“Just fine, Jack. How’s that bloody meat some poor animal gave up his life for? Not to mention that with my exceptional hearing, I can hear your arteries fluttering.”
“Smart-ass.” Jack dug into his twice-baked potato.
Charles looked around the table. “I think it’s safe to say Mr. Jellicoe has some sort of surveillance at each of your homes. If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll head out to speak to Avery and see who we can put on this immediately.”
“It’s dark out there, dear, be careful,” Myra said.
“Always, Myra. Always. Seven dogs watching my back is about as good as it gets, don’t you think?”
Myra shrugged.
“I think we should discuss Jellicoe’s wife and daughter now,” Nikki said. “How are we going to handle that?”
“Very carefully, dear,” Myra said. “We can’t in any way jeopardize their safety.”
“Understood, Myra. I’ve been thinking about it all afternoon. How about this? We have Kathryn head out to Oklahoma in her rig. We all split up and meet there. Guys, what do you think?”
The guys gawked at her. As one they all thought the same thing—they were actually being asked for their opinion.
Bert was the first to respond. “Sounds perfect to me. I can ride with Kathryn if she’ll have me. I’ve been dying to do a road trip.” Kathryn grinned from ear to ear. Bert wanted to puff out his chest and roar. One look at Jack told him he was overdoing the whole deal.
“You’re going to love it, Bert. Kathryn took me along once. It is one of my most memorable experiences,” Myra said.
“This is just my opinion, but why should everyone make the trip? Won’t that throw up all kinds of red flags? Remember now, we don’t want this to come back to Maggie or her source in any way,” Ted said. Espinosa seconded Ted’s assessment.
“My original thought was Jellicoe would somehow follow us, and we could take him out before we reached the wife. But if you guys think that won’t work, I’m open to any and all suggestions. We need to plan this out and not go off on any wild tangents. We have time on our side, and we’re not kicking the clock,” Nikki said. The others agreed.
“I think we need to wait to see what Avery Snowden and his boys come up with before we make any concrete decisions. Bert and I have time before things start popping at the dojo. Harry’s Master won’t be arriving to start his training for three weeks. So, that’s our window. Also, remember, the president gave Span and Yantzy thirty days to grab Jellicoe or she would replace them. They’re a good week into their deadline,” Jack said.
Bert shared his last conversation concerning Yantzy with the others. “The feebs don’t have a clue, trust me. When those thirty days are up, those two are history, and you can take that to the bank. This town will go nuts wondering what the hell they did wrong.”
“Are we going to try to flush Jellicoe out in some way by using his wife and daughter as bait? If that’s the case, I don’t like it. It makes me nervous,” Annie said. “The safety of the wife and daughter has to be our primary concern.”
“But, Annie. Once we catch Jellicoe, the wife and daughter are safe. They won’t have to stay in the Witness Protection Program any longer. Unless they want to, and they very well might, because it’s a way of life now for them. The other question is, if we do catch Jellicoe, maybe the marshals won’t want to use their manpower to watch over them, and they’ll cut them loose on their own,” Myra said.
“That’s why we have to be so careful,” Nikki said. “So, let’s clear up this mess,” she said, waving her hands about, “and reconvene.”
They were whirling dervishes, even the guys, as they moved in sync to clear up after dinner.
“Eleven minutes and the dishwasher is on! Best time yet,” Ted chortled happily. He winked at Maggie.
Maggie shot Ted a look of pure venom. Didn’t she just dump him? Didn’t she just return his ring? Why was he so damn happy? She almost asked him but changed her mind. Obviously, he was happy with the way things were going. He’s happy, and I’m miserable. What’s wrong with this picture? she wondered.
Obviously, Ted thought nothing was wrong because he continued to babble nonstop to anyone who was listening to him, which meant the other guys.
