Chapter 11: Ready or Not...

Late April-May, 1986

Luckily, with the rush hour traffic, our four suspects couldn’t drive very fast, so flying without our helmets wasn’t too big a deal. We reported to Brock and TJ that they were driving a 1984 Buick Grand National. We gave them the Wisconsin license plate number, which TJ was going to run immediately.

We were soon told that the car HADN’T been reported stolen and was registered to one Kurt Alsip, of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. They were headed west on IL SR 64. Just past Sycamore Speedway, they turned south on County Line Road and about a mile south they pulled into an old, but nicely kept farmhouse. There, behind the house, we saw an old, faded blue late 60’s Ford Galaxie, parked behind a dilapidated barn. We gave TJ that plate number as well as the address of the farmhouse.

Brock informed us that they would be setting up surveillance and that since there were very limited side roads, our help wouldn’t be needed until our suspects decided to move. Just before Greg and I got home, TJ said the farmhouse was owned by a Benjamin Braxton and that the old Ford’s plate DIDN’T match, but that there was a report of a stolen car weeks earlier that fit the description. It ALSO matched their MO (Auth. Note: Modus Operandi, or mode of operation).

They also now had the identities of at least two of their serial bank robbers. TJ told us that we probably wouldn’t be needed anymore as they felt they had enough information and resources to handle the take down at the bank without our assistance. His agents were more than eager to catch these guys!

I hadn’t told him yet of my REAL concern, that they may be dealing with a force far more terrifying than four bank robbers.

I also wanted to tell him face to face, just in case this ‘Viktor’ could somehow read our thoughts. My memory of Sherman’s abilities from last summer was still much too vivid to forget about and if what we surmised was true, THIS guy was MUCH more powerful than Sherman ever was!

I flashed, “TJ, why don’t you and Janet come by the house later and see our new babies?”

“Um, well, we’re going to be busy setting things up for tomorrow ... couldn’t we come by after this case gets closed? “

“TJ, 911, you NEED to see baby SHERMAN!”

There was a long silence, “Oh Shit! No problem. As soon as we drop off two more agents to help Brock with the surveillance, we’ll come straight over. Janet and I should be there by 9:00pm.”

“Good, see you then.”

I should have known my sweetheart had been listening to at least that last little tidbit of information. With our new telepathic abilities, everything wasn’t always ‘broadcast’ like before. The two of us, however, kept no secrets and she always had permission to be in my thoughts – I NEVER block her. That didn’t mean she was always connected with me.

She WAS now, “Charlie? What’s all this about a baby Sherman?” A stressed Mary flashed.

“Greg and I will be home soon. We’ve got to stop by the Manor and get my Mustang, then we’ll be right home. We may need to ‘circle the wagons’.”

“What about our friends who were supposed to come over tonight?”

“Damn! ... well, this has the potential to get VERY involved. TJ said he wouldn’t be over until 9 or so. Why don’t you have them come over right now? It’s only 6:30. Order some pizzas and I guess we’ll have to cut through the small talk and get them onboard. With what could happen, it may be useful to have them able to communicate with us. What do you think?”

“I think, Sugar Bear, you and Huggy Bear need to stop getting into trouble when you guys go out together!” Mary flashed.

“Yeah, Baby Daddies, what SHE said!” Jamie echoed.

ON AN NSA BUSINESS JET EN ROUTE TO GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA

Jerome POV:

Rex and I had made THIS TRIP, to Gitmo, twice already. We’ve gotten valuable information from the captives of Rafael’s attempted capture/hijacking of two fuel tankers and a pleasure yacht. Since then, because of information gleaned from those interrogations the US Navy and Coast Guard has put our boy Rafael in a real ‘trick bag’. We’d taken nearly 30 more of his stolen boats and another 100 plus of his pirates off of the high seas. The latest captures were harder to break but HAD given up valuable information about the extents of Rafael’s crooked empire.

One name kept coming up that, when we ‘counter-questioned’ the prisoners, struck fear into their hearts. That name, Viktor! We were assured that he was a VERY SCARY dude, hombre, ‘El Diablo’, you name it, they said it. It also immediately silenced their tongues from any further discussions of Rafael or his minions.

NOW, we were summoned by a strangely urgent message from the base’s Commandant, Colonel Clyde Dawson. He was inordinately tight lipped about why.

Rex looked at me nervously, “Just what do you think the big emergency is, Jer?”

“I have NO idea. I mean the Marines that run Gitmo aren’t the kind to be easily shaken, yet the Colonel seemed to be really spooked about SOMETHING. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”

When we landed we were hurried into the prison area where we were being given a hard stare by the MP guards, then the Commandant. He said curtly, “Follow me.” He immediately turned and started walking, where he ordered the first of a row of cell doors to be opened. “We have everything, if you can call it that, on video. This is what we found this morning...”

