[i]WHERE DID THAT COME FROM?[/i]

Then the second one was fired. He heard it, and returned fire from the nearest hostiles on ground level. The hostiles on the opposing roof were at a bad angle, and of course it had been them that fired the second rocket. The RPG put a whole through the shitty little concrete and bad tile little house, or apartment, or whatever, that they had ducked into when they realized it was an ambush by a dug in and well armed enemy first. Diggs and Preston were dead. Penna had been shot in the arm dragging Diggs out of the street. They felt okay until the first rocket. The second rocket he only recalled white haze and ringing. 

The little house, or apartment, or whatever across the small dirt road exploded with small arms fire as the ISIS fighters pressed their advantage. Garcia kept speaking as calmly as he could yell into the radio, and he himself would chime in when appropriate. But he was too busy shooting. Every time a burst of fire came it became a new target for him to aim at. His M4 was warmed up and his shooting was true. That's why that had started in with the rockets. The first shoot he thought they missed, but during a reload he realized that it hadn't missed.

A bullet had grazed him with a sudden metal sting.

The second hit came a clip later, after the fire from the ground floor began to die down. It was a three round burst, two of the three rounds slapped right into his left shoulder. The shock and force sent him to his ass. Then it seemed like the world exploded again, grenade outside, maybe. Not big enough to be a rocket, he felt. Then things got even louder, far as he could tell. It all sounded like he was at the bottom of a swimming pool, and it was all going on above the water over his head. The sudden silence was stranger, then someone shouted something. Something that sounded happy, and then there was a hand on his good shoulder.

When he looked up he saw her: white and black and gold glittering. She was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen, but that was almost missed in the moment he first saw her glowing in Iraqi sunlight. "Sarge," was all she had said to him, a soft smile and a long look at his shoulder. Her cape was dusty and settled in the breezeless Iraqi home, or apartment, or whatever. And she still looked perfect to him. When she turned and spoke to the rest of his squad, that smile. That air of absolute invincibility.

The medical teams got in fast, it was easy. The official report said that Charlie Squad came in as heavy relief. What actually happened was a miracle from heaven, as far as he had been concerned. His squad told him about how there was a golden blur, and then all the shooting stopped on that street. A few minutes after she touched his shoulder, shooting around the entire block of this Iraqi city had stopped. The operation was the lowest death total for combined Coalition forces in years, and far less than had been expected with how dug in the terrorists had been.

The memory played again and again, as if it were suddenly free to roam his mind.
 
He wasn't in a safe place to be in the present either. Not by five miles in any direction. This deep into the woods of Missouri and there were no cellular signals. There was a Dollar General that they'd built before the last flood. Folks were surprised when it reopened, even though LeAnn Walter, the manager, had been telling them they would. LeAnn wasn't from this particular stretch of back country Missouri. According to one ATF report, "the compound may be the most heavily armed stretch of Missouri outside of military sites." There was a sneaking suspicion that the report was lowballing it. There was a tail almost immediately after the crash scene. 

Grey SUV, windows dark, sunglasses, rarely close enough for any of that to be seen. Good thing the tail had been there after he left the Sheriff's Station, again after he left JR's BBQ shack at lunch. It hadn't mattered as much to Murphy as had the revelation. Only with meat sweats from lunch, and a few beers, combined with the anxiety of that grey SUV and the guy with the sunglasses showing up again--only at that point did it hit him. At first it came so sudden he laughed, big and loud and until tears threatened his brown eyes. Then he had to try to call someone, but he couldn't. 

There was no one he could reach out to if they were following him and he was right about his revelation. They'd be tracking him. So that just left him the options of places to go, moves to make. Favors to call in if things were desperate. He would have felt better about it if it had all made sense, but it still didn't. Was what he had done this morning really worth all of this? There wasn't a good answer he could think of, and it just kind of pissed him off. Like he was a Private Second Class getting screamed at for something as stupid as being five minutes later all over again. 

There was a reason he had left the Army.

Technically the name for the compound was Greystone Ridge. Everyone around the area, even ol' LeAnn Walter, knew it by the name Greycoat Ridge. The group had different names; the KKK part of them was some Knights of the...whatever it was, the Neo-Nazi youth movement it's own dumbass moniker, they even had a brand of Motorcycle Club. They were professional criminals, the lot of them, and they had always been happy to assist Missouri law enforcement any time it was needed. They were also extremists and conspiracy theorists. Entering the compound wasn't something he just did. He had to approach, give his name and his business. What he said almost didn't get him in, but it did get him in, and that was the part of the gamble that had spooked him the most. The drive to the chapel was the easiest part, heavily covered by the canopy of trees and bush as the entire compound was, the first day of the year warmer than expected and bright and sunny.

