Thanks for the continued support for this story! The ending has been driving me crazy so I took a couple breaks from it and just this morning I woke up like "EUREKA" with the ending in my head that I want. So, now I'll be finishing this monster. Yeah!

Warning - You know me so be prepared. Time to shake things up!

Chapter 26

Ranger's POV

I heard a muffled curse as I headed up the stairs and I thought the voice belonged to Bobby and whispered, "Report!"

Bobby said, "Sorry. Sun Tzu just took off two heads to take with him and one just rolled against my boot. Gross, man." Behind me, Lester snickered and said, "Cool."

I turned and glared at Lester. "If you two nitwits don't get serious and go silent, I'm going to give him permission to take off two more heads." Lester gulped and there was no more chatter after that except for another chuckle which I knew was Hector.

I was about to go through the fire door to the third floor and all of a sudden I heard more muttering, "Holy shit!"

I whispered again, "Report!"

"Sun Tzu held up those heads when we went through the door and chucked em' like basketballs, except at the speed of cannonballs. Put a dent in two guys, man. There were four and I think a couple screamed like girls and really did shit their pants, Santos. They turned to run and he got them both before I even raised my weapon. That was, awesome," It was Brown again.

Santos whispered, "Sweet! Damn, you got the fun partner."

I heard Hector say, "No. Sun Tzu got the better one. He didn't get a cherry with shitty pants and shit for brains." Hector laughed at his joke and a couple others snickered. I turned and glared at Lester again. Looks like I wasn't going to be able to stop the commentary. They hadn't had a mission and a real adrenaline rush in a long time and they were having fun.

Sun Tzu's voice said, "These are the men that you did your famous missions with?" Lester was all sharp eyes now. His response was a meek, "Yes, sir."

I said, "Lester, Bobby and Tank were in my Ranger unit and believe it or not they're good special forces soldiers. The comic relief became good for the morale of the men. I apologize. I can't shut Santos up short of sewing his lips together. Time for a report. All floors."

Hector said, "Level one. Entrance to building locked. Lobby is empty." He smirked. "So much for the anti-intruder system to deter unwanted visitors. They have bulletproof glass and doors, ballistic grade about one inch thick. Cameras and monitors. We are heading to level two and looking for a control room."

"Jing Fei, on level four. Pinyin, the command center is here. One guard eliminated in hallway near elevator. Still moving."

"Adnan Bin Saidi, level five. One guard eliminated upon entering the floor here. I hear excited voices. They are aware of us now."

"Henri de Salis, level six. One door guard dispatched and I agree that they are aware that we are here. Gentleman, shall we advance?"

I smiled and before I said a word I heard Sun Tzu. "No. Come to level two. There is a reason why they wanted us here. Pin and Hector, continue to the command center and Jing, you will be their backup." The answer was, "Yes, general. On my way."

As I came through the fire door on level two, the elevator doors opened and a smoke bomb rolled out. Just before it exploded, I saw a flash of movement and felt a whoosh of air before the elevator doors closed again. The doors opened within seconds and through the smoke I saw Brux step out and two forms laying on the floor inside. Lester and Bobby hung back in the stairwell. The smoke was not as much an irritant or deterrent to my kind.

General Tzu's two men came out of the stairwell and the four of us split into two teams and back to back we rotated and moved. I knew as well as Sun that there was a trap here somewhere. I whispered into the microphone, "Pin and Hector, Find the controls and turn the lights off on level two." We may not be able to change into bats and fly, but we had the eyes of the nocturnal animals. Night vision goggles were mandatory SWAT gear equipment for my men. This might me a nice disadvantage for our foes.

Within two minutes the lights went out and I stopped dead in my tracks. Two inches from my neck was a laser light and I knew it was the killer kind. I spoke into my microphone, "General! Ultraviolet lasers!"

He responded. "Thus the reason for our gathering on level two. Very good call, Captain. Shall we finish this level now?"

"Yes, sir," I responded. I loved this guy! All the shit and torture I'd gone through in my career was worth this one mission. No military man since this great man would have passed this gig up. I wanted to fist pump and dance. After this was over and if I lived, I would do it and naked. Alone, that is.

As Henri and I moved down the hallway carefully, I heard a shriek and then a feminine yell, "Hiyah!" Henri and I quickly moved to the doorway where the voice came from and my jaw dropped. Stephanie was standing over Sun Tzu in a karate stance that I had never seen before and he was laying in the floor clutching his very old family jewels. I slowly walked into the room and said, "Babe…"

Her head snapped back and forth and she said, "Omigod! Ranger, you're here."

I heard a gasp and then a guffaw from the doorway and I knew it was Santos. He said, "Our little woman just adjusted the gonads of the greatest general in history. She should get to touch those old boys for that move."

I snapped, "Santos! General Tzu, this is the hostage we were looking for. This is Stephanie Plum." I reached my hand out to help him up.

He looked at her. "This your woman?"

I said, "Yes. She is special to us."

He said, "Very worthy warrior woman. Fearless. Not like the quiet women of my time. She will become one of us?"

I said, "I hope she will agree, sir."

