Chapter 12 - Out
Its a familiar thing now, for us to go chugging to our destination in the middle of the night. I slowed down as I was nearing Houdini location. My own Bermuda Triangle. I passed it up and continued on to the diner. Closed up tight with the requisite Jack Frost signed winter window corners. This place is right out of a greeting card, if you like retro. Szarabjorna likes old movies and lot of old everything. We both can appreciate it on our own level. I passed the diner up, before turning around and making my way back. Zar's letting me think for the most part right now.
I'm staring at the steering wheel and the vehicle voltage. When you get just the right notion, everything makes a strange bit of sense. Does the guy ever get here? Yeah, he does. I got cold witness descriptions, two of them. I even got video confirmation now, off of the old diner hard drive. That much, I got.
Guy leaves the diner, then disappears. He makes contact, before becoming a puff of smoke. Correction. He reports that he made contact. That much, I can swear to. Maybe the guy just wants us to think he made the contact. His own little head start to tie us down looking here, while he disappears elsewhere with a cold trail. That doesn't track, at all. Whistle blowers come in and volunteer. Why go through all that trouble. If you're that scared, you wouldn't blow that whistle in the first place.
So it makes more sense to me, that the guy makes his contact. Or, at least thinks he does. Which one. Gee. If he made his contact and everything went well, why in the hell am I here. He at least misses his real contact. If he believes he made contact but really didn't, that's hard to imagine. The FBI handled this, so it was done by professionals. Where does it even become possible to screw this up.
I have a sneaking suspicion that if I could somehow manage to get the mysterious contact, this guy, and whoever else was involved in this three ring circus into one room? I could smack a few people up alongside the head, and get to the bottom of this real fast. When everyone points and someone doesn't have answers, I'd get somewhere quick.
I'll never get that. If this was an FBI white collar operation from the inception, Mike could drag someone onto his office carpet, and get some answers. This was one agency moonlighting helping out the other agency. Mike knows the initial location and time. His whistle blower he babysits and holds his hand. The other agency, here the FTC I'm told. They provide the other half of the dollar bill torn in two.
This all probably seems a lot murkier than it actually is in reality, simply because the weather has everyone scrambling. Maybe the contact is the real contact, and makes his contact in good faith. Then, something happens to the contact? But then there's two missing people, and two missing cars. I can't come up with so much as one of them.
A comedy of tragic errors is always a possibility. Where do any shenanigans come from, if that's even going on. I keep coming back to some problem, with the damn contact. If anyone is pulling a fast one, that's where they do it. The contact. They screw around with that. I wish I knew if my guy's contact, was missing or not. Another agency. That takes elephant mating to get answers across agencies. Mike's good at that, but it still takes time to get the pachyderms in the mood.
Sit back, and get creative. Think outside the box. I'm here, doing my thing. For my guys. Mike's half of the meet and greet. His whistle blower, his time and location. Where's the other side's answer. Where is the other side's... me. I'd have noticed him, I'd bet. Just like everyone notices me sticking around, looking for something. The winter storm again. Mike was lucky to get me onto this, on my way back from project taxi.
What I need is a phone call. Just the right one, though. Someone at the FTC that's their version of Uncle Mike. The guy that could fill in the other half of everything so I knew what the real score was, and go from there. Maybe ally up with someone on their side, doing my job. But I'll never get that, its just a flight of fancy. That's elephant mating, and the pillow talk that comes after. That's late in the game.
Its a novel line of thought, though. Well, pretend I'm an asshole. I'd attack the whole meet and greet, somehow. Just like Mike only knows his half of the meeting? I'd probably be the same. I might be operating on what Mike knows, or maybe I come from the other side of things. That makes more sense. This whole mess, comes from there. They developed it, they set it up. They were prepared to move forward on it. The asshole, me, comes out of that culture somehow.
So, what do I get. I get the opposite of Mike's information. That's my guess. Both sides know the diner, as the set up location. Mike knows the whistle blower, and tracks him in. Me, I'd know the diner, and... not the whistle blower. So, I'd know about the safe house. Location, the contact. Whatever Mike doesn't know. What would my objective be.
All shenanigans, involve two things. You need an asshole and an objective. The world has no shortage of either thing. What kind of objective makes sense. JR always says its an information war. Knowledge is power. Time is a precious commodity. Its now easy to imagine a terribly important person wants to know what information is getting leaked. The whistle blower has the information on him.
