Chapter 10

Sal pointed out to me that since I had won our shower contest earlier today, I was uniquely qualified in the manly art of burning meat on the large hibachi in the pool area. Me man, me burn meat. Ugh.

Anyway, that's how Steve, the Okie, found me cooking steaks in the pool area. "Hey Tex, you okay? I heard you pissed off someone else and my friends had to pull your ass out of a whole can of whip-ass. Charlie was not happy you didn't want to break bread with her tonight. What's that all about?

I had issues and I wasn't going to let my big brother and his pit bull girlfriend control the agenda tonight. My entire life was spent following the lead from my brother and sister. Tonight was my turn.

"What do you know about Security Company International?"

"What?"

Steve sent me a look that would have chilled the soul of a man who had not just proven his manhood by giving Sal three orgasms in the shower. This was textbook 'Steve the college professor' mode. If you can't impress them, intimidate them. I had grown immune to his nonsense years ago.

"Well, Steve, what do you know about SCI, and what are you doing working for them? I've got some real problems here, and I don't want a pile of bull shit about this bunch of Yahoos. What do you know about this bunch of paramilitary renegades?"

"Slow down, JD, and give me a chance to answer the first question first. SCI is a private security company that often works for Uncle Sam. They are the farthest thing from Yahoos or off the wall militias you can get. Sometimes they work normal, vanilla operations generated through open, commercial bids, sometimes they work black operations, but they're the good guys.

"After 9-11, the various agencies that were supposed to protect us were spending so much time and energy pointing fingers at each other they didn't have the time to cooperate. Nothing was getting done, and American assets around the world were exposed.

"At about the same time, a couple of former Team, as in Seal Team, members got together to form a security company designed to protect Western businesses around the world. Homeland Security got so frustrated with the inter-service bickering that they decided to privatize certain domestic and international operations. Think of Halliburton or Black Hawk with ethics.

"Gradually through the years, SCI has grown to be neutral ground for the alphabet soup in DC. Between the political skill of one owner and the pure applied scientific research of the other partner, SCI has become one of the strongest forces for good in the western world."

"Yeah, right... 'Strongest forces for good in the western world' sounds like a recruiting line to me. How did you get mixed up in this mess of heroic non-yahoos?"

Steve gave me a look of frustration that I didn't take his word that SCI was God's gift to freedom loving folks around the world. "I'm a code breaker. The bad guys in the world can't hide their communication from the National Security Agency, and they know it. So in order to get around that, they communicate in code. Many of those codes are based on religious icons, and their related artwork. The combination of art and mathematics that is my background puts me in a pretty good position to find the solutions to the occasional problems NSA turns over to SCI to break. As I mentioned before, if you've read Dan Brown's book, "Lost Symbol", you can get an idea of the types of stuff I run into.

"As to how I got hooked into this, let's just say that Charlie's a lot more than a good looking killing machine. SCI is very protective of their staff, and doesn't like strange people screwing or screwing with their key people. They became interested in me when they ran a security sweep on me, and thought I could be useful.

"I've been working as a consultant for about two years now. If they have a problem, they pull me out, dust me off and throw a bunch of money at me. I, in turn, allow them to bask in my brilliance. It's just one cozy arrangement, and Charlie, who is, by the way, the best piece of ass since Helen of Troy, allows me to walk on unbroken legs."

"That's interesting. If really true, I can feel better about this morning anyway. If Charlie and your gang will allow it, I may have something for you to look at after we eat. You still a raw meat man?"

"No, I'm civilized now. You need to leave the stake on thirty seconds per side instead of three. Charlie is also a health nut. Raw meat isn't good for you. The things one has to put up with for love..."

Later that evening Sal, Steve and I were relaxing around one of the tables in the back yard reviewing the day and bringing Sal up to date on our SCI conversation. Sal seemed to put more credence in Steve's explanation than I originally had.

"I don't think Gunny would get involved in anything underhanded. In fact, Steve's explanation of SCI sounds like exactly the sort of thing he would be interested in and be pretty damn good at, too."

