Date: Fri, 28 May 2021 22:16:30 -0700
From: Boris Chen <borischenaz@gmail.com>
Subject: Response Team Alternate Chapter 16

Chapter 16, Alternate.

Our vacation to Singapore was wonderful but it came at a cost. We paid
several costs, but spare us your pity please.

The week we spent in a distant time zone was upsetting in many ways, you
can probably figure them out, easy to convert, difficult to convert back.

The week we spent in another land very different from western Texas was
also difficult. We saw lots of our fellow humans working very hard to live
lives of quiet desperation. It was almost depressing to see how hard they
worked to keep the Singapore thing afloat, like a giant Disneyland. They
were lots of very good people but Singapore was an anomaly. It went against
nature in every way possible. I could go on, but it hit us at a spiritual
level and just didn't feel right. The entire city state is like a Hollywood
set where it all looks real out front but on the back streets away from
tourist eyeballs it's a different story.

By the time we left we felt a sense of guilt. The people in Singapore were
so nice and so busy making a living we felt guilty for not doing more for
what we received. A man's labor may earn him $12 an hour but his labor also
crossed over into a personal realm. It would be like slaves mining coal
underground, but one slave chopped more coal then his peers so he could be
the best. We ran into many of those people, they went the extra mile
because that's the sort of people they were. Experiencing so much
generosity made us feel guilty for going there in the first place.

Singapore was a wonderful green place full of wonderful people, and God
bless them all, but we don't ever want to go back. We left feeling bad for
being able to afford it. We spent the remainder of our vacation days at
home scrubbing and improving our home and repairing our miniature golf
course.

----

We also spent a considerable amount of time looking into if we would be
safer from the Sinaloa Cartel if we moved further from the border. Our
current home was only twelve miles from Mexico. If the cartel ever decided
to get even I don't think the distance would be a deterrent when all it
took was a simple Unabomber type device left at our front door. David had
an idea that if we had acreage we might be able to protect ourselves if we
intended to do more jobs like that and pissed off more very wealthy and
well armed groups. But if we stayed in El Paso because the office was here
and so was the airport, if we decided to build a new place who would we go
to that could design an urban safe house that didn't look like a fortress?

We both agreed that acreage would be safer but not just acreage. He
jokingly suggested we buy a cattle ranch near the Amarillo Airport. Then
we'd be further from Mexico. But that constant feeling of being stuck on an
island would still be an issue. Amarillo was just as much of an island as
El Paso.

Amarillo had half the population of El Paso but that's not including Juarez
which had almost twice as many people as El Paso. Combined in the entire El
Paso metro area with Juarez was nearly three million souls and covered an
enormous amount of desert land. If we were smart we'd just give in and move
to Omaha, but winters up there would kill me. After so many years living in
the desert I needed it to stay above 70 degrees or I felt physically
uncomfortable.

I also noticed during our daily meditation times that both of us had a base
level of anger that wasn't there before we went to Sinaloa. When I
whispered that to my husband one night in bed he said he felt it too and
thought it was affecting everyone on earth but wasn't sure what caused it.

----

Our first day back to work was Tuesday June 1st. We were alerted in the
first hour of the first day, just 55 minutes after I put our alert receiver
back into On-Duty mode.

Before the alert we got an email that our request for a new spider design
had been enthusiastically approved by the DOD and it was being developed
immediately. Each team would soon receive one new spider to take the place
of an existing spider in our case (we carried three on our belts and two in
the case, eight total per team). The new spider would be used for cutting
wires. It located the desired wire or cable, gripped the body with its legs
and cut the cable with a small but very intense blast, like a miniature
shaped explosive. David said that would increase the types of vehicles,
machines, and electrical devices it could shut down remotely. For the first
generation the software would be the same as the swarming spiders but it
was designed to disrupt electrical circuits. They considered making the
shaped charge the self destruct mechanism so every spider could do it but
that was under discussion due to the noise it made and increased risk of
injury.

An alternative use would be using it as a killing device to anchor itself
over a spinal cord and detonate its shaped charge to sever the
spine. Although not as fast it could also attack a skull or bone too.

It could cut a fuse, an integrated circuit, a fiber optic line, a pipe or
tube, or a coaxial cable. The problem initially would be the need for
instructions, which cable to cut in a bundle of cables, like metropolitan
fiber optic lines in underground utility tunnels. These new spiders would
not be able to cut cables inside steel conduit.

