Poofs and Peregrines out, we now had to deal with the javelinas. Thankfully, whether they'd realized everyone was here to help or one of the other animals had calmed them down, they didn't squeal or struggle.

Because so many were trapped and because they weren't tiny, the javelinas required all who weren't in the quicksand to assist, two to an animal. While the others pulled out the peccaries, I slipped lassoes over everyone else. Other than Jeff, since the only option was to put the lasso around his neck. "How are we going to get you out?" I asked him quietly, as I knelt down and stroked his hair.

"We'll think of something, baby."

"I can do it," Mahin said. "Once everyone else is out."

"Really, you can stop putting out the effort," Lorraine said. "It's all dormant."

"You think so, but I can feel it," Mahin said calmly. "The surface is hardening, yes. But the water hasn't seeped in enough. Once all the animals are out, while you pull the others out, I'll be keeping Jeff up."

The other gals started to argue with her. "Stop it!" Everyone looked at me. "Look, this is Mahin's area of expertise. If she says she feels that this crap is still active, then it's still active. She's the only reason we're still alive to be having this argument. It doesn't matter who's right, especially since the likelihood is that both sides are. Focus on what you can do, and doing it quickly, and stop taking her concentration away."

Dazzlers were, to a one, smart. And not given to a lot of arguing in the face of logic. They all closed their mouths, nodded, and got back to the business at hand.

There were a lot of javelinas trapped, so it took a while, even using hyperspeed. The sun was starting to set when the last one was released back into the wild. But they didn't go anywhere, just milled around looking frightened and confused.

"Bruno, Harlie, can anyone get the javelinas home? I don't know where they came from, but it wasn't right here. There's a good chance they came from far away, and were herded through a floater gate." Bruno squawked and bobbed his head. Harlie mewled, and then, all the Poofs, and all the javelinas, disappeared.

"What are they doing?" Jeff asked.

"The Poofs will take the javelinas home and scout the area, to see if they can spot anything, like where our enemies are hanging out."

"Good initiative," White said.

"How are we getting everyone out at once?" I asked. "Or are we doing it one at a time again?"

"It'll be harder with the people, because they're bigger," Serene said. "We need to lift them straight up if we can."

The flyboys all looked at me and shook their heads. "Tim, it's a good thing you took over Airborne," Hughes said. "Kitty's losing her touch."

"Heartbreaking," Walker added. "How our mighty has fallen."

"I'll hurt you all later. Okay, fine, you're going to get a plane and pull them out?"

"Helicopters, but why get bogged down by semantics?" Jerry said with a grin.

Claudia and Lorraine grabbed their husbands, Joe grabbed Hughes, Randy grabbed Walker, and they all took off.

"Jerry, you're not going?"

"Someone has to handle things here on the ground and you're not up to it." He winked at me. "We can only have a couple birds in the air anyway, since we're dealing with a small area."

The airmen who'd brought out the water truck backed it off under Emily's direction. But she kept it nearby, just in case.

"Kitty, you'll need to be off of the area," Mahin called.

"I don't want to leave you here." Kissed Jeff's forehead.

"It'll be okay, baby. I promise. And if I go under, I'll hold my breath."

"Good. You can hold your breath a long time." He'd proven that when I'd taken an impromptu swim in the Potomac, after all.

Kissed his forehead again, then trotted over to join Mahin, Melanie, and Emily on the rocks, which timed out nicely, as the helicopters arrived.

Lines were lowered and Jerry attached them to everyone other than Jeff. Christopher, White, Rahmi, Rhee, and Tim were hooked to one chopper, while Chuckie, Buchanan, Tito, Gower, and Reader were hooked to the other.

The wind from the choppers was intense and my worry about Jeff increased. He couldn't take a deep breath before going under if he had sand and dirt flying into his face.

Jerry got off the now mostly solid quicksand and gave the all-clear sign. He stayed down there just in case.

The choppers lifted up at the same time and everyone pulled out easily, looking like we had a lot of human fish on the lines. The choppers flew off slowly, in opposite directions, so they could lower their charges and not interfere with Mahin and Jeff.

Which was good because Jeff was still stuck, and I could tell that Mahin was struggling. Sure enough, Jeff went under. Managed not to scream, but only because I was too frightened.

