Chapter Six
I emailed the results of the last background check to Dad’s computer. Thankfully, it had only taken us two days to finish them. Now, Julie and I were going to the mall for a pedicure and some shopping.
My grim-faced father hurried into the control center and handed me a thumb drive in a plastic evidence bag. “The ID techs are overwhelmed, and I need all the fingerprints we collected run through our database immediately.”
I gaped at him in horror. Spider webs with a mortuary of dead creepy crawlies decorated Dad’s hair, and his clothes were covered in gooey black mud. “Good, God.” I waved my hand in front of my face. “It smells like you’ve been rolling in shit.”
“No kidding.” Julie grabbed a fly swatter and walloped the hell out of the horde of flies buzzing around Dad’s chest.
Dad gave her the stink eye.
I bit my lower lip to keep from laughing. Fly guts now littered his grimy shirt. “What happened?”
Dad seized my water bottle and drained it. “We were checking Chuck’s outhouse for more explosives.”
Julie wrinkled her nose. “That explains the smell.”
“Why does Chuck have an outhouse?” Call me curious.
Dad wiped at the sweat rolling down his face, smearing the gunk around. “Who knows. I think it’s been there since 1850.”
“So, did you find more explosives buried in the shit?” Julie handed him her water bottle.
Wrapping his cruddy fingers around the plastic, Dad nodded. “We did. Along with a canister of Cobalt-60.” He emptied the water bottle.
A cold chill ran up my back. “They’re trying to build a dirty bomb!”
“They are and Chuck refuses to answer any of our questions.”
I carefully cleaned the evidence bag with a wet wipe and handed the box to Dad. “Use them. Please. We’ll start running the fingerprints.”
“No offense, sir, but what you need is a long, hot shower.” Julie smacked another fly.
Dad shuddered. “You should see Dante. The toilet seat in the outhouse broke and he took a header into the gunk.”
“Oh, my God!” I shot to my feet. “Where is he?”
“The firefighters washed him down and the paramedics took him to the emergency room to get checked over,” Dad answered.
I grabbed my purse. “Which hospital?”
Dad held up his hand. “Dante has been quarantined until they get the test results back. You can’t see him.”
“Was he exposed to the Cobalt-60? Julie asked.
“We’re not sure. Get started on the fingerprints.”
Fear knotting my stomach, I sank down on my chair. “When will the doctors know if he was contaminated?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
I grabbed my cellphone. “I’ll call him.”
“Dante’s phone is buried in the outhouse sludge. He’ll call you when he can,” Dad said.
I didn’t like the look in Dad’s eyes. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“When he fell, a piece of wood from the toilet seat impaled his shoulder. Doc Halliday is handling the surgery. He said the wound needs to be properly cleaned out and stitched.”
Julie grabbed my hand and squeezed. “Dante’s going to be okay.” Her gaze was fixed on Dad’s face. “Right?”
“The wound will have to be monitored for infection and the canister of Cobalt-60 seemed intact.”
Mom rushed into the command center and dumped her purse on my desk. “Great news! I just talked with the head nurse. Dante’s surgery went well. Pops ran a Geiger counter over him and found no signs of radiation poisoning.”
I let out a breath of relief and the knot in my stomach loosened.
Miss Kitty climbed out of the purse and batted my pen around. I ruffled her fur. “Thanks, Mom.”
“How in the hell did that bastard get into the recovery room?” Dad demanded.
Mom shrugged. “Pops doesn’t share his plans with me.”
The Command Center’s phone rang. Dad grabbed it before I could. “Alpha Dogs.” Dad’s eyes narrowed. “I see. It won’t happen again, Doc.” He hung up the phone. “You did your crazy granny act and used that damn cat as a distraction.”
“Gemma needed answers, and I got them.”
“And I appreciate it, Mom.” I cleaned the muck off the phone.
“The cat has to go,” Dad stated firmly.
Julie, Mom and I gave Dad the stink eye.
“Bodacious will trample it,” Dad growled.
