Chapter 18.
Monday night at the petting zoo continued.
After thirteen minutes with the nearly naked twink bouncing around on his lap David still looked happy with his dorky smile. He slid his stool closer to the bar, presumably to hide the wet spot. I ordered more beers and (kidding) asked David if he needed to leave, but he smiled and said he wanted to see more flesh, then he kissed me and said thanks for the show. When I asked that question he pulled me off my chair and pulled my face into his and kissed me like he really meant it.
There weren't any bars with male go-go dancers in El Paso. The only way we'd get lap dances in El Paso is if we did them ourselves. He laughed at my idea. The thought crossed my mind to look into local laws that prohibited male erotic dancers in the west.
We ran up a bar tab of about $210 and left a $10 tip for each bartender and gave the dancer boys twenty bucks each in the bucket when they passed by. Believe me, if it was possible I would have blown him right there at the bar rather than making him suffer until we got back to the hotel. Knowing he was desperately horny I hated to see him wait so long.
We left at 11pm and could have walked but it was a strange city so we stood on the corner and waved down a cab. Honestly, I don't think either of us felt particularly safe in New Orleans.
In the dark back seat in the taxi I goosed him, then in the elevator I reached over and rubbed Little David again. I turned to look at him and mumbled: "Just checkin." He flashed a grin but kept his eyes on the floor number display. Four. Five. Six. DING! The doors quietly opened on our floor.
Back in our room we quickly stripped off our clothes and hit the showers and washed each other, he was fully erect the entire time and the business end was very red and warm. After we dried off he had a string of pre-come swaying below the tip, I took that to mean he was `in the mood.' In bed I got on my back, he got on his knees over my chest so I could blow him. He leaned forward, put his arms on the wall and fucked my mouth and came in three minutes, or maybe it was two.
When he pulled out of me he was still hard (interpretation: not yet satisfied), I gripped him firmly and milked the last two drops of semen, he fell backwards and landed on his back and I got on my hands and knees between his thighs and stroked him by hand. When his balls pulled up I switched to my mouth and made him come again. Moments after his second orgasm he was asleep. I milked the last drops then (since he was Gonesville) I got up on my knees by his arm and jerked off on his chest and wiped it off with a wad of toilet paper. Then I shut off the lights, snuggled against him, and fell asleep too.
Tuesday we hung out at the hotel pool and took it easy and only left to go to Domilise's for lunch. That place was two miles south-west of the football stadium. They were in an area that didn't flood much after Katrina, but they got a lot of wind damage.
When the Katrina eyewall was straight east of New Orleans it was a Cat 1-2 hurricane. I found it a challenge to stand up in a 40mph gust but they had sustained winds over 90mph for hours. Say goodbye to your backyard mulch pile. It rolled cars over and shifted houses off their foundations.
For dinner we had Italian Po'Boys (and sides) delivered then went back to the pool for the evening. I could tell what he wanted because he had me sit on the pool deck with my feet in the water and my legs wide apart while he stood in the water with his elbows on my thighs. We hung out there and talked for a couple hours. Several times I leaned back and rested my hands on the deck (and looked at the sky) which pushed my lower belly towards his face which also turned him on, I kept seeing him stare at my body.
If we'd been at a gay hotel he would have blown me a few times even with dozens of people watching.
That night my dick was the star attraction in bed and the center of his attention. I came for him three times. When he used me like his own personal dairy cow I thought I should wear a cosplay suit like a Holstein cow. I'd love to have a suit like that with a single rubber udder on the front I could slide my boner inside so the end of my boner stuck out.
On Wednesday morning we took another tour, this one mostly on city trolleys. Then we went in a tour van to see where some levees failed (17th Avenue Canal and London Canal). We saw the new flood barriers built by the Corp of Engineers, which were massive. They added flood gates on all the canals that came off Lake Ponchartrain. And we toured an old restored pump house along one of the canals. I am not really into motors and pumps but I gotta say the inside of that place was beautiful with those huge old electric motors and screw pumps. I never would have thought that an old pump house could be beautiful inside. Everything was fully restored to look like it did when they were new in the early 1900s.
It was easy to hear and see the pride as the pump house manager gave us the tour and described the equipment. He was able to answer all our technical questions too. That guy clearly knew his shit.
We learned two of the nicest restaurants in the Quarter had dress codes and we had no sport coats or dress slacks with us so we settled for another Muffuletta (split) at a small Italian deli.
Wednesday afternoon we took a boat tour on the river and saw the ports and some huge ships that came and went from the Gulf. We saw real shrimping and ended up at a seafood restaurant where we split a seafood sampler platter which included breaded-fried catfish and snails too. That was the first time I ate snails and catfish. I didn't care for the snails.
The only pieces of work equipment we brought along were our cell phones, which were our own Samsung android phones that the DOD modified for all the agents in our service.
We both got text messages on Wednesday afternoon that our requested new spider mods were ready and being uploaded into all spiders since our gear was at WSMR including our Batsuits.
They created simple modes they called: `Brown Widow.' That mode was triggered by a Control-B or N, then you aimed the spider at the target person and after it mapped their face and body shape it kicked one leg as a signal that it was ready. In Mode-B it would follow and attempt to poison that person with a small gas emission. It would climb up their clothes on the back side to their shoulder area and emit wisps of gas. In Mode-N the spider would identify the target and signal when ready, then it attempted to climb their back side up their clothes and wait for the go signal to release gas. Whether it was poisonous or not depended on what pellet you put inside the back end.
The only known limitations were it didn't work in dark or very windy/stormy conditions. The spider would be felt by people if it crawled on bare flesh. Blue jeans or dress slacks or a dress were ideal for the subject to wear. If the target wore shorts the spider might try to climb something nearby then jump on the target from a higher position.
When they climbed on people or smooth surfaces they switched to walking on the sides of their distal leg segments that had the microscopic barbs.
We discussed the new software modes for a while and wondered if they might actually work. Both of us were big fans of the spiders but they were not cutting edge high-tech. They're made from readily available parts, the software was custom but not much different from other military robots. If you used a spider without the pelican case turned on they lost several functions, like swarming, combat tactics, and extended radio range.
