It was a good plan and they implemented his suggestions.
Bethany Anne’s group had a few hours before they landed at Mihail Kogălniceanu International Airport. They expected to meet Stephen and Ivan and go to his house for a day before heading to the ship. Fortunately, TOM had a reasonable idea how to get back to the craft. It helped that Bethany Anne’s first experience finding the spacecraft with Michael had been an annoying effort of traipsing around the snow covered mountain for almost a week before finally finding the cave.
Unfortunately, while Bethany Anne had left some markers to help her find the cave again, she expected some of them to be buried under snow. By the time they got to the area, it would be late December. Ecaterina had found a helicopter service that focused on helping tourists go skiing in the mountains. For the four of them to do a late afternoon run to a specific location was going to run a little over fifteen thousand US dollars.
This helicopter trip was easily triple the normal rate the company charged, but the requirements Bethany Anne requested were specific and running so close to nighttime added a difficulty surcharge. The helicopter company specified they could cancel or move the trip depending on weather. As the helicopter pilots all had at least twenty years of experience, that worked for Bethany Anne. While the cold didn’t affect her nearly as much at it would John and Eric, she didn’t want to wander around the mountains any more than she had to. Plus, Gabrielle really needed to be inside a cave by the time the sun came up. They would carry a sun-proof body bag on the off chance they were caught out in the open.
While John looked like he was sleeping, he didn’t fool Bethany Anne as she got busy moving her seat to sit up.
“So, John, any regrets?”
John opened one eye to peek over at Bethany Anne. She was wearing fashionable black jeans with black zip-up leather boots that went up her calves. They had gold tabs that sparkled in the dim lighting. She had a pretty red sweater that hugged her curves and her smile was mischievous. While she was arguably the most beautiful woman he knew, he had no romantic interest in his principal and boss. He would die for her, he just didn’t want to die in bed from her.
Uh oh, he thought, what was he getting in to now? He opened both eyes and started his seat moving up as well. He hoped his brain was up to the task.
“Any regrets about what?” He smiled back at Bethany Anne. They had been verbally sparring for a couple of months since she had dogged him so well with Ms. Joshwood. The guys still wouldn’t let him forget that incident.
She sounded like Agent Smith in The Matrix. “Why so careful, Mr. Grimes?” She raised one eyebrow and the corner of her lips turned up.
“Well, it could be that I just woke up and couldn’t follow a chain of thought you have yet to share with me. Or, it could be I don’t want to answer the wrong question and regret it.” He finished getting his seat in the sitting position and faced Bethany Anne, ready for the verbal chess match. He loved working for this woman. Ever since she came on the scene, his life had become one long and exciting dance with danger. She had saved him back in the Everglades and while she healed him of a knife wound, her blood had also changed his body for the better.
A couple of days ago, Frank Kurns had taken him aside during the trip out of Costa Rica and asked John about his physical changes. Once John confirmed with Bethany Anne it was ok to share, he explained to Frank how his knife wound and broken arm were completely healed, and even old wounds had been fixed. Further, over the next couple of weeks he continued to get stronger and faster.
“What, like the Six Million Dollar Man?” Frank’s eyes had a humorous glint within them.
“Who?” John acted ignorant.
Frank just rolled his eyes. “You young punks don’t know about the TV show The Six Million Dollar Man? Steve Austin was a NASA astronaut who crashed testing a space plane. They had to fix him with bionic implants and he went to work for a shady government organization. Seeing how I was a shady government organization I found it pretty humorous.” Frank acted like he had something nasty in his mouth. “You know, having to explain my question takes all of the joy out of it.”
“I imagine it does.” John hid his amusement, giving Frank no indication that he knew all about Steve Austin, Oscar Goldman and Dr. Rudy Wells.
Bethany Anne clarified her question for John. “Any regrets taking my blood?” Her face had lost the mischievous quality of a moment ago. John would guess that this wasn’t the original question she was going to ask, but rather one she had wanted to ask for a while.
He dropped all pretense of playing. “Boss, these last three months have been the most gratifying professional experience I have ever had. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Your gift, both healing me and bringing this group together has surpassed anything I could have hoped for.”
“Even Pete?”
John smiled at that question. Pete had a strong personality for a young man and had been with them for just a little less than three months. Pete’s first experience with John was when he slugged Pete and knocked him to the ground right in front of his father. John didn’t allow Pete to mouth off to Bethany Anne. Sometimes, pain is an excellent training method for recalcitrant, spoiled young men.
“Even Pete. He’s turned out to be a good guy. He just needed the right encouragement.” Bethany Ann smiled at that. John had treated Pete like a new recruit in the military and his first few weeks had been a living hell. “I’ve got to tell you, when he stood up and grabbed one of the security guys on the Polarus, he manned up right in front of my eyes. I’ll never forget that. He pretty much sealed his position on the team when he joined the trial and judgment. He won't back down and he'll never go back to the way he was before.”
Bethany Anne looked over John’s shoulder as she remembered that early morning experience. “I would have to agree. You’ve done an amazing job with Pete. What’s your secret?”
