The Rhino and the Star Child

Lately I feel like Carmen Sandiego. Remember that trifling bitch from the video-game (and t.v. show) who nobody could find because she was always going around the world? Yeah, lately I've been travelling like a basketball player with tendonitis. I just got back from a secluded village in Austria to visit a couple of old agent friends of mine. They're retired now; well mostly retired. They still engage in some operations when their help is needed. Let me tell you about these two.

They call this guy the Rhino. He used to be a member of a German Mafia that operated out of Hamburg until he was recruited by our guys and became a double agent. He had perfected a special fighting move of his own that involved charging his enemies with his head and being able to incapacitate them in this fashion. The Rhino had an abnormally thick skull it was later discovered. Once a guy in Bonn actually shot the Rhino in the head with a .22 Ruger as he charged and they later retrieved the bullet from his head; it hadn't even penetrated his skull. Aside from his somewhat rough beginnings in the criminal underworld, the Rhino is a great guy. He downs copious amounts of beer at the local pub and makes a solid supplement to his savings by collecting on bar bets with strangers that he can't break various objects in the bar over his head. While I was there he did a flat-screen television. The pub owner isn't a big fan of his shenanigans, as you'd expect.

His wife is a rather mysterious former operative they still refer to as 'Star Child'. She was involved in the real StarGate remote viewing operations, and worked with Joseph McMoneagle in their psychic experiments. Legend has it that she remote-viewed the location of some of the nuclear missile installations during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Her mother was allegedly a psychic of some repute as well, being discovered in the Duke psychic experiments of the 1930's where she scored off the charts. They say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

They are an interesting couple, to say the least. I had a very good time, drinking beer, gambling in some high-stakes home games, listening to some local musicians, walking the mountain trails. Though it is a bit unnerving to spend time with a psychic. When I was on my way out the door, departing their villa, the Star Child commented as if in a trance, "You're on your way to blow something up. Somewhere in the Middle East." I got the chills when she said that, because she was exactly right. Though when I think back on it, it could have just been a good guess on her part. You could say that to me pretty much any day in the last ten years and you would have been right.