Second That Emotion
by
Latikia
Copyright © 2006
Chapter 44
By the time my five new FBI moles
dropped me off at the front door of CIA Headquarters it was a
The guards in the lobby saw me
coming and couldn’t rush me thru the security checkpoint fast enough. Taking the elevator I got off at Dr. Wills’…our floor and left a note for him to
find in the morning, complete with the offshore account numbers and how much
money he could expect to find, assuming he got there before MacGill’s people
did. I slid the note under his door,
went back to the elevator and rode it up to the roof, where I found a
helicopter and pilot waiting for me.
A man could easily get used to
service like that.
I was my usual quiet self on the
flight home, perhaps a little more sullen and taciturn than in recent weeks…I
had some worrisome thoughts flitting about in my head and no matter how hard I
tried to ignore them they just wouldn’t leave me be.
I thanked the pilot as he set the
helicopter down on the front lawn and jumped out, sprinting for the front
door. I heard the rotors speed up behind
me and the rush of cold air as the copter lifted up and swooped off into the
cold dark morning.
I took the porch steps two at a
time and, reaching the front door, turned the knob. Moving as quietly as I could, I stepped
inside, shut the door behind me and started down the hallway. A rustling of fabric and a soft sigh from the
living room caught my attention; I poked my head in and scanned the room.
There on the couch were my girls,
huddled together for warmth across from a slowly dying heap of charcoal lumps
in the fireplace.
They were still wearing their
dresses from our night out, but had removed their shoes and put thick socks on
over their feet.
I left them lying there, went
upstairs to the linen closet and dug out a king-sized quilt which I took down
and draped over their reclining bodies.
Moving the fireplace screen aside I added several log sections to the
barely glowing lumps that remained and fanned the fire back to life. Replacing the screen I got up, removed my
overcoat and jacket, took off the double shoulder holster rig and put it and
the pistols back in the gun locker hidden within the kitchen pantry. Coming back into the living room I settled
myself into one of the chairs that faced the couch and kicked off my
shoes. I eased back into the chair’s
embrace and watched my sweeties sleep…trying to relax and contemplating my
latest violation of social morality and civil law. As the flames began to crackle and lick at
the bark of the new logs and the smell of wood smoke slowly filled the room, I
drifted off to sleep.
The landscape was flat and barren,
devoid of vegetation and deathly silent.
There was no sun, no moon, no stars in the reddish orange sky, no way to
tell which direction I was walking. I
was walking…toward what I had no idea, but I was walking. There didn’t seem to be anything in front of
me, and plenty more of the same to either side.
Stopping, I turned around and looked behind and saw the exact same
view. The silence became so intense and
profound that it actually began to hurt my ears.
‘Gotten your self a little lost, have you?’
“Looks that
way.” I replied. Turning back around I
came face to face with my grandfather.
‘You do have a knack for stepping off the path.’ he told me.
“I can’t even see the path. Everywhere I look is just more of the same nothing.”
‘Come with me. I’ll
show you the way back.’
He put an arm around my shoulders
and we started walking…forward?
‘You’ve killed again.’
he said bluntly, without emotion.
“He deserved to die.”
‘Did he? You could
have done to him what you did to the five men he sent after you.’
“I could do that to everyone who
disagrees with me, but what would it accomplish?”
‘They’d stop disagreeing with you.’
“Yeah, and then I’d be surrounded
by soulless drones who’d do anything I told them to.”
‘Isn’t that what you want?’
“Hell no. I just want them to
leave me alone.”
‘Them who?’
“Idiots with
power.”
‘Idiots with power…like you?’
“Like me…” I muttered.
‘You don’t actually think that you’re the only one who
feels this way, do you? Has it ever
occurred to you that they see you in
the exact same way you see them?’
“I didn’t set out to hurt
them. I didn’t kidnap them or threaten
them or try to kill them. Hell, I didn’t
even know who they were until they started after me.”
‘Ignorance isn’t much of a defense as defenses go. But I get your point. Try and look at things from their
perspective though…there they were, walking what they see as their paths, and
you got in the way. You became an
obstacle that had to be overcome or eliminated.’