“Lots of beatings and early morning physical training.” John smiled back at Bethany Anne, “Pretty much what you do to us all of the time.”
“You bitches need to stay in shape! If Nathan and Pete can come back with the starting members for team Were, you’ll have to go up against those guys to prove your abilities.” She cocked an eyebrow at him.
“Yeah, the guys and I have discussed it. We figure that we’ll all get involved in training them when they first join and soundly beat the crap out of them. By the time we get them through training, we should have them respecting us and won’t need to lay a hand on them anymore.”
She looked thoughtful, “So, they get respect for your abilities right away so by the time they truly know how to fight they won’t challenge you again?”
“Pretty much.” He grinned at her.
“That’s smart. So, how’s your love life going?”
John felt sucker punched. What the hell? His voice went up an octave, “Excuse me?” Bethany Anne noticed the color climbing up his neck.
She laughed to defuse the question. “What, you think I don’t know I have four strong men hanging with me all of the time? If you guys don’t consider how to get your ashes hauled, I’m going to start wondering about you.”
John wanted to start sputtering, but Eric across the aisle couldn’t hold in a snicker and gave away that he had been eavesdropping. John took it as an opportunity to try to sidestep Bethany Anne’s question.
“Eric, you little wank junkie, you’ve been listening in.” John, being nearly half a foot over six feet, easily leaned across the aisle and punched Eric in the shoulder.
Eric’s eyes popped open, “Ow! Damnit, that’s my better arm!” He rubbed his left arm where John had punched him.
“For what?” John asked.
“Whatever I need it to be, now it’s broken you…” Eric’s rejoinder suddenly stopped as his brain came online. He was going to call John a little shit, but he knew that would only get him pushups and he doubted that being at 50,000 feet would stop Bethany Anne from requiring him to do them. The tiny aisle mi
ght, but he could just imagine her jumping up and down on his back, in boots, to help him hit the floor between the pushups. He continued rubbing his shoulder and started moving his seat to a sitting position.
Gabrielle stirred in front of Eric, “Could you two boys take your fight outside?” She opened her eyes and smiled at the group.
Eric replied, “Well, except for the ten mile first step, you bet, Princess.”
Gabrielle rolled her eyes. “God, that’s the last time I admit anything from my past to you!”
“C’mon! I work for a queen and one of my teammates is, or at least was, a princess. I’m surrounded by royalty so I’m special!”
Bethany Anne shook her head musingly. She knew she had to deal with the whole being on top of the pyramid when it came to the UnknownWorld, but she hated being called a queen. Stephen, however, would never stop calling her his Queen so she chose not to fight the issue with anyone else.
Gabrielle just kept at it. “Yes, like short-bus special. Maybe the knot on your head will remind you to leave off the princess comments?”
Eric looked at her, puzzled. “That is a rude comment, and I don’t have a knot… Fucking Ouch!” Gabrielle had unbuckled and moved so quickly Eric had little time to protect his head before she popped him with her knuckles.
He mumbled from his own lap as he massaged his head, “See? You already require me to bow so I don’t… “ He quickly tried to cover more of his head as his voice got louder. “Oww, Dammit! Fucking quit already!” He was trying to move his arms to protect his head from the female vampire.
“Will you remember?” She looked ready to pounce again. John was smiling at their play.
“Yes! Yes I’ll remember.” He sat back back up and continued rubbing where she had popped him good. His mouth said he would remember, but the humorous glint in his eyes said he would neither forgive nor forget.
Bethany Anne cut in. “Children, must I throw all of you off the plane?”
All three pretended to be properly chastised. Even Gabrielle, who was hundreds of years older than Bethany Anne, wouldn’t push her buttons. There was fun, there was dangerous, there was suicidal and then there was messing with Bethany Anne when she was serious.
Paul came over the loudspeaker. “Just a quick update, we’ll be landing in just under an hour. Bethany Anne, can you come up here for a second?”
Bethany Anne unbuckled and looked at all three for a moment to remind them that she was watching, or at least listening.
She wondered what Paul could want.
2
TQB Enterprises G550, En Route To Romania from the Caribbean
Bethany Anne slid into the cockpit and grabbed the empty copilot’s seat. “Yes?”
Paul looked over at her and then back at his instruments. “Hey, just curious, are we looking to get a copilot for this plane or are we always going to fly it shorthanded and pretty much against the regs? I’ve got no grave concerns and I have no idea how your friend is getting us into and out of the airport being shorthanded, but someone should at least be sitting up here with me to make it look sort of official when we land.”
Bethany Anne thought about that. “You’re right. Plus, for your trip back across the pond you need someone here to spell you.” There was not going to be a need for Paul to stick around since they would be using TOM’s spaceship to fly them back, she hoped. “Do you have any ideas?”
Now Paul was flummoxed. He hadn’t considered getting such a quick confirmation of his concerns. With all of the questions he had raised while flying in the military, he was used to getting the runaround, not instant affirmation and a request for suggestions. “Ahhhh… Maybe?” He didn’t want to seem unprepared to answer her question, even if that was exactly his problem right now. “I don’t want to get just anyone onboard and I don’t know how to request jacket information for qualified pilots in Romania. So, no.”
