Over the next few weeks, Cricket kept Mark up to date with what was happening at the ranch and that she was keeping everyone at the ranch aware of his situation.
No further spies or abnormal activity had happened at the ranch, so the men in black seemed to be keeping their word.
They kept him in his cell and they fed him McDonalds food 3 times a day. They took him to the questioning room a few times, but basically asked the same questions, just worded differently. After one of the McDonalds meals, Cricket informed him, "
You are likely going to be let go soon
."
Mark asked, "
How do you know they're going to let me go?"
Cricket explained, "
They put a tracker in your food and you just swallowed it. Do you want me to disable it?
"
"
No, figure out how to manipulate the signal, but don't disable it.
"
Sure enough, within a few hours... after being locked up for almost a month, they said they were letting him go.
Mark complained, "Seriously? You've had me for a month and you only took a couple of vials of blood, had half a dozen question periods, all of which pretty much asked the same questions."
Again they put a bag over his head, led him out to a vehicle and drove about half an hour out into the country, where they removed the bag, let him out of the vehicle and left him standing on the side of a gravel road, still in handcuffs and his ankles shackled together.
During the drive, Cricket had informed Mark that she had figured out how the signal works and could manipulate it.
He watched the SUV drive away, then he looked around and asked Cricket, "
Get these handcuffs and shackles off me, then tell Annabelle, Joe or Kat to come get me at their earliest convenience. No rush!"
The tattoos on his arms and legs came alive and the cuffs were unlocked almost immediately and then returned to their pattern on his limbs. Mark jumped from the edge of the road into the dried grass in the ditch. Then walked a couple hundred yards down the road, via the ditch so he didn't leave any tracks.
He found a small culvert that ran under the road and it was just barely big enough for him to fit into. Mark smiled and thought, "
If they want to waste my time, how about we send them on a wild goose chase and waste their time. How fast can a ship fly in atmosphere?"
Cricket answered, "
A ship could travel at roughly 10,000 km per hour using primary thrusters."
Mark instructed Cricket, "
Manipulate the signal to show me flying from my current location to Area 51 near Roswell, NM and have me stay there for a few hours. Then plot a course from there to a remote location in the interior of China and have me stay there for a few hours. Then plot a course over the North Pole to a remote location in Greenland where my signal will stay. Show me as traveling at ship speeds when I'm going from place to place.
"
Cricket almost sounded giddy, "
This is going to be fun!
"
Sure enough, back at headquarters, they were diligently watching his tracking signal. As soon as the signal picked up and started flying south, they had the drop off team head back to see if he was actually gone, since they were only a few miles away.
Mark could only imagine the chaos in their headquarters when the drop off crew radioed back saying he was no longer there and that they had seen no other vehicles on this gravel road and there were no tracks, just the shackles lying on the ground.
Suspecting he had actually left with aliens, they didn't spend much time looking around, so after they left, he lay there in the culvert and had a nap while waiting for his ride. He also had Cricket give him a shave, he hated being unshaven, but had her grow him some facial hair while in captivity to make it look more normal.
A couple of hours later, Kat picked him up and drove him back to the ranch where he immediately went to have a shower. He had kept himself fairly clean with the washcloth and sink in his room, but in the month they had him in their possession, the only time he got to leave his cell was for one of their question periods.
Once he was cleaned up, he told everyone he needed to stay out of sight for at least a day, as he was busy taking those guys on a worldwide wild goose chase, but even so, he was expecting them to resume watching the ranch.
Kat reminded him that the tunnel in the new basement under the lodge could take him pretty much anywhere. When Solara had done the lodge upgrade, Kat had indicated that she wouldn't mind more storage space, so now there was a basement under the entire lodge. Currently it was just a big pantry and a lot of open space, but they linked the tunnel in down there.
So Mark went into the kitchen and down the stairs. Not sure where to look for the secret door, all he saw down there was a closet. He opened the closet and sure enough all that was in there was a couple of brooms, a mop and a mop bucket.
"
Step into the closet and close the door, with the light off,
" Cricket instructed.
Mark closed the door and he could see the tunnel leading away from the back of the closet. "
That's a good idea,
" he thought.
Cricket explained, "