Nightstalkers

CHAPTER 17

The team came trooping into their new base of operations, dropping their gear. Roland was gathering MP-5s, as Roland always cleaned the team’s weapons after every mission, whether they were fired or not. It was not only Protocol, it was Roland’s passion. Otherwise he’d be doing chin-ups or push-ups.

Nada, Moms, and Scout came in the front door. Nada rolled the baby grand back against the doors and locked the wheels. Mac did a quick recon of the house to make sure no one had come in the back while they were across the street.

“You should put on some pants,” Scout suggested to Moms, who had Kirk switching freqs to call Ms. Jones. The commo man had a large white bandage on his left hand. “You keep tugging on it and everyone’s going to know you aren’t from here. Plus, the hair.”

“Support will be bringing us clothes soon.” Moms frowned. “There was a room in your house that looked like its only purpose is to wrap gifts.”

“It is,” Scout said.

“Your parents give a lot of gifts?”

“No. But the room makes my mom feel better with all the ribbon and boxes and cards.”

“Why would anyone want to be from around here?” Moms wondered.

Scout giggled and Nada gave her a playful thump on the head, which actually hurt because he’d forgotten about the burn from the Firefly curling iron. “Ouch!”

“Sorry, but don’t giggle,” Nada said. “It’s only cute in babies.”

Scout rubbed her head gingerly. “Don’t hit girls. It’s never cute.”

Nada started to reply, but Moms cut in. “For Pete’s sake, Nada. Could you remember you’re on a mission here?”

“What mission is that, exactly?” Scout asked. “What are Fireflies and how do they make a curling iron attack me and a dog go cray-cray?”

“You don’t have a need to know,” Moms said.

“So you don’t know what they are either,” Scout said triumphantly.

“We know how to kill them,” Roland said, looking up from the bolt of an MP-5 that he was running a darkened toothbrush over, removing specks of dirt that actually weren’t there but he suspected were.

“Excuuuuse me,” Scout said. “But this is my turf and you guys are pretty clueless around here, tennis skirt and all. I don’t care how many guns you have.”

Roland frowned in irritation. “How does she know how many guns we have?”

“See?” Scout said, looking at Nada and Moms.

“I’ve got to call it in,” Moms said and she headed upstairs. Every team member watched her as she ascended, tennis skirt swaying. “On task, gentlemen,” Moms called out. “On task. Nada, let me know when my civvie pants arrive.”

Moms looked around the master bedroom. There was a king-sized bed with a massive headboard carved from what she assumed was some expensive wood. There was also a little alcove off to one side. She went to it and stopped, stunned by the simple beauty of a window seat covered with a pretty blue cushion.

“Oh!” Moms exclaimed, but she had enough sense of control to keep it off the team net. She reached into her pocket and pulled out her Federal ID, ranking her in the “do not fuck with me unless you’re the president and even then…” echelon of government. Behind the computerized ID card was a page cut out from an old magazine. Moms carefully unfolded the aging paper. The picture was almost the spitting image of this little corner. Moms’s mother had ripped the picture out of an old magazine when Moms was five and used a magnet advertising the local feed store to hold it to the front of the fridge. It had epitomized everything their shotgun shack on the Kansas high plains wasn’t and represented some sort of vague hope her mother had held on to that one day there would be better days.

Sometimes hope is not a good thing.

Moms ran her hands along the cushion. She gasped as she lifted the seat and there were pillows and comforters stored in it. Moms stared down at those objects for a long moment.

Moms took a deep breath, shook her head, then pulled some pillows out and arranged them on the seat so she could lean back against one side. She also fluffed a comforter and tossed it over her bare legs. Then she settled in to talk to Ms. Jones about the mission.

“So far you seem to be having a little difficulty in rolling this up,” Ms. Jones said.

“We’ve only got two Fireflies so far,” Moms said.

“I have an Asset en route who lived in that community for several years,” Ms. Jones said. “He was on the Acme list and is now a professor at Georgetown. He should be there later today.”

Moms hesitated. “We have an Asset.”

“A local recruit,” Ms. Jones said approvingly.

“You could say that.”

“You sound skeptical.”

“Nada recruited her,” Moms said. “She’s just a kid. Sixteen.”

“Ah! Children are often the most observant. A good choice on Mister Nada’s part.”

