Just then a tanker truck pulled up to the new metal building. One of the winery workers opened a roll up
door. Ed and Joe watched for the next few minutes as several workers prepared to unload the tanker.
Joe felt a wave of dizziness hit him. This tanker was the same one that he saw in one of his recent
dreams! He was sure that he had never seen this tanker before now. He actually started to feel
nauseous.
“Fairchild is bringing us Zinfandel Grape Juice from the Madera area. The east side of Madera,
near the town of Big Sandy, is underlain by granitic soils. One of their subsidiaries planted a few
hundred acres of zin several years ago. Our winemaker tells us that the grapes can be comparable in quality
to those grown around here.”
“It must be too good to use to make the Megamart wines.”
Ed gave Joe a wry smile. “So you know about the connection of the Fairchild Group with Megamart
Corporation. I am not going to advertise it around here. The bottom line is that they are
paying me one helluva good salary, something I would not get somewhere else around here.”
Ed looked at his watch. “I’ve got to start getting ready for this morning’s
meeting. We have some caterers bringing in a lunch for the Fairchild execs.” Ed and Joe started
back towards the winery office.
Joe then saw the same two black limousines with diplomatic plates pull up that were at the fair on Saturday
night. Ed appeared visibly nervous. “Those are the same Chinese gentlemen that were at the fair the
other night, their translator is Japanese. If you look closely, you can see that he is missing the ends of
two fingers. That is a mark of the Yakuza, otherwise known as the Japanese Mafia. That guy really
gives me the willies.”
Joe realized that this was a good time for him to leave; Ed would soon have his hands full. “
Thanks for showing me around.” Then, acting upon some sort of strange impulse or premonition,
Joe looked Ed square in the eyes. “If you need any help or have any concerns, do not hesitate calling me,
at any time of day or night.”
Ed shook Joes hand as Joe opened up the door to his pickup. Looking back, he saw the same two big square
cut guys in suits that were at the fair with the Chinese gentlemen get out of the right front seats of the
limousines and step back to open the back doors. A few minutes later, as he pulled out of the gate to the
winery onto the County road, he noticed a black sedan with tinted windows following him.
As Joe drove back to his winery, his thoughts again focused on the dreams and the real world events he
was seeing that seemed to be connected to the dreams. At this point he realized that there could be
no coincidence. The images in the dreams were too sharp. They were connected to very real things,
things that he had seen in his dreams before seeing them for real. Why was this happening? Why him?
His thoughts drifted back to what he was now sure was his great grandfather’s secret wine chamber.
If he could just figure what was in the writing, then he might have a better handle on what was going on, or went
on, over 100 years ago. Then he had an idea. Simone, who owned the Wine Witch wine and gift shop down
town, had a master’s degree in classical humanities from Berkeley. She should be able to read both
Latin and Greek. Maybe she could help.