Chapter 3

“Peggy, Brice ... and Phylicity, of course,” I stated in turn looking at the three seated members of my executive management group, “sorry for the late start on our weekly meeting, but as you’re all well aware of, we’ve had a few interesting developments these last few days.” Peggy and Brice snorted with amusement and Phyl just grimaced and snapped back the pull tab of a cold beer with a loud cracking noise, already her second. I was holding my first cold one in-hand, ready to pop the top the moment right after I made my first announcement, which was hot and burning to escape my lips.

“For starters, I’m notifying you all that officially I’m declaring a Code Orange, effective now immediately.” Click-pop-fizz-bubble-slurp ... already that first sip of ice cold beer was making my staff meeting much more tolerable.

No one was in the least bit surprised at my announcement. Brice just nodded sagely and Peggy merely raised up her left eyebrow up a fraction as she turned her head to watch Phyl reach across our picnic table to press the conference phone intercom button to order the security status change to her crew downstairs below us. A moment later the Rolling Stones song ‘Start Me Up’ started blaring out from the PA system. It would be playing from all of the speakers inside the mine too and throughout the various buildings upstairs here in the crater. That was the public warning for going to Condition Orange and pretty much everyone would get the message fast, or would find out soon enough.

“Yeah, it’s official now,” I added, taking another fast slurp of my beer, “so we’re in for a long meeting up here this evening. There’s beer and some harder stuff behind the bar and I’ve brought up a tray of sandwiches, so settle in ... we’re going to be here for awhile. First Phyl and I have a few things to inform you all about and then we’re going to review the Orange Plan security binder page by page and work our way down the checklists, all of them. If you need to take a piss, do it over the edge of the roof ... and that especially includes the ladies. No one’s leaving or taking a break until we’re done and we have a finalized action plan to give to corporate... both of them. Lucky us!” I thumped the big Orange binder for theatrics but no one was amused or even sighed overly much. The change to our security readiness really had come as no surprise at all ... exactly as I had predicted at the end of last week’s meeting.

Fun ... fun ... fun! Just going over the checklists was going to kill four hours ... minimum.

I briefly then gave everyone a quick historical overview of the recent events of Saturday afternoon in Aphrodite and the bare bones details of the intrusion of early Sunday morning. Phyl didn’t really have much of anything new to add to what we already knew about those events. Security had re-swept the grounds near the ranch road fence again with a metal detector but didn’t find anything new that had been missed after the first searches. The broken bits of the tablet PC and the encrypted communications gear had been boxed up and were ready for shipment off to corporate security tomorrow along with our weekly delivery on the truck, but we had little or no expectation that anything would come of it. Corporate security had already quickly checked out the rental van company from El Paso and found nothing traceable. As we had expected, it had been a cash transaction from a mom & pop business. No significant records or video camera footage or anything else useful. This was already pretty much old news and no one had any questions or comments about this.

Phyl had just briefed me pretty thoroughly on the results of her investigations in-town yesterday and this morning, and I had assumed that she wasn’t really quite in the mood for telling and retelling her story all over again this evening, but I was mistaken. I started to provide a brief overview of her results but received a sharp kick in the side of my leg for my troubles.

“That’s ok Dave ... I can take it from here. Go get me another beer and sit down and drink yours. I’ll try and cover the highlights and lowlights fast so we can start dealing with the checklists. It’s going to be dark soon and even with all of the hanging Christmas lights and Tiki torches up here it’s going to be gloomy reading.” I got Phyl a fresh beer and myself another cold one as well. Brice and Peggy each now wanted one as well, so I put in another couple of warm six-packs into the ice chest and hauled it over next to my chair so that I could lean and over and pull up replacements later without having to leave the table again. I brought over the tray of sandwiches too. I didn’t have much appetite but I forced myself to eat anyway while Phyl told her story. Like I’d warned everyone, we were going to be here for awhile.

“I went into town yesterday afternoon to check out a few things for Dave and did find out a few interesting things worth knowing, but I’ll try and tell the story chronological, just for simplicity. First thing when I got into town, I went direct to the Wal-Mart to see if I could get my hands on their security footage from Saturday. I couldn’t ... as we expected, they as much as told me to ‘sod-off’ and come back with a warrant. Not a surprise, but I wanted to see if we could get lucky. Going to Sam’s next was just a waste of time. They’ve been having ongoing trouble with their parking lot cameras for months and have a replacement system already on order. The old system was and remains down ... they didn’t record a damned thing outside on Saturday! So much for that...

