With These Eyes (10 page)

A private bedroom in the back of the trailer
was marked with a star on the door - the quarters for the platoon's
commander herself. With the search continuing on Isabelle's street
and the surrounding hills, Tasha was getting settled in for the
night. She stripped off her arsenal of weaponry and electronics
until she was left in her purple tank top and skimpy undercover
underwear with the miniature flip-phone clipped to the side. Tasha
kept the locket around her neck and laid down under the
special-forces blanket that would keep her warm for the night. As
she closed her eyes, the image of Isabelle's face looking into the
hidden camera was on the warrior's mind. "I'm gonna get you,
pussycat!" Tasha whispered under her breath and went to sleep.
Isabelle's eyes staring at her from the screen was going to be part
of Tasha's dreams that night.

Leaning against the water heater, Isabelle
remained motionless. She could feel the heat from the tank seeping
through its thick insulation and her jacket. It was a pleasant
warmth that almost felt like the body-heat of another person. The
air outside had cooled quite a bit and the heat that spread through
her spine radiated into her entire body, keeping her comfortable.
Fuji had taught her to be successful, she had to be one with the
universe. It seemed Isabelle had become one with the water heater.
All the world around her only saw the appliance when they looked
her way. Even a skunk that came by fell for Isabelle's unusual
disguise when it took cover behind her foot to see if it was safe
to proceed further. It eventually moved on, walking across
Isabelle's toes on its way.

A few hours passed. Isabelle had been able to
maintain her pose with relative ease. Once she had become one with
the water heater, her mind had departed from its desire to move
around or sit down. Tonati came walking up the hill towards her. If
he interacted with Isabelle at all, he could easily give away her
position to the still hovering drone overhead. Even Isabelle was
surprised when her puma continued past her as if she wasn't there.
Throughout the night, Isabelle could hear the monotony of the
drone's buzzing being interrupted by the sounds of Tasha's platoon
driving through her neighborhood in their relentless search.

Time had gone by relatively quickly for
Isabelle and soon the black of the night sky yielded to the light
blue and orange hues of the morning. The sun appeared on the
horizon for its daily path across the sky. Soon, it would bathe the
city of angels in its life-giving energy. Isabelle knew that along
with the cloak of darkness disappeared her sanctuary from Tasha's
persistent intrusion. As it happened often with the day's first
light, Tonati was heading for the kitchen where he would find his
way to Isabelle. It had almost become a morning ritual for Tonati
to make sure Isabelle would be awake for the beginning of the new
day. Isabelle loved it when the puma's giant nose would nuzzle her
awake, a routine that left most of her gentlemen-callers too
mortified to be much fun in the morning. Isabelle had little use
for a grown man who was afraid of her cat. Next to her career,
Tonati was in many cases a contributing factor why she had been
single for most of her life. Isabelle had some flings, even fell in
love a few times, but the men in her past had other things on their
minds than her happiness. As a rule, her relationships seemed
perfect in theory - a good-looking guy, career, no children - but
each time something just wasn't right. Isabelle never felt the
spark that should have propelled a relationship into a long,
certain future. Each time it was her who broke it off if Tonati
didn't already send the guy screaming and running off into the
night. Her would-be boyfriends failed to understand why she handed
them their walking-papers. Isabelle least of all could explain it
to them. She had gotten accustomed to Tonati being the one she
kissed “good-morning.”

It looked like Tonati was on his way to seek
their first morning encounter. As he approached Isabelle and the
adjacent heat pump for the first time in seven hours, she separated
from the water heater that had kept her safe from Tasha throughout
the night. Tonati stopped to kiss Isabelle as he had intended.
Together, they marched to the kitchen.

