Deja Vu

by Fern Michaels

  Myra laughed. “Take your pick, dear. Ah, here’s Nikki and Jack, and I see Alexis behind them. And Maggie is just turning onto the road.”

  The greetings were effusive, as they always were. Inside of ten minutes, everyone was on the terrace, even Charles, who looked around to see whom he could trust to carry the ribs and to follow his instructions. He finally chose Bert, who for some reason looked like he had lost his last friend. He well might have, Nikki whispered to Yoko as she watched Kathryn avoid standing anywhere near Bert.

  An hour later, the mingling and the joke telling wound down. Annie related the details of her meeting with Fergus Duffy to wide-eyed disbelief. “I told him I would talk to all of you. I don’t want any of you reading something into that meeting that wasn’t there.”

  Ted Robinson looked over at Charles, who was expertly turning a rack of ribs, and said, “Charles, if you had a mind to, you could auction off Mitch Riley’s files and rake in tens of millions of dollars. Did you have a chance to go through Jellicoe’s files?”

  “My dear fellow, it has taken me days to sift and collate those files. In the kitchen you will see nine, I say NINE boxes of files on Henry Jellicoe. It’s literally a day-by-day file on him from as far back as his early twenties. I did not read through them, I just figured out a system that would work for all of us. It would take months to go through all of those files to look for any one piece of something or other that would help us. I made it so we could divide it up by years and assign each of you a year; then you can sit down and compare whatever it is you think will be important in our quest to find Mr. Jellicoe. I understand from Harry’s lipreading that Director Span has an additional six boxes of files that he himself accumulated. I would give my right elbow to see what’s in them.”

  “Wait a minute!” Jack all but bellowed. “Who’s the client? Is this on our shores or foreign soil? Is something going on here that I don’t know about?” He swung his attention to Nikki, and said, “You aren’t seriously thinking of giving up your … your current immunity here. I know ‘immunity’ is not the right word, but your pardon only applies to past actions. It does not cover anything done in the United States afterward.”

  Nikki’s face froze into a grimace. “Jack, how can looking at files affect us? We own the files; they were given to us. We can do whatever we want with them. Even the president of the United States said those files are off-limits, and so are we.

  “We can read them, we can try to decipher them, we can try to find Jellicoe’s wife, which is what this is all about. We are not actively out there on a mission. Think of this as a fact-finding … ah … mission. Girls?”

  The Sisters weighed in, their comments echoing those Nikki made. The boys managed to slink over to where Bert was standing. Charles, unsure what exactly was going on, removed a rack of ribs to a serving platter and did his best to move as far from the ostracized guys as possible.

  The girls all started to talk at once as they tried to figure out the best way to tackle the upcoming project. “I think we should all stay and work from here. Being free agents these days will allow us to do what has to be done,” Yoko said.

  “What about the boys?” Isabelle asked.

  The women grinned and shook their heads.

  “I think we should send them home after dinner,” Maggie said. “I can stay and work through the night. You have to admit they don’t have our eye for detail, and they do tend to clutter things up.”

  “As usual, you’re right, Maggie. I can stay through the night, too,” Alexis said. The others agreed.

  Ted, who was watching the women, poked Jack on the arm, and hissed, “We’re outta here as soon as dinner is over. Right now, I’m not even sure I want to stay for dinner. I don’t know about you guys, but this is really pissing me off. We need to revolt like NOW! They only want us when they want us. Those females over there have shown a total disregard for our feelings once too often. What are we, chopped liver? How many times have we stepped up to the plate and made things happen for them? Now, when it’s getting interesting, they want to send us home. Well?”

  “Numerous times. What will revolting do for us?” Harry asked as though he were questioning a seven-year-old.

  Jack whirled around, a suspicious expression on his face. Harry rarely volunteered anything, and when he did, his voice was never gentle. Right now he was smiling, which further puzzled Jack. “What? You okay with being dismissed like … like … we’re flotsam and jetsam?”

  Flotsam and jetsam?

