10. Fast Track

by Fern Michaels

  Phone calls to the others followed as Jack issued orders off the top of his head. Not wanting to call attention to his little group, he ordered Nikki to Myra’s farmhouse, where their old motorcycles were stored in the barn. Nikki waved as she peeled out into traffic wearing oversize sunglasses and a baseball cap. It was a disguise that wouldn’t fool anyone looking closely.

  Jack waited just long enough to clue in the others on their arrival, at which point he and Harry left, but not before they looked around to make sure they hadn’t caused any undue scrutiny. There didn’t seem to be anyone paying attention to him. All he could see were harried mothers dealing with fretful children, fathers in a hurry to get home to dinner, vendors closing up their kiosks. It seemed to Jack that everyone was minding their own business, not his. He hoped he was right.

  “Let’s roll, Harry.”

  It was past twilight when the staggered caravan arrived at Myra Rutledge’s farmhouse in McLean, Virginia. The evening was warm, with a slight breeze and no humidity. Birds chittered to one another as they got ready to settle down for the night. From across the fields a dog could be heard barking. Closer still, a horse whinnied.

  Myra almost fainted with happiness when she opened the kitchen door to the house she’d lived in her whole life. She was home. Tears slid down her cheeks. The only thing that would make it all perfect was if Barbara, her deceased daughter, magically appeared. But that would never happen again.

  “It’s okay, Mom. I’m here,” a voice whispered in Myra’s ear.

  Myra whirled around and bumped into Annie, who was right behind her. She flew into the laundry room off the kitchen and closed the door.

  “Darling girl, I am so happy. Talking to you makes this homecoming almost perfect. I don’t know what to say. Can you…channel…whatever it is you do…to tell me what’s going on? I can’t seem to reach Charles. This is so unlike him. For the first time, we’re on our own. I don’t know if it was wise to come here or not.”

  “Mom, easy does it. Things always work out, you know that. You guys are doing good. You’re safe.”

  “Barbara, I miss you so. There are days…”

  “Shhh,” the mystical-sounding voice said.

  “Will…will you come back later? I can wait in your room if that will work.”

  “I’ll come back when you need me the most. Hey, you’re my mom. You can do anything. Remember how you told me and Nik that all the time? You said moms could do anything, and moms were always right.”

  Myra smiled. “I did say that, didn’t I? Are you telling me you didn’t believe me?”

  The mystical voice had a smile in it. “Oh, we did believe it because it proved right time after time. I’ll see you later, Mom.”

  Myra wiped at her eyes and squared her shoulders before she walked out of the laundry room.

  The others looked at her as though she would impart something truly profound. She decided to rise to the occasion. “It would appear that we’re on our own for the moment. So, let’s settle ourselves and get down to work. First things first, though. Move all the vehicles into the barn and padlock it. We’ll adjourn to the tunnels and our old war room for the night, so we don’t have to use the electricity here on the first floor. We can use the house during the daylight hours. It’s just temporary, girls. And, gentlemen,” she added almost as an afterthought. “I’ll give Nellie a call. Since she’s living on the adjoining farm and likes to go riding at dawn, I can ask her to drop provisions off at the property line. I suspect we won’t be here that long, but we will need food and drinks.”

  “What exactly does ‘that long’ mean, Myra?” Alexis asked.

  “Dear, I wish I could tell you, but right now I can’t. We have to make a plan. If you recall, we came here to take on the president of the World Bank. Instead, we’ve been blindsided by a situation beyond our control. What appeared to be a foolproof plan now has to be discarded. However, the authorities will be concentrating on the embassy and their immediate problem, and there will be considerable chaos, all of which can work in our favor. The amazing thing is that it was not of our doing, and the powers that be won’t be able to lay it on our doorstep. In that sense, we’re still free agents and in a position to do what we came here to do. We can do this, girls. We are, after all, women.”

  Ever the skeptic, Kathryn wrinkled her nose, and asked, “What happens if we go full bore on our own, with our own plan, then Charles shoots us down?”

  “Then we take a vote to see which way we want to go. I know we can pull this off. So, for the moment, let’s consider Charles our backup and nothing more. I’ll be the team leader, and I’ll be—what is it you say, Kathryn?—calling the shots?”

