One in Ten Ch. 11

I sobbed.

"Good boy."

They left me alone after that.

{PAST MIDNIGHT}

In hindsight, it was stupidly easy to find me ... if you knew what to look for. In this case, all they needed to know were the names of the occupants of my apartment Wednesday morning and the names and home addresses of their closest acquaintances. Everyone on the list had either deactivated their phone and personal computer, or was easily locatable in the city ~ except Jethro MacFarlane. A small, stealth drone fly-over scanning for infra-red signatures suggested a huge number of houseguests. A special 'ping' (courtesy of a blood transfusion a few days earlier) verified I was on the premises.

There were several hiccups between our visitors rolling off the highway and saying 'hello'. Jethro had a number of sensors on his property to make him aware of unwanted trespassers, as we'd witnessed with Flame's and Silent's arrival. Neutralizing them took about five minutes. Figuring out his place was an architectural jigsaw puzzle was another seven minutes in the planning and implementation phase.

Their prime mission was locating my body within the domicile. Their secondary concern was the copious amount of firearms they were discovering around the locale through the use of magnetic sensors. In their favor, they had been chosen time and time again for being innovative, highly adaptive, clever and courageous.

"Israel," a female voice whispered to me. "Capri and Kuiko, is it?"

I awoke, swallowing my heart. A slumbering Kuiko mumbled something. Capri was far more alert. She quickly rose up on her elbows.

"What the -- Jen? What the fuck are you doing here?" she hissed to the newcomer.

"Jen?" I focused. "Ah -- everyone here is friendly. Let me contact the others before something goes wrong." If the Vanishers were inside Jethro's place ... Jethro, Angel and Flame could still cause things to take a tragic twist.

"We have discovered a few automatic rifles and an anti-air missile on site," Jen smiled. "Care to explain?"

Judgement call time.

"The homeowner is former MRA. He quit when they started killing non-governmental targets and has been sitting on the sidelines since then," I explained. "Also, there are two very recently-former mobster here as well -- one badly banged up -- plus one 'very-former' Metropolitan Police Officer -- Angel Kristi."

"Hey," Kuiko tried to make sense of Jen, who was crouched at the foot of our bed. It was difficult to make her out clearly because she had a hood on and what I thought might be night-vision goggles raised up on her forehead. She was otherwise dressed in some drab camouflage-pattern combat dress and body armor, despite Jen being the NASA member of the Vanisher team assigned to 'vanishing' me. She also had a sleekly-lethal looking weapon pointed at the ceiling. It was an ultra-modern, sound-suppressed death-dealer made for close-quarters fighting.

"Hey," Jen nodded slightly. "I don't suppose you feel like departing with us now?" was aimed my way.

"I've already got an exit plan I'm working on," I murmured.

"How about Capri inform the rest of the house you have company then?" Jen grinned. "The rest of us should get off the main road."

"Rest of you?" I gulped.

"Okay," Capri slid out of bed.

"I'll go too," Kuiko offered.

"No," Jen shook her head (to Kuiko). "Yes ~ rest of us ~ and I think we'd rather have 'Red' handle this ..."

"Because I'm a lawyer?" Capri guessed bitterly.

"No; because you are level-headed," Jens snickered. "You are also short, so we can shoot over you if something bad happens."

"Gee thanks," Capri snorted. As she headed for the door, Zara slipped into the room backward. She had a weapon similar to Jen's and a rifle slung over her back.

"Brandi will be sticking with her," Jen informed me. Zara remained by the door, scanning for outside threats. Providence was kind, though Flame insisted I come by before she exited her room. Jethro was ... I couldn't say if he was confused, or humbled. He'd come face to face with Special Forces troopers and been overwhelmed in his own home. A quick look at me confirmed I'd told them the most pertinent details.

When the Vanisher Team Leader, Casper, showed up, she and another member took Jethro aside for a brief chat. I wanted to tag along. They wouldn't allow it. I was rather surprised when they returned because he seemed rather upbeat (and alive). Her pronouncement was he could keep his guns. If he pointed any of them at me, or the other guys, they'd kill him and he'd agreed to the 'deal'. I was thinking 'other guys?'

Fifteen minutes after being awoken, I was part of the pow-wow between what was now 'my' group, the Vanishers and Jethro. Angel, Flame and Capri wanted to be with me. 'Captain' Casper nixed that idea. I could have one and only one. She had one lady -- her cell's 'Intelligence' Officer -- Wendy (later to be known as 'The Good Witch'). Jethro was part of the discussion because he was a combat veteran, the homeowner and had specifics on the arms stockpile they were sitting on.