“Then, I went direct to the sheriff’s office but by that time I was already too late. The day shift desk sergeant Granger had already left for the day. The night shift sergeant, Bob Ross, didn’t know shit ... or at least he wasn’t gonna tell me a damn thing about any of it. But I did catch my deputy constable friend Duncan ... well, not so much a friend but he’s an old fuck-buddy anyway, just as he was leaving, and that’s when things as they say, started to get a bit more interesting. For starters, he was more than willing to trade information with me ... including getting me that elusive Wal-Mart security footage, if I was willing to play very nice in return.”

Peggy snorted; loudly. “I thought you told me that you were going to let that redneck asshole pound sand rather than let him get a sniff at your crotch again?”

“Yeah, sort of ... no ignoring the ‘asshole’ part. The guy is a raging jerk, but I could tell from Ross’s attitude that no one else in the department was going to give me even the time of day ... but Duncan, being a complete and utter sleaze and a weasel through and through, was willing to tell me just about everything I wanted to hear by the time I’d bought our third round of drinks. Sometimes, he can be a rather useful asshole, at least if you can keep him focused. So, after downing another set of drinks, we barged right over to the security office at the Wal-Mart and he shoved his badge right into the night shift supervisor’s face and kept it there until the poor bastard had handed over all of Saturday’s video tapes to me. That alone right there was worth everything I had to put up with! Then during the drive afterwards, while we were on our way to get some dinner, he flat out admitted that everyone from the County Judge down, including the DA and the Sheriff had all been paid off. Cash ... and some pretty nice big sweet bundles of it, too! He called it ‘campaign contributions’ ... a nicer term than flat out bribery, to make the entire criminal trespass case go away. Not just dismiss it, but scrub it clean away, like it never even happened at all ... which very officially I’ve been told, never did happen!”

“And of course all of the constables, Duncan, Ross and probably Granger too all got their bit from their boss’s share as well?” Peggy enquired.

“A certainty,” Phylicity agreed. “I heard as much later on, but that’s getting a bit ahead of myself. Anyway, yesterday morning when the case being rather permanently closed, Duncan was sent off to the county airport right away to grab the traffic log and any other inconvenient paperwork resulting from their flight in and then promptly back out. He turned them in to his boss right away that afternoon but he also wrote down the plane’s tail number in his personal logbook. Duncan’s an ass ... but he’s also anal about keeping records of things that he thinks might be of importance or value to someone later on! He promised to show me his notes ... in the morning, assuming I was very, very nice and repaid the favor back at his favorite no-tell motel. Sure ... I was willing.”

“Uh, oh...” Peggy muttered, sadly shaking her head.

“Well, I was! He does have a pretty decent cock and mostly knows how to use it too, with considerable endurance too, so he’s adequate for stress relief! And I was hoping for some more interesting pillow talk about our visitors later on, so I was willing ... it’s not like I hadn’t slept with him before, so I knew what I was getting ... mostly!”

“And this time was different?”

“Well ... I was feeling a bit grateful for his help with the security videos, so after I gave him a blowjob and even let him cum in my mouth, I didn’t freak when he pulled out the handcuffs again. I was feeling mellow and I supposed that it was fair, that it was my turn this time to wear them since I’d cuffed him the last time around ... so I let him cuff my hands behind my back and let him have his fun. Besides, it had been a rough week around here and I did need some serious stress relief!”

“Uh, oh ... Peggy again muttered, still sadly shaking her head, “I can see where this is going.”

“Yeah ... turns out that Duncan is a bit of a mean drunk and really likes it when he’s got a girl helpless and can turn on the ‘tower of power’ stuff on her. This wasn’t the first time that I’ve been slapped about while being fucked ... sometimes, with the right partner it can even be a turn-on, but after awhile I just wanted to get it all over with as soon as possible. Anyway, I’m cuffed and down on my knees with my ass up in the air and my face mashed down on the bed so I just let him have his fun for an hour or so until he finally blows his load in my ass and collapses. Now that he’s done I should have been thinking about getting my hands free and get the hell out of there, but instead I had to run off my fat mouth instead. I’d gotten real, real close to cumming and I was pissed that the bastard wasn’t going to finish the job. So ... I tactfully suggested that if he wasn’t man enough to satisfy a woman then he needed to find some friends that could.

