by JC Ryan
Susan was very concerned, “Luke, we need to get out of here, and so must my children and grandchildren.”
“Susan, you and Sam must hang in there. I’ll move as quickly as humanly possible. We didn’t know what we would find here when we planned the mission, and we need to get a few more things in place before we can make the move,” Luke said as he tried to calm her as best he could. He didn’t know about Susan’s children and grandchildren, and he couldn't tell them that there was no plan for that.
This was a new, unexpected, and not an insignificant obstacle. To move the children and grandchildren would require more time, resources, observation and planning. He had no choice - he knew if Sam and Susan were to be evacuated without her children, the authorities would immediately incarcerate the children and force the two of them to come back.
Luke had a major problem on his hands. He had to figure out how to execute three separate evacuations at precisely the same time. He didn't have enough people and technological resources to make that happen in the next two weeks as he had planned, which meant the evacuation had to be delayed.
***
When the four adventurers, JR, Mark, Doug and Aaron, got back to the Rabbit Hole and reported the disappointing news, the Steering Committee suggested that they do another trip to a third location. If nothing were found there, they'd have to think about alternatives.
The four of them gathered in Roy’s lab with Rebecca, Daniel, and Salome in attendance to have a good look at the spyfly recordings on a better and bigger screen. As they were watching, Rebecca said, “Roy, can you just rewind a few frames back and freeze it when I tell you?”
Roy did that, and Rebecca said, “Freeze! Okay, now can you try and zoom in on those two small bottles on the left of the screen?” Roy quickly zoomed in and adjusted the screen resolution; the labels said ‘Immobilon’. “Roy please keep that screen there. I just want to go and get something from the clinic.”
A moment later, she came back with her Samsung tablet in her hand and a big smile on her face, “Bingo! We’ve got it! Immobilon is the British version of etorphine. It must have been imported. Have a look here.” She showed them the picture and description on her tablet.
“The question now is if Immobilon will have the same potency as the M99?” Daniel asked.
“I am looking at the manufacturer’s specifications here and comparing the bottle on the screen with what I have here on the tablet. It looks like Immobilon is, in fact, pure etorphine, while I know M99 is diluted with other sedative substances. I think we have precisely what we’ve been looking for,” Rebecca replied.
Mark was put in charge of the team of four again to study the recordings very carefully and work out in detail how they would go about getting the Immobilon into their hands. The rest of the operation worked out very well. Rebecca helped them by labeling two bottles that were exactly the same size and shape as the Immobilon and filling them with sterilized water.
They knew the combination of the lock on the front door as well as the deactivation code for the alarm. With those obstacles out of the way, it was easy. The office where the pharmaceuticals were kept was not locked and neither was the glass-door cabinet. They swapped the bottles that contained the water with the Immobilon. It took more than a year before one of the rangers found that a deer that he shot with a dart to tag it for research purposes did not want to go to sleep.
Susan’s birthday
It was part of Luke's original plan to go back to the Rabbit Hole before step four would be executed. That was to get the rest of the technical equipment and to bring Raj or Stuart back with him. The revelation about Susan’s family threw a monkey wrench in the works.
He had no information about them whatsoever. He would have to get their addresses and set up a surveillance operation before he could even think about how it could be done. He had to assume that they would be under some sort of surveillance, and that it would be too dangerous to openly contact them.
Luke spoke to Alison and Owen about his dilemma, and Alison suggested that she or Owen could contact the children. Luke immediately pointed out that would be a big mistake. If they were seen with the children, their observers would put two and two together when the children disappeared and the two of them would find themselves on the Most Wanted list, with the Rosslerites, overnight.
Luke decided the best he could do would be to tell his friends about the complications, and that they would have to give him time to get his ducks in a row. Maybe they would have some ideas that could be useful. After all, Sam was a very intelligent and experienced CIA operator.
The next morning Luke spoke frankly, as he explained his predicament to Sam and Susan. He wasn’t aware before yesterday of Susan’s children and grandchildren. He had no intention of leaving them behind. In fact, for obvious reasons, it was not an option. It did however, add a new layer of complexity to his original plans, not an impossible problem, but it was going to take longer to get everything organized.
“But we all know smooth seas never make a skillful sailor,” Luke said with a smile.
Sam replied, “Luke, since our conversation yesterday I've had my thinking cap on, and yes, it's going to be difficult evacuating all of us at the same time from three different locations.”
“That part could be a bit of a challenge, but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. I first want to gather all the information about the children and their circumstances. So I'll need their names’ addresses, and anything you can tell me about them, Susan,” Luke replied.
Sam thought with a little smile, that’s the Luke Clarke I know. He'll never go half-cocked into any mission. “Okay, Susan can give you that information in a minute. I just have one question. Do you think you can pull it all together in four weeks?”
“My plan was to break you two out in the next two to three weeks, but now I might need more time than that. Why do you ask?” Luke wanted to know.
