by G M Eppers
“Why is that?” asked Nitro. “Why would it be harder to sell?”
“Are you sure you want to know?”
There was a moment of silence. “Probably not.”
“We want to know,” said Agnes and Avis simultaneously. It was kind of unnerving when they did that. But when offered the option of information, they always took it, whether it seemed relevant or not. Their intense blue eyes sparkled in anticipation.
“Perhaps Nitro would like to leave the room?” Sir Haughty, as I said, was utterly polite. A description of even the mildest cheese could turn Nitro a pale shade of green. Nitro, to his credit, opted to stay, but pulled out his smart phone. Sometimes, if he could focus, a couple levels of Candy Crush could get him through unpleasant conversations, which was often preferable to leaving the room.
“Casu Marzu,” Sir Haughty began, “or worm cheese, is an extremely fermented cheese, as I said, from Sardinia. Lovely island, by the way, despite being so near the French territory of Corsica. The fermentation is achieved with the digestive juices of the larvae of cheese flies. The larvae are added to the cheese alive –“
I felt a reaction here, but pushed it down. It couldn’t get any worse, could it?
“The cheese becomes soft and teary, meaning somewhat liquid. Locals often eat the cheese with the larvae still in the mixture –“
There was a mass exodus toward the restrooms. Everyone but Sir Haughty, including Nitro, who had apparently absorbed enough of the description despite his Candy Crush game, stampeded to the rear of the plane. I had ejected T.B. from my lap so suddenly that he hissed at me, and Nitro’s smart phone hit the floor with a disturbing crash. Billings, with the longest legs not impeded by inappropriate footwear, won the race and got in first, Sylvia got in another, then Badger and the twins filled up the remaining bathrooms. By the time Billings came out the rest of us had gotten our stomachs under control.
Sir Haughty’s closing sentences were spoken in a descending whisper as he saw us flee. “The larvae sometimes jump up to six inches to escape. It’s quite fascinating, really. Spicy, but tasty.” His knowledge of cheese is unsurpassed in my experience, but I have my doubts about his self-proclaimed British Royal origins. For one thing, his father was George, not Francis, and his grandfather was Ignatius, I think. He’s never shown any documentation on his family tree, but I didn’t really care about that. He was there to identify cheeses and he was the best at that in the world. He preferred to be known as Sir Haughty and I was happy to oblige. He could call himself the King of England and I wouldn’t mind as long as he could tell me about cheese so I didn’t have to stop and look it up.
Trying to restore my dignity, I took my seat again. “Thank you, Sir Haughty. Shall we have a group prayer that it’s NOT Casu Marzu in the silo?” We weren’t normally a religious group, but we did entertain a minute of silent prayer for that.
“Given his educational background,” Sir Haughty offered, “it seems highly unlikely. Odds are good that he has no idea exactly what he has, which leads me to believe it’s simply a very large quantity. And such a quantity of Casu Marzu would be nearly impossible, at least, for this area of the world.” Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. “It would also explain why he doesn’t reveal the nature of the cheese to potential buyers. All he knows is that it’s cheese.”
Nitro retrieved his smart phone and ascertained that it had survived the fall just fine, although the Candy Crush had closed in the middle of level 377, which he’d been close to conquering at the time. T.B., full of forgiveness, returned to my lap as if nothing had happened. Backwash, I noticed, had stayed at Sir Haughty’s feet the entire time, sitting up straight so Haughty’s left hand could reach the cat’s head, where it seemed to rest without the owner’s knowledge despite fingers wriggling around Backwash’s ears. I decided that maybe speculation about what was in the silo was a bad idea, so we moved on to strategy. “Sylvia, Miss Chiff mentioned quite a bit of firepower. How do we deal with that?”
