13 And roast the tail
It was time to break the power of the school next.
I sent an email from the office of Steven Fitzgerald, to the headmaster. And yes, I then erased it from the ‘sent’ file so that he had no idea I was sending emails from him. Willow is a superb gurfer, and Susan knew all her husband’s passwords and could guess any she did not know.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Most people are so sloppy with passwords.
Fitzgerald was a step above most people as he used wine names and dates of vintage years. He had reasonable taste, as well.
I had written,
The interfering social worker fellow who has charge of Hammond has been asking awkward questions. I need to have a meeting with you and all the faculty who are a part of our organisation. Will seven o’clock Friday evening suit? In your office? I want to discuss how to handle Hammond.
Don’t reply to this, but if the time and venue do not suit, email me to ask to discuss if Hammond is returning to school and make your own suggestion in that.
Steven Fitzgerald.
Naturally, Susan was happy enough to watch to see if there was a reply.
There was not.
I had fitted up the sleep gas grenade beforehand; the school was not hard to break into.
I gave them seven minutes over the time in order to wonder what had happened to Fizgerald, and then I triggered it.
We came in with an ambulance; someone’s CrashwagonTM bracelet had indicated a fall. I went in, ran out, shouting to clear people out of the way and call the firebrigade and the gas board, a gas leak had rendered all unconscious.
We loaded them all up, virtually under the eyes of the sec team, those who were not in the meeting, and drove away, blues and twos and all.
We drove into a warehouse where the blues and twos were ripped off, water hosed off the water-soluble white paint with red cross, and an army truck with a new license plate left through the other double doors onto a parallel street, with a bunch of people hastily dressed in military clothing and chained together, whilst we wore red berets with our uniforms, as military police with a bunch of deserters.
We also had every file from the head’s office, and every bit of hardware. It went out on a stretcher under a sheet.
It was a bit cramped for our prisoners; eight actively involved including two security guards out of the four. But we weren’t interested in their comfort.
We went to an army barracks, where, ahead of time, I had pulled a ‘matter of national security’ bluff, and loaded them onto the VTOL aeroplane to take us to the ranch.
We put them on ice separately in the bunker under the burned out bunkhouse. We had a couple of hours to go through data before they started coming round.
One of the female teachers was responsible for calling girls to be trafficked to her office. We kept her, and the headmaster. I could find nothing about the others that made them worth my time feeding them; so they did not wake up, and fed the furnace.
If we’d missed someone with information, that was bad luck. I did not think we had.
Tarquin, meanwhile, was seeing to getting Federally approved teachers in as a takeover, and firing the two guards who were left as they let the bullies get on with it. And the teachers were all veterans of West Point, and not about to let bullying go unpunished.
Tarquin had also seen to making sure that the deaths of those organised by Troy and Evans were traced to orders set up by the late director in the event of his death.
Other Wolfpack members would find out, and be shocked, because it was obviously not what he had intended; as his death was natural, not assassination, but they would be likely to consider it a tragic and unfortunate mistake that Zeke had not been more specific, and would not suspect that the noose was closing on them, too. As Tarquin even found a way of paying Troy and Kyle out of Zeke’s personal fortune, I wasn’t going to quibble.
I strongly suspected that Tarquin was having far too much fun for a grey man who pulls strings in the shadows.
That he had been whistling, ‘Defer, defer, to the lord high executioner!’ under his breath whilst organising it was, to me, a giveaway of his happy state.
A government agent had no business enjoying a covert coup; but I was glad he was on our side. If he’d been Wolfpack, the country would have been his.
As it happened, we had paydirt in the meticulous records kept by the headmaster, who was also stupid enough to record all his passwords in a book he kept in his desk drawer, and which Willow had thoughtfully scooped up. That meant we did not really need either him or the female, but I wasn’t about to let them get off with dying quietly. I wanted them to experience terror.
It was worth keeping them in the same cell to record what they spoke about, in capture shock. But then, we might separate them, without bothering to ask any questions, nor answering any of theirs. To my mind, a child abuser who is a teacher or a parent is one of the most evil characters alive, because they are betraying the sacred trust of a young, developing life, who ought to have the right to expect the adults in his or her life to look out for them. And I count anyone with authority over children in that.
I would not go out of my way to torture them, but I’d let them torture themselves with imagination.
We were not bothering to keep any more of the Street Rats and the drug dealers behind them; they had sent a few dozen warriors while I was in DC, but they were ordinary street thugs, and our defences had taken them down. Hammond had been in his element, stripping down bikes and cars, and it kept his mind off the fact that sooner or later, I was going to kill his father. He might say he wanted him dead, but he was still a young boy, whose father had not actually abused him in more ways than to send him to that school; and it is normal for a boy to love his dad. Even when he hates him at the same time.
And he was caring tenderly for his mother, who was happy to spend time with him, but was also glad to escape being cared for too tenderly and to help us in bringing the empire of the Wolfpack crashing down.
Fortunately, it was Willow who caught the Pack’s chief gurfer, trying to make sense of the disappearance of the Washington Academy’s staff. Willow pulled out her most vicious attack program, a feedback loop which trapped the gurfer in her own machine as Willow turned up the sensory load beyond the usually available maximum.
When they found the gurfer, she would have the mental ability of a can of tomato soup.
