Chapter 86: Ambush!

But Tamara knew she’d have to wait, at least for another week, before she could even think of how to bring any offense to bear against the people trying to find her. She’d be returning to the Real World following next weekend and would become buried in all of her projects and couldn’t let a problem with no apparent solution distract her.

In addition to all of her ongoing projects, at the end of June, she had been appointed to a tenure-track position as an assistant professor in the Physics and Astronomy Department with a joint appointment in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department. She had one course to teach this fall in each department and needed to organize her course materials as soon as she returned from the resort.

During the week that followed Winnie’s team’s visit, Tamara and Peter enjoyed the resort’s relaxing daily pace. She ran every morning with Winnie and was accompanied most mornings by a crowd. JoAnne was there every day; so were many of the other cousins. Tom and Lynette ran most mornings and Denise and Kevin ran with them three times.

On Monday’s run, while they were stretching, Tamara asked JoAnne if she wanted to set the run’s pace or if she wanted to run ahead.

JoAnne chuckled, “I’m guessing that you want to try to race me next Sunday and you want to sandbag so I can’t see my competition. Am I right?”

“Not sayin’,” Tamara grinned at her. “But the one you need to watch out for is Winnie. I suspect when she runs with me, she’s holding back. She really has a kick at the end of our 8Ks.”

“Damn. Too bad v-ball and cross country are both fall sports in her school,” JoAnne said. “She could for sure score a running scholarship. How do you want to run today?”

“Today’s a leg day for us,” she said. “This is when we do our hardest workout, once a week. I do a starting pace of 6:00 and we go for negative splits. Winnie and I ran an unofficial 5-K in 17:49 back in April when we first tried the negative splits. Doing that’s a killer.”

“Okay then, you do that and I’ll follow your pace. So this’ll be a 5K?” JoAnne asked.

“Yep. Warmup for Sunday.”

As they were getting ready to began the run, Tamara told the other runners of her plans for her pace.

“I’m starting at 6:00. That’s a very fast pace. But we’re doing negative splits this run which means that after mile one, the pace will be 5:40. On the last split, we’re going all out; I’m aiming for 5:30. That would put us in at around 17:50. JoAnne’s the only one here who’s consistently run under that time. Okay, do your best—let’s hit the trail.”

The first runners back were JoAnne and Winnie; they were abreast of each other as they passed the 5-K marker at 17:17. Tamara’s time was 17:48—her best. Two other regular runners came in immediately behind Tamara and the rest, about 19 to 20 minutes. All were excellent times for recreational runners.

JoAnne looked at Winnie after she did a quick cool-down stretch. “Winnie, gal, you were just pacing me, right? It felt like you still had more speed. I wasn’t going all out, myself; this was just a training run.”

Winnie nodded to her. “Yeah. I could go faster.”

“You know you’ve got some serious wheels there, right, honey?” JoAnne asked.

“Yeah. Papa taught me to run and how to train for it. What’s your 5-K time?” Winnie asked.

“My best 5000 meter track event time was 15:37 and for the 6-K X-C event, I average 19:55. My best 5-K was 16:58. My high-school times weren’t as fast but they still got me a track scholarship at Penn State; it’s a D1 school. Um, your papa was your grandfather, I heard. He taught you proper running form?”

“He did. And he could run for hours. He was a game warden for the state and he would cover miles by foot every day. Running is in our blood. ‘Running’ in Cherokee is adatlisvi and my language has six different ways to make verbs to mean things to do with running. Papa told me that the Cherokee, when called to go to war, would cover hundreds of miles in just a few days by foot.”

“Damn ... are the Cherokee like the Kenyans and Ethiopians?” JoAnne asked. “They totally dominate the marathons.”

“Huh. No idea about that,” Winnie replied. “I don’t know any other Cherokee ... I take that back. Here’s Denise. She’s part Cherokee; ask her.”

“Ask me what, Winnie?” Denise asked as she walked up. “Shit, you two, you smoked the rest of us. What was your time?”

“Um, 17:17, Denise,” Winnie replied. “JoAnne asked if the Cherokee were like the Kenyans ... the east Africans, I guess ... in running. They dominate marathons, JoAnne says. I don’t know anything about that. Do you know any other Cherokee people?”

“Distant relatives. All my mom’s age or older and I don’t know if they ran at all,” Denise said. “Say, maybe it’s the geography of east Africa. I think I recall that it’s kinda mountainous there and the Great Rift Valley goes through that area. Maybe growing up running at higher altitudes helps.”

“So maybe that’s why I’m a good runner,” Winnie remarked. “And why the Cherokee are. Our peoples lived mostly in the mountains and ran everywhere. I ran with Papa on the mountain roads and trails in our area, growing up with him. Maybe that’s why, JoAnne.”

