Chapter 22: Drink Gichi-Gami

The difficult part of being mission support is the waiting around. Ensign Antonio Williams wasn't going to learn if he didn't lead. Now two squads of DECO Marines were on the surface for the purpose of capturing the culprits who had abducted Tony Williams from a New York jail. The targets of the Williams' raid were aboard a private yacht cruising Lake Superior—Gichi-gami to the Ojibwe.

My part of the raid was diversionary. Imagine that a man, his lion and his wolf are walking down a back alley in Duluth. Sounds like the opening line of a joke. Kimba was on my left and Fenster was to my right. Guided by miniature spy bots, I picked the correct door and caved it in with my enhanced left foot. Fenster charged inside, followed by the albino lion cub. They led me down the rabbit warren of corridors and stairwells, unerringly homing in on the target. There were four below-ground levels, and we flew past the parked cars and basement offices. AI interference took the surveillance cameras off-line along with any alarms. In seconds we reached the small room hidden on the very bottom of a 17-story building and the small collection of paper records in dusty file boxes.

Removing a standard portable hole – I mean a Confederation transporter pad – from my backpack, I activated it and stood back as three concubines emerged. They formed a human chain and moved the boxes through the transporter pad. In under ninety seconds we had finished. I was the last one through the pad. The AI then replayed my antics to the security system, sounding alarm after alarm, and the transporter pad disintegrated into a fine dust.

"Get the files scanned into the database," I instructed. "Be careful. Some of them date from World War One. Who would have guessed that J. Edgar moved all of his files to Duluth in 1969 to keep them out of President Nixon's hands?"

"Who is J. Edgar?" Mary Popov asked.

"The first director of the FBI," Georgia replied. "He was a right proper piece of work. Kept blackmail files on everybody. Director Gray claimed to have destroyed those files. Now we might find out who really killed JFK and Martin Luther King."

We were in Conference Room Four and the concubines were carefully removing documents and scanning them as directed. I removed the combat gear and coveralls and Mary had me dress in a black Nehru outfit, not quite Navy, but close.

"Fenster, Kimba, you two did very well," I told my four-footed furry companions.

Fenster huffed in reply, then turned and led the lion cub through a transporter pad back to the kennel.

A brown European hare hopped out from under the conference table and stood on her hind legs, her brown eyes imploring.

"Hungry?" I asked. The answer for herbivores is 'always' but Mrs. Wiggle Nose (named by a committee of orphans) was more interested in cuddling. I took a cup of rabbit food from the replicator and sat in a chair facing a wall that was being used to display Ensign Williams' mission in progress as the concubines scanned old FBI blackmail documents. When the doors behind me crashed open, I swiveled around and faced a very angry Colonel Dorman and six Confederacy Space Marines in their green uniforms.

"Oh, look the good Lieutenant Lawrence is a Bond villain now," Colonel Dorman sneered. "Why aren't you at attention, Lieutenant?"

"Because I am here," Colonel Popov thundered back. "I command here, Colonel."

"Speaking of command authority," Georgia interrupted, "Lieutenant Lawrence is supervising a DECO extraction. State your business and quit interfering."

"Central Command wants those documents," Colonel Dorman pointed at the thirty seven file boxes I had stolen from Duluth.

"Sir, I'll need orders to release them," I said. "Governor Lilith authorized the operation for the academy archives. I'll need someone who can pull rank on my governor."

"That won't be necessary," Lilith, flanked by her two cheetahs and by her honor guard of two Marines emerged from a transporter pad on the wall. "Girls, to the kennels. Johnny, the Hoover Files are yours."

I sat in the chair stroking Mrs. Wiggle Nose's back as she nibbled rabbit food. Didn't Bond villains do cats? The concubines obeyed, leaving through the transporter pad, abandoning the file boxes and loose photos, reports and fingerprint cards.

"I hate it when you do that," Dorman commented.

"If you don't want those files--" Lilith began.

"No-no-no!" Dorman flailed his arms, his high-pitched voice reflecting panic. "Coming out of walls like you were a ghost."

"If you want to see ghosts, ask Lieutenant Lawrence for a tour of his haunted house," Colonel Popov suggested. "He has the most interesting spirit hosts."

Colonel Dorman ignored Mary Popov, ordering his Marines to remove the boxes immediately. I did offer a cart for them all. When taken from Duluth, I had used a human chain of concubines and had delivered them directly from the secret vault to Conference Room Four's table. The offered cart was ignored. Colonel Dorman glared as his Marines removed a dozen boxes at a time from the conference room. It took them three trips, with the colonel taking the last box himself.

"Ramses," Colonel Dorman commanded, "erase the scanned Hoover Files from the database."

After the doors slammed behind him, all the females present burst into laughter. Even the rabbit was amused.

"Command group only," Lilith commanded. Her honor guards and cheetahs left. Even Mrs. Wiggle Nose loped out the transporter pad. It was a little strange, a rabbit following a pair of cheetah, but neither cheetah would have thought of eating the little brown bunny because Mrs. Wiggle Nose was family. When there were only the four of us left in Conference Room Four, the station AI sealed the room. "That was a very successful distraction, Tom. What did you learn?"