The intruders reached the house. That was when I discovered something I hadn't realised before; there were no cameras positioned so to allow us to watch what someone might be doing once they reached the house. With a shock I suddenly noticed every camera pointed out, with none of them pointing in

Cameras inside the house were few and far between. We cound not pan or tilt any of the cameras far enough to see what was happening next to the house itself. I hoped they didn't plan on blowing a hole in the wall, or the doors or windows; it had cost a lot to have the steel reinforced structuring and light-artillery glass put in place and I wasn't looking forward to possibly needing to have any of it repaired or replaced... or possibly both. I ordered my guys to pull back from the outer walls so we could more safely wait, even as I made the mental note to have more cameras installed or at least a different system which would allow them to see right up to the house walls or directly under them. That meant each camera now needed to be paired with another so they could see below each other.

I know, the enemy is trying to bleed me to death financially. With a sigh I noted the safe houses, and probably the office building, would need to have their video systems upgraded as well. I had a message sent to my guys who were watching over James although they probably had that figured out by now anyway. At least their cameras weren't permanent placements and they could move them around a bit to gain better coverage.
The problem would be they would need a larger portable system which included more cameras and IR lights. Who gave those bad-guys a copy of my recent financial condition anyway?

Damn, another expense. Running away was looking better and better. I wondered briefly how Cathy would like Jamaica? The guys were all for going outside and mixing it up. I would have happily joined them but for the small matter that I had a responsibility to both them and their families or potential families which I had never considered while in the military. Funny how gaining a few more years affects one's perspective. Getting my people killed when it wasn't absolutely necessary had me playing the part of a coward. Hell, was it ever absolutely necessary? Playing that role was difficult because if I'd still been Lyon, I would have been out there with bullets flying and whatever the hell they called those things they were using.

It was less than an hour later; okay, probably something like three minutes but it seemed like an hour when we didn't know what was going on. We caught a glimpse now and then of one or two of them just entering the monitoring area allowed by the cameras mounting systems, so as near as we could tell they were concentrating on that side of the house. At the end of that three minutes we saw movement on the cameras and again counted all five intruders. They made their way back across the lawn, slipping through the brush and trees surrounding the property until they reached the property's wall. We watched as best we could until we saw their silhouettes cross back over that stone block wall which was about eight feet high. Mental note... install cameras there, too. It's only money, Lynn. It's only money. Yeah, but why right now? This isn't a good time and I'm already spending so much.

“I wonder if I could print some money?”

“Isn't that called counterfeiting, Lynn?”

“Huh?”

“You asked something about printing money.”

“Oh. I didn't realise I said anything out loud. I was speculating about...”

“Printing money? Yeah, I'd go for it except don't they reserve that right for the Federal government?”

“Yeah. It was idle speculation due to the large amounts I'm suddenly spending.”

“Ahh. Maybe treasure hunting would be a safer approach? Well, as far as jail time goes anyway.”

At least he got me to laugh.

After the intruders had been gone for two minutes as timed by the digital clock in control, I delegated two agents to rush out and learn what those bastar... oops, uh... men did while they were out of sight up near my house. My guys spent a nerve-wracking ten minutes looking but they couldn't find anything amiss. How small can they make a nuclear bomb these days? Hell, it's nineteen seventy-three, not twenty-one twenty. Marble sized nor even golf ball sized nuclear weapons don't exist... do they? Gee, just what I need, another worry. Maybe I should start thinking about coloring my hair before it has a chance to start to show any gray.

With the report that nothing seemed out of place, I went out to take a look around myself. I also could not find anything out of place. I ordered a full scan of the perimeter of the house using infrared and ultraviolet which couldn't easily be done until tonight both because we needed to get equipment in here to do it and because the sun was rising and daylight would make it difficult. By the time we could rent some gear and get it here it would be too bright out to use it. We did get some mine detectors to the house very quickly and swept the grounds all around the base of the house but they didn't indicate anything. Our no less than seven examinations of the grounds during the next two hours showed nothing unusual. Nothing seemed to have been disturbed... but... there had to have been a reason for the intrusion. What could have been so important that they would have come all the way to the house even once they knew, we knew they were here? I had the exterior of the house examined from the ground all the way up to the roof, but again, nothing was found. None of this made any sense.

A couple of hours later I had the guys examine the lawn for ten feet out from the house to see if maybe those bast... uh, guys had peeled back the grass somewhere and planted something nasty.

As a precaution the Christmas party was moved to one of the safe-houses where it went off without a hitch. I didn't really enjoy it this year since I was still trying to decide exactly what that little raid had been all about. Obviously it was some kind of psychological ploy but for what reason? I was still in the dark as to what they thought they had accomplished save getting soaked by my fire fighting system. The mist the system created had settled on the lawn and frozen into a thin sheet of ice. I was wishing it had done the same to the intruders so I had someone to interrogate. The thought of that one who had shaken his fist at the house nearly caused me to laugh which brought me back to being aware of what was going on around me.

