Balance of Power Shifted (38 page)

Back in the US and o
ver Barnegat Bay, the helicopter pilot recovered quickly and lined up the shooter for another attempt and this time the boat was peppered heavily with the spray of bullets just missing Mike and slamming into the center console which caused Fiona to utter a short scream.  I made an important decision at that point.  Fiona I yelled, “I’m going to run the boat up on that bank over there and we’re going to make a run for that partially collapsed shed by the main building.  You give me the gun and grab the 2-way radio and I will cover you.  Are you ready?”  “Ready” she said as she braced herself for the impact.  Mike gunned the engines and roared to the shore.  About 15 feet from impact, Mike cut the engines and the boat immediately slowed and pushed a wave out front of the boat.  There was some grinding as the boat passed over some cement blocks, but the boat almost gracefully deposited itself on land.  The move caught our chopper friends by surprise, but they quickly recovered.  Fiona was already over the bow and was sprinting towards the building.  I hopped out of the boat, used it as a steadying point, and snapped two shots off at the shooter hanging out of the door.  The way he pulled himself back into the chopper meant either we hit him or a shot came to close for comfort.  Seeing my opportunity, I took off on Fiona’s trail and just threw myself behind a cinder block wall as the next barrage of shots thudded harmlessly into the wall.

Looking around and feeling my adrenaline making my heart
race, I did not see Fiona.  Then I saw a hand waving at me from the shadows of the main building.  Realizing I risked exposure if the helicopter moved overhead, I immediately jumped up and made a second sprint to get inside of the building.  The copter was busy driving more bullets into the boat to make sure we could not escape.  The copter then attempted to land and as we watched it settle to the ground, about 50 yards away, we lost sight of it as the brambles and thick brush hid it from our view.

T
urning back at the sound of Fiona’s voice, I heard her talking to our two Clavis guards we left back at the Marina.  She handed me the radio and said you need to tell them exactly where we are.  Grabbing the portable GPS out of my pocket, I was able to pick out the exact coordinates, gave them to the Clavis people, and told them we are on the old Fish Factory plant and the attackers have just landed on the Island.  Silencing the radio, I looked down on the metal bench I was resting against where I had placed the pistol and said to Fiona, “Lucy you have some splaining to do,” in my best Ricky Ricardo imitation.  Fiona in her best screw you pose said, “Hey a woman got to be able to take care of herself.  Anyway, Ty handled the permit process for me and since I was range certified it was a no brainer.  I suggest you do the same.”  “Well, all I can say is,” I said in a stern voice, “do you have any more ammo clips?”  “Sure do” she said, as patted her day bag.

This place is a disaster I said as I looked around.  Everywhere we looked there were parts of collapsed roof, old rusted equipment and even some ancient huge rusty boilers.  In the far
corner, there were pallets of old gunnysacks with printing on them that stated ‘Fishmeal.’  It looked promising so we headed that way.  We found a nice comfortable position between a couple of pallets that provided us protection and a couple of portals to watch from.  Another thing I liked about our position was that we had a quick escape route out a side door that led through a maze of dock buildings and equipment if needed.

It took about 10 minutes for the attacker
s to come inside, but come they did.  There were three men all carrying what I assumed to be AK 47s.  I did not see the pilot and I knew this since the three stalking us were Arab looking and the pilot had been Caucasian.  The three walked as if they had military training.  Between them, they had a 360-degree view of the room as they walked with their backs to each other.  It was somewhat weird noting that two of them had Izod shirts and expensive leather boat shoes while the third had an un-tucked short sleeve dress shirt.  All had some level of beard on their faces.

It took almost 5 minutes, but they started to angle our way and in about 50 steps would be right up to the pallets of sacks.  When they got about 30 steps closer, I motioned to Fiona to
head towards the door when I opened fired.  I was nervous, so I wanted them as close as possible before I took a shot.  As I was tensing to stand up, some Morning Dove birds were startled from their nesting area about 20 feet over the heads of the three stalkers.  As they all looked towards the noise, I stood up unobserved by them and shot the closet attacker dead center in his chest.  I lined up an Izod shirted attacker to his left and took a shot, but had to drop down when the third one snapped off a shot towards me that hit the sacks about 2 feet away. Once on the ground I used the cover to crawl out the door as a couple of shots went over my head.

