The other side of hell

“Let’s go through it again, because that was not what we were told.”

Kyle frowned, flipped open his laptop and reread the dossier they’d been given on the target.

“Lucinda Soto, formally Lucinda McKay, thirty-three years old, born in Tampa, Florida, moved to Clearwater in elementary school; only child of Laim and Siobhan McKay. Her father was a chemist, mother worked at a bank for most of her childhood. Lucinda was an honors student, went on the get a Bachelors in Anthropology and then two Masters, one in Organic Agriculture and the other in Agroecology…specialization Rural History and Environmental Sustainability. She's done a lot of different jobs: PR assistant, Human Resource Manager, worked at a few museums…looks like the last job was as a teacher, middle and high school Environmental and Computer Science. Shit…”

“What?”

“She’s got a few extra certifications here…Computer Forensics, Astrophysics, damn, Environmental Engineering.”

Ronan’s eyebrows were raised, the woman was smart. What the hell was she doing in a remote Cambodian village holding a rifle like she knew how to use it?

“How’d she get here?” he asked.

“Hmm…seems like she was on a short vacation before starting her PhD; a two-week trip through South East Asia on a tour group. It ended in Bangkok and then she seems to have extended it a few days to go to Angkor Wat.”

“That’s when she got nabbed?”

“The husband put in a missing person’s report two weeks later.”

Mac spoke up, shaking his head. “Wait, two weeks? Why did he wait so long?”

“Apparently she had spent the last two years in Spain doing her masters, they didn’t talk often, more texting than anything else, but she’d said she probably wouldn’t use net much while she was here.”

Kyle scanned through a few more documents. “Seems like she changed her mind and picked up a few sim cards here instead; she talked to her parents at the beginning of the trip, and texted off and on throughout, even uploaded a few pictures to social media, then everything went silent.”

“Okay, but why us?” Mac asked, holding up his hands when Ronan glared at him. “No, I mean, how did we go from a missing grad student to the SEALs? That’s a hell of an escalation.”

“Her family pushed the military for answers. Her uncle’s out at Lompoc.”

“Air Force? Is he in the military?” James asked. James was the fourth member of their team and their demolitions expert.

“Retired, but still on retainer…he’s listed as Aeronautical Engineer, but his file’s been blacked out.” The men looked at each other, a blacked out file meant some sort of special ops department, which explained the quick turnaround. 

Kyle kept going, “She’s got a few cousins in the air force, a few more were marines, and a couple of grunts. Hell, looks like it was only her father and her that hadn’t gone military at some point, everyone else seems to have done a stint as either active or reserve service. Quite a few in medical, nurses mainly.”

“So she’s from a military family.” Mac said, satisfaction in his voice.

Kyle shook his head. “I think it’s more a public service thing, lots of nurses, teachers, and public engineers. She went the public education route.”

“Why was it the family and not the husband pushing? What’s he do?” James asked, shifting slightly on the stump he was sitting on.

Kyle scrolled a bit further then gave a low whistle. “Well, this is interesting; seems he’s a DOD contractor with some majorly high clearance.”

“DOD? What specialty?” Ronan asked.

“Infosec. security. Cyber warfare. He’s in a unit outside D.C. in Sterling, Virginia. Real hush hush stuff but it looks like he’s done a few stints in Iraq on some of the bases there. File says he’s currently attached to a human trafficking response team.”

“And they let his wife out of the country?” Mac asked incredulously.

“Seems he signed a major NDA and they don’t talk about work.”

Mac snorted, “Yeah right.”

Kyle chuckled quietly, “According to this she was overjoyed to have the rules in place. Apparently she could have cared less about listening to him ramble on about software bugs.”

“But she’s got a degree in Computer Forensics?” Ronan asked.

“Yeah, and all A’s too, but she didn’t like it, her father said she had too many programming languages to deal with. She preferred the hardware side if she had to deal with it at all.” He frowned at the screen and then started laughing. “Apparently she took the courses because she was bored at her job. Then she figured she had to finish the program because she didn’t want to leave something half-way through.”

Mac smiled, “She’s a freaking perfectionist, isn’t she?”

“Seems like, but the weird thing here is the husband. Two weeks is a long time to not check on your wife, even if you are busy.”

“Bad marriage?” Ronan asked, “It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve seen people split because of work, especially in the government.”

“Not sure, but the records indicate they both had CCWs. The father has lots of weapons registered to him, and both she and the husband have a few pistols and rifles to their name as well.”

“Concealed Carry…so she knows her way around guns. Explains her shooting at me, but not why she aimed for me instead of the actual shooter.”

Kyle shook his head, “Just because she can shoot doesn’t mean she could trace the shot. She probably saw the reflection of your scope and aimed at it. How close did she hit?”

Ronan’s brows furrowed, “Three inches below where I was propped up. If the rise had been a little lower she’d have hit me in the throat.”

Mac whistled, “Damn. Good thing you dug yourself in.”

Ronan agreed the woman was a damn good shot. “She didn’t have a chance to really sight in either. The shot went off and she returned fire maybe ten seconds later.”

“So she could have been anticipating the shooter had moved. How close was he from you?”

“A few dozen yards maybe, but he was on the ridge parallel to me. I was too busy getting the hell out of there to see more than a faint disturbance in the sand. The men all took off and between her shooting and them hunting I figured it was better to get the hell out of there.”

Kyle nodded; he was their team leader and had emphasized the importance of reconnaissance only.

“We need to find out if she’s a prisoner or there willingly. The husband said prisoner, but if the marriage was going south she might have decided to stay.”

“Why drop off the face of the earth though? If she was close to her family, wouldn’t she want to check in to say she was okay?” James asked.

“Not if she wanted to get away from the husband. Two years is a long time to rethink a marriage.” Mac responded.

“What’s the husband’s name?” Ronan asked, a thought coming to him.

Kyle gave him a quick look, “Raul Soto.”

Ronan blinked and sat back, “As in Raul Soto, lead engineer on the Black Hole project?”

“What the hell’s that?” Mac asked.

“A new imaging software that’s designed to use social media to track terrorists and human trafficking rings.”

“That’s what the public knows about it anyway,” James said while shrugging, “but I hear the brass are using it to find dissidents and that there are some talks about using it in conjunction with drone targeting projects.”

“Wait, to weaponize it?” Mac asked. “Damn. So you could use it to find and track enemies of the state and then take them out?”

James gave a grim smile, “Devlin told me Bristol was working on something similar, but she had major concerns.”

“About what?” Devlin was another SEAL they’d worked with and Bristol was his fiancé. Wicked smart, she designed new drones for the military.

“Apparently the recognition software has some major bugs. If the picture isn’t straight on the software gets confused and takes out the wrong target. There have been some issues during testing.”

Kyle glanced at James sideways, “Do we even want to know how you know that?”

