Response Team

Chapter 31.

Just a reminder: everything in this story is fictional.

Four days after we got back from Las Vegas and I was in the shower when the alert box went off, David was out in the pool. I had my right foot up on a plastic stool we purchased for the bathroom; I was looking at the surgical scar on my leg when the alarm startled me, it's more unpleasant than a smoke detector and just as loud. We nearly collided in the open space between the living room and the dining area.

The alert said: DALLAS KIDNAPPING. I knew exactly what David would say, but he quickly grabbed his cell on the kitchen counter and called the OD:

"The wife of a Dallas City Board member is missing, presumed kidnapped. There is no word yet about a ransom or reason."

He covered the mouthpiece on the cell and softly told me, "You watch, this has got to be related to City Board member Doug Fell. David asked who the victim was, she replied, "Katrina Fell." He smiled and politely declined the case citing that Dallas was one of our three blacklisted cities, in fact it was the first one on the list.

We got off the phone and by then a large puddle had formed around our feet since I ran from the shower and he climbed right out of the pool. David leaned in and kissed my cheek then raced back outside. He started running before he cleared the back door and I heard the splash as he hit the water. I was lucky enough to get a quick view of his butt as he dashed out the back door, which stood wide open.

I went back to finish my shower and shave, by then it was late in the day and the sun would soon hide behind the Franklins.

After I was done in the bathroom I heard voices and went to the dining room to see Jeremy and David sitting on the pool stairs. They often had father/son conversations because Jeremy said he couldn't talk to his father, but David was easy to talk to (and he enjoyed being fatherly). I thought it might be because Jeremy was easily a foot taller than his father. Some men can't deal with that. I suspected at home Jeremy was quietly disrespectful toward his father too.

As soon as I stepped out the back door they stopped talking and stared at me so I spun around and went back inside, but this time I grabbed my Kindle Keyboard to read in bed. David joined me about 45 minutes later. I heard the back door click shut when he entered the dining room. We talked in our ice cold bedroom for a short time.

"You miss your dog friend?"

"Who, my buddy Milo?"

"Yes, he seemed like a very nice dog. I know you guys became besties, right?"

"As much as one can with a predator, he had an interesting personality."

"Ever wonder what goes on in their brains?"

"Dog brains? Sometimes yes, but I think dogs are much smarter than most people realize. I think they learn spoken languages even though they don't have the brain circuits to talk. They fight boredom with vivid daydreams, like dog fights they win, females they get to breed, and young pack members they defend from predators. Yes, in my opinion if a dog can dream in his sleep then they must have an imagination full of interesting sensory situations. I think they have complex desires too, but maybe no sense of humor."

I told him that on his own Milo was very serious about security and paid close attention for certain sounds and that pretty much occupied his brain during the day.

David told me he liked the way I treated adult dogs like adults and not cute babies. He said I was the only person that treated even the tiniest Teacup Yorkie like an adult instead of a baby. "Like you say, they are masters of body language as well as tone of voice and facial expressions, so they certainly understand the reason when humans talk to very young children in a child-like voice. I told him that in dog culture adults would most likely be very stern with young dog children."

"All I can say is I wish we could have a dog. Maybe upon retirement, I'd like to get a standard poodle. Or some other mid-size dog not prone to hip disease."

He asked me what Milo was like when it was the two of us alone together all those days. I told David, "I used to sit there and watch Milo do his thing, whatever he wanted, within the confines of our house, which was not his home. I wondered what he would do, so when he sat upright on the sofa I sat there and watched him. I could see it on his face that his mind was busy about dog stuff. He listened for distant sounds that worried him. Sometimes if he caught a glimpse of something that looked like an animal on TV he would look at it but soon look away if it was less interesting than his own thoughts. But he was mostly focused on what looked like thoughts of security and he probably listened for the voices of the members of his family in the distance. If I spoke to him he'd snap out of it and glance at me and wag his tail, but always quickly go back to listening mode."

I told David I didn't think dog hearing was as spectacular as people believe, but the one skill they had that made them better listeners than humans was their ability to ignore an entire world of sounds and only listen for specific sounds. He was listening for sounds like their van driving down the street, and their doorbell, and maybe enemy sounds too like the guy that tried to kidnap him, or the garbage truck. I finished by telling David I learned a lot about him by sitting there watching his eyes and his ears, and what they reacted to and what they ignored. Dogs have a lot of sound related learning to do as puppies in a human world full of unexplained sounds and smells.

Then we discussed where we'd like to live after retirement and I said maybe around south Texas near the coast, we should build our own house: hurricane, wildfire, scorpion, and flood proof. David said that was an expensive list. I reminded him we could afford it and the house didn't need to be 5,000 square feet either.

Both of us always avoided discussing our parents, the topic is practically forbidden. We had no idea if any of them were still alive. We had each other, that was good enough, but sometimes I still wondered whatever became of my parents, if they regretted how we parted ways to never speak again after spending so many years raising us. If I had a child I could never act like one day he suddenly didn't exist.

Maybe it would be different if my son tried to kill me or actually killed someone else, but just for being gay? In my mind that was evidence of mental illness.

This week we started our (long delayed) education project, designing training materials for police/fire/EMS/confinement departments and civilian security/protection/loss prevention services. The package contained a master copy of a handout, the instructor's copy, and a ten minute video on DVD.

We ended up working with Captain Johnson and a female Lieutenant (media specialist) from the Pentagon to create the training packet for police departments, security services, and several federal agencies. We were repeating the training push to improve awareness of our service, our rules, and the penalties for interfering with us while on duty. This was also going to be mandatory training requiring each manager to swear (signature with notary seal) under oath and return the form to the Pentagon that the training was done. Each package will include a link to the same video on a military server. We spent two weeks on the material and called in a local attorney to help finalize the wording. After that it was sent to a Pentagon publisher for duplication and circulation to thousands of addresses. Any service authorized to carry weapons would receive one and would have sixty days to sign, notary stamp, and return it in the pre-paid envelope.

That project took two weeks to complete and featured some very long boring days arguing over language. We didn't want to make it sound like we were militant or out of control, just highly specialized and vital. We've taken a huge bite out of major terrorism in the USA, as evidenced by the (ongoing) lack of repeat 9/11 events.

David was selected to be the trainer for the El Paso city and county police, fire, EMS, jail, Army, and Air Force personnel. He was scheduled to hold six sessions, every Tuesday for six weeks, one hour each session.

That weekend we drove back north to (Sparky's in) Hatch on the Goldwing for lunch at the burger palace in the center of town, and brought home two more (on ice) for the refrigerator. Most of the people we heard talking loudly in that small restaurant were from Colorado and Arizona. We discussed other places we wanted to check out, like Schwabl's near Buffalo for roast beef on weck, Meer's Store in Meers, Oklahoma, Philippe's in downtown Los Angeles, Hackey's on Harms in Glenview, Central Grocery in New Orleans for their Muffuletta, Dyers on Beale in Memphis, and Louis' Lunch in New Haven.

It was sort of a group discussion about making great burgers (and steaks) at home. David suggested one of the main problems with cooking at home was it was impossible to reach the cooking temperatures with heat sources powered by household electricity: 117 volts AC. It generally does not allow one to reach a temperature like they can at a place like Louis' Lunch on their gas cookers. Perhaps the only method that came close would be on a large propane outdoor grille. The same problem existed for people trying to use a Wok at home, the gas stove could not reach the heat required to cook correctly.

When we arrived there was a pair of fully decked-out Goldwings with matching trailers in the parking lot across the street, the topic of conversation being shared loudly in the dining area were from those on nationwide foodie road trips. Everyone had some place they wanted to share, but the food topic drifted away from sandwiches to meals in general. David and I liked Ruth's Chris for steaks for consistently great food and service but Cattleman's was closer. We heard Ruth's was due to open a restaurant in El Paso but it was only a rumor in the newspaper. Nobody would agree on any single smoked rib place since there were so many different standards. Several people mentioned Interstate BBQ in Memphis as having the best pork ribs and sauce.

David whispered asking if he should say something out loud about French fries and what we learned dealing with Big Potato in Washington State and I suggested he not bring that up. Instead, he complained out loud about the quality of produce and how food growers have learned to store produce for over a year, which meant nothing was seasonal any more but (because of that) most of the produce (in stores) today is crap, and the worst was the decline of apples in the USA. People set down their forks and applauded. David said he quit buying apples years ago. Someone else shouted that (grocery store) tomatoes were also lousy now, everyone should grow their own, and it's easy as long as they get enough sun and water.

After lunch we stood outside in the big parking lot and talked to the other couples beside their Goldwings, our Wing was the only one that wasn't dressed up with touristy crap. We discussed rain suits and helmet comm gear, it was very enlightening. One of them said there was a Goldwing club in El Paso (with a newsletter) that we should join. David said we rarely saw Wings in town. She said to ask at any motorcycle dealer in town. Both couples we spoke to were retired military and also lived on the east side, like us.

David asked both of them why they rode Goldwings and one of them laughed and answered, "You really gotta ask?" We all knew the two primary reasons were comfort and reliability.

We rode home but took a different route instead of Transmountain Road across the Franklins. We got off I-10 at Ohara Road then took it eastbound between the mountains over to Highway 213 after passing through Anthony's Gap where you really had to keep a close eye on the road ahead for large rocks and critters on the pavement. Then on 213 we went south to Diana Drive, then over to Wren Avenue which ran into our subdivision called Tobin Park. By the time we got home almost five hours had passed, but it was a great day.

"How long did we stand outside talking about our bikes?" I asked.

"I lost track but I bet almost an hour!" David replied. Neither of us mentioned that we stopped briefly to pee beside the motorcycle. Luckily, traffic was thin on Ohara Road.

We decided to take a swim so we changed and went outside. After several laps we both sat on the stairs and talked. The blinds over the back yard were still wide open, and the sun felt hot on my shoulders but he was comfortable. Like many people, riding on the back of the Goldwing made me horny, since I was grinding my body against his the entire time. I got between his legs and started working his boner. While that was quietly going on Jeremy came over and stepped off the deep end and swam towards us. I think Jeremy wasn't aware what we were doing when he got in the pool. He often heard us in the pool through his bedroom window and walked over without checking first. We didn't really care as long as he was polite about it.

Jokingly, when he got close enough to see he asked to be next. David asked if he was circumcised and Jeremy said he wasn't sure exactly what that meant. Then without asking he stood up and pulled his out for us to examine. I stopped blowing David and we looked for a color line and told him he was. Jeremy just said, "Whatever." Then he swam back to the deep end and pulled his lounger into the water and floated in the sunshine while I went back to my work.

David sat there with his eyes closed while I power-licked his boner, then he came in my mouth. He grunted loud enough that Jeremy turned to watch, but he said even though he was 18 now nothing in life really changed, girls still don't care for him. We were both somewhat repulsed by his weirdly shaped body. We liked him because he was a good natured kid and knew how to keep his mouth shut. At least his dick looked normal because the rest of him certainly didn't.

That was why he was invited to use our pool anytime he wanted. He was smart enough to keep his mouth shut and his comments to himself.

After he recovered from his orgasm David grabbed his shorts and went inside, I stayed in the pool sitting on the stairs watching Jeremy float around with his eyes closed as he soaked up the sunshine. About ten minutes later Jeremy paddled closer and in a quiet voice he asked why it mattered if someone had a foreskin. I told him I grew up in an area where 95% of the boys were cut the day they were born. The foreskin created an environment where bacteria (dick cheese germs) could grow like crazy, women had a similar problem caused by their flaps. Dick cheese causes vaginal infections and can make a nasty flavor if you sucked cheesy dick. If you grew up in an area where everyone had a foreskin you kind of got used to it and didn't notice as much. I told him as far as I knew a foreskin didn't really change the pleasure of sex but you had to wash, especially before sex.

I told Jeremy that foreskin or not, the orgasm felt the same so it was really just an issue of cleanliness and personal preference. Then he asked how the foreskin was removed and I said there were two common ways in America, one used interlocking rings. Usually the day the boy was born the doctor put a small metal ring around the penis under the foreskin and another slightly larger ring on the outside. The inner ring had a groove around the outside so the outer ring sat firmly in place and the two locked together pinched off blood circulation and killed that small flesh sleeve, it died and fell off days later. Another way was to numb it and press a bell shaped metal thing over the penis -- under the foreskin then put a metal clamp around the outside which pinched off nerves and blood, then they used a knife to cut all the way around and off it came. That procedure only took about five minutes and most of the time the only reason why the baby screamed was because they were strapped in place when they wanted to be warm and bundled into a small ball of baby. I held up my hand and extended my pinky finger and showed him a newborn baby boy's penis was about the size of the last segment of my pinky finger. Jeremy smiled.

