I told them I’m off this crazy case, after all, how am I supposed to get paid now anyway?  I mentioned I have another case coming up soon in Spain and would I be able to leave in time to accept it?  They told me to wait at the house and they would let me know.  That’s fine, I said.  Meow, meow.=They not believe me, I want to bite their legs, but I didn’t.  Yes, good girl Muffin, biting their legs would have hurt our chances of getting out of here.  Let’s get packed so we can leave as soon as they give us the word.  Meow!=Okay!  It was only about an hour later when they called and said we could leave.  That’s it Muffin, we can go!  But I wonder if they will follow us?  I’m not sure if I can trust these guys or not.  But we have to take that chance so off we go.

We finally make it to the airport after making a wrong turn which cost us an extra hour of traveling time.  Now, I’m supposed to make a call to this number, which I do, and the man answering told me where to meet him.  There is a code number we are supposed to use to identify each other.  I gave him my 5 numbers and he answered correctly.  We go over to a waiting small jet, not your typical passenger jet, this one is very nice inside, laid out like a living room with nice large chairs to sit on.  Muffin liked this and promptly claimed one of the chairs as hers.  Just before taking off the pilot gave me a copy of his flight path.  Why are we going to Portugal?  There was a last minute change in plans, he said, but nothing to worry about.  I always worry when things change suddenly like that without an explanation.  But too late to get off now, we are on our way.

Apparently a different plane will take us to our destination.  What do you think Muffin?  Meow, meow.=Not like change, I think danger coming.  Yes, I agree with you.  But soon Muffin is sleeping in her very comfortable chair and I’m sitting trying to figure out what is going on.  Why all this secrecy regarding JR?  Why did she give up the contents of that leather case?  I saw what was in there when I checked it out the day before.  There was evidence in there proving those police officers were part of a large crime ring.  And JR had claimed those officers killed the lawyer.  I had already been thinking of that possibility after I had read what was in that case.  Hmm, we must be nearing our destination soon.  I look at the flight path, we should be right about there now.  Suddenly the plane starts turning sharply to the right.

Hey, we shouldn’t be doing that, nothing that direction except open sea.  The pilot had his door locked so I started banging on it to get his attention, but no answer.  This is definitely not good, so I ran over to my backpack just as shots came through the door!  Wow, I got out of the way just in time.  Then the door opened quickly and a man, whom I had not seen before, came out pointing a gun at me.  But I got a shot off first and he fell to the floor.  I ran in to check on our pilot who was lying on the floor.  Muffin stayed back to guard our stuff.  The pilot had been stabbed but was still alive.  He was able to tell me how to get the plane back on course.  We were not far from the small airport where we had planned to go.  The pilot called the man we were supposed to meet to let him know what was going on.  But how are we going to land?

To be continued.

Steve and Muffin.

©2020 Steve McLeod.