During the next two weeks Nicci and I spent two hours each morning skating. Between her and the lessons I signed up to receive, I was improving with leaps and bounds.

Work had been busy but not difficult and Ralph and I had signed on some more jobs for the first quarter of next year which would put our income levels at a new high.

As it was, we made nearly a half a mil more this year than we did last year even after paying off some bills which we originally thought would be carried over into the new year. Things were looking up in a big way. We had enough jobs already scheduled for next year to match this year’s income and that was from just the first seven months. I was looking at the possibility of expanding our West and East coast offices shortly after initially staffing them and that meant we would need to hire more agents because I still needed to hold nearly a dozen in reserve to ship to Europe the moment we got our approval there. I later changed my mind about that and scattered them around the three locations until the European thing came through.

We had twenty-four European nationals on retainers of a sort. They were from a mix of the nations and were working for others at the moment but we could call and they would come. The ‘retainers’ allowed us the luxury of being able to say ‘come’ shortly before we needed them and they would give notice to their present employers allowing us to add them to our ranks after something like two to four weeks. That meant we could have a total of thirty six registered agents on the ground less than five weeks after we had the go ahead. The downside? Well, it would be an instant increase in expenses in the form of salaries and the need to take almost all of those who were on retainer and run them through the certification courses.

The upside? They were mostly trained and just needed refreshers to pass those same courses for their first time, then we would have a formidable group in Europe to which we could add. I hoped we could handshake with Interpol and some of the governmental agencies over there, much as we were able to do with many of the alphabet agencies here. I also had some pressure from Magician and Houdini who were chomping at the bit for us to get over there. Lucy said she would have work for us to do within minutes of my first agents setting their feet on the ground in Paris.

“They won’t even know they’ve been there. We could have them out on the next flights and working within another fifteen hours.”

I wasn’t certain how that would affect my own plans but obviously the staff at either of our initial two headquarters would be rather dismal to begin with. I didn’t want to hire more people because I didn’t know how long Lucy’s projects would last and having extra people on board without work to support them could be a very bad thing.

The first location I wanted to staff would obviously be London while the second would be in Milan. Milan would give us a central quick response access to a number of countries. At least it looked that way on paper. Eventually we would branch out to place an office in each of the various capitols. We had been looking at Germany for a while but decided on Milan since it was both a financial center and more central to everything as far as travel went. The rail system was developed and improving steadily so access could be fairly rapid. We hoped we would grow quickly enough that we could begin to expand into the major cities of other countries within two years of our European inception.

Other than all that, things were going pretty smoothly. We didn’t expect to have any difficult assignments through the end of this year. For that matter we didn’t expect to have any for at least the first three months of the next year. No unwanted lumps in our gravy.

I turned another set of papers over after signing the attached set of notes then penned a note for Nicci since she would be in early tomorrow. She had some paperwork to complete before she met me at the skating rink tomorrow so I added these things to her pile so she could at least get a heads up on them. The note she had left for me before I arrived while she was still here said she had a difficult day pulling everything together for one of our newest assignments. I was thankful that she spent the time pulling her hair out so our agents didn’t have to do so once they arrived to begin a new assignment. She was pretty good at taking care of fires before they happened.

I sighed, it was nearly eight PM and I was almost as tired as she had been when I sent her home to get some rest. Once I had arrived she was game to try to stay but then she would be dead on her feet tomorrow. I killed the lights and set the alarm then made tracks downstairs and out to my car, discovering it had a light layer of snow on it while those beautiful but cold little flakes were still coming down. Driving carefully, I reached home twenty minutes later; parked my car in the garage, set the walk and driveway heaters to kick on at six AM and the wind generators to thaw at five, then went in to have supper, take a nice long soak in the tub and get some sleep myself.

The next morning I was in the midst of my skating lesson and was looking forward to being joined by Nicci afterward, when it was interrupted by the girl who had signed me up the first day I came in. She was calling to us from the edge of the rink.

“Your office called, they want you to return the call immediately.”

“Did they say why?”

“It was someone named Nicci... All she said was to tell you a Mr. Thompson was attacked and you are needed in the office immediately.”

“JAMES?”

“Who’s James?”

“Mr. Thompson. Where’s a phone I can use? I need to call my office right away.”

