It was 0700 when the C5 touched down. Everyone was in good spirits. I watched them bringing their new gear off the plane.

“The after action report will wait until Monday,” Vicky told the men.

The six trucks were driven into one of the smaller hangars; the guns and drugs went with them. I pulled the battery cables off of them to kill the GPS, if they had one. The hangar was doubly locked and I had Dad install a hasp for padlocks that only we girls had keys to.

We had breakfast in the airport restaurant watching the ZNN News about a new cartel war near the border and the new travel restrictions.

The Mexicali’s were reporting that 24 bodies had been recovered at the site so far and expected more as the rubble cooled.

Mexican drug lord Diego Juan Fernando and his two sons were unaccounted for. The cartel power struggle in the area was in full swing; bodies were being found in several areas. As usual, when you killed one rat there were more to take their place.

We took the five duffle bags into Lorrie’s private office, dumped it on the floor and began counting and stacking it on table. When we were finished there was 25 million in 20s, 50s and 100s stacked on the table. It would join the Prince’s money in the safe that had already been laundered.

We counted out five grand for each of the men that went on the mission – including Robert’s man – and ten for ED and Bill.

Vicky took the things that Ed had given her and put them on the table. They must have had rings on each finger; big heavy gold and diamonds. There were several large gold and diamond bracelets and necklaces that must have weighed a pound.

“Put them in a plastic bag and into the safe at the office,” I said. “No one needs to know we have it.”

The Mexicali’s may not know where Diego Juan Fernando and his two boys were but I was sure they were in the rubble. No other person would be walking around with that kind of display of wealth and power.

I wondered why Fernando and his sons were staying at the villa. Was this gun and drug arrangement with terrorist that big a deal? Was it a sign of many more to come?

I took six calls from task force members before noon wanting to know if I had seen the news and my opinion on the matter.

“Too soon to tell,” was the only opinion that I had.

We separated the phones the teams had brought back; it was easy to distinguish which ones belonged to the Saif’s gang by looking at the call logs.

I called Eric again. “Don’t you ever sleep or quit?” he asked.

“Only when necessary; I have a bag of cell phones that was collected last night; they are ringing like crazy. Do you have a DEA investigative team working today that can make use of them while the information is still active?” I asked then added, “I will keep the ones from the terrorists.”

“Yes, at the Washington main office. I’m here now and not in a position to come get them. Can you bring them over?” he asked.

“If I cannot find someone else, I will,” I replied.

Up in the gym there was the usual Saturday crowd of people with plenty of government employees, including several DEA who readily volunteered to carry them over and hand deliver the bag to Eric. Apparently brownie points carry value at the DEA. The 200 cash I handed him didn’t hurt either.

At 1600 the screen monitoring the terrorist call announced the first call was in progress; one of the phones on the table started ringing. Saif was making the call. Over the next hour all six phones were called by Saif.

At midnight Saif called all the phones again then he called Rafi Quastri. That call lasted 10 minutes while they tried to sort things out.

Rafi Quastri was confident that things were still fine; the group was not to come over the border until 3 AM and then they would have better phone reception.

My mates had gone to bed long ago. I walked through the tunnel, quietly showered and joined Jenny.

Jenny and I made up for being apart so much in the morning. We finally had to cool it when the boys started jabbering away.

Sunday morning we cooked a big breakfast; we had invited all the family yesterday afternoon. It was the first big family breakfast that we had had in a while. It would take days in the gym to work it off but it was worth it. It was the kind of time I needed with family and friends.

After everyone left we girls had a long talk in the living room with Vicky. It was an open, relaxed talk. Most of all, we listened.

“I was afraid of failing and letting the team down by not holding up my part. Then I was afraid as the man was coming towards me, afraid I would freeze and not be able to act. Then I had an adrenaline rush as I swung into action,” she said.

“I even remember the smell of blood when I cut his throat – it sort or sprayed out – and how he went limp as I shoved him into the outhouse. I don’t remember doing the sweep of the place before I closed the door but I knew I did. I can still see the holes cut in the boards they sit on to crap and the rolls of paper,” she added.

“I do not remember flipping the safety off on the M16 when the guy came out the window. He scared me to death with that scream; I consciously had to force myself to pull the trigger.”

“With the second guy it was just automatic, like something I did every day. I could hear the thump, thump of the bullets hitting him and could see his reaction with each hit. He had a knife in his hand that he dropped as he fell,” she said.

“Paul came to help me from the side and said, ‘Damn, girl you don’t need any help – good job.’ Then Ed called for me to come inside and make decisions,” Vicky said and then continued.

“I was fine until we got back to the C5 and loaded, then I was exhausted like running a marathon,” she said.

“I assume you went to control the logistics but when Martin broke his leg you stepped up to the plate to keep the team to full strength. From what I see you did exceptionally well; great would be even a better word. The let down at the plane was the adrenaline crash, not unusual at all,” I replied.

“Tomorrow I want to see the team as a group when I come home from Washington. You can hand out the bonuses and we can do a team assessment of the mission,” I said.

Sunday afternoon the calls to the phones became frantic from Saif. We had turned the phones off. So frantic was Saif that he called Rafi Quastri. The call lasted 20 minutes. Apparently Saif did not like it when his plans went to hell so early in the game.

Rafi Quastri tried to call Diego Juan Fernando several times.

Sunday afternoon ZNN carried the news flash that Diego Juan Fernando and his family had been killed by a rival cartel gang. The bodies had been identified by DNA. The Mexican Federal police stormed his mansion in Camaron and seized everything.

They also reported that six Middle Eastern men had been killed at the compound execution style and were looking for a connection to Fernando.

Rafi Quastri made one long call to Saif; it was instructions to continue the plans as they had been discussed without the heavy weapons portion. He also gave Saif instructions to call the six phones no more for fear the Mexican police had the phones. The final instruction was for a conference call Tuesday at the scheduled time and no calls until then.

All the calls Saif had made locked down his location to a center at Columbia, South Carolina.

The video from Friday night’s mission had been removed from the servers to DVDs and two copies were made. One went in my safe and the other in the new EIT secure storage unit safe.

All the terrorist phone calls were transferred to DVDs that I was to take with me to the task force tomorrow morning.

We were just getting ready to have supper salad, soup and homemade subs, when Art Cummings of the NIA called on the State Department issued secure phone. I received an official intelligence briefing on the demise of Diego Juan Fernando and the fallout in the cartel.

The briefing had the latest on the six Middle Eastern men; Mexico was sending them to the FBI lab for identification. They would land at Andrews tonight.

I had sent a team to Mexico to kill them and they were still going to end up in Washington anyhow; the irony of it all was laughable.

I was willing to bet that they came in on a tanker, same as Saif. I would also bet they had important roles in Friday’s attacks and that was why Saif was so upset.

I made it to my chair just as the salad bowl was put on the table and watched the boys feeding themselves pieces of tomatoes, celery, ham, salami, sub rolls and making a mess with Sippy cups.

Edit by Alfmeister
Proof read by Bob W.