by Finian Blake
“I would prefer an experienced pilot,” Marvin said surprised that Cherry would cave in so easily.
“Sit back and enjoy the ride.” She smiled.
“Noah what is your last name.”
“Chalenger,” Noah’s answer brought an ugly shock to Senator Belight. He remembered the name from the Sweeper File and he had no clue that anybody mentioned in that file was related to Cherry.
“Cherry I had no idea…” Senator Belight started.
“It’s a short flight and we won’t have time for an involved discussion. I have to keep an eye on this rookie.” Cherry said as Esha jerked the control stick briefly to the left to punish Cherry for her comment.
“Please call me Marvin,” Senator Belight insisted. “So you are Cherry’s brother.”
“Baby brother actually Marvin,” Noah corrected in order to irritate Cherry.
“Esha, there is the helipad, orient the chopper with the ‘H’ facing the slope.” She started to bring the helicopter in slowly to make a smooth touch down. “This flies like a dream how does the autopilot work.”
“Perfectly just enter the GPS coordinates and engage,” Cherry smiled knowingly. “We can check you out on it tomorrow after the test.
Cherry guided them to the security center. “Edward and Layla are here. Your brother Adam is bopping Colleen so you will have to wait for a while to start the reunion.”
“What about Edward and Layla?” Noah asked.
Cherry pointed across the room. “Layla did you go to that location that I gave you?”
Yes, I found Salvador, Perry, Lloyd and Crasher.” Layla said quietly.
“How…” Marvin started to ask. “When did you have time?”
“Wayne had already left,” Layla continued ignoring his question which irritated him to no end. “Salvador sent Perry and Sean to give Marvin an accident.”
“How…” Marvin started again.
“How, how…,” Layla laughed derisively. “Are you some kind of Indian chief?”
“Layla don’t,” Cherry blurted out.
“He will find out any way and the others won’t say a thing.” Layla pressed on. “Reid is a good girl and so is Senator Ransom.”
“Girl…” Marvin blurted out forgetting his original question.
“How did he get elected Senator,” Layla asked.
“Reid pretended to be a man in order to get the job as your assistant,” Cherry said turning to Reid deciding to give up her deception. “She was able to fool you because you think with the head of your dick and you lose your mind every time that you get your rocks off.”
Layla looked at Marvin covering his genitals as if he were naked. “I had a chat with Mary Lee on the phone while we were waiting for you. She found out all of that stuff from Blake.”
“Who…” Marvin squawked in total confusion.
“Blake is her given name and Reid is her last name,” Cherry said turning to her. “Honey, you really have to dump ‘dick wad’, Mary Lee would hire you as her personal assistant in a heartbeat. I think that the whole thing is bizarrely sexy with a lot of room for kink.”
“What do you mean,” Blake finally broke into the conversation.
“A man posing as a woman that is falling for a woman who is posing as a man,” Cherry injected awakening her to the revelation. “I thought Rhonda, Boris, and I were kinky, you two have some strange times ahead.”
“Three of us,” Blake corrected. “What about Molly?”
“Oh yes, Molly,” Cherry pursed her lips blowing a kiss to Blake. “There is a lot of room for kink with ‘wild child’.” Marvin was reduced to incoherent muttering.
“Where is Mary Lee,” Blake said jumping out of her chair.
“Try the bar on top of the computer center. Take Molly with you.” Cherry shouted out as they cleared the door.
“What the hell just happened,” Marvin asked in confusion as Cherry led the way to the Cushman carts.
“Let’s go to Boris’s lab I will draw you a diagram and I promise to use small words, so that you will understand.” Cherry said taking Marvin by the arm. “Noah, Eden will show you and Esha to the family suite. You will find all of your things. You will have to put them away. We will brief at six over dinner and there will be no cocktails until after the exercise is complete.”
Salvador escorted the last of Crasher’s crew into the large conference room. There were almost fifty men present with the Ardent Security Crew present. Salvador wanted his team there so they knew what was going on. Crasher wasted no time in starting the briefing.
“The only thing that you Ardent people need to know, is that my people are not to be interfered with. Keep the helicopter pad clear and stay out of our way. The rest of this briefing is for my people alone, so vanish.” Crasher made sure that only his people remained in the room before turning on the large display.
“We don’t have a perfect picture of the Target, but we are confident that our target is at the top of the ridge.” Crasher moved the arrow around the upper gate sliding it down to the loading dock. “It isn’t a good view but there is a developed road that will handle tractor trailers down this side of the ridge to the facilities underground. We will go in through the loading dock locate the mainframe computers and take them out. We have been commissioned to take out as many of their personnel as we can. The raid will be occurring at twenty-two hundred, so there should be a minimum of people. Just remember that everything that moves is a cleared target.”
“What is the lay out of the building,” Enzo asked.
“We don’t have a layout of the building. This is a private operation and if you look around you will see that we have only the best Mercs. That’s why the price is ten grand for each man on the one raid. We have assembled today and by noon tomorrow every one of us will be out of the country.”
“How do we collect our money,” Fred asked.
