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  However; if due to your giving up you knew your brother and sisters would fall, then you gave everything you had and pulled more from wherever it needed to come from. Whether that brother or sister was beside you, behind you, or depending on you.

  Right now, Lance wasn’t on the front lines or frankly even the support lines. He ran this base as he had for years to give some the chance to acquaint themselves to the military and to allow others the chance for a breather away from the front line.

  He had a few no-go zones on the base that had military guards around, but not too many. The biggest excitement his base had seen was when the vault had opened on level five and his dying daughter disappeared. It was hard to keep that quiet, but without any proof, even the scientists finally stopped trying to figure it out. They couldn’t get back into the vault and Lance wouldn’t allow them to drill out the locking mechanism. Everyone saw the insides were empty before he hit the button to close it.

  He and Kevin finished last minute items before he took off. Somehow, there was a private jet on his airstrip for him to fly to D.C. This last minute change of plans was going to cost a minor fortune. He hoped they had some liquor on this flight.

  Lance noticed an older man coming out of the plane and the guard at the bottom salute him and stand at ease next to the ladder. He certainly seemed spry for his age.

  As Lance walked up, the older man stuck out his hand, “General Reynolds, it is my pleasure to meet you finally.”

  Lance had heard this voice before. It was in the back of his mind. The old man turned to Kevin, “Sergeant Kevin Mccoullagh, a pleasure to meet you as well.”

  Lance thought the man was certainly well informed. Oh Crap! Now he remembered where. When he had called yesterday, he sounded a little older on the phone. “Frank, right?”

  The old man just smiled and nodded.

  Well, he wanted to find out about Bethany Anne, so maybe he was going to get to go up, fly around a bit and then land back again. “Fine, let’s get this bird in the air, shall we?” He returned Kevin’s salute who then turned and walked back towards the entrance to the main tunnel.

  Climbing aboard, he could hear Frank come up behind him and that mountain of a guard closing the door as the engines started ramping up.

  They weren’t wasting any time, he thought.

  He looked around. This was an interesting bunch. There was another three men dressed like the guy closing up, two more men, one definitely military or recently military and the other guy was just trouble. He wasn’t dressed to kill but if Lance was any judge of character, he could.

  Across from him was an incredibly striking woman who had turned around in her chair to see who had arrived and smiled like she knew him.

  Finally, there was a woman in the back with her head facing the other way. This plane wasn’t setup to seat more than 12 at the most giving everyone a lot of comfort. Lance didn’t see Bobcat and Pete up in the captain’s cabin.

  He turned to give Frank a piece of his mind, what the hell had he pulled and who the hell were these people?

  Before he could get a word in, the old man was pushing him towards the back. “All your questions in the back please, these old bones don’t need to be standing up when this young whippersnapper takes off. He likes to fly this like it’s a fighter jet.”

  Lance decided maybe sitting down was a good priority. He had just sat down in the back across from a woman in black who he hadn’t had a chance to look at when the plane started turning hard and the engines went full blast. It was all Lance could do to sit down, shut up and hold on. He really wasn’t fond of flying.

  It was why he chose to be with the ground pounders. The plane took off at an incredibly steep ascent. He found himself looking at the woman in front of him. It took a moment to register with his mind gibbering in torture at the take off.

  “Bethany Anne?”

  “Hello father.” She smiled at her dad. Completely at a loss for words between Bobcat’s flying and seeing his daughter.

  He thought he would never get the chance to see his daughter again.

  —

  It would take a lazy three and a half hours to get back to Washington. Bethany Anne had asked Bobcat to fly a little slower to give them more time in the air. The General had to show up at the event, but he wouldn’t have to stay all five days. If he didn’t show up at all, some would question his mode of transportation a little too well. They agreed that a minimum of two days should be sufficient to throw any curiosity off of them.

  She told him almost the whole story. She withheld TOM being a part of her, the space ship and alien issue and Frank’s rejuvenation. She had the guys come and tell him what they now called ‘the party in the everglades’ and the terrorist attack. Lance had heard and followed the stories about the tower. He was sure it was a black spec-ops group who had taken them out, not FBI or CIA. He was astonished it had been his daughter and what was now her team of guys.

  Son-of-a-bitch. He realized she had done it. She was on the sharp end of the spear where he was always afraid she would go, and she was ripping new assholes like they were tissue paper. He couldn’t be more proud.

  Bethany Anne had vacated her seat to John and Frank had let Eric take his. Scott stood while Darryl took the third seat as they all talked with the General.

  Bethany Anne recognized that there was only so much of his changed daughter he could take at once. She didn’t want to overwhelm him. If her father had been a normal dad, she probably couldn’t have even approached him.

  That fucking Michael and his structures. He knew all of these things were going to happen and he probably knew that she would ignore his structures if he wasn’t around. She was learning the hard and painful way. The same as learning not to play with fire.

  That sanctimonious bastard better still be alive so she could slap his face so hard he could see his ass. She and Frank talked for a little while about things that he could do while they waited in Washington D.C. He didn’t want to shut down his office, but he couldn’t move it, either.

