"Got'cha," Bean crowed. It would be an easy shot from a hidden position. If Wilhelm wanted the princess dead, Bean could give him that result.
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Chapter 26
Monday, June 25. Mac announced that William would have his magic ready on time. A large group meeting would be held Thursday morning, June 28. Early Thursday afternoon, they'd break into groups and have dress rehearsals for the upcoming battles.
They'd have Friday morning and afternoon to rest. Marie would help them have a nap Friday afternoon. They'd awake at around 9 p.m. and all of them would be in position over Ranch #2 by 10 p.m. on Friday night. Mac would make the decision when to start attacking the Montana ranches (#2, #3, #4, #7, and #10) and, if all went well, they'd be finished well before sunrise. They'd start attacking South Dakota ranches (#1, #5, #6, #8, #9, and #11) late Saturday night. On Sunday night and Monday morning, the last day of the war, North Dakota ranches (#12-#17) would suffer the same fate as the others. If changes in the attack had to be made after the first morning, they had plenty of time to do that.
# # # # # # # #
That same Monday, Jak and the Beanstalk used their portable walkie-talkies to arrange a meeting at Lempsee Lake in southeastern Saskatchewan. It was the only lake of any size in that part of the province. Jak was coming from the east and Bean was coming from the west – it had seemed like a good place to meet.
"Did you find anything?" Jak asked. She was referring to Bean's search for the Wilizy home compound.
"No," Bean lied. "I thought that if I could learn the heading of the copter that picked Princess Freya up at Fort Peck, I might be able to find their home base. We had assumed, remember, that we thought it might be close. One of the searchers gave me the heading, but it didn't work out. The whole area is desolate empty space."
"Anything on the Wilizy?"
"Nothing," Bean lied. "I visited their store in Surrey. They're making plenty of money. It's as we thought. They lost their two fighting leaders and decided to concentrate on selling stuff. I don't believe that they're the do-gooders we want. You?"
"I found Toronto easy enough," Jak lied. She hadn't even gone there. "It was just a big city."
"Your whole trip was a waste of time?"
"It was a disappointing trip."
Jak wasn't lying about that. Her discoveries about Bean had been disappointing. Three men had gone missing in cities that Bean had stopped in on her route to find bloody Band-Aids. Jak hadn't been able to tie Bean conclusively to those disappearances, but it would have been extreme coincidence that she'd be in some community on one day and that would be the day that some man would disappear. Three times. The men were all of the same type. Jak was now 90% certain that Bean was killing men and that made her unstable. It was OK to kill people on orders, but it was not OK to kill people as a hobby. Clearly, Bean was not suited for continued work in Special Ops. The reason why she was doing this was not yet apparent. Jak wasn't certain that she needed to know the reason for Bean's behaviour before she acted.
"Now what?" Bean asked Jak.
"I'll work on the mystery at Ranch #4, I guess. You?"
That wasn't quite a lie. Jak was going to visit Ranch #4. But first she would spend some time in Fargo, North Dakota. If a man had disappeared there recently, she'd try to tie it to Bean. Meanwhile, she'd be close enough to the Safe Haven ranches if anything developed. She was also reasonably close to the hidden platoon in case she was needed.
"I'll continue to look for the Wilizy home just in case," Bean lied. She'd be spending some quality time with the hidden platoon instead.
"Keep in touch by walkie-talkie," Jak instructed.
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Chapter 27
Tuesday, June 25. With only three full days before the Safe Haven battles began in earnest, most of the Wilizy hung around the compound. Dreamer and Wizard, for example, painted basketball court lines on the gym floor.
For the umpteenth time, Reese re-read Annika's email in which she apologized for over-reacting at her father's trial, but she also told him that she wouldn't be coming back to Penticton. Her mom had taken a job at the University of Toronto and they'd be living there from now on. She wrote of other things in the email too, but nothing of importance. Reese had emailed Annika to tell her that he didn't mind about the trial and hoped that she'd make lots of friends in Toronto. Neither of them had written again.
