OVERVIEW THERAPY

OVERVIEW THERAPY

“This is crazy,” thundered William Casey, his face muscles drawn into a pained snarl. “Why is Zambia wasting billions of dollars funding a road to nowhere?”

“That is why we brought this to your attention, William,” Admiral Poindexter spread his palms explaining. “At the Council, we found this whole thing very strange. They must have something up there sleeves.”

“They may as well construct one on the moon,” William Casey came back; disdain working into his soul like cognac.

“Masompe seems to be so important to them,” Poindexter continued. “That is hardly the only urgent construction going up there. There is a huge dome-shaped structure with a screaming name; OVERVIEW CENTRE.”

“Yes, you are right, John,” William Casey looked at the memo critically. “According to your memo, if ten lines of ink on paper can qualify to be that; they have even constructed three-level six airports as well.”

“What is a level six airport?”Major General John Singlaib wrinkled his face in confusion. He was more familiar with weapon names.

“Something bristling with a class like the Dulles international airport,” Poindexter replied. Even the hotels are being upgraded to five-star level.”

“Why call such an expensive infrastructure overview center, of all names?” John Singlaib wrinkled his nose in disgust. “What are they overviewing?”

“Something to do with how an astronaut feels when he views the earth from the moon perhaps,” Frank Carlucci eyed the general with mild contempt. “The feeling was first reported by Michael Collins but popularized by some author called White.”

“What can someone do with the overview feeling?”Larry Speaks spoke for the first time.

“Dr. Brasca has written a treatise in which he claims it can cure all diseases,” Admiral Poindexter smacked his lips. He had a memory like a book.

“But how does that draw in Tower-64?” John Singlaib eyed the admiral for some clarification. “Could they be researching weapons as well?”

The admiral nodded his cube-shaped head vigorously but stopped when the CIA chief started talking.

“What are our satellites picking?”The CIA director got more worried. “Let me see the photos from the high altitude Key-Hole satellite.”

“The Strategic Air Command is complaining of some kind of jamming by the Zambians,” Poindexter said, "we can’t see anything at all, our photos are little more than a high school atlas."

“But Zambian satellites are seeing everything here, the open sky treaty, remember?” Casey groaned like a man critically short on oxygen. “They must open up there damned sky, what are they hiding from us?”

“A useful scapegoat when times are convenient,” Frank Carlucci exclaimed. “We would shut our sky completely if we ”

Just then, a door jerked open with creaking hinges; a junior staffer entered and saluted. His face was beaming excitedly.

“Director,” he yelped like a small puppy, “This may interest you, Sir.”

“What is it?”Casey again turned his whole body eagerly to face the young man. He almost leaped from his chair extending a hand vainly attempting to receive something. His eyes dilated anxiously while the heart was thrown into a galloping pulse like a marathon runner on the finishing line.

“The thing from Zambia, sir…,” the young man said as he removed the cap. He may have been unaware that his unhurried approach was killing the director.

“What thing from Zambia?”The chief growled in desperation but still hopeful that probably the young man could improve his performance.

“The latest news sir,” the young man concentrated on folding his cap.

“Damn you!”William Casey slammed a fist on the table. The glass flew up spilling the cherry red bourbon scotch on some papers. “Can’t you for once get to the point a bit faster?”

“I am sor..,” he was cut short by a sudden burst of activity at the door.

“Everybody out, please!”William Casey’s surgeon had entered the room upon hearing his patient shouting.

“What do you want here?” William Casey dropped his glasses and glared at his doctor with real hate. It was clear he wished him dead or imprisoned in Siberia for starters.

“To take care of you, sir,” the doctor came to an abrupt stop, narrowly missing the door which was not closed completely. “The condition of your heart…..,” he was saying as he tried to point with his stethoscope.

“Get out!”William Casey uncharacteristically hounded his doctor out of his room. “We are busy, isn’t it obvious?”

 He then straightened his zebra tie as he watched the alarmed doctor vanish behind the door. It was slammed shut immediately.

Then, the chief nodded to the young staffer; “Yes, Oliver, be quick, what do you have on Zambia?”The director was fighting hard to contain the adrenaline surge bursting his veins. He just had to cool down, yes not to show too much interest in what a junior staffer had to offer. But the bubbling heart indicated that he was attempting an alien exercise. He was traumatized by a desire to hear the news.

“Margaret Thatcher has just come back from Masompe,” Oliver said.