“Then their paths are wrong.” I
growled.
‘Sez you.’
“Yeah, sez me!”
‘What gives you the right to decide that the path someone
else is on is a good or bad one?’
“I give me the right.”
‘Being a tad judgmental, aren’t you? You’re hardly more than a kid and there’s a
lot you still don’t know and don’t understand.
Do you really feel that you can adequately judge the actions and
motivations of the rest of the world?’
“I’m not trying to judge the
world. Only the individuals who’ve
decided to lock horns with me.”
‘Alright, fair enough. Nature gave you a desire to survive for a
reason. But you aren’t the only
one. It’s a contest, and the rules are
neither explicit nor fair. And there is
no justice in this contest, no
referee and no time outs.’
“So what is the point of the
contest?”
‘Who ever said there was a point? Far as I can tell, the contest is all there is.’
“If the contest is it then anything goes. Anything
I do is justified as long as I keep competing.”
‘Justification, like most other concepts, is a human
construct. A label for
things or conditions that are. Outside of language they have no real
substance. Try to explain fair or pity to a wolf or tiger.
What does a snake know about compassion
or honor?’
“For unreal constructs they sure
do cause me no end of real problems.”
‘Oh, they’re real enough.
They aren’t natural, but they are most definitely real. Human civilization has
tried desperately to impose these rules on nature to improve its chances in the
contest. To level out the playing field, as it were. But nature doesn’t give a damn about our
rules…and from time to time humans pop up who don’t give a damn either.’
“If we all played the game without
any rules there’d be chaos.”
‘Don’t misunderstand me…there are rules. Humans have managed to move beyond the
original rules, unlike most other creatures.
For them the rules are locked in…think of them as instincts. Humans have very few instincts left. As time goes by we have fewer and fewer. Survival and procreation are about all that’s
left.’
“I’m confused, Granddad. What are you trying to tell me?”
‘You are
confused…you’re trying to play the game by two very different sets of rules and
the differences are what’s eating you up inside. The civilized part of you wants to follow the
established moral code and the natural part wants to say “fuck it” and do what’s necessary to ensure you can keep playing.’
“Then there is no right or wrong
way. Only what I choose.”
‘More or less, boy, more or less. You have the luxury of personal power, which
pretty much ensures that you can freely do whatever the hell you want and get
away with it. This kind of freedom will
not make you popular with the rest of humanity, and at the very least it’s gonna make them resentful.’
“And all of this means what,
exactly?”
We stopped walking and Granddad
spread his arms wide. I looked around
and saw that the landscape had changed.
Gone were the vast expanses of flat, dull, endless nothing, and in its
place were mountains, valleys, streams, forests, green grass, animals of all
types and a deep blue sky with a brilliant orange sun at the horizon.
Granddad stood smiling at me, his
feet planted on a smooth pathway that continued off towards the mountains. ‘What
it means is that you know what the path looks like, and you know where it
is. You always have. Your problem is one of doubt. Self doubt.
You don’t trust your own decisions.
Ike, you are not like other people, and no matter how much you wish you
were, you never will be like other people.
You are going to spend your life moving among them and pretending to be
like them, but you can never be like
them…so stop trying. You’ll be much
happier and everyone around you will be too.’
“I’m not a god. I don’t want to be a god.”
‘It’s just a word…a label.
Don’t let yourself get handcuffed by labels. They only mean what you allow them to. If you don’t want to be a god, then don’t be
a god. Be a hero, or a leader or a
public servant or a sage or whatever label you feel comfortable with. Let others apply the label, and they will,
believe me, no matter what you want.
Just be who and what you are and walk your path the best way you know
how.’
“And what about
the obstacles?”
‘Obstacles are meant to be overcome. How you overcome them is up to you.’
Granddad’s image wavered,
reforming itself into my mother.
‘Try to be kind, when you can. The harder you are with other people the
harder you’ll end up being on yourself.
You are a kind, gentle, sensitive and loving boy. Don’t allow life to make you hard, cruel and
uncaring.’
