Apocalypse du Jour

Day 1 - New York City, September, 10:50am Eastern Time

Four simultaneous kidnappings in four US cities would be a challenging crime for even the best detective to solve. That didn’t deter the Colonel. He wasn’t trying to solve the kidnappings. He was trying to perpetrate them. But he had a problem. The problem was time. He had only ten minutes left to snatch his targets or he wouldn’t get paid.

The Colonel rode up Broadway in the back of a panel truck with one of his four teams. He sat on a cheap folding camp chair, the kind with thin canvas stretched between thin aluminum tubes. The truck banged over a pothole, jarring him from cheeks to cheeks. The shock snapped the plastic end cap off one of his chair legs, and he grabbed his laptop in midair as it jumped. His chair now listed to starboard, like it had been torpedoed.

Barely taking his eyes off the map display on his laptop, he reached into his suit coat pocket, pulled out a pistol magazine, and stuck it under the chair leg, propping it up. He hadn’t had time to buy or steal decent support equipment. He recalled the unbreakable rule, You go to war with the army you have, not the army you want.

This was different from their normal freelance military shtick, but he knew his teams could do it. Six pros in each team, except he made seven in this team. Each team was en route to their target in an unmarked panel truck. One truck was in San Francisco. Another in New Orleans. The third in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.  (He’d had to search for that one on a map.)  His truck was just passing Zabar’s, heading north on Manhattan’s upper west side.

The Colonel was fifty-ish, medium height, medium build, with a squashed, hooked nose like a macaw’s beak. His hair was black and cut short, long enough to prevent chafing under a helmet, but not long enough to grab in a fight. He looked at his laptop. Eight minutes left until the 11am Eastern time deadline. Less than three minutes to the target. We’re going to make it with five minutes to spare. A smile tapped timidly on the front door of his face. But a harried scowl chased it off the porch and out of the yard.

The team jounced with the truck again. The Colonel thought, Could be worse. It beats riding a chopper in a thunderstorm. He glanced up from his screen to the four men with him in the back. Kong and Weasel stood at the back door, dressed as plumbers, holding onto roof beams above them as the truck jerked around. They would enter the target's home and grab her. Pistols and flashbangs were hidden under their tool belts, body armor under their overalls. Kong, a concrete block wall with head and neck ... well ... head, anyway ... had his eyes closed. His lips moved as he reviewed the plan by the numbers. Weasel stared at the rear door handle, motionless except for one slender finger tapping his tool belt where one of his pistols was hidden.

The other two men, Doc and Clancy, sat focused on video screens with 360-degree views of Broadway passing by outside the truck. Doc and Clancy were dressed in business suits, like the Colonel himself. In New York City, a business suit was perfect camouflage. Invisible. Though the suit couldn’t hide their eyes, scanning all around. That stood out. New Yorkers keep their eyes to themselves. But if all went well, they'd all stay in the truck, all except Kong and Weasel. The others dressed as authority figures in case they had to get out to fix some unexpected problem. They could have dressed as police officers, but that could get them into even more trouble, trouble they’d rather avoid. Plenty of firepower and body armor hidden under their business suits, enough to fix a shitpot of problems. The plan didn't call for the use of weapons. As if the plan mattered.

Another unbreakable rule, the Colonel thought, No plan ever survives contact with the enemy. Be ready to adapt.

Some jobs scared him. Jobs where he or his freelancers might be caught, killed, or maimed. Those he approached like any soldier entering a minefield: slow and as careful as a piece of china in a bull shop. Some jobs disgusted him. Jobs where his employer could have done it themself, but was clearly too cowardly. Those he approached like a drill instructor: setting a sparkling example of professionalism. And a few jobs made him proud. Searches and rescues, for example, often under brutal and hostile conditions. Those he liked the best. Those he approached like a fireman or policeman, humble and grimly determined.

But whether he liked the jobs or not, the pay was good. Call him a private military contractor, or freelance security, or whatever, pay is what a mercenary is all about.

Except that on this job the pay was stellar. It sparkled. It glistened. It grabbed him by the lapels and slapped him awake. The first offer was so good he hadn’t even haggled. That was good because he didn’t have time to haggle. His employer said it was a rescue mission, taking four people into protective custody simultaneously, as fast as possible. The Colonel hadn’t believed that protective custody shit for a moment. But he didn’t have to. Not for twenty million dollars. And the kidnappings were straightforward, simple snatch-and-grabs of civilians. Low risk ... though big rush. Compared to most other missions, this was like digging a regulation latrine ... when your entire combat unit is dancing the bad burrito two-step. So he approached it relying on teamwork, concentration, and a shared sense of urgency.

