“Are you kidding?” she whispered, irritated.  “I’m not missing any of the action.”

Johnny took both of her hands in his and gazed intently into her green eyes.  “Natalie, we need the element of surprise.  I’ll go in and check out the situation, and if you hear I’m in trouble, you call in reinforcements.”  The truth was, Johnny felt an overwhelming urge to protect Natalie.  He told himself it was because she’d already been injured today, but deep down he knew better. 

Surprisingly, Natalie seemed to see the wisdom in Johnny’s words, and she took out her gun, motioning for him to go inside.  “Wait,” she whispered, and, standing on tiptoes, gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.  “Good luck, Johnny,” she said, smiling slightly.  “I’ll be seeing you…oh, darn, I’m sorry!”  Her eyes twinkled mercilessly.

“It’s OK, Natalie.  Watch your back,” Johnny said.  “In all the old familiar places,” he thought as he drew his gun, slowly opened the barn door and entered.

After the bright sunlight, the interior of the barn was quite dark, and at first the only thing Johnny could see was a single shaft of light, pouring in through one open window, high up in the ceiling of the building.  He stood still for several moments, until he could see a little better.  The voices he and Natalie had heard outside were louder now, but still a bit muffled.  They sounded like they were coming from somewhere above him. 

When Johnny’s eyesight was a bit more adjusted, he looked around the barn, orienting himself with his surroundings.  The floor of the barn was covered with a layer of dirty yellow straw, and not much else.  There was an old smell of animals in the musty air, but Johnny figured it had been a long time since the barn had been used to keep livestock.  As he walked slowly past the empty stalls, toward the rickety-looking staircase at the far end of the barn, the melody of the Pink Panther began to course through his brain.  He had a sudden crazy urge to walk slowly on tiptoes in time to the music, picking up each foot as high as he could, as he sneaked across the room.  He somehow managed to restrain himself, and saw that the stairs appeared to lead up to a loft which covered two-thirds of the floor he was on.  As he got closer to the stairway, the sound of the voices increased.  It was obvious there was a heated argument taking place.

“Are you insane?”  a woman screeched.  “They’re supposed to take the homing tags off!  Those idiot agents were probably halfway here before the damn thing fell off that stupid amphibian.”

“I’m sorry mum,” a low voice muttered.  “The new lads dinna know all the rules!”

“I don’t like it,” she replied.  “You need to give them better instructions, or we’ll be found out!  Oh, Mac,” her voice changing to a throaty female purr.  “If those creepy agents give us a hard time, you’ll take care of them for me, right?”

“Ya have me word, mum!” Mac coughed several times.  By this time, Johnny had reached the stairway, and a familiar stench was wafting down to greet him.  He began to creep silently up the stairway, listening to the conversation ahead, gun ready. 

On the 17th stair, five from the top, he felt the wood splinter under his foot.  Ccccruuunch! went his leg through the stair, and, as if in slow motion, stairs 1 through 17 ripped away from the rest and fell sideways, clattering to the wooden floor below.  Just in time, Johnny managed to catch the 18th stair with his left hand, and he hung on tight, twisting and turning.  Amazingly, the remaining five stairs, though creaking loudly, held fast to the floor above, and Johnny held fast to them.  “I will survive,” he thought.  “I’ve got all my life to live; I’ve got all my love to give....” 

Johnny was not a particularly muscular man, but he was filled with the raw energy of a superhuman, just long enough to put his gun back in its holster, reach up and ascend the remaining stairs, hand over hand.  

“How could they not have heard that?” Johnny wondered, as he continued to listen to the voices from beyond the door at the top of the stairs.  He heard maniacal laughter now, and he listened for several seconds.  When the laughter had trailed off, Johnny drew his gun once again, threw open the door, and leapt into the room in a shooter’s stance, screaming, “Hiiiyahhh!”

Seeing no one, he leapt into the air once more, this time turning completely around and landing in another shooter’s stance, facing the other direction.  “Gotcha!” he screamed.