“Pwehh!”The chief exhaled loudly. “Thanks for informing me.” The disappointment on his face was phenomenal.

“What did she go there for?” Admiral Poindexter rapidly chewed the words, his dish-shaped mouth making him look like a cartoon. “The woman has been bedridden for ages since the afterglow of the Falklands war.”

“She went there for treatment,” Oliver said. “She is now as fit as a fiddle as the saying goes.”

“What treatment can someone get from those Neanderthals still stuck up in the Stone Age?” Singlaib threw his arms in mockery. “I thought it was some Commonwealth meeting that drew her to that colony.”

“Dr. Brasca is a world-class doctor with bizarre skills,” Frank Carlucci pulled his tall frame; “if he is in the Stone Age than we may just be salamanders walking out of the swamps.”

“Rumour has it that she was completely gone..,” Richard Secord came in with an inimical eye turned on the general. He was cut short by the CIA chief who was still fighting to settle down from the peak of excitement.

“I didn’t realize our Iron Lady would make it,” he pointed out while wiping the pall of hair where the baldness starts. “This Masompe must be something worth looking into.”

Just then a heavily bearded man was ushered in. He was wearing a tuxedo suit that fit poorly and his eyes were the steady commando-type.

“Ya! Ya! Ya!” it was Singlaib; he had jumped from his chair. Ululating like a little girl who had come out first in a class test, he started pumping the new man priming him for introductions. “The man from Mossad, how is the heat in those desert sands?”

“Oh, John!”The man answered touching a bullet wound on his shoulder. It was bleeding through the bandage. “Times are hard but improving. We are no longer a nation endangered by a surprise Arab wipe-out.”

“This is Colonel Lavu Moderchai, Mossad,” Singlaib turned to William Casey with a little smile tugging his lips into a line. He looked like someone enjoying the present moment.

The CIA boss shook hands before ordering everyone to take seats. The Mossad man sat next to his long time comrade- in -arms; Major General John Singlaib.

“Your chief said something about critical documents,” William Casey started without wasting time. He was watching the Mossad man with eyes just above the rims of glasses, eyes that glittered with interest. But for once, the CIA chief looked awed by the tiny pygmy from America’s military outpost in the Middle East. The next events almost crashed His heart.

“You look thirsty,” Singlaib grabbed the hand of the Mossad man and hurriedly shunted him away to a canteen. The two buddies were laughing hilariously all the way.

“What game is Singlaib playing here, admiral?” William Casey asked, a bit disconsolate. “Why did he take away the man before we could debrief him?”

“No malice is intended, William,” Admiral Poindexter scratched his wide forehead like a schoolboy writing some hard exam. “John is with us through thick and thin, a conceptualized epitome of the dyed-in-the-wool Yankee warrior.”

“How is that?” William Casey glared at his colleague with something akin to mild disgust.”Quite a mouthful ha!”

“Look at his record in all low-level intensity conflicts; Angola, Afghanistan and the lot,” it was Richard Secord now helping out. “None of us could have pulled off that terrific chain of dirt tactics with any shred of plausible deniability.”

“Ya! Ya! Ya! You are damn right, Richard. None of us would have handled the Iran-Contra either….,” the CIA chief’s speech was cut short by the arrival of the two colleagues.

“Here are the documents from Tower-64,” the Mossad man was saying as the pair settled down into chairs. “Do we get them xeroxed?”

“Hardly necessary,” William Casey turned an anxious eye on Larry Speaks, “Larry, read this document for us so that we move together, will you?”

Larry Speaks was one of the few privileged junior staffers to attend the briefing. He read the introduction;

“Viewing the earth from a great distance gives an awesome feeling, a shift in awareness, and some kind of mental clarity. It is like looking at a jewel floating aimlessly through a black velvet sky, lonely and fragile. A paradise hanging in avoid with no hint of conflict, hunger, or poverty; see no boundaries between people but a feeling that we are all one .”

“And this is what you risked your life to get?”It was now the admiral, John Poindexter completely horrified by what he called misplaced gallantry.

The Mossad man also dithered, his eyes furtive like a dog caught with stolen meat.

“I equally don’t get the drift, “Richard Secord wrinkled his face at what looked like triple hogwash. ‘How do you see medicine tied up with this kind of poem?”

“Continue reading, Larry," William Casey urged on. “There must be something; Mossad cannot send their men to do press-ups in a hurricane if it wasn’t helping the cause.”

