“Get the girl,” whispered one.
Michelle closed her eyes and focussed on this man’s brain. She found what he feared more than anything else in the world, and as he drew the covers back, she made him see the largest and most aggressive snake she could imagine.
The man screamed in real fear and ran from the room, leaving his colleague panicking and running after him. She made them run out of the hotel and across the road.
She then forced the second man to draw his pistol and shoot the first man in the back of the kneecap. The driver came up to see what was happening, and she made the gunman shoot him in the knee as well. Then she forced him to shoot himself in the foot.
Using all her will power, she imprinted on them an overwhelming desire to remain where they were, despite the pain, and to tell the police everything.
She then carried Gordon back to bed and placed him exactly how she remembered. Then she stripped off and was in beside him before the sirens arrived.
She released the deep sleep and allowed him to wake up.
“What the hell?” he said.
“Mmmm?” she said.
“Bloody sirens,” he said.
“What?” she said, feigning sleep.
He got up, going over to the window and looked out. Several police vehicles arrived and there was shouting.
“It looks like there’s been a shooting. There’s blood all over the snow.”
“I didn’t hear anything,” she said.
“Neither did I. Probably some gang warfare.”
They went back to bed, so he snuggled against her. She reached out and felt he was aroused.
Smiling, she gently stroked him, and within moments he had mounted her, with her gasping with pleasure.
The next morning, they were having breakfast in the hotel dining room, when two men came over and identified themselves as police detectives.
They spoke very little English, so Michelle had to translate.
“Mr Fenwick. We have detained three men who were involved in an attempt to kidnap you last night.”
“Kidnap us, why?” asked Gordon, shocked.
“It seems that the plant manager of your factory is heavily involved with some criminals, and has been diverting funds from the company into his own pocket for many months. Fearing you would discover his activities, he planned to kidnap and kill the pair of you, burn the plant, sell the machinery and equipment, and then claim it was destroyed in the fire and make a huge profit.”
“My God. How did you find all this out?” asked Gordon.
“It seems that the men who were paid to kidnap and kill you became involved in a very confusing incident, and for some reason one of them shot the other two, and then shot himself in the foot. They made no attempt to evade police, and have made very detailed confessions. It is very unusual.
“We have detained the manager and some of his staff. Five addresses have been searched and a lot of equipment and cash has been seized. We need you to identify the equipment to establish that it has been stolen from the plant.”
When they arrived at the plant, they found it shut. With a police guard on the main gate, several of the employees were baffled and upset. No one had told them why the plant was closed, and no one knew when it would reopen.
They went up to the office, to find several officers searching through the manager’s desk.
Michelle sat back, closed her eyes and sought out Dimitri. He was in a police cell some ten miles away and was very worried. She delved and discovered many things that he was terrified of the police discovering. Gordon was asked to wait as they looked for someone to take him to identify the stolen machinery.
They left Michelle alone in an office with a computer.
She quickly switched it on, created several documents, and downloaded Dimitri’s memories into typed format, typing with fluency in the Cyrillic script. She pressed PRINT, and then came out, leaving no saved copies. She switched the computer off again.
The paper copies printed out, so she simply collected them and carried them through to the police.
“Excuse me, but are these important?” she asked.
The Captain came over and took one look at the names dates and amounts, and almost kissed her.
“Where did you find these?”
She took them back into the office and pointed to the filing cabinet.
“They were at the back, I saw them just showing and wondered if they had been hidden on purpose.”
The Captain was suddenly filled with enthusiasm, so Michelle watched in quiet amusement as he told his subordinates that he was now in possession of key information incriminating some important criminals in the region.
She and Gordon were taken to an old farm, where, in a barn they were shown a pile of computer equipment, all of which was on the company stock list. He formally identified as belonging to the company, so the police photographed, bagged and tagged eveything.
As Gordon was busy listing all the items seized by the police, Michelle sat back and focussed back on Dimitri who was languishing in the cells. She managed to imprint a direct command on the man to confess to everything, and to literally tell the police everything he knew.
They were finally taken back to the plant, to find a large and angry crowd gathering. The factory had given the local people hope of a decent future, and now that future was looking doubtful again.
With many of the managers gone, there seemed little hope of opening up soon. Michelle persuaded Gordon to try to recruit managers from the shop floor.
She went out and faced the crowd. She explained what had happened and asked them for their patience as they tried to get everything running again. She and Gordon interviewed thirty hopefuls and they selected a temporary management team.
It was a long day, but by eight in the evening, the systems started up, and although running at a quarter capacity, the plant was operational again. The workers cheered, and Michelle and Gordon were suddenly the heroes of the town.
Fearful of losing a day’s wage, the workers worked until midnight, and managed to catch up a little on the back orders. Meanwhile, Gordon discovered the order books, and worked out how much was needed in order to bring the plant up to full capacity, and then to reach optimum efficiency.
Michelle found herself suddenly the personnel/welfare officer, and had a line of people with dreadful problems who needed help and advice. It was gone two a.m. when she finally managed to see the back of the last person.
She found some blankets, and the pair of them settled down to sleep on the floor of the office.
They were woken at seven, when the workers turned up, and work was started again. Tired, hungry and feeling she needed a bath, Michelle dragged herself back to her little office and found a deputation of the local women.
“Hello, can I help you?” she asked.
One of the women stepped forward.
“We wanted to come and say thank you. We appreciate how much you have done to get the factory operating again, and it means a lot to us. You see without the factory, we should have no food, no clothes, and the school will close. We brought you some food.”
She handed over a tray, and on it there was a freshly baked loaf, some cheese and a bowl of local stew, a bottle of what was probably a lethal home brew, and some home made sweets.
Michelle was so surprised, and so tired, she sat down, and simply cried. Without being asked, the group of women, fifteen of them, just appointed themselves tasks, and helped clean up. Windows were washed, floors swept and cleaned, desks were dusted, and tools sorted.
There became a carnival atmosphere within the plant, and without any warning singing broke out. Gordon, who was on the phone to England, trying to get some urgent supplies sent out, came out of his office in some alarm. The singing was so loud he thought it was a riot.
He found Michelle sitting on a table surrounded by a crowd of people singing. Considering she had had as little sleep as he had, and neither of them had had a shower this morning, she looked fantastic. He felt a familiar surge of desire, as she waved him over and handed him some food.