CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
December 19, 2012 – 3:07 PM,
Mayan Archeological Dig, Yucatan
21:07 GMT
• • • • •
Marissé was getting tired of leaving her callback number.
This number was supposed to get him, not some answering service.
When she did see him again, she was gonna remind him of a few things.
Marissé was working on becoming a tenured professor at Mexico University. Almost four years ago, she went to give a presentation at her Alma Mater, the University of Miami. While she was there, she ran into her old dormitory roommate. Actually they had been roommates for all of Marissé’s time at the University. After they had spent three years in the dorm together, they shared an apartment near campus for the final two years that Marissé needed to finish her PhD in Archeology. She got her PhD at the same ceremony that Jay-L finally got his bachelors degree in general studies. He wouldn’t have gotten it without Marissé’s help.
When she met up with him after her presentation, he was still hanging around the campus, although in a totally new capacity. She’d read some of the articles and tried to follow the news stories. She knew that he had several Honorary Doctorates now, which always made her smile. “It was the only way you ever would have gotten one,” she told him while laughing out loud after he sheepishly informed her his PhD status. She also knew he had more than five of them, now. Somehow, she always found out when something great happened to Jay-L. She also knew Johnston Lionel Farnsworth III better than anyone else; even better than his Mom, who was his only living relative.
Suddenly, a woman’s voice came over the satellite telephone receiver against Marissé’s ear.
“I’m sorry, Doctor Sanchez. Doctor Farnsworth is not available at the moment. If you’d like to leave another message…” The woman on the other end was hoping that Marissé would say no this time, unlike the last twelve times she called in the past half hour.
Marissé obliged her.
“No. I’ll just wait for his call back. Thank you again, Margaret.” Marissé had asked for the woman’s name the first time she left a message. She knew it was better to be courteous to people you left messages with.
Marissé canceled the call on the receiver and looked up. She was standing on the top of the pyramid. She didn’t have to do that to get reception. She just liked to do it. It was a satellite phone. They were mostly immune to the interference that had started to plague cell phones and some landline networks from the increased sunspot activity and solar storms lately, like the one just a few hours ago. The sat-phone only had a problem from traffic, especially after one of those storms like today.
As she looked at the phone, she thought to herself, ‘Not one call for four weeks and I just made thirteen calls, today… God, I can’t wait to see the bill.’ But she quickly remembered she’d actually tried to call Jay-L over sixty times in the past thirty minutes. Most of the calls never made it through because of high volume on all the networks. ‘I’ll have to develop a Plan-B if I can’t reach him. But for now—’
She interrupted her own thought.
“I’ll wait for him to call back,” she said out loud as she walked to the edge of the flat pyramid top.
This pyramid wasn’t like the ones in Egypt. Instead of having a pointed apex, this one was was flat and wide at the peak, with a smooth stone surface that went from edge to edge on all four sides. The top surface was as big as a large room, just with no walls. Weeks ago, she had cleared the path up here through the overgrown vegetation covering the sides. The rest of the pyramid blended right into the actual jungle canopy and looked like a mountain peak with a flat-top haircut.
Only the plaza between the two pyramids was fully cleared. It took almost a year to do it. As she turned a complete circle and surveyed the canopy, she could just make out the four raised gravel roads which led out of the complex like the cardinal directions on a gigantic compass. The roads were almost perfectly aligned with the magnetic directions during the time when they were built. The strange roads had been covered over by centuries of growth. But when cleared, the overgrowth revealed amazingly flat and straight gravel roads. Although Marissé was able to determine the period of time when they were constructed, she had no idea why the roads were built. But they were made to last.
Marissé walked over to the other edge of the stone pyramid top and looked out over the jungle. Then she looked down at the smooth rock surface under her feet again. The stone top was almost perfectly square and flat. Even after settling over the millennia, this stone platform was still flat and level. That was also a mystery. The exterior of the pyramid had obviously settled and been overgrown during the time since the first stone was laid in this man-made mountain. But the center section had remained unchanged. There were parts of the sides where the exterior walls had subsided down slightly away from the massive four-sided central column of stone. Marissé was now standing on top of that column.
She had no way of knowing, but the central substructure she was standing on was a solid stone frame and truss system that went to the very bottom of the ancient pyramid. She also had no way of knowing this stone was poured, not quarried. Using an ancient, natural concrete recipe that didn’t require the lime used today, the Meso-American cultures who started this pyramid poured the foundation over 10,000 years ago. Each culture that added to the man-made mountain slowly created a solid stone structure that went from under Marissé’s feet all the way into the bedrock several hundred feet below.