Cathy came running over with a treasure 'Santa' had given to her and demanded that I remove her present ear-rings and insert the new ones she had received. That diverted my attention long enough that I wondered how he kept each of the kids straight in his mind since I had provided him with a number of presents to give out to specific children — Maybe this guy really was Santa...

I reached up to remove her earrings and had visions of blood spraying everywhere once I removed them but gingerly continued with the task. After I did that for her, we put her studs into the box just before she ran off to show everyone her new ear-rings. I made a mental note to clean these ear-rings when we got home as I slipped the ear-ring box into my purse. I'm making an awful lot of mental notes lately and most of them seem to be centered around either Cathy or money.

I began to wonder if it was going to be like this for the next fifteen years. Was I going to be able to handle Cathy going to high school? I suddenly realised that she might be doing that a lot sooner than most children since she was already taking some interest in more difficult publications. She still wanted the storybooks but she was picking up and trying to digest some of the more mainstream magazines I had around the house. Just the other day she had come up to me asking about words in an article in the 'Post'. I thought most children her age were more into the pictures.

Maybe college might be the time I should be worrying about. That thought led me to another which took me down a path that eventually resulted in the strange thought of a twelve year old Cathy walking up to receive her bachelor's degree in spatial physics. I wasn't certain how I felt about that, especially since the rest of the thought was suddenly tongue-in-cheek granting her a minor in parental manipulation while I had premature gray hair and was in a strait-jacket gibbering and drooling all over myself. Nah, Cathy wouldn't do that to her Mommy. My smile began to fade. Maybe after a few years she would begin to think that way though, as she began to learn her Mommy wasn't infallible and she began to lose her trust in my demi-goddess status.

As I continued to give more thought to Cathy and her precocious abilities, the more I began to be concerned about exactly how I should handle this budding Einstein. Should I take it slowly and let her be more of a child so she had a better grounding in interpersonal relationships and thus become better able to relate to others? Or should I allow her to examine the world at her own pace which seemed to be something like three years intellectual development for every year her body claimed? The next problem was — could I handle having someone in the family who would probably be able to run rings around me intellectually within ten years? Intellectually hell, she would probably be able to do it physically as well. I had to get back into my training regimen; and we were only months away from when she hoped to begin ice skating. How do mothers keep up with their children?

Cathy seemed to be happily relating to all the other children but there was something different about her approach to the games. I noticed that while she would play with them; even though she wasn't yet four she was taking the parental or leadership role in their games of 'pretend' and a number of them were older than she was.

I was far over my depth and rapidly sinking. I needed to have a long and careful conversation with James so I could learn what support for her education was being done at home. Was she being 'force-fed' adult materials or was she simply that interested in growing up as quickly as she could? How do you measure the intelligence of someone who simply hasn't had enough schooling for them to be adequately tested?

I.Q. Tests really don't measure I.Q.; they measure the ability to take, integrate, and deduce things derived from lessons learned from information provided during training. Those who can recall material without error will do better on the tests than those who don't remember it as well. Even so, some education is needed or they won't know what it is they are storing away in that thing we call a brain. So much of it isn't just remembering stuff, there's a lot of need for understanding the nuances of the stuff you're remembering and the context within which it or the problem to which it is being applied, exists. In other words, is a person able to adapt things they have learned and apply them to other problems?

Deductive reasoning tests still rely on people having been subjected to learning material which provides examples of how to draw conclusions. In Cathy's case, she seems to be improving in that area with leaps and bounds... Maybe I'd better pack my copies of Sun Tzu, Machiavelli, Rommel and von Mellenthin away in the attic- under lock and key. After all, I don't want to have a ten year old military genius on my hands six years from now. Especially not if she doesn't understand the humanity of the people she is commanding.

All right, more dolls and little girl things and fewer teenager things for a while. If she continues to seek them out on her own — fine, but I'm not going to force-feed the stuff to her. She barely knows her alphabet and is doing well with numbers but she's already trying to read Nancy Drew and adult magazines without having learned all the words she needs to support that level of reading. Oh, god. Nancy Drew at just under four years of age? I better hide all my NCO and Officer training materials too.

That cautioned me. If I continued this line of reasoning I might wind up locking my entire library away. Without a background like that of other children how could she relate to thoughts they were trying to express in their younger approach to life? Younger in this case was a mental approach to things rather than the age of her physical body.

My thoughts drifted back to the times we had gone out as a group to various eateries. She was the only child in the group and she seemed to be understanding a lot of what we the adults discussed. The more I think about this, the more I think I'm the one who is going to have difficulty coping. There must be a book somewhere that describes how other parents have handled having a prodigy in the family.

