Chapter No.54. The Bad and the Ugly.

Robert answered the landline phone when Janet was at work and James was out with Sylvia. The caller was the president.

"We have a problem that only you can fix."

"Okay, I'll be there shortly." He teleported to the Oval Office where he found the president and his chief of staff.

"This is one of those touchy situations that we are unable to solve using diplomacy or military action, which wouldn't work."

"That sounds serious."

"In a way, it is. A PBS correspondent, Margaret Wilson, was in Yemen reporting on the Saudi intervention when she disappeared. Our operatives reported that they believe she was arrested by Saudi forces and was convicted of espionage. They believe that she was tortured to confess, and subsequently convicted and sentenced to hard labor."

"Have you tried diplomatic channels?"

"Yes, but the Saudi's deny all of it. They claim it's a Yemen plot to tarnish their honor."

Robert rubbed his jaw. "I assume you want us to rescue her."

"Yes, but we don't know where she's being held."

"I believe we could locate her, but it would help if we had an article of her clothing that has not been laundered or handled."

"She lives with her partner in an apartment nearby," Earl Jenkins, the chief of staff, reported. "She might be able to provide that."

"Why do you need that?" the president asked.

"Because it would enable Sparky, our wonder dog, the means to find her."

They stared at him for a moment before Earl replied. "I'll provide you with the address."

Robert smiled. "I already got it." He disappeared.

Earl turned to the president. "If I didn't know better, I would think this is a joke."

"I know what you mean, but they are our only hope."

Robert returned home and waited until his wife, son and Sylvia returned before he sprang the mission on them. However, it turned out that they knew what had happened.

"I assume you're going to use our wonder dog to find her," James said.

"Yeah, but first we have to go where she lives and see if we can get something that has her scent."

Sylvia appeared. "I'm ready."

"Me too," Janet added.

Sparky came into the room wagging his tail.

"He's ready," James said.

They laughed.

When they appeared in Margaret's apartment in their outfits," Felicia, Margaret's partner, was startled.

"Sorry to scare you," Robert said. "But we've been assigned to rescue Margaret."

Felicia's facial expression went from fear to excitement. "Oh my God! Where is she?"

"We believe she's being held by the Saudis, but we're not sure of the location."

"How can I help?" Felicia said, her expression advertising her concern.

"What we need to complete the mission is an article of her clothing that had not been laundered or touched."

"I don't know . . . perhaps there's something in her damper.

Felicia led them to a bedroom they shared and pointed to a wicker hamper. "There might be something in there."

Robert opened the damper lid and looked down into it. "They're some items in here." He tilted the damper and looked at Sparky. "Come here, boy, and get a good whiff."

Sparky came forward and sniffed away at the damper's contents.

Robert turned to his team. "Let's do this."

They appeared in the sky over Yemen and began the search with Sparky on point. Soldiers on the ground tried shooting at them, but the bullets did nothing. The superheroes soon had to deal with jet fighters, which attempted to fire air-to-air missiles at them, but the superheroes simply made them veer away. James and Sylvia used their energy beam eyes to disable the jets, forcing the pilots to eject. After these aborted attacks, the armed forces decided that it was useless to attempt anything.

Sparky turned to gain altitude with the superheroes on his tail. Soon they were over the southern part of Saudi Arabia, specifically Najran where a mountain range dominates an otherwise stark landscape. To a casual observer, there was nothing of interest, but Sparky found a stone structure sticking out of a cliff.

"I think he found her," Robert said. "She's being held in a cell in the lower level of that structure."

"It looks like she's chained to the wall," Janet said.

"Okay," Robert said. "James and I will take care of any guards. You and Sylvia rescue her."

Janet nodded. She and Sylvia appeared inside the chamber where Margaret was being held.

"What the hell?" Sylvia reacted. "Those bastards stripped her naked and chained her to the wall."

Margaret looked up at them and began sobbing.

Janet held up a hand. "We're here to rescue you. Please don't cry."

"Who are you?" Margaret said in a harsh voice."

Sylvia snapped the chains that secured the woman to a stone wall. She used her powers to cause the manacles to break and fall from her wrists and ankles, which were red and bruised.

Janet helped Margaret stand, and that's when she saw what they had done to her. "Look at her back. Those bastards whipped her!"

