A-Cup Angst Ch. 15

Jamie walked back to his car and got in. He punched the steering wheel in frustration. He had no doubt that he could interrogate each and every one of the madam's clients and not find a single one that knew how to find her. He was plum out of ways to find and save Mara. He went online and connected to Caitlin Ford's phone in California. He uploaded and installed some software on it and then made the phone ring.

Caitlin answered saying, "Hello?"

"Hello, Caitlin, it's Jamie Jacobs! Sorry to call like this, out of the blue, have you got a minute?"

"Jamie, yes! Oh, my god, it's so good to hear from you again!"

"Yeah, you too, Caitlin," Jamie said. "Listen! Are you free these next couple of days? I need to ask you to do me a huge favor."

"Uh, yeah, I'm free. And I owe you my life, literally. Ask away!"

"I need you to help me find a young woman that's in trouble. Serious trouble."

"Sure! What can I do," Caitlin asked, eager to help.

"Do you have any way of scrying on people without having any of their possessions on hand," Jamie asked.

"No," Caitlin said. "Not without a sample from their close relatives for a blood scry."

"Shit," Jamie said. "Alright, then that's what we're going to have to do. Caitlin, I need you to get packed and ready for a trip. The woman's mother is her closest known living relative and I need you to go to New Mexico to find her and obtain some hair for a blood scry."

"Ok," Caitlin said. "I can do that!"

"Thank you, Caitlin. Oh, and don't tell anyone about any of this, ok? I'm kind of a wanted man in the States. If Section ever heard of this call, they'd probably detain you for questioning. This talk we're having is secure. Don't go telling anyone else that I've just called you, or that you're helping me. Can you do that for me? Can you keep this a secret, please?"

"Yeah, sure, Jamie!"

"Ok," Jamie said and sighed in relief. "Your phone has an app on it that tells you where Mrs. O'Donnell's cellphone is. Use it to find her. The app is the yellow target icon in the bottom of your screen. Get packed and go to the airport. I'll make all the travel arrangements necessary."

Caitlin checked her screen and saw a yellow target icon that had never been there before. "Ok, Jamie. I'll get packed in a few minutes and then I'll be on my way!"

"Thank you again, Caitlin," Jamie said. "Thank you so much!" He hung up. He booked a first class ticket on a redeye for Caitlin and then made arrangements for her to fly to Florence. He paid for all the tickets to be in first class. He used the secure communication protocol he had installed on her phone to text her the details of the second leg of her trip and then sat back and ran his fingers through his hair as he tried to come up with another, faster way to find Mara.

As soon as she received the information on how she would fly to Florence, Caitlin dialed a number with a New York area code.

"Hello," Rose Romano said, in a grumpy voice.

"Rose! Hi! It's me, Caitlin! You're not going to believe who just called me!""

"And I'm not going to care, either," Rose mumbled, sleepily. "Fuck you, bitch, for calling at this hour!"

"Jamie just called me!"

After a pause on the line, Caitlin heard Rose say, "What?"

"Jamie just called me to help him," Caitlin said, excitedly. "I'll tell you all about it in the morning! Come meet me at JFK!"

Caitlin hung up, leaving Rose to yell, "Hello," into the phone. The girl sleeping next to her in bed rolled over and grumbled unintelligibly at the loud noises she was making. Rose turned on the bedside lamp, prompting the girl's grunt of protest. "Wake up, Sandra! Caitlin just called and said she's been in touch with Jacobs!"

Sandra Grant's eyes blinked open and squinted up at Rose. "You call her right back," she said.

Jamie couldn't sit still and wait for Ford to find O'Donnell and do a blood scry on her daughter. He had exhausted the money angle and he decided to take a tour of the center of town. That was where the text messages had originated from and he drove around where he could, walked where he couldn't, and used his telepathic senses to stare into every structure, hoping to find one that was hidden from his senses with a magical privacy shield, like the brothel had been last night. He hoped the witch might have an apartment somewhere around there.

After two hours of the search, he had just about covered the city center and utterly exhausted his psychic abilities with all the telepathic staring he was doing. His head was splitting apart at the seams and no amount of rubbing his temples was making the pain go away, or his concentration restore itself.

