Ferret Girl Ch. 04

But they did get it done and they laughed about it in his bed later that night, agreeing that it had indeed been an accomplishment.

Kate wasn't sure how she ought to feel about it, but on the way back, they'd actually parked in the street and she'd waited for ten minutes while he did just a quick bit of shopping so that they'd have something to eat for dinner. While he was gone, she stood outside in her coverall and listened to a lot of comments and questions. She didn't think about it, but the episode only added to the legend a little.

The next morning, they were at the company range and after a bit to get familiarized once more with the same small arms that she'd trained on long before during her own national service, Kate was sworn into the security service for the farm. After that, they got Fanny's L7 sighted in, and they sat eating lunch under a tree before they left for another bit of trailblazing.

They were doing the same thing along an unfamiliar stretch, just idling along and trying to get used to the new route when he spoke.

"This path here leads to a beach which is fairly private," Jürgen said, "It is used sometimes by -"

He stepped on the brake and they coasted to a stop.

There in front of them, they could see a boat tied to a fallen tree at the shoreline, even though it appeared to have been pulled up a little. Out of the cove some distance, they saw a yacht. Kate turned on the recorder as she swept the viewfinder over the scene, stopping every few seconds as she zoomed in on some detail or other.

There were men trotting to the boat and there were what looked to be a pair of lovers there on the sand, both of them looking to be lost in what they were doing. The men were finished with whatever they'd been doing and three of them now turned to make quiet little remarks to the last man, who was still went on fucking the woman a little slowly. It was clear that they'd have liked him to hurry it up.

The spell was broken when the three noticed the sound of the idling Ferret and they called over in alarm. The man looked over in surprise and shock as he pulled out of the girl and ran for the boat which was already untied and slipping out. He was aboard on the second try and the paddles were out as he tried to start the small outboard motor.

As the motor started and was slammed into gear to accelerate the boat out of the little cove, the naked and quite beautiful woman on the beach looked over, jumped to her feet and ran after only a quick and hurried attempt at grabbing her few belongings as Jürgen lurched them forward again.

The girl gave up then and ran off with only her shorts and top in her hands, but she did look back just once and it was enough.

Two of the men in the small craft reached down and came back up with weapons and in another moment, Kate began to curse as she heard some of the rounds patter along the vehicle's skin.

"Fuck this for a lark!" she seethed and reached to rip back the cocking handle of the long gun in the turret. She slid back down and selected the gun on her systems.

"Nobody shoots the paint off my Fanny."

Jürgen heard it, but decided that now was not the time. He grinned to himself anyway.

She laid the reticules onto the yacht where she now saw more armed men. She waited only long enough to see the sparkles which told her they were firing.

"A little closer, Jürgen," she said a little loudly, "We've been fired on. That's all I need, I think."

As Jürgen slammed the driver's hatch closed and the Ferret moved forward, Kate tried a short burst to see where the impact point would be in relation to what she saw on the screen and liking it, she began to drill into the yacht, which had now turned and was pulling away.

There were still skitters against the outer shell and she gave the small boat a little of her attention, trying for the outboard motor. She cursed and fumed as the odd spent casing from the gun escaped the catch-all bag and landed on her to burn her if she didn't notice it right away.

It must have worked; she thought, as the boat settled forward onto its bow wave and slowed. The men were not in sight now, trying to hide in the hull. Kate switched back to the yacht then and shot the shit out of at least one inboard with several bursts. Her reward was the steam and smoke which began to envelop the stern of the craft which still limped away slowly.

After several seconds of silence, Jürgen reached for his submachine gun," Keep the gun on the nearer boat." He said.

With that, he was out of the hatch, striding to the spot to retrieve the few things that the girl had left behind. After that, he walked to the one article that one of the men had fumbled with and dropped over the side in his shock at being seen. One of the men in the small craft raised a weapon and Jürgen warned him to put it down and raise his hands.

The man fired anyway, and Kate found herself scrambling to get her turret turned that way.

Jürgen didn't flinch. He only walked forward and returned fire in two bursts. The rest held up their hands then, the ones who could, at least.

"Call it in," he yelled to Kate, who now sat numb in her shock, but she did as he asked and less than five tense minutes later, there were half a dozen security officers on the scene, one of them the head of overall security with more constables on the way.