Yollie said that she shouldn't take part in the operation as she was still prone to a lot of nausea and discomfort from her pregnancy. The last month had been difficult for her. She'd stay with the kiddies in the home compound. Yolanda also begged off from the battles saying that she wanted to keep an eye on Yollie who wasn't one to complain about little aches and pains.
Granny took Liset up in the Wilizy/Asia and showed her how to operate the sensors. Since EmmaGee was the same age as Liset, it didn't seem fair for her to be excluded, so she was given the same training. Doc helped by giving the sensors something to find.
Hank, Stu, and Momaka made sure all the Wilizy ships were above the home compound, certified battle-ready, and stocked with provisions and weaponry.
Jock, Melissa, Mac, and Lucas set up battle command equipment and resources in the Wilizy/America. Then they checked and re-checked the details of the operations for mistakes made or necessities forgotten.
William, Wolf, TG, and Mathias were testing out the new weaponry at Stanford. Some of the weapons had passed easily. Currently, they were trying to perfect a delivery system. Mathias was scheduled to fly above the battlefield in one of the transports and deliver incendiary devices into the air below him. Let's call them what they were. Bombs. Tiny bombs. The timing on the delivery of those bombs was proving troublesome. They kept exploding too close to the transport. William and TG were currently working on an explode now signal that would operate on atmospheric pressure. Once the bombs fell to a certain defined height, they would explode. All Mathias had to do was stay well above that height. That way, neither he nor the transport would burn up.
Mathias, for his part, knew that if he flew too high, the tiny bombs would stray far and wide. The lower he flew, the more accurate the bombing would be. Given the consequences of that burning up possibility, he was more than a little interested in what William and TG were engineering.
"Why don't you trail a long empty hose underneath the transport?" Mathias asked after witnessing yet another too-close-for-comfort mock run. "Put something at the end of that hose that will activate the bombs."
"But Mathias, we'd have to shift the bombs from the transport copter's cargo bay into a very narrow hose opening. That delivery system will be way harder than just shovelling them out of the cargo bay." The shoveller was scheduled to be Mathias, who once again had a reason to be a little concerned about wading through incendiary devices that could explode if the transport breached a certain altitude.
Wolf, TG, and William all went back to their complicated schemes. They forgot that Mathias was now 12 years old, and not a little kid any longer. Mathias demonstrated that to them half an hour later with this question. "You know that filament vacuum cleaner that you and TG used to pick up those Chicago pellets?"
[Narrator: Chicago pellets cause all electronic-powered devices to die abruptly when they come within range. The pellets had been part of Operation "Dead Man Walking" when TG had joined the Wilizy. I wrote about them in Book #3: "Assassination Day." Mathias had been 8 years old at the time. Here's a question for the reader. How much would a little kid have known about that? Here's the answer: Mathias was a little kid that didn't say much, but he saw a lot. In that respect, he was quite similar to Maddy.]
"Yeah. What about the pellets?" Wolf muttered absent-mindedly. He was trying to concentrate. Younger brothers!
"Why don't you use that vacuum system? Vacuum the bombs up and then blow them into one end of the hose and out the other end. Way, way below the transport," Mathias added just in case Wol
f hadn't figured that part out.
"Wide funnel on the intake," TG suggested.
"Narrow output on the other end that will generate enough pressure to scatter the bombs further from the ship," William confirmed. "We can attach an electronic spark at the bottom of the hose."
Mathias thought that up? Really? Wolf thought.
"This could be fun. We should practice some bombing runs!" William was a kid at heart even though he would be turning a mature 20 on the last day of the war.
# # # # # # # #
Jak spent the day in Fargo, North Dakota. When she left, she knew that Bean had killed a man there. Her partner wouldn't get caught because Bean would never return to Fargo. Jak couldn't prove it in a court of law, but she knew it. Knowing it was enough. She had assassinated Queen Freya on far less.