He parked in the next spot he could find and then walked around until he found a bar. He went in and drank whiskey until his head stopped hurting so much. He most wanted to crawl into bed, cover his head with a blanket and pretend the world wasn't there. He couldn't bring himself to do that while Mara was still in danger. He partly blamed himself for her predicament. He knew the witch and her goons were the real bad guys in this situation. He was the good guy. It didn't stop him from feeling responsible for the fate that befell her. If he hadn't walked into the dorm right behind her, she'd most likely be attending lectures right about now.

He checked his phone and was surprised to see a bunch of notices concerning Helena and Alice Worth. His automated warning system, that he had set up just the other day, stated that they were on an airplane right now, flying to Florence. He couldn't believe it. He wiped his face in frustration and yelled out loud, in slurred English, "You two, too!? Right now!? Fuck my luck!"

Everyone in the bar looked his way so he tossed a bunch of notes on the table, not even bothering to count them, and left. He splashed some freezing cold water in his face from a fountain that was near his car and then got in the X5 to work some surveillance on the Worths. He quickly deduced that they were not using any electronics. "Aw," he said to himself, still a bit drunk, "did the blondes learn about electronics? Well done, girls. Well done! However, HUMINT beats ELINT every time, girls. Every fucking time!"

He hacked into the airline's records and found the names of the flight attendants. He ran background checks on them and picked one. Using his admin-level access to the airline's mainframe, he called the plane itself. He had the attendant that answered bring his chosen one to the phone.

"Hello," said the attendant, a 26-year old, recently divorced mother of a four year old boy.

"Hello, Clarice," Jamie said, doing his best not to imitate Anthony Hopkins, "how would you like to make enough money to pull yourself out of your crushing debt in just one fell swoop? I imagine that would skew the impending custody battle heavily in your favor."

"Who is this," Clarice heatedly whispered.

"Never mind my name, Clarice," Jamie said. "I am the man that is offering you one hundred and fifty thousand dollars for just one, small favor."

After a brief silence, he heard Clarice say, "Who put you up to this? Is this one of Brian's jokes? I swear, I'll staple his-"

"This is not a joke, Clarice," Jamie said.

"What's the favor," she asked, quietly. She sounded tempted.

"Leave this phone on and hide it near the seats of the two blondes in first class that are traveling under the names Riker and Williams," Jamie said.

"That's it," Clarice asked, sounding surprised.

"Yes, that's it," Jamie said. "That's all you have to do to get the money."

"And how do I get paid," she asked.

"I'll wire it to you as soon as I hear the aforementioned blondes talk about what I want to hear," he said.

"No," Clarice responded. "You wire it all now and I plant the phone."

Jamie rubbed his temples. "Plant the phone right now," he said, "and as soon as I hear their voices, I'll wire you half the money. If you leave the phone in place for the rest of the flight, I'll wire you the rest of the money."

After a few moments, he heard Clarice say, "Ok."

He muted his microphone and heard nondescript noises for a few minutes. After that, he heard Alice Worth order a glass of champagne. He nodded grimly and paid his little snoop the first half of her money. The Worth girls were sitting quietly in first class and Jamie gleaned no info from them. He left his computer to record everything and then went out to get some supplies he'd need if he was to fight them. His search for Mara was going nowhere, anyway. He double checked that her phone hadn't popped up on any network, and called around to ask if she had shown up anywhere on campus. She hadn't. His instincts told him she was in terrible danger. He felt it in his gut.

After he got his supplies together, he checked his recording. The Worths had been silent and it sounded like one of them was softly snoring. Jamie finished his preparations and patiently waited to find out what they were going to do. As he waited and meditated, he dozed off himself. When he woke up, it was afternoon and he saw that his recording of the first class cabin now contained a conversation. He listened to it and heard Alice asking her daughter if she could handle herself. Helena brushed off her mother's questions about her sanity and self-control and tersely stated her intentions to have Jamie's family die a horrible, suffering death. Alice didn't disagree with her daughter's sentiment, but she did try to get Helena to understand certain tactical considerations. During their conversation, they mentioned the address of Jamie's mother's house. Jamie grimaced unhappily. There went option A, misdirection. It left him with two options; either grabbing his family and running, or standing his ground and fighting. He decided to fight. He paid Clarice the rest of the money and then burned rubber as he drove out of Florence.

