Chapter 10
Caitlin was waiting for them, just like Master Tohie said she would be. "I hope Master Tohie didn't work you guys too hard!" she said jokingly. "He has a unique ability to wear out everyone here." Then she noticed that Susan was missing. "What happened to Susan?"
"She had some things she wanted to speak to Master Tohie about. She asked us to go ahead without her, and she'd catch up later," Bill said.
Cat turned and began to lead the group toward the main house. "Alex is next, since John and Alec are still busy on our range. The good news is this probably won't take nearly as long as it did with Master Tohie."
Trina did the scan on Cat and she was clean — horny — but clean.
"I know that Alex is your instructor for explosives and demolitions, but how does that fit into anti-kidnapping and protection?" Diane asked.
"Oh, that's easy; Alex is going to teach you all some 'dirty little tricks', as she calls them, with normal household chemicals. Little tricks you can use to confuse, or scare off attackers, or provide cover and concealment for an escape. Some of the stuff she knows is downright scary," Cat explained.
"Oh, we have some knowledge in that area ourselves, but it would be good to have a refresher. It's not like you use that knowledge on a daily basis," Trina said.
Cat chuckled; "Hang around with us long enough and you will."
The next hour was full of information on how to turn a normal home into a weapons depot. Of course, Bill's family simply copied the information from Alex, and the rest of the time was filled by practicing and observing the effects of different 'dirty tricks'. Twenty minutes into the session, Susan, Crystal and Asia rejoined them. Cat sat in on this session as well and went through the same exercises as everyone else. When it was time to leave, she gave a blushing Alex a kiss and thanked her.
"Lunch time!" Cat said. "We have two really great cooks here. Though most of us troops eat in the main cafeteria, John likes to have a table of about twenty and rotates people through meals. He believes it helps with morale, and gives the people a chance to talk to him. He's right, everyone loves it, and problems get taken care of before they become problems."
She led them back to the main house and into a large dining room. John was there talking to a few people, and when he saw the new-comers excused himself to join Bill and his family.
"Sorry, I got held up this morning. We had a bunch of people going through the weapons range and it gave me a great opportunity to check a bunch of my troops," John said.
"No problem at all, John. The real mission has to come first or a lot of people could be hurt," Bill said.
"Well, I've managed to gather the rest of my command staff for this lunch. So you should be able to get the rest of them checked. I do hope it's none of them though; I've known each of them a few years, and have come to love some of them a great deal. Which is why I wanted you guys to scan them; I hope you understand," John said.
Susan touched his arm; "We do understand, John. It just reinforces our opinion that you are a good person. How about you take us around and introduce us, and we'll scan each one then?"
John led them around and quietly introduced them to each member, until they joined one of John's wives, Laura, speaking to rather attractive older blonde woman. John introduced her as Susan Shepard, their primary tactician and operations specialist.
Bill immediately felt the subconscious commands as well as the impulse to kill herself if ever discovered. He got a sad look on his face as he gently pushed her mind into sleep.
John caught her as she apparently fainted after shaking Bill's hand. John looked curiously at Bill. "What happened?"
"She's the mole. However she has additional programming that will force her to suicide if she's discovered. She doesn't know who, but she does know that there are two others here to ensure she doesn't survive long enough for an interrogation," Bill replied sadly. "She loves you a great deal, John, and I can feel that you love her as well. Please try to remember she has no idea she's betraying you."
John looked pained. "She knows everything about us, including my abilities. Is there anything we can do to help her?"
"I might be able to, but not in front of everyone else. She needs to be taken to a secure room and away from everyone else. At this point we can only trust those we have scanned to guard her. Remember that there are two more that will take her out as soon as they know she's been discovered. May I offer our services to guard her until you can arrange better security?" Bill asked.
"I doubt I have better security. But I know what you meant. Let's get her into the infirmary. She should be easy to protect there," John replied.
