“But there are ten of them and they are all armed,” Malcolm shouted again. “They have the house surrounded.”
“Well, let’s get some guns and even the odds then,” the general said with confidence.
He walked over to wall of books. The large library wall was an imposing part of his great room. He grabbed a book. Everyone heard a click as a panel popped ajar. The general pulled it all the way open and revealed a small metal doorway. He pressed a code on the lock and the door swung inward. He stepped inside and hit an alarm button on the wall. He then began pulling out weapons from a rack on the back wall of the small room. He gave each person a pistol and two clips of ammunition. He also gave each of them a knife and pulled out two Uzi machine pistols. He handed one to Malcolm and he kept the other.
“I’ve already pressed the alarm button,” the general told them. “Help will get here in less than ten minutes.”
“Where am I going to keep these gun clips in this outfit,” Kaley immediately complained and opened her arms. She was dressed in only her bikini and a pink silky cover.
“We’re going to work in teams of two. Malcolm will hold them for you. I’ll work with Lisa,” the general explained patiently.
“Okay,” she said with uncertainty. “But how are we going to defend ourselves? Do you have a plan?”
“Always,” the general replied with an evil smile. “We’re going to employ a very old tactic. We’re going to let one man into the house at a time and then take them out. You and Malcolm work the back door and Lisa and I will defend the front door. They can’t get in any other way,” the general explained.
“I like it,” Kaley said cheerfully and clapped her hands together.
***
The first Effort casualty came even before there was any firing of guns. The man was assigned one of the windows on the north side of the house. Two men were sent to each side while Bubba and Kasper walked up the driveway. The Effort men were supposed to wait until Bubba whistled again and attack from all sides at once. But the man wanted so badly to be a hero for the Effort that he decided to go in first.
He took a running leap at the window. The strong bulletproof glass held as the man smashed into it. He broke his shoulder and knocked himself out. While his body dropped to the ground, the knife he was holding in his hand twisted and he fell on the sharp blade edge. He bled out in minutes. There were more deaths to follow.
The first man to reach the sliding glass doors in the back of the house by the pool noticed that all the lights were on inside. The drapes were only half closed and no one was in sight. As he grabbed the handle on the door to see if it was open, Kaley suddenly popped up from behind the couch inside. She stared at the man for a second with fright in her eyes and then turned to flee. She ran out of the room and up the hallway. The Effort man immediately ran after her while salivating.
As soon as he turned the corner, a shot rang out and he slumped to the ground. Kaley had waited until he was out of sight of the door before putting him down. Malcolm was standing behind the half closed drape and waited for another man to enter the room. He was right behind the first one.
By now there was gunfire everywhere outside as the Effort men attempted to shoot out the windows. To their dismay, the bullets just bounced off the bulletproofing. As a result, no one noticed that a shot came from inside the house.
The second Effort man saw the first man open the sliding door and run through it. He followed but had only taken two steps inside when Malcolm shouted “hands up” from behind the drape. The man brought up his gun, but was shot by Kaley as she anticipated his move. Malcolm slammed the door and locked it.
The general and Lisa used the same tactic with the front door, so two minutes into the attack half of the Efforts attack force was already dead.
“Now what do we do?” Malcolm asked Kaley. “We won’t be able to get anyone to come inside with a body lying right in front of the door.
“Now we go to step two and attack,” Kaley said in a deadly voice. She went to the door and threw it open.
***
“Looks like they’re trying to lure our men inside,” Kasper wailed as he and Bubba reached the end of the driveway. They saw two of their men go inside and not come out.
Bubba cocked the shot gun he carried. “We need to change the game, son. Let’s see what kind of damage this here shot gun can do to the front door,” he replied and gave out a rebel yell as he pulled the trigger. The blast was aimed directly at the locking mechanism from just a few feet way.
***
Meanwhile, Malcolm and Kaley were outside and headed to the north corner at the back of the house. She had used her senses to identify the side where there was only one man left standing. They spun around the edge and Malcolm pulled the trigger on his Uzi. The Effort man never knew what hit him.
They stepped back and ran to the other corner to pick off the two men on that side. Kaley sensed that the Effort men were too far apart to shoot at one time so she told Malcolm to take the one nearest him and she would get the other one.
When they reached the corner, Kaley didn’t hesitate and sprinted out into the yard. She took cover behind a large tree. The Effort men didn’t see her. She nodded to Malcolm and they both stepped out and began shooting. Soon only Kasper and Bubba were left standing.
***
The blast from Bubba’s shot gun had done some real damage. The thick wood front door was still attached, but a hole now existed where the lock was before. It had also knocked General Stone to the ground. Lisa Lange had not been in the line of fire, but was blown off her feet by the concussion from the blast. She also lost her gun.
The two Effort men marched up to the doorway. Bubba’s big foot slammed it open. They stepped inside and looked around.
“Well lookie here,” Bubba remarked as he saw Lisa sprawled on the wooden hallway floor and frantically looking for her gun. “We got us one of the bimbos.”
“There’s an old man over there,” Kasper pointed.
