FB: Chapter 51 – Hot And Heavy

I was deafened by the heavy machine gun ripping up the trees around our position. Thankfully the trees were quite thick, or at least the one I was hiding behind, pressed into the ground by one of my security personnel who was laying on top of me. My security personnel only had hand guns and returned the occasional burst of fire. The machine gun fire came to a halt.

“Move!” I was quickly scooped up again and dragged past several more trees and a large rock. I noted the helicopter was turning to face us through the trees. My guard spun me back over his shoulder to protect me with his body just as the helicopter fired. Missiles impacted where we had been. One of the pilots who hadn’t been fast enough was blown past my hiding spot in several chunks. Everything seemed to be spinning. The person carrying me fell to the ground. My head was ringing as I went tumbling across the forest floor.

“They are moving off to circle, we need to move.” I was picked up once again as we rushed through the forest. After a minute of heavy running we came to a stop next to some large rocks and a small stream. I was set down on a large rock.

“Sorry for the rough treatment,” my guard began saying but I waved him off. I noted he was bleeding from several wounds on his head, probably from debris and shrapnel.

“No complaints from me. Let us all try and survive. ETA on backup?” I asked while focusing on my breathing to steady my head.

“24 minutes,” he said.

“Let’s assume the enemy has our locator beacon frequency and has forces in the area to finish the job to clean up the crash site. Leave the beacon here, and let’s set up an ambush,” I ordered. They all looked at me in surprise. “Also, someone give me a spare gun.”

“You know how to use one?” the guard who carried me asked.

“Don’t put your finger on the trigger until you are ready to shoot. Always treat the gun like it is loaded. I know the basics and won’t shoot one of you,” I said. I had never shot before, but I heard these gun rules. Since they were brought up in Exponential with magical guns. The man pulled out another gun from inside his damaged suit and handed it to me. It felt heavy in my hands and it wasn’t just the weight.

“I have the beacon. We can leave it here,” the remaining pilot said. We then moved a distance into the forest and laid down, keeping a low profile. Hopefully they wouldn’t have heat vision equipment.

After eight minutes, I heard people moving through the woods. “Not our people,” my guard whispered. I didn’t reply. A group of 5 armed men in tactical gear with assault weapons arrived where we had left the locator beacon by the rocks.

“In 3, 2, 1,” my guard said and then opened fire. I took aim and fired as well. My second guard was up on the hill across from us along with the last pilot and Henry, catching them in a crossfire. In less than twenty seconds, I had emptied out the gun in my hand and there were 5 corpses. That was the strength of an ambush from multiple angles. At best I had hit one or two people. Realistically, I had probably missed every single shot. I let out a heavy breath.

“Halt fire!” my guard called out. He then went out to check the corpses and called an all clear. I didn’t go near the corpses but stayed in hiding, in case there was a follow up ambush.

Soon after that the emergency response team from Secure Solutions arrived and I was quickly moved to a heavily armed transport and convoy after a short hike through the woods.

“Henry, get me the CEO of Secure Solutions on the phone and put it on speaker so you can listen in,” I ordered. He nodded as he quickly began dialing a number.

“CEO April of Fanged Fox Corporation, one moment while I transfer the phone to her,” Henry said while handing the phone to me in a powerplay. Making the CEO of Secure Solutions wait on me.

“CEO April, my apologies for the attack on your transport,” he said instantly.

“I don’t require apologies or excuses. I require that my safety be made paramount. When I purchased your premier security contract with your company, I was assured that no trouble would find me due your reputation. While I am impressed by the actions of the people protecting me, was the contract canceled in some way?” I asked with an accusatory tone.

“Of course not, you are one of our most prized clients.”

“One of the most? Not the most? With the amount I pay for protection, to have my personal emergency beacon tracked is very upsetting and makes me question your company as a whole. The only reason why I am talking to you, is that your individual personnel showed incredible bravery. I expect them to be fully compensated for your failures,” I demanded. I could sense the tension on the other side of the line.

“We were not anticipating a response of this magnitude. They had an attack helicopter that had military armaments. We will be investigating into the source of the attacks. That shouldn't have happened,” the CEO of Secure Solutions responded. Of course it shouldn't have happened!

If someone had the confidence to launch such an attack in the US, then they had cut outs. I had no doubt this attack had cost billions in terms of man hours and moving things into place. What would the US Government say, 'oops we allowed a military grade helicopter to fire on US soil' or would they say, 'there was an unfortunate accident that is under investigation'.

It was always the second option, regardless of what happened. That was why I hadn't been entirely sure about such things happening the last time around. I hadn't been rich or famous enough to spend all these resources in an assassination attempt, and what I did hear were only rumors.

No doubt the US intelligence community would be working overtime and quite upset, but they were not about to publicly admit fault. Any videos would just be declared deep fakes and if I made a big enough public fuss, I might get into trouble. It was incredibly unfair, but that was life and why I paid through the nose for private security.

“There will be more attempts in the future. Better organized attempts. Why didn’t my escort helicopters have such armaments? Where was my heavy machine gun? Where were my attack helicopters with missiles?!” I demanded loudly.

“There are laws that we need to follow,” he nervously said. He could take the laws and shove them up his ass for all I cared right now. My enemies didn’t care about such things.