We never heard who made all the profit from building spiders, but I wanted to know. We thought they're mostly worth what the Pentagon paid for them, but they should be cheaper.
Last time we heard, across the USA there were about ten spiders used a week. That was enough traffic to keep three elderly ladies busy five days a week building them at $25 an hour.
Wednesday night we stayed at the hotel and drank beers at the pool and enjoyed conversation with two other (older) gay couples. We had to pour our beers into plastic glasses to keep them by the pool. I think we drank seven or eight cans of lite beer each that night.
We had a nice conversation about seeing the go-go boys and David admitted it was fun but frustrating getting a lap dance because the guy was a total stranger and you couldn't really touch them much. He said he got turned on and frustrated because he couldn't do anything about it. It surprised me when he said he wanted to go to the men's room and jerk off! So maybe the lap dance wasn't as great as I thought it would be.
We stood in the deep end water in a group of six guys, sometimes one or two more joined us but never stayed for long. David stood by one of my legs and usually kept his hand on my thigh and sometimes reached over and rubbed my dick through my shorts, in front of four or five other guys. I saw them glance at his hand but I think David did it without thinking about it!
Once in awhile he'd remember his beer sitting on the deck by a ladder, he drank it even though it got warm and flat.
We turned-in around 11pm and went to bed. On the trip to our room he said he felt weird, I thought his eyes looked dilated. I got him in bed and went to sleep beside him.
But that night around 1:30am (Thursday morning) David woke up yelling and struggling to get free from the bed sheets (he got wrapped in them). He'd had a really bad dream that seemed very real and he had a hard time calming down and believing it was just a dream. He sat on the edge of the bed and carefully inspected both his feet, something had bitten his foot but we couldn't find as much as a scratch.
I got on the floor while he sat on the bathroom counter so I could closely examine his feet up close, then he had me do it again.
I briefly wondered if someone dropped a pill in his beer because it was totally out of character for him to be in a panic, crying, and terrified.
He said a huge winged-creature with glowing red eyes tried to eat him alive and chomped off his right foot, he was crawling across the ground when it tried to bite off the rest of his lower leg. He swore it was horrifying, there was blood everywhere and the creature followed behind him chewing on a mouthful of human foot. He said he heard bones cracking in its mouth as he crawled away leaving a thick trail of blood behind his stump. I felt his heart pounding and he was drenched with sweat.
I got him back in bed and told him both of his feet were perfectly fine. He reached down his leg again to feel his foot and each toe to check (again) in case that was real and this was a dream. He made me promise I wasn't lying and his feet were both totally normal.
It took a while to convince him nothing happened but he kept saying it was so real, like an other-dimensional visit of some kind. It was too late to order room service or I could have ordered a bottle of booze for him to sip but it was just him and me in bed. I sat up in bed against the headboard and held his head on my lap and comforted him like his mommy. David turned to face me and snuggled up to my leg and held on with his head on my crotch.
He mumbled the creature was dark gray, maybe ten feet tall, with nearly fifteen foot wingspan. Its eyes glowed bright red and it started to eat him alive, starting with his feet. I felt waves of trembling move across his body. I asked where he was and he said it looked like one of the old cemeteries here in New Orleans.
That went on for two hours and I tried everything I could think of to calm him down and when the sky started to change from black to deep blue he said it wasn't safe here and we needed to run.
"We paid for this room to Saturday morning." I reminded him but he didn't care. So, reluctantly, I got out of bed and got dressed then packed our stuff. After my stuff I packed his clothes while he hid under the blankets still terrified.
When everything was ready I got him dressed, grabbed our bags and checked out Thursday morning when the front desk opened at 5am. The lady was worried something about the hotel upset him. David wouldn't go near the staff, he sat low in an arm chair in the lobby (hoping he was invisible) while I took care of business. Then we walked quickly down that long ugly hallway back to the parking garage.
I unlocked and propped open all three cases and set our bags inside while he removed the U-Bolt lock on the front wheel and set it in a side case. He got on the seat, ready to start the engine.
I walked up to him and softly said `I'll drive,' but David said he was fine. So I firmly gripped his arm and said, "No, you're too upset to drive." He reached forward, turned the key and started the engine and gestured for me to get on. I reached over and turned the key off and in a rather stern voice I said, "No. David, we just made a $500 gift to this hotel because a ten foot tall monster with glowing eyes ate your foot, then you hid under the blankets because you thought they were monster proof." I stood there staring at him and removed the key and stared at him until he slid off the bike and gestured for me to pilot the Wing.
We've not had many times when we nearly got into a fight, but that was one of 'em; it might have been one of the first times he backed down to me, he chose wisely.
He got on the back seat and I sat in front and tried to remember the route we drove in from I-10. I went west-ish on Charles Street to the first expressway ramp then went north to I-10. We followed the signs to Baton Rouge where the traffic got thicker, then the road turned west toward the state line. It took us three hours (to get back in Texas) with one stop for gas and pee in Lafayette Louisiana. He rarely spoke all the way to Seguin and he even unplugged his helmet from the bike sound system, but we still had Whispernet that really could not be shut off. I thought he might be upset with me for not trusting him.
One thing I noticed about the French Quarter was if you drove north on almost any street you'd end up at I-10.
We fled New Orleans on empty stomachs and didn't eat all day. I drove us all the way to Seguin Texas where we stopped for the night at the same motel on the way down. David barely spoke all day. When we passed each other outside the bathroom he kept his eyes on the floor.
We stopped every two hours to fill the tank and pee. Unlike David I did not like to drive on less than one quarter of a tank. Somewhere below half a tank and I started watching for gas stations. If we hadn't pushed the speed limit we might have seen better gas mileage but I knew David needed to get home to familiar surroundings.
The thought crossed my mind what I would do if he got worse on the ride home. I decided I'd keep a mental log of the Hospital H-signs along the freeway and take him to the closest ER if he got worse. He seemed a lot calmer after the sun came up but his silence worried me. I suspected his mind replayed the attack over and over all day, he blinked nervously and had a vacant stare and dilated pupils all the way to Seguin.
