speak to our Master soon.”

“The question is, will I want to talk to them?”

He nodded as he said, “Air Force One is half an hour out. The devious bastard requested that I make sure that you weren’t engaged in so much debauchery and fornication that you would not be able to meet with such an important person.”

“That’s fine. Diana, Helen, in case it’s not just me, can the two of you be ready?”

“This is work, my love, not show. We’re going to be on the golf course in the wind later anyway, so we can wear scarves. Twenty minutes.”

“Thanks, Diana. Sayel, tell Elroy we’re not fucking around, just finishing breakfast.” I saw the expression on Yagyu’s face. “Oh, you haven’t seen us in private like this very much yet, have you?”

“No, Sir.”

“Don’t worry, it gets worse. Wait until we all go swimming, and you have to watch. It’s both pleasurable and torture, or will at least stretch your swimsuit. Do you have a wife, or girlfriend?”

“No, Sir.”

“Talk with Sayel. I’m sure we can help with that. If Dave can find someone special, then I know you’ll be good.”

“Thank you, Sir.”

When the two of them left, all of us chuckled, then, “That’s one thing we don’t think about at times, because everyone is family. Adding someone to the family that isn’t used to seeing all of you girls in swimsuits or otherwise not completely dressed isn’t quite going to know what to make of it.”

“Other than considering you the luckiest man alive?” Marcia asked.

“I have all of you that love me and that I love. Luckiest man is a given.”

Diana, Helen and I were waiting in a clubhouse room, chatting with Elroy, Jeremy, and the Bobsey Twins, when someone wearing sunglasses opened the door and looked in. He stopped and turned his head. I heard him say that the room wasn’t secure, there were armed men in here. I didn’t try to hear the response back. I just noticed that he looked unhappy, then came on in. A couple of seconds behind him, President Reagan walked in. Everyone but the three of us rose when he walked in.

He smiled while coming up to where we had a table and chairs waiting. I stood up then and held out my hand. He took it, then said, “Your Majesty,” while nodding.

“Mister President, please, have a seat. How can the Kingdom of the First Peoples be of assistance to the United States of America?”

“That’s my error,” he said as he and I sat at the same time. “I’m used to someone having multiple titles, but they’re all tied in together.”

“Like my ex-husband? Multiple titles, like Prince of Wales, Duke of this, Earl of that, bounder, cad, and cheat extraordinaire?”

“Sort of, Your Highness,” he replied.

I saw Brent Cain and Jeremy Abel both grimace at Diana’s description of Charles, and laughed a little at their discomfort. “It could be worse, guys. Diana could already be pregnant with my child. Oh, wait...” I grinned, then leaned over to her and gave her a kiss.

That caused Reagan to smile, too. “I remember the days when I had little ones running around the house. Speaking of the House, you have an open invitation to visit, not just come by for work. Which, unfortunately, is why I flew here a little early, and I won’t be able to stay for the whole tournament today, as much as I’d like to. By now, I’m sure you’re aware there are things in motion that you either had no idea were going on, or you have no control over, either one.”

“Depending upon what those specific things are, then yes, I’ll agree with parts of that without any conditions. I only knew one thing that was going to happen in Geneva, and I certainly didn’t expect all of them.”

“I understand. I presume that General Bannister is playing as fast and loose regarding what’s going on with you as much as he has been with me. I completely understand how he got the nickname of ‘the devious bastard.’ At the same time, I’m ... not going to ask. We received confirmation from Cristian Bauman that it was possible to create a human being in a lab through various methods of artificial insemination. We’ve seen what those three young ladies can do, and ... well, you are these young ladies’ King, after all. So, both officially and unofficially, I’m not asking, and neither will anyone else.”

“Thank you, Mister President. Perhaps when I know all of the truth, I’ll be able to share it. There’s still a lot that I don’t know, and I don’t know if I ever will.”

“Of course. So, the reason I stopped in early was to see if there’s anything we have that can help you against Shiva.”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. Is there something the United States has, hidden away in a secret laboratory, that might help? It might come across as condescending, but it’s a case of I don’t know all of the classified military hardware we have. Nuclear warheads? Those are useless. One of the things that I had to do was make Cris think I had bluffed him regarding the warhead he’d brought in. Technically, I didn’t. He could have pulled the trigger and started the conventional explosives at any time. The girls didn’t stop him by making the device useless. I was simply ready to prevent the power from the explosives from actually reaching the nuclear core itself.”

