Beatrice was as seductive as a freight train and just as unreasoning. Her foreplay consisted of two English sentences.
"Okay. Now."
When the young man came out of her room, Rubin grabbed him and asked:
"Is she done? Did you satisfy her?"
"You're her husband. How can you ask that?"
"If you aren't enough, she'll want me."
"She's done," said the new bodyguard.
Ever so discreetly Rubin opened the door and entered his wife's boudoir. Apparently the sex had done something for her, because now she had an absolutely foolproof plan to kill the President of the United States and "get them off our backs forever."
Chapter 8
She was eighteen. She didn't know if that were old enough for someone so distinguished.
"Hell, honey, that's old enough. You're not too young. I'm just too married."
She laughed. She thought that was the smartest thing she had ever heard anyone say. She never knew anyone who could think of answers like that. Just right out of their head like that.
The Air Force colonel would have dismissed these remarks as absurd flattery except that they came from a strawberry blond. And she had just the sort of body he dreamed about. She came up to his shoulder and had breasts like cantaloupes. Colonel Dale Armbruster remembered using that word in describing just those kinds of breasts. It was in a character test he had taken at some kook place. He forgot the place. But Armbruster did remember it was free. And one of the questions was what his ideal sexual fantasy would be. He had described the woman. Very young, a fawning personality ... And her looks. Strawberry hair, short, just up to his shoulder, and breasts like cantaloupes.
"And what negative forces keep you from enjoying this?" the young questioner had asked.
"My wife and her attorney, who could draw blood from bone."
"So you are afraid of your wife? Would you like to live free from that sort of fear?"
"Sure. Wouldn't you?"
"I do," the questioner had told him.
"Yeah, but you're eighteen, and I am fifty-three."
"Do you feel that age hinders you?"
"No. There are just some limitations, that's all."
"In your job?"
"No. I like my job."
"What positive forces are at work that make you like your job?"
"I really can't go into it."
"Does your job bother you?"
"No. I just can't go into it."
"Do you feel some negative blocks stopping you from going into your job? You see, in Poweressence we know that what a person does is what a person is, not what he eats, but what he does. Do you know what I mean by that?"
"It's part of my job not to talk about what I do. No block on my part."
"Let's get back to your romantic blocks. Tell us exactly what you dream, because anything you dream you can have. All you have to do is think it. This world is not made for you to fail in. This world, the universe, is made for you to enjoy your full power."
The colonel went on for twenty minutes describing an affair he would like to have, and was surprised at how understanding his interviewer was. He got to like his interviewer. He even wanted to join because these people promised so much that if they delivered on only part of it, he would be getting more than his money's worth.
"Look, I'm sorry," he said at the end. "I can't join you or anything like you without endangering my job. I've got to be cleared for everything. I shouldn't even tell you what I do, but you give off such a nice positive feeling that I feel I have to give you some reason."
"All reasons can be overcome. Reasons are just other words for fear, as the greatest mind in the Western world, Rubin Dolomo, has said. Have you ever read any of Doiomo's books?"
"I don't read. I fly planes."
"Then why can't you join, and free yourself from letdowns, unhappiness, and doubt. Let us take all the worry out of your life."
"Because of the plane I fly."
"What can be so important about a plane that it can deny you the full use of your own life?"
"It's not the plane that's different. It's what's in it."
"If you carry atomic weapons, you are carrying the greatest negative force for mankind. Did you know that? Did you know that Rubin Dolomo says it is a prime example of power being destroyed by its negative implementation? Did you know that he was the first to understand atomic energy and what it meant to mankind?"
"It's not an atomic bomb. It's more important," Colonel Armbruster had said. And then he had leaned over and whispered:
"I fly Air Force One."
"The President!"
"Shhh," said Colonel Armbruster.
"I won't tell a soul. I will forget it now. I believe in nothing but goodness."
What the interviewer did not tell Colonel Armbruster was that the essence of goodness was Poweressence, therefore anything he did to enhance Poweressence enhanced goodness. That rendered a promise made to someone who was not part of Poweressence, and therefore no part of goodness, completely invalid. She also didn't mention that the Washington temple of Poweressence collected all such information from the tests.
What the interviewer herself did not know was that these bits of information, if valuable enough, were sold by the local temple to California headquarters, where Beatrice had them filed for future reference.
And what Colonel Armbruster did not know was that two years later it all was going to be used on him, that this perfect little dream who was playing up to him at his favorite lounge in Washington, D.C., had been taken from his favorite fantasy. Cantaloupe-sized breasts and strawberry-blond hair and adoration. All of it.
"I do have to get home to my wife," said Armbruster. The lounge was dark. The drink was good, the music was mellow, and Dale Armbruster smelled her perfume.
"Is that lilac?" he asked.