Chapter 101

I had my plane ticket for the flight to Atlanta to meet the tour bus, but at the last minute Colonial Martin called. He informed me that I would be picked up by my tour partner in a company SUV. We would be driving to the first venue. The band would be arriving on the tour bus. First stop was Atlanta.

The pickup suited me just fine. It meant that I could carry the Glock 40mm that I had test fired, as well as my own .38, and all my other toys. I was sitting at the kitchen table drinking my reheated coffee, and waiting for the SUV with my new partner to arrive. I should have been waiting to go to the airport since it was that day the plane was due to depart. It was the same day alright, but one hell of a lot earlier. It was 4AM to be exact.

I watched for the head lights of the overly large SUV to pull into the drive. I hoped at that time of the morning, he didn't wake my landlady. There was probably more than enough animosity between us already. There was no open hostility, but she didn't approve of my life style. If I took that light weight parka off, and she saw how heavily armed I was, she would surly ask me to leave.

I wore the Glock inside the waist band of my jeans. I wore the .38 in the shoulder rig just to have a way to transport it so I knew that it was safe. I had the stun gun in the pocket of the parka and the two box opener in my jeans pocket.

When the SUV pulled in, I rushed out to meet it. I threw the half duffel bag into the rear seat, The man behind the wheel asked. "You Sylvia Porter, right?"

"Who the fuck else would be up at 4AM and packed for three months on the road," I said with a laugh.

"You do have a point. I'm Rodney Smith," he said.

"Okay Rodney you going to driver the first leg?" I asked.

"If you don't object yeah," he said.

"Well I don't object at all. You can drive all you want, I will drive when you need me," I said.

"Works for me," he agreed. So off Rodney drove into the dark. Once we were on the interstate highway the questions began. Even though Colonel Martin said this was a police type operation, I figured he sent me a commando type. There was no mention by him of pecking order, so I assumed we would be making it up as we went along.

He informed me that he was an army ranger, and had gone to war in Afghanistan. As an army ranger he was a little better trained and saw a little more combat than the average soldier. He wasn't the black ops types that the Swamp Dog used for embassy work. At least that is what he told me.

"So Sylvia, I hear you were in the sand box yourself. " There seemed to be mostly contempt in his voice. "In the Air Force was it?" he asked.

"Yeah, I was a payroll clerk," I said with a smile. I figure I would go along and then give him a big assed surprise sometime during those three months. It didn't work out that way.

"Now that ain't the way I heard it," he said.

"Well maybe you heard wrong. Besides all that shit was yesterday. It's today, we need to think about," I said.

"Okay, I just want to know you gonna have my back?" he made it a question.

"This job comes with insurance doesn't it?" I asked.

"Of course," he replied.

"Well you tell your next of kin, they are going to have to wait at least three months to file for it," I said being my smart ass self.

"Fair enough," he said. "Martin tells me you been shot." He added after a brief pause in the conversation.

"More than once," I replied. "How about you."

"Never been hit. Guess that make me the better soldier," he said.

"Yeah, I guess it does," I said to change the subject. "So how old are you Rodney."

"Twenty eight, and before you asked I did two hitches in the big green machine. I stumbled around some before Martin found me working as a guard on an armored car. This is my first mission for the Swamp Dog too."

"Well I have been a cop, with some protection assignments, so you might want to let me set them up, at least at first." I said it but figured I was in for a fight, since men don't usually like to defer to women.

"So you married Rodney?" I asked.

"Nope, gots me a girl though," he said. He was speaking street dialect suddenly. Up to that point he had spoken with perfect grammar and with a wide vocabulary.

"As so you were hired to communicate with the rapper," I said since the sudden change in speech patterns was of some concern to me.

"Well it did occur to me that I was sent on this assignment because I was black." he said.

"Well I can't speak to that, since I don't know why I was hired at all," I said. I thought it was because they just wanted a body to stand around looking like a bodyguard."

"I think you have a point. We both are probably here to pretend like we are bad asses, just in case there is someone thinking about doing something. The bosses aren't expecting us to really do anything."

"That's my thinking. So I'm just going to take the money and run." I said.

"Well we are definitely on the same page," Rodney said.

"Since you came with the car, I'm guessing you know more about what's going on than I do." I said.

"Well I know we are going to meet the tour bus in the Atlanta Raceway parking lot. There is going to be an outside concert in the track's infield. But there is some kind of an interview first. I'm not sure what all is involved in this gig, but I know it is the first show of the tour."

