K Street, Chapter 20

Jeff finds himself in Washington DC on business trying to close a big deal for his company where he meets up with Nancy again, the FBI agent he had fallen in love with in Atlanta nearly two years ago. Jeff is separated from his wife because of Nancy’s letter. Jeff continues to attract women without trying, some of them with deadly intentions. Jeff and Nancy soon find themselves in the center of intrigue with Israelis and Iranians feeling threatened by the impending deal, determined to kill the deal at any cost―even at the cost of Jeff’s life! The surprising twists will make the reader gasp, the love scenes will make the reader sigh.

Chapter 20 of K Street... Jeff comes up with a brilliant plan!

Monday 7:38 PM: Stalemate

They discover ODS is a sham, only two people! And they are broke! Jeff ponders this situation, then suddenly he comes up with a brilliant plan!

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Thanks for taking time, and enjoy!
- Chris Lamela

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Author contact: Chris Lamela, chris@chrislamela.com, 707-566-8790 PST

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               K Street, Chapter 20

Monday 7:38 PM: Stalemate

 

     Nancy looked around the room seeing the pall cast upon the faces around her.

     “Listen,” all eyes turned to the General, “I need to go, but you have your directive. Find this shooter.” He looked to Arnie, “Keep me in the loop.” He stood, a second later the curtain wafted closed behind him.

     Nancy sat back with an exasperated sigh. “Guys, this is getting us nowhere. We’ve had worse than this, there aren’t that many players. Our instructions are clear: we are to work solely on finding the shooter.” She peered at each face, going face to face―none looked back to her.

     Turning to Arnie, “Come on Arnie, give us one of your famous shots in the arm like you always do, we really need some help here.”

     Arnie sat in silence, no wide smile forthcoming, puzzled, speechless. It was obvious to Jeff that no shots in the arms were coming from Arnie’s quarters.

     Without thinking Jeff scooted his chair forward, “Look, this can’t be that hard!” He held up his left hand with his fingers splayed in display. “Who can be sending this guy? It has to be somebody who wants this deal killed. I mean how many can that be?” Pointing with his right forefinger to his left thumb, “There’s the Israelis. I know they say that they are only passively interested in this whole deal, but I definitely count them in. I mean, after all they took a shot at me, right?” He pointed to his left pointer finger, “Then there’s the Iranians. Clearly they hired whoever is the shooter, but he must not be an Iranian or they could easily turn him off.” He pointed to his left middle finger. “There’s the U.S. Government, there may be somebody at the Pentagon that doesn’t want this deal.”

     “I don’t see that,” piped up Earl, “whoever this is was appointed from within the little circle of players, I just don’t see a mysterious new player like that.”

     Jeff nodded, “Yeah, you’re right. So let’s just call this little piggy the hit man.” Jeff picked up a pen from the table painting a little mean-looking face on his left middle finger. “There, how’s that?” amusement rose from the table. “So who else do we have?”

     “There’s the ODS,” Earl suggested softly. Jeff pointed to his ring finger nodding to Earl.

     Arnie’s sudden deep ponder made everyone turn to him, “You know, we don’t know much about those guys. I mean, who are they really? It sounds like they really need this deal, yet I keep getting conflicting vibes.”

     Raising her hand Nancy started to speak, putting her hand back down with a deep frown.

     “Nancy, what is it?”

     “I don’t know, but you used the term conflicting vibes. It occurred to me that’s what has been bugging me about the meetings I have attended with those guys. I mean for a deal that seems to be so important I’m not getting the sense that everyone there is on board.” She looked around the table, “I mean, does that make sense?”

     Earl raised his hand the same way Nancy did, Arnie nodded to go ahead, “I have been doing some analytics on ODS using various sources. Compared to others in the arms dealer industry their track record for clean deals is scarce.” Nancy frowned but with an encouraging tint leaning toward Earl, “I mean usually those guys just get everyone in the room, envelopes and papers are passed around then everyone walks away. There seems to be too much ceremony in their deals. My experience with too much ceremony is that means there are other side deals going, that someone is trying to orchestrate things that are outside of the view of the players at the table.” He stretched out his hands on the table, “I mean, I’m only an analyst, but I can’t help but feel that ODS is making this deal much more complicated than it needs to be, even for such a complicated deal like this one.”

     Sitting back, Jeff reflected on his meeting at the ODS office on Friday, remembering the feeling that he had that something was just not right.

     Arnie folded his fingers together in front of his face in thought, “You mean that there are two tracks going within the organization, like one team at ODS is trying to do the deal while others are trying to either derail it or change the outcome. You mean like instead of the weapons―” turning to Jeff apologetically, “I mean the systems may be going other places that we don’t know about?”