I adjusted the mirrors so I couldn't see his eyes, and he never touched me all the way to the hotel which was very unusual for him. He sat behind me all day like a corpse.
Thursday evening at Motel-8 we spooned in bed and he said he thought some entity stalked him, like maybe the Mothman or something like it because of the eyes and its size. I told him I thought he was drugged by someone when he let his beer glass sit unwatched for an hour while we swam laps.
That evening in the motel shower I washed him from end to end and saw he actually had long red scratches down the backs of his legs. I treated them with Neosporin and stayed within four feet of him the entire time, even when he pooped I sat on the bathroom counter in silence because he didn't want to be alone. While he pooped I used my phone to look up the history of the Mothman creature, but there were no recorded sightings in Louisiana.
We hadn't eaten since the visitation but we drank lots of water. That evening I walked (alone) down the street to a store that sold small (airline) bottles of booze and bought him three kinds of whiskey, we snuggled in bed with the TV on TCM but muted while he slowly sipped all of them. I probably spent two hours that evening gently playing with his dick but he had no interest in sex because his mind was still occupied with being eaten alive by a creature that looked a little like the Mothman mixed with the Alien creature. So I rolled him on his side and spooned behind him. After he fell asleep I was soon asleep too. It had been a very exhausting and fucked-up day.
Overnight I got up to use the bathroom then I pulled the sheet back and watched his chest rise and fall with each breath. His face was pressed into the pillow and I smelled whiskey, but I was glad he was asleep. He was perfectly still except for breathing. I fluffed up my pillow so I looked down across his chest and watched him for quite a while. It was nice that he still didn't have any hairs growing around his tits yet, I'd shave them off if he did. It could be his Indian DNA that kept him smooth.
After I watched him sleep for a minute I set my hand on his lower chest but he never reacted or changed his breathing so I moved my hand up and set my palm on his left tit, but he never moved. I moved my hand so my fingers were on top of his tit and slid my finger tips side to side across it.
His nipples were so silky soft and smooth, nearly the size of a can of pop, I thought they were the most beautiful tits I'd seen on a man in my life and I sort of felt like I was part owner of his entire body.
I bet I rubbed his tit for twenty minutes and imagined all the things I'd love to do to them. I got up and turned off the light then snuggled against his side and closed my eyes, then carefully set my hand back on top of his chest and fell asleep after thinking a long prayer for his recovery.
Sometime overnight it started to rain and our bike was uncovered (we left the cover at home). Technically, a simple rain shouldn't bother the Goldwing and if we gotta ride in the rain it's gonna get drenched anyway!
When we got up Friday morning before the sun. It was still raining so I went outside and unpacked our rain suits and we put them on in the room then left on the bike in a thunder shower.
In a rain on the Interstate on a motorcycle (going 65mph) your feet still got soaked and you got water on your chin and neck and your hands got wet but that was the worst of it. Sometimes it was hard to see with rain drops on the face shield but we pushed on and eventually drove out of the storm.
Once the roads were dry I set the cruise control for 85 and stayed in the passing lane most of the way back to the El Paso metro area. We never saw a cop all the way home from Seguin. Even some trucks passed us going over 90mph.
We made an unscheduled stop at a small truck stop on I-10 at Kerrville Texas to take off our rain suits (which were already blown dry). I topped off the tank, peed, and got a 16oz bottle of water. We split it then left. David was nearly silent still but he answered all my questions, he didn't sound or look angry, just messed-up. His eyes still looked dilated. I felt he was still rather upset over his horrible dream of being eaten alive and I thought he realized his brain wasn't working right, which was why he was quiet. I thought he might even feel ashamed for not being able to think right.
We drove west on I-10 all day, hour after hour, gradually the terrain changed back into the Chihuahua Desert. He never touched me and never spoke unless I asked him something over Whispernet. I drove west into the sunset and prayed we made it home without any problems. In the desert on the highway on a motorcycle would not be a good place for him to lose control. We've never had a fist fight in anger and he was strong enough to kill me but David loved me more than anyone else so I had that to protect me if he suddenly went bananas.
The first sign of home in the dark night sky were the tower lights on top of the Franklin Mountains. I was so happy when the sign said: Exit 34, 375 Bypass. I took it around the east side to McCombs Street then south to our neighborhood. I shut off the engine in our driveway in the dark at 10:54pm Friday. I think I shaved almost two hours off the ride by speeding at least 10mph over the limit all the way home, sometimes I had it up to 102mph when the trucks were all doing 93.
The bike performed flawlessly, both of us loved the Goldwing. It was a quiet and smooth ride. I gave David a valium pill and put him to bed and emailed a friend of ours that knew about stuff like he experienced and he suggested taking him to the ER in the morning. He suggested maybe a head CT scan and blood toxicology screen as well as a basic metabolic panel to make sure he wasn't crazy due to something like blood chemistries or some weird infection. He said parasites can make people go crazy too.
After putting him to bed I put myself back on-duty (David off sick) and prayed nothing alerted us for a few days. That night he was disinterested in everything except alcohol and having lights on in every room. I slept with an eye mask on that night. He fell asleep from the Valium before he sipped much whiskey.
On Saturday morning when he seemed unchanged I took David to the Army hospital on Fort Bliss to the ER for evaluation. They found his vital signs were messed up, his blood pressure was 170/112, resting heart rate of 116, breathing 24 times a minute, and he was pale and sweaty. They took blood (urine and stool) samples for a toxicology screen and offered to admit him, I agreed as long as I could stay with him so they admitted him to telemetry-observation because of his vital signs and abnormal blood tests. They gave him IV fluids and found he was low on magnesium, potassium, and sodium. I told David that having low blood sodium was un-American but he didn't understand my joke.
He stayed the night with a telemetry pack and slowly his vitals returned to normal. I slept in the reclined arm chair beside his bed. A lab tech came in at 4:55am and re-drew his blood.
We started to get the results of his tox screen back and it appeared he was drugged with something they couldn't identity other than the drug class, it was a synthetic drug commonly called Bath Salts.
