Defiant (an Ell Donsaii story #9) (22 page)

Jackson looked blearily up at Milner.

“Jackson, what happened here?”

Jackson’s head swiveled unsteadily, “Uh… tire blew out.”

Milner thought about asking how the seaman got so drunk, but decided not to waste a question. “What happened to the prisoner?”

Jackson’s head tipped back and he stared at the open cell on the back of the truck for a minute. Then his head drooped forward again. He mumbled, “Dunno,” then pitched over on his side and closed his eyes.

Milner rubbed his chin. Jackson’s breath didn’t smell of alcohol. What kind of booze could get you
that
drunk without a telltale odor?

A tow truck and another prisoner transport vehicle arrived. They were staffed by seamen and a Petty Officer 1
^st
class. Milner wondered if he could turn this problem over to them. After a moment he decided the admiral probably wouldn’t like that.

Taking charge of the situation he said, “Towing this truck will have to take second place to recovering the prisoner. She’s escaped and the Admiral...” Milner had been about to say
has a bug up his ass
but suddenly realized that people may be examining his AV record later. “Admiral Whitt has designated her recovery as priority one.” Realizing that he had no idea how to go about tracking a prisoner, he turned to the Petty Officer, “PO, you have suggestions for carrying out this mission?”

“Yes sir. We call for UAVs to give us ‘eyes in the sky’ and dogs to track scent. Meanwhile we spread out looking for tracks.” He eyed the back of the truck, “No one gets in there and disturbs the scent.”

“The Admiral said he’s sending dogs, you get on the horn for UAVs. The rest of you, spread out, look for tracks.” Milner turned back to the drunken guards. He shook the Petty Officer, “PO! PO!”

The PO’s eyes opened, “Whaaa’?”

“What happened to your prisoner?” Milner barked at him.

“Wha’ pris’ner?” His head drooped back.

Milner shook his head disgustedly and looked up as the van with the canine unit arrived.

Admiral Whitt arrived at the scene of the escape and the Commander who’d assumed command of the site from Milner trotted over to his vehicle.

“Any luck?” Whitt asked.

The Commander shook his head disgustedly, “No sir. Sorry. The dogs can’t track her any farther than twenty feet down the road,” he pointed back toward the base. “The UAVs,” he pointed up into the air where three small UAVs could be seen circling, “don’t see anyone for as far as we’ve calculated even Ell Donsaii could have run in the time elapsed. We’ll have the UAVs keep watch after dark when infrared will let them look for someone hiding and not moving, but I’m afraid she got a ride with someone.”

Whitt frowned, “Got a ride? Who would pick someone up in a prison coverall, with wrist and ankle cuffs on?”

“Sir, I surely don’t know, but how else could the scent trail end right there?” he said, pointing at the spot on the road, twenty feet behind the truck, where the dogs had repeatedly circled, noses to the ground but with no trail to follow any further. “Either a car picked her up, or she grew wings and flew. I’ve checked with the Naval Air Station and they assure me a helicopter didn’t come in and get her. Radar would have gone crazy the way they watch for Cuban overflights.”

“Have they taken the dogs on a bigger circle around the area, to see if somehow she broke the scent trail somehow but they could pick her up farther away?”

“Yes sir. There are a couple of dogs out there now, making a circle at about a half mile.”

“OK, put out a general alert through the AIs of
all
Base personnel so they’ll be on the lookout. Tell them it’s Donsaii so she doesn’t fool anyone with some kind of ‘good girl’ act. All boats and aircraft leaving Gitmo are to be searched by the canines that have her scent. Close down the Cuba border. I want
swimming
to be her only possible means of egress.” He grimaced, “And bring me those drunken sailors that let her get away.”

“Uh, sir, the three guards have had their alcohol levels taken. They weren’t drunk. In fact, their alcohol levels were zero. And they already appear to be completely sober. The medics tell me they must have been drugged with a short acting tranquilizer. Blood levels for those will take longer to come back. None of them even remember driving off the ferry, but the medics say it’s fairly common for there to be recent memory loss with those types of drugs.”

