Guardians of the Backwater

Prologue

A colonel drove a new Humvee through a guarded gate in the early-morning hours to park underneath a large Florida-style office building on flood stilts, a grayish-color modern building with large picture windows. The armed guard recognized the vehicle with the hard-to-get Jekyll Island bumper sticker-a coded vehicle Pass, as Jekyll Island has long been a partner to people vacationing from the secret government.

The guard raised the stop arm and allowed the high bird to enter with a wave. The colonel was never in a good mood, partly of fate because his home life was so sanitary and regimented by having an overly perfectionist wife, the snoot of the officer’s wives club. No person can enter their home without first the removal of shoes; even coffee rings on the table can bring down the wrath of Queen Mary, which could be followed by a decapitation, amputation of the arm, or execution murder!

Just a little dust on a counter would bring her to heavy breathing. Mud on the feet could mean spending time in the torture chamber. For the colonel, this could mean her not talking to him for up to five days! The only safe place in their home was the colonel’s own office, where he would sometimes entertain his guests with the door closed. The colonel once had serious thoughts of leaving her but dismissed the problems of a regimented home life, for the benefits of her running the lives of all the other women at the officer’s wives club. There were always issues arising, among the more conservative women from events at the officer’s club for the men. From wild parties to just blowing off steam or the occasional stag party with dancing women, the colonel’s wife made sure that any whistleblowers at the wives’ club were quickly silenced to avoid any news of such party reaching the top brass! It was a grim trade-off for the colonel, but he kept all the men at the officer’s club happy. And then, dinner was always on time, and she took such exquisite care to make it special, an exquisite culinary experience, with a glass of his favorite wine to top it off! This day was to be another one of those regular days for the colonel as an instructor at the Anastasia University, which was located on Anastasia Island in a sublime, private setting with palm trees lining the road and native shrubbery.

Anastasia University was a partnership with the State of Florida, and in that part of the year, it was booked as a place where citizens and law enforcement could go for special-permit classes, like construction certificates and law enforcement upgrade education. The rest of the time, the CIA used it as a school to teach its international operatives, their assets, and domestic CIA the art of espionage. It was the CIA’s turn to use the building for a quarter, and the colonel’s class on espionage started at 9:00 a.m. promptly! If a student was late, he would get a military style grilling. One student came in the first day only two minutes late, and the colonel made it clear to everyone by growling, Better never than late! No student would dare enter the class late after that pronouncement!

After the students settled into their seats on this typical day, the colonel started teaching, and the mumble of conversational sharing morphed to an episodic silence; they knew this man had the authority to stop their advancement in the kingdom of espionage, whatever their ranking!

With a brief Southern drawl, the colonel spoke authoritatively to the class, "Today’s lesson in espionage is on dress protocol. After this section of teaching, you will be expected to immediately place into practice what you have learned, or you will fail this course. You all look like a nice, well-dressed group of men and women, and I appreciate that you have taken the care to manicure yourselves, shopping at the local mall for the nice, well-pressed styles of clothing. I mean, I am sure that you all wanted to make a good impression.

"And to show my appreciation, I would like to call one of you forward to give an example of someone who resembles the fashion of our times, right out of the book Dress for Advancement. Mr. Quash from England, will you come forward and show our class your fine English-style dress suit and pants?"

Mr. Quash, one of MI6’s latest operatives, came to the front and did a 360 turn to display his blue blazer with a big smile. The colonel held his composure, pressed his lips tightly, and nodded affirmatively to play along with the predicted scene, aggrandizing the godlike worship of the students’ affirmation of Mr. Quash on their faces.

Then suddenly, the colonel slammed his hand on a table at the front of the classroom. This man is a walking billboard!

He looked at Mr. Quash and said, "If you have ever seen the Hollywood-style movies on espionage with James Long, you will note that he was always dressed to attract the most beautiful whores! He would wear a blazer like yours, or a Key West shirt half-open down the front to show off his masculine chest hairs! And then, his hair would be combed, and he would be clean-shaven with khakis on! His shoes would be fancy Italian-leather wing tips!

If he had a female companion, she would be dressed seductively to attract any stupid Russian operative who might think with his zipper. She would primp her hair, put makeup on her face, and wear silk dresses and white fur coats! He gestured for Mr. Quash to go back to his seat with a stiff finger, which he sheepishly did.

"From now on, I want you elitists to come in here and look like a bunch of bums! If you want to know what a bum looks like, stop downtown at the plaza in front of the Governor’s House. That’s where they all hang out on the park benches; in fact, that is your assignment today. I want each one of you to take a walk around the plaza and see how you can mix in! And to prove that you were there, each one of you will have to take an iPhone facial photo of one of those bums.

