Queen Bitch (The Kurtherian Gambit Book 2)

by Michael Anderle

  Eric heard one set of shots behind him and he quickly turned around, there should have been two sets of shots. Coming around the corner, he found the first dead tango and looking up he saw John walking over to the second dead tango. Somehow, he had acquired the second tango and fired fast enough it sounded like one set of shots. Son of a bitch, that was fast.

  They heard Bethany Anne’s click of success and provided their own. They started to look at the explosives and realized that it wasn’t setup for remote detonation, thankfully. The wires all went to a master control by the fresh tunnel exit. They had a good idea how to disarm it, but without a really good reason they weren’t going to take any chances. They moved the box as far away from the exit as they could and then prepped a defensive position aiming into the tunnel. They had responsibility to make sure nothing took the team from here. The rest of the team had to make sure their backs were covered and since Bethany Anne was behind them, they felt pretty secure.

  Up above, when Darryl and Scott heard the second set of clicks, it was their turn.

  The came around the corner and each put a silenced bullet into the lookouts legs. Scott took the right leg, Darryl took the left. He fell down in pain and surprise and never noticed the two come up beside him. Scott helped lift the lookout high enough so Darryl could grab the badge and slot it in place. At the same time Scott grabbed the lookout’s right hand and placed it over the security glass. Sensing a live hand print and the badge it unlocked the door. Scott dropped him back to the ground. Darryl shot him in the head once the door opened.

  “Let me go in first, guys.” Darryl started just a bit, not expecting to have Bethany Anne right next to him so fast. He was able to continue focusing on his task, but it was close.

  Crouching, Darryl moved sideways and Bethany Anne went ahead so fast you would think she was running in a crouching position. He and Scott then took positions on the inside of the door facing out. Bethany Anne knew she had tangos in front of her; they were safe from that position.

  The inside of the server room was loud. With this many rows of server racks there was probably over a thousand machines in this sized space, almost all of them running fan systems that made it sound like little jets taking off every time they spun up to cool down the machines. The little 1U & 2U units could be really loud sometimes.

  There were three hackers, each in a separate part of the server room. All of them had their short bull-pup design rifles on the floor leaning against the rack as they worked.

  Bethany Anne recognized the design, it worked by moving the firearms action and magazine behind the trigger to save weight and gain maneuverability while not sacrificing accuracy from a shorter barrel length. However; she didn’t recognize the make.

  It didn’t matter; none of them heard when she knocked a hacker in the back of his head with her forearm. Unfortunately, she killed the first one when she didn’t think about the difference between a Were’s hard head and a humans.

  So, she had two unconscious guys and one dead one. Wow, never mind. One of the live ones was a female. Teach her to be gender biased. She signaled Scott to come take the female and she threw the male over her shoulder in a fireman's carry. Scott took the second in the same way and they left down the stairs. She could hear the commotion with the hostages as they passed the main level. It was pretty chaotic as people were heading out. She hoped it wouldn’t become a stampede but she couldn’t show herself right now and her and her team needed to get out of dodge. She sure hoped that the exit went somewhere or this was going to be egg on her face. She did not want Frank to get involved to help get her team out, how embarrassing.

  They went down to the bottom basement and saw the three bodies and the defensive position that Eric and John had setup up. Darryl took over from Scott to give him a rest. Bethany Anne gave John the guy she was carrying and he took the load without too much trouble. That freed her up to go into the tunnel unencumbered.

  She was able to make good time and followed a significantly long tunnel that took two dog legs until it hit a regular underground drainage pipe system that went both left and right. She figured the dog legs were to reduce the blow back from the collapse of the building. Well, that wouldn’t be happening now.

  No one was waiting for her when she poked her head out. They must have figured that they would have an advance team. Tough shit, they were the winning team and to the victor go the spoils. Namely contestants number one and two they were carrying with them.

  She took out her phone and turned on the mapping function. She was close enough to the surface to get a reading. They were under NE 2nd Avenue. There was another hole 45 feet down the tunnel to her right. She went down the tunnel and into the hole. It stopped only a few feet in and had a metal ladder going up which she started climbing. Reaching the top she pushed aside a metal grate and entered a metal building. She could see that they had hid their efforts by making it look like this building was under refurbishment. No one was here, but a quick look outside showed two white vans without windows right outside. Both had ‘Johns building contractors’ in poor handwriting and a cell phone number painted on the sides. Both vans looked pretty run-down. That was how they got in and out of the building without making anyone suspicious.

  As she went back down the passages, she met the team as they came to the first exit into the drainage sewers. She explained the plan and the bodies were moved one more time. She took the guy from John and Eric took the girl from Darryl. The three without the hackers went up the ladders, ditched as much of their weaponry and found a couple of shirts with paint all over them. They went to go look into the vans and both had keys under the front seats. Scott drove one off and parked it in a daily parking lot and jogged back. John was circling around the block until they were ready.

