BLACKSMITH ENGINEERING CONSULTANTS, SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA
The woman waited inside the idling taxicab until she spied her target. She lowered her dark glasses and took in the familiar figure of the man she had known now for eight years. She smiled and then pushed the sunglasses back up her slim nose. She straightened her skirt, then gave the cabdriver a twenty-dollar bill, and took a deep breath as she readied for the confrontation that had been coming for many years. She opened the door and with her briefcase in hand started to follow the broad-shouldered object of this covert visit as he took his brown-paper-bag lunch to the nearby park area.
Assistant Director of Department 5656 Virginia Pollock waited while the brutish little man chose a tree to sit under. She again lowered the sunglasses as the man saw three squirrels frolicking under the protection of the trees. Like most California squirrels, these were in no mood to move from the shade of the tree and the pinecones it offered. She grimaced as she watched the gray-haired man remove the stub of a cigar from his mouth and then lean over.
“You fuckin’ rats going to move or am I goin’ to throw you into a stew?” the raised voice asked loudly. The squirrels all stopped and looked up into the angry and mean face of the man and then decided they would indeed act like squirrels and run for their lives.
“Yeah, that’s what I friggin’ thought, bunch of pussies.”
Virginia shook her head as she watched Master Chief Petty Officer (retired) Harold C. Jenks slowly ease his bulk onto the grass. She saw that the master chief was tired. The blue denim work shirt he wore was wrinkled and the hair on his head was a little grayer. Assistant Director Pollock knew, like Jack and the rest of her colleagues, that Jenks wasn’t taking the recent personnel losses to the nation too well. The master chief had lost as much as anyone at Group; he had lost a student and dear friend when Carl Everett vanished into the wormhole after guaranteeing the destruction of the enemy in its own dimensional shift over Antarctica.
The master chief pulled out a sandwich and then looked at it and decided he wasn’t that hungry. Virginia saw him speak with several of his people who were far better dressed than Jenks. Their clothes were expensive and clean, while the owner of Blacksmith Engineering was a complete mess—Even more so than usual, Virginia thought. When Jenks said the last to his passing colleagues he saw the tall, thin woman looking at him. He closed his eyes for a moment and then opened them in time to see his worst nightmare still approaching.
“Well, I never thought I would gaze upon those legs again,” Jenks said as his eyes traveled up Virginia’s legs to her white blouse and jacket.
“That makes two of us, Harold,” she said as she stepped forward until she stood over the reclined Jenks.
The master chief’s face screwed into one of disgust at the mention of his first name. But then Virginia was the only person in the world who was ever allowed to refer to him that way. The very direct woman could be forgiven for a lot.
“Before you even begin, I’m done.”
Virginia smiled and then tossed Jenks her briefcase, which he caught in his lap but not before the corner of the case hit his left testicle. He winced as she sat next to him on the grass. She stretched out her long legs and then smiled over at him.
“Done with what?” she asked, teasing him like she always had.
Jenks started to throw the briefcase from his lap but caught himself as he knew from experience that Ms. Pollock was the only person he had ever known not to cower in terror at his voice. He gently laid the case aside.
“Done helping whatever it is you and your so-called think tank does.” He looked sad for the briefest of moments. “If there’s anyone left, that is.” He looked deeply into her green eyes. “Your director and the president seemed to have killed off everyone else that I had any affection or respect for.” He looked away and then immediately back up. “Well, almost all, anyway. So tell your director Compton and his Captain America Jack Collins to screw off, I’m busy.”
Virginia knew he still held a soft spot in that black heart of his for her. Their relationship went back to 2007 when they had become close during the Amazonian expedition. She knew that Jenks was hurting just as much as everyone else after losing so many men and women in the recent war. Most were lost on his reengineered battleship left on Earth by the Martian civilization that preceded Earth by millions of years. Yes, Jenks felt the pangs of guilt and they mostly stemmed from losing the man he had trained as a navy SEAL when he was but a boy, Carl Everett. Jenks was unforgiving toward Jack, Niles, and even her at the sacrifice Carl had had to make in order to end the war. Virginia tilted her head and then placed a thin but beautiful hand on the rough, unshaven cheek of the man she had once been intimate with a million years before. He softened as her hand caressed him.
“Stop that,” he said as he pulled his face away.
“You poor bastard, you know how to be angry all the time but you never learned how to grieve, did you?”
“Look, Slim, take your pitch and sell it to some other broken-down ex-SEAL and even worse engineer. I assure you they are out there.”
“Yes, they are, and we’ve interviewed most of them. But alas, and I don’t know the reasoning behind the decision, Jack and Niles want you and only you.”
“I’m done with consulting for your damn strange Group, Ginny, done.”
“I said nothing about consulting, Harold.”
A confused look crossed his gruff features.
“We want you to sign on with the Group full-time as the director for special projects. In other words we need all that engineering stuff you can bring to bear. Unlimited budget and full control of engineering and our rather unique facility.”
“No.”
“Full access to navy, air force, and army technology.”
“No.”
She smiled, knowing his weakness.
“I want you to take it.”
He looked sad for a moment. Then hardened. “No.”
She raised her brows.
“No.”
“We have something planned, Harold, and Niles and Jack need you, and only you.”
“No,” he said, and then looked at the woman he loved deeply, and he could say that about only two people he had ever known, Virginia and one other. He became deadly curious and he knew that was a bad thing. “What do you have planned?” he asked as he looked away for having caved so easily.
Virginia Pollock smiled, leaned in, and kissed Jenks fully on the mouth. She held it for the longest time, shocking anyone who worked for the former master chief as they gasped at the sight of the meanest man in the world being romanced by a gorgeous woman. She finally parted from him and then told him what the Event Group was up to.
Ten minutes later the master chief was deep in thought.
“Impossible” was his only word.
“We at Group don’t care for that word much, Harold, you should know that.”
“Well, start believing and caring, because it’s an impossibility. And I don’t care who came up with it.”
Virginia stood, retrieved her briefcase, and then paused as she leaned in close to Jenks.
“Then I guess we’ll have to make the attempt without you, Harold.”
Jenks watched her turn and start moving away toward the street. He looked to the sky and cursed his luck. But deep down after hearing what it was Virginia had to say, he knew he was trapped.
“Goddamn it!” he said loudly as he stood, frightening several of his consulting colleagues as they walked past, and then those same people watched stunned as the master chief ran after Virginia Pollock like a loving puppy toward its master.
“All right, I’ll only listen on one condition,” he called out.
Virginia stopped and waited. “And that is?”
“Don’t call me Harold, you manipulative she-devil.”
The assistant director smiled.
“You got it, Harold.”
The master chief watched Virginia smile and then she moved off, leaving him standing there just as angry as ever. “I’m freakin’ glad we got that settled.”
Jenks chased after Virginia because he knew, failure or triumph, as an engineer and as a friend, he had to be in on the greatest scientific reach in the history of mankind.