Shaking my head, I said, “Nope. A MAC-11 can empty a clip in a few seconds, Stan. I was looking right down the muzzle of the damned thing from about twenty feet, so I did the first thing that came to mind."
Nodding, he said, “I see. It says here you weren't aboard your flitter; that you were on some sort of narrow platform."
"It's a flying board,” I interrupted him, “A prototype I've been testing. Sue and Steph may come out with a commercial version later if they think it's safe enough."
Sipping coffee, I waited to hear what else he might say as I glanced at Linda. She raised an eyebrow slightly, but said nothing as Maxwell referred to his notes again.
"Yes,” he said, “It looks a bit like a surfboard.” Looking up, he said, “This picture's a still shot from a dash-mounted video camera in one of the police cars."
He held up the picture and I saw myself on my board, just above and somewhat ahead of the bike. The biker's left hand was aiming the gun at me.
"Uhm...” said Stan, pretending to examine the picture, “May I ask ... Your hands are empty, Ed. No stun wand. How were you able to stun him?"
I looked at Linda and said, “The woman I work for would beat me bloody if I told you that."
Linda laughed and said, “Oh, not necessarily, now that PFM's have become more or less general knowledge."
Sitting down at the kitchen table, I let Linda's answer carry the matter. Maxwell's eyes had shifted back and forth between us, then they locked on me.
"You're saying stun capabilities can be built into PFM's?"
"Of course,” said Linda.
Peering hard at me, Maxwell almost said something, then he glanced at his desk and studied something for a moment before he asked softly, almost suspiciously, “What's holding that board up? Making it fly?"
"The board uses field energy, same as the flitter. Hang on a minute. Steph?"
Instead of answering through my implant, she materialized beside me, looking absolutely stunning in one of her usual shades-of-green skirt-and-jacket business outfits.
Maxwell's eyes almost bugged out again as he stared at her.
Noddingly indicating the screen, I said, “Steph, this is Stan Maxwell, head of the NSA. Stan, this is my very good friend Stephanie Montgomery. You'll have to talk to her about getting flying boards and PFM's."
"Hello, Stephanie,” Linda said with a grin at Maxwell.
Returning her grin, Steph said, “Hello, Linda,” then looked at Maxwell and said, “Hello, Mr. Maxwell."
He closed his mouth and managed, “Ah ... Hello, Miss Montgomery. It's ... ah ... nice to meet you."
"Call me Stephanie, please,” she invited him.
"Uh, yes, of course. And please call me Stan. You look so much like someone ... Isobella Rossellini?"
"No, her mother,” I said, “Ingrid Bergman. Everybody seems to think Steph looks like her."
Readily and enthusiastically agreeing to that, Maxwell asked how he might contact Steph to discuss the boards further. Steph told him Linda's office could reach her.
Maxwell's brow knitted for a moment, then he said, “Wait a minute. Are you the woman Myra Berens is going to work for next year?"
"Yes. Has that caused any problems?"
Shaking his head, Maxwell answered, “Uh, well, she is one of our key people within her field, of course."
What crap. She'd been relegated to handling files due to some kind of personnel cutback before the NSA had thrown her at Steph and me because she'd been the nearest female agent with any field experience.
"Then I apologize for recruiting her, of course,” said Steph, “But she seems to be exactly what we'll need."
Turning to me, she said, “I was in the middle of something, Ed. I really ought to get back to it."
"Yes'm. Sorry to have bothered you, but it seemed a good opportunity to personally introduce you to a prospective client for stun-equipped PFM's."
Smiling, she nodded. “Yes, it was. Thank you.” Returning her gaze to the screen, she bid Linda and Maxwell goodbye and vanished. Maxwell again reacted as if he'd seen a thoroughly baffling magic trick.
"Linda,” I said, “Stan. I was kind of in the middle of something, too. Glad I could help out last night, but I really ought to sign off now."
Taking the lead, Linda said, “Okay, Ed. We'll let you go. Stan can get with me if he has any more questions, right, Stan?"
When she looked at his side of the screen, he hesitated, then nodded. “Sure. Okay. Thanks for your time."