Shrill barks and the sound of men and dogs heading for the back door drowned out all the conversation. Charles opened the door, and the dogs bounded through and raced through the house as Charles and Avery Snowden and six of his men filled the kitchen. In their hands they held equipment that looked like it belonged on an intergalactic space vessel. “There’s no way to tell how long this has been in the woods. Long story short, Jellicoe has a setup where he can monitor our comings and goings. Avery dispatched two teams to check out your homes. For now we think our best course of action is to stay here, especially the girls. What do you want to do, Maggie? If you decide to leave, can you temporarily stay at the paper or a hotel?” Charles asked.
“A hotel, dear, if you feel you can’t be away from the paper. Just bill the Post,” Annie said.
“I’ll do that.” The other girls agreed to stay at the farm, even Yoko. The guys said they could handle anything that might come their way. And then they all settled down to strategize.
Every light in the house at 911 Sherman Way in Manassas was on, lighting up the dark night. Hank Jellicoe, a.k.a. professor Simon Jordan, prowled the premises like a caged lion. On one hand he was delighted that his three appearances with the vigilantes had gone off with no one the wiser. He galloped up the steps into his computer lair and within a nanosecond saw that the video surveillance monitor that kept track of the comings and goings at Pinewood was nothing but white snow accompanied by the scratchy sound of static. “You’re one up, Charlie,” Jellicoe said before he picked up a heavy paperweight and threw it right through the monitor. He knew that in the next few hours, all the monitors would look the same way. Thanks to good old Charlie Martin. He started to curse, once again making up new cusswords to add to his already burgeoning cursing vocabulary.
How long before the three women he’d shown himself to would put it together? He couldn’t come up with a time. He started to prowl again, but this time he fired up a cigar. He paced up and down the second-floor hallway, his booted feet coming down harder and harder on the plank floor until he was practically whizzing up and down the hall, the fat cigar clenched between his teeth, the smoke billowing upward.
“Think!” he said to the empty hallway. “If this were Afghanistan, and this were happening there, what would you do? What did you do in Iraq when this happened?”
An evil grin split his features, and his eyes darkened. “You go back to your starting point, that’s what you do. Get your gear and grab the devil’s horns. They think because they found your surveillance equipment, you’ll move on. That’s exactly what old Charlie would think. Well, think again, Charlie.”
Jellicoe walked into the bathroom and doused his cigar under running water. Then he headed down the steps and on to the basement, where he opened box after box until he had what he wanted. Then he walked into the four-car garage and debated which vehicle he should drive. He finally opted for a Hummer that he’d purchased a month ago but had not taken on the road as of yet. When he’d first found this property, the garage had held a tractor and a top-of-the-line John Deere riding lawn mower that were now rusting away in the barn to make way for his own vehicles.
Jellicoe spent an hour sorting through everything he would need to spend a night in the woods. He chuckled. All the gear, the canisters, too, were compliments of the Pentagon and the engineers at NASA. He looked down at one of the small canisters before he slipped it into one of his many pockets. One squirt to any part of his body and he could walk within a foot of any dog and it would never pick up his scent.
A second small canister went into another pocket. One spray to a dog’s back and the dog, no matter how vicious, would stand still for a full two minutes. Just long enough to slip an audio device under its collar. It had taken
beaucoup bucks and some of the best biochemists in the world to achieve that little feat. Too bad he hadn’t gotten a patent on it.
No one, not even the top brass, had been able to figure out how he’d managed all those tracking dogs in the third-world countries he’d worked in. Even back in the day, when he was just providing security for the top corporate executives, the brass couldn’t comprehend the massive bonus payouts. He chuckled again. Figure out a price, put it on your own head, and sooner or later everyone started to believe you were worth all those zeros.
Time to saddle up. Jellicoe looked down at his watch. Two-ten in the morning. He liked this time of the day, the dark when he could blend in with that darkness and be invisible. Maybe he should check out his surveillance monitors one last time before he left the house.
Jellicoe stomped his way through the house and up the steps and down the hall to his war room. He flinched when he saw all the blank screens and heard the static that was filling the room. So they’d found all his monitoring devices. Well, he’d suspected they would eventually. He hadn’t planned on it happening so soon, though. He cut the power, happy to see that his hands were steady as a rock.
