Chapter 4

Early Sunday Morning

Drama

Four or five loud pops woke Brock from his sleep. Brock’s eyes suddenly opened as he reached for the nightstand next to the bed where he kept his pistol and device. He hadn’t been a light sleeper since West Point more than two decades ago. Before he could sit up, he had to free himself from his young friend, moving her arm out of the way, she was dead to the world after a night of partying.

On the nightstand, his device glowed showing he had a new message. He didn’t hear any more gunshots or what he assumed had been gunshots. They had been distant but close enough to wake him.

Tapping his device, he saw the message had just arrived from the Antebellum Estates security office asking him to call, ASAP. There was also an alert from his anti-drone system that told him that a drone had passed overhead in the last half hour, but the system did not judge it a threat, as it had left the area.

He replied to the message that he would call in 5.

Brock slept nude.

He slipped into Adidas sweatpants that he kept on a dressing room chair just for this purpose followed by a sweatshirt. He took his compact Sig Sauer from the nightstand drawer and with his device headed downstairs to make the call. Glancing back, he looked at the other two lumps under the covers sleeping soundly beside Olivia, not a care in the world. He stopped and pulled the duvet up over the sleeping girl, covering her nudity, making sure she didn’t get cold while he was gone.

Next, he used his device to check the status of the home security system. The small screen showed six green bars, all secure. Due to the party and a few guests staying overnight, the house was not fully locked down, just in a passive mode, monitoring. Everything looked okay.

In the low light of the upstairs hallway, he was surprised to see a figure leaving his son’s bedroom. Graceful in form the naked woman was pulling a t-shirt over her head. Glancing in his direction, she stood still and waited for Brock. Her head cocked, listening.

Brock put his face close to Yael’s “Downstairs, follow me,” he said.

He didn’t question her reason for being in the hallway. Yael had heard what he had and reacted accordingly. Back in Israel besides being an archaeologist and professor, she was a Reserve Officer in Israel’s Border Police.

Downstairs standing in the kitchen he was almost ready to talk.

“Fay, connect me to...” he said to his AI assistant.

“Connecting you to Frank from security.” Fay interrupted, anticipating his request.

He didn’t bother to reply as he pulled an earbud from the back of his device and stuck it in his right ear.

Yael stood next to him in the kitchen as he flipped on a light over the kitchen’s granite-topped island. Yael wore one of Zack’s t-shirts, white with a big green dragon on the front. The shirt covered her breasts and fell to her belly button, nothing more. She ignored her own nudity as she worked her dark hair into a knot behind her head, watching Brock.

While they waited for the call to go through, they didn’t speak, both waiting, professional, watching each other. Brock turned to the sink splashed cold water on his face and ran a hand through his short hair, wetting his mouth, finally shaking his head to clear out the cobwebs as the call connected.

For the first time this morning, Yael grinned at him with an easy knowing smile.

They stood over the dead body where it lay crumpled on the path behind the Steele house. Brock and Yael along with the two men from security stood there, flashlights in hand. Yael now wore one of Julia’s tracksuits and Heidi’s tennis shoes. No one had called the police. The first call had been to Brock per their instructions if something like this were to happen.

“So, Frank when you confronted him, he drew on you, right away?” Brock asked the retired police lieutenant who was head of security for the exclusive housing estate.

“Yeah, we both put a couple of rounds in him when we saw the gun in his hand,” Frank said matter of fact.

“Got it, and how did you find him, tell me again,” Brock said looking at the pistol lying in the blood-soaked dirt next to the body. The person on the ground was a male, of medium build and height dressed in all black, including a balaclava that still covered his face. Black gloves on his hands and dark colored athletic shoes on his feet. On his head over the black mask, he wore a night vision rig, the monocular lens making the man look like some kind of big-eyed alien.

“As I said on the phone, we had been following him with our drone before Joe and I decided to confront him. It was by accident that we spotted him. We were looking for Mrs. Bumgardner’s Huskie that had run off again. Using the drone’s thermal sensors, we looked for the dog. Instead, we found this guy lurking at the back gate to your house.” The retired police lieutenant said, just relaying the facts.

Brock looked at the body and then up the poorly lit footpath that connected homes like his with the estate’s clubhouse building a ¼ mile distant. There was little to no video surveillance or street lighting in the development. Privacy and the proximity of the semi-rural subdivision to downtown Nashville were the main attractions of the homeowners. The need for robust security was second or third on the list of importance to most.

He reached into his tracksuit’s coat pocket for his satellite phone, which was the most secure form of communication he had right now. Brock needed to make a short call and get things rolling to clean up this mess.

Brock turned to the security men and Yael. She was squatting over the body with one of their flashlights pointed at the man’s face.

“Frank, do you mind?” Yael said pointing with the light. “Take his mask off, please,” she said in her slightly accented English.

Brock hadn’t explained who she was to the two men, but her posture and tone of voice made her request more of an order.

At a nod from Frank, Joe knelt near the head. First, he unbuckled the chin straps of the NODs pulling them off. Then he peeled the balaclava up from the chin pulling it up until the face was revealed in the beam of the flashlight.

