"There's nothing at the school for me now. I have a good start on my colour chart. I have no reason to go back."
"Annika may change her mind when she finds out more about her dad."
"I don't want to talk about this."
So they made a little schedule for the week. Reese would handle the mornings and Winnie the afternoons. If Madison needed parenting in the evening, they'd share.
# # # # # # # #
Reese was waiting in the kitchen when Madison came in for breakfast. "Hiya Madison," he greeted cheerfully.
She just looked at him with no expression whatsoever on her face. Then she grumped, "I'm Maddy."
"OK, Maddy. We normally get our own breakfasts. Cereal and toast mostly. Would you like me to help you?"
"I can do it."
And she did. She poured cereal into a bowl without spilling any. Looked in the fridge and saw some milk. Poured it into the bowl almost perfectly. Got a cloth and wiped up the drops on the table. Pulled a spoon out of the mass of cutlery on the table. Saw the big knife for cutting bread on a counter and brought that back to her place at the table too. Then she ate slowly, watching Reese continuously from under her eyelashes. Reese didn't notice the stare or the big knife by her left hand. He was checking the schedule on the fridge. Yolanda had listed some possible activities for Madison. Cleaning her dirty dishes off the kitchen table was first on the list. Second on the list was moving into Yollie's old bedroom.
# # # # # # # #
"You'll have your own bedroom from now on. We'll give you some toys that other kids in the family have used. Later this week, we'll buy you more clothes and you can keep them in your bedroom closet and bureau. We all have our own bedroom."
"Granny and Grandpa don't." [Narrator: As I may have mentioned to you previously, Maddy saw everything.]
"They're married and they don't mind sharing a bedroom. Here's your new room."
Maddy stood in the hallway and peered in. Then she looked at the doorknob. "Is there a lock?"
"No. You won't need a lock. If your door is closed, nobody will barge in on you. Not even Granny or Grandpa. They'll knock on your door and wait for you to answer. If you don't want anybody to come in, tell them that you want to be alone."
Maddy shut the bedroom door from the hallway and then opened it again. Afterwards she went into the bedroom and closed the door behind her. Reese could hear her fiddling with the doorknob. He was about to ask her if she needed help when Maddy opened the door. "I can leave the bedroom whenever I want?"
"Of course. If you become hungry in the middle of the night, you can get a snack. All the lights in the house are fixed so that they'll come on when you walk near them in the dark. But be sure to clean up any mess that you make in the kitchen. Put away the milk, for example. I forgot to do that once after a snack and it went bad."
Maddy looked at his neck and saw no collar of any kind. "Did they beat you?"
"No. Nobody beats anybody in this house. That won't happen to you again, Madison."
"Maddy."
"My brother Wizard tried different names too when he was growing up. Granny put the name he was using that day on a sign on the fridge so that everybody knew what to call him. Would you like me to do that for you too?"
"I can print my own name," Maddy declared. And she did. Reese put the sign on the fridge and told everybody that Madison was experimenting with names like Wizard had.
# # # # # # # #
Winnie's meeting with Jock was through a mind-message conference. Lucas and Theo were in the Wilizy/Asia which was hovering over Toronto, Jock was in Toronto's city hall being a mayor, Melissa and Mac were in the satellite compound, and Winnie and Marie were in Marie's home in the main compound.
Jock was in charge of the meeting. "First thing we have to do is find out how many ranches Safe Haven has and where they are. We can't make any plans until we know exactly what we're going up against. Marie, do you know?"
"I thought Shango and Theogun would just help with Ranch #2. I didn't curse any of the other owners."
"We can't rescue the slaves at one ranch and ignore all of the other slaves in the other ranches," Melissa explained.
"The other ranch owners would probably re-capture the slaves and imprison them on their own ranch," Winnie added.
"The first attack will be the easiest," Jock predicted. "Nobody will be expecting it. But after that, we'll have to be careful. The ranch owners will be expecting us."
"Does that mean simultaneous attacks, Jock?" Theo reached that conclusion quickly.
"If not simultaneous, then close to it. But before we go into battle, we'll shut down their communications so that one ranch can't warn another or call for reinforcements. Marie, can ranch owners communicate with each other?"
