Chapter 96

The transport vehicle headed out of the airport, picking up speed as they reached the street. The road itself wasn’t in that great of shape, but it was better than anything they’d encountered in Russia and certainly smoother than driving across the field next to the airport.
“How far are we from DC?” Cale shouted as they clambered along.
“Not far,” Margie said. “Did you guys figure out a way to get in?”
“Hell yeah we did!” Elliott shouted. “Tunnels.”
“Tunnels?” Margie repeated, shaking her head.
“There are tunnels underneath the old Capitol Building. Elliott thinks we can use them to sneak into the building,” Jo explained.
“I don’t think. I know,” he said, his voice booming louder than the other noises. “We got this, Marge.”
She nodded. “All right. I hope so. Because I received word that the execution will be tonight at midnight.”
“Midnight?” Scott repeated. “Why midnight?”
“Who the hell knows?” Margie said with a shrug. “Because Crimson Crotch is a fucking idiot.”
Jo didn’t know why he’d schedule it for midnight either, but she was glad they had some time to pull off their infiltration and recovery. The time on her IAC was still working. It wasn’t quite noon yet, which meant they would have about twelve hours to get into position, figure out how to get to the tunnels, break in, find the prisoners, free them, and smuggle them out. No problem.
“How many troops do you have with you, Margie?” Cassidy asked.
“We are spread out from here to Florida, but up here, we have about twenty thousand.”
“Twenty thousand?” Jo repeated, unable to believe that number. “How many of them are human?”
“Most of them,” Margie said. “But they can bomb the shit out of these buildings just as well as any of us.”
“Humans in Australia have been fighting Vampires for years,” the guy on Jo’s other side said. He also looked vaguely familiar, now that she was looking him in the face, but she couldn’t place him. “That’s one of the ways that we were able to keep the Vampires from taking over like they have here.”
“But can they kill them?” Jo asked.
“Sure. A human can kill a Vampire with a stake in the heart or a silver bullet that lands in the right place,” he said.
Jo had never seen a human kill a Vampire before. She turned to look at Margie, confused. “Then what the hell are we for?” She meant in the big scheme of things, of course, not on this particular mission.
Margie laughed. “It’s a hell of a lot easier for us to kill them. And if the Vampires have any sort of special powers, like that stupid bitch Holland, there’s no way in hell a human can take them down.”
“I take it just blowing the hell out of a building won’t kill them, though, assuming a human is dropping the bomb?” Jo asked.
“We have some of those silver shooting bombs that Christian invented. Those seem to work no matter who drops them,” the guy explained.
Jo turned to look at Margie again, wishing she could place him. It was driving her crazy. “How many do you have?”
“Here… about forty. I left some with the other squads, though. They are spreading across the country from Florida and Georgia, doing their best to infiltrate the rest of the country and liberate the humans.”
“You guys got any other fancy weapons, Grant?” Elliott asked.
“Grant!” Jo blurted before she realized that she’d said it aloud. She looked at Grant, the man she couldn’t place before, and flashed a small, embarrassed smile. “I’m sorry. I’m not good with names.”
“It’s no problem,” he said. “I would’ve introduced myself, but I just took for granted you’d remember me.”
“I did remember you!” Jo exclaimed. “I just couldn’t remember your name.” That wasn’t exactly true. She knew that Margie’s husband’s name was Grant, but she had no idea that this was him. She really wished her IAC was working. She’d heard that her mother was terrible with names, too. So at least she came by it naturally.
“We have several of the silver grenades of Christian’s,” Grant said. “We have some of the reflective bracelets, if anyone wants to use those. What else, Marge?”
“Uh, we have the silver cuffs that most Vampires can’t free themselves of,” she said.
‘We have several pairs of those, too,” Jo chimed in. “But we are almost out of grenades.” She hadn’t taken all of them that they had available with them either since she thought Lucas and some of the others who had stayed behind might need them if they found Holland and decided to attack or if they got into some other form of trouble.