‘Maybe it had a temple structure on it at one time,’ she thought as she looked around the stone square.
Just then, the satellite phone she was absentmindedly holding in her hand began to ring.
“Well, it’s about damn time,” she blurted out to herself. Then she pressed the talk button on the satellite phone for the sixty-seventh time that day. She already knew the hell she was going to catch over the bill when she had to go back to Mexico University next month. She almost yelled at the receiver.
“This is Doctor Sanchez.”
Nothing on the other end.
She tried again.
“Hello?”
There was a slight buzzing on the line then a woman’s voice.
“Hello Doctor Sanchez, this is Margaret, Doctor Farnsworth’s personal assistant. We just spoke a minute ago?”
Marissé suddenly realized she’d been speaking to his assistant, not some lame answering service. ‘Okay, I won’t kill him when I see him,’ she quickly thought to herself as Margaret kept going.
“I’ve finally reached him for you. He’s on the other line. Hold while I transfer you… Okay?” Margaret wasn’t sure if Marissé was still on the line.
“Yes, Thank you Margaret… I’ll hold.”
Then Marissé heard jazz music start playing on the line. Jay-L always liked jazz. Suddenly, the line got extremely noisy, like at an airport outside on the tarmac next to a jet engine.
She was close in her guess. Jay-L was jumping out of his corporate jet helicopter. He was wearing a wireless Bluetooth headset and was walking out of the rotor wash. When he cleared the blades, the helicopter revved its engines and took off quickly. The sound began to fade, then Jay-L came on the line.
“Marissé… Margaret said you’ve been trying to reach me. Sorry about that. I was out of the office this morning… Can you hold on for a second?”
Marissé didn’t want to, but she agreed. Then she heard some noise and movement in the background. She could barely make out Jay-L talking. But he was not talking to her.
“Is this thing on?”
Someone else answered in the background, “Yes, Sir.”
Suddenly, Marissé could hear Jay-L clearly because he began yelling through a powered megaphone.
“Attention Royal Guards… This is your King. Tell President Smitt and his band of Barney Fife University rent-a-cops that if he crosses that forty foot moat, I’ll have him arrested and charged with spying. Then I’
ll have him hung by Royal Executive orders from… just a minute—”
Jay-L started looking for an appropriate hangman’s yardarm for Royal execution hangings. He settled on one, then pointed to a large oak tree in the middle of the golf course turned Research Park. Then he shouted into the megaphone, again.
“That large tree… over there.” Then he had an afterthought, “And tell Dr. Smitt I will be at the grand opening ceremony tonight at 9:00 PM sharp. Tell him not to be late… and tell him to bring his lovely wife Martha, too. I miss talking to her.”
Across the large, empty lot in front of the entry drive onto university property was a line of brightly colored guards for the Palace Research Park, the name of the quickly growing technology mecca. The twelve men stood in a line, shoulder to shoulder with drawn swords held across their chest. In front of them across a shallow ditch, was an older thin man, the University of Miami President, John Smitt. The Miami sun was still bright and hot in December, and the University President was stewing in his three-piece custom tailored suit. But not because of the bright sun that was on the same equatorial parallel as Mexico. And not because he couldn’t hear Johnston Lionel Farnsworth III, the current and long-standing bane of this man’s existence, at least as far as President Smitt was concerned.
The leader of the private security guards hired to protect the property started to repeat the instructions given to him by his boss.
“Sir, do not attempt to cross the moat—”
The President of the University snapped at the brightly colored Guard.
“I can hear him just fine.”
Then he yelled past the line of guards toward Jay-L.
“Mr. Farnsworth, I am over this nonsense, and I’m not going to stand for it any longer. You and I are going to settle this right now.”
The President started walking toward the shallow hill made of black concrete with sparkles in it. He didn’t notice the solid stone sentry columns that sat every ten meters around the perimeter of the Research Park and on both sides of the entryway.
But they noticed him.
The spherical top of the two sentry columns that were flanking the area the angry University President was approaching swung silently toward their prey. They had long since locked onto the moving target with military grade tracking systems. As the President crossed the bright yellow line that was painted on the street where the University property abutted the former Golf Community, the high-power lasers in the sentry heads fired a silent and invisible set of beams across the path directly in front of the administrator of the adjacent college.
