Chapter 94

ATLANTA GEORGIA

In the lot of a McDonalds, two tired men sat in a vehicle. The SAC and his assistant were just finishing their breakfast/lunch, since neither had eaten in a while.

"You get anything to eat last night?" Whatley, the SAC asked his second in command.

"Yeah, some uniform brought me a hamburger and a coke about two this morning. Just shoved it in my hands and left."

"About the same for me." There was a long pause. "Shit this is a mess. And the news media..."

Grigsby, the ASAC didn't bother to answer. Then, "What did the director say?"

"About what you would expect from a politician. I got the distinct impression he wants to keep plausible deniability."

"Why? We haven't done anything wrong. Heck, the deep cover agent wasn't even our idea. All this came from Denver and they said it was a chance to get information about the slave trade. They're the ones who sent the guy. We didn't even get to talk to him beforehand, and we've heard damn little from him since. I identified him at the hospital by the picture Denver sent us. Besides all that, what possible fallout could affect the director?"

"Who knows? Of course we're still mostly guessing what actually happened in that motel room, anyway." The SAC wiped his hand down his face as if to wipe the fatigue away. Sighing, he leaned back in his seat. "Let's start again and go over what we know. I'm so damn tired that my mind feels numb."

The ASAC had a cramp in his leg. He slid the seat back as far as he could so that he could stretch out his legs a little, then leaning forward rubbed the calf of his right leg. "Crap, that hurts."

"Still bothers you, huh?"

"Yeah, when I'm on my feet for a long time. I'm glad it was a .22 that bitch was using. If it had been a .45, I would never have walked without a limp."

The men sat silent for a moment. The SAC rubbed his eyes again, sighed, and looked over at his assistant, "All right; talk to me. Let's go over it again. What do we know?"

"Well, nobody in the room had an ID on them. Nobody. We found a vehicle we think three of the guys and Hanes, the undercover guy, came in — we think. It's registered to somebody in Texas, but there was no one in the motel who admitted to being from Texas or that claimed the car. The prints haven't come back on anyone yet; the 'registered' owner doesn't answer his phone, and the cops there said the house appeared deserted. We matched two of the guns to two of the people in the room. But the gun we think was Hanes' doesn't have a print on it, nor does it have a single print on the magazine or any of the ammunition.

"They're still running ballistics on all those bullets. Some that went through a body, or missed, hit those cinder block walls the motel is built out of, and destroyed any chance of getting any riflings off the slugs. We know that two of those men were killed by bullets from one of the 9 mm pistols on the floor, though. As you know, about the only place on the outside of a Glock that will take prints is the slide. The rest of the surface is pebbled for a good grip, making a surface that's far too rough to show a print. Most of the time, putting the weapon in a holster or stuffing it down inside your pants, smears or wipes off any prints that might be on the slide. Frequently, there will be prints on the ammunition, but whoever loaded the weapon apparently wanted his ammo to be clean of any gun oil, or maybe prints. Anyway, the ammo was clean of everything — including prints. That weapon was far cleaner than the others in the room. Registration doesn't seem to exist for it, but we think that Hanes might have been given it to use. Think. As far as that's concerned, none of the weapons are registered.

"Two of the other weapons were not as clean, and there were prints on the ammo that was in the magazines, so we were able to match those weapons to two of the dead men. Both of them were shot with the clean weapon I just talked about. Like I said, we think that weapon belonged to Hanes. One of his last messages said they were apparently trusting him more and had given him a weapon. One weapon was silenced, and we think it was fired by the guy who looks foreign. That leaves the guy whose brains are all over the wall. The remaining gun was near his body, but hell, they were all almost in a pile, except one guy who was maybe five feet away. The only other one living is the girl, and she's practically comatose. She just sits and stares. Until Hanes tells us what happened, we're just guessing.

"Paramedics can't tell us anything, and incidentally, they're in trouble themselves. Seems like one of their captains was sitting at an intersection when they blew through it. The cops had blocked the intersection, but the captain swears they were running close to a hundred miles an hour. I think that's bullshit, but the paramedic driving told me he wasn't looking at his speedometer and was running as fast as the rig would go."

The SAC spoke up. "I talked to the surgeon. He said that another two minutes and he would not have had a live person to operate on. Those paramedics saved Hanes' life — well, if he lives."

The ASAC shrugged. "Yeah, and they're going to get days off without pay — at the very least, from what I hear. They saved our guy, but violated some rules to do it. From what I hear, they have a bit of a reputation for getting the job done and sometimes not paying a lot of attention to the rules while they're doing it."

"Fuck. Maybe I can nip it in the bud. I'll get our PR person to mention them — make them out to be heroes. Maybe that will help. Get their names for me and I'll have Olivia write them a letter of commendation from me and send it to their chief, as well. At least if they go down, they will have something to brag about."

"Better do it soon. I suspect that captain isn't going to wait long." The ASAC thumbed through his notes, then copied the paramedics' names down and handed the sheet to his boss. "What did that doc you talked to say about Hanes?"

