“And shit can happen at your place just as easily as anywhere else,” she countered. “That’s why we’re forming craps.”
I blinked. “Uh… you’re what?”
“Forming craps.” Her voice took on the ringing tones of a proud slogan. “When shit happens, call craps!”
What the hell? No matter how I tried, I couldn’t connect the scatological reference with anything that made sense. Or maybe my subconscious was just trying to protect me from another of Lola’s dubious schemes.
I squeezed my eyes shut and massaged my temples with my free hand. “Lola, what are you talking about?”
“Citizens Reconnaissance And Protection Services. CRAPS. We’re going to make sure the wedding goes off without a hitch. I’ve got all my friends together and we’re going to keep the caterer’s house, the deejay’s house, and the florist’s shop under constant surveillance so nothing can happen to the rest of the wedding things. And we’ll put a team on your farm, too. We’ll nail these scumbags, whoever they are!”
Oh, Lord help us all.
“Um, Lola…” I began, but she was still bubbling over with enthusiasm.
“We’ve got my friends from Aquacize and my erotic literature club, and Bud Weems and all his old army buddies; that’s twenty people so far, and I bet more will join when they find out…”
“Lola!” I interrupted. “Please tell me you’re not forming a vigilante group.”
“Oh, fiddlesticks, Aydan!” She gave a light innocent laugh that set off all my alarm bells. “You know me better than that.”
Oh God, yes. I knew her all too well. Well enough to know that nothing I could do or say would stop or even slow the juggernaut of crap. CRAPS. Whatever. All I could do was try to inject a note of sanity into the proceedings and hope nobody died.
With only a momentary twinge of conscience, I slung two innocent victims under the bus. “I hope you invited Moonbeam and Karma to join.”
Lola laughed. “Oh, it was their idea. They’re such pistols!”
Well, shit.
Chapter 32
By the time I hung up from Lola’s call I felt like a teaspoon of butter scraped over an entire loaf of bread. I didn’t even want to think about anything bad happening to Spider and Linda, and my earlier relief at Moonbeam and Karma’s presence had dissolved in the fear that Lola or one of her friends would get hurt in an ill-advised attempt to play vigilante hero.
And those weren’t the only lives on the line.
Urgency pounded at me; a gut-level intuition that Daniel’s time was running out. And when it did, Kane’s sanity would go with it. Hell, Kane’s time was running out with the chain of command, too.
And as if all that wasn’t enough, I had to deal with Smarmy-Butterscotch Labelle.
Muttering under my breath, I dialled Kane’s home number. It rang busy. Next, his cell phone. Straight to voicemail.
Goddammit, if anyone from the chain of command tried to call him to verify his whereabouts, they’d think they were getting the runaround and be even more suspicious. I left a message for Kane to call Stemp and/or me, then tried Hellhound’s cell phone.
Voicemail, too.
I clenched my teeth and left a message.
Thoroughly edgy, I dialled Labelle. He answered on the second ring, and I got straight to the point. “You wanted a meeting?”
“I wanted a meeting yesterday. And last night.”
He didn’t sound very butterscotchy at all today. The cold edge in his voice sent a shiver trickling down my backbone, quickly followed by a surge of hot anger at the fact that this pukebucket was the reason I was dodging bullets and skirting jail instead of enjoying a safe and peaceful life.
“Well, tough,” I snapped. “I’m busy. What do you want?”
“I want a meeting,” he repeated.
“Yeah, I got that,” I said with exaggerated patience. “Why? Last time all you did was insult me. Tell me what you want and I’ll see if it’s worth my time to meet you.”
“Oh, believe me, it’s worth your time.”
I blew out an irritable breath. “Fine. If you can meet at two this afternoon at the ice cream shop, be there. Otherwise it’ll have to wait until tomorrow.”
“It’s nearly noon,” he growled. “I’m in Calgary. It’s a two-hour drive.”
“Okay, make it two-thirty, but I can only give you a few minutes then.”
“Is this your idea of a joke?” he inquired icily.
“Take it or leave it!” I barked. “And hurry up!”
