Blueblood 5.1: Red Alert!! - 3. Going To Get George

We were flying from Barbados to New York. Our system of communication was being watched, or so Stan feared. His Sentry Buddies had warned him there were eyes trying to see in. Had someone done it?

John had finally agreed to try and sleep on the long flight back. He had gone back to the isolated bed in closed off portion of the cabin to attempt to do that. Things were pretty tense as we rode in silence for a while.

I noticed Stan was looking a little more intensely than usual. Mark sat right beside Stan, but he looked worried as he observed Stan working on his computer. Mark didn’t bother Stan right now and let Stan work, concentrating on the programs and what he saw. Stan was dedicated normally, but I could see that Stan was taking this personally and it bothered him.

“Are we compromised?” Colin finally broke the silence asking Stan who was still watching his monitor.

Stan looked up and just stared at Colin and blinked. Reluctantly he shrugged. “I don’t know.” He didn’t like being outwitted and was having an issue with the thought he might have been. “My programs are good. The computer system that makes up Buddy is very good. I can’t say with any certainty we were or weren’t.”

I touched Colin’s arm but looked at Stan. Mark just rubbed his husband’s back. Stan needed reassurance that it wasn’t his fault because of something he didn’t know about, so I said. “The fact is…if we were breached…whether it is Buddy or something that George did, they knew where George and John were going and took him. The people George contacted are not on Buddy could be observed by these people. No one is being held accountable or responsible, Stan.”

Stan nodded, but his face didn’t tell me he was convinced. “But they aren’t that smart.” He shook his head. “I feel confident our systems are secure.” He took a deep breath sitting back and waving at the computer on his lap. “When we first came to Manhattan, to Holms' Laboratories those five some odd years ago, there was just Holms' Laboratories and the computer which I named Buddy. George was doing a lot of research with Buddy that needed a lot of memory and processing speed for sifting through genetic codes and various elements and chemicals and a sophisticated computer to analysis what he was researching. Then when we closed down Marissa and the First Vampire nonsense, we got the vampire capitals and contacts from around the world.” He pointed at Colin. “Then you sent that first broadcast and we were the VUN. We invited everyone to reply that got that broadcast, so I created fail safes and posted my first Sentry Buddies to watch for any unwanted eyes on us. Anyone can send a message to us. Then you asked to create a webpage for VUN International, I created a deeper level with tougher securities and toughened up my Sentries. I don’t think communicating Buddy within Buddy has been compromised. In fact, I’m sure we weren’t. Even our cellphones, tablets and androids are covered and secure by Buddy…Buddy to Buddy. I am certain that is secure. I had to create a way that all those scientists in other countries to be able to access the webpage while doing research on the venom and serum, but only the medical part of the VUN. Only with the approved password can any information about the venom and serum can be accessed but nothing else. I created the deeper level of security for the VUN personnel that only those like you, Devon and the others that are key with the VUN can access anything about the VUN politically or otherwise. I am almost ninety-five percent…no, make that ninety-eight percent sure no one can break in. I can’t say one hundred percent, though.” He looked out a window but wasn’t looking at the sky going by as he sighed. “Buddy is very tough. I dare say that the other organizations like the NSA, FBI, Interpol or any other organization could not break in.” He held his hand up. “That is not to say no one can.” He clarified. “These people that took George think they are clever.”

I nodded. “Those PDTUs, how did they know about them and how to block Buddy from reading George?”

He grinned. “They didn’t. They aren’t that clever. They knew there was something, I’m sure. The general field they created to block George’s PDTU was good, but a field to block a wide range of…things used for tracking. Once I found the...difference in the area of the plane, Buddy and I were able to crack it. The PDTU really isn’t a unit at all, the only working part is the host the PDTU is in. The person’s body can be read as Buddy can focus on the PDTU to read the host...a focal point for Buddy’s eye. They erected a field that generally blocked George’s body from being read.” He waved at his laptop. “I will be able to do more when I get to Manhattan. The delay of time is only a fractionally different, but with the main CPU, I should be able to tell where George is and access other systems and programs quicker.”

