Rough and Ready

  Pink Panther he was not . . .

  Dick Phillips sat in a tree on the outskirts of Hog Heaven, his binoculars trained on the trailer where his alien stayed.

  Two gorillas guarded his target, along with two other women. Were they aliens, too? The guards would have to make a mistake sometime. In the meantime, he’d called for backup, figuring he should take all three women in for testing . . . just in case.

  He had a blind set up in this tree, like hunters used. On it he had his video and still cameras, both with telephoto lenses, a gun, a small cooler with food, a notebook, a tape recorder, and the high-power telescope.

  His two-week leave would end soon, but no way was he going to give up this project. If the hospital wouldn’t grant him an extension, he would quit. He could always get another job, but he might not ever have another chance to catch an alien.

  This was the most exciting adventure of Dick’s life. He was taking notes for a potential book. He already knew what suit he would wear on Larry King. Women would be impressed by all this work he was doing.

  He smiled, thinking about all the good things in his future.

  Then it began to rain.

  When a trailer becomes a sardine can . . .

  Torolf called her late on Thor’s day . . . the first he’d been able to get to a talking box in days. He would be leaving early tomorrow . . . Frigg’s day, and he would not be back till next Frigg’s day. Or later. If ever.

  She put a hand to her heart as she listened to his precious voice. Would it be the last time? She choked back her tears, not wanting his last word from her to be a negative one.

  “Hey, sweetie,” he said.

  “Hey, sweetling,” she said back.

  “Ralph says it’s getting a little crowded there.”

  “Not too crowded. I share a bed with Jolene, and Lizzy has the other bedchamber with Serenity.” Lizzy was in the midst of a one-week break from her teaching job, and she had just left her live-in lover, who had been cheating on her. Hilda had not even known that Lizzy had a live-in lover. “I want to go outside, Torolf. Tell your guards to take us to the shopping mall, or the food mart. Somewhere. Anywhere.”

  “No, we can’t risk it. I’ve had further intel, and that guy Phillips has been seen in the area. Buying electronic equipment. Food at a local convenience store. He’s around there, honey, and you’ve got to stay put.”

  “I will,” Hilda said, but just for Torolf’s peace of mind. “Pete has developed an affection for Lizzy,” she told him then.

  “Oh, yeah? How affectionate?”

  “Just smitten at this point. By the by, did I tell you that Tissie is coming to visit for a few days?”

  “Hilda! It’s only a trailer. There’s not enough room for all those people . . . and bodyguards, too.”

  “We get by.”

  “Ralph says you’ve been sick.”

  “Naaay, I have not. Just a reaction to his worm and blood dish, which he insists on serving every blessed day.”

  He laughed. “It’s spaghetti, hon, not worms. Try it.”

  “I would rather eat . . . worms.”

  He laughed. “Gotta go. I love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  “See you when I see you, babe.” Under his breath, before he ended their conversation, she thought she heard him add, “Pray for me.”

  Chapter 22

  When Daddy goes marching off to war, hoo-yah, hoo-yah! . . .

  “Go, go, go!” the commander’s voice sounded in all their earphones.

  Like clockwork, a Black Hawk flew overhead in the predawn light, and immediately a dozen SEALs, including Cage, fast-roped down to form the perimeter around this operation. Torolf was in the backseat of the Hummer, which started barreling down the residential Tikrit street, swerving here and there to avoid parked cars. There were no pedestrians this early. Sly was on one side of him and JAM on the other. Pretty Boy and Dawson sandwiched Geek in the front seat. They were all geared up and fully loaded, adrenaline pumping through their veins like junkies on a coke high. Coming to a screeching halt in front of the designated safe house, the doors flew open and he yelled, “Kill zone! Haul ass!” They all jumped out, rifles in position, and rushed forward.

  “Open! Open!” JAM shouted in Arabic to the door.

  They heard a rustle inside the house, but when the door didn’t open, JAM stepped back, and Sly and Geek used a battering ram and their boots to knock the door in. Each of them headed in a different direction, as planned.