He’d had eight hours to position his teams around the country and plan on the fly. Literally. He planned and coordinated through the night while he and his strike teams were airborne in four hired private jets. His employer wanted them there sooner, and would have paid still more, but this was as fast as was physically possible. Even so, they were barely going to beat the deadline.

Last year’s ambush in Kyrgyzstan was less stressful, he recalled. That lasted only six hours.

The Colonel felt like a human border collie: earnest, overworked, and loving it. Well, mostly loving it. He didn’t herd sheep. He herded wolves. This morning he was nearing even his limits. He growled to himself and looked out the windshield over his driver’s shoulder. Sapper, the driver, was the oldest on the team. Quiet, aristocratic, greying at the temples, and calm as a brick. He could drive or fly anything that moved. Pansy, riding shotgun, wore his usual maniacal grin, with his favorite sawed-off shotgun across his lap, pointing toward the door, plus a compact machine gun and six boxes of ammo crowded around his feet. Their business suits didn’t suit them. For Pansy it was too formal, like a Tasmanian devil in a tux. For Sapper it wasn’t quite formal enough. He should go to war, or rescue a princess, in white tie and tails, with a crimson carnation boutonniere.

Outside the windshield, Manhattan looked positively sanitary after a long September rain had slogged away, depleted. It left behind a sky so blue and pure it should exist only in a tourist brochure. The street gutters had been washed clean of dog poop. And the statues looked clean enough to eat off of ... if you hurried and got there before the pigeons. But the rain had also shoveled out all the potholes, some of which could hide a small giraffe.

The Colonel checked his computer screen. Thirty seconds to target.

Silence on his headset. Silence was good. Silence meant the other teams were all coordinated with his, all thirty seconds to target. They would only speak if they had a problem. The comms were sound activated, so he heard the sharp click-clack of final weapons checks in the background, from one of the trucks somewhere across the continent.

Fifteen seconds, he said as his truck turned onto the target's street, and he leaned to look forward out the windshield. Ten ... what the fuuuuuuck? Two other panel trucks, two rented vans, and one ambulance were parked in front of the target's townhouse, blocking the street. On the sidewalk in front of the townhouse at least a dozen burly plumbers, electricians, cable installers, suited businessmen, two EMTs, and one short, mousy nurse were arguing, pointing, and gesticulating at each other like a political argument at an Italian picnic. The nurse dangled a tranquilizer dart pistol in her right hand, pointed down. With the index finger of her left hand she reached up to poke the chest of a cable installer who had the height, width, and attitude of an enraged grizzly. Her nose barely reached his chest. They shouted at each other, wolverine-to-grizzly. On the front stoop of the target townhouse, another massively muscled cable installer lay face down, his head sideways on the welcome mat, drooling like a contented tiger, with two red-plumed tranquilizer darts sticking out of his butt.

While the colonel took in the scene, the other three teams across the country were simultaneously talking in his ear.

Colonel, Eau Claire here, we've got a problem.

New Orleans here, I’m blocked. What's going on here?

I can't back out. There's another truck pulling in behind us!

Element of surprise, my ass!

"Woddaya mean? I'm surprised!"

Crap, we're gonna need air support!

Hey, that's First Sergeant Johnson. I haven't seen him since Fallujah!

Holy shit! Look at all those cops and flashing lights. It's either Christmas or a convention! The Frisco team is bypassing.

Let’s set up a toll booth and make some real money!

The colonel tapped his mike three times to get everyone's attention. Team stand by. Stay in your vehicles. It looks like we are number six in line for this kidnapping. I'm going out to learn what I can. But this is probably mission abort, so don't shoot anyone. He added, under his breath, Leave that to me, as, in his mind’s eye, twenty million dollars took a maddeningly long time to flutter away.

Scowling, he stood up from his console, kicked open the truck’s back door and jumped out, thinking, I might not shoot anyone ... but this pistol will make a good field-expedient suppository for anyone in my way.