I want that information, before the whistle blows to the contact. But I don't know the contact. I only know my side of this.
Hell, I'd pick him up and tail him at the diner. I'd wave and approach him openly. Hi, I'm your contact. Sorry about this, but the snowstorm, you know. Sorry I don't know the secret handshake, I was sent out because your regular contact was in a wreck. My apologies. No, that wouldn't work on an FBI agent, but a civilian? Yeah. Any questions you can't answer? Just say blah blah, snowstorm, blah blah. Most civilians, you could probably flash a middle school photo ID at them in any badge case, and they'd just nod like cattle.
If its an information war, the information is what's important. It makes everything else happen. Nope, I want the information before the real contact gets it. Maybe that information is also proof.
Okay. So how do I go about all of this, without making a fuss. This isn't the city. You can't just send a team in. You can barely send one person here, and they stick out like a sore thumb in an instant. I'd definitely come alone. Its my only chance. What would I want, though. Hell, I wish I had JR here. My tech guy. Hell, he'd have this entire gig wired up for audio, video, you name it.
Wait a minute. I am a professional. I do have access to backing. Without this snowstorm? I could get things. And JR would be one of my first requests. Go with that. I'd want, my side's version of Junior. Now where would I want Junior crossing his wires at. It would be at locations I knew about. What locations do I know about, before setting off on this mission. Both sides know... diner. Mike gets the whistle guy, and I'm supposing I get the safe house and contact.
I can't wire up a safe house. I can't even approach it without setting off alarm bells. No, I'd stay the hell away from that known location. Junior? Wire the diner. JR would look around inside the place. He'd see wired cheap security cameras, not wireless. He could intercept and watch their camera signals for his own use. But wired, and hearing the system wasn't functioning... he'd go outside.
I'm at the diner. I'm outside. Sitting here, and Zar is letting me think in silence. So, this is all crazy of course. But, according to my theory there should be surveillance on this place. Its the only location that makes sense to wire up. The other side provided the GPS beacon to track the important whistle coming in. It was top of the line. I have the other side's part of the information. I have the other side's... expertise, as well. I'm looking for top of the line. That would be two point four gigahertz. A cell puck inside it.
Cell phone tower? Down. I shut my phone off, then Zar's as well. I cut the engine, and made sure all my HAM electronics were off as well. Frequency counter, now that things are electrically quiet. With the cellphone tower out of commission, and both of our phones not calling out. With no other phones around, to muddy the waters up. I have a really strong local signal. I just rotate the capital T shaped antenna? When its aligned sideways to the source, the meter dips.
The cell puck is either right behind me, or right in front of me. Anything at the diner behind me, sees only the guardrail and the road. But anything in front of me? Commanding view of the diner, and almost all of the parking lot. Everyone going in and out. Now, where would JR put his toy. He's good for trees, but they're too far back. No, he's been taught to match outline and texture and color, and plop right up front in the foreground. Telephone poles, utility poles of all kinds. Conduits, signs... and guardrails. He has gray galvanized housings, that fit right on guardrail metal verticals. They blend right in. They even look like a normal brace of some kind. That's up close on them. Back off, and you could notice that's the only "brace" of its kind, all along the row.
Christ almighty. I think I see it, and I'm not going to stare right at it. I drove off and parked at the far end of the diner property now. I told Zar to wait here, and I trudged along behind the guardrail. From behind, I can't be seen by the camera. Yeah. Its what it is.
This ain't my side. FTC, maybe. They have top of the line GPS transponders, they would have top of the line cameras and housings and cell pucks as well. I trudged back to my tool box and got a quarter inch socket kit, and dropped it in my pocket. I loosened both bolts that hold the hinged galvanized cover down. I took the SD card I figured was in it. Backed up on card and when the cell tower was back up and running soon, it would send out what it had stored up waiting. It would overwrite as a backup to whatever was sent, acting like the tiny hard drive I was examining the video on with the diner base unit.
Whether this is FTC or asshole equipment, I now have most likely a one hundred and eighty degree different view of my guy in the diner. Different closer views of the plow trucks. Flip a coin now. If this is just FTC rigging, then things are on the up and up. The missing guy is just... snowstorm related. Very believable plot line, by the way. This could also be the doings of some asshole. In which case, I could suspect foul play. I have no way to choose.
