It Takes A Nub

Chapter 6

The Warehouse

"Hey babe," Freddie called to Sam as he heard her get out of the shower, "come have a look at this."

Sam entered the room with a towel wrapped around her and one in her hand drying her hair, "You just want to see me in a towel and wet," she posed sexily for him.

"Well yes, but look at this," he grinned at her and pointed to the laptop, "Nevel's computer serves as abase station. It looks like that computer is accessed one a week and e-mails are sent along with other things to give the appearance that Nevel is still home and doing business. But that's just the half of it, this computer was installed six years ago, and as near as I can tell, Nevel hasn't even seen it much less touched it."

Sam walked into the bedroom and shed the towel and pulled on a pair of shorts and the "Hard To Die" tee-shirt she had taken from Freddie years ago and walked back out and sat in his lap and looked at the computer screen, "So do you think Nevel's still alive?"

"If he is, he's been awful quiet and we both know that he's not one for being quiet," Freddie smiled at her as he snaked him arms around her waist and planted a kiss on her cheek. He sat up some with strange look on his face. He shifted Sam around some and lap, and typed in something, and suddenly e-mails popped up, "Hello, what do we have here? Pappercorp bought a warehouse in Washington D.C. six years ago. It has received regular shipments of merchandise from everywhere but Pappercorp factories every since. What do you say babe, feel like going to Washington?"

"As long as it's a private jet with no women on board," Sam gave him her best fake grin.

"I wouldn't have it any other way," he rubbed the small of her back, "You can call Noah, he can't stand me.

Thomas Harris entered his office very quickly. He had received the page that meant the white phone needed to be picked up. He knew that meant he'd better hurry. He picked it up and the voice at the other end spoke, "The Benson's are a plant. Sam Benson isn't his wife, she works for the C.I.A. and that means he must also. They visited Papperman estate this afternoon and downloaded data from the computer. I've stopped "Green Fire" from being shipped. I don't blame you for this, you simply don't have the reach that I do," a door opened behind Harris and Gordon Willies stepped out with a small circler saw attached to the stub on his right hand, " but you should know that Friday will still go off as planed except I won't be needing you to be here," the saw came to life in Willies hand and he swung it across the back of Harris' neck cutting his head completely off, he then picked the phone up, "Mr. Willies I will expect you to arrive here in Washington A.S.A.P., I have a feeling your services are going to be needed. Nothing must interfere with the plans for Friday, NOTHING!"

Freddie and Sam walked through the airport on their way to the private jet Noah had arranged for them when they heard a German speaking lady scream out in fractured English, "Freddie."

Freddie turned and called the woman Gretta and carried on a short conversation with her in German.

Sam found the whole thing beyond belief and just kept walking. She turned around once and saw the woman touch her neck pulse, and just rolled her eyes. Freddie caught up to her and Sam just said, "I don't want to hear a damn thing you have to say, unless it's to tell me how many women you have been with. Honest to Christ, no wonder it's so big, it's a muscle and you must have worked it out every freaking day!"

"I didn't even know that Washington had warehouses, much less so many," Freddie said as they studied the computer on board the plane.

"This is just a few blocks too," Sam smiled, "There are more all over the city."

Freddie studied the printouts and broke out into a huge grin, "Sweet, they applied for a permit two years ago to add on to the warehouse," she showed Sam and then touched the screen and pulled up the plans they had submitted up, "Look here along the west section of roof," he tapped the screen again and that section zoomed into view, "That's where we'll get in, I hope Noah has your bag of "tricks" when we get there, I've got a feeling we're going every one of them."

"Noah knows how to keep momma well heeled baby," Sam looked at the plans, "What's this room right here?" Sam asked as she pointed to a large room that seemed to connect to every room and office in the building.

"Glad to see that I'm rubbing off on you honey," he winked at her and brought the room up on the zoom, "Notice how the doors are drawn, that means that that they can't be entered into from any room but this office. I'm guessing that maybe whoever uses this office has something that would allow them to access these doors at anytime. I'm also guessing that whoever pulls Mr. Harris' strings works out of this office. I'm also getting the feeling that "Green Fire" is becoming less and less the issue, I mean with this push for biological weapons, "Green Fire" seems more of an after thought in this whole deal."

The jet touched down at sometime after seven pm in a driving rain. As they exited the jet, Freddie cursed, "Shit, thieves hate the rain. This is going to throw a monkey wrench into the plans tonight. Rain causes the shoes to become squeaky, puddles everywhere, and in general makes a quiet look around hard to do."

