Chapter 16

"Shit," Jon said in their office half an hour later. It was their less comfortable but more familiar office in one of the secure buildings behind the fence on the back of the property. "Tani, I can't believe it can be like that."

"Me either," she shook her head, settling into the comfortable chair. "But if it's even partway correct, it puts the whole problem into a different light."

"Well, I have to say I'm glad Stan stuck his nose into things," Jon said. "I mean, with the security clearance issues he had the right to, but I was just a little touchy about it until this came down. I would never have thought to look at the issue like that. I mean, if they're even partly right, well, maybe it really is a lower-level threat than we were considering."

"It would be nice if it was," she replied. "God, Jon, we've lived under this threat as long as we've been together. It would be nice to find out it's nowhere near as bad as we thought, even though it makes me feel like we may have overdone it."

"I don't think we did," he shook his head. "I think we'd have been in a lot of trouble, both of us, if we hadn't gotten out of St. Louis as quickly as we did. But things have changed a lot since, and maybe it's been for the best. I mean, if we hadn't done it, we wouldn't be at Lambdatron, and we probably wouldn't have been together."

"True," she sighed. "You know, we've talked about my father and my brother and their racial beliefs often enough, but Jim was right about one thing about my father, and I'm actually kind of proud to say it. When someone was in trouble, especially if it even appeared to have racial involvement, he'd go to bat for them first and ask questions later. Now I've learned better, now that you've taught me better, I've come to realize that a lot of his suppositions were wrong, but he wouldn't back down from a fight if someone needed fighting for. Going back to when I was in high school and before, I know he lost a few, lost more than a few, but at least the people he was supporting knew someone was sticking up for them. Sometimes that was all the hope they had."

"Puts me in mind of Stan, when you put it that way," Jon smiled. "If someone tries to cross someone from the company, Stan is going to be in their corner if there's the slightest possibility that they're in the right. I hadn't exactly thought of it in those terms before, but look at the way Stan went to bat for Jennlynn, just as an example."

"Or us, as far as that goes," Tanisha said. "You know, back the first summer we were interns here I thought Stan could have been a little more supportive with us about not going back to Georgia Tech in the face of the troubles we knew we were going to be facing. But since then I've come to realize we weren't really Lambdatron people yet, and he was testing us. We are Lambdatron people now; there's no doubt of it. We've done several pretty good things for the company, and he's making sure the company is good to us."

"Stan may be a hippie at heart, but he values loyalty, and I mean loyalty both ways," Jon agreed. He thought about his statement for a moment, then continued. "I mean, it sort of makes you wonder what would have happened if he had decided Kwame was a high level threat."

"Knowing what we know now ... well, that really is kind of a scary thought," Tanisha sighed. "But, you know, I honestly can't imagine Kwame standing up for people like that, or like my father did, at least not without calculating the risk first. I mean, it's one thing to say that intellectually, but to know the congregation is down to sixty percent of what it was a few years ago proves it better than any theory I could come up with."

"And that was a year ago," Jon said. "I wonder what it is now. Oh well, we'll know in a few days. Tanisha, while I know I wouldn't have agreed with your father on much more than the color of the sky, and I don't think I would have liked him in the slightest, I do have to comment: like the Marines say, 'No guts, no glory.' While I might not have agreed with him, when I look at it that way I have to admire him a little."

"Yeah, I agree," she smiled. "And that really is a strange thought, isn't it?"

The reason the two of them were in their back office was that the test results they'd been waiting on for over two weeks had finally come in -- it turned out that weather conditions had delayed the test for several days, so that had slowed things down. Now, they had fresh data to work with, and on a quick look, it looked good -- everything was well within mission parameters and the results looked favorable. That meant they weren't going to be lacking for things to do for the next several days, even though they still had personal things to do. "I hate to say this," Tanisha said as the afternoon wore on, "But we're going to have to lock things up and go see about the houses. Your mother, Al, and Jeff are going to be pulling up in front of our place before too long."

"Yeah, I guess we'd better get out of here," Jon agreed. "This jazz has waited long enough already, there's no reason it can't wait till morning."

It took a few minutes to get everything off their desks and locked in the secure file drawers, then they headed up to the main building to check out. "Better watch it," Angela warned. "We've got press snooping around the parking lot gate again."

"Good God, don't they ever give up?" Jon asked. Even though the incident with Jennlynn was ten days in the past now, there were still press people snooping around the place. They were looking for information about her, where she might be, or just looking to get an angle no one had uncovered before, not that anyone had been terribly successful in getting anything so far.

