07:34 (Washington Time)
Wednesday, May 25, 1988 ‘C’
Extended Hours Lounge, ‘Little School’ building
Congressional School, 3229 Sleepy Hollow Road
Falls Church, Virginia, U.S.A.
‘’Anybody saw Leo this morning?’’ asked Nancy to her friends and classmates after returning in the Extended Hours Lounge, back from a trip to the washroom. Kimi Park was the one who answered her.
‘’I believe that Leo has not arrived yet, Nancy.’’
Kenneth Partridge, a big, eleven-year-old boy who was lining up to become a typical football college jock, then made a sarcastic joke.
‘’What’s the matter, Nancy? Missing your boyfriend already?’’
Nancy pulled her tongue at Partridge in response, making other students laugh. She then went to the large windows of the lounge, which gave a view of the adjacent parking lot, and started looking for Nick Donatello’s black Cadillac.
Less than 400 meters from the school, on the school’s access road connecting with Sleepy Hollow Road, Nick Donatello was starting to worry, as the same two cars which had been behind him for over five minutes also turned on the school’s access road. The big problem with those two cars is that Nick could only see adults in them, and no children. He debated for a moment what to do, fearing that those two cars could be a threat to him and to his young passenger, Leonardo. Unfortunately, the road he was on ended at the school, with no other way to go unless he reversed course. He finally decided that nobody would be dumb enough to attack him and Leonardo inside the school grounds, where there would be plenty of witnesses. Nick did hesitate then, as driving all the way to the school could put in danger numerous children. Unfortunately, he was pretty much out of options right now, so he continued on. Leonardo, an intelligent and perceptive boy, then spoke to him from the back seat of the Cadillac.
‘’Is there something wrong, Nick? You keep watching your rear-view mirror.’’
‘’I am not sure, Leo. The same two cars have been following us for at least five minutes. Just in case, I will ask you to keep your head down.’’
‘’Uh, okay!’’ replied Leo, becoming scared. He knew perfectly well in what kind of ‘business’ his father was and was against it but his father, while loving him, simply ignored Leo’s objections and went on being the main Italian Mafia boss in the Washington D.C. area. Leo’s big brother and sister, as well as his mother, were unfortunately much more forgiving of his father’s activities and had told many times Leo to drop the subject. In fact, Leo strongly suspected that his big brother Angelo, who was now sixteen, aspired to one day succeed his father at the head of his crime family. The problem was that Leo was convinced that all this would one day finish very badly. That day may just have come for him.
Nick suddenly saw in his rear-view mirror that both of the cars behind him were now accelerating and gaining on him fast. He understood at once what these men had in mind: to corner him and force him to stop before he could get to the school. Now having no other choice left to him, Nick also floored his accelerator, making his big but also powerful Cadillac leap forward. With the entrance gate of the school now less than a hundred meters ahead, Nick kept accelerating, then pushed on the brake pedal as strongly as he could at the last moment, then turned abruptly and passed through the open gate. His heart sank when he saw that the drivers of the two cars, far from being deterred, kept after him. Taking his Colt 1911 .45 caliber pistol out of its holster and then sticking it between his legs, he shouted a warning to Leonardo while speeding past the ‘Big School’ building as he lowered his door’s window.
‘’STAY DOWN AND HANG ON, LEO!’’
Abruptly turning his steering wheel while stepping hard on his brake pedal, Nick made his Cadillac perform a half turn in a noise of screeching tires, ending facing the two pursuing cars. The two cars, also braking hard, split up, one stopping in front of the Cadillac and blocking its path and the other passing close on Nick’s side before stopping at an angle behind his rear bumper, boxing him in. However, as the first man stepped out of the car blocking his rear, a pistol in his hand, he found himself facing the muzzle of Nick’s pistol, less than three meters from him. Nick’s Colt barked three times, making the gunman jerk and then collapse like a broken puppet. However, no less than four handguns replied to his fire a mere second later. Fired in haste and under stress, most of the bullets missed Nick, whistling past his head or simply piercing holes in his windshield and door. Unfortunately for him, two bullets did find their mark, perforating his torso’s left side and his right shoulder, making him loose his grip on his pistol. With Nick now unarmed and slumped inert against his steering wheel, two of the attackers pulled the rear doors of the Cadillac open, with one man then brutally pulling a screaming Leonardo out of the car. Leonardo was then thrown in the back of one of the cars, while the dead gunman killed by Nick was dragged and loaded inside the other car.
