Chapter 26

Tuesday

By now, it was nearly 0500 Washington time so I called Ray, figuring that he would be leaving soon. “You are cleared to resume normal activities to NAS Meridian, but say nothing to anyone about a resolution of the problem,” I advised.

I called Will back and explained what we found out. “Any chance you could get a decrepit chopper out here quickly so we can shoot it down?” I asked.

“You don’t ask for much, do you,” he groaned.

“If not, just find the cheapest old chopper and I’ll buy it,” I offered.

I met both Will and Ray at NAS Meridian when they arrived. “How’s the prisoner?” Will asked warily.

“By Wednesday night, there won’t be a mark on him,” I promised. Both of their eyebrows shot up.

“You’re that good?” Ray asked.

“Learned to use it when I was ten. I would tape a dozen pieces of straw an inch apart on the top rail of the corral and knock them off with my bullwhip one at a time,” I explained proudly.

I told them what we had learned, and they both agreed that my plan would catch the Whyte Knyghts unprepared for raids so soon. Using my study, the two men called the President and warned him what they wanted to do. He gave them his approval.

An hour later, an Erickson Aircrane flew overhead hauling a decrepit helicopter that I didn’t recognize. The junk helicopter hung far below the Aircrane. All the families within a mile had been cleared out. When the Aircrane released the chopper, George shot it with the assassin’s anti-materiel rifle causing a small explosion inside the target helicopter, which then crashed onto my property and burned.

Within two hours, news channels were reporting, “It is rumored that the Director of the Secret Service died this morning in a helicopter crash.” They had already warned his wife, children, and other family members, and had his wife and kids sequestered in their home before the story broke.

That night, using my handlers, as well as George, and Adam, we hit the run-down warehouse in New Orleans while the counterfeiters were sleeping. We set up jammers to make sure they couldn’t contact anyone via radio or cell phone to let them know about the raid. While taking the warehouse, we didn’t have to fire a single shot, although several of the Whyte Knyghts suffered dog bites.

Wednesday

It took us until nearly dawn to extricate ourselves from the aftermath of the raid, and the rest of the day to get to our next location while various Federal agencies cleaned up after us. We slept as best we could while en route.

Thursday

Well before dawn Thursday morning, a flight of eight Marine Corps helicopters made a noisy pass a mile to the east of the Whyte Knyght’s wilderness hideout. The over-flights were common, usually happening two or three times a week, although usually a mile or two farther east. Hiding in the bass roar from the Marine choppers, both of the Blackhawks I had ordered landed, with a combination of DEA agents, ATF agents, and my people, along with four dogs. We exited quickly about two miles from the hideout.

Carrying our weapons, we set a perimeter. A drone far overhead using IR kept us apprised of any movement in the cabin. Finding all the Whyte Knyghts slugs asleep, we crept forward. I couldn’t believe that they didn’t even have one sentry awake. Four times, the dogs warned us about booby traps that we disarmed. I found two more. When we were in secure positions within a hundred feet of their cabin, the bullhorn we set up behind a sturdy tree was remotely activated, advising the men inside that they were surrounded, and to come out with their hands in the air. Each of us wore helmet cams, and the drone dropped down closer to provide us with more detailed coverage.

The bullhorn droned on and on, repeating the same message throughout the entire firefight. With our infrared displays, we could tell where the men inside the house were. When they fired at us through the windows, we fired through the walls with .50 caliber rounds. One of those was enough to completely ruin the day for one of the bad guys.

I was surprised when the feeling of danger from four of the Whyte Knyghts shifted, moving downwards into the floor. “Get the drone back up and scan with infra-red. They went into a tunnel,” I barked into our coms. “All troops, beware of an attack from the rear,” I warned.

“I think they are going north towards the cliff,” I advised a minute later when I felt their threat move in that direction. Fifteen minutes later, I got confirmation from the overhead drone of a heat signature that had appeared on the cliff face twenty feet above ground level and a hundred feet to the left of where I’d positioned myself. The bullhorn that we set up near the cliff while waiting for them to reappear began broadcasting. When they fired at the noise, we fired at the figures we saw, and watched all four topple from the ledge. Still, we approached carefully, although Toni’s dog, Hunter, made a much faster approach.

When Toni and I caught up with Hunter, he was just sitting there next to the four bodies looking at me like he was asking, “What the heck did you need me for?”

By day’s end, the Secret Service had arrested their turncoat agent, and the Secret Service Director was able to return home. All of the Whyte Knyghts’ leaders were dead. The Secret Service had used Marshals, ATF agents, FBI agents, and DEA agents to raid their five armories right after our successful attack against their leaders had begun. Huge quantities of drugs, weapons, and cash were confiscated. Somehow, all my helicopters were now available, flown here or ferried aboard military transport planes to get them to us in time.

My pilots had been released from school to help, and flew to each raided location where they were loaded with our share of the weapons and ammo, and with all the cash, gold, and jewels. The valuables were substantial, but nothing compared to the balances in the little notebooks we found at each armory and at the cabin where the leaders were. The DEA borrowed my Aircrane for several days to carry the caches of drugs to wherever they were to be disposed of. My two new Superhawks and even the Blackhawks helped ferry agents, prisoners, drugs, and arms.

I turned the prisoner that I had kept confined in the tunnel over to the Secret Service. He told a wild tale of torture and abuse, but could only show a single bruise in each armpit as proof.