# # # # # # # #
Bean spent the day with the Special Ops platoon, participating in a training exercise with them and demonstrating that she had the strength to handle the rigours of strenuous physical activity and the dexterity to kill quietly.
But that had been earlier in the day. Right now, she was sitting around a campfire and experiencing the revelry and camaraderie of the platoon. That revelry was focused on women in general and what the men liked to do to them. [Narrator: What? No hot dogs and marshmallows? Let's degrade women instead?] This conversation around the fire wasn't as bad as it had been the previous time she had endured a campfire with them. Perhaps they were holding back because she had proven immune to their charms the last time she had sat around a fire. Or perhaps they were easing off because the captain had told them to stay out of his way.
Captain Nielsen, first name Victor, was a charmer and surprisingly direct. He hung near her throughout the morning. In one of the physical training drills that afternoon, he had observed, "You're very fit. Want to have sex afterwards?" She replied No, and he left her alone after that. Until it was dark.
That night, he sat next to her at the campfire. When a graphic invitation was extended to her from the other side of the fire, he urged, "You'll have to excuse the men. They aren't used to having such an appealing woman in their midst."
"You're not planning to call me beautiful, are you," Bean accused.
"No," he responded. "You aren't beautiful. But you are very appealing. Perhaps because of the danger. Your hand-to-hand combat skills are impressive. This is attractive to soldiers."
"I do not want to have sex with you, Captain," Bean insisted.
"Not tonight," he admitted. "That would put you in a bad light. But at least think about it." Then he piled on the charm.
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Chapter 28
Wednesday, June 26. The first battles with the Safe Haven ranches would begin late Friday night provided that two Scandinavian operatives didn't foul their plans up first.
Jak had had enough time now to chew on the question: How did Princess Freya escape from Safe Haven Ranch #4, fake a camp site on the slave island and her death near that camp, travel all the way to the other side of the island, and wade through alligator infested waters to safety. She decided to chew on that question with Big Momma #4. First, Jak described all of the questions that had arisen once she had looked at everything in detail. At the end, she gave Big Momma the only possible conclusion.
"Your young boss, the guy with the crooked nose. He's Boss #24, right?"
"Boss #15 now. I promoted him."
"Well, Boss #15 helped Maddy escape. And somebody else in this ranch was also involved."
Big Momma didn't believe her. So Jak told her how she would have done it had she had been Boss #15. She would have told Big Momma that some necessary saw blades had been left behind when actually, the blades were stashed in the first copter under the copilot's seat, exactly like they were supposed to be. When she reached the slave island, she would wait for the wood cutting team to start work before hiding Maddy in Big Daddy's copter until nightfall. At that point, she would remove the tracker from the copter and leave it on the ground where it would report that the copter hadn't been moved. She would fly Maddy to the Canadian side of the rivulet in the dark after the thunderstorm had passed. She would wait until first light and then fake a false campsite and Maddy's death. Afterwards, she'd return to the slave village, park the copter, put the tracker back in, and join the other bosses. She'd explain her late appearance by saying simply that she had overslept. But she didn't need that excuse because she found all of the bosses dead in the copter transport. "That explains everything, doesn't it, Big Momma?"
No answer.
"But one thing doesn't fit, Big Momma. Boss #15 told my partner that he left the bodies in the copter because there was no place to dig graves. He suggested that the alligators ate them. However the doors and cargo hold of the transport were closed when I visited the scene. How did the alligators eat those bodies when the transport was sealed up tight? And why didn't Boss #1 do something about those bodies? He didn't – because they weren't inside the transport copter."
No response.
"What really happened to the bosses, Big Momma? Everybody lied to my partner. You sat in on the interrogations to make sure that they did. Tell me the truth or I'll order Safe Haven to take away your franchise."
