“You’re proving my point for me. Anyway, think about it.”
“I have no objection to making a career with the CIA after my Navy career is over,” Peace replied seriously, “but I’m not interested in brainstorming, locked up inside some virtual reality capsule.”
“Who said you had to quit the Navy? Haven’t you ever read Tom Clancy’s novels? If you’d stop fooling around in that Seal Team, you’d be a Captain by now.”
“I’m not leaving Dan and the rest of the guys, even if I have to stay an E5 forever.”
“If you ever do, I believe rapid promotion would be in your future, if you quit being such a hard head. You sure attracted attention at the highest level with the way you and Julio pulled off that Batiste hit. That was a close one. What do you think are the chances we could have a guy fall into a situation like you did with Batiste, and goof his way into a WMD discovery?”
“Goof my way in?”
“Let’s see, work in a bar, blow your low key investigation by getting into a hoe down with the target over a girl, kill…”
“Hoe down over a girl? What…”
“It’s always over a girl,” Chuck cut him off. “Let’s see, where was I? Oh yeah, kill a couple of cops, the target, and a team of assassins; all while recruiting a third cop, and accessing information on the next step in the operation. In addition, you still have time to get engaged, and father a child. I’m beginning to think we need to clone you.”
“That reminds me,” Peace said, slapping his head comically. “I have to go visit my unwilling police recruit. He’s probably wondering what the hell’s going on if he’s been watching the news.”
“From the description you gave me of your relationship, he’s probably avoiding you like the plague,” Chuck offered. “He don’t want to see you, hear from you, or know you even exist. You’ve been like a viral infection to him ever since he first laid eyes on you.”
“Poor old Dave,” Peace shrugged. “He complicated the hell out of my life for a while.”
“Hey, he was the catalyst for our little speed up in operations. I think you should go over to his house and thank him.”
“Oh yea, that’ll happen. Don’t hold your breath.”
“You could use a guy like him in the SDPD.”
“You mean you could use him,” Peace countered. “Give me a specific.”
“First off, he has no idea who you work for. He might guess at it, but he doesn’t know for sure. Secondly, Detective Lewiston may get promoted higher and higher in the Department. Thirdly, and most importantly, he could cover your ass a little bit once in a while.”
“I see those little long range gears spinning in that devious covert mind of yours,” Peace replied, shaking an accusing finger at Chuck. “Don’t even think for a second I will ever get his family in danger again, or get him killed messing in our business.”
“Our business is the wellbeing of America. If…”
“Don’t wave the Stars and Stripes in my face either. You heard me.”
Chuck laughed appreciatively. “Sorry, I was having a little fun. Actually, after the blunders the guy made just trying to follow you around, I doubt there would be any action we could use him in. Part of me would have liked to have seen his performance in Mexico, if you had used him.”
“He and I would have been in a Mexican prison I’m afraid. The only way I could have pulled it off with him is if I had taken Dan, Bull, and Ed with us as backup.”
“We could have supplied you with a boat, you know,” Chuck replied.
“Yea, the CIA dabbling around with covert ops on the mainland.”
“We get a lot more slack than you think since the war on Terrorism, Mr. Know-It-All. It’s just we need to steer clear of the FBI. The more folks in the alphabet soup outfits get involved in our business, the more dangerous for the guys in the field. Besides, I doubt they would have approved of your personnel adjustment at the SDPD.”
“Ouch!”
“The FBI would have locked your ass up,” Chuck said, nodding. “The ends do not justify the means to the political hacks who get into the hierarchy there. They’d rather have the lower part of California disappear in a mushroom cloud than violate a Terrorist’s rights.”
“Hence your warming to the idea of a few well-placed guys inside of local police departments,” Peace concluded in agreement. “I’ll work on it; but like you said, I don’t think my buddy Lewiston will be real enthused with seeing me again.”
“You saved his life.”
“To him, I had him tortured, and almost killed. I endangered his family, killed cops, and last but not least, I blackmailed him into accepting it,” Peace listed, much to Chuck’s enjoyment.