I reached out a hand to my
mother’s face, only to have her image waver and be replaced by the grinning,
flame lipped, burning coal eyed,
‘Stop feeling sorry for yourself, would you? Evaluate and critique your actions and
decisions, sure…fine, but knock off the self-pity. You make me sick to my stomach when you do
that. So you killed a self-important,
ego-maniacal jerk wad. Big fuckin’ deal! Did
you have to kill him? No. Could you have handled it better? Maybe, maybe not. Personally, I’d have put that old man in our
pocket. But that’s me.’ His grin
widened and flames flared up, swirling around his head. ‘You should be more concerned with keeping your feet on the path…bad
things happen when you don’t know where you stand.’
The darkness started laughing and
pointed at my feet. I looked down. Not a foot from the edge of the path he stood
on was a cliff with a bottomless chasm below it. And I was standing firmly in mid air, a foot
and a half from the edge of the path.
I felt like Elmer Fudd as gravity grabbed hold and pulled me down towards the
yawning abyss below. I threw out my
arms, catching the edge of the cliff and franticly clutched for something to
hang on to. My fingers brushed over what
felt like a tree root and I latched on, gripping tightly and hanging on for
dear life.
“Help…me!” I gasped.
The darkness was doubled over with
laughter. Its form wavered and Peggy
appeared in its place.
‘Ike, what are you doing?’ she asked me, moving closer and peering over the cliff’s
edge.
“Trying not to
fall.”
Lilly moved up next to her, taking
Peggy’s hand in her own.
‘Do you want to fall?’ Lilly
asked me, concern on her face.
“Not really.”
Izzy stepped up on Peggy’s other
side and took her remaining hand.
‘Then don’t.’ my big
sister said sweetly.
“As simple as
that, huh?”
They all smiled down at me. ‘As simple as that. Sometimes you make things harder than they
need to be.’
“Can you girls ever forgive me?” I
choked out, feeling my grip on the root slip.
‘What for?’
“For being what I am.”
The three of them beamed like
sunrise.
‘What you are isn’t nearly as important as who you are.’ Izzy told me.
‘My Daddy.’ Peggy
said.
‘My Friend.’ Lilly
smiled.
‘My Brother.’ Izzy
winked.
‘Our lover and husband; the father of our children, our
knight in shining armor and our sweet, sweet boy.’ they sang together like a Greek Chorus.
“Is that who
I am?”
‘It’s who you want to be.
Who you should be.’
Yes…who I should be.
I released my grip on the root,
and as I stared up into the eyes of my beautiful girls I felt myself falling
back and away from the face of the cliff.
The farther I fell, the deeper into their eyes I went until I burst into
flames from the intense heat of the love I felt coming from them and the love
in me that rushed out to join with them.
“Oooooh, Daddy…oh yeah!” I heard a small faint voice call out, and a weight fell
into my lap…which I thought was a pretty good trick, as I was busy falling into
both an abyss and three sets of eyes
all at the same time, and I didn’t actually have much of a lap for anyone to
fall into.
I slowly opened my eyes and saw a
pair of deep brown eyes looking right back at me.
“Hi.” I whispered.
“Hi, yourself.” The eyes blinked
and pulled back so I could see the face they belonged to. A sweet, elfin face that made my heart beat
just a little faster. Her lips went from
thin and prim to smiling and sexy in an instant.
“No fair.” Peggy groused
softly. “I get all set to chew you out
and then you go being all happy and excited to see me and I forget to be mad.”
I wrapped my arms around her small
frame and pulled her tight against me.
“I can’t help it…it’s what you do to me.
Stop being so beautiful and sexy and wonderful and I’ll stop being happy
and excited to see you.”
“Okay, I’ll try.” she giggled.
I laughed along with her. “It won’t do you any good. You’re naturally terrific. You’ll just have to learn to live with it.” I gave her another hug and then kissed her
long and hard.
Peggy melted in my arms and when I
finally released her she slid down into the crook of my arm and grinned up at
me.
“Ooooh, baby! That was very nice. I’m getting all squishy.” she said,
stretching in my lap like a cat.
