Psychic Warrior Read online

  Mel was a skillful monitor who knew instinctively when the viewer had arrived at the target. “Tell me what you see, Dave.”

  “Um, I don’t see anything yet. It’s foggy here … and hot … . It’s hard to breathe.” I struggled to get my bearings and peer deeper into the haze. “It’s very muggy here.”

  “I understand,” Mel said. “But you need to move to where you can see. I’m going to give you a movement exercise. Pull back from the target to an elevation of five hundred feet. From there something should be visible.”

  I concentrated on moving through the ether to Mel’s designated spot. The mist blurred as I pulled back from the earth’s surface and hovered. There.

  Mel’s voice penetrated the ether again. “Describe your perceptions now.”

  “I see a white blanket of clouds covering the earth. There are points of jagged rock and foliage piercing the blanket. I can’t see through the mist to the surface, though.”

  “Okay, listen carefully. You haven’t done this type of movement before. You’ll be okay; just follow my instructions. I want you to travel in time to a point when the surface is clear and visible.”

  “How the hell do I do that?”

  “Concentrate on the movement. It’s no different from the others you’ve done. Concentrate on moving forward or backward in time until you see the surface below you.”

  Straining, I tensed my neck, rolled my head backward, and closed my eyes. I began to feel something moving through me, like an energy fluid or an electrical charge. I rocked my head forward and opened my eyes to see time peeling off the earth day by day, the picture beneath me changing with each passing moment.

  “Christ, that’s unbelievable!” I shouted.

  “Concentrate. You have to stop quickly when you get the picture you want.”

  I watched in amazement. The terrain below me remained unchanged, but the cloud patterns flickered and strobed their way through time, changing like a rapid-fire slide show. I noticed the cloud cover beginning to dissipate, slowly chiseled away at its outer perimeter. Focusing carefully, I waited for the exact moment. “Okay, I got it! It’s clear!”

  I thought I heard Mel laughing at my novice enthusiasm, but I couldn’t help it. This was like my first solo flight in an airplane—I was in control, but out of control.

  “All right, start your movement to the surface. Go back to the coordinate site and tell me what you see.”

  In an instant I was standing in a small clearing maybe thirty feet in diameter, surrounded by triple-canopy jungle. The trees towered around me in every direction, but through the undergrowth I could see another mountain in the distance. In the strange apparitional way one moves in the ether, I moved to the break in the undergrowth. My gaze fixed on the distant hills and rock formations; I lost track of the ground beneath me. At a break in the dense foliage, I paused to see what was around me. For some reason I looked down at my feet, only to find that I was floating in midair, hundreds of feet above the next level of the jagged rocks. With my eyes locked on the distance, I had walked out of the jungle and straight off a ledge into thin air. “Shit!” I exclaimed, startling Mel.

  “What? What’s wrong?”

  “I’m okay … . I’m okay. I just scared the hell out of myself there for a second, but I’ve got it now.”

  “I want you to go to the crash site. Get control of yourself and concentrate; go to the crash site.”

  “I’m moving there now—at least, that’s where I think I’m going. I’m beginning to move pretty quickly.” The trees and undergrowth were flashing past me in an iridescent green blur. I began to experience vertigo again, that sickening feeling in my stomach boiling up until I thought for sure I would vomit.

  Mel watched in amusement as my physical body grew pale and clammy. He had seen viewers bilocate to a target like this before. He had also seen them get sick before. “Concentrate on slowing down, Dave. You’re moving too fast … . Slow down … . Keep your bearings.”

  I tried as hard as I could to slow my progress, but it was like trying to stop a train. I kept moving at the same speed. My phantom body passed through anything that got in its way. When I hit small stuff, nothing happened; but when I hit bigger stuff, like trees and rocks, I felt as if a flat puff of air was hitting my face. It was the oddest thing I’d ever experienced. Everything I was perceiving began to darken, as if the sun were setting, but there was no longer any color, only gray and black. “Something’s wrong!” I shouted. “Something’s really wrong!”

  “What? Tell me what you see.”

  “Everything is turning dark … . Everything is …” I lost consciousness. My physical body lay there suspended between reality and the world I’d found in the ether. Mel left me to the silent world. He knew where I was; he’d been there.

  I opened my eyes as the shroud of darkness slowly withdrew. It was an eerie feeling standing there in some other world at some other time. I couldn’t tell if I was dreaming or not; the images before me were there, but not there. If I looked at them too hard, they turned into something else. I could see the ground beneath my feet, but I couldn’t feel anything. A light mist surrounded the place where I stood, thickening as it snaked back into the surrounding jungle.

  A roughly triangular object caught my attention and I approached it in the darkness. It was about a foot across and maybe two feet wide at the base, with jagged edges as though it had been ripped from where it belonged. I reached out to touch it, and gasped as my hand passed through to the other side. “Damn!” I looked at my hand to see if it was intact.

  Mel asked, “Would you like to tell me what happened?”

