She almost knocked him down.  The “old Terry” would have been on the floor… probably with a concussion… when she did the flying tackle through the doorway.  But the “new Dirk” caught her and spun her in his arms.  Sherry was crying and kissing him.  He didn’t know what to think. 

“Oh my gosh, Terry… Dirk… whatever.  Oh my…  I missed you so much.  There was so much I’d wanted to tell you, and then you were gone.”  She started crying again.

“Why don’t you guys come inside.  This is incredible.  What a wonderful surprise.  How long are you here?” Terry asked.

Amy replied, “At least through the weekend.  It depends on how long you want us here.  School doesn’t start for another few days.”

“I just can’t believe I’m here.  Amy told me yesterday that she had a surprise for me and told me to pack some clothes for a little trip.  She gave me a list of what to pack and said we were going to have some fun.  She told me that she hated to see me moping around, but she knew how to lift my spirits.  I could never have imagined…”

“I’m really glad you are here, too, Sherry.  I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather see.”

“And you look so different, but your eyes.  Oh, how I have missed your eyes.”

Jack and Amy got up, “hey guys, we’ll let you talk for a few minutes.  We’ll see what we can whip up in the kitchen.”

“Terry… or do you want me to call you Dirk?”

“I guess you should call me Dirk, but I love hearing you say my old name.”

“After what Amy told me, I need to get used to calling you Dirk.  I would hate to have habit take over at the wrong time and blow your cover.  But I have to tell you something.”

She was sitting next to him on the couch.  She turned to face him and reached out to turn his face straight to hers.  She gently stroked his cheek.

“I missed you so much.  When I heard that you’d died, I was so full of regret.  I wanted to go out with you so bad.  I wanted to tell you.  Every time I rode in your car, I wanted to hold your hand.”

“Sherry, I had a crush on you for years, but always thought you were out of reach.  It always seemed like you were carrying a torch for someone else,” Dirk replied.  He pointed toward the kitchen and gave her a conspiratorial wink.

“I’m not going to lie to you, I did for a while.  But that fully died the night Jack asked Amy out for the first time.  But even before that it wasn’t much of a real crush.  I thought he was cute… he’s still cute… and he’s funny and stuff, but you were always so nice to everyone.  And you have always been really funny.  And the way you treated me… I always felt like a queen around you.  And the more I was around you, the more I wanted to be your queen.”

“Wow… that was… unexpected.”

“I’m so sorry.  I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable…”

“No, that isn’t it.  I wanted to ask you out so many times… and I was always afraid you’d say no and then our friendship would deteriorate.  And I put so much value in our friendship that I was afraid to risk it.  When I left Hampton, the one person that I didn’t want to leave was you.” Sherry leaned into Dirk and kissed him passionately.  And he held her the way he’d wanted to for so long.  As they embraced, they heard Amy shout from the kitchen that lunch was ready.  They headed into the kitchen for tacos. 

Saturday, 27 August 1983

Dirk had an amazing week.  He and Sherry, along with Jack and Amy spent the week doing a bunch of the tourist things he hadn’t been able to do in July.  They rode the Durango-Silverton Railway to Silverton and spent the day walking around and hanging out in the old silver mining town.  They hiked a few of the peaks around Durango.  They went to Mesa Verde National Park and hiked to some of the cliff dwellings.

Having people actually call him Dirk, which Amy and Jack were getting in the habit of doing, as was Sherry, helped him transform himself into his new identity.  When Sherry told him that she had to make herself think of him as “Dirk” so that she didn’t accidently blurt out the name “Terry” at the wrong time, that actually sunk in.  He’d been thinking of himself as “Terry, playing Dirk” like an actor.  But he realized that there were people that wanted to kidnap or kill Terry… and Dirk was a survival mechanism that he needed to embrace. 

As the week closed, it was time for Sherry, Amy and Jack to leave and head back to Hampton.  Sherry had classes starting up at William and Mary, while Amy and Jack had classes starting at Christopher Newport Community College. 

Dirk stood on the apron at the Durango-La Plata County Airport, by the General Aviation Terminal.  Sherry was giving him a last kiss, with Jack and Amy boarding the Gulfstream G III behind her. 

“I want you to be free, Dirk.  I could fall in love with you, but I also want you to be ready to fall in love with me.  You’ve never had a girlfriend before… and unless I’m wrong, you never kissed a girl before me.”

“Well, I…”

“It’s ok, actually, it’s kind of wonderful.  But I don’t want you to wonder what it’s like to kiss another girl when you are with me.  Even Jack has kissed other girls.”

“And then what?”

“When you come back to Hampton, or maybe when I come out here to visit you again, let’s see if you feel the same way.”

He kissed Sherry again.

“Have fun,” she said, “but not too much fun,” as she flashed a serious look, followed by another smile.

She climbed the stairs to the plane, turned and waved. 

As Dirk drove back to the house in the Jeep CJ-7, he thought long and hard about what Sherry said.  Classes started in two days.  It was going to be a new experience.  But, in the meantime, he had work to catch up on. 

***

“I love him, Amy.  It’s as simple as that,” Sherry told her friend.

“Did you tell him?” she replied.

“No.  I couldn’t.  If I did, he would have told me that he loved me, and I think things would have been great for a while, but the ‘long-distance’ thing would have gotten in the way and I think in the end we would have both been miserable.  Instead I told him to have fun.”

“So, the ‘If you love someone, set them free’ theory?”

“I guess.  But, Amy, he’d never kissed a girl… I mean unless you count that one time on the playground in fifth grade when that girl dared me to kiss him and I pecked his lips at light speed.  He’s never been on a date.  He’s never had a girlfriend.  I want to be the only girl he thinks about, but I want it to be his choice.”

“Seems risky, Sherry.  I don’t want to set Jack free,” Amy said, laughing a little.

“It’s different.  You had another boyfriend.  Jack had a bunch of girlfriends before you.  But through it all, you guys wanted each other.  I want Dirk to kiss a girl and think of me,” she said, “then, he better stop kissing her and fall in love with me, though.”