----

David looked at the alert and saw it was optional, this case was not fully
within our normal scope of practice. It did not appear to involve
terrorism, just domestic organized crime. He got on the computer in the Tac
Room to download the entire text of the alert.

This case was centered on Tulsa, Oklahoma (we've worked there in the
past). There were ten missing children, and no suspects or motives
confirmed. There were no ransom demands, and very little information. Tulsa
City and State Police had very little information. Only two witnesses but
neither saw much, they had less to go on that the original Unabomber case
that went on for almost a decade.

In this case a Caucasian child was abducted in public by an unseen person
driving a white van. They had a partial license plate and a vague
description. Oklahoma State Police had a profile but it was equally vague
and they were desperate for help, which was why we were called, based on
our quick success in Dallas.

All the children kidnapped were boys between the ages of 9-14, and similar
in size (75-100lbs). They attended different schools in different areas. In
each case the child failed to come home from school and was simply missing,
as if they just vanished. One boy a block away saw one kid pulled into a
van that drove off, but the incident was at a distance so no sound was
heard, no license plate seen and only a partial ID on the type of vehicle
was made. We were asked to arrive in Tulsa with our case and suits but we'd
travel in street clothes. We would take a commercial flight and be put up
in a hotel near the airport, all paid by their state police, David texted
our boss that we'd accept the case.

That afternoon we flew to Dallas then to Tulsa on a smaller regional
jet. We brought our gear and a regular suitcase with three days of clothes
and our bathroom stuff and some cash. When we took these trips where the
length of the stay was unknown we also packed something to wear while
sitting in the Laundromat while all our real clothes spun around in the
machines.

We were met in Tulsa at the airport by a uniformed state cop. She was very
nice and said she was on the team doing the investigation. She drove us to
the airport hotel, we sat on the beds and talked.

Her name was Shirley Johnson, she was a detective but met us in uniform to
make her easier to spot, and she said she always worked in street
clothes. David unpacked our suitcase while she opened her briefcase and
read us her notes, she had additional information they kept out of the
media. She told us the local media was reporting it as a series of
unexplained missing children.

The vehicle in question was a white Nissan commercial van, a 2006 model
with no markings except for something small on the doors like a state
business license number. They obtained records from Texas, Missouri,
Kansas, and Oklahoma on paroled offenders and people with a record of
abduction and child murders, but of those 62 offenders 60 of them had
alibis. Two were still being located. They expected to contact them within
the next 24 hours and had a team working on them.

She said that when they mapped and analyzed the abductions they occurred in
a clockwise pattern that rotated around downtown Tulsa, every 96 hours,
almost to the hour. The next one was predicted to occur on the west side
tomorrow around 4pm. Their crime analysis guy suggested a child from the
Skyline Ridge neighborhood and the Skyline Middle School on West Edison
Street at North Tacoma Avenue.

She explained that after recent demonstrations the city council voted to
reduce police funding so they're not staffed enough for a stakeout, since
all they respond do now was primary 911 calls. The look on her face changed
after she said that. She explained 60% of 911 calls for help were no longer
seen by police but unarmed city crisis team workers instead. I saw a look
of despair on her face as she explained the cuts in funding.

David asked who was on the case and who would be watching that area
tomorrow, Shirley said, "Two volunteer deputies would be following two of
their seven busses."

"We'd like to follow one, do you have the bus route maps with you?"

"Yes." She fumbled around in her case and pulled out a bus route map for
Skyline Middle School and handed it to David, I leaned over and looked at
it. We both looked at the routes. I pointed out the highway and said that
was good cover noise. We held the list of known abductions, time and date
of disappearance beside the metro area map to compare and look for
alternate patterns.

David rotated the map then asked her what it looked like if you drove west
on Edison Street. She said it was wooded but thinned out as you got into
reservation lands and grazing land. David looked at me and smiled. "We'll
take this route, the one that went west on Edison and serves the
neighborhoods along the highway.

We agreed on a time, 3pm in the school parking lot. David said we'd need a
rental car, she said she'd drive us to a rental agency near the airport. On
the way to Avis I asked if they asked the FBI for help, Shirley said they
declined since it wasn't in their jurisdiction.