“You didn’t!” Peggy exclaimed, laughing so hard that she nearly snorted beer right up through her nose.

“As the song goes, it’s nobody’s fault but mine. He slaps the shit out of my ass and picks up his cell phone and makes a few calls to his buddies, inviting them over to come join the party ... that he’s got a nigga bitch all tied down and wet, ready and hot to trot!”

“So you got the hell out of there anyway, buck ass naked?” Peggy asked.

“Well, I thought about it,” Phyl admitted, “but then I kind of got distracted when he took off his belt and started spanking my ass with it. That really did get me all hot and wet, so I just stayed put until his buddies started arriving a few minutes later. Anyway, it wasn’t exactly my first gangbang...”

“I remember my first gangbang” Peggy laughed with a growing smile, “and the second and third ones too! This wasn’t rape though, was it? Granted, you do sometimes like it rough!”

“Unfortunately it was very consensual. When they started taking their clothes off I called them all ‘limp-dicked choads that couldn’t make me cum or even feel their tiny little dicks if they tried all night!”

“So you challenged them to at least make the experience interesting, if nothing else.”

“Pretty much. I had been really close to cumming earlier and now with my ass spanked and whipped with his belt I was just about ready to beg for someone to make me cum! It turns out that one of his constable buddies had a really nice and fat nine inch prick that could scratch rather nicely some hard to reach places inside of me, so the entire night wasn’t a completely miserable experience. The rest of them? Meah ... limp dicked teeny-peenies strictly of the ‘in-out and repeat if necessary’ school of fucking. Yawn.”

“What time did you get out there?” Brice enquired, “Sounds like a long hard night.” He giggled in his usual pervy manner with more than a hint of a leer.

“The party finished up around three this morning and while the guys were just sitting around and talking I could hear them mention that ‘extra cash bonus’ from the bribe money that they were all expecting. One guy tossed about the figure that they should be getting about $500 each as the share for the constable deputies, and probably more than that for the sergeants and higher-ups. Another guy then complained about the boss being too cheap, since the Sheriff himself allegedly got over $20k. Other than bitching about the payoff, none of the guys knew shit about our intruders or the ‘hotshot’ legal team that paid to get them out. Any names they might have used were undoubtedly fake ... just the cash was real, green and they had lots of it, and they spread it around like fertilizer! The jist of the whole thing was that this confirms that they’d all been paid and told to shut up about the entire incident as if it had never happened.

“Later, after the party was over, Duncan and I were sort of napping for awhile, until he got up somewhere around seven this morning and wanted another blowjob. Then the fucker started away on my ass again, with me still cuffed and on my back with my butt and legs up in the air. He was rock hard but couldn’t cum again to save his life, so he just pumped away merrily into my ass for the next hour until his fiancée showed up at the motel, hysterically screaming and pounding on our door sometime around eight in the morning!”

“So he unlocked your cuffs in a panic and you shimmied out the bathroom window naked in a panic?” Peggy giggled.

“Fuck no! That would assume that the asshole gave a shit about the feelings of either one of us. No, he opened the door bare-ass naked and let the gal right in, giving her a good view of my well-fucked cunt and ass! The bitch, of course, goes ape-shit postal at the situation, giving me also the clear impression that this isn’t the first or even the second time that she’s caught him here banging another chick. Anyway, it’s mostly me that she’s mad at and she starts to try and beat the crap out of me with her fists while I’m still cuffed and trying to get my ass off of the bed and on my feet so I can just get the hell out of there before she pulls a gun out of her purse and just starts blasting us all! Asshole Duncan, when he finally stops laughing his ass off, eventually pulls her off of me and slaps the holy shit out of her, knocking her pretty white ass to the floor. Then he finally uncuffs me and tells me to get the fuck out of there! I don’t need to be told twice!