When I finally returned home, the girls showed me how much they had missed me. Once again, each of them took a minute or two with me. Rather than Jan, Chloe went last, declaring, “I should be fertile right now.” I was wiped out afterwards, though, and fell asleep with Chloe cuddled tightly against me.

Friday

In the shower this morning, Chloe had another chance to make sure she was pregnant, although the Russian twins were there, eager to help her tease me.

I felt great. Aside from knowing that Chloe might be pregnant soon, I was at home, and most of the handlers were at home. I checked the balances in the Whyte Knyght’s offshore accounts and found that most were the same accounts that I had raided previously. There was one with a substantial sum still in it, an amount than paid for all the helicopters, the construction for the hangars, the security contractor, and then some.

George and Adam were each supervising the distribution of the confiscated weapons to the various Federal agencies. I received all the Russian and Chinese made weapons and ammo for Mr. Jones to pick up.

Having extensive experience with operations like the one we just finished, George and Adam had a much broader knowledge of weapons, and were better able to make informed decisions about which weapons we should keep for ourselves. They kept fewer weapons and more ammo since having hundreds of weapons wouldn’t do us much good. I suggested a limit of twenty each for everything but AR-15s, M-16s, MP5/10s, and the MK14 mod1 rifles. Those, I raised the limit to forty. It would still give us far more weapons than we really needed, but less than four hundred, and they were all useful. We also claimed all the Glocks since none of the agencies seemed to want them.

The women were exceedingly amorous all day teasing me. Before supper, Chloe joined me in the study, locking the door behind her as she entered. Once again, my desk was polished.

That night, Chloe watched as the other women took a turn with me. “If we didn’t do it in the last two days, we’ll have to wait four more weeks,” she explained.

When the ladies were satisfied that I’d given them my all, they turned to themselves to continue the fun and let me go to sleep.

Saturday

I awoke in the middle of the night, early even by my standards. Unable to go back to sleep, I dressed and retired to my study. I managed a chuckle when all the dogs followed me, even making themselves comfortable on the study floor. They seemed to sense my inner turmoil, although I wasn’t sure what was causing it. A couple came over and rested their heads on my leg, getting their ears scratched for their trouble.

After an hour of contemplation and petting the head of each dog when they came over to rest their heads on my leg to get their ears scratched, I finally figured out the issue. I was surprised that so little had been said about my treatment of the sniper. When Will and Ray arrived, and asked about the prisoner’s condition, I didn’t deny anything. In fact, my reply was a tacit admission of what I did.

As I continued to ruminate, I reviewed my own feelings at the time. I knew that my namesake had used much worse forms of torture, and his victims usually died. That didn’t excuse what I did. What I did was blatantly illegal, so why did I do it?

Shortly before sunrise, as my eyelids drooped, I had an epiphany. Each time I went on a raid or mission, I put my life on the line to protect average people. Was not the life of one of the top men in the government worth the same risk? Less a risk of my life, I was risking my freedom, but was risking it to protect the life of someone of importance to our government.

I hoped I wouldn’t have to do anything like that again. Torturing him didn’t bother me, but the fact that torturing him didn’t bother me, bothered me.

“You okay?” Jan asked when she woke me up in my chair later.

“I am now. I just had to work through something,” I replied.

I took advantage of being home by checking in with everyone and seeing how things were going. My pilots and helicopters were all still busy. The last of the weapons and ammo were delivered today and Dieter made a phone call to Mr. Jones for me.

Ramón showed me our orchard. We knew the farm we chose for our orchard wasn’t “organic,” but testing the soil revealed no traces of residual pesticides or herbicides. All the trees from North Carolina had been carefully transplanted. Ramón purchased twice as many bare root trees for each type of fruit, roughly tripling what we would harvest in a few years. Those too had already been planted. They even planted one hundred fifty grape vines along the edge of the orchard. There were fifty vines each of three types of grapes. Each variety was supposed to mature at a slightly different time. It would prolong the period when we had ripe grapes to eat, but only by four weeks.

Along with the arrival of the final employees from North Carolina, the last of the worm bedding arrived and we split it between the empty worm beds we had waiting. Something like tall, sloped patio covers kept rain and direct sun off the beds, and we even covered the beds with sheets of plywood when not working in them. That helped keep critters like skunks and raccoons from digging up our worms for a midnight snack.

Several of our people had spoken with gardeners and landscapers in the surrounding area, finding many eager to donate their raked leaves and grass clippings from lawns that didn’t use fertilizer, pesticides, or weed killer, and which didn’t have dogs. It saved them having to pay to use the dump and gave us more stuff for our compost and worm beds. We knew we would need much more compost this year and in years to come.

Each weekday, one of our people would monitor each of ten construction dumpsters we spread around the area. They made sure the landscapers who used them agreed to abide by our rules.

I also took the chance to perform my long-anticipated search of the Hanley house, looking for more hiding places under the floorboards and in the fireplaces. I found nine more, but Mr. Hanley probably hadn’t found them as they were all empty, and the dust in the ones under the floorboards indicated that he hadn’t used them.

Sunday

Mr. Jones arrived this morning with two helicopters and a big grin on his face. He was very happy that I had thought of him for the Russian and Chinese weapons. The news Friday had talked about a raid by unknown forces on an Iranian nuclear facility. All the top-secret data was taken, including paperwork and hard drives, and the facility was nearly destroyed. They left it so badly damaged that it would take years to repair. All the evidence left behind suggested that the Russians had been behind the attack, although Russia denied it vehemently. Of course, I didn’t comment about the report to Mr. Jones.