“It’s a long shot, but Susan’s birthday is in four weeks. We’re allowed to see the children once a month for an hour, but we have to get prior authorization for it.” Sam got hot under the collar while talking. “Luke, can you imagine that? Having to get permission to see your own children from some moron asshole in Washington!”
“Okay, tell me how does that work exactly?” Luke inquired.
“Well, we have to fill in an application, and then it takes a few days to be approved or declined. They haven’t declined any of our requests in the past. Then, if it’s authorized, the guards will go and pick up the children and their families and bring them over to our house at the agreed time. They are only allowed one hour with us, in the presence of three of the guards at all times. It’s like a prison. They might as well have us talking to the children through a glass window on a phone!” Sam was distressed having to even think about it. “I was just wondering if we could manage to get permission for the children to come and visit us on Susan’s birthday. That would put us all together in the same place at the same time.”
Luke got excited. “That would be the best scenario we could ever hope for! It would make things much, much easier, but I would like to work out a plan B as well. We can’t assume things will play out as we wish. The guards, or their bosses, might just decide to change their minds at the last minute. I’d like to have a back door open.”
“Agreed,” Sam replied. “We’ll get the application going as soon as we’re back home, and hopefully they won’t make us wait too long. I’ll will let Susan give you all the details about the children you need.”
***
Later that afternoon, Owen got into the passenger seat of the 4x4 in the garage attached to the house where they were staying. Thanks to Alison’s recently acquired make-up skills, he was now an overweight man in his mid-thirties.
He had tattoos on his face, arms and legs, lip rings and enormous earrings. Ugly scars sliced down the left side of his face and a nose as big and skewed as the Leaning Tower of Pisa. He was dressed in jeans and a T-shir
t, with a baseball cap, sunglasses, and a small backpack. That was the final result of the tips and tricks Alison learned from her studies at a Hollywood studio a few weeks ago, and of course, studying the facial recognition avoidance techniques in the files given to her by Raj.
Alison dropped Owen off at the Boise Bus Station on Bannock Street, where he disappeared amongst the crowd. He hailed a taxi to Southeast Boise, where Jack Walker, Susan’s oldest son, his wife Anna, and their two boys lived. Jack was a lecturer in biochemistry at Boise State University.
The taxi dropped Owen off two blocks from their house. Within the next two hours, he managed to smuggle two spyflies into their house and connect them to the recorder. Once he had moved the flies around the house and recorded the layout and measurements of each room, the flies would automatically go around the house listening for voices and movement. He dropped the small recorder, about the size of a matchbox, in a shrub close to the pavement in front of the house as he walked past. Thanks to Roy’s nanotech battery technology in the spyflies, it would be able to record for five to six days before a recharge was required.
Two blocks away he called a taxi that took him back to the bus station, where Alison was waiting for him. The next day they repeated the routine of the previous day, only the roles were reversed. Alison turned into a young mother with a baby in her arms. The taxi took her to North End where Shane Walker, an electronics engineer, Susan’s younger son, his wife Mandy, and their two-year-old daughter lived.
When they retrieved the spyflies and recording devices after three days and studied them, they learned that both households were heavily bugged with microphones, but no cameras and no guards. Judging by the contents of some of their conversations, they knew that the inhabitants were probably not aware of the bugs. It became apparent there was no love lost between them and the new world government. They were worried about their future and the dramatic changes in society, as well as extremely frustrated about the fact that they were powerless to do anything to help their mother and Sam.
Luke had no doubt that their telephones, mobile phones and all internet activities would be closely monitored at all times. The good news for him was that there were no guards to deal with. He decided to keep the spyflies around the homes for a few more days to make sure he didn't miss anything important.
His initial thoughts were that on the day of the evacuation, if the children were not allowed to be at the Lewis' house, Owen and Alison could pick the two families up and drive them to the assembly point. He would take care of Sam and Susan's evacuation.
That meant he would have to get a message through to them a few days before, so that they were ready to move when their transport arrived. He would have to think carefully through every step, but the first priority now was to return to the Rabbit Hole to make the final preparations. The spyflies and recorders were swapped and set to activate only when people were at home and awake, which would extend the battery life to more than twelve days.
The next day Luke spoke to the Lewises and told them what he knew about their children and their circumstances. He had some ideas for how Plan-B could be executed. He also told them that he and his companions would have to go away now to finalize preparations.
“Make sure that you know where everything is that you would want to take with you so that you can pack in fifteen minutes, and don’t pack anything before. We will have limited space, so unfortunately you’ll have to leave the furniture behind,” Luke ended, with a bit of humor.
Luke assured them, “We'll be back at the latest two days before Susan’s birthday. In the meantime, keep on feeding the hummingbirds every morning. Be extra nice to the guards. We would definitely like to have that big family birthday party! Oh, and three weeks from now, you should start wearing the earphones again when you’re in the park. I might be back by then.”
Both Sam and Luke knew that the plan still had many holes in it, and there were just too many ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ to feel comfortable. They tacitly agreed that it was not necessary to let Susan in on their reservations yet. She was already worrying about her children, on top of everything else.