Once out the door Fiona waved at me from about 50 feet away and then ducked behind some kind of maintenance shed once she caught my attention.  Running as quickly an
d quietly as I could, I got there and dove in behind some 50-gallon barrels.  Peeking through a gap in the barrels, I did not see anyone following.  The fact that we had a gun and knew how to use it must have given them pause.  About a minute later, one of the Izod shirt people eased his head out.  Not being shot at gave him courage to slip to the other side of the cement dock area and duck behind some crates.  As he had zipped across the area, it was noticeable that he had a serious shoulder or arm wound on his left side.  I had a sense of satisfaction from tagging him with my last shot.

As I
lay there, I signaled to Fiona by using the fingers on my hand that there was one person in sight.  Using two of my fingers and pointing them to my eyes and then pointing them behind us, I indicated to her to keep watch that way.  She then shifted into better cover so that she could watch without showing herself.  I did not have much choice, since this was the only vantage point I could watch the wounded person from.

Fiona thought to herself how it was her gun Mike had, and she wished she had it back.  Her instructors had been impressed with her accuracy and when allowed onto the
police-training course where civilian and perpetrator pop-up targets were, she had an uncanny ability to hit only the bad guys.  Her adrenaline was pumping in high gear and she was surprised at herself that she was not feeling any real fear, but just confidence that she could handle herself and get out of this situation alive.  Now if only the damn biting black flies would leave her alone since she could not smack them without giving away their location. 

Five minutes went by
, then ten.  All of a sudden, she sensed some movement behind her.   Slowly turning her head as not to draw attention to her movement, she saw one of their attackers carefully walking towards where Mike’s legs were sticking out.  Completely focused, he had no idea that she was only about four feet behind him.  Gently picking up a short piece of thick pipe with a heavy elbow screwed onto the end, she eased herself out of her concealment and started to follow the assassin.  She got to 2-steps behind him when either he sensed her or saw a shadow, but immediately spun around.  Sensing that the jig was up, Fiona let go a roundhouse swing that caught the attacker high up on his left arm with an audible thud.  To the thugs credit he did not make any sound for what was obviously a painful hit.  He did however use the gun in his right hand to smack Fiona in the side of her head.  Sensing this, Fiona absorbed the hit and countered with a kick to the attacker’s right knee joint that collapsed him to the ground.  This time he uttered a single word, which she assumed was a curse in a foreign language.

There was one big problem however for Fiona. W
hen the assailant collapsed, he did so by sitting straight down with the gun pointing directly at her.  At the end of her move, she remained about three feet from him and could not strike him before he shot.  She was just about to make a mad dive to the side when the gunman’s head exploded like a ripe tomato with some of the gore ending up peppering her face and clothes.  Fiona watched in slow motion as the body, forced forward by the shot, slowly reverse direction and reclined backwards, settling face up to the cloudless skies.

Mike, after taking the shot, quickly turned back to the still hidden assailant.  Not hearing his partner declaring victory the attacker must have assumed the worst since he got up and bolted back into the plant. 
Mike tracked him and took a shot, but it ricocheted off a large piece of machinery allowing him to get away.  We stayed still just in case, but less than 10 minutes later the sound of a helicopter taking off allowed us to have a huge sigh of relief.

With the helicopter gone,
I got up, walked over to Fiona, and hugged her for a few minutes until the adrenaline waned enough for our pulses to get back to normal.  Using the radio, we let the Clavis team know what happened and got an update that a couple of State Marine Police and a chopper were on the way, as well as the Clavis crew in a rented boat.  Before I could even sign off on the radio, the sound of a much larger helicopter filled the air and using our binoculars, could see the New Jersey State Police markings.  We came out into an open area and waved at them, which got their attention, but it looked like they were going to have to land where the attacker’s chopper had landed.  Ten minutes later, we were reliving what happened with three troopers and showed then where the bodies were and what was left of our boat.

