“Yeah, logically I know there’s got to be a solution,” she scrubbed at her nose, “probably just all these hormones and feeling like such a waddling incompetent.”
Shan snorted, “Says a woman who just built a house inside a granite massif in two days!”
“Hey buddy,” Ell squinted up at him, “you’re supposed to sympathize.”
“Yes Ma’am,” he grinned, “I’m sorry you’re a waddling incompetent and that it’s going to get worse before it gets better.”
“Ohhh, you’re askin’ for it now,” Ell said punching him lightly on the shoulder.
“Well at least you’re not crying.”
She snorted, “Yeah, talk about curing the symptom, but not the disease. What are we going to do about my team?”
Shan shrugged, “Take a deep breath, see where they are in the morning and then sic some lawyers on the people who took ‘em away.”
“Yeah, I guess.” She looked around, “Can you finish packing? I’m thinking I ought to talk to Bridget.”
“Sure.” Shan turned to survey the cabin.
“Allan, connect me to Bridget… Bridget, this is Ell. Don’t answer me unless you’re absolutely sure the coast is clear. If you think the Feebs might be listening, cough once.”
Bridget coughed once.
“OK. Are Amy’s kids OK? Cough once for yes, twice for no.”
Bridget coughed once, then followed that with a tiny second cough.
“Does that mean, ‘OK but upset’?”
One cough.
“OK, call me when you think you aren’t being monitored.”
A final single cough.
It was just about midnight when Allan said, “Bridget’s calling.”
“I’ll take it,” Ell said quietly, getting up and moving into the next room so the sleeping Shan wouldn’t be disturbed. “Hey Bridget. Sorry you got sucked into my mess. How are things?”
Bridget spoke quietly, “Not to worry. You got pulled into my mess with Sam back when. I only wish I could help you as much as you helped me. The kids are OK I think. It’s kind of hard to tell with teenagers and I know Amy’s been struggling with Janey. Typical sullen teenage girl stuff. She cried a lot. Did you know they were homeless for a little while?”
“Yeah.” Ell didn’t elaborate on just how well she knew it. “Amy had a pretty rough patch back then. Is Mike doing better than Janey?”
“Hell, I don’t know. He’s fifteen, male and either actually thinks he’s invulnerable or is pretending he is. Anyhow, he says he’s fine, and implies that he’ll get his Mom out himself if the grownups can’t do it. I hope he doesn’t do anything crazy. Uh, I put him in the spare room and Janey in your room, I hope that’s OK?”
“Sure, I’m not using it. Do you mind them staying with you for a while?”
“Nope, when I needed a place to stay, someone took me in… I’m still living in her house. It’d be the least I could do.”
“When you called earlier I was with the kids. I didn’t think I should talk to you in front of them because I don’t know what the FBI might milk out of them… Also, just on principle I don’t talk about you inside your house because, after they searched the house, I’ve always figured they might have left some bugs.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s good thinking. Where are you now?”
“Well, actually, I’m huddled under the covers with a pillow over my head, using my implants in case they bugged my HUD.”
Ell giggled, “So we’re literally engaging in ‘pillow talk’?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you think it’d be OK for me to talk to them by their implants tomorrow?”
“Oh, yeah. I think they’d really feel better to have you on their side.”
“They aren’t blaming me for their problems?”
“No, they love you… just like the rest of us.”
“Thanks,” Ell said, wiping at the corner of her eye and trying to swallow the sudden frog in her throat. “I’d better go for now. Call me if there is anything I can do to help, OK?”
After she hung up she wondered for a while just why so many people trusted her and… seemed to like her, even after she’d gotten them in trouble.
Chapter Seven
As Ell and Shan drove home the next morning Ell had Allan put through a call to Amy’s son Mikey, who now greatly preferred to be called Mike. “Hi, Mike. How are you holding up?”
“Uh…” He whispered, “Ms. Blandon… I’m OK. Is it OK to talk?”
“Yeah, it’s OK, though it might be better if you went outside. Can you do that for me?”
There was some rustling and bumping. Ell heard a door slam. “OK, I’m outside but I’ll still talk quietly, OK?”
“Sure, good idea. You know I’m talking to you through your implant rather than through your HUD don’t you.”
“Yeah, I can tell because it sounds different.”
“Messages through your implant don’t go through any commercial servers so you don’t have to worry about the FBI listening in, unless of course you’re in a location they might have bugged.”
“Oh, OK.”
“So you could call your mom and tell her you’re OK. Just take off your HUD to be sure none of your conversation gets sent through it, then ask Allan to connect you to anyone you want, like your mom, or Steve, or me, or your sister. You can specify that the message go to their implant, not their HUD, so you don’t have to worry about it getting picked up at a commercial server, OK?”
“Yeah. Is, uh, Mom going to be OK?”
“Well, I think so. I think you’re old enough to know I can’t promise you that though, right?”
“Do I need to be trying to hire a lawyer for her?”
“No, she’s got a lawyer. Don’t worry about that. Can you talk to Janey about this stuff, or should I call her myself?”
