Michael considered that. “Perhaps you might consider it that way. Eventually, you would have been caught in your hacking. You would have been ‘found and dealt with,’ whatever that means. The Strictures, the rules that the UnknownWorld have lived by for centuries, are in flux and we are rewriting them.”
“What caused them to change?”
“You have met her already.”
“Bethany Anne?”
“Yes.”
“How come I never found anything on her? How old is she that she already has so much power, when I could only find you at the top?”
“That, my very young and nosy technician, is a story for another time.”
Tabitha felt like her grandfather had just told her to go to bed. Her young and very scrumptious looking grandfather. “Hey, are you dating her?”
“No.”
“Have you dated her? I mean, you two act like you’ve… uh…” Michael’s penetrating eyes reminded her that sometimes, her mouth got ahead of her. “Never mind.”
Michael opened his folder back up, and continued where he had left off.
Tabitha pulled her laptop over and sat it on her lap. Her latest scripts had been running. She had learned of the Queen Bitch’s Guards and the operations in South America. Her first data dives had found all of the San Jose newspaper articles.
Now, her next level of scripts had found three files. They were on a cloud service that provided secure personal cloud storage. Secure my ass, she thought.
This was interesting; it was assigned to the San Jose reporter. She opened the files and started reading.
“Michael?”
“Hmmm.” He didn’t look up from his reading.
“I found some information from a Giannini in San Jose. She has notes on Bethany Anne’s team, including notes where she is trying to learn more about Gabrielle.”
Michael looked up again. “I’m sorry, say that again? I wasn’t in South America for these operations.”
Tabitha read Michael most of the notes Giannini had in her folder.
Michael said, “She seems to know a lot about Bethany Anne and her team. I wonder why she’s pulling this together?”
Tabitha looked through the notes again. “Don’t know, but she has more information than I had about Bethany Anne… Bitch.”
Michael’s lips had the faintest of curves. That sounded like a professional annoyance. If he could nurture Tabitha in the right direction, she was going to turn into a fantastic intelligence agent. “I wonder how we can find out?”
“Why not just go visit her?”
Michael smiled, sometimes out of the mouth of babes. “What, you don’t want to try and hack your way into all of her secrets?”
Tabitha was busy typing on her laptop. “Oh, her secrets will by my secrets by morning, trust me on that. What we need to do is ask her the reason she has the info. I haven’t found where she has written any posts, so she hasn’t gone public, yet.”
Michael stood up and stretched. “No time like the present. Order us a plane for Costa Rica.” Michael started walking towards his room to get a suitcase packed.
Tabitha stared at Michael’s back, and then down at her computer and then back at Michael. She raised her voice to the retreating man. “Uh, how?”
Michael stopped, counted to three and then turned around with a smile as he came back over. “Tabitha, what has been the largest amount of money you have ever been involved with?”
“Legal, or illegally?”
Michael raised an eyebrow. “Let’s say legally, for now, but I’ll want to know about Kensington later.”
How the hell did he know about Kensington?
“A little over eight thousand after my first job with Anton’s group.”
“Ok, I’m going to give you access to an account that has a little over a million dollars. Please don’t steal the money, embezzlement is a crime punishable by death.”
The color drained from Tabitha’s face. The casual way Michael said that spoke to his indifference to the sanctity of life. She needed to remember that under his hot body was a very dangerous man.
Michael provided the instructions and walked out of the room.
One, she realized, that could read her mind.
She put her head into her hands, how many times had she undressed him in her mind in the last two days? Oh my God, the tongue fantasy! She wasn’t going to be able to stop blushing for a week now.
Then again, she could always create visuals to see if he would react. That might be fun! She sat back up. She considered how to test when he was or wasn’t eavesdropping. There is one thing that is very similar between male and female hackers.
Both groups have very, very creative imaginations.
The Queen Bitch’s Ship Polarus
Frank had requested that just about every one of the higher-ups help with the situation occurring in Turkey.
Around the table sat Stephen, Dan as head of Bethany Anne’s military, Pete and Todd from the Ad Aeternitatem and both captains, along with Bobcat and Jean Dukes as the leads for air support and ship support, respectively.
Bethany Anne, Lance, Gabrielle and two of her team would be arriving shortly.
Frank was getting his maps ready to be displayed on the main screen. It was during this time that Bethany Anne, Gabrielle, Lance, John and Scott arrived. Scott took one look around the room and then stepped out to stand outside of the door.
Lance said hello to those already present and sat next to Dan. Gabrielle and John took positions in opposite corners of the room. John near the back, Gabrielle near the front.
Bethany Anne took the open chair to Frank’s left.
Frank started, “Thank you everyone for coming. Before Bethany Anne was changed, Dan and I were part of a team that worked with each other to take care of Forsaken problems in the U.S.. And, occasionally I would have to deal with issues overseas. That was rare because David and Anton had South America and Africa sewed up pretty tightly. We had thought that Hugo was in control in Africa, but that wasn’t the case. David has been ruthless about keeping his subordinates in check, while Anton was a little messier. Occasionally, Michael’s group would have to go into Central and South America to deal with the odd flare up.”