“Well let’s finish these two off and go get the other two,” Bubba said gleefully as he cocked his shot gun again and took aim at Lisa.
Lisa did the only thing she could do and pinged the red bearded man that there was someone behind him. He quickly wheeled around and went into a crouch while stepping back outside to have a look.
Kasper began raising his gun to shoot, but something suddenly smashed into his face. He staggered back just as several metal trinkets flew from nowhere and pummeled his body. He tripped on the door jam and fell into Bubba, knocking them both off the porch and on to the driveway.
Lisa quickly got to her feet and went over to the general. She helped him get to his feet, but discovered that he had damaged his leg further and couldn’t put any weight on it. He told her to pick up the Uzi.
“Shoot them before they shoot us,” he said in a weak voice.
At that moment, Kaley and Malcolm came around the corner of the house. Kasper saw them and attempted to return fire, but was stitched with machine guns bullets from Lisa’s gun before he could shoot.
Bubba was on his knees and had lost his shot gun. He raised his arms in surrender when Malcolm ordered him to give up. He expected some of his men to come running around the corner at any second and waste the defenders. The team moved in closer and surrounded him.
“Who’s your boss?” Malcolm asked threateningly as he kept his gun pointed at the big man.
“You just killed him,” Bubba spat out and pointed to the ground where Kasper lay dead.
“What are you after?” Kaley screamed.
“Don’t know,” the Effort man responded with a shrug. “Only he knew. We were just supposed to detain you,” Bubba lied. Where are my men, he wondered as he swiveled his head.
“We need some better answers from you,” Kaley yelled out. “And if you are waiting for some of your men to help you, well they’re all dead,” she spit out.
Bubba suddenly realized that the only way he could win now was to get
his hands on a gun. He chose the smallest woman to attack. From his kneeling position, he swung his left arm in an attempt to backhand the little blond. Only she wasn’t where he aimed. Instead he received a crushing blow to his side where she kicked him and he dropped on to all fours.
“Do you think that you can make me talk by beating me,” he managed to say as he sucked in a breath.
“Yes,” Kaley said deadpan.
General Stone had backed away from the group and was on his cellphone issuing orders. When he was finished, he headed straight for Bubba and held his gun to the Effort man’s forehead.
“I’m done playing with you,” he growled in a sinister voice. “Who gave you orders to come after us?”
“You don’t scare me,” Bubba spat back. “You work for the government and can’t kill an unarmed man. I’ll just wait for the police thank you,” he said smugly. Kaley kicked him in the face and broke his nose.
“I don’t work for the government,” she lied and chopped his left arm breaking the collarbone.
“All right, enough,” Bubba screamed while in extreme pain. “Hans Keidel from Chicago sent us. You just killed one of his sons,” Bubba nodded to the body of Kasper Keidel.
“How did he know where to find us?” the general growled.
“One of our guys heard you talking on a plane, that’s all I know. We found out where you lived on the Internet.”
Suddenly a searchlight appeared in the sky. It found the small group and locked into their position. The MAD team took aim at the light.
“Wait,” General Stone ordered. “Don’t shoot, that’s our help.”
A helicopter quickly descended and landed on the general’s large front yard. It had markings on the side that said; Dobbins Air Force Base. It was only a few minutes away by air from the general’s home. Six heavily armed men jumped out and assumed defensive positions. A man in a suit stepped out of the cabin and walked over to the group.
“Herb Robin, I’m with Homeland Security,” the man said and held out his hand.
“I’m afraid we only have one live domestic terrorist for you today,” the general announced like he had been game hunting. “But you’ll find nine more dead ones around here somewhere, and this one,” he pointed, “is a son of Hans Keidel.”
“I’ve been hearing his name a lot lately,” the man from DHS admitted.
“Not for long,” General Stone stated coldly.
“I’ll take this one. The dead ones are of no use to us,” Herb Robin explained and immediately began talking on his cellphone.
The pilot from the copter now joined the group. “Captain Kevin Gersch,” the man reported and saluted.
“Captain,” the general started. “I need you to stop the police from coming here. Then I need you to dispose of these dead men.”
“What about repairs to your home?”
“Yes, yes, that too,” the old man agreed absently. “We have to leave for Chicago immediately.”
“I understand,” Captain Gersch said. “I’ll have people stay here until you return.”
“Thank you captain,” the general expressed. He turned to his little group. “Collect your things. We’ll go to Kaley’s house and then arrange for transportation to Chicago. There’s no sense waiting here now.”
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Hans Keidel sat completely relaxed in a well-appointed leather chair in his living room. He held a cognac in his hand which he occasionally sipped. Despite it being late spring, he had his servant start a blaze in the large fireplace next to his chair. It made Keidel feel comfy.
He wondered why he had not heard from his oldest son Kasper. He should have checked in by now, he thought. He must be on a return plane and not able to call.
His middle son Lothar entered the room walking at a brisk pace and headed over to the Effort leader.
