Cargo 069. Александр Скуридин

very good rate,” the Congressman agreed. He paused and said impressively: “But we, as a commission in charge of special missions, need something more, which is your direct participation in our foreign campaigns.”

      “What do you mean by participation?” Lieutenant Colonel started getting worried. “We have a totally different specificity!”

      He understood well: if mages would be involved directly to support special operations, that is, to participate in them… Oh! Then the sensitives staff would soon reduce due to combat losses and the unit disappeares! No, he had to object this unreasonable decision. Mages should fight only virtually!

      “You misunderstood me, my dear Henry,” Scott said in a conciliatory way. “You think that the special missions are connected only with shooting and explosions. We must work for the future of America. I’m more concerned with the secrets you can get by moving into the past. For example, Nazi Germany once strongly outscored all the leading world powers, including ours.

      Transferring to an individual is good. But settlement or substitution (replacement) of one person’s consciousness with the other’s is totally amazing! The CIA archives picked up at the defeated Third Reich contain the mentioning of this unique technique. And it is you, Jimmy, who must turn your people who are now in India, to deal with this particular topic upon arrival in Tibet. My committee will give so much money that you couldn’t even dream about, my dear Lieutenant Colonel. And you will become a General!

      “Yes, sure, ok… I’ll meet Major Gottlieb and Sergeant Gordon immediately and psyche them up accordingly,” Lieutenant Colonel Wood hastened to assure his valued guest. The prospect of becoming a General was very inspiring.

      After Jimmy Scott’s departure, Henry gingerly walked through the training classes, inspiring battle mages for new achievements in the name of true democracy worldwide. Then he gathered the teachers, the “elite” of his military unit as he called them. Wood set a task before his elite: to help Archibald Gottlieb and Miss Gordon meet the right people and find out all the secrets that can exalt America!

      The assistance was in energy feeding of the above-mentioned individuals who are on the front line of the struggle against Russia, China and all those countries that are still beyond the USA control.

      In view of the changed tasks of the unit, Henry Wood urgently booked a plane ticket to Beijing.

      Sitting in the airplane taxiing out to the start, he fully appreciated the situation with Congressman Scott. Yes, what the head of the commission suggested surpassed Wood’s early assumptions about Gottlieb and Gordon. They need to value such employees rather than work against them!

      So Henry decided to be much more friendly with them.

      Chapter 9

      Bystrov “acknowledged and agreed to unquestioning fulfillment” of the order of the commanding Lieutenant General. He and Vitya Kotov started preparing for the next, a very specific business trip.

      Preparation included a conversation with the guys who brought us the consciousness transfer technique. There were three of them. Actually, the extrasensory scouts had nothing new to report. They just told him that they had met a Tibetan who called himself Vangyal on the very last day of their stay in Lhasa.

      A peddler approached the three Russians sitting in the hotel courtyard and offered to buy an ancient manuscript. Valka the Sailor, head of the group, unfolded the scroll and asked about its value. The peddler replied in pure English:

      “Just one dollar.”

      The Russian was surprised with the cheapness so Vangyal silently whispered in his ear:

      “I’m not interested in money.”

      It was quite interesting: a peddler, one might say, ignored the lust of many people on the planet. It was clear that one dollar was a symbolic price.

      When the strange transaction was completed, the unmercenary Tibetan strongly ignoring dollars and yuans again leaned toward the buyer’s ear:

      “Give it to Dmitry” and handed him a medallion.

      “What Dmitry?” Valka the Sailor goggled his eyes in amazement.

      “Your Dmitry, of course…” was the reply.

      Vangyal picked up his stall and stepped toward the patio exit.

      No, he neither came out nor jumped out! As the members of the extrasensory trio told each other, the Tibetan simply dissolved into the air!

      They have just seen a man and suddenly he’s been gone!..

      Then, the three carefully examined the scroll in the hotel’s lobby. To tell the truth, they did not understand anything in these strange letters. The group got something although no one ever offered them any secrets. And then all of a sudden – the manuscript!.. As you know, in an empty field, a beetle is meat. Maybe the scroll has a special secret meaning?

      The scout tourists truly admired the amulet. It was made of bronze and shaped as a circle that symbolized infinity. The circle of eight and a half centimeters had an embossed image of Buddha in the lotus position. The circle was attached to an elegant chain to wear the amulet on the neck.

      After returning to Moscow, they submitted a detailed report to the superiors. The scroll was delivered to the Institute of Oriental Studies where it was properly translated. The text of the Tibetan sages gave much in understanding the problem. But still, there was something behind the scenes.

      The whole trick was that the percipient could enter the recipient’s consciousness but could not control the latter. This was a significant gap and its elimination gave a wide field for parapsychological activities. If you learn how to run the show, it would be possible to change the past, and hence the future, within some reasonable scope. And these were two tasks that were not just relevant but really global…

      Colonel Burlak ordered to transfer the Tibetan amulet to his rightful owner: “Tibetan Vangyal obviously meant our Lieutenant Colonel.”

      From then on Dmitry always wore the amulet around his neck, close to the chest. Sveta expressed an exceptional female interest in this “strange little thing”. But her husband scaled back her curiosity saying that the amulet was designed to protect its owner.

      Bystrov unconsciously and even instinctively wiped the tiny head of the amulet Buddha and… saw a man in an orange robe on the “inner screen”.

      “As a genie from the Aladdin fairy tale…” Dmitry thought.

      “I’m not a genie,” said the man wearing a Buddhist monk’s robe. “I’m the one who your friends know as Vangyal.”

      “Do you… really exist?..” was Bystrov’s internal message.

      “You bet!” The monk laughed. “And it wasn’t accidental that you rubbed Buddha’s forehead. This is your ancestral amulet.”

      “Ancestral?..”

      “Well, yes. You wore it when you were a monk, my best student in a past life.”

      “Will I see you?” Dmitry asked with concealed hope. He was vaguely recalling a man from his former incarnation who was closer to him than his own father.

      “Yes, in the Ganden Monastery…” was the answer.

      And the figure of Vangyal began to melt.

      What was it? Who was there, right now, in his, Bystrov’s, consciousness? And was this meeting real? Or was it just his imagination? “Did I really find… my former guru whose existence I suspected a long time ago?”

      Some day there will be an answer to these questions. No, not “someday”, but quite soon: Dmitry and Victor Kotov will fly to China tomorrow.

      Bystrov was in his office thinking about the tricks of fortune. It turned out that there was quite an interesting combination in Dmitry’s life: he was currently an officer of the Chief Intelligence Directorate and… a Buddhist monk in the past! This resembled being a communist with a party card and a cross on your chest in Soviet times.

      He forced himself to calm down, then turned