James gave him a lopsided grin and shrugged. “I’ve still got friends in the hacking world.”

“Raven?” Ronan asked a smirk on his face.

James flicked him off and grimaced. He didn’t like talking about his ex. Raven was a super elite hacker, major cyber-punk chick and so far off the reservation he couldn’t deal with it. They’d dated in college for a bit, but she’d switched to bat for the other team and broke it off. Last he’d heard she was running from a Federal warrant in Nevada and he didn’t want anything to do with that hot mess.

“Regardless, the point is if there’s something wrong with the program, or if he’s really working on weaponized drone surveillance, there could be other players in the field. Take out the wife and the husband might just fall in line.” James finished.

“Maybe, either way we need to figure out her next move.” Kyle stated, closing the laptop.

“I doubt she’ll stay,” Ronan shrugged, rolling his shoulders and standing.

The other three looked at him, but it was Kyle that asked why. 

“She was a teacher and there are kids down there. She’s not going to put them in danger. Either she’ll move, which is more probable, or the village will. Maybe both.”

Kyle nodded. “Her profile would suggest the latter. Seems the family wasn’t big on going to outsiders to deal with their shit. The Uncle is Air Force, if I had to guess, probably a Stealth Engineer from his records; he didn’t get along with anyone in his department but was too good to get rid of so they set him up in a special hanger by himself. Father seems to be the same way; even her Aunt, so the likelihood is she’ll get out of Dodge.”

The three men nodded. “So what’s our next move?” Mac asked.

“I doubt she’ll move until it gets dark, but let’s set up a rotation, Ronan and James, you take first watch. Mac and I will relieve you in three hours and then we’ll see what they’re up to in the village.”

“Got it.” Ronan grabbed another bottle of water and slipped it into his pack before slipping back into the jungle. When they got to the village James split off to watch from the other side and he settled in to watch and wait.

---

*add in this part*

---

Syn flipped him over her shoulder, using the momentum to snap her foot high and kick him in the balls, dropping him like a sack of potatoes. She continued to roll, slamming her back hard against the weapons locker she kept by the bed. She managed to keep her riffle up and trained on the men before anyone could get a shot off. She knew it was only a stalling tactic but she needed them to see she was serious. She wasn't going to just sit back and let some asshole black-ops guys shoot her, not when she was more than capable of taking them out. 

"Freeze!" The man by the door yelled. She snorted, like that was going to happen.

"Get the hell out of my place."

"Drop it lady, you don't want to get shot." Mac warned, inching slowly down the stairs.

Syn narrowed her eyes at him and thumbed the safety off, then pointed at the CO2 canister by the door drawing both men's attention. "You shoot me and we all go boom. I think I'll take my chances."

"We're not here to hurt you." Mac said, "But we will defend ourselves. Now put down the gun."

"What, you want me to just put down my best line of defense? That doesn't seem like the brightest idea. What are you guys, grunts?" She pushed as much disdain into her voice as she could, all the while inching closer to the weapons cache by her feet.

"SEALs." The one she kicked wheezed as he stood. Standing, he was much more imposing than she had first guessed. Still didn't mean she liked him...or trusted him.

"Oh that's just great. Water rats. You do realize we're nowhere near a major body of water, right?"

“What is your problem with SEALs?” The man glared at her, his muscled arms crossed and face dark.

Syn glared at the man, her grey-green eyes dark and furious. “I have nothing what-so-ever against SEALs, or the military. I do, however, have a problem with assholes, which is what you are being.”

The man by the door lowered his gun. She waited another moment before doing the same, barely.

Mac snorted and turned away from the two. Syn tossed a glare at his back for good measure. “Do you want to tell me why my husband’s trying to kill me now or should I just shoot you both and be done with it?”

Both men jerked hard, all humor wiped away and backs ram-rod straight. When Ronan spoke his voice was a deadly thread of sound she barely understood. “What the hell did you just say?”

Syn gripped the riffle just a bit tighter in her hands, her toes curling in her boots as she shifted her balance just enough to be able to jump up and run if they moved.

She was watching them both, but her eyes were on the man in front of her. His eyes were an unusual golden amber color that seemed even more striking against the dark chocolate of his hair. It didn’t matter if he was good looking though, if Raul sent them, they were here to kill her.

She tilted her chin up, eyes flashing more silver than green as anger and fear swirled within her. “You heard me, did my asshole of a husband send you to kill me, because if he did I can promise I won’t make it easy.”

Ronan’s jaw was clenched so tight he could chip a tooth. “Your uncle sent us. Your father called him and he called our commander.”

Lucinda’s eyes widened slightly, but Ronan noted her fingers never released their grip on the AK. 

“Prove it.”

Well shit… “How?”

She cocked a dark brow at him and smirked, “You’re the big bad SEAL, surely you can figure out some way for me to believe you weren’t sent to kill me.”

He thought he heard Mac snort behind him and shook his head. He dropped his gun so it hung from the sling across his chest and held up both hands. Slowly he crouched low where he was.

“I’m just going to get our sat phone, ok? I can call your uncle and he can prove it to you, will that work?”

Lucinda slid her finger from the trigger, laying it along the side of the guard. “You know what will happen if you’re lying, right?”

Ronan nodded, he’d seen the cache of weapons behind her, the guns were one thing, the grenades something totally different. “Do I even want to know where you got all this from?” He asked, while dialing command.

She gave him a small smirk and tilted her head slightly, her hair slipping over her shoulder in a weirdly sensual gesture. “Probably not; a girl’s got to have a few secrets after all.”

He shook his head and waited for the call to go through.

It was several heart stopping moments before he was able to get connected, being underground wasn’t helping the signal any and it kept crackling until Lucinda reached up and tapped at her watch. 

Above them a piece of paneling slid back and Ronan could see daylight. He almost jumped when a gruff voice split the silence.

“Syn? Are you there?”

“Uncle Bobby?”

“Oh, thank God. Are you okay, child?”

Lucinda dropped the barrel of the gun, thumbing on the safety as she did. Ronan felt the tension drop immediately. “I’m okay, but I’ve got two bad-assed SEALS here telling me to put my guns down.”

Her uncle chuckled over the line. “They haven’t found the knives then yet, have they?”

Ronan’s eyes jerked back to the woman in front of him. She had a shit-eating grin on her face and was shaking her head. “They were too worried about the grenades behind me.”

Robert laughed uproariously. “They probably never saw the trip wires or the cameras either I bet.”

She shook her head as the two men’s eyes searched the room furiously. “No, not yet, but now they’re looking. Bobby, what the hell’s going on?”

“You tell me. Your daddy said you didn’t check in, then you go dark on Facebook and after two weeks, two weeks, Raul calls and tells your mother you were kidnapped on your tour. What the hell happened, little girl?”

