Bab’s New Year’s Resolution 54

List of Characters.

Lola Smith Bab’s adopted trans daughter.
Callista Denton (Callie). Transgendered Duchess of Denton.
Margaret Denton (Maggie). Callie’s wife.
Molly Denton Callie’s grandmother
Ellie Denton Callie’s mother.
Bab’s Barbara Smith. Lola’s adoptive ‘Nana’
Olivia Smith Bab’s adopted daughter.
Angela Smith Bab’s newly adopted daughter
Erica Bab’s foster daughter.
Sergeant Bridie Davies Lady Police detective protecting the girls.
Sergeant Brian Davies. Bridie’s twin brother.
Inspector John, Heading up the anti-rape-gang operation.
Gareth Jenkins, Police office trained in firearms and protection.
Belinda Harrington Bab’s university girlfriend.
Aaron Talbot Surgical registrar – married to –
Shirley Talbot Lecturer at Local university.
Mickey Talbot Aaron and Shirley’s oldest son.
Jessica Talbot Aaron & Shirley’s middle daughter.
Bianca Talbot Aaron & Shirley’s youngest daughter.
Henry Denton Callie’s only son.
Charlotte Denton Callie’s only daughter.
Beverly. Callie’s maternal great aunt (Ellie’s paternal aunt)

Bab’s New Year’s Resolution 54.

It was getting dark by the time the Aston swept onto the gravelled forecourt of Denton Hall but their arrival excitement quickly turned to concern as they spotted two police cars parked ominously by the main door.

“Oh, oh. Trouble,” Lola observed as she leapt out of the passenger door before Beverly had even stopped.

She was about to race up the steps to the imposing doors when a Police officer intervened.

“Where are you going miss?”

“What’s the trouble officer?”

“There’s some concern about a missing elderly lady and a teen-aged girl and a young boy.”

“Oh shit! I thought all this was over,” Lola cursed as Beverly and Belinda joined her.”

Lola was already phoning the house but Ellie arrived at the door before she’d finished dialling.
“Bab’s, Erica and Henty have not returned from the trains.”

“How long?” Lola cried nervously.

“It’s eight now and we expected them back at five.”

Lola turned to the police constable.

“I presume you know why this is important?”

“Yes, my inspector is on his way over from York.”

“Where’s Callie.”

“Doing what she does best, trying to get a track on them.”

“How does she hope to do that? They could have changed vehicles by now.”

“That’s something we cannot know or do anything about just now.

Lola cursed quietly as Ellie explained further.

“One of the counter girls in the station café got a part of the kidnapper’s number plate and the colour of the van. The police have already reduced the list to twenty vans, all white Ford Transits with a window behind the driver’s seat,”

“So Callie’s on to it? –“

“Yes. In her computer cupboard with the door locked. She won’t even let the police in but she’s busy.”

Lola sagged with relief as she realised exactly what Callie was about. Monitoring several main roads and motorways in the South and West Yorkshire counties. She immediately dashed up to Callie’s bedroom suite to find two police guarding the door.

“She won’t let anybody in miss and she’s asked me to lock the door from this side.”

“She’ll let me but she doesn’t like people to know too much. There’s a superintendent down in Leeds who knows of her work, here’s his number. Phone him while I tell Callie I’m here.”

The sergeant frowned but accepted Lola’s proffered phone while Lola knocked loudly on the outer bedroom door and called as loud as she could to Callie who had locked herself in her innermost sanctum.

The sergeant winced as Lola made the god-awfulest screech to project her voice through the two doors plus the armouring of Callie’s safe room. As he rubbed his ear the Leeds superintendent came through and explained to the sergeant.

“I’ve just had my inspector from York on the phone, I know about the case sergeant, it’s very important. Let me speak to the girl who owns the phone.”

The sergeant handed Lola’s phone back to her and a few brief words on speaker-phone, persuaded the sergeant to unlock Callie’s Bedroom suite door. He followed Lola into the bedroom as she went immediately to the disguised door that resembled part of the wall panelling. There, she reached for a metal ‘paperweight’ on Maggie’s dressing table and tapped on the armoured door.

