Charlie's Angels... of DEATH: Chapter 8 -- Help Wanted

     Charles sat at his desk looking at the resume in his hand for a good five minutes before he set it down and looked at the man on the other side of his desk:  brown hair with a slightly graying beard that gave him a distinguished look, inquisitive eyes that were subtly noting his surroundings, serious for the moment, but he looked like a guy with a good sense of humor...  the type that you'd want to sit down with and exchange stories over a couple of pints.  Charles leaned back in his chair and smiled an easy smile.  The man across from him relaxed visibly.

     "So, Mr. Burkhard," Charles began, "your work history is very... varied.  Door-to-door bible salesman, food blogger, corn-cob pipe carver...  What made you decide to answer our ad?"

     "How could I not?" the man said with a slight Texas drawl.  "It was the weirdest help wanted ad I've ever seen.  I figured you weren't looking for an ACTUAL cat herder, so I had to respond and see what this was all about."

     "You're right, this position does not require you to, literally, herd cats.  But... sometimes it will probably feel that way.  Tell me, Mr. Burkhard, how well do you relate to teenagers?"

     The man shifted in his seat uneasily.  "Please, call me John...  I...  am not really a fan of kids.  I do better with teens once they get a little older, and I am better at dealing with teenage girls than boys.  Boys do such stupid things at that age...  I should know, I was one of them.  At least you can talk and reason with girls though.  There's a slightly better chance they'll listen."

     "I couldn't have said it better myself," Charles smiled.  "Well, John, I pride myself on my ability to judge a person's character.  I can tell by your resume that you need variety in your job.  Perhaps you get bored if the work becomes too routine and you're no longer challenged?  I can also tell by the types of jobs you've held and the variety that you're a free spirit.  I promise as long as you are working for me, you will never be bored.  I also appreciate your candor regarding your feelings about children.  I am not looking for a yes man.  I have spent the past 16 years devoting my time and energy to finding young women with unique talents who were, in some cases, misguided and misunderstood.  I have raised them in my home, some of them since they were barely able to walk, and they are all like daughters to me.  They are all very gifted in their own ways, and I have spared no expense in helping them develop their gifts and realize their highest potential.  It goes without saying that their happiness and safety are my highest priorities.  I hope you are the man for the job."

     "So..." John thought carefully about how to ask his next question.  "You mentioned that you've been nurturing their 'unique' talents.  What kinds of talents are we talking about?  Are you a patron of the arts?  And what is your end goal?"

     "Well..." Charles began, thinking carefully how to answer John's carefully thought out questions.  "I suppose I am appreciative of talents that manifest in many different forms."  He looked at his watch.  "It would probably be easiest for me to show you, and then I will share my mission statement..."

     Charles swiveled around in his chair and pressed a button that raised a 50 inch flat screen monitor from its hiding place in a long mahogany cabinet against the wall.  The screen flickered to life, split into six separate video feeds showing six different girls engaged in six different activities.  Charles motioned for John to come closer.

     "Here," Charles pointed to the top left frame, "is Mira, the first one I brought into the fold.  She's 16 now, but I adopted her when she was just a toddler..."

     John watched with fascination as the sweet-faced teen with the rosy cheeks engaged in a full-on sparring match with an instructor, weapons included.  His mouth dropped open when he saw the instructor whiff a katana blade past Mira's ear that sent a thick lock of hair floating to the ground.  "Oh my...  Those aren't training weapons!  Aren't you afraid she's going to get hurt?"  John gripped the arms of his chair anxiously.

     "Not at all," Charles said calmly.  "In fact, I give the instructor about 30 seconds before Mira strikes the decisive blow in this match.  She'll not take kindly to the impromptu haircut.  She's been trying to grow it out for months."

     Sure enough, Mira's eyes narrow in fury, and her movements only became faster, sharper, and more precise.  The instructor was backed into a corner in less than 15 seconds.  John shuddered.

     "Mira's very attached to her hair..."  Charles turned his attention to the next frame.  "This is Candy, 18 years of age.  We discovered her when... well, actually, to be completely honest, she discovered us."  The slim Chinese girl was grappling with a burly opponent three times her size... and winning.  In a flash she had him immobilized on the ground.  She got up to grab her water bottle and take a swig, but the large guy on the ground didn't move.