“You’re always ‘squishy’.” I heard
Lilly chuckle.
Izzy and Lilly were sitting up on
the couch, the quilt pulled up around their necks, watching Peggy and I.
“Not always.” Peggy
protested.
“Almost always.” Izzy countered.
“They’re just jealous of your
innate squishy-ness.” I whispered to the small woman on my lap. Peggy laughed, squeezed my waist and stuck
her tongue out at the other two girls.
“I’m sorry our date was
ruined. I was having a great time.” I
told them all.
“It wasn’t ruined, just
interrupted.” Izzy said, and Lilly nodded in agreement.
“Thank you for
the dresses and the shoes and perfume and…and everything.” Peggy said in a rush.
I stood up, cradling Peggy in my
arms, and moved over to the couch, Lilly threw her side of the quilt over to
Izzy and shifted over to make room for us.
I sat down between them and Izzy tossed the quilt back over to Lilly and
we all got tucked in beneath it. I
leaned over and gave Izzy and then Lilly a good morning kiss.
“The idea was mine…that you can
thank me for. The rest was all you girls. I want to thank the three of you for being so
beautiful and gracious and patient. You all dance so well, it couldn’t have been
easy putting up with my clumsy and embarrassing efforts.”
Peggy leaned her head back and
looked at Izzy. “Is he trying to get
into our pants?”
Izzy burst out laughing, leaning
against my shoulder and pounding a fist against my arm. Lilly put one hand over her mouth and
desperately tried to keep a straight face.
I quickly ran one hand up over
Peggy’s smooth thigh, under the hem of her dress, across her belly and under
the waistband of her panties to the slick wet lips of her sex and gave her clit
a little wiggle.
“Oh-oh-oh…shit…shit, yeah,
oh-yeah…” she moaned.
I leaned down and licked the tip
of her nose. “Trying to get in?” I rumbled.
“He’s in…oh-yeah…he’s definitely
in.”
Izzy put a finger beneath my chin
and tilted my head up. “You’ll have to
finish her off, now that you’ve gotten her all wound up.”
I grinned at my beautiful big
sister and licked my lips. “And of
course, winding Peggy up gets you wound up doesn’t it?”
Izzy smiled and nodded, leaning
down to kiss me. I felt Lilly’s hand on
my shoulder, so I turned and she took my face between her hands and we kissed.
“And of course, getting them
turned on turns you on too, right?” I asked.
Lilly smiled, nodded and licked the end of my nose with the pointed tip of her little pink tongue.
“I am soooo whipped.” I mock groaned.
“And such a
slut.” Peggy giggled.
We got up, hurried upstairs to our
bedroom and locked the door. We didn’t
come out again till lunchtime.
When we came downstairs for lunch
we found Anya and David in the kitchen trying to decide what to have, so we
pooled our efforts and created a big platter of various lunch meats, cheeses,
lettuce, pickles, tomato and onion slices, along with small saucers of
mustards, mayonnaise, relishes, steak sauce, salad dressings and every kind of
bread, roll or bun we had in the place.
I heated up six cans of beef vegetable soup, put it into mugs and we
move out to the dining room and had lunch.
While we sat there eating I told
the girls about the message from Colonel DeBerg; that I was going to have to go
back to the hospital for three days.
They took the news pretty well. I
wasn’t sure if I should be grateful or disappointed.
Most interestingly of all, not
once did they ask me what had happened to the five FBI agents or how my meeting
with the FBI Director had gone.
Mr. Jones did. He and I were cleaning
up after lunch, while the ladies went off to do some laundry, and while I
rinsed out mugs and put them into the dishwasher he questioned me.
“How many bodies do we have to
worry about?”
I looked up at him. There was no anger on his face, no condemnation or value judgment being made. He simply wanted to know what to expect.
“Just one. The
Director. There might be a little problem though. The President’s Security Advisor was there
with us when he died. I got Everet to confess that he’d been the one that put Senator
Mortenson in touch with the ex-FBI Agents I killed in
David was silent for a few seconds
as he took it all in and then nodded to himself.