The morning shift of Tasha's Troopers had
populated their new mobile command post that had arrived an hour
before sunrise along with a fresh complement of 12 undercover
vehicles. The new command post looked like a delivery truck for one
of Apophis' many brands of bottled water. It was another one of
Tasha's special designs from the hide-in-plain-sight series. The
water-bottle truck was much like the cement mixer, a shining
example of the philosophy to be so elaborate in her methods of
surveillance and pursuit that few people would find suspicion in
her activities. Police and private investigators would often rely
on covert vehicles too small to draw attention. Tasha preferred her
approach. The interior of the ten-ton truck was home to one of the
warrior's numerous spyrooms. The only way to stay unnoticed with
such large vehicles, Tasha reasoned, was to switch them out as
often as practical. What was as much a factor as her strategic
reasoning was Tasha's affinity for gadgets and machinery. The
on-board crew of 3 Troopers that was working the first shift of
surveillance had picked up Isabelle's image on several hidden
cameras and sensors. It was time to notify Tasha who was still
asleep.

Tasha was sprawled out across the bed in the
trailer. Her covers were in a ball on the floor. The warrior’s eyes
were moving in jagged motion under her eyelids. Her feet twitched
like she was running in the air, then stopped moving. Tasha licked
her lips when suddenly, the buzzing from her cell phone tore her
out of her dream. Instinctively, her hand reached for the phone
clipped to the side of her underwear. Her large greenish-brown eyes
still seeking to return to her dream were slowly adjusting to the
light of reality. With the phone to her ear she grunted,

"Methusa!"

The Trooper inside the water-bottle truck was
on the other end. "Ma'am, we just reacquired the package. We found
her in the garden with the wildcat."

Tasha was not very surprised. "Good. Pick me
up with breakfast in 30 minutes. It’s time to put a leash on
pussycat."

12 TASHA, TEETH AND TRIBULATIONS

So she could stay on the job uninterruptedly,
Tasha kept the camping trailer stocked with a variety of disguises
for herself and the Troopers. Costumes covered lifestyles from
priests to balloon-vendors, homeless, and many more characters
Isabelle was to encounter in her immediate future. It would have
been difficult for most to recognize Tasha's lethal payload or
intentions just from looking at her. Her jacket and boots concealed
much of what her formfitting jeans couldn't. A purple top
underneath, Tasha's sight would have conjured up the word
sexy
long before
deadly
in most minds. In many ways,
Tasha was like the mythological Medusa who could never love because
those who came too close and looked her in the eyes faced certain
doom.

Tasha opened the camper door and stepped out.
At the same moment, the water-bottle truck pulled up. Two columns
of water bottles swung out like a door and provided Tasha access to
the spy truck's surveillance room. She stepped up into the truck
and the door of water jugs swung shut behind her. Tasha was ready
for the hunt.

Isabelle saw little point in going to her
office that morning. Most of what she did there involved use of the
computer and, so far, there was no word from Ryan that he had
reestablished her user account. Her dentist's appointment was at
10:30 which would have left little time at work, regardless.
Isabelle decided to spend the morning at home. She had enough books
and dissertations to comb through for information on quantum
energy.

After breakfast with Tonati and a few
studious hours, it had come time for Isabelle to head to her dental
appointment. She expected to encounter more Troopers, but Isabelle
never would have been intimidated into hiding out at home. There
wasn't enough gas left in her car to go on any kind of excursions,
so Isabelle took her bike. Her motorcycle was a Japanese
enduro
, street-legal but made for off-road riding. As soon
as Isabelle sped out of her driveway on her shiny red bike, Tasha's
Troopers fell into formation around her like a swarm of wasps.
Tasha's water-bottle truck was already positioned ahead of Isabelle
and took the lead. Encased in a cocoon of Tasha's Troopers,
Isabelle glided through the urban jungle that appeared completely
under Tasha's rule.

Tasha's rolling command post was holding
Isabelle back behind stoplights far enough to gain a little bit of
leeway. When Isabelle arrived at her dentist's office after a
half-hour ride, the water truck was already parked curbside. A
handful of Troopers were in the parking lot, repainting the stripes
that marked the spaces. The platoon's cars encircled the property
like a wild-west wagon train. Isabelle took note of her pursuers
but figured the less fear she displayed, the more power she had
over them. This was a strategy she had learned watching Tonati
hunt. Isabelle parked her bike and walked up the seven steps that
lead to Dr. Tibbets' office. When she entered the waiting area, she
was greeted by the receptionist Aetna.

