“Gas masks?” Myra looked puzzled.

  “Apparently, these guys have been bound and gagged for almost two days, with no bathroom breaks, among pallets of bok choy, broccoli, and cabbage.”

  Charles gave a sideways look to Fergus. “And to think we get to have all the fun.”

  Everyone burst out laughing. “Seriously, it’s going to be a hose-down. You better get the gear ready,” Izzie said.

  Charles and Fergus headed out to retrieve the equipment needed to handle the toxic package that was about to arrive. Charles also tossed a pair of disposable pants into Leroy’s cell and slid a roast beef sandwich through the lockbox on the door. Even though his hands were still zip-tied, Leroy would be able to manage a change of britches and shove a sandwich in his mouth.

  The women sat at the kitchen table. Myra looked composed. “Once Charles and Fergus sanitize the other three, we’ll start with Bennie. Besides being a bit of a pervert, he seems the weakest of those three. He may cave quickly. From what we discovered and what Leroy said, Eric is arrogant but not necessarily deadly. He will most likely give in. We’ll save Darius for last.”

  Annie was the next to speak. “What do you have in mind as their final punishment?”

  “I almost feel sorry for Leroy,” Myra said, and then paused. “Almost. He’s just not playing with a full deck.” She thought for a moment. “How are we doing in Congo River Basin?”

  Myra was referring to a 5,000-square-mile wildlife refuge situated in one of the most remote areas of the jungle. It was a project she and Annie had started years ago that was now managed by a team of veterinary specialists.

  Annie began to type on her tablet. She read for a moment before saying, “They need someone to look after the forest elephants.”

  Myra smiled. “I think that would be a perfect job for Leroy, don’t you?”

  Heads bobbed in agreement. Annie added, “He’ll never be able to leave, and should he try, well, the shock from his ankle monitor should teach him not to attempt it again. I think he’ll be okay among the flora and fauna. He can’t hurt anyone, and he’ll stay out of trouble unless he messes with a momma chimp.”

  Libby raised her hand. “May I ask how all of this works?”

  Myra gave her the 411 on how they arranged for transportation for certain individuals. They would then spend the rest of their lives in a remote part of the world, doing penance for the evil deeds they had inflicted on others. “We promote and enforce the ‘karma’s a bitch’ concept.”

  “Hear! Hear!” Izzie slapped the table. The others joined in, with Lady adding her two cents’ worth of woofs.

  “So you’re going to arrange for Leroy to spend the rest of his life in a jungle looking after elephants?” Libby sounded a bit puzzled.

  “Correct,” Myra said.

  Annie nodded as she typed a few more things on her tablet. “The transport vehicle should be here within the hour. One down, three to go.”

  “That’s incredible.” Libby was awestruck.

  “We do our best,” Annie said.

  Alexis raised her hand and put up her fist. “Whatever it takes!” More table slapping ensued.

  Charles and Fergus returned to the kitchen, wearing hooded disposable jumpsuits, gloves, shoe coverings, and ventilator face masks dangling around their necks. They were carrying a large canvas bag filled with similar items.

  Annie looked at Fergus. “What’s the plan?”

  “The usual. We’ll remove the visitors with hand trucks, cut off the tape and their clothes, hose them down, and give them disposable jumpsuits and paper shoes.”

  “Perfect,” Annie said.

  Izzie’s phone rang. It was Maggie. She put it on speaker. “Hey, we’re turning in to the farm. Where should we park?”

  “Building five,” Charles said. “Crack on!” Along with Fergus, he hauled the large canvas bag into a golf cart, climbed in, and headed to the rendezvous point.

  Kathryn pulled on the airhorn of her rig, sending two blasts of noise through the air. Maggie was hanging out of the window, waving madly. “We made it!” She jumped out of the cab and flung herself on to the grass and started kissing the ground.

  Kathryn came around from her side. “Such a drama queen.” She shook hands with Charles and Fergus. “I’m a bit too road-trashed for a hug.”

  “Don’t be absurd.” Charles gave her a big bear hug, followed by Fergus, who helped Maggie off of the turf.

