Chapter 64

Kisses on my eyes and lips caused me to try to open my eyes and see who was waking me. I was still foggy and incoherent from lack of sleep, but I also knew that I needed to come out of it and get up to move around for a while so I wasn't slept out and unable to go to sleep tonight. The hope was that we had experienced all the sleep interruptions we would have for a while.

Maria and Cassie were sitting cross-legged on each side of my head. Maria told me, "Wake up so you can eat lunch with us. Lisa said your friend from Washington, DC, is landing and she went to get him and his family. You need to shave your scruffy face and take a shower. We'll help you."

I pulled both of the tiny ladies down to me for kisses and realized that Maria's baby bump was showing strongly but not Cassie's. They may think the babies will be spread out over a couple of months, but I'm thinking they're all a lot closer together than that. I swung my good leg off the bed and reached for my peg after some kisses. We three got into the shower and washed thoroughly. I did have to make certain their fun parts were very clean, and took the time needed to bend them over for some probing internal inspections. I must have been missing out on some loving, because it felt like I came buckets.

I put some jeans, a T-shirt, and some tennis shoes on after drying and shaving. I didn't know how Sam's kids would react to my prosthesis, so I covered it up for now. The two women with me slipped short dresses made of T-shirt material on. A second look made me realize that they were wearing S&S Race Day T-shirts. The shirts were plenty long on them and they did cover everything. They were almost overdressed considering that the ladies had been nude or only partially covered yesterday.

Lisa came in the door with Sam, his Maria, and four kids. They didn't look too worn out, but I knew how exhausting it must have been to travel in military transports all the way from DC. He and I shook hands and hugged, and I then received a hug from Maria. The little Latin lady went to each of the women for a hug while she held onto the little boy still in her arms. Brandy took little Sam Jr. and put him down in the play area where the other kids were playing.

We brought their luggage in and showed them to their suite upstairs. Brandy said she would bring a crib up for the little guy and they would be set.

Sam wanted to go out to the porch, but my women told him, "Sit, have some lunch with us, and then we'll let you enjoy the sun."

Sam's oldest went outside with the older kids after lunch, and the younger ones hung around with the little guys. Sam and I went out to chat on the porch. Sam told me, "I really needed some time to talk to you, Chuck. You've lived within that crazy group long enough to know how tense it can be. I don't know how John handled it for so long, but I'm almost fed up with the politics and bullshit being passed around. The Homey folks think they should be governing everything and everyone. I'm being told by the Marshals to do our job and help the Homeys when they need us, but to stay away from them otherwise. The FBI is even being influenced by Homeland. A lot of that is overflow from the Secret Service. What do you see in your crystal ball for all this?"

"I'm not sure, Sam. The way the bosses all talk, the Marshal's Service is supposed to be autonomous. We're supposed to support the other agencies under the Department of Justice such as the FBI, DEA, and ATF. We aren't the only branch that isn't within Homeland's jurisdiction. Remember that NSA is under the Department of Defense. The Homeys don't like that and think we're constantly going against them when working on a mutual problem. I do know that we should be true to our general orders and provide services for all the other branches without regard to the overall Homeland Security governing body. As you know, we've been involved with Secret Service issues, especially counterfeiting. We've also often been involved with Homeland concerning immigration and people smuggling issues. I'm sort of on the fence because I'm employed as a Deputy Marshal, but I'm also employed by the Secret Service Special Ops Group. That's how that Manning guy got involved with me. He followed the money and saw that I was dual-employed, and then discovered I was providing services to the Ops Group too. The guy didn't put together that the rehabilitation locations serve all the services, including the CIA in some circumstances."

As he sipped a heavy drink, Sam said, "I know we're not part of Homeland, but they're trying to claim we're under their jurisdiction. We wouldn't be able to put our men out to capture those who are supposed to be special captures if that were true. The DOJ honchos aren't standing up for their own, and that's giving Homeland access to us and a stronger desire to control us."

I told him with a straight approach, "Who knows who is right in this scenario, Sam, but we still need to provide the same services. Our men have to respond to the needs of the other services. I know it seems as if we're their lackeys, but we are in that sense. Our job is to capture those people who are breaking federal laws and are being sought for federal crimes. We're doing our duty if we do that. Remember, that our mission is to protect federal property and personnel every time you question what's going on. Everything we do is influenced by that simple fact."

