~Chapter 19~

~June 31st, 2019- Samuel Grayson’s Apartment, NY
“Yes, this is Samuel Grayson.”
The black-haired, gray-eyed man stared at the wall, his brain not registering what his eyes saw.
His plan was coming together. His contacts in Oregon had informed him of the goings on at the Taske house, as much as they could see, anyways. If the mentalist’s calculations were correct, and they usually were, Josh Taske would take care of James Hughes in a matter of days. Samuel had done all he was able to do, now all he could do was sit back and wait for the aftermath.
Aftermath, this was where Samuel’s planning and strategizing would come finally pay off. And it was for this aftermath that Samuel Grayson was setting the final pieces in place for.
“Yes, I would like to call a Board meeting. Highest priority, on the 6th of July. I have an important announcement to make…”

~June 31st, 2019- Josh Taske’s House in Eugene, Oregon
Nathan threw his duffel in the back of Sniper’s Hummer and opened the rear door to lay a Mossberg on the floor of the far backseat. Walking back to Josh’s front door, he retrieved the 24-pack of Budweiser and set in on one of the seats.
Scarlet set her own duffel on the middle row of seats, along with her small crossbow and quiver of bolts. She then aided Emma in loading Emma and Sniper’s duffels into the back of the behemoth.
Wraith and Sniper uploaded the coordinates for the Villa into the Hummer’s GPS via a USB link to Trailblazer’s GPS unit. Sniper was basically useless in the process, but he insisted on watching Wraith upload the data.
Josh and Lexy loaded their bags into the back of the Trailblazer, along with most of the armament they had selected to bring along.
Josh tossed Sniper an iPod, “Here, it’s going to be a long drive. I’ll have Wraith call you to tell you where to pull over to spend the night.”
Sniper looked over the mp3 device, “How much does it hold?”
Wraith set a metal briefcase on the back seat of the Trailblazer, “It holds 30 gigabytes of data.”
“What kind of music?”
Josh shrugged, “A little bit of everything, really.”
Sniper shrugged, “Works for me. See you on the road.”

They lasted four hours before Nathan finally started getting bored and irritable. He had already disassembled, cleaned, and reassembled the two Colt .45’s he carried on him, and the Mossberg shotgun. He put a new edge on his combat knife, and spent a good half an hour trying to convince Sniper to let him clean his rifle.
Now, the mercenary was talking on his cell phone.
“Yeah, yeah, bright lights. There was this loud buzzing sound and the lights grew brighter… Yeah, I was in the desert at the time. What desert? The Sahara. Where in the Sahara!? What the hell, you think I know exactly where in the Sahara I was!? It’s all sand to me! But yes, I’m sure it was aliens… No, I don’t know what kind of aliens, what aliens do you know of?”
Scarlet looked back at him, “Nathan, will you please shut up?”
Nathan waved her off, “I’m telling you, it was a damned alien! What? Drinking? Well… maybe a little bit… But that doesn’t mean anything, I saw an alien spaceship!”
Scarlet turned to look at Sniper and Emma in the front seats.
“Max, I’m sorry, I know it must cost a fortune to reupholster this thing, but I am about to shoot him in the head and get blood all over your seats.”
Max looked at her reflection in the rearview mirror through his dark sunglasses.
“If you shut him up I will pay for it myself.”
Emma smiled at them, “You two really need to learn how to get along with certain people.”
The redheaded assassin snorted, “You think you can deal with him?”
Nodding, Emma looked towards Sniper, “You mind turning on some music?”
The marksman threw her a questioning look and shrugged. He handed her the iPod Josh had given him and pointed to the auxiliary input jack on the dash.
Emma reached down to the backpack Josh had given her and filled with other donated possessions.
“Nathan…”
She held up a full bottle of tequila and shook it gently.
“Interested?”
Nathan snapped his phone shut in midsentence and accepted the bottle.
The onetime secretary then manipulated the iPod’s controls until she had found what she was looking for.
An electric guitar and bass drum filled the Hummer’s top of the line sound system.
“I bought my first real six-string, bought it at the five-and-dime…”
Nathan took a long drink from the bottle and lay back, closing his eyes.
Scarlet looked up at Emma, “Wow. Never would have thought of that.”
Emma shrugged one shoulder, “Nathan strikes me as both someone who likes to be active and someone who is a bit nostalgic.”
Sniper’s steely composer cracked to reveal a small smile, “Good thinking.”
The woman laid back and closed her eyes, “Thank you, Dear.”

