Home Goes The Warrior

by Jeff Noonan

  She finally pulled her head back so she could speak clearly. “I’ve been so afraid. When you told me about everything that’s happened, I was afraid I’d never see you again. Even on the plane, I worried that I’d get bad news when we landed. Thank God you were here. If you had been late, I probably would’ve had a heart attack right here in the gate area.”

  “I know. I had all kind of thoughts and worries, too. But now you’re here. My life starts up again.” Then, “That sounded silly. But I really meant it. In my life, you’re everything.”

  “Okay, big guy. Let’s get it under control now before we do something that might embarrass the kids in the waiting area and get us in trouble. Let’s go get my luggage.” He agreed and they headed, arm in arm, for the baggage claim area.

  Soon they were in his car and headed for Wallingford. The first mile or so were on I-90, but then they turned off at Widener University, and from then on, she couldn’t stop remarking on the beauty of the countryside as it unfolded.

  “I had no idea that the Philadelphia suburbs could be so pretty! We didn’t see any of this when we were here before. I guess I’ve always thought that the entire countryside from New York to Washington, D.C. was solid pavement. To tell the truth, I was kind of dreading the thought of living here. But this is really nice out here!”

  He didn’t say much, restricting his comments to pointing out a few highlights along the roadway. He was still terribly afraid of what she would think of the home he had picked out.

  Finally he pulled onto Sykes Lane and headed for the house. She still seemed enchanted by the scenery. Then he stopped in the driveway of their home. His heart seemed like it was in his mouth and about to burst at the same time.

  She just sat for a long moment, looking around. Then she asked, “Is that a pear tree in the front yard?”

  “Yes. There’s apple trees and grape vines in the back.” But he was talking to an empty seat. She was out of the car, running around the yard like a schoolgirl. She went from tree to tree to bush and vine. He followed her, laughing. She stopped at the rose bushes he’d planted and looked back at him. “These are new. Did you plant them?”

  “Yes.”

  She ran back to him and kissed him. “I loved you before, but now I love you more. This is a little paradise. Our little paradise.” Then she was off again, making another tour of the yard before moving toward the house.

  She stopped at the door, waiting for him. He opened it and reached for her to carry her through the doorway. She laughed and allowed it. But as soon as they were in the little foyer, she was back on her feet. She was too excited to stay motionless. She moved from the foyer to the living room and stood there, turning around to see everything. She looked at Lee. “I love it already, Lee. The arched doorways are fantastic! How did you know that I loved arches?”

  Lee just shrugged. The truth was that he hadn’t even noticed them particularly. From the living room there were arches that went to the foyer, the dining room, the kitchen, and to a hallway that led to the master bedroom suite. Now that they had been pointed out, he had to admit that they did look good. “Got lucky there, I guess!”

  He had painted the entire first floor and refinished the hardwood floors. So the paint smell hung heavy in the house. But it didn’t deter Maggie. She made her way into the kitchen and looked around. “You’re right. We’ll have to do some work here, but the size is great, and I like the way it joins the dining room.”

  Lee laughed. He had two folding chairs in the kitchen where normally a dinette set would be. “How do you like my furniture?”

  “Oh we’ll take care of that, mister. Soon. Very soon.” With a merry laugh, she was off exploring again.

  Next she walked into the master bedroom, where Lee had placed an innerspring and mattress on the floor. Another folding chair completed the bedroom furniture. At the sight of the bachelor bedroom suite, Maggie laughed until her sides hurt. She kissed him again and moved on to the bathroom. “This needs some help, also. We’ll get it fixed up soon.”

  Next came the upstairs with its bedroom, bath, and family room. She was enchanted by the bedroom with its dormer windows. Then she started through the place again, checking everything, almost skipping as she moved from room to room. Lee went back to the car and brought the luggage in. Finally they met in the kitchen, where he had opened a bottle of white wine and taken out the two wine glasses that he’d bought yesterday. He poured, and they toasted their new home. As they sipped the wine, she asked, “Where did you ever relax here? There’s no furniture anywhere.”

