Chapter 2

Characters appearing in this chapter:

Sara

Max’s wife and the children’s mother, 5’-7’’ tall, 140 pounds, 34C-26-34, 30 years old, dark blond hair, gray eyes, and a minor Talent that she is not aware of

Rob

Sara’s brother, he is a little taller and couple of years older than Sara with similar features.

I stood in the dark driveway of my house for several minutes after the driver dropped me off wondering what I was going to tell my wife, but finally decided to just explain it as best I could.

I had my keys so I unlocked and opened the front door, then stepped into the house that we had owned for the past four years as if I were a stranger. My wife, Sara, was there instantly from the living room when I entered, and I thought that it had been a wise decision to have the driver turn off his headlights as we approached the house along with having him let me off at the curb rather than pulling into the driveway. Sara had a very worried look on her face.

“Max, where have you been all of this time, and where are the children?” she demanded in a harsh voice with an upset look.

“I’ve been in jail,” I told her not ready to tell her about the kidnapping yet.

“In jail, what ever for, and where are the children and the groceries? Were you in an accident? Are the children all right?” she demanded again, but in a more worried voice and with a worried look on her face. I exhaled heavily, here it was and there was no way around it now.

“I was in jail for beating up one of the men who kidnapped our children,” I told her all in one breath. Sara’s face first looked shocked and the horrified.

“Jail ... kidnapped!!’ she said in a weak voice before turning angry.

“You let someone steal our children?” she hissed at me in rage and started hitting me with her fists. I quickly grabbed both of her hands.

“I didn’t LET anyone do anything!” I screamed at her, letting out all or most of the rage and frustration that had been building up in me all of this time.

“I was returning the cart to the pickup point when a black van pulled up behind our SUV, and they snatched the kids. I raced back but only managed to pulled one of the bastards out of the van, but couldn’t stop it. I was punching the shit out of him when the cops pulled up. THEY released him and threw me in a cell. I’d still be there, but the Pentagon sent people down to straighten things out. The damn perp is gone and so are our kids,” I managed to finish in a quiet and more reasonable voice before releasing her hands.

“Oh my god!” Sara whispered in horror and fell against me to weep in soulful distress for the next half hour or more while I held her. Finally she sniffed back her tears and pushed away from me.

“WHY?” she asked in a small voice. “Why would they take our children, and why would the police release that man when you claimed he was a kidnapper?’ she asked in a distressed voice.

“I have absolutely no idea,” I told her, worn out from the whole thing. “The people from the Pentagon called in the FBI, the GBI, and the State Patrol, but they don’t know anything yet. The GBI impounded our SUV as evidence. I got a ride home in an Army vehicle,” I told her and ran out of words.

“What ... what can we do?” she pleaded, ready to cry again.

“Wait ... that’s about all that we can do for now. Wait and see if they contact us,” I told her in a disgusted voice. Sara now looked and moved like the dead, all of the life gone out of her. She returned to the sofa in the living room where she had waited for us before.

Upstairs, I took a shower, then changed my clothes after a time before returning to the kitchen and making something to eat, but didn’t taste it as I ate, too worried to even know what it was. Sara slept on the sofa in the living room that night and for the next several nights. It was near our land line phone, while I slept in our bed.

The next morning I was up early, unable to sleep anymore, so I went to the basement to workout with the weights and the exercise machines that we have. I don’t know how long I was down there, but I eventually wore myself out and went up to take another shower, as I was soaking wet.

After making something to eat following that, I sat there in a bad mood for some time. I didn’t know if Sara had eaten, but she had changed clothes at some point while I was downstairs. She just sat on the sofa in the living room near the phone and didn’t move, but cried part of the time.

After a time, I couldn’t just sit there any more, needing to do something, and went outside to stalk around the several blocks in our subdivision in a bad mood. The second time around, I was feeling a bit better and started noticing things that I had missed on the first round.

The FBI and several other police agencies were very conspicuous by their presence. If they were hoping to fool the kidnappers, they were definitely doing it all wrong. This left me with little confidence that they would ever be able to catch the kidnappers, which meant that I would need to be the one to take them out.

Returning to the house, sweating from the noonday heat, I showered again before heading back to the basement and the weapon’s safe. The few guns that I had there would need cleaning, and I would need to check on how much ammunition remained for each of them, as it was doubtful that I would be allowed to purchase any more until well after this situation had been resolved. Well, there were other ways to obtain weapons and ammunition than buying them on the open market. Having spent nearly ten years in Special Operations, I was aware of a number of them.