He pivoted toward the curb, straight into a bag lady who was fleeing the scene pushing her overflowing shopping cart. She and the cart went sprawling. He blurted, Shit!

At first her frayed, wide-brimmed straw hat hid her face. Then she looked up at him and saw the fury in his eyes.

Through the shadow of her scraggly hair he saw the whites of her sky-blue eyes go wide with terror. Her sharp intake of breath was nearly a scream.

Her panicked eyes set off a flash of ancient PTSD that punched him in the gut.

He caught his breath. I don’t have time for this. And shook it off.

Softly he said, Sorry to startle you, ma’am. It's okay, I won't hurt you. He raised his hands in front of him to show her they were empty. Then he leaned forward to help her up. Here, let me help you with your cart.

But she was already up and scurrying away, pushing her rattling shopping cart, her head down, her terror-filled eyes gone in shadow. He heard one sob before she was too far away.

The gut punch passed. His fury was gone. He turned toward the cacophony of shouting from the other direction, and he was back on the job. Well, only nineteen million lost. We keep the million deposit. He turned and strode toward the melee of other would be kidnappers a few yards away. Arms held out from his sides to show he carried no weapons ... at least not openly. I made a mistake, he thought. I should have grilled my employer about other interested parties. I was blinded by the money and the rush. I should have known it was too good. I should have been more paranoid. Professionals are paranoid.

He’d failed to notice that today, on this street, there was only one professional paranoid. It wasn’t him.

Forty-five minutes earlier the bag lady had been sitting like a scraggly gargoyle on the wide stone border of the soggy flower box next to the front steps of the target townhouse. A riot of blooms greedily faced the sun. She smelled the multiple flowers and wet topsoil. But she didn’t care.

Her wide straw hat tipped down in front, hiding her face. She could be anybody. Or nobody. Her ankle-length greatcoat was subtly splotched, blending into the brownstone of the townhouse like a chameleon’s camouflage. Her straw hat matched an accent line of lighter stones behind it. Like a chameleon, she was motionless, making her almost invisible to the occasional passer-by. Nothing about her outer appearance drew attention. But unlike a chameleon, inside she was lost in thought, savoring the symmetry of a particularly elegant differential equation.

The first unmarked panel truck drove up. A brief but jarring screech of brakes unbalanced her symmetry and toppled her differential equation, making her raise her hat brim and fire off an accusatory squint. Her grey hair tangled in front of her face, hiding most of it. Just a glint of sky-blue eyes glared through the tangle at the truck double-parked in front of her. Its motor stayed running and she caught a whiff of hot grease and exhaust.

Go away, she thought. Get out of my sanctum! Then she lowered the brim of her hat again. She started to focus on reconstructing the complex differential equation in her mind.

Not ten seconds later an ambulance pulled up and double-parked directly behind the panel truck. Its motor stayed running, too, though its lights were not flashing.

More invaders, thought the bag lady gritting her teeth. The brim of her hat lifted like a gun door on a frigate, giving her angry glare a clear field of fire.

Then for a full minute nothing happened.

That's odd, she thought. No one has come out of either truck. She heard muted talk from inside both. She couldn't make out the words, but the voices were intense. Then the back door of the first truck opened halfway and a man started to step out. He was a cable installer. Wide shoulders for a cable installer. Must work out a lot. Go away, dammit!

The bag lady saw the nurse sitting in the passenger seat of the ambulance lift something quickly above the dashboard, for the cable installer to see, then down again. Holy shit, was that a gun?

Whatever it was, the cable guy saw it, jumped back in his truck, and slammed the door.

The bag lady heard a sharp laugh from the ambulance, more intense talk, and thought she made out one word: Standoff.

These aren’t repair men, she thought. Or EMTs.

They’re talking like gangsters. She paused and thought.

Or soldiers ... 

This isn’t normal ...

Something is about to happen ...

In front of my townhouse ...

Something violent ...

Her cell phone vibrated in her shirt pocket and she jumped a little.

She tilted her head down so her hat brim again hid her upper body. She touched the pickup button on the Bluetooth receiver in her right ear and spoke sotto voce, Hello? ... Yes, this is Professor Anderson ... Yes, if you can make it fast, I'm a little busy ... Yes, I recall you usually sit in the third row ... Yes, that's problem set 6 ... No, you can't use a 4D wave function for that, you have to propagate the metric tensor wave ... Yes, certainly, I'll bring the preprint tomorrow so you can copy it ... You're welcome. Bye. She touched the earpiece button again to hang up, then whispered, Idiot.

