by R. H. Politz
"Sprayed into someone's face, it'll drop them in a few seconds. Just something I cooked up in the chem-lab to keep my mind off this nightmare."
"Well," she said examining the sprayers, "I hope you never have to use them."
When Kari and I left the garage, the Latino man watched us drive away with the usual black car following. He folded his newspaper and walked across the street into Euphoria's garage, looked around and left. I waited till Kari and I were walking through the garden before telling her about the assassin. She turned white. "Who's he after?"
"We don't know yet but I think you should stay home for now, call in sick or something. Here's a clean cell phone we can use to talk and I'll drive my old car back and forth for awhile. Don't worry. We'll get through this."
The next day, I drove to school and met Valerie in the library. "Any more news on the target thing," I asked when I saw her.
"No but the pallet is on its way to Canada. Then it'll come here."
"Here..., why bring it here?"
"So we can find out what's in it. It might give us the leverage we need to end this thing."
"Yeah, and bringing it here might bring the bad guys here too. I don't want Kari or any of you to get hurt."
"Don't worry Kimmy, I know someone. We can do it and no one will know."
"What do you mean, you know someone?"
"A good friend, he's on our side. It's coming by air in two days. Then, we can find out what this is all about. Do you want to be there when we open it?"
"Yeah, of course, I'd like to know too."
Kari stayed home, I continued driving my old car and, two days later, Valerie, her friends and I were in a customs warehouse opening the pallet of skin cream. I had no idea how she gained our admission to such a secured place and, I didn't ask, especially since she seemed to have the run of the place.
They set up a mini-chemistry lab on a table and started opening the bottles to test and analyze the cream but the first dozen samples turned up nothing. "If there's something in that cream, we can't find it. Looks like we have a lot of bottles to test so, let's get it done!"
I wanted to let them know about the cap without making them aware that Kari and I had already taken one apart. "Maybe," I said picking up a bottle, "it's not in the cream." I unscrewed the cap and examined it but there was no large bulbous protrusion inside. "Does anyone have a magnifying glass?"
One of the girls said, "Yeah, over here."
Everyone crowded around me as I examined the cap under the lighted magnifying viewer and they gasped when I found the split in the two parts and opened it. The separation was in a different place on this one and, inside, was a small micro-disc in a clear plastic wrapper.
"Can you guys tell what's on this?" I asked holding it up.
"Blinky pulled a microscope out, put it on the table and said, "Yup!" Then she put on gloves, unrolled a wrap of small tools and removed the micro-disc from the bottle cap. "First I'll check the wrapper," she said putting it under a lens. "Okay..., good..., now let's see what's on the disc." She carefully removed the disc and put it under a different lens and adjusted the focus. Everyone was dead silent as she moved it around. Suddenly, she exclaimed, "Holy Mother of God!"
"What...?" everyone asked, "What is it?"
She put the disc back into the wrapper, straightened up and said, "We've got a class one –– um, Val, we've got a situation and Kimmy, you are going home." I started to protest but she was adamant.
* 16 * Rescued from Death
During my drive home, I thought about the uses for a micro-disc and wondered what "class one" meant. Finally, it struck me. "That's optical. Magnetic scanners can't see it and have no effect on whatever information it carries but why was Blinky so anxious to get rid of me? What are they hiding?"
As I approached Kari's estate, I saw the black car parked just past the gate with its doors wide open and when I drove up next to it, I shrieked. "Oh no, they look dead!" I called for the police and an ambulance, gave them the address and backed down the road to the driveway. "The gate's open," I mumbled. "It's never open!"
I sped to the front door and ran inside but couldn't find anyone. "Kari, Alfred," I yelled but no one answered. After running through the whole house, I went to the garage. All the cars were there but still, no people. "Whew," I breathed trying to catch my breath. "Maybe they're in the cars."
