G.H.O.S.T. Teams: Book 1 - Magic (18 page)

“Family,” was all I said.

Benny’s slumped forward so much I thought his head was going to hit the table. He was taking huge slow breaths and if I didn’t know any better I would have guessed he was about to cry. I had no interest in experiencing Troll tears so I tried to keep him focused.

“Don’t fall apart on me now Benny, talk to me. They have your family? Your parents, or your kids, or your wife?” I asked.

That was it. His body went rigid at the mention of the word wife. I kept my voice as low and soothing as I could.

“Benny, tell me where they are. If she is still there I will save her,” I stated.

“Said they kill her,” he sobbed.

“You mean kill her if you didn’t do what they wanted?” I asked.

He nodded. I glanced over at Visine and he was just watching with interest. I guess if he thought of anything to add he would. I took a deep breath, keep my voice soothing and spoke softly as I talked to Benny.

“Benny, there are only two possibilities here. If she is still alive and you tell me where they are, I will do everything in my power to save her,” I started.

He looked up at me hopeful. I could see how hard he was trying to believe that she was still alive. But as much as I wanted to leave him with hope, I needed to present the other possibility. Especially if it helped me get the information I needed.

“But,” I continued, “If you tell me where they are and I’m too late to save her, I promise to bring back the people responsible and let you share a cell,” I stated seriously.

It took him a minute to register what I was saying. Then I saw the light bulb go off in his head. I was offering him a chance at revenge. If they took his wife, he would at least have the chance to face the people responsible. That was where my mind went so many years ago, and as much as I hated that part of myself, I was counting on Benny to think the same way. We are after all just a bunch of emotional creatures. His huge mouth twisted into a smile, anger filling his eyes.

“Your word?” he asked.

“Yup,” I said.

At that point Benny started spilling the beans. He told us that they were holed up in an abandoned government building in Rock Creek Park, right off of Oregon Avenue. We had him confirm the location on a map before moving on. He also told us what kind of opposition we might be facing. There were apparently five sorcerers, or spell slingers as Benny called them, and that wasn’t counting the big boss. Since I already had a three count and Visine got one last night, we were down to one spell slinger and the boss. There were also a handful of hired guns and a pair of sexy priest women working with the boss. To be fair Benny didn’t use the word sexy, but in my mind that was how I pictured them. Benny was one of three Trolls that they used for combat and manual labor. But Dirk had left his mark on their forces and killed the other two when they attacked him. Since Benny was in custody it seemed very unlikely that we would have to face anymore mammoth-muscle. I noticed a small smile of pride on Visine’s face when Benny mentioned Dirk taking out the two trolls.

From the rest of the information Benny gave us, there were only two more things of interest. The first concerned the method by which the immortals were killed. The Trolls were primarily used to battle and subdue the subjects until the target could be magically immobilized. Apparently the big boss, along with the sorcerers, combined their energy in order to siphon the immortal power out through the sword. Once the target was made mortal, the boss then drove the sword through the body, finishing them off. While I considered them all guilty in this case, Visine was very interested in who actually made the killing stroke.

The second and more pressing bit of news was in regards to a time frame. Apparently the whole shindig went down tonight. Benny had been told that after tonight they wouldn’t need him anymore and they would release his wife. It seemed that time was certainly not on our side. But at least now we had a place to start looking. Once we were sure that Benny didn’t have anything else important to share, we helped the guards get him back into his cell. The whole time he kept begging me to save his wife. Visine and I stayed silent until we got back inside of the elevator.

“We have no idea if we can trust Benny’s info,” I started, “But it’s our only lead, do we have much choice?”

“No,” Visine said.

“I guess we head out there and if it’s a setup, we hope that we’re good enough to spot a trap.”

“Good plan,” he smiled.

“And I got an even better one. Since he likes you so much and I’m probably in trouble for what I pulled back there, how about you go tell the boss what we’re up too and I’ll fill Freddy in?”

“Fine. Meet you at the car in fifteen,” he replied.

