“And I’m not?”
“You don’t love me anymore.”
“Honey, I love you now more than ever before.”
“No, you don’t. You said when I got pregnant you’d cater to my every whim. Bring me anything I craved. Make all my wishes come true.”
“But baby, it’s one o’clock in the morning, there’s only one ice cream parlor in town and it closed hours ago.”
“You told me you’d be my knight in shining armor, Tony. You said you’d ride in on your trusty steed whenever I needed you. And that whatever was broken you’d fix it.”
“Did I say I’d fix it at one o’clock in the morning?”
“You didn’t say you wouldn’t…”
“Honey, I’ll tell you what. How about if you just tough it out, like the strong and able woman you are, and I’ll take you for ice cream tomorrow. Okay?”
“Strong and able? And that’s the best you can do?”
“Strong, able and sweet?”
“Not much better.”
“Strong, able, sweet… and sexy?”
“I don’t feel sexy. I feel as big as a barn.”
“Oh, baby, don’t say that. You’re beautiful. As beautiful as you’ve ever been.”
“I’m not. I’m big and fat and ugly.”
“Baby, I swear you’re not. Look at me.”
She looked into his eyes.
“Do you trust me, baby?”
“I guess… I think so… I… Yes. I trust you.”
“Then you have to believe me when I tell you you’re the most beautiful creature I’ve ever laid eyes upon. You are absolutely perfect in every way. I couldn’t in my wildest dreams ever hope to find another woman as sexy as you…”
But she’d stopped listening halfway through his declaration.
“Oh, so now I’m a creature, huh? Like Bigfoot? Maybe Frankenstein? Or perhaps the wolf man?”
“Oh, geez…”
Tony knew there was no winning. And since they were almost back to the motel he thought he’d try a new tactic.
“I’ll tell you what, baby. I know you can’t drink right now, and I’ve been trying my best to refrain myself as a show of moral support.
“But I’ll be honest with you. After all the work we’ve done over the last few days and all the stress this whole Yellowstone thing has caused us, I feel a bit like a guy who fell off the side of a mountain and then got kicked by a Billy goat.
“Would you mind if I drove up to the package store and got a six pack of beer? Just one six-pack, and then I’ll be good until we get back home again, I promise. And I won’t even drink it in front of you. I’ll only drink it when you’re sleeping or in the shower or something.”
“Oh, Tony… I told you that you don’t have to change your habits just because of me. That’s very sweet of you, but I don’t want you to change. You’re flawed in so many ways, but you’re who you are. You’re who I fell in love with. If you changed you wouldn’t be you anymore. I might not love you as much.”
“Do all scientists have as flawed a logic as you have?”
“Only the smarter ones.”
“I’ll tell you what. Why don’t I run you a hot bath? With those bubbles you like so much. The ones that stink like flowers.”
“Tony, flowers don’t stink. They smell pretty.”
“Maybe some flowers do, but these flowers stink.
“To high heaven.
“And back.”
“Tony, I like the way my bath bubbles smell.”
“Well, that’s on you. At least one of us has taste. If we have a girl and you put that stuff on her I’ll take her back and trade her for a puppy, I swear I will.”
“You will not. Do you really hate the way my bath bubbles smell?”
“Hate is such a strong word. How about I’m not fond of it?”
“Sorry. You can’t replace one word…”
She paused just long enough to mouth the words one through five as she touched the tips of her fingers.
“…with five other words. It’s uncivilized. If you take away one word you have to replace it with one other word. It’s the only proper way to do things.”
“Nuts.”
“That’s your word? You’re using nuts as a way to describe how you feel about my bath bubbles?”
“No baby. I’m using the word nuts to describe you. Now why don’t you relax in a nice warm bath, I’ll go buy my six-pack of beer, and I’ll be back shortly. We can snuggle or something.”
“You’ll snuggle with me when I reek of stinky flowers you hate?”
He rolled his eyes and sighed.
Then he kissed her and stole a look at the computer program, which was still running.
As she went to the bathroom and turned on the water, he stole out the door and closed it behind him.
But he wasn’t going to buy only beer.
He had a second mission to accomplish.
Chapter 25
Tony stopped at Jake’s Wine and Liquors, just off the highway half a mile from the motel, and picked up a sixer of Bud Light. He so wanted to crack one open. It had been so long since he’d tasted the sweetness of his favorite beer.
But he’d wait. The last thing they needed to make their situation worse was for Tony to get popped for driving with an open container.
Once that deed was done it was on to Plan B.
Tony had always fancied himself a bit of a romantic.
Oh, it wasn’t his doing. It was something his father taught him shortly after his ninth birthday, when he’d fallen in love for the first time and taken his first girlfriend.
Her name was Susanne, and she had emerald eyes and a smile which would melt any iceberg. He passed her a note in class which said, “You’re pretty. Would you like to go out?”
“Going out,” for two nine year olds, was nothing like it sounded. It didn’t involve either a form of transportation or a destination.