The snowstorm hazard makes the most sense. But then it always did. Now I'm starting to get somewhere, but its still just more questions than answers. I can't do much, until the cell tower blinks back on and spreads its oh so generous one bar around the high spots. I can fill Mike and JR in. For now though, the best course of action seems to be hunkering down and waiting. When the weather breaks, we can get resources here if we need that.
While I wait, ovulation and baby-making have already taken place. I'm now entitled to anything I want, once I recover enough to enjoy it. I know what I'll be doing while I'm waiting for the cell tower to return to operational status. I'm seeing a candlelit attic. Some plastic down to have blankets and pillows. The heat blaring. Naked and sweating. Naps under the covers snuggling in the nude with Z.
I copied the SD card I had borrowed. I returned it to its spot. Not much now for me, so I swapped out the SD cards on my Bermuda Triangle cameras and crunched and cracked my way back to home base. Naked recovery snuggling was on the menu, and another one of those now patented one hour to two hour naps. It was nice to wake up and squeeze back into her, to drift off.
We repeated the diner day. Late at night, I changed out the SD cards on my Houdini initial location. It was a fun little rut. Between breaks, we listened to the ancient AM radio. The little weather reports. Merry knew that her younger room mate and teammate and best friend, was traumatized. She was stuck emotionally, at a fast and capable fourteen. Her views on sex? Starved for any attention form fourteen to eighteen, she escaped hell to a college sports scholarship. With a fourteen year old's understanding of adult sexual relationships. People have sex, just like the cats mating out back do it.
Merry and the guy that called in the MPs to look into the case he had found with her trauma, took her in. It started off as just something both girls and the guy would have fun with, some sharing. But it became serious before anyone noticed. They let her see a relationship from the inside out. She never wanted to leave. That guy got killed at the end of the case, and Merry and her best friend were both traumatized from it. Zar resorted to most of her earlier ways. Mechanical sex as needed. Merry even went for the same survival tactic.
When I met Merry, I somehow fulfilled her prophecy. That the guy would come back, and she had found him. In me. Zar got introduced to me, and wanted to reclaim her old spot back. Before I knew it, I had been Shanghaied into a three way relationship. With Zar in her and Merry's own words? She was not to be held a second banana. Zar's banana is the same size as Merry's. I slept with both of them, no real restrictions.
The original plan with the original three musketeer setup, had been for Zar to experience months or even years of a close, loving relationship. So she had a healthy base to look for in her own, if she ever could. Now with us again, she fulfilled that. A couple years saw her slow desire for her own personal thing. And the right guy, too. She moved slow and careful into her new life plan, and she even got an instant family out of the deal. My son with her.
So there was no awkward breakup, no arguing and hurt feelings. Once over the shock and awe tactics, I can understand all this. We never once hurt each other. Love outside of the sexual sense, I'm as fond and protective of Zar as I am about Merry herself. She's the treasured mother of my child. Absent only the sexual part, she's like my second wife in all ways.
Her sexual identity is quite dissimilar to Merry's own. My Merry is a big strong girl, with a big strong sexual appetite. She wants what she wants, and she either takes it or negotiates for it. Maybe once a week she wants railed until she tears up. A consummate good girl until college, Merry more or less took bad girl lessons off of her room mates and in particular, Zar.
She developed her own specific tastes, I'll say that much. Zar though, was a different sexual animal. Her own rules? No punching or kicking her, pretty much anything else is fair game. Any hot game you want, is fine. No built in sense of shame or propriety holding her back. Oh, you saw a cute costume? No problem. You want us to do that, with a sex toy? Cool. Oh, you want kept after class by a naughty teacher? Gotcha. Her morality ends with the who. Anything goes.
Zar learned the essentials of a healthy adult relationship, twice now. Merry always did get a unique look into the good side of being a bad girl. If you don't violate the who clause, why should there be limitations on the what you do part. My very good girl got a healthy bad girl streak through her sexuality. And the bad girl? Got a healthy good girl streak into her.
For the record, before I met Merry? I had what I thought of as a healthy sexual life. I was never into three ways and sharing, and all that modern craziness. I resisted it all at first. I know what we three had for years, but getting other people to understand is well nigh impossible. I'd separate misconceptions about our own personal case, into a couple main groups.