  “I’m sorry. I tried to touch something, a piece of something, but—”

  “You can’t touch anything. There’s nothing physical there. Don’t waste time trying, it only confuses you. Look for your target, but also search within yourself; focus on the event you came to witness. Think about—”

  “Wait!” I said. “Something’s moving. Over there, near the edge of the jungle, where the trees get thicker.” I moved to where I thought the noise came from, where I saw something down low, glistening in the eerie light. It was an object much like the first one, only bigger. I stared at it, trying to make it out.

  “That’s all that’s left,” said a voice from the mist.

  “Who’s there? Who said that?”

  “The Indians carried most of it away. It took them about a year. Anything useful to them is gone now. Just as well … it served its purpose.”

  A gaunt young man appeared in the mist some ten feet away from me. I could make out only his silhouette; nothing else was visible in the drifting haze. “Who are you?” I asked, squinting.

  “Has it been that long for you, David?”

  “What are you talking about? Been that long—?” And then it struck me. “Mike? Mike, is that you?” -

  “I wondered what it would be like again … . I’ve come to you so many times, but you just don’t remember.”

  “I do remember—it’s the dreams, right? You’ve come to me in the dreams, haven’t you?” I moved closer to the figure. I stopped about three feet away from him, but he was no more clear than he had been at ten feet.

  “It won’t help you to get any closer. This is as perfect as we get to your eyes.”

  “I can’t see your eyes or your face.”

  “That’s because you haven’t yet learned to see in this world. But you will. Those who came here before, they knew how to see. They watched us die. I felt them. I felt them in me and around me; they were very comforting. They helped me understand what had happened.”

  “What did happen?” Boy, I felt stupid asking that. I’d walked into it just as I always did when he was alive. I could almost feel him grinning.

  “Well, I died, of course.”

  “Of course. But what happened—I mean, what happened to the chopper?”

  “None of that is important anymore.” There was a long pause. “What’s important is for us to say
good-bye … and I love you. And thank you for taking care of Sharon all these years.”

  “How—?”

  “We see everything here. Forward, backward … everything. I watched you cry. I even watched your second daughter come into your world. I knew her before you did.”

  Eight years of emotion welled up inside me, and I felt tears streaming down my face. “Oh, Jesus.” I wept openly, overcome by grief and happiness.

  “It’s okay, David. It’s okay. Don’t weep for me.”

  “I’m not crying for you, you big ass. I’m crying because I miss you. You were my brother, and I miss you.” Mike stepped closer to me, and as he did I felt a warmth I cannot explain. He stood there close to me, watching me weep, and everything around me became lighter than before. It was as if there were an unseen light or energy around him, and his being close to me let me inside its protective glow somehow. I looked up at him, and I could see his face, his wonderful loving face, just as I had seen him eight years ago.

  “How are you?” he asked.

  I choked on my words, trying to be funny. “Well, better than you.” I tried to smile.

  Mike smiled back. “Oh, yeah? Who’s getting old, and who’s not?”

  “Yeah, you’re right about that.” I paused, trying to sort out the ten thousand things I wanted to say. I wanted to catch up on the void that eight years had brought to my life. “You know, I never got over your leaving me. Neither did Debbie or Sharon. You just couldn’t be explained, or accepted, or forgotten.”

  “Good—not being forgotten, that is. It’s kind of a status thing here.” He glanced around. “But acceptance—you need to feel that. You need to understand that I’m dead, but not gone. I’ve moved on to other things, things I can’t explain to you. You don’t have the eyes for it yet, but you will. That other guy with you now, what’s his name?”

  “Mel Riley.”

  “Yeah, that’s him, Mel Riley.” Mike sighed. “Well, he’s got the eyes, and I’ve seen him before. He’s a gentle man with an honest and giving heart. He wept when he found us. Listen to him and he’ll get you through all this. He’ll give you your eyes and the gift. I know you’ve seen others. They told me you were given a message in the desert. Listen to what you’re told, David; it’s important. Not just to you, but to all humanity.”

  I shook my head. “Now, wait a minute—”

  Mike interrupted me. “It’s time to say good-bye, Dave. I have to go; our business is over for now. You tell Debbie I miss her, and tell Sharon I’m happy for her as well. Tell her I said she should marry him.”

  I didn’t know what he was talking about, and it must have showed.

  “Just tell her that. She’ll understand.”

  I knelt there looking up at him as if he were a god. The tears came again as the warmth in me intensified. Mike reached out for me with his hand, touched my shoulder, and moved to brush my cheek. I was grateful for what I’d seen. I was filled with something I’d never known existed, something I couldn’t explain. I watched as Mike’s image paled in the light. “Don’t go,” I pleaded. “Please, don’t go.” I reached for the place where he had been only an instant before … and there was nothing. As the darkness crept back around me, a voice pierced it from somewhere: “Get your eyes, Dave.” And then there was nothing. I felt numb, kneeling there.

  “Time to come back, Dave,” said Mel’s calming voice. “You’re done for now. Break it off and come on back.”

  I did what I’d been taught, and the cycle began to reverse itself. Over the years, the process of accessing a target was to become easier for me. I eventually became one of the best viewers Mel had ever trained. But it wasn’t really anything I did. Mel was the teacher; he was the Watcher and I was to learn from him as a son learns from his father.

