Chapter 72: To Boldly Go

I’LL TRY NOT TO BE too graphic about the raids that released ten thousand women and children (plus a few men) and ended the lives of some three hundred traffickers, including an Air Force General and a dozen airmen, a US District Judge, a high-profile evangelist, a South American general, an Arab prince, a high-ranking airline executive, and two other billionaires.

We dropped our teams at each of the eleven locations and they confirmed readiness. We intentionally did not tell them what order we would attack the installations. In fact, Lacy and I decided the order as we carried out the purges. The actual attacks took the least amount of time. Communications and video were shut down at all locations at once. As soon as they went dark, we struck the military installation where a dozen freight containers were being loaded for transport on a C-5 cargo plane. Each container had fifty people in it. There were another two hundred containers still in the warehouse. We made it just in time, but it was a bloody battle and we had to evacuate the slaves at the same time we were taking down the guards. Any guard or airman who seemed not to know what was being transported, Sally cast a sleep spell on. In one instance, that put all fifty of the people in the container he was moving with a lift to sleep as well. The guards inside the warehouse who knew they were guarding human traffic were dispatched, along with the General who was directing the operation. The airplane pilot and crew were put to sleep.

Compartmentalization in the ranks meant that the vast majority of those involved had no idea they were moving human traffic. But the ones in the inner circle were not only aware, they were profiting. I was glad that the same compartmentalization let us reduce the number of casualties.

Those bodies, however, were nailed to the side of the aircraft. We moved on with the entire operation taking about half an hour.

We struck the opposite coast ten minutes later. This operation was larger, as the shipment was going by sea to South America. Some forty casualties were nailed to the walls and 1,100 women and children were transported temporarily to Areola for processing. As expected, we were finding it took longer to transport the victims than it did to clear the traffickers.

And so it went, down to the last target hidden near where our raid on the Border Patrol had taken place years before. And this one had to deal with Texans. The guards were better armed than at any of the other installations and were on alert since their communications had been down for ten hours. They didn’t wait to see a target, but when they heard a noise or sensed a presence, they shot. A priestess next to me was hit and I returned the shot with my own Apollo-blessed weapon. I knew I hit the scum and didn’t wait to see where. Any wound with one of these bullets was fatal. I opened a gateway and carried my priestess through, where Josie, Pari, and Penelope took charge of her and pushed me back through the gateway.

I went a little wild. My gun blazed at every guard I saw, cutting down a swath of them. And when I broke into an office and found a generalissimo gathering up the money in a suitcase from a man he had just shot, I killed him and Lacy nailed his body onto the suitcase and floor where he fell.

As soon as we had the 700 slaves transported to Areola, I shepherded my team through and closed the gateway. Then I rushed to my wounded priestess, shedding my clothes, and transforming to my full demon form.

She was lying next to the pool where Marie, our doctor crew member from the first season had rushed to her. She worked feverishly, removing the bullet and attempting to stanch the bleeding, but it was to no avail. When my priestess saw me, she weakly raised a hand toward me and smiled. I grasped her hand and the light within her brightened. I thought all the healing magic I had ever read to her but nothing seemed to work. The light faded and died as she did.

I took her up in my arms and waded into the pool with her, bathing her body in the warm water that was stained with her blood. I cried and wailed, cursing myself for having let her come to harm. The other priestesses stripped off their black robes and joined me in the pool, surrounding us, their light nearly blinding those who stood around the edge of the pool.

I wailed my grief.

“This is a precious priestess of The Bob!” I called out. “She has known kidnapping, rape, abuse of all kinds, and yet she came to me and was cleansed. She was baptized in the pool and her inner light glowed with love. And when she knew of others who suffered as she had, she donned the garb of a warrior and bravely went to rescue them, whether at sea, in the air, or in any other place the criminals were to be found. And one of those criminals shot her before I killed him. She gave her life for the salvation of 10,000 others. For that and for all her devotion to The Bob and the cause of freedom for the enslaved, for having loved me and had faith in me, I love her! I will love her to the end of time. Beloved priestess and lover of The Bob, I release you to the primordial mass from which all life arose until that time when I too may join you there.”

As I spoke, her body dissolved into dust and smoke and was carried away on a breeze.

The operation took longer than one night. We sent photographs and documentation from Lacy to FBI headquarters. She signed them all “Special Agent Under Cover Lacy White.” She included photos of her badge and her face so it could be matched with records. So far, no one was questioning whether Bob had anything to do with the mop up overnight. It looked like Lacy had raised a small army and coordinated attacks all over the country.

Then the women and children started showing up at various law enforcement offices and social services centers. They each carried a photograph and evidence of where they had been held. And that’s when the story of their remarkable escape began to get bigger. They talked about a glowing light that entered their prisons, destroying the evil men who held them. They spoke of being transported to a holding area where they received medical attention and food and were given a choice of what they wanted to do next. Some bore letters from others that stated they had chosen to stay in hiding and not return to the lives they had before. Some wrote accusations against other people who betrayed them or even sold them to the slavers. An ever-widening dragnet developed as people were brought in for questioning and many charged, awaiting trial.

Of the women who chose to ‘stay in hiding,’ close to two hundred chose to accept Aphrodite’s offer, including half a dozen of her priestesses from Troy. The other priestesses of Aphrodite promised to keep her love alive in Areola. And there were some who simply wanted refuge and chose to stay in Areola. If they were able to adapt to life in our world, we accepted them. Some we turned away because their underlying attitude and personality simply would not mesh with our society. And some were so damaged from their treatment and trauma that we had no choice but to release them into institutional care in various places around the country.

Of course, the government wanted to know where the vast number of undocumented women and children came from. The INS and ICE both came under investigation. I sympathized with them. They were pawns of government policy and generally operated effectively within the crippling limitations placed on them. There were, of course, a few who used their positions to feed the traffic themselves. The investigation pulled several dozen from their jobs and offices.

And with the mention of being transported to a holding area, someone made the connection to The Bob. Hadn’t he shown a portal in use to his secret palace? Hadn’t they wasted thousands of man-hours on trying to capture and investigate that portal?

I avoided contact as much as possible by simply staying in Areola. Doug and a few of his assistants made regular trips to the mansion, from which he handled the mail, email, text, and phone messages. Our non-Areola staff in LA and Houston kept things running and we began releasing the episodes of season two when we got news that the ship was finally ready to launch.

I received an ambassadorial invitation from Washington, DC. They decided to take a different approach than previously and invited me as a representative of ‘your country’ to have a private conversation with the President of the United States.

I debated long and hard about this and eventually decided to take him up on his offer.

I did not arrive in a limo.

I only partly trusted the offer to parlay with the President. There were still too many people who were as interested in seeing me captured as they were in seeing me sign a trade agreement. Lacy White had been put on the FBI’s most wanted list. As soon as they figured out that I assisted her, I was sure I would join her in that august recognition.

At the appointed time, I stepped through a gateway onto the presidential seal in the oval office and waved at the doors to seal them. No one but the president was in the office and to say she was startled would be an understatement.

“Madam President,” I said. “Greetings from Areola. I’m not here to do any harm, but hope we can have a civil discussion of things that affect both our worlds. I am Bob.”

She took a deep breath and took her hand off the button that would have called secret service in from all over the building. They couldn’t have gotten in, but it would have made an awful racket and I’d have left before they started tearing down the walls. She stood.

“On behalf of the United States of America, I welcome you to the President’s office, Bob. Do you mind if we record this meeting so I can review it with my advisors?”

“A wise decision. Please allow me to assist.” I removed the look-away spell from Avril and she appeared nearby with her camera running.