Chapter 452: Hunted Hunters

How did she learn about GPS coordinates? Wait, what is she using to get GPS coordinates accurate down to two feet or less? She didn’t even have anywhere to put a radio.

I didn’t get an answer to that question, but Ellen regularly called out on the radio the GPS location and elevations where she found one of the people who tried to escape when they found that the attempt to kill me fucked up.

“Suspect located, but unable to approach due to canine unit refusing to stand down,” someone said into their radio.

Even from as far away as Ellen was from me right now, I heard her whistle right on the high edge of what some humans can hear.

The same person said over the radio, “Canine unit ensured we secured the suspect before departing.”

All the pilots looked at me, and the female pilot asked, “Did that little girl just whistle to call that dog off?”

“Probably. I have no idea what Ellen is capable of doing,” I told them.

We headed into the hangar, where my Apache was sitting, ready to do live-fire exercises.

We had water and found seats when we heard, “Command? Can you please send MP units to the MWR pavilion near the southwest corner? A naked little blonde girl has two bucks by the horns with what appear to be two men and three women tied on their backs, and what looks like it might be a Lynx sitting up on the roof of the pavilion cleaning itself. I see what looks like military canine units, but they seem to maintain a perimeter between them and the little girl.”

“Ellen,” I said over the radio. “You have to talk to April about getting a cat, and it won’t be a puma, bobcat, panther, or lynx anyway. No big cats. Send your furry friend back into the woods before one of the military people with rifles shoots it. It isn’t hunting season, so the deer are safe now.”

“I will take a houseful of angry teenagers any day. I’m likely to go insane between Ellen and April,” I joked.

What now?

The pilots slowly started backing away from me, but I couldn’t see why. I knew it wasn’t because someone was trying to shoot me.

I must keep my feelers out. I almost didn’t notice in time.

I only had a fraction of a second to respond. I moved out of the way and grabbed the lynx by the scruff of the neck. It didn’t have claws out when it jumped at my back, so I knew it was here because Ellen somehow told it to come here. It made what sounded a bit like a baby crying and then possibly a meow. I put it down, and it started rubbing against me like a house cat wanting attention. I reached down to scratch it behind the ears. Damn, if the cat didn’t start purring happily.

When I sat back down, the big cat jumped into my lap and happily purred as I pet it. The pilots approached cautiously and pulled their chairs back away from me.

“I think this is Ellen’s way of saying she wants a cat,” I joked. “Like there is any chance of this big boy ever using a litter box. I sure will not clean it if she does manage to teach it to use one.”

“You are fucking shitting me,” one of the pilots said. “Who the hell are you? I mean, shit, first, you dead-stick landed an Apache without ever having flown one. In the hangar, you have a new Apache with your name and a bobcat in your lap like a house cat. Your daughter tracked down all those in the plot to kill you. She was nude. Those dogs don’t even tolerate being in the same kennel together for a few minutes. They were following her around like puppies do their mother.”

I let the others ask similar questions and answered, “I don’t even know who I am anymore. I used to be a kid so fucked up in the head that I believed I was invisible because I started ignoring everyone but my parents. I had an accident that put me in a coma for months, and when I woke up, people I didn’t even know where my friends told me that I wasn’t ever going back to being that person again. A friend got into a car wreck that killed her and smashed her brain like an egg under your foot. These people from a private research hospital came in that somehow managed to stick things in her heart to make it beat and tubes that put air in her lungs to keep her oxygenated blood moving through what remained of her body. She is one of my best friends. I wasn’t leaving until they were somehow able to put her back together so that she could walk out on her own, or they put her in a body bag. During that time, I helped the hospital test out exoskeleton prototypes. They were all set up to be resistive, so as I worked to get faster at martial arts, they would keep increasing the resistance. I’m pretty sure that somehow the way they were teaching me, with a VR headset and headphones, they gave me muscle memory for all known aircraft. I might have been in a simulator to do hundreds of hours there. When I looked at the Apache I flew, I knew it didn’t have the proper required maintenance. When I started to hear and feel known indicators of problems, I started getting myself safely to a location where crashing wouldn’t kill anyone other than me. The flight line cleared so I could try to land it after the engine blew. I was lucky that the tail rotor didn’t come off in flight, or I wouldn’t have had a chance. When I flew an F-18 to a carrier, I hit the deck perfectly and caught the first arrester cable. I don’t know why these people wanted to kill me, or maybe it wasn’t me that they wanted to kill, and I was just a target of opportunity.”

The bobcat jumped off my lap and started to hiss and growl.

When I turned around, I saw two people with tranquilizer guns. I knocked one rifle away with my water bottle. Throwing my chair across the hanger distracted the other long enough for the bobcat to find a spot to escape.

“Seriously? It appears they don’t recruit for brains,” I told the two men. “I have a twenty-seven-pound male bobcat in my lap purring away like a housecat, and you come in with tranquilizer guns? He would have torn you two to shreds before you could get a shot off. You better hope that Ellen doesn’t find out that you tried to tranq her cat.”

A general from the tracking course came in, followed by the special forces tracking troops, the other officers, and the inept sergeant who taught tracking, who can’t track. The general was about to say something, but Ellen slipped in, got a bottle of water, told me to sit down, and came to sit in my lap. I saw the bobcat trying to find a way to get around to us. When a door slammed behind us, the bobcat knocked Ellen from my lap and proceeded to start cleaning her. I found this one was female, not the male from before.

