Purge & Breathe

“The target number is 57858. Locate the target,” the disembodied voice of the monitor crackled through an intercom.

Jack Singer was in another room lying back on a recliner, encased in soundproof, bulletproof, and radar-proof glass. His breathing was slow and deep, his face expressionless; he wasn’t asleep, but he looked like it. He was in an altered hypnotic state. In double-blind remote viewing sessions like these, an intelligence officer assigns a random number to an intelligence target. The number alone, without context, is provided to a human monitor, who issues that target number to the remote viewer. Psychics like Jack can then use their abilities to locate the object, person, place, or thing that is associated with that target number.

Jack was part of a covert black-ops project conducted by the U.S. military that used psychics to spy on foreign governments. He was one of several soldiers selected for the program, all with heavy combat experience who had survived massacres and appeared to have some sort of sixth sense—they seemed to know when to zig to avoid a mortar shell and zag to avoid setting off IEDs. It was like he instinctively knew when to duck, cover, or take a pass. Years earlier, Jack’s platoon had been ambushed in Ramadi and he had been the sole survivor of the vicious firefight between insurgents and his SEAL team.

Jack brought some saliva to the front of his mouth; he was slow and sluggish as he began to whisper. “It smells like leather and paper. It’s smooth to the touch, the color is black… it’s small. I’m getting a water motion. It feels rocky. I have a crew member ID number 9410755. I see a ship.” Jack started sneezing, “Darn cats… I’m allergic,” he mutters in a stupor. “I see navigational charts. The coordinates are…”

Next door, Captain Russell observed Jack’s session. When Jack called out the location, Russell sprang into action. “We have a direct hit!” He could barely contain himself. It was a visceral reaction—his palms were sweating and his heart started to pound. He was finally getting results. “Keep at it”, he said to the monitor. “Extract as much information about the target as possible”. He sprinted from the room.

Russell’s mind was spinning. Two days earlier, a Russian sleeper agent had been uncovered and was now on the run from the CIA. They believed he had coded intelligence as well as access to Russian black-ops funds; funds totaling over 100 million in cryptocurrency, all secured in paper keys. Given Jack’s information, it’s likely a small notebook… you can’t hack paper. The CIA’s team lost the operative in Miami, so they called in Russell’s psychic ops team. He needed this win.

***

The operative crouched low. He thought he’d gotten away clean, but he wasn’t in the clear yet. And he had to get this intel back to the Russians. He needed a way out for himself, and a separate way for the intel.

Spying a series of cruise ships ready to set sail, he made his way to the back of the terminal where the luggage had been sorted and ready for loading. Luggage handlers were everywhere and there was no time for him to figure out the organization; no way to tell where each group of luggage was headed or on which ship. He was running out of options.

Thinking quickly, he scanned a pile of suitcases. There was one suitcase style he recognized. It had a small pocket that nobody ever used because it was inconveniently placed and inconveniently sized. He slipped his trusty black Moleskin notebook inside. Hopefully the owner was like everyone else and would never notice the notebook stashed there. Acting quickly, the operative snapped a picture of the bag tag. Hopefully when he escaped, his handlers would be able to track it down. Dodging terminal employees, he slunk back into the shadows and disappeared into the crowd.

But what he didn’t realize was that he hadn’t stashed the book in a passenger’s suitcase. It was actually a crew member’s.

***

Luca was rejoining the ship after a vacation. He had brought his African serval cat, Sasha, with him. Sasha was still recovering from an injury from an illusion gone wrong. He’d had her since she was a kitten and had trained her for his shows. He was the ship’s illusionist. When he arrived at his cabin, he was pleased to see that his luggage was already there. Exhausted, he let Sasha out of her crate and fell on the bed, hoping to catch a couple of hours of sleep before the big show that night. He heard the sound of the cruise ship’s foghorn signaling the ship was setting sail and drifted off to sleep.

An hour later, he awoke to the sound of scratching. Sasha was pawing at his suitcase. At first, he thought she was after her treats. But they weren’t in that suitcase. He realized she was interested in the small pocket on the side of his suitcase. He never used it. It was too small to store a pair of shoes and too big to stash small change.

“No, Sasha, no.”

Sasha persisted, sniffing and pawing at the case. Sasha weighed in around fifty pounds. Wild, she would have been dangerous, but Luca had trained her well. Still, sometimes she could get feisty and he did not want that, especially since she was still recovering.

“What is it?” he finally said, getting to his feet. He opened the compartment and a small black notebook fell out. He quickly examined the notebook; it wasn’t his. But it was definitely his suitcase. How did the notebook get in there? he wondered.