     “Yes, exactly. I am not sure what the scenario is, but I would put money on the fact that this deal is not what we think it is.” Earl sat back with a satisfied grin.

     “So who are the key players at ODS that could be the decision makers?”

     “Well, Tom McAllister is the CEO,” Nancy pondered, “he has been clued into everything. My sense is that he really wants the deal.”

     Nancy turned to Arnie, “Arnie, I know it’s short notice, but can you get Tom over here? We need to know what his drive is.”

     Arnie stood up, walked through the curtain coming back two minutes later, “He’ll be here in ten minutes.” Nancy nodded.

     “So what else do we know about ODS?” Arnie asked Earl.

     “We only know three of their key players, really, though Nancy may know more.” Earl turned to Nancy, “I know Tom McAllister, Shawn Roberts, though he says he doesn’t work for ODS, then there’s a Harold Meyers who is the principle congress liaison, at least he’s the one always seen around Capitol Hill, I don’t know, but Nancy would know.”

     All eyes turned to Nancy, “This is kind of embarrassing to say, but those are the only people I have met at ODS.” An elevated air of confusion arose in the room.

     Arnie turned to her, “You mean that’s all you’ve met there? I mean Nancy, you know that I trust you, but I’m a little surprised that you haven’t met more people there. I mean they say that they have something like thirty four employees. You’ve been to their offices, right, aren’t there other people there when you go?”

     Nancy’s face flushed in anger, she glanced sideways at Arnie, Jeff could tell that she didn’t like being called on the carpet like this in public, but she just shrugged. “That’s all that are ever there.”

     “But I hear a woman’s voice when I go up the elevator, I met her.” Jeff pondered.

     “Yeah, I’ve met her. So okay, there’s a secretary there, but the other office doors are always closed. I only ever go to that conference room, the coffee nook and the bathroom when I’m there.” She shook her head in obvious amazement that she never questioned this, “I can’t believe that I never opened those doors or dug in more about who these guys are.”

     Arnie reached across Jeff who pulled back, Arnie laying his hand on Nancy’s arm, “Don’t beat yourself up, actually this makes it a whole lot easier if there really are only two or three actually at ODS. I mean think about it, that really narrows the list of people of interest right?” Arnie sat back looking around the room, “I mean, am I right?” There was confused concurrence all around.

     A man poked his head through the curtain, “There’s a Tom McAllister here, says you called him?”

     Arnie stood up, pushing through the curtain, a minute later came back in with Tom behind him. Arnie pointed to a chair, Tom sat down looking around the table nervously. He looked to Nancy then to Jeff, noticeably more relaxed, looking behind him at the people standing against the wall, looking uncomfortable again at the filled room.

     Arnie leaned toward Tom, “You know Nancy and Jeff here, right?” Tom nodded glancing to them again. “I work with them. We brought you here to help us figure this all out. We need you to be forthcoming about what’s been going on. You probably have already figured out that we have a matter of national security here, and I need you to be totally forthcoming with us.”

     “Yes, of course, but what’s so urgent?”

     Tom noticed Nancy’s intense expression, sitting back with a look of sudden anxiety.

     “Tom, you know that I have been to your offices many times. Every time I was there you told me that office doors were closed because that was company policy.” He gave a nervous nod. “In your presentation to the Arabs on Friday you said that you have thirty four people here and another,” she paused trying to remember, “twelve stationed around the world. Wasn’t that what you told us?”

     Tom held up his hands, “Well, Nancy, you know our business well enough to know that appearances are not always what they seem, that we need to market according to what people expect.”

     “You mean you lie.”

     “Lie is such loaded term―”

     “In fact it’s just you and Harold and maybe some secretary.”

     “We have our consultants, lots of them.”

     “You have Shawn. I have never heard another name.”

     “We have our advisory board, the congressmen, the senators.”

     “Three congressmen. No senators. I have never heard another name.”

     “We―” Tom’s expression turned wooden, he stared at Nancy. It was clear to Jeff that he was not going to contradict her. He wasn’t going to try to defend himself.

     The room was pitch silent. Jeff couldn’t hear a single sound, not even the sound of his own breathing.

     He looked to Nancy seeing that she was deliberately letting the instrument of silence play on in the room, its soundless melody accompanied by only the soft ringing in the ears of everyone in the room.

     Nancy held the silence.

     The silence held the room.

     Finally she spoke, “And you have no money.” Tom answered by looking down at the table. “And you really need this deal to happen.”

     Suddenly a hopeful flash jumped to Tom’s face, “Yes, we desperately need this deal. If we don’t get this deal the company is ruined.” He gave a long deep sigh, “I am ruined.”

     Tom was surprised to see a warm smile suddenly appear on Nancy’s face, “That means we are on the same team, right?”

