Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2023 22:29:06 +0200 (CEST)
From: Boris Chen <borischenaz@mailfence.com>
Subject: Response Team Prequel Chapter 31

Chapter 31.

Just a reminder: everything in this story is fictional.

Four days after we got back from Las Vegas and I was in the shower when the
alert box went off, David was out in the pool. I had my right foot up on a
plastic stool we purchased for the bathroom; I was looking at the surgical
scar on my leg when the alarm startled me, it's more unpleasant than a
smoke detector and just as loud. We nearly collided in the open space
between the living room and the dining area.

The alert said: DALLAS KIDNAPPING. I knew exactly what David would say, but
he quickly grabbed his cell on the kitchen counter and called the OD:

"The wife of a Dallas City Board member is missing, presumed
kidnapped. There is no word yet about a ransom or reason."

He covered the mouthpiece on the cell and softly told me, "You watch, this
has got to be related to City Board member Doug Fell. David asked who the
victim was, she replied, "Katrina Fell." He smiled and politely declined
the case citing that Dallas was one of our three blacklisted cities, in
fact it was the first one on the list.

We got off the phone and by then a large puddle had formed around our feet
since I ran from the shower and he climbed right out of the pool. David
leaned in and kissed my cheek then raced back outside. He started running
before he cleared the back door and I heard the splash as he hit the
water. I was lucky enough to get a quick view of his butt as he dashed out
the back door, which stood wide open.

I went back to finish my shower and shave, by then it was late in the day
and the sun would soon hide behind the Franklins.

----

After I was done in the bathroom I heard voices and went to the dining room
to see Jeremy and David sitting on the pool stairs. They often had
father/son conversations because Jeremy said he couldn't talk to his
father, but David was easy to talk to (and he enjoyed being fatherly). I
thought it might be because Jeremy was easily a foot taller than his
father. Some men can't deal with that. I suspected at home Jeremy was
quietly disrespectful toward his father too.

As soon as I stepped out the back door they stopped talking and stared at
me so I spun around and went back inside, but this time I grabbed my Kindle
Keyboard to read in bed. David joined me about 45 minutes later. I heard
the back door click shut when he entered the dining room. We talked in our
ice cold bedroom for a short time.

"You miss your dog friend?"

"Who, my buddy Milo?"

"Yes, he seemed like a very nice dog. I know you guys became besties,
right?"

"As much as one can with a predator, he had an interesting personality."

"Ever wonder what goes on in their brains?"

"Dog brains? Sometimes yes, but I think dogs are much smarter than most
people realize. I think they learn spoken languages even though they don't
have the brain circuits to talk. They fight boredom with vivid daydreams,
like dog fights they win, females they get to breed, and young pack members
they defend from predators. Yes, in my opinion if a dog can dream in his
sleep then they must have an imagination full of interesting sensory
situations. I think they have complex desires too, but maybe no sense of
humor."

I told him that on his own Milo was very serious about security and paid
close attention for certain sounds and that pretty much occupied his brain
during the day.

David told me he liked the way I treated adult dogs like adults and not
cute babies. He said I was the only person that treated even the tiniest
Teacup Yorkie like an adult instead of a baby. "Like you say, they are
masters of body language as well as tone of voice and facial expressions,
so they certainly understand the reason when humans talk to very young
children in a child-like voice. I told him that in dog culture adults would
most likely be very stern with young dog children."

"All I can say is I wish we could have a dog. Maybe upon retirement, I'd
like to get a standard poodle. Or some other mid-size dog not prone to hip
disease."

He asked me what Milo was like when it was the two of us alone together all
those days. I told David, "I used to sit there and watch Milo do his thing,
whatever he wanted, within the confines of our house, which was not his
home. I wondered what he would do, so when he sat upright on the sofa I sat
there and watched him. I could see it on his face that his mind was busy
about dog stuff. He listened for distant sounds that worried him. Sometimes
if he caught a glimpse of something that looked like an animal on TV he
would look at it but soon look away if it was less interesting than his own
thoughts. But he was mostly focused on what looked like thoughts of
security and he probably listened for the voices of the members of his
family in the distance. If I spoke to him he'd snap out of it and glance at
me and wag his tail, but always quickly go back to listening mode."

I told David I didn't think dog hearing was as spectacular as people
believe, but the one skill they had that made them better listeners than
humans was their ability to ignore an entire world of sounds and only
listen for specific sounds. He was listening for sounds like their van
driving down the street, and their doorbell, and maybe enemy sounds too
like the guy that tried to kidnap him, or the garbage truck. I finished by
telling David I learned a lot about him by sitting there watching his eyes
and his ears, and what they reacted to and what they ignored. Dogs have a
lot of sound related learning to do as puppies in a human world full of
unexplained sounds and smells.

Then we discussed where we'd like to live after retirement and I said maybe
around south Texas near the coast, we should build our own house:
hurricane, wildfire, scorpion, and flood proof. David said that was an
expensive list. I reminded him we could afford it and the house didn't need
to be 5,000 square feet either.

Both of us always avoided discussing our parents, the topic is practically
forbidden. We had no idea if any of them were still alive. We had each
other, that was good enough, but sometimes I still wondered whatever became
of my parents, if they regretted how we parted ways to never speak again
after spending so many years raising us. If I had a child I could never act
like one day he suddenly didn't exist.

Maybe it would be different if my son tried to kill me or actually killed
someone else, but just for being gay? In my mind that was evidence of
mental illness.

----

This week we started our (long delayed) education project, designing
training materials for police/fire/EMS/confinement departments and civilian
security/protection/loss prevention services. The package contained a
master copy of a handout, the instructor's copy, and a ten minute video on
DVD.

We ended up working with Captain Johnson and a female Lieutenant (media
specialist) from the Pentagon to create the training packet for police
departments, security services, and several federal agencies. We were
repeating the training push to improve awareness of our service, our rules,
and the penalties for interfering with us while on duty. This was also
going to be mandatory training requiring each manager to swear (signature
with notary seal) under oath and return the form to the Pentagon that the
training was done. Each package will include a link to the same video on a
military server. We spent two weeks on the material and called in a local
attorney to help finalize the wording. After that it was sent to a Pentagon
publisher for duplication and circulation to thousands of addresses. Any
service authorized to carry weapons would receive one and would have sixty
days to sign, notary stamp, and return it in the pre-paid envelope.

That project took two weeks to complete and featured some very long boring
days arguing over language. We didn't want to make it sound like we were
militant or out of control, just highly specialized and vital. We've taken
a huge bite out of major terrorism in the USA, as evidenced by the
(ongoing) lack of repeat 9/11 events.

David was selected to be the trainer for the El Paso city and county
police, fire, EMS, jail, Army, and Air Force personnel. He was scheduled to
hold six sessions, every Tuesday for six weeks, one hour each session.

----

That weekend we drove back north to (Sparky's in) Hatch on the Goldwing for
lunch at the burger palace in the center of town, and brought home two more
(on ice) for the refrigerator. Most of the people we heard talking loudly
in that small restaurant were from Colorado and Arizona. We discussed other
places we wanted to check out, like Schwabl's near Buffalo for roast beef
on weck, Meer's Store in Meers, Oklahoma, Philippe's in downtown Los
Angeles, Hackey's on Harms in Glenview, Central Grocery in New Orleans for
their Muffuletta, Dyers on Beale in Memphis, and Louis' Lunch in New Haven.

It was sort of a group discussion about making great burgers (and steaks)
at home. David suggested one of the main problems with cooking at home was
it was impossible to reach the cooking temperatures with heat sources
powered by household electricity: 117 volts AC. It generally does not allow
one to reach a temperature like they can at a place like Louis' Lunch on
their gas cookers. Perhaps the only method that came close would be on a
large propane outdoor grille. The same problem existed for people trying to
use a Wok at home, the gas stove could not reach the heat required to cook
correctly.

When we arrived there was a pair of fully decked-out Goldwings with
matching trailers in the parking lot across the street, the topic of
conversation being shared loudly in the dining area were from those on
nationwide foodie road trips. Everyone had some place they wanted to share,
but the food topic drifted away from sandwiches to meals in general. David
and I liked Ruth's Chris for steaks for consistently great food and service
but Cattleman's was closer. We heard Ruth's was due to open a restaurant in
El Paso but it was only a rumor in the newspaper. Nobody would agree on any
single smoked rib place since there were so many different
standards. Several people mentioned Interstate BBQ in Memphis as having the
best pork ribs and sauce.

David whispered asking if he should say something out loud about French
fries and what we learned dealing with Big Potato in Washington State and I
suggested he not bring that up. Instead, he complained out loud about the
quality of produce and how food growers have learned to store produce for
over a year, which meant nothing was seasonal any more but (because of
that) most of the produce (in stores) today is crap, and the worst was the
decline of apples in the USA. People set down their forks and
applauded. David said he quit buying apples years ago. Someone else shouted
that (grocery store) tomatoes were also lousy now, everyone should grow
their own, and it's easy as long as they get enough sun and water.

After lunch we stood outside in the big parking lot and talked to the other
couples beside their Goldwings, our Wing was the only one that wasn't
dressed up with touristy crap. We discussed rain suits and helmet comm
gear, it was very enlightening. One of them said there was a Goldwing club
in El Paso (with a newsletter) that we should join. David said we rarely
saw Wings in town. She said to ask at any motorcycle dealer in town. Both
couples we spoke to were retired military and also lived on the east side,
like us.

David asked both of them why they rode Goldwings and one of them laughed
and answered, "You really gotta ask?" We all knew the two primary reasons
were comfort and reliability.

We rode home but took a different route instead of Transmountain Road
across the Franklins. We got off I-10 at Ohara Road then took it eastbound
between the mountains over to Highway 213 after passing through Anthony's
Gap where you really had to keep a close eye on the road ahead for large
rocks and critters on the pavement. Then on 213 we went south to Diana
Drive, then over to Wren Avenue which ran into our subdivision called Tobin
Park. By the time we got home almost five hours had passed, but it was a
great day.

"How long did we stand outside talking about our bikes?" I asked.

"I lost track but I bet almost an hour!" David replied. Neither of us
mentioned that we stopped briefly to pee beside the motorcycle. Luckily,
traffic was thin on Ohara Road.

We decided to take a swim so we changed and went outside. After several
laps we both sat on the stairs and talked. The blinds over the back yard
were still wide open, and the sun felt hot on my shoulders but he was
comfortable. Like many people, riding on the back of the Goldwing made me
horny, since I was grinding my body against his the entire time. I got
between his legs and started working his boner. While that was quietly
going on Jeremy came over and stepped off the deep end and swam towards
us. I think Jeremy wasn't aware what we were doing when he got in the
pool. He often heard us in the pool through his bedroom window and walked
over without checking first. We didn't really care as long as he was polite
about it.

Jokingly, when he got close enough to see he asked to be next. David asked
if he was circumcised and Jeremy said he wasn't sure exactly what that
meant. Then without asking he stood up and pulled his out for us to
examine. I stopped blowing David and we looked for a color line and told
him he was. Jeremy just said, "Whatever." Then he swam back to the deep end
and pulled his lounger into the water and floated in the sunshine while I
went back to my work.

David sat there with his eyes closed while I power-licked his boner, then
he came in my mouth. He grunted loud enough that Jeremy turned to watch,
but he said even though he was 18 now nothing in life really changed, girls
still don't care for him. We were both somewhat repulsed by his weirdly
shaped body. We liked him because he was a good natured kid and knew how to
keep his mouth shut. At least his dick looked normal because the rest of
him certainly didn't.

That was why he was invited to use our pool anytime he wanted. He was smart
enough to keep his mouth shut and his comments to himself.

After he recovered from his orgasm David grabbed his shorts and went
inside, I stayed in the pool sitting on the stairs watching Jeremy float
around with his eyes closed as he soaked up the sunshine. About ten minutes
later Jeremy paddled closer and in a quiet voice he asked why it mattered
if someone had a foreskin. I told him I grew up in an area where 95% of the
boys were cut the day they were born. The foreskin created an environment
where bacteria (dick cheese germs) could grow like crazy, women had a
similar problem caused by their flaps. Dick cheese causes vaginal
infections and can make a nasty flavor if you sucked cheesy dick. If you
grew up in an area where everyone had a foreskin you kind of got used to it
and didn't notice as much. I told him as far as I knew a foreskin didn't
really change the pleasure of sex but you had to wash, especially before
sex.

I told Jeremy that foreskin or not, the orgasm felt the same so it was
really just an issue of cleanliness and personal preference. Then he asked
how the foreskin was removed and I said there were two common ways in
America, one used interlocking rings. Usually the day the boy was born the
doctor put a small metal ring around the penis under the foreskin and
another slightly larger ring on the outside. The inner ring had a groove
around the outside so the outer ring sat firmly in place and the two locked
together pinched off blood circulation and killed that small flesh sleeve,
it died and fell off days later. Another way was to numb it and press a
bell shaped metal thing over the penis -- under the foreskin then put a
metal clamp around the outside which pinched off nerves and blood, then
they used a knife to cut all the way around and off it came. That procedure
only took about five minutes and most of the time the only reason why the
baby screamed was because they were strapped in place when they wanted to
be warm and bundled into a small ball of baby. I held up my hand and
extended my pinky finger and showed him a newborn baby boy's penis was
about the size of the last segment of my pinky finger. Jeremy smiled.