“Come with me but don’t forget to put the blade covers on your skates first. We don’t need slices in the carpet.” She put her hand out, halting me as I began to step away from the rink.

“Wait here. I’ll be right back, I left them over there.” I pointed.

I skated back across the rink to where I had left my blade covers then skated back to her before pausing to put them on my skates. I then opted to remove the skates from my feet before I followed her out to the lobby where she lifted a phone up from behind the counter placing it on top for me to use.

“Dial nine to get an outside line. If this is long-distance you’ll need to pay for the call when we get the bill.”

“It’s to my office which is about five miles away.”

“Probably local then.”

I dialed nine then the office. The switchboard transferred me to Nicci and I got the skinny. James was okay, but shaken. Some Colonel wanted him to accept military security operatives to accompany him everywhere since the attack was apparently related to some of the work he was doing on some sort of software for a government project. James wanted my firm to provide his security rather than a team of military personnel. I was surprised about that. I guess we scored higher on his good job list than I thought. Of course being higher than a military team who didn’t have a clue as to what was going on wouldn’t be difficult. Unfortunately just at this moment we didn’t have a clue either.

“We need you in here right away, Lynn. Cathy and her nanny were also targeted. Cathy is okay but her nanny is in the hospital in critical condition. Ralph managed to grab four of our agents who didn’t have an immediate assignment and they hit the airport here just a few minutes ago. We will have the rest on their way in less than three hours. One of the first ones will be escorting Cathy back here. James wants her here and protected. In fact, now that I checked the clock, our agents should be in the air so they will be there within an hour and a half. Ralph called and had them hold the plane for our people. Apparently he has some pull with someone at the airport.”

“Cathy was attacked? Was she hurt at all?”

“Apparently not. We still don’t have a lot of details. Mr. Thompson was understandably a little upset when he and Ralph spoke.”

“He wants Cathy to be here?”

“Yes. He said that she would be safest here with you. We are putting together a full team which Ralph said should include two snipers and hopefully we will be able to send the rest of them out within a couple of hours. Ralph thinks we should send one of the armored cars as well.”

“I agree. Pick the one that has the most hours remaining before its next servicing. There should be one which we just got back from the city yard. This is unexpected. I haven’t even had time to child-proof my home. It’s four or five weeks earlier than I was expecting her.”

“Feel like you’re being thrown into the thick of things, Mommy?”

“That isn’t funny.”

“We need to hang up this call Lynn, and you need to get yourself in here in a hurry. Ralph wants you to look over the rest of the team he’s trying to put together and to make some decisions about equipment and any funding they might need. We put five hundred dollars on each of the guy’s cards for those who already left but that won’t last long if they need to stay there for very long. Susan would like to know how we are going to bill this, of course. We also need to put together a second team to protect Catherine. Don’t bother to change, just grab your stuff and hurry in.”

“Am I allowed to get my street clothes out of my locker and put on my boots before I dash to my car?”

“If you hurry. Hang on a sec. Ralph wants something.”

I heard some mumbling in the background before Nicci came on the phone again, “Ralph just wanted you to know that James didn’t wait. Catherine’s flight took off five minutes ago. There are five Army personnel traveling with her.”

“Are we hosting her guard as well?”

“Don’t ask me. James or that Colonel are calling all the shots just now.”

“Great. That will need to change if we’re getting involved. Okay, give me five minutes to at least get my things together and I’ll be on my way. I’ll finish changing after I get to the office. As soon as I arrive I want a conference call with James, me, you, Ralph and that Colonel. It will probably be best to put it in our wired conference room. That way we can record the conversation so we’ll have something to review later since we’re apt to be talking fast and furious without enough time to assimilate it all. I’ll be on my way in five minutes. OH! Is George available? Cathy knows and trusts him so he could meet the plane. Have him use the limo which is about to go in for servicing.”

“I’ll check. See you when you get here Lynn.”

“Yeah. Thanks. Bye, Nicci. OH! Nicci?”

“Yes. I’m still here.”

“See if Mr. Bear is available. If so, then get him to meet the plane along with George.”

“Mr. Bear?”

“Yes. Uh, Bill... Bill… Uh...” I had to pause to think a moment, “William Capplemann.”

