This is the second story in the universe begun in "Murder in the Holy City".

A quick twist and a spinning throw sent the net sailing from teeth and hands, hanging in air and slowly rotating as it spread to its maximum extent just before dropping into murky water with a rushing plink of small weights around the edge. Charlotte let the net sink down to mud and drew the string quickly, causing the net to purse and scoop up whatever had been beneath when it fell. She gave a quick smile as she hauled the net in and extracted several large shrimp, tossing small fish and the odd small crab back into the water. A quick swish in the brackish water to get any remaining mud off the edge of the net and she made another cast in a slightly different area.

Yves took a deep draught of his beer and resumed pulling and twitching randomly at a piece of string that led into the water, gradually reeling in the noisome chicken neck that lay at its end. “I’ll never figure out how you don’t rip a tooth out throwing that thing.”

“A cast-net? I never really thought about it that way, its just something I learned to do growing up. Its like weaving sweetgrass baskets, it just soaks into your soul somehow until you can’t imagine not knowing how to do something so primally human, you know?”

“I understand. Its just that… even back home there was nothing like this, like you here… You belong here, so completely that you seem to almost be a part of this place, formed from it. You have taught me much and I love you beyond measure, love this place as I do you and if I’m to be fully honest I am a little jealous.”

“Of what?”

Yves toyed with his string, noting a slight difference in the way it resisted that signaled a crab had latched on. “I’ve tried to figure that out. I grew up close to the land but not, really. I learned to move through it, to make use of what I found and to adapt what I knew, to survive. We even gathered quite a lot of wild foods but we still lived on the land, apart from it. You live in the land, so completely a part of it that its easy to imagine you as some sort of nature goddess. I could see you in exactly the same place, doing exactly the same thing anytime in the last 50 thousand years…”

“You do know humans didn’t make it here until at best 15 thousand years ago, right?” Charlotte watched the lazy flight and fall of her net with a critical eye.

“That’s exactly what I mean.”

Yves watched her haul her net back in and deftly separate its various occupants before casting a critical eye at the small portable live well resting on the weathered wood between them. “That should be enough shrimp to do for dinner. You gonna play with that crab forever?”

“I think I’ve almost got it in enough to net it. I can’t just convince them to latch on and stick to it the way you can.” He squinted at the water as though he could somehow manage to see beneath the surface.

“Your technique is just fine. Those chicken necks need another day or two in the sun to be proper crab bait. Still… looks to me like you’ve got him on pretty hard. Now you want to give the bait a little bit stronger twitch, give it a second to get a better grip and give one smooth haul out of the water and over.”
Charlotte watched as he followed her instructions, beaming as a large crab broke the surface and clung to his bait until it let go just as it was about to make contact and dropped to the dock, already scuttling toward the water. Yves swooped in and grabbed the shell right behind the claws, waving his freshly caught crab in the air and doing an impromptu dance. She laughed and walked over, taking the crab from him and throwing it over her shoulder to land neatly in the crab-bucket before kissing him soundly.
“I think our dinner can wait a little bit…” She led him inside and dinner did in fact wait, if a little longer than intended.

Charlotte woke to an incoming call signal, rousing herself and padding to the Ops room before accepting the call.

“Can you never call me at a decent hour?”

Tommy’s grinning visage appeared onscreen. “Since when does the kind of thing I call you for happen at a decent hour?”

“Yeah, you just like to get a cheap thrill. Whats up?” Charlotte pulled a robe around herself, cuddling into the warmth it provided.

“You have to see it to believe it. How soon can you be at station 20?”

“20 minutes or so as long as you don’t mind me parking on the beach.” Charlotte was already moving as the connection closed behind her. A quick shower later and she dressed on the way toward the hangar bay, pulling her top on just as the massive hatch undogged and silently pulled itself open. After a quick check of her runabout she trolled over to the lift, triggered the doors and a section of roof and wall retracted to allow her craft to rise to the water level of the surrounding marsh. A section of the low wall surrounding her then slid beneath the surface and cleared the way for her exit down the winding channel.

The canopy locked itself closed silently as Charlotte added throttle gently, extending the planes as soon as she gained sufficient speed and causing the boat’s hull to rise out of the water. By the time she shot out into a larger channel she was passing 60 knots and quickly accelerating, headed toward open water at a speed that would have been suicidal if she’d intended to pass the surfline while in the water. As she gained sufficient speed small winglets crept out to provide control surfaces and surface effect took over, keeping the tiny craft in the air as the planes retracted into the hull. The breaking waves passed beneath a few seconds later and Charlotte slewed the craft into a wide turn while continuing to add throttle, stopping when she reached 65% and 230 knots.