Sylvia made a dress and some slippers to appear. "We could make her wounds go away."

"Yes, but I think it best that we allow others to see what they did to her."

Sylvia nodded.

Robert and James were faced with an onslaught of armed guards. They used their energy beam eyes to destroy the weapons and then their hand-to-hand combat training to knock them out. With the threat mitigated, they transferred to the cell.

"She's ready to transport," Janet said. "We didn't remove her wounds so that they can be recorded."

"Good idea," Robert said.

"Where should we take her?" James asked.

"I think we should take her back to the Oval Office so that the president and his chief of staff can see what they did to her."

The approval of that idea was unanimous.

When they appeared in the Oval Office, the President, Vice President, Chief of staff and Defense secretary were surprised to see them back so quickly.

"We didn't cure any of her wounds," Robert said. "I think it best that you see what they did before we cure her."

Janet pulled the dress off of Margaret to expose Margaret's violated body. Margaret didn't seem to mind being naked in front of so many men.

"Those bastards lashed her!" the president exclaimed.

"They had her chained to the wall and left naked," Janet said, her brow furrowed.

The president picked up his phone and after a brief conversation, he hung it up. "We'll take care of this. We will document what they did after which we will call you back to cure her wounds."

Robert nodded before he and his team vanished.

After returning home and settling down, the Steris family felt the need to discuss what they had seen.

Robert and Janet relaxed on the patio while James and Sylvia spent time in the pool.

"I felt bad about stripping her in front of those men, but they had to see what those ass holes did to her," Janet said.

"This mission was disturbing from the beginning. I'm sure there are other innocent people being held under those gruesome conditions."

"I'm certain there are, but it would require us to kill in order to save them."

"I think that kind of action will soon be coming. It's obvious that the nations of Earth have decided to resort to subterfuge to lessen our effectiveness. I sense that wickedness is coming to a boil and it's about to spill over."

"I don't understand what they could do to thwart us."

"Governments rule by force. They hold the spectra of death over all mankind. They forget that their puny weapons can't stop us. I see this new threat requiring us to kill in order to stop them from interfering."

"Maybe this is what God wants to know," Janet suggested.

Robert sighed. "You might be right."

James and Sylvia had a different aspect of the event.

"I don't know how that poor woman was able to suffer like that," Sylvia said. "They probably stripped her and lashed her for amusement."

"Yeah, and they probably thought they were doing God's work," James said.

"Another good reason why religion and politics don't go well together."

"What they don't understand is that we're not subject to their ridiculous laws and customs."

"Unfortunately, we still have to pretend we are," Sylvia said.

"I suppose that's the case, but it might not prevent a final test of the experiment."

That was a fear that they all had.

Janet answered the phone and after a brief conversation, hung it up. "They're done with documenting what happened to Margaret. We can come and cure her wounds."

"How magnanimous of them," Robert said in a sarcastic tone.

Janet gave him a mock frown before they teleported to the Oval office where they found Margaret wearing more normal clothing.

"Some of those wounds are infected," President Hollis said. "We assume that you can cure them."

"We'll do better than that," Robert said. "We'll return her to full health."

Margaret smiled, but her smile was tempered with residual agony.

They teleported the woman to her apartment, where Felicia literally exploded with joy when she saw her partner. They hugged and cried, ending in blubbering kisses.

"Margaret had been scourged and treated badly during her captivity," Robert said. "Janet and Sylvia will cure her injuries and return her to health."

Margaret and Felicia were escorted to their bedroom where Janet and Sylvia made Margaret's clothing disappear, revealing her wounded body.

Felicia exploded with grief when she saw what they did to her, but her expression transmuted to one of wonder when Janet placed her hand on Margaret's wounds, and they vanished.

"How can you do that?" Felicia asked, her eyes still wide with wonder.

"We have the ability to cure any malady no matter its severity," Janet said.

"I perceive that you have breast and uterine cancers," Sylvia said to Felecia. "I will cure them." She placed her hand on the woman's forehead and in a blink of the eye her cancers were gone.

Felica cried, and she and Margaret hugged and cried together in recognition of their mutual joy.

Robert and James stayed in the living room, but they were aware of what had happened. Both realized that what they had done was going to have consequences.