President John Smitt heard the sound and stopped walking just before his foot crossed the painted red line and touched the surface of the black sparkly material. The high-energy laser beams hit a few feet away from him on the beginning of the shallow hill made of special energy absorbing concrete. It was actually the purpose of the high-tech moat which now surrounded the entire perimeter of the once beautiful and exclusive country-club golf course. The lasers made a loud crackling noise as the nano-material absorbed the coherent light energy and redirected it as static electrical charge. As a thin cloud of smoke began to form above the sparks shooting out of the concrete, the normally invisible lasers formed a perfect X a short distance in front of the wide-eyed President’s feet. The ground for thirty feet in all directions away from the twin laser impact zone was now electrified with enough static charge to disable the entire Miami Police Force.
But Jay-L’s property wasn’t actually in Miami. It was next to the University, which is in a Miami suburb called, Coral Gables. But Jay-L’s Research Park wasn’t in Coral Gables, either. The property that now belonged to Jay-L wasn’t even in Florida for that matter; not legally. Jay-L’s Research Park was essentially its own little country inside the borders of the state of Florida. Shortly after Jay-L struck it rich, he purchased the historic Biltmore Hotel and the attached golf course with its country club. Then he bought the golf course to the south of the Biltmore Hotel; the one that butted up against the University of Miami. Then he bought every single home that bordered the property on all sides.
He had plenty of money, and everyone has their price.
Then Jay-L arranged for the Governor and State Legislature to give him the same deal that the Seminole Indians and other tribes around the country have. They were independent nations within the border of the continental United States. And they could make their own laws on their land. And you had to abide by those laws when you were on their land, which was the same as being in their country. This is how Indian Reservations get to own and operate Casinos in states where gambling is not legal.
Jay-L had the same arrangement with Florida. And he’d hired the best legal firm in the state to make sure that it was not revocable. Two former Governors and about two dozen former State Legislators, three Congressional Representatives and both active U.S. Senators were involved in the workgroup for the project. And that was just at the beginning. The group grew drastically as the idea was floated around Tallahassee and then Washington.
People said he could never do it.
But it happened. Just like Jay-L knew it would. He knew how these things worked. It was like playing chess, which he was extremely talented at. Jay-L knew when to move a piece and when to leave a piece alone. He knew when to sacrifice a piece and which piece of his opponent’s to leave on the board.
He also had an instinct for knowing when and how to eliminate anything he decided was interfering with his single-minded goal of beating his opponent. Jay-L was to the business world what a young Tiger Woods was to the golf world. It was a high-tech, high-power, high-stakes, high-finance and head-of-state business world that Jay-L now played and worked in every day.
Real-life chess, as he liked to call it.
And in the spirit of the chess game of life, Jay-L had jokingly elected himself King of his new tiny nation. Then he hired guards and started building and building.
Meanwhile, the erstwhile enemy of Jay-L, the President of the University of Miami, was no longer a threat of any sort to Jay-L. Honestly, he never was. Jay-L manipulated him almost at will, like right now. Jay-L orchestrated this moment when he told his helicopter pilot to hover over one of the Farnsworth buildings on the main campus and stay there until the campus Police showed up. He knew the President would lead the charge. Jay-L had played this series of chess moves many times in his head. And it was working. Jay-L saw the President jump backward as the lasers shot fire into the air about three feet in front of his four-hundred dollar shoes.
Jay-L was waiting for this moment. He was laughing out loud when he keyed the megaphone again.
“Don’t make me call the Governor, again, Dr. Smitt. Just go back to your little office and wait until tonight. Then I’ll program the laser sentries to let you on the property. Until then, remember my little oak tree over there.”
Then he lowered the megaphone and looked at the President, who was too far away for him to hear. From what Jay-L could tell by the tantrum dance the University President was doing right now, he was still not ready to admit defeat. Jay-L decided he should add something, and he thought for a moment. Then he keyed the megaphone again.
“And don’t look at me that way. It’s my helicopter, and the top floor of that building on your campus over there is mine, too. The DOD and DARPA gave it to me no strings attached. Remember? If I want to fly over it, I can. I had the FAA send you that letter explaining my rights. I know you received it. I had it sent certified. Now get over it.”
Then Jay-L turned and walked off. He handed the megaphone to his limo driver and walked into the building in front of him. Finally, he started to talk to Marissé again, who had been on the line the whole time. She started to hang up, but she got interested in the background drama. Jay-L cleared his throat as he entered the air-conditioned building through the unlocked front door.
