RESTORATION (a science fiction novel) (RESTORATION (the science fiction trilogy)) (72 page)

She was already devastated at having to see her dead husband being carried out of their charred kitchen in a body bag, it was just too much,
they were all ready for this whole thing to be over with.  After their reunion she met his clone, DC, and they all got a good laugh when she hugged him for a long time and then felt his arms and shoulders with a big grin on her face.  It was quite hilarious and the jokes went on for a while about who was bunking with whom tonight. 

Now, down the hall, DC lay silently staring at the ceiling by
himself.  He had all the same feelings for Linsey that Dodge had for her, yet he had to lay there alone until morning.  He longed for that time to come.  He knew that the sooner he fell asleep the sooner he would wake up having remembered spending the entire night with Linsey just like Dodge was right now.  When morning came, he too would share the memory.  It was a strange feeling for both of them, there was no jealousy at all, it wasn’t like that, it was a pure feeling of total harmony that couldn’t be explained.

The whole Surrogate and Clone situation had taken another humorous turn earlier that evening.  Nearly everyone had witnessed JC and John getting into a heated debate about the plan of attack.  Everyone had stopped what they were doing and just looked at them both while grinning.  It was only then that both of them realized the humor in it. 

John looked around at everyone.
         “Haven’t any of you argued with yourself before?”  The whole room erupted into laughter and then Dodge suggested that they both     “sleep on it” which caused another wave of laughter.  Everyone knew what happened when a clone and surrogate slept.  It would be impossible for them to disagree in the morning.

Over the past several days, Alan and two of the Black Ops weapons experts had spent almost thirty hours each putting the finishing touches on the three military vehicles in their private arsenal.  They were in very good working order now and all the guns were loaded, oiled and ready to go.  It was down to just a few hours now, so Alan spent about two hours checking over things one last time to be sure he hadn’t missed anything. 

Before daylight they would be leaving to get into their positions for the attack later in the morning.  John had obtained special permits for the vehicles to be on the road by hacking into a database of museum curators and finding that there was an armament show down in Tennessee the following weekend.  He added their three vehicles to the list of those that would be traveling in the area to the show down south. 

This clever move insured that there would be no trouble with law enforcement if they happened to get stopped on the way to Indy from Lapel.  Their I.D. papers and permits would all check out as civilians transporting show pieces to the special event down south.  Even the men in the back of the truck had permits to be there as actors posing as soldiers to bring realism to their exhibit. 

Alan was drifting off to sleep now, looking forward to the action he was about to face.  He couldn’t wait to unleash some good old fashioned justice on Cyrus Slade and anyone that dared to stand with that bastard when they got there.  He felt strong and he felt confident that when the smoke cleared they would be the victors.

Before the dawns early light, Alan and five members of the Black Ops team were piloting the two humvees and the five ton.  The six men piloting the three trucks pulled into the warehouse four blocks west of the old foundry just as the sun was cresting the horizon.  They radioed as they approached and an overhead door on the west side went up.  They drove in and the door closed quickly behind their vehicles.

Inside they were greeted by eighteen men that had already arrived.  The Captain of the Team was standing in front of a large digiboard speaking with a few of the men that had gathered.  He was sipping on a steaming cup of black coffee.  He paused when he spotted Alan Kerrington, he immediately approached Alan and saluted him in true military form.  Alan reciprocated the gesture, after which they relaxed and shook hands. 

“Hello Major Kerrington, it’s a pleasure and an honor to see you again Sir” he said while still shaking Alan’s hand vigorously.  Some of the other men nearby paused to see what was going on.
         “Thank you again for your incredible service to our country and of course to my family, I just want to say I consider it an honor to serve alongside you today.”
         “Thank you Captain, the pleasure is mine, I’m just glad to be here to help.”  Alan walked over to get a cup of coffee from the table on the far side of the room and one of the team members asked the Captain who Alan was. 
         “That’s a true American Hero there boys, his platoon was deployed into Iraq after 9/11.  They got cut off from their support for six days.  Alan and one other member of their platoon were the only ones left when it was over.  They were under fire for twenty-six hours straight and took out fifty-eight enemy combatants between the two of them.  When they finally walked out of it and back towards their own camp they had both sustained gunshot wounds.  As a result his comrade almost didn’t make it.  Major Kerrington carried him on his back for the last twelve miles.  That man was my Father.  My Father would tell that story to me and my brother over and over and just shake his head in wonder.  How did Alan carry him that far with a bullet in his own thigh?  My Father died years later from lung cancer. Alan Kerrington came to the funeral.  He’s the only one left now from his platoon, got the purple heart alongside my Father for what they did.  Alan knew they were talking about him so he went the other way and started looking at the trucks again. 

He appreciated their thoughts but he didn’t like talking about what happened in Iraq, it was just too painful to go back into those memories.  He didn’t even bring it up with his own family because it was in the past and he only did there what any man who loved his country would have done.  He knew that he had a lot of luck and the good Lord above watching over him during that mess. 

The rest of the team members had arrived now and were standing around in groups talking a bit and drinking coffee.  It was almost 6:30 a.m., John and Dodge were just arriving in a black van and there were two more Black Ops vans behind them with the rest of the technical crew.  The tech crew was those people that would not be actually going into the compound, they would be manning the command post running interference for those on the inside just in case any law enforcement personnel or emergency workers were to enter the perimeter or cause any problems. 