“In advance you have one hour to make up your minds and anyone agreeing to go will have the funds transferred to their account. The price is ten grand per man.” Crasher looked at his watch. “It is sixteen hundred now, so we will continue the briefing at seventeen hundred. Every one signing up, give your account number to Henry standing next to me. He will wire $10,000 to your designation.” Nine men lined up in front of Henry before Crasher could sit down and before fifteen minutes had passed all thirty had agreed to go.
“Mercenary bastards,” Boris growled turning away from the Skype.
“You have the Skype. What do you need Layla and I for,” Edward asked.?
“I want every one of those account numbers and I want what does not pop up on the Skype,” Cherry chuckled under her breath. “That and Layla said that you were bored out of your skulls, so I invited you and the other siblings.”
“Who…,” Edward squawked.
“Noah, Esha, Vicki, and Dan flew in. They are down in the armory tooling up for the hunt.” Cherry said trying to egg Edward on.
“Hunt what,” Edward asked.
“Vermin, these bastards signed up to kill anyone that they see. I want their heads mounted over the fire place and after that we are going to take their bodies and drop them off at Ardent.” Cherry made no attempt to hide the venom in her voice. “Boris has made a study of the building and we are going to bring it down. They attacked our family twice and I resisted temptation.”
“You know how Alex felt about revenge,” Edward cautioned.
“This is self-preservation not revenge. They will not stop as long as we are alive. We will make them stop.” Cherry was as cold as dry ice.
“In that case we will tool up before seventeen hundred, so Layla and I can monitor their briefing.” Edward let Layla lead the way out of the room.
When Edward and Layla walked in the armory they were disappointed to see Noah and Esha each field stripping a Barrett fifty. They cheered up when they saw six more in the rack on the wall. The attackers were trained mercenaries and would most certainly be wearing body armor which might stand up to m
ore conventional rounds. They knew that Nadia would opt for her Dragunov with the armor piercing Teflon rounds. Cherry and Rhonda would take the Benelli M3 auto loaders. Layla quickly inspected the Barrett fifty that they pulled from the rack finding it in prime condition. Edward opted for an AR-15 with armor piercing rounds and finally they took two Sig Sauer nine millimeter pistols with hot loads. The body armor came next and Edward was pleased to find a K-Bar knife permanently sheathed on all of the vests.
As they were leaving, Mary Lee walked in the room and straight over to a locked cabinet pulling out a strange looking rifle with a bull pup design. Layla stopped for a quick look.
“You’re Mary Lee the rampage girl. Is that Rampage’s latest?”
“No this is Russia’s latest twelve point seven millimeter design. It doesn’t have the wonderful range but it is silenced and will defeat any body armor at 400 yards. Nadia was able to get four examples smuggled out of Russia with her back ground she collects these goodies.”
“May I…” Layla picked up one of the other rifles finding it well balanced. Extending the Bipod shooting rest on the barrel she lay down on the floor sighting in on the back of the room. “Is there some place that I can fire a few test rounds?”
“We can go to the roof Cherry has several stands with shooting solutions worked out,” Mary Lee said handing an ammo can to Layla and grabbing one for herself. Mary Lee led the way to the elevator with Edward and Layla close behind.
“You’re not using the Rampage arms,” Layla asked.
“Not when it really counts,” Mary Lee said casually. “They make a good gun but the tolerances are so fine they tend to jamb frequently.”
“But you sell them,” Layla protested.
“They pay me to sell them not to use them,” Mary Lee said calmly pointing to a chart on the wall. “The shooting solution is here take the target at 300 yards.” Layla sighted in dropping the first round just off of the paper. She calmly adjusted the sights and put the next round on the paper and with some fine tuning dropped three more in the inner ring making a tight pattern.
“That is sweet,” Layla said clearing the breach. “What does Nadia think?”
“Nadia likes the fact that they don’t sound like a canon going off. Within four hundred yards she can cut a string,” Mary Lee said with unmistakable pride. “With the heavier round you can put a hole through an engine block the size of my fist. Nadia is not worried about the reduced range since the sound suppressor masks both sound and muzzle flash.”
“Do you think that Nadia will let me use one tonight?”
“Just one,” Nadia’s voice floated over Layla’s shoulder. “We will need three up here and you will take the middle with Edward.
“You and Edward need to cover Crasher’s briefing which will be in ten minutes. We have you in the quiet suite for that exercise, so that we can assure that there are no interruptions,” Nadia shifted her attention. “Mary Lee you haven’t seen this before. I think that you should see this. Please come with us.” She motioned for Edward and Layla to follow her as she moved to the elevator. The bedroom door in the quiet suite was a double sound proof door with no windows. Edward and Layla went straight to the bed making themselves comfortable while Mary Lee and Nadia took chairs to observe.
“Edward and Layla can both ‘remote view’. They can move out of body and see things anywhere in the world using geographical position or former physical contact such as shaking hands,” Nadia was waiting for Mary Lee to scoff at the idea.
“They have programs for this back in Russia, but the results are ‘top secret’ and everybody that enters the program disappears,” Mary Lee said in a hushed tone. “Our Zenoviya was in the program, but she had a different name back then. They washed her out, so she went into computer programing. She is really quite good.”
