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Back The Neighborhood Save as PDF
Chapters (59)
  1. Part I Reconnaissance
  2. Chapter One
  3. Chapter Two
  4. Chapter Three
  5. Part II Incursion
  6. Chapter Four
  7. Chapter Five
  8. Chapter Six
  9. Chapter Seven
  10. Chapter Eight
  11. Chapter Nine
  12. Chapter Ten
  13. Part III Under Siege
  14. Chapter Eleven
  15. Chapter Twelve
  16. Chapter Thirteen
  17. Part IV Course Correction
  18. Chapter Fourteen
  19. Part V Balance of Power
  20. Chapter Fifteen
  21. Chapter Sixteen
  22. Chapter Seventeen
  23. Chapter Eighteen
  24. Chapter Nineteen
  25. Chapter Twenty
  26. Chapter Twenty-One
  27. Chapter Twenty-Two
  28. Chapter Twenty-Three
  29. Chapter Twenty-Four
  30. Chapter Twenty-Five
  31. Chapter Twenty-Six
  32. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  33. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  34. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  35. Part VI Spy versus Spy
  36. Chapter Thirty
  37. Chapter Thirty-One
  38. Chapter Thirty-Two
  39. Chapter Thirty-Three
  40. Part VII Winds of War and Flame
  41. Chapter Thirty-Four
  42. Chapter Thirty-Five
  43. Chapter Thirty-Six
  44. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  45. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  46. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  47. Chapter Forty
  48. Chapter Forty-One
  49. Part VIII Strong to the Finish
  50. Chapter Forty-Two
  51. Chapter Forty-Three
  52. Part IX Spy Games
  53. Chapter Forty-Four
  54. Chapter Forty-Five
  55. Chapter Forty-Six
  56. Part X What Goes Around
  57. Chapter Forty-Seven
  58. Chapter Forty-Eight
  59. About the Author

Chapter Seventeen

ChapteR
SEVENTEEN

Griffin stood in the hallway outside the entrance to the gymnasium. The residents of Hidden Refuge had just had their safe worldview shattered minutes earlier. Once they’d followed his contractors in their SUVs and parked their vehicles in the back of the school, out of sight, the frightened people had been herded into the gymnasium. Griffin had personally broken the news to the residents that they were hostages.

Their initial disbelief had been dispelled when one of the husbands, a father to twin girls no older than six or seven, stood up to leave with his family. He’d made it three steps toward the double doors before one of Griffin’s men slammed him against a wall, zip-tied his hands behind his back like a professional cowboy, and sat him down on the floor. The use of violence had been a psychological sort of blunt-force trauma, beating the rest of the civilians into immediate obeyance.

Between the two Falling Rock PD impersonators; the four contractors armed with M4 assault rifles; Michael, the comms magician; and Thomas, the Amazon impersonator, there were more than enough armed gunmen to keep the fifty-three men, women, and children under control. But while Griffin and his headquarters element had the situation in hand, Barrett had just finished updating him on the unfolding chaos inside the neighborhood. The two had long-range push-to-talk radios encrypted in a closed network just for the two of them. The conversation had ended with a simple directive from Griffin: “Use the rest of the civilians as bait. I don’t care what you do to them, but you have to regain control. Do you understand me?”

Barrett had assured him he would, informing his boss that he had a plan. He’d told Griffin he’d call him back in fifteen minutes, and Griffin had started the chronograph on his black and silver Omega Seamaster dive watch. He appreciated the irony of the watch, the only timepiece worn by James Bond throughout his endless battles against iconic supervillains. He was definitely not one of the good guys, nor did he want to be. His ambitions were too large to be curbed by something so meager as altruistic intentions. He had a goal, an objective, a quantifiable end state, and he would not be deterred, no matter what obstacles fell across his path.