The Du Page Affair Ch. 15

About an hour into our wait Rudy came running up to me growling. He turned and sat looking at the way we had come. I pulled my scanner out and scanned the terrain. Fifty blips appeared on my scanner. Fifty blips with a yellow glow around them, fifty shielded people were headed our way.

"We have company coming. Fifty, with shields, Class III, looks like."

"What do we do?" Larry asked.

"We hold them off. Sally, I want a shield fifty meters out."

"Right boss," Sally answered.

"Sally, change all shields to Class I."

"Done."

"Who is Sally?" Doctor LaGrazia asked.

"A friend, I'll explain later. Now we wait." Sunny came galloping in, just as fifty men cleared the rise coming toward us with purpose. Twenty meters from us they hit the shield and bounced off.

I remained crouched in the shadow of the building to avoid being cooked by the visible light coming from candle four. Soon the fifty men would have to retreat back over the rise to avoid becoming cooked steak. Within minutes they were.

As I watched, four men returned to set up a tarp of some kind to protect them and watched us from that vantage point. The four men were replaced by four others in thirty minutes. This rotation went on and on.

When it was time for the portal to open I rose and walked to the door of the building and waited. The portal opened on time and I stepped through and opened the door to the building. I went to the console and opened the portal permanently, then called in the Ted, Larry, Bill and the dogs.

It was so much cooler in the building I had a chill run up my back. I opened an access panel and turned a dial to five and pressed the button in the middle of the knob. The shield was now set to drop in five hours. And there was nothing anyone could do about it, not even me.

"Mr. Abernathy, I need to talk to you. Please come out of the building?" I turned at the mention of my name.

"Stay here. I'll be right back."

"Are you sure boss?" Bill asked.

"Yes. I've got Sally, no worries." I stepped out of the building and saw that two men stood at the edge of our shield, one had a bull horn. I shook my head and walked toward them slowly.

"They both have Class III shields."

"Thank you Sally. What do you want?" I said to the men as I stepped up to them.

"We just want to talk and to tell you we have your wife in our custody."

"You do? You're sure about that?"

"Yes, she is with my colleagues as we speak."

"He's lying, I just talked to Shelly and Jenny is fine. They are about two klicks from the Evac-Station." Sally whispered in my ear.

"You know you shouldn't lie to me." I reached through the shield and grabbed the one who was doing all the talking and pulled him in with me. I then took his shield fob from his belt and crushed it in my hand.

"What the fuck..."

"You shouldn't fool around with the guy whose company makes these things. Do you really think I gave you the best there is?"

"We really do have you're wife," he said.

"Sally, let me talk to Jenny."

"Done."

"Hello."

"Hi Jen, I have someone with me that seems to think his colleagues have you. Are you all right?"

"I'm fine."

"Sally?"

"She's telling the truth. There is no stress in her voice what so ever."

"Shelly?"

"Yes boss?"

"Is everything all right?"

"Yes."

"Code, 456-Alpha."

"Code, 987-Gamma."

I pushed the idiot back through the shield and on to his ass. Then turned and walked away. Shelly had given the proper response so I knew everything was good with Jenny as well as everyone else. This joker was lying through his teeth. What kind of game were they playing?

I walked back to the generator building and entered the coolness inside. I sat in one of the chairs and turned to the computer terminal and started punching the keys on the keyboard. A satellite picture appeared on the screen. It slowly zoomed in on the position of Shelly's GPS chip. The caravan was rolling along toward Evac-Station Six just as Shelly had said.

I had the satellite slowly zoom out. On the caravans flanks there were at least two companies of men in military vehicles. I don't know what they thought they could do to stop them but they were there.

"Sally, scan the area for vehicles."

"Scanning...there are two Humvee's and two duce-and-a-half's, a klick over the rise to our south."

"Good. All right let's go." I got up and waited until everyone was outside of the building shield then flipped the switch to turn the timer back on. The portal closed as I closed and locked the door. I stepped through shield and headed due west.

"Sally, can you place a Class I shield over one of the Humvee's please."

"Done.'

"Thank you and you can shut down the shield you put up for us earlier."

"Done."

I turned south and headed toward the humvee and our ride out of here. As we approached the vehicle fifty men attempted to stop us. As each of them came within my grasp I ripped their shield fobs from them and crushed them. Ted and Bill were doing the same. Doctor LaGrazia, seeing what we were doing joined in.

Stepping through the shield around the humvee I opened the driver's door and got in. Ted and Doctor LaGrazia got in the back, letting the dogs in. Bill got in the front passenger side. I started the humvee, put it in gear and started off toward our way out, laughing as I passed the men sent here to stop us.

To be continued...