Get There Fast

113.

Of this position it has been said many times that success is found through one’s ability to manage stacked protocols, an axiom I have always considered equivalent to the advice, perhaps said by the same people, that one should not bring a knife to a fire-fight.

I salute Frenchy upon our exit and proceed directly into the waiting black Ford Expedition. I ask Drysdale to take the wheel as I have work to do.

Commandeering the GPS tracker I lock on to the signal that seems to be heading directly downtown, good news for us as we could intercept and easily tail from our current position. In reference to this stroke of good luck I whisper out loud "good clean livin’ and church on Sunday.” Drysdale looks at me intuiting the combination of science and sorcery that has brought us to this intersection. I place the tracker on the suction mount device apparatus on the dash and dial TOM.

“Anything on Omaha?”

“Berkshire Hathaway, Marlin Brando, Bob Gibson, Fort Omaha, Offutt, Union Pacific and The Bob, is about it, nothing out of the ordinary except a slight increase in volume of chatter,” TOM answers.

“The Bob?”

“A three-thousand foot long cable and concrete pedestrian-only bridge spanning the Missouri River named after Senator Bob Kerrey who saw to its funding.”

I don’t know if I should laugh or scream, but respect the level of stress under which we all operate, so let it go with a ’hummmmm,” imperfectly capturing the conversational requirement, but wanting to segue to more, perhaps, relative concerns.

“Anything from Tucson, Portland or Vegas?” I ask.

“All three maintaining higher than average buzz levels, nothing nefarious, if anything this feels like a calm before the storm.”

At this I am truly baffled and again insist that we maintain our initial plan of infiltration, a tactic to which TOM agrees.

“I think we should also move Davis and Saunders to Arizona.” Anticipating his resistance I finish my outline, “Drysdale and I can handle Omaha and Portland from here, so moving them from Colorado to Tucson gives us better geographic coverage, quicker, should the need arise.”

“Done.”

“Can we pinpoint any concentrated hot-spots in Tucson that we might check out first?”

“We have a sheet on it from which we can run additional models using the latest intel, I’ll forward them to Davis and copy you,” he says. From his response I sense that the new track, a partial footprint in the sand, has shaken him back to the seriousness of the hunt.

Drysdale informs me that the GPS movement has stopped. He is zooming on the location. My cell buzzes. LA in Vegas has the address of the warehouse in which Muscles and Cy have entered. TOM calls. Tucson just doubled its chatter and Portland is trending likewise. He ends the call with the update that Davis and Saunders are in the air.

“We’re drawing to an inside straight,” I murmur, “we need Her Majesty face up.”

Drysdale says he has the address in downtown Omaha where Big and The Queen have made their noon meeting by ten minutes.

“Stack THIS protocol,” I say, telling my pilot partner to “get there fast.”