The SHAD E1S-plated sedan pulled into the gravel parking lot of Big Red’s Diner just a little past midday. Agents Oranger and Mason took one detour to pick up the secret weapons Molek requested. They needed a 12-foot U-haul to transport the material to the scene. Molek’s Caddy was already parked at the edge of the lot, with Mark now serving as the driver and Wint tied at the wrists and ankles in the backseat. Upon seeing the trailer attached to the sedan, Molek smiled approvingly.
“It’s almost all over now for those who’ve opposed the Agency,” Molek tittered. Mark looked on with a sort of vapidity that might’ve been expected from a man who no longer controlled his own thoughts.
Nepo flashed an impish grin before she said, “It looks like those agents of yours aren’t complete buffoons after all.”
“They have their moments,” Molek asserted. “But then again, don’t we all when the eyes of the world are watching us?”
As far as Mason and Oranger were concerned, they had only recently been informed of Mark’s capture, and neither of them cared for him even before he was chipped. They didn’t anticipate immediate compliance on Mark’s behalf, but seemed impressed that he was sitting so subserviently beside their boss in the car. They exited the sedan in tandem. Perhaps Oranger had more to gloat about than Mason in regard to the U-haul’s contents, being that this delivery was his brainchild right from the get go.
Molek opened the Caddy’s window as Oranger approached him with a report on the situation.
“Is everything as it should be?” Molek questioned Oranger.
“Almost,” Mason answered from the opposite side of the car. “We hit a snag with the Class V microchips.”
“I don’t like snags, Mr. Mason,” Molek fumed.
“Well, our local suppliers are out of stock. We need to get replacements from headquarters, and I’m guessing that’s gonna take another couple days.”
“Normally that wouldn’t be a problem. But Mr. Greene, as you can see,” Molek said, gesturing to the Caddy’s backseat, “isn’t being very cooperative. I need him in order to locate and duplicates of the DVD that might still exist.”
“I could beat it out of him,” Mason offered.
“And I could help,” Nepo said wickedly.
Molek debated that strategy only a moment before deciding against it. His primary concern now was to get the beagle back in his clutches. “I’ll assume that the secret weapons are in working order?” he prodded Oranger.
“Affirmative, sir,” Oranger replied. His voice became uncharacteristically deeper whenever he strayed within earshot of Molek. “Operation BC is ready to launch.”
“BC?” commented Nepo. “It sounds quite primitive to me.”
“Negative, Nepo. Technological warfare is riding a new wave into the future, and this crest is my tsunami.”
“Say no more for now,” Molek suggested. “I want Mr. Flyer and Mr. Greene to be surprised, being that they were so intent on undermining our progress.”
Oranger complied with this request like a sycophant who licked more boots than a politician at a line-dancing marathon. “You always know the right thing to do, Hooty,” Oranger declared, which triggered Nepo’s ire.
“If your nose was any browner,” the bird remarked, “I’d flush it.”
Molek then exited his car with Nepo clung to his shoulder. Since Wint’s present restraints rendered him immobile, Molek ordered Mason to fetch Wint from the Caddy’s backseat and drag him toward the trailer’s loading door. Mark followed Molek and Oranger to the U-haul without any physical encouragement. Oranger couldn’t resist taking a pop shot at Mark’s sudden acquiescence.
“Feeling a bit chipper today, huh, Mark?”
Even under the influence of a Class V microchip, Mark couldn’t pretend he liked Oranger anymore than a drunk relished window-shopping at a beer festival. But because of the circumstances, he simply refrained from bartering insults with the agitator for now. Besides, Oranger was too enamored with his pet project to let his attention stray too far from the task at hand.
Wint resisted slightly as Mason yanked him by his ankles to the U-haul’s loading door. Although Wint wasn’t gagged, he remained mute despite the gravel digging into his exposed skin. After everyone had secured a good spot to observe Oranger’s grandest achievement, the pseudo veteran jumped up on the trailer’s bumper and unlatched the rolling door.
“I haven’t felt this proud about anything I’ve done since Operation Apache Snow,” Oranger gushed.