Sylvia had gotten her composure back quickly. In the confusion, she had moved her eye patch to the right eye. Her emerald left eye focused on me. “Fortunately, the biggest equipment, the ten barrel Nordenfelt, is most likely nothing but detritus. They haven’t been used since the late 1800’s. I doubt they could even find the correct ammunition for it now. They may, however, try to convince us that they have. As for the rest of the weaponry, it sounds very real. I’d recommend everyone who goes to the farm wear their vests and riot helmets.” I was expecting this instruction. It wasn’t unusual. “The stun guns can probably stay behind. The odds of getting close enough to use them if there is action are pretty small. The terrain,” she continued, “is not easy to secure, either for us or them. They will probably be circled around the silo, but if there are enough in the group they could be hiding some in the barn loft or even on the roof of the house as lookouts. Like the state troopers, we should come in from the north.”
“But doesn’t that keep us exposed?” asked Badger. “It didn’t work out well for the troopers.”
“All true,” Sylvia admitted. “However, remember, the troopers were expecting a ransom situation. They expected combat and got it, by going in with guns drawn ready for a firefight. We now know he’s merely protecting the silo and not trying to coerce money or transportation. I think it will work out better if we show ourselves and talk them down rather than try an element of surprise. Our weapons will be holstered unless they are needed. We’re trying to avoid a shootout, not start one. Is that clear?” Everyone nodded.
At this point, Dinny arrived with a cart full of covered food trays. “Dinner is served, ladies and gentlemen.” She handed them out individually. T.B. obediently left my lap, but curled up directly on my feet. Nitro and Badger closed their electronics and set them aside. Dinny was good. The meals were individualized today, which wasn’t usual. I’m not sure how she did it. The food storage on the plane must be far larger than I imagined. Billings and I both got a steaming six ounce steak with a baked potato and a pile of loose corn. Agnes and Avis each got spaghetti and meatballs. Sir Haughty had tuna on toast, which looked pre-digested to me. Badger had a hamburger and fries, Sylvia had a BLT with wavy potato chips, and Roxy had a Cornish hen and an ear of roasted corn. And surprise, surprise, Nitro got a large salad. There were diet sodas, bottled water, and energy drinks to choose from. T.B. and Backwash probably had food available near their carriers, but preferred to eat boring cat food without so much human company around. They also liked to be on the lookout for any morsels of meat that might fall from our trays. The last tray was for Dinny herself. We didn’t see what she ate. She left her tray on the cart and wheeled it to her hideaway.
As we ate, we continued our discussion on strategy. “Roxy,” Sylvia said, popping a potato chip into her mouth, “by any chance did you pack some flats today?”
“Flats?” asked Roxy, as if it were Urdu. She carefully extracted some meat from her Cornish hen and ate it.
“Never mind. You won’t go to the farm, anyway,” I said. “You’ll go directly to the courthouse and secure a warrant to get us into the silo. Can you do that?”
“Of course I can do that,” said Roxy, a bit hurt. “You don’t really expect me to fight on a farm, do you? That’s not in my job description.” Roxy winked at me. Of course she could fight very well, if need be. She couldn’t actually run away in those heels. She had to fight well.
“Actually it is. I looked it up. Everyone has the same job description,” said Sylvia.
This was new to me, and I’d been there, oh, at least ten times as long as Sylvia. “We do?”
“Get the job done. That’s what you all signed on to do.” Har. Like there was an actual job description that said that.
Badger took a large bite of burger and some shredded lettuce fell onto his keyboard. He picked it off absentmindedly and wedged it into his mouth, then typed one handed very rapidly. “Can’t find any record of a job description, but there’s the oath we took to uphold
all chapters of the Uber Alliance Charter.”
Nitro seemed nervous but it wasn’t at the prospect of having to engage in physical combat. What made Nitro nervous was that everyone was EATING. He kept his eyes on his salad and avoided even a glimpse of animal-based products.
I took Badger at his word and shrugged, “Let’s move on, shall we? Do we have a plan to keep the peace while Roxy does her thing or in the event she can’t?” I could feel Roxy’s dirty look, but I ignored it. I was just trying to cover the bases.