  “Come with me, my lady.” He took her hand and led her through to the screened-in back porch, the only room she had missed. “This is my relax place.”

  He had purchased an outdoor furniture set, with two lounge chairs and two upright chairs as well as two little tables. The lounge chairs were positioned against the wall of the house, looking out onto the lawn and its apple trees, with a small table between them.

  He didn’t get the reaction that he’d expected when she saw the porch and its furniture. She looked at it and suddenly burst into tears. He was astonished. He put his glass down and moved toward her, stunned. “What is it, Maggie? Whatever it is, I’ll fix it. Please, what is it? Did I do something wrong? If you don’t like it, we can fix it.” He wrapped his arms around her shaking body, still talking. “Please, sweetheart. What’s wrong?”

  For several moments, which seemed like hours to Lee, she continued sobbing too hard to talk. Finally it slowed, and she leaned her head against his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Lee. But it’s just too perfect. This beautifully serene back porch was just the final straw. This place, and you with it, are every dream that I’ve ever had. I absolutely love this place, and I absolutely love you. This is where I want to see my children grow up. This is where I want to grow old. With you at my side. That’s why I broke down. I finally saw my life was going to be a happy one. Is that too silly for you?”

  In answer, he took her wine glass and put it down on the little table. Then he picked her up again. This time he didn’t put her down until he was beside the mattress in the middle of the bedroom floor. Their lovemaking was slow and sweet, everything that it should be since they had finally come home.

  Later they sat on the porch, sipping their wine, watching the sun go down, and planning their future.

  Neither of them had ever been happier.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE - THE SNIPER’S FAMILY

  he weekend seemed to disappear in an instant. They shopped continuously, looking for everything from furniture to kitchen cabinets. By Sunday evening, they were both exhausted, but had made a lot of progress. A bedroom set, living room furniture, a dinette set, and some miscellaneous pieces were being delivered. They’d also contracted with a kitchen designer to plan a layout for the new kitchen and its cabinets.

  They’d discussed the furniture and the other items stored in the warehouse, but decided against using any of it in their living room or bedroom. The stored things could go into the extra bedrooms and the upstairs den. Anything left over would be donated to a good charity.

  Lee wanted to stay home the following week to help, but Maggie wouldn’t hear of it. “You’ve had your private time here to work and dream. Now it’s my turn, buster! Go to work!”

  So he did.

  Monday passed uneventfully, and he was home as soon as he could get there. Some of the furniture had been delivered, and Maggie had the bedroom all arranged. She was so proud of her work that Lee had to laugh. We’re really like two kids who have just been given something wonderful.

  Tuesday morning went by uneventfully. Lee and Tim did their tour of the ships and then participated in the captain’s weekly conference. But when Lee returned from the meeting, Jane met him with a message, “Please call home”. He took it without comment. The telephone hadn’t yet been installed in Wallingford, so he knew it was Tom Wright asking for a call on the radio.

  “Jane, I’m going over to the officers’ club for lunch
. Be back at 1 o’clock.”

  “Okay, boss.”

  Instead of the club, Lee drove to Mustin Field, where he knew he wouldn’t be observed. Staying in the car, he took out the radio and placed his call to Tom.

  Tom answered immediately. “Hey, Lee. I’ve been waiting to talk to you.”

  “Just got the message, Tom. I’ve actually been out doing the job the Navy pays me to do.”

  A chuckle from Tom. “I know, I know. But I’ve got some news, and it’s big.”

  “So tell me already!”

  “Well, we’ve been looking into the background of the old man and his four kids. It turns out the old man, Randall Symington, is exactly who he says he is. He was raised with a golden spoon in his mouth on the Philadelphia Main Line. But he didn’t do particularly well in school, was known to be a screw-up, and had several minor brushes with the law. Turned down college at first and spent several years living the playboy life. He was a real spoiled brat, from all accounts.”

