Stealth Retribution

by Vikki Kestell

  Genie’s mouth bunched up. “The old man said he’d help if I had anything that needed fixing.”

  Zander shook his head. “That ‘old man’ is still recovering from a beating that almost killed him. He can help later. With simpler stuff. I’ll be over late tomorrow to take measurements.”

  Genie didn’t answer, but Zander thought he sensed relief in her demeanor.

  “Genie, have you thought anymore about what we talked about the last time we met?”

  “Certainly not.”

  He smiled. “If you hadn’t been thinking about it, I doubt you would have responded so quickly.”

  Something rubbed up alongside his leg and twined itself between his feet. Zander flinched and looked down. Jake. Jake had his ugly, flat, tom-cat mug pressed into Zander’s slacks, rubbing first one whiskered jowl, then the other, against him. The burnt-orange tabby tipped his head over and pushed his mangled ear against Zander’s leg—giving every indication of cat affection.

  “Hey, Jake. How ya doing?” Zander, as glad as he was to see Jake looking well, was smart enough not to touch him or (even dumber) try to pick him up.

  Genie took a step back. “Yuck! That is the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen. Don’t touch it—it’s probably infested with fleas and worms.”

  “Really? No, I don’t think so. See, this is Jake. Jake was your Aunt Lucy’s cat. He kept her company while she was dying. Now he’s Gemma’s cat.”

  An impulsive, wicked idea struck Zander—and he immediately put it into play. “Hey, that’s right! You don’t know Jake. Well, let me introduce you. Genie, this is Jake; Jake, this is Genie, Gemma’s sister. Jake, Genie will be taking care of you while Gemma’s away.”

  “No! No, I will not! I’m not taking care of that-that-that-that mangy monstrosity.”

  “Really? Because if you were housesitting for Gemma, that would imply that you were also caring for her beloved Jake.” It was all Zander could do to use the words “Gemma” and “her beloved Jake” in the same sentence without adding a snarky laugh.

  Zander leveled his own challenge at Genie. “Isn’t that right? I mean, well, goodness—I’d sure hate for some vigilante animal rights group to hear that you’re neglecting a helpless cat left in your care. Some of those people can be . . . unreasonable. Some might say they are irrational.”

  Jake meowed deep in his throat and stretched up Zander’s leg and nosed his fingers. Taking his life in his hands, Zander scratched the top of Jake’s head. Jake pushed his head into Zander’s hand, purred—then sank his teeth into the meaty side of Zander’s hand.

  Zander jerked his hand away, and Genie pounced. “Ha! Beloved cat, my *blank*!”

  Wrapping a handkerchief around his hand to staunch the welling blood, Zander studied Genie. “I admit that Jake is an acquired taste, but I’m warning you: You’d better not take advantage of Gemma while you ‘housesit.’ And I’m serious about Jake. If I see or hear that you’ve in any way abused or neglected him, I’ll find someone who takes animal cruelty seriously, and I’ll sic them on you.”

  Jake, as though he’d done nothing inordinate, gave one last rub against Zander’s slacks and pushed off from his leg. Tail in the air, he pranced away. And before Genie could react, Jake bounded up the steps of the back porch and into the house.

  “No! No! No! Get him out! Get him out!” Genie screeched.

  Zander grinned. “Uh, don’t think so. It’s his home, after all. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  He disregarded Genie’s protests and chuckled all the way across the cul-de-sac to his car. While he walked, Zander checked his phone and found voice mail. The he remembered that another call had come in while he was speaking to Pastor McFee.

  He listened to Gamble’s terse message and pressed “Return Call.”

  “Ross Gamble.”

  “It’s Zander. Sorry I missed your call. What’s up?”

  “What’s up is that we had visitors first thing this morning with a federal court order to turn over Cushing, her men, and Dr. Bickel to them. Wallace is stalling for time. He even made it sound like we didn’t have Bickel, that he’d left after all the action last night. You need to get in touch with Gemma and have her whisk Dr. Bickel out of here.”

  He lowered his voice. “You know, invisible-like.”

  “I’ll call her, but you need to know that I have no idea if she is near the phone we use.”