"Now when you have done all that, go down to the local thrift store where they sell used clothing and buy three sets of worn-  out rags to model after the bum that you took a photo of. Now tomorrow, I want you to wear those rags to class." The colonel’s face was now as red as a radish, and with much emotion, because he wanted these operatives to get his point.

He growled, "I don’t ever want to see another well-dressed person in my class again! He stared with stern eyes into each of their faces and added, Another modification to dressing like a bum is to note the area that you are operating in and what some of the bums look like. For example, we live in a beach town, I will give an extra A for the day to anyone who can go down to the St. Augustine beach and model their dress after a classic beach bum.

"Remember now, when you wash your new outfits up, DON’T PRESS THEM! I want to see wrinkles and crinkles. In fact, the person who can display the most wrinkles in a shirt gets an A for the week! I’m not kidding. I want you to get this. The best way to give away your cover is to look like a James Long!

Now there are certain modifications in our dress if we serve in other countries. For instance, if you are sent to have a meeting with an ambassador, you would make sure that you can dress to match what he might be wearing. But for around-town surveillance YOU ARE A BUM! Now, is there anyone in here who knows what I am talking about?

The colonel looks across the room to find an experienced operative and spots one in the back and calls him forward, Would the man in the green, washed-out army pants, come forward?

Dick Barlotta stepped forward and stood at the front of the room; the students could see that the man whom they all thought was an alcoholic, with an extreme chip on his shoulder when he walked in, now stood as a Roman god to the colonel.

"This is a well-trained operative. He knows that he can’t risk looking like anyone who is professional. Notice the numerous wrinkles in his shirt, the coffee stains on the chest. Here, look at his faded, old army pants. Now look at his shoes-old, worn-out dime- store specials. And, take a look at his grooming: stubble on the face, hair overgrown on the ears, stains under the armpits-perfect!

Mr. Barlotta, you get an A for this course section. You are the best example of a chameleon I can see here. When did you learn the standard dress of a spy?

Mr. Barlotta cleared his throat and said, I was on an operation in Columbia where we were mapping out the current locations of the biggest drug cartels, and my life depended on not looking as an American tourist. They prey on tourists and kidnap them for ransom, you know. They grabbed one guy from our group when he was shopping in the downtown farm market. They just stepped out from behind one of the fruit stands where he was looking at a tomato and dragged his donkey butt away! The last I heard, he was being held near some beach on the mainland, probably to be extradited to some private island for safekeeping. After that, I now look and smell like musty onions every day. I cut up a fresh one and rub it under my armpits. It also helps to only bathe once every three days. But if I am seriously under cover, I make a stain on my pants in the posterior, with some olive oil, to make it look like I had an accident.

The colonel thanked Mr. Barlotta placing his hand on his shoulder, saying, Thank you for your service to our country.

The colonel laughed out loud and said, Nobody in here can take a bath, comb their hair, or shave until Wednesday. It was now Monday!

"When Wednesday morning comes, I want you to stink. I want to smell some stinky armpits!" He looked around the room again for any other examples, and they all started to slide underneath their seats, their personal space now clearly being invaded by order of passing the course. But then, the colonel knew that making it easy for them wouldn’t cause them to learn anything at all, unless it was put into practice.

****

Philip McKenna, a new resident to St. Augustine, just happened to be driving down Anastasia Island one afternoon to get to the island’s landmark lighthouse. He was planning on being a tourist, catch some sights, and check out the gift shop for some local postcards. As he toured the lighthouse interpretive trail, his eye caught an office-like structure down one of the side streets. He noticed the guardhouse and a stop arm that regulated parking traffic.

Being curious, he walked to an area of the trail that gave a better view. From this vantage point, he could see the entire front of the structure, the front sign denoting this being a university of some type, but what caught his sensitive eye was the fact that the guard at the gate carried a sidearm.

For the rest of the day, he couldn’t get this university out of his head. Philip then began to make deductions of a possible link of this school with the men he shared a table with at the café where he drank coffee, after hearing them once discuss educational issues. Once, some students, who were obviously from the school came in and sat down at an adjacent table and discussed class work and made it known to Philip that the men he drank coffee with, who he later found out were in fact CIA, shared some kind of acquaintance with them.

X6, a code name for the ringleader, even joked about their dress as one of them had flood pants on, and they pointed and joked about the geeky nature of it. With this accidental introduction to the university then, the next morning Philip came in for coffee as usual, and the men were once again discussing educational issues. They inquired if Philip had any knowledge of local colleges?

Philip, not knowing the significance of the university by the lighthouse, said, Well, I was down at the lighthouse yesterday and noticed a sign that said, ‘University one block south.’

