by Karl, Victor
Looking around and feeling my adrenaline making my heart race, I did not see Fiona. Then I saw a hand waving at me from the shadows of the main building. Realizing I risked exposure if the helicopter moved overhead, I immediately jumped up and made a second sprint to get inside of the building. The copter was busy driving more bullets into the boat to make sure we could not escape. The copter then attempted to land and as we watched it settle to the ground, about 50 yards away, we lost sight of it as the brambles and thick brush hid it from our view.
Turning back at the sound of Fiona’s voice, I heard her talking to our two Clavis guards we left back at the Marina. She handed me the radio and said you need to tell them exactly where we are. Grabbing the portable GPS out of my pocket, I was able to pick out the exact coordinates, gave them to the Clavis people, and told them we are on the old Fish Factory plant and the attackers have just landed on the Island. Silencing the radio, I looked down on the metal bench I was resting against where I had placed the pistol and said to Fiona, “Lucy you have some splaining to do,” in my best Ricky Ricardo imitation. Fiona in her best screw you pose said, “Hey a woman got to be able to take care of herself. Anyway, Ty handled the permit process for me and since I was range certified it was a no brainer. I suggest you do the same.” “Well, all I can say is,” I said in a stern voice, “do you have any more ammo clips?” “Sure do” she said, as patted her day bag.
This place is a disaster I said as I looked around. Everywhere we looked there were parts of collapsed roof, old rusted equipment and even some ancient huge rusty boilers. In the far corner, there were pallets of old gunnysacks with printing on them that stated ‘Fishmeal.’ It looked promising so we headed that way. We found a nice comfortable position between a couple of pallets that provided us protection and a couple of portals to watch from. Another thing I liked about our position was that we had a quick escape route out a side door that led through a maze of dock buildings and equipment if needed.
It took about 10 minutes for the attackers to come inside, but come they did. There were three men all carrying what I assumed to be AK 47s. I did not see the pilot and I knew this since the three stalking us were Arab looking and the pilot had been Caucasian. The three walked as if they had military training. Between them, they had a 360-degree view of the room as they walked with their backs to each other. It was somewhat weird noting that two of them had Izod shirts and expensive leather boat shoes while the third had an un-tucked short sleeve dress shirt. All had some level of beard on their faces.
It took almost 5 minutes, but they started to angle our way and in about 50 steps would be right up to the pallets of sacks. When they got about 30 steps closer, I motioned to Fiona to head towards the door when I opened fired. I was nervous, so I wanted them as close as possible before I took a shot. As I was tensing to stand up, some Morning Dove birds were startled from their nesting area about 20 feet over the heads of the three stalkers. As they all looked towards the noise, I stood up unobserved by them and shot the closet attacker dead center in his chest. I lined up an Izod shirted attacker to his left and took a shot, but had to drop down when the third one snapped off a shot towards me that hit the sacks about 2 feet away. Once on the ground I used the cover to crawl out the door as a couple of shots went over my head.
Once out the door Fiona waved at me from about 50 feet away and then ducked behind some kind of maintenance shed once she caught my attention. Running as quickly and quietly as I could, I got there and dove in behind some 50-gallon barrels. Peeking through a gap in the barrels, I did not see anyone following. The fact that we had a gun and knew how to use it must have given them pause. About a minute later, one of the Izod shirt people eased his head out. Not being shot at gave him courage to slip to the other side of the cement dock area and duck behind some crates. As he had zipped across the area, it was noticeable that he had a serious shoulder or arm wound on his left side. I had a sense of satisfaction from tagging him with my last shot.
As I lay there, I signaled to Fiona by using the fingers on my hand that there was one person in sight. Using two of my fingers and pointing them to my eyes and then pointing them behind us, I indicated to her to keep watch that way. She then shifted into better cover so that she could watch without showing herself. I did not have much choice, since this was the only vantage point I could watch the wounded person from.
Fiona thought to herself how it was her gun Mike had, and she wished she had it back. Her instructors had been impressed with her accuracy and when allowed onto the police-training course where civilian and perpetrator pop-up targets were, she had an uncanny ability to hit only the bad guys. Her adrenaline was pumping in high gear and she was surprised at herself that she was not feeling any real fear, but just confidence that she could handle herself and get out of this situation alive. Now if only the damn biting black flies would leave her alone since she could not smack them without giving away their location.
Five minutes went by, then ten. All of a sudden, she sensed some movement behind her. Slowly turning her head as not to draw attention to her movement, she saw one of their attackers carefully walking towards where Mike’s legs were sticking out. Completely focused, he had no idea that she was only about four feet behind him. Gently picking up a short piece of thick pipe with a heavy elbow screwed onto the end, she eased herself out of her concealment and started to follow the assassin. She got to 2-steps behind him when either he sensed her or saw a shadow, but immediately spun around. Sensing that the jig was up, Fiona let go a roundhouse swing that caught the attacker high up on his left arm with an audible thud. To the thugs credit he did not make any sound for what was obviously a painful hit. He did however use the gun in his right hand to smack Fiona in the side of her head. Sensing this, Fiona absorbed the hit and countered with a kick to the attacker’s right knee joint that collapsed him to the ground. This time he uttered a single word, which she assumed was a curse in a foreign language.
