The Diaries of Ayesha

I felt loneliness thinking of Minx and Mei Ling and now Miriam out in the world, as an old man whose children had all grown up and left him. I remembered a bit of doggerel from Dr. Seuss and sighed.

I slept fitfully that night waking frequently to check the time. I finally gave up about dawn and got up and sat drinking coffee and watched the sunrise. I was starting to leave for the situation room when Susan returned.

"Make me some breakfast before you leave and help me get cleaned up please," she instructed.

"Yes Mistress," I said and set about my duties as directed.

She was silent during breakfast , responding only in monosyllables when I asked if she needed something, so it was evident that her new place in the world was weighing heavily on her.

When breakfast was finished she had me help her into the bed and then ordered me to go to the situation room and assist Yoni.

"Mistress, she was less than amused last night before I came back here. I'm not sure it's wise to have us in close proximity right now," I ventured.

"Michael, I need you to keep an eye on her and Isis. We both know that Isis may have a hidden agenda of her own, and Yoni is resisting the change in methods rather strongly. I left a copy of my orders on your workstation. Make sure that they get carried out."

"Yes Mistress," I said and drew the covers over her and turned out the lights.

The situation room was busier that morning and one of the monitors was showing the Right Reverend's morning sermon while one of the other women took notes. I checked the orders that Susan had left and as far as I could tell they were being carried out. Yoni nodded sharply in acknowledgement as I started reading the news reports and message traffic that had come in during the night.

Not a whole lot had changed during the short time I had been away and I soon lost myself in minutia until I heard an exclamation of surprise from one of the other workstations.

"What happened?" I called over to the woman at the station.

"I just saw a spike in gamma emissions on one of the IONDS. Just for a second and then it was gone," she called back.

"Ionds?", I said somewhat puzzled and and walked over to the station.

"IONDS", she explained," is the nuclear test detection system on the GPS satellites. It's a sensor that detects gamma rays."
"Ah! They used to be called something like..." I paused.
"Vela Hotel," she prompted."The new system fit those sensors onto the GPS system. There are more of them than the old Vela system, so you get better coverage and spend less money. And as a side effect they detect gamma rays from outer space so NASA can use the information too."

She lookled at me with new respect.

"You worked on GPS?," she asked respectfully.
"I was on the field testing team when I worked for Draper Labs in the old old days when I was a young young man," I said thinking back to my youth. "At the same time I was writing a nuclear war game for my own amusment in my off time so I know a little about the systems in general."
"You don't look that old," she smiled. "Let me replay the data for you."

She punched a few keys and the clock on the display rolled back five minutes and replayed the data. I was startled as well when the even smooth traced suddenly spiked almost straight up and then as quickly dropped to near normal.

"Big jump. I wonder if a pulsar burped and threw a burst of gamma into space," I said idly.

"Can't be that. It only showed up on one of the satellites. If it were extrasolar it would show up on more than one," she explained as Yoni came over to look.

"Check the other satellites. See if it showed up on more than one," she directed.

A quick replay of the data from the other satellites showed activity on three other birds as well.

"I know NASA at Goddard in Maryland collects the information from their sensors. Do we have a way to check for activity on the NASA Gamma-Ray Observatory satellite? Just to crosscheck things?" I suggested.

"I'll call our contact in Washington and ask her to check. What do you think it is?" Yoni asked

"I hope I'm wrong, but I think we just saw a gamma burst from a weapon. That or an assembly error," I explained.

The woman at the satellite-monitoring panel shook her head negatively.

"There wasn't any detection of heat or light on the DSP satellites. They'll detect a laser beam from orbit if it's the right frequency of light."

I looked at the young woman impressed by her tone.

"You seem to know a lot about it," I said genially.

She looked up and me and nodded curtly.

"I was a watch technician at NRO when I wore the blue suit. I was on detached duty to No Such Agency.I spent more time watching real time intel than I want to think about," she said proudly.

"How did you wind up here?" I asked curiously.

"Just lucky I guess. Better pay and a lot better working conditions. And a real purpose for doing it rather than silly political games. No, I think you may be right about the malfunction."

