Love Lost (The Kurtherian Gambit Book 3) Read online

  A female in the audience spoke softly, “Oh my god…”

  That video faded as the audio started coming back online and you could hear a Black Hawk helicopter in the background as the video very slowly came up. You could see a Marine hanging on to the side. The operations area was a mess. You could see the medic working on an agent to the left and a van with the door pulled off. The camera focused on the landing helicopter.

  The scene took Bethany Anne back to that night when she first fought with her team. They had been inseparable since then. She was proud of her group.

  “Fuck me…” She pegged that whisper as coming from the marine, she guessed.

  John and Eric got off first, she was in the center and Darryl and Scott came up behind her. They all looked more dead than alive. Especially with the massive amount of blood and mud all over them. The video stopped with the five of them in frame.

  Dan spoke again. “This is the team that took out all of what we call Nosferatu out in the Everglades. This was their first op together. This is the same team that took out the terrorists the next day. The op downtown was more of a scrimmage for them. The enemies they normally fight are so much faster and more deadly that a room full of humans doesn’t really register as a challenge.” The screen faded from the five of them to the corporate logo and held it there for two seconds before it faded again to the image of their team patch.

  The lights came up and John, Eric and Scott were at the door. Everyone there recognized them as the team members from the picture and placed Darryl back in the chopper as the fourth team member.

  Her team stood ready for action. It wasn’t anything that they thought about conscientiously, but having a vampire as a boss that would attack you at all times of the day or night to keep you in practice caused you to stay ready 24/7.

  Todd Jenkins approved. He wasn’t willing to say that a team of his marines would go down quickly against these guys, but whatever happened it wouldn’t be easy. What about the female? He had assumed that their lead was the big guy Grimes there, but he could see that the female was the head of the outfit.

  Not one of the Navy personnel thought they were the butt of a joke by this time. There wasn’t a practical reason to try and spend this much money. Everything was too professional to believe they had a bunch of actors trying to punk them. The final straw for Todd was the listing of the fallen. That was delivered by someone who knew those men and every death had hurt.

  Dan looked at the group, “Questions?”

  Dukes seemed to be the quickest to open her mouth, no shy butterfly her. “Was that a vampire there at the end with the closeup? Who’s side was it working on?”

  Dan smiled, “Yes, his name was Bill. He died over a year ago on an operation in Virginia. They blew up an entire warehouse to kill him. I had worked with him for a long time before that event occurred.”

  “The government works with vampires to kill what, other vampires?” Dukes was trying to figure out the boundaries of who she could aim guns at.

  “Actually, we do go against vampires and yes, we work with vampires. There are two groups, or families, if you will. One would be called Michael’s family. The other are called Forsaken. The Forsaken want to eventually just take over the world and use humans as cattle. The problem is that Michael’s group has fought them in the shadows for almost eight hundred years and generally speaking it has been a stalemate. Partially because a lot of the big guns would sleep for years at a time and the Forsaken would use that time to attack until Michael would wake up and then the Forsaken would get a monumental beat down. He would go to sleep and the rest of us would keep the fight going.”

  Captain Thomas spoke, “Is that why your team was so small like you mentioned back on the plane?”

  Dan considered that, “Did I say my team was small?”

  Thomas smiled, “You claimed a clandestine agency that had a smaller budget than what the military spends on toilets.”

  “So I did. To be clear, I had three full-time members and the full team was mostly stolen and borrowed from other agencies when we had a flare up. After it was handled, most everyone went back to their regular jobs with severe consequences if they talked about the op.”

  “What happened to change it?”

  “Well, that is a longer discussion. The short version is that the lead vampire on the good side selected another vampire to fix things and the fixer has a lot more energy and was rather incensed with attacks on American soil. A Forsaken vampire recently killed a government agent in Washington DC to try and find out more about her.”

  “What happened to that vampire?” Maximillian Wagner wasn’t surprised with the paranormal at all. Germany had lots of stories about the supernatural. That it was real wasn’t a stretch for his beliefs.

  Dan looked at Max, “He blew himself up when he delivered a message to his maker. That maker lives in Central America. Each continent and some major countries are under the control of certain powerful vampires. Unless we want to be attacked every day…”

  Wagner spoke up, “You don’t travel overland, right?”

  Rodriquez jumped in, “That’s why you need water capabilities?” Dan had barely focused on the chief engineer before the pilot jumped in.

  “And you need to strike from the water or risk pissing off too many at a time?”

  Dan just pointed to his nose.

  All of the navy people were fascinated learning why they were brought here. This wasn’t anything like what they thought they might be getting into. Awareness of another coming down the side aisle brought their attention to a female in a black ops outfit. Twin .45’s in her holsters. Her walking was a glide. Everyone’s hind brain was trying to warn them to watch the fuck out. Here be death walking. But the package was so very attractive.

