Chapter 44.

Tuesday, June 26, 2001 Rainbow Lake, UT 8:45 AM.

When Jenkins called that morning Matt had already been awake for over an hour helping Scotty, Mac and Rick cart the dead bodies down to the lakeshore to be burned. They piled the bodies onto an empty pallet then used the forklift to truck it down to the beach. Susan helped Matt remove the skeleton from the master bedroom then said she was going to clean the blood-splattered room and claim it as their own. It had a private toilet and a large, luxurious bathtub. Matt could only smile and agree.

After signing off with Jenkins he walked back down to the lakeshore where Mac tossed a match on the fuel splashed bodies. In less than a minute the pile of bodies was a bonfire raging nearly ten feet high. The wind came from the south, carrying the smoke and the stench away from the house as they watched the fire.

"What did Jenkins have to say?" Mac asked.

"They are conducting some experiments on Ron's body at the Park City hospital." Matt didn't want to get too specific right now. Rick still seemed a bit shaken by his brother's death.

"Experiments. That's what they said down at the U as well." Mac said bitterly.

They turned away from the bonfire and headed back toward the house. The sound of barking dogs drew their attention to the northern edge of the lawn where Zeke the black Labrador came running out of the woods followed by three more dogs. One was a tall, long limbed greyhound with a silver brown coat and black spots. The second dog was a short squat Chinese wrinkle dog with dark brown fur and pudgy wrinkles so thick that the face could barely be seen. The third dog was a scruffy looking mongrel about the size of a Shepherd, with shaggy, patchwork gray, black and white fur and a tattered red bandanna tied around its neck. All three of the newcomers looked a bit thin in the ribs, but their tails wagged jovial enough as they followed Zeke across the yard. Zeke hurried over to Scotty who patted him down with a laugh.

"Who are your new friends Zeke?" Zeke gave a friendly bark and hugged against Scotty.

"Come here," Matt said softly, kneeling down and holding his hand out. All three dogs seemed a bit timid, the wrinkle dog growling and the greyhound whining and pacing nervously. But the mongrel tentatively stepped near, nose low to the ground, sniffing at Matt's hand. "Come here boy." Matt couldn't tell for sure that it was a male but the red bandanna tied round its throat had a masculine flair. Matt reached out and began to pet the dog's shaggy head. Within seconds it was licking his neck as he petted it vigorously. The other two dogs now stepped forward to receive attention.

"They must be pets from residents of the town or lake." Matt said. He grabbed the red bandanna to read the logo on the tattered cloth. Heineken Beer. "Is that your name boy? Heineken?" The dog gave a bark and came to attention. "Well I'll be damned! That is your name."

"It looks like it's been awhile since they ate a good meal." Mac said.

"And seeing as they most likely found themselves a new home we should feed them." Scotty said.

A pack of dogs made sense. They would only add to the perimeter security of the house. But they were also more mouths to feed. Strangely enough, on one of the pallets of food had been a dozen cases of canned dog food. They had been in such a scavenging frenzy that day on the raid that one of them must have thrown the cases of dog food in mistaking it for something else. These cases were stacked outside near the back stairwell. Scotty went over and pulled several cans from an open case.

"I'll get some paper plates." Rick said, happy to have the dogs.

In the house Sharon had busied herself in the kitchen by cooking pancakes with syrup and hash browns made from canned potatoes while Samantha was setting a place for everyone at the large dining room table.

"It smells delicious." Matt said. And indeed it did. Sharon smiled and hummed softly to herself while she finished breakfast. Matt was relieved to see his mother-in-law happy. She was finally adapting to the loss of her husband. Rick fetched four paper plates from a cupboard and took them out for Scotty. "Zeke brought home some friends."

"Oh?" Sharon said, slightly alarmed.

"Three more dogs." Her face lit up at the news. "Come take a look." She walked around to the sliding glass doors and looked at the four dogs wagging their tails excitedly as Scotty served them each two cans of food on a paper plate.

"They look hungry." Sharon said.

"I'm sure they are." Matt said. "I am." Matt snatched a piece of buttered toast from a plate. The bread was made with an electric bread-maker, all the ingredients found in the pantry.

"I hope all of you are. Breakfast is almost done." She went back to the stove and her pancakes. "Go get David and your wife."