They then inquired a little deeper when X6 asked, Do you know anything about the Anastasia University?

Philip took a sip of his coffee and said, Well, I have never seen an armed guard at a state school before. I asked the curator at the gift shop if she knew what the school was for, and she told me it was run by the state for some-kind-of permit training programs. Others in town I talked to said they just thought it was a kind of secret.

As soon as Philip used the word secret, the CIA men exchanged glances and began to talk about something else. Not knowing at all yet what was transpiring, Philip had just glanced on one of the CIA’s biggest local secrets, the secret training school of the CIA’s southern base in Florida-this was it!

And the men at the table now suspected that Philip, who was also a journalist, may be snooping a little too much. This would be one of the main issues about Philip, a journalist knowing too much, and it would filter its way all the way to Washington DC and another office across the Potomac, the Mclean office building.

There, sitting inside one of the most secure buildings in the world is a well-seasoned operative, Mr. Giorgio Garlini, who just heard of Philip’s snooping. Yep, I got the perfect man to case him and keep an eye on him.

PART 1

Coffee with a Nutty Taste

1 St. Augustine, the Secret City

The Towne Buzz May 26, 2011

0804 Hours

Philip McKenna, a local journalist, looked down at the cup of steaming coffee that his waitress had just poured for him. He especially enjoyed coming to the Towne Buzz. It had the best coffee in St. Augustine. And to top it all off, the weekday morning waitress, Lynette, was in one of her more Teflon moods this morning. At the instant, Lynette was picking up plates and silverware at the next table over.

All of a sudden, a renegade fork slid off a precariously placed saucer that Lynette had wedged between a stack of plates, and it fell with a clang onto the floor. Lynette bent down to pick it up, not cognizant of the attention she had drawn because her light-blue panties had become visible for just a moment above her belt line.

As she straightened up, one of the guys at the businessmen’s table (five or six of them ate breakfast there together every weekday) immediately commented loudly enough so everyone could hear, Baby blue! My favorite color!

Lynette quickly stood up and pivoted around. Pointing her retrieved fork at him menacingly, blurting out, Get the hell out of here!

The whole restaurant exploded in laughter, and the offending businessman retreated sheepishly behind his hot cup of coffee, slumping down in his chair, a red blush instantly flooding his face and neck.

Lynette angrily grabbed the rubber container tub of dirty plates and silverware and rushed through the door to the kitchen in a huff. I love this place! Philip thought. This place had the type of atmosphere in which he could write his best stuff! A little noise, a little humorous distraction, and golden letters would appear on the pages of his articles!

This place that Philip was referring to was not only the Towne Buzz coffee shop, but also the city surrounding it. After all, St. Augustine is one of the most historic and interesting cities in North America. Located on the northeastern coast of Florida, it is termed by its chamber of commerce-the Ancient City. Some locals who have perhaps resided there too long refer to it affectionately as St. Aug-a-Dog. Even so, St. Augustine is an incredibly beautiful city complete with a small but picturesque sailboat port and a tantalizingly diverse and delicious international restaurant community.

Originally founded by Pedro Menendez de Aviles for the Spanish crown in 1565, the Ancient City boasts of two main historic protective forts built by the Spanish; the first and most impregnable in the early period was the Castillo de San Marcos, the oldest masonry fort in the Continental US, completed around 1675. Twenty miles to the south is Fort Matanzas, which was built in the year 1742. This fort is totally isolated on the inland side of the Matanzas Inlet, where enemies used this back door to attack the town.[1] The inhabitants were probably some of the loneliest soldiers that ever lived, as it would sometimes be weeks or even months before any seagoing ships passed its high cannon-projecting walls. The city of St. Augustine has managed to grow and flourish beneath many flags, governments, and governors for over 440 years. There were the Spanish, the French, the English, the Confederacy, and finally, the United States. Because of its rich history, St. Augustine has become a favorite international tourist stop; people from all parts of the world visit the city on a continuous basis to see its wonderfully preserved collection of historic buildings dating from the sixteenth century to present.

Contained inside these grand old-world buildings is a formidable collection of ancient relics that connoisseurs of history feast on. Even the local cemeteries tell a tale of fallen heroes from some of the world’s epic wars. Many of these locations are said to be haunted, which adds to their allure.

Very prominent on the tourist itinerary is the Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park. It contains what is said to be the possible landing spot of Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon in 1513, who, according to legend, came to Florida looking for a fountain of youth. The park does contain a freshwater spring, but it doesn’t seem to have any special powers that restores the youth of those who drink or bathe in it.