"Lucas." The sound of his name on the old gray haired man's tongue sounded as much greeting as it did warning to him.  The old man stood in the doorway of the chapel a beat or two, before slowly shutting the door behind him. He was suspicious. George had never been a fool. Grand Wizard, Grand Pappy, just ol' Grand; whatever title you wanted to give the man that wasn't used in polite company. You're not that large a factor and that long a key player without being a shrewd operator, Lloyd had told him a few times before. "What the hell are you here for?" Murphy almost blurted it out before Lloyd added on,"Is this about Jimmie?"

Murphy smiled down at the Deputy hat he held in his hands as he sat on a pew halfway down the small chapel. The ceiling was tall, the windows were tall things that let the natural light the trees filtered flood in with a hint of green. For a lot of racists and psychopaths they could sure build a pretty place. "I remember her, now." [i]I've seen her before.[/i] The smile that burned from that return of that memory to his mind flickered and faded as the weight of Lloyd's gaze grew heavier with each passing moments. "Yeah, it's about Jimmie. I got to call that favor in."

The words came to Murphy breathless, like he'd knocked the wind right out of the old man. "What did you bring?"

Murphy turned in the pew, looking up to Lloyd now. "I'm being followed. Do you know anything about metahumans in the area?"

"That damn lake facility. We only know it's heavily guarded and watched in every way you can think of. What do you think you did to set that place off? Pull over the wrong government suit?" It was a snide remark enjoyed with pleasure by the old man.

"I remember her. I didn't do anything, but I remember her, and I think maybe they know...that I might remember her."

"Who?" Lloyd was at the end of the pew now, age spotted hand resting roughly on the woodwork of the pew. 

"The Sentry."

"Never heard of them."

Murphy smiled, bitterly. "They followed me here. The lake people, probably, I wasn't too far from there when I saw the woman at the accident scene."

"What you done for Jimmie...he's alive because of you. But you bring government to our door?" Murphy shifted to his feet. Lloyd didn't let him interject, his old hand coming up into the air quick to silence the cop. "We're even after this, Lucas, and next time this compound sees you we will sees you just the same as we see any fucking cop or government suit. Get a gun or get out."

[i]I was kinda thinking both.[/i] He almost said it, if not for the sudden burst of fire. Mile or so north, where the mountain meets the fence and the entry gate with it's dual guard towers. Lloyd was already gone before Murphy could say anymore, but at least he had a chance to lose the tail, and slip out with a target in mind: the facility at the lake was too much for him alone. 

But if that facility and it's manpower was busy with Greycoat Ridge he might just have a chance at Rachel "Stevens" and the horse ranch she was at. Whatever her name was, if anyone could give him an answer, or at least keep him from dying because of the government men all around them, it was the Sentry. A four door Jeep Wrangler and a rifle with a very big scope in the back awaited his service revolver and him near the side of the compound that was only mountain road, and the road part of that was probably best liberally applied. But the Jeep with the lift and it's four doors was his way out. 

The increase in firearms sounds and the air chopping noises of multiple helicopters above the trees was his cue. "Thanks Lloyd."

---

"I'll stay."

"You will be dead. She will kill you."

The eldest man with the thick head of white hair scuffed and readjusted his glasses behind the cherry wood desk. "No she won't."

The other man just looked blank, suited without the tie or jacket. He'd been at the lake facility for longer than he had planned. Too long. "I'll find the cop and kill the cop."

"An American on American soil?"

The blank look was the only response given, at first, "Let me explain to you something: we have a unmitigated disaster perpetuated by a man that has acted as dangerously as he has selfishly. I bet you all the money in my pocket against all the money in your pocket this cop knows something. Whether he's private, or he's state sponsored hardly seems to matter to me right now when we have DEAD BODIES." His appearance had ceased being blank; now pale white skin had turned flush and red, his nostrils flared, and his brown hair stood up to the point where a heavy hand was glazed over his head and his hair to make it go back to something approaching normal. 