Ronan watched as all the bravado faded and Lucinda’s shoulders slumped forward. “Raul texted me, said shit was exploding at work and he wouldn’t be able to talk for a few months. He said I should go and enjoy my trip but be careful of terrorists. You know how he is. It’s only paranoia until you actually work for the Dark Side.”

He uncle snorted at that, “Well, he does have enemies.”

Lucinda shook her head. “He shouldn’t. No one knew exactly what he did for DOD. Hell, I only know the public side he’s allowed to talk about and you know we don’t talk shop. He could care less about my work and I could care less about his. We talked about the terraforming project when he remembered I existed, but that’s about it.”

She sighed and ran a hand through her hair, “I was in Angkor Wat and these guys kept watching me. At first I thought it was the tourist thing, you know? Or pickpockets. I made sure my stuff was secure, kept my water bottle with me and closed and stayed close to the tour group. I kept my eyes open, but they left a few hours later. Then that night I saw them again at the restaurant we went to. There was a black out on the street and I shifted seats until my back was against a wall and I could watch everyone. Some guy fell down drunk near our table and I went on alert. It wasn’t that type of place. It had a small bar, but it wasn’t a pub or anything like that. Eventually the power came back on and I thought I saw the guys again across the street.”

She shook her head and frowned. Ronan had the insane urge to pull her into his lap and hold her as she remembered what had led to her disappearing.

“The next day I was out exploring one of the temples in the city and saw them again. There are no coincidences in life, you know that, so I got the hell out of there. Slipped down an alley, grabbed a tuk tuk and drove around the city for an hour until I had them drop me off a few blocks from the hotel. I made my way back and into my room. When I saw them again outside the hotel I grabbed my stuff and texted Raul.”

“What happened then, Lucinda?” Ronan asked gently, already knowing he wasn’t going to like her answer.

She glared at him furiously, “That asshole texted back that he sent them.”

“Sent them for what?”

“For me. To kill me. He never answers my texts that fast but this time…well, he sure didn’t have any problems texting me this time.” The bitterness in her voice made him wince. It was one thing to be dumped or to find out your spouse was cheating on you, but to know they were actively trying to kill you…damn, that’s just cold.

“What did you do, Syn?” Her uncle’s voice came through the speakerphone.

She barred her teeth at the phone, even though she knew he couldn’t see her. “I took care of the problem and I let him know if he sent anyone else after me I’d keep sending bodies back to him and when he thinks he’s finally free, I’m going to take him down myself.”

Mac gave a low whistle. The woman was bloodthirsty. He glanced at Ronan and raised an eyebrow. Ronan shook his head slowly.

“What did you do to them, Lucinda?” He asked softly.

She cocked her head at him and gave him a blank look. “I used scorpion venom tipped arrows from my blow gun and killed them. Then I dragged their bodies into a pile of rubbish and set them on fire. Everyone here burns garbage all the time, no one even blinked when another pile was started.”

Ronan rocked back on his heels. “You did what?”

“Don’t piss her off, boy. That niece of mine was always a little viper. She doesn’t get mad often, but she is a vindictive thing when she does. Syn, tell them what your last class was.”

“Poisons and Curatives in Nature.”

“And what grade did you get?” her uncle asked.

“A 10.”

“If you SEALS don’t know European grading scales, that’s the highest grade possible. Lucinda is a wiz with dangerous compounds and she’s had extensive weapons training since she was toddling and her father and I showed her how to use a magnifying glass to start fires.”

Ronan and Mac exchanged nervous glances. They knew the woman was smart, but this was a whole new level of crazy. Lucinda must have seen the look because she sighed and shook her head.

“If they’d left me alone I wouldn’t have touched them, but considering the weapons I took off them, I’m more than glad I got them first. Now, what are you going to do about it?”

“Those men are getting your ass on a plane and back home where you belong.” He uncle commanded.

“He’s not going to stop, Bobby. He’s already sent another man after me and I’m pretty sure he’ll keep doing it.”

“It doesn’t matter. The family will deal with him ourselves, but you need to be safe.”

Syn snorted, blowing her hair out of her eyes. “I’ve got a freakin’ armory here and a hell of a lot more leeway to defend myself than I would back in Florida or D.C. If I take his man out here…”

“Another one will take his place,” Ronan interrupted. “Your uncle is right, we get you back on US soil and he won’t be able to get to you, here…eventually you’ll have to sleep, or he’ll take it out on the villagers. Do you really want that on your conscious?”

He watched her bite her lip in agitation, then wrinkle her nose as she realized she really didn’t have any options. “Fine,” she grumbled. Then she looked up and locked eyes with him, “But I’m taking my guns and the grenades. You can’t have too many grenades, ever.” She glared until he nodded, watching a brilliant smile light up her face.

God, she was cute.

“Alright,” he said for her uncle’s benefit, “We’ll head to the extraction point and get her back to MacDill AFB in Tampa. You’ll have to let her father know she’s safe, but nothing else or where she’s headed. We can’t take the risk of her husband finding out.”

“Take her to my cabin instead, we’ll set a trap for the bastard.” He countermanded. “We welcomed him into the family and he pulls this shit? Not happening. You boys get her home and we’ll take care of the rest.”

“I can’t do that, sir. We have orders to get her back to base if found.”

“You’ll take me to the cabin because it’s a hell of a lot safer than a base Raul has access to.” Lucinda said. He glanced up as she stood.

“What do you mean, ‘has access to’?”

“Raul was part of the team that rewrote all the military bases’ security last year. He designed it and that means he can access it. Any tech you are using that’s not analog or GCM he can hack. Honestly he probably won’t even need to. He’ll have left a backdoor in the software so he can access it.”

“Fuck.”

“Yup. Hence me living in the middle of the jungle with no cell service. I’d rather deal with spiders than technology. I mean how stupid would that be, to be done in by an Instagram shot?”

He had to laugh at that, it would be the epitome of lame to be taken down by a tourist’s selfie shot.

“Okay, so where is this cabin and how secure is it?” he asked.

Lucinda grinned at him, “Oh, I think you guys are gonna like it. It has all sorts of toys to play with.”

“I’ll deal with the family, Lucinda, you deal with the SEALs. I take it you remember how to get there?”

“Yup! Everything is the same as before, right? The twins didn’t change anything around?”

“No, they just went hunting, they left the rest alone.” He said.

“Got it, then we’ll head there. Will you tell daddy I’m okay?”

“Will do, little girl, you be safe.”

“I will.”

“Let me talk to the soldier now, will you?”

“Uh, sure, I’ll go get my gear.” She gave Ronan a weird glance, like she wasn’t sure what the hell was happening and then slipped past him down the hall. He nodded at Mac who followed behind her silently, then tapped the speakerphone button to talk privately.

“Sir?”

“What’s your name, SEAL?”

“Ronan, sir. Ronan Kane.”

