Magic World (working title): Chapter 11 part 1

Sierra Leone, Africa

Rachele was working the phones in Sierra Leone, trying to track down the location of an African Warlord who had been receiving weapon shipments from God-only-knew-where, while OFFICIALLY trying to find space for about 2500 Syrian refugees, when she got the email on her laptop. It was already 9:20 am, GMT.

She looked at the clock then at the thermometer on the wall, thinking, "Great, it's only 88 degrees outside. At this rate we'll only hit 120 by noon. At least it's a DRY heat."

Her sweaty dirty blonde head was resting on her open hand, propped up on the desk, while she sat listening to hold music that was almost, but not entirely, unlike The Girl from Ippanima. Finally her counterpart came back on the line.

"The answer is yes," said the heavily accented voice. "That village will take that number of refugees."

"Excellent, that's 3 families and placement groups, only 740 more to go," she said in a falsely positive South African accent. "Look," she said starting to rub her forehead in frustration. "Y'know, this whole thing would go much more smoothly if you would just tell me which areas I should be AVOIDING, rather than - y'know - checking each individual location one at a time." she listened to the person on the other end for a moment. "I'm sorry, I don't really understand..." She listened again. "No, no," she said sarcastically "Your just... Doing Your Job, same as anyone." She rolled her eyes while the other side responded again. "Well, in that case..."

That's when the email arrived in her inbox.

She glanced at the little pop-up bubble, not taking much notice, then did a double take.

"Uh. Hey- h- .... LISTEN," she practically shouted.  "Sorry, but listen. We appreciate your help, and we'll gladly accept what space you can provide. Thanks for your assistance, and I'll make sure you get the names of the families, but I'm afraid I have to get going.Yep. Okay, bye for now."

She hung up the phone and read the email. Years of training in emotional control hadn't helped her temper or her sarcastic side, but it helped her to prevent tears of anger, sadness, and loss, as she read the content of the email.

It was a fairly dry report about an explosion in a small sleepy college town in Indiana. The thing that caused it to get forwarded into her inbox was the name of the owner of the storage unit where the explosion happened.

Raul Muyres.

Her mind went back to all the times they had worked together, as part of a team, to gain intellegence, or to neutralize potential threats to international security. Raul was a dual citizen of both the US and Spain, and worked with the UN for the purposes of protecting the world at large from threats of a magical nature. He was ardently against the use of magic for destructive means.

"Magic is a creative force," he said. "Anyone who would use it to deconstruct, or to destroy... Well, that person is a monster, and better that they should die than bring that destruction to the wider world."

He didn't want that, he regretted the need, but people didn't often change, he'd said.

She shook herself and made an effort to bring herself back to the present. The explosion had happened a little less than half an hour ago. She needed to get there and somehow find out what happened. She owed him that, and... he would have done the same for her.

But first things first: There was a diplomatic flight leaving in about ten minutes from an airport about five miles away. She wouldn't be able to bring a gun, but that shouldn't be hard to fix, once she got there.

She showered in a minute flat, then dressed in a business suit with tasteful, yet slightly too short skirt, just in case she needed to play the seductress card. She also made sure that her bra would show just enough cleavage, if she undid enough buttons.

All the while she kept up a constant stream of phone calls to different contacts, burning several favors and promising several more in exchange. Finally she was able to get a seat on the plane. Once she was on the plane she could work out what to do when she got there.

She gathered as much as she could into a briefcase, from different photo IDs from different countries, to passports, and even one very old US Marshal's badge, which she hoped would still work. She ran to her diplmatic vehicle, and raced off at high speed to the airfield.