Dreams of Destiny Pt. 04

“When I awaken I enter the Chamber of horrors. I look around and see the red head. She has been stabbed in the chest and her breast appears to have been bitten. There is blood every where around her and her eyes are wide open and staring. There is no sign of the dark haired woman or of the red head’s companion.

“I travel to the end of the exhibit and find the body of a security guard whose neck has been wrung like a chicken. The House of Horrors is closed for the night. At the exit I find that I am trapped inside with the bodies. I fall asleep and then I wake up. Sometimes I awaken in my bed at home. Sometimes I awaken into a different dream.”

“I take it you think these dreams are not so much dreams but trips into different realities or time lines, or something?” the president asked.

“Or something.”

The two men stopped talking for a moment.

“So what do you want to do now?” the president asked.

“About the documents?”

“Yes.”

“We have to make sure either that the documents are destroyed or at least they can be discredited, and the people behind them punished. Do you think you can get any information about your cousin or the daughter?”

“Yes, probably. Some of our family is still around that might remember them. Like I said, I never paid any attention to Katarina. I will ask my relatives if they know what happened to her. Someone should know something.”

“Good. Do it discretely. I’d do it but my involvement would alert anyone hoping to get dirt on your presidency. You could ask questions and people will think you’re planning a family reunion or something. If I ask, they’ll assume someone is about to be arrested and thrown to the dogs. God I hate my reputation sometimes.”

“I’m sure you do, but a mean reputation is a good one for the head of security.”

“I know that, but sometimes the job wears at me. I’m going to hate questioning Destiny when she reappears. If I show her any leniency my ethics will be called into question. I wish I could ship her back to, DC where she belongs. No, that‘s not true. I would like to keep her safe from all of this.”

“You really have it bad for her, don’t you?”

“Yeah. Well, based on one day together. It’s a little early to tell.”

“What if Destiny is part of the plot against me?” Pietro asked.

“I don’t know. I just hope it doesn’t come to that. I have to talk to her. But I do want to keep her out of this as much as possible.”

The president changed the subject. “So, did you fulfill her fantasy?”

“She didn’t have any complaints,” Juan grinned.

“Pietro snorted with laughter. I’ve picked up a lot of women in my time but that’s a line I’ve never heard.”

Rodriguez face grew red. “She was pretty embarrassed about that.”

He laughed uncomfortably.

“Yeah, Irish blarney combined with Hispanic machismo gets them every time. Did she tell you everything you wanted to know or are you going to have to pump her for more information later?”

Juan rolled his eyes at his uncle’s crude joke.

“So now, if I get you straight, there are two Destinies, said the president. The one in your dream about the DC Court who knows you as a fantasy figure, and the one here on the island who works for a federal agency.”

“That about sums it up.”

“And she might be a spy for Esteban.”

“Yes. One thing we need to do is find a document authenticator. One who knows the value of discretion. I’ll get copies made - - One for you and one for the authenticator. The originals will go in my vault.”

“I think I know who can do the authentication, said the president. Give me the documents. I’ll make copies here, now. Leave one with me. You never know what might happen from one minute to the next.” The president stepped out for a few moments to make the copies.

Juan continued to make his plans.

“I’ll stop by the hotel to check for Destiny again. If she’s not there I’ll search her room again and snatch her identification, her passport and her cell phone. That will get her attention if she comes back after I’m gone. If she is in her room or anywhere else in the hotel I’ll take her into protective custody. I won’t arrest her yet.”

“Esteban may be hooked up with her. God knows our taste in women is similar. Even if she’s not, she had documents she should have turned over to me immediately and didn’t.”

“She may not have looked at them.”

“She should have. If I don’t find her, I’m going to find Esteban and see how smug he’s acting. At least I know how to read that bastard. I knew he looked smug last night. I didn’t know why. The way he looked at Destiny made me want to throw him to the sharks. I hope she’s smart enough to steer clear of him.”

“She sounds kind of intellectually smart but maybe not so smart about people.”

“Why? Because she hooked up with me?”

“You got it. And because someone got her to bring those documents onto the island.”