“Nadia have Zenoviya meet us here when we return,” Layla said in a dreamy voice.
Crasher sat at a desk before a large LED screen manipulating the curser while thirty men sat watching attentively.
“The area which we are concerned with is this 100-acre area. There are two primary entrance gates one down slope which we will be using as an exit. We will use the uphill entrance with a full assault using three pickup trucks. The chopper will drop an eight man blocking team at their helipad.” Crasher pulled up a picture of an electronically controlled gate between two large boulders with no guard house. “It looks like they have rather soft security which is primarily electronic backed up with a small security force. This is the road which leads to the left of this structure which looks like a large house on top of the ridge leads to a loading dock where we believe our target is. Further down the hill is a helicopter pad which is about thirty yards uphill from another building which appears to be some sort of a recreation center.”
“How do you know that,” a voice interrupted.
“There is a swimming pool here and jogging trails that lead from the residences at the bottom of the slope.” Crasher said irritated by the interruption. “There are ten residences at the bottom of the hill. Each home has a guest house and a barn occupying ten acres. We will drive down the road hitting each house with an RPG 7 shooting anything that moves. We will avoid this gate at the entrance of the housing in the on-set. We want to pull their forces uphill which will leave the lower gate lightly defended. The only large area that is camouflaged is this loading dock just below the ridge which makes me believe that our target is there. We will be hitting that with twenty-four men loaded in three pickup trucks and we will hit the helicopter pad with six men to control the slope so that we will not be disturbed by any relief.”
“We will be using AR-15’s some of which will have grenade launchers and everyone will be wearing body armor, plus night vision will be issued to everyone. The last pickup truck will be carrying the C-4 and detonators to blow the main frames. We will be wearing ski masks to prevent facial recognition and the windshields have been replaced by wire mesh just in case those barriers are stronger than we thought. The helicopter and the trucks have all been stolen so we can ditch them when the time is right just be sure that everyone uses gloves for the mission.”
“What if the main frames are in another building.” another voice asked.
“We have fifteen minutes to locate and destroy these computers. After fifteen minutes the outside help will be on its way. We will depart whether or not we have accomplished our objective. Remember that you are all being paid in advance and you all have your travel arrangements.”
“What about civilians?”
“Everybody catches a bullet. We are being paid to kill them all,” Crasher hardened his voice, so that he would not be misunderstood. “You are being paid $10,000 for fifteen minutes of exposure we blow anything that looks like it could be associated with a computer. Kill everyone that we see or would you like to have someone left to testify against you.”
“That’s about it,” Crasher concluded. “Go check your equipment and make sure that it is right.” The thirty men filed out of the room. As Perry stood up to leave Crasher took him by the arm leading him into the hallway.
“I need eight of your men to pull a little raid on the lower gate about ten minutes after we hit the top. That will draw security up the hill. You can move in to control the lower exit. I will pay each of you $10,000 each, too.”
“I can give you Sean Aghra he has had some military training.”
“Good, have him wait ten minutes. Then take a pickup truck with eight men and crash the lower gate. Try and get him some help that is not too squeamish about shooting unarmed people. Anybody that is not us catches a bullet.”
“For ten grand I will take them in myself. Someone else can guard the building,” Perry said enthusiastically. “My boys can handle that.”
“Good just have them wear the same gear that my boys are wearing. We don’t want to make any mistakes. Be sure that you don’t tell anyone in my group. I want to keep the information compartmentalized to isolate any leaks.”
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“I have been wondering about that myself,” Perry said absently.
“If I find a leak I will plug it personally,” Crasher said twisting his pistol in the air. “Just have your boys leave about five minutes after my crew leaves. Have them come in hard taking out anyone that they see?”
Layla and Edward were about to return when they sensed a presents. Layla stopped Edward turning around to see a figure with an out stretched hand.
“Nadia wanted me to meet you here before you returned. I am Zenoviya.” Her voice was warm and affectionate even though the sound was internal.
“Mary Lee slipped up and mentioned you to me,” Edward said.
“You are a surprise. We knew that there were others like us but we have never met,” Layla said welcomingly. “My sister made the right call. This is the best way to meet it is hard to be deceitful in this state.”
“We need to return being out of body eats up too much energy,” Edward had to conserve his energy, so that they could get out of body later. When they returned to their body they did not see Zenoviya. When they could move Edward and Layla walked into the sitting room to find Zenoviya lying on the couch struggling to move. Layla walked over placing a hand on her shoulder.
“It takes time to reconnect, but it gets easier with repetition. Relax and let things settle in before you try to move. Edward and I have been doing this for a few years now,” Zenoviya looked around to see that Edward was standing in the doorway of the bedroom, so as not to imply a threat.
“On my first trip I walked into their conference room and overheard their plans for me,” Zenovia smiled, “So I decided to hide my success. I blocked any more trips and they eventually moved on to the next subject transferring me to the computer section. Nikki and Mary Lee brought me with them when Boris made his offer.”
“What was your computer talent,” Edward asked from the door way not wanting to pressure her.
“I was exceptional at tracking the random remote pathways used by hackers,” Zenoviya smiled. “Plus I have a flair for discovering passwords.”
