Chapter 9

Characters introduced in chapters 9 and 10:

Maureen

Environmentalist, 5’-10” tall, 135 pounds, 29 years old, long blond hair, blue eyes

Lucie

Maureen’s mother, environmentalist, died before story begins

Sara

Bill’s first wife, died 8 years before story begins

Esther

Ashley’s mother, 5’-3” tall, 48 years old, 135 pounds, 36C-26- 36, auburn hair, green eyes, only a few freckles, still cute

I found a church parking lot, pulled down behind the buildings and changed the license plates using my red filtered flashlight. Then I chilled out for a few minutes. I put most of the weapons in the empty demo bag, only keeping my shotgun handy, and waited for the call.

The call came right on time, and Ashley was on the phone again.

“Bill, we’ve turned north. We haven’t seen any police or any check points. Actually, we haven’t seen much of anyone,” she told me.

“That’s fine, Sweetie,” I said. “I’ve changed tags and I’m ready to head out. I’ll call you in thirty minutes. OK?”

“OK, Bill. Be careful,” she cautioned me.

I crept up to the road without the lights on using my night vision glasses. It was fortunate that I did, as a police car came by at about fifty miles an hour. He was coming from the direction that I was going in. I waited till he was out of sight, then pulled out and drove away using the night vision glasses. I took off the night vision glasses and turned on the headlights when I got near a well lit strip mall and continued on my way. I hadn’t seen any other police or any checkpoints.

We kept in touch every half hour. When Ed got close to the city, he said that he could see checkpoints on the other side of the divided highway - for people leaving the city, but there were none for people coming into the city. For the final ten minutes, we just stayed in contact. I pulled in beside Ed a couple of minutes after he arrived at his house. It was 3:30 in the morning, and we were all bushed, but were wound up like alarm clocks from the adrenalin.

Ashley jumped into my arms as soon as I got out of the truck. We kissed long and hard. She was really glad to see me, and I was definitely glad to see her. When we finally came up for air, Ed had the garage open.

“You smell like a wood fire,” she said. “What happened?”

“Like I said on the phone, I got a little singed. The guy had flame throwers in the anteroom. He made a real mess of the place,” I told her

“But how did you keep from getting burned?” she wanted to know.

“Sweetie, I’ll tell you about that later, OK. It’s something that I don’t like to let other people know about,” I told her.

“OK, Bill. As long as you’re all right,” she said, happily.

I transferred all of my gear from Ed’s truck to my truck. We put the mortar and everything in the demo sack in the garage. We checked the trucks to be sure they were both locked and went into the house before someone could see us and wonder what we were doing out there at 3:30 in the morning.

We had a few beers to wind down and hit the bed shortly before 5:00 AM. Ed didn’t have a very large shower, so I had to shower alone. Ashley and I were both disappointed. She cuddled up to me in bed after we had both showered, and we were soon gone in sleep.

I finally staggered back to consciousness around 12:30 that afternoon. I could smell bacon and eggs frying. I got up and went in to rinse my mouth out, as it tasted like a burned out wood fire. When I got downstairs, Ed was making breakfast / lunch.

“You up already?’ he asked.

“No, I’m just a figment of your imagination,” I told him. “Of course I’m up. I smelled the food and my mouth tasted like ashes from an old wood fire.”

“What the hell did you do at that place last night?” Ed wanted to know. “The noon news showed pictures. It looked like World War III. They said one room was incinerated and that a number of Diversified execs died from a combination of chlorine gas and being shot.”

“The CEO, a fat guy, had flame throwers guarding his boardroom, and chlorine gas. He had some kind of sliding glass wall separating them. He incinerated the anteroom with me in it and then filled it with chlorine. I put a platter charge on the glass wall and blew it. All the chlorine gas went into the boardroom and incapacitated them. I shot each one just to be sure and finished off the magazine in fat boy. Then I used the other platter charge to blow a hole in the outer wall and escaped,” I told him.