We thought someone dropped it in his beer by the pool. Then I remembered David showed me something like a trace of white powder in the bottom of his beer glass thinking it was some kind of dish washing detergent residue. By the time he saw it he'd already swallowed most of that beer.
He was discharged from the hospital at lunch time Sunday after seeing the toxicologist and told he was fine but he needed to be more careful about drinking from a glass that was left unattended, especially in a touristy place like New Orleans. She said she'd seen this same scenario many times with the young soldiers and read about it happening in other tourist areas. Some of the worst ones were Las Vegas, or any city during a Superbowl weekend, or Scottsdale during their car auctions or the golf tournament. She discharged David with a script for thirty low dose (0.25mg) valium pills in case he still had trouble falling asleep.
We got home Sunday at 2:45pm and I cooked him a double burger and fries in our own kitchen, David was slowly acting more like himself again and was talking (softly) a little and making some eye contact again.
I set our alert box to off-duty-medical (for both of us) status yesterday and we had messages on our cells wanting to know what happened so I emailed the OD to explain that he got poisoned in New Orleans and we left early because it really messed up his brain but he should be 100% back to normal soon once the drugs got out of his body. The OD said they activated the Omaha team and we should take as much time as we needed. One of them researched Bath Salts (methylenedioxypyrovalerone) and found it could take two weeks to totally leave his system so he should stay home until he was ready for combat again.
After that conversation I decided to test him so I went to the basement (alone) and started a load in the clothes washer. I sat on the basement sofa and read an old magazine article about pending gay marriage laws. After ten minutes he came downstairs and sat beside me on the sofa but didn't talk. When the dryer buzzed I got up to fold and put on hangars and he followed me but didn't help or speak.
After the laundry was back upstairs I took his hand and led him to our bedroom, opened a water and we both took a valium and went to bed, even though the sun was still up.
We had to be extremely careful about going back to work because if he acted oddly at the office they would immediately confiscate the pelican case and put us on suspension because there was zero tolerance for mental problems when it came to people in control of nuclear weapons. That evening after our nap David assured me he was fine except maybe pissed off over how he reacted to the white powder in his cup by the pool and wished he could get a list of names of everyone at the pool that evening. I could tell he was not fully back to normal but he couldn't tell. He said if he had that evening to do over he'd get out of the pool, walk over by the potted plants and made himself puke whatever was in his stomach. Of course by then it would have still been too late.
We'd both heard of guys that dropped pills into drink glasses of people just to watch them melt down and felt those people were a danger to society and that should be a serious felony crime but it happened more than most Americans realized, and often in upscale bars and hotels, places you wouldn't expect.
That evening he called the New Orleans police to try to get someone to return his call, like a detective. He wanted to see if it was possible to get surveillance camera video of people around the pool while we were there. We felt the police would be more likely to get the video if they asked the hotel instead of us.
Monday he said he felt fine but his brain still felt cloudy and slow. He said his internal brain thinking was still shut off but he found that somewhat relaxing.
Tuesday we rode the Goldwing to the dealer for service and waited there while they did the job (55 minutes), after that we drove it up to WSMR to recover our gear with the new satellite antenna under the lid. They told us it was glued in place and was an actual top secret design and had components added around it to mask the design on airport luggage x-ray machines. On the outside the case looked exactly the same. They said our service was switching to the new TDRS satellite, that's why the antenna had to change.
When you opened the pelican case both halves were filled with a dark gray foam rubber which was notched to hold and protect six cylindrical weapons, even though we only carried four. And it carried one telescoping launch tube which (collapsed) was only slightly larger than the weapons. The launch tube had a tiny box on the outside for the electronics and battery but the sights were optical and folded down flat. It didn't even have a power switch, it was activated by extending tube to its full three foot length.
The launch tube communicated with the weapon so it knew what it was firing, otherwise it had a large rubber covered button which started target acquisition and identification. After the confirmation tone you released the button for one second and re-pressed (and hold) to fire. If you waited more than five seconds to re-press you had to start over with a press and hold for tone, then release and re-press (and hold) to fire.
They taught us at the range to wait at least one second after tone and release before re-press which allowed the computer to send tracking and flight data to the weapon, which was done wirelessly inside the tube. For the second press you had to keep the button pressed until it launched and or it started all over again. They had us practice on the range: press and hold, wait for tone, release after tone and count to yourself (one thousand and one) then re-press and hold until you saw the flash of fire, then immediately shut your eyes (and mouth) and hold your breath.
They suggested as soon as possible gettin' far away from the firing spot in case the weapon missed and the pilot in the aircraft turned around to kill the guy that shot at him. They also had us take in a deep breath and hold it while we counted 'one thousand and one' tone and released for one second.
Our weapons came wrapped in cellophane. You removed the wrap and inserted the weapon in the firing tube and released the pin that kept it from falling out. Extending the pin was what activated the weapon and made it start communicating with the launching tube. The tube looked similar to a Laws Rocket launcher except ours had less stuff on the outside, and it telescoped from both ends. The launcher tube also talked to the comms unit in our pelican case.
Because they were all short range weapons they all had variable outputs so the person that fired the weapon didn't become a victim too. But no matter what we did we always got blasted in the face when launching a rocket. Our glasses got a signal from the weapon inside the tube to show status red or green, but that had limited range of maybe fifty feet. As far as we knew the only way to use the weapons was to fire them with the launcher and any time a launch tube was activated the Pentagon and El Paso also knew (if the case was on). You did not need the case or glasses to fire the weapons, but you always had to squint your eyes.
When the solid propellant motor ignited it made one initial shot to get the weapon moving, then a couple seconds later it lit another stage which propelled it to the target.
One design flaw they warned us about was if for some reason you had the launcher loaded with a weapon and unknown to you another identical weapon was beside you in the case and also powered on, when you fired the weapon inside the tube the one in the case may suddenly take off too! They were working on a way to prevent that. Until that was fixed, we were told to never unwrap more than one weapon at a time. Under the cellophane wrapper was a thin metal cover that held the pin in the down position. But we learned on some units it extended slightly and could activate while still in the wrapper. Some teams in our service put a coin over the activation pin then held it in place with several layers of electrical tape. They put that over the outside of the cellophane wrapper.