Yoni walked back to her station and returned a few moments later.

"No detection by NASA. What now?" Yoni asked.

I indicated the technician.

"She's the expert here. What do you think," I said addressing her.

The technician looked at me and then at Yoni before speaking.

"If it was a weapons malfunction with that much gamma radiation, there will be some pretty badly injured people if they're not dead already. If we detected it, then I'm sure that the military detected it as well."

She looked up at the GMT time clock on the wall.

"It's night over there now and they're at GMT+3 so it's also tomorrow. I'll have the computer plot the data based on which GPS birds detected the radiation and triangulate the location. That's what the military will be doing as well. We have the advantage of having our people in the area; it will take them some time to get a team over there."

"Barbara, do what you need to do. Get us that location," Yoni said. "Michael, go get Isis and Susan and then start tracking all activity of military aircraft. If you see anything that looks suspicious, tell me."

"Yes Mistress!" I took off running for Susan's rooms and hauled her out of bed and then remembered I didn't have any idea where Isis was sleeping.

"She's in the quarters on the far side of the Rancho. Wait and I'll go with you," Susan said as she pulled a shirt over her head.

We rolled Isis out of bed and after she stopped swearing, I explained the situation.

"Then we're on alert right now. I'll contact my people in the area as soon as you have a location," she said rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

"I have to get back to the situation room," I said and started for the door without thinking of the warning of the night before.

I'd reached the first turning when I was seen by one of the roving security patrols and true to their orders, they shot me.

When I woke up it was dark and I was locked in a cell much like the one I had first occupied when Minx brought me to the Rancho for training.

I banged on the door and shouted, but with no response. I finally slumped back on the cot to wait for someone to let me out. That is if anyone was planning on letting me out.

From: M. L. Levy
To: Analysis Group HQ
Subject: Debriefing summary RE: Joint Operations Mideast
The attached report was made upon departure of the target area and was dictated into a standard recorder for transcription upon return to HQ.

When the call came in to me on the satphone it was just past three AM and I wasn't really prepared for what I was told. There was a difference in looking for stolen plutonium and locating people with radiation illness. The coordinates that Yoni had given me were northwest near a town named Hermel, roughly a hundred and twenty kilometers from me according to the map I had with me. I was grateful for the GPS receiver I had picked up in Beirut along with a few other specialized items I thought I might need.

I looked at my temporary partner still sleeping and cursed my luck for being assigned with them. Not that Elisa wasn't qualified to be with me, just the trouble of watching my back for her and the people with the plutonium.

I nudged the adjacent bed with my foot.

"Wakey wakey Elisa. We have work to do and not a lot of time to do it in," I said.

She moaned and rolled over to face me.

"Don't you people in Ay'esha sleep at all?" she grumbled. "It's still the middle of the night."

"Not when there's work to be done. We just got a report of a gamma ray emission near here," I explained.

"And that means what?" she replied covering her head.

I pulled the pillow away from her and threw it into a chair.

"It means that someone is going to be very sick soon and will need to go to a hospital and we've got to be there when he or she shows up," I replied. "Now get your ass out of bed."

It took the better part of half an hour to get her moving and get the equipment in the Land Rover and not very much longer to reach the city of Hermel where I pulled into a gas station and stopped to get my bearings not just mentally, but with the GPS receiver as well.

I was too involved in looking at the GPS and the map to notice a car pull up alongside until there was a tapping on the window and I looked up to see a police officer motioning for me to roll the window down.

When I did he flashed his light into the back seat and asked to see my identification in accented English. I opened my ID folder and handed it to him along with my false UN documents and passport. He examined them briefly and the demanded to see Elisa's papers.

She looked at him and passed them over along with a rapid-fire burst of Arabic that made him scowl.

"You will wait here," he said and reached through his car window for the radio microphone.

"What did you say to him?" I asked softly.

"I asked him how much the bribe was going to be to let us go," Elisa said.

"That was real smart thank you very much. Look we're not supposed to attract any attention," I cautioned.

"A Chinese woman and an Arab woman traveling together isn't going to attract attention?" she replied sarcastically.