First and foremost, everyone's first take is that its just outrageous adult fun time. Whatever excuse you need to hang your hat on, and there's everyone sleeping in a pile every night. Whatever. Maybe it is in most cases, but in ours it wasn't. It was about taking in a third person, Zar. Making her another equal, like we were to each other.
I'd have never lived this life I don't think, without these two girls. And if both disappeared tomorrow? Like it would ever come my way again. As things are now, however. Z has been making sly jokes with coy smiles. What about the damsel in distress game, she always enjoyed that one. As if I can even tell her no.
So the fun rut went on for a few days. The ice storms were looking to soon let up. Normal weather movements not trapped and exploited would begin when this ended. I swapped out the SD cards in the now normal middle of the night. I was sitting there gabbing with Zar for a few seconds, and stopping to think some. I heard something, but I wasn't sure what it was. Some kind of rustling sound.
I had the lights out, so I'd get first warning of any stray headlights coming from a ways off. Still curious what the slow growing rustling noise was, I bumped the control that gave me momentary fog lights. The dark amber sort with no glare. My heart leaped in my chest, it was an advancing avalanche. I didn't have I don't think a full second to react. I gunned the engine and ripped into reverse. There was no getting out and turned around. The avalanche was coming for me on my side of the road. I was facing the avalanche. It was just there all of a sudden. I punched reverse to see how far I could ram into the side wall of snow to get out of the way. I'd like to bust through and fall back over the same hill as before.
No such luck. I did get a good bit off the road though. I felt and heard the front of my truck make solid contact with something, but it wasn't the big clang and crinkling and tearing I expected. A dull thud that was both felt and heard, coming from the front amid the movement over the hill. I didn't go straight back this time. I was sideways and covered in more snow, I thought. I came to rest with my shoulder crashing onto hers, and she got crushed down into her door. We both had the rattlesnake look now. I put my index finger to my lips, and she gave me a single nod to go with her otherwise perfect rattlesnake facade. I gave her the five shot snub-nose, and I checked my bigger automatic.
She got down without me suggesting it, into her oh shit position. Good girl. You drill an athlete once or twice, you get results. I strained to make stereo contact with any noise that didn't sound like bits of snowballs moving around. If anything comes digging right now, I'm prone to light it up like a Christmas tree. I waver my close double grip around, angling for anything. Not a damn thing. If anything at all, the noise drove off was my impression.
I can smell hot radiator coolant steaming, I know my radiator is blasted. I'm disabled now. I'll ruin things more trying to run it. Shit. The way I'm sideways and more buried this time around, looks like I lost my antenna and feed line, too. After a silent tense fifteen or twenty minute wait to see if anything with bad intent came for us, I took stock of the situation. I've got broken windows now, as well as a disabled engine. The snow is no longer insulating us, as when it was all around us last time.
We need to get somewhere, to survive the night. I crawled through the packed snow to get out. Yeah, the radiator was fucked. It was penetrated by a random chunk of wood churned up in the snow avalanche. A fair size dead limb that speared my radiator as sure as hairy cavemen once speared dinner.
I can find or make a shelter to keep us alive. I dug out and located the little stout spade shovel. Lantern, in its padded travel case. All metal mantles, worth every penny. A gallon of special low fumes fuel for it. Cellphones and netbook cases. Essentials only. I'd rather be out of sight, if I can. I was once in combat when I was younger. This isn't combat, but its the civilian equivalent of it. I can come back and get more gear I can dig out after I get a hole for us to crawl into. Duct tape and a roll of plastic. We were just about to set off on a hike to get somewhere and hole up for safety.
Zar asked me. We had both been moving our head around at some far off noise. It sounded sort of like a crow cawing, but not quite.
"The hell is that."
"Some kind of wildlife, Z. It doesn't sound dangerous."
We could now make something out visually in the freezing black night. The noise grew, as did the scampering dark form that produced it. It was a dark multi-colored goat of all things, tan black and brown patches predominating. It trotted around doing everything but back-flips, it was so happy to see us.
Zar shrugged at me.
"Now what."
"Now? That goat doesn't look wild to me. We need to get some kind of shelter. I say, follow that goat. Barn. Hay. Plastic. Warm."
"What if the goat doesn't lead us back to the barn."