During the conversation with John, Trina had filled in everyone else on what was decided. John lifted Susan into his arms and carried her. Crystal was beside him watching the rest of the people in the room. Asia took a spot next to Bill as he followed John, and Bill's Susan followed with Diane and John's wife Cindy.
Diane and Cindy got in front of the procession and were the first ones in the room. Diane checked it out and nodded to Crystal who had restrained John from just entering with his burden.
As Crystal let the group in the room, Bill noticed that Asia and Crystal both took up positions on each side of the door. In the room, there were two other occupants and Diane stayed near them. As John placed Susan on one of the beds he asked Bill to check the other two occupants while he made sure the room had no bugs.
The woman on the bed, Paula, was in a lot of pain and dying of pneumonia as a result of advanced AIDS. She was very wasted and was weak as a kitten. The woman with her was named Lois and was only concerned for her dying friend. Neither of them had any programming.
"The room's clean, it's safe to talk," John reported.
"They're safe. Mom, please see if there is anything you can do for Paula; she's almost gone and is in a great deal of pain," Bill said.
"We can't save everyone, Love. But I'll see if I can't at least relieve her pain," Susan replied.
"No, try to save her. She's special, like we are special. She's a pure blood," Bill said.
"What? How can that be? She should be immune to AIDS!" Diane said.
"Later! Just save her!" Bill said. "We can find out her story after she recovers. Now I need to concentrate on Susan; someone really fucked her up inside."
John looked troubled. "Bill, I've scanned her before, not completely, but I think I should have seen this. How could I have missed it?"
"Her programming is interwoven into her normal personality. I'm not sure, but the over all effect would make her more eager to please, almost like a puppy. Let's get her restrained so I can wake her up. It'll be easer to do if she's awake," Bill said.
Cindy put on the restraints they kept nearby and made sure Susan was comfortable before nodding to Bill.
As Bill let her slowly regain consciousness, he watched things in her mind and caught the key phrase that was used to put her into an almost hypnotic trance so her 'handler' could extract information from her. He also noticed in her mind that she had never volunteered information, only responded to questions. Whoever her handlers were, they were sloppy, and missing a great deal of vital information.
While Bill was still digging around in her mind, she woke up fully. When she opened her eyes, the first person she saw was John. "John? What happened to me? I remember you introducing me to someone and then nothing."
"You fainted, sweetheart. Bill and his wives offered to help Cindy try to find out what's wrong. Though Cindy seems to think its just exhaustion; you've been working too hard again," John said smiling tenderly at her.
"Why am I restrained?" she asked, starting to sound worried.
"Relax, love. It's for your own safety. You had a convulsion." He held up a wet mouthpiece that would be used to keep her from biting her tongue during a convulsion. "We're worried you might have another one. Don't worry; as soon as we figure out what's wrong, we'll let you loose again."
"John, I'm scared. Something hasn't felt right for awhile now, but I didn't think much of it," she said.
Cindy, ever the professional asked, "How long have you felt that way, sweety? Maybe we can get a better idea of what's causing this?"
"Uh..." She seemed to be thinking, but all of a sudden she started fighting against the restraints and screaming to be let go.
"Whiskey Gumbo Jambalaya," Bill said and she calmed down. Her eyes got a glassy look and she lay back, like she was resting. Bill held a finger up to his lips so everyone knew to be quiet, then pointed to his head indicating the use of telepathy to speak. "I had to use her key phrase to deactivate her self-destruct programming. Her handler is a man at Peterson Air Force base that is either posing as a DEA agent or has been programmed as well. I think I can remove her programming, but we'll have to act quickly; she's supposed to report in either tonight or tomorrow. There is no set time, just a time frame for her to report. Whoever programmed her like this made one large mistake, she doesn't volunteer information, and from what I can see in her mind, most of your secrets are still safe. She's never told them to anyone mostly because no one has ever asked. However, she was taken to a lab in New Orleans when she was programmed. From the buried memory, it's a large facility. Though they told her to forget everything, she didn't; the information was just buried with everything else.
