A Hunting We Will Go!

The 500 mile drive down Interstate 35 was a quick breeze. The pre-dawn exits had little traffic and I'd expected to arrive before the intense summer heat began to melt the tarmac. It helped that the Maserati's accelerator was a little heavier than normal. Zipping past the '15 over-the-speed limit drivers,' I left them in my dust. A few were trying to catch up to me on the long open straight-a-way; eager to show off those macho muscle cars their Daddies bought them, would have been my guess. 'Sorry, guys. This isn't your day to play!' I thought as I inched down on the throttle watching them drop back. 'Fear of the radar cops,' I suspected.

Thoughts about her speed and agility came to mind as I had grown more accustomed to handling all those sensuous Maserati muscles. The off-track training course Jack added as a bonus when he turned over the keys also helped. She needed a name. Something catchy. I just hadn't found one yet. But it would come to me, eventually. I focused on blowing through the notorious speed trap just outside of San Antonio. My stolen FBI credentials sitting beside me, just in case, would undoubtedly wave-off any local cop stops. Glancing in the rearview mirror, I could see my own reflective smirk as I thought of the bitch to whom the credentials belonged.

Thought about how she must have squirmed trying to explain the loss of her gun and her badge to her boss. I imagined his angry response, "So, field agent, You're telling me some sword-wielding woman, a scantily clad samurai warrior-type, kicked your three asses, tied you up, then overpowered you a second time, took your gun and badge while you shot at her and missed? Then she chit chatted with and made kissy-kissy with your witness before she rode off on a bicycle?"

Hope she has a nice desk job; somewhere in Alaska perhaps, counting envelops. Just a thought, that playfully crosses my mind from time to time as I think back to that near death experience.

The Hyatt on the River Walk could wait for check in. I was anxious to see this second 'Jack Wilson' and find out who he is and what he does for the shadowy other Jack Wilson. Are they equals or did my second discovery take his orders from the other bastard; as I did? I was feeling a bit pissy as thoughts of my restless sleep crept into mind. I wheeled into the Stinson Field parking lot; braking hard at the curb. Surveilling the empty lot for anyone in proximity was that sense of the spiderly field agent training I fell into once more, before alighting onto the asphalt.

'Get a grip on yourself, girl!' I muttered as I looked up, catching a movement out of the corner of my eye.

It didn't take long to catch a pair of eyes watching as I approached the nondescript hangar labeled 'SkySafety Flight Academy.' The name smacked of an innocuous government attempt to hid in plain sight. The eyes were screened by aviator style sunglasses—masked like some movie villain. His bone structure didn't have the same oak tree bearing of JW, a former Recon Ranger I had come to know over the last four years.

'Not like the JW I know.' I thought. Smaller framed. Still, he had that military bearing stance surrounding him as he stood by the door. Clearly, he was expecting me. My JW must have given him my description, perhaps the Maserati's as well, certainly he knew me; I could tell by the way his body language tensed as I hit the pavement—he had the advantage of that.

"Welcome, Ms. Wilson. I'm ..." he began, as I was close enough for an introduction, having stepped upon to the curb. His smile seemed friendly.

"...Yeah, you're Jack Wilson, right. The real one?" I cut into his greeting a bit abruptly. Somehow it just didn't seem right to see someone wearing another's same name—certainly not if they came from the same agency. Yet—I didn't have that same feeling regarding the other three Jackie Wilsons. Guess it was because I'd never met them. In four years, this was my first contact with another operative outside my handler that I had ever met. Maybe, then, there really was a Shadow Agency—not just JW delivering justice as a Lone Ranger, skirting the laws of governments. Unsettling, to say the least.

"Call me Gerome, if it pleases you, or Caligula, or Caesar, but just not JW—I'm not partial to that one. Just so you know, though, at this locationeveryone does call me by the name on my driver's license, 'Jack Wilson.'

As he removed the sunglasses, I smiled; he looked charming and more vulnerable without them. Looking up into his deep brown eyes, I flippantly answered, "You're just as pissy as JW. The one I know. So, are you okay with just Jack, then?"

His smile returned then turned more serious, gazing down, taking a few extra moments to study my body, without one ounce of shyness. It felt like the Navy Seal once over inspection again; of a 103 pound flyweight seeking to join an elite team with high expectations of success.