"The goat looks like its up our ass no matter where we go. Look. He made little footprints. He doesn't live outside. He'd have ice on him, if he did. I'm following his foot prints? Back to his barn."
This goat was nothing short of a ball of furry love. It bucked and skipped around, and ran figure eights around our legs. Always rubbing on our legs. Sticking its neck and head into our hands, for attention. What looked like one lane out, an old logging and mining trail, wasn't. You could see a highway where big trees were taken out. Underbrush now reclaimed from the sides, but it was still there. That was only the edge. Once in a good ways, deer trails crossed. Dirt bike lanes, maybe. Quad ruts cutting around. Smaller highways of big trees once removed, going left and right off the main way.
I'd never find my way out of this many turns and twists, except following the tracks. The goat danced around in a circle in front of some dilapidated old barn, and not the largest example of one ever at that. The swinging doors were sagging at the hinges. The goat wiggled inside by exploiting the way the doors were akimbo. I pushed and pulled and got me and Zar worming inside.
A quick swipe with my small LED light showed me a box standard old style smaller size barn of some kind. Lots of hay new and used, animals. General farm and barn stuff everywhere. I walked around. The place didn't come as advertised. The chickens had seen better days. Gaunt, they looked blighted. I think some were cannibalizing each other inside. I tried not to suggest it to Zar, to spare her a shock if I could manage it.
A cow in its own pen, was clearly dead.
"What killed it, honey. Did it, just freeze to death."
I leaned over and shone the light round. Looks like the udder burst, guessing. Does that happen if a milker dairy doesn't get emptied? I'm not an expert. Two in the next larger pen together, are laying inverted to each other. Exploratory samples of each other's dry teats tell their tale. They were drinking each other's milk. To keep empty.
These animals are starving, that's what's going on. I made a pile of chicken feed from a giant bag off a pile of the same. They mobbed me, making the most scintillating noises chickens are I think capable of. I thought I was dinner for a second there, being rushed. They went for the food in the empty big pan. I dragged several dead out of their home and fluffed hay around for them. Thank god the temperatures were fluctuating between freezer and refrigerator. The stink and mess here when it does get that warm out? Wow.
The cows were excited by hay, fresh bales of it. I spread a thick layer around, for what they were laying in. More to chomp on. They were showing ribs and hips, but might recover. Again, I'm no expert. I found sweet feed, the dark molasses look and smell. The cows loved that idea. Even the chickens were pecking at the sweet feed for their own pile. I broke the ice on a water barrel, and got water around to what was alive.
Our little goat friend, stood over a resting young goat. It laid down, and curled around it. Grooming the head and ear with nuzzled affection.
The baby goat was dead. Frozen in place. Barns are in my experience, a little fun if you don't have to work on them. Animals and life all around you. This wasn't baby animals to marvel at, like you wanted.
This was the barn of death.
There was a stall half the size of all the others in the corner. It was the fresh square hay bale room.
"Jackpot, Zar."
"Really?"
"Oh yeah. See all these square bales of hay? I'm going to make a little cabin out of it. Its a foot thick insulation. This little lantern is going to warm us up, and run forever on low. You'll see. We'll be warm in no time."
Several rows of hay wound up a little one room cabin in short order. Lacking only a roof, I located a big old sheet of what appeared to be real plywood. Fair thick, too. I reformed the boundaries of my walls. Added another layer for more height, and plopped this over my almost four foot by eight foot insulated pod. We got inside, and I pulled the hay bales close for a door but cracked open.
The lantern did warm us up, and the special expensive fuel was low on fumes. I pounded a stick into the hay wall, so I could hang the lantern and trust it wouldn't burn our clubhouse down. The goat scrabbled and kicked to get in, so I moved the hay bales just enough it could wiggle in.
"Panic. How could this, even happen. This is horrible."
I sighed for a chance to think some.
"Old man. Maybe, finally had a heart attack. Its winter. Ain't no one found his animals yet. These things sometimes happen. I guess goats have better ears than I ever knew. That thing heard us a mile off, and ran and got us to come help."
I got anther of those hour or two catnaps. Zar agreed, the lantern really warmed things up. I turned it down on low, to see what a long slow run conserving fuel would be like. Another hour of nap, and I saw it still broke the chill well enough.
