“It could be dangerous.”
“How often?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Beats the hell out of me. In the last month I’ve been in 4 firefights, been shot once, had to kill or incapacitate over 25 people, torture one and other stuff. John back there was stabbed, seriously, just last night. Still interested?”
He glanced back over at her. If she didn’t have four badass men in his helicopter and two obvious hostages and government connections, he would have questioned her comments. The way she explained them so matter of fact made it obvious she didn’t think it was a big deal. He glanced back in the back of the chopper one more time and had a gut check. If he was joining this kind of team, he wanted in.
“I’ve been dying on the vine, sister. Keeping up this baby here has been my one check on sanity. I don’t know why the hell I planted myself here in Miami, it’s mostly people playing on the beach that I get to ferry around. Your group is the first truly interesting charter I’ve had in the last year. Anything else?”
“Yeah, but it’ll have to wait until we get down and the four in my team and you will have to get together and talk.”
“Looking forward to it.”
Bethany Anne just looked out of the chopper and kept her own conversation with TOM on his efforts with a usable serum until they landed. She wasn’t sure of the outcome, but things were slowly coming together.
Bill landed the chopper outside of his hanger at the airport. There were three additional vehicles including a white cargo van and another van with a quick patch on the door. Not exactly the most interesting or expensive vehicles around. However; the hard cases that he could see looked like his type of guys. Damn, it felt good to be involved in something real again. There is no drug like adrenaline to make you feel alive. The quickest way to get it was through danger. Maybe subconsciously that is why he hung it all on the line and put everything into his Black Hawk. It wasn’t fat cats who wanted this type of ride, it was the people what needed the real deal and he wanted to be there with them.
Now, he had hooked an opportunity and he couldn’t reel it in. All he could do was ride it out into the sunset however long that took him. Sounds like it could be as little as in a few weeks. Well, fuck it. You only lived one life, best not to be a boring one.
The team egressed the helicopter quickly and professionally and took their two hostages over to the van and handed them over to someone inside. Another guy got out of the van and it looked to Bill like he was a leader of some sort. Bill finished his landing checks and finally had everything done to get out himself.
He noticed Bethany Anne walking to the group by the van. Man, what a looker. Why the rest of the guys didn’t surreptitiously glance at that ass he had NO idea. However; he doubted he was going to stay on the payroll if he got caught doing it. He got out of the chopper and went to go get his 4 wheeler to move the Black Hawk inside the warehouse.
Bethany Anne caught Bill’s attention, “Moving the chopper in?”
“Yeah, need me to leave it out?”
“Maybe, would it harm anything or how long does it take to get it back out again?”
“Just a few minutes.”
“Oh, ok. Go ahead and I’ll join you after you get it put in.”
She turned back to the other agents.
Bethany Anne turned to Dan. “Hey, I need to ask you a few questions on how this outfit works. Can I get some of your time?”
“Now?”
“Yes, I’m a little clueless how all of this works and I need to see if I can connect with you and Frank and make a few changes.”
Dan’s natural suspicious nature came back out, “What kind of changes?”
“Nothing bad, you dick-twaddle. Now stop being a suspicious fuck and let’s go over here and talk.” She walked towards the building and Dan looked at John who was smiling at him.
Dan just shook his head and followed Bethany Anne. She sure helped downtown when the police got their nuts in a vice. The FBI was still getting pissed off that some black ops group had gone through the ‘terrorists’ like a hot knife through butter leaving them with all of the dead bodies and nosy reporter questions. Dan figured Frank would kill the investigation as soon as it got too far along by re-routing everyone who was on the case until there was no-one left. Can’t find out anything if there aren’t people working the case.
He caught up with Bethany Anne asking the owner if she could use his office. “Not my office now, right?”
Bethany Anne retorted, “What, you think I’m going to have an office in here? You’re crazy. I just want to abuse your piloting skills and ride around in the Black Hawk.”
Dan wasn’t sure what he was hearing, she was buying this place?
She opened the office door and left it open for Dan to come in. It was a typical aviation office. Mostly crappy furniture and piles of paperwork on an old metal desk with a fake laminate wood top.
She got right to the point. “So, how does this agency work? Are all of you guys reporting to Frank or do you come in from the military?”
Dan ran a hand through his hair. Bill hadn’t cared how anything worked. He would arrive, get the op finished and then leave again. Wham, bam, no questions man.
Bethany Anne was a whole different kind of vampire. Yeah, maybe she did act more like a Queen.
