by Danny Dunn
David asks how the shooter is. Michael puts his finger up to his own mouth and says Sh, he is sleeping. Of course, that applies to every minute of the day now. They both laugh. Screw that guy. I vote for a week, and then he will blab out anything we want to hear. David says, yeah, a week is about right.
Alby asks if there any ties to the president yet. David replies no, but they are definitely connected to the republican party. You can see lots of communications back and forth for the last few years, but it all went dead a month ago. So, we are focusing on the people who were active a month ago and went silent.
The next day the Democratic candidate drops out. It will be the first time in history that a democrat will not be on the ballot. In an unbelievable move, the democrat promises his votes to go to the republican. But maybe not so unbelievable at all. They know it is their last shot for a while.
Tom has 300 candidates running in his New American Party, and all are committed to his platform. Every one of them is extremely sharp, and there are little if any marginal people in the 300. 170 of them are well educated and successful women.
David says, well, next time they try to kill me, it will be easier to determine which one did it.
Back in Africa, Z5 is feeding much of Nigeria, Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan, and Yemen. Her system works great, but keeping enough food is a challenge. So far, she is keeping her schedule, but her reserves are down. Z3 is digging wells every day and has that on autopilot. The rebels are being very careful. The word is that if you mess with the aliens, you vanish.
Tom starts making light of assassination attempts. He says the other day one of his people asked if she could ask me a question, and I replied fire way…everybody ducked.
There are six of us getting into the SUV, one was paying another not to have to sit in a window seat. I am telling you things are scary.
The other day a car backfired, we all dove to the ground, and everyone pointed to me on the way down.”
The other day I told them we were going with a new 401K.
They all thought I was issuing them machine guns.
The other day I saw a duck flying low, so for fun, I yelled out to duck. 8 of the 12 wet their pants.
Just yesterday, I walked up to a guy in the office running a pool. I said, “ah betting whether or not I make it.”
The guy running the pool says, yeah, “we start a new one twice a day.”
All kidding aside, being a target is very stressful, but it is a bit of a badge of honor. I may or may not make it to the finish line, but if it turned out that what I accomplished was to get the American people to expect better out of their elected officials, then for me, it was not all for nothing. Do we have questions?
Reporter 1 “Do you have any update on who tried to kill you in the debate?”
Tom, “My team is working on it. I have a deal with them. I don’t tell them how to do their job, and they don’t tell me how to do mine. They have saved my life twice now, and I just want them focused on keeping me alive.
Reporter “do you believe the President is behind the assassination attempts.
Tom “Could you define behind?” Look in the first one. I believe our people were one call away from her office. She has plausible deniability, so I am leaving it right there until I have definitive proof. On the second one. It could be the banks, anyone in congress or the senate, the lobbyists, and yes, the President. But could it be, is a long way from having a smoking gun or a mountain of evidence?
Any questions regarding my platform?
Ok then, we will talk again soon.
A week later, Michael turns on the audio. The shooter is curled up in a ball and says he will tell everything he knows. Michael says, isn’t funny what can happen when you have time to just reflect on things. The shooter asks how long it has been. Michael tells him a week, and the shooter doesn’t believe him. The shooter insists it was more like a month.
Michael tells the shooter he has other things to do, so if he is going to talk, he needs to speed things up. The shooter tells Michael everything. When Michael asks the shooter a question, the shooter goes on telling Michael everything he possibly can. Michael gets out of him who he has killed in the past. The shooter names the places, the dates, and who hired him. It was like he was in a job interview.
Michael asks about this job and who hired him, who hired their camp, how they can track their activities, what visitors came to the camp. Michael tells the shooter he is holding out on him, and the shooter swears he isn’t. Michael tells him he doesn’t believe him and turns off his mic, but he leaves the shooters mic on so he can hear. The shooter says, “I know what you want. I will tell you how to get to what you want.” Michael can’t come back on because that would weaken his power, so he lets the guy sit a couple more days.
