Dream War Read online

  “So what are these guys asking for?” Lopez asked. His temples felt tight, and the outside corners of his eyes watered. They were the first signs of a tension headache.

  “The usual,” Hyde responded, helping Lopez get connected to NOCTURN. “Depending on whom you talk to, they want between twenty and eighty political prisoners released. Also, they demand the expulsion of all ‘Jew officials and Israeli militarists’ from Indonesia, and the punishment of the Indonesian Vice President for allegedly taking kickbacks from a U.S. aircraft company.”

  “That all?”

  “That, and 1.5 million U.S. dollars.”

  “Well, hopefully that won’t be coming out of my paycheck.”

  Hyde said nothing as he injected Lopez with the dream-link drugs.

  Connecting through NOCTURN, Lopez followed the familiar trail of buzzing, flashing lights and that odd, wet feeling, and entered the dream world of Fayez Jarrahi, one of the Bangkok hijackers.

  The man’s subconscious mind was akin to a state of war. Darkness made it difficult for Lopez to see more than sixty feet in any direction. The landscape consisted of hard, dusty ground. Strong currents of air whipped up tiny dirt cyclones that swirled off into the blackness. A goat wandered from one murky edge of the scene, disappearing into the ether on the other side. Arabic insults and accusations echoed throughout the blackness.

  Lopez recognized the Arabic term, “Ziepa! Ziepa! Ziepa!” It translated into “bastard,” but the intensity of the meaning ran much deeper. It was the worst name you could call an Arabic man. Lopez heard the term being cried over and over again in female voices. Above them, a male voice also snarled, “Ziepa” in an authoritative tone. That voice hurled other accusations in Arabic about stupidity, carelessness, and laziness. The sounds of a screaming baby completed the horrible symphony.

  Based on his training in dream analysis, Lopez surmised that the haunting female voices were likely those the man had, at one time, harmed and mistreated. He wondered if the male voice was Jarrahi’s father, and indicative of verbal humiliation Jarrahi had experienced as a child. It may have been Jarrahi’s own voice. Either way, its commanding echoes were a clear signal of the man’s poor self-image. Lopez ventured no guess on the goat.

  He had wandered into the darkness a few steps, searching for his subject, when a small hut appeared about twenty feet ahead. A young Arab man guarded the door from a stool, a machine gun on his lap.

  Lopez transformed. In an instant, his features appeared middle-eastern—his nose extended and hooked, his eyes deepened in their sockets. He bore down on the sitting terrorist, Lopez barked at him in stern, Arabic tones. “Jarrahi, you are careless and lazy!”

  Clearly flustered, Jarrahi leapt to his feet. “Who are you? What business do you have here?”

  Lopez moved forward, his face invading the terrorist’s space. “You are a failure! Your stupidity will cost us a chance to free our brothers from enslavement. It may cost us our lives, you bastard!” Lopez said.

  Jarrahi stood, mouth agape. Before he could respond, Lopez reached up and grabbed the man’s head. He pressed his forehead against the terrorist’s, and whispered sternly. “Take me to the airplane.”

  In rapid succession, large blotchy images appeared around them like pieces of a puzzle snapping randomly into place. It became apparent that an aircraft surrounded them. They stood at a navy blue curtain that separated first class from the main cabin.

  Lopez maintained his control of his subject’s mind. The task required concentrated focus like mentally translating a foreign language or understanding the confusing talk of a child just learning to speak.

  “Take me to the bomb.” Prying information from another’s subconscious mind was like inflicting a silent visualization. It was akin to mentally rehearsing lifting a heavy weight during a workout before actually attempting it. Extraction felt like a push, and at the same time a pull, of information. For a month, Lopez had been practicing to get the balance right.

  Jarrahi pulled back the curtain and headed into the main cabin of the plane. Lopez followed. The faded blue seats near them were empty. He was led toward the back, where several hostages huddled. One of the female passengers motioned the sign of the cross. Jarrahi turned, spit on her, and began hurling insults. Lopez noticed a couple of goats at the back of the plane.