There are rumors, however, of a secret society who are the protectors of a real fountain of youth somewhere in the St. Augustine area. Interestingly, one of the supposed former members, a man affectionately known as Old John Gomez, in fact lived to be 119 years old! It is said that he didn’t die of old age but fell off his fishing boat, got tangled up in a net, and drowned.[2]

All this innocent old-world beauty and charm serves as the perfect camouflage to hide the ugly underbelly of a St. Augustine that most people never see. For there are shadowy and dubious enterprises that operate in the backseats of the coffee shops, whose criminal schemes are planned in the booths of the seedy bars, whose commercial aspects are run through the lonely port and mostly private airport, whose big dealers putt on the world-class golf greens, and whose bosses own some of the premier historic homes and have offices in the upper rooms of some of the popular tourist stops. It’s a tremendously effective front for any clandestine operatives who travel here. Customs wouldn’t question their reason for having St. Augustine on their itinerary. After all, it’s one of the world’s most historic cities, and they are just tourists! They can even stay in some of St. Augustine’s world-class hotels, conveniently geared to serving the kings and queens of the spy/underworld. In such a city as St. Aug-a-Dog, the spy/underworld has the perfect guise for their old-world art-the art of espionage.

The Romans were the first to perfect the art of espionage. Spy messengers would often meet in the numerous health clubs around the Mediterranean, and they would carry secret messages in their shoes. If a messenger’s shoelace was loose, he was carrying a message. A secret message then could be easily transferred between one spies’ shoes to another with no one noticing. Things have changed much in our modern surveillance society. Such meetings between spies must be held more discreetly, and operation centers are often hidden in plain view so as not to garner suspicion by the local community. St. Augustine, with its many restaurants and historical district, becomes the perfect backdrop for espionage and the perfect control center for a worldwide network of countless operations both legal and illegal. There is even a state-of-the-art clandestine training facility that is disguised as a university for specialized state permit training programs. It is here in this specialized school that our secret government trains its operatives in the black arts of deep espionage and the doctrine of dirty tricks. Some of the most intelligent minds recruited from colleges across America and some from other countries are stationed here to be trained. Thus St. Augustine has become one of the chosen communities, complete with a National Guard base to offer security as needed. Guards stand at attention on the street corner near their base with their finger on the trigger, eyeing every passing pedestrian as though they were a potential terrorist.

There is, however, a huge negative to all this secrecy and security. The intelligence community guards its domain with sometimes- ruthless measures. Curiosity on the part of natives or tourists is not tolerated, and homeless people who find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time are dealt with in an atmosphere of zero tolerance! A stern warning the first time, and possible jail time or a trip to the edge of town if it happens again. The local police force has been beefed up with federal grants to ensure peak efficiency. Every corner of the community is secure! Unwary travelers are sometimes followed if they hang around too long in front of one of the many secretly secure facilities.

The intelligence community spends enormous amounts of money to guard every aspect of their local operations, and woe to anyone who learns too much about these mysterious activities! Some local citizens have even been known to drop everything- their jobs, their associations-and leave town unannounced; others have verily died suddenly of mysterious cancers or heart attacks. There was one city council member who had an altercation with another member of the council, a retired CIA operative. Just a few weeks after the argument, which had followed a city council meeting, during which a threat of some type was issued, the council member died suddenly of a fast-moving rare cancer that knocked his lights out within just a few days. A coincidence or not, foul play was never proven.

And this pattern of mysterious disappearances and convenient fatalities was not confined to St. Augustine. In the early sixties, President John F. Kennedy became aware of some of the dubious activities the CIA was likely involved in, including murder. Especially after the Cuban Bay of Pigs fiasco, Kennedy spoke of serious internal company problems.

How could I have been so stupid? he asked himself after he trusted the groups that had been advising him, the CIA and the JCs (joint chiefs).

Even more damning to the CIA was a reputed quote by JFK that he wanted to splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds. He said two months before his death that he was going to rebuild the CIA from the ground up! He was the first and last president to acknowledge the problem or to try to do anything about it.[3]

****

The Towne Buzz May 26th, 2011

0932 Hours

Philip uses the local coffee shops for his creative writing periods, and the Towne Buzz has the best coffee and atmosphere in town. You see, writers must figure out when they can write and where. The four walls of his small home office just don’t produce much in writing; what Philip needs to do his best work, is a bottomless cup of good coffee and a low-key, yet interesting venue. And as far as research goes, his laptop computer and a Wi-Fi connection are all he needs.

Philip has a taste for only the freshest and finest coffee, so he usually ends up at the Towne Buzz where they serve only the best- brewed coffees. For Philip, part of the secret of good coffee is that it is served under experienced, trained employees. Any other coffee is comparable to gas station quality.

