The Super Olympian- Bloodhound

by Laer Carroll

He was silent a moment, after a brief glance in her direction still watching the traffic about them.

  "I don't like it. I came from poor and many people I know are still poor. But it's a fact of life. I know you idealistic young people may think it corrupt—"

  "I don't," said Sasha.

  "—but we have to live with the real world, not the ideal world. Though to be fair the rich, the best of them anyway, do give back a lot of money. Not a lot compared to what they've got, but a lot to the rest of us."

  By now the SUV was nearing the tip of Manhattan. The FBI agent's phone chimed.

  "Agent Shaker."

  The speaker phone in the car issued forth the computerized voice of the kidnappers. "Take the Highway 78 exit and cross the Manhattan Bridge."

  "Then what?"

  But the kidnapper had hung up.

  On the other side of the bridge another phone call sent them north on the Brooklyn Queens Freeway. Smoothly the little three-car convoy turned onto the new path. They car phones of the three vehicles were all slaved to Shaker's cell phone, positioned in a holder in the dash of her SUV.

  "Why the Hell are they sending us this way?" The Commissioner said. "We could have gone straight across Long Island Expressway!"

  "Maybe they're just fucking with us for the fun of it. Bossing the police around, you know?"

  Sasha felt a slight shock. Alicia only cursed when she was getting upset. Was Helen Shaker getting upset, too? An increase in her nose's sensitivity and a sniff of the air told her No.

  "Or they may think this will make us lose a little self-control."

  The Commissioner sat a little further back in his seat. No one was going to make him lose control.

  Sasha smiled to herself. Helen was one smart lady.

  "Hey, Sasha. Johnny has two kids who are athletes too."

  "Oh? In what disciplines?" She leaned forward and put her forearms on the back of the front seat. If Helen thought the policeman needed calming she would go along with the need. And—she smiled to herself—she would also go along with Helen's plan to distract and calm Sasha.

  Not that she needed calming. It was already coming over her, the feeling she had learned long ago when her path through a competition was set as if on rails. All she had to do was follow it to its end. And Heaven help anything or anyone who got in her way.

  At the Long Island Expressway they were directed to turn east.

  By now the Commissioner was perfectly calm himself. He began to ask Sasha how it felt to go to the Olympics. Perhaps he thought he was collaborating with Shaker to help the rookie, Sasha, get over a difficult time.

  And so the circle went, she understood, each helping the other, strengthening their resolve and building subtle communication links.

  As they came near the huge Flushing Meadows Corona Park they got another phone call. They were to exit and halt on a specific park street.

  The park was easily visible as they came near it. It ran north and south and was several miles long and about a half-mile wide. The three vehicles slowed, peeled off into an exit ramp, and rolled down to a peaceful side street. Off in the distance some couples were playing tennis, whacking tennis balls back and forth.

  The old battered red car was easily seen where it had been described to be. The three SUVs halted a hundred feet behind it. The (female) driver of the lead vehicle approached it warily, a stubby submachine gun swiveling to point in several directions. The two M5-carrying police covered her with their longer-range weapons.

  The FBI agent investigated the car, reporting that a cell phone was laying in the driver's seat as it was supposed to be and keys were in the ignition. She pulled out a mirror on a telescoping rod and inspected the undersides of the car, an attached flashlight giving her a view. Then she popped the hood and trunk and inspected inside them.

  There were still plenty of places to hide a bomb, Sasha knew. But this at least gave them some reassurance that she could safely drive the car.

  Besides, a bomb and a wreck would scatter ten million dollars all over the place. Pretty good insurance, she thought.

  "OK, dear. Time to do a strip."

  Sasha got out of the car, pulled the canvas bag with the money out with her, and set it on the ground. Stepping away from it she slid off her dress and threw it into the SUV. She lifted her arms out to her side and slowly turned a complete rotation, sticking her tongue out at the same time. All as ordered.

  Then she spread her legs and squatted, supposedly to insure any cell phone clenched between her legs fell to the ground.