Bethany Anne appreciated his honesty. She knew some guys would try and bullshit their way to an answer rather than admit they didn’t know something. “Tell you what. We get special dispensation due to Stephen here in Romania. The amount of people Stephen knows or who respect him and make things happen just for him is pretty spectacular. I don’t want to try it over in Europe proper if we don’t have to. Why don’t you get with Frank when we land and see if he can find someone? Wherever they are in the world, confirm your choice with Dan and Bobcat and we’ll fly them over here then the both of you take the plane back to Miami. Use the corporate credit card to hang loose and work with those guys until someone comes. Make sure the plane is ready to go, but otherwise, consider it a mini-vacation, all right?”
Well, he could certainly do that. While he still had some reservations about those in upper management from his time in the Navy, so far he was pretty happy he accepted the red pill from Frank back in Nassau. “That works for me.”
“Great! Give me ten minutes warning and I’ll come up here and land this bad boy with you, ok?”
He forced a smile. Nothing like having the boss watch you work. “Sure, that would be great.”
Bethany Anne got out of the seat and patted Paul on the shoulder as she left.
Bethany Anne got back to her seat. The three of them stopped talking as she left the cockpit. She sat back down in her chair and buckled in.
She looked over at Gabrielle. “Hey, there is something I meant to ask.” Gabrielle just raised her eyebrows. “Can you tell me about Michael’s children? Nathan told me some, but I’ve never been sure if he knew them all.”
“I would be happy to. Did you want the full story or the condensed version?”
Bethany Anne motioned for Eric to change seats with her. As they moved around each other she answered the question. “Sorry, looking sideways annoys me after a while. The condensed version would work well for me right now. I’m just trying to get an idea of the major players and where they are. I know Anton is in South America, but how did he get there?”
“Ok, the six children are Hugo, Anton, David, Peter, Stephen and Barnabas. We’ll start with Anton and how he became the main vampire in South America. Anton went over to Brazil at the end of World War II. Rumor has it he held some sway over Oberleutnant Wermuth who was the captain of the German submarine U-530. At the end of the war, that U-boat left her berth and ignored Admiral Dönitz’s surrender command and went all the way over to Argentina before surrendering a couple of months later. Anton was dropped off with one female and his children followed him over the years.”
Eric grunted next to them. “I know that story. That’s the U-boat that caused the rumor Hitler was still alive. That was the same U-boat that met with a Japanese sub to pass over some radar technology and an operator.”
Bethany Anne started at that comment and put a hand out to stop Gabrielle from continuing. “Wait, what was that Eric?”
Eric looked at her again since her voice wasn’t just mildly curious. “Which part?”
“The part about the Japanese boat.”
“Oh. It seems that the Japanese had been using these large cargo submarines to move stuff around during the war. There were three that were constructed. I think their numbers were something like I-52, I-53 or 4, and I-55. I-52 was called the Golden Submarine because it was carrying gold to the Germans to pay for some of their technology. Anyway, U-530 met it about a year before the end of the war to transfer the technology and some people. I-52 was later sunk by a US task force and one of their new sound seeking torpedoes.”
Bethany Anne looked like she was thinking. “So, about a year before the U-530 ends up in Argentina with Anton, it had a secret meeting with a Japanese U-boat and exchanged stuff.”
“Well, we don’t know about stuff from Japan to the U-530. It was supposed to go and meet the Germans in France, I believe.”
“Yeah, but what if… what if… What if there were some Forsaken in Japan that passed materials to U-530 in 1944 and then Anton carries them with him over to Argentina in 1945?”
Gabrielle interject
s, “Like what?”
Bethany Anne realized that she was the only one read in on this issue. She hadn’t mentioned it to her team yet, so they didn’t know why she was tracking this down, either.
“Well…”
She was interrupted by Paul over the speaker, “Everyone, we are landing in ten minutes, please put your tray tables back in the closed and locked position and raise your seats to the upright position. Bethany Anne to the cockpit, please.”
Bethany Anne got up. “I’ll tell you along with Stephen a little later. This little moment of insight might help me figure out where Michael might be.” She started moving towards the cockpit. Gabrielle shouted out behind her.
“He’s still alive?”
She called over her shoulder, “Let’s hope so! We might need him before all of this is over.”
Gabrielle just looked back at the two men who watched as she seemed to sink into the seat just a little.
3
Las Vegas, Nevada - USA
Jeffrey Diamantz happened to be at his corner office window at the top of the seven-story building Patriarch Research shared with two other businesses in North Las Vegas, when he noticed a dark SUV pull into the parking lot. He had been considering how to broach a sensitive topic with the gentleman coming to meet him this morning. The meeting was set for ten AM and it was half past nine at the moment. He had assumed the top guy would be late, a passive-aggressive way of emphasizing how important the visitor was.
Jeffrey hadn’t had a physical meeting with the owners of the company in the fifteen years he had been the CEO. He had received a few emails over the years for answers to specific questions, and he provided quarterly updates and a year-end summary document he delivered to an address in New York City. That the meeting was requested right after the biggest hacking attack the company had ever suffered was more than a little suspect.
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 63