"Yes mother." Matt said mockingly and went off with a smile. In the master bedroom Susan had stripped all of the linen from the king sized, mirrored canopy bed and was cleaning the bloodstains from the carpet with a spray bottle of liquid cleaner and a handheld shampooing machine that plugged into the wall. When she saw him she shut down the noisy machine and stood up to kiss him.

"It's a good thing the carpet is brown to begin with; otherwise those stains would be eyesores rather than annoyances." She swept her arm at the carpet. Matt looked and could see no sign of the stains she was talking about.

"It's time for breakfast." He said, walking across the room to the large bathtub set into the floor near the wall. The tiles were a warm earth tone that blended well. "Look at this thing."

"We'll have to break it in tonight." She said seductively.

"Yes we will." He smiled in anticipation.

A door on the far wall opened onto the study. David sat behind the large desk in a massive leather swivel chair, watching three different computer monitors and tapping occasionally at the keyboard. Matt was amazed at the kids talent. Matt himself was no stranger to computers, having used one daily for six years at work but David was a hacker with tremendous skills and natural talent. All the possibilities he and Jenkins had discussed were suddenly racing through his head again.

"Have you named the new dogs yet?" David asked. Matt smiled, knowing David would have seen them on the back yard security camera.

"Your mom has breakfast on the table."

"I know." Again, he could see it on the security camera.

"So what else have you learned?" He had already hacked everything from the plumbing and solar panels to the security system that would register every time a door or window was opened.

"The man who owned this place was Dr. Eric Winters."

"Doctor of what?"

"He was a brain surgeon." David's eyes widened and he exaggerated the words.

"Brain surgeons live well." Matt said.

"This guy was rich."

"Look at this place! Of course he was rich!" Matt laughed.

"No I mean really rich." David tapped the keyboard and turned to the left monitor. "Here are some of his bank statements." He pointed to a column of numbers near the bottom of the screen. "All of those are different accounts located in various banks around the world."

Matt walked up and examined them. "Damn... If you add all of those numbers together we're talking two or three billion dollars."

"That's just money in the bank. We haven't even mentioned all the property he owned around the world: A huge estate on the coast in Santa Barbara, another in Miami. He also kept a penthouse apartment on Park Avenue in New York City. He was even a partner in a small resort island in the south pacific."

"Brain surgeons live real good!" Matt exclaimed.

"Well, he wasn't just a brain surgeon. He started up a company that manufactured brain implants for people with Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease. They obviously worked."

"I saw a 20/20 special on those about a year ago. They kind of worked like pacemakers; only instead of the heart they shocked the damaged parts of the brain, causing stimulation."

"There are volumes of that on here." David said with a smile.

"What was this guy doing here in Kittewa Utah? Up here in the middle of nowhere when he could have been at any of his other estate's? Why the hell did he even have a place here to begin with? There is nothing here. The nearest ski resort is in Park City. That's where you would expect to find a spread like this."

"Why ask why? It's ours now so be thankful he decided to build here."

"I guess you're right. Now let's eat breakfast."

"But there's so much to learn right here." David said.

"It's not going anywhere."

"Who's going to keep watch?"

"We have four dogs now. Your mom is in a good mood, the first one in awhile. Let's try and keep her that way."

"Sure, go for the guilt trip." David smiled and walked away from the computer. "There's another entrance into the study, so you won't have to worry about me disturbing you two at night. And there is a back-up system downstairs."

"You just make sure and turn off the security cameras in my bedroom tonight. And every night for that matter." Both of them laughed as they headed for the kitchen...

They all sat around the dining room table enjoying breakfast. The two toddlers sat on a blanket spread on the floor nearby, Samantha's baby lying beside them.

"This powdered milk ain't half bad." Rick said.

"Nothing beats the real thing." Jennifer said.

"You get me a dairy cow and I'll milk her." Scotty chimed in.

"The food is great mom." David said, shoveling a forkful of pancakes and hash browns into his mouth.

"I wish I'd had some bacon or sausage to fry up with it." Sharon said.

"You get me a pig and I'll butcher it." Scotty said.

"I saw some cattle in the pastures outside of town." Mac said.

"I can butcher cattle to."

"Did you work at a slaughter house or something?" David asked.

"David, we are eating breakfast." Sharon scolded.

"I was born and raised on a farm in Missouri." Scotty pronounced it Missoura.

"What brought you to Utah?" Mac asked.