We’re in
When Luke got back to the Rabbit Hole, he found that everything was ready for them to start work on the final plan for the evacuation. Everyone was worried about the new development, with Susan’s children and grandchildren being included in the evacuation, but there was no choice - everyone had to be moved at the same time.
They had about two weeks to make ready. They had to allow a few days for Luke to prepare Owen and Alison before their return to Boise, and a few days after arrival in Boise to find out if anything had changed since they left.
While Luke was busy with the preparations at the Rabbit Hole, Owen and Alison would take a trip to New York to meet with his publishers, and to try to connect with Raj’s friends, Rube and Sombra.
The Rosslerites were severely hampered by the fact that they had only two people who could move around freely in the outside world, as the rest of them were all on the most wanted list. Part of the contents of the laptop that Owen was to hand over to Rube and Sombra were the letters that the cave-dwellers wrote to their closest family members in the hope that they could be delivered to them.
The entire Steering Committee got involved in the planning and preparation process as they watched the recordings that Luke brought back from Boise. Then began the building scale models of the houses and neighborhoods, and stepping through both Plan-A and B.
Raj and Roy had all the essential equipment working as requested. Ben and JR tested the mosquitos, loaded with an extremely minuscule quantity of Immobilon, on a moose a week before Luke’s arrival, under Rebecca’s strict guidance and observation. One mosquito put the moose to sleep in less than two seconds. They stayed with the animal until it had fully recovered and took off.
All equipment was tested again and again to make sure there would be no hiccups when they went live. They conducted trial runs of each of the plans with Luke and Stuart, who was going to accompany him back to Boise, to take care of the technical side of the evacuation.
Two weeks later, Daniel, Aaron and Raj accompanied Luke and Stuart to Mount Ararat to find out about Owen and Alison’s trip to New York.
It was quite an experience to listen how Owen described his encounter with Raj’s friends. His narrative had them crawling on the ground with laughter at times. “Raj, those guys are crazy, man. I was told you are the most paranoid person on earth, but I know better than that after meeting with them.” Raj just laughed.
Owen went on to explain what a mission it was to get Rube to see him. Apparently, Rube had the unfortunate Owen walking and taxiing all over New York to meeting places. Owen would turn up at a location at the right time, and then some weird person would drop a note on his table or whisper a new address. Sometimes it was just GPS coordinates, and then Owen had to get there. When they finally met, after Owen had relocated about six times, Rube did not say a single word. He just listened to Owen. When Owen finished talking, Rube gave him a napkin with an address, date and time – which was two days later – and then got up and walked out. He didn’t utter a single word.
Owen gathered from the writing on the napkin that Rube wanted to meet again. So, two days later he turned up, and after four relocations they met again. Rube took the laptop from Owen, gave him another napkin with a new address, date and time – again for two days later – and walked away, again without saying a single word.
The next meeting went a bit better when they met after Owen’s third relocation, and Rube handed the laptop back to Owen. Rube spoke for the first time when he said, “This is Sombra.” Owen recognized Sombra’s face from the meeting two nights ago - he was the guy sitting at a table next to where Owen and Rube were seated.
Owen continued, “And as soon as I discovered that Rube had in fact mastered the art of speaking when he introduced Sombra to me, I could not get him to stop talking.”
“What did he say?” Raj w
anted to know.
“Give this to Raj. We’re in,” Owen said in a solemn voice that had them all cracking up again.
Raj just smiled, “They will support us. They will have left me a message on the laptop. It will take me a day or so to read it.”
There was a power dip
“I see you two are still very happily married!” Luke’s voice came over the earphones three days before Susan’s birthday.
“Luke, you old rascal. I expected you back a bit earlier,” Sam said, very excited to hear his friend's voice again.
“Sorry about that, we had lots to do, and we got back here only late last night. But I’m happy to tell you we are as ready as we'll ever be. Do you have news about the birthday party?” Luke wanted to know.
To his big relief, Sam told him it was approved. The children were allowed to visit for two hours from eight o’clock on the coming Sunday night to celebrate Susan’s birthday. Things were looking a lot brighter.
Luke explained to them that Plan-A would be the evacuation on the Sunday night and would proceed only if and when the children were all in the house. If one or more of them were not there for some reason, the plan would be abandoned and Plan-B would come into play, to be executed three days later.
Over the next three walking sessions, Luke went through the plan with them several times, and by the Sunday morning stroll they all knew exactly what was going to happen. Shortly after nine thirty that Sunday night, about half an hour after they finished the delicious birthday dinner, all were in the family room, with the grandchildren fast asleep on the couch. There was a power dip – that was the signal. Sam looked at Susan and they looked around the room to make sure they knew where everyone in the room was, especially the three guards.
One minute later, the power tripped, which left the house in total darkness. One of the guards shouted, “Sit still. I will get a …” followed by a dull sound, as if something solid had dropped on the floor. The first thud was followed by two more very similar sounds. Sam called out to the guards, but got no response. He heard the front door opening and saw two flashlights going down the hallway towards the bedrooms where the other guards were.