Chapter 4

Raven was very tired as she rode into Durham, NH. Trail bikes are a nice machine for off-road riding. However, for the distances that she was doing, they were a brutal way to travel. Raven ached all over and she wondered if her backside would ever be the same.

It had taken far longer to make the trip back to the University in Durham, than she had expected. The weather had been bad and several accidents had caused major back-ups on the highway. Frustrated, Raven had left the Pike, electing to use the regular streets to make her way back to NH. She might just as well have stayed on the Pike; the traffic lights, tourists and pedestrians that she encountered wasted just as much of her time.

It was well after dark when she walked up to the bulletin boards in the MUB, the student lounge at the University of New Hampshire.

Raven was looking for a person that let rooms to college students. That way she could stay under the radar, as it were. Older people trying to supplement their Social Security with under the table income ran many of these rooming houses. She found several that were in Portsmouth, a small culturally diverse city nearby. Calling for vacancies from the pay phone, Raven found one that sounded good and traveled the short distance to check it out.

Arriving at the address, Raven was pleased to see that an old military man owned the house. The man had been a 'lurp' in Viet Nam. (The term 'lurp' is a corruption of the designation LRRP or Long Range Recon Patrol.) Raven took to the old soldier right away, feeling very comfortable around someone like Jack. She took the offered room without hesitation.

Public transportation in small places such as Portsmouth is nothing like the systems in bigger cities. However, it pleased Raven greatly to see that a trolley (a bus, really, but with a faux trolley body) stopped right in front of the house. Now she would not have to run the added risk of riding around on the bike without papers.

Her landlord showed her where to park her machine, and then led her to her room. She even had her own bathroom! It couldn't have been a better place.

The two had talked some before coming to an agreement, and Raven found that this man would not let a room to any 'bleeding heart liberal bastards'. He was pleased, though, to give lodging to a fine upstanding young man that supported the good old US of A.

Raven was wearing a new disguise that sported facial hair and she had shorn her own hair very short. She had done her work with precision and looked to be a boy of nineteen.

Jack had had to silence the ringer on his phone, because of all of the calls from the new owners of Reilly Ltd. They had finally noticed that the licenses to use the patents were past due. First they asked for the usual renewals, then they begged.

When Jack informed them that the licenses had been given to another company, when Reilly Ltd. had not picked up their options; the shit hit the fan, to say the least! The executives had their lawyers call back with threats of legal actions.

Then things really got serious, as physical harm to Jack and Raven was promised, if the renewals were not made.

Jack began to wonder just where the money for the buy out had come from. At any rate, Jack had been recording all of the calls, from the very beginning. He notified the police at the first mention of physical harm.

Because the equipment produced by Reilly Limited was used almost exclusively by military units, law enforcement agencies, and fire departments; the police, Homeland Security, and the FBI were called in.

By the end of the week, all of the new owners of the company were under investigation for terrorism. It seems that a large part of the financing had come from banks connected to the Middle East. Some of the banks were already on the Homeland Security's "watch list" of suspected funding institutions for terrorists.

The bigots were going down, hard!

Just as suddenly as the calls started they stopped. With great relief Jack sat down at his desk and turned the phone ringer on again.

"Bless the guy that invented caller ID," he thought to himself.

As he sat reclining in his office chair, feet on the desk, Jack began to analyze all that had taken place in the past weeks.

"Could it be possible that the crash was not an accident? Was it just a fluke that Raven survived? Was the Mob tied in with the terrorists, or... perhaps... just this one Mobster?" Jack thought.

He would really have to ponder all of this. First, though, he had to be sure of his safety.

Rising from his chair Jack went to a hidden door behind the entertainment center in his office. Reaching to the back of the TV, Jack pushed the 'reset' button on the plug strip. In smooth silence the whole unit moved aside revealing a spiral staircase that descended to a bunker, two levels below the basement of his home.