With back-up there with them and looking around, ordering the men to come to the shore, the security chief made the call which would bring a police watercraft to arrest the men on the yacht.

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There was silence in the meeting room as several people watched Kate's footage through the projector.

When it was done and had begun to loop to the beginning, the chief of security shut it off. There was still a long silence before Corrine Morris spoke up.

"That wasn't me," she said, a little nervously, "I was in town then. That wasn't me!"

Her father reached for the plastic bag that had lain hidden out of sight in a briefcase until then.

"These are your sandals," he said heavily, "and this is your wallet."

"But I lost my wallet in town yesterday and -- "

Morris pointed to the now blank screen and said, "Do you really think that I wouldn't know your face in any crowd, never mind all alone and naked on the sand? Do you believe that a father wouldn't recognize the tattoo on his own daughters shoulder? The one that I've hated to see on your skin since it was done?"

He slammed his fist down on the table. "Must I really ask Ms. Perkins to prove me right with a close-up of that?"

Everton Morris sighed in a bit of quiet shame for a moment and then he looked up, "Almost all of those men worked here. I was able to identify them myself from the video, Corinne. The ones on the yacht were strangers.

All of them have been questioned and every one, ..."

He exhaled heavily, "Every single one pointed to you as the leader of this ring, the part which was here." He looked down again for a moment and then he looked up once more.

"Police constables were wounded the first time that they tried to arrest anyone, Corinne. Men were killed for this business. I've had to give widows and children my condolences and now I find that my own daughter --"

He looked down, "And one man dead from the yacht and another from the boat. Such a waste."

Kate had been silent for all of the time, wondering why she felt like the guilty one in this. This had been what they'd been hired and brought for -- the worst possible case, she realized, but it had been an eventuality that had always been there in her mind. The looks that she'd been receiving from Corinne had only made her feel worse. Kate had felt terrible from the start, since it had all made her feel as though she was being forced to act against someone who had been a friend to her, but there is was all the same.

Morris managed to hold his rising voice at that point and just looked away. He glowered at Kate and Jürgen as though he wanted to hold them responsible for this shame, but he his gaze passed by them after a moment and stopped at Errol Cardington.

His hands lifted from where they'd been held knit together as he raised them slightly, "I have nothing more to say, Errol, other than to try to express my deepest --"

Mr. Cardington nodded and then turned to look at the head of the island's constabulary and he nodded.

Corinne was led out of the room in cuffs.

"I think that your response was a little heavy-handed, Ms. Perkins," Morris said in an accusatory tone.

That was it for Kate. She saw Jürgen looking as though he was about to speak, but she pre-empted his reply, now that someone who hadn't been there was passing his judgement.

While she'd had to sit in that hot tub with the knowledge that without Fanny's tough metal hide, this would have likely ended far differently.

"A bloody good thing that I didn't have a Swingfire then, if that's your attitude, Mr. Morris," she said quietly. "They're not legal to own privately and they've all been scrapped as far as I am aware. Otherwise, I'd have removed the whole yacht in one go."

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He watched as a beefy-looking tourist tried to strike up a hopeful conversation. Kate knew it for what it was and she was still friendly, though after a time, he saw her shake her head, still smiling as she pointed over in his direction and the conversation ended with the man walking away after a long glance. Kate walked away from the stall and back to where Jürgen watched his wife's fine body as it came to him in that thong bikini and looking like a pleased goddess.

Which was pretty much what she was to Jürgen Bandermann, he readily admitted to himself.

He reached out to take the slush drink that she held out to him.

He was aware that she still had little issues with herself, but none of them came from him. She was stacked and built like the proverbial brick shithouse and that body could make any man come to a few quiet hopes in a heartbeat if his knees could even hold him up that long. That sort of thing was like a donkey looking as longingly as he wanted at a fine Percheron mare.

He didn't really care about any of that beyond the slightly humorous thought of it. What was important was that Kate knew that to him, she was everything that he could ever want, and he never stopped showing it to her.

Besides, he thought, Kate had stood in the same place far more than once when he'd been approached by women himself, though his side of the conversations were shorter than theirs. He thought it ironic, not that it meant much to him.

Once it had become widely known who they were and that they were together, it as almost as though he was now not seen as so much of a silent, hulking brute.

He took it as a sign that she was rubbing off on him. He liked to think of it that way and he knew that what he'd just watched was just a hopeful pass. It happened fairly often to Kate.