The Clavis guys showed up a half hour later
by boat.  Apparently they were not very good navigators and ran aground just outside one of the channel markers.  After talking to the State Police, the Clavis people called us over to where the first dead person was.  Pointing to a small electronic object on the ground, they explained that the device could track the location of a cell phone with the help of someone in the phone company.  This is how they found you, and most likely, they have been tracking you for a while.  “Can I see your phones?” the lead Clavis guy asked.  We handed them over and he shut them completely down by removing the batteries.  “We are going to get you some clean throw away phones for you to use in the interim,” he assured us.

A couple hours later
, we were still on the island as well as 30 other police, CSI and even some DHS people.  Our old friend Agent Morgan and two other FBI agents were also here. Helicopters bearing the symbols of major news networks were circling the island for the last hour and denied landing on the island while the investigation was on going.  Finally, with night falling agent Morgan gave us a ride in the FBI chopper and flew us to their heliport.  From there, he gave us a ride back to Picatinny Arsenal, which was still looking like the most secure spot to hang.

The Clavis
escort was going to meet us again tomorrow with fresh phones to continue our search for a production site.  Fiona was still struggling to calm down.  The events of the day had made her angry and she needed something to move it to the back of her mind instead of the forefront.  She decided to go online and look at commercial properties that could meet their needs.  In less than 15-minutes, she came across a yacht manufacturing location that was up for sale since the economy had driven the company out of business.  It was located in New Gretna, New Jersey and was located right on the Bass River.  Fiona Googled maps of the area and saw that the site was ideal for transportation.  It was a pricey, but what a beautiful and tranquil location.  Printing the real estate sheets of the site to the wireless printer, she picked them up and dropped them in Mike’s lap as the nightly news was starting and sat down next to him on the couch and said, “Take a look.”

Mike started to
page through the color real estate brochures, and got more excited with each document.  Reaching up with his right hand in a fist, he indicated to Fiona to give him a fist bump.  As she did, he said, “This is the place we want.  We should send the realtor and email tonight saying we will be in the area tomorrow morning and are interested in looking at the property.”   Looking at Fiona, he straight faced asked, “Why couldn’t you have found this a day earlier?”  She was about to respond when the lead news story caught her eye and she pointed to the television for Rico to see.  They both watched in fascination as a helicopter panned the entire Fish Island with close ups of the shot up boat while the announcer, in an excited voice, provided the audience with an accurate portrayal of today’s events.  There were a couple shots of the Efficio headquarters building with the battle-scarred front as the newscaster linked the attacks today to an ongoing effort to take out key Efficio management by unknown parties in an effort to limit the proliferation of Electricus.

The rest of the coverage was limited since the police had not released any specifics.  We were just about to start talking about the news coverage when the announcer stated
, “Stay tuned for a related story when we return.”  Fiona and I looked at each other and were speculating what it might be when the news program resumed.  As soon as we saw the first camera shot, we knew what it was about and I especially castigated myself for not remembering.  A cameraman was panning a new development of town homes while the reporter talked about what they were seeing.  It was about a five minute piece but in it they showed outtakes of the insides of the building and showed how there were no power hookups from any power utility and explained how Electricus was providing all the power needs at a  cost of…nada.  The last minute was of our buddy Max, his daughter and Gisele with Amy our public relations person and the local mayor who was designated to pick the names of one hundred lucky people who would be able to purchase these low income housing units for well below market value.  All lottery entrants went through a prescreening process against eligibility requirements.  Two women who were lucky lottery winners fainted in dramatic fashion and many tears were visible on others.  By the end of the vignette, Fiona and I were holding hands with tears in both of our eyes as we both had just reaffirmed why we were chancing injury or death to bring Electricus forward.