  “That’ll work,” Nikki said. “Have the motorcycles in the barn been gassed and maintained?”

  “Absolutely. Maintenance comes under Nellie’s purview. She rides over here once a week to check on things. Why do you ask, dear?”

  “I’m thinking we should go out on the town tonight. Get the lay of the land, so to speak. Alexis can alter our appearance enough, and if we go in pairs, no one is going to pay attention to us.”

  Jack and Harry walked through the kitchen door and heard what Nikki had just suggested. “Are you crazy, Nik? No!” Jack said.

  Nikki made a kissing noise with her lips. “Yes. We have to check things out. Darkness at this point in time is our best friend. Broad daylight is our enemy. Surely you understand that, Jack.”

  Alexis looked over at the door at her Red Bag, which she was never without. “I’m ready if you are.”

  “Then let’s do it!” Nikki said, a wicked gleam in her eye.

  Jack groaned and mumbled something that sounded like, “Women! You can’t live with them, but you can’t live without them. We’re just putty in your hands.”

  The Sisters giggled all the way to the second floor, where there were blackout windows that allowed for the high-voltage lamps to be turned on.

  “Okay, girls,” Alexis said as she looked from one to the other. “We traveled light this trip, so makeup and hair is a must. Wardrobe is iffy. Now, let’s get to it while someone comes up with a plan for the evening. Who wants to go first?”

  “Me!” Yoko said. “I always like to surprise Harry. He’s not going to like seeing me on a motorcycle. He thinks he’s so macho. Men!” She giggled. She gave Kathryn a playful poke to her shoulder before she sat down on a chair at Myra’s vanity table.

  “You’re finally getting it.” Kathryn laughed.

  “Oh, I got it all right,” Yoko said, as she thrust out her enhanced boobs, compliments of Julia Webster before her demise. “And you know what else? Harry has no clue they aren’t real!” The girls burst out laughing.

  “Men!” they said one by one. “You can’t live with them, and you can’t live without them.”

  “Amen,” Annie said.

  Chapter 12

  Ted Robinson had a blinding headache. The beer he was swilling wasn’t helping, either, but still he swigged at the bottle in his hand. He was in his recliner, the television on MUTE, his eyes half-closed. His two cats, Minnie and Mickey, were sitting on the top of the sofa and watching him with green-eyed intensity. When his doorbell rang, he mumbled halfheartedly, “Whoever you are, go away!”

  The cats scampered down and ran to the front door, certain it was their friend Maggie coming home at long last. The doorbell pealed again. This time, Ted untangled himself and marched out to the door. “Who is it?”

  “Guess!” Joe Espinosa’s voice came through the door.

  Ted threw open the door to see not only Espinosa but his two colleagues from the Sentinel and the News. All three men stared at him.

  “Are you going to invite us in or not?” Espinosa growled.

  Ted eyed his so-called partner warily as he wondered if he knew or suspected what had gone down earlier. Knowing Monroe and Ellis the way he did, he figured it was a certainty. It would certainly explain Espinosa’s surly attitude.

  “If you came here t
o drink, forget it. I just finished off my last bottle. Have a seat, gentlemen,” Ted said, waving his arm about to indicate the ratty chairs in his apartment.

  Espinosa refused to sit down. “What the fuck did you three guys think you were doing?”

  Ted threw his hands in the air. “Speaking strictly for myself, Sullivan railroaded me into writing that goddamn article. I wrote a straightforward piece about the rats outside. Yeah, yeah, we put the rats there so we could get a picture, but that’s all we did. At least all I know that I did. I, Joe. I, I, I. I as in me. Then Sullivan came out to the newsroom and said he’d been getting calls all morning about the fucking plague, rats, and on and on he went. He said I had to write it, so I wrote it. What the hell do you want from me?”