----

Tulsa was a lopsided town, most of the population was on the east side, and
David suggested that was due to the proximity of Indian reservations. There
were a bunch of large reservations in Oklahoma. A lot of Indians were
collected by the US Army in the 1800s and relocated to reservations in
Oklahoma, so the state had a large population of tribal communities.

We left the hotel and drove to the car rental agency for a plain white
Nissan four door. We exchanged phone numbers and she took our photo to send
to other detectives on the team tonight so they knew who we were. "What's
the name of your organization?" Shirley asked David ready to type that into
her cell, I think he was partially kidding when he told her we worked for
the Pentagon or she could call it the DOD. Then he said, "We're an office
in the Pentagon but we're stationed in El Paso."

She stopped and looked at us as if she was puzzled why we got called, "Are
we on the same page with this?" She asked as if she thought we might
suddenly think we were in the wrong place.

I laughed and told her not to let the names confuse her, we were crime
fighting superheroes. I patted our case and told her we were very well
armed and ready to defeat any bad guys and had very special
training. Suddenly, Shirley opened wide her mouth and said, "Ahhhh," as she
looked at our case. "That's one of those secret cases we read about,
right?" I said yes it was, any cop that examined the contents will find
himself dead in a day or two, guaranteed. She held up her hand and gestured
she wanted nothing to do with it, then changed the subject.

While we chatted David left the room with his phone in hand, presumed he
was calling for more equipment, like a cellular fishnet device.

Shirley and I discussed the case for a while longer, she showed me a
spreadsheet with the abductions listed with different sorting routines
which were how they discovered the pattern changes. "Tell me your gut
feeling on this, I'll keep it private," I asked her.

Shirley smiled, chuckled, and said she'd gotten in lot of hot water before
answering that question. I told her we were totally non-political and from
over a thousand miles away. She stared in my eyes briefly then said she
thought it's someone from the reservation that's taking them and holding
them alive for sale later on, they might end up overseas in a slave
auction, that's her gut belief.

I told her if that was true I'd not anticipate people being arrested for
this crime, we'd had a hard time being nice to people that stole
children. She laughed and said my comment would remain secret too. We shook
hands and stood up as David came back in the room in the last seconds of
his phone call. "The Fishnet will be delivered tonight to the airport."

Shirley looked at me and I smiled back at her.

We walked her to her patrol car and David asked if she had kids in school,
she said yes she had two kids, one in third grade and another in seventh
grade but not on this side of town. I shook her hand again and told her
we'd see her promptly at 3pm tomorrow in the school parking lot, I reminded
her to make sure her people knew about us to avoid problems. She said not
to worry, it was already done, that's why she took our picture. David
politely warned her not to post our picture online, she should delete it
after we leave.

That night we slept in separate beds and were ready to work after
lunch. During the day we drove around the area and west out of town into
the reservations west and northwest of Tulsa.

I picked up the fishnet device last night at the Tulsa Airport, it was a
similar box as the one we used in downtown Dallas to catch their serial
shooter. We set it up on the back seat of the car and ran the power cord to
the lighter jack on the center console, with three antennas held on the
roof with magnets. After lunch of pulled pork sandwiches and root beer we
drove back to the hotel and talked about this afternoon and decided to get
into our suits in case of a shootout.

"Why would someone kidnap that many kids in rapid succession?" I asked.

"Either you're a killing sicko and they don't last long or you're building
up an inventory for export."

"Where would they end up?" I asked.

"I'd guess they'd end up somewhere that paid top dollar for a healthy white
child."

"Like where?"

"Hmmm, it's been a while since I saw the list but I think it had Yemen,
Oman, Somalia, Iran, and maybe UAE or Libya. I'm not sure if Belarus is
still on that list."

"What are they used for?"

"Honestly? I hate talking about it."

I sat there waiting for him to finish then he added, "Rape, entertainment
murder, and maybe organ transplants. There's new stuff too that involves
harvesting their blood and semen."

"So what we're looking at here is a business transaction, he'd likely be
taking good care of them to maintain freshness, right?"

"Yes, it's likely we'll find evidence of a prison like setting, kids in
cells, fed and watered and waiting for transport to the coast, then
overseas by ship to the buyer. It's possible they've operated other places
around the USA until it got too hot then they moved to the next spot on the
map."