“We are seconded from different agencies. Some military, some agencies depending on where Frank can pull them from and what experience they have. Similar to Scott having that Forsaken experience up in New York. He couldn’t talk about it outside of a group like us who mess with it all the time. Until recently, it only happened a few times a year so there was only myself and two other fully focused resources in the group. We’ve grown to the four core agents on a team with a backup team and the rest support and medical. With you, I suspect we can get a little leaner but I don’t know if I’m comfortable with that, yet.”
“What’s a budget like this run? For all twenty-two of you?”
Dan sat down on the incredibly uncomfortable chair. “That’s the thing. We don’t have much of one. We are a line item in the DOD and it’s so incredibly small it doesn’t usually cause a problem with the bean counters. Carl always had the big electronic tools that cost a lot so we always leaned on him for that. You saw what we had in the field over here. Frank is able to get us tasking most of the time but our living on twine and duct tape almost took us down last night. Why, you have an idea?”
“Yes. However; I want your buy in completely and unequivocally. If I don’t get it, I won’t go behind your back.”
Dan’s stomach eased just a bit. He knew how her own team followed her and she had a few others as well up North. Now, it looks like she just hired a pilot with his own damn Black Hawk.
He decided he would be as open as he could. He started to realize that this vampire in front of him was nasty, scary, dangerous and a handful. But she was also honest, fun, a leader not afraid to dish out ass kicking’s and congratulations. She was what his team could get behind and she didn’t undermine her subordinates. In this case, him. “Let me know what you’re thinking and let’s see what we can work out.”
Bethany Anne sat down. She knew that getting Dan on her side was a pivotal step in making this half-baked plan come together. She didn’t have a Stephen here in America so she needed to pull together an organization that had the connections, the muscle and the manpower. Dan Bosse had been doing this for 15 years. He was the one that had the background and experience she needed, desperately. She sat on the desk.
“I just bought this company here and a house in Smugglers cove to start a base of operations.” Dan raised his eyes at that. She just easily claimed to have bought his annual budget many times over. “But, I need a core group of para-military men and women to create a strike force that can go on multiple simultaneous operations without a vampire. I’m not always going to be available and frankly I’m not sure who I can trust at the moment. In the vampire realm I can count that on one finger.”
“I’m wondering if you would accept a change in direction. Frank will still be the government contact or whoever comes after Frank as well, but I don’t want to only handle issues that Frank can help with. I want a world-wide organization that we can depend on. We will base it here and in the Keys for some of our capabilities.”
“Where would we get the manpower?”
“Well, when you have one problem it might be a pain to correct it, but if you have multiple problems they might cancel themselves out.”
“What do you think about…”
Dan’s mouth just opened. He wasn’t sure what to make of Bethany Anne’s plans. However; if he could make this type of organization work he might finally feel like they not only had a chance against the forsaken, but could take the fight to them. Everywhere.
They agreed to get Franks thoughts on the subject and let him ponder it for a little while. He agreed to help on the first operation to get her plan in motion and go from there. She said she would catch up with Dan and the two ‘persons of interest’ out in the van in a moment.
He left and the pilot waved to him and started coming for the office he just vacated. Dan had some thinking to do. He left the hanger and walked out into the light getting Johns attention. “Grimes! Come here, I need a report, what happened in the building?”
Bill opened his own office door to find Bethany Anne sitting on his desk. He took the chair. “I see that you are into something government related, do I need to know more?”
She smiled at him, “Better to not know if you get questioned, is that it?”
He smiled back. “No, I’m naturally curious so I’m trying to find out the limits right up front.”
She tried to figure out how to explain that he was going to sell his business and become the employee of a vampire. Michael never covered this. She just tacked it on to the other one thousand things that bastard had failed to mention. If he didn’t like the outcomes, then he could kiss her ass.
“Bill, I’m a full-disclosure type of person. If you’re on the team, you’re on the team. The problem is there is no ‘off the team’. Not because I or anyone on my team would do anything to you if you don’t talk. Trust me, we would find out if you talked. However; the ‘other’ team isn’t going to believe one word of your proclaimed innocence. They wouldn’t have any problems just grabbing you to see what you know if you aren’t under my protection anymore. So, walk away but you lose your protection, make sense?”
He scratched at his scruffy five o’clock shadow that was going on twelve-thirty. “Was what you did back in town related to this?”
“No, well, I’m not sure. It could be but it was pitched as a normal terrorist attack so I don’t think anybody who got involved on the spur of the moment is going to be targeted at all. So, you’re safe that way. You can step out of this office with everything you started with this morning plus the money I promised you. Which has already been deposited into your account by the way. I don’t want you thinking that I would hold that money out from you.”
“What kind of upgrades were you thinking?”
