Lieutenant Read online

  The man in the coverall reached out for her elbow.

  Ell lifted the pepper spray with her left hand while allowing her little purse to drop off the barrel of the Taser. She curled her index finger tighter around its trigger as she raised the weapon…

  Gary saw Raquel say something to one of the men and then the little group of Asian men began to contract around her. He watched with astonishment as Raquel’s hands blurred up and around. A hissing, popping noise came from the back of the restaurant, perhaps from her? The man on her left cried out and leapt back, hands to his face. The three men on her right fell, each quivering as if poleaxed. Their falls to the floor decelerated and just before they hit he realized that Raquel’s right hand had grabbed hold of the sleeves of the two men on her right and her left hand grasped the shirt front of the one on her left. She was leaning back hard to slow the impact of their heads with the floor. The one in the middle got away from her some, his head hitting hard enough to bounce a little. Gary belatedly recognized a black device skittering across the floor from where the incident had occurred. It kind of looked like a plastic pistol! A black man leapt up from the counter, stopped briefly, then came forward to take the elbow of the fourth Asian man who was still on his feet, crouched over, moaning, with his hands over his eyes. The muscular African American led the crying Asian man into the men’s bathroom. A woman who’d already been on her way to the bathroom continued to the group of Asian men where they lay on the floor. She pulled some stuff out of her purse. She tossed something to Raquel and knelt by one of the men, picking up his wrist and twisting something around it!?

  Gary shook his head and stood, walking uncertainly toward Raquel. His eyes widened, Raquel and that woman are putting handcuffs on those Asian men! Raquel’s eyes were focused out the windows of the restaurant while she applied them. She glanced up at Gary and said, “Sorry Gar’.”

  “What just happened?!”

  She frowned and looked down at the men. Her speech was very rapid and hard to follow but he thought she said “These guys came here to kidnap me.”

  Incredulously he said, “Kidnap you? How do you know?!”

  She looked up at Gary then down at the older man. She reached down, flipped back the lapel of his coat, then, using two fingers, she extracted a handgun from the shoulder harness there. To Ell it seemed like she had done this very slowly and deliberately but to Gary it appeared so quickly done as to be reckless while handling a firearm. She looked up at Gary and raised her eyebrows. She set the gun behind her on the floor then leaned back over the man, quickly and efficiently patting him down. She did the same for the man in the coveralls, removing a gun from one of his pockets. The other woman did the same for the man she had cuffed. The men were starting to moan and move around. From the smell, at least one of them had voided his bowels. Ell pulled darts out of each of the three men and tossed the darts into the corner. Ah, he thought, that “pistol like plastic device” must have been a Taser.

  Raquel frowned and said, “Take cover Gar’, more of them are coming in the door.”

  Ell’s stomach roiled. It felt like the situation was escalating out of control. The rest of the Asians were all carrying guns out and exposed. They looked agitated. It seemed like they were bound to shoot someone, by accident, if not on purpose. Getting everyone else down and herself out in plain sight seemed like the best way to focus the Asians on her and perhaps keep them from shooting a bystander out of frustration.

  She stood and barked in a loud command voice, “Everybody down! Guns!”

  Startled, Gary looked over at the door. Three Asian men were coming in the door and two more were running down the sidewalk and almost to the door. All of them had pistols in their hands! More people were sprinting across the parking lot toward the door! Raquel knelt and picked something up off the floor, then took several strides out in front of where the men lay. Over her shoulder she said, “Get behind the counter Gar’!” The command voice she used brooked no argument and to his surprise he found himself following orders and kneeling behind the counter. He glanced around. The other patrons of the restaurant were cowering on the floor.

  The first Asian man in the door waved his gun, barking something in a foreign language. The second one, also waving a gun and apparently translating, said, “Put-a you han’s up! Not move!”

  Ell raised her hands up in the air and locked them together over her head. Watching her, Gary realized she had something between the front hand and the back one where they were above her head, Ah, the pepper spray! Looking her over carefully he realized that she had her Taser again, mostly hidden in the waistband of her shorts! He realized that the handle of her model of Taser looked like an asthma inhaler.

