Chapter 26

The tower guard turned to his supervisor who was making his rounds. "I don't care what you say. We ought to get more money for staying here while all the big shots go south. I don't trust those people. They'd fuck us in a minute if they thought they could get away with it."

The supervisor looked at the guard. "They have to take care of us. We know everything about this operation. They screwing us wouldn't make any sense unless they were abandoning this compound altogether. They would lose millions if they did that."

Suddenly a bolt of purple light landed between the two men. The men grasped their throats and gasped for breath. Within five seconds both men were sprawled unmoving on the floor of the tower.

An identical light had brought down the tower guard in the adjacent tower. The two lights moved in tandem as each defensive position around the main entrance of the compound was disabled. At the same time, the front perimeter guards were hit by commando's using tasers to disable them.

The vanguard element of the commandos passed wands over the front entrance in an attempt to see if there was any type of trip mechanism. The wands found not evidence of any trap, but Gunny held off for one more test. He took a large rubber bulb with a spout on the end of it and pumped it. Smoke filled the doorway. In the smoke, a very thin beam of red light appeared.

Jack jammed a sharp-ended clamp into the wood next to the point light. Loren pressed an identical clamp into the other side of the door. The ends of a flexible glass like cable were inserted into each clamp. Gunny counted. On three Jack and Loren covered the points of red light with the cable end. More smoke was applied, but no other beams were discovered.

The men then drilled three small holes in the door, and placed a tube to the smoke generator and placed it in the center hole. Jack and Loren put a small camera lens into he other hole and watched a Gunny pumped smoke along the door. No other red beams were found. The men removed the smoke equipment and placed spring hooks through the two viewing holes. When these hooks were passed through the opening and sprung apart, hooking onto the doors. Each hook was connected to a very strong monofilament cable. Gunny and Jack ran back from the door unwinding the two cables.

Loren placed what looked like a bead of construction glue to form a large square on the double doors. He placed a small coin-like object at one of the square corner and a similar square object at the opposite corner. He turned and ran after the rest of the commandos, turned back to the door, and lay flat on the ground.

"Ready!" he shouted. "One, two, three." He then pressed a button on a box about the size of a candy bar. There was a small sound like the dropping of a book on the floor and the door came in the direction of the commandos.

The four men and three women of the seven-member vanguard quickly moved into the area with their stun guns at the ready. Strapped to their backs were traditional automatic weapons. Jack and Gunny would only trust non-lethal means so far.

Only seven words had been spoken since the first light bolt hit the tower guard. The highly trained team knew each other's thoughts at the same time. They drilled for every conceivable scenario. They were still not prepared for the next element of the operation.

Diane Field had taken lead while Jack, Gunny and Loren were taking care of electronic trip wires. She pulled the squad to the edge of the lobby wall and was ready to move into the main hallway. Gunny moved behind her and laid a hand on her shoulder. She nodded her head, took a deep breath, and dove to the center of the hall in order to roll to the other side. She landed on her stomach and stopped dead. "Mother of God," she whispered.

Gunny's face turned red as he fought to keep from chastising the young girl for her breach of procedure. He shook his head as he saw Diane simply stand up, put away her weapon, and motion for him to move with her into the hall.

He moved to Diane's side and stopped. Twenty-three nude girls and women were huddled together. Between Gunny and Diane and the frightened group stood Muffin, Claudia, and Sophia. The three stood ready to fight with their bare hands.

Gunny quickly put his weapon away. "Ladies, we're the good guys. We came to get you out of here. Is anyone else here?"

Sophia shook her head. As if she were fully clothed, she continued, "No one alive. Some crocked cop is dead down the way. We are glad to see you, but we're not out of this yet."

Gunny had started removing his body armor, but stopped at the woman's words. "How's that?"

"We think we only have a short time to get our necklaces off before they explode and we are all like this." She pointed to the gory mess that once was Kathy.

Gunny turned back to his people. "Get your shirts off. Jack. Tell Paul that we need a shit pot full of clothes." He looked back at Sophia. "How many?"

"Twenty six."

"We have twenty six women without anything at all." He handed his shirt to Sophia whom in turn handed it to Tina who put it around her sister. "Tell me about these collars."

The minimal amounts of clothing available were handed to the most traumatized of the women while Sophia explained their situation.

Harry, in the office, and Paul, at the operation command center, listened as Sophia talked with Gunny. As soon as Sophia finished her summary, Harry asked, "As soon as possible, can we get a list of the people there? Sasha is worried sick."

Diane replied, "I'm working on that now. Gerry, Callie and Ester are helping me with that. We don't now know who is missing yet, but we have two Huber girls, Tina and Samantha. We also have Muffin, Claudia and one of her girls. I'll tell you more as we go. You smart guys need to focus on how to get these people out of here alive."