“You protect my niece; do you hear me, Ronan Kane? She’s not the bad-ass she pretends to be. I’m not saying she can’t or won’t do what needs to be done, but it’ll haunt her. Those two men she killed, she’ll have nightmares. She’s softer than she seems. Damn woman should have been home having babies, not killing mercenaries her husband sent after her in the damn jungle!”

Ronan listened as the man exploded on the other side of the phone. He’d seen Lucinda with the kids in the village and he understood her uncle’s concern. She might be able to kill in self-defense, she might even be mad enough to kill in a rage, but she’d have a hard time living with herself for doing it. She’d held up pretty well since the initial attack, but he had no doubt those first few nights had been brutal on her.

“You hear me, son? You watch out for her. When you get to the cabin, you do exactly as she says, that place is not for the weekend warrior.”

Ronan bristled, “I’m a SEAL, sir.” He ground out.

The voice on the other end of the phone chuckled darkly, “Yeah, but you aren’t near paranoid enough for our family. Ask Syn about us, you’ll get it when you see the place.”

Ronan relaxed a bit, “I’ll ask and I’ll take care of her, you have my word.”

“Your word doesn’t mean shit to me until I see her in her daddy’s arms and that jack-ass she married six-feet-below or in the belly of a gator. You do those two things and then I’ll believe your word. Not before.”

Ronan shook his head, but felt a smile tugging on the corners of his mouth. He really liked this family. They were just his sort of crazy. He signed off as Lucinda and Mac returned. Mac was shaking his head and laughing and Lucinda was chewing him out over her shoulder. She had a pack over her shoulder that was almost as big as she was.

“What the hell did you pack, woman?” He asked, listening as it thudded onto the floor when she dropped it.

“Weapons, Ronan. Seriously, she has so many damn weapons I’m getting turned on.”

Lucinda shot Mac a murderous glance. “I can make something to get rid of that permanently, if you aren't careful,” she hissed.

Mac straightened and then twisted his knees slightly so his groin was aimed away from her, brow creased and sweat popping out over his forehead. “That’s just not right, woman, seriously.”

Ronan laughed at their antics. “And just how many weapons are we talking, because you still have all of these?” He hooked a thumb at the wall of guns and grenades behind him and saw her frown.

“Damn, I don’t think I have enough room for all of them.” She glanced at the long sleeved black tee shirt she was wearing and then her face lit up. “If I wear the vest I’ll be able to add a few more magazines and some grenades to it!” She giggled and spun back to her room while the men just shook their heads.

Ronan laughed at her retreating back. “Damn, that woman is crazy.”

“Yeah, but a good crazy,” Mac agreed. “I just hope she doesn’t blow a gasket when we tell her she can’t take it back to the US.”

“Oh shit, yeah, even if we take a military plane back, there’s no way she’d be allowed to carry explosives on board. Fuck.” He looked a Mac with actual fear in his eyes. “No way in hell am I telling her she can’t take her toys with her. Her uncle said she’s vindictive and I like all my body parts where they are.”

Mac groaned, “Seriously, you’re gonna make me tell her?”

“Tell me what?” Lucinda asked, strapping on a black military tactile vest and looping two grenades onto the left hand side.

The men glanced at each other and spoke at the same time, “Nothing.”

Mac swore softly under his breath as she shrugged and walked over to collect more weapons. When she was done she pointed to the stairs and walked up to the small desk against the far wall. “Take my bag and get out of here.”

Ronan frowned, “We’re not leaving here without you, Lucinda.”

“I’ll be right behind you, but I need to wipe this location. I’ve got too many weapons for it to be left as it is. We’re only going to have about a minute to get into the tree line before this place goes boom, so get my bag and get going. I have to put in the detonation code and don’t want to trip over you two to get out of here.”

Mac opened his mouth to say something scathing but Ronan waved him back, grabbed her bag the pair took the stairs two at a time.

“Go,” she said over her shoulder at him. She placed her palm on the desk and the whole unit flared to life. Ronan realized the desk was actually a touch screen and stepped back until his feet were on the first wrung of the steps.

Lucinda called up a shell script and typed in her detonation sequence. Just because she didn’t like programming didn’t mean she couldn’t handle the simple command code. She used the biometric scan on her palm to activate the sequence then turned and ran for the stairs, yelling at the man to get his ass moving. Ronan complied and by the time she’d counted to sixty they had just cleared the tree line when a massive percussive force picked them up and slammed then into the ground.

There was a huge crater where her bunker had been. Some of the closer trees were flattened and several palm trees had been uprooted by the blast. She shook her head and groaned. They hadn’t been far enough away to avoid the double vision and ear ringing from the blast. She felt Ronan’s hands on her, helping to get her to her feet and steady her. She clung for a moment, just trying to get her head to stop spinning.

When she spoke, she knew she was yelling. “We have to move!”

He searched her eyes for a moment and then nodded, holding his finger to his lips to keep her quiet. Once she nodded, he reached back and took her hand in his much larger one and started off towards where Mac was waving at them.

----------------------------

Mac was right, Syn was not happy to have her weapons confiscated. She turned murderous eyes on all four of their team and they had the grace, and common sense, to step backwards as a unit. 

"Cowards," she muttered, earning a dark look from most of them, but Ronan was having a hard time keeping a straight face.

"You had to know they wouldn't let you on a military flight with all that." he said, pointing to the stack of weapons on the ground.

She scrunched up her nose at him. "They're mine and I only plan on shooting one jack-ass, so they shouldn't have a problem with it."

"Yeah, I think that was probably their concern."

"Whatever, I've got more at the cabin as long as the twins restocked."

"So, walk us through the cabin. Your family is um...interesting." Kyle said, leaning forward.

Lucinda shrugged, "What's there to say? We don't much like outsiders. Stereotypical Southern, I guess. Grew up with guns, woods, and family. Not much else. Blood before all others, the family motto, and we take it damn serious. I might actively dislike several cousins, but if they called I'd drop everything and go running, same for them, it's just what we do."

"A lot of military?"

"Every war, every agency. It's not a tradition thing though. We don't like bullies and we don't like people trampling on other;s rights, so we've got a lot of military and a lot of medical. Got a cousin who's an epidemiologist, another a marine biologist. If it's about the better good, about serving our community, then we're kinda in the thick of it."

"And you?"

"I went into education, like my daddy did, but then he got tired of the parents and the bullshit and took a research position as a chemist for the university. Better pay, no whining. I taught for a few years, but the politics were crippling and my kids asked so many terrifyingly simple questions I knew I had to do something on a bigger scale."

"What kind of questions?"

A look of utter disgust crossed her face. "They asked if eggs came from cows."

"Wait, what?"

"Little kids, right?"