“What can you fly?
“Almost anything military, except fighter jets and nuclear bombers. Those I could probably figure out if you aren’t in a rush to get off the tarmac.” He smiled when he said that. It sounded that it was plausible he might be in that situation so he should state a few boundaries up front. She smiled back.
She considered the future and where they needed to end up. “Would you consider learning new craft and perhaps teaching others if you’ve learned enough?”
“If they have the talent, sure. But I need to be the judge of the talent part. I don’t mind letting the pilot risk their own necks, but I won’t be responsible for rubber stamping someone where they can kill others piloting.”
“That’s fair and what I would expect.”
“What’s your business worth?”
“Mostly debt. The rent on this space is up in six months and with your $50k I now have about $57,000 in the bank account and a car note that will make you blanch.”
She laughed at the ‘car note’ comment. “Not if it means I get to keep you and that Black Hawk, Bobcat. Ok. Our new base of operations is going to be out of the house I just bought.”
Bill barked a laugh, “You bought a house in Smugglers Cove and you’re going to run your base of operations out of it?”
“Sure, seemed appropriate that we can get some boats and leave out of there. Wait until you see the boat I’m going to buy. I’m going to send in the team if they have a minute and tell them to answer all questions truthfully. Make sure you feel you’re going to fit because I don’t handle anything but the best relationships on my team. You really don’t want me to kick your ass, so make sure you get along before you sign on the dotted line. “
“Kinda like signing in blood?” He smiled as he said it. But she just cocked her head and said, “yeah, that’s about right” and left.
Bethany Anne was walking out from the Hanger when her phone rang, it was Nathan.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
New York City, NY - USA
Ecaterina was working with Nathan to get Nancy down in Florida all of the information she needed to close the deal. Nathan had a real estate company setup with a huge amount of cut-outs to hide who owned it. He thought this might be something that Bethany Anne would be able to use, but he didn’t want to front her down payment on a $9 million dollar acquisition.
“Bethany Anne? It’s Nathan. Do you have a minute?”
“Sure, I presume this is about the house?”
“Yes. One of my businesses has real estate and I use a bunch of cut-outs to hide who owns it. Namely me in most cases. It takes a while to setup all of these shell corporations. Do you have any desire to work with me on this?”
“Really? That would be fantastic. Hell yeah, let’s do this. What do you need from me?”
“Oh, about $2.5 million to handle the down payment.” Nathan smiled.
“Why not just the whole amount?” Nathan smile turned into incredulity. He forgot she was stupid rich. He didn’t even know how much but Michael must have really given her access to some money.
“Uh, yeah. We can do that.”
“Nathan, can we use those corporations to hide additional purchases?”
“Like what, 10,000 pairs of shoes?”
“Hey, I’m not Imelda Marcos you overrated mental amputee. I want to buy an aviation company that has debt due to purchasing a Black Hawk, and I want to add more expenses as I get more toys and the upgrades I want on those toys.”
“Good god, Bethany Anne. These are serious toys you’re talking about.” He made a mental note to not joke about vast quantities of shoes.
“Yeah, well, the other side isn’t playing fair and I don’t have a problem cheating either. It’s why I’m going to upgrade the toys.”
“I should say you don’t. What kind of money are we talking about?”
“Short term? Probably $150 million. Longer term? Probably six times that.”
Good god, Nathan thought, that’s a billion dollars. Hang on, world, this just got really serious.
“Yeah. I can make that happen. However; I’m going to need to get your authorizations and signature ability on your accounts. Are you ok with this?”
“Sure. Just remember that the exit interview for misappropriation of funds is incredibly short and fatal and we’re good.”
“Never doubted it.”
“Good to know, I’ll get with Kevin Berger over in Zurich to get you on board. I’ll see if he can make this happen or if I have to go back over there to make it happen.”
“No, they should have someone here in New York. But you will have to be here to do it.”
“We will make that happen. I’m coming up there with a team to deal with our recalcitrant puppies. Do you have any ideas with Gerry yet?”
“You mean ideas that don’t end in mass slaughter?”
“Yes, those are the kinds
of ideas I mean.”
“Uh, no. This stuff has been percolating for decades and some just can’t see the danger because they can taste the change in the air.”
“Yeah, they might taste the change but it’s going to be my foot shoved down their throat if they don’t like it. Consider a way to get a conclave together of the biggest problem children that you think are at least open minded enough to talk without doing something stupid. I’ll accept a flag of discussion and unless they do something completely stupid they will leave with their health intact.”
“What might be considered ‘completely stupid’?” He knew of a couple of stories where vampires took very little to piss off.
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