Frank flipped to the next slide, a map of Syria and Turkey with a red dot near the border. “Near the town of Yuceli, which is in a valley, is an even smaller outpost that’s as old as anything in the Bible. The dot on the map represents a tribal area of maybe a few hundred people. Certainly less than a thousand. Many of whom are probably either dead or have been turned to Nosferatu. The town isn’t on any major roads, but it sits in an area that contains a large number of caves.”
John spoke up from the back, “A lot of areas to stay out of the sun, then.”
Frank continued, “Yes. The Turkish military was called in and their people disappeared. They reached out to their NATO allies and the U.S. responded with a couple of fire teams. All of them, except for one person, were killed. We have lost contact with that last member, now assumed K.I.A.”
Frank put up a satellite map with heat imaging. “We have one such cave that has activity around it during the day, and seems to be boarded up tightly at night.”
Bethany Anne interrupted, “Why is David starting this now, if he hasn’t done something like this before?”
Frank replied, “Oh, it’s a trap, I’m sure. But is it for you, or for Michael?”
“Why me?”
“Because before, Michael always had a Bill to handle things like this for him. Also, this is a major outbreak. So, it’s probably meant to draw at least one of our key players.”
Stephen spoke up, “Maybe he’s hoping to get both of them in there?”
Dan asked, “But why? They wouldn’t be a challenge for Michael, much less the both of them.
Nathan was studying the map. “Michael’s in South America cleaning that mess up. Could David want him out of the country for something?”
Frank nodded. “That
could be. Same thing for Bethany Anne.”
Lance spoke up, “If you keep your two biggest heavy hitters out of the mix, you’re going to have higher casualties.”
Todd spoke, “Can’t be helped. With the new Guardians now active, we’re a pretty formidable group.”
“I’ll be going to represent the Queen. This can’t be permitted and David has attacked me as well.” Stephen said.
“Something still stinks.” Everyone turned to look at Nathan. “That’s what, ten?”
Dan answered, “Yes. Nine with Pete and Todd’s team, plus Stephen and transportation.”
Bobcat said, “I’ve got transportation.”
Bethany Anne cut him off. “Not this time, Bobcat.” He jerked his head around in surprise. “You’re too important to the ships project to go into action right now. You’re going to have to pass the keys over to Chris.”
Bobcat’s face wasn’t the only one showing surprise. Bethany Anne shrugged. “Sorry, can’t be helped. This operation is pointing out how desperately we need to have those craft online.”
Bobcat wasn’t happy, but he nodded his understanding.
Dan took up the conversation. “Bobcat, is Chris an acceptable replacement?”
Bobcat thought about that. He had spent a lot of time with Chris in the last couple of months on Shelly. He had to admit the man was ready, but that didn’t stop him from wishing that he could be in the hot seat. “Yes, he’s ready.”
Bethany Anne sat back, she was walking all over Dan’s feet. She would have to apologize after the meeting.
Dan continued, “That gives us ten active plus one support.”
Nathan spoke up again. “Actually, twelve. Ecaterina and I will be joining this party.”
Bethany Anne was surprised to hear this, but then again that was the point of all of Ecaterina’s workouts with the Guardians. Bethany Anne realized she would need to spend some time with Nathan before she left.
Dan nodded. “Ok, that leaves us protecting the ships. I’m comfortable with the Polarus covering us, but what about boarding actions?”
Gabrielle spoke up, “I can stay on the Ad Aeternitatem with Darryl and Scott as my backup. That leaves John and Eric covering Bethany Anne.”
Dan looked over at Bethany Anne. “Where will you be?”
“My presence has been requested in Las Vegas. I’ll take the Gulfstream there ASAP, but I’ll be available if you need me. I’ll have the guys and Ashur with me.”
“Michael?”
Bethany Anne shrugged. “He’ll be in South America as far as I know. I don’t know what David is up to, or if David or one of his flunkies is the instigator of this. Just make sure there are enough medical supplies for everyone and a way back out.”
Frank took that as his cue to continue. He flipped to the next slide, which drew everyone’s attention back to the screen. “That gives us our force and a force-multiplier. We have the transportation so let’s discuss the forward base. The U.S. group is about ten miles outside of the hills, or about fifteen miles from the hot spot. They have a couple of heavy artillery pieces, but Turkey isn’t going to be giving any permission to use them on their soil.”
Dan asked, “Then why do they have them?”
“They’re close enough to the Syrian border that it makes the officer in charge there happy to have them.” Frank went to the next slide. “They have a squad on the ground with a Sergeant McNichols in command.”
Stephen asked the next question. “Aren’t they going to question why a non-aligned military group is going in?”
Frank answered, “Good question. Normally they might, but they’ve lost eight men already. They know what is going on isn’t normal. Enough of the men have seen unexplainable stuff in this area of the world in the last ten years. If someone higher up says ‘hold for the exterminators,’ then by god they will let someone else get their hand cut off. No one is itching to be sent home horizontally. The glory seekers have already been sent home and these guys have gotten their reward for keeping their heads down. They’ve stayed alive. They might be curious, but our team was asked for.”