“Well, she’s nothing like Nicoletta, which is a treat. You know what’s great about Destiny? When you look into her big green eyes you feel like you can tell her anything. And no matter how bad it is, she will still find good in you. I’ve never met a woman I could open up to the way I opened up to Destiny in just a few short hours.

“You should see her in a crowd. She lights up the room with her smile. And when she smiles for you alone: WOW.

“While we were talking in DC we discovered we both see the same psychiatrist who is a dream specialist. In fact, I -- I mean John Rodgers -- has an appointment with Dr. Phaeton today. Assuming the time passage doesn’t screw it up, I’m due at the Doctor’s office in a few hours. I hope I can hook up with Destiny so we can go together. Maybe he knows something.

He’s always seemed more of a svengali type than a classic psychiatrist. It’s like he’s waiting for something. We’ve tried hypnosis to bring some of the dreams to life without much success. He says to be patient.

“I can’t be patient. I feel that everything is coming to a head, the pieces of the puzzle are starting to fall into place and that the future -- at least my entire future-- lies in balance. I feel like a volcano is about to explode somewhere and if Destiny and I are not there and prepared for a fight all will be lost. I do not know what will be lost, only that it will be devastating.

“This is not just about the security of the presidency. It is about Esteban. He has to be stopped permanently. He’s gone too far this time. We’ve side stepped and ignored him for too long. Threats will no longer be sufficient to contain him. This is a bold stroke against the presidency that I frankly didn’t expect. He has a strong power base now and with the income generated by his illegal activities I’m sure he has more than enough to make a good showing at the next election.

“Esteban may try to get the documents to the press. That would be disastrous. If you have any clout with the media, warn them away from any sordid stories. You might tell them that some documents have come to your attention which will be proved to be frauds. You don’t have to say what they are.

“Isn’t it kind of risky to admit the existence of this information at all?” the president asked.

“Not as risky as letting Esteban use it.”

“I suppose you have a point. But I don’t like it. I’d rather let sleeping dogs lie.”

Breakfast was finished and there was nothing further to discuss at the president’s mansion. Juan agreed to keep the president advised left for the hotel.

It was already lunch time by the time he arrived. He had a sudden urge to throw in the towel and skip out for an afternoon in the sun and the ocean. The ocean called to him. ’Come play with me. Come dance in my tide. Come taste my salt kisses. Stay with me, bide.’

It was so tempting. But duty called. And hopefully my destiny awaits me, he thought.

Juan checked for messages at the desk. Nothing, damn it. He took the elevator to the four floor, and used Destiny’s card to enter the room. His instinct told him that the room had been searched since he left. Good thing I took the documents with me.

Destiny hadn’t returned. Juan picked up her purse. He grabbed her passport, her drivers license, her bar card, and her ATM card, and stuffed them into his jacket pocket, leaving a note telling where he could be reached. He found her cell phone.

Good, he thought. He pressed *69, not expecting much. The line was busy. Typical, he thought. He made another call. This one was to a hacker friend who owed him a few favors. “Manuel, how quickly can you get a printout of calls made on or to a cell phone?”

“No can do for calls already made. It’s not like the old days when you could get access to any call quick as spit. For future calls, I can fix something up within a day. Where are you and what do you want?”

“It’s pretty simple. I’m confiscating a cell phone. I need to know the who and where of any future calls on the line. Can you do it?”

“Sure. Let me get your information.

Well, that was easy. Now, should I wait for Destiny or should I go harass Esteban? Just as he was picking up his things, a knock came at the door. “Maid service.” Funny, the room’s already been made up “Juan thought. He was too relaxed. He didn’t even catch a glimpse of the sucker punch to his stomach when he opened the door. He bent over, with the wind knocked out of him. But he was a large man -- hard to take out. He straitened and made to grapple his assailant with his well muscled arms. His attacker was too fast and light on his feet. He hit Juan a smart blow on the side of the head just under his left ear. Juan heard bells and saw stars, and down he went. Out for the count...

