Bunny Elder Adventure Series: Four Complete Novels: Hollow, Vain Pursuits, Seadrift, ...and Something Blue

by J. B. Hawker

  “uh, we…” Sergi began.

  “Shut up, you ass! Who asked you to speak, eh?”

  Sergi prudently averted his eyes and kept his mouth shut, patiently waiting for Koslov to cool off and give him instructions. He knew there would be repercussions from these failures and felt a vague ripple of sympathy for the Croatian pair who would eventually feel the full force of this man’s fury.

  Stopping his frenzied pacing, Matvey stood for many moments staring out the window, then turned and spoke calmly to his lieutenant, “Listen carefully, Sergi. This is what I want you to do…”

  

  Ljuto loitered near the bus station arrival area, trying to appear nonchalant as he watched for the arrival of the coach from Tacoma. Grgur was observing from just inside the station entrance. The pair had driven ahead to lie in wait for the bus and carry out their hastily hatched plan to recover Koslov’s flash drive from Bunny.

  When the Dungeness Line coach appeared, Ljuto lost all appearance of indifference as he focused on the exit doors of the bus, walking quickly to join the growing cluster of off-loading passengers.

  Scott stepped aside to allow Bunny to precede him down the exit steps. Her feet scarcely touched the pavement when she felt her arm jerked in a painful grip, nearly pulling her off her feet. She was pushed forward as Ljuto growled into her ear to keep quiet. He assured her in his thick Eastern European accent that he had a gun and would kill her if she cried out.

  At the very moment Ljuto grabbed Bunny, Grgur had insinuated himself between them and Scott, causing Scott to briefly turn away from the direction Ljuto was taking Bunny and lose sight of her in the crowd.

  When Scott turned around to find Bunny he could just see the top of her head as Ljuto was hustling her away. He called to her and began to fight his way through the passengers milling about waiting for their baggage.

  This was absolutely, positively the last, the very absolutely final, last straw. Bunny was more furious than she could ever remember.

  Anger wasn’t a comfortable emotion for her and one she ordinarily would try to reason or rationalize away. Having already let her guard down and become convinced that her ordeal was over, Bunny was outraged to find herself in this odious man’s clutches…and for reasons that made no sense to her, at all.

  The unfamiliar flare of temper completely consumed her fear and clarified her mind.

  She knew she was no physical match for this thug, but her situation could only get more perilous once his associate joined them.

  Bunny had to do something before they took her away from the bus station. She couldn’t outrun them; she couldn’t fight them. If she screamed for help, this good-for-nothing bully promised to shoot her.

  After sending up a silent prayer, the Christian catchphrase, “Let go and let God” filled her mind. Immediately, she let herself go limp and dropped to the ground where she curled up like a frightened pill bug on the sidewalk.

  Ljuto lost his grip on her arm as he stumbled over her form. Passersby quickly began to gather and offer help to the poor little old lady huddled on the pavement.

  There was nothing Ljuto could do, but skulk quickly away.

  “Bunny! Are you okay?” Scott reached out his hand and helped her to her feet.

  “Yes, thank God! It was one of those dreadful men. He grabbed me and threatened to shoot me if I called for help,” Bunny responded, flushed with excitement at the success of her ploy.

  Catching her breath, she continued more calmly, “I think I may have bruised my hip and shoulder when I collapsed, but if I had gone with him, who knows what would have happened?”

  “You were on the ground on purpose? I thought he had hurt you.”

  “I’m sure he would have if he’d had the chance. Scott, we need to get to the State Patrol office and pick up your car, right away.”

  “Come on. We’ll take a cab.”

  “Wait. Ellery is supposed to meet us. She must already be here, somewhere.”

  Standing on tiptoe to see over the crowd, she was delighted to see Ellery approaching.

  Bunny wrapped her niece in a fierce hug, introduced her to Scott, and then explained, as briefly as possible, what had happened.

