Chapter 9

RING! "OK, kids, that must be the real estate agent. Jase, please get the door while I get my purse."

"Hello, I'm Rose Masters. I'm here to show you the house I found. Is your mother home?"

"Yes, she is. I'm Jase. Please come in."

"Thank you, I'll just wait for you in the SUV. Please come on out when you guys are ready to look at the house."

"OK. Oh, here comes Mom, now, and she's dragging Ann and Jeff. We're right behind you."

"Hello, Rose. Come on, kids. Rose, should we go in your car or ours?"

"Hi, Judy. Let's go in the SUV, there's more room.

They climbed into the SUV, and Rose drove for about 20 minutes to a much more "up-scale" neighborhood. "Here it is. This house had 6 bedrooms, each one with its own attached bathroom. There's the usual living room, dining room, family room, and kitchen. As a special treat, it has an indoor swimming pool in a half-olympic size. It's available completely furnished and ready to go. Let's go inside."

They went in and took a complete tour. There was one bedroom on the ground floor and the rest were upstairs. There was an attic and a basement. Judy and Rose went to one side and discussed the house for a few minutes. "OK, kids, is there anything else you want to look at before we go home?... OK, let's go." Rose drove them home. As they were getting out, Rose said, "Judy, call me anytime, once you have made up your mind."

Once they were back in the house, the first thing everybody did was strip off their clothes. Jeff said, "Man, I sure hate to wear clothes!"

They sat in the living room and discussed the house. They all agreed that the house had everything they wanted; Jeff particularly liked the swimming pool. Judy said, "Rose said that the house has been on the market for nearly 2 years, and the owner is really disgusted. He's ready to dump it, so we can have the whole thing for $800,000. That's ridiculously cheap for a house like this, but the market is really dead right now, so we are in luck. We are able to pay cash, so there won't be any financing hassle. What do you think? Jeff, you first."

"I like this house better than any others we looked at. I say lets take it."

"I agree with Jeff."

"Judy, the house looks good to me. I say let's take it. What do you think?"

"Well, kids, I don't think that we could do as well for anywhere near the money, so I'm all for it. Rose showed me a report from a firm that does house inspections, and they said that the house is in first-class shape, so we are safe, there. I'll call Rose right now and tell her we'll take it."

A week later, they were ready to close on their new house, and Rose had a tentative offer for their old house. They could start moving in within two more days.

They had been in their new house for two days when Seven showed up with the announcement that the fuddy-duddies in GPD (Galactic Police Department) intelligence had finally finished their analysis of the data from the Russians and were ready to release the information for direct action. She wanted Jase and Judy to come to headquarters for a mind-transfer of the report.

They jumped to a room that looked like any other classroom they had used. Judy and Jase sat down and donned the metal hats. Fifteen minutes later, they knew as much about the Russian mafia as the members knew. Seven jumped them back home and they went into the family room to discuss a plan of action.

Judy said, "It looks to me like we have two courses of action. We can eliminate the big bosses and let the rest of the organization continue on, or we can take down everybody. The real question is, which is better for the long term good of Russia and the world. Seven, what do your computers say?"

Seven blurred for a moment and said, "The computer analysis says that there is no real difference. Either action has the same ultimate result. If you killed every decision maker, it wouldn't take long for somebody new to move in and take over. The computer recommends that you take out only those who were responsible for thinking up this biological warfare scheme and let the rest live. That way, if something comes up in the reasonably near future with the Russian mafia, we already know where to look and who to look for."

Jase said, "That's fine with me. What's the best time to hit them?"

"There's a big meeting of all the people we want to eliminate, plus a couple of extras, scheduled for 6 days from now. If we rush, we can have a bomb ready for you to blow them up all at once and save a lot of running around. Is that acceptable?"

Jase and Judy nodded.

Seven continued, "We don't like to do it, but Russia has a very effective system for detecting explosives carried on their public transportation, so it looks like we will have to take a chance and transport you in and out through our space/time transportation device.

"The big meeting is to be held at a dacha several miles from Moscow. We'd like to move you in the day before and give you 24 hours to plant the bomb. The dacha is guarded day and night, whether or not any big bosses are there, so you will have to be careful. You don't want to have to attack any of the security guards, because that would attract the attention we don't want."

Jase asked, "Do we already have the instructions on fusing the bomb?"

"Yes, it will be one of our standard designs using a C4 type of explosive. It's not the most effective we have, but it will look to the later investigators like a domestic product. It certainly will have enough power to do the job. Since it is a standard item, you received the necessary memory as you got your general weapons training when you first joined GPD."

Five days later, Jase and Judy were transported to the dacha they were going to destroy. It was the middle of the night, so they hoped that the guards would be less alert. They were wearing their invisibility armor, so it really didn't make any significant difference, but Jase and Judy did feel better.

The Russians were sure that they had the house fully secured, because they had laser beam sensors all over the place. These were no good in detecting the invisibility armor, since the laser beams were routed through the armor just like any other electromagnetic radiation. The laser wouldn't detect the difference if Judy held her hand over the lens of the emitter or the detector.

The only chance of detection was if somebody heard a squeaky floor board when it was stepped on. The bomb was housed in its own invisibility armor, so it wouldn't be found, even it the guards knew what to look for. Bomb-sniffing dogs might find it, but Jase planned to hang the bomb from the ceiling where no one would believe a bomb would be, even if a dog did detect it.

The tricky part of the caper was finding a place to hang the bomb. Jase selected to hang the bomb from a ceiling light fixture. There was no problem of a shadow, since the light would pass right through the bomb package. He set the timer for 90 minutes into the scheduled meeting time. The meeting was supposed to last for 3 hours, and a meal was to be served in the same room immediately following the meeting, so it was not likely that someone would leave early, except to take a potty break. If anyone did, he wasn't likely to survive the explosion, anyway. The bomb was big enough to totally destroy a 50-yard radius.

They set the bomb in place and left the house. Once they were far enough away from the house, Seven had them transported back to their home. Now, all they could do was wait. They drank some water and showered before spending the waiting time swimming in their pool. Skinny dipping was fun, but not quite as titillating as it might have been had it not been so private.

There was a little sexual play after Ann joined them in the pool, but it never went any further than a little grab-ass. Jase and Judy were too keyed up, waiting for a report from Seven on the success of their efforts. They were getting pretty anxious, but the report finally came in: complete success. The entire top echelon of the Russian mafia was eliminated in one big explosion. They would be a while recovering from that!

Jase and Judy celebrated with a sex session in the new master bedroom. The recliner had been modified to be waterproof, so that was what they used. They also put down a thick towel before Jase sat down in the chair. The session was, literally, a rousing success. Jeff, whose room was all the way down the hall, asked that Judy either not yell so loud or else they spend the money necessary to soundproof the room. Judy was embarrassed, but promised to call a contractor the next day about soundproofing the room.

The next evening, after Judy had called a contractor, Jase and Judy resumed their search for the big bosses in the drug trade. They were back to "square one" in their search, so they were reduced to following pushers, hoping that they would provide a link to the next higher echelon.