“Uh, she and I don’t get along so good. I don’t think she’d pay much attention to anything I say, so if you have time…?”
“Sure. I’ll call her sometime today.”
“It’s not that, I—I don’t care about her? It’s just that we get in a lot of fights. I… I really do care about her and, and, I’d fight anyone if they hurt her. But I can’t seem to stop fighting with her myself…” his voice broke, “over stupid stuff, mostly.”
“Yeah, I never had a sibling so I don’t understand what you’re going through. I do know that even though almost all siblings fight, they get over it when they get older.”
“I hope you can help my mom.”
“I’d better, she’s in there because she worked for me… which seems pretty unfair.”
“Yeah…” Ell had a feeling the fifteen year old was trying not to cry, “thanks for calling.”
“Of course, you call me anytime you need help, OK?”
“Um, how could you help? I thought you were on the run?”
“That’s true, but I do have a few tricks up my sleeve.”
After Mikey disconnected, Ell called Steve. “Hey Steve, how’re you and the team holding up?”
Steve coughed twice, as they’d used before, to signal he couldn’t talk.
“OK, call me when you can.”
Ell then called Janey and had a conversation with her similar to the one she’d had with Mikey. She hadn’t wanted to call Amy until she could tell her that her kids were OK. She was just about to call Amy when Allan said, “Steve is calling.”
“Put him on… Steve, are you guys OK?”
“Yeah,” he whispered, then sighed, “They’ve been questioning us, it seems like nonstop since they picked us up. They’re holding us separately so we can’t coordinate our stories, but of course, they don’t know about the implants. We’ve been pretty much sticking to the, ‘We want our attorney,’ story so far, with a few, ‘What are we charged withs?’ thrown in for good measure.” He laughed, “I can even tell you that Amy, Mary and Lisa are doing the same, and they’re being held at the Alderson Federal Prison Camp for women in West Virginia.”
“Um hmmm.”
“Do you think they’re trying to learn something from the headsets?”
“Oh. No.” Steve gave a little snort. “They’re bait. Remember, they don’t know about the implants. They hope you’re going to go chasing down to Butner trying to free up your team. I’ll guarantee they have a huge layered trap set up there to catch you if you show up.”
“Oops, I should have realized that! Have you guys figured out which option you want to go with. Or thought of a different option?”
“Yeah, most want option three, break us out of here. But enough want to try option two that I contacted your lawyer Art Jenkins and got him to recommend someone else to me. A lady named Victoria Nis. We’ve hired her and she says she’s on her way here to get in their faces, demand to talk to her clients etcetera. She has one of her associates heading up to West Virginia to put the hammer down for the girls.”
“OK, that’s good.”
“Yeah, they aren’t going to have any luck. I’ll bet the prison denies we’re even here. I think we should start figuring out how we’re going to make our prison break.”
Surprised Ell said, “Really? You don’t want to even give the legal folks a chance?”
“Sure, but I just don’t think it’s going to work. When it doesn’t, I want to be ready with plan B… or I guess you called it plan C.”
“OK,” Ell said dubiously. “I’ll get started scoping out the two facilities.”
“Wait, don’t hang up yet. How’d you escape down in Cuba? Can we do something like that?”
“Um, I’d rather not say. The less you know, they less they can get out of you.”
“OK,” Steve said, obviously disappointed. “Let me know if you need anything from us to figure this out?”
“Sure.” Ell sat back to mull it over. After a moment she told Allan to wait until night, then send a couple of hoverbikes with drones out to visit the two prisons and get her some imaging.
“Amy?”
“Yes,” Amy whispered, responding unconsciously to Ell’s “Raquel” accent, “Raquel?”
“Um hmm. How are you doing?”
“Tired. I assume Steve told you where we’re at?”
“Yeah, he said they’ve been interrogating you for hours on end. Sorry. And sorry you got dragged into my mess.”
“Hey, you didn’t complain when you got dragged into my mess with Felton Bonapute. I’m just worried about my kids.”
“I’ve talked to them and they seem to be dealing pretty well. They’re worried about you though. Have you contacted them yet?”
“No, I didn’t want to call them for fear their HUDs would be bugged.”
“Just ask your AI to connect you directly to their implants using our own server.”
“Damn, I should have thought of their implants myself.”
“I’d suggest that the first thing you say, is to ask them if they’re in a location that would be hard to bug. You know they’re staying at my farmhouse with Bridget?”
“Yeah.”
“And the FBI have been in and out of there. They might have left some bugs. So outside is better. Also, your cell might be bugged, so I suggest you only talk quietly with your head under the covers or out in the exercise yard.”
“OK. I’ll call them as soon as we’re done here. Steve says that he’s hired a legal team to try to get us out of here?”
“Yeah.” Ell snorted, “When Allan searches for your location, the Bureau of Prisons says you’re at Butner in North Carolina. That’s where they took your HUDs. I expect that they are expecting to waste a lot of our time just trying to find your actual location, but your legal teams are on their way to talk to you there where you’re actually at, the Alderson facility in West Virginia. If I were you I wouldn’t answer any questions in their interrogations, just keep demanding to talk to your attorney.”