“Makes sense, I guess,” JoAnne replied. “How did you do, Denise?”

“I wasn’t keeping time, but I was just behind Tom and he was a bit back from Tamara. Damn, she’s quite a good runner too.”

Tamara came over to them.

“You were under 18, Denise, that’s a great time, and you were two seconds behind Tom,” Tamara said. “For a big guy, I’m impressed at how fast he can run.”

Saturday was the second volleyball clinic and games and Kevin’s group and all the cousins participated. Despite the hopeful comments from the resort’s women’s team members, Tamara’s and Barbara’s schedules didn’t allow their taking off a day or two at the end of Labor Day week to play at the Superbowl.

The resort’s Naked 5-K race was the following day. A number of regular members ran in it and so did the cousins and Tamara’s friends. About sixty outside people came in to race too.

Again, JoAnne was the top female finisher and second overall. The male winner was a track athlete from Maryland who posted a 16:52 time. JoAnne was second at 17:08 and Winnie was right on her heels at 17:09 and third overall. An outside guy was fourth and Tamara was fifth overall at 17:13.

The male winner went over to JoAnne and Winnie after a bit of cool-down.

“Great race, you guys. If this had been a 10-K NCAA X-C race, the way you were gaining on me at the end, you would have beat me. I’m sure you must be on a college track team but I don’t think I’ve seen you at meets. Oh, the name’s Davis Stearns.”

JoAnne grinned at him and introduced herself and Winnie. “I run for Penn State. We’ve run against Maryland; maybe you don’t recognize me now ‘cause I’m nude,” she laughed. He blushed and she commented, “It’s fine. People do look different when they’re unclothed; that’s just how it is. I didn’t recognize you either but I pay more attention to the girl competition. But Winnie here’s in high school.”

He looked at her. “You’re in high school? Damn, you must be like one of the state’s top runners...”

Winnie shook her head. “I play volleyball, but thanks. Our team led our league last year and we won the state title in our division too. We should be good this year as well.”

“Some damn fine women runners here today,” he went on. “Three of the five top finishers were women ... and here’s the third. Hi, my name’s Davis. Great race, you were in around 17 too, right? Outstanding.”

“Thanks. I’m Tamara. I think I was fifth?”

JoAnne nodded. “You sure were. Davis, this gal here is not only a top volleyball player but also a running star. But she wasted her college career by not going out for either sport,” she laughed. “She’s an academic star, actually.”

Davis looked at her and smiled. “You look a bit older than the rest of us, Tamara. So you’ve graduated now?”

“Not boasting about it, but yeah. Got my doctorate a year ago and I’m teaching now,” she told him.

“Hey, that’s cool. But these two gals—damn, you two, are you gonna try out for the Olympics? Your times are good enough to become possible contenders for a slot in the U.S. team.”

JoAnne laughed. “Not yet. I’m working on an NCAA championship first. I’m within striking distance of the times I need, so we’ll see.”

Davis looked at Winnie, “And you?”

Winnie shrugged. “I don’t run to compete. I do it ‘cause it’s great fun. I don’t want to make it into a chore or have it take up lots of time for training. So I’ll see; I have time, I guess.”

They chatted for a few more minutes while the officials tallied the race times and then the award presentations were made.

In the afternoon, all the remaining people from the Winsberg clan packed up to leave and soon Tamara was ready to go too. It was a week before Labor Day and she had a lot of work waiting.

The first job she tackled was the interviews for the executive assistant and then her PA, the positions which she had discussed with Mason and Werner. She liked the two candidates and her company’s COO also did, so they had their law firm draw up an interim employment contract for each. A more permanent one would be done when the HR department was operating. They would be starting their jobs at the beginning of October.

Now that she was back at work, dividing her time between campus, where she would be doing her theoretical work, teaching, and office hours; the APL, where she was working on G-force applications; and her company, where she was directing her engineers and had planning meetings, she was very busy. She was also monitoring the Haitian project with weekly progress report phone calls. And Janice Marks was either accompanying her or escorting Winnie to and from school, with the protection duties shared with two other agents.

On the first Monday back after their vacation, Winnie had a scrimmage match in the evening and the team’s regular varsity games would begin the following week. Tamara was really appreciating how she could contact Winnie in her mind, but the mental effort and concentration it required at a distance of just a few miles was immense. She could also reach Peter mentally but again, it took concentration and power. But when she attempted to concentrate on her parents to make contact, nothing happened.

Nadine was now back living in her home and a Cornelius agent stayed on site when she was there; the Alexandres had brought in a camper trailer for the agent to spend the nights. The security system was still in place, and just before Labor Day, agents found that someone had tried cutting a hole in one of the fences but the tool they had used wasn’t enough to cut all of the fence links or they had been scared off. That’s when they added several more cameras.

