After our prolonged absence we were given two months R&R and I had decided to spend it visiting my ex-wife and child back in Florida, America on earth. Telling the company what I had planned they wanted to join me, Sergeant Tibbs after all is the godfather and neither of us had been in contact for eighteen months. Corporal Gibson needed some extra money and his fathers HQ was in Orlando so we could pop in at any time. Sergeant Wallace and Corporal Lambert just wanted to soak up the sun and enjoy themselves. We all just needed a break to cool off, relax and try to come to terms with our past situation. We took the minimum of baggage and only took a small side arm each.
Arriving in Orlando Gibson booked us in the pent house suite at the Continental Royal one of his fathers hotels. That day we rested, took in some of Tibbs’ old CD Vids and in the evening went to a night club. The following day I had arranged for the concierge to get three tickets for the National Opera House for Saturday, in the afternoon Tibbs and I visited my ex-wife and daughter as it was Amber’s birthday. On arrival discovered she had remarried but her husband was not there. Gave Amber presents and spent rest of afternoon at her party. From Jannie found her husband had recently been killed in a hostile corporate take-over of Quest Medical Research, apparently the boardroom had been blown out.
On the day we were due to go the Opera Jannie phones to say her house has been done over and Amber had been kidnapped. On arrival found the place had been done over with a fine tooth comb, the intruders had obviously been looking for something. Received a call saying that I was to acquire the goods they wanted and to pass it on or my daughter would be posted to me a bit at a time. I didn’t have a clue to what was happening or what they were looking for, Jannie was hysterical and in need of comfort. The local police arrived and cordoned off the area. We returned to our hotel to think on what had happened.
We had two leads to follow up, Quest Medical Research hostile take-over by Iomega Corp. and Jannie deceased husband. We decided to visit Gibson’s father has he needed to speak to him about money matters and also he was the sole owner of the Iomega Corporation. When we got there Corporal Gibson took us up to his fathers office only for us to be attacked by an unknown assailant, this assailant claimed to be Mr Gibson’s head of security and was planning some sort of take-over of Iomega Corp. A small fight pursued as we needed to protect Corporal Gibson as he was the sole heir to his fathers corporation and was in immediate danger. Our escape route was welcome if a little unexpected, his father had thought his life was in danger and had hired the services of Omega Securities and we managed to trip the escape shuttle to their current headquarters somewhere in downtown Orlando.
Their we found their head of the section seemed to know a lot about us and our recent actions in Washington claiming to have been there. There security surveillance was extensive with monitors filling a whole wall. They had cameras everywhere even at my ex-wives home, apparently her husband had hired their services for what little good it had done him, more interestingly they had a camera trained on my daughter, she was bound and gagged in a room which they refused to let me know the whereabouts of. They also had a camera trained on the office reception and of Mr Gibson, they had recorded the whole of the incident with us and the bogus security chief. Rewinding and watching I had noticed that some of the conversation that had exchanged between us, the security chiefs lips had not been moving rewinding and watching more closely I noticed the silhouette of a third party in the frame, I am not 100% certain but I am almost sure it was the Auditor who had been taken out while under Lt Demitries guard about two years ago.
Having to leave as we were expected at Mr Gibson’s residence for a diner party we knew we could confront the bogus security guard and expose him. Which we did and he later died from arsenic poisoning. This didn’t leave us much to go on but Mr Gibson invited us to join him on a tour of his latest aquasistion Quest Medical Research, after much questioning and pleading knowing nothing of our current line of investigation.
The tour was quiet boring, though the security arrangement was impressive, snipers, APC’s, guards and even drop ships. One of two highlights of the day was meeting two ghosts of my crammed past, Agent Michaels’ and the lady Auditor who both looked decidedly healthier than the last time I saw either of them, she didn’t seem that happy to see me and Michaels had the unenvious assignment of protecting Mr Gibson, the second was when Micheals nearly failed, The Lady Auditor had just left closely followed by Tibbs after she and I had had a tet a tet and she had left a red hand print on my left cheek, outside the window two drop ships appear and then the windows explode outwards, leaving the ships with an unhindered view of the board room. Everyone had hit the deck apart from a couple of people who were now redecorating the board rooms walls. The drop ships left chased by the security ships, then the panic set in and the guests headed for the main exit, watching Mr Gibson and Micheals carefully they headed towards the rear of the room so Corporal Gibson and myself followed them through what appeared to be a concealed escape route.
When we got to the bottom of the stairwell it seemed that this had been the assailants over-all plan because when we were welcomed by an escape committee of about twenty men armed with sub-machine guns who promptly opened fire on Mr Gibson and quickly left. After this fire fight both Gibson’s were admitted to hospital Senior barely alive and junior with shock. We were questioned and returned to our hotel.
A message had been left for at the hotel reception, it read ‘I know what it is like to loose a child, meet me at Hollywood’s restaurant 09:00 tomorrow for breakfast, no one else and definitely no police’ it was not signed. I decided to go ahead with the idea. We needed extra help, so I gave Micheals a call, he’d passed on his card for me to call him at anytime, he wasn’t that keen to help but passed on a phone number of a contact in Omega Securities. We called the contact who would not reveal to us the location of the building until their mission was over which would be within the next fourteen hours.