"I think I can remove all the bad programming and still leave the memories, but the hard part is going to be removing the suicide order. I won't be able to do it in her present state. I'll have to fight her to remove it. While I'm not worried about failing, I am worried about hurting her. I could really fuck her up if she resists too much."
Cindy had tears in her eyes and John looked on the verge of tears himself. He looked at Bill, "I don't think she would like to remain alive if she knew about this programming. Do what you need to do, but if she fights you too much, don't damage her, just shut her off. I love her, and I know she would never want to be a brain damaged vegetable the rest of her life."
Bill swallowed past the lump in his throat; "I'll do my best for you, John. But you guys should leave before I do this; it isn't going to be pretty."
John took his wife's hand and led her out of the room. Susan and Diane approached Bill then and touched his shoulder. "We're here for you, husband. If you need our strength, it's yours."
"How about Paula? Is she going to pull out of it?" Bill asked.
"I took care of the AIDS and taught her body how to fight off the infection. Since she can't eat yet, that's all we can do for now. There is still a little pain, but while her body is weak, her soul is strong. She was resigned to death until Diane and I talked to her. Now that she knows she has a chance to beat this, she is fighting. We can help some more after she gets more nutrients in her," Susan explained.
"Good, now I need to get to work on this Susan. Could one of you bring me something to eat?" Bill asked. "I'm already hungry, and I have a feeling I'm going to use more strength in a few minutes. Where's Trina? I don't feel her right now."
"She's out here with us, Master. She said something about going into a trance and scanning a larger area to make it harder for someone to sneak-up on us," Crystal said.
"I'll get the food, Diane; I think it would be best if you stayed to guard Bill and John's Susan," Susan said.
Suddenly, Asia burst through the door and ran to the other side of the room by another door. She pressed herself against the wall and waited. As Bill was about to ask her what was going on, the door slowly started to open and a slender arm extended through it to begin to point a silenced pistol toward the bed holding Susan. Diane stepped in front of Bill, and he could see a throwing star in her hand.
Bill swore he didn't see Asia even move before she had the women on the ground face first, and both arms wrenched behind her back. The pistol was tucked into the waistband of her pants at her back and the woman on the floor was unconscious.
Diane moved over to the drawer that Cindy had the bed restraints in and tossed a pair of the wrist cuffs to Asia. Asia put them on, locked them together, then stood. She closed the door and stood next to it after dragging the woman out of the way.
When Susan returned, Bill was already back to work on John's Susan. Diane was back against one wall pointing the captured gun at the prisoner's head while Asia kept guard at the rear door. "Lover, could you set that down and go get John? One of the assassins tried to take Susan out already," Diane told her.
Lois looked frightened, but Diane gave her a tender smile and motioned her to be quiet and relax. Lois gave her a tentative smile in return and nodded her acceptance. The assassin was also frightened and it was clear that she didn't know what was going on. When she opened her mouth to ask a question, Diane just shook her head and held one finger to her lips telling her to remain quiet.
Susan's eyes closed like she was now asleep instead of in a trance. Bill took a deep breath and leaned back. "This last part is going to be the hard part. She is going to be violent and loud. She's asleep for now, but when I wake her up, the fight'll be on. There is no key phase anymore to put her in a trance, and no control over the suicide order. I'll wait until John gets her," and he nodded toward the prisoner, "out of here before I start that." Bill looked at Lois. "I'm sorry that we can't answer you're questions right now, Lois. I know you probably have about a hundred of them by now. But this next part might be frightening for you. I want you to remember that I am not hurting her, just trying to keep her from hurting herself. It'll be loud and probably vulgar. We might even wake up Paula, but that can't be helped. Would you like to step out for this?"
"No sir. If Paula wakes up, I'd like for her to see a friendly face. Maybe I can soothe her nerves a bit," Lois replied.