Brock watched Yael’s reaction at the sight of the unremarkable black-haired, lightly bearded face of what he guessed to be a Slavic looking male in his late 30s. He was dead and it was dark, so he was guessing on the man’s age and origin.

“Let me have a knife,” she asked reaching up, waiting, still looking at the body. Frank pulled a folder from his pants pocket and opened it before handing it over and taking back his flashlight.

Yael reached for the bottom of the man’s shirt. Under a lightweight black bomber-style jacket, he wore a form fitting black long-sleeved shirt with no pockets or other markings. While Frank held the flashlight, she cut up the front of the bloody shirt peeling open the shirt until they saw three neat holes in his chest. In the beam of the flashlight on the right side of his pecs, all of them could see an ugly tattoo of a bear head under a parachute canopy with Cyrillic writing. There was also a long white scar just below it.

She stood and looked around into the darkness until she caught Brock’s eye.

“That’s a Russian airborne tattoo,” she said as she stood up.

Brock looked closer, he had seen similar body art on Russian soldiers captured in Poland, or more often on their dead bodies. Very hard men, the group of them.

“Well, that’s one Ivan who will not see another sunrise,” quipped Joe, the former Ranger.

“True,” said Brock trying to suppress a chuckle at Joe’s turn of phrase.

Frank and Joe went quiet watching the mysterious Israeli work.

“I think I know who this man is. He is bad, was bad. Mikhail is his first name, and he doesn’t work alone.” Yael said with a note of caution on the last part.

Brock broke in, “Okay, good to know. I need to make a call. If you need to do anything, ask Frank here and do it, but we need to clean this up soon. No police on this,” he said making a quick decision, and then turned to Frank who nodded in understanding.

Brock had had a hand in selecting the retired lieutenant from a small town police department to be the head of security. Frank was paid more than he ever made in 25 years as a police officer. Hence, he was loyal and knew where his paycheck came from and what he needed to do in order to keep paying for his two ex-wives and the college tuition for his kids.

“Frank, do you have a car that we could use to check the perimeter outside? Just a sweep. No drone since she might be looking for one,” Yael inquired.

“Yes, we have a Gator or our little electric SUV. Your choice ma’am,” Frank said more formally now, recognizing her authority.

“The SUV will do, but we should go, now. She might have already gone or even come looking for him.”

“What’s that?” Joe spoke up. Extra alert now to his surroundings, he moved his coat away from his hip where his big pistol sat in a holster on his gun belt.

“Her name doesn’t matter or where she is from.” She paused looking into the darkness before turning back to the group, “Just know she and to a lesser extent this sack of meat, have been responsible for the death of many Israelis and a few of yours over the last decade. But now the word is, she works for hire and so did Mikhail.” Yael said moving towards Frank and motioning him to lead the way.

“If you don’t mind my asking, are you armed?” Frank said.

Yael touched her right jacket pocket where there was a noticeable heavy weight. “Yes, Brock took care of me before we left the house.”

“I gave her a Colt and she knows how to use it,” Brock said to Frank. Referring to a .45 Colt Combat Commander he kept in his study.

The two left up the dark path while the former Ranger moved off the path into the darkness on guard. Joe took a handheld thermal imaging device that hung from a shoulder strap behind his back and began to scan the darkness.

Brock moved down the path a few paces away from the body, opened the satellite phone, and extended the antenna. Fully encrypted, it was the safest bet to get the help he needed without compromising security. He selected one of the preprogrammed numbers, started the call, and waited.

His call was answered on the 2nd ring. “Yes sir, how can I help you?” a business like female voice said. Just like any other answering service picking up in the middle of the night. Except very few people had this number or knew to call it in an emergency.

“I need to speak with Centurion Three, tell him Omega Two needs to speak with him,” Brock said, his voice even.

“Sir, I will have him call you back in less than 5 on this number, out,” the call ended.

While he waited, he opened the security app on his device. Still all green, and secure. But he didn’t like the situation at all. Things weren’t adding up, especially why this guy was lurking at the back of his house. He should have done it sooner but now hit the lockdown button. The house’s security shutters would all roll down. The doors would lock until he opened them. Fay and the home AI would go into a very active scan mode as would other special security features. Hopefully his sleeping guests and family would not even notice.

Brock only had to wait 3 minutes for the callback and to make his urgent request to Centurion Group.

Frank and Yael were back, before the assistance he called for arrived, having found no sign of Mikhail’s partner.

They drove the Gator, a side-by-side 2-person ATV with a small cargo space in the rear, down the path from the clubhouse. Mostly used for maintenance work on the property, it was narrow enough to fit down the flagstone paved path. They were lucky that the shooting took place at least 50 yards from the nearest home where there was no light besides that of the quarter moon.

The head of security took a large folded blue tarp from the cargo space along with a length of nylon rope. Yael shook her head at Brock, no luck, and again knelt next to the body. Now growing cold but no longer leaking into the dirt.

“Brock, I need some pictures, let me have your device,” Yael said turning to Brock and holding out her hand.

