Extreme Heat Warning: A Shallow End Gals Trilogy, Book Two

by Graybosch, Vicki

  Spicey took Wilma’s hand and said, “I got me a courage disc I gonna give to ya. You don’t wait ‘til Sunday church to talk to this lady. You find her phone number and call her today. You explain how bad you need her job and proud you will make her cuz you so good. You just wait right here, and I’ll be back.” Wilma was smiling.

  Spicey went into her kitchen and carefully placed four gum drops on a small piece of wax paper. She put them into her microwave and watched them melt into perfect circles. Once they were melted she removed them and put them into her freezer for a minute. She normally sold her courage discs for five dollars each, but she would give these to Wilma for free. While she waited for them to cool, she called Tourey. He picked up on the first ring.

  “Yeah Spicey, what you need?” He was down the street from Bernard’s house and had watched Bernard’s car pull in the driveway and Bernard enter the house.

  Spicey told him about Bernard firing Wilma and closing up the house. Tourey said thanks and hung up. If Bernard Jacobs was William Patterson, he may have heard about Devon being shot earlier. Tourey decided there was only one way to find out. He walked down the block and knocked loudly on the brass plate on the front door.

  After a minute Bernard opened the door and looked at Tourey. “What the hell? You aren’t supposed to be here for an hour. I just got here! I haven’t even had time to pack!” He looked angry. Bernard looked past him, “Where the hell is the car? Aren’t you my driver?”

  Tourey thought fast, “I’m your security for the trip. Your driver will be here a little later.”

  Bernard appeared to like Tourey’s response. “My security, huh? That is probably a good idea. You work for Rolland?”

  Tourey answered, “You might say I am independent.”

  Bernard answered, “Whatever, I’m in a rush. You want to be inside or out?”

  Tourey answered, “I’ll be both. You just go about your business, and I’ll do mine.”

  Bernard nodded his head and said, “Keep an eye out for the arsonist. I don’t want him torching this place ‘til we’re gone!”

  Tourey nodded and watched Bernard shuffle his way up the stairs. Tourey walked around to the side yard and placed a call to John Barry.

  John, Paul, and Roger had just entered the hospital receiving lobby after being cleared in the security room. This part of the hospital was a secured government facility. The security clearance process had been quite lengthy, especially, if your intentions were to visit a patient as important as the Director of the FBI.

  They had just stepped into the elevator when all three of their cell phones went off. Paul was taking a call from Thor, Roger was talking to Simon, and John was talking to Tourey. They all finished at the same time, and stared at each other.

  Paul asked, “Who goes first?”

  Roger replied, “Why don’t you start.”

  Paul nodded, pushed his chin out in his twitch, “Thor says he located Mathew Core at some bar by the port. Core is with one of his guys. He had Nelson and Pablo go there, snoop a little, and secure a GPS to Mathew’s truck. Thor is now following Core. Pablo and Nelson will be taking over the surveillance because Thor is in a cab. He wants to know if we have learned anything else on Core he needs to know. I told him I would call back.”

  Roger looked at John, “Next?”

  John said, “Tourey is at Bernard Jacobs’ house right now. Bernard thinks Tourey is hired security. They’re waiting for a driver to arrive to take Bernard somewhere, and also for an arsonist to come torch the house. Tourey thinks retired Senator Rolland Kenny is helping Patterson hide, and that Bernard is William Patterson.” Roger’s eyebrows went up. John continued, “That’s not the bad part. Tourey says these guys are part of a club with chapters all over the United States. They hold art contests for children. There is some evidence this club selects winners that are kidnapped, moved across the country, abused, and murdered.” They were all silent.

  Roger swallowed hard, “My call was from Simon Frost. He says the data cloud Ray established before the bombing is showing evidence of someone making programming changes to CIA programs. That same individual shut down the CIA super-frame temporarily. We assume the intention is to restore the super-frame from the infected cloud database. Simon says they have discovered some kind of access hole that is allowing them to watch what is happening, and record it all. I am sure that part has something to do with Ellen. He wants to share access to the hole with CIA super techs. He says we aren’t capable of handling this.”