"My name's Bill. The pretty lady holding the gun is my wife, Diane, and the beautiful thing guarding the door is also one of our wives, and body slave, Asia. I think you've also met Susan, the nice lady that helped Paula. You still haven't met Crystal and Katrina, but they're outside the door. We are all married to each other, like John, Laura and Cindy. I'm sorry, but I can't explain the rest of this yet."
"My name's Lois, sir. If I forget to say anything later, please tell your wife thank you for helping Paula, she was in a lot of pain. I'm afraid it won't be much longer now," she said as a tear fell slowly down a cheek and she looked back down to the woman she loved.
"Paula's a very special woman, Lois. I don't think she's done with this life just yet. Believe in her and love her, and I bet she'll pull out of this," Bill said. "And, please, call me Bill."
"She's been suffering a long time, Bill. All that pain has to have worn her down by now. I want to believe you, I really do, but all I can hope for her now is a quiet end to the pain," Lois said.
"I think you'll find most of her pain is gone now. She should start getting better, every day. Don't write her off yet," Bill said as the door opened as John and two armed guards entered. "John, she doesn't know what she almost did. If you can hold her, I think I can fix her easier than Susan here. Once you leave I'll start the last part. Everything but the self-destruct has been removed, and she's sleeping. Once I'm done, she'll be hungry and need to sleep for a day or so."
John just nodded and took the restraints off the kneeling woman to replace them with flex-cuffs. "We're really indebted to you for everything you've already done. I just hope we can find the last one before it's too late."
"Well, I do know the last one isn't a sleeper. Kara there was activated and sent to do this by someone here, a male someone. She doesn't know who though," Bill said.
"We only have twenty-four men on the entire compound. I can get most of them scanned quickly. I think we can get this bastard tonight," John said as the guards led a frightened Kara out of the room.
"I've never seen John so mad before. Suddenly, I'm very glad he's not mad at me," Lois said quietly.
"Okay, when this starts, Diane, I'll need you to come over here and try to get her attention; talk to her, shake her shoulder, poke her, anything to get her attention outside of slapping her, I might need you to do that, but only if I let you know. Lois, you don't need to come over here, but I need you to call to her as well. The more people trying to get her attention, the less her mind will be able to resist me. Is everyone ready?" Bill asked. At their nods, he took a deep breath, closed his eyes and dove into the woman's mind.
Twenty minutes later, Bill stepped out of the infirmary covered in sweat, and bone tired. It had been a close thing, but John's lover had survived. John and Bill's mother helped him to a chair in the dining hall while Laura ran to the kitchen for food and cold drinks. He had a throbbing headache and, once seated, grabbed a cold bottle of water from the returning Laura. He took a long drink then looked at John and Laura; "She survived, but she's a lot weaker then I estimated she would be. Currently, she's asleep, but should wake up in a few hours, and she'll be hungry. After she gets some food in her, try to get her into her own bed so she can sleep the rest of this off." He rubbed his head. "I forgot about the headaches. Anyway, I managed to copy all the memories she has of her abduction and treatment at Solms' facility. I'll link with you and give you all the information so you can plan an assault. However, I think you might want to go on alert here. I'm sure the guy who set Kara off has had time to report in."
Cat walked in and calmly handed Bill and Susan a shoulder holster with a Glock and three magazines each.
Bill grabbed his gun and slid a magazine home, then jacked the action to chamber a round. He set the safety, placed the gun on the table in front of him, and grabbed the holster to put it on. He glanced up to see his wife doing the same thing. He noticed that John had a desert eagle in a holster under his arm, and Laura had two chrome-plated Colts strapped to her hips. He smirked at the showy guns and she smiled. "Do you remember Lara Croft and the Tomb Raider movies?" Laura asked.
Bill chuckled and nodded as he pointed to Susan. "My wife here has a huge crush on that character."
"It's a good thing Angelina Jolie is like sixty now, or I might just try to track her cute ass down," Susan said with a smirk. "That woman was HOT."