“A patient treated in space has every chance of recovery because when he views the earth from far, the beautiful scene gives priceless mind clarity. He only sees a paradise, his paradise, where no one is dying of hunger, injustice, or even poverty. It is this shift in awareness, more than any drug that rallies him up to recover.”

“Sounds weird," William Casey said. "It almost makes hospitals responsible for people dying”

“Margret Thatcher is there to prove the theory;” Oliver North came in. “She was written off by western doctors until Dr.Brasca rehabilitated her.”

“Wow!” exclaimed Richard Secord. “Iron Lady in space…. sounds funny.”

“What about the military?” How can the overview feeling help develop real weapons to defend the United States of America?”William Casey was eagerly waiting for something to present to the Pentagon.

“But the economy comes next,” Mordechai protested.

“Alright, let's have the economy,” William Casey shut his eyes like someone meditating. He could not hide his lack of interest in that part of the document.

“An economy is revitalized by what you have, seeing our little earth as a jewel moving through a black velvet sky,” Larry Speaks started. “The…”

“Leave that trash!” the CIA chief was now frantic, “I want to hear about the military, that is where my life is. Besides none of us here can claim the skills that Donald Regan could be lacking at the Department of Commerce.”

"No problem, sir," Obediently, Larry Speaks abandoned the page and started flipping through until he found the chapter with a headline;

OVERVIEW FEELING &WEAPONS DEVELOPMENT

“Ahaaaaaa! I have it here, sir,” Larry exalted almost resembling a boy scoring a first date.

“That is great!”William Casey’s eyes popped out. Grunting heartily, he even pushed his frame forward, putting his elbows on the table in a show of serious concentration. “What does it say?”

But to everyone’s surprise, confusion was slowly clouding Larry Speak’s unusually handsome face. His clear blue eyes scanned the page bottom to top as if searching for something. Finally, he opened his lips but uttered nothing.

“Hey! Can’t you read?” the chief shouted anxiously.

“Sir..,” Larry tried to say something.

“Sir, what? The chief stretched his frame to see what Larry was failing to read.

Finally, the junior staffer found his tongue. He turned to the others, spread his empty hands like a fool on parade, and said; “the... page is blank, sir.”

“What is that nonsense, Speaks?”William Casey stood up, fists already balled up. “Do you take us for fools? Men are dying out there while you play stupid games here.”

“It's not me sir,” Larry Speaks tossed the document forward, an inch in front of the chief, and flew out of his seat with the alacrity of a cat. “It is Moderchai who brought it here.”

Immediately all eyes turned on Moderchai for some kind of explanation.

“Where is the page, Mordechai?”The CIA chief thundered without grace and aimed a punch at the Mossad man. His lips trembled furiously like a malaria patient and his glazed eyes glared at the colonel with the venom of a cobra.

“No sir…,” John Singlaib stood up to try to calm down the chief. He was waved aside.

“I just picked…...” Mordechai tried to explain.

“You just picked? Damn it!”William Casey exploded. The shouting was too much for his heart condition. A minute later, his stretched arm continued pointing, the lips halted in mid-speech, and his eyes were widened to owl size before he collapsed to the floor.

“Doctor, hurry, the chief is down,” Richard Secord jerked the door open and yelled breathlessly to the doctor who was standing just outside the door.

“This is what I didn’t want,” the doctor complained.

An hour later the CIA chief opened his eyes and was heard muttering incoherent words; “Take ma…te. Masompe, ta…”

“He seems to be saying take me to Masompe,” his doctor reported to the Richard Secord, the second in command.

“The overview feeling may do the trick for our chief,” it was Oliver North speaking hurriedly. He loved the old man and could not anticipate life at the agency without him. “Please, Mr. Secord, inform the president of the need to rush the chief for overview therapy in Masompe.”

“Where is this Masompe?”The president exploded, the dangled face muscles made him look even older. “I have never heard of a hospital with that kind of name.”

“It is not a hospital sir,” Larry Speaks was brave now. These were familiar waters; he could speak his mind freely. “It is a sprawling research center run by Tower-64.”

“Yes, now I remember it,” the president said nodding his head shaped like the map of Germany. The facial muscles vibrated as he spoke and the glitter in the eyes was one of conspiracy, not humor. “Located in Zambia, right?”

“Yes sir,” Larry Speaks ventured. “A Dr.Brasca uses the overview therapy. And so far, he has scored over seventy percent success.”