  “Do your best. We don’t have much time.”

  Zander raced home and pulled the burner phone from its hiding place under his dresser.

  ***

  The nanomites woke me.

  Gemma Keyes. Zander Cruz is calling you.

  Gemma Keyes. Zander Cruz is calling you.

  “Okay. I’m up.”

  I picked up the phone and yawned. “Hey.”

  He didn’t mince words. “Gemma, we’ve got a situation. Gamble needs you to get Dr. Bickel out of the FBI office as soon as you can. Apparently, people showed up first thing this morning with a court order for him and for Cushing.”

  I wiped sleep from my face. “I’m on my way.”

  “I’ll let Gamble know.”

  On my way toward the FBI’s offices, it dawned on me that I had but one place to hide my friend, and that was in his safe house. With me.

  The little basement hiding place was about to get crowded.

  ~~**~~

  Chapter 10

  Gamble found Dr. Bickel in the small interrogation room he’d slept in. The plan had been to move him to an FBI safe house, possibly later in the day. Until then, Dr. Bickel had been confined to his assigned room with the door closed. An agent had been taking his statements for the last two hours, with the intention that the remainder of Dr. Bickel’s debriefing would be conducted at the safe house over several days.

  Gamble knocked and entered, “Pardon the interruption. May I have a word with Dr. Bickel?”

  The agent, leaving her notes on the table, excused herself.

  “Hello, Agent Gamble. Are you ready to move me now?”

  “Yes, but not as we’d planned.” He took a few minutes to explain.

  Dr. Bickel appeared thoughtful rather than anxious. “Cushing’s handlers must be more powerful than we’d imagined. I’d always thought them to be high-ranking military.”

  “And now?”

  “If I had to guess, I’d say well-placed and formidable politicians.”

  That hypothesis put a different spin on Gamble’s perceptions, too.

  “Well, Gemma is on her way here. Wherever she intends to take you must remain between the two of you. I’m sorry our hand is being forced like this.”

  “Don’t be sorry. You saved us, Gemma and me. Got us to the lab safely and then here. You arranged the press conference. My friends and colleagues know I’m alive now, which was our first, most important objective. However, I am concerned about two things, given the reach of Cushing’s handler.”

  “Which two things?”

  “The first concerns the place where I was held on the White Sands Missile Range. The facility was, when built, an officer’s house, but that was quite some time ago. Cushing had the house refurbished to serve as my prison and the garage equipped as a laboratory—all, I believe, in an attempt to keep my illegal incarceration a secret. Well, my DNA and other trace evidence can certainly be lifted from the room I lived in and used as evidence against Cushing, but only if the FBI gets there first.”

  He bent a somber look on Gamble. “The scene needs to be protected.”

  Gamble frowned. “You think Cushing’s people will attempt to clean it?”

  Dr. Bickel snorted. “Yes, but more thoroughly than what you have in mind. I think they’ll destroy it.”

  “I see.” And Gamble did see. “I’ll bring this up to Wallace and push to have a team dispatched immediately. The other issue?”

  “My so-called grave. Gemma said ‘I’ was buried in my hometown. We need to have the grave exhumed quickly, or those people will arrange for something to be
done with whatever or whomever is interred there.”

  “The FBI can make that happen, too. Let me get your permission on record first, since you’ll be in the wind for the foreseeable future.”

  Gamble called the female agent back into the room. “Get paperwork drawn up for Dr. Bickel to sign giving us permission to disinter his ‘grave.’ I want his signature witnessed and notarized, and I’d like a video recording of him giving us permission as backup.”

  He thought for a moment. “Can you get that done in the next hour?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Gamble left and went to find Wallace. The man was sequestered with the FBI’s legal counsel. Gamble knocked anyway.

  “Come in.”

  “Sir, may I see you?”

  Wallace noted the look on Gamble’s face and spoke to the attorney. “Excuse me; I’ll be right back.”

  He stepped into the hall and closed his office door. “What is it?”

