Under the Radar. Fern Michaels
to be heard over the landing aircraft. “Run, Myra!”
The women raced from the room, out onto the porch, down the steps, across the compound as they half-dragged and half-pulled Myra to the helicopter pad. Somehow they managed to catch up to Charles, who was so stunned that he stopped in his tracks, his arms extended to clasp Myra to his chest.
The other Sisters stood in a huddle, the wind from the helicopter blades almost blowing the hair off their heads. They waved furiously, shouting words that couldn’t be heard.
When the bird in the sky was just a speck, they trudged back to the main cabin, Annie in the lead.
Back in the kitchen, they fell to their assigned tasks and within minutes they had breakfast on the table.
“Eat! You know Charles’s rule: first we eat, then we talk,” Annie ordered.
The Sisters made a valiant effort to eat the pancakes and eggs, but for the most part all they did was stir the food around on their plates. Murphy and Grady waited patiently, knowing the food would find its way into their food bowls.
The minute the table was cleared and the dishwasher was humming, Isabelle poured fresh coffee. “Let’s talk,” she said as she plopped down in her chair.
“Charles has a family he didn’t know about. How is that possible? Charles knows everything. How could he be ignorant of an entire family? If it was a secret, how did Her Majesty know about it?”
Something funny was going on, they finally agreed when all the questions they asked one another had no answers.
The Sisters’ concern turned to themselves.
“We’re rudderless. There’s no one at the helm. What are we supposed to do?” Kathryn demanded.
“It’s not exactly like we’re busy,” Nikki said. “We’re missionless, if there is such a word, at the moment.”
“Yes, but what if something comes up? What do we do then?” Alexis asked. “And I hesitate to mention this, but we haven’t heard a word from our president-elect and the pardon she promised us. Maybe this is a good time to, you know, sort of look into it.”
“Why don’t we have a party?” Yoko suggested. “We can invite Lizzie, Maggie, Jack, and Harry, and anyone else we think it is safe to invite.”
“That’s definitely out of the question. That’s one of Charles’s rules. We can’t go against it, as much as I would love to have some fun and see Jack,” Nikki said.
“So…we just sit here on this damn mountain and wait to see if Charles comes back. He said straight out he might not return. We need to make some plans,” Kathryn said.
“Girls! We are not rudderless. I am, as of this moment, appointing myself as our new PM and will take the helm,” Annie said.
Her Sisters laughed. “Annie, they only have prime ministers in England. You can’t be a PM,” Alexis said.
“No, no, no. I didn’t mean prime minister. I meant point man. Or, in this case, PW, which means point woman. I considered saying point person, but PP doesn’t seem quite right.”
A couple of the girls snickered.
“That’s another way of saying I’m taking charge! If there are any dissenters, now is the time to…uh…dissent.”
A rousing chorus of yahs echoed in the kitchen just as Annie’s cell phone rang. The Sisters looked at one another, their eyes full of questions. Annie put the specially encrypted phone to her ear, murmured a greeting, and then listened to the excited voice on the other end of the line.
Annie’s expression went from disbelief to utter disbelief when she said, “Pearl, I have my own crisis right here on the mountain, and I can’t get excited about what’s going on in Utah. Besides, it isn’t even light out, so it has to be around three o’clock in Utah, which raises the question: What the hell are you doing out there on some back road in the middle of nowhere at this hour of the night? I’ll get back to you when I have time.”
“What? What?” the other Sisters demanded.
Annie shrugged. “Like I know. I could barely understand her. Somebody’s bus broke down. Not Pearl’s.”
Annie’s phone rang again, then Nikki’s pealed. Yoko pulled her phone out of the pocket of her robe just as it rang.
“Will someone answer the damn phones already?” Kathryn blasted.
Everyone started talking at once, on the phones and among themselves.
Five minutes later the Sisters were pacing.
“I’d say Pearl does have a crisis. But, I don’t see how we can help,” Nikki said.
Annie’s phone rang again. She barked a greeting, then said, “We’re discussing it now, Pearl. What do you mean, what should you do? Sing songs. Play games. That’s what we used to do when our parents took us for buggy rides a hundred years ago. I’ll get back to you.”
The Sisters argued back and forth for a good ten minutes before Annie stood up and stomped her feet. “Listen up! Are you all saying we are not capable of helping out a fellow Sister? All right, all right, she’s almost a Sister.”
Before anyone could respond, there was another wave of phone calls. Judge Easter, Lizzie, then Maggie calling in.
All Annie would say is, “We’re taking it under advisement.”
“Maybe we should have told them about Charles and Myra,” Isabelle said fretfully.
“And maybe we shouldn’t,” Annie said spiritedly. “They don’t live on this mountain, so that makes them the auxiliary or the second string. That means they do not, I repeat, they do not need to know everything. I don’t think Charles or Myra would want their private business being talked about, even with friends. We’re family, so to speak, so it stays right here and goes no further. But, we need to have a show of hands to show total agreement.”
Annie’s Sisters knew she was spot on as five hands shot in the air.
“All right, then. My first decision as PW is that we are all in agreement, and we act accordingly. I don’t know what that means exactly, so we’ll more or less wing it for now. Now, let’s sit down and figure out what if anything we can do to help Pearl without Charles and Myra and still keep their business private.”
Chapter 2
Within seconds, the high-tech world that none of the Sisters truly understood kicked into high gear when their special phones warbled a symphony that left the women breathless.
Annie’s beringed fingers wiggled in the air, the signal for each of them to say who was calling according to their caller ID displays. Confusion reigned as one call clicked off and another one came in at the speed of light.
Pearl.
Maggie.
Lizzie.
Nellie.
Jack.
Harry.
Bert.
Annie wagged her finger. “Okay, we know why all the phones are ringing. We have to make a decision to shelve Myra and Charles, then we have to decide what if anything we can do for Pearl. That’s not to say we aren’t going to help Myra and Charles at some point, but for the moment, Pearl’s problem seems to be the most pressing.”
Isabelle leaned forward. “I don’t know if I’m comfortable with that, Annie. We’re just going to…what, ignore whatever it is that’s going on with Charles? Shouldn’t we be thinking about a way to get to England to help? I understand all about Pearl but she’s not really one of us. I don’t mean to sound ugly, but that’s the way it is. She helped us, we helped her. It was supposed to be a one-shot deal. End of story.”
“Charles