After that discussion he paddled away, closed his eyes and faced the sun, I
went inside and wanked in bed. David went in the garage to wipe down our
motorcycle. I bet he still had a post orgasm smile on his face. His entire
attitude changed after having an orgasm, even the way he spoke was
different.

It's been months since the snake bite and my leg is almost back to
normal. I still have a small limp but it's almost gone. Once in a while
that spot on my leg will suddenly itch like crazy and it's hard to stop
myself from reaching down with fingernails. The doc said there's still
healing going on inside, that's why it has itchy spells. I've also become
much more snake aware when walking outside. We've never had any snakes
around our house and no scorpions either, but we do see an occasional roach
come up through the shower drain or a sink, so we put screens on most of
them. I think it gets too cold during the winter for scorpions to thrive
here, but I have heard of two species commonly found in this city. We've
caught a few dead roaches floating in the pool. They climb over the stone
wall around the back yard.

Jeremy has been more visible in our back yard recently, but he still seems
to hesitate walking in the back door. He is mentally focused on high school
graduation which is soon, I don't know the actual date. He says he's going
to college for software engineering but never mentioned taking the SAT or
anything concrete about college, but it seems the time for him to leave the
nest is approaching. Going to college is better than getting evicted
suddenly from the nest by your parents. I think he wants to write the code
for the ultimate battle simulation. We suggested doing an ancient war, like
the Greeks conquering Persia. Jeremy mentioned going to UTEP and living at
home for four more years as a computer science major.

On a recent weekend we had a security breach at home but I don't think it
will become an issue. We had two used spiders out on the picnic table; we
were testing their response to various household items that might present a
danger, like a burning oil lamp, smoking incense cones, and various
knives. We were testing their response because there were a lot of built-in
routines that were never disclosed in our training so we were trying to
evoke responses to common things, like a piece of paper set on fire on a
dinner plate just inches from the spider. We also tried applying small
electrical shocks across two legs, and boiling hot water sprays too. The
one we put in the microwave oven just sat there, sparked, and smoked.

While two spiders were sitting on a large bath towel Jeremy strolled
through the gate and wandered up to us at the table. Now you gotta remember
the spiders are pretty small and not the easiest things to see, especially
when their presence is unanticipated. Jeremy walked up and asked what was
going on, why all the knives were out on the table. David looked at me and
whispered that he hadn't noticed them yet. I gestured to the pool and asked
if he was going in and he said yes, but he kept glancing at the table and
the kitchen knives but it was unclear what he did or did not see. Most
people describe the spider's body as looking sort of like the dull side of
a sheet of aluminum foil, but the body segment is pretty small. They have
two body segments and the front segment has about the same volume as a
sugar cube, the back segment is about 1/3 smaller. Both of them are oval
and look small compared to their eight legs. One really neat thing we
learned was when we removed one leg it immediately knew and adapted its
walking style. At first we suspected it might just walk in circles, but
that never happened.

After several seconds of him standing by the table staring at our stuff
David did something that briefly scared me. He suddenly stood up and put
his hand on Jeremy's shoulder and escorted him around the back yard by the
deep end ladder and spoke very quietly to him, for over one minute. With
the sound from the pool filter (and a jammer was running on the kitchen
counter) I never heard him but I saw Jeremy nod yes several times while
David spoke to him with one hand on his shoulder the entire time. I
couldn't make out much of what he said because it sounded all garbled, but
I heard him say `mechanical spider' and `top secret' and `don't' a few
times. Then with a very serious expression on his face Jeremy walked across
our yard to the back gate and left. David sat back down but had nothing to
say. So I asked him how that went.

"He took it well, but I mildly threatened him if he spoke to anyone about
what he saw on our table."

"Did you use the word spider?"

David nodded yes, so I nodded yes back. David said, "He knows nothing about
what they do, or how they're used, all he knows is tiny mechanical spiders
exist and they're military secret and if he talks about them it could cost
him his life."

"You threatened him?"

"Sort of, but he already knew we did secret stuff for Uncle Sam, so this is
no more of a surprise than firing my machine gun last year over by Brice."

I remembered seeing his hand on Jeremy's shoulder the entire time so he was
very gentle but firm while speaking with the teen. Hopefully, he continues
to keep his mouth shut about us. But there is a risk of some day being
asked to silence a young man in El Paso who was talking publicly about
secret Pentagon work in Texas. David would not hesitate to air `im up if
told to do so. Hopefully in college Jeremy'll meet a tall-nerdy young girl
on the basketball team and give her his V and fall madly in love and forget
all about his strange neighbors. Time will tell if Jeremy was a security
threat.

During one of our subsequent conversations by the pool David asked me why
the name of the gap between the Franklins and the North Franklins was named
Anthony, if I knew.

I read it once online. There's a town called Anthony Texas, and a feature
on the mountains called Anthony's Nose, who was Anthony? I told him he was
a Catholic Saint from about 500 years ago, something to do with miracles he
was credited for; I seemed to recall he was something like a Catholic Saint
for lost people?

----

We heard news from our boss about something that happened to our team based
in Atlanta. They were on a mission down in Florida about supposed smuggling
of children out of the country into sex slavery on a Caribbean Island. They
traced the shipment payment back to a very wealthy man in Miami. He
supposedly hired people to kidnap young children who appeared to be
approximately age 9-11, just prior to the onset of puberty.

They were captured on sidewalks, held in chains, exported on a large yacht,
and sold at auction to customers from around the world on the island of
Aruba. Some were used for live human sacrifice, some sold as slaves, and
some sold as sex toys. Their plan was to kill the owner of the auction and
the yacht. They would ambush him in public and spray a puff of toxic dust
in his face and walk away. Hours later he would suddenly collapse and
die. They believed by killing the head of the outfit the entire enterprise
would quickly wither and die.

We have available a tiny pump spray thing that resembles a pepper spray
canister like the size a woman could carry in a small purse or clip to a
purse strap. Seconds before firing you primed the pump by pressing it down
then seconds later spray it in someone's face or just ahead of them. A tiny
amount inhaled does the trick but it could take hours to take effect. The
action gradually halts all the production (inside the body) of a natural
substance called ATP, which is involved in every nerve impulse and muscle
contraction, including the heart and breathing. Experts said it causes a
painless death but the victim usually died of asphyxiation, which was
unpleasant. We have to wear nasal air filters because we're likely to be
exposed too. We've never used the spray opting instead to let the spiders
do the work. We were taught in Nevada years ago that even if someone was
exposed and immediately called 911 and were intubated in the ER eventually
their heart would still stop and brain function would cease too. Once a
sufficient amount entered the body death was inevitable. There is also no
antidote for that compound, it's basically the same substance as our toxic
gas pellets. The good part about it was the compound only lasted in the
presence of oxygen for a few minutes, and then it stopped working by
breaking down. But once it entered the body the process it started could
not be halted.

What we heard was that when she got near enough to the target on a sidewalk
in the art deco night club district of Miami she was grabbed by undercover
security guards and never seen again. Presumably they used the gas pump on
her then disposed of the body. Her partner is supposedly searching for her
killers and will then use more force to kill the child kidnap ring
leader. We offered to help but our offer was declined. The Pentagon said
this was a Florida matter. She was the first agent killed in our service
since it opened shop.

What we don't know was if she was tortured and revealed anything about our
service before killing her. All of us are on increased awareness anytime we
went out in public. For the rest of this year we anticipate no more 9pm
trips to the grocery store. We'll do all local stuff in broad daylight for
the next several months. I told the boss this would be a good time to try
to get funding for a new office on Biggs Field too. We also carry the
pelican case along more places than we used to, like the grocery store. And
David seldom leaves the house without his backup pistol on his ankle (fully
loaded with the safety off).

----

And because bad news always happens in threes, this happened recently at
our local grocery store (Food King) on Dyer Street.

While we were in the back of the store at the meat counter waiting for a
package of sirloins to get weighed and wrapped we heard angry shouting and
female screams up front, I immediately suspected an armed robbery.

I immediately told the other shoppers nearby to run into the back
room. David and I slinked along the shelves up aisle three toward the
shouting. It was in Spanish but we heard `cash' and `kill you' shouted more
than once. We both had knives in our pockets and David had his 22 on his
ankle as we moved quickly to the front of the store. I seemed to recall
there were three cashiers working when we arrived and it sounded like all
of them were trying to empty their cash drawers. I heard the distinctive
sound of a cash drawer being knocked around.

When we got up front we both peered around the corner and saw what looked
like one younger Hispanic male with a long kitchen knife. He had just moved
from the first to the second cashier as she fumbled with the register
trying to open it and remove the cash drawer. David walked out into the
area where people line up for the check-out lanes and said loudly, "You
gotta be kidding."

While the robber was grabbing fistfuls of cash David and I walked through
an empty check-out lane and headed toward the exit as if we never noticed
there was a robbery in progress. We passed them and David silently turned
and snuck up behind the robber with his knife in hand. He raised his hand
and thrust the knife into the robber's back directly into his heart. The
man dropped everything and suddenly stood super erect, staggered sideways,
and fell sideways, smashing his head on the next checkout station on the
way to the floor. He gestured to me to finish him off so I pulled out the
knife and used my foot to roll him on his back and looked at him and
whispered to David that he looked dead. I reached down and felt for a pulse
in his neck but whispered that it was very rapid and getting weak, and then
it stopped. I looked up at David and nodded that he was dead.

The cashier thanked us for rescuing her but all the other customers fled
the building in tears. David walked back to the butcher and got our
sirloins while I kept checking the man's pulse and confirmed, still no
heartbeat. Moments later the cops ran in the front door with weapons
drawn. I was on my knees beside the dead guy so I introduced myself and
answered their questions. I showed them my ID card which has the all
important information about never detaining us, and said I would not write
a statement or accompany them to the police station, we were on-call and
could not be detained. My comment made them laugh.

Their patrol sergeant said I had to come with them to make a statement or
be arrested. There was a shouting match briefly and David threatened to
call in the military. The cops weren't budging and threatened to cuff us
and take us into custody so we asked one of the cashiers to call the OD's
desk and tell her to quickly call for backup at this location. After our
request for backup was delivered we told everyone to leave and get their
cars out of the parking lot, a squad of military police was on the way
right now.

The police actually stalled briefly to see if we were bluffing but nine
minutes later when two helicopters landed in the parking lot it was
suddenly too late. Let me tell you, the sound of two Hueys landing in your
parking lot is unmistakable and it caused an immediate reversal of police
demands. David also reversed course and told the MPs not to shoot any of
the city cops but with everyone watching he got nose to nose with the
sergeant and warned him if he ever pulled a stunt like that again we'd kill
him and his coworkers. He literally screamed in his face with spit flying
and the cop stood there and took it. I saw his entire body tremble as ten
soldiers with automatic weapons were all aimed at the police officers,
huddled like a group of war refugees.

After David stopped yelling I calmly told them they all just came within
seconds of an actual firing squad. The boss of the city cops was sweating
profusely, his shirt was drenched and he looked like he was about to come
unglued. So David loudly stated a summary of what happened and told him
he'd write his own statement:

"Here's the deal; two plainclothes federal agents were in the store when
the robbery started. Upon hearing the commotion they got everyone near the
meat counter to shelter in the back room and then they walked down aisle
three and witnessed the robber wielding a long kitchen knife and posing an
immediate risk of death to store employees and customers, so we walked up
behind him and killed him. The perp fell to the floor, dropped his money
bag and his knife; the agents declined to make a written statement citing
federal privilege relating to secrecy." The sergeant nodded yes then wiped
the sweat off his forehead. David looked at the MP Commander and said
"Thanks men." And the MP Commander saluted David and ordered the squad
quickly back to their helicopters (their blades still slowly turning).

After the MPs left David stepped close to the sergeant again and softly
told him, "You're too fucking stupid to be a cop, you're gonna get innocent
people killed. I'm giving you 72 hours to submit your resignation. If
you're not gone by then I'll come find you." They both turned to look at
the dead body in a pool of blood on the floor beside the `Checkout #2, 15
Items or Less.' David reached up and pulled the badge off his shirt and
tossed it to me. I caught it and tossed it on the floor."

Again the unmistakable thumping sound of the Hueys vibrated the entire
grocery store roof. And the sergeant told the other cops to get everyone
out of the back room and take statements from anyone that wanted to make
one in writing. He looked at us again but said nothing. David stared back
and slowly nodded his head `no.' I picked up the package of sirloins and
used the self checkout to scan and pay ($64.14), and then we left. By the
time we got to the truck the choppers were long gone. An ambulance roared
into the parking lot for the perp and as far as we were concerned it was
case closed. As he inserted the key and cranked the motor he turned to me,
smiled, and said, "Good training op." I laughed and held the cold package
of steaks on my lap.

"How much were the steaks?"

"Sixty four bucks, I think that's $3.99 a pound." They were wrapped in
waxed butcher paper and ready to go in the freezer, but we usually put them
in plastic zipper bags individually.

"Oh shit, we forgot something." I declared as we turned left onto Dyer
Street. "What?" He asked. "In all the commotion I forgot the potatoes."
David hit the turn signal and turned left onto Hercules and drove back into
the parking lot, I ran inside and got a five pound bag of Yukon Gold
potatoes and paid at the self checkouts. There were two cops left and one
cashier and the rest of the store was vacant. The ambulance crew had
already picked up the stiff and set him on their cart and tossed a sheet
over him, so he looked like an elderly customer dropped dead at the
checkout. One of the store employees had dumped an entire bag of kitty
litter on the pool of blood and was sweeping it into a neat pile.