The bunker was appointed quite comfortably, in fact one would be hard pressed to see it as a bunker, if it weren't for the lack of windows. It was a complete home, with living and working spaces.

Jack entered and began descending the staircase. The entertainment center automatically closed behind him, and the lights came on in the stairwell. Once in the bunker proper, he moved to the security center. He sat at the console and reviewed all of the tapes for the last two days.

Jack's attention was, more or less, on autopilot. He reviewed the tapes on one monitor and kept an eye on the real-time screens, too. Suddenly his attention was fully focused on the front exterior real-time monitor.

A dark car, without lights, was moving slowing down the street. The car pulled to a stop where it had an unobstructed view of the front of Jack's house. Since it had been dark for some hours, this vehicle was most certainly suspect.

When Jack had retired from the military, he'd had to think of the many enemies he had developed in his 'Wet Work' period, while on loan to the NSA and other covert groups. Because of his concerns, Jack had installed a very sophisticated bunker and security system when the house was being built. All of the sensors and cameras were hidden. Over the years, Jack had upgraded as new technology came into being. He doubted that the CIA had a better system.

As he watched his watcher, Jack decided to call Raven and fill her in on what was happening, to get her thoughts on things. The two had, over the years, talked through many prickly problems. A fresh set of eyes often saw a different way to solve a problem.

"Speak!" said Raven, acknowledging the connection.

"Twenty-three... Forty-two," said Jack.

"Done! What's up?"

"There have been some nasty threats against us by the new owners and, get this, the money for the buyout had Mid-East ties. Homeland and the FBI are now involved. I thought that would stop the problems. But I am, at this very moment, watching someone surveilling my home. I have moved into the bunker for now."

As they were talking, a large step-van pulled up in the alley behind Jacks house. Jack, of course saw this happen on the monitor covering the back alley.

"Well, well! Looks as if I'm going to have visitors. I'll call you back in a bit."

"Please be safe, you old bear. You're all I have now, but do what you need to do. We can't let these creeps win. I love you."

Jack was taken aback for a moment. The girl had never said anything like that before... ever.

With a crack in his voice and a tear forming at the corner of his eye Jack said, "I love you, too, Raven."

"Now to business!" he said, putting his emotions aside.

His fingers moved over the console pushing buttons and flicking switches. At once, things began to happen in the house above. The lights went out in an orderly fashion as if the resident were going to bed. Titanium shutters began to descend over the windows. A blast door slid into place behind the entertainment center in the office. Special tanks appeared, as sections of the walls in each room rotated.

The only openings in the building that were not armored, at the moment, were the front and back doors.

Now all Jack had to do was wait.

Eight men dressed in black assault gear carrying silenced weapons, exited the van and made their way towards the house. All had night vision goggles on but with the lenses up on their foreheads. Once in the house the lenses would be lowered into place to provide visibility.

The group broke into two teams, one went to the front of the house and the other headed for the rear.

Jack watched all of this on his monitors.

Once each team was in place they shot out any lights in the area that would reveal their presence. After a short time, the team leaders signaled to enter the house. With the drivers of both vehicles acting as lookouts, the full teams entered and spread out in pairs.

"Finally!" muttered Jack.

He waited a couple of beats, to let the men get just a bit deeper into the house, then armored the front and rear doors, too. The hunters were now the hunted!

Jack pushed a large red button on his console and flash/bang grenades dropped from the ceiling in each room. At the same time, he flicked a switch, and all of the gas cylinders dumped anesthetic gas into the house.

Blinded by the flash of light (greatly magnified by their 'night vision' goggles), and disoriented by the loud explosions, the men were not able to respond to the gas with protective masks. They slumped to the floor, unconscious.

Outside the lookouts were totally unaware of the downing of their penetration teams, as the house was totally soundproofed, and the shutters had darkened the windows and doors.

Only three minutes had passed since the teams had entered, so the lookout in the car out front was totally surprised as Jack broke the passenger window and fired a tranquilizing dart gun at him.