Colin smiled nodding. “That’s damned clever. Devon and I knew there was a risk with anyone coming out as a vampire to the world. George should not have come out at all, but he did. Stan, you are smart. I know that any system can be compromised. I would never hold you responsible for that.”

Stan grimaced with a nod, but he was still holding himself responsible. “I try to think of all the ways it could be done and find a way of protecting...”

“Stan!” Colin said loud and quickly leaning forward stopping our friend. “Stop it! You are the best...programmer, operator…whatever you are…to do with computers.”

Mark pulled Stan back against him pressing his lips to Stan’s temple. “Colin’s right, baby. We’ll find George because of you.” He got a nod from Stan.

“Is there any more about George’s location?” I asked. “He landed in...” I frowned as I tried to remember, “what was the name of that town?”

“Yekaterinburg.” Stan grinned chuckling. “It’s a good thing Mitch did so much to get the Russian language into the Delkenzie program. I know we’ll need it.” He shook his head. “That area of Western Siberia has a lot of caves and mines.” His eyebrows waggled.

Colin rolled his eyes. “Sure.” He groaned. “Caves. The domain of choice for vampires everywhere.”

“It just makes sense.” Mark shrugged. “They offer freedom to move and not a grave.”

“He has stopped moving,” Stan said. “He’s in an isolated area in the mountains east of Yekaterinburg.”

“We’ll need everyone in on this,” Colin said as he thought.

“Iilya was Russian.” I pondered out loud. “I wonder if Lucian knows about this group.”

Colin looked at me warily. “Do you think he would help us?”

I shrugged. “The only thing I could really sense with Lucian was he loved Iilya.” I looked at Colin. “From what Lucian told me, Iilya was mentally disturbed most definitely, but Iilya loved Lucian. He got a sort of peace with Lucian. Then again, Lucian was so traumatized by life before he became a vampire and probably afterward...they sort of fed off each other’s love. I believe that love was real...it wouldn’t hurt to ask Lucian.”

Colin nodded. “Sure, I’ll get Ruben to get him back to the VUN. We’ll ask him.” He groaned as he thought of something. “I guess we need to inform the President.”

“Why?” Mark asked. “We won’t be using any military forces to get George out.”

“Because he needs to be informed,” Colin explained simply. “We have Dr. Canaday working with us for that reason and will get Dr. Canaday to tell that George has been taken. If we don’t keep the line of communication going, he won’t trust us.”

Stan nodded. “When we do go to Russia, it would be seen as an incursion if the military is used. The President can’t and won’t authorize that. We don’t have the Russian President in the know yet, so he won’t help us.”

“But the President of the United States will know what we’re doing and why,” Colin said.

Mark chuckled. “Rumor is the President and the Russian President are pretty chummy,” Mark said with a grin.

“Mark.” I shook my head, slightly chastising. “Who knows if those rumors are true?” I shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. He’s the President and we said we’d keep him up to date.”

We landed in New York and were flown by helicopter to the VUN in Manhattan.

Going quickly down to what we used as the Control Room where Stan sat quickly and began quickly typing on Buddy without saying anything to anyone there. The others were returning from their various locations. Dr. William Canaday was also there speaking with Ruben.

“Now, maybe I can get more information more quickly,” Stan said to no one and anyone as he worked.

Dr. Canaday looked up at Colin. “You all should have stayed here.” He said a little angrily. “To prevent this from happening.”

“Our lives go on, Bill,” Colin said quietly. “We have lived a lot longer with this than you can imagine.”

“As I said before, Bill,” I said to him, “this situation is new and you feel an urgency with the recently gained knowledge that has been going on for them for decades and even centuries.”

“We knew this would likely happen if we told the world.” Colin shrugged. “Our lives can’t be put on hold because of this. We will handle this.”

“How can you handle this?” Dr. Canaday asked.

“We go and get George back,” Colin said simply.

Dr. Canaday’s eyes grew. “The President can’t authorize a military involved extraction.”

Mark nodded. “They are not asking for one.” He waved around him, indicating the building. “There are enough trained people here to deal with this.”