"So they don't want Hispanic, Asian, or Black kids?"

"If its trade, yes, just Caucasian. If they wanted Black kids they could
get them easily in Africa which is a lot closer too. Someone's paying extra
for a juicy American boy."

It was 2:50 when cars started to arrive, some were parents hauling their
kids home, but a few had single guys in the driver's seat. Like Shirley all
of them were black skinned. We got out and stood by the car and two cars
parked near ours, everyone stood in a group and we introduced ourselves. So
far all the Oklahoma cops we'd met were black skinned.

We shook hands and introduced ourselves, we discussed routes and explained
why we wanted the Edison Street area, and they all agreed to follow other
routes. One guy handed us a police walkie talkie so we could stay in touch
without fumbling for phones. He said it was locked on the right channel,
just push the button and talk into the front, but don't yell.

A loud bell sounded while we were talking near the busses and we heard kids
run out and board the school busses. Ten minutes later everyone got in
their cars, we found our bus had a number 11 on the side and back, that was
our target. The drivers were unaware of our mission but all 911 operators
knew and local police also knew, but not reservation cops. It then flashed
in my mind that one map Shirley never made was an abduction map on top of a
bus route map, probably because there were lots of schools in the Tulsa
metro.

Just before they left we saw the driver in #11 bus turn and look at us. One
of the cops held up his badge to show him then he pointed at us and then
back at him, he nodded yes and started the engine. One by one they drove to
Edison Street and drove off in different directions. Eleven turned left
heading west on Edison. We followed but stayed back since the bus was easy
to see from a distance.

There was a large residential area between the highway and Edison Street
where most of his stops were, it was a long and boring ride watching kids
exit the bus. Most of them walked straight home but when we got to the
corner of Easton Place and 44th Avenue West two boys crossed the street and
headed into the weeds and trees that grew along the highway, so we parked
and watched them.

"Where they going?" I asked David.

"My guess? Probably to have a cigarette before going home."

"Wouldn't they stink like smoke when they got home?"

"Not if their parents smoked in the house too."

"Huh. Smoking in 7th grade, that's sad."

"Yep." Was all he had to say.

Because of the layout of the neighborhood there was no reason to move the
car, the kids would have to walk out by the street regardless. David and I
slid down on the seats to be less visible. He used the walkie talkie to
notify the team what we're doing and our location.

I commented to David that this subdivision looked like all the houses were
built to the latest tornado codes, nobody had trees in the front
yard. There was almost nothing outside that could become a flying
projectile. No wood fences, just chain link fencing.

We sat there for 90 minutes and were about to quit for the day when one of
the two appeared on a bicycle from one of the houses that had back yards
that bordered the highway. We watched him ride down the sidewalk to another
house a block behind us and run inside. A half hour later the other boy
appeared on foot and walked down the sidewalk and went to the mailboxes to
grab the mail for his home, he lived next door to the one that rode off on
the bicycle.

A delivery van drove down the street making stops on the other side, it was
marked with a small company logo but we couldn't see it. The driver got out
carrying boxes for different homes. At the end of Easton Place he turned
around and made deliveries on our side of the street. I told David we
should lie down if he drove past us.

He made one stop near the community mail boxes too but a Fedex truck rolled
up and stopped in front of us blocking our view of the white van guy and
the kid getting the mail.

"Fuck!" I mumbled, David bent over to see if he could see anything like a
shadow under the Fedex truck. When it left the white van and the kid were
gone, but there was only one way out of the neighborhood, so we drove out
to Edison turned left heading west towards the Res.

Way ahead of us on Edison we could barely see the van heading west out of
town. We tried to stay about a mile back and followed it west until we were
a few miles outside the city limits, the ground was still mostly flat with
lots of tree covered properties and different residential areas but stuff
got spread out more and more. Edison Road curved south and crossed over the
highway. He pulled off the road on the south side of the overpass to watch
the van as if drove onto a business property, it looked like a construction
company that had acreage and lots of trees. I called the rest of the team
what happened but asked them to not approach the area, it was fully under
control. I confirmed we did not witness an actual abduction because of the
Fedex truck.