  “That’s an interesting declaration, Jack. If anyone is interested in a suggestion, I would like to suggest we pack up our old kit bags and head back to town and forget about dining on apple cider spareribs. I’m willing to forgo the coleslaw in the hopes we can redeem our dignity.”

  “Oh, Harry, you are so witty this evening. And you think this is going to solve … what?” Jack growled.

  “Not being needed. And when a request comes our way for help, which will happen very shortly, we should be busy doing other things,” Harry said quietly.

  “And you’re also stupid this evening,” Jack mumbled as he saw his buddies head toward the kitchen door amid a chorus of “Where are you guys going?” and Maggie’s bellow, “Get back here, Ted, and you, too, Espinosa.” Jack turned tail and hustled after his friends as he waved his hands in the air.

  “Charles! What happened? Did you say something? The boys are leaving, and they look angry. Why are they angry, Charles?” Myra demanded.

  “I have no idea, Myra. I knew the boys were talking among themselves, but I was so busy watching the ribs so they didn’t burn that I wasn’t paying attention. If you want my opinion, I believe it was something you ladies said that stirred the mass exodus. That’s just a guess on my part,” he added hastily.

  “Bert has his jockeys in a wad,” Kathryn said unkindly. “He doesn’t like it that I’m going on the road once or twice a week. Right now it’s a big bone of contention between the two of us. However, I don’t think our little squabble had anything to do with Bert’s leaving with the others.”

  Maggie struggled to blink back her tears. “This is really the first time Ted disobeyed me. He always listens and does what I say, but that doesn’t make him a wimp, so don’t think that of him. The reason he always agrees with me is because I’m always right.”

  “Joseph always follows Ted. They’re like two peas in a pod,” Alexis said.

  Isabelle looked at everyone, and just said, “Men!”

  Nikki wasn’t quite so blasé. “Jack… I was watching him … just because I love looking at him. He even winked at me. So he was okay with whatever was going on until I saw Ted nudge him; then things changed.”

  “Oh, dear, who is going to eat all of this food?” Myra fretted.

  “It was Harry’s suggestion that they leave. I read his lips. He was most unhappy when he heard they weren’t needed. For reading the files. Truthfully, I am on Harry’s side. He’s right when he says we only use them, meaning the boys, when we want to. Otherwise, it is like they don’t belong, which is very unfair of us,” Yoko said. “Harry, in case you don’t already know this, can be extremely stubborn. Even with me.”

  “I know Harry likes flavorful food and I made the coleslaw with Jamaican Jerk since he told me that was his favorite. I made a huge bowl of it,” Annie muttered. “I don’t understand any of this. I thought men were above such pettiness.”

  The Sisters eyed the platters of food on the table. Suddenly everyone’s appetite seemed to disappear.

  “I think this dinner is fizzling, and it’s really raining now. If it keeps up, it will soak through the awning. Perhaps we should go indoors,” Myra said, just as a roll of thunder sounded overhead. The Sisters needed no further warning. Each of them grabbed a platter of food and beelined for the kitchen door. A bolt of lightning zigzagged across the sky, which had gone dark, followed by a bellow of thunder that seemed to rock the old farmhouse.

  With the mad dash from the terrace, the women we
re soaking wet. Myra handed out tea towels before they sat down to contemplate the mound of food on the kitchen table. The dogs sniffed and pranced, uncertain of what exactly was going on. Charles pointed to the huge family room, then followed the dogs, bacon-flavored chew bones in hand. Large ones that would occupy the dogs for hours until matters in the kitchen were resolved one way or another.

  Kathryn and Maggie, whom the others often referred to as bottomless pits, which meant they would eat anything anytime, simply stared at the food platters. Isabelle reached for a rib, bit into it, and chewed. “Delicious.” No one else reached for food.

  “Now what?” Nikki asked.

  “Mutiny is not a good thing. We need the boys,” Annie said.

  “What she’s saying is we haven’t sucked up enough where the boys are concerned,” Kathryn said flatly. “I for one hate sucking up. It is not becoming or acceptable for women ever, as in ever, to have to suck up. We don’t suck up to each other so why do we have to do it with them?

