Chapter 13

The contrast between the lush Hawaiian tropical paradise and the harsh dry Arizona desert is not only visually striking, but is a shock to all of the senses. The rich sounds of birds, the odor of plants growing wildly, and the feel of humidity in the air is so different from the silence, the dull smell of sand, and the desiccating dryness. It is a wonder that both places can exist on the same world.

Making the transition from Hawaii to Arizona was softened by the long flight between the two places. The sterile artificial environment of the interior of an airplane lessens how jarring the contrast can be. It gives the mind the chance to get used to the intermediate environment that effectively isolates the two places.

Betsy sat in the rear seat of the limousine that was taking her from the airport to William’s home. She stared out the window, watching the scenery roll past. It seemed to her that each and every plant stood out and was exposed to more intense scrutiny, by its isolation and rarity. She wondered if there was a metaphor for her life, here. Was she the lone cactus growing apart from everyone else in a desert environment, while others were plants living crowded together in a lush jungle? It was kind of a depressing thought.

The limousine turned onto the road that led to William’s home. There were still a few miles to go until it reached the gate that gave access to his property. She would have preferred to get out of the car and run the last bit of the journey, but that wasn’t a good idea. The security around the property was tighter than around most military installations. It was a shame that it was necessary.

The miles rolled past with her mood getting ever darker, and it hadn’t been all that good at the beginning.

Alice’s thoughts were running in a parallel direction with Betsy’s. Although it wasn’t her first experience with being in a desert area, the contrast with Hawaii was still a little overwhelming.

Alice said, “It sure is different than the island, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is,” Betsy said.

“Are you looking forward to seeing your brother?” Alice asked.

“I guess,” Betsy said sounding somewhat ambivalent about the prospect.

She loved her brother and his wife, but at the same time, she was becoming envious of their relationship with each other. They were the perfect couple, living their lives for the express purpose of making the other happy. Their love for each other was obvious in even the smallest things they did together.

William was, in many ways, more unique than Betsy. He saw the future. That was a frightening kind of difference from the rest of humanity. In a strange way, it made him the ruler of the world. He could take actions that would determine the future for everyone. It was a huge responsibility that he took quite seriously.

Most of those who knew of his gift, feared him. Many of those, feared him enough to want him dead. It forced him to live the life of a hermit, surrounded by people he could trust to keep him isolated from those who meant him ill. One could worry that it would make him a hard bitter person, but she knew of no one who cared for all of humanity more than he.

William was probably the only one in the world who truly stood a chance a winning in a martial arts contest with Betsy. It was impossible to overcome someone who could predict the outcome of a fight and take the one action that would assure him of winning. The act that favored winning over losing could be as subtle as drinking a glass of water, two hours before the fight even begins.

“You don’t sound all that excited,” Alice said.

Betsy said, “I guess I’m just a little envious of his relationship with Lucy.”

“They are quite close,” Alice said.

“I’ll never find anyone to love me like she loves him,” Betsy said.

“You never know,” Alice said.

Betsy said, “My whole family knows how to love. I just never thought about how difficult it is to find someone to love.”

“You’ll find someone,” Alice said.

Betsy spotted a warning sign against trespassing hanging on the fence and said, “This is the beginning of his property.”

“There’s a lot of land, here,” Alice said.

“His place is rather large. It’s around forty square miles,” Betsy said knowing that would impress Alice.

The fact was that Betsy wasn’t sure how large her brother’s place was now. William had taken to purchasing every piece of property that came up for sale anywhere near where he lived. Some land he gave to the tribe, to increase the size of the reservation. The rest he kept as a buffer from others.

Alice was suitably impressed.

Betsy leaned forward and said, “Driver. There will be an office building up ahead on the right. Pull into the parking lot there.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Your brother lives in an office building?” Alice asked.

“No. That’s one of his security checkpoints. We’ll pick up an escort that will take us to his place,” Betsy answered.

“We need escort?”

“Yes. He takes security very seriously.”

Alice said, “I’d hate to live like that.”