Its not light out yet. Any other time of the year, but now. I made sure Zar had the five shot snub-nose thirty eight special close at hand for insurance, before I decided to make another trip to the truck. A few more goodies, a few more little creature comforts. I thought I heard machinery running, but it came in as an echo. Noise bouncing in from lord only knows where.
This isn't really a big deal. After light breaks it'll warm up a bit. I'll hike off to the diner, and arrange for another Pounder's Pullout special. This trip is just little extras. I plan on digging out energy drinks and jerky. That's when I noticed I was off of my trail, perhaps. Tracks in the snow, and I don't mean footprints. Not big wheels, tracks. Like big equipment. Well, medium size looking down. Small tank treads had come through. Oh well, there is a barn out in the middle of nowhere. There could be something else, as well.
That's when I did a double take. Shouldn't the truck be here? Its not. A Pounder's Pullout response I don't know about? Anything's possible. I'm stuck, once again? In the exact same spot. Bermuda Triangle. Now my truck's done a Houdini. Well, I have tracks to follow. Take me right to it. Wait a minute. Zar's alone. I walked back in haste. I didn't like what I found when I got back. I gave a halfhearted... honey, I'm home. Nothing. The hay fort? Asunder. The goat's laying in what remains of Fort Warmth. The lantern for heat and light as an afterthought? Gone as well. Maybe Zar went for a look around, and has it for light and warmth.
Now I'm looking at what I'm certain are new footprints inside here. They lead almost direct to the hay fort. They're not Zar's prints, I'm well used to hers by now. Not mine either, they're bigger. I'd actually lean towards she was rescued by some farmer or wellhead worker, if not for the disarray of Fort Warmth. The snub nose is gone. My big automatic is gone now, too. Zar would take the thirty eight snub, given a choice. My big automatic would be here. She's just not the kind of girl to pick both up under most normal circumstances.
Her boots imprints end out at, I guessed it. The machine tread tracks. Its a little bit of a maze out here, but these tracks led me to at the end of one fork off of two more before it... a tiny old junkyard, basically. I looked around quick, but don't notice her tracks, nor the new guy's tracks either. I followed the tread tracks back out, and to a set of them veering off.
Just like the barn of death was odd, this old farmhouse was out of sorts as well. Vegetation grown up almost to the house on all but the front side. No decoration of any kind. Looked like, what houses turn into after the owners are bought out for a big project later on down the road in time. I see these old frame houses turned into mobile sheds and storage, offices, lots of things if the property goes commercial. The power is either out, or isn't used here. No lights.
I can see a dull glow from this one window. My missing lantern, maybe. I can hear in trappings of muted conversation, but I can't make anything out. Its not sounding like a heated argument, there's that. There's enough footprint paths traced around here, that I can walk undetected. Really old farmhouse. Gutted to walls and doors and windows only. The basement on the back end, has real old fashion swinging windows with the hinges at the top, for easy movement. The simple eye hook on one was unlatched. The hinges were surprising. Quiet and oiled. Someone oils hinges around this place. Looking more like a commercial property and they kept the house as a garage and storage spot.
I got into the basement with no crashing and noise. The cleared out nature of it, made that possible. No sense announcing my presence. I walked over to be under where I judged them to be, by the murmurings outside and the dull glow of what was almost certain to be my damn lantern heater. I can hear them now.
"Look, mister. I don't know anything. Why can't you just let me go. Come on. I'm married. I have a baby son. Please."
"Lady! I told you how it is. You're information, that's all. I'm just going to hand you over to my people, so they can interview you. Its not my call. So quit talking about it. If you have to talk? Talk about something else."
"Well? I'm nervous. I talk, when I'm nervous."
I spied a piece of thin cardboard, like a small shoe box side. The ancient timbered floor? There's little cracks running down the length of every floorboard. No tongue and groove, just big timbers made flat and secure for all time. I can just make things out. They're at a big table of some kind. She's in the corner, near the window. I think he's at the other end of the rectangular table. I stroked and poked her work boot through a crack in the floor timbers that looked my best bet. I heard his voice.
"What."
"Oh, nothing. My feet. I was freezing to death, remember? My feet feel funny, waking up. It hurts. You mind if I take my boots off?"
"I don't care. The power's out, but that big black stove? Gas. Runs fine. If it'll make you happy, warm your feet up. I'm not some kind of a monster."
Sounded like she was getting her boots off and undone. I finally saw a flurry of movement above me. Her feet, dancing.
