While he would have helped Bethany Anne just because Ecaterina asked him, this was personal. Someone had hurt his sister from another mother. “I got your message. Any idea where they’re headed?”
“John says that he will go fuck someone up in a white house if has to. Does that make any sense?”
“Yeah, yeah it does. Hopefully that was just a comment about his sense of devotion and not a strategic target. Either way, they’re heading to Washington D.C.. I’ll meet you guys there after I stop in New Jersey real fast.”
Ecaterina was a little annoyed. What could Nathan need so bad in New Jersey? He just about could feel the irritation over the phone.
“Ecaterina, I’ve got to stop and pick up stuff from a storage room. Like when Ivan got me gear?”
That caught Ecaterina off guard. The first time that Ivan had picked up camping gear for Nathan was back in Romania when he hired her to take him up that fateful mountain.
She wasn’t sure where Bethany Anne had sent the weapons and traps that couldn’t go commercial when Nathan brought her to America. She had honestly felt a little adrift without a mountain and her weapons. She had mentioned it to Nathan a couple of nights ago on the phone. Ecaterina was a nature loving girl herself, and while it was nice to be on the water, she much preferred land.
Nathan had asked Bethany Anne about it and she slapped her forehead. She had forgotten the boxes and wasn’t sure how to get them down to Miami.
Bethany Anne didn’t want a normal shipping company involved. He had told her he would fly through and crate them up special to get them shipped. It could be a surprise for Ecaterina. He was supposed to do this when he got done in Savannah.
He had one more meeting the next day, but he was already busy texting his partner to move ahead on the project. While it was a 50k project, the money seemed unimportant right then.
He was responsible for the two hackers that had been captured on the last operation. As far as he could tell, they were actually really good. They checked out, so he put them on one of his teams and shipped them to Dallas. His Technology Security Company operations guy would look over their shoulders until he felt they could really be trusted. He also gave them new identification, as he didn’t want the Forsaken to find them. They were almost too effusive in their thanks. Seemed there was more than just some blackmail going on.
His breakfast bill came to just over twenty dollars so he dropped two twenties and walked out of the restaurant, caught a cab and went to the airport. He got Dan’s call while in the taxi and told him he would get started on his end right away. Dan told him that he’d catch up in D.C. and then hung up.
The best Nathan could do right away was a one-stop flight through Chicago, so he paid top dollar and jumped on. The hotel could ship his stuff to Bethany Anne’s house. He could catch up to it there. Besides, he needed another change of clothes where Ecaterina was staying anyway. If the clothes didn’t make it to the house, then he didn’t need the clothes that badly.
Washington DC – USA
Frank had been looking for any information he could find regarding Martin when he got a phone call from Dan Bosse.
“Frank here.”
“Hey, it’s Dan. I got the news about Martin.”
“Yes, how is Bethany Anne taking it?”
“You don’t know? I thought you told her.”
Frank sighed. “I did, but the call just suddenly dropped. I wasn’t sure why and believe it or not, I was hoping someone over there would be able to handle any fallout. Do you know what’s going on?”
“Yes, just a bit. I can tell you that my team is getting suited up. Whoever did this just became our focus, Frank. Whether they thought they could strike at Bethany Anne or this was random, the end result is going to be pretty one sided, if you know what I mean.”
“I’ve only got a little more info, but the preliminary coroner’s report shows a smaller amount of blood than what they believe should have been in the body even taking into account his ripped out throat.”
“Almost like they took a sip or two and then tried to destroy the proof?”
“That’s my working hypothesis, yes.”
Dan was quiet for a moment, thinking. “So, we probably have enemy action who aren’t ready to have their involvement confirmed. I’m going to need support for our team while we’re in D.C., Frank. I don’t want anyone to get their dick in a twist, but I can guarantee that my men aren’t going to take any shit from anyone. I would usually suggest caution and tact, but I doubt that’s going to work too well this time.” Dan could hear the heavy sigh of one expected to accomplish the impossible come from Frank.
“Yeah, I know that. It has been a quiet few weeks, hasn’t it Dan?”
Dan could almost hear a smile in his voice. “Frank, you live for this shit and you know it.”
Frank thought about that for a moment. “You know what Dan? I keep on living for this shit. Someone attacked a U.S. Government official in his own parking lot. I can’t let that happen, can I? I’ve got some calls to make. Let me know your arrival details as soon as you can and I’ll try to square away a few things on this side.”
“I expect to be there tonight at the latest. I hope to be wheels up in less than seven hours. I’ll get you our flight plan in a few.”
They said their goodbyes and then Dan hung up.
While Dan would have been a little bothered if the attack had been non-Forsaken, he had made an agreement on a tarmac with Bethany Anne to fuck up the Forsaken and anyone who needed an ass kicking. Attacking Bethany Anne through a cutout was attacking Bethany Anne.
As far as Dan was concerned, someone was going to get seriously hurt. If they died in the process, he wasn’t bothered by it.
New Jersey – USA
Nathan Lowell arrived at a small, climate controlled storage facility outside an airport in New Jersey. He parked his rented van to block the video camera pointed his way. He plugged in the security codes from Bethany Anne into the alarm on the door. The door opened and he turned on the light.