  Ellery responded with dismay, followed quickly by anger.

  “I’d like to get my hands on those bozos, Aunt Bunny. If they wanted that flash drive so badly, they could have just asked you for it, like any civilized person.”

  “You’re right, dear. I would have handed it over, sea chest and all, if they told me it was theirs. But they never even asked…and now, well, I’m darned if I’m going to give it to those scummy creeps.”

  “Simmer down, now, Bunny. Such language!” Scott teased.

  After talking it over, the three decided Ellery would take the flash drive to her digital cryptography professor at the university while Bunny and Scott talked to the troopers and retrieved his car.

  Their friendly cab driver informed Scott the State Patrol has two offices in Seattle, although the main office is in Olympia, the car might be in an impound lot in either city.

  Scott borrowed the cabbie’s phone to call the local Patrol Office to get the location of his car, and discovered it was actually in nearby Tacoma. He relayed this information, while handing back the phone to the cabbie, and opened the door for Bunny to get in.

  Ellery waved them off and returned to her car to carry out her mission for her aunt.

  

  Grgur, who had seen the whole debacle, was beside himself with frustration. He urged Ljuto to get into the car before anyone noticed them and drove away even as Bunny was getting to her feet.

  He had heard from Sergi that morning and knew that Koslov was losing patience with them. They needed to get that flash drive. The next attempt could not fail, if they hoped to survive the boss’s anger.

  Passing a rundown and obviously disreputable motel, he pulled into the parking area and sent Ljuto in to get them a room. Grgur needed a place to think and to make careful plans.

  

  Ellery parked outside the university’s Engineering Building and trotted up the stairs to her professor’s office. She hoped he was in and not teaching a class in another building. She didn’t feel good about leaving the flash drive with a student assistant or the secretary.

  Professor Gilles Argyle was the Digital Cryptography Project Center Director and Ellery’s favorite teacher. In his mid-thirties, with piercing blue eyes and thick, wavy blond hair just tickling his collar, he looked more like a surfer than a highly respected educator and sought-after cryptography expert. His beachy, sun-kissed look came to him naturally from growing up on the Australian coast.

  Listening to his Aussie accent, so similar to her own, made Ellery nostalgic for her family’s sheep station where she spent her own formative years. Her brother, Loman, was now running the station since the rest of the family repatriated to Idaho to be near her grandmother after their granddad’s death.

  The professor’s outer office was empty when Ellery stepped in, but Professor Argyle poked his head around the door of his chamber when he heard her enter.

  “Ellery! Hello. Come in, come in.”

  “Hi, Professor Argyle. I’m sorry to bother you like this without an appointment, but I need your help. And it’s terribly important,” Ellery spoke the words in a rush, trying hard not to blush.

  “Not a problem. I’m always happy to help one of my favorite students.”

  The professor had a great rapport with all his students. Ellery felt he treated her with special fondness, but only because of their shared nationality.

  She fought hard not to let her crush on Gilles (as she always thought of him) cloud her judgment. She was his student and he was almost a decade older. There was no way he was interested in her romantically and, anyway she would graduate in a year or so and forget all about him. Maybe.

  “Thanks, so much. It’s about my aunt, Bunny. She found a little sea chest on the beach and two foreign mobsters have been chasing
and harassing her ever since. She thinks it is about this flash drive she found in a secret compartment of the chest,” she held up the drive and Professor Argyle took it from her grasp, with a caressing touch that sent chills up Ellery’s arm.

  “Secret compartments and pursuing foreign agents, eh? How thrilling for your aunt. You say she’s a bunny?” he asked with arched eyebrows.

  “Don’t tease, Professor. This is serious. They stole her car, broke into her house twice, ran Aunt Bunny and her friend off the road yesterday and, today one of them tried to kidnap my aunt at gunpoint.”

  “I’m sorry I joked about it. I can see this is serious. Come sit down and tell me all about it, from the beginning.”

