The Thirteenth Snare

By Mary Jeddore Blakney

An excerpt:

“Finish up,” said Shannon to Hedy. “Captain wants to see you.”

The little room Shannon took her to was practically wallpapered with maps. Paper maps, parchment maps and even a leather map lined the walls. Some were modern, some were out of date, and a few were labeled in Latin with incomplete continents and the requisite warnings about sea monsters.

“Hedy Nyborg, sir,” Shannon announced in the doorway.

The captain looked up from staring at something on his desk. “Good,” he replied. “Leave her here and shut the door.” He was smaller than Shannon, not much bigger than Hedy herself.

Hedy felt Shannon’s hand shoving her in the back, and the next moment she was stumbling forward into the cramped office.

The captain smiled and swiveled in his chair. “I’ve been working on your ransom note, but I seem to be having trouble getting the wording right. I want it to have a certain...panache. Care to give it a try?”

At that moment Hedy wanted to commit murder. It took all her self-control to keep herself from flying at the smug little man behind the desk. She had enough rage, she maybe could have taken him. But she’d noticed as soon as she’d arrived that there was a bone-handled pistol tucked in his wide fabric sash. Maybe it was a non-working antique, but maybe it wasn’t.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mary Jeddore Blakney
• Release date: May 13, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311529176

Mary Jeddore Blakney

Mary Jeddore Blakney, known as Jae, is a freelance editor and author of two novels and dozens of short stories. Her short story "The Mammal Cage" won a statewide seasonal contest. Her first book, The Foreknowledge of Terror, came out in 2011. Her second, a science fiction novel entitled Where Empires Fear to Tread, in 2015. The Thirteenth Snare: Thirteen Stories of Kidnappings, Traps and Dead-End Situations, will be released this spring. Inspired by writers such as Harriet Beecher Stowe and Gene Roddenberry, she often writes to bring social issues to light in a relatable way. She prefers to write her books slowly and base them on meticulous research. The place Jae and her family call home is a log cabin in the New Hampshire woods. Abenaki cultural influence can still be seen there in values such as thrift, environmental responsibility and gender equality.

Book preview

Also by Mary Jeddore Blakney:

where empires fear to tread

When an accident at a quantum physics lab transports Piper Craven to the planet Chuze, the Chuzekks call her an animal and put her in a cage. Earth is already on the roster for exploration, but since there's no evidence of intelligent life there, nobody's in a hurry...

...nobody but Zuke Gevv, that is. Zuke grabs his first chance to start mapping the pretty blue planet and even stops in at an isolated house for soup with a Human. But his unauthorized contact leads to war when the first Chuzekk disease breaks out on Earth.

Free-spirited translator Jade Massilon, imprisoned not for spying but just for being capable of it, catches the eye of a Chuzekk officer named Gyze Quejj. But mothership commander Chegg Jaigg gets in the way because he has secrets of his own to keep.

And through it all, a shadowy presence lurks in the background: an elusive figure known only as Fletcher.

To Peya

Thanks:

to Sallyann Humphrey of Chainbooks.com, who gave me more than I asked for by generously releasing the copyright to the following stories so they could appear in this book:

Wearing the Enemy

The Knight Wench

The Tarsus Secret

Tour of Booty

Fighting Fire

Gene Pollution

The Tumbleweed

to friends and colleagues who read my drafts, provided expert advice and candid feedback and supported me in many practical ways. Some of these are Joe Lore, Ray Flynt, Laura Romage, Luke Bellmason, M. Joseph Murphy and Aven Ertel, but it would be impossible to name them all.

to my editor, Dorothy Giddens, for making this book so much better than it was when I gave it to her.

to Benjamin Blakney for proofreading.

THE THIRTEENTH SNARE

13 Stories of Kidnappings, Traps and Dead-End Situations

by

Mary Jeddore Blakney

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2016 by Mary J. Blakney

Cover design copyright 2016 by Mary J. Blakney

All rights reserved.

1

Deathday

Andy Taikman was on the way to his death, and he couldn’t have picked a better day for it, either. Sunshine brought out the brilliant yellow of the forsythias in the highway’s median, and even the pavement looked fresh and clean after last night’s rain.

He opened the limo’s sunroof and let the wind play with his hair. An occasional white cottony puff adorned the endless blue expanse above. In less than an hour, Andy would be sitting on one of them playing a golden harp, or whatever it was that people did when they were dead. He’d find out soon.

The wind was getting cold, so he closed the sunroof, leaving just the moonroof open, and turned to his companion in the next seat.

It was a wooden box, twelve inches high, twelve wide and twelve deep, painted black with two hinged strips of aluminum folded over the top. The strips were antennae, but he’d always thought they looked more like antlers. Now, as he unfolded them to point away from him, toward the cars falling behind them in the slow lane, they looked like the mandibles of a soldier ant. He unfastened a small spring hook and folded back the cover from a four-inch touchscreen, then flicked the rocker switch just below it to power the unit up.

The box was the reason he would die today, and it just seemed appropriate to turn it on for the trip. If, on some metaphysical level, electronic devices had any consciousness, then it was only fair that this one should be awake to experience the journey to their mutual death.

The driver opened the window in the barrier between them. I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m not really clear on where I’m dropping you off.

Just on this side of the bridge is fine, Andy told him. There’s a beautiful little park beside the river. My girlfriend’s meeting me there for lunch. What she doesn’t know is I’m going to pop the question. There. That should keep the driver from getting suspicious.

