Stephen walked around the metal box that opened on one end. “What am I looking at?”
William answered him, “You are looking at the first prototype of the IZTA 001. This box is set up to handle two people, plus their equipment. After they have stored their equipment underneath the seat, and on the racks there and there, they get in here through this door. As you can see the door latches from the inside as well.” William pulled the doors open a little bit further. “The next version will have glass so that they can see out. But for this version we are going without glass since our manufacturing capabilities are a little limited at this time.”
Stephen asked, “How will they be able to see where they are piloting?”
Marcus jumped into the conversation. “They won’t. TOM will be moving all of the ships via the engines in the lower quadrant. You can’t see the access panel from where you are now.”
Stephen walked around the other side and saw a one-foot by one-foot door with hinges and locks. He knelt down and unlocked the door and peered inside. “Not much in here.”
Marcus said, “No, the engines are self-contained. Once we have them inside this box, the engines are effectively a component of the larger ship. The engine generates a…”
Bobcat interrupted Marcus, “Magic shit happens and the engine takes them where they need to go.”
Stephen smiled and turned to look at the project leader. “I take it that you’ve heard this explanation multiple times?” Stephen stood back up after latching the door again.
“Yes.” Bobcat said. “And I can tell you that even after listening to him explain it ten times, it still makes as little sense as it did the first time I heard it. Engines should work on air, gasoline, and spark. Not shit that can blow up three hundred and twenty-five foot long Superyachts if a little thumbnail piece of it gets tapped wrong.”
Stephen looked over at the doctor. “Truly? A piece that small could blow up this whole ship?”
Marcus nodded. “We have enough of the substance on the ship right now that if it was energized by TOM, we could blow up New York City and leave one big smoking crater.”
That caused the normally jovial vampire to lose his smile for a moment. “That is pretty powerful.”
William smiled, his prototype might look like it was made in a junkyard, but his babies were going to be hella-quick.
Stephen asked the team, “How long would it take to produce eight of these ships?”
Bobcat scratched under his chin. “Well, we could theoretically use that one right there, but it would take us at least two weeks doing it here.”
Stephen shook his head. “That’s too long, think outside the box, Bobcat. What is it you would need to get eight of these built super-fast? Remember our facilities on land. You get me the blueprints, and we’ll make sure that they get built. The main operation is a go, but I would love to have a backup. We can’t hold the op off for two weeks. We’re wheels up late tomorrow morning. If this op goes bad, the only thing you’ll find of us in two weeks is our bones. Get with Lance, I need this backup in forty-eight hours.” With that, Stephen left them looking at each other.
William whistled. “Forty-eight hours? Hope we all ate our Wheaties this morning.”
Marcus asked a question out loud to no one in particular. “If there are only twelve people going on the operation, why does he want eight ships?”
Bobcat started smiling. “Yes! William, grab those drawings. I’ll get the chopper up top warmed up. We might make the fun after all!” He started heading toward the door.
William’s face lit up with glee. “Hell yeah!” He turned and ran to the wall, carefully pulling down the specs that he had used to make the prototype.
Marcus stared at his two rapidly disappearing teammates. “What did I say?”
Bobcat poked his head back in the door. “Marcus! Don’t stand there looking fucking clueless. Get with TOM and make sure we have everything ready to go for ten engines. Daddy is going to need a test run.” With that, Bobcat winked at Marcus and disappeared.
Marcus was almost pleading as William packed up his papers. “Can’t you tell me what just happened?”
“Yes, Stephen gave us a way to get involved.” William grabbed his stuff. “Make sure you have the engines ready within twenty-four hours, thirty-six on the outside.” He ducked out. The door opened again few seconds later. “Marcus? Thirty-six hours, tops. We’ll be back!”
With that, William was gone.
16
Las Vegas, NV USA
Eric rapped on the door. John popped his head around to see Eric beckoning to him. John let Bethany Anne know that he was stepping out and she waved. He got Tom’s and Jeffrey’s attention to let them know that he would knock, to be let back in the security door.
He stepped out. Eric walked back towards the front. John noticed Ashur sitting in a corner. “Got Ashur out of the SUV, I see.”
“Yeah, I got him as soon as I stepped out. I doubt they want dog hair gumming up their fans in there so I didn’t take him down to be with Bethany Anne.”
Ashur woofed.
Eric stopped three feet from the door. It was glass but it had reflective film on it to reduce glare and heat. It made the outside look darker. John stopped beside his partner. “What’s up?”
“We have company watching us.” Eric dipped his head slightly towards the door. “Three buildings down, one guy acting like he’s smoking. His coughing is cracking me up, and one guy one building behind him has settled down on the roof. I didn’t see anyone in the other direction, but that doesn’t mean anything.”
“Forsaken in the daytime?” John unconsciously reached for his pistols and made sure the snaps were off.
“No. Military I think.”
“Why?”
“Their stance, their inability to act like civilians… That Air Force vehicle over there. Minor shit like that.”
John snorted. Eric could be pretty calm in a bad situation.
John said, “You think they’re just surveillance, or are they a scout team?”