I thought it over. I chose Flame. Angel was disappointed. Capri was contemplative over me picking the psycho. She got it quickly. I hadn't picked the sick-fuck -- I had picked the career criminal who might have knowledge the cop and very green lawyer might not possess. Both Flame and Jethro were likely to have any piece of obscure city lore as Angel, so I had that angle covered.

The three guys: Pierre Thomas ~ 18 year old college freshman who played 6 musical instruments, Barabbas Chebaya~ 22 year old plumber journeyman, and Lowry Pritchard ~ 23 year old unemployed artist/house-painter/man with a criminal record (anti-social juvenile antics). They all appeared bitter, sullen and were uncommunicative ... except to let everyone know they thought Jethro's place was a dump and wanted to know when they would be moving to someplace safer.

The last question was the reason for Casper's twelve women Vanisher team being in Jethro's house and their conference with myself, Flame and Jethro. Casper didn't beat around the bush.

"We have an issue. The declaration of Martial Law has bollixed our planned exit strategy. We were going to appropriate local Federation Air Force Reserve resources, fly to an unused, closed military base to the southwest and take other transport from there with the eventual goal of meeting with our larger command."

"Now that is no longer possible. Frank -- Mr. Jensen -- Truman, Brandi and Jen seem to believe you have developed an alternate, independent escape scenario," she addressed me. Alternate and independent were polite ways of saying she suspected I had planned to escape from the Vanishers all along, which was almost true.

My first plan had me using the Vanishers to leave our society, then abandoning them too. Later, I had figured out staying with them was the best bet for me and my friends to survive the upcoming calamity, so I'd left breadcrumbs for them to find me -- namely my meeting with Francesca and my parting words with Dimples. I had figured we'd be having this 'reunion' in Cody, not here, but I shouldn't have underestimated them ... again.

"Truman? Truman is Zara?"

"Yeah," Casper nodded. "Truman is Zara."

"Very well then ... I have a medium-term solution. I was hoping Mr. MacFarlane would have the short-term solution to get us from the city outskirts to that destination. Jethro?"

"Which way we headed?" he asked.

"West."

"Fancy that," he smiled. "Just so happens I know of a pre-Plague burgh west of here which is a ghost town now. There is an old ferry there which should get us across the Mississippi," he confided. That should be the biggest issue: the river was utterly un-fordable and all the bridges would be monitored. How foresighted of him. Casper's nod appeared to be in agreement with me.

"Power plant?" she inquired.

"An old diesel I finished converting to bio-fuel around twenty years ago. I've kept it up since then, though I wouldn't put much faith in it being good for more than two, or three trips. The distillery I cobbled together for the fuel doesn't produce the necessary high octane and the lubricant isn't nearly adequate for something that powerful."

"Jethro, why did you keep a ferry in working order?" I wondered.

"It is the last thing the bitches would look for, if they ever came for me and I had the chance to bolt," he grinned. "Every route south and west is blocked by rivers. East is mostly open country and semi-automated agro-businesses. North is lake country ~ broken ground and so the most likely place I'd run to. They'd waste days there looking for me. By then, I'd have slipped west and hopefully be in the Rockies."

"Okay. Where do we go from there?" Casper's gaze settled back on me.

"The Silverhorn Ranch outside of Cody, Wyoming. My former boss in the Mayor's Office has a cousin who lives there. She will by trying to go there as well," I added, feeling somewhat guilty. By trying to save Francesca, I had risked the rest of us.

"Have you ever been there?"

"No," which implied I was running away to a place which might not exist.

"Good. Have you seen a picture of it? A picture in your boss's office perhaps?"

"No ... not that I can recall. We never talked about our families. I didn't get the feeling they were terribly close ... which was probably why Francesca brought it up. She's pretty smart too," I reasoned.

"We are all probably betting our lives on that," Jethro remarked.

"We are. Okay, Wyoming works for us," Casper didn't seem upset. "It is not impossible some other agency could track you there amongst the legion of other possibilities ... in its favor, it is far away from here. There is only one other issue. Mr. MacFarlane -- we need to deactivate your band."

"How is that going to work?" he was deeply suspicious.