We sat on the sofa at home and checked our machine guns since they spent time with the gunsmiths being inspected and maintained. We loaded mags and manually ran them through the mechanisms to see if they loaded and ejected perfectly. Then we had 120 9mm bullets scattered around the living room floor to pick-up, clean, and reload by hand.
After lunch David talked to a female detective in New Orleans, they met over Zoom and discussed what happened to him at the hotel pool. At first she suggested he forget about it. Over time he explained the nature of our work and she agreed to drive over to the hotel to get pool deck video for that evening and copy it into her computer and send us a file link so we could download it.
She said she would do it as a personal favor for an American hero. After she agreed David said we needed to do something extra special for her if she actually got the video. Her name was Dolores King and her badge number was 615533. He said she spoke inner city English but sounded very professional. He said she sounded like the female Detective Carter in the TV series Person of Interest.
David picked up the alert box and slid the switch to on-duty' but I immediately set it back to off-duty.' We actually got into a shouting match and he got red faced angry. I told him he wasn't ready yet, `...my husband would never argue with me that loudly or get that angry,' which made him even worse.
We stood in the living room about two feet apart staring into each other's eyes and I raised my hand and pointed at his face and in a stern voice I warned him to leave the alert box alone.
"Or what?" Now he was breathing heavily and had his fists clenched. He'd never done that before towards me. I inched closer and stared at my shoes and put a fake smile on my face then grabbed his arm and spun him around as hard as I could in the center of the living room, then slammed him on the floor and landed on top of him and screamed, "Stop touching the fucking box!
I'll decide when you're ready!"
I put all my weight on my hands to hold his wrists to the floor. David looked shocked that I tackled him and screamed at him too. He was sweaty and panting then his expression changed from anger to sadness, tears ran from his eyes into his ears.
I kept him pinned on the floor and glared into his eyes briefly, then he mumbled. "Sorry."
I got to my feet and held out a hand to help him to his feet but he rolled over and sat in a chair near the front door.
He sat alone with his head hung down (I walked into the kitchen) like he didn't understand what was going on.
After a few minutes I shouted to him, "David, I love you and I'd gladly die to protect you but I'll decide when you're back to normal. Honey, we have atomic bombs in our house. Nobody touches them unless they are totally right in their mind. Nobody, including us."
About two minutes later he slapped the side of his head with the side of his fist a few times then wept. I walked back into the living room and sat on the floor between his feet and held his hands tightly while he cried, then his sadness and frustration spread to me and I cried too.
I softly said he needed more time to get the shit out of his brain. While he cried I rubbed his thighs. I got up on my knees and gently rubbed the side of his head where he hit himself. I got him two Tylenols and a glass of water.
We decided to spend the week doing police work but left the pelican case in the Tac-room closet beside the Hello Kitty box on the shelf.
We spent four days on the computer locating fugitives for the El Paso Police. The first two had small rewards, $1500 each.
The third fugitive was added to their system (12 minutes ago) and was actually an Interpol wanted felon with a big reward for live capture of $400,000.00 in tax free US cash. David started researching his history. We had most of the day with nothing planned so I left the house in my little car (which hadn't been run in a while) and drove to the motorcycle dealer, I walked in the door 20 minutes before they closed for the day. I wanted to see the motocross gloves, ones with padding on the tops of the fingers. I'd seen some motorcycle/ATV wreck injury photos that had mangled hands and wanted to add some protection.
While I was looking at their rotating rack of motogloves another customer walked up and also looked at the rack. After several seconds his face caught my eye, it was one of our best ODs: Kenneth Wells, he was a US Army O-3, a captain. I was totally caught off guard, what a coincidence to see him here. I had no idea he was into 2-wheeled toys. I'd never called him by his name so I greeted him by shoving out my hand, "Hey Captain! Small world, eh?"
He chuckled and shook my hand, "You looking for gloves?" He asked which was sort of stupid since I was standing/looking a rotating rack full of nothing but motocross gloves. I told him I wanted more protection.
"I know the feeling, Colonel." He replied which was weird because I was an O6 for pay but I was not an actual officer, just a proud fucking civilian. Everyone knew we were pay grade Colonel (O-6) and lots of active duty enlisted men liked calling us Colonel, some saluted too.
"You live nearby?" I asked after turning back to face the rack.
"No, I live south of the airport."
"In the golf district?" I asked because there was an area there with golf courses and some of the streets had old professional golfer names, like Lee Trevino and Arnold Palmer.
"Yes, actually we live along the course in a condo but it's small."
He glanced around them asked me to walk outside with him.
We silently walked outside the store and sat on a bench while some of the sales people started to roll the display bikes back inside since they closed soon. We sat there talking and finally he got to the point.
"I wanted you to know that we understand your situation at home and want to see you guys return to full duty as soon as possible. If there's anything we can do please don't hesitate to ask."
I told him I felt David was recovering but not fully back, maybe another day or two, but he can't tell how the drug affected his thinking. We're going to take a live police case tonight that will put us against an international fugitive and his body guard, they're on their way across the state. I'm going to let David direct it. We might have a high speed pursuit and possibly a violent armed apprehension. I'll watch how he handles it because it's not a case we can plan-out ahead."
He shook my hand and reminded me they were there for any support, if we needed money or a specialist doctor... anything. I thanked him again and we parted for our cars. The timer was ticking down on the latest big case with a possible car chase.
I told him David had very little drug use history so he was vulnerable to street drugs, if he'd been a regular pot smoker he might not have gotten as messed-up.
I got back home and David was still glued to the laptop screen in the Tac-room, he had two pages of scribbled notes and looked super engaged, even more than a Dallas Cowboy's game (this was his first sign of normality since he got poisoned).
He explained the guy was wanted in the EU for embezzlement of millions in EU cash from central banks in Belgium, Germany, and Austria. He'd been a finance consultant to the EU government and had skimmed money for two decades and was finally caught, then while awaiting trial he bonded-out and disappeared and hadn't been seen for years until after he cleared customs following a flight from Mexico City to DFW. Interpol believed he might be driving to Vancouver Canada to possibly flee to China or Russia.