"You'd think they'd realize this is a dry hole," Angela snorted. "But this seems to be the only lead they've got, and I guess they hope someone will let something slip."

"Well, they're not getting anything from us," Jon shook his head. "I mean, like we know where Jennlynn is." The truth, of course, was that he and Tanisha probably had a better idea of where she was than anyone, but they weren't about to say, even to a friend and co-worker like Angela.

"They're just being a pain in the ass, that's all they know how to be," Angela shook her head. "I'll alert security that you're heading out in case someone tries something."

"Thanks, Angela," Jon said. "We are parked a little close to the gate."

"Good God, you wonder if they're ever going to give up," Tanisha shook her head as the two of them headed for the door to the east parking lot.

They stepped outside to see three people standing on the sidewalk by the edge of the driveway. One of them put a big video camera up on his shoulder when he saw them come outside. "Oh, shit," Jon said, pulling out his cell phone, just in case. "I guess we do it like we've been briefed."

"Might as well," Tanisha sighed. "You think they'd learn."

They did their best to ignore the three press people on the sidewalk as they walked across the parking lot toward their car. All of a sudden, they heard a male voice cry, "Hey, don't!" They glanced up to see a well-dressed woman running toward them.

Jon raised his cell phone, punched a single button and said flatly into it, "Security intrusion, east parking lot." No one replied, but almost as he spoke, there was the hoot of a loud horn, and the crash of metal as the sliding gate across the entrance to the parking lot crashed closed.

"Sir! Ma'am!" the woman yelled. "Can you tell us... ?"

"No, we can't and we won't," Jon said. "Back off with your hands in the air or you're going to be sorry."

The woman ignored him. She reached out, grabbed Tanisha lightly by the arm, and said, "Look, all I want to know is..."

When Jon managed to knock down Tanisha's brother nearly five years before, he'd only had the benefit of a couple brief training sessions with his black belt sister, Crystal. However, the threat of Kwame since then had given both of them the need to do a lot more martial arts training, and the woman's next words were, "Ow! You're hurting me! Quit that!" as Jon had her in a hammerlock, her arm twisted tightly behind her back as two different doors on the side of the building opened and security guards erupted out onto the parking lot. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?"

Jon didn't answer, but Tanisha had a can of chemical mace out and was pointing it at the newswoman as the security guards reached them. "We have cuffs ready, sir," one of them said. "We'll take care of this now."

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" the woman swore again. "All I wanted to do was ask a few questions."

"Ma'am," the security guard said. "You are trespassing on private property in a federally classified zone, and you've committed several federal crimes. Now you can be calm until the authorities get here, or you can fight us, but you're going to be here until this is dealt with."

"You can't do this to me!" she said, her voice rising. "I'll have your job for this!"

"I very sincerely doubt it," the security guard said as he snapped the handcuffs closed. "And you're not going to be the first person to find that out."

The woman was bitching and swearing as she was rather forcibly led into the building, into a special holding area. "Got another one," another security guard smiled to Jon and Tanisha. "You think they'd get the message after a while."

"You need us to stick around?" Jon asked. "We've got somewhere we need to be."

"Probably nothing that can't keep till tomorrow," the guard said. "Just so long as you keep your cell phone on if something comes up. Ma'am, you're willing to swear out a complaint for assault and battery, aren't you?"

"I hate to do it for that but this stuff has got to cease," Tanisha said. "Call me if you need me."

"Sure will," the security guard grinned. "You know, while this whole thing has been a pain in the butt, it's at least given us a little excitement.'

"I'll bet it gets a little dull sometimes," Jon grinned. "You want to have the gate popped for us?"

"Get in your car and pull up to the gate, then we'll open it," the guard told them. "This probably wouldn't have happened if you'd been leaving at the normal time, but that left things a little more one on one."

"Sorry about that, but we really do have other things to deal with," Jon said. "Hey, I will point out that the guys outside the fence yelled at her to not do it."

"They've been here before, they know the rules," the security guard said. "You two have a good day, now."

Jon and Tanisha got in the Chevy, and headed for the gate, stopping in front of it for a moment while it opened. He noticed that the cameraman had set his camera on the ground, pointing away from him, and was standing just outside the gate, apparently wanting to talk to him, and Jon was sort of in the mood. He rolled down the car window and leaned out. "Sorry about that, man," the cameraman said. "We told her not to go past the gate, but she's from network, she knew better."

"Yeah, well, thanks for trying," Jon told him. "You might as well take off; I don't think she's going to be back for a while."