“Ah. Okay. I take it Mr. Bear is Cathy’s name for him?”

“Yes. She’ll recognize him and trust him. I need to grab everything. See you in about twenty minutes or so, if I don’t get any tickets for speeding.”

“Okay. I’ll let Ralph know. Bye... Mommy.”

I gave her a soft growl as we hung up the phones then I rushed in the direction of the locker room only to halt just after leaving the lobby so I could return to grab my skates which I’d left on the counter top in my haste to get moving. I rushed off again to grab my things out of my locker, slip on my shoes, booties and fur jacket then in less than five minutes I was in my car pulling out of the lot slipping and sliding a lot more than was necessary since I was unconsciously trying to hurry.

Fourteen minutes and what seemed like forever later I was at the office. I picked up a police cruiser during my rush but it was only a few seconds later that he dropped his lights and fell back allowing me to continue my semi-panicked drive without incident. I learned later that Ralph had contacted the city PD and let them know we might have a large number of operatives rushing around for an hour or so due to a National Emergency which, of course, was classified so he couldn’t tell them much of anything about it for the moment. If we hadn’t had the rapport with the city PD that we did, they probably would have ignored him and stopped us all. They were understandably concerned about the idea of an Emergency and wanted to know how it might affect them but he told his contact that we would update them as soon as possible after he handed them a list of license plate numbers of those who would likely be seen rushing around. That little half-truth was both good news and bad since now we would need to come up with a plausible explanation for them which wouldn’t get them all up in arms while still sounding sufficiently serious. I figured I’d leave that up to Ralph to solve since he was the one who came up with the idea, after all.

When I arrived at the office, I attempted to rush right in but quickly opted for ‘slower is safer’ when I slipped and almost fell on a patch of ice. I sped up a little once I was inside gaining a few looks of confusion from people coming to work in the other businesses in the building. I burst through the doors into our lobby throwing a “Good Morning” out to our receptionist as I flew past while rushing into the working area of our floor just before I came to a landing in front of Nicci’s desk.

“Okay, Nicci, I’m here. What’s the ETA for Cathy and when do we talk with James?”

She checked the clock, “Forty-five to fifty minutes, give or take the five. George is out on that Milwaukee assignment but “Mr. Bear” was available. He was only about twenty minutes from the office when I told him to turn around and go to the airport. He should arrive shortly before their plane. I gave him the information and warned him about the guard. He has his own car though so if you want to send a limo we’ll need to have a newbie drive it.”

“Yes, do that. They and their luggage won’t all fit in just one vehicle. That way there will be two vehicles there and Bill can act as the chase car with two of the guard riding with him. Call him back to give him that information and get his mileage from him so we can reimburse him for the use of his car from wherever he was when you diverted him until they all get to the office. Wait a minute.”

I had just seen one of the newbies walk into the office, “What’s your name and do you have an assignment at the moment?”

“I, er, no. I just came in to see when my next assignment was to start. Oh. I’m Tony... er, Anthony.”

“Okay, Tony ‘er’ Anthony. We have an urgent assignment coming down for a few hours to a day or so. Hang loose right here while we make some more decisions. No, wait!”

I changed my mind.

“Go to operations and get the keys from them for the limo which is just about to go in for servicing then return here. We’ll decide what’s coming down and how to handle it while you’re doing that.”

“I’m on it.”

He hurried down the hall and into another portion of our part of the building as Nicci and I continued to talk.
~ ~ ~ ~

Nicci, Ralph and I were in the conference room connected with James and Colonel Madison about five minutes after we dispatched the newbie with the limo to his airport destination and the rendezvous with Mr. Bear and Cathy.

“James?”

“Lynnette? Has Cathy arrived yet?”

“No. She should be landing soon though and we will have a limo and chase car there or they will be there soon after she arrives. Now I want more information about this attack. Where did it happen and who did it?”

“You can’t discuss this, Mr. Thompson.”

“Excuse me, who said that?”

“This is Colonel Madison. No information about this can be discussed with people who haven’t been cleared by my command; certainly not with a civilian agency.”

“Then I suggest you better have your people get in contact with my command in Ft. Meade, Colonel. And I mean, right now.”

“Who do you think you are?”

