Jack let out a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding and shook his head. “How the hell does a guy that damned big keep getting lost?” he muttered. “Or taken?” he corrected. “Or whatever the hell it is that keeps happening to him?”
Gregory snorted a laugh. “Beats the heck out of me, Chief, but the way his luck has been going, he’ll be lucky if he doesn’t end up in Iceland…or hijacked on the way back.”
“Don’t even joke about it, LT. You might speak it into existence.”
“Roger that, Chief.”
Jack turned to leave the new Command Center then turned back, “Hey, LT, if you happen to find the Colonel, can you please let me know? I really need to talk to him.”
“Copy that, Chief,” Gregory told him. “Same goes for me. If you run into him, send his sorry butt over here for a while. We got a lot of stuff to fill him in on here too.”
“Roger that.” Jack headed across the campus to the Headquarters building and saw Matt, Laura and Tufo being driven up to the building by the petite young Major that Matt was now using to run the base for him. Jack shook his head and double timed it to catch up with them. “Colonel! I really need to speak with you, sir.”
“In my office,” Matt said. “We have some things we need to go over, Phoenix.”
Jack tipped his hat to Laura and the major who half expected a salute. Tufo fell in behind him and followed to Matt’s office. “Colonel, on this training facility, do you want me to have the stuff from Tinker sent up here, or can I feel free to order what I feel is necessary to build a new one?” he asked as they worked their way up the front steps.
Matt paused just outside the door and thought about it. “Tell ya what, Mark…why don’t you make a list of what you think we can repurpose from Tinker and if you think we can grab and go with a twenty-four hour turn-around, I’ll send you to supervise along with a crew and you can grab what we need,” he said. Matt was thinking of the silver cells in the lower levels of the hangar that he knew he would eventually need here. He could have Mark disassemble them and bring them back when he got the training equipment. “There’s some other things back there you could get as well. Anything else we can requisition, but anything new may take time, so let’s try to keep it simple.”
“Roger that, Colonel,” Tufo said as he turned and exited the building.
“What was that about?” Jack asked.
“Mark’s going to get the training facility up to snuff,” Matt said. “I want all of the operators in tip-top shape before the shit hits the fan.”
Jack nodded as Matt opened the door to his office and the two went inside. “Have a seat, Chief.” Matt reached for his scotch bottle and saw that it was nearly empty. “Damn. I may have to give this shit up.”
“Or buy stock in the company,” Jack quipped. “That’s what I did years ago.”
“Smart ass.” Matt poured a drink. “Want one?”
Jack waved him off. “Skipper, we have a problem with the Wackenhut guys.”
“Already taken care of, Chief.” Matt poured a short glass. “Diane’s talked to their captain and taken care of it.”
Diane? Jack thought. “Colonel, do you realize that the little…altercation we had out front here was no accident?” Matt shot him a questioning look. “Their Captain Roberts and some asshat named McDonald ordered a handful of their men to shoot any of us operators on sight. No questions asked.”
Matt nearly dropped his drink. “How can you know this?”
“The man that was put in the hospital? Apollo, Donovan and Tufo went to visit him and he spilled the beans.”
Matt shook his head. “Why the hell didn’t Mark say anything to me? I just spent half the day with him?”
“With the major by your side the entire time?” Jack asked.
“So?” Matt took a drink. “What the hell difference should that make?”
“Didn’t she defend the Wackenhut guys?” Jack raised a brow in question. “Wouldn’t that give you pause before making an accusation in front of their defender?”
Matt sighed. “I suppose it might.” He threw back the rest of his scotch and uttered a curse as he poured himself another.
“The man in the hospital asked for protection. At least until we can get the trouble makers replaced.”
Matt stared at him. “Replaced?” he repeated. “At this time? With a little over a week before this Sicarii asshole hits us with everything he has and you want me to replace the captain of their guard?”
“Yes, sir.” Jack appeared serious. “Their captain and this McDonald fellow.”