"I still couldn't pin him down and get him to say whether Hanes will live or not. I only got that one glance at Hanes after they brought him back from surgery. He has tubes down his throat from the ventilator that's breathing for him. He has an array of IVs, and there are tubes coming out his side and back — hell, everywhere, it seemed to me. It doesn't look good for him — not good at all."

THE RETREAT

Jeff, Diana and Helen were in one of the smaller conference rooms. Jeff sat at the end of the table. He was leaning back in his chair with his legs across the right corner of the conference table. Helen and Diana had a soft drink in front of them as they sat at the table together and to Jeff's left. Both women looked concerned.

"This would be a big step for us," Jeff quietly said. "Having a child, not our own, in our home all the time might very well have some negative effects that none of us anticipate."

Helen frowned. "I told Selina that some, or all of us, might not be overjoyed to have to restrict our total sexual behavior to our bedroom. Your younger wives seem to enjoy initiating sex with you in the living room and various other places."

"You talked about sex to a six-year-old?" Jeff said, a slight frown on his face.

Helen smiled at her husband. "Love, you need to stop thinking that way. She is not your average six-year-old."

Diana continued with, "It might not just be your younger wives who would be restricted with sexual activities. I obviously like to be nursed. We have even had some ... limited sex in the living room while Dave and Evie were doing the same thing. I know none of us would ever consider swapping partners, but it was fun making love with another couple not far away doing the same thing, even though that was not our original intention."

"Well, you can bet that Arlene, Ann, Jennie and Melissa will not be pleased when they can't have total sexual spontaneity," Helen agreed. "And I would hate to think that I couldn't sit in my husband's lap and have him nurse my breasts as well — anywhere in the retreat, but ... Selina is an intriguing little girl. We have very long lives ahead of us, according to Little One. Time passes swiftly. Selina will be a grown woman one of these days and we might very well look back and wish that we had nurtured her here with us."

"We might just be 'nurturing' Jeff another wife," Diana said, and although Helen and Jeff chuckled a little, Diana didn't. The laughter came to a sudden halt when Diana didn't join in.

"Di, you can't be serious..."

"Well, she fits the first criterion — intelligence," Diana said very quietly.

Helen, remembering her earlier conversation with Selina, suddenly had a smug look on her face.

"We all need to talk to her," Jeff said, a little louder than he meant to. "Most of my wives haven't even been formally introduced to her, yet. Why don't we call a family meeting? Then after we discuss the issues, we can bring Selina in and talk with her."

"We can't just bring her into our meeting like that," the Queen said. "She's a child. It would seem like we were grilling her for a job interview or something. It would scare her to death."

Helen grinned at her Queen. "I think you underestimate Selina. She has probably already figured out what we will do and what we will ask her. And ... if we're not careful, she could quite well interview us for our positions as surrogate parents while we think we're interviewing her."

"So you think she's true genius level?" Jeff asked. "Smarter than Arlene and Ann, maybe?"

Helen hesitated, carefully phrasing her response, "It's too soon to tell with any precision. I haven't had a chance to test her in-depth, if she will even let me. Her parents know she is smart, but they apparently have no real idea just how smart she is. Oh, she would certainly take my tests, but the question is: would she do her best? For some reason, she doesn't want to be called a genius, or have her parents or siblings think she is that smart."

"Do you think she is really that smart?" Jeff asked Helen.

Helen put her drink back on its coaster, then looked up at her Prime. "I picked a history textbook at random, turned to chapter ten, handed the book to her and told her to read the chapter and prepare for a quiz. I started out of the room to go to the bathroom, and she handed the text back to me. Elapsed time, maybe forty-five seconds."

"Oh, shit," Jeff whispered.

"Yes," Helen agreed. "I took the book and asked her nine questions from the chapter. She answered practically before I got the questions out of my mouth. Then for the tenth question, I asked her to sum up the chapter for me, and she did a superb job."

"You can do things like that, Helen. I've seen you."

"Yes, I can," Helen sighed, "but it still seems scary when I see someone else do it. I would bet she's on a par with me — maybe even more than a par."

"Then we can't let her go," Jeff said as he looked at his two wives. It's not just education. Think what she could be with Little One to help her along. We all know that our minds are sharper now than they were a few months ago. Think what that could mean if we had started with Little One at the age of six. Think what it could mean to Selina."

They sat silently for a while. Jeff got up to get a drink out of the refrigerator, then walked back toward the door. "Let's get it done," he simply said as they got up to follow him.

The whole family, including the new girls and Kayla, were seated at the big table in the kitchen. The meeting had been going on for thirty minutes — the longest family meeting by twenty minutes they had ever had. "So how long do we have before we have to make up our minds?" Joyce asked.

"Her parents left here saying they were going skiing for a couple days," Diana said.

"Unless they really like the skiing at Winter Park or ... they find someone to 'play' with, as Selina puts it," Helen added.