Hope it was the latter.
Chapter 39
Stater arrived an hour before his suborbital flight left the Zor-Franken Airport, so he grabbed a sandwich at one of the overpriced airport restaurants. He scanned the other travelers, a mixture of adults and children. In the restaurant, he saw mostly children but in the bars he saw lots of men and an occasional woman. No one seemed to pay him any attention, but pros wouldn’t.
Damn security! You’d think I could carry guns in my luggage, especially if the weapons were unloaded.
When the time came to board, he took a window seat, thankful that Mike had reserved it. He opened his ereader and focused his mind on the story in it. He finished it before the plane left the gate and purchased another one. The new one told the tale of a CIA agent in Honduras. Absorbed in it, he had to be tapped on the shoulder by another passenger when the steward asked if he’d like a drink.
Avoiding alcohol, he said, “Apple juice.” Some travelers loved to get a little high on their long flights. Not knowing if he’d need his wits about him, he preferred a non-alcoholic drink. And he knew from experience that drinking alcohol on a flight could cause sinus problems.
The plane entered the long arc of its suborbital flight. Stater leaned back and took a short nap on the way up and back down. The news on the telly in the seatback in front of him told of the standoff around Telmot City Hall. He watched with rabid attention, knowing full well he’d be in the midst of it in a few hours.
When he landed in Campbell, he got another flight on a commuter plane. Had only twenty seats and used twin propellers, of all things. That last flight covered the thousand miles to his destination but seemed to take forever. Almost as long the trip from York to Braco.
He ate a meal an hour outside of Campbell. Not much choice either. The stewardesses brought him peanuts, trail mix, and a small bottle of water.
He plugged the flash drive Mike had given him into his comm. He read all the files there when several bumps told him the plane experienced turbulence. In the distance, the Killarney Mountains appeared. He could see the trains on the Braco Railroad. Most headed east toward Campbell and passed under him. His plane appeared to follow the railroad. On one train, the smoke from the two engines was visible for miles. Two cars held passengers and forty or so boxcars followed.
Must not get many passengers.
When he finally landed in Telmot City, he had to walk down a stairs and onto the tarmac. The air was warm. He had expected that since Telmot was just below the Tropic of Capricorn in the southern hemisphere. The weather was like York’s, only six months out of phase. Their winter was ahead but this close to the equator, he didn’t expect any snow. Rain, yes, and lots of it as the clouds emptied themselves of water as they rose to pass over the Killarney Mountains.
At the Telmot-Franken Airport, as he waited for his luggage he spotted a rental place. Thirty minutes later, he put his luggage in the boot of the automated car and headed south on Boscar Avenue.
Telmot City had only twelve thousand people. City hall wasn’t hard to find either in the center of the town. Like many small towns, the city hall stood to his right in the midst of lawn and trees. Couldn’t see much from all the police cars and flashing lights around it.
Thankful that Mike had reserved a room at Motel Four, he made the left turn onto Franken Boulevard. Rory Franken was famous for exploring parts of Rossa so his name occurred everywhere.
Mike had reserved the second-floor room for one night, with the option of staying longer. His room had a simple bar. Behind it was the kitchenette with a sink, gas-powered range with an exhaust hood, and a small microwave. To the right rested the refrig. As he opened the cupboards, he spotted several dishes of various sizes, cups, glasses, etc. In a pull-out drawer he counted several dozen tableware in one of those yellow plastic dividers for knives, forks, spoons, etc. Below the range was an assortment of pots and pans for cooking.
He didn’t plan on staying long but it was nice knowing he had the option.
After dropping off his luggage at his room, he drove around the town to get his bearings. Didn’t take long. Telmot was small.
He tagged Samuel Lane. Sam ran a finance company, the largest in the city.
“Sam, Stater Gong here. I’ve arrived in Telmot and am staying at the Motel Four. Can we meet?”
“If you make that at one, I can bring Randy Pierre. He’s a rancher and a good friend of mine. Owns a large bopum ranch east of the city. Has twelve thousand bopums on thirteen thousand acres. What do you look like?”
“Big guy. I’ll be sitting alone.”
Stater returned to the motel and walked to the restaurant.
At one, Sam and Randy entered together and came right to his table. Both men were big, as in tall and muscular. Sam was Caucasian and Randy looked like he had some South American in his ancestry. They looked rugged too, like they could handle themselves in a fight.
Stater snuck a peek at his comm. Only the three comms broadcast.
After the usual introductions, Stater said, “I came to check on Beach Omar. Ever hear of her?”
Randy “La Pue” Pierre spoke first.
“She got herself captured as a hostage when those guys seized the city hall.”
“So she’s alive, as far as you know,” Stater added.
“Yep. You from Acorn?”
“How’d you know his name?”
“He told us you might be coming this way. But he didn’t mention names. You from BIS?”
“Would it make a difference if I were?”
Randy smiled, as did Sam.
Sam said, “Acorn mentioned you might be from BIS. If you’re anything like Jake Dani, you’re welcome here. Jake was a legend.”