Back at home we trimmed three sides on four potatoes flat then sliced them
into quarter inch thick planks and then the planks into quarter inch
strips. While he was slicing spuds I turned on the griddle and the deep
fryer. He dumped the pile of potato strips into the basket and lowered them
into the fryer before it even got hot; I set a timer for 18 minutes. The
griddle comes up to temp quickly and once my laser thermometer said it was
390 I dropped two sirloins on it then gave them a healthy dusting of salt,
butter, and a few shakes of pepper. In the past we had cooked steaks in the
deep fryer and liked the way they came out but they sure cooked fast that
way. When we deep fry sliders (1/6th pound) they cook in 50 seconds in the
deep fryer.

Twenty minutes later we stood by the bar while I plated dinner. Luckily,
David took off his shirt while he was waiting for the sound of empty plates
hitting the counter, which meant dinner was served. I asked him to join me
at a booth table instead so I could watch his upper body while we ate;
seated side by side (at the bar) all I could see was his arm. We've been
married for about a decade and I still have to ask him to turn to face
me. What's the sense in having a God-like body then hiding it from your
husband? He just doesn't think that way. When eating dinner he thinks we
should be focused on eating dinner, and not his chest.

As a joke during dinner I said to him, "You know David I think you should
get tested for ESP, I think your sixth sense may be an Indian." He laughed
but kept shoveling slices of sirloin and homemade steak fries in his
mouth. We both knew if he went in for counseling on his ESP they'd probably
put him on anti-anxiety meds or some bullshit like that.

While we did dishes he told me, "You know Ry, I think you should get tested
for autism, I think your tit fetish may be an autistic fixation, they all
have `em."

I asked him what a diagnosis would do to our career and he said, "Uh... oh
yeah, don't get tested, forget I said anything." I told him it was like his
Indian extra sensory superpowers. He glanced at me and smiled. We both had
stuff to hide.

----

Our next call for help came four days later from the city of Omaha, Mayor's
office. There was an investment group in Nebraska and Iowa that was trying
to get the first construction permit to build a new nuclear electricity
plant along the Missouri River, the second application in the USA since
Three Mile Island. There were protests planned, with a big chance they
would turn violent and set fires in downtown Omaha. A private investigator
for the city said they obtained copies of emails sent from an anti-nuclear
group in Missouri that was contacting young people via Facebook (FB) and
asking for volunteers for their LARPing (Live Action Role-Play)
demonstration. It meant they were renting the bodies of young people to
carry signs and disrupt the peace and pretend to be protesting, when few if
any of them were actually against nuclear power or even lived in
Nebraska. It was promoted as a fun exercise; each LARPer would be paid
fifty bucks cash for a full day, which included bus transportation and
food. What it failed to mention was if you were arrested or hurt you were
on your own.

They arranged two hour training sessions in Saint Louis for how they wanted
the LARPers to behave on the protest line, how to pretend to be angry in
front of the TV news cameras. Like most modern day protests these were
staged for the 'news' cameras to trick viewers into thinking there was
widespread support for their cause. In 2018 it had become common to rent
protestors but few people watching TV were aware of the fraud.

But Omaha PD also received intel that an anti-nuke terror group was
planning on exposing the licensing board members to radioactive
powder. They got no intel on how they planned to accomplish that but the
risk was real since radioactive stuff was easily available in hundreds of
abandoned mines in the southwestern USA.

The first thing David asked Captain Johnson was: "A radical anti-nuke group
wants to spray uranium powder into the air above people? There's a complete
absence of logic in that plan."

Captain Johnson reminded us that these days you could not rely on the name
of a group to understand why they are deciding to act in a particular
way. We had to go by their actions, not their words. Then he added that we
should not refer to them as an `anti-nuclear terror group,' because they
may actually be a pro-coal power group trying to shut down possible
competition.

"Superficially, it sounds like they don't know what they want."

"Yes, but perhaps the LARPers aren't the actual target, maybe it's the
licensing board people, and they may be the actual target or maybe the
major investors," the captain offered as an explanation.

"What do they want us to do? Handle the fake protestors or the group with
the uranium dust? It sounds like there's a lot of stuff going on."

"Their main concern is the radioactive material that innocent people might
inhale. Not to mention clean-up costs, civilian panic, and bad press for
Omaha, the nuke plant, and a possible long term economic crash in the
Midwest when blackouts start due to a shortage of electricity."

"What do they want us to do?"

"Job #1 is to locate and identify the group with the uranium and prevent
their attack. And job #2 is to identify who is financing and organizing the
rented protest mob. We heard there may be a reward posted soon on both of
these cases. Job #3 is to try to secure the uranium and hand it over to an
Army Hazmat team."

"No FBI on this one? That's weird."

"Yes they're involved, but Nebraska is in control of the investigation,
they'll update you at the scene. They need our technology to identify the
perps before they enter Nebraska."

I asked, "You mentioned the license board people as being a possible
target, how do they fit into the story?"

"The licensing hearings are held in the downtown courthouse, large protests
are planned for the final public hearing on Saturday 10am to 4pm. The board
members park in a street level lot and use a side entrance to the
courthouse; during the walk across the parking lot they're vulnerable to
attack. They all park and wait in their cars and then walk as a group
across the parking lot with police escort. They're what the state cops
think is the actual target. If the board was eliminated with terror tactics
then nobody else would participate. They believe this would halt any future
building permits for a new nuke plant and dry up the funding."

"And how do they anticipate the powder would be released?"

"Probably by drone, it appears to be the cheapest to operate and most
difficult to prevent. The press and police might use camera drones too."

David said "...it sounds like two completely separate events, do they have
a suspect list?" The captain said they had seven names, two names for the
terror group and five for the rented mob.

"How many protestors are they anticipating?"

He said, "...they expected hundreds of people, some of them might be
armed. We have reason to believe they are training a mob that will come in
and loot downtown, set fires, and do millions in damage."

He looked at me and moved his eyebrows and whispered, "Well?" I smiled and
slightly nodded yes. David told the captain we'd take the Nebraska
mission. Captain Johnson seemed happy and said he'd reply to their message
and tell them we were on the way. Then he told us the event was going to
happen this weekend, the final public hearing on the permit was Saturday
(10a-4p) in downtown Omaha in the federal courthouse building. He added
they usually had a catered lunch buffet but a few board members also
stepped outside to smoke.

He called the OD but she said our HSCT jet was not available today. Our
best bet for getting there ASAP was if we drove our truck. We've made that
exact same run many times and in the Midwest we need a vehicle that moves
fast. He suggested we bring all our gear and extra spiders and pellets. He
handed David a post-it note with the contact information with a state
police detective named Bonham. David asked the captain, "So no renewable
energy for Nebraska? It has to be nuclear?"

The captain explained, "Omaha is too far north for solar and nobody wants a
windmill within a mile of their home, which rules out most of the Midwest."

While David sat beside the OD discussing what cell network alarms to create
I spoke with the captain a bit more. We walked outside on the tarmac, the
noise level is too high outside to be overheard. The captain said, "I
talked to the Governor of Nebraska, he told me he wanted to send a message
to the person that financed the rented protest mob, we don't appreciate one
wealthy guy trying to expand his voice at the expense of the law abiding
people of Omaha where the law is one person -- one vote. He wants the money
guy to get his message: never again or else." I told him I understood and
the message would be delivered.

We drove home and packed. We left an hour later in civilian clothes with
all our gear. We usually had a few extra new spiders in boxes at home so
they went in our suitcase along with the laptop computer and a couple
packets of edible sex lube.

The route we took to Amarillo was hard to drive quickly due to traffic and
most of the roads were only two lanes but once we got near Amarillo it was
high speed the rest of the way to Topeka. The internet said its 1000 miles,
El Paso to Omaha, and 18 hours driving time. We could shave a few hours off
that by driving 95mph across Texas and Oklahoma but the truck really drinks
gas going that fast. And his oversize desert tires really scream above
70mph too. Luckily, his stereo screams even louder.

----

We ran into severe weather in Oklahoma north of Tulsa. We had to stop under
a highway overpass on US-75 in Bartlesville. They had tornado sirens
blasting and the rain came down so hard it was a literal white-out, even
with RainX on the windshield. We got out of the truck and climbed up under
the overpass and held onto the steel frame. I think we saw wind gusts of
nearly 70mph. We watched our truck bounce and sway, even the windshield
wipers got pulled straight out but weren't damaged. David said we were in
an F-1 tornado, all I know was it was very loud and the temperature
plummeted by at least 30 degrees in one minute.

There were about fifty other vehicles parked under the overpass during the
storm. It got so crowded that we saw a couple of cars get spun around on
the highway near the overpass. Some people stayed in their cars and others
climbed up the bank and hid with us between those huge steel beams. The
entire overpass shuddered during the peak wind, which probably only lasted
nine seconds, if that. Immediately after it passed we ran down to the
truck, repositioned the wiper arms and waited for the path to clear. We saw
some trees uprooted nearby but it looked like one of those skinny tornadoes
that might reach 85mph and last for maybe twenty seconds on the ground.

It took a while for all the stopped vehicles in front of us to get out of
the way, David honked the horn several times but there were a few dozen
people still up under the bridge talking and shaking hands. When we got
going again just north of the bridge we saw two semi trucks destroyed in
the ditch beside the highway with cargo strewn all over the area. Power
poles were snapped and wires were down along the fence. The small gas
station near the highway, north of the overpass had the roof over the pumps
blown over and people were standing around staring at the damage, I bet
their power was out too. One unfortunate car was pumping gas when the storm
hit. That car was crushed by the roof when it blew over. David asked if I
wanted to stop and offer help but I said, "We gotta get to Omaha."

Traffic thinned out as we raced north across Kansas as the sun went
down. We ran into bad weather again at Yates Center Kansas and had to slow
down and stop along the highway in a crowd of other people that stopped due
to whiteout conditions. Then came the hail, but luckily we did not lose our
windshield but I bet we got 40mph wind gusts, the truck bounced and all
sorts of stuff blew across the highway. We discussed getting out of the
truck and getting into the ditch but I saw no sign of a tornado but it was
scary because they say any storm that can produce quarter size hail is also
capable of making a tornado. It was dark out when that storm hit so if
there was a tornado heading at us we might not have known it.

That area was super flat, nothing but flat green farmland all the way to
the horizon in every direction. A little further north in the town of
Burlington the river was flooded. It filled the riverbed and was a couple
inches deep on top of the bridge so we slowly drove across it then kept
going north. By the time we got to Topeka the sky was almost clear and we
made good time the rest of the way to Nebraska. It was a beautiful night,
millions of stars and the Milky Way was visible out in this part of rural
America. We drove all night but had to slow down to 65mph due to the threat
from antelope and deer on the roadway.

When we take these long road trips David always said he felt fine but ten
minutes later I'd see his head bob up and down because he was dozing off at
the wheel. Once his head got the bobs I'd crank up the stereo and tell him
to pull over so we could switch places. We really pushed ourselves to get
there quickly but paid for it eventually. A thousand mile highway rush was
a stretch, even for youngsters like us. We often didn't even stop for chow,
just gas and maybe a bag of pretzels. We pissed in a bottle beside the gas
pump. That was why we always had empty 2L plastic bottles on the floor in
the back seat.

We crossed into Nebraska around sunrise and had clear skies the rest of the
way to Omaha. When we parked in the lot at the police office building I had
a strong desire to take a short nap but we had business to conduct. Our
liaison officer was waiting.

Detective Larry Bonham met us at the downtown police HQ office building at
9:15am and walked us back outside to a large Lincoln Navigator and drove me
to his office which was rented space inside a commercial office building a
block away, David followed in our truck. He showed us a large scale
photograph of the area. The courthouse is on US-6, aka: Dodge Street. We
were going to a hotel a few blocks west of there also on Dodge Street at a
place called the Even Hotel, it was not a five star place, maybe three
stars. He said he's stayed there dozens of times, it was a renovated
historic building and the rooms were small but clean. After giving us paper
copies of his notes and maps we left his office and drove west on Dodge
Street. He stopped and pointed out the courthouse and the parking
lot. David stayed behind us during the tour.

We got out of his SUV and looked around, took some pictures and he
explained his ideas about what might happen, but I was yawning and needed
to get a nap to reset my internal clock. We got back in the SUV and drove a
few more blocks west to the hotel and parked on the street in a no-parking
zone, but he had police plates so he was not going to get towed. He
directed David to have their doorman park our truck in their lot behind the
hotel.

Detective Bonham escorted us to the check-in desk and asked for two rooms
with a view to the east (toward the courthouse) then David softly said, "We
usually bunk together, two beds is fine. Save the taxpayers some money."
They had lots of rooms and got us one with two queen beds and a walk-in
shower. I asked where the nearest grocery store was located and David
followed up by whispering to me `one that sells cold beer by the case.'
With a large smile I turned around and looked at him. He asked about a pool
and the desk lady said it was closed due to a filtration problem, old pools
were like that. She said the pool was nearly 120 years old, like the rest
of the building.