  Privately Sasha suspected this was all a bluff. She did not think anyone was actually observing her. She had zoomed her eyes out to their 3x binocular limit as she turned. And the female FBI agent had plied an electronic detector to ensure no one was using some sort of spycam.

  Done with the required act Sasha picked up the money bag and slung it into the front passenger seat of the red vehicle. Then she got in, started the car and drove away, the kidnapper's cell phone left inside on, its tracker off and its alarm volume turned up full.

  As soon as she got on the freeway heading east she got a phone call. So at least one kidnapper was watching somewhere in line of sight of the freeway.

  The robot voice then proceeded to guide her to a series of local streets and onto and off the highway, presumably to throw off any shadowing tails or to make them visible to the kidnappers. Then she was directed to take several northbound side roads of the Van Wyck Freeway on the further side of the Flushing Meadows Corona Park.

  As soon as her path seemed set for a little while Sasha forced her cell phone out of her belly. The motion of the foreign object inside her still seemed strange, but less so than the first time. Likely she would get used to it eventually.

  Holding the phone in the hand nearest the window she pressed the pre-set number for Helen Shaker. When a glance at the phone display screen showed her she had a connection she placed her arm on the opened window sill of the car, the phone clasped so that it would be invisible to someone looking at her through binoculars.

  A mosquito voice came from the phone, audible to Sasha only because she had her hearing sensitivity turned up high. Any (unlikely) bug the kidnappers had placed in the car or their cell phone could not have heard it.

  "Sasha? Is that you?"

  For the benefit of the maybe-bug Sasha grumbled, "That fucking FBI bitch. You'll be fine. They want the money. It's just business to them. "

  "It IS you! Where did you hide your cell?"

  "She should just stick it where the sun don't shine."

  Silence, then a giggle, then "Be sure to ditch the phone before they see you. They said they were going to do a cavity search."

  "I should just drop this money out the window and go home. Or take off for France. They hate extraditing to the US."

  "Good. You can hang up now. We have a lock on your signal."

  Sasha shut off her phone and sighed loudly. "Who am I kidding? I've got to go through with this. That broom-up-his-butt old man would put a contract out on me fast as shit. He knows who I am."

  For almost an hour Sasha continued to receive travel instructions and weave an improbable path toward the Thompson horse ranch.

  Finally she turned off a local road onto a packed-gravel road, passed under an arched sign reading THOMPSON LODGE, and headed toward the back of the low ranch-style house where an edge of some stables could be seen around one corner.

  Immediately Sasha could see why the kidnappers thought they could get away with their money. A small white passenger plane sat on a blacktop runway, its single engine idling.

  She drove to a parking area off to the side of the two buildings, parked her car, and slid her cell back into her belly. She let the surface of her normally highly compressed fat expand till she was lushly figured. Every distraction of the men she was to meet would be an advantage.

  At first nothing happened. Then she saw movement inside the mosquito-screened porch. Four men exited, the last Reginald Thomp
son. The skinny blond was pulling Eliza along by a hand on her upper arm.

  The man in front of "Reggie" was a short muscular Irishman, the sole caretaker and horseman for the lodge during the Thanksgiving and winter months. He walked with his hands down but hanging out to his sides to show they were empty. The reason for that was the pistol in Reggie's hand, pointing at the ground right now.

  The two men in front were the Ugly and the Handsome versions of some middle-eastern family with a big contribution centuries back from Mongolian invaders.

  Sasha did not wait for them to approach her. She got out of the red car, pulled the money bag out with her, and began walking toward them. The two groups approached and stopped a few yards from each other.

  The kidnappers ogled her near-naked body. The Irishman looked at the back of the Ugly brother, angry and watchful. Sasha hoped she would not get him killed when she made her move. But she was sure if she did nothing he would be killed. The Irishman would just have to take his chances.

  Handsome walked around her and glanced inside the car. Then he returned, eyeing her carefully.

  "Put the money down there." He pointed in front of the men.

  "You," he ordered the Irishman, "Open the bag."

  The man came forward, his demeanor turning instantly to obsequious. Sasha did not believe it for a second .

