Word finally arrived from my people who had been detailed to protect James. Of the six that were there at the time, two were okay and four were dead from whatever it was that was in those little darts the perps had been shooting.

It would have been a lot worse except one of the two survivors had gone out on a food run, returning during the shootout. He had sufficient presence of mind to pick up and use one of the intruders own weapons against them. Because of that we learned a valuable piece of information; the funny armor they wore that was so effective against our bullets could be cut like butter with a hot knife when hit by their own armament. Their attack group suffered four killed and the remaining two were captured as a result with only one more of my agents killed leaving two who survived the battle on my side of the ledger. I wished he had returned earlier but other than that I felt the two... no, all six were heros.

“Yes, ma’am. Their own weapons ripped through them like nobody’s business. The agent who opened fire on them from behind cut them down so fast they didn’t have time to turn around and shoot back. We were lucky... very lucky.”

“But we still lost some good men.”

“Yes, ma’am. We did. But we could have lost all of them plus our principal and that would have been worse yet. The military here has bundled him off somewhere and won’t tell us anything. The Colonel in charge has requested that we reconstitute our team and cut him in on our comms by bringing up the military repeater package we brought with us. We will need someone to come here and link our civilian and the military unit. The Colonel promises to obtain authority to use the military repeater by the time we’re ready to bring it up. He has given us a nice tall hill on which to put it. He also promises to have a short squad there to protect it for as long as it needs to be up and running.”

“Let him know we’re working toward doing just that. We’ve taken some heavy losses both here at the offices as well as there this day but we’re trying to get together some people who can supplement the two of you. We also will be sending someone out to cobble the two repeater systems together, hopefully within the next twenty-four hours. I have twenty portables for the military system that will soon be on the way via UPS overnight. I wish I could send the agent to tie the systems together the same way but he should arrive at the airport there tomorrow afternoon or at the worst tomorrow night. It all depends on how quickly I can shake someone loose. Let the colonel know he will need to send someone to pick our man up from the airport. I’ll get his name and flight information to you as soon as I know it.”

“Yes ma’am. Thank you. When will we have our reinforcements?”

“That will be a little slower. There will be two the day after tomorrow. The next four will arrive piecemeal within the two days following. They’ll bring their own radios with them and will contact your people for a ride via the comms. That might happen with the agent who is going to tie the systems together but I can’t be certain of that.”

“Thank you, ma’am. The colonel just walked in ma’am; could you hold a moment?”

“Yes, thank-you.”

The background sounds disappeared but the slight hiss indicating the encryption system was still active caused me to understand that the headset mic had been muted but the link was still up. Less than thirty seconds later the background noise commenced again and very quickly the colonel was on the line.

“Major.”

“Sir?”

“Your people acquitted themselves quite well here this morning; better than my own men. Have you been given the casualty information?”

“Not reliably, sir.” I really didn’t want to hear this.

“We lost twelve of my men before the enemy managed to breach an access into the building. There we lost five more before the enemy came up against your own people. During that part of the skirmish the enemy lost two; one killed, one wounded but your people lost four. That was the point at which one of your men returned from a fast-food run. He noted the bodies outside the building then armed himself with some of our heavy weaponry. On entering the building he found one of the enemy weapons and opted to take it up for use. He then approached the location of the ongoing battle. There he set up a cross fire which took out four of the enemy. During that time your fourth agent was killed leaving only one on each side of the cross-fire.

When your returning agent ran out of ammunition for the weapon he had commandeered, he switched to the one he picked up from one of our men. At that point only two enemy remained who were effectively boxed in. Between the agent inside with Doctor Thompson and the automatic weapon and spare ammunition the outside agent had taken from one of my downed men they held off the two remaining enemy for another two minutes until help arrived. The enemy combatants surrendered when they ran out of ammunition. We were lucky this time. How’s Doctor Thompson’s daughter? We heard you had some activity there as well.”

“She... has the ‘flu’, sir. Other than that, she’s fine. We are looking into the cause for the flu and she has been to see a doctor just this morning. He says there is nothing to do but keep her hydrated, allow her to rest, and wait it out. He wants to see her again tomorrow.”