  In the kitchen, he found a woman with a child in front of her. Both were dressed in Arab attire, which was suspicious for this time of the morning. There was a time when a soldier would have lowered his rifle for women and children. Not anymore. Too many women, and even kids, carried bombs these days.

  “In here. In here,” he ordered with his minimal Arab skills, motioning them to enter a small pantry. When they hesitated, even though they had to understand him, he shoved them in and did a quick full-body search, then gagged and restrained them. He shut the door on them and put a chair under the handle. It would hold for now.

  When he left the kitchen, rifle raised, he saw JAM steering a gentleman in Arab headgear toward the living room wall. The unhappy gent was hurling an unending stream of Arab at him.

  “Saddami?” he inquired.

  “Nope,” JAM said, motioning upward even as he quickly put handcuffs and a gag on the tango, then led him outdoors.

  Dawson came from another room, rifle pressed into the back of a young woman whose dark eyes spelled hatred. She wore an Arab-style pantsuit—he forgot the name for it—and a hijab, one of those scarves that cover the hair and tied under the chin, hanging down to a long vee in the back. She spat out in clumsy English, “Evil American pigs! May Allah strike you dead!” She, too, got a gag and walking orders to the Humvee.

  Then he and Pretty Boy raced up the stairs two at a time to aid Geek, who was about to break down a locked door. They used hand signals, not wanting to speak for fear they would reveal their positions to the tangos, who would then be able to blast some ammo through the wood barrier.

  Geek broke the door down with a swift kick of his boot, then ducked, just missing the bullets from an MP5 submachine gun. He and Pretty Boy were crouched on either side of the door. Peering in carefully, Pretty Boy made further signals to him, and all three of them charged in, rifles blazing. Within seconds, Saddami lay on the floor, oozing blood from three different wounds: the forehead, the throat, and the belly. All around him were laptops, filing cabinets, and videotapes. Pay dirt!

  Pretty Boy, being the communications expert, was already on his Motorola telling CENTCOM that they would need another Black Hawk to pick up the SEALs. Pretty Boy and Dawson could take care of transporting the perps.

  They signaled for help to carry out all the evidence and soon had everything packed in the Humvee, along with the two captives, which immediately took off, gunfire hitting the heavy vehicles from some nearby houses.

  “Disengage. I repeat, disengage,” they all heard in their headsets.

  Quickly, he, Geek, and JAM fast-roped up to a second Black Hawk, and just in time, too, because some tangos were rushing down the street, screaming epithets, guns firings. The SEALs could have taken a stand, but when the enemy was in your sights, you were in theirs. Always good to play it safe when the stakes were this high.

  As the two Black Hawks flew away from the scene, and hopefully Pretty Boy and Dawson made it back to camp, no one spoke. They were breathing heavily, hearts racing, knowing they had escaped the reaper one more time. The pucker factor was high going in; coming out, it was pure adrenaline. Finally, still jacked up, they grinned at each other and shouted, “Hoo-yah!”

  The entire operation had taken twenty-seven minutes. One tango dead, two tangos in captivity, documents that could draw more rats out of their holes, and no good guys down. All in a day’s work . . . a good day’s work.

  Only then did Torolf allow himself to think of Hilda.


  No one was keeping Cinderella away from THIS ball . . .

  Torolf had been back in Ah-mare-eek-ah for two whole days, and he had not come to her. To say that Hilda was seething would be like saying gammelost was a mite unpleasant.

  Oh, he had called her often, but he kept making excuses about why he could not come yet. First, it was something called a debriefing. Then his team was required to go to a head doctor. Then there had been a press conference.

  Well, Hilda had had more than enough. Especially since she had just asked him casually, on the talking box, “What do you think about having children?”

  A deadly silence had followed her question, and then he had asked, “Why?”

  “Oh, do not go getting your bowels in an uproar. I only ask because of a conversation I had today with Serenity. She was talking about her men-oh-pause and her regrets over never having had children. She wanted to know if I, being barren and all, shared her regrets.”