We were on the south side of the West 65th Avenue overpass watching a
possible target. I looked at my phone at 5:58pm and the sun was low in the
western sky. In the mean time we deployed the cell catcher and accessed the
DOD database on the mapping system for hi-res scans of the property in
question, at the corner of 65th Avenue and 11th Street.

I explained our location to the others on the team and asked if anyone knew
of a residence nearby that would let us park in the driveway because we
were too obvious parked up here with three antennas on the roof. Shirley
called back and told us to drive to the last house on 64th Way, it was
someone she knew from church and we could park there, she'd call right
now. Slowly we pulled off the shoulder and drove down to 8th Street then
down to the end of 64th and parked outside the last house on the right
side, so we'd be much closer to the construction company, which also had a
mobile home on the property and several acres. That property also had river
on two sides so they were blocked if they decided to flee on foot unless
someone wanted to take a swim.

Outside, the house lights came on and the front door opened. An elderly
obese black woman wandered outside and talked to David through the window,
he said we were investigating a missing child, could we park here for a few
hours? She lady, full of smiles said that was fine, we were welcome to come
inside, use the bathroom and have some coffee if we wanted. David thanked
her and shook her hand and said we met Shirley yesterday, she was a nice
lady. She said Shirley ran the choir in their church too.

While they chatted I located information from the DOD about the business
owner and the property owner, I got one hit, one of the suspects, someone
with a history of time in prison, and was on parole was listed as living in
the mobile home. We updated the crew on the walkie talkie. Shirley said she
was twenty minutes away.

About thirty minutes later Shirley arrived and parked beside us, but she
was also busy on her computer looking up stuff. The lady from the house
walked back outside with a tray in her hands, this time she had four
sandwiches with mustard, mayo, lettuce, onion, and two thick slices of pan
fried Oscar Mayer Baloney on white Wonder bread! I grabbed one, David got
the other and we both smiled as she walked away, he yelled `thank you!' The
other two sandwiches sat on the dashboard, but not for very long.

By the time the sun went down we'd seen no sign of the white van leaving
the property. We couldn't see the property itself but we could see both
driveways perfectly fine and every car that went by, so far no white van
drove by.

"Are we too far to run a spider over there?" David asked and I told him it
was close to too far. My best guess was we're about 1000 feet away, maybe
1600 feet from the river.

We had enough evidence to justify exploring the property but decided to get
closer since it was dark outside. We decided to start now, he turned on our
case and stepped out of the car and changed into our suits right there on
her driveway. Shirley was shocked that we stripped to our undies in front
of her and got into our Batsuits and that it took both of us to get
changed. She got out of her squad car and asked what was going on, so while
I zippered up the back of David's suit we explained we had advanced
technology to explore the property but had to move closer to deploy it to
see inside the buildings remotely, they might have a dog that would bark
too much to go inside ourselves. She said she wanted to go with us, so we
warned about snakes and mud but she didn't care, she was a mother of two
kids that were also vulnerable.

After 10 minutes we were ready, Shirley was surprised to see us carrying
machine guns, we grabbed the Pelican case and headed on foot towards the
property, we walked down the street while there were no cars coming then
crossed over to the other side, past a small clearing then to the first
driveway that went back into the property. We walked into a stand of trees
closer to the mobile home and assisted Shirley to silently join us in the
woods.

So far there was no sign of barking dogs or any other sound except crickets
and cars on the roads. David whispered that he thought he heard a scream
but I didn't. We silently moved to the center of the trees and sat on a
fallen tree, which would put us only 100 feet from the mobile home and the
business building. I pulled out three spiders and activated one of them
while David downloaded satellite radar scans of the property from the
DOD. That's when we noticed it was actually three buildings but we had no
idea what the third one was, it sat across the driveway from the mobile
home. The satellite scan of the property showed the 3rd building was
roughly 24x24, a steel sided building with one window and one door. The
work building was the same size but had a wide open garage door and had
several work trucks parked around it.

All the buildings were dark except the mobile home. The white Nissan van
was parked by the 3rd building, which was the closest of the three to us,
maybe only fifty feet away from our hiding spot.

One at a time we programmed the spiders and released them to ascertain the
status of each building: general floor plan, occupants, utilities,
plumbing, active electronics, animals, and any visible threats. With our
glasses on we worked in the dark so Shirley wouldn't see much detail.

