David Golemon - Ripper

“Well it’s really hurt security not having Jack at running back today,” Pete countered.

“Thank God he’s visiting his mom in Texas, and thank goodness he’s meeting Sarah there when she’s finished with the dig in Tamaulipas. Still, I think I’ll call him if security loses; I can’t pass that chance up.” Niles Compton eyed the clock and then frowned.

Everett called out the signals and the ball was snapped. Instead of running the ball, and thus running the clock out, the captain had decided to go for the nuclear science department’s jugular and win by ten. Mendenhall shot off the line and then sprinted past the science department’s defender. Everett heaved the ball as far as he could. The female defender, a nuclear regulatory specialist on detached service from Los Alamos, tripped as Will flew by her. In the bleachers those rooting for the sciences moaned as they saw the end coming right before their eyes. Niles frowned as he felt his wallet getting lighter due to the bet he had placed with Colonel Collins before he left on leave to see his mother.

Will smiled broadly as he saw the ball fall from the sky. His feet firmly planted on the athletic turf of the underground recreation arena, and only a foot from the out-of-bounds line, the ball was only inches from being laid into his hands. He was merely twenty yards from the goal line for a chance to keep the security department’s winning streak alive at ten in a row.

Unbeknownst to Everett, Mendenhall, and the rest of the security department team, they had been outthought. Virginia Pollock, the least likely of suspects, had placed herself at the goal line knowing that the captain would not be satisfied with a mere three-point victory. The tall lithe woman with the dark-brown hair sprinted in her sweatpants and shirt to the spot where Will Mendenhall thought he was alone, and just before the ball touched his fingertips she stepped in front of him and intercepted the pass. Her body nudged him just enough that Will lost his balance and went crashing onto the fake grass of the field, shocked because he had had no idea Virginia was in the area.

The security team, the people running laps on the track, and even the weightlifters working out on the side of the field were all stunned as Virginia sprinted down the field in the opposite direction. Carl went from jumping up and down as the vision of a fifty-yard pass play went flying from his thoughts to attempting to gain momentum to head Virginia off at the pass. He saw the MIT grad and former nuclear engineer from General Dynamics Corporation running free. Everett started his pursuit.

The spectators watching were on their feet as the older woman saw Everett approaching at an angle. She decided that, flag football or not, she could not allow Everett to catch her. She switched the ball to the protected right side of her body, and as Carl came into reach for her flag dangling behind her, she shot out her left hand and arm, catching him squarely in the jaw and face. It was a straight-arm the pros would have been proud of. Everett grunted and then fell face first onto the turf as Virginia sprinted by. As she crossed the goal line with the rest of the security department chasing her, Virginia raised the ball into the air and then spiked it to the cheers of all watching.

“I’ll be damned,” Everett said as he looked up from his prone position. He swiped at the blood that had come from the split lip he now had thanks to the assistant director.

Mendenhall came up out of breath and helped his boss to his feet, and as they both looked around they saw Pete Golding and Director Compton jumping up and down in the bleachers, high-fiving each other, enjoying the celebration as Virginia’s nuclear sciences division hoisted her on their shoulders. The 0–9 sciences had just pulled off the upset of the intramural season. Both men suspected the word would spread throughout the complex as fast as a lightning strike.

“The colonel is going to be pissed,” Mendenhall said as he tried to catch his breath.

Everett again swiped at the blood that was now not only coursing from his split lip but also the rug burn on his chin.

“And I’m going to tell him over the phone,” Everett said. “I’ll wait until he gets back from his leave; by then the humiliation may have calmed down a little.”

“Good idea,” Mendenhall said as he saw the victors winding their way toward the vanquished. “Oh, this is going to suck!”

As Virginia was placed on the ground she smiled in a purely female way and batted her eyes at Carl.

“That split lip looks bad. Did I do that?” she said as she placed her hand over her mouth in an “oh God, what have I done” falsity.

“I didn’t think you had it in you, madam A.D.,” Everett said as he straightened and then took Virginia in his arms and hugged her. “I have to admit, you got us.”

She smiled and pulled away and then someone handed her a cell phone and she punched in her security code for the supercomputer Europa so she could get an outside line.

“And just who are you calling?” Everett asked near panic.

“Why, Jack of course. I want to be the one to tell him.”

“Ah, Virginia, can we talk about this?” Everett said as he started following her as she tried to make the connection.

Across the field Niles Compton was still smiling as he watched the two teams meet. He smiled even wider when he saw Everett and Mendenhall running after Virginia Pollock. He was about to go down onto the field and take some fun time for a change when he was approached by a blue-clad marine PFC.

“Excuse me, Dr. Compton, you have an emergency call from the security duty officer. He says he has our contact at the FBI in Washington on the line. It seems we’ve had trouble in Mexico—” the marine looked from Niles to Pete and then leaned in toward the director—“sir, we have people down.”

Niles immediately lost his smile. “Pete, run and catch Captain Everett and Virginia and get them to my office, ASAP. Tell him we may have gone Code One in Mexico.”

Pete immediately started running to head off Everett. He knew what a Code One was, as did all Event Group personnel — people in the field had come into harm’s way and may be down, or even lost.

Niles turned and left the athletic complex wondering how a university-sponsored field team in Mexico could have an emergency when Sarah was there only to validate the geological formation in which some old pictographs had been painted on a cave wall.

With Ryan and another security man with her, that was three Event Group staff that may be hurt, or even killed. Director Niles Compton knew at the very least there was big trouble in Mexico.

The man sat at the table at the Alamosa Chop and Steak House in downtown Laredo. He was well dressed in civilian attire, a charcoal gray suit highlighted by a bright red tie. His hair was cut short, but not as short as it had been throughout his eighteen years in the Unites States Army. His smile came easier to him since he had been reassigned after testifying against the army and the White House back in 2006 about interference of command in Afghanistan. At the time, Major Jack Collins had thought his career was finished as he was sent to the high desert of Nevada and literally buried underneath Nellis Air Force Base. That was where his tour of detached service had begun for Department 5656, the Event Group, as its head of security operations. Tonight Jack Collins was on leave. He was to meet the woman he had fallen in love with when she returned from across the border where she was involved in an archeological find in northern Mexico.

Jack smiled as he eased the cover of his cell phone closed and then looked across the table at his mother, Cally, who returned the smile as she placed her drink on the table before her. The woman would never be placed in the age category she claimed. She was young looking to be Jack’s mother. Her face and body belonged to that of a woman of thirty-four years and not the fifty-four years of age her birth certificate said she was. The brown-haired Cally looked from Jack to her youngest child, Lynn, who had come back into Jack’s life after many years of being estranged. Their careers had kept them far removed from the normal brother-sister relationships that most families share, Lynn’s with the CIA, Jack’s with the army.