“Kalu Ki,” Jalen heard Jett say just
before the door closed.
Chicago was experiencing a hot summer,
so he put on lightweight black pants over a black tank. Then he
added an ice blue silk shirt the exact color of his
eyes.
Forty minutes later, they were sitting
around the dinette table having a delicious meal of Chicken Tikka
Masala that had been delivered from Grace’s favorite Indian
restaurant. Grace’s phone rang; she let the answering machine pick
it up until she heard the Captain’s voice. Then she got up and
answered.
“Hello? Good evening, Captain
Udaka.”
“Grace, I need your report. Ms.
Anderson filled me in on the Interpol agents. Do you think they’re
up for this?” asked the Captain.
“These two, they’re up for anything,”
she said with a grin. “Actually, they have a sophisticated
listening device that isn’t detectable by current scanners. They’re
going to help me plant them tonight. The signal is strong enough to
be picked up a mile away so we won’t have to keep close
surveillance anymore.”
“What do you mean?” he
asked.
“I’m sorry, Sir, I can’t go into it in
detail. The technology is proprietary and I don’t understand how it
works, anyway. We’ll go in, plant the bugs and then Jett will meet
you at the secondary location while Jalen and I draw off any
followers. We’ll make sure Jett isn’t tailed.”
“Alright, I’ll give you three hours.
It’ll be close to midnight then and Kadyrov usually leaves the
running of the place to his grandson sometime right after,
anyway.”
“Actually Sir, I didn’t get a chance
to report fully last night. Kadirov insisted I bring my boyfriend
in to see him. We have a plan to capitalize on that.”
“Why do you think Mr. Kadyrov is
interested in your boyfriend?” he asked.
“I’m not sure why except it may have
something to do with the fact that he isn’t Detective Anthony, if
you see what I mean,” answered Grace.
“Yes, that makes sense, be careful out
there. We’ll need to arrange a meeting tomorrow to go over our
plans going forward. Too much has changed.”
“Yes, Sir, it may be possible to
arrange a meeting here. You can discuss that with Jett tonight,”
she said.
“Hmm, that might work; good idea,
Perez. And good luck tonight.”
“Thank you, Sir. Goodbye,
Sir.”
She hung up the phone and turned to
the guys. “Becky got you guys in with my boss by telling him you
work with Interpol. And that reminds me, I have a flash drive with
all of Interpol’s information on the Kadyrovs that she passed to me
to give to you. Well, don’t you think it’s time you showed me how
these super, spy gadgets work?”
“It has to wait until after dinner. We
don’t want one accidentally falling into the food,” said Jett, and
they all laughed.
As they finished eating, she kept
looking over at them. She loved the shirt Jalen was wearing that
matched his eyes. Jett had also dressed in summer casual clothing
with dark slacks and brown tank with a black silk shirt over
it.
They were getting ready to go and Jett
pulled out the nano-patches he’d modified for this
assignment.
“Okay, we’re going to put these on
your hands. I’ve treated them so they’ll adhere without connecting
with your body. You’ll need to touch them as close to their heads
as you can. Though it should work, even if all you do is touch
their hands. We’ll have to be careful around each other not to hold
hands or touch until the transfers have been made. The more patches
we can put on them, the better off we’ll be.”
“The nanos will work their way to the
speech, vision, and hearing centers of the brain. We could have
connected to memory, too, but felt that would tip our hand and
someone from your government would come looking for us. When the
host is sleeping, the nanos will wait for the signal to transmit
the data that’s been stored. We’ll know everything they’ve seen,
heard, and said, as if the guy were wearing a camera on his
forehead. The only side-effect is that he’ll be waking up with a
headache most days.”
“They’ll transmit anywhere from five
to eight days and then they would need to be replaced with new
nanos.”
“Five to eight days is a big range.
How come?” asked Grace.
“It depends on the individual’s body
chemistry,” said Jett.