“One day we might have to take similar security measures,” Betsy said with a sigh.

Alice might have reacted to that statement, but everyone in Betsy’s house was security conscious. She had seen the kinds of things that Gary was doing to secure Betsy’s house. Sam was spending a lot of time in the garage building remote controlled machine guns that could better protect the house from attackers. They had installed metal shutters that could drop down to prevent ingress through the large glass windows of the house.

“That’s a shame,” Alice said.

Betsy said, “That’s life.”

The limousine, creating a small cloud of reddish brown dust, pulled into the parking lot in front of a white modular office building. A man, wearing blue jeans, a blue work-shirt, boots, and cowboy hat, came out of the building to meet them. He went over to the driver’s window and knocked on it. The driver lowered the window about a quarter of the way down.

“Are your passengers here to visit the Carter Spread?”

“Yes.”

“I need to see your driver’s license, as well as some kind of id for everyone in the car,” the man said.

“What for?”

“It’s a security precaution.”

Betsy rolled down her window and said, “Call my brother, and let him know I’m here.”

“Sorry, Ms. Carter. I didn’t know you were coming, today,” the man said.

“Bullshit, Rock. There’s no way he would forget to tell you,” Betsy said smelling something fishy.

“I need the information on the driver and Alice,” Rock answered. Seeing the expression on Betsy’s face, he explained, “He’s an unknown, and we need to add her to the friends list.”

The driver said, “I don’t want to give you my driver’s license.”

Betsy frowned. She looked over at Alice, then at the driver, and finally at Rock. There was something wrong about the situation. The driver was acting reticent about handing over his id and Rock wasn’t being honest with her. In fact, he looked a little nervous as if expecting real trouble.

When the driver leaned forward as if to fiddle with something on the dashboard, she decided that she didn’t trust his actions. She reached forward, put a hand on the back of the his neck, and then squeezed just hard enough to cause a little pain.

“Don’t move,” she warned.

Feeling the slight pressure on his neck, the driver said, “Yes, Ma’am.”

“I’ve got him,” Betsy said to Rock.

Rock tried to open the door of the limousine. The door was locked. He looked over at Betsy, with his eyes flicking towards the door.

“Moving very slowly, I want you to unlock the doors. I can and will break your neck if you move too quickly,” she said.

“Yes, Ma’am,” he replied after she applied a little more pressure to his neck.

There were clicks as the electric door locks slid into the unlocked position. Rock opened the door of the limousine, and put handcuffs on the driver. Once Rock had the man under control, Betsy released her hold on the driver’s neck. Rock roughly pulled the man out of the car and then searched him for a weapon.

“What’s up?” Betsy asked opening her car door to better talk with Rock.

“William said that there was an unpleasant surprise in the trunk of the limousine,” Rock answered.

Alice looked concerned at the news there was a surprise in the trunk. She tried to imagine what it might be, and her thoughts took a rather explosive turn. She bailed out of the limousine and backed away.

“What now?” Betsy asked rubbing her hands excitedly.

“You and Alice will go into the building while I check out what is in the car,” Rock said.

A little disappointed at not being included in the search of the trunk, Betsy got out of the car. She looked down at the driver unsurprised to see that he was glaring at her and Rock. It was when he would glance away that she could see on his face that he knew he was in serious trouble and was looking for a way to get away.

“I think that digging around in the trunk might be very dangerous unless you know what is inside,” Betsy said.

“That’s why I get paid the big bucks around here,” Rock said.

She said, “Before you open the trunk, I’d like to get a little information out of him.”

Rock looked at Betsy, and thought about what she had done to the first of the Russians who had tried to kill her.

He said, “If I remember correctly, you did a ‘Humpty Dumpty’ on the last guy you questioned.”

“It wasn’t that bad. I’m mean, but he was still alive for them to put him back together. One of these days he might even walk again,” Betsy said.

She looked at the driver who wasn’t looking all that happy about being the subject of the conversation. He didn’t look like he was all that willing to talk, either. She decided that it was time for her to turn up the pressure on him.