Chapter XXV

Esteban stepped over his brother’s inert body with distaste. I should kill you here and now. But I will wait. I want you to feel great pain when I take Destiny from you this time. Yes. You will suffer. So will she. But she will also enjoy it. Esteban went through Juan’s pockets, removing Destiny’s identification and the copies of the Katerina documents. Esteban had been royally pissed off when Destiny left before he could make arrangements for her meet the news reporter with the documents. That was a great opportunity missed do to poor timing. Who would have thought Juan would hook up with Destiny on her first day of her vacation? Sure, it had been risky pulling the strings to get her here, but he had been laying his plans for a long time. It was time for the symphony’s crescendo; the coup de gras; the reckoning. The volcano was about to blow sky high.

He placed the documents, Destiny’s papers and her cell phone in his jacket pockets and slipped out of the room. He got to the elevator and pushed the down button. The bell dinged and the doors slid open. Esteban stepped into the empty elevator. He pushed the button for basement and the doors closed. The elevator made a quick descent. Concentrating fiercely, Esteban manipulated the matter around him.

The elevator, or its image in Esteban’s reality, continued downward beyond the basement. Down and forward it went, until it was traveling down through the earth plane at about a thirty degree angle. It picked up speed. The air became warm and then hot as the elevator traveled through the bowels of the lower plane. Esteban stopped the elevator when it reached the passageway just outside his island lair. He willed the doors to open. He stepped into murky red light of the passageway. The elevator behind him disappeared as if it had never existed.

Esteban walked through the large cavern without stopping until he reached his alcove. The lair was similar to the demon’s on the main land, but not as large. It was very convenient, however. He was more at home in lairs these days that he was in apartments or houses. Esteban liked being under the earth in nice, warm safe places. He decided it was time to plan out a strategy for dealing with Destiny, John and Juan.

Events he hadn’t expected had happened quickly. He hadn’t planned on Juan meeting Destiny on the island until his plot to incriminate Destiny was in full place. He damned the fate that had led Destiny to run headlong into Juan at the airport. Esteban wanted to know who the hell Juan’s snitch was. He’d make that entity suffer, he swore. Then the two of them having a nice cozy dinner together. He’d been beside himself when that happened. Destiny had looked smitten with Juan.

Events had gone even more out of hand when Juan followed Destiny to the store last night. He had to stop his lackey at the newspaper from meeting Destiny. Of all the damn things to have happen. He’d worked so hard on his plans to have the papers in the hands of the media by morning. Then Destiny’s role as source of the documents would have been revealed. Any chance of Destiny and Juan becoming lovers would have been destroyed. Esteban worriedly over whether Juan or Destiny were actively manipulating this dream line as he was.

He wondered if he could salvage any portion of his plot on the island. Maybe he should just end the dream. If he did that, the issue of the president’s affair would fade into obscurity and Juan and Destiny would dream dreams of an exciting affair with each other without ever actually meeting. At least that’s what should happen assuming neither Destiny nor Juan were manipulating the dream.

Neither Destiny, Juan nor John was as cognizant of the entire dream/reality/matter structure as Esteban. But they were quickly gaining knowledge and experience. Esteban realized he was going to have to act fast and decisively if he wanted things to work out. He didn’t really give a damn about the master. But he had been waiting for Destiny for so long that wanting her had become madness.

No, he decided, he wouldn’t abandon the misinformation plot. He would vary it. He had the original package and Destiny’s identification. He would send the information to the news media identifying Destiny as the source. He would let slip the carnal relationship between Destiny and Juan and insinuate that Juan wanted to discredit the president and wrest away power. This might be even better than the original plot, thought Esteban. However it plays out will hurt Juan and Pietro, as long as the information is never tied to me, Esteban thought.

Events in DC had become troublesome as well. Esteban didn’t know how Destiny and John had met on the Devon matter but was deeply disturbed by the event. Destiny and John putting their heads together there at that particular time could be disastrous.

John’s tracking Stephen to DC had been no more than a glitch, or so Esteban had thought. Now he wasn’t so sure. He was coming to think there were forces he hadn’t fully counted upon at play. Now John and Destiny had been reunited. The attraction was inevitable.

Esteban’s control over the dream shifts had been growing by leaps and bounds over the years. He had been delighted at age 20, when he first encountered Destiny in a dream that took place in an abandoned house. Only he was not Esteban, he was Stephen who had dated Destiny two years earlier.