"I only know about Ranches #2, #3, #4, #7, and #10. They're close enough to talk back and forth. We arranged hair dressing days ahead of time, for example. All of those ranches have black masters and white slaves. Safe Haven must have other ranches too."
"Are they all in the same general area? Where was it, Winnie?"
"Northern Montana. Missouri River area."
"I don't know anything about other ranches," Marie answered. "But a copter came once a week to Ranch #2. The pilot was collecting letters for their headquarters and dropping off letters for us."
"Courier service," Lucas concluded. "I can follow that copter easily. When did he come to your ranch?"
"Sunday mornings."
# # # # # # # #
Reese was showing Maddy where Hank kept his stores of used games, toys, and books. Maddy picked out a sampling of each and together with Reese, they bundled them into her bedroom. He watched as she stacked the games and books carefully in the bottom of the closet. The biggest game on the bottom, the next biggest, etc. "Where should I put the toys?" Maddy asked.
It had been a long time since Yollie had kept toys in her bedroom, but Reese knew where he could find a large crate that would work. Maddy had taken mostly stuffies from the caves, but she had lingered over other things as well. "I'll bring a big box," he said.
Maddy stood by the bedroom door as Reese left. "You have to knock first to come back in, right?"
"I'll knock first," Reese confirmed. He heard the door close behind him.
A few minutes later, Reese knocked and waited at the door. He heard her turning the knob and the door opened a sliver. Two blue eyes looked out.
"I have the box, Maddy."
Maddy stood well back from the door as Reese entered and looked for a good place to put it. In doing so, he noticed a bunny stuffie on the bed and a faint imprint of where she had been lying on the bedspread. "Where do you want it?"
Maddy looked around and pointed at the spot next to her bureau. Reese put the empty crate in place and turned. Maddy had been peering into the crate, but she stepped back immediately when Reese turned.
"You can put the toys in the crate yourself. Would you like me to read you one of the books?"
Maddy shook her head No.
"I've played with all of these games before. Snakes and Ladders is a lot of fun. Would you like me to show you how it works?"
Maddy shook her head No.
"Would you like more stuffies?"
Maddy shook her head No.
"Do you want to be alone?"
Maddy nodded her head.
Reese paused at the doorway. "I'll be in the living room if you need anything. If I'm not there, I'll be in my bedroom. We passed it on the way. Remember?"
"I can leave my bedroom any time I want, right?"
"Yes, of course."
"Can I leave the house?"
"Yes. But I will have to go with you until you learn you way around the compound. We have a very big property and it would be easy for you to get lost."
"Are there any snakes?"
"No."
Maddy looked at him but said nothing.
"See you later, Maddy," and Reese left. He heard the click of the bedroom d
oor. He didn't hear the noise of Maddy pushing the empty crate up against the door.
Is she mad because she can't sleep in Winnie's bed with her? Strange. She never tried to hold my hand once. She must have woken up in a bad mood. I wonder if she has a headache or something. Should I have asked?
# # # # # # # #
"What weapons do the ranches have, Marie?" Jock was now into part 2 of the planning meeting. Assessing the enemy's strengths.
"At my ranch, rifles and whips. The rifles are stored in a locked room in the bunkhouse where the bosses sleep. Only Boss #1 and Boss #2 have the key. Big Momma and Big Daddy have keys too."
"Do you know what weapons the other ranches might have?"
"No. This is not something that the Big Mommas shared when they were having their hair done."
"We know that six of the ranches will be heavily armed," Melissa warned. "William and Wolf watched the SODs steal arms from Saskatoon and deliver them to a spot in North Dakota. If they know that we're coming, we can expect a lot of firepower against us." [Narrator: As described in Teenage Mutant Ninja Torpedoes.]
"Best to hit those ranches first, right?" Lucas was thinking strategically.
"Perhaps," Melissa agreed. "The North Dakota location suggests that the ranches could be spread around in both Montana and North Dakota. Perhaps even more widely."
"If William can give me the time and date that the SODs left Saskatoon, I can track those six copters back to their ranches."
"Good idea, Lucas."