“Drugged! How in all the holy hells could that even happen? How do you get short acting drugs into sailors while they’re driving a truck?” He developed a thoughtful look, “Unless they were partying?”

The Commander shook his head. “I don’t know sir. We’ve checked the cab of the truck for needles and the men for needle tracks. No joy.” He held up a hand, “Just a sec’ sir, call from the medics.” He wandered a few steps away, then returned. “The tox screen shows benzos in the blood of all three sailors.” He shrugged, “Relatives of Valium, some are very short acting and could explain what we’ve seen. Hard to know how all three sailors would have gotten dosed with those drugs, either self-administered or how someone could have drugged them. The doc has rechecked for evidence they might have been shot with trank darts and found no puncture marks. There weren’t any drink or food containers in the truck that might have been drugged.”

Whitt pinched the bridge of his nose, “OK, let’s say she had accomplices here at Guantanamo and they somehow blew out the tires of the truck,
then
drugged our men when they got out to assess the damage.” The Admiral shrugged to indicate he didn’t think either of those things were plausible, “Even granting those two items,
how
did they get her out of the transport truck?”

The Commander held out the broken pieces of the latches for Whitt to examine, “Cut them somehow Admiral. How,” he shrugged, “we have no idea.”

Whitt stared at the rough surfaces.
What could cut metal and leave a jagged surface like that?

***

Washington D.C.—The crowds of protestors around the building that allegedly housed Ell Donsaii’s holding cell now say she’s been moved to another location. With no announcement from the government regarding her location it is not clear how the protestors became aware of the move. The protestors say she has been relocated to the notorious Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp in Cuba, long a site where terrorists and a few other extraordinarily dangerous prisoners have been held without trial. The relocation, if true, may be a sign that President Stockton wishes to hold Donsaii using her Executive powers, not trusting that the courts will find Donsaii’s imprisonment to be legal…

Unaware of the consternation back at her escape site and in her homeland, Ell was kneeling to check over the hoverbike. If she was going to fly it over the Caribbean that night, she wanted to make sure it was in good shape. She looked for damage to any of the fans and gently spun them to make sure they didn’t wobble at all. After pondering a moment, she said, “Allan, have Amy hang a six foot rope with a couple handholds off the other hoverbike. Then, you fly it down to Jamaica. Land it somewhere isolated. If this hoverbike craps out and drops me in the drink, I’ll want a spare one nearby to pick me up.”

Ell very carefully turned the bike up on its side, using her prison coverall as padding to protect the sharp edges at its periphery and the radar absorption coating. Those two features resulted in the hoverbike’s extremely low radar profile and it wouldn’t take much damage to them to raise the radar cross section a lot.

With the bike on its side, she pulled on the lifting harness that was tucked up under the back end frame of the bike.  A command to Allan paid out the carbon fiber line from the winch to the harness. She pulled out fifty feet, then she had Allan reel it back in, pulling against it to be sure it would still work against resistance.

While she had the bike up on its side she had Allan issue her four more of the little videoports through her umbilical port. They were the ones she’d had made up in anticipation of the loss of her AI headband and had been using under the blankets while she was in jail. Allan sent her a tube of quick epoxy and she stuck the tiny ports to the hoverbike, front and back, top and bottom, to give Allan “eyes” with which to better fly the hoverbike. Allan’s having to land the bike on GPS alone when it came for her a little while ago had been an obvious drawback.

Next she had Allan send her a tube of skin bronzer and she set about turning herself a different color. Doing her back she realized she had a problem. She wanted to be fully covered but, without a mirror, couldn’t see her back to make sure she’d covered every spot. She considered the problem then had Allan send her a three centimeter port, rolled up to fit through her fifteen millimeter umbilical port. It still wasn’t large enough so she had him send her a 7.5 centimeter (three inch) port through that one. Allan had the waldo that was hidden in the tunnel in West Virginia deliver her a folded AI head band. It came through the big port and she put it on. Standing in front of the hoverbike so that the videoport she’d stuck to the bike could see her back, she looked at the image in the headband and finished applying the bronzer. Then she used the same method to make sure her face was evenly brown. Rubbing the bronzer through her hair to darken her scalp darkened her hair some, but then she had Allan send her a black mousse to fully darken her hair. She studied her image. She looked like a darker version of Ell. But, she still looked like Ell.

