After dinner the kids drove back to the ranch deep in thought.
Chapter 27
Visalia California
Lisa and John had a perpetual problem finding a place to be alone, until they discovered that Lisa’s father had put in an office years ago at his airplane hangar at the small agriculture airport outside Visalia, California. Usually when they told their families they were at a friend’s house and went to the office they were good for a couple hours without being disturbed.
Kasam and Ali had been sitting in their car outside the airport for several hours waiting for the time to take off in the two crop dusters. When they were almost ready to walk over to the planes Lisa and John showed up.
After an hour they finally couldn’t wait any longer and stay on schedule. They looked in the window and saw them making out on the couch. After making some comments under their breath about the loose morals of Americans, they calmly walked into the office, startling Lisa and John.
“What are you doing here? This is my father’s office. How did you get in?”
Kasam pulled out a gun, looked at both of them in disgust and shot each of them twice in the chest.
Ali turned in surprise to Kasam and exclaimed,
“Why did you shoot them in the office? We can’t afford for anyone to find them.”
Kasam looked at his watch, shook his head and said,
“It’s late enough that it doesn’t matter. If anyone finds them it will be too late to stop us. Let’s get the planes going.”
They didn’t even turn off the lights in the office, but left the office with Lisa and John lying on the floor, their blood soaking the carpet.
Kasam and Ali checked to make sure the planes were gassed then had to remove the tie downs, do a quick walk around, hot wire the ignition, start the planes and have an uneventful flight to Barstow. As they were removing the tie downs they saw a car driving toward the airport.
“I can’t believe this. No one comes here at night. That’s why they chose this airport. First the kids and now someone else. Stay low behind the planes.”
As Mr. Perkins drove into the airport to retrieve some paperwork left in his office, he noticed that there were lights on. That’s strange, I never leave the lights on. As his attention was drawn to the office he didn’t notice that the tie downs weren't on his planes. As he drove past the planes, Ali and Kasam crouched down and ran behind Mr. Perkin’s car toward the hanger. Mr. Perkins stopped his car outside the office, saw his daughter’s boyfriend’s car and stormed toward the office forgetting his cell phone. He slammed open the door, saw his office covered in blood and his daughter and her boyfriend lying still on the floor. He rushed over to them, recoiled upon seeing the bullet holes and puddles of blood, and quickly realized they were dead. As he reached for his cell phone he remembered leaving it in the car. He made it outside the door before getting sick and running over to the bushes beside his office and throwing up. He didn’t notice Kasam silently walk up behind him and he never felt the bullet when it entered his brain. Ali turned off the lights this time.
Chapter 28
Back at the ranch, Ellen headed immediately to the computer and opened Facebook. Cody, John and Sarah watched Ellen for a minute and then Cody turned to Sarah and asked,
“Want to watch a movie?”
“Sure, what do you have?”
“Everything. Those shelves are full of DVD’s. Pick something out.”
“I don’t suppose you like chick flicks do you?”
Cody rolled his eyes and Sarah laughed.
“It’s okay, I don’t like them either. What about something with some action or comedy?”
“Either works for me. You pick. Do you want some popcorn to go with the movie?”
“Sure, sounds like fun.”
John watched Cody go into the kitchen as Sarah looked for movies. He turned around and saw Ellen still buried in the computer. This is going to be a long week he said to himself and plopped down on the couch. Sarah found a movie, put it into the DVD player and went into the kitchen to find Cody. A couple minutes later Cody and Sarah came back out holding a large bowl of popcorn and saw John sprawled on the couch. They looked over at the large bean bag chair in the corner. Cody handed Sarah the bowl of popcorn and dragged the bean bag in front of the TV.
“I think we’ll both fit,” he said, as he pointed to the bean bag.
Sarah smiled and plopped down into the bean bag holding the bowl of popcorn. Cody grabbed the remote and slid in beside her.
John looked at the two of them in the bean bag and then over at Ellen still buried in the computer and then a movie he watched that afternoon came on the TV. He sighed and got up.
“I’m going to take a shower,” he said, walking out of the room.
When he reappeared with his hair damp, Ellen was still looking at face book and Sarah and Cody were cuddled together in the bean bag intently watching the movie.
My life sucks John said to himself. “I’m going to bed he announced to the room.”
Cody glanced over at John and waved to him. Sarah looked up.
“Night John. Cody and I will be here if you need us.”
John shook his head and left.
When a slow part came in the movie Cody looked over at Sarah.
“Ah, Sarah. I’ve been thinking. I think you might like Lake Powell instead of staying in Vegas.”
“Oh really. It seemed like you and John were trying pretty hard to get us to stay in Vegas.”
Cody hesitated for a minute.
“Well that was more John than me.”
“Oh, I see. So you would like me to come on the houseboat with you for a week?”
Cody was silent for a minute. “Yeah, I would.”