     Nodding his head enthusiastically Tom nearly burst, “Yes! Yes! That is if you want this deal, then definitely we are on the same team! Yes!” he looked around trying to find encouragement in other faces but none had reacted to this turn, he looked back to Nancy.

     “What is the status of the export permits?”

     “They are done! We got them Friday afternoon, I personally drove to the Pentagon to get the final signatures for the avionics and the planes. They are in the safe back at my office!”

     “What is the status of the payments?”

     “I have already received them. They are in the safe as well.”

     “For the avionics and the planes?”

     “No, just for the avionics. The payment for the planes is still coming.”

     “You received all three checks for the avionics?”

     “No, we do not trust checks, they are in Bearer Bonds.”

     “How much total?”

     “There are three payments, six million in million-dollar Bearer Bonds, two million in half-million dollar bonds, eight one hundred-thousand bonds for Shawn’s company.”

     “And you actually have the money.”

     “Yes, when I showed the export permits to Amid and Hazim on Friday afternoon they gave me the payment for avionics.”

     Arnie finally chimed in, “Wow, that’s pretty trusting to give you over eight million dollars in negotiable bonds with you showing them a piece of paper.”

     Tom became very animated, “Well, the export permit is not a single page for sure. There are the signature documents and the notary sheets, for trust there is my company’s reputation at stake.” He wrung his hands nervously, “There is also the small matter that they would kill me and my entire family if I were to double cross them.” With a terror-stricken grin, “So there’s lots of reasons to be an upstanding citizen!”

     Nancy nodded her head slowly, “So you would have no reason to kill this deal.”

     “Kill this deal! I can’t kill this deal! This has taken nearly two years to engineer, I have everything―and I mean everything―riding on it. I am totally freaked out that there is someone running around killing people to dump this deal.”

     “And nobody has approached you to pay you not to do this deal?” All heads turned astonished to soft-spoken little Earl.

     Tom shook his head emphatically, “God, if they had I’d be in the Bahamas right now, or maybe Brazil. Why the hell would I hang around someplace where everyone is getting killed?”

     “Okay,” Nancy nodded slowly, looking around the room, “these are the answers I think we were looking for.” She stood up extending her hand to Tom who stood with an anxious glance around the room taking Nancy’s hand shaking it tensely.

     Nancy turned to Arnie, “Arnie, we could really use this guy being alive tomorrow at four, can we get him to our hotel?”

     Arnie stood up nodding, “Tom, you have a wife right?” Tom nodded, “Okay, we are going to put you two up tonight, will that be okay?”

     Tom blurted out, “I’ll drive over to get her right now!”

     “Yeah, I don’t think that’s such a good idea, but you can call her and tell her to pack for you and her for a couple nights, we’ll have someone go get her,” waving with his hands to Tom, “come on, let me make the arrangements.” They both disappeared behind the curtain.

     Nancy sat back down with a long loud sigh. “Jesus, we are still not close to our shooter.” She turned to Jeff, “So who else ya got?”

     “God, I don’t know, the list of suspects is back to the Israelis or the Iranians.” He sat back with his right hand to his chin, “You know, the whole thing at the embassy keeps rolling around my mind. I mean, it seems like when the Iranians start complaining about somebody being too brutal that’s got to be a bad thing. My guess is that they won’t call off whoever is doing all this craziness because they think it might work. Their offering me the bribe is just kind of doubling up. I keep thinking that there must be another way to do this.”

     “Do what?” came a voice from the room.

     “That there must be some way to get the Iranians on our side. I know that I don’t know the culture so it’s really hard to read people, but I kept getting the impression that there could be some other solution.” Jeff lowered his head, cupped his hands over his face in thought.

     “God, I sure wish Sherlock Holmes could help us,” Nancy said with a half-laugh.

     Jeff glanced at her smiling, remembering how he had come up with all sorts of hints from Sherlock Holmes in Atlanta. “Me too, there must be some other way.”

     Jeff turned to Earl, “Earl, tell us about Iraq and Iran. What’s the deal?”

     Earl’s expression showed his delight at being asked this question, “Well, it’s pretty simple from the U.S. point of view, is that what you mean?”

     “That’s all that counts, right?”

     “Yeah, sure, well during the war in the eighties, it was a brutal stalemate. I mean really brutal. And I mean really a stalemate. The U.S. was hopelessly out of the loop with no relations with either country, so all we could do was watch from the sidelines. We tried to foment the Kurds with weapons thinking that Saddam would get distracted, but all he did was turn around and gas them. Killed tens of thousands of civilians.”

     “But we liked the fact that it was a stalemate, right?”

     “Oh yes, we didn’t want either side to win. We were quite happy that the war was happening, though, other than the impact on oil prices, because it meant that two of our enemies were so involved with each other that they didn’t pay attention to anyone else, including us!”