On the outside the building looked old but inside it appeared totally
modern and very fancy. The large lobby was loaded with leather furniture
and accents, with paintings and ceiling fans. A recording of string quartet
music played softly in the large open lobby.

In our room we exchanged contact information with the detective and he
apologized for his handwriting on the notes. We agreed we were going to
focus mainly on the threat of uranium dispersal (the actual terror threat
and greatest danger to the public). David had already packed some N95 masks
just in case. Early on we asked the OD to also assist us with the LARPing
investigation, which could be done from our office. We told Bonham we had
people back in El Paso working on the protesters and the funding for their
show, we would deal with them after the primary goal was reached.

We spoke briefly in the lobby, Detective Bonham agreed with our plan and
left. After dropping our gear in the room we walked down the street to a
small old grocery store (for the yuppies that lived downtown) and got vital
supplies (beer, wine, snacks, and deli sandwiches). Then we went back to
our room to eat and then took naps but by then it was 2pm and I was still
struggling to stay awake. So we talked for a bit then took another shower
and got back in bed and spooned and slept until 5am the next day.

In bed I softly asked David if we clearly told Bonham if we caught the
uranium people and they confessed we'd kill both of them on the spot. He
said yes, we said `kill' twice and he nodded yes.

-----

Breakfast was served in a small meeting room off the main lobby so we ate
muffins, bacon, and large scoops of what looked like Mexican eggs. It
looked like scrambled eggs with stuff mixed in: melted white cheese, bean
burrito filling, sliced veggies like grilled/smoked jalapenos, grilled red
bell pepper slices, sliced grilled/smoked serranos, and grilled onion. It
was very filling and tasted wonderful. The only ingredient missing was a
shot of Mexican Tequila. We sat at a small round table in the corner and
discussed the case and looked closer at the maps he gave us which were
actually aerial photos of the downtown area with street names added.

US Route 6 was the main road that crossed downtown Omaha (east-west) but it
was split into two one-way streets. Our hotel was on Dodge Street, which
was one-way, westbound. Eastbound US-6 was called Douglas Street, which was
two blocks south of Dodge. The two routes merged at the bridge across the
Missouri River then you were in Iowa in the city of Council Bluffs.

Council Bluffs Iowa was like the twin city to Omaha except it was
smaller. Since the huge Missouri River ran between the states it had flood
plains on both sides, Omaha and Council Bluffs sat on flood plains. East of
Council Bluffs sat the bluffs, like the edge of a cliff that ran parallel
to the river. The town sat between the river and the bluffs. They looked to
be about 400 feet above the river. East of the bluffs sat Iowa. Council
Bluffs looked mostly residential and appeared to be a nice place to
live. Omaha is very industrial. It's a very old city that used to be the
western edge of civilization in North America, it's where the first
transcontinental railroads started in 1862. There is a huge military
presence around Omaha. I guessed there were hundreds of atomic warheads on
missiles and in storage within 300 miles of downtown Omaha. When New York
City was attacked on 9/11 and Bush was in Florida at the time Omaha was
where Air Force One flew, there's a reason for that.

If you were a foreign power planning on invading the USA you might want to
think twice before landing troops anywhere near Omaha (or El Paso), just
offering some friendly advice.

-----

We met the detective in his office at 8am Tuesday to discuss the case and
their latest intel. He was curious since we were known to have cutting edge
technology if we could sense a uranium weapon from space or an
airplane. David had me explain radiation to him.

I was usually the better at talking science to civilians so I explained
that just like the energy from a dynamite explosion radiation spreads out
in all directions and as it moved the energy became exponentially weaker,
because it was spread out over an exponentially larger area.

"Imagine this, pretend radioactive particles were like drops of rain that
you could see and feel. We would experience sprinkling space drops all day
every day. If someone set out a rock of uranium everything nearby would
become drenched by the drops, the closer you stood the faster you would get
drenched. As you moved away the drops would become more spread out just
like drops from outer space or from a lawn sprinkler. That's why
radioactivity on Earth cannot be detected from space or even from an
airplane, the drops get too spread out the further they get from the
source."

I continued, "It was also very difficult to detect what direction the
particles came from. It would be much easier to detect uranium from the
ground, not a satellite. And on the ground there were lots of common uses
for radioactive material, so that makes it even harder to find any one
source since there were so many. Every patient that had a cardiac stress
test at the hospital was radioactive for two to three days afterward, and
those would create thousands of false alarms daily. Most smoke detectors
held tiny radioactive particles too, and countless pieces of old plates,
cups, saucers, and glassware also contain uranium, in kitchen cabinets all
across America.

Radiation is hard to detect in some cases. Take for example a piece of
plutonium the size of one grain of ordinary table salt. It could easily
contain trillions of plutonium atoms. If you held a Geiger counter beside
it the counter would click like crazy but move the counter a yard away and
most signs of radioactivity would disappear. Some radioactive particles get
stopped by the air or something as thin as a sheet of paper, so those would
be nearly impossible to locate and dispose of. That's one of the reasons
why plutonium was so dangerous, especially if it got inside you. If you
inhaled a speck of plutonium and it lodged in your lungs, then you held a
Geiger counter against your chest it might not go off at all because the
lungs themselves would block the escape of most of the atomic particles.

I told the cop that radiation itself is not really dangerous, our bodies
are designed to live just fine with constant low levels of exposure. People
are generally frightened by radiation, but they don't really need to be,
although it's never good to be over exposed. The most important thing is to
never ingest radioactive stuff, like plutonium or uranium. They get stuck
in your bones and almost always cause horrible cancers, but it could take
months to years before it appeared. I told him to watch the (1982) movie
called `Dark Circle,' about plutonium contamination.

David brought the USB rad detector for his cell phone, and it plugged in
the charging port on the bottom. He showed the cop how it never stopped
ticking, maybe an occasional pause of six seconds but it ticked slowly all
day all year, which was normal. I told him most creatures on Earth were
designed to tolerate background radiation. He asked what they were and I
said Uranium is an element that exists naturally all over the planet, but
plutonium is man-made. Uranium exists naturally on Earth, just like iron
and silver. It has been mined since people started making tinted glass
hundreds of years ago. Nobody knew about radiation until the early
1900s. There were silver mines in Czechoslovakia that dumped huge piles of
waste rock (aka: Pitchblende) outside the mines and that was where
scientists obtained samples of uranium (and other radioactive elements) to
experiment with which lead to the discoveries of radiation and fission.

We spent the entire morning with the cops then worked from our hotel room
after lunch. We had a lot of research to do on the computer trying to
locate and identify the uranium terrorists (or as we began calling them:
Uranistas). Luckily the cops narrowed things down for us and got us going
with a small list of suspects in the rented protest crowd, but our focus
was on uranium. Locally, the cops ran into problems learning about them
because they were in another state.

We learned the people collecting uranium in abandoned mines in western
states were somewhat known to police because they bragged about it and
showed off rocks loaded with natural uranium, some people thought that
walking around showing off uranium rocks wasn't such a good idea and
quietly mentioned it to local cops who reported it to the feds. Once the OD
started searching in NSA records for past files related to uranium she also
identified people supposedly involved in the terror threats in Omaha. Next,
she created a list of cell phone numbers and entered them into our search
apps that constantly searched cell site logs (people currently active on
their cell phones). But she restricted them to the states of Nebraska and
Iowa.

The OD said all the old mines where uranium was found were outside of cell
coverage so there was no data trail linking specific cell phones to
specific mines. And all the mines are on private property so the state
could not order the owner to close them off. Most of the owners were
ranchers and had business related things that took precedent over closing
off old silver mines from the 1800s. They looked at those old mines as a
nuisance and not worth any effort. In many cases the old mines were popular
party spots for local teens. David noticed how far the OD went searching
for information while trying to identify suspects and he complimented the
OD for her work and promised to reward her after we got home.

Searching the live cell tower records is not without risks. The cell
companies can see their network being queried, if their security was
compromised the culprits could be tipped off that we were watching
them. Normally, we'd search through the NSA database but those records
arrive once a month in gigantic file transfers from each cell company. In
this case we didn't totally trust anyone because feelings ran hot on the
subject of nuclear power. Even our police liaison worried us because his
office wasn't in the city police HQ office building. Was he possibly some
kind of outcast or poser?

----

Back in our hotel room we chowed down on grocery store deli sandwiches, I
got pastrami on wheat and he got a roast beef sandwich on white. I read his
notes out loud while we ate and were connected live to the OD, she was
taking notes too since we'd relied heavily on the OD to help with our
investigations. The OD would have to keep up with everything we did in
order to do her work and keep an eye out for hits on our cell alert
application.

According to the FBI, one of their confidential informants said he
participated in meetings to design the attack. They obtained uranium from
an abandoned mine near Cortez Colorado, they found uranium ore that was
fairly concentrated in places. They said they found a vein of concentrated
uranium ore and pulverized it with a blender then they used a mortar and
pestle to reduce it to a yellowish brown powder. So far they'd collected
over one pound of ore and kept it in a large thermos bottle on the bottom
of someone's backyard pool.

Since uranium is very heavy (heavier than lead) they could separate it from
other minerals by panning, like gold prospectors. If done correctly the
shiny metal left in the pan would mostly be uranium (and gold). So they
collected their rocks and pulverized them in the car, then stopped at a
river on the way home from Cortez and panned the powder to remove 89% of
the ore. In the car they pulverized the ore with their mortar and pestle
but had to keep the car windows closed.

I got an image in mind of the German scientists experimenting with x-rays
and how they started to lose chunks of skin on their hands and they all
died of cancers, how these Colorado people might be suffering similar
health problems as the people that mined uranium in the 1800s when it was
used as an agent to color glass.

It's called uranium ore because it's always mixed in with other local
minerals and had to be chemically separated. The process is very similar to
mining copper, gold, iron, and aluminum and is well described online.

The Uranium group was from Aurora Colorado, we already started a list of
known collaborators. We tasked the OD with updating our files to include
recent banking and medical info on the group too. We requested medical info
in case any of them were being treated for radiation exposure related
issues, not knowing the true nature of uranium ore. David asked the obvious
question: how hard would it be to concentrate small quantities of uranium
ore at home?

If these people were wandering around in very old silver mines with
blacklight flashlights searching for uranium they were probably inhaling
radioactive dust and concentrated radon gas too. Uranium glows brightly
under ordinary blacklight. They went inside the mines and searched for the
densest spots of uranium and broke them off with rock hammers and chisels
and collected them in baggies until they had about ten pounds.

We heard once the ore was panned and crushed to a powder they spread it on
mirrors and treated it like cocaine and used razor blades to separate out
the powder that glowed under blacklight from the rest that was just plain
old rock.

The chemical process to purify uranium was old and well documented in old
textbooks and online. Uranium was innocently used for hundreds of years as
a pigment for glass and ceramics. If raw uranium ore was 0.1% pure a simple
manual hand separation might achieve 11-15% purity. A simple acid
soak/rinse might increase that to 35%. There were other school lab tricks
they could do to bring it up to 70% or higher. Remember, people were mining
and refining the ore since the Middle Ages for glass makers, back then it
was called Pescheblende. It took two German scientists two years to hand
purify a small amount of uranium in the late 1800s, and also cost them
their lives. Uranium typically has a half-life of well over 100,000 years.

The advantage of purified uranium meant a smaller payload in the drone and
a powdery substance that was easier to disperse. The smaller the particles
the more likely the targets would inhale them without noticing it (just
like pollen or house dust). We understood that their goals were stopping
the permit process and scaring people enough that nobody would volunteer to
take their place on the board, forever. Even if the drone thing didn't work
out they could mail uranium contaminated junk mail to them at home and
eventually accomplish the same thing.

We discussed possible ways of air dispersing the powder and decided one of
the cheapest ways would be using a balloon fastened to a toy
quadcopter. Fly overhead and pop the balloon then fly away. They could pop
it with a simple hot wire like our spiders used and the downdraft from the
quadcopter would do the rest. Most small drones only 80 feet above the
ground can't be heard or seen. They'd only need a small balloon (or even
the finger off a rubber glove) to disperse a few ounces of uranium
powder. Inflating it with helium would prevent it from adding weight and
the pressure inside would help it burst so the drone propellers would
disperse it like a large fan. Of course even helium filled party balloons
on a long thin wire could accomplish the same thing except it would be more
obvious.

Detective Bonham asked about protection from uranium. I reiterated the
primary risks were from inhaled or ingested uranium. Inside the body it is
attracted to bones and emits alpha particles and lasts practically
forever. And when it fissions, the atoms near it also become
radioactive. Carry an N95 mask and wash your hands if you come near the
stuff. It generally doesn't enter the skin and alpha particles don't
penetrate skin either. The risk is mostly from inhaling it.

----

We got off the phone after leaving the ODs with a list of stuff to research
overnight. We finished our chow and took showers. While he was using the
toilet I checked the hotel room for bugs and cameras but the spider found
nothing. Then we showered together. I spent fifteen minutes hand washing
his entire body, with a special focus on his boy parts. In the shower we
agreed from now on to check each hotel room with a spider, regardless of
the location.