I opened every door and trunk hoping not to find my worst fear but, when I slammed the door of the work truck, I heard pounding. Where was it coming from..., the workshop? I ran to the door and yelled, "Is anyone in there," while trying to open it. "Who would put a bar through the handle?" I pulled it out, opened the door and saw the entire staff on the floor bound with duct tape. "Oh my God," I screamed and ran to free them. "What happened? Are you all right?"
Alfred was the first to answer and, even under those circumstances, his stoic calm manner prevailed. "Thank you Madam Kimmy. Have you been in the house?"
"Yes, but it was empty. Where's Kari?"
"If you haven't seen her then the man who forced us here at gunpoint must have taken her. We have to find her and cannot waste time doing it. Every second counts. Alice, free the others please, Madam Kimmy and I have work to do."
I called Valerie and told her what happened. "Keep your phone on and I'll call back when I have something," she said. Alfred and I hurried to the house and I asked him how he could be so calm.
"I am not Ma'am."
"You could've fooled me," I said trying to keep up with his very quick pace.
"It's just old training Ma'am and I am extremely worried about Madam Kari."
He pulled out the bottom drawer of an armoire in his bedroom and took out a small book. The rest of the contents looked like some kind of armory, handguns, rifles, ammunition and knives lay next to a closed box and when I turned around, he was reciting some numbers and very cryptic words to whomever was on the telephone. He motioned for me to sit down and then I heard him say, "A situation has just occurred. I need eyes." He recited our address and hung up.
"What was that Alfred?"
"Madam Kari is in some kind of serious danger so I asked for help in finding her. We'll need the computers you set up here."
We hurried to the computer office, turned everything on and Alfred entered some commands I had never seen before; static came up on the screen and then a satellite photo of the whole city. With a few more commands, he zoomed in on the estate and started running an aerial video backwards. "We have to identify the vehicle," he muttered scanning the pictures. "There! That's it!" He zoomed in on a car sitting by the front door, entered a few more commands and a message popped up; 'Information Sent,' "Now let's see where they went." The picture zoomed back out a little and we could see the man carrying Kari to the car and driving off. Just then, my cell phone rang.
"Kari," I asked in a panic. "No Kimmy, it's Val. I don't know what happened but someone just changed a satellite's position to your area. It would take us half-an-hour to get that done but, anyway, we're tracking a car that left your place fifteen minutes ago."
"Yeah, I see it too."
"Oh really...! How can you..., wait a minute, are you the one who moved that satellite?"
"No but I'm taking advantage of it."
"Okay, look, we've got a location where they took Kari and we're going to try and get her out. Stay there. I'll let you know what happens."
She hung up just as the doorbell rang. "That will be the police," said Alfred. "I'll talk to them and you stay here." He was starting to sound more like an officer in charge than a butler but, he left the satellite feed on so I changed it to "live feed" and watched.
"I know that place," I mumbled. "That's on the way to my old college." I kept watching but I was getting more nervous by the second. "I have to do something besides just sit here. Who knows what they're doing to Kari?" A half-hour passed, the police left the house but were still out on the street all around the black car and Alfred came back into the computer room.<
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"That's taken care of. Now, have you seen any movement?"
"Alfred, I know where that is and I can't just sit here. I have to go after her!"
"Kimmy, this was not an amateur break-in. It's professional and I doubt she's still there. How many cars have gone in and out of that parking garage?"
"I don't know. A few I guess."
"And they would have changed vehicles by now so she could have been in any one of them."
I shrunk down and sighed. "So, what do we do?"
"We wait Kimmy, we wait."
I put my hands on my face and started to cry but, just then, my cell phone rang. "Kimmy, it's Val, we know where she is. We tapped into the traffic and garage cameras and saw them switch cars and take her a few blocks to a rundown apartment building but we can't see inside; no cameras in there."
"We have to get her out Val!"
"It'll take us an hour to get a team in there and if I call the police, they'll see them coming and kill her. If whoever you know is the one who changed that satellite, give them this address. Maybe they can move faster."