Cops saw him speeding and chased after him, but he paid them no mind. He outran them until the obscuration wards on his SUV foiled their attempts to keep track of him. He tore down the country roads until he found himself on the road that led from the small town he had lived in, until the other day, to his mother's house. He took out his supplies and laid them in the proper places. He assembled robotic mounts that held his AK and Saiga on hills that overlooked opposite sides of the road. He attached miniature cameras to the barrels of the guns so he could aim them remotely. He placed a small IED next to the road and camouflaged it. After his preparations were finished, he thought again of Mara. He still had no idea where to find her.

He made Caitlin's phone ring. "Hello," she said.

"Did you find Evelyn?"

"Hi, Jamie," she said. "Yes, I found her. I got what we'll need to find Mara."

"Good," Jamie said. "I'll meet you at the airport in Florence. Thanks again!"

Before Caitlin could tell him that she had Rose and Sandra with her, he hung up. The three girls poked around Caitlin's smartphone for a few minutes, looking for a way to call Jamie back, before giving up. They shrugged and went to board their flight.

Jamie switched his attention back to the Worths. He had hacked his way into airport security and watched them get a rent-a-car. Chris Welling was with them. Jamie hacked into the company's computers and turned on the GPS tracking to follow their progress. He drove further down the road and parked very close to his mother's house, but still out of sight of it. He patiently watched the blip on his screen come ever closer to his ambush spot. This early in the afternoon, no one else was likely to come driving along, but Jamie swiveled his cameras around and checked that the road was empty, all the same.

Finally, a car showed up on his screen, just as the GPS said it would. Jamie locked on to it and armed his IED. When the car drove through the laser beam, a small, shaped charge went off and punctured its rear tire. The car swerved a lot but managed to stay on the road. It spun half way around as it stopped. Jamie watched the Worth girls exit the car. Alice looked at the tire while Helena berated a stymied looking Chris that got out to change it. Alice began to insist Chris get back behind the wheel and move the car so it was no longer blocking the whole road and Helena began arguing that they should just jog over to Jamie's mother's house while he changed the tire.

Jamie called the prepaid phone he had left next to the tire trap. He watched the Worths argue for nearly a minute more, until Welling pointed out that he could hear something by the side of the road. When the girls shut up, they heard the phone's ringtone, which was Jamie's voice saying, "Answer the phone, girls."

Jamie grinned grimly as he watched Alice change colors in shock at the realization that they didn't have the element of surprise on their side. Helena marched over to his IED and picked up the phone. She then slammed a small bolt of fire into the trap, destroying it and the camera and microphone Jamie was using to watch them. Jamie had high-def cameras attached to the barrels of his AK-47 and Saiga that were positioned on hills overlooking the ambush spot. He switched his screen to those and adjusted the aim of his guns.

"I'm going to kill you," Helena hissed viciously into the phone as soon as she answered it.

"No, you're not," Jamie said, dismissively.

Alice grabbed the phone out of Helena's hand before her daughter could smash it in anger and said, "Hello? Jacobs? Is this you?"

"Why, hello, Alice," Jamie said, in a friendly tone of voice. "Yes, it is me. How are you?"

"Well, I was doing just fine until a minute ago," Alice said. "Puncturing our tire has startled me a bit." Jamie made no comment to her reasonable tone of voice. He saw on his screen that Alice was holding up a finger to Helena to shut her up. "Listen, I think there has been some sort of misunderstanding here. We haven't come all this way to rekindle old quarrels. We need your help with a delicate matter."

"Is that so," Jamie said, noncommittally.

"Yes," Alice said. "We were just on our way to see you when you shredded our tire."

"I see," Jamie said. "So, you weren't going to cut off my mother's eyelids so she could see you slowly boil my sister's skin off until she told you where I was?"

Alice winced before smiling. "You were listening in on us on the plane," she said and laughed a bit.

"I'm always listening," Jamie said.

"Ah, well, cat's out of the bag now, Jacobs," Alice said. "Here's what's going to happen here. We're going to torture you to death. You know you have it coming to you, don't you? Now, if you come to us and don't make us chase you, then we need not do the same to your family."

"Here's what's going to happen here," Jamie said, parroting her words back at her. "This vendetta of ours ends here and now. Either you are going to change your tire, drive back to the airport and fly back to the States and get on with your lives, or I'll kill you and bury your bodies where they'll never be found."