As we got in bed he said it was likely the people that were refining the
uranium ore were probably sick from radiation over-exposure but didn't
realize it yet. At first the symptoms might be vague. He said we should
have the FBI alert hospitals in Colorado to report patients with symptoms
similar to: nausea/vomiting, skin sores, weakness/fatigue, bleeding, joint
pain, diarrhea, headache, fever, and hair loss. It is not likely anyone
else would suffer radiation sickness in those states. But there are still a
few cases related to atomic weapon testing during the cold war in Nevada,
Colorado, and Utah. David kind of mumbled his disapproval with my plan and
said that everyone currently taking radiation therapy for cancer would
experience those symptoms; we'd surely get lots of false alerts. So I
agreed to modify my request before I asked the OD tomorrow.

----

Wednesday 6am.

The second morning in Omaha Detective Bonham met us at his office. It was
within walking distance of our hotel; we stopped for coffee, rolls, and
string cheese on the way.

That morning we compared our newest suspect list with theirs and got a few
interesting hits and already had our suspects under electronic
surveillance. But I knew our list was still incomplete, plus it addressed
the two independent events, we were focused primarily on the terror attack
and the OD was working on the LARPing (rented mob) protesters.

Two of the suspects in Colorado recently made purchases of supplies that
could be used for refining uranium ore. One had also purchased party
balloons and a helium tank, and also had a long history of purchasing
drones and accessories. The other suspect went to the store and purchased
swimming pool acid, air filters, coffee filters, plastic spoons, a large
vacuum-type thermos, and a gold panning pan from a gift shop at a gold rush
history museum.

The cops were amazed by how fast we obtained our data; they'd been at it
for weeks. Everyone agreed the real threat was the uranium; we could
probably stop the LARPers at a distant point by interfering with the rented
busses down south on the highway. I suggested they stop the busses for some
infraction and closely inspect their insurance, and for safety infractions
(perhaps as minor as tire tread depth) that would lead to all three being
impounded. They suggested calling the state highway patrol to get ideas
regarding which rules they could be impounded for. Then they'll release the
LARPers (stranded) along the highway and wish them luck finding a way home
when all the way around them were vast wheat fields.

After that topic was satisfied most of the crew left to look into airspace
security to see if they had any options with regard to downing a small
drone. We suggested there was probably no way to safely land their drone
once it was in the air, nobody should attempt to shoot it down.

I asked how far the walk was from where they park to the side door of the
courthouse and he said it was about 150 feet at most. I asked if there was
any kind of shelter in the parking lot and he said no, just cars. David
said if we can't prevent the attack their best bet might be to evacuate the
area. There were so many ways to attack the board members it would be
impossible to prevent exposure.

Back on the subject of the rented protestors they had new information for
us: over 200 people signed-up to participate, mostly between the ages of 16
and 22. Of the ones confirmed so far all were from rural St. Louis County
and all of them were on some form of welfare, and all the males had arrest
records for petty crimes. It appeared most of the protestors were homeless
people.

"When are they arriving?" David asked.

"Saturday morning, they'll arrive at a downtown parking lot where they'll
stage the group and hand out protest signs and help them put on masks to
hide their identities."

During one of our breaks I asked the OD to call Duke and Luke and invite
them to participate since this was their home town. But both of them were
out of state for the week at a physical training equipment convention in
Miami where they sold hormone pills, steroids, and supplements.

I told the group we would be live-tracking the primary suspects after they
entered the state of Nebraska. David said our office in Texas would be
live-tracking the charter busses starting Friday night and would keep us
posted on their status. Like the Uranistas, we'd also follow the busses
live after they entered Nebraska.

Around 1pm we disbanded for the day. We went back to the hotel and walked
down the street to the courthouse again to try to figure out a way to bring
down a drone without releasing any nuke materials. We even called our drone
supplier in Chicago with that dilemma and he said no, anyway we crippled
the drone might cause it to crash and release the material. The best way
was to prevent it from flying in the first place. He said it would probably
be operated from close-range, so draw a circle with a thousand foot radius
circle from the target location. He said they had an anti-drone weapon
being designed that shot a net from a shotgun that might work but it was
experimental, and would still likely have the captured drone crash on the
ground.

We spent the rest of the afternoon with a map and our cells taking photos
of all the downtown buildings within 1500 feet. Our drone engineer in
Chicago said at any downtown location there was a concentration of radio
signals and interference, not to mention steel buildings. So they would
probably be much less than 1500 feet away. Chicago guy said they would
probably be line of sight to the intended release area. The concentration
of radio signals made the flight area much smaller, perhaps 600-800 feet
radius and included a multi-story parking garage, retail buildings, an
apartment complex, and some hotel rooftops, but none of them had pools on
public roof access. To me it suggested they'd use the parking garage and
try to appear like average citizens watching the protest from a safe
location.

We walked back to the hotel but stopped for carry out pizza and beer along
the way. David carried the pizza box and I carried the case of cold beer up
to our room. We got several comments as we crossed the lobby with the box
exuding the wonderful scent of a hot cheesy pizza. In the elevator I told
David I expected someone might start a smoky fire near the protest so the
drone operators could see what the wind was doing. They might even use a
slingshot to shoot a small smoke bomb. He said smoke might freak out the
board and cancel the hearing and defeat the purpose of all those people
gathering, so he doubted smoke or loud noises would be involved. I got out
the photos to see if there was a flagpole in the parking lot and discovered
there were two, so maybe the smoke idea was unnecessary. He told me,
"Remember, their goal is to permanently halt the hearings, not to delay
them."

The next thing I did while David poured beer into plastic cups and nuked
our pizza slices, I looked at the forecast for Saturday. The weather was
forecast to be sunny with wind from the southeast. The wind forecast told
me they would use the parking garage across the street from the courthouse
parking lot. That narrowed our list down to the parking garage, and the
roof of an office building. I looked at our photos of that office building
and saw it did not have exterior roof ladders, so it was probably off the
list for launching the drone.

We also discussed that so far there had been no extortion attempts
reported; the entire investigation was based on an informant's
testimony. We were basing this entire plan on hearsay evidence obtained by
people we don't know. This was not our typical way of doing investigations
but it's the best available so far. What David and I are good at is
predicting the future actions of people, he was seldom wrong when he relied
on his gut sense.

"How smart should we assume the Uranistas are?" I asked.

"Rather, and just like religious zealots. I bet several of `em `er eager to
die to stop the nuke plant (and get lots of likes on FB)." David answered
but added that most of `em are probably mentally ill too, over-socialized
and under-informed. They exist in a make-believe world on social media that
they access on their slave trackers.

After more discussion we went back to the drone idea again and again; it
was the cheapest and best plan we could devise in bed that evening. We also
decided it could be done with a cheap tiny kid's toy drone that could even
be flown by someone in the crowd who kept the controller hidden so nobody
saw it and they could release the powder without being seen. Most cops had
the mental image of a large drone controller with a telescoping antenna but
what we pictured was a tiny drone with a very small controller, both of
them could rest on the palm of your hand. They'd use a light blue balloon
(or rubber glove finger) to make it even less visible from the ground.

We've seen these cheap kid's drones with a flashing light feature activated
by a button on the controller, that circuit would be replaced by a tiny
wire that heated and burst the balloon, then the powder was pushed down by
the propellers and blown downward onto the parking lot. All they had to do
was fly it over the board members, activate the balloon cutter, watch it
burst then simply walk away into the crowd. With minimal effort and cost
they could commit the biggest terror attack of the decade, except it could
probably expose them to deadly levels of radiation.

We stressed the importance of the understanding that the drone did not need
to be launched from a high spot, it could start on the ground and work just
fine. All they needed was a few moments to unpack, attach the balloon and
the cutting wire, and press the launch button on the controller. The rest
could easily be done from within the crowd of protestors; the drone pilot
would be totally inconspicuous.

----

I was well sauced by the time we shut off the TV and I rolled over and
pressed my face into the pillow. I heard him breathing much slower and his
face was already expressionless.

Soon after I fell asleep I had some weird dreams. It seems when I slept on
a foreign bed I was prone to having bizarre dreams.

----

In my dream I was outside on our driveway hand washing and waxing my car. I
saw a strange vehicle drive slowly past our driveway like he was up to
something bad. It made me suspicious immediately. I set down the buffer on
the car's roof and watched him drive along the curb on the wrong side of
the street with one foot on the brake pedal. Six houses down the block he
stopped and opened the door, I guessed he must be delivering pizza. I
started the buffer again and was slowly moving it side to side on the roof
of my car when I heard an unusual commotion and barking down the block.

The kids down the street were outside in their front yard playing with the
garden hose, I saw the young man from the car run into their yard and shove
down two kids. He grabbed the dog, picked him up and ran to his car and
shoved the dog in his car. He got in and chirped the front tires taking off
quickly while the kids screamed hysterically for help.

I shoved the buffer off my car and jumped in and cranked the engine and
chased after the small car with my dog-friend Milo inside. While I raced
down the street I realized all I had with me was a zombie knife and my
cell.

The car with the kidnapped dog inside raced west towards Dyer Street but I
quickly closed the distance. The entire time I raced down our street I felt
my face get hot as my blood started to simmer with anger.

We both turned left (southbound) on Dyer Street and it was clear he saw he
was being chased. The driver turned into our local grocery store parking
lot, presumably in an attempt to ditch me. He jumped out of the car and
took off running across the lot, ducking down between cars. I stopped and
got out of my car and chased after him. The driver was fast on his feet so
I changed course and ran to his car instead and opened the door. Milo was
in the back seat trembling and panting, he looked scared but glad to see
me. I shut the door and looked around the parking lot but lost sight of the
kidnapper, but I had the dog and his car. I considered it was possibly
stolen too.

Suddenly I was punched hard in the back of my head and fell forward onto
the hood of his car. I heard the driver's door open and slam shut. Before
he could get the key in the slot and start the engine I opened the hood,
reached in and grabbed spark plug wires and pulled them as hard as I
could. When he cranked the engine it wouldn't start. While he cranked it
over and over I climbed on the hood and started pounding my fists on the
windshield and screamed at him to get out of the car. The look on the kid's
face was one of terror, his eyebrows nearly raised to his bangs as we made
eye contact, then I glanced at the terrified 55 pound white poodle (my
buddy Milo) in the back seat.

I screamed repeatedly to get out of the car but he sat there with a white
knuckle grip on the steering wheel so I broke both off windshield wiper
arms and threw them at the windshield as hard as I could. The kid ducked
when the wiper arms crashed against the glass.

Then I slid off the hood and reached in my pocket and opened my knife and
stabbed his radiator and heard it start to hiss and smell of hot
antifreeze. Slowly, I moved around the front corner of the car, stopped and
stabbed his driver's side front tire and heard it hiss as the corner of the
car started to sink.

By then a group of bystanders had gathered to watch the show as I pounded
on the driver's door glass and screamed at him to open the door, but he had
already locked the doors. In the distance I heard a police siren.

Someone in the crowd held up a small automotive glass-punch. She tossed it
to me and I caught it with a smile and said I only needed it for a
second. I pushed it firmly against the center of the driver's
window. Suddenly it clicked and the door glass shattered into a thousand
little pieces. With a smile I tossed the punch back to the lady, she backed
away. Now there were about ten people standing around watching the fight.

I reached into the young man's car and unlocked his door and opened it,
then used my knife to slice his seatbelt. The young man was leaning as far
away as he could when I reached in with my left hand and grabbed his shirt
collar and started to pull as hard as I could. His shirt actually ripped
into pieces so I reached in and grabbed his greasy long hair and pulled it
instead.

It took a few seconds of him screaming until I had him on his back on the
pavement between the parked cars. I leaned in and made eye contact with
Milo, his tail wagged rapidly side to side with his bright red tongue
hanging out dripping as he panted rapidly (I told him `I'll take you home
Milo'). The cop car came to a screeching stop behind my Toyota and he ran
up with his night stick in hand but no pistol drawn. I identified myself as
a federal agent (and told him my ID card was at home), he should run my
license plate right away. I told him the kid was under arrest for assault
on a federal officer. He handed me his handcuffs and ran back to his car to
run my plate after I told him I was unarmed except for the knife.

While he was gone I used my knife to quickly slice the kid's forehead twice
making a large letter "L" for "Loser" right in the middle above his nose,
which caused his forehead to bleed seriously. The kid screamed like a baby
but I was sitting on his chest and arms pinning him to the hot
pavement. With those two quick slashes I had him permanently marked then
got up but kept one foot on his chest. A lady in the crowd handed the kid a
wad of tissues to hold on his bleeding forehead. For hitting me I could
have legally stabbed him in self defense. Head cuts bleed like crazy and
the kid was nearly hysterical with blood dripping all over his head and
face.

Some of the people in the crowd were shouting curses at me when they saw me
mark his forehead while others cheered. The cop told them to leave but many
stayed there, some ran cell cameras and filmed the ordeal.

The cop said he'd arrest the bleeding young man so I let him go.

I got Milo out of the back seat of the kid's car and carried him in my arms
to my car and ran the AC full blast. I asked the lady who let me use her
window punch to buy me a bottle of water from the machine outside the
grocery store, which she did. When she got back I used the knife to slice
off the top couple inches so it was the size of a glass and offered the
water to Milo, he lapped most of it up with his tail wagging. 'Nobody
messes with my friends,' that's what I told the young man as the cop
escorted him in cuffs to his back seat and strapped him in. He kept
shouting, "Why am I being arrested? Arrest him for stabbing me!"