There were three boxes in the room. Each one had all kinds of packing tape around the outside. You wouldn’t be amiss if you thought the person wrapping the box guilty of having too much tape and too little sense. He supposed that Bethany Anne wanted it to be obvious if the boxes had been tampered with.
He had talked with Dan one more time and got the news that the company now had their own plane. Nathan picked up the boxes. Each had to weigh at least three hundred pounds, not that Bethany Anne would notice. He loaded the boxes into the van. With each one, the vehicle settled a little heavier on the back wheels. Definitely not heavy duty springs on this van.
Closing the doors he set the lock and started driving to D.C.. He would get to the airport a couple of hours after their plane landed, provided they left Miami when Dan was expecting.
He turned on the local rock radio and he could hear the starting short riffs of Back in Black. Yeah, he thought, whoever planned this attack on Bethany Anne had just fucked up. They had better hope that her team got hold of them first. They might get a quick death. God knows what was going to happen if Bethany Anne got to them first.
4
Miami, FL - USA
Bethany Anne was in her suite’s bathroom, taking a shower, trying to get the feelings sloughed off from the outside. Unfortunately, her emotions didn’t go down the drain with the soap.
TOM, are you there?
I’m here, Bethany Anne.
Are you OK? I felt you withdraw, I didn’t realize that your presence was so much a part of me that to be without it I would somehow feel, I don’t know, less.
Your emotions are not something the Kurtherian are familiar with anymore. I’ve become accustomed to what you call anger and humor. A few other emotions, but the raw anguish and hurt overwhelmed me. I had no experience and had to block as much of our link as I could. This emotion is so painful, why do you humans allow yourselves to feel it?
Not all of us do. Some drown this h
urt in different ways to try to overcome it. Whether they do it with drugs like alcohol or pills, sometimes medicine or activities to keep them so busy they don’t have time to deal with their feelings.
And this works?
No, not really. The human psyche always requires a payment. If you don’t pay up front, then it will leak out and affect your life in ways you can’t know. Either way, you’ll pay.
But why not just get rid of it altogether?
Because it is the price we pay to have love in our lives.
What good is love? You have not had any emotion that seems worth what you just went through.
Bethany Anne thought about that statement for a minute. Ever since TOM had joined her back in Romania during the transformation in his craft, she had never been through a loving period.
Unfortunately, you have never been a part of my life when I felt love. Even if I think about the moments right now and try to capture some of their essence, it would be a weak shadow of the real thing.
Does love feel as good as the pain felt bad?
Bethany Anne thought back to the few times in her life when she truly felt love. Including when she knew that Martin accepted her and was as proud of her as his own daughter.
Better.
TOM didn’t reply. Bethany Anne could feel him pull back in contemplation and go into his own shell. She left him alone to think and got out of the shower.
The short time trying to explain the emotions helped Bethany Anne cope with her own feelings. Nothing she could do would bring Martin back.
She walked into her large closet. It had areas for all of her clothes. Drawers for underwear and bras (not necessary anymore), racks for shirts one on top of another. A large mirror for standing in front when she was looking at her outfit and even a sit down area with lights around a mirror for makeup. On the right wall she had a setup that could hold hundreds of pairs of shoes. After the comment Nathan made about Imelda Marcos, she didn’t think Nathan should ever be allowed to see her closet.
She considered her clothes. She could dress as if it didn’t affect her. While she didn’t know it was the Forsaken behind the attack, it would be better to assume it was and be wrong than the opposite. Bethany Anne was known for dressing nicely. If someone was trying to learn more about her, then they would expect she would continue the trend and make assumptions based on that information.
While certainly not impossible, Martin most likely didn’t provide any information to his attackers. He would never have stood a chance against a vampire. That one was here in America was a declaration of war. Not that all of the attacks with the Forsaken in the last year hadn’t been. But she hadn’t considered who could be controlling the Nosferatu.
She wanted to slap her own head in frustration. She wasn’t thinking this through. Of course there was a decently high level vampire here. Otherwise there wouldn’t be a way to create the Nosferatu in the first place, much less control them. She had talked with Dan, and all of the Nosferatu that he had encountered had previously been Americans from whatever local area they had found them in. That she hadn’t put two and two together before now shamed her. Dan must have assumed she knew.
So, she had most likely busted up a major operation. Was she working against the main ringleader here in America or a lower level, but highly powerful vampire such as Bill?
If she had to guess, she would think the latter. With so many video cameras available here in the States, someone would have a picture of the vampire. Even Michael would kill one of his children for daring this many attacks on his soil.
She felt sure that all of the children knew that Carl would have found them out eventually. But if they could suggest that one of their children had done this of their own will, Michael’s blind spot for his own children would keep them safe.
No, she was battling a cutout. She was fighting a lackey. A powerful lackey but still a lackey.
She went to the pants section of her closet and quickly found the pair she was looking for. The problem with looking into her past was that the person who came out the other side of the transformation in Romania wasn’t Bethany Anne Reynolds. That woman would have grabbed her Coach purse, Christian Louboutins, a sharp, tailored power suit and jewelry and used her keen intellect to bury you in facts, figures, research and the law.