  “Fair warning—it’s putrid in there.” Kathryn jerked her thumb over her shoulder.

  “I think the vegetables committed suicide.” Maggie brushed off her pants. Not that it mattered. She was a mess from head to toe. “I have to say, I’ll take a stakeout any day.” Which was saying a lot, since stakeouts were one of Maggie’s least favorite things to do. “But don’t tell Annie!”

  Fergus chuckled. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

  Kathryn lowered the platform. She, Fergus, and Charles got on, and she raised it level with the sliding overhead door. “Ready?”

  The men put their masks on and looked over at Kathryn. “Care to join us?”

  “Uh, thanks, but no. Feel free to go about without me. One is in the far left corner, another in the middle on the right, and the third is behind this row of pallets.” She pointed.

  Maggie was busy pulling garbage bags from behind the seats. “What should I do with these?” she called up to the men.

  “Put them on the workshop table inside. We’ll take a look at them once we fumigate these parasites,” Charles replied.

  The first one off the truck was Bennie. They hoisted his almost lifeless hulk onto the hand truck. Kathryn lowered it down and wheeled the heap into the building, depositing him in a concrete stall. She went back and sent the hand truck up on the lift. The second down was Eric, who was taken to his own private stall. Then came Darius, who tried to put up a fight with whatever energy he had left. The grunts and groans were pathetic.

  The three men were now ensconced in their separate concrete stalls, their hands tied together and fastened to the walls. One by one, Fergus and Charles cut off their duct-taped wrappers with surgical scissors and tossed them in a large bin with a large orange sign that said BIOHAZARD. Fergus scrubbed the men down with a harsh bristle brush as Charles hosed them clean, washing the filth down the drains in the floor. They let them dry for several minutes while Charles and Fergus changed into clean jumpsuits, sealed the stinking pile of human waste in a bin, and rolled it out the door. They put the bin in a small shed with the same BIOHAZARD markings. A proper disposal company would retrieve it later.

  Charles and Fergus helped the men into their new attire, taking care that none of them would try any type of heroics. Once they were redressed, they zip-tied them to the iron rings in the concrete benches in their cells—not that any of them had an ounce of strength left to resist.

  Charles and Fergus gave each of the men the same instructions: “Do not attempt to escape. You will be brought in for questioning. Do not lie.”

  Charles and Fergus then went into the workshop to see what Maggie and Kathryn had unloaded. There were three almost identical piles of broken pieces of plastic and shredded paper. At first glance, it was difficult to figure out what it all was. A Lego game gone awry?

  Maggie poked through the pieces with a long pick. “Hey, check this out.” She produced something from one of the piles that resembled a switch. “Looks like it was once a push-button switch, the kind you see on a lot of technical equipment, like monitors and computers.”

  “Well, perhaps Mr. Lancaster can shed some light on it, since he was the one who deposited it, correct?” Charles addressed Maggie.

  “Correct. Kathryn tailed him, and I did the dumpster diving.”

  “You are such a sport!” Charles grinned and patted her on the shoulder.

  “Oh yeah. That’s me, all right.” Maggie smirked.

  Charles turned to Maggie. “It just occurred to me that you’ve been here for more than half an hour and haven’t mentioned food. Are you all right?”

  Maggie nodded in the direction of the hazmat containers. “Kinda lost my appetite.”

  “I’m sure that won’t last long,” Kathryn teased. “Do you know she ate two sandwiches in a row and then asked for a Thanksgiving turkey sandwich and French fries with brown gravy?”

  “Well, we’ll see to it that everyone has a good solid meal tonight. I assume after you shower and change?” Charles looked Maggie and Kathryn up and down.

  “Please! Now!” Maggie moaned.

  “We’ll bring the men over to the basement one at a time. Myra is anxious to speak to all of them.”

  “I can only imagine!” Maggie said.

  Fergus chuckled. “I’m looking forward to it. I’m sure Annie will want to have a go at them, too.”

  Everyone chortled, imagining what was coming.

  “What are you going to do with the trailer?” Fergus asked.