     Jeff turned to Nancy, “Who was that General we had in here?”

     “General Thompson, very smart man.”

     “I’ve got the weirdest idea! Can we get him back here?”

     “I’ve got his cell number. You want me to call him?” a voice piped up.

     Nancy shot Jeff a knowing smile, looking to the man who spoke up, “Yeah Bobby, see if you can get him back here, apologize, tell him it’s urgent.”

     Bobby got up pushing through the curtain, the room fell silent.

     “How does Bobby know the General?” Jeff smiled curiously.

     “He used to work at the Pentagon, he was one of the General’s aids.”

     “Now, that is convenient!” they laughed together.

     A minute later Bobby came back in, “He’ll be back here in twenty minutes.”

     Jeff suddenly realized that he hadn’t eaten all day, including breakfast when he only had coffee, “Nancy, I really need some food, I haven’t eaten all day.”

     “Oh god, Jeff, I’m sorry, I should have thought about that.”

     “No, it’s fine, it’s been a pretty busy day, right? But I’m gonna pass out if I don’t get some calories quick.”

     “It’s not like Atlanta, we don’t have a kitchen here.” She signaled to Bobby, “Bobby can you order us out a pizza,” paused, “no never mind, I have a better idea!”

     She stood up, “Okay everybody, I think this is all we can do right now.” Everyone stood up starting to file through the curtain. Nancy stood up, tied the curtain back, waved to Jeff, “Come on, we’ve got to get out of here.”

     Jeff followed her out of the room into the ops room that was packed with activity. She signaled to Ted who walked over. “General Thompson is going to be here in a few minutes, can you have him meet us over at O’Malley’s, we really need some food and beer, we’ll be in the back room.” Ted nodded turning toward the front door.

     “Come on,” Nancy pulled Jeff by the elbow, soon they were in the blue Mustang driving in near darkness. Ten minutes later they were standing at the bar in O’Malley’s, the bartender placing a perfectly-topped Guinness in front of Jeff, “Yes, I remember you, pour you another, right?” Jeff nodded, he instantly started glugging the tall glass in his hand, Nancy did the same.

     “I thought you don’t drink while on duty?”

     She laughed, “Duty shmooty, after today I need a drink!” they both laughed.

     When their second glass arrived Nancy leaned to the bartender, “Tell Millie we will be needing menus in the back room, and that we are expecting two more.”

     The bartender nodded. Nancy pulled Jeff by his elbow, his full ale nearly sloshing out of the glass, a few seconds later they were pushing through split swinging half-doors sitting down in a very small room with only one table and six chairs.

     Jeff laughed, “Let me guess, the auxiliary conference room?”

     “Beats the hell out of the ops house, don’t you think?”

     They tipped their glasses together with smiles taking another drink just as Arnie poked his head in, “Hey guys, we’ll be right with you,” they both raised their glasses to him.

     “Bring us two more!” Jeff called out, Arnie nodded.

     “Boy, you like your ale, will you be okay on an empty stomach?”

     “People have praised me for how well I hold my liquor! You have!” they both laughed.

     A few minutes later Arnie and the General joined them, Ted stood on the other side of the door as guard facing into the bar, his broad shoulders visible over the half-doors.

     They spent a couple minutes going back over the events of the day, Nancy said that Jeff called the meeting.

     The General turned to Jeff expectantly, “Yes, General, is that how I should address you?”

     “We’re friends here, you can call me Robert.”

     “Well Robert, I understand that you are a real expert on middle east politics, the Iraq and Iran deal, right?”

     “I am the expert on those two at DOD, but you can’t quote me!” he laughed.

     Pausing not sure what that meant Jeff continued, “Well this is my little take on what’s going on here. We are going to sell something that will end up in Iraq so that Saddam can spy on the Ayatollahs. The Ayatollahs are very unhappy about this, so unhappy that they hired someone to try to stop it, only the guy they hired is not a thinker but a doer, result is we’ve got a couple dead congressmen on our hands and everyone else worried about our own hides.” The General nodded. “So the Iranians are unhappy about the guy they hired, now trying to open up other avenues to kill the deal.”

     He leaned into the General, “And you know about my payola,” the General nodded. Jeff looked to Nancy, she sipped her Guinness, Jeff smiling at the foam on the tip of her nose. He reached over to wipe it with his finger, everyone laughed.

     Taking a drink from his ale, Jeff continued, “So I figure that the Iranians don’t want to call off this hot-dog because his killing everyone might work after all, but just to make sure they double-up by paying me five million dollars. One of the Iranians let it slip that’s what they are paying this murdering guy, so they really want this deal to go away.”