  Tom paused to address someone who was trying to talk to him in his office. Then he was back. “Sorry about that. Anyway, back to Randall. After he partied his way around the world a couple of times, the draft caught up with him, and he ended up in Europe during World War Two, doing duty as a sniper. According to his service record, he was good at it. He had a lot of confirmed kills. But then he was captured and spent two years as a guest of the Nazis. He was rescued by Russian troops in 1944 and spent the rest of the war with them. In 1946 he came home and immediately went to college. He got a masters in electrical engineering from Drexel University, married a social worker and settled down. When he graduated from Drexel, he started work with Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, first in the design division and later in the combat systems office.

  “That’s quite a history. He was a sniper, you said?”

  “Yeah. A good one, apparently.”

  “Interesting. I wonder if he still has an old 30-06?”

  “I’d bet on it. That would explain the ballistics report, wouldn’t it?”

  “Oh well, we’ll find out one of these days. What about the four kids?”

  “Well, that’s where we ran into a few things even more interesting than Randall’s background. Three of the four kids have Top Secret, or above, security clearances. To get that level of clearance, they had to go through a background check or two. We started there, reviewing the records from their background checks. Everything added up fine. The checks showed them all to have been adopted by Randall and his wife from the Pennsylvania child welfare system. All of them came from broken homes and had a history of abuse. All four were between ten and fourteen when they were adopted. The two girls were sisters, and the two boys were unrelated to any of the others. This all checked out, and we almost stopped there.”

  Tom paused to catch his breath, but Lee was impatient. “There’s more?”

  “Yeah. We decided to take it a step further and check into the kids’ records before the adoption. We dug up the old records from the Social Services Agency. That’s where we ran into some surprises. At first there was only one odd thing in their adoption records. None of the four adoption records showed any pictures or any fingerprints. Both of those are routinely in records of that type. So we dug further and guess what? We found out that all four of the supposedly ‘adopted’ kids were dead. They died in infancy.”

  “Holy shit! Then who are the people we know now?”

  “We don’t know. There is absolutely no record of any of them before the Symingtons adopted them. They simply didn’t exist. Never went to school in this country or Canada. Never had any birth records. Nothing. They just appeared.

  “But how about their adoption papers? The state would have some records, wouldn’t they?”

  “It looks like Randall’s wife created Social Services’ files for all four at about the time they appeared on the scene. As a social worker, she just rigged up some phony files and slid them into the official Pennsylvania filing system and, presto, four children came alive on paper. When we looked into the kids’ ‘abusive families’, they didn’t exist. The files contain records of various court actions that took the children away from their parents. But these were all phony. Never matched any official court actions. It’s all make-believe. These four kids never existed before they came to the Symington mansion.”

  “Man! This is mind-blowing. Do you have any idea where they came from?”

  “Yes. We can’t prove it yet, but we think they, and their mentor, Randall Symington, are a classic and very effective Soviet sleeper cell. We think all four kids were trained from infancy to be Russian spies. When they were old enough and brainwashed enough, we think they were given to the Symingtons so they could complete training here in the United States.

  “But why Symington? He was an American with a very rich, easy life ahead of him. Why would he get involved with all this spy stuff?”

  “We think that old Randall was somehow turned to become a Soviet spy when he was under their control after they rescued him from the Nazis. In fact, we aren’t sure if he was ever a prisoner of the Nazis. We think he may have defected to the Soviets directly, without any Nazi involvement. We think the spoiled brat may have disliked life in the trenches so much that he saw an easy way out and took it. Those were chaotic tomes in Europe, and an enterprising soldier, sick of being in the war, may have found an easy way off the front, if you get what I mean.”

  There was a long pause in the conversation while Lee thought about all of this. Finally, he broke the silence. “Okay. Where do we go from here?”