     "Is he... dead?" John asked quietly. 

     "No," Charles said.  "Just out for few minutes.  Napping.  Candy just took him down by activating a series of pressure points.  Have you heard of Dim Mak?  I know she looks like a quiet, conservative Asian girl, but don't be fooled.  She knows 214 ways to kill a man with her bare hands, and an additional 37 ways to do it with her feet."

     "Her feet?" John pondered this for a moment, but Charles was already moving on to the next frame, in which a vaguely familiar-looking girl appeared to be doing vocal drills with a piano accompaniest.  John relaxed. 

     "Voice lessons?  At least that's not dangerous," John said mildly.

     "Oh, yes.  Jen, 17 years old, came to us 6 years ago, fortunately at a young enough age that her vocal chords were not yet finished developing.  We tailored her training to continually expand her range both higher and lower.  Lucky for us, she had a spectacular range to begin with.  Are you familiar with acoustic weapons?"  John's eyes grew wider.  "Anyway, she's just warming up right now, so there's not much to see there," Charles continued.  "Moving on..."

     "This is Meiling, 19 years old, a Texan like yourself," Charles began, motioning to the slightly built girl of ambiguous ethnicity.  "She was quite the athlete before a career-ending injury.  My team of surgeons fixed her up, and now?  Well, it's not really fair for her to participate in athletic events anymore, as you can see..."  The slim young women was landing punches and kicks against a thick wall in front her that crumbled before John's eyes. 

     "She's punching holes in it like it's swiss cheese!" John said in amazement.

     "Reinforced concrete," Charles replied.  "I guess you could say that Meiling is... a bionic version of her former self."  He smiled.  "In a way, it's sad though.  She does love participating in rodeos, but she had to stop because she was injuring the bulls..."

     "Next up," Charles continued, "Shannon, 17 years old.  Our mad scientist."  They watched the pretty young women concentrate as she expertly milled a fine powder under the bio-containment hood, even with thick gloves covering her arms, which were, in turn, attached to a thick sheet of plexiglass separating her from her work.

     "What is she making?" John asked in a hushed voice. 

     "I'm not sure what she's working on at the moment," Charles replied.  "Weaponizing something, obviously.  Smallpox?  Ebola?"

     The color drained out of John's face.

     "Don't worry," Charles chuckled.  "I had a BSL-4 built specifically so she could conduct her research without having to worry about anything nasty escaping." 

     "Oh..." John said, not sounding completely convinced.  "That's... good."

     "And lastly," Charles motioned to the frame in the bottom corner, "Lauren, 20 years old.  She's a bit different from the others."

     "It looks like she's... just listening to her iPod and reading a book," John said, confused.  After noting how all of the other girls were trained killers of some sort or another, he didn't know what to make of this girl that looked like she was a regular college student.

     "That," Charles said, turning to face John, "is precisely what she's doing.  Only thing is, she's listening to mp3s in Chinese while studying up on string theory."

     John still looked perplexed.  "Well, as impressive as that is... it's still... not what I was expecting after hearing all the ways in which the other young women are all uniquely... deadly."

     Charles smiled and nodded in agreement.  "I can understand your confusion.  Lauren is like... our mole.  She has been able to quickly pick up languages, and given a week or so of prep time, she can study up on just about any subject and talk intelligently about it with experts in the field.  Her talent is her ability to blend into any scenario and obtain information to enable the rest of the team's mission...  And don't get me wrong.  It's not always studying for her, all day, everyday.  Other skills that she's picked up in order to enable some of our more bizarre missions have included flying trapeze, automobile repair, poledancing...  and she knows a couple lethal moves she can pull out if she was ever in trouble and needed to diffuse a situation.  Her value for this team, though, lies in her ability to obtain information and facilitate the mission for everyone else.  It's not the exciting part of the job, but it is vitally important for our success."

     "And..." John shook his head.  "Sorry, I'm still processing all of this," he said with his Texas drawl.  "What kinds of missions do you do?  Who are you working on behalf of, and what are you fighting against?"