“We’ll have to be careful about the
data we download. It will have to be sorted through and stuff
that’s unrelated to criminal activities will need to be deleted
from the record. We can’t go to court with hours and hours of stuff
like them watching TV or brushing their teeth and taking showers.
But everything else is admissible,” she said.
The minute Suzanna had arrived with
her mother Carol; Addie invited Carol to meet the dogs. Dogs loved
everyone unconditionally and Addie knew it would help put Carol at
ease. The guys went to unload Suzanna and Carol’s things from the
van.
While Heidi and Carol played with the
dogs, Addie took Suzanna aside and told her what happened to Gilda
and her granddaughter, Marta, in greater detail. And then went on
to explain what she needed Suzanna to do next.
“Addie, of course I’ll go. I just
don’t know how my mother will be with me gone. This is yet another
new place, and I’m the only face she recognizes,” said
Suzanna.
“Let’s go tell her you have an errand
to help some friends of mine and see how she reacts,” said
Addie.
They walked over to where Carol was
laughing at the antics of the dogs. Suzanna approached her. “Mom, I
have to drive back into the City as a favor to Addie and pick up
two other ladies. Will you be okay here with Addie and Heidi and
the dogs?”
Carol Miller’s face fell. “You’re
going to leave me here with strangers? No! No! No! I want to go
with you. I’ll go with you; just let me visit the powder room, and
I’ll be set. Don’t you leave without me,” she said. Then Heidi
offered to show her where the bathroom was.
Suzanna turned to Addie and shrugged
her shoulders in an ‘oh, well, what could I do’ way and said, “I
guess she’s coming along.”
Addie was concerned about them
entering into a dangerous situation, so she asked Arjun to give
Suzanna one of his stun sticks and show her how to use it. She
could still remember Jalen using one on her.
Suzanna then decided the van was
better than her car for their purpose, but she went ahead and
switched the license plates. If she got pulled over for having the
wrong type of plates, she had her special ID to deal with that.
Rune then decided to tag along as extra support and offered to
drive; it would expand his knowledge of the roads.
They were on the road again within
twenty minutes of arriving at Addie’s. Suzanna turned to Rune and
said, “I just realized. My car is lo-jacked; in other words, it can
be tracked by GPS. If my supervisor wants to know what I’m up to,
they may check out my car.”
“I understand. But aren’t you on
leave?” he asked.
“Yes, so I’m not worried. But to be
safe, we should move the car to the retirement home or an apartment
complex,” said Suzanna.
“That might be best. However, Addie
had the idea of making it look like the men Grace is after were the
originators of our Earth to ship and ship to Earth transmissions.
So when Justyn is ready to go to the City tonight, perhaps I can
borrow it?” he asked. “As if you are following up a lead,” he
added.
“That might work. Hold off on making
any transmissions until we get a chance to link into the satellite.
If they interrupt another transmission, I will get a phone call. I
want them to be able to reach me. Then you can be my legs, so to
speak, down here,” she said.
“Actually, that’s the idea. To make
one more transmission exchange originating at the place where Grace
is working undercover, so it will be tracked there,” he
said.
“I get it, okay, that will work. Then
stop all other messages until we get the satellites fixed. Jett’s
giving up a signal booster to install so that you can use a regular
satellite phone to reach the ship, or at least the one on the moon.
That way there won’t be any future transmissions for Norad to
find,” she said.
They continued towards the City. About
every ten minutes, Carol would ask where they were going and why.
Suzanna explained to Rune in a low voice that it was part of her
disease. So for the rest of the trip, Rune kept up a conversation
with Carol about the passing scenery.
It was late in the afternoon when they
pulled the van into the alley behind the jewelry store. Suzanna
could see a young girl keeping watch by one doorway, and she
stopped near her.
Rune opened his door and stepped out.
“Hello,” he said with a smile, “you must be Marta.”
Marta looked up into his face. “Wow,
another giant. Are you related to those other guys?” she asked as
she waved him in the back door.