After that discussion he paddled away, closed his eyes and faced the sun, I went inside and wanked in bed. David went in the garage to wipe down our motorcycle. I bet he still had a post orgasm smile on his face. His entire attitude changed after having an orgasm, even the way he spoke was different.

It's been months since the snake bite and my leg is almost back to normal. I still have a small limp but it's almost gone. Once in a while that spot on my leg will suddenly itch like crazy and it's hard to stop myself from reaching down with fingernails. The doc said there's still healing going on inside, that's why it has itchy spells. I've also become much more snake aware when walking outside. We've never had any snakes around our house and no scorpions either, but we do see an occasional roach come up through the shower drain or a sink, so we put screens on most of them. I think it gets too cold during the winter for scorpions to thrive here, but I have heard of two species commonly found in this city. We've caught a few dead roaches floating in the pool. They climb over the stone wall around the back yard.

Jeremy has been more visible in our back yard recently, but he still seems to hesitate walking in the back door. He is mentally focused on high school graduation which is soon, I don't know the actual date. He says he's going to college for software engineering but never mentioned taking the SAT or anything concrete about college, but it seems the time for him to leave the nest is approaching. Going to college is better than getting evicted suddenly from the nest by your parents. I think he wants to write the code for the ultimate battle simulation. We suggested doing an ancient war, like the Greeks conquering Persia. Jeremy mentioned going to UTEP and living at home for four more years as a computer science major.

On a recent weekend we had a security breach at home but I don't think it will become an issue. We had two used spiders out on the picnic table; we were testing their response to various household items that might present a danger, like a burning oil lamp, smoking incense cones, and various knives. We were testing their response because there were a lot of built-in routines that were never disclosed in our training so we were trying to evoke responses to common things, like a piece of paper set on fire on a dinner plate just inches from the spider. We also tried applying small electrical shocks across two legs, and boiling hot water sprays too. The one we put in the microwave oven just sat there, sparked, and smoked.

While two spiders were sitting on a large bath towel Jeremy strolled through the gate and wandered up to us at the table. Now you gotta remember the spiders are pretty small and not the easiest things to see, especially when their presence is unanticipated. Jeremy walked up and asked what was going on, why all the knives were out on the table. David looked at me and whispered that he hadn't noticed them yet. I gestured to the pool and asked if he was going in and he said yes, but he kept glancing at the table and the kitchen knives but it was unclear what he did or did not see. Most people describe the spider's body as looking sort of like the dull side of a sheet of aluminum foil, but the body segment is pretty small. They have two body segments and the front segment has about the same volume as a sugar cube, the back segment is about 1/3 smaller. Both of them are oval and look small compared to their eight legs. One really neat thing we learned was when we removed one leg it immediately knew and adapted its walking style. At first we suspected it might just walk in circles, but that never happened.

After several seconds of him standing by the table staring at our stuff David did something that briefly scared me. He suddenly stood up and put his hand on Jeremy's shoulder and escorted him around the back yard by the deep end ladder and spoke very quietly to him, for over one minute. With the sound from the pool filter (and a jammer was running on the kitchen counter) I never heard him but I saw Jeremy nod yes several times while David spoke to him with one hand on his shoulder the entire time. I couldn't make out much of what he said because it sounded all garbled, but I heard him say mechanical spider' and top secret' and `don't' a few times. Then with a very serious expression on his face Jeremy walked across our yard to the back gate and left. David sat back down but had nothing to say. So I asked him how that went.

"He took it well, but I mildly threatened him if he spoke to anyone about what he saw on our table."

"Did you use the word spider?"

David nodded yes, so I nodded yes back. David said, "He knows nothing about what they do, or how they're used, all he knows is tiny mechanical spiders exist and they're military secret and if he talks about them it could cost him his life."

"You threatened him?"

"Sort of, but he already knew we did secret stuff for Uncle Sam, so this is no more of a surprise than firing my machine gun last year over by Brice."

I remembered seeing his hand on Jeremy's shoulder the entire time so he was very gentle but firm while speaking with the teen. Hopefully, he continues to keep his mouth shut about us. But there is a risk of some day being asked to silence a young man in El Paso who was talking publicly about secret Pentagon work in Texas. David would not hesitate to air `im up if told to do so. Hopefully in college Jeremy'll meet a tall-nerdy young girl on the basketball team and give her his V and fall madly in love and forget all about his strange neighbors. Time will tell if Jeremy was a security threat.

During one of our subsequent conversations by the pool David asked me why the name of the gap between the Franklins and the North Franklins was named Anthony, if I knew.

I read it once online. There's a town called Anthony Texas, and a feature on the mountains called Anthony's Nose, who was Anthony? I told him he was a Catholic Saint from about 500 years ago, something to do with miracles he was credited for; I seemed to recall he was something like a Catholic Saint for lost people?

We heard news from our boss about something that happened to our team based in Atlanta. They were on a mission down in Florida about supposed smuggling of children out of the country into sex slavery on a Caribbean Island. They traced the shipment payment back to a very wealthy man in Miami. He supposedly hired people to kidnap young children who appeared to be approximately age 9-11, just prior to the onset of puberty.

They were captured on sidewalks, held in chains, exported on a large yacht, and sold at auction to customers from around the world on the island of Aruba. Some were used for live human sacrifice, some sold as slaves, and some sold as sex toys. Their plan was to kill the owner of the auction and the yacht. They would ambush him in public and spray a puff of toxic dust in his face and walk away. Hours later he would suddenly collapse and die. They believed by killing the head of the outfit the entire enterprise would quickly wither and die.

We have available a tiny pump spray thing that resembles a pepper spray canister like the size a woman could carry in a small purse or clip to a purse strap. Seconds before firing you primed the pump by pressing it down then seconds later spray it in someone's face or just ahead of them. A tiny amount inhaled does the trick but it could take hours to take effect. The action gradually halts all the production (inside the body) of a natural substance called ATP, which is involved in every nerve impulse and muscle contraction, including the heart and breathing. Experts said it causes a painless death but the victim usually died of asphyxiation, which was unpleasant. We have to wear nasal air filters because we're likely to be exposed too. We've never used the spray opting instead to let the spiders do the work. We were taught in Nevada years ago that even if someone was exposed and immediately called 911 and were intubated in the ER eventually their heart would still stop and brain function would cease too. Once a sufficient amount entered the body death was inevitable. There is also no antidote for that compound, it's basically the same substance as our toxic gas pellets. The good part about it was the compound only lasted in the presence of oxygen for a few minutes, and then it stopped working by breaking down. But once it entered the body the process it started could not be halted.

What we heard was that when she got near enough to the target on a sidewalk in the art deco night club district of Miami she was grabbed by undercover security guards and never seen again. Presumably they used the gas pump on her then disposed of the body. Her partner is supposedly searching for her killers and will then use more force to kill the child kidnap ring leader. We offered to help but our offer was declined. The Pentagon said this was a Florida matter. She was the first agent killed in our service since it opened shop.

What we don't know was if she was tortured and revealed anything about our service before killing her. All of us are on increased awareness anytime we went out in public. For the rest of this year we anticipate no more 9pm trips to the grocery store. We'll do all local stuff in broad daylight for the next several months. I told the boss this would be a good time to try to get funding for a new office on Biggs Field too. We also carry the pelican case along more places than we used to, like the grocery store. And David seldom leaves the house without his backup pistol on his ankle (fully loaded with the safety off).

And because bad news always happens in threes, this happened recently at our local grocery store (Food King) on Dyer Street.

While we were in the back of the store at the meat counter waiting for a package of sirloins to get weighed and wrapped we heard angry shouting and female screams up front, I immediately suspected an armed robbery.

I immediately told the other shoppers nearby to run into the back room. David and I slinked along the shelves up aisle three toward the shouting. It was in Spanish but we heard cash' and kill you' shouted more than once. We both had knives in our pockets and David had his 22 on his ankle as we moved quickly to the front of the store. I seemed to recall there were three cashiers working when we arrived and it sounded like all of them were trying to empty their cash drawers. I heard the distinctive sound of a cash drawer being knocked around.

When we got up front we both peered around the corner and saw what looked like one younger Hispanic male with a long kitchen knife. He had just moved from the first to the second cashier as she fumbled with the register trying to open it and remove the cash drawer. David walked out into the area where people line up for the check-out lanes and said loudly, "You gotta be kidding."

While the robber was grabbing fistfuls of cash David and I walked through an empty check-out lane and headed toward the exit as if we never noticed there was a robbery in progress. We passed them and David silently turned and snuck up behind the robber with his knife in hand. He raised his hand and thrust the knife into the robber's back directly into his heart. The man dropped everything and suddenly stood super erect, staggered sideways, and fell sideways, smashing his head on the next checkout station on the way to the floor. He gestured to me to finish him off so I pulled out the knife and used my foot to roll him on his back and looked at him and whispered to David that he looked dead. I reached down and felt for a pulse in his neck but whispered that it was very rapid and getting weak, and then it stopped. I looked up at David and nodded that he was dead.

The cashier thanked us for rescuing her but all the other customers fled the building in tears. David walked back to the butcher and got our sirloins while I kept checking the man's pulse and confirmed, still no heartbeat. Moments later the cops ran in the front door with weapons drawn. I was on my knees beside the dead guy so I introduced myself and answered their questions. I showed them my ID card which has the all important information about never detaining us, and said I would not write a statement or accompany them to the police station, we were on-call and could not be detained. My comment made them laugh.

Their patrol sergeant said I had to come with them to make a statement or be arrested. There was a shouting match briefly and David threatened to call in the military. The cops weren't budging and threatened to cuff us and take us into custody so we asked one of the cashiers to call the OD's desk and tell her to quickly call for backup at this location. After our request for backup was delivered we told everyone to leave and get their cars out of the parking lot, a squad of military police was on the way right now.

The police actually stalled briefly to see if we were bluffing but nine minutes later when two helicopters landed in the parking lot it was suddenly too late. Let me tell you, the sound of two Hueys landing in your parking lot is unmistakable and it caused an immediate reversal of police demands. David also reversed course and told the MPs not to shoot any of the city cops but with everyone watching he got nose to nose with the sergeant and warned him if he ever pulled a stunt like that again we'd kill him and his coworkers. He literally screamed in his face with spit flying and the cop stood there and took it. I saw his entire body tremble as ten soldiers with automatic weapons were all aimed at the police officers, huddled like a group of war refugees.

After David stopped yelling I calmly told them they all just came within seconds of an actual firing squad. The boss of the city cops was sweating profusely, his shirt was drenched and he looked like he was about to come unglued. So David loudly stated a summary of what happened and told him he'd write his own statement:

"Here's the deal; two plainclothes federal agents were in the store when the robbery started. Upon hearing the commotion they got everyone near the meat counter to shelter in the back room and then they walked down aisle three and witnessed the robber wielding a long kitchen knife and posing an immediate risk of death to store employees and customers, so we walked up behind him and killed him. The perp fell to the floor, dropped his money bag and his knife; the agents declined to make a written statement citing federal privilege relating to secrecy." The sergeant nodded yes then wiped the sweat off his forehead. David looked at the MP Commander and said "Thanks men." And the MP Commander saluted David and ordered the squad quickly back to their helicopters (their blades still slowly turning).

After the MPs left David stepped close to the sergeant again and softly told him, "You're too fucking stupid to be a cop, you're gonna get innocent people killed. I'm giving you 72 hours to submit your resignation. If you're not gone by then I'll come find you." They both turned to look at the dead body in a pool of blood on the floor beside the `Checkout #2, 15 Items or Less.' David reached up and pulled the badge off his shirt and tossed it to me. I caught it and tossed it on the floor."

Again the unmistakable thumping sound of the Hueys vibrated the entire grocery store roof. And the sergeant told the other cops to get everyone out of the back room and take statements from anyone that wanted to make one in writing. He looked at us again but said nothing. David stared back and slowly nodded his head `no.' I picked up the package of sirloins and used the self checkout to scan and pay ($64.14), and then we left. By the time we got to the truck the choppers were long gone. An ambulance roared into the parking lot for the perp and as far as we were concerned it was case closed. As he inserted the key and cranked the motor he turned to me, smiled, and said, "Good training op." I laughed and held the cold package of steaks on my lap.

"How much were the steaks?"

"Sixty four bucks, I think that's $3.99 a pound." They were wrapped in waxed butcher paper and ready to go in the freezer, but we usually put them in plastic zipper bags individually.

"Oh shit, we forgot something." I declared as we turned left onto Dyer Street. "What?" He asked. "In all the commotion I forgot the potatoes." David hit the turn signal and turned left onto Hercules and drove back into the parking lot, I ran inside and got a five pound bag of Yukon Gold potatoes and paid at the self checkouts. There were two cops left and one cashier and the rest of the store was vacant. The ambulance crew had already picked up the stiff and set him on their cart and tossed a sheet over him, so he looked like an elderly customer dropped dead at the checkout. One of the store employees had dumped an entire bag of kitty litter on the pool of blood and was sweeping it into a neat pile.