The kid was taken to the city jail then to the ER where they glued his
forehead laceration edges together, he'd spend the rest of his life with a
large L-shaped scar to warn everyone (at a distance) what kind of idiot he
was. I was asked to write a statement for the charges against the kid. I
got the address of the cop station and said I had to return the dog he
stole to the owners first, I'd meet him there.

About 10 minutes later I returned Milo to his family. We admonished the
kids to not have the dog running loose in the front yard. I also suggested
they always carry a small can of pepper spray when walking him around (they
could buy tiny cans of pepper spray online that fastened to his leash). An
AKC registered standard poodle was an expensive dog, they were stolen in
public by organized dog theft rings.

Then I woke up and realized it was just a dream. David was still facing me,
sound asleep with his face on the other pillow. I closed my eyes and tried
to sleep again but my pillow was drenched with sweat. I hated the feel of a
wet pillow case, even if it's my own sweat.

----

Today was Thursday morning and we had a lot of stuff to get done; all of us
would be super busy. The OD was doing a huge amount of stuff like watching
her 3rd computer screen for online notification when a target cell phone
had entered Nebraska (or Iowa), or the target bank cards were used within
Nebraska or Iowa. When we got out of bed we'd had no alerts yet. They were
also monitoring the status of the three charter busses in Saint Louis but
they wouldn't start moving until Friday evening.

We ate breakfast in the hotel because it was included. We got ham slices,
toast, bacon, a scoop of a very thick omelet thing that was scrambled eggs
with cheese, potatoes, and chili. We also got sourdough muffins and butter
with packets of grape jelly. When he peeled his jelly open I asked if it
was Merlot, but he turned it around, pressed the top down and stared at the
tiny characters then said `Concord.' I wondered if you could make wine with
concord grapes.

After that we went to the downtown police HQ building and met with the same
group in their large conference room, I carried our laptop and David had
the tablet computer. We brought the pelican case but left the Batsuit case
in the hotel room in the closet.

I wore my glasses so the OD could listen (and record) what was said
today. They had no alerts so far and had volunteers along I-80 in Iowa,
west of Omaha, and south of town on I-29. The busses were still in Saint
Louis but would probably leave there late Friday night to arrive here an
hour before the protest time on Saturday morning when the licensing board
people were expected to arrive and meet in the parking lot.

During the meeting the OD texted and I activated our cell tracking app and
saw one of the suspects from Colorado had purchased gas and used his cell
on I-80 in North Platte Nebraska, heading toward us. The name on the cell
account was John Rourke. At that moment we had little information on the
group but the OD was busy working on it. Once we got one name it made it
easier to identify the others.

When the lead investigator finished the morning brief I stood and admitted
we had intel that one of the uranium guys was now in Nebraska heading this
way. One of the detectives blurted out they should have the state police
arrest him on the highway but the rest of the people all grumbled at his
outburst. We were here to catch them red-handed and dispense justice on the
spot. That was why the Nebraska Governor's office called us, and that was
our mission. David speculated this might be one of the first times we
killed multiple people with machine guns in public, but the spiders and gas
were still an option depending on the location/weather.

----

We were in meetings until 10am then boarded a jail van and rode over to the
courthouse and walked around the parking lot and that entire city block. I
noticed David kept glancing at the three story parking garage on the
southeast side of the courthouse, something told him that was the place for
us to stake out tomorrow. We didn't talk much but he kept glancing at
it. We looked at all the trees in the parking lot and around the perimeter
and saw nothing obvious. During our guided tour the wind was blowing from
the southeast, from the direction of the parking garage across the street.

We broke for lunch at 12:45 and took a taxi to a restaurant downtown, which
was locally known for steaks and excellent service. We heard the place was
pricey (and had a dress code) too but I just wanted good respectful service
like we always got at Ruth's and Cattleman's. The restaurant was near the
riverfront park and was called Williams Steakhouse. The neon sign outside
in the shape of a Martini glass looked to be about fifty years old.

We arrived in the parking lot with two detectives, the rest of the group
said it was too expensive; they went to Applebee's.

We were seated right away; the corner booth and table were round with room
for six adults. The booth had a leather bench and was partially isolated by
curtains. Nobody was in a police uniform, we were all in business attire
but both of us wore low rise black boots. We carried the pelican case
inside and that prompted questions after we ordered drinks.

"You guys lug that around everywhere?" One of the detectives asked. He had
introduced himself to us twice that day but I just sort of ignored his
thing because we operated independently. We've learned from experience that
it was better if the cops knew us a little before we used lethal force and
ruined any chance of the suspect going to trial. They were focused on
evidence and capture leading to trial and conviction but we were focused on
making the crime stop, at all costs, quickly, permanently.

David said it held some special gear and satellite comms stuff and we were
required to keep it in-sight 24-7. "Like what kind of special gear?" he
asked David. I knew this was getting uncomfortable and he didn't want to be
disrespectful so he often gave them a bullshit answer to end that topic of
conversation.

"We carry an automatic, like an Israeli Uzi 9mm auto, we have some tracking
gear and a small anti-helicopter weapon too."

"What exactly do you guys do?" he asked.

"We work for the Pentagon as an anti-terror service. Your governor
requested our help since this is clearly a possible terror event, maybe the
first one ever in Nebraska. Our mission is to identify the perps, arrest
them, question them, and if they admit to it and show special knowledge
enough to get a conviction we usually kill them on the spot."

"So the Pentagon doesn't believe in due process, speedy public trials, all
that messy Constitutional stuff?" the detective asked.

"Well, this is our mission. The citizens of the USA do not know our service
exists, but they clearly don't want a repeat of what happened on 9-11, so
our service was created to stop terror and the people behind it. We're very
careful to nail the right guys, and they pretty much have to be caught red
handed and confess too. We don't pressure them to confess we just engage
them in informal conversation first. Since we're not uniform cops the perps
are always more open to discussing their plans."

"Huh." The other cop said as he looked around the dining room for any sign
that our drinks were on the way.

I added, "We generally solve our cases within 48 hours and leave a dead
perp for the cops to find."

The waitress walked up with a round tray and set down our glasses, the cops
got mixed drinks, we got beers in tall glass mugs. Then she took our food
orders. David and I both ordered ribeye steaks, 12 ounce medium rare, steak
fries, steamed broccoli, and a large salad with Caesar dressing. Then our
conversation continued.

I started, "Did you hear about the serial shooter in Vegas last month?"

The two cops shook their heads no, so I added, "Eight dead in twelve days,
broad daylight, it was kept out of the news. They called us after the
fourth victim and they still had no leads. We caught him in 49 hours, the
shootings stopped." They just smiled and nodded yes then took sips of their
cocktails.

"How'd you ID the sniper?" The younger cop asked and I said, "Good basic
police investigation." Then he quickly asked how we killed the sniper.

"You mean how do we execute guilty perps?" He nodded yes. David picked up
his steak knife and showed it to the cops across the table then he turned
to face me and with one finger he touched a spot on the side of my neck
with his index fingertip. Then we both sat there smiling at the two cops
and all conversation stopped. David softly commented we had some extremely
powerful weapons too; he raised the pelican case and said we usually
carried a 75 kiloton nuclear warhead just in case.

Then I asked them if they heard about the meteor impact in the coastal town
in Mexico a few years ago. One of they said yes, he recalled seeing it on
the news. David repeated, "Extremely powerful weapons." `Huh,' was all the
one cop said. Then to lighten the mood the other guy said, "Be sure to warn
me if we're pissing you off, please."

We all laughed, then someone from the kitchen delivered our salads and a
basket of bread rolls of different types. We all started eating our salads,
but I reached over and grabbed the best roll from the basket and a packet
of butter. The roll was still hot from the oven.

The older of the two detectives asked where we worked at the
Pentagon. David said our office is in Texas. He asked if we were active
duty military, and added that his son was in the Coast Guard in San Diego.

I immediately said San Diego was probably the nicest city left in
California. David said we were both Navy officers, both of us were O6
grade. They both nodded yes and kept working on their salads. One of the
service boys came by and filled our water glasses again so all conversation
paused briefly.

The one cop, the older one asked David how many people he'd killed to stop
terror and David asked him how many he'd killed. He replied, "Three in 17
years." So David said he didn't know our exact number but it was probably
hundreds in ten years, many were in other countries. The older cop
immediately said, "Like the CIA?"

David loudly dropped his fork and sternly said, "No, not at all like the
CIA. We strictly obey federal guidelines and everything we do is recorded
and reviewed by the Pentagon. We've rescued and saved dozens of innocent
Americans and saved the lives of thousands in America, Mexico, and some
overseas countries, stuff I can't talk about." I'm sure he was including
Cambodia and Minneapolis.

"We also capture fugitives, some of the ones you saw on TV, a famous gun
runner from the 1970s finally caught in Utah, it was us." I added.

The older cop said, "That's a nice story, funny, maybe a little scary too
but I happen to know that a 75 kiloton warhead would never fit in a small
plastic briefcase. The smallest plutonium warhead possible would be thicker
than that case by at least six inches. It would be about the size of a
basketball, but it would only be about 25 kilotons. You can't cheat
physics, it's actually a calculation you can do on your cell phone." David
just smiled and nodded yes then whispered to me, "That man has obviously
never heard of daltonium." I never replied.

The younger detective said he'd like to see that warhead and David slid him
our business card and said he needed to talk to the boss, but he'd need
security clearance. There were some high ranking cops around the USA that
had big security clearance, but the only big thing that old cop had was a
big mouth.

The younger cop added, "Well, I like a nice story too and you said you also
carry a surface to air missile in there too?" David raised the case higher
and patted the side, like he was rubbing his full tummy and smiled. Then he
said, "Actually, that's two 75 kiloton warheads and a surface to air
missile too, and communications gear and a powerful military tactics
computer, as well as some other secret stuff." The younger cop simply said,
"Sure you do, and a partridge in a pear tree?" But we both just
smiled. That was what we called `hidden in plain sight.' The more we told
them what we actually carried the less they believed it, the less likely he
was to call our captain too.

Since our conversation seemed to be spiraling downward I decided to change
the topic to the assassination of Lincoln until our steaks arrived, I think
the older cop's ignorant comments somewhat upset David. There was a new
book on best seller lists about the 1865 assassination that included new
evidence, like recently found letters by Booth and Mary Lincoln. Lots of
people were talking about it lately.

Minutes after the first mention of the Lincoln Assassination one of the
kitchen boys placed a folding stand near our table, and minutes later the
waiter arrived with a large round tray and placed our plates, our steaks
arrived sizzling and beautiful. I cut into mine and saw it was a perfect
medium rare inside.

One of the cops said it became obvious reading the new best seller book
about the assassination that Booth was seriously mentally ill and probably
also an opium addict. Booth thought he would cross the Potomac River and
stroll into Virginia to a hero's welcome with parades, medals, adoring
women, and was very surprised to learn his crime was considered murder in
Virginia too. He referred to the newspaper articles about the shooting as
`reviews.' During their escape to Virginia they obtained newspapers daily
so he could read about how much of a hero-celebrity he became.

During dinner David said if you read the court transcripts and newspaper
columns you begin to see that the group of people they hung (Surratt,
Powell, Herold, and Atzerodt) were all lunatics, especially Booth. Then as
a joke David said, "It was obvious Booth wanted to be worshipped as an
international celebrity and American hero, but what he should have done was
shoot Mary Lincoln instead, nobody liked her. Maybe that was his plan but
the presidential booth in Ford's Theater was so dark he shot Abe by
mistake." The younger cop sliced his steak with a broad smile on his face
and said, "Shoot Mary Lincoln, that's funny!" We laughed then the older cop
asked us to change the subject since we were trying to eat. We all chuckled
and finished our dinners. After the steaks and refills on our drinks we
ordered dessert. I got a bowl of plain vanilla ice cream and David ordered
a vanilla milkshake. The two cops ordered apple pie with a scoop of ice
cream.

One of the cops said that since Booth was an actor he probably was
self-obsessed, it's required for the job of being a stage actor. He said,
"Imagine this, you are JW Booth in a DC bar drinking shots and playing
poker with friends and after an hour of everyone talking about JW Booth he
says, `well that's enough talk about me, let's talk about you instead. How
do you feel about me?' We chuckled but it was funny because it rang true.

As we paid our bills the older cop asked David, "Mary Lincoln really was
Looney Tunes?"

And David said "That's what people say, except maybe not her
relatives. Lots of people think she was raging bipolar. You gotta feel
sorry for Abe, but he stuck with her all those years. And yes, I honestly
believe Booth was an addict."

I added, "Back then opium was grown in Spain, refined in France, and
smuggled overseas. That's what the movie The French Connection was
about. Today, most heroin comes from Columbia, Mexico, China, and
Afghanistan. Today, it's the CIA Connection and they fight to keep the
heroin from Columbia out of North America, that's the real war on drugs."

One of the cops said, "You think the heroin in Omaha comes from
Afghanistan?" David said, "Yes, it's refined in Mexico and comes into Texas
on freight trains along with meth, cocaine, pot, and Fentanyl. The
precursors mostly pass through China now, straight into Mexico. There is an
international money laundering operation that's nearly as big and well
protected and involves some of the biggest names in banking. But you notice
that subject is never mentioned on TV."

The cop said, "You think drugs get here by train?"