Paul interrupted. "Is there any word on Sissy?"

"Sorry, Paul, but Sophia said she was on some special assignment with Mary, Sophia's sister, when we hit. If it helps any, we think she's safe."

"Thanks Diane."

Harry asked, "Does Sophia know where the control room is?"

Gunny replied, "Jack and Loren are checking for traps now. We should be in there in less than 5 minutes. We'll need Paul down here at that point. Kenny will have to be in charge of the prisoners while we try to figure this out."

Sally tapped Harry on the shoulder and pointed to a register that no one had been monitoring. "Is this an accurate reading? I didn't know we could monitor for this."

"Jesus Christ, guys!" shouted Harry. We have a major concentration of nuclear materials at your site. I didn't even think to monitor that until Sally brought it up. This could be an old missing Russian nuclear warhead, or it could be a dirty bomb. Be very careful in that control room. Paul, I'm gonna call the Air Force and see if we can get some help."

"Go for it. I'll tell Kenny. He may have some state assets, too."

Jack came back into the hall. "We're into the control room. The safe is standing open, and we can't find any records of who has what code. They must have taken them with them when the got out of town. We're up a shit creek, and I don't think we have a lot of time."

Harry asked, "How's that?"

"There's still a timer counting. It looks like we have about 15 minutes."

"Where in the hell did that come in?"

"I don't know, but we have to get people out of here. We have enough chopper space to take out 40 people, but the women have to stay within 75 yards of the destruct transmitter. Are our pilots up to a little formation flying?"

Gunny joined the conversation. "Our guys are, but we don't know about the Guard pilots. I like this K. J. kid, but we need to check with him to see if he's up to it."

Jack joined the net. "Here's what we do. K. J. carries the transmitter and as many of the woman as he can. Then we have our guys keep position on him."

"Good idea," replied Paul. "I've seen this kid under pressure. He's cold as ice. This will work. Let's let Diana handle this. The women trust her."

Gunny replied, "Consider it done. Have Kenny set up the transport."

Soon four helicopters lifted off the compound security yard in a tight diamond formation. As they left, another Air Force ship landed and seven men rushed to the control room.

"Damn," said Jack. "You boys are quick."

"Actually," responded Anton Stevenson, the captain in charge, "We were about ready to do a simulation out in the boonies when your call for help got to us. This is going to be fun. Why don't you guys get out of here and let us earn our keep."

"You sure?" asked Gunny.

"Yeah, in fact, why don't you take our ride and move over that bluff just so I can concentrate on taking this bad boy out?"

"It's not right for us to leave you," said Paul.

"That's not a request. It's and order. Get the fuck out of here. Now!"

Paul looked at Gunny and Gunny smiled back. Then they turned and rushed out. As the men left the compound, they heard the master sergeant report, "Five minutes left. We need to stop the timer first."

The tight formation of helicopters landed inside the security fence of the ranch in unison. As the blades slowed, Sasha and Sally ran to the former captives, and stretched a rope from the center helicopter. They then walked in a circle designated by the rope and marked the circle with an orange paint.

Sasha yelled, "Under no circumstances are you to leave this circle. We'll get those things off you as soon as we can do it safely."

Sally took the remote control unit that Sophia had taken from Summer's dead body. She then ran back to the com center where Harry was setting up an infrared receiver to copy the codes from the remotes.

All the women were directed to lie down as the outer helicopters lifted off to make more room for the women. Several guards brought lawn chairs and started setting up tarps to block the sun. MJ and Starlight rolled out coolers full of bottled water and assorted soft drinks. Ron and Jessica entered the circle and started medical check ups on the former captives.

Sasha, Sophia, and Muffin organized the relief efforts in order of need while Claudia comforted the children. As soon as some sort of order was established, Sasha sought out her sisters. Tina sat on the ground as she rocked in Jessica Volker's embrace and whispered in her ear. Samantha sat on the other side of Tina and held her hand.

Tina gently praised the girl's courage and self-presence. "I was weak and committed unforgivable acts of fortification. Surely my resting point is Hell."

"Tina," whispered Jessica. "This is not your fault. There is nothing you could have done. You were raped. You are a victim, not a sinner."

"If we are not sinners, then why did they bring us to a house of prostitutes? I should have died. The good book says that if your eye causes you to sin, it is better to cut out your eye. I should have died."

"This just happens to be where all the electronics are. That is the only reason you were brought here. The section of the bible you refer to didn't actually say that. You have taken it out of context."

"You know about the good book?"

"Tina, I'm a brain surgeon. I go to the hospital chapel every morning and ask God to guide my hand in my work. I read a different part of the Bible every night. God is important in my life, but churches are not. One reason they are not is because churches are run by men not God, only the men who run the churches don't recognize that."