“Plan B is now in effect, ladies,” he muttered as he stomped his way back down the hall, down the steps, through the house, out to the garage, and into the Hummer. He rolled up the garage door, backed out without turning on his lights, then locked the garage doors with the special digital locks he’d installed, another perk from the Pentagon.
Another way of saying that the house located at 911 Sherman Way in Manassas was a fortress, all compliments of the Pentagon’s generosity.
“Get ready, Charlie, I’m on my way. You’re out of your league now. Survival of the fittest. You know how that goes, right, Charlie?” Maniacal laughter filled the Hummer.
Charles Martin stopped in the kitchen and poured himself a glass of ice tea, which he gulped down in two swallows. The air stirred around his ankles: Grady and Murphy. Both dogs loved it when Charles took them out in the middle of the night for a run.
Charles opened the screen door, and the dogs raced into the darkness. He reached behind the door, flipped open the cabinet, and took out a cigar. He debated a moment as to whether he should put on one of the terrace lights. No—like the dogs, he loved the cover of darkness. He settled himself on one of the springy padded rockers and fired up his cigar.
He’d always loved the night, the softness of the dark, the blanket of stars overhead. The thin slice of moon that danced its way behind one cloud, only to peek out and dance behind another one. On nights like this, the trees whispered their own gentle song to lull the wildlife into a peaceful sleep. On this night, however, his ears were tuned to the dogs. So far so good.
As Charles puffed away, the two dogs patrolled the fence the way they always did on these middle-of-the-night excursions because they knew when they returned there was a chew bone waiting for them.
Both dogs heard the whistle at the same time and inched their way to the fence. Ears straight up, tails tucked between their legs, they sniffed, then stood on their hind legs to paw the fence. They stayed in that position just long enough for dark hands to slide underneath their collars. Another short whistle, and the dogs bounded off, back in the direction of the terrace, where their treats awaited them.
Charles handed out treats. The dogs flopped down and started to chew contentedly. The fine hairs on his arms moved. Charles doused his cigar, looked across the yard in the darkness, and said, “I know you’re out there, Hank.” He offered up a sloppy salute before he called it a night.
“I know you know, Charlie.” In the darkness, Hank Jellicoe offered up a crisp salute in return.
Chapter 24
Charles bustled about the kitchen, the seven dogs under his feet as they moved about. “You know the drill, boys and girls. Outside for a good early-morning run, then you get breakfast.”
The smile on Charles’s face was only halfwattage as he remembered the eerie feeling he’d had earlier when he had stepped outside to smoke his middle-of-the-night cigar. There was something niggling at the back of his mind, but he couldn’t bring it to the surface. He knew that the more he tried to figure out the elusive whatever-it-was thought, the more elusive it would become. Better to let it surface on its own.
Charles looked over at the kitchen clock and saw that it was a few minutes before seven. The girls would be coming down any second now. It was like he had seven hands as he expertly turned bacon, flipped pancakes, and warmed syrup. He whipped eggs in a bowl to a bright frothy yellow. Kathryn did love scrambled eggs, especially his. He wondered if he’d had another life if he would have been a five-star chef. Probably not.
Yoko was the first one down this morning. She kissed Charles lightly on the cheek and said how good everything smelled. Then she walked to the door and commented on what she thought was going to be a beautiful day. “Summer is coming to a close, Charles. I am not looking forward to winter, but I do love autumn. Which season do you like best?” she asked as she watched all seven dogs frolicking on the lawn.
“Autumn. I do love the smell of burning leaves. I like to see the pumpkin harvest. Myra loves to decorate the front porch with bales of hay, pumpkins, and scarecrows. She did it every year when Nikki and Barbara were youngsters. But then she loved decorating the porch at Christmastime with a monster wreath, huge redvelvet bows, and silver bells. I think she might do it again this year if Lizzie brings little Jack for Christmas. It doesn’t get any better than experiencing Christmas through the eyes of a child.”