Eric shrugged. “I can’t tell. If this is an op, I think we’ll know it when they come through the front door.”
Ashur woofed again.
Eric turned and smiled at the dog. “Or Ashur warns us, whichever one happens first.”
Ashur raised his head and started growling.
Eric put up his hands. “Ok, ok, when Ashur warns us.”
Ashur put his head back down on the floor.
John eyed the dog. “He doesn’t seem bothered.”
Eric looked at his partner. “Why would he? They’re over a hundred feet away.”
Ashur seemed to glare at Eric, at least that’s the way John interpreted his look. Then again, he might be looking at Eric as a juicy steak bone, too. “Ashur?” Ashur raised his head. “I think you need to go for a walk.”
John turned around and walked back to the server room door and knocked on it. A moment later Jeffrey opened it, but John stayed outside. “Jeffrey, do you have any rope that I could use to make a leash?”
Ashur barked loudly from up front. John looked down the hall, “It’s for appearances. Stop barking and be a team player!”
Jeffrey was surprised and stuck his head out of the room. “There’s a dog here?”
The men heard Bethany Anne’s voice from inside. “He’s with me!”
Jeffrey turned slightly towards the room and then back out to John. “Good hearing.”
“You have no idea. Rope?” John had to get the man back on track.
“Yeah, over in building 2, we only have networking cable here in this building.” Jeffrey told John where he could find the rope.
Ashur stood up. John looked over at the huge German Shepherd. “Just getting some rope to pretend we have a leash on you. I want to walk you around and see what’s going on. I’ll be right back.”
As he left the building he told Eric to watch and let Bethany Anne know if he was stopped, but that he was only going over to bui
lding 2.
John exited and headed straight for building 2. He looked at what he could, but he kept his eyes on the next building’s door and went inside.
He located some twine in a desk drawer and turned to walk back to building 1 when his phone chimed. He looked down and saw he had twelve missed phone calls from Frank.
He hit the callback button.
The Queen Bitch’s Ship Polarus
Dan and Stephen were in the meeting room reviewing a few notes when Captain Thomas walked in. The two men looked up.
He took a chair. “Stephen, Dan.”
Dan leaned back. “How are the preparations going?”
Captain Thomas snorted. “Exactly how do you think any preparations would be going with Jean Dukes in charge? She’s been told she might be able to play with her favorite children again. She and the fire teams are excited they might see more action, which is why I’m here.” He turned to face Stephen. “What are our parameters if we have attackers?”
Stephen looked perplexed. “Parameters? Other than ‘win’ I’m not sure what you are asking.”
“We’re near Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and Cyprus. What if any of their ships are part of an attack?”
“Captain Thomas, if you can outrun them, fine. If you cannot, they must not be permitted to board these vessels. Protect these people, protect these vessels. You are in my waters, make the call you feel is necessary and I will back you up. We cannot assume that there are none of David’s people in the navies around this region. If there is an incident, I will make a few calls and get the people to back down. Just as soon as I am free to do so.”
Captain Thomas wasn’t clear what Stephen meant. “Make a few calls?”
Stephen’s smile turned a little malicious, a rare sight for the two men to see. “Sometimes the rumors are true and the reputation is deserved. The people I make calls to will know who they speak to. Rest assured I will get you and your people free if anything happens. Just make sure that there are still people here for me to free.”
It wasn’t often that Stephen surprised Captain Thomas. But he had to admit that in this moment, he sounded scarily like Bethany Anne. If she had a few more decades of scaring the crap out of people already under her belt.
He stood up and shook both men’s hands and left to make sure that the Polarus would be ready to protect both his ship and her sister ship.
Stephen watched him leave before turning around to Dan. “That reminds me, I need to ask Bethany Anne to move TOM’s ship if possible. Probably out to an undisclosed location to hide it while we’re gone. I trust that Captains Thomas and Wagner will do their best, but most of our fighters will be in Turkey. Better to be prepared.”
Dan thought about that. “Not a bad idea, if she has the time. Where would you stash it?”
“What about where it was for a thousand years? No one found it there, maybe we can leave it there for a few days?”
“A sensible idea. My first thought was Siberia. If it can handle the cold of space, then it shouldn’t have any problems there. I’ll have to ask Bethany Anne. Hmmmm, That might be a problem.”
Stephen looked confused, “Why?”
“The Air Force has surveillance plans drawn up for Patriarch Research. Frank has been trying to reach anyone over there, but they must be in a building that’s blocking their cell signals.”
Stephen thought about that. “Has anyone asked Marcus to have TOM reach her?”
Dan rolled his eyes and stood up. “No, none of us thought of that. Let me talk with Frank for a few minutes, I’ll be back.”
Stephen waved at the man and pulled out his phone. He had a couple of emails to return, including one to Ivan who was taking care of getting his house back together. Most of the home had been repaired. There were a couple of contractors that would not show up on time. Even when Ivan dropped Stephen’s name, they still showed up late. That was causing the repairs to drag out. Stephen made a note of the company names; he would have to visit these people in the future.