  John looked at Roger, “Your call wins the top spot. I have to bring in OSI and CIA, and they will probably bring in the President and the Security Council.”

  Roger looked at Paul. “Could you tell Thor not to move on Core. Surveillance only. We’ll brief the team when we get back.” Paul nodded. Roger called Simon and told him to expect a call from CIA. Roger looked at John, “I think you need to check with Ellen on names before you make your call. Someone has been a step ahead of us all along on this computer mess.”

  An earpiece appeared on John Barry’s head. He looked like he had been shot with a stun gun. Kim started talking to him. John took out a notepad and wrote down two names and said goodbye. The earpiece disappeared.

  John looked at Roger and Paul, “How have you worked like this?” Roger and Paul just shrugged. John looked at his phone, “I have to make this call.”

  The elevator door opened, and the three men stepped out. John walked about ten feet away and made a series of phone calls. When he had finished, he looked at Paul and Roger.

  “I don’t know how I can explain knowing this stuff. Right now we are covered. I blamed you.” John smiled at Roger.

  Roger smiled back, “That means next time I can blame you.”

  Paul chuckled, “This might work. Everyone knows there are secrets in both agencies.”

  The three men looked down the hall toward the Director’s room. They didn’t have much time.

  By the time I found the right building Teresa, Mary and Linda were already on the cargo ship taking pictures with their video cameras. Linda laughed, “You made it! See? You can do this.”

  “How do we know we are on the right boat?” They all looked the same to me. I had just seen Teresa flying around this one taking pictures.

  Teresa answered me, “Go look in that long box over there.” She was pointing to a part of the cargo hold that was stacked almost to the ceiling in long wooden boxes. I flew over and concentrated on lifting the lid. I’m getting much better at controlling mass.

  “Whoa!” There were big guns in that box! Really big guns! Yikes. I looked at Teresa, “Have you looked in all of the boxes already?” She answered no, they were hiding from the guards. They didn’t want them to see things moving.

  I looked around, “What guards?” Mary pointed to my left, and I saw three guys playing cards at a small table. Eeek. Oh them. They did not look like your everyday, bring a lunch box to work, dock workers. Forget about the fact they all had guns strapped to them. The one I was looking at had biceps the size of my thighs!

  Linda said, “There are guys up on the main deck of this ship moving boxes with a crane to that building on the dock. We were just getting ready to go there and see what is happening.” I flew over and grabbed Linda’s shirt. She looked at my hand on her shirt and said, “You know you don’t need that anymore. You used to do just fine. Then you started obsessing that things might hurt you. Just remember we control mass with our minds. If you don’t think about it, you can fly through it. If you need it to be there, just think about it. Why don’t we just fly next to each other and see how it goes?”

  I knew this day was coming. I said okay, but I didn’t mean it. We didn’t even make it out of the cargo hold, and I ran into a wall. Full speed. I remember thinking, that sure looks like a wall. How do you not think about a wall that you can see?

  Linda had her hands on her hips. “Why don’t you imagine your mind can make tunnels through anything?” Hey, that sounded like it mig
ht work. I went back and flew through the wall full speed.

  “That works! You’re a genius!” Now I won’t have to pretend that things I see won’t hurt me when my mortal is screaming “This might hurt!”

  We spent at least a half hour looking into every box we could find and snooping around people trying to read their minds. So far we hadn’t heard anything we wanted to record. We went into the storage building on the shore, and Ellen popped in.

  “Okay you guys, I am ready to show your little videos pretty soon. Just keep up the good work and try to show us everything you can okay?” We all nodded. Ellen looked at me, “You are doing good. Keep it up!” Then she was gone. That was nice of her to say.

  The Director’s room was the one with two armed guards flanking the door. Roger stopped at the nurses’ station and identified himself as the man who had called earlier to arrange for the meeting. A pleasant looking nurse held her index finger up, smiled, and buzzed an intercom. “Your appointment is here Director.” She looked up and smiled at Roger, “You gentlemen can go in. He is expecting you.” She winked at Paul.

