Rough Pt. 05

Angie smiled and punched his shoulder. "Where are we sleeping tonight? Who is buying pizza?"

"The librarians are taking a ground floor room closest to where we are parked. Make it two adjoining rooms because the cousin from DC is arriving later. If the women get to shower first, then they go in the SUV for pizza. One beer each is the ration for tonight. Men will stand night watch in the RV and this van."

Arnie got another punch, "Sexist as always. Oppressing your women." She climbed down from the passenger seat and helped Emma down from the back door. They strolled casually toward the front desk. No bodies were in sight and the room curtains were closed. A Holiday Inn was not a likely jihadist site anyway.

Jason sent a carefully worded update to Mike Hamilton at the White House, emphasizing that a sniffer positive was not really localization and they needed another day to work the problem. There was a brief acknowledgement with a promise of a quick response.

Kevin said, "There is going to be pissing and moaning at Langley."

Smiles all around but Jason cautioned, "We can't be complacent. May need all hands before this is over."

The librarians returned with room keys to retrieve Julia and go clean up. The men tried to relax in the claustrophobic back of the van while Arnie kept lookout from the driver's seat. In fifteen minutes, Julia returned with keys to the SUV and took orders.

"Do you want the librarians to occupy the RV?" she asked.

Arnie nodded and sent Kevin, Sam and Jason to the shower. Tim manned the comm station.

Arnie felt his usual frustration rising at being forced to wait. His logical brain said there was a carefully devised plan to avoid tipping their hand and the team should stick to it. The rest of him said, "Fuck it!" He smiled to himself. So far, this was no worse than some of his surveillance assignments. He wondered when he would get to share a bed with his librarian.

The Seals and Jason walked out of the building, headed his way. He sent one to comm station guard duty and the other two to the front seats. Any number of things might require a quick exit.

As they were toweling off from the shower, Tim asked, "Do you suppose the delivery boat has left? If the device is on a timer, they could have dropped it in the bottom mud at the Marina?"

Arnie looked at him, thinking. "We still haven't triangulated what kind of message they intend. Could be anything from a little blast as a signal of how close they can infiltrate the capitol, to a big blast that is better than 9/11."

Dressed, they started back to the van. Tim volunteered, "We need the Marina survey in any case. Let's go with two teams first thing in the morning. I hate to say it, but you better stay with the van and the comm gear to filter out bad ideas from above."

Fists in the air, they danced back to the vehicle just as the SUV arrived. Arnie pointed to the RV as the dining room and went to help unload.

* * *

A restless night was made no easier by the need for watch standing. Arnie decreed that the librarians and Julia were to occupy beds inside the hotel. Julia was armed, although it was very unlikely her gun would be used. By five am, she was tapping on the back of the van and taking breakfast orders. Tim smiled and made a sexist remark. She replied that his privileges were definitely revoked.

After waiting until eight, the two Marina teams left in the SUV and Julia's pickup. Arnie stationed Jason and Julia in the front seats of the van while he took comm duty. Tim got hard duty manning the RV in case it needed to move in a hurry. The encryption gear required new setup each day and he attended to that, after which a series of messages arrived and were printed out in plain text. He sat at the hatch and read them to the front seat. The first granted them the requested twenty four hour delay. The second acknowledged the alert to Little Creek and the Seal Commander. The third said that the embassy staffer had been observed visiting a house in the country between Fairlee and Georgetown.

Jason spread the local map across the dash and the three of them studied it. Jason commented, "Arnie, there are more marinas in the vicinity. This could be a long day if our teams come up short on the first two."

Arnie was thinking about the embassy guy. "If the embassy is involved, would they blow up their own people?"

Julia said, "What if he is a mole? Plans to be a safe distance when the balloon goes up."

Jason was irked, "Damn, this assignment has a hell of a lot of tricky corners on it."

Julia went to get Tim. While she was doing that, Jason's burner phone rang and it was Sam, reporting from the Green Point Marina.

"Your aunt and uncle left two days ago. No rentals here. Coming back to you to plan something else for today."

Jason acknowledged the call, looking as though he wasn't surprised. Tim and Julia climbed in the back and Arnie filled them in on the call from Sam.

Tim had an idea. "We are running out of time and out of patience at headquarters. Let's take a chance and put a sniffer in the air in a private light plane. There's a marina around every fencepost here and we don't have time to check them all on foot."

Arnie thought it was worth a try. He knew from Kevin's bio that he had a private pilot's license. "Use the computer in the RV to search local airports. Maybe there is one where Kevin can rent a small boy. I hope his license is up to date."