     "Let me ask you something, John," Charles started out.  "Have you ever tried to bring about some major change that will benefit everyone tremendously only to get monumentally frustrated by the amount of bureaucratic red tape you have to get through to make ANYTHING happen?  We... operate outside of the red tape.  Very few people know about us, but when people in high places need to make something happen QUICKLY, and don't have time to wait for some congressional committee to agree on a course of action... Well, that's when they call us.  We take the jobs that we want to.  Some big ones, like assisting special forces in neutralizing terrorist cells, and some smaller ones, like neutralizing no-talent, fame-seeking reality TV personalities." 

     Charles studied John's facial expression and body language.  "So, my turn to ask you a question:  are you interested?"

     "Sign me up," John said without hesitation.

Charlie's Angels... of DEATH: Chapter 7 -- Birthday Girl

     “What is this place?” Lauren asked as she gawked at the scenery passing by her outside the car window.

     “This is Mr. Charles’s estate,” James said with a smile as he looked in the rearview mirror at Charles’s latest addition to his unique group of young women.  Her eyes looked around her in wide-eyed wonder, trying to take everything in at once without missing any details.  ‘Just like the others,’ he thought to himself with amusement.

     “I wouldn’t mind having a place like this when I grow up,” Lauren said wistfully.  “He could use some animals though…  With this much open land, he should definitely have some llamas… a mini donkey or two… a herd of fainting goats… something…” 

     "You should suggest that to Mr. Charles when you meet him," James said with a smile, imagining a pack of llamas raiding the vegetable garden.

     Lauren's eyes drifted to the enormous mylar balloon she had buckled into the seat next to her: a 4-foot smiley face wearing a party hat.  Her face fell.  It would figure that she happened to be meeting the rest of the girls when one of them was celebrating a birthday.  Not only was she going to feel like an outsider because everyone already knew each other, but she was basically crashing the party. 

     Lauren had racked her brain for hours trying to think of a way to make the whole situation less awkward.  A gift of some kind would smooth the way, right?  But what do you give another girl you've never even met?  A balloon seemed like a safe option.  If only she had read the dimensions on the bag before she paid for it...  The thing was ginormous.  She shook her head as she looked at it.  It was over the top, positively screamed that she was trying too hard to fit in, but she didn't have a back up plan.  Was it better to go in there empty handed?  She wasn't sure, but she had a feeling the other girls were going to laugh at her.

     She rode in silence for several more minutes until James pulled the car in front of a large, stately mansion and stopped.  He turned to face her in the back seat.  “We’re here.” 

     She fumbled to unfasten the seat belt restraining herself and then the balloon.  It could always float out the car door and escape when James was grabbing her luggage...  Then she could just tell the girl that she had at least made the gesture.  It was the thought that counts, right?

     Before she got a chance to "accidentally" let go of the balloon, five girls between the ages of 12 and 14 descended on her, introducing themselves, shaking her hand, taking her bags, and chattering with excitement. 

     "Hi, I'm Mira!" said the angelic-looking, rosy-cheeked Korean girl as she reached back into the car to grab another bag.  "I know it's weird being away from home, but we are going to have SO much fun!" 

     Mira leaned further into the car and squealed.  "OH MY GOD!  Is that for me?"

     Lauren smiled weakly.  "Happy Birthday...  I heard today was your birthday, and I wanted to do something to acknowledge it, but wasn't sure what to do since I'd never met you before...  I'm sorry, I had no idea how large the balloon was going to be until they inflated it.  It's kind of ridiculous..."

     Mira popped back out of the car hugging the balloon.  It hid most of her body.  "No, don't be silly!  This is exactly what I've been looking for.  I love it!!!"

     Lauren raised an eyebrow and looked at the girls who had introduced themselves as Candy and Shannon.  They smiled knowingly as they carried her bags into the foyer.

     "She's not kidding," the one named Meiling said. 

     "I think this calls for a demonstration," the girl named Jen said with smile.  Lauren did a double take.  Jen looked strangely familiar...