And David said, "Yes, do the math yourself. Search online, find out how
many pounds of drugs are used in one month in one state, like New
York. Then calculate how much cubic space all that takes up and how much it
weighs. You quickly see it could only be shipped by rail. Do the math. You
gotta search around because that subject is suppressed in the media, always
has been." The cop just said `Huh,' as we stopped at the bar to pay for our
meals. I quietly repeated to the cops, "The things you never see in the
news are the transport of large quantities of narcotics from Mexico to the
USA, or the cash going back in the opposite direction." The one cop said
he's seen reports of large drug busts and I told him, "Yes, that's the
stuff coming from Colombia, not Mexico. That's what the real war on drugs
is about, keeping out drugs that compete with the CIA."

We made it back to the hotel by taxi at 9:45, showered separately and went
to bed. Tomorrow would be a very busy day.

----

At 5:59am Friday my cell rang, it was the OD calling. They got a hit on one
of the cell accounts associated with people mining uranium, and it wasn't
for a glass arts class at the community college.

The cell was first logged on I-80 heading east toward North Platte and
could arrive here later today. We had no info on the vehicle or how many
people were coming, just that it was headed toward us. They were also
closely monitoring the three charter busses that will be coming north from
Saint Louis tonight, and still trying to identify the money source behind
the rented angry mob of Larpers and the busses.

That's one of the disappointing things about our modern society, when
people want to protest something (like the permit to construct a nuclear
power plant) they cannot find enough actual people opposed to it so they
resort to hiring actors to protest in front of the TV cameras to create the
illusion of a large number of people against nuke power. We suspected the
money for the busses and the Larpers had some connection to the coal mine
workers union because of the very large coal mines in Minnesota, the
Dakotas, and Canada. Nuclear could put them out of business.

I know from living with him for a decade that LARPing really pissed off
David, so I anticipated eventually we'd find the person that organized the
fake protests, especially if they became violent.

All morning we got hourly distance updates from the OD, it was just a three
digit number that eventually became a two digit number as the vehicle from
Colorado approached Omaha. We spent the day with the state police lead
investigator and did our best work arranging a defense for protecting the
licensing board tomorrow morning. We walked the route they used across the
parking lot and inside the side door of the downtown justice building. We
did not accept assignments to be armed and ready because we needed
flexibility to go where the uranium might be deployed. We believed it would
end up on the top level of that downtown parking garage but we had to be
ready to switch positions.

At 11:05am the OD notified us they finally got the payoff information about
who rented the charter busses. The name was Russell Varner of Minnesota, he
was a lobbyist and gas station owner. Of course renting busses is not
illegal or immoral. We told her to try to trace the money back to the
source, who was above the lobbyist with the big checkbook? Fourteen minutes
later they said the vehicle from Colorado just entered Omaha and exited the
freeway and stopped at a motel. We got the address and left for that
location. There was a tiny rad detector we carried in the pelican case that
plugged in the USB port on our cells that chirped whenever it got hit by
rad particles. Of course it was hit 24/7 because background rad on Earth
was never ending, but it was low level. It took us 18 minutes to find the
motel and found one vehicle with Colorado plates and called that to the OD
along with pictures.

We got a room in the same motel, next door to theirs. After we showed our
ID cards the lady at the front desk said they had reservations, it was a
couple, younger, maybe early 30s that secured the room with a credit card
but paid in cash for two nights. They were in room 107, we got room 108 and
parked two spaces over. I got out a spider and inserted an extra battery
and a sleep gas pellet in anticipation of his wishes.

We both sort of brain-froze for a few seconds staring at each other in the
small motel room... we both forgot. Did the spiders have the ability to
sense radiation? A quick call to the OD and ten minutes later she texted
back: Per Nevada: NO RAD DETECTION. David mumbled, "Fuuuuuuuuck." I
researched food and beer while he checked out our room since the one next
door would probably be the same layout or a mirror image.

It had become standard procedure recently: anytime someone else assigned
our room we always scanned it for microphones and cameras. He started the
process by getting one of his spiders out and activating it on the table by
the front window, within seconds it quickly ran off after scanning the
entire room.

----

A little after sunset David went outside, climbed up in the bed of the
truck and gently tossed the spider on the roof of the motel and came back
in the room. He gently shut the door so it was nearly silent. We put our
glasses on, I manually steered it to the sewer vent and down the pipe to
the largest turn, and it had to be the toilet, a three inch pipe. Soon, I
saw daylight and exited the crapper and found a towel on the rack and wiped
off the lens. We keep forgetting to send a message to Nevada to add a
routine to do it automatically.

>From there we drove it to the ceiling, out of the bathroom and slowly into
the main room. The TV was on and a couple was on one of the beds making out
in their underwear. Since they were busy we checked their room and found
one suitcase on the dresser, the top was open and leaned back against the
mirror so I drove the spider onto the lid so we could look down inside.

We saw a very small but bright yellow child's toy drone and a small
controller, that told me their plan was for line-of-sight to the release
point and that they could blend into any crowd and not be noticed steering
the drone with its tiny controller, which was barely bigger than a pack of
cigarettes, even with two joysticks and several buttons. I moved the spider
closer to see the brand name, and sent that photo to the OD so she could
search online for the manual. They're commonly sold on eBay for about $15
as a small child's toy.

We suspected they would have disabled a feature of the drone, like external
LEDs and apply that voltage to a bare copper wire to burst a balloon and
release the uranium powder. We were not detecting any unusually higher
radiation levels in our room, even against the wall between our rooms it
still showed nothing but normal background levels, which was typically 0-7
ticks every eight seconds.

A nuclear particle had to pass between the metal plates inside the Geiger
tube to make it click, so it only sensed that tiny space inside the
tube. When a particle passes through the tube it functioned like a switch
and turned on a light, if it got hit by enough particles the clicks start
to sound like a steady tone that increases in pitch with more hits. It
doesn't matter much or what kind of particle hits the tube, just so it
passed between the plates. Although the outside of the Geiger tube itself
will block most Alpha particles, some will still get through.

At 6:49pm the suspect couple left their room and drove off empty handed. We
guessed it was dinner time so I put on gloves and air filters and left our
room and picked the lock on their door and went inside with the radiation
sensor. David watched on the spidercam. I found the suitcase and got a very
high reading of radiation inside the case and lifted up a Ziploc bag with
what looked like desert sand. We had a discussion over Whispernet what to
do, should we substitute it with actual sand, and we doubted they had a rad
detector. The counter showed a level around 900 micro-Sieverts an hour.

I put the baggie back and told David I bet they're covered with uranium
dust, inside and out. They're probably already starting to feel sick. This
seemed to be a suicide mission for them. It also meant they were either
highly ignorant or extremely involved in the nuclear fear cult. Although I
gotta admit there are a few places where people can grow-up that would give
them a hatred of radioactive stuff; people from Colorado, Utah, and Nevada
have good reason to be anti-nuke. I walked into the bathroom and scanned
the used shower towel and found it was radioactive too, then I scanned the
floor of the shower and it was hot too. I decided to get the hell out of
there.

After checking the walkway outside through the curtains first I left their
room and made sure the door was locked. Back in our room David was sitting
on his bed with his glasses on. I watched him drive the spider to the wall
above their front window.

We had to decide what to do with them and the uranium powder. One thing was
certain it would never be used as they intended. We again discussed taking
their stuff and replacing it with actual sand but didn't want to risk
sending them back to Colorado where they would come up with another terror
plan. We discussed if this met the criteria for execution and David said
this 100% fit the definition of a terror attack. If they pulled it off the
main goal was to terrorize the civilian population in the Midwest. So we
decided to let them get close to deployment then stop it. We haven't killed
many young hetero couples in the past, so they might be our first.

I asked David if we stopped them on the top level of an outdoor parking
garage how would he do it, spider gas might not work outdoors because of
the wind. He said we'd probably have to use the machine guns and hope
nobody else got hurt by stray bullets bouncing off the concrete structure.

"Do we have any soft lead ammo with us and he said no. So we called our cop
liaison (Bonham) and asked if they had any soft lead hollow point 9mm ammo
we could use. He said he's call us back. The rounds we needed would have
tips like the sniper in Vegas used, except ours are only 9mm, which is a
rather small round compared to hunting ammo. They were designed to hit a
body and disintegrate into metal fragments. The ammo would slice and dice
blood vessels and organs inside the body but it might not drop them
quickly. This situation was a good example of why we carried machine
guns. We also requested using an unmarked van tomorrow and we'd park it on
the garage roof and hide inside, and when they arrived we'd open fire once
one of them brought out the drone with the balloon attached. That met our
legal requirements for using lethal force. We also advised them to keep all
cops without vests out of the area, and it might be a good idea for one
person to have a Geiger counter handy but hidden.

Five minutes later he called back and said the ammo was no problem we could
pick it up at his office any time after 8pm today. He got us two boxes of
fifty rounds, hollow point 9mm fragmentation re-loads. We decided to get
them tomorrow morning.

We updated the OD and she said the busses were at the loading place, an
abandoned strip mall parking lot in northern Saint Louis County, they'd be
leaving soon and should arrive in Omaha tomorrow about one hour before the
board members were due to arrive and enter the courthouse. The hearing was
due to start at 10am tomorrow, Saturday morning. We were told there have
been small protest crowds each time the board meeting was open to the
public.

They had two state troopers assigned to stop all three charter busses on
the highway south of Omaha on US-75 at the Fairview Road overpass where
they will be held along the highway (under the overpass so they're in
shade) and then released. From that location on the shoulder of the highway
every one of the LARPers will have to find a ride back to Missouri,
probably calling their mommies to come rescue them.

All three busses will be towed to an impound lot, and eventually the person
who paid for the fake protests and the busses will be identified and
visited at home. The most recent data showed the money for the busses came
from a bank in Rochester Minnesota.

Near the Fairview Road overpass is a small gas station/convenience store
where they can walk for water and wait for a ride home. Stranding them out
in middle of nowhere was sort of a polite F.Y. message from the State
Police and the people of Nebraska. The state troopers were told to remind
them they came here to demonstrate-riot-destroy-and injure law abiding
citizens so they should start walking back to Missouri and never come back
to Nebraska again.

The troopers were prepared for the protestors to get very angry once they
learned they were stranded in rural Nebraska miles from anywhere except one
small gas station. They were advised to carry the largest canisters of
pepper spray available just in case.

----

Protest Day.

Captain Johnson called us at 5:59am and woke me first, he wanted to remind
us to be extra careful today since we were dealing with a highly toxic
substance, he wanted us to wear nasal filters and keep our gloves and
glasses on and be very careful if we opened fire on the two people, but be
sure they were dead before police arrived. We'd probably have to declare a
hazmat situation if the uranium was spilled.

We decided not to eat because both of us felt anxious about what could go
wrong. Neither of us even had coffee and our hands were already
trembling. We had our gear in the truck and were waiting to see movement
next door, so we stayed in our room and listened carefully. David kept
checking the spider and saw them get out of bed at 8am, both of them
showered and got dressed.

The hearing started at 10am and it was about a twenty five minute drive on
US-6 to downtown Omaha. They left the motel and we left 60 seconds after
them. Before they left we drove the spider into their suitcase so we could
track them on our glasses. On the streets we stayed about two hundred feet
behind them but at that distance we barely got any signal from the spider.

They stayed on Route-6 and parked one block from the courthouse in a
library parking lot and sat there. We drove to the downtown police office
to get the ammo and an old un-marked city utilities van and drove it to the
top level of the garage, toward the center of that level and parked it with
the sliding side door facing where they would most likely park.

Ten minutes later my heart was pounding. David sat low on the driver's seat
watching the up-ramp to this level. I sat on the filthy hard steel floor in
back with both machine guns ready to grab and shoot. Behind me our pelican
case was open and everything was activated. We were also monitoring the
spider's microphone inside their suitcase. After we parked in the garage we
had a full scale signal from our spider once again, but it was only
beaconing its location, I think it couldn't hear them talk. Even with an
extra battery we still had to be cautious about running it too much. It was
set to beacon every 120 seconds if it sensed movement or voices.

David gestured he wanted his automatic, so I reached over and handed it to
him, he cycled the lever and ejected two rounds, I picked them up and put
them in my shirt pocket. "We gotta be careful, these are someone else's
re-loads," he commented about the ammo. We've never had any problem with
police ammo before but this wouldn't be a good time to start!

"You wanna get in Batsuits just in case?" He looked at the time and said we
had to move quickly. So we silently stripped and pulled on our Batsuits
just in case the bullets ricocheted off the concrete toward us. Above waist
high there was no concrete except some lights on poles but below the waist
this garage was solid reinforced concrete. Soon after we left the motel the
OD texted that all three busses had been stopped on the highway a while ago
and impound tow trucks were coming. The final body count was 219 people
stranded under the overpass. Out where the busses were stopped it's flat
land all the way to the horizon with a few housing additions scattered
around. She added it was a nice day for a walk. We chuckled. For a while
David propped his auto, the butt of the stock on his thigh and the barrel
pointing straight up, his face pressed against the side as he watched out
across the rather large parking garage. Beyond that the downtown buildings
and lots of trees were all we could see below the sky. David looked kind of
cute holding his cheek against the MP9, but I could see he still looked
tired and worried. It was starting to get warm inside the van so he cracked
two windows open.