Back at home we trimmed three sides on four potatoes flat then sliced them into quarter inch thick planks and then the planks into quarter inch strips. While he was slicing spuds I turned on the griddle and the deep fryer. He dumped the pile of potato strips into the basket and lowered them into the fryer before it even got hot; I set a timer for 18 minutes. The griddle comes up to temp quickly and once my laser thermometer said it was 390 I dropped two sirloins on it then gave them a healthy dusting of salt, butter, and a few shakes of pepper. In the past we had cooked steaks in the deep fryer and liked the way they came out but they sure cooked fast that way. When we deep fry sliders (1/6th pound) they cook in 50 seconds in the deep fryer.

Twenty minutes later we stood by the bar while I plated dinner. Luckily, David took off his shirt while he was waiting for the sound of empty plates hitting the counter, which meant dinner was served. I asked him to join me at a booth table instead so I could watch his upper body while we ate; seated side by side (at the bar) all I could see was his arm. We've been married for about a decade and I still have to ask him to turn to face me. What's the sense in having a God-like body then hiding it from your husband? He just doesn't think that way. When eating dinner he thinks we should be focused on eating dinner, and not his chest.

As a joke during dinner I said to him, "You know David I think you should get tested for ESP, I think your sixth sense may be an Indian." He laughed but kept shoveling slices of sirloin and homemade steak fries in his mouth. We both knew if he went in for counseling on his ESP they'd probably put him on anti-anxiety meds or some bullshit like that.

While we did dishes he told me, "You know Ry, I think you should get tested for autism, I think your tit fetish may be an autistic fixation, they all have `em."

I asked him what a diagnosis would do to our career and he said, "Uh... oh yeah, don't get tested, forget I said anything." I told him it was like his Indian extra sensory superpowers. He glanced at me and smiled. We both had stuff to hide.

Our next call for help came four days later from the city of Omaha, Mayor's office. There was an investment group in Nebraska and Iowa that was trying to get the first construction permit to build a new nuclear electricity plant along the Missouri River, the second application in the USA since Three Mile Island. There were protests planned, with a big chance they would turn violent and set fires in downtown Omaha. A private investigator for the city said they obtained copies of emails sent from an anti-nuclear group in Missouri that was contacting young people via Facebook (FB) and asking for volunteers for their LARPing (Live Action Role-Play) demonstration. It meant they were renting the bodies of young people to carry signs and disrupt the peace and pretend to be protesting, when few if any of them were actually against nuclear power or even lived in Nebraska. It was promoted as a fun exercise; each LARPer would be paid fifty bucks cash for a full day, which included bus transportation and food. What it failed to mention was if you were arrested or hurt you were on your own.

They arranged two hour training sessions in Saint Louis for how they wanted the LARPers to behave on the protest line, how to pretend to be angry in front of the TV news cameras. Like most modern day protests these were staged for the 'news' cameras to trick viewers into thinking there was widespread support for their cause. In 2018 it had become common to rent protestors but few people watching TV were aware of the fraud.

But Omaha PD also received intel that an anti-nuke terror group was planning on exposing the licensing board members to radioactive powder. They got no intel on how they planned to accomplish that but the risk was real since radioactive stuff was easily available in hundreds of abandoned mines in the southwestern USA.

The first thing David asked Captain Johnson was: "A radical anti-nuke group wants to spray uranium powder into the air above people? There's a complete absence of logic in that plan."

Captain Johnson reminded us that these days you could not rely on the name of a group to understand why they are deciding to act in a particular way. We had to go by their actions, not their words. Then he added that we should not refer to them as an `anti-nuclear terror group,' because they may actually be a pro-coal power group trying to shut down possible competition.

"Superficially, it sounds like they don't know what they want."

"Yes, but perhaps the LARPers aren't the actual target, maybe it's the licensing board people, and they may be the actual target or maybe the major investors," the captain offered as an explanation.

"What do they want us to do? Handle the fake protestors or the group with the uranium dust? It sounds like there's a lot of stuff going on."

"Their main concern is the radioactive material that innocent people might inhale. Not to mention clean-up costs, civilian panic, and bad press for Omaha, the nuke plant, and a possible long term economic crash in the Midwest when blackouts start due to a shortage of electricity."

"What do they want us to do?"

"Job #1 is to locate and identify the group with the uranium and prevent their attack. And job #2 is to identify who is financing and organizing the rented protest mob. We heard there may be a reward posted soon on both of these cases. Job #3 is to try to secure the uranium and hand it over to an Army Hazmat team."

"No FBI on this one? That's weird."

"Yes they're involved, but Nebraska is in control of the investigation, they'll update you at the scene. They need our technology to identify the perps before they enter Nebraska."

I asked, "You mentioned the license board people as being a possible target, how do they fit into the story?"

"The licensing hearings are held in the downtown courthouse, large protests are planned for the final public hearing on Saturday 10am to 4pm. The board members park in a street level lot and use a side entrance to the courthouse; during the walk across the parking lot they're vulnerable to attack. They all park and wait in their cars and then walk as a group across the parking lot with police escort. They're what the state cops think is the actual target. If the board was eliminated with terror tactics then nobody else would participate. They believe this would halt any future building permits for a new nuke plant and dry up the funding."

"And how do they anticipate the powder would be released?"

"Probably by drone, it appears to be the cheapest to operate and most difficult to prevent. The press and police might use camera drones too."

David said "...it sounds like two completely separate events, do they have a suspect list?" The captain said they had seven names, two names for the terror group and five for the rented mob.

"How many protestors are they anticipating?"

He said, "...they expected hundreds of people, some of them might be armed. We have reason to believe they are training a mob that will come in and loot downtown, set fires, and do millions in damage."

He looked at me and moved his eyebrows and whispered, "Well?" I smiled and slightly nodded yes. David told the captain we'd take the Nebraska mission. Captain Johnson seemed happy and said he'd reply to their message and tell them we were on the way. Then he told us the event was going to happen this weekend, the final public hearing on the permit was Saturday (10a-4p) in downtown Omaha in the federal courthouse building. He added they usually had a catered lunch buffet but a few board members also stepped outside to smoke.

He called the OD but she said our HSCT jet was not available today. Our best bet for getting there ASAP was if we drove our truck. We've made that exact same run many times and in the Midwest we need a vehicle that moves fast. He suggested we bring all our gear and extra spiders and pellets. He handed David a post-it note with the contact information with a state police detective named Bonham. David asked the captain, "So no renewable energy for Nebraska? It has to be nuclear?"

The captain explained, "Omaha is too far north for solar and nobody wants a windmill within a mile of their home, which rules out most of the Midwest."

While David sat beside the OD discussing what cell network alarms to create I spoke with the captain a bit more. We walked outside on the tarmac, the noise level is too high outside to be overheard. The captain said, "I talked to the Governor of Nebraska, he told me he wanted to send a message to the person that financed the rented protest mob, we don't appreciate one wealthy guy trying to expand his voice at the expense of the law abiding people of Omaha where the law is one person -- one vote. He wants the money guy to get his message: never again or else." I told him I understood and the message would be delivered.

We drove home and packed. We left an hour later in civilian clothes with all our gear. We usually had a few extra new spiders in boxes at home so they went in our suitcase along with the laptop computer and a couple packets of edible sex lube.

The route we took to Amarillo was hard to drive quickly due to traffic and most of the roads were only two lanes but once we got near Amarillo it was high speed the rest of the way to Topeka. The internet said its 1000 miles, El Paso to Omaha, and 18 hours driving time. We could shave a few hours off that by driving 95mph across Texas and Oklahoma but the truck really drinks gas going that fast. And his oversize desert tires really scream above 70mph too. Luckily, his stereo screams even louder.

We ran into severe weather in Oklahoma north of Tulsa. We had to stop under a highway overpass on US-75 in Bartlesville. They had tornado sirens blasting and the rain came down so hard it was a literal white-out, even with RainX on the windshield. We got out of the truck and climbed up under the overpass and held onto the steel frame. I think we saw wind gusts of nearly 70mph. We watched our truck bounce and sway, even the windshield wipers got pulled straight out but weren't damaged. David said we were in an F-1 tornado, all I know was it was very loud and the temperature plummeted by at least 30 degrees in one minute.

There were about fifty other vehicles parked under the overpass during the storm. It got so crowded that we saw a couple of cars get spun around on the highway near the overpass. Some people stayed in their cars and others climbed up the bank and hid with us between those huge steel beams. The entire overpass shuddered during the peak wind, which probably only lasted nine seconds, if that. Immediately after it passed we ran down to the truck, repositioned the wiper arms and waited for the path to clear. We saw some trees uprooted nearby but it looked like one of those skinny tornadoes that might reach 85mph and last for maybe twenty seconds on the ground.

It took a while for all the stopped vehicles in front of us to get out of the way, David honked the horn several times but there were a few dozen people still up under the bridge talking and shaking hands. When we got going again just north of the bridge we saw two semi trucks destroyed in the ditch beside the highway with cargo strewn all over the area. Power poles were snapped and wires were down along the fence. The small gas station near the highway, north of the overpass had the roof over the pumps blown over and people were standing around staring at the damage, I bet their power was out too. One unfortunate car was pumping gas when the storm hit. That car was crushed by the roof when it blew over. David asked if I wanted to stop and offer help but I said, "We gotta get to Omaha."

Traffic thinned out as we raced north across Kansas as the sun went down. We ran into bad weather again at Yates Center Kansas and had to slow down and stop along the highway in a crowd of other people that stopped due to whiteout conditions. Then came the hail, but luckily we did not lose our windshield but I bet we got 40mph wind gusts, the truck bounced and all sorts of stuff blew across the highway. We discussed getting out of the truck and getting into the ditch but I saw no sign of a tornado but it was scary because they say any storm that can produce quarter size hail is also capable of making a tornado. It was dark out when that storm hit so if there was a tornado heading at us we might not have known it.

That area was super flat, nothing but flat green farmland all the way to the horizon in every direction. A little further north in the town of Burlington the river was flooded. It filled the riverbed and was a couple inches deep on top of the bridge so we slowly drove across it then kept going north. By the time we got to Topeka the sky was almost clear and we made good time the rest of the way to Nebraska. It was a beautiful night, millions of stars and the Milky Way was visible out in this part of rural America. We drove all night but had to slow down to 65mph due to the threat from antelope and deer on the roadway.

When we take these long road trips David always said he felt fine but ten minutes later I'd see his head bob up and down because he was dozing off at the wheel. Once his head got the bobs I'd crank up the stereo and tell him to pull over so we could switch places. We really pushed ourselves to get there quickly but paid for it eventually. A thousand mile highway rush was a stretch, even for youngsters like us. We often didn't even stop for chow, just gas and maybe a bag of pretzels. We pissed in a bottle beside the gas pump. That was why we always had empty 2L plastic bottles on the floor in the back seat.

We crossed into Nebraska around sunrise and had clear skies the rest of the way to Omaha. When we parked in the lot at the police office building I had a strong desire to take a short nap but we had business to conduct. Our liaison officer was waiting.

Detective Larry Bonham met us at the downtown police HQ office building at 9:15am and walked us back outside to a large Lincoln Navigator and drove me to his office which was rented space inside a commercial office building a block away, David followed in our truck. He showed us a large scale photograph of the area. The courthouse is on US-6, aka: Dodge Street. We were going to a hotel a few blocks west of there also on Dodge Street at a place called the Even Hotel, it was not a five star place, maybe three stars. He said he's stayed there dozens of times, it was a renovated historic building and the rooms were small but clean. After giving us paper copies of his notes and maps we left his office and drove west on Dodge Street. He stopped and pointed out the courthouse and the parking lot. David stayed behind us during the tour.

We got out of his SUV and looked around, took some pictures and he explained his ideas about what might happen, but I was yawning and needed to get a nap to reset my internal clock. We got back in the SUV and drove a few more blocks west to the hotel and parked on the street in a no-parking zone, but he had police plates so he was not going to get towed. He directed David to have their doorman park our truck in their lot behind the hotel.

Detective Bonham escorted us to the check-in desk and asked for two rooms with a view to the east (toward the courthouse) then David softly said, "We usually bunk together, two beds is fine. Save the taxpayers some money." They had lots of rooms and got us one with two queen beds and a walk-in shower. I asked where the nearest grocery store was located and David followed up by whispering to me `one that sells cold beer by the case.' With a large smile I turned around and looked at him. He asked about a pool and the desk lady said it was closed due to a filtration problem, old pools were like that. She said the pool was nearly 120 years old, like the rest of the building.

On the outside the building looked old but inside it appeared totally modern and very fancy. The large lobby was loaded with leather furniture and accents, with paintings and ceiling fans. A recording of string quartet music played softly in the large open lobby.

