Thursday evening
We took the twins out for some pizza after leaving D-JAK.
They were both worn out, but they had done well in their lesson and I was very proud of them both. They had talked non-stop about what they had learnt; not to mention the sparring that they had witnessed.
Dave and I wanted to go shopping, but as the twins were tired, Paige offered to drive them home, with Megan, after locking up D-JAK once the final class was finished. We only got a mile down the road when Marty called us.
"An Amber Alert has been issued for the state of Illinois. A school bus with fourteen kids has gone missing, somewhere near Columbus Park. CPD is rolling; I have Shadow and Jackal here, suiting up. Mist is inbound with Medic and Trojan, as is Petra. Clock is ticking; we are at twenty minutes and counting."
We were only five miles from the Safehouse as I buried the accelerator into the thick carpet and changed direction rapidly, avoiding a mailbox by just inches.
Safehouse F
We had left the Jag at the Warehouse and taken the tunnel into Safehouse F.
Marty had a digital counter up on a large screen; it showed twenty-six minutes. Chloe was putting on the last of her combat suit and Josh was sorting out his comms cabling. I started stripping off as I ran for the armoury. Dave was right behind me. The first thing we both did was grab a wireless headset each, so we could talk to Marty, as we got ready.
"The bus was seen to stop on the shoulder. A dark coloured SUV pulled in front of it and some men were seen to force their way onto the bus, then the bus moved off and just vanished!" Marty explained.
"How the fuck can a bright yellow bus just vanish?" I demanded.
"Still figuring that one out. I have access to the cameras on the I-290, but they are shit quality and some haven't been cleaned in two hundred years," Marty moaned.
I heard feet running on concrete as Hailee appeared, pulling off her clothes.
"You heard?" I asked.
"Hell, yeah!"
"Mindy, I have Voight on the line and I have conferenced in Vicky," Marty said.
"Hi!" I said briefly.
"CPD and the State Troopers are ringing the City, but people who kidnap kids are ruthless and can be unpredictable. They may have already left the City, or they are staying put until the heat dies down. A lot of it depends on what they want the kids for… From what we can tell, none of the kids comes from a rich family, so ransom seems out," Voight explained.
"That sucks!" I commented. "We'll provide whatever support we can – we have three two-person teams about to leave and others out there already."
"Thanks, Hit Girl – we need everybody on this," Vicky said.
Nobody was joking around, not with what was at stake.
"I need to check my snouts; as I assume you are Hank."
"Yeah, every fucker is gonna be wrung dry!" Voight growled. "Remember, with kids involved, anything goes..."
Voight let it hang. I knew exactly what he meant.
"Anything goes..." I repeated, picturing my own two kids.
Western Chicago
Shadow and Jackal would head north.
Kick-Ass and I would head west. Mist and Petra would head east. Mathilda was out in her SUV, to the south. Medic was remaining at the Safehouse, with Trojan in case anything blew up, literally. Tony and Tommy were heading to Safehouse W to make the necessary preparations there, just in case.
I had warned everybody that we would go to any lengths to find the missing kids. Those who knew me well knew exactly what 'any lengths' meant and the first person to push me was a snout called Frank.
"I fucking know nothing – leave me alone, bitch!" Frank said as soon as he saw me.
"You're lying to me..."
"Why the fuck would I lie to you?"
"Because you know something..."
"I know lots of shit, but nothing that can help you..."
"Now, why don't I believe you?"
"You're a suspicious bitch, that's why!"
"He's right, you know..." Kick-Ass commented.
I was bored with word play; I was not very good at it. Half a second later my Tanto rested on the man's throat and blood was trickling down his throat as the hyper-sharp blade touched his skin with only a slight pressure behind it.
The man was shaking which just made the bleeding worse.
"Speak!" I ordered in a tone that the man could not ignore.
"There were rumblings a week or so ago. Two men were putting together a team – no idea what for, but they needed somebody who could access some computers and move some valuable merchandise under the radar, so to speak."
"Anything else?"
"It was way out of my league, so I ignored it..."
I whipped out a throwing knife and stabbed the man in the thigh, rapidly removing the knife. The man screamed.
"Don't make me ask more than once, again!"
Northern Chicago
"Since when did you have a snout?"