While I activated the spiders and uploaded data we whispered a little,
David told Shirley she wouldn't be able to see but we'd tell her everything
we saw. Shirley said she'd never seen anything like this before.

"You guys really are superheroes." She added.

"That remains to be seen, this is very likely a false alarm." David replied
at a whisper.

The larger structure was a pole construction barn full of equipment for
construction, power tools, and things relating to builders. It said the
building was a standard pole barn, it had 117vac but nothing out of the
ordinary, and no humans or animals inside or outside. We had that spider
check all nearby vehicles. The next spider got inside the mobile home and
found two brown skinned men. A TV was on, and they were seated at a table
eating. That spider saw no other people or animals inside or outside. No
heat signatures or electronics under the structure.

The third spider had to enter the third building via a vent stack pipe on
the roof. It entered the building via a toilet in a bathroom. It found
three rooms, one was a large bathroom with a shower. There was a large open
area with a concrete slab floor, it detected heat under the floor if there
was a basement but found no access. I sent the other two spiders to enter
the third building, both went inside via the sewer line vent through the
roof, one went down below the floor into a lower level like a basement and
exited the plumbing via a large utility sink.

Using IR imaging it found multiple heat signatures that were not moving,
but it wasn't sure if they were animals or humans. The other two finished a
detailed scan of the ground level and found no heat signatures or complex
electronics, just a large bathroom and kitchen area and a small office and
one large open room like a workshop. The second spider went back into the
sewer line through the toilet and found a route to the lower floor and
climbed the basement wall to image the entire basement room where all the
heat sources were seen.

Inside the office the 3rd spider located a locked panel on the floor, it
resembled a steel door flat on the floor. That spider could not fit under
the door, it was tightly sealed so it went into the bathroom and headed
downstairs through the sewer line.

With three spiders in the basement now they were able to identify six or
more humans on the floor with chains on their ankles, the lights were off
and none of them seemed to be aware they were being imaged and mapped. I
re-directed the third spider go back to the roof to serve as a remote
camera to watch the mobile home.

Soon a map of the basement popped up on our glasses, I explained what I saw
to Shirley. I told her this might be her missing kids, she got emotional
and wanted to call for backup. David tried to calm her and explain we had
plenty of weapons with us to handle this situation, they were guaranteed to
lose in a shootout. But Shirley really wanted to call for help. He told her
again to chill out, if these were the missing kids they'd be freed in a few
minutes.

Due to the temperatures in the basement our spider images were poor but it
looked like 6-9 kids asleep on floor mats, chained in place in the dark and
nothing else in the room that would pose a threat. So he called one of the
basement spiders to return. I got out gas pellets and was ready to load
it. David programmed it to go to the mobile home and re-scan the entire
structure and report. I placed two gas pellets in its back end and let it
run down my arm to the ground.



There would be a few minutes wait for the gas equipped spider to re-inspect
every room in the mobile home then get into position near the two men and
report back with a green dot on our glasses. It would show red if it found
changes.

As game time approached we had one in the basement watching the kids and
another on the roof while the last one searched the entire mobile home. It
went from room to room crawling around on the ceilings like an actual
spider.

Two minutes later I got a report that the mobile home still had two heat
signatures and then sent video of the two guys at the dining table smoking
and talking. I moved the spider under the table where it held onto a bolt
that held a leg to the frame, then I released the first gas pellet. I told
Shirley I'd be asking her to call her dispatcher soon, in about 1-2 minutes
this situation would be over.

"What's going on?" She whispered.

"We're gonna arrest these mother fuckers, that's why. We have zero
tolerance for kid abuse. These bastards are extremely anti-social, there's
no place for them on this planet."

She stayed on her knees in the mud beside us watching us watch our glasses
but in the distance it was nothing but normal nature sounds, a few cars in
the distance, crickets, and birds, some frogs by the river croaking.

"Five, four, three, two, one." I counted down, then watching the mobile
home spider I gave Shirley the play by play. "One down." A few seconds
later, "Oh, perp number two is up trying to rescue his buddy. Oops, make
that two down." The spider saw the second man stand up and walk around the
table then collapse to the floor, then it saw no movement. "Note the time
please I asked her," she said it was 6:26pm.

