After Muffin’s little speech, we held a vote and it was 100% in favor of taking the case. I forgot to mention last time that the orphanage that Meinhard managed is now in good hands, so the kids are safe again. The kids we rescued, 4 girls and 2 boys, well, both boys and two of the girls have been adopted by nice families. The other two girls are with us, Erika, who is being adopted by Jennifer and I, amazingly enough it is actually going to work. Then there is a little Swedish girl, age 9, two years younger than Erika, who will likely be adopted by one of our Swedish girls, Astrid, Roxette or Engla.

If that isn’t accepted, then Rock and Annelie will adopt her. I called the prison and was allowed to talk with Timothy for 8 minutes and during this time he spoke in the same code as the letter for part of our conversation. I was to contact his lawyer in Nice to get paid, in advance, for the whole case. We are to keep the money even if we are unsuccessful, or we can donate it to the charity of our choice. He said this was “clean” money, though I am not quite sure what he considers “clean”. He did not know where Trapper would be hiding Acadia, so, we need to find her, quickly.

Mandar sent us a man, which he said we should keep as part of our team. His name is Aaran, a Scottish man, his name means a mountain of strength and it certainly fits him. It seems I am the smallest man on this team. Sigh. Anyway, he is 30 years old and according to Mandar, Aaran knows everything there is to know about every major crime organization around the world. I asked him about this gang of Timothy’s and he rattled off so much information there is no way I could remember it all.

Apparently this gang has 12 major hideouts around the world, 2 are in Europe, likely being watched by the police who are still trying to find the stolen money/gold. Aaran figured the most likely hideout for them to use right now is the hardest one to get at, and one the police would not likely be watching. Unfortunately it is located in Panama. I want Matt and his Knight Riders along on this one and they were the first team to leave. Aaran will be part of Matt’s team from now on. Kat and her Wildcats left next, then my Investigators team left last.

I don’t want anyone to think that the three teams are working together, not yet at least. Matt’s team will arrive in the morning, Kat’s team in the afternoon and my team the next morning. That leaves us just 5 days. Aaran said this hideout is in a more jungle like setting, away from people. It is a large mansion, or as he put it, a fortress, surrounded by a high iron fence with electrified wire at the top. They use drones to watch the place from the air, but only one drone at a time flies around and it is not in the air at all times.

They fly at regular intervals, though the intervals change every two days, and they never fly in the same direction. So, there is about 1 hour between flights, and that is when we move in. However, that is not much time considering that we have to get past that fence and up to the mansion across open ground without being seen by the regular guards that are constantly walking around the mansion. Plus there are two towers on the mansion, each with a man and machine gun.

Aaran was right, it is a fortress. Obviously the best time to do this will be at night. It is still going to be dangerous, but at least it will be somewhat safer. Matt was in touch as soon as we arrived at our hotel. They had checked out that fortress and there is a lot of activity out there. They also added something new, guards with dogs walk around the fence line every two hours during the day, but not at night. Dogs are not a good thing, they will likely smell our cats even before they smell us. They were told by a young woman who works in the bar about the men at that fortress.

She does not like them, they cannot keep their hands to themselves and they are always trying to get her to work for them. They tell her she can make much more money working for them. But she does not want that kind of work. A man who calls himself Trapper wants her for his personal girl he told her, and she would never have to worry about money again. She is afraid of him, but she has nowhere to go to get away from him either. She owes money to her boss and is working off her debt, but he is considering selling her to Trapper to get his money back sooner.

She has been pleading with him not to sell her. She has also been in the mansion, just a year ago, when a couple friends of hers were “looking after” the mansion when this gang was not around. She thinks they just broke in to look around and steal some things. However, she was in every room and remembers everything perfectly. “That is just what we need Matt,” I said, “a guide who knows her way around. She might even have an idea where Acadia is being held.” “Quite possibly,” said Matt, “I just didn’t have enough time to talk with her.” “She is off duty right now and stays in room 112,” said Matt.

Then off he went while it was still very early so no one would see him. “Well Jennifer,” I said, “we need to visit this woman right away, we don’t have much time.” “Yes, I agree with you Steve,” she said, “and we need a couple of our cats along too, they are good at calming people.” So, Muffin and Jewel came along with us. We brought Aasta along too in case we needed to enter this girls room, without her knowing. Aasta can open locks of most any kind now, Mac has been teaching her and a couple of the other girls too.

I knocked on the door as loud as I dared at this early hour, I did not want to wake anyone, especially the owner who lived along this same hallway. It did not take her long to answer and she let us in right away, which I thought was a bit odd since she did not know us at all. But she told us that Matt had phoned her and said to expect us to visit her early this morning. She trusted Matt and she was willing to help us get this young woman, Acadia, away from those terrible men.

She was afraid to actually go into the mansion, but I told her we would protect her and two of our cats would stay with her at all times. She looked at Muffin and Jewel and asked how they could help her. I explained that all of our cats were specially trained and they have weapons they can use to kill people. But we would not let her out of our sight anyway. She agreed to help us completely, providing we agreed to take her away from here.

I asked her if she had anything she wanted to keep and she said only a few of her clothes actually belonged to her, nothing else. We then took her back to our room, she would stay with us from now on. At breakfast I told her boss that I had hired her to work for us as a tour guide. He got upset and said she owes her money and has to work to pay it back. I asked how much money and he told me, so I told Melanie to give the man that amount plus an extra 5% for the inconvenience. He was very happy after that and treated us quite well. But at noon Trapper came in for lunch with some of his men…

To Be Continued.

©2024 Steve McLeod.