"Nope, high school kids, from a good school, all sorts of money and privilege, which just made it that much worse somehow." She shook her head in disbelief. "Honestly, I thought they were messing with me, but they were serious and I realized they had absolutely no idea where their food came from. I went into agriculture thinking of education, but then I saw even bigger problems, yes, education is a huge factor, and that's part of my research, but finding sustainable ways of integrating agriculture into the environment is an even bigger problem. I just didn't realize it until I went to Europe and started seeing how screwed up the policies were. Countries were shipping their waste to other countries with lower safety standards for disposal, workers were in terrible conditions, chemicals that had devastating consequences on the environment were being dumped into the water supply."

She closed her eyes and took a ragged breath, but if Ronan though she was going to cry he was sorely mistaken. Fury flashed behind her eyes when she looked up at them. "Well, fuck them. I was never going to let that happen if I could avoid it, so I stepped back and really looked at the problem."

"Which was?" he asked.

"Greed. Simple greed. It's cheaper to off-load the problem than fix it. So how does one fix greed? You know," she gave him a lopsided smile, "without grenades and such?"

He snorted, but it was Kyle who asked how.

"Make a cheaper way to do things; a more sustainable way, a safer way."

All four men's eyebrows went up at that.

"What?" she shrugged "You want to do damage to the corporations, you hit them in the wallets. That's the only way these people think, so if I could find cheaper, easier alternatives to some of the most destructive practices, I could slow them down. I'm not naive to think I can solve every problem, but two or three major ones could be major game changers in developing nations."

"And have you?" Mac asked. "Found solutions that is?"

"A few. I'm working on one now that could be huge, but I need a lab and funding, otherwise it's for nothing."

"Do you have that, more importantly, does your husband think you have that and could it impact him?"

She frowned, "Well, the government will want the tech if I can get it right, but it's not cyber at all. Raul is smart, but he's not a biologist or a chemist and he'd need at least those to make it work."

"You aren't either."

That wicked little smirk was back, "You have no idea what I am. My daddy is a chemist, my research is in agriculture, but I work with microbiologist and biogeochemists all the time, can't do that without a more than working knowledge of both fields, and because my work has applications for space travel, I'm also pretty fluent in astrophysics and astrobiology. I just don't like the math part. Especially statistics. Ick, I normally have a statistician do all the boring number stuff."

"Biogeochemistry and astrophisics are fine, but not math?" James asked incredulously. "Don't both of those involve a heck of a lot of math?"

She waved away the comment. "Yeah, but the computers run through most of it. As long as you know how to enter the data and read the results, you don't really need more than basic algebra."

"So all the other stuff..." Ronan said.

"It was fun and I was bored, so yeah, I dabbled."

"'Dabbled', yeah, okay." James sighed, shaking his head. "What can you tell us about the cabin?"

Syn blinked at them, "What do you want to know?"

"Everything. Layout, weapons, points of egress, supplies, what are we working with?" Mac listed quickly.

"Oh, yeah sure, but you aren't really going to understand until you see the place."

"What about Raul, was he ever there?" Kyle asked quietly.

"No." Her answer was hard and not at all what Ronan expected.

"Why not, you all were married for a while."

"Eight years and he wasn't invited."

"What do you mean?"

She sighed and scrubbed a hand over her face. "It's the families' bug out location. Well, one of them, but it's the last-line of defense location. This world goes FUBAR and the family goes there."

"Yet you never brought him." Mac stated.

"This is going to sound horrible, but we didn't really trust him with it."

"You married him." Kyle said, shock and disbelief lacing his voice.

"Yes, but that's the first place the kids go. I wanted kids. Always have." Her voice dropped and she slouched down a bit in her seat. "Raul had a shit childhood, parents were abusive and then abandoned him as a teen. He couch-surfed at friends until he could afford to go to Berkeley. He had trust issues and PTSD. I thought we were working through it. I dropped the kids thing for a few years, but even being around my little cousins freaked him out, so I kept him away from them. He dealt with the adults only, but the cabin is where the kids go, all the kids."

She glanced around the group, her eyes weary and sad, "I didn't trust he could handle it, so I never told him."

"And you wanted kids with this guy?" Ronan asked, shocked.

She gave him a furious glare. "Eight years, did you hear that part? And four years dating before that. I'm not exactly getting any younger here, but I didn't have kids for that very reason, even though I wanted them!"

He held up his hands in defense, "I'm not saying you'd put your kids in danger..."

She cut him off, "That's exactly what you're saying. I sacrificed the dream I'd had to be a mom and instead honored my vow to my marriage and the bastard is throwing all those years of pushing my wants and desires to the back-burner for his career in my face and you accuse me of putting my family...my children in danger!"

"Uh, you don't have kids, though." James said, then shut the hell up because the look she sent him should have incinerated him were he sat.

"Okay, everyone just take a breath," Kyle cut in.

"I didn't mean it that way." Ronan sighed, rubbing a hand over his own face. "Look, I don't think you'd ever put anyone's kids in danger, but it seems weird to stay married to a guy you were concerned having around your family."

Lucinda took a deep breath, then another. "Sorry," she mumbled, dropping her head back with a hard thump against the plane's walls. "I don't mean to take it out on you, but this has been a stressful few months and now I'm just not reacting to anything about him well. I never thought he'd hurt the kids. Never thought he was a pedophile or anything like that, I wouldn't be anywhere near him if he was, but he had a temper and he could be exceedingly cutting with his words when annoyed, and no child needs that. He wasn't comfortable around them and we all got that, but we also didn't want him around them under a stressful situation, which is the only reason to go to the cabin other that hunting and checking on it and the last thing Raul wanted was to step into a swamp."

"Swamp?" Mac asked.

"Yup, hope you guys like mosquitoes and gators 'cause we're headed to the breeding ground of both."

Ronan smirked when James groaned. "I hate gators."

"Could be worse," Ronan quipped, "could be crocodiles."

"Oh, we got them too." When the men focused on her again she chuckled, "We're kinda the Australia of the U.S. I argue we've got more things trying to kill you then Hawai'i, but it's a pretty close bet."

"What else are we in for," Mac asked, curious.

"Well, the whole thing's wired to blow if you don't know the codes, so there's that." She thought for a moment, "Most of it's underground as well, which is always fun."

"Underground?"

"Yup, the cabin itself is small, just a mobile home really, sitting up on a cypress head, but the real location is the bunker underneath. Part of it extends into the swamp, which made building it an absolute nightmare, but daddy and Uncle Bobby and Pap Pap finally got it built about the time I was born. It holds twenty comfortably, but we can actually fit up-to-thirty if need be, that's mostly down to water and food. Well, and weapons, but the machine shop is there for that if need be."

"You've got a damn compound, don't you?" Kyle asked, excitement in his voice.

Her smile was brilliant as she gazed at them all. "Damn straight. Welcome to the South."

---------------------------

Is wan't just a compound. It was a prepper's freaking wet-dream. Any military man or woman would be over the moon to find this place, but she was right, if they didn't know the codes and where the entry boxes were an intruder would spend a very long or very, very short amount of time wandering the scrub and swamp land.