"Actually, she's not that old, and still has a pretty nice looking ass," Laura said. "She has a horse ranch over by Vail."
John smiled at the play between the women. "I ordered us to alert status ten minutes ago, though I don't think anyone will try anything until nightfall. I also took the liberty to send a chopper for Carol and her staff."
Bill and Susan both smiled gratefully; "Thank you, John. I was starting to worry about her," Bill said.
"No problem. I called to let her know what was going on, and she said she would have everything ready when the bird got there. I guess she's grabbing some clothes for you folks, as well as her computer, and locking down her important stuff," John said. "She said to tell you both that she has a very pissed off little girl with her."
"Well, Lizzy was mad at us anyway because we wouldn't let her join the ceremony this morning. I can only imagine what's got her going now," Susan said.
"That cute little girl we met last night? What could she be upset about? We have plenty of toys here for her; in fact, our daughter might actually like to have the company. She's about that age," Laura said.
"Lizzy is a fully functional telepath and tracker. She's ten going on thirty. She was pissed because she wanted to marry us too. She's very intelligent and very impatient to grow up. No offense, John, but she is stronger than even you are. She's fully human without a drop of Atlantian blood in her, but she does have the power to alter her age and appearance," Susan said.
"So why not let her grow up? Just a little bit anyway. I know that with the abuse of her step-father, and the disappearance of her mother, she has had to grow up fast, but with her powers, she probably would have done that anyway. Think about it; how would you like to be trapped in a ten year old body?" Laura said. "I'm over forty now, and still get carded going into bars. I get pulled over by the highway patrol because I look too young to drive. It was funny the first two or three thousand times it happened, but believe me. It really sucks. Especially when the doctors tell you you're just too small to have a baby." She sniffed; "Sorry, I guess I went off on a tangent there."
John reached over and pulled his diminutive wife onto his lap and held her. "Its okay love, we do have four great children already. Just because none of them came from your beautiful body, doesn't make them any less yours."
"Well if we're going to be awake a good portion of the evening, I think I should find a flat surface somewhere to catch some sleep; my head is throbbing," Bill said.
"It's really too bad Susan is too weak to help ease that. Sex still helps, but it's only really effective if the person who caused it is the one to have sex with you. I'll get Cat to show you to a room in our wing," Laura said as she got up from John's lap. "And don't let her climb in with you, she still has duties."
Bill chuckled; "I don't think I'm her type, but I can understand her wanting to get a hold of Susan."
A beep from John interrupted the talk. He pulled a radio from his hip; "Base, go."
"Rover six, we caught Zander trying to get across the wire near check point two-zulu. He fired at us. I'm afraid he's dead, base," a women's voice reported.
"Understood, did he hit either of you?" John asked.
"Christa took one in the upper leg, and I've sent her back on the wagon. I'm live until a replacement arrives."
"Good work Steph. Keep your eyes open. Charlie-mike."
"Charlie-mike understood. Rover six out."
John replaced the radio on its clip, and looked back up to Bill and Susan. "Okay, about Elizabeth; tomorrow, one of our lawyers will arrive with papers granting sole custody to Carol. At the same time, little Lizzy's stepfather will be escorted from the airfield to sign them. He will sign them. I will scan him to see if he knows anything about the location of the mother. Sometime during the day, a 'concerned citizen' will find the door to his gas station's storage unlocked and discover the four kilos of Columbian cocaine he's been storing for shipment. The DEA will be waiting for him when he returns. The cocaine will be linked to a drug lord we just took down and some of the paperwork found in his possession will implicate the man as part of a distribution network. He'll never see the light of day again."
"John, I know we talked about what you guys do for a living, I mean what kind of company you have here. But I get the distinct impression I have absolutely no idea what the real story is. I can understand security considerations and precautions, but this whole thing seems to be jump starting on us, and I'd like to know exactly what you people do here," Bill said.