  “Dr. Bickel just raised some legitimate concerns. He’s convinced that Cushing will get rid of the evidence of his incarceration as soon as she leaves our custody—or perhaps it is already happening. Rather than ‘clean’ it, he thinks she will destroy the place where she kept him prisoner. It is an old house on the White Sands Missile Range that Cushing fitted up to keep his imprisonment a clandestine affair.”

  Wallace thought. “Call the commandant of the range and let him know that we’re sending a team to process the scene. Ask him to dispatch a squad to preserve the place. On our end, we’ll stall Cushing’s release as long as we can to give the White Sands’ squad time to get there. What’s the other issue?”

  “Dr. Bickel’s grave, sir. Cushing had his ‘remains’ interred in his home town back in Georgia. Bickel is right now giving written and videotaped permission for us to exhume that grave before Cushing can get to it.”

  “Good. You run point on both of these issues. Put your teams together; use whomever is available.”

  Gamble went back to his office and placed a call to the Atlanta FBI field office. He gave the Assistant Special Agent in Charge he spoke with the name and contact information of the agent interviewing Bickel. “She will have the necessary permissions to you within an hour or so. And I can’t stress how critical it is to move quickly before another request to exhume this grave comes in and we miss our opportunity.”

  “Another request?”

  “I can’t comment further. I can only say that Dr. Bickel is alive and, in order to prove his abduction and prove intent to collude and deceive, we must exhume whomever is buried in the grave marked as his before the evidence is removed.”

  The ASAC made notes and promised to have the grave secured before dark.

  When Gamble hung up, he started assembling the personnel he would send to White Sands. He’d just finished sending out emails when his office door shut. All by itself.

  ***

  I snickered. He’d noticed the door closing and realized it was me.

  He kept his voice low. “Gemma?”

  “Yeah, I’m here. Dr. Bickel is in a room down the hall, but someone is with him.”

  “The agent is getting Bickel’s permission to open his grave back in Georgia. Should be done shortly. Then you are free to hustle him out of the building. I suggest taking him down the back stairs to the staff parking lot.”

  “Okay; I’ll just go wait.”

  “Before you do . . . have you uncovered any leads on Emilio and Soto?”

  “We’re making progress.” Just not fast enough.

  “That’s welcome news, but I had a thought.”

  “Yeah?”

  “We believe Soto took Emilio to entice you into a trap. If that’s true, why haven’t we heard from Soto? He has the bait; why hasn’t he dangled it in front of you?”

  It had only been one day since we left the tunnels; however, four days had passed since Soto took Emilio. Gamble’s question was a valid, worrisome one.

  Why hadn’t Soto reached out to me? Why indeed? I could think of a number of troubling possibilities, the chief being Emilio’s wellbeing. Soto had killed Mateo and buried him on the West Mesa—so what if Soto wasn’t planning a trap? What if he wasn’t interested in revenge? What if mortally wounding my heart was good enough for him? What if Emilio was already—

  I shook myself before I went down that rabbit hole. “I-I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “Well, perhaps there’s a good explanation why you haven’t heard from Soto. I mean, how would he contact you? He doesn’t exactly have your phone number or email address. And, unless Emilio has told him, Soto doesn’t even know your name.”

  Gemma Keyes, we suggest that this evil man might reach out to you via a public forum, possibly employing a veiled communiqué.

  Public forum? Communiqué? The nanomites’ vocabulary grew every day.

  “Like a newspaper ad?”

  We will search newspapers and online media for such a concealed message.

  I sighed. “Gamble, the nanomites think Soto might use a newspaper ad or something similar to reach out to me. They are looking.” And now I was preoccupied with the idea.

  “Good point. I wish them happy hunting.”

  “Thanks. I’ll talk to you later.”

  Gamble had a thought and called me back. “Gemma?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Gemma, speaking of ‘talk to you later,’ I need a way to reach you, and I mean a method that is faster and less convoluted than going through your boyfriend.”

  “He isn’t my boyfriend,” I said automatically.

  “Oh, please. I’ve seen and heard you two kissing and making gaga eyes, remember?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “I don’t need a relationship status update; what I need is a fast, surefire method of getting ahold of you when I need to. You can send the wedding invitation later.”