  “Welcome to my ship. My name is Bethany Anne, that’s it. I have no last name. You have seen the presentation, do you have any questions?”

  Dukes went first again. She blurted the first thing on her mind that was a semi-coherent question. “No last name?” Her face went red in shame! Here was the leader, a woman no less and the first question she had was ‘no name’? Really?

  “No Gunnery Officer Dukes, the Nicht have no last name.”

  This time, it was the Captain and Jenkins that got out the question, “Nicht?”

  She looked at both of them. “Yes gentleman. Nicht. I am what you might call a vampire. Not the kind that hides from the sun, I assure you I loves me some sun.” Her smile was lighting up the room and everyones sense of fight or flight was calming down. What evil vampire ever said that ‘she loves me some sun’?

  She continued, “A short time back I was an agent in a semi-black agency in Washington. I tracked down cold cases and was as ignorant of the UnknownWorld as you were this morning. I’ve been changed and charged with destroying anything that threatens our world. Right now, the biggest threat are the Forsaken. When one killed my personal friend Martin Brennan, I’ve become very focused. The Forsaken head of Central America attacked my family. The Forsaken will understand when I retaliate with deadly force.”

  The team was still in trying to guess where this would end up and how they would be involved. Rodriquez piped in, “Your not planning on stopping with them are you.”

  It wasn’t really a question, but Bethany Anne answered it anyway. “John, I’m not able to take the fight to everyone everywhere right now. I don’t consider the United States the only country that I need to protect. The Forsaken have had centuries to dig in. While I’m learning what port and starboard are.” She smiled at that and she got smiles in return. It was hard to believe this woman was death incarnate at the moment.

  “However; I’m about to share the rough stuff with you. This is the point that I let you know that the promised funds are in every one of your accounts. I’ll give you the same talk I told your helicopter pilot Bobcat. If you breath a word of what you know right now, you’ll be signing your own death warrants. Not because anyone on my team would hurt you
, but because you will not be under my protection and the Forsaken would track you down in the off chance you know something that could help them. If you talk, word will get around.”

  Jenkins spoke this time, “But, we don’t know anything!”

  She turned to look at Todd. “Do you know what I look like? Do you know that I want Navy crew? You already know enough to give them reason to, literally, drain you dry.” She smiled, It is a pretty effective ‘no-talking’ policy.

  “I’m not worried about it because I know that one day the truth must come out, so the hints won’t hurt those events at all. You would be hurting yourself. But, now is the time to decide if you believe you would want to stay and be a part of something that, quite literally, could be saving the world. Will your family and friends ever know? In a few years, probably not. In decades probably and within the next two hundred years for certain.”

  She walked over and stood in front of the whole team. Just three feet from Captain Thomas who was having trouble only staring at her face. When she knew she had everyone’s attention she spoke, “Dan, John, Eric and Scott are here to answer any questions. I will leave for a while until John let’s me know that you have finished any questions of them you might want answered. I’ll be back.” With that, she disappeared.

  All of them were staring at where Bethany Anne had just been. John got impatient after about ten seconds, “Anyone have any questions?” He had been through this with Bobcat before so was he wasn’t surprised with most of what they wanted to know. It was a good talk and after another hour they decided to continue through dinner. They retired to the boardroom and continued the discussion after the help stepped out. Dan let them watch the video two more times and they politely moved to other conversations when the dishes were cleared and the desserts and coffee were brought in.

  It took them about half of the time to finish their questions about the UnknownWorld that could be answered and others regarding Bethany Anne. There were a couple of questions they would not answer, but otherwise everyone felt the group was very open. They asked some questions on the ships and Dan felt the answers would be best handled by Bethany Anne. He reached over and clicked a button on his phone. About a minute later the door opened and Bethany Anne came in. She still wore her guns. She took the chair at the head of the table, “Questions?”

  Thomas was voted the single point of contact and so he worked through the questions they had.

  “Yes, the first is we are Navy and while we can run this ship, there isn’t a way we can fight this ship.”

  She agreed, “True. One of your first tasks will be to review this ship and suggest all appropriate changes we can do keeping the look but having bite. Your familiar with “Q” ships?” Everyone shook their heads yes. “Good. Same idea except submarines aren’t the only target and we aren’t a merchant ship. TQB Enterprises has a very eccentric owner who likes to boat all over the world into magical locations.”

  Thomas continued, he liked that concept. “What about budget and crew?”

  “The crew on this ship must change. I don’t want a single original crew person to be here past yesterday if I could do anything about it. You would work with Lt. Commander Wagner and Frank to crew this ship as fast as possible. Don’t hire any that you don’t believe can take on the challenge. I’ll not kid you, this is a battle and the chance of dying is legitimate. You will have to let me know what the right package for the danger is. So far, you have this ship and another to repurpose and make presentable.”