Matt squeezed his eyes together and pinched at the bridge of his nose. “Fine. Let me talk to Diane.”
Jack shot him a questioning look. “Why do you need to talk to her? You’re the base CO.”
“Because I don’t have a freaking clue who I’m supposed to call, or who to contact or even if I can, Chief. They’re contract security. I may not have any say in the matter.”
Jack sat back in his chair and slumped. “Great. So we end up with a couple of psychopaths under our roof who are gunning for us and we can’t do anything about it.”
“We don’t know that yet.” Matt held a hand up to stave his argument. “Let me see what I can do.” He finished his drink and pushed the glass away from him hoping it wouldn’t tempt him any further. “In the meantime, let me tell you about what Diane showed us.”
Jack raised a brow. “Something good I hope.”
“Better than good.” Matt sat back and read his face. “We can put the Monster Squad back into one structure away from all of the contractors that crawl all over this fucking place, and she showed us a really good place to hide a whole bunch of vampires and werewolves until this Sicarii shithead shows up to declare war.”
Jack slowly smiled, liking the sound of what Matt was telling him. “Go on…”
“It won’t be the most comfortable place in the world, but if anybody comes snooping, they won’t be seen. It’s cool and out of the sunlight, it’s underground so they can’t be seen from the air, and it sort of has bathroom facilities.”
“Sort of?” Jack frowned.
“Well, they aren’t completely finished, but we can work on that while they’re in transit,” Matt said. “I’m having crews go out first thing tomorrow to get the heads and showers working. Diane is working on making sure we have everything from food to entertainment to…hell even toilet paper for them.”
“Pleasant thought,” Jack muttered.
“Well honestly, I don’t want to think of how pissed off a vampire without toilet paper might get…” Matt shook his head.
“Okay, me neither.” Jack waved the idea away. “Oh, and speaking of pissed off, Lieutenant Gregory needs to see you right away, AND a little FYI…Dom got left in Italy by Team 2. No idea why just yet, but Gregory made a command decision, pulled some strings and he’s on the next flight back to the states,” Jack said. “In fact, he should be in the air as we speak. As soon as he touches down, we can make arrangements to get him out here.”
“Sonovabitch,” Matt swore. “I had no clue he got left behind…why the hell didn’t somebody bother to tell us?”
Jack shook his head. “I’m low man on the totem pole, Skipper. I’m lucky if anybody tells me when its lunch time.”
“Right. That’s why you had to tell me all this.” Matt caved and reached for the scotch again. “This fucking job is going to drive me to drink.”
“Already has, Colonel.” Jack stood up to leave. “Don’t forget, Gregory needs you. Sounded like it was important.”
Matt slammed his drink back and stood up. He grabbed his cover and followed Jack out the door. “Time to make the doughnuts.”
7
The dark vampire entered the ‘stateroom’ of the cargo ship and glanced at the four walls. The room was tiny and the little messenger had done the best he could to make the room comfortable for him. He had to give the little vampire credit, at least he tried. He had brought some of the tap
estries from his sleeping quarters at the cathedral and had done his best to dress up the dreary room. At least it had no windows to allow in light.
The bed had been ripped from the wall and the crate that the Sicarii chose to sleep in had been placed there in its stead. The Sicarii lifted the heavy lid and inspected the inside of the crate. Although he refused to sleep in a coffin, he realized that the crate was, in fact, simply a surrogate for one. A wooden shipping crate is nothing more than a poor man’s coffin, but this one was deeper, longer, wider…not nearly as ornate as modern coffins. The little vampire had seen to everything apparently for his hand woven pillow was exactly where it should be, the rolled woolen blanket that he liked to keep under his knees was in place and the deep bed of dark, rich, native soil was hand raked and softened, ready for him to lay down and slumber.
