by JL Curtis
Aaron chuckled. “I know what my choice is.” He pulled Jesse on top of him, and they made long slow love.
***
Jesse was quiet as Aaron drove toward LAX and the charter flight back to Bagram. Aaron finally looked over and asked, “What’s the matter?”
Jesse leaned back. “Well, other than not being able to see you for the next three months, which is my main problem, you mean?”
Aaron said, “Well, yeah.”
Jesse shifted in her seat, “Aaron, I’m bored. I’m not used to sitting at home doing nothing. I mean- Well, I know with the cast and all, I couldn’t really do a lot. But other than helping with the wives club and doing accounting for the ‘Lenes, all I do is sit at home or go to therapy.”
Aaron glanced at her. “So, I’m thinking you have some kind of plan. Right?”
“I dunno if it’s a plan or not. I’m thinking about volunteering with the PD. I’ve talked with Chief Gomez a couple of times, and he’s willing to accept my Texas credentials. He needs help with his grants applications and some admin stuff, and it’d give me a chance to get back to shooting on a regular basis. I mean they share a range with Carlsbad, and the LEOs have access pretty much any time.”
Aaron sighed. “You’re not going back on patrol are you?”
Jesse shook her head. “Nope, not planning on it. I’d have to be a hundred percent to do that, and that won’t happen for a good while. This is more to just get me out of the damn house. You’ve been real nice about not commenting, but I’m fifteen pounds overweight, and I need to do something.”
Aaron said, “If you want to, do it. I’d prefer at least one of us be happy, well happier, these next three months until I’m home.”
Pulling up in front of the departure area, Aaron got out and pulled his seabag from the back of the truck. He folded Jesse into a hard embrace, and kissed her gently. “Love you, love you, love you! Now get out of here. Shoot me a text when you get home. We probably won’t be gone yet.”
Jesse hugged him back, kissed him and said, “You better come home to me, Aaron Miller. If you don’t, I’m going to haunt your ass forever!”
Jesse stood and watched as Aaron walked into the terminal, then once he disappeared, climbed back in the truck and headed back to the apartment they called home.
Two hours later she texted, Home safe. Love you, Aaron. Counting the days. Be safe!
Minutes later she received a reply, We’re boarded. Love you, Jesse Miller. See you in three months.
Volunteering
Jesse tried to walk as normally as possible as she stepped into the Oceanside Police station. She chuckled as she thought to herself, you’re being stupid, he probably won’t even remember you. What are you doing? Are you really ready for this? You know you’re not going back on the street. She walked up to the reception desk and asked, “Is Chief Gomez in today?”
The young officer looked up and asked, “Is the chief expecting you?”
Jesse replied, “No, but he told me to stop by when I had time.” She slipped her credentials out of her purse and showed them to the officer. “If you tell him the lady with the Python is here, he’ll remember me.”
Perplexed, the officer said, “Uh, have a seat and let me check.” He disappeared through a door as Jesse wondered again if she was doing the right thing. A couple of minutes later, Chief Gomez came to the counter and motioned her to come back.
Looking at her he said, “Mrs. Miller, you look like you’ve recovered pretty well.”
Jesse shrugged. “Well, I’m finally out of the damn cast, but I’m still in therapy. But yes, I’m a hell of a lot better than I was.”
Ushering Jesse into his office, he asked, “Coffee?” When Jesse nodded, he poured her a cup and passed it across the desk. “So, what can I do for you?”
Jesse fidgeted for a second. “Well, chief, I’m bored. I can’t sit at the apartment all day and watch TV. I’m doing some accounting for the wives club, which takes about thirty minutes a day, and working with a couple of Marine wives on their little business about two hours a week. And I’m honestly going stir crazy. And-”
Gomez held up his hand. “Whoa, I get it! But what do you want to do here?”
Jesse replied, “Well, you remember we chatted at the restaurant when I met you at lunch that day, and you said you’d recognize my Texas creds. I know I can’t go out on patrol, but I thought I could- well, I’m an accountant and there are always budget drills.”
Gomez asked, “Do you by chance know anything about grants?”
Jesse smiled. “Like government grants to police departments?”