In the morning I went to the restaurant leaving only the message and a detail of other evidence I had come across in a security deposit in the hotel, with strict instructions to hand over it’s contents to Sergeant Tibbs if I didn’t return within two days. At the restaurant I was met by the Lady Auditor, I was quite stunned and immediately expected the worse. She explained that for now she would put our differences aside and aide me in the search for my daughter, as she once had nearly been a mother but had lost the baby. From her tone I guessed this had been lost in the unfortunate incident two years back and this is just a hunch, but from the impression she gave the lost child was Sergeant Tibbs, though this fact must go no further. She handed me a disk and left without eating her breakfast. I quickly followed just incase.
Checking out the disk back at the hotel it was a 3D schematic of an office block outside Orlando, the address was clear at the bottom, as the schematic revolved several blue markers were flashing from the index these indicated security guards about thirty in all, a single flashing red mark read on the index as Amber. She was being held on the twenty forth floor on her own. All this was very suspect, I decided not to reveal the source of the information until Micheals snout could confirm the address for us.
I received a call from an unknown with the usual ‘if you want to see your daughter alive again you had better follow my instructions’ routine, I had to meet him that evening in a restaurant on International Drive at 2100 hours, when I arrived a table had been booked for me and I was guided to my table by the waiter. I ordered some wine and food and waited for the mystery voice to approach. I didn’t have to wait long about halfway through my coffee a man in his early thirties approached my table and sat in the chair opposite me. He went straight into business giving it the usual verbal, he informed me what I was looking for was the formula which had been stolen from him by Jannie’s husband he then laid down the law, that if I hadn’t managed to recover the formula within 24 hours he would kill Amber, we negotiated for a short time as he was quite impatient and I managed to extend it to 48 hours but only with the consequences of him killing Amber and Jannie if I didn’t succeed. He would then proceed to kill everyone close to me, one every 24 hours.
This needed swift action, Corporal Lambert and Sergeant Tibbs had gone to a swanky club downtown and Wallace I wasn’t sure of, I had been invited to go with Tibbs and Lambert as he was meeting some girls he had met on his first evening here. I paid to get and the club was busy, but moving around I spotted them on the dance floor with the girls. I approached him and explained that his life was in immediate danger but he didn’t care, if I didn’t know him better I would have suspected him of being on drugs. Lambert was his usual insolent self claiming they were on R&R and if they were going to die in the next 24 hours they might as well enjoy it. Drastic action was called for, I spoke with the manager of the club and got a message put across the tanoy system that the Colonial Marine Base had gone to Alert Status 2 and all Marines were to return to base regardless of R&R. Lambert left and I met him outside, Tibbs however still refused to leave claiming he had resigned so I had the bouncers move him from the club.
Sitting in van supplied by a friend we waited for the call I was going over the schematic with the unit who were very suspicious about its source, then the contact rang and confirmed the address and that they had finished their raid. Tibbs was not amused about the source of the schematic, but then it was our only chance. We had formulated a plan, had some basic equipment and met our ride on the top of the hotel. We stopped over to pick up extra supplies and body armour, the plan was to enter through the office window from our transport, pick up Amber and leave.
Everything was going good, we entered the office through the window, checked the corridor, there seemed to be more guards than indicated in the schematic. We kept them at bay with a few warning shots, unfortunately one of the security guards was to brave and bought as he came in. The second problem came when we found Amber had been booby trapped, the bomb and detonator were obviously done by someone of far superior skills than mine or my teams. But just as we were about to attempt the defusion of the detonator one of the walls exploded and voices from beyond demanded our surrender, I am sorry to say that surrender was not an option, my team had already opened fire into the hole and I followed up with a grenade into the next room, upon inspection it had been a security strike team and two of the fallen had been blown out of the windows.
It was looking out the window we noticed the APCs arriving, thinking they were probably reinforcements for Security, I ordered the my unit to pull out, Sergeant Tibbs refused to leave but the rest boarded our transport and left. Tibbs and I carried on trying to defuse the bomb, we were not having much success with the defusion and Amber had been hit in the affray when gun fire echoed down the corridor and then a familiar voice called out for us to give up, it was Corporal Gibson, we were running low on options and our situation was getting worse, Corporal Gibson could have been extracted from the hospital and they were using him as leverage. But they managed to convince us of who they were, I think it was Major Swede’s voice that gave it away so we exited the room and left them to defuse the bomb and tend to Amber. When we got to the bottom we were escorted to an APC whereupon the twenty forth floor exploded, no-one would let us return to help Amber out and the closeness of my team cut in automatically, they tried to help and almost succeeded but in the affray Corporal Gibson was cut down by a sniper. Sergeant Tibbs and myself were rendered immobile by a far larger force, and when I awoke I was in Hospital with guards on the only exit.