Leaped behind Mahin and held her. "Melanie, Emily, touch her! Mahin needs our energy or Jeff's going to die!"

They did as requested. Mahin shuddered, then tensed her whole body. Jeff shot up, with the same sucking sound Mahin and I had made. "Hold her up!" I shouted to Melanie and Emily as I took off.

Got to where Jeff was landing at the same time as Jamie's Poof, Mous-Mous, did. Considering the Poof had been, to my knowledge, in the Science Center until a second ago, this was both a relief and a shock.

Mous-Mous went large and shoved me out of the way as Jeff landed on the Poof. "Ooof!"

"Are you okay? Jeff? Mous-Mous?"

Jeff slid off and Mous-Mous went back to small. It jumped onto Jeff's shoulder and nuzzled him, then jumped to my shoulder and nuzzled me. It was fine, thanks for asking. With a purr, it disappeared, presumably heading right back to Jamie.

I grabbed Jeff and hugged him tightly, which wasn't that easy since I still had on both my purse and the flamethrower. Didn't care.

Jeff kissed me, deeply. As always, fantastic. Not long enough, but then, an hour straight of kissing him really wasn't long enough. "Thanks, baby," he said softly, as he ended our kiss. "Always nice to know that you care."

"You know I do. You can't drown in quicksand on me. Especially not when we haven't had sex since the night before."

Jeff grinned. "I can't tell you how much I appreciate your laser focus on the priorities."

CHAPTER 45.

THE OTHERS WERE DOWN AND OUT of their rescue harnesses, and the choppers were on the ground. The water truck was still here, too.

Because it was summer, even though the sun had started setting a few minutes ago, we still had light, probably for at least another half an hour. Realized it was really late, because sunset in the Southwest at the end of July was usually close to eight in the evening.

Was glad Mom, Dad, and especially Lucinda were with Jamie-her grandparents would ensure she got dinner, took a bath, and went to bed on time, and Lucinda wouldn't be involved in any of the action, meetings, or planning sessions, so she could and probably would stay with Jamie in the Lair.

"Should have kept the combine in one piece," Reader said as we all congregated back at the rocks and Tito retrieved his medical bag so he could give Mahin and Jeff both some adrenaline. Jeff got to take it in a vein instead of directly into his hearts, so I counted that in the win column. "We could use it to dig this stuff up."

"We're bringing in lighting and large equipment," Jerry said. "It'll take a while to transfer, though. Requiring a floater gate as big as the one we used right before Kitty's wedding."

"Should we do that?" Contemplated if now was a good time to mention Siler's part in the combine explosion. "Dig this stuff up, I mean, not use a floater gate." My brain nudged.

"Yes," Mahin said, wincing as the needle went in. "I believe it will remain active if we don't remove it all."

The Poofs returned in their standard small sizes, and went back to their owners. Poofikins and Harlie were with Jeff, but they gave me an earful.

"What did they say?" Jeff asked while he pretended he wasn't petting them.

"The javelinas were herded from all over. The Poofs were able to get them back to their homes. No signs of any bad guy lairs near the javelina homelands."

"Why javelinas?" Tim asked. "Just to freak me out that much more?"

"No." Thought about it. "Mahin says the quicksand maker needed the vibrations to help him do his thing. Maybe he needed a certain frequency in order to get his stuff to work right, and the javelinas have the right frequency."

Chuckie nodded. "That's a good theory." Glad he'd mentioned this before Christopher could say I was an idiot. "Let's check that out," he said to Serene. "And see if their stampede frequency might have helped the creation of the floater gates our enemies used, too."

Wanted to know why my brain was nudging about the floater gates when what I really wondered was why I was holding a flamethrower. It wasn't needed, and hadn't been needed. Clearly the gals had all known what to do. Sure, Mahin had been right, but she hadn't needed fiery help, either. And though they'd said that fire could destroy this stuff, we actually wanted to save and study the special quicksand, not destroy it.

So, why had Algar given me those clues? He'd tossed out the water clue before I could flame anything, so maybe I'd just interpreted wrong. I'd gotten the fire clues after the combine had exploded but before our cavalry had arrived.

My brain nudged harder. I needed to ask something. "How would you run an illegal floater gate? What equipment would you need?"

"It would depend on the setup," Serene said. "There are a variety of ways."

"Radio would be the easiest," Reader said. "But that would also be the least accurate, and most likely to have issues."

