Meg's Apartment
Reston, VA
It was well past eleven, when an exhausted Harm pulled into the parkade of Meg's residence at Reston. The convoy; Meg having taken a Judge Advocate General motor pool vehicle from Falls Church and Harm taking his Lexus, had made its way back to Falls Church, where Meg had handed over the well-being of the vehicle back to the Marine security sentry on duty.
"hmmmm…" Meg sighed to his right hand side, "it's so nice to be home; to be able to hand things off to Captain Krennick and be able to come home and sleep in my own bed."
"Yeah…" Harm said thinking on the drive he would have back to BOQ at Pax River. Even though there were wedding plans, he still had to work. Maybe he should have asked for the week off.
When they were situated in Meg's apartment, Harm picked up the phone dialing a number. When the receiver was picked up on the other end, Harm spoke. "Hey boss." He grinned as he could imagine the look on his friend's face. "Just thought I would update you on what was going on."
"Do you know what time it is, Rabb?" Animal sounded slightly sleepy and irritated, putting on his rear-admiral persona. "I presume the handlers screwed the pooch on this one?"
"It's starting to look that way." Harm said. "Prosecutor" he tossed a look back at Meg who responded with an indulgent expression. "says she's pressing charges."
"Good." Animal replied. "Just keep me apprised of the case, anyways. By the way, Rabb, you got three weeks off…Help your 'prosecutor' out with the wedding plans." Animal probably had a chow-eating grin on his face on the other end of the line, Harm suspected.
"Yes, sir." Harm grinned. "Three weeks off, aye, sir."
"I'm busy…with Lia." Animal sounded even more irritated. "Now get off the damned phone line before I make those three weeks assessing the runway conditions in Keflavik, Iceland!"
"Yes, sir." Harm agreed quickly. "Thank you, sir. See you in three weeks."…and hung up the phone. "Uh…that was more than I really wanted to know." He muttered, shaking his head, wondering if he would ever get the image out of his mind. Meg queried him with a silent look. "No, sweetheart, you really don't want to know."
"oh…" Meg said knowingly. Mattie just looked confused.
"What I can tell you is this: Animal gave me three weeks off to help you with the preps and for our honeymoon." Harm grinned, reaching for Meg who willingly returned his embrace.
NAS Patuxent River
Patuxent River, Maryland
Next day
"Is she gone yet?" Vice-Admiral Hadfield asked peering from his office door with a nervous expression.
"I think so." Animal responded, looking over at the vice-admiral with a questioning expression. "Why do you ask?"
"That woman's like a dog-in-heat." The Vice-Admiral grumbled. "She's got her eyes set on some stars and she just about nearly had an orgasm when she saw the three on my collar!"
Animal restrained his desire to laugh his head off. Captain Allison Krennick, United States Navy JAG had not changed in nine years. And that behaviour was quite possibly that was the main reason why her fitreps had caused her to not be promoted in those nine years other than at the very tail end of her promotion window. At this rate it would be lucky for her to see a star before the end of her thirty years in uniform. This was the reason why he had gone up three grades instead of her one. That and jealous service members would have also added in the influence of the blue button on promotion boards. The deep-selection to Captain; then the definite deep-selection to Rear Admiral (lower half) coming at the tail end of his first command deployment as a CAG. His appointment as XO COMNAVAIRSYS had accelerated his appointment to a two-star position.
Allison had also targeted him as well, that afternoon.
"Well, hello, sir." Captain Krennick said. Animal would have sworn she practically purred like a cat in heat. "Last I recalled you were a Commander."
"Things certainly change." Animal had responded. "Deep selection, I presume."
"Well, sir, the blue button certainly helps." Krennick insinuated.
"Well, I don't know about that. Captain." Animal stated firmly indicating that the line of superior officer/junior officer shouldn't be crossed. "I'd hope that the Medal wasn't that much of a factor, but rather command and technical abilities and the capacity to do the job correctly..." hoping that Krennick got the message that promotion boards were not supposed to – if they were doing their jobs correctly – consider anything else other than officers' abilities to do their job. But in some respects, Allison was correct. That bias often did creep into the promotion board and favors were oft-times traded back and forth. 'You scratch my back (with the promotion board), I'll scratch your back (with something else)." It wasn't supposed to be done, but it was.