     Jeff took a long thoughtful drink of his ale. “So I’ve been thinking that there must be another way for us to manage this. I mean, what if there was something else in this deal for the Iranians, what if we could manage something that would still be in the best strategic interests of the United States?”

     The General sat back pensively, “Okay, but what do you have in mind?”

     “Well, I’m not sure. I’m kind of thinking this through out loud. But we have an analyst, this guy Earl, who gave us a nickel tour of the Iraq-Iran thing. Something that came out was the word stalemate, the U.S. likes it when there is a stalemate between those two countries, right?”

     Robert nodded, his expression telling that he knew where Jeff was going with this. “So only Saddam having UAV’s would be a bad thing when it comes to this stalemate, right?”

     Robert took a long drink from his ale, nodding again, Jeff smiled, “So the definition of a stalemate, assuming that we are going to actually deliver the systems to Saddam―”

     “Oh my god, Jeff, that’s brilliant!” Nancy screamed so loud that Ted turned around looking over the split doors to the table, “Jeff, that’s so brilliant!” She looked enthusiastically to Arnie and the General.

     Jeff held up his hands, “Yeah, but wait, the only way it would work is if we can meet with the Iranians to tell them what we are proposing so we can get them to call off their little pit bull.”

     The General emptied his glass to the bottom, set it down, turning back and forth between Arnie and Nancy pointing his thumb toward Jeff, “Where did you get this guy?”

     Robert sat back looking at Jeff with a smile, “And he’s a civie, right?”

     “Yes, he’s civilian,” Arnie smiled, “but he is amazing, believe me. I couldn’t begin to tell you the stuff he’s come up with.”

     The General sat back crossing arms with a far-off look. “This solves two problems.” He turned to Nancy, “I told you before that I had a lot of reservations about this deal, I damn near didn’t sign the export permit on Friday. But this feels so much better. And if you guys can use this to get that maniac from running around killing everybody, then this is the definition of a win-win.”

     Enthusiasm welled through Jeff’s body, he turned to the General, “So you think we can get the approvals in time to have this meeting with them tomorrow?”

     “I don’t know, that’s pretty short notice.” He turned to Nancy, “When is the deal happening?”

     “Tomorrow, at four in the afternoon.”

     “Can you put it off to Wednesday?”

     She looked to Arnie shaking his head concerned, “We’d really rather not, we’re all losing a little sleep over the killings.”

     “This decision is above my pay grade, sorry, but I have to take this to the Joint Chiefs.”
     “How long will that take?”

     Robert looked at his watch. “Those old farts are all in bed, but I can try to convene a meeting after lunch tomorrow, maybe in the morning if I can pull a stat. But there’s no way we could get the paperwork done by tomorrow.”

     “But if we had the verbal approval, we could do the meeting with the Iranians, right?” Jeff asked eagerly looking back and forth between Arnie and Nancy, back to the General.

     “Yeah, once I get the approval it would be guaranteed that the deal could be done, but you know this is complicated, it could take maybe a month to get the paperwork in order for the export permit.”

     “But none of that would matter, a month. Hell, it’s going to take me four months to finish producing the gear, who knows how long it will take for General Avatonics to make the planes.”

     Nancy shook her head slowly turning to Jeff, “Jeff, there is so much to work out in these deals, you only have to think about shipping your gear once you get the export permit. There’s a lot of logistics that goes with it. And politicking.”

     Jeff’s hands waved in front of him expressively, “But don’t you get it? It doesn’t matter. All we need is the call from the General tomorrow. Then I can get the meeting again so we can get this all done!”

     Robert nodded with a small smile turning to Jeff, “Look, this is all fine, and this is a wonderful idea that you have come up with,” pointing to Nancy, “but she is the lead of this, you need to follow her. You must do everything she says. Everything.”

     Jeff nodded, “Okay, everything she says, I promise,” turning a sly smile to Nancy, back to the General, “So you’re going to the Joint Chiefs tomorrow, and you think you can call us by early afternoon with the green light?” The General nodded.

     Jeff held out his hand to the General, “So we have a deal?”

     The General shook Jeff’s hand warmly.

     “Yes, we have a deal.”

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K STREET!

http://chrislamela.blogspot.com/2012/09/k-street-chapter-21.html

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K Street, Chapter 19

Jeff finds himself in Washington DC on business trying to close a big deal for his company where he meets up with Nancy again, the FBI agent he had fallen in love with in Atlanta nearly two years ago. Jeff is separated from his wife because of Nancy’s letter. Jeff continues to attract women without trying, some of them with deadly intentions. Jeff and Nancy soon find themselves in the center of intrigue with Israelis and Iranians feeling threatened by the impending deal, determined to kill the deal at any cost―even at the cost of Jeff’s life! The surprising twists will make the reader gasp, the love scenes will make the reader sigh.