“And internationally.” Stan chuckled as he studied what Buddy was telling him.

Dr. Canaday shook his head. “You’re a government agent for the United States.” He said to Mark.

“Who won’t be going in as U.S. government agent.” Mark nodded. “I will be going to get a friend, who is also my husband’s employer.”

“You are here to keep the President apprised of the situation.” I pointed out. “We are doing what we need to do.”

I did notice something, though. I was looking at Ruben. His dark hair had begun to thin and I had noticed that when we met him. Now I was noticing a little more was gone and the grey was creeping higher in the temples and spreading more in his dark hair. I looked at Mark and Stan. They had both been in their early thirties and now were in their late thirties. Seeing them almost every day, I didn’t notice. Ruben, I didn’t see that often. I noticed a difference. They were aging. I looked at Colin. He looked the same as he did that day we first met five years ago. No change. I suddenly felt apprehensive and was getting the idea of what people were wanting to get for themselves. The drawbacks of being what Colin had been made were almost gone…except for the aging thing. I was now getting my first bit of understanding about what Colin mentioned about losing people. Mark, Stan, Chuck, Shelley, Amir, and Ruben were not going to always be here. When we all aged, it was just a part of life, so we didn’t think about it. Hopefully, they would be here another forty or fifty years, but we would lose them. I felt the new pang of ache as I understood that now.

We gathered in a pretty big conference room, which reflected these vampires’ distaste for anything dark. Unlike many I had seen of others, this had no dark wood or anything like that. It was white. The floor, the ceiling, and walls. Even the conference table was white as were the chairs and there were ten on each side and two at the ends. There was a large window on one side of the room allowing a lot of sun in and let us see Manhattan that stretched out below. The VUN with all of the couples attending, including Shelly and Chuck, the five past years was now being seen by me with those two as well from my new awareness. Vlad, Gaius, Wayne, Amasis, Kev, Ellis, and the others all spoke briefly to John who was not really responding more than a word or two, withdrawing even more into himself.

Stan got to the end of the conference table and spoke to everyone. “Okay, people…here’s what I have.” Stan waved at a large monitor screen on the wall where it showed a map of some aerial shot of Russia. “This is Yekaterinburg.” Stan said. “That was the town or city that George landed in Russia.” He hit a button on his keyboard and the map moved East to an area that didn’t have much there but trees and mountains. “This is Asbest, Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia. Asbest is an industrial and mining community just east of Yekaterinburg by about fifty miles. Chrysotile is what they mine for mostly.”

“Wha’s that?” Ellis asked.

Stan chuckled. “Asbestos.” He saw Ellis nod as he understood. “The biggest company is Uralasbest which is a joint-stock company. They also have a poultry processing plant, make ferroconcrete, as well as porcelain, bricks as well as mining for asbestos. It is just on the eastern slopes of the Ural Mountains which is where George was taken. This is all Western Siberia and there are a number of mines there.”

Wayne grimaced. “Yep.” He said a little sour. “Mines again.” He moaned as he rolled his eyes.

Ellis shrugged with a grin. “If they ‘aven’t go’ tunnels like we did...”

“Isn’t it cold there?” Shelly asked motioning to the map. “It’s Siberia!” She said as if it was inevitable.

Stan nodded. “In the winter…yes, it can be very cold, but right now it’s about eighty degrees. It normally gets into the seventies or even the sixties during the day in the summer.”

“All these Russian names.” Mom lamented holding her head.

Stan gave a shrugging nod. “Yes, it is a good thing that Mitch McKenzie had to be able to translate Russian first. That is the one language other than English Buddy knows the best. It should be no problem for Buddy or the translators.”

“When are we going?” John asked quietly not really looking at anyone and really hadn’t since we left Barbados. He had sort of been stewing silently at the table. His voice communicated his impatience quietly as he sat with his arms folded across his chest. He had listened but hadn’t commented at all. I could not imagine what kind of hell he was going through. In many ways, I got the feeling from him of a caged panther being very still before he pounced to attack. Not knowing what he felt, I could only imagine Colin felt when I was taken. I know I couldn’t sit still easily if Colin were taken.