When Luca looked inside, he saw nonsense words scrawled across the pages, clearly some type of code. Another page caught his eye—it was filled with what looked like account keys. This was an encryption key. But to which cryptocurrency sites? He decided to just try them one by one. He fired up his laptop and started quickly searching the usual exchanges. After several attempts, he logged on to Gemini, entered the correct key, and he was in! He couldn’t believe what he saw—thousands of dollars in cryptocurrency. And it was just the first key of many.

Luca had just transferred the money into his own digital wallet when a knock came at the door calling him to the stage. “Be right out,” he called. He was $20,000 richer, and he took a quick look into the next account—several million dollars… his heart nearly stopped at the prospect. He could finally be free. It was the first time he’d felt hope in a long time. But there was no time—the rest of the keys would have to wait. He had a show to perform. This would be his last tour and then he could retire forever.

One Hour Later

Captain Russell landed on the ship’s helipad in a Chinook helicopter, along with a SEAL team. Jumping off the chopper, the team spread out to secure the ship. Russell was greeted by the first officer. Captain Russell shouted over the roar of the chopper blades “We need to speak with the ship’s magician.”

The first officer ran to the bridge to call the stage manager and explained the situation.

“I’m sorry, sir, we can’t. He is in the middle of the escape. If we stop the show now, we may not be able to kill the pyrotechnics in time, and he and his assistant could be hurt.”

The stage manager could see Luca across the stage in the wings waiting to start the finale. He waved at Luca to turn on his ear com. “There are military men who just boarded the ship. They need to speak with you immediately.”

Luca had to actively calm his body to hide his panic. Thinking quickly, he grabbed a few supplies from backstage, hiding them in his costume, then entered the stage handcuffed and blindfolded carrying a hundred-pound weight attached to his leg irons. He shuffled but was able to move quickly enough with the guidance of his lovely assistant. A large cable attached to his waist hoisted him up into the air and then slowly submerged him into a massive, shark-infested aquarium.

The packed audience gasped as Luca sank to the bottom of the aquarium, ever so still, as the deadly fish swarmed around him. A timer above the cage started to run. The audience was in full view watching Luca attempt to release himself from the leg irons and the handcuffs, all the while holding his breath, blindfolded, and making minimal movement so as not to attract the sharks. Sixty seconds later, a large pyrotechnic flash went off that blinded the audience. When the smoke cleared, Luca should have been standing triumphant in front of the tank sans shackles. But no Luca… just a shark-filled tank and a cloud of red…

Dripping wet, Luca smashed through his cabin door. His cat shrieked and hissed. He regretted he couldn’t take her with him. He’d miss her. He emptied the large plastic bag with her treats into her cage and Sasha began devouring them. He stuffed the notebook into the plastic bag then grabbed his waterproof backpack and tossed the notebook, laptop, and some essentials into it. Sprinting to the outer deck, he started mentally preparing for his jump and the subsequent swim to a nearby island. Luckily, he was in fantastic shape—he had to be given that he was shirtless every night in front of the audience. He looked over the guardrail; the ocean was peaceful and quiet. He could hear the sound of boots on the deck getting closer. His ruse may have worked on the crowd, but apparently not on the soldiers.

Luca took a deep breath and dove into the ocean. He could hear the man-overboard alarm ringing from the ship as he landed with a loud splash. He gasped for breath while trying not to inhale water. The dive had knocked the wind out of him. He floated his bruised body onto his side and began to take control of his breathing, just like he had done many times before in his shows. The panic subsided and he started to swim

In mere minutes, he could hear the rescue teams coming after him, and the spotlight from the Chinook circling overhead was getting closer. They were sure to find him—his only option was to freedive—hyperventilating to purge oxygen from his lungs and then holding his breath for several minutes underwater—anytime the rescue boats or the Chinook’s spotlight grew near.

Evading capture, he finally reached shore, he found a small internet café and immediately tried to transfer the rest of the crypto. He could skip town for good and outrun the loan sharks that he’d been ducking for months. His gambling debts were now inconsequential. He logged into the accounts…only to find that all the cryptocurrency was gone! All he had was the original $20,000 he’d transferred earlier. All the blood drained from his face. He felt like he had been kicked in the teeth.

***

Halfway around the world, Russian General Alexeyev asked, “Did our remote viewing team locate the accounts? Was it a direct hit?”

“Yes, General,” his assistant replied, “We recovered over 100 million in cryptocurrency. However, one account had already been emptied and we could not recover the physical notebook with the intelligence.”

“Disappointing. How much money are we missing?”

“$20,000,” the man replied.

Alexeyev let out a big laugh, “Let him keep it.”

***

Luca closing his eyes began deep breathing to calm himself down. He could feel his heartbeat starting to lower. Flashes of images came to his mind, a man behind glass, a foreign military uniform, a shadowy figure, his suitcase. His eyes shot wide open “I know how they did it… I can get it ALL back.”