Inside the Extended Hours Lounge, the children and the supervisor in it were able to see everything as it unfolded. Nancy, thanks to her past life experience as a French Resistance fighter, understood at once what was happening and shouted in horror.
‘’THOSE BAD MEN ARE KIDNAPPING LEO!’’
Jumping off her chair, she ran to the exit door of the lounge, only to find the young male supervisor blocking it.
‘’DON’T LEAVE THE LOUNGE, NANCY! IT IS DANGEROUS OUTSIDE.’’
‘’I DON’T CARE! GET OUT OF THE WAY!’’
When the supervisor showed no sign of stepping aside, Nancy became angry and shouted again.
‘’I SAID, GET OUT OF THE WAY!’’
The 74-kilo young man suddenly flew backward as pushed by an invisible hand, pedaling hard to regain his balance before crashing violently against the opposite wall of the corridor. Half knocked out, he then slid down against the wall, ending with his bum on the floor as Nancy ran past him, heading for the main frontal entrance door. Despite her short legs, she ran about as fast as an Olympic athlete would and was out of the building as the two attacking cars started speeding away. Deathly worried about Leo, Nancy ran to the Cadillac and looked inside it, only to find the back seat empty. She then went to Nick, still slumped against the steering wheel, and shook him.
‘’NICK! NICK! SAY SOMETHING! DON’T DIE NOW!’’
She then got a cough and a weak voice.
‘’Took Leo… Must warn fath…’’
Understanding that Nick was about to die, Nancy then acted as her conscience told her to: applying both of her hands over the visible wounds of the driver, she then concentrated the way Ingrid had shown her to do. Her hands, then her whole body, along with that of Nick, gradually started to glow, to the point of being too bright to look directly at. They glowed like this for a good half minute, watched by the disbelieving children inside the waiting lounge and by a few other children and adults present around the school grounds. When she returned to normal and took her hands off the driver, Nick opened his eyes and took a deep breath, still feeling weak.
‘’What did just happen, Nancy?’’
‘’I healed you, Nick. I’m sorry but I must go now and chase after those bad men.’’
Nancy further shocked Nick by taking out of his shoulder rig one of his spare magazines and picking up his colt 1911. Before Nick could protest about that, Nancy silently flew off the ground like a bird, drawing a concert of astonished exclamations from the onlookers around.
Nancy was quite conscious of what her open demonstration of supernatural powers could cause later on but, frankly, she couldn’t care less about that at this moment. With Nick’s pistol and spare magazine in her hands and accelerating quickly while gaining altitude, she went after the two attacking cars while concentrating to send a powerful telepathic message.
‘INGRID, I NEED YOUR HELP! LEONARDO JUST GOT KIDNAPPED ON ARRIVING AT THE SCHOOL. I AM NOW IN PURSUIT OF TWO CARS, IN WHICH LEONARDO IS.’
An answer was not long in coming, with a powerful mental message replying to her.
‘I will leave the White House at once, Nancy. How are you pursuing those cars?’
‘I am flying after them. I’m sorry, Mommy, but I had no choice.’
‘I understand, sweety. Which way are those cars going now?’
‘They just turned Northeast on Road 613, apparently heading towards Seven Corners.’
‘Good! Can you keep up with them?’
‘I think so, Mommy! I will contact you again if they change directions.’
Nancy then concentrated back on keeping the two cars in sight and not lose them while flying at an altitude of about eighty meters.
Back at the Congressional School, after an understandable moment of panic and confusion, a few adult staffers ran to the immobile Cadillac to go check on Nick. Seeing the blood soaking his left side and right shoulder, one of the staffers shouted towards the nearby Little School.
‘’SOMEONE CALL AN AMBULANCE AND THE POLICE, QUICK!’’
Helped by a male teacher, he then cautiously took Nick, who was still weak, out of his car, laying him on the asphalt. Inspecting quickly Nick and expecting to find bullet holes in his body, he was surprised to find no visible wound, despite the amount of blood soaking his shirt and vest. He exchanged a confused look with the teacher helping him.
