Chapter 7

Lee and Joey were up early and dressed in shorts and t-shirts. They had a quick breakfast before looking for a hardware store to get their supplies. They walked around the downtown area and found a small store that had the items they were looking for. Since they had a few hours before they had to get ready to leave, they decided to take a taxi down to the beach.

Once there, Lee looked around and could see quite a few new hotels had been built. They walked from one end of the beach to the other ending at the hotel where Captain Bradley died. Lee stood outside looking at it but did not want to go in. Joey stood along side of him figuring this must have been where Bradley had died. He didn't say anything to Lee as he stared at the hotel and eventually walked back to where they were dropped off.

Joey got them a taxi so they could go back to the hotel. "You okay Lee," Joey asked as Lee hardly said anything since they left the beach.

"Yes, Joey. I just needed to see it again."

"For closure?"

"No, I still feel guilty and that I owe him to continue on being an agent. I can't quit yet."

"What does your wife think of that?" Joey remarked raising his eyebrows.

"She's not thrilled but does finally understand," Lee replied as he looked at the window letting Joey know he didn't want to talk about it anymore.

The taxi dropped them off at their hotel. "Let's change and go over our plan one more time before we leave," Lee suggested as he paid the driver and walked into the hotel.

"Sounds good," Joey replied realizing Lee still had feelings for Captain Bradley and a deep sense of duty.

((()))

The two men reviewed what they were going to do once the arrived at the house. Lee met Joey in the hall after they had changed their clothes. Both were dressed in black pants, shirts, and shoes just like the men they saw at the house. Joey had the backpack with the zip ties and duct tape inside as well as whatever he needed to crash the PR's computer systems. They again walked to the area where the house was located. This time they noticed a few cars in front of some of the other houses but no one was outside or in the park. They made their way into the forest directly behind the house.

"Once we get to the back door of the house, they're going to see us on their surveillance cameras but maybe they'll think we're their replacements."

Lee went up the two stairs that led to the back door. He tried the door and wasn't surprised it was locked. He took out his lock pick and opened the door. The two men saw Lee and Joey on their cameras but assumed they were going to be relieved early today so didn't think anything about it until Lee and Joey entered the front room of the house with their guns drawn.

"What the hell?!" one of the men yelled as he saw Lee come up behind them. Lee and Joey swiftly hit each man on the back of the neck with their guns knocking them out. While Lee zip tied the two men and duct taped their mouths, Joey checked out the computers.

Joey went to each computer pressing buttons and checked out what was installed on them. "These computers not only watch what the men are doing but also who enters and leaves the tunnel as well. There are three men in a room with two computer stations, a couple of servers and some other equipment. They have their backs to the door. I can see one of the men does have a gun. There's also another door in the room," Joey reported to Lee. "They have a pretty secure monitoring system on these computers. These two men watch these guys hacking into everyone's computers but no one is watching them," Joey chuckled as he took out a flash drive, put into the computer and pressed some more buttons. It was a couple of minutes later when Joey released his drive and looked at Lee. "I've reprogrammed these computers to erase all the information on them in two minutes."

"Will all the data be erased on them so there's no need to destroy the computers themselves?" Lee asked.

"No need, they will crash and burn," Joey said smugly. "And they won't able to download any more information since I've given them all a nasty virus."

Lee smiled and checked outside to make sure no one was coming into the house. Seeing it was clear they left the house and the two guards out cold and tied up. As soon as they were out of the house, Lee and Joey made their way over to the shed. "Stay here in the shed and wait for my signal to enter the tunnel," Lee told Joey in no uncertain terms.

"Yes, Lee. I'll wait," he replied.

Lee made his way into the tunnel. It was rounded at the top and made of white stone that had blackened with age and was divided into four sections with a round light in each section. The walkway was paved in black asphalt. Easier to move equipment between the house and tunnel, Lee surmised. There were white and blue iridescent stones and rocks along each side. Lee headed down the tunnel with his gun drawn and stopped when he reached the fourth section to check out what was at the end. He could see a door on the left hand side and in front of him a stone wall. There was no other way out of the tunnel except the way he came in. Before going around the corner to the door, Lee motioned for Joey to come into the tunnel. Lee saw he was already halfway down the tunnel when he motioned him to enter.

"Damn, Joey," Lee said sharply. "I told you to wait for my signal."

