Rescue (an Ell Donsaii story #11)

by Laurence Dahners

  At first, when Dupree’d heard the shooting he’d thought someone was trying to come in the front door near the top of the stairs to the basement. When he’d realized that it had come from down in the basement, he worried about a mutiny, but then, trying to go down the stairs, he’d encountered that damnable balloon. He felt certain that none of his men had access to a balloon that could stop bullets.

  So, someone had gotten in past the front door guard, despite the man’s protests that it couldn’t have happened. Dupree wasn’t sure what the people down there in the basement thought they could do with the President, but it had seemed likely that reinforcements were on their way so he’d ordered a team to the kitchen to unload a couple of clips through the floor into Stockton’s room.

  If they killed whoever was with the President, but not Stockton herself, that would be win-win. If they killed the President, it would still be a win. The only question would be how to figure out who was dead.

  Then something mysterious had slaughtered the team in the kitchen!

  At first Dupree had thought the kitchen team hysterical, then he’d walked up and looked into the kitchen himself. Seeing the cut up bodies of his dismembered men freaked him out. Those wounds were unearthly!

  Now, the team that Dupree had been sending through the wall of the stairwell were failing to respond. He’d lost two MIA in Stockton’s room and Cable who they could see through the balloon in the stairwell, lying in the basement hall. Three dead in the kitchen. Now he’d sent seven more men through the hole in the wall of the stairwell.

  None of them were responding.

  Thirteen down, seven left. Shit! “Hold up,” he said to the men waiting to climb through the wall into the basement. They all looked up at him, “We’ll just detonate the bomb under Stockton’s chair.” He held his hand out to Salem for the detonator.

  ___

  Ell studied the mess of wiring around the brick sized object under the President’s chair. Every twenty seconds Allan reminded her to look back over her shoulder and Tase the men dropping into the next room. She shot midazolam into them too, then re-Tased any of the ones she’d shot before who looked like they might be getting back on their feet.

  She suspected that some of the wiring was supposed to be a decoy. Unfortunately, she didn’t think she had time to sort it out, even in her zone enhanced state which resulted in time flowing slowly past her.

  She glanced around the room. Her eyebrows lifted. Keep it simple stupid, she said to herself.

  As she climbed out from beneath the chair, she looked into the other room again. No more men were climbing into the room. The next to last was struggling to get back to his feet so Ell re-Tased him. Then she stepped to one of the men who’d been in the room with Stockton guarding her. He’d been shot several times by the fusillade of bullets from the kitchen above, but he still seemed to be breathing.

  Picking him up, she stepped to Stockton and spoke slowly so Stockton would understand despite Ell being in the zone, “Scoot over.” Wide eyed Stockton leaned to the side and Ell dumped the guard into the chair with Stockton. She held out her hand to Stockton, “Let’s go.”

  Stockton narrowed her eyes, “I think I weigh more than he does.”

  “Not much. If they had set close margins, the bomb would have gone off any time you moved.”

  Stockton took her hand and apprehensively slid up out of the chair.

  Nothing exploded.

  Stockton let out a long breath, “What are we going to do about the bomb around my neck?”

  Ell narrowed her eyes as she studied it wondering about her plan for it. “Did they talk to you about how it was set to go off?”

  “Yeah. If you cut the part around my neck it goes off. Fallon has a PGR detonator for it too, so that son of a bitch can set it off from anywhere he wants.”

  Taking a deep breath Ell stepped up to Stockton and rotated the heavy metal device around so that the big stainless steel box on it was behind the President’s head. She reached into her jacket to pull out the large version of her curved port. For a moment she squeezed her eyes shut, while trying to think of another way to remove the bomb safely.