Before I could respond the officer returned to the car and handed the documents back with a short bow.

"I have been instructed to escort you to the police barracks until sunrise. You will be free to go then. There is a temporary curfew."

"I understand," I said and rolled up the window. He started his car up and I followed him carefully to the barracks at the edge of town.

The police were hospitable enough offering strong coffee and sweet rolls to us, and while Elisa was standoffish, I made it a point to answer all of the questions I could about our purpose in the area as well as getting the feel for the local authorities. I wasn't sure if we were going to need help or not, but I wanted some cheap insurance.

"If you are going into the outlying reaches of the valley, bear in mind that there are groups that might not welcome your presence. Even with the peace accords there are still scattered terrorist groups here," the Captain warned me.

"We understand that sir. We're actually taking a few days off to do some sightseeing of the ruins and perhaps see if we can find a couple of friends of ours that are working out here with the Christian Involvement Alliance," I said easily.

The Captain put his cup down on the desk and looked towards the door before turning his attention back to us.

"The people from the Alliance have not endeared themselves to the local population. The majority of the town is Islamic and their attempts to promote Christianity have angered many."

I raised my hands in surrender.

"Captain, all we're here for is to be tourists. A break from my duties with the UN Mission. My companion is acting as a guide as she knows this part of the country. If I can find my friends and say hi that's enough." I comforted.

He took out a pack of cigarettes and offered me one before lighting one of his own and then handed the pack to Elisa who lit one up herself.

He blew tobacco smoke into the air before saying anything else.

"They have an office on the road leading to Qaa where they run a small medical clinic. You can't miss it."

He was right. Between the size of the cross and the line of people waiting to get inside, it was hard to miss all right.

"How do we play it?" Elisa said looking at the crowd as I parked across the road.

"Straight. We're on vacation and heard that a couple of friends of ours might be in the area " I said and reached into the back seat for my fanny pack and a bag of medical supplies I had packed just in case.

We got out and I tossed the bag to Elisa and we made our way across the street and through the crowd at the door.

The anteroom was sparsely furnished, a small number of chairs, a couple of tables and a door leading into the interior of the building. Prominently featured on the wall was a picture of the person Michael refers to as the Right Reverend.

"Can I help you? " the blond young man at the desk asked curiously.

I presented my credentials and explained that we'd dropped in to see the facility and brought some supplies.

"Thank you so much," he said taking the bag from Elisa. "God will bless you for this gift."

"Not at all. I'd like to look around at the rest of the clinic if I may?" I asked.

He set the bag carefully behind the desk and got up.

"I'll see if it's all right with the doctor," he said. "Please wait here."

"Of course," I said with my brightest smile.

While we waited I walked casually around the room gripping my fanny pack firmly while Elisa sat on the desk chatted in Arabic with some of the people waiting and doodled on a notepad.

The young man returned in a moment and escorted me into the back when I found an older man wearing soiled scrubs and a tired expression waiting for me.

"I don’t have much time for visitors," he said brusquely after introducing himself as Dr. Killeen.

"I understand Doctor. I’m familiar with the work of your ministry from the TV shows and wanted to see one of your facilities in action. I do a lot of refugee work with the UN," I lied.

"These people have had their country torn apart inside and out and there are still people who don’t want peace to come. We still have kids finding unexploded shells and bombs, sometimes the hard way."

"I’m sorry Doctor," I said seeing the anger and pain in his face as he spoke.

"Why are you sorry? Blessed are the peacemakers it says in the Bible, and I don’t envy you and your work either," he said with a slight smile.

My snooping around the clinic wasn't very productive and it was well after noon by the time I conceded that the clinic was a dead end so far as the location of the bomb.

"We'll I'd like to thank you again for your time," I said offering my hand.

"Certainly," he said and started to walk away until I stopped him.

"By the way Doctor Killeen, a couple of friends of mine said they might be out this way visiting. A couple of young women from America. They said the people they we going with were with your group," I said with a casual air

" There hasn’t been anybody here like that. They might have gone to see the ruins. We’ve got an archeological group doing a dig of a newly discovered Roman site. They stop in here on occasion, but I haven’t seen them lately either."

