Chapter Six: We Are the Victims of Treachery
Pretty scary story, huh? You bet. But don’t forget that I tried to warn you.
Where were we? Oh yes, Drover and I had just hotfooted it back to our bedroom-office under the gas tanks, for reasons which should be obvious by now. Monster Woman was running loose on our ranch and nobody was safe.
Once inside the office, we took the only sensible course of action available to us—we dived beneath our gunnysack beds and went into Bunker Position. There, safe inside our armored bunkers, we waited and listened. Nothing. Not a sound.
No, wait! There was a sound . . . a clacking noise. At first I couldn’t identify the source, but after running it through our Sound Analyzer . . . well, I still couldn’t identify the source. In the silence of the bunker, I reached for the Microphone of My Mind and sent out an urgent coded message to the rest of the troops.
“Oatmeal, this is Sirloin. Can you read me, over?”
Silence. Then . . . Drover’s voice came over the crackle of the radio. “Are you talking to me?”
“Of course I’m talking to you. This is the Security Division’s special frequency. Who else would be listening?”
“Well . . . I don’t know.”
“Do you read me?”
“I don’t think so. It’s too dark in here.”
“Drover, can you hear me?”
“Am I Drover or Oatmeal?”
“You’re Oatmeal . . . unless you want Monster Woman to know your name, rank, and serial number.”
“Oh. I get it now. Oatmeal’s a cereal.”
“Roger on that.”
“But how come I have to be Oatmeal and you get to be Sirloin? It doesn’t seem fair.”
I let out a groan. “Oatmeal, forget about food and pay close attention. Over here in Bunker One we picked up an odd clacking sound on Earatory Scanners.”
“Yeah, I heard it too. Over here. Over.”
“An odor? You’re picking up some kind of scent? Quick, give me a description.”
“Well . . . I can smell a gunnysack odor, over.”
I lifted my nose ten degrees and tested the air. “Hmmm. We’re picking it up over here too. I wonder if it might be . . . wait! Hold everything. Oatbran, what we’re picking up is the smell of our gunnysacks, so disregard all references to gunnysack odors, over.”
“Yeah, mine stinks.”
“What? You’ve discovered a land mine? Why wasn’t I informed of this sooner!”
“No, I said mine stinks.”
“Roger on that, Bran Flakes. The clues are beginning to fall in place: the odd clacking sound, the strange odor, and now you’ve traced it to a land mine in your bunker. At this point we don’t know why the land mine has a bad smell or who planted it here in the office, but the important thing is, don’t touch it! Those land mines are extremely dangerous. In fact . . . Buckwheat, this is T-Bone. Evacuate the bunkers! Repeat: evacuate all bunkers!”
I tripped the Emergency Alarm, went flying up six flights of stairs, and emerged into the light of daylight of day. Whew! That was close. Moments later, Drover came scrambling out of his bunker.
I looked him over. He appeared to be uninjured. “How are you doing, soldier?”
“Well . . . I’m all confused. I don’t understand . . .”
“Never mind, we don’t have time to discuss it. We’ve had a serious breach of security. Let’s go straight into Alert Stage One. Ready? Go!”
Have we discussed our Alert Procedures? Maybe not, and there’s a reason for that. Most of this stuff is so secret and highly classified, we can’t discuss it with the general public, but maybe it wouldn’t hurt to reveal a few details—if you’ll promise not to blab it around. Promise?
Okay, Alert Stage One is our highest stage of readiness. In this stage of the procedure, two dogs stand back-to-back, looking in opposite directions. One dog surveys the North and West Quadrants, while the other conducts Visual Sweeps of the South and East Quadrants. That way, two dogs can spot enemy troop movements in all four directions.
It sounds pretty complicated, doesn’t it? Well, it is complicated, but what else would you expect from the Elite Troops of the Security Division? Protecting this ranch is no ball of wax and sometimes it gets pretty derned complicated.
We went into the Stage One Alert Formation and did Visual Scans of . . . well, just about everything. The seconds crept by and there were no reports of enemy spies or troop movements. But then . . .
“Drover, I don’t want to alarm you, but once again I’m picking up that odd clacking sound. Can you hear it over there?”
“Let’s see. Oh yeah, I hear it now.”
“Okay, let’s study the sound and try to identify its source. It could lead us straight to the person or persons who’ve been planting all these land mines.”
“Well, I think . . . it was me.”
“What? You planted mines in your own bunker?”
“No, the clacking noise. I was cold and my teeth were chattering.”
“Your teeth were . . . but what about the land mine? You did see a land mind, didn’t you?”
“Nope, not me. It was so dark in there, I couldn’t see anything.”
“So you’re saying . . .”