I hung up and looked at Alfred for a few seconds. "Here's Kari's location. If you have any ideas Alfred, now's the time."
He thought for a second and asked, "Have you ever fired a handgun?"
"Yes. My father kept trying to make me into his warrior son and that's one of the things he taught me. I hated it but I can hit the target."
"Kimmy, these won't be things you might have to shoot. They'll be people. Can you do that?"
"Give me that Glock in your armoire and a silencer and I'll hit whoever threatens my Kari!"
He patted my shoulder and said, "Let's go."
We got our weapons and jumped in the car. While he drove, I changed into sneakers and sweats but he paid no attention to my temporary nakedness. He was too busy making phone calls while driving to the location Valerie had given me. Twenty minutes later, he slowly drove around the block and parked one street over. Then his phone rang.
"What's the number of the cell phone you called her on Kimmy?" When I gave him the number, a car pulled up behind us. "Hold that thought," he said getting out and going back to the other car. Then he came back with some sort of an electronic device. "The number...?" When I told him, he punched it in and a small red dot appeared on the screen. "Good, it's on."
"A directional finder for the pulses the phone sends out...?"
"Smart girl Kimmy! We're going in. You stay here."
"I can't. That's Kari in there. I have to go with you!"
He sighed for a second. "All right but stay behind me and do whatever I say. Understood?"
"Yes Sir General!" I said trying to alleviate some of the stress.
He glared at me for a second. "I was a Major, not a General. Now stay behind me and follow instructions."
He and I and the two men behind us headed for the apartment building. At the corner, they made some hand motions I didn't understand and we went in the front and they went to the back. We crept up the stairs through disgustingly dirty hallways, past horrible smells and intoxicated people on the floor and, all the while, Alfred watched the little red dot.
"She's directly above us," he said about half way down the third floor hallway. "They'll have lookouts on that floor.
The stairwell door creaked when we opened it. We stopped and waited. I was so scared but, not for myself. I was afraid of what they might have already done to Kari. Alfred held out a mirror to see up the stairs and then held up two fingers and pointed up. My heart was pounding while we stood under the stairs with him holding his mirror on the banister, waiting. Finally, he stepped out, quickly fired two nearly silent shots and I heard two bodies fall to the floor above.
When we reached that landing, he checked the two men for a pulse and then looked through the small dirty broken window in the door. He moved one of the bodies and pulled the door open, looked out and started down the hall. I was frozen for a second before I followed and that put me several feet behind but he stopped half way down the hall and pulled out a fiber-optic camera, slid the tube under the door and waved for me to approach.
"When I open this door, they might hear it so I want you to stay back and be ready to run away."
I nodded but I knew I wouldn't leave without Kari. He got the door open without any creaks and we heard several voices coming from a bedroom. "I think you know where that pallet is," I heard a man say, "and I'm going to give you a chance to tell me so I don't have to cut your pretty little face into hamburger."
Then I heard Kari's voice. "I don't know anything about any pallet." A loud slap echoed through the room and she screamed.
"Just tell me where it is and this'll all be over."
We moved toward the open doorway and Alfred used the camera again. This time, he held up four fingers, pointed to me, then to the right, then toward himself and to the left. My heart raced as he motioned a 'one, two, three, go' hand signal but I moved with him into the doorway and fired two shots, killing the men sitting. His rounds killed the two standing on the left.
We ran in, released Kari and ran out but two guards at the other end of the hall saw us and started shooting. Alfred was hit in the arm but managed to kill one and I got the other. The guards' were not using silencers and the sound of their shots started, what seemed like, an all out war. By the time we got down the stairs, we were out of bullets and one man stood in our way. He heard the clicks of empty magazines and relaxed with a smile.
"You make my day not so too good huh? So..., I make your day worse."
He pointed his gun at Alfred looking for some sign of fear but Alfred's expression changed not one iota. That seemed to disappoint him.