Elisa beat me to the next question.

"Where are they? I’m rather interested in archeology myself," she said naturally.

"Well I haven’t been there myself, but I think Barnsdorf has been. Barney, can you give these ladies directions to the dig?"

The blonde young man hesitated.

"Well it’s pretty rough going out there Doctor. I wouldn’t recommend it," he said.

"I can be pretty rough myself when I have to be," I purred at him with an evil smile.

"Yeah, don’t let her good looks fool you. I grew up here and she grew up in an area called Noah’s Ark. If you didn’t travel in pairs, you just didn’t travel," Elisa contributed.

"Unless there’s some other reason we shouldn’t go there? Having a party?" I said brightly.

"Well, I just don’t think it’s very safe for you to go out there," he repeated.

Doctor Killeen looked at Barney with a jaundiced eye and a modicum of suspicion.

"Barney, I think these two can take care of themselves. If you don’t give me a good reason for these two not to go out there, you and I are going behind the building and discuss it," he warned.

"I’ve got a better way Doctor," I said." Can I use your office?"

"Be my guest," he said.

I escorted a reluctant Barnsdorf back to the doctors’ private office and closed the door, motioning him to sit down.

He did all the while watching me like a goldfish watching a cat, waiting for me to do something.

And I didn’t. I just sat down in the doctor’s chair and took a cigar from my fanny pack and lit it, taking a slow draw on it.

"Now, Barney," I finally said," I guess you have a little secret that you don’t want to discuss in public."

"No," he said quickly.

I just smiled and took another puff.

"I have other ways of asking you, some of them far less pleasant," I continued.

"I’m not afraid of you," he said.

At that I laughed.

"I know that. Why should you be afraid of me? I’m harmless. Well mostly harmless."

With that I launched myself across the desk knocking him from the chair and squatted on his shoulders pinning him down to the floor, the cigar clenched in my teeth.

"But I’m about to become a whole lot less harmless unless you tell me what I want to know," I said taking the cigar from my mouth and moving the smoldering end towards his nose.

He struggled but I’ve had too many years of experience with reluctant slaves to let him throw me off.

"Come on now, you really don’t want me to do a facial on you with this thing. The scars take a long time to heal," I said taking another drag.

He closed his eyes and started weeping.

"Big strong man like you crying," I taunted." Don’t you want to be a martyr for the cause? Don’t you want to die?"

He tried to throw me off again and I slammed his head against the floor.

"I want to know where the dig is, I want to know where my friends are and even more, I want to know where that fucking bomb is," I hissed clawing his face like a cat.

It didn’t take too much more gentle persuasion before he broke and started babbling.

I left him on the floor when I was done, tied with his shirt and gagged with my underwear, just to give him a little treat for his cooperation.

Doctor Killeen was working in the clinic when I came out of his office and he motioned me over to him.

"Is he ok?" he asked softly.

"He will be. Just don’t be surprised by what you find when you go in there."

"I won’t be," he said. "But tell me one thing; who are you people really? I know you're not with the UN with that attitude."

"We’re just figments of your imagination," I said taking a set of dark sunglasses from my fanny pack and slipping them on. "Get it?"
"Got it."
"Good."

"Where to?" Elisa asked as we walked out to the Land Rover.

"Well, he wasn't real coherent after the first few minutes, but I got enough out of him to find our way there. He didn't know if Minx and Lydia were there or not, he'd never been there. He knew that something was going on there because he treated a man with some odd burns last night at his apartment, but claimed not to know anything about a bomb," I said unlocking the door.

"He's lying," Elisa said hotly.

"I'm sure he is. And I took steps to make sure he wouldn't be telling anybody we were coming."

"You trust the doctor?"

"Strangely enough I do. His Hippocratic oath seems to mean more than anything else does, even his religion."

"You'd better be right," was all she said.

The directions Barney gave me weren't the best I'd ever had but between them, the map and the GPS we soon found ourselves laying on the ground overlooking a tent camp with mounds of excavated rubble heaped everywhere. Three metal prefab structures stood apart from the main camp and I could see the mouth of a tunnel leading into the earth.