A rented van drove up and double-parked behind the ambulance.

It’s getting too damn crowded here, she thought. Damn people with their damn trucks. Damn everyone trying to hurt me, making me vulnerable. I want fresh air. Been cooped up indoors by the rain for too long. But I’m only safe outdoors when I’m an invisible bag lady. Invisible is invulnerable. Even my damn therapist agrees with that. Anything to get me out and moving around. Time for this bag lady to be invisible someplace where I won’t get stepped on. She slowly stood up, first favoring her knees like they were stiff, then putting her hand on the small of her back and faking a little groan as she rose further. She remained stooped over as she took hold of the overstuffed shopping cart next to her and pushed it slowly along the sidewalk, as close to the trucks and ambulance as she could.

She made out a few words as she shuffled slowly by the ambulance: Plan, Delay, Targets. Then she heard the name Dorothy Anderson and had to stifle a shriek. Her breath caught in her throat. She couldn’t breathe. It’s the start of a panic attack. She recalled and ran through the panic control exercise her therapist had drilled into her and was able to hold it together ... barely. She thought, When you're certified with paranoid personality disorder, and you learn that they really are out to get you, is vindication comforting? I’m looking forward to asking my damn therapist that one.

Panic leashed ... for now ... she forced herself to think about what her therapist had taught her. Face my damn fear. Use my damn rational mind. Stay connected to the things that feel comfortable. My math. My computers.

Her heart played the 1812 Overture and her stomach tried to crawl up her throat, but she decided to try what her therapist had taught her.

She shuffled further along the sidewalk, trying to stay invisible.

By the time she reached the corner and turned onto Broadway she had the beginnings of a plan.

Halfway down the first block she knew what she wanted to do. What she had to do. Her hands were like cold, skinned fish, as was her forehead. She said in a soft, tired voice, I would rather die than run.

If I start running again, I’ll never stop. They’ll lock me back in that damned musty asylum. And inside my head I’ll still be running. They’ll muzzle me and strap me back on that sweat-, vomit-, and urine-stained bed. And inside my head I’ll still be screaming.

So she said it again, out loud, I would rather die than run. A passing young man, dreadlocked, and decked out in the garish yellow, green, and red of a Rastafarian, gave her a concerned look. He stopped short, raised an index finger, and opened his mouth to speak. But she hurried past before he could.

She thought, Fuck you mister. Get over it. This is normal for New York. And you did this to me. You and everyone else. Damn you all.

And she thought, Preferring to die rather than run ... that opens the door to dying as an option. Sometimes I like that option. Sometimes I like it a lot.

Then she thought again, If I’m willing to die, I’ve got nothing to lose by living. Or is that just my damn therapist talking? I’m not even sure it makes sense.

So she said it again, I’d rather die than run, and looked up at the deep blue sky. I gotta admit, that blue sky beats the cracked plaster ceiling above the asylum bed. That much makes sense.

So she said it aloud yet again, I’d rather die than run.

And thought, Oh, fuck, I’m starting to believe it. What is that? It’s not anger. I’m afraid but I’m not feeling rage. That’s new. I’m supposed to be angry. Is that courage? Oh, fuck, it’s much harder than anger. Being willing to die. Fuck it’s hard. But I like it. I think ... I think I’m proud of it. I think I’ve never been brave before. I think I’ve never been proud before. Not in my whole damn life. Oh, god, I need something to hug.

She reached down and hugged the back of her shopping cart. You’re my home away from home. Right now you’re all I’ve got. Not much. But you’re loyal and you’ll do. Tears welled in her eyes.

After a minute she stood and continued walking. Halfway down the block, she turned her shopping cart into the alley, and stopped in a hidden cove between two dumpsters that smelled of oozing rotted garbage. The odor was like smelling salts. She thought, Focus on the stench, not the panic pounding to get in.

Where no one could see, she took off her straw hat and wedged it in the side of the shopping cart. Then she took off her grey, scraggly wig, revealing her short greying brown hair and an oval face as ordinary as her brownstone townhouse. Her nose was a little too large to be pretty, but not unsightly. And from a distance, the oval face looked gentle and peaceful, like it should be studying poetry in a quiet corner of a library. But closer, the anger lines pinching around her eyes and slashing across her forehead clashed with any thought of peace. If anger lines hurt, she was tortured.