  “Ah, honey.”

  She did not feel any guilt over the lie because the lout making those cooing sounds of sympathy should be here.

  “I was not seeking sympathy. I merely asked if you regret never having children.”

  “Regret? I’m too young for regrets in that regard, but as to kids . . . Holy hell, do you have any idea what it was like to grow up in a family with twelve brothers and sisters? It was always chaos. And, I don’t mean to be gross, but I can still recognize the smell of baby shit and baby vomit from twenty paces. So, don’t feel bad about not being able to have kids, Hilda. I wouldn’t miss them a bit.”

  Hilda’s heart dropped at that news. He does not want children. Oh, gods, what do I do now? “What time will you be here this afternoon?” It was barely past the breaking fast time.

  “Uh, actually, there’s a problem, honey.”

  Another problem. I am beginning to think he is avoiding me.

  “I have to go to a ball this evening, and after that I should be free. The order came from the top. No ducking out. It’s only one more commitment I have to get out of the way.”

  The lout is going to a ball and he is overdefensive. Hmmmm. Putting her hand over the talking box, she asked Ralph, who was eating worms and blood again, “What is a ball?”

  Ralph shrugged. “A toy that bounces up and down.” Ralph was getting accustomed to her incessant questions.

  “You are going to a bouncing toy?” she asked Torolf.

  He laughed. “Not that kind of ball. This is a fancy dance, a reception kind of thing.”

  Hilda did not say anything, but her fury began to rise. He could not come here because he was going to dance? With whom? Other men? Nay, he would not do that. She would bet her busty-air that there would be women there.

  Without another word, she pressed the Off button on the talking box. She refused to come out of the bathing chamber every time the talking box rang and Ralph banged on the door. “Tell the lout to go . . . dance.”

  Torolf gave up finally, and for some reason the silence was even harder to bear than the image of him holding another woman in that form of foresport . . . dancing.

  Jolene, who had been taking a nap, rapped on the door finally. Hilda went into the bedchamber with her and Lizzy, who had just come back from the food mart. Serenity had returned to Spike after she’d deemed him suitably punished. Hilda explained why she was so upset with Torolf.

  “I think I know what ball Torolf is going to,” Lizzy said. She went out to the solar and came back with a large packet of parchments, called the El Lay Times. She opened the parchments to a page that showed a picture of two men, with haircuts similar to Torolf ’s, wearing fancy uniforms, different than the ones she’s seen on the SEALs. There were also women in lewd gunnas that left the shoulders and half their breasts bare.

  Lizzy grinned at her.

  “What?” she and Jolene both said. Jolene was a much happier person since she had gone to court this week and got her husband put in prison. A law person was working on a divorce for her. Plus, Geek had been calling her on his talking box.

  “I know what this ball is for. It’s a reception at the Hotel del Coronado for the U.S. and state commissioners of education, along with a lot of education big shots. Although the event is touted as a recognition by the military of all that schools do in recording military history, they probably want an in for recruiters to go into their schools.”

  Hilda didn’t understand half of what Lizzy had said. “Why does that make you grin so?”

  “Because, honey, I can get us into the ball. My best friend was named teacher of the year, and she has extra tickets.”

  “But how would we get out of here, and where would I get the proper clothing?”

  “You take care of getting us out of here, without the gorillas finding out. I’ll get us some clothes. Look, it’s only noon. We have plenty of time, even if we leave here by four p.m. Meet me behind Serenity’s trailer at four, okay?”

  Hilda nodded, a mite worried over how they could accomplish this feat and, yea, she worried over what Torolf ’s reaction would be to her showing up uninvited. Hah! He deserved a surprise . . . or two. The lout!

  At four, Hilda went out to the solar and picked out various foods and beverages and carried them into the bedchamber.

  “What are you doing?” Pete was the inside guard now, and Ralph was outside.