  Roger smiled, said thank you, and glanced at Paul and John. Kim had said Ellen was going to prepare the Director for their visit, but he had no idea what that meant. When they entered the room, the Director was in pajamas and slippers with the headrest of the bed fully elevated, so he was in a sitting position.

  Roger spoke first, “Director, Roger Dance. It is a pleasure to meet you sir.”

  The Director extended his hand to Roger and clasped his other hand on top of Roger’s. “It is an honor to finally meet you Roger.”

  The Director smiled and said, “John, nice to see you. This must be Paul.” He stretched his hand out to shake both of their hands. “Now that the formalities are over with, it seems we have some important business to attend to.” The Director had moved his legs over so they were hanging over the side of his hospital bed. He was staring at Roger with a very serious look on his face. Roger didn’t know what the Director had been told.

  The Director continued, “I have been visiting with Ellen for quite a while. I understand she will be returning while you are all here.”

  Roger nervously glanced at both Paul and John before he said, “Director, could you please elaborate on the visit you are referring to? I want to be sure I don’t make inappropriate assumptions.”

  Roger was startled when the Director threw his head back and started laughing. Paul was nervously shifting his weight, and John had turned to face Roger. The Director composed himself and invited them all to take a seat.

  He looked at them all and said, “I don’t mean what I am about to say to sound pretentious or self-serving. I believe we have been chosen to change the planned events of those who do not care about consequences. We are being given extraordinary advantages to obtain these goals. Any of our life’s accomplishments will pale in importance to the challenges we will face now.” The Director cleared his throat, “I admit Ellen had a job convincing me. I am not going to share with you how she finally did.”

  He was shaking his head slowly and was extremely serious. “I will never be the same after today. I expect you can all say that.” No one spoke, he was clearly not done. “Roger, Paul, what can I say? You have lived with this for over a year now. I can’t imagine how challenging this has been. John, I understand you are almost as new to this as I am?” John nodded. The Director continued, “Ellen has brought me up to the shooting of Devon today. She told me she wanted to present some videos for us to review. Roger, do you know how to signal Ellen we are ready for her?”

  Roger nodded and said, “I believe we can just ask for her to appear, sir.”

  Ellen was suddenly sitting on the bed next to the Director. She looked very human and looked exactly like Ellen DeGeneres. She had on a blazer, blue jeans, and tennis shoes. She was kicking her feet and smiling. “Hi, guys. I got permission to show myself as a human image. It is much easier to talk, and we have a lot of talkin’ to do.” Roger quickly looked around. He felt short of breath and fearful Ellen would be seen. Through the glass walls of the hospital room he could see people outside of the room were frozen in their positions. Ellen had stopped time everywhere but in this room.

  Paul and John were looking around too. The Director laughed, “She did this the first time she was here. Very eerie isn’t it?”

  Roger cleared his throat and looked at Ellen, “It is such an honor to see and talk to you. I want to thank you for all you have done. I’m struggling to find the right words.” Roger spoke to the Director, “Up until now, Ellen has always appeared as a black cat, and we communicated with winks.”

  The Director laughed, “I heard you had a thing about some cat. This is starting to make sense.”

  Ellen said, “I am not actually in a human form. What you are seeing could best be described as a three dimensional hologram. Here, hold my hand.” She had held her hand out to Roger. When he went to grasp it, his own hand went through the image, and he felt no mass. Ellen laughed. “Kim will always be the human we communicate through for this assignment, but I did get special permission to meet with you today in this form. We have much work to do.”

  “I have information gathered that may assist you in developing conclusions. I can only provide you information mortals would have eventually discovered anyway. If I can find you information, I will get it to you. I do not have a way to monitor how ready your mortal minds are for additional information. So it is important you ask for my help when you need it.”