"What I told you earlier was mostly the sanitized public version. However, in reality, we only generate about ten percent of our income from the private sector. We are an unofficial, unrecognized government sub-contractor. If you've been following the news events over the last few years, you'll have heard about the increase in the apprehension of certain drug lords. Not so many that it looks unusual, but in reality a lot more than the public has been informed of. Almost every one of those arrests are the result of our work. Since we are a private company, not answerable to any government agency, we are not bound by the same rules they have to adhere to. It's mostly a 'don't ask — don't tell' deal. They don't ask what we did to get the person or persons in question; and we don't tell them how many laws we broke getting it done. We do collect the rewards offered to bring them to justice, but mostly we grab any loose cash and whatnot that these assholes have just lying around.
"Not all of our major operations are outside the U.S. though. Three years ago, during a private sector abduction case, we uncovered a slavery operation. Some of the people we rescued from that will be in therapy the rest of their lives, but we stopped the bastards. Not all of them were convicted though due to political connections. They were 'handled' quietly, and their connections were exposed to federal prosecutors. We have done a few cases dealing with terrorists, but with them, it's like trying to catch a goldfish in a swimming pool with a spoon — and three more pop up to replace it," John explained.
"How do you get away with having this much firepower in private hands? I thought the government got nervous about things like that?" Diane asked.
"Some of the stuff we have, the government doesn't actually know about since we built it ourselves, and the rest of it doesn't technically exist. We have a few friends in high places in Washington D.C. that watch our back and a couple of others that help us stay equipped. We share our inventions and discoveries with them, and they share with us — even if about half the time they don't know they're doing it," John chuckled. "Basically we are a fully equipped, highly-trained, surgical-strike-capable assault force, not unlike Delta force or the Seal teams, except we don't actually answer to the government and we don't actually exist."
"So you're like a mercenary company, then?" Susan asked.
"No, we don't accept contracts like that. If Ashcroft Oil wants their Iraqi oil fields protected, they have to hire someone else, less... uh, concerned about who might be caught in the cross-fire. We always do our best to make sure only the bad guys are involved in a firefight," John said. "Oh, the powers that be have tried to force us into some jobs, but we told them to go ahead and do their worst, but before they actually tried to do what they threatened, they should talk to certain people. With all the things we've done for the people of this country, we've discovered a lot of dirt on our government's activities. For example, do you remember Senator Ishme from Rhode Island?"
"Yeah, wasn't there some scandal about him being appointed to the Senate Armed Services Committee?" Bill asked.
"That's the one. It seems, in his youth, Rafael Ishme was a senior member of Crystal Path Jihad. Our illustrious Federal Bureau of Investigation completely overlooked that fact when they granted him a security clearance once he was elected to the Senate. In fact, he should have been arrested as soon as he was identified because he was personally responsible for three separate acts of terrorism right here in this country. During a news conference, his face triggered a flag in our facial recognition software, so we tapped a few phone lines, and hacked into a few computers. It took us awhile, but we managed to grab enough incriminating evidence to convict him and dozens of others of everything from the aforementioned acts of terrorism to election fraud. We gave that evidence to one of our friends, and the rest is history." John paused; "We have hundreds of those little political hand grenades we can throw. Though the biggest share of them will only end political careers, we could literally topple the government with all the crap we've collected. But as long as the people in question do their jobs, we leave them alone."
"Jesus! No wonder they leave you alone! But that has to be a dangerous game to play with them," Bill said.
John sighed, "It is; I won't lie to you, they have us by the balls, but we have them by the throat. If it weren't for the unique placement of this place and our anti-assault batteries, they probably would have lobbed a nuke in here long ago and have done with us."
During the discussion, Cat had arrived and simply waited. When Bill yawned, he looked sheepish; "Sorry, I really should go lie down somewhere."
Susan took Bill's hand. "Go with Cat; Trina and Crystal will go with you, while Asia stands guard. Diane and I'll help around here where we can. Now scoot," she said as she pulled him to his feet.
"Yes mommy," Bill replied, causing Laura to blush and John to
chuckle.