She reached down, felt his elbow, and then said, “This guy must drink his milk. He has great bones – good and solid. I think they’ll make a great snapping sound when I break them.”

“The last guy was Spetsnaz. This one won’t be nearly as difficult to damage,” Rock said.

“I really thought Spetsnaz were a lot tougher than that. Besides, I don’t see it as damaging them. I see it more like forcing them into retirement,” Betsy said looking at the driver who was staring at her in horror.

“Your mother has told me about that,” Rock said with a smile.

“Did you know that there are basically two ways to break bones?” Betsy asked in a conversational voice.

“There are hundreds of ways to break bones,” Rock argued wondering where she was going with this.

“No. There are basically two ways to do it. You can hit the bone hard and fast to break it, or you can increase the pressure on the bone until it just snaps. The first way, you get a sharp pain. However, if you do it the second way, you build up the pain slowly and then when the bone finally snaps the pain is excruciating,” Betsy said.

Wide-eyed, Alice asked, “How do you know that?”

“I experimented on that Spetsnaz guy,” Betsy said playing a little with the mind of the driver.

“My Lord,” Alice said looking horrified.

Alice wasn’t the only one horrified by the idea. The driver whimpered. However, Rock knew exactly what Betsy was doing.

Rock asked, “What will I find if I open the trunk?”

“An extra suitcase,” the driver answered.

“What’s in the suitcase?” Rock asked.

The driver glanced over at Betsy. The young woman had a slightly feral expression on her face reminiscent of a predator about to pounce upon its prey. She licked her lips. It looked as if she was about lose all sense of civility.

“A GPS triggered bomb. It was set to go off when luggage was brought inside the house,” the driver answered.

“Any booby traps?”

“No.”

Betsy faked a frown and asked, “Does this mean I don’t get to break him?”

“We’ve got a lot of questions to get answered yet,” Rock said with a smile. “I’m sure that he’ll be less co-operative over time.”

“That’s good,” Betsy said.

“I’d really like to see the difference that the two ways of breaking a bone produces during interrogation,” Rock said.

“Are you sure, it’s not booby trapped?” Betsy asked.

“I’m positive,” the driver answered defiantly.

Betsy said, “I don’t believe you. I think that when Rock opens up the suitcase that it will explode.”

“I’m positive,” the driver answered.

Betsy jabbed him with a finger at a nerve bundle in his left arm that was associated with the sensation of touch. Surprised, he screamed out in pain. The sensation was a lot like having struck his funny bone. Even once the immediate sharp pain passed, his whole hand continued to feel like it was burning.

“I think it’s booby trapped,” Betsy said.

“Make it stop hurting,” the driver said.

“No. You’ll tell us the truth or more of your body will be feeling the same way. You’ve got ten seconds to tell me about it,” Betsy said.

“It hurts.”

“It will hurt more. When it stops hurting, I start breaking bones.”

The driver rubbed the hand that was burning. Betsy jabbed another point on his arm. Once again the pain was horrendous. His entire forearm and hand was now tingling and burning.

He protested, “That wasn’t ten seconds.”

“You’re living on ‘Betsy time’, now,” Rock said apologetically.

“It’ll explode if you open it,” he said.

“How about if we move it?” Betsy asked.

“It’s safe to move,” the driver said angrily.

“I don’t believe you,” Betsy said.

“It’s in the back of the car where it can shift around. You don’t want it exploding before you deliver it. The idea was that you’d get there, carry the luggage into the house, and then it would explode once you were inside the house. Even if you never reached the place programmed into it, it would explode when you opened it. It won’t explode just by carrying it.”

Betsy said, “Damn. His answer actually makes sense.”

“It does,” Rock agreed.

“Now stop it from hurting,” the driver said.

Betsy said, “We’ve got a lot more questions to ask of you, my friend. So far, I’ve only damaged sensory nerves. I’ve still got motor control nerves. When I hit one of those you’ll experience paralysis, weakness, and uncontrollable twitching of the associated body parts. Do you want to know the really cool thing?”