Oakland, California:
Bella couldn’t believe how stupid some of these gang members of the Los Zetas gang were. She followed them back to their processing warehouse and was listening in on their conversation. It was a good thing it was nighttime because she blended in with the area. She listens to several of the gang members as they loaded a box truck with five-gallon buckets of strawberry syrup.

All week she has been tracking different members and learning all sorts of secrets from them. She knew where several of their processing houses were and where they were storing their money. She also knew where some of their lieutenants and leader lived. She learned their leader had two women he frequents.

She reaches over and scratches Lobo between his ears. Ever since Julia helped fake her death, after testifying against one of the Los Zetas members, a year and a half ago. She has been busy learning as much as she could about survival and becoming like Julia.

She even trained Lobo, who was part wolf and part German Shepherd to sniff out drugs and attack people with hand gestures and voice commands. She found Lobo when she took a wilderness survival course. His mother, the German Shepherd had been injured and couldn’t take care of him. He and his two other brothers were the only three that had survived. She managed to find a nice home for Lobo’s two brothers, while she kept him and trained him.

“Lobo, stay here.” Bella sneaks over to the box truck and slips a GPS tracker onto it.

She noticed there was another one already attached to the frame of the truck, so the gang could keep track of it. She just shakes her head, as she sneaks back to Lobo. She knew the box truck was going to be leaving soon. She had no idea where it was heading, but she knew it was leaving tonight with a load of drugs and weapons.

“Come on Lobo, let's follow the truck and find out where it is going.” Bella walks back where her custom Jeep Wrangler Rubicon was parked.

She opens the door for Lobo to jump inside. Once he was inside the Rubicon, she gets into the Rubicon and bring the computer screen online. She watches as the GPS tracker comes online.

“Okay, let's find out where you are going.” Bella watches as the box truck pulls away from the loading dock of the warehouse.

She gives it a good head start before she starts following it. She spots it several cars ahead of her as they head towards the interstate. Bella wonders where it was traveling too. She reaches over and pets Lobo.

“Where do you think they are going, boy?” Bella glances at Lobo in the passenger seat.

She was glad she filled the tank up on her Rubicon. After five hours they were leaving California. Bella had the cruise control engaged and kept a good distance back to avoid being spotted. She wonders how far they were going to go.

After seven hours of driving, Bella notices they were in Nevada. Halfway through Nevada, she watches as the box truck pulls into a gas station. She pulls in on the other side of an Rv and uses it for cover.

“Lobo, stay here.” She heads inside the store of the gas station and looks for anyone that might be a member of the gang she is tracking. She
spots two guys she saw get in the box truck.

She continues to watch them as they pick out snacks and drinks. She picks up a few items and a couple of Slim Jim’s for Lobo since he likes them. She accidentally bumps into one of the guys.

“I’m so sorry. I must have slipped on something.” Bella slips a listening device into his pocket while he was distracted.

“It’s alright. Accidents happen.” Nicolás didn’t mind the cute girl bumping into him.

“Thank you.” Bella stands in line behind him. She watches as he leaves the store.

Bella pays for her purchases and heads back outside to her Jeep. She fills the tank so she could keep following the truck. Once her tank is filled, she waits until the box truck gets a good distance away, before following it some more.

She tunes her Jeep’s stereo to the frequency the listening device operated on and listens to them. They were speaking in Spanish, which she understood. The guy she bumped into mentions her and how he would like to bang her. His partner's joke he would have to share with her if he did.

“He wishes he could bang me, Lobo. Mother’s little helper would make sure he doesn’t want to have a dick anymore.” Bella unwraps a Slim Jim and gives it to Lobo.

Lobo takes the meaty treat from Bella’s fingers. He makes sure not to nip her fingers as he takes them.

“That’s a good boy.” Bella ruffles his fur.

For the next eight hours, Bella continues to follow the truck. She is surprised when they enter Montana. She covers up a yawn as she tries to stay awake. For the past fifteen and half hours, she has followed this box truck from Oakland, California and now they were in Montana.

The truck finally pulls into the parking lot of a Feed Store and backs up to the loading dock. She parks somewhere, where she could take pictures. She gets her camera out and takes pictures of them unloading the truck.