He got possible vehicle IDs off security camera images outside baggage claim in DFW, but the info was sketchy. He met another man outside the terminal in a black SUV, a Cadillac Escalade and was possibly driving west on I-20, we might catch him near Las Cruces if they came this far west.
I notified our OD that we took the case, even though we were off duty. I thought it would be a good test to see if he truly was back to normal. I felt getting him up and moving around and thinking might speed the drug clearing from his body.
Reports from the FBI said they believed the driver was possibly heavily armed and well trained in personal protection (a body guard). He had national permits for fully automatic weapons.
According to what he learned he estimated that we had about seven hours to get into place along the highway. The perp's name on his French passport was Berg Boiven and the picture was nine years old. He was a short man with a round face, white hair, and weighed over 280lbs. It looked like he was five feet tall and five feet around.
We got photos sent to us and saw the one that showed the license plate was partially unreadable but they ignored one key piece of evidence, the black SUV (looked like a Cadillac Escalade with tinted windows) had a Dallas Cowboy's star-logo on the back window.
Luckily, black vehicles were less common in the southwest, and on that stretch of highway at the Texas/New Mexico border and 25 miles south of Las Cruces there wouldn't be too many of them, which increased our odds and reduced the number of vehicles we'd have to examine.
We accepted the case and hung out for a while based on their estimated time of departure from DFW onto westbound I-20. Our OD called Interpol and advised we'd likely capture him alive tonight.
They should pass through downtown El Paso after sunset today, which was in a few more hours. We got out our Batsuit case and changed into our suits and made sure our machine guns were loaded and all three (each suit held three) spiders were ready to run. We had no specific plan for how to nab this target and not get shot in the process. We'd have to find some way to neutralize his bodyguard/driver too.
Our Batsuit case was a black soft sided garment bag with two zippered compartments and built in wheels, a telescoping handle, and a shoulder strap. Inside the main compartment we kept our Batsuits (folded in half) and maybe extra underwear and socks, sometimes maybe hoodies and gloves. In the smaller compartment we kept both machine guns and extra ammo in curved plastic magazines. We also often had three extra factory sealed spiders and sometimes our zombie slasher knives too. Their blades were not spring loaded but could be flicked out and locked in place. Those knives had razorblade edges and were killing weapons that had (wine bottle pulling) corkscrews built into the handles.
I also wanted to use this mission to evaluate David's mind. In our service David was nationally respected for showing an exquisite sense of restraint with violence and weapons use. That required a very high level of cognition and self confidence, so that would be the big test to see how he handled this situation which could easily include fist fighting and machine gun fire.
Holding a machine gun at your side with a finger on the trigger guard and a red laser spot on the body of your suspect required a lot of control to not give in to fear and squeeze the trigger - ask any cop.
David was also considered the best at reading suspects from a distance, he's never wrong. He's got an amazing ability to sniff out danger, in Seal school they called him: Tracker. I think it came from his grandmother's DNA.
Two hours later we left for Cruces (without the pelican case) and decided to call the state police office in Albuquerque to advise them we'd be running an international wanted capture on I-25, somewhere north of Las Cruces. We gave them most of the info they wanted and contact info with our OD and stuff seemed to go okay.
David was concerned that we'd find state police along the highway watching for their SUV too, so we didn't give the suspect's name or vehicle ID.
I often got worried whenever we started an op when killing was probable while we were off duty.' David always reminded me that in our service there was no such thing as fully off-duty.' The lawyer said we were on-duty whenever we were in uniform or in possession or control of the pelican case. He said if we ran to the gas station and left the case at home we were still in control. When it came to interacting with law enforcement it was best to only exert control over them when we had actual possession of the case.
For us to be fully off duty we had to leave the pelican case at WSMR, take a road trip without our Batsuit case, and set the alert box to 'off-duty.'
Years ago on I-10 at the state line New Mexico erected a structure for trapping cars. It didn't look like anything special to the untrained but it created an ideal place to park and watch vehicles wiz past. So that's what we decided to do but there was one problem: when we arrived and pulled off the interstate and tried to back up behind the wall to watch the highway (and not be seen) there was a state cop car already parked there.
I hoped he wasn't jerking off and told David I'd handle it. I got out of the truck and walked back and found he was asleep in his hiding spot, so I tapped on the glass. He looked startled and rolled down his window and angrily asked what I wanted. When I started to introduce myself he interrupted me and ordered me to get back in the truck and leave, so I started my introduction again and said we were here to intercept a fugitive and needed this spot to watch for their vehicle.
By then he was even angrier and again yelled at me to move our truck and never come back. So I stepped up my presentation and pulled out my DOD ID card and told him (again) we were federal agents on a case and we needed him to leave or I'd arrest him (the on-duty state trooper). When he started screaming threats I walked away to the back of our truck, lowered to my knees and pointed at the duplicate stickers he should have been well trained on and taught to recognize. After that I sat on our bumper watching him talk on his radio.
I saw he was still angry but after about fifty seconds he started the engine and drove around us and merged into traffic and left, I waved as he drove past but he was looking over his shoulder for a break in oncoming traffic. We laughed and backed into the hiding spot behind the barrier and shut down our truck and started the watch for the northbound black SUV with the Cowboy's logo on the back window.
David asked me what I would have done if he still refused to leave even after he ran our plate. I told him, "Spider, sleep gas, move him to the back seat and drive his car out of the way and park in that spot anyway." He laughed and said he'd do the same thing. I told him if he really pissed me off I might slide his slacks down, pull out his dick, wrap his hand around it and take a few pictures of him!
This traffic funnel New Mexico built on the highway at the border was also well lit at night which would help a lot. We sat there talking and eating peanuts (and beef jerky) and watching every vehicle go by. Sometimes trucks blocked our view of the far lanes so we did the best we could. Our target would probably drive at the speed limit to avoid contact with law enforcement so we bet heavily on the lane closest to us. David said he thought there was a hidden plate reader nearby too.