“But we can’t hand him over to them, can we?” the president looked troubled. “Tower-64 will just finish him off and then come on TV feeding us empty regrets.”

“That is hardly possible, sir,” Larry Speaks dared to correct the big man. “Margret Thatcher….”

“Don’t think you know more than I do, okay?” the anger on the wrinkled face of the president stopped the young man in a mid expletive. “We can’t allow those baboons to squeal excitedly at our expense. Can’t we treat him aboard our Space Shuttle Challenger?”

“I don’t know, sir,” Larry answered.

“Take this note to Francis Scobe at NASA,” the president ordered. “He should reserve space for one. I will personally speak to Judith about her added responsibility of caring for this important man on that mission.”

“At your service, sir,” Larry retreated.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

”Sir, the Challenger mission has been postponed,” Admiral Poindexter was now concerned about the health of his colleague at the CIA.

“So what do you suggest?” the president rattled in a drawling voice. “My responsibility now is this beast, Alzheimer... …”

“Take him to Masompe,” the Admiral stared away from the President’s face in deference. “We can’t watch helplessly as one of us wastes away when we can help it, sir.”

“But we don’t have diplomatic ties with..,” the president was cut short by a quick burp from the admiral.

“The UK doesn’t have either,” Poindexter said bringing back his gaze to the president in a persuasion gimmick.

The Presidential Boeing hurriedly made it's way into the skies controlled by Tower-64 to land at Colonel Chigaya International Airport. William Casey was wheeled from the huge plane straight into the care of Dr.Brasca.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Meanwhile at Tower-64

“General! General! He is coming, “an ecstatic Captain Munaumba broke the news to General Chima, commander of Zambia military intelligence-Tower -64.

“We failed to turn the Iron Lady,” The General chuckled more to himself, “thank God we have another chance with these pillars of imperialism.”

“What do we do with Brasca, General?” Captain Munaumba squeezed his eyes into tiny slits in a conspiratorial gesture.

“What about him?” the General asked unconcernedly. “They have no Arab girl to motivate his defection if that is what you are referring to.”

Ten days later, a revived William Casey beamed into the cameras thanking the Zambian Government for ‘pulling’ him out of the grave as he put it. Before flying back to the States, the most Machiavellian man the agency had ever known made the most solemn speech few mortals have had the privilege to hear.

“Seeing the earth, as I did, cured my hate for another man, I am convinced that in the great scheme of things, nature is pleading with us; white or black; capitalist or humanist to save this lonely, fragile paradise. It is like a little girl crying for love, care, and protection as she walks in a dark void.” The reporters at Colonel Chigaya International airport clicked their cameras recording the first few words the man could say that hardly touched on war. “I pray for the day when all people on earth will fight as a unity to expel the tyranny of conflicts through mutual understanding, hunger through sharing equitably, and poverty through empathy.”

The CIA chief gave the same message at the Pentagon. Celebrated career servicemen broke down into tears. Even when they approached the president they were men exuding peace, men dedicated to saving the fragile ‘little girl’ as one described the earth.

The President had his own time to repent. “Everyone is talking of saving the earth,” he roared to an aide over a cup of coffee. “What is that nonsense? I campaigned on a platform of rolling back communism by speaking to the enemy from a position of strength.”

“It is this William Casey, sir,” the aide said. “He is turning everyone around. Even Poindexter, a Pentagon hardliner, is now praying for peace.”

“This is what I was saying,” the president took a sip; “they did something to him, didn’t they?”

“With due respect sir,” the aide stopped to wipe a tear of pity, “he looks health, I think that is what counts and his message of peace on ea…,”

She broke off in mid-sentence when William Casey arrived. The meeting was brief and his speech was brief but the impact was not only drastic, but it was also enduring. The whole scenario could be described as a touch and go. “Yes, this earth is as fragile as an egg. We must protect it,” the President, the most hawkish in US history, shocked everyone by his sudden turnaround. His eyes were misty with tears and his lips were trembling like a paralytic, he started making solemn pledges; "I will do anything to save our beautiful earth."

“Are you meeting Gorbachov in Reykjavik?” a cynical CNN reporter asked.

“Not just meeting him, but signing the treaty, what do they call it?”

The INF treaty was born giving hope that our paradise would now be safe from the horrors of nuclear destruction. He was smitten by the overview feeling, WHO IS NEXT, MAYBE YOU?