Recipes for Disaster (3 page)

Apparently when Jack said we were to “catch the train,” he really meant it. Acme’s pilot, George Taylor, flies us into Oxnard Airport. From there, Abu drives us  about thirteen miles north—on the portion of US 1 that is called Old Rincon Highway, which runs parallel to the elevated tracks, a place where the two are separated by just fifty feet. 

Finally we veer into a small underpass just below the tracks. 

Jack looks at his watch. “The train should be coming through in another ten minutes. It’s only going about twenty-three miles an hour. At that speed, we’ll hoist ourselves onto the car easily by shooting these guns,”—he pulls out an odd looking pistol—“which hold a retractable magnet tether, attached to your vest. Once you reel in the tether, the force of the magnetic suctions on your hand and foot gear will keep us on the car until we can reach the back door. Then you’ll break the lock with your laser taser, find the right statue, and grab the thumb drive. You’ll replace it with this one”—he tosses me a black thumb drive, and pockets an identical one—“which is filled with enough believable disinformation to satisfy our Chinese friends. Abu will shadow alongside, in the van, for as long as he’s got blacktop—at the most, five miles. But then the road disappears and the tracks are hugging a cliff along the Pacific. The next stop is Oxnard, so worst case scenario, we hang on until then.”

I give him a thumbs-up. “I get it—a fast in-and-out.”

He nods. “Abu will pick us up.” He tosses a duffle bag at me. “You’ll find infrared goggles in here, as well as a vest, and magnet-laced gloves and shoes. To secure them, twist slightly to the right. To release, press down and lift up, gently.”

I snap the locks on my right shoe then I test the magnet on the van’s metal floor. Yep, it holds tight as a gnat’s arse.  “Do we know which car holds the statue?”

 “Arnie saw them being loaded into the last three cars,” Abu explains. “Unfortunately, he doesn’t know exactly which one holds the Duran statue. Li is on the train, too, with a lady friend. They are in the very last passenger car, which is private, and apparently owned by a Chinese conglomerate. It was hooked onto the train at the very last minute. Arnie has changed into an Amtrak purser’s uniform, in case something goes wrong and we need an ‘official escort’ out of there.” 

I nod. “So, we’ll have to check all three cars for it?”

“Unfortunately, yes. Hopefully, it will still be in its black box, so that we can find it quickly and jump off before it reaches its next stop, the Oxnard Amtrak station,” Jack continues. “We’ve got less than five miles of track to pull this off. Otherwise, we lose our ride back to the plane because the road disappears completely where the track runs along a cliff beside the ocean, before going inland and adjacent to the Pacific Coast Highway.” 

“Then we should split up,” I suggest. “Each of us should take a car. If it isn’t in either, the one who finishes first can hit the third car.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Now that we’re suited up, Jack and I position ourselves in the bushes closest to the track. 

“Five minutes to show time,” Abu murmurs into our ear buds. In fact, we can hear the train’s whistle off in the distance. 

A minute later we spot its headlight. I’m relieved to see that Jack is right and it’s practically crawling down the track. 

We wait as the passenger cars roll by. Finally we count off those containing cargo berths. The last car, just beyond, is the observation deck, which is painted in bright yellow. When the last three cargo berths are just a few seconds from us, Jack touches my arm. “You take the last, and I’ll take the middle, okay? We’ll rock-paper-scissor for the first. On three, okay? One, two … three!” 

He shoots his magnet tether onto the side of middle of the three cars. When I do the same with the last one, I find myself being propelled through the air, like a spider on a wind-whipped tendril of its web. 

I land on all fours on the side of the designated car. I reel in the tether and tuck the tether gun into my belt. Then I crawl slowly toward the back of the car, where I’ll use the laser taser to cut through the lock on the door. 

Quickly, I dart through the rows of the cargo’s hull, searching for the black box, but it’s not here. Through my video lenses, Abu is double-checking the faces on all the terra-cotta statues, just to make sure I haven’t missed it somehow, but no. 

“Dead end,” I shout.

“I’ve come up empty-handed, too,” Jack says. “Since I’m closer, I’m on my way to the next car. Get your exit strategy in place.”

I wait and listen for what I hope will be his imminent success. Jack’s off-key humming of Keith Urban’s 
We Were Us
 is supposed to mask the exertion and strain of crawling, carefully and slowly, from one car to the next. If I could, I’d cover my ears because yes, he is that bad. As it is, I’m hanging by a thread, ready to jump from my car.

“Step on it,” Abu warns him.

“I hear you,” Jack insists. “Okay, I’m in … and … no go.” 

“Then he has it in the observation car with him. I’m closer, so I’m going to get it.”

“I’m right behind you,” Jack says.

“I’ll be out in a jiffy. Just get ready to jump.”

“I like your bravado.” Jack is joking. The concern in his voice is heard loud and clear, thanks to the echo inside the cargo area. 

I know just how he feels.

The call girl is a screamer. 

Works for me. She’s so loud that I can pick the lock of the observation car without them suspecting anything. 

And there’s the object of my affection: the black lacquer box. Thank goodness it’s in the front of the suite, as opposed to through the arched doorway of the car’s bedroom compartment.

The woman has her back to me. As she tightens up on Professor Li, her thighs rise and fall in sync with the rocking train. His eyes are closed and his lips are pursed, as if he’s willing himself to hold out as long as possible.

You’re paying by the mile, so show her who’s boss, dude.

