CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

"Thank you for coming back here with me, Luke, all of you," said Nell. "I needed to get the rest of my things, but I was a little worried about coming here by myself."

"That wasn't going to happen," said Hex. "Sor asked us to watch out for you, and that's what we're doing."

Nell looked out the window to see six men with weapons standing in front of the cottage. She smiled at those inside and shook her head.

"Seriously? I don't think anyone is coming here for me with all of you outside."

"You never know," said Luke. "Go pack your things. Do you need help?"

"No. No, I have it, thank you." She disappeared into the bedroom while the others waited for her to gather everything that had been left behind in her escape.

"He's done a great job fixing this place up," said Eric. "Maybe we could convince him to sell it to Matthew. It's right up against our land. We could extend the fences and use this as guest quarters or something. Maybe even expand the current housing."

"It's a good idea," said Luke. "I'll ask Grandpa how he feels about that and see if Sor is willing to sell. He definitely doesn't need it any longer, but maybe he has a sentimental attachment to it."

"Could be. Any news on DeWitt?" asked Hex.

"Nothing other than they think they know how he was going to get on-base. The team is working on something now to stop him. We know where he is, and we're pretty sure of what he wants. We just have to flush him out and get him before he does anything stupid."

"He's already done something stupid. Betrayed his country, his unit, and his team," said Eric. "For that alone, he deserves to die."

"I understand how you feel, but we want answers from him as well. Is there someone other than his mother at the DOD helping him? Maybe someone in the Air Force or other military branch. I'd also like names for those in Cambodia. I'm not going to chase after them, but I'm pretty sure our friends in the area would want to know."

"Hey, guys?" called Nell. "Can you come back here?"

They all rushed to the bedroom to find Nell sitting on the bed with several folded sheets of paper.

"What is it, hun?" asked Luke.

"I don't know what made me do it, but I opened that safe room that Sor built. I remember so clearly him telling me about it in case I should ever need it. Of course, I never thought I'd need it. It saved me. He saved me, and then we found those photos in there."

"Right. But they were planted in there," said Luke.

"I know. Which made me think, what if something else was planted in there, and we missed it?"

"Honey, we searched that room before we left that day of the shootings," said Eric.

"Did you?" she asked, holding up the paper. "I'm not an expert, but I think these are blueprints or schematics for something electronic."

"Fuck me," muttered Hex. "That's G.R.I.P.'s logo on there. That's our work for the thermal imaging cameras that will be mounted on the Ospreys."

"Thermal imaging?" frowned Nell.

"Yes. It allows a helicopter or plane to see if there are humans inside a building, a truck, a car…"

"A cave?" asked Nell. "Does it see things that don't have warmth? Non-human items like rocks, gems, gold, silver?"

"Damn," whispered Luke. "It does. That's why it's new and coveted by the military. It's designed to pick up signatures of weapons using any variety of metals, alloys, anything. We even designed it to pick up signatures for plutonium or hydrogen. There's never been anything like it before. He wants the imaging that we're testing on those birds at Miramar."

"How big is it? Would he be able to carry it off the base by himself?" she asked.

"In theory, yes. The microchips are an important part of the equipment. In fact, they're the important piece of the equipment. Everything else someone could probably build around it. But getting to the microchips would be hard. You'd need time and tools."

"You'd need a distraction," said Nell, looking at the plans. "A distraction and a good hammer and wire cutters. As you said, all of this around it doesn't have to be intact. He just has to be able to get the core out. Right?"

"Exactly," whispered Luke. "Are you sure you don't have an engineering background?" Nell smiled at him.

"Positive. But you'd be surprised what I learn from clients when helping to build websites, storefronts, and other things. Besides, computer software is just engineering."

"Where was this?" frowned Cam. "We searched that room."

Nell stood and walked toward the small space. She pushed the opening as far as it would go and stepped inside. The others shone the lights from their phones inside.

"There's not much space here, and I remember seeing the film canisters sitting in plain view right here," she said, pointing to one of the cross beams. "Anyone would have seen it. But I also remembered seeing the envelope. I thought it was something he put in here for safekeeping and didn't think anything about it. But as I was standing there, I thought to myself, why wouldn't he have mentioned the envelope when I told him about the film?

"So, I came back in here, and in all the chaos that day, it had fallen between the floorboards, standing straight up. It was slid behind the two-by-four, here."

"DeWitt was definitely implicating him again," said Luke.

"Well, now you know exactly what he's looking for. What do you do to stop him?" asked Nell.

"That's what we'll figure out. Do you have everything?" She nodded at Luke and the others, grabbing the first bag as they grabbed the others.

"Hey, Nell," said Cam as they reached the door.

"Yes?"

"Fucking great work back there," he smiled. "Sor's a lucky bastard."

"Oh, no. I'm the lucky one. I get him and all these amazing big brothers in the deal. What girl wouldn't want that?"