Tim smiled, "You are going to put two Seals in the air? I thought they were our underwater troops?"

Julia punched his bicep. "You carrier guys never quit."

As suspected, Kevin called in from Worton Creek with his own negative report. "No rentals here, Boss."

"Come on in. We have new plans for better recreation."

* * *

By sundown, Arnie felt they were finally seeing daylight. The device was further south than they had thought. And it wasn't at a marina, it was underwater in an arm of the Bay called Fairlee Creek. The two Seals were super energized. The airplane rental had worked and the sniffer profile was unmistakable. Arnie gathered everyone in the RV, still parked at the Holiday Inn.

"With this profile, I don't see how it could be anything but what we are looking for. The next problem is what to do about it. There are several thousand people living within a mile or so. If it is boobytrapped, a lot of them are going to get killed, along with whomever is trying to retrieve it."

Jason added, "If the CIA or FBI brings the embassy guy in, they most likely find he doesn't know anything about the close in detonation specifics."

"Let's noodle about what this likely is. Unless it's just a bluff, a small enough package to transport safely in a sailing yacht is probably the warhead from a tactical nuclear device. Also probably a decommissioned Russian device that was aging out. Some money and late night action in Sevastopol helped it change hands. The unhappy minorities in Crimea will do a lot for money."

Sam looked around at faces in the dimness of the back of the van. "Military grade means organized procedures for arming and dearming. Almost all of them have radar driven proximity fuzes unless they are wire guided..."

Tim spoke, "But they must have removed all that. Wouldn't want any of the conventional equipment to go live and set it off."

Arnie was quick to say, "All this is not our job. The nuke team knows this stuff backwards and forwards. The question of the moment is whether the delivery team has it set to go off if handled by anyone except themselves."

* * *

At midnight, Kevin was rousing everyone. "Message from Hamilton. We've been called off. He says to report to Belvoir asap."

Arnie's team was grumpy and in revolt. "Damned chain of command." But military discipline prevailed and a disorderly caravan left at 2am to return to base.

At noon the next day, they were visited by Mike Hamilton. "Sorry we had to do that to you without any explanation. Langley cracked it wide open with help from the FBI. The embassy aide broke under pressure and outed the team hiding in a house near the inlet. They broke too and volunteered to help the retrieval. No boobytrap. The nuke people are disassembling it now on a barge at sea."

Julia was sitting in Tim's lap and providing unprofessional kisses. The Seals were back in uniform and looking restive.

Hamilton had more words. "My boss says his boss wants to talk to you. The meeting will be right here since you all can't be seen around the White House. Too many questions from the nosy press. Be ready at ten hundred hours."

Jason and Arnie looked at each other and said, "Damn." The librarians smiled.

* * *

Mike showed up early for the meeting with crazy news. "You won't believe this, but the damn thing was empty. The intel guys think the Russians primed it with just enough radioactive material to seem like the real thing, then let it be stolen in order to track what the jihadis were up to."

"By the way, the brass are in with the President and will be here shortly."

While they waited, Angie stood behind Arnie and poked him in the back. "Don't be so stiff, you just lead a successful mission."

She poked him again and whispered, "Aided by your librarians..."

A cavalcade of black Suburbans was in sight as he whispered back, "You will suffer."

Jason ordered their leader to get out front and make introductions. There wasn't room inside for the group anyway, so bodies lined up, more or less, next to the porch railing.

Mike stood next to Arnie, reciting name and initials as their guests emerged from the big vehicles. Everyone was in military dress because of where they had just been. Arnie whispered he had never seen so many stars in his life. Even the brigadiers who had hired him were there,

There was a moment of embarrassment as the women were introduced. Arnie carefully used the title 'Agent' for each of them. Jason smiled, thinking these Generals and Admirals were not used to 'irregular' forces.

The National Security Advisor, who was not ranking, spoke for the group.

"I come to extend grateful thanks from the President for your dedicated and resourceful efforts. He is pleased, let me emphasize very pleased, that this mission has been concluded without casualties and without publicity."

Jason observed to Mike that the occasion deserved a champagne reception, but that clearly was not possible. As they watched, the bodies with stars made a point of saying hello to Arnie's corps of female agents, who stood up straight and used military language to respond to questions. But the eyes were laughing and everyone relaxed as visitors began to pile back into the limos.

Mike was returning with his boss, but handed Arnie an envelope before he left. "A little something from the President's Chief of Staff."

He waited until everyone was back inside before opening the note. Jason was looking over his shoulder and exclaimed, "I'll be damned!"