“Well, according to the news, the cops think it was a hit squad that took out the place. They swear it had to be at least eight people,” Ed said.

“Anything on the plant?” I asked.

“Oh, yes!” Ed said with a grin. “The FBI and the DEA are there, and they’re having a field day. They’re calling it the biggest meth operation in history and acting like it was their bust. What a bunch of liars and hypocrites,” he finished. “Oh, yes. The news also said that a bunch of Diversified guards and security people have mysteriously vanished. I think a lot of them bugged out. They knew their shit was weak.”

“Anything about us?” I asked.

“Not a word. Nothing at all about pickup trucks or mortar attacks. They have apparently raided the Diversified headquarters here and have carted off a lot of records and computers, and also arrested a bunch of people,” Ed finished.

“Jesus, Ed! Did you get any sleep at all?” I asked. “When did you get up?”

“I got a few hours. I’ll be OK. Us old farts don’t sleep that much. I’ll sleep some more later today. But I have to tell you one thing, Bill. From the pictures I saw of those buildings, you’ll never be accused of being dainty when it comes to using explosives. How much did you plant anyway!?” he wanted to know.

“As much as I could carry,” I told him. “And I didn’t bring any back either”

“Lord, boy! You’re dangerous,” Ed said with a grin.

“Who’s dangerous?” Ashley asked, as she came in.

“Bill,” Ed replied. “Keep him away from explosives, Ash. He doesn’t understand the meaning of the word enough,” Ed told her. After that, we all had breakfast.

“You going to come by tomorrow?” I asked Ed after we had finished breakfast.

“Yea, sure. Are you guys going to be all right going back there alone?” Ed wanted to know.

“Yes, it’s light out and I had the alarms set. It should be OK,” I told him.

“All right, I’ll come by tomorrow. We can clean all of the guns and the mortar then,” Ed said, as we shook hands.

“That sounds good. We’ll see you tomorrow,” I said. Ashley gave Ed a kiss on the cheek before we left. I retrieved the mortar and other things from the garage, and Ashley carried all of our clothes from yesterday.

We got home quickly, as traffic is light this time of day. I stopped and showed Ashley the signal from the alarm system that showed that all was well at the house still. I had also wanted to be sure that all was, in fact, well.

We went straight down to the wood shop and got the truck unloaded. I put all of the guns on the ready table in the vault after making sure they were unloaded and the magazines were removed. I put the mortar under the table in its box. The transmitter, the phones and the night vision glasses went into their respective storage locations after making sure that they were turned off. With all of that done, we drove back up to the house.

I had switched the alarm systems to stand by after we had checked the alarm in the truck. I went into the den and turned the house system off and then switched the others to active. I put the shotgun in the rack, and finally felt like I was home. Ashley and I sat in the living room for a while together.

“I guess you can go back to your apartment in a day or two and get your things, if you still want to stay here,” I said, after a bit.

“Of course, I want to stay here, Bill. Why would I leave?” Ashley asked, in surprise.

“Because, I am going to tell you how I managed to live through that mess last night, and you may not want to stay here after that,” I said.

“But what could you say... ?” she asked, before I interrupted her.

“Sweetie, I’m not sure that I’m human. I should have died a couple of times last night. The flame throwers incinerated that room, and there was no way out. There was a steel plate over the only doors, and I should have been a crispy critter. After that, he filled the room with chlorine gas, enough to kill a battalion of men. Again, I should have been ‘the late Bill’. Instead, I put an explosive charge on the glass wall between us and blew it out. The others were all incapacitated by their own chlorine gas. Then I blew out an outside wall and escaped. There were people all around there with guns, and some of them were shooting at me. I should have been dead or at least gravely wounded, again nothing touched me.

“The reason, that nothing touched me, is because when I am in real danger of dying some kind of shield or forcefield comes on around me. I have no idea how it works or what it is. I have, over the years, learned to control how it’s shaped or how large it is. But I have no idea how to activate it or what it actually is. Nothing gets through it from the outside. From the inside, I can shoot out of it or toss grenades or place platter charges, or any number of other things. I have absolutely no idea what it is, or why I have it,” I finished.

