Cobra and the delinquents 8

 I.ve been republishing the Rookwood stories with new covers; changed the name of Poetry & Perfection to Poetry and Peregrinations; andgetting it and Adele Varens ready for publication

 

Chapter 8 Timeo Danaos et Chocolate ferentes

 

The kids reported that their parents were up in arms over the attack upon them by the police stampeding the cattle. Willow had confirmed, crisply, with those parents who wavered – notably, Mr. Obama  and Mr. Fitzgerald – that the kids had permission to phone home about an outrage which the FBI was treating as an attempted assassination of one of their number.

Even Jeff Briggs was shaken.

First he had been put down by a little dot of a girl when he got handsy, and then, whilst still recovering from that, he was being tossed effortlessly onto his horse by me [believe me, it wasn’t effortlessly, the boy was a tad porky as well as being big boned, but he did not know that] and riding for his life. The inexorable tide of beeves past the knoll was an object lesson to the big bully that he wasn’t the biggest or the toughest critter on a ranch.

Of course it was merely ineptitude, on the part of a police sergeant who was a recent transfer from Denver, as it turned out, where sucking up to the McNeal family was second nature, and obeying Mrs. Sylvia McNeal was something he did without thinking. Not that he seemed to have much to use for that process. Thinking, that is.

So, Sylvia had lost her five operatives. The feds came calling to confirm that McNeal had not sent anyone, with Stanovsky insisting that he knew Mrs. McNeal’s voice, and standing by his story that she had told him it was a protective detail for her stepson. Questioned, Sylvia broke and said that she had hired shadow assets to protect the boy as she had heard whispers that someone was out to attack him.

The FBI concluded that someone had taken her money and melted back into the shadows, without a trace. Because that covered the facts. Sylvia dared not say that these were employees of her lover, Cliff, and would not be likely to do that, if only out of fear of Cliff.

That was her problem.

It was also Cliff’s problem.

A surveillance team is not at the low end of any man’s assets, and whilst he may not have sent his best surveillance team after a ‘retired teacher,’ he would certainly have wanted someone capable of avoiding any low-grade but still FBI guards set to stop the kids from wandering too far, such as one might expect at what was essentially a juvenile detention centre.

I did not need them. It was not as if I had the forty or so kids they cram into boot camp.

I get the principle; break them down and build them up, make it impersonal so they can’t be the big cheese on the block because they are all the lowest of the low. But there are those kids for whom it does not work, who keep their noses clean, do what they have to in order to survive, and come out resentful, unbroken, and with extra military skills to add to revenge. And whilst Briggs needed breaking, the other three boys needed building up because they were already broken; and Obama needed a different sort of breaking and remoulding. Hermione. I must remember her name rather than singling her out.

Briggs would be broken by my girls, because he would not respect them; so he would become their chew-toy until he was ready to look on life anew.

It might not work, but you can’t win them all. As to his racism, well, a couple of my cowboys were authentically black, and they had permission to punish any racial slurs. And if I did not ask, I would not be told any lie. ‘Them as asks no questions, isn’t told a lie,’ as Kipling’s poem says, somewhat dialectally.

Cliff, however, had a number of problems.

Not only had he lost a trained team, but his other people were likely to be asking what happened to them.

After all, if you are a shadow-co-ordinator of some kind, losing teams is looked on somewhat askance by other teams you run. Yes, every now and then a team hoses up. Usually as a result of the member chromed to the max, who has more wiring than braincells, and who is convinced he is a combination of Captain America, Superman, Bugs Bunny and Cecil Cilantro – one of the few cartoon series worth watching from the trid age – and what usually happens is that everyone else is playing it cool, and making like there’s nothing going on, but he sees a cop buying a coke from a vending machine and decides to hose him down with his MP47 because he can.

And then all hell breaks loose and the team members are usually glad if all that happens is arrest.

But that’s palpable blame on the team.

Teams don’t just vanish.

There’s something on the shadow boards, even if it’s only chatter from someone on their way into obscurity.

Teams go AWOL, but if it’s voluntary, there’s usually a papertrail. Ditching whole bank accounts and IDs, these things take someone with a lot of paranoia and there’s a trail of money going into cred sticks for easy access. Teams, whole teams, kit and all, do not show up as having never existed.