“Yea, you are one of his favorite people alright. He’ll come to love you like we do, Peace.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Recruiting
“Get off my porch, Peacenik,” Lewiston whispered through clenched teeth, as he stood in the doorway of his home, leaning heavily on a cane.
“Who is it, Dear?” Peace heard Lewiston’s wife, Tina call out, just as Lewiston’s daughter Tara ducked under his arm into the doorway.
“It’s that funny man from the hospital, Mom,” Tara called back over her shoulder as Lewiston tried to shush her.
“Hi, Dave, nice to see you too,” Peace said brightly, sticking out his hand to Tara. “Hello, young lady, have you been taking care of your Dad?”
Tara nodded solemnly, as she shook hands with Peace.
“He’s doing much better,” Tara informed him.
Tina put her hand on Tara’s shoulder as she peaked around to get a glimpse of Peace. “Peace! So nice of you to come over. Dave, invite the man in.”
When Lewiston stood unmoving in the doorway, glowering at Peace, Tina yanked on his arm impatiently.
“Dave, what’s the matter with you?”
“I just left the base for home, and thought I’d stop by to see how you’re doing,” Peace inserted.
“How nice,” Lewiston said morosely. “I’m fine. You take care now, thanks for stopping by.”
Lewiston started to close the door in Peace’s face, as his wife gasped in astonishment, and Tara giggled. One look back at his wife, and Lewiston opened the door and stepped aside. Tina shook hands with Peace, and drew him inside past a very unhappy Lewiston.
“C’mon in the living room and sit down. Can I get you some coffee? I just made a fresh pot,” Tina offered.
“Coffee would be fine,” Peace agreed, sitting down on the Lewiston’s sofa.
Lewiston sat down carefully in his reclining chair, using the cane to support his injured leg. He reclined in the chair comfortably.
“You must be doing pretty well if you made it from your chair to the door in such a short time,” Peace complimented the scowling Detective.
“Actually, I was walking by the front window, and saw that piece of…” Lewiston paused, realizing his daughter Tara had taken a seat next to Peace, and was listening intently. “I meant to say I saw your Buick.”
Lewiston turned then to his daughter. “Doesn’t your Mom have to take you to the school tonight for a Parent/Teachers’ progress meeting?”
Tara nodded. “Too bad you can’t go, Dad, I’m doing real good.”
“I’ll be getting a full report from your Mom,” Lewiston acknowledged. “There might be a bonus in it for you if you’re doing as well as you claim.”
Tina came in with Peace’s coffee, placing it in front of Peace on a saucer. “Would you like cream and sugar?”
“No thanks,” Peace answered. “I’m not holding you up from your meeting at the school, am I?”
“Actually…” Lewiston began.
“Actually, Dave won’t be going with us tonight,” Tina cut him off. “You can keep him company, while Tara and I go collect all the glowing reports from her teachers.”
“I’d be happy to stay and keep Dave company for a while,” Peace replied, drawing virtual reality daggers from Lewiston�
�s narrowing eyes.
“Great, Peace,” Tina said. “Tara and I will be back in about forty-five minutes. I always skip that propaganda warm-up they do at the beginning of these things, where the faculty pats each other on the back for how wonderful they are.”
Peace laughed appreciatively, as Tina and Tara moved to kiss Lewiston goodbye before walking to the door together. Tina glanced back at her husband warningly before following Tara out to their car, shutting the door behind her. Lewiston folded his hands in his lap, looking at Peace with distrust.
“Okay, Peacenik, what the hell are you doing here?”
“Hello to you too, my brother,” Peace replied.
“I ain’t your brother, you psycho twit,” Lewiston responded angrily. “I see you couldn’t even wait to implicate me in an International incident. You decided a one man kill fest was best, huh?”
“You told me you were worried about your boat,” Peace reminded Lewiston with a grin, settling into Lewiston’s familiar harangue.
