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"That's the truth, Pops," Anna said. "No one asked us. Not a thing."
"I believe you. Well. .. Oh, now wait a damned minute. I think I'm
beginning to see where all this is leading. And I'd better be wrong in
my thinking, or all hell is going to bust loose around here."
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The team exchanged nervous glances.
"Maybe," Corrie said, "we'd better pull over, Coop. I'll radio the
security detail."
"Good idea," Cooper said. "I want some running room."
Ben glared at him. "That bad, huh?"
"I ... ah ... don't much think you're going to like the rest of the
news, Boss. As a matter of fact, I'd bet on that."
"We'll pull over just up ahead, Coop," Corrie told him. "Security has
picked out a spot."
"Right."
"It's up to my security detail where and when I stop from now on?" Ben
questioned.
"That's ... ah ... just part of it, Boss," Jersey said.
"I can hardly wait to hear the rest," Ben said.
"I wouldn't bet on that," Anna muttered, too low for her father to hear.
The short column pulled over a few minutes later, and Ben and his team
unassed the wagon.
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Under the shade of a grove of trees, Beth said, "You've been assigned a
staff, Boss."
Ben stared at her in silence.
"Fourteen people, I think," Corrie said.
Ben cut his eyes to her and remained silent.
"They're going to take some of the workload off you," Anna told him.
"I have been assigned a staff," Ben said softly.
"That's right, Boss," Cooper said.
"Fourteen people."
"That's right," Jersey said. "At least that many."
"Interesting." Ben's word was calmly spoken.
The team looked at one another. Ben sure was taking the news well.
"But I have a staff. . . sort of," Ben said. "They've been doing a good
job."
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"They're spread out all over the country, and they don't travel with
us," Corrie pointed out.
"And this bunch will travel with us?" Ben asked.
"Ah .. . yes, Pops," Anna hesitantly replied. "That's the word I get. We
get."
"And every time I turn around I'm going to be running into one of them."
"Well," Cooper said. "Ah ... it probably won't be that bad, Boss."
Ben withered him into silence with a hard look.
"A fucking staff!" Ben said, getting up from his squatting position.
"Fourteen goddamn people getting in my way-"
"Maybe it was sixteen," Anna said. "I forget exactly."
"Wonderful," her father said. "It just keeps getting better and better."
"They'll be here in a couple of days," Beth told him.
"Isn't that nice?" Ben replied.
None of his team chose to respond.
"We'd better be moving, sir," a lieutenant from the security detail
said, walking up. "We just received word that a lot of Federals have
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infiltrated this area."
"When the hell did they come in, and where?" Ben asked, standing up.
"Intel thinks they've been here for several months, at least. Maybe
longer. Where did they come in, sir? That's anybody's guess."
"All right," Ben said. "Let's haul ass."
Ben turned, and a small round appeared in the lieutenant's forehead. He
was dead before he hit the ground. Had Ben not turned when he did the
bullet would have taken him in the head, and he would have been cooling
on the ground.
Ben and the team dropped to the ground, and the security detail fanned out.
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"Sound suppressor on that sniper rifle," Jersey said. "I never heard a
sound."
"He might be two thousand yards away," Ben replied. He looked around
him, carefully studying the terrain. "But I don't think so. I think he's
on that high ground to the northeast. That's the only place where he
could get a clear shot to here."
Corrie was on the horn immediately, passing that information along.
"Gunships will be here in a few minutes," she told Ben.
"Everybody stay down," Ben ordered. "No heroics. Corrie, tell security
to do the same. Let the birds handle this."
In only a very few minutes, a dozen gunships came roaring in and
proceeded to tear up the landscape with rockets and 30mm ammo from its
chain guns. Each gunship was armed with up to seventy-six 2.75 inch
rockets, armed for this mission with high explosives.
Most of the infiltrators never had a chance, for just behind the highly
advanced Apache battle helicopters came half a dozen ultra modern Hueys,
each armed with three 7.62 M60 machine guns-one on each side and one
mounted under, the belly mount operated from the cockpit-25mm cannon,
and 40mm grenade launchers. The heavily armed Hueys were flying
hunter/killers, and on this day they performed magnificenuy.
"We've got prisoners," security radioed back to Corrie, and she informed
Ben.
"Bring them in," Ben told her. "I want some information from these
people, and I want to look at them eyeball to eyeball. And get somebody
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