Gaining Forward Momentum

This takes place after Dancing Outside the Lines.

Thank you so much for all the positive feedback and nice reviews you've posted for this story. I really appreciate it. You guys are the best :)

Real life has hit hard again; my dad had a stroke last week and passed away yesterday. I wanted to post this chapter though—it was written and I may not get to the next for a little while.

M Rating

Extra special thanks to Margaret for Beta-ing my story and deeming this chapter good to go :). Thank you Margaret :)

I don't own the characters, just taking them for a spin :)

Reviews and suggestions are always welcome.

Chapter 25 — Who is this man?

Once the bomb squad got the bombs dismantled and we gave our statements to Joe, we were able to go. Erik and Binky had each showed up in an Explorer. One was for us and one was for their return trip. TPD was going to impound the car we arrived in, but promised to turn it over to Hal to further check for prints once they were done with it.

Erik got out of the one he was driving and walked over to us. "Bomber?" he questioned, looking right at me, his eyes getting wide.

"Yep, this is the new me."

"God help us all," he said, almost falling over his own two feet while handing the keys of the car he was driving to Bobby and still staring at me.

I had texted Carlos to let him know what was going on and what was taking us so long.

STEPHPLUM: "Yep. Another bomb. Rangeman and TPD have it under control. I hope you'll like my hair."

RANGER: "Did U go blonde, Babe?"

STEPHPLUM: "Blonde and straight."

RANGER: "I loved your curls, but I'm sure I'll like it."

STEPHPLUM: "Mr. Alexander said I can get it curly again, it just won't frizz."

RANGER: "Best of both world's then. Can't wait to see it."

We disconnected and I left the mall with Hal and Bobby.

When we got back to the house Tank, Lula and Antonio our instructor, had already arrived—their cars were in our diveway. I really wanted Carlos to be the first person to see my hair, so I snuck into the house between the guys.

I heard voices coming from Carlos' office, so I assumed that's where everyone was.

I got out my phone and texted Carlos.

STEPHPLUM: "Please meet me in the hall."

RANGER: "Ok. Be right out."

I was standing just outside of his office, so when Carlos came out he saw me right away. I noticed him giving me the once over and then I saw his eyes darken. He closed the distance between us and pulled me to him. "You look ravishing, Babe. Dios, you look good. And so sexy," he whispered, his lips finding my ear and then my mouth. He kissed me hungrily, running his fingers through my hair.

I was certainly getting a far better response to the blonde, straight thing than I expected.

Once we broke apart I attempted to talk to him. "Well let's hope it works with Briggs and that he doesn't recognize me. I thought I'd pair my new look with a little skirt or skinny jeans or something else to take his eyes off my face. Have you gotten any word from anyone? Do we know when Briggs is actually going to try to move the missile?"

"We were just on the phone with Cagiano. He met with Fisher and Albertson this morning. Todd Albertson told the both of them that Briggs asked him to get a twenty-five foot fishing boat and register it in his own name. He gave him forty thousand dollars cash, but he wanted him to lease it as opposed to buy anything outright. Obviously he wants to leave a trail, probably thinking it will distract from his main objective.

"Albertson also told them that he still does not know the target of the missile. All he knows is that Briggs is planning to drive a truck from the Franklin Locks in Florida where they will load the missile from the boat, up to Columbia, South Carolina. He's assuming like us, that Ft. Jackson is the target and will play along. He said he even volunteered to drive the truck, but Briggs told him he'd rather have him on the boat."

"Who's going to be on the truck with Briggs?" I asked. "I'm hoping it's the other four Rangeman, who will be posing as border guards."

"We hope so too. Albertson told Briggs that Fisher finally approved the men for a shore detail and that the eight he asked for would be at their disposal. Technically no shore detail would ever involve a missile, so I'm wondering how he plans to make it seem legitimate. Oh, and just so you know, Tank, Bobby, Santos and myself assigned Brett to head up the operation. It'll give him a chance to show what he can do, although none of us have ever doubted his skills."

