Hi Everyone...

As amazing as it might seem, I've actually had a little time to myself and have been able to put together another chapter based on Teddi's notes and a characters sentence (here and there). I hope you enjoy and even more important... can actually remember all that happened prior to this chapter. Things are definitely heating up.

Anesidora

Chapter 38

I was concerned. I had been unable to contact my team which was protecting James. The phone line link to the radio system yielded nothing despite the phone company declarations that the line was intact and terminated properly at the other end. Calls to the numbers we had were going unanswered and our calls to Lucy had yet to be returned. I wanted information and it wasn't being provided. That had to stop. I dispatched four more agents to James location on a charter jet and had Nicci calling for Lucy every half hour.

The next morning Cathy, myself, and the team were at work early. Cathy happily rushed off to listen to her records and to see who else was in early while I tracked down some coffee then made arrangements for a conference of all department heads, with the exception of the computer group.

By 0900 the meeting was under way.

What was the result of the sweeps conducted at my house yesterday and last night?”

“All negative.”

“What was done?”

“We examined the grounds for anything out of the ordinary. Mine detectors were brought in and the entire perimeter around the house was checked to a distance of twenty feet, more than half of which could be seen by the cameras. We triple swept the five feet closest to the house and swept the walls themselves. Last night ultraviolet and infrared were used to detect any potential breaches of the buildings outer walls which might have been sealed again somehow without visible detection, nothing was found.”

“What about electrical or electronic activity?”

“The outer walls and grounds were swept again to that twenty foot distance with the inner side of the outside walls also swept from the ground to the roof. Nothing was found”

“I can't help but feel we're missing something. What about communication devices?”

“No bugs, no radios, nothing we aren't using ourselves.”

I still felt uneasy. There had to be a reason for those men to come all the way to my house even after we proved to them we knew they were there.

“What kind of equipment is needed to detect their combat communications gear? Did you leave any of it behind at my command center so we could monitor for those signals in the chance that they can turn the stuff on and off from some other location?”

“The bug sweeps should have shown something. We checked all the commonly used frequencies.”

“I thought their stuff didn't act like the normal equipment? Didn't the examination teams have to use something special to find their signals?”

“Special? What's so different about their comm gear?” He asked, which made me even more uncertain that he should be the one in charge of my comms department.

That bad feeling in the pit of my stomach just dropped through the floor.

“We received a report concerning their combat communication devices. A copy of that was supposed to be given to every department head. Don’t you remember receiving it?”

I watched him think for a moment before he answered, “I don't recall seeing anything.”

“Nicci? Didn't their department receive a copy?”

“I think I have initials from every department. I'll check but I'm fairly certain someone in communications received and signed for it.”

That caused my comms officer to ask, “Do you have a copy here? I 'd like to see it.”

Nicci replied, “I can have a copy here in a moment.”

She got up and went out to her work area returning less than two minutes later with a freshly duplicated copy of the report which she handed to the officer.

“Oh, yeah. I remember seeing this. There was a lot of stuff about the weapons and some sort of bull about a radio system with invisible signals.”

“That was hardly 'bull' as you put it. Most of my old crew used a system very much like that while in Vietnam. This one is six years removed and is a little more compact with a few more bells and whistles but it's pretty much the same idea.”

“You're kidding.”

“Not in the slightest. What sort of equipment is needed to track those signals?”

“Well, I'd say we probably need a spectrum analyzer to do that. One with a broad-band RF amplifier on the front of it to bring the signal levels up enough to be easily seen. Maybe twenty db would do the job, depending on the sensitivity of the analyzer itself.”

“Do we have one?”

“No. We might be able to rent one, plus the amplifier but it would be four... maybe seven days to get it.”

“How quickly could we purchase one, no... three?”

“That would depend on a lot of things. I could see if HP has any immediately available. I probably should go for a plug-in model so we could change bands easily. There might be stuff on a band that we don't usually check with our normal equipment. You mentioned combat, all we check for are the civilian frequencies. Are we up against some military group?”

My face must have gone completely pale because he backed his chair up a good six inches before I replied.

