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By Califzonewoman

10.

Johnny and Bruce hopped into Walt's car, and with siren blaring they all headed back to the Bailey residence. Walt drove as he'd never done before; he was truly a man on a mission.

When they reached the house, Annabelle was already waiting on the front porch, courtesy of the FBI helicopter. Her clothing was different, tighter. Somehow she had managed to change clothes on the way to the Bailey house.

Fiercely, she put her hand up to stop their charge into the house.

"Halt!" she said loudly, firmly. She held up her badge. "Annabelle Crider, KGB."

"Hey!" said Bruce. "I thought you were with, uh..."

"...the FBI," finished Johnny.

"Oh, it's you guys," she muttered, stuffing the badge into the waist of her spandex pants. Still muttering, she turned and stomped into the house. "I gotta stop doing that!"

Once in the house, Walt turned to Johnny. "What do you think you'll find, John?"

"I don't know, Walt. I don't know."

Johnny began moving from area to area, his hand hovering over each piece of furniture, each artifact, each vase, lamp, candy dish, urn. He stopped at a picture on the wall, a picture of Seabiscuit, the race horse. In a jerking motion, he pulled the picture from the wall, the hook jarring loose a section of plaster about a foot square. He stared at the image intently.

"He found something!" yelled Walt. They all hushed, waiting with bated breath.

"No," Johnny said after a long pause. "I kind of like this picture. I just wanted to look at it closer."

Annabelle tapped her foot impatiently. "Get on with it, then!"

Johnny set the picture down, and continued his exploration. Nothing gave him a vision, not even the picture of Kelly and Allison he had seen on his previous visit. He moved into the hall, the bathroom, the kitchen. Walt and Bruce looked at each other.

"I'm gonna take a look outside," said Walt.

"Yeh, I gotta go too, man," said Bruce.

Walt stared at Bruce for a moment, then finally shook his head in exasperation. "I said I need to take a look," he said finally, "not a leak. There's always a chance somebody from the department missed something when they collected evidence here."

Bruce nodded his understanding. "I still have to go, man." And the two went out through the front door.

Annabelle started snooping in the bedroom, when she heard a thump coming from the kitchen. Running out of the bedroom, she could see Johnny staggering out into the hall. He looked dazed as he glanced up at Annabelle.

"It was Mrs. Bailey," he said as he collapsed into her arms. "She was the brains."

Annabelle dropped Johnny and ran outside calling for Walt. Knowing he was probably in the woods behind the house, she ran to the back of the house and called his name again. "Hey, Bannerman!"

Nothing.

She looked over at the four FBI agents guarding the helicopter. "Hey, where'd they go?"

"Over there!" yelled one of the agents, pointing to the woods.

"They've been gone too long," Annabelle yelled. "Did you hear or see anything?"

"No, just a lot of noise, some yelling, a couple of shots being fired, and the bushes were shaking a lot," the agent said. "But, you know, we figured they'd want their privacy."

Annabelle snorted. "Stupid FBI," she muttered under her breath. "I should've stayed with the Italian Intelligence Agencia. They know what real trouble is when it bites you on the as*."

"Go and look for them! That's an order!"

The four men took off at a gallop into the woods.

Annabelle went back into the house. Her clothing was different, even tighter than before, and showing more cleavage. Somehow she had managed to change clothes on the way back.

Johnny was coming to his senses and stood there, shaking.

"Mrs. Bailey was a nurse," he started. "The whole thing was her idea. She taught the girls everything they needed to know to run their little, uh, 'business'." He shivered. " She was cold and calculating. I guess they got that from her too."

"I bet she never realized they'd turn on her."

"I think when it happened, she was actually proud of her girls," said Johnny. "They finally earned her respect."

"How does this fit in with my mission?"

"I don't know yet." Johnny looked at the picture of Allison and Kelly where it still sat on the mantel.

The agent Annabelle had spoken to outside came bounding up the front steps and through the door. Out of breath, he managed to inform Annabelle they weren't able to locate Sheriff Bannerman and the other guy.

"Bruce and Walt?" asked Johnny, wide-eyed. "They're missing?"