In our room we exchanged contact information with the detective and he apologized for his handwriting on the notes. We agreed we were going to focus mainly on the threat of uranium dispersal (the actual terror threat and greatest danger to the public). David had already packed some N95 masks just in case. Early on we asked the OD to also assist us with the LARPing investigation, which could be done from our office. We told Bonham we had people back in El Paso working on the protesters and the funding for their show, we would deal with them after the primary goal was reached.

We spoke briefly in the lobby, Detective Bonham agreed with our plan and left. After dropping our gear in the room we walked down the street to a small old grocery store (for the yuppies that lived downtown) and got vital supplies (beer, wine, snacks, and deli sandwiches). Then we went back to our room to eat and then took naps but by then it was 2pm and I was still struggling to stay awake. So we talked for a bit then took another shower and got back in bed and spooned and slept until 5am the next day.

In bed I softly asked David if we clearly told Bonham if we caught the uranium people and they confessed we'd kill both of them on the spot. He said yes, we said `kill' twice and he nodded yes.

Breakfast was served in a small meeting room off the main lobby so we ate muffins, bacon, and large scoops of what looked like Mexican eggs. It looked like scrambled eggs with stuff mixed in: melted white cheese, bean burrito filling, sliced veggies like grilled/smoked jalapenos, grilled red bell pepper slices, sliced grilled/smoked serranos, and grilled onion. It was very filling and tasted wonderful. The only ingredient missing was a shot of Mexican Tequila. We sat at a small round table in the corner and discussed the case and looked closer at the maps he gave us which were actually aerial photos of the downtown area with street names added.

US Route 6 was the main road that crossed downtown Omaha (east-west) but it was split into two one-way streets. Our hotel was on Dodge Street, which was one-way, westbound. Eastbound US-6 was called Douglas Street, which was two blocks south of Dodge. The two routes merged at the bridge across the Missouri River then you were in Iowa in the city of Council Bluffs.

Council Bluffs Iowa was like the twin city to Omaha except it was smaller. Since the huge Missouri River ran between the states it had flood plains on both sides, Omaha and Council Bluffs sat on flood plains. East of Council Bluffs sat the bluffs, like the edge of a cliff that ran parallel to the river. The town sat between the river and the bluffs. They looked to be about 400 feet above the river. East of the bluffs sat Iowa. Council Bluffs looked mostly residential and appeared to be a nice place to live. Omaha is very industrial. It's a very old city that used to be the western edge of civilization in North America, it's where the first transcontinental railroads started in 1862. There is a huge military presence around Omaha. I guessed there were hundreds of atomic warheads on missiles and in storage within 300 miles of downtown Omaha. When New York City was attacked on 9/11 and Bush was in Florida at the time Omaha was where Air Force One flew, there's a reason for that.

If you were a foreign power planning on invading the USA you might want to think twice before landing troops anywhere near Omaha (or El Paso), just offering some friendly advice.

We met the detective in his office at 8am Tuesday to discuss the case and their latest intel. He was curious since we were known to have cutting edge technology if we could sense a uranium weapon from space or an airplane. David had me explain radiation to him.

I was usually the better at talking science to civilians so I explained that just like the energy from a dynamite explosion radiation spreads out in all directions and as it moved the energy became exponentially weaker, because it was spread out over an exponentially larger area.

"Imagine this, pretend radioactive particles were like drops of rain that you could see and feel. We would experience sprinkling space drops all day every day. If someone set out a rock of uranium everything nearby would become drenched by the drops, the closer you stood the faster you would get drenched. As you moved away the drops would become more spread out just like drops from outer space or from a lawn sprinkler. That's why radioactivity on Earth cannot be detected from space or even from an airplane, the drops get too spread out the further they get from the source."

I continued, "It was also very difficult to detect what direction the particles came from. It would be much easier to detect uranium from the ground, not a satellite. And on the ground there were lots of common uses for radioactive material, so that makes it even harder to find any one source since there were so many. Every patient that had a cardiac stress test at the hospital was radioactive for two to three days afterward, and those would create thousands of false alarms daily. Most smoke detectors held tiny radioactive particles too, and countless pieces of old plates, cups, saucers, and glassware also contain uranium, in kitchen cabinets all across America.

Radiation is hard to detect in some cases. Take for example a piece of plutonium the size of one grain of ordinary table salt. It could easily contain trillions of plutonium atoms. If you held a Geiger counter beside it the counter would click like crazy but move the counter a yard away and most signs of radioactivity would disappear. Some radioactive particles get stopped by the air or something as thin as a sheet of paper, so those would be nearly impossible to locate and dispose of. That's one of the reasons why plutonium was so dangerous, especially if it got inside you. If you inhaled a speck of plutonium and it lodged in your lungs, then you held a Geiger counter against your chest it might not go off at all because the lungs themselves would block the escape of most of the atomic particles.

I told the cop that radiation itself is not really dangerous, our bodies are designed to live just fine with constant low levels of exposure. People are generally frightened by radiation, but they don't really need to be, although it's never good to be over exposed. The most important thing is to never ingest radioactive stuff, like plutonium or uranium. They get stuck in your bones and almost always cause horrible cancers, but it could take months to years before it appeared. I told him to watch the (1982) movie called `Dark Circle,' about plutonium contamination.

David brought the USB rad detector for his cell phone, and it plugged in the charging port on the bottom. He showed the cop how it never stopped ticking, maybe an occasional pause of six seconds but it ticked slowly all day all year, which was normal. I told him most creatures on Earth were designed to tolerate background radiation. He asked what they were and I said Uranium is an element that exists naturally all over the planet, but plutonium is man-made. Uranium exists naturally on Earth, just like iron and silver. It has been mined since people started making tinted glass hundreds of years ago. Nobody knew about radiation until the early 1900s. There were silver mines in Czechoslovakia that dumped huge piles of waste rock (aka: Pitchblende) outside the mines and that was where scientists obtained samples of uranium (and other radioactive elements) to experiment with which lead to the discoveries of radiation and fission.

We spent the entire morning with the cops then worked from our hotel room after lunch. We had a lot of research to do on the computer trying to locate and identify the uranium terrorists (or as we began calling them: Uranistas). Luckily the cops narrowed things down for us and got us going with a small list of suspects in the rented protest crowd, but our focus was on uranium. Locally, the cops ran into problems learning about them because they were in another state.

We learned the people collecting uranium in abandoned mines in western states were somewhat known to police because they bragged about it and showed off rocks loaded with natural uranium, some people thought that walking around showing off uranium rocks wasn't such a good idea and quietly mentioned it to local cops who reported it to the feds. Once the OD started searching in NSA records for past files related to uranium she also identified people supposedly involved in the terror threats in Omaha. Next, she created a list of cell phone numbers and entered them into our search apps that constantly searched cell site logs (people currently active on their cell phones). But she restricted them to the states of Nebraska and Iowa.

The OD said all the old mines where uranium was found were outside of cell coverage so there was no data trail linking specific cell phones to specific mines. And all the mines are on private property so the state could not order the owner to close them off. Most of the owners were ranchers and had business related things that took precedent over closing off old silver mines from the 1800s. They looked at those old mines as a nuisance and not worth any effort. In many cases the old mines were popular party spots for local teens. David noticed how far the OD went searching for information while trying to identify suspects and he complimented the OD for her work and promised to reward her after we got home.

Searching the live cell tower records is not without risks. The cell companies can see their network being queried, if their security was compromised the culprits could be tipped off that we were watching them. Normally, we'd search through the NSA database but those records arrive once a month in gigantic file transfers from each cell company. In this case we didn't totally trust anyone because feelings ran hot on the subject of nuclear power. Even our police liaison worried us because his office wasn't in the city police HQ office building. Was he possibly some kind of outcast or poser?

Back in our hotel room we chowed down on grocery store deli sandwiches, I got pastrami on wheat and he got a roast beef sandwich on white. I read his notes out loud while we ate and were connected live to the OD, she was taking notes too since we'd relied heavily on the OD to help with our investigations. The OD would have to keep up with everything we did in order to do her work and keep an eye out for hits on our cell alert application.

According to the FBI, one of their confidential informants said he participated in meetings to design the attack. They obtained uranium from an abandoned mine near Cortez Colorado, they found uranium ore that was fairly concentrated in places. They said they found a vein of concentrated uranium ore and pulverized it with a blender then they used a mortar and pestle to reduce it to a yellowish brown powder. So far they'd collected over one pound of ore and kept it in a large thermos bottle on the bottom of someone's backyard pool.

Since uranium is very heavy (heavier than lead) they could separate it from other minerals by panning, like gold prospectors. If done correctly the shiny metal left in the pan would mostly be uranium (and gold). So they collected their rocks and pulverized them in the car, then stopped at a river on the way home from Cortez and panned the powder to remove 89% of the ore. In the car they pulverized the ore with their mortar and pestle but had to keep the car windows closed.

I got an image in mind of the German scientists experimenting with x-rays and how they started to lose chunks of skin on their hands and they all died of cancers, how these Colorado people might be suffering similar health problems as the people that mined uranium in the 1800s when it was used as an agent to color glass.

It's called uranium ore because it's always mixed in with other local minerals and had to be chemically separated. The process is very similar to mining copper, gold, iron, and aluminum and is well described online.

The Uranium group was from Aurora Colorado, we already started a list of known collaborators. We tasked the OD with updating our files to include recent banking and medical info on the group too. We requested medical info in case any of them were being treated for radiation exposure related issues, not knowing the true nature of uranium ore. David asked the obvious question: how hard would it be to concentrate small quantities of uranium ore at home?

If these people were wandering around in very old silver mines with blacklight flashlights searching for uranium they were probably inhaling radioactive dust and concentrated radon gas too. Uranium glows brightly under ordinary blacklight. They went inside the mines and searched for the densest spots of uranium and broke them off with rock hammers and chisels and collected them in baggies until they had about ten pounds.

We heard once the ore was panned and crushed to a powder they spread it on mirrors and treated it like cocaine and used razor blades to separate out the powder that glowed under blacklight from the rest that was just plain old rock.

The chemical process to purify uranium was old and well documented in old textbooks and online. Uranium was innocently used for hundreds of years as a pigment for glass and ceramics. If raw uranium ore was 0.1% pure a simple manual hand separation might achieve 11-15% purity. A simple acid soak/rinse might increase that to 35%. There were other school lab tricks they could do to bring it up to 70% or higher. Remember, people were mining and refining the ore since the Middle Ages for glass makers, back then it was called Pescheblende. It took two German scientists two years to hand purify a small amount of uranium in the late 1800s, and also cost them their lives. Uranium typically has a half-life of well over 100,000 years.

The advantage of purified uranium meant a smaller payload in the drone and a powdery substance that was easier to disperse. The smaller the particles the more likely the targets would inhale them without noticing it (just like pollen or house dust). We understood that their goals were stopping the permit process and scaring people enough that nobody would volunteer to take their place on the board, forever. Even if the drone thing didn't work out they could mail uranium contaminated junk mail to them at home and eventually accomplish the same thing.

We discussed possible ways of air dispersing the powder and decided one of the cheapest ways would be using a balloon fastened to a toy quadcopter. Fly overhead and pop the balloon then fly away. They could pop it with a simple hot wire like our spiders used and the downdraft from the quadcopter would do the rest. Most small drones only 80 feet above the ground can't be heard or seen. They'd only need a small balloon (or even the finger off a rubber glove) to disperse a few ounces of uranium powder. Inflating it with helium would prevent it from adding weight and the pressure inside would help it burst so the drone propellers would disperse it like a large fan. Of course even helium filled party balloons on a long thin wire could accomplish the same thing except it would be more obvious.

Detective Bonham asked about protection from uranium. I reiterated the primary risks were from inhaled or ingested uranium. Inside the body it is attracted to bones and emits alpha particles and lasts practically forever. And when it fissions, the atoms near it also become radioactive. Carry an N95 mask and wash your hands if you come near the stuff. It generally doesn't enter the skin and alpha particles don't penetrate skin either. The risk is mostly from inhaling it.

We got off the phone after leaving the ODs with a list of stuff to research overnight. We finished our chow and took showers. While he was using the toilet I checked the hotel room for bugs and cameras but the spider found nothing. Then we showered together. I spent fifteen minutes hand washing his entire body, with a special focus on his boy parts. In the shower we agreed from now on to check each hotel room with a spider, regardless of the location.