“MacGill is probably less of a
problem than you think. He and Dr. Wills
go back a long way. MacGill was the
Director of the CIA about fifteen years ago, and one of the few who actually
got along with our department.”
I shrugged. “I just don’t want any of them thinking they
can control me, and I sure don’t want them thinking they can take potshots at
me without there being consequences.”
Jones laughed. Not the most pleasant sound I’ve ever heard
by a long shot. His voice just wasn’t
made for pleasant sounds.
“Ike, after the past few weeks I
very much doubt that there is anyone
left in Washington with half a brain who thinks who thinks banging heads with
you won’t have dire consequences.”
I gave him a half smile. “It’s the ones with less than half that I
worry about. And there would appear to
be lots of those left.”
Mr. Jones left me to finish
cleaning up the kitchen. He hurried off
to call the office. He wanted to be sure
that Dr. Wills got those bank account numbers.
The helicopter was waiting for me
on the front lawn bright and early Monday morning.
I’d packed my sweats and a change
of clothes into a small gym bag of Izzy’s, and was on my way out the front door
when the girls came charging down the hallway.
We’d said our temporary goodbyes
the night before and I’d been trying to get away quietly without making a
tearful scene.
Izzy pushed me out the front door
and down the steps. I looked over my
shoulder and saw that Lilly was fully dressed, unlike Izzy and Peggy who had
their robes tied tightly around them, and that Peggy was carrying an overnight
bag in both hands.
“What the hell is going on here?”
I demanded.
“We voted last night and Lilly is
going with you to the hospital.” my sister informed me.
“What…?” I started to ask, only to
be cut off firmly by Peggy.
“You need one of us around to look
after you. Lilly’s going to baby-sit you while you’re in the hospital.”
Lilly and Izzy were biting down on
their lips to keep from laughing and Peggy herself was having a hard time
trying to keep a straight face.
I couldn’t win this one and I knew
it. So did they.
I wrapped Izzy in my arms and
kissed her. “Take good care of
Peggy. I’ll see you soon.”
“Peggy and I are coming out
tomorrow to have her cast removed, so we’ll see you as soon as that’s done.”
she told me.
I grinned and slapped her on her
terrycloth covered bottom.
Releasing Izzy I turned and knelt
down on one knee. Peggy handed the
overnight bag to Lilly, gave her a quick hug and kiss
and then jumped off the porch into my arms.
“Be good and take care of Izzy for
me, okay?”
“You be good too. Don’t give Lilly any trouble.” she warned me.
I laughed. “Yes ma’am.”
Lilly and Izzy hugged and whispered
to one another, each one nodding in agreement to something then kissed and
stepped apart. I gave Peggy a final
goodbye kiss and set her down next to Izzy.
“We’d best get going.” I said to
Lilly, taking the bag from her hands and holding it in the same one as mine I
put my free arm around her shoulders.
We walked to the helicopter and
got in. As the pilot started revving the
engine and increasing the rotor speed, we could see Izzy standing on the porch
with Peggy standing in front of her, Izzy’s arms crossed over Peggy’s
shoulders. David and Anya came out of
the front door to flank our girls like bookends. As the helicopter lifted off all four of them
waved to us, and we waved back, Lilly with tears running down her face. I linked with all of them and sent a gentle
flow of warmth, appreciation and love.
Separations of any kind were going
to be a real problem for our little family.
I held Lilly’s hand in mine and
continued our link after I’d cut the others.
I kept sending her comfort and love for the entire flight. She squeezed my hand with gratitude when I
drained away her fear and discomfort.
Lilly really hates flying in helicopters.
We landed on Walter Reed’s rooftop
helipad and were met by Colonel DeBerg.
The three of us got into the elevator and started down. The Colonel and Lilly were talking about how
she was doing when the doors opened. We
stepped out and walked around the corner to the entrance of the Psych
Ward.
I stood there at the double doors
and looked down the long hall, remembering events that occurred there not all
that long ago, but seemed now to have been years in the past.
“Damn, it sucks to be back.” I
mumbled to no one in particular.