HI THERE!! NICE TO SEE YOU AGAIN!! I hope you liked the power picnic. In this chapter we hear from Bem. I must have made seven mistakes typing that one sentence. You ever try to write something that refuses to come out. One day I'm going to ignore the error and just post whatever I type the first time. We'll see if anyone gets it.
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Crown Vic to a Parallel World: Stolen Love The third and final installment of the ongoing adventures of Church Philips
32
Ancillarum, the Mystery Woman, and the Landing Lights
Bem was suitably impressed and very enthusiastic about the results of my experiment when we were all together again. We'd joined Bem in the main dining room and were seated around the table while Bem stood to hear our report. "That was some good thinking, Big Guy," Bem praised me then shifted his encouragement to the young people, "and Andy and you sweety," he addressed my nephew and his stepdaughter, "you both have done so well. I couldn't be prouder."
Bem leaned in and kissed Leah's cheek. The action embarrassed her, and put a happy smile on her face at the same time. Bem looked very proud indeed as he stood with his shoulders back and his lean chest puffed out. He could have been a strutting rooster he was so swollen with pride.
I loved how invested he was in the successes of the extended family he'd become a part of. I was so glad to have him as a friend, so glad he was with me, helping to find Shawn. As soon as I'd had that thought, I chased it away and corrected it. Bem wasn't merely helping. For me to say he was helping would minimize what he was doing. Bem was in charge of Shawn's rescue.
"Well," Bem said, using the word to announce he was shifting gears, "we've had some successes as well. Ancillarum was helpful, but not very. It seems he's known for portraying himself a `big man.'" Bem explained using air quotes. "You know, spends money on conquests, shows off. That means he's always short on money.
"It's something that wouldn't show up on a background check, but it would be part of someone's reputation that would make them an easy mark for exploitation. The enemy agent, this nameless woman, she approached him directly to make the offer."
"And he accepted." I put in bitterly.
"Yes, he did." Bem agreed. "These things happen."
I exploded at Bem's indifference to the violation of trust that this servant perpetrated for a few dollars, a violation that led to Shawn being kidnapped. "DON'T HAND ME THAT SHIT!"
Bem's `surrender hands' shot up in the air as I shouted. I gritted my teeth and gave him a chance to explain himself. "I didn't mean it the way I think you took it. I mean, servants get compromised. It's a risk you take when you have them."
I wasn't placated yet, but I saw that Bem wasn't being as dismissive as I thought he'd been. My rage settled to regular anger. I let Bem go on without interrupting him.
"Cellarius manages this household very well. He handles all the sensitive business and keeps the others at arm's length. It's because of him, that Ancillarum didn't have much to tell the nameless woman. I don't think he gave the enemy any information that helped them kidnap Shawn. I think they got what they needed by observing his movements in Oppidum. Figuring out Shawn's habits when he's in town isn't hard. He doesn't have any protection and he'll treat anyone at his practice. They could have taken him right off the street if they'd wanted to."
Bem's rational made sense to me. The idea that the servant, this Ancillarum, had provided information but nothing that was useful, helped me to settle down a bit. I felt my jaw unclench, and I opened my mouth to stretch the knots from my face muscles.
Bem went on to try to make his point. "Ancillarum didn't help them, but he didn't help us either. That's his real crime, being stupid. He should have come to Cellarius when he was approached. Cellarius would have gone to you, and you could have involved me, and probably the Steward, and we might have averted Shawn's kidnapping altogether. You probably would have rewarded the man for his honesty instead of prosecuting him for betraying the trust of this household."
"I would have...handsomely." I agreed with Bem's logic.
Bem shrugged his small shoulders at the futility of 20/20 hindsight. "The servant situation in this household needs work but that's a problem for another time. For now, we need to figure out where Shawn is. We're using the records of the city surveillance system to see if we can find the woman, either from when she made contact with Ancillarum or if she might have been watching Shawn's practice.
"If we can get enough images of her, maybe with different facial prosthetics, we can assemble a composite of her real face and identify her. We're also hoping Primis comes through with some information, maybe a name, that we can use."
"Where is that little fuck?" I asked Bem. "Ancillarum, I mean. What did you do with him?"
"Vulp compelled him to sit quietly and locked him in a spare bedroom in the servant's wing. He'll stay there until the Steward's agents come to collect him later tonight. I spoke to him earlier, the Steward. He will hold Ancillarum until the situation with Shawn is resolved, then we'll decide what charges are appropriate."
I sighed and rubbed my neck absently when Bem spoke about `resolving the situation.' He made it sound so simple. I wished it was. Something was bothering me though...something besides Shawn being kidnapped.