"Duh," snorted Annabelle. She stomped toward the door. "This is gonna look terrible on my resume. I misplaced the sheriff." And she started through the door.

"Wait!" cried Johnny. "You gotta help me get to them! They've got them all!"

"Who?"

"Sarah, Dana, Purdy,... All of them."

"No, who's they?"

"I just told you. Sarah, Dana, Gene, Bruce, Wa..."

"Not those they! They're the them they!"

"They are the they. The bad guys are the them!"

"No. I distinctly heard you say, 'They've got them.' That 'they' is the 'they' I'm asking about. Not the 'them' they."

"Oh, you mean, them. Why didn't you say so? I don't know."

Annabelle shifted her holster, snorted, and turned on her heel toward the door. Johnny started after her, bumping against a small table in the vestibule.

He feels his mind being pulled out of the Bailey house and into the past. He is Rod Bailey standing at the entrance to a huge structure, holding a clipboard and directing a forklift into position behind a stack of palleted crates just outside the building. The forklift hoists a section of the crates a foot above the ground, then proceeds inside, past rows of similar crates, finally depositing its cargo, backing up and returning to the entrance. Rod hands his clipboard to a supervisor, then walks in past more stacked crates, past tables of workers unpacking the contents of other crates, and finally to another group of workers sorting and labeling goods. He moves toward a door in a side wall near the rear of the building, opens it and starts down the stairs. Johnny's mind returns instantly to the Bailey home.

"I know where they are!" he said quietly.

Annabelle stopped in her tracks halfway out the door. "But I thought you just said..." She looked up at the porch overhang, rolling her eyes, then slowly dropped her head, looking down at the floor and tapped her foot petulantly. "Ok, I give. Who?"

"Th... Uh, all of they, uh, them." He waited for her to turn around. "I just now saw it in a vision. The Baileys bought one of the old hangars on what used to be a military base half way between here and Bangor. The hangar is huge. It was used for maintenance on the C-5, the Air Force Galaxy troop transport. There's a series of rooms underground. Mr. Bailey was an importer and used the hangar as a warehouse and office. He imported goods from Europe mainly, like shoes from Italy and fine linens from England -- especially towels." He paused and watched her face while the information sank in.

"You're telling me civilians can actually own military facilities in this country?"

"Yeh, sure, they do it all the time."

"And at the same time, this country is on the hunt for terrorists?"

"Yeh."

"So why don't they just sell the military facilities to the terrorists and everybody would be happy? The terrorists would have their military base and the government would know where they are and run in and apprehend them." She reached behind her back and pulled out a little notebook and pen from her spandex waist, scribbled some notes, then tucked everything back under the tight fabric.

"Hmmmf," she snorted as she started out the door. "Another problem solved. Now that will look good on my resume."

Johnny followed her out.

The helicopter flight to the base only took minutes, but to Johnny it seemed an eternity. Everything he touched in the helicopter gave him horrible images -- people dying, guns being fired, K rations consumed. Somehow Annabelle had managed to change clothes again. Her clothing was the tightest since Johnny had first seen her. Instead of spandex pants, she was wearing spandex shorts and a low-cut halter top with lacings up the front, and, strangely, a cute little whimsical giraffe just above the left breast.

Thankfully, the helicopter finally hovered at the southern edge of the base, then settled, stirring up dust and weeds. Johnny and Annabelle climbed out. Annabelle began shouting orders to the four agents.

"No, I have to go in alone!" shouted Johnny over the roar of the rotors.

Annabelle looked at him admiringly.

"I have to go in alone," he repeated. "I know what I have to do."

He turned and started walking toward the C-5 hangar, four buildings over from their position. He knew he was heading out to find his friends, and he had already had images of what their fates contained. He knew he was stepping into a trap, a complex, fiendishly clever trap begun years ago by Mrs. Bailey. What Mrs. Bailey had started out with was ingenious in its own right; but by the time her daughters, and their associates, and their associates' associates, took over the "business", it had been twisted by unimaginable proportions. It was as if a long -- a very long -- story had been written by sixteen different writers -- each adding their own warped personal touch.

And only Johnny Smith could end it.

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