Bella stays until they finish unloading the truck. She could hear the men talking about something, but there was static, and she was only getting half of the conversation. She does manage to hear Julia’s name and something about her costing them money. One of the guys she has been following tells the boss here. That the big boss wanted her eliminated.

He assures the guy that things are in motion to eliminate her and her damn wolf. That she has pissed off several other gangs in the area and that she is going to be dealt with.

“Do you hear that, Lobo? Someone is dumb enough to go after Mrs. Bounty and her wolf. They must have a death warrant.” Bella has seen what that wolf of Julia’s could do, and it wasn’t pretty.

Even Lobo wasn’t as built as Mrs. Bounty’s wolves. They would eat Lobo for breakfast. She figures that the box truck will stay for at least a day. She searches the area for a nice area to hide and sleep in for a while. She’s been up for the last thirty hours, and she was getting tired.
She knew Lobo would want to get out and stretch his legs and use the bathroom as well.

Bella finds an abandoned barn that no one was using. She backs her Rubicon in it and gets out to stretch her legs and to let Lobo do his business. She steps out of the barn and lets Lobo roam for a while. Now she knew why they were in Montana. They were setting up another drug location.

The thing was, they were doing it in Julia Bounty’s backyard. Which was stupid, because Mrs. Bounty had a way of finding drug dealers and putting them out of business. She looks at the farmland around her. The landscape was a lot different than Los Angeles, California.

She could see why Mrs. Bounty liked it so much. Plus, Mrs. Bounty’s family was located up here. Which reminds her. She’s going to need to find Mrs. Bounty and let her know what is going on in her backyard.

Once Lobo does his business. Bella takes him back into the barn and puts him in the Rubicon. She rolls the windows down some, as she reclines the driver-side seatback. She sets the alarm on her cellphone to wake her in six hours. She closes her eyes and drifts off to sleep in no time. She knows if there is an intruder, Lobo will wake her.

When she wakes up six hours later. She notices it's late in the afternoon. She had to pee and was feeling a little hungry as well. She gets out of the Rubicon and finds an area where she can squat and pee. There are times she missed having a penis for times like this, but after Mrs. Bounty disguised her as a girl to hide in plain sight. She knew she never wanted to go back to being a male again.

It had been a life-changing experience. Sure, she use to get excited when she handled women's lingerie and undergarments. But she never knew it wasn’t a sexual thing, but how she loved how it felt against her skin and how it made her feel.

She had always thought the reason she loved women's lingerie and undergarments, was because it was sexual urges. However, that wasn’t the case, she learned it was how she felt. How she always denied how she felt while wearing the clothes. How her mother, father, and other male relatives forced her to accept the fact she was a male.

Once she was done peeing, she takes some tissue out of her pocket and wipe herself. Ever since she took the survival course. She’s learned to keep some supplies on her. She pulls her black skintight jeans up and straightens them.

She spots Lobo coming back to the barn, after doing what he needed to do. She grabs some of his food from a hidden container in the Rubicon and fills a bowl with it and freshwater.

“Here you go, boy. Bon appetite.” As she sets the bowls on the ground.

She opens a box of granola bars and takes two out. She grabs a bottle of water to drink while she eats and watches Lobo eat. While Bella watches Lobo eat, she wonders what her next move should be.

Should she go and tell Mrs. Bounty what is going on or gather more evidence of what they were doing in the feed store? She takes a bite of her granola bar thinks about it. She needed to find out what was inside the feed store.

She looks at Lobo “I think I’m going to pay a visit to that feed store, tonight.”

Lobo just looks up from his food at his human. He starts wagging his tail because that meant he gets to have fun. He loved when his human did things like this.

Bella and Lobo scout the area around the feed store. She finds a place she could hide her Rubicon that wasn’t too far from the feed store. While she is waiting for night to come. She changes out of the clothes she is wearing and puts on her Ninja Assassin suit.

She picked the suit up at a costume shop, but this one has had some modifications done to it. While she was studying to learn how to fight and protect herself. She met an old cranky man that had grown disenchanted with people. His sons never visited him, and he was just a lonely man.

She started visiting him and spending time with him. Over the months, she develop a friendship and that’s when she discovered his secret. He used to work for the Chinese government as an agent. His family had an ancient tradition that went back for centuries and none of his sons wanted to keep the tradition alive. They had become too American and enjoyed their fortunes. So, she begged and pleaded with him to teach her. That way his family tradition wouldn’t be lost to history. He finally relented and took her under his wing, until he died.