  The other people timidly crouching on the floor of the restaurant were lifting their hands so Gary did too.

  Raquel slowly shuffled backward and the new men followed her toward the back of the restaurant, repeatedly shouting at her to stop moving. Her heels bumped into one of the Asians lying on the floor and she stopped. The men’s bathroom door behind her opened and the fourth Asian man from before shuffled out, ankles cuffed together, hands cuffed behind his back, eyes puffy and red, tears running down his cheeks and snot dripping down his upper lip. The muscular dark skinned man who’d taken him into the bathroom came out behind him. This resulted in more shouting from the Asian men with threats to “shoot on sight” or maybe “shoot dawn sigh?” Or “don sai?” Was that some kind of Chinese language threat? Slowly the black man knelt, then laid down on the floor in response to their threats and waving guns.

  The apparent leader of the Asians stepped up and slapped Raquel. Hard! It left a bright red hand print on her cheek. “You do like-a you told!” She glared at him but didn’t move, not even to touch her cheek. “Keep-a you han’ up!”

  One of the three men near Raquel knelt near her feet with a bundle of cable ties. He pulled one out and put it around her right ankle, zipping it shut. He did the same with the left ankle, then used a third cable tie to connect the two.

  Gary desperately wondered what he could possibly do. With the guns, the Asian men seemed to have all the cards. 4MA taught cooperation with gun wielding assailants until a better opportunity presented itself—but surely there must be something he could do to promote that better opportunity?

  The head Asian guy pulled out his own bundle of cable ties. He stepped up closer to Raquel and barked, “Give a you han’, now!” He waved the cable ties peremptorily.

  Gary’s heart pounded. They’d soon have Raquel trussed up and then could just carry her out of here!

  As Raquel slowly lowered her hands, her eyes darted around the room. Gary looked around too. Two of the Asians were still there with the head guy. One had a restraining hand on Raquel’s shoulder, the other knelt, holding on to the cable ties between her ankles. The other two of the five remaining Asians were over by the door of the pizzeria, pointing their guns at some men outside who apparently wanted to get in.

  Gary swung his eyes back to Raquel. As her hands came down to horizontal and were just in front of the Asian’s leader a blast of pepper spray shot out into his face. Her left hand grasped the barrel of his gun, turning it up to the ceiling. Gary heard two pops. My God, she’d done it again! Gary hadn’t even seen her right hand snake down to her waistband but the two pops had been from her Taser and the other two Asian men near her were quivering as they fell to the floor. The gun of the pepper sprayed man who’d been in front of Raquel slipped from his fingers into her hands as he dropped to his knees, hands over his face in agony. Raquel reversed the pistol and fired twice toward the door. Her intimidating command voice whipcracked across the restaurant, “Do, Not, Move!”

  Gary tore his eyes away from her and looked at the last two Asians who were over by the door. Plaster fragments from the ceiling were showering down onto them and they were slowly raising their hands. Raquel’s voice barked again, “Drop, your, guns!” They did.

  Gary’s memories from that point seem
ed disjointed. The men who’d been outside the restaurant came in and helped restrain the Asians.

  The African American man came over and cut the cable ties off Raquel’s ankles.

  The second man who’d been shot with the pepper spray was guided into the bathroom to have his face washed.

  Two more Asians were brought in the back door, also wearing plastic handcuffs.

  All the people who were stabilizing the situation seemed very deferential to Raquel, as if she were some kind of VIP!

  The police arrived and took statements, downloading everyone’s video records of the events including Gary’s.

  Even the police, who appeared to ask Raquel some hard questions at first, became more and more respectful of her as time passed. They gathered around to look at some of the downloaded video on a screen, glancing up at Raquel over and over. At first they looked startled, then eventually appeared awed. The black man showed the police some kind of ID and talked to them quietly for a quite a while.