And if they had buddies on other teams? Well, they are the only people who know their missing buddy ever existed. Except Mr. Fixit, their handler.

And only he, surely, could know enough to disappear them, right?

Well, actually, of course, wrong, because the Cobra and the Neon Flower are top operators who can go where nobody else can. But very few people have heard of us. Because we’re so good, we don’t need to be known.  But Cliff had a problem and might expect his other teams to be a little antsy.

And all we had to do, was nothing. Well, apart from listening.

And recording all we heard and read. Occasional chuckles and a pan of popcorn were optional.

My favourite was the recording made by Sylvia’s phone of her conversation with Cliff, the recording having been turned on by the illegal gizmos in Jamie’s returned phone, which was accessing whatever was said.

 

“What the hell happened?” Sylvia snapped.

“What happened? How the hell should I know?” demanded Cliff. “I sent of the surveillance team, I knew Little Mommy would do a good job, if she had the chance to pick up and traffic any other kids, there, and a premium for a healthy baby, too. They’re a good team. They picked up a hire car, souped up engine as specified in case of needing to get away. The last report I had was that they had found an occupied bunkhouse, locked, and probably where Tiber was keeping the kids. They decided to walk from there, and then communications went silent.”

“What, they were jammed?”

“I suppose so. But there was nothing else. Honey, I paid for a milspec satellite image the next day when I discovered they had vanished; and there was nothing. No tyre track, no car, no hastily-dug pits, nothing.”

“They were put in a barn,” said Sylvia.

“Sylvia, my sweet, you turned the Keystone Cops loose on the place. And even without a warrant, Tiber gave them free rein to look. They looked in all the barns. They searched the Ranch. They rousted all the bunkhouses but one.”

“What about that one?”

“Would you honestly hide bodies in a bunkhouse occupied by five teenage girls?” said Cliff. “The cop who burst in is up on charges of child molesting. The youngest was fourteen. Presumably female delinquents. 

“If we could get Jamie drugged and introduced into that bunkhouse, he’d end up going away forever,” said Sylvia. “He’s quite a stallion when he’s on Excite, and if he was off his head as well…”

“You forget that we can’t get at him,” said Cliff.

“I’ll send him a care package with his favourite candy, those awful kirsch cherry creams in dark chocolate,” said Sylvia, calmly. “With enough of those in him, he might even rape the schoolmaster.”

“Very well, it’s a thought,” said Cliff. “But my lads are muttering about team Zeta disappearing. And I’m worried myself.”

“How did they do it?” asked Sylvia.

“If I knew that, do you think I’d be so worried?” snarled Cliff. “Now, shut up, and give me what I need to calm down, and let me show you who can be a real stallion without drugs.”

The rest got boring. I kept it, anyway.

And I played the relevant bit to Jamie.

He went white.

“I’ll stay off the kirsch chocolates, I think… or any care package sweeties from Sylvia,” he said.

“Wise move,” I agreed. “Any parcel you get must be opened in front of me, in any case, to prevent anyone sending drugs or weapons, so we have a chain of evidence to get them tested.”

Jamie nodded.

“I’m glad you’re on my side,” he said. “I thought I was being railroaded by everyone, and I couldn’t see a way out. I… I was going to commit suicide, even though that would play into Sylvia’s hands.”

“Then I’m glad to have been instrumental in pulling you out of that pit of despair,” I said.

 

Sylvia was not a woman who waited around when she had an idea, and the next morning a parcel arrived for Jamie.

“Open it here at the table,” I said. “You boys are not permitted parcels that I have not checked.”

Briggs grumbled, but Jamie obediently opened the packing.

“It’s a box of chocolates,” he said. “There’s my dad’s card.”

I sniffed

“My chemsniffer reckons there is something besides candy in here, a more medical smell.”

“Nothing to do with me,” Jamie held up his hands in denial.

I bagged the box and handed it to Willow, who would fly it by drone to the labs for testing.

 

It did not take long for the lab to tell me what was in those sweeties.

I flew to Denver with the wrapping and McNeal’s business card.