Alice gave a small laugh. "Those are some mighty big words coming from you," she said. "May I ask how exactly you intend to kill two powerful and experienced sorceresses and a guy that can snap you in half with one arm?"

"With ease," Jamie said.

Alice laughed out loud and repeated his words to Helena, who remained stone faced. "This is a waste of time," Helena snarled. "Chris, let's go!" She gestured and the two of them started jogging towards Jamie's mother's house. Jamie adjusted the aim of the Saiga and fired one enchanted water round into Welling's knee. Chris cried out in pain and collapsed in a heap.

"Take cover," Alice yelled at her daughter. She gestured as she ran towards the car. "Behind the car's engine block!" Helena and Alice dashed behind the car, leaving Welling to lie in the middle of the road. "You said he didn't have any enchanted rounds," Alice yelled at Helena, reproachfully. Alice personally enchanted the bracelets the three of them were wearing with a spell that made all projectile weapons curve around them. She had done it when they got off the plane. There was no way for them to have expired already.

"He's not supposed to have any," Helena shot back. "The French took them!"

"Fucking French pansies," Alice muttered. She picked up the phone and snarled, "Do you think one lucky shot will stop us? Huh? Do you really think that will be enough? After repeatedly raping my girl and taking her power from her? After raping me?" Alice laughed a bitter laugh. "Jacobs, we are never going to stop. We will see justice done!"

"Justice," Jamie said, adjusting the aim of the AK the girls were still exposed to. "What do you know about justice, Alice? Do you even know how to spell the word?"

"Fuck you, you uppity, little shit, I'm going to-"

"I was drained first," Jamie said, cutting Alice off. "I was just living my life, minding my own business, when your daughter decided to shorten my lifespan so she'd look better. I had no say in the matter, no choice."

Alice put his call on speaker and said, "Do you seriously think that somehow justifies what you did to her?!"

Jamie laughed and said, "Are you going to play innocent with me? Who is that boy you left to slowly crawl to cover? Oh, wait, I know him! He's that rapist that took your daughter's power away from her. Actually, she had given it to him of her own, free will, as part of the process of permanently enslaving him. Yes, your daughter is such an innocent victim in this matter," he said, sarcastically. "She had never been slowly killing people or taking slaves."

"What you did to me was way worse," Helena shrieked.

"What I did to you was karma."

"Fuck you," Helena yelled. "And I suppose my mom also deserved to get raped?"

"Yes," Jamie bluntly said. "I'm sorry, Alice, but you truly did. You abused your power to destroy my mother's life and put her through hell. You had her shipped off to jail where she got strip searched by strangers who then stuck their fingers into her body to check her cavities. For that, you deserve to get raped with a barb wire condom every day for the rest of your life, as far as I am concerned."

"I am not going to sit here and discuss morality with a boy that managed to squeeze off one lucky shot," Alice said. She hung up the phone and said to Helena, "Let's cast a spell to draw-"

Jamie interrupted her by overriding the speaker on the phone and saying, "Say goodbye, girls!"

"Fuck you, Jamie," Helena yelled. "You can't defeat us by hacking a fucking phone!"

"How about by blowing your mother's brains out," Jamie asked. He activated one of the many laser pointers he had on robotic mounts. It left a red dot right in the middle of Alice's forehead. Helena gasped in fright seeing it.

"What," Alice said. She gasped at seeing a red dot on her daughter's forehead. Her eyes went wide.

"What about you, Alice," Jamie said. "Would letting Helena live be enough to make you turn away and get on with your life?"

Helena reached up with her hand, as if she could wipe the laser beam off her skin. "Wait!" Alice threw up her hands. The thought of seeing her daughter die right in front of her was too terrifying to bear. "Wait!"

"Run," Helena yelled, letting loose a spell that kicked up the snow on both sides of the road for concealment. It was a good idea, and it completely defeated Jamie's ability to aim at them. He pressed a button that made the robotic hand cycle the Saiga's recoil setting selector and then pressed another button that made it eject the chambered water round. Next in the box magazine was a fireball round. The shotgun had already been aimed at the car. He pressed the fire button and a fireball exploded upon contact with the front wheel of the car, on the opposite side of where the trio had been hiding. The curtain of snow dissipated immediately and three figures were blown off their feet to land in the ditch next to the road. The car itself slid sideways a foot.