At least for Philip’s sensitive taste, the Town Buzz has the art of coffee making down to a T. As a connoisseur, a slight nutty flavor and low acidity are perfect, Philip would often think as he drank from the Buzz’s oversized cup.

Philip, always looking for a good story, found the conversation at the Towne Buzz with other patrons to be stimulating, receiving some good leads for writing his articles by just listening to the locals broadcast their early-morning rants.

One morning, a patron complained directly about a local politician’s scheme of double-dipping: They steal money from the taxpayers by announcing a retirement, take a few weeks off from work, and then return again to get a double pension! This became one of Philip’s best articles of the year! Businessmen also flock to the Towne Buzz for a relaxing atmosphere and get a charge out of Lynette, the no-nonsense waitress.

Because St. Augustine has a flourishing intelligence community, this also is a favorite watering hole for retired CIA *operatives and their former underworld contacts. Even a few active CIA spooks stop in to have a cup and share postmortem stories about their secret activities. (operatives: see glossary for explanation of this term)

Quickly, Philip began to catch on that these men were not businessmen in the traditional sense, as they first appeared to be, but were actual members of the intelligence community. The retired operatives were the most interesting because they were more apt to share stories of operations past, complete with opinions about current government policies, operations, and even procedures! Philip always worked at a large table just a few feet from where all the active and former spies gathered.

****

After a week or two, the two tables began to share comments back and forth. The spies were amazed as they heard Philip’s intelligent and well-informed answers to inquisitive comments and questions, so one morning, they invited him to join them. Being a journalist looking for deep research and good stories, Philip found their conversation to be not only interesting, but also addictive. It wasn’t long before he couldn’t wait to get to their table in the morning. He would continue to bring his computer and work along, but he would listen intently as these current operatives and retired men spoke of their life experiences.

Philip possessed the sharp observation skills that an accomplished journalist needs, and he also had a secret weapon: a rare gift in which his dreams each night would often give him bits of true information about the people he was meeting with. Between his gift and his daily morning coffee conversations with the Coffee Club (as this group of Philip and several operative friends became known as), he stumbled upon more and more classified knowledge of the CIA’s secret local operations.

On one occasion, X6 (because the actual names the operatives shared were fallacious, each operative had a government code number and code name) shared that he was on special assignment in a Middle Eastern country and was watching the entrance of a building for activity. He had a foreign newspaper in his hands and was trying to make it look like he was reading it. After a few minutes, he realized that the newspaper was upside down, the printed words were so foreign to him he couldn’t tell right away that they were juxtaposed until he noticed a photograph, I really felt stupid! He said.

(X6, see operative ID numbering system in glossary for explanation)

Usually, there were three operatives who frequented the cafe as regulars. Occasionally the table would swell to six. In the months to come, the three regulars would become the most challenging figures in Philip’s life.

The most dominant figure at the table was X6 the Kingpin; he was the one that all the other operatives respected. He was extremely knowledgeable in the affairs of the CIA and foreign policy. His IQ was above 150 (an IQ of 100 being average), and there never was a question he couldn’t answer.

One morning Philip asked X6, Do you know which Muslim groups control Iraq?

He got an instant answer. The Shiites are presently in power, but the Sunnis are the larger majority. The only difference between the two groups is some strongly held beliefs on the legitimate successor to Muhammad. The Shiites believe that the caliph Ali and his descendants are the legitimate successors, whereas the Sunnis are bent on the first four caliphs as the legitimate successors. The United States is currently supporting the Shiite government in Iraq.

Philip was impressed! Later, as Philip left the table that particular-morning, X6 spoke to the other men at the table that he once had to kill a man in Iraq. I was there in the early part of Desert Storm working for the company. We were just leaving the hotel where we had spent the evening, and gunshots began to ring out in our direction. I pulled my arm-holstered.44 Magnum and silenced the bastard with three cannon shots! We just hopped in our Hummer and drove off. That was the closest I ever came to hell.

X1 and X9 just nodded in agreement. Something that X6 and his associates prided themselves in was their association with other people of high IQ. With a coffee cup raised, X1 the Scavenger highlighted, "I have a friend whose wife has an IQ of 180; she is the life of any dinner party, quite the conversationalist! She is widely read and a huge supporter for her husband’s clandestine activities. She is an expert at computer espionage and can assist her husband by searching and finding almost anything on the Internet; she’s a home-based private detective and can create a dirt file on anyone, complete with lists of their friends’ names off their social media links! She knows how to hack into people’s home computers, turning their flattop computer screens into spy monitors. She can also send messages via any electronic device that are not traceable. She’s the kind of gal that you want on your team."