“Flu huh? Okay, keep her safe and Doctor Thompson will be able to continue his work. He’ll be glad to hear she’s okay, flu not withstanding.”

“Yes, sir. Sir? I heard the operation of our Military repeater has been authorised. Is this correct?”

“That’s the information I was given. I should have the paperwork by tomorrow sometime.”

“Good. I’m having an additional twenty portable radios for the mil-net sent by UPS which will bring the total there up to thirty-two counting the twelve which are already there. I’ve got a man scheduled to arrive there tomorrow afternoon who can link the systems for you; probably during the following morning. He will need someone to pick him up at the airport.”

“We can do that, just let us know which flight and his name and I’ll have a driver meet him there.”

“Thank you, sir. As soon as we have the information, I’ll let my agents there know and they can pass it on to your people. Anything else, sir?”

“Not from this end. Well done, major.”

“Thank you, sir.”

I heard him remove the headset then hand it off to someone who muted the mic. A few seconds later the hiss vanished which told me the portable radio had also been switched from transceive to monitor only which caused the link to drop. The repeater self-id suddenly intruded as it sent out the rapid burst of morse-code used to automatically identifying itself. The audio level of the burst was about a fifth as loud as the Colonels voice had been. I had forgotten about those automatic id transmissions, usually they occur while I’m listening to someone and being at a much lower volume it’s easy for them to pass unnoticed.

Well, what I’d just been told wasn’t all good news. I’ve lost seven men total. Three here and four there. As far as I was concerned, no news about my fourth man here was good news as it meant he was still alive at this point. I wasn’t about to conjecture as to how well off he would be when he woke up. This whole mess was something none of us had previously encountered.

Well... maybe the military who had been protecting James had some ideas, but I and my people were relative newcomers to the scene despite any previous notions I might have to the contrary due to Nam and our Euro-African involvements.

I sat there and thought about it all. We had been lucky - damned lucky and still we lost seven good men. I needed to know who they were and if they had families. That was something to which I wasn’t looking forward. It was always difficult telling someone their family member wasn’t going to be walking in the door again. I needed to review our insurance program and to have finance - Susan see about a monthly annuity for any family surviving our agents in addition to any lump sum paid out by the insurance company. Oh, yeah, there was likely to be a premium escalation due to this little hit. For some reason that didn’t distress me as much as losing the men. As much as I had felt I had failed Cathy, I felt the same about my men.

My phone buzzed indicating the in-house intercom.

“Stevens.”

“Ma’am? We... uh... I’m sorry ma’am. The hospital called. We just lost the fourth man.”

“I see. Has Colonel Jackson’s office been appraised of our losses?”

“I think so, ma’am. I’ll check and if they haven’t, I’ll see to it that they get the list.”

“We have a list?”

“Yes, ma’am. Larry just finished putting it together. He’s adding the fourth man now. We’ve lost a total of eight.”

“How many are married?” I crossed my fingers and toes and hoped for none.

“Three ma’am. Greg was going to be married in June which would have made four.”

Damn.

“Okay. Thanks. Could you get a copy of that list to Nicci, Ralph, and myself? Oh, and a copy to Susan in Finance?”

I made a mental note that once my business reached a hundred and fifty agents then I would need a full-time HR person so I didn’t need to get involved in things like insurance and training, other than to view the reports so I had some idea of how everyone was doing. Now that I thought about it, I might already be there what with the increases we had been adding to flesh out the other two locations. I kept underestimating my company manpower levels because I was only seeing the people for this location and not for the entire company. My mind also discounted the trainees who started at this location for six months before I moved them to one of the other two. That meant we actually had around two and a half times as many agents and at somewhere around six or seven times as many involved in the business as I ever saw on a daily basis. No wonder I had such a large payroll - which probably should have clued me in if I hadn’t been so busy trying to find work for all of them.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Thanks.”

I hung up and spent a number of minutes kicking my own butt for losing the husbands and fiancees of women who still didn’t know they were widows or whatever they call a fiancee who has lost her loved one. I wanted to know more about those bozos who shot first and didn’t care if they killed anyone... then I wanted a hunting license. Maybe I could just hide my good-guy’s badge, put on a dark suit and go hunting off the reservation. I wondered vaguely if any of my original guys would want to come with me.