Interstate-25 ran from Las Cruces up north to I-90 in Wyoming. I-25 starting nineteen miles north of the NM/TX state border at I-10 so that was how much highway we had to catch up and positively ID the vehicle, south of Cruces. Parked along the highway our back bumper was only five feet inside the state of New Mexico.
At least five black Cadillac SUVs went by every hour. While we looked at every car at times I felt dizzy since we were so close to the pavement, kind of hidden behind a barricade designed for cops running radar.
I asked David if he knew if other states had traps built on highways at the state line because this was the only one I've seen. He said he didn't know, but on the highway they built it to look like a bridge over a wash, but when seen from the side it was just a chute the cars drove through designed to be closable to block traffic and prevent escape by cars or people on the run.
At 7:51pm I saw the Cowboy's Star-logo race by and dropped the peanuts and yelled: "That's it!" and David cranked the engine and stomped the gas pedal. We got up to 65mph and eventually merged into traffic between the semi trucks, by then we were almost a mile behind the target SUV. As anticipated, they merged right and got on I-25 to avoid the big cities of Tucson, Phoenix and Las Vegas on their way to Canada.
By the time we got to the north/east side of Cruces we were about two cars behind the black SUV, I finally got a photo of their plate and called our OD to check: `HG-1566' was an Illinois plate on a 2015 Cadillac Escalade was registered to a company in Collinsville Illinois called Professional Protection Services Inc. It had no associated warrants or other warnings.
We got glimpses of two people in the front seats. We discussed our options and thought we might be able to use sleep gas at a truck stop. David said he figured out the real threat was the driver, not the passenger so that was who we should concentrate on.
We decided it might take us multiple tries to get a spider inside their vehicle but since they didn't know us we might be able to encounter them twice before one of them recognized us. I got out two spiders and loaded them with two sleep pellets each and dropped them inside my shirt pocket.
Since Berg was being transported by a body guard both of them were well aware that some sort of action was possible. But since he was a very old and wealthy man we felt he wouldn't be armed or dangerous, just the driver.
Time seemed to crawl as we drove further north, but time was on our side. During the long dark drive north David came up with the idea that they'd need to stop for gas, which would separate them and put the driver outside and vulnerable to spider gas. At gun point Berg might get inside our truck without a struggle. The driver was the biggest threat to overcome but it didn't matter what we did to him. And yes, we had legal authority to kill or detain people, even when we're `off duty.' In David's truck all law enforcement should know to not interfere because of the sticker on the license plate. That's probably what happened with the trooper we evicted.
When he drove off David laughed and said he was probably really pissed off, but I didn't care how he felt. We asked him nicely to leave a few times and never showed disrespect.
The SUV finally stopped at a gas station near I-25 in the small town of Hobbs Canyon New Mexico, they both used the bathroom. We parked two spots over but straight out from the door. I held up the spider up by the rear view mirror aimed at the gas station doors while David worked his Batsuit keyboard to enable Control-H mode so the spider would see the body guard then follow him and get on his clothes before they got back in their SUV. I had my door slightly open and held the spider up by the mirror aimed at the door, the entire area was very well lit, even at night. Wearing our Batsuits in the truck at night we were not easy to see even though we were only about twenty feet from the doors. The area was very well lit which made it hard to see stuff in the shadows.
Sure enough, the driver walked outside first and stood in front of our truck and looked around the parking area and lit a cigarette, that's when David pressed the buttons and took his picture (when he lowered the cigarette from his mouth) then I reached down and carefully dropped the spider on the cement parking lot outside my door and David said he had a green light from the spider already.
The spider ran under our truck and up the curb, across the sidewalk, up the back of his slacks, and up the back of his jacket.
The driver turned around and stepped closer to the doors to watch for Berg to leave the bathroom, he paced around with an anxious look on his face while quickly smoking his cigarette. When he turned around to look inside the store we saw a shiny spot (dime size) on his jacket slip under his jacket collar. We remained nearly motionless inside the front seat so he didn't see us. We had our visors down so he couldn't see our faces. At night our Batsuits sort of looked like empty car seats from outside the truck.
He flicked his cigarette away then went back inside where they bought some bottles of Coke and got back in the SUV. We knew that in this mode the spider would transmit location data and stay unseen on his clothing, under his collar or on his upper back. It would hide until activated to release gas.
By the time the two men were back in their SUV we were fully ready for action, our tank was still over ¾ full so we were good to go for a long drive.
They drove to the pumps and the driver got out and pumped gas with the doors shut, our target was in the front passenger seat.
After some quick deciding we stopped at another pump and watched. David decided the situation was perfect, he pressed the buttons again so the spider gave the driver a shot of sleep gas since he stood beside the SUV pumping gas and the doors were shut.
Without saying why, David suddenly got out of our truck and Whispered at me: `DRIVE!' He pointed towards the highway.
I slid over and started the engine but stayed by the pump. I saw the body guard suddenly collapse as David walked towards their vehicle like he wanted to catch him before he cracked his head on the driveway. He bent over like he was rendering first aid but I think he grabbed the keys from his jacket pocket and pulled the nozzle from the tank and replaced the cap.
David got in the front seat and started the engine and took off before Berg could react, David hit the button to lock the doors so he couldn't jump out. He drove fast around the gas pumps heading for the main street across town. I saw the body guard was flat on his face on the driveway, he looked dead. David drove fast around the gas pumps and squealed the tires out on the street.
In my mind I picture him smiling when the front tires screamed after he stomped on the gas pedal and carefully watched every car on the five lane wide street.
He drove fast, 65mph down the center of the city street towards the southbound freeway entrance heading back towards El Paso. I raced after them and tried to stay close behind not knowing what he had planned. If he pulled this off safely then I knew he was 100% recovered from being poisoned because he was making split second decisions that put all of us in danger. And he had to do it in a way I could predict just by watching from behind.
When I drove close behind we could Whisper but with all the noise it was hard to understand. I could tell he was yelling and arguing with the guy in the front seat but I never saw any punches thrown. I prayed Berg wasn't carrying a pistol, but it was unlikely someone of his wealth and age would carry a weapon, he'd hire someone to do that for him.