“Someone who probably has more security clearances than you do; and someone who most certainly has connections to more clout than your command would ever want to see. James has my special contacts number and I’m dialing them right now.”

I picked up a clear line on the phone in front of me and began dialing.

“Please notify your command so they can clear my people and we can both get on with our jobs.”

“You act like military.”

“If we have to be.” I answered as the phone began to ring.

“What does that mean?”

“We have some heavy governmental connections both to the civil and the military sides of government. We aren’t some little civilian agency which has no clue. We are a world-wide organization and as such are connected to all aspects of this and other countries governments. I can’t tell you more than that because I don’t know if you are cleared for it.”

I figured a little fib about our widespread involvement was worth any flack I would get from Lucy over it.

The Colonel grunted, “Touche.”

I began to talk with the person who answered my call even as the Colonel continued to talk, apparently to James.

“Okay, give me the number and I’ll have it checked out. Meanwhile only the minimum information can be told to them.”

James piped up, “Remember I told you I was sending Cathy to her mother? This is her, and she is probably more security minded than you are. Here, this is the number for your people to call and the contact name.”

“That’s an AutoVon number. General... Uh, huh. Okay, Let me have this checked out in a hurry.”

We could hear some sort of background noise and talking then the Colonel was back, “Okay, I need to go talk with one of my officers. Be careful what you say but go ahead. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Again there was some sort of background noise picked up by the teleconference equipment as it ratcheted up its audio gain. Apparently the Colonel left the room since moments later James began to tell us a little more about the attacks.

“There were four people who tried to kidnap Cathy. Six more hit us as we were driving from the office to a meeting I was to attend this morning. That happened about... an hour and forty minutes ago. I put Cathy on the plane less than an hour after the attacks. All I could think of was getting her away from here and I knew you could offer her the best protection. I’ll have my people talk with your people to arrange for billing for her protection. Whatever it takes, just keep her safe, okay?”

“You know I will, James.”

“I know...” he said very quietly. “When she arrives, she will have one of the copies of her medical records, birth certificate, and so on in an envelope which she has been told to give to Mommy. In it you will find a paper which will grant you the right to make medical and other decisions regarding her. I hope you won’t need it.”

“James?..”

“If something happens to me then I want you to take over. She needs a mommy.”

“James!” This was a shock.

“There’s more. The attacks weren’t just on me and my family. They targeted my vice presidents and their families as well. Three of them are dead and the fourth is badly injured. A number of their family members are in the hospital or dead as well. This was well planned and coordinated so you better prepare for the worst. I don’t know that they will come after Cathy again but they might. It has a lot to do with something I can’t talk about, even if you do turn out to have the clearances necessary for it. We...”

He paused as if to think before he continued, “They hit the business here at the same time. They got in but didn’t gain access to anything important. By the time we got here they were gone and this place was a mess. The area which was in use for the job is still secure - barely. We can’t get in yet. The Army is going to blow the security doors so we can check in there. I won’t be certain until we get inside but I don’t believe they got through the doors so that would mean all the data is safe.”

He paused again then continued. I could hear his voice choke up, “Keep her safe, Lynn. Please. Keep her safe. I’ve got to go. There’s a lot to do and I need to be certain all my work has been protected. Thanks, Lynn. I hope to see you at Christmas.”

“James, stay in contact with us... James... James? Damn!”

I pounded the top of the conference room table. The connection was still there but even as I was talking we could hear the sound of a chair being moved and moments later a door opened and closed in the background as the amplifier gradually ratcheted up its gain again like they do whenever there are no louder sounds to be heard.

I turned to Nicci who was just getting off the phone.

“When will the guys reach the airport?”

“Bill is there. He just arrived. The plane hasn’t landed yet.”

“And the limousine?”

“Uh, should be about ten minutes out, maybe less. Bill said Anthony is a bit of a lead-foot so it might be earlier.”

I smiled as line five began to ring; that was the line my agents used when they reported in and the one Nicci had just been talking on. Nicci picked it up again. After a quick conversation she hung up and turned toward us, “Bill says he can see the Gulfstream on approach and the limo is just pulling through the gates. They’re both early; excellent timing though.”

