Chapter VI
he bit of conversation she'd just had with William had thrown Sharon into a deep period of speculation. William had told her in the brief sentences of the captors being "Dr." Randal Bachman and Kelly, his cohort. She found it hard to believe they were Russian and had killed the Linkhams and daughter.
But, she didn't need a whole lot of urging to understand that the whole mess was tied up in the knowledge contained within Williams noggin. That info was supposedly locked out of reach within the deep confines of hypnosis, even to William. But, just how successful was the treatment? Could it possibly be he COULD access if he so tried? Could the lock-away hypnotic treatment be unlocked and accessed, possibly against Williams own will?
Sharon was quite certain that she had been in the dungeon for several days, but had not a clue as to the goings down and rising of the sun or how many times this had happened. That she wanted access to a shower and some clean clothes was a vast understatement. If she had the chance, would she rip the persons head off who was feeding them, or thank them for the chance to get out of the stall?
She had become quite muscular, but still very feminine through the training, and her continued upkeep and maintenance of the results of that training she, along with Will, Len and Melinda, trained weekly. She had become very adept at protecting herself, and quite good at attacking as well. If the time came, could she actually physically harm someone, or, perhaps even kill someone with her bare hands?
With a gun was bad enough. There was a certain dis-connection to using the gun than bare hands. With the hands, you were up close and in physical contact. With the gun, you could be quite a ways away and still take care of business with no physical contact.
Her mind eventually drifted back to all that William had informed her of. She was wondering if help was even close to coming in. How she longed to hear the 'calvary riding in' as William was fond of saying, a throw back from his childhood watching cowboy and Indian shows.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Unbeknownst to William or Sharon, Len and Melinda had been quite fortunate in their evidence collection. A security person had seen the person park the red Mustang, then get into the car with someone else. This kind of activity always aroused suspicion, or at least, interest in what they were doing.
By positive deduction, Len figured the only person who could be that eye-catching, and who was connected to this case, was Kelly Bachman. He had seen her around in Las Vegas, and wondered after her. It stayed in the back of his mind that a known Russian spy was hanging around the locale of what was going on in Las Vegas with the Crawley Caper Case.
He'd even taken advantage of the opportunity to snap her picture, and when he showed it to the guard, he said "yep, that's her. I told you she was gorgeous!"
"Hmmmm," thought Len. "She is quite the gorgeous lady! The guards description of her was quite accurate."
Then, on a more serious note, Len began to deduce what the Russians wanted with William and Sharon. That was not hard to figure out. But, how had William been taken so easily? Within the hour, the search for Real Estate Titles came through with an answer. There were two levels of ownership of a certain piece of run down property on the outskirts of a town just north of Stillwell Creek Township. From the Red Lobster, it was directly west.
Melinda had already been alerted and was en route. Len didn't want to arouse too much attention, but he was heading that direction with hammer down. What neither knew, was the largest part of the old structure was actually underground. To look at the place, one wouldn't know it. Len was nearly there when he received a call from the building inspection department, informing him the place had quite the basement.
Len knew they could be in for a huge battle in which more than one person could be harmed, maimed or even killed. He wanted to see if he could get into the place some way other than with guns blazing.
Melinda had beat him to the place, and was talking to the GPS tech about the log of Williams car. It was showing at one place, the same co-ordinates of her exact location. She stepped out of the car and began to look around. No tracks. But, that was almost a week ago, so the tracks could have been wiped out.
Her phone rang and she spoke with Len a few minutes, reporting what she'd learned and learning what Len had. She described the house which she had parked in front of, and had the proof with the log. She decided to meet Len in town for lunch while they discussed what to do. If they went in with guns blazing, it's very possible Randal could blow the place with just the flip of a switch.
While they conversed quietly, a third FBI agent pulled into their location. "Hello Bucy," Len said as he rose to shake hands with his old acquaintance. "What brings you out this way? Have a seat." He held up his hand to get the waiters' attention.
"What are you drinking Bucy?"
"Nothing for me Len," Bucy replied. Captain knew of my past with Randal Bachman, and wanted me to enlighten you on a few points. Plus, he has an idea that if William and Sharon are communicating, there's a way to tap into that conversation. They'll be talking code, but doing it through Morse code, so we should be able to decipher what's going on," he finished.
As they spoke he mentioned something that Randal himself had given to him. It was a microphone developed by the Russians which could read the window panes of a house up to a mile away. He had one in the vehicle with him, and if they so desired, could set it up and learn as much as they could before going in.
There was a whole group of agents who had volunteered to help in the extraction, himself being one of the first. All they had to do was stake the place out and learn what they could. But especially, if William and Sharon were still at that place.
One of the agents whom Bucy had already placed in stakeout of the house rang through to Bucy and reported two people in a Red mustang had just pulled out. He called ahead and given orders for it to be pulled over by the Highway Patrol asap and occupants detained.