***

The next day, Dirk went to his favorite restaurant in Durango, the one with the cute waitress that flirted with him.  It was the day he was going to ask her out.  He sat at his normal table and ordered his normal dinner.  She was, as normal, his waitress.  

“Mary,” Dirk asked, “I was wondering if you might want to go out sometime… maybe grab lunch or something.”

“Sure, Dirk.  I have school tomorrow, but maybe after?”

“Fort Lewis College?” he asked.

“Yeah…”

“Me, too.  Hey, what about if we have lunch.  I’m free from twelve-thirty until two,” Dirk told Mary.

“Meet me at one in the commons.  We can get something and hang out.”

They met for lunch, then went to dinner on Wednesday.  Dirk got his wish and kissed her.  And it was fun.  But over the next few weeks, as they went out once, twice or even three times each week, he started really missing Sherry.  He also found that he really liked hanging out with Mary, but it was more of a friendship than a romance.  Luckily, when he talked to her about it, she agreed. 

He dated a few other girls… never taking them to Mary’s restaurant, and if he enjoyed spending time with them at all, he didn’t seem to be romantically interested in them.  Some, although they were beautiful, he just didn’t like hanging out with them.  He was excited for Christmas Break.  Sherry was flying out to Denver and he was picking her up.  He couldn’t wait. 

Terry squeezed her hand.  Chrissy patted the back of Terry’s hand with her other hand.  She let Terry know she was going to turn off the lights and dim the room, and not to try to open his eyes until it was dimmer. 

Chrissy Prince walked over to Terry’s bedside and got the water bottle.

“Here, Honey, let me give you a little squirt of water before you try to talk,” Chrissy said to him. 

His eyes fluttered open a little.  He saw Amy’s mother standing over him, smiling sadly.  She ran her hand over his forehead. 

“What happened?” Terry said softly after getting a little water to help moisturize his mouth. 

“You were attacked, Terry,” Chrissy gently told him.  “Bill had a team trying to keep an eye on you because he was worried, but the attackers got into your house.  They were able to get you on the way out.”

“How long was I out?”

“Twelve days, Honey,” she said.  “We were terribly worried about you.  Amy and Jack have been here each evening after school, and Sharon Dixon or I have been here the rest of the time.”

“What about my parents?”

“They didn’t make it.  The people that attacked you killed them.”

Chrissy saw the tears forming in his eyes and starting to well from the corners. 

“I’m so sorry, Terry.  I know this can’t be easy.”

He started trying to get out of bed.  “I need to see them.”

Chrissy was crying with him now.  “I wish you could, but the funerals were almost a week ago.  Please don’t try to get up.  You need to heal.”

Terry had a lot of things to work through.  He was angry that Bill’s team hadn’t been able to save his parents, then he moved on to his own role… had he not hacked into the DoD, none of this would have happened.  He had much more than survivor’s guilt.  Chrissy spent several hours talking through things with him, knowing he was going to need to talk to someone professionally.  Her husband had already arranged that, as well as some other things to help Terry get through the next few weeks and months.  After school, Amy and Jack showed up. 

Terry didn’t know that he was dead, yet.  That needed to wait until he was ready. 

Wednesday, 10 August 1983

Terry walked into the kitchen of the house he was staying at in Durango, Colorado.  As he sat in the kitchen, he looked out over the ranch in the valley below.  There was a herd of cows grazing in the late summer sun.  It had peeked over the ridge behind him a little while before, bathing the valley in golden light. 

He was still working to get over the shock of everything that had happened to him.  His parents were gone.  He was officially dead and learning about his new identity.  Steve, Ed and Bill had sat around a conference table with him one day and he picked a name… Dirk Bryce.  It had been in early May, and he still wasn’t used to it. 

He was starting at Fort Lewis College in a couple of weeks.  Sharon Dixon’s parents owned the house he was staying in and he’d agreed with Ed, Bill and Gunny that he needed to stay out of the Hampton area for a year… maybe more.  Bill and Steve set him up with a full computer system so he could work from here when he wasn’t in school and Bill had also hired a personal trainer for him. 

It had been a rough summer so far.  He started the summer unable to walk unassisted, and in therapy to deal with depression.  At the end of June, Amy and Jack had come out for a whole month.  They were among a very small group of people that knew he hadn’t actually died in the house explosion.  And when they came out, they helped him with cooking, cleaning and getting to his physical therapy and emotional therapy appointments.  He loved having them around… a positive reminder of his old life. 

There were so many things that had changed since April.  Back then he couldn’t run a hundred yards without worrying about a heart attack… not exactly something that a nineteen-year-old should be thinking.  Now he ran five miles in the mountains three days a week.  He lifted weights another three days a week.  Sundays was his off day… and the day he would splurge on eating out and all the other unhealthy things that had ruled his life before… especially ice cream. 

He’d gone from two-seventy-five down to one-ninety, and a forty-six-inch waist to a thirty-six.  He had to replace his entire wardrobe, which he’d done on a trip to Denver with Jack and Amy.  And after the plastic surgery to slightly alter his face, he had a whole new style.  He noticed that girls looked at him… he even flirted with one of the waitresses in town on Sundays when he went out to dinner.  Amy had urged him to ask her out, but he didn’t know if he was ready for that quite yet. 

Dirk’s life was different from Terry’s in so many ways.  As Dirk he had completely different struggles, but even though so many things were wonderful, there were still struggles.  And he knew the struggles wouldn’t be going away any time soon.  Today was weight day…  He had his morning health shake and was ready to set out for the college, about fifteen minutes away, for his time in the weight room.  After three hours in the weight room he would shower in the locker room and meet his trainer for lunch.  After lunch he had his weekly appointment with his therapist to talk about his depression and guilt.  He would be back home by three to sit down and work for a while, depending on the workload. 

“Three to team, I have one bogey exiting the side door.  Second bogey in the doorway.”

“Three, this is Alpha, let all four get out, then take all four of them out of the game as fast as possible.”

“Roger, Alpha.”