Barely 5 minutes later she began to reduce throttle, allowing the planes to crawl back out again just as lift began to fail, timing it perfectly so that the craft gently settled onto its planes while she continued to reduce throttle, allowing the planes to crawl back in as she passed below 30 knots and slowed even further as she turned to approach the beach, angled obliquely to the waves. She was inside the sand bar line so the surf was very light, half a meter at most. Coming within 15 meters of the sand she turned perpendicular to the beach and added throttle, riding the wavelets in and sliding up onto the sand well above the reach of water.

Her craft canted over to rest somewhat askew as the canopy opened, allowing her to step out onto the sand where a large dog regarded her with a quizzical air before deciding that she might supply some attention, possibly even a snack. His doggy nose was right as always and she scratched his ruff and around his ears while he munched contendedly on a large doggie treat.

“Hey Buddy, I thought they didn’t allow horses on the beach here?”

“That gets funnier every time you say it Charlie…” Buddy trailed off, a teasing lilt in his voice. “You’re here about that business in the old house eh?”

“I guess I am at that. Know anything about it?” Charlotte gave a final scratch and straightened up, facing her old friend.

“I know you’re here so whatever it is has to be pretty nasty.”

“Ya think?” Charlotte smirked and turned to walk toward the dunes.

“Hey you know that ol bat is gonna kick up a fuss about you parking on the beach!”

“Your wife, your problem!” Charlotte tossed over her shoulder with a grin as a doggy whuff of amusement followed her. A quick stroll along the overwalk that allowed passage across the dune lines and she was walking down the street toward an obvious crime scene to judge by the number of police and other vehicles as well as a preponderance of yellow barrier tape.

The door of the old house was open and a waiting officer provided her with a forensic onesie cleansuit and mask. Once she’d corralled her hair and raised the hood she began to realize just how uncomfortable this was likely to get as the suit didn’t breathe at all and even this early in the morning it was 83 degrees and extremely humid. “Note to self… Make a better cleansuit.” She muttered into her mask, getting a sharp bark of laughter from the assisting officer.

“That’s the first time I’ve ever heard that and actually believed it’d happen…” He proffered a pair of booties which she accepted, giving him a mock glare with one hand on her hip.

“Red, why the hell did no one tell me about this? Its like a freakin wearable sauna! You bet your cute ass I’ll deal with it but later, right now I have to go play with Tommy’s latest puzzle.” She made her way up to the steps and stopped to put the booties on before stepping inside, onto the first of the little stepping platforms set up to preserve as much of the forensic evidence as possible.

It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dimness inside and as they did she began to pick out details. There was a severed hand lying on the floor in a pool of blood and another pinned to the doorframe with a large kitchen knife. Both were left hands and the one on the floor was smaller than the other with a subtle pinkish hue to the nails. Blood was sprayed all over walls and ceilings, evidence of the sudden amputations.

Marks in the pooled blood on the floor indicated the previous owners of the hands in question had been dragged back into the house and she followed the drag marks through a short hall formed by a wall on one side and a staircase on the other. Wide sprays of blood indicated the persons being dragged had struggled as much as they could, clearly to no avail. The great room opened out from the hallway and Charlotte had to stop for a moment, stunned at the sheer volume of gore scattered about the room. There were yet more body parts lying around but it looked like the dismemberment had been done slowly, one piece at a time. A forearm rested half atop a lower leg, each bereft of hand or foot. An ear lay clutched in yet another severed hand, one that looked like the mate to the smaller of the hands out front.

A quick assessment told Charlotte that there were 2 bodies in this area though she had to counts limbs and heads and in one case genitals twice to make sure as the only marginally whole parts were torsos. Even the heads were missing ears and noses and the one she guessed was female had been scalped while alive from the look of it. The stench made it clear this scene was at least a day or two old as did the hordes of flies.

“Any sign of the kids Tommy?”

“Safe room is breached but no kids and no bodies.” The older man shook his head ruefully, looking around at the carnage. “I thought this place was as secret as it got. These kids were supposed to be protected!”

“They were Tommy. You know full well Sol and Auggie were capable of taking on anything short of a full on assault team. They must have been caught completely flatfooted and even so managed to get the kids into the safe room. If those brigands had to breach the safe room they both held out till the end.”

Charlotte shook her head. “I have a pretty fair idea who is behind this. There are only one or two groups who would be even know about these kids and both of them have a pretty strong motive to do something drastic like this. Neither has the capacity to pull this sort of thing off with no one around seeing or hearing anything, especially not with those two on guard so it was mercs. The marks where the hands were hacked off up by the door were made by Boma blades, angled downward to increase chopping force and that gives me a lead toward finding the assault team.”

“Sometimes I wish you’d speak English…” Tommy’s grin belied his words. I’ve had our people run through everything with the imaging gear you gave us and the results should be uploaded to your portal already. You’ll keep me clued in, yeah?”

