Ферн Майклз - Truth and Justice

“It’s on my to-do list,” Myra muttered. “We’ll all take a ham sandwich, dear. There’s a loaf of bread in the freezer. Thaw it out in the microwave. I must say it has been a taxing afternoon for all of us. As I said earlier down in the war room, we need to fall back and regroup, and I think that will be easier once we relax and eat a little food. So let’s get to it. A caffeine fix will go a long way to settle us down. I can’t remember the last time we went six hours without coffee.”

“Try like never,” Nikki said, laughing.

Things did indeed fall into place with Myra’s words, and the coffee was poured. The girls did what they always did then, worked in tandem as an assembly line. Or as Annie put it, “Now we’re back in our own groove.”

Within minutes, the women had all relaxed and were bantering back and forth, with Maggie doing most of the chattering as she waited to be brought up on everything that happened down in the war room. “I want to hear everything, and don’t leave anything out no matter how trivial it may seem.”

“This is on me,” Alexis said. “I never should have brought Bella out here to Pinewood, much less suggest we take her down to the war room. It’s not that I don’t trust her, I do. It’s just . . . I don’t know, it didn’t feel right. And then she was there, and it was too late. I just want to say I own it, and it will never happen again. I’m sorry I wasted all our time.”

“Something other than what you all said went down in the war room seems to have a running undercurrent here. Did I miss something, or did you all forget to tell me something? What is it that’s bothering you? Is it the case overall? Is it Bella? What?” Maggie demanded, as she bit down into her sandwich and rolled her eyes in delight. Maggie did love her food.

The room was silent for a few minutes while everyone stopped eating to think about Maggie’s question; then they all started to jabber at once.

Nikki flexed her lips, then whistled sharply between her teeth the way Jack had taught her to do when they first met. She remembered how impressed she’d been to know she had the capability to let loose such an earth-shattering sound. “Whoa! Whoa! One at a time. Sounds to me like we’re all saying the same thing with a few added words of our own. If I’m wrong, tell me, but I think we’re all bothered by what Bella wasn’t able to tell us. She knows she heard something she thought was important, not at the time, of course, but she knows now that she can’t remember what it is. I, for one, can buy into that. We all understand how that goes, been there, done that kind of thing. She probably has information locked in her mind that we could use, but she can’t remember. Eventually, hopefully, she will.”

Yoko reached for a pickle spear and bit down. “It’s probably the one piece of information that will really help us, but you’re right, eventually she’ll get around to remembering it. As we all know, the more you try to force yourself to remember, the less likely you are to succeed. With luck, we might be able to work without the missing piece of information, whatever it turns out to be. But I suspect that it would be a whole lot easier if we had it.”

“I find this whole thing really sad,” Maggie said.

“We all do, dear,” Myra said. “First, Bella loses her husband. She is just way too young to be a widow. Imagine finding out your husband has been dead for eight months, and you didn’t know it because no one told you. How cruel is that? How do you get over something like that? And then to find out your, um . . . your eggs have been stolen, which means that all ties to your dead husband are gone forever. However, we still do not know if Bella’s husband’s sperm deposits were taken. I don’t even want to go there right now, even in my thoughts. Was there anything else that bothered anyone?”

The girls looked at one another. “We all made notes. I think we picked Bella’s brain clean,” Isabelle said. “Now we just have to put it all together and decide what we are going to do. Are we going to work this evening or call it a day?”

The girls voted to work through the evening, and agreed to stay over and pick up in the morning in order to get the ball rolling as quickly as possible.

They all moved quickly, in lockstep, the way they always did when it came to cleanup. “Thirteen minutes!” Yoko chortled, as the dishwasher hummed to life. She did a little dance before she skipped ahead of the others to head down to the dungeons.

As always, they smartly saluted Lady Justice before they took their seats at the huge, round table.

“First things first. We need to call Avery Snowden to see if he is available to help us out. The boys might have commandeered him since they’re on a case of their own.”

“I’ll do it,” Alexis said, as she typed out a text to send to the old spy. The return text arrived in seconds. Alexis’s fist shot in the air. “He’s available and on his way. He said he’s in Seattle. He’ll be here by late tomorrow morning. His part of the mission with the boys is over, but they may have to stay another week or two to complete the mission.”

“Listen up, everyone!” Annie said. “You all understand, do you not, that we are taking on the United States Army, right?”

“Your point is, Annie—and get to it without a bunch of jabbering. But before you do that, what makes the United States Army any different than taking on the President of the United States, the Secret Service, the World Bank, and a host of other notables? Surely you are not insinuating we should be intimidated. That’s not what you’re saying, is it, Annie?” Myra’s tone of voice clearly said it had better not be what she was saying.

“Good Lord, no. I just meant there will be miles and miles of red tape to wade through. We’re talking the army here, Myra. You spell that a-r-m-y. Abner, our resident in-house hacker, is not available to us,” Annie said. “Did you hear me when I said miles and miles of red tape?”

Isabelle’s arm shot in the air. “What? I’m chopped liver! Did you forget that Abner has been teaching me the art of hacking for over a year now, and he actually said I’m almost as good as he is? I realize the operative word here is almost , but I am good. I think I can hack into the Pentagon without breaking a sweat because Abner showed me how to do it when he did it. You can apologize now, Countess de Silva,” Isabelle said with a bite to her voice.

“I’m sorry, dear, I sincerely apologize. I don’t know what I was thinking. I keep forgetting how talented you are. It won’t happen again,” Annie said contritely.

Isabelle grinned and hugged Annie. “I know. Sometimes, even I forget that I can do these devious things. Who knew!” she said, imitating an infamous commercial about cashing in one’s life insurance and throwing up her arms dramatically. “Don’t go pinning any medals on me yet. Hacking the United States military isn’t like hacking the local drugstore to see what drugs your neighbors take. Not that I would ever do that,” Isabelle added hastily.

“Now, having said that, I think I will wait for morning, when I’m fresh and clicking on all cylinders, to dive into that particular hornet’s nest. And I like to map out a strategy first, the way Abner taught me. So, if you don’t mind, I’ll do that while you all do whatever it is you plan on doing. If you need me, do what the song says and just call my name.”

The women settled down at the table and looked at one another. The silence was unnerving. Maggie bounded to her feet and spun around. “I’m not getting any of this. What’s up with all of you? By now someone, usually you, Nikki, or Annie have at least a half plan of action or else the whole thing. Why do I feel like I’m swimming upstream and the water is running low?”