"How far along are you?" he asked, quietly, studying me.

"What!" I didn't look fat and I sure as hell didn't look ... His question came out of left field. That question, the way he asked it wasn't...in my life plan. Not at this moment anyway!

"The simulator, how many hours have you logged?" he asked, again.

"Eight hours a day after I set it up, so about 220 hours, more or less." I bridled, curbing my urge to put 'a sock into his mouth.' I wrongly connected the question 'about how far along' with becoming a mother. Dumb connection, but it was there, and I felt a tinge of warmth radiating from my face. Hell, I didn't blush...much. But the thought of motherhood really came out of left field!

"Impressive, start. So, what's your timeline?" he asked, ignoring my embarrassing moment.

"You don't know, seriously?" I asked in reply.

"I was told to expect you, got your description in an encrypted email. Nice photo by the way. It does you justice, that police uniform, I mean. Perky! My role is on a need to know basis, so all I have are the simulator requirements for a Phenom E series with enhanced navigation."

'Shit! This guy is flying blind,' I thought.

"My hotel reservations are for three months," I remarked, using it as a probable clue for the timeline. It dawned on me, in that instant, I had no clue of a timeline either. Both of seemed to be clueless. Hell, I didn't even have details of what this was about, yet. Just conjecture at this point in time.

"Motherfu..."

"What's wrong?" I caught the alarm in his voice, before he could finish.

"A basic course is eight months. That's just to get airborne not certified for solo!

"Jesus, you got your work cut out for you, kid!" he growled at the realization that this was going to be a true 'crash course' in training a rookie.

"I've got some airtime in a Cessna, if that helps." I proffered, just not elaborating on the time in the air as a twelve-year-old until I was seventeen.

"That's like going from a tricycle to a Maserati, sugar. Not the same thing at all," he chuckled as he motioned for me to step inside the Quonset-style structure.

His southern twang and the 'sugar' reference marked him as a local, born and raised in the south. Nothing wrong with that. It's the nuances in a person's voice, a regional colloquialism, or even a voice cadence that betrays their inner thoughts—just something that registers as I become attuned to people. It was the same with acquiring languages, I had an ear for them: Spanish, French, Vietnamese, Japanese, and some Mandarin, as well. I could handle most of those fluently; even wrote well in some of them. The opportunity for acquiring them came in my childhood as my Dad's military tours spanned numerous countries during his Navel career. My parents are proud of 'my smarts.' My Dad once embarrassed me by telling everyone, "She bought a book on whistling and taught herself!" My Dad could be so damn corny!

Jack Wilson, the new Jack, walked me through the complex to a Redbird FMX simulator. It was a far different control system than the desktop model JW sent me. This one had full wrap-around screens and a range of motion to mimic yaw, pitch, and roll; creating a better flight simulator experience than the desk top model. It was equipped with twin pilot seats for training purposes. The Phenom cockpit was designed for a single pilot, just a bit different.

I buckled in beside Jack as he ran me through the nuances between the two units. I crashed on takeoff four times and died on the second landing attempt. This 'mofo' was damn straight up different! I felt my former Navy vocabulary kicking in as, under my breath, I cursed the infernal machine. Each time I had over corrected and died of embarrassment; as Jack watched, my face grew more tense. I felt a burning flush rise up cheeks, wondering if Jack thought I faked the practice hours I had logged. He remained dispassionate about the deaths. He never once commented about it; just made me start over from scratch; from start up to take off and landings. Damn good thing we weren't in a real Phenom over some populated area!

Four hours into the roll, pitch, and yaw of the simulator and I started to get the feel of the control systems. Jack's only derogatory, albeit facetious, remark came when we broke for lunch. He uttered it with a serving of dry humor. "Don't worry! Whoever owns the jet you're going to be flying can probably pay for new struts and tires when you get through with it! Sugar, I'm gonna make sure that you don't flame it on the runway! Nobody dies on my watch."

Those last words raised the hairs on my neck a bit. Little did I know how prophetic they were.

We broke for lunch. Jack sprang for it. He didn't ask. I drove as he directed my route to ShiFu Noodle, a Szechuan place near Stinson Field. Our conversation centered around San Antonio's tourist sites, my stay at the Hyatt, and that I hadn't checked in yet. He nodded at the last point as he picked up the bill.