The van was almost directly down the driveway from the house now.  Gino emerged from cover to have a better angle.  He was about fifty yards away.  The first two bogies took up guard positions as the other two bogies emerged, dragging someone.  From the size, Two and Three assumed it was Terry Gates.  As soon as the last two bogies emerged, Bobby and Gino decided who would get each of them.  They timed their shots to drop both of them at the same time. 

“Two, I have Terry’s left, you get his right.  Then take the rear guard, I’ll have the front.”

“Roger, Three.  Shooting in three, two, one…”

With the reports happening almost simultaneously, both men dragging the subject dropped to the ground.  Inside of three seconds, as both of the other bogies turned toward their comrades, both of them also dropped to the ground. 

Ronny rushed toward the subject to check on him.  Gino was moving toward the van. Suddenly its side door opened and the man in the back started firing.  Ronny dropped to the ground.  A second later, a Jeep Scrambler slammed head on into the front of the van.  Gino was in position to shoot the man from the back of the van as he was thrown out the door. 

And then the house exploded. 

“What the hell just happened?” Bobby yelled into his radio.  “We just saw what looked like an explosion in your direction.  Anyone?”

“Roger that.  We have had an explosion.  Shit’s going down here.  We have five bogies confirmed down.  The driver of the van is probably down, too.  I’m going to check on Three, and then I need to check on the subject and Omega.  The house has exploded.  After I check on Omega, I’m going in to check if there is anyone inside,” Gino reported. 

“This is Three, I’m hit, but it was in the vest.  It hurts, but I’m ok.  Going to check subject now.  Two, check Omega and verify the driver.  We can go in after that.”

Gino diverted to check on Ed in his Jeep.  As he approached the Jeep, Ed stepped out and slumped to the ground by his back tire. 

“That was NOT fun.  I’m ok, though,” Ed told his teammate.  But he also seemed kind of woozy and had trouble moving. 

Gino moved toward the driver.  He was unconscious and looked like he might be dead.  As he got closer to the van, though, it became apparent that he was dead.  He hadn’t been wearing a seat belt and the collision had thrown him into the dash and windshield.  He had massive trauma to the face and was covered in blood.  And the detonator was sitting on the floor next to him. 

“I need the big kit, Two!  I have Terry Gates here and he’s hit.”

Gino was getting ready to head toward the house to check inside but diverted back to the surveillance van.  He grabbed Ronny’s “big kit” and ran toward where the medic was working on Terry.  Bill’s Porsche 911 came screaming around the corner toward the house, no attempt being made at stealth anymore.  He leapt from the car and headed straight toward the house. 

As Bill entered the house, Gunny’s truck came around the opposite corner.  As he slid to a stop, Melody was out of the truck in the lead, Gunny following.  They also headed toward the house. 

Bill had just about removed the front door from its hinges when he slammed into it.  The resistance of the door slowed him some, but not completely.  He looked around.  There were a few flames downstairs, but mostly it had looked like concussion damage.  Several walls were blown out, as were all the windows.  He ran up the stairs, yelling for Bea and Bob.  In the upstairs hallway, he checked the first room, shining a flashlight to make sure there wasn’t anyone in the room.  Melody was just a step behind and took up point on the next room as Bill peered into the first.  Gunny took up the third bedroom. 

When Gunny opened the third bedroom, the door was severely damaged.  As he went to step inside, he saw a gaping hole in the floor.  Much of the bedroom had collapsed into the dining room below.  He shined the light around, and then down into the hole.  He saw the wreckage of a bed in the hole.  He turned and ran back toward the stairs, telling Melody and Bill along the way that the master bedroom was gone. 

He ran down the stairs, turned and raced through the living room and kitchen and into the dining room at the back corner of the house.  The remains of the bed had spilled through the ceiling of the room, along with other furniture.  As Bill, then Melody arrived behind him, he started wading into the room, picking up everything in his way, looking for signs of the other two residents. 

***

Ronny was working on Terry.  He’d been sleeping in a pair of gym shorts, and that was all he had on now.  He surveyed the young man.  He had a gunshot would going in the side of his leg, and a large contusion on the back of his head, probably from a rifle butt.  He also had what appeared to be a grazing wound to his shoulder from a gunshot.  Pulse was steady. 

He began by checking for an exit wound on his leg.  When he found that, he knew the bullet wasn’t still inside.  He bandaged up the leg to slow the bleeding. 

“Three to team, any news on the parents?” Ronny asked while he worked on Terry.

“Still looking,” Gunny replied. 

***

Two police cars turned the corner, lights flashing.  The first cop jumped from his vehicle and the first person he saw was Ed Dixon, still propped up by the back tire of the Jeep.  Ed had pulled out his FBI shield and ID as soon as he heard the sirens. 

Ed held up the fake ID as the cop cautiously approached him. 

“Officer, you need to pull back.  Secure the area from both ends of the street and get me Detectives Morelli and Odgers.  I’ll direct everything until they get here.”

“But, Sir…”

“Don’t start.  Just do what you’re told.”

Intimidated by the authority the injured man exuded, Officer Jackson called the other police officer.  After a moment’s consultation, he went around the block to the other side of the scene and parked in the middle of the road.  Jackson then got on the radio to have dispatch get in touch with the two detectives.  He came back to see if Agent Dixon needed anything but was told to just keep everyone away.  It was almost five on a Sunday morning.  There wouldn’t be many people out and about, but with the noise and commotion, there could be some. 

A helicopter set down in the middle of the street, between the wrecked van and the other cop car.  Officer Jackson watched as one of the men exited the chopper with a stretcher and ran between the houses and out of sight.  He returned a moment later with another man, carrying a stretcher with a person on it.  They ran to the chopper and slid the stretcher into the back.  Then the man that had jumped out of the chopper ran into the house. 

A fire truck and ambulance pulled up as Bobby ran into the house.  The passenger in the fire truck, Captain Norman, ran toward the house to get a read on the situation.  Hampton, having a mostly volunteer fire department, only had a couple of guys on the truck. 

