The
driver glanced up to view the rear of the bus in the interior security mirror;
he was a survivor of hundreds of Chicago public school field trips. He
turned his ever-watchful eyes back to the road in front of him. He was
quite used to loud and even raucous behavior on his bus during these trips. The
only time he ever arrived home without a headache had been the time he had
driven the children of the Japanese delegation that had been visiting Chicago
as its sister city. After the last migraine-laden trip he had made, as the
substitute driver for the company he owned, he had vowed to hire additional
backup drivers. He glanced once more into the security mirror. Oh well,
he thought, at least the ad is in the paper.
He
noted the sharply bright red uniform garbed man sitting at the back of the bus
surrounded by several small children who looked up at him rather adoringly. He
wouldn’t have been able to get such a good look except the guy happened to be
right in the middle of the back seat, so Rosco’s view wasn’t hindered by the
high backs of the plush seats arrayed behind him. Normally people didn’t
hire one of his long distance touring coaches – with comfortable seats and
equipped with a bathroom – for kids. Once, some posh private school had wanted
one for a day trip and he had flat-out refused to rent them one. To hell with
the extra money, he’d be damned if he’d drive a busload of kids and not be able
to see them all. He’d made an exception for these Eskimo kids, they probably
don’t get such fancy treatment at home, he figured.
Seemed
his impulse had been right, this bunch was well behaved. In fact, he had been
rather unnerved so far during the drive by the soft voices of the children.
Regardless of the dreaded migraines he received during trips with Chicago
students in his care, he was, nevertheless, used to the loud chatter they
provided as he drove.
He’d
been told these were mostly ten-year-olds but they seemed smaller. Eskimos must
be shorter, he thought. Sure enough, the four adults along with them were
short: two were young women in their twenties and two were elders whose sex he
could not quite determine since they both had baggy clothes, long braids and
nearly identical sagging, lined elderly faces.
The
young women, he assumed they were the teachers, walked up and down the aisle of
the bus speaking to the children in a language Rosco couldn’t identify. Despite
that fact that he couldn’t understand the words, years of listening in to
teachers talking to students on trips told him they were enjoining the children
to behave and be quiet. It seemed rather silly, since the kids were so well
behaved anyway.
Having
finished their rounds, the teachers found empty spots among their
charges. Then they turned to the man in red at the back of the bus,
apparently waiting for him to do something. Rosco waited.
The
man in red gently disengaged from the kids who clung to him and came forward to
the front of the bus where Rosco was waiting for somebody to tell him that they
could be on their way. Apparently, that someone was going to be the red dude.
Indeed,
the man said politely “We’re ready to leave now.”
“Good,”
said Rosco, “Just so that I’m clear: to the Botanical Gardens, leave everybody
at the front gate. Pick up at 11:30 by the bus drop.”
“That
is correct. We will be taking the children on a tour first and then they
will have some free time to explore the gardens. And then after that directly
to the Chuck E Cheese on 4th and Main.” The man in red winced, “Not
the best nutrition but I wanted to children to experience some things they
didn’t have at home.”
“So,
like, Eskimos don’t have pizza?”
“Actually,
Mr. Drisco, the proper nomenclature would be Inuit, not Eskimo; though that is
a remarkably common assumption; though, it is perhaps not as confusing as
talking about Indians from India as opposed to American Indians.”
Rosco
took advantage of an intake of breath by the man in front of him. “Call me
Rosco. Say, so that language they are all speaking is Esk . . . Inuit
language?” He wondered briefly if all Canadians were like this.
The
man in red nodded.
“Sounds
nice,” Rosco observed, “I heard you speaking it to the kids, Mister . . .”
“Constable.
Constable Benton Fraser. Royal Canadian Mounted Police. I first came to Chicago
on . . . um . . . we can leave now, Mr. Dris . . . Rosco.” The Mountie’s
cheeks had turned a slight tinge of pink in embarrassment for he had been
warned recently by his commanding officer that recounting his own personal
history at every introduction was counterproductive to the image of the RCMP.
With
that, the Mountie picked his way back along the aisle of the bus to the seat
where his young fans were waiting to climb all over him. Normally, at this,
Rosco would turn to call to them to stay seated, but they were so nice and
quiet that he hadn’t the heart to reprimand them. Anyway, there were no seat
belts so the only reason to keep them in their seats was to keep the mayhem to
a minimum and it didn’t seem likely that violence was going to erupt with this
group. So let them have their fun.
They
were half-way to their destination, going along a tree-lined. residential
boulevard when the two lady teachers, as he supposed they were, stood up
together and squeezed in single file up towards the front of the bus. They’re
so tiny, Rosco mused, they could almost walk side by side in the narrow aisle
if they wanted to.
The
girls stood beside Rosco and he glanced sideways at them as he drove. Such shy
little things. Probably too timid to ask what they wanted. Maybe one of the two
old people need to go to the bathroom and couldn’t get to the back of the bus
while it was moving. He’d had that happen before with seniors trips. In fact,
elderly people hardly ever used the toilet on the bus and he didn’t blame them.
When the bus gave a lurch, you didn’t want to be in there.
Then,
at a stop sign, Rosco was able to turn right to them and saw, to his shock,
that one of them was holding a pistol. It was close against her chest facing
the front of the bus, out of the view of the children.
“At
the next intersection, pull over to the northeast side and park there. Don’t
say anything and don’t make any sudden moves.”
The
woman who had not spoken reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a weapon
of her own. She too held her gun against her body but it was pointed towards
the back of the bus. The first woman said, “Say a word or make any move that
doesn’t have to do with steering this contraption and my cousin, Tilly, will
starting picking off these kids like rabbits in a shooting gallery.”
Rosco
quailed inwardly but he knew better than to disobey. After all these years he
was hoping he’d have been able to get through his career without any gun
threats on one of his buses but this was not to be. What the hell could they
teeny little women want?
As
he had been directed, Rosco pulled the bus over. It was easy enough since
he just happened to be driving north and he wouldn’t need to try a
u-turn. Christ, they planned this well, he though as he parked alongside
the sidewalk.
A rustle
went through the bus as the children noticed they had made this unusual move
and then stopped. A few of them murmured some words in Innuktituk. Rosco heard
the Mountie reply to them in their own language in reassuring tones. Then,
calmly he rose from his seat.
The
woman who had been identified as ‘Tilly’ raised her pistol into open view for
the first time and, arm fully extended, pointed it straight towards him, down
the narrow aisle. The children Rosco could see shrank towards the windows on
each side and he could only assume the others were doing the same.