Rex and I BOTH gasped. The prisoner was laying on his stomach, but his head was looking up at the ceiling, a look of unbridled terror on his face!

Rex asked the Commandant, “Just WHO did THIS guy piss off?”

The Commandant just shook his head, gave us the ‘follow me finger curl, and went to the next opening door. THIS one contained a prisoner, still in his bunk, with a single bullet wound giving him a third eye.

“My guess, a silenced 22, come on, we’re just getting started... “, the Commandant muttered, disgustedly.

We went through 50 cells on the first floor and 50 on the second. Some had two inmates but most only had one. Most of the inmates had been shot but about 25 of them had their necks snapped. Yes, most of these Marines were strong enough to do that, but when we saw the video, which overlapped 2/3 of all the cells on each corridor, there was no sign of anyone going into any of the cells!

The video started just as all the prisoners were being locked in their cells and was still running, right up to showing the alarm being raised this morning at the 0600 bed check. Other than a couple of guards routinely patrolling up and down the halls, no one else appeared to have been there, much less entering the cells. The cell doors are alarmed at all times and even routinely opening one, set off an audible alarm. That alarm also sounded in the central security center. The MP on duty reported that NO doors had been opened or closed after lights out at 2200 hours last night.

Rex finally gasped, “WHAT THE FUCK? Are you SURE nobody messed with the video?”

The commandant had been assuring us that the video was untouched, but this was so unbelievable, Rex simply had to ask. “Commandant, no disrespect, but did these guys do ANYTHING yesterday to get your guards mad enough to even THINK about doing something like this?”

An MP Sgt answered, “That’s just it, sir, other than one or two guys who were assholes, most of these guys have been cooperative. I was on duty last night in the command center. ANY movement on any camera would have drawn my undivided attention. I wish we had audio on those cameras, but the only audio we have is in the interrogation rooms. Still, as you see on the video, a guard walks up and down each corridor every 15 minutes and as you can also see, none of them apparently heard a thing!”

“Are there ANY survivors?” I asked hopefully.

The commandant smirked, “Yeah, ONE. Your old friend Capt Locuro. He keeps babbling that he has an important message for you, Agent Cosgrove. THAT’S the main reason I summoned you here. That man is fruitier than a citrus grove. I’m pretty sure his brain got scrambled by whoever or WHATEVER did this to these prisoners. The bastard won’t tell us anything, he just keeps saying he can ONLY tell you. He’s currently in a straightjacket, because, quite frankly, I’m not sure he’s safe to be around otherwise.”

My first thought was whether or not FBI Agent ‘TJ’s’ ‘Jonah’ could have done this. After all, he DID somehow manage to capsize 30 or more very large boats. The thing making me doubt that, was that he could easily have just killed all of these guys THEN, when he had the chance. For whatever reason, it just seemed to me Jonah was on OUR side and TJ trusted him implicitly.

That left me with the scary thought that there might be an ‘EVIL’ version of Jonah out there somewhere. AND, we had made him VERY angry.

The second we saw Locuro, I knew his brain had been scrambled. I’d ‘interrogated’ him three times prior and he was much different now. Previously he’d been stoic and combative in our ‘conversations’. Now, his eyes lit up and he was grinning like he was about to get his dick sucked by a centerfold. The crazy bastard was salivating like a mad dog.

I was glad they had him straightjacketed.

Rex told me not to let him get to me. I took a deep breath while closing my eyes, and tried to get a mental reading of the room. I felt a cold ... no, make that FROZEN chill going down my spine. SOMEBODY was mentally laughing at me!

It was terrifying.

I’d felt something like this when I first met TJ that night on the tanker. THAT feeling, however, was one of friendly discovery. THIS was spiteful and threatening. I glared at Locuro, “SPILL IT ASSHOLE! WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO TO THOSE MEN?”

The cocksucker was giggling like a teenage girl with her boyfriend’s finger in her twat.

He smirked, “Sucks, DON’T IT! I need to tell you, Viktor is watching! He DEMANDS that you bastards lay off Rafael or else. What he did here he could do to ANYONE, ANYWHERE! The next time ANY American boat gets within 50 miles of ANY of Rafael’s ships, he’ll sink it and kill ALL of the crew!”

I couldn’t help myself and grabbed him by the throat. Rex and a guard were frantically trying to restrain me, but I was out of control.

I was also getting a VERY clear mental picture of just WHAT this ‘Viktor’ really looked like!