“Tomorrow at the earliest, but as soon as we get things together…we go,” Colin answered. He did know what John felt. “But we fly to England first and gather some of the others like Edwin and Matt. There are others from Romania coming as well.” He looked at Dr. Canaday. “We will be taking a number of guys from here. This is…” he shrugged, “a vacation?” He smiled.

“Vacation!?” Dr. Canaday balked. “To a town in Siberia!? Who does that!?”

“Or...” I began, “we can say again the truth as we did in Romania.” I shrugged. “We’re working for the betterment of the Delkenzie program.” I watched Colin chuckle and nodded at him. “You have to admit, it’s a great cover story.” I grinned at Colin. “We need to thank Mitch for the perfect reason to go some odd places.”

“We need to invite him for dinner when we get George back.” Colin nodded at me and then pointed at John. “And we’ll do whatever we need to. George will be back with you…” he grimaced. “And us.”

John nodded. “You know what I’m going through. It’s just hard to sit and do nothing just as it was for you.”

Colin nodded. “I do know. We are doing something, John.” He looked at everyone at the table. “To everyone else there in Asbest, it’s the perfect reason to be there.” He looked at Stan. “However, the ones that took George will be alerted if we show up. They watched our broadcasts and know my face.”

Vlad nodded in agreement. “And mine.”

“We shouldn’t take the Holm’s plane,” I suggested. “We fly to London, get everyone there and we take commercial flights to Russia.”

“Or charter a plane to get our equipment there,” Mark added. “Those coming to support us can fly in commercially.”

Those that are coming should go to…” I frowned at Stan. “What is that town’s name that George landed in again?”

Stan laughed. “Yekaterinburg.”

“Yuckenburg...” I shook my head and thumbed at Stan. “What he said.”

“Really...” Dr. Canaday began having calmed down, apparently. He seemed to see we were taking this very seriously. “You shouldn’t all land in Yekaterinburg at all.” He looked at John sympathetically. “I know, your husband needs to be found and brought back.” He shrugged throwing his hands out slightly in helplessness. “You are right.” He smiled at me. “I was reacting on the novelty of this old, unknown to me, situation.” He sighed. “I’ve gone over and over George’s notes and am still not clear about most of what he’s done over these decades. He needs to come back.”

Kev nodded in agreement. “I have been a doctor a long time and even I can only understand some of what George has. Granted, I was not an operating doctor for almost…” he stopped knowing that telling he was a vampire was not what Dr. Canaday was told.

“I figured that out for myself, Kev.” Dr. Canaday chuckled and held his hands out to stop any replies to what he was going to say. “I know, this is the new...” he did finger air quotes, “Don’t Ask and Don’t Tell.” He smiled. “I’m not asking and don’t tell me, but you have tells. You have an almost classical way...an older world reference when acting and talking…I know you are one of them. I suspect others...”

Kev shrugged. “Yes, I suppose I do have tells...” he chuckled, “if I were what you think.” He shook his head and went on. “What I was saying, I didn’t practice for a while, but George has been doing this for more than half a century. He uses symbols and a kind of…shorthand for processes to keep the notes short...many of which I can’t decipher, but he knows instantly. We will bring him back.”

Dr. Canaday smiled. “I am a doctor, but a military doctor. I know some military strategy. You need to go in, not together; separately as couples. Moscow, St. Petersburg and any other cities you can arrive in. Don’t come from the same place. The ones in Romania should come from Romania. The others come from say...Heathrow.” He pointed at Kev and Ellis. “You come from Gatwick. And don’t show up all in one big wave.” He looked at Vlad and Gaius. “You two and Colin and Devon shouldn’t come in on a commercial flight. No passenger manifests with your names. As you said, your faces are known. Fly to an isolated small airport on a private plane and then travel on land to Asbest.”

Stan nodded. “Dr. Canaday is right.”

I smiled at the commander, glad he was understanding now and giving good advice. “Thank you, Bill.”

“Oh,” Stan remembered something. “Make sure you use your android, tablets or computers that has Buddy’s restricted Wi-Fi connections when speaking with each other for added security.”