  The restaurant owner approached Raquel angrily, but after speaking briefly to her walked away appearing almost ecstatic.

  Eventually the police took the cuffed Asians out to a paddy wagon and started letting people from the restaurant go. Raquel picked her way back across the room to where Gary sat in her chair, back to the wall, fiddling with the cold remnants of their pizza. Well the fourth slice from his half of it anyway. She sat across from him looking exhausted. She stared at him for a while, as if at a loss for words. Finally she said, “Again, Gary, my apologies.”

  Gary blinked, “For what?”

  She tilted her head, “For getting you dragged into my mess.”

  “Hey, they’re the bad guys, not you. Who are they anyway? Some kind of Asian mafia?”

  “No… they’re… Chinese Nationals.”

  “And… what? They were going to hold you for ransom? They came all the way here from China just to kidnap you? And why the Hell are you taking self defense at 4MA when you can take on a whole group of guys like that?!”

  Raquel put her hands up in a fending off gesture. “I don’t suppose there is any way we can just go back to ‘Gary and Raquel, a couple of friends who work out at 4MA and share pizza?’”

  Gary stared at her as he slowly raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think friends have secrets like this between them, do they?”

  Raquel shrugged, grimaced then looked back up at him. “So can you keep a secret for your ‘friend?’”

  He stared at her a moment and then shrugged, “Sure.”

  She tilted her head, “My name’s not Raquel.”

  He snorted, “Big surprise.”

  She put out her hand, “Ell.”

  He took it as his eyes glazed a moment. He gave it a perfunctory shake. His eyes regained focus, “Donsaii? Those guys were yelling your name? ‘Shoot Donsaii’?”

  She nodded.

  “You don’t look like her,” he said suspiciously.

  She quirked a lopsided grin, “Disguise.”

  He studied her a moment, then seeming to accept the disguise statement said, “You’re the one that stopped the terrorists at the Olympics?”

  She shrugged.

  He sagged back in his chair, “Holy shit!” he muttered. He looked back up, “But who are all these other people? And why are the Chinese after you? I thought those terrorists were Arabs?”

  “My security detail. I wrote a physics paper and the Chinese apparently think they can make me develop some products for them based on the principles in the paper.”

  Gary’s eyebrows rose, “Oh yeah, I heard about that paper when it came out. Caused quite a stir…” He clapped a hand over his mouth. Eyes wide, he said, “Crap, and I was explaining nanotubes to you like you were some kind of idiot!”

  Her eyes twinkled, “It was kinda sweet, actually.” She reached a hand out to him, “Raquel?”

  He grinned back and took her hand, “Albert.”

  She lifted an eyebrow, “Albert?”

  “Einstein… my secret identity,” he whispered with one eyebrow raised as if revealing a great confidence.

  This time Ell snorted, “Well, ‘Mr. Einstein,’ would you like to walk me home?”

  “Sure!” On the sidewalk he turned to her, “The owner of the restaurant seemed pretty pissed. How’d you calm him down so fast?”

  “Hmmm, I’m kinda rich so I told him I’d pay for all his repairs and give him an extra $20,000 for his trouble.”

  “Wow! I guess that would take the sting out of it.” He stared into space a moment, “I suppose you didn’t actually need my help with that jerk at Tres Locos?”

  She gave him a brilliant smile, then leaned over to give him a hug. Quietly into his ear she murmured, “I’ll take all the help I can get from my ‘friends.’ That‘s more precious than gold!”

  Chapter Six

  Axen knocked on Colonel Ennis’ door. “Can you use a new El Tee on your flight crews yet?”

  Ennis grinned, “You finally going to turn Donsaii loose and let her do something useful?”

  Axen shrugged, “Yeah, she’s completely wasting her time in class now, just as well put her to work.”

  Ennis said, “I’ll have Smith assign her a slot.”