"They kill you," I sighed, "then bring you back after inserting a Coroner's Code." It dawned on me the three guys the Vanishers had brought with them had already gone through that procedure. That would be another reason they were unhappy.

"You don't say," Jethro studied Casper intently.

"Jethro, it was done to me years ago. I'm sure they did it to the three guys outside (in the other room) tonight. They'd be doing it to me as well, except a riot cop did them the favor by blasting my bracelet at the MAL Rally two nights ago and I never had the opportunity to have it fixed," I reasoned.

"And just like that, I'm going to let you kill me?" his eyes flickered from me to Casper to Casper's companion.

"Or you don't come with us," Casper offered.

"Why don't we fry it, the way Israel's was by that riot cop?" he suggested.

"It sends out an emergency distress call as it dies," I informed him. "The world may be in chaos, but can we really be certain the authorities won't send somebody out to investigate?"

"And someone to investigate what happened to those people?" Casper added. Sure, we could kill, or kidnap the first band of First Responders. Then what?

"Let me go talk it over with my girls," Jethro evaded.

"Of course. No pressure, Mr. MacFarlane. We can afford to part ways after the ferry if you don't, but that is as far as I can risk my unit if your band stays active," she assured him. Jethro's eyes bore into my soul.

"Fine," he mumbled. Sure, the Vanishers could have been fooling me. It was Casper's genuine last minute compromise which won him over. I imagine placing his life in a woman's hands was the last thing he expected to do 24 hours ago, yet here he was. "How are we going to do this?"

"Not here," Casper gave a sly grin. "We let our vet take your vitals and make you comfortable first. We need to make sure you'll survive the process -- we are looking at a 100% success rate to date."

"Vet?" he gave a start.

"Veterinarian," Casper smiled. "She's a trained combat paramedic too, but she's an honest-to-Goddess Dr. of Veterinary Science."

"I'm not sure that makes me feel better," Jethro grumbled.

"She's also an explosive expert," I tossed out there.

"Not helping," he frowned.

"Oh, Casper, we can use Roni too. She's a paramedic with City Services, or was," I recalled. "Paisley is a college junior studying Biology ..."

"We'll go with the paramedic assisting," Casper nodded. Out we went. Casper whispered some communications to her crew then had Brandi brief Roni on the procedure they were about to subject Jethro too.

After all the crap Roni had been through, putting a man into cardiac arrest hardly fazed her. Apparently they did it all the time -- to large animals, like horses. Jethro calmed his lady-friends down ... 'Daddy will be right back', then he lay down on the sofa. I took the time to get a count of the Vanishers -- we had 12. Meanwhile, Flame had gone to Angel and exchange a few words. They did what I should have been doing -- organizing 'my side'.

As it was, Angel stuck Venus with Flame to watch over things while she, Samantha and Lavender helped the Vanishers move stuff from their vehicles indoors. Capri, Kuiko, Aniqua and Paisley set up sleeping stations for our fifteen new houseguests.

Brandi 'killing' Jethro was rather anti-climactic. She injected him with something. Five minutes later, he closes his eyes, took one deep breath followed by several more stutter-breathes then Brandi pronounced him dead. Wendy had hooked up a wire feed to his bracelet from her laptop computer. She went through a countdown, sent a pre-set command then snipped his bracelet free. Brandi administered the shot to the heart followed by an electric jolt and we got our cantankerous old man back.

"Fuck," he choked out. "Damn, that hurts."

"How was Hell, Old Man?" Flame mocked him.

"Busier than a Drag Bar during Fleet Week," he coughed. "I saw a few of your friends there ... promised them you'd be seeing them real soon."

"Ha," Flame chuckled. She punched me. That brought an unnecessary and frightening number of reactions from the armed women around me. "Nope; you must have been delusional. Israel is still here and he's the only friend I got."

"Please do not hit Israel again," Casper stated in a very tightly controlled voice. "We have barely avoided killing you twice already. Don't make 'third time' the charm."

"Oh!" Flame clued in. "The bitches from the bridge. Which one is the sniper?"

"I will not point her out to you so we can avoid the pointless exchange of lead, Flame," I groaned as I rubbed my arm. "Take into account she has eleven exceedingly lethal friends while all you have is me."

"Point," she chortled. "I'll keep my eye out for the one who looks like she can't live another moment without your dick. It shouldn't take long."

I stared at her, mouth agape.

"Just kidding. They all look like they want a piece of you."