“Yeah, them!”
“Well, I worked with our department on grant applications for a couple of years, chief,” Jesse replied.
The chief dialed a number, got an answer and barked, “Ortega, come down to my office please, I think I found you some help!”
A couple of minutes later, a rumpled middle-aged Hispanic lieutenant knocked and came into the chief’s office. “You called, chief?” the lieutenant asked as he settled into a chair.
“Jose, this young lady is volunteering her services to help us, and she knows about grants. Which is sadly, more than most of this department can say.”
Ortega turned skeptically to Jesse. “What’s the ten thirty three program?
Jesse smiled. “DOD program to transfer various goods to law enforcement at no charge.”
“Ten twenty-two?”
“Counter-drug initiative, allows local law enforcement to buy from the Feds at a large discount. But it’s limited to counter-drug only.”
“JAG program?”
Jesse’s smile got broader, much to Chief Gomez’s relief. “The Justice Assistance Grant Program provides funds be used to provide personnel, equipment, training, technical assistance, and information systems to local law enforcement,” she parroted.
Lieutenant Ortega turned to the chief. “Can we hire her? Hell, I’ll take a damn pay cut! Ah crap, what about access to our budget and other stuff?”
The chief smiled. “Mrs. Miller, would you please show the good lieutenant your creds?”
Ortega looked, then looked again, “Texas? Deputy Sheriff? But you don’t look old enough. And this is California-”
Jesse said, “Lieutenant, my husband is a Marine at Pendleton, I’m a bored accountant who is looking for something to volunteer my time on, and the chief invited me to come in after I got better. So here I am.”
About that time, a sergeant in uniform walked by, glanced in and did a double take, stepping back into the door. The chief glanced up. “Yes, Sergeant Burt?”
Jesse looked around. “Hi, sergeant.”
Burt, stepped into the office. “Chief, Lieutenant, I just wanted to say hi to Miss Cronin. And I’m almost afraid to ask why you’re here.”
Gomez covered his laughter with a cough, as Ortega tried to figure out what was going on. Jesse replied archly, “Why sergeant, what makes you think I would cause trouble for you? Poor little old me? And it’s Mrs. Miller now. I married my Marine, thank you very much!”
Burt laughed. “Well, my first encounter with you was rather memorable, Mrs. Miller.”
Gomez said, “Sergeant Burt, for his sins is now the chief training officer, rangemaster and whatever else I can dig up for him.”
Jesse cocked her head. “Rangemaster? I didn’t know y’all had a range.”
Burt answered, “We share one with Carlsbad, it only goes out fifty yards, but for what we need it’s good enough.”
“Alright, Ortega and Burt, outta here,” Chief Gomez said. “I got to do some negotiating for Mrs. Miller’s services.”
Both nodded to Jesse and left, and she heard Sergeant Burt telling the lieutenant about his encounter with her at the Mexican restaurant last year. Turning to the chief, Jesse asked, “What did the lieutenant mean about access to the budget and other stuff? Isn’t that public knowledge?”
Gomez leaned back in his chair. “In general it is, but there a
re parts that are close hold, like PII[20] and exact numbers of equipment. As a volunteer, you can’t have access to that, and I’m afraid I don’t have enough in the budget to actually pay you a living wage.”
Jesse laughed. “Chief, I can be a DAY worker, just like my grandpa is in Texas.”
“Day?”
“Dollar A Year. Papa has never taken more than that from Pecos County, unless it’s per diem for travel.”
The chief shook his head. “You mean you’d come to work for a dollar a year? What about your living expenses?”
Jesse leaned forward. “Chief, not for public consumption, but we have enough money not to have to worry about it. I just want to get out of that damn apartment!”
Gomez whistled. “Okay, lemme talk to the City Council and see if we can do something along those lines. If so, when would you be willing to work?”
Jesse replied, “I wouldn’t mind working at least four days a week, but I’d need to be able to go to therapy and other stuff, so something around twenty to thirty hours a week if that would be acceptable. And maybe use the range once in a while?”
Gomez said, “Well, maybe we can make you a reserve officer, and that would give you access.”