“Joon,
Tilly, is there something you want to talk about?” the Mountie said, very
gently and very slowly.
“Not
with you, Ben,” said Joon said, and brought her own gun into plain view,
pointing it at Rosco’s head.
“Matilda.
Juniper. Please,” Fraser repeated, “Just, tell me what it is you want.”
“First,
I want you to sit back down in the back of the bus, back where you were, so I
can see you,” said Joon and jiggled the gun slightly around Rosco’s ear to make
him understand what would happen if he disobeyed.
Fraser
raised his hands slowly in a gesture of surrender and slowly backed down the
aisle of the bus. He lowered himself into his seat and made a very deliberate
show of lowering his hands until they came to rest spread eagle on his knees.
Tilly kept her gun trained in his direction the whole time until he was safely
seated, then waived it back and forth across the bus to demonstrate that she
could shoot any of the occupants at will. There was no need to tell anyone to
stay still.
“Now
you, American pig, you’ve got some kind of radio or phone there,” said Joon.
“Call the cops and tell them you want Detective Ray Vecchio from the 27th
District. We’ll talk to him and nobody else. If we see anyone else, we start
shooting.”
This
was no time for heroics, Rosco decided. Too many children’s lives at stake. If
he lunged for one girl closer to him, Joon, the other one, Tilly, would have
time to shoot. He couldn’t take both at once and he couldn’t talk to the
Mountie, who was certainly the only other useful adult on the bus, to make any
plan. The old fogies would be no help but at least they weren’t making
any fuss. They were as docile as the kids, thank God.
With
the same slow deliberation as he had seen the Mountie employ, he reached for
the microphone of his radio.
For
the twenty minutes that they waited, cars drove by on their several errands,
with drivers occasionally mouthing curses, shaking fists or giving a rude
finger when they had to go around the oddly placed bus. Inside the bus, the
only movement was the uneven, frightened breathing of the children and Tilly’s
occasional wave of her pistol.
Rosco
noted one green car – it looked pretty old - pull up to the curb just
kitty-corner to where he had parked. From the front seat, there emerged a
tall man with very short dark hair, a flapping tan trench coat and a very
prominent nose. He walked slowly towards to the bus, holding his arms away from
his sides, his fingers splayed so that the occupants of the bus could see that
his hands were empty.
“So,
that must be your Ray,” said Joon as she watched him from the corner of her
eye. Tilly only allowed herself a brief glimpse behind her, and then turned
back to towards the bus’ seated occupants.
“You’re
right, Ben. He is cute,” Joon said.
Ray
reached the front door of the bus and stood waiting.
Rosco
glanced towards Joon and looked questioningly at her. “Do I open the door?” he
risked saying.
“Our
representative is going to go out. Wait until she’s in position on the stairs,
then open the door,” Joon ordered him.
That’s
our chance, thought Rosco. When one of the girls goes out of the bus I can make
a move on the other and the Mountie’ll help. One of us will be able to get the
gun off her.
Then
Tilly, from her station facing the rear of the bus, turned to one of the elders
and said, “Now, Grandmother.”
One
of the two elders hauled herself painstakingly to her feet and ambled along the
aisle forward towards the door. She came face to face with Tilly and it was
clear that the fat old woman could not squeeze past the girl. Rather than give
way backwards, Tilly, her gun still trained on the group, stepped up on one of
the seats so the old woman could pass. Then she jumped nimbly down without
losing her aim.
When
the old woman reached the front of the bus, she turned around and spoke for the
first time. She craned her wrinkled neck upward and craned for a look at the
Mountie in the back. “Fraser, don’t do anything foolish. My granddaughters will
shoot if they have to. We have nothing to lose.”
Rosco
didn’t expect the Mountie to talk back, but to Rosco’s astonishment the man
said, “You would let them kill the children?”
It
was the girl, Joon, with her gun still pointed at Rosco’s head, that answered,
“It’s our whole way of life that will die if the second dam is finished. There
will be no more game. You saw what the first dam did to the game in the valley.
Wiped it out. The second dam will submerge our entire hunting ground. It has to
stop.” She hesitated a moment and continued, “Your own father lost his
life fighting these people. Can we do less?”
“You’d
sacrifice the children?” insisted the Mountie.
Shut
up, shut up, what are you thinking, Rosco screamed inside his own head.
“Yes,
and ourselves. And you. Our few lives in exchange for the many generations that
will come. You bet I would. I was hoping you’d be on our side, Ben. You should
be with us. Look what the dam did to your father.”
The
Mountie fell silent. Joon shrugged and spoke to the old woman. “Grandmother, go
out now and tell our story to Ben’s friend. Tell him what we want.”
“And
what is that, exactly?” Fraser demanded from the back of the bus, causing Rosco
to shiver in fear at the man’s audacity. Was the idiot trying to get them all
killed?
“It’s
simple, Ben,” the old woman spoke again, her voice crackling. “We want a
promise that construction on the dam will stop. This we must have. If not,
Juniper and Matilda will use their guns.”
“You
can’t win,” said Fraser, “They’ll pretend to agree and then they’ll betray you.
You have no power.”
“Ben,
you shut up!” yelled Tilly. “We have power. The power of the media. Grandmother
will tell Ray to spread the word to reporters. Stupid Americans. They do
nothing but watch TV. We will all be on TV. When the promises are made for all
to hear, they will have to be honored. Public pressure. We’ll make sure
everyone knows that if they are not honored, more people will die. Our land is
being flooded to make electrical power to ship down to the Americans to run
their TV’s. We won’t let that happen. Grandmother, you go out NOW.”
There
was room in the front of the bus for the old woman to ease past her other
granddaughter. She grasped the molded plastic handrail with one gnarled, papery
claw and grunted as she let herself down the first stair.
Rosco
had the ingrained urge to jump up and help the old woman down the steps. He
actually jerked upwards a fraction, but gulped and settled back into his seat
as Joon brought her gun close to his nose.
Oh,
she was so close, he could easily grab the gun, but that other girl, Tilly, was
out of reach and the Mountie was too far away, in the back of the bus, to get
at her before she took out some of the kids. They were still stuck.
When
the grandmother reached the bottom step, she paused. At a nod from Joon,
Rosco opened the door. He kept his head turned towards the outside to see what
was going on and Joon didn’t prevent him. He saw a look of surprise on the
big-nosed detective’s face at being face to face with a short, fat old woman.
The grandmother put out one foot to get down to the ground.
With
the same instinct that Rosco had, the detective instinctively reached out an
arm to help the woman come down.