Omar stood in the corner trying not to piss himself. He was a physicist by training, which had led to software engineering, which had led to working in the field of Q-Bits; Quantum Computers. Omar loved his dog, and missed his parents, and he really didn't want to die. Imagine, he thought, being the poor schmuck who's there to answer some very specific computer questions before suddenly CIA Black Site drama begins to explode in front of your eyes?

Oh and: 

DEAD FUCKING BODIES!? WHAT THE FUCK!?!

Omar was having a hard time focusing. The scariest guy in the room suddenly wasn't the site overseer, the Deputy Director of Computational Intelligence. The black site was always this big attempt to take hacked data and government coercion and turn it into the kind of network focal point needed for a nation wide range of experimental computers and server arrays. None of them, none of the techs, knew the reason they built the facility here, at this location in southern Missouri. The real reason for the place to exist, for the entire network to exist; it was a woman. A kind and pretty woman. He had ran into her accidentally twice, and one time he accidentally bumped into her and nearly knocked her over. She was so nice about it.

He was a klutz. All he could do was breath and not move. 

Omar didn't agree with that. Omar didn't think that she would kill the Deputy Director. He was old, and he was just a middle man. Or even if he was evil, why kill him? She was too nice for that. She had a kid, he even wanted to think, but deep down he knew better. There was enough in the servers he had access to only for server maintenance (but hacked his way through the rest) to tell him the real truth of that. 

But she was a mother. 

The Special Agent was now putting his suit jacket on, slow, the sweat on his forehead shined in the overhead light of the office in the bunker, brownish silver hair slicked back and short. "I'll tell him when we have the cop. Mendoza, handle your business." The Special Agent walked out, and suddenly Mendoza was staring daggers at him. She was cut-throat and cruel, but she wasn't a bad person. It's just what had become of her. There had been kindness in Mendoza, and before recently he even almost liked her. Outside the office she leaned into him and threatened his life.

"If you ever repeat what was said in there, you will never see them coming." And then she turned on a heel and marched off down the corridor, calling behind her, "I'll meet you down there." 

His first thought had always been the tunnel. It was the middle obvious place. The most obvious was the back exit. It lead to a nice place with firm land. It was a breeze if you got to it and no one was there, but there would be armed men there, more than likely. The second most obvious place was the front entrance, or was that reversed? Either way, they were obvious but bad ideas. The loading dock wasn't a bad idea at all, but their security was great until you got past the big yellow blast door. Then it was just mostly assumed you belonged. There were cameras and guards, but they never seemed to be watching too closely. Or were and knew better than to act on anything minor. 

The worst option was the large hangar platform that was used only for emergencies.

The middle option was the water cooling pipe for the big server farm in one of the sub-levels. It would flood the servers which could affect...Omar just couldn't know for sure. His guesses were bad, and some less so, and it was all a gamble. It would allow them to slip out and not be totally full of water. It was a middle option. Least resistance, best chances all things considered...

Getting there first became a problem. Server Farm Water Cooling Flow 2 was the goal. 

When the door to the Habitat slid open he had maybe five minutes. Probably not there. "They're going to kill you. There's a person named Rachel, she's your best shot. Server Farm Water Cooling Flow 2, you'll have to follow the computer to find it, but once you do you have to override the controls and flood the server room you'll be standing in...but Flow 2 leads out. You'll have time to make it pretty far before water comes rushing up behind you. If you can't find an access point out of that tunnel you'll end up on a stretch of the Ozark lake that's privately owned. Her house. If you do find an access point you'll be in the woods on her property. Find the house. Find her."

It was word vomit, and he was literally tugging and pushing at her. He was a thin and nerdy American Indian guy but he knew what he was talking about and he knew that they didn't have time. The worst part was from the Habitat to the elevator. It was maybe twenty five feet. Omar felt like he was going to pass out, or vomit, or both, the entire way. That Mendoza wasn't waiting for him when the elevator door opened made him laugh with shocked relief. 

One miracle down! All they needed were three or four more. Before the elevator door closed the shot rang out. Omar hit the elevator wall blinking fast. Pain and failure cascaded through his various biological systems as bullet that could have gone through body armor shredded into his chest. The door closed. When it opened the sub-level with the server farm was dark, just shapes and various colored lights staring for nearly infinity before them. The tunnel was five minutes right and along the left wall, with barely a label.

"Go...please be a good guy, man..."

They were his last words, as his fixed on the next direction even in death.