Steve`s Country
For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
The Investigators, Inc. Case of Strange Murder. Chapter 8.
Roxette and Charly had gone outside to look for Mallory after she had tried to phone out. While they were standing outside talking with her, Mallory suddenly fell to the ground and she was bleeding from the left side of her head. Roxette immediately pressed her emergency button which went out to all the team through their phones. Code Red Attack, Code Red Attack!
Roxette, Charly and Rick dropped to their knees, guns ready, looking in the direction of the shot. Unfortunately they were looking towards the sun right then which made it impossible to see anything. The rest of Team 7 were now present and others came out of the chateau. Then suddenly a helicopter came up over the hill, surprising everyone.
The side door opened and a man with an assault rifle began shooting, very quickly. Then the chopper left back over the hill once more. There were bodies lying on the ground everywhere. “Sky, Sky, what is going on over there?” I yelled, then I repeated myself, but Sky did not answer. I then switched over to Tracy. “It is a slaughter out there Steve!” she exclaimed, “first Mallory was shot, then a helicopter showed up and the side door opened with a guy and an assault rifle.
Our Teams did not stand a chance Steve, that guy just cut them down like he was in one of those shooting galleries.” Then she added, “Sky was out there too. I, I am really sorry Steve.” She was fighting tears by that time. I was too numb for tears right now. Surely Sky did not get killed, I mean, she had just gotten out of the clinic, just to get killed? This cannot be happening.
And here I am on a jet flying over the ocean and will be for several hours yet. Wickers just made his second big mistake. Killing of those women in that little room was his first mistake, and now this. We will be back Wickers, and very soon! I had the phone hooked up to our jets intercom system, so everyone could hear. Jennifer came over and sat beside me.
“My shoulder is still good for crying on Steve,” she said, “but I have a feeling that Sky will still be alive.” “I certainly hope you are right Jennifer,” I said, “but standing in the open like that does not give much protection.” Anyway, we cannot do anything about the situation now so I need to relax and sleep if possible. I eventually fell asleep on the couch with my head on Jennifer’s lap. The time did go by much faster and we were soon landing at the airport.
There was a helicopter ready to take us back to the chateau. We actually landed at the clinic instead. That must mean that Sky is still alive! We were taken inside to meet the survivors of this horrific event and Sky was among them, but she was in a coma. I talked to her anyway, just in case she could hear me. Then we left to head home. I need a plan, a good plan, in order to catch Wickers.
By morning I had my plan, but it is dangerous. We had breakfast then discussed my idea, making a few changes here and there and finally adopting the plan. Then we headed back to the airport and our waiting jet. We were soon in the air, flying over the ocean. We seemed to get there rather fast, but that is a good thing, we need to get things moving quickly before anyone else gets killed or hurt.
We lost some good people yesterday and could lose some more yet. Fortunately Mandar is letting us use some of his teams to help out right now. He nearly lost all 10 people in Team 7 yesterday, only 2 survived and both were injured. None of our team were killed, but 6 were wounded, 3 seriously. Now, we need to put some fear into Wickers.
While flying back to the US, Annelie called to let me know she found Mandy’s grave. Everything fit, except her name is Mandy Anderson. Perhaps all the kids share that name of Anderson. Annelie is checking on that. Apparently Mandy died exactly one week ago, murdered. That is a strange murder indeed. There is something else on that grave marker, it said “my precious jewel”…
To Be Continued.
©2024 Steve McLeod.
Saturday Stories. #14 Bears Again.
PLEASE NOTE: This is one of my adventures from years ago and is meant for entertainment purposes only.
Good morning and Happy Saturday! It is a beautiful, sunny morning here though a bit on the chilly side. The temperature was 23F (-5C) this morning with just a light bit of snow on the ground. Yesterday morning we had about an inch of snow but it all melted during the day but we kept having flurries all day.
This present snow should easily melt today as well. But, we will not be getting back to those nice warm temps we had before until probably May. Oh well, that is how spring works around here. But it does look so beautiful out there with the sun shining brightly again.
This is one of the brown bears, this one stayed to itself about 40 feet away.
Now, I should get started with another story from my past. I have written about this before I am quite sure, but some of you would have missed seeing that post, so I will write another one telling about one of my many encounters with bears. Years ago we used to have numerous small garbage disposal areas. All of them are closed now in favor of larger, more centralized ones.
Anyway, there was one such small garbage disposal area that I used to stop at frequently since there were usually bears at that one. I did have a camera back then, but it was not a good quality one and, of course, back then they were all film type cameras and that film had to be developed, a process that usually took about 2 weeks.
This is another picture of that one above.
That is a long time to wait in order to find out if your pictures actually turned out nicely or not. Anyway, one early morning I stopped in at this garbage disposal area and there were 4 bears present, two were regular black bears and 2 were brown colored black bears. The regular black bears were on the farther side of the disposal area, which was fine.
I wanted to get a picture of those brown bears if possible. I parked my car which put me about in the middle of this group of bears and since I do not really trust bears, I left my car door open in case I had to get back inside quickly. One black bear was quite big at about 400 pounds, the other one was smaller. The one ‘brown’ black bear that was closest to me was about 300 pounds and it kept walking back and forth on the parking area watching me.
This is the main one I wanted for pictures. This one kept pacing back and forth.
I think it wanted to come over to the garbage but it was not sure about me getting in its way. Now, my car door did not like to stay open and if it was on even a small slope the door would close. So, while standing there the door kept bumping into me and I kept pushing it open again. After a while this was starting to get a bit annoying since I am trying to get a picture so I finally decided to ignore the door and concentrate on getting a picture instead.
The door bumped against me again but this time I left it. Just as I was pressing the shutter button the door pushed against me again, almost knocking me over. The door was already sitting against me, so this was kind of odd. So, I gave it another harder push but the door did not move. That got me thinking so I turned around to see that bigger black bear sitting on the other side of the door.
He had been pushing one way while I had been pushing the other way! Perhaps he thought it was some kind of game and he was sitting there enjoying himself. I, on the other hand, did not think it was so enjoyable, and now the other black bear was at the front of my car. Even the brown bear was now getting braver and was coming closer.
Okay, that was too much for me so I quickly got back in the car and closed the door. That big black bear stood up leaning against the car and started to shake it. I honked the horn but it did not bother the bears at all. So I started the car and quickly backed up, then turned and out of there I went.
I did get a couple of pictures that were not too bad for a cheaper camera. I would sure like to get a picture of a brown black bear now that I have a decent camera, but finding one of them is not easy now. Oh well. It was a great time on a beautiful, sunny, summer morning.
I then went to my favorite restaurant and told Krissy about the bears. She stared at me. “I should slap you!” she said, “You do know bears are dangerous, right?” Hmm, it would seem that bears are not the only ones who are dangerous. Well, that is all for now, I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2024 Steve McLeod