Then I felt him, “You, my young, impetuous comrade. Your abilities are weak and pathetic. I could KILL you without any effort at all! Why don’t you just admit defeat and join me!? I can show you the amazing power of properly using your gift! Go ahead and use your abilities to choke that pathetic pirate to death! That’s what I’m going to do if you won’t. Then, I’m going to find that OTHER catalyst who sunk all my friend’s boats and kill him too! Now, if you leave my friends alone, I’ll leave YOU alone! NOBODY CAN STOP ME! AHHH HA HA HA HA!”

Then he was gone.

I was shaking and suddenly realized that Locuro’s neck had been broken like a toothpick! AND NOBODY, besides me, had any idea what just happened.

Before the gasps had quieted down, I KNEW what needed to be done.

Rex and I needed to find TJ and at least warn him that this maniac was looking for Jonah.

Back to Charlie:

Ed and a ‘waddling’ Gracie were the first to arrive, just after 7:00. She was due about the same time as Sarah. Gracie had only held CJ a few times and that was shortly after he was born. She was just picking him up when it became apparent he’d ‘discovered’ another ‘Sissy’ was only inches away.

He immediately looked at me in wonder, “Who Daddy?” He was patting Gracie’s tummy and plastered his little head there, mentally babbling like crazy.

Gracie started giggling at his antics, “Does he know I have a baby in here?”

Mary smiled, “Um, Gracie, there’s something we’ve been meaning to tell you guys...”

Ed was still mesmerized, watching CJ patting Gracie’s belly and giggling. He just caught the end of Mary’s statement. “What? You know, I really miss not being able to communicate with you guys. It was so nice before, always being able to talk anytime, anywhere. I’ve felt really isolated these past 7 months. It’s like we hardly know you guys anymore. I know you’ve felt bad about that whole ‘losing your abilities’ thing, but Grace and I seemed like we couldn’t make you understand that we weren’t upset at you. Are you guys still feeling guilty because we all lost our abilities?”

Bob, Greg and I were smirking at each other, wondering how to break the news. Bob started to tell him, then doubled over in pain, holding his gut. Ed gasped, “Bob, are you alright?”

Bob took a deep breath, “Yeah, I will be. Things are just a little complicated right now is all...”

Not wanting to wait for Bill, Sally and Emmy, I pushed a ‘CS’ spell on both Ed and Gracie so we could try to explain some things. Bob’s little ‘reminder’ drove home how much different things were now.

Ed and Gracie just looked bewildered.

I decided to begin enlightening them by picking Ed up and moving him across the living room and back. He was open-mouthed, but grinning, ‘So, you got your powers back! Did little CJ have something to do with that? ... Is HE the new catalyst!?”

Greg chuckled, “Yes! And NO! Do you guys remember when we were at the Jamboree and Charlie and Linda went to Montezuma’s Castle that night?”

Gracie looked at Ed with a furled brow, then they both shook their heads. “No, not really. I remember all of us riding there on our bikes and they seemed intrigued by something, but they never said anything about going back.” Ed explained to us in a subdued voice.

I knew at this point that we should probably wait until the rest of our friends got here. There were so many things we needed to explain that we wouldn’t even scratch the surface before they arrived.

So, I just said, “Well, let’s just say that we’ve got TONS of things we need to bring you up to speed on. To answer your first question, just a little better ... CJ does INDEED have the same Catalyst gift that I had last year. I now have almost the same gift that Sherman had, only it’s WILDLY enhanced! The big difference is ... we now know EXACTLY where we got it and WHO we got it from!”

“YOU DIDN’T GET IT FROM CJ?” Ed gasped.

We were ALL slowly shaking our heads and grinning conspiratorially.

“Well, how did you get it back then?” Gracie asked, furling her brow. “I’m guessing it must have something to do with your trip to the Monument?”

Mary grinned, “Yes, but I need to ask, how much of what happened in Arizona have you told Bill, Sally and Emmy?”

Gracie looked sheepish, “Pretty much everything. I mean, when we got back, they were very concerned about what happened. Sally said that just before they lost their telepathy, she felt something really terrible had happened to Mary and her baby! I told her that something DID happen and then told her how Sherman tried to kill her unborn baby. I didn’t feel like that needed to be kept a secret. Was I wrong?”

“No”, I said, “I’m sorry we were so sullen when we got back. I felt like I let all of you guys down by causing us to lose our abilities.”

Gracie hugged me, “I know, it seemed like nothing we could say helped to make you understand we didn’t care about that. That we still loved you guys just as much as before. Over the winter, it just felt like we started drifting apart.” Her eyes were moist, “We DO love you guys, you know!”