  “That’s the way it went down with us, too,” Monroe said. “I don’t make up shit, and neither does Ellis. I know Ted doesn’t, either. What we did was elaborate on a rumor. If you read the damn articles the three of us wrote, you can see that. Ted’s right, I bought the rats, three dozen to be exact, and we let them loose and took pictures. That’s it. Those goddamn things chased us all the way down Mass Avenue. Anybody who saw that little scene could have called the paper, the cops, or whoever the hell they called. You know what else? We did talk about it, but no one overheard us. I think it was Ted who said sooner or later someone was going to use the words ‘plague’ and ‘terrorist’ in the same sentence, and by God, that’s exactly what happened. So, get the fuck off your high horse, Espinosa, and leave us alone.”

  Espinosa looked at Ted. “Swear to me that’s the way it went down.”

  Ted’s head pounded. “Yeah, I swear on Maggie, on Minnie and Mickey, that’s the way it went down. You happy now?”

  “No!”

  “Then go home and leave me to my misery. You know me, Joe. I never manufactured a story in my life. We took pictures of rats. That was it. And if you believe for one goddamn minute there are rats at the British Embassy, then I’ll sell you the Lincoln Memorial for five bucks. What the hell are you doing here anyway?”

  Ellis adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses on the bridge of his nose. “It’s like this, Ted. Misery loves company, so we came over to take you out on the town. We met Joe in the lobby and brought him up. You haven’t been answering your phone, so that’s why we had to come here. So, get your wallet, and let’s go.”

  Ted looked from one to the other. “You didn’t come here to blame me?” He looked incredulous at his own question.

  “Hell, no. Getting those rats was my idea,” Monroe said. “I thought we could hit the bar scene and see what’s going down. This crap is all over the tube, it’s all anyone is talking about. We can pick up some real human interest stuff tonight, so bring your recorder, too. Our editors will love us in the morning when we plop all these interviews down on their desks.”

  “That’s sick,” Ted said as he rummaged in his backpack for his minirecorder and wallet. He straightened up and looked at his three buddies. “There’s no way out of this, you know that, right?”

  His buddies nodded, even Espinosa.

  “You know what I heard on my way over here tonight?” Espinosa asked. “Those Reston Exterminating trucks are gone from the British Embassy. CDC and Homeland Security have been calling the offices, and all they get is a recorded message. Somehow or other the check that the Brits wrote to Reston was never cashed.”

  “Where’d you hear that?” Ted asked, his ears perking up.

  “Taco Bell, when I was standing in line. Two guys who looked like college professors, you know, tweedy-looking, were picking up their dinner. I didn’t ask any questions, just eavesdropped.”

  “Some reporter you are. You should have been on it like fleas on a dog,” Ellis said as he gave his glasses another hitch over his nose.

  Ted stopped in midstride as his bullshit detector kicked into high gear. “So, are you saying this is all some kind of setup?”

  The four reporters were still standing in the middle of the sidewalk, pedestrians muttering about inconsiderate people as they were forced to walk around them.

  “Well, what do you think?” Espinosa demanded.

  “You don’t want to know what I think,” Ted grumbled. His brain and his bullshit detector were making him light-headed.

  “To what end?” Monroe asked.

  “The Brits are too classy to pull shit like that,” Ellis said. “What the hell are you trying to say here? Everyone knows the Brits are low-profile people, they don’t stir up trouble, and they sure as hell wouldn’t do something on our shores. I think you’re nuts, Espinosa.”

  Ted broke formation and started walking forward, his mind going in every direction. Was it possible…? Did that guy Charles have that kind of clout…? Nah, it couldn’t be. Yet he knew it was. Yet if he said anything about those goddamn women again, they’d lock him up and throw away the key. This time he’d be smarter and keep his suspicions to himself.

  “So, where are we going?” Monroe asked.

  “We’re going bar-hopping,” Ellis said happily. “I love bar-hopping. You get to meet such interesting people. Everyone has a story. I thought we’d hit the bars around Dupont Circle. There’s a couple of new ones, one in particular called High Flyers, where the pretty people and the ones who want to be seen hang out. Then there’s one called Eazzy Breezy, but I think it’s more for the young, hip crowd, not old farts like us, but if we don’t give it a whirl, we’ll never know. Won’t hurt for us handsome guys to be seen in the area.”