Despite
the deadly seriousness of the situation, Ray wouldn’t have been Ray without
some preliminary grousing. He was well aware that he was a major pain sometimes
so he had tried to work it out of his system as he drove. Jeez, couldn’t
Canadians ever go anywhere in a group without getting hijacked? First the
trainload of Mounties and now this.
Then
he cast about in his mind to remember if Benny mentioned whether Dief was going
to be along. After brief reflection, he found a memory of a conversation
between Benny and himself and replayed it:
Himself:
A nice romp in the park. Dief’ll like that.
Benny:
Animal’s are not allowed in the Botanical Gardens, Ray. Diefenbaker is very
disappointed. He is quite fond of flowers.
Himself:
You know what you need to do? Get Dief one of those harnesses the blind dogs
wear, then put a pair of sunglasses on one of the kids. You could take Furface
anywhere that way.
Benny:
I’m not sure that’s legal, Ray.
Himself:
It’s against the law to impersonate a police officer, Benny. I don’t think
there’s an actual law against impersonating a seeing eye-dog.
Benny:
It would be unethical, Ray.
Which
had pretty well settled the matter right then and there as far as the Mountie
would be concerned and meant that Benny was all alone on the bus with that
bunch of civilians.
The
Riv reached the designated corner and Ray parked at a point as far as possible
from the bus while still being on the same intersection. This served a couple
of purposes. It would marginally improve the Riv’s chances of surviving a
shoot-out and increase, also marginally, the space Ray would traverse before
reaching the bus. Ray wanted as many extra seconds as he could get to survey
the territory without looking like he was stalling. As slowly as he felt he
could get away with, Ray emerged from the Riv, took a preliminary look around
the area and then started to walk slowly but purposefully to the spot where the
bus was parked.
Why
choose this street corner? What was there about it that had made the hijackers
choose this particular spot? Residential area. Upscale, mostly rich houses with
spacious yards. Most of the houses were set well back from the street.
Lots of trees. Lots of bushes. Hmmm. Lots of space between houses, all filled
with thick bushes and very few passersby.
Walking as slowly as he dared, Ray tried to sense
whether there were people around He didn’t have a word for the particular sense
but sometimes policemen and hunters, among others, developed the ability to
feel the presence of others, even when they can’t see them. Yes, there it was.
The feeling of many pairs of watching eyes. Ray risked slowing almost to a stop
and scanning the surrounding bushes for signs of movement among the branches.
He didn’t see any movement, but weren’t there dark spots in places that weren’t
in the right spot to be shadows in the angle of the morning sun?
The
instructions relayed by the bus driver had been for Ray to come alone. Nobody
had heard the voice of the person giving the instructions to the bus driver so
Ray didn’t know the number or gender, let alone what was the beef of the
hijackers. No other officers were visible near him but he was wired for
sound. Tiny microphones inside his shirt would transmit to the S.W.A.T.
team, the negotiator and Welsh who all waited out of sight two blocks away.
The name of the bus company was painted on the side
of the vehicle: Rosco Drisco Bus Lines. The bus driver was a Rosco Drisco, he
had said. The driver was also the owner. What effect that may have on the
situation, if any, Ray didn’t know but it may or may not be a factor. Well,
that was one piece of information he could safely manage to relate to the
listening team. He certainly didn’t want to mutter to himself “Oh, it feels like there are people hiding
in the bushes”. Well, he couldn’t be too obvious in any dropped comment,
but at least he could casually say to himself “Rosco Drisco Bus Lines” and make
it sound like he was just reading it aloud.
Ray forced himself to relax a bit, forced himself to breathe.
Fraser was in there, with all those little kids. He wondered if Fraser was
wearing that bright red tunic or casual clothing. Then, involuntarily, he
snickered aloud at his own folly. The Mountie escorting his fellow Canadians on
an officially sanctioned visit? For sure Fraser was a sitting there – a target
in bright red saying ‘shoot me’.
Ray
had been hoping this was one of those yellow school buses from whose windows
you could always make out the kids inside. Nope. This was a luxury model, the
windows tinted. Ray couldn’t see anything or anybody inside. That would be good
for the team to know too, but no, it wouldn’t be safe to comment aloud.
Ray let his eyes rake the side of the bus, hoping it looked casual, wondering
if the Mountie had found some way to be near the emergency exit. Where ever
that was on this deluxe thing anyway.
Within
only a few beats of Ray reaching the front door of the bus, the door opened. A
tiny, wrinkled, fat old Inuit woman was on the second step from the bottom and
as soon as the door was at its widest, she clutched the railing and leaned out
a foot to come down the last couple of steps. Without thinking about it, Ray
reached to help her down.
A
little girl beside Fraser whispered in a barely audible voice “Constable
Fraser?” as she leaned into the arm of his red serge tunic.
Fraser
leaned slightly to indicate he was listening, but stayed facing front towards
Tilly. He whispered back “Yes, Janice.”
“I
have to go to the bathroom.”
“Be
quiet back there! Ben, stay where I can see you,” commanded the small woman
with the gun trained on him.
“Janice
has to go to the bathroom,” Fraser explained calmly.
Tilly
fell silent and waited for Joon to answer. This confirmed what Fraser had been
suspecting. Joon, his childhood friend, was the mastermind of the
operation and her cousin, Tilly, her lieutenant. What role other than
spokesperson their grandmother was playing, Fraser couldn’t tell. He didn’t
know either the old woman or her husband very well.
“There’s a toilet on the bus. Janice, you see it.
Right across from you,” Joon said from her spot right in the front of the bus,
with her gun still pointed towards Rosco. “You may use it, but don’t lock the door.
You see, Ben, we have a bus with nice, big, soft seats. We didn’t want the kids
to be too uncomfortable since we might be here a long time.”
Not
too uncomfortable before you kill them, Fraser didn’t dare say aloud. So that’s
why you and Joon paid so much for a fancy bus when were just going to be out
for a few hours.
The
little girl only leaned into Fraser, clutching at his sleeve with her tiny
hand.
“It’s okay, Janice. Joon says you can go ahead. She won’t hurt you,” Fraser
assured the terrified girl, hoping to God that he was actually telling the
child the truth.
What
accursed things power dam are, Fraser was thinking as the girl slid herself off
the seat and squeezed past him, so closely that Fraser could both feel and see
her shaking. What a monstrous effect they have on people. Surely, they must be
alive. They drink in water from one end, make power of it and excrete from
another end – just as a living thing eats and eliminates to make its energy.
Malevolent forces driving otherwise law-abiding men like Gerard to kill their
comrades to keep them going and otherwise loving women like Joon and Tilly to
threaten children to stop them.