  “Jolene and I are going to eat in my bedchamber, then watch some tea-vee and go to bed. Torolf should be here tomorrow.” She batted her eyelashes at him with innocence, a trick Tissie had taught her.

  Pete nodded. “And if Torolf calls for you again?”

  “Tell him I am getting my beauty rest . . . for him.” More eyelash-batting.

  Hilda made Jolene go to the bathing chamber to relieve herself. She would not be able to leave the bedchamber till morn, if all went as planned. Then she locked the door from the inside, went over and unlocked the window. She waited till Ralph passed by on his periodic strolls around the trailer, shimmied herself out, and watched as Jolene relocked the window.

  In a low crouch, hiding behind the various other trail-hers as she ran, Hilda arrived at Serenity’s trail-her where Lizzy was waiting for her in a black horseless carriage. Her friend, Sarah, the teacher of the year, was in the backseat . . . both her and Lizzy grinning at her ingenuity in escaping her “prison.”

  “We’ll change in a motel room I arranged near San Diego,” Sarah told them.

  “I brought you the hottest gown, Hilda.” Lizzy practically jumped up and down on the leather seats. “My sister, an actress, wore it to the Academy Awards one year.”

  And all Hilda could think to say was, “Torolf is going to be so surprised.”

  Dick was trying his damnedest to be a dick . . . a private dick . . .

  Meanwhile, Dick Phillips saw the alien—the first one that had been in the hospital—crawl out of the trailer window. He rushed to gather up his equipment and put it in his trunk.

  The black Toyota Avalon was already out on Route 10 by the time he caught up. He pulled out his cell phone once he had the vehicle firmly in his sights, two car lengths ahead.

  “Phillips here,” he told his boss, Mr. Atkins. “I’ve got the target in front of me . . . away from the goons at the trailer park. She’s with two other women . . . not sure who they are.”

  “I’ll alert Dorney and Olsen. They’ll meet you once your target stops. Don’t do anything until they arrive.” Dick could hear the excitement in Mr. Atkins’s voice.

  “Roger that,” he said, having heard that expression in a spy movie one time.

  “Good work so far, Dick.”

  He beamed with pride as he followed his prey.

  The prince and his froggie pals headed off to the ball . . .

  Torolf and six other single guys on his team approached the Hotel del Coronado grimly.

  None of them enjoyed decking themselves out in ice cream man duds—better known as dress whites—and parading themselves around like meat on display. SEALs had c
ome a long way from the days when they were mere frogmen in the Navy. A lot more was required of them now, besides fighting the good fight, like showing up for dipwad events like this one, where they would be required to dance with unattached females from ten to seventy, often stammering teenaged daughters of important people.

  “Maybe there’ll be some hot teachers here,” Cage said hopefully, glancing up at the banner, which read, National Organization for Better Education, NOBO.

  “I never had a hot teacher the whole sixteen years I was in school,” Pretty Boy pointed out.

  “These are more likely education bigwigs, the movers and shakers in making policy,” Geek explained. When they all frowned at him, he added, “There might be a few teachers.”

  “If we have dry chicken again, I’m gonna puke,” JAM said.

  “Hey, the Del serves primo food,” Torolf told JAM, who had never attended an event here before, somehow having been off base every time one came up.

  And, really, the Del was a neat place. Sitting right on the ocean, it was a huge white building, complete with cupolas, dormer windows, a red tile roof, and a lot of history. It was here that Edward, Prince of Wales, supposedly met the infamous Wallis Simpson, then abdicated the throne. The Marilyn Monroe movie, Some Like It Hot, was filmed here. And it was considered the Western White House by some presidents, like Ronald Reagan. The food was usually good, too, though a bit fancy for Torolf ’s tastes. “I hope they don’t serve that avocado soup again, the one with bits of caviar floating on top.” Colorful food items like that were a killer for white-suited gentlemen, like themselves, to handle.

  “Mon Dieu, more old fart dance music!” Cage complained as they entered the ballroom.

  “Not a good-looking woman in sight,” Pretty Boy observed.