  “Another ship? Certainly not another one as big as this?” Bethany Anne laughed at this remark and everyone was relieved. Working on this ship was already going to be a challenge.

  “Goodness no! The other is what I’m told a sea taxi.” They all scrunched up their faces. “You know? For the helicopters, ships, sea-do’s, submarines and whatever your insanely rich and eccentric take with them around the world.”

  “Just how big is this other ship?”

  “Something like 70 meters or so?”

  “Your telling me that you have another ship about 225 ft long to go along with this one?”

  She grinned, “Yup! So, you know, hurry up and get Wagner here moving up the chain because I need a captain, Captain! How are we going to grow the TQB Navy if we don’t hire from within?”

  “How do you fund all of this?” He was still working on the whole second ship at 225 feet in length.

  “Because after a 1,000 years a vampire can get quite wealthy with their fingers in a LOT of businesses. Especially if they aren’t all that ashamed to listen in on private conversations on Wall Street. TQB Enterprises throws off a bunch of extra cash and I’m using some of that cash for these acquisitions. I’m worth more money than you can draw circles in a row it seems. My longer term plan is to at least make these neutral cost concerns, but that is for the General to deal with at the moment. I need you,” and then she looked at every face paying attention to her, “every one of you to focus on the long term goal.”

  Thomas wanted to make sure he understood. “The long term being getting rid of the Forsaken?” He knew she had said that the Forsaken was a near-term goal. What did she want, World Peace?

  She focused on the Captain. “No, the Forsaken are a blight on the World and need to be addressed. If they ‘give up’ their desire to make humans their cattle I’ll leave them alone. There is a bigger problem that is facing us and the Forsaken is a speed bump on the road to protecting the world.”

  “What do we need to protect the world from? Knowledge of vampires?”

  She smiled, “Well, in the short term yes. Can you imagine the issues with the religious groups if a vampire was proven? Probably increase church attendance, which might not be too bad if we don’t get the Inquisition again. No, there are bigger problems that I will share. The challenge is just how much I and my team have dumped on your this evening. I am not asking you to follow until the end, but long enough to take care of the Forsaken. By then, I will have shared the longer term goal and you can decide if you want to re-up for that fight. Is that fair?” With this, she looked down the table on both sides. Everyone was shaking their heads in agreement.

  Jean Dukes spoke, “Excuse me, but I was talking with Scott and he mentioned that this boat was taken from a Shiekh. He wouldn’t say what happened, will you share?”

  “Yes. I’ll share. The reason that Scott wouldn’t share with you is that the experience was personal for me. We had intelligence that the Sheikh was a dangerous man and was probably guilty of murdering woman in International waters. We talked with the Saudi family and they agreed if we took him out for his crimes, we could purchase the boats. I gassed this boat to knock everyone out below. When I made it to the owners suite, I found the Sheikh in his bed with his latest victim. She had been horribly abused and sexually molested. I took it pretty hard and my team lead had to help me get my shit together again.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I tortured the son-of-a-bitch for an hour and then cut off his head and shoved his ass off the boat.”

  Jean Dukes quietly swallowed. This woman showed no more guilt at killing this man than if she had accidentally stepped on a bug.

  John Grimes spoke up then. Everyone turned to face him. “We, her security team, tried the twelve remaining security men and found them guilty of failure to protect the innocent as well as their charge. We, the team, executed them and sent them to the deep before we had a funeral for Natalia. You need to know that every one of us will follow Bethany Anne to the darkest pit and climb back out until eternity comes. We will not falter, we will not hesitate and we will not accept evil in any of its forms. Whether it is a Forsaken vampire or evil human they will receive the same from us. We will kill them all and not even monsters in the night will stop us.”

  Todd Jenkins took another look at the team lead. He had been hiding his strength under a bushel, apparently. Because there was no fucking way he wanted to meet this man in a dark alley. He was brave, not foolish.
r />   Bethany Anne took back over, “We aren’t seeking to right everyone’s wrongs, but we won’t shy away if it is stuck in front of us, either. I read your jacket, Jean. If you see that happen again and it was two people from one of my ships? You had better save their souls and kill them yourself because I gauran-fucking-tee you their screams will wake up their mothers for years to come if I ever got ahold of them. Do you understand what I’m saying, all of you?”

  The cynics in the group, if there were any, lost their shit when Bethany Anne’s eyes started glowing red and they could sense the barely restrained righteous anger she was feeling over a hypothetical situation. This woman didn’t think righteous anger, she was righteous anger personified. Jean J. Dukes had found the avatar for her indignation over the event that caused her to lose her Navy commission.