  “Are they so insecure with their own manhood that we have to coddle them? Think about it, what are they going to do without us? Just think about that!” Her voice was even flatter now that she’d said what she had to say.

  “Up till now we were in control. At least I think we were,” Nikki said. “Being in total control, and I want to stress the word total here, has allowed us to get where we are at the moment. Yes, the boys have done everything we asked. So, why are we excluding them? Did I miss something?”

  “No, you are not missing anything. We just reacted the way we always react, as a team of seven. We check it out, then we make decisions, and that’s when we enlist their help. This is not something new. We do it this way because we’re a team, we are on each other’s page, so to speak. If we throw something into the mix that hasn’t worked for us, even though we haven’t tried that something, we’re all smart enough to know that’s not the way to go. I suppose we could have offered up an explanation, but like Kathryn said, that goes under the heading of sucking up to appease them,” Yoko said.

  “Very well put, dear,” Myra said.

  “Charles, you haven’t said anything. Would you care to contribute to this conversation?” Annie asked.

  “I see both sides, ladies. From your perspective it’s if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. The lads, on the other hand, subscribe to the notion that they are underappreciated, and there is no respect when they did in fact put their lives as well as their reputations on the line for you. Take Bert, for example. While he was the director of the FBI, ask yourselves how many times he broke the law to help all of us. That goes for Jack, too, who was an officer of the court. Harry spies on the CIA and FBI agents he trains and reports back to us. Ted and Joseph are out there beating the bushes and pushing things around to make things work for us, so Maggie can get banner headlines. Do you need any additional input?”

  The Sisters looked at each other with narrowed eyes. “Charles is right,” Alexis said.

  Annie and Myra shrugged. “Perhaps we should have a roundtable discussion to clear the air.”

  It was a lifeline, and the girls as one reached for it.

  “And you all think if we concede, the boys will come running back?” Isabelle asked in disbelief. “Did any of you really see the expression on Ted’s face? I’m certainly no authority on men, but I know enough to realize it’s going to take more than sucking up to get him back in the fold.”

  Maggie started to whimper. “I get so carried away. This is my fault. Wait a minute, no, it isn’t all my fault. Just because I’m always right doesn’t mean I should take all of the blame. It’s how I get Ted to stay focused and be the best of the best. As soon as I slack off, he gets lazy and preoccupied.” She swiped at a tear trickling down from the corner of her eye.

  “Men need to feel superior. Why is that? Were they born that way, or is it a learned thing?” Kathryn snarled. “Bert just hates that I drive a big rig. He doesn’t think women should do things like that. He doesn’t think I should sit home and knit, but he thinks I should work at my engineering degree instead of driving a truck. That’s his insecurity. I can’t be part of that kind of thinking.”

  “See! See! That’s how Joseph is thinking. He wants me to marry him so we can be legal. I’m not ready to get married. That kind of thinking carries into the job place. It’s not that I don’t trust him to watch my back, I do. But I don’t want him having doubts. We really do need to clear the air and make peace,” Alexis said

  “Why?” Annie said. “We aren’t the vigilantes any longer. Our wings have been clipped. We aren’t going on missions. All of those,” she said, pointing to the boxes at the far end of the kitchen, “are just boxes of information. Even if we find something, no one in this room has made a decision as to what we’ll do with that information.”

  Nikki shrugged. “I think we might have a problem.”

  All eyes turned to Charles, who threw his hands high in the air. “Don’t look at me, ladies! I’m one of them. A man!”

  “Crap!” Annie said.

  Chapter 12

  “Well, I guess we better get to it,” Myra said, heading to the far end of the kitchen, where the boxes of files were stacked neatly. “Take your pick,” she said, waving her arm with a flourish.

  “Wait. Wait!” Maggie said. “Listen to me for a moment. I don’t belong here with you all doing what you’re going to be doing. I’m an honorary vigilante, just as the guys are honorary members. It’s not that I don’t want to help, I do, but my help is in other venues. The last thing I want to do is jinx all of you. Having said that, I’m going to head back to town and do some research of my own. The only problem is, I came out with Ted and Espinosa, and I have no means of transportation.”

