Chapter 13

They never did find out what the prisoner had done to warrant such a diverse group as picked her up. They did find that several C-37A's (Gulfstream V) and C-37B's (Gulfstream G550) had flown in to Pounds, refueled, unloaded a single passenger to a blacked out Suburban with government plates and flew out for several days before, during, and after their flight.

The reimbursement for the use of E'veen's private Lear didn't come for months. Strange doings for a 'transparent' government.

Even though Bill hated flying it, the Lear came in handy over the next months and even years.

That was for the future ... for the now, the Junior Deputy United States Marshals made presentations at schools and played with the kids. Eleven million seven hundred fifty thousand dollars was deposited annually to Bill's accounts.

Andie refused any more payments, graduated and disappeared into the morass of Equatorial Africa. There may be more about her later ... and maybe not.

E'veen practiced the sideways in time ability of the watch. Bill didn't know ... the pocket watch was gone. As far as he was concerned that was the end of it. Regardless, life moves apace.

People move into the space provided by people moving out. Friends come and go. Bill understood ... E'veen didn't so they spent a few weekends a year flying to places like Boston and Sacramento to visit what Bill called acquaintances and E'veen called friends. Mostly it was life's rut ... they chased and caught evil ... it was their job.

Of a Saturday, well after the middle of the night, Bill got a call, "Sutherland. This had better be important."

"Hi, John ... you're up at 3am?"

"Ranch?"

"E'veen's ranch?"

"What's up?"

"You know and can't say?"

"Yes Sir." Bill hesitated, "your nickel or ours?"

"The Lear is in teardown."

"We do have another plane, though."

"Oooh kaay. On the way."

"The Sutherlands are on vacation?"

"Alice has the paper work filed?"

"Goodbye, John."

Weirder and weirder ... Oh well. The Pioneer has a maximum range of 400 miles at 120 mph. San Angelo is in range but there's not a ton of slack. 'This is looking more and more like trouble, ' thought Bill. 'Keeping it quiet too. Sounds like fun I don't want."

"E'veen?"

"Huh?"

"Get up ... duty calls."

"Snarggle snork sniggle ... wassit ... Noooo. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz."

"C'mon Evie, we have an unofficial job to do. No, No, No ... don't go back to sleep. EVIE! NO! Get up."

Eventually, Bill got her standing, waddled her towards the bathroom, turned on the cold water in the shower and stuck her in it.

Naturally, she woke up ... and attacked her tormentor. "Kill Bill!" she exclaimed.

He picked her up and held her while she beat him heavily about the head and shoulders. He adjusted the water from instant death to survivability and began washing her.

Finally she said, "wash me daddy," in a little girl voice, "it's my favorite game, daddy."

He let her go.

"Oh, daddy. No. Don't stop ... and don't you dare turn off the hot, Bill." She looked at her watch, "Bill? Why am I awake at a quarter after three?"

"We're on the job." Bill looked a little put out about it.

"On the job?"

"Yeah ... I don't know if I like it or not."

"Or not?"

"We have to go the the ranch."

"Ranch?" The light dawned, "Johnson's?"

"Yeah, John called ... officially we're on vacation."

"You said 'on the job', not on vacation."

"They want us to use our own plane and get over there as soon as possible. We're going to have to use the Pioneer."

"Oh, cool, as soon as possible in the Pioneer is noonish ... does John know that?"

"Nope ... I figure it's three hours to San Angelo. An hour fueling and food and another three to Johnson's ... without invading Mexico. If the fuel is gone from the hangars we'll never get back.

"We need to unload three of the four passenger seats and carry a half a ton of extra fuel in drums. That'll give us the fuel we need to get back to San Angelo. If we do that, we won't get out of town before noon. It's hard to believe that plane carries 365 gallons in the wing tanks and it won't make it around the block."

"A Dodge 426 Hemi gets better milage," commented E'veen. "I miss the Lysander."

"Me too," Bill agreed, "with the Lysander we could pretend we were sneaking resistance fighters out of France."

"Ya know, Bill, or maybe you don't ... I have a better watch."

"You do?" questioned Bill, "How much better?"

"Sideways in time, Bill. With it we can slide sideways in time and on reset we'll have been gone a second. There's something better with this one too."

"What's that?"

"This watch won't kill you."