It was routine for me seeing the grey and blue walls of a hospital room, but all I could think about was the explosion and Amber not being there anymore. Somebody was going to pay and pay dearly, Major Swede had guaranteed her safety and half the Marine Corp. was upto something fishy, they would all pay. I had a visitor but wasn’t paying any attention to him. Later Jannie turned up and I couldn’t help myself, she was ranting about how it was all my fault, then she collapsed on me in tears, which started me crying. It was pay back time, I wasn’t sure how I was going to do it or to who, but I opened my door to be confronted by two guards who wouldn’t let me go any further, so I asked for the Doc so I could be discharged. Jannie keeps me in check by ordering me back to bed when she realises I am trying to escape and I mean orders me, boy she has got a tongue on her. Laying in bed the Doc comes in he tells me I am to remain here until I’m fully recovered, from what I ask, I felt great. He points out I am suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome and Shock and the odd detail that I had had a gaping bullet wound in my left thigh, I hadn’t noticed suppose thats shock for you. Check on Jannie and she has fallen asleep through emotional fatigue, Doc offers a room for her and I told the Doc the security around here needs to be increased, he wasn’t in charge of that but would pass the message on, I stressed to him the urgency of the matter.
About twenty minutes later a Captain arrives and questions me about the request for increased security and I explain the current situation and the lives of Tibbs’ and Jannie were at risk from the mob. Says he’s going to talk to the base commander. Anyway about 20:00 the guards place security devices on the windows to stop the windows opening. and leave the room, say that the next duty will be along shortly. Strange that, thought they would have waited to be relieved, got a feeling something’s going down, tried to open the windows with no luck then standing behind me was a Staff Sergeant, Blake Stone by his name tag. he wanted me to leave with him, but I wasn’t going anywhere with him, he could have been working for anyone, then he reassures me by telling me that he’s working for the ‘Black Eagle’, yes I’m sure that inspires lots of confidence, so I went to hit, but my leg must have still been weak as I lost my balance and found myself being hauled up and taken out. He stopped outside a door and said he just going in to get Sergeant Tibbs he punched the code on the door and moved in leaving me standing outside the room, so I hobbled off, I’d nearly got to the outside door when a searing pain shoot through my injured thigh and then I kissed the deck with someone wrapped around my legs. Through blurred vision and gritted teeth I twisted round to find Blake Stone pointing a gun at me, so I conceded for now. We went back to Tibbs who was lying on the floor in full body plaster, I immediately sprung not quite cat like, to aid Tibbs only to greeted by Blake’s right hand, one again the floor and I were aquainted with each other. I laid there dizzy from the pain in my leg, when I could here the high pitched whine of a buzz saw, looking round Stone was cutting Tibbs’ plaster off. I got to my feet quietly and looked for something to dent his head with, but there was nothing to hand. He Tibbs were arguing about the ‘Black Eagle’, Stone moved across to a console and swiped a Vid card through it, immediately I recognised the voice of the ‘Black Eagle’ it was you Millen. This put a new perspective on things I started to help Sergeant Stone free Tibbs, I tried to explain to Tibbs but he was nearly hysterical and wasn’t proving to be co-operative for a change. We had to physically man handle him into the awaiting non armed sleepless APC. We made one extra stop before leaving the base and that was to pick up Sergeant Wallace and Private O’Rieley from the barracks. Then we left unhindered.
Our destination was a safe house in the middle of nowhere, it seemed all right, comfortable, butler was polite if a little assertive. Tibbs was not taking anything well, he hadn’t believed Stone’s catch phrase of Amber was still alive, and that only a synth had been blown away, but me I was prepared to hang onto any glimpse of hope that she was. still alive. We were to stay here until morning when we would be met. Things got a little heated that night, what with O’Rieley being the virtual killer of Corporal Dan Gibson and Tibbs getting wrecked with the cook but we managed to survive that evening. Next day our full military dress and been laid out in our rooms, and we were served breakfast in bed. This didn’t feel like we were going to be allowed to continue our current mission, but there was no escape at the moment, so I decided to wait an opportune moment. Everyone except Tibbs arrived downstairs in full Regalia dress, Tibbs was still wearing the overalls he had found in the hospital. Outside a converted Passenger ship had landed , looking out Major Swede was approaching the house, looked like pay back time was almost due, the only thing was I was in uniform, uniforms do something for the person wearing them, you become someone else, the service begins to mean something and you start to respect it and its morals again.
Swede took me alone outside, had a little surprise for me in the ship, when I got there you were in there but more to the point so were Jannie and Amber, Amber looked excited to see me but Jannie was holding her back because of the presence of High ran king Military Officers. It wasn’t a sick joke as you confirmed for me. The reunion was beyond words, but the relief was enormous. I took Amber into see Uncle Crazy Joe, this would either kill him or release that pressure valve inside him. Wasn’t sure for a while what it had done because when Amber jumped on him he didn’t say a word for what seemed an eternity.
Jannie and I are going to make another go of our relationship, for our own sake’s as well as Amber’s, I hope the offer of a safe house is still on the cards or at least a safe house on my current base. I don’t want to be far from my any of my family and they are all I’ve got apart from the marines. Though I have learned the hard way my real family need me and they can never be second best even to the marines. I hope you will look after them will I am serving my sentence for the charges I have have laid out below.