“Who is it?” Callie’s voice filtered faintly through the door.

“It’s Lola, we’ve just got back from Hull, why didn’t you phone to tell us?”

“I was a bit preoccupied with the kidnap of my son and Erica, not to mention Bab’s.”

“Well, if you let me in, maybe I can help with your monitoring.”

A video screen activated above the door and Callie’s image appeared whereupon, she spoke.

“Ask the sergeant to go back into the hall and guard the bedroom door, then I’ll let you in.”

The sergeant shrugged and agreed then Lola heard the lock turn and Callie invited her in. Belinda took it upon herself to follow Lola through the armoured door then stood expectantly awaiting some sort of duty.

“Right, what d’ you want me to do.?” Lola asked.

“Both of you monitor those twelve screens on that panel. We’re looking for the van, it’s a standard height, white transit and here’s the full registration. The camera at the station car-park recorded it.”

The pair set to immediately using both their own eyes and the automated number recognition camera’s. Callie was doing a search of the registered owner and running various names associated with the owner through the national police computer. She was also running other searches on her own private search programmes and the room hummed quietly.

Eventually, Callie gave a satisfied grunt of relief.

“I think we’ve located the van. It’s driving down the M1.”

Even as she fisted the air, Callie was calling the police.

“ M1, junction 12 just north of Luton. Three people of Mediterranean appearance in the front seat and the number-plate matches.”

Even as the police were responding to Callie’s advice, she was already securing her computers and motioning to Lola.

“Come on Lola, Belinda, please stay here and use this phone to call us if anything changes. I’m getting the chopper out.”

“But I don’t know how anything works.”

“I’ll send Maggie to help you, she’s currently reassuring the others in the living room.”

Within a few minutes of whirl-wind activity, Lola and Callie were airborne and heading south. A few brief conversations with Belinda confirmed that the police had intercepted the van but there was a stand-off because the kidnappers were heavily armed and desperate. Every minute, more armed police were arriving at the scene.
As she stared at the growing ring of people on the ground, Lola turned to Callie.

“What are we going to do?”

“Well, land for one thing. My staff at the railway restaurant said that one of them appeared to have what looked like an assault rifle. We’re un-armed so if we try to land where the police are gathering, we’ll be sitting ducks. The police might mistake us for the criminals and the criminals will think we’re police. I’m going to land in that field by the farmhouse. Try and get the police on the international air distress frequency.”

“What’s that?” Lola asked.

“One two one point five megs. Just flip that switch and depress the button on your mike.”

Lola did as instructed and a traffic controller immediately responded. Callie explained the situation and they were cleared to land as they had declared. The controller gave her the police frequency and soon Lola was talking to the police as Callie brought their chopper to land beside a large stone barn. Callie explained.

“If the gang or accomplices are anywhere around the farmhouse they won’t be able to attack us here from all sides.”

“The police seem to think they’re in that other building by the big car park. Judging by the way they have encircled the area.” Lola opined.

“Yeah. Well for us, it’s better safe than sorry. Hop out.”

Lola did as requested and Callie followed with equal alacrity. Immediately, they scrambled towards a dense, high hedge that covered them to the far corner of the car-park, there two armed officers pointed their guns at them and ordered them to identify themselves.

“We’re from the Helicopter!” Callie declared. “Callie Denton and Lola Smith.”

Once officer lowered the barrel of his gun as he confirmed with the incident commander who immediately ordered the officer to escort them to the command centre. When they arrived, the superintendent wagged his head and sighed.

“You again!”

“I’m the mother of the young boy Henry,” Callie declared.

“Well Miss, I’d rather you were a lot further back. If you’ve got anything to offer you can pass it to my support team.”

“That’s exactly what I was hoping but first I have to alert my son. He’s only eight but he’ll know what to do when he recognises my voice.”

“Meaning?”

Meaning this.

Callie took out her smart phone and tapped on a strange icon to reveal the rather obscene and intimate image of a child’s penis nestled in a pair of boys underpants. The inspector looked at it and frowned.

“What’s that?”

