CHAPTER ELEVEN
“April, forgive us but we tend to eat and talk business. Not good for digestion but great for solving problems quickly,” smirked Ham. “We met earlier. I’m Ham, that’s Jak, Gator, Matt, and Rush. There are dozens more here but we’ll be working with you to figure out what happened.”
“Well, I appreciate anything you can do,” she said taking a bite of the food and moaning aloud. “Oh, my God! That’s amazing.”
“We’re known for our food,” smiled Quinn.
“We have the bag with the broken wheel,” said Gator. “Our team is inspecting it now.”
“Inspecting it? It’s just a regulation rolling bag from the airlines,” said April.
“I don’t think it is,” said Jak. “We think the bag was tampered with or treated with something, we just don’t know what yet. When we finally got into the employee lounge, which is another story altogether, the minute we picked up the bag we knew that the texture of the material was off.”
“Maybe it got wet,” she frowned. “I’ve had that bag forever. I don’t remember it having a strange feel to it.”
“We’ll figure out what it is,” said Gator. “I believe that Quinn mentioned to you in Coronado that we can hear one another through our comms devices. We also want to ensure that if anything happens to one of us, we can easily find them. That includes you.”
“I don’t understand,” she frowned taking another bite and moaning again. Quinn leaned over, whispering in her ear.
“If you keep moaning like that I’m going to throw you over my shoulder and carry you back to the cottage.” She immediately blushed, staring down at the plate of food. Rush pushed a box toward her and she opened it, frowning at the man across from her.
“It’s not what you think,” he smiled. “There’s a bracelet and necklace in there.
All made by our teams here. Never take it off.
There is a tracker on it that will allow us to find you no matter where you are.
If you’re in danger, we can hear it but you can also immediately depress the small disc on the back of the bracelet or necklace and we’ll be alerted. ”
“This is like crazy secret-spy stuff,” she said staring at it. Quinn lifted the bracelet from the box and gently took her hand.
“May I?” She nodded.
“I guess it’s for the best, right?”
“Definitely,” he said. He secured the bracelet then placed the necklace on her.
“Now, what?” she said looking at the table.
“I have it,” said Victoria running toward them. She wore a blue lab suit, covering her head to toe with rubber gloves on her hands, holding the small rolling bag.
“Hey, uh we’re eating. Should you be in here?” frowned Ham.
“Don’t be a baby. It’s just for precaution.”
“Okay, what do you have?” asked Matt.
“The suitcase.” She pulled a chair over and lifted the small case to lay on top of it.
She opened the zippered top and flipped it back.
“It looks and feels like the standard industry canvas that’s used on suitcases.
Almost every manufacturer uses it because it’s so durable. But this case is different.”
“How?” asked April. “Sorry, I’m April and that’s my bag. What didn’t I see?”
“It’s not your fault. I’m Victoria,” she smiled. “Normally, TSA would tear apart a suitcase at the nylon inside seams of the bottom of the case. You can feel around and know if something is hidden there. Cash, drugs, jewelry, anything. Someone figured out something else on this suitcase.”
April stood and moved to the suitcase, staring at it. She looked at the bottom where the broken wheel was gone and frowned. Then looking inside the bag, she noticed that there was something missing. Her initials which she’d painted on the inside in red nail polish.
“This isn’t my bag,” she whispered. “I thought it was mine but it’s not.”
“No, it’s not,” smiled Victoria. “I know that because the prints all over this thing belonged to Jerry Sullivan. This was his bag but he must have realized that he was in big trouble. You have to get close but when you examine the fibers of the weave of the bag, they’re different.
When you went to buy the new bag, he must have switched it out for his bag, breaking the wheel off. You can see that it was snapped.”
April leaned closer, looking at the canvas top of the bag she thought was hers, and then looked at the sides.
“She’s right. The top is a mix of what looks like new threads and old. They’re worn in different ways. The sides look brand new.”
“Bingo!” smiled Victoria.
“Victoria, you know we love your brilliance honey but do you think you could move this along?” asked Ham.
“You’re no fun anymore,” she frowned with a playful wink. “The darker fibers aren’t fibers at all. I mean, they are but not cloth fibers.”
“Victoria,” said Rush with a warning.
“They’re fiberoptic communication threads. More specifically, fiberoptic communication threads containing information about every flight, commercial or military, going in and out of this country.”