Congratulations! And good luck.

Thank you, Andy replied, returning the driver’s smile. He should have thought to bring a small wrapped box, just in case the guy got chatty.

The little screen on the box was lit up with a myriad of readings from the cars in the slow lane, including metals and petroleum derivatives and of course lots of air. For about half a second he wondered where the H2O readings were coming from, and then realized it was the people. It was reading the drivers and passengers in those cars essentially as protein bags filled with water and other materials.

Well, this bag of water is going back to its source, and you’re going with me. I was foolish enough to let you ruin my life; I’m not going to let you ruin anyone else’s.

He had spent his retirement money on this box. Build a better mousetrap, everyone had said. Well, he’d built a better mousetrap, and the path to his door had done nothing but grow over with weeds. And it wasn’t like nobody knew about it. He’d spent a chunk of that money reaching out to companies that should have jumped at the chance to produce his multi-sensor. But no, they weren’t interested, not even just a little. And now Andy was left with nothing to live on.

So he’d cashed out his life insurance, set aside enough for a no-frills cremation, updated his will and hired a limo. There was no way he was going to wait until the money ran out and the eviction notice came, and freeze to death slowly on the streets this winter. No, he was going out his way—with dignity and in style.

BLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! The sudden shriek of the box’s alarm made Andy jump so high his head nearly hit the roof. His hand flew to the touchscreen almost before he thought about it, and jabbed the silence button.

No wonder nobody wants to buy you. Stupid thing, you don’t even work. Well, in a few minutes you’re going to drown with me, and that will be the end of that.

The driver opened the communication window again.

I’m very sorry if this thing scared you, Andy said. I didn’t know it was going to go off like that.

Don’t worry about me; I can drive through World War Three. But is everything okay back there?

Yeah, it’s just a malfunction.

I’ve never heard anything malfunction so loud before. Mind if I ask what it is? Why did it make that noise?

It’s called a multi-sensor. And the reason it made that noise—you won’t believe it, it’s so stupid. That’s actually the alarm that’s supposed got off when there’s a nuclear bomb in the area.

The driver’s eyebrows shot up. Wha? But it’s not working, right? There’s not really a bomb?

Andy laughed. No, don’t worry, there’s no bomb. Probably a short—crossed wires or something. I’m going to see if I can find it. He reached for the multi-tool he always kept in his pocket, so he could remove the screws that held the plywood case on, exposing the circuit boards and wiring inside. But of course the multi-tool wasn’t there. He’d left it in his bureau drawer this morning, wrapped in a piece of notebook paper with his niece Julie’s name on it. She would find it useful, and it wouldn’t do anyone any good lying at the bottom of the river.

The display seemed to be working all right—the short apparently hadn’t affected that. Andy pressed a few buttons to see if he could learn anything about the malfunction. With every touch of the screen, he braced himself for the earsplitting sound again, but the silence toggle remained on and the box remained quiet.

Oh...my...God, he breathed after a minute. Hey, buddy! The window was closed again, and he opened it. Hey, buddy, how long has that oil-spill cleanup truck been beside us?

Couple minutes, anyway. Sorry, I’ll get you a better view. The driver braked and the truck began to pull ahead.

No! said Andy. I mean, that’s all right. If you can stay beside it, that’d be perfect.

They pulled up even with the truck again. You think there’s really a bomb on that truck, said the driver. It wasn’t a question.

I don’t know, Andy replied. I’m beginning to think it could be a possibility. I just need a minute to check the readings.

Okay, one more minute. And then if you don’t mind, I’d feel better if we could get the hell out of here.

Andy shrugged. Works for me.

It took about ninety seconds to analyze the readings, and it was all there: plutonium—probably spent fuel from a power plant—catalyst, detonator and containment.

He spoke to the driver again. Well, the good news is there’s no radiation leakage.

And the bad news?

Can I borrow your phone to call nine-one-one? I seem to have forgotten mine.

The TV vans started arriving just a few minutes after the police did, but Andy had only two words for the reporters: No comment. The police had media relations people for a reason; he wasn’t going to get himself into trouble by making public comments about a crime before the investigation had even really begun.

Sitting in the limo with the door open and his feet on the pavement, Andy spotted the police captain in charge of the scene making her way through the crowd toward him. Phone for you, Andy, she said and handed him her cell.

The last thing he wanted to do was answer awkward questions from his family, but he couldn’t tell the captain that. He took the phone and put it to his ear. This is Andy.

Mr. Taikman, said the caller. I hope I’ve caught you in time and you haven’t signed anything yet.

Signed anything? said Andy. Like what?

My name is Kelly Mellard. I’m a corporate attorney, and I was asked to contact you by my client, which is a major defense contractor. You’d know the name if I said it.

Andy ran his left hand through his hair. Go on.

Well, first things first. Allow me to offer my congratulations for saving the entire region from nuclear hell—excuse my language.

Oh, thanks. It hasn’t sunk in yet.

I can imagine. The reason I’m calling, obviously, is that my client would very much like to land the license for your invention. And I’m just hoping that I haven’t called too late, you haven’t signed a contract with anyone else yet.

Um, no, I haven’t. Not yet.

Good. Because my client is very motivated. Well, they’re all very motivated, I’m sure. But my client is probably in a position to offer you more than any of its competitors.

Andy stood up and smiled. Thanks, Kelly, he said. "I appreciate you calling. But let’s talk about this tomorrow. Right now I have another phone call I