"Are you saying that we can't get into the place tonight?" Sam asked as they made it to the terminal.

"Not at all darling," he looked at her, "Just that the rain will make things tougher."

As they passed through the terminal Sam noticed that Senator Cary Ann Davis was also making her way through the place. Senator Davis suddenly stopped and turned toward them and began to run. She threw her arms around Freddie's neck and kissed his check, "Freddie you doll, what are you doing here in Washington? Oh my, this must be Sam. Honey this guy has been in love with you forever. I so hope he's treating you to the "pulse" technique."

"A Senator, really Freddie, are you kidding me, were you a thief or a goddamn gigolo? Is there anyplace on this entire planet where we can go that some woman that you screwed? I'm going to find out how many women you slept with if it kills YOU!" Sam fumed at him as she dragged him toward the exit.

After a stop at the Watergate hotel to pick up their gear and change, Sam and Freddie left to head across town to the Pappercorp warehouse. He took the pair of night vision goggles that he had in his bag and scanned the building and the fence that surrounded it. He brought out his laptop and began to work furiously at the keyboard. After about two minutes he announced to Sam, "I'm in," he smiled at her and went back to work. Five minutes later he closed the laptop and gave her a very passionate kiss and said, "Let's go."

They sprinted over to the fence. Freddie cut several of the links and pushed them up, allowing Sam to crawl through before going through himself. They ran to the west wall and Sam brought out rope and a gun and fired a grappling hook up to the roof. She did the same with a second rope and then the two of them scaled the wall. Once the reached the roof they made their way over to the access hatch Freddie had found on the plans and slipped into the warehouse.

Once inside they began to dry their shoes off and then, using Freddie's phone as a map, began to make their way toward the room they had seen. The catwalks lead them out over the main floor and they both stopped to look. The whole floor was full of crates of every kind of weapon that they could think of. They noticed off to one corner men loading several trucks at the loading docks with creates marked as biological weapons. Sam took out a digital camera and snapped several pictures of the crates and the trucks. They then continued on toward the room. They reached the point where the diagram showed it should be and Freddie hopped over the railing onto ceiling and took out a small drill. He drilled a hole through the roof and then ran a fiber optic camera into the hole and scanned the room. Once he was sure that it was empty, he motioned for Sam. She leaped over the railing and they both made their way to a piece of ductwork and opened it. They crawled inside and worked their way to the room. Freddie opened the grillwork and the pair dropped into the room. It was furnished with all kinds of antique furniture including an oak desk that Freddie knew had to be at least three hundred years old. The only thing that ruined the effect of it was the computer sitting on it. Freddie slipped around the desk and sat down in the chair and pulled one of his "devices" out and checked the computer out.

"Strange, they set up an ungodly amount security for a computer in a house no one lives in and nothing at all on this one," he whispered at Sam as she looked through the filing cabinets, "Either these people are incredibly stupid or they didn't think anyone would ever get in here."

He hooked up his equipment and began to download the data from the computer as he hacked into it, figuring to have a look at what he could find out about what was going on the floor with those trucks.

Sam had moved on to look at a picture on the wall and noticed that it had hinges on one side, "Freddie," she whispered, 'I think I found a safe."

Freddie left the desk and walked over to her and ran his scanner over the picture and smiled and opened it up to revel a safe. He turned to face Sam and smiled as he placed his right hand on the dial and turned it till he felt something give and then pulled down on the latch and the safe door opened. "Magic hands," he chuckled at her as her jaw dropped open.

He took out small flashlight and shined it into the safe and pulled out a small disc, "Green Fire" I presume," he handed the disc to Sam who gave him a very passionate kiss. The rest of the safe contained very little of interest to them and Freddie went back to the computer and began to access the e-mail of its owner, someone named "worldhater".

"Sam, come here and look at this," he called to her, "There's a lot of e-mail traffic here about something that's going down on Friday. It has something to do with those trucks and other shipments that have been sent out over the last six years all over the globe. It all coincides with something called "Master Strike" that sets of everything this Friday."

"Freddie, that's just four days away," Sam looked concerned at him, "Does it say anything about where this "Master Strike" is taking place or the location on where these shipments are?"

"Nothing yet, but I'm still looking," he told her."

Sam looked around and grabbed another chair and brought it close to Freddie and sat down, and all hell broke loose.

