“Do you see any furniture anywhere else?” Sam said plainly. “He said that was it so we stayed there.”
“What other instructions did he give you?” asked Ritter this time.
“We were told to arrive and depart at the same times every day, so that we were here most of the daylight hours.”
“Don’t most break-ins occur during the night? Didn’t you find that kind of strange?” asked Reese.
“Look, as I said, the man was paying so if he wanted the house watched during the day, that’s what we did. Jesus! Are you thick or what?”
Maybe,” Reese agreed, “maybe we are because we obviously missed something.”
“You are going to fix that door aren’t you?” Sam asked.
“What?” asked Reese.
“The door. You busted in the damn thing.”
“We’ll see Sam,” said Reese.
Sam continued, “Well it appears to me that you guys busted in here for no good reason. By the way, do you have a search warrant? And what the hell is this smelly shit you sprayed on us?”
“It is just something that identifies the use of certain chemicals,” Reese said quickly ignoring the aspect of the search warrant question. “It’s harmless.”
“It may be harmless, but the shit stinks,” Sam added again. “I don’t know if I should believe you. This stuff smells bad enough to make you sterile, might be a lawsuit in there somewhere.”
His friends looked toward Sam as if he had just mentioned something that they would all be interested in: Money.
“You’re watching too much television,” Ritter offered. “We’ll take care of the clothing and stuff.”
“Does that mean you don’t have a warrant,” Sam said sarcastically.
“Allow me to confer with my partner,” Reese said indicating Ritter to follow him outside of the room.
They walked outside of the room and stood in the hall.
“What do you think?” Ritter asked.
Reese said, “We can verify most of this but I think it will pan out as a perfectly legitimate arrangement for the most part.”
“We’re fucked, huh?” Ritter asked.
“And perhaps set up as well.”
“What do you mean?” asked Ritter.
“This is an obvious set-up. A decoy specifically designed for us to find.”
“It did meet the criteria perfectly, didn’t it?”
“Yes,” Reese agreed. “Someone wanted us to find this. It’s all too neat and perfect.”
One of Ritter’s men walked up and handed him a folder. He opened it and flipped through the paperwork.
“Aw…shit. You’re going to love this one,” Ritter said after a few moments.
“What now?” asked Reese.
“The owner’s name on all this paperwork is one Mr. Tom Foolery.”
C
HAPTER
F
ORTY
-T
HREE
“Mr. Tom Foolery. Great,” Reese said. “The asshole has a sense of humor.”
“So what do you want to do with our friends?” Ritter asked as he pointed in the direction of the men sitting on the floor.
“I guess we can get their statements and some kind of description of their boss. Give them some clothes and money to keep them happy and then release them. Just have someone check out the mission in downtown Norfolk, maybe the supervisor can remember what our mystery man looked like.”
“Got it.”
“Let’s wrap this up,” Reese said, “I don’t think there is anything else we can learn here.”
They both walked back into the room where the four men were still seated against the wall. “Okay fellas,” Reese began, “we have some paperwork for you to do and then you will be free to go.”
“And what of our arrangement here?” Sam asked.
“I think you’re done. We’ll make up the money difference. I assume you have been paid some money already?”
“Half,” Sam answered.
“We’ll ensure you are well compensated for your assistance.”
“Where do we sign?” Sam said boisterously and the rest of the group agreed with nods. But then Sam’s face turned grave as if he remembered something. He spoke in a serious tone, “There is the issue about the damages to the door and the alarm system we want cleared up in case this guy ever shows back up and tries to come after us for the damages. I want you to give us something that says we are not responsible for those damages.”
“We will take care of…,” Reese stopped in mid sentence, “wait a minute, what alarm system?”
“The one that the door is now flattened against,” Sam said as he pointed toward the door which was torn apart and careened violently up against the side of the wall.
Reese stared intently at the area Sam indicated.
“What, Reese? What’s wrong?” Ritter asked.
