Chapter 6

The following morning during breakfast there was a discussion on where now to go in their travels. Sara said there was no reason to head immediately back to her home to get married. The arrangements she needed to make for the wedding she could do over the phone or via email. They should continue to see the country as she thought the wedding would be in late September or early October.

Heading south they did the “Apache Trail” driving tour outside of Phoenix. The sometimes unpaved single lane road high up on the canyon’s side made the drive with the motorhome scenic but also very exacting. They continued their journey by heading east going through New Mexico and into Texas.

The change of scenery from the mountainous one they had driven in to the flat barrenness they now were seeing was a big change. Joe preferred the mountain scenery to what it was now as the scenery made the driving interesting.

Joe said there was no reason for her to wait to apply for the carry permit. She downloaded the application and completed it. Joe wrote a letter attesting to the training he had given her on gun usage and safety and signed the letter with his Secret Service agent signature block. A stop at a police station with Joe flashing his creds had the police do the required fingerprinting and along with a check for the fee, the package was put in the mail.

In Texas they stopped at San Antonio to visit the Alamo and explored the River Walk. They took a short boat ride which circled the walk. After a discussion and an agreement they decided to head north. New Orleans and Elvis’s home in Memphis could be seen when they headed south to avoid the winter’s cold weather. Joe wanted to visit the LBJ library in Austin but more than that he wanted to go to Dallas.

In Dallas they stopped at the famous book depository where JFK was assassinated which was before Joe’s time as an agent. In taking the tour and seeing the relatively short rifle shot that Oswald took, Joe could only come up with one way that the tragedy could have been avoided especially when the President’s motoring route was published. That was if the Service had overruled the President who insisted he ride in an open top vehicle. If he would have ridden in a vehicle with a solid top or a clear bulletproof top, Joe could only wonder what might have been.

They increased their daily driving limit and two days later they arrived at Sara’s home town of Waterview, PA.

With some nervousness on his part Joe met Sara’s son Jerry. He was a handsome young man who made Joe feel welcome. They quickly developed a bond between themselves probably because of the mutual love they had for Sara. Jerry said his plans were to get his degree in electrical engineering and then go to law school and become a patent attorney. In talking with Jerry there wasn’t a doubt in Joe’s mind that Jerry would accomplish that.

It was a small wedding for Joe and Sara with Jerry, Brad and his family, Sara’s parents and a few friends in attendance. Sara looked beautiful in a crème colored suit with some embroidery on the jacket that she wore. Joe wore that dark blue suit of his and the indentations on the back of the suit were hardly noticeable.

For the honeymoon Sara suggested they wait till the late spring and instead of going to Europe or down south to the islands they take the motorhome to see Canada and maybe even Alaska. The togetherness the motorhome gave them she said was why she wanted to do this.

Joe said they could do that but why wait that long to do something. He suggested they take a cruise ship that was doing a repositioning cruise from Boston to Tampa. The ship visited a number of islands and went as far south as Aruba before it ended up in Tampa. From there he said they could fly to an all-inclusive resort in the Caribbean for another seven days.

Sara asked him why he would want to do these seven days at an island resort.

His remark of “I want to see how your Grand Tetons look in a two piece bathing suit” earned him a solid jab in his chest from Sara but she said, “Joe, you see them with nothing covering them often enough.”

The response of “Yes, and I wouldn’t want to have it any other way” earned him another poke at his chest.

Although renting out his condo was generating Joe a positive cash flow, he was debating whether he should continue to rent or should he put the condo up for sale. He knew he would make a nice profit over what he originally paid if he sold but maybe in time there would be further appreciation.

Sara asked that he not rent it out for two weeks prior to their cruise as they could live there and Joe could show her the many places in Washington DC that she had not seen since she visited there with her parents when she was in elementary school.

They both were frequent users of the net and would exchange emails with their friends. Sometimes their friends sent them some interesting news but mostly it was just about what was happening in their lives

Lloyd sent Joe an email telling him about what was already being reported on the web and in the news about that Lloyd’s company installing a modified drone control system in a pilotless cargo airplane. Controlling a multi-engine jet plane Lloyd said is much more complicated than a single engine drone. He told Joe not to say anything and keep it under his hat but if the control system works in cargo planes the next step was going to be installing it in commercial passenger planes. This system wouldn’t be the plane’s main control system but would only act as a backup should something serious occur. They were working on a way the plane’s crew outside of the cockpit could notify ground personnel and activate the system should it become necessary for someone on the ground to take over flying the plane. The security of the method to activate the system as a simultaneous two person iris scan is one method they are considering. Recent incidents involving unstable pilots had made this project a high priority item.