“Never mind your killer wit,” Lewiston said, waving Peace off disdainfully. “If you got Batiste, you don’t need me, my boat, or visitation rights. Get to the point.”
“Look, I know you think I’m some kind of…”
“I don’t think of you at all,” Lewiston interrupted, “except when you come barging over to my house.”
“If you’ll just give me a few seconds to finish a sentence, I’ll explain what I’m doing here,” Peace urged. “My superiors wish to recruit some people in local law enforcement agencies, mostly in cities along our borders and coasts. It wouldn’t mean…”
“Ain’t there a law against the military or CIA working inside the homeland,” Lewiston again broke in.
“There is, but Homeland Security allows a broader interpretation of the law, because of the foreign origin of most Terrorists. Our various law enforcement agencies have been working together on a much more precise basis since the big blow up, and finger pointing, in the first years after 911.”
“Great, now we have alphabet soup assassins doing the deed at home, how nice for America,” Lewiston replied, trying to look as disgusted as possible.
“I didn’t come here to fight with you,” Peace said quietly. “I thought perhaps you and your partner might consider it. All you’d be doing is giving us a heads up if you notice something out of the ordinary. There’s a paycheck in it for you, and no real time consuming work. We just don’t want to find out about something, like Batiste had going, after they nuke Southern Cal, or release some nerve agent into an unsuspecting populace.”
“You’re serious?” Lewiston asked with some disbelief.
“Very serious, and it would only entail reporting through a prearranged drop, or leaving a message in a site I have on the Web. No investigating, surveillance, or field work of any kind.”
Lewiston was silent for a moment, leaning back further in his chair. “I’ll think it over. What about my family? That Batiste thing still gives me nightmares. I can’t ever put them in danger like that again.”
“You can opt out of anything; but remember, all you’ll be doing is giving us a warning. Your inadvertent involvement in the Batiste operation led to shutting down a major terrorist threat.”
“I’ve thought of that, ever since I saw the news,” Lewiston replied quietly, still looking up at the ceiling. “What made you move things up so fast?”
“Thanks to my own clumsy handling of Batiste, my friends in the Service began to put pressure on me to involve them in it too,” Peace admitted. “Batiste’s network was closing in.”
“I heard all about your shootout at the Okay Corral in your friend’s restaurant.”
“Exactly. I was losing control of the situation. Too many people knew too much,” Peace added.
“They would have eventually made it here too, wouldn’t they?”
“And to my fiancé, Jill,” Peace answered truthfully. “We had people protecting all of you, but I don’t have to tell you how hard body-guarding really is, if someone like Batiste wants you dead.”
“Aren’t you afraid I’ll blow your cover or compromise a mission?”
“You won’t have any information to compromise,” Peace explained. “Naturally, you already know about me, and your partner Mobry suspects. You two will have no other contact physically with anyone. We certainly won’t be advertising this partnership. I must ask you not to give Mobry any of the information you’re privy to already. If you think he wouldn’t want any part of this, I will trust your judgment. Right now, you are the only one who knows what happened in the house by the beach. I want to keep it that way.”
“You don’t have to worry about that. Mobry would probably go along with this if it’s for national security. He’s tight lipped about everything.”
“Good, because you two will not have special badges to flash, or anything like that. Think it over carefully,” Peace said, taking a card out of his wallet with Ed’s restaurant phone number. “Just call me at the restaurant if you decide to help us out.”
“Jesus,” Lewiston whispered, staring at the card. “I can’t believe I’m even considering this shit. I thought the war on terror was over.”
“After Mexico, you know better now. The players change occasionally, but the game is the same. The only reason people think the war’s over is because people take a hand in it, and serious incidents get stopped before the damage is done. We lucked out in Mexico. We don’t like to rely on luck.”
“What about this penchant you have for killing US citizens when they get in your way, and cops at that?” Lewiston asked.
“They were collaborating with the enemy, and could have wrecked our investigation. You already know how that would have ended. San Diego might be glowing in the dark. Don’t do this if you think everyone coming within our purview because of a tip you gave us will just walk away. We want to take them alive, so we can question them about their hierarchy; but sometimes that isn’t possible.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. What exactly would I be looking for?”
