By the time we had the security feed up on the screen, had cleaned it up, and were able to stream it through facial recognition programs, I was exhausted. Kai looked at me and could see the fatigue on my face, he told me that he was taking me upstairs for some pain medication and a nap. He looked at the rest of the team, told him that was what he was doing, and asked me if there were any last-minute suggestions of what I wanted done. "The usuals", I said. "I think we should check out Ben Fowler and the person who is second-in-command for MI6. Run the facial recognition of both the attackers as well as the people sitting around Ben Fowler. Finish Ben's in-depth first so that we have that information in our back pocket. If Ranger could set it up, perhaps we could meet with Ben tomorrow afternoon. Also, I think we should try some of the Castle Guard programs and see if we can get a list of the cases currently being looked at by MI6. I don't know how difficult that will be, since I don't know if there are a hundred cases or three. Any effort that we can make to find out whatever we can about those cases would be good. And finally, there will have to be in-depths on each of the attackers and overviews on each of the people in the area that Ben was sitting in. As much as it makes sense that Ben was the intended target, I don't want to assume that."

"Okay", said Miguel.

"That's about it. I think you have enough work to keep you busy for weeks."

Dirk smiled. "Nah", he said. "We're fast."

Miguel looked at me. "Let us take care of it, chica. Have a good sleep, and we'll tell you what we found out over dinner."

"Deal."

They each gave me a hug, and Kai picked me up and carried me upstairs. He put me down on the bed. "Want to try the toilet again?" he said.

I groaned. He took off my diaper and picked me up, and put me on the toilet. A few minutes later, he retrieved me, cleaned me off, and put the diaper back on again. He washed his hands and arranged me on the bed. "Pain level?" he said.

"About a ten on my legs. It was about a seven earlier, so I'm not so pleased about the change. My abdomen is still about an eight, my lungs don't hurt but my muscles do, and my throat and nose are getting better and are now a two, and they are only that high because I am tired and things are getting to me."

"Okay. I'm going to give you an acetaminophen with codeine now, but when you go to bed tonight I'm going to give you morphine. I'm also going to give you a stool softener. How are you doing anxiety-wise?"

"Having the research to do is helpful. When I am just in pain and not doing anything to divert my attention, it isn't nearly as good."

"That makes sense. If you find that you are having panic attacks, especially now that all the people are here, let me know. I picked up a prescription for that."

"Thank you."

He dispensed some pain medication, and he handed me a glass of water. I took the medication, and he said, "Steph, I am going to roll you so that you are sleeping slightly on your side. You are spending a fair amount of time lying down on your back, and I don't want to take the chance that you get any pressure areas." He got an extra blanket, rolled it, and moved me over to my side as he stuffed the blanket behind me.

He looked at me as my eyes crossed. "Go to sleep, Steph. I'll be here when you wake up."

I slept for three hours, and when I woke up I felt much better. I looked around the room, and Kai was sitting in front of the window reading a book. He looked up at me. "Hey", he said. "Do you feel better rested?"

I smiled. "I do."

"You must have heard the dinner bell. Where Ranger found it, I don't know. However, it is quite loud and a good thing to use to call people for a meal."

"Could you help me into the bathroom first?" I said. Kai grinned, and several minutes later we were finished the process. Kai washed my hands off, then washed his, and picked me up and carried me down to the dining room.

He sat me down and the team all sat around the table. "Chica!" said Miguel. "How are you feeling?" he said as he started eating. He moaned in appreciation and looked up at me. "I can tell that the castle is your place, chica. Ranger would never let us have bacon."

I laughed. "I feel a bit better and ready to jump back in. What did you find out?"

"So much. First of all, it looks like you are right and that Ben was the intended target. All of the other people around him were regular people. There was a car salesman, a secretary, a horse trainer, and so on. Just regular people. The only person that stood out as being someone worth assassinating was Ben. That was your suspicion, wasn't it?"

"Yes."

"Okay. Second of all, the people who were attacking him – there were three – are part of a radical group that supports the Taliban. We did in-depths on all three people. We also did in-depths on Ben Fowler as well as Felix Smythe, the person who is second-in-command at MI6. I don't know why you picked Felix to concentrate on, but you nailed it again."

"What did you find out?" I put my fork and knife down and watched the men and Julie.

"Eat your dinner", whispered Ranger with a grin. I took another bite and, as I was chewing, I put my utensils down again. Ranger sighed and shook his head, but I could tell that he was trying not to laugh.

"Nick?" said Miguel. "How about you do the overview on Felix since you are the one that did the work."

"As Miguel said", said Nick, "I don't know why you focused on him, but he has been getting phone calls from a Zalmai Omar. Zalmai is the head of the small radical group that intends to turn the UK to Taliban rule. Apparently, this radical group has chapters all over the world and their platform is that the West has forced Afghanistan to follow their doctrine for so long, and now it is time to force the world to follow Taliban doctrine. Zalmai has phoned Felix ten times in the last two weeks. We don't know why and we were running out of time so we didn't go back more than two weeks. However, we now have a trace on his cell phone so that we can capture his phone calls. Zalmai has not texted him to the best of our knowledge. I searched through two months of his text messages to confirm that. As far as we could see, the only connection between the two of them was in their phone messages."

"How long were their calls?"

"Averaging about eight minutes and range from three minutes to twenty minutes."

"That's significant. Is Zalmai's radical group the same radical group that attacked Ben?"

"Yes", said Nick.

"Was he at the attack?"

"Yes."

"So, we can now call this a terrorist attack rather than a simple assassination attempt."

"Yes."

"Okay. Tell me about Felix."