‘’I…I don’t understand! I can’t find any wound, yet this man obviously lost a lot of blood.’’
‘’Yeah! And did you see how that little girl flew off, like a sort of witch? How could that be possible?’’
‘’It was General Dows’ five-year-old daughter. Did you see the way she glowed brightly for a moment?’’
‘’I did! However, the important thing now is that one of our pupils has just been kidnapped on the School grounds. We will have to find out who it was.’’
‘’His name…Leonardo Bocelli… He is in fourth-grade… Must warn his father.’’ Managed to say Nick before losing consciousness.
Inside the Little School building, Kerry Welsh was arriving at a run at the waiting lounge, deadly worried about her young pupils. She nearly collided with ten-year-old Kimi Park, who was running out of the lounge, a piece of paper in her hands.
‘’MISSES WELSH, BANDITS JUST KIDNAPPED LEONARDO AND SHOT HIS DRIVER. WE SAW EVERYTHING AND WE WERE ABLE TO NOTE DOWN THE PLATE NUMBERS OF THEIR TWO CARS. WE NEED TO CALL THE POLICE AND AN AMBULANCE!’’
‘’My God! Was any of the children hurt?’’
The embarrassed look she got then from Kimi alarmed the teacher at once, who insisted.
‘’Speak, Kimi! Was anybody else hurt?’’
‘’I don’t think so, Misses Welsh, but Nancy ran outside and went after the bandits.’’
‘’SHE WENT AFTER THE BANDITS? HOW? WHERE IS SHE NOW?’’
‘’She…she flew off in pursuit of the two cars, Misses Welsh. Please, we have to call the police and pass to them those car plate numbers, so that they could catch those bandits and save Leonardo… MISSES WELSH!’’
Frozen by stupor for a moment, the teacher was then returned to reality by Kimi’s shout.
‘’Uh, of course, Kimi. Come with me: I will need you in case the police ask for more details about what happened. But promise me to explain to me what you saw after we make that call.’’
‘’Yes, Misses Welsh.’’
Still flying at low altitude along Road 613 and following the kidnappers’ cars, Nancy found out that she was able to keep up with them, thanks to the numerous intersections with stop signs or signal lights which slowed them down. However, a few people on the ground had already spotted her in the sky and pointed her to others, something that made Nancy sigh heavily.
‘’There is going to be Hell to pay after this. Ingrid won’t be happy with me.’’
She however dismissed that thought nearly at once and started thinking about what she should do next. It could take a while before Ingrid could arrive in her aircar. It could take even more time for the local police to react in an effective manner and stop those bandits. One option she had would be to go down and use Nick’s pistol to confront the kidnappers. She however forgot that option almost at once: any gunfight could end up wounding or killing Leonardo. She thus had to find a less risky way to slow down or stop those kidnappers without endangering Leonardo. An idea then came to her mind, making her smile ferociously. Using a moment when the two cars had stopped at a red light in the small town of Seven Corners, she dove quickly towards the cars and landed right behind the second car. Being too small to be easily visible from the inside of that car if she stayed close to its rear bumper, Nancy crouched on the asphalt and stared at the right rear tire. With its rubber quickly heated up to a boil via her mental powers, that tire then blew up in a loud BANG, with the car then leaning to the right. Nancy smiled on hearing swearing coming from the men inside and put her spare magazine in her mouth, so that she could use both of her small hands to handle the big .45 caliber pistol. It didn’t take long before a man stepped out through the rear right door in order to check on the tire. The moment he was out, with his door still wide open, Nancy quickly got up and stepped to the right to face him. The man froze for a moment with surprise at her sight, but he never had time to react before Nancy shot him once right through the heart. As he was falling down, Nancy ran to the open back door and pointed her pistol inside, hoping that Leonardo would be in it. To her disappointment, she saw only a dead man on the back seat, plus two men in the front seats. Aiming her pistol, she shot in quick succession the driver and the passenger before they could react, then ran at a crouch to the leading car, which was still stuck behind a truck stopped at the red light. As she ran, she quickly ejected her now nearly empty magazine and loaded the fresh magazine she had been biting on, using the small arms training experience of Andrée Borrel as both a French Resistance fighter and as a British S.O.E. agent in World War 2. Alerted by the gunshots, two men sitting on the right side of the lead car stuck their heads and right arms out by their opened window, trying to aim their pistols at her. Nancy shot each of them twice before they could fire a single shot. Running to the rear right door and pulling it open, Nancy saw with a pang of joy Leonardo, apparently unhurt but with a gag in his mouth and with his hands tied. She also saw another bandit, sitting to the left of Leonardo, who was pointing a revolver at her. Stepping sideways at the speed of lightning, she managed to dodge the bullet of the gunman, then returned fire, killing him with a bullet in his forehead. Stepping on top of the dead gangster sprawled out of the rear right door, she entered the back of the car and stuck the muzzle of her pistol against the neck of the disbelieving driver.
