Page 9 of Bernadette
“I appreciate that.” They ended their call and Bernadette sat back on her couch and cradled her glass of wine in her hand. It was Wednesday night and she had done the report the general had requested, and between working, she’d packed up her entire apartment, only leaving the essentials out. All she had to do was throw them in a box once she received her DD 2656 and she could hit the road. Whichever person she picked to work with, Hank Patterson, or Morgan Stuart, she had to head in the same direction from where she was currently stationed. She knew it would be a long shot, but she hoped that by some miracle she could have her release papers the next day, giving her an extra day to travel. Now she only had to call Morgan Stuart to see what she could offer an old dog. Not that she was old at only thirty-seven, but it was time to start a new chapter in her life. She sighed heavily, somehow, she felt that she would be starting an entirely new book once she left her post, and for the first time in years, she was looking forward to something different.
CHAPTER4
“Stuart,”Morgan barked into the phone as she pulled into her driveway after leaving the compound. She waved to Carl to say she was home unharmed, then continued up the drive and parked.
“Is this Morgan Stuart?”
“It is, who’s calling, please?”
“Bernadette Cromwell.”
“Oh, hey, thanks for getting back to me.”
“First, I’d like to apologize that it took me almost a week to do so. I’ll be honest with you, I wasn’t in the right headspace when you called on Friday.”
“Are you now?”
“Better than I was. When you called, I had just left the doctor’s office where he told me I wouldn’t get any better than I already was.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah, I’m calling to see if your job offer is still on the table. If it is, then what would I be doing? I’m going to be honest with you here, Stuart. Hank Patterson is trying to recruit me also.” The giggle that came over the line was not what Bernie expected.
“Hank’s good people.” Morgan laughed. “He’s forever yelling at me when I get a new operative, saying I stole them from him.”
“Can you tell me what Boswell is, what I will be doing, and why you think I would be a good fit?”
“Sure. First, we call ourselves Boswell Two. There are seven of us, including myself. All of us are women, and we are all former EWMs. It’s my understanding that you were the commander of the entire EWM program.”
“I was, but I was on a team of EWMs for ten years before I moved up the ranks. I need to tell you that if all goes well, I’ll have my discharge papers in my hand by the end of the week."
"Good, good. Anyway, Boswell’s original group is based out of Buffalo, New York. My uncle, Chip Boswell owns and operates it. He himself is former military, and had started the company with his military buddy, Fred Myar. They hire former military to go overseas on missions. Basically, what I did as an EWM, but they are civilians. When I got out of the service, I worked for Uncle Chip for a few years. I won’t get into it now, but things happened, and I moved permanently to North Dakota.”
“That’s where you’re based out of now?”
“It is. When I came here, Uncle Chip’s former military buddy had moved here to help with his wife’s ailing parents and had joined the DEA here. He brought it to Uncle Chip’s attention that there had been some noise about women going missing.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Yeah, it gets worse. As of right now, we’re working heavily with the local branch of the BCI, which is the state level, and stands for Bureau of Criminal Investigations. We’re also working with the FBI, DEA, ATF, Homeland Security, and even the state attorney general. They are being kept appraised of our current situation, and so far, have agreed to allow Boswell to continue doing what we are doing.”
“Which is?”
“Investigating any new information that comes in. We’ve had an entire police force shut down, because they targeted one of my girls and harassed her all day. One of the bastards even beat the hell out of her, then when he went to the hospital to try to finish her off, he took the coward’s way out and took a suicide pill.”
“Damn.” As Bernie sat there in her living room listening to Morgan explain what she was doing, she found excitement for the first time in months. She couldn’t wait to get there to help Morgan and the other EWMs with their investigation. She wouldn’t realize until later that was the turning point of her taking the job with Boswell instead of the Brotherhood.
“Yeah, in the last three weeks or so, we’ve been able to get our hands on some very incriminating evidence, and the reason why I want you here is that we need to coordinate not only Boswell Two here in North Dakota, but we also might have some bad people over in Idaho. We’re also working with three undercover police officers from over the border.”
“Mexico?”
“No, Canada.”
“Shit, this sounds big. What exactly are you investigating? You never said the actual words, only what you thought it was.”
“Oh, sorry about that. But when Fred Myar contacted Uncle Chip, he had said there had been rumors of doomsday preppers taking weapons, ammunition, and drugs over into Canada. However, when we started investigating, we found it’s not doomsday preppers, and it’s not drugs. We have found several cases of women being abducted, drugged, transported over into Canada, and sold to the highest bidder.”
“Son of a bitch.” Bernie sat up straighter, put her untouched glass of wine down, and grabbed a pad of paper and pen. “Can you tell me who you have working for you?”
