Chapter 26

The plane landed at about ten p.m. The Berkenstock Bunch picked up four duffel bags and headed for the curb, where a blue Izuzu Trooper with gold tinted windows picked them up. Harold just had his valise and briefcase, John Thomas the same, so they didn't go to the luggage carousel, but rather met Emily at the curb. The innocuous man was picked up by a late model Chevrolet sedan with brown paint and several antennae. The Izuzu's license plate was quickly found to be stolen from a Toyota in Malibu. The windows were too dark to see the face of Linda at the wheel. Harold leaned through the drivers window of the old station wagon and gave Emily a kiss. He walked to the rear of the wagon and tossed in the bags. John did the same and both got in the car, Harold in front, John in the back. The three cars moved away from the curb, down the ramp, and then onto the merge to 280 toward the city. Just as they passed through South San Francisco, the Izuzu exited. The Chevy followed Harold and a patrol car followed the Izuzu. The wagon continued north toward John Thomas's house, the Izuzu went west toward Pacifica.

Just as the Izuzu crested the hill into Pacifica it accelerated. The patrol car was about 500 yards behind. The police car never saw the box full of one inch high six pointed stars dropped on the road. All four tires blew and the cruiser skidded to an ignominious stop. The Izuzu took the next exit, doubled back, and headed towards the city. The police radio was alive, but it was too late, the Trooper was lost in the mist of the Pacific Ocean at almost midnight.

"Why were they following us?" Robin was most upset.

"They weren't following us. We are on a public highway, you moron. There are a million cars following us and a million in front of us. They were just doing their job. Now we have a thousand spiked nails spread across the freeway. We have committed some crime or other. We have littered a public highway. There are going to be twenty blown tires in the next five minutes and you did it to stop a cop on the way to a rendezvous with a donut." Linda was more upset with the failure of the Washington mission than at the disabling of the patrol car but the tension was rising. She scratched at the small spot on her right shoulder and then returned to the driving. "Why didn't you pick him up on the way to Dulles? We had the safe house. We had everything set there."

"It was a dumb plan, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, really majorly dumb. Who would kidnap someone in the middle of Washington. Every spook with a shoe phone and a decoder ring lives in Washington. The FBI wouldn't even need to make long distance calls. It's better here. We have more room to move. We are on our own turf. This is much better." It was Noah who did the talking. Kensington, Jeremiah, and Robin were looking out the back of the Izuzu and fondling their guns.

"We'll try again tomorrow." Linda scratched at her shoulder again and then licked her lips, "Tomorrow, Harold, tomorrow."

They pulled into the driveway of a beautiful, if not stark house. There were five trash cans in the driveway. One for paper, one for aluminum , one for steel, one for plastic, and one for glass. There was a Volvo in the garage with an "I Brake for Whales" bumper sticker on the left side and a "If you love animals don't eat them" on the right. There was a pile of drift wood in the space next to the Volvo. There was a musty smell in the air, a sort of biologic scent, not quite rank, a sort of primeval belch, like a compost pile gone berserk. Linda always noticed it when she came over. She wrinkled her nose a bit but had long ago stopped mentioning it. The guys climbed out of the car. Each went to the rear of the Izuzu and took out a large duffel, swung it over his shoulder and walked across the little bridge to the house.

Once inside, Noah touched the little button on the answering machine. "BEEP, Noah, It's me, we are having a get together on Saturday, for the Mammal Defense League. It's at my place. Bring something to eat - maybe a little quiche or something."

"Who? Me who? Great-what time Saturday? Where? - Oh that's clear - my house. How about a number? Quiche! What a bozo!" Noah frequently talked at the machine as if it were a person.

"Noah, relax, the guy is only an ovolactovegetarian. He isn't worth your anger. He kills chicken fetuses and drinks the suckling milk of cows, while the calf goes hungry. Save your wrath for that meat eating vivisectionist Harold." Linda always knew the way to calm a radical vegetarian environmentalist. She went into the kitchen and got out some falafel bread, a bowl of humus, and a bowl of bean dip and placed them on a straw tray.

"BEEP, Mr. Fisher, Bob Marks from the Chronicle. We got your editorial on the floating plastic problem and are going to run it on Sunday. Thanks. BEEP, Noah, It's your mother, you remember, well I was wondering if ....",

"Oh Mommy," A calmer tone came into his voice. "Later mommy." Noah hit the rewind button. She always talked for a few minutes. She treated a message machine like a mail box. She left long verbal letters. He would listen to it tomorrow. She was a lonely old lady. He needed to call her more often he thought, maybe send her a card. He walked over to the futon couch and sat down.