Two days later, Michael turns the mic back on and tells the shooter to talk and that this time, if he holds out, it will cost him a month.
It was the president. There is a guy in the CIA who is the one that lines this kind of thing up for her. I killed a woman a year ago for him. This guy is based in Langley, and his name is Gerald. He is about 45 dark hair, balding, wears glasses. He likes to brag and told me that if I failed at killing Tom, the president would have me killed. There is a mailbox store that has everything I have on them, key in my stuff. Michael has the key, he just needed to know where the box was. The box is at The Mailbox Place on B street in DC. Michael asks who else knows about the box. The shooter says no one. Michael asks if he needs an ID to get into the safe deposit box and the shooter says no, you just walk in the front door and walk up to your box. It is near the middle of the boxes. Michael tells him that he is alone on this and that if there is someone there to snatch or kill him that you will rot in this cave until you die.
No, I was careful, I used a fake ID to get it and never went there with anyone else and haven't been there in a month, and it is paid a year in advance. Michael tells him that if there is trouble, he will rot in the cave. The shooter says he understands, and there will be no trouble.
Michael goes to David and tells David he needs two bots and needs to be able to switch them off if there is trouble. David tells him no problem. They dress both of the bots up like old women
Michael flies to DC, rents a van, and spends some time checking the place out. Michael spots a surveillance team sitting in a van in a parking lot across the street from the mailbox store. Looks around, and it appears they are it. It has been over a week, so they are probably waiting for the shooter. Michael sits for a while. At 10:00am, the US mail truck shows up and parks in between the surveillance team and the mailboxes. A few minutes later, UPS does the same thing. Michael drives off. He dresses up in a beard, glasses, and a ballcap and a walking cane. He walks into the mailbox store and rents a box close to the cashier and asks for two of their plastic bags. The cashier hands him a couple of bags. Michael takes a bunch of fliers and opens his box and puts the bag of fliers in the box, locks it up, and leaves with the other bag.
The four of them stay overnight, and the next day Michael parks around the corner and has the two bots walk to the mailbox store as old ladies. It is 9:58, and the US mail truck pulls up. The first old lady opens the box Michael rented the day before, and the second old woman opens the shooter’s box and hands the contents to the other who takes the content and shoves it into Michael’s box. They both close their boxes and head out the door.
The US mail truck leaves and the UPS truck takes its spot, Michael walks in between the two old women and the one with Michaels key drops her key by the garbage can. Michael walks to the trash can and tosses an empty soda can in the waste can, but he misses. Michael walks over to pick up the empty soda bottle and picks up the key at the same time and places the soda can in the trash. The UPS truck leaves, and Michael walks to his box and gathers his mail and heads out. Michael wants the surveillance team to see that he was not opening the shooter's box.
End Chapter 47
Chapter 48 – Betty An
d Wilma Are Coming, Wear Your Cup
As the old women are walking away, one drops something and bends down and puts the shooters key inside the grill of a car parked in the 10 minutes parking slot. They walk another 30 seconds and are met by two men in suits.
Michael looks back and sees they are detaining his bots. The bots see the car with the shooters key in the grill back out and pull away, and they smile. They are programmed not to talk, so Michael doesn’t need to turn them off yet. Michael calls David and suggests to David that the FBI is most likely not in on this and would not take kindly to the CIA playing Sheriff in FBI territory.
David puts a team on it, and they call the FBI, the local Police, and the press who are all on their way. The Pongettes tell the bots, who are still dressed in old lady outfits, not to let the agent get them off the bench. There is a crowd gathering as the two agents tell them to get up. The two old women refuse and keep insisting they have done nothing wrong.