     "I'd love to!" Mira said, skipping into the hallway while clutching her balloon.  "Downstairs?" she asked.

     "That's probably advisable," said James as he brought in Lauren's last suitcase.

     The girls scrambled down a flight of stairs, pulling Lauren with them as they went, and entered an expansive rec room containing a 70-inch TV, several overstuffed couches, a ping-pong table, a pool table, air hockey, and a wall of board games stacked to the ceiling.  The girls started pushing couches to the side to clear a large space for Mira.

     Mira tied the balloon to the handle of her knitting basket and adjusted the length of its string so the balloon's height was level with her.  Satisfied with the set up, she grabbed her two knitting needles and immediately began using the balloon as a sparring partner, executing a dizzying array of kicks, punches and flips around the moving target.  Lauren watched with her mouth gaping open as Mira effortlessly lunged to stab the balloon with her knitting needles over and over, always drawing back just in time to avoid popping it.  After several minutes, Mira stopped, bowed to the balloon, and thrust her knitting needles back into a ball of yarn in the basket.

     "Awesome," Mira said to Lauren with a big smile.  "Let's eat some cake!"

     "That was a perfect gift," Candy whispered to Lauren with a smile as the girls started upstairs.

     "I'm glad," Lauren said.  "But... can you all do that?  What is this place?"

     "Nah," Shannon said.  "That's just Mira's thing.  I am more into biological weapons, myself."

     "Oh," Lauren said, her eyes getting larger.  "That's... reassuring."

Charlie's Angels... of DEATH: Chapter 6 -- The Girl Who Would Have a Phoenix Tattoo

     Alison Hannigan, a psychologist employed by the county school board, could not believe her eyes.  Part of her job was to keep dangerous, emotionally disturbed, or otherwise undesirable children out of the county public schools, and in doing so, she often subjected questionable children and teens to a standard battery of testing, but in the four years that she had also secretly been on Mr. Charles’s payroll, she had never come across a teen who came so close to fitting the profile Mr. Charles was looking for.  She had never expected to find such a case, but she had signed an agreement promising to keep a constant watch anyway, and she happily looked forward to the deposits wired into her checking account each month.  Working for the education system didn’t pay much.

     She opened her desk drawer and rifled through its contents until she found his business card.  Her hand shook slightly as she dialed the number.  As she waited for someone to pick up, she wondered if the number had changed in the last four years.  He had never contacted her after their initial meeting, but something made her feel sure that he kept tabs on her nonetheless.  She shivered.  He was a mystery. 

     Someone answered on the other end.  Alison took a deep breath.

     “I’d like to speak with Mr. Charles, please.  This is Alison Hannigan calling from the Arundel County school board.”

     “One moment please,” said a stern female voice.

     After almost five minutes on hold, Charles finally picked up.


     “Hello?  Mr. Charles?  I think I’ve found a girl that you may be interested in,” she said with excitement in her voice.

     “Wonderful, Ms. Hannigan.  Does she fit the criteria?” Charles asked.

     “Almost to a T.  She is easy-going, smart and has diverse interests.  She has plenty of friends at school, and is well-liked by all of her teachers,” Alison continued.

     “Then how did her file come across your desk?”

     “Well…” she paused, wondering how to further explain.  “She is persuasive, and has an overdeveloped sense of…  ridiculousness.  I’m not sure how else to put it.  The most recent incident started when she convinced a group of 17 fellow students to help her kidnap 11 fainting goats from a nearby petting zoo…”

     “Fainting goats?”

     “Yes, Mr. Charles, fainting goats.  Look it up on YouTube.  Anyway, she and her cronies released the goats on the school’s football field during the marching band’s homecoming half-time show.  The band was right in the middle of the 1812 Overture…  All of those clashing symbols, and banging drums, and the ROTC was firing their guns…  Those poor animals were loose on the field, running around in a panic when they could, wouldn’t let a soul get near them, and then fainting at each gunshot or clash of a symbol, but it only takes them a few seconds to get back up and by then they were off again.  No one could catch them…  It took almost 40 minutes to round them all up again.  Marching band members ended up having to surround them individually, scare them with a sudden blare of a horn or beating of a drum, and then pounce on them when they keeled over…” Alison took a breath.