In adolescent parlance “going out” meant being exclusive. As in boyfriend and girlfriend.
As in young love.
The trouble with Susanne and her emerald eyes was that Tony wasn’t the only boy to notice her.
They’d been exclusive for little more than a week when another potential suitor came onto the scene.
His name was Evan, and he had something which made young girls swoon.
A Nintendo.
He even had a few games that girls might like, thanks to his older sister who started high school and no longer had time to play them.
“Don’t just stand there and let that guy take away your girl,” Tony’s dad admonished him.
“If you want to keep her, you have to work harder. You have to prove to her that you’re sweeter than he is. That you love her more than he does. That you’re more considerate than he is.”
For weeks he coached Tony on the intricacies of love and romance. He wrote her poems and read them to her on the bus. He carried her books. He brought her candy and an occasional wildflower.
But he never really had a chance. Especially when Susanne left Evan’s game console to steal into his sister’s bedroom for a tissue.
And saw her extensive collection of boy band CDs.
Game over.
Okay, so that didn’t work out as planned. Tony lost the girl, but he retained the knowledge. And he applied the same tactics in every one of his relationships through high school.
Up to and including his relationship and eventual marriage to his sweet Hannah.
Tony knew that by occasionally being romantic he could reap all kinds of rewards.
And since he worshipped the ground Hannah walked upon, he’d always gone out of his way to please her even when he got nothing from it but her smile.
It was a small gesture, really. But one which would make her extremely happy.
He’d passed by the Walmart on his way into town, and knew they’d have everything he needed to fix his love a huge bowl of chocolate almond ice cream.
With gummy
bears.
Heck, he might even go a step farther and cover it with whipped topping, and place a lone maraschino cherry atop it.
Or maybe not.
No sense going overboard.
As Tony walked the aisles of Walmart, selecting an ice cream scoop and marveling at the fact he could buy a single solitary spoon, instead of a whole dozen he didn’t need, Hannah ran her bath water.
It didn’t matter that Tony didn’t appreciate the finer things in life. Like the smell of her bath salts.
She dumped a bunch in anyway.
Because she liked it.
While Tony was examining two different brands of chocolate almond ice cream trying to decide which was best, Hannah was easing herself into the tub.
She closed her eyes, leaned back, and let the warmth of the water carry her away. She smiled.
Tony should have been back by now. But he wasn’t, which meant he was up to something.
He was going after her ice cream.
Tony was many things. He was sweet, and handsome, and passionate… and very predictable.
She didn’t mind. When she put her head upon his chest in a couple of hours and closed her eyes to sleep, her stomach would be full of her favorite ice cream.
Her heart, on the other hand, would be full of love for this wonderful man.
And she’d never, ever tell him that he wasn’t as sneaky as he thought himself to be.
That would spoil the fun.
As Tony got into his car and started the ignition another man, in the motel parking lot, turned off his ignition and unbuckled his seatbelt.
The passenger to his right, and a man in the back seat of the black Crown Victoria unbuckled their belts as well.
They knew their stuff. They’d been doing it for awhile.
The men didn’t bother knocking. It would only put Hannah on high alert. Instead, one man jimmied the lock, while another stood ready with bolt cutters in case she’d applied the door’s chain lock.
She hadn’t.
Cutting the chain would have made noise.
Not having to do so enabled them to enter the room in almost complete silence.
They expected a scream. There was almost always a scream, especially when their target was a woman.
But sometimes men screamed as well.
In this case no one did. For their target was in the bathroom, behind a door she closed to trap the steam.
This was like taking candy from a baby.
And it made the men happy, for they’d seen photos of Hannah. They knew she was an exceeding beautiful woman.
And when Hannah turned on the water to reheat her tub, they knew she was naked.
They were men, after all. And men are little better than dogs when it comes to their primal desires.
All three of them looked forward to bursting into the bathroom to confront the naked beautiful woman and to cart her away.
They moved as one, in a single fluid motion. They’d done this kind of thing so often together they knew one another’s movements. There was no need for communication.
One man very slowly turned the knob. So slowly that Hannah wouldn’t detect the knob’s movement unless she was fixated on only that.
It wasn’t locked.
That would speed up the process a bit.
The man on the doorknob stepped to one side, where he’d be out of the way, and quickly opened the door.
The other two rushed in. The first, to grab Hannah’s head and cover her nose and mouth with a diazepam-soaked rag.
The other, to quickly grab her hands and to pull her up and over the side of the tub, face down, where she was less likely to resist.
Poor Hannah didn’t have time to plan her defense. Didn’t have time to bolt. Didn’t have time to lash out.
She only had time to scream.
They always screamed.
But the scream did nothing to help her at all, for it was quickly muted by the man placing the rag over her face.
They didn’t care that she was pregnant. Didn’t care that the drug used to render her unconscious might be harmful to the baby.
They didn’t care, either, that manhandling her out of the tub face down could cause her to miscarry, maybe even hemorrhage.
