After the Major left I went and told the others the rest of what Major and I had just talked about. “We will need to go at this very carefully,” I said, “if the kidnappers suspect we are looking for her, then they will know that the Major hired us. That will mean sure death for Macey. So, we do not use our scramblers, we just have to be careful how we talk, and do most of our talking about the case outside. But we will take the new scramblers just in case we can use them at times.

Inside we send notes to each other, on paper, then destroy the paper. We will arrive in teams and we do not know each other. We will pretend to meet and spend time together once we are there. Sky, Crystal, Kristina and I will go first, with Muffin. Annelie, can you work your laptop over there? They might have someone smart enough to hack into your laptop.” “If they can do that,” she said, “then I will retire for good!”

“Okay, you, Rock, Benson, Carine, and Astrid, with MC, will be in team 2,” I said, “then Galyna, Angel, Tracy, Marlene (one of our new nurses), and Sigurbjorn, will be in team 3, with Storm. Chung, Saranna and Bridgette (our other new nurse) and Ilda, will stay here, but will be ready to come if we need them.” We actually managed to get a commercial flight early the next morning which will take us to a larger island close to the one we want.

From there we will use a boat for travel to the island, or other islands if needed. Baldwin would have a boat ready for us by the time we got there. The others will use regular boats that travel among the islands. I then called Crandall to get his take on things. “No need to worry about the Major, Steve,” he said, “he is on the level with this. And Macey would never do this herself, she loves her dad, she really does.

And she does not need the money, the Major’s whole estate is hers. He even offered to give her half of it when she turned 20, but she turned it down. Her two brothers have a good place in the organization and lots of cash to go with it. Plus, it was partly their idea to give Macey all the inheritance. And it would be death for them to go against their dad, Victor would never stand for that.

Do what you want to their enemies, but you never touch anyone inside the organization, no matter what.” “Thanks Crandall,” I said, “that helps a lot.” “I can help you with something else too,” he said, and went on to tell me. “That is good to know,” I said, “I appreciate all your help, and if you come up with any more information, let me know quickly.”

“I will sure do that Steve,” he said, “wish I could come along, but those kidnappers might know me.” “Yes, it would be too dangerous for you, and for Macey,” I said. We hung up and then it was off to bed for all of us, our day would be starting early. Two hours into our flight and we hit some turbulence, not fun for this guy. It didn’t seem to bother the girls though. Meow,meow.=Man behind watch us.

“Yes,” said Crystal, “I have noticed that too.” Her and Kristina were sitting ahead of us and turned around most of the time talking to us. Once the turbulence ended the man who had been watching us fell asleep, or at least had his eyes closed. Muffin disappeared before I had a chance to stop her, I knew what she was planning. One of these times she will get caught, I am sure of it.

She came back after a bit with the mans wallet. I still do not know how she does that so easily. Sky just giggled. I looked through the wallet, not much interesting here. Wait, what is this? I recognized a small logo on the inside of his wallet. I pointed it out to Sky, she just frowned. Then I showed Crystal and Kristina.

Crystal recognized it right away. He had no money with him, not unusual these days, except he had no credit or debit cards either. Possibly he kept those in a separate holder. There was also a phone number written on a piece of paper, so Sky quickly copied it down. Then I sent the wallet back with Muffin who quickly dropped it in the aisle by the man and returned to us.

A flight attendant found it and returned it to the man. Finally we landed and hopped aboard our boat and headed off to our vacation destination. That is what we are calling it for now. There was a mix up at the hotel and we ended up with just one room instead of two. Sky thought that would be better anyway, and she might be right. All the others arrived and settled into their rooms. That man from the plane was also at our hotel, that was something I did not like…

To Be Continued.

©2023 Steve McLeod.