After that big turn onto the entrance ramp I could tell he floored the gas pedal and sped up and merged into traffic and got into the left lane and got a feel for how the SUV handled high speeds.
We raced south at 91mph on the highway, I stayed one second behind him most of the way. I called our OD on my cell to tell him we had the Interpol target, the one with the huge reward but we were in two vehicles and the target was with David in a stolen SUV southbound on I-25 from Hobbs Canyon. He asked if I wanted him to call NM State Police but I said no, don't do that. I guessed David's main goal now was to get the target to the ELP airport as fast as possible, without injury. I asked our OD to contact Interpol and tell them we'd have their man at the (ELP) airport in 2-3 hours so they could get their people on the way.
After I got off the phone David blinked the brake lights: three long flashes then a gap followed by three more: long short long, which together was the word OK in Morse, I laughed loudly and my eyes got watery briefly.
During the long drive back south I blinked my lights, two long flashes and a pause then two more long flashes for the letters MM in Morse which to us would mean: MMMMM or I wanted his body. I knew that would make him smile. David told me later that was the first time in his life someone flirted with him during a dangerous high-speed car chase!
We knew from experience that Interpol in the USA never responded quickly since they were not really an active police force, just an investigative body. In this case they'd need to wake the crew, and their fugitive transport team, and get them to the airport, prep the jet, and fly here, so we were looking at hours until they were in ELP, then they'd fly him back to Belgium after one stop on the east coast to re-fuel. We were only responsible for handing him over alive, the reward did not specify his care after his surrender. But it did require we make sure the people we surrendered him to were with Interpol and not imposters trying to rescue him.
It took us almost an hour to get back to Las Cruces. I saw street lights and business signs, I even saw a large Walmart sign in the distance. As soon as I saw the sign I knew he'd go there, and that's exactly what he did. That told me he was mentally fully recovered and I nearly cried again. When I started to know what he was going to do before he did it I knew he was fully back to normal.
Doing my best Indy Car driver routine I closely tailgated them and we both screeched to a smoky stop in the Wallymart parking lot. I grabbed my machine gun and got out and kept it aimed at Berg, finger on the trigger guard, he raised both hands and looked scared. My guess was he had no idea we were handing him over to Interpol, he probably thought he was being kidnapped. So he wasn't totally wrong. And he had no idea he'd be in a jail cell in Brussels tomorrow.
After a few seconds David made it around the SUV and opened the door and with some struggle, he got the fat old guy out of the SUV and stripped off all his clothes except his blue boxers and shoes, he dropped his clothes on the parking lot. He also left the keys in the SUV ignition. We got Berg in two pairs of plastic handcuffs and into our back seat on my side and got him tightly seat belted in place with his hands on his crotch under the belts, then we got in and left in a big hurry. The Cadillac SUV was still running with two doors wide open and whatever else he arrived in the USA with was also inside but all Interpol wanted was his body, alive and talking.
I got in our back seat behind David, I sat sideways with the machine gun aimed at Berg the entire way. We raced back to I-25 with tires squealing in the turns.
I called our OD and updated him: We successfully nabbed an Interpol Ten Most Wanted.' And also: three of us are in our truck on I-10 heading for ELP, please advise security we needed one of their holding cells in the passenger terminal.'
Our OD called back when we got to the I-10 exit for Transmountain Road and said the FBI would join us and they already had someone on the way from downtown El Paso, they'd hold him in the airport drunk tank until Interpol arrived in their private jet from Los Angeles. I said we'd be at ELP in 40 minutes, so we hauled ass across town and parked in the passenger drop-off area outside the airport terminal and perp-walked him (in his underwear) inside to the airport security office where they had a few small holding cells, like a drunk tank. Most of the airport security people knew us because we often ate lunch together. While David handled Berg I parked our truck in the tarmac-employee lot.
Ninety long minutes later an entire uniformed party arrived. The group was: an FBI agent, a Texas Trooper, and a city cop supervisor too. They swapped handcuffs and cuffed him to the steel bench in the cell. David stayed beside Berg until Interpol arrived. He even went with him to the bathroom and back to the cell.
I went down to our office to write our report and thank the OD for his help and file our claim with Interpol for the reward.
David spent nine hours with the prisoner before the Interpol jet arrived from LAX. When they arrived we went through the customary ID checks before we surrendered Berg to them. David insisted they hand write a receipt and took selfies of him with his arm on Berg's shoulder like they were buddies, both of them had smiles as they stood near the small jet that would fly him back to Europe via Atlanta. While we were waiting on the Interpol jet to land someone got us a disposable orange jumpsuit that would fit Berg and we got him covered which made him very happy until he saw he was leaving with Interpol for a prison in the EU.
After decades on the run and we just earned ourselves nearly half a million buckaroos! David made sure they wrote on the receipt that he was alive, uninjured, and talking. We got home around 4am.
David told me the reason why he had Berg take off his clothes was so everyone could see from a distance he was un-armed and un-injured even if they forgot to document it.
We heard about the incident at the gas station in Hobbs Canyon last night, an armed guy was found unconscious, presumed to be under the influence and passed out on the ground by the gas pumps! He claimed he was a bodyguard and worked in law enforcement but was taken into custody, police were searching for his vehicle and any shred of evidence to support his wild story that spanned two countries and five states. His biggest worry was that he sheltered and protected an international fugitive. The driver of the SUV would spend almost a week in the slammer trying to prove his story.
Two days later a black Cadillac SUV was impounded in Las Cruces and found to have a suitcase that contained thirty pounds of stolen plutonium in four sealed containers and twenty pounds of extra fine South African diamonds. They believed Berg was going to sell the plutonium to a spy from North Korea in Vancouver and sell the diamonds to fund his retirement in north-east China.
After we finally got cleaned up and into bed I couldn't sleep so I got up to take one of his tiny valium pills, while I was in the kitchen I slid the switch on the box over to On-Duty. Standing by the counter I closed my eyes and whispered "David, I love you," then went to bed. He was already asleep.