The Gravity of Anti-Gravity (27 page)

“Hey, I found another wig,” I said. “Maybe this one will make you a little less noticeable.”

The second wig was more in a short page boy style in a dark blond tone and certainly not as flamboyant as the blond wig. What we found was that Stella made everything look great.

Dieter chimed in and said. “Have her remove most of her make up, put on those dark glasses there and change into those punk style clothes.”

Stella, with no hint of embarrassment stripped down to her underwear and followed Dieter’s suggestions. When she was done, she turned around, held her hands out like performers do when they are soliciting applause and said, “ta daaa…”

“Stella, you still look great; funky but great. I don’t think I could pick you out of a crowd so we have accomplished our objective.” I said. I could tell by Jerry’s face he approved too.

Dieter told Jerry and me to go ahead and change into the punk clothes he had brought for us. He also informed us to hurry up because we all had one more stop to make before we went to the airport.

Dieter pulled off the highway into a small town, found a pawn shop in the old part of the city and parked. When we went inside, we were led to the back room where a camera and other machinery were hidden. One by one we had our picture taken. The man in the back did his magic and within ten minutes gave us all drivers’ licenses from the state of Missouri. He told us to memorize our name, addresses and the social security number he supplied us. Dieter paid the man with several hundred dollar bills and we left.

“Jerry there’s some hair gel here,” I commented. “With your military buzz cut, it won’t help you but let’s give me spiky hair.”

With that Stella came over and made me into a punk rocker want-to-be. There were also some stick-on piercing accessories. I gave myself a bauble on the side of my nose and several around one ear. Stella gave herself one on her lip. She also changed her earrings from tasteful to gaudy. Jerry decided to pass on the facial jewelry. For the balance of our trip to the Philadelphia airport we quizzed each other on our new names, addresses and social security numbers. By the time we arrived at the airport, we had our new identities down pat.

Dieter pulled the van up to the passenger loading zone, gave us our tickets, wished us luck and left. Our flight was leaving in forty five minutes so we had to hustle. Without a hitch, we checked our bags, and breezed through security. I was a little disappointed when we just faded into the sea of people. No one looked, or gawked or took any notice of our new look. I realized that was the plan all along.

While we waited to board the plane, we found a corner where we could talk quietly without being overheard.

“I’m wondering about the conversation that Rolf heard.” I said. “Remember when he said that Cushing paid someone to carry out some act?
If Cushing has his own personal gig going on the side, would the President be in on it or do you think he is working independently?

“Not sure Bill, but if we do what the President wants, Cushing will lose out on his big pay day. I’ll call Rolf and see if he knows any more.” Stella added.

“Hello Rolf, we’re at the airport in Philly. Do you have news?”

“I’m glad our plan worked Stella,” Rolf said. “The buzz I’m getting from my sources tells me that your escape has made the intelligence community crazy. There is a nationwide search going on for you three. It sounds like they are treating you as escaped criminals. I’m glad we handled it like we did because technically you didn’t break any laws. Are you disguised in any way?”

“Yes we are and we’re all looking a little punk rockish right now,” Stella said. “Rolf, please tell me you have a plan when we get to L.A.”

“I have consulted with some of my associates and here’s the plan. First, sometime during your flight, dump your phony I.D.’s. If there is anything the Feds could get you on it’s those. When you get off the plane, a man will be holding a sign with the name H.B. Smith. He purchased a ticket to get through security so he will meet you at the gate. His name is Michael Witherspoon. I’ve worked with him before. He is a high profile criminal attorney in the
L.A. area. If the authorities are there he will immediately intervene and accompany you to wherever they take you. If the authorities are not there, he will drive you to the FBI office of Director Vaughn where you will turn yourself in.”

“But Rolf, we didn’t do anything wrong,” Stella said, “you said so yourself.”

“What I meant was, tell Vaughn that you and Bill are back in town and need to have your security detail restarted. Jerry will tell Vaughn he’s returning to duty as Project Security Chief.” Rolf added. “Act as if you were just tired of feeling like prisoners and did it on a lark.”

“Rolf our plane is boarding and we are the only ones who haven’t gotten on so I’ve got to go.” Stella said.

“One last thing Stella,” Rolf added quickly, “and it took some real digging to get this information. That plane you were going to fly home on yesterday was scheduled to fly to Vienna, not Burbank.”

Our flight to LAX was uneventful. Near the end, we all, one by one, went to the bathroom, cut our fake I.D.’s into tiny pieces and flushed them down the toilet. Fortunately we were all able to sleep a couple hours on the long flight; a couple hours rest we all desperately needed.

When we got off the plane, we saw the ‘H.B. Smith’ sign and introduced ourselves to Michael Witherspoon, attorney at law. He was a short dumpy man about five feet six and looked to be in his mid-fifties. He wore a wrinkled brown suit that looked like he slept in it.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you three but I must say you don’t look like the brilliant scientists I was expecting,” Witherspoon commented.

“We’re incognito!” I answered proudly.

Stella whispered to Witherspoon, “Looks like the authorities haven’t caught up with us yet so as I understand it, you will be taking us to the FBI office. We will change back into our brilliant scientist clothes in the car”

“That’s the plan,” Witherspoon said. “Let’s go.

We all walked down to luggage claim and retrieved our bags. At the curb we caught a shuttle to the parking structure. We all piled into a rusty, dented, twenty year old Jeep Waggoneer. Thankfully it started.

By the time we got to Vaughn’s office, we had all changed clothes and except for a little extra grease in my hair, looked like our old selves.

When we all walked into the reception area, it was about 5 PM. Witherspoon quickly sat down, while the three of us walked toward the reception desk. Just then Vaughn came around the corner holding his briefcase and it looked like he was on his way home. When he saw us, he stopped short and just stared.