“Marissé. Sorry about that, again. Domestic security problems, you know. You just can’t trust your neighbor
s any more. At least that’s what I keep telling the Governor about our mutual friend, President John Smitt.”
“That’s who I thought you were yelling at. What the hell was that all about?”
Jay-L started to answer, but she interrupted him.
“Never mind, I don’t have time. I’ve already spent a fortune of my field budget on this damn satellite phone today trying to reach you. Anyway, I’ve got a problem, and I need you to solve it.”
“Just like old times, straight to the point and no bullshit. That’s what I like about you, Marissé.”
Jay-L had quickly walked through the building and reached the console of a large computer terminal in the back of his enormous lab. He sat down at an overstuffed chair in front of the massive bank of monitors. They sprang to life as soon as his butt hit the seat. He started typing as he continued talking with Marissé.
“And don’t worry about the satellite bill.”
He tapped a few more keys on the panel in front of his chair. The billing information for Marissé’s satellite phone popped up. Jay-L’s computer was linked into his cell phone. The number she called from was highlighted above the information regarding the billing for the sat-phone. At the bottom of the page, was the outstanding balance of a few thousand dollars. He typed in a few more strokes and the balance owed in the bottom of the billing screen jumped to a positive $50,000 credit.
“I just paid this bill and put fifty grand in your satellite account. So lets chat and catch up, okay? You’re one of the few people I’ll talk to on the phone. Let me enjoy this.”
“How the hell did you put money in my account? This phone is registered under the University in Mexico City.”
“Easy… Caller-ID and a few friends in high places. Besides, no one’s account turns down getting money.”
He was smiling to himself as he clicked Yes to the onscreen prompt to ‘Locate Satellite Signal and Engage Image Assets?’ When he did, he initiated a string of events containing almost a trillion quantum micro-instructions spread over the entire set of global networks. Every computer on the planet that was actively connected to the internet, or any other network for that matter, instantly began to unknowingly parse single micro-bits of code distributed by quantum modulation fluctuation on both the electrical and electronic pulse signals. Suddenly, the satellite control systems of four large corporations and six military spy satellites were queried in such a fast manner, the security protocols did not recognize or register the entry.
Once decisions were made regarding the feedback of the queries, which happened in nano-seconds, the return set of instructions was parsed over the world and hyper-rammed back into the systems in question, in a shorter time span than an electrical spike in the gigahertz range.
Three satellites in range and position were identified, and their monitor control systems were then bombarded with internal command-line requests for diagnostics. The systems started checking themselves and notifying ground stations of a temporary delay in response. All the ground stations thought this was normal, especially after a solar storm like today. As the systems were auto forwarded into non-monitored guidance for the duration of the diagnostics, the lens array on each of the satellites secretly swung toward the Yucatan. Image sensors ramped up the couple-charge that would send the super-resolution data stream back down the diagnostic carrier wave. But the data would travel via a transcoded background static signal that was below the threshold of the sensitive receivers on the ground.
From there, the data stream static pulsed across the backbone of the major networks on the North American continent. The signal traveled almost at the speed of light across the fast sections of the fiber-optic spinal column of the North American data grid.
Then, all the unobservable and undetectable data stream nano-pulses came together at one location.
The main monitor in front of Jay-L snapped an orbital view of the planet onscreen. It began to rapidly zoom into the Yucatan peninsula.
It is almost impossible for anyone, in any agency, to swing satellites immediately into a random area of the globe. Even the Department of Defense birds, which are the most advanced spy satellites in the skies, have to be pre-positioned in the general area of interest before the orbital assets can image something.
Jay-L was able to get around this restriction in a unique way.
And the computer in front of him was the reason why. In fact, his computer was so powerful there was only one other computer like it in the world, the little sister of this machine which was now in classified residence at the NSA. His computer was the reason Jay-L was able to do any of the things that he regularly did now, like play golf with Presidents of countries; not University Presidents like the one he just left outside before talking to Marissé, who suddenly spoke and snapped him back to the present.
“I don’t believe you.” Marissé was not an idiot. “You didn’t put money in my account, did you?” But she also knew how Jay-L could be when it came to spending money.
“Oh, trust me, girl. The money’s there. You can take that to the bank… Hah.” He snorted a little as he laughed at his own unintentional joke.