  “I’ll have someone haul it out of here. I already contacted the buyer and seller and let them know the delivery did not go according to plan. Well, their plan. I told them we will make proper remunerations,” Kathryn explained.

  “Bravo. Well done, Kathryn!” Charles said.

  “What about me?” Maggie pouted.

  “You too, Maggie.” Charles shook his head. Maggie was an amusing sort. “Why don’t the both of you go to the house and clean up? Fergus and I will relocate them shortly.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Maggie cheered. She got her belongings out of the cab and tossed them into the back of the golf cart. Kathryn did the same. This time, Maggie was behind the wheel and peeled out, making a mad dash back to civilization.

  With their yapping and woofing, the dogs gave notice there were visitors. Everyone got up from the table to greet the daring duo. Maggie put her arms up to stall people off. “I stink. I’m gross!”

  “And we love you!” Annie was the first to grab the curly redhead.

  Myra threw her arms around Kathryn. “I am so, so relieved!” Myra’s eyes welled up. “Nikki is doing great, and you’re back! Back with a bounty, no less!”

  Once everyone had hugged one another, they introduced Libby. She was overwhelmed with the warmth and deep friendship they showed for one another, extending now to her, as well. It had been a very long time since she was surrounded with this kind of sisterhood. Yes, she loved her neighbors. Yes, she loved her home. And yes, she got lonely from time to time. She made a decision then and there to be more social. Volunteer somewhere. Do something more with her life than just tinker with technology.

  Kathryn explained what was going on in the outer building where the men were being held. And that they were getting ready to bring them to the basement of the farm. Myra’s and Annie’s eyes were twinkling. “This ought to be fun,” Myra said as she took a stun gun out from the cupboard.

  Back in the cells, Charles and Fergus placed burlap bags over the men’s heads. One at a time, they were brought to the house, taken down the stairs, and deposited in their own soundproof cell near Leroy’s. The transition took about thirty minutes. They had to be careful so as no one would trip.

  The women then went down the stairs single file, saluting Lady Liberty as they entered the war room. Charles flipped on the closed-circuit cameras for each of the cells.

  Leroy was already asleep after eating the sandwich he had been served earlier. Bennie was a heap of dough in a paper suit. Eric looked like a deer in the headlights, and Darius looked like he wanted to kill somebody.

  Myra entered Bennie’s cell first. Charles and Fergus stood behind her. All eyes were watching the enormous monitors in the war room.

  Myra turned on the high beam of her flashlight. Bennie recoiled from the light.

  “You are going to tell me exactly what you’ve been up to since you got out of prison,” Myra stated.

  Bennie could barely speak. “I don’t know what you are talking ’bout.”

  “Bennie, Bennie, Bennie. You are here. Tied up. In a cell. Do you think you can skirt any issue I bring to your attention?”

  He didn’t answer. Myra pressed the heel of her shoe on his pinky toe.

  “Okay, okay,” he said feebly. “What do you want to know?”

  “Start from the beginning. How you met your comrades and what you’ve been doing since. Those are not difficult questions.”

  Bennie described a scenario similar to the one Leroy had related: They met in prison; Eric had money; Darius bullied his way in. Eric had promised to pay everyone $50k.

  “And what was your role in all of this?” Myra asked calmly.

  “We . . . me and Eric . . . would locate people for Darius.”

  “And why would you do that?”

  Bennie finally looked straight into the light. “Have you met the guy?”

  “Not yet, but I am truly looking forward to it.” Myra remained as calm as ever.

  “Anyway, he would give us a name. Then Eric and I would meet in Arizona and do a deep dive into the dark web and find the addresses. We did it three different times.”

  Myra was right—Bennie rolled over like a tire down a hill.

  “And what were the names of those people?” Myra asked.

  Bennie thought for a moment. “First guy was Jack something.”

  “Jack Emery?” Myra asked as her blood began to boil.

  “Yeah. That’s it. We found him in Virginia.”

  “And then what?”

  “And then nothing. We sent Darius the address.”

  “Did he ever say what he would do with this information?”

  “Nope, and I didn’t ask. You don’t ask Darius questions.”

  “We’ll just see about that.” Myra felt for the stun gun in her pocket. “Continue.”