They passed the time taking photographs and searching the body. Not much else besides the radio, a mostly empty wallet with what was probably a fake North Carolina ID, and $100 in cash. A dagger in a sheath on his lower back. Under his light coat, a hip holster, and a spare pistol magazine in his left front pocket. In his ear was a small Bluetooth earpiece. They didn’t find a device.

Frank took a plastic bag from his coat and using a gloved hand made the pistol that had been lying in the dirt safe by ejecting the single stack magazine and a 9mm round from the chamber.

“Probably a ghost gun from the looks of it. No serial number or other markings. Easy to find these days or make if you have the time.” He said as he set the gun in the plastic bag along with the two magazines and loose round.

While Joe kept watch, the three of them went through the contents of the black backpack. It was a medium sized tactical bag you could buy anywhere and contained just a few items. At the top was a Ziplock bag with a mid-sized semi-automatic pistol. It was hard to tell the make and model in the dark. Inside next to the gun, there was a folded piece of paper that looked like a brochure, the type given out to tourists, and on closer examination, still without opening it, two spent shell casings in the bottom of the plastic bag.

Brock set the Ziplock bag aside as they stood at the back of the Gator. The last items of interest were a square black electronic device the size of a pack of cigarettes and a set of burglary tools. He knew what lock pics, gator clips, and other special tools could be used for, but the black device with a small LCD screen was a mystery.

Yael took pictures of everything with Brock’s device. Even now after 3 am but closer to 4, she was focused. Brock knew that with Yael in the mix, Jonathan and Israeli intelligence would be involved, like it or not. The three of them would need to talk before the day was over. The satellite phone in his pocket vibrated.

‘Arrived. Out front,’ the message from a blocked number read.

Brock had sent his contact the GPS location where he wanted to meet and the gate code, with instructions to use the rear entrance gate.

It was time to meet the cleaners.

First, he opened the home security app and did something he rarely did, he put Fay his AI assistant to sleep, effectively shutting it down. Next deeper into the menu he disabled all his homes outside security cameras, no recordings and no one inside could see out. He couldn’t safely shut down his house’s AI program but later he could scrub parts of the memory. Now he was ready.

“Our help is here. The Gator won’t fit through the gate. So, we’ll have to carry him through the backyard and up to the side of the garage.” Brock said.

Joe and Frank rolled the body onto the tarp and tied it tight with the nylon rope. Then they each took a spot at either end ready to go.

Taking a collapsible shovel from the Gator, Brock tossed a few spades full of dirt over the dark bloody patch of ground. Doing his best to cover over the ‘crime scene’.

Brock would need to mention the ‘crime scene’ to his contact at Centurion as another problem in need of a quick fix.

Before they moved, Yael raised a hand, stop. She turned to Frank and Joe, stepping close so she could speak quietly. Brock joined them. He could see Yael had something on her mind.

In her accented English she spoke, “Frank, Joe, I just want to say thank you to both of you. I think I can speak for the State of Israel when I say, what you did tonight put a stop to a terrorist who has hurt a lot of people over the years, causing a lot of pain.” Yael said pausing to let her words sink in.

Both men just nodded maybe even a little embarrassed at her words.

“Mikhail has been on our most wanted list for several years. There should be a cash reward, though where and how he died will always be a State secret,” she paused again, “Understand?”

Frank and Joe exchanged looks “We do,” they said in tandem, smiling, perhaps at the thought of the reward. Neither seemed bothered by the fact they had just killed a man.

“Good, now let’s finish this.” She said turning to Brock who looked to Frank.

Frank led off while Joe carried the feet end using the rope as a handhold. Brock went ahead to open the rear gate that led to his backyard. He hoped there weren’t any lingering guests asleep outside, that could be a problem. On the positive side, this body was about to disappear, and no one would be reporting him missing.

It was going to be a long day.

Zack opened his eyes, reaching for Yael. She wasn’t there. He listened for sounds in the hallway, maybe she was in the bathroom, but after a few minutes, she did not appear.

He had to pee and was thirsty. The house was quiet. It was dark and the security shutters were down, only leaving the little light from the electronics to see by. He went to the door of his parent’s bedroom; it was closed and quiet on the other side. The clock on his desk had said it was just after 4 am.

Zack took care of business and drank a glass of water. Still no Yael. Everything had been good when they went to bed, the older woman wrapping her arms around him, telling him to sleep, they would have time in the morning. He assumed for more sex.

Back in his room, he picked up his device. No message from her. He accessed the home security app and was shocked. Nothing! All the camera feeds were down, black. The house was fully locked down. Zack tried to access the menu and was locked out. Now he was nervous, this had not happened before. He went back to his parent’s bedroom.

Standing in the open doorway he shined the light from his device over the bed. Three people sleeping, one he saw was Olivia on his dad’s side of the bed. But no Dad. Looking around he saw his dad’s device was gone so were his sweatpants, the drawer to the nightstand where he kept his gun, open.

Back in the hallway, he fired off a message to his dad, ‘What’s going on?’