by Jack July
Amy slept a little over ten hours. She showered, dressed and walked through the living room to find her once-dirty clothes washed and folded on the couch. Strolling into the kitchen, she was feeling pretty good. As she poured herself a cup of decaf coffee, she wondered if she was making any progress. It was the start of day three and she felt no closer to solving the mystery. She poured herself a big bowl of Coco Puffs, dumped in some milk, grabbed a spoon and walked out onto the back porch where Doctor Earle was typing away on a laptop.
After wrapping a blanket around her shoulders, she picked up her bowl and took a big spoonful of cereal. Slurping and all but missing her mouth, she tried to catch the milk running down her chin, but it splashed onto her protruding belly, staining Bogus’s baby blue oxford shirt. “Dang it!”
Dr. Earle looked up as she was wiping it away with her hand. She figured he would laugh at her but he barely cracked a smile. “What’s up, Doc?”
“Oh, doing a little work. Woke up to a bevy of emails. First there was Tatiana Aziz. ‘How’s my girl doing?’ Then your boss, John Masters, ‘How’s my girl doing’? Then my boss, Director Harris, ‘How’s our girl doing?’ And then, from her personal email account, the President of these United States, ‘How’s my Amy doing?’ I know she’s just plain ole Liz to you, but I don’t get personal messages from the leader of the free world every day.”
Amy took another couple spoonfuls of cereal. “Dr. Earle? How am I doing?”
He closed the laptop, set it aside, and then purposefully removed his reading glasses and stuck them in his pocket. “You are doing just fine. I will say again, this is a process; it takes time.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
“Tell you what, I’ll go get my pad and we can sit out here and talk a bit.”
Amy smirked at him. “You sure? I wouldn’t want to violate your protocol.”
“Are you being a wise-ass?”
She giggled. “Ummm, you swore. Not very professional.”
Doc shot her a hard look. “Yeah, okay. You just focus on where we were. I believe you were on your way to get Cindy Patrick?”
After putting a tourniquet on his wound, Sonda wasn’t gentle when she pushed Blaga into the trunk of the taxi. She shackled his wrists to his feet then slammed the trunk. “Well, Miss Dietz, you can call in your team.”
“What makes you think I have a team?”
Sonda cocked her head, pursed her lips and rolled her eyes. “Seriously?”
Odetta smiled, pulled out her phone and dialed. “Give me the address.”
Sonda wrote on a small pad of paper and handed it to her. “Honest Abe? It’s a go. Here’s the address: 1114 Strada Radarului. It’s an old warehouse.”
Honest Abe, aka Lincoln Coleman, was a former DELTA operator and leader of the CIA’s Eastern European Special Activities Division hostage rescue team.
Colman barked something to his team. Suddenly Amy heard activity going on behind him. Then he asked, “Intel?”
“None.”
“Thanks a lot,“ he deadpanned. “Two targets, Cindy Patrick and Mia Stanton?”
“One. Miss Stanton is riding home in the baggage compartment.”
“Fuck me,” he mumbled under his breath.
“Abe?” Fenian heard in the background.
“Roger that,” replied Abe to the other operator. “Okay, Fenian, ETA sixty minutes. Stay back. It’ll be quick and dirty.”
“Good hunting.”
“Thanks, kid.” Abe hung up.
Odetta turned to look at Sonda, who was making her own calls. “We ready?”
Sonda nodded. “Yes, let’s go.”
Odetta sat in the front seat on the drive to the warehouse. She absentmindedly reached for the button to roll down the window. After she had poked around for a moment Sonda looked over and shook her head. “It’s a crank. Turn the crank.”
“Oh, sorry, all my cars… well, never mind.” Odetta turned the handle until the window was down.
Sonda kept driving. “I’m sure they are.”
Odetta adjusted the side mirror. While enjoying the cool air, she kept seeing the same car with the same hulking, beared man driving. “Sonda, do you have a partner?”
“The dark blue Audi? I thought you did.”
“Nope.”
“Well then, we’ll keep an eye on our new friend.”
Odetta reached into the back seat and grabbed an MP5. “Yes, we will.”
