Chapter 10

From 500 feet in the air, the positions of those spying on us were easy to locate as I circled the area. While the materials used to hide them appeared to be natural and match their surroundings, it was apparent to a Dragon’s vision that they weren’t natural materials, and they stood out like a bad spot on a piece of ripe fruit.

Using a blast of Magic from the middle claw of my right hand on the site near Craig’s house and also on the one between our two houses, I knocked out those hiding there, and the Magic used destroyed their electronic equipment. That left just the one site near our house, and I had something special planned for him.

Gliding in as silently as a hunting owl, I landed on the soft grass coming to a stop about five feet from his camouflaged position. I wasn’t going to use Magic on this one. For all I cared, he could keep whatever information he had garnered. I wanted answers from him, and I was going to get them. He wasn’t suspicious of what had happened to the others yet as enough time hadn’t passed ... not yet.

Breathing just a short burst of Dragon Fire, I set his camouflage coverings on fire. They went up in flames in an instant, leaving nothing but a bit of ash.

“What the fuck!?” the startled man who had been hiding under them shouted in a shocked voice, before jumping up to look around. His combat honed senses quickly had him swinging around to stare at me. The man in front of me was tall at over six feet with broad shoulders. He was dressed in camouflage clothing, was clean shaved, and had a very short hair cut. He could have interested me, if Keith and I weren’t having sex every time we could find a few minutes alone.

“Fuck you!” he growled at me in a gravely voice on seeing me.

“Not in your wildest dreams, little man,” I told him, as I towered above him at twelve foot tall. “Dragon cocks start at four feet long and six inches in diameter. They get longer and harder for sex, like six feet long and eight inches in diameter. They have balls the size of watermelons and can fill a small swimming pool with sperm. You couldn’t even get me warmed up,” I said and giggled. Dragons aren’t supposed to giggle but I did. He was shocked by what I had said.

“What are you and those others doing here?” I demanded having turned serious and moved forward some before lowering my head until I was staring into his eyes from two feet away from him. Looking into the eyes of a Dragon is never a good thing for a normal Human, and I could see him swallow while trying to resist answering me.

“What? Are? You? Doing? Here?” I demanded again in a deeper Dragon voice but not a roar ... not yet. He swallowed again before answering.

“Gathering information,” he finally said.

“Spying!” I answered in a louder voice.

“Who for?” I demanded, and he swallowed again before answering. It required a number of seconds before he did.

“The Tampa Cartel,” he finally said, and I grinned.

“And you thought because you are military that you could hide from us, and we wouldn’t know that you were here, is that it?” I demanded. He didn’t answer and I grinned again. “You were easy to detect today when we were at home,” I finished.

“Get your shit and your people and get out of here. Never come back. The next time, we won’t be so understanding, and you won’t like the consequences. This time you lost a little equipment. If we ever see you again, you will lose those you sent,” I threatened. He swallowed again before grabbing his equipment and hurrying off.

“The others have been knocked out. You’ll need to awaken them before they will be able to leave,” I shouted after him, before taking off again to fly for a while and check the area again for any others who could be spying on us. I didn’t find anyone else.

Returning to our property, I landed and returned to my Human form before entering the house.

“What have you been doing?” Dallas asked on looking up from her cooking show. “I felt you use Magic twice,” she added.

“I chased away those watching us for the Tampa Cartel. They won’t be back, but we’ll need to inform Mom that they were here,” I told her before returning to what I had been doing. We could see Mom later.

Later that day when we visited our Mother, she was indeed unhappy to learn that there had been more people here to spy on us.

“We will need to investigate this Tampa Cartel. If they sent two different groups to spy on us, perhaps they have something else in mind when they have learned what they want to know. We will need to be prepared for any trouble,” she told us. Dallas and I just smiled. Later we talked to Craig and made some preliminary plans.

The three observers returned to their pick up point. They had quickly discovered that much of their equipment was now just useless junk but took it with them anyway. It would need to be turned in as a combat loss. The third man’s equipment was still working, and he had called their operations for transportation.

Later back at the house they were using, the Team leader had questions for them.

“What the hell went wrong?” he demanded as soon as they had everything unloaded.

“The Dragon told me that they had detected us, but didn’t say how. I wasn’t in any position to ask how either,” the third observer, the most senior, told him.

“What do you mean by that?” the Team Leader bellowed.

“I was face to face with a Dragon. She was at least twelve feet tall, but she had lowered her head and was looking me in the eyes when she questioned me. Don’t ever look into the eyes of a Dragon. They can see your very soul and know everything that you have ever done. I couldn’t resist answering her questions.

“She told us to get the fuck out and never come back. The next time they would kill us, she added. She had already knocked out the other two,” he told him.

“The Captain isn’t going to be happy about this, but you are right. Our cover is blown. She apparently is the one who took out the drone. Chris couldn’t even find the wreckage, and that’s knowing where it was when we lost it. We also lost two thirds of the electronics that you had on site. Not a good outcome,” the Team Leader told all of them at a team meeting later that day. He also had instructions for them.

“Get everything ready to load up. We’re going back to Florida tomorrow. Most of us anyway. The two of you who were knocked out get to stay here and watch the house until the owners return. Take the bus back to base when you are relieved. We’ll leave the food here for you. Other than that, the rest of you get packed up, we’re leaving in the morning,” the Team Leader told them. He had already called the the Captain on his cell phone. Captain Smith had not been happy with what he told him.