The
old woman accepted Ray’s hand and grunted a little as she touched the ground.
“Walk with me to the middle of the street,” she said in an Inuit-accented
cackle.
“Um,
ma’am, there could be cars coming,” Ray told her, condescendingly, thinking:
What - are there no cars up there? She can’t know there is a roadblock, can
she? Naw, she couldn’t possibly know
that. At least he hoped she wouldn’t know that.
“Don’t
patronize me, young man,” the wrinkled skinned woman startled him by saying,
“Just wait a second. You will see why we don’t have to worry about cars.” She
raised her voice and called out, “Group one. Now, my children.”
The
surrounding bushes rustled in four spots, one on each corner of the
intersection and men in combat fatigues, carrying rifles, rose from their
cover. They came forward and formed a square in the middle of the intersection.
“Now,
we walk,” the grandmother told Ray and took his arm. She steered him to the
center of the formation of men. Once the two were inside the square, the armed
men faced in towards them. There they stood: the tall, thin man and diminutive,
tubby woman, arm in arm surrounded by the men, as though they were all about to
begin some surreal but deadly dance. One man stepped back a bit and positioned
himself with his back to the bus so that he could survey the area and kept his
rifle readied as he panned the area for any back up people that might have come
with the Chicago cop.
Then,
with a crisp, “All clear, Grandmother,” the lone riflemen retook his place in
the formation.
“Group
two, now, my dears,” commanded the woman. Eight more
people came out and fell into place, two between each of the original
four, and all armed like their confederates. Now numbering a dozen, they
shuffled a little until they were in the form of a circle surrounding the
grandmother and Ray.
The
first four remained facing inward and the second group turned to face outward.
Then,
in the final movement in the odd ballet, the same man who had separated himself
before took a step into the center of the circle and the others shifted
slightly to close the gap. Ray noted that he was older than most of the
others. He also noted that from the
look of him he was about Ray’s own age.
“We
can talk now. Nobody will bother us,” the old woman assured Ray. “My grandchildren and nephews – they are very protective of me.” She smiled
warmly at the
man
standing with her inside the protective circle, with his rifle poised straight
at the Chicago cop’s chest.
Ray
found only small comfort in the fact that his instincts had proven trustworthy
after all. I’d rather be wrong and not all alone surrounded by armed Inuit. No,
not alone. Granny the Commando was by his side, still hanging on his arm.
And Junior there, next to the old woman, wasn’t shaking a bit. At least I
don’t have to worry about se trigger fingers Ray thought to himself.
These people are well trained if nothing else.
Inside
the bus, Fraser waited for little Janice to return to her seat. Most
likely, he thought, the child had never had so much attention paid to her use
of restroom facilities – at least not since she was a baby and being toilet
trained. The busload of children waited with him, all hardly breathing. After
what seemed like a very long time, came the sound of the toilet flushing. The
faint slosh wouldn’t even have been audible under normal circumstances but in
this situation, all voices were silent and all ears strained to hear what was
going on. Janice emerged and threw herself into Fraser’s lap, blushing as
red as his tunic in her embarrassment.
Fraser
risked putting his arms around the little girl and was relieved when Tilly did
not object. He held Janice for only moment and then said, gently, “You should
get back to your seat now, okay?”
The
child gaped at him, wide-eyed. He smiled encouragement to her as best he could.
With a little gulp, she slid off his lap and on to the seat beside him, but
still leaned against his sleeve with her little fingers clutching at the red
wool.
Only
then did Fraser look up at Tilly, his glare saying: See how you are frightening
them. Tilly met his gaze defiantly.
Joon’s
voice broke the silence. “I hope your friend had the good sense to come alone,
Ben.”
“Why?
Is he in danger from your grandmother?” Fraser knew he shouldn’t be using this
tone, but his anger was beginning to emerge. Fear for the children’s safety had
been crushing back any other emotion, but now that more than half an hour had
passed and nobody had been threatened any further, other feelings were welling
up in him, rage the chief amongst them. He knew that he had to hold back his
feelings for everyone’s sake. Stay calm. Stay alert. Look for a chance to get
the women off balance and get control of the situation.
If only he were not so far
away from the bus driver. Mr. Drisco was large, but not fat and most likely
very strong. Fraser had been watching him. Although Drisco hadn’t moved very
much, what movements he had made had been quick and purposeful. He wasn’t
fidgeting. For a man with a pistol to his ear he was, in fact, as calm as
Fraser could expect a man to be. If only he could get the man’s attention
and manage to establish some signal between them, a forlorn hope. With the
whole length of the bus and two armed women between them, Mr. Drisco was the
only partner Fraser could hope for in this situation. The only other
adult on the bus was the girls’ grandfather. Fraser berated himself for
not noticing before that there were only these two elders on this trip, when he
would have expected more to come along. Undoubtedly, the grandfather was
siding with the girls and his own wife. He couldn’t expect help from him.
Fraser
noticed that the grandfather, as well as the children that sat on the same side
of the bus as the old man, were turned to the windows and staring out.
This made sense. The door of the bus was on that side. Ray and the
grandmother must be visible to them. If only he could know what was going
on out there. Any knowledge could be useful in forming a plan.
What
of Ray, was he alone? Was he in danger? Joon and Tilly seemed to have
this too well planned for any part of it to be random. There had to be a reason
why they were stopped at this particular corner at this particular time and not
at any other place and time during the weeklong itinerary.
How could he find out what
was going on outside the bus? Well, Mountie, he told himself, the first most
obvious way to get something you want is simply to ask. He cleared his throat,
as an attention-getting device rather than from any physical need. Joon and
Tilly both responded as he expected, by looking in his direction.
“Your grandfather is in a
position to see what’s going on outside. Would it be all right if he told the
rest of us what he is seeing?”
Joon
answered with a low, sinister laugh that made Fraser shudder. It was a
horrible enough sound coming from anyone’s throat, let alone from this
diminutive woman, his childhood playmate. “Sure. No reason why not,
Grandfather, tell us what is happening outside.”
It
was the first time since they had boarded the bus that any comment had been
addressed to the elderly man. He answered without turning away from the window,
as though talking to himself. “The American is taking off his clothes.”
Ray
waited in the center of the circle, flanked by the two Inuit – the elderly
woman and her helper. No
generation gap among these people, he thought, and then mentally kicked himself
for allowing such silly thoughts to enter his mind during such a tense moment.
Comic relief. Perfectly understandable. Stay calm, Vecchio. Wait them out. They
have this well planned so they’ll tell you what they want to tell you in their
own good time. Chill.
The
woman spoke at last. “Are you armed?” she asked Ray.