“Always Tommy, you know I strive for transparency in all things.” She flashed a mocking grin over her shoulder as she made her way back to the front door.

“About as transparent as mud!” came the rejoinder as she removed the booties, walked down onto the sidewalk and gratefully divested herself of the cleansuit. A quick mop of face, arms and legs and she was at least a little less sticky with sweat but the quick sojourn had still soaked her hair enough to drip a little. The light sea breeze helped to wick that moisture away quickly and Charlotte soon felt a little less overcooked.

She walked back to the beach, this time taking a little longer to play with the dog who had apparently decided to wait for her to return. The wisdom of his decision was borne out when she produced another doggie treat which he munched contentedly after their play, leaning his bulk against her hip while she stroked his side.

“Before you ask Buddy… I can’t tell you anything. Please try to keep speculation to a minimum. This thing is really sensitive and it has to be kept as quiet as possible. Public statements will say it was a murder/suicide and will avoid mentioning the kids, ok?”

“Is this gonna be anything like that last mess?” Buddy looked concerned, as well he might. The events of the previous autumn had the entire town a little on edge still, even though life had settled back into its normal routine where the once or twice yearly tourist mugging was a big deal in the local newspages and what passed for crime was largely nonviolent in nature.

“This was a message Buddy. A message to my group, a thumb in the eye if you will. Its time to end this.”

“The Moultrie Irregulars stand ready if needed maam.” He threw a sloppy salute and almost whacked himself in the eye. “Whuff” came the agreement, followed by a sloppy lick to her hand.

Charlotte allowed herself a tight, grim smile as she climbed into her craft, closed the canopy and spooled up the turbines with a thrust inverter over one nozzle. The resulting forces caused her craft to turn around on the sand, facing the ocean. The inverter retracted and suddenly all force was forward, propelling her off the sand and into the water although not without kicking up a long rooster tail of sand and leaving a clear groove which began to fill with water. She launched over the first wave set, coming down at least 10 meters further out where the swells were gentler. Another series of skips across wavetops and she had enough speed to lower the planes into the water, turning at an angle to the waves as she continued to accelerate. Shortly she was in full surface effect mode with foils withdrawn and gaining speed toward home.

As she re-entered from the hangar bay Charlotte shed her clothing, depositing the pile in their bedroom and heading directly toward the tantalizing smells of breakfast. Yves was only slightly more clothed than she, having donned an apron to protect sensitive bits which did nothing to prevent a little reacharound fondle while she hugged him from behind.

“Keep that up and I’ll burn breakfast…” He murmured to her.

“Would that be such a bad thing?”

“In this case yes, it is something special I wanted to make as a surprise for you.” He turned around to give her a brief kiss. “Now go, you smell like a sweaty slaughterhouse and there’s time for a shower.”

Charlotte trailed off to the shower, muttering to herself about substandard cleansuits to Yves’ amusement. A few moments later she reentered to find the table neatly set and Yves finishing his plating before bring the plates over and sitting across the table.

“You said it about right. It’s a charnel house in there… looks like they hacked Sol and Auggie apart piece by piece… made it last as long as possible. Neither one of them gave up the kids , whoever did this had to breach the safe room. She slammed the table with the flat of her hand. “Dammit Yves, we swore we’d keep those kids safe and now… I don’t know whether to be angrier at myself or the assholes that did this. I failed them…” Anger drained from her face and voice, replaced by sorrow and guilt.

“You didn’t fail them Cherie. Whoever leaked this information is responsible for this and I have every faith you will find them so we can make them pay.”

Charlotte grimaced. “At least 4 hours before I have anything more than the visuals. I hate having to wait before I can even really start…”

“Do we?” At her questioning look he continued. “Do we really have to wait? We know who and why, all we need is where. Mel almost always has a drone or few up and surely some of them caught something…”

Yves watched his wife’s retreating back as she dashed toward the ops room grinning at her animation.

He was out on the dock working on his crabbing technique when she came out hours later looking dejected. Charlotte flopped onto a deck chair with a slight growl of irritation.

“Motherless bastards did it during that nasty batch of thunderbumpers a couple days ago. Overhead got diddly.”

“So nothing at all?”

“Oh I didn’t say that…” Charlotte’s grin was feral. “Got their vehicle on 4 different cameras on Sullivan’s Island alone. Got em on the causeway, crossing the bridge… even got em as far as Rifle Range road. Then they just disappear into thin air. There at the stoplight, not there on any camera in any direction after. They have to have stashed that vehicle, maybe transferred to another or something.”

Yves took a moment to swoop his prey up onto the dock and grab it before it could scuttle away. “It’d be easy enough to drive a van right up into a container, let it sit for a few hours and just let it blend in with port traffic. They could be practically anywhere by now.”

