Chapter 23

As the saying goes, "Time marches on." And so it did. With my new venture launched, it was already looking good. Both my directors had contacts with civilian companies, who contracted our services.

Oh, it was not all that inspiring a beginning, for others. But it was a nice start in our eyes, anyway. It was named Confidential Security & Investigations. Or CS&I for short.

Also, my decommissioned missile silo was finished. Most capabilities were restored to, or exceeded, original specs.

I also had two teams of security officers from my new company guarding my home, and my office. Two men at the house and two at the office, were on duty at all times. I didn't feel personally in danger at all. That was probably stupid, but what can I say? I was 24 and full of life.

My security detail insisted they had detected surveillance on me, but every time they tried to pin it down, it seemed to evaporate. Who ever the other party was, they were very good. So I asked questions, and then I did some back-time work.

I soon saw the pattern of people working me. Man! These people were very good! My people were good enough, though, to disrupt what became apparent to me was a well-orchestrated operation. Once I learned what to look for, I quickly found them. "Them", being the opposition.

I took down license plate numbers, descriptions, and between-time video. I turned it all over to Rachael. She was curious as to how I got these things, when our people couldn't. I just said I had ways and sources, and left it at that. I also turned over several plastic drink cups that the operatives had tossed away. I had their fingerprints, too!

Understand; we had small offices in Boston, New York, and Los Angeles. The main site was located in the middle of nowhere out in the country. I had purchased an old farm site, that was hard to get to. I had fixed it up as a training facility, and as the main complex for CS&I.

We put in a deceptively long landing strip, with camouflaged lights, and flew in and out if we wanted to get somewhere fast. By road it was three hours from Boston. By air, it was about 35 minutes with the plane we had. I had plans to buy a helicopter and some other items; but that was for later on, when (not if, but when) the business really took off.

Money was a great lubricator. Also, since we were building 'out in the middle of nowhere', the county officials were happy to grant the minimum licenses we were required to have. The old house was taken down and hauled away.

I kept the old barn, because I had a thing for old buildings; and it was a beauty. The house had been a different story. It was a wreck, and an eye sore. After it was gone, I had a new building (actually, several buildings) erected.

There was artesian water on the place, so we hooked into it. We put in a sewage disposal system, and hooked into the local power company. A generator was installed, just in case of power failures, because everything was run by electricity. With the generator, we had a 'never failing' source of power.

The closest town was a small farming town a little over fourteen and a half miles from our location. All in all, it was perfect for a training site, and a sometimes-clandestine operations center.

While Rachael stayed in either Boston or the New York offices; my other director, Carl Hampton, liked the 'farm'. He was constantly training his people. He divided his time between training, and the Boston offices. We had also hired some people to administer the 'farm', and to run day-to-day operations.

Money was not a problem for me. I had chosen wisely with my purchases back in the early 1900's. I still had a lot of gold coins left, too. It was time to move my collection from my home outside of Boston, to my home at the missile silo, which was located in North Dakota.

The federal government owned a lot of land in North Dakota, and so did the state. The Dakota's were a strange landmass, to say the least. It was not that heavily populated either. Perfect for some of what I wanted to do. The silo I had purchased, was not in the middle of one of the official missile fields located in North Dakota. No, I had bought mine at the edge. This meant I had both state, federal, and privately owned land abutting my little silo acreage.

I had entered into negotiations with both the state and federal government to try to buy some of the land next to mine. The feds were easy, but the state had notions of unbelievable value. For the longest time it looked like there would be no deal, then I got smart.

I went to the capitol of North Dakota, and started lobbying specific state reps. I then took out a full-page ad in the two largest cities' newspapers explaining that I wanted to buy land, but the state was over-valuing it, and trying to gouge me. I explained where the land was, and that it was useless for farming, as it was rocky and barely accessible. The state government's response was that land was going at a premium in other states. I also took photos of the land in question, and had that added to my full-page ads.

I was not a popular man in certain circles in North Dakota. They had been trying to hold me up, for as much money as they could get; but since I had gone public, their argument was foundering, particularly after the photos were published. Apparently governments everywhere feel their job is to rip as much money from the public as they can. It's all 'for the good', of course. I kept wondering: for whose good?

While all this was going on, Rachael had identified several of the people following me. Three fingerprints came back with classified tags. Two other fingerprints identified an ex-Navy Seal, and an ex-Army Special Forces officer. Interesting.

I took the information Rachael gave me on the classified tags, and came up with three active duty CIA covert operations specialists. No wonder they were good! Now who had the juice to have the CIA loan three active agents for a covert operation against a citizen of the US in violation of federal law? That was an interesting question, too!

On another front, Rachael had started coming up with 'council' members' names and addresses. Armed with this information, I went in, and started doing my thing. I would go to a "known" member, and follow him or her to get more information. It was easy.

Information started flowing like a river, and Rachael started putting it together. She started charting the information. Who was who, what they did, where they fit in with this 'council' thing.

One thing we discovered is that the 'council' was a multi-tiered thing. There were two levels that we knew of. There was possibly a third, even higher level, within the 'council'. There were whispers of this supposed 'ruling section' of the council. What I found interesting, was the little bit of history I had discovered about the council and its founders.

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