I gave him a smile and thumbs up. Visine waited for the elevator and I took the stairs. No sense in waiting around long enough for him to change his mind.

Freddy told me to check in early and often, Kara managed to give me a smile, and Erika punched me in the hip and told me to be careful. All in all, a good team meeting. I met Visine in the garage and we jumped into Vlad.

“What did Dutton say?”

“As expected. Doesn’t trust the Troll, but wants the lead checked out,” Visine explained.

We ended up taking Connecticut Ave, up to Nebraska Ave, and turned down Utah Ave before taking North Hampton Street over to Oregon Ave. It was a lot of avenues. I made a right turn onto the service road and parked just past the walking trail, well out of sight of our destination. There was one other car parked there, and as I didn’t see anyone around I assumed that they were somewhere on the trail. We were surrounded by lots of trees, their thick green leaves creating a nice shaded canopy. Low hanging branches and a ton of foliage completed the dense woods feel. A tiny area by the road had been cleared and turned into a colorful community garden. But other than that, visibility was mostly reduced to the beautiful greens of nature.

We turned and started walking down the service road towards the building. As you might have guessed from the aforementioned green nature, we couldn’t actually see the building from here. While not being able to see the target isn’t a good thing, it did mean that our own approach was going to be fairly stealthy. As we continued up the long service road, we passed two “do-not-enter” signs and it was at that point that we could just start to make out the building in the distance. The signs reminded me to add trespassing to the list of crimes that the bad guys were guilty of. If I was going to get stuck writing paperwork on this mess, those were the little things that made me smile.

Stepping off of the road, we allowed the trees to cover our approach. We made our way through the brush and stopped just short of the cleared area that surrounded the buildings. Since we were still nicely hidden in the woods, it was a great time to look things over. The main building was an ugly light brown color and it reminded me of a large barn. It was a big and boxy structure and to its right was a small maintenance shed. There were two unmarked white vans in front of the building and no signs of activity outside. I was planning to move closer to get a better look at things when Visine stopped abruptly and slapped his arm against my chest to prevent me from moving forward. I stood perfectly still, opening my senses to the world around me and searching for any hint of danger.

Since I wasn’t sure what had spooked Visine, I was scanning for anything and everything out of the ordinary. I didn’t spot any cameras, trip wires, motion sensors, or booby traps. The lack of sound or movement made me discount a roving security patrol. I was about to ask him what he was stopping us for, when I noticed the hairs on the back of my hand standing up. It was almost like there was a static charge in the air. I looked from my arm to Visine and he nodded in agreement.
 

“What is it?” I whispered.

“Magic alarm,” he replied softly.

“Great. Obviously this is Kara’s area of expertise. I don’t suppose you have any idea how to disarm it or get past it?” I asked.

“Sure, we need a witch,” he smirked.

“Ha, ha. Let’s see how high it goes? Maybe we can go over it.”

Using his absurd strength, he lifted me up above his head and I stood on top of his hands like some kind of circus acrobat. Reaching out as far as I could, I noticed the same static charge type feeling in the air. I dropped silently back to the ground.

“Okay, I am guessing it’s like a dome and we can’t go over it,” I told him.

Visine looked up at the main building and I could see that he was calculating something.

“You got an idea?” I asked.

“Make a break for it?” he offered.

“I wouldn’t want to chance it, especially if they have a prisoner in there. Assuming of course that Benny was telling the truth,” I replied.

He shrugged. I looked up at the house and suddenly an idea occurred to me.
 

“Or…” I started while looking the building over, “Do you see anyone watching the perimeter? Any eyes anywhere?”

Visine looked around, his eyes occasionally glazing over as if he was seeing something other than what was in front of him.

“Looks clear. No electronic surveillance either. Why?” he asked.

“I was just thinking that I know someone who is really good at setting off magical alarms,” I smiled, “We have Vlad take us through the barrier. We jump out on the other side, unseen, and Vlad drives away once the bad guys come out to investigate. Hopefully they won’t realize that we are inside of the perimeter,” I said.