"I'll help," Theo jumped in. "I'll help Lucas trail that courier too."
"From the ranch numbers, we know that they have at least ten ranches, spread widely, some with lots of armaments," Melissa summarized. "Marie, is there anything else that we need to know about what we'll be facing when we attack?"
"Ranch #10 had dog collars that tracked every slave's location every minute. We didn't have that in #2. Other ranches may have the better collars."
"How would we know?" Winnie asked.
"I dunno," Marie answered.
"If they knew in advance that an attack was coming, would the Big Mommas kill their slaves beforehand?" Melissa asked.
"Big Momma #2 would kill some as an example. Next she'd lock the rest up and starve them until the threat had passed."
"Melissa, you'll need to build in an element of surprise at each ranch, not only at the first ranch we attack." Jock confirmed what everybody was in the process of concluding for themselves. "I think we're done for now. Lucas and Theo are going to find all the ranches. Lucas, why don't you call the next meeting when you and Theo are ready to report?"
Back to the Table of Contents
Chapter 5
I'll give my readers some background information now on Jak Johnson. You'll remember Jak Johnson. She was the servant who blew up Queen Freya and Prince Samuel on March 11, 2085 and then fled with thousands of dollars of rich treasures that the Smythe family had in their home. Some readers may have asked the question: How could the Smythe family be robbed of all of their treasures when they had arrived in a yacht with no treasures? That would have been a good question for the police or for the Wilizy to ask too. But they didn't know how empty the Smythe's yacht had been when they arrived.
There was another inaccuracy in Winnie's report. Jak didn't flee with James Johnson, her military partner. She fled with Prince Samuel. Mr. Johnson died from the bomb in the house. All of those cartons that they carried to the yacht? They contained the vital contents of Prince Samuel's lab.
After leaving Bainbridge Island, Jak returned the queen's yacht to the Royal Navy Yards in Gothenburg on the west coast of the province of Sweden. From there, she requisitioned a military copter for an overland trip eastward to Stockholm, the capital of Scandinavia. Her rank of Major in Scandinavia's Special Ops forces guaranteed an immediate response to her request. She parked in the Transportation Division's receiving area in Stockholm's main army base, reported in to headquarters, and then waited. There was a good chance that she would face a secret military trial for assassinating the country's queen. Jak was remarkably calm while she waited for her meeting with the military's Chief of Staff. She had been working for him for years. She knew how his mind worked.
The Chief of Staff kept her waiting only 15 minutes. Her unexpected arrival would have set off alarm bells in his inner sanctum. He would know that something went wrong in Seattle.
"The streets are eerily calm, Wilhelm," Jak observed after closing the Chief of Staff's door. Obviously she was on a first name basis with Wilhelm, Queen Freya's uncle.
"The secret military trials of the politicians who had proven themselves to be traitors went well. Parliament is behaving itself. I brought in the army to give the citizens a show of force in the streets. I let the protests go on long enough to justify a sharp response." When Wilhelm used the words sharp response, that meant Special Ops forces were allowed latitude on how they responded. In those situations, accidental deaths were permitted. Accidental as in what happens when a subversive politician walks into a speeding bullet. Oopsey. "What went wrong in Seattle, Jakobina?"
Jak's report was too detailed for me to recount fully. These were her key points. Princess Freya had been kidnapped, but no ransom had been asked. Queen Freya had been on the verge of drawing a lot of attention to herself, not as Ashleigh Smythe, but as Queen Freya of Scandinavia. Jak had prevented her from doing that.
Also, Queen Freya had been extremely stubborn about denying Prince Samuel access to her baby eggs. One of Jak's orders had been to give Prince Samuel the fortitude to press her on that need. She had wasted far too much time on that part of her assignment – showing an interest in his work, as well as listening to him blather on about what he was doing and why. Jak closed her report with this defense of her actions. "Queen Freya's decision to reveal herself as our monarch was one of the pre-conditions for extreme action. I did what my orders instructed me to do."
"And your colleague? Did your orders instruct you to kill him as well?"