I saw he looked a little puzzled at that. “Sir, you have several Secret Service agents in here. They tend to freak out when someone draws a firearm and you’re nearby, for good reason. Especially if I’m not nearby, like I am right now. Which of these men do you trust to shoot me as a demonstration?”

“Tim is the head of my personal detail. Would you take care of that for me?”

“Sir?”

“Please pull out your gun and shoot Mister Lewis, at his request.”

“Not until you move out of the way, and we know this isn’t some kind of trick!”

I had to laugh, which showed me that Chuck and Jeremy were thinking the same thing when they laughed as well.

“What’s so funny?” Tim asked.

Jeremy had a smile on his face. “Agent McCarthy, if Cal wanted to hurt or kill the President, you wouldn’t be able to do a thing about it. Keep in mind that’s Sayel Pashtar standing behind Cal on his right, Yagyu Masatoki on his left.”

“Shit! We let you in the same room with two of the world’s best assassins? Mister President, I strongly ... Sir, why are you laughing?”

“Tim, I know you’ve taken a bullet for me already. Just ... do me a favor, pull your pistol, and shoot Mister Lewis.”

He looked at the other three agents in the room, then pulled his revolver out, pointed it at me, and pulled the trigger. The hammer drew back, then released, but nothing happened.

“Misfire!” He started to open the cylinder.

“Don’t bother,” I said. “Point it at the floor.” Looking very confused, he did. Then the gun fired, not nearly as loud as it should have been in the closed room.

At least one of the other agents had told the ones outside what was going on, because they didn’t bash the door open.

“Okay, now let’s try that again. You have five more rounds, so one more shot, at me. Oh, and Yagyu, you might pay close attention. I won’t be deflecting this one, nor will I move out of the way.”

The confused Secret Service agent brought his revolver up again, then from ten feet away, pulled the trigger. The Smith and Wesson .357 magnum did exactly what it was supposed to do this time, sending a one hundred forty-five grain jacketed hollow point bullet towards my chest at nearly thirteen hundred feet per second.

I reached out in front of me and plucked the bullet from where it had simply stopped almost a foot in front of me. “Very nice. That might’ve hurt if it’d hit me. It’s a little warm from being fired, but other than that, nothing.” I held it out, to Ronald, who finally pulled his hands down from over his ears, to take the very slightly deformed piece of metal from me.

“The first time, the hammer dropped and the firing pin came forward. I simply prevented the firing pin from hitting the percussion cap until it was pointed at the floor. I went ahead and gave it a little ‘tweak’, so it would fire then, otherwise it would’ve simply been just like you cocking, then decocking, the pistol manually. Unless your thumb slipped, the hammer isn’t going to come forward fast enough. When you actually shot at me ... and good job, on actually doing that ... all I did was simply slow things down. The Messenger was bulletproof. It’d be really messy if I found out that I wasn’t, but since my personal reflexes are good enough that, as I told Yagyu, given enough distance, I’ll simply move out of the way or deflect it with a sword or knife.”

I nodded at the bullet in Reagan’s hand. “Or that. Simply stop the thing in mid-air. Much more convenient.”

“Jesus, I never saw or heard of Caelistis doing that,” Reagan murmured.

“No, Mister President, you didn’t. None of us did. He wasn’t from here. He had no way to grasp what, or how, we feel. We may all be descended from his people, but he wasn’t born here, he wasn’t raised here, and he for damned sure interfered with us. I’m not going to say I wouldn’t welcome him back, but I don’t think he’s needed, honestly. We’re not stupid, just stubborn. So, like I asked, is there anything you’re aware of, that we might have in a military inventory or some experimental lab, that might help me in my fight against Shiva?”

“You said nuclear weapons wouldn’t help, and I can see that. One of the things we’ve studied are kinetic energy weapons – tungsten penetrators similar to those used by our M-1 tanks, only simply dropped from the sky. Perhaps those fired from missiles might help. Of course, you’ll have full access to everything NASA and the Air Force have for high altitude flight suits and pressure suits. I understand you’ve got a test being dropped from the current shuttle mission.”

“Yes. We’re dropping half a dozen aluminum and steel plates from the shuttle, at a specific point during their orbit. They should hit the atmosphere and simply re-enter like a meteor, and we’ll see if any of them survive. They’ll end up landing in the Mojave desert in a couple of days.”