"We'll make a short day of it then, so that you can beat the downtown traffic and get checked in. Fancy place like that should have a whirlpool and sauna. See JW went all out on this one. The last rookie I trained, stayed on base."

The dig wasn't misplaced on me. I could read the bemusement in his voice about staying on base. I'd never thought about the accommodation's costs. It was government after all.

I started back to Stinson when he redirected me to San Antonio Joint Base Operations. I didn't ask why; he didn't say either as we drove in quiet. It was born out of that military sense of understanding that silence was not something that needed to be filled with constant chatter. Sometimes that spider sense within me kicks in and it knows better than to ask for details. We headed to a military designated area. Jack flashed his ID at the guard and he waved us through.

Pulling up to a closed hangar, he coded in. As I walked into the dim area, he flipped a switch. There, bathed in light, sat a pristine Phenom E Series twin jet. The tail number designation looked familiar; it finally clicked—the same one over my doppelganger's right shoulder as she exited the Craziest One's private jet! This was a duplicate down to the interior layout. Still, the damn sleek aircraft took my breath away! We spent half an hour looking over the exterior and interior layouts. The simulator was close, but this was the real deal!

"Ready for a test flight?" He drawled.

I just studied his handsome face for a few moments more before responding, "I think I'd better get some ground time on the simulator before I lift off! Don't you?" I wasn't sure if he was kidding or for real about a test run. He wasn't kidding; just, not with me in the pilot seat.

Talk about opening a Christmas present! Jack left the cockpit and operated the hangar door switches and they rolled open. Daylight poured into the cavity of the building and into the cockpit windows as I sat and watched through the windshield, mesmerized by the panoramic view ahead. It felt like being in the Millennium Falcon lifting off the runway!

Reboarding, Jack bent over to waddle back into the pilot's cabin. With a slight jerk of his head, I got the message and slipped out of the pilot's chair. His arm brushed against my breasts as he slid past me into the empty chair. "Sorry about that!" he grinned.

"Not my first brush by, GI Joe!" I responded, "We are adults here, right?"

He didn't respond—with words. His ear-to-ear grin said it all.

The next two hours were absolutely amazing! Jack had me talk him through the takeoff procedures. He handled the radio authorizations and I studied his practiced movements as he lifted off. I handled the touch screen controls for gear up and watched as he set a circular path into a holding pattern over San Antonio. The thrill of knowing my training would end with flying this sleek beauty brought to mind an old line from the 'Pretty Woman' movie, as the elderly lady asked, and Julia Roberts answered, "Did you enjoy the opera, dear? - Oh, it was so good, I almost peed in my pants." That's how I felt seated in the captain's chair aboard that jet.

Those two hours flew by in an instant. We were up for about an hour and forty-five minutes of airtime and spent the remainder of the afternoon sitting on the ground; repeatedly going over the controls and flight procedures. Those hours were more fruitful experiences than anyone could get by being strapped into the land-bound Redbird Simulator.

Dropping Jack number two off at Stinson Field, I wove through heavy downtown traffic and made my way to the Hyatt. So much for leaving early to avoid traffic, I thought, as I pulled up to the valet parking area. The boys stopped working and stood still admiring the lip-stick colored, bold red Maserati as it idled.

The youngest of them was tasked with unloading my luggage while the others checked me out as I stepped onto the walkway. They got a demure Asian girl's come on smile; while I took the arm of the young one saying, "I feel a bit dizzy; would you mind taking my arm and walking me in, honey?" I think I made his day, both as I rubbed against him through the doorway to the front desk, and as I gave him a nice tip as he rolled my luggage into the suite. As the door swung open, I spotted a dozen yellow roses and a card from the oak tree sized 'man of a few words.'

'See you in three months.' The calligraphy read. The card was marked 'From JW.'

'If he thought a dozen yellow roses was going to salve my chapped ass at holding back the doppelganger photo—he was fucking naïve as hell ...' I took in and held my breath. I'd known JW for four years; he wasn't naïve; just 'socially girl inept' I had concluded. I had no basis for that thought; just that he never made a move on me. Draw your own conclusion on that one.