“Unusual activity concerning the border and ports,” Peace replied. “Drug busts, which turn up unusual items along with the drugs, are a good example. People you arrest with Middle Eastern or Asian ties. Even if they’re here legally, we’d like to find out more about them. We believe there are many things getting by, which on the surface, appear harmless, even to the police.”
“All of this will be useless if you bunch can’t get a handle on Mexico,” Lewiston sighed. “What the hell’s the matter with those morons?”
“Envy, resentment, corruption,” Peace listed. “They don’t care as long as they don’t get hurt. This time they sure as hell would have. I believe they’ll be tightening up, especially about their ports. If they don’t, we’ll be doing it for them.”
“That’s a scary thought. Just what we need, another enemy.”
“The alternative is even scarier,” Peace replied. “The countries we’ve dealt with from a power position don’t screw with us anymore. We need to convince a few others it would be in their best interest to stop playing middleman for Terrorists.”
“Man, now I won’t be able to look at anything on the job without wondering about a connection.”
“That’s just how you should be looking at incidents on the job, or even while you’re driving down the street.”
“If I go along with this, no more cop killings,” Lewiston said emphatically.
“That’s why we’d like you and Mobry on board,” Peace replied. “We’d have someone on the inside of the Department, not on the payroll of Terrorist Drug Dealers. If we butted heads with police, while we were conducting an op, we’d have someone to contact.”
“How do you know Mobry and I aren’t on the take?”
“Trust me, we know,” Peace grinned. “Oh yeah, on a lighter note, my fiancé, Jill, is pregnant.”
“Send my condolences to her,” Lewiston replied wryly.
Peace laughed, shaking his head. “I�
��m going to marry her right away.”
“I’m not worried about your marital situation, I’m worried about you procreating at all,” Lewiston pointed out.
This statement set Peace off completely, and his infectious laugh caused Lewiston to join him. After a few moments, Lewiston stuck out his hand, and Peace shook it.
“Congratulations, Psycho,” Lewiston said. “Make sure you check the kid for any 666 sets of numbers at birth.”
“Very funny. I have to go. I’m helping Ed at the restaurant tonight.”
“Don’t you ever go home? You spend more time out than I do at the Department. You better warn Jill about your hours. Believe me, she won’t like it.”
“I’m hoping to get her working with me, and set something up for the baby right at the restaurant,” Peace explained.
“She’s a college girl. You think a college girl, or a college girl’s parents want to go through all the time and expense of an education to buss tables? Not everyone is like you, genius.”
“I’ll keep it in mind. Thanks for your input,” Peace sighed.
“My pleasure, now get the hell out of here.”
“What about your wife and daughter. They’ll want me to hang around to talk with them.”
“Get the hell out of here,” Lewiston repeated, pointing to the door. “I’ll fill them in on any worthwhile information about your life.”
“Okay, but I thought we’d play Trivial Pursuit or Monopoly together.”
“I know how to use this cane for something besides walking, Peacenik,” Lewiston retorted, shaking the afore mentioned item at Peace.
“I’m going, I’m going, but I’m sure they’d rather see my smiling face here than yours, Grumpy.”
Lewiston laughed. “You got to be kidding. What’d you do, boy, break all the mirrors in your house?”
Peace shook his head dejectedly at the door. “That hurt, my brother… that hurt.”
“Good!” Lewiston shouted out as Peace closed the door behind him, “and I ain’t your brother!”
Chapter Thirty
Strange Breakup
Polasky watched Peace walk in and exchange words with Nancy before coming into the bar. Peace stopped, and talked to a few of the patrons, who asked him about singing. Polasky was aware the more Peace sang for people in the back, the more people came to his restaurant hoping to hear him. Ed had not been exaggerating when he mentioned Peace turning a Sunday from Gold to Platinum. Peace walked behind the bar, smiling at Ed.
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