Sarah snuggled in closer,
“Well, since you asked me so eloquently, I could try. I’m a little concerned though about not taking a shower for a week.”
“Ah, about that. John might have exaggerated a little about the conditions on the house boat.”
“So you do use the AC and I can take a shower?”
“Ah… yeah. But the part about texting was true. You can only get a signal in the middle of the channel. Your phone won’t work at the houseboat.”
“Well, I guess you’ll just have to keep me occupied then.”
“I can probably manage that,” Cody said, snuggling his arm around her shoulder.”
Ellen stood up, turned off Face book and saw Sarah and Cody curled up in the bean bag together.
“I’m going to bed. Will you two be okay out here alone?”
“I think we’ll manage,” said Sarah, looking a bit mischievous. “Don’t let the door hit your butt on the way out and could you turn off the light?”
Cody and Sarah settled in and kept glancing at the door to see if Ellen was coming back.
“Let’s give it a couple more minutes” whispered Sarah.
They struggled to keep their eyes open after all the activities in the hot sun and within five minutes they both fell asleep in the dark room. After the movie ended the TV eventually turned itself off leaving them in a dark house.
A tremendous noise shook the house, startling them awake. Cody and Sarah jumped up as John and Ellen ran out of their bedrooms. They all ran outside and saw a plane flying very low just over their dark house. Sarah turned to Cody.
“What was that? Why is it so low?”
Cody still looking at the plane flying away said, “It’s a crop duster. But I have never seen one fly this late before and there is nothing to spray around here.”
They heard another plane approaching. John yelled out,
“There’s another one. Why are they so low? It looks like they’re landing.”
“Landing where? There’s no airport around here.”
“Remember the Jensen place over the hill? He had a dirt strip there for his brother’s plane. I think they landed there.”
&nb
sp; Cody thought how nothing ever happens out here and this is fun. He said to John and Sarah excitedly,
“Let’s go check it out. Do you want to come, Sarah? You can ride on the back of my ATV with me.”
Sarah smiled at Cody. “I’m in.”
John started getting excited, “Cody, let’s take the camcorder with the night scope. Maybe they’re drug runners or something.”
“I’ll get it. I want to change anyway.”
Cody ran into the house and Sarah turned to John. “John, do you really think they could be drug runners?”
“Nah. I’m just bored. Nothing exciting ever happens around here.”
“I’m going back in the house,” said Ellen, “are you coming, Sarah?”
“No, I’m going with Cody.”
“Whatever,” Ellen muttered and walked back into the house.
“How bad was it here with her when Cody and I were gone?” Sarah asked.
“We just ignored each other. It was boring. You and Cody were gone a long time. What did you do?”
Uh Oh Sarah thought. I better be careful what I say.
“Mostly we just talked. Like we talked at the restaurant.”
“I hate to admit it, but he’s the smart one. I think he got it from our grandfather. He seems more aware of what’s around him than most other people. Cody is also extremely intelligent. He tests way off the charts. A lot of the time it’s like talking to an adult instead of a teenager.”
“Yeah, I’ve noticed that too. Getting back to what we talked about at the restaurant, what do you think? Do you believe what was said in the book? Is there something out there that explains life here on earth?”
John thought for a minute, “It makes more sense to me than anything else. Cody’s best friend Jacob had a brother that died after being hit by a car. He was at our house just before he was killed. Ron was only ten years old and was full of life and had a great personality. I understand that after his body was devastated by the car, it could no longer support life, but I can’t believe what made him what he was just disappeared and ceased to exist. I think when his body died, his life force left his physical body, but I can’t believe his life force just vanished into nothing.”
Sarah stared into the clear night sky crowded with thousands of bright stars thinking deeply. “I wish I could understand it better. I never really thought about stuff like this before. My mother’s situation is getting to me.”
“One time when I was talking to Grandpa Joe I asked the same question about actually understanding it. Cody didn’t get to this part of the book while we were in the restaurant.”
“How can you?”
“He said there’s this light or force out there that can give you knowledge or insight. The source of all this knowledge is the intelligent designers, or whatever you want to call them, and they want us to learn how to recognize this knowledge when it flows to us, learn from it and use it to understand things to become better people.”
“How do you get this knowledge? How would you recognize it?”
He leveled his gaze at her. “Did you ever feel like someone was looking at you and when you looked over, someone was staring at you?”
“Of course I’ve felt that. Everyone has.”
“How did you know someone was staring at you?”
Sarah considered his question for a minute. “I just could feel it.”
“There are a lot of things out there that you can’t explain or measure in a laboratory. That doesn’t mean they don’t exist. My grandfather said you could learn to understand and recognize when information was coming to you from that source. You can feel it when it comes.”
“Understanding life and death are important. It should be easy to learn about and know.”