  He unzipped the top of the bag and opened it. No flash-bangs or other riot explosions happened.

  "Count it," Handsome ordered. Ugly pushed the man aside and knelt before the bag. He began to lift out bound stacks of hundred dollar bills, riffle them, and set them on the ground.

  After a few minutes of this he said, "Fuck this!" and upended the bag. A few moments of random inspection and he said, "It's all there."

  "Fool!" his (likely) brother said. "Is it marked? Is it real?"

  Sasha noticed that the Irishman was standing quietly, seemingly fearfully to the side. Good. He might be safe from stray bullets if she was not fast enough. Eliza was behind Reggie, who had tucked his pistol into his waistband, ignoring the girl as he ogled Sasha's sleek white nakedness.

  Handsome inspected several of the stacks, using a small magnifying glass. Finally he told his brother to put it all in the bag. Then he turned to Reggie and said, "Do the girl. Now!"

  "Aww," Ugly said. "Can't we have some fun with her first?"

  Sasha was already going to slow time as Handsome began to turn back toward her and raise his pistol.

  Sasha yelled "LIZZ-I-E! D-O-W-W-N-N-N!" as she took two lightning steps forward, captured Handsome's gun hand in a grip which snapped his bones like glass, and jerked the pistol from his grasp. She spun away from him and backed into him, crushed his heart with an elbow like a pile-driver, and spun again to face Ugly. Handsome was falling in slow motion to the ground as Sasha shot Ugly's gun and gun hand into uselessness, shot him in the belly so the would-be child rapist! child killer! would die slowly and agonizingly, and targeted Reggie with her deadly gaze .

  There was no need. The horseman had Reggie's gun hand pushed out to the side and was crashing a knee into Reggie's crotch again and again. Reggie would soon die from his ruptured testicles if not from a perforated abdominal cavity.

  "That's enough!" she called. "He's done. He's done for."

  The man stopped and let Reggie fall to his knees then to his face on the ground. "Bastard!" the man spat at him, then turned to Eliza.

  "Lizzie? Baby? You all right?"

  Eliza was standing up from lying flat on the ground. She gazed at her uncle with hate. She walked up to him and kicked him in his side. Given the man was in a universe of pain already he likely felt no added pain.

  "Kevin? What about you?"

  Kevin horseman held his hands out to his sides. "Me? Right as rain! Thanks to this lady."

  Sasha was not paying attention. Her focus was on the small plane, her pistol pointed toward it.

  But the pilot had no interest sticking around to face such an abrupt and deadly foe. His engine was revving louder and louder and the small white plane was moving. It accelerated and the tail lifted off the ground as it sped faster and faster. Near the runway's end it tilted back on its haunches and lifted off, curving away toward Long Island Sound close beyond the ranch.

  A scream like an angry demon jerked everyone's attention to the left. A bright streak like a meteorite's trail slashed down toward the fleeing plane, ending in a puff of black smoke well short of the craft. Arrowing down behind the missile came a finless dart. It slowed then halted to one side of the would-be escapee.

  There was no sign of weapons on the dart except small holes running back on the craft's visible side. They looked like one-half of a sneer which hid teeth. Out of those holes surely could come missiles as terrifying as the one which had been detonated short of impact on the plane.

  A closer inspection by Sasha's 3x binocular sight showed that both ends of the dart were blunt, the rear more blunt than the front. A transparent cockpit showed a bare-headed pilot lifting a gloved hand and pointing back toward the lodge. As if in emphasis the dart pivoted slightly to the right on an invisible axis, then pointed directly back at the plane, then repeated the gesture twice more.

  The white plane began a U-turn out to sea and turned to approach the runway. It slowly came in to land.

  Sasha walked toward the vehicle as it quit rolling and settled onto its landing gear. Then its engine quit, the propeller wound down. A door in the side of the plane opened and a man climbed carefully out and dropped to the ground. He had his hands in the air even though Sasha had the pistol tucked into her white sash.

  "If you make a threatening move of any kind you are a dead man," she said. It was a simple statement of fact, not a threat. The pilot obviously understood that.