They'd flown into Miami, then drove the Tamiami Trail to the middle of nowhere, turned right and then transferred to an airboat to take them out into the Everglades. Lucinda drove, or steered, whatever they called it and all four men became more and more in awe of her as time went on.

She slowed about an hour in and pointed to a large stand of cypress trees. "That's our point of entry. We walk in from there."

Kyle noted the water markers, "You get a lot of boats in here?"

She shook her head. "Not much, some gator hunters and crab trappers, but mostly those are for fish and wildlife. You won't need to worry about them though."

"Why's that?"

"Because they're all kin. Three cousins and a god-daughter work this half of the Glades and the other side of the water," she pointed to a stretch of thicker trees farther away. "That's Seminole land. If you aren't tribe you're not getting within a mile of those woods."

"You don't have an issue with them?"

"Got a..."

Ronan chuckled, "You got a cousin there too?"

Syn laughed as she threw him a punting stick and turned the engine off. "Actually, he's married in, but yes. They don't live down here any more though. Carlos and Meghan live up in South Carolina now. They're both grunts, but they have the cutest little boy. The three and Carlos's two girls come down for the summer and keep an eye on things."

She grabbed a second pole and stepped towards the front of the boat, "You see these branches?" She prodded a set of willow branches out of the way, revealing a small inlet. "Keep them out of the way while I use the trolling motor to get us in."

"What about the truck? We just left it in the marina parking lot." That came from Kyle.

"Yup, you did. Won't be there in an hour and the footage will be gone too, so no worries."

"Another cousin?"

"What can I say, we're breeders, but no, this time it's a friend of Carlos's. Best friend, literally saved his life when they were kids, George will take care of it as soon as I put out the word."

"No communications." Mac snapped, his eyes hard.

Syn rolled her eyes. "You really think I'm that stupid? Out here we don't use electronics to communicate."

After they passed through the branches Syn used the trolling motor to push them a bit farther into the sudden twilight of the canopy and behind a mangrove screen, then she shut the motor off and used the push poles to prod them into place under a small boat house.

"Welcome to Camp." She said as she jumped out and tied up the boat. "Come on, but stay close, don't wander off or you'll trip the sensors."

The men glanced around, eyes searching. Kyle did a chin lift towards a bat box and James marked an owl hole in one of the trees they passed, but they all knew they'd missed others and that both pissed them off and intrigued them even more.

"How bad would it be if I stepped off the path?" Ronan asked, glancing at the spongy ground interspersed with cypress knees and rocks.

"Well, see that rock there," she pointed about twenty inches to his right and six up. "That's a pressure grenade. Home made, very directed. The man in front or behind would get some shrapnel, but survive, you? Big squishy mess for the buzzards."

"Right..." he sucked in a breath, "and you let kids come here?"

"We train here. All of us, from the time we're five years old and can hold a little 9 mil. We all know every inch of this place. You think I babysat and hung out at friends houses after school as a kid? No, I was in the garage reloading bullets for hunting season and learning how to make trout lines and snares. Did my mama approve, hell no, but she's a Yankee, so she was over-ruled."

"By who?" Ronan asked, fascinated as she stepped up and pressed a knot on an old oak tree. The depression revealed a small thumb print scanner which she pressed and waited. A small beep was the only sound before he saw the shimmer and heard the crackle of electricity going off.

She pointed at a bush as she moved forward and they all groaned at the electrified snare net set-up. "Originally it was Great-Grandma, but she died when I was eight, so Nanny took over as matriarch. When Nanny died three-years ago Aunt Janet took over."

"Matriarchal? That's pretty unusual."

"Great-Grandma was from the Czech Republic originally. Came over during WWI. Great-Grandpa was great when I was a kid, but he left her and five young kids back when they were first married. She took over and never gave the familial power back, even though she took him back. Honestly, we're all kinda surprised she didn't bury him on the farm way back then, but she was a hard woman and no one did anything without her approval. The tradition stuck."

"She approved kids being taught out here in the swamp?"

"We didn't get this place until the 1950s. Back then we had two full blocks of orange groves and scrub pine closer to Tampa. The homestead is still there, but it's just the one house now. When my cousins took over down here with Fish and Wildlife, we bought the original cabin and used it as a general hunting camp, but over the years as things turned from bad to worse out there, Vietnam, Korea, the the Persian Gulf...no, Great-Grandma said she'd never see what happened in her country during the civil war and after, happen to her family. She wanted us all to learn to shoot and basic weapons tactics in case we were ever captured."

She paused and glanced at the ground, then over her shoulder. "She was especially worried for us girls. She lost an older sister over there. Taken by soldiers and never heard from again. We don't have a lot of males in the family and I think she was terrified of anyone getting a hold of one of us, so we all trained, and as the men returned from service, they taught us more."

"My aunt was born in '41, trained as a Navy nurse, saw deployment in Vietnam. She brought home more skills. One great-uncle went Marines, my mother's father was Air Force, they all trained us, sometimes here, sometimes at our homes, whatever was appropriate."

"And did you like it?" Ronan asked softly.

She paused and looked back at him. 

"Some of it. I like guns." His lips quirked up at that. "Pretty much anything that goes boom really, didn't like hand-to-hand. Small wrists, screwed up knees." She held one hand up between them and he realized just how tiny her hands and wrists were. 

"Medical wasn't really my thing. I can sew up and patch a would decently enough, if no one cares about the prettiness factor, but I'm not a trauma expert like a lot of my cousins. I got to play with the chemicals and as I got older some of the electronics, but I preferred the traps and creating blinds and making sure we had the food and water needed."

She pointed off the the left and he saw several stunted trees with dull green fruits. "That's the orchard. Oranges and grapefruit mostly, but different species so we get enough cross-pollination. Beyond them are some wild fruit trees and berry bushes. People don't think about what grows in swamps, but a lot of the plants are edible or medicinal. Some just plain toxic. We've got blueberries, blackberries, wild plums and persimmons, grapes, cattails, yucca, palms, dozens of herbs and greens, and all the meat we could want out our front door. You just have to know what it is, when you can eat it, and which parts to stay away from."

"It's smart, a ready supply of food all year round that blends into the environment completely." Mac said, giving a low whistle as he identified several edible species.

"They call it survival gardening now in the prepper circles." Syn snorted as they finally came to the old mobile home. "We just called it homesteading. Ranchers used to run cattle through some of the drier areas of the Glades. Some still do. Not this far South-West, but still, if cattle can survive here, people definitely can."

She didn't go in but around to a small, dilapidated wood shed. "I'd let you try your hand at getting in, but the place is rigged and it's just faster if I do it." She teased.

"We're not going in the cabin?" James asked, glancing over her shoulder to watch as she rolled a large stump out of the way and pressed a panel of wood.