  My face flamed with his teasing, but his last playful jab stung. More than he knew. I think he realized he’d hurt my feelings when I didn’t answer right away.

  “Uh, look, Gemma, I’m sorry; that last bit was uncalled for. I apologize.”

  Have I mentioned what a great guy Gamble can be when he isn’t all Special-Agent-in-your-face?

  I sighed. “Yeah, okay, I forgive you. But FYI? Zander is something of a sore subject.”

  “I get that. Now. Again, I’m sorry. However, we’re on several tight timelines here if we’re to thwart Cushing, so back to the pressing need?”

  “Let me think a sec.”

  I talked to the nanomites, and we tossed a few things around before coming to consensus.

  “Do this, Gamble: Put an ad on Craigslist, Albuquerque. Something obscure, like, ‘Wanted: Uncut Gemstones,’ but don’t leave a phone number with the ad. That way if anyone else happens to respond to the ad, they are forced to email you through the Craigslist site, and you can just ignore them. Otherwise, you might be inundated with calls.”

  “Uncut gemstones, eh? Gemstones as in Gemma? Cute. So, then what? You’ll be monitoring Craigslist day and night? That doesn’t sound like the quick response I need.”

  “The nanomites will insert a line of code into the webpage. The words ‘uncut gemstones’ will trigger an alert that they will receive immediately and pass on to me.”

  “Sure you don’t want a big ol’ Bat Signal in the night sky?”

  I giggled. “Not yet, but I’ll keep it in mind.”

  I left Gamble and hung out in the hall until the female agent, holding an armload of papers, left the room where Dr. Bickel waited. When I slipped inside, he glanced up.

  “It’s me, Dr. Bickel. I’m here to save you again.”

  He grinned. “Sounds good to me. I was becoming quite bored answering the same questions six different ways. Let’s go.”

  The nanomites extended their umbrella of invisibility over him, and we left the room together, tiptoed down the staircase, and out into the cool air of a December early afternoon.

  We drove across town to the parking
garage. I returned my car to its regular spot and, covered by the nanomites, Dr. Bickel and I walked the few blocks to the safe house in companionable silence. I led him down the alley and over the low wall.

  “I only use the back door,” I explained.

  I performed my usual security reconnaissance, watching for nosy neighbors and checking for foot prints or any other disturbance around the back porch before opening the back door. Once we were inside, the nanomites uncovered us.

  Dr. Bickel stared around the kitchen. “I haven’t been here in a while.”

  “Not much has changed.” Inserting a hint of sarcasm, I added, “I did, however, stock the bathroom with toilet paper.”

  Dr. Bickel laughed. “And I’m going to be quite appreciative, I assure you.”

  He turned around and, catching sight of the real Gemma, studied me. You’ve really changed, Gemma, and I like it. You’ve matured into a lovely, strong, capable woman. And you’re quite beautiful, you know.”

  I chewed on his compliment while we climbed down into the basement hidey hole. Genie had been the pretty twin; I’d been the plain, stupid, dull one. No one—and I mean no one—had ever called me beautiful.

  Except Zander. “You’d think you didn’t own a mirror, Gemma. You are a lovely woman.”

  I sighed; my heart ached for what might have been, but I couldn’t dwell on it, couldn’t give in to the sorrow.

  When I arrived at the bottom of the ladder, Dr. Bickel was surveying the tiny room. He grimaced. “The space feels smaller than I remembered.”

  “It’s okay for one person, but not for the both of us. I’ll sleep upstairs again.”

  “Is that prudent, Gemma?”

  “It wasn’t before, but it is now. I’m more than a match for whatever they might throw at me should they find us out. If they come, I will defeat or delay them; you, on the other hand, must promise to leave through the escape hatch at the first sign of trouble. We will meet up later at a designated rendezvous point.”

  “I built a number of deterrents into the security system, Gemma. I can trigger them as I go, but you’ll need to be out of the way, first.”

  I nodded. “I’ve memorized your system. The nanomites and I can control it from anywhere in the house. I think it would be better, should we be discovered, if you just go. The nanomites and I will monitor the situation and trigger the deterrents when they will be most advantageous.”