James Rawles - Liberators

Joshua didn’t want to say something stupid, nor did he just want to fill the space with empty pleasantries. So he smiled and said, “I generally walk through your section in the late mornings. Do you mind if I knock on the door and see if you would like to do lunch again next week?”

Megan was not one to live for others’ approval, so she had stopped feeling sorry for herself years ago. If Joshua was willing to link up again for lunch, then that was worth exploring, based on her initial impression of him as a thoughtful and seemingly kind Christian. She thought it over for what felt like an awkwardly long pause and said, “Okay, Officer Kim, we can do that. But I have to ask you not to stop by the office. A lot of my office mates hate their lives and long to turn their lives into the soap operas they so diligently DVR every day. My SID is ‘mclacro,’ you can find me on SEARCHLIGHT. You never know, I might even reply.”

Joshua was smitten. He nodded and said, “Have a good day, Miss LaCroix.”

Subject: Lunch?

Unclassified: FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY

Megan,

Hello. I hope that this finds you well. I have been thinking a lot about our lunch meeting and I would love to meet again to talk and get to know you better. How about lunch sometime next week? Do you like Korean food?

Looking forward to it,

Unclassified: FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY

She replied:

Re: Lunch?

Unclassified: FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY

Joshua,

Okay, I’m game. I do like Korean food, as a matter of fact. I don’t eat out very much, but some of the girls here in the office rave about Mona’s Gourmet Carry Out on Annapolis Road in Odenton. They say that it is best to call ahead and place your order or else Congress is more likely to pass a budget before they get your food to you. I can take at most one hour for lunch. Give me a call on my high side phone: 962-4589.

Unclassified: FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY

Megan was a confident woman and she knew better than to call men. She and her sister, Malorie, grew up as the apple of their papa’s eye and they never felt incomplete without a man’s attention, especially if it was the fleeting kind of attention. Most women who were single moms would find themselves compromising proper judgment when it came to dating candidates and subsequent physical intimacy just because they felt less appealing to men because they had children. Megan was content to keep on working to provide for her boys whether or not the phone rang. But she did hold her breath when the National Secure Telephone System (NSTS) phone did ring five minutes later.

“Four-five-eight-nine, this is Contractor LaCroix.”

“Megan, hey. This is Joshua. Is this an okay time to talk?”

“Well, I was just about to lower the ocean levels, win the war on terror, save the San Francisco Salt Marsh Harvest Mouse, and secure world peace with this PowerPoint presentation, now that the fonts are in cornflower blue instead of ocean blue.”

“Right, be sure to hit Save. You wouldn’t want to trust the fate of the free world to the default settings on that, would you? Hey, about lunch, I was going to suggest Mona’s Gourmet Carry Out, so I’m glad that you mentioned it. I’ll be at the range this Thursday and Friday for my weapons requalifications. What day works for you next week?”

Megan noticeably lowered her voice so that she would not be adding fuel to the gossip inferno in her office. “Do you get to Mona’s by cutting across Fort Meade and going out the Mapes Road gate, to Telegraph Road?”

“Yes, that’s usually the route I take.”

“Well, how about Tuesday, then? I usually like to hit the thrift store over on post and it’s only open Tuesday through Thursday. You can find some good stuff there sometimes.”

“Done. What sounds good to you? I can phone in the order.”

“Surprise me, I’m not picky.”

“Okay. How about we meet by the PG-165 facing Canine Road out the gate for OPS2B Tuesday at noon?”

“Sounds good. See you then.”

It had been so long since Megan had been on any sort of a date that she did an Internet search using DuckDuckGo.com for “conversation starters” when she got home and added that to her morning reading for the next few days’ commute. If Joshua was worth adding to her life, she wanted to get past the superficial pleasantries that usually transpire before the magical third-date threshold was crossed. Since the women in Megan’s office were notoriously generous with the gory details of their love lives, she knew it was generally acceptable for a woman to “give it up” after the third date. If Joshua wasn’t several orders of magnitude off that standard, she would never have replied to the e-mail in the first place. But the dating sea had a lot of sharks swimming around in it, and she wanted to be sure that she could get to know him as a real person.

On Tuesday, Joshua was fifteen minutes early to meet Megan. He thumbed through his pocket testament to read through a psalm while the band Switchfoot quietly played in the background. Megan, notoriously punctual, was walking through the turnstiles at three minutes until noon.

“Hello, Megan, good morning. How have you been?”

“Good morning to you as well, at least for the next two minutes. I’m well, buckled up, and excited for some Korean food. Hey, that isn’t an I6 I hear. What are you running in this rig?”

“I didn’t know that you were into trucks. That’s a small-block Chevy, naturally aspirated with a mild cam and a HEI distributor—not too flashy, but rock-solid reliable.”

As they proceeded slowly down Mapes Road, passing the Defense Media Activity, Megan said, “My sister, Malorie, got the motorhead gene; mine is a bit more recessive. She is very handy with a wrench and would love to pick your brain about your Jeep. Is that a four-inch lift on here?”

“I went modest; I could have gone with a six-inch lift, but I wanted a reliable vehicle versus a finicky trailer queen. Hence the simplicity small-block, and I have a spare circuit board for the HEI distributor in a small tin in my toolbox, uhhhh…”

“You carry a what?” Megan feigned an incredulous tone; she wanted to cut to the quick and sort Joshua into either the “keeper” or “do-not-bother” category.

“Well, the Chevy 350 is the most popular engine in the world, parts are ubiquitous, and these engines are a cinch to work on. However, I started to read certain blogs and I realized that the whole world is deeply connected and the linchpin is electricity.”

“Hmmmmm, sounds like you’ve been doing some threat analysis; one of the blue badgers in my office is getting ready to retire—maybe you could apply?”

“I should have taken into account that you were a threat analyst before I opened my mouth…”

“Joshua, please don’t be shocked about my inquisitive tone; I really do want to hear more about your thought process.” Megan gripped the roll bar instinctively as she had on so many trips out in the backwoods of Maine with her family as the Jeep slowed down and turned right into the seedy rear parking lot of Mona’s Gourmet Carry Out.

“This Jeep is my sole means of transportation. I maintain it meticulously, but I got to thinking that the stretch of land between Baltimore and Quantico is such a huge target—what if some rogue terrorist group were to pull up in Baltimore Harbor and set off an EMP? Or if those same people were to fly a small aircraft on approach to Tipton Airport and set it off over the NSA campus? Most cars, say ninety-five percent, would be dead—but I could be back on the road in twenty minutes.”