Leave me alone, help me, help me, the old women yell, these men are assassins. Each agent squares up in front of each of the two old women. The two agents go to grab the old women, and the old women put both their hands out as if to fend them away, and each of the agents grabs both hands of the old women in front of them and yanks them up off the bench. Each of the old women springs up and kicks their agent squarely in the groins while yelling hi..ya. The two agents fall to the ground as the two old women plop back down and resume their cries, help me, help me while the two agents are having dry heaves, and are moaning on the ground. They are on the ground for several minutes before they get up again.
The crowd, camera crews, and even the sheriff are all laughing pretty hard.
The old women are screaming, “help us. We have done nothing wrong. We want our attorney. If our mother were here, she would tan your hides.” The agents know they are robots but decide not to rip off their outfits as it would tie it to Zaria, which ties them to Tom. The agents call for more agents. They decide to get one at a time. That is a good idea, order more CIA agents, you better hope your reinforcements are stronger than you two halfwits.
The two agents decide to pull them off the bench and into the car one at a time. The two agents position themselves on each side of the old women on their left. The agents each put one foot on the bench for pulling leverage. The agent on the right puts up his right foot with his butt toward the other old woman. Oh, bad hygiene, the old woman on the right yells and waves her hand in across her face to shew away the smell. As the two agents begin lifting with all their might, Wilma yells help me, Betty help me. They are going to kill me. Betty, on the right, leans slightly toward the agent with his butt in her face and yells, I got ya Wilma and throws a vicious left uppercut to his groin. The agent moans and falls back, holding his groin and rolling around on the ground in pain and doing the dry heaves bit.
Meanwhile, the one that punched him is yelling at him, “help me, help me. He is trying to kill me.” The agent rolling around on the ground in excruciating pain looks up at the old yelling help me, help me right at him, and while he is looking up at her, she winks at him and continues yelling for help.
The other agent runs over to the one who is still suffering and leans down and the agent if he is shot, and the agent says no. That bitch punched me in the balls as we were lifting up the other one.
The crowd is cracking up. There aren’t enough agents to push the crowd back, and the Sheriff is getting a kick out of the two old women getting the best of the agents. The Sheriff doesn’t like the agents, so as long as the old women winning the sheriff will let it continue. Until then, the sheriff is doing half-assed crowd control.
The agent that is leaning down to help his partner pulls him up and the agent that was lying on the ground stands and puts his arm around as his partner walks him to the bench. As he walks his partner toward the end of the bench, Wilma slides over to the end of the bench forcing the agent to sit his moaning partner down in between Wilma and Betty.
The old women start taunting the agents. We used to be somebody; I was a world champion badminton player in 1898. Try to attack me, will you? My friend here was the fastest runner in her 6th-grade class. She’s 105 and can outrun your sorry marsh mellow ass. I bet the last time you ran was when your mama yelled dinner and you were 20 feet from the dinner table. The TV camera is jiggling because the cameraman is cracking up as well. They are sending the video to their station, and it is being fed live to the network around the country.
By then, press arrives, and they are videotaping everything from a couple stores away and have a parabolic mic on them. The chopper arrives, and they are getting everything from the air. The agent calls his contact and tells him the situation. The contact tells him not to lose control of them no matter what. The contact tells the agents there is very damming evidence on them, and they need them brought in. The Sheriff asks the agents for their IDs. The CIA agent who can stand tells the sheriff these are suspects of ours, and we need to get them into our vehicle. The sheriff asks what they are wanted for, maybe mugging drug dealers. The CIA agent tells him it is classified. The sheriff, who is no dummy, asks why the FBI isn’t handling this? This is a matter of national security the CIA agent replies. The sheriff says well, isn’t that why we have the FBI, homeland security, and the NSA? So that you guys are freed up to run around getting your asses whooped by the old ladies in all the other countries?
Meanwhile, the two old women are talking back and forth to each other around the agent. CIA, ha, my mother could take both of these while she washes her clothes. The agent leans forward with the dry heaves again, and the two old women lean back to continue their verbal assault on them. What is next for you today, Mr. CIA agent? Are you going to attempt to steal lunch money from some preschoolers? CIA Corrupt Institution of Aholes.