She didn’t want to put a prosthesis on the bridge of her nose like she’d done in the past because they required makeup so she had Allan send her a couple of stents to put inside her nostrils to widen them. They made her look moderately different; she hoped it would be enough. She sent herself some cheek fillers to put in between her gums and cheek when she was about to encounter other people, but there was no need to wear them right now.

Next she put in a couple of cheap looking earrings whose front and back glass beads were actually videoports. They enabled Allan to see what she saw, as well as what was behind her. Then a cheap looking silver necklace that actually had a tiny retinal projector port in its glass pendant. Even though she couldn’t just glance up and get images immediately like she could with a HUD, in a pinch she’d be able to hold it up and see video or stills that Allan had sent her.

For now though, it was good to have a headband with a HUD. She settled down to catch up with what had been happening in the world while she’d been in jail with limited access. She reviewed the vid of the last D5R meeting Roger had recorded for her and felt gratified to see that most of their projects, unencumbered by her absence, were proceeding well.

***

Stockton looked up as her Attorney General stepped into her office. Her Secret Service agent Will Argant was surprised to see her smile because her normal expression was so dour. She pasted on a pleasant look for the public or she’d probably never have been elected, but when doing business out of the public eye, stern and harsh expressions dominated.

“Hey, Raul, how’ they hangin’?” she said cheerfully. Then taking in Stenner’s gloomy expression, she said, “Don’t be bringin’ me down today. Things have been going well. I don’t want to be hearing about any petty-ass legal problems.”

“Sorry Ma’am. It’s about Donsaii.”

Stockton frowned, “I thought this executive order thing was bulletproof? Has someone figured some bullshit legal way to give us trouble with it?”

“No Ma’am.” He took a deep breath, “She escaped while in route to Gitmo.”

Even though he maintained his traditionally expressionless Secret Service demeanor, Will’s heart leapt.

Stockton also stayed expressionless for a moment, then she exploded up out of her chair, cursing and throwing things like she so often did when angry. When she wound down she leaned forward, arms braced on the desk. In a dangerous tone said, “Who’s the
stupid
SOB that let
this
happen? ‘Cause I want them up on charges… ASAP!”

“Unknown Ma’am. Her guards were drugged and…”

“Drugged! Intoxicated on duty? Or drugged by an accomplice?”

The AG shrugged, “They think drugged by an accomplice. But no one knows how she could have arranged to
have
an accomplice there at Guantanamo.”

Stockton shook her head, “You said, ‘in transit.’ I think you’d better tell me
exactly
what happened.”

When Stenner finished telling the President the improbable story she said, “So she’s still there on Guantanamo somewhere?”

“Well, they’re pretty confident no helicopter could have picked her up and no boats have left the area. However, if she escaped their cordon or had an accomplice with a car, she
might
have crossed over into Cuba proper … She could make good friends there by licensing her port technology to them… And, it’d be a
big
blow to our economy.”

Stockton sat down suddenly. It looked as if she had never considered what it might mean if Donsaii took her tech elsewhere. After staring down at her desk for a moment she raised her eyes to Stenner. “Hasn’t she…” she cleared her throat, “hasn’t she licensed all her tech to American companies already?”

Stenner shrugged, “Maybe? I’ll try to find out. But what if she thinks of more… other… stuff? Personally? I think we should invite her back.”

Stockton’s eyes narrowed, “There is no way I’m gonna be kowtowing to that little bitch. You tell those bastards at Gitmo to find her or it’s gonna be their ass!”

***

On Friday night her mother let Elsa hold the prepaid cell phone that her Papa bought for them so he could talk to his family.  He usually called before eight PM so Elsa worried when she saw that the clock had passed eight thirty.

Then it rang! Excitedly, Elsa pushed the button, “Papa!”

A man’s voice spoke, but not her papa’s. “No, Elsa. Let me talk to your mother.”

Trembling, Elsa held the phone out to her mother. She thought it must be the dreaded “Border Patrol” that people spoke so fearfully of.