“I grabbed my clothes from the floor and beat it. The white chick is screaming and bawling her stupid head off and Duncan slaps the shit out of her some more, but that’s her problem now. As I’m going out the door, buck-assed naked and holding my clothes, I can see that he’s shoved his cock into her mouth ... and she’s sucking him like she’s starving to death! Hope she likes the taste of my ass because that’s where it spent most of the night and this morning!”

“So that was all that you got out of him? You didn’t get the FAA records then?” Peggy inquired?

“I did get them, but I had almost forgotten about them getting the hell out of there! I threw on my clothes in the parking lot and drove off about five blocks before I realized that I’d left the evidence behind. The Wal-Mart tapes were in a crate still in the back of our van, but I wanted his notes from the airport FAA logs too, so I turned around and drove back to the motel. His notepad was in the front seat of his car, but it was locked. I was just in the mood to put a brick through a window and get them anyway, but the door to the motel room was still hanging open a bit and I remembered that Duncan had left his keys and wallet right on the dresser by the front door, so I thought I could get in and out fast, maybe even unseen. It was just that easy too! I did have my Glock out, just in case there was an issue with my borrowing his notes, but the asshole was way too busy fucking his fiancées ass on the bed and he never heard or saw me grab his car keys. The crazy cunt was loving every second of it too! So, I just grabbed his notebook and beat it. Left his keys in the car ignition too with the window rolled down so I hope some other asshole lowlife stole his car after I left!

“Anyway, here’s the make and model of the private plane, a FlairJet 2500, tail number G-AIS9. I’m pretty sure that this info is going to be helpful to corporate security! Any bet at all that AIS is for Advanced Industrial Solutions? Takers? I’ll even offer odds, 3-1? How about 5-1?”

“Nope,” Brice laughed, “I never bet against a near sure thing. AIS has had their nose up our business ass sniffing Littlejohn’s crotch for over a year trying to at least get a foot in the door. They first offered us a friendly deal for a corporate merger then tried for just a on-going business partnership, and we keep telling them to piss-off. No bets ... they’re our boys.

I nodded my head in agreement. According to our corporate bosses and a few other trusty sources, AIS had been sniffing around the fringes of our some of our other corporate entities too, and also that of a few of our more private partners, like Oceana Nitrates and even Roberts Electrical. Just poking around our edges to see if we were soft and squishy, vulnerable to either an amenable or hostile takeover, or so we had thought. AIS had a reputation as being an aggressive corporate raider and there were many rumors that they frequently indulged in large scale industrial espionage activities to obtain and quietly market stolen trade secrets and other intellectual property. Their corporate headquarters was in Mineral Wells, Texas, not to mention that they had minor branches in Dallas, Austin, Houston and El Paso, not to mention locations in several other states as well. Any of these Texas locations would have been within an easy hour’s flight (or less) from Aphrodite, but the El Paso rental car company connection seemed especially significant.

“Nice discovery ... and probably even worth the inconvenience you suffered getting it, pain in the ass-wise anyway.” Peggy added.

“It was, but I’m not quite done with my update. Just another tidbit left to add, but it’s a big one ... the frosting on the cake really. I stopped by the sheriff’s office again on the way out of town just to try and catch Granger at the front desk hopefully this time. He was in ... but not terribly helpful. He admitted that our intruders, if they had ever either existed or had been there, however briefly, might have left in a big white SUV. Perhaps the same Suburban that followed us on Saturday ... or not. He would neither confirm nor deny anything else I asked him about and he rather pointedly, but quietly, told me that he was just three years short from retirement and wanted to enjoy it! Then with a wink and a nudge-nudge, he invites me back all the way back into the holding area to try out some new fancy brand coffee machine they’d just bought.

“We get there and he immediately tells Constable Ellis, who is the day shift turnkey for the holding cells, that he needs a few minutes with me in private. I’m thinking that Granger is going to toss me into one of the cells for being a nosy little snooping bitch, asking about things they’ve been paid to forget about, but he then orders Ellis to run upstairs and find for him a folder called the ‘Shipley case files’. Ellis, who had been one of Duncan’s friends I’d intimately met last night at the gangbang, just looks at me and then takes off, but not in any big hurry. Shipley must be cop-code for ‘take a break at the donut shop next door’. Granger then winks at me again, pinches my tender well-fucked ass and tells me to ‘be quick’, that I’ve got less than ten minutes, and then he leaves me there all alone in the cell block!