  Lopez’s vision blurred; he seemed to see static for a second. He turned to Jarrahi and shouted, “Show me where the bomb is, now!”

  The Arab’s nostrils flared. It was Lopez’s only warning that he’d lost his connection. Jarrahi lifted his gun and sprayed bullets throughout the plane. Lopez’s vision blurred again. Then static.

  Then darkness.

  A loud beep caused Lopez to open his eyes, revealing the OIA laboratory. Hyde was staring at him.

  “Did you get details regarding the location of the terrorists or explosives inside the plane?”

  “I’m fine. Thanks for asking.”

  “Did you get any useful information?” Hyde pressed.

  He shook his head. “Nothing useful.”

  “Why not? What happened?”

  Lopez summarized for Hyde what had taken place. “There’s no conclusive proof that they actually have a bomb,” he concluded.

  Hyde frowned and didn’t make eye contact. “Dreams of the tormented are difficult to interpret. Therefore, it stands to reason that they would be difficult to guide and maintain control of especially when the subject is in a life and death situation.”

  “So what happened in there?”

  “The dream’s stressful environment likely caused him to awaken.” After scribbling some notes on a clipboard, Hyde turned and walked out of the lab. It looked as though he’d wanted to throw the clipboard against the wall.

  *****

  Two days of dream linking to the other hijackers failed to provide any concrete extracted information. Then, for the first time since the onset of the crisis, Fayed Jarrahi went back into REM.

  Lopez realized that it might be their final chance. Within moments, he was linked through NOCTURN to Jarrahi’s dream.

  White marble pillars surrounded a beautiful pool of turquoise water. Carrying baskets of fruit, naked women paraded around, while others served tropical drinks garnished with tiny, colorful umbrellas. Lopez wondered if an error had transported him to the wrong dreamer. Then he saw Jaharri reclining on an opulent throne. He cackled and clapped his hands together as a group of women put on an erotic dance show.

  Lopez had long-since disguised himself as an Arab by the time Jaharri noticed him. Dark storm clouds rolled overhead. The hijacker leapt to his feet.

  “Brother, I’m sorry. I was just taking a break,” Jaharri said.

  Lopez’s tone was firm and confident. “Jaharri, we need to move the bomb. It is unsafe from the infidels. We must go quickly.”

  “Yes, yes.” He nodded away from the pool. “I take you there.”

  He led Lopez toward a white cabana that dissipated as they approached. A stairway materialized out of nowhere. By the time they’d climbed the steps, the hijacked airliner had materialized before them. They entered and started down the aisle. Halfway, Jaharri stopped and motioned to the row of seats on his left. “Here is the bomb, brother.”

  Lopez hurried to the row and looked to where he pointed. There was nothing but a goat!

  “Jaharri, I said, ‘bomb.’ Where is it?”

  Jaharri stood motionless.

  “Tell me everything I need to know!” Lopez grabbed the hijacker’s temples harder than he needed to and began to extract information.

  Around them the scene morphed. Soon, they stood in a small, dimly lit room full of smoke and Arab men. Three of them sat at a small wooden table, while three more stood in a semicircle around the back of the chairs, looking on intently. Spread out on the table were what appeared to be technical aircraft blueprints, maps, airline tickets, and passports.

  The man leading the meeting pointed to Jarrahi. “If anything happens, you go
directly to where the passengers are and explode your grenade.”

  Jarrahi nodded.

  Lopez studied the blueprints and familiarized himself with the interior layout of the aircraft, including the terrorist positions, the areas they controlled and guarded. Only when Lopez had all the information he needed, did he release control of Jarrahi’s subconscious mind. The dream became a swirling blob of shapes, then clouds.

  Lopez began the process of returning to NOCTRUN. By observing him during the link, the OIA staff knew when to bring him back. They had studied and documented Lopez’s brainwaves, and developed a recitation that would transmit his desire to exit.

  Ten plus ten is twenty. Twenty plus twenty is forty. Red dog. Ten plus ten is twenty. Twenty plus twenty is forty. Red dog. Red dog.

  The clouds and blobs of color in front of him faded black. He heard the familiar beep and opened his eyes.