She put the wig in one of the large plastic garbage bags in the cart. Then she took off the greatcoat. The outside of the greatcoat she had carefully painted, frayed, and patched to look filthy. The inside was immaculate and luxuriously lined, with pockets for her phone, tablet, snacks, and other conveniences. She stood in the light grey skirt and white blouse that she wore under the greatcoat, suitable for a professor at Barnard College down the street. She swapped her comfy but purposefully ugly shoes for less comfy but more stylish ones, and matching purse from the other garbage bag. And finally she pulled out a hairbrush and compact for finishing touches, clearing away all traces of tears.

Professor Dorothy Anderson, Ph.D. Mathematics, a slender, ordinary, forgettable-looking 55-year-old upper-middle-class woman, stowed her shopping cart behind the dumpsters, turned, and walked out of the alley.

Her first stop was the camera shop down the block, where she bought a half dozen prepaid, precharged cell phones and a half dozen bluetooth earphones. Her second stop was the hardware store across the street, where she bought a roll of industrial strength double-sided foam tape. She paid cash. They could trace credit cards.

Then she went back to the alley where her shopping cart was stowed. The respectable professor entered the alley. In three minutes the invisible bag lady reemerged, shuffling, bent over, pushing her home away from home. The entire shopping excursion had taken fifteen minutes. She headed back to her townhouse.

She sat on a neighbor’s steps a few doors down from her townhouse this time. Close enough to see the trucks, now four of them. Far enough, she hoped, to stay invisible.

Her hat dipped in front of her, the brim almost to her knees, to shield her from view. And she got busy.

She paired an earphone to each cell phone. And she placed calls from the cell phones to the Columbia University conferencing server.

She got up slowly again and shuffled up to each truck. She stuck one hand in the passenger window, begging for loose change. As she did so, she touched her hat brim with her other hand, drawing their eyes upward, while babbling loudly, bumping against the door, and dropping an earphone from between her fingers to the floor of the vehicle.

Then, walking stooped over, she shuffled her shopping cart along the side of each truck, brushing against each one. The drape of her greatcoat hid her arm as she attached a cell phone to the underside of each truck with double-sided foam tape.

All sound in each truck went to the earphone, from there to the cellphone, and from there to a separate, secure teleconference at the university communications server.

Then she returned to her vantage point down the street to do what she had trained her whole life as an applied theorist to do: collect and make sense of data.

She found that only the people in the third truck were speaking English consistently, though with an Australian accent. She wasn't sure what a couple of the other languages were. Maybe Arabic and English in the first panel truck. Maybe Hebrew and English in the ambulance.

She also realized she'd need a permanent record of the conversations. But she couldn't record them on the university conferencing system.

So she posted a lucrative high-priority request for translation and transcription on Mechanical Turk. Within ten minutes she had real-time streaming translations from each vehicle transcribed to separate private Google Doc folders.

She accessed the transcriptions on her tablet via the wifi in her townhouse, which reached out here on the sidewalk. And she started reading.

Translated from Arabic: No, she’s not ... No, we can’t ... No, they haven’t either ... No, we’re outnumbered and outgunned ... What makes you think so? ... [epithet involving a sick camel] ... Khalid, you and Jawad drag Mohammad’s ass back in the truck before he attracts flies ... Yes, you useless [epithet involving two perverted camels] pull out the tranquilizer darts first ... Well, why don’t you ask the [epithet involving the previous sick camel, a biblically horny goat, and three pigs with diarrhea] Israelis if you can borrow the gurney from their ambulance? ... Oh, for the love of Allah, he’s arguing with the nurse ... Yes, sir, as I told Colonel Bahar, the Israelis must have followed us ... We couldn’t get in there. They arrived at the same time ... We don’t even know if Professor Anderson is home ... Yes, we will if she comes out ... Our sniper is ready ... Yes sir, he’s watching her windows as well as the door ... Yes sir ... The police will be here soon, and you said you wanted to avoid a diplomatic incident ... Yes sir ... Yes sir, we’ll have other opportunities to kill her ... Good day to you, too, sir ... [epithets involving people, animals, poison plants, extreme flatulence, explosives in multiple orifices of superior officers, and drowning in a sewage treatment plant] ...

