Randy White - Night Vision

It requires an intellect of the first magnitude, yet it is still a magician’s trick.

I said, “Knock it off, Tomlinson. She has to work tomorrow. We can take my truck or your VW. Either way, we’ve got a long drive. If we’re going, let’s go.”

Emily stood, neatening papers to return to my Sharks of Lake Nicaragua file. “We’ll take my car,” she said. “He’s right, my Jaguar’s fast. As in, scary fast. I’ll call my office in the morning. I can take a personal day if we don’t make it back tonight. Is there a hotel near this place we’re going?”

I said, “Yes. Sort of,” remembering a Bates Motel-looking place at the edge of town called Sawgrass Motor Court. I felt like I should offer her another chance to beg off but didn’t want to risk it. Instead I said, “Immokalee’s only an hour, maybe forty minutes, in a decent vehicle. Don’t worry about it, we’ll be back here before one-thirty in the morning. Probably earlier.”

“Or we could stay at my cottage,” she offered. “It’s not Sanibel-but what is? You’ll like it, though. It’s an old Florida Cracker house”-she was looking around my lab-“sort of like this. All yellow pine. Wood so hard, you can still smell the turpentine sap when you drill. I have two bedrooms, and it’s close to the Interstate-on the river, near Alva.”

Tomlinson was standing at the printer now, waiting for something to finish. His eagerness to get on the road, all as his nervous energy, was suddenly gone.

He handed me several printouts. One was a map of Immokalee, churches and restaurants marked. Another was a Google Earth satellite photo. It took me a moment to realize it was the four hundred acres that Melinski had mentioned. According to tax records, it was owned by Harris Squires’s mother.

I was using a magnifying glass on the satellite shot, seeing what might have been an RV hidden in the trees, as Tomlinson said, “Doc, can I talk to you for a minute? Alone.”

I replied, “If it has something to do with Emily, go ahead and say it.” Then I had to wonder why my normally talkative pal suddenly went very quiet.

It took several seconds before Tomlinson finally said to Emily, “I don’t want to upset you, but I get premonitions sometimes. That’s why I was asking you about Doc. I wanted to see if your karmas are connected.”

Emily said, “Our karmas?” as if she didn’t understand but was willing to listen.

“I’m a psychic sensitive,” Tomlinson told her, pouring himself another shot of Patron. “An empathetic, too. In fact-and this is something I don’t share this with many people-I was employed by our own damn government as an expert on what they called remote viewing. I’d have never done it if I’d known who was paying me. Ask the good doctor if you don’t believe me.”

I nodded a confirmation. While still in college, Tomlinson had worked for the CIA during a time in history when the Soviets and the U.S. had recruited people who, after completing a very bizarre military test, were believed to have paranormal powers. The CIA called the project Operation Stargate. Stargate was fully funded by Congress until 1995, when wiser heads prevailed.

Tomlinson was looking at the woman, his voice soft, as he continued, “I just found something that gives me a very bad feeling about Emily making this trip. For Doc and me, it doesn’t matter. We’ve lived and died a dozen times. But you… you’re fresh, you’re new. I’ve got a feeling something bad’s going to happen tonight if you go to Immokalee. It’s because of your karmic linkage with Doc and me.”

“Are you stoned?” Emily asked him, serious.

“I was,” he replied, giving it some thought. “ Cannabis interruptus -the girl’s disappearance has completely screwed up my schedule. On a lunar scale, I’d say I’m closer to the Sea of Crises than the Sea of Tranquillity. We can share a spliff if you want-but later. Right now, I’d like you to take a look at this.”

Emily’s expression asked me Is he for real? as she reached for a photo he was handing her, something he’d just printed from the Internet. I intercepted the thing and took a look. It was a pen-andink drawing from the time of the Spanish Inquisition. A Mayan pyramid in the background. In the foreground, a woman, tied to a ladder, was being tilted toward a roaring fire by Conquistadors.

I passed the drawing to Emily as I asked, “What does this have to do with her, for Christ’s sake? You’re getting her upset for no reason.”

“Look at the face,” Tomlinson replied, voice calm now but concerned. “I don’t know why it caught my eye, but it did. There’s a connection. I’m not sure what, but I don’t think Emily should go with us.”

“You think this woman looks like me?” Emily asked. “I’m flattered, I guess. We’re both dressed in white, is that what you’re saying? If it wasn’t for the gown, she could be a nice-looking boy.”

After a moment, she added, “Our cheekbones, I guess, are similar, and… she has a sort of plain face, like mine. But don’t most women have plain faces? And the hair’s completely different.”

The image of the adolescent girl, Tula Choimha, came into my mind. I wondered why Tomlinson didn’t make the association, it was so obvious. But why lend credence to a preposterous assertion by asking a pointless question?

Emily handed the drawing back to me as she said to Tomlinson, “It’s sweet of you, but, come on, be serious. I don’t believe in this sort of thing. If you don’t want me tagging along, just say so. All of that pseudoscience nonsense-precognition, astrology, clairvoyance, numerology. Sorry, I’ve never been able to take that sort of thing seriously.”

The woman put her hand on my shoulder. “Doc, talk some sense into him, would you?”

Tomlinson replied, “It’s called tempting fate when we ignore our own instincts.”

He turned to me. “I really don’t think she should go, man. Something bad’s going to happen. I can feel it. If you want, stay here with her, I’ll go to Immokalee on my own. It has something to do with fire, I think.”

He took the drawing from my hands, giving it serious thought. “That’s what came into my mind when I saw this. Fire… and pain. Something terrible. Why risk it?”

I felt ridiculous, caught in the middle. Emily was waiting for me to agree with her-we were both scientists, after all. Tomlinson, my pal, was asking me to respect his instincts.

To me, it was more than that. Intellectually, I knew there could be no rational linkage between a random drawing and what might or might not happen to Emily on this very real Wednesday night in March.

Logically, it was absurd. Emotionally, though, I couldn’t let go of the fact-and it is a fact-that Tomlinson’s intuition, although often wrong, is also more than occasionally right.

As I took the drawing from Tomlinson’s hands, saying, “Let me see that again,” Emily gave me an incredulous look that said You can’t be serious?

I looked at the thing, paying no attention to the details because I was carrying on an argument in my head. Debating Tomlinson in the comfort of the lab, or sitting over beers aboard his sailboat, is one thing. But human certitude is an indulgence that can be enjoyed only in a cozy and safe environment.

It irritated me to have to admit it to myself, but, wrong or right, Tomlinson had asked a reasonable question: Why risk it?

As I placed the drawing on the dissecting table, Emily said to Tomlinson, “We’re not being fair to Doc. I can almost see his mind working. Choose between his best friend or agree with a woman he’s just met? That’s not something he’d do to us, so I’ll make it simple. I withdraw. I’ll see you guys tomorrow evening for drinks, if you want. You can fill me in.”