Maddy: "I saw Will do the same thing, except he kept his front side white, and his back side brown."
Freya: "You said back side."
Maddy: "So?"
Freya: "It's another word for bum. That's a bad word."
Maddy: "Bum, bum, bum."
Madison: "Maddy's being a baddy again."
Karita: "We should go to bed."
...
[EmmaGee was now in bed.]
Maddy: "I'd like to have the body in the morning for a change."
Madison: "We agreed that I could have the mornings so that Daddy can read to me and I can point out the words that I don't know. We all agreed."
Maddy: "OK. But I want to play with the wolves in the afternoon."
Madison: "But they're scary. What if they bite? They could bite our hand off. Do you guys want to be walking around without a hand? I say no more wolves."
Karita: "I'm trying to sleep, Madison."
Maddy: "Yeah, give it a rest, Madison. We'll work it out in the morning,"
Madison: "I'm just saying..."
Karita: "Freya, make her stop."
Freya: "You should stop talking, Madison."
Madison: "If I don't?"
Freya: "I'll think about the snakes and then you'll have nightmares."
Karita: "No fair. I don't want to have nightmares too."
Freya: "You won't have them if Madison stops talking."
Karita: "Madison, stop talking please."
Madison: "I won't talk any more. I promise."
Freya: "OK. Everybody has to go to sleep now."
Maddy: "Princess Freya has spoken."
Freya: "Shush."
Back to the Table of Contents
Chapter 8
It was one week later, Tuesday May 14. Lucas had convened a second meeting of the Safe Haven operation team. The Saskatchewan soldiers were still in Toronto but Jock had finished being mayor. He'd put his Base Commander in charge of the soldiers and return to Regina this week. University classes were out in Toronto, but Dreamer was going to stay and work out with Lylah. Lucas was going to accept Jock's offer to take some training with the Saskatchewan army, but he wasn't sure what that training was. Right now, he had a lot on the go with thinking about Safe Haven and how the Wilizy might attack the ranches. Theo and Nary had plans to return to the home compound soon.
Lucas started the scouting report. "Theo and I followed the Safe Haven courier to seventeen ranches. They're scattered into three clusters in Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota. All the ranches are congregated around steady water supply: The Missouri River headlands in Montana, Lake Sakakawea area in North Dakota, and the Missouri River when it becomes Lake Oahe in South Dakota. The three clusters are not close to each other. For us, that's not as much a problem as it will be for Safe Haven. We can put one Wilizy ship over each state and move from one ranch in a cluster to another ranch in that cluster reasonably quickly. We also have sling speed for any warriors we want to put into battle. For Safe Haven, the clusters are too far apart for easy communication and reinforcement. If we block their communications, we might be able to fight three separate battles on three different nights and concentrate our forces better."
Theo continued. "The ranches all follow the same construction design. They have a big house that serves as the home for the slave owners, and we presume, for young female slaves. Each ranch has a shantytown for the field slaves, a bunkhouse for the bosses, and a wooden storage shed in the middle of the fields where they grow their food. This shed holds the tools that the slaves need to work in the fields. Presumably the bosses check that everything comes back to those sheds each night. Any kind of metal could be turned into a weapon, so they'd want those locked up tight. The only way into that shed is through the single door which is padlocked shut each night."
"All the ranches have cattle operations and the cattle bosses are located some distance from the Big House. It might be possible to disable the cattle bosses without anybody in the Big House knowing about it. These ranches cover a lot of ground. Away from the water supply, the land is very dry. They use the nearby water to irrigate their food crops; they do not irrigate the cattle grounds. The cattle tend to be scrawny as a result."
Lucas took over. "We followed the courier to Safe Haven's headquarters in Minneapolis. They're inside a three-storey building away from the downtown core. We didn't try to follow the courier into the building. We'd want TG to check out the building for security surveillance before doing that, but it's possible we'd have an easy entry. Safe Haven has no obvious enemies. Why would they have extensive security? They operate out of a small, anonymous building."