Joe received an email from Don Winger who was head of Lloyd’s security that contained an attachment of a scanned newspaper article. The subject of the email said “FYI.” The newspaper article was on the police breaking up an escort service that were making secret videos of customers engaging in sex with the escorts. After these married men had sex with the escorts they were blackmailed. Two of the escorts had secretly recorded the head of the escort service telling them what to do and have given these recordings to the authorities in exchange for lenient sentences. The head of this escort service who was going to be incarcerated for a long time was Lynn Strokes, Lloyd’s former executive assistant. The photo of Lynn in the article showed her to now have short red hair and Joe thought she looked better when her hair was longer. He somewhat smugly wondered how she would look in a solid orange jump suit. He thought it was such a waste of fine womanhood with her going to prison.

Joe received an email from Carla. In it she said with the present mayor retiring they are asking her to run for that elected position. She said she would probably do it as she could make some needed changes in how things were presently being done.

In another email Brad broke the news to Joe that agent Pat Weaver had become engaged. He says she does ask him if he hears anything about how Joe is doing.

Joe emailed his realty management service telling them that with the exception of the two middle weeks in October they were free to rent the condo until he told them different. He also asked them to pay the bills from the rent money that came in and just send him a monthly statement. He had decided to keep the condo for now because of the positive cash flow it was generating. He was aware of the residency requirement in order to not pay any capital gains tax when he did sell.

Sara told Joe that the mail she just received contained her concealed carry permit. She now was going to be carrying her Smith and Wesson with her.

The day before they were going to leave for Washington DC, Sara said she needed to do a little shopping. Joe told her he was content to stay back at home and would do some web surfing on the ports the cruise ship was going to stop at to see what the reviews said about the various ports.

With Joe being on the web and printing out information on these ports the time went by quickly. In looking at the time Joe thought Sara had been gone much longer than she said she would be and he started to be concerned.

Finally Joe heard the front door open and saw Sara walk in.

He could see that she was excited as she said, “You won’t believe what just happened.”

“What happened?”

“I had left a store and was walking to the car when a man in his early twenties approached me. He showed me a knife and said he wanted my money and credit cards or he would hurt me. I told him I would give it to him and for him not to hurt me. My purse as you can see is a shoulder carry purse. That enabled me to put both my hands into my purse which he thought I was doing to find my wallet.”

“What I did however was to find my gun. I pulled the gun out of my purse while at the same time pulling back on the slide to load a bullet in the chamber. Once I had done that I fired a shot at the brick wall behind him and told this robber that if he didn’t drop the knife and lay face down on the pavement the next one was going in him. I fired the shot just to show him I was not afraid to fire the gun but unless he came at me I wasn’t going to shoot him.”

“He lay down on the ground and someone called the police. They came and asked me what happened and took my statement. They said he fit the description of someone who had been robbing people lately. They checked my carry permit but even if I didn’t have one, I doubt they would have done anything to me as they seemed happy to have this man in custody.”

“Firing at the brick wall wasn’t necessary as you don’t know where a ricochet will go but I am glad it turned out right and you are safe.”

Joe just put his arms around Sara and hugged her. At the same time he mentally patted himself on the back for teaching her how to handle a pistol. That image changed to reality as he started patting Sara on her butt. That then changed to some kissing and soon thereafter they were making love but they never made the bedroom. He took her on the sofa with his pants down by his ankles and her skirt pulled up over her waist with her panties hanging from her ankle. Neither of them thought about the possibility of someone seeing them in this position. They were thankful that no one did and later laughed about it.

Two weeks before their cruise Joe and Sara went to Washington. They visited a number of the buildings that Joe was aware of but had never really visited in depth. The Supreme Court, Congress, Treasury, Library of Congress, Ford Theater and the National Archives were just some of the buildings they visited. The Vietnam Wall was a somber experience as each of them knew some of the people whose names were listed there.

Joe obviously had been to the White House but Sara hadn’t. Showing his credentials let him and Sara into the White House after normal visiting hours. They met Jill Carter who was a regular tour guide as she was leaving the building. Jill said hello and told Joe her brother was doing fine in as a park ranger. Joe had put in the word to a friend of his who had hired Jill’s brother.

Jill inquired what they were doing there and Joe told her that he was going to give Sara a tour. Jill said if they wanted she could give them a tour and point out some of the history of the rooms and items there that Joe may not know. They took Jill up on her offer.