“Miss Kitty is part of our family,” Mom snapped. “Live with it or learn to sleep on the couch.”
Dad shot back testily, “It won’t be me sleeping on the couch.”
“Wanna bet? And you stink bad enough to make a skunk puke,” Mom returned sweetly.
I jumped to my feet. “God, do I need to pee.”
“Me too,” Julie said.
Mom and Dad yelled in unison, “Sit down.”
We sat.
“Bedroom now,” Dad ordered, yanking the door open.
Mom stomped past him with Miss Kitty on her heels.
“Get to work,” Dad instructed and slammed the door.
I let out a whistle. “Holy cow! I haven’t seen them this worked up in a while.”
“Me, neither. You don’t think they’re gonna…” Julie grimaced. “You know, do it?”
“As bad as he smells. No way.” I inserted the thumb drive and sighed. “We have fifty prints to run.”
“Send me half and once we’re done, we can sneak into Dante’s room.”
“Sounds like a plan.” I sent Julie her half and started running the fingerprints through the database. Two had outstanding DUI warrants, three had arrest records for theft, but most of the prints belonged to hardened felons with long criminal histories ranging from assault to attempted murder to gunrunning and cattle rustling. I sent those to Dad’s computer.
“Holy hell! The CIA just locked up my computer,” Julie cried.
“What?” I slid my chair over to her console. Crap! A red warning bar flashed at the top of the screen. Evidently, we were in violation of all sorts of espionage laws, and we needed to call the number listed immediately. Whoever Eric Roberts was, the CIA wanted him badly.
“Shit! Shit! Shit!” Julie’s fingers flew across the keyboard. “They’re trying to breach our mainframe.”
I grabbed a thumb drive Mom called The Hail Mary and inserted it into my computer. The red warning bar appeared at the top of my screen too and gobbledygook scrolled across the screen. “Crap! The Hail Mary isn’t working.”
An alarm sounded and a mechanical voice announced. “Breach imminent! Breach imminent!”
“I can’t shut it down! I can’t shut it down!” Julie yelled.
Typing frantically, I accessed our mainframe and tried to block the malware infiltrating our system. “This bastard is good.”
Wearing only a towel, Dad burst into the room and hit the main power switch. The lights died. Thirty seconds later, the backup generator kicked in.
He glared at us. “What did you do?”
“Us?” I bristled. “Nothing. We were running the fingerprints through the database like you wanted and wham! The CIA was trying to breach our computers. It seems they’re really interested in some dude named Eric Roberts.”
Loathing filled Mom’s voice, “Eric Roberts? Are you sure?”
“Yes.” I eyed Mom in alarm, not only was she sopping wet, but her melting mascara gave her a scary, killer clown mask. “Who is he?”
Dad rubbed a hand over his face, trying to hide his smile. “He’s a rogue CIA agent who tried to kill us thirty years ago.”
“This time he won’t come back from the dead,” Mom promised darkly, ignoring the water dripping off her.
Okay, Mom had to get rid of her killer clown look. I handed her the box of wipes and gestured to her face. She ignored me. Mentally throwing my hands up in disgust, I interjected, “I think the question is: Where has he been hiding for all these years and why is he back now?”
“Revenge. We need to warn the others,” Mom said, tapping away on her cellphone. “I sent a Defcon One alert.”
Dad nodded. “And we need to prepare for a visit from the CIA or their FBI attack dogs.”
Miss Kitty trotted into the room and meowed.
Dad stomped his feet and yelled, “Git!”
Miss Kitty hissed at him.
Dad scowled at her and failed to notice his towel was slipping.
Julie’s eyes bugged. “Ummm, sir, your…”
Mom fixed her serial killer stare on Dad. “She stays.”
“For God’s sake Dad, go put some pants on. We don’t want to see your junk,” I exclaimed loudly. Lordy, I hoped that worked.
Horror filled Dad’s eyes. He grabbed the towel as it slid down his abdomen and color flooded his face. “Sorry.” In full retreat, he backed toward the door. “I’ll go change. I never meant. I would never…”
Huh? I never knew my dad could blush like that.