"Oh. Wow. Um . . . Rahmi and Rhee, stay here and guard. Anyone else who's pissed and in the mood to wreck stuff, and possibly enemies, follow me. Anyone staying here who isn't officially on Amazon Guard Duty, check all the databases for someone reporting a John Deere combine having been stolen this evening."

Took off, back toward the part of the mountains where I'd found this flamethrower in the first place.

I wasn't alone, and hadn't expected to be. "Where are we going?" Jeff asked, as he grabbed my hand.

"To the radio setup that I think our enemies are using against us," I replied, as White grabbed my other hand. He had Chuckie, Buchanan, Tim, and Reader along as well. "Mister White, I see you're doing the heavy lifting, so to speak."

"I live to serve, Missus Martini."

Reached the mountain but took the roads, rather than going up the side. At hyperspeed it would add a couple of seconds, but ensure that no one tripped on anything.

"Why here?" Christopher asked from Jeff's other side, as we wound up the mountain.

"I found the flamethrower up here."

"One day I'll understand how your mind works," Christopher said. "That day is not today."

"Whatever. The dune buggy was here. There are satellite dishes here. There's a storeroom, where I got this flamethrower. And there's also a bunker with what looked like a full radio setup."

We arrived. The dune buggy was where it had been before, but the doors to both the bunker and storeroom were closed. And I was pretty sure that I hadn't taken the time to close them.

"We're not alone," Buchanan said quietly. He and Chuckie already had their guns out. Reader and Tim followed suit. Figured I could go for my Glock, but since I had a flamethrower, might as well use it. "No chatter."

Buchanan used hand signals and indicated that he wanted the satellites, buggy, and weapons room searched. Christopher zipped off and was back momentarily. He shook his head. So, no one was there, meaning if someone was here, they were either inside the radio bunker or invisible. Wondered where Siler was, and then figured if he was here, we'd find out.

Jeff stayed with me and tried to put himself in front of me, but I indicated the flamethrower and, after a lot of eye rolling and frowny faces, he gave up and stayed next to me instead.

Once we had that figured out, looked around to see the rest of the guys giving us the "really?" look. Shrugged and looked to Buchanan. He was clearly trying not to laugh and also clearly asking himself why, yet again, he was forced to work with others.

But he soldiered on and gave hand signals for us to fan out around the building. I decided the flamethrower and I should stay near the door. Buchanan didn't argue, and I ignored Jeff's pantomime trying to get me to go around to the back.

Buchanan took one side of the door, Chuckie took the other. The door opened out, but that wasn't an issue. I nudged Jeff. He nodded, went to the door, ripped it off the hinges, came back to me and pulled me out of the way, all in about a half a second.

Buchanan and Chuckie went into the room. "Clear!" Chuckie called.

The others rejoined us. "Nothing and no one," Reader said.

"Guess you were just jumpy," Christopher said to Buchanan. "It happens."

"Not to Malcolm. At least two of you block the door, please, so no one can get in or out." Turned around and pulled the nozzle into my hands. "I don't know a lot about how to use a flamethrower," I said in a normal tone, as I walked to the weapons storage area. "But I'm going to practice. Right now. All over this area. Starting with this weapons storage thing. And then I'm going to burn the building down. And the dune buggy. Or, you can come out now and I won't let anyone shoot you. Possibly."

"Who are you talking to?" Jeff asked.

A man stepped out of the weapons room. "Me."

CHAPTER 46.

"GOOD GUESS," Siler, who was now de-cloaked, said.

"Not a guess, really. I think you heard us coming and went in here, where you figured we wouldn't look too hard."

He smiled. "Yes. Oh, put the guns down, it's just us here right now."

"I don't feel warm and fuzzy about putting our guns down," Chuckie said.

Siler looked around me. "What about you?"

Checked. He was talking to Buchanan.

Who, gun still out and aimed at Siler, reached into his pocket and pulled something out. He looked at his hand. "I have no idea if this is giving me good intel or not."

"Really." Siler sounded bored. "You realize you can't shoot faster than I can run, and I say that knowing you're all trained to shoot A-Cs." He looked back at me. "You have the right idea with that flamethrower-you need to destroy this entire setup. It's been compromised since Home Base was infiltrated last year. And no one's bothered to verify its security in all that time."