“I’ve got fifty armed men. They will arrive at the factory warehouse within three hours,” he said proudly. “We’ve also moved all the completed Switches up onto the top floor of the warehouse. I brought the original one here and it’s on the table over there,” Lothar pointed.
“Good, thank you,” the old man beamed. “I want to look at our precious jewel.”
“What’s next?”
“You’ll need to go to the warehouse, set the men up in defensive positions, and lead them,” Hans Keidel said as an order and pointed at his son. “I don’t want any screw-ups when whoever is attacking us gets there.”
“But won’t eliminating the people coming after us just get us more people on our back?”
“As soon as you stop this attack, we’ll head up to Canada and reestablish our headquarters there,” his father responded. “The land we bought up there is a large empty tract in Alberta.”
“Then what?”
“Once we have the meteorites from Atlanta we will hide there and rebuild our empire. No one will be able to stop us and we won’t need all this riff-raff to help us. No one will be able to find us,” Hans Keidel said as he waved his hand around. He showed the fanatical exuberance of his idol, Adolf Hitler. He was living on the edge of insanity.
“Do you want to go over the defenses I’ve planned?”
“Of course,” the old man responded expansively. Lothar knew that his father fancied himself as a brilliant strategist, just like his idol once did.
Part Nine
The Clash
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Omar Abdula, the representative from the warlord in Karachi, sat in the front seat of a sedan that his men had stolen just that morning. They were speeding along I-94 and had just passed the Indiana border. There were three other jihadists in the car with him. They trailed a huge semi-truck that was loaded with human cargo. It held the terrorist’s favorite weapons, suicide bombers and armed young men eager to serve Allah by offering their lives.
There were six volunteer suicide bombers willing to martyr themselves to help him. Two were boys and four were women. They actually only could find two women who would volunteer in Dearborn, Michigan, so they just plucked two women off of the streets. Omar’s thirty men in the big semi were currently training the petrified women one on one.
Their first stop would be at the home of Hans Keidel. Omar wanted to kill the Effort leader and find out where the warehouse was that contained the twelve Switches he was after. Then he would go there and collect his prize.
His six hundred dollar iPhone suddenly rang. “Yes,” he said instead of hello. The man on the other end had never met Omar. He lived in Chicago and was part of the terrorist cell the Effort had nearly destroyed four days ago in Michigan. The man said that someone had left the Keidel compound and had driven to an old warehouse in southwest Chicago. He believed it was the warehouse. He added that there were several people guarding it.
“Interesting,” Omar replied. “I’m going to send the truck to the warehouse then and I’ll go to the home. I’ll have our people report to you.”
Once he gave the other people in the car his orders, Omar closed his eyes and thought about the glorious praise he would receive once he completed his mission. But additionally he thought about the meteorite in a metal box in his pocket. The warlord had given it to him knowing that it was very dangerous, but might be useful if Omar got his hands on a Switch. He looked forward to holding that kind of power in his hands as he thought about the conversation.
***
“This diagram shows how to place the antenna,” the Warlord explained. All you have to do is place the meteorite in the middle here and set the two rods. Then you press the thing that looks like a button.”
“What will happen?”
“I’ve not seen it work, you understand,” the leader responded carefully. “But from Dr. Raja’s notes, it should send out lightning bolts straight out from your front. They will be strong enough to kill anyone within thirty feet. It will also blow a hole in a wall from the same distance.”
***
Omar fingered the meteorite box in his pocket. The power
of the Switch would be a blessing from Allah. Only he could provide such a weapon for Islam. Omar believed that he would be the savior of his people. They would rule the world. He just needed to get his hands on a device.
Chapter Sixty
At Kaley’s home in Atlanta, the women had changed into blue jeans and sweater tops. They still looked gorgeous. Malcolm put on the clothes he had worn to the general’s house. Simon had dressed before they had left his compound.
“I’ve got us set up with a private jet that’ll get us to Chicago by 10:00 P.M.,” Malcolm told the others.
“We should be able to get to Keidel’s house by eleven,” the general reasoned.
“You’d better check with Captain Kane and make sure he is ready,” Lisa told Simon.
“I already did it while you were changing,” he responded. “He told me that he was able to bring in three other TACP teams. He now has twenty-four men to use. He also said that there are many Effort men showing up at the warehouse.”
“Should we notify the local law enforcement?” Lisa asked.
“We will but after we capture the Switches,” the general replied. “Otherwise, someone will surely want them as evidence and they will disappear.”
“Have we made any progress on finding the other mole in the Pit?” Kaley asked.
“My spirit will let me know as soon as he discovers the name,” Malcolm explained.
“Okay,” the general uttered. “It’s time to go to the airport.”
“What about weapons?” Kaley quickly asked.
“One of Captain Kane’s men will be waiting at the airport in Chicago with guns for everybody,” the leader replied.
Chapter Sixty-One
From his seat in the front of the speeding car, Omar was giving instructions to one of his men in the truck in front of him. They had just crossed the border into Illinois and were about an hour away from their two destinations, but needed to split up and take different roads.
The Oracle Philon Page 22