“I think I better go change into something more appropriate. If I’m going to be hosting some military presence then I think we should get off to a proper start right away. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“Okay, Lynn. Do you want me to let Ralph know to change?”

“No. I think if everyone else is dressed down it will have more impact. Be right back.”

I turned and walked out of the conference room returning to my office to collect the one uniform I kept there for emergencies. Forty-Five minutes later the five Army personnel, Cathy and my two agents arrived. The Lieutenant saw a major waiting for him and properly reported even though moments after Cathy saw me, I had a small child clinging to my legs. She was holding a large manila envelope which appeared to be well stuffed.

“Mommy, Daddy said to give this to you.” She held up the envelope and something shifted in it nearly causing her to drop it.

“Thank you, baby. Did you make any drawings for me to put on the refrigerator?”

“Yes. But they burned up.”

“Burned up?”

“Uh-huh. When the house burned down and Nanna told me we had to get out. That’s when the bad men hurt Nanna. Is Nanna all right?”

“I don’t know, sweetheart. We’ll find out later. Come on. Let’s go to the conference room for a few minutes. Gentlemen, would you come with us please?” I said to the Army personnel as well as to my own two agents.

“Ral... Captain Caruthers, would you come in with us, please?”

Ralph was still in civilian garb but he nodded his head and started for the conference room.

“Nicci, you too.” I added. She grabbed her steno pad and followed Ralph into the large room where she went over to turn on the recording system after dropping her steno pad at her usual seat located at the mid-point of the inboard side of the table.

As we were going to the conference room I asked Cathy why she didn’t have Rebecca with her.

“Rebecca burned up in the fire. The fire man couldn’t come put out the fire because he was helping Daddy put out the fire at his work. Nanna tried to hide me but when the house was burning we ran out the back door and the bad men hurt her.”

“How did you get away, sweetheart?”

She pointed to two of the Army personnel, “they came when I was running. They shot the bad men, it was scary. One of the bad men was a policeman. Another policeman came and they said he was a good policeman then they took me to Daddy in a car with a siren. I had to hold my ears until they turned it off. Daddy said maybe more bad men would come so he was going to send me to stay with you because the bad men couldn’t be bad around you.”

“Thank you, Baby. Would you sit over here next to me while I talk with everyone and then we’ll go home.”

“Okay. Can we have a pizza?”

I smiled at her, “Maybe, sweetheart. I’ll see.”

I engaged the sonic protection before I began talking. That would make it very difficult for anyone outside to understand anything said in here. We could hear a buzz coming from the windows which indicated that part of the protection was working. We didn’t want to stay in here too long as the low but audible sound would eventually give us all a headache. I noticed Cathy moved and when I looked at her she had her fingers in her ears.

“It’s noisy.” She scowled as I nodded my head since she still had her fingers in her ears.

The military personnel presented no problem. Their Lieutenant surmised he was dealing with some sort of intelligence group since the personnel were dressed as civilians and we took what seemed to him to be some strange precautions before talking about things. It was to our advantage to allow him to continue to think like that and, in a way, he was right. His orders were to remain with his men as escort to Cathy but I added three of my own agents into the mix anyway introducing them as lieutenants as well which didn’t make his enlisted personnel feel any better. That was all they needed, a detail that was officer top heavy.

I turned more toward them than their lieutenant, “I think you’ll find we spend less time on protocol than we do on obtaining results, so if you can all just relax into this we will be able to accomplish much more. Did any of you bring civilian clothing with you?”

The lieutenant answered my question, “We really didn’t have much time to prepare, Ma’am. I’m afraid when the Colonel sent the word down for us to jump, the only questions we had time for were ‘how high’ and ‘which direction’?”

“Okay. Then in a couple of hours or less we will go to the mall and you can all select civilian clothing... several changes plus some good winter coats and boots and whatever toiletries you might need — toothbrush, shaving kit, and so on. If you’re going to be spending extended time here then you will need to fit in with my people. We will foot the bill since it wasn’t your fault you didn’t bring any clothing with you.”

“I think we can do that, Ma’am.”

“Then the first thing you all need to learn is to call me Lynn, or Lynnette. Not ma’am or major. Remember to pretend you’re civilians for the time being.”

“I think we can handle that, ma... Lynn.”