  No ideas came so she told Allan to set the frequency on the port to 50,000 Hertz. She had already had Allan set the algorithm so that this port would initially open flat. Then each time it opened, it would reform slightly farther into the hemispherical shape it could create. So, it started as a ten inch diameter flat circle. In 100th of a second it would form 500 times, each re-formation a little bit more hemispherical until the final one would be a complete hemisphere, still ten inches in diameter but now five inches deep. The other end of the port was on Juno. She turned on the port, letting it form its hemisphere with a loud pop, just behind Stockton’s head. Confident that she knew where it would appear, she grabbed the back of Stockton’s head so that the vacuum wouldn’t pull it in to the hemisphere. Then she turned it on again so that the glowing blue half-ball encompassed the explosive box. The port opened its 500 times in 100th of a second, cutting not only the wires, but all the electronics in the box and sucking them and the explosive away in tiny slices. The activation made another loud pop. The back of Stockton’s hair and a portion of her shirt sucked up into the vacuum and disappeared with the bomb, but Stockton still seemed okay.

  The U-bolt fell from around Stockton’s neck, dropping down Stockton’s front to the floor. She jerked a foot back with a curse. “How the hell did you do that?” she asked.

  Ell didn’t answer, but did breathe a sigh of relief.

  Taking a grip on Stockton’s arm Ell towed her through the hole in the wall and across the hall into the utility room.

  In Ell’s ear Allan said, “The FBI has been refusing to accept the location data you instructed me to send. I have tried to connect a call from you, but they have rejected that as well.”

  “Why?”

  “They seem to believe it is a prank call. They point out that Ell Donsaii is a felon. They are threatening prosecution for interfering with an important government operation.”

  Ell stepped through the hole in the foundation of the big house, stepping up into the hole she’d dug in the earth outside the wall. “Call the Secret Service; tell them I have the President.”

  ___

  Stockton was squeezing through a hole in the wall of the basement when she heard the woman holding her arm say. “Call the Secret Service; tell them I have the President.”

  Thinking that the woman she’d believed to be a rescuer was actually just another terrorist in the midst of stealing her from Fallon and the SCDF, Stockton started to pull back.

  Then a huge hand thrust her through the hole in the foundation, knocking her on top of the woman who’d been guiding her out of the house.

  Stunned for a moment, Stockton felt confused. Then her ringing ears and the yelling inside told her that what had actually happened was that the bomb under her chair had gone off. The overpressure had popped her out of the basement like a cork out of a champagne bottle.

  The woman under her squirmed and Stockton realized with surprise that the woman was covered with something hard. She must be really skinny if she can wear armor without looking huge. Stockton rolled her bulk to the side and the woman wriggled out from under her, then helped Stockton to her feet.

  The woman looked around, then helped Stockton climb up out of a huge shallow hole that’d been dug in the dirt next to the house. Once she was up on level ground, Stockton looked around, wondering how she could get away from this woman and her compatriots.

  The woman bent over and picked up a strange harness from the ground. She shook it out and knelt, saying, “Here step into this.”

  Stockton narrowed her eyes and took a breath to refuse. Then she heard the front door of the house bang open and Dupree Fallon’s distinctive voice speaking urgently.

  The woman said, “Quickly, they’ll be coming this direction. Their trucks are parked back here!”

  Stockton stepped into the loops the
woman held out to her, wondering what the harness could do for her. The woman lifted it up her legs, adjusted the straps with unbelievable speed and then Stockton found herself shooting up into the air, the woman clinging to her back like some kind of monkey.

  Holy Christ! What’s holding me up? She looked up and around for some kind of wings or cables or something, but she and the woman seemed to be suspended by the buckle at the back of her harness, and the buckle itself had no visible means of support. Is this some kind of anti-gravity or something?!

  Swinging across the darkened countryside hundreds of feet in the cool air Stockton thought, Jesus, I sure as shit should have asked what this harness was going to do! Talk about jumping from the frying pan into the fire! She leaned back and spoke loudly to be heard over the wind of their passage, “Where are you taking me?” Not that she’ll answer me, Stockton thought to herself.

  “Pinehurst. That’s where they’ve set up the command posts for your rescue. The FBI’s refusing to talk to me, but I’m pretty sure the Secret Service has its own command post there. We’re trying to figure out where that is.”