I looked at the man who had been enshrined in the DC environment for only a short while, and said, "We're part of the Department of Justice along with the FBI, the DEA, and ATF, but not a part of Homeland. They would like to take us all on, but Justice is keeping us within their jurisdiction. We should continue to do what's necessary and correct within the law as we're sworn to uphold our nation's laws. Again, our specific job is to protect federal properties, federal employees, and to assist other federal agencies in controlling the areas they are responsible for. The Marshal's Service is a catchall, but we're a part of the Department of Justice and are the final link to this country's bad guys. You, Sam, are the link between the Marshals, the DOJ, and your men. I know that's a tough job, but it is what it is. You were chosen because of your ability to make decisions in all the various problems of race, ancestry, and problematic international relationships. It's a treacherous job, Sam, but it's what has to be done. Say so if you don't want to do it any longer, or use all your resources, such as myself, to help you with your decisions."

Sam looked at me and said, "Jesus Christ, Chuck. Who would know how much you know about what is happening and how it should be handled? I often feel inadequate knowing others know what I'm expected to and do know. I always want to do what's right but the question sometimes remains, 'what is right'?"

I told my boss, "Relax for a few days, Sam. Blow everything off and reconsider it all with a clear head. I'm here if you want someone to be a sounding board, and I'll call John and have him come visit if you want someone better. He wants to see this new place in Hawaii too."

Sam looked up at me and said, "Call him. Call John and see if he will come to help me out. I need all the help I can get."

I went inside to find Brandy with her usual smile. When I found her, I asked, "You know John who is in the house in Key West, right?"

Brandy nodded, and came alert. "Get him flights between there and here right away. I'll call him right now to find out how many he and his family are."

I called John's number from my contacts list. The response was, "Whadaya want?"

"John, this is Chuck. Am I that much of problem?"

John answered, "Naw, you're alright, but you do represent all sorts of problems that you could be calling about. What's up?"

"I want you and your family to fly to Hawaii to join me at my new home here. I do want your input on a couple of things, but that isn't the primary reason for your trip. How many are you now so I can plan for your luxurious trip,?"

"Yeah, right. There's no way in hell you are asking me to come to Hawaii without some ulterior motive. Tell me what it is and I'll either come or I'll ignore you."

"I have Sam here, and he needs advice that I can't give him, John. You can and should. Come visit in this wonderful haven of tranquility and advise us."

John was laughing very loud, "Haven of tranquility? Who are you kidding? You little monster, you trashed over fifty enemy, and you say that you're hosting an area of tranquility. Have you hired a priest to give his blessing on who should and who shouldn't meet his maker?"

"Ah, come on, John, this is your chance to visit Hawaii and to enjoy my new house. The whole place is full of fun people, and I do have some of that Scotch you enjoy. Come on, don't be a jerk. Let us get you connections that are darn near straight through."

John laughed as he said, "That's one hell of a selling job. Call me with connections for my family and I'm on my way. You never cease to amaze me, Chuck. God, how I wish we were still doing the deeds. We were really good together."

I put Brandy on the phone and let her work out how to quickly get him and his family to us.

When Brandy, the number one organizational person was finished, I told her, "You are really something, M'lady. You figure out how to do something while the rest of us stand around with our mouths open in wonder. You and your other four partners are worth far more than just some kissing and hugging. Damn, I love you so much and never get to tell you how much."

Brandy snuggled to me and said, "You just did. We're all happy to be your personal secretaries."

I went outside to the porch and sat with Sam, Steve, and Dewey. Dewey asked, "Did you resolve getting your other friend here?"

"Got it covered, Dewey. My non-middle named women actually got it covered. I suppose we're going to have to go on a long sailing adventure so all of us can learn each other's middle names."

Tiani was next to me, almost standing on my lap. She advised the guys, "You know that Brandy and I have been Chuck's helpers since he began flying. We've been to Europe and the Far East, as well as Australia with him, and we have never heard he was unhappy with who he was with. I think we realize our Chuck is happy to be with us, and is happy for us to be with him. We don't care if he knows our middle names because of that."