“Good. It will probably be easier once we have you in civilian clothing. So long as you remain dressed in military uniforms you’ll stand out like sore thumbs and if we wind up being targeted then you would likely be the first ones down. Dressed like civilians you stand a better chance of living since whoever the attackers are will figure you are not so much of a threat. We will also lock your weapons away in our armory and issue you others which fit in a bit better with the civilian/ mercenary role and which will allow us to all share similar ammunition. Don’t worry, they will be just as effective as your present weapons and we will return your weapons to you when you are ready to return to your command.”

The phone took that moment to buzz and Nicci picked it up.

She held the receiver out to me, “Lynn? Lucy.”

I raised my head, a question forming on my forehead then I nodded to her and went to the phone. After a conversation which lasted less than five minutes, we hung up.

“Nicci. Place the entire available staff on alert. Send eight to my home and have them sweep for anyone on the property then check both the vehicles and inside the house and garage. Look for any kind of incendiaries as well. Have another team check and then hold house ‘C’. That way we have somewhere to fall back to if it becomes necessary. If we must, pull one man away from each of our larger deployments and bring them back here to flesh out our numbers here. Check the board and call in everyone you can. Anything which begins in one week or less is to be considered as already deployed. Everyone else at least helps out here until the day before their deployment is scheduled. I know that still won’t be too many for our needs here but we do need the strongest presence we can assemble. Have someone sample for those who are on vacation and get them back here if they can do so. We will reschedule vacations at their convenience later and anyone who comes in early gets a free ride for an extra five days vacation time. We also need to have someone here at the office to receive calls twenty-four hours a day for the interim. Rotating shifts will work.”

“I’m on it, Lynn.” She picked up the phone as she opened a notebook then dialed and began to quietly speak into it in a rush to get things under way while I continued with the army people.

“Well, Lieutenant. It seems you and your men have been tossed into the deep end of the pool.”

They all looked at each other for a few seconds before his sergeant smiled, “So... ma... Lynn; what else is new?”

I smiled at him and he turned slightly red as he smiled back.

~ ~ ~ ~

I had one of the men from my detail plus one of the soldiers ride in my car with Cathy and myself while the others rode in the limo or one of our chase cars. We all converged on my home where, of course, there was a couple of inches of snow on the ground. I hoped it would be gone by tomorrow, if not then winter was showing its face a little early. We normally shouldn’t be seeing this much snow stick until late December. Per usual, the roads had been lightly salted and the scrapers had come by, making the public sidewalk nearly impassable or at least unsafe.

As was starting to become my habit, I clicked on the breakers to thaw my walks, the driveway and the public walk once again. The batteries were down a bit so I put all four generators into the fray since there wasn’t a lot of wind out there; I prayed for at least some wind to come up in the next half hour or I would have wasted the energy I was using to defrost the generators. The guys who would staff the command center could keep an eye on the generators and make certain if the wind made it up to over ten miles an hour that one of the generators would be shut down; two, if it became necessary. If they missed it then the automatics would take care of it later but if I left it up to the automatics they sometimes boiled off some of the water in the batteries before they did so. I hoped someday soon they could come up with better batteries than those huge automobile type things, lead-acid was a huge waste of space and a difficult weight to work with. It would be nice to have some kind of chemical reaction available which didn’t include the need to add distilled water every few days to a week.

After checking with the team that had examined my house and grounds we all trooped in. I started the coffee pot and offered everyone coffee before the inspection team took off to check out and occupy our number three safe house. At that point I went upstairs to change, making a mental note to take another clean uniform into work tomorrow. A very subdued Cathy followed me of course. She kept trying to decide what to do with her hands. I guess missing Rebecca was beginning to take its toll. Once I felt human I moved her from sitting on my bed to sitting on my lap over in the chair where we would usually sit to chat.

“Mommy, will Daddy be okay?”

“I think so, sweetheart. There are a lot of people there to make certain he stays all right.”

“Mommy, I’m scared. There are bad men and... I’m too little to help Daddy. I don’t want them to take my Daddy away.”

“Neither do I, Cathy. That’s why I sent some men to help your Daddy.”

She nodded her head, “Good. Daddy has a gun but he never shot anyone. Is it hard to shoot someone?”