"See any sign of life?" I asked Elisa as I peered through the binoculars.

"There are two guys I've seen so far, one just went into the metal shed on the far left and I saw one come up out of the tunnel for a minute. Do you suppose they scattered when the shit hit the fan?" she asked.

"You mean when the plutonium hit the initiator. Maybe. I'm not going down there to check it out. At least not until dark anyway," I replied.

We kept watching and I saw another man come out of a tent with a rifle and sit down in a chair facing the entrance of it.

"Guard posted on the fourth tent. Suppose that's where Minx and Lydia are?" I mused.

"Maybe so. I'd keep them underground myself, but that's just me," Elisa replied.

We waited until sundown and a bit longer. There was still no major sign of activity in the camp at all. Before making a move though I figured I'd better call in on the satphone.

"We're overlooking the camp. There are at least three guards," I started to say.

"Get out of there!" Susan shouted over the phone. "Incoming missiles. Get down!"

There was a roar from overhead and then tremendous explosion in front of me that blinded me. I instinctively rolled down the hill knocking Elisa down in the process and leaving us in a heap while more explosions threw rocks and soil in all directions.

I lay there with my eyes closed, still blinded from the flash and then I heard Elisa say, "Oh oh, we've got company."

I heard a very male voice.

"What the hell are you two doing here?"

I blinked and opened my eyes to see a man dressed in black camouflage and with black face makeup staring down at me holding a very serious gun.

"I could ask you the same thing," I said.

"We're running a live fire exercise. What's your excuse?" the man demanded.

"UN Mission. We're out here checking on refugees," I replied.

" Well you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time lady," he said as another man came up." Secure the prisoners and get that fucking phone away from her," he directed.

"Right Sergeant!" said the second man said and took the phone and turned it off.

The second man pulled me to my feet and I saw another had Elisa at gunpoint as well.

"Hands on your head," he said and marched the two of us away from the camp as we watched a half a dozen more men head towards it.

The both of us sat on the ground and guarded by two soldiers our hands tied behind us as the sergeant who had discovered us paced back and forth.

"I read your credentials and we searched your vehicle and a few things don’t add up at all," he said. "I understand the satphone, and the GPS, but what you need with a radiation meter and a few of the other things we found doesn’t add up. So, I’ll ask exactly once: Who are you and who do you represent?"

"That’s whom, Sergeant," I said brightly." We’re on the same side. I may even have a few pieces of the puzzle you don’t have."

"Care to tell me about it?" he said finally squatting down in front of me.

"Only if you’d care to make a deal," I said without blinking.

"No deals," he said standing up again.

"Fine. We can just all sit here for another few days until there’s a large bang of the kind you don’t get to hear twice if you’re too close," I replied.

He stopped abruptly.

"And you know that for a fact." He said.

"I can tell you down to the fifth decimal place," I smiled.

"And you know all of this how?"

"Like I said, we’re on the same team. I just have a different boss than you do."

He looked amused.

"I don’t doubt that. My orders were to investigate this location and interrogate anybody we found. We found you," he said. "So far, this has been handled as carefully as I can manage in light of your gender, but I don’t have much of a choice left."

Before he could amplify on his threat, he was interrupted by one of his men.

"No sign of any weapon. The gamma meter shows some indications around what's left of the buildings, but no other signs."

"Survivors?"

The corporal looked at Elisa and I before speaking.

"Sir, there wasn't enough left to look at. From what the medic says, looks like three men and possibly two women. He won't know until he does a full postmortem at base."

My heart sank at those words. Minx and Lydia. My sisters in spirit. Minx, my sister in soul. What was I going to tell Michael? Oh Goddess, I dreaded that meeting.

"Friends of yours?" the sergeant asked seeing my expression.

"My sisters. They came out here to find the bomb and never got back in contact with me," I said bitterly." If you had just waited a little longer they might still be alive."

"Lady, I carried out the orders I was given. The United States is a bit concerned when someone tries to build a nuclear weapon. Especially in an area like this."