     “That must have been very… traumatic… for the goats,” Charles said in a muffled voice.

     “Wait!”  Alison said, angrily.  “Are you laughing?”

     “NO!  I mean… no, Ms. Hannigan, of course not,” Charles said, in a voice he hoped sounded very stern.  “I am not laughing, because this incident was not funny in the least.  I’m sure it was a very difficult situation for everyone involved.”

     “Well, the owners of the petting zoo were certainly livid.  They’re suing the county school board for $1.1 million, that’s $100,000 per goat, for the goats’ pain and suffering.  They’ve claimed that now the female goats won’t let the males get anywhere near them to mate, and even if they would, the males have all become impotent.  They’re claiming all of the goats are suffering from PTSD, and they’re looking for an animal psychologist to back up their claims in court,” she continued seriously.

     “Post traumatic stress disorder?” he asked.

     “Yes.  They claim that animals can suffer from it just like people.  Anyway, $1.1 million is nothing to sneeze at and the school board is FURIOUS.  That’s how this file came across my desk.  They want her out of Arundel county for good.”

     “I see,” said Charles.  “So at the beginning of our conversation, you said before that she ‘almost’ fit my criteria to a T…”

     “Yes, I did.  Lauren Milles is personable, smart, a jack of all trades…  Interesting results on the psych evaluation.  Comfortable with moral ambiguity.  The only trait that doesn’t quite fit your criteria is her age.  She’s 16 years old, and I know the upper age limit you specified was 14...”

     “Yes, ideally, the girls just take to the new environment much easier if they’re a bit younger.  By the time they’re 16, they’ve already got quite a mind of their own.  I’m not sure how much influence an old man such as myself can have on a 16 year old girl who already sounds like she’s quite willful…”

     “Well, sir, the reason why I wanted to bring her to your attention anyway is her natural curiosity about… well, EVERYTHING.  And she’s very… open to suggestion.  I think if you can appeal to her curiosity, and make her think that attaining the goals you set for her will be fun, you can mold her into whatever you want.”

     “Interesting point, Ms. Hannigan.  On second thought, please make a copy of her file and overnight it to my office.  I will definitely give this further consideration based on your recommendation.”

     “Absolutely, Mr. Charles.  I hope you can reach out to Miss Milles and be a positive role model in her life.  My theory is that she turned out this way because her parents were absent during her formative years. I…”

     “I’m sure you’re on to something, Ms. Hannigan,” Charles cut her off.  “Please send the file as soon as possible.  And oh look!  If you leave right now, you can get to the post office before it closes for the day!  Good-bye,” he said, and hung up before she had a chance to say anything else.

     “Good-bye,” she said and looked at the receiver in her hand.  “I hope that doesn’t come back to haunt me,” she said to herself quietly.  “Strange man…”

     In his home office, Charles leaned back in his office chair and smiled, looking very relaxed.  He turned his head to look at a monitor whose screen was broken up into five different views.  Mira had her Tae Kwon Do instructor pinned to the ground in the gym.  Candy was outside flipping off of the roof of the guesthouse while practicing parkour.  Jen was warming up her vocal cords in one of the laboratories while her vocal coach watched from a window in the next room.  Meiling was in the gym, adding more 45 lb plates to the Smith machine.  Shannon was in the bio-lab working along side a former scientist from Dugway Proving Grounds.  And now he had one that could be molded into whatever the group needed… as long as he appealed to her overdeveloped sense of ridiculousness.

Charlie's Angels... of DEATH: Chapter 5 -- The Girl Was Trouble(d)

     Charles looked out the window of the Bentley without expression as his driver pulled to a stop in front of the Hampstead Correctional Facility for Girls.

    “This shouldn’t take long, James.  Come back in 45 minutes,” Charles said.
   
    The driver nodded his head, “Of course, Mr. Charles.”

    Charles strolled up the stairs of the entrance in his long cashmere jacket, oblivious to how out of place he looked entering the dingy brick building with iron grates over the windows.  He signed in at the front desk, and a guard quickly ushered him into the office of the facility’s director. 