One of the Emergency Medical Technicians from the ambulance ran up to Ed to start checking him out.  The other driver ran to the helicopter, where he could see there was another person being worked on.  He jumped up inside and began assisting Ronny as he continued working on Terry Gates. 

***

Inside the house, the Fire Captain saw all the action in the dining room and checked in.  The house had been searched, there were two possible victims in the rubble of this portion of the house.  He radioed out to his crew to get some guys in with tools to help dig through the rubble. 

As soon as the fire crew came in with pry bars and started moving heavier items, they found the last two victims.  Gunny reached down and grabbed Bea Gates hand.  It was cold and lifeless.  Then he saw Bob Gates pajama clad leg.  It was also cold. 

Gunny asked them to keep digging, but he walked outside the door and jogged over to Ed.

“Boss, I’m pretty sure the parents are both dead.  We don’t have them out yet, but I was able to touch them, and the bodies were cold.  I think we need to send Terry.  I think we also need to clamp down on these rescue workers so that word doesn’t get out about what happened here.”

“I have Morelli and Odgers coming… at least dispatch was supposed to call them to the scene. 

“And Boss, you need to go with Terry to the hospital.  You need treatment.  Bill’s here, he can take over the scene.”

“I’m ok.”

Gunny picked Ed up and let him know that he was going on the helicopter.  He could argue, but that would result in another injury. 

***

Bobby jumped back in the co-pilot seat of the helicopter.  Gunny lifted Ed into the back where Ronny was still working on Terry.  Pat Willem, the EMT and driver of the ambulance turned and started checking out Ed.

“Willem,” Ronny said, loudly to be heard over the chopper’s engine, “stay or go, we’re heading out.”

“I’m staying, Sir.  It looks like you need some help.”

Ronny handed him a set of headphones from the rack behind him.  He handed him a second set for Ed.  Gunny closed the door and started backing away. 

Ed got on the intercom, “Langley is closest, three minutes.”

Bobby got on the helicopter’s radio and made the needed arrangements to fly to the medical center. 

***

The fire crew was able to uncover Bea and Bob Gates.  Bill saw immediately that their throats had been cut.  They were both murdered while they slept.  Captain Norman was getting ready to head out and get the police officer outside.  Bill stopped him.  He pulled out his FBI ID and told him that there was a national security threat and that they needed to keep this quiet. 

He still called in the remaining EMT from the ambulance to verify that both of the victims inside were dead.  After that he was instructed to check on the six men outside that had been involved in the attempted abduction.  They were all also confirmed dead. 

Odgers arrived on scene around five-thirty.  Things had gotten busy.  The Medical Examiner’s office had to send over all their vans… they didn’t normally have eight people on a single scene that were all dead.  The police had several squad cars on scene and were keeping everyone inside their homes.  Even though not all of what was happening fit the narrative, the official story was that there had been a natural gas explosion in the Gates home.  No mention was made of the six Asian men dead outside the house, the wrecked van or the wrecked Jeep in front of the house. 

Caution tape had been strung around the house, as well as police tape around the yard.  Reporters were kept at bay, but they hadn’t shown up until the bodies had all been removed. 

By nine, all the vehicles had been towed or driven away… the only thing remaining was the damaged house, which had been boarded up, and was still wrapped in caution and crime scene tape. 

***

“Pat Willem?” Bill said as he walked into the waiting room at the Langley Medical Center.

“Yes, Sir.”

“Bill Prince.  I want to talk to you about what happened this morning.  First, what’s your take?”

“Looked like a military operation to me.  I didn’t see much, but if Ronny Torres isn’t a Navy Medic, I’m blind.  The helicopter pilot flew like he was Special Forces.  And coming onto a military base the way we did…  it just screams special ops to me.”

“I guess you were in the military?”

“Yes, Sir.  Ranger.”

“Medic in the Army?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Well, nothing you saw today can be talked about, and certainly not those observations you just told me.”

“Can you tell me what happened?”

Gunny had walked up during the exchange, “Not today, Willem, but perhaps we can have lunch later in the week and talk about it.  But for now, I have a guy that can give you a ride back to the station.”

Gunny got Patrick Willem’s number and sent him back to the station with an Airman from the base. 

***

The following day there were several news items, both on TV and in the local newspaper, the Peninsula Pilot, saying that a family of three had been killed in Hampton in an overnight natural gas explosion.  Funeral arrangements were being handled by an unidentified family friend.  Services were to be held at a funeral home nearby. 

“I have three phone calls that don’t make sense.  There is nothing specific, but the structure of what they said just seemed… wrong.  Let me queue them up.”

Steve played the three calls.  They were all from one person at the bureau. 

“Tom, it’s Bill.  My computer guy found some anomalies.  What do you think of this language?”

Bill and Tom talked about the specific words that were used by the FBI staffer.  Both agreed that the way the words were structured and didn’t make sense.  It was like reading random words strung together by a computer… even worse than MadLibs. 

Tom decided to task some agents to check out the person in question. 

***

“Terry, how’s it going?” Bill asked when he saw the new guy walk into the office. 

“Excellent, Bill.  It was nice to just hang out for the day yesterday since it was the Easter Holiday.  No classes.”

“How were classes today?” he asked. 

“Good, Tuesday and Thursday are my lightest days.  Wednesday is the day I go to ODU for the afternoon.  Monday, Wednesday and Friday I have three classes and TNCC, Thomas Nelson Community College.  So tomorrow I’ll be a little later coming in.”

“No problem.  But be sure to keep an eye on your six.”

“Huh?”

“Watch your back.  There are still bad guys out there.  Especially when you go to ODU.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“How much longer are classes?”

“Another seven weeks.”

Terry and Bill had a little more conversation.  Bill figured out the main into he needed… Terry hadn’t seen his surveillance team and he was still going to Norfolk for classes at ODU.

On the other side of the ledger, Steve had set him up with a couple of sites to hack… clients that they were testing… and Terry went right to work.  By the time Bill was ready to knock off, Terry had successfully breached one of the sites and thought he was close to breaking through the gates on another one.  Steve was just shaking his head.