Marissé didn’t know what to say. Fifty-thousand dollars was almost two-and-a-half months of her field budget. She’d have to find a way to get that money out of the satellite phone and into her pyramid. But not right now. Right now, she needed to get Jay-L to listen and stop spending money. She had read enough of the gossip columns to know that might not be easy with the new Jay-L. This Jay-L was rich. He was something like the thirteenth wealthiest man on the planet, now.
But that didn’t matter to Marissé.
“Jay-L, shut the fuck up. I need to ask you a question. And I don’t have time for any of your mind games about your fortune, or your friends, or that silly pig snort of a laugh you still have. Comprendé mi amigo?”
She tried hard not to, but she cracked up laughing after she heard herself say this out loud.
So did Jay-L.
He stopped taking her insults seriously a long time ago. At least, she was straight with him.
“That’s my girl. I was wondering if you’d mellowed over the years. Obviously not. You now have my undivided attention. What may I do for you, my long lost roommate?”
As he was talking to her, the satellite image zoomed into Marissé talking on the satellite phone to Jay-L. The shot was nearly overhead, and he could see her clearly. She was standing on a stone surface and had her University of Miami baseball cap on. She was still wearing the same sweaty tank top and her hiking shorts with boots. She was walking in circles but suddenly stopped.
“First, I’m not that long. I’m the same age as you. And I’m not lost. I saw you a few years ago. Second, I just told you… I need your help.”
This actually got Jay-L’s attention. Marissé had not asked for help. She told Jay-L she needed him to solve a problem she had. The subtle difference was not lost on Jay-L.
“You’ve never asked for help on anything or from anybody. This is serious, isn’t it?”
“Not serious, but I think it could be important. To more people than just me, too.”
While Jay-L was listening, another satellite view popped onto the screen to the left of the central monitor. This satellite had an oblique angle of the same shot as it zoomed into the Yucatan and Marissé’s sat-phone signal. He could see her face from this perspective. The image continued to zoom in until Marissé’s face filled the giant screen. Jay-L touched the panel in front of him, and the shot of her face switched onto the main screen while the overhead shot slid onto a side monitor. There was a slight delay between when he heard her voice over the sat-phone and when he saw her lips move on screen, but only slight. She reached up and pulled off her University of Miami baseball cap while she talked. Her long raven hair flowed down her shoulders.
“I found this glass artifact, sorta like a plaque. It has writing and glyphs on it…” She thought for a second, then continued. “And what looks like cuneiform…?
?? She paused to see if Jay-L would give her the response that anyone else in the Archeology or Ancient Language field would give her. But he didn’t. So she went on.
“I recognize some of them, but most of it’s a mystery. I remember you telling me about that machine of yours and that cryptography stuff you invented. You said you could decipher unknowns from a pool of common knowns that had logical connections… if the sample was large enough… right?”
“Wow… You never cease to amaze me. I teach classes on this now, and most people can’t remember that concept two minutes after I tell it to them. Bravo, my Wonder Twin.”
This made Marissé smile. Jay-L saw it on two separate satellite images; one from her left and one from her upper right that had just popped into view. The two oblique shots were now side-by-side and cropped around Marissé on the main screen. She kept smiling but tried to sound serious. The Wonder Twin comment brought back a flood of memories. Almost all of them were good.
“This is really important to me, Jay-L. I need you to see if you can translate the stuff on this artifact. This could be the most important archeological discovery ever made in the Americas. That’s not exaggerating either. If we can translate it, this could be the most important Archeology find ever.”
Jay-L could see her squirming. He knew asking for help was hard for her. Unlike anyone else on the planet, Jay-L would not make her beg.
“Done.”
“What?”
“Yes.”
“But… I… You…” Marissé was as close to speechless as she ever got.
Jay-L wasn’t.
“Okay, you’ve convinced me. I’ll do it. As a matter of fact, I’ll do it today. I’ll send a plane for you, and you can bring it back to Miami with you.”
He could see her face as her jaw dropped. The delay didn’t alter the effect, which was what he was going for. She started to prepare a rebuttal. He could see her doing it on the satellites. And he was expecting it because he planned for it. But he had to let her make the rebuttal, first.
“But, can’t I just send you a photo? I have a digital camera and computer.”
“Nope. Gotta have it here. Photo won’t do. Didn’t you say it was glass? Is it clear or colored?”
It didn’t really matter. He was just distracting her.