"That's a hell of a lot more than I knew. I don't really even know the rappers name." I said.

"I know the boss calls him coka cola, but his name is TJ Soda. Don't ask me why he chose that one." Rodney replied.

"Well Rodney tell me? Is he talented." I asked.

"Hell how would I know. I don't listen to that shit. You think because I'm black I like rap music?" he asked.

"Well yeah," I admitted.

"Well I don't," he seemed to be truly offended. Rather than apologizes I just dropped it.

We had been driving about an hour by the time we got that far in our little show and tell. The emphasis was for sure on tell, when he said, "We need gas."

"If you find a truck stop, we can get break fast with the gas," I said.

"Well there should be one coming up soon. I saw the sign is why I mention it," he said.

Good for him, I thought, He seemed to appreciate an efficient schedule. At a truck stop I had learned the best thing was bacon crispy and eggs scrambled, with toast. My little road trip with Jerry had taught me that the cooks in the kitchen almost always got those two things right. The eggs might be more done one place than another, but they were at least edible on the first try. Not so with eggs over. The same was true of sausage. It tended to be almost raw or leather like, about half the time.

After the food on the was paid for with the credit card, we were ready to go. Rodney had bought the gas first. The SUV had auxiliary gas tanks for sure, since the bill was over one hundred and fifty dollars.

When we were back on the road Rodney and I talked about neutral things to pass the time. From sport, to TV shows, and which websites were best for entertainment and news. We even discussed online chatrooms.

It seemed that Rodney was a member of the National Honor Society in high school. He also read a hell of a lot of book, on shit I didn't understand. In the end I decided that Rodney was more intelligent that me. I didn't think that made him more suitable for the job at hand, but maybe I would change my mind as time wore on.

We didn't have a huge debate inside the SUV, but we had some lively small discussions. We debated the issue of size vs ability to conceal a weapon. I came down on concealment, but then most everyone else in the world would say that size does count. That seemed to be Rodney's opinion as well. I thought it was foolish in our situation to go with size over concealment. I didn't want the bad guy to know I was armed, before I knew he was. It was an interesting argument, but it proved nothing.

We were close to the city of Atlanta, when my phone rang. I looked at Rodney and shrugged. "Hello," I said into the phone.

"Are you Miss Porter?" the voice said.

"I am," I replied.

"I'm Joan Pacer, the booking agent's road manager. Well one of them. I guess that makes me your boss for now," she said.

"I guess it does," I agreed, "So what you got for me."

"There is a 4PM press conference at the race track, are you going to be here in time?" she asked.

Well Joan it's about 10AM and we are about on hour out so I would say yes. We should be there in two hours. We have to find a McDonald's first, then the race track, so yeah two hours should do," I said again.

Rodney thought that exchange was hilarious. He was choking on his laughter, so I had to muffle the sound. "Then come to the arena manager's office by 2PM," Joan said trying to regain control.

We had an early lunch but it wasn't at McDonald's. It was at a specialty designer sandwich shoppe. Rodney had looked it up on line. They had really weird shit on the menu. I opted for a hamburger and fries.

"You have no imagination Porter," he said.

"True but one of these days you will find out why," I replied. We arrived at the area a full hour before our meeting with Joan.

"Why don't you and I check out the entrances to the office area and then the ones to the dressing rooms," I said.

"Good plan," Rodney agreed.

What we found was a area with only two accesses that was the office area. There were four offices, all but one of which, were being used by the tour personnel. The other one was the arena manager's office. Rodney and I checked his office to be sure it was not a threat. Of course it wasn't, but we had to be careful.

We went down to check the dressing room the rappers would be using. There was one for the band and one for the singers. They were both in the drivers dressing area. The setup workers usually called roadies were in a different area.

There were two entrances to those areas as well. It could have been much worse. There could have been many more entrances. The arena security was responsible for who got into of the dressing rooms. People mostly likely would have identity cards in order to gain access.

We met with the area security boss. He explained that they had extra people coming in to run metal detectors, since this was a rap band. I expected Rodney to go ape shit, but he just nodded. Everything looked good on paper all we had to do was watch the crowd and keep Coca Cola alive.Sylvia 102

Rodney and I settled in to wait for the boss, or at least the rental boss. I had time to assess Rodney in full daylight. He walked with just a slight almost unnoticeable limp. He was not quite six foot tall and probably one hundred and eighty pounds. He was the color of coffee with just a touch of cream. There was some white in his gene pool for sure. His hair was too short to be in the least curly. As I think I said earlier he looked like he might have been a gym rat.