So 26 is a good thing, right?

This week's Ten Word Challenge is: exponentially, Nightshade, braces, impossibility, the beginning of time, barracuda, playful banter, delve, automatic, bewildered

The Mini Challenge: fragment, hemoglobin, insipid, flourish, juxtapose

OK, this has gone on for some time now. If you are new to this then head on over to the Raven's Nest and read the other stories. I am much too lazy to do more than the Megawordzzle each week and for some time now I've kept a continuing series going.

If you want to catch up on what started the series then here are the links.
It started with "The case of the missing Singer"
"The Alley Cat Murders"
"That's a Rap"
"Untitled"
"Adventures of Thomas McCool Ace Comfort Advisor Part 1"
"Untitled"
"Untitled again"
"McCool and the gang part whatever"
"Ch...Ch...Changes"
"Untitled"
"Karma baby, karma"
"Life's little changes"

Bad, Badder, Baddest

Armistead Brewster the 3rd felt the vibration of the phone in his pocket. He excused himself and left the room where he and two other federal deputy prosecutors were meeting and took the text message in the hall. The operative was not one to engage in playful banter; the message simply said: "Op chngd 2trgt dl8d call l8tr." "What was the cowboy doing now?" he wondered silently to himself. This whole operation had taken a bad turn. The complexity was starting to eat at its effectiveness, like a barracuda let loose in a fish tank full of sardines.
Perhaps it as time to give this idea a dose of virtual nightshade and shut this damn thing down before it got too weird. The chances of exposure increased exponentially with each new incident. Of course that was not his decision to make. Brewster dialed his contact and relayed the update. Where the information went from there he wasn't sure, but he had an idea.

The contact wasn't in the service of the government anymore, at least not officially. No, she was a private contractor now and finding it extremely lucrative, though dealing with the likes of the insipid Armistead Brewster the 3rd was a pain. "What fools these dipshit idealogs were" she thought to herself. "As if any group in the government really had the people's best interest in mind." At least she had her priorities straight; she was in it for the money. Maybe she wasn't ideologically pure, but she was sure as hell a lot more honest than the people who paid her. No time to delve into that now, she needed to get to a secure phone. Since the beginning of time it had always been the middle managers who took care of operational problems. It was no different now. This fragment of information would be moved up the line with her recommendation for the next course of action. KR would be pissed, but he would listen to her suggestions as well.

The operative pulled the late model Lincoln town car into the clearing. He waited 25 minutes for his backup to arrive, looking bewildered and irritated. "What the hell are we doing here?" the backup asked. The operative said little, "we’ll be leaving my vehicle here" was all he murmured as he pulled his automatic with a flourish and put two slugs into the gas tank. The Lincoln seemed to expand, then lift up and finally sigh with a mighty roar. The resulting explosion and fire would leave little evidence and certainly none to connect this car to the accident. "Let's go" he ordered as the backup accelerated out of the clearing and on to the road, "Time to go back to DC."

McCool and Jean spent the night at Daisy's house after the accident. The insurance man wouldn't be on site till Monday anyway and besides, Daisy and her husband Ron were a hoot. The adjuster showed up and immediately upon seeing the accident scene and the remains of the Cool van told Thomas the van would be considered totaled. He assisted the McCools in getting a rental, a Chevy Malibu from Enterprise in a town 20 miles away.

"Well, we were going to sell the van anyway" Jean commented. "I know" McCool answered as they hit the road back towards North Carolina and home, "but I was kinda looking forward to showing it off and selling it at a profit." "Now we have to live with the settlement and insurance companies never give you what your vehicle is worth." "Worse yet, we won't see the money for all the customization" he concluded. "Let it go Tom" Jean answered, "It would have been a lot worse if we had been in the van." "Yea, we wouldn't be alive for me to be bitching about it, I get that baby."

It had seemed an impossibility that Gunny Henderson's information was correct. What would the DOJ be doing involved in his being set up wondered Claude? It made sense in a strange way though, only the US government would have the capability to juxtapose his hemoglobin with that of the real killer. If that was truly the case it went farther than just DOJ; the CIA or Homeland security had to be in it as well. This made the situation pretty bad, but not unsolvable. First he'd have a talk with this Armistead idiot (who the fuck named a kid Armistead anyway?) and go from there. Henderson indicated that the lead had come from a conversation picked up in a snotty Georgetown Men's club. This guy obviously thought he was secure there. Of course he was not. In the world of bad men, badder asses and the baddest, Claude was at the head of the last group. He would find out who was behind this before he dispatched Brewster. At that point his enemies would wonder WTF was up. He would have to make it look like a hit by someone else, perhaps the info Brewster supplied would give him an idea.

Sgt Johnson kissed Zan with all his heart. He wanted her to know he would be missing her. She stepped into the security line and waved. She was headed back home and he was headed back to the motel. The case was waiting. The call from McCool about the van had been a surprise. Lucky his friend and his wife were no where near the vehicle when the truck hit it. He would follow up on the accident with the investigating office later in the week. He was sure it was just a coincidence, but he was security conscious enough to check it out anyway. If they were getting close to the killer in the "Alley Cat Murders" then anything could be possible. He stepped around the temporary braces put in place to hold up the new security screen and smiled at Zan as she walked down the corridor toward the plane. Why did they always seem to be saying goodbye?

RT