Chapter 19 of K Street...

Monday 4:14 PM: Treachery

The Iranians release Jeff and his wife, and she recognizes Nancy! Then he learns that another congressman he met with has been murdered! Now even the Iranians are getting spooked by their assassin!

If you enjoy this, please take time to LIKE this on Facebook!

Thanks for taking time, and enjoy!
- Chris Lamela

------------------------------------------------------------------

Author contact: Chris Lamela, chris@chrislamela.com, 707-566-8790 PST

---------------------------------------------------------------------

               K Street, Chapter 19

Monday 4:14 PM: Treachery

     Twenty minutes later Jeff climbed out of the back of the black car holding the door, his wife getting out standing beside him, the car screeching away from the curb.

     He standing on the exact spot he had been kidnapped from two hours before.

     Instantly there was a roar of convergence, cars racing up at all angles, Nancy jumping out, “Jeff! What happened!” She sprinted up to them, “Are you both okay?”

     She swirled her hand in the air, Arnie appeared, “Come on guys, come with me, we need to get you safe.”

     “Where are we going? We need some rest,” Jeff complained, he held Donna by the shoulder, his hand over her shoulder clutching the envelope with the Bearer Bonds.

     He turned to Nancy, “But we’ve got to talk, a lot happened back there.”

     Jeff stepped forward now standing in front of Donna, “What happened back there, I need to explain, but I can’t right now…actually…really I’m not even sure what happened back there.”

     Jeff pulled her to him as she began to heave in tears.

     Pulling her back at arm’s length Jeff trying to get eye contact with Donna, “Are you okay? We made it, right? Just like I said. You did good,” he hugged her again. They stood that way for a minute.

     “I want to go home,” Donna said softly.

     Jeff looked to Nancy who heard the words, shrugging like it was Donna’s choice.

     “She wants to go home, can you arrange special transportation?”

     Nancy pulled out her cell phone, signed to Jeff to wait turning away to talk into the phone. In less than two minutes she reached to Jeff pulling him away from Donna. “Yes, we can get her home tonight. Plane’s at National. Do you want to go to take her to the airport? They’re standing by.”

     Jeff nodded stepping back to Donna, “Hey guess what, you get to ride in a private jet! They’re going to take you home tonight, right now, will that work?”

     Donna stood, vacuous face, “I just want to go home.”

     Nancy waved to Arnie, she stepped forward, they exchanged a few words. Arnie waved his hands around, “Okay guys! Let’s get these cars out of here!” In an instant there was a roar of starting engines, the cars all backing away except for Nancy’s blue Mustang and one black Crown Vic.

     “Come on,” Jeff pulled Donna slowly toward the black car, “they have a plane waiting for you at National Airport.” He bent his head to look into her eyes that had dried, but her blank expression persisted. “Do you want me to go to the airport with you?”

     “Are you coming with me?”

     He looked up to Nancy and Arnie who were both firmly shaking their heads.

     “No, I can’t, I need to see this through.” Donna burst out crying again, Jeff clutched her to his chest, “I’m sorry, but I can’t, this is too important.”

     “You mean more important, more important than me, more important than the kids.”

     “No of course not. Just a different kind of important. You’ve seen how serious this is.”

     She looked up at him with a firm expression, her fists beating lightly on his chest, “Jeff, I’m worried for you, I’m worried for…for…I’m worried for us.”

     “Look, I’ll cancel Boston on Friday. Remember we have our lunch date on Saturday, right?”

    She looked up to his face, smiled. He thought how it was probably her first smile since she had seen him at his hotel door nearly twenty hours ago.

     “So do you want me to go to the airport with you?”

     She continued to pound softly on his chest sniffing. “No, you’ve got to go save the world. Those guys are really mean and I don’t want them to hurt anybody else.” She looked up into his eyes with a determined expression, “No, I will go alone,” she glanced over at the black car that had Arnie waiting at the open passenger door, “you go get those bastards.”

     He smiled at her lovingly, “Man I sure wish I could be on that plane with you, it’s a heck of a nice ride.”

     “When were you ever on a private jet?”

     “In my dreams,” they both laughed. She reached her arms around him pulling him close with her mouth cupping his, her tongue inviting a deep passionate kiss until she pulled back straightening her blouse looking around her.

     She turned to Nancy who had looked away while they kissed, smiled, “You take good care of him, okay? I want him back when you’re done with him. I know you want to keep him, Nancy, but you can’t. You will have to give him back to me.”

     Donna swung around so fast toward Arnie that she didn’t see Nancy’s jaw drop, astounded expression at the words she just heard. She looked to Jeff with an expression “She knows?”