Ray
thanked the Lord in Italian that he was able to answer this blunt question with
absolute honesty. “No ma’am.”
“Because
you were told to come alone and unarmed.”
“And
I’ve done that,” Ray informed her.
“Now
you have to understand, dear, that we believe that all living things should be
treated with respect. You said you were unarmed so I won’t insult you by
searching you.”
She
waited and seemed to expect some answer so Ray said, “Thank you kindly, ma’am”
and again inflicted a mental kick to his own rear end as punishment for having
such a big mouth.
“But
we do have to take precautions. You could be hiding something in your clothing.
It would be against our customs to search your person. That would be an
intrusion. Very rude. Very disrespectful.”
Around
them, a few of the men in the circle snickered.
“So,
my dear, I’m going to ask you to just give your clothing to my boys and they’ll
hold it safely while we talk. They’ll give it all back to you after and you can
leave with whatever equipment you came with.”
Oh,
you have to be kidding, thought Ray.
“Now,
isn’t that only fair?” crooned the woman, sweetly.
The
man with them in the circle stepped back a few paces, as though to give Ray
room to maneuver. Ray stood still, not really sure if they were all serious
about this. The man waved his rifle and Ray saw that, yes, they were serious.
He
began by shrugging off his trench coat. One of the men facing inward handed his
rifle to the man beside him and reached out to relieve Ray of the coat. Ray had
to be impressed with the discipline of this group. Not one of the eight men
watching outward from the circle so much as turned his head during all this
exchange.
There
was no help for it. Ray took off his shirt and undershirt and handed them to
the waiting hands. There were the microphones nestled and securely taped to his
hairy chest and exposed to view. He froze in place, waiting to see the woman’s
reaction.
“Take
those off, too, dear,” she said calmly, and, it seemed to Ray, not without some
amusement.
Ray
ripped the microphones from his chest, letting out an involuntary yip as the
tape pulled his chest hair. The man with his clothes held out his palm. Ray
dropped the microphones, tape still attached, into the hand and wondered, as he
did so, whether this would be his last act in the world. He had warned the
S.W.A.T. leader that this was a bad idea. Once again, he was proven right and
once again, it was not helping the situation.
But
the woman only said, “Keep going.”
Ray
took off his pants gratefully, too relieved at not being shot on the spot when
the microphones had been found to feel embarrassed. The same man who had his
other clothes took his pants. Then he slung all the garments over one arm and
took his rifle back from the man beside him.
Ray
complied. That left him standing in the middle of the road in only his boxers.
“Almost
done now, dear,” the grandmother assured him.
“Oh,
yeah,” said Ray. He took off his watch and handed it out in front of him.
Nobody made a move to relieve him of it, so he tossed it in the direction of
his shoes and, fortunately, it landed in one of the loafers.
“You
know what I mean,” she insisted.
Ray’s
hesitation, as well as his token remonstrance, was
involuntary, “Do we really have to do this?”
“Young
man, we’ve already seen that you are not to be trusted.”
Damn
the S.W.A.T. team, their actions had set this up. Ray was worried about all the
little kids watching from the bus. And all the residents who might be able to
see through their hedges to the street. And Benny seeing him like this. Maybe
he was not so lucky to be alive after all.
“Don’t
worry, child. Whatever you have in there – I have seen before. And probably
better, too,” observed the elderly woman.
Ray
dropped his shorts and stepped out of them. He wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of handing them over, though. He
just let the discarded boxers lie there. Okay, it was a useless gesture and
might infuriate someone but how much humiliation could a guy take? His
impulse was to cup his hands around himself but he fought it. Better to
stand tall and make the best of this. What the hell? At least knew Granny
probably hadn’t seen very much better than what he had to show.
His
thoughts were confirmed by the woman’s soft but appreciative, “Well, well.”
It
was the man in the circle with Ray and the old woman who reached out and used
the tip of his rifle to lift the shorts from the ground. They slid down the barrel
of his rifle and dangled there when the man resumed his aim into the center of
the circle
“Can
we talk now?” asked Ray, trying to show assurance though he knew that goose
bumps were lining up in little rows all over his skin
“Yes, we will talk
now,” said the grandmother.
Ben
could not help but remember the last time he had seen these people he had once
called his friends. It had been
so many years ago, since he had been in Innusiq’s house with his extended family:
parents, grandparents, his sister, Juniper (affectionately called ‘Joon’ by the
family), cousins – Tilly among many others. He could still smell the
leathers, furs and fat melting on the stove. But in this situation, he
knew could not afford any complacency about the friendship he had always felt
for these people. He could not let his
memories intrude on this situation
So,
he sat very still with his fingers splayed on his knees and willed himself to
remain quiet for the sake of the small children around him. He would
count on Ray to be the excellent officer that he had come to know as his friend
and brother. He would wait. The children’s safety must come first.
But then, he was well aware of the fact that Joon and her family would count on
that. They knew him too well. He was going to have to find some way
to turn that to his advantage.
High overhead, Regan Miles,
of the Channel 7 News traffic department, turned her headphone-covered head
towards the chopper pilot with her news microphone in hand. “Did I see
what I just think I saw?” As Regan spoke, her cheeks had a lovely, slight
scarlet tinge to them, which only made her light auburn hair seem a bit
brighter in the reflected light of the chopper’s small cabin.
“If you saw a dude standing
in his birthday suit the middle of a circle of rifles, then, yeah,” Marco the
chopper pilot grinned and continued. “I think we saw the same thing. Tom, how about you?”
“Roger the naked dude,”
responded the cameraman with them.
“Good, so I’m not imagining it.” Regan wasn’t a prude, but
she also wasn’t the kind of person that: one – enjoyed seeming someone
else embarrassed and, two – lived with the dreaded thought that someday a live
feed on her shift would end up being the talk of the sniggering behind the
cameras for the rest of her life. She dreaded winding up some day in one
of those shows about media bloopers. She was a warm, good-hearted
person that the camera liked. She had her own group of followers among
die-hard early morning viewers.
“Want me to come in a little closer, Regan?” Marco asked.
“No, hang back,” Regan said. “We don’t want to do anything
to get anybody mad. We know the police are involved, we saw those cruisers
and the roadblocks cutting off the area.”
Regan, being a realist of sorts, knew that this could garner her
shift a scoop, but the last thing she ever wanted was to be responsible for a
breaking news feed at the cost of somebody being shot up. And
the bus down there? Was it part of the story? Had all those gunmen came
in the bus? But then again it could be full of
innocent people. It would be best to go
carefully.