Alarms sounded from everywhere as a voice came over the P.A. system, "Intruder alert, Intruder alert, main office has been compromised, security forces to the main office begin computer erase procedure now!"

"Shit," Freddie cursed and reached down and snatched the lead out of the usb port, "I hope it got enough for us to find out what we need to know. Let's get the hell out of here!"

Sam bounded for the door weapon drawn, and jerked the door open as Freddie placed his things back in his bag. Sam saw at least twenty men headed toward the room from the two hallways, "This is turning bad quickly babe!"

She shut the door and they both shoved the filing cabinet in front of it and retreated back through the ductwork back to the ceiling and jumped back to the catwalk. Several sprays of automatic gunfire sent the couple diving onto the grating. The catwalk wasn't a solid floor so they had no real cover. They got up and began to run back the way they had come in dodging gunfire as they ran. Sam looked up to see two guards coming at them from the way they were running and fired two shots that struck both men in the head. She then saw that more were coming up the same way and stopped, "This way is screwed," she yelled as she laid down fire to make the guards stop for a minute and duck.

Freddie pulled a rope out of his bag and tied it to the railing and grabbed Sam by the waist, "Do you trust me baby?"

"With my heart," she smiled at him, "what 'cya got…?"

With a firm grip on her he lashed a web belt around them and tied the rope to it and threw both of them over the railing.

"SSHHIITT!" they both yelled as they fell. Freddie braced for the rope to snap tight but they struck another catwalk before it could. Freddie hit first and hit hard. He felt his shoulder pop out of its socket and yelped in pain. Sam landed on top of him and knocked the breath out of him. She spun around so she could fire up and emptied her clip into the catwalk above and saw at least six guards fall and the rest retreat. She then unsnapped the belt and helped Freddie get to his feet. He was very unsteady and his left shoulder hung at a very unnatural angle. She looked at him and he nodded and she pulled on his left arm hard and twisted. He screamed but felt it pop back into place and they looked around at their new surroundings. As Sam reloaded and Freddie pulled his pistol out they ran toward an intersection of catwalk that lead to an open hallway that at least offered cover.

As they reached it Freddie saw an access hatch that should lead to the roof. He kicked it open and found the ladder that lead to the roof. They raced up the ladder and out into the driving rain on the roof. Freddie knew that they were now on the west side of the building and began to look for a way down as Sam watched their back. He found several lines that ran from the roof to the ground. One of the lines ran over the fence, which he knew must be back on and offered them their only hope of escape. He also knew that it probably wouldn't hold him for long. He slipped two pulleys on them as he heard Sam begin firing behind him. He came up behind her and placed his bag over her shoulder and yelled into her ear, "You go first and take my bag they should be able to get most everything off the hard drive, the password is "samlovesham", I can't be sure that the wire will hold me so you HAVE TO GO FIRST! Don't worry about me; just remember Japan and you can find me now go!"

She kissed him passionately and ran to the first pulley and slid down the wire and over the fence as guards fired up at her. She landed hard, but safe and waited for Freddie.

Freddie returned fire at the guards till Sam landed and grabbed the second pulley and began to slide down. He got about halfway down before the line snapped from the building and he went into freefall. He landed hard and hit his head on the pavement. Through the ringing in his ears and the blinding pain he heard Sam scream and more gunfire. He was able to see her run before he felt someone kick him in the side.

"Freddie Benson, how nice to see you again. You've become a very large pain in my ass," the familiar voice said to him.

Freddie tried to focus his eyes on the person behind the voice, but couldn't seem to be able to see them. He felt something being injected into him and began to feel a darkness slip down over him.

"Mr. Willies, make sure he gets on the plane with us so we can talk and catch up on old times," the voice said, "Now come along my dear."

Freddie stayed conscious long enough to focus his eyes on the person the voice was talking to and to hear that person speak before the world went black on him.

"Please don't hurt Freddie, PLEASE," Carly begged the voice.

Total blackness!

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Sorry it's taken so long to update, but I've been really sick and went to the E.R., I have some kidney problems and will be in the hospital for a few days. I spent most of my time reading the great new stories that have posted. Look at my favorites list and you'll find some great stories and some great writers. I'm not supposed to be up this late but I had to post this. I have the story finished in my head; I just need to get it typed out. Thanks to all the kind people who have read and to the reviews that some of you have left.

As always, let me know what you think!