I capitulated. "OK Sal, I may be a little reluctant to buy all that, but they did try to save our bacon this morning. I'll defer to your and Steve's judgment for now.

"Steve, I have something I want to show you."

I pulled out the two sheets of paper I had found at the complex. Steve looked at me with a blank look. "Okay, baby brother, that's some nice paper. What's it got to do with the cost of buying a congressman in Washington?"

"Okie, I don't know if it's even worth the two dollars it takes to buy a congressman these days, but there is a history. I found this laying on what looked like an altar in a room at the complex that went by-by in the big boom this morning. I wouldn't have given it a second thought except when a drop of sweat fell on it, letters showed up on the sheet and then disappeared when it dried."

"Well, that does put a different spin on these mighty fine sheets of paper. Let's see what happens when it gets wet."

Apparently, Charlie had also put a limit to Steve's drinking habits. Normally he would have been on his third beer. He was drinking from a bottle of water. Steve pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and dampened it from the bottle. He pressed the cloth to the paper, and nothing changed. He looked at me and then put more water on to this kerchief. Still there was nothing.

"Something's missing. You were sweating, right?"

"Yeah, it was hotter than a bitch out there."

"I know what it is. Wait just a minute." Sal quickly left us and returned with a bottle of Gatorade. "It may have been the chemicals that caused the letters to form. Try this."

Steve wet the kerchief in the Gatorade and pressed it to the paper. Bigger than goose droppings, letters, well, numbers, showed on the paper.

We all watched open mouthed as we looked at the blank sheet of paper transposed into a jumble of numbers.

Steve leaned back into his lawn chair. "Well shut my mouth. What do we have here?"

Steve quickly pulled his super I-phone from his pocket and took a picture of what was revealed on the paper.

"I need to get this to our computer department to get started on breaking the code. Let's try the other sheet."

Guess what? Another message showed up. The problem was that the letters seemed faded, and didn't show enough contrast to read. Steve had the answer to that.

"Let's send this back to our labs. We should be able to make this thing readable."

Suddenly a voice interrupted our conversation. "Looks like a key-cipher to me. Wow, invisible ink. Just like Girl Scouts. Any chance you have the key?"

I turned to see the Polly-Anna Minnie-Me. I took a quick inventory of the young girl that was the force behind the voice. It was hard to believe this girl had just won a battle with cancer. Most people would be sickly and pale. Other than her baldness, she looked like she had never even seen a cold.

She wore a bikini that would have been banned in most public places in the world. Her almost naked, light chocolate colored skin gleamed in the failing daylight and reflected the area's artificial lights as they turned on to replace the setting sun.

She wore a pair of wraparound sandals with medium heels that tightened her legs and made her appear taller than her five foot four inch height. She had the look of an early blooming well endowed woman of an indeterminable age. She radiated sex with her every move. She was simply breathtaking.

Steve quickly stood as she entered the conversation. His eyes were straining to take in the vision that broadcast her aura through the open patio. I could see the predatory glare he gave the young goddess and smiled.

I smugly leaned to Steve's ear and whispered, "I have three words for you Bro, fourteen year old."

Steve shook his head like I had hit him with a baseball bat. "What did you say?

"Leslie, this is my big brother, Steve. Steve, this is Leslie Jones. She is the 'baby' sister of Polly and Anna Jones, and one of the smartest people you have ever seen."

Sal opened her arms and Leslie ran to her. "You guys just now getting back? I was starting to get worried about you. You were just going out for lunch. Where have you been?"

"Polly and Anna had to stop at Gentleman Jim's to pick up some clean clothes. They're getting spoiled by the ranch paying for all their laundry. It won't be long before they get too fat and lazy to work, then I'll have to support them."

"Listen up here short stuff," called Anna from the door. "We're a long way off from having to live off of your scrawny ass."

Polly followed with, "I sure hope Professor Lola didn't fill your head with a lot of stuff about us being too far over the hill to make a living."