“Just open the damn door and show them,” Mason grunted.
“First, a little history lesson,” Oranger gloated. He glanced at Molek to monitor his support, and felt vindicated when the head honcho showed no adverse reaction to his showmanship. “Back in 1966, the U.S. Marine Corps and Navy joined forces along the coast of the Bon Hai River in Vietnam. Our mission: infiltrate the VC’s underground rat tunnels and push them out into ambush zones. We called it Operation Beaver Cage.”
Mark looked to Mason and they might’ve chuckled simultaneously about Oranger’s confabulations had Molek been absent from the scene. Even still, Mason couldn’t resist an urge to expose his partner’s outrageous claims.
“Wasn’t Charlie Sheen in your platoon, or was that Martin?” Mason jested.
Oranger refused to blink a lash. He held firm with the notion and replied, “As a matter of fact, they both were there at one time or another. Only one was stoned, though.”
“Enough of this mockery,” Molek interjected. “Mr. Oranger, please show us what we’ve been patiently waiting to see.”
Oranger required no further persuasion. He unlatched the U-haul’s door and peeled open its retractable door. Shadows dissolved within sunlight as the trailer’s load became exposed. Other than those already privileged to know its contents, the exact nature of the material was not initially identifiable. Mark shifted closer to the open trailer, peering inside at what appeared to be a shipment of animal replicas, or more specifically, North American beavers. By now, Wint gazed on with equal curiosity, but he was also dumbfounded by this delivery.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Wint complained from his position on the ground. “That’s nothing more than a truckload of stuffed beavers.”
“Beavers galore! But they’re not stuffed in a traditional sense,” Oranger corrected. “They’re robotic, completely automated and quite deadly to their intended targets.”
“There’s enough beavers in that trailer to plug the Hoover Dam,” Molek said.
“Either that or keep Tiger swinging his club until he’s par for the course,” Mason snickered.
“This is what you’re bragging about? Nobody’s afraid of beavers,” Mark said.
“Hey, Leif, didn’t you kill the “beaver” with a cleaver in Vietnam?” Wint added spitefully.
“Always quick with the wit, aren’t you, Wint? But these aren’t your ordinary everyday beavers,” Oranger explained. “My beavers are drones, packed with enough Semtex and C-4 to flatten Big Red’s Diner if necessary.”
“It makes sense to me now,” Wint said. “Because the way I see it, these are the only beavers you’ll ever get a chance to stuff.”
“Oh, you’re so funny while lying in a pile of gravel and hillbilly piss,” Oranger lashed out. “But you won’t be joking much longer. Chip or no chip, you will soon believe in the power of Operation BC.” Oranger then reached into the back of the trailer and removed one animatronic creation. Its pelt was reddish brown, and its almond-shaped eyes remarkably lifelike, even under the scrutiny of direct sunlight.
“You must’ve named that one Justin?” Wint remarked. “Because you’re gonna be singing a horrible tune when this is all over.”
Oranger held up the beaver in front of Wint’s face and said, “For your information, this one is named Carmine. He could make all my dreams come true by turning you into a big ragu.”
Molek wobbled closer to Oranger and inspected the unique weaponry for himself. He was reluctantly pleased with what he took from the agent?
??s hands. “How do these things work exactly?” he asked Oranger.
“They’re entirely programmable. Once activated, each one tracks radio waves, which can be set to any frequency. In this case, I’ve pre-programmed the beavers to hone in on the Class V transponders, the identical chip our beagle currently houses. When crashing into anything within fifty feet of the target area, the beaver bombs detonate upon impact. And they operate on land or water, just like the real thing.”
“Ingenuous,” Molek commended, while Nepo pecked at the beaver in her owner’s hands.
“It smells like an actual animal,” Nepo noted.
“All of my beavers’ furs are authentic,” Oranger clarified. “I wanted to make this initial batch of forty prototypes look and smell as real as possible.”
“After all,” Mason added, “Nobody likes a phony beaver.”
“If you believe that, then you haven’t talked to those fellows inside Big Red’s Diner yet,” Mark mentioned.
