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Authors: Chris Kuzneski
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whether I intend to work for you ever again.’
Papineau smiled. He loved Cobb’s experience, intelligence, and directness. He had everything he was looking for and more. ‘Trust me, Mr Cobb. Once you hear my offer, I am quite certain that you and your team will sign on for more. Offers like these are rare indeed.’
Cobb studied his face. ‘Then why wait? Why not tell us now?’
‘Why?’ the Frenchman teased with a devilish smile. ‘Because you still have to meet the rest of your team.’
12
The limo slowed and turned off the scenic highway, leaving the paved road for a dirt path that had been cut through the overgrown marshes. McNutt saw WARNING and NO TRESPASSING signs as they drove toward a twenty-foot-tall gate in the middle of the jungle. It reminded him of the entrance to Jurassic Park.
‘Hey, Papi!’ McNutt said as he put his nose against the window. ‘
Please
tell me you have dinosaurs. I want to play with some.’
In this part of the country, ‘Papi’ (which sounds like
pa-pee
) is a slang term that literally means ‘father’, but can also mean ‘boyfriend’, ‘big daddy’, or many other things. McNutt intended no disrespect by using it. He liked it simply because it was easier for him to say than his other options.
Papineau shook his head in frustration. ‘Joshua, in the future, please address me as Mr Papineau or Jean-Marc.
Not
Papi.
Never
Papi.’
‘Sorry,’ McNutt mumbled, ‘I prefer Papi.’
Cobb tried not to smile. He prayed that McNutt’s childishness was just an act. Otherwise, there was a decent chance that he was mentally challenged. Nevertheless, he did his best to protect McNutt by quickly changing the subject. ‘Despite the size of your fence, I’m assuming you have other security measures in place. Or do you actually use raptors?’
Papineau shook his head. ‘There is electrified mesh netting comprised of twenty-eight AWG, heavy poly nylon one-five-five magnet wire behind the fence, reaching to the base of the marsh. It encircles the entire six-acre property within the reeds.’
Then he added, ‘It cannot be cut.’
‘There is nothing that cannot be cut,’ Sarah said.
‘That may be true - if you’re willing to accept several fatalities en route to that goal.’
‘So, is the high voltage to keep people in or out?’ Sarah asked.
‘Objects in, people out,’ he answered vaguely.
The chauffeur touched the right-side frame of his sunglasses. Then he pressed an eight-button combination on another remote control. The gate swung in slowly.
‘The combination changes every hour,’ Papineau bragged. ‘It is beamed from security central to a heads-up display in his eyewear. Very high-tech.’
A cobblestone road greeted them on the other side of the fence. The car continued along an extended, stretched-out ‘S’ curve until the flat top of a single-story ranch house could be seen. It was surrounded, as far as they could see, by an artificial inlet.
‘Damn,’ McNutt said. ‘Not what I was expecting.’
Cobb saw his point. The unassuming structure was made of concrete block stucco with a tile roof. He guessed it to be about four thousand square feet. On the surface, it appeared no different from the other homes they’d passed on the highway - which was the point. There was a practical side, too. A low house would be better equipped to handle the ubiquitous Florida storms - and easier to armor, since impact-resistance diminished exponentially the higher from base a wall reached. If the grounds were electrified and the windows were bulletproof, he had a hunch the walls would be designed to withstand a rocket-propelled grenade, at the very least.
Cobb noticed a wellhead in a patch of land; that meant the place maintained its own water supply. He also saw an Echelon-class Signals Intelligence (or SIGINT) satellite dish. Except for a slight size differential - it was about twenty percent larger than a standard home dish - no one would know it was the same
Papineau smiled. He loved Cobb’s experience, intelligence, and directness. He had everything he was looking for and more. ‘Trust me, Mr Cobb. Once you hear my offer, I am quite certain that you and your team will sign on for more. Offers like these are rare indeed.’
Cobb studied his face. ‘Then why wait? Why not tell us now?’
‘Why?’ the Frenchman teased with a devilish smile. ‘Because you still have to meet the rest of your team.’
12
The limo slowed and turned off the scenic highway, leaving the paved road for a dirt path that had been cut through the overgrown marshes. McNutt saw WARNING and NO TRESPASSING signs as they drove toward a twenty-foot-tall gate in the middle of the jungle. It reminded him of the entrance to Jurassic Park.
‘Hey, Papi!’ McNutt said as he put his nose against the window. ‘
Please
tell me you have dinosaurs. I want to play with some.’
In this part of the country, ‘Papi’ (which sounds like
pa-pee
) is a slang term that literally means ‘father’, but can also mean ‘boyfriend’, ‘big daddy’, or many other things. McNutt intended no disrespect by using it. He liked it simply because it was easier for him to say than his other options.
Papineau shook his head in frustration. ‘Joshua, in the future, please address me as Mr Papineau or Jean-Marc.
Not
Papi.
Never
Papi.’
‘Sorry,’ McNutt mumbled, ‘I prefer Papi.’
Cobb tried not to smile. He prayed that McNutt’s childishness was just an act. Otherwise, there was a decent chance that he was mentally challenged. Nevertheless, he did his best to protect McNutt by quickly changing the subject. ‘Despite the size of your fence, I’m assuming you have other security measures in place. Or do you actually use raptors?’
Papineau shook his head. ‘There is electrified mesh netting comprised of twenty-eight AWG, heavy poly nylon one-five-five magnet wire behind the fence, reaching to the base of the marsh. It encircles the entire six-acre property within the reeds.’
Then he added, ‘It cannot be cut.’
‘There is nothing that cannot be cut,’ Sarah said.
‘That may be true - if you’re willing to accept several fatalities en route to that goal.’
‘So, is the high voltage to keep people in or out?’ Sarah asked.
‘Objects in, people out,’ he answered vaguely.
The chauffeur touched the right-side frame of his sunglasses. Then he pressed an eight-button combination on another remote control. The gate swung in slowly.
‘The combination changes every hour,’ Papineau bragged. ‘It is beamed from security central to a heads-up display in his eyewear. Very high-tech.’
A cobblestone road greeted them on the other side of the fence. The car continued along an extended, stretched-out ‘S’ curve until the flat top of a single-story ranch house could be seen. It was surrounded, as far as they could see, by an artificial inlet.
‘Damn,’ McNutt said. ‘Not what I was expecting.’
Cobb saw his point. The unassuming structure was made of concrete block stucco with a tile roof. He guessed it to be about four thousand square feet. On the surface, it appeared no different from the other homes they’d passed on the highway - which was the point. There was a practical side, too. A low house would be better equipped to handle the ubiquitous Florida storms - and easier to armor, since impact-resistance diminished exponentially the higher from base a wall reached. If the grounds were electrified and the windows were bulletproof, he had a hunch the walls would be designed to withstand a rocket-propelled grenade, at the very least.
Cobb noticed a wellhead in a patch of land; that meant the place maintained its own water supply. He also saw an Echelon-class Signals Intelligence (or SIGINT) satellite dish. Except for a slight size differential - it was about twenty percent larger than a standard home dish - no one would know it was the same
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