“I don’t think they went very far. This isn’t about retrieving those kids, at least not completely. It’d be far easier just to snatch a few runaways with no one the wiser. This is personal, vengeance for what we did to them in Jakarta and a message to us.”

Yves could only nod in agreement.

“Message received. If it is war they want then war it is, to the knife! May their god have mercy upon them because I sure as hell won’t!”

If it hadn’t been for her words you could have assumed Charlotte was reclining calmly but Yves knew his wife, knew she was coiled on a hair trigger of violence and destruction, held back only for want of a target.

Their dinner that night was a sketchy affair with Charlotte grabbing bites at her workstation, coordinating with Mel and Tina to track every truck coming and going for the days before and after the event. It was morning before they were sure they had it, tracking it out onto highway 17 going north. It had turned into the shipping terminal where they were able to track the container being loaded onto a ship which departed the following day.

“This has to be a trap…” Charlotte was muttering to herself as Yves rubbed some of the tension from her shoulders. “That ship is just sitting there in the middle of open ocean. Its obviously not abandoned from the IR signatures and the fact that its stationkeeping pretty precisely. Surely they can’t be stupid enough to think we’d go for a straight on surface assault…”

Yves leaned down and brushed her cheek with his lips. “We’ll go do some recon as soon as its dark, ok? Right now we both need to eat, then sleep and let the rest of the team take point on planning.”

He pulled Charlotte gently away from her workstation and maneuvered her to the kitchen where they both ate far more than either of them had thought they could. Soon afterward they fell asleep tangled in each other, food-drugged.

Charlotte sat up suddenly in bed, noting the late afternoon sunlight streaming in.

“Hmph?” gave from the still half asleep man beside her.

“I’ve got it! It is a trap and they’ve seen how we operate twice before. They think we’re all about shock and awe, overwhelming firepower… But they don’t know just how completely stealthy we can be. So we make em think we’re doing what they expect using the Bats and our other aerial assets while we go in from beneath, rescue the kids and then take them from behind.”

Yves was working his way toward a more alert state of mind. “Wouldn’t blowing the kind of holes you need for that cause one hell of a noise and sink the ship?”

Charlotte was already headed for the bathroom. “Got it handled!” she tossed over her shoulder.

Yves just shook his head in amazement and lie there for another moment before getting up as he heard the shower starting. After attending to his own business he joined her and the shower took quite a bit longer than required to get clean. While they were dressing in their battle suits after she explained her idea to him with Mel, Tina and Gordy listening in. After reiterating what she’d explained to Yves earlier Mel broke in excitedly “You’re gonna use Nessie!!!!!”

Charlotte had to laugh at her excitement. “Yes we’re using Nessie. She might be unarmed but she’s the perfect craft for this job.”

“Unarmed you say? Hmph, apparently you haven’t looked at the latest mods. We’re building this thing as a civilian subsurface rescue boat but I got to thinking… There can be awfully big things down there that might consider our girl to be a tasty morsel.”

Charlotte had expected something of the sort. “So just exactly how heavily is she armed?”

“A half dozen fast attack subs might make her break a sweat…” Mel’s smirk was clear in her tone.

“Okay, as I was saying, Nessie is the perfect craft for this mission…” Charlotte waited for the general laughter to die down to the occasional snicker. “And tonight is the perfect time. They may not realize we’ve located them yet so we might have a slight element of surprise purely from timing. We’re going to give them the “Shock and Awe” level of violence they’ve come to expect… but its purely for show while we extract the kids from beneath. Once we give the all clear they will learn the true meaning of hell on earth.”

“Charlie… This sounds really personal” Gordy sounded concerned.

“How could it be anything other?” She finished checking Yves’ gear and he returned the favor. “How long till you have Nessie ready to roll?”

Mel chuckled “Maybe 5 minutes? She takes a bit to come to full power.”

“We’ll be there ASAP. We’re gonna need everything we can put in the air that provides firepower, I don’t care if its agrodrones spraying whatever they have on board. Jack everything you can from everywhere.” Charlotte matched action to words by triggering the docking bay hatch as she left the ops room. Within 2 minutes they were on the surface in the 2 seat speeder which Mel had gifted them as part of their wedding present.

This model had considerably more lifting surface and as a result the transition to surface effect flight occurred before they even got out into the main channel. Further surfaces extended, the engines spooled up a bit more and suddenly they were in full flight, free of the need for the extra lift from surface effect. From there Charlotte kept adding throttle until she reached almost 400 knots before allowing the engines to wind back down and the entire transition was made in reverse with them pulling up to Mel’s dock a mere 5 minutes after leaving home.

Welcoming hugs were shared all around as Gordy had already been present, knowing an operation was imminent. Mel and a few friends she’d co-opted for assistance had everything ready to go on the technical end and the only thing really remaining was the wait until it was safe to leave and be as close as possible to certain that their passage would be completely undetected.