“That’d be good. We have high energy lasers, as well.” He snorted. “Stanford’s working on them for us, actually, so you may as well go find out about those. I’ll also contact Gorbachev and Peng and see what they might have.”

Diana spoke up then. “Mister Reagan, I plan on bringing this up with Mister Gorbachev and Mister Peng, regarding Europe, Asia, and Australia. One item the Federation will need is our own military, one that’s independent of your nations. However, your nations also have large militaries. Has Minister Demidov mentioned that yet?”

“Actually, he has. I didn’t want to interrupt, because I wasn’t sure what you were going to ask. NASA has already benefited from part of the peace dividend. I’ve talked with the Joint Chiefs, and you ... CEDEM, that is ... are going to get a few more of our toys. Some refueling planes, a few dozen fighters, some more helicopters and some smaller surface navy vessels, along with maybe a division’s worth of armor and transport. One of the things we discussed is that nations can’t fight against nations. That doesn’t mean that some other nation might not be an ass to a company, and that company has no means to defend itself or its people militarily. We’re not going to take that chance with you. There are other companies that are going to receive largess from the US as well, just no one is going to get nearly as much as you.

“At the same time, we’re going to keep six carriers, two for each coast, and two to rotate for maintenance, for defense, and a couple dozen nuclear attack submarines. We’ll decommission the boomers. We’ll still have a professional military for our own defense, of course. The rest of the gear? What the Federation doesn’t want, we’ll scrap. The National Guard may get a lot of brand new, front line equipment, and all of their current stuff gets scrapped, but they have a state mission as well, since ... well, we’d prefer not to see a repeat of 1861. The Soviet Union and China are doing the same.” He laughed. “We trust them, of course, but one of the things we did after you left was figure out how to verify. Especially since starting on Monday, all of us are starting to destroy our nuclear arsenals.”

“All of us, Mister President?”

He nodded. “The three of us, plus Pakistan, India, Great Britain, France, and even Israel. They’ve never admitted they had them, but everyone knew they did. They even admitted working with South Africa, with that incident back in 1978 their joint test.”

I sighed. “South Africa worries me.”

“I know. I spoke with Mister Bauman at length about it. Well, not just me, but several of the world leaders did. I hesitate to say that we’ll figure something out, but ... dealing with Shiva has to come first.”

“I understand,” I said. “Elroy, you look like you’re feeling incredibly devious about now. What are you thinking?”

“Things that are unprintable, Son. There’s so much of that continent that we simply don’t know that much about. It’s almost twice the size of South America. A lot of it simply isn’t much different from the cargo cults in the South Pacific that developed after the war. It’d be nice to know why they’re like they are.”

“Caelistis said that when he went there, many of the people viewed him as a god, not as a man. As much as he interfered with us, I wondered why he didn’t deal with so much of their internecine fighting,” Reagan mused.

Helen shrugged. “It’s obvious to me. In his mind, the people of Africa are all one, except for the white South Africans.”

“Shit! A surviving group from the time of the war against Shiva, that then spread out over the whole continent. Genetically related, with a similar language that changed over the thousands of years, but still one people. Those further north ran into Muslims, those on the east ran into Indians, and those on the west ran into Europeans coming down with their plans for global conquests. It’s like we’ve said regarding Australia. You were all fine until the white man came along and fucked things up.” I realized what I’d said. “Sorry for the strong language, Mister President.”

“I’ve heard those words before, Your Majesty. Considering that you’re talking about your own people, they’re well deserved, too. Yes, Mister Cain?”

“From a historical perspective, that makes sense. The Bantu people started on the west coast of Africa around five thousand years ago. The battles against Shiva, from my understanding, primarily focused against Australia and India, with Indonesia being a secondary battleground. Another battle was fought near Hawaii as well. Thus, any kinetic energy strikes that hit water would have had some effects upon things on both the east and west Atlantic coasts, but the actual tsunami and general ocean destruction would have tended to only hit areas bound by the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Some could have come around Cape Town, maybe touched upon the eastern side of South America, but that may be why Europe was untouched.”

I nodded. “Exactly. Oh, I doubt it was totally untouched. But most of the damage would have been in those areas. Easy way to figure out what happened on land is to look for what everyone thinks are naturally round lakes. Chances are those were either naturally formed by a meteor strike or by a kinetic energy weapon. That may or may not be why Tibet looks like it was hit by a shotgun, considering how many lakes are there. But ... Machapuchare is on my list of places to visit during summer vacation this year, before we start football practice.”

