by Finian Blake
ECHO
SECOND EDITION
REMOTE TRAVELER SERIES
BOOK THREE
FINIAN BLAKE
Copyright © 2015 FINIAN BLAKE
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 1511646179
ISBN-13:978-1511646178
DISCLAIMER
This is a fictional work. As a fictional work certain situations mentioned in this book may bear a resemblance to real life situations. The author claims no participation in or direct knowledge of any illegal events described in this book. To the best of the author’s knowledge the countries, companies, organizations, and agencies described in this book have not participated in and have no knowledge of any of the events described in this book
FINIAN BLAKE
CONTENTS
1. OPENERS 1
2. FOOLISHNESS 51
3. TARGETS 114
4. CHEATERS 168
5. SETUP 213
6. PUSHING THE ENVELOPE 276
7. SURPRISES 333
8. REVENGE 382
1.
OPENERS
Boris tapped lightly on the unmarked grey metal door at the far end of the hallway. None of the doors in this area were marked, since the people that made it this far were supposed to know where they were going. Hearing no answer Boris was forced to tap on the door again. Finally, an answer came through the door.
“I said come in,” a frustrated female voice came through the closed door. Boris opened the door slowly in order to be sure that nothing would come flying through the door when his face appeared in it. He looked at a female figure seated in the middle of the floor surrounded by stacks of paper. She was dressed in jogging shorts and a sports bra. Colleen’s fine auburn hair was in disarray hanging in front of her eyes, so that her look of desperation was not immediately apparent to Boris. Even in her casual attire Colleen was an extremely attractive woman and Boris always enjoyed coming down to talk to her. Colleen held up a stack of papers that were four inches thick. “Boris, how in the hell do you think I am supposed to figure out all these bills. They keep showing up in my office and I have no idea of what they are for.”
“My dear I will be more than happy to go through the bills with you,” Boris said in a patient Russian accent.
“Oh Boris, I don’t mean to be mad with you, but when we started this project I had no idea of the scope. Cherry and Rhonda submit bills like you do and I have this mountain of paperwork which I have no idea of what to do with.” Colleen stood up walking over to a giant map that was hanging on her wall that was labeled Echo. “Cherry said that we were going to build a production studio, a design studio, and the computer center. I understood that this would be a complicated project, but this is beyond belief.”
“My dear you are a smart woman, so I am sure that you will be able to handle this,” Boris said trying to be as soothing as possible.
“That is what Cherry and Rhonda have been telling me also. I knew the project would be complicated.” Colleen waved her hand over the map, “We were supposed to develop 160 acres. We have ten, 10 acre residential plots which includes a residence, a guest house, and the barn on each property and each property is worth 1.5 million and that would be $15,000,000 for the 10, that is a simple part. We now come to your computer center with the backup generator, the extreme necessity for cooling and your insistence on digging that into the side of the hill gives us a $15,000,000 overrun on the building bringing the cost up to $35,000,000. You then ordered $65,000,000 worth of computer equipment and that brings me to this,” Colleen waved the four-inch stack of bills in Boris’s face.
“My dear,” Boris allowed a whine to slip in with his heavy Russian accent. “They were small mainframe computers and the good news is that 30 workstations are part of that price. One of those mainframes is for Cherry’s production studio and two are for the NSA, so only one of those mainframes is for the computer service. I have enough business to justify two more mainframes.”
“Boris, I realize that because we covered all of that information when we initially laid out the plan, but I just cannot send our money to anybody that asks for it,” Colleen said still waving the four-inch stack of bills. “I need you to sit down with me and review the stack, so we get some value for our money.”
“Is that at all,” Boris said warmly, “we will take care of that immediately. Just give me ten minutes, we will sit down and I shall not leave until all of your questions have been answered.” Boris disappeared from the room returning with a cart which had crackers, cheese, fruit, and a bottle of wine on it. Boris uncorked the wine pouring two glasses, and after preparing a small plate for Colleen he sat down for a working picnic.
In the two years since they began the project all the residences had been finished and were being used by key personnel of Echo. Cherry, Rhonda, and Boris chose to occupy the closest residence to the center. Tamar Boris’s mother lived in the guest house behind his residence. Colleen maintained an apartment inside the center because she lived in England at the Amazon Inn with her husband Adam. The plans for the center were already drawn up and waiting to be built since Boris had a friend that was an architect who had drawn up a dream project waiting for an extravagant benefactor. The only thing that had to be done is add two more stories to accommodate the design studio and the production studio. The area was 150-feet square making the footprint of the building 22,000 square feet. With the three levels this gave them a total area of 66,000 square feet only using half an acre of the 60 acres planned for development.