“I’m TCLOSE intermediate peace officer certified. I can get those forwarded to you. Just don’t mention it to the FBI. I finally convinced them I didn’t want to go to work for them!”
Gomez chuckled. “Don’t worry, we don’t talk to them unless we have to. If you’re fully certified in Texas, you might just have to take a test to be certified here, worst comes to worst, you’d have to attend an abbreviated POST[21] class. Let me work on that. Give me your phone number and I’ll call you when I get an answer.”
Jesse walked out of the police department smiling and headed for her therapy in a better mood than she’d been in, in a long time. After a long workout, she remembered she needed to call home about getting some brisket and other stuff for her dinner.
***
Jesse propped her cell up on the counter, hit speaker, and dialed the old man’s phone. After four rings, she heard a grumpy, “Hello.”
“Hi, Papa! Guess what I did?”
The old man said, “At this point, I’m afraid to ask.”
Jesse laughed. “I went down and volunteered to work with the Oceanside PD today.”
After a pregnant silence she heard, “Why?”
Jesse replied, “Papa, I’m bored. Bored to frikken tears out here. I’m finally out of the cast, and I’m going stir crazy. I can’t sit in this damn apartment all day, and I’m tired of cleaning this place just for something to do! I already talked to Aaron and he’s fine with it.” She crossed her fingers when she said that, but what the hell, it was kinda the truth.
The old man asked, “They are going to pay you? And you know Jose is carrying you as a regular deputy, right?”
“I know,” Jesse said, as she leaned in, closer to the phone on the kitchen counter. “I talked to the chief out here, and he said he could make me a reserve. I need to get my TCLOSE certs sent out here. Can you do that for me tomorrow? I’ll have to do a recertification out here to actually become a reserve though.”
The old man grumbled, “I guess. Are you sure about this, Jesse?”
She glanced around the neat and freshly cleaned kitchen and the last small stack of neatly sorted accounting papers for the ‘Lenes she’d already sorted through. “Papa, I need to get out of the house. This will do it, and the sheriff out here isn’t carry friendly. This would let me carry without any issues. The chief, his name is Gomez, thinks I can just test out rather than do another round of academy stuff. I’m going to be mostly doing office work, helping out with grants and stuff, like I did when I was home.”
The old man said, “Okay, but stay off patrol until you’re back one hundred percent. I’ll have Jose send the stuff tomorrow, over his signature. That way he knows and if a recommendation is needed, he can give it.”
“Thank you, Papa! Now, can I have a couple of briskets? I need to feed some Marines.”
The old man laughed. “So you’re going to do the dinner thing? Lemme find out when Billy’s coming back that way, and I’ll get him to stop through here on the way out. Timeframe?”
Jesse thought for a second. “Um. I guess whenever Uncle Billy’s coming. I don’t need but about a week of lead time to get a pavilion and let everybody know.”
The old man said, “Okay. I’ll call you. Love you, hon.”
“Love you, Papa, thank you!”
Back in the Saddle
Aaron ducked through the door into the FOB Apache TOC and was hit with the smell of too many bodies in a confined space, cigarette smoke and the ozone from all the radios running in the various racks.
As he made his way to the back corner and the coffee pot, he looked around to see who was manning which stations. Corporal Sessions was on the primary comm stack, and it looked like a 101st guy was on the air stack. He didn’t see anybody at the tac console, but Captain Ragsdale and the 101st Major- Overkill? No, Overhill. They were at the map board in the center of the TOC. He pulled a cup of coffee, sniffed it and decided cream and sugar might make it palatable. After a sip, he wandered over to the Map board. “Morning, major, captain. Major, you aren’t sending any of your folks out this morning, correct?”
Overhill replied, “Nope, Gunny. We’re doing a training day and equipment cleaning and checks. Damn dust is tearing stuff up. But I will have a platoon ready for QRF if it’s needed.”
Aaron nodded, then walked over to Sessions. “Anything on the wire that we need to let Gunny Mayhew know about?”
“Nope, nothing since the brief. The Taliban seem to be laying low this week.”
He turned to the sergeant on the air radio stack. “Sarge, any birds up today?”