He bolted down the hallway.
Miss Kitty chased after him.
Yay, fight averted for now.
“Go away, furball.” The bedroom door slammed.
“Wow, he’s got a nice ass,” Julie sighed, then flashed Mom an appalled look. “Not that I was looking or anything.”
“He does have a great ass,” Mom agreed and smiled at me. “Clever move, Gemma.”
I put the box of wet wipes in her hand. “We’ve got bigger problems than Miss Kitty. Who is Eric Roberts and why does he want you dead?”
“At one time Roberts was your grandfather’s CIA boss. He took one look at me and decided I would become his mistress. I declined his offer. He tried to rape me, and I kicked his ass.”
A growl escaped Julie. “I hope you did some serious damage to his dangly bits.”
“I did. He couldn’t get it up for a year.”
From Mom’s grim expression I knew Roberts had retaliated. “Did he put a hit out on you?”
“In a way. I was blackmailed into becoming an off-the-books Army sniper called the Scorpion. Roberts sent me on missions behind enemy lines, alone. His plan was to make things so awful that I would agree to have sex with him.”
“Then Dad came along and made you part of his team,” I said gleefully.
Mom wiped the crud off her face. “That he did.”
“Didn’t your father try to stop him?” Julie wanted to know.
“Pops had his own problems. Roberts accused him of treason and put him on a kill list. What Roberts didn’t know was that Pops had a microdot with enough evidence to put him behind bars for the next hundred years. I swiped the microdot to use as leverage.”
“Which then put a bullseye on your chest,” I inserted.
A humorless laugh broke from Mom. “It did. The jackass tried to kill us repeatedly.”
“What finally stopped him?” Julie’s eyes were filled with anger.
Mom shook her head. “We’re not sure. At first, we thought Roberts had died in a bomb blast, but then we got intel that he had survived and was hiding out in Mexico. We were never able to track him down.”
“This time, we finish the job.” Every inch the Alpha Dogs’ commander Dad was dressed in a black jumpsuit complete with combat boots and weapons belt. “Get this little harpy off my back.” With a grimace, Dad turned around.
A giggle escaped me. Miss Kitty was clinging to his back.
Mom removed her. “Get your own man.”
“I think she likes you, sir,” Julie chortled.
Dad shrugged nonchalantly. “Most females do.”
I rolled my eyes. Modesty wasn’t Dad’s strong suit.
“And all that macho swagger got passed down to your brothers,” Julie whispered.
I whispered back, “Unfortunately.” The men in my family were too damn pretty and women did all sorts of creepy things to catch their attention.
“I summoned Jaspar. Hopefully, he can get our computers up and running today,” Mom advised, totally oblivious to the growing puddle of water at her feet.
I handed her a roll of paper towels and tried to log into our security systems, but nothing happened. “Shit! The cameras are down too.”
“I’ll go to the barn and boot up the backup systems,” Julie said.
“Go with her, Gemma,” Mom ordered. “If Roberts is in Arizona, he has the ranch under surveillance.”
I grabbed my earpiece and popped it in my left ear. “Why hasn’t he attacked?”
“I don’t know and that worries me.” Mom rubbed her hair with a paper towel.
Julie snorted. “If he was the one who hired Chuck to make bombs, he’s either low on money or manpower or desperate.”
Implacable resolve stamped on his face, Dad growled, “Doesn’t matter. This time he’s going down.”
“I’d like to be a fly on the wall when he discovers chickens were responsible for blowing his plans all to hell,” I snickered.
Dad gave me the look.
“While I’m out there, I’ll feed the critters too,” I added hurriedly.
“Move Bodacious and Max into the barn. We don’t want them getting shot,” Mom ordered.
I nodded. “Will do.” The separate backup system was in a hardened bunker beneath the barn. Dad believed in being prepared for the worst and we even had seven years of food and weapons stored in the bunker.