“... or your thoughts?”

“Hmm? Oh! Hi Nicci. How do you like the shindig so far?”

She looked at me with one eyebrow raised.

“Are you trying to avoid the question or were you that far out of it?”

“Question?”

“Yes. I asked how you thought Cathy was doing and then when you didn't respond I said 'a penny for your thoughts'.”

“I'm sorry, Nicci. Yes, Cathy was exactly the topic I was pondering.”

“Uh oh. This sounds like Mommy might be having second thoughts. Planning on cutting your losses and running?”

“Losses? I... No. I was just concerned that Cathy seems to be trying to be an adult before she's even had a chance to be a child.”

“You noticed that, did you?”

“I could hardly miss it.”

“You need to talk with my sister. Her child is already reading at fourth grade level.”

“I think Cathy won't be far behind. How old is your sisters child?”

“That one is six, so reading level is about three years advanced.”

“At a guess Cathy is reading at about sixth or seventh grade level although she has a problem with words since she doesn't know all that many. I have noticed though that she no longer asks what a word means more than once. Just a few weeks back when we were reading her storybooks, she would ask about a word each time we read the story to her. Now she reads the stories by herself and is trying to graduate to more complex reading material.”

“Oh? Like what for instance?”

“How about Nancy Drew, Post magazine, Look magazine and the morning paper; and I don't mean the comics. She's big on the the headlines like world events. You wouldn't believe some of the questions she comes up with.”

“All of the time or just once in a while?”

“What do you mean?”

“Does she always ask more penetrating questions or is it infrequent?”

“Scarcely an hour goes by. Sometimes it's only ten or fifteen minutes.”

“Have you thought about having her I.Q. Tested?”

“That was part of what I was just thinking about. How do you test someone's I.Q. when they haven't been taught enough to understand everything on the test? If they have tests for children, they would need to test her for several age groups as her understanding of different things seems to settle into different age groupings. That might be an idea though, because it would give me some understanding of the areas in which she needs to be given additional assistance. Right now I haven't a clue.”

“I'd say you need to get together with Mr. Thompson and have a heart-to-heart sometime soon.”

“Yeah, well that's another matter entirely.”

“I mean about Cathy.”

“Oh. Well, yeah, I agree. We both need to be on the same page so our efforts don't conflict.”

“And since you brought it up... What about you and Mr. Thompson?”

“What do you mean?”

“Come on Lynn. Don't play the 'No comprendo Ingles' game with me.”

“I'm really not, Nicci. I don't know what to think at this point. He seems to be a nice guy; a little lost when it comes to Cathy and heavily involved in whatever it is he's doing, but still... a nice guy. I think if I were a woman I could like him and probably become romantically involved with him if I didn't have so much on my plate.”

“Right. Lynn, are you or are you not going to go all the way?”

“Huh? All the way where?”

“Not where, what? Are you going to do what you told Ralph and myself not so long ago and become a woman?”

“Hush, Nicci. Geez, why not get a bull-horn?”

“That's a great idea if it will get you off the fence and force you to make a decision one way or the other. Which way are you the most comfortable? Do you want to be a mother of a four year old genius or not? You've got to remember she's part of a package deal.”

“Yes, I know. I just don't think it would be fair to either her or James and I've got so much going on in my own business that I wouldn't have the time to be a good mother to her. I can hardly take her to work with me every day. She needs someone who can be there for her all the time and I've got too much going on to be able to do that too.”

“Yeah, right. Lynn, there are a lot of working parents and some of them are business owners who spend twelve hours a day seven days a week at their jobs yet they seem to have time for their children. You know what I think?

“I'm afraid to ask.”

“I think you're a coward when it comes to children.”

“WHAT?”

“You heard me. You haven't been able to read a book or four to learn how to deal with a child and the thought of making a mistake has you scared silly. Well, I've got a news flash for you. Parents make mistakes! I don't see that stopping them from trying to do the best they can for their children, do you?”

Geez, Nicci just took one swing and pounded the nail clear through the board. Yeah, I was scared. After all, a mistake made during Cathy's childhood upbringing could have long reaching effects in her adult life. Was I trying to avoid that responsibility? Didn't I take on the responsibility for entire platoons and somehow made the right decisions? My business was growing and profiting, well, mostly. Haven't I proven I can make sound decisions? How difficult could it be to be a parent?
Uh, wrong way to go with these thoughts.

“Well. Say something.”

Nicci was sitting there still pushing at me to get off the fence post and make a decision.

“I'm not prepared to act on this yet, Nicci. I need to give the whole 'being a mommy' idea more thought.”

“Tell that to Cathy.”

“Ow, you had to hit below the belt didn't you.”

“Of course, Mommy.”

“MOMMY, look what I've got.” Cathy came running over like a run-away express train and just as controlable.