"Have you told him yet? I'm sure he'll be happy to hear the news. He was bucking for the opportunity yesterday."

"Yes, Tank and I just told him. Have you seen Tank yet? He had his own skin cells sprayed on this morning. He showed me his back and although he has a special mesh over the area now, he has been told it will not scar and he won't have to worry about any further grafting. It's truly an amazing technology."

"That's what Lula told me the other day. I didn't believe her at first, it sounded so far-fetched. But then she wanted me to look at a YouTube video, so I knew there had to be some truth to what she was saying."

"Of course some dermatologists are already looking at it as a way to fill in wrinkles and other skin imperfections, but I see it as a huge medical breakthrough. Tank is very lucky that Bobby has affiliations at Thomas Jefferson and that the hospital is one of the few in the country that has adopted the technology as a go-to approach for burns. Wished we'd known about it sooner and that he didn't have to go through that painful graft."

"The concept really is pretty cool." I added, my mind still on other things. "Well, I guess I should show everyone the new me."

I took Carlos' hand and followed him back into his office. Everyone turned to see who the blonde on his arm was and when they realized it was me, there were a lot of double-takes.

"Estefania, I like," Hector said, giving me the thumbs up. Tank nodded his approval. David smiled, and Lula came over to touch it. "It feels good and I like the color. I'm getting mine done tomorrow. Long and straight. We'll look like sisters."

We'd never look like sisters but I knew what she meant. I really wanted to get on to our tag-teaming lessons and be able to feel confident that we could take that bastard down. Antonio, Hector, Lula and myself picked up our stuff and moved to the gym. We'd use the sparring area for our practice as it was padded and we wouldn't get seriously hurt.

Antonio went over some techniques we had previously practiced that would work if we could catch him off guard. We had to be prepared for him to have a gun and to try to use it against one or both of us. He showed us a tag-teaming approach where one of us would kick the gun out of his hand while the other got him off balance. We had been shown before that getting your opponent off-balance is one of the best first approaches to taking them down and we both knew how to get someone to the ground from there. We practiced initially on Hector. When we could take him down as a team, with either of us disarming him first, we moved on to Antonio, who was built more like Lester or Carlos. By the end of the day we both felt more comfortable with our newly-learned skills. Although a full day of practice tomorrow would be needed for the moves to feel second nature to us.

Lula and I were ready to give it another hour when Antonio called it quits. "That's it for today. Too much practice can be almost as bad as not enough. Give your bodies a rest. We'll resume tomorrow. I'll be out around ten-thirty."

Lula, Hector and I found Tank, Carlos and Bobby standing just inside the doorway of Carlos' office. We knocked before entering in case they were talking about something we shouldn't be privy to.

"How did it go Babe?" Carlos asked, looking up for a second.

I imperceptibly nodded to Lula. If he had a gun in his hand, she would have kicked it out. I then got him off-balance using my shoulder and the two of us took him to the ground and cuffed his hands behind his back."

He looked stunned that we were able to execute such a feat. We did have the element of surprise in our favor though, as we would with Briggs.

"I'm embarrassed," he said, getting up from the floor once we released him. "I should have been more aware of my surroundings. I did tell you that when you could take me down I'd be comfortable with you going for Briggs. Obviously you've passed my criteria. Congratulations on a job well done."

We were smiling like two fools. Mainly because of the praise Carlos gave us, but also because with just one little nod we were able to pull off something we hadn't even planned. It was perfect. Briggs wouldn't stand a chance, and now Carlos, Tank and Bobby knew it too.

Hector was smiling almost as broadly as we were. "Chicas, you were perfect. This was the best takedown you did all day. You should have seen the looks on Ranger, Bobby and Tank's faces. I wished I thought to shoot video."

I was kind of glad Hector didn't record the takedown. If he had that on tape Carlos would want to destroy it...or Hector. And I for one wanted Hector around.