There was one big problem however for Fiona. When the assailant collapsed, he did so by sitting straight down with the gun pointing directly at her. At the end of her move, she remained about three feet from him and could not strike him before he shot. She was just about to make a mad dive to the side when the gunman’s head exploded like a ripe tomato with some of the gore ending up peppering her face and clothes. Fiona watched in slow motion as the body, forced forward by the shot, slowly reverse direction and reclined backwards, settling face up to the cloudless skies.
Mike, after taking the shot, quickly turned back to the still hidden assailant. Not hearing his partner declaring victory the attacker must have assumed the worst since he got up and bolted back into the plant. Mike tracked him and took a shot, but it ricocheted off a large piece of machinery allowing him to get away. We stayed still just in case, but less than 10 minutes later the sound of a helicopter taking off allowed us to have a huge sigh of relief.
With the helicopter gone, I got up, walked over to Fiona, and hugged her for a few minutes until the adrenaline waned enough for our pulses to get back to normal. Using the radio, we let the Clavis team know what happened and got an update that a couple of State Marine Police and a chopper were on the way, as well as the Clavis crew in a rented boat. Before I could even sign off on the radio, the sound of a much larger helicopter filled the air and using our binoculars, could see the New Jersey State Police markings. We came out into an open area and waved at them, which got their attention, but it looked like they were going to have to land where the attacker’s chopper had landed. Ten minutes later, we were reliving what happened with three troopers and showed then where the bodies were and what was left of our boat.
The Clavis guys showed up a half hour later by boat. Apparently they were not very good navigators and ran aground just outside one of the channel markers. After talking to the State Police, the Clavis people called us over to where the first dead person was. Pointing to a small electronic object on the ground, they explained that the device could track
the location of a cell phone with the help of someone in the phone company. This is how they found you, and most likely, they have been tracking you for a while. “Can I see your phones?” the lead Clavis guy asked. We handed them over and he shut them completely down by removing the batteries. “We are going to get you some clean throw away phones for you to use in the interim,” he assured us.
A couple hours later, we were still on the island as well as 30 other police, CSI and even some DHS people. Our old friend Agent Morgan and two other FBI agents were also here. Helicopters bearing the symbols of major news networks were circling the island for the last hour and denied landing on the island while the investigation was on going. Finally, with night falling agent Morgan gave us a ride in the FBI chopper and flew us to their heliport. From there, he gave us a ride back to Picatinny Arsenal, which was still looking like the most secure spot to hang.
The Clavis escort was going to meet us again tomorrow with fresh phones to continue our search for a production site. Fiona was still struggling to calm down. The events of the day had made her angry and she needed something to move it to the back of her mind instead of the forefront. She decided to go online and look at commercial properties that could meet their needs. In less than 15-minutes, she came across a yacht manufacturing location that was up for sale since the economy had driven the company out of business. It was located in New Gretna, New Jersey and was located right on the Bass River. Fiona Googled maps of the area and saw that the site was ideal for transportation. It was a pricey, but what a beautiful and tranquil location. Printing the real estate sheets of the site to the wireless printer, she picked them up and dropped them in Mike’s lap as the nightly news was starting and sat down next to him on the couch and said, “Take a look.”
Mike started to page through the color real estate brochures, and got more excited with each document. Reaching up with his right hand in a fist, he indicated to Fiona to give him a fist bump. As she did, he said, “This is the place we want. We should send the realtor and email tonight saying we will be in the area tomorrow morning and are interested in looking at the property.” Looking at Fiona, he straight faced asked, “Why couldn’t you have found this a day earlier?” She was about to respond when the lead news story caught her eye and she pointed to the television for Rico to see. They both watched in fascination as a helicopter panned the entire Fish Island with close ups of the shot up boat while the announcer, in an excited voice, provided the audience with an accurate portrayal of today’s events. There were a couple shots of the Efficio headquarters building with the battle-scarred front as the newscaster linked the attacks today to an ongoing effort to take out key Efficio management by unknown parties in an effort to limit the proliferation of Electricus.
The rest of the coverage was limited since the police had not released any specifics. We were just about to start talking about the news coverage when the announcer stated, “Stay tuned for a related story when we return.” Fiona and I looked at each other and were speculating what it might be when the news program resumed. As soon as we saw the first camera shot, we knew what it was about and I especially castigated myself for not remembering. A cameraman was panning a new development of town homes while the reporter talked about what they were seeing. It was about a five minute piece but in it they showed outtakes of the insides of the building and showed how there were no power hookups from any power utility and explained how Electricus was providing all the power needs at a cost of…nada. The last minute was of our buddy Max, his daughter and Gisele with Amy our public relations person and the local mayor who was designated to pick the names of one hundred lucky people who would be able to purchase these low income housing units for well below market value. All lottery entrants went through a prescreening process against eligibility requirements. Two women who were lucky lottery winners fainted in dramatic fashion and many tears were visible on others. By the end of the vignette, Fiona and I were holding hands with tears in both of our eyes as we both had just reaffirmed why we were chancing injury or death to bring Electricus forward.