"About two months now."
"Come on, Shadow, I need more than that!"
"Tough shit, Jackal!"
Shadow stopped outside what I would call a 'greasy spoon'. It was a restaurant and it sold food which while tasty would rot your insides. It was a part of the UK I missed; all-day fried breakfast: bacon, fried eggs, sausages, fried-tomatoes, baked-beans, tattie-scone, mushrooms and some black pudding!
"You coming, or you just gonna play with yourself?" Shadow called pulling me out of my dream state.
Damn, I was hungry; I would have killed for a bacon butty right at that moment! I followed Shadow down the side of the shop. I was surprised to find a woman waiting for us. By her dress, she was a working girl. She saw me and looked very apprehensive.
"You're safe Jessi; we just need some information..." Shadow said calmly.
Jessi looked up.
"I heard some things, that's why I called you... Those kids? They are gonna be sold..."
Safehouse F
Abby had joined me and we were passing the information gathered to Voight and Vicki.
All hell had broken loose in the City; every Cop, every Citizen was out looking. The kids had been on the way back from a school trip. Their teacher was with them, too. I had the names of all sixteen on the bus, including the driver. I also had the numbers and unique identifiers for the sixteen cell phones, which were believed to be on the bus. None was reporting into any cell towers and neither was the bus' Lo-Jack system. Whoever took the bus knew exactly what they were doing.
I had come across some reports that all cell reception went down near where the bus had been seized; that indicated a cell jammer. Abby had suddenly jumped into action and she started digging into the internet.
"What you up to?" I demanded.
"If they left the jammer on, then we might be able to track the dead zone..."
"Fuck!" I said slapping my forehead. Why had I not thought of that!
Eastern Chicago
I was numb with what had occurred.
Fourteen kids! They were all aged around twelve and thirteen. Eight boys and six girls along with the male driver and female teacher. As we rode, we could see signs above and to the sides of the streets and Interstates. They were broadcasting the Amber Alert and the licence plate of the school bus. As we cruised up I-55 towards the I-94, I noticed something strange in my head-up-display. The cell signal went down to nothing and I saw a warning flash up as our communications system automatically shifted over to a different transmission method.
Normally I would have ignored something like that, but I had just spoken with Battle Guy and he had warned us to look out for any anomaly, no matter how small, including loss of cell service. We left the I-55, passing onto the I-94 heading south. Petra and I left the I-94 at West 29th Street, back tracking towards the anomaly.
I had called in the anomaly and Battle Guy had an exact fix of when our comms dropped off. I looked over at Petra as we headed west. I knew that she was very worried, just as much as I was.
Palmisano Park
We found it.
We had found the bus, only it was empty. No kids, no adults, just a cell jammer and a pile of sixteen cell phones. I reported the bus to Hal who passed it onto the Cops. They appeared within minutes and took over the scene that we had protected.
I was very surprised to receive handshakes from the appreciative Cops. Even Mist, although I noticed some of the male Cops and maybe the odd female one checking out my butt! I was pleased that we could have helped. I watched as the forensics people boarded the bus and I hoped that they would find something that would lead us to the next link in the chain.
Time was running out.
The basement
It was dark, very dark.
I could hear crying and I could sense the fear in the fourteen children that were under my protection. The bus driver, Jacob, was unconscious. He had tried to prevent the men boarding the bus, but he had been coshed by one of the masked men.
I had no idea why the bus had stopped on the shoulder, but Jacob said he had no choice as he had lost power. There was no knowing where we were. We had been bundled off the bus, with our hands tied and with blindfolds over our eyes.
I had to be brave for the kids.
Chicago PD, District 21
"The bus was hacked, well, sort of."
"What?" Sergeant Vicky Richards asked.
"We found a small box of tricks wired into the bus' wiring harness. They made absolutely no attempt to hide it. It looks like they just shut down the fuel and the driver had no choice but to pull over. Once the kidnappers had control they just re-enabled the fuel, all wirelessly, probably using a cell phone."
"Can you get anything off the box?"
"We hope so, but it's going to take time."
"We don't have any time to spare – get on it!"
Safehouse F
"I see their logic. A soft kill that can be easily reversed," I commented to Hal and Medic.