Forty-five minutes later, Odetta and Sonda sat on the side of the road in the taxi, three hundred yards from an old warehouse and a quarter mile from the northwest corner of the airport. Odetta looked through a spotter’s scope for activity. The place looked abandoned. “Any sign of the Audi?”
“No, he broke off on the south side of the airport.”
“Does the airport know what’s going on?”
“Yes, I called airport security and told them we would be conducting a hostage rescue drill.”
“How about the local police?”
“I do not trust them. If they show up, I can call them off. I do not want them to know ahead of time.”
At that moment, a Mercedes limo with tinted windows pulled up in front of the warehouse. A tall, lanky black man in a chauffer’s uniform got out, walked to what appeared to be the main entrance and pounded on the door. Odetta watched through the spotter’s scope. “Who is that?” Asked Sonda
Odetta felt her senses reaching peak intensity as she handed Sonda the scope. “Honest Abe. Here we go.”
Chapter 17
At six the following morning, Sitzberger walked out to his truck to do his pre trip and warm up the engine. What he found was his truck, reassigned. The driver, already in the cab, told him he was wanted in the office. He smiled to himself, pretty sure he’d been found out. Now he could work on setting up the management for a lawsuit.
Carla Jo turned on a recording device between two books on Joe’s desk. She stood up and smiled as he walked into the office. Parker followed him in and shut the door. “Mr. Sitzberger, I hope you are doing well today?”
“Yeah, I was wondering why I’m not driving.”
“We’ve had a couple route cutbacks and being you were the last hired, we decided to give you new responsibilities.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“We have brought a position back in-house: corrosion control. We did that because here at Braxton Trucking, we made an agreement to employ you. So we are going to make sure you can continue with us until another route comes open.”
“Corrosion control?”
Parker chimed in, “Yeah, you’re gonna wash trucks.”
Sitzberger gave Carla Jo an intense stare. “So you know?”
“Know what?”
“You know I’m here to protect these employees from exploitation.”
Carla Jo’s face lit up in surprise. “Exploitation?”
“Yeah, low pay, poor benefits, dangerous working conditions.”
“So you represent…?”
His expression became a combination of smug and proud. “The Teamsters.”
She looked over at Parker. “Parker, did you hear that? The Teamsters. What an historic and storied organization. Well, Mr. Sitzberger, why wait? Parker has a locked box we will place in the lobby. Next to it, we will have a list of employees and I will let you check off the names as they vote. We can do that at close of business today. Then when all present employees have voted, you and I can count them together. If you have the necessary votes, then we would love to become partners with the Teamsters. We will, however, need some more of these.” Carla Jo held up the card check voting card between two of her fingers. He reached for it and she let it slide between her fingers and fall to the floor. “Oops.”
Sitzberger groused, “This is a set-up.”
Carla Jo put on a confused face. “A set-up? Parker, have we set anything up?”
“No ma’am.”
“Well, there you have it. Voting will commence at 5 p.m., if th
at’s all right with you, Mr. Sitzberger.”
He looked back and forth between them, knowing he was exposed and defeated. “I want my driving job back. If not, I will be forced to file a complaint through the NLRB.”
Carla Jo smiled. “Yes, we figured as much. Would you like the rest of the day off to handle your legal issues? With pay, of course.”
Sitzberger stood up quickly and, with a flick of his arm, knocked the chair over.
Carla Jo did an exaggerated gasp. “Mr. Sitzberger, an unhealthy display of anger and work place violence. I’ll have to write you up for that. That’s unacceptable behavior.”
Sitzberger stomped toward the door and flung it open, turned to look at Carla Jo and snarled, “Bitch, you are going down.”
Carla Jo smiled and shook her head. “Did you hear that, Parker? A threat.”
Parker glared at Sitzberger. “Yes ma’am, I did.”
Sitzberger slammed the door, walked to his car and drove away.
Parker was a creature of habit. He wore daily the same style clothes and the same hat, a Kanga pulled down on his head. He sported a sixties’ style goatee giving him a striking resemblance to the character Gilligan of “Gilligan’s Island.” Lunch at the Bluebird was just as predictable. Since he arrived at the same time every day, Dorothy had his lunch waiting on the counter. He had a fried shrimp loaf with lettuce, mayo and pickles, a side of fries and a Bubble Up. After making small talk with Alice the cashier, he went out the side door.