Number two man was X9 the Flyer, He once flew for the CIA’s secret airline, Air America. He confirmed that Air America was also a secret illegal drug-running operation. X9 was always willing to share openly with Philip the secrets of the company as the other operatives gave him dirty looks. But when the others were away from the table, he enjoyed dropping, like a piece of candy, a clue or a hint at some past secret operation, not realizing that Philip was a master at later using a computer search engine.

One morning out of the blue, he admits, The CIA always uses a third party to do its dirty work; that way nothing can be traced back to them. Philip was uncomfortably stunned at his admission as X6 commented directly to X9 for his comment, A loose wire sometimes has to be fixed!

Number three was X1 the Scavenger; he was a character all-of his own. He was perfectly charming and hilariously funny. This was quite ironic because he had a completely dark, uncontrollable side, having a split personality and could easily launch into threats if he was challenged. In future conversations, Philip would find him to be even potentially dangerous as was confirmed in a visual dream Philip had one night where he saw X1 in all his clandestine glory as a scavenger bird with a huge claw (see illustration 1).

The Scavenger getting too close could be lethal!

(Note to the reader: In this book I will use code names with a number, instead of actual names of operatives as this is the way it is in the real world of espionage. Away from the table at the cafe, the real names of the operatives cannot be uttered as they will track down with impunity anyone who uses their name liberally around town, so they use code or code names; for example, X1 the Scavenger. (See: operative ID numbering system in the glossary for explanation.). Philip, the main character of the book, has rare interpretive gift: he sees things in dreams. These dreams will be displayed as illustration 1 above.

****

The Towne Buzz August 2, 2011

0700 Hours

Philip usually arrived early at the Towne Buzz. They opened at 7:00 a.m., so he was usually the first to get his cup of coffee and scan the restaurant-provided newspaper. Just after him, X6 the Kingpin often appeared after his morning workout at the gym. He would get his coffee and chocolate cookie up at the counter and then sit down next to Philip. The Kingpin seemed to be comfortable now sharing with Philip, and so he pulled out an Internet printout from his file folder that he carried in.

This was the first day of information sharing, and it would continue uninterrupted for months to come. This seemed to be for two reasons that Philip could figure: One, the Coffee Club seemed to like his intellectual and insightful responses. And two, they may have been trying to find out, in a clandestine way, exactly how much Philip knew about key issues that affect the intelligence community, e.g., secret government operations against US citizens (one detailed how the army, in a practice drill, took over a town in Maryland), the Muslim Brotherhood, Soviet international relations, and Israeli domestic issues. Today the Kingpin shared a shortwave radio handout with Philip, but over the next few weeks, there was a detailed discussion of secret government uses of shortwave radio (e.g., data fax bursts on shuffled frequencies, international government broadcasts with secret piggyback messages, and Morse code, still in use on some frequencies by the CIA).

X6 once elaborated, "Sometimes when you are passing over a shortwave channel, you hear something like the sound of a fax transmission; this is a data burst. The CIA and other spy operations switch channels and at certain times send out transmissions to their operatives in the field. The operatives have sensitive shortwave listening devices that can capture and save the data burst and then decipher it. Shortwave is still a usable medium for transmitting secret messages, as there are hundreds of frequencies that can be used at random intervals to confuse the possibility of another spy agency capturing it. I spent years working for the company, going around the world to their various shortwave operations. I was trained initially as a shortwave radio engineer; I have been to Europe and the Middle East several times. During the cold war, shortwave was used extensively by the CIA for data transmission." (the company, see glossary for an explanation of this term)

It was X6’s knowledge about shortwave and his sharing on shortwave subjects that initially cemented his friendship with Philip as he was also a shortwave enthusiast. Philip used shortwave as a hobby and enjoyed listening to worldwide broadcasts, even though he knew many were for propaganda purposes.

One day, X6 even brought in a high-end shortwave product catalogue where Philip found a good deal on a radio for home use. Philip was hooked! The other members of the Coffee Club, usually two other operatives, had their own personal reasons for allowing an outsider like Philip into their private morning meetings.

The men at the Coffee Club did enjoy Philip’s impressive library catalogue of cognitive information. He had a very high IQ, making his mind a computer file of current and historic information. He had studied all the major wars since the revolution of 1776 and had read extensively in politics, conspiracy, ancient history, and geology. Say just three keywords about a period of history, and Philip could give you a complete report of facts, dates, and names coupled with analysis and commentary.

For example, X6 the Kingpin said one morning that one of the reasons for the Southern loss at Gettysburg was that Mosby of Mosby’s Raiders was late arriving to the battlefield, and was off on his own tour of Maryland, upsetting the Northern army’s supply lines.