  With that she produced two large screens on the glass walls and was holding what looked like a remote control. She looked at the Director, “First, it is important to re-evaluate some relationships. Director, this will be difficult for you to watch, but you need to make mortal decisions based on factual information.” Ellen played the video of the Director being given a drug by William C. Thornton.

  The Director sat silently as he watched the screen. When the video was over, he looked at Ellen and asked if he could watch it again. Ellen replayed it for him. Roger could see the Director was very disturbed. Ellen told him she wanted him to watch the next video before discussion. This was the video of the phone call from William C. Thornton to Roger. With this video they heard both sides of the phone conversation. The Director watched William C. Thornton push the files from the desk and slam his fist. The Director was shaking his head.

  The Director looked at Roger. “Is this when you called the hospital?” Roger answered yes. The Director said, “I was told the drug they would normally administer to someone in my condition, would have killed me. You calling and telling them to look at tox screens saved my life. Again, thank you.” The Director looked at Ellen, “What should we do?”

  Ellen answered, “I can only bring factual information to you sooner than you would have normally found it. I cannot offer advice. These are mortal issues. I can tell you the drug you were given by the Deputy Director was not meant to kill you. Only to make you feel very sick. I cleansed you of toxins on my first visit. You should feel only a slight effect from some of the hospital medications now. Mr. Thornton was unaware of the dangers subsequent medications posed. Also, I can only stop mortal time for very short intervals. I am leaving all of you to discuss business. I will return very shortly. I have images of the weapons delivery to show you.” Ellen was gone and the people outside the room were moving and acting naturally.

  Roger asked the Director, “We have several other issues to bring to your attention if you are feeling up to it sir.”

  The Director asked, “Did Ellen say weapons delivery? I have a feeling I haven’t heard the worst of this.”

  John spoke, “Actually sir, we have an item of National Security we need to discuss with you that takes priority to the weapons.”

  Todd and Pablo had taken over the surveillance of Mathew Core and were parked in a nice residential area in Uptown. Mathew Core had parked in the driveway of a home and entered through a side door fifteen minutes ago. Todd and Pablo
had parked more than a block away but had a visual on the house.

  Pablo looked at Todd, “So where do you live? What’s the Todd Nelson story?”

  Todd chuckled, “Got a condo rented in St. Joseph, Michigan, on the lake. Nice. Lots of chicks in the summer.”

  Pablo smiled, “Except you’re never there right?”

  “Right. Just lost my girlfriend yesterday for that reason.” Todd looked at Pablo and raised his eyebrows like “Oh well.” Then he said, “Story is, third generation FBI, and I want to be the best. That gets in the way of personal stuff, but I guess I’m okay with that for now. You?”

  Pablo answered, “I let my lease in New York expire, and Simon talked me into coming here. I guess I’m homeless for the moment.” He chuckled, “Not the first time for that either. Started out a blues singer, like my mom.” Pablo looked out the window when he said, “I’m not driven to be the best, but I want to be damn good. Hell, I’ll never be half as good as my sister! Now there is someone driven.” Pablo looked at Todd, “It’s hard to know where you fit in the world with this job.”

  Todd pointed to the house Mathew went in, “Let’s have Simon or Ray check out who owns this house. Core might be at home now, and Thor might want us doing something else.” Pablo agreed. Todd called Simon then he asked Pablo, “What do you think makes Roger tick?”

  Pablo rubbed his chin, “He’s a tough one. I heard he lost a girlfriend to cancer a few years back and has been all business since then. Simon claims Roger is one of the best the Bureau has ever had. Turns down every promotion they offer him, wants the field. It’s funny he hangs with Paul. They seem like opposites. Roger is so controlled, and Paul is pretty laid back. Paul just drips women. I guess he is the bureau poster boy, has his picture in our recruiting brochures. He has a damn good rep, too. Simon says they are practically a team after this many years.” Pablo looked serious, “I know the Bureau doesn’t really encourage teams, but I wouldn’t mind hangin’ with Simon a while. He’s a smart dude. I can learn a lot from him.”