“We’ll probably have to figure out something on the fly –“ oops. Fly led to larvae and larvae led to worm cheese. “I mean,” Sylvia corrected herself, “I can design an attack plan, but peace plans are more subtle. There are a lot of variables to peace, and only one to attack. The word ‘no.’
“Gotta agree with that,” said Avis Nicely while Agnes sucked in a marinara encased noodle. Then Avis twirled a wad of spaghetti onto her fork and put it in her mouth as her sister voiced further agreement. “We can get this guy. We’ll be back in the plane before dark.”
“Hey, he’s got bids!” said Badger. While we’d been talking, he’d gone on eBay and found the auction. I pushed my tray aside for a minute and pulled his laptop over to me. There it was. A picture of the silo and the headline “Silo of Cheese!” The page said there was a reserve that wasn’t met and showed three bids. The top bid was currently $473, courtesy of Judgemenot14. It was listed as a local only auction. The buyer would have to come and pick it up, which made sense. The shipping on a silo of cheese would be astronomical. The local PD would probably hang around to collect the winning bidder if the auction actually completed. It was a felony worldwide to purchase Uber cheese. But once we had the cheese secured, our jobs were done. We rarely saw the aftermath. The auction description said nothing about the kind of cheese or whether it was clean or not. It didn’t even distinguish between a silo full of cheese or whether the silo itself was made of cheese. Looking at it, I determined that the bidders had to either be idiots, or addicts. The latter seemed more likely.
“Just in case, Badger, see if you can get a fix on the bidders.”
“FBI’s on it,” he said. “But they are keeping me in the loop.”
Just then the bell sounded to indicate that we would be landing. Dinny came in with the cart and cleared out the dinner trays and the rest of us packed up whatever we’d brought upstairs with us. T.B. and Backwash obediently sauntered away behind Dinny, their tails high in the air, and we went down to the first level and buckled in. I hoped we were ready.
Chapter Three
We landed at Mitchell Airport and rented a sedan for Roxy and a Chevy Express 12 passenger conversion van for the rest of us. Billings drove and I rode shotgun, with, you guessed it, a shotgun on my lap. We all had our standard issue firearms as well, and a few extra things riding in the spare seats. Agnes and Avis sat in the backwards-facing bench seat in the way back. It was easier for them to get in and out through the open hatch rather than a door. Sylvia, Badger, Haughty and Nitro piled into the other seats and slid the side door closed. It was still several miles to the Grundy farm, even further outside of Milwaukee than the airport. We passed other farms on the way, but aside from a few cows and horses we didn’t see any life at them.
The Grundy farm stood out. We didn’t need to check the address to know we were in the right place. There were three police cars with their lights flashing in the gravel driveway, and two news vans parked on the grass, which was long, but patchy, and mostly weeds. The truck that had been parked there in the aerial photo was nowhere to be seen, but the one up on blocks was still there. We parked near the news vans, and then piled out, finding places on our persons to conceal our weapons so we didn’t appear threatening, though with all the riot gear on that might have been an impossible goal. The long rifle stayed in the van as a last resort. Billings locked it and put the keys in his pocket. Nitro had his lab case, containing basic testing equipment and a better than average first aid kit. As soon as we got access to the cheese, it would take him only a few minutes to determine if it was Uber. We then circled the long way around the house so we could come toward the silo from the north. I glanced up as we circled to see if anyone was poised on the roof or at an upper window. I didn’t see anyone, but that didn’t mean no one was there.
