Chapter 65

The one lesson, of any real value, I learned in the sandbox was that you can't guard against everything. Since I couldn't prevent land mines, claymore mines, and IEDs, I just concentrated on what I could do something about.

The security survey after the gate repair told me that my security was in as good a shape as it could be, without a couple of marines standing guard 24/7. Since I didn't have bands of Taliban soldiers assaulting my compound, I felt some better. In the worst case, it would be a few heavy handed thugs, armed to the teeth.

I could still remember the simplicity and efficiency of my bicycle attack on the Mendez clan in Tryon. I doubted that the Russians had even that rudimentary amount of a military operation in mind. They had numbers and fire power, they didn't need homemade napalm and escape plans. If they had a mind to, they would come in like bulls in the pastry shop and have my ass for dinner. I had no doubt of that. I would just prefer to make it as difficult as possible for them.

The truth is it turned out to be all paranoia. A stretched bicycle type chain was the cause of all the alarms. If Jerry hadn't mentioned the Russian connection again, the chain would never have caused any concern at all.

Events in my life tended to swing wildly from routine, to exciting, then back to routine. After the gate fiasco, things switched to nothing but routine. I could only assume that Jen was beating the bushes trying to find something interesting to keep Marty's film crew from going stir crazy. She seemed to be having terrible luck at it. Not a single lion or even a goat ran away from the bush beatings.

Another week passed leaving me half way through my deal with Marty and the Pros from Dover. I had no concern at all for any of them. My concern was for Lucas and myself. We were getting really, really bored. Boredom carried over to the job and would surely lead to a mistake eventually. Provoking someone was just plain stupid, but it did break the monotony. So I warned Lucas to keep an especially tight rein on his short temper. I tried to do the same.

"Did you see the news this morning," Ed asked as he entered the office with his arms filled with brown bags. Over the last week Ed had taken a liking to Helen's new spicy egg on a bagel sandwich. Since he brought them for everyone, I stopped dropping in on Hardees before work.

The sandwich wasn't really new. It did have a definite change in the taste of the egg. It certainly wasn't the traditional, scrambled in grease egg. Helen had switched to a microwave dry cooking of the egg. She added one hell of a lot of spices to make up for the lack of grease. None of us thought they would catch on, so Ed was determined to eat them for breakfast every day until Helen came to her senses. We all thought that eventually she would figure out that she was in the heart attack capitol of the world. Everything had to be floating in grease for those of us bent on suicide by clogged arteries. The new egg bagel wasn't soaked in grease, but it was still a great sandwich.

"What news?" I asked taking one of the bags. Inside the bag I found not only the bagel but a mixture of homemade chunky apples. The fresh apples were covered with brown sugar, cinnamon and some crunchy stuff. I took the top off the bagel and poured the apple mixture on top of the melted cheese.

Ed cringed at my desecration of Helen's bagel and its already perfect mix of flavors. At least it was perfect in his mind. Finally he said, "The cops made sweeping arrests all up and down the eastern seaboard last night. It looks like all kinds of Russian thugs are going to be seeing the insides of our prison system."

"I can't say that I object to that little exercise of authority." I said it thinking that my involvement with the Ruskies might be coming to an end. None too soon, I thought.

"Big brother ain't always bad," Ed said as if he was a thirty year old factory worker, who once read a book back in high school. "We can only hope that puts an end to the red menace." he added.

"From your mouth to God's ear," I agreed in my best Yiddish mother's accent. I used that one just to piss Ed off.

"Have you heard Boss, the coppers are picking up Russians all up and down the east coast. The Bolsheviks are going inside under the Rico act."

"What the fuck is with all the accents today?" I asked it since Lucas, the nerd, was trying to sound like Elliot Ness. "And yes Ed gave me the good news. It's about time all that crap got flushed out."

"Yeah, been a clogged toilet for sure," Ed agreed. Ed's parents were Jewish immigrants from the Ukraine. He actually liked the Russian people, even though they allowed massive discrimination against his parent's parents. But when it came to dealing with the Russian government, or any other Russian organization, he was extremely hawkish.

"Okay, we have all commented for the cameras, now let's get to our work." I never tried to pretend the cameras weren't there. I tried not to make them the star of our lives, but I also refused to do the 'this is my real life ' lie. Almost all of the reality shows tried to pretend they were just voyeurs. I intended to not do that. Unless they planned to spend a lot of time chopping up my statements, the show was going to have an 'I know I'm being watched and I just don't care' feel about it.

"Hey boss," Lucas said in the suddenly quiet room.

"Yes Lucas?" I asked.

"I have an email from Reverend Archer. My bike is ready for pick up. How about we go get it."

"Take the van, while you are gone, I will lay out the packages we have on hand." We had stopped referring to the court orders as anything other than packages. The reason was simple, we didn't want to accidentally slip up and create a problem. If we believed it, at least on some level, we could pull off the BS story better,

Lucas was gone almost an hour, then came rolling in his new bike. It was a shiny perfectly new looking dual suspension mountain bike. The small bright orange combination engine and drive box was locked a couple of inches above the rear tire. When Lucas released the locking lever, the engine would drop to the wheel. He should then apply a few pounds of downward force on the drive box, while reengage the locking lever. Those were about the only real actions necessary to convert the bike from a pure pedal bike to a gasoline hybrid.

Removing the small wing nut, which held the throttle to the handle bars, and a couple of twist ties completely remove it and the linkage from the bike. Then he could open a different locking lever and remove a wing nut, so that the motor would come off in his hand. After which it folded into a package that would fit easily inside a canvas bag or backpack. It was a truly unique and useful helper engine for the bike.