“Bill, that sounds fantastic, and it’s hard to believe, but I believe you. You’ve never lied to me, and I saw the damage to the plant and the house on TV. You said it only happens when you’re in mortal danger. So, are you normal the rest of the time?” she asked.

“Yes, normal as anything. It’s just when there is a real danger of dying,” I assured her.

“Well, we aren’t in danger of dying now, so kiss me,” Ashley breathed.

“You’re sure?” I asked. “You don’t think I’m a freak?”

“No, Bill. You’re not a freak, just a guy with a little extra protection, and I kind of like the idea. Kiss me!” she begged. Boy, did I kiss her then. We didn’t come up for air for awhile, and we both nearly passed out. This girl is great!

“When did you see those things on TV,” I finally remembered to ask after we regained our composure.

“I had to get up to pee, and heard the TV. I went to see what was so important. I watched it for a while with Ed. Then I went back to bed. You were still out of it. I dozed off for a while after that, but was cold when you got up and woke up again,” she said.

A little later, Ashley started dinner, while I checked things around the house, like the windows and doors. I made sure my truck was locked, and also the other buildings. We still needed to be careful, as we didn’t know what the bosses at Diversified might have set in motion before I took them out last night.

We had an early dinner and then watched the evening news. The authorities were still coming up with additional information and charges against the people at Diversified. The videos of the plant and house was amazing. There were both aerial and ground shots, what a mess. I guess that I did go a little overboard with the explosives, but what the hell! What was done was done, and I wasn’t going to worry about it. Besides, the Agency had never complained when I worked for them.

We went to bed early. At least, we went upstairs early. I made damn sure that the alarm system was fully functional, because I was tired of surprises.

We took a long, hot shower, and I rubbed soap into Ashley for a while. Her back was better and I even rubbed a little soap on it. The rest of her got a lot more attention. She also washed me. We finally had to get out of the shower as we couldn’t stand it any more, and went straight to bed with only a little drying off.

Ashley pulled me down on top of her. We kissed; we cuddled; I licked and nibbled her all over. She laughed and giggled and screamed for a while. Finally, we got serious and I entered her. God, was she hot, wet, and tight. Ashley screamed out an orgasm soon after I entered her. We kept at it. We thrust into each other like there was no tomorrow. Ashley had her legs wrapped around me and her feet locked together behind my back. She screamed again and went rigid as I started to pump baby batter into her. We both collapsed on the mattress and lay there for a while recovering.

Eventually, we both regained our senses. We were both hot, sweaty, and sticky. The consensus was that we needed another shower, but a short one. We got up, cleaned up, showered, and brushed our teeth. When we returned to the bed, Ashley cuddled up against me, and we were both soon asleep.

I was awakened about two in the morning by the security system, but it wasn’t the vehicle alarm. It was the close in system. Some one was approaching the house on foot. Could it be a deer or a raccoon? It was hunting season, after all. The deer were rutting and raccoons are always hungry. I decided to wait awhile and see what happened. A few minutes later the door alarm signal went off, and I woke Ashley.

“Ashley, wake up, Sweetie,” I whispered as I shook her shoulder. “Someone has come to pay us a visit.”

“What do you mean a visit?” she whispered back, groggily.

“I mean an intruder,” I whispered as I slipped from the bed and removed the shotgun from its rack. “The alarm system is indicating that someone is trying to get into the house.”

This got Ashley’s immediate attention, and she slipped from the bed on her side also. I pulled the long body pillows up from the foot of the bed and covered them with the sheet. In the dark, they could almost pass for bodies. I also heard Ashley cock both hammers on her shotgun.

The internal alarm system was going wild now, so I knew someone was definitely in the house, and it wasn’t some raccoon, either.

“Watch the door,” I whispered to Ashley. We waited then, and I wished that I had brought the night vision glasses up here, but they were down in the vault.