THE COWARDLY LION, Book Two, Chapter LVII

THE COWARDLY LION, Book Two, Chapter LVII

The single word “unseeable” ate at my foundations. Instinctively, I knew that word had nothing to do with nuclear power or any of what went on at the plant. The word didn’t refer, by definition, to something being unable to be seen because it was too secret to be...
THE COWARDLY LION, Book II, Chapter LVIII

THE COWARDLY LION, Book II, Chapter LVIII

Richard and I didn’t speak again. When the staff car piloted by him arrived in the compound parking lot, the Staff Sergeant was appropriately waiting only a few feet from the outer wall doors He opened the back door to the car before I could let myself out, and then...
THE COWARDLY LION, Book Two, Chapter LIX

THE COWARDLY LION, Book Two, Chapter LIX

I sat on the couch, facing the television console, Julie on my left but not snuggled up to my side as she had proven herself to be not that kind of little person. Mrs. Beasley, however, was pulled close into her left side and Bozo made believe he was watching...
THE COWARDLY LION, Book Two, Chapter LX

THE COWARDLY LION, Book Two, Chapter LX

I could not talk to Paul, nor my wife, nor anyone else I could think of except one. Richard. He, Cobb, and Hunt had been intertwined in some fashion I didn’t understand, but intertwined they were, at least in my analysis of their proximity at the harbor, their special...
THE COWARDLY LION, Book Two, Chapter LXI

THE COWARDLY LION, Book Two, Chapter LXI

The reels moved slowly, as I knelt by the bedside, transfixed by the words of the country’s sitting president. “My friend,” Nixon began, after another pause, saying the words in his strange way that nobody on earth I’d ever heard talked like, “will you guide me...
THE COWARDLY LION, Book Two, Chapter LXII

THE COWARDLY LION, Book Two, Chapter LXII

The ‘unseeable’ was coming home to roost, I now understood.  The artifact that was entrusted to me had something to do with San Onofre, the one ‘pod’ that had been taken out of service to become some sort of hyper-secret nearly impenetrable laboratory or meeting place...
THE COWARDLY LION, Book Two, Chapter LXIII

THE COWARDLY LION, Book Two, Chapter LXIII

The morning came too soon, although ‘sleeping in’ like I’d loved to do when not at one of my jobs in college, had gone the way of the dinosaurs, lost somewhere down at the bottom of the A Shau Valley. That the valley’s name was known by no one, so never brought up by...
THE COWARDLY LION, Book Two, Chapter LXIV

THE COWARDLY LION, Book Two, Chapter LXIV

Joe Beard sat at Gularte’s kitchen/dining room/living room table, its top cleared and cleaned off as I’d never seen it before. He sat behind a gray plastic box that looked like a small suitcase except for its sharp edges and pointed corners. Joe looked across the top...
THE COWARDLY LION, Book Two, Chapter LXV

THE COWARDLY LION, Book Two, Chapter LXV

It was Christmas Eve, although it wasn’t the eve of anything and I wondered, as usual, why the day, from early morning until the sun went down, was still referred to as the eve of Christmas when it was simply the day before. My thoughts turned to the single subject...
THE COWARDLY LION, Book Two, Chapter LXVI

THE COWARDLY LION, Book Two, Chapter LXVI

I woke up the morning after Christmas and eased out of bed. My wife made me believe she was still asleep, like she always did although any move on my part to depart the bed never failed to bring her back to life. I moved as silently as possible to get ready for the...
THE COWARDLY LION, Book Two, Chapter LXVII

THE COWARDLY LION, Book Two, Chapter LXVII

My time at night, before sleep and thankfully not during sleep, I thought about things that were occurring, and the less sense they made the more I couldn’t stop lying awake trying not to think about them. “I’m not that special,” I thought, lying there, not realizing...