"I got divorced. The judge was my wife's uncle. I lost custody of my kids and had no reason to stay there. I had three brothers that lived out here so I said what the hell?"

They continued eating in silence for a while until Matt brought up another topic that he and Jenkins discussed.

"What would you think of bringing on some more people?"

"Who?" Mac asked.

"Nobody specific yet. Jenkins and I talked about it on the radio this morning. He wanted me to toss the idea around with you guys."

"What do you think?" Susan asked.

"More manpower will help with guard duty. It will also give us more backs for the heavy work." Matt was already sold on the idea.

"It also means more mouths to feed." Jennifer said.

"We have plenty of food. Plus we can hunt and fish." Mac said. The idea appealed to him also. "And let's not forget that sooner or later we are going to have to go on another raid. It don't matter if it's Salt Lake, Ogden, Provo or Evanston, it's going to be crawling with deadfucks. We could use the extra manpower on those runs."

"Jenkins is also working on getting you some military satellite access." Matt told David.

"That would be sweet! If I could get online we could find out what's going on around the world! With access to the military network, I could probably hack into the Pentagon, maybe even some spy satellites!" David was literally bouncing in his seat with excitement.

"You could do all that?" Mac asked, looking doubtful.

"If Jenkins can get me online with enough initial access. Once inside I can hack my way into wherever I want to go." David dug into his pancakes, his mind racing over all the possibilities.

"Jenkins and I thought the same thing." Matt said.

"We need to recon this lake. Get a better grip on the situation with our neighbors." Rick said.

"We should probably plan a little excursion down into the town as well. It looked fairly deserted when we rolled through and there might be plenty of stuff we could use in some of the stores." Mac said.

The conversation continued for over an hour after breakfast as they made their plans for the day. Finally Sharon began to clear the table and they all excused themselves and set about their various tasks.

Scotty, Jennifer and Samantha were all going to the barn to do a complete inventory of everything they had brought with them. There were several pallets and literally hundreds of boxes not to mention all of the loose odds and ends that had been stored aboard the school bus. As they counted the supplies they would radio them to David, who would be in the den watching the security monitors. He would record the information in the database. Sharon would wash dishes then tend the children.

Matt, Susan, Rick and Mac were going to take the boat on a reconnaissance of the lake and try to get a better look at their neighbors. They all knew it was risky; A couple of men had come out and pointed rifles at the helicopter when they had first flown up here a couple days ago. They gathered their weapons and equipment bags from the back patio and carried them to the boathouse, a two-story structure with a clear solarium style roof. There was a wooden door on the yard side and on the lakeside a large deck and wooden dock. A wooden stairway on the deck accessed the second floor balcony. Inside the bay a twenty-foot ski boat with a white and blue hull and a powerful inboard engine sat moored to the inner dock. They quickly piled aboard. Rick went to the cockpit and activated the door opener attached to the console. With the grating of un-oiled machinery the boathouse door slowly rolled up out of the water, bathing the interior in sunlight.

"I got audio and visual of you guys on the security camera and the system alarm just alerted me the boathouse door is open. I told you this place was wired." David's voice came over an intercom speaker hidden in the room.

Susan was pulling military issue armored vests and helmets from the equipment bag while Rick brought the engine to life with a low, rumbling roar.

"How are the tanks?" Matt asked.

"Damn near full." Rick wore the smile of an avid outdoorsman as he shrugged into his combat vest and helmet. Matt knew the type. Adam and Kelly had been the same.

The sun was fully over the eastern mountains and it shone down on the lake like a golden ball of liquid fire. Susan reached into one of the equipment bags and pulled out several pair of cheap folding sunglasses and passed them around.

Rick slowly backed the boat out of the boathouse. "I'm just driving, somebody else gets to navigate." The loss of his brother had hit him hard. He hadn't slept since Ron had told him of his infection in the Park City resort leaving him emotionally and physically exhausted. Mac had suggested that Rick stay behind and get some more rest but he insisted that he go. He was the best qualified to pilot the boat and the rest of them knew it. It would also give him something else to occupy his mind besides his grief. There had been enough of that to go around for everybody.

"Take us around the northeast side of the lake." Matt said. "It will be better to circle around to the other side of the lake and observe our neighbors with the sun at our backs. Besides, there is something else I need to do..."

Chapter 45.