TKG08 WE WILL BUILD Rel 01 (38 page)

Both Frank and Barb said their goodbyes.
 
Barb watched until they were about half-way through the cafeteria before turning to speak to Frank who held up his hand and mouthed, “Don’t!”

She backed up a few inches in reflex, but noticed he was still watching the two until they went out the door, then turned to her, “Sorry, but they easily hear great distances and I didn’t know if you were going to talk about the weather or make a comment that would be a problem.”

“What did he just mean about four centuries?”
 
She asked.

“Nothing about their hearing?”
 
Frank asked.

“I’m thinking I can deal with hearing, but you are almost a hundred or over and he’s saying he has been studying something for four hundred.
 
Who am I going to meet next, a thousand-year-old man?”
 
She stated.

“Well, now that you mention it,” Frank said while pointing to the door, “one just walked out.”

“What? Who?” She turned to look where he was pointing.

“Stephen.
 
That’s Michael’s brother.
 
Both are somewhere near a thousand or more years old.
 
Actually, I’ve pegged Michael as older than a thousand, but he get’s pretty cagey on his exact age.
 
He’s like a woman that way.”

“In what way?” Barb’s eyes started drawing down into a glare.

“So, how old are you?”
 
Frank asked.

“What?
 
That’s not relative to the conversation, is it?” Barb asked, momentarily taken aback.

“Sure, I just said women don’t like to admit their age.
 
We both know I am far older than you but you immediately didn’t want to tell me your age.”

“Well, I… It’s…”
 
She rolled her eyes, “I’m thirty-seven and yes it is hard sometimes to admit that.
 
You are three times my age practically and look five years younger.”

“Good genes?”
 
Frank laughed at her when she stuck her tongue out.
 
“Ok, I’m sorry.” He said.

“That’s ok, I deserved it.
 
You made a rational assessment based on facts and I just proved you correct.”
 
She exhaled, “Now, I want to know how I can help.”

“Excuse me?” Frank said.

“I want to know how I can help.”
 
She said, “I’ve seen enough.
 
I’m being wasted back at my other job.
 
Oh, I know that I help, but your team get’s things done.
 
I want to be a part of something that doesn’t hold back from doing what needs to be done, well, actually do you guys use torture?”
 
She looked suddenly pensive. “Because, I’m sure I could get over it mostly, but I’m a little against torture.”

Frank looked at the woman trying to figure out where the conversation had gone off track, “Torture?”

“Yes.
 
I tracked a lot of terrorist killings and the bodies all disappeared, or portions of them did and were never found.
 
So, the rational explanation is the terrorists were killed certainly and possibly tortured.”

“Well, I can say ‘I’ have never tortured anyone.” Frank agreed and reached for his water to take a sip.

“That leaves a whole lot of people in the organization.” She replied.

He put his glass down and answered, “Sure, but honestly the person who is willing to torture the most is Bethany Anne.
 
Well, Michael would probably be more willing but has less use for it.”

“She is the responsible party for the missing bodies?”
 
Now, Barb was trying to equate the pretty woman she had met with the fact that she was a torturing psychopath.

“Oh, I’m sure she is responsible for many of them, but she didn’t ‘torture’ them, kill them and bury them somewhere.
 
She probably tossed them into the Etheric.” Frank said matter of factly.

“What is this Etheric?”
 
She asked.

“Think of it as another universe someone can walk through, if they have the right abilities.” Frank answered, “And you probably need to stop thinking of Bethany Anne as a torturing lunatic.”

“Psychopath.”
 
Barb countered.

“Whatever.
 
She isn’t one to go around torturing willy-nilly.
 
She will do whatever it takes to get the end result she needs. If the person has been evil enough?
 
Well, she isn’t squeamish.”

She looked around and then leaned close to Frank, “How can you be so blasé about torture!”
 
She whispered to him.

Frank looked over at her while he took another drink then set it down, “Barb ... grow up!
 
You’re thirty-seven years old.
 
I’m a hundred, I’ve been in the dark side of life longer than two of your lifetimes. If you don’t think torture has saved millions of lives by this time, your pollyanna attitude isn’t going to work with this team.
 
Go back to Washington, do your research and let the others deal with it.
 
I get it, I really do.
 
I won’t think less of you but if you believe that the reason the U.S. is one of the most powerful nations in the world is because we didn’t ever do anything ‘bad’?”
 
He left the thought unsaid.

She leaned back, “I didn’t say that!”
 
She was angry, partially because she knew he was right, but torture was just wrong!

Or, was it?

Frank exhaled, “Let’s say, just for example, that you come upon a scene where someone near and dear to you is lying bloody and half dead against a wall.
 
Two of your friend’s guests have been killed and there is blood everywhere. The psychopath responsible for all of this destruction is working for yet another major psychopath who is wanting to overthrow the governments of most of the world.
 
As part of his master plan he has a virus that is going to kill millions.
 
You kill said psycho’s henchman and now you need a location.
 