  If he were to place a tap to try and reach his hidden computer from Miami it would leave an opening for someone else to try and attack as well. His whole office security was based on physical entry being required.

  Frank had turned his office into a Faraday cage. Radio waves couldn’t penetrate his walls. They wouldn’t even consider building anything that would use Wi-Fi.

  Bethany Anne, have you considered reaching through the Etheric?

  Hold on TOM. Frank will notice we are talking.

  “Frank, I’m going to rest for a minute or two. Would you let me know if my Dad becomes available?” Frank leaned out of his seat just a smidge into the aisle and tried to listen to the story TQB was telling.

  “Well, they are at the part where everyone is prepping to go to New York City for the Werewolf concave. You have a few minutes.” Bethany Anne leaned her seat back and closed her eyes.

  You know I could have done that for you, as well. I can hear a flea fart at 100 meters.

  What? Where are you learning this language? Don’t tell me that was on the Housewives as well.

  No, I was listening to the guys talking to your Dad, they are very colorful with their descriptions. It makes this language of yours much more interesting than it was before. Not as beautiful as numbers, but it works for me.

  This time, Bethany Anne had no response to that. How can her conversations with TOM get so derailed?

  What were you talking about earlier with reaching through the Etheric?

  You are concerned with still using Frank’

  s computer assets while based in Miami. However; if you leave a backdoor into the system someone else can find it and use it against you or others as well, correct?

  Yes. They won’t have to find the entry point at first. They can just find the data communication between anywhere in the world and the end point. All origination IP addresses will always end up, eventually, at his computer. We could create random locations to
connect, but in the end any method we use is too dangerous to us and the USA if found out.

  So, we create a connection between a computer Frank has and the one in his office using nanocytes as the interface connections and the Etheric as your wire, so to speak. That is safe even when your world discovers the Etheric’s dimension.

  Really? How do we do that? What do you want me to do, bleed all over his keyboard?

  Wow, you got it in one. My little girl is growing up.

  TOM, you can be an ass.

  I know, I know. Back to the dog house for me.

  No, you misunderstand. If you are delivering results to problems like this you can be an ass all you want. This is fantastic.

  “Bethany Anne?” Franks voice was quiet, like he was testing how soft he could make his voice but still be heard. Information junky my ass, this man is a scientist at heart.

  She opened her eyes and looked at him. He was startled to see she heard him and woke up, at least as far as he knew, so easily.

  “Your dad is unbuckling.” She nodded her head to him and slowly raised her seat back in a sitting position.

  Time to see what daddy thought about his little vampire girl.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Frank nodded to someone behind her and started unbuckling his seatbelt. He stood up and stepped around her dad who slid into the seat. Frank chose to sit in the 4 pod with Nathan and Ecaterina. He was probably going to try and listen in to her conversation. He was such a nosy old man.

  Her father started the conversation as he buckled into the seat. “I talked with your team; you guys did a hell of a job. I wish I had been there in the Everglades. That is how you live. It’s good to see you, even changed as you are. You seem so poised now, but John says that you have your op face as well?”

  “Op face?” Bethany Anne was perplexed for just a second. “Ah, they must mean when I vamp out. That tends to scare the shit out of any humans around me. So yeah, I can imagine they might call it that.”

  “Can you let me see it?”

  What the fuck? Why would her dad want to see her vampire visage? This was not how she wanted to spend the last few minutes of the flight dealing with her dad who had seen how his little girl was truly a vampire now.

  She looked into his eyes and they both evidenced strength and compassion. The strength she knew from the past, the compassion was something a little new to her. She willed her eyes to go red, her teeth to grow long and as she thought of the asshole who was going to strike down the little boy, the attitude on her face was of murder and mayhem.

  Her dad reached out, slowly and put his hand on her face, looking like it did. She almost pulled her head back, but stopped. She needed to hear what he had to say. Her father had a tear in his eye. “I’ll always love you, Bethany Anne. Whether you’re looking like a model, or this destroyer. It doesn’t matter to me what you look like on the outside, you’re my daughter on the inside. I didn’t want to land and something happen that never allowed me to tell you.

  I’ve missed you every day since you disappeared. I swore I would make everything back up to you for the mistakes I’ve made if I ever got a chance. I have no idea exactly what it all means yet, but I trust you. If you have room on your team for one old crusty army general, well it was time I retired and let the next generation take over anyway.”

  Bethany Anne’s eyes had turned back and her teeth had receded while her father had touched her through the whole transformation. She reached up and gently felt that rough hand.

  Maybe not Michael, maybe you missed one good thing with your strictures and rules.

  “Dad, you have no idea how much I need a crusty army general. I have business assets all around the world that your experience with operations would help me immensely. I haven’t had time to vet anyone for the position and it would be dangerous to have anyone in it I can’t trust completely. As for the old part, I think you will be feeling better within a few months.” She didn’t want to gross her dad out right then with drinking the blood of his daughter.

  “Ah, the nanocytes and your blood?” He laughed at her shock of surprise.