Trojan was peeking around the corner of the Command Centre. The kid was concerned for those out on the streets. He was still sidelined while his injuries healed. I smiled at him.
"Come and sit down, Trojan," I said, waving to a spare seat.
Normally the kids were not allowed in the Command Centre, but I did not want him left outside alone. I smiled as I watched his eyes roam across all the equipment that filled the room.
"What's that?" Trojan asked, pointing to a screen off to the right.
I looked over to where he was pointing and saw which screen it was he was looking at.
"That shows the status of the Safehouses," I said.
Then I looked closer. A warning was flashing up.
"Oh, fuck!" I groaned. "How long has that been there?"
Hal looked over and tapped some keys, bringing up a log.
"About two hours!" she replied, looking aghast.
"What?" Medic asked.
"The secondary data link to Safehouse K is down..."
Hal was hammering away furiously on a keyboard and white writing was moving up a black window on the screen.
"Primary is up, but no connection over the secondary, although I cannot see why!" Hal said, perplexed.
"It's being jammed!" I exclaimed in sudden realisation.
"Please explain," Medic demanded, confused.
"Every Safehouse has multiple data links. They all connect to each other like a web. The primary is hard-wired, fibre-optic. The secondary is wireless, over the cell network. The secondary is down, but everything checks out. So it must be being jammed," I explained as simply as I could.
"So that means that the kidnappers could be somewhere close to Safehouse K?" Medic asked.
"Possibly. Depends on the range of their jammer," Hal explained.
"We picked that location as there are deep underground basements there. The actual Safehouse is underground, like here. The above ground section is a sham," I began.
"It is very possible that the kidnappers are using a building nearby and more specifically the basement to keep the kids in. It's not all that far from where they found the bus, either," Hal finished.
I brought up a schematic of Safehouse K on the large eighty-inch horizontal touch-screen table.
"It extends down three stories and is surrounded by six feet of reinforced concrete in all directions. Sensors monitor for digging or any other form of intrusion into the Safehouse," I said, pointing out the entrances. "That was where Kick-Ass hid with Petra, on the upper level, but when we found Mathilda we took her down to the first basement level, into the briefing area there."
"Time to let the team know!" Hal advised.
Safehouse K
We had approached with as much stealth as possible and the six of us met up inside, on the surface level of the Safehouse. The place was devoid of anything, just bare concrete. Our motorcycles were parked side-by-side, ready for a quick getaway.
As we walked over to a section of concrete that was marked with a dashed yellow square, a slight rumble could be heard as a section of the concrete floor moved down and to one side, revealing a concrete staircase. We all vanished downwards and the concrete slab returned to its previous position, hiding the staircase.
We came out into a comfortable lobby that had carpet tiles on the floor and walls painted a pleasant light purple. We removed our masks and headed through a pair of double doors into a large open area that contained a briefing area, a kitchen and a place to sit to eat. As we entered lights clicked on across the facility.
On a large eighty-inch horizontal touch-screen table that was a duplicate of that at Safehouse F, we examined a map of the area surrounding the Safehouse. As we had approached the area, from six different directions, Battle Guy had used our personal communications equipment to map the extremities of the jamming. We had an approximate circumference and Battle Guy had superimposed this on the mat.
I looked up at a monitor located on the wall. On it was displayed the Command Centre at Safehouse F. I could see Battle Guy, Hal, Medic and Trojan.
"It was Trojan who drew our attention to it, sorry!" Battle Guy explained.
"Not your fault," I replied with a reassuring smile. "Better late than never. Well done, Trojan!"
I saw Curtis beam with pleasure.
The approximate centre of the jamming was located about one-hundred and sixty-five metres to the west of the Safehouse. Battle Guy zoomed in and brought up an image of the building. It was in the form of a right-angled triangle and from what Hal had been able to find out it had a large basement that extended down almost six stories. Some of the levels dated back almost seventy years or more. The building was supposedly abandoned and for good reason. The building had not had any maintenance in almost twenty years and was on the verge of collapsing.
It was a perfect hiding place and a very dangerous one, too. If the building was breached in the normal manner by SWAT, it could come crashing down. We had some planning to do. I got on the phone to Voight and Vicky.
The clock was still ticking and time was running out.