Brandy came to the porch and I asked when John and family would get here. Brandy told me the earliest she could get them here would be in about ten to twelve hours. She told me it was nearly five thousand miles, and the fastest a G550 could go was a little over five hundred miles an hour. Brandy further stated that the aircraft should refuel before hopping across the Pacific. She almost sounded apologetic, but I knew that it was her way of not disappointing me. Damn, I love that girl.

A voice was banging at my head, so I stopped what I was doing and listened. Missy's voice told me, "You know you need to have Merlin visit here to give it his blessing. Make him come with the family from Key West so I can enjoy my man here for a while."

I was almost laughing as I moved toward Brandy who was busy making arrangements. "Brandy, my love, Missy wants us to pick Merlin up in Tampa so he can come to her. See if you can get that done with John's travel."

Brandy hugged me and said, "I knew this one was going to be messy. I've told everyone that we might have some flight changes. I'll have Merlin ride down to Key West when they go pick John up, and then go west across the Gulf from there."

My women were special. They were on top of whatever I did, and always prepared to make quick changes as I constantly went in different directions.

Steve had been watching the kids play, and said, "We forgot something for here."

"What's that, Steve?"

"A tennis court with basketball hoops. There's plenty of room on the far side of the studio for a couple courts. That would really be something else the kids could do. Make it a double court so kids could be playing tennis on one court and others could be shooting baskets on the other. What do you think?"

It didn't take me long to agree with that plan. "Good idea, Steve. I should have thought of that. The other thing the bigger kids were talking about is to build a motocross track in the trees on that side. I'll call the architect and have her get a contractor to build our tennis courts for us. I'll bet they will have it completed fast."

Brandy had been listening, and winked at me with a smile. She said, "I'll get right on it. Have you shown the guys your new underground range yet?"

I stood and told Sam, Steve, and Dewey, "Come take a look at what the girls got for me and us. They said they are going to use it as much as we will though, so it will be used." We walked through the tunnel to the door where I punched 'FAB5' in on the keypad.

I flipped the light switch on and listened to Sam as he exclaimed, "Holy shit, this is just like the range you have in Tampa. It's not quite as large, but it looks like it is plenty deep enough."

Steve told me that Mercy and Sue had asked him if he thought the girls were going overboard by having the range built. Steve said, "I told them that it'll keep Chuck alive if it keeps him proficient with his weapons, so build it. The girls even told me they wanted to use it too."

We closed the range and I took the guys up to the garage so that they could look at the gym we had built on one end of it. Steve said, "I thought it might be a workshop when I saw how this end of the garage had windows and no overhead doors. This is really nice. We'll have to make sure we use this daily. I showed them that there was a small workshop on the front part of this section of the garage. You could see the caretaker had already been using it as one of the weed eaters was taken apart on the bench.

Steve and Dewey went back to the porch, but Sam and I wandered down to the beach area. Sam pointed at some pilings that were going out in a row from the far beach area. "What are those for?"

"That will be for my dock so I can dock the big sailboat here. This area is not as shallow as over by the gradual incline to get down here. It also is rockier than over there. The kids won't be swimming this far down, so it's a good place to put a dock."

Sam grinned at me and asked, "Why didn't you build a hangar for a helicopter?" He at least laughed as he said that.

"I thought of that, Sam, but the airport is only about twenty minutes from here by road. If I really needed someone to get somewhere fast, I could have a charter fly out here and pick me or them up. There's no sense in having more buildings here than necessary."

Sam was standing next to me, staring out at the water, when he asked, "Do you think you'll permanently move here?"

"No, Sam, my place in Tampa is where my residence will remain. The place down in Costa Rica is about as nice as anyone could want for tranquility, but I screwed that up by building the resort. The spillover from that, and everyone's involvement, makes me not want to stick around there. It's a great place to visit, and we have some great friends there, but I don't think I could live that close to the resort's craziness."

"You live close to the resorts here too, Chuck. You're sort of hidden by the way the road is so overgrown. You don't have much peace and quiet anywhere with as big a family as you have. My four make a racket all the time, and you now have a dozen kids with a whole lot more coming. How many kids do you have now anyway?"