Gaius frowned. “Gina uses her connection to…” Gaius waved his hand, “does whatever that magical way is to talk to Kelly in Scotland who is not on Buddy.”

Gabriella chuckled. “I don’t think Gina is going to give away VUN secrets to Kelly.”

“No, but he’s got a point.” Stan held his hand up but nodded to Gaius. “Don’t tell Gina that we’re leaving or even Nicolae as he might say something to Gina and she passes it to Kelly.” He pointed at Colin. “We need a couple of those smaller CPUs of Buddy to take. One as a backup. The Wi-Fi will go through him.”

Willie sat forward. “Okay, we’ll deal with the Russian Language part. Are there any contacts in Russia we can trust?”

Mom nodded. “What about Sasha Ledebev? David McKenzie’s husband? He is Russian and even served in the military for almost ten years. Can we ask him for help?”

Colin looked at me and then looked back at Mom. “I believe he doesn’t need to be involved with this. Whether or not Mitch told him what some of us are, we would have to tell him about us if we did.” He shrugged. “He can be a backup for if we’re in a jam, but no.”

“What about Lucian?” I asked.

“He’s in transit now,” Ruben reported. “He should be here in a few hours.”

“Hours?” I asked a little surprised. “Where exactly is he being held?”

Ruben chuckled. “We have a facility in the Gulf of Mexico. Very nice, I’m told but away from the general public.”

“Anywhere near or in...I don’t know…say Cuba?” I asked.

Ruben just smiled but didn’t answer the question.

“Okay.” I simply said back. “Moving on…”

Colin frowned. “You think Lucian can be trusted?”

“Baby, you and I both will talk to him,” I said. “Between your ability to tell if someone can be trusted and what you all say I can do to talk to people…” I looked at Vlad, “does your ability to influence or suggest work on vampires?”

“I may have to push a little more, but it has.” Vlad nodded.

“Then we all three will talk to Lucian,” I said simply. “Between the three of us, I think we will find the answer.” I smiled. “Besides, even with what he did and the confusion caused by the venom and Iilya, I do believe Lucian will be happier from now on. I’d like to think he would tell the truth.” I remembered the Old Ones. “This is crazy, but I feel guilty not spending time with Ralph, Iustina, and Repetate. I feel like I’m neglecting them.” I saw Colin look at me with surprise. “Don’t look at me that way.” I griped but smiled. “I’m more attached to them than I should be, perhaps, but I really like them.” That was true, I was very attached to them.

Mom smiled. “It’s like having three special needs children.”

“That’s right.” I shrugged a nod. “Children who are very ancient but dependent on us.” I looked at everyone. “I know what they are and I know they can’t be let out, but they are human…of sorts. I don’t know how I’d deal with being pinned up in one room with little to do.”

Wayne sat forward a little. “But they made us what we are.”

I nodded. “And they were made what they are.” I looked at Wayne. “Imagine you were created to just kill. You never know friendship or love. Driven by urges you can’t not indulge in. It’s that or die,” I smiled at Wayne. “I know, Ralph was the one that turned you.” I nodded, knowing that Wayne probably couldn’t understand what I was going to say. “I don’t think he knew it was wrong.”

“But it was!” Wayne protested. “That thing you call Ralph destroyed my life. He and the others like him destroyed all our lives.”

“Which is why we need George back.” I nodded. “He’s giving back those lives.” I urged him to see that. “No,” I shook my head, “it should never have happened. I see them as victims, just like you and Colin. They are the enemy because they were created to be that enemy. They are following what they were made to do.” I nodded. “I know, this is very personal to you and I get that. I see them as…almost innocent.”

Wayne shook his head. “Innocent.” He repeated not believing it, but not really contesting it much.

“You say they’re coming along,” Colin stated simply. “Explain it to them.” He looked at the others. “If there’s nothing else?” He asked. “Let’s get ready to go.” He looked at Vlad. “When Lucian gets here, we’ll need you.”

Vlad did a slight bow to Colin as he stood up. “And I will be there to serve.”

Colin nodded as he rose. “Let’s get ready to go.”