A pause on the line transmitted only a faint rhythmic hissing, like the sound of a man breathing hard through his nose with his teeth clenched.
“I’ll see you at two-thirty,” he said in a strangled voice, and disconnected.
I was glaring at the phone and loudly itemizing Labelle’s aberrant sexual preferences when a tentative tap at the door interrupted me between ‘butt-sucking donkey-licker’ and ‘goat-fucker’.
Spider leaned cautiously through the opening. “Uh… is this, um… a bad time?”
“Oh. No.” Forcing my stiff lips into a smile, I waved him in. “Come on in. What’s new?”
“Um… well…” He sidled into the office and lowered his voice. “Have you talked to Lola?”
I sank my head into my hands with a groan. “Yes.”
“What are we going to do?” He dropped into the chair across from me, his face drawn with concern. “Linda knows enough about what we do here…” He encompassed Sirius with a vague wave of his hand. “…to be properly scared. But Lola doesn’t have a clue. She thinks it’s just a big adventure.”
“I know.” I sighed. “Try not to worry about it, Spider. I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve that I can’t tell you about, but she’s safer than you think.”
“Really?” He sat up straighter, hope dawning on his face. At my nod, he sprang to his feet, grinning. “Oh, thank God! You’re a lifesaver, Aydan! Literally!” Bounding around my desk in a flurry of lanky legs and awkward elbows, he stooped and threw his arms around me. “Thank you!” he repeated. “I don’t know what we’d do without you.”
“You’re welcome,” I muttered, freeing one hand to pat his back and hoping his confidence wasn’t as misplaced as it felt. “Here…” I extricated myself from his embrace and dug into my waist pouch for my key. “Take this, too,” I added as I handed over the wrist monitor for my cameras.
“Oh, no, Aydan, I can’t…” he began, but I grabbed his wrist and pressed it into his hand.
“Yes, you can. And it’s only until I get home. When I can’t be there, the panic button will be just as good.”
“But, Aydan, that panic button is there to protect you, not me,” Spider argued. “I can’t justify using Sirius’s resources for something like this.”
“Sure you can.” I grinned. “Or if you can’t, just give it to Linda. She won’t hesitate.”
He laughed uncertainly, but I had a feeling he wouldn’t press the panic button even if he needed to. But it wouldn’t matter. If any threat showed up on the monitors, Moonbeam and Karma would deal with it long before Sirius could mobilize a rescue anyway.
“Why don’t you take Karma out to the farm with you?” I asked innocently. “I’m having lunch with Moonbeam so she’ll be along a bit later, but you guys can get started on moving furniture or whatever you need to do for your reception.”
“Actually…” Spider hesitated. “We had originally planned a sit-down dinner at the hall, but we’ve changed to a buffet-style since we don’t have any place to sit down anymore… and we thought… if it’s okay with you of course…”
Trying not to show my impatience, I smiled and gave him a ‘go on’ gesture.
“We thought it would be nice to set up the bar and buffet and dance floor in your garage. You’ve got the fridge out there for the caterers, and we could bring ice chests for the bar. We’ll tell people to bring lawn chairs, and with those five big doors open it’ll be perfect for people circulating in and out, and y
our garden’s so pretty…”
“That’ll be just fine,” I interrupted. “My place is yours. Move stuff around, decorate, whatever you want. The keys to all the vehicles are in my kitchen drawer.”
“Thanks, Aydan!” He hugged me again. “You’re the best!”
“You’re welcome.” I subtly manoeuvred him toward the door. “I’ll see you around suppertime. I’ll bring pizza from Fiorenza’s.”
“Awesome!” He bounced out the door looking like his usual buoyant self.
I breathed a long sigh before tucking the laser flashlight into the concealment of my rolled-up sweater and following him downstairs.
In the lobby, I unslung the pheromone detector from around my neck and braved the time delay chamber to the secured area again. When I let myself into the Weapons lab, the main area was deserted.
Damn, I should have called ahead. I had just assumed somebody would be here.
I wrinkled my nose. Maybe they’d all cleared out after an experiment had gone wrong. It smelled like something had crawled in here and died.