The FBI arrives, and they are pissed. The two CIA agents tell the FBI they are acting on direct information that these two are involved in matters of national security, the FBI tells them they will take it from here. From what we hear, you are not only out of your jurisdiction but out of your league, as well. The CIA agents tell the FBI Agents they are not handing over their suspects. The sheriff calls for backup. Within minutes there are 15 Sheriff cars there. The bots are being instructed by David. They can go with either the FBI or the Sheriff. While the FBI and the CIA fight over the two old women, the Sheriff asks the two old women if they would like to go with him for now. Wilma and Betty smile and Betty tells the sheriff, “Ah, you a polite and handsome young devil. Yes, we would be delighted, they both get up to leave, and CIA agent who they didn’t get punched the balls grabs Wilma by the wrist. Wilma yells help me and spins around and kicks the agent in the balls so hard it lifts him off the ground. The agent falls to the ground vomiting and moaning with his hand clutching his groin, the crowd sees what happened and laugh and cheer. The cameraman got it as well and is laughing.
Wilma looks up at the Sheriff, smiles, and says, those men are just so rude.
David is going through the contents of the thumb-drive. The shooter was recording everything as his get out of jail card. There are recordings between the shooter and his boss who runs the camp and several recordings between his boss and CIA contact. The CIA contact loved to throw the President into the conversation to use as a power tool. If you don’t do “X,” the President will have us to “Y” kind of stuff.
David goes through everything, and they are one number away from linking this to the president and asks Michael to stay there. David says that he is sending a team there now. Michael says, ok. Michael asks David about the two bots. David tells him to go pick them up at the Sheriff’s office. And whatever you do, if they say they don’t want to go, just walk away, in fact, do you have a cup with you? You might want to wear it and laugh so hard his eyes are watering. Michael tells him he hasn’t seen it yet. David is still laughing and tells Michael he is sending it now. God, I love the Pongettes David says.
Michael drives to the Sheriff’s department and walks up
to the front desk and asks for his two older friends. The sheriff at the counter laughs and says they are in the back and our Sargent, who is feeding them nails amount now. The sheriff says I know you. You are the guy who went to Costa Rica and captured the toxin maker and the terrorists and then stalled the CIA while your partners save the Brits. Michael smiles and says, yes sir, I am the Tequila drinking cigar smoking terrorist. The sheriff tells Michael that he served in Nam and that he is proud to meet him. The sheriff asks if he could get a pic with him before he takes him back. Michael smiles and says, sure. They take some pics and head back. As they walk back, the Sheriff’s along the walk back to the Sargent’s office salute Michael. Michael knows he is going to be waiting a while for the team to arrive. Michael stops and offers to do some group pics, and they all jump on the offer. The Sargent comes out with the two old ladies, and they all take group pics together. They tell Michael they are having a BBQ right now and ask if he would stay. Michael smiles and tells them a BBQ sounds great. Michael calls Joe and tells him to come to join them, Joe is only a few minutes away and joins them. Of course, they end up telling the jumping over the car story and preparing Pedro for throwing him out of the plane. They have a great time with them. The whole incident with the Agents is running non-stop on the news, and it is on the TV. Michael tells them he hasn’t seen it yet. A sheriff says, then watch this Michael. The two agents are trying to pry one of the bots from the bench the agent with his butt to Wilma gets punched by Wilma from behind and the falls to the ground, Betty and Wilma see it on the TV and do a jumping high five and sit back down on the bench to resume yelling help me, help me. Michael and Joe are patting the bots on the back and hugging them while they are laughing hysterically. They watch it over and over and have laughed so much their faces hurt.
Michael looks at the two bots and realizes just how capable and amazing they are. He thinks back that he was considering just turning them off and realizes they are way more capable than he was giving them credit for.
