Kyan will be going ahead of us to take out Toledo’s security system. “What is that?” I asked her. “This little gadget keeps me from being picked up on his radar or any part of his security system,” she replied, “kind of makes me invisible to it. But, cameras are another thing, which is why I have this little gun which will splatter paint on any nearby camera.

That will give me just enough time to disable his security system with this little device.” “Where did you pick up those gadgets?” I asked. “I made them myself,” she said with a smile, “well, I am ready to go, would you like to come along?” “Sure,” I said. She then put one of those gadgets on me so I would be “invisible” too.

Off we went. Surprisingly his cameras were quite far apart, but Kyan decided to take one out and go up to that spot. Obviously the cameras had a large field of vision so it was best to go right up to one. She then put another gadget on the fence and the security system was down. “Okay Mac, hit that front gate,” I said.

Mac drove the car at the gate and smashed through it fairly easily. We were already at the house but Kyan stopped me from going onto the steps. “More security,” she said and put another gadget on the third step which knocked out the whole house security. “Okay Rock, your turn,” I said. Rock came in a helicopter, plus two other helicopters, with the rest of our team and Mandar’s special team.

They landed easily in the large yard and everyone was out in less than a minute. One small explosion and we were inside the house. Lights came on and Carmen started down the stairs. She used the machine to stop one man, but several of the girls shot and Carmen fell down the stairs. She was dead. We went all through the house looking for Toledo, but we could not find him.

Suddenly the house began to burst into flames all over and I called for everyone to get out. Just prior to this, Cinnamon, another of the girls from Mandar, had been searching through a large wood desk and had found some papers she was looking at, when the desk suddenly burst into flames also. She screamed and jumped back but her jacket caught fire!

I ran over and managed to pull the jacket off her before the flames caught her hair. The lights were now out but the fire gave us enough light to run out of the house and to safety. Meanwhile… Back at the chateau. The phone rang and Annelie answered.

“You must be Annelie,” said the male voice, “nice to talk with you.” Annelie put it on speaker so Baldwin could hear it also. “I am Toledo,” he said, “I must congratulate Steve and the rest of you for your fine work tonight. I never would have thought you would ever find my home. And getting past my elaborate security system, well, that was just pure genius.

No one should have been able to do that, but you did it. Too bad Steve did not catch me at home however. Once the house security was shut off, I received a warning message to let me know, so I decided to leave right away. Poor Carmen, I had to leave her behind and I do not imagine she got away from Steve and team.

I am well on my way to another place now so you can tell Steve to relax, I will not be back for a while. I want to take a vacation and work on some projects of mine. But I know we will meet again some day. Please tell Steve to beware of Carmen’s younger brother, Stan, he is worse than Carmen, more dangerous and he has much more patience than Carmen.

I am sure he will not be too happy that Steve killed Carmen, which I am sure he did. I had to burn my house though, such a shame, I really liked that place. But there were papers around I did not want Steve to see, especially the list of my houses around the world. That would be bad if he found that.

I will not make such a mistake again though. Well, nice talking with you, give my regards to Steve and the team, time to get some sleep, it is a long flight.” He then hung up. “Well, that was certainly interesting,” said Annelie smiling. “Yes,” agreed Baldwin, “not often our enemies call in such a friendly manner to let us know they have escaped us.”

“Yes, I am sure that Steve will be disappointed though,” said Annelie, “we were so close to catching him this time.” Meanwhile, back to us. “You had a close call there Cinnamon,” I said, “what were you looking for in that desk?” “Amazing what an old desk can have hidden inside,” she said smiling, “there was a list of houses that Toledo owns all around the world, for example.”

“Too bad you didn’t get that one,” I said sighing. “Oh, but I did,” she said, still smiling, “I have photographic memory and the whole list is right here.” She pointed to her head when she said that. “Seriously?” I asked. “Yes indeed,” she said, “I have been able to do that since I was a kid, I have just gotten better at it as I grew up.

Oh, thank you so much for helping me, that would have been bad.” “Not a problem,” I said, “how would you like to join our team?” “I would love to!” she exclaimed. “I want you on our team too Kyan, if you would like to join us,” I said. “Thought you would never ask,” she replied laughing, “of course I want to join.” Now, how did Toledo escape us?

To Be Continued.

©2023 Steve McLeod.