As we got in bed he said it was likely the people that were refining the uranium ore were probably sick from radiation over-exposure but didn't realize it yet. At first the symptoms might be vague. He said we should have the FBI alert hospitals in Colorado to report patients with symptoms similar to: nausea/vomiting, skin sores, weakness/fatigue, bleeding, joint pain, diarrhea, headache, fever, and hair loss. It is not likely anyone else would suffer radiation sickness in those states. But there are still a few cases related to atomic weapon testing during the cold war in Nevada, Colorado, and Utah. David kind of mumbled his disapproval with my plan and said that everyone currently taking radiation therapy for cancer would experience those symptoms; we'd surely get lots of false alerts. So I agreed to modify my request before I asked the OD tomorrow.

Wednesday 6am.

The second morning in Omaha Detective Bonham met us at his office. It was within walking distance of our hotel; we stopped for coffee, rolls, and string cheese on the way.

That morning we compared our newest suspect list with theirs and got a few interesting hits and already had our suspects under electronic surveillance. But I knew our list was still incomplete, plus it addressed the two independent events, we were focused primarily on the terror attack and the OD was working on the LARPing (rented mob) protesters.

Two of the suspects in Colorado recently made purchases of supplies that could be used for refining uranium ore. One had also purchased party balloons and a helium tank, and also had a long history of purchasing drones and accessories. The other suspect went to the store and purchased swimming pool acid, air filters, coffee filters, plastic spoons, a large vacuum-type thermos, and a gold panning pan from a gift shop at a gold rush history museum.

The cops were amazed by how fast we obtained our data; they'd been at it for weeks. Everyone agreed the real threat was the uranium; we could probably stop the LARPers at a distant point by interfering with the rented busses down south on the highway. I suggested they stop the busses for some infraction and closely inspect their insurance, and for safety infractions (perhaps as minor as tire tread depth) that would lead to all three being impounded. They suggested calling the state highway patrol to get ideas regarding which rules they could be impounded for. Then they'll release the LARPers (stranded) along the highway and wish them luck finding a way home when all the way around them were vast wheat fields.

After that topic was satisfied most of the crew left to look into airspace security to see if they had any options with regard to downing a small drone. We suggested there was probably no way to safely land their drone once it was in the air, nobody should attempt to shoot it down.

I asked how far the walk was from where they park to the side door of the courthouse and he said it was about 150 feet at most. I asked if there was any kind of shelter in the parking lot and he said no, just cars. David said if we can't prevent the attack their best bet might be to evacuate the area. There were so many ways to attack the board members it would be impossible to prevent exposure.

Back on the subject of the rented protestors they had new information for us: over 200 people signed-up to participate, mostly between the ages of 16 and 22. Of the ones confirmed so far all were from rural St. Louis County and all of them were on some form of welfare, and all the males had arrest records for petty crimes. It appeared most of the protestors were homeless people.

"When are they arriving?" David asked.

"Saturday morning, they'll arrive at a downtown parking lot where they'll stage the group and hand out protest signs and help them put on masks to hide their identities."

During one of our breaks I asked the OD to call Duke and Luke and invite them to participate since this was their home town. But both of them were out of state for the week at a physical training equipment convention in Miami where they sold hormone pills, steroids, and supplements.

I told the group we would be live-tracking the primary suspects after they entered the state of Nebraska. David said our office in Texas would be live-tracking the charter busses starting Friday night and would keep us posted on their status. Like the Uranistas, we'd also follow the busses live after they entered Nebraska.

Around 1pm we disbanded for the day. We went back to the hotel and walked down the street to the courthouse again to try to figure out a way to bring down a drone without releasing any nuke materials. We even called our drone supplier in Chicago with that dilemma and he said no, anyway we crippled the drone might cause it to crash and release the material. The best way was to prevent it from flying in the first place. He said it would probably be operated from close-range, so draw a circle with a thousand foot radius circle from the target location. He said they had an anti-drone weapon being designed that shot a net from a shotgun that might work but it was experimental, and would still likely have the captured drone crash on the ground.

We spent the rest of the afternoon with a map and our cells taking photos of all the downtown buildings within 1500 feet. Our drone engineer in Chicago said at any downtown location there was a concentration of radio signals and interference, not to mention steel buildings. So they would probably be much less than 1500 feet away. Chicago guy said they would probably be line of sight to the intended release area. The concentration of radio signals made the flight area much smaller, perhaps 600-800 feet radius and included a multi-story parking garage, retail buildings, an apartment complex, and some hotel rooftops, but none of them had pools on public roof access. To me it suggested they'd use the parking garage and try to appear like average citizens watching the protest from a safe location.

We walked back to the hotel but stopped for carry out pizza and beer along the way. David carried the pizza box and I carried the case of cold beer up to our room. We got several comments as we crossed the lobby with the box exuding the wonderful scent of a hot cheesy pizza. In the elevator I told David I expected someone might start a smoky fire near the protest so the drone operators could see what the wind was doing. They might even use a slingshot to shoot a small smoke bomb. He said smoke might freak out the board and cancel the hearing and defeat the purpose of all those people gathering, so he doubted smoke or loud noises would be involved. I got out the photos to see if there was a flagpole in the parking lot and discovered there were two, so maybe the smoke idea was unnecessary. He told me, "Remember, their goal is to permanently halt the hearings, not to delay them."

The next thing I did while David poured beer into plastic cups and nuked our pizza slices, I looked at the forecast for Saturday. The weather was forecast to be sunny with wind from the southeast. The wind forecast told me they would use the parking garage across the street from the courthouse parking lot. That narrowed our list down to the parking garage, and the roof of an office building. I looked at our photos of that office building and saw it did not have exterior roof ladders, so it was probably off the list for launching the drone.

We also discussed that so far there had been no extortion attempts reported; the entire investigation was based on an informant's testimony. We were basing this entire plan on hearsay evidence obtained by people we don't know. This was not our typical way of doing investigations but it's the best available so far. What David and I are good at is predicting the future actions of people, he was seldom wrong when he relied on his gut sense.

"How smart should we assume the Uranistas are?" I asked.

"Rather, and just like religious zealots. I bet several of em er eager to die to stop the nuke plant (and get lots of likes on FB)." David answered but added that most of `em are probably mentally ill too, over-socialized and under-informed. They exist in a make-believe world on social media that they access on their slave trackers.

After more discussion we went back to the drone idea again and again; it was the cheapest and best plan we could devise in bed that evening. We also decided it could be done with a cheap tiny kid's toy drone that could even be flown by someone in the crowd who kept the controller hidden so nobody saw it and they could release the powder without being seen. Most cops had the mental image of a large drone controller with a telescoping antenna but what we pictured was a tiny drone with a very small controller, both of them could rest on the palm of your hand. They'd use a light blue balloon (or rubber glove finger) to make it even less visible from the ground.

We've seen these cheap kid's drones with a flashing light feature activated by a button on the controller, that circuit would be replaced by a tiny wire that heated and burst the balloon, then the powder was pushed down by the propellers and blown downward onto the parking lot. All they had to do was fly it over the board members, activate the balloon cutter, watch it burst then simply walk away into the crowd. With minimal effort and cost they could commit the biggest terror attack of the decade, except it could probably expose them to deadly levels of radiation.

We stressed the importance of the understanding that the drone did not need to be launched from a high spot, it could start on the ground and work just fine. All they needed was a few moments to unpack, attach the balloon and the cutting wire, and press the launch button on the controller. The rest could easily be done from within the crowd of protestors; the drone pilot would be totally inconspicuous.

I was well sauced by the time we shut off the TV and I rolled over and pressed my face into the pillow. I heard him breathing much slower and his face was already expressionless.

Soon after I fell asleep I had some weird dreams. It seems when I slept on a foreign bed I was prone to having bizarre dreams.

In my dream I was outside on our driveway hand washing and waxing my car. I saw a strange vehicle drive slowly past our driveway like he was up to something bad. It made me suspicious immediately. I set down the buffer on the car's roof and watched him drive along the curb on the wrong side of the street with one foot on the brake pedal. Six houses down the block he stopped and opened the door, I guessed he must be delivering pizza. I started the buffer again and was slowly moving it side to side on the roof of my car when I heard an unusual commotion and barking down the block.

The kids down the street were outside in their front yard playing with the garden hose, I saw the young man from the car run into their yard and shove down two kids. He grabbed the dog, picked him up and ran to his car and shoved the dog in his car. He got in and chirped the front tires taking off quickly while the kids screamed hysterically for help.

I shoved the buffer off my car and jumped in and cranked the engine and chased after the small car with my dog-friend Milo inside. While I raced down the street I realized all I had with me was a zombie knife and my cell.

The car with the kidnapped dog inside raced west towards Dyer Street but I quickly closed the distance. The entire time I raced down our street I felt my face get hot as my blood started to simmer with anger.

We both turned left (southbound) on Dyer Street and it was clear he saw he was being chased. The driver turned into our local grocery store parking lot, presumably in an attempt to ditch me. He jumped out of the car and took off running across the lot, ducking down between cars. I stopped and got out of my car and chased after him. The driver was fast on his feet so I changed course and ran to his car instead and opened the door. Milo was in the back seat trembling and panting, he looked scared but glad to see me. I shut the door and looked around the parking lot but lost sight of the kidnapper, but I had the dog and his car. I considered it was possibly stolen too.

Suddenly I was punched hard in the back of my head and fell forward onto the hood of his car. I heard the driver's door open and slam shut. Before he could get the key in the slot and start the engine I opened the hood, reached in and grabbed spark plug wires and pulled them as hard as I could. When he cranked the engine it wouldn't start. While he cranked it over and over I climbed on the hood and started pounding my fists on the windshield and screamed at him to get out of the car. The look on the kid's face was one of terror, his eyebrows nearly raised to his bangs as we made eye contact, then I glanced at the terrified 55 pound white poodle (my buddy Milo) in the back seat.

I screamed repeatedly to get out of the car but he sat there with a white knuckle grip on the steering wheel so I broke both off windshield wiper arms and threw them at the windshield as hard as I could. The kid ducked when the wiper arms crashed against the glass.

Then I slid off the hood and reached in my pocket and opened my knife and stabbed his radiator and heard it start to hiss and smell of hot antifreeze. Slowly, I moved around the front corner of the car, stopped and stabbed his driver's side front tire and heard it hiss as the corner of the car started to sink.

By then a group of bystanders had gathered to watch the show as I pounded on the driver's door glass and screamed at him to open the door, but he had already locked the doors. In the distance I heard a police siren.

Someone in the crowd held up a small automotive glass-punch. She tossed it to me and I caught it with a smile and said I only needed it for a second. I pushed it firmly against the center of the driver's window. Suddenly it clicked and the door glass shattered into a thousand little pieces. With a smile I tossed the punch back to the lady, she backed away. Now there were about ten people standing around watching the fight.

I reached into the young man's car and unlocked his door and opened it, then used my knife to slice his seatbelt. The young man was leaning as far away as he could when I reached in with my left hand and grabbed his shirt collar and started to pull as hard as I could. His shirt actually ripped into pieces so I reached in and grabbed his greasy long hair and pulled it instead.

It took a few seconds of him screaming until I had him on his back on the pavement between the parked cars. I leaned in and made eye contact with Milo, his tail wagged rapidly side to side with his bright red tongue hanging out dripping as he panted rapidly (I told him `I'll take you home Milo'). The cop car came to a screeching stop behind my Toyota and he ran up with his night stick in hand but no pistol drawn. I identified myself as a federal agent (and told him my ID card was at home), he should run my license plate right away. I told him the kid was under arrest for assault on a federal officer. He handed me his handcuffs and ran back to his car to run my plate after I told him I was unarmed except for the knife.

While he was gone I used my knife to quickly slice the kid's forehead twice making a large letter "L" for "Loser" right in the middle above his nose, which caused his forehead to bleed seriously. The kid screamed like a baby but I was sitting on his chest and arms pinning him to the hot pavement. With those two quick slashes I had him permanently marked then got up but kept one foot on his chest. A lady in the crowd handed the kid a wad of tissues to hold on his bleeding forehead. For hitting me I could have legally stabbed him in self defense. Head cuts bleed like crazy and the kid was nearly hysterical with blood dripping all over his head and face.

Some of the people in the crowd were shouting curses at me when they saw me mark his forehead while others cheered. The cop told them to leave but many stayed there, some ran cell cameras and filmed the ordeal.

The cop said he'd arrest the bleeding young man so I let him go.

I got Milo out of the back seat of the kid's car and carried him in my arms to my car and ran the AC full blast. I asked the lady who let me use her window punch to buy me a bottle of water from the machine outside the grocery store, which she did. When she got back I used the knife to slice off the top couple inches so it was the size of a glass and offered the water to Milo, he lapped most of it up with his tail wagging. 'Nobody messes with my friends,' that's what I told the young man as the cop escorted him in cuffs to his back seat and strapped him in. He kept shouting, "Why am I being arrested? Arrest him for stabbing me!"

The kid was taken to the city jail then to the ER where they glued his forehead laceration edges together, he'd spend the rest of his life with a large L-shaped scar to warn everyone (at a distance) what kind of idiot he was. I was asked to write a statement for the charges against the kid. I got the address of the cop station and said I had to return the dog he stole to the owners first, I'd meet him there.