This is why Willow has a physical uplink which she plugs in, preferentially to internal uplinks. And why she does not gurf alone. If she starts twitching, her minder pulls the plug. Some gurfers swear by internal uplinks, as getting closer. But then, some people sleep around and like to hit it raw, rather than use a condom. And risk all the diseases out there. Willow likes her jackable prophylactic.
She’s better than most gurfers who do have internal uplinks.
“Can I see them?” asked Hammond. “I… I need to know that they are facing justice.”
“I’m not sure if it’s wise,” I said.
“Please? So I know it’s real?”
I sighed.
“Let them stew for a while, then you can see them. But don’t engage in conversation.”
He nodded.
Their conversation did not help much but it revealed a lot, in some ways.
The woman spoke first. There may, or may not, be meaning in that.
“Michael? Where are we? What’s going on?”
“I don’t know. Were we drugged or something?”
“I last remember you saying that Fitzgerald was late for the meeting he called, and then… there was smoke! And we went to sleep and woke up here. The others aren’t in here!” she sounded panicked.
Good.
“Keep it together, Clarissa. Whatever is going on, they don’t dare hold us long. We’ll be out of here shortly; the school’s legal team will see to that.”
That was a group who needed to be taken care of. Thanks, Michael, for the reminder.
We could probably afford to hire out surgical strikes on them.
Their talk was not especially helpful, and I let Hammond go and look at them, before having them isolated.
The headmaster reacted first.
“Hammond! Are you here to rescue us? Is your father here?”
“What’s going on, Hammond?” asked Clarissa. “Why are we here?”
Hammond just sneered.
“Wait, who is in charge?” asked Michael.
“Surely you don’t blame me for taking that girl? She was an unhealthy influence on you,” said Clarissa.
Hammond smirked at her. Then he walked out.
They were still calling after him as they were dragged to separate locations.
“That was fairly precious,” said Hammond. “Watching them falling apart.” He scowled. “She knew about Tula and how I felt.”
“And probably had orders to take her early because of it,” I said. “We’re working on rescuing her, but I’m not sure what state she or any others might be in.”
“End the nightmare for them, even if that means killing them,” said Hammond. His voice broke on that. I had a second sobbing teenage boy in my arms that holiday.
Well, a man who can release his emotions is actually stronger and more stable than one who bottles it all up.
I gave him a nip of whisky in hot chocolate. The boy had become a man over the last few weeks.
And it was time to seize Fitzgerald senior; after all, the boot camp experience would end with the long holiday, and time moved on.
Dix had done well; he would go back into society with more ability to hold his temper, and a few choice cowboy phrases to use on those who tried to put him down.
Briggs? Well, Briggs was learning to keep his mouth shut and his fists to himself, having met people who looked like victims, and sounded like victims, and retaliated like nothing he had ever encountered before. It was a start, anyway.
Obama had come a long way. And I did not seriously think she was on anyone’s hit list; she had been punished, and she was still a minor, and it should probably be left at that, so long as she kept a low profile. Those three would be going home. Jamie had already gone. And Hammond was staying.
And I would be taking over the Washington Academy as headmaster; thanks, Tarquin.
I would, at least, have my team of kids as spies and agents, less Hana and Olive, who would be going back with Auntie to her school, being younger. A year round would give them both more confidence.
And the cats would have orders not to leave our quarters without escort. They might be smart, but they would be vulnerable to a concerted effort.
As to Fitzgerald, sending for him to collect his son was the best way to get him where we wanted him. Susan asked to take him down.
She tested out well on sniper rifle.
She took him down at a place called ‘Last Chance Truck Café.’ Double tap to the head.
She was a good pupil.
Of course, she fell apart, then, but Willow got her home, and tears, cuddles and hot chocolate went a long way to helping.
“We’re free, mom,” said Hammond.
They weren’t; not yet, but it was a lot closer.
In the meantime, Clarissa managed to hang herself, and Michael opened his veins. Oh dear, how sad, never mind. Did I tell you we had Craig Thomas’s father as well as Craig? I sent in a bunch of gangers I know to wipe out the rest of the Street Rats, and I hired a few low grade assassins to handle the drug cartel associated with them.
It was the lowest echelon, in a way, but it was the direct link to the school.
I’d be working through the parents during the term.
“What shall we do with the prisoners?” I asked Tarquin.
“We have no further need of them,” he said.
He can be bloody cold at times.
I double tapped each of them, and was somewhat sickened to do so.
And I reminded myself of the mess they had made of Hammond, and of all those girls.
Tarquin was sending the marines after those; the Wolfpack never infiltrated the marines. You’re a marine first. All other affiliations come second. If you can’t live with that, you’re out. It was out of my hands, and I was not displeased. And the marines would deal with any opposition with extreme prejudice.
Things would start to be dangerous from hereon. The Wolfpack were now aware. And were ready to be dangerous. The death of their FBI support allied with the complete disappearance of the supporting teachers in the Academy had to be ringing alarm bells.
I would be a target; but that was fine.
I was used to being a target.
And all the kids would have top grade bioware reflexes, which does not show up on scans, like wired reflexes do, and would have the attitude of apex predators, not merely the attitude of little dictators. It makes a difference.
No comments:
Post a Comment