Chapter 8: Rendezvous

“Let’s have this first meeting aboard “CONQUISTADOR” to impress these lowlife bosses. Invite everyone who is Once we know all the players and all the parts played, we can engineer a mass attack. Eradicate all the vermin at once.”

“Is it wise to advertise our location and base?”

“We’ll use the old black sack blindfold trick with a new twist. Load them in a van, and teleport them aboard while they’re unaware of their location. They’ll think we are close by because of the short travel time. We’ll bring them inside before removing the sacks and never let them glimpse the exterior of the ship. Nothing with the boat name should be in the room or visible anywhere.”

“That sounds workable. How do we convince them to disarm and allow themselves to be blindfolded?”

“Capture them at gunpoint, what else. Forcibly search them and disarm them. Bind their wrists and sack their heads.”

“Can we do it without a gunfight?”

“Of course. We will use the element of surprise.”

“Correct on both counts.”

Doc didn’t order the abduction of the rats at gunpoint after all. Speaking of surprise, a rash of assassinations erupted among the chief villains which were not our group’s doing or by their instigation. These unexpected eliminations did serve to finally break the ice and Warren received requests that Doc meets with the leaders of the various cartels. Do they suspect Doc of being behind the assassinations? No, we have assured Doc’s group are not suspects. The criminals want to enlist Doc Skeet’s aid in stopping the assassins. Do they have a candidate for who might be behind the murders? The only thing the competitive cartel bosses ever agreed on, is it must be the man in the moon behind it. Doc knows and could tell them they’re wrong because Doc leads the man in the moon’s secret expeditionary police force, but that information is top secret and must not be divulged. Why would they think the man in the moon is behind it? An arrow is produced and passed to Doc to examine.

“This is an assassin’s arrow? Were all the assassination targets killed by arrows like this? Seems too low tech for the man in the moon.”

“That is a very high-tech arrow. Twist the ends. It unscrews.”

“Two-part screw together backpack arrows have been commercially available for fifty years at least.”

“Try it. This arrow doesn’t screw apart. It screws in or out getting longer or shorter. The pitch of the blades on the broadhead is servo variable. This arrow is remotely steerable, like a guided missile.”

“You are suggesting this arrow can shorten itself in flight?”

“It has that option, also lengthening itself in flight. Our physicists suggest it can adjust its range by adjusting its length and the amount of air resistance incurred. Also, it can speed up or slow down its rate of spin, adjusting windage by manipulating the Magnus effect.”