“Um, yes, about that...”

“Don’t even bother trying to go there, Mister President. I’m not going to use any of my powers when I play. I don’t need to. Oh, and Agent McCarthy? You were wrong earlier when you said that the President was sitting in a room with two of the world’s best assassins. Remember, I’m in here as well, and I’m the one who killed the Thug.”

Jeremy chuckled then. “Cal, you know statements like that aren’t going to make people as paranoid about the safety of the President as they are very happy.”

“Yeah, well ... since we’ve found out that nearly every single attempt against the life of an American President has been due to the Council, and they don’t exist any longer, I think maybe they ought to do some thinking about their mission, too. But that’s just me. Mister President, would you like to go meet some golfers?”

“I’d love to, Mister Lewis!”

While he wasn’t a member of Augusta, he wasn’t the first President to visit. Ike had been a member, and even had a tree on the course named after him because he would hit it on every round of golf he played. We got that little bit of history told to us yesterday by Elroy, when we were walking around watching Jennifer.

Our group went to the tee area so that President Reagan could have a bit of a political moment. The early pairs had already hit the course, but many of them hadn’t. Nick Faldo came up and apologized for being an ass just before he had to tee off. Greg Norman was very thankful, again, to Helen, and promised to make sure the people of Australia knew better about us. Calvin Peete came up with his partner for the day, Gary Player, and things got tense.

After speaking with President Reagan, Peete said, “Mister Lewis, your wife has made a lot of us rethink our lives. I think we’re all going to be better golfers because she’s on the tour. Thank you.”

“I didn’t have a whole lot to do with that, Mister Peete. I know the two of you had a round earlier, and you did pretty good.

“Yeah. I wish I’d listened to everything she said then. She told me she was a teacher, and I sure could use one of those. This is my partner today, Gary Player.”

“Mister Player,” I said, holding my hand out to him.

He looked at me with disdain. “You’re with that Kaffir wench, aren’t you?” He was looking at Helen.

“Helen Awarai Lewis is from Australia, Mister Player.”

“Don’t bloody matter, mate. You’re white, she’s black, that’s all there is to it. We’re cracking back down at home on them, like we should. I thought about changing my mind a few years back, but this shit with that fucking alien showed us the truth. The blacks are just animals.”

“I see.” I’d noticed that Calvin Peete was standing back, his face in shock at what he was hearing. “I’m guessing you weren’t one of the people that cared whether Jennifer played today or not.”

“Why the fok would I? Kak has no business dealing with men. She’s just roolkop viswyf.”

“You know you’re speaking of the mother of one of my children, Mister Player.”

“So, was your balla soutie?”

“Not in the least. But I at least still have mine.” I used my telekinetic power to squeeze both of his until they ruptured.

He fell to the ground in pain. A camera crew had been filming things since President Reagan was nearby. They recorded that Player and I had been talking, then he suddenly fell over without being touched. A medical crew came up.

I walked over to Calvin. “I think you’ll be playing by yourself today. It seems that Mister Player feels poorly. Perhaps he feels remorse calling Jennifer shit, with no business dealing with men, and then a red-headed bitch, or wondering if I got my dick wet when fucking her. Perhaps not.”

Peete simply shook his head. “The rest of us learned, and know better, after talking to Greg. That stone he’s wearing, that he got in Australia. Gary lost a tournament on the last hole down there, when some people called him a racist because he was supporting the South African government and their apartheid movement a few years ago. I thought he’d put it behind him. Guess not.” He looked up. “Hey, gotta go! Tell Jennifer good luck, and ... thank you, Your Majesty.”

I motioned Secret Service Agent McCarthy over with a couple of fingers. He spoke into his earpiece, then hurried over. “Yes, Your Majesty?” he asked, watching the medical crew load Player onto a gurney.

“This is just a Tim and Cal thing. He insulted two of my wives. I didn’t lay a finger on him, but they’ll find he has two crushed testicles. I’m not a threat to Ronald, or to the US. Please don’t do what you’ve been thinking of, ever since you saw what happened in that conference room. Remember, I have full diplomatic immunity.”

He took in a breath to respond, then slowly let it back out. “I’ll tell the head of the detail. I suppose the rumors we heard about you breaking a walking stick from five thousand miles away are true, then.”