Linda said, “Later, Ed. Goodbye, Tiger,” and smilingly terminated the conference link as Stan asked, “Tiger?"
Chapter Forty-three
An engine revved slightly outside, then cut off. A car door slammed as I got up to see who-the-hell-else might be looking for me on a Sunday morning.
Through the kitchen window I saw Donna hitch her backpack on her shoulder and come striding toward the front door and thought, ‘Again?'. I considered using my three suit and waiting in the hallway until she gave up and went away, then decided to either fix things between us or tell her to stay gone.
She looked ready to verbally duke it out, so to avoid giving her an opportunity to anchor herself at the kitchen table, I scooped up Tiger and opened the front door while she was still halfway up the yard.
Pulling the door shut behind me, I said to her, “We're going to the pond at the end of the street. Any interest?"
Tiger yowled, “Hello, Donna!” as I put him down. She eyed him briefly and returned his greeting, then looked at me.
"Ed, we..."
"...Need to talk,” I finished for her. “Yeah, fine. We can talk on the way. Tiger, take the point. Stay out of the street and watch out for that Atkins dog."
He brightly replied, “Okay!” and set forth at a trot, saying something else that I didn't catch. Elkor appeared beside him and the two of them seemed to share a brief conversation.
Donna stared, blinked, and shook her head, then stared again for a moment. I gave her a little ‘come on’ gesture and ambled after Tiger and Elkor. Donna caught up in a few strides and continued to study the two cats for a time before speaking.
"Ed, what the hell was this morning all about?"
Shrugging, I answered, “I thought it was all pretty clear, really. Why do you think it wasn't? Because my attitudes about some things don't match yours?"
Stopping and putting a hand on my arm, Donna said, “Ed, a man died last night. Died. Don't you get that?"
Meeting her gaze, I said, “For someone who was in the Army, that seems to bother you a lot more than it should. Those little machine pistols can spew a dozen rounds a second and his was pointed right at me when I stunned him. If you have a problem with what I did, talk to the cops. Before you do that, be advised that they already dropped by this morning."
Sure enough, the semi-collie in the Atkins’ back yard saw two cats on the sidewalk and went berserk. After two failed attempts to get over the chain link fence, it succeeded, flumped hard on the ground, got up, and charged full throttle at the cats.
Elkor sat down, then Tiger. The snarling dog bore down on them until it was perhaps ten feet away, then it went limp and slid to a halt a foot from the concrete sidewalk.
Tiger walked over to the dog and sniffed it, then walked around and over it once as he examined it.
After sniffing at the dog's ear and walking carefully over its head to the grass, he ambled back to Elkor and pronounced in a definitive tone, “Dogs smell very bad."
Donna had stopped walking when the dog attacked. She stood staring at Tiger for a moment, then her gaze turned to the dog and she walked over to it.
The dog's chest rose and fell in slumber. It was absolutely out cold, but not hurt in the least. Not even nudges from Donna's sneaker roused it.
She asked, “Shouldn't we put it back in the back yard?"
"You can if you want. If they have to chase it down or bail it out of the pound, they'll know it can get out."
Giving me a flat stare, Donna sa
id, “It could get hit in the street."
Shrugging, I said, “It could get hit the next time it goes after someone else's cat, too."
Her stare became a narrow glare, then she knelt to scoop the dog in her arms and headed for the fence. The gate was locked, so she had to lean over the fence to let the dog down easy, but it wasn't easy enough.
The dog woke when it hit the ground, saw Donna as it staggered to its feet, then it lunged at her face, its jaws wide and teeth gleaming. I'd expected that sort of response; I sent a hard stun at the dog as it lunged. It slammed limply into the fence right under Donna's nose as she screeched and flailed.
Heh. I stuck my hands in my pockets and joined Elkor and Tiger to wait for Donna to peel herself off the fence. Her feet had left the ground and her belt buckle had caught on the fencing, so she had to struggle a bit to get loose. She somewhat shakily straightened up, eyed the dog, and headed our direction.
Tiger stated, “Dogs are not nice, Donna."
