Chapter 2

In some cases, contempt may be the result, but when it comes to a routine familiarity breeds precision and efficiency. The team was very familiar with reacting quickly to calls on the Pink Phone, so 28 minutes after Sarah ordered wheels up in 29 minutes, the team watched the bright, patchwork colors of the Vermont countryside fall away from them as they joined with the endless blue above.

As soon as the wheels folded up into the fuselage, Sara unbuckled her belt and moved over to sit down in front of the monitor and keyboard at the front of the cabin. She typed her password, spoke her name, inserted her thumb and stuck her eye up next to the scanner. When the machine was finally satisfied that it could in fact deal with her, the monitor came alive with the image of a logo that was equal parts Harlequin romance and hardcore porn. "Okay, Minerva, now that you've made me jump through all of your hoops, let's get on with the briefing."

"Keep your panties on, Sarah; you've got plenty of time before reaching Chicago to get the briefing. Maybe I should add a DNA analyzer that works on sperm or vaginal secretions. Maybe then all of you wouldn't complain so much about simple security procedures."

"Minerva, I have no interest in discussing how you would design the equipment to collect your samples, so let's just deal with the issue at hand. You've got a kidnapping of the child of one of our regulars, right?"

"Oh, I love it when you get all butch and commanding during a mission. Yes, Ma'am. Right away Ma'am. How high ma'am? Please don't spank me, ma'am."

"Minerva, you can be replaced."

"Hah! Like that could ever happen. Okay, enough teasing of the boss lady. On with the briefing.

"Yes, this is a job for one of our regular customers. You all remember Roger Paulers — 52 - rich, mostly self made — in the business of owning things — on the boards of over a dozen companies, everything from Chellvron Oil to Winn Casinos and Gaming to Pronova Health Care. He's got an ex-wife with a generous endowment... thanks to a fairly kind pre-nup and a daughter thanks to a fairly kind wife, now turned ex.

"It's the lovely daughter that got the role of damsel in distress in this episode. This morning a ransom note was found in the fair maiden's bed and the fair maiden was no where to be found. As I'm sure you all know Mr. Paulers has never had much respect for government in any of its various forms, so no authorities have been notified and you have been called in to deal with the situation.

"Mr. Paulers would like his daughter back unharmed, though he's considerably less concerned about the state of the kidnappers. The standard fees and agreements apply and he's waiting for you at his Hinsdale house where his daughter was last seen and the ransom note was found."

"That's it? That's all you've got for a briefing?"

"Well, I could tell you Mr. Paulers' length and girth and his daughter's cup size, but I figured if you cared, you'd consult all the details in your personal units. Would you like to hear the list of Mr. Paulers' suspected kinks?"

"Thank you, Minerva, but I'll think we'll skip that for now."

"Are you sure, he appears to be pretty imaginative."

"That's enough, Minerva. Hock, how long until we get there?"

"Sarah, we've got about another hour and a half until we land at Clow. One of our vans will be waiting for us, but I have no idea how long it will take to get to Hinsdale through the traffic. Would you prefer a helicopter? It's a lot more conspicuous, but Paulers has a landing pad and it would be a lot quicker."

"No, let's keep things low profile for now and take the van. Okay, the rest of you study what we've got in our personals. If you have any questions, we'll put them to Minerva."

The next ninety minutes were mostly quiet as the team members perused the information on their small screens. The occasional questions to Minerva were answered accurately with only a bit of the teasing that Minerva was capable of. On a mission, she turned it down a couple notches, though none of them had ever figured out how to completely eliminate her risqué banter no matter how serious the situation.

After landing, Hock ran through an abbreviated post flight check and turned the little jet over to the ground crew. They would have the plane refueled and ready to take off in less time than it would take the group to drive to Hinsdale and back.

He walked over to the plain looking, green Toyota minivan and got behind the wheel. Looking around the van he saw that the rest of the team was buckled in and waiting for him. After a quick check of his door holster and some of the non-factory equipment on the van he started it up and left the airport.

As the van headed towards Paulers' Hinsdale estate, Sarah made sure the team was ready. "Well, you've had an hour and a half to review the info. Anything we know at this point?"

Sophia spoke up, "Well, obviously there are two possibilities, Cindy Paulers was kidnapped or she wasn't. Roger Paulers is a rich, powerful man who hasn't tried overly hard to avoid making enemies, so revenge, money or blackmail are certainly all motives for kidnapping Cindy.

"On the other hand, Cindy is a headstrong 17 year old who's been engaged in a number of activities that she certainly hopes Daddy hasn't heard about. Her father would never approve of her last known boyfriend so perhaps this was staged by her to rebel against her father or to runaway or to cover something up. With what we have so far, either possibility is viable."

"Right, let's keep both possibilities in mind when we meet Paulers. What do we have on the boyfriend and who are the most likely culprits if it was a real kidnapping?"

Mike answered, "The boyfriend is Felix Vander, 21, college student, not much info on him yet. Research is doing a complete workup and expects to have a preliminary report in two hours. The list of possible kidnappers is very large and even weeding it down to the most likely there's over a dozen good possibilities. Analysis is continuing to work on narrowing the list down."

"Okay. We all know Paulers is a devious slimeball. Any chance he's behind it?"