A faint buzzing sound accompanied by a woman’s low-pitched giggle made me back toward the door.
Really didn’t need to know about Murray and Melinda’s sex life…
The buzzing amplified and a sudden swarm of flies descended on me. Swooping around my head, they dive-bombed my face as if making a concerted effort to get into my eyes and up my nose. I let out an involuntary yelp and threshed the air frantically around my head, but they kept up their attack.
When I opened my mouth to yell, one flew into my mouth and my shout came out sounding more like ‘Grrkkphfffbt!’. I spat out the disgusting bug-morsel and cupped a hand over my nose and mouth while flailing my free hand to keep them out of my eyes.
“Fuck off with the flies!” I bellowed through my fingers.
Like gophers in a Saskatchewan pasture, the researchers’ heads popped up from behind various counters, their eyes widening in surprise.
“Sorry!” Murray exclaimed, and hastily manipulated the joystick to call off the plague of flying vermin.
I scurried over to the nearest sink to rinse and spit a few times, then moistened a paper towel and thoroughly wiped my face. “If you ever do that again,” I growled, “I will hold you down and feed you every last one of those filthy things. Through your nose.”
“I’m really sorry,” Murray repeated, his basset-hound jowls quivering with sincerity. “We were just doing the final tests on the flies’ locating abilities. We weren’t expecting anybody else to come in. I thought…” He shot a sheepish glance at Dr. Chow, who was propped against one of the counters laughing uproariously. “I thought I’d found Reggie.”
“Asshole,” Chow rejoined, still grinning.
“God!” I rinsed and spat a couple more times. “What is it with flies? Why do they always want to get in your eyes and nose and mouth?”
“Well, actually,” Melinda said, “These ones are specially bred to do that. We’ve amped up their attraction to human mucous membranes.”
“That’s fucking sick.” I rinsed and spat again. I could still taste that fly. “Please tell me you don’t feed them dogshit or something.”
“No, no,” Melinda soothed. “We feed them a nutritional blend that’s specially formulated to provide the nutrients they need without spreading disease.” She hesitated. “Of course, in the field, they’d fend for themselves, so…”
“So they’d eat dogshit and rotting dead things,” I finished, and rinsed and spat one more time. “I really fucking hate flies. And you are truly sick to send them into people’s noses and eyes.”
“Not really,” Chow explained, sobering. “The distraction factor is just a side benefit. The main reason we increased the attraction is to keep the flies more interested in finding people than whatever rotting thing happens to be closest. So far we’ve had a one-hundred-percent success rate here in the lab.”
I sniffed the air, sudden horrid certainty filling me. “That’s what I smelled when I came in. You’ve got some gross rotten thing in here to tempt them, haven’t you?”
Chow shrugged. “Well, yeah, of course. Wouldn’t be much of a test otherwise, would it?”
“But you’re driving them with the control box,” I argued. “So you’ll only find people you know are there.”
“No, the control box just stimulates them to move to the next target as soon as the current one is mapped,” the black-bearded Sawyer chimed in. “The joystick is an override, in case we want to swarm somebody…” He trailed off at the sight of my expression before adding hurriedly, “…and the control box has a homing beacon to bring the flies back. The discovery and mapping system is working fine now. All we need is the last of the pheromone research and we’ll be able to figure out who’s hostile and who’s not.”
“Well, I can pretty much guarantee anybody would be hostile after you sent ten flies up their nose,” I retorted. “But I brought you some more pheromone samples anyway.” I handed the pheromone detector to Chow.
Chow shot a not-too-intimidating glare at the others. “Get back to work, you fucking slackers.” They drifted away with a volley of good-natured abuse in Chow’s direction, which he ignored except for a quirk of the undamaged side of his mouth.
“So what have you got for me?” he asked as he connected the pheromone detector to his computer and extracted two vials.
I eyed them uncertainly. “Two? I thought there would only be one.”
Chow raised a quizzical eyebrow before consulting his screen. “Yesterday afternoon at two-twenty, and this morning at one-twelve AM.”