“Everyone in my organization is a member of the Army reserves. Don't you remember signing anything along that line when you joined my company?”

“Vaguely. I didn't put much credence in it.”

“Well, you should have because we have been activated and you should be carrying not only the military ID but the set of orders which activated you.”

“So that’s what that paper was all about. Well, I'm not carrying them but they are in my desk.”

I was so stunned, I didn't even think to become angry.

“Ralph, I want to see his folder before the day is out. We can't afford to have someone in a command position who doesn't understand military discipline or our command structure.”

“Gotcha, Lynn.”

“Now just a minute.” he tried to bluff with me.

“You are temporarily relieved of command. Nicci get his second in command in here.”

“Who do you think you are? Who gave you the right to tell me how to conduct my business? I was hired by the owner of the business and no female yahoo with a God complex is going to tell me off without a fight; verbal or otherwise.”

I looked at him in total amazement, “I... happen to be the primary owner of this company and the military CO of the reserve unit of which it is comprised.”

“I thought 'he' was the owner. He said he was the owner when he hired me.” he pointed at Ralph.

“I said I was one of the owners.” Ralph corrected him.

“Captain Caruthers is one-tenth owner, just as Nicci is one-tenth owner. We have two Colonels who between them own another fifteen percent. The remaining sixty-five percent is owned by yours truly.” I pointed at myself, “As majority holder I’m telling you that you are relieved of command until I decide you are fit to again command a portion of this company either civilian or military. Ralph, I want his 'jacket' on my desk within the hour.”

“You'll have it, ma’am. You signed off on him, though.”

“I thought I might have. We were in great need for someone who knew the whole communications gambit but I can't have a prima donna who isn't a team or company player on the senior staff. If he can prove to be a company player then we can work him back into a staff position. Right now we have an emergency on our hands and I need someone who can work quickly and smoothly with the rest of the team.”

The yayhoo sat there with a stunned expression on his face.

It was a few minutes later when a knock came at the conference room door. Nicci got up to answer it then returned with the second in command from the comm's department.

I gave her five minutes to bring him up to speed before dropping him into the hot seat.

~ ~ ~ ~

“HP should have some spectrum analyzers available. It will probably still take four or five days to get one here though. The rest could come along over the next couple of weeks, we can get a lot done working with just one if it’s the right one.”

“What do they cost?”

“The frame is probably around a couple of grand. Each of the plug-ins between five and eight. There are five plug-ins but we can probably get away with just three of them since I doubt anyone is going to have small easily hidden stuff up in the highest microwave bands, at least not for a while yet. It would still be physically large until transistors become available which can operate in those frequencies. For the analyzers, let's figure twenty-five thousand a pop and be happily surprised if it's less.”

“Being happily surprised would be a change for me.” I added.

“Anything else any of you can think of? No? Okay, let's get back to work.”

I caught Ralph as we were going out, “Is our former comms officer's jacket in Nicci's secure files?”

“Should be. Let's both go take a look at it. I seem to remember the guy I hired was supposed to be former military, if I remember correctly. A lot has happened since he was hired.”

We found the jacket and read through it. Ralph was right, the guy had been in several hot-spots over a fifteen year period, including Nam as a young second lieutenant.

“Lucy's group hasn't returned our calls but I want another check run on this guy. Something doesn't add up here.”

“I'll have it faxed over after I make up our concerns cover page.”

“Thanks, Ralph.”

“I'll let you know when it has gone out.”

“Thanks. Don't forget to give the original jacket back to Nicci to lock up again.”

Ralph was still looking at the information in the jacket.

“No sweat, Ly... hey, did you notice this?”

“What?”

“This guy was in Thailand at the same base where we started up.”

“You're certain?”

“Yeah. Look.”

I leaned over his shoulder and read the jacket again on the page where his finger had stopped next to the fifth duty station on the list.

“Funny I don't remember him. He must have been part of the company that was there when we effectively took over the site. They weren’t a part of our little organization and I didn’t really track any of them.”

