We had an excited conversation on the way home about having babies in the house. Vicky and Ching Lee were making list of the things we needed to do tomorrow to bring the boys home. That was so easy to say, “The boys, our boys,” it brought me teary eyes just thinking about it.

When we got home we cleaned the house from top to bottom; we dusted every nook and cranny there was. I even changed the heater filters, putting in the latest kind that removed everything; mold spores, lint, and pollen, fine dust – everything!

The girls made up the cribs; each boy was going to have his own. One my mom gave us; it had been Jake’s, then mine. The other had been Jenny’s. We bought completely new mattresses, side bumpers and linens for them.

There were boxes of sterilizers, baby bottles and breast pumps. They were dug out ready to be cleaned if Jenny wanted to use them. After watching the connection between the boys and her I was sure the only thing they were going to get any time soon was the real nipple – any time and any where they wanted it.

Tomorrow – until Jenny called – it was back to the grind. The Rapid Response team had lost three days of outside training because of the weather. I called Bob and asked if he knew anyone who could remove the snow from the roofs of the four block buildings in the compound so we could use it right away. Jake and Dad could use the front-end loaders to move the snow outside the fence.

To their dismay, they were going to spend the rest of this week in the gym training and in class. The state department was sending a team to give them a crash course on diplomacy, policy and procedures. In ten days they were going to Morocco to swap the entire JBG team there.

Our electronic investigative team (EIT) had been up and running a week now. Robert and Burt had taken on matters, the Morocco attack and the political debate. To that, I had added a third.

My Washington closed door inquisition with the intelligence committees had been postponed two weeks on Wednesday because of the storm.

Eric and Frank both dropped hints that the committee was digging to see if we had any advance knowledge of the attack because we were so well prepared for it. Eric also indicated that the panel was going to be loaded with other intelligence groups.

“They are looking for why JBG was targeted – what you knew and how – that the intelligence group did not,” Eric stated.

I asked both Robert and Burt to devote a day or so to researching the terrorism attack against JBG to see what kind of information they could dig up that I could use in my defense.

I was able to give them a head start. I had both the cell phone number that was blown up in the van and a list of all the numbers that it had called in and called out. There were also some email addresses of North African origin that came in a state department info dump that I should not have received a day or so after.

The Feds tried to recall it after they realized it had been addressed improperly, but Cindy had already printed the packet seconds before it disappeared from our system.

Robert was working aggressively on the three groups that were planning trouble for the independent debate. From updates I was getting, they had already infiltrated all the leader’s emails, text and cell phones and had set up continuous monitoring of all three. The other was digging into the Morocco incident and making progress.

Cindy had assigned administrative assistant Brooke Haywood full time to the pair to put everything together in a form we could use. It was a totally stand-alone office not connected to our mainframe or our internet. Brook kept us up to date with emails. She was also putting together everything need for the first meeting.

Friday morning all of us went to the gym offices. It had been four days since any of us had sat down behind our desks and there was a pile of things to catch up on.

I had heard from the people in the office that Cindy had a sense of humor, although I rarely saw it. I saw it today when I sat in my chair and looked at the top of my desk. There were three neat stacks of paper work; on top of each was a sticky note.

One read “Easy piece of cake,” the next said, “Complicated, take a break first,” the last one read, “Oh my God, get two cups of coffee before you start this then call me,” Cindy. She was nowhere to be seen but I could hear her giggling around the corner.

She assumed that I would start with the easy, but – “Bring me the two cups of coffee and let’s get started,” I said in the direction of the giggles.

The, “Oh my God,” was the final report on the attack in Morocco that killed Phil and Albert. It was 500 double sided pages long. It might also help Burt and Robert in one of their assignments I had given them.

Cindy was right but four cups of coffee may be more like it. I put it back on the desk and put the sticky note back on it. It needed to be done but it would wait until later today.

I started with the piece of cake pile and then the complicated pile. I had finished both and the two cups of coffee when Jenny called, “We are being released in an hour, come and get us, I’m going crazy – get us out of here, please!”

We were going to take three vehicles to bring Jenny home. All five of us were going and we were bringing back five. My mom, Lisa, Jenny, Jacob and little Robert were coming home. The car seats for newborns were already in the Suburban.

We were there in plenty of time, the roads had been plowed repeatedly and the full shoulders were now exposed.

Jenny was a ball of energy when we walked into the room. If she was tired from the delivery it was not showing. Lisa, on the other hand, looked frazzled.

“Jenny has been going since six o’clock when the babies were brought in to be fed. I thought she would rest, I’m the one who needs the rest,” Lisa replied as she sat down in the chair beside the hospital bed.

Doctor Peterson came in and gave all of us the new parent talk, the do’s and the not to do’s. There were discussions on sniffles, care, feedings, burping and diapers, bathing and a 24/7 information number to call if there were any problems.

We had diapers; Jenny had gotten cases from the baby shower, every size from newborn to six months.

The babies were fussy while we were loading everything up, but as soon as the vehicle started moving fell quickly asleep.

To my surprise Jenny wanted to go over to the office before going directly home. She wanted to show the babies to her office clerks and staff. I wanted the same thing but I was not going to suggest it today, not knowing how tired she was for sure.

We spent the next two hours over at the office with a steady parade of well wishers looking at the boys and congratulating Jenny and all of us on the addition to our family. Then it was home with babies, dirty diapers and feeding. All of us took turns holding, rocking and adoring Jacob and little Robert.

Dinner was of Jenny’s choosing, after reading the hand book of those things that could be passed on to the little ones through her milk. No pickles, garlic, nothing hot spiced, no booze, no over the counter meds without the doc’s approval.

When quiet was finally necessary for the little ones to sleep and when they were, Jenny and I snuck off for a long hot deserving shower. I washed her back multiple times with her favorite soap. After the shower she hit the bed for a nap while five of us listened to the boys’ breathe and watched all the facial expressions two-day-olds could muster.

In this quiet period I started reading 500 pages of double-spaced bold print final report of the attack on the Morocco embassy.

Edit by Alfmeister
Proof read by Bob W.