"That ain't the cabin, that's just the house." At his confused look she explained, "The mobile home is just for show. You can go in and you'll just see an old rundown mobile home, but that's not where any of us stay. Here, step back now." She said briskly as a small panel slid open on the inside on the shed's wall.

"Holy shit!" James exclaimed, "Is that a control panel?"

"Biometric sensor and command prompt. You don't enter the correct information in the correct sequence in the right amount of time the system locks down."

"What does that mean for anyone inside?"

"Oh, we can get out, but it's not a fun trip and it's dangerous. We've got to clear the area each time we visit and I hate doing that. I suck at using a tank."

"Tank?" Ronan asked as the entire floor shifted under them, causing them to jump back, but Lucinda didn't respond to him right away.

Instead she laughed brightly, jumping up onto the stump as the bottom of the shed popped up a quarter of an inch. Once it stopped moving she reached down and dug her fingers into another small knot on the wood and Ronan realized it was a small circular handle. She tugged it until the floor shifted sideways and they could see stairs leading down, the lights flicking on automatically as they passed.

"The floor?" Mac asked, staring back up at it.

"I can close it from down here. Come on in and brush your feet please."

She hit what looked like a standard garage door opener on the wall and they all watched the door slip back into place.

"That is seriously cool," Kyle muttered.

"Well, I'm glad you like it, but this is just the foyer, I've still got to check the comms, let George know to move the truck and then check the escape hatch...unless one of you big bad SEALs wants to go for a swim for me?" She asked hopefully.

"What escape hatch and what do you mean swim?" That was Mac, but any of them would be up for a swim any day of the week.

"I told you, if the wrong entry sequence is entered, the system locks down. At that point the only way in or out is through the underwater tube into the swamp. It drops you about a dozen feet from the boat house."

"And you don't like the trip?" Ronan asked.

"It's barely big enough for a person with a tank, and I'm always freaked out about gators and snakes, even though we've got a grate over the exit. It's out far enough that even during extreme droughts you can't see it, but yeah, not my favorite place. We all check it though."

"I'll do it" Mac volunteered. "I'd like to see any possible ways in so we know what we're working with."

Syn chewed on her bottom lip for a long moment. Ronan stepped up and grabbed her shoulder lightly, "Hey, what's the matter?"

She looked up at him with huge eyes, "You realize I'm trusting you with my families' lives here. I didn't even trust my own husband with this place."

The enormity of what she was offering them hit him hard. He stepped in closer and wrapped her up in his arms, "We're not going to let anyone hurt your family, Lucinda. I promise you."

It took a while, but slowly her arms came up to circle his waist and she relaxed against him. He glanced at the other members of his team and saw the same hard look on their faces. They understood protecting their families and this woman was all about protecting her family. She took a deep breath and stepped back out of his arms and he was sorry to see her go. She felt damn good there.

"Well, if I'm showing you around the castle you might as well call me, Syn. I only get called Lucinda when I'm in church or in trouble and I'm not too keen on either of those." She gave him a weak smile and then opened the door, letting them in.

He didn't know what he was expecting, but he was almost disappointed at how normal everything looked. They came into the kitchen area, a big open room with bright yellow accents and a wall mural of a field of sunflowers behind a huge dining table. Off to the right was a small hallway and through the kitchen a closed door, another hallway led off to the left. Syn pointed at the doorway first, then the right hallway.

"I've got to send the message to George, but if you go down the hallway you'll find another door at the very end, that's the greenhouse and aquaponics area. The air tanks and gear are in there with the entrance to the hatch. Give me a minute and I'll join you."

"I'll come with you," Kyle said. "I need to see what you've got in the way of communication."

"Sure." Syn shrugged and lead the way while the others headed for the greenhouse.

"We've got three levels of comms here," she said as the light flicked on automatically. "Low tech, high tech, and we-probably-aren't-supposed-to-have-that tech."

Kyle chuckled. "Since you don't want me using high tech, that is, the standard communication," she glanced at him over her shoulder for confirmation and he nodded. "Then we go low tech."

She pulled up the computer screen and typed in a series of passwords, then double clicked a small icon that looked like a bird. Two screens popped up, a video feed and a script of some kind.

"Walk me through it, please," Kyle said, standing behind her.

"They're carrier pigeons."

"What?" he asked, incredulously.

Syn laughed sweetly at his surprise. "George raises them. His daddy used to race them and now he keeps a few dozen for fun. The video is actually his, but I can access it from here. He also has an automatic feeder and door system which I connected to. Each bird has it's own door. We use number 7 only. It flies from the pigeon coop to the marina, which George and his brother Mickey run. If I release number 7 they'll see it come in and know someone's out here. Then they will check their camera feeds, which are on a closed system, see us and move the truck somewhere safe."

"How safe?"

"Other side of Glades safe. It'll go into one of the scrap yards and it won't be seen again until we need it. If it's compromised, we'll get other transportation. Out here, that's not really that hard, especially if we stick to the waterways. We've got thousands of acres to disappear into."

Kyle whistled softly, "You all really have a hell of a network, don't you?"

"Not as much as we used to."

At his frown she sighed softly, "We lost a few of the family in 9/11. One actually there at the time and a few as first-responders. PapPap couldn't handle it. Nanny died a few years later. They had to bury too many grand-kids and great-grand-children. It was a rough few years."

"How many would come here, if things went bad?"

"All the ones with kids, so seventeen at least. Then anyone else in the state, which gives us another five or six. The rest of the family is scattered. We've got four units up in the Carolina's, but they have a homestead location up there to go to. My uncle and his wife are out in California as you know and another family in Washington State. Raul of course was in Virginia and until a few weeks ago I was in Spain, so we could have stayed put or gotten to our own locations."

"Where would Raul search for you first?"

"My parents' house. Then my Aunts'."

"Any chance he knew about this place?"

"God I hope not. He might of heard us say the name, but never the place. We used to talk about 'Hunt Camp', but that was up in North Florida. No reason for him to think the Glades."

"You've got another place up north?"

"No, it was a friend of my father's, but we stopped going when I was in high school and then the friend died, so we wouldn't have access even if we wanted to."

"Any place else?"

She thought hard as she shut the computer down and walked them back towards the others. "I really can't think of any. I don't even have a room yet at school and I was supposed to come home to collect my VISA before heading back out."

"Your next school was in the UK, right?"

They stepped into the greenhouse and were instantly enfolded in heat and humidity.

"Yes, but now I'm not sure what I'll do."

"We'll get him."

She shrugged dejectedly and walked towards the men who were huddled over an open hatch. Mac was suited up in a short wet-suit, her Uncle's by the size, and had a small air-tank in one hand and goggles in the other.

"Maybe, but regardless my family comes first. If he touches any of them I promise you won't find a body." She swore and every man in that room believed her.

She grabbed a LED glow stick and shook it before snapping it and crouched down beside Mac. 