Regan’s earpiece began
bussing in her ear as a technician at their home base began seeing Tom’s feed coming in to monitors. She listened
to directions from the floor director at the station. She wasn’t
surprised to hear the announcement that they were going to play this as
breaking news. She licked her lips and turned towards the camera positioned
behind her, ready to go ‘live’.
While
they waited, the pilot. reached inside in his flight jacket pocket and pulled
out a very small, very classy looking digital camera. “You know, I have this
new digital camera I got for my birthday in my pocket. This might be good for a
few nice shots, don’t you think?”
Regan
grinned. The entire station knew Marco was a gadget freak and teased him
mercilessly about it. She was also well aware that the station manager
would love a good still shot even though their own video feed could be used to
get stills. The station manager’s office walls were covered with shots
garnered on his watch.
All three occupants of the chopper went in to
professional mode when they heard the direction from the floor director that:
“One, two, three: we are now live.” Regan listened to the words in
her earpiece of the anchorperson on duty cutting in and announcing a ‘breaking
story’. She gripped her mic a bit tighter.
Regan
nervously tapped at on the plastic casing of the control mike in her hand while
the pilot, Marco, rummaged the area around him with one free hand trying to
keep the chopper in line and get his camera’s power switch to turn on.
Both Regan and Marco could hear the chuckling of the camera operator sitting
behind them as he directed his camera towards the action on the ground.
Marco held the chopper in
place for a moment . . . pointed his camera and got his shot. He grinned
and put the small device back into this pocket. “Got it!” Marco finally
announced, happily, “Tom, he addressed the camera operator behind him, “Keep
the live feed going to the station. “
All
three occupants of the chopper went in to professional mode again when they
heard the direction from the floor director.
Another announcement of a ‘breaking story’ buzzed in Regan’s ear. She gripped her mic a bit tighter.
“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. This is Regan Miles in the Channel
7 News Chopper. We’re over a stretch of road near Chicago’s Botanical
Gardens, where it appears that some kind of situation is taking place.
Traffic is already backing up in several directions. It might be advisable to
stay away from the Lake Cook Exit of the Eden’s Expressway going east. I would also advise avoiding Route 41
North. Use I-294 to avoid adding to the
congestion.
Regan
turned her head toward the action below her and kept talking. “I can see two men and a woman standing in
the middle of a circle of maybe ten to fifteen armed people. One of the men in the middle is holding a
rifle. The other man, now this is for
real folks, appears to be naked. We can’t tell much about the woman, though she
appears to be small. The entire area is blocked by police cruisers and no
traffic is getting through in either direction. I can also see a large bus parked
at in the intersection, but I can’t tell if there is anyone inside the bus or
if it has anything to do with this situation.”
Regan
kept talking, describing to what she knew was a later afternoon light audience
of viewers. She also knew that whatever she said and did in the next two
or three minutes would be played and replayed mercilessly throughout the next
24-hours. She could feel her face beginning to tense up as she thought of
all the school buses that would potentially be affected by whatever was going
on below them. She relaxed a bit when she heard the floor director
announcing a cut of the live feed and she heard the announcement that they
would be back with more on the story the minute they had anything definite to
report.
Marco kept the chopper hovering near the scene
keeping an eye out for any police aircraft that might show up in the
area. Tom placed his camera on his knees and pushed his face against the
glass of the chopper’s door nearest him. The three of them waited, knowing
they would be sitting tight for some time. Regan tapped her earpiece and asked the
floor director to have one of the staff call her home and let her babysitter
know she was going to be running late today.
Ray
eyed the bus from the corner of his eye as he stood with his bare feet planted
squarely on the pavement. He tried to keep his breathing even and relaxed
even though the feelings he that he had in the pit of his stomach nearly
demanded that he do something. He tried to control the nervous buzzing
that was beginning in his ears. He continued to force himself to stand
still and listen hoping that some small chink in their plan would come his
way.
The
sound of helicopter blades rent the air surrounding his captors. Ray
stood his ground but watched the suddenly nervous fingers on the triggers of
the rifles trained his way and slowly raised his hands.
“Hey,
take it easy there. If you had done your homework right, you would know
that that is a traffic copter. We have this thing called ‘news’ here in
Chicago. Traffic backs up and then one of the television stations sends a
chopper in to let people know about potential traffic backups.” Ray
stared straight into the eyes of the old woman. “Give me break here.
My bosses made me wear the mike. I told them it was a stupid idea.
I don’t want to be caught in the middle of a cross fire, especially with kids
in the picture.”
But
even as he said, what he hoped was calming words, a ridiculous picture of his
naked butt on the evening news at 5 made him moan inwardly. His mother .
. . his mother was probably going to see this. Why God . . . why was this
his life?
The
old woman tilted her head ever so slightly and seemed to be listening to the hovering
sound of the news copter settling in overhead. Then, she
smiled.
At first, Ray was
astonished, and then his body relaxed, figuring the situation out just an
instant before his brain caught on. “That’s it, isn’t it? You want
publicity and lots of it. You don’t really care about holding up traffic
or keeping those kids hostage in that bus. You’ve got an agenda,
Lady. What, not enough news stations up in Freezer-Land?”
Ray’s
brain was back on duty, now that he sensed he was out of immediate danger of
being shot. He assessed the situation and came up with the only thing that made
sense. “I get it. You wanted Fraser involved and you wanted me
involved. This has to do with the dead Mountie thing again, doesn’t
it? You figured that you weren’t getting enough attention up there from
your news media so you decided to get some built in PR by using Fraser and me.
Fraser and me, we high profile enough for you? I ought to be flattered.”
He
allowed himself a quick glare of superiority to show in his eyes before tamping
it down. “Well, smart lady; you got your news item. Shots of my family
jewels are probably on every television channel in town right now. How
are you going to get out of this without anyone getting hurt?”
So
wrinkled was the old woman’s face that it wasn’t apparent to Ray, in his
stressed state, that her brow and mouth were now contracting in a thoughtful
frown. She was considering her options. The appearance of the media
this early in the operation wasn’t part of her and Joon’s original plan, but
she hadn’t survived all these years without learning to adapt to changes.
“Detective
Vecchio, your bosses are smarter than you think.” Then she turned to the man
holding Ray’s microphone. “Give him back his hardware, Timmy.”
Timmy
obeyed immediately, handing Ray the microphone and wires, still adorned with
remnants of masking tape and Ray’s dark hairs stuck to them.
“I
see you’re not ashamed of the considerable gifts Nature has given you. You
stand up proudly,” the grandmother said, eyeing those gifts as she spoke.
Ray
figured this was a compliment and nodded carefully to acknowledge it.