  “There’s going to be a meeting down here tomorrow to decide exactly that. If we’re right about all of this, it’s absolutely huge. If these guys have been feeding top-secret engineering information on our Navy’s weapons and electronic systems to the Soviet Union for the past two or three decades, it’s too big for us at our level to make decisions on. This has already gone to the top levels of the Pentagon and to the U.S. Attorney General. I don’t know who all will be at the meeting, but it’s my guess that it will be the President of the United States who will make the final decision on where we go from here.”

  “Man. We really stirred some serious shit, didn’t we?” Lee had thought about the seriousness of this before. He wasn’t surprised by Tom’s announcement, but it was startling to hear it actually being said aloud. “I guess I’ll wait to hear what happens. Or maybe I’ll read about it in the papers, eh?”

  “You gotta be shitting me, Lee! Do you think that you’re getting off that easily? You’re going to be at the meeting tomorrow. You and me are going to be on the hot seat. We’re the only ones who can answer all the questions this bunch will have. I was told to tell you to wear your dress uniform.”

  “Oh, crap!”

  Another chuckle came over the radio. “Yeah. I know the feeling.”

  “What time and where?”

  “The meeting’s scheduled for 1300 hours, as you military types say. Why don’t you plan on driving down in the morning and meeting me at my office? You can change here, and we’ll grab lunch before the meeting. I don’t know where it’ll be yet, but I’m sure it will probably be either in the Justice Department or the Pentagon. We’ll play that by ear.”

  “Sounds like a plan. I’ll see you in the morning at about ten.” The two talked for a few minutes more and then signed off.

  Lee’s hands were shaking as he returned the handset to its cradle.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX - THE MEETING

  ee was on the road shortly after six that morning. He knew he was early, but his last experience with rush hour traffic had him worried. He had no idea what kind of traffic he would hit once he got to the Washington beltway. But he encountered nothing on his way out of Philadelphia and all the way through Delaware, so he relaxed a bit and stopped for breakfast. Somehow that calmed him, and he was able to leisurely cruise the rest of the way. By the time he hit the beltway at a little after nine o’clock, he was ready for anything.

  He go
t to Tom’s office a little early and spent an hour going over all of Tom’s records. At the same time, he and Tom went over their thoughts and discussed everything they could think of regarding the case.

  Tom’s boss, George Gold, was going to present the case at the meeting, so the two of them spent the remainder of the morning briefing him and answering his questions. Neither Tom nor his boss had been informed as to who would be taking part in the meeting. They were certain that there would be people from both the Justice Department and the Department of Defense. All they knew for certain was that the meeting was being held in the big conference room adjacent to the Attorney General’s office.

  Lee changed into his dress uniform in the bathroom down the hall from Tom’s office. Then they went to lunch in the little cafeteria that served the FBI headquarters. Both he and Tom were almost too nervous to eat, but they gave it their best shot. Both of them knew this was going to be one of the most important meetings of their lives. Tom reflected both their thoughts with one comment, “God, I hope this is a working-level meeting. If the big-wigs are there, I’ll probably drool, fart, and have a brain meltdown. I’m not used to this crap.”

  Lee just smiled and nodded sympathetically.

  Finally it was time. They made their way to the Attorney General’s conference room. They arrived about ten minutes early and found seats in a row of chairs along the wall, away from the big conference table. They were relieved to see only working-level people so far. Tom’s boss was there already, passing out handouts that he and Tom had prepared earlier. When that was done, he took a seat at the big table. They waited.

  Lee found himself getting more nervous by the minute. His mouth was dry, and he noticed that his hands were shaking as he tried to read the handout he’d been given. Slowly the room began to fill.

  Shortly before one o’clock, Bill Saxton, the U.S. Attorney General, came in and took a seat at the head of the table. Lee recognized him from news stories and television interviews. Saxton, a big balding man, seemed calm enough and was chatting quietly with some of the other people in the room. Apparently, his presence was only a big deal to Lee and Tom. The others were taking his presence as routine. Lee had a hard time grasping that, but somehow it put him more at ease. He puts on his pants one leg at a time, just like me, he reminded himself.