“The kid is a genius, Bill.  He went straight through the code on job 135.  To be fair, I hadn’t tried that one yet, but I don’t know that I could get in as fast as he did even after watching him.”

“Can you figure out how to defend against him?”

“Yeah, but it’s a pain in the ass.  He is using a backdoor exploit.  Most of us try to leave a hidden door in the wall so that we can quickly get in to work in a system.  Terry has radar for those doors.  I don’t know how he finds them so fast, but he does.  Then he had a sixth sense about how to open that door.”

“So, what do we do to defend against him?”

“No easy paths for the programmers.  It’s a bad habit, but we all have it.  But to be fair, I looked to see exactly how he went into DoD.  I know specifically where the backdoor that he used is located.  I still haven’t managed to breach it.”

“Why can he get in and you can’t, even though you are using the same techniques?”

“Why can you rebuild a carburetor and I can’t, even if I go get a bunch of Snap-On tools?  Or why can’t you play my guitar?”

“Good point,” Bill replied.  “I’m going to find one or build one that doesn’t have a backdoor exploit and see what he does to crack it.  But in the meantime, we will be surveying our own security for exploitable backdoors.  The programmers are going to hate it, but when they hear how fast the doors are being found, they should get on board.”

Sunday, 17 April 1983 (part I)

At four-fifteen Sunday morning, the call went out over the earpiece radios, “Two to team, Two to team, it just got hot.  We have an incoming group.”

“What do you have, Two?” Duke asked.

“Five, is that you?  We see a team of six bogies closing on subject property.  I think they are carrying rifles.  I do not see an overwatch, but they could be out of sight.”

“Roger that.  I’m going to pick up Four and fly down.  It will probably be over by then.  ETA is thirty minutes.”

“It may be over by then.  Three is out of the van and setting up station to pick off some of these guys before they get to the house.  I’ll be out in a minute.  I’m just trying to see if there is another team.”

“Two, Three, this is Omega.  I’m on my way.  Do NOT engage unless they try to enter.  My ETA is ten minutes.”

“This is Alpha, ETA fifteen minutes,” Bill said into his radio.

Team, this is Echo.  One and I are twenty minutes out,” Melody chimed in on her radio.

Ronny Torrez had crept out of the back of the van.  He ran around the far side of the house, holding up one of the infra-red blocking blankets the team had.  Just as they had used them in Kitty Hawk to hide targets from a sniper with an IR scope, he was hiding from anyone using IR to check out the house. 

He took up a position in the bushes of a house behind the Gates home.  He had a clear view of the back entry of the house, as well as the direction the unidentified team was in.  He’d sighted four of the six team members on his IR goggles by their heat signatures. 

“Two, this is Three.  I think two bogies are headed to the front.  I have four in sight.”

Gino slid out of the passenger side door of the van.  It was away from the direction the bogies were coming from.  He rolled under the van to a spot where he was hidden in shadows. 

“Three, I do NOT have any bogies in sight.  I’m under the van with a clear view of the front and garage doors.  Do you have a view of the side door of the garage?”

“Negative, Two.  I cannot see the side door to the garage.”

“I’ll get it.”

Gino rolled back out from under the van and sprinted up the street for a different view of the house.  He wanted to keep the front door in view but needed to pick up the side of the garage to see that door. 

“I have the side door now.  I still have the other doors, but the front door is slightly obstructed by a shrub.  There is no activity by the side door at this time.”

Ed got on his radio, “This is Omega, Three, do you still have four bogies in sight?”

“Affirmative, Omega.  A couple of them look like they are getting ready to move, though.”

“If you fire, will they see your muzzle flash?” Ed asked.

“I assume so, Omega, but I know I can get a couple before there is return fire.”

“Roger.  Hold another few moments, I’m five minutes out.  If they head to the door, take them down.”

“Two of the targets are up and moving away from subject property, repeat, moving away.  They are heading south.”

A moment later the other two unidentified people approaching the house disappeared.  Ronny got on the radio and told the team that they had dropped off the IR.  He thought they might have a blanket or a shield like the ones his team was using.  Gino switched over the regular night vision and picked up the shadow of one entering the side door.  He didn’t have enough time to get off a shot. 

“I have at least one going in the side door.  I’m sorry, I didn’t switch views fast enough to get in a shot.”  A moment later, “Is that you Omega, coming up the street slowly?”

“Negative, Two.  I’m a couple of streets away.”

“That makes this a likely escape vehicle.  It’s too dark to make out the color, but definitely a van headed toward me, coming north.  Driver, but I don’t see anyone in passenger seat.  Hang on, looking at IR there is one person in the back.”

“Are they pointed north?”

“Affirmative, Omega.  And slowly rolling up the street.”

Team, this is Two.  I’m repositioning to pick up the side door.  I think they’ll be coming out with a hostage.  How long do you think we have until the van gets there at their current speed?”

“Maybe a minute?”

“Three, I think we will have four bogies coming out with our guy.  I say we take them down as they come out the door.  Then we disable the van and worry about the other two.  We might have Omega by then.”

“Roger that.” 

*** Terry was sleeping when he was grabbed and dragged from his bed.  Duct tape was over his mouth before he could even react.  His hands were taped behind him and he was being roughly dragged by two smaller men from his room.  He tried to struggle but was hit in the back of the head by something.  The world faded out.  There was only pain until he was unconscious.  Terry was dragged down the stairs by the two men as the other two men in the house hurried around the lower floor. 

“The other thing is that unless we can figure out who the others are, only one team is going to disappear.  They will then assume Terry is the hacker… and that isn’t the assumption we want them to make.  And these guys don’t know who the other potential hackers might be.  They compartmentalized their intel.”

“Great,” Bill responded sarcastically, “Now we have to find people that didn’t do something, but that others think might have…  I’ll see if Terry has an idea.  I will also have Steve dig into the computer he used at ODU and see who else might have been on around the same time.  That might be what they are basing their list upon.”