Ralph gave that a little thought, “Oh, yeah. I forgot about them. We sort of spread out over the base and their forty or fifty people got lost in the shuffle. Now that I think about it, I vaguely remember someone looking like him who kinda rings a bell.”

“Yes, me too. I think they had a couple of lieutenants so he could easily have been one of them. I'll wait to see what Lucy's group has to say about him again. We did have them check him out, didn't we?”

Ralph leafed through the jacket before halting to look as a couple of papers.

“Yeah. We did. They cleared him.”

“When you write the request ask that they go a bit deeper. Something just doesn't feel right here.”

“I'll go write up the request now.”

“Thanks, Ralph.”

“No sweat, Lynn.”

“OH. Include the photo we took of him when he came on board.”

“Will do.”

I went back to my office concerned about two things now. The first being the possibility that there were some kind of communications devices hidden at my house. That got me to wondering if there were more at the safe-houses and here at the office as well. I could see my new comm's chief would have his work cut out for him.

My next concern now pertained to a military man who didn't seem to be all that military. That got me to brooding over the simple fact that he had been in the middle of all my comm's purchases from Motorola. If he was a turn-coat, then my comm's could be compromised.

I prepared my own cover letter to go along with Ralph's then dialed Ralph who didn't answer so I called the comm center and caught him moments before the fax went out. Taking my cover letter down to them, it was added to the six pages and the photograph and the fax went out to Lucy's group even as I stood there dumbly wondering what to do next.

Ralph and I walked back to Nicci's area where Ralph dropped off the jacket so Nicci could file it in the secure cabinets again.

~ ~ ~ ~

It was to be yet another several days before we heard from Lucy again. In the meantime I was visited by Jeanne's attorney who, once again, was pressing for another increase in her monthly extortion; now to ten thousand a month. This time I hadn't received any photos by the time he visited, those came later; delayed by the Christmas mails no doubt. This time I was careful to save the envelope and the photos, locking them up in the secure cabinet in my office filed under my ex’s name as an “enemy-of-the-state”.

~ ~ ~ ~

The next afternoon I was at my own attorneys offices.

“Yes, their timing wasn't as good as it usually happens to be but still, her attorney arrived within two days of the photos.”

“I see. My recommendation at the moment is not to acknowledge this latest attempt until our office has the opportunity to discuss this with her attorney. If we discuss the possibility of taking her to court for extortion, both completed and attempted, then he will necessarily need to take a stand. Once he expresses his position then we can decide if he should be included in the suit although that is but a remote possibility. What of this Doctor who is living with her?”

“That second envelope holds some surveillance photos of him as well as of them together. His address of record is the same as hers but what goes on within the house is anyone's guess. We have not placed any surveillance systems into her home. A home which I bought and paid for by the way.”

My attorney looked up, “Did you actually purchase the home or are you saying that figuratively?”

“I actually bought the property, in my name prior to the marriage. The court order had me sign it over to her as part of the settlement despite the agreements she and I had made in writing prior to the wedding.”

“I remember those. The originals are in a file here if I remember correctly.”

“Yes, they should be.”

“They were unusual but we attempted to make them as bullet-proof as we could. On what grounds did the judge cast them aside?”

“I haven't the faintest. I don't remember which of you was representing me in court that day but it was all junior partners who handled my divorce in the court proceedings once she sued for things that had been denied due to that agreement.”

“I'll pull the transcript of the case and review it, along with the pre-marriage agreement. It's possible that due to the unusual nature of the agreement that the judge threw it out despite its legality. If that's true then we have grounds for appeal and cause for possible restitution of past payments.”

“Thanks. At this point anything which could help reduce my cash flow would be appreciated.”

“I'll see what we can do. Was there anything else?”

“Not just now. It just happens to be landing on top of a lot of other stuff which makes this an exceptionally bad time for me. I can’t believe how she can continue to soak me deeper and deeper despite our only being married for fifteen months.”

“Exactly when was that, again?”

“I don’t remember exactly. I could look it up. It was while I was still active duty army. Why?”

“I was under the impression it was fairly recent and for a longer duration.”

