Chapter 2 Anne's Journey back

The plane was in the air for just a few minutes when Kim walked up front putting her hand on her mother's shoulder then giving her a kiss on the cheek she said in her best Ricky Ricardo impression.

"Mrs. Possible you have some splaining to do!" Then added "And we have almost three hours in the air with nowhere for you to hide. I think that Dr. Director can handle the plane for a while."

Looking at Anne Dr. Director reminded her, "Remember just give your name, rank, and serial number lieutenant!"

Turning to Dr. Director Kim said "You're not helping; besides I plan to employ Shego's interrogation methods."

"Need I remind you that we are at thirty thousand feet and punching a hole in the planes wall could be dangerous?"

Getting out of the co-pilots seat Anne patted Betty on the shoulder, and then followed Kim to the back of the plane where Shego and Yori were waiting. Setting down between the girls Anne closed her eyes to collect her thoughts for a moment before she began.

"Well you know that Betty and I went to college together and that we were roommates. You also know that while I was studying medicine, Betty was taking law enforcement. What you don't know is that one day in our first semester a CIA recruiter approached us offering us a job, he told us that it would be a great way to earn extra money for college and give something back to your country at the same time and he promised that it would not interfere with our studies. Of course Betty jumped at the offer but I wasn't interested and declined. However Betty kept on about how much good I could do and how she was enjoying the training. Finally, I agreed to give it try. "

"At first it was a lot of fun the defense classes were a great way to get into shape, the work wasn't interfering with my schoolwork too much and after about six months of much accelerated training we were assigned our first mission. It was a very simply one; all we had to do was recover a stolen computer reel and destroy anything in the lab that could contain material from the reel or anything that looked like plans to a bomb. Not only did we recover the reel, but we also discovered a scientist who was being held against his will. So we saved him and destroyed the bad guy's lair. Not too bad for our first mission."

"I bet that you also found out that it was fun and exciting and you liked playing a spy! Didn't you mom?"

"Yes dear, I did love the excitement! That was just the first of many missions we went on and with each mission we got better and trained harder. We were a great team; we even had an arch foe that we seemed to keep running into, much like you and Shego when you two first started out. She was a double agent named Jezebel Jade. Boy, she was good! Every time we thought we had her she would just slip away. The three of us had a lot of respect for each other's skills; it was a toss up on who won most often. Then at the start of our fourth year in college we were sent to Hong Kong for a rescue mission. A very evil man named Dr. Zin who had plans to take over the world had captured Dr. Quest and his family; he was forcing Dr. Quest to build him a laser weapon."

"Wait a minute!" said Shego "Dr. Zin, a laser weapon! I thought that they didn't have lasers back in the Stone Age. I mean Dr. Drakken was always using some sort of laser weapon, but that's now old technology."

"That's right, Dr. Quest was one of the first to build and use laser weapons. Dr. Zin was the first to try using one to take over the world. Our assignment was to pose as servants or geisha girls to gain entrance on his junk that was anchored in Hong Kong bay."

"Ok, ok, wait a minute, Anne neither you nor Betty look oriental and what about the language barrier how could you pass as a Chinese?" asked Shego.

"Oh, you'll be surprised what a little makeup, wigs and colored contacts can do for your appearance and as for the language; both of us speak fluent Chinese."

"No way Mom, I never knew that you spoke any other language except French" exclaimed Kim!

"Kimmy, I'm a brain surgeon, why is it so hard for you to believe that I can speak other languages?

Uh maybe it's because I never heard you speak any other language but French!

To that Anne replied (in Chinese) "Half of the world speaks Chinese, why don't you?" (Then in Spanish)"The more we know about each other the less misunderstanding we will have." (In Japanese) "Knowledge is the key to the world."

Upon hearing her native tongue, Yori burst out in laughter then she started asking so many questions in Japanese that Anne had to stop her and make her slow down. When they stopped to catch their breaths, the looks on Kim and Shego's faces made them both burst out laughing again.

"Okay you two, enough of the inside jokes. I still have a lot of unanswered questions and you are not getting away that easy. Just how many languages do you speak anyway?" demanded Kim.

"Okay dear, let's see there's Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, Russian, German, French and Latin, plus I also speak two dialects of Japanese and three dialects in Chinese."

Putting the plane on autopilot, Betty got up from the pilot's seat and walked to the back of the plane to see if she needed to lend her support to Anne, as she approached the girls she heard Kim ask.

"But mom what happened on the Quest mission that made you quit the CIA?"

Anne closed her eyes and took a deep breath before answering. The event of that day was as fresh in her mind and still as painful as they were the day after it occurred over twenty-six years ago.

"When Betty and I arrived in Hong Kong and found Dr. Zin's junk in the harbor just as we were told it would be. We captured two of his new geisha girls and had them hauled away for safe keeping after we striped them of their clothing. We then put their clothes on and just walked past the guards. The CIA sent two teams for that mission. The other team was there to assist us, but their primary mission was to sink the boat. They got there a week before, and had already planted several explosives on the bottom of the hull. What Betty and I didn't know was that we had only twenty-four hours to get the Quest's off the ship once we went aboard. After that the other team was ordered to blow it no matter who was on board. They're the ones who took the girls and gave us the detonator. Once on board we found ourselves assigned to kitchen duty as servers, which was perfect because one of our duties was to feed the prisoners."