Do you arrest the first psycho who has already killed before so you can take him down to the police station?
 
He admitted he was a murderer while you listened.
 
So, you don’t have to guess if he is guilty.
 
He has been personally responsible for probably in excess of a hundred killings over his life.”

Barb looked at Frank, “I would say you are being over the top with your example to see if I’m willing to say something is worth torture, but you aren’t, are you?”

“Remember that thousand-year-old man that grabbed Barnabas a couple of minutes ago?”
 
Frank asked.

“Yes.”

“He was the one bleeding to death, sitting with his back to the wall in his own home waiting to be shot and killed by a bastard.
 
Bethany Anne killed the henchman and then shot the Vampire that was trying to kill Stephen.
 
There wasn’t a jail that was going to hold Reginald and I’m to understand he seriously needed to be killed.
 
But, she wanted some information.”

“Whatever it takes.”
 
Barb whispered.

“Bethany Anne will do whatever it takes.”
 
Frank nodded.

“I can’t play it both ways.”
 
Barb looked down and played with the knife on the table.
 
“I want my nice and clean research job and then feel like I’m not responsible for the results my work causes.”

“If you own it, you sleep better.
 
But own it and choose to do it, or own it and choose not to do it.
 
But if you are a grown-up, you own it.”

She turned to face Frank a small smile on her face, “Where can I sign up?”

“Are you being a little spur of the moment, Barb?” Frank asked.

“Do I seem like a spur of the moment person to you?” Barb retorted, maybe a little more anger in her reply then she might have wished.

Frank took out his phone and sent a text message, it came back within seconds and Frank looked up. “Care to go to Argentina for a meeting with me?”

“Why?”
 
Barb asked, “Who’s in Argentina?”

“Michael.” Frank replied.

Moon Base One - Dark Side of the Moon

Penn walked into the meeting container and grabbed a drink from the side table, “Damn, I’ll be happy when we have the next set of containers so we can get a bigger room.”
 
He took a sip and quickly pulled it back, “Who spiked the punch?”

“Ah, that would be me, sir.”
 
John Jensen spoke up from beside ReaLea, “I had a wee bit of single malt scotch and somehow I was carrying it all secure and then tripped and poured half the damn bottle in the punch bowl.”
 
His unrepentant smile let Penn know how sorry John really was.

Penn took another sip, “It’s good, but make damn sure you are able to function 24/7 because the boss can and will show up anytime, got me?”
 
John nodded so Penn moved down and spoke with everyone in the group.

Once he made it to the far side he turned around. “If I could get a little attention?”
 
He called out and the other six quieted down. “I want to thank all of you for a job well done!”
 
The cheers went up and then quieted down once again. “And a job ‘very fucking well’ done to Adarsh who made sure we kept half the world freaking out at the very end and then made the connection, thus saving the project, and was able to create instant Adarsh fans out of a million ladies!”
 
The ‘woohoos’ and cat-calls caused the normally shy Adarsh to smile and blush.

He raised his cup. “So, to you, to us and to Bethany Anne, we are on the moon and the aliens can have it when they pry it from our cold, dead fingers!”
 

If sound carried in outer space, they would have heard the tiny group back on earth.

Costa Rica

“Sir, we have a problem.”
 
The voice came over the line.

The person in charge of the black ops group went simply by Mr. Simmons.
 
“Yes?”

“Terry DeLeon has been found wandering around Washington D.C., sir.
 
He wasn’t in his right mind.”

“Oh?
 
Wasn’t Terry on vacation?”
 
Simmons was quickly trying to piece together why Terry would be in Washington unless he had a lead from the report that took him there.
 
Their last communication had him over in Colorado.

“Yes sir, he was on vacation.
 
However, the D.C. police picked him up when he was disturbing the peace.
 
He didn’t have any I.D. on him and no way for us to tell how he ended up where he was picked up.
 
That isn’t the most disturbing aspect of this story, sir.”
 
The voice admitted.

“Lay it on me, I’m sitting down.
 
What did Terry get into while on vacation?”

“He doesn’t remember. I’ve been in to talk with him.
 
He doesn’t remember his vacation, or me, sir.
 
At all.”

Simmons considered that answer.
 
Terry absolutely should remember one of his best friends in the group.

“Sir, one more thing.” The voice continued, “He keeps mumbling one phrase over and over.”

“Ok, what is it?” Simmons asked.

“Sir, his eyes keep darting left and right, like he’s seen something.
 
He keeps whispering, ‘the vampires are here, the vampires are here’!”

Shanghai, China

Ten hours after the world first heard about a set of containers going to the moon, Shanghai was astonished by two fast and bright shooting stars that lit up the night.
 
Then a third followed sixty-five seconds behind it.
 
The boom from the third passing through the atmosphere was felt for a hundred miles around the city.

As the first two asteroids passed through the atmosphere, three Pods were rocketing down from the heavens to stop a foot above the four story warehouse in the somewhat rundown and gritty district that Kamiko Kana was using as a base for now.