The backup generators and cooling plant were separate from the main complex with cables buried deep underground to prevent tampering. While they were digging the subbasement of the utility building the contractor hit an underground spring. Morris Feynman decided to make the project self-contained by adding a small waste plant to the plan using a NASA engineer to do the plans. This added a mere $3,000,000 to the plan. He also decided to add what appeared to be a five thousand square foot home and a garden on top of the computer center to camouflage the building. This was an additional two million. Morris hired two Disney engineers to blend all of the large buildings into the landscape adding another $5,000,000. Finally, Cherry insisted on the tunnel system throughout the property adding a mere $7,000,000.
The only thing coming from the outside were three power lines transmitting power from the grid which would be backed up by three large diesel generators. Everything was state-of-the-art with a price tag to go along with it. The design studio was ground level with the front of the building, the production studio was ground level with the back of the building, and the computer center was forty feet underground. There were two low parking structures with the cooling exhaust venting into them to hide the heat signature from the computers.
The utility building had three sub-basements 75 feet on a side. The waste plant was on the lowest level. The middle level was a hub for everything on the property. All the residences were connected to the center by an underground tunnel which accommodated the utilities and allowed access to everything on the property without going outside. There was a direct microwave link to the NSA building and to four diamonds security backed up by a direct satellite up-link. The price tag on this 160-acre project was sitting at $150,000,000 dollars due to Colleen’s tenacious attention to detail. Using her government contacts Rhonda managed to keep the local authorities pacified, even managing to get EPA approval of their small waste treatment plant which made the project completely self-contained in an emergency.
After a few hours Colleen turned the last bills over while Boris stacked the empty plates and wineglasses on the cart. He smiled at Colleen stroking her cheek gently.
> “There you go,” Boris said conveniently losing his Russian accent, “we have managed to handle all your problems in a short hour.” Colleen pointed at three more stacks of bills.
“I still have to deal with Rhonda, Cherry, and your mother Tamar. We have $25,000,000 in total over runs thanks to all of these additions.”
“The money is there all you have to do is notify Susan at the Amazon Inn and the funds will be in place the same day,” Boris protested.
Colleen shook her head. “Yes, the money is all there but I still have to account for it or Susan will have my tits.” On paper all the money for the entire project was financed by borrowed money from international investors however all of the investors were shell corporations representing the Amazon Inn. From all appearances Echo was a distressed company just barely holding things together. Even with the overruns accounted for, Colleen had $50,000,000 still in reserve. Anna had insisted on a first class operation staking the project with $75,000,000 and Cherry’s siblings were standing in line to pick up a piece of the action.
“And lovely tits they are,” Boris reached down slowly getting within a few inches of Colleen’s breast before she slapped his hand.
“I don’t think my sister in law would approve of that and my husband definitely would not approve either.” Colleen slapped Boris’s hand playfully away a second time pushing him out the door with his wine cart. Colleen went through the backdoor of the office into her apartment which was on the corner of the upper level. The apartment was a 1,500 square foot two-bedroom apartment which had a sweeping view of two thirds of their project.
Colleen stepped out on the scalloped balcony which was about thirty feet off the ground. She was constantly amazed at the speed in which things it been achieved. All of the construction was accomplished by removing only a minimal number of trees. The tunnels leading to the residences were covered by paths on the surface and the hub which connected all of the residences to the tunnel was covered by a small recreation center which everybody enjoyed. There were several thick stands of trees near the center so that the 150-foot length of the building was almost invisible from anywhere off the property. The large home like structure on top of the building helped hide the size of the structure. Cherry used satellite photos and low level reconnaissance to be sure that nothing showed from the air. She even had an infrared study done to check for heat signatures. A security system which was a combination of audio, video, and infrared covered the entire 160-acre project including the residential portion. Not one of the buildings included in the project were within one hundred yards of the perimeter of the property. All of the natural boulders that had to be removed for excavation were arranged around the upper and lower entrances to hide the security.
The only major problem with the whole project was one pain in the ass neighbor that owned 100 acres immediately adjacent to their property. The Tanners were constantly complaining about every little phase of their construction project especially the noise. They were constantly down at City Hall demanding inspections and filing complaints. The police seemed to really enjoy telling them there was nothing that they could do about the noise and traffic which drove the Tanners out of their minds. Cherry used her leverage with the NSA to get the whole project classified which kept the inspections down to a minimum.
Colleen was leaning on the irregularly shaped rail of the balcony in quiet contemplation when she heard the click of high heels walking up behind her.
“I see you’re looking over at the Tanners place. They put it up for sale last month but refused to sell to us at any price. We had Susan purchase the property for $50,000 under their asking price and they sold to her immediately to be sure that we didn’t get the property.” Colleen turned to face Rhonda who was smiling from ear to ear.
“It makes me happy also but it doesn’t account for that smile,” Colleen could see that Rhonda was literally vibrating with happiness. “What have you done?”
“The Tanners will be out of their house tomorrow. I have contacted the Marine base at Quantico. They are sending out a demolition team with a truckload of C4 to do an ordinance exercise on everything that we just bought from the Tanners.” Rhonda was almost screaming by the time that she finished her statement. “Fuck those bastards the whole place goes up on HD video so that I can send them a copy. The whole place will be nothing but tooth picks before noon. I have four bulldozers waiting to scrape their home down to bare earth so that we will not waste any video time.”