Reese walked toward the door. “The alarm. If it’s an alarm, then shouldn’t there be police or some security company then?” asked Reese.
“Yeah, I suppose so,” agreed Ritter.
“Then where are they?” countered Reese. “They would have come by now or at least they would have sent someone to where the road is blocked and they would have called in.”
“What are you getting at?” asked Ritter.
“Well if the police aren’t coming, then the alarm was not meant for them. It was for someone else.”
“Damn, I see it now,” said Ritter. “Whoever set this up has the alarm signal going to wherever they are.”
“Exactly,” Reese said. “Which means that they know we’re here at this moment and if it is that important to know, then they’re probably still in the area.”
“And they know exactly what we’re doing,” added Ritter.
“Yes. Look for cameras,” Reese said.
“Spread out,” Ritter said to his men. “Look for any indication of a camera or monitoring device.”
Within a few moments, one of the men near the front door called out, “Here, sir, up in the ceiling.”
Reese and Ritter examined the area the SEAL was pointing to.
Up in the corner of the ceiling, a thin tubular wire snaked through and pointed toward the center of the room. The wire had been painted white so that it would blend into the white ceiling and walls.
“Can this be traced?” Reese asked.
“I don’t know,” Ritter said, “let me get an electronics guy in here.”
Ritter keyed his headset to get the appropriate help. Reese walked aimlessly around the room deep in thought.
Sam called out to Reese, “He’s a strange one.”
“Who?” Reese asked.
“The guy. Our boss. He’s strange. I knew something wasn’t right the first time we talked. But he had the money and we needed it. That need overrules the inquiring mind if you know what I mean.”
“I suppose,” Reese answered.
“And it was strange…how he seemed to know it,” Sam puzzled.
“What?” asked Reese.
“The way he seemed to know we would do it and I think he even knew that you would be coming.”
“Why do you say that?” Reese questioned.
“He said something like ‘all men are predictable’—that times may have changed but the one thing that remained the same was the people. But for him, he said that time was irrelevant because he had all the time that there is.”
Reese froze. He recognized the expression that Dimitri had said to him when General Stone had struck a deal with the vampire to do his killing. Reese remembered the way the cold unnerving words had struck his heart back then.
“What do you think about a fella that says something like that?” asked Sam.
“I think…I think maybe he’s right,” Reese said and walked away. He felt the urgent need to get back outside and into the sunlight.
C
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F
ORTY
-F
OUR
Outside the house, Reese walked along the sidewalk, his eyes staring off at the non-descript neighborhood but not really seeing any of it. The idea that perhaps Dimitri and the rest of his group were not involved with what was happening vanishing quickly. At this point, there were simply too many coincidences to believe otherwise. Besides, why would Dimitri set these homeless people up in this house unless they were concerned about being discovered? The answer is that they were concerned because they must be involved somehow with the release of the girls.
Was that really a bad thing? He wondered. The girls could be taken away and the military/agency operation would die in its infancy. That was what he wanted. And it would work if the idea was that simple: But it wasn’t simple at all. He knew that the agency would not stop pursuing this matter unless they had hard evidence that the girls were destroyed. Samantha would want their heads on a silver platter for proof before she would let go. Plus, if it was discovered that Dimitri and his group were actually still alive, all hell would break loose. Especially for him. He would probably be thrown in Fort Leavenworth for the rest of his life and the hunt would become relentless for Dimitri and the others.
Reese heard a door close and he looked to his right and saw Ritter exiting the house and heading to the control van. It was probably time to report in to General Morris about what they had learned. He walked in the direction of the van and joined the debriefing.
“Nothing,” Ritter’s voice said.
“What?” Reese asked.
“The alarm and surveillance camera—we can’t trace them.”
“Are you really that surprised?” asked Reese as he tried to think what he was going to do next.
“Not really,” Ritter said, “just hoping for a break.”
“No such luck,” chided Reese.