"Yeah…" Animal said. "That was rather uncomfortable." He stated to the vice-admiral. "By the way, since Captain Rabb is getting married, I gave him permission to take three weeks off."
"Sure, that's fine." Vice-Admiral Hadfield replied. "Guy needs some time off. You hear the scuttlebutt about Krennick? The woman went after Rabb?"
"Yeah, I've heard the history about it." Animal snorted. He kept his thoughts to himself. Allison had wanted to go have a coffee for old time's sake meaning the MOH investigation and the resultant brou-haha with some petty commander who had topped out at O-5. Animal begged off with a meeting and then he had to go back to Falls Church to pick up Lia – his wife, Animal had emphasized.
Florida State Prison – Union Correctional Institution
Raiford, Florida
2 days later
"Special Agent Bill Ford, NSA – I need to talk to Jack Lambert – Prison transfer and interrogation." The sandy-haired man grinned genially to the prison guard.
"I didn't have any prior notice of this." The head security guard said.
"Well, NSA has its rules and one of them is no prior notification. National Security, as you know. Your guy is a domestic terrorist and pretty much, he's in a no-win situation. NSA wants to interrogate him and see what we can get out of him about his friends in the Freedom Brethren. They've been rather active again."
"Couldn't that be done here?" the guard asked.
"Naw. We have better interrogation methods – One thing, hood him and cuff him. We wouldn't want him thinking about escape now. Would we? I'll bring the transfer van to the side entrance."
When a confused and hooded Jack Lambert was brought out and loaded up into the van, Special Agent Bill Ford grinned and said "Thank you…" turned and got into his van and drove off. A long silence ensued while Jack Lambert formulated several hypotheses. "No need to kill people…yet." SA Ford said once he'd closed, locked the door and was well past three blocks away from the prison. He looked up at the rear view mirror. "Just sit yourself comfortably and relax. You're free."
"What are you talking about?" Jack Lambert exclaimed infuriated. "I can't see shit through this hood."
"…just saying that your Freedom Brethren will be expecting you." was the uninformative response. "Of course we might have a small problem with law enforcement about that.
"How the hell do you know about them?" Lambert blustered ineffectually considering he was handcuffed and hooded.
"I have my ways." the man replied as he drove on down the highway.
Silence reigned in the car as Lambert tried to digest what he was told and how the hell he was going to get out of this situation.
Meg's Apartment
Reston, VA
"So…we finally have the marriage licence." Meg said as she stretched on the couch. "I am so exhausted…and the wedding is in three days" she said sighing. "Any chance we could just elope?"
"My mother wouldn't forgive me. And your mother and your brothers wouldn't either." Harm replied as she nestled into his arms. "In fact, they'd probably beat me." He grinned at her, his eyes twinkling in merriment.
"Ah…that might be interesting to watch, but no. I guess the show must go on." Meg sighed. "But a few weeks relaxing in the sun might help make me feel better."
"All arranged." Harm replied, relishing feeling Meg's body curled up against his.
"Any chance I can know where we're going? After all, I need to get packed."
"Nope…" Harm said as Meg's face fell in disappointment. "Just know that it's some place warm."
"Awwwwwwww." Meg whined. "Not even a bit of a hint?"
"Nope."
"Party pooper." At that Harm burst out laughing as Meg snorted in mock-disgust.
"Is Mac coming?" Meg asked; not relishing the answer.
"I don't think you'd want to have her possibly ruining your day." Harm said, his merry countenance turning to a worried one. "She could cause a scene."
"Well, Harm, she was your long-time partner. And…I have a vested interest in showing her that this is final." Meg said calmly. "You should send her an invitation. Besides…she needs to understand that we are together and she doesn't have a chance in hell any more."