The air hissed out of my lungs and the upper half of my body sagged. I marched a few steps away and looked up at the sky. A few flakes of snow were beginning to fall from the dreary gray clouds. Was that a clue? No.
I marched back over to my . . . whatever he was. “Drover, I must speak frankly to someone. I’d rather not share my deepest thoughts with a nincompoop, but, well, you’re the only one here.”
“Gosh, thanks.”
“No problem. Drover, sometimes I feel that I’m being crushed by the awesome responsibilities of running this ranch. I mean, the mysteries, the investigations, the endless details wear me down to the point where I feel . . .” I paused and glanced over both shoulders, just in case we were being watched. “Drover, sometimes I get the feeling that we’re involved in things that are . . . really stupid.”
Drover gasped. “Gosh, no fooling?”
“Yes. I know that shocks you, but we must face the facts. That conversation we held in our bunkers . . . Drover, it was all garbage. There was no enemy spy and no land mine.”
“Well, I wondered about that.”
“Yes, and you know what else?” I began pacing. “I can’t even remember why we took refuge in our bunkers. Obviously, we were fleeing from something . . . but what?”
“Well, let me think here. I can’t remember either.”
“There, you see what I mean? The pressure is getting to both of us, Drover. We’re doing all these odd things and we don’t even know why. Maybe we need a vacation, a few days off. Maybe . . .”
Drover sat straight up. “Wait, I remember now! It was Monster Woman.”
I stopped pacing and froze. “You’re right. Holy smokes, Droker, into the bunkers! She’s probably spying on us this very minute!”
We dived into our bunkers, screwed down the hatches, and waited in the throbbing silence for something to happen. Nothing happened. The seconds crawled by. Then . . . a peculiar thought began crawling through the ant den of my mind.
“Drover, can you hear me?”
“I thought I was Oatmeal.”
“You were Buckwheat, but let’s skip all that. I must ask you a very important question. Did you actually see Monster Woman?”
“Nope, not me. But Pete did.”
“Yes, or so he claimed. And you know what else? It was Pete who suggested that I escort Sally May’s car down the road. He emphasized that I should go slow. Remember that?”
“Well . . .”
“And Pete was laughing his little head off. Remember?”
“Yeah, but you said he was coughing.”
“I said no such thing. Are you seeing the pattern here?”
“Not yet. I’m too cold.”
“There’s a pattern here, Drover, a very disturbing pattern. Now listen carefully. In five seconds, we will leave our respective bunkers and meet in the Conference Room. There, we will hold a secret high-level meeting of the Security Division’s highest-ranking officers. Ready? Go!”
Exactly five seconds later, Drover and I gathered in the Conference Room. Before the meeting began, I did a complete security scan of the room, just to make sure we hadn’t been bugged and penetrated by Outside Forces. Only then did I take my place at the front and begin the secret presentation.
“All right, men, I’ll get right to the point. We have just learned that Operation Monster Woman was a complete farce.”
Sitting on the front row, Drover let out a gasp. “Oh my gosh, you mean . . .”
“Yes, exactly. We’ve reviewed all the files and records from the case and it’s now clear that there was no Monster Woman.”
“Gosh, you mean . . .”
“Yes, Drover. We’ve been duped. That wasn’t Monster Woman. It was Sally May. She was merely mad and looked like a monster.”
Drover blinked his eyes and grinned. “You know, I was going to say that, but . . .”
“But you didn’t. You kept silent and allowed the entire Security Division to be dragged down into a disgraceful scandal. Because of you, Pete has made us look like monkeys.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t do anything.”
“That is exactly the point, Drover. You did nothing. You stood back and allowed your superior officer to make an idiot of himself. How does that make you feel?”
“Well, at least it wasn’t me.”
“What? Speak up.”
“I said . . . I hope I can live with the guilt.”
I marched over to him and laid a paw upon his shoulder. “I’m glad this hurts you, son. It should. You really let us down this time.”
He sniffled. “I don’t know what I did, but I’ll try not to do it again.”
“That’s the spirit.” I lifted my head to a proud angle and took a deep breath of air. “Now it’s all behind us, Drover. What’s done is done. But this was the straw that broke the camel’s haystack.”
He gave me a blank stare. “What does that mean?”
“It means . . . WAR! Pete has inflicted a terrible wound, but like the mythical Tucson, we will rise again from the ashes.”
“Phoenix.”
“What?”
“I think it was the mythical Phoenix. Tucson’s in Arizona.”
“So is Phoenix.”
“Well . . . how about Flagstaff?”
“Close enough. Like the mythical Flagstaff, we will rise from the ashes and seek our revenge on Pete the Barncat.”
And with that, the room erupted in a roar of applause and cheering. It had been one of the most inspiring speeches of my entire career. The Security Division had come back from the edge of the brink and we were now at war with Mister Kitty Cheater.