“It isn’t hard, sweetheart; but sometimes the reasons aren’t enough to allow it. We can’t just go around shooting people because we think they’re bad. It must be proven first and even then that isn’t always enough. There are people who are a little bit bad and people who are a whole lot bad. We can’t treat them all the same.”

“Why?”

Oh boy. Were we already at the ‘why?’ stage?

“Well... the people who are a little bad can usually be helped not to be bad any more. Then because they’re not bad any more they can help everyone else. It isn’t always right to shoot someone because we think they are bad.
What if you saw a man shoot another man? Would we immediately shoot him? If we waited, we might have learned that he was an undercover policeman who only shot a man who had killed a lot of people. We can’t judge someone because of just one action we see.”

“I can. What about Nanna? The bad men shot Nanna.”

“Well, I agree that Nanna usually doesn’t do anything bad enough to be shot. The man might have thought she was doing something bad when she wasn’t. In that case his shooting her might have been a mistake. Then that would mean he wasn’t a bad man. He made a mistake which hurt Nanna but he might not have meant to do so.”

“Oh...” Cathy took that information and was mentally chewing on it, trying to make it digestible. After a minute or two she had still not said anything and when I quietly checked she was fast asleep leaning against me, her day having proven to be very draining and now that she felt safe it was okay to take a nap.

I took her to the room she had stayed in the last time she was here and helped her to prepare for a nap before I tucked her into bed to sleep again.

“Maybe a little later we’ll go to the store and you can pick out a new Rebecca, okay?”

“Okay. Can she be named Jackie?”

“She can be named whatever you want, baby. Do you want to borrow my Andy?”

She shook her head no but frowned and looked for something to do with her hands again.

“He’ll be lonely. You know he likes it when you’re here.”

She thought about that for a few moments, “Okay. He’s been lonely all day hasn’t he?”

“Yes. He usually has to wait a lot longer before I get home and go to bed. If he knew you were here and I didn’t let him see you then he would be upset. We don’t want him to be upset do we?”

She shook her head ‘no’ again.

“I’ll go get Andy and be right back. Stay there.”

She smiled and settled back in the bed.

I went to my room and picked up the Teddy Bear she had named Andy the last time she had been here. When I returned and gave him to her she settled down a lot. Now her hands had something to do.

During the short time she had been gone with her father, I had purchased a new robe and slippers for her which I now moved from the closet to lay out on a nearby chair.

“When you wake up, put these on before you come downstairs. Remember to hold the banister so you don’t fall but still be careful as you go down. I’m going to take the envelope your Daddy sent so I can see what he put in it. Sweet dreams, Cathy.” I kissed her forehead as she gave me a small hug then latched onto Andy again. I went out but left the door open so she could more easily hear the voices of everyone who were downstairs .

When I arrived at the living room, I found the guys talking and drinking coffee. Someone had remembered the coasters but obviously couldn’t find them so they substituted several layers of napkins for everyone. I went to the dining room hutch where I retrieved the coasters to hand to each of them.

“Any particular marching orders, Lynn?”

“Not yet. We don’t have enough information yet. We hope to remedy that quite soon. Would one of you have the guys in the command center activate the camera in Cathy’s room so they can keep an eye on her. She might not remember where she is when she wakes up and I don’t want her to panic.”

One of my people got up and left the room. Now it was time to see what the troops knew about all this, if anything.

~ ~ ~ ~

It didn’t take long to learn they didn’t have a clue and were surprised they were escorting a child to her mother. To them it didn’t make any sense so I enlightened them with what information we had managed to glean despite the Colonel’s insistence that we not be told anything. Granted, what we knew wasn’t much more than what they knew so we were all feeling like mushrooms. They suspected I knew more than I was saying and I was wishing I did as well but ‘dems de breaks’. Hopefully Lucy’s group would learn something worthwhile and pass it on to us. It was a little difficult to do our job without any background knowledge at all. Three hours later we received a call forwarded from our office.

“Is this Major Stevens?”

“Just a moment.” One of my agents replied.

“Would you please have him stand by for a conference call from Colonel Madison and Colonel Jackson?”

“Her. And yes, I will. Sixty seconds while I go tell her there’s a call on the secure line.”

“Thank you.”