     A moment later the car with Donna pulled away, Jeff waved, a few seconds later it was gone. Jeff turned to Nancy who still had not recovered from her shock at Donna’s words.

     “Come on there, girl, have I got a lot to tell you,” waving his envelope, “and boy have I got a lot to show you.” He turned back to Nancy standing dumbfounded, “Are you coming?”

     Jeff turned, walking to the Mustang. He got to the passenger-side door, turning around laughing at Nancy standing in a trance, “Nancy! Are you coming? Come on, we have work to do!” He opened the car door getting inside, watching Nancy walking slowly in her stupor, each foot finding its way in front of the other, her shuffling steps slowly bringing her body to the driver’s side door. Standing.

     He leaned over opening her door, it bumped against her, “Are you going to stand there all day? Come on, we have work to do!”

     Shaken from a dream she turned to the car, plunking into her seat, hands loosely on the steering wheel. “She knows. She knew me.”

     She sat in silence, after a few minutes she uttered a few words so softly that Jeff had to consider what she had said before he responded, “Yes, she knows it’s you.” His smiled wistfully at what he had just witnessed, “Yep, pretty sure she knows.” He put his hand on her right shoulder, “We need to go.” Almost mechanically she started the car, a few minutes later they were headed back up K Street toward Cookes Park.

     The car drove on just now passing the corner with the ODS building as he looked out wistfully, “And I don’t know why, but somehow it seems okay.” He looked out the front window, they passed Archie’s creeping by slowly on their left. “It’s like she knows I’m in danger, that you will protect me.” He shook his head in amazement at what had happened already today. “It’s like she approves.”

     She approves. Those words resonated in Jeff’s brain.

     What was it about women’s intuition, that mysterious force of the universe that absolutely baffles the cosmic forces that say what goes in is what comes out? With men the equation is simple: information goes in, finds the fastest route to get back out. A simple little pipe. Women have a shape in their heads, like a ball, an orb with bunches of holes in it, some holes smaller, some holes larger, some holes placed in some order, others scattered randomly around the orb. Information comes in and unlike a man where it finds the most efficient way out, in the woman’s intuition orb that information that came in, a nice tidy package delivered into this magical container that will find all sort of ways of coming through, some through the orderly-arranged outlets, but the most critical will find other openings―the intuition outlets.

     Information will emerge from a woman’s intuition orb in any sequence it cares to with very little influence from the lesser elements of the universe such as logic or meaning or relevance which have virtually no effect on the flow of information as it passes into her mind. Silly things like order are as irrelevant and unnecessary and unconnected as rock is to air, forces with absolutely no meaning to the other.

     And how about retention of that information? With men each new thought flushes his little information pipe and on to next thought. With women little pieces of information and thought can get stuck in their magical intuition orb that may not get unstuck and emerge for years. Maybe never! And when it does finally emerge from that globe in their heads it is as fresh as hot biscuits from the oven. Even if the information is years old!

     Jeff shook his head, looked at Nancy still ruminating what had just happened, he laughed. “Aren’t you going to ask about what happened?”

     She jiggled her head, as though just waking, glancing at Jeff, “Yeah, but I suppose we should hold it until the meeting, everyone will be there, plus there’s more bad news.”

     “Bad news?” He squinched his face at Nancy’s stoic frown, “Come on, you can tell me now.”

     “Hank Weisel was found murdered this morning.”

     Jeff looked blankly through the windshield, this information was being processed in his poor little pea brain, his tiny information pipe just filled with a clog, turning sharply to Nancy, “Hank? The other congressman I met last night?” His face widened in terror, “Hank? Murdered?”

     “Yes. Ambushed coming out of his house this morning.”

     Jeff’s mind raced, suddenly all the pieces of the puzzle in this case that he had been so carefully putting together in his mind, arranged so orderly around the little table in his brain like little jigsaw puzzle pieces, the ones with the flat side being arranged into the frame, the other pieces lay to the side awaiting their placement into the picture were suddenly blown up into the air, now raining down around him flipping onto the floor upside down, cascading around him in every helter-skelter way.

     “Oh, my god, it’s like they said!”

     “Who said? What did they say?”

     “The Iranians!”

     “What Iranians?”

     “My kidnappers. They said―”

     “No, don’t tell me, wait,” just then they pulled up to the ops house, both quickly jumped from the blue Mustang running into the house.

     A few seconds later they were in the ops room with the drape pulled across, the room was filled. Jeff scanned the room seeing the same faces at one end of the table in their same seats with a standing-room-only crowd of maybe ten or more other people, men and women standing, lining the wall along the windows.

     Arnie jumped up, “Jesus Jeff, you gave us a start man, come on, sit down,” he handed Jeff a cold can of Coke pointing to Jeff’s reserved chair.