I got up from behind my desk to walk out to have a talk with Nicci. I could have saved my time because she wasn’t at her desk. A few seconds later she came walking back with a very subdued Cathy who looked a bit green around the gills. Nicci gave me a sympathetic look as Cathy continued over to me where she hugged me as best she could when I squatted down hold her.

“I don’t feel good, Mommy.”

“I know, sweetheart. I hope it will be over soon and you’ll begin to feel better. Do you want to go home and get some sleep in your own bed? It might help.”

“Daddy doesn’t like it when I get sick.”

“He just worries about you, just like I do.”

“Daddy is worried?”

“If you’re sick. Yes, he gets worried. When he worries, he doesn’t know what to do to help so he doesn’t like it. He isn’t mad at you or anything, he just wants the sickness to go away so you will feel better.”

“Oh. Me, too. Can I have a milkshake?” She suddenly looked stricken, “Uh, never mind.”

“I agree, sweetheart. That might not be the best thing just now.”

“Uh huh. Thinking makes me not feel good.”

“Maybe a little soup?”

“Maybe. I don’t feel good thinking about that either. When I feel better can I have a milkshake?”

I nodded to her, “When you feel better.”

“I’m hungry.”

“I know, baby. Sometimes just a little broth will help. You don’t need to eat a lot. Maybe some chicken soup?”

Cathy sighed, “Just a little? Maybe?”

“A very small amount and if you keep that down and everything goes okay then maybe another small amount.”

“Okay. If I feel better tomorrow can I have a milkshake?”

“Why don’t we wait until tomorrow to see about that? If you feel better then, maybe we can try it.”

“Okay. I don’t like to be sick. Can I be better soon?”

“Will you..? And no one likes to be sick. I hope you get better soon, baby.” I wrapped my arms around her and comforted her against me. When I began to release her she started to slump. I held onto her to prevent her from dropping, drawing back my head to look at her face. She was fast asleep.

“Nicci, would you have a couple of my agents take us home? One can drive my car and the other a company car so they have some way of leaving once Cathy and I settle in at my house.” I asked as I scooped up Cathy.

“Oh, would you get my purse from out of my desk for me?”

“On it. All of it.”

My agents waited around the house while I put Cathy to bed, then they made a quiet withdrawal to return to the offices. I decided to take a nice hot bath and get some sleep myself; it had been a long day, for all of us. Tomorrow I would begin to deal with the families of those who were lost, I just couldn’t face that today.

Even though I had been fortified by the accompaniment of several other wives, it had still been difficult to explain to people that their husband and daddy would not be coming home again. It’s never easy but this was much harder than I had experienced before. In war, I and the families could expect the possibility but... well, this wasn’t war, was it? How do police departments handle this sort of thing?

It took me twice as long to let everyone know because I needed time to come back down from my tears and self-recrimination before I was ready to do it all again with the next survivor. I also for the first time, had the opportunity to see the varied responses the wives of those lost would offer in an attempt not to break down completely. Numbed acceptance, tearful sorrow followed by attempts not to show it in front of strangers, and complete denial. I’m certain there would have been many more responses if there had been more wives for me to tell. I was thankful there were only the three. As the fiancee was in another city, I would need to have Ralph stop by- no, not a good idea; he has a tendency to be a bit... blunt. Okay, I would need to fly there with some reinforcements to find her so she could be notified.

I returned to the office to collect Cathy who was once again in the care of Nicci. I don’t know what I would do without her help.

“Nicci, could you arrange a meeting between Lucy, Randolf and myself? I will need to fly there as the meeting should be in private between the three of us.”

“Any preference as to when?”

“Soon. Very soon. Tell her that I have other information for their ears only which was not placed into the reports.”

“Oh?? All right. I’ll get right on it. If they try to put it off or say tomorrow, what then?”

“Tomorrow is okay if I have time to fly there. Don’t let them put it off more than a couple of days though. It’s very important they know this. It could be a life or death situation.”