“Assuming it’s just a perimeter sensor,” he said.

“You think it’s more?” I asked.

Visine shrugged, “Probably not.”

I smiled and touched the leather band on my left wrist.

“Vlad, meet us by the do-not-enter signs, we got a plan.”

“
Got it Boss
,” Vlad replied.

Visine and I backtracked to the service road, careful to remain behind cover the entire way. We met up with Vlad and jumped inside.

“Okay pal, here is what I need you to do. Drive up past the service shed. The curve of the road right there should provide us a moment of cover. Visine and I will leap out of the passenger side and you close the door and keep moving. Once they come out of the building to investigate, then you hit reverse and get out of there. Hopefully it looks like you never stopped moving and you ran once they came outside. If we’re lucky, no one will guess that you dropped us off. If we’re lucky,” I finished.

“Sounds simple enough boss, what happens if they don’t come out the door,” Vlad said out loud for Visine’s benefit.

“They’ll come out. I am guessing that this alarm only reacts to a certain level of consciousness, otherwise every deer and squirrel in the area would set it off. If the GHOST HQ alarms are any indication, you should definitely send a signal that will make them wanna investigate,” I smiled.

“A lot of maybe’s in this plan,” Visine mumbled.

“More fun that way.”

Visine rolled his eyes.

“And keep your windshield dark enough so that they can’t tell that you’re on autopilot pal. Plan falls apart if they realize that you’re self driving,” I added.

“Check and check,” Vlad replied.

“Okay, operation Trojan Dragon is a go.”

Visine gave me a look that made it clear that he didn’t appreciate my humor. So I tried to reassure him.

“Don’t worry, if this doesn’t work, I got a plan that involves a large wooden badger,” I said patting him on the shoulder.

I crouched on the drivers seat, getting myself in a position so that I could dive across the passenger seat and out the door. Visine got in and sighed. I let a small smile cross my lips and I hoped that we had a little Greek luck on our side.

“Okay, let’s do this. Vlad, once you take off, hide around the block somewhere. Far enough away that they won’t notice you, but close enough to return if I need you,” I said as we drove up.

Vlad pulled up the road, passing slowly through the magical sensor. I could see a light blue haze around his hood as he drove through. Once the haze passed the doors and Vlad turned towards the right, Visine and I dove out the open door. The door quietly slid up into place behind us and Vlad continued his slow drive towards the main building. It didn’t take long for them to react. The front door flew open and two dudes, wearing white overalls stepped out. They each had a hand behind their backs in a sad attempt to hide the weapons that they were carrying.

Vlad, doing just as he was told, put the car in reverse and backed quickly down the drive. One of the men stepped forward as if he was going to pursue. But the second man put a hand on his shoulder and kept him there. They watched Vlad leave before doing a half-assed perimeter search. They walked around the vans and gave a cursory glance down the side of the main building. One of them almost made it halfway to the maintenance shed before cussing about being outside and turning back. Once the two men were back inside, Visine and I relaxed. We had been ready to strike should either of them come around the corner of the shed. I looked over at Visine.

“I really didn’t think that was gonna work,” I whispered.

Visine gave me a look that made it clear he had no qualms about hurting me. I couldn’t help but smile as he turned his attention back to the main building. To be fair, I figured that our plan had a decent chance of succeeding. You see, after spending years having to sneak into places and evade security I learned one universal truth, people are lazy. Especially when they are stuck in a boring and monotonous job such as security.

Huddled behind the maintenance shed, Visine and I were able to keep an eye on the house while remaining out of sight. The maintenance shed was painted a dark brown, with a window on each side, and a large garage door on the front. Glancing in the window I saw that it contained a heavy-duty riding mower, a couple of push mowers, bags of mulch and seed, and various gardening tools. Since none of that seemed helpful to our current mission, Visine and I left it alone and moved down the side of the shed in order to give us a better view of the main building.