Chapter 19

Thursday

I awoke earlier than usual, especially considering the workout the women gave me last night. Something was nagging at me to wake me up this early. Worried about a possible break-in through a tunnel we hadn’t discovered yet, I grabbed my Glock and hurried downstairs. The alarm system showed that the house was secure, and the rooms I’d been in were the only ones that showed any motion.

Turning off the alarm on the back door, I opened it and stepped out into the chilly night air. I met the same cacophony of normal pre-dawn sounds as the other morning, as well as King bounding over, looking to have his ears scratched again. Once again, I took King inside to provide a canine early warning system if someone got inside. “That’s it!” I rejoiced silently, enthusiastically slamming my fist into my palm.

Bits and pieces of last night’s forgotten dream flashed through my head. I had dreamed about using dogs trained to find drugs, explosives, and even as guard dogs, as well as hiring the men trained to handle the dogs. The few bits of dream that I could remember made me think the men were injured, somehow. Then I realized that they were men who had been wounded in the line of duty, either as local, state, or federal officers, or wounded troops no longer able to serve on active duty.

This was perfect. I could provide meaningful employment for men who needed it, men somehow injured in service to their country. Something told me that I would need both the men and the dogs. Then I realized that it was still too early to call anyone, damn it.

This morning, I beat Juwanna and Mabel to the kitchen. Hooking my laptop up to the satellite link, I contacted the supplier I bought armor from before and placed the order for the Southeast Sector Strike Team that was waiting in my email, and then for the other federal agencies. An hour later, my cell phone rang, not that it was unexpected.

“Reynolds,” I answered the phone.

“Mr. Reynolds, I’m calling to verify a series of very large orders that you just placed,” the caller explained. I assured them that I had indeed placed the orders. They could call any of the federal offices listed to verify that they were expecting the shipments. Mabel and Juwanna watched me without comment when they arrived and began fixing breakfast. By the time my breakfast was ready, I’d ordered the armor, weapons, ammunition, accessories, and even a couple of robotic cameras that would be a surprise to the recipients.

After making sure that I had ordered everything on everyone’s wish list I wired a deposit to a well-known auction house in New York, asking them to send an appraiser familiar with antique Oriental ceramics. I wanted to know if the stuff in the Hanley house was real or fake. If it was real, I wanted to sell everything. A pair of wet lips on my neck followed by a tongue thrust into my ear quickly drew my attention away from the computer.

“How does a girl go about applying for a full-time position in your harem?” Cheryl asked in a sultry voice as her hand found the rapidly expanding bulge in the front of my jeans.

“You passed the audition last night,” I teased. “Now you just have to convince the rest of the harem to let you join.”

“My tongue may be exhausted afterwards, but I’m sure I can convince them,” she purred as she advanced on Jan who had just sat down next to me. I noted that the girls were all wearing my T-shirts again, and they were sans bras this morning. I guess they figured that they were now available and willing to relieve any tension they caused, so they weren’t teasing.

“Ve can join, too, da?” one of the twins asked. Looking closer, I could see that it was Lilia asking. Her smile turned up at the corner a bit more than Lidiya’s did.

“Yes, but I think you should let the girls recover after Cheryl finishes convincing them,” I snickered.

Cheryl had disappeared under the table. Jan’s head lolled back with her eyes closed, and a blissful look on her face. Her hands were beneath the table where she was obviously holding Cheryl’s head. I hoped it didn’t freak Cheryl out to have her head restrained like that.

“Yesssss,” Jan hissed quietly as her hips lifted off the chair. Her entire body spasmed twice before she collapsed bonelessly back into the chair. “I vote, yes,” Jan commented breathlessly a minute later.

By then, Cheryl had obviously moved on to a surprised Carlotta who was starting to squirm in her chair.

“Ladies, as much as I would love to stay and watch, we all have things to do. I need you to do something for me when you go to town to shop for the girls. I handed Jan the page I had printed out with the name and address of the attorney in Jackson who oversaw my land purchases here. I wanted him to recommend an attorney to act as independent counsel for the five women, one who would address their concerns, and especially to give me a recommendation about how to handle the money Mrs. Hanley had in the checking and savings account. I would have my attorney review his recommendation and hammer out a final agreement if necessary. I also handed Jan $50,000 in hundred-dollar bills and the phone number for the Jackson Marshals office if the attorney had a concern about accepting the cash.

By now, it was late enough that I called Walt. I warned that he might get a phone call from a local attorney questioning our use of cash. When I explained what I wanted to do, Walt suggested an attorney, and gave me the phone number. I warned that the equipment was all ordered, and that he should expect a call verifying the orders for the arms, armor, ammunition, and everything else that was on his wish list. “Everything?” he gasped.

“And I haven’t even touched what you forgot in my safe,” I teased.

I also explained what I wanted to do about finding handlers for dogs from among wounded servicemen and peace officers. I wasn’t sure why, but felt I was going to need or want them. He promised to get back to me with suggestions.

Stella and Cheryl approached me. “I’m sorry I didn’t trust you last night,” Stella said nervously.

“I understand, and promise that I didn’t take offense. I hope that the attorney today will help you to believe that I’m telling you the truth,” I told her, and then kissed her hands. I was surprised when she responded by kissing me on the lips. “I’m having a hard time right now trusting anyone, but seeing how happy Cheryl is this morning definitely helps,” she explained.