"On the matter of weaponry, we tracked the six copters that transported the stolen weapons from the Saskatoon army base back in September 2083. We can assume that we'll face increased resistance at these six ranches because of those weapons. What we don't know is whether those ranches shared their arms with other ranches in the area. There's no obvious way of determining defensive strength from the air. Plus what weapons they do have could be stored anywhere. We'd be entering battles blind unless we can learn about their weapons. If we could find out where they're stored, we could destroy them first."
"Any supply of major weaponry will be under lock and key," Jock said. "They won't take the chance of slaves getting their hands on them."
"The slaves will know," Marie said. "Before I was taken away to die, the key slaves in each ranch in our area had a plan for preventing bosses from reaching their weapons. I was in charge in Ranch #2. A housekeeper named Pililiani was in charge in Ranch #4. I don't know about the other ranches. Most of the housekeepers I knew back then will be dead now."
"Could we send somebody into the ranches to ask the slaves?" Winnie suggested. "Undercover operations?"
"Some slaves are not trustworthy. They'll trade information about a stranger appearing on the ranch for something as simple as a pair of socks."
"Could you find out who to talk to, Marie?"
"In the ranches in our area, yes. I'd start with Pililiani, assuming she's still alive. She would be able to identify the slave who is in charge of the escape plan in each ranch in that area. They may be able to help us but that depends if they've given up hope or not. Other ranches, I don't know."
"Worth a try," Melissa said.
"Are you willing, Marie?"
"If Winnie will help me."
"We should have a full team to handle undercover ops," Jock started to steer the conversation.
"I wouldn't mind being on the team," Lucas said.
"You'll have other duties," the general said to Lucas. "To start, arrange to have surveillance equipment flying over every ranch."
"I'll ask William and Wolf to do that for us. TG can set up a computer control site where all the data are stored. Makes it easier to search and analyze."
"As quickly as possible then. We'll want to know what copter traffic comes in and out of these ranches. Look for signs of cooperation between ranches. I'll be back in Regina on Thursday. Report to me there."
"Do armaments give off a distinctive smell, General?" Theo asked.
"Yes, the smell of gun oil, for example. There'll also be a smell if any armament has been test fired recently. I believe I know where you're going with this."
"Nary and I would like to be on the team."
"Done. Nary's sense of smell will be helpful. We'll start with one four-person undercover team. Theo, Nary, Winnie, and Marie. See what you can find out with Marie's contact person first. Restrict yourself to the ranches in that area. We'll determine later if we're able to extend ourselves into the other clusters. Theo's in charge. Do NOT, and I repeat, do NOT do anything that might give Safe Haven advance warning that they're going to be attacked."
# # # # # # # #
"An army is going to attack the Safe Haven ranches soon?"
"That's what Fred Brown thinks," Jak told her partner. It was Tuesday night, May 14, and the two Scandinavian operatives were
camped out on the open prairie by Ranch #4. In the last week, Fred Brown had given Jak a tour through some of Safe Haven's operations while Benedikta had prowled around Ranch #4. They were camping outside that ranch now, partly so that they could debrief each other in private and partly because Jak wanted to camp out on a prairie. Scandinavia didn't have prairies.
"What army is going to attack them?" Bene asked.
[Narrator: Bene was short for Benedikta. Her friends pronounced it Bean, as in Jak and the Beanstalk. That was the child's fairy tale that prompted the nickname that their colleagues had given them – Benedikta being so tall and skinny. See? Who said that army people aren't fun to be around?]
"The Saskatchewan army is going to attack Safe Haven," Jak replied.
"Saskatchewan? Are those the big hairy creatures who live up in mountains and have big feet?"
"No. Those are Sasquatch and they're mythical creatures. Saskatchewan is a Canadian province. It contains mostly prairie land where farmers grow a lot of different kinds of grasses."
"It has an army?"
"So I'm told."