A tear slides down her cheek, as the memory of his death hits her. If there was someone that meant a lot to her, it was him. He may have been hard in teaching her, but she misses him. The things she learned from him were priceless.

Bella moves quietly towards the fed store from the rear of the building. She had picked that as her entry point. She was also glad that there wasn’t any moon out tonight. She manages to get close to the building.

The entrance she had scouted out, was from the roof. There was a small house shape building with a window she could sneak in through. She takes her climbing rope out and tosses it up onto the roof. She hears it hit and pull on it, to dig the hook into the roof tiles.

She gives it one more tug before climbing up the side. She knew Lobo was nearby patrolling the grounds around the feed store. She gets to the roof and moves over to the small window and pry it open. She figured since the gang was out in the country, they wouldn’t need so much security.

She manages to get down to the area where the gang was processing the drugs. She takes pictures of the place. She looks around some more and lets out a whistle at how many weapons they had stored her. They had weapons, ammo, and military-grade weapons as well.
She takes pictures of everything in the room. The gang here also had blocks of C-4, Russian-made RPGs, grenades, Claymores, wooden crates of 9K113 Konkurs missile system, some crates of weapons called ShAK-12, AK-74M, and several crates of VKS sniper rifles.

“Why do they need all this firepower?” She couldn’t believe how many weapons there were in the warehouse.

She does some more scouting and finds the cash they had on hand. A smile appears on her face because she was going to reimburse herself from their cash. She already knew what weapons she was going to take with her. However, she needed to know why they had so many weapons.

There were only a few guys there protecting the place. She pulls out a blow gun and knocks them out with a fast-acting sleeping dart. She strips them of whatever weapons they have. She also copies their cellphones. They had so many cellphones that looked stolen and several store-bought burner phones as well.

She looks through the cellphones contact list to see what numbers were in it. She didn’t recognize any of the names or initials. She manages to grabs some of the money, weapons, and ammo. The money she needed, because in the eyes of the government she didn’t exist anymore.
She leaves the feed and seed store and take her booty to her Jeep and store it. She figures the money she took, she had at least two hundred thousand dollars on her. She knows the shit is going to hit the fan when they discover the money gone.

The next day when the leader and his people come back to work. She was right as the guys she knocked out, are killed. She had gone back in after taking what she did and rigged the place with miniature cameras, listening devices. Her Jeep allowed her to monitor cell signals coming and going from the feed store.

She takes pictures of everyone coming and going from the place. One day while she is monitoring the place. A guy that wasn’t Latino or Mexican and was dressed in a nice business suit shows up. She takes a few pictures of him.

“Now, who are you?” She listens to the conversation going on between him and the leader, who she learned was named Alonso.

“What brings you here, Mr. Soghanalian?” Alonso was concerned because his partner never showed up unless there was a problem.

“Nothing is wrong. I’m giving you and your men the go, to take Mrs. Bounty out. Since I don’t want her death connected to any of the weapons here. I’m having weapons brought in for you to use to kill her. I want you to make an example of her.” Pierre didn’t want any of the weapons he sold to be associated with her death.

“What type of weapons are you sending me and my men.” Alonso wanted to know.

“I have a shipment of AR-15s coming along with grenades and two Carl-Gustaf recoilless rifles. Mrs. Bounty is rumored to drive around in an armored SUV. You’ll need the recoilless rifle to penetrate the armor.”

“Why don’t we use the RPGs?” Alonso didn’t know anything about this new weapon.

“Because the recoilless rifle is more powerful, and it will make a good example of what I can provide.” There was another reason Pierre wanted them to use it.

“When do you what us to attack her?” Alonso knew it was hard to predict when and where Mrs. Bounty was.

“I’ll call you. I have a source in her police precinct keeping an eye on her.” Pierre knew his source wanted her gone.

“Alright. When is your shipment expected to arrive?”

“They will be flown in tomorrow night around midnight. I’ll need for you to meet the plane at the airfield and bring them here.”

“Okay, I’ll have my guys there to meet the plane.” Alonso didn’t mind doing this job.