Linda set the food tray on the floor and sat on a three legged stool made of driftwood and held together with macramé. The three others sat cross legged on the floor dipping the falafel in the dips with their hands. "So what happened? I got the SCRUBBED message and saw the agent on C-SPAN. It wasn't obvious they were on to you. Do you think they were on to us?" Linda was getting excited and the three legged stool began to tip sideways.

"Who knows? The timing was bad. He walked in and sat down next to me, just as we were about to initiate. He just sat there next to us for the whole session. What were we going to do?"

Kensington opened up his duffel bag and pulled out the blue jacket with the epaulets, the blue gloves, and the little head piece with the balls on springs. He then pulled out a shot gun. Not exactly a shot gun but rather an automatic rifle with a long barrel and a small tank for compressed gas under the barrel. He then pulled out three long black clips and set them on the floor. The first clip held ten - five cc syringes. Each syringe had a 16 gauge needle on one end and small fins on the other. The needles had a small slip of plastic on the shaft covering a small hole. Each was filled with about three cc of fluid. Between the fins there was a leur lock adapter. He removed a small hand pump with a pressure gauge from a wooden box and attached the little hose to each leur lock and the pressure gauge jumped to 500 mmHg. He gave each a squeeze on the pump and disconnected the pressure hose. None had leaked. Once each clip was reloaded, he opened the next clip. The last syringe in the clip was empty and there was a small amount of fluid over the other darts. He carefully cleaned each of them and took an empty dart from a box. In the wooden box there was a bottle of Ketamine 100 mg per cc and a bottle of Atropine 1 mg per cc. He drew up three cc of the Ketamine and O.4 cc from the Atropine bottle. He then slid a little plastic sleeve over the 16 gauge needle and hooked the pressure line to the back end of the dart. Three pumps and the gauge read 500 mmHg. Checking each for a leak before disconnecting. He reloaded the darts in the clip and then started on the third clip. The pressures all checked. "Hey Noah, these are getting better, only one of thirty leaked."

"That's great." Noah turned back to his discussion with Linda.

She was transfixed by the pressure darts. "Kensington, those are hideous needles."

"Don't worry, for the animals we use a little 22 gauge. For Harold we switched to the 16 gauge needle. It penetrates clothes and hurts like hell." Kensington was smiling at the thought of the dart jabbing into Harold MacAnish and dropping him into a puddle of dribbling confusion.

Linda smiled at the thought of pain in her arch enemy.

"Do you want me to load them with succinyl choline?" Kensington loved the succinyl choline darts. They were lower volume because they used the desiccated succinyl choline. Five hundred milligrams from a dart with a 100 mg Ketamine chaser. They didn't move, they couldn't remember, and the fasciculations were great. They twitched like they were having a mini-seizure. The epilepsy story was always a good one to dissuade bystanders. They didn't breathe for about an hour so you had to support them but that was a detail.

"No, its too dangerous if we are around bystanders. If Harold doesn't take a breath for an hour we can deal with that. But if a dart goes wide and hits a bystander, we would have to stop to care for them and that would get too complicated."

Jeremiah and Robin were checking the pressures in their darts. Jeremiah then removed four small cardboard tubes each with one dart in it. The single Estes solid propellant charge had been removed but the battery initiators were still in place. He checked the circuits and all worked. "These rocket propelled darts are great. You guys made it through the X-ray system on the planes and at the Capitol without a hitch."

"Thanks." Noah stood up and walked over to Linda. He reached out his hand and she took it. He helped her up, kissed her on the lips and gave her a squeeze around the middle. Then he patted her on the fanny. "We will see you tomorrow. I called the hospital. He isn't on call. We will stake out his house and follow him if he goes anywhere. Don't worry, we will get him. Now go home."

Linda picked up her purse and headed for the door. She turned toward Noah, smiled, then thought of Harold and the morning, a little grimace and a shudder came over her face. She reached up quite mechanically and scratched her right shoulder, then twitched a bit. She turned and went out the front door to the Izuzu.

"Check the gas pressure in the guns and make sure there are extra tanks and the back up guns are loaded."

"Right, boss." Noah went down the stairs to his bed room and the three guys in Berkenstocks kept working. Kensington opened Noah's bag and began checking the pressures in his darts.

Chapter 27

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