Nothing else happened that day. I did get Sara to eat some lunch and later some dinner, but she was like a zombie and just sat there on the sofa and cried much of the time.

I listened to the radio news and watched the news on the television that evening hoping for some information, but there wasn’t even a mention of the kidnapping, or that the police were looking for a black van. The total silence on this was striking, since usually the abduction of a child or children was covered in great detail by the media, but not this time, and I had to wonder how many others there had been who had been ignored and WHY? I eventually went to bed alone again that night.

In the morning, I again went for a walk around our subdivision before the June heat took over. I was much more observant this time, but ignored the obvious presence of the various law enforcement stakeout vehicles. This time I paid more attention to the shadows and areas where men and cameras could be concealed for considerable periods of time and found several with active watchers in them. The problem was that I didn’t know who they represented – the law or the kidnappers? This convinced me that the vehicles were only for show, and had no real importance. I decided that I needed to talk to the Colonel again.

At home after taking a shower, I picked up the land line phone, but didn’t dial anything.

“Connect me to Colonel Coley,” I said into the phones dial-tone. It clicked several times before a voice answered.

“This is Colonel Coley,” a voice said.

“How many watchers do you have concealed around my house?” I asked him.

“Watchers?” Coley asked, playing stupid.

“Come on, Colonel, I didn’t spend ten years in Special Operations for nothing. There are four people concealed in various locations in the neighborhood around my house. Are all of them yours?” I demanded.

“Four!?” he asked in surprise. “There should only be three,” he quickly added.

“You better figure out who doesn’t belong to you before I do,” I told him and hung up. Later that day, there were a number of shots heard near my house, but there was no police response to any calls that may have been made to them. I didn’t receive any information on what had happened, however, not then anyway.

On my walk the following morning, the vehicles of the various law enforcement organizations were gone, and though I didn’t see any concealed watchers, I could still feel that there were those still watching our house, though they were very well concealed now, and I smiled to myself thinking that it was quite possibly men assigned to Special Operations who were now doing the watching.

On returning to the house, I tried to determine what to do about my wife. She still sat on the sofa most of the time, though the crying had subsided. Now she just sat there with a mournful look on her face. She seldom got up to eat, and then mainly when I was elsewhere. We hadn’t said more than a few words to each other since I had returned home, and she didn’t want me to hold her. I didn’t know what to say or do to relieve her pain and grief. She had adored the children and had always been bright and cheery. Now it was like she had died or turned into a zombie or a vegetable.

Also by now, we were nearly out of food, and I still didn’t have a vehicle. That afternoon, I called a friend to see if I could get a lift to the store.

“Hello Fred, Max. Is there any way that you could give me a lift to the grocery store. My vehicle is in the shop for several more days,” I told my friend who lived a couple of miles away.

“Max! Sure, I’ll be about an hour finishing what I’m doing, and will be there shortly after that,” Fred told me. I changed clothes and Fred arrived about an hour and a-half after I had called him. He wasn’t very talkative on the way to the store, but I didn’t push it. He walked around the store with me as I picked up the usual staples that everyone runs out of, paid for them, and then he drove me back to the house, still without saying much. This wasn’t like Fred, who was a great talker most of the time, always having some story or news to share.

It was obvious to me that someone had talked to him after I had called, but before he arrived at my house, though I didn’t know who, and Fred didn’t appear ready to tell me. Again that evening, there was nothing on any of the news programs about the boy’s disappearance, and I had about given up on hearing anything on the news.

The afternoon of the third day was when the call came in. We hadn’t had any phone calls at all since the kidnapping which was unusual. My wife was still sitting on the sofa near the phone, and she was the one to answer it. I was in the kitchen, and only reached the phone there after she had picked up the one in the living room.

“Hello!” she said, a tremor in her voice.

“Give me your husband,” a male voice said.

“I’m here. What do you want?” I asked in as neutral a voice as I could manage.

“We lost the man watching you, for that you lose your kids,” the voice told me and the line went dead.

“Hello ... hello!!” I shouted into the phone, but there was no one there, the line was dead.

“Damn!” I screamed in anger and threw the phone down. I heard Sara scream at the same time and hurried into the living room to find her passed out on the floor with the phone still in her hand.

I tried reviving her with some cold towels, and she eventually woke up, screaming and then crying. Her body shook as she cried with great moaning sobs. I picked her up and carried her up to our bedroom where I placed her on our bed. I tried to talk to her but she wasn’t listening.