“It’s going to be a cat and mouse game for that kid.  He’s on their radar now and we don’t have a way to take him off of it.”

“We can kill him,” Bill said with a grin. 

“I’m sure he’d appreciate that,” Ed replied.  They were on the same page. 

***

Duke landed his chopper in the rear parking lot at Prince Systems.  Bill and Ed were standing by the roll up door waiting for their arrival.  Terry’s mother came out of the helicopter grinning ear to ear.  Bob, Terry’s dad, was the only one that had flown in one before, and his only previous flight was Friday. 

“Mr. Prince, I really want to thank you for everything.  It was wonderful staying at the beach, seeing the wild horses… everything.  Thank you so much,” Bea told Bill.

“Please, call me Bill, and I’m glad you had fun.  We’re glad to have Terry aboard.  He has a bright future.  And any friend of Jack’s is starting on solid footing with me.”

“Terry, can I get a moment with you in my office?” Bill said.  “And thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Gates.  I’m glad you enjoyed the beach house.  Maybe we can get you down there during the summer.  I’ll check with Melody to see when it isn’t claimed.”

Terry and Bill walked into the warehouse as Duke took off again to head home.  Bob and Bea got into Bob’s car and headed home, telling Terry they would see him after dinner. 

“Terry, we have an issue.  We picked up the guys tasked with tracking and picking you up.  They are Russian… KGB.  The problem is that you are on their radar.  No matter what we do, you’ll be a name known to them forever.  We can divert their attention, but at some point, their attention will revert to you.”

“Is there a way to solve that?” Terry asked, a sad look in his eyes. 

“We’re working on that.  We have one, but it’s extreme.  It would be hard on a lot of people, but it might end up as the best alternative.”

“What is it?”

“We can kill you,” Bill said… then smiled.

“Uhhh…”

“Not actually ‘kill’ you, but fake your death.  But it will be tough on the people around you.  Your parents won’t know for quite a while.  You can’t take anyone with you.  No girlfriend… nobody.  There would be no more than about half a dozen people that would know the truth for the next few months.  We couldn’t tell your parents until after the funeral.”

“Damn, your serious,” Terry reacted. 

“As a heart attack, Terry.  This is serious business.  The Russians, the Chinese, maybe even some others, they aren’t playing here.  They think you are a ticket into hacking the Department of Defense and causing havoc.  They want to own you.  And if you end up not being able to perform, they’ll kill you and move on to the next option.”

“I have to think about it.”

“Terry, I’m only going to say this once… I’m not into recriminations… I really wish you’d come to me before you hacked the DoD.  Of course, I didn’t know about you, and I might have thought you were a crank, but Amy said she told you to come to me a while back.”

“Ouch, yeah, she did.  I wish I had.  I guess I can’t change that now.”

“No.  We can’t change the past, just use what we learn to make better choices for the future.  That’s what we need to do now is figure out the best path forward from where we are.”

Bill and Terry talked a little more about faking his death.  What they would probably do is kill him, then he would spend the summer in Durango, Colorado.  Sharon Dixon’s parents had a house there that he could rent.  Terry would get a trainer and some plastic surgery.  He could come back later, but he wouldn’t be easily spotted.  Terry left with a lot to think about. 

***

“Gunny, it’s Ed, can I ask a favor?”

…

“I need eyes on Terry Gates and his parents for a while.  Can your guys cover them?”

…

“Probably Russian.  But I have no idea who else knows about him.”

…

“The Chinese are another wrinkle.  The FBI says they think there are some guys that are suspected of kidnapping that showed up in the country.”

…

“No, normally they grab Chinese citizens or people that were Chinese citizens and take them back to China because they are useful.  They haven’t operated in the states previously.”

…

“Sure thing.  Let me know if you need anything,” Ed said in closing.

An hour later a van pulled up outside Terry’s parent’s house.  Gino and Ronny were manning the first shift.  Duke and Bobby would be providing relief.  Gunny and Melody would be the third team providing cover.  Ten hours on and twenty hours off, until the weekend when Bill and Ed would jump into the rotation. 

Neither Terry, nor his parents, were aware of being put under protective surveillance. 

***

After all the excitement died down, Bill called the Director of the FBI.  “Were you able to pull any information?” he asked.  “We know the Russians hit the Kitty Hawk house.  What team was given that intel?”

…

“My people didn’t catch anything as far as dead drops.  I still have a team working through electronic coms.”

…

“Let me know if you figure something out.” He hung up the phone.  Bill did not like moles in operations around him.  Even if he knew who it was so that he could exploit them, he just didn’t like having a leaker. 

“Not yet… none of the houses have been put under a watch, from what we can tell.  If the Russians figure it out on their own, that might be worse.  They’d have to have some way of seeing who is accessing DoD files, and that would be a more serious breach than we already know about.”

“No doubt.  By the way, are you coming down, Boss?” Bobby asked. 

“I haven’t been down there since ‘the event’, but Amy and Jack have been talking about wanting to go see where everything happened.  I suppose when they do that, I’ll have to go, too.  But not this weekend.”

“Let me know, Bill.  I’ll be happy to give you a lift.”

***

A few minutes later the helicopter was taking off with its new passenger.  Duke let him know their route over the headset.  He was going to fly over by Fort Monroe, then follow the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel past Fort Wool and over to Ocean View.  From there he would fly along the beach past the Little Creek Amphibious Forces Base, around past Fort Story, then down the Virginia Beach oceanfront to Carova and Corolla, North Carolina. 

As they flew past the beach houses at the north end of the 4×4 beach, Bob saw Terry standing on the upper deck of one of the houses waving at him.  He waved back but couldn’t tell if his son saw him. 

“Hey, Duke,” Bob said into the headset, “I don’t see any roads coming up here.  How will I get back?”

“Four by four, Bob,” Duke replied with a grin.  “I’d drop you off but landing on the sand is really messy and expensive to clean up.  I can hover over the water if you want to jump, or I can have Bobby lower you to the house on a winch line.”