“Good to see you Director Vaughn,” Stella said as she smiled broadly and walked up and shook his hand. “We are back from our meeting with the President and we will need to resume our security details. Your office is on our way home so we decided to stop by and notify you ourselves. My uncle Mike sitting over there just picked us up at the airport.”

“Dr. Morton, you never told me that Attorney Michael Witherspoon was your uncle.” Vaughn said with a smirk. “Why don’t we all go into the conference room and you can tell me what the hell is going on!”

Jerry, Stella, Witherspoon, Vaughn and I walked into the FBI’s conference room. This beats an interrogation room with a large one way mirror I thought. Right behind us were two additional FBI agents.

“It was my idea,” I blurted out. “Jerry and Stella went along for the ride. We were tired of all the security with its loss of freedom and needed to get away. It was just a lark! If anybody gets arrested, it should be me.”

“Arrested for what Mr. Burton? Even though I know you are all up to something strange and a night in the slammer might do you some good, the only thing you are guilty of is ditching the people who were supposed to protect you! And a fine job you did too.” Vaughn added.

“Director Vaughn, with your permission, we’d like to discuss our situation in private please,” Stella requested.

Vaughn agreed to excuse his men if we had Witherspoon leave the room too. We thanked Witherspoon and told him it was OK to leave and go home and we’d contact him tomorrow. Then Vaughn turned to the agents who had followed us in the room and said, “You men wait outside and turn off the video and audio recorders.” The men walked out and Vaughn confirmed that the equipment was off.

Stella continued, “Agent Vaughn, we have recently met many men in the government at all levels; even up to the President as you know. You may be just a good actor, but, so far, we feel you are the only official that has been straight and honest with us. We hope we can trust you and we hope that you won’t join the dark side of this administration if they put pressure on you.”

“I’m not sure where this is going Dr. Morton but the most important thing to me is not my job, it’s my integrity,” Vaughn reassured us.

“Before I give you the details of our day on the run,” Stella said, “what was the outcome of those two FBI agents who showed up at JPL looking for Bill?”

“We really don’t know for sure.” Vaughn answered. “All we could get out of them was that they were sent from Cushing’s office to ask Bill some questions. When I asked them what questions, they told me that information was ‘need to know’ and I guess I didn’t need to know. Shortly after we apprehended them I got a call from Washington ordering me to release them immediately. I’ve spent the last day unsuccessfully trying to fit that piece into your convoluted puzzle. So tell me about your day young lady.”

Stella told Vaughn about our trip leaving out most of the details of the time between our escaping from the security detail and our boarding the plane in
Philadelphia. While he listened, Vaughn took notes on a pad of paper.

“Let me recap the information you just gave me so that I am sure I have the details straight,” Vaughn said while reading from his note pad. “The President himself told you that he was trading your services to China for two trillion dollars in U.S. debt reduction. He tendered a veiled threat when you did not immediately agree to his offer. You believe that the President and Cushing are planning this together except that you also believe that Cushing is working behind the scenes on his own side deal to trade you for money. You ditched your security detail because you found out the plane was going to take you to Europe and then to God knows where instead of back to the West Coast. And to top everything off, the FBI bugged your room and returned Jerry’s gun with the powder removed from the bullets. Is that about it?”

“That’s just about it,” I said, and Jerry nodded his agreement. “

“There is one more thing,” I added. “We all promised the President that we would say nothing about his proposal. Is there any way we can keep our little conversation private.”

“I’ll do everything I can,” answered Vaughn with a slightly devious look. “Remember, the President is a busy man with a lot on his plate and sometimes information doesn’t get to him as quickly as we would like it to.”

“Something else,” Vaughn added, “someday I want you to tell me how you evaded a nationwide manhunt, came all the way across country and just waltzed into my office without anyone ever seeing you. For now though, I’ve got to figure out what to do with you. I told my people not to notify anyone that you were here until I had a chance to talk to you. Now that we have talked, I’m still not sure what to do.”

“Agent Vaughn, why don’t you just let us go home”, Stella offered. “It’s been a long day and we are all tired. I assume you still have security around our residences. Call them and tell them instead of watching for us, they should watch for bad guys looking for us. We’ll meet tomorrow wherever you want.”

“OK, against my better judgment, you three go home tonight,” said Vaughn. “I will supply cars and drivers for your transport. Early tomorrow I’ll call my boss, Director Victor about the time he gets into the office and tell him what’s going on. If you do anything strange like trying to run off again, I will have to arrest you; even though it will be someone else doing the arresting because I will be out of a job.”

We all thanked Special Agent Vaughn and left.

-34-

The next morning early, Stella, Jerry and I got calls from the FBI saying that a car would pick us up at 9 AM for a 10 AM meeting downtown. I had gone to bed early, slept well and got up refreshed about six. When I went into the kitchen, Pops was already up.

“Bill you look like crap, what’s been going on?”

“Thank you too, Pops!” I declared “These last two days have been just another wild and wacky episode in the life of William Burton the Third, boy genius. Pops, lately I think I’d been better off if I had been born stupid!”

“Poor Billy,” Pops said half mockingly and half serious, “is meeting the most powerful man on the planet too stressful?”

“Yes,” I answered. “Let’s go to the barn and I’ll fill you in.”

I knew I wasn’t supposed to talk to anyone but this was Pops. I loved him and he deserved to be in on everything.

I had about forty five minutes before I needed to get ready to be picked up. It took all of that time to tell Pops everything

“Bill I’m terrified for you and I’m so mad at the idiots we elect to run this country,” Pops began. “The President is facing reelection soon and with the state of the economy he’s in trouble and is looking for some kind of boost. What I can’t understand is how he would explain the debt reduction to the people of the country. He can’t tell the truth because very quickly everyone would figure out that he sold all of us down the river.”