"I'm warming them up. I can't feel them, yet."
"Do your thing. You'll warm up in here. It was fine."
"And your sure. There's no way I can, offer you anything. To just, let me go. I mean, anything. Try me."
"Lady? I'm a professional. I follow orders. I know you're information, I hand you over so they can interview you. That's my job. That's how it has to be."
I scraped the bottom of her dancing feet she was supposed to be stamping in place to shed the pins and needles feeling. I heard her stop, and address him.
"All right. I feel you. I mean, I really, really feel you here. Its, just not your call. But, you won't do anything to me, right?"
"I told you before, lady. If you sit there and don't do anything retarded? I won't shoot you. Work within that framework, if you can."
"One more time. I feel you. You don't wanna hurt a woman, if you don't have to."
"I will if I have to. Don't do anything stupid."
This doesn't sound like any kind of official or even unofficial authority. This is a hired thug, my best guess. Zar's coming interview? Probably more like tortured for information. Then, I'd guess, done away with quietly when she had outlived her usefulness.
The repetitive "I feel you". That was for my benefit. She took her boots off, to feel it was for sure me signaling her. I feel you, several times. They're at either ends of that rectangular table. You can't see through a table. I can give her a soft LED light. I got answered quick, one more time.
"Well. I guess I can see the light."
"How's that, lady. You come to your senses? Just wait. Who knows."
"Sure there's nothing I have to trade, you might like? Hey. I'd trade you, like a good little girl, too. I'll give you the fuck of your life, if you let me walk out that door when you're through with me. Anything you want. Name it. Surprise me? Whatever."
"I can't do that, lady."
"Well, that's a pity. You're not that bad looking of a guy. Girls like big guys. Hell, you're bigger than my big brother. And he ain't little. You look like some kind of tough guy. And hey. Girls like tough guys. I mean, its not like I'd totally hate trading you... anything... to let me go."
She's feeling out how dangerous he might or might not be. Also? Describing him in some quick detail. I'm the big brother. I'm a little over six foot one. Taller and thicker than me. Not a small customer. She added. Looks like a tough guy. Great. He has my guns, I'd have only the element of surprise. I need to see if I can get anywhere with him. Var had her phone in her zippered outer pocket. I'm going to bet he has it on the table or nearby now. Cellphone towers are down anyways.
I was quiet as a church mouse making egress back out the way I came in. If her phone still has the app I put on it. My phone, Merry's, Zar's, JR's one phone... its the walkie talkie app. The phones actually beep and communicate on any of several channels they provide, no tower needed. If local signal strength is fine, you beep and talk. I relocated myself far enough away that I wouldn't be heard talking, even if he walked outside and scanned around.
I beeped her phone on. Then twice more. Zar answered.
"Hello."
"Its me. Let me guess. Our friend would want to talk to me."
"Hi."
That wasn't her. Deep male voice. Gravelly.
"Who is this."
"Not important. I'm the guy that has the girl. That's who I am."
"Okay. So you are. Look, I'll make this real simple. You send her out. We'll wander off. You can go about your business. I, will walk right away. Tonight, today. But I need the girl. What do you say."
"I can't do that. She's my trump card. You can't do anything, as long as I have her."
"What would make this work. How about, I give you myself. For her. She doesn't know anything. Take me. I'm more valuable. You send her out? I'll give myself, in exchange for her walking out. What do you say."
"I can't do that. What stops you from double-crossing me, when I no longer have her as leverage. No way."
"Would money, maybe... name a figure. Maybe. Throw something out there. What gets me the girl."
"If you want to come in? Go in with her. That's the only deal I can offer you."
"Are you sure? There's no way we can try to be reasonable about this. I'm telling you. All I care about, is the girl. Give me the girl? You go on your merry way."
"I'll stay right where I am. But thanks."
I waited a few seconds.
"There is no alternative, then."
"No."
"If you don't come up with a way that involves sending the girl out? I'll kill you."
"See, that's what I have her as leverage for. If you try anything? She dies. Don't do it."
"I issued you my terms. Real simple. Anything that involves her walking out, I'll go for. But anything other than that, no way."
"You're going to get killed. You're going to get your girlfriend killed. This isn't the smart move. Think about it."
"Send her out."
He disconnected.
With nothing further developing, that's where we stand.