It said that the President was traveling to San Francisco the following day and would be honored to have the pleasure of their company. Even the Seals and a friend were included.

Angie, Emma and Julia hugged and screamed, "Air Force One! What are we going to wear!?"

Kevin and Sam were madly thumbing their phones. Tim, Jason and Arnie looked a little shellshocked.

Tim asked, tongue in cheek, "Arnie, do your missions usually end up like this? Traveling with POTUS?"

* * *

Angie was sipping coffee and enjoying the view from Julia's Russian Hill apartment. The Seals and their girlfriends were already out the door to the airport to rent a van for a trip down Highway 1.

The two couples were very noisily into each other yesterday and caused many laughs. The women couldn't be told what the mission had been about, but a plane ride with the President was obviously a high point of their young lives. Kevin and Sam claimed that they deserved special rewards and disappeared to Julia's second bedroom.

Tim whispered in Julia's ear, "Do you allow swapping at this location?" and got swatted for it.

Others were rousing slowly. Brains were still foggy from too much excitement and too much fine wine last night. Arnie came up behind the writer he first met in her apartment near here.

He said quietly, "Not too rough hanging out with Julia?"

She reached up behind her to pull his head down for a kiss. "I never knew working for you would be a string of surprises. Good surprises. The President was awfully nice to give us those letters. He wasn't being just another politician, was he?"

"No, I don't think so. He was appreciating eight Americans who did a dangerous mission that might have saved a lot of other American lives."

Jason and Emma joined them. "That's right, Arnie. If that thing had its original warhead and went off, a bunch of people would have been killed. Every member of the team deserves those letters."

Julia and Tim wandered in from the shower. "He's asked me to marry him. What do I do?" Their smiles were wide.

Amid giggles and male frowns, they were served a pancake breakfast. Afterwards, Arnie inquired, "Commander, you are up for Captain this year, aren't you?"

Tim's response was not hurried. His arm around her, he said, "I've been talking to this one about that. I never thought I would put my career on the line for a woman, but Julia has stolen my heart..."

Emma and Angie were looking concerned. Each of them knew what it meant to be tied to a career warrior. Angie put a hand on Julia's.

"Make him promise an end date. Arnie told me before this mission that an end was to be sooner rather than later."

Jason suppressed a small laugh, "Julia, he is a shoo-in for flag after this. Are you sure you want to be married to an Admiral?"

Suddenly, everyone was emotional and Julia was crying. "I love him so much!"

She led the rest of them around to the big sofa in front of the view window. They collapsed in three lumps and gazed at the morning sun on the Golden Gate Bridge. The view was calming, but emotions were flowing freely.

Jason said quietly, "You know, this is a really great team we have right here. Do you suppose there is any possibility of our sticking together?"

Tim and Arnie glanced sharply over, wheels turning. Now there was a fine idea with no end of complications. The women looked at each other and hummed.

"Librarians can be useful." Angie and Emma were almost giggling. Julia's head was completely buried in Tim's shoulder.

Arnie put up his hands, "I am no longer the designated team leader. It is someone else's turn!"

Emma stood. "We are going down to Crissy Field for a slow run to enjoy the sun and clear our heads."

Epilogue - Six Months Later at the Desert Retreat

Arnie was fixing fresh fruit to go with the breakfast eggs while Angie dried herself from a quick shower under the head with a chain. "Is today the day we launch the new company?" she nakedly inquired.

"Yes, the lawyer is filing papers in Carson City. The feds decided there had to be a corporate entity so payments could be handled properly, even if it is black budget money."

"What about the retirements?"

"I waved goodbye to my boss last week. He gave me a going away present of $25,000 and said, "Good Luck." Jason and Tim are still convincing their bosses this will work. It is against all military rules."

The eggs were delicious. The sun was hot at ten in the morning and it might hit 100 later in the day. As soon as the others arrived, a High Sierra camping trip was happening.

"Tim and I talked yesterday about the first assignment for the new company. He relayed that the Deputy CNO called on a secure line and said the Chief would appreciate his staying on active duty. Had to tell the Deputy we were already on retainer to the spook side of his world."

As Arnie washed the dishes, he received a kiss and a swat on his hard muscled bare butt.

"Is it true Emma and I are going to be librarians again?"

"Yes, better be reading up on Muslim culture and mores. Jason says we are leaving for Toronto in ten days on an assistance mission to help the Canadians with suspected weapon smuggling among jihadis moles seeking asylum. May involve a boat ride on the St. Lawrence Seaway."

The End