But none of them could even turn her head and he'd never give her a reason to ever doubt him for a second.

They began to walk together down the pebbled path, nodding and returning the greetings which were offered to them as they went. "You do know what they call us, don't you?" she smiled over at him for a moment.

He sipped his drink for a second before he smirked, "So? I have seen these movies and I don't care what they say."

Her close-cropped auburn head turned to look at her husband for a moment, "I can't believe that it's finally over," she said as she walked.

He snorted quietly, "I need to know what you are referring to, Kate. Do you mean the long drama in court, or do you mean the extensions to our contracts which we were given? I'm afraid that I don't know what you mean at all."

Kate giggled a little and began to imitate him, "I mean everysing. Ze court appearanzess, ze exdenshins, ... "

She sighed then as she dropped the act, "I mean everything. It was nice of Mr. Cardington to keep us fed while I arranged for a ship to transport the Ferrets and us back with them. All that we had to pay for was the difference in the container size so that we could take our little Citroens along and I'd never leave them here, not after all of the fun we've had with them. Why, I want to restore them if I can as good as new and if I can't -- "

"I know," he smiled, "they would make lovely planters."

Kate sighed, "I love it here, Jürgen, but I'm not going to go through another hurricane season."

"It's not as bad as that most years," he said, "but I know what you mean. I just hope that I can find a job in England."

"Are you uncertain about things?" She asked and he nodded, "Not about us, but a little about everything else."

"Well don't be," she said, trying to sound like his boss once more, "We've only got days to wait for the ship to dock and then we'll be off on another round of adventure. I have some measure of faith in my man. I just have to try to get used to the European winters again, that's all.

You have four months left and if nothing works out, then I'll go with you and you can teach for that alphabet soup group that you were in, in the army in Germany. I know I can turn a good coin if I sell Fanny -- especially since she's seen action in her time.

I don't have a sodding clue, but I'll do my best to make you a good hausfrau somehow."

They'd had their troubles out of the entire incident and its many repercussions. Corinne's arrest had only created a vacuum which was quickly filled, but with the Ferrets armed up and on patrol in two shifts, it was a lot harder to move goods and a lot easier to come across the perpetrators whenever they tried. There had been more arrests, but with one of the Ferrets on-scene, or even the threat of an appearance after a radio call, there had been no more gunplay.

Jürgen doubted if the activity had even ceased completely, but it was no longer their problem. The contract was done and Kate had been able to help Mr. Cardington to procure more modern equivalents. Not Ferrets, but it was what could be done. The training had fallen to him and it had been worth a lot of cash as well.

In the middle of it all, Kate and Jürgen had come apart for a short time, but that was in the past as well. Neither of them ever expected to meet anyone like the one that they'd found -- or wanted to, for that matter, and so they'd just met one evening and said nothing until after they'd finished making love until they just couldn't anymore.

After that, it was just the laughing knowledge of what they had and every other thing was forgotten between them and about a week after that, Kate became Mrs. Bandermann.

A week after the container had been loaded into the hold, Kate joined her husband at the rail of the slow freighter which was taking them home. It was not lost on her that they were at the moment, sailing AWAY from the sunset.

"I have been thinking," he said out of the blue.

Kate laughed, "I've seen that old advert on the television. It's not even funny out here on a ship like this."

As he looked at her quizzically, she just put her arm around his waist and looked up, smiling, "All right. Tell me then, what have you been sinking about?"

He didn't get it, so he went on, "I think that you should do what you need to go into this Ferret and armored vehicle business as much as you can. I saw that there was at least some good money in it when you helped to get the parts for the old Mark 2s there. You do what you can, and I will always help you and I will find some work somehow, so we can stay in England. I have no wish to see you as a hausfrau at all."

She hugged him tightly and gave him a delighted little grin, "That's what I love about you, always sinking about me. But I don't want to get into anything like that old argument again between us. Let's just get there and see and then we can sink about everysing, ja?"

He looked at her, knowing that she'd been having him on in her gentle way.

"I can manage French or Russian if you like, Kate. Are there any of the Slavic languages that you would like to hear? How about Swedish or, ... I know, Mandarin!

No, Mongolian, ... with a very polite German accent, of course!"

She backed away in fear of him a little, "Please, no.

For God's sake, not that!"

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END