Philip carefully corrected the Kingpin by saying, It was actually Jeb Stuart who was on the intelligence tour of supply lines. Mosby was the phantom general of Northern Virginia, not officially recognized as an official officer until later in the war. A lot of his work being below the radar. X6 said, Very impressive!

Philip’s memory for dates and names was exceptional, and all in the Coffee Club knew it. This of course was stimulated by the over one thousand books that Philip had read, some of which had dealt directly with the intelligence and underworld community. It was this clarity of mind, an actual photographic memory, that got Philip into serious trouble later-on with this group of retired, yet unofficially active, thirty-year veteran operatives.

2 The Dreamer

August 29t h, 2011

0805 Hours

One day, Philip arrived at the Coffee Club at the usual time and asked X6 the Kingpin if the CIA did any work with precogs, people who can see clearly into things beyond the senses. X6 confirmed that they had done some work in the ‘90s with precogs but with measurable results.

X6 was referring to a secret program called Stargate where they had recruited assets from various persuasions, especially one specific church denomination; all having some kind of precognitive gift. The results were widely varied, except one gentleman who was able to recreate secret submarine design plans of the Russians. These blueprints were highly accurate and were used in the Gulf War.

After discussing this with X6, Philip said he would like to try. He had known for years of a gift he had of highly accurate dreams. He admitted to X6 that his dreams sometimes brought him visually to places of interest.

"Sometimes my dreams show me secret activities in remote places. Recently I saw a CIA operative hiding on an island on the western South American coast. He was being sought for by a search party. I believe the country he was in was Paraguay. I also saw three CIA operatives being arrested in Saudi Arabia in the capital, Riyadh.

In another interesting dream, I was shown a town in northeastern Iran, apparently the location of an underground facility. I also saw the location of one of these underground facilities in the Ural Mountains of Russia. He sometimes would have dreams that would come true within twenty-four hours of receiving them (see illustration 2). He sincerely wanted someone from the CIA, like X6, to check his dreams for accuracy.

Noisy Traffic incident in the little blue truck.

In this intrinsic dream (illustration 2), Philip saw some people in traffic being very angry with him. The very next day, it happened! As it turned out, Philip hadn’t done anything wrong; he was sitting, stopped at a traffic light when a white Ford sedan pulled up behind him honking their horn. When the light turned green, they blew by him doing the same. Philip recognized the angry driver as someone who had been involved in an accident with him a couple of months prior. They were angry then and now, because the police report put them at fault!

Philip looked at X6. Here is something that came to me last night in a dream. He hands over to X6 the Kingpin a piece of paper on which he had written the name Timothy Balinski. X6 accepted the challenge and agreed to check it with his sources, returning a couple of days later to the Coffee Club with praises and comments. This goes all the way to the top! Timothy Balinski is an actor that has direct access to the vice president of the United States, and, the V P and his wife sometimes attend his performances. This Balinski is directly connected to a known communist author, agitator, and leader.

Philip was surprised and a little stunned at the accuracy of his information. He received this key name from a type of dream he called a vision. In the dream (see illustration 3), Philip saw a billboard, and on the fascia, are the letters of a person’s name; large yellow glowing letters! The name was burned upon his memory, so when he woke up, he had plenty of time to write it down.

Incredibly accurate Billboard dream.

Philip had just exposed to a CIA operative, X6, a communist spy contact of the VP! Where could this go now? X6 confirmed that Philip was free to bring in more names and information that he received from dreams and I will check it out. Philip was encouraged that someone from the company was checking the accuracy of his interpretive dream gift. What Philip didn’t know, and he would find out later, was that X6 and the other Coffee Club members had other reasons for checking his accuracy.

For the most part, they were amused, yet curious, of how much someone with an interpretive dream gift could find out about their operations. X1 the Scavenger was never convinced at all about Philip’s gift and would say behind Philip’s back, This dreamer is just a spy working for another agency; can’t you guys see that! He’s using this dream-gift bull as a front. We need to check this guy out and see if he has any connections with a foreign spy agency! I can get my friend’s wife to check him out-you know, the master computer hacker.

X6 responded, Okay, just have her do some casual checking and see if she can find out some of his habits and who his friends are.

At the time though, Philip was just genuinely pleased that they would even look at his stuff. Many people are skeptical about information that comes osmotically through dreams or other methods. Historically, only very gifted individuals seem to have broken through the cell wall to find accuracy. Dream interpretation is a very old science. One of the earliest-known papyrus documents has dreams as its main subject matter, dating back to the early Egyptians and the pharaohs.

The science seems to have since been carried forward by just a few gifted people in every generation. Acceptance of the practice has been, and still is, in the eyes of the beholder. Dreams come in many forms: some are visual, some just vocal transmissions, some are impressions or downloads of information files, some resemble motion picture sequences, and some are brief; maybe a couple of words, or flash sequences of photographic images.