Translated from French: You should see this, it’s sublime ... No, just shouting at each other ... Barbarians ... No, we’re comfortable in the air-conditioned truck, listening to music, and drinking coffee ... We have to wait until the truck ahead of us gets out of the way. Could be a while ... Oh, did you see that? Savages ... What for? She’s well protected without us. If she’s even there ... No, there’s no room on the sidewalk ... If I go out, it will be for wine and cheese ... I wish I was in New Orleans. Same standoff. But better food ... Yes, for Bodin LaBranche ... The wine shops here have a good selection. Upscale neighborhood. But the local restaurants tend toward simple slabs of meat. No nuance. Whereas the French Cajun cuisine in New Orleans is more civilized ... No, the Israelis beat the Saudis there ... No, they haven’t come out. Not until the Saudis leave ... [Dorothy skimmed a long discussion of the relative merits of Wisconsin versus Vermont cheeses] ...

Translated from Australian: [Dorothy skimmed through a long discussion of rugby players and teams] ... [Skimmed a heated argument about rugby players and teams] ... Sergeant Donovan here ... Yes sir ... No sir, he’s out of the truck talking with the other kidnappers who beat us here ... No, they don’t ... No, no one’s seen her ... No sir, that’s the team in San Francisco ... Benjamin Baruch, sir ... Yes, sir, the San Francisco police ... Yes, sir, I will sir, as soon as he gets back to the truck ... Thank you sir ... [epithets about senior officers] ... [Skimmed a long discussion of soccer players and teams] ... [Skimmed a heated argument about soccer players and teams] ...

Translated from Hebrew: [Long silence] ... Teams report. This is team one. Still stranded in Los Angeles. We’re arranging other transport to San Francisco. Police are guarding target one there ... This is team two. Target not found. We’re currently interrogating Dalton Francis’ mother ... This is team three. Target is guarded in place. Unable to relocate to the safe house ... This is team four. Target not found. But all competitors appear neutralized ... [Long silence] ... Should I go out and help her? ... No, the lieutenant can handle herself. Just wait and watch ... [Long silence] ... Shit, she’s badass ...

Translated from Chinese: [Long silence] ... This is Fragrant Lotus 4 requesting instructions ... [Long silence] ... This is Fragrant Lotus 4 requesting instructions ... [Long silence] ... Let me see that phone number again ... Yes, it’s right ... This is Fragrant Lotus 4 requesting instructions ... [Long silence] ...

If Dorothy had had time to be more scared, she would have been. And confused. But this was not the time for it. This was the time for impartial, impassive collection and analysis of data. She focused.

They're after all four of us, she thought. But why? We haven't done anything. Our research was a dead end. A dead end! We disbanded after we submitted a useless paper to an obscure journal. We haven't even emailed each other in three months. This makes no sense. No sense at all!

Total confusion filled her, calming her, too confused to be scared. She sat stock-still in body, fog-bound in mind. A minute passed. Then a spark of an idea flashed through the fog. Maybe one of them knows what’s going on. Looks like it's time to reconnect.

She sent some emails, then started dialing her cell phone.

Ten minutes later, when the grizzlies and wolverines boiled over, and the Colonel’s truck arrived, she left. On her way out, she bumped into the Colonel, who scared the bejeezus out of her, re-triggering her panic attack.

Day 1 - New Orleans, 10am Central Time, 11am Eastern

On a scale from zero to posh, Professor Bodin LaBranche’s apartment building in a poor section of New Orleans ranked no better than dowdy. The exterior bricks were stained by nearly a century of weather. But, unlike most others in the area, this building looked better the closer you looked, like a restored Model T parked in a junk yard. Every apartment’s windows were clean, the trim scraped and freshly painted, and the window boxes overflowing with well-tended flowers. The appearance was lost on Prof. LaBranche, but not the scent of the flowers. The gardenias were a tad heavy-handed for his palate, but the lemon verbena made him grin. Plus the rent was cheap, the air conditioning worked, and a mom-and-pop Cajun grocery/deli wafted seductive aromas across the street to him. Mom and Pop were his close friends. But their food ... their spicy Cajun specialties ... he loved.

