Chapter 447

I awoke to my phone ringing. We were descending from 45000 feet, basically in a low power glide; we were just off the coast of Virginia.

It was Eric, “I guess you have seen the news.”

“I saw; what have you learned?”

“Nothing concrete so far, it’s going to take a couple more days to identify the bombers. So far, not one thing to identify them has been found; not one piece of paper, fingerprints came up negative. DNA is the only thing left,” he replied.

“Nationality,” I asked.

“Middle Eastern we think, we don’t know, a lot of explosives, lots of little pieces all mixed together,” Eric replied.

“I called to tell you that you will be getting transcripts of all the testimony this week in a file in a few minutes. I thought you may want to look it over before Monday. Nothing earth shattering so far - talk more later - got to run,” he said as the line went dead.

We were on the ground minutes later, making our way to the terminal building; it was 5PM. When the plane stopped, I stood and made a couple statements.

“For you first time travelers abroad, you must go through customs and declare everything that you did not take with you. You will have to pay fees on the things you bought. If you need money, yell.”

“There is a welcoming committee in the terminal; family, friends and some news reporters.”

“Hanna, your colleagues and competitors are upset that you pulled off a coup. They are waiting for you. Honey, you are on your own,” I added with a laugh.

Andy and his men spirited the cargo to the armory through the cargo doors away from the terminal, using one of the foul weather covered baggage carts, and into our secured hangar. They did this while the masses were busy in the terminal.

Vicky and I were the last off the plane and into the terminal to meet our mates. We walked into the media firestorm; everyone was cornered in some fashion. Hanna and Sylvester were trying to film the coming home and get one final interview with all of us, but the competition was stiff.

I hugged Lorrie, “That is a great plane, thanks for sending it. When did the C5 get back?”

“Three hours ago,” she replied.

By then two little boys were in my arms, all smiling and giggles and happy as they always were.

After everyone was through customs, the McBride family made their way over to me; Rachael extended her hand with some cash. “This is what I have left of the money you gave me.”

“I gave that to you; it is yours, I did not want any of it back, thank you for going with us. I hope you learned a lot and had fun. Have you had a chance to talk to Mom and Dad about using my video link to communicate with Aric?” I said.

“I heard about Aric but not about a video link,” Paul replied.

“Aric is gifted like Rachael and they quickly became friends. Aric is the youngest son of German Ambassador Schmitt. Given the sensitivity of the position, most conversations have to be on secure links. I have a secure video link that Ambassador Schmitt has agreed to allow Aric to use if we can get it set up,” I replied then added.

“Rachael would have to come to the office and be mindful of the time difference. My tech people will try to get the connection set up on Monday.”