Some dreams visually take you places, some show you things about yourself or other people, some teach you something, some reach out to you. Some warn you of impending dangers; some bring tidings of good things to come.

The accuracy of the spy’s name in the vision of the billboard Philip shared began a working relationship between X6 and Philip for months to come. They developed a regular system for Philip to bring in a written report of a dream, before which he had done his own computer research on it.

This was followed by a one-to two-day analysis by X6 as he checked it with the company and a private intelligence research group. This led to a feedback session where X6 would share on the accuracy of Philip’s report with him over a cup of coffee. The content of these reports varied widely: possible terrorist activity, secret plans of the Muslim Brotherhood, militia group plans and activities, KGB spy activity, CIA operations in other countries, world financial market secrets, secret underground bunker locations in foreign countries, spy safe houses, operative names and sometimes their locations. There was no limit to the scope of Philip’s report information. Some dreams, however, he did not share with them, as he began to receive information on the Coffee Club members secret, local criminal activities, and needed more time to verify this information on his own. Since he was still learning about his dream gift, he didn’t want to share anything personal about them, until he was absolutely-certain! In one of these visual dreams, he saw X1 and X6 in a small row boat, floating somewhere out in a swamp; they were looking down into the water. After Philip thought about the dream for a while, he concluded that they were performing a mafia operation called fishing. This is where they feed a body to the fish, or in the case of a Florida swamp, a quick claim for the gators! Alligators are amazing marine scavengers, their eyes always patrolling the perimeter of their chosen territory from the side bank of the swamp. Once spotted, a gator swims half submerged to a floating body, grabbing it off the surface, then, while twisting it in circles, drags it to the bottom of the swamp, storing it like a stuffed jalapeno pepper under a submerged cypress tree stump, a common feature in the Southern swamps. After a few days, Mr. Gator comes back to have a tenderized, savory lunch! They are amazing eating machines, usually devouring body parts whole, bones and all!

Philip had the ability of visual translation and could see things visually at some distant location with his mind, while his body still slept on the bed. For example, one night he had a visual dream where he was inside one of the most secure buildings in the world, the CIA’s Mclean office building in Mclean, Virginia. Here he overheard a senior operative talk about a top-secret nugget of a lead on a terrorist plot in another country.

Another night, he was in the White House and overheard former president George Bush say something privately to someone. The room looked like a private White House study where President Bush said, We have a Russian regime! This is something Mr. Bush would never want leaked to the press; this apparently was the type of government he was secretly leading Americans toward! Oh, that the press could have some gifted dream interpreters like Philip working for them!

As soon as the Coffee Club learned of Philip’s visual translation ability to get inside secure buildings, the Coffee Club meetings began to get a bit more intense, especially with their watchdog, X1.

****

Philip came in one morning to the Towne Buzz and had his report in hand and gave it to X6 for review. Summarizing its content to the Coffee Club members, he said, I had a highly visual dream where I was in the Mclean office complex. I didn’t even know that it existed until I checked a map of Northern Virginia following the dream, and there it was, just south of the capital off Dolly Madison Boulevard.

X6 nodded in agreement, and X1 sat with a surprised look on his face.

X6 asked, What did your dream show you about the office building?

Well, Philip started, I saw a huge atrium in the center of the building, around three stories of offices surrounding it with large walkways, connecting offices that were open on the side of the atrium, so people could enjoy the court area. I stood on the second-level walkway talking to one of the directors who resembled a movie star I had seen on one of the major detective series on television; his office was up a private connecting stairway that went up to the third level. There was a day care center not too far away from this area.

X1 spoke up, Did he say anything to you?

Philip excitedly reported, "Well, yes! Yes, he did. He said some Greek word that I had to translate-agora, which means ‘town square as part of a marketplace.’ And then he also said something about Athens. I figured that there was a high-level venture going on in Athens at the marketplace that he was deeply upset about.

I did a quick Internet search and found that the Greek government was having a lot of trouble paying its bills and that protestors had been visiting the marketplace in opposition to the austerity measures, the huge budget deficits, and increases in taxes on gas, tobacco, alcohol and big real estate.[4] X6 took over the interview by saying, We’ll read your report and let you know if we find anything out. Little did Philip know that the CIA had friends in the Greek government who were actively involved in keeping the status quo on government spending, subsequently keeping the faucet of government money flowing, strengthening the huge labor unions.

X1 relaxed back into his chair, and his eagle eyes fell back into his head and commented, Have you ever been to Athens? You should go someday. It’s a beautiful place.

Philip