  Professor Argyle sat in one of the visitor’s chairs and gestured for Ellery to take the one at his side.

  She relayed the events of the recent past as her aunt had recounted them to her at the bus station. The professor listened intently, only interrupting a few times to ask for clarification.

  “That’s quite a story, Ellery. You say your aunt thinks these men are after the flash drive. So why doesn’t she go to the police with it?”

  “She did. They didn’t take her seriously, I’m afraid. But she sent a copy of the drive to the Tillamook County Sheriff, just in case.”

  “Did she take a look at what’s on the drive?”

  Ellery explained that the files were encrypted and that’s why she had come to him.

  Argyle nodded, “So you want me to try to see what is so important on this? Let’s just take a look, shall we?”

  He got up and went to his desk, sat down and inserted the drive into a USB port.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the Lord sustains me. – Psalm 3:5

  Bunny and Scott stood beside his car in the impound yard. He was relieved to see minimal damage to the body from their crash. They would be able to drive it home, as soon as the impound fees were paid and the paperwork completed.

  Bunny was still more annoyed than relieved. Although she was pleased that Scott’s car would not need major repairs, she was seriously irritated with the officers they talked to that evening.

  She understood that it was nearing the end of the workday or shift change for the troopers in the office, but those they spoke with didn’t seem to want to be bothered with Bunny’s tale of woe. They were much more interested in interviewing Scott about leaving the scene of an accident and abandoning his car. Each officer they talked to revealed skepticism, as though the story about armed pursuers had been invented to provide an excuse for leaving the scene.

  If not for Bunny’s verified incident at the rest area, she feared the troopers would have charged them with a crime. As it was, they merely instructed the two to be more careful and to report any further encounters to their local authorities.

  The righteous rage that carried Bunny through her attempted kidnapping had dissipated in the face of so much indifference. The excitement of the past few days was giving way to exhaustion and inertia.

  “Come on, Scott. Let’s get out of here. I just got a text message from Ellery. She’s waiting for us at her place. She said you should stay for dinner before heading back to Bannoch, if you can.”

  “That’s nice of her to offer, but I think I’ll just drop you off and head home tonight. It will be late when I get in, as it is, and I’ve still got a sermon to prepare for this week. I wonder if I can at least turn our adventures into a sermon illustration. Any suggestions?”

  “I used to pride myself on being able to cobble up a good illustration out of practically anything, but today I’m tapped out. Sorry.”

  “You poor thing! Get in and let’s get you to your niece’s place for dinner and a good night’s sleep.”

  Their skeptics’ lack of concern seemed to have infected Bunny and Scott, as well. All thoughts of their pursuers had faded, like a barely remembered bad dream.

  

  “Look, Ljuto. Koslov is growing impatient. The information on that memory drive is dangerous. We must think of a foolproof plan that will not fail.”

  “Foolproof? Was that a crack? I’m no fool. It wasn’t my fault today! The old woman fell down in front of a whole crowd of witnesses. What could I do?”

  “If you had handled her better perhaps she would not have fallen, but that’s not what I meant. I’m not trying to fight with you. We must work together if we are to succeed.”

  “Oh. Okay, then. What do we do now? Do you even know where she went? And how do we know she still has the drive. She must realize what we are after, by now.”

  “You are probably right. We not only need to find the drive, we must find out what she has done with it, and more importantly, if she has been able to read what is on it.”

  “Koslov uses some sort of code, doesn’t he?”

  “It is called ‘encryption’, but such codes can be broken.”

  “So, what do we do? Do you even know where she has gone?”

  “We cannot know where she went from the bus station, although we can assume she went to report your attempt to abduct her to the police.”

  “What if they come here, Grgur? What will we do?”

  “Relax. There is no way for them to know who we are or where we are. Just as we cannot locate the woman, the police cannot locate us. However, we have one advantage that they do not have; we know where the woman lives. Tomorrow we go back to Bannoch and find her.”