“It’s clear, actually transparent. But look Jay-L, I can’t just up and leave. I have a crew. This is their job. I have an assistant, too. I can’t just abandon him while I run off to Miami. Which, by the way, could take weeks. I have to tell the University, and I’ll have to arrange paperwork to get this thing through customs for both out of Mexico and into the States. I know how that can be. I did it with other artifacts when I saw you last time in Miami. Are you sure I can’t just send you an image?”
“Nope. Gotta use my scanning laser. Only way it’ll work. And don’t fret about customs. I keep one of my yachts at Cancún. I’ll have the Captain send out the helicopter to pick you up.”
Marissé could hear Jay-L type in the background as she continued to stare out over the jungle top from her pyramid. The sun was beating down, again, and she suddenly felt a strange, warm flush run over her. She walked over to the edge and sat down. The satellite images followed her down to her stationary spot.
Jay-L watched her sit down as he continued to talk and type on the virtual keyboard panel.
“It’s only an hour or so to where you are. I’ll have one of the jets waiting for you at… hold on…”
An aviation map of the Yucatan had popped up inside a window on the main screen. Jay-L only took a second.
“Got it. The nearest airport big enough to handle a Gulfstream is at Chichen Itza. The helicopter pilot will take you to the jet—”
Marissé interrupted him.
“What about my assistant and my crew? I can’t just leave.”
Jay-L was way ahead of her.
“What are your weekly expenses for labor including your assistant and you? Gross total? Matter of fact, include any expenses. Food, supplies, whatever? What is that number?” Then he paused for a second. “Tick-tock, tick-tock.”
He knew just what buttons to push with her. Marissé snapped back at him.
“Why?”
He could see her in the satellite images. She was about to follow that question up with something like asshole, but she thought better. Jay-L smiled before he continued.
“Because you can bring your assistant. I remember things, too. You introduced us the last time you were in town. And I remember he told me his family lived here. Tell him this is a gift for being your assistant. And if you tell me what your weekly expenses are, I’ll let you give your crew a paid vacation. And as a bonus, I’ll throw in enough money to hire extra crew to get you back on schedule. That’s why, my dear.”
Marissé let her jaw drop almost to the ground. It was just starting to sink in. Her old friend was offering to spend a fortune on her. Immediately. Just to see her. And to help her.
She started to turn around and walk back to the center of the pyramid, but Jay-L stopped her.
“Uh uh uhh. Don’t turn around. Keep facing south.”
Marissé stopped turning around. She turned back to the south and looked up.
“Are you spying on me, you asshole?”
‘There it is,’ thought Jay-L to himself. ‘My favorite nickname from her. It’s been so long since anyone has called me that name. Except for that European model—’ Then he remembered Marissé and snapped out of his mini-daydream.
“Yes, I’m spying on you… Of course, I am. This is me. What did you expect?”
She smiled up at the sky. All three satellite images showed her clearly now. She talked into the sat-phone and looked up at the sky.
“It pays to have friends in high places, right? Okay fine, send your helicopter and your jet. I’ll come in town to see you. But you have to help me translate this thing, okay?”
“Wait, what about the number I asked for? I didn’t forget about your crew. Did you?”
“No. I didn’t forget. But I can’t take a week off. And I can’t take your money. Not any more than you’ve just given me.”
“Now you’re just being stubborn. I have plenty of money. Give me the number. Please.”
“Fifty three hundred dollars, give or take.” She knew exactly what her weekly expenses were down to the penny, but this was close enough.
Jay-L’s jaw dropped when he heard her.
“That’s it? That’s all the money you have to operate on? For the entire week? That’s nuts. I spent more than that last night on a bottle of wine. For Christ sakes Mahddy, why don’t you have more money?”
“That’s the realities of the field of Archeology. And thanks for pointing that out to me, again. It’s not like I’ve forgotten how rich you are now, asshole.”
Jay-L sometimes couldn’t tell the difference between brutal effectiveness and just bullheaded brutality. He suddenly realized how fifty thousand dollars into the sat-phone account must have seemed, and what an enormous amount of money it must actually be for her. He normally wouldn’t care. It’s what he did. He pushed people around. He pushed companies around. He could push most countries around. He certainly could push around the State of Florida. Even the Federal Government pretty much did what he wanted, now. But right this moment, he didn’t care about all of that. He didn’t care that she called him by his favorite moniker. He was not going to push Marissé around. Even if he easily could.