“And that’s why you don’t have to worry. Anyone that can do that ... we’ve got much bigger fish to fry than a simple national leader.” I raised my eyes up to the sky.

He was quiet for a couple of seconds. “From leader of the free world to simply another national leader. The times, they are a changing, aren’t they?”

I nodded. “Thank you, Tim.”

“My pleasure, Sir,” he responded, then hurried back.

The rest of the day was uneventful. When it was done, as the previous year’s winner, Ben Crenshaw made the presentation. Jennifer got to wear her green jacket home. She’d only get to keep it a year, then it would go back to Augusta as part of their traditions. Of course, there wasn’t anything against her winning it again next year, especially since she now had a permanent invitation to play the Master’s, courtesy of winning the tournament. She’d also beat the record held by Jack Nicklaus and Raymond Floyd of seventeen under by two strokes, with Stadler finishing second at fourteen under, five strokes back.

We decided to hold off on the victory dinner until after we returned to California. That gave us time to buttonhole Elroy and Earl on our plane ride back to Wichita. We took over the upstairs lounge, with Mike, Jeremy, Beth and Margie supporting me.

“Guys, can we maybe not have a whole lot more surprises thrown our way for a while?”

Earl swirled his glass of whiskey slightly, then took a sip, before replying, “Cal, the best I can tell you is that we’ll try. If you think that things are being manipulated by assorted national leaders to at least make you feel very good about things here ... you’re right. I don’t think I’ve ever seen our national government make such a quick decision, at least not while we weren’t involved directly in a shooting war, let alone get agreement from so many of our allies and even our former enemies. Shit like this just doesn’t happen!”

“Earl’s right,” Elroy said. “He’s been more of a straight arrow over the years than I have ever since he was on the Kansas Supreme Court and then was made a Federal judge by Nixon. I could make things work at the state level, and he could keep the Washington morons off our backs.”

“Aren’t we technically in – what’d you call it – a shooting war?” Margie asked.

Earl made a waggle motion with his free hand. “Yes and no. Our troops are engaged in ground combat, but ... hell, this really is a police action, which is what they always tried to call Korea. I think the whole thing in South America is going to be wrapped up by the end of June. What’s been funny is how many of our own State Governors have activated their National Guards to go in and deal with stuff.”

At my expression, he continued, “I bet you didn’t even think about that. Not just the stuff coming up from South America, but there are drugs coming in from Europe and Asia as well, it’s just been easier to get them in across the southern border. I bet you didn’t even consider that when you made your pronouncement in New York, Elizabeth.”

“What’re you talking about, Earl?” she asked.

“Organized crime. When you publicly named the main crime families of the New York area, they lost all of the protection they’d had with the city, the police, the county, and even the state. The FBI has always had to handle dealing with the drug distributors through the court system. Cal gave every government in the world free reign to deal with them through the unbridled use of military force. You gave the US government the same mission here at home. Thing is, we still can’t use US military troops against our own citizens. But each State can sure use their own National Guard in support of what the ‘Angel’ said. It’s been interesting to see some of those reports.”

“I’m still reading a dozen newspapers a day. Why did I miss these stories?”

Elroy chuckled. “You’re probably not looking in the crime sections, or if you are, you’re simply skimming through them. National news has too much on their plate with everything else going on. If you’re watching just local news, they’re probably not reporting how the California Army National Guard moved into a big area of Los Angeles that was gang-ridden and cleaned it up over the last couple of weeks, or how the New York and New Jersey Army National Guard brought in two armored battalions to, um, clean up various parts of both their states. Or about how half of the elected state governments of damned near every state in the Union have suddenly resigned ... or been arrested under military tribunal.”

That made Beth frown. “Hang on. What about civilian law?”

“Yeah, he’s the one that said that the rules of engagement needed to change. They have. We’ve been fighting this so-called War on Drugs for the last fourteen years. Now we’re actually treating it like a war. The funny thing is, the mob in Vegas is coming out smelling squeaky clean, all things considered. They’re just running prostitution and illegal gambling from other states, and totally dropped all drugs. Two of the New York families are even helping the two police officers with doing good with the monies from the United Nations, again just dealing prostitution, gambling, and the regular theft they’re used to doing. They’re being left alone.”

Jeremy shook his head. “Judge Bannister, I can’t believe that the police aren’t trying to crack down on them, too.”