Chapter 19

Aaron retrieved some of the deck chairs. They had escaped destruction by being blown off of the porch. Eric managed to dig out one beer and four soda cans, which were still intact, out of the rubble. Both men brought their discoveries to where John was holding the prisoner.

John instructed Aaron to space three chairs in a wide arc around the fourth. The spacing made talking a bit strained, but prevented the prisoner—a person trained in hand to hand combat—any chance of attacking more than one of his captors at a time.

"You stated that you wouldn't be here if you had known that we were the target. Please expand on that?" asked John.

"It's a long story but to be concise, your Unit saved my brother's life, in Bosnia. There is no way on this big green earth that I would knowingly attack you or your Unit, period!"

John made a rolling motion with his hand to encourage the man to continue.

"My brother's team was ordered to find and capture some guy charged with war crimes. Don't ask me to pronounce his name, there are way too many consonants and not enough vowels. Anyway ... Jimmy's team ran into an ambush and was taken.

"The bastards tortured our boys for sport, for sport, sir. They even gouged out one of Jimmy's eyes! But that wasn't enough; they totally ruined him, both physically and mentally. They..."

At this point the prisoner broke down. He sobbed convulsively for some minutes. He finally got control of himself and looked directly into John's eyes.

"You and your Unit brought them out, sir! Even though the brass thought that there was no hope of retrieval, you and your team disobeyed orders. You guys brought them out, Sir! They were all messed up, but you brought them home!"

The man looked each of his captors in the eyes, and said with a quaver in his voice, "I would gladly give my life for any one of you, and consider it an honor. You brought Jimmy home to us!"

Silence fell as the three men remembered the carnage they had found in the torture chamber.

"You're Wilkenson's little brother?"

"Yes, Sir."

John nodded, "I remember that mission ... all too well. How is he doing?"

"He's at home. Mom won't let anyone else take care of him. We all know that it's going to put her in an early grave, but ... Jimmy isn't much better than when you found him, Sir. He's pretty close to a vegetable. But the last time I was home, I think he recognized me. That's something."

"Yes, that it is, son," said John sadly.

Suddenly John got back to business and asked, "Is there another backup team coming this way?"

"Nope! You pretty much have 'terminated this mission with extreme prejudice', Sir. It's over until the General starts wondering why the kids haven't checked in. Say three hours for that, and then whatever time it takes to ready another mission. At most a day, and at least ten hours, Sir."

"I've changed my mind, son. You're going with us. Sorry, but we don't have a seat for you, and you will have to remain bound."

John turned to his men and said, "Let's get the hell out of Dodge boys. Bring him."

"Where the hell are they? They should have checked in two hours ago!" screamed the General as he kicked his trashcan across the room.

"If anything has happened to my kids I'll hunt the Reapers down and cut them into tiny little pieces, myself!" he hissed with spittle flying everywhere.

He was so incensed, that he was literally foaming at the mouth, and moving in an uncoordinated manner.

The General would not like to hear that he, at that moment, was displaying all the symptoms of a rabid dog!

One of his aids started to leave the room but was stopped by Vezza yelling, "Just where the hell do you think you're going?"

"Sir! I was going to the Com Center to try to raise them, Sir."

Vezza looked blank for an instant then waved at the man, "GO! Go!"

John's crew, each in his or her own aircraft, flew to different small airfields, the smallest that provided enough runway length. Those that were not able to fly, split up, and went with those that could. Most were private fields. At arrival they each rented hangar space for a week, and then went about the work of changing the transponders, numbers and color schemes of the planes. This time John felt that the planes should be turned into commercial freight haulers.

John had, again, thought of the possibility of the need for such actions, and had prepared. It took little effort to complete the change. The aircraft numbers and colors were on vinyl sign material and could be removed with some patience and a heat gun. Revealing the logo and colors of Raven Air, and Alaskan Bush Freight Service underneath.

The two freight companies were a pair of the many legitimate entities that John owned under a Cayman Islands shell company. Changing these planes over, therefore, would be a good cover.

They flew out again after only a one-night stay. Since none of the fields had a tower there was no one to take notice of the changes made to the planes.

Next, all of the planes flew to large metro areas. They landed for the night, again.

Phone calls were made and the next morning trucks showed up with boxes of supplies that had been in storage. Things looked exactly like a legitimate freight pick up. As soon as the materials were loaded, the pilots filed flight plans (fake flight plans). Then they flew out into the confusing hustle and bustle of the large airports.

Within four days, all of the planes were inside a hangar at another resort, this time in northern Quebec. However, this time the group was checked in as guests at a real resort, for a 'business retreat'.

Each day the group would meet in one of the event rooms for private working sessions. All the resort staff knew of, was that a new freight service was looking to expand into the Canadian bush.

By the end of the week, a new base was decided upon. The group left together. The flight was smooth and easy as the planes flew west to a property in the Yukon. John decided that they would not change identities again.

This time they were going to war and IDs didn't really matter.

The new base was nothing like the Lodge that had been destroyed, but it sufficed.

Rianna had scanned the prisoner, and found him to be honest in his loyalty to the Reapers. William "Sonny" Wilkinson was forthcoming with all that he knew about Vezza's operation. Unfortunately, he didn't know all that much.

He did feel that most of the missions that Vezza had contracted, could not be put off without seriously undermining his whole operation. As crazy as Vezza was, he was even greedier.

Sonny felt that Vezza would put out a call for the 'best of the best' mercs available, and set them on the Reaper's trail, while continuing his day-to-day business.

"Sir, your Unit is like one of those famous gunfighters in the old west. There are those that want the rep of killing you and your team. It eats at them and makes them nastier and nastier. I was a merc for a long time. I had to bite my tongue because of the bile spouted by some of those men."

"I guess the legend grows over time, far and away more than ever actually happened," said John with a heavy sigh.

Donna spoke up, "We can't stay in any one place too long, then. We're not safe 'til we wipe out the other side."

"True," said John.

"Sonny, who is Vezza's main client?" asked John.

"My woman said that there is a sort of symbiotic relationship between Vezza and Senator Lockhart. Vezza blackmails Lockhart for government contracts at exorbitant prices, and the Senators enemies disappear. Take out the Senator and you will cut deeply into Vezza's cash flow. I don't say it will cripple him, but it will hurt!"

"Ok then ... the first order of business is research and training. I want everyone back up to snuff. Aaron, I want you and Eric to set up a firing range, both urban and long range.

"Donna, you and Scott work up securing some more suitable birds for quick raids.

"Ann, I want you to make up a list for a complete medical facility and..."

"Sir? May I make a suggestion?"

"Sure."

"Vezza's research team found an old military 'Dew Line' base north of here. He rejected it because he hates the cold. It would, I think, be a good training base at the least."

"Show me on the map!" said John with his excitement only thinly veiled.

It was decided that an exploratory mission should be undertaken to inspect the facility. The next morning most of the crew flew off leaving the others to their tasks.

Mary and Sophie were at the computers. Rianna was doing scans on the Senator as best she could with a grainy photograph printed from the computer.

Vezza stood stone faced in the middle of the destruction. He was alone now. His wife had died bearing the twins, and now they, too, were gone! He had been a warrior all of his life! However, this was the first time that he fully understood the grief that warfare brings.

He did not see the fact that it was his actions that had brought this sad affair about. No ... he blamed the Reapers for his pain.

It was at that very moment when he lost all the vestiges of sanity. His only goal in life, now, was the total destruction of all of the Reapers and their loved ones.