“How much?” I demanded.

“How much what?” he asked dumbly.

“I can enact the penalty clause of my contract. I am currently spending 365 million a year for this garbage tier level of protection, for a couple of years. The money has been already put into escrow to ensure that there are no problems with payment. However, I would have been killed, unless I took action myself, twice. I can invoke the penalty clause in the contract, which would be to tune of 10 billion dollars,” I said. That would cripple their company and the CEO would be out of a job. There was a stretch of silence before I continued.

“I require the level of protection that would require a full scale military response. I need attack helicopters, machine guns, rockets, ground to air defenses, fighter jets, and anything else needed to wage a battle. I need all of that in the next week.”

“A week! That is impossible!”

“Go without sleep then. You either make that happen and I increase the payment of my contract to a 500 million a year, or the contract will be terminated and I will enact the penalty clause, and then I will find another company to handle my security needs. One who takes my personal security seriously,” I demanded. I offered both the carrot and the stick.

“Some of those things, will take longer than others,” he nervously said.

“Then think outside the box. Partner with an American based company or even the US military. I want ground to air defenses. I want air to air defenses. I want everything short of a nuclear missile on call. I don’t care how you sort it out. As long as my personal safety is ensured. Also, my immediate family will require their security to be increased. Let my personal assistant know which option you reach before a week has gone by or you will be hearing from my army next. My army of corporate lawyers,” I said loudly and hung up without waiting for a response. I was breathing heavily. I handed the phone back to Henry.

“That was impressive. You don’t care who came after you?” Henry asked. I let out a sigh and shook my head, tired and exhausted. I did care, but now was not the time to act rashly and accuse people recklessly. I had a good guess, but without proof or confirmation, it was just a guess. The adrenaline was wearing off. I might have shouted a bit too much over the phone, but I wasn’t about to risk my safety just cause of some minor difficulties.

“Could be anyone and they are sure to use multiple layers of cutouts and deniable assets. In the end the entire incident will be declared an accident and swept under the rug. It was a test,” I replied. The rumors weren’t just rumors. I was glad I hadn’t cheapened out on my personal protection.

“A test? A test for what?” he asked curiously, but I could tell he was nervous. He had almost lost his life with me. His military background was one of the big reasons I had wanted him as my personal assistant over the other candidates for his job.

“A test of my ability to survive. Arrange for all board members to come to me in the future,” I said.

“They won’t like that. Since teleconferencing is not allowed for board meetings for security reasons,” he replied.

“Our office space is almost done?” I asked.

“Another year at least,” he replied.

“Then we will need decoy transports if there is another board meeting. Make sure there are three different routes picked. Two by air and one by road. We will randomly pick one right before our departure. All three will depart and not say where I am located. Arrange that with Secure Solutions and they can pick up the tab with what I am paying,” I said.

“You think they will meet your requirements?” Henry asked.

“Yes. They are not about to lose out on that kind of money. Make sure to confirm the IDs of everyone they send and their background. A full investigation by a third party, which means sending people to check on their childhood homes, not just placing phone calls. Even if Secure Solutions runs their own checks, do ours as well,” I said.

“Yes, I will make sure of that,” Henry said while making a note on his phone. “Do you want me to arrange for a personal firearm for yourself?”

“No. A CEO who gets into firefights in the real world is absolutely ridiculous and doing something wrong.” The only reason I took a gun was because I wasn’t about to die like an idiot, without a way to defend myself.

“I think you are doing everything right,” Henry replied, giving me a slight bit of sass. I knew he was trying to distract me, since my mind was still jittery from the assassination attempt. While I pretended I didn’t care, the real question was who had done it?

If I had to guess it was probably one of the board members hoping to remove me and replace me with someone more pliable. The Fanged Fox Corporation had a valuation that put it within the range of the top 500 publicly traded companies once we went public. If I was killed, it would allow someone else to seize power and take over a large portion of my company.

Most likely a board member backed up by another corporation or nation. Thankfully I had survived. With my security increasing, that should block any more direct attempts from occurring for the near future. As for the cleanup, it would be swept under the rug since the American government wouldn’t want to be embarrassed and Secure Solutions wanted to protect its image. Everyone would pull strings to bury it under the rug in exchange for increasing my security to avoid public embarrassment.

“Henry, make a note to carefully screen my food,” I said.

“It is already being done, but I will review and update the security procedures,” he said.

“If I need to hire a chef, then do so. Same for the rest of the security procedures. Better to be overly paranoid. Have everything checked by another security company, make that two security companies just to be sure we catch any weak spots in my defenses,” I told him. I really was hoping to avoid spending more on security, but there didn’t appear to be another option. My money would do me no good if I was dead.

Saving up billions for some future date was the kind of thinking that people who had too much money and counted their billions like points. It was better to spend as much as possible so I could earn more going forward. My life was incredibly valuable, in fact it was priceless. With my 42% ownership of the Fanged Fox Corporation, I was in the top 100 of richest people in the world.

Once I won the guild battle, then the valuation of my company and guild would probably double, putting me in the top 20. Already there were real world articles coming out about me and my actions in Exponential. How I had become a billionaire overnight at the young age of nineteen. The free advertising was great, but it also put a major target on my back. My guild was riding on the success of Exponential, which helped a lot with its valuation.