“I’m sorry, Mahddy. Let me fly you and your glass artifact up, today. You can spend the night and be back tomorrow evening if you must. Give your men a day off on me, if nothing else. Okay? And tell Hassi he can come with you back to Miami, too. He should go see his Mom and Dad.”
The last part got Marissé. Jay-L knew it would. He wasn’t going to push Marissé, but he never said he wouldn’t pressure her, or guilt her. That was his modus operandi.
It worked, of course. She sighed heavily as she felt another strange wave of dizzin
ess roll over her. “Okay. Thank you, amigo.” Then she looked up at the sky and blew a kiss toward him.
Jay-L saw it in all three satellite images. He hit a key and every screen in his wall of monitors switched to one of the three satellite views. And the wall of monitors was big. There were dozens of images of Marissé on the enormous wall of flatscreens.
And they all had a big happy smile.
So did Jay-L. He hit another key and sent an email message to the yacht Captain in Cancún as he watched the happy Marissé faces. He was truly happy to see her. And he would be even happier when he saw her face to face. Which he quickly calculated would be about two hours from now. Jay-L intended to be aboard the Gulfstream when it landed in the Yucatan. But he wouldn’t tell his best friend in the whole world that. He’d wait to surprise her and her little friend Hassi. He was funny. The last time they were together he had Jay-L laughing so hard he almost peed his pants. Jay-L couldn’t wait.
“You are very welcome, my dear. Inform your men of their paid day-and-a-half off. Then get you, Hassi, and your mystery piece of glass ready to leave. The helicopter will be landing there about ninety minutes from right now.”
Marissé smiled even bigger. She felt like she was drunk. Her head was spinning slightly, and she was overcome with that same strange, warm glow. As she thought about Jay-L sending his helicopter and his jet to get her, she suddenly recalled something from deep inside her memory. Then she smiled again up at the sky.
‘It’s worth it,’ she thought to herself. ‘It’s definitely worth it.’
Marissé’s head began to throb in time with a beat that only she could hear as she put down the sat-phone and looked back up at the sky. She was feeling completely unlike herself, but she didn’t seem to care. Then she blew a kiss toward the unseen satellites. And then another with the other hand. Then before she knew what she was doing, she reached down and grabbed her tank top. Then she shimmied it up over her stomach and paused. She suddenly had an overwhelming mental image of some long forgotten promise, and then she was lost in the rhythm in her head, again.
Now it was Jay-L who was speechless. He’d forgotten about this. This was the reward he was promised all those years ago. The reward he’d forgotten he was owed. Thank God Marissé was honest and had a great memory. When he thought of good memories, Jay-L reached out and patted the virtual touchscreen he used for a tactile input panel. Everything that happened inside his computer was always stored in her memory. So he would have a permanent recording of the entire hijacked satellite session. He smiled as he caressed the computer.
“Good girl, HELGA. Don’t miss a frame for me.”
On the giant wall of monitors, Marissé continued to slowly and sensuously lift up her sweaty tank top. She was totally lost in the moment, now. The soft breeze over the jungle canopy slightly chilled her wet torso, as the warm equatorial sun beat down on her exposed skin, sending warm flushes up her legs and arms. Her body responded to the smooth breeze by popping up thousands of tiny goosebumps all over her. Marissé could hear the rhythmic thumping of house music in her head, and her brain felt like it was buzzing from drinking a beer too fast. As the first rays of direct sunshine hit her flat stomach, Marissé had to wiggle her torso and crunch her shoulders forward just slightly to unstick the clingy fabric from her lower back. She leaned her head back as she fully surrendered to the strange trance she was in.
Below her on the mezzanine level, Jacinto finally exited the pyramid with the mahogany box wrapped in a blanket. He turned around looking for his boss and saw her standing half naked on the top of the pyramid. He quietly set the box down and stared up.
Marissé didn’t see him. Nor would it have mattered. She was lost in some sort of dream, and the only thing on her mind was an old promise that she suddenly felt compelled to keep. She let her hair fall down her back and turned around facing away from the satellites and Jacinto. She slowly continued to lift her shirt up over her ribs until her arms were parallel to the pyramid top and crossed in front of her chest. Marissé felt the sun hit her lower back as the thrumming in her head shot up another level, and she had to close her eyes from the intensity. Small beads of sweat ran down her spine and pooled at the small dimple that was just barely visible above the waist of her hiking shorts. She had removed her belt when she got up here earlier, to let her waist breathe. Now her shorts had fallen down low on her hips. She was only wearing shorts with nothing underneath. It was too hot in the jungle for layers.