Silent as a ghost, I make my way over to the box. Where was the lever again? Oh yeah, on the right side. I pull it and the doors open, and the statue rolls forward. 

I slip my hand under the statue’s right armpit and press it gently. 
Voilà
, a tiny panel falls in. I slip my hand into it and pull out the thumb drive and put the fake one in its place. 

I’ve just slipped our precious intel into a tiny inside pocket on the back of my jacket when the call girl asks, “Hey, where did she come from?”

I look up to see them both staring at me. Li’s eyes narrow as he realizes what I’ve just done. On the other hand, the call girl shakes her head angrily. “My service didn’t say anything about a three-way! That’ll cost you extra.” 

He answers her with a slap that sends her reeling backward on the bed. It takes him only a second to flip her over. A set of handcuffs appear, seemingly out of nowhere. Wrenching her arms behind her back, he cuffs her wrists together. 

“Hey, no one said anything about rough stuff!” Now that she’s face down, her pout is muffled by a pillow. “I’m not complaining. I’m just saying I’ll have to add it to your tab.”

Li isn’t listening to her. He’s already on his way to me, gun in hand. 

I dodge his bullet, which ricochets off the suite’s metal wall and slams into a lamp, shattering its base. One of the larger shards flies toward him, nicking him in the neck. He curses in pain. Instinctively, he raises his left hand to staunch the bleeding. 

That gives me all the time I need to hit him with a crescent kick, which knocks the gun out of his right hand. It skitters out the open door.

I’ve gotten as far as the threshold when he tackles me. Despite being face down, I kick furiously. 

One of my feet must have hit the mark because he curses me, but still he doesn’t let go. Instead, he drags me to the open door. While one hand holds me in a chokehold, the other roams over my body, in search of the pocket that holds the thumb drive. It stops over my left breast, which he squeezes with a smile.

Copping a feel—again? 

Totally unacceptable.

I bend my knee to give him a sharp back kick, with my heel, to his groin.

As he doubles over, I knock him out the door.

His scream echoes for several moments. When it’s not followed by the usual thud that accompanies bone meeting metal, I look out the door to see why not.

By now, the train is hugging the edge of the cliff that runs high above the Pacific Ocean. There is no beach, just surf slamming rocks. 

The sun has already dipped below the horizon, but there is still enough light for me to see Professor Li’s broken body, bobbing in the surf like a buoy. 

“Beautiful sunset, isn’t it?” 

Jack is gazing down at me from the roof.

I smile up at him. “Always is, this time of year.” 

By the time he has climbed down the rooftop ladder, Li’s body has slipped under the choppy surf for the very last time.

The call girl shouts, “Hey, where’s the party?”

Jack raises a brow. “Want to introduce me to your friend?”

“Not really,” I mutter. Still, I walk over and snap open her cufflinks. “So sorry, but all the fun and games are over. Our host has been permanently detained.”

She shrugs as she rubs her wrist. “That’ll be an extra thou, for the rough stuff.” 

“You’re kidding, right?”

She gives me a look that implies I’m sorely out of touch with the demands for her stock in trade.

No, I’m just sore. I’ve been frozen, slammed up against a moving train, and almost choked to death. 

I dismiss her with a wave of my hand. “Just put it on his tab, he won’t mind.”

She’s not hearing it. “Sorry, cash only,” she growls. 

The last thing I need is a witness who can ID me. I peel out the right amount of C-notes and toss them her way.

Through my ear bud, I hear Abu and Arnie laughing raucously. 

Jack murmurs, “Boy oh, boy. I can’t wait to see Ryan’s reaction to Donna’s petty cash receipt.” 

Believe me, I wish I got paid extra for the rough stuff, too.

Maybe I’m in the wrong business.

Chapter 2

Your Tax Dollars at Work!

There is nothing so gratifying to a voter than to actually see public works projects in progress. Roads, bridges, schools, libraries, parks, planes, tanks, bombs, drones and an NSA hacker or two (or three, or three thousand) are just some of the wonderful things your government purchases with your tax dollars!

Whereas state, county, and municipal ballot measures allow you to vote on whether to proceed with public works projects, wouldn’t it be great if you actually chose how and where your tax dollars were spent on national programs? 

At the next town hall meeting, go ahead and invite your Congressperson to sponsor such a bill. To encourage him to do so, collect a few hundred signatures of your nearest and dearest friends and neighbors, who feel as you do about the issue.

Then watch as he nods and smiles benignly—

Only to do nothing about it, unless you’ve tucked a thousand dollars per person, into the envelope with your petition.

Those are the true dollars at work.

Hey, he’s also the guy who gives the gun lobby free reign, right? They say karma is a bitch. Maybe someday he’ll be her bitch.

In the meantime, here’s a school lunch recipe that isn’t taxing at all on your time or budget, and is filled with all natural nutrition, too:

Blube-Banana SandMash!

(From Anna Maria Ruth, Mill Valley, California)

Ingredients

3 Tablespoons Almond Butter

3 Tablespoons Honey

1 Banana

2 Slices of High-Fiber Bread (suggestion: Nature’s Pride Nutty Oat contains no nuts, so no allergens.)

1 Cup blueberries

Directions

1: First, spread the almond butter on one piece of the bread.

2: Then, sprinkle the blueberries on top, too. Smash them into the almond butter.

3: Next, top with slices of banana.

4: Next, on the other piece of bread, spread the honey.

5: Finally, place the honey-covered bread on the banana-blueberry concoction, and cut in half.

6: Serve with carrot slices and apple slices for your student’s healthy lunch!