“I think I’m good with the drive back up the beach, if it’s all the same to you,” Bob said, wondering if the pilot was serious or not. 

By the time they were done talking about how to get dropped off at the beach house, Duke was setting his helicopter down at his house at the south end of the 4×4 beaches. 

“Come on inside, Bob.  It’ll be a few minutes before anyone gets here to pick you up.  Cold beer?”

Bob took the offered beer and walked into the house.  Entering the hallway toward the living room he noticed several commendations and awards framed on the walls. 

“Quite the collection of merit,” he said to the Englishman.

“Yeah, whatever.  They wouldn’t be up, but my Mum had them framed and put them up.  It’d hurt her feelings if I took them down.  There is only one that means anything to me.”  He pointed to a simple card sitting in the middle of the mantle over the fireplace. 

Bob walked over and picked it up. It was a card from Jack Dixon thanking Duke for all that he’d done to save his life. 

“What happened with Jack Dixon?” Bob asked. 

Duke told him the story, leaving out some details. 

“Gunny and Melody are the real heroes.  And Ronny.  Like I said, I just flew the chopper.  But I will say something else.  Your son just got in with the best bunch of people a fella could know.  And if he’s a friend of Jack’s, he has to be an alright guy.  Heck, you are likely a first-rate bloke, too, since you raised him.”  Duke clinked his beer bottle with Bob’s.

A few moments later a very excited Terry knocked on the back door.

“Hey, Dad, what do you think?”

“I’m not sure what to think.  One day you are locked in your bedroom on the computer studying, the next there is a company recruiting you and flying me to the beach to stay in some fancy house.  What sort of lucky tree landed on you?”

Terry just laughed.  “Got your bag, Dad?  We can run back up the beach.  Mom wants you to see the horses.”

Bob thanked, Duke for the ride and the beer, as well as the kind words about his son.  Then he grabbed his duffle bag and headed out to the Wagoneer his son had brought down the beach to get him.  They were soon turning back north, driving on the sand.  After the first mile of beach, they started seeing other 4x4s parked on the sand, often with canopies next to them and people lounging in chairs, enjoying the ocean, although it was a bit chilly, still, especially with the breeze off the Atlantic.

“Terry, want to tell me what’s going on?”

“Some of it is classified, Dad, but let me give you the short version.  Remember when I hacked the school mainframe?”

“Yeah, last year.  This is about that?”

“Well, no, but I hacked another system last week, just to see if I could.  It was classified.  And I saw people at school looking for whoever did it.  Jack’s girlfriend, you remember Amy, right?”

“Yeah, I guess… pretty girl, cheerleader?”

“That’s the one.  Anyway, her dad owns a computer company that does security work.  And I got the impression that he ‘knew people,’ if you get my drift.  So, I went to talk to him about my problem.  Not only did he not summon the FBI to arrest me, but he hired me.  And this is a big money job.  You can’t tell ANYONE what I just told you.”

Terry told his dad the pay and some of the benefits he was in line to get.  The older man was suitably impressed.

“Is this legal?”

“Yeah, that’s the beauty part.  Companies PAY to have their systems tested by a hacker.  And apparently, I’m pretty good at the hacking part.  They want me to be one of the testers, checking security on computer networks.  Then I will work with their programmers to write code denying entry to hackers, like me.”

“So, what gives with all of the security and flying down here for the weekend and everything?”

“Oh, that’s because of the Russians that were following me.”

“Son, you don’t drop that one on me and then stop…  What in blazes are you talking about?”

“Yeah… so the guys I thought might be FBI might really be KGB or something.”

Terry couldn’t tell his dad much more, because he didn’t have much of an idea about the plan put in place by Bill Prince.  But he did tell him that he was not really worried. 

***

“Bill, it’s Ed, do you have the disinformation campaign running?” Ed asked on the phone to his friend and partner in intelligence work.

“Fully.  The FBI doesn’t know we hired the hacker, but they think we have the hacker in custody in a safe house.  They think the hacker is being sent to California to work on a project for the DoD based out of Cal Polytech, after he goes into WitSec.  Hopefully we’ll get the Russians off Terry and get the FBI completely off looking for the hacker, all at once.  The question is, will everyone go for it and can we find the leaker?”

“Bill, one other thing, completely unrelated,” Ed said, “Jack wants to visit the beach house.  I know this isn’t a good time, but it might be time.  He’s been having nightmares about it lately, and he thinks he needs to confront his fears.  I agree with him.  What do you think?”

“Amy wants to do it too.  She told me that she and Jack have been talking about it.  You let me know when and we’ll make it happen.  I’d do anything for those kids.”

***

Late that night there was movement on the IR camera at the Kitty Hawk house.  Gino was on watch and double checked the cameras to make sure it wasn’t a dog or cat or something innocuous.  At first, he couldn’t see anything suspicious. 

Then he saw a person carrying a long bag.  He keyed up his earpiece radio, “Two to team, I have something that looks like a hostile at Kitty Hawk.  Give me a minute to confirm.”

Ronny, the team medic and Gino’s partner came out of the bedroom where he’d been sleeping.  “Looking serious?” he asked.

“Looks like a rifle bag to me… possibly a sniper rifle.  I haven’t seen anyone else on a team, though.  If we were looking for a hacker, we’d want to snatch him, not shoot him.  I think there needs to be a team and this guy is overwatch.”

“Sounds reasonable.  Should we heat up the decoys?” Ronny asked, referring to dummies they had made with a heat signature to fool IR systems into thinking they were real.  Gino nodded.

“Two to team, we have a possible sniper.  No other team spotted yet, though.  We are heating the IR dummies.  We think there will be an assault and snatch, though.”

The two men in the house continued to monitor the camera feeds for a few minutes.  They watched the sniper get into position and then remove his rifle from the bag and affix a scope.  From the size, both men were thinking it was one of the IR scopes and they’d heard that the Soviets had developed a technology to let them see a heat signature through some walls.  They were wearing cool suits that their tech guy had developed to counter.  They weren’t invisible to the heat camera, but they became very faint shadows to the IR heat sensor. 