As he walked toward his car, he spotted Sitzberger about two spaces down, sitting in a parked car and watching him with a little grin—like he knew something Parker didn’t. Parker made it to the door of his Jeep Grand Cherokee when a large man wearing slacks and a bowling shirt quickly leaned up against it and blocked him. The man’s hair was cut short, his neck started at his ears, and his large, hairy forearms and big hands impressed Parker as a man more closely related to apes than humans. Parker looked up at him. “Excuse me, you’re leaning on my car.”
“Yeah, so ah, watcha gonna do about it?” Parker recognized the accent from old gangster movies.
“Do? I ah, just need to go back to work. So, excuse me.”
The man didn’t move. Another man approached him from behind. “You’re Pahkah, right?”
Parker sensed he was in trouble when a third man appeared. “Yeah, who wants to know.”
“We gots a problem Pahkah. You see, my friend, Mr. Sitzberger is trying to help the good people at Braxton trucking. You’re getting in the way. That’s a cute girl you’re married to; nice lookin’ boy. You still living…” He paused for a moment to read the address. “Up der on, ah, Carl Ridge, 113, Carl Ridge? Maybe we go an visit?”
Parker was in shock, “Look, ah, I don’t…”
The man doing the talking slapped the lunch and drink from his hand, “Oh shit, Pahkah, would you look at that. I’m sorry, here, let me help.” A balled meaty fist crashed into Parkers midsection, doubling him over and dropping him to his knees. It was quickly followed by an open handed slap that split the inside of his cheek. The large man grabbed Parker’s face, pushing his cheeks together and lifting him back to his feet. “Pahkah, don’t disappoint me, Pahkah. You know what you need to do. Understand?”
Parker nodded his head. “I can’t hear ya Pahkah.”
Parker was spitting blood when he blurted out, “Yes.”
He let Parker go, bent over and picked up the lunch bag and now empty drink cup and stuck them in his hands. “Seeya around, Pahkah.” The men turned and walked away.
Sitzberger pulled up in front of Parkers car, rolled down the window and sneered, “You don’t evah fuck with me, asshole.”
Sitzberger drove away. Parker was so terrified he doubled over with his arms across his stomach, leaned up against the Jeep and began to weep.
Dr. Earle leaned back in his rocker. “So, now we have a SAD team outside the warehouse. What’s on your mind? What are you thinking?”
Amy looked away from him for a moment. “I’m thinking, what if she isn’t in there. What’s my next move?”
“So, what was your next move?”
“Same as always, work your way up the ladder until you find someone that knows.”
“Were you prepared to do that?”
Amy rested her hand on her belly. “No. I had never turned a mission over before. I had never quit. But, the higher you go, the more risk. I had to think about her.” She motioned to her baby.
“So you decided to leave.”
“I, well, all but decided to leave.”
“Something changed?”
“Yeah, something big.”
“Anything else?”
Amy blushed, a sudden embarrassed grin covered her face. “Yeah, it’s a little personal, something I discovered about myself.”
“Everything matters, and trust me, it’s nothing I haven’t heard before.”
“Okay, well, my job makes me really…”
Odetta was hot inside the car. The life growing inside her became a constant heater. She leaned forward and slipped off her jacket. Sonda gazed at her chest for a moment and laughed.
Odetta, not in a jocular mood asked, “Something funny?”
“Your nipples are trying to escape.”
Odetta looked down, nodded and thought hard as rocks. “So, why are you looking at my nipples and what does that have to do with anything? ”
Sonda laughed. “Just things I notice.”
Odetta sighed. “Look, I’m not gay.”
Sonda gave her a knowing look. “Neither am I. It turns you on too, huh?”
Odetta shot her a look. “What?”
“Are you wet?”
“What?” Odetta heard her, pressed her legs together and rubbed them back and forth. She thought, I’ll be damned; I’m on fire.
Sonda kept looking through the scope while talking. “What’s the first thing you do when you get home after a mission?”