"Good morning, Isabelle. Dr. Tibbets isn't in
today. Apparently his grandmother was taken to intensive care last
night."

"Oh, no! What happened?"

"He didn't know. The hospital just called to
say it would be best for him to come right away. Of course, he was
on the first flight to Virginia this morning."

On any other day, Isabelle wouldn't have
thought much of such an incidence, but with all the difficulties
she's had, her curiosity was sparked. "Does she not have any family
out there?"

Aetna had no reason to find anything
suspicious and replied. "She does, but Dr. Tibbets wasn't able to
reach anyone in his family. It's the strangest thing - everyone's
phone was either busy or there was no answer." Aetna took a bottle
of nail polish out of her desk drawer and opened it as she
continued. "Dr. Monahan is filling in for him. He brought his own
assistant and everything. There she is." Aetna pushed the button
for the door buzzer and Isabelle entered the patient area in the
back office.

The assistant Enola greeted her with a
somewhat insincere smile. "Hi, Isabelle. You're gonna love Dr.
Monahan. He's just great with his hands." Enola's smile became more
believable as she continued, "He takes me everywhere he goes."

The two had reached the exam room. Enola
motioned for Isabelle to have a seat in the chair that was the
centerpiece of the room. Isabelle settled into the long, contoured
piece of medical furniture and Enola placed a dental bib on her
chest. She had just fastened the strap around Isabelle's neck when
the substitute dentist entered the room. His demeanor appeared
overly friendly to Isabelle who took note of the unusually thick
spectacles that defined the doctor's appearance. Isabelle's
uneasiness with the situation rose. Her intuition told her that
something was wrong, but logic convinced her to continue on. After
all, few things are as unpleasant as bad teeth.

"Which tooth has been bothering you?" asked
the doctor while slipping vinyl gloves over his hands.

"It's this one." Isabelle pointed best she
could. "On the bottom and all the way in the back."

"Let's take a look, shall we?"

Monahan reached for the explorer that was
next to a mirror and a few other basic dentistry tools. Isabelle
could feel the sharp point of the cold steel instrument picking at
her teeth. She could tell he didn't have the same empathy for his
patients as her usual dentist. A few pokes and scrapes later, she
heard his words.

"Good thing you came in today. Your number 16
and 17 tooth here in the front look like they need root canals - if
I can even save them at all."

"Root canals? What about the tooth that's
been bothering me?"

"That one is fine. There is just a little
pressure from your wisdom tooth that's pushing through. I'd be much
more concerned about losing my two front teeth."

Isabelle felt backed into a corner. "Sounds
to me like I don't have much of a choice."

"Let's numb you up real quick." Monahan
reached for the loaded syringe of anesthetic, held it tip-up and
pushed the plunger in a bit. His smile was strangely sinister as he
watched a few drops of the contents squirt from the needle. He had
one thing left to say. "Open!"

In no time at all, Doctor Monahan had
injected the contents of the hypodermic into the gums surrounding
Isabelle's front teeth. He pulled the needle out and pushed it back
into some tissue that hadn't been injected. He drew a small amount
of blood into the syringe. Monahan placed the syringe back on the
tray where Enola picked it up. The traveling dental assistant
removed the capsule that was now holding a small portion of
Isabelle's blood.

"I'll be back when you're numb," Isabelle
heard him say on his way out of the exam room.

She nodded “okay” while Enola slipped the
ampule with the blood into a padded container. The dental worker
was going through the motions of prepping the room for a double
root-canal. She produced an array of seemingly torturous tools on
the tray next to Isabelle's head. Enola reached into the pocket of
her lab coat and pulled out a plastic box, just a little larger
than a sugar cube. Out of Isabelle's field of view, she flipped the
box's lid open. It was padded in foam-rubber and contained two blue
spheres the size of pinheads. Enola placed the two tiny orbs on the
tray just as Monahan returned to the exam room.

"Let's see if we can't save your beautiful
smile," he proclaimed clumsily, drill in hand, as he began his
procedure. After grinding away at Isabelle's teeth, he had some
news for her. "Looks like this is your lucky day. We'll be able to
fill those cavities without root canals."