Yoko continued to watch the dogs on the lawn. “How do you tell the four pups apart?”
Charles laughed, a great booming sound. “Myra put nail polish on their tails so she could tell them apart. The colors have silly names like Passionflower Red. I believe that’s number Two. Luscious Strawberry is Three. Red Ruby is Four, and Crimson Delight is One.” Yoko burst out laughing.
“Well, Red Ruby just yanked off Grady’s collar and is heading for the door. Ooooh, she’s going to come right through the screen.” In a flash, Yoko had the screen door pushed wide and the dogs ran through. Pandemonium ensued as the dogs yipped and yapped as Four, a.k.a. Red Ruby, offered up the collar in her teeth to Charles, fully expecting a treat as her reward. Or at the very least, praise, which Charles gave.
The Sisters all started to talk at once as they did their best to herd the dogs along with treats to another part of the house so they could have breakfast in peace and quiet.
“They certainly are rambunctious this morning,” Myra said. She looked up at Charles, who stood frozen at the stove. Alexis stepped up and removed the various fry pans when Charles pointed to the collar he was holding and put his finger to his lips. The Sisters understood immediately as he held out the bright red collar for all to see.
“Breakfast is served, ladies. I want you all to eat hearty as we have a very busy day ahead of us.”
The Sisters took Charles’s cue and talked about everything and nothing as they picked at the delicious breakfast and watched as Charles pantomimed what he thought the collar in his hands meant. He jerked his head in Kathryn’s direction and mouthed the name “Murphy.” Kathryn slid off her chair and ran into the family room and removed Murphy’s collar. She turned to stone for a moment before she walked back to the kitchen and held out the collar to Charles.
“More coffee anyone?” Annie burbled.
“Absolutely more coffee,” Isabelle said. “By the way, did anyone log on to get the news of the day?” She pointed to the refrigerator, where her sketch had hung until Maggie had ripped it off and took it with her the night before with the intention of running it in the morning’s paper.
“I was going to do that right after we clean up from breakfast,” Nikki said. “Can’t start the day without reading the Post.”
They were off and running, doing their best not to giggle as they rehashed old columns that had run in the paper while Charles dangled both dog collars back and forth. “Tod
ay should be a real doozie,” Alexis said, pointing to the refrigerator.
Myra walked over to the sink and filled a pot with water. She held up three fingers and mouthed the words, “We’re coming to get you, Hank.” She motioned to Charles to get ready to drop the collars into the pot of water. “On the count of three, girls.”
“We’re coming to get you, Hank,” the Sisters chorused as one the moment Myra said, “Three!”
“You rock, Myra,” Charles said, getting into the spirit of things. He quickly recounted his eerie early-morning experience with the dogs.
“Well, we can take comfort in knowing we didn’t say anything he could pick up on in regard to his wife and daughter. That’s what I care about right now,” Annie said. “Charles, do you think he’s still out there in the woods, or has he gone back to the rock he lives under?”
“If he was out there, he’s gone now.” Charles pointed to the pot of water with the two dog collars. “I think he shot the last arrow in his quiver. I could be wrong, but I don’t think so. He’ll definitely go to ground now. Wherever he is living is just going to be a memory now.
“On the other hand, I could see him going back to wherever he’s been living one last time to erase whatever he thinks he has to get rid of. He’s got another place to go, count on it. The man is a mercenary; he thrives on this kind of action. This is all taking him back to the time when he was at the top of his game. He refuses to come to terms with the fact that he’s not who or what he used to be, and he’s lost his edge.
“Anyone he thought he had in his corner has long since cut him loose. That’s the way the game is played. He’s acting solo and has been for quite some time.”
“So, what’s our next move?” Yoko asked. She pointed to the pot of water. “Now he knows we’re onto him. How are we going to catch him?”
A shriek from upstairs, then Nikki’s footsteps thundering on the kitchen staircase made all the Sisters jerk to attention. “Look at this! Look what Maggie did!”
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