“That’s my son’s smart phone and I’m glad to tell you, he’s still got it tucked away down his underpants in his crotch. It’s a very small phone that I cobbled together from other phone parts so that it’s much smaller than a normal smart phone.”

“Bloody hell! You’re telling me he’s still got it!?”

“If it’s still down his pants, yes. Now, if I can alert him by shouting to him, he’s smart enough to try and give you and me some sort of video image of the situation inside the barn.”

The superintendent was smart enough to realise the enormous advantage this would give his team whilst also realising he would have to enlist Cathy’s input as she explained further.

“My family have been in a similar situation before with relatives of these vermin so I’ve practiced this game with my son Henry several times. He will only respond to my voice or his mother’s or his grandmother’s and we have a password he understands. We have practiced it many, many times, almost like a game but it’s not a game. He’s seen the bullet holes in our house!”

The superintendent wagged his head in disbelief as he re-affirmed.

“And you can speak to him – on the phone?”

“Not exactly but he’ll likely take the phone out as soon as he feels safe enough to do so and put it somewhere giving us a good view of the interior of the barn; all on silent of course. Now I need to somehow get close enough to make myself heard and identified.”

“I’ve got a bull-horn here. It’s got good reproduction; he should recognise your voice on that.”

Callie grinned as she recognised she would not need to put herself in danger.

“Good, I’ll pretend I’m a police-woman trying to reassure the hostages. That was the game we adopted.”

“Very Clever Mrs Denton. Good plan, that way you won’t reveal yourself and the gang won’t realise the circumstanced have changed.”

Callie smiled as she took the bull-horn and told the first big lie.

“Hello in the Barn! I’m Woman-police sergeant smith and I’m part of the police negotiating team.”

“What d’ you want?” A gang-member responded to the lady’s voice.”

“Firstly, I want to know if the hostages are okay. Is anybody injured”

“They’re okay! Nobody’s hurt – yet!”

“Good,” Callie continued, ”now by our estimates, the hostages have not eaten since eight-o’clock this morning. Can they confirm this?”

“Bugger the food for them. If you don’t let us go, we start killing the hostages, starting with the girl.”

Callie began to get nervous. Somehow she had to let Henry know she was outside the barn and more help was now at hand. She called once more into the bull-horn.

“We’ll come to that later. We know for a fact that those hostages have not eaten since this morning. We’ll be bringing some fluids and sandwiches to the front threshing doors of the barn and leave it on the ground. There will be tea for you adults and milk for the boy. Then we’ll discuss any negotiations.”

When she had finished, the superintendent asked her.

“Who gave you permission to give them food?”

“It’s wasn’t about the food. I simply needed to insert our password into our conversation and if Henry heard it he’ll let us know soon. Let’s get back to the incident van.”

“And did you?” The superintendent asked.

“Yes. Any minute know that picture on my phone will come alive. Let’s get over to your van.”

Callie returned the bull-horn to the superintendent then ran for the van. Seeing her urgency, the superintendent followed suite and as they reached the police incident vehicle Callie checked her phone. Even as she held it in her hand, the image changed as the phone was obviously being removed from Henry’s pants and turned to point down the barn . Callie showed the image to the super’ and explained.

“It’s a very small phone with a wide view camera. Henry will be looking to put it somewhere inconspicuous but covering the door and wherever the gang are located.”

Even as she spoke, the superintendent observed.

“Look, he’s pointed it towards the big threshing door. And that’s covering all three of the gang. Clever kid.”

For a moment, the image went black as the camera toppled over into the hay but eventually, Henry had the phone securely located into a hay bale and almost invisible. The superintendent grinned as he studied the video images before Callie explained further.

“I might be able to patch this into one of your computers if you’ve got one in the van.”

The observer in the van looked at the phone then immediately dug a micro-USB connection from the draw under the desk-top.

“This should do it. Plug it in there.”

Immediately after connecting her smart-phone to the computers, the interior of the barn showed up and the superintendent created a party call. On a second screen several faces grinned back simultaneously.

“Have you all got the barn pictures on your mobiles?” Callie checked.

All the armed officers nodded silently and Callie turned beseechingly to the superintendent.

“It’s all yours now officer.”