Her arms were still in front of her chest, but now she continued to raise her hands and shirt up over her head, as she began to sway slightly. Then, she slowly started to turn back around. As the sun began washing over her olive-bronze skin, she lifted her shirt over her face, fully exposing her torso. On the mezzanine layer below her, Jacinto was glad her shirt was blocking Marissé’s face, or she might have seen him. And then he would miss this. Whatever the hell this was.
Jay-L knew what this was. He’d dreamed about this before.
Marissé stretched her head back as she reached her elbows up toward the satellites. She paused to shake her hair loose from her damp back. It fell out in long rivulets of ebony curls and swayed back and forth for a moment. This added tingles to Marissé’s already warm and humming body. She continued to slowly lift her shirt while her hips moved softly, like she was in a slow dance. Deep inside her mind, Marissé knew this was entirely outside her normal behavior. But for some reason, it was a compulsion she didn’t want to stop.
Jay-L was almost drooling. He had no idea this call would end like this. Marissé was his best friend in the world, even if he hadn’t seen her in years. But she had magnificent breasts, and he’d had plenty of experience with breasts since becoming a billionaire. When he made this deal with Marissé so many years ago, he’d only seen her boobs in real life. He thought they were the most perfect boobs in the world. And here they were in high definition video. The image was so clear, it almost looked like Jay-L was watching her from a second story window. It was enough to make a guy speechless.
Marissé’s skin was moist from new sweat as the sun began to warm her exposed abdominal plate and the paper thin skin that covered it. As Jay-L watched remotely from a thousand miles away, Marissé pulled her shirt completely over her head and stretched her arms up. When she did, she instinctively reached up on her toes, as best she could in hiking boots. Then she lifted the shirt off and continued to look up which made her body look as long as possible. Marissé was now fully revealed from the lower waist up.
The satellite cameras switched places as another platform came into better alignment and Jay-L’s computer automatically centered the best available shot. In this new view, which was zoomed in and panned down slightly, Marissé’s breasts fit perfectly in the giant widescreen main monitor. Her breasts looked like a painting or an airbrushed Playboy shot. And they stood perfectly upright on her beautifully proportioned body, which was still stretched out and absorbing the Central American sunlight streaming over her glistening curves.
Marissé finally relaxed. Then she reached back down and grabbed the sat-phone. She tossed her shirt on the ground and saw Jacinto down below looking up at her with his jaw hanging down, and a very obvious bulge in his shorts. She waved at him, but she didn’t flinch otherwise. Suddenly, she felt her mind spinning slightly, like a rush from standing up too quickly. But she shook her head and caught her balance, then put the receiver to her ear. She spoke calmly into the sat-phone while she dreamily looked back up into the sky.
“See, I promised I would show you my tits if I ever asked you for help… and I did. Now send your damn helicopter. And just so you’ll hurry up at it. Here’s a bonus.”
Then she pressed the cancel button and tossed the phone on the ground. She closed her eyes and turned her face into the sun. As the golden light streamed over her bronze skin, she reached up with both hands and grabbed her hair, running her fingers through it as she tilted her head back. Then she stood up tall again on her toes and
stretched out long. She felt an overwhelming sense of calm serenity wash over her as the sun began to heat her torso and the warm solar radiation penetrated her body. She was definitely beginning to feel like she was drunk.
Her shorts could no longer hold onto her tanned curvaceous hips and fell to her ankles. She finished pulling her hands through her hair, but stayed on her toes with her feet together. Then she put one fist on her hip and regally let the other hand fall by her side. Marissé looked out over the pyramid plaza as the beat of pounding drums in her head caused a rush of endorphins in her brain, and the moment stretched out in a long euphoric bliss accented by the warmth of the sun over her entire body. Subconsciously, she leaned back slightly into the sunlight; fully letting the rays cover her from top to bottom.
Down on the mezzanine, Jacinto thought she looked like a beautiful bronze nude Mayan Goddess, in hiking boots. He smiled as the heat and exhaustive effort of getting the mahogany box out of the pyramid suddenly added to the hormonally stimulated blood flow down into the area below his waist, which in turn shunted blood from his head.
Jacinto rolled his eyes back into his skull and fainted in a heap.
It was everything Jay-L could do, not to faint himself.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
February 16, 2008 AD – 1:27 PM,
NSA Quantum Command Center