  I never forgot what Mike told me. Four years passed before I saw him again, there in the ether. But things were different that time; my life had changed and a new destiny was confronting me. This is the story of how I arrived at that destiny, and how I became the Watcher.

  ONE

  THE DAWN

  I spent my childhood in the army; I was a young nomad, traveling from post to post with my family. I knew nothing of life except what a soldier and a soldier’s wife taught me, and I never consciously expected to be anything but a soldier. When I was young I played games with soldiers’ children, and we always imitated our fathers. We were very proud of them even though we seldom saw them. Photographs from my youth are filled with images of plastic weapons, with miniature vehicles painted olive green with the words “U.S. Army” emblazoned on them. Every aspect of my young life centered on the army, its way of life, its weapons and equipment. By the age of four I could name most of the major exterior components of the army’s current tank.

  It was a life where you respected the authority of your father even though he was only an occasional presence. You learned to love the fading mental picture rather than the physical existence. You could say I was raised in a era of patriotism and service to the nation, an era that would pass, as I grew older, into a generation where outward rebellion was in vogue.

  My patriotic conviction drained from me under the steady pull of popular opinion, and what I had been taught to hold sacred gradually faded away into the fog of my teens. I finally succumbed to the tide of opprobrium against the war in Vietnam in 1970. During the conflict I opposed the traditions of my family, as I guess all children eventually do (at least that’s holding true for my son). I grew my hair long, wore clothing that would have fit well in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district, and essentially did anything that I thought might annoy my parents. Frankly, I’m surprised that I survived those years.

  In high school I spun from one focus to another, giving little thought to what the future held. My first year out of high school I spent doing pretty much nothing. I worked as a lifeguard and went rock climbing with my brother. I enrolled in a small community college, Mira Costa. Eventually I ran for and was elected president of the student body, which in turn led to a scholarship at a larger university. I also joined the Mormon church while I was there. Even though I was very much opposed to organized religion, the Mormon faith made sense to me, and I became a convert several months later. That was my first experience with institutional religion.

  Since my future had basically been handed to me, I’d never really concentrated on what else I might do. However, one thing was clear at this point: I had to move on. I sensed there was more for me somewhere out there, and I had to go and find it. Perhaps that is why I never earnestly tried to become a doctor, or a lawyer, or anything other than a soldier. Despite the gap I’d engineered between myself and my family, I think I always knew deep in the recesses of my mind that I had a destiny. We all have a destiny, and one fall day in 1975 I recognized mine.

  Planning on becoming a medical doctor, I attended Brigham Young University on a student leadership scholarship. I scheduled pre-med classes, told people of my plans, and so on. Fate confronted me high on a mountain overlooking Provo, Utah. Above the campus is a giant “Y,” the collegiate symbol of Brigham Young University. This “Y” requires a coat of whitewash every year to keep it visible to the entire valley. Hundreds of students form an old-fashioned bucket brigade and pass the heavy containers of slopping whitewash up a winding narrow trail, while an unlucky few sling the messy goop onto the rocks that form the “Y.” It was rumored among freshmen that this was a good place to “meet a mate.” I had a hard time understanding this “mate” thing. At BYU the concept of “date” and “mate” were often confused, as far as I was concerned. However, it didn’t take me long to figure out that things at this university tended to be looked at in “eternal” terms. After all, BYU was a church school. People got married, settled down, had children … and still went to school. I was new to this way of life, and a date sounded much better than a mate. But I gathered my courage, convincing myself that I would not succumb to the “mate” philosophy, and cautiously accompanied several friends t
o join the festivity.

  There were plenty of women there all right, but we were all so busy huffing and puffing and slinging those nasty buckets that few if any of us ever had the time or the breath to speak. By the time there was a moment for reflection, the day was nearly gone and I was covered head to toe with dirt and sweat and whitewash.

  I had managed to work my way toward the top of the bucket line, and as the final buckets of wash were scattered onto the rocks I turned for the first time to look out at the beautiful valley behind me. It was a stunning and wondrous place. At that moment I realized what the first Mormon settlers must have felt when they cast their gaze on it so many decades ago, and I welled up with an unexplained peace.

  Wiping the sweat from my brow with the back of a painted hand, I saw him—an army colonel standing there with the sun at his back, talking to a much younger man who was in fatigues as well. As ridiculous as it might sound, what I saw struck a chord. In all the confusion a nineteen-year-old man experiences, seeing this officer was like coming home again. I suddenly knew that my future was standing there in front of me. I joined the army ROTC program the next day.

  I loved being a cadet. I’d never felt so much in the right place. I learned more about myself in those few short years than I’d ever thought possible. I experienced the army, and the dedication and service it requires, from a new perspective. I was educated by good men, who saw my potential and mentored me from the beginning, picking up where my father had been forced, by my adolescent rebellion, to leave off.

  My father taught me how to understand and be sensitive to others, which is probably the most critical aspect of leadership. Without it you are only a manager; that’s the plight of many of today’s military executives. These men taught me how to lead. They shared with me the intimate experiences of battle, often bringing tears to my eyes. All of this they did with a spirit I have never before or since witnessed. They taught me to be an officer.