  “Take my car,” Alexis said, fishing the keys out of her pocket and tossing them to Maggie. “I can bum a ride with Isabelle and pick it up when I get back to town.”

  Maggie danced from one foot to the other. “Are you sure you guys are okay with me leaving?”

  “Absolutely,” they all agreed. Brief smooches and hugs followed as Maggie headed for the door, stopped, and returned and asked for an umbrella. It took Myra a good ten minutes to unearth Charles’s golfing umbrella, which was as big as a sun umbrella, and handed it over.

  “Be careful on the road,” the women shouted, as Maggie raced across the compound, the rain and the wind buffeting the colorful orange-and-yellow umbrella. The women watched until the taillights on Alexis’s car were mere specks in the darkness.

  “I’d like us to sit here and have a little roundtable before we tackle the boxes,” Myra said.

  “I’ll make fresh coffee,” Annie volunteered.

  “It seems right now,” Isabelle said as she looked around at the table. “It should be just us. That’s how we first started, then out of necessity, we had to recruit others to help us. I’m not saying I am not appreciative, because I am. But if we take a vote, I want us to stay the way we are. Somehow we have to convey that to the boys. Maggie understood, but Maggie is a female, so it’s understood.”

  Nikki tugged at her earlobe as she frowned. “We aren’t the vigilantes any longer. We’re private citizens.”

  “Private citizens with an agenda,” Yoko said.

  “That’s true,” Nikki said.

  Annie finished with the coffeepot and took her seat as the first drops of water dripped down into the pot. “What are we doing here? More to the point, let’s assume we find something in one of those boxes. What are we going to do with that information? Are we planning on turning it over to … the FBI? The White House? I think we need a plan here. And what about Fergus Duffy? Do we get back to him, or do we ignore him?”

  “Those are all good questions, Annie. I wish I had the answer to even just one of them,” Kathryn said.

  “Let’s see if I can sum up our temporary predicament. Right now we’re just private citizens. Once we open those boxes and, with luck, find whatever we think we need to find, is when we have to decide if
we’re going to step over that line again. Yes, we have just been granted immunity for future activity by the president of the United States, but I am quite sure that such immunity does not protect us against being arrested by local and state authorities. Even if the FBI has to leave us alone, that does not apply to breaking the laws of Virginia, Maryland, et cetera.

  “I know you all feel you have a personal score to settle with Hank Jellicoe, and you want to see him pay for all that time you lived under his thumb. But I think you have to put personal issues aside and concentrate on what he’s accused of doing now. If what we’re hearing is true, every law-enforcement agency in the world is looking for and blaming Hank Jellicoe for the deaths of those CIA agents. Perhaps we need to use the word allegedly when we accuse him of murdering federal agents. And Fergus Duffy told Annie about his agent,” Myra said. “I think that means what we’re hearing is all true in regard to Hank Jellicoe.”

  “Technically, Hank Jellicoe is one of their own. I’m referring to the CIA. He knows their secrets. He probably anticipated all of this and is reacting like a true agent. They burned him and tossed him away. He’s out there, all alone with no one he can count on to help him.

  “Don’t any of you watch that show on TV called Burn Notice? The main character in the show got burned, and he’s trying to get his life together. It’s not easy on the show, but he’s doing it. At least that’s what we’re currently thinking. And yet he’s still surviving out there and on his own just like the character on Burn Notice and on a killing spree. He’s gone over the edge, and if the CIA can’t find him, how are we going to find him, and if we do find him, are we prepared to cross the line?” Kathryn asked as she got up to pour the coffee.

  “Do we have to make that particular decision right now?” Nikki asked. “Why can’t we go through Jellicoe’s files and see if anything turns up, and if it does, that’s the time when we make a decision? That works for me. What do the rest of you think?”

  Yoko’s exquisite features tightened. “I want to register my vote now. I am willing to cross that line to bring that man to justice.”