  “And make her tell us what we need to know, right?”

  “Exactly. If she has managed to decipher the code she could cause much trouble. Koslov will have much work to do and many changes to make. It is up to you and me, Ljuto.”

  

  The days at sea, spent mostly in the cramped container, were torturous on those inside. The women and children were listless from lack of exercise, proper nutrition and hope. They passed the time chatting desultorily or attempting to entertain the little ones and yearning for the next day’s feeding and exercise break.

  The buckets were in constant use, as well, and could only be emptied during their times on deck, making the stench nearly unbearable each time they returned to the dank container from the fresh air and sunshine.

  Much as the child needed exercise, Khu Khu didn’t dare to let Htoo run free on their daily airings. The little one persisted in her plan to dive overboard and swim back home. Htoo was much too young to grasp the immensity of the ocean. Khu Khu doubted that she would even be able to climb over the railings, but one should never underestimate the abilities of a determined and desperate child, so Khu Khu was ever vigilant. Caring for Htoo gave purpose to her days and kept her from worrying too much about what even worse circumstances might lie before them once they reached their unknown destination.

  

  “That was a lovely dinner, Ellery. Thanks so much for picking up the Chinese food for us. After the past few days of snatching a bite whenever we could, it is such a treat to sit at a table and eat a complete meal.”

  “I was planning to cook for you, Aunt Bunny, but I spent a bit longer at Gilles …er, Professor Argyle’s office, than I’d planned.”

  “You said he thought he would be able to decipher the files. Did he say how long it might take him to do it?”

  “He said it looked like a fairly standard encryption, nothing like the stuff he sees in his consulting work for the government. He thought he might get to it this weekend.”

  “You know, I was almost frantic to read those files and find out why those men were after me. But, every officer I’ve told my story to has just patted me on the head and told me I’m imagining things. So, I suppose it doesn’t really matter when, or if, we see what’s on that drive.”

  “Please don’t be so discouraged. You know you weren’t imagining that man at the bus station, or any of the other incidents, either. I’m going to see Professor Argyle tomorrow in class and I’ll ask him if he can’t do the decryption sooner.”

  “That’s sweet of you, dear
. Whatever you feel is best. I think I’ll just go to bed now, if you won’t think I’m being too rude.”

  Ellery kissed her aunt on the cheek and gave her a hug.

  Bunny went to the guest room and prepared for bed. When she finally sank her head onto the pillow she was asleep even before finishing her prayers.

  Chapter Fifteen

  He thwarts the plans of the crafty – Job 5:12

  Rosamund, dressed in her pajamas and robe, was sitting up in her room trying to read a book before bed, but she was restless with worry about her brother. As she began to read the same paragraph for the third time she was startled by a noise downstairs.

  She leaped to her feet in alarm, letting her book fall to the floor.

  Bunny’s recent troubles had Rosamund’s nerves on edge.

  “Rosie, are you still up?” Scott’s voice carried up the stairs.

  “I’m awake, Scott!” she called with relief and trotted down to greet him.

  She fixed her brother a sandwich and the two sat in the kitchen while Scott recounted everything that had been happening.

  “But, if those men are still out there, shouldn’t Bunny be in protective custody or something?”

  “We tried to get the authorities to listen to us, but I suppose we were just too grubby and gray-haired to be believable. We were beginning to doubt our own grasp on reality by this afternoon.”

  “I took that little memory thingy to Sheriff Camensind for Bunny this morning. I wonder if he is bothering to translate or decode it or whatever. He did say that he would.”

  “If he does, and there’s anything important on it, I suppose he will be in touch. In the meantime, I’m going to try to get started on Sunday’s sermon outline before I drop in my tracks. I can’t remember the last time I was this tired.”

  “Well, Bunny will be moving into a place of her own, soon, so our lives will get back to normal. She’s been nothing but trouble since you brought her here.”