I told Sam, "You know about my two adopted twin girls from Montana, and then there are the two adopted Italian kids. I have another that is sort of like that with Cassie, the newcomer, who has a little girl about the same age as my little ones. There are fifteen kids altogether, with another fifteen on the way."

Sam was stunned and just stared out over the water. I told him I thought the girls lost count and kept adding to the group even when we didn't need any more women. They all get along, so it wasn't as crazy as you would think. Having the little ones makes traveling a little more difficult and it's going to be crazier with the next bunch coming.

"You need to stop doing anything that is even remotely dangerous, Chuck. I'm not using you again for anything that could get you hurt, and I'm going to talk to our other employer about doing the same. You can supervise, but do nothing in the danger zone. You even had to get involved with that crazy auditor, and look at what that could have been. There's more to learn from that fiasco. You weren't even doing a mission and caused more collateral damage than I've seen in a long time just the same. I think you need to just say stop. I don't want you to quit because you can fulfill the function that you were doing by helping and teaching the various offices. Just don't go out on any warrants or captures. Your file is full enough as it is."

"That's probably good advice, Sam. I have been thinking along those lines, but life hasn't let me settle down. I've been on a form of recovery leave since I was shot a couple of times a little while ago. That one wound caused me some long term grief. I think I'm pretty much recovered now, but I also think that I might want to become a part timer for a while. I have a lot of personal places to keep running. I'll try to mix some Deputy Marshal stuff in wherever I go."

Sam told me, "I can live with that, and even like the sound of it. Don't get involved with anything in the field if you go to a station. Call around and gather more Deputies for the job if we don't have enough locally. Let me know that you're staying healthy and away from danger."

"Who would believe that you and I would be talking like a couple candy ass old men. I'm having a difficult time considering you and I will be avoiding hairy missions." I was thinking that giving the dangerous stuff up would be the right thing to do, but didn't know if I could do it. I hoped so.

Sam and I had been walking back up the sloped area toward the rear yard and kid play area. We noticed that his kids were now mixed in with the others in some form of soccer game. The bigger kids were letting some of the smaller ones get at the ball. It was amazing to see all of Steve's, Dewey's, Sam's, and my older ones having a good time together.

As we stepped onto the porch, Sam said to me, "I think kids playing outside like this is really something. Not one of them has a cell phone in their hand and they are all using up some of that boundless energy they have."

Brandy had seen me and came out to tell me, "The contractor will be by later to measure for the tennis courts you want. He told me that we would want a tall fence around the courts to keep the balls in. I hadn't thought of that. Anyway he's coming over and says he'll make some suggestions. He's the one who constructed the underground firing range for us. The man is good at what he does."

I didn't see Lisa, and asked Frieda where she might be. Frieda said, "If you check the kids out, you'll notice that all the serious music people are gone. I'd say they are all in the studio."

I told Sam with a laugh that I was going to see the studio as I had not been in it yet since it was completed.

Wow! The place was busy. Lisa, Lizzy, Bonita, Greg, Michael, Marion, and Virginia were playing a piece I didn't recognize. The big surprise was Elmer was in the control booth fiddling with his big board and computers. "When did you come, Elmer?"

"I came with Steve and Dewey. You just didn't notice me with all the kids there."

I asked him, "Are you staying in the house? I haven't even seen you eating."

"I've been eating, but usually late. I'm staying in one of the apartments over the garage. I figured you would have a pretty full house with the pilots staying there, and you have another family coming from what I've heard."

Waving at the studio, I asked, "So what are they working on in there?"

Elmer looked at me strangely, and told me, "You ought to know, it's one of yours that Nita is reworking or finishing. It doesn't sound like most of your stuff, but it has a nice chorus. I think you originally intended it to be a ballad, but they have sped it up."

I went from the control booth to the hall, and then into the main studio. Bonita, Lizzy, and Lisa were pointing to places on the handwritten music and talking about it. Lisa looked up and said, "Just the man we wanted to see. We've been working on this all morning, and just can't get it to sound right." It took me a little time while looking at the music before it dawned on me that this is the second half or an insert to what I had written that I was going to mix into the original ballad.

"Where is the big sample case you lug around, Bonita? The answer may be in there."