Cactus Wren

Chapter Twenty Two - Decoy

I check my weapons one last time, making sure they are loaded with the safety on, before I secure them both in the compressed concealed weapons band strapped around my hips. My jeans should cover it perfectly. I lower my tank top to cover them and add a plaid button-up, leaving it open for easier access. I'm leaving my hair loose around my shoulders, letting it hide my face better. If I'm acting as a decoy I don't want anyone getting a clear look at my face.

My phone beeps and I see a new text message from Karmen.

Karmen: Heading out in 10. Time to load up.

I secure a knife in one of my brown boots and tuck my phone into my pocket before heading out of my room and going downstairs. Yuki is in the living room loading several lap tops into cases and checking various other equipment she'll be using to run ops for us tonight. Rachel walks over and picks up some of the secured cases and starts to head out to load them up in the cars. She's dressed similar to me with the addition of a shoulder length brunette wig covering her auburn hair. Kat, dressed head to toe in black, is securing a pair of angry looking pistols into her shoulder holsters. Her dark hair pulled up tight and high in a pony tail and her piercing gray eyes take inventory of the rest of her equipment. Her mind completely focused on her task. I help Yuki with another laptop case and follow her outside where Karmen is loading equipment into the back of one of the cargo vans we are using tonight.

We will be splitting up into two teams after setting up Yuki in a secure space for mission control. Team one will consist of Karmen and Rachel and team two is Kat and myself. Each of us will be going to pick up our victim before we rendezvous and start our decoy job while the real women are sent on to a safe house just north of Boulder.

After the equipment is secured, we load into our vehicles, Kat taking the wheel. Following Karmen in the first van we drive through downtown Denver until we arrive at an office building, pulling around back to the loading dock where three Academy dogs are waiting for us. As soon as we pull up, they come up to the vans and unload the computer equipment. Yuki jumps out and follows them inside where they've already set up some antenna to amplify her secure radio signal so we won't have to worry about losing the signal with distance. We take a few minutes to put on last minute gear, like our body armor, before we put in our ear buds and do an ops check. When we hear Yuki call back, confirming the clear signal, we jump back into the vans and split up.

"Team one; ETA 15 minutes." Karmen calls in over the comm.

"Confirmed, team one. Roads are clear. Proceed." Yuki confirms their path.

"Team two; ETA 10 minutes." Kat radios in.

"Team two; some traffic on your route. New ETA is 13 minutes." Yuki calls back, adjusting our arrival.

Kat drives us without another word while I keep a watch out for a tail or potential issues. We pull into a neighborhood where the houses all have large yards and dark sleepy driveways.

"This is the one" Kat says as she pulls up to an older house with peeling paint on the sidings and more than one empty bottle in the barren flower bed. I spot some discarded machine parts and tires littering the overgrown grass of the backyard as Kat backs into the driveway, getting as far out of sight as possible from the road. We both jump out of the cab without shutting our doors. Kat knocks on a back door of the house in a random pattern, three-one-four-one-one, the door opens revealing an older woman.

"Tulip" She asks Kat.

"Carburetor" Kat replies, finishing the Academy code. The woman nods and opens the door wider and Kat walks inside while I open the back door of the van. A few minutes later, Kat reappears with the older woman, each supporting a young blonde woman's arm to aid her down the steps to the van. The young woman has one wrist wrapped in bandages, bruises on her face and a swollen lip. If she were walking up-right and without pain, we'd be about the same height. She's the one I'm going to be the decoy for.