About 10 minutes later I returned Milo to his family. We admonished the kids to not have the dog running loose in the front yard. I also suggested they always carry a small can of pepper spray when walking him around (they could buy tiny cans of pepper spray online that fastened to his leash). An AKC registered standard poodle was an expensive dog, they were stolen in public by organized dog theft rings.

Then I woke up and realized it was just a dream. David was still facing me, sound asleep with his face on the other pillow. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep again but my pillow was drenched with sweat. I hated the feel of a wet pillow case, even if it's my own sweat.

Today was Thursday morning and we had a lot of stuff to get done; all of us would be super busy. The OD was doing a huge amount of stuff like watching her 3rd computer screen for online notification when a target cell phone had entered Nebraska (or Iowa), or the target bank cards were used within Nebraska or Iowa. When we got out of bed we'd had no alerts yet. They were also monitoring the status of the three charter busses in Saint Louis but they wouldn't start moving until Friday evening.

We ate breakfast in the hotel because it was included. We got ham slices, toast, bacon, a scoop of a very thick omelet thing that was scrambled eggs with cheese, potatoes, and chili. We also got sourdough muffins and butter with packets of grape jelly. When he peeled his jelly open I asked if it was Merlot, but he turned it around, pressed the top down and stared at the tiny characters then said `Concord.' I wondered if you could make wine with concord grapes.

After that we went to the downtown police HQ building and met with the same group in their large conference room, I carried our laptop and David had the tablet computer. We brought the pelican case but left the Batsuit case in the hotel room in the closet.

I wore my glasses so the OD could listen (and record) what was said today. They had no alerts so far and had volunteers along I-80 in Iowa, west of Omaha, and south of town on I-29. The busses were still in Saint Louis but would probably leave there late Friday night to arrive here an hour before the protest time on Saturday morning when the licensing board people were expected to arrive and meet in the parking lot.

During the meeting the OD texted and I activated our cell tracking app and saw one of the suspects from Colorado had purchased gas and used his cell on I-80 in North Platte Nebraska, heading toward us. The name on the cell account was John Rourke. At that moment we had little information on the group but the OD was busy working on it. Once we got one name it made it easier to identify the others.

When the lead investigator finished the morning brief I stood and admitted we had intel that one of the uranium guys was now in Nebraska heading this way. One of the detectives blurted out they should have the state police arrest him on the highway but the rest of the people all grumbled at his outburst. We were here to catch them red-handed and dispense justice on the spot. That was why the Nebraska Governor's office called us, and that was our mission. David speculated this might be one of the first times we killed multiple people with machine guns in public, but the spiders and gas were still an option depending on the location/weather.

We were in meetings until 10am then boarded a jail van and rode over to the courthouse and walked around the parking lot and that entire city block. I noticed David kept glancing at the three story parking garage on the southeast side of the courthouse, something told him that was the place for us to stake out tomorrow. We didn't talk much but he kept glancing at it. We looked at all the trees in the parking lot and around the perimeter and saw nothing obvious. During our guided tour the wind was blowing from the southeast, from the direction of the parking garage across the street.

We broke for lunch at 12:45 and took a taxi to a restaurant downtown, which was locally known for steaks and excellent service. We heard the place was pricey (and had a dress code) too but I just wanted good respectful service like we always got at Ruth's and Cattleman's. The restaurant was near the riverfront park and was called Williams Steakhouse. The neon sign outside in the shape of a Martini glass looked to be about fifty years old.

We arrived in the parking lot with two detectives, the rest of the group said it was too expensive; they went to Applebee's.

We were seated right away; the corner booth and table were round with room for six adults. The booth had a leather bench and was partially isolated by curtains. Nobody was in a police uniform, we were all in business attire but both of us wore low rise black boots. We carried the pelican case inside and that prompted questions after we ordered drinks.

"You guys lug that around everywhere?" One of the detectives asked. He had introduced himself to us twice that day but I just sort of ignored his thing because we operated independently. We've learned from experience that it was better if the cops knew us a little before we used lethal force and ruined any chance of the suspect going to trial. They were focused on evidence and capture leading to trial and conviction but we were focused on making the crime stop, at all costs, quickly, permanently.

David said it held some special gear and satellite comms stuff and we were required to keep it in-sight 24-7. "Like what kind of special gear?" he asked David. I knew this was getting uncomfortable and he didn't want to be disrespectful so he often gave them a bullshit answer to end that topic of conversation.

"We carry an automatic, like an Israeli Uzi 9mm auto, we have some tracking gear and a small anti-helicopter weapon too."

"What exactly do you guys do?" he asked.

"We work for the Pentagon as an anti-terror service. Your governor requested our help since this is clearly a possible terror event, maybe the first one ever in Nebraska. Our mission is to identify the perps, arrest them, question them, and if they admit to it and show special knowledge enough to get a conviction we usually kill them on the spot."

"So the Pentagon doesn't believe in due process, speedy public trials, all that messy Constitutional stuff?" the detective asked.

"Well, this is our mission. The citizens of the USA do not know our service exists, but they clearly don't want a repeat of what happened on 9-11, so our service was created to stop terror and the people behind it. We're very careful to nail the right guys, and they pretty much have to be caught red handed and confess too. We don't pressure them to confess we just engage them in informal conversation first. Since we're not uniform cops the perps are always more open to discussing their plans."

"Huh." The other cop said as he looked around the dining room for any sign that our drinks were on the way.

I added, "We generally solve our cases within 48 hours and leave a dead perp for the cops to find."

The waitress walked up with a round tray and set down our glasses, the cops got mixed drinks, we got beers in tall glass mugs. Then she took our food orders. David and I both ordered ribeye steaks, 12 ounce medium rare, steak fries, steamed broccoli, and a large salad with Caesar dressing. Then our conversation continued.

I started, "Did you hear about the serial shooter in Vegas last month?"

The two cops shook their heads no, so I added, "Eight dead in twelve days, broad daylight, it was kept out of the news. They called us after the fourth victim and they still had no leads. We caught him in 49 hours, the shootings stopped." They just smiled and nodded yes then took sips of their cocktails.

"How'd you ID the sniper?" The younger cop asked and I said, "Good basic police investigation." Then he quickly asked how we killed the sniper.

"You mean how do we execute guilty perps?" He nodded yes. David picked up his steak knife and showed it to the cops across the table then he turned to face me and with one finger he touched a spot on the side of my neck with his index fingertip. Then we both sat there smiling at the two cops and all conversation stopped. David softly commented we had some extremely powerful weapons too; he raised the pelican case and said we usually carried a 75 kiloton nuclear warhead just in case.

Then I asked them if they heard about the meteor impact in the coastal town in Mexico a few years ago. One of they said yes, he recalled seeing it on the news. David repeated, "Extremely powerful weapons." `Huh,' was all the one cop said. Then to lighten the mood the other guy said, "Be sure to warn me if we're pissing you off, please."

We all laughed, then someone from the kitchen delivered our salads and a basket of bread rolls of different types. We all started eating our salads, but I reached over and grabbed the best roll from the basket and a packet of butter. The roll was still hot from the oven.

The older of the two detectives asked where we worked at the Pentagon. David said our office is in Texas. He asked if we were active duty military, and added that his son was in the Coast Guard in San Diego.

I immediately said San Diego was probably the nicest city left in California. David said we were both Navy officers, both of us were O6 grade. They both nodded yes and kept working on their salads. One of the service boys came by and filled our water glasses again so all conversation paused briefly.

The one cop, the older one asked David how many people he'd killed to stop terror and David asked him how many he'd killed. He replied, "Three in 17 years." So David said he didn't know our exact number but it was probably hundreds in ten years, many were in other countries. The older cop immediately said, "Like the CIA?"

David loudly dropped his fork and sternly said, "No, not at all like the CIA. We strictly obey federal guidelines and everything we do is recorded and reviewed by the Pentagon. We've rescued and saved dozens of innocent Americans and saved the lives of thousands in America, Mexico, and some overseas countries, stuff I can't talk about." I'm sure he was including Cambodia and Minneapolis.

"We also capture fugitives, some of the ones you saw on TV, a famous gun runner from the 1970s finally caught in Utah, it was us." I added.

The older cop said, "That's a nice story, funny, maybe a little scary too but I happen to know that a 75 kiloton warhead would never fit in a small plastic briefcase. The smallest plutonium warhead possible would be thicker than that case by at least six inches. It would be about the size of a basketball, but it would only be about 25 kilotons. You can't cheat physics, it's actually a calculation you can do on your cell phone." David just smiled and nodded yes then whispered to me, "That man has obviously never heard of daltonium." I never replied.

The younger detective said he'd like to see that warhead and David slid him our business card and said he needed to talk to the boss, but he'd need security clearance. There were some high ranking cops around the USA that had big security clearance, but the only big thing that old cop had was a big mouth.

The younger cop added, "Well, I like a nice story too and you said you also carry a surface to air missile in there too?" David raised the case higher and patted the side, like he was rubbing his full tummy and smiled. Then he said, "Actually, that's two 75 kiloton warheads and a surface to air missile too, and communications gear and a powerful military tactics computer, as well as some other secret stuff." The younger cop simply said, "Sure you do, and a partridge in a pear tree?" But we both just smiled. That was what we called `hidden in plain sight.' The more we told them what we actually carried the less they believed it, the less likely he was to call our captain too.

Since our conversation seemed to be spiraling downward I decided to change the topic to the assassination of Lincoln until our steaks arrived, I think the older cop's ignorant comments somewhat upset David. There was a new book on best seller lists about the 1865 assassination that included new evidence, like recently found letters by Booth and Mary Lincoln. Lots of people were talking about it lately.

Minutes after the first mention of the Lincoln Assassination one of the kitchen boys placed a folding stand near our table, and minutes later the waiter arrived with a large round tray and placed our plates, our steaks arrived sizzling and beautiful. I cut into mine and saw it was a perfect medium rare inside.

One of the cops said it became obvious reading the new best seller book about the assassination that Booth was seriously mentally ill and probably also an opium addict. Booth thought he would cross the Potomac River and stroll into Virginia to a hero's welcome with parades, medals, adoring women, and was very surprised to learn his crime was considered murder in Virginia too. He referred to the newspaper articles about the shooting as `reviews.' During their escape to Virginia they obtained newspapers daily so he could read about how much of a hero-celebrity he became.

During dinner David said if you read the court transcripts and newspaper columns you begin to see that the group of people they hung (Surratt, Powell, Herold, and Atzerodt) were all lunatics, especially Booth. Then as a joke David said, "It was obvious Booth wanted to be worshipped as an international celebrity and American hero, but what he should have done was shoot Mary Lincoln instead, nobody liked her. Maybe that was his plan but the presidential booth in Ford's Theater was so dark he shot Abe by mistake." The younger cop sliced his steak with a broad smile on his face and said, "Shoot Mary Lincoln, that's funny!" We laughed then the older cop asked us to change the subject since we were trying to eat. We all chuckled and finished our dinners. After the steaks and refills on our drinks we ordered dessert. I got a bowl of plain vanilla ice cream and David ordered a vanilla milkshake. The two cops ordered apple pie with a scoop of ice cream.

One of the cops said that since Booth was an actor he probably was self-obsessed, it's required for the job of being a stage actor. He said, "Imagine this, you are JW Booth in a DC bar drinking shots and playing poker with friends and after an hour of everyone talking about JW Booth he says, `well that's enough talk about me, let's talk about you instead. How do you feel about me?' We chuckled but it was funny because it rang true.

As we paid our bills the older cop asked David, "Mary Lincoln really was Looney Tunes?"

And David said "That's what people say, except maybe not her relatives. Lots of people think she was raging bipolar. You gotta feel sorry for Abe, but he stuck with her all those years. And yes, I honestly believe Booth was an addict."

I added, "Back then opium was grown in Spain, refined in France, and smuggled overseas. That's what the movie The French Connection was about. Today, most heroin comes from Columbia, Mexico, China, and Afghanistan. Today, it's the CIA Connection and they fight to keep the heroin from Columbia out of North America, that's the real war on drugs."

One of the cops said, "You think the heroin in Omaha comes from Afghanistan?" David said, "Yes, it's refined in Mexico and comes into Texas on freight trains along with meth, cocaine, pot, and Fentanyl. The precursors mostly pass through China now, straight into Mexico. There is an international money laundering operation that's nearly as big and well protected and involves some of the biggest names in banking. But you notice that subject is never mentioned on TV."

The cop said, "You think drugs get here by train?"