  On his fourth lap around the block Scott signaled him it was time. They opened the metal security door and John just drove the van over the curb to stick part way into the shop and left half the van sticking out. They must have removed the front wall behind the security door for this reason. Opening the van doors they placed the hackers inside while Eric loaded the gear into the back. John got out and switched to the front passenger seat and Eric took the driver’s seat.

  Scott stopped traffic real quickly by just standing in the street. It wasn’t like any cops nearby weren’t already over at the Southeast Financial Center. No one was going to race over here in the next minute.

  Eric pulled out and Darryl closed the security door. Bethany Anne was already in the vehicle before they pulled out. No need to allow her face to get on any security cameras on the street, if there were any.

  Darryl and Scott jumped in and Eric just casually pulled away, sticking his arm out the window in a friendly wave to the honking cars behind him.

  Bethany Anne was on the phone again. She had located a lot on Google Maps about 8 miles away in South Miami. She wanted Bill to come land there. He had been flying off the coast near Palmetto Bay, so it wasn’t so bad for him. He headed North towards the pickup zone.

  Landing, he saw a beat up white van with some building contractors name and number on the side. It was coming over the field towards him so he hoped it was his people.

  Considering the permissions to fly over downtown in a Black Hawk, and the knowledge of the person who talked to him on the phone about his security clearance, he was pretty sure he was working with a team that was helping with the terrorist situation downtown. He didn’t know how they had dropped from his helicopter so he would never have to lie anyway. But they didn’t leave any gear hooked up behind.

  He just figured that they had something new the military didn’t want anyone to know about, yet.

  Sure enough, the doors opened and he got not only his original team, but two newcomers that looked, yup, they were out of it. No blood, so they were probably alive, just unconscious. Two of the team members had paint spattered shirts over their gear. Not sure what that was about, but he was sure someone had a good story. Not that he would eve
r tell it.

  They emptied the van of their gear, loaded up the chopper and Bethany Anne gave Bill the signal to take them up. She came over to John. “Does Dan have a place he wants us to land?”

  “No, nothing yet. All hell’s breaking loose over at the building. With all of the hostages leaving so quickly it took a minute for the cops to get past them and into the building. They found the dead from group one and the guy in the server room. Since we didn’t fix anything, they know two ‘got away’ and Dan says they are giving updates about the situation in the basement. Everyone is clearing the building until they can confirm the demolition charges have been neutralized. He can’t leave just yet, too much pandemonium and it would look strange for a support vehicle to try and leave.”

  She shook her head in acknowledgement. Putting on the extra pair of headphones from the chopper. She got Bills attention.

  “How’s it going?”

  Bill gave Bethany Anne a quick glance with a smile before resuming his watch as he flew. “Really? You’re asking me how it is going when I’m back in ‘some action’ with my baby here?” He petted his girl with love. “Where do you want to go now?”

  “Uh, somewhere a Black Hawk helicopter won’t make the news?”

  He laughed, “Lady, Black Hawks always make the news. Didn’t you know that?”

  She grimaced; this wasn’t the best choice for an unobtrusive getaway. How could she turn it around?

  “Ok, let’s do this. Take me sightseeing where the most expensive homes are. Your story is you had a very wealthy and eccentric lady want your services and when seeing this helicopter decided she wanted a ride. I didn’t care about the price but I’m looking at homes.”

  Bill smiled, this is what he lived for. Hot dames, hot guns and hot times. Hell yeah!

  “You got it. We are close to the best of Coral Gables, we’ll head down the beach. You want to be seen, right?”

  “You got it, I’ll flaunt it.”

  This was going to be the best PR he could ever receive. Bethany Anne maneuvered into the co-pilots seat. She was pretty damn limber.

  Pulling out her phone, she searched for property around here. She found one she liked going for $8.9 million and called the broker. She told the broker she wanted to see the house, right now. The broker said she would close out her late lunch and drive right over, did she need directions?”

  “No, no directions. I’ll just see where my pilot can land nearby.” She hung up.

  “Hey, Bill. Here is a house I want to see. It has a pool so if you can hover over it I can wash some of this blood off my hands by jumping in. That would be pretty eccentric, don’t you think?”

  “I think it would be crazy, but then I like crazy. Or, you could use the baby wipes that are under your seat. I use them to get the oil off when I work on the engines.”

  Bethany Anne reached under the seat and pulled out a half-used tub of baby wipes. They did a bang up job cleaning her hands. She got a fresh one to clean her face. Now she smelled like a baby’s bottom.