"Sorry Lee," Joey replied sheepishly. "I didn't want to leave you alone in the tunnel with no backup."

"Sorry Joey, I would have done the same thing," Lee told him. Lee motioned to Joey to stand behind him as he reached for the door knob. He quietly turned the knob and found it was unlocked. He nodded to Joey as he burst into the room with Joey right on his heels. The man with gun took a shot at Lee missing him as Lee returned the fire catching the man in arm causing him to drop his gun. Lee went over to the man and kicked the gun out of his reach.

"Don't even think about it," Joey told the two men at the computers. "I'll have no problems shooting either one of you."

Lee took the zip ties and duct tape from Joey as he pulled it from the backpack. He quickly zip tied the three men and duct taped their mouths while Joey sat down at the computers checking out what was installed on them. He desperately wanted the program they used to prevent anyone from hacking into their systems so he took out another flash drive and began downloading the program. As he waited for it to download, he put in the other flash drive and began destroying its hard drive and the information on the servers. Each computer had its own server. Joey knew it would take a few minutes to download the program and noticed Lee was starting to get antsy wanting to get out of there before they were discovered. The program finally finished downloading and Joey repeated on that computer what he had done on the first one.

"Man, they have been real busy," Joey remarked as he looked at how many computers they had hacked into. "Many more countries besides the US, they had even hacked into the personnel records of government personnel in the US along with England, Spain and France," Joey told Lee as he destroyed the hard drive.

"Damn," Joey said loudly when he finished up the last computer noticing before the computer crashed and burned that the surveillance system was still working. "There's someone coming down the hall. They must have realized something was wrong in here when the data stopped coming in. We've got to get the hell out of here."

Joey removed the flash drive and put it in his pocket along with the other one. "Get out now, I'll hold them off while you get out of here," Lee shouted to Joey.

Joey left the room and was half way down the tunnel when the guard started shooting at Lee after he followed Joey out of the room. Lee returned the fire but something metal in his hand caught his attention. He was too far away to make out what it was but saw the guard push a button and ran back towards the door at the end of the tunnel. Shit, Lee thought, they must have a bomb planted in the tunnel. He was relieved when he saw Joey was almost at the end of the tunnel about to enter the shed. He had no idea how long he had before the tunnel blew up. He only had one more section to go when the tunnel exploded sending him crashing into the side and everything went black as the stones came tumbling down on top of him.

((()))

Joey made it out of the tunnel and into the shed. He looked back to see how much farther Lee had to go before he would be out. He saw he had only one more section when the whole thing started to collapse. He ran back to the entrance but before he could enter the tunnel the metal gate came crashing down sealing off the entrance as the stones continued to fall.

"Lee," he yelled looking into the tunnel and could see him about fifty feet from the gate covered in stone and debris. "Shit," he muttered. "I've got to get him out of there...he's not going to die on me." Joey remembered that the button for the gate was in the house. "Hang on Lee. I'm coming," Joe shouted not knowing if Lee was able to hear him.

He ran out of the shed and into the house and pressed the button and waited for the gate to retract but nothing happened. Joey looked over the control pad and knew it was one very similar to the ones they used to open garage doors. He ripped it off the wall and put two wires together hoping it would release the gate. Joey ran back through the shed to the entrance of the tunnel as the gate retracted. He frantically started removing the stones and debris off Lee. He could see he was severely injured. He also realized that someone would be coming to check on the guards in the house and hoped he would be out of there by the time they arrived. He finished removing the rest of the stones and picked Lee up throwing him over his shoulders. He ran into the forest and put Lee down trying to catch his breath. He didn't want to wait too long before going for help but needed to make sure he wasn't seen. He gently picked up Lee putting him around his shoulders again and walked through the park. He made it out to the street where people had gathered after hearing the explosion.

An older woman saw him and ran over to him, "Can I help you," she asked as Joey laid Lee down on the ground.

"Yes, my friend is badly injured, please call an ambulance," Joey pleaded.

She ran to her house, made the phone call and came back with some wet towels and was wiping the dirt and grime from Lee's face. Joey could see his arm was broken; he had many bruises and cuts, a deep gash on his head but Lee most important he was unconscious. He never made a sound all the while Joey was carrying him. The ambulance arrived and they loaded Lee into it. Joey climbed in the back with him after thanking the lady for her help. He wanted to get out of there before the police started asking him questions.