And David said, "Yes, do the math yourself. Search online, find out how many pounds of drugs are used in one month in one state, like New York. Then calculate how much cubic space all that takes up and how much it weighs. You quickly see it could only be shipped by rail. Do the math. You gotta search around because that subject is suppressed in the media, always has been." The cop just said `Huh,' as we stopped at the bar to pay for our meals. I quietly repeated to the cops, "The things you never see in the news are the transport of large quantities of narcotics from Mexico to the USA, or the cash going back in the opposite direction." The one cop said he's seen reports of large drug busts and I told him, "Yes, that's the stuff coming from Colombia, not Mexico. That's what the real war on drugs is about, keeping out drugs that compete with the CIA."

We made it back to the hotel by taxi at 9:45, showered separately and went to bed. Tomorrow would be a very busy day.

At 5:59am Friday my cell rang, it was the OD calling. They got a hit on one of the cell accounts associated with people mining uranium, and it wasn't for a glass arts class at the community college.

The cell was first logged on I-80 heading east toward North Platte and could arrive here later today. We had no info on the vehicle or how many people were coming, just that it was headed toward us. They were also closely monitoring the three charter busses that will be coming north from Saint Louis tonight, and still trying to identify the money source behind the rented angry mob of Larpers and the busses.

That's one of the disappointing things about our modern society, when people want to protest something (like the permit to construct a nuclear power plant) they cannot find enough actual people opposed to it so they resort to hiring actors to protest in front of the TV cameras to create the illusion of a large number of people against nuke power. We suspected the money for the busses and the Larpers had some connection to the coal mine workers union because of the very large coal mines in Minnesota, the Dakotas, and Canada. Nuclear could put them out of business.

I know from living with him for a decade that LARPing really pissed off David, so I anticipated eventually we'd find the person that organized the fake protests, especially if they became violent.

All morning we got hourly distance updates from the OD, it was just a three digit number that eventually became a two digit number as the vehicle from Colorado approached Omaha. We spent the day with the state police lead investigator and did our best work arranging a defense for protecting the licensing board tomorrow morning. We walked the route they used across the parking lot and inside the side door of the downtown justice building. We did not accept assignments to be armed and ready because we needed flexibility to go where the uranium might be deployed. We believed it would end up on the top level of that downtown parking garage but we had to be ready to switch positions.

At 11:05am the OD notified us they finally got the payoff information about who rented the charter busses. The name was Russell Varner of Minnesota, he was a lobbyist and gas station owner. Of course renting busses is not illegal or immoral. We told her to try to trace the money back to the source, who was above the lobbyist with the big checkbook? Fourteen minutes later they said the vehicle from Colorado just entered Omaha and exited the freeway and stopped at a motel. We got the address and left for that location. There was a tiny rad detector we carried in the pelican case that plugged in the USB port on our cells that chirped whenever it got hit by rad particles. Of course it was hit 24/7 because background rad on Earth was never ending, but it was low level. It took us 18 minutes to find the motel and found one vehicle with Colorado plates and called that to the OD along with pictures.

We got a room in the same motel, next door to theirs. After we showed our ID cards the lady at the front desk said they had reservations, it was a couple, younger, maybe early 30s that secured the room with a credit card but paid in cash for two nights. They were in room 107, we got room 108 and parked two spaces over. I got out a spider and inserted an extra battery and a sleep gas pellet in anticipation of his wishes.

We both sort of brain-froze for a few seconds staring at each other in the small motel room... we both forgot. Did the spiders have the ability to sense radiation? A quick call to the OD and ten minutes later she texted back: Per Nevada: NO RAD DETECTION. David mumbled, "Fuuuuuuuuck." I researched food and beer while he checked out our room since the one next door would probably be the same layout or a mirror image.

It had become standard procedure recently: anytime someone else assigned our room we always scanned it for microphones and cameras. He started the process by getting one of his spiders out and activating it on the table by the front window, within seconds it quickly ran off after scanning the entire room.

A little after sunset David went outside, climbed up in the bed of the truck and gently tossed the spider on the roof of the motel and came back in the room. He gently shut the door so it was nearly silent. We put our glasses on, I manually steered it to the sewer vent and down the pipe to the largest turn, and it had to be the toilet, a three inch pipe. Soon, I saw daylight and exited the crapper and found a towel on the rack and wiped off the lens. We keep forgetting to send a message to Nevada to add a routine to do it automatically.

From there we drove it to the ceiling, out of the bathroom and slowly into the main room. The TV was on and a couple was on one of the beds making out in their underwear. Since they were busy we checked their room and found one suitcase on the dresser, the top was open and leaned back against the mirror so I drove the spider onto the lid so we could look down inside.

We saw a very small but bright yellow child's toy drone and a small controller, that told me their plan was for line-of-sight to the release point and that they could blend into any crowd and not be noticed steering the drone with its tiny controller, which was barely bigger than a pack of cigarettes, even with two joysticks and several buttons. I moved the spider closer to see the brand name, and sent that photo to the OD so she could search online for the manual. They're commonly sold on eBay for about $15 as a small child's toy.

We suspected they would have disabled a feature of the drone, like external LEDs and apply that voltage to a bare copper wire to burst a balloon and release the uranium powder. We were not detecting any unusually higher radiation levels in our room, even against the wall between our rooms it still showed nothing but normal background levels, which was typically 0-7 ticks every eight seconds.

A nuclear particle had to pass between the metal plates inside the Geiger tube to make it click, so it only sensed that tiny space inside the tube. When a particle passes through the tube it functioned like a switch and turned on a light, if it got hit by enough particles the clicks start to sound like a steady tone that increases in pitch with more hits. It doesn't matter much or what kind of particle hits the tube, just so it passed between the plates. Although the outside of the Geiger tube itself will block most Alpha particles, some will still get through.

At 6:49pm the suspect couple left their room and drove off empty handed. We guessed it was dinner time so I put on gloves and air filters and left our room and picked the lock on their door and went inside with the radiation sensor. David watched on the spidercam. I found the suitcase and got a very high reading of radiation inside the case and lifted up a Ziploc bag with what looked like desert sand. We had a discussion over Whispernet what to do, should we substitute it with actual sand, and we doubted they had a rad detector. The counter showed a level around 900 micro-Sieverts an hour.

I put the baggie back and told David I bet they're covered with uranium dust, inside and out. They're probably already starting to feel sick. This seemed to be a suicide mission for them. It also meant they were either highly ignorant or extremely involved in the nuclear fear cult. Although I gotta admit there are a few places where people can grow-up that would give them a hatred of radioactive stuff; people from Colorado, Utah, and Nevada have good reason to be anti-nuke. I walked into the bathroom and scanned the used shower towel and found it was radioactive too, then I scanned the floor of the shower and it was hot too. I decided to get the hell out of there.

After checking the walkway outside through the curtains first I left their room and made sure the door was locked. Back in our room David was sitting on his bed with his glasses on. I watched him drive the spider to the wall above their front window.

We had to decide what to do with them and the uranium powder. One thing was certain it would never be used as they intended. We again discussed taking their stuff and replacing it with actual sand but didn't want to risk sending them back to Colorado where they would come up with another terror plan. We discussed if this met the criteria for execution and David said this 100% fit the definition of a terror attack. If they pulled it off the main goal was to terrorize the civilian population in the Midwest. So we decided to let them get close to deployment then stop it. We haven't killed many young hetero couples in the past, so they might be our first.

I asked David if we stopped them on the top level of an outdoor parking garage how would he do it, spider gas might not work outdoors because of the wind. He said we'd probably have to use the machine guns and hope nobody else got hurt by stray bullets bouncing off the concrete structure.

"Do we have any soft lead ammo with us and he said no. So we called our cop liaison (Bonham) and asked if they had any soft lead hollow point 9mm ammo we could use. He said he's call us back. The rounds we needed would have tips like the sniper in Vegas used, except ours are only 9mm, which is a rather small round compared to hunting ammo. They were designed to hit a body and disintegrate into metal fragments. The ammo would slice and dice blood vessels and organs inside the body but it might not drop them quickly. This situation was a good example of why we carried machine guns. We also requested using an unmarked van tomorrow and we'd park it on the garage roof and hide inside, and when they arrived we'd open fire once one of them brought out the drone with the balloon attached. That met our legal requirements for using lethal force. We also advised them to keep all cops without vests out of the area, and it might be a good idea for one person to have a Geiger counter handy but hidden.

Five minutes later he called back and said the ammo was no problem we could pick it up at his office any time after 8pm today. He got us two boxes of fifty rounds, hollow point 9mm fragmentation re-loads. We decided to get them tomorrow morning.

We updated the OD and she said the busses were at the loading place, an abandoned strip mall parking lot in northern Saint Louis County, they'd be leaving soon and should arrive in Omaha tomorrow about one hour before the board members were due to arrive and enter the courthouse. The hearing was due to start at 10am tomorrow, Saturday morning. We were told there have been small protest crowds each time the board meeting was open to the public.

They had two state troopers assigned to stop all three charter busses on the highway south of Omaha on US-75 at the Fairview Road overpass where they will be held along the highway (under the overpass so they're in shade) and then released. From that location on the shoulder of the highway every one of the LARPers will have to find a ride back to Missouri, probably calling their mommies to come rescue them.

All three busses will be towed to an impound lot, and eventually the person who paid for the fake protests and the busses will be identified and visited at home. The most recent data showed the money for the busses came from a bank in Rochester Minnesota.

Near the Fairview Road overpass is a small gas station/convenience store where they can walk for water and wait for a ride home. Stranding them out in middle of nowhere was sort of a polite F.Y. message from the State Police and the people of Nebraska. The state troopers were told to remind them they came here to demonstrate-riot-destroy-and injure law abiding citizens so they should start walking back to Missouri and never come back to Nebraska again.

The troopers were prepared for the protestors to get very angry once they learned they were stranded in rural Nebraska miles from anywhere except one small gas station. They were advised to carry the largest canisters of pepper spray available just in case.

Protest Day.

Captain Johnson called us at 5:59am and woke me first, he wanted to remind us to be extra careful today since we were dealing with a highly toxic substance, he wanted us to wear nasal filters and keep our gloves and glasses on and be very careful if we opened fire on the two people, but be sure they were dead before police arrived. We'd probably have to declare a hazmat situation if the uranium was spilled.

We decided not to eat because both of us felt anxious about what could go wrong. Neither of us even had coffee and our hands were already trembling. We had our gear in the truck and were waiting to see movement next door, so we stayed in our room and listened carefully. David kept checking the spider and saw them get out of bed at 8am, both of them showered and got dressed.

The hearing started at 10am and it was about a twenty five minute drive on US-6 to downtown Omaha. They left the motel and we left 60 seconds after them. Before they left we drove the spider into their suitcase so we could track them on our glasses. On the streets we stayed about two hundred feet behind them but at that distance we barely got any signal from the spider.

They stayed on Route-6 and parked one block from the courthouse in a library parking lot and sat there. We drove to the downtown police office to get the ammo and an old un-marked city utilities van and drove it to the top level of the garage, toward the center of that level and parked it with the sliding side door facing where they would most likely park.

Ten minutes later my heart was pounding. David sat low on the driver's seat watching the up-ramp to this level. I sat on the filthy hard steel floor in back with both machine guns ready to grab and shoot. Behind me our pelican case was open and everything was activated. We were also monitoring the spider's microphone inside their suitcase. After we parked in the garage we had a full scale signal from our spider once again, but it was only beaconing its location, I think it couldn't hear them talk. Even with an extra battery we still had to be cautious about running it too much. It was set to beacon every 120 seconds if it sensed movement or voices.

David gestured he wanted his automatic, so I reached over and handed it to him, he cycled the lever and ejected two rounds, I picked them up and put them in my shirt pocket. "We gotta be careful, these are someone else's re-loads," he commented about the ammo. We've never had any problem with police ammo before but this wouldn't be a good time to start!

"You wanna get in Batsuits just in case?" He looked at the time and said we had to move quickly. So we silently stripped and pulled on our Batsuits just in case the bullets ricocheted off the concrete toward us. Above waist high there was no concrete except some lights on poles but below the waist this garage was solid reinforced concrete. Soon after we left the motel the OD texted that all three busses had been stopped on the highway a while ago and impound tow trucks were coming. The final body count was 219 people stranded under the overpass. Out where the busses were stopped it's flat land all the way to the horizon with a few housing additions scattered around. She added it was a nice day for a walk. We chuckled. For a while David propped his auto, the butt of the stock on his thigh and the barrel pointing straight up, his face pressed against the side as he watched out across the rather large parking garage. Beyond that the downtown buildings and lots of trees were all we could see below the sky. David looked kind of cute holding his cheek against the MP9, but I could see he still looked tired and worried. It was starting to get warm inside the van so he cracked two windows open.

Immediately after we changed into our Batsuits the couple from Colorado drove up to the top level of the garage, drove past our van, and parked by the far sidewall for the best view of the courthouse parking lot. Then we put on latex gloves, air filters, and put our glasses back on. David told the OD the target vehicle just arrived.