  Stockton felt like her brain was getting whiplash. So this is a rescuer after all? “Uh, just who the Hell are you?”

  “Oh, sorry Ma’am. I imagine that this bubble distorts my appearance. This is Ell Donsaii.”

  Stockton felt prickles form in her scalp and run down her spine. Ell Donsaii? Why would she be rescuing me? If they know where I am, why the hell isn’t the FBI running this rescue?

  “Why the hell are you rescuing me?”

  “Um, I was afraid no one else could,” Donsaii said.

  Like that’s an explanation! Stockton thought indignantly. She would have questioned further, but before she organized her thoughts the ground was rising up to meet them.

  Chapter Ten

  Will Argant’s AI buzzed at him. He picked the headband up off his nightstand and held the earpiece to his ear, “This is Argant.”

  “Sir, we’ve got a call to the command post from someone claiming to be Ell Donsaii. Says she’s got the President and wants to know where to bring her.”

  “Does it sound like Donsaii?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Put her through to me,” he said, wondering, has Donsaii actually been holding the President this whole time? Has this whole thing been some kind of revenge over Stockton imprisoning her and her people? He shook his head. He couldn’t believe Donsaii would gun all those people on the green down.

  Argant had his headset on and was reaching for his pants when Donsaii’s voice came through, “Hello?”

  “Hello, Dr. Donsaii. I hear you have the President?”

  “Yes sir, currently we’re en route to Pinehurst, where would you like me to bring her?”

  “So, you’re not the one who’s been holding her?”

  “Uh!” She seemed startled, “No sir! I’ve just brought her out of a house on the Foxfire resort where she’d been held. I assume by the SCDF as they claimed. There were twenty armed men in the house so it seemed like a pretty well organized group of some kind.”

  “Why aren’t you talking to the FBI?” Will asked suspiciously.

  “Um, they won’t talk to me; I am on their most wanted list after all.”

  “OK, bring President Stockton to the Homewood Suites. We’ll be ready for her.”

  As soon as he disconnected from Donsaii, Will had his AI contact his entire team. He rushed down to the lobby. He sent his snipers to the roof and to windows next to the parking lot. He ordered their helicopters airborne but hanging back.

  In the lobby he had a couple of his men shrug into the jackets of the hotel’s doorman and desk clerk, sending the two hotel men into the kitchen. He positioned himself just inside the door of the main entrance. He wondered how long it would take for Donsaii to drive to the Homewood suites in Pinehurst from the Foxfire resort. He’d heard of a Foxfire, but didn’t really know where it was. He asked his AI and it told him the distance was seven miles and should take eleven minutes at ordinary driving speed. Peering out the window he worried that it was all just some kind of prank. He was about to ask his AI to reconnect him to Donsaii when the big door creaked open on the other side of the lobby. It was the one that led out to the pool.

  Will turned to have one of his men hold whoever was entering the lobby from the back.

  Then his eyes caught on the distinctive form of the President at the big pool door.

  There’s no road back there! How the hell did Stockton get to the back door? He started across the lobby to Stockton. As he ran towards her he called in his men and told his AI to get Marine One on its way to the hotel.

  Arriving at Stockton’s side he asked, “Was it really Donsaii that brought you in?” glancing past Stockton to see who was with her and wondering how to get them in custody when he couldn’t even see them.

  “Yes,” Stockton said disgustedly, “Why am I being rescued by Donsaii of all people? What the hell’s wrong with you sons-a-bitches?” She looked around the room and frowned even more, “And where are those assholes from the FBI?!”

  Will almost grinned to himself, doesn’t sound like this little experience changed her temperament at all. “We weren’t able to find you. Do you know how Donsaii was able to track you down? Is she still outside?” He motioned meaningfully to a couple of his men who’d just run up and they started out the door to look for Donsaii.

