* * * * *
BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA
(JANUARY 6, 1968)
Officially, the House of Yu was just a Hong Kong-based banking firm. owned by a family of Fukienese descent. And, officially, Nigel Smythe was just a solicitor in the service of Vancouver branch manager Yu Nohu. Yet, the conversation the two men were having was anything but official!
"Is it done?" asked the elderly Chinese.
"Yes, sir," nodded the middle-aged Englishman: "Our people in Hanoi smuggled it to Hong Kong; melted the gold down into less conspicuous ingots; and then exchanged the latter for diamonds in South Africa. Once we convert them into American dollars, the laundering process will be complete!"
"Excellent!" beamed Yu Nohu.
"Where am I to deliver the money?" the solicitor now asked: "His campaign headquarters in Oregon?"
"Not just yet."
* * * * *
BOHEMIAN GROVE, CALIFORNIA
(TWENTY-FOUR HOURS LATER)
"Are you satisfied, sir?"
"Immensely so," declared Richard Nixon: "So much so, in fact, that I'll let your employer keep half this money in exchange for a special favor. One that I hope his people can accomplish more successfully than the job I contracted them for back in '52!"
"That was before my time with them, sir," Smythe replied with grudging courtesy: "But, I'll relay your message, regardless. What is the precise nature of this favor?"
"Are you familiar with former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy?"
* * * * *
WASHINGTON, D.C.
APRIL 1, 1968
"Are you sure about this, Bob?" asked Rear Admiral Buckler.
General Robert H. Phillips nodded.
"I can't make the life-and-death decisions expected of me with the same...clarity...any more, Josh. Kathy's death was just too much for me!"
"Understandable," replied the admiral: "Yet, headmaster of a Midwestern military school? Most people would regard that as...over-compensating."
"Well, maybe I can teach the young men of Culver to avoid the mistakes I made, during their own future rises in rank."
The two old warhorses shook hands and parted company. Whereupon, Admiral Buckler went over to his predecessor's desk and began looking through the latest progress reports from the Miniscule Operations Command.
* * * * *
M.O.C. HEADQUARTERS
(OCTOBER 17, 1972)
Dr. Ezra Long looked at the black-and-white photograph Bryce Paxton had just handed him.
"Buenos Aires," remarked the latter: "January, 1946. That's me on the right. Although, very much younger, of course. That burly old-timer on the left was my partner, Canute McGee. And the bearded guy with the black beret, standing between us? Bitor Belmondo; a Basque mercenary who posed as our 'locally hired' interpreter. Half of everything I know about espionage I learned from them. Canute, especially!"
Dr. Long smiled and nodded:
"I know. I've read his file. Prohibition-era gangbuster; decorated twenty-year veteran of the Marine Corps, before that; and the son of a genuine gun-slinging Federal marshal of the Old West! You couldn't have asked for better tutors, back then."
Then, he grew serious.
"Are you sure you won't change your mind, Bryce? I mean, let's face it. You'll be a tough act to follow. For crying out loud, you're not even sixty-one, yet!*"
Paxton nodded: "Nixon's visit to China made it clear to me that the lines of battle in this Cold War have gotten too blurry. Former war-time allies becoming enemies and vice-versa. Only to become tentative allies, again?! You're more mentally and emotionally able to cope with paradoxes like that than I am. That's why I recommended you, to the oversight committee, as my successor."
Dr. Long sighed: "Well, in that case; I'll do my best not to let you down."
Paxton smiled: "I know you will."
Dr. Long kept his promise for the seventeen years preceding his own eventual retirement. By which time, General Phillips had left Indiana's Culver Academy to head up the collegiate ROTC unit at the newly-opened Union Cities Annex of Bowling Green and Ball State Universities.
[More affectionately known, to the locals, as "Bowling Ball State."]
The latter was talked into it, in fact, by Bryce Paxton, himself, during a Christmastime reunion in 1989.
"Bryce?!" the septuagenarian general had exclaimed: "What the frig are you doing here? I thought you were enjoying the good life in Hawaii, now."
"Yep! I'm Lodge President of the Knights of Melion in Honolulu. A cushy job; but, someone's got to do it!"
The two old comrades laughed and gave each other a brotherly hug (after Paxton first put down a rather cumbersome, gift-wrapped box). Then, the slightly older visitor got to the point of his visit.
"I understand you're planning to become a beach comber down in Florida, pretty soon."
Phillips nodded.
"These increasingly old bones of mine can't stand many more Midwestern winters."
"Well, if you ask me (and I'm well aware you didn't), I think that's a tremendous waste of your talent and experience."
"Heh! Says the old fossil who was born in 1911."
"I'm serious, Bob."
Paxton, in fact, looked down right grim.
"What's eating you, Bryce? Why are you really, here?"
Paxton countered with a question of his own.
"How would you like to insure that no one else's sons and daughters would ever have to die in another useless military conflict overseas?"
"I would say...how much 'medicinal marijuana' have you been smoking?"
"I'm dead serious, Bob. Allow me to demonstrate."
Whereupon, Paxton snapped his fingers. Following which...a two foot-tall "toy" flying burst forth from the box and shrank the retired general with a white beam of light!
The dome on the saucer then retracted before another white beam of light was emitted. One that now shrank Paxton to the same size (six inches tall) prior to both men being lifted upward by two more white beams and placed under the dome that subsequently closed up and over them.
Phillips, still somewhat disoriented, could only manage to gasp out: "What on Earth...?"
To which Paxton replied: "Earth has nothing to do with it, Bob. Welcome to Project: Short Leash."
THE END?
*For crying out loud..." was the 1960's version of "Shut the front door!"
Giantess World
Author's Chapter Notes:
EPILOGUE
Chapter End Notes:
To be continued in INVASION OF THE BATON TWIRLERS FROM OUTER SPACE after the New Year.
Until then? Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!!!
Until then? Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!!!