Yesterday at two-twenty…
Enlightenment dawned. “Oh… I’m not sure how to label that sample. It was just an adrenaline rush. I was undercover and the guy accused me of being a cop. So it would be more prey than predator, I guess, if you have to classify it.”
“And the other one?”
“Um… I’m not sure about that one, either. Definitely prey to start with, but then I killed the guy…” I trailed off at the look on his face.
“But then you killed the guy,” he echoed. “Okay. Busy day yesterday?”
“Yeah. Oh, and I brought back the laser flashlight. Thanks. It worked really well.” I held it out to him.
He absently waved it away. “Hang onto it. Sounds like you need it.” He finished downloading the pheromone samples and replaced the vials. “Here you go again.” He handed me the unit, frowning. “Sounds like ‘active duty’ is pretty active for you right now.”
I snorted. “Understatement of the century.”
Chow gave me a calculating look. “But you’re going to be around here for a while, right? You’re not getting assigned somewhere else?”
“No, I’ll be here as far as I know,” I said warily. “Why?”
“I’m just thinking you’re a prime candidate to do the final testing for some of our gear.” The fanatical gleam was back in his eye. “I’m going to run this up the chain of command and see if I can get clearance to gear you up. Real life is far better than any field testing the Calgary installation can do.”
“Um… I don’t know…” I began, but he was already talking over me.
“Don’t worry, I won’t set you up with anything unless I’m positive it’ll work. And it’ll give you a huge edge, I promise.”
Hope seeped in. “I could sure use an edge right now,” I agreed tentatively.
Chow thumped me on the shoulder, grinning. “You’re gonna be the hottest agent in the whole service.”
“Jane Bond,” I breathed, my heart lifting.
His grin widened. “Oh, hell, yeah!”
Chapter 33
Twenty minutes later Moonbeam and I were tucked into a corner of The Melted Spoon. Only a few tables were still occupied after the lunch rush, but there was enough general conversation to camouflage our words. I leaned closer and spoke softly.
“What possessed you to get Lola and her friends involved in CRAPS?”
Mo
onbeam winced. “Not my idea, dear.” When I raised a skeptical eyebrow, she clarified, “Not the CRAPS part, anyway. Karma Wolf Song and I merely intended to encourage Lola and her friends to be aware of any unusual activity and to report it to the authorities. Instead…”
She made a helpless gesture, and I nodded my sympathy. “Yeah, I should have warned you about Lola. Sorry about that.”
“It’s quite all right; I should have expected it. With an aura like hers…” She trailed off, smiling, then sobered. “But don’t worry, dear. When we realized the inevitability of CRAPS, Karma Wolf Song and I elected ourselves commanders-in-chief and insisted that they bring in a representative from the RCMP to educate them about Neighbourhood Watch programs. And all the members will clear their activities with us prior to proceeding, so we should be able to prevent any injuries. In any case…” She shrugged philosophically. “The extra surveillance will be beneficial. With this many members we’ll be able to provide twenty-four-hour coverage of all key wedding personnel.”
I swallowed my mouthful of egg salad croissant. “You don’t need to put any guards on my farm. I have full surveillance. Motion-sensing cameras that feed to a mobile monitor that looks like a wristwatch.”
Moonbeam’s face lit up. “Ah, excellent. I noticed you wearing the wristband earlier and wondered if it was simply a watch but…” She broke off, frowning at my wrist. “Where is it?”
I gulped another mouthful. “I gave it to Spider for the afternoon. I’ll take it back from him when I get there tonight.”
She went still, studying me intently. “Was that… wise? What’s your cover story?”
“I don’t need one with Spider. He knows what I do. So does Linda, though she doesn’t know any details. Everybody else is completely in the dark. That’s why Spider and Linda are taking this seriously but Lola thinks it’s an adventure.”
“Ah.” Moonbeam applied herself thoughtfully to her veggie panini. “I wondered,” she said after a few mouthfuls. “I thought you must have a support team besides Sunstar Desert Hawk and Blessed Soul Dream, but your young friends seem very…” She hesitated before finishing, “…innocent.”
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