Two plus days later, Captain Smith met with Felipe at another restaurant but in Tampa this time. Both men were in casual clothes this time also. It was immediately obvious that the ex-military man was not happy.

“We don’t like having our ass handed to us and being told to get out of town, but this time we didn’t have a choice,” Smith told the Cartel lieutenant at the start of the meeting. Felipe had just sat down.

“We still have no idea how they learned that we were there. Even after going over everything, there was just no way they could have known. Our people are well trained, and they followed all of the procedures exactly as in previous jobs. We have successfully dealt with some very dangerous people without any problems. Yet, somehow those women knew we were there,” he finished still upset.

“These things have worked for you before?” Felipe inquired.

“They have worked on every job but this one. There were no slip-ups by our people. As I said, these procedures have worked against some very bad people. It’s nor reasonable that they could have detected us. To top everything off, it only took one of them to undo everything. Only one of them was seen outside of their house,” Smith continued.

“That one knocked out two of our three observation sites before we were even aware that they knew about us. She landed behind the third site and interrogated the observer there. He is a tough soldier, but she had him talking in no time flat. His only excuse was to not ever look into the eyes of a Dragon. That they can see all that you have ever done. He is still shaken by the experience,” he finished.

“What about the information that you were to gather? Did you get it?” Felipe demanded in an angry voice. In answer, the Captain produced a small black device.

“That’s a 64 gigabyte flash drive. It holds all of the information and pictures that we obtained. There are routes to the houses, pictures of them, and video taken of them and the surrounding area by our drone. There is commentary by all of the observers. The was very little seen of the occupants. No one was seen the first day, and only the one woman was seen on the second day. We have no idea of what they were doing or where they went on either day,” he told Felipe before moving on to financial matters.

“We will keep the down payment as the total due. There was a substantial loss of equipment on this job, but we will not seek compensation for it. I will give you and your backers this piece of advice for free,” he continued and paused for several seconds.

“Don’t go after those people. They are dangerous in the extreme. We are used to dealing with bad people who are dangerous, but that woman threatened to kill all of our people if they ever saw any of them again. We will not be taking jobs that deal with Magic or Dragons again. Normal crooks and bad guys are dangerous enough,” Smith finished before rising and departing without so much as a goodbye. Felipe sat there for some time holding the flash drive before also getting up and leaving.

Felipe had spent considerable time thinking before leaving the restaurant and now drove to a large shopping mall, where he parked on the outer fringe of their parking area where he wouldn’t be noticed or disturbed. He had a laptop in the car and plugged the flash drive into it to see just what it held.

On viewing it, he was quickly impressed by the professionalism and organization of the information presented in the briefing on the drive. There were the names and addresses of subjects and descriptions of the correct route to their houses along with maps of the route there from south Atlanta. There were maps of the areas around their houses, and a video of the surrounding area made by a drone. There was a map of the entire area made from drone images that showed the roads, fields and the houses.

The three observation sites were shown on a separate map of a part of the area. The infiltration routes were also shown. There were statements, both written and verbal, from all of the observers. Everything was clear and professional except for the statement by the final observer at the end.

“Don’t fuck with these people or the Dragons. They will kill you if you do,” the observer said to finish the briefing. Felipe sat in thought again after the presentation had finished. At length, he closed the laptop after removing the flash drive and drove back to the Hacienda to show it to his boss.

At the house, Rosetta was waiting impatiently for him.

“Well!?” she demanded on seeing him.

“They gathered a lot of information in the short time they were there. The report is on this device. You will not like their recommendation,” he told her handing her the flash drive. He was correct, as Rosetta exploded on finishing looking at the briefing.

“Who the hell are they to tell us what to do?” she demanded and ripped the flash drive from her computer, ready to throw it across the room.

“We will need the information on that if we are going up there,” he told her calmly before she had released it. It required a short time before she calmed down enough to answer him.

“Yes, make copies of the maps and the directions so our people can find those putas. We will be going up there soon,” she finally told him and handed over the device.

“Do you have a date in mind?” he asked.

“We must gather sufficient men and ensure they are trained for the job. Then they will leave. You will be in charge of them,” she told him but didn’t name a date for them to leave.

It required nearly a week to gather and select the 25 men that Rosetta insisted were the minimum necessary to take her revenge on the Kavanaghs. Some of the men were those working for them from the Tampa area, but many of them were from locations in other parts of Florida. Some were guards at drug distribution houses around the state. All worked for the Cartel in some capacity. The selection process had been very slow, as many had to arrive here from distant parts of the state. A number of the men called in were not fit for the mission being either too old or on drugs. There were also problems putting all of these extra men up at the Hacienda for an extended period.

In the meantime, Rosetta had somehow acquired sufficient automatic weapons for all of us plus a large amount of ammunition for the weapons in addition to some explosives. Because the weapons weren’t all the same kind, though they were similar, we found it necessary to put the men in groups for each brand of weapon. It was also necessary to ensure that there were sufficient magazines for each group of weapons, since again they used similar but not interchangeable magazines. Thankfully, they all used the same type of ammunition.

Putting the men in groups turned out to be a good idea, as it had them working together rather than as individuals, and it was easier to teach them how to use their weapons. They were not really used to working as a group being from different locations with different responsibilities and jobs.