I looked at him and resisted the urge to kick him in the balls.

"And if you stayed out of it, we'd have cleaned the whole thing up and no one would ever have known," I replied. "We've been doing this a hell of a lot longer than you have."

"I doubt that," he said.

"You would. Now do you want to know what we know, or do you want to stand here and grow old together?"

"You can't tell him," Elisa said sharply.

"You want Minx and Lydia to have died for nothing? You don't have to go back and tell her husband that the only other woman he's ever loved is dead. He's already lost one wife, why not two?" I laughed bitterly. "Oscar Wilde once said to lose one parent is a tragedy, but to lose two seems like carelessness. I guess he's just fucking careless."

The sergeant ordered the corporal to untie us and then stepped back and drew his sidearm.

"Tell me what you know," He said cocking the pistol.

"The bomb is made with Indian plutonium stolen from a truck. It was smuggled into Lebanon as a radioisotope for medical purposes, and was transported from the hospital to here about four days ago. Last night about 0300 local something went wrong and there was an incident. We spotted it and I guess you did too," I said directly.

"Where's the bomb now?" he demanded.

I shook my head.

"I don't know."

He grabbed me and fired the gun inches away from my head deafening me.

"Where is it going?" He shouted.

"We think Jerusalem. It's part of a plan to destroy the peace treaty so far as we know."

"You keep saying we. Who are you and what group do you work for?" he demanded.

I looked at Elisa.

"I work for Ay'esha and she works for Kali. My group has been working for world peace for years and hers has been trying to take over the world."

He uncocked the pistol and holstered it.

"I'd say that was the biggest pile of horse shit I've ever heard except for one thing. It's too fucking unbelievable not to be true. Secret societies trying to take over the world. That's straight out of a bad Sax Rohmer novel," he laughed.

"Give me five minutes with the satphone and I'll prove it."

"Tell you what, I'll give you the five minutes to prove it, but if I'm not satisfied, I'm taking your ass back to Germany with us and we'll get some serious answers."

He handed me his satphone and I dialed the Rancho.

"Mei Ling are you all right?" Susan stuttered.

"For about five minutes anyway. Are we on camera?" I asked.

"We're tapped in through the JCS channel and we can see your group on the overhead imaging," she said after a minute.

"How many people on the ground besides us?"

"Barbara says she can see four of you together and another twelve scattered around. We can also see the Rover. According to the data we've received those men were dispatched out of Italy and the missiles came from a fighter group at the same base. She says she can also see a dim image of a large aircraft circling the area, looks like a cargo transport."

The sergeant looked at his watch and then nodded to the corporal who turned to a group of four men had just come over the top of the hill.

"Set the flares for recovery. And get those bodies ready for transport," he ordered following them as they trotted away.

The sergeant took the phone away from me and shut it off and put it away.

"So you'll help?" Elisa asked.

"I didn't say that. And I'm not saying I believe your story at all, but you seem to know a hell of a lot, too much to be tangos. But I can kick you two loose and make sure I know where you are at all times. You find them, I find you and we both get what we want. No muss, no fuss and no one will ever be the wiser. I take it that's also what we all want?"

"That's the idea," I said.

"Just remember ladies, our snipers can drop you at any time, any where. If I think you've crossed me, you be just as dead as the people in that camp."

"And if we need you, how do we find you?" I asked.

"If you know where we came from, you can find me," he said as the men carried the bags with the remains by us.

I tried not to weep thinking of the contents and the sergeant reached out and touched my shoulder.

"People die in wars, even ones that aren't called wars. Someday I'll probably be killed fighting. I have a wife and two sons. But I'll die knowing I was protecting them. Sometimes that's the only comfort you can take; dying for a good cause."

I looked him in the eye unflinchingly.

"Sometimes it's more important to live for a good cause."

Chapter 29 Sections 1 to 10

Prologue to Eve of Destruction
Everybody Wants To Rule The World
The Bomb Run
We'll Meet Again
It Came Upon A Midnight Clear
Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life
It's Slinky
There's got to be a morning after
Burning Bridges
American Pie