“I don't remember hearing anyone say 'cue munchkin' do you?”

“Of course not, Mommy. Children know that sort of thing instinctively.”

I turned to Cathy who had just reached us.

“What is it, sweetheart?”

She showed off her latest treasure from the round of present openings. Distribution, I noticed, was still on the smaller presents so I began to wonder how she would react when we got to the larger ones. Every child received four presents from 'Santa', two small and two large in value, although sometimes the physically small sizes were pricier than the large ones or vice-versa. The presents from their families were received at home whenever they celebrated. I had a number of presents waiting at home for Cathy when we returned. There were more there that 'Santa' had delivered with some of them actually being from me and some that her father had sent along. I had hoped he would have been here by now but I would save the presents which were from me personally so Cathy would open them at the same time as the ones which had her father's name as the originator.

It was here at the company party that I didn't want the children to feel inferior to one another so they all received the same number and relative overall value in presents at the event. That meant the company spent about two hundred dollars on each child during the party. That came to less than eight thousand dollars and was well worth it. The children would remember that they were all the same in 'Santa's' eyes even if the presents didn't repeat too often. The agents handing out the presents knew the color code for relative values and made certain that every child opened the same color present when the others did. We started at the lower values and moved up until all the children were opening a present wrapped in gold foil with holly and green ribbon on it.

The adults had presents too. There were fewer of them but they were of no less value. One was a simple envelope which contained the end of year bonus for each employee. That could total well over a hundred thousand. The other two were shared with their spouses and were usually two gift certificates each for two hundred dollars. One to a department store and one to a grocery store. Co-ordinating that took some doing and as the number of agents and family members grew, it became a larger and larger burden to keep straight. Different families shopped at different stores so Nicci had the thankless task of maintaining a list of the stores the various agents mentioned during the year. That we hoped would allow us to compile a list of stores from which to purchase certificates such that when they were distributed to the hopefully correct family they would be for some place where they actually shopped. It wasn't easy since we didn't necessarily get helpful answers if we were to ask the agents themselves.

I originally bought small gifts for each person but that became cumbersome very quickly. At the end of the year family resources are usually tapped out because of the holidays during the last couple of months so suddenly having extra food and clothing money was always welcome. That suggestion came from Nicci and I seized the concept and ran with it; ran with it? Hell, I jumped on a motorcycle and made off at top speed. I don't believe she intended the amounts to be quite so large when she suggested it but she told me she wouldn't be above accepting them and she doubted anyone else would either.

“MOMMY, look at her.” a little voice dragged me once more out of my thoughts.

Cathy had come hurrying over carrying a doll that was almost as large as she was.

“Isn't she pretty? And she has more clothes and shoes; and she has a purse, too.”

“She is pretty, isn't she?”

“Yes. I hope when I grow up I'm as pretty as you and she is.”

“Are. 'As you and she are'.”

“as pretty as you and she... are?”

“That's right.”

Cathy spun around taking her language lesson with her but leaving her doll with me as she hurried off. I guess I was assigned the duty of protecting each of her treasures as she received them.

The sounds of the children opening their presents and showing them off to their parents and friends continued even though they began to once again recede into the background as my mind continued to ponder that strange 'attack' from earlier in the day and all the event which had been so rapidly landing on me the past few weeks. I tried to think back to when things were easier and came up with some time's during or before Vietnam. What was so strange was that in my memories of those events I was female and I couldn't shake that even though I knew it wasn't true. At least I don't believe it was. Okay, which is the dream... me as Lyon, or me as Lynnette? I was beginning to have some difficulty deciding that little conundrum.

A couple of hours later I was saying good-bye to the last of the stragglers leaving the party, some of my on-duty agents were rounding up Cathy's presents so we could head for home. The caterers were cleaning up and one last sweep of the grounds was in progress prior to putting the safe-house to bed for the night. Cathy had over-expended her energy for the day and was out like a light on the couch a plate with a half eaten mix of vegetables and the remains of a small piece of meat on the table next to her. Someone had grabbed a blanket and draped it over her for which I was grateful. As I looked at her I gave serious thought to just joining her and waking up tomorrow.

By the time we reached my home it was past dark but the outside of the house was lit up with strange lights which took me a minute to place. Close to a dozen agents were sweeping the walls and grounds of the house for some five feet out looking for any possible clue as to why the intrusion had occurred this morning. Apparently no clues were forthcoming for nothing was found. Despite our visual inspections and the use of a number of devices during the day, nothing so much as a small listening device was found. I was beginning to think it was all some psychological ploy aimed at reducing our attention at some other location. The unspoken question remained — where?

 »  »  »  »  »  »

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.

Except for small excerpts of 100 words or less used in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, designed, or conceived, or in any retrieval system for any purpose, is forbidden without written and specific license obtained from the author or his/ her heirs or Estate.