Stephanie said, "I wanted to make them think I knew some moves. I watched the 'Karate Kid' on TV a couple weeks ago."

I said, "Steph, how many men were here and where did they go?"

"Um..there were three and when those lights went out the goons in here ran out like a bunch of scared turkeys on Thanksgiving eve. You'd think if they knew you were here that they would have held on to me for some leverage. Bunch of stupid boobs." Lester and Bobby guffawed and even Henri laughed. I put my arm around her and nuzzled her neck. "You okay, Babe?"

"Yeah, just tired of being manhandled. Well, except by you, that is. You guys are driving me crazy talking from all directions. I'm blind and I can't see shit. Can we get out of here?" I chuckled and took her hand.

"I'm going to hand you off to Bobby and Lester. We need to finish going through this building. I licked her neck and gave her a quick nip and she moaned. I walked to the door and put her hand in Bobby's. "Go to the cars and wait for us."

I turned to the General. "Shall we move up, sir?"

He said, "Yes. Let's finish."

In my ear, I heard Pin. "General, sir and Ranger we have disabled the lasers and there were more traps we found. We still recommend extreme caution."

I said, "Copy that."

We went level by level eliminating targets. Most of them were scared and trying to get out of the building and the General had Adnan moving around taking them out as Hector and Pin spotted them on the monitors. I told Adnan to take at least two hostages that we could use as double agents like we intended to use Susan Tanner. There had been no sign of Buckley so far.

When we got to the sixth floor and walked down a long red hallway, we came to very ornate double doors. We cautiously opened the door and moved inside and we were astonished at what we saw. The General said, "The Illuminati are a cult. We have seen this before. This gathering room is a place where humans die and some of our kind have died. This is a ceremonial chamber. There are rooms off of this main chamber. We will find bad things in most of the smaller ante-rooms. Many of these men are powerful and Rich to excess and bored. They live by extreme antipathy and commit abhorrent acts to feed their particular aversions. There will be a library here and records. We need to find this room and take the records before we destroy this evil place."

The smell of human blood and fear permeated this room. It wasn't a heady smell for me. It brought to me feelings of sympathy, anger and sadness for the innocent humans that had met their deaths here.

There were two hallways on each side of the ornate door and opposite the theatre or ceremonial room. We each took a hallway and began opening doors. The first several doors were BDSM play rooms and as I got further down the hall, they became more masochist and violent in nature with cages and chains and torture devices. One room had two holding cells. The next door that I opened was the library and was fairly large. On one wall were mounted heads in sealed glass ornate containers. I walked closer to the wall and looked at them. A voice behind me said, "Our kind. They keep the heads like trophies." I turned to Sun Tzu and he walked closer to the wall and reached his hand up to touch one of the glass cases. "Emilia Plater, a warrior woman. A Polish and Lithuanian revolutionary noblewoman and a military captain. She became one of us in 1831 near the end of the 1830 Uprising. She is a national heroine and venerated by a number of works of art and literature and she was my lover."

I looked the face and said, "I'm sorry, sir. She looks like she was once a beautiful woman."

He smiled and said, "Ah, so beautiful inside and out. Very strong of mind and spirit. I didn't know that I was lonely until she was made and I met her." He was quiet a few minutes and then turned to me and said, "Let us quickly go through this library and destroy this evil place. The other hallway contains only more malignancy and disrespect for their own kind." He spoke into his microphone and called for Henri and Adnan to join us and help carry out the journals and books we wanted to take with us.

When we were finished, Sun Tzu gave Henri and Adnan orders to begin setting charges through the building from level four down to two. We both set explosives on the ceremonial floor. Then we carefully left the library and hallway and headed to the stairwell and down and set the charges on the floor below us. When we were finished, I gave orders for Pin, Hector and Jing to head to the garage. I said into my mic, "Continue to keep your eyes open. Buckley probably had an exit plan in case this place was invaded and got out as soon as he knew we were here."

The response was "Copy that. On our way to the garage. We found a supply cabinet with more of their specially engineered weapons. We're bringing them."

"Affirmative. Good work," I replied.

I stepped through the stairwell door as I saw Stephanie smiling and running to Hector and just as she jumped at him, his head turned and he grabbed her and turned around. I watched as he touched a kiss to her forehead and his body was hit by a beam and his clothing and skin just melted and he instantly went into convulsions. Stephanie was screaming underneath him and the men were firing back and yelling. In minutes, it was all over. One of Buckley's men had been the shooter and had come from somewhere in the garage and he was now dead.

Stephanie was holding Hector and sobbing and Bobby was talking to him and working on him. He turned and looked up at me with tears swimming in his eyes and shook his head. Pin ran over to them and yelled at all of us to go and scooped up Hector in his arms and was gone in a flash. Stephanie was trying to run after them as I grabbed her and began pulling her to the car. She was hysterical and crying for Hector.

Ten minutes later, Sun Tzu gave the signal to blow the building and he and his men stayed to take care of the remaining NSA problem and search for Buckley. There was not a word spoken on the way back to Trenton and Rangeman. The only sounds in the car were the pathetic sobs of a woman that had lost someone that she loved and was dear to her today.

TBC -