  “Then he sent another request. This time it was a guy in Texas. Paul something.”

  “Do you have memory problems?” Myra asked.

  “I’m a little unnerved, if you must know.” Bennie was getting a bit snarky.

  “Well, good. You said Paul something?”

  “Yeah, Stern or Stein.”

  “It’s Scovil, for future reference.” Myra was checking off the list she had memorized. “Who else?”

  “A woman named Gina Mason. She was in Austin.” Bennie coughed. “And that’s all I know.”

  “Tell me—what was your participation in all of this? Just finding people?”

  “And getting tickets and stuff to the other guys.”

  “Such as?”

  “Eric got some phony IDs made up for us. I arranged for them to be delivered to the airport.”

  Annie whispered into a microphone that transmitted to an earpiece Myra was wearing. “This checks out so far.”

  Assured that Bennie was telling her the truth, Myra pressed on. “After you sent Darius the third name, what did you do?”

  “Nothin’, really. I went back to Vegas and met some woman. I think she slipped me a mickey or something, and I ended up here.”

  “Okay, Benjamin. Sit tight. I’ll be back.” Myra turned away. She, Charles, and Fergus went back to the war room.

  “What do you think?” Myra asked the assembled group.

  Alexis was the first to speak. “I think he’s legit as far as his story. I didn’t spend a lot of time with the dude, but he didn’t come across as dangerous or violent.”

  “Okay. So what do we do with Bennie?”

  Libby raised her hand.

  Myra smiled. “You don’t have to raise your hand, dear.”

  Libby blushed. “Sorry—newbie. So the guy isn’t violent, but he does like looking at young naked girls.”

  “He was not just looking,” Myra said. “He was photographing her and selling the photos.”

  “If we’re fitting the punishment with the crime,” continued Libby, “then perhaps he should have to work in hospice care for the elderly for the rest of his life. Tending to people who are sick and dying.”

  “That certainly would give someone an appreciation of life,” Alexis added. “I’m for that solution.”

  Myra looked around the room. “Any objections?” No one said a word. “All in favor?”

  Unanimous “ayes” filled the room.

  “Excellent. We’ll send him to a hospital in India. We’ll contact Pearl and ask her help.”

  “Pearl Barnes is a retired justice. She runs a sort of underground railroad for those in need, and she helps us . . . distribute . . . certain people around the globe,” Maggie explained to Libby.

  “Kathryn? Please?” Annie looked at Kathryn, knowing she had issues with Pearl that went years back. Both Myra and Annie thought forcing Kathryn and Pearl to deal with one another would bridge the gap, but so far, it had been to no avail.

  “Yeah, whatever.” Kathryn knew her fellow Sisters would always make her be the one to deal with Pearl, until they could make amends. Kathryn would be the one to meet Pearl at the usual meadow and hand off Bennie. Kathryn punched in Pearl’s number and sent a text, telling her:

  Pick up package at farm.

  Next up was Eric. Myra went into his cell with Charles and Fergus close behind her. She asked him the same questions she’d asked before. His answers lined up with Bennie’s.

  “So you provided the funds for this escapade?” Myra prodded.

  “Uh-huh,” he answered begrudgingly.

  “Why was that?”

  “I had to get someone to go to the Cayman Islands. Leroy was the perfect stooge.”

  “And how did Darius and Bennie fit in?”

  Eric gave the same explanation: You needed a posse in jail. Darius was a leech. A scary one. Eric was in a talkative mood. “He made me pay for a three-D printer. Cost a bundle.”

  Charles snapped his fingers and elbowed Fergus. “So that’s what all the plastic was from!”

  “What was he going to do with a three-D printer?” Myra asked.

  “I have no idea, and I wasn’t about to ask. You don’t ask Darius questions.”

  “Hmm. Seems to be a theme,” Myra noted. “Let me see if I have this straight—you offered to pay each of them fifty K for helping you retrieve five million?”

  Eric shrugged. “That was the plan. Yes.”

  “I see. Okay, Eric. That will be all for now.” The three exited the cell and returned to the war room.