Jak was experienced in interrogating captives, finding weaknesses, and torturing the truth out of them. Bean hadn't had interrogator training. That's why those lies had been allowed to stand. In Big Momma's case, Jak didn't have to physically beat her. She just had to hit her where it would hurt the most. The loss of her franchise.
Big Momma caved and told Jak what had happened to the bosses. Jak didn't believe her. She did believe her after she watched Boss #15's bot – live and in gory colour.
"Voodoo? Really? And this Marie. She threatened that you'd be joining the dead bosses?"
"She has no way to travel here. Even if she stole a copter, she has no idea where the ranch is located. Slaves can't see out the windows when they're being transported. All of the ranches are in desolate areas. Plus we're not exactly alligator and panther territory here."
Jak made a quick decision. She could tell Safe Haven they might be at risk from a Voodoo nut job who killed bosses with the help of a black panther and some alligators. Or she could maintain her own credibility by saying nothing. Jak decided to say nothing. After all, what happened on that island had nothing to do with Princess Freya. But Jak still had to identify the person who helped Princess Freya escape from Ranch #4.
"Boss #15 couldn't have done all of this on his own," Jak declared. "You don't have one security hole in your ranch; you have two."
"Not possible," Big Momma countered but her heart wasn't in it.
"Identify the helper and you might keep your franchise," Jak offered. Big Momma #4 wasn't going to keep her franchise. Jak had already made that decision. This miniature megalomaniac was the reason why Princess Freya's eggs were currently in jeopardy – somebody had to pay for that. But interrogating a prisoner isn't only about breaking through their lies and getting a confession. Offering a little hope in exchange for cooperation might bring the final secret out or perhaps produce additional insight.
Jak continued the interrogation. "The little boss returns from faking the scenes, finds some animals killing the bosses, gets sick, and waits for the next transport to arrive carrying the slaves. That makes the boss in charge of that transport his helper."
"That would be Boss #2. I don't think so. I know of nothing in his past to suggest that he would have any reason to help him. Boss #15 is a recent addition to the ranch. He and Boss #2 have no history whatsoever together. Plus Boss #2 was second in line for the top job. Why would he jeopardize his prospects for being the top boss for a little girl that he didn't even know? I never saw any contact between him and the girl. I promoted Boss #2 to #1 because I thought he handled everything properly."
"Which means somebody else is the helper. Who?"
"It has to be Pililiani. She's the only slave who showed a
ny affection to Maddy. She gave her a bedroom next to the kitchen and kept her safe from any house slaves who might have been jealous."
"Explain."
"Big Daddy set her up in the very large bedroom next to his own. The young slaves in the house wouldn't like her living in a huge bedroom by herself when the rest of them were squished into small dormitories.
"So she ended up next to the kitchen. How? Why?"
"We had a water leak in the upstairs wing. Pililiani warned me about fungus and health issues for the little girl. We couldn't leave her there with Safe Haven's insistence that their blondes not be harmed in any way."
"Who fixed the water leak?"
"Boss #15."
"And that's his link to the girl," Jak said triumphantly.
"That makes Pililiani involved too."
"What will you do?"
Big Momma's answer came quickly. "I'll force Boss #15 to whip Pililiani to death in front of everybody. Afterwards I'll chemically castrate him and send him to the cattle camp. The slaves will be useless after the demonstration, so I'll do it late this afternoon. That way I can get a full day of work from them first. "
# # # # # # # #
About the same time as Jak was conducting her interrogation, back in the Little Missouri National Grassland area, the men in Scandinavia's platoon were finishing a morning of training. Captain Nielsen called to Bean from the opening of his tent.
"Lieutenant, you and I should probably do a recon for tomorrow's training location," he announced loud enough for bystanders to hear. After she was inside the tent, he added, "We'll take one of the small copters. All of them have spare sleeping bags inside. We'll be gone for an hour; perhaps two."
"I do not want to have sex with you, Captain," she said.
"I understand your reluctance to open up that possibility with the men. Once you start, when would it end?"