Clearing her throat, Donna replied, “Some are."
Flicking an ear back to show his opinion of her rejection of his wisdom, Tiger watched her come to stand in front of me, then he continued toward the lake with Elkor.
I looked at Donna and said, “That dog you so thoughtfully helped would have had your face for lunch, ma'am. Good thing I stunned it, huh?"
"Yes,” she said with a narrow look, “It was. You knew that would happen, didn't you?"
Shrugging, I said, “Well, it seemed likely,” and turned to follow Elkor and Tiger as I added, “What is it they say about letting sleeping dogs lie? Oh, yeah! I'm pretty sure it's ‘let sleeping dogs lie,’ or something like that."
Donna shot me a glare and said, “That's real funny. Why are we going to a pond?"
"I wanted out of the house for a while. Tiger wanted to go to the pond."
"This being Florida, aren't you worried about alligators?"
"No. Elkor's with him. The last time we met an alligator at the pond, he stunned it so Tiger could check it out. It was only about four feet long. Tiger was rather impressed when I told him they can get up to around twelve feet."
Giving me an odd sidewise look, Donna said nothing until we reached the end of the block, then she asked, “Was that dog supposed to be an example for my benefit?"
"You think I planned for a dog to attack my cat?"
"I think you knew the dog would try to attack him. I'm sure you knew the dog would wake up when I put it over the fence."
With a chuckle, I said, “Back up some and put your suspicious nature to rest, ma'am. Tiger and I were on our way to the pond before you showed up."
A sheriff's car turned the corner a block ahead of us and came our way. It passed us, made a U-turn at the intersection we'd just crossed, and pulled up beside us with a short ‘whoop’ of its siren. Tiger and Elkor stopped maybe twenty feet ahead of us to watch.
The woman who got out of the car was a cute blonde who filled her uniform a little too generously, but she looked pretty capable as she marched around the front of the car.
After asking for our ID's, she said someone had reported a woman “messing” with a neighbor's dog. I laughed shortly and thumbed at Donna, who gave me a droll look.
"I put the dog back in its yard,” she said. “That's all."
Turning to me, the deputy asked, “And you? What were you doing while she was doing that?"
"Standing on the sidewalk. I don't care much for dogs."
"You didn't help her carry it?"
"No."
"Why?"
"I don't care much for dogs."
Giving me a dark look, the deputy turned to Donna and asked, “That's all you did? Put the dog in the yard?"
"Yes. That's all I did."
Glancing around, the deputy asked, “Are you going somewhere in particular?"
"The pond,” I said, “At the end of the street."
"Why?"
Sighing, I said, “Because it's still legal to take a walk in your own neighborhood. I think it's even legal to put a dog back in its yard. You've checked us out. Why all the extra attention?"
The deputy eyed me tightly for a moment, then said, “There have been a few burglaries in the area recently. We're checking out any suspicious activities."
Calling up a field screen and ignoring the deputy's backward jump and state of alarm, I poked my way to the newspaper's arrest records and shook my head as I scanned the list.
"Nope. Nearest burglary call was on Bayside Drive last week, over two miles from here. Turned out to be the guy's son trying to get in without a key. Try again, ma'am."
The deputy's voice was an octave or two higher as she yelped, “What the hell is that thing?"
"A data screen.” I poked up a list of numbers and pointed to Greer's as the deputy tried to touch the screen. “You've done your duty and checked us out, ma'am. Want me to call Detective Greer and ask why you're still here?"
Peering at me with more than a hint of anger, she replied, “I'd like to see you call him on that thing, yeah."
I poked the number. Someone other than Greer answered and the lady deputy asked, “Phillips, is that really you?"
With a laugh, the guy answered, “As far as I know, yeah. What's up, Carlton?"
"Uh ... nothing, Phillips. A guy was showing me a new kind of phone, that's all. Thanks. Bye."
She made a cut-throat gesture at me. I let the field screen dissolve, which made her eyes widen again.
"It's a prototype,” I said, “They probably won't be available to the public for a while."
"Then how come you have one?"
"I'm not the public."