  The house she wanted to see was in Smugglers Cove in Key Biscayne so Bill had to angle the Black Hawk over the water. The house was near the Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park. Bill was able to find a decent landing spot that didn’t upset the very rich neighbors and Bethany Anne just jogged quickly over to the house. She jumped a fence and slipped through the etheric across the canal when no one was looking. This area had no desire for unwanted visitors. Either of the animal or human variety.

  She arrived at the house with the help of her phone when the real estate agent pulled up.

  The real estate lady drove up in a late model BMW 5 series. Her name was Nancy, and she was decked out in an expensive white suit and beautiful pair of Brian Atwoods that she had to admire. Compared to her present outfit, she felt like she was slumming. Then again, she had the money to buy the house. So, fuck it.

  “Are you Nancy?”

  “Are you… Bethany Anne?” Nancy wasn’t so sure this wasn’t a prank on her right now. How this lady got into this subdivision was beyond her.

  “Yes, sorry about the look but I was having a Rambo day when I spotted the house. I asked my pilot to land over there in the State Park. I’ll make this quick, I don’t think they want the Black Hawk staying there too long.”

  “Um, Black Hawk? Isn’t that a military type helicopter?”

  “Yup.” Bethan Anne pointed to her outfit, “I had to dress appropriately. I just love your Brian Atwoods!” Bethany Anne put the most kissy-smoochy voice she could dream of when talking about Nancy’s shoes.

  That cinched it. Any lady who was playing Rambo with a helicopter for the afternoon and then could recognize her rather exclusive and expensive pair of Brian Atwoods, was a good client for her.

  It took about ten minutes for Bethany Anne to decide she wanted the house.

  Nancy asked her what she wanted to counter-offer from the $8.9 million asking price and Bethany Anne decided to play it to the hilt. “What do I care if I can get the house for one or two million less? Negotiating is a pain in the ass. When I want something, I buy it. Let me call my secretary to work with you to finalize the deal. She is a European that has just come over to America with me. So be a little patient when working with her, ok?”

  Nancy assured Bethany Anne that she would be the epitome of patience.

  Bethany Anne got her phone out and called Ecaterina. “Hi Ecaterina, listen, I’m going to give you the contact information for a real estate agent working a deal with me for a property outside Miami. Oh, Nathan is there? That’s a complete shock. So yes, work with him on the particulars but I’m purchasing it for $8.9 Million. I’ll send you her contact information and a link to the property as well as a double-check. Yes, I’ll probably be back in two days now. Ok, bye.”

  She hung up and texted her Nancy’s information. “Ok, got to go!” You have my phone number but I’d rather not deal with this while I’m playing, ta ta!” With that she left Nancy to close up the house.

  Well, one base of operations was just accomplished. Not sure why she wanted one here, but it was a major focus for the Forsaken so it might just work out well.

  She was going to have to get Ecaterina to come down here. Besides, ice was a bitch in high-heels up north in the winter.

  She jogged back over and jumped the fence again and slipped through the etheric to make it across the canal and came up to the helicopter which was winding up the rotors again. Darryl, Scott and Eric had stood around and looked fierce and when she jumped on board she saw John with a pistol watching her two hackers who were awake, and very very scared.

  The team got in and closed the door and Bill got out of there. Dan had called while Bethany Anne was busy. They had finally escaped the madhouse at the Financial Center and were going out to the airport where Bill’s company was located. They had plans just to meet over at the hanger when Bill landed.

  Worked for her.

  “I see my two contestants have woken up. Did they have anything to say?”

  John shook his head, “Outside of who are we, where are we and claiming all sorts of innocence, nope.”

  She looked down at the two hackers. If it was true that they were innocent, she might be able to use them. She couldn’t concentrate well enough with the helicopter racket to deal with this right now. Well, that wasn’t true. She could have, but she didn’t want to.

  She just nodded and went back up to the co-pilots chair. She really liked this helicopter. She put the helmet back on. “Heya Bill, how they hanging?”

  “One beside the other sister, one beside the other.” She smiled at his easy-going attitude. She really liked this helicopter and this pilot.

  “So, did you buy it?”

  “The house?”

  “Yup.”

  “Yeah, I liked it. I have a team member working on the details but I figure it will close in a couple of days at the most. Looks like I’m going to be in Miami more often, now.”

  Bill was truly nonplussed; this
lady just REALLY bought a house in Smugglers Cove? That place was notorious for having huge homes with price tags that could buy less expensive helicopters a couple of times over, easily.

  “Need a pilot on your team?” He smiled to take the seriousness out of the question, trying to make it sound like a fun joke.

  “Actually Bill. I think I need a pilot who has access to a Black Hawk that wouldn’t mind becoming a member of my team. It includes purchasing his whole business and upgrading his equipment with some items that a few people might not, shall we say, appreciate. Know anyone who might be interested?”

  He glanced quickly over to Bethany Anne, she had stopped the fun loving bimbo act and showed him a very serious face.