“Have some breakfast. I recommend the cheese, it’s very tasty.”
He sat with her, and was handed a steaming mug of bitter coffee.
“How’s it going?” she asked, between mouthfuls.
“Not bad, I’m surprised how well they are managing with what we have. That bastard had bled us dry, and then lied in all his reports.”
“I think we might have upset a few people by uncovering this little scam,” she observed.
“I’m bloody upset, so stuff them,” he said, with some feeling.
They spent a week at the plant. Gordon hadn’t anticipated spending so long there, but refused to leave until things were running efficiently. Much to the surprise of local chief of detectives, all the detained persons confessed so completely, that the police thought that they were being fed a red herring.
The facts were checked, and another seventeen arrests were made. Property, weapons, cash and drugs were seized, and the police were overwhelmed with the sheer amount of property that they recovered.
Having signed an agreement not to sell or dispose of any of the items, Gordon was delighted when the police returned all the stolen property, so it was returned to fulfil the functions for which they were originally intended.
They returned to the hotel for one last night before flying back to London the next day. Michelle was exhausted, so she collapsed and was asleep in no time. Gordon followed suit shortly afterwards.
Michelle awoke suddenly, and for a moment was disorientated. She immediately realised that there was a threat, and rolled out of bed as something was thrown through the window. She screamed and dived into the bath.
There was an enormous explosion and she passed out.
When she came to, she was completely deaf. There were men everywhere, firemen, paramedics and police. Someone helped her to her feet, and tried to talk to her.
She shook her head and pointed to her ears.
Then she saw what was left of Gordon being zipped up into a body bag.
“NOOO!” she screamed, rushing over to the gurney.
A police officer pulled her away, so she knelt on the glass-strewn floor and wept as the body was removed.
She was still wearing her nightdress, and someone managed to find some clothes that hadn’t been destroyed. They took her down the hall to a vacant room, where she dressed. She was shaking so much that the never thought she’d manage to get her bra done up.
She kept seeing the vision on the lump of meat that had been her fiancé. Tears just flowed, and she still couldn’t hear.
They helped her to an ambulance, as she had a large gash across her forehead along the hairline, and it took her to the local hospital.
There were about six people injured in the blast, with only one fatality - Gordon.
Armed police, looking more like Special Forces, were everywhere, so after she was given a few butterfly stitches, she was whisked to the police HQ.
Gradually, her hearing returned, but the shock had not subsided. It was like a surreal nightmare. People spoke to her, and perhaps she replied, she was not sure. The police chief was sympathetic, and told her that it was for the best that she was leaving Russia.
She stared at the man.
“I cannot leave now.” she said.
“What?”
“I must stay until the men who killed Gordon are caught.”
He had laughed at her.
“You must leave it to us,” he said.
She stared at him.
She probed his mind and found a petty bureaucrat, but not too corrupt, even by Russian standards.
She did, however, detect a mind with guilty knowledge, and close by. He was a policeman, but of low rank. She probed and found that he was in the pay of someone known as Big “I”.
She shook her head, and told the chief that she would take a few days to recover first.
They took a full statement first, and then arranged for her to be taken to another hotel, this time with a police guard. It was only five am.
Telling the guard that she was not feeling well she retired to her room, so he took up his post outside her door. She then changed into her black slacks, jumper and a leather jacket. She put on her stout pair of walking boots and slipped out of her window. This room was on the fourth floor, so she simply shinned down the drainpipe to the snow laden ground below.
She focussed her mind and sought out the man whom she had touched in the police station. He was in a vehicle, on the other side of town. The vehicle was stationary.
She turned and started to jog in that direction, keeping to the side streets and in the shadows as much as possible.
The car was outside a block of flats, and the policeman was alone. He was smoking a cigarette and was obviously waiting for someone.
Michelle was across the street, so she watched.
She probed the vicinity and was not aware of any other person whose mind obtained the awareness as this one.
She looked up and down the street and, seeing no one, she crossed the road, opened the car’s rear door and slipped in behind the smoking policeman.
<<Face the front, and say nothing,>> she commanded, literally taking over his mind.
She found he was a minor pawn, used to keep his masters informed of police activity well in advance. He knew little about the attack, only that he had to make sure that police patrols were kept away for sufficient time for the bomb to be launched.
<<Drive to Big “I”,>> she commanded, and the man did as he was ordered.
She kept low in the rear as they passed a couple of cars on the way. As she realised they were getting close, she told her slave to stop. He did so, and then she told him to drive back to where she had collected him, with an embedded command to forget the whole episode completely.
The location was a sawmill, just outside the town. There was one large structure, housing some of the larger machinery, and several other buildings, which only amounted to shacks. There were a couple of Nissen huts that contained trucks and other tree felling vehicles.
She approached very cautiously, as she sensed that there were about fifteen individuals here.
Three immediately stood out.
They were directly responsible for the attack on their hotel room, and were at this moment reporting back to the large man who was obviously their leader.
Almost too late, she walked round a corner and suddenly found herself just behind a man in a long coat, carrying a hunting rifle on a sling over his shoulder.
He was cold, tired and bored, and had his back to Michelle.
She reached out with her mind, so the man slumped onto the ground unconscious.
She found three more sentries, all equally ill-prepared, and just as easily dealt with. She explored the nearest shack, which proved to be an office of some kind. There was a telephone on a desk. She picked up the receiver and dialled for the police.
“There has been a shooting at the sawmill,” she said, in a heavily accented voice. She also left the receiver off the cradle.
She then approached the building in which she sensed the group were located. For a moment she hesitated, wondering how best to deal with these people. The last thing she wanted was to have any witnesses at all, so she simply tucked herself away in a cranny, and focussed her mind on the people in the building opposite.
There were three women, and none were more than sexual playthings for the leader and his lieutenants, so she induced irrepressible fatigue to come over them. This was neither unsurprising nor unexpected, so as they left and fell asleep, it was not even noticed.
There was a man by the door with an AK 47. She got into his mind and made him simply raise the weapon and start to shoot as many of the others as he could.
This caused others to turn their weapons on him and returned fire, so within a matter of seconds, he was dead, and she took over another, and so on.