“That’s our plan; I’m sticking to it.”
“Good. Steve says he’s talked to the team and they want to escape if the legal route doesn’t seem to be working. I’m trying to get a read into your feelings. A read that hasn’t been filtered through fearless Steve’s macho. Is that really what you’d want too?”
There was a period of silence, then Amy said, “Yeah, if the legal beagles don’t make fast progress I don’t want to sit in this hole for three and half years of my life, waiting for Stockton to get voted out of office.”
“You’re sure the next president would turn you loose?”
“Without a doubt.”
“I hope you’re right, maybe I’d get a pardon too.”
“Of course you’d get a pardon, the rest of us’d be afterthoughts.”
“Well, if we do need to spring you, it’d be really helpful if you were on the top floor or by a wall. You probably don’t have any say, but if you can influence it, try for those locations.”
“You thinking you could blow out a wall with shaped charges or something?” Amy said apprehensively.
“Something like that, but not so violent. We’ll figure it out no matter where you are. I’m just sayin’…”
“OK, outer wall, top floor. Yes Ma’am,” Amy said, sounding a little more like her old chipper self. “Anything you say Boss lady, I’ll arrange it.” She snorted.
As she disconnected her call with Amy, Ell looked up and tensed as she realized they were pulling into their own neighborhood. The same location where Amy, Steve and the others had been arrested last night. “Allan, any activity on the house monitors since 10 PM last night?”
“No.”
Ell relaxed a little but still kept a close eye out and made sure their graphend hoverbike was standing by. It just seemed so unlikely that the FBI could have arrested her whole team right here in this neighborhood and still not know about her Raquel identity.
Nonetheless, they pulled in and unpacked with no untoward events.
***
Ell called Art Jenkins, her own counsel in their effort to get her off the FBI’s list. “Hey Art, does this thing with them arresting all my personal employees have any effect on my own case?”
“Not really, I’ve checked and they haven’t changed any of the charges against you. Though we’ve gone to lower level courts a couple times with you in absentia and gotten your charges dropped, they just get them reinstated and we have to move on to a higher court. They’re dragging their feet, asking for stays and pleading inability to produce documents, so it seems like it’ll be forever before anything changes with your situation.”
Ell sighed, “I assumed as much. This Victoria Nis you referred Steve to, she’s pretty good at this kind of stuff?”
“As good as anyone. She’s really sharp, but no one has a lot of experience fighting the government in a situation like this.”
“OK, can you make sure she knows that price should be no object? She should hire as much help as she needs.”
“Sure, that should help her bury them in pleas and requests.”
***
Billboard Magazine, New York—The song “Forgiveness” by Ekels and Rosel, featuring blind singing prodigy Stell Simsworth has risen to the top of the Billboard Hot 100. Recorded live at Vic’s bar in Carrboro, North Carolina, the song has stunned listeners with the beauty of the young girl’s voice.
Albie White looked up at the woman dressed in the expensive suit, “May I help you?”
“Yes, I’m attorney Victoria Nis and this facility is holding four of my clients. They’re being held on unsubstantiated charges and have not been allowed contact with their attorney, i.e. me.”
Albie frowned, she supposed the woman might be talking about some people in the US Marshall’s holding cells. “Who are you referring to?”
“I’ve ported you their names but they include Steven Jacobs, Barrett
…”
Nis paused when Albie lifted a hand and, looking at her HUD, said, “I’ve got your port.” Albie studied the names and asked her AI to handshake with the prison AI to see if they were indeed held in that facility. The names popped up, with their cell numbers and links to the rest of their information, however it also displayed a message to “Tell anyone who asks that they are being held at the Butner facility in North Carolina.” Albie smiled up at Nis and said, “I’m sorry, those individuals are actually being held in the Butner facility in North Carolina.”
Nis leaned down resting her arms on the counter and said quietly, “Ms. White. You know that’s not true. In fact, if you’ll check, I believe you’ll find the individuals I’m asking about are being held in Temporary holding block 3, cells 19 and 25.”
Albie blinked and glanced quickly upward to see that in fact Nis did have the correct cell numbers! She swallowed and began to repeat herself, “I’m sorry, those individuals are actually being held in the Butner…”
Nis had leaned closer and smiled, but without any warmth. “Ms. Albie White, if you repeat that lie I’m going to bring you up on charges for lying to me in an effort to obstruct my legally mandated duty to confer with my clients, as, I might point out, is their right.” She leaned in a little closer yet and whispered, “If I were you, this is the point when I’d kick this potential disaster upstairs to your supervisor.”
Albie swallowed again, then said, “Just a minute.” She got up and went into the back.
Ralph waved a hand, “Just tell her what it said to say on your screen! What was it, ‘that they were actually in Butner’?”
“But… but, it’s not true! And, and she says she’ll put me up on charges for lying, can she do that?”
“Who knows, I’m not a lawyer! Just do what it says on the screen, you can always say you were just following orders.”
Wanted Page 14