Jason had decided to stay with us for a few days before heading back to Washington State to get his affairs in order for a permanent move east. This was going to take a little jiggling around. We did have three bedrooms, plus a den with a pull-out bed in the main house and two other bedrooms in the apartment over the garage—but we also had Hector and possibly Miguel, Bobby and Ashley, David, Hal and now Jason staying over. My suggestion would be to give Bobby and Ashley the large bedroom on the other side of the house. I'd give Jason the one next to it, and Hal could have the den. Then I'd put Hector and Miguel in the master bedroom of the apartment and give David the smaller bedroom there. But so far no one had asked me.

Sal and Victor stopped by to pick up Lula and Tank. Tank's grandmother was still staying with them on Lake Como and they didn't want to leave her alone for too long. Tank still wasn't supposed to drive and hated to be shuttled around by Lula. All in all it was easier for Rangeman personnel to do the chauffeuring than to listen to Tank grumble about it. They'd be back tomorrow for Bobby to check on Tank's healing and for Lula and I to practice our tag-teaming.

"Why don't you bring your grandmother out to our house with you?" I asked, as they were packing up to leave. "I would love to meet her and I'm sure she'd rather be around people than be alone in your house all day."

"We tried to bring her out here today," Lula said, "but she insisted that she had reading to catch up on and was happy to stay at the house where it was quiet. I'll try to talk her into coming out tomorrow. She loves to cook. Maybe if we ask her to make lunch for all of us she'll come along? She makes a kick-ass cornbread."

"God, try to convince her. I love cornbread."

We said our goodbyes to them and I was daydreaming about cornbread, when someone mentioned dinner. Amongst the bunch of us, no one except Carlos was really known for their cooking, and he had one arm in a cast. I supposed we could all fit into the Hummer and take it to the Greek restaurant in Deal. It was 'protected' after all, so I quickly mentioned it.

"I think we should call ahead if we're bringing seven people," Carlos said, taking out his phone and searching for a number in his contacts.

"Seven o'clock is perfect. Yes; seven at seven," Carlos said into the phone. He turned back to us. "Ok we have a reservation."

I was sure people wanted to shower and get ready so I made my room suggestions to everyone. Carlos looked glad that someone had given the sleep situation some thought and I offered Hal the use of our shower first. Being he was stuck with the den, I thought that was the least I could do.

Carlos and I went back to our bedroom after Hal came out. A few minutes later there was a knock on our door. It was Hal again. I thought for a minute he must have forgotten something.

"We pulled the video from the camera that was near the Explorer in the garage. I want you to come and look at it. It's a little bizarre."

As we followed him back to Carlos' office, I couldn't help but wonder what he meant by 'a little bizarre.' I mean 'bizarre' just followed me around. Couldn't be any more bizarre than a six-foot tall rabbit or Nixon.

Bobby, Hector and Jason were already seated around the screen. Hal backed up the video to a time-coded marker and he played a segment for us. We saw a man walk over to the Explorer. He looked up at the camera and grinned right at it. He raised both hands and turned them around, as if to show the camera he wasn't wearing gloves. He then turned so the camera got a perfect profile of him. He turned back again and looked at the camera unsmiling. It was almost like he was giving us a video mug shot of himself. We then saw him waste no time putting bombs, each the size of an iPod shuffle, onto the undercarriage of all four doors. When he came back up into the camera's view after putting the last one in place, he waved at the camera and took off by foot.

"Who is that?" I asked. "Is that someone we know?"

"Erik just sent this to us. He went back to the camera after we left and swapped out the cartridge. We haven't been able to get an ID yet, but Hector just pulled stills from this video and is running them against the international database. Erik sent a copy of the video over to TPD when he sent this to us and I'm sure they're trying to pull a match as well," Bobby said. "That guy wanted us to see him. I think we should start with SAD personnel even though Cagiano or Malone weren't contacted. Something tells me that's another SAD agent."

"Or CIA," Carlos added. "Obviously he knew we had a tracking devise on the car. He seemed to be doing this just for show."

The laptop that Hector had running suddenly 'dinged'. "We have a match," he said going over to check on it. "Ranger was right. CIA. This is agent Jonathan Nielsen."

"David, do you know him?" Carlos asked the man walking into the office, towel-drying his hair.