Tech would have the ability to divert law enforcement, change traffic signals on command, hijack security cams, reroute fire trucks and ambulance runs, just about anything they might need that required a geek.  They had already planned several elaborate diversions including two fires and one convenience store robbery just in case it was a slow day for law enforcement and they happened to be in the area.

Bobby volunteered to help watch monitors and bring drinks to anyone that needed one.  Caitlin, Linsey, Sarah, Matt, and Jason were all back at the farm and would also be watching monitors.  Each person had several team members assigned to them.  They would watch their backs as best they could.  All the team members had front and rear helmet cams.  Those watching monitors were patched into their ear pieces.  If there was any danger approaching them from behind their spotter would warn them.  They literally had eyes on the backs of their heads. 

“Attention everyone,” the Black Ops Team
Captain was calling everyone to the command area.

“Please everyone, gather in.  First I want to thank each of you for being here today,
you’re about to become part of history in the next few hours.  Welcome to the final stage of Operation Black Ice.” 

Everyone started clapping and it went on for a few seconds until the
Captain raised his hands to get them quiet again.
         “We appreciate your enthusiasm, now let’s get down to business.  This operation is very unique as it’s the first ever covert operation to be carried out by 100% civilian forces.  Our team that is assembled here today has many elite members and former military and law enforcement members within it but not one of us is still a government employee or a local law enforcement employee.  For one reason or another all of our jobs were eliminated.” 

“Our government thought they didn’t need our services any longer, we were considered outdated in a time of peace, in a time of high technology they thought that we as people were antiquated and that they could replace us with machines that could keep an eye on things.  The trouble is the machines don’t have a conscience and they can be easily reprogrammed by the likes of Cyrus Slade and his partner Glitch.” 

“What we’re about to do here today will be the first of its kind but probably not the last.  Let’s hope our government will wake up and realize the danger we’re all in and how insecure our country is and then reinstate the organizations that we need to protect our country.  More than ever intellectual property has become the most valuable asset we as mankind possess and there will be ever increasing attempts to obtain total control over it.” 

“I would also like to mention that without Mr. Dodge Kerrington, and Mr. John Calhoun, none of this would be possible today, they have fathered this entire technology and Mr. Calhoun has single handedly financed this entire operation.”  Another short round of applause broke out.
         “All right everyone this is it, the final stage of Operation Black Ice is on!  Everyone to your post, LETS MOVE OUT!” 

As the group began to disperse, the
Captain gave one more order.

“Everyone channel up on your com links, take your orders from your team leaders, you know what to do.”  Twenty-five men armed with old school M-16s and also modern LRPs (laser rifle repeaters) loaded up in the back of the five ton.  They had been tagged Team Chaos, they would be the last to go in and lay waste to any combatants that remained to stand with Slade. 

Alan, DC and JC, all loaded up in the lead humvee along with the team Captain, they were dubbed Team Talon.  Their mission was to go in moving very quietly and moving as deep into the compound toward Cyrus and Glitch as possible in order to thwart any escape attempts.  They had no desire to take Cyrus or Glitch alive but they had all agreed to do so if they surrendered completely without a fight. 

The four Navy Seals loaded up in the second humvee, they were Team Tranquil and they would be going in first and followed by team Talon.  Their mission was to open
doors, snap a few necks if necessary and be very quiet doing it.  They were to locate Toby, Todd, and Alice and assist them with getting as many people into the oven as possible.  Two of them would go inside the oven with the group to protect them while the other two seals would take up sniper positions outside the oven somewhere on the foundry floor or rafters if possible to protect the oven from Cyrus and his men.

It was go time.  John was busy at the main computer console opening up communications with Toby on the inside.  They had kept this to minimum until now for fear of being detected but now it was almost irrelevant as the attack would be launched in a matter of minutes and any curious signal that might warrant an investigation would soon become less important in the midst of complete full scale attack. 

They had to warn their people on the inside of the impending attack to allow them as much time as possible to get people into the oven.  John loaded and started video feeds that two of the Black Ops team members had been working on for weeks.  The feeds were a random variety of old recordings from the compound that they had digitally edited, cut, and merged into feeds that would seem like normal activities within the compound.  These were now playing on all the monitors in the compounds main security office.  To the guards watching these feeds they appeared to be live streaming video.  Meanwhile the attack would be going on and they would never realize that the feeds were fakes until it was too late.  The same feeds were sent to Cyrus and Glitch’s offices just in case they might be watching the security cams.

Dodge was at the computer cluster next to John’s.  His job would be to guide both of their Clones, JC and DC, and Alan in and through the compound, he would be their helmet cam eyes and he would also be looking through the compound ahead of them by moving from camera to camera.  He had been practicing
with the cameras anytime he could squeeze it in and he had gotten fairly good at it.

Understanding the layout of the compound was important and he had it down really well.  They also had a large video screen that displayed the various teams call names in color coded dots with their initials in the center of the dot.  The dots were moving on the video screen that also displayed a graphical representation of the compound floor plan and levels so that Dodge could see each
members exact position at a glance.  It was a very helpful tool that would allow quick strategy decisions to be made by simply looking at the screen.

The trucks moved out of the warehouse single file and then split up as they neared the compound, the first wave had begun.  John and one of the
Captains right-hand men
         “Temple” everyone called him
         “Temp” were at the main console.
         “Black Ice Teams radio check” Temp said into his headset.”
         “Team Tranquil?”
         “copy”
         “Team Chaos?”
         “copy”
         “Team Talon?”
         “copy.”