"You really like sticking the knife in…and twisting. Don't you?" Harm raised an eyebrow.
"Somewhat. Especially when that Marine got on the wrong side of me right from the get-go." Meg replied with a rather vicious looking glare.
"Ouch…" Harm replied. "Remind me never to get on your bad side."
"Harm…darling, my sweet. Trust me." She smirked at him. "The dent in the wall from the thrown frying pan might let you know." She said and from the teasing tone in her voice, Harm knew that she never would go that far.
"I'll ask Gunny to see if he can find me a spare Kevlar PASGT cover."
Animal & Lia's Home
Fairfax, VA
"Honey?" Animal's voice sounded from the downstairs den where he kept his uniforms in a small closet. "Have you seen my second pair of dress whites, the ones that I keep for weddings?"
"No… dear. I thought you put them away." Lia said. "By the way, I got an invite as well from Harm and I've been in contact with Meg. I'm going to be going with Meg, Harriet and Jen to pick out bridesmaids dresses." She appeared in the doorway a few seconds later having walked from the kitchen to the downstairs den so that she could speak to her husband better without having a whole gaggle of walls separating them.
"Oh. Jen…you mean Legalman Coates." Animal asked. "She's gotten an invite?"
"Well, Jen's a special person and feels closely attached to both Harm and Meg. After all Harm pulled Jen out of a bad situation and she feels indebted to him."
"Ah…" Animal nodded understanding the connection. "Anyways I picked up a set of fresh RADM boards from the PX for the wedding. Gotta be all neat and squared away so that we all look good on the wedding portraits."
"You're a part of the honor guard?" Lia asked.
"Yep." Animal nodded. "I'm the one hollering out the commands."
"I thought Keeter was going to be." Lia inquired, interested in the reasons for the change of procedure.
"Evidently, he thought that Keeter might fall over after getting into the moonshine so he decided to have me do the commands instead. After all, he informed me that I'm still in Keeter's nightmares. Might keep him straight for an afternoon." Animal informed her, smug tone evident. Turning another set of uniforms, he located the uniform bag hung up. "Ah…found them. Damned things were hiding."
"You can never seem to find things until they're right in front of your nose, dear." Lia remarked as she headed back out the door.
"Huh?" Animal looked at her retreating back in confusion. "I can find things alright…if they're in the same spot as where I left them." He said in mock-outrage. He turned back to the closet, rummaged around for a few moments. Throwing up in hands in frustration he said. "HONEY!? I can't find my sword!"
JAG Headquarters
Falls Church, VA
"Hi, Mac, you got a moment?" Harm said.
Lieutenant Colonel Sarah Mackenzie looked up from her file and calmly perused her once-partner's face. "So…what would you like?" She said. Her face had lost some of the life in it, it seemed to Harm. It seemed a bit paler and more drawn than usual and it had a pinched expression as if she thought the world was conspiring to undermine her and she was fighting a battle for survival. "You do realize I'm rather busy with this case that the admiral dropped into our laps."
"Well, I just wanted to drop this off…" He casually passed her a card in an envelope. "Meg wanted you there at the wedding."
"To do what…might I ask." Mac looked at him with raised eyebrows. "To congratulate the happy bride and groom? To dig the knife in a little bit more, to tell me in no uncertain terms that my rights to you ended."
"No, Mac, you ended it when you told me in Paraguay and I paraphrase Things are never gonna work out between us.Because we both want to be on top and that's physically and emotionally... impossible. What choice did you give me other than to move on? I had no career, I didn't have you to lean on. So what was I supposed to do?" Harm raised his hands palms up in a questioning supplication.
Mac snorted bitterly looking down at her lap. "hmmph. I don't know what I wanted. Maybe for you to wait. Maybe for myself to make up my mind. I don't know." She shook her head. "Maybe, I just waited too long." She paused for a long moment to compose herself and when she looked up her eyes were shiny with unshed tears. "Why?" was the simple question that she asked. "Why did you make me wait and then when I asked you to wait for me…you couldn't?"
There was no simple answer to that question.
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