For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
Well, it has been several more days and everything is still calm and quiet. I do not understand why Carole Ann has disappeared, unless she realized we had gotten away from her so she decided to leave, for now. And she did lose some of her men, plus get the police questioning her about her dead men and their activities, since all were wanted by the police on drug related charges.
But news of her mother’s death will have her furious for revenge. We did learn that Lauren was her mother, Christopher is her cousin and Majori is an aunt. There are also 2 uncles who both have large and powerful organizations. We have not met them before and hopefully we do not.
She also has 2 brothers and a sister, all members of smaller drug gangs, so they would not likely pose a great danger to us. But we will continue to be on guard, I am quite certain that Carole Ann will return and probably will not give us any warning this time. She will just strike quickly to try and take us by surprise. I am back home again and walking, although slowly, but at least there is good improvement.
Dr. Jorgenson is still amazed at my recovery and he still cannot explain how that nerve managed to heal like it did. There is still damage, but nothing like it was. He just shakes his head every time he thinks about it. Today some of the guys were in the city and spotted one of Carole Ann’s men. I then sent the remaining guys and some of the girls to join them and perhaps we can be led right to Carole Ann.
Perhaps we are finally getting a break and we can take her by surprise this time. It was a beautiful day so several of us were outside enjoying the sun and warmth. But then a car and 2 vans drove up and I knew that meant trouble. “Quiet Red Alert Annelie,” I said. Then I told Sky and Aasta to take Honey and Agata inside through the back door.
Kat, Jennifer and Dawn were with me and we went around to the front to greet our ‘guests’. Meanwhile, in the city. “Back home now everyone!” yelled Rock, “It was a trap and big trouble at home!” But even driving fast they would never get home in time to help us. They all knew that but they tried not to think about it. No one said a word on the way, but they were all upset with themselves for letting Carole Ann win so easily.
Now, back to us again. As we walked closer to the vehicles I was quite surprised not to see Carole Ann or her men. It was Christopher and 15 men with him. All of them got out too, I guess Christopher wanted me to know they were ready for a fight. So were we, and we had home turf advantage. He smiled as we got closer.
“Now, how did you manage to clone Jennifer so quickly?” he asked, “I could build a whole army of them and be unstoppable.” “Except for one small difficulty,” I said, “they are with me, not you.” “But I come with a proposition for you Steve,” he said, “and I am sure you will like what you hear.” “Go ahead,” I told him, “but I am sure you will be disappointed.” He laughed.
“You give me the two Jennifers,” he said, “and I will kill Carole Ann and her animals so you never have to worry about her again. I am sure your wife, and some others, would be happy to hear that news.” “I think we would all be happy knowing that Carole Ann is no longer a problem for us,” I said, “but the answer is no. Jennifer and Kat stay with me.”
“You know, with this laser I can destroy them,” he said, “and you as well, before any of your team could touch us.” “Do not be so sure,” I said, “look over there by our pool, you can just see the end of a rifle. It is aimed at your head, and in the tower behind me is another, also aimed at your head. Those girls are trained snipers, they never miss and this short distance is easy for them.
If you even point that laser weapon toward me, you will be dead, and then the fight begins for your men. Now, I will be nice this time and let you go, but do not come back. And if you see Carole Ann, tell her she is finished, I will not be letting her go this time. I will find her and crush her and her organization totally.”
“I do not understand why you want to protect 2 robots,” he said, “just give me those 2 and make more for yourself, you obviously have the expertise, something I do not. One last chance for a good deal.” “The answer is no Christopher,” I said, “now leave while you can.” He started for his car, but one of his men pulled his gun and pointed it at me.
Kat quickly stood in front of me and my 2 snipers fired at the man with the gun, killing him instantly. Christopher turned quickly but Jennifer kicked him twice in the stomach, then once to his head and he dropped to the ground. More gunshots were fired and more men fell to the ground. Seven of them tossed their guns away and surrendered.
To Be Continued.
©2024 Steve McLeod.
Hello everyone! Time for a cup of coffee and relax for a few minutes. Well, the work with the water is still ongoing here in our building. They messed up the hot and cold water lines the other day, but only in some apartments. Like mine. Naturally. Not a big deal though, but they did manage to find out what the problem was yesterday and they fixed it.
However, the apartments in the center of the building did not have their water come back on last night, so they were here working quite late trying to find out what the problem was for that. They did finally fix it. They also found more problems they were not aware of initially, so it is going to take a week longer than anticipated to get everything done. Naturally.

Bohemian Waxwing after a light snowfall.
Things like that always seem to happen. I woke up at 3am this morning. And I was awake. Meaning I was no longer sleepy. So I stayed up. No sense going back to bed, I would just toss and turn and not sleep anyway. No point in that. So I went down and did my laundry. It was nice and quiet down there this morning.
Two men came in from their morning walk about 4am. Who goes out for a morning walk that early? It was cold this morning too. Well, kind of cold, compared to what we have had. Yesterday it was 32F (0C) and this morning it was -10F (-23C), so that is a cool temperature swing in 12 hours. They are also having a problem with heat in the hallways these days, basically there is none.

There was a flock of about 50 of them.
Nothing but cold air blowing through their heating system. I nearly froze doing laundry and I was dressed warm. Okay, maybe “froze” is not quite the right word, but I certainly was cold. Very cold. Fortunately that problem does not affect the apartments. Oh well.
It is a nice, sunny day, even though it is cold. Tomorrow is supposed to be above freezing again. These up and down temperature swings are hard on my body. However, it is better than weeks of bitterly cold which we normally get in winter. So, really, it has been a nice winter. Then there are forest fires. Yep, there are a lot of forest fires still burning from last summer.

I tried to get one looking at me, but this was the best I could do.
Winter does slow them down, but they keep burning. It could be a very bad fire season this year. Today I am showing some Bohemian Waxwings, one of our winter birds that come in from the far north. I am rambling a bit today, but I was up early. Oh well. Have a great weekend everyone and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2024 Steve McLeod.