Mark shifted closer to the trailer, still scanning the drone arsenal with a sense of disbelief. “Let me get this straight,” he commented to Oranger. “You poached and killed forty living creatures to replicate them with an equal number of artificial ones?”
“Actually, we slaughtered 150 animals for this campaign. Some of the pelts weren’t salvageable after electrocution,” Oranger said. “So much for our government’s efficiency, wouldn’t you agree?”
“You anti-tree huggers!” Wint screamed. “What would Al Gore have to say about all this environmental abuse?”
“Not much,” Molek surmised. “As far as I’m concerned, he’s still out mending fences somewhere in Tennessee. And despite the method of the beavers’ executions, our monthly electric bill is still cheaper than his.”
Mark’s eyes returned to the trailer’s contents, where he then noticed an unusual animal anchored between the stabilized beavers. This creation was at least twice as large as any of the other drones. “Hold on a second,” Mark said. “There’s something else in there.” He pointed out the oddity for emphasis. “That one beaver doesn’t have any fur on it.”
“Must be the Brazilian model,” Wint said flippantly.
“That’s not a beaver,” Molek said. “It’s an armadillo.”
Apparently, Oranger was saving his biggest secret weapon for last. He gleefully unstrapped what he deemed as his most ominous creation and held it up in both hands above his head for everyone to observe. “Every worthwhile plan needs a foolproof backup,” he indicated. “In the event that my beavers somehow fail to terminate the beagle, I’ve constructed my most lethal drone. I call her Arma 937.”
In nature, of course, the armadillo wasn’t much bigger than a beaver, however this synthetic critter was an exception. But other than its exaggerated size, it appeared as authentic as the beavers in its physical characteristics.
“I take it that 937 isn’t an arbitrary number,” Mark said. “What does it mean?”
“I’m glad you asked, Agent Flyer,” Oranger said. “In south Vietnam, looming over the steamy jungles at 937 meters above sea level, there’s an infamous hill that Bravo Company charged in 1969. We managed to take the hill from the NVC, but not without incurring heavy casualties on both sides. That location has since been labeled Hamburger Hill.”
“It sounds like there’s a lot of cheese on that burger to me,” Wint said.
“Well, Arma will surely determine that when and if the time comes,” Oranger proclaimed. “She has more plastic explosives packed inside her belly than all forty of the beavers combined. If I send her into the woods for a fatal strike, nothing will remain within a twenty yard radius that won’t look like ground meat in the aftermath.”
“So you’re planning to go to these lengths to kill a dog?” Mark asked.
“Was a guy named Vick in your platoon, too, Leif?” Wint asked in a snarky voice.
“It’s purely a last resort,” Molek reminded Mark and Wint. “I’m sure Arma 937 will only be used as a deterrent, like the missiles we’ve stockpiled in silos across our fruited plains for the past sixty years.”
Mark wasn’t convinced, but his humanitarian stance still had little hope of sustaining itself while he slipped deeper under Molek’s domination. Now that Oranger’s big reveal was past tense, Molek summoned Mark back to the confines of his Caddy, where he planned to converse with him privately for a few moments.
“You see how it’s all coming together for me, Mr. Flyer?” Molek chimed. “When I paint my masterpiece, it will be hung in a gallery for the ages.” Molek reached into the car’s glove compartment and pulled forth a cellphone he confiscated from Mark after his capture. “Since I prefer to keep a low profile outside the Grove,” he proceeded, “I’d rather not send in the drones to reclaim the beagle. It’s too messy and loud.”
“What can I do to prevent that now, Hooty?”
“We both know you’ve sent your new man on this mission with an option to abandon it at your say so.” Molek set the cellphone on the armrest between them. “One call from you should end this escapade right here and now. Instruct your patsy to return the beagle to us at this location within the hour and I’ll promise you that we will settle our business as humanely as possible.”
“Do you think he’s gullible enough to surrender the beagle?”
“Humor me. Let’s find out.”
If Mark had any ability to resist Molek’s direction, he couldn’t demonstrate it when it mattered most.
Chapter 25