Randy added, “We’ll do our best to provide you with whatever you need.”
This was a first. A welcome mat.
“Even on a weekend?”
Sam and Randy shared a look, then nodded.
“First off,” Stater replied, “I need a weapon. Snap.”
“Not a problem,” said the rancher Randy. “I can have whatever you like in an hour. What else?”
“Can you get two of them? With silencers? A smaller one for my ankle. Both need holsters.”
Randy nodded. “Like I said, whatever you want.”
Sam asked, “You plan on going in after this Beach gal?”
Stater nodded.
He looked at Randy and Sam. The two seemed to share a secret.
“Acorn trusted the two of you.”
Sam spoke first.
“I think Acorn wanted to recruit us into BIS but he felt this was better done by someone from the Zor station.”
Stater said, “I came to Telmot to see if I could rescue Beach. I can’t have you risk your lives, unless you’re BIS agents.”
Sam looked at Randy and then Stater.
“I’m game. Where do I sign up?”
“Hey,” said Randy. “I wanna join too.”
“We can go through the routine later.” Stater looked both men in the eyes. “Are you both in?”
They nodded.
“Good.”
“Is there a magic handshake?” suggested Sam.
From the look on his face, Stater suspected he meant that as a joke.
“Sorry to disappoint you. Being a BIS agent is a full-time commitment. You can keep your jobs. They might provide excellent cover. But when I ask you to go on an op, it’s not an option.”
He looked at both Randy and Sam. They lowered and raised their heads several times in tandem. Stater continued.
“We go in dangerous places, putting ourselves in harm’s way. It’s not a boy’s club. You may get wounded or killed on operations. It’s just part of the job.”
He let both men think about this for a few seconds.
Both wore serious expressions and nodded.
Stater allowed a smile to spread from ear to ear.
“Then let’s get started. The first thing we do is plan. This may not be
the best place to do that. Shall we adjourn to my room?”
Once in his room, Stater scanned for anything broadcasting.
“For one thing, we assume the enemy will try their best to eavesdrop on our conversations. For that, every time we go into a new room, we use our comms. Let me see yours.”
After both men shoved their left wrists forward, Stater pressed buttons on his comm and tapped it to theirs to transfer the software so they could scan a room themselves.
“Let me see you do that now.”
Both men stared at their comms. Sam spoke up first.
“I see three devices broadcasting. All of our comms.”
“Are you sure?”
Sam peeked at his wrist.
“Yep.”
“Check the rooms,” Stater said.
Both men walked around and in every room, paying attention to what their comms told them.
Randy said, “All the broadcasts come from our comms.”
Stater turned to his new partners.
“Let’s do the planning around the table. Every op requires careful planning. We have to think of what could go wrong. It usually does on ops.”
They discussed what they knew about the city hall. Stater had to admit, Sam was a winner. He had already studied the layout of the city’s buildings and had saved them to his comm under a password.
Stat interjected, “How can we get past the cordon of federal and city police surrounding the city hall?”
Randy suggested, “We could go in a van, a deli van. The insurgents and the hostages have to eat sometime.”
Stater added, “We’ll need disguises, a van, and weapons.”
They went over four different plans and settled on one.
As it got dark outside, Stater said, “Can you guys come here tomorrow morning at ten?”
Two heads nodded.
“Remember, this is not training. It’s real. Somebody could get killed. Or wounded and maimed for life.”
Chapter 40
Thirty minutes after getting home in Corey, Gancha’s comm alerted her to movement on the monitor she had set up to look on her driveway. Two cars parked there and from them poured out eight guys, six of them in police uniforms. The two plain-clothes guys led the police up her walk. One guy pointed to the left and four uniforms split off that way.
Two uniformed cops approached her front door carrying a battering ram between them.
Oh oh. Time to split.
Gancha activated the wipe program to erase her hard disk. The program used triple passes to erase the data. She then pressed the button to move the crossbeams over her front door.
She then rushed to the bathroom on the second floor. She had made this escape route just for such an emergency. First she lowered the three cross-beams that went over the door and secured them. This would make it more difficult for the cops to enter the bathroom, gaining her even more time.
She placed her right hand on the wall opposite the toilet and pushed in a jabbing motion. It popped out and she opened it. After she entered the small closure, she located the flashlight and closed the door behind her.
Let the cops find it.
A ding-ding sound came from behind her. The front door.
Not much time left.
Gancha turned the flashlight on. That led to the discovery of the light switch by the entrance and she turned on the bare 60-watt bulb overhead. She ignored the First Aid kit with its StopIt near the entrance to the spiral staircase.
Thank heavens I’m not wounded.
She descended the staircase with a flashlight in hand. The steps were steep. Once she stumbled in her haste and caught herself on the wood hand rail. When she reached the bottom, she opened the door.
The tunnel beyond was narrow and dark. She found two switches and flipped both. One switch turned off the light at the entrance off the bathroom. She did not want a line of light to show around the door in the bathroom, which might lead the cops to her escape route. The second lit up a tunnel. Those lights came on from bare overhead bulbs. There was no need to provide indirect lighting.