“Whoever is doing this,” Ritter began, “knows exactly what they are doing. They are well trained in covert ops.”
“Yeah, appears so,” agreed Reese. Then in his thoughts he added, well trained alright; trained by the same people that are chasing them.
Ritter established the link to the command center back at the base. General Morris’s image appeared on the screen. Ritter summed up the operation and their discovery of the surveillance equipment.
“So we’ve lost the element of surprise we thought we had,” Morris said. “That’s not good. Not good at all.”
“However, it does confirm some things that might be helpful,” said Reese.
“Go on, Commander.”
Reese knew he had to be careful with what he said. He couldn’t stop the operation because he had no proof to substantiate the request. So the best he could do for now was to try and convince the General to return to the status quo of continuing the search. Suggest there was still a chance of success so that he could stall for more time to try and figure something out.
Reese began, “They went through all this trouble to stage this and I think that it confirms two things: First, those that orchestrated the break-out are still in the area. Their methodology and expertise seems to indicate that they are either familiar with or trained to do this type of operation. This leads me in the direction of a special force unit. Second, the chance of the two girls being alive is also a strong possibility. If not, why go through all of this sham? Why not just pack up and get out of Dodge.”
“Interesting thoughts, Commander,” the General said in a voice slightly more upbeat than previously. “So what’s your recommendation?”
“We still don’t have much to go on so until something new develops, I would suggest we continue with the list of possible places that they might be hold up at. Maybe the lab boys can get something from this house or maybe we can get a good description from the homeless mission downtown for our mystery man. Maybe there were more fake houses set up? If so, we can try and eliminate them.”
“Ritter, any thoughts?” asked Morris.
“I agree with Reese for the moment. We’re back to waiting.”
“All right then, pack it up and get back here.”
The screen went blank and Reese let out a big sigh.
“What?” asked Ritter.
“Just glad he wasn’t pissed off,” said Reese.
Ritter removed his headset and then snickered.
“What?” asked Reese this time, “what’s so funny?”
“You don’t know Morris. He never gets really pissed. Well at least not outwardly. He’s a really hard man to read. You remember General Stone?”
“How could I forget,” Reese said.
“Off the record, of course,” Ritter began.
“Of course,” agreed Reese.
“Stone was a damn idealist, and as such, never understood the world around him. He thought he could just use blunt force to get what we wanted.”
“I would agree.”
“At least with Stone you knew where the attack was coming from. But with Morris, you can never tell.”
Reese smiled, “Yeah I know the type,” he said thinking about how he would have described Dimitri the same way.
C
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F
ORTY
-F
IVE
Dimitri was awakened by the sound of an alarm. As he rose from his bed in the shelter, he was joined by both Andre and Iliga. “It’s one of the remote alarms from one of the other houses,” Andre said. “I programmed different alarm sounds for each one.”
“No immediate danger then?” asked Dimitri.
“That’s correct,” agreed Andre.
Ishma stirred from her own sleep and sat up on her bed, “What’s wrong,” she asked as she saw their hurried movement.
“It’s nothing to worry about right now,” said Dimitri. “The alarm is from another location. Stay here.”
The three men climbed the ladder from the shelter and entered the house above. The shades had all been drawn to keep the interior as dark as possible. They moved into one of the smaller bedrooms where the electronic equipment had been set up.
In the room were several computers and monitors. The monitors showed the images of several rooms in different houses. Their attention was immediately drawn to the one that showed a flurry of activity.
“So they have taken the bait,” Dimitri said calmly. “I’m surprised, it is earlier than I expected.”
The images continued across the screen. “Are they military?” asked Iliga.
“They appear to be SEAL’s,” Andre said. “Standard equipment and mode of operation. See the backpack sprayer?”
“Yes,” Dimitri said as he watched intently. “Definitely SEAL’s, I remember that piece of equipment very well.”
They watched the men in uniforms as they proceeded through the house. Small pockets of gas drifted through the house and passed the surveillance camera obscuring the view.