Heavy Traffic Ch. 20

Sean considered this, pretending to count on his fingers. "Okay, more than one and less than thirty."

Amanda gave up and decided to change the conversation, "If I could have used my pistol, I know I would have beaten you. Who uses a shotgun to shot birds anyway? How unsporting."

She had tried every argument she could think of to get the staff to allow her to use her pistol instead of a shotgun while shooting clay. At each of the fourteen stations the hotel property offered, she would argue her Olympic training requirements and every other reason she could imagine to convince them that an exception to the rules should be made for her. Being denied each time, she still lost the daily match to Sean by missing only two of the sporting clays. Of course, Sean hadn't missed any.

"Even with your pistol, Mrs. Wallace, the best you could have done would have been to tie me."

Amanda's response was halted by the ringing of the room phone. One of the reasons they had selected this hotel for the first leg of their Honeymoon was the very limited cell phone service if afforded. Land line phones still worked however, and Sean rose to go answer the one ringing behind them.

Remaining seated and returning to her drink, Amanda listened to Sean's side of a brief conversation. This was only the fifth or sixth call they had received since arriving at the hotel a week ago. They had one more week reserved here before continuing their Honeymoon journey to Australia. Their plans called for them to spend three weeks on the Wallace farm, letting Sean see Amanda's childhood home before they would head to Sydney for Sean to be introduced to the personnel at the former Wallace Holdings headquarters - now a subsidiary of Wallace Worldwide Enterprises.

Sean was back beside her, sipping his own drink again within a minute.

"Grandma Beth just wanted to let us know that the lawyers have completed all the paperwork. The name is now officially 'The Michelle Anderson Foundation for Human Rescue'. She said that the press release will be issued tomorrow, but inquiries are already starting to come in about the ability for the foundation to accept human trafficking victims identified by various agencies in the State of Georgia and elsewhere."

Amanda nodded but didn't respond for several minutes. She stared off across the hotel property deep in thought. Finally, she turned to Sean, "Do you think the publicity about the Foundation will prompt the U.S. Attorney to change his mind about his strategy?"

"He might be tempted," replied Sean. "It probably wouldn't hurt for me to send a brief message to his boss' boss. As long as DeMarcus Steele is continuing to cooperate with the prosecutions, there should be absolutely no need to bring the girls into the process."

DeMarcus Steele had been transferred to the half-way house as Sean had promised and within a day of arriving, asked to meet with the team investigating his human trafficking operation. Even though the U.S. Attorney had declined to prosecute Steele since the RICO and murder convictions had already put him in prison for life, the others involved in assisting Steele were still targets for prosecution. DeMarcus volunteered names of individuals that he had either paid or intimidated into assisting his operation, including two senior Customs officials at the Port of Columbus and three middle managers within the Georgia Department of Transportation. Trials for these individuals were scheduled to begin within the month and with DeMarcus' testimony, the need to have any of the girls appear as witnesses was suppose to be unnecessary. The U.S. Attorney already had Amanda's sworn deposition as well as her promise to return within two days if her own testimony was required.

Amanda finished her drink and took a bite of the pineapple wedge from the rim of the glass. She stood and took Sean's hand, pulling slightly to make her desire for him to stand obvious.

"You can send a message later Mr. Wallace. Right now, you need to start working on this heap of children you desire. Remember, you're the one who promised both your grandmothers that you would have me pregnant by the time this Honeymoon was over."

Sean stood and swept Amanda off her feet and into his arms. As he carried her to the bed he asked, "What about dinner?"

"Room service is scheduled to deliver our dinner in two hours. You're not the only Wallace who can plan a mission. Now, at the risk of offending your Marine Corps pride, do as they say in the submarine service and 'go silent Mr. Wallace, and definitely go deep."

~~~