“Even so, I think you would
be happier with your pants on.”
Ray
nodded again, much more vigorously.
“Who
is on the other end of this? Tell me the truth, child. It is wrong to lie to an
elder.”
“It feeds to my lieutenant,
three blocks from here.” It also fed to several other cruisers and the S.W.A.T.
team but Ray risked holding that extra information back. It wasn’t a lie to
tell only a part of the truth, he decided.
That
information seemed to satisfy the woman. “Then I will make a deal with
you. Make it possible for me to speak to your lieutenant through this
thing and I will let you have your clothes back.”
“Hmmm,”
the woman considered.
“Work
with me here. We weren’t expecting this to be a two-way broadcast. Isn’t that
at least worth giving me my shorts?”
This time Ray could tell the
woman was very pleased. He watched
the wrinkled skin around the old woman’s eyes crinkle and then relax as her
mouth lost its taut look
of stress. He watched the almost mellow look that entered her eyes before
the look was replaced with a look of sharp speculation. Ray felt his
stomach churning again.
“My
people believe in the Anua that give life to people and animals and special
places. Maybe a spirit animates that helicopter and it seeks to help
me. Talk to your lieutenant and tell him to arrange for that helicopter
to broadcast live what it sees, and for my voice to be patched through to your
networks.” She turned to the man holding Ray’s shorts. “Give him his underwear,
Innusiq.”
“Uh, ma’am, I’m not used to being barefoot outside. There’s stones
and broken glass. You think I could have my shoes too?” Ray noted the huge Channel 7
logo on the side of the chopper and knew that that ‘live feed’ that the old
woman wanted was probably already in progress. He wondered just how many
people were getting a real close and personal view of his backside. He
groaned inwardly trying to keep his frustration in check.
Across
town in the Vecchio home, Maria and Tony’s three year-old was sitting in her
little, child-sized rocker watching TV as her Aunt Francesca sorted the laundry
that sat in three baskets at her feet.
“White
sock . . . red sock . . . Ray’s sock . . .” Francesca placed each sock in
its own color or person coordinated pile. She was barely watching what
was on the screen of the family television. In fact, she hadn’t even
noticed when the volume on the set had changed subtlety and an announcement
banner began playing along the bottom of the oversized screen. She did
look up, however, when the toddler began bouncing up and down in the little
rocker.
“Butt…Butt…Unka
RayRay.” The small child pointed and laughed at the screen.
Francesca
looked up when she heard her brother’s name just in time to a catch sight of a
scene apparently filmed from high above.
“OH,
MY GOD!” Francesca dropped the sock pile that had been resting in her lap
to the floor as she stood up in a reflexive motion of shock. “Ma! Ray’s on TV! MA!”
Ma
Vecchio stopped pounding the bread dough she was working on when she heard her
daughter’s voice screaming from the living room. She listened and then
grabbed a dishtowel from the table beside her. She rushed down the
hallway and stood in front of the huge, 43” inch screen that had taken over the
living room when Ray and Tony had found it on sale several years ago. She
watched in horror as the image on the television switched back and forth from a
long shot of two men and a woman surrounded by armed figures to a very clear,
very close shot of her son’s naked body. She stumbled back, sat in Ray’s
favorite, overstuffed chair, and sat staring at the screen.
Francesca
rushed over to her mother and patted her shoulder affectionately.
“He’s
in the middle of men with rifles! My boy! They’re going to shoot my boy!”
The
only thing Fraser could knew about what was going on outside the bus was what
he had been told by the old man. His mental image was of Joon’s
grandmother and Ray standing together alone – perhaps on the sidewalk. And Ray,
for a reason that Fraser had to believe was a good one under the circumstances,
was stripping.
That
didn’t bode well for Ray’s being in a position to come to their rescue.
Fraser leaned back against the soft plush of his seat and started weighing the
risks of taking proactive steps on his own when one of the children, sitting
just behind the old man’s seat, blurted out, “Look at how many soldiers!”
The Mountie bolted upright with a jolt that dislodged poor little
Janice.
“Tilly!”
he demanded, outraged, “What’s going on out there?”
“You
never mind, Ben. Just stay quiet.”
Fraser
rose, too outraged to care for his own safety. “I’m going to look out that
window. Shoot me if you think it will help the situation.”
Tilly
was leaving all the decisions to her cousin. She waited for Joon to respond for
them.
“Let
him look, if he’s so curious.”
Fraser moved to where the
youngster who had spoken up was sitting. The boy and the girl beside him both
slid out of their seats as they saw the Mountie approach, and Tilly did not
comment upon it. Fraser climbed into the seat beside the window and pressed his
forehead against the tinted glass.
“Innusiq!” Without
turning his head away from the view, he intoned, “You must be insane.” Only
then, did he turn away from the window and lean forward into the split between
the seats to address the grandfather.
“Are
you condoning this?” He’d known the grandfather and grandmother, although not
well, since childhood and decided the time was right to address them as he did
in the days when he was playmate to their grandchildren. “Grandfather, do
you and Grandmother truly approve of this?”
Joon shrieked angrily from
the front of the bus, “You shut up! It’s none of your business! Mountie!”
She spat out the word as though it were a curse.
“Half an hour ago you said I
should be on your side. Joon, if you’re
going to be an effective terrorist you have to be clear on who is ‘us’ and who
is ‘them’. There’s no room for dithering.
I can’t be with you when my best friend is standing out there with gun
barrels pointing to his chest.”
“Do
you approve of this?” Fraser insisted, hoping to get some reaction from
him. Fraser recalled from his childhood that Grandmother was the
matriarch of the family and would normally speak for both herself and her
husband. Perhaps with her safely outside he could stir some reaction from the
grandfather.
“No,
this is not right,” the elderly man said, very quietly. “I didn’t know
things would go this far. Juniper, how did you get all these weapons
across the border?”
“We
didn’t have to, Grandfather. I arranged for us to buy them here, there are some
Native American groups here that are very sympathetic to our cause. ”
“Not
right,” the man repeated stoically as he continued to look out the
window. “Not right at all.”
“You
can say that again, Gramps,” put in Rosco from the front of the bus, prompting
Joon to jab the barrel of her pistol briefly against his cheek.
Regan
Miles was in high gear. She loved her job, but beginning five minutes
ago, she had left her job as a traffic announcer behind temporarily and had
become the Channel 7 newsperson on the spot. Now she was broadcasting
live nation-wide feed to the major networks, covering a serious hostage situation.