“Good, the next time I hear from you. I want to hear that Julia Bounty is dead along with her wolves as well.” Pierre wanted her dead.

“You do know that she is the daughter of Jack Bounty.” Alonso knew who Jack Bounty was. His crew tried hard not to draw his attention.

“He’s not the target, his cop daughter is. If he comes looking for who killed her. Then we will kill the rest of his family. He can’t protect them all.” Pierre has heard the rumors about Mr. Bounty, and he figures the man was approaching seventy years old by now.

“You might be right. I’ve gathered information on the rest of his family and their daily routine. The hardest person you’ll have is getting to his wife. She hardly ever leave their ranch.”

“That won’t be a problem. I know a group that specializes in unique situations. Now, just meet the plane tomorrow night.” Pierre couldn’t let any of this get out.

Bella was shocked as she listened to the conversation. Whoever this guy was, he wanted Julia dead and if her father started looking into her murder. Then he would come after the whole family.

She was conflicted about what she should do. Should she warn Julia or keep surveilling this gang and the weapons coming in? She makes sure she gets plenty of pictures of the guy as he leaves. She needs to find out who he was. She did notice he had a European accent.

She looks over at Lobo “what should we do, Lobo? Stay and keep surveilling these guys or inform Mrs. Bounty?”

Lobo just looks at Bella. He had no idea what she was saying.

“Right, stay and keep surveilling these guys.” As much as she hated doing this, she knew it was the right thing to do. All she knew so far was a shipment of weapons was coming in.

Bella covers up a yawn as she continues to monitor the feed and seed store. She munchies on the beef jerky and snacks she keeps the Rubicon stocked with. She had some military MRE’s, but they were nasty.

“Looks like we’re spending another night at the barn again, Lobo.” Bella reaches over and ruffles Lobo’s fur.

Once everyone leaves the feed and seed warehouse. Bella visits it again and steals some more stuff. This time she moves more carefully and leaves behind surprises when she needs them. She does steal a few taco’s the guys were eating. They smelled so good, and she was still a little hungry.

Bella heads back to her rubicon and takes refuge in the barn again. She stands outside of the barn watching Lobo as he did his business. What was she going to do about the weapons coming in tomorrow night?

Should she allow them to come in and not blow them up? Or should she just blow them up?” She watches Lobo as he chases a rabbit.

“You and your fascination with rabbits.” She just watches Lobo have his fun with the rabbit.

After a while, Lobo catches the rabbit and eats it. Bella just shakes her head. She won’t have to feed him tonight. She whistles for him after he finishes his meal.

When he comes to her, she kneels and looks at him “you didn’t save anything for me.”

Lobo just wags his tail. He licks his muzzle to get the rest of the blood off him.

“What am I going to do with you?” Bella places a kiss on his wet nose.

She stands back up and heads back to the barn to get some sleep. Tomorrow was going to be a busy day and she wanted to be well-rested. She falls asleep like she did last night in her rubicon.

When morning comes, she checks her fuel and supplies, while she listens to the men in the warehouse. She has decided that she is going to blow the warehouse up tomorrow, after the delivery of the weapons. It was the one way to make sure they couldn’t go after Julia. Also, it solved a second problem as well. It would get the drugs and other weapons off the streets.

During the morning, she watches and listens to what occurs inside the feed and seed store. The store itself was the public front for the organization up here. She watches two more box trucks come and go. One truck had a logo on the side of it for Ralph’s Chicken Ranch and the other one was kind of dirty looking.

“I wonder if they are planning on moving a lot of weapons?” Bella was curious.

Occasionally, she would get static from the feed and seed store. She tries to compensate for whatever was causing the interference.

“What is going on?” Bella knows it’s not her equipment.

Bella wonders if they have found her listening devices. She pulls her laser mic out and aims it at one of the windows. She doesn’t hear anything, except a radio playing Mexican music.

“This isn’t good, Lobo.” Bella puts her parabolic microphone away.

Bella just sits and waits until tonight. She spots the other two box trucks leave. She debates about following them but figure they might not have anything to do with the plane.

Later in the evening, the box truck she followed to Montana, leaves. The GPS tracker was still active on it. She follows the box truck to the airfield. When she arrives, she spots the other two trucks already there.

“Oh, fuck! Son of a bitch.” She watches as the box truck backs up to the plane.