Betty could see that Anne was still having difficulty talking about that night even after all this time so she let Anne rest as she continued the story.

"We found Jonny and his family in the bowls of the ship in cages that weren't fit for animals. All of them had been beaten and tortured and it didn't look like any of them had a moments rest in a week. Your mother almost gave us away because when she saw how they were treated she almost broke down and cried. Jonny was treated the worst because Dr. Zin knew that Dr. Quest loved him dearly and would do anything to protect him. He was strapped in an electric chair and shocked several times while his father was forced to watch until he agreed to Dr.Zin's demands."

When Anne spoke up she had a look in her eyes that Kim did not recognize and for the first time in her life Kim realized that her mother was so much more. The pride she had of being the daughter of a brain surgeon was eclipsed by the pride she now had of being the daughter of this very deep and capable woman. This woman who held a secret all these years, knowing what her daughter was doing, was leading down the same path but never once tried to stand in her way.

"We were instructed that night to take food to the men standing guard. We decided that was when we would make our move as Betty cooked the rice and noodles; I made the tea and added a little something extra to it. We found the room where all the video equipment was and fed the man in there first. As soon as he drank the tea he realized that he was poisoned and tried to sound the alarm but Betty gave him a karate chop to the back of the neck putting him down. We then tied him up and cut the wires to the monitors then proceeded to the lower levels to feed the guard that was watching the Quest's. But he was a big nasty ugly man that was more interested in us than food. He kept groping at us like we were sent there for his pleasure. He made my stomach turn; I don't know how Betty put up with him but she finally got him to eat by feeding him, pretending to be interested. That was until he grabbed her, forcing her to kiss him. I never saw such a large man go down so fast in my life; I still don't know how she did it. Taking his keys we quickly unlocked the cell doors, giving Race and Dr Quest guns and the boys extra ammunition to carry for us. I Handed Jonny a silk scarf and instructed him to tie his dog's mouth shut so he couldn't bark and alert the guards. He was the cutest little thing named Bandit but it was very yappy! As soon as Jonny had him muzzled we took off the kimonos then proceeded to sneak out of the back of the ship. Just when we were almost to the speedboat that we had hidden, we heard a commotion from the upper deck and a rifle shot rang out."

As Anne paused in her narration so Betty took over for her again knowing that the rest of the story would be hardest on her to tell.

"Race was struck in his right shoulder and he went down. I watched as Anne in one fluid motion draw her pistol, aimed then shot the man with the rifle at over seventy feet away! She then shot the next man who was dumb enough to stick his head over the rail of the ship. She then holstered her gun, picking Race up, throwing him over her shoulder caring him fireman stile yelling, RUN, to the rest of us. I got to the boat first; got it started, then had the boys untie the lines. As soon as Anne and Race were on board, I hit the throttle and the detonator at the same time. But just as the junk started to blow up, two speedboats came around from behind it with four men in them shooting at us with high power rifles missing me by just a few inches. Anne drew her pistol again shooting the driver of the first boat in the chest causing that boat to veer into the second boat which in turn was forced into the propeller of a slow moving freighter that we were just passing killing both of them. The shooter in the first boat threw his partner out, and kept coming after us. All of his shots went wild, but Anne wasn't taking any chances. She took careful aim shooting him in the head; then she shot the fuel tank blowing up the boat. We made land without further trouble, but not knowing Hong Kong at all we missed our rendezvous with the other team. So I stole a delivery van that was conveniently left open and running and drove it to the airport where we had a plane ready to go. Taking off without radioing the tower was probably not the smartest thing to do because within a few minutes in the air we had two fighter jets trying to force us back to the airport, but our jet was not your standard Lear Jet. We were as well armed as the fighters. We took them by surprise by doing a great roll over move, hitting one with a missile then cutting the other to shreds with the machine gun fire."

"Our orders were to take Dr. Quest directly to Washington but instead we landed in Hawaii where we took them all to the hospital for their wounds. We contacted our supervisor's and explained to them what we had done and why. Then we were instructed to stay with the Quest's until such a time that they well enough to travel, and then bring Dr. Quest to the pentagon for debriefing."

"We stayed in Hawaii for about a week, and then flew to Florida to the Quest home, which is where we are heading to right now! Then things kind' a got um, out of control when your mother developed a crush on Dr. Quest."

"BETTY, I can't believe you said that" exclaimed Anne! "I did not have a crush on Dr. Quest. I fell head over heals in love with the man."

"Oh mom, he had to be way older than you! That's just wrong eau" said Kim as she acted like she was disgusted!

"He was only about twelve years older, and he was so smart and so handsome! I just could not help myself. Imagine if we had gotten married, how smart you children would have been with one of the top scientist in the world and a brain surgeon as parents."

Just then a beeping noise was coming from the cockpit snapping Anne back to reality. Betty got up and walked to the cockpit then called back to Anne.

"We're almost there, we need to make preparations to land so story time is over for now; I need you up here."

Getting up Anne gave Kim a kiss on the cheek saying

"Don't worry dear, I love your father and I wouldn't trade him or any of you kids for anything. I do not regret anything except having to kill those men that night, even though I had no choice. That is why I left the CIA; besides I always wanted to be a doctor ever since my father died it was my dream to help people, not kill them."

She then walked back to the copilot's seat and sat down.