"James and I arrived in June last year and found the Queen as she had been when she lived in the palace. Dictatorial and distant. But in the last 11 months, Queen Freya changed. She became human. She volunteered at a pre-school. She was a mother to the princess in the best sense of the word. My ex-colleague began to like her. I did not trust him to execute the queen or to allow me to do it for him. I followed my orders."
"So you did, Major. Dismissed."
Jak rose to leave, relieved that a firing squad wasn't waiting for her.
"One moment, Jakobina."
"Yes?"
"Your uniform insignia are out of date, Lieutenant Colonel. You can see to them after you return from your two week leave."
# # # # # # # #
Near the end of March 2085, Jak returned to her normal duties. With calm restored in the streets, Special Ops was once again covertly using chemicals to prevent infected citizens from having children and thereby spreading their pestilence. This time, the commander of the Special Ops was being smarter about it. Jak was the third highest-ranking officer in that operation and remained in that position for just over a year. She received an urgent message to present herself at the Chief of Staff's office on April 26, 2086. This was the same day as the Wilizy were conducting interrogations in Maple Loaf Gardens.
Wilhelm didn't wait for her to sit down before starting. "We've been running a highly secret program. At the time that you and I met last year, you didn't need to know about it. Princess Freya wasn't in danger at that time. Now she is."
Jak nodded and sat down. She was used to hearing didn't need to know. Special Ops would have more accurately referred to as Secret Ops.
"Our secret operation started over ten years ago as a pilot program. We engaged an American group of entrepreneurs named Safe Haven Corporation to kidnap schoolgirls who were blonde, fair-skinned and blue-eyed. These girls were taken to a very private and secure spot where two trainers provided instruction. One trainer gave the girl ba
sic literacy in the Scandinavian language. The second adjusted the girl's memories. Both of these lessons were given under chemicals, hypnosis, and memory implantation. The pilot succeeded. Before she left the country, Queen Freya instructed Special Ops to pull out all stops to save the country. We had done that already. We may have anticipated that order by ten years, but our operations are now legitimately covered by a royal decree."
"There are two outcomes from the program. When Safe Haven kidnaps girls who are young enough, they have their memories adjusted so that they can come to Scandinavia and appear as normal little Scandinavian girls. We adopt them out to a family who has the same concerns as we do. They raise her, marry her off, and tell the newly married couple that their country needs lots of children. It's a small way of increasing the number of healthy citizens."
"The program for Safe Haven's older kidnapped girls has had more of an impact. They are too old to be given new memories. Instead, trainers convince them that they will serve a vital service to our country by removing pestilence carriers, one carrier at a time. Who would suspect that a little girl was an assassin? When they reach puberty, they will perform the same service, but they will be able to use seduction to help with targeting. We have been receiving the young assassins for six months. They've been highly successful."
"When you reported that Princess Freya had been kidnapped, and when no ransom emerged, I realized that Safe Haven might have been involved in that kidnapping. She was underage for the program, but I saw no need to worry about her safety. In time, Safe Haven would send her back to us with her memories adjusted. In the meantime, Safe Haven would unknowingly keep her hidden for us. I did not inform them that they had a member of our royal family in their grasp. The chances of us receiving a real ransom note would have been high. These people exist only to accumulate more wealth for themselves."
"Yesterday I received a very apologetic communication from the Safe Haven head office. One of their young girls had escaped. Not once, but twice. They're still searching for her and have a promising lead. But in case she has escaped for good, they wanted to know if we would mind very much if they reduced their production quota by one? They are willing to pay a penalty for missing the quota."
"Lieutenant-Colonel, the young girl who has escaped from Safe Haven is Princess Freya. You will find her. You will meet with the man in charge of procuring and educating candidates for our program. You will volunteer to help him find their missing girl. I have told them that we might increase the number of girls we pay them to kidnap. I have also suggested that we will allow them to kidnap other races besides the blonde, blue-eyed, fair-skinned Scandinavian look. We may actually do that since there are enough different races now in Scandinavia that any young girl could become an effective assassin. This will be enough motivation for them to let you poke around in their slave ranches. Find out how she escaped. Determine if she is alive, as they believe. Then find her without their knowledge, if possible. Or if that isn't possible, help them find her. Do nothing to reveal that she is Scandinavia's crown princess."