The Investigators, Inc. The Panama Case. Chapter 5. Still Day 4.

Well, hopefully Courage and the cats are in place by now, or close to it anyway. I still haven’t received a signal from Rascal to let me know they arrived, so guess I will have to worry a little bit longer. But a few minutes later Rascal sent the signal to me, so I know they have safely arrived.

Now, to them, the cats quickly jumped out of their saddlebags and ran speedily to the house, with Rascal joining them, after he turned himself invisible. The other cats can also go invisible, which they did, but they have to make themselves visible again so they can take photos, and do some measurements. That can’t be done while being invisible, though Kat is working on that for us too, but for now they must be visible.

The cats ran all over, taking pictures of the mansion, the guard towers, the driveway, doors and windows, plus measuring distances between all of these things. Unfortunately something went wrong. One of the guards in the first tower turned around and spotted Tracker and Storm. He also noticed they were wearing something, though he couldn’t tell what.

The cats were not wearing their usual backpacks, instead they had a camera and a measuring instrument. Their backpack would have gotten in the way and they were not needed for this job anyway. The guard raised his gun, preparing to shoot, but Courage spotted this and became visible, roaring loudly. Now, both guards in that tower looked and couldn’t believe their eyes.

Both men shot several times but Courage just disappeared, then reappeared on the other side of the guards, roaring again. The men turned and shot again, but Courage once again disappeared. All the cats went invisible now as well and ran over to the wood fence where they met Courage. After jumping into their saddlebags, Courage jumped over the 12 foot high fence.

They did all this while being invisible so no one would see them leave. More men came out of the house before the cats left, however, but they didn’t see Courage or the cats. The two guards in the tower were called down by the head guard, a man named Felipe and he questioned them. He sent another guard up to the tower to look around.

He did not see anything at first, but just as he was leaving he noticed a notch in one of the floorboards. He took out his knife and pried up the board and found some drugs and a nearly empty bottle of whiskey which he brought down to Felipe. He then ordered the two men to be tied to two posts in the yard while he called Rico.

“They saw what??” exclaimed Rico, “A huge disappearing lion? And you found what in the guard tower?! Kill them.” Rico was furious! At least those guards could have come up with a story that was more believable. Do they really think he is a total idiot? First it was Snakebite, now these two guards, what is going on in his organization?

Later that afternoon Snakebite’s girlfriend came to see Rico. “You said there was an extra $30,000 in his account,” she said, “but the bank knows nothing about that. Here is a copy of his account records.” She put it on Rico’s desk and he looked at it, then he took out the other copy he had from before. “Luis, take a look at this,” said Rico.

Luis looked at both copies and spotted that each of the three deposits of $10,000 had been added in. “Looks like Snakebite was right,” said Luis, “someone was trying to frame him, and the only one that could do that is Calvin. I never did trust that guy, he wanted Snakebite’s position.” “Where is Calvin now?” asked Rico.

“It’s end of day, he went home,” said Luis. “Well, he wanted Snakebite’s position,” said Rico, “so, give it to him, the exact same place you put Snakebite.” “That reminds me,” said Luis, “Calvin knew the location of the meeting tonight, might want to change that.” “Good idea Luis,” said Rico, “it will be at R3 instead. And you will be taking Snakebite’s place.”

“Thanks Rico,” said Luis, and off he went to get Calvin. Rico then told Snakebite’s girlfriend that she would get some extra money to help her out. She thanked him and left. Aari had already had his team ready to hit the other meeting location, so I called him and told him the change in plans. Aari got in touch with Manuela to find out where R3 was located.

It was on the other side of the city, so they would have to hurry to get there in time. Manuela was closer, so she arrived first, but she kept further back until all the people arrived for the meeting. Right after the last person arrived, Aari also arrived with his team. The location was different, but so was the security arrangements for the meeting.

“Do you always bring your wife along?” asked Manuela. Carine was along posing as Aari’s wife, so she could protect him. “Most definitely,” said Aari, “she is an invaluable part of my organization.” “That is nice to hear,” said Manuela. She then asked questions about how and where they met since she noticed that Carine had a French accent.

Both Aari and Carine were careful with their answers and Manuela then left to join her men. “I don’t trust her Aari,” said Carine, “it’s like she knows something about either you or me.” Right then I called Aari and told him to be extra careful, I could sense trouble and it had to do with his team. Manuela, once back with her men, made a phone call to Rico.

“Rico, there is something…” was all she said and her phone began smoking and no longer worked. Then Rusty suddenly appeared in front of her. Manuela recognized him right away as the cat that talked to her the night before.

Meow.= Why you scared of Rico? This your big and only chance to be number 1 cartel in Panama. You not very tough if you run away now. Stand up and fight bad Rico, he making plans in this meeting to destroy you once and for all. Fight now and live, or run and die. Rusty then disappeared. “They’re moving in Manuela,” said Rodrigo…

To Be Continued.

©2025 Steve McLeod.