Dan followed up. “Asked for?”
Frank grimaced. “Poor choice of words. The brass knows that there’s a black team for any of this unexplained stuff. It gets around. They just didn’t realize that we haven’t had to operate over in this part of the world.”
The meeting went on for another thirty minutes before Dan felt he had a handle on the details. He asked Lance to stick around for a while so he could pick his brain. Lance did explain that his field experience was a couple of decades out of date, but he would answer Dan’s questions as best he could.
Bethany Anne cornered Bobcat out in the hall.
“Bobcat, come with me for a second.” She led him to an empty compartment and walked in. He followed. “Can you give me any idea where you guys are?”
“We have the engines in final design stages. Believe it or not, the manufacturing isn’t the hard part, it will be the loading of the energy to get the engines primed the first time.”
“What does TOM say?”
Why don’t you ask TOM, he’s right here.
Hush, I want to understand how well you guys are communicating.
Bobcat answered her. “He says that once we have the engines set up on the Ad Aeternitatem that, with your help, he’ll be able to get them primed using his ship.”
Bethany Anne considered that. “I wonder what the hell he’s expecting me to do?”
“He hasn’t told you?”
No he hasn’t.
You didn’t ask.
“No, I’m sure he didn’t think it was important enough to inform me this early in the planning. I’ll be sure to follow up with him, though. What are the parameters on the ship’s construction? I understand that we can use off the shelf components?”
“Not exactly. What TOM suggested, and for now I have to agree, is to modify an existing design with our engines. At least until we have our own designs. We’re working on something that will let us have a craft per member or two, although we are looking at a craft large enough for each fire team also.”
“Do you have to rip out the existing engine, or can you add it to the existing engine?”
“We can add it, if the space permits. Not possible in something like a small fighter. Something like Shelly could handle it without too much compromise. If we can get one of these engines built in time, I’d like to get it installed.”
“It won’t take long to install?”
“Not really, it’ll just bolt on, since we aren’t taking anything out. Same thing for the Sikorsky. We use them as helicopters to land and take off, then fire up the new engines and just disappear. Once you get to your location switch back to normal flight mode to land. Just be careful not to go too fast.”
“Don’t want to have someone wondering why the helicopter just beat a jet?”
“Well, that too. More importantly, the doc calculates if you go too fast it creates a destructive pressure wave. At its fastest speed, the wave is destructive up to a quarter mile away.”
“Damn.”
“Yup.”
“I don’t have a good feeling about this. I don’t know David well enough, but he hasn’t seemed to be impulsive. See if you can build those ships double-time. Get with Lance to get whatever you need from any of our companies. I want those craft fast, if your team can make it happen. Our people need backup and I want us to be prepared. If the operation goes swimmingly, well then no problem, we just have some ships early.”
“I understand, boss. We’ll burn the candle at both ends.”
They chatted for a minute more and then Bobcat took his leave. Bethany Anne was contemplating possible scenarios when she heard Nathan and Ecaterina talking as they walked down the hallway.
She stuck her head out. “Nathan?” They turned around. “Do you have a few minutes?”
He raised a finger and spoke a few more seconds to Ecaterina who nodded and then continued down
the hallway. Nathan retraced his steps back to Bethany Anne, “Yes?”
“Come inside, I have something to offer you.”
She shut the door, with Scott keeping guard outside. A few minutes later, Bethany Anne stepped out but Scott didn’t see Nathan in the room behind her.
The Queen Bitch’s Ship Ad Aeternitatem
Bobcat was heads down with Marcus and William thirty minutes later when there was a rap on their door.
“C’mon in.” Stephen opened the door and was quickly followed by Lance. If Bobcat had made a bet on who it was, it wouldn’t have been these two.
Stephen nodded to them. “I asked Lance to come over to discuss fabrication.”
William’s ears perked up. “New machines?”
Stephen smiled. “Sadly, no. We don’t have enough space here to bring on every machine you might want, or the electrical connections necessary.”
Marcus’ eyes lit up. “Generators!”
Everyone looked at him.
His face lost the far-away look and realized his outburst had focused their attention on him. “Sorry, but what you said a second ago made me realize that we could create a really powerful generator for our electrical needs using the technology TOM has shared.” He reached over to the table and grabbed one of his yellow pads already filled with notes. “I’ll just add this idea to the list and we can continue.”
Stephen said. “Lance tells me that we have at least four major manufacturing facilities within flying distance of us that he trusts to do the kind of work you guys need. We would only want to manufacture the parts at each company. We would then ship the parts and assemble the complete unit somewhere else.”
William asked, “What kind of capabilities do these companies have?”
Lance answered, “Two have done work for Airbus and two handle heavy machinery. All of them do projects with the type of close tolerances that we need for our work. We aren’t doing medical work or outer space. So, we should be good.”
William thought that through. “Ok, but what about the assembly? We aren’t going to want to do this just anywhere. Who has locations near the coast that we can trust? We can’t bring all of this stuff on this ship and assemble it here. That would be suicide. We’ll need at least a twenty-thousand square foot warehouse for this and some people who’ll do what they’re told and keep their mouths shut.”
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 115