She was above all a professional and kept one ear open listening to her floor
director and her eyes peeled on the situation below them. She listened
carefully as she was told that the man without clothing had been wired for
sound and that a live feed of sound had been requested by the Chicago Police
department to the news media via a sound wire the male hostage had been
wearing. Being the professional that she was helped her to maintain a
calm attitude as the chopper’s blades cut through the air.
So,
first she described what she could actually see of the scene below. Then she
went on to explain, “I can’t see inside the bus. However, I’ve received
information from Channel 7 that the man in his underwear below us is a Chicago
Police Detective named Raymond Vecchio. The bus parked on the corner is
filled with Inuit children, two teachers, an Inuit elder, and an American bus
driver. A Canadian Mountie is also
inside the bus. No one has been inside the bus since we arrived. It is
not known at this time what the status is for any occupants of the bus.”
“The
woman you see standing in the centre of the circle is Mrs. Taliriktug, granddaughter of
Arnaaluk Taliriktug, known for her stand on Inuit rights. She appears
to be the spokesperson for hostage takers, who appear to be
Canadians. I understand that in a few moments she will be patched in
live through the microphone Detective Vecchio is holding and will make her
demands known.”
Nobody
outside the bus knew that the two Inuit teachers were not hostages at all but
participants in the operation. Mrs. Taliriktug did not offer any additional
description and the presence of her menacing circle were visual distraction
enough to keep anyone from wondering whether there were also armed conspirators
inside the bus.
Mrs.
Taliriktug delivered, to millions of viewers, her eloquent plea for the preservation of
her people’s hunting grounds and ended by saying that if she and her followers
were allowed to leave unhindered and not followed, they would leave their guns
behind and disperse harmlessly. The bus would be allowed to go on its way
with passengers and driver untouched. It was a masterful bit of diversion. She had her national coverage without giving up her principal hostages. She could still control the situation.
Lieutenant
Welsh ended up having his fifteen minutes of fame as well. Coached by the
S.W.A.T. team leader talking into one of his ears and his own superiors by
radio at his other ear, he agreed to the terms.
The
events of earlier played in reverse. First, as was agreed, the circle of gunmen
put down their weapons in a pile on the street. Then, using Ray’s cell phone,
Mrs. Taliriktug placed a call. Within five more minutes, as had been
pre-arranged by her with the police, two mini-vans with local license plates
were allowed to pass through the roadblocks and pull up on the scene.
Only a few seconds of the intervening time were needed for Ray to jump
back into his clothes.
Sighs
of relief were being heaved by viewers all over the country, and it seemed as
though it was all over when a single gunshot cracked inside the bus and a bus
window exploded in shattered
glass.
One
thing Rosco did notice was that the Mountie was now sitting very much nearer to
Tilly’s position than he was before. Neither woman was telling him to go sit
back where he was. Good. Now both Fraser and himself were within grabbing
distance of one of the women. Rosco felt sure that this Canadian would be quick
enough to disarm the woman near him if Rosco provided sufficient diversion. Of
course, the problem remained how to make a diversion without getting himself or
anybody else killed. Neither Fraser nor
the grandfather had given any description of what was going on outside since
Fraser’s last comment.
Rosco
figured he could play with that at least. “What’s happening out there now?” he
asked to nobody in particular.
“The
American has put his clothes back on,” the grandfather said. Apparently, this
was the thing of most interest to him in the entire proceedings. As though as
an afterthought he added, “And everyone has left except the American and my
wife. They are out there together alone.”
Fraser
grunted lightly to confirm this information. He leaned out into the aisle so
that he was within Rosco’s view. He widened his eyes. Is that a signal to me,
Rosco wondered? He widened his own eyes
in response and the Mountie lowered his head just a fraction. Rosco dipped his
own head, barely perceptibly. Contact had been made.
“A shot!” Ray screamed. Chivalry took over without his even thinking about it and he
threw one arm around the old woman and dove to the pavement, taking her down
with him.
“Stay down!” he yelled, and rolled over onto his
back beside her. His hand reached for a weapon before he realized he was
unarmed.
“Don’t panic, dear,” Mrs. Taliriktug said with a
calm dignity incongruous with her ungainly position sprawled on the ground,
“That shot went through a window, not a person. Everyone inside is still safe.”
“Damn it! You’ve got armed people INSIDE the bus!
What kind of game is this?”
Regan and her team were too far above the ground to
hear the sound of the shot but Regan, her cameras still trained on the scene
below, was able to make out the explosion of glass out the bus window. She
breathed a mild oath and then ordered Tom to point his camera at the bus.
As the loud noise of the gunshot rent the air, the
children could hold back their tension no longer and started screaming.
“I’m
going to have to have a talk with my wife. She’s gone too far this time,” was
the old man’s answer and he stepped down to the pavement with a groan, holding
his hand against his hip. “Take the children to the Botanical Gardens, Benton.
They’ll need to stretch their legs after sitting for so long.”
Fraser
had to smile at the old man’s words for he knew all too well that it would only
be after hours of kid glove handling by some member of Chicago’s Department of
Child and Family Services that his charges would be allowed to return to the
custody of some Canadian – probably himself or the Inspector. He was also well aware that his own
debriefing would make him unavailable to the children just when a familiar
figure would be most helpful to them.
He thought wistfully that a romp in the park might very well benefit the
children more than the smothering of official attention to which they were
shortly going to be subjected.
Ray
was grateful that in the intervening time since the incident someone had edited
the film, adding obscuring patches over Ray’s private parts.
Diefenbaker lifted his head towards the television
screen and let out a sound that could
only be described as a lupine groan. He dropped his head to cover his
forelegs that were stretched out in front of him. Then he covered first one eye
then the other eye with his paws, before making another faint groaning sound.
“What’s your problem?” Ray demanded of the wolf,
then, thinking better of getting a direct answer, looked to Fraser for the
translation he knew would be forthcoming.
Fraser was glaring sternly at his wolf friend.
“Have you no consideration? You’re hurting Ray’s feelings.”
Diefenbaker
shifted one paw from his eyes and woofed a brief response.
“Well,
a human without clothes SHOULDN’T embarrass you,” the Mountie scolded. To Ray, he explained, “It bothers him to see
a human naked. It makes him think about how uncovered he feels twice a year
when he blows his coat and has to go around in just his furry undercoat.”
Ray’s
face hadn’t lost an embarrassed pink tinge since the news had started. He was also annoyed that, once again, he had
saved a bunch of Canadians and, once again, he wasn’t going to get credit for
it. “Hey, we had a potentially deadly situation there. Me being naked? Is that all anybody cares
about?” With a harrumph he lapsed into disgruntled silence.
“Ma!!!!!”
End.