Okay all you Auggie fans out there! This is the last chapter of my little faux-episode. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. For my first attempt, I am pleased with the response. Maybe I'll try something a little longer or something Harry Potter after the holidays. Who knows….
Disclaimer (to apply to all previous chapters as well): Don't own Auggie or Annie or Covert Affairs. Duh.
Chapter 11
"Brilliant," said Jai Wilcox, slapping Auggie on the back. "What in the world made you think of using the blinds?"
Auggie's mouth was full of cheeseburger. He shrugged.
"So this guy," said Jai, ruffling Auggie's hair in a big-brother gesture that Auggie found irritating as hell, "This guy uses Braille to signal us. Somehow in the middle of a building-wide hostage lockdown, he manages to run around to every freaking window and spell a message out in Braille with the blinds."
"Last thing they'd look for," said Auggie with a shrug, taking a long pull on his beer bottle. Aaaaahhhh….
"It was about the last thing we looked for either. I mean, yeah, we were watching the building and monitoring everything like hell, but that wasn't something we were looking for. For one thing the glare of the sun on the windows means we almost missed it."
"Didn't think of that," Auggie admitted under his breath. Annie bumped his knee under the table and he grinned.
"But I was going through the Bank building next door on my way up to check out those guys on the roof. I happened to glance out a window and saw one of the blinds move. I thought it might be a signal so I stopped to watch." Jai threw back a long swig of beer, warming to his tale. Auggie and Annie concentrated on the food.
"So I watch and what do you know, another one moved. If you had seen me you could have quit playing with the blinds and just used sign language or something." Jai chuckled at his own joke, then continued. "Finally I decided they were making a message of some kind. I tried Morse but got nothing. More blinds were changing and I knew you and Auggie must be behind it."
Auggie reflected how annoying it was when conversations were made next to him that did not include him. He took another long drink.
"I figured we might be bugged so I didn't ring it in right away," Jai said and Auggie thought the guy got points for that one. "The blinds moving sort of reminded me of Auggie's nifty computer keyboard." Display. Refreshable Braille display, not keyboard, thought Auggie.
"I don't know Braille, but I went to get some of the downstairs guys and one of them looked it up on his iPhone. We finally got your message: Black Hawk 4 O'Clock. From that, Joan knew just what to look for. She intercepted the moron's transmissions, threw in a fake message to the cohorts to abort the damn thing and sent in the Feds to take him down. She even had Arthur sic his attack dogs on the terrorist location that the guy was signaling."
Auggie reflected on the amount of classified information that floated around this noisy little bar. This was way better than the official debrief had been, plus the beer and burgers had never tasted better.
THE END