I got to see him post haste.

I did a sweep for bugs, and disabled them all, except Willow’s, through his phone.

I threw down the wrapping and the card.

“Jamie got this, this morning, round a box of kirsch chocolates,” I said.

“Those are his favourites,” said McNeal. “I haven’t sent him any; I don’t know why my card was in with them.”

“Would you like to know what the FBI labs found in those sweeties?” I asked.

He sat forward, fingers interlaced.

“Plainly something other than kirsch, or you would not ask,” he said.

“A mixture of Excite and Starburst,” I said. “And, incidentally, the lab gave me the results on hair samples of Jamie from the time of his supposed offences; and my goodness, the self-same drugs appear in his hair.”

He stared.

“You are not, I trust, accusing me?”

“No, sir, but plainly someone close to you is out to smear your son.”

“You know who, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir,” I said. “But you won’t like it.”

“Dammit, whoever it is, I won’t like it!” he exploded. “All those who work with me have been with me for years, and I like them! Why, I fought when it looked as if my secretary was a thief, but it was so uncharacteristic that she should shoplift that I paid for the damn bracelet. She said she never took it, that it must have been knocked into her bag whilst she was helping my wife choose an anniversary gift for me.”

“I see,” I said.

He flashed me a look.

“What are you not telling me?” he barked.

I played him the recording of Sylvia and Cliff.

He went ashen. I’ve heard the phrase, but I never saw such a grey shade of pale before.

I pushed his head between his knees.

“I thought she loved me!” he gasped. “They’re right, no fool like an old fool. I’ll institute divorce proceedings…”

“I’d rather you didn’t,” I said. “I want to catch her and her lover and his entire underworld team.”

He nodded.

“I understand,” he said. “I don’t know if I can act naturally.”

“Invent a business trip,” I suggested.

“I… yes. But why should she do this to Jamie?”

“Because he found out that she planned, with her lover’s help, to take you for as much as she could,” I explained. “And he confronted her, the idiot boy, because he did not want you to be hurt.”

James McNeal wept.

I permitted him his emotion for some fifteen minutes, then Willow warned me that Sylvia was on her way to his office.

“Game face on, James,” I said. “Sylvia is on her way here. Tell her I’m a spy of yours from the Big Apple, and I’m here to give you a hot tip of a deal which you have to follow up.”

I hate changing face in front of other people, but I had to do so; it would not do to let Sylvia know I was still here, and having a tete-a-tete.

She came into his office without knocking.

“James, darling! I did not know you had anyone with you,” she said, with a tinkling and brittle little laugh. “Though someone said that schoolmaster fellow who has charge of Jamie visited.”

“Yes, and he might as well have phoned,” said McNeal. “Came to complain about sending Jamie a care package. Did you send him chocolates? It’s forbidden. They’ve been confiscated.”

She pouted.

“Too cruel!” she trilled. “I don’t know who sent them; I wish I had thought of it.”

“Well, you know now not to do so,” said McNeal. “I’ll be gone for a few days; business in New York. Andy and I will be leaving shortly.”

She looked at me, appraised the grizzled looking bulldog of a man which my nanotractors had made of my face, my follicolour^TM hair being more grey than brown, and decided I was not worth charming.

“How boring of you,” she said.

“Me being boring keeps you in jewels and furs,” said McNeal. “Don’t pout, sweetheart, it makes you ugly.”

She squealed.

“Say not so, James!” she cried.

He laughed.

“Well, let us just say that it mars your beauty,” he said. “I’ll meet you downstairs, Andy.”

I nodded, bowed, and left. I did wait in the foyer and he nodded to me as we left together.

“Should I come with you?” he asked.

“No, go to New York. Cliff will track you,” I said. “Give me until the end of the week; I should have wrapped them all up by then. Then you can institute divorce proceedings on grounds of wire fraud, fraud, theft of assets, infidelity and drugging a minor.”

He nodded.

“Jamie and I owe you a great deal.”

“Bring him up the way you’ve been doing, and I’ll know he will be one kid I don’t have to worry about,” I said. “Though it may be a while before he fancies kirsch chocolates again.”