The knowledge he had gained over time as both Stephen and Esteban allowing him to slip sometimes from dream to dream, and location to location freed him of the constraints of his own morality. Why worry about killing someone if you can redo the dream and bring the person back to life?

God, the rush of his first kill had been sensational! He had been with his first red headed girlfriend, Kathy. There had been many red heads over the years. The first one had changed his life.

He had drifted into the relationship with Kathy shortly after breaking up with Destiny. But he’d gotten Kathy pregnant and, surprised by the strength of his feelings about being a father, had married the girl. Kathy had been addicted to heroin when the baby, Jeffrey, was born. The baby was sickly and hard to take care of. They’d lived together in a god-awful mobile home in the middle of a field with no money, no parenting skills and no love for each other. All they had in common was the baby, their drug habits and their penchants for sex and violence. Stephen had lost control one night and Kathy ended up in the hospital. Kathy’s parents finally intervened.

They took Kathy and Jeffrey into their home temporarily on the condition that Kathy bring criminal charges against Stephen. In Court Stephen had been given the choice of a criminal record or the army. He’d opted for the army.

The army had suited Stephen for a while. Okay, maybe he’d done a lot of drugs and hadn’t been an exemplary soldier. But God, the rules and regulations. Who could stand it without being high?

Most of the guys had been stoned or drunk morning, noon and night on the base. He’d see some of the suckers puking their guts out during morning drills and laughed his head off. Sure, he stayed high during basic. But his body was a temple and he treated it with respect. He worked out vigorously and kept it well maintained like an expensive sports car or an exotic animal. He’d excelled in Basic.

That’s when they wanted him for special operations. Sure, no problem, cool, he thought. But that was some serious shit. They’d played with his head all of the time. He did the physical, but they kept jabbing at him mentally. He increased his daily intake of uppers and downers -- he took pills so he wouldn’t have telltale tracks.

But two months into the program he’d been caught in a random check for opiates. He swore it was for his bad tooth but the brass had made up their minds. His confidential evaluation had labeled him a sociopath with an underlying mood disorder.

When he learned of the report he wrote a letter to his major saying it was all true. In the letter he wrote that he was a sorry son of a bitch who would like to kill the brass who relied on that evaluation. The letter almost ended him up in jail. Instead, he’d been offered a little rest at a private psychiatric hospital, a pension, and a discharge for medical disabilities.

So, he’d ended back in West Chester, PA. He’d spent the first couple of weeks back re-establishing his old drug connections and setting up his business. He made a few good drug buys. He looked up old friends and acquaintances. He took too much heroin and got addicted. One day when he was really hurting he decided to look up Destiny. He remembered her as a lanky, awkward 14 year old with beautiful black hair. She had always been a soft touch for his hardship stories. He figured she’d be willing to take him under her wing. She’d mooned over him enough after they’d dumped her.

Destiny was astonished to see him sacked out on her front porch one November afternoon when she got home from school. Oh god, she thought. Don’t let this be happening. I’m finally over him. I don’t need this. “Hey Stephen,” said Destiny. “Wake up. You can’t sleep here. My dad will kill you if he finds you here like this. Stephen, my God, what’s wrong with you? You’re sick as a dog. And you stink. When was your last bath?”

“Well, hello to you too. I’m happy to see you.” He grinned his little grin that used to make her heart jump. It started to but she swallowed hard and willed herself not to be moved by the man. Yes, he was a man. He’d certainly grown up. He was all lean muscle and sinew as far as she could tell. There wasn’t an extra ounce of fat on his lithe body. His hair, however, was cropped short, military style and it didn’t suit him. She’d always thought of him as cat-like -- lion or mountain lion. But skinny, with his hair like that he looked like a snake. She wasn’t impressed.

“Don’t you have the time of day for a dying man, Destiny?” Stephen said weakly. Or how about a glass of water and some crackers. I’m starving, but I have this stomach flue and can’t keep anything down.”

“You must think I’m just plain stupid, Stephen. I remember your tricks. I let you into the house, you lay low for a while, I hide you out and feed you from my plate praying my father doesn’t catch on and then you steal everything in sight on your way out.”