    Helen Mosby stood behind her desk and gave Charles a tight-lipped smile as he came through the door.  He shook her languid, outstretched hand.  It was like squeezing a cold fish.  He immediately disliked Ms. Mosby and knew he must do everything in his power to accomplish the objective which brought him to Hampstead in the first place.

    “Thank you for agreeing to meet with me, Ms. Mosby,” Charles said respectfully.

    “Not at all, Mr. Charles.  To what do I owe this honor?  I know you are a busy man, and I’m not sure I understand why you would take time out of your day to visit a correctional facility for girls,” Ms. Mosby said with a slight sneer.

     “Well,” he began, “The case of one of your newest girls, Shannon Kelly, was brought to my attention by one of my assistants, and I thought maybe I could intervene,  and propose a solution to her detainment that will be more amenable to both her and your facility.”

    “Shannon Kelly is a danger to society.  A mere 13 years old, and she’s already showing signs of what she will one day become: at best, a menace, and at worst, a terrorist.  Why are you so interested in her?” Ms. Mosby asked, the suspicion in her voice unmistakable.

    “Ma’am, she has made some questionable decisions, but scientific research has proven that a girl her age does not fully comprehend the significance of her actions, and the long-term consequences.  Her frontal cortex, responsible for helping to control all of those impulses, will not be fully developed for several more years.  It is inhumane for you to keep her in solitary confinement when she does not fully understand the implications of her actions.”

    Ms. Mosby gasped in outrage.  “How did you know she’s been in solitary?!  And even if it’s true, what business is it of yours?  How we deal with our girls is left to our own discretion.  She’s a troublemaker!”

    “Ms. Mosby, I will not pretend that her offenses are slight.  Producing anthrax in her garage, milling it into a powder and sending envelopes of it through the mail endangered the lives of many, but if you look at WHO she sent it to: her ex-boyfriend, the Pittsburgh Steelers training camp, Miley Cyrus…  Her choices of who to target are consistent with that of any 13 year old girl… with an interest in football… who hates bad movies and bubblegum pop music.  My point is, her motivations are not those of someone who is a danger to our country or national security.”

    “I would disagree with you on that,” she huffed indignantly.

    “The important thing is that no one was hurt.  Fortunately, her knowledge, skills and resources at age 13 were not sufficient for her to produce anything very virulent.  But don’t you see that what she was able to accomplish is a sign of a brilliant mind?  Only 13, with so much intelligence and curiosity.  If you would let me take her as my charge and enroll her at my academy for gifted and talented young women, I could nurture her, give her an appropriate forum in which to develop her talent and express it…  With such astounding talents redirected towards more appropriate avenues, don’t you see the possibilities?  Shannon could cure cancer or AIDS.  She could do great things.  I know it,” Charles said, passionately.

    “Mr. Charles, your interest in these young women… frankly, it’s suspicious… the propriety is questionable…  and it’s a little creepy…” she sniffed.

    Charles sighed.  “Is it a matter of resources then?  Money?  I know Hampstead has neither.  I would like to become Shannon’s legal guardian, and her parents have already agreed that if I am able to get her out of here, they will sign papers to that effect.  They are acting in her best interest.  I wish you would, too.”

    Ms. Mosby fidgeted with the balled up tissue in her sleeve, but said nothing.

    “So, it is a money thing?”  Charles reached into the chest pocket of his jacket and pulled out a checkbook and a pen.  “How much do you want?  $100,000?  A donation of that magnitude would go a long way in helping to renovate this facility…”

     Ms. Mosby sat up straighter, and leaned in toward Charles.  “Make it $125,000 and she can return with you to your academy by the end of the week.”

    Charles smiled.  He had gotten off cheaper than he had expected.  He wrote the check and signed it with a flourish.  He handed it to her  “It’s been a pleasure, Ms. Mosby, I will iron out details with you later this evening.  Good day.”

    And with that, he swooped out of the room, and out of the building, happy to see that his silver Bentley had never left its spot in front of the entrance.  “Home please, James.”

    “Of course, sir,” said James, smiling into the rearview mirror.