The date of the charter school planning meeting had been changed; it was now set for the first Monday in November. Faculty from Westphalia’s School of Education would be there, and invitations had gone out to all of the school districts in the southern part of the county, nearby school districts in neighboring counties, and state education officials.

At the end of the second week of September, Tamara again began to get the feeling that she was being watched.

“This time it’s very strong,” she told Peter and Winnie that evening when she came home.

“Yeah, honey, Winnie told me that she started feeling it today too and so have I,” Peter told her. “It’s a really spooky feeling too. Very uncomfortable.”

“Is there any place where it feels stronger?” Tamara wondered. “It doesn’t seem directed at me.”

The others told her that they felt it everywhere that they had been during the day.

“Winnie, sweetie, what are your plans this weekend?” Tamara asked. “You need to be careful where you go.”

“We have an 8:30 a.m. practice tomorrow. I told you that a few days ago. Got an important game on Monday.”

“You did. That’s till noon, right?” Tamara asked.

“Yeah. On the way home before, Janice told me that she won’t be driving me tomorrow; she’s got one of her subs working. Like she did last weekend. God, I wish this crap with those friggin’ morons was over. Can’t go out without someone hovering over me.”

“I feel exactly the same way, sweetie. Peter, you’re not gonna try to give your agent the slip again, right?”

“C’mon honey, I wasn’t thinking. I got a call from Walt in the Biomechanical Engineering building and I just popped over to see him.”

“Without telling your agent. Please don’t do that again.”

“Yeah, she reamed me out when she called me.”

Saturday morning, Winnie’s primary substitute Cornelius agent, Lynn Garcia, picked her up and brought her to the high school. At a little after noon, while Tamara was working in her office at the Physics Department, an agitated and distressed “voice” popped into her head.

“I’m okay but Lynn’s hurt...”

“Winnie? What’s wrong?” Tamara formed the thought and concentrated on Winnie.

Baltimore Tech High School: Thirty minutes earlier

“Doing anything this afternoon?” one of Winnie’s teammates asked after their practice session was over and they were heading into the locker room for their showers.

“Not really,” she answered. “Got an English writing assignment to do is all.”

“Couple of us are going to the mall. Wanna go?”

“Damn. I gotta ask. I have a frikkin’ security shadow watching me. Someone bad is looking for Tamara and she thinks that they could come after me to get to her.”

“Wooo, that’s scary. Well, call me if you can. We’re meeting at the food court at 2.”

“Sure,” Winnie said as she got ready for a quick shower.

A few minutes later, she dressed and put her uniform, sneakers, and towels in her backpack and slung it over her shoulder.

“Call you if I can come,” she said as the other girls left the locker room.

She went out into the gym, met Garcia, and then the coach came over and asked Winnie if she could stop a minute to talk about two new plays that the team had practiced.

Ten minutes later, after they had finished discussing the plays, the coach told her, “Okay, those are good suggestions. I’m going to look at some videos of our opponents now. See the best time to call those plays.”

“Sure, Coach; catch you Monday,” Winnie told her.

Winnie and Garcia went out the gym door to the gym parking lot behind the school. Suddenly Winnie felt a tingle of extreme danger.

“Lynn! Trouble!” she warned, looking around, and saw two men rising from where they had been crouched between Lynn’s car and another parked next to it.

“Watch out!” Garcia called. “Tasers!”

They were within twenty feet away from the men but Winnie reacted instantly, swinging her backpack across the front of her body to shield herself as she heard a buzzing sound and felt a sharp sting in her shoulder. One dart had hit her there but the other had impacted her backpack. She sensed, rather than saw, Garcia go down, the Taser darts fired at her had hit her.

Furious, she dropped her backpack and charged at the closer man, who was stunned that the Taser didn’t work and had begun snapping a new cartridge onto his device. He never expected to be charged by her, so when he saw her coming at him, he had no chance to react. She slammed into him with a flying drop kick to his chest. It was a move she had learned from Marks, who had been working with her to teach her more than judo. Winnie had asked Marks to teach her some of MMA’s more devastating offensive moves, and Winnie had been diligently perfecting her execution of several. The force of her kick slammed the guy back against his vehicle and he slumped to the ground; she had hit him square in the chest and it had been hard enough to break ribs. Winnie’s drop kick follow-through left her just needing two recovery steps to regain her footing as she looked for what the other assailant was doing.

She saw him standing near Garcia, who seemed to be trying to get up; he was still pointing his Taser at her. Garcia collapsed again as he appeared to be pulling the weapon’s trigger repeatedly. Winnie saw her own opponent’s Taser lying on the pavement where he had dropped it and she picked it up and dashed around the car, closer to where Garcia lay.