“What about aircraft?” Cass asked. “Do you have any planes with you?”
“Why? You need to borrow one to get back to Russia?” Margie asked, a crooked smile on her face.
“Well, yes,” Cassidy said, “I guess so, but I meant can you bomb them while we’re in the tunnels, see if you can break through any of that solid ceiling so that if we need another way out, we’ve got one. Not to mention it might kill a few of these assholes while you’re at it.”
“We have several bomber jets,” Margie said, “but I wasn’t going to use them against this particular building. It’s allegedly made of concrete fifteen feet thick, even in the ceiling, but I don’t know if it’s true. Either way, I wasn’t thinking that would be necessary. We are going to create a diversion on the outside of the building.”
The jostling of the vehicle and the chatter around her was making it difficult for Jo to think. She needed to give some thought as to whether or not she thought aircraft would be of use to them. She wasn’t even sure that the diversion was a good idea. What if it made Crimson Crotch act more quickly and move the assassinations up?
“I think we should try to negotiate instead of blasting our way in,” Jo said, interrupting Brandon who was saying something she hadn’t heard. She turned her head and looked at Margie who raised her eyebrows.
“What?” Margie asked. “What are you talking about, Jo? Did you hit your head, too?”
“No,” Jo assured her. “I don’t think so, anyway. Listen, we are going to be sneaking in. They shouldn’t know we are there at all if Elliott’s theory is correct.”
“Elliott’s theory is correct,” Elliott interjected.
Jo ignored him. “If we can get into the building without them knowing we are there, we’ve got a better chance of finding the prisoners and freeing them than if you are attacking them at the same time from the outside of the building.”
“But if we attack them from the outside of the building, that will draw some of their troops away from you,” Grant pointed out.
“Theoretically,” Jo said. “But not necessarily.” She scanned their faces again to see if anyone was following her. All she got was a reassuring smile from Zane and a bunch of empty stares. “We want them to think that we are not attacking,” she said. “We want them to think that we are trying to peacefully negotiate a surrender before we attack while we are actually infiltrating their lair to find our people and get them out of there.”
“So you’re saying you think you can get in there quickly, get the prisoners out, and then we can attack?” Margie asked.
“You can attack later if you’d like,” Jo said. “I know that your purpose for being here is two-fold, saving the prisoners and also taking out Crimson Crotch and restoring the previous balance of power. I’m just here for the first part, though, so I don’t really give a damn what happens once Scott’s dad and the others are rescued.”
Margie blinked a few times and then turned away from her. Jo really wished that she had a working IAC. It would be great to be able to talk to her teammates without having to move her mouth.
“I see what you’re thinkin’, Jo,” Elliott said. “And I’m not sure it makes a whole lotta sense unless we get in there plenty early. They might think that we are only negotiating if we can get there before nightfall, but once the appointed hour begins to arrive, they are going to expect us to attack. It wouldn't make sense for us not to.”
“Which could make them even more suspicious of what we are doing than they already are,” Brandon said.
“Precisely.” Elliott nodded in his son’s general direction. “So… we need to be a little bit sneaky about this, but not overtly underhanded.”
“I think you just used a coupla words that were way too big for your vocabulary,” Heather said, never missing an opportunity to insult Elliott. As usual, he ignored her.
“We’ll be in DC in about an hour,” Margie told them, looking at a watch on her wrist. “That should give you an opportunity to get in there in time, but I have to wonder how you expect us to distract them from seeing you move in if we aren’t attacking.”
“Can you contact Crimson Crotch? Can you try to negotiate with him?” Jo asked.
“I can get his attention and let him know that we want the opportunity to talk,” Margie said with confidence.
“Can you do that while we are getting into position?” Jo asked.
Margie nodded. “We can give it a try, I guess. But I’m not sure this is the best route to take.”
“Let’s spend the rest of the trip thinking it out,” Jo suggested. She had faith, though, for once in her life, that she’d actually come up with a plan that made sense.

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