Ivan and Claudia had been staying at different safe houses at night. There was no reason for them to chance David sending a second group ‘just in case’ Stephen was stupid enough to return home. But, David had an almost pathological connection to his own castle, so maybe he assumed everyone thought of their own home the same way.
Those tasks completed, he spent a minute browsing on Tinder. He had such little time lately that he hadn’t taken a moment to window shop. He heard Dan coming back in plenty of time to close the app down.
Dan came in. “Frank is going to talk with Marcus now. Apparently, the Air Force is going to raid Patriarch Research’s servers.”
“Is there anything that we can do?”
“Not right now. Either Frank’s messages or a communication through TOM should give them some advance warning. If not, Frank and Lance have a large number of connections inside congress. Someone will be made aware that a major businessperson has been targeted for what looks like either trumped up charges or a fishing expedition. Lance knows what’s going on and he and Patricia are reaching out to the lawyers to get them ready.”
Stephen asked, “Doesn’t everyone know that nothing can hold Bethany Anne?”
“Of course, but it would be a bad idea to just disappear from within an Air Force base. Lots of questions would be asked at that point. I just hope that if there’s a problem, that Bethany Anne lets the lawyers or Frank get her out. I don’t think she would be in there for more than five hours, tops.”
Stephen considered the situation and agreed there wasn’t anything that wasn’t already being done for them.
The two men got down to planning the operation. Occasionally, they would call Todd, Pete or Nathan for input. The crew was getting Shelly prepared while many of the men went through their own packing and readiness efforts. Frank was able to provide satellite imagery showing the narrow road going into the town of five hundred plus souls.
Stephen spoke up, “You realize, except for the few who are in hiding, that everyone else is most likely dead?”
Dan sat back. “Yeah. Even if there were only a handful of Nosferatu they would be able to kill everyone. I can’t imagine that after David went to all of this effort we will only be facing a few. By now, we have to assume he knows about San Jose and Buenos Aires. Even if he doesn’t, I don’t want to underplan.”
“No, David has always been close to his vest with his plans. He doesn’t mind leveraging large efforts. He’s a conniving bastard. We need to up our expectations of something bad happening. If I’m wrong, nothing lost. If I’m right, then we’ll be glad to have the extra munitions. Make sure we have plenty of first aid supplies.”
The men tried to work out if coming up with additional support would be possible. Dan tried to contact Frank, but it rang through to his voicemail. He wrote himself a note to get with Frank on who their American contacts would be when they were in Turkey.
A rap got Dan’s attention. He noticed Stephen was already looking over at the door. Nathan poked his head in. “Hey, Ben has two bits of information we might want to review. The first is related to the terrorist assholes. The second is cell tower IDs used right before all communications went out in the area. He’s hacking into the local telecom to see if he can backtrack the two phone calls that were made right before it died. I’m assuming those might be David, or whoever set up this little party for us.”
Dan considered his options. “Unless Stephen says otherwise, the terrorists will have to wait until we handle the AAR for this op. See if he can nail down their locations while we handle this dustup. What does he need for the cell phone tracking?”
“Hopefully, not much. Language skills, maybe, if we come to something that needs reading we can’t decipher.” He thought about it for another minute. “Nothing more at the moment.”
Stephen turned back to Dan. “You seem pretty sure there’ll be people left after this op to need an after action review.”
Dan smiled. “Well, we have you going
on this op and the Guardians plus Nathan and Ecaterina. But to be honest, that isn’t why I’m sure there will be people returning.”
“Oh?” Stephen was pretty sure that most of them would return but he knew no plan survived contact with the enemy.
Dan looked at Stephen and said with a knowing glint in his eyes. “I know my boss…”
17
Las Vegas, NV USA
So, this version of ADAM has promise?
A few more minutes, please.
Bethany Anne had allowed TOM to work with ADAM while she walked around. He was both more able to review the information and better suited for the activity.
She decided to speak to Tom and Jeffrey while TOM was busy.
She walked over to them, both still trying to figure out the origin of the wireless signals. Tom turned around with his signal-checking device in his outstretched hand as he turned, and aimed his arm straight at her.
She watched his eyes go down to his device, then back at her, then back to his device. She waited patiently while he moved it around some more and his face grew a look of confusion that was pretty comical. She had a pretty good idea why the device might be suggesting she was the cause of his confusion. Maybe she would tell him, sometime in the future, why his device was giving him ‘faulty’ results.
Maybe.
“Gentlemen.” They stopped looking at the device and gave her their full attention. “I would like to discuss the next stage of your employment.” At Tom’s look of concern, she added, “There is further employment, not a nice way for me to explain that you’re not needed anymore.” Tom looked relieved. “You might not appreciate it but the companies that I have responsibility for are in multiple areas of specialization. Those areas include computers and AI research such as your own, as well as medical, military, financial, and advanced transportation fields. One of these small research firms, based in Romania, has unearthed exciting new technology relating to gravity and antigravity. They need substantial computer and research support, which Lance Reynolds and Nathan Lowell believe your company presently have.”
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 120