While the women got ready to leave, I got dressed to search for hidden tunnels. Chloe’s eyebrows arched questioningly when she saw me dressed for battle. “Just searching for more tunnels like the one from the boathouse yesterday,” I assured her.

Sylvia was the representative from the Marshals office staying here. When she saw me geared up, she insisted on joining me. Half an hour later, with King accompanying us, we entered the basement. I half-expected to find a tunnel leading to the west and the boathouse on Sawashee Creek. We did, and verified that the tunnel was both empty and unused. It was nearly a mile long, just like the one at the Hanley house. The big difference was that this one had no footprints in the dust on the limestone floor and the cobwebs hadn’t been disturbed.

I hadn’t expected to find tunnels to the east and south. Those tunnels led to dead ends at what appeared to be old foundations. I made a mental note to find out what had originally been built on those foundations.

Once we were back upstairs, I called Walt and asked him to send a private company who could wire the four tunnels with motion detectors, and help set up a better overall security system. Price was not an object. He also gave me several numbers to call about dogs and handlers. I started those calls while Sylvia drove us to the gang house next door so we could search it for tunnels, too.

Since I was sure there would be a tunnel to the boathouse, we started searching the west wall of the cellar. King found the tunnel much faster than I found the release for the workbench covering the opening. There was almost no dust on the tunnel floor except for a narrow strip along the edges, indicating that it had been well used. Inside the lengthy tunnel, we found full scuba tanks and a wetsuit, as well as flippers, and a mask. There was even a twin of the pontoon boat in the Hanley boathouse, complete with the same fishing gear. The smuggling compartments of this one were empty.

With that tunnel cleared, we went back to the cellar. I started a perfunctory search for other tunnels, not expecting to find any. Once again, we found two more tunnels. Aside from the one leading south to my house, and the one to the west to the boathouse, there was one to the east to the foundation of what appeared to have been a barn when we checked later. The one to the north ended abruptly half a mile from the house, apparently never completed.

While we stopped for a late lunch. I made more phone calls to the numbers Walt had given me earlier. I was both saddened and heartened to learn there were five former peace officers and six wounded troops available who could handle the dogs and perform sentry-type duty. When I asked, one of the military officers who was sending the wounded handlers also agreed to find two medically discharged troops with the experience necessary to help set up and monitor electronic security on my properties.

The six handlers from the Wounded Warriors Project would arrange flights into NAS Meridian. They had to fly standby, so they would call when they were boarding their flight and let us know when they should be arriving.

Three of the peace officers preferred to drive, so I called Jan and asked her to go to a Kroger in town and send each of the three men $500 for travel expenses via Western Union. After calling the remaining two peace officers, I arranged flights for them and their dogs, promising that someone would meet them at the Meridian airport tomorrow when they arrived.

While dealing with that, the men from the security company in Jackson arrived. I had Ramón show them the tunnels from the boathouses to my house and to the gang house next door first since I felt they were most critical to wire. The known tunnels at the Hanley house had already been wired. Like the other tunnels, those would each have an alarm to let us know if the outer or inside door opened. Motion detectors, infrared cameras, and microphones would be installed in each tunnel.

The sensors would be integrated into the security board Walt began. Originally, it only had the sensors and cameras for the gang house and the tunnel to my place. The sensors for the Hanley house and tunnels had been added. Now, sensors from my house to the boathouse would be added, as well as from the gang house to their boathouse. As soon as I could, I planned to check the other houses on my properties. Given the preponderance of tunnels we had found so far, I was fairly certain the remaining three Civil War era homes would each have at least one tunnel. Several more homes looked to have been built before 1900, rather than post WWII like I first thought, and could well have tunnels. I doubted that the three post WWII homes had tunnels, but I would rather search and find nothing than not search and end up with a rude surprise.

With that done, Sylvia and I returned to the Hanley house to search it. Yet again, we found additional tunnels. The original tunnel, where the rapes and torture had occurred, was a dead-end tunnel that went east a hundred yards with several lockable rooms like the cells in the tunnels at the gang house.

The boathouse tunnel headed west to the creek, which was about a mile away. Most of the boathouse tunnel sloped downhill at a slight angle, just like the other two we found today. The first new tunnel we found headed north nearly a mile. It ended with the back of a heavy wooden shelving unit blocking the tunnel, like the one from my house to the gang house.

After listening for more than a minute, and seeing that King had no interest in anything beyond, I quietly released the catch and slid the unit open an inch. Beyond the opening appeared to be nothing more than an ordinary cellar. I had no idea who lived here, but realized that I needed to find out. I also needed to search that basement in the near future for additional tunnels. The dust on the floor of the tunnel going to this house had been undisturbed. Aside from us just now, nobody had used it in years.

After re-latching the shelving unit, we made our way back to the Hanley basement. The tunnel we found heading south from the Hanley basement ended at an iron door. When I later looked for where it may have ended, I found the ruined foundation of what had obviously been a large house that had burned down, a foundation now buried beneath heavy vegetation. I wondered if there were other tunnels going out from the cellar of the burned house, and if we could still access them if we cleared the charred remains of the house from the basement.