The Ancillarum situation had stirred something in my mind, but it was like a song title that you just can't think of. I gnawed on it, chewed it over like a piece of gristly fat stuck between my back teeth. The trouble snapped into place like a wrench that rounds off the head of a stuck bolt. My mind seized upon it with all the surprise of the skipped wrench and the smashed knuckles that always follow.
"WAIT!" I demanded with my sudden inspiration. "If Ancillarum was the only compromised servant, what about that bullshit with the landing strip lights? What was all that about?"
Bem tilted his head to one side; an inscrutable grin stretched his face. "Very good, Big Guy, I'm proud of you. You're not just brooding...you're thinking."
"Yeah, yeah...yay me." I dismissed Bem's silly grin. "Obviously, you already thought of this, so spill."
Bem straightened his head up to face me squarely. "I honestly don't know. I'm embarrassed to tell you that I didn't even remember about the lights. My father brought them up."
"Did he?" I asked. When Bem mentioned his dad, I couldn't help but think about the bizarre prayer session Cass had subjected me to earlier. He'd done things both crazy and lucid all in the space of a few minutes. I wondered about that. I wondered how senile he was. When something truly important was at stake, Cass seemed like he was sane as anyone. The rest of the time, he was nutty as a fruitcake. I wondered what that meant.
Bem drew me back from my wandering mind with another comment about his father. "Sometimes...I mean, I know his record, from his practice back home. He never lost a case...I mean, never. The way he acts though...he's always been like that. The way you know him, that's the way he was when I was a kid. He always played with that red ball, and he always said things that made no sense. He was a great dad, but even when I was a kid, I used to wonder if he was all in there." Bem tapped the center of his forehead.
"Yeah...I wonder." I said aloud in response to Bem's thoughts on his father. I considered the possibilities. On one hand, if Cass was round the bend' then his lucid moments were just that, moments. If Cass was all in there, if he was of sound mind now, as an old man, it followed that he'd always been of sound mind. That meant...that meant...it meant the old man had been acting. One path was tragic, and the other was troubling. I wonder.' I thought again.
I realized Bem was talking again and dragged my thoughts away from speculation to hear what he was saying. "Once my father reminded me of the lights, I asked Ancillarum about them. He denied any knowledge, so I had Joe ask him. He gave me the same answer under the influence of Joe's magic. That means he told us the truth the first time. He really doesn't know.
"Here's what I think. Ancillarum told us that he was paid for general information about this household, and he received a bonus anytime he reported something out of the ordinary. He told his contact about the big party you originally had planned for Tuesday. He tried to tell them when it got cancelled for no reason, but he couldn't reach his contact at the time."
I interrupted Bem's explanation to make a suggestion. "Call the woman Jane, for Jane Doe. It's a name they use on Earth when they have an unidentified person. If it's a man, they say John Doe."
Bem nodded his agreement with my suggestion and kept talking. "The cancellation was an oversight on my part." Bem used his left hand to knead the meat between his right shoulder and his neck while his right hand slipped into his pocket. "My father reminded me I haven't done this in a while, and it shows. That cancellation is a rookie mistake." Bem admitted with a notable tone of shame in his voice.
"Cellarius had planned to have a few extra servants on hand for the event. We should have let them come and questioned them when they got here. Instead, when I issued the orders that no one was to enter or leave the estate without my say so, Cellarius, efficient as always, cancelled the extras.
"You see," Bem went on, "Ancillarum was originally scheduled to work Tuesday evening. When the event was cancelled, he tried to report that fact to earn himself a quick bonus. When he reached out to this mystery woman, Jane Doe, she didn't get back to him. That made him nervous, because she was usually quick to respond.
"He may have been worried, but he was still an opportunist. When he was left with time on his hands, he thought he'd see if he could get some more information to make his report sound better, and hopefully exact a higher price for it. He contacted some of the other servants he knew to get the gossip.
"When he reached the servants who were here earlier on Tuesday, the day Shawn was kidnapped, the others told him of the strange goings on. They told about Shawn not being around when he should have been, and about people arriving at the estate unannounced, and private meetings inside locked rooms. Those stories made Ancillarum suspect that something was up. He got even more scared, and that's why he didn't show up here yesterday.
"When he heard we'd called all the available servants into work but didn't provide much information other than it was for an event,'" Bem used his air quotes around event,' "Ancillarum decided to play it safe and stay home for a day. He hoped to wait until Wednesday night and call the others to see what went on out here.
"When Jane still didn't reach out to him, he got thoroughly scared and thought he better lay low for a while. He must have figured his life was over when Leah showed up this morning and started to interrogate him. By then he'd worked himself up to such an anxious state, he was thrilled to confess to someone."