Immediately after we changed into our Batsuits the couple from Colorado
drove up to the top level of the garage, drove past our van, and parked by
the far sidewall for the best view of the courthouse parking lot. Then we
put on latex gloves, air filters, and put our glasses back on. David told
the OD the target vehicle just arrived.

We heard the city police talk on their radios as the licensing board people
arrived in their cars. One by one they got out of their cars and stood in a
group for their walk across the parking lot to the courthouse entrance. As
the yelling increased Mr. and Mrs. Uranista got out of their car and opened
the trunk and got out the drone and controller. They seemed to ignore our
van since it looked pathetic and abandoned.

I saw her put batteries in the controller and he turned the drone over to
switch on the power. The back bumper of their car was about 70 feet from
the side door of our van. We watched him use double sided tape to stick the
long skinny sky-blue balloon to the bottom of the drone to make it harder
to see from the ground. After he taped a wire to the balloon it looked
ready to fly. We moved together to the back of the van beside the sliding
door with the tinted window, we could watch them but they couldn't see
us. Through my glasses I told the OD to call the motel manager now about
contamination, and make sure she was recording our feed starting now.

As soon as he started to power-on the drone I silently slid the door open
and we got out with our automatic weapons aimed, but their backs were
turned toward us. They were against the edge wall of the garage so they
probably only heard the commotion going on down by the courthouse where
protestors were shouting at the board members while they waited for the
last car to arrive. There were protestors on the sidewalk all around the
parking lot shouting and waving pre-printed signs. But at least the LARPers
were not there to agitate, cause violence, loot stores, and set fires.

David shouted, "Put down the drone and controller and step away or we will
shoot you." As he shouted that I saw both of them freeze briefly, and it
looked like she said something to him.

They stood there frozen and I shouted "Gently set the drone and controller
down by your feet right now or we will shoot you." They glanced at each
other and the guy spun around to face us and raised the drone high above
his head and started to walk toward us. He raised both arms as if he was
going to throw it against the concrete deck as hard as he could. When he
raised his arms his lower belly was fully exposed, I saw a trembling red
laser dot around his belly button. Over Whispernet I heard David say, "Fuck
this!" He opened fire at the guy so I fired at him too. She turned around
and stood frozen inches from him and watched us shoot him.

Let me tell you, an automatic rifle is hard to keep aimed at a small
target, even if the firing mechanism employs a large buffer spring. It was
a struggle to keep the shots low on his center belly but with the concrete
wall behind them we saw puffs of dust as the rounds that missed him
impacted the concrete wall. I watched his body closely and saw several
rounds hit his lower abdomen, they appeared like large black spots on his
pale flesh. Because of the wall we mostly had to aim below belly button
height. I know I got him at least five times then I paused. David stopped
when he first dropped to his knees and lowered his arms then fell forward
to the concrete and the drone slid from his hand, the balloon was still
inflated.

Like him, she held the controller above her head. We already planned to
shoot both of them for terrorizing the public; if she stood trial it would
be years of hearings and spending the rest of her life in a federal
prison. David moved his laser dot onto her shirt, low center of her
stomach. I saw the red dot appear an inch or two above her belly
button. Then my laser dot appeared near his, and like it was in silent slow
motion he fired a group of five rounds into her lower abdomen, one or two
of which probably severed the nerves and arteries to her legs. She
collapsed dropping to her knees and then her hip, then her head hit the
concrete. The drone controller slid away from her hand and came to rest
inches away from him.

We quickly approached them and checked pulses, David whispered, "He's
alive," I said, "She's alive too but it's very fast." I pulled out my knife
and opened it and handed it to him. He jabbed the side of his neck, wiped
the blade on his shirt and handed it back, I did the same thing to
her. When the knife blade sliced her artery I actually felt it snap like
jabbing a natural casing bratwurst with a fork. She flinched and moaned
loudly when I stabbed her neck because she was still awake.

He picked up the drone and opened the bottom and sliced the battery wires
and set it up-side down on the floor (balloon up), I got the controller and
shut it off and removed the batteries and dropped them beside the
controller. I wiped the knife on her jeans then closed it and put it in my
Batsuit lower leg pocket because it was a sticky bloody mess, and probably
uranium contaminated too. I tried not to touch them or their stuff.

He pulled the cell out of his pocket and plugged in the rad detector and
once the app started it clicked like crazy near the drone, but the balloon
never broke. Then I took off one glove and used my forearm keyboard to tell
the spider to return to me. I used the cell to scan her from feet to face
and found she was very radioactive. Then I checked inside their car and saw
the same readings (410 micro-Sieverts per hour). While David took photos
and sent them to the OD I scanned the male and found he was also
radioactive all over. I was silently very proud of David because this
mission ended exactly as he predicted. The perps acted exactly as predicted
too. Once again my husband's super powers saved the day. I softly told him
`good work' but he ignored it.

With our nasal filters still in place we walked back to the van and got
inside and shut the doors. We didn't speak for a while. He handed me his
gloves and started the engine and we left the parking garage. By the time
we hit the street there still weren't any cops so it appeared nobody saw or
heard what just happened. We drove back to the downtown police office
building and returned the van and one entire box of 9mm ammo and got in our
truck and drove back to the Even Hotel, took showers, and got in bed.

On the drive back to the hotel we discussed shooting and he said he fired
twenty rounds at him, five at her. He thinks he hit him 13 times and
severed the main nerves going to his legs and his femoral arteries too. I
said I got him maybe 6 times and her five. I told him I saw dark round
spots appear on his stomach when he opened fire, I've never seen that
before on living human flesh. I saw it like it was in slow motion and never
heard the sound of shots fired.

We asked the OD what became of the busses and she said the group of rented
protesters eventually walked to the gas station for shade and water and
over the span of five hours got rides, shared rides, and everyone
eventually found rides back to Saint Louis. She also said she had all the
contact info for the person who paid for everything, I wrote down the
address and then we got out of bed.

In downtown Omaha the final hearing took place on schedule, and outside
local people protested loudly but nothing was set on fire and nobody was
arrested.

Our next stop was Rochester Minnesota, which was 350 miles, five hours up
I-29 to I-90 then most of the way east across Minnesota to Rochester to
meet a man named Bud Wilkinson. We already had his picture, address, cell
phone from the OD, he was a rich bastard that hated the USA despite having
a lot of money in the bank from his chain of gas stations on I-90. I guess
for some wealthy people they were still miserable and needed things to
hate. I think Bud was Harold's nickname. Bud sounded nicer but I think his
parents should have named him `Stoopid' instead. Driving across southern
Minnesota is just as boring as driving across Nebraska. When we got within
one hour of Rochester the sun was still up but it was late in the day. We
started tracking his cell phone which was currently in a coffee shop near
downtown Rochester. We heard he spent hours there daily using his computer
and sometimes meeting people too. He liked to run his business from the
coffee shop instead of at his home office.

We arrived about the time he normally left to drive home. The coffee shop
was in a nicer part of downtown.

I got coffees and David grabbed a table beside Bud's, if the guy suddenly
got up he was going to stop him from leaving.

After drinking some of our coffees we both got up and moved over to chairs
at his table, Bud looked totally surprised.

"Can I help you gentlemen?"

David started, "We know who you are and what you did. We want to talk about
the protesters in Omaha at the nuclear licensing board hearing."

Bud said he had no comment and we had to get away from him or he'd call the
cops. He pulled out his cell and hit the button on top to take
pictures. David snatched it from his hand and slowly lowered it into his
tall cup of coffee, the guy stared at his cell as it short circuited in the
hot coffee then he looked at it and slid his chair back but we both put
hands on his shoulders and pressed him back down. By then Bud's face and
ears had turned blood red and he looked scared too.

David told him about the people he hired to protest, "You had to rent poor
ignorant people from Saint Louis because there ain't enough legitimate
opposition to the nuke plant in Iowa, Nebraska, or Kansas."

Bud simply said, "Free speech," and David sat there calmly and agreed. We
told him, "It was very sleazy renting people to pretend to protest and try
to get them wound up enough to smash windows, loot, and set fire to stores
in downtown Omaha. The law abiding people in Nebraska think you are a
dangerous asshole for doing that." The OD said she watched y-tube videos of
people on the bus and how the organizers tried to convince them to destroy
and loot, so I mentioned that to Bud while he sat there with his red face
and ears.

We told him today we were not going to kill him but he was to never again
set foot in Nebraska and never again organize or fund protests or we'd kill
him. David told him we needed to convince him we were serious. Bud said
he'd never do it again but we could see it was another lie so I pulled out
my knife and unfolded the blade and ordered him to go the bathroom with us
or I'd slit his throat.

The three of us stood up, David quickly drank the rest of his coffee then
spilled my coffee and walked up to the counter and asked for a towel then
the three of us went to the men's room. David pushed him up against the
sink counter and took his hands and raised his arms behind his back and
lifted them until Bud groaned loudly and tried to struggle free. David
gestured to his right thumb and with one finger sort of drew a line. I
tightly gripped my knife and with one super fast and strong movement I
gripped his thumb with one hand and sliced it cleanly off the side of his
hand, all three segments were in my left hand.

We quickly released Bud, his hand was bleeding badly. David handed him the
towel to wrap around it and we quickly left the men's room. We walked to
the table and David grabbed Bud's laptop computer and cell then we walked
out to the truck and drove off. I don't know how long Bud stayed in the
bathroom but we never saw any commotion in the coffee shop as we backed out
of our parking spot near the door. The entire front side of the store was
glass; I think it used to be something like a 7-11. I gave the order to the
OD to proceed with part-2 of our lesson plan for Bud; she electronically
transferred all the money out of his bank accounts, personal and
retirement. Since we had nobody in mind to give it to we kept it for now,
he had just under nine million in both accounts. But after she was done he
only had twenty dollars left! On the drive out of Rochester I opened my
window and threw his thumb out into the ditch along the road, followed by
his dripping cell phone.

>From Rochester we made it down to Kansas City and stopped at a chain hotel
for the night. Same routine as in the past we found a nearby grocery store
and got food and beers and had a nice evening by their indoor pool eating
sandwiches and drinking cold beer in plastic cups with ice to help keep
them cold.

The next morning we drove west to Topeka then south to Tulsa and back home
via Amarillo, Clovis, Ruidoso, and that long super boring drive on US-54
from Alamogordo to El Paso. The last 100 miles of the trip home was always
the worst. We stopped for burgers and fries a few times on the long ride
home from Kansas City.

Before we got home the OD called and said there was a reward just posted
for the capture of the terrorists that attempted to spray radioactive waste
on the public outside the downtown Omaha Federal Courthouse, it offered
$9,000 bucks and she already applied for us. On the way home we decided to
cash the reward check and give all of it to the ODs, one thousand cash for
each one. Without their help we never would have stopped both groups from
damaging Omaha.

We got home just after 1am and showered and scanned ourselves for radiation
and then went to bed. I got traces of tiny hot spots on our Batsuits but
they always went into plastic bags and directly to the laundry service, we
only wore them once and were not allowed to clean them ourselves. David
told me he needed to get our truck to the Toyota dealer for service, maybe
new tires. Our truck already had 142,000 miles and was on its second set of
tires.

We slept until noon the next day then set our status on the alert box
ready-stand by. I ordered replacement spiders, pellets, and batteries. He
got out the automatics and we had a cleaning party on one of the kitchen
booth tables, but I got him to take his shirt off first. After that we
drove to the airport and exchanged our suits for new ones and advised the
OD to tell them they might have a few specs of uranium on them. David said
they'll probably get sent to a nuclear waste facility to be incinerated.

We planned on taking a few days off to replenish our mojo. That day we were
invited to go bowling with Cousin Mark and his latest GF, I declined the
invitation but David went and was gone for three hours and came home drunk
at dinner time. I cooked him a half pound burger with mushrooms and a thin
layer of Cheez Whiz, served on toast with slices of tomato and raw onion. I
actually made two, one for each of us.

I told David about my dream about the deadbeat that stole Milo and how I
rescued my buddy. David's comment surprised me. He said there was a spirit
of something in Milo that I was attracted to. He said Milo liked me but not
as much as he wanted to help me recover, he liked helping people and sensed
my handicap and wanted to fix that injury. He said some people are like
that, it's sort of like what draws people to risk their lives to be firemen
or paramedics. Later on he told me some Indian spirit leaders would see
snake venom as an evil spirit, and the anti-venom hunts down that spirit
and breaks it down into powerless pieces, but it is refined from the evil
venom itself. He described it as like anti-matter, like in the original
Star Trek TV series, it's electrically the opposite and when they combine
they cancel each other out.

After dishes he pulled me outside and gently stripped off my clothes. While
I stood there and he removed my clothes I was watching next door to see if
Jeremy was in his bedroom watching us. Then he took my hand and walked me
down the steps and into the pool, he fucked me hard on the shallow-end
steps. I was on my knees holding onto the railing while he nailed me from
behind for about six minutes. Then just to show off he suddenly pulled out,
grabbed his dick really hard and leaned over me and squirted semen on my
back, in my hair, but most of it landed in the water. He knows I'd rather
have it in my mouth than in my hair. Luckily I haven't got any tadpoles in
my eyes in over a year. That's the price you pay for being married to a guy
that can squirt nearly five feet. I'm hoping by the time he turns 40 it
will only be two feet.



Contact the author: borischenaz mailfence

I realize these chapters seem very real, but keep in mind this is totally
made up, none of it happened, all these characters never existed.