“Usually, ah, shower.”
“No, tell the truth.”
“What?”
“I tear off my clothes and I am on my husband like a dog in heat.”
“Yeah, I’m glad to see him.”
Sonda laughed again. “It’s more than that. The violence, the killing, turns you on. You notice it now because you are pregnant, which makes you want it twice as much.”
Odetta watched the end of the warehouse and thought she saw someone peeking around the end. “Yeah, I see your point. I have an operator on the south east corner; can we change the subject?”
“Sure. There doesn’t seem to be anyone answering the door.”
Just then, the door opened. Abe had a brief conversation with a man, then motioned the man to the limo and stood by the trunk. That’s when they heard the whine and rotors of the Little Bird. It came in low from the back and dropped six operators. The doors to the Limo on the side away from the building flew open as Abe subdued the man by the trunk. Odetta began talking to herself, “Come on, get in there, get in there.”
Explosions came from behind the building followed by three-round-bursts of gunfire. While they were engaging at the rear, the men at the front stormed in. More three round bursts. Then everything went silent. “Go Sonda, let’s go.”
“No, wait. They’ll call us in.” Sonda reached over and rubbed Amy’s belly. “Let’s be safe.”
Odetta was tense. “I hate this part. I’d rather be in there.”
Sonda nodded. “Yes, me too.”
Abe waved them in. Sonda gunned the engine and they were beside the Limo in seconds. Odetta hopped out. “Abe, sitrep?”
“Four uglies down, nine women recovered. Cindy Patrick among them.”
“YES!” Odetta exclaimed. “Your men?”
“No casualties. But we’re having a problem cutting the lock on the cage they were keeping them in.”
A windowless bus pulled into the lot. Its door opened and what appeared to be medical personnel exited. Abe put his hand to his ear. “They’re
coming out.”
The girls walked out in a line. They were dressed for show. Odetta watched Cindy struggle as she walked across the gravel lot in heels. Odetta met her halfway and saw a terrified look of hope covering her face. “Cindy Patrick, I’m from the American government. I am here to take you home.”
Cindy collapsed into Odetta’s arms in relief, tears streaming down her face. She choked out, “Where is Mia? Did you find Mia?”
From the look on Odetta’s face, Cindy had her answer. She wailed, screaming, “Oh my God,” with every breath.
Odetta sat her down in the car. Abe approached and announced, “We’re out. Are you taking her to the embassy?”
“Yeah, we’ll handle it. Thanks Abe, great job.”
Cindy calmed down enough to breathe. Sonda motioned with her head to the trunk of the car. Odetta nodded. “Miss Patrick. We need to show you something. It’s important.”
Cindy nodded and walked with Odetta to the back of the car. Sonda opened the trunk. “Is this the man who took you?”
Cindy’s face twisted in horror and she began to scream, “YOU SON OF A BITCH, YOU SON OF A BITCH, YOU KILLED MIA, DIE YOU FUCKING BASTARD!”
She made a move toward him. Odetta grabbed her gently and stopped her. Cindy looked up at Odetta, rage filling her face, “He murdered a baby. He murdered a baby in front of us.” Her voice began to crack. “Smashed it on the desk, over and over.” Her hands covered her face as she kept repeating, “Oh God, oh God…”
Sonda shot Odetta a look. “Baby?”
Odetta looked down into the trunk at Blaga and nearly shouted, “What baby?”
Chapter 18
Parker lurched through the front door of Baxton Trucking, went straight for the phone and jabbed the buttons frantically.
“Kayla! Kayla, get Teddy and get the hell out of that house. Go to your daddy’s and stay there.” There was a short pause, “GOD DAMMIT DON’T ASK QUESTIONS, JUST GO, NOW GO!”
Carla Jo hurried out of the office. “Parker? Parker? I just got a call from Dorothy. What the hell happened?”
Parker was pale, breathing in deep gulps. He stared down, arm still across his throbbing midsection. “It was Sitzberger and some guys, big guys. They beat me up, threatened my family. They said I knew what to do.” He raised his head to look at her, panic in his eyes. “I don’t know what to do. What the hell do I do?”