‘’One false move and you are dead! Put your car in ‘park’ and shut down your engine, NOW!’’
‘’Jesus! I can’t believe this!’’ replied the driver, who however obeyed her and shut down his engine. Still, Nancy kept her gun against his neck and stepped past Leonardo, getting behind the driver’s seat so that she could search him for a weapon. She effectively found a revolver holstered against the driver’s left side and took it before speaking again.
‘’Now, put both of your hands on top of the steering wheel and leave them there. Don’t move until the police arrives. That shouldn’t take too long.’’
Effectively, the noise of the gunfight and the sight of dead men sprawled on the pavement next to an intersection made a number of passersby and local residents call the police, with a squad car arriving with sirens blaring seven minutes later. As she waited for the police to show up, Nancy glanced and smiled at Leonardo.
‘’You are going to be alright now, Leo. Let me ungag you.’’
The boy looked at her with wide eyes and spoke as soon as he was able to.
‘’How did you do all this, Nancy? You were fantastic!’’
‘’I will tell you later, once I am rid of that piece of trash. Try not to distract me in the meantime, please.’’
Next, she searched quickly the dead man sitting next to Leo on the bench seat. Finding a stiletto knife on him, she used it to cut the ropes tying Leo’s hands together. Her next move was to send a telepathic message to her mother.
‘Mommy, we are now in Seven Corners, at the intersection of Road 613 and Leesburg Pike. All but one of the bandits are dead, with the last one disarmed and with both cars immobilized. Leonardo is alright and I am waiting for the police to arrive.’’
‘Well done, sweety! Hang on: I will be at your location in a couple of minutes.’
Cutting her mental link with Ingrid, Nancy concentrated back her attention on the driver, who was not exactly doing too well.
‘’Alright, asshole! How about telling me who sent your bunch of clowns to kidnap Leo?’’
‘’Jesus, girl! Who are you really?’’
‘’Your worst nightmare. Now, about answering my question.’’
‘’But, but, I can’t tell you! My boss would kill me for that!’’
‘’Blah, blah, blah! Maybe I should kill you now, then.’’ Said Nancy in a cold voice, then cocking the revolver she had taken from the driver and gluing its muzzle against the man’s neck. ‘’I could always say later that you tried to grab my pistol.’’
‘’WAIT!’’ shouted the now terrorized man, completely unsettled by this demonic-like little girl. ‘’SEAN MACMANUS SENT US! PLEASE, DON’T REVEAL THAT TO THE PUBLIC, OR I WILL BE A DEAD MAN.’’
‘’Now, that’s better! That sounds like an Irish name, am I right, Leo?’’
‘’It is, Nancy. I heard my father swear a number of times about a Sean MacManus giving him problems.’’
‘’Well, we now have a motive to go with the crime. Aah, the cops are here at last.’’
The two policemen who nervously approached the two cars with their revolvers drawn could not believe their eyes at first when they saw Nancy, sitting with Leo in the back of the first car and pointing two guns at the driver. The more senior policeman then spoke firmly to Nancy while keeping his revolver pointed.
‘’You can hand me your two guns now, girl. Who is the boy with you?’’
Leonardo then took on him to answer while holding both of his hands high and visible.
‘’My name is Leonardo Bocelli and those men kidnapped me at the Congressional School after shooting my driver and bodyguard. Nancy is one of my classmates at the school.’’
The policeman nodded once at that, then briefly looked at his partner.
‘’Go look at the plates on those two cars. See if they correspond to the ones we just got via a radio alert.’’
