Seatbelts

Rachael stood there in shock, clutching her chest where her heart was. 

She couldn't even utter a sentence. She was in shock. Mitt wasn't her husband anymore. It was Mitt, but his thoughts and mind were gone. Before the shift in his personality, he mentioned some three letter branch of the government and their black-ops in Switzerland. Rachael didn't know what he was talking about. After all, he was supposed to be in some "research" branch of a political think-tank.

He was in much deeper than she knew.

They had programmed him to be a reader. A visionary to see the future. He saw too much. They wanted him gone. The morning he went crazy, he had his breakfast, was getting ready for work and had a glass of water with his vitamins. About five minutes later, his uttering began. 

"You see–I knew it–they're using the oldest trick in the book," Beth said.

They've poisoned the water...that's the easiest way to get rid of someone who knows too much–poison, Beth told Rachael. 

A loud "SHHOOOOOOOOOSHHHHHHHH" was heard overhead. Thoreau looked up. It was a predator drone. It wasn't the reconnaissance model either -- it was the defender model, fully armed. 

"Let's get the hell outta here Thoreau," Beth said, grabbing Rachael by her shirt. 

They ushered themselves into the Subaru. What direction is it circling in Thoreau?

North---wait--Northwest.

Beth began to drive Southeast.

 

"They have a three minute window before they loopback," she said hurriedly, popping the car into gear and slamming down the gas. 

"What's a loopback and what the hell is going on?" Rachael said as she snapped back into consciousness.

"The loopback window is the amount of time from the drone's first pass until it loops back to attack," Thoreau said, wiping sweat off his forehead.

"Attack? What???" Rachael exclaimed.

"They probably meant to poison you too," Beth said. 

 

"You're involved now. "But I don't know anything," Rachael said.

Beth ditched her car in the underground lot at the bus station. She bought three tickets with cash. 

 

"Put your hood up on your jacket," Beth said to her. 

 

"They use facial recognition now at these terminals. They'll cast a wide net since your body won't be found in your prius."

"BODY? WHAT?" Rachael said.

"Just shut up and get on the bus, we'll explain."

They hurried up the steps, the last passengers before the bus pulled out for the city.

"What was your husband working on?" Thoreau asked. 

 

"I already told you I don't know," Rachael said.

"He was supposed to go to Geneva, Switzerland in a week, but that's the extent that I know. He worked late hours and didn't bring his work home," she said. 

GENEVA? Beth knew exactly where and what he was doing. Back in her days at Cornell she worked abroad in a lab that researched human programming, and from what Beth gathered in the back channels about Mitt, that's what he was working on too.

"Excuse me, can I borrow your phone?" Beth said to a train passenger. 

"Sure," the teenager said. 

Beth was calling a friend for a favor. She'd given out enough chips in her career, it was time to call a few in that were due her. Beth never sat more than a few seats away from the most influential people in politics and government. She had the highest clearances of any civilian. 

One time the mayor of New York needed a situation investigated so he called Beth. She wasn't a "cleaner", she was a "fixer" of sorts. She knew all the right people. Her success rate - 100 percent. 

Nowadays she focuses on using that vast network to help her solve crimes. It used to be for the rich and famous, but now she only took on cases that piqued her interest. She didn't charge either. Thoreau joined her last year. They had met in the South.

"I need a CL35 background report on a Mitt Roberson, every known connection, call he made, I want to know everytime he blew his nose in the past month" she said hushed into the phone. 

 

"Yes, I know..." she said. 

 

"Just get it for me, I don't care who you have to wake up...you owe me." 

 

She hung up the flip phone with a close, one that she commanded powerfully.

"Thanks hon," she said passing the phone back to the teen.

"OK, sit tight Thoreau, we're gonna figure this one out," she said.