"It's very straight forward, you go straight ahead until you hit the dead end, then turn left, it won't look like it goes anywhere, but there's a slit in the wall on the right side, slide it to the left and the wall will move back. It's just a.b.s. plastic. After about a hundred paces you'll hit the grate. It's not locked, but it is latched and you'll have to feel around in the rock on the left side for the latch. Once you go through you actually come out just inside the willow screen we passed through and yes, before you ask, we've got sensors on the grate and passage way. When we passed through with the boat we broke the infrared beam and an alert went out to the family closest to here, which would be my cousin Jesse and his family. They work for Fish and Wildlife in this area. Bobby would have informed them we were coming though, which is why we didn't have a welcome party when we showed up."

"Gators?" Mac asked, fitting the mask to his face.

"Shouldn't be or we've got a problem, but just in case..." she tugged a small plastic crate out from underneath the fish tank and opened it, producing a rod about 18 inches long and pressed a button on the end. A loud bang filled the air and electricity crackled.

"That should do it," Mac said, a big grin on his face. "Works for people too."

Syn nodded towards the large knife attached to his calf. "I see you've got the up-close issue taken care of, but try not to get into any trouble, okay? I hate going in there."

"Claustrophobic?" Mac asked.

"I just don't like water I can't see in. Like I said, we have lots of predators around here. Including anacondas, so watch yourself."

"Jesus," James said, shuddering, "Don't you have any cute and cuddly creatures?"

Syn thought about it for a minute, "Sure, but they'll probably have rabies, mange, lime disease, or any number of other issues. We got dolphins though, they're pretty cool."

James groaned and slumped back against the wall shaking his head in disgust.

"How long should this take me?" Mac asked, slipping into the water and fitting the tank to his mouth.

"Ten minutes tops. You take longer than twenty to get back to us, I'm pushing one of these guys in after you with more than a bang stick."

Ronan laughed and brushed a hand down her head. "You won't need to push us, sweetheart, but thanks for telling us how you really feel."

She smiled tightly but kept her eyes on Mac. "Twenty minutes."

He nodded and slipped into the dark. They could barely see the faint yellow glow as he swam away.

Ronan watch Syn's jaw work as she stared into the black water. Then reached out and tugged her up beside him. "Come on, show me around the rest of the place so I know the layout."

"What about Mac?" she asked.

"They other's will keep an eye on him, if he's not back in time they'll go in after."

"I hate that damn tunnel. Always have. Mama won't go in it. Had a melt down when I was a kid and daddy said if she didn't take it she won't live if something happened. She flat out said she'd rather die. I'm pretty sure it gave me a complex about it too."

"But you would get in it if we weren't here."

She nodded slowly, "Yes, but'd be a freaking mess then entire time down there and God help me if there really was a snake or gator. I'm not sure I'd be able to react quick enough."

"Let's hope we don't have to use it then. Now, what's down here?"

"These are bunk rooms and showers, we've got a shower room between each bedroom, four beds in a room, two showers and two toilets between. Four rooms on this side of the kitchen, the greenhouse and aquaponics room that you've already seen."

"How do you keep everything running?"

"Solar panels and generators. Jesse checks in each week and the lights are LED so low power. Everything is on either timers or sensors and the water from the fish tanks is filtered through the plants before going into the septic system and water ways. We don't add any extra nitrates or fertilizers so there's no issue with run-off."

"Automated system?"

"Mostly. It was one of my earlier designs, so it's not that efficient, but it's fine for the in-between seasons. The Florida family rotates through pretty frequently fishing, hunting, and trapping to make sure we aren't wasting water or electricity. We keep a minimal amount of fish in the tanks and plants growing, mostly for fresh air, but a few of the longer growing plants as well. Jesse's wife keeps an eye on the plants and they use the cabin more than the rest of us do. The garden and fish are under their care unless everyone gathers."

"Who gets it then?"

"Me. I'm in charge of food when I'm here. I keep lists on our family server of supplies in the pantry and deep freezer and Jesse and Ally keep it updated on the fresh supplies."

"Server, does Raul know about that?"

"He knows about the public one, but I set up a private one when I moved to Spain that was only for this location."

"Who has access to it?"

"Daddy, Uncle Bobby, Aunt Janet and me. That's it. We compartmentalize. Bobby is in charge of weapons, Janet medical, daddy power and water and me food."

"Because of your background?"

"Yes, we all took things that made the most sense. We have a server for this location and we each have access, but only to our partition on the drive."

"Location data?"

"I reroute through an onion router vpn, so it's not something the average Joe can get into, but Raul's a hacker, so yeah, if he wanted and knew about it, he could get in, but the cameras are on a separate system too."

"Seems like a lot of work."

"It's actually not. We set up a server with Raspberry Pis. They take up a small space, small amount of energy and are easy to program. The cameras aren't normal either, we've got smaller Pis hooked up to sensors and button cameras. That system is only accessed by a rotating code that the four of us have."

"So if he found out about this place, he'd have to have hacked one of you or all of you."

"Yes, but the code is a freaking pain in the ass to memorize so I'm pretty sure if he were to get it from anyone it would be Aunt Janet. She's the oldest and while we gave her a code fob, I'm not sure if she'd have written it down somewhere."

"It's incredibly thorough. What's down here?"

They passed through the kitchen and down another hall. It opened into a rec room with a huge tv and various couches and chairs, even a few bean bags. One wall was full of books and dvds. 

"Wow, this is awesome," he said.

"It's a great space, we've got the last few rooms still," she said, leading him through the room.

"That's the machine room," she opened a door and showed him a fully stocked mechanics zone. "The batteries and generators are in there. We've got four more rooms and two more shower rooms, then the range and armory."

"Range?"

"What, you didn't think we'd go shooting up-top and get noticed, now did you?" She asked, smiling up at him sweetly.

He shook his head as she went to the last door and used an iris scanner to gain access. 

"Well damn." he breathed out, looking around the split room. There was a longer 20 yard riffle range on the left with a split glass partition where an observer could watch and then a smaller, but fully stocked armory on the right.

"Okay, now I'm jealous. This is a freaking sweet set-up."

"You can see why I like it here. The range and the green house are my favorite parts."

"Oh, sweetheart, I totally get it, this is heaven!"

Syn laughed softly. "The glass is bullet proof, and the walls reinforced so we don't have to worry about that. Obviously it's not terribly long, but we all practice in here and learn how to take apart, clean, and put back the weapons. Some are better than others and we've all got our preferences."

"You've got a cannon." Ronan gasped and practically bounced where he was standing.

"Yeah, that was PapPap's. None of us knew what to do with the dang thing, so it came here. It's not real impressive, but it makes a hell of a boom and a lot of smoke and yes, we do take it upstairs on occasion to shoot it. It's a lot of fun around here at Fourth of July."