"How big an army?"
"I couldn't find it."
"You better start at the beginning, Jak."
# # # # # # # #
"Our first stop on Fred's tour was a bunker in Washington State that used to be owned by one of the world is ending freaks before Safe Haven took it over. Princess Freya had been held there shortly after her kidnapping. This bunker had very good security. Plus Princess Freya wore a security collar that would inflict pain if she managed to sneak out of the bunker. She had no way to escape from that bunker on her own and she didn't."
"You're calling him Fred?"
"You spend as much time with a guy as I did, you get into first names even if the guy is paranoid."
"Where'd you go next?"
"Fred wanted to check out the Saskatchewan army general, so we flew to Regina – the capital of the province and where their big army base was located. Fred had become suspicious when he lost some of his kidnappers. He lost quite a few actually in a short period of time. He figured somebody was tracking, capturing, and interrogating them. So he reported this to the Safe Haven management group in Minneapolis and they approved his proposal to hide all of their young blondes in Safe Haven's slave ranches. They have seventeen scattered across the middle of the country. He figured they'd be well hidden there. That's why Princess Freya ended up in Ranch #4."
"As you know, Princess Freya escaped from Ranch #4 and later, she escaped from a Safe Haven cottage in New York State. After that, Fred was able to determine that a group of do-gooders who are known as Weight Watchers transported her across the continent where she ended up in a work camp in Montana. A Safe Haven copter was slated to pick her up there when she inexplicably walked out of the camp. The camp made plans for a thorough search with horses and dogs. Somebody who knew what he was doing disabled the search copter. That somebody also spooked their horses enough that it took hours to round them up. That somebody also scattered the dogs. That caused enough of a delay for that somebody to rescue her before the search party found her."
"Princess Freya had help at that work camp," Beanstalk agreed. "If she had help there, she could have had help with her other escapes. You knew her. Was Princess Freya somebody who could plan those escapes herself?"
"Beanstalk, Queen Freya had the brains of a plate of fiskbullar. [Narrator: a plate of fish balls.] Her daughter wasn't even that smart. She couldn't have planned any of that. When she went outside for walks in Seattle, she'd stand at the open door in her house clothes waiting for me to join her. It would be poring outside. I'd say something like: Do you think you'll need a raincoat? She'd look surprised and would have to think about it. This girl couldn't plan an escape. Plus she wouldn't be able to conceal any escape plan from anybody. At home, she'd jabber on endlessly, babbling anything that came into her mind. I say again: this girl could not have escaped from Safe Haven facilities on her own. Yes, she had help. And that's why you were here with an open mind. Looking for how she got that help. Fred Brown believes it was the Saskatchewan army that helped her escape and they're hiding her."
"You don't?"
"I did some personal research after Fred's tour ended. The main Saskatchewan army is stationed in Regina. Security is very lax on the base, so I was able to wander around freely. All I could find were a dozen men and four big fighter copters. I heard that the general was conducting training exercises outside of the province and had left by copter in late April. I pretended to be interested in buying a house near the airfield. I asked the owner if he were ever bothered by the noise of military copters coming and going, like recently on the training exercises. Beanstalk, their entire training exercise force was transported in a single copter. The house owner heard them leaving in early morning. A transport copter can carry... what? Thirty soldiers? The Saskatchewan army conducts training exercises for 30 soldiers? Even if you add in what soldiers they may have at their other base in Saskatoon, there can't be more than 100 active soldiers in the entire province who can go into battle. This is not an army! It's a police station. Plus the general is a drunk!"
"How'd you find that out?"
"I asked about the Saskatchewan army at the Safe Haven headquarters. At one point, they had three prospective ranch owners who were selling stolen Saskatchewan army weapons to some of their ranches as down payments on buying a ranch. These guys were soldiers. This general – name of Jock MacLatchie – was in charge of the base where they were stealing the weapons. They got away with it because he was drunk all the time."