Bucy reported this to Len and Melinda, then stated he was going to take off for location of the stakeout. "We'll be going too," and held up his hand to the waiter.
"I'll be right there Bucy. Hey, Bucy, thanks man!"
"Hey, you don't need to thank me! You remember it was just a year ago Will and Sharon both came to my rescue! Had it not been for her, that guy would have shot me. I doubt if I would even be here now had she not done that," Bucy responded.
Len knew well of the incident. Sharon had taken the shot without hesitation, Len himself was not quite prepared to blow the man away. But by the time he realized the man meant to shoot Bucy, it was too late for him to come to bear. Sharons' quick presentation of her firearm and the deadly accuracy for which she was known was instantaneous, and her bullet struck in time to make the man twitch the split second before he pulled the trigger. The twitch made the mans gun waver enough to completely miss Bucy. For that, he felt he owed a lot to Sharon.
Now, it was his turn to show his appreciation, and he meant to do that. It was far and above the simple protection of a brother at arms; this was the life and death return of a favor. He would have gladly given his life to help Sharon and William both, or either. They had turned out to be such special friends of whom he thought the world.
As they pulled into the little cove which hid them from view of the house, the phone rang. Len soon learned they'd pulled the Mustang over, and had the couple in custody. It turned out that the couple was a Mr. and Mrs. Linkham. "Linkham? Describe them to me!" Len was incredulous. He told the trooper to hold them under federal warrant as they were involved in a FBI captive case.
He told Melinda, "do you remember William and Sharon mentioning the strange way in which their neighbors left and the Bachman's moved in?"
"Why, yes, but what does that have to do with this case?" she asked.
Well, from the description the officer who pulled over the Mustang gave, it was definitely Randal and Kelly Bachman. But their ident papers said they were the Linkhams." Len grew quiet, pausing to mull over a couple of things. "Do you remember how old the Linkhams were?" he asked Melinda.
"They were well into their seventies. And she was quite stooped and unable to do much. Why?" queried Melinda.
"Well this couple certainly aren't even fifty yet. When the trooper described Kelly, I knew who it was. They are being transported into the jail system as we speak. But they haven't talked as of yet," Len finished.
Len and Melinda walked up to the place where the man had the distance mike trained on the windows of the house. He could hear no movement inside the house, no voices, but could hear a steady sound as a tapping coming through faintly.
He stated, "I'm not sure, but I think that is Morse code. He handed the headphones over to let Len listen, who began to write down the taps in quick succession. He knew from past experience, that this was definitely Sharon tapping out her message. And they were using code, passing it to each other using Morse code.
"So, that proves they are there, and we know Randal and Kelly . . . whatever their names are, are not there. What are we waiting for? Let's move out . . . NOW PEOPLE!" Len ordered.
A scurry of movement, and another phone call later, the group was ready. Len called the groups attention and said "We've got a little bit of a delay. While in route to the lock up this morning, a white van rammed the car in which Randal and Kelly were being transported, and they've escaped."
He paused a second or so, and continued. "The officer was shot dead in the melee that followed the ramming. The vehicle following, in which the officer was shot dead, was a few car lengths behind. By the time he was able to get his vehicle stopped and his gun brought to bear, the woman, Kelly, already had an AR15 trained on him. He was killed before he could even get out of his vehicle. The driver of the transport car had his neck broken, probably with a quick snap of the head, and that probably by a trained Russian killer.
"The captain thinks they may be headed back this way. If they reach the house before we do, it will be probably be the end of Will and Sharon," Len was talking fast. "Get there! NOW!" he screamed.
The group headed for their cars and actually mixing it up trying to get out of the drive of the cove in which they'd parked. But all had the pedal to the metal, raising enormous clouds of dust. They would be busting in with guns blazing. A perfect example of 'here comes the calvary!'
The first in was a rookie FBI less than two months on the job. His vehicle was at the back of the pack in the cove, and since he had backed in, was the first headed out the drive and up the road toward where William and Sharon were being held. He took the curve into the lane that led up to the house, but before he ever got up to the overgrown driveway of the house, he took a bullet in the head.
The reaction of the body turned corpse was to stiffen out, and with one foot on the accelerator, the car plowed straight up through overgrown driveway all the way to the house and halfway through the front wall.
When the vehicle hit the wall, it took out the person sitting at the window with the SKS. It was this guy who'd shot the rookie. When the agents busted through the door, the man who had shot Rookie Agent Bransten Gage was laying up against the wall with his head in a odd direction and his chest caved in. One look proved he was already dead. Now, to find the portal of the passageway to the dungeon.
Will had a pretty good idea the whole thing was going down the instant he heard the big SKS speak. To him it sounded like a tank had plowed through the house when the rookies car hit, and he could hear steps coming into the building on the floor above, doors being slammed and just total confusion all around.