I turned to Shirley and told her to `call the troops, this event is over,
and the kids are rescued!' She called for backup on her walkie talkie, we
got up and walked towards the nearest building. The white van was parked
alone outside.

The outside door was strong steel and was locked. We didn't want to risk
any injuries so we stood by the door and waited for the fire department,
they got keys that opened any door (called an axe).

"Have the spider scan the area below the hatch, tell me what's down there."
David typed on his keypad and I saw that spider move along the wall and
locate the corner of the room, there was a wood staircase with no railing
it went to the underside of a heavy floor hatchway.

Police were first to arrive, I was watching for a fire truck. I Asked
Shirley to call and ask if a fire truck was en-route, she said yes it was
60 seconds away. She told dispatch to advise the fire dept to carry axes
and paramedic boxes on arrival and report immediately to Detective
Johnson. We saw lights flashing on the nearby buildings and trees when they
arrived, then four fire fighters walked up, we signaled them and explained
what we were seeing. That was when I signaled all spiders to return to me.

With about five powerful swings the door opened and I directed them inside,
turn to the right, into the office, then chop the padlock off the flat
steel plate on the floor. They lifted the heavy door and with flashlights
in hand they went down the stairs and heard the voices of the ten missing
children, some cried, one screamed briefly in fear when he saw axes.

All of them had chains around their ankles that ran to a central steel loop
on the floor. The room stunk of piss and shit. Shirley asked about the two
men and I told her I'd go handle them.

"What time is it now?"

"6:29pm."

"Not yet, still too much gas."

I walked to the mobile home and after several strong pulls broke open the
front door, but I could still smell the gas so I stopped the police from
entering. They shone flashlights through the open door and saw two men on
the floor, but I convinced them they'd end up on the floor too if they went
inside.

After some loud arguments with the police I got one of the filter masks out
of our case and went inside but closed the door to keep them
outside. Inside I grabbed a knife off the kitchen table, put it in the hand
of one of the guys and shoved it into the heart of the other guy and made
sure it was still in his hand when I let the cops in. Now it looked like a
murder scene with no explanation why both of them were unconscious in a
pile on the floor.

Within ten minutes all of the boys were unchained and being loaded into
ambulances. State police finally entered the mobile home and found the
murder scene and took one into custody, the other went to the morgue.

Within an hour all ten boys were at local hospitals and the place was
crawling with police, media, and fire department people. They searched the
entire property and decided to radar scan for buried bodies tomorrow.

With our spiders recalled and packed we walked back to our car and drove
back to our hotel and watched the news coverage of Oklahoma's crime of the
century. Police said they found evidence of others involved in the crimes
and arrest warrants had been issued for two more men from Osage, Oklahoma.

----

The next morning at the airport we were waiting for our flight back to
Dallas, on the TV in the terminal the kidnapping was the major story, an
international kidnapping ring was busted, and already they had information
about the destination of the transport chain that ended in Yemen. David
asked if we wanted to fly to Yemen, just in case. I said no, I didn't wish
to go to any state that killed gays.

We got home at 10pm, last flight to El Paso. That evening we got a call
from Shirley with a rather emotional thank-you. Shirley said she had
started to meet the parents of the boys and said she could not tell them
how the case was solved but it was two gentlemen from far away that loved
kids and hated bad guys. They were actual super heroes! She also asked
about how the two men eating dinner turned into a murder scene and I told
her that's how it looked when I entered the mobile home.

----

Our boss was happy and Oklahoma was happy. We submitted our report and
drove to Chico's Tacos for two orders of their rolled/fried tacos drowned
in tomato sauce. We didn't talk much during lunch. We both glanced at each
other and smiled a lot. The crunch of deep fried tortillas was the big
sound at our table, that and the slurp when our drinks ran out.

Sitting at the table he had sauce on his chin, and told me we should talk
to the Captain to see if he had any suggestions for increasing our safety
at home, including moving. Maybe we weren't the first to endanger ourselves
in the line of duty, maybe they had plans for such circumstances.

David finished first, he sat there and watched me eat, then winked at me. I
knew from experience that meant he was very happy and horny too. That look
usually forewarned a hard fucking in my future. As a courtesy I'd quietly
give myself a deep enema after dinner, make sure I was clean inside and
out.

Write the author: borischenaz gmail