They just didn’t care.
They were brutal, and no better than thugs.
Once she was free from the water and dazed, the first two backed away from her and the third placed a taser against the center of her back. Then he sent a wave of electricity coursing through her body, causing her to be incapacitated. There would be no more screams, no further resistance.
The thugs were efficient. They took even less time getting their target covered, wrapped in a motel room comforter, and into the trunk of their car than they spent sneaking into the room and getting into position.
No one challenged them. If anyone had, the three of them would have overtaken them quickly. Probably knocked them cold with a baton to the side of the head.
Or shot them dead with a silenced gun.
If someone saw them stuff a woman into the trunk and called the local cops, it wouldn’t have mattered much.
They’d just stop a block away and peel off the stick-on cover from their rear license plate, to reveal a completely different number underneath.
And even if some hapless cop arrived quickly enough to see them pulling away, it wouldn’t have mattered much anyway.
They had credentials form the Department of Homeland Security.
A license, as it were, to break whatever local laws they had to in order to protect the nation’s security.
A sort of get out of jail free card.
Any patrolman unfortunate enough to be the one to pull these guys over would receive a browbeating and a warning: “You’re in over your head. This does not concern you. Back away and mind your own business.”
And the local cop would have too.
The black Crown Victoria actually passed Tony’s Honda, going the opposite direction, two blocks from the motel.
And Tony didn’t have a clue.
Chapter 26
Tony walked into the room and saw nothing amiss.
The missing comforter on the far bed was something he didn’t even notice, since the bed had been left unmade and the comforter had fallen onto the floor. The couple had been declining maid service for days, just requesting fresh towels occasionally from the front desk.
It was Hannah’s idea. She freely admitted she might just be paranoid, but didn’t want the word to get around they were working on some big project involving computers.
The computer monitors were on the tables, as they were when he’d left earlier. But they were now blacked out.
Tony assumed the programs had finished running and that Hannah had turned them off. To be perfectly honest, he was sick of computers and numbers and anything having the words “Yellowstone” or “volcano” in it.
He never noticed that beneath the tables, the computer towers were missing.
Oddly enough, he did notice the puddle of water on the floor leading from beneath the closed bathroom door and onto the motel room carpet.
That Hannah. He loved her more than all the world, but she could be a slob sometimes. He assumed she came out of the tub soaking wet, dripping on the floor as she went to get a soda from the tiny refrigerator.
He almost opened the bathroom door to tell her he was back.
Then he remembered he had a beer calling his name.
And since he was going to crack open a beer anyway, he might as well step outside to drink it.
Then he could enjoy a cigarette at the same time.
A few miles away, on the outskirts of town, the black Ford pulled down an isolated county road. Now that they were clear of the abduction area and less likely to be observed, they had the luxury of doing some things they didn’t have time to do before.
Like check their target to make sure she was still alive.
An overdose of diazepam could sometimes send the
victim into cardiac arrest. If they accidentally killed her it wouldn’t be the end of the world. For they probably would eventually anyway. But their superiors wanted to talk to her before it came to that.
So alive for now would be a good thing.
Assuming she was alive, they’d have to gag and bind her, since the drug would eventually wear off and she’d wake up screaming.
The man in charge popped the trunk and the interior light instantly sprang to life.
“I wonder why they didn’t tell us she was pregnant,” he pondered.
One of the others replied, “Does it really matter?”
“Well, I mean, she’s hot and she’s naked. Her being pregnant is the only thing that dampens the fun.”
“Well hell, Dave. She’s not that pregnant. Go ahead and pull her out and do your thing if you want. We’ll wait. We’ve both seen you before, and know it won’t take more than half a minute or so.”
“Very funny. Nah, I think I’ll pass. They’re more fun when they’re awake so they can fight back a little. Makes the whole thing more exciting.”
“You’re a sick puppy, Dave, you know that?”
“Yeah. The sickest. That’s why they put me in charge of you two morons.”
He felt her carotid artery and was satisfied when he found a healthy pulse.
Then he noticed a knot on her forehead.
“Where did that thing come from?”
“She kind of slipped out of our hands when we were putting her in. Hit her head on the hinge. But it ain’t bad. Look, it ain’t even bleeding much.”
The third man spoke for the first time.
“Hey, it wasn’t our fault. She’s all wet and slippery.”
“Drag her out and put her back in face down. I want to hog tie her and gag her.”
“But she’s pregnant. Should we make her lay on her stomach?”
“What are you, starting to feel sorry for this little bitch?”
“No…”
“Then do as I say. I don’t give a damn if she’s pregnant or not. She’s just an assignment, that’s all. And besides, she’s likely not gonna live long enough to have the baby anyway. So what difference does it make?”
He had a point.
The two did what they were told.
Her hands were cuffed behind her back. Her legs were bent at the knees, and a second set of cuffs was used to bind her ankles.
The Yellowstone Event: Book 1: Fire in the Sky Page 8