Bem stopped talking like what he'd said had answered all my questions. His words had explained a great deal, but I was still left with my original question about the runway lights. I reminded Bem of what he'd left out. "Bem...runway lights."
"Right...runway lights." Bem agreed and got back on topic. "I think Primis screwed that up for them. I think this operation is being run with a very small staff on their end. When Primis fled, it disarranged their plans to the point that they had to send one of the organizers after him. They sent this Jane woman who was also Ancillarum's contact. That left her unavailable to check in with her source in the house.
"Even though Jane was in Oppidum on Wednesday morning or early afternoon to pick up Primis, she wouldn't have attempted to contact Ancillarum. She would have known that he was scheduled to be here on Tuesday and into Wednesday for the party and the clean-up afterward. She would have assumed he reported for work as per usual and would therefore be out of touch.
"Jane wouldn't have wanted to talk to him while he was here, because she wouldn't have wanted to risk it. She knew they'd kidnapped Shawn by then. She would have assumed that action would have put the estate on high alert, which it did, and that would add to the risk of Ancillarum being overheard communicating with the outside. Even if she got his message about him having information for her, which I assume she did, she would have ignored it."
Bem stopped talking again but he still hadn't answered my question. I reminded him again. "Bem," I repeated, "runway lights."
"Right...runway lights. The runway lights were a simple test to make sure we were going to follow instructions to the letter. I suspect they were also using them as a possible diversion to keep us from contacting the authorities. Bait and switch. False hopes. They assumed Ancillarum would report the lights to them, and even if he didn't, no big deal from their perspective.
"They told us to pay the money and turn the lights on. That was to make us think they intended to send Shawn right back. Many wealthy families, who don't have imbedded special forces veterans like this one has, would have leapt at that dangled carrot and held off on calling the police. That's the game they played. It was a gamble that cost them nothing. See?"
"Oh, fuck me." I muttered and rubbed my face again. "I can't believe I fell for that horseshit."
"You didn't have a choice. I would have done the same thing. Turning the lights on didn't cost you anything. It's a shame you got your hopes up, but how could you not?" Bem's voice softened and grew tender. I knew by his tone that he was trying to make me feel better. "I know it doesn't seem like it, but we're making real progress. We're following every lead we have, no matter how slight. We WILL get him back and you won't ever have to let him go again."
"Thanks." I said and choked up a bit at how sweet Bem was being to me.
He must have heard the catch in my voice because he changed his tone to be more brisk and businesslike as he went on. "While you were out on the plains, Lenis got the list of properties from the Steward. She and Neb are working on it and are making good progress. With your breakthrough, we should be able to start searching for Shawn tomorrow."
"That's something at least." I grumbled. I knew Bem and the others were doing their best. I knew they were working with the little bit of information we had, but the fact that I didn't have Shawn in my arms at that moment, meant things weren't going fast enough for me. "Why can't we just drop in on this Domus fuck-head and make him tell us where Shawn is?" I asked out of ignorance and growing desperation.
"We could." Bem conceded. His left hand rose to his right shoulder and his right hand slipped into his pants pocket as he resumed his thoughtful posture. "That would be a last resort."
"Why?" I demanded. To my simple brain it seemed the most direct way of getting things done.
Bem explained patiently. "Mendax Domus is a criminal mastermind. He is an organized crime boss and has been one for a very long time. He's very smart and very well protected. If you could even approach him without giving him a chance to communicate with the people holding Shawn, and that's a BIG if, there's no guarantee he even knows where Shawn is.
"It's likely he doesn't. This is a man who gives orders through blinds and proxies. He deliberately insulates himself from the darker side of his business and that's how he's been able to stay out of prison for as long as he has."
I rubbed my face and sighed into my palms. "OK...I get it." I agreed with Bem when I took my hands from my face. "'Grab him and beat it out of him' is not an option. Fine. Is it OK if I kill him once we have Shawn?"
Bem's eyes tracked to his stepdaughter, where they rested for a moment, then they drifted back to me. I followed Bem's gaze with my own and was honestly surprised to see Leah sitting there. I'd been so engrossed in my discussion with Bem that I'd forgotten we weren't alone. Besides Leah, Andy and Comet were also present, as was Paul. They'd been quiet while Bem and I spoke, apparently every bit as interested in the developments as I was.
Bem got up from the table and walked around to where I was sitting. He stood behind me and waited for me to turn. "Put us in a box." He ordered when I did.