“Nope. It was while I was in Southeast Asia. She was old history by the time I returned to the States or went to Europe. She only received a small portion of my duty pay after that until I became a civilian. That was when she started going for a larger slice of the pie. When I started up my business that was when she started going for even more.”

“I’ll have the transcripts gathered and take a look at them myself. I’m not going to say anything just yet but I agree with you that things don’t quite look to be on the up and up.”

“Thanks. I really appreciate it.”

Lynn glanced around the room then looked at her watch, thinking she needed to purchase one with a larger face. Why did women’s watches always need a magnifying glass to let someone read them?

“I’m afraid I have another appointment I must prepare for Jerry. Thanks again and I’ll hope to be hearing from you soon.”

“Take care of yourself, Lynn. I’ll try to get back to you this week but, if not, then Monday.”

“Good. Take care, Jerry.”

“You too, Lynn... as a slight aside... This seems to agree with you. Congratulations.”

Lynn turned red and muttered, “Thanks. I think so too. Bye.”

Leaving my attorney's offices, I collected my driver from the waiting room and we rode the elevator down to the main floor before making our way back to the city parking structure and our car. As he dealt with the obstacles of getting out of the structure and making our way home through the growing post Christmas, pre-New Years traffic, the papers I had in my briefcase occupied my attention... or at least they should have.

My mind wouldn't let me drop the hundreds of irritating things which were vying for time in my poor overloaded brain. I had temporarily solved my immediate money problems by taking out some new loans on my rental properties. Yeah, I know; I just finished paying off the old one. What can I say? The business needed the money and this was a quick way to get it. That let me pay for all the stuff we were buying as well as stash four months worth of operating capital away. Now all I needed to do was worry about paying off the loans again.

If all went the way I hoped, the next six or seven months would put us far enough in the black that I could pay down the loan faster than the sixty months I had on it. A little extra right away could make a huge difference in the interest payments on the loan; especially if I needed to re-negotiate it down the road which for some unfathomable reason always seemed to happen. I wonder why?

~ ~ ~ ~

The next couple of weeks were both quiet and hectic, a complete set of contradictions. The ransom my ex was demanding had, temporarily at least, gone quiet. The business, now that Christmas and New Years were over was fast becoming a source of bedlam. Somehow, I had apparently booked two more jobs than I had people to cover. The bad news... I vaguely remembered every job although for some reason I had been associating those extra two with several others rather than counting them as their own tasks. This was the first time I had ever done that and I wasn’t happy about it. Ralph, Nicci and I spent some midnight oil to work out some fast shuffling which placed fewer personnel on ten of the larger January/ February jobs and had the effect of granting us the bare minimum for each of those extra two. That was only if we included myself and Ralph each as a part of those two.

The one for which I drew the short straw was a nature walk for some Pharmaceutical company’s CEO which was to occur for three days in the wilderness of the Routt National Forest in Colorado. We would base in Steamboat Springs, for which I had two of my men already there infiltrating and scoping out the area. The rest of us showed up two days later and waited for the CEO and his entourage of two to arrive at the airport some forty miles distant. We would drive in and join the first two who had a rental car and room reservations for the rest of us.

The gentleman who had attended our meetings and who had brought the company’s need for a protection detail to our attention, as well as provided a healthy deposit for our services to that end, introduced us.

“Ms. Stevens, this is Mr. Ledbetter, the CEO of WehrFahrung Pharaceuticals. Herr Ledbetter, Fraulein Stevens.”

I offered my hand which he shook gently as I gave him the once over.

“I expected someone a bit older, Herr Ledbetter.”

His accent surprised me when he answered. Obviously he had received his language training in England or from someone who was English although his idiomatic usage was other than that.

“Yes. I have CEO been only for two years. My father in charge was until then but he now is a little on so decided to retire.”

“I see. Welcome to Steamboat Springs, Herr Ledbetter. We have rooms reserved and a detail of eight here to provide security. We have made special arrangements with the Forestry Service and when we go out tomorrow there will be two of them to act as guides and to answer any questions you might have during the hike.”