Downstairs the team was doing the things it usually did on an op when it wasn’t killing or sleeping. Maintenance. Roland was cleaning weapons. Mac was separating out and molding charges, adapting them to their current environment, which meant shaped charges that made less bang but were just as effective since they were more directional. Kirk was on over-watch after having ensured Moms had a secure Satcom link through the TV dish on the roof of the house, and also linking the wireless in the house to a National Security Agency scrambler so no one could intercept or break the scrambling. Kirk could look out the front window, but he also had a half-dozen 27-inch Mac monitors surrounding him that not only had the entire perimeter of the house covered, but were also flashing ten-second feeds from the security cameras — there were a lot — spread around Senators Club. It would be confusing, but Nada had shown Kirk the Protocol for this setup, which had been designed by one of the Acme scientists who was an expert in physiological psychology and how quickly and often the brain could input visual data from a variety of displays and still cognitively process it.

So far, Kirk had a headache but spotted nothing out of the ordinary that indicated a Firefly possessing a creature or object. His hand throbbed, but he’d refused any sort of painkiller offered by Doc, because they were on a mission and he needed to stay sharp.

Doc was also upstairs doing something. Eagle was in the minigarage continuing the work Mac had started on the hybrid ATV/golf cart. The usual stuff in unusual ways. Adapting.

Nada was seated at the kitchen bar, on the laptop, doing recon by Google. Scout was sitting on a bar stool next to him, her legs dangling, telling him he was doing it all wrong by just putting in keywords.

“Ask questions,” Scout said. “Google works a lot better that way because then you’re looking for answers.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Nada muttered. He had just accessed the home page for Senators Club. He figured the more he knew about the place, the better he could figure out how to attack whatever the four remaining Fireflies had gotten into. They’d been lucky so far with just a dog and a curling iron. He had a feeling the rest weren’t going to be so easy.

He spoke into his throat mike. “Kirk, is Moms still on with Ms. Jones?”

“She just clicked off,” Kirk responded.

“I’m here,” Moms said over the net. “What’s up?”

“I’m doing an Area Study of Senators Club,” Nada said. An Area Study was part of the Bible of Special Operations. Anywhere in the world they went, they spent as much time as possible studying the locale. For the Nightstalkers, often an Area Study wasn’t feasible as they dropped in guns blazing, like with the Fun Outside Tucson. The first Special Forces teams into Afghanistan had had three weeks to do their Area Studies, mission planning, and briefbacks. Nada had a few minutes at the kitchen counter in Senators Club, which was a luxury for the Nightstalkers.

Nada glanced at Scout. “Correct me if any of this is wrong.”

“Okay.”

Nada read over the net: “Senators Club is the Research Triangle’s only gated community. It is regarded internationally as one of, if not the most desirable place to live in the southeastern United States.”

“Subtle,” Eagle commented.

“I like Texas better,” Mac said.

Scout chimed in. “It’s twenty-four hundred acres of the most finely tended golf courses, hiking trails, lakes, and tennis courts designed for exceptional living, all at a price for the discerning buyer.”

“You sound like a brochure,” Eagle said.

“Twenty-four hundred acres?” Kirk wondered over the radio. “Why are some of the houses on top of each other?”

“It is in the brochure and right there on that website,” Scout said. “Plus how can you compare yourself to the Joneses if you can’t see them? And how can you tell when undesirables like you show up if you can’t see your neighbor?”

“Hey!” Roland paused in cleaning his pistol. “We’re the last line of defense protecting these people from the things that go bump in the night!”

“You just killed a curling iron,” Scout said. “Do you get a medal for that?”

Mac laughed. “Old Kirk could probably put in for a Purple Heart: got burned grabbing for a curling iron. That would look real good.”

Roland started running the toothbrush across the pistol’s lower receiver so hard, it was surprising sparks weren’t flying. “I don’t like this kid. She’s a smart-ass. Why do we need her?”

Scout spun about on her bar stool and jumped off, going into a handstand. She spoke, upside down. “I know where every security camera is, all the blind spots, and where every motion sensor in the place is. All the trails off the beaten path. All the ways to sneak around twenty-four hundred acres without being spotted.” She pushed up with her arms and landed on her feet. “You guys couldn’t even kill a dog without having some dumb girl see you. That is not part of the exceptional living experience offered by Senators Club.”

Nada spoke in a low voice. “You were lucky that dog didn’t rip you to shreds. Things taken over by Fireflies are pretty nasty.”

“Well, that’s a good question,” Scout said, returning to her stool. “Why didn’t Skippy rip me to shreds?”

Nada opened his mouth to answer, then realized there was no answer. He looked from the kitchen to the living room, where Roland had stopped trying to file down the lower receiver with the toothbrush and Mac placed a shaped charge that could burn through two inches of steel on Lilith’s expensive coffee table. The door from the garage opened and Eagle walked in carrying a bag of clothes Support had just dropped off, using a FedEx truck as cover. Moms came down the stairs, still in the tennis outfit.