  “Did you get anything?” Hyde asked peering at him.

  *****

  Not only did Lopez provide the SWAT teams with a detailed description of all of the terrorists’ positions and plans, OIA gave the rescue operation an ace-in-the-hole. Able to monitor the terrorists’ REM states, OIA could provide the SWAT teams with an optimal moment to storm the plane. They could literally catch some of the hijackers napping.

  A weary Hector Lopez maintained contact with the U.S. team that had flown to Bangkok as the operation unfolded. Three SWAT teams lay poised to pounce.

  At 2:43 AM Bangkok time, two hijackers, including Fayez Jarrahi, slipped into REM, while the status light of a third hijacker drifted in and out. OIA notified the SWAT teams of a green light, and a countdown to storming the plane began.

  Hyde put a hand on Lopez’s shoulder after administering the drugs necessary to connect him through NOCTURN. “Relax, Hector. Just do your best. We understand that this particular technique is rather experimental.”

  Lopez said nothing. The technique Hyde referred to, and Lopez would attempt, involved implanting a suggestion, a demand, rather than extracting information.

  Buzzing, flashing lights and that odd, wet feeling preceded Lopez’s entry into Jarrahi’s dreaming mind. It was the same scene as the first time he had dream linked to Jarrahi—the hijacker again was guarding a door to a hut in the darkness. Thick fog obscured everything more than forty feet beyond the doorway. Lopez approached but didn’t bother to change his appearance.

  Jarrahi’s eyes widened. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

  Lopez dove at him. He pressed his forehead onto the hijacker’s skull. “Stay with me. Stay here!”

  Lopez mentally pushed rather than pulled information. He hurled a demand into the mind of his subject; it felt as though he were injecting something dangerous and unclean. “Do not blow up that grenade in the plane. Go outside you bastard, or I’ll kill your family…I’ll kill all of them!”

  A crescendo of screams followed. Jarrahi’s eyes had rolled back into his head; they were white. Lopez heard gunfire – he was losing his grip on Jarrahi’s mind.

  “Stay here, Jarrahi! Stay!”

  Everything went black.

  *****

  Lopez sat with his boss in Hyde’s office. A fuzzy voice reported the developments in excited staccato bursts: “Three teams are planning to enter the aircraft simultaneously. All three at different doors.”

  Unfortunately, due to static on the communication line in Indonesia, only one team heard the order to storm the plane. Team Green entered the rear door and found an alert terrorist. He fired. One assault team member was struck in the stomach, the bullet hitting an area left unprotected by flak jacket. Apparently realizing that a successful conclusion was impossible, and not wanting to be taken alive, the hijacker put a pistol to his temple and killed himself.

  Hearing the gunfire, Team Blue and Team Red rushed the main door and shot two hijackers. The commando teams ordered the passengers to flee. Carrying a grenade, Fayez Jarrahi tried to blend with passengers rushing outside. Team Red was prepared. Before Jarrahi exited the aircraft, he was shot and killed.

  The last terrorist was shot outside the plane. Only the pilot and one commando member were injured.

  The voice on the radio’s final lines pierced through the static with confidence: “All passengers rescued unharmed. I repeat, all passengers rescued unharmed.”

  Lopez pumped his fist at the transmission. Hyde let out a protracted sigh and then smiled. Lopez understood that the rescue mission’s success had elevated OIA to a level higher than he ever expected it to rise.

  The fall would hurt even more.

  - Chapter Three -

  August 26, 1981 - OIA Headquarters, Carlsbad, CA

  Lopez ventured into Hyde’s office surrounded by photographs of his boss’s late wife—a thought uncomfortable to Lopez—someone living only in picture frames. Hyde’s young daughter provided him only minimal comfort; she was the spitting image of her mother.

  The office smelled of Hyde’s cheap aftershave.

  “What’s up boss?”

  “Hector, sit down.” Hyde stared at his telephone as though he wished it would speak for him.