She still had her keen intellect and all of her knowledge from the past, and now of the future as well. She pulled on her leather pants, the same pair she used to take down the team in the Southeast Financial Center in downtown Miami.
No, that old Bethany Anne was gone. She might not have given up her love of fashion, but it wasn’t the sort of weapons and armor it had been before. Now, it was merely a tactic she might use.
She pulled on her Under Armour long sleeve ColdGear in black and then the incredibly thin protective vest made with the latest ceramic disk technology. She had learned her lesson in Romania when Petre had shot a hole right though her chest. She survived, but it was a bitter lesson and she didn’t want to grab the nearest person and drink them like a milkshake to regenerate her flesh in a hurry.
Over this, she pulled on a black button up with long sleeves. She grabbed a black leather jacket for Washington D.C.. It was too hot right now in Miami for a coat, but it would be forty degrees cooler up in the nation’s capital. While she didn’t need coats most of the time, it was a lot easier to blend in. She did however grab a light jacket to help hide the shoulder holsters for the pair of .45s she strapped on. Her new favorite addition, a knife on a sheath, hung down her back where she could reach behind her and grab the handle.
She decided a nice pair of black Pumas would work with this outfit. Nathan happened to be a Puma fan as well and had been shopping for Ecaterina when Bethany Anne had picked up three pairs.
She grabbed her Fossil overnight bag and added a couple of extra outfits. Her go bag was always ready with the basics in case she had to leave quickly. Looking around one last time, she clicked off the light.
While she couldn’t bring Martin back to the living, she could and would fuck up whoever did this to him.
There was a knock at her suite door.
5
Miami, FL - USA
Dan parked the SUV and then went to talk with John. His team had their go bags ready and were getting dressed in city fatigues. This was their description for their black suits and white shirts. John’s team had started wearing dark blood-red ties. Actually, Scott had started the practice and then everyone joined in.
Dan went next door and then upstairs to Bethany Anne’s suite. It was quiet, so at least she wasn’t a violent person when she suffered unexpected loss. He needed to find out if she could be ready to leave within three hours. Bobcat had called and the plane was theirs. He had filed a flight plan and was just waiting for the time of departure. William had already finished his inspection and green lighted the plane. He said he would go over it further when they got back and Dan confirmed he had at least three days to take the engines apart and put them back together for what he termed, ‘a look up the ‘ol girl’s skirt.’ Dan didn’t bother asking what a complete teardown was called.
He knocked on her door.
A few seconds later, she opened the door with a go bag in her hand. Dressed in the same leather pants she wore when her team helped in downtown Miami, her eyes had turned to granite. While John had told Dan about her reaction on the kitchen floor, the woman in front of him didn’t show a hint of sadness. Dan just tipped his head and turned around.
She followed him and he heard the door to her suite close behind him.
As Dan came around the stairs going down to the first floor, he noticed that Ecaterina was by the front door, a go bag on the floor beside her. She had a determined look on her face. Pete was next to her with a backpack. He didn’t look like the sullen spoiled young man they had brought back from New York a few weeks ago.
Pete’s face took on a mask of determination. He didn’t wear it like it fit very well yet, but he was obviousl
y trying it on for size and probably was copying one of John’s.
Dan just tipped his head to the two of them and Pete jumped to the front door and opened it. Dan walked out into the front courtyard where two of the black SUVs were parked. Both had all doors open with Eric and John beside the SUV on the right, and Darryl and Scott on the left. The backs of both SUVs had already been packed full of the team essentials that couldn’t be taken on commercial flights.
Ecaterina grabbed her bag and followed as Bethany Anne went by. Pete threw his backpack on his shoulder and pulled the door shut, locking it and following Ecaterina.
Bethany Anne got in the SUV with John and Eric. Dan slid in beside her. Ecaterina and Pete got in the SUV with Darryl and Scott.
Seconds later, both SUVs left and the gate closed behind them.
Dan texted Bobcat that they would be at the airport directly.
Washington D.C. - USA
Officer Francisco ‘Franz’ Ferdinand was a decade-long civil servant in the D.C. Police. He had seen a lot of shit in those ten years. He had been part of multiple trips with very important dignitaries both commercial and political. Probably the two toughest groups of protection details on the political side were the Russians and the Israelis. The Russian president’s team was obviously military and probably chewed nails and shit bullets. The Israeli delegation security was so smooth it was downright scary. You would see those guys on the other side of the room one minute, and right behind you suggesting you look at an area of interest the next. They both gave him the heebie-jeebies for different reasons.
He had been about to clock out for the day when the request for a single police escort had come in for a VIP from Florida. He wanted the overtime, so he called dispatch and he was able to get the gig.
Kurtherian Gambit Boxed Set One: Books 1-7, Death Becomes Her, Queen Bitch, Love Lost, Bite This, Never Forsaken, Under My Heel, Kneel or Die (Kurtherian Gambit Boxed Sets) Page 44