A few minutes later Ronny saw a flash of movement on another screen, looking out behind the house.  Then they picked up some more heat signatures. 

“There it is,” Ronny said to his partner.

“Three to team,” Ronny said into the radio, “we have a snatch team in place.  Looks like they have four guys ready to hit the house.  We’ll probably get hit in the next few minutes.”

“One to Three, we can’t get there before you get hit.  Are you going to be ok or do you need to bug out?”

“We have this, One.  Our goal is to capture these guys, but we’ll see how it goes down.  We’ll stay on the coms the whole time.”

“Roger that, Three.  This is Alpha.  Good hunting.”

A few minutes later the snatch team started their move.  Two men were coming through the front door and two men through the back patio.  Ronny took the patio door and Gino took up watch on the front. 

As the front door exploded inward, Gino hit the first guy through with a pair of taser darts.  The big man, dressed completely in black, fell straight to the floor, shaking with the electricity coursing through him.  The second man withdrew and jumped off the staircase.  Gino zip-tied the big man’s hands behind his back and duct taped his mouth, then popped out the darts. 

The casing of the door just above his head exploded as it was shot.  Gino didn’t know if the shot came from the second guy or the sniper across the street, but he quickly dragged the still form of the big man further into the house and tossed a “cool pad” over him to mask his heat signature.  He expected that the sniper would kill his own man to keep him from talking if he knew he was captured. 

At the back of the house, Ronny had managed to hit both guys with darts from his taser guns.  One of the men, though, was not immobilized.  He grabbed at Ronny’s foot and dropped the former special forces soldier to the floor.  Ronny reacted quickly, though, hitting the intruder in the face with the rifle he had strapped across his chest.  He followed that up with a kick to his gut as he lay next to him. 

He was able to zip-tie both men, although the one he’d tussled with might have been more seriously injured. 

Gino and Ronny both went to the monitors to see if they could spot the last intruder, as well as check on their sniper.  The sniper was still in position, but the intruder was not visible to any of the cameras.  Ronny went back over to the two guys he’d subdued and taped them.  Then he covered both with ‘cool pads’ and got ready to head outside.  They figured the sniper and the last team guy would be meeting up and they wanted to join in the party. 

“Three to team, three of the four intruders are zipped and bundled.  No injuries to us.  We are exiting to check on the sniper position and see if we can pick up the fourth guy there.”

“Roger, Three.  Go get’em,” Ed said into his radio, “Omega standing by.”

“Two to team, I’m going to warm the chopper so we can pick up the bad guys over at the airfield.  Is there a welcoming committee at home?”

“Affirmative, Two.  We’re ready for them at Alpha base,” Bill replied.

A few minutes later Gino stumbled on a body in the dark.  He was wearing IR goggles, but the body was no longer hot enough for him to notice.  He was pretty sure it was the fourth intruder. 

“Two to Three, I think I just stepped on the fourth intruder.  He’s pretty dead.  I’m expecting the sniper to bug if he hasn’t already.”

A moment later the call came back that the blind he’d been using was empty and Ronny had heard a car speeding away.  Gino picked up the dead guy and his weapon and tossed him over his shoulder to walk back to the house.  He didn’t think the neighbors would appreciate having a dead body in the yard in the morning. 

Ronny and Gino loaded the four intruders and their gear into the back of their Blazer and headed over to the airfield at Kitty Hawk.  The last time they’d been there was when Paul Murphy had taken off, disappearing into the night. 

Just as they pulled up on the edge of the runway, Duke’s chopper swung low over them, flaring out and landing a hundred yards away.  They quickly transferred the three prisoners and one dead body to the awaiting chopper which barely slowed its blades, waiting to quickly take off again. 

Just after the helicopter lifted off, the police radio in the Blazer crackled to life.  The police were on scene near the house they’d just abandoned.  They would figure out which house soon enough, with the broken doors front and rear, and the chunk missing from the casing of the front door where the sniper round had blown it out.  Instead of driving by, they drove to Duke’s house at the south end of the beach. 

“Two to team, Three and I are at south beach.”

“Well done, Gents,” Bill said in the radio.

“Don’t drink all the beer,” Duke said.

“I don’t think that’s possible.  It looks like someone hijacked a couple of beer trucks here,” Gino responded. 

Gino and Ronny changed out of the tactical gear, took showers and relaxed in front of the TV with some food and beverages while Bill and Ed tried to work through the details of exactly who they’d grabbed. 

***

Ed questioned each of the captured intruders separately.  None were carrying identification, nor were they uniformed in a way to suggest what country they were from.  In fact, all of them were wearing black fatigues that were likely purchased from a military supply store around Hampton Roads.  As much as he wanted to run these guys through the database of CIA’ known foreign operators, he didn’t want to give away that these guys were still alive… even to the CIA… not until they’d found the mole they were looking for.

None of their field trainees had spotted a drop, nor had they intercepted anything on the phone taps or electronic monitoring that they’d been able to find so far.  They were still going through that, though. 

After a few minutes of questioning one of them with no answers, Ed took a different approach.

“How about this… I can let you go,” he said to the man he was questioning.

“Sounds good to me,” he replied, without even a noticeable accent. 

“Does it? You know what happens, next, right?  You make your report, then get shot.  Your fourth guy is already dead.  The team leader… the sniper… shot him before he escaped.  If I set you free, you are a dead man.”

“Maybe, or maybe I disappear.”

“With no money, no ID, no nothing?  I don’t think so.  You might have a stash somewhere, but as soon as you get close to it, you’ll be tagged and bagged.  Your body will probably be dumped in the ocean to be chewed up by fish.”

Ed got up to leave.  As he got to the door, he turned, “I only need one of you.  There are three.  First one gets the identity and some seed money, as well as a plane ticket out of the country.  The other two will get put in a car and dropped off at the Soviet Embassy.  We’ll pat you on the head and send you on your way.  Your choice.” He walked out the door so that he could visit each of the other two and extend the same offer.  He was hoping to break more than one of them so that he could use their information to validate each other.