In downtown Houston on the 47th penthouse floor, in the luxurious headquarters of Peak Oil, a big man was dressing down a smaller but very intense looking man. “Jasper, how the hell could these Arab boys screw up so many times…I’ve put out $15 million dollars to ensure our problem goes away and what do we get? I will tell you what we get; we get a shitload of unwanted press and more and more people focusing in on Electricus. I thought you were helping them to organize their ops?” “Big Dog,” the man called Jasper exasperatedly said, if I was using my crew this would be a done deal, but these amateurs think that some training in a backwater terrorist camp makes them indestructible agents for their cause. They are rank amateurs and not all the expensive gear and weapons in the world can overcome that. If you let me take control with my guys I’ll guarantee your problem will be solved.” Big Dog thought about what Jasper had said but declined. He said, “There are too many connections from you as my head of security to me. Believe me I would love to use you and all you X military friends, but I need complete deniability from this and the Arabs are the perfect scapegoat, and have as much to lose as we do.”
After Jasper left the room, Big Dog poured a class of 20 year Scotch, pulled out a Cuban cigar, and sat in his large leather high backed chair and pondered the situation. The day’s events were a fiasco and had cost almost 3 million dollars. He had spent over two million for the helicopter now on the bottom of the ocean, a couple hundred thousand to pay of the Verizon technician as well as weapons. Those bastards should have taken the 23 Billion offered.
In reality, he could have made up his share of it in one year. Mmmm, maybe we should have offered a lot more. He should charge back all the other pansy assed members of the consortium when he succeeds, he thought, knowing full well that could never happen since he did not want a world of shit to fall down on his head. Maybe, just maybe, he should run a parallel operation to try to divide and conquer the Efficio management team. It is a shame he could not play one owner against the other since the Arabs had at least got half the job right.
Chapter 23: Operating At the Speed of Light
The last month and a half had been a whirlwind of activity as we signed deals with three big US car companies and had a dozen others under review by Julius and Iris’s team of 33 lawyers and law clerks. Four companies of the Fortune 500 that built residential homes signed on almost immediately after the storyline of the low-income housing development ran. The Army had numerous vehicle prototypes built and was already mass-producing portable field based systems for use. The feedback we kept getting from them was that it was all too simple to believe. Fiona’s New Gretna find ended up being a gem and the closing was next week. The local township officials were happy to get a business in there that was essentially quiet and would leave the natural beauty of the place undisturbed. We found a second production center in the San Diego area, and even though it did not sit right on the water we secured a right of way with an adjacent property owner to run an underground intake hose to their sea wall.
Our third production location was more problematic. We could not find what we wanted in Louisiana but was still searching the Gulf area. Our headquarters’ building looked better than new and was a poster child for state of the art security including thermal imaging cameras, disappearing metal barricades and bullet-proof glass in a few select windows. Bill had also made tremendous inroads and actually secured a production facility on the Italian coastline and had laid out an aggressive plan with the help of our Vatican friends. Everything was going too smooth that it made Mike nervous and he kept having this feeling that something was going to happen…but when?
Bill was no linguist, but he was proud of the progress he had made learning a little Italian. He was by any standard, awkward, and regularly greeted with smirks and laughter when he pushed the boundaries of his knowledge a little too far. Truth be told, he was lonely and homesick, but he knew the work he was doing wa
s as important as it gets. It was also at the point where he needed a full time Efficio assistant for the things he could not use his assistants from the church for. He had confided in Mike the other day that he and Charlene were a hot item and he was in love with her. Bill was upset that she thought he was dead and that no one had actually talked to her in anyway about the attack and it was eating him up inside.
Mike and Fiona had put him on the speakerphone yesterday and told him they had a surprise for him and filled him in. When Fiona had heard the story from Mike she had hatched an idea and with Mike’s blessing had put her plan in motion. Fiona had Mike call Charlene and after first apologizing about not contacting her about Bill he told her they had an opportunity in Rome for someone to assist the head of the European operations to build out their European affiliate. She was hesitant as first, but when Mike stressed that they hired people they knew personally due to the sensitivity of the business she grew more interested. When he told her the salary in US dollars was $125,000 per year, she said she was more interested. For the last two days, she was in the New Jersey headquarter building which freaked her out a bit since this was where Bill had gotten injured. She got a full emersion in the company’s business during this stay. It was all so surreal for her. They ended by telling Bill, that he had to schedule someone to pick Charlene up at noon tomorrow at the airport.