“May I quote you on that?”

“Please do.”

“Yes, ma’am. I’ll put a call through right away.”

I thanked her and took Cathy out to my car. She still wasn’t up to one hundred percent but she was improving rapidly. Twenty-four hour bug I guess. Not yet ready for her milkshake but getting there.

The phone rang. I answered it quickly so it wouldn’t awaken Cathy who needed the sleep.

“Stevens.”

“Hi Lynn. I’ve got an appointment for you tomorrow at thirteen hundred at Lucy’s offices. Your flight out is at six our time which will give you about ninety minutes to get from the airport to the offices. Lucy recommends you travel in uniform and will fax me a set of travel orders for you. I’ll fax them to your house as soon as I have them in hand. When you arrive, I have a rental car reserved at the airport AVIS counter under your name. Both the flight and the car have been reserved using a company credit card. If they need to see a card then your corporate card will do. I have two agents scheduled to arrive at your house at five. One to take you to the airport and the other to bring Cathy to the offices here. Anything else you can think of?”

“No. Thank you, Nicci. You’ve pretty well covered it. I’m sorry to dump Cathy on you again.”

“Not a problem. She’s a good kid. She misses you when you’re gone, you know.”

“And that’s been happening all too frequently lately.”

“That’s not your fault.”

“Not completely. I make a lousy mother.”

“Not if you listen to Cathy. Other than missing you she thinks you’re the next best thing to sliced bread, Santa Claus, and the tooth fairy.”

I laughed.

“Her expectations aren’t all that high then?”

“Not at all. You better get some rest. I’ve got a wake up call scheduled for you at oh three-thirty. That gives you about an hour and a half to get both of you ready before the detail shows up.”

“Anyone ever tell you that you’re a slave driver, Nicci?”

“Most of the agents and most of the time. Now get off to bed.”

“Yes, mother.” I chuckled.

“You better. Bye, Lynn. Have a safe trip.”

“Thanks. Bye, Nicci.”

“... and that’s the reason why I wanted a private conversation which included the both of you.”

“At no time did this person give you a name?” Randolf asked, his face set and lips tightly closed afterward.

“No. The only clue he gave was that he had some thunderbolts to give to Lucy in thanks for losing him his ‘cushy job’ in, I think he said ‘the belt’, which I took to mean D.C..”

I again gave consideration to that which he had said. I thought I did a good job of para-phrasing since my mind was pretty much clouded for several hours after I woke up.

“I can’t remember the exact words in every case because whatever that was they used on us made it difficult for me to think for three or four hours after I woke up. It also left us all splitting headaches which were quickly treated with the aspirin he left us.”

“Are you certain it was aspirin? It might have been a counter-agent made up to look like aspirin.”

“I had that thought after a few hours. I saved a random sample of eight of the tablets for analysis. They proved to be aspirin and of the composition produced by Bayer. Unfortunately what they used at my offices and at James location wasn’t the same stuff so the aspirin would likely have been useless even if they had known about it.”

Lucy waded in again, “I think we need to stay focused here. The threats made were obviously directed at myself and Randolf, but mostly myself. I think I have an idea who these people are. The old flame is someone who escaped incarceration during transport to Texas for a capital murder trial. He had outside help and they were well armed.”

“Who was that?” Randolf looked at her with curiosity about a former flame she might have had.

“Jeremy. You remember him. The fake husband and traitor from my days working with the agency in Nam.”

“Oh yeah. Damn, not that prick again.”

I made it a point to remain silent, just sitting there listening as Randolf and Lucy talked this whole thing out. I figured I might learn something useful or at least learn more than I knew now.

“Yes, it would appear to be him again. The other was a Colonel working in the General’s offices. His code name was ‘Thor’ which would explain the thunderbolts.”

“I thought we were done with those two.”

“Apparently not and equally apparently they are involved in this group, whoever they are, who are trying to secure Doctor Thompson or at least his cooperation.”

“Didn’t a number of agency people vanish around the same period of time? As I recall, there were a few personnel for sister agencies at other countries who also went missing about that same point in time.”

“Yes. I think somewhere around a hundred all total.”