‘’Got it!’’ said his partner, who then walked quickly around the cars, to then shout to the senior officer.
‘’THEY ARE THE ONES WE WERE LOOKING FOR ALRIGHT.’’
The senior officer relaxed a bit then but kept his revolver pointed at Nancy.
‘’Now, could you please hand me your guns, girl?’’
‘’No problem, Officer!’’ replied Nancy, who then slowly uncocked her revolver and grabbed it by its barrel before passing it through the open window, along with her pistol.
‘’Be careful about the driver, Officer: he is one of the gangsters who kidnapped my friend Leonardo. That Colt 1911 belongs to Leonardo’s driver and bodyguard. I took it after he got shot by those men.’’
‘’Uh, how old are you girl? Are you a dwarf?’’
Nancy threw an insulted look at the cop at those words.
‘’A dwarf? Please! I’m five years old! My mother could testify to that. In fact, she is now arriving in her aircar.’’
Now completely befuddled, the poor local cop glanced at the arriving aircar but had the presence of mind of then taking care of the driver, making him step out with his hands in the air and then handcuffing him.
Ingrid, while overjoyed to see that both Nancy and Leonardo were alright, still didn’t rush towards the two immobile cars, not wanting to spoof the two nervous cops who still had their revolvers drawn out. Instead she walked calmly towards them while holding in front of her her White House security pass.
‘’Officers, I am the mother of this five-year-old girl. My name is Ingrid Dows and I work at the White House. I came here to make sure that my daughter is alright.’’
‘’Go ahead and approach, miss.’’ said the senior policeman. He then examined her security pass for a moment before nodding his head.
‘’You look legit, Misses Dows. However, we are facing quite an incredible situation here. Apparently, your sweet little girl killed by herself five gangsters and captured this last one. I also saw her handle two handguns like a pro, even though her hands are still too small to grip them properly.’’
‘’I am afraid that there are elements here that are highly classified at the national level, officer. Also, know that the boy that was kidnapped is the son of a reputed mobster boss and that those kidnappers were sent by a rival mobster boss. All this thus makes this a crime under the jurisdiction of the FBI. I counsel that your police station should contact the FBI quickly.’’
The policeman made a grimace at those words, obviously not liking the idea of relinquishing a case to the FBI. However, he could not deny the exactitude of Ingrid’s claim, as both organized crime and kidnapping of children under the age of twelve were two crimes which were expressly the domain of the FBI.
‘’I believe that you are right, miss. I will call my police station right away. You are free to join up with your daughter, miss.’’
‘’Thank you, Officer!’’
Walking past the policeman, Ingrid went to grab Nancy, who literally jumped into her arms and hugged her, with Ingrid covering her with frantic kisses.
‘’Nancy, if you knew how scared I was for you.’’
‘’You didn’t need to worry about me, Mommy: those bandits were not much of a challenge.’’
‘’Please don’t say that too loud, Nancy: we will already have enough of a hard time to explain all this and I certainly don’t want to see a media storm rise on account of you.’’
‘’Then, why not simply say the truth, Mommy?’’
‘’Uh, that could prove complicated, sweety.’’
11:09 (Washington Time)
FBI’s Lorton field offices, 8540 Terminal Road
Lorton, Fairfax County, Virginia
Special Agent-In-Charge Allen Cumberland sat down with a sigh at the head of the long table inside the secure conference room of the FBI’s Lorton field offices. His assistant, Assistant Special Agent-In-Charge Rick Hamilton, along with six other agents, also took place around the table, putting files and documents in front of them. Cumberland looked around at his agents before speaking up:
‘’Well, this investigation is lining up to be a real doozie{12}. Okay, let’s review the facts first. Rick, what have you got so far?’’