  ***

  Ell finished hooking up the new power supply on her setup. She opened the valve and put some pressure in the chamber without shooting for an exact setting like she’d done last time. She energized the chamber and asked Allan to turn off the lights. She knelt and peered under the table. The sparks were back! Only a few, just above the carpet though. Her eyebrows drew together, then rose and she quickly turned down the power supply. Sure enough a line of sparks now extended from the bottom of the table down to the carpet. Some of them must have been appearing in the apartment below for a minute or so there! She hoped no one down there had noticed!

  She turned the power down further until there weren’t any sparks down near the carpet so she could be relatively certain none of them were still appearing in the room below. Then she adjusted the pressure in the chamber and wrote it down after closing the valve tightly. While she’d been waiting for the new power supply she’d set a pressure and checked it three days running to establish that the chamber didn’t leak and that the gauge was accurate enough to show even small changes.

  She could hardly wait to see what it read tomorrow!

  ***

  Tech Sgt. Apert leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head as the RQ-7 he controlled began a long straight run to the PRC coast. It was under AI and so needed little input from him. He turned to Jones, flying the other bird in his flight, “So Sarge, what have you heard about our new El Tee?”

  “Hmmpf. So young the paint’s still drying. Graduated UAV school early. Real early, so she’s probably smart and knows all the technical stuff, but probably can’t fly worth a damn. She’s that girl who won all the Olympic gold medals in gymnastics, so when she goes to jump on your ass she’ll be able to get a lot of height on her jump.”

  “Really? She’s already graduated?”

  “Did that early too, I hear.”

  “Well, it doesn’t matter whether she can fly does it? That’s what she’s got us and the AI for after all. Hmm, if I remember right from watching her in the Olympics, she’ll be easy on the eyes.”

  “Apert, ‘that all you think about?”

  Apert shrugged, then jumped as a young sounding female voice came over his shoulder. “Sergeant, how long have you been getting pinged by that PRC radar?”

  Apert cast a panicked glance over his shoulder to see a Lieutenant’s bars on the woman’s shoulder, then back at his station seeing the blinking red light for which he’d turned off the audible alarm. “Uh, I’m not sure…” Damn it, PRC radar had never touched them this far off the coast before!

  “Turn right thirty degrees to minimize your profile, then take your altitude up. That radar should be ship based and easy to elude. I doubt they’ve actually picked you up yet.”

  “Ye
s Ma’am,” he said, complying with the order.

  “Next, I suggest you turn the audible alarm your radar detector back on.”

  “Yes Ma’am. It’s just that near Okinawa it goes off all the time from our own radar.”

  “I suggest that you consider checking out those alarms to be good practice.”

  “Yes Ma’am.”

  She stood behind them as the two enlisted stared straight ahead at their machines, wondering how a brand new “butterbar” lieutenant had gotten the drop on them? They were supposed to be teaching her her job, not the other way around. Eventually, the radar ping detector sputtered out and became silent. She said, “Everything seem copasetic at present?”

  “Yes Ma’am.”

  “Good, let me take a moment to introduce myself.” They turned around and saw a young girl who looked like a recruiting poster for a “fresh out of high school” enlisted, not someone who should have those lieutenant’s bars on her BDUs. “I am, as you have presumably guessed, your new El Tee, and I am ‘so new my paint is still wet.’”

  Jones heart sank at this evidence she’d heard everything he’d had to say about her. He came to his feet and to attention. “I’m sorry Ma’am. Won’t happen again.”

  She tilted her head minutely while looking steadily at him, though his eyes were focused on the wall behind her. “Your assessment, Sergeant Jones, was remarkably correct, though perhaps lacking somewhat in the respect that should be shown an officer.” She turned to Apert, “Your assessment however, Sergeant Apert, was incorrect. It does matter if I can fly. If I am to supervise you, I must know your job as well as my own. Sergeant Jones was also correct,” she grinned, “in that I can get a lot of height on my jump, so I would suggest that you be more respectful when speaking of your officers in the future?”

  Apert also came to his feet and to attention. “Yes Ma’am. Won’t happen again Ma’am.”