William tried to get a message through to Sharon, but the noise of the confusion going on above drowned out the tapping. But Sharon was already doing what William tried to tell her to do. She was making herself some kind of defense in case someone threw a grenade or other device into the cell before they could be rescued.
Sharon and William both were behind their beds when sure enough, someone threw in a grenade into each cell. Even though he had his hands over his ears in an attempt to keep them from being harmed beyond repair, it sounded as if the whole world had just blown up.
Wills defense was not quite as adequate as was Sharons, so he took a piece of shrapnel in the leg, but, other than that, was unhurt. With the small hole it tore in his slacks, he didn't think a whole lot of it although it really hurt. Then he saw the amount of blood that was coming from the wound, and knew he was in big trouble.
Sharon was unhurt altogether other than her ears was ringing incessantly from the concussion and the sound of the explosive. Her door had been damaged enough with the blast of the device that it could be forced open and soon escaped from her cell. Wills just jammed shut as the conussion of the grenade blew the door against the bolt effectively bending it almost double jamming securely into place.
She was standing in front of Wills door trying to open it when she felt rather than saw the movement coming up the hall. She turned to face it, and soon recognized Kelly, the extra foxy looking girl she used to call friend.
"So, you survived the blast . . . how fortunate for you. Had you just lain there I would have figured you for dead. Now, I get to look you in the eye while I blow your brains out," Kelly sneered.
Sharon wasted no time, but slung the rod she held and lunged at Kelly before she had time to bring the Glock .40 cal to bear. She caught Kelly in the face with a full force punch of her fist. Kelly's head went back, and she stumbled backwards, barely catching herself before the full impact of Sharons lunge hit her.
They crumpled to the floor locked in deadly cat warfare, slugging, pulling hair, scratching, biting and screaming. It was no time before Sharon, weakened by the lack of food, was repelled far away enough for the Glock Kelly had managed to hang on to come up again.
Everything went into slow motion. Sharon could see the Glock coming to bear on her, knew she was too far away to do anything about it, then heard the roar before the blossom of the flash, then a second roar with the flash. That didn't make sense to her. She didn't know her friend Melinda had entered the room with gun drawn, had pulled down on Kelly, but too quickly had fired, striking the meaty side of Kelly's arm above her elbow and distracting her shot at Sharon.
It saved her life. As it was, the .40 calibre bullet from the Glock completely missed her, and she tackled Kelly again, this time, with Kelly's out of order arm allowed Sharon to put her in a head lock long enough to put her out. She then handcuffed her to a pipe embedded into the wall. Again, she attacked the door which still had William incarcerated. By this time he was getting weak from the blood loss.
Len had found the way to the dungeon and was working with a larger bar. After a few good licks and both of them pulling on the bar, the door to Williams cell was finally forced open. William had collapsed into the pool of blood on the floor, and Sharon immediately started first aid on stenching the flow of blood. Melinda was tying off Kellys arm as she was coming too.
Bucy came in and reported his capture of Randal attempting to get a cabinet open but the sound of him clearing his voice brought the culprits attention and when he looked around, Bucys' XD .45 was pointing right between his eyes . . . too close to miss, but too far away for Randal to slap it. He handcuffed himself to a pipe as per Bucys instructions. That's when Bucy came down to see what all the ruccus was.
Well, if you've got everything under control down here, I guess I'll go up and get the Captain out here to make sure we get all the paperwork done correctly, smiled a great big old grin for which he was famous, spun on his heel and walked out. Just as he stepped up to the landing at the top of the stairs, a shot was heard, the back side of the door splintered, and Bucy crumpled and his body rolled back down the stairs.
He'd made a huge mistake. He had not checked the handcuffs that Randal had placed on himself, and after Bucy had left, he simply undid them, opened the cabinet which held the firearms, loaded a rifle, and listened for Bucys return, at which time he simply fired through the door when he saw the door knob turn.
Sharon was instantly on her feet, now running on nothing but adrenalin and retrieved his XD, and emptied a mag through the door. She had already secured the other mag while firing, and immediately did a speed load.
As soon as the last shot of the first mag sounded, the door was flung open and Randal appeared at the top of the stairs searching for a target. In the dim light of the dungeon, he couldn't make out a target, but, but being lit from behind made a perfect target. Melinda opened up on him with her XD and Sharon opened up with Bucys' XD. Randal never got another shot in other than the twitching of his finger on the trigger.
Bucy, Randal, the Rookie, and the shooter of the Rookie died that day there in the old house within a seven minute period. Kelly had taken one in the arm, and William had a piece of shrapnel in the leg and had nearly bled out. He was barely concious, but something was still bothering him, even in his semi-conscious state.
Why had he come back? For what exactly had he returned?
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