The sergeant looked up. “Not a good flying day, gunny, ceilings are down in the dirt everywhere. Most places are calling three hundred and a quarter vis, and not predicted to improve at all. The only possibility is a couple of Little Birds, but they’d have to follow the road to get here, so an hour plus.”
Aaron grimaced. “Okay, cold, snowy, wind blowing and the weather sucks. In other words a typical day in Northern Afghanistan, right?”
The sergeant chuckled. “Pretty much, Gunny. But I’m here for the next twelve hours anyway.”
Aaron tapped him on the shoulder. “Thanks. Hopefully it will be a boring watch.”
Aaron walked back over to the map table and listened as Ragsdale and Overhill discussed patrol plans and ways to keep the locals off balance by not getting on a set schedule. He knew that he and Mayhew would be asked to chime in, along with the first sergeant from the 101st, but that wouldn’t be until the Monday morning meeting.
Aaron heard Gunny Mayhew over the speaker at the map table say, “TOC, Apache’s up. We’re rolling out the gate. ANP and ANA leading. I’ve got twelve up, MRAP with six and two GMVs three each. Confirm no air, over.”
Aaron grabbed the mic and looked over at the sergeant, who shook his head. “Copy all Apache, no air available. No further updates. Call at your check points.”
“TOC, Apache. Wilco, out.”
Aaron walked over to the whiteboard, and noting the time, wrote it into the out column next to the patrol schedule. Sessions entered the time into the electronic log, and sent a quick chat message to Herat that the patrol was out.
Three hours and five checkpoints later, Aaron was beginning to think about lunch. Just as he started to tell the captain he was going, the radio erupted with McKenzie’s voice and gunfire, “TOC, Apache we’re taking fire. UH 1824 8423, repeat UH 1824 8423. Copy? Over.”
Aaron grabbed the mic and a marker, scribbling rapidly. “Apache, TOC Copy UH 1824 8423. Status, over.”
“Standby TOC, trying to break contact now. Taking fire from northern two of four compounds, over.” Aaron plotted the location and looked at the area, remembering this was a strange little area, a small village, the four compounds with the track runn
ing between them, then about two kilometers to the next village.
Ragsdale and the major rushed to the map and Aaron pointed to the location saying, “They’re between ‘villes, the last time we were out there, all four of those compounds were supposedly deserted, according to the ANP.”
Captain Ragsdale picked up the mic. “Apache, TOC actual, put lead on, over.”
McKenzie came back, “TOC, lead is out of vehicle, standby one. Still trying to break contact.”
Overhill looked at Ragsdale. “QRF[22]?”
Ragsdale held up a hand. “Let me get an accurate SA, Major. Apache, status, over?”
McKenzie replied, “TOC, Apache. ANP is clear, ANA taking fire, MRAP taking fire, GMVs trying to back and turn to clear. Gunny is out directing, over.”
“Apache, TOC, you want the QRF?”
“Standby TOC, will advise. Confirm still no air? Over.”
The sergeant yelled over, “No air. I can request, but don’t think we’ll get anybody.”
Ragsdale looked across the map table at the major, who nodded. “Do it, sarge. We might get lucky.”
“TOC, Apache. We’re stuck in. Now taking fire from southern two compounds. Request QRF, over.” The radio devolved into a hash as everybody tried to coordinate movements and Aaron and the two officers could only listen and wonder.
A new voice spoke, chilling Aaron “Medic up, tell Doc, Mayhew’s been hit.” McKenzie came up saying, “TOC we need QRF, heavy fire from all compounds. ANA abandoned technical, MRAP is now blocked. Gunny is down, we have one GMV in blocking position, trying to extract second and MRAP, over.”
Aaron and the captain both slapped the siren, and Aaron started heading for the door, only to be called back by the major, “Gunny, you stay. The captain and I will take the QRF out. I’ll send a lieutenant over to assist.”
Aaron dropped his helmet on the chair. “Yes, sir. Captain-”
“Gunny, we’ll handle it.”
Aaron sighed. “Yes, sir. Sessions, did you copy for the log? Also notify Herat, please. Captain, remember spare ammo.”