“Thank you. I thought the Steamboat Springs smaller would be.”

“Steamboat is about thirty kilometers away, sir. They are much smaller. We will be in a hotel at the south end of the community. We will be hiking in an area to the south and west. It is a protected National Park.”

“National Park needs protected?”

I laughed, “Only from the people who are visiting it, sir. Too many Americans throw out their trash on the grounds rather than carrying it until there is a place to put it, or they fail to extinguish their cigarettes then fling them into the brush which sometimes causes damage to the environment.”

We got our detachment and party back to the hotel then out for supper and back again. Tomorrow would be an interesting day. Apparently there were some specific plants they wished to examine and possibly take samples back with them to be raised at their company for one purpose or another.

~ ~ ~ ~

We spent the next two days collecting nearly two dozen specimens which were carefully culled from the area under the watchful eyes of the Forestry Service. The three gentlemen spent long hours discussing the plants they had harvested along with small amounts of soil. The plants were allowed to remain in the sun during much of the day wherever possible and small amounts of our precious water were used to keep them alive.

On the third day we headed back for the vehicles.

I had two of my people on point ahead of our main party when I heard several nearly silent “phutfs” behind me. Spinning around I reached for my weapon and remembered only then that we were unarmed and only the Forestry people had weapons of any kind. As I finished my turn my mind was registering the strange fact that both of them were falling to the ground along with three of my own people. Even as I identified the threat, I realized it was one of Herr Ledbetter’s people. That was when I noticed Herr Ledbetter aiming something at me. It also went “phutt” and I felt a prick in my shoulder.

“Don't bother to fight it. All it will do is put you to sleep for a couple of hours and then you'll be good as new. Well... except for a hangover the size of Texas which will last for a couple of hours. No, don't try to talk, save your energy to listen. I have a message for you to give to your boss and I want to be certain you hear it all before you go nighty-bye.”

I tried to protest that I owned my company and I was the boss. He laughed before he replied.

“No, I mean your other boss. The one in Meade. An old flame of hers told me to tell you to let her know that he hasn't finished with her yet. He'll be back to collect on that old debt. Oh, and you might let her know that I've got a thunderbolt or two for her as well, as a thank-you for causing me to lose my cushy job in the belt. Houdini might have been a great magician but even he succumbed to his own bravado. Oh and don’t worry about Cathy. She’ll be just fine. We don’t hurt children. As soon as the leverage we will gain from holding her is no longer needed then she will be let go at a safe place and you will be able to retrieve her without incident.”

I managed to slur out; “ifff youu hrt er. I’ ki ou.”

He laughed, “Don’t be melodramatic. She will be fine. Perhaps a little frightened but just fine as will your own people. We waited until most were out on assignments leaving only a few at the office. It was necessary for us to strike there for the child since that is the only place where there is no bolt-hole, yes we are aware of the security precautions at your “safe houses”. By the way, my name isn’t Ledbetter but what it really happens to be doesn’t matter much at the moment. My thanks for looking after my two chemists so well. Oh! One more thing, tell your boss to quit getting in the way if she doesn’t want to be removed from the equation. That would be a shame since she’s so close to getting married again.

Well, we have to be going now. Two of my team will hang around until you all begin to awaken. We wouldn’t want some wild animals to take advantage of the situation until you are able to fend for yourselves again. If you quit struggling against the drug and just relax, it will go more quickly then you will all be up and at it again. The less you fight it, the less of a headache you’ll have when you wake up.”

He place a bottle on the ground next to me.

“Aspirin. For the headaches you will all have. Amazingly enough, it’s still the best remedy.
Nighty-night. Pleasant dreams.”

He started to laugh again as he walked past me gathering the two chemists and several other men whom I didn’t recognize and who had probably been waiting there to close the trap. Two of them remained nearby but by then my eyes weren’t focusing well and things were getting pretty dark. I remembered trying to curse something out at him but all I heard was some sort of soft grumble just before the lights went out.

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.

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DUTY CALLS, L.J. Stevens Vol. One Copyright © 2013/ 2014 USA, Earth by D. A.Trask.

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