"But Fred Brown believes the ranches are in danger? Why?"
"This drunk general sent an official query to the Seattle Police Force asking if they had made any progress on the missing girl from Bainbridge Island. Saskatchewan has some sort of electronic group that monitors the border for crimes. The police and military in the area have an agreement to share information. Fred thinks that Saskatchewan army force has heard about the ranches and is looking for Princess Freya so that she can give them inside information on Safe Haven. If they find her, Wilhelm will have our heads."
"Is it possible that it was the Saskatchewan army that rescued her from the work camp?"
"No. If they had, why would the general ask for information on her?"
"Somebody else then?"
"Perhaps. But I think it's a giant smoke screen. Safe Haven is trying to make us believe that Princess Freya is an escape expert. They're trying to say that they have good security – except for this one single incident. They are hiding what happened because they want our business."
"But she has escaped three times. That suggests strongly that Safe Haven has security issues. Do they have good security?"
"The security at the underground bunker where she was kept first was excellent," Jak declared. "The security into their headquarters is excellent too. I don't see any enemy force getting into the Safe Haven offices in Minneapolis alive. I don't know about her escape from Ranch #4 – you're going to tell me about that. She probably escaped from the cottage in New York with the help of do-gooders who brought her all the way across the country – perhaps to reunite her with her parents in Seattle. I believe do-gooders rescued her from that work camp. That's where she is now. In the home of some do-gooder."
# # # # # # # #
It was time for Beanstalk's report.
"The security at Ranch #4 is sufficient to keep slaves within the confines of a very large area. All slaves wear collars that will provide increasing amounts of electrical shock if a slave tries to leave the ranch or remove the collar. Princess Freya was wearing a slave collar. But a Safe Haven trainer made the mistake of removing that security collar because it was injuring her skin. The intent was to let the skin heal and then re-attach the collar more loosely. They didn't know that she used the time she was without a collar to hide in a copter that would be travelling east across the country as part of a transfer of slaves from one camp to another."
"The transportation of the slaves to their new camp was done in two stages. Eight bosses were sent ahead on a transport to prepare the camp. This was the copter that Princess Freya hid in. A second smaller copter was sent shortly afterwards because some necessary equipment had been forgotten. Boss #24 was on that second copter. That copter belonged to the ranch's Big Daddy and his wife had put a tracker on it. The data from that tracker were reviewed. Boss #24 landed the copter safely and that copter never moved until Boss #2 used it to survey the island looking for signs of the princess."
"Princess Freya's absence from the ranch was noticed the next morning. After a search in the house and grounds proved futile, they suspected she had hidden on the first copter and a second transport copter was sent to search for her. Boss #2 was on that large copter which was also used to convey the slaves who would be living in the camp. When Boss #2 arrived, he found the village destroyed by a windstorm and eight bosses dead from a lightning strike on the transport where they had been sleeping. Boss #24 was still alive because he had slept separately. Boss #2 searched for the missing girl and uncovered evidence that she had been killed by one of the many alligators living around that island. He returned the slaves, and Boss #24, to the ranch for instructions. Big Momma investigated, agreed that the missing girl was dead, and made the necessary report to Safe Haven. Big Momma obviously believed both bosses because she promoted them. She doesn't know that Princess Freya made it safely off that island. Safe Haven didn't tell her."
"How confident are you in what you uncovered?" Jak asked.
"I was given access to all the security staff who were involved in the transportation of the slaves. I was also given access to slaves who had been transported. The boss lady sat in on every interview to make sure the staff were forthcoming."
"We should look into how Princess Freya escaped off that island," Jak interrupted Bean's report.
"Yes. We should also look into what actually happened on that island. None of the slaves had anything to say about what the camp looked like or where the bosses had died. Neither boss had anything to say about that. They saw some signs that the animals on the island had been at work on the bodies, but they had to return the slaves to Ranch #4 and had no time to bury the bodies properly. That part of the story smelled like Surströmming."