The roses were beautiful though, a nice complement to my skin tone, I thought, as I reached out to feel the velvety, delicate petals. 'Nice, gesture—asshole. Roses, is that the best you can do?' I sighed, as I thought about the mystery man who loomed so large in my life. 'Married—asshole; is that why all I get it roses and never what's in your ...'

"I worked my ass off during those three months in San Antonio! Seven hours a day either running the simulator until it needed new struts and tires, or one-on-one with Jack Wilson on avionics training, communications protocols, and all the minutia that pilots rigorously trained to handle. The more enjoyable part of the afternoons was spent aboard the Phenom jet. Making increasingly longer outbound and return trips. Near the middle of the third month of intensive work, I could finally say, 'I owned this fucker!' as I sat in the pilot seat and nailed my first solo flight.

One afternoon, on an in-bound flight, a thought wormed its way into my mind as I focused on the approach. Instantly, I named her 'Song Bird,' in honor of my Dad's first plane. It brought a smile to my face. Wilson caught that winsome smile.

"Penny for whatever thought just lit up that pretty face, darling," He drawled.

I let down my guard a bit, flying back in time a few years, if just figuratively, and thinking about my carefree days with Dad. "Song Bird," I let out the name with a sigh, "just thought of a name for this bird. My dad used to fly a Cessna Skyhawk. He called it Song Bird. He named it after mom's nickname 'Song Bird.' She sings like a nightingale, he always says."

I also got around to naming the Maserati 'Lady Nightingale;' the name just seemed to flow together with the Song Bird christening. I arranged for a detail shop to add an image of a nightingale in flight to the hood, adding her name in flowing white-lettered script. 'No way I would ever confuse my car with someone else's at a restaurant,' I chucked fastidiously to myself, as I picked up the car from the detail shop. It seemed a bit of my past was slipping into the present; perhaps it was unconscious. Perhaps it was a way of keeping my life together in some semblance of sanity. God knows the last three years have had its tests of that.

Most of my evening hours were spent studying the continual inflow of intel documents regarding 'El Mas Loco' and his mysterious pilot. It took months of airport visual recognition software scans before she was picked up on an Interpol scan in Paris. When that intercept message hit my coded email alarm, I exclaimed aloud, "She is Thai!"

Her passport name is Achara Sanouk, like most Thai names the formal name serves for documentation purposes. Achara means 'pretty angel.' Her surname is Sanouk deriving its meaning from 'fun.' Like nearly all Thai, among family, friends, and even business co-workers she would go by a nickname. Further NSA background telephonic scans picked up 'Yim' from the verb 'to smile.' Looking at the naming convention you would expect to find Ms Achara Sanouk or affectionately 'Yim' would be a smiling, angelic, fun-loving person. That's not the case. In none of the global images captured of her comings and goings was she caught smiling. It was that same troubled look that Gloria Moreno wore. That sense of fright as she always seemed to be looking out of the corners of her eyes for some unseen predator.

The drug kingpin appeared to use her like 'The Rat' screwed with Gloria—as a courier of information. There were major differences of course. Yim was highly educated, a skilled translator, as well as a licensed intercontinental pilot. There is a lot more missing data about this woman. What connects Yim to Nazario Moreno? Is it a mutual agreement or is it a common cartel leverage being used to control Ms Achara Sanouk? I needed that piece of the intelligence jigsaw puzzle before all the pieces could be put together.

Time was ticking. Jack had pushed for a three month's window for some reason. I just didn't know what that piece of the puzzle held in the grand scheme of things for 'El Mas Loco.'

Taxing your body for twelve to sixteen hour days take a toll on you. I could feel it in the dissipation of energy in my morning runs and sword workouts in the hotel room. I missed out on home city time with the locals in a dojo honing my mixed martial arts skills. Jack Wilson saw it in my studies in avionics; the 'errant eye syndrome' he called it one day. He took action the last week of my training.

I received a text message at six o'clock, two days later, when I arrived back at the Hyatt. 'Come alone. Undercover op. Attire -- sexy. No swords. Hand-to-hand only. Too many locals in crowd. Supper Restaurant, Hotel Emma, 36 E. Grayson St.'

Hell! Less than an hour to get ready and find Grayson Street. God bless Felicity!