“Damn! Which truck are they loading the weapons onto?” She watches because she couldn’t get any closer to them without them spotting her.
She glances back to where the RPG she took was stored.

“Well, now is better than later to use it.” Bella gets out of the driver's seat and opens the back.

She grabs the RPG and just as she takes it out and aims it at the plane. The other two box trucks started to leave. The third one that she followed looks like it was getting ready to leave. She pulls the trigger on the RPG and fires it towards the plane. The plane and the third box truck explode. She tosses the RPG and gets back into the driver seat and starts following the other two box trucks.

“Lobo, which truck should I follow?” Bella watches as both trucks turn and head in opposite directions.

Lobo growls at her.

“Right! The chicken one.” Bella floors the accelerator and chases after the box truck with the Chicken logo on the side of it.

As she gets close to it, the back door rolls up and four guys with rifles start firing at her. The bullets bounce off the armor body of the Rubicon.

“Sorry guys, but bullets down hurt this Rubicon.” She grabs a grenade from behind her and tries to get along the side of the box truck.

The guys in the truck keep firing. When they go to reload, she speeds up and engages the cruise control. She rolls the window down and tosses the grenade into the truck. She slams on the brakes, just as the back of the truck explodes.

She sits in the middle of the road and watches as the box truck explodes. A smile appears on her face “looks like someone just blew their pants.”

Bella takes several pictures of the burning box truck. When she is done, she turns the Rubicon around and goes looking for the other box truck. She wishes now that she had attached GPS trackers to those trucks.

“Where did you go?” Bella pulls over on the side of the road. She could spend days looking for it.

Bella gets out of her Rubicon and looks up and down the road, she is on. She walks a little down from her jeep. “DAMN!”

Bella walks back to her jeep and gets back in. She looks at Lobo “I think we messed up boy.”

Bella heads back to the feed and seed warehouse and doesn’t spot the box truck there. She does notice that the people were in the process of loading up a Penske rental truck.

“Sorry, guys. It’s boom, boom time.” Bella presses the remote she had for the explosives she planted.

She watches as the feed and seed store goes up. She hopes she didn’t kill any innocent people. She wasn’t going to warn anyone. She watches as the place burns and as the Penske box truck burns as well.

Bella watches as the fire department shows up to put the fire out. The police and paramedics show up as well.

“They should just let the place burn to the ground.” Bella leaves and looks for a hotel she can stay at for the night.

She finds a nearby hotel that didn’t mind pets if they were trained and not too large. She had to pay a little more, but she gets the room for two days. The room was on the ground floor. She grabs her overnight bag and head inside the room. Lobo follows behind her.

“Well, boy. I don’t know about you, but I need a bath.” She used baby wipes to clean herself, but she could start smelling herself.

She grabs the bag that contained her hygiene products and head into the bathroom. She starts filling the tub up, as she strips out of her clothes. As she is waiting for the tub to fill up. She tries to figure out where that box truck went.

Once the tub was filled. She grabs some homemade bath powder and adds it to the water. As she soaks in the tub, she concludes she should get in touch with Julia and warn her.

After Bella soaks for a while and the water starts turning cold. She gets out and rinses the tub out. She tries not to leave any of her DNA behind. Not that it would matter, she has never been arrested, but they could use it to see if she has any living relatives.

She puts an oversized shirt on and lays down in bed. She noticed that Lobo had already claimed a spot on the bed for himself.

“Goodnight, boy.” Bella turns the lights out and falls asleep.

Day of Julia’s attack:
Bella found out where Julia lived and was heading towards her place. As she was driving on the highway, on the opposite side of the one Julia was on. Traffic started slowing down from police cars and fire trucks using the highway she was on to get to the accident on the other side.
She pulls over out of traffic and notices a medical helicopter coming towards their location.

She takes her binoculars out and tries to see what was going on. She manages to see who the helicopter was there for and spots Julia and several people around her.

“Oh, no! I’m too late in warning her.” Bella felt bad because she failed to warn Julia.

“I’m going to need to find out where they are taking her.” Bella couldn’t believe she failed her. Julia saved her life and she owed her for that.

She walks back to her Rubicon and waits to be able to continue her journey to Julia’s home....

Story continues in The Heaviness Of The Badge Chp. 10