The Sicarii held the lid open and breathed deeply of the rich earth and instantly, his mind transported him home. He could remember his childhood, the goats he helped his father tend when he was young. He could remember his mother’s face as she smiled at him. He remembered his sister calling him a name and swatting at him to stay out of the cheese, then shooing him away. Then the bad memories came flooding in too fast for him to stop them…the Romans and their swords. The blood…the carnage…the death.
Quickly he opened his eyes and inhaled a short gasp of air. He wasn’t there anymore. No, he was aboard a ship. A ship headed to the new world. And like most of his vampires, he would choose to conserve his energies and sleep through most of the weeklong voyage. He would lay down in his bed and sleep, his body would shut down and he would be for all intent and purpose, dead for the journey across the ocean.
He knew that a few of his people had brought along snacks and intended to stay awake and alert. They chose to haunt the belly of the ship for part, if not all, of the voyage. But not the Sicarii. He would sleep and if he were lucky, he would dream of the destruction of creation.
*****
“So the commandos tried to make nice with Moore after they busted him up?” Captain Roberts repeated. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“Fuck ‘em,” McDonald cursed. “They’re all a bunch of assholes.”
Roberts ignored the man’s rant and continued to think. Perhaps they were truly making an effort to make nice? he thought. Or maybe they were trying to pump him for information? Roberts paced the man-cave and tried to think, ignoring McDonald’s constant macho babblings.
“What else did Kevin say about it?”
McDonald tossed the magazine he was pretending to read back on the table. “Nothing really. He played it off like they just dropped by to say ‘sorry’ and he said ‘okay, thanks’ and they left. But the nurse I talked to? You know that redhead with the really nice ass? The one that has the legs you just want to lick like a popsicle?” he glanced at Roberts, “Yeah, her…I think she likes me ‘cuz she was really talking me up by the way.”
“Just tell me what she said, damn it!”
McDonald shot him a hurt look. “Yeah, well, she said that they were in there talking to Moore for like almost an hour. And it don’t take no fucking hour to say, here’s a fruit basket, sorry I broke your arm, and for that pansy to say thanks and get the fuck out.”
Roberts paced the room again. “God, I wish we had a camera or microphone in those rooms.” He muttered. “Just about every inch of this base is monitored, but not the infirmary.” He shook his head and poured another cup of the bitter coffee.
“So what do you want me to do about this?” McDonald asked. “Want me to go rough up Moore and make him tell me what really went down?” He shot a wicked smile.
Roberts shook his head. “No.” He continued pacing. “Moore is still one of us. I don’t believe for a minute that he would have given them anything that they could use. If anything, he would have misdirected them.”
McDonald raised a brow at him. “What about our shoot on sight order? The fuckers went and got ID badges. We’d need some kind of reason to drop them…”
“Spread the word to stand down,” Roberts said softly. “For now anyway. Our time will come when they’ll step out of line and we’ll get our opportunity to strike back at them and make them realize where the real power on this base sits.”
McDonald smiled. “Hey, what did his High-and-Mightiness say about the guy in the video? Could he explain how the half-naked guy just appeared out of nothing?”
Roberts shook his head. “I went by Mitchell’s office twice and he wasn’t in.” He stopped pacing a moment. “Probably out looking for other ways to make my life miserable.”
The man sitting behind the console of monitors spoke without removing his eyes from the screens. “The colonel and the major took two others and went outside the base proper, sir. They went out to the old warehouse this afternoon, but they’re back already.”
Roberts glanced at the man. “What were they doing out there?”
“It appears they just looked around and left.”
Roberts paced again, scratching at his chin. “If this bastard thinks we’re going to reactivate those old ruins and try to incorporate it into our security platform…he’s nuts. We had this talk with Anderson years ago. Those places were abandoned due to safety protocols and I’m not putting my people out there for any reason.”
“We got two duty roster notifications of work crews that will be heading to the main warehouse tomorrow morning at 0600,” the man watching the screens said. “The notification was put on your desk.”