"Felix is the second-in-command, as we said. He has two PhDs. One is in National Security and the other is in International Law. Apparently, he was ticked when Colin retired and the job was given to a woman named Eleonor. He stayed as the second and, when Eleonor retired, he applied again. However, the position went to Ben and not him. When he didn't get the promotion, he asked for a meeting with HR to find out why."

"A potential motive."

"Yes, but it gets better. He was married to someone who practices the Muslim faith. They have now divorced, but I did an overview of her, and she is clean. She has had no contact with the radical group, no contact with Felix, and there is no indication as to why they divorced. She has a job, lives with two roommates, and does not appear to support the Taliban. At least, she doesn't live her life as though she does. However, it appears that Felix adopted the Muslim faith as well when they got married."

"Being Muslim isn't a problem."

"No, it isn't. However, being part of a radical group that believes that violence is the route to getting what they want is, and it appears that Felix is that person. The mosque that Felix attends is the same mosque that Zalmai attends."

"Does his ex attend that mosque?"

"Not at all. She has literally had no contact with Felix for the last five years, ever since the divorce went through."

"Interesting. Has he tried to contact her?"

"I don't know, because we only had time to look at the last two weeks."

"It would be worth looking into. Have you had time to track his time and purchases and places that he's been?"

"Not yet. Dinner was called, and I was hungry."

I laughed. "You guys have done phenomenal work. I now know why Ranger's meal bell was so loud. It was to make sure that you'd be able to hear it."

Ranger laughed. "I have enough experience with you to know that it had to be very loud."

I laughed again.

My mother and father looked at us in shock and, as I lifted my fork to take another bite, my mother looked at me. "You can do all that?"

"Yes", I said.

"I thought that just happened in the movies."

I laughed. "There is a lot that happens behind the scenes to keep people safe that the general public isn't aware of. And that is good. People generally would not be able to cope knowing how close to danger they are. For instance, a few months ago there was a KKK member who was determined to kill an important and influential black man. We figured out who the KKK member was, who the target was, and how the KKK member was going to do it. Then, we figured out that the man and his wife were going to each be wearing a suicide bomb vest, that they were planning to blow up a hotel, and which hotel it was. We figured out the bomb configuration and, when we were done that, we found the two people as they drove across the States, stopped them, disarmed their bombs, and arrested them. And because there was a time crunch, we did it all in two days. We had to work around the clock to do it, but that's the kind of thing we do, Mom. We keep people safe. But we also keep it quiet. There would have been mass terror if the general public found out that a major hotel was going to be bombed, and that wouldn't have been good for anyone."

"Let me get this straight", said my father. "You identified, out of all the people in the US, the two people who were going to assassinate an important and influential man."

"Yes."

"You identified how they were going to do it and the bomb configuration that they were using."

"Yes."

"You did the impossible and found them driving across the US, and were able to stop them?"

"Yes."

Raphael laughed. "And because Steph had found the bomb schematics, it was the easiest job that I had ever done. I had that baby disarmed in three seconds."

"I don't know", I said with a grin. "Felt more like thirty seconds to me."

Raphael laughed. "Three seconds, chica. It was three seconds."

I laughed hard. "Three seconds for me to wet my pants."

Raphael laughed. "You literally showed me the wires that were to be cut. I didn't even have anything that easy when I was in school."

The guys all laughed.

"It was a good thing that it was only three seconds", said Miguel. "Steph didn't breathe the whole time you were cutting the wires. Ranger stood behind her so that he could catch her when she passed out."

"Ha! I just don't know what is wrong with the rest of you. Raphael, a good friend of mine, was disarming a goddamned bomb!"

"Aw, I love you too, chica", said Raphael as I laughed. "But honestly, you gave me the schematics for the bomb ten minutes before I had to disarm it. Lots of time to memorize it. The hardest part was giving Grant time to talk to the woman and pump her for information. I had to pretend that I was still working on the disarming. I ended up cutting every single wire."

"Does anyone know what happened to her?" said Grant. "She was a nice lady. She was just in a very bad situation."

"She divorced her husband", I said, "sold the house, and moved into a granny suite in her son's house. Her daughter-in-law had the baby and she looks after the baby during the day. After a lifetime of abuse, she is finally happy. She gets along well with her daughter-in-law and unlike her husband, she doesn't care two hoots that her daughter-in-law has a different skin colour than her. She adores her granddaughter and has adopted a rescued dog."

The men all smiled. "I love a happy ending", said Raphael.

I grinned. "So do I."

Ranger smiled and rubbed my back for a moment, and I grinned at him. "I have some good news for you", he said.

"What's that?" I said. "Ice cream?"

Ranger laughed at my look of anticipation. "Ben is going to be here between two and three tomorrow afternoon. I thought that would give your team a bit more time to get your reports together, and if the guys want to sleep in with jet lag they will be able to."

Kate and Cindy laughed. "I can't remember the last time Dirk slept past five", said Cindy.

"Yes, but five in the morning here is eleven at night in Trenton, and you might be just getting ready for sleep by that time", I said.

"In other words, Steph slept in on her first day here", said Ranger, "even though we didn't go to bed that late."

I laughed. "The guys know that me and my bed are good friends. We have now worked out a pattern when we have to work all night. The guys work through and they send me to bed. Otherwise I am out for the count and throwing up everywhere."

The men laughed. "Yes, you have incredible instincts that we don't have", said Miguel. "You just don't have such good instincts when you are throwing up."

I laughed. "Ha! You all have incredible instincts as well. That's why you are all known as Gurus."

"I have more good news for you", said Ranger.

I looked at him and grinned. "What?" I said.

"There's ice cream to go with our chocolate cake."

I looked at the kids, and all of us grinned and said at the same time, "woo hoo!"

Ranger laughed.