Chapter 18
“Dimanche Maginot?” Linda asks the same question back.
“Don’t be ludicrous Carol, clearly your voice sounds so farcical.” Sam replied bitterly.
“What do you want me to say Sam?” Linda replied with a quiver in her voice.
“There it is again playing coy. The jig is up. You tricked me, and you tricked your pals here.”
“What do you want me to say?”
A new message on the monitor says…
Lady:“What the hell just happened?”
Dimanche :“Hey, what is up babe?”
Lady:“Did you just do something?”
Dimanche :“No, I hate surprise parties?”
Sam reads to Linda what is on the monitor. “Maybe I will have to say your real name next time?”
There was silence on the other line.
“You know we think we are going to die? We are inside a large truck, well the whole van is, we were boxed in by other vehicles and forced into this large vehicle. We are being held against our will, just so you know Carol. Whatever your name is.”
Then another message on the monitor.
What does Aleksander want?
“Linda, my name is Linda Cunningham, just so the Ronins know, they are irreplaceable.”
“Who is Aleksander? They are asking, what does he want.”
The silence was deafening for everyone.
“Can I take the fifth on that?” Linda tried to mask the quiver in her voice, with a defiant tone.
Monitor message:
Exchange, her for all of you?
“Hey Linda, they want an exchange. You for all of us.” Samantha replied.
Aghast with the messages, Linda is speechless.
“Carol? I mean Linda? Are you still there?” Samantha alarmed at the silence on the other end.
“You cannot trust them, they will kill all of us.” Replied Linda, “The… they… will, will kill all of us after they take out the information they want.”
“Are you sure, because it says exchange, meaning we go at the same time, we go out, you come in.”
Monitor message:
We can do this the easy way, or… NOT! We could have done this without telling you.
“That is not going to happen, the moment I get in, they will kill all of you.”
“Linda, I am pretty sure, they are not. There is another message, they said, they could have done this without telling any of us.”
“Sam, who are you going to believe, them or me?”
“Oh, says the person who pretends to be someone else and yet she is the one controlling everything… well, you lost control.”
Ronnie 3 interjects, “Linda, Ronnie 3 here, can you hear me?”
“Hey, Ron lead, I wish the circumstances could have been better. I don’t think you should trust them. We cannot trust them.”
“Linda you got us into this mess, with wrong data, you should have asked us to reconnoiter the area. Right now you do not have an iota of influence. But let me ask you, what is that you see right now, in front of you?”
“A black Ford Expedition.”
“To your back?”
“It’s those two idiots from the cable company, a van, with drones surveying the area with LiDar.”
“Now to your sides?”
“Nothing.”
“Are those two idiots you say controlling anything?”
“Of course, the drones…” Linda, aghast at something that she realizes, “and… they are not controlling it.”
“Does the van have anything that might contain an antenna, something out of the ordinary? And how big is the drone?”
“No, everything is quite ordinary, the drone or drones are really large, one is small and they are so quiet. I could not even hear them.”
“If this is not the government then what is it, or who? Because the way you just described it, those are clearly military industry, military grade.”
“Someone equally capable like the government, if it is the government I don’t know this agency.”
The monitor screen resets with a new message.
Monitor message:
Which agency are you working for Linda?
The three Ronins are silenced as they read the message on the screen.
Samantha continues, “Which agency are you working for Linda? That is the message on the screen.”
Linda is silent.
“Makes sense, sloppy operation and intel, perhaps of budget constraints, this must be some small time agency. Looking for a big score for the next budget hearing.” Ronnie 3 comments.
“There is no agency.”
Monitor message:
What will it be Linda? Decide now. Or…
“They want your decision, for the exchange now, or else… well they did not say anything.” Samantha cuts in.
“I think what they are trying to say is, exchange now, or we all get detained I suppose. I mean they could have already killed us by then, why wait. I mean they already know Aleksander, I presume he is Dimanche.” Ronnie 3, on his observation.
“You do not know them.” Linda replied.
“And you know them?” Ronnie 3 replied with a question, “Unless you know them. They will eventually know everything Linda, they already know about Aleksander. That is how resourceful they are. And that is something you are not right now.”
Linda moves her right hand for the keys. Then the monitor has a new message.
Monitor message:
If she starts her car it means no.
“Linda!” Samantha anxiously calls out her name, “if you start your car they said it means no.”
“Oh shit!” Linda sighs in desperation, “they are watching me. How? I am going out of here.”
“Linda!” anxiously again Samantha pleads, “for the love of god, you cannot just leave us here, inside this giant tin can.”
Linda holds the steering wheel with both of her hands, two and ten o’clock position. She stares blankly, and notices that there are no US Marshals at all but that black SUV. Then she slumps her head on the steering wheel in between her two hands.
“Okay, tell the okay. But you guys all of you go first. I don’t think I am going anywhere, they already have this black SUV staring at me. Then I need to stay with them for three hours only. Otherwise, people will start to panic.”
Monitor message:
DEAL!
The large van that has been their prison suddenly banks to the right and stopped a little bit hard. Then the door opens and the truck ramp goes down.
Monitor message:
Thank You! For your help, have a nice day 😉
“The van is open, they are letting us go, but wait until we truly are away from them.”
Patricia, instinctively reverses the news van slowly, then on the ground she makes a u-turn turning the steering wheel left. Then speeds up the opposite way, trying to feel the road and the way the large container truck banked.
“We do not know where we are just yet. But we are out on the main highway.”
“If there are suspicious vehicles or if they will do anything nefarious, there will be a lot of witnesses, Linda. I think we are safe, that is if the Ronnies agree.”
Ronnie 3 replies, “no one is truly safe, but this is the best that we can hope for.”
As they described to Linda their movements. The black Ford Expedition moves forward and turns to the right and stops, two more Ford Expeditions come one stops in front of her and the other to her rear.
“I think my ride is here.” Linda announces to them.
A black van stops besides her car and opens.