That made Donna snicker softly and earned me another dark look from the lady cop, who looked at our ID's for a moment as if trying to decide whether to continue the discussion.
Thrusting the ID's at us, she said tersely, “Okay, we're done here."
Heading back around her car, she keyed her epaulet microphone to mutter something that ended in “clear at ten fifty,” and with another look at us and a curt nod, she got in her car and drove away.
Chapter Forty-four
"Hoo-boy,” muttered Donna, eyeing the departing sheriff's car, “You make friends wherever you go, don't you?"
"Ha. You're the ‘suspicious person’ who ‘messed with the dog’ and got us stopped, lady. Shoulda left the damned thing to its own devices."
We put our ID's away and started walking to catch up to Elkor and Tiger, who were half a block ahead of us. As we neared the pond, a white pickup truck with ‘animal control’ on the side doors rolled up a side street and turned to follow us.
Keying my implant, I said, “Tiger, the truck behind us may stop. If it does, I want you to stay away from anyone who may get out of it. They don't like loose cats."
He looked back and brightly replied, “Okay!"
"Elkor,” I said, “If necessary, please take Tiger home. If they can't catch a loose animal, they won't have a case."
"Okay, Ed."
But the truck continued past us toward the pond and turned on the street just before it. I watched it take the next corner, too, and wondered what it was looking for that was more interesting than a couple of apparently-stray cats.
When the sheriff's car hurried down the street and followed the animal control truck, I became more than routinely curious about what was going on and told Tiger to stay close to us.
We'd reached Kirkland Street when three big dogs came barreling around an unfenced house and stopped in the yard. The brown dog had something in its mouth and a black and brown dog was trying to get some or all of it away from him. A white dog with brown splotches seemed more interested in something in the direction they'd come from. All the dogs had the heavy skulls and jaws of pit bulls or some mixture of pit.
The animal control truck and the cop car appeared and the cop pulled ahead and around the corner, where she got out with her baton in one hand and a spray can in the other. The animal control guy got out with a sp
ray can and a noose on a stick.
As the cop and the catcher closed in on the dogs, the one with something in its mouth went en garde, as did the black and brown dog. They intended to keep whatever it was. The white and splotched dog eyed the approaching people and paced nervously around the other two dogs.
Pepper spray works fine on confused, fearful dogs who might bite when cornered, but if a dog has had any attack training or is intent on something, forget it. Such a dog will battle through the spray and get you anyway.
I saw the lady deputy put her baton away and draw her Glock and thought, ‘smart move, lady,’ just before the whitish dog decided to make a break for it, followed by the dog with whatever-it-was in his mouth.
The other dog went straight for the animal control guy and got past the noose with ridiculous ease. I stunned it before it could reach the guy and it slid to a stop at his feet just before he jumped back a good six feet. He wouldn't have had a chance in hell with his sorry reflexes.
The deputy had stepped into the path of the whitish dog and sprayed it. The dog was obviously having a hard time with the pepper spray, but it bulled forward at her anyway. I stunned that one, too, just as her gun fired.
Although the last dog had turned to face her, it flinched hard at the sound of the shot, got a better grip on its bloody prize, and continued running into the street behind the cop car.
When it saw Donna and me, it changed course away from us, but it must have seen Tiger and Elkor at about the same time, because it abruptly veered back toward us and jacked its speed up as it headed for the cats.
Elkor placed himself a few feet ahead of Tiger and suddenly there was a full-sized Bengal tiger sitting on the sidewalk. The illusion was so large that it engulfed Tiger except for a few inches of his tail.
Size alone isn't enough to deter a pit bull; they're the berserkers of the dog world, bred to take down bears and such. The dog kept coming at warp speed, discarding the ragged furry item in its mouth as it opened wide to latch onto Elkor's tiger.
When the dog leaped at Elkor's face, I stunned it hard. The dog sailed through Elkor's illusion and slid to a stop beyond the sidewalk as I went to see what it had been chewing on. The mass of reddish fur and gore in the street had once been an Irish Setter puppy, likely snatched from someone's back yard.
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