  A loud hissing sound brought the two opponents attention to one side. The dart was low, approaching slowly. Beneath it four wavering nearly invisible streams of air were blowing dust and small objects away from below it. Then when the dart dropped to within a couple of feet from the ground the air streams eased to nothing. Yet the vehicle still floated on some invisible cushion.

  Four slots opened in the bottom of the craft and small wheels emerged at the end of four long legs. They touched the ground, the wheels flattened, and the dart settled to stillness.

  Close up, motionless, it was the size of a city bus, all dark blue with a broad light blue stripe from nose to rear. A screaming bird within a white circle adorned the side they could see. Below that was the slanted words Bluebird Security Agency .

  A door just behind the pilot's canopy popped out and slid back. A short ladder fell out and locked so that its bottom was near the ground. Out of it came Special Agent Helen Shaker. Then several more dark-suited FBI agents.

  A second door opened further back. More agents came out.

  One of the agents came over and took custody of the pilot. Sasha went to meet Shaker. The woman stared at her.

  "We saw some of it from up there. You couldn't wait for us?"

  "I didn't know you were coming. They were just about to kill us."

  Shaker sighed. "I would have preferred a trial. But..."

  She turned and walked to where Eliza was sitting, her back to the bodies, looking over the miraculous aircraft. She knelt before the girl.

  "Ms. Thompson, I'm Special Agent Helen Shaker of the FBI. Are you all right?"

  "Now I am. She saved me. And Kevin. They were just about to shoot me. And I had to pretend all day to be too stupid and innocent to know what was happening." Her face crinkled up but she didn't cry.

  Sasha came over and sat cross-legged beside the girl. "Hi. I'm Sasha Canaro. Your father sent me." The two shook hands. Sasha felt keeping everything on a business-like everyday basis would help the girl more quickly recover from her ordeal. To help the process along she sent a complex set of commands to the girl's body, but the most important one was just to get healthier .

  "My father! Mom!" The girl jumped up. "I need a cell phone!"

&
nbsp; Shaker stood with her. "I called them as soon as I saw you were safe. Come inside. They've got a videophone in the jet.

  "Sasha! I've got your dress inside."

  She wanted to see the inside of the Bluebird craft. But she had other business first.

  She walked over to Kevin sitting a bit dejectedly on the steps down from the screened-in porch. She sat beside him. He perked up, as any straight man would to have an almost-naked Sasha near him.

  For a minute or two they watched the busy agents. In the distance they heard sirens and a helicopter approaching. She hoped it was not a news copter.

  "Hi, I'm Sasha Canaro." She offered her hand. He took it but did not shake it.

  He grinned at her. "No, you're not. You're the banshee."

  A few dabs of Irish folklore came to her. "No, I think that's the missile they fired. I think the sound is deliberate to warn people more could come."

  He laughed, squeezed her hand but still did not let go. She read his health—very good—and gave it a boost.

  "You can only be the Morrigan." He finally let go. She gave him a questioning look.

  "An Morh Rioghain . The Great Queen. Cu Chulain's Crow. The harbinger of death. A great warrior."

  Great effort made Sasha greatly hungry. As now.

  "Do you cook, Kevin? I need something to eat. And soon."

  "Aye, I'm an angel in the kitchen. But I'm a little weary of cooking, having done it for those buffoons for three days. There's a seafood restaurant nearby. I could drive you. "

  "It's a deal. Why don't you clean up a bit? I'll go get my dress and take care of a few things. Then we'll eat seafood. And later tonight you can cook for me."

  His face lit up. He jumped up and was inside in an instant.

  Inside the Bluebird craft only the back third was blocked off. It seemed small to hold the fuel the vehicle must use. Just forward of the rear bulkhead was a small kitchen and restroom. The four rows of four seats with a central aisle looked luxurious. The side windows were deep and double-paned. She wondered just how high the vehicle could fly to require such windows.

  One jarring note were the two rear doors on each side. There was a complex arm mounting two heavy machine guns. The weapons could be rotated down and aimed out the sides. There was no ammunition for the guns.