‘’First, for the facts that are legally firm. It is now established beyond a doubt via witnesses’ testimonies and crime scene evidence that eight armed men in two cars first followed a car in which ten-year-old Leonardo Bocelli and his driver cum bodyguard were, then attacked those two inside the grounds of the Congressional School, near Falls Church. They shot the driver in an exchange of gunfire that also resulted in the death of one of the attackers, killed by the driver while he was defending his young charge. The seven remaining attackers then kidnapped young Leonardo and threw him inside one of their cars while also putting the body of their dead comrade in the other car, then took off, leaving the school grounds and driving towards Seven Corners. Also legally binding is the fact that all of the eight attackers had lengthy criminal records and were carrying unlicensed weapons. As for the boy’s driver cum bodyguard, a Nick Donatello, his pistol was a legal, licensed one and he had a valid security guard permit. The boy himself is the younger son of one Tony Bocelli, a suspected organized crime boss established and operating in the Washington D.C. area. I said ‘suspected’ because, while accused many times of racketeering, the charges against him along the years never stuck, thanks to his big-money lawyers and also thanks to the fact that the witnesses against him were either too scared to talk or ended up dead.’’
Cumberland nodded his head at that, being quite familiar with the name ‘Tony Bocelli’.
‘’So, for once, Tony Bocelli found himself to be a victim rather than an abuser or criminal. How ironic! What else, Rick?’’
‘’Well, that’s where things become a lot fuzzier. Again according to multiple witnesses, both at the Congressional School and in the town of Seven Corners, one of the young pupils of the school, five-year-old Nancy Dows, ran out to rescue Leonardo Bocelli, who was one of her best friends at the school. She arrived too late on the scene of the shootout in the parking lot to stop his kidnapping, but then magically healed the driver, Nick Donatello, who had been mortally wounded by two bullet strikes. I say ‘magically’ because there is frankly no other way to describe what happened. Again according to multiple witnesses, little Nancy Dows applied her hands on the dying Nick Donatello and then started glowing brightly for about a minute or less. She then picked up his pistol, which had fallen on the pavement next to his Cadillac, and also grabbed one of his spare magazines before flying off ‘à la Marie Poppins’, supposedly in pursuit of the kidnappers. She apparently caught up with them inside the town of Seven Corners and landed behind their cars as they were stuck at a red light. According to local witnesses, that little girl then shot one after the other six of the gunmen, leaving alive only the driver of the car where Leonardo Bocelli had been put in. Two local cops arrived on the scene shortly afterward and arrested the driver. Little Nancy Dows didn’t cause them problems and gave them the two guns she had with her at the time, including the Colt 1911 which belonged to Nick Donatello and a revolver she took from the gunman driving the lead car.’’
The agents around the table exchanged glances before Cumberland spoke again.
‘’You are certainly right about that part of the story being fuzzy, Rick. If brought up in front of a judge, we would be laughed out of court.’’
‘’Not necessarily, Allen.’’ replied Annette Benning, the lawyer and prosecutor from the Federal Justice Department attached to Cumberland’s field office. ‘’There are actually known precedents to at least parts of this. Those precedents are by the way all connected to the girl’s mother, ex-General Ingrid Dows.’’
‘’Please do tell us about them, Annette.’’ said Cumberland, his curiosity pricked. Benning then opened a file in front of her and flipped to one of its pages before speaking again.
‘’As you all must know, General Ingrid Dows has been known for decades already to hold a number of supernatural powers and is also reputed to be able to remember the souvenirs from her past incarnations, spread over 7,000 years. This became public as early as 1953. However, classified information at the ‘Top Secret’ level also tells us that she had revealed at least part of her powers to successive Presidents, starting with President Martin in 1948, and this on a confidential basis. As you all know as well, she still looks to be about 25 years-old, despite being in reality 62. She attributed her powers to the fact that she is what she calls a ‘Chosen’ of a powerful spiritual entity named ‘The One’. Mind you, she doesn’t act like some typical past prophets and is not pushing for anyone to pray or worship this ‘One’, on the contrary. Returning on facts connected to this case, General Dows, then in command of the spaceship U.S.S. PROMETHEUS, healed by touch a member of her crew who had been severely burned in a kitchen fire, in a way identical to the way her little daughter healed Leonardo’s bodyguard. That incident was officially recorded then. Please note also that little Nancy was born aboard that same ship, while it was halfway between Jupiter and Saturn.’’
‘’And who was the father of Nancy Dows? One of the ship’s officers?’’ asked one of the investigative agents, making Annette shake her head.
‘’To date, the father remains unknown, with Ingrid Dows having steadfastly refused to reveal his identity, officially because she didn’t want to create a sense of favoritism among her crew. In another incident during that same Space mission, Ingrid Dows