“Why didn’t the curling iron fry her?” Eagle asked. “Damn near fried Kirk when he secured it, before Mac blew it into a thousand pieces.”

“My curling iron is in a thousand pieces?” Scout actually seemed horrified. “My mother is so going to be all over me about the mess.”

“Support is cleaning your house up, remember?” Moms said, looking through the bag and pulling out a pair of pants with her name safety-pinned to them. “It will be just like it was.”

“Did you get me another curling iron?” Scout asked.

Moms looked at Nada.

Nada spoke on the net. “Kirk, get me Support.”

“Roger,” Kirk replied. There was a click over the net.

“Support, did you replace the curling iron?”

There was a pause, then a new voice came on, like Mac’s but southern, not Texan, there is a difference. “Why sure, Nada. Exact same model. House is clean as a whistle. Them gate transmitters work for the final gate, old friend?”

“Sure did, Cleaner,” Nada said, having recognized the voice. “Thanks.” He clicked that freq off the team net.

“Cleaner?” Scout asked.

“He’s the guy who comes behind us and cleans up,” Nada said.

“I bet he earns his pay,” Scout said.

“We all do,” Roland said.

“On task, people,” Moms said, and Roland’s scars flushed red, although whether from embarrassment or anger, it wasn’t clear. She pulled out a pair of khaki pants and a sport shirt and tossed them to Roland. “Those will fit better.”

Nada looked at the computer screen. “Feel free to interpret,” he said to Scout. “The exclusive life experience bestowed by Senators Club being the fact that it is situated on the highest elevation in the region—”

“I like the high ground,” Roland muttered.

“—which features spectacular three-hundred-and-sixty-degree views of the surrounding countryside for miles in every direction.”

“So they can look down on the peons,” Eagle said, which earned a roll of the eyes from Scout.

“The houses built here match the uniqueness of the terrain, meeting stringent standards for beauty, functionality, landscaping, and friendliness to the environment. Senators Club’s priority has always been to coexist in harmony with nature.”

“That harmony ain’t gonna last long,” Mac said, “if it attacks us.”

Nada pressed on. “This has brought together over nine hundred special, committed, and engaged families from all over the world to our community. We have residents from twelve countries and thirty-two states who have chosen us as their ultimate destination for living.

“Our private oasis of understated beauty and elegance—” Even Nada had to pause as Eagle laughed, Mac snorted in disgust, and Kirk just said: “What the hell?”

Nada cleared his throat. “Uh. Where was I?…understated beauty and elegance situated in the intellectual capital of the South, the Research Triangle—”

“Hah!” Mac said. “That’s like saying you’re the tallest contestant in a midget beauty contest.”

“All right,” Moms said. “We know what we’ve jumped into. The Fireflies are our mission. We get them, obliterate them, and get out. Clear?”

“Clear,” everyone on the team responded.

Roland was pulling off the way-too-tight sweatshirt, and Scout’s eyes bulged as she saw his torso, whether it was because of the toned muscles or the puckered scars that three bullets had made on his upper right chest. Roland didn’t notice as he pulled on the sport shirt.

“Change the pants in another room,” Moms said to him.

“You never told me if I get paid,” Scout said.

“Don’t you have to be home sometime?” Moms asked, because once more the team was off balance.

Scout hopped off the stool and did three cartwheels toward the front door.

“You’re going to have to keep both feet on the ground,” Moms said, “because you’re giving me a headache.”

“It’s the Ritalin,” Scout said. “I’m hyperactive.”

“It ain’t working,” Roland groused.

Doc looked up from his tackle box full of goodies. “How about a little Valium?”

Scout’s eyes grew wide. “You have some?”

“No, he does not,” Moms said.

Behind her back, Doc nodded.

Scout smiled at Moms. “I must be off.”

“Where are you going?”

“You just asked if I had to be home, duh.” Scout stopped at the grand piano blocking the doors. “Uh, pleeeze.”

“You’re going home?” Moms tried to confirm as Nada hopped off the stool and moved the piano.

“Yaaah. Sort of. I do connect with the world,” Scout said. She checked her watch and made a face. “You guys really suck. Not enough time to ride my horse. I’ve got to get the dinner out of the fridge and into the oven so when my overlords finally arrive home, they can dine.”

“You have a horse?” Eagle asked.

“Duh. I live in Senators Ridge inside Senators Club. I do take advantage of some of the things offered me.”

Moms opened the door. “Be careful. There are Fireflies out there.”

“They already went after me twice,” Scout said. “What are the odds?”

“Shh!” Nada warned.

“You guys take care of yourselves.” And then Scout was gone.