  By midsummer, Henderson and Prie, had undergone sufficient training to begin their own missions. Imbo and Silverman, being tutored by Lopez, were coming up to speed quickly. However, even with the additions, OIA continued to have to turn missions down due to a lack of trained, qualified agents. OIA had experienced a marked increase in the demand for their services. Langley flooded them with calls and faxes to investigate everything from security leaks to abductions. Lopez could tell that the pressure on Hyde had been mounting.

  “Hector, I always intended after you recruited and trained your agents, that you’d lead them, but…”

  “‘Buts’ are never good,” Lopez said. But he didn’t need Hyde to spell it out for him. His intuition told him that a Senior Agent would soon be joining OIA who would lead the agents, including Lopez. He cocked his head and tried not to let his emotions show, but his pride was hurt.

  “Who is he?”

  “Your former superior, Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Moats.”

  *****

  Lopez stood at Moats’s office doorway. Boxes, in various stages of being unpacked, crowded the room.

  “Hey there, Hector. Come on in and have a seat.” Moats sat on the corner of his desk, grinned, and folded his arms across his chest. “I’ve reviewed your reports.”

  Moats’s smile did not let up. Lopez attempted one of his own, but it felt forced. Moats stood up and began to pace. He stood nearly half a foot taller than Lopez.

  “Look, I know my appointment here probably came as an unwelcome surprise. You’ve done some really good work here and I’m hopin’ we can move forward in this together.”

  Lopez nodded.

  Moats’s Missouri accent seemed to grow thicker. “I want you to know, Hector, that I’ve already appointed you as ‘Senior Agent,’ and I want you to lead the ‘Special Operations Unit.’ Your group will specialize in hostage rescue. My unit will deal with any threats by foreign governments, like the situation in Libya.”

  Three days prior, intelligence sources had reported that Libyan terrorists targeting President Reagan for assassination were operating inside the United States.

  “I want us to have a collaborative relationship,” Moats continued. “I’m not going to interfere with you or your team unless I really feel something needs to be addressed. Otherwise, as long as I know what you know, we’re good. How’s that?”

  A grin erupted full force across Moats’s boyish features, signaling to Lopez that all that was necessary was a reply of “Great!” and a return smile. He managed both, despite not completely trusting the former Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Moats.

  *****

  “So what do you think about the Libyans?” Tabatha Wellington asked.

  “They seem like nice people. I might vacation there,” Lopez said, removing the sensors she’d used to test his vital signs.

  “Hector Lopez
, does one ever get a straight answer from you?”

  “Occasionally. So, stop beating around the bush. Give it to me straight, Doc. How long do I have to live?”

  He was kidding. He’d been working on independent research with her since September. She was examining the physiological effects of various tasks conducted while lucid dreaming. Their biggest project tested her hypothesis that implementing a regular exercise program in a person’s dream life would strengthen the physical body nearly as much as exercise during waking hours.

  “Well, seriously, Senior Agent, the data coming in is inconclusive. Muscle strengthening during waking hours is proving to increase at faster increments than the lucid dreaming exercise.”

  “But you said—”

  “However, the dream exercise is proving more beneficial on some levels, because the heart, lungs, and muscle tone improve without recovery time needed to restore healthy muscle functions. Therefore, theoretically, a person could run the equivalent of ten miles while lucid dreaming, and then wake up, and with strong, fresh muscles, run ten real miles.”

  “Who’d want to do something stupid like that?”

  “Maybe a driven person, Hector?”

  “I could see it if I was chasing a chick.”

  Tabatha sighed and shook her head. “Is that all men think about? Sex?”

  He shrugged. “Pretty much.”

  *****

  Lopez sensed something major was brewing. Since Moats’s arrival, the two teams had spent a lot of time together swapping stories and strategies either in the lunchroom or over a beer. But Moats’s group had changed. They’d begun to withdraw, and they’d taken on a tight-lipped, darker attitude.

  Hyde sat behind his desk. Moats pulled up a chair next to Lopez.

  “Gentlemen,” Hyde began, “one of our ‘unknowns’ has always been what, if any, long-term effects the repeated exposure to dream linking would have on the subjects. Of course, for the current applications, little consideration was given to any potential negative effects on criminals and terrorists.”