     “Arnie, I can’t sit down, I’m too wired.”

     “It doesn’t matter, tell us every detail,” Arnie looked around the room motioning toward Yvonne, “Can we get this recorded, also have you take some notes?”

     Yvonne reached for the Nakamichi recorder he’d seen before, pushing a button, the little red light blinked on.

     Jeff glanced down at Nancy who looked like she had shaken off Donna’s words, she was now back in the game.

     “Okay, where to start…” Jeff described every detail of what had occurred from his first entry into the phone booth, his cell phone ringing, his being snatched from the corner, his ride, the embassy building, Omar and his brother Abdul, his getting a few minutes with his wife, then back to the two men.

     “Oh, yeah, I forgot,” he looked down at his hand still clutching the envelope with the Bearer Bonds. He opened the flap of the envelope sliding the bonds onto the table. The room’s loud gasp lasted longer than the time it took for the ten pieces of gilded paper to slide out in a perfect fan with each page half-exposed from the other.

     Suddenly white gloved hands appeared at the end of Nancy’s arms. “Five million dollars.” She turned quickly to Jeff, “How…what―”

     “They are my payola for killing this deal. They made me sign something saying I took this money from them in exchange for―what were the words―oh yeah, certain duties, the paper called it to make it sound really incriminating, threatened to use it if I back out of canceling this deal. They even made me put my thumb prints on it.”

     “Wow, I guess this makes sense,” Earl the small-faced man piped up.

     Nancy turned to him with a recriminating glare, “How does this make sense?”

     Instead of answering Nancy, Earl turned to Jeff, “There’s more that you haven’t told us, I can tell.”

     Jeff paused, feeling excitement rising in his chest. “Yes, there is. You guys really need to help me figure this out.”

     The entire room held its breath waiting for his next words.

     “First, they bugged my hotel room at the Hilton. This guy Omar was telling me things that nobody could have known about what happened in that room. Not even Ted knew and he was standing outside my door.”

     Arnie pointed to a man at the back of the room, “Fred, go check it out, get back ASAP, okay? The big Hilton on Connecticut. I need a report now.”

     Jeff looked up to see this Fred man nearly run out of the room, the black curtain leafing to a close behind him.

     “But that’s not the important thing,” Jeff smiled cynically, “they are also paying somebody else five million to kill this deal.”

     Nancy looked up at Jeff, “Somebody else?”

     “Yeah, I don’t remember his words, but his brother kept saying things, Omar yelling at him to shut up. At least that’s what I assume Omar was doing, he kept speaking in Farsi, I think, when Abdul started to tell me something.”

     “So what exactly did you make of it?”

     “Abdul was complaining that the other guy they were paying off to kill this deal was doing it all wrong, that the other guy was going around killing people―Jesus, this makes sense!”

     “What, what makes sense?” Arnie almost choked.

     “They paid this other guy five million dollars, but instead of trying to finesse this deal to go away this other guy is like some lunatic running around killing people―the congressmen―even the Iranians are getting spooked by it. That’s why they decided to get me into the game, pay me off to make this deal go away!”

     Arnie turned to a man sitting at the very opposite end of the table that Jeff hadn’t particularly noticed, “General?” The man nodded to Arnie, “I need your take on this.” The man smiled, “Oh, by the way everyone, this is General Thompson, he heads the Pentagon’s middle-eastern affairs office.”

     The man, older with sparse graying hair, thin face with skin nearly as gray, cleared his throat, “Man, but you guys sure have created a mess here,” he chuckled, he actually chuckled! Jeff couldn’t believe his ears!

     “I am not sure what I have to add. All I know is that I came here with instructions that we definitely have a lunatic on our hands, you guys need to drop everything to do with this case to focus on finding him or them or whoever these bastards are. The rest can wait.”

     Arnie and Nancy fixed each other’s eyes, Nancy said slowly, “We have an inside man, the bug in the room.” She paused in thought, “We have a ruthless man, the two dead congressmen. We have somebody running around who is not an Iranian,” she looked around the room to approving nods with Earl enthusiastically nodding breathless approval, “and we have somebody who is on the inside doing all this! This makes sense! They knew Jeff was at the Smithsonian. They bugged his room. They knew the congressmen they murdered were instrumental in this deal. We have an inside man.”

     “We have worse than that, Nancy,” Arnie’s morose voice cast a chill over the room.

     She turned to him, “What can be worse?”

     “There’s just too many players.” He rubbed his eyes, turned looking around the room with a furrowed face, “and every one is a moving piece…I just don’t know…there’s got to be a word for this,” looking around the room for hints.

     “I know the word.” All faces turned to Jeff.

     “Treachery.”

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K STREET!

http://chrislamela.blogspot.com/2012/09/k-street-chapter-20.html

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