  He waved a hand at her as he leaned back in his chair. “John told me about you healing him with the knife wound and what has gone on since then. It doesn’t take too much intelligence to figure it out.” She sure hoped he was wrong about that.

  “I’d be happy to help. I’ve got about 18,000 people and forty-two different areas of responsibility at the base to deal with. Obviously, I have subordinates but I can see why you feel it will transfer and I appreciate it isn’t a token job. What do you have to deal with?”

  She smiled at him. “Try over 1,000 companies spread across 85% of the nations in the world. Assets in so many banks I can’t find them all, although there are only about twelve accounts they roll back up into. Cash assets in the hundreds of billions and hard assets in the multiple trillions.”

  It was time for her father’s eyes to blanch and his mouth to truly stay open. He closed his mouth. “Guess I better get started thinking; the challenge is a bit bigger than expected.”

  She nodded, “You think maybe I didn’t come just to say hi, but also to recruit someone?” She winked at him.

  He laughed out loud, catching half the planes attention; the stress began to lessen in many of the shoulders and necks of Bethany Anne’s friends and team members. Her Dad was on board, and he was part of the team.

  Frank smiled to himself as he looked out the window. That scene was going to be a tear jerker when his book was released. In however many decades in the future she would allow it.

  While Bobcat had scared the crap out of Frank on the takeoffs, he landed them so smoothly you didn’t realize you were even on the ground.

  Washington D.C. - USA

  The next day, Bethany Anne and Frank took care of setting up Franks office computer with her blood according to how TOM directed. Frank commented it looked like a voodoo ritual and she had to smile. It really did. She didn’t just slit her wrists but had stopped at a pharmacy and purchased the instruments to take her blood like a normal person. Ecaterina ended up being the best person for that job. Most of the men just lost their color and turned away. She laughed and pointed at Darryl, Scott and Eric.

  “You are pussy 1, you are pussy 2 and you are pussy 3. This is your team code names for next op.” They laughed until they noticed that John wasn’t laughing with them, but rather smiling at them. He spoke up.

  “I think we will just shorten that to P1, P2 and P3.” His grin told them that was their new moniker and they all decided this wasn’t funny anymore.

  Scott and Darryl had responsibility for keeping the General under surveillance. Her dad was ready and willing to be the bait. He hadn’t known Martin too well, but he had liked the guy when they talked on the phone and appreciated how he had taken care of his daughter. If he could help find the killers, he was game to try.

  It was actually Nathan and Pete that found the pair who were casing her father. Nathan was running Pete with him to teach him how to use his sense of smell and other skills when they found two guys who had a slightly vampiric stench about them drinking coffee across the street from the meeting location.

  Nathan had gone in for coffee while Pete was outside. He came out, acted like he hated his coffee and directed Pete to go back in while he handed him some cash. Pete’s annoyance at having to get his associates coffee was so acute you would believe he really felt that way when watching the performance.

  For once, you could chalk it up to excellent acting. Even Pete knew not to fuck with Nathan Lowell on anything. When Nathan told Pete to jump, he was already stuck to the ceiling and hoping like hell Nathan hadn’t wanted him to go higher than that. John had Pete’s respect. He just plain feared Nathan Lowell.

  Pete nodded his head as he exited the coffee shop. He had the dead person scent in his nose, now. He would be able to find these guys again. Pete didn’t realize how slowly the sense of self-worth was creeping up on him. He was beco
ming an asset to the team based on his own abilities, not the wealth and power of his dad. The old Pete was slowly peeling off and John was becoming a proud mentor. Not that he would tell Pete this, of course.

  Eric, Scott and Darryl had to go by the team names P1, P2 and P3 for the whole day. Everyone who had any reason to get on the team net loved to use them.

  Dan was having a blast. He hadn’t been involved too much with the plane flight back, but he was a very satisfied man. They now had two more team members to help run the group and he was feeling less pressure on how he would have to deal with helping out. Frank was a natural fit. Dan had worked with him so long the difference now was that he actually got to see him. The general was going to take a little getting used to, but even he seemed a little more relaxed than the stories he had heard.

  Dan was surprised when Bethany Anne had told him on the plane trip to Colorado she had hoped her father would be open to joining the team. That she wanted him to work on the business side was obvious in retrospect, but when you see a military man, you think military holes he would plug into.

  They had taken six suites at the Mandarin Oriental in D.C. Nathan used his cutout shell company credit cards to hide the team from any searches for financial transactions which might be underway. He had a shared bank account with Bethany Anne which she kept a couple of million in for him to use. She told him the trust was complete, however; the exit interview for misappropriation of funds was fatal. Like any good leader, she worked with candor and an iron fist.

  She cornered him in the suite he shared with Ecaterina. Those two were working and very professional despite the obvious attraction. They were fighting the overwhelming desire of endorphins that practically screamed at them to just hole up and stay in their room together. She could appreciate the restraint the two must have. However; the smell of the pheromones those two were trailing behind them wanted to make her gag. She had asked TOM if he could do something about it.