Once again, no one.  “Hello?”  Johnny said hesitantly.  The room was silent…almost.  There was a faint buzzing sound coming out of a dim corner.  Johnny advanced cautiously, and found a small table with a tape recorder on it.  He pushed rewind for a few seconds, and then play.  The same laughter, mocking him.  “Laughing,” he whispered insanely.  “Laughing...well you’re laughing at me, well you’re laughing at me.  Ha ha ha ha ha ha.”  Uncontrollably, the words to the Guess Who song echoed in his brain. 

Then Johnny heard another sound – a loud whirring noise that seemed to come from the roof.  “Natalie!” he thought, and he rushed to the window.  What he saw made his heart sink in despair.  Natalie was sprawled out on the ground, almost directly underneath the window, not moving.  “Natalie!” he shouted, but she did not stir.  Next to her was what looked like a small tied-up bundle of newspaper.  The whirring sound was louder out here, and Johnny looked up, not knowing what to expect next.  What he saw was a helicopter, which appeared to have come from the roof of the barn.  “There must be a landing pad up there,” he said to himself, as he watched the copter head west.  Then he noticed there was something tied to the bottom of the copter, hanging by a long rope.  “It can’t be,” he breathed.  But it was.  Johnny watched as the helicopter flew off into the distance, with a Loggerhead, most likely Adelita, hanging on helplessly.

Natalie, meantime, was beginning to come to.  The first thing she saw was Johnny, hanging out of the window, directly over her head.  “Whaddyou lookin’ at?” she mumbled, blinking her eyes at him.  She rose to her feet, albeit a bit unsteadily, and began brushing off her clothing.

“Are you always this grumpy when you wake up?” Johnny called down, relieved that she was alive.  “What happened?”

“Well, I heard a noise coming from around the other side of the barn, so I snuck around to this side and found this metal staircase,” (she pointed to it, about two feet to the left of Johnny’s window).  “It’s kind of like a fire escape, and it goes all the way up to the roof,” she said.  “I saw our filthy Scottish friend and someone else almost at the top, so I started climbing.  But I only got a couple of steps up and the next thing I knew I was lying here looking at you.  Ouch,” she said, grimacing and rubbing the back of her head.  I think I got thumped on the noggin.  What did you find?”

“Not much; I’ll tell you when I get down there,” Johnny said.  He climbed out the window and swung his leg over to the staircase.  By the time he reached the ground, Natalie had picked up the bundle which had been lying next to her and unrolled it. 

“Here, Johnny,” she said.  “Maybe this is what they hit me with.”  She swayed a little, still unsteady.  Johnny caught her in his arms, and was surprised at how light she felt.  He noticed her hair smelled like lemons.

“Slow down, pardner,” he said.  “Let’s sit tight here for awhile and plan our next move.”

Johnny spread the document out on the ground, putting rocks on the corners to weight it down.  It looked to be a poem, written in large fancy handwriting on a heavy piece of canvas.  “What the…?” Johnny said out loud, as he tried to make sense of the words:

“Strange…” Johnny mused.  “Natalie, what do you make of it?”

“Well, the second paragraph is obviously talking about those horrible guitars,” she said slowly.  But I don’t get the last one at all.  And the first one…Johnny, do you think that someone who knows what’s going on is actually trying to help us?”  She stared at him, hope lighting up her face.

Johnny re-read the poem.  “It certainly seems that way,” he said finally.  “I think we should go back to the van and call Dr. Nichols.  Maybe he can use his contacts to get a read on where that copter is headed.  Do you think you can make it back to the van?”

“Of course I can,” she scoffed.  “What do you take me for, a wimp?”  Natalie stalked off toward the path, tossing her long blond hair behind her.  Johnny watched for a moment, admiring, then trotted off after her.  “R-E-S-P-E-C-T, find out what it means to me,” his mind sang.  This time, he didn’t mind hearing the music.

Suddenly, Natalie stopped in her tracks.  “Did you say copter?  What copter?”  Johnny filled her in on what he’d seen as they made their way back to the NOAA van.

As they piled into the frontseat, Natalie felt the hair rising on her arms.  “Johnny, something’s not right.  I can feel it.  We’re not alone.”

At that moment, the panel that separated them from the back of the van slid open, and a high-pitched, nasally voice said, “What took you so long?”