“A hundred? I didn’t think it was that many.”

Randolf had a concerned look on his face which made me more concerned. Besides, a hundred people in intelligence organizations across the planet would make a fairly respectable group of antagonists.

“I’m more concerned with how many are still working in those agencies giving this group intelligence gathered from all over the globe. If they are freely sharing information from all agencies, then this organization is formidable indeed because they have information which most of us don’t receive due to interagency or national rivalries.”

Shock suddenly was present on Randolf’s face. It was obvious that he had not considered the possibility of sleeper agents yet being in place at all those agencies. My estimates of his infallibility were dealt a great setback as a result. Heaven forbid, he was just as fallable as the rest of us.

I waded back into the fray.

“Since you both are coming up with all this information, do you have any ideas about my mole? That former communications chief is still my prime suspect. What have you learned about him?”

Lucy took up the gauntlet, “Well, he isn’t the person we thought him to be. Our Lieutenant in Thailand was involved in a fire-fight at one point in time. This resulted in a scar on his face of which there is no sign on this fellow.”

“Maybe he had plastic surgery.”

“A possibility but not the case in this instance. Our lieutenant died in a fight while he was on duty near Trung Luong a year later.”

Now that made me ever more certain this guy was my mole even as Lucy continued.

“However, that is beside the point. This person you hired and whom we vetted as being the deceased lieutenant is actually his twin brother. He is also a very capable communications expert and quite the patriot. Our present research into him shows that he has difficulty holding a job even so. Apparently he is rather outspoken or goes off and makes ‘improvements’ in electronic systems without prior authorization. Even though his ‘improvements’ actually help, his failure to explain that which he intends to do gets him fired by those who don’t understand or don’t care that he has made things better. I don’t apologize for our previous error concerning him, but we doubt very seriously that this person is your mole. His IQ is quite high, although he doesn’t make a very good person to have in charge of a division or in contact with people who matter. In the proper position he could make a very significant contribution to your organization, along the lines of secure electronic systems or communications that is. If you give him his head he just might wind up suddenly giving you a comms system which can’t be cracked.”

“Oh, great. More money to be spent.”

Lucy gave me a smile, “If you don’t have a slot for him, why don’t you send him to us? I’m certain we can tuck him away in a nice little laboratory where he can play with his electronics to his heart’s content.”

“I just might do that. I’ll talk with him later, once I get back home. If he’s interested I’ll let you know and you can decide how to take it from there. At least he isn’t married.”

“He was at one time. That was another interpersonal problem he had. As I was saying, he doesn’t relate to people very well... electronics, it’s almost like he can talk with the stuff.”

“Good Lord, no wonder he rubs me the wrong way.”

“Send him to us. I’m certain we can find him a nice quiet laboratory to play in.”

“If he wants to go, he’s all yours.”

Lucy looked at Randolf and then at me, “I think the time has come to read her into a few things; don’t you?”

Randolf frowned, paused then nodded his head.

“I’ll leave the two of you to this. I’ve got to get back to my office and do some planning.”

“After Lynn is up to speed, I’ll stop by your office. Say about four?”

“I think that should work. Goodbye, Lynn. Nice having this chat but now I”ve got to see what I can do to throw a monkey wrench into their plans.”

“I hope we can meet under somewhat better circumstances at another time, Sir.”

He smiled and gave Lucy a kiss then departed while Lucy went to her safe and pulled out three folders and a newspaper page which she brought back to her desk. She handed me the sheet of newsprint and indicated I should read the article which had a red outline around it. After only a couple of minutes I finished the article.

“All right. I’m not certain what a mass grave located in Laos should mean to me but I read it.”

“When was the grave found?”

I checked, “June of seventy-one.”

She handed me another sheet of newsprint. It was another mass grave but this one was found in Cambodia in September of seventy-one. When I finished that she handed me a third which detailed a mass grave found four months ago in South Vietnam.

“What is common to the three mass gravesites?”

I scanned the articles again quickly before answering, “They’re all mass graves?”

“Other than that.”

I carefully checked the reports.

“Actually there look to be two things. The number of people found at each site are roughly similar and all of the bodies appeared to have been dyed a faint blue color and were shriveled.”