The general, who had special forces emblems on his uniform, was unphased when he said, “Looks like one eleven-year-old that isn’t getting away with not taking a bath today.”

“Ladies and gentlemen. I would say you should be embarrassed about not being able to track a little naked girl. I thought it was a big joke when my boss said that Mr. Jones was bringing a little girl with him to show that our tracking abilities were complete shit. I know when to admit I was wrong, and when I saw the search dogs trying to get loose to lick her face, I found I had made a big mistake. You couldn’t see from your locations, but the cameras on the course showed this was no little girl that happened to know how to evade capture. She stalked you as you tried to find any trace of her,” he explained. “Check your pockets. Do any of you have any rations on you? What about your combat knives? Oh, hell, your magazines are empty, including those in your sidearms.”

One of the other generals laughed as the special force’s trackers realized the other generals were correct.

“When I saw this little girl, I knew that someone sent in a wringer to punch this point through,” a female general told them, “Look, you are inept, but that is your chain of command’s fault for allowing your instructor to perpetuate the farce of doing more than reading from an old manual. You see, I can claim to be one-hundred-percent American. Through kidnappings, rapes, cross-tribe marriages, and similar practices, I’m a mixture of Cherokee, Sioux, Apache, and Shoshone Indian tribes. This little girl is a hunter trained in techniques man Native Americans have lost over many generations.”

“And I embarrassed your nephew by finishing off a mountain lion, skinning it, and sewing him into it,” Ellen told the general before the bobcat pushed Ellen onto her side to resume Ellen’s bath.

“Ellen, dear, you did the opposite. You raised his status in the tribe dramatically. Women in the tribes traditionally prepared the hides to make clothes for the men and children. Having a young girl prepare a young male a lion suit from a real mountain lion is not something anyone would undertake, not even for a chief. The danger is too great. You did it effortlessly in under an hour,” the general said.

A group of MPs came rushing in, followed by the base commander.

“What in the holy fucking hell is going on here on my base?” he yelled. “Why is a naked little girl laying there as a mangy dog licks her?”

“We need to have your eyes checked, sir. A mangy dog is not licking that little girl. A female bobcat is bathing her. She also tracked and detained those not shot by her father after a group tried to kill him. Given that David and his daughter’s arrival got classified as top secret, with only a few who had the need to know, I believe he became a target of opportunity. I guess the intended targets were myself and those visiting with me to evaluate your worthless tracking program. This eleven-year-old girl put your supposed best of the best in shame. Not only did they fail to track her, but this small girl stripped them of the ammo, rations, knives, and anything by which they could attack her. She did this all while naked.”

The dick head has a first name, G-e-n-e-r-a-l. This dickhead has a second name. It’s A-s-s-h-o-l-e. If you ask me why I’ll say. This asshole has a way of fucking up his entire day.

He did the wrong thing.

“Arrest his man and naked child,” he ordered the MPS.

They didn’t move, which made him furious.

“I order you to arrest him and the child. They are trespassing on military property, and they attacked multiple soldiers with deadly force. This man killed a Major in front of the entire flight line,” he yelled and fumed.

“No, sir. You do not have the authority,” an MP told him. “You are also incorrect, sir, about who terminated the Major. That was Corporal Whittaker after being shot in the back fifty-one times by the machine pistol that the Major attempted to kill Mr. Jones with. Concerning Mr. Jones, he did not use deadly force at any time. Each target was preparing to fire at him, so he fired two shots. One disabled the weapon, and the other destroyed the shooter’s shoulder, wrist, or arm. He hit multiple targets over three hundred yards away with an M4 freehand. He has above presidential authority to access any government installation and building with a full top-secret clearance. If you wish to question my information, that is his personal Apache gunship, not one of those belonging to the US Military or government. This morning, someone purchased it for one-hundred-twenty-five million, in cash, and it was delivered here fully armed. It has thirty-two point five hours of runtime on the engine.”

He went off about me giving that to the base to replace the one I destroyed or did until he got a report that made him turn a bit green.

“Ellen, if you can find something to wear to swim and send your cat back into the wild, there is a big end-of-summer party at the base pool. MWR throws one each year. I think you might have fun, and they have a lot of food,” the lady general told her.

Ellen liked that deal and ran off to our rental car. She had a one-piece suit she was pulling on as she returned to us. The woman general, who outranked the base commander, had some MP assigned to escort Ellen and ensure that the MWR people knew she was a guest. Ellen hissed at the bobcat, taking off like Ellen poked it with a hot stick.

“You know, it seems a shame to have everything set up for live-fire exercises and not do them. If Kilmer still wishes to be my gunner, I would at least like to see how I do on my first attempt,” I explained. “I know she is not an officer, but I expect her assignment to me to mean she has the needed skills.”

The pilots and co-pilots were all still for it and wanted to burn off some steam, so we got the approval to resume today’s scheduled live-fire activities.

You’re a dick, David. They have trucks to pull our helicopter out of the hangar. You don’t have to pull it behind you like a toddler’s toy on a string. Not to mention that you are making Katie have a wet spot in her flight suit.

Sergeant Kilmer and I reviewed the new Apache to verify that it was fully prepped and ready. The bomb and ammo guys pulled the safety pins and told us everything was all set to fly. I soon had us in the air awaiting orders.