Josh had turned his radio to a local jazz station, and the resonating sound of a tenor sax filled the interior of the trailblazer. His gray eyes flicked back and forth from the road to the other cars from behind his dark Ray Bans.
Lexy had her chair pushed all the way back and her feet on the dashboard. She had opted to change into a pair of mini-shorts and a black tank-top for the drive. The beautiful young woman was busy painting her toenails a bright red while humming along to the sound of B.B. King’s guitar, “Lucile”.
Wraith say in the back seat, laptop open on his lap and a small box with two antennae sticking out of the top attached to the computer by a USB cable.
Josh glanced at Wraith in the rearview, “What you working on?”
Lexy looked back to, “Yeah, and what is that thing you got there?”
Wraith didn’t even look up, “It is a GhostWire Box, I designed it to give me internet almost anywhere. And I am currently logged into Shadow Tech’s design server and am adding some last minute modifications to the Banshee Desktop Computer we plan to release later this year.”
Lexy stared at him in amazement, “You can do all that from the back seat of our car?”
Wraith smiled slightly, “Yes, I can.”
“So… if you can do all that, why couldn’t you access the computer in the Regency Building remotely?”
“Closed server, I could only access a small portion of it, nothing we could have used.”
The Informer glanced at Josh, “By the way. When I was in their system I pulled their files on all known Underworld agents. I uploaded the files to the Den computer into the personnel databank.”
Josh nodded, “Good idea, thanks. That will come in handy.”
Lexy looked at the two of them in shock, “So… you have files on every Underworlder? The Board has files on every Underworlder?”
Wraith glanced mischievously at her, “Well, they have nothing at all on me.”
Josh laughed, “Of course they wouldn’t.”
Wraith tapped a few more key combinations and looked up at Lexy.
“Well, that does it. I’m done. Now… I wonder what Nathan is up to…”

A few miles ahead of the fortified Blazer in the mighty Hummer, Nathan’s cell phone rang. Flipping his old razor phone open, he viewed the waiting text message in interest.

From: Dark_Shade
To: Lone_Wolf
Would You Like To Play A Game?

Nathan’s mouth quirked in a mischievous smile.

From: Lone_Wolf
To: Dark_Shade
Hell Yes!

A moment later, the response arrived:

From: Dark_Shade
To: Lone_Wolf
Your Laptop, Now.

The mercenary reached into the duffel on the seat beside him and drew his silver Shadow Tech WhiteSmoke laptop. He opened it and booted the portable computer to life.
The image of a busty blonde clad in a red bikini leaning provocatively over the seat of a 91 FXDB Sturgis Harley Davidson greeted Nathan upon logging in. It seemed characteristic of his flirty, flamboyant personality. But those who knew him well enough knew that it was the bike that caught his interest, and not the bombshell astride it.
A black chat box with the image of a cartoon ghost popped up on the bottom right-hand corner of the screen.

Dark_Shade: Hello, Nathan.
Lone_Wolf: Hey, Wraith!
Dark_Shade: How R things with U?
Lone_Wolf: Been better. Bored 2 death, Scar gonna kill me. Em playing Journey.
Dark_Shade: Sound like a blast. How about Chess?
Lone_Wolf: Thought U would never ask.

Another window popped up on his screen, this time depicting a rustic-style chess board with stone pieces. The black pieces sat on the board closest to Nathan.
A pawn moved two spaces forward, and the game was on.
Emma looked back at Nathan, noting the intent concentration on his scarred face.
“What’s up with Nathan?”
Scarlet was deep into a book on the history of Japanese warfare, she didn’t even glance up at the one-time secretary.
“Chess with Wraith. They do this whenever we have a long trip to make. Just watch, Wraith will win the first, third, and sixth and seventh games. Nathan will win the second, fourth and fifth games, get frustrated after the seventh, and quit in a bad temper.”
Emma laughed, “I guess they do this a lot then.”
“Every chance they get.”