“Does that sound familiar?”

I thought about it for a moment, “No. Should it?”

“The bodies of our people who were killed in the conflicts at your office and at Doctor Thompson’s safe house.”

“Really? I haven’t seen any reports concerning the bodies.”

“Be thankful you haven’t actually seen them. They look like they’ve been mummified, very quickly.”

I looked at her to see if she was joking. She looked deadly serious.

“So why would our adversaries be involved in killing three random groups of people?”

She handed me one of the folders, “They weren’t random.”

I accepted the folder with some curiosity then began reading. When I finished I was astounded at the audacity of the apparent plan which had been executed over a twenty month period. Preparations for that execution had to have entailed at least a couple of years.

“You’ve got to be joking. How much did they get?”

“About thirty million dollars worth out of Laos, another twenty-one and a half from Cambodia and South Vietnam won’t release any figures but our analysts figure it to be around thirty-eight million.”

“And then they executed the hired help.”

“It would look that way.”

“That means they made off with something of the order of ninety million dollars in gold, and jewels.”

“No. The ninety million is just the gold. None of the jewels have surfaced as yet and we have no hard and fast figures for them. Again our analysts place the jewels and jewelry in excess of sixty million but they could net far more from collectors.”

“Why do they need so much money?”

“It isn’t money. It’s actually bars of gold, and precious gems; mostly sapphires and rubies in elaborate settings.”

She handed me the last folder to read. When I finished I wish I hadn’t read it.

“You really think they intend to do that?”

“The indications are strong.”

“Hong Kong and Moscow both?”

“And four of our European partners as well.”

“But how... why?”

“Greed. Crack the easy eggs to get the operating capital which gives you the opportunity to separate the yolk from the white in the more difficult ones.”

“I’m surprised they aren’t targeting us as well.”

“You didn’t hear it from me, but...”

“You’re kidding?”

“Afraid not. We would appreciate it if your agency could disseminate up to date artist’s sketches of the people you encountered on that detail. Once you have given copies to all your people we would like to have some for this office. If any of your people sees anyone we would like a heads up but don’t do anything to alert them. Don’t even follow them. They have a very good counter-surveillance group.”

“Terrific.” I was stunned. All this was just prelude to robbery on a grand scale? It didn’t feel right.

“How much are they going to try for? The total, I mean.”

“We don’t know. At a guess somewhere around two billion.”

“Two billion!? Even with all the inflation we were seeing as a result of the Vietnam war, two billion is still one hell of a chunk of change.”

“Yes, it is.” Lucy agreed.

I didn’t know what to think. I mean, this possible plan was... outrageous. I sat there completely stunned at the audacity the group of former agents seemed to have and if they were really going to try to undermine the US economy could two billion actually do very much? After all, our gross national product was well in excess of that... I thought. Suddenly I had another thought.

“What time is it?” I glanced around just noticing it was beginning to get dark out.

“Six-thirty.”

That served to panic me, “You missed your meeting with Randolf and I’ve got to get to the airport. My plane leaves in an hour and a half.”

“You were engrossed in reading, I called him and we will have our discussion over a late supper. I’ve also arranged for a driver and escort vehicle so you won’t need to deal with turning in your car. The driver will do that while you’re checking in for your flight.”

“Thanks.”

I was halfway home when I suddenly realized that the candidate I had tagged as being my ‘mole’ wasn’t my mole, which meant I had the reinstatement of a problem I hadn’t wanted to deal with in the first place. Who was the real mole? Thanks to Lucy and Randolf, my headache was returning... in spades.

All characters in this work have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relationship whatsoever to anyone or anything bearing the same name or names. The characters contained herein are not even distantly inspired by any specific individuals known or unknown to the author. All incidents described or alluded to within this work are pure invention. No affiliations, involvements or gender assignations due to the use of any images contained within this work are to be implied, intended or inferred.

Cover image copyright Maps.com and shown for clarification of area in which the story evolves.

DUTY CALLS, L. J. Stevens Vol. One Copyright © 2012 USA, Earth by R. A. Dumas.

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