“Only distantly. Show me what you want
to take, and I’ll load it in the van. There’s plenty of room if you
aren’t taking any heavy furniture.”
While Marta showed him what to put
into the van, she explained that the police and crime scene people
had just left. They had the place to themselves. She also mentioned
that her Grandmother had to go in and sign the complaint report at
nine and it wouldn’t be filed until after that. When Suzanna heard
that, it gave her an idea. She called Addie and asked for Miranda’s
phone number. Then she called Miranda.
“Hello, Miranda? Hi, this is
Suzanna…from dinner the other night?”
“Oh, hey, Suzanna. It was nice meeting
you. Did Addie give you the news?” asked Miranda.
“What news? Oh, you mean about Jeze
and Tyr?” asked Suzanna. “Yeah, she explained. I’m actually really
happy about that. Thank you for matching us up. I’m going to be
meeting them tonight. Or at least I’ll meet Jeze. I’m going with
Heidi and a couple of other women needing emergency safe shelter up
to Addie’s place, then we’re taking a longer trip you-know-where
tonight.
“That’s actually why I’m really
calling. Those movers you spoke about last night at dinner? Do you
think they might be available for another emergency?” asked
Suzanna.
“Gosh, I don’t know. Do you want me to
call them or would you like their number?” asked
Miranda.
“They know you so it might be better
if you called. If they can’t make it, that’s fine. We’ve got the
ladies and their most valuable possessions. However, if they can
make it over here in the next hour, there’s two thousand in it for
them on top of their regular fees. And, of course, they’d be
helping out two women who are about to turn State’s evidence
against the Russian Mafia. So if they do decide to show, they
should probably bring a rental van or an unmarked one,” said
Suzanna.
“Wow, this situation is heading off in
some weird directions. I’ll call them now. What’s the address?”
asked Miranda.
Suzanna rattled off the address and
told her to pass on that they should approach from the alley behind
the store. When she put away her phone, she stepped back outside
and found her mother speaking to the people next door. They’d seen
the police cars and were wondering what had happened. An attempted
robbery, or so they assumed, in the Diamond District was big news.
Luckily, Carol didn’t really know anything, so she couldn’t
disclose anything important.
Several of the shops would be closing
soon, she hoped. She didn’t need nosy neighbors seeing the moving
van if and when it came. Then Marta pushed her grandmother’s
wheelchair into the alley.
Gilda looked over at them. “Carol, is
that you dear?” asked Gilda.
Carol turned around. “Gilda! Why are
you in a wheelchair? Look at your face! What happened to you? You
never come by to see me anymore,” said Carol.
“Don’t you remember? You moved and you
were supposed to give me your new phone number and address. I’ve
been looking for you off and on for ten years.” Then each of the
women began to get weepy as they hugged each other. Rune picked up
Gilda and put her in the van. After that, Carol was happy not to
wander off because she had her sister back again.
Suzanna looked over at Marta, who
seemed just as surprised as she was. “I don’t remember an Aunt
Gilda. And I don’t remember you, either. I guess my mom’s had
Alzheimer’s a lot longer than we thought. It must have gone
undiagnosed for years. Well, hello, I’m your cousin Suzanna,” she
said, holding out her hand.
Marta took the proffered hand and
shook it. “I’m actually Gilda’s granddaughter. She had my mom when
she was twenty and mom got married right out of high school.
Gilda’s seventy-four; she’s usually a dynamo, but she’s been having
hip problems for a little over a year. After my parents died, she
took me in. Instead of going to college, I decided I could learn a
whole lot more from her; she’s been teaching me how to make
jewelry. Did I hear you calling about movers?”
“Yeah, she’s an acquaintance of mine.
Actually, I only met the woman last night. She has friends that
have a small family-owned moving and storage company. They don’t
like women being victimized, so they helped out this other lady
whose ex was after her. Miranda told us the story last night. They
packed up her stuff and put it in their warehouse under an assumed
name. I figured they could do the same thing here,” she
explained.