"Yes," he said, pulling a phone out of his pocket and scrolling for a number.

"Nielsen, what is this shit you just pulled?" David said into the phone when someone picked up on the other end.

He put his phone on speaker so we could all hear Nielsen's response.

"Liked it, huh? How did you like me showing you I wasn't wearing gloves, or the profile? Come on, that was good, right?"

"I didn't see all of your antics, I'll look back at the tape later. But how did you get involved?"

"Briggs called me directly. I guess he was tired of Cagiano and Malone not coming through for him. I saw the sensor on the car and just so you know, the small explosives I placed were all duds. I just didn't want to give anything away to Briggs. I get the feeling he is somehow monitoring our actions as well as yours and I didn't want to ignore him completely. I feel like we're so close to getting him. I actually thought this call was going to be him calling me to give me shit about non-compliance."

"He's in DC. We've been video-tracking him. How could he have known a Rangeman vehicle was parked in Quakerbridge Mall?"

"Obviously a tip. I know from Cagiano that a couple of the Border Patrol guys have been indicted and are working with us in return for qualified immunity. I think I heard that one of them is an ex-Trentonite. Maybe he tipped Briggs off to keep up appearances."

"That's Flumerri. We understand he lives in Buffalo—but it would make sense if he were physically here now. At least that would solve a couple of our mini-mysteries. By chance, Briggs didn't ask you to plant a similar bomb on Sunday, did he?"

"No. He just called me this morning and gave me the plates and location of your Rangeman vehicle at the mall. I didn't want anyone to get hurt in such a public place so you'll notice I disconnected the live wire on all four explosives. Did anyone get hurt on Sunday?"

"Ranger, the owner of Rangeman opened the door for his fiancé and was thrown about twelve feet. He suffered a broken wrist. We heard that the bombs on that car were not meant to kill. Strangely enough, Ranger's fiancé had just come back from meeting with Flumerri's ex-wife. It would be kind of ironic if he had been the one who planted those bombs. But so far we have no prints and no leads."

"Why don't you call Flumerri directly? I'm pretty sure Cagiano has his number. I was on the phone with him earlier and let him know about Briggs' request and my involvement. I'm sure he'd be happy to give you any information he has, including Flumerri's phone number."

I was still not convinced that Flumerri was 100% on our side and I was shaking my head 'no' while Nielsen was talking about him.

"Carlos, I don't trust Flumerri," I whispered while David was still on the phone with Nielsen.

"Babe, he's already screwed up his life as much as anyone possibly can. If he's playing games with the CIA and they find out, which they will, he'll probably wish he were dead. I don't think we need to worry about him one way or the other."

"I'm not worried about him. I just don't trust him. I don't think we should be calling him. I'd almost rather call Briggs directly."

"I trust your spidey sense. When David gets off the phone with Nielsen I'll let him know."

While we were whispering to one another, David ended his call. "Do you want to call Cagiano to get Flumerri's number?"

"I have Flumerri's number," I said. "His ex-wife gave it to me when I was over there yesterday. Listen, I have a really bad feeling about him. I don't think he's sided with us and calling him might only help his cause. Whatever that is."

Hal spoke up. "I have both bombs from Sunday. Someone wore double gloves. Anyone who would try to assemble a bomb wearing two layers of latex is either out of their mind or has a serious death wish. If it was Flumerri, I don't trust him either."

Well at least I wasn't the only one who felt that way.

In order to make it to Deal in time for our reservation, we had to leave. We could discuss this further on the ride or in the restaurant. Practically single-file, we headed out to the garage and piled into the Hummer.

When we got to Niko's we saw we weren't the only Hummer in the parking lot. It seemed strange because there are just not a lot of Hummers around. Period. Once we walked in, we saw right away who the other Hummer belonged to. Alexander and Homer Ramos were sitting at a table with four other men.

Carlos nodded to all of them and Alexander looked up. He stared at me for a moment as if trying to place me. Then a huge smile spread over his entire face.

"Chickie? Hey how are you?"