The days were long and empty, the nights lasted forever. Jessen longed for release from the nightmare. He had been taken to Paris by two threatening wizards, they used three portkey trips. Each trip ended with Jessen throwing up. He hated portkey travel. They had met a local criminal who didn’t speak English. The local man took his instructions from one of the wizards. Jessen had been told to wait in the street with the local man standing right behind him, his knife ready to finish Jessen off if he failed to obey. The two wizards looked on from opposite street corners.
When an ordinary looking man hurried down the street, one of the wizards signalled Jessen with light from his wand. Jessen pointed his phone at the hurrying man and pressed the ‘Imperio’ spell name on the list in his phone. The hurrying man stopped and waited. Jessen gave the cursed man a roll of parchment and said. “This is a list of wizards to be given access to all Pimlico protected places in France. Put the access in place now.”
The man nodded, drew his wand, touched the scroll with it and mumbled a spell. The scroll glowed blue then burst into flame. The criminal grabbed the Imperioused man and led him away. The wizards watching left their posts, ran to Jessen, grabbed him and then the portkey travel began again.
He didn’t know what it was about. Lecky visited Fischer and Jessen hours later. Lecky interrogated them both by some sort of mind reading. They had no choice. They couldn’t resist the unspoken demands to reveal who they had told about the job he was given. Finally, Lecky seemed to give up and left.
The prisoners were getting weaker. They were being subjected to a slow process of breaking their will. Isolation, sensory deprivation, no hint as to what time of day it was, which day it was and the constant questioning.
They were slaves. Fischer finally admitted to himself that he was a slave, with no hope of release. They tried laying down and refusing to do the tasks they had been given. Lecky pointed his wand at them, Fischer didn’t remember what happened next. The tasks were finished but he suffered, his legs were covered with cuts and bruises. Lecky had made him walk around as if blindfolded, bumping into everything around the ranch like a zombie.
Jessen was made to cook for the four prisoners: the two in the cells and the two outside of them. The night dragged on. Jessen took the first patrol. Lecky ordered them to patrol the buildings through the night. There was no obvious reason why they should, maybe it was a test. At least it saved Fischer from having to listen to Jessen crack his knuckles and suck his teeth.
The patrol changeover should have happened by now. “Fischer! Fischer! Come outside now!”
At last, but Fischer wasn’t going come when Jessen called. “You come in here first. I’m not ready.”
The was a short silence. “Fischer! Get out here now!”
No response was the appropriate response to that.
The door whipped open, slammed back against the wall, and stuck there as though it was nailed in place. A powerful gust of wind blasted through the door. Shredded dry grass blew in and around the room like a whirlwind. It was summer. The wind was freezing cold.
“Fischer! Out here! Right now!”
This was magic. Lecky was doing this to have his distorted fun with them. Fischer picked up his assault rifle, looped the strap over his shoulder, pointed the muzzle down in the approved manner. He then paced to the door and looked out. He couldn’t see anyone. He walked out into the dusty patch in front of the bunkhouse. There was a sharp crack to his right. Lecky was standing there; he was pointing his wand straight at Fischer.
“What did you do? How did you stop it?” Lecky was foaming at the mouth.
“Stop what? What are you talking about?” Fischer was getting worried about Lecky’s quivering wand.
“My country! My kingdom is gone! Bring it back! Now!”
More sharp cracks came from behind the bunkhouse. Lecky spun around and fired a spell at someone behind him. The spell was deflected away. The person was wearing a long coat. Whoever it was dived behind the corner of the bunkhouse.
“Lecky! Surrender now, you don’t have a chance.” The voice wasn’t American. Lecky fired another spell into the dark. There was a short burst of machine-gun fire. Lecky crumpled to the ground.
“Stop! Stop! I surrender!” Fischer had never been shot at in his life. He didn’t intend to find out what it was like. He dropped the rifle and put both his hands up as high as he could.
A growling sound came from Lecky. He was still alive. He pointed his wand at Fischer and was muttering a long spell. Fischer was enveloped in a perfect sphere like shining glass. Then with a heavy thud the sphere with Fischer in it disappeared.
A spell was cast from the corner of the bunkhouse. “Expelliarmus!”
The wand Lecky was holding spun away to the wizard.
“Stupefy!” Lecky rolled over and didn’t move again.
Jane Goodman approached Lecky. She checked his vital signs. She stood up and shook her head.
The Pimlico super stepped out of the bunkhouse door and raised his wand. Brilliant white light flooded the ranch buildings. He called out, “Clear!”
The outside teams approached the bunkhouse. The ‘clear’ call meant that the captives had been secured and taken to the MACUSA house and all the hostiles had been captured.
“How did you capture the other guard?” Harry arrived with two stunned captives floating in front of him.
“We drove up the track and stopped where we planned to. The one named Jessen spotted us from long way off. He threw his rifle away and ran up to us. He was begging us to take him away. Louisa kept her pistol on him while we approached the buildings. We got Jessen to call out to Fischer to get him out of the bunkhouse.” Graham was looking at Lecky. “Is he a goner?”