As soon as the agent informed me I had a call in the command room I broke off from the ongoing conversation and rushed to the call. He pointed to the secure handset which caused me to raise my eyebrows a moment so he pointed again.

“Two Colonels calling for you.”

Two? That had me puzzled. One I could understand since Lucy would probably be calling after talking with that Colonel Madison but who could the other... Of course, Madison might still be on the line and Lucy wants me in on the call.

“Major Stevens.”

“One moment for us to connect... All right, go ahead.”

“This is Major Stevens.”

“Major, this is Colonel Jackson. Colonel Madison is also on the line. How much do you know about this situation?”

“Well Ma’am. Not a lot. We understand there have been a minimum of five, perhaps six attacks and they were well coordinated. There have been a number of casualties including the vice-presidents of James’ company and the Nanny for Cathy. Cathy has arrived here and we have a team in residence which includes the five personnel Colonel Madison sent along with Cathy. As to the reason for the attacks, well... That’s still a little hazy since all we have been able to piece together is that there is some sort of government project involved and Mr. Thompson’s company is the one responsible for development of the software the government is or will be using. I have four of my operatives at Mr. Thompson’s company and four more due to arrive at any moment; in fact they might already be in town. We also have an armored limo on its way to his location. I have called for increased awareness here across the board, but that’s the extent of what we have done since we don’t have enough information to do much of anything else.”

“That’s good so far. I’ve informed Colonel Madison of your company’s special qualifications and he will arrange to have us both updated as his investigation continues. Do you have anything to say Colonel?”

“Just a little. If you want more personnel, Major, just let me know. I can send you whatever you need up to and including four companies. Sorry if I came off a bit condescending earlier but I didn’t know your background.

Apparently the Joint Chiefs are aware of both your company’s cover and its clandestine foreign operations whenever necessary but as you said in our prior conversation, I might not have sufficient clearance to be much more than aware. I do, by the way, but didn’t need to know until today. From what I’ve learned in the last two hours you do very well with the very limited number of personnel at your disposal. We captured several weapons during the shoot-outs and if you want a report or to actually see one of them that can be arranged. They’re pretty quiet but have a limited accurate range, probably something along the order of fifty to a hundred yards. Unfortunately, within that range they are pretty deadly. If you have tactical vests then my people would recommend using them.”

“I see. What about rate of fire and munitions capacity?”

“Rate of fire seems to max out at something along the order of a hundred fifty rounds a minute and their magazines hold close to two hundred fifty rounds. On single shot they are capable of penetrating completely through the person or any light armor they hit. Their penetration ability seems to diminish with the increase in rate of fire which strangely seems to be linearly variable.”

“Excuse me Sir. Did you say two hundred fifty rounds?”

“That’s correct. These are not powder actuated weapons. The projectiles are fairly long but quite thin. Almost like thick needles and they are not lead based.”

“If you don’t mind I’d like to see any report that is generated concerning these weapons, Sir.”

“I’ll make certain you’re copied. I’ve been given your AutoDin address.”

“Thank you. Anything else or can I go ahead and issue orders for my people to start wearing their vests?”

“I think that covers it for now. Colonel Jackson?”

“Lynn, be careful out there. Call if anything strange seems to be happening. There is something more to this than I’m prepared to tell you at the moment. I’ll be getting back to you either later today or early tomorrow to fill you in a bit more but for now...”

“I understand, Ma’am. Thank you. I’ll see you receive periodic updates from our end. By the way; for the duration of this situation I have ordered our headquarters command center here to be manned twenty-four, seven. If it becomes necessary to quickly reach someone who can make command decisions, Captain Caruthers or I will be available nearly on a moment’s notice.”

“Good - Lynn, Colonel Madison.”

“Ladies. Good luck.”

“Thank you, Sir.”

“Thanks, Bill. I’ll call you tomorrow with anything we can find out.”

“Good. I’ll talk with you this afternoon, Lucy. Once we have more information.”

I hung up my phone and began to digest what I had been told. I didn’t really know any more than I had except for some basic intel about the type of weapons used. How could you have a machine gun that didn’t use explosive powder to propel the projectiles, or that could be relatively silent without using a silencer?

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  © 2013 USA, Earth by D. A.Trask.

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