I did as he asked. Bem moved to face me with his back to Leah. "I would appreciate it if you wouldn't say things like that in mixed company." Bem scolded me gently. "My family knows who I am, what I was, but they've never seen it, and I don't want them to. Between you and me, there are people involved in this kidnapping that will not live to see the end of it. I will see to that, but I need you to stop talking about killing people."
I opened my mouth to say something and closed it when I noticed that Leah and Andy were both looking my way. I felt their combined scrutiny and didn't like it. I got out of my chair and positioned myself next to Bem so we'd both have our backs to the young people. That resulted in both of us facing Paul, but I wasn't too worried about him seeing what we were talking about.
"I want them dead, but I don't want their blood on your hands." I told Bem. "You're not that guy anymore. I don't want you to do it, and Shawn wouldn't either. Besides, that would break number four."
"Number five, actually." Bem corrected my commandment guess and argued with me over who was better suited to kill the kidnappers. "Shawn wouldn't want you doing it, and as angry as you are right now, I don't think you have it in you. Someone has to do it." He insisted. "Someone has to make an example of these people. If it was up to me, I'd do it on live television. No one would dream of coming near any of your family, or mine, ever again."
I didn't like the idea. In fact, I hated it. Bem credited me and my actions during the first mission for his being able to give up his old life as a special forces problem solver. He also credited me for his marital bliss because I introduced him to my sister and encouraged them to get together. I hated the idea that he would renew the stain on his hands with the blood of the cowards that kidnapped my husband.
Bem had spent almost twenty years trying to wear the stains from his hands. He's done it with love and kindness. I already suspected part of his becoming a chaplain was in the hopes that the sanctity of religion would help blot out the evil he felt he'd done. He'd never been a cold-blooded killer, never an assassin.
What he was suggesting would cross a line he'd never crossed before. Bem had killed, but only when he'd had to. I assumed he reasoned that the kidnappers deserved to be killed and that killing them would protect others from their evil, therefore Bem had to kill them.
I disagreed with what I assumed his logic was, and I told him as much. "No," I insisted back at my friend, "we'll turn them over to Ars. That's the right thing to do."
"What's the difference?" Bem asked me. "You assume he will have them killed, but you don't know it. If I do it, I know it got done."
I impulsively grabbed Bem's hand from where it hung at his side, clasped it between my hands, and brought it up to my face so we could both see it. "It keeps these clean." I explained. "It keeps your past in the past. That's where it belongs. These hands are for good things now, for holding your son, for loving your wife, for..." I manually fanned Bem's fingers out and sucked his index finger into my mouth. I worshipped it with my tongue and watched his face.
Bem's eyes lost their focus and narrowed in pleasure. "Oooooooaaaaaahhhhhh, Big Guy." He sighed as I slurped the second finger into my mouth and teased it along with the first.
The serious professional version of Bem faded away as he allowed himself to enjoy the pleasure I was giving him. I'd forgotten how much of an erogenous zone Bem's hands were and how much enjoyment he got out of having his fingers teased.
I withdrew his fingers from my mouth and used the flat of my tongue on his palm. I licked and tasted the salt of his skin. He groaned and shivered with erotic energy. He seemed to be getting a great deal of pleasure from what I was doing to him, but something inside of him broke. He snatched his hand away from me with a shouted, "CAN'T!"
He ran the slick palm through his honey blond hair in a frazzled gesture of having been very close to the edge of giving into the pleasure before he pulled back. "NUMBER SIX, I MEAN SEVEN...NO SIX!" He blurted and lowered his hand to his crotch, I assumed to hide an erection. He sat down in the chair I'd vacated and pressed his hand into his crotch. "You see what you've done to me?" He complained.
"I'm sorry." I said without meaning it. "I got carried away, but I think my point is good. Do you agree, or should I work on the other hand?" I made a grab for Bem's left hand, but he fought me off.
"NO! I agree, OK? We'll turn the bad guys over to the Steward. Now, you have to stop!"
I put my hands up to show surrender. "I'll stop."
Bem seemed to recover himself and stood from my chair. "We good?" He asked.
"Yup."
"You can let us out now. I want to check on Neb and Lenis and see where we're going tomorrow. I'll need to charter a plane and figure out who is going and who is staying."
I dropped the box around us and Bem stepped away. I moved to sit in my chair and noticed a rosy-cheeked Paul staring at me and trying to pretend that he wasn't. I shrugged at him and figured I'd have to explain my oral worship of Bem's digits later.
Bem did some talking to the young people, more about the experiment we'd done and the results. That discussion didn't hold anything for me, so I checked my phone for the time. It was approaching four and I wondered about dinner and what I was going to do for the next several hours. The two subjects became one in my mind, and I decided to cook the meal for the household.
"Come on, Paul." I said and stood from my chair.