  Stockton shook her head, “Don’t bother going after her, she’s got some kind of harness that lets her fly. She flew me here in it, with her clinging to my back. Once she dropped me off, she put the harness on herself and zipped back up into the sky.” She looked around at the agents surrounding her, “How in the hell did you guys let those SCDF bastards get me?”

  Will stared at her in astonishment, then realization came over him, “You don’t remember what happened?”

  “No! I just woke up in the basement of that goddamned house!”

  Will lowered his voice, “They probably drugged you when they picked you up and the drugs disrupted your short term memory.” He lowered his voice even further, “A large group of men with automatic weapons killed everyone on the thirteenth hole, except you.”

  Suddenly ashen, Stockton said, “Everyone?” She swallowed, “Esmer? Arkon?”

  Will nodded slowly, “Everyone.” He found himself blinking back tears again at the memory. Huskily he said, “Sorry Ma’am. Somehow they hid twenty or more people in the woods in ghillie suits.”

  Stockton reached shakily for the chair behind her and sat down with a thump. “Have you found the sons-a-bitches yet?”

  “No Ma’am. We don’t even know where you were being held. Let me call Donsaii to ask her for that location so I can at least tell the FBI where to look. Marine One is landing outside; let’s get you into her and on your way back to Washington while I’m talking to Donsaii.”

  Stockton let them lead her out to the big helicopter, still looking like she was in shock.

  Will had his AI reconnect him to Donsaii and she gave him the address of the house.

  Then he asked to be put through to the Director of the FBI. He got through to an agent, but the agent refused to wake director Arquette for him, continuing the FBI’s display of disrespect for the Secret Service in general and Will in particular. Will said, “Well, when your director awakens from his beauty rest, tell him that we have the President back. Oh, and if he wants you boys to check out the house the President was being held in, he can call me for the address.” Then, with a feeling of great satisfaction, he cut the connection.

  ***

  Washington D.C.—The White House this morning announced the recovery of President Stockton from her kidnappers. Her doctors have declared her fit and she has re-assumed the Presidency from Vice President Dowd. Stockton described her experience as “harrowing” and has expressed her gratitude to all those who held vigils for her and to the tens of thousands of people who sent in tips to the FBI.

  Strangely, virtu
ally no details regarding Stockton’s internment by the SCDF have been made available as yet. Not the location where she was held, not how the FBI found her, not even how she was rescued from the custody of the SCDF without injury. Her rescue seems even more amazing in view of Fallon’s photos of Stockton with a bomb bolted around her neck. A bomb he claimed could not be removed without setting it off. A bomb that he said he could set off from anywhere, thus making it impossible to retrieve her without his permission. So far the FBI has been mum in regards to the methods they used to remove the bomb.

  Edith Stockton looked practically incandescent. She paced the oval office, alternately spearing the directors of the Secret Service, the FBI, and their various assistants with her eyes. She had said nothing during the five minutes that had passed since they had shuffled into the room. The tension in the room had built until it was positively crackling and sweat had appeared on many temples. Finally, she grated out, “So, as I understand it, twenty men from the SCDF snuck into the woods by the 13th green. One more hid in the attic of an empty house along the fairway, and several more in pickup trucks in nearby yards. The Secret Service,” she glared at its director while continuing in a tone of near loathing, “failed to detect this small army of men armed with assault weapons converted to automatic fire.” She grimaced, “These men proceeded to kill my friend Howard Esmer, the other members of my foursome, our caddies, and sixteen members of the Secret Service! Then they drugged me, and carted me away.”

  Leo Abel, the director of the Secret Service, started to say something, but Stockton held up an imperious finger and waggled it back and forth, staving him off. She continued, “Next, they lost our overflying drones and managed to drive me to the Foxfire resort where they put me in an empty house with twenty members of the SCDF. In fact, all but one of their men escaped the area! Holy shit! Somehow I had been under the misapprehension that my people and I were being protected by the very best.” She paused to let her eyes roam over the people in the room. “Or did we hire a bunch of mall security cops while I wasn’t looking?”