LaBranche came from an old American family, far older than the Daughters of the American Revolution. His family name came from the large plantation near New Orleans where many generations of his ancestors had been slaves. It had been a successful plantation for many generations, growing rich from the work of his ancestors, and from selling off any excess ancestors. The LaBranche Plantation earned a reputation throughout the South for breeding pedigree-quality men, women, and children at reasonable prices.

When the phone rang, Professor LaBranche was sitting in his living room, on a kitten-soft leather recliner. The room was sparsely furnished. A couch for guests, a recliner for himself, and side tables for each. A blind man wants the essentials, nothing more. No coffee table to trip on. No plants to bump into. Lamps for guests stood close to the walls, out of the way. The colors didn’t match, but were mostly earth tones, so any clashing was, at worst, half-hearted.

LaBranche smiled as he faced across the room toward the two soldiers dressed as paramedics sitting on his couch. The smile and round cheeks made him look like Santa Claus must have looked when he was about thirty and only slightly overweight. If Santa were black. And blind. May I answer this? His grin widened. It might be for you. He reached toward the phone on a small table next to his chair.

Professor LaBranche couldn’t see it, but one of the soldiers grimaced back, and gave a useless thumbs up. That was about all he could do with his hands, which were duct taped together, with his forearms duct taped to his legs just above the knees. As an added measure, his ankles were duct taped together. His partner was similarly trussed.

The Professor picked up the phone. Hello? ... Dorothy! What a delight to hear your voice. Haven’t heard from you in ages! How are you? Just yesterday I read your paper on ... Oh, really? Tell me more ...

A long pause while the Professor listened. Then he laughed, "No, Dorothy, I believe you. I completely and totally believe you. You see, I have a couple of guests just like yours here with me in my living room right now ... Thanks for the warning. They were armed and dangerous, but some friends of mine pacified them. I may be blind but I know the smell of gunpowder solvent all too well. At first I thought they wanted to rob me. Now I don’t think so.

Everything about these guys says they’re soldiers. But their accent’s not American. He paused while he replayed a memory. I think it’s Israeli.

The two soldiers looked at each other.

But what the hell is going on? LaBranche listened to Professor Anderson for a while. As he listened, his smile faded, his round cheeks gradually flattened, and the jolliness in his brow tightened.

Agreed. Makes no sense. I’ll see what I can find out here.

The soldiers looked at the professor’s three friends guarding them: One large black man, one small black woman, and one medium-sized Hispanic man. All were in their mid twenties, all held pistols of various makes and sizes, all wore different gang colors and jewelry, and the woman had a thick scar from her left temple to the right side of her chin.

When an amateur holds a pistol, it almost always wobbles. The stress of pointing a gun at someone, the unconscious anticipation of a loud bang and kick, the unexpected weight, the unfamiliar feel of the grip, all these factors cause inexperienced people to unconsciously shift their grip around, a little bit, but continuously. Hence the wobble.

Yet these three pistols were pointed at the soldiers’ heads as solid and comforting as a panther’s stare.

It is a law of nature that, when they meet, professionals recognize other professionals. Such meetings are almost always calm ... at least on the surface.

And, there being nothing better to do at the moment, all five professionals listened calmly to Professor LaBranche chatting with Professor Anderson.

The longer he chatted, the less he sounded like Santa, and more like an army officer.

Yes, yes, Dorothy, we have a great many things to talk about. But that will take a while. First things first. You obviously need to call Benny and Dalton right away, right? ... So how ‘bout you call me back after you talk with them? ... Good. Take care, Dorothy. And try not to worry. I don’t know what’s happening, but I have a feeling this will work out okay ... If the others give you any trouble, have them call me ... All right. I’m looking forward to chatting with you ... Bye.

Professor LaBranche put the phone back down and smiled stiffly in the direction of his two guests. He couldn’t see them, but he could hear them sigh. "Well, that was educational for all of us, wasn’t it? There’s other teams like you outside, aren’t there? So we’re trapped in here? The others can’t get in and we can’t get out.

So let me think about this a minute ... You’re obviously not here to kill me, because I’m still alive. You would have killed me the moment the door opened, QED. So you must be here to take me somewhere. And you probably can’t tell me where. And I probably wouldn’t want to go on my own. Is that correct?

One of the soldiers nodded.

The Professor said, Please excuse a blind man, soldier, but if you don’t wear bells I can’t hear when you nod or shake your head.

The soldier answered, "Sorry. Yes, sir ... er ...