“He said it was deliberately not easy. It’s difficult to learn how to tie into and understand the information that comes from the force. You have to work at it so it becomes part of your life and who you are. The most important things in life are not the easy ones, they are the hard ones. There is a reason for our lives here on earth. This isn’t all just one big random coincidence. One of the things we are supposed to learn in this stage of our existence is how to understand and learn from this force. Some information doesn’t change, like where our life forces came from, where they go after this life, and how we should relate to and treat other people. Other information changes constantly and comes to us depending on what others need at a specific time and how we should help them.”
“What would come to us?” Sarah asked confused.
“Did you ever feel a sudden urge to do something that helped someone that needed it? Or has someone ever helped you unexpectedly when you were in trouble and really needed help?”
Sarah mind flashed back to when the man in Arizona told her he heard a meaningless noise but felt he should come to investigate when she was attacked. She thought about how easy it would have been for him to ignore the noise or not have been a person that was able to help them. She turned white thinking about what would have happened. John didn’t notice her reaction in the dark and continued.
“The force can guide us to someone that needs help. This isn’t something that you could put in a book because it constantly changes depending on what someone needs. My grandfather said we need to learn to recognize when information is coming from that source and to have the courage to follow it. This is one of the reasons for this stage of our existence. The more we learn to follow this source of knowledge or force, the better person we become. It’s not always easy. Most of the time people ignore the information or feelings when they come to them and then say they don’t exist. Have you ever had an experience like that?”
Sarah was speechless, thinking about what would have happened if that man didn’t follow his feeling when she was tied up and gagged with her friend Shannon. John glanced at Sarah when she didn’t respond.
“Is there anything wrong Sarah?”
“No.” Sarah said softly while shaking her head.
Sometimes things come to you that are strong and get your attention, but most of the information comes from feelings that are more subtle. When you learn to listen to and understand these feelings you can learn a lot about life and also to help others. Sometimes the information is to help you understand something and sometimes it is to help other people.”
Cody ran out dressed head to foot in black and carrying a camera bag.
“Here comes Cody. Why’s he dressed all in black?”
“Oh, he likes to play Ninja. He’s 14.”
“You do know that’s my age too.”
“It wasn’t a put down. I like to play too. You can have a lot of fun out here. Sometimes we spy on our parents. We have some radio mikes we can hide that tie into the camcorder. It’s a lot of fun. You can hear some pretty interesting things when people don’t know you’re listening.”
Cody ran up, “I’m ready. Are you with us, Sarah?”
“Sure Cody. Let’s go”
Chapter 29
Cody, Sarah and John rode up to the ridge overlooking the old Jensen ranch, parked the ATV’s, crawled up to the top and peered over the edge. The three kids stared over the ridge in disbelief. The area between the barn and the house was lit up with halogen lights on portable trailers. There were four crop dusting planes being fueled by several bearded men dressed in robes and wearing turbans. They spotted several tables and a man talking on a satellite phone and typing on a laptop computer. John and Sarah laid down on their stomachs side by side while Cody set up the camera behind them.
John exclaimed, “I can’t believe it. Why would they do this at night? What are those stainless steel tanks for? Insecticides aren’t in stainless steel, they come in plastic tanks. What are they doing? Cody, are you getting this on video?”
“Yeah, it’s recording fine, but we can’t hear what they’re saying.”
John whispered to Sarah, “Don’t they look
Middle Eastern with the beards and the way they’re dressed? It looks like they have prayer rugs on that table.”
“John, that guy that looks like the leader is typing into a laptop. What do you think is going on?”
“Look at the stuff on the table. It looks like bags of something and those boxes under the table. It looks like they have some kind of protective suits in them.”
“John, what about those other boxes on the table. They look like some kind of masks.”
“The guys fueling the planes keep coming back and talking to the leader. I wish we could hear what they are saying. That guy just turned off the laptop and put it back in its case.”
Cody was thinking about the radio mikes he brought with him. I know I could sneak down there and plant these without them seeing me. The area they are in is all lighted up so they can’t see out. I’m all dressed in black and I brought a night scope. If I tell John he’ll say it’s too dangerous. I brought the tripod for the camera. I’m doing this.
Cody set up the tripod, put the camera on it and set it to keep recording. He grabbed the radio mikes and snuck out behind John and Sarah while they were intent on watching. Cody ran silently down the hill behind them and circled back toward the light. He stopped far back from the lighted area and pulled out the night scope. I don’t think they would post a guard the way they are lighted up, but I’m going to check the area anyway. Cody scanned the area outside where the men were and saw nothing in the flat desert. There is not even a place to hide. I’m going in.
Cody crouched down and walked toward the back of the tables keeping his eyes glued on the men. He dropped a hundred feet away and began crawling silently through the sand. Cody looked behind himself and could see only blackness. There is no way they can see me he thought and they are making so much noise they will never hear me even if I wasn’t being silent.
Cody slowly crawled up behind a table where the laptop was and bundles of hypodermic needles were in zip lock bags. The phone rang and one of the men answered and started talking in English. Cody listened intently to the part of the conversation he could hear.