“So we’re dealing with the Russian mob here?” she asked back instead of answered.
“I don’t know,” I answered.
“They had Russian accents,” she told me.
“Then yes,” I replied, thinking that was a good guess.
“Not good,” she whispered and kept moving around.
“Aunt Bette, what are you doing?”
“Trying to find something sharp to cut through these restraints.”
I fell silent. I did this because Aunt Bette had also been in the Air Force. That was how Uncle Marsh met her. This was before she “retired” and she did this early then took a contract job working for the Air Force. She told me what she did but it always confused me. She talked in a lot of acronyms like “TDY” and “PCC” and “FIGMO”. I didn’t speak Air Force acronym so I never knew what she was on about. It sounded like a desk job. She boiled it down to “human resources” but I always got the sense that she likely wasn’t filing away performance evaluations because I’d visited her office before and after she retired and seen how people were around her. There was respect and there was the respect people gave Aunt Bette.
I also fell silent because Aunt Bette had been in an avalanche. No joke. She’d lucked out and had an air pocket once the snow stopped covering her. She also picked the right direction to dig. Further, she used Aunt Bette Secret Skills to find every other member of her skiing party and dug them out too. It took her hours but she didn’t stop. She had everyone out and even splinted someone who broke their leg before the rescue people found them. She made the papers. It was big news.
And there was the fact that she was in the Air Force at all. The Air Force didn’t attract wusses.
Therefore, I had a feeling Aunt Bette was thinking of taking on the Russian mob.
I finally ended my silence. “Why are you doing that?”
“To get us out.”
Oh boy.
“Maybe we should wait until Uncle Marsh figures out we’re not coming and raises an alarm,” I suggested. “Or maybe someone saw us being abducted from the parking garage and called the police.”
“Tyra, this is the Russian mob.”
“Yes, I know which is why I think maybe we shouldn’t cause a ruckus and make them angry.”
“We won’t make them angry,” she assured me though I wasn’t feeling assured.
“Well, I’m thinking, they went to all that trouble to kidnap us, we try to escape, that won’t make them happy,” I returned.
“Excellent!” she whispered excitedly. “I think I found an exposed nail.”
Oh boy.
I heard her sawing away at the plastic restraints and tried to push up to sitting, saying, “What about Lanie?”
“We’ll get her before we go.”
I got to my bottom and stared in the direction of my Aunt’s voice. “You mean rescue then escape?”
“Of course,” she replied like I was a dim bulb.
“Aunt Bette!” I hissed. “We don’t know where we are. We have no weapons –”
“I’ll figure out something.”
Wonderful. Visions of Aunt Bette McGyvering an explosive with that exposed nail, some lint from her pocket and spit filled my head just as the door opened quickly and shut just as quickly.
I went still and I heard nothing but booted feet moving on the floor. Aunt Bette had wisely stopped sawing away at the plastic restraints.
“You’re safe,” a deep voice growled. “I’m Hawk. I’m getting you out of here. Be quiet, be smart and do what I say. Yeah?”