There was a considerable crowd around the silo. Closest to the building were a dozen or more men of various ages, all in blue jeans or overalls. I spotted Cletus Grundy. Sometime between the picture Miss Chiff showed us and now, someone had shown Cletus how to fasten his other overall strap. Cletus was holding a rifle, but pointed straight up at the moment. He and his fellow farmers, probably from the nearby farms we’d passed on the way in, all holding some kind of firearm, were milling around the perimeter emitting a low grumble. A little beyond them, between the silo and the barn, were two separate groups of much better dressed people. It took a little maneuvering to get to where I could see them. We slowly infiltrated and blended in with the police presence east of the silo. The groups were holding signs, some of them pumping up and down to get attention. “Cheese = Speech,” said one sign. “Save Cletus,” said another. And there was one that said “First They Take Your Cheese, Then They Take Your Guns” with a horizontal double ended arrow underneath. As we watched, the woman eventually turned the sign around to reveal “Then They Take Your Freedom” on the other side with three exclamation points. After a minute or so, she turned it around again. Yet another said, and I quote, “Chess Ban Is Uncontushunul.” The last four letters of that one curved downward to make them fit.
The Nordenfelt was there near the barn, burnt yellow with rust. The barrels were actually nose down in the dirt perimeter around the barn. At least we wouldn’t have to worry about that. Oddly, it didn’t even really look out of place. From a distance, it could easily have been mistaken for some old piece of farm machinery, like a thresher or something. It was a sunny day, and the yard and the Nordenfelt were speckled by sunlight filtering through the leafy branches above us. Flies buzzed around the various piles of manure scattered in the yard, a few birds chirped, and cicadas provided a background hiss that came and went indiscriminately.
I introduced myself to the police captain and pointed out my team members. “Good to see you, Mrs. Montana,” he said. “These people are nuts.” The police were similarly decked out in protective gear, though theirs said ‘CSPD’ on the back, which was Cassakee SWAT and Police Department. Cassakee, which sounded like you were trading in keys for money, was such a small township that law enforcement had to double up. The backs of our Kevlar vests, of course, said ‘CURDS.’
Outside of all these groups of people were very well dressed people with microphones standing in front of hand held video cameras, trying to narrate the activity for some 24 hour news channels. In addition, news helicopters were circling overhead like buzzards with more cameras pointed down at the area. I sidled over to Sylvia. “What do you think, Syl?” I’d seen Sylvia also eyeing the house as we passed and now she was watching the hayloft in the barn intensely.
“I think Roxy better hurry.” I followed her gaze. There was a sniper in the hayloft. All we could see was the very tip of the rifle barrel, but it didn’t waver. “I saw three more at the house and another in a tree,” she said. Inside the riot helmet, I raised an eyebrow. I’d missed four? Granted, my focus had been on the distribution of our people, but it still bothered me. Or perhaps it had just been bad timing. The few seconds I had devoted to looking at hiding places just hadn’t been enough.
Our arrival had not gone unnoticed by the Grundys. The low grumble went up in pitch. They looked at us mingling with the police and a couple of them brought their rifles to their shoulders. Grundy raised a hand with one finger up. Yes, that finger. It was a bad situation. One itchy finger could start a major bloodbath. I felt confident with the team in vests and helmets, and the police had their own protective gear, but I worried about the dozens of civilians milling about with no protec
tion at all. You’d think they’d be smart enough to get the Hell out of Dodge.
We had one advantage over the CSPD. We weren’t there to arrest anyone. We had the authority, but wouldn’t use it as long as local law enforcement was on site. All we wanted here was the cheese. In fact, all we wanted was to test the cheese. The test results would determine what came next, whether it would be confiscated or cleared for sale. But I had my doubts that Cletus would provide us a sample. He seemed to be afflicted with a textbook case of authority paranoia. I craned my neck to see the silo itself. It seemed much larger than in the picture. It hurt my neck to look all the way to the top. I really hoped Sir Haughty was right about the odds of it being Casu Marzu in there. The very thought of a building that size crawling with maggots…heck, that could actually clear everyone out pretty fast. Maybe I was jumping the gun on that worm cheese thing.
Agnes and Avis approached, amid a few fairly polite stares from the people around us. We had learned to ignore it. None of it was ill-intentioned, from what I could tell. Normal curiosity was nothing to worry about. “We counted two in the house and there’s one in the hayloft,” said Avis.
“Three in the house, one in the tree, and one in the hayloft,” recited Sylvia.
They were more stunned than I had been. “Are you sure?”