“Yes, the spell might have finished him off, but the gunshot wounds would have been fatal in another minute.” Jane was matter of fact but not happy.
“What happened to Fischer?” That came from Jessen. He had sat down in the dust and was now looking shaky again.
“I don’t know, do you have any idea Harry?” Jane asked.
“None at all, I don’t know the spell he cast. Jane has got Lecky’s wand. MACUSA can extract all the spells he cast with it. That should give us an indication of what Lecky did.”
“How is Leo and Dr Zaitseva?” Louisa was looking concerned.
“Daphne and Mariette got them both back to the house. That’s all we know. MACUSA will tidy up here and look after Jessen. I will apparate to the house now. The outside teams can drive back.” Harry handed over his prisoners to a MACUSA agent.
“I will be arriving at the house soon. I have to report to my supervisor.” Jane still didn’t look happy.
It was past midnight before everyone was back to the house. Leo and Anastasia had washed and dressed in clean clothes. A plain meal was prepared for them and a sip of potion from a bottle with a Greengrass Potions label restored their sense of being human.
“We will have a full debrief after Leo and Anastasia have had some sleep. If you have any questions that can’t wait, we’ll try to answer them now.” Harry was elated that the plan had worked with only one or two life threatening risks being taken.
“When we arrived there and gave the signal that we were ready, there was a huge gust a wind from somewhere. It came across the fields and picked up tons of dry grass and blew right across the ranch buildings. It was freezing cold. I saw the bunkhouse door whip open and a load of grass rushed in. What was that?” Roland was at last looking more relaxed.
“I can only guess at this. That was the moment that the natural flow of magic shut itself down at Jonathans request. Why it did the gust of cold wind, I don’t know, but it might have been done to get Fischer frightened and out of the bunkhouse, which is what we wanted.” Harry shrugged.
The Pimlico super spoke up. “I’m going to the Pimlico Security office in San Francisco right now. I will arrange for a flight back to the U.K. with all the right documentation for muggle flights. I will let you know when it will be ready, maybe tomorrow night.”
Another Greengrass Potions bottle came out of Daphne’s travel bag. Yet another not fully legal Undetectable Extension Charm allowed Daphne to carry a useful selection of potions with her. Leo and Anastasia were given a sleeping draft. They were put to bed to sleep for at least eight hours. The rest of the teams crashed on mattresses and hammocks conjured around the house.
Pimlico Air Freight had a cargo DC10 waiting at San Francisco International. The teams would be accommodated in the crew ferrying section which had twelve seats and a galley. The de-briefing covered every detail of the plan, which parts worked, and which didn’t. It came out that John had fired the burst with his Heckler & Koch MP5 that had hit Lecky.
“I’m sorry you had to do that, John.” Jane Goodman was genuinely concerned for the team’s welfare. “Aurors should have been there to deal with Lecky, we didn’t get to him in time.”
“Oh, don’t worry about me, I used to do this sort of thing for a living.”
“What!” Jane was genuinely stunned.
“I had more than twenty years in the Royal Marine Commandos. We did all sorts of jobs like this, drug chiefs, terrorists, kidnappers, crime gang bosses. They loved to find little places that were out of reach of official law enforcement and then they set themselves up as though they were kings in their own little country. Sounds familiar doesn’t it. One night, a platoon of Commandos arrives, we do our job, no more king. Of course, none of that ever got into the popular press.”
“It’s not my business, I won’t be offended if you tell me to shut-up.”
“Please Robert, tell us what you are thinking.” Harry waited for Robert to speak.
“Most of us here have good reasons to be concerned for the future. Apart from Dr Zaitseva and Jonathan, we are wizards and witches, or we have family who are in the magical world. The business here and in London shows just how easy it would be for anyone who stumbles on the secret to break into the magical world. If Lecky had taken more notice of it, he could have equipped an army of muggle criminals with magical weapons. It would be disastrous for muggle and magical.”
“I am very much aware of that Robert. I also know that in the U.K., I will have a problem convincing the Ministry and the Wizengamot of that.” Harry had everyone’s attention.
“Now I know that in the past, if any muggle found out about magic, they were Obliviated straight away. The situation has, I think, changed. We need Dr Zaitseva and Jonathan. We need them to work out what is happening, and how to get control as quick as we can to stop anything breaking loose again.”
“Here in the USA the attitude is about the same. I have asked to meet with our Directors to explain exactly what Harry has been saying. We can’t be as isolated as we were; we would just be blind-sided again.” Jane was not happy again. She looked at Colin Patterson, who glanced at Anastasia.
“I have been more involved with the Directors in the past. I think we should put it to the Directors that they should hear from Anastasia what she thinks has happened and how easy it would be for any other nomaj, in any other part of the world, to do the same.” Colin turned to Anastasia, “Would you be willing to do that?”
“I think so, I will write down what I have been observing and put it in as much plain English as I can. You are right, we need to work together on this. It won’t need a lot of people, two in the U.K., maybe two more here, perhaps in the University of California at Berkeley, now that Fischer has been sent away somewhere, for a long time, I hope.”
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