We heard the city police talk on their radios as the licensing board people arrived in their cars. One by one they got out of their cars and stood in a group for their walk across the parking lot to the courthouse entrance. As the yelling increased Mr. and Mrs. Uranista got out of their car and opened the trunk and got out the drone and controller. They seemed to ignore our van since it looked pathetic and abandoned.

I saw her put batteries in the controller and he turned the drone over to switch on the power. The back bumper of their car was about 70 feet from the side door of our van. We watched him use double sided tape to stick the long skinny sky-blue balloon to the bottom of the drone to make it harder to see from the ground. After he taped a wire to the balloon it looked ready to fly. We moved together to the back of the van beside the sliding door with the tinted window, we could watch them but they couldn't see us. Through my glasses I told the OD to call the motel manager now about contamination, and make sure she was recording our feed starting now.

As soon as he started to power-on the drone I silently slid the door open and we got out with our automatic weapons aimed, but their backs were turned toward us. They were against the edge wall of the garage so they probably only heard the commotion going on down by the courthouse where protestors were shouting at the board members while they waited for the last car to arrive. There were protestors on the sidewalk all around the parking lot shouting and waving pre-printed signs. But at least the LARPers were not there to agitate, cause violence, loot stores, and set fires.

David shouted, "Put down the drone and controller and step away or we will shoot you." As he shouted that I saw both of them freeze briefly, and it looked like she said something to him.

They stood there frozen and I shouted "Gently set the drone and controller down by your feet right now or we will shoot you." They glanced at each other and the guy spun around to face us and raised the drone high above his head and started to walk toward us. He raised both arms as if he was going to throw it against the concrete deck as hard as he could. When he raised his arms his lower belly was fully exposed, I saw a trembling red laser dot around his belly button. Over Whispernet I heard David say, "Fuck this!" He opened fire at the guy so I fired at him too. She turned around and stood frozen inches from him and watched us shoot him.

Let me tell you, an automatic rifle is hard to keep aimed at a small target, even if the firing mechanism employs a large buffer spring. It was a struggle to keep the shots low on his center belly but with the concrete wall behind them we saw puffs of dust as the rounds that missed him impacted the concrete wall. I watched his body closely and saw several rounds hit his lower abdomen, they appeared like large black spots on his pale flesh. Because of the wall we mostly had to aim below belly button height. I know I got him at least five times then I paused. David stopped when he first dropped to his knees and lowered his arms then fell forward to the concrete and the drone slid from his hand, the balloon was still inflated.

Like him, she held the controller above her head. We already planned to shoot both of them for terrorizing the public; if she stood trial it would be years of hearings and spending the rest of her life in a federal prison. David moved his laser dot onto her shirt, low center of her stomach. I saw the red dot appear an inch or two above her belly button. Then my laser dot appeared near his, and like it was in silent slow motion he fired a group of five rounds into her lower abdomen, one or two of which probably severed the nerves and arteries to her legs. She collapsed dropping to her knees and then her hip, then her head hit the concrete. The drone controller slid away from her hand and came to rest inches away from him.

We quickly approached them and checked pulses, David whispered, "He's alive," I said, "She's alive too but it's very fast." I pulled out my knife and opened it and handed it to him. He jabbed the side of his neck, wiped the blade on his shirt and handed it back, I did the same thing to her. When the knife blade sliced her artery I actually felt it snap like jabbing a natural casing bratwurst with a fork. She flinched and moaned loudly when I stabbed her neck because she was still awake.

He picked up the drone and opened the bottom and sliced the battery wires and set it up-side down on the floor (balloon up), I got the controller and shut it off and removed the batteries and dropped them beside the controller. I wiped the knife on her jeans then closed it and put it in my Batsuit lower leg pocket because it was a sticky bloody mess, and probably uranium contaminated too. I tried not to touch them or their stuff.

He pulled the cell out of his pocket and plugged in the rad detector and once the app started it clicked like crazy near the drone, but the balloon never broke. Then I took off one glove and used my forearm keyboard to tell the spider to return to me. I used the cell to scan her from feet to face and found she was very radioactive. Then I checked inside their car and saw the same readings (410 micro-Sieverts per hour). While David took photos and sent them to the OD I scanned the male and found he was also radioactive all over. I was silently very proud of David because this mission ended exactly as he predicted. The perps acted exactly as predicted too. Once again my husband's super powers saved the day. I softly told him `good work' but he ignored it.

With our nasal filters still in place we walked back to the van and got inside and shut the doors. We didn't speak for a while. He handed me his gloves and started the engine and we left the parking garage. By the time we hit the street there still weren't any cops so it appeared nobody saw or heard what just happened. We drove back to the downtown police office building and returned the van and one entire box of 9mm ammo and got in our truck and drove back to the Even Hotel, took showers, and got in bed.

On the drive back to the hotel we discussed shooting and he said he fired twenty rounds at him, five at her. He thinks he hit him 13 times and severed the main nerves going to his legs and his femoral arteries too. I said I got him maybe 6 times and her five. I told him I saw dark round spots appear on his stomach when he opened fire, I've never seen that before on living human flesh. I saw it like it was in slow motion and never heard the sound of shots fired.

We asked the OD what became of the busses and she said the group of rented protesters eventually walked to the gas station for shade and water and over the span of five hours got rides, shared rides, and everyone eventually found rides back to Saint Louis. She also said she had all the contact info for the person who paid for everything, I wrote down the address and then we got out of bed.

In downtown Omaha the final hearing took place on schedule, and outside local people protested loudly but nothing was set on fire and nobody was arrested.

Our next stop was Rochester Minnesota, which was 350 miles, five hours up I-29 to I-90 then most of the way east across Minnesota to Rochester to meet a man named Bud Wilkinson. We already had his picture, address, cell phone from the OD, he was a rich bastard that hated the USA despite having a lot of money in the bank from his chain of gas stations on I-90. I guess for some wealthy people they were still miserable and needed things to hate. I think Bud was Harold's nickname. Bud sounded nicer but I think his parents should have named him `Stoopid' instead. Driving across southern Minnesota is just as boring as driving across Nebraska. When we got within one hour of Rochester the sun was still up but it was late in the day. We started tracking his cell phone which was currently in a coffee shop near downtown Rochester. We heard he spent hours there daily using his computer and sometimes meeting people too. He liked to run his business from the coffee shop instead of at his home office.

We arrived about the time he normally left to drive home. The coffee shop was in a nicer part of downtown.

I got coffees and David grabbed a table beside Bud's, if the guy suddenly got up he was going to stop him from leaving.

After drinking some of our coffees we both got up and moved over to chairs at his table, Bud looked totally surprised.

"Can I help you gentlemen?"

David started, "We know who you are and what you did. We want to talk about the protesters in Omaha at the nuclear licensing board hearing."

Bud said he had no comment and we had to get away from him or he'd call the cops. He pulled out his cell and hit the button on top to take pictures. David snatched it from his hand and slowly lowered it into his tall cup of coffee, the guy stared at his cell as it short circuited in the hot coffee then he looked at it and slid his chair back but we both put hands on his shoulders and pressed him back down. By then Bud's face and ears had turned blood red and he looked scared too.

David told him about the people he hired to protest, "You had to rent poor ignorant people from Saint Louis because there ain't enough legitimate opposition to the nuke plant in Iowa, Nebraska, or Kansas."

Bud simply said, "Free speech," and David sat there calmly and agreed. We told him, "It was very sleazy renting people to pretend to protest and try to get them wound up enough to smash windows, loot, and set fire to stores in downtown Omaha. The law abiding people in Nebraska think you are a dangerous asshole for doing that." The OD said she watched y-tube videos of people on the bus and how the organizers tried to convince them to destroy and loot, so I mentioned that to Bud while he sat there with his red face and ears.

We told him today we were not going to kill him but he was to never again set foot in Nebraska and never again organize or fund protests or we'd kill him. David told him we needed to convince him we were serious. Bud said he'd never do it again but we could see it was another lie so I pulled out my knife and unfolded the blade and ordered him to go the bathroom with us or I'd slit his throat.

The three of us stood up, David quickly drank the rest of his coffee then spilled my coffee and walked up to the counter and asked for a towel then the three of us went to the men's room. David pushed him up against the sink counter and took his hands and raised his arms behind his back and lifted them until Bud groaned loudly and tried to struggle free. David gestured to his right thumb and with one finger sort of drew a line. I tightly gripped my knife and with one super fast and strong movement I gripped his thumb with one hand and sliced it cleanly off the side of his hand, all three segments were in my left hand.

We quickly released Bud, his hand was bleeding badly. David handed him the towel to wrap around it and we quickly left the men's room. We walked to the table and David grabbed Bud's laptop computer and cell then we walked out to the truck and drove off. I don't know how long Bud stayed in the bathroom but we never saw any commotion in the coffee shop as we backed out of our parking spot near the door. The entire front side of the store was glass; I think it used to be something like a 7-11. I gave the order to the OD to proceed with part-2 of our lesson plan for Bud; she electronically transferred all the money out of his bank accounts, personal and retirement. Since we had nobody in mind to give it to we kept it for now, he had just under nine million in both accounts. But after she was done he only had twenty dollars left! On the drive out of Rochester I opened my window and threw his thumb out into the ditch along the road, followed by his dripping cell phone.

From Rochester we made it down to Kansas City and stopped at a chain hotel for the night. Same routine as in the past we found a nearby grocery store and got food and beers and had a nice evening by their indoor pool eating sandwiches and drinking cold beer in plastic cups with ice to help keep them cold.

The next morning we drove west to Topeka then south to Tulsa and back home via Amarillo, Clovis, Ruidoso, and that long super boring drive on US-54 from Alamogordo to El Paso. The last 100 miles of the trip home was always the worst. We stopped for burgers and fries a few times on the long ride home from Kansas City.

Before we got home the OD called and said there was a reward just posted for the capture of the terrorists that attempted to spray radioactive waste on the public outside the downtown Omaha Federal Courthouse, it offered $9,000 bucks and she already applied for us. On the way home we decided to cash the reward check and give all of it to the ODs, one thousand cash for each one. Without their help we never would have stopped both groups from damaging Omaha.

We got home just after 1am and showered and scanned ourselves for radiation and then went to bed. I got traces of tiny hot spots on our Batsuits but they always went into plastic bags and directly to the laundry service, we only wore them once and were not allowed to clean them ourselves. David told me he needed to get our truck to the Toyota dealer for service, maybe new tires. Our truck already had 142,000 miles and was on its second set of tires.

We slept until noon the next day then set our status on the alert box ready-stand by. I ordered replacement spiders, pellets, and batteries. He got out the automatics and we had a cleaning party on one of the kitchen booth tables, but I got him to take his shirt off first. After that we drove to the airport and exchanged our suits for new ones and advised the OD to tell them they might have a few specs of uranium on them. David said they'll probably get sent to a nuclear waste facility to be incinerated.

We planned on taking a few days off to replenish our mojo. That day we were invited to go bowling with Cousin Mark and his latest GF, I declined the invitation but David went and was gone for three hours and came home drunk at dinner time. I cooked him a half pound burger with mushrooms and a thin layer of Cheez Whiz, served on toast with slices of tomato and raw onion. I actually made two, one for each of us.

I told David about my dream about the deadbeat that stole Milo and how I rescued my buddy. David's comment surprised me. He said there was a spirit of something in Milo that I was attracted to. He said Milo liked me but not as much as he wanted to help me recover, he liked helping people and sensed my handicap and wanted to fix that injury. He said some people are like that, it's sort of like what draws people to risk their lives to be firemen or paramedics. Later on he told me some Indian spirit leaders would see snake venom as an evil spirit, and the anti-venom hunts down that spirit and breaks it down into powerless pieces, but it is refined from the evil venom itself. He described it as like anti-matter, like in the original Star Trek TV series, it's electrically the opposite and when they combine they cancel each other out.

After dishes he pulled me outside and gently stripped off my clothes. While I stood there and he removed my clothes I was watching next door to see if Jeremy was in his bedroom watching us. Then he took my hand and walked me down the steps and into the pool, he fucked me hard on the shallow-end steps. I was on my knees holding onto the railing while he nailed me from behind for about six minutes. Then just to show off he suddenly pulled out, grabbed his dick really hard and leaned over me and squirted semen on my back, in my hair, but most of it landed in the water. He knows I'd rather have it in my mouth than in my hair. Luckily I haven't got any tadpoles in my eyes in over a year. That's the price you pay for being married to a guy that can squirt nearly five feet. I'm hoping by the time he turns 40 it will only be two feet.

Contact the author: borischenaz mailfence

I realize these chapters seem very real, but keep in mind this is totally made up, none of it happened, all these characters never existed.