  Ted scowled. Like he cared if he was seen or not seen. If he had his druthers, he’d like to drop into a big black hole where he could think in peace, quiet, and darkness. But that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. Ted looked over at Espinosa. “How many Reston trucks were there?”

  “Five. Why?”

  Ted ignored the question. “And they’re all gone?”

  “Yep. Does it mean something?”

  Ted shrugged. “Who knows? My take on it would be either Reston was successful, and they contained the problem, or they bombed out because the job was too much for them. Someone said it was a new start-up company. Then again, it could be a setup of some kind, but I have no clue as to why it would be a setup.” He shrugged again. “I assume it was a pricey job. Funny they never cashed the check, though. The flip side to that is maybe when they realized the job was too much for them, if that’s what happened, they didn’t bother to cash the check. Hell, it could be anything.”

  “I was thinking the same thing,” Espinosa said, watching Ted carefully to see his reaction. He imagined he could see the wheels turning inside his friend’s head. He knew him well enough to know he was on to something. Whether he would share it was anybody’s guess.

  Ted shrugged for the third time. “Who gives a good rat’s ass? No pun intended,” he cackled inanely.

  Alexis stood back to view her handiwork. She smiled and clapped her hands. “Perfect,” she chortled. “These new facial prosthetics were a real find. I defy anyone to identify even one of us. I still like a little dab of latex here and there, even if it’s just on the earlobes or tip of the nose. I just need five minutes to do myself, and we’re good to go.”

  Jack and Harry stared at the women, their expressions dumbfounded.

  “So, what do you think?” Nikki asked as she twirled around. “Do we look tarty? Or slutty? Or do we look like high-priced ladies of the evening? I’m hoping you say none of the above. Our aim is to look like high-income businesswomen out and about on a weekday evening. We’re not going to use the motorcycles. We’ll drive Myra’s Jag and the Benz. Our affected British accents should draw people to us like bees to honey. What do you think, Jack?”

  Jack thought he swallowed his tongue. “You’re making me weak in the knees, Nik. I wouldn’t recognize you if I passed you on the street.”

  Nikki blew him a kiss he pretended to catch.

  Yoko pranced front and center on her five-inch heels as she whirled and twirled. Harry wet his lips and tried to speak. �
��So, tell me, honey, are you going to have a wet dream tonight or not?” Harry flushed a bright red. It was all the answer Yoko needed as, to Harry’s dismay, she went off into peals of laughter. “Lighten up, sweetie.” She went off into another bout of laughter.

  It was Kathryn, though, who drew the most applause as she strutted like a runway model. She wore a cherry-red spandex dress and matching stilettos, and carried a jacket over her shoulder. Her long dark hair glistened with something sparkly, as did her bare arms and thighs. Even her eyelashes glistened. She reeked of confidence and power. To his own surprise, Jack beamed and whistled approvingly. Harry just nodded.

  Isabelle stepped forward. The audience gasped. She looked like a scared, dowdy librarian right down to the thick glasses perched on the end of her nose.

  Alexis moved forward. If it was her intention to look like a cross between Tina Turner and Beyonce, she succeeded. She looked stunning.

  Myra and Annie just sat and looked glum.

  “I can’t believe you’re all leaving us behind,” Annie fretted.

  “Someone has to watch the fort. Not to hurt your feelings, but you two don’t look like the bar-hopping type. We’ll take notes and tell you every little thing. Besides, if we get into trouble, you’re the only ones we can call,” Kathryn said.

  “In the meantime, it’s your job to keep trying to reach Charles. We’re not going to have time to keep trying his number,” Nikki said kindly. “And we discussed the fact that your Mercedes will only hold the five of us. We decided the Jag is a little too sporty for tonight. You’ll be happy to know the Benz is now sporting government plates.” At the crestfallen expressions on the faces of the two older women, she hastily added, “Look, we’re not doing this to have fun. We’re going on the prowl to see if we can meet up with Rena Gold. According to her dossier, she likes to stop for a martini somewhere after her gym workout on Thursday nights. This is Thursday. Maybe we’ll find her, and maybe we won’t. It’s all we have going for us at the moment. So, are you two okay with this?”