She had dug the tunnel, made the stairs, and installed the lighting herself to avoid the tunnel being listed on any contractor’s website. This tunnel would be used once. Well, three times if she considered the test trip and the digging.
She crouched low to avoid hitting the bulbs with her head and entered the tunnel. At the end, she climbed up the stairs to the ground floor of her garage. She opened the door and darkness greeted her eyes. She turned off the light in the tunnel and activated her flashlight.
No sounds came from the garage above.
Good. The cops would find the tunnel later but I’m safe for now.
The outside doors must be shut. She proceeded to the switch behind the door, hidden from sight, and, using her flashlight, found it and flipped it.
Silently the rear door of the garage opened. She had made sure it would open without making the unusual sounds of a garage door. That cost extra. Light poured from the bottom as the door slid up and she could her see the grass in her back yard. Her main garage was level with the driveway. But the basement garage opened out on the lower level of the back yard.
She worried the cops might be stationed outside the door and she’d see their legs first. When only the grass showed, she smiled. The tall double fences on the sides of the house, separated by water, must have slowed any cops going to the back yard.
She opened the driver’s side door of the only car facing the garage door and took her seat.
“This is Gancha Morentoss. Manual control.”
The electric four-wheel drive car recognized her voice and started up without making a sound. The steering wheel and pedals for brake and gas extended from their temporary hiding places. She waited for the garage door to finish opening.
She listened and heard a thump, thump. The cops must be using their battering ram on her front door. It would take them several minutes to get through the crossbars of steel, another precaution she had learned from her grandfather.
She put the engine in gear and drove out onto the grass. When she got to the creek, she slowed to cross it, allowing the water to come up the sides of her all-terrain vehicle. She felt the bumps as the car crashed through a small ravine at the rear of her property.
After she got to the other side, she said out loud, “House, catch fire.”
Windows on both floors burst as the Pyronex she had placed there exploded. In the distance, she spotted uniformed cops scrambling away from the back of the burning building.
Once she got to a paved road, the driving got easier. Thirty minutes later, she pulled into the garage beneath the building that housed the ops center.
Chapter 41
After her last class, Alena pulled the car Gancha had loaned her into the lot of her house in Corey. The first thing she noticed was the upright bricks of the fireplace. Gone was the rest of the building.
Gancha’s message came to mind. “The house has burned down. Better find another place to sleep.”
I guess so!
Alena gazed at the remains of the house she had lived in. Two neighbor females, walking their dogs on leashes, walked nearby on the sidewalk.
Alena got out of her car and strode up to the two women.
“What happened?”
“Didn’t you hear the sirens and all?” said one woman.
The other spoke up.
“If you need a place to sleep for the night, we have a guest room in my house.”
That alerted Alena to the need to find a place to rest. She returned to her car and tagged Gancha on a secure line.
“Yeah, it burned down. You should find another place to stay for the night until I can arrange a hotel room for us.”
Alena was silent, lost in thought of all her possessions, including her clothes, books, computer, and music equipment.
“You can buy replacements for your stuff,” Gancha added. “It may be inconvenient, but it’s only money.”
&n
bsp; With that, Alena disconnected and tagged Dr. Albert, her advisor at the university and ex-landlord.
“Help! My house has burned down. I need a place to sleep.”
Dr. Albert volunteered, “I still have your old room. You’re more than welcome to stay here, if you like.”
As she stared at the bricks of the fireplace, the only structure left standing, Alena blurted out, “Thanks, Dr. Albert. I’ll be right over.”
#
I looked up as Gancha walked into the planning room.
“Oh? I wasn’t expecting you.”
“Cops showed up at my door with a battering ram. I figured they had a warrant for me. Since I’ve divested myself of all illegal activities on Rossa, it must have come from Earth.”
She looked at me.
“Can I stay here for a while?”
“Of course.”
She sat with the heaviest sigh I’d ever heard from her.
Sounds of the dishwasher came from the kitchen. Zetto must be in there. Andy was probably out running his business, as was Vincent.
I asked, “All illegal activities?”
She nodded from her chair.
“Sold the drugs. Too many people were gunning for me.”
“Why don’t you tell me all you know about the warrant?”
She replied, “I made a few discreet inquiries and learned the warrant was for the murder of Tenito Summar.”
She went on to describe that day in detail. Her last statement offered a ray of hope.
“I admit I iced others for Jimmy Dice, but not Summar. I was with Beverly Mousier, Dice’s girlfriend, when I took her to see her mother at a nursing home.”
“Why didn’t Beverly drive there herself?”
“Bev had a DUI. Lost her license.”
While Gancha walked into the dorm room, I sat back and sent a message to Acorn, detailing what Gancha had told me.
“I need your help on this one. This is a problem that started on Earth. Can you help?”
I sent my message to Acorn.
Patience is not my game.
Four hours later, I got a message from Acorn.
Rebuilt: A Jake Dani/Mike Shapeck Novel (Jake Dani / Mike Shapeck) Page 15