"Not helping!" I shouted back. Yes, I knew every member of the Vanisher team most likely had seen me both nude and having sex with other women. I didn't needed to be reminded of it.

I also caught the glance Wendy sent Casper's way.

"I'm pretty sure her knowledge of criminal enterprises in the Midwest will come in real handy," I preempted them. I didn't want them killing Flame either.

"Oh yeah. I know a mother-daughter team of smugglers who operate out of Cedar Rapids," Flame smiled broadly. "I figure they can get us across the Cedar and Iowa Rivers without drawing anyone's notice."

"Why didn't you mention this when we were discussing our exit plans?" Casper glared at Flame.

"I like him. I can barely tolerate the rest of you, and I'm sure the feeling is mutual. I figure I'd better carefully dole out the knowledge I have until the situation shakes out more to my advantage," Flame enlightened the Vanisher leader.

I had known all those factors when I brought her to the meeting. Flame was clever and constantly at Little M's side, so what contacts the Keverich Crime Syndicate had, she was at least aware of. She simply came across as so carefree, brutal and brusque it was going to take time for the rest to appreciate her 'finer'/craftier qualities. I hoped I lived long enough to see it.

It had been a long damn day, and with more stress than was remotely healthy for me given my multiple trips to the precipice of madness, yet I had one final duty to perform. I went to my fellow males and gathered them for what my gut told me was something important to discuss. The Hispanic Vanisher from the metro was hesitant about letting us take a stroll in Jethro's backyard.

As I turned to leave, I caught the old man watching us head out. He gave me a nod. I needed the endorsement since I was burning up what little recovery my short nap had given me.

"We are going out," I told the woman.

"Why?"

"Guy stuff," I told her. That didn't satisfy her curiosity. Her eyes flickered back into the room from whence we came.

"Outside -- us -- alone," I insisted. I was struggling to sound firm.

"Is that wise? The alone part."

"Good point. Give me a gun," I gently extended my hand.

"Do you even know how to use one?" she tried to hide her ridicule.

"Yeah. Of course I do," I frowned.

"Who taught you to shoot?" she interrogated me. Anger came to my rescue. I had only started by asking to take a damn stroll after all.

"Experts ... people really good at killing stuff," I evaded.

"I don't recall reading about that in your file," she kept detaining us.

"It was in my dreams ... earlier this week ... by Sergeant Major Daniel Joseph Daly, Company Sergeant-Major John R. Osborn and Colonel William O. Darby. All top notch fellas," I convincingly lied. PR training helps with that. Sadly ...

"William O. Darby was a Brigadier General," she corrected me.

"Posthumously," I counter-corrected. "Ms. ..." was left hanging.

"Wes Prince," she supplied her alias.

"Yeah. He's a bit pissed about the belated promotion along with getting gakked two days before the enemy surrendered and having his training methods nearly discarded," I continued. "I am glad we both agree he was a decorated combatant and thus capable of passing on his Warrior's lore. Gun please." I motioned with my hand once more.

She moved her PDW aside and drew her pistol before presenting into to me, butt first. Gingerly, I took it from her and pointed it toward the ceiling while examining it. First problem.

"Where is the safety?" I inquired.

"This model doesn't have one," Wes informed me. Sigh. I figured out the trick for dropping the magazine, examined it -- yes, it had bullets, and then checked the chamber by pulling back on it slightly to verify it had a round in it. It did.

I put the magazine back in. I made sure the firearm wasn't pointed at anyone as I lowered it from pointed up to only threatening Mother Earth.

"Thank you," I gave Wes a weak smile. "Come on guys." She didn't move so I was forced to shoulder passed her.

I stepped out into the cool night air. I hadn't realized how the hot and humid Jethro's lodging had become with all the people and the lack of internal air-conditioning. We walked away from the outdoor lighting beyond the wood line.

"Hey guys. I'm Israel Jensen. I think there is something we need to get established right now."

"Can I have the gun?" Lowry reached for it.

"Do you have a clue how to use one?" I refused to flinch. We locked eyes. Instinctively my fist tightened around the pistol grip. I discovered there was truth to the mythology ~ holding a gun is its own kind of empowerment.

I didn't think I was about to shoot Lowry. I did believe if he moved one more inch I was going to smash him upside his head with it though. He backed down.

"Do you have any experience?" he sneered. "Actual experience?"

"Yes. A lady inside showed me how to use one," I stated. "I'm sure if we all behave, we will all have a chance to gain some actual firearms' training."