“It seems kind of harsh,” Colleen said in quiet reflection.
“It wouldn’t be harsh even if they were still in the building when it blew up,” Rhonda exclaimed. “The bulldozers and dump trucks will begin clearing their property as soon as a demolition team has cleared the area. I talked to Cherry and all we’re going to do is make some riding and jogging trails in that area of course we will extend our security perimeter.” A wicked smile crossed Rhonda’s face, “I would like to do something similar to that idiot bastard Felix Owens. I know I promised that I wouldn’t do anything but the temptation is really strong.”
“Before he died Alex said that he would not like to see anything physically damage Felix. As long as Felix stays away from us he is out of bounds.” Colleen met Alex just one time but she heard his views frequently and they seem to be humane. Rhonda and Colleen enjoyed the view from the balcony for a few minutes with Rhonda finally breaking the silence.
“Oh,” Rhonda said innocently, “I forgot to tell you that I have heard from Adam.”
“What did he say? How is he doing? And why did he contact you instead of me?”
“He wanted me to sneak him in the apartment so that he could surprise you,” Rhonda exclaimed as she grabbed Colleen by the shoulders turning her around so that she could see Adam was standing in the doorway of the balcony. Colleen crossed the balcony in a single bound fiercely hugging her husband. Cherry was standing behind Adam with Nadia and Ted to witness the big surprise.
“I have an eight-week leave. I wanted to surprise you. When I found out that you were not in Manchester I decided to come to the states to spend my time with you.” Rhonda, Cherry, Nadia, and Ted lost all pretense of control as they surrounded the couple hugging them fiercely. After a very brief period of congratulations the four people turned to leave the couple to their reunion. Cherry’s hand almost touched the door knob when she heard Colleen squeal loudly.
“What the hell is this,” Colleen exclaimed with a panicked voice pointing out a red stain growing on Adam’s shirt.
“It’s just a little mosquito bite,” Adam said trying to sound as casually as possible. “The bullet went clean through the shoulder never touching a bone. It was a through and through wound. Don’t sound so put out it earn me eight weeks recuperation leave which I plan on spending with you.” The four others decided that they would leave not wanting to add to the moment. Cherry set the lock on the door before she left, and Colleen slid the dead bolt home to insure that there would be no interruptions.
Adam easily picked up Colleen swinging her around in a circle with his good arm. “You see it isn’t much of a bother at all and it earned me eight weeks with you. If I knew that something like this would give me more time with you I would not have killed the bastard that shot me.”
“How close was he,” Colleen asked trying to get more information.
“He was about two feet away at the time. The bugger jumped out of a doorway while we were clearing the house. He fired a single round with a pistol and I fired six rounds from my weapon shredding his chest from two inches away. They made a big show of flying me out of there on a medevac. They kept me a few days in hospital which was lucky for me.” Adam hung his head and tears started to form in his eyes. “After they medevaced to me the team went on to clear the next building. Someone inadvertently triggered an improvised explosive device which flattened the building and killed my team.” Adam rested his head on top of Colleen’s head as she guided him to the bedroom. She tried to get him to shower, b
ut he turned her down saying, “it’s only a little bit of leakage all the stitches are still good and tight. You were almost a rich widow.”
“I would rather be a rich wife. I find myself wanting to thank that bastard that shot you for being such a lousy shot.” Colleen started to cry realizing just how close she had come to losing her husband. Colleen started quietly undressing Adam kissing each area that she exposed as she went. They made love to each other quietly spending the rest of the day just enjoying each other’s presence.
As the four people walked down the hall Ted was first to break the silence. “That went much better than I thought. There is a lot more to that young lady than I realized.”
“She’s tough alright,” Rhonda said, “I saw something in her from the first time that I had met her. I wish that Adam had given her some warning before he dropped the load on her.”
“No I think that Adam did things right,” Nadia corrected. “She would have been a wreck until she could have seen him. It seems cold, but at least she can see that he’s alright for herself.”
“My big worry is how poor Adam is going to deal with the loss of his entire team,” Ted said. “It’s one thing to have a few mates shot, but when you’re the only one left alive it really eats into you. I have lost the occasional team member or two, but never the whole team. Adam was a leader and I’m sure he felt a responsibility for all of them. I just hope that Colleen is up to the challenge.”
“Well I plan on standing behind both of them all the way,” Cherry said with conviction. “I love my little brother and these few weeks need to be special for both of them.
Cherry and Rhonda took the lift down to the computer level making a quick turn through an unmarked door into Boris’s laboratory. Boris had been sure to place his personal space between the lift and the rest of the basement, so that he could respond to any event that occurred. Cherry and Rhonda walked over to the bed that was directly behind his desk sitting down heavily. Boris could tell that there was something wrong immediately asking “is there something that I have forgotten?”