"Maybe I kill your girls first huh? How you like that tough man?"
"If you kill us, we can't make you happy," I said trying to sound affectionate while my hand found one of the atomizers in my pocket. "And I'll bet we can make you feel really good!"
When I moved toward him, Alfred said, Kimmy, don't!" That grabbed his attention for the split second I needed to spray his face with the drug and push his gun hand away from us. His struggle lasted less than a second and he fell to the floor.
Alfred smiled at me and kicked the gun from the unconscious man's hand just as the two men who parked behind us came running down the stairs and then we heard sirens as the police swarmed the street with a Federal SWAT team. It was then I saw the blood running from Alfred's chest. He turned white and slumped to the floor.
"I'm afraid, Madam Kimmy," he groaned, "that you'll have to be the one talking to the police." Then, his eyes closed. He had said nothing about being hit by the second bullet but loss of blood had taken its toll.
"We need help here," I yelled as the police burst through the door. "He's a bad guy and Alfred's been shot!"
After the police sorted out who was who and we were being treated in the back of two ambulances, Valerie and Blinky popped in.
"So," she said with a huge grin after she saw we were okay, "I finally get to meet your girlfriend. You must be Kari. I'm Valerie." Kari was still pretty dazed and just nodded but I jumped up and hugged her. Then I hugged Blinky and kissed them both on the cheek.
"I'm so glad to see you guys," I blubbered with tears running down my cheeks. "Thanks for helping. I've never been so scared in my life!"
They both laughed and Valerie said, "Well, from what we heard, it sounds like you are one bad-ass girl Kimmy. You and your butler left a trail of dead bodies that'll take a week to clean up."
"I know. But it was awful and Alfred got shot."
Valerie put her hand on my shoulder. "They're treating him in the other ambulance right now."
"Is he going to be okay?"
"I don't know. Blinky, would you go see how Alfred's doing please?"
She took a step toward the other ambulance but they had just turned on the siren and sped away. "I guess you'll have to wait and see him at the hospital," she said.
"We're ready to go," said the paramedic
but Valerie said, "I need a minute with Kimmy first. Then you can go. Do you mind waiting a little bit Kari?"
"No. As long as I can just lie here for now, I'm okay but boy..., does my head hurt!"
"Good." She patted Kari's hand and motioned for me to follow. "Come on, you can leave the love of your life for a few minutes. She's okay and this is important."
We walked to a black sedan, just like the one that followed us every day, got in and she locked the doors. "Okay," she said with a serious face. "Kimmy, this is important. I know you've noticed a few unusual things I've done through this ordeal and I want to explain."
"You mean like mentioning you could redirect a satellite or Blinky's description of a class one situation..., or could it be getting exclusive access to a federal customs warehouse? Maybe, the federal SWAT team or the government plates on this car gave it away. No Val, I didn't notice anything unusual at all."
"Hard to miss huh. A couple of those were mistakes but the rest were necessary. I had no choice. So, here's what you and Kari are going to do. When the news reports this story, you are not going to question their version. Further, you will not speak of this episode to anyone, anyone at all. Understood?"
I silently nodded my head.
"Also, when you get home, you'll find that all the recordings you made of the Brasilia spa will have disappeared..., except for the last three hours." My eyes opened wide. "Don't worry. I'm the only one who saw it so I deleted it from the original and I didn't touch the movie you made of you and Kari."
"That is so embarrassing that you saw us!"
"Hey, don't be embarrassed. You two are sexual animals. I couldn't believe you kept it up that long!"
"Kept what up...?
"Kept up screwing like that; what did you think I..., oh, I've got it. You thought I meant.... Ha! Yeah, that too! Listen, I won't tell anyone. It's your secret but now, you have to give me what I want."
"Name it Val. If I can do it I will but you have to tell me who you really work for."
She stared at me for a few seconds. "You have to keep my secret. No winks, no little remarks, nothing unusual; we're just regular students. Got it?"