“Son of a…” Roberts started. He got up and went to his desk, shuffling through the reports until he found the one he was looking for. He snatched it up and took off out of his office.
“Going to chew a full-bird’s ass, Cap?” McDonald asked.
“If I can find the son-of-a-bitch,” Roberts yelled over his shoulder.
*****
Laura felt herself being spread too thin. Between coordinating the finishing touches on getting the different divisions set up, handling the incoming flights of squads from overseas, finding room for the gear they brought with them, coordinating with Diane for the work crews that were supposed to start work on the empty facilities that were buried around the base proper and dealing with finding an incoming flight for Dom…she felt like she was being torn in too many different directions.
She called a meeting of the different department heads and requested that Tufo attend as well. She directed each department head to take charge as they already should have, stop worrying about getting permission to do something and just do it. Get it done. They needed everything set up and ready to go and they couldn’t sit around and wait for somebody higher ranked than them to make the decision. She didn’t have time, energy, or resources to micromanage anymore.
Next she pulled Tufo aside and informed him that the rumor mill had worked its way around to her and she was proud that Matt had finally stepped up and made arrangements for when she was ready to leave. Mark didn’t miss the fact that she didn’t say ‘if’… But she needed him to step up now and start stepping into the role. She needed him to start assuming more responsibilities and taking charge. She asked him to take over the squads directly, not just their training, but everything that dealt directly with the hunters themselves, Mark was to be the go-to guy.
He simply snapped a salute and shot her a cheesy grin. “If you need me to pick up anything else, ma’am, just let me know. The only way to learn your job is to jump in and get my feet wet.”
Laura sighed and shook her head. Finally she gave him an exasperated smile. “Mark, the only way to do my job is by the seat of your pants.”
He snorted and patted her back. “That’s what I do best, ma’am.”
“And stop ma’am-ing me,” she shot back. “I’m just Laura. You and I are basically equals now, anyway, right?”
He gave her a critical eye. “Somehow I doubt that.” He squirmed slightly. “I don’t think I could ever truly fill your shoes…Laura.”
She cracked a grin but di
d her best to hide it. “Flattery gets you nowhere with me, Gunny,” she argued. “What else do you have going on?”
He pulled out his notebook and a pen. “I’ll be heading back to Tinker tomorrow to pick up a bunch of the training gear. I’m having the guys make lists of anything they think we need that was left behind.” He pulled a form out and handed it to her. “Matt said we gotta make this a twenty-four hour turnaround, so whatever we get has to be a snatch-and-grab. Anything you need, want or desire that was left behind, fill this out and get it back to me ASAP.”
She glanced at the form and nodded. “Who’s going with you?”
“I’m taking two tech crews, a handful of grunts and Second Squad for the really heavy lifting. Matt said there’s some stuff in the basement that he wants me to grab.”
Laura thought for a moment and then a light of recognition shown as she realized it must be the silver coated bars that was bolted together to make the cells. “Yeah, I can see where you’ll need the squad to get that stuff up out of there.”
Tufo turned with a questioning look. “He hasn’t told me what it is yet.”
Laura glanced around to ensure nobody who shouldn’t know wasn’t within hearing distance. “There are silver coated cages bolted together down there.” Her voice was barely a whisper. “That was where he used to go on the full moon.”
Tufo let out a low whistle. “Cutting it a bit close this time, isn’t he?” he replied softly. “The full moon is only about a week away.”
She shook her head. “He said he won’t need it as long as Max is here. I have no idea how that part works, but he’s convinced. I think the bars are for the next full moon. We wouldn’t want him running rampant around here in a Halfling form on the full moon while we have ops going on.”
Tufo’s eyes widened. “No, we wouldn’t.” He tapped the form he had handed her, “Just make sure we know where to find whatever you decide you need. And try to be specific. I don’t want to have to make room in the plane for unnecessary stuff. I’m only making one trip.”
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