4. The System
The light faded to the west after Santini Air had shut up shop, the crew sat around the boardroom table a little worse for wear after a challenging day. It had been a while since they used this room after hours and they were just waiting on the younger couple to join them after they had taken it upon themselves to buy take out.
Branson's head had been churning, he'd been very quiet ever since he was reminded of The System to which he'd so very carefully walked the line for almost his entire life.
It didn't go unnoticed because as soon as Nash and Dale had returned and the food had been distributed, Jo thought that enough time had passed paying witness to Branson's visibly shaken demeanor and addressed the elephant in the room.
"Sweetheart, a trouble shared is a trouble halved," she said kindly, but in a tone that Branson recognized as one that had no room for argument
He knew that there were things in his past that had been left untold and under almost every other circumstance he'd never have to bring any of it up, because he knew he hadn't been tempted to do anything to compromise himself. He may have been a hard businessman, but he never played the game so hard that he fell off the moral bandwagon.
That didn't mean that he didn't know what happened if someone crossed that line, indeed, he had a pretty good idea and had done everything in his power to skate around any nefarious dealings, but as they say, sometimes you must swim with the sharks in order to know how they hunt.
Branson took a breath and blew it out again with puffed cheeks in a futile attempt to free himself of some of his tension.
It didn't work and that telltale nervous grin he was never able to eradicate in these sorts of moments, gave him away.
"I have a feeling that if I don't tell you this, that it will come up some time in the very near future so I'm just going to rip the band aid off," he said feeling about as unconfident as he'd ever been.
"Long ago, as a young buck and well before I was married, I had purchased an island in the Caribbean with the intention of building a high-class resort.
"All went swimmingly until I discovered that the staff had taken it upon themselves to make a darn cesspool out of it, so I sacked them all on the spot.
"So, in my relatively green naivety, I found out that this wasn't unusual, and it became really hard to find decent staff who were willing to keep it in their pants at a workplace that they had essentially moved to on a permanent basis.
"The word may have got around because one day while I was on the island, what I thought was a random helicopter turned out to be the CIA with a proposal for me they were confident I wouldn't refuse."
Branson paused and he shook his head at the images that were conjured up in his head every time he thought about the deal he'd been offered.
"What was the proposal? Did you accept?" Jo asked eagerly with wide eyes.
Branson shook his head, "No." he answered and shook his head again, a reflex action to try to rid those thoughts.
Clearing his throat, he scanned the room, making eye contact with each person in turn and confessed, "What they were alluding to was that they wanted me and my island to become something like the Playboy mansion."
That got Nash's attention.
"Hot," said the younger man with a mischievous grin, a grin that became infectious around the table.
That earned Nash a light backhander to the chest from Dale.
"Men," she said shaking her head, "they can't help themselves."
Somewhat grateful that Nash had broken the tension, the sick feeling Branson developed, had somewhat eased.
"Hot to some if you like that sort of thing. You know," Branson said shifting in his seat, "they tried to sell it to me as if I would be doing a noble thing. Like we'd be putting the bad guys away after catching them out
"But reading between the lines, I figured out that they were wanting to set up a honeypot in order to create blackmailable evidence against high profile patrons."
"Why would they do that?" Caitlin asked with genuine surprise.
"Oh you know, to extort money, call in favors, create power. That sort of thing." Branson said with a shrug.
"The CIA? Really?" Caitlin asked, still in disbelief.
"The CIA," Branson said with a confirming nod.
"Suffice to say I politely declined, even with their Billion-dollar deal to tempt me. Instead, I asked them to contact my Real Estate Agent if they wanted to buy the island and to run it themselves, because even though the idea of being up to my eyeballs in girls, girls, girls may have been appealing at the time, the bigger picture would have me and others owned for the rest of our lives.
"I mean, what would they ask me to do next if they had something to sway me with? It was a slippery slope that was way too steep for me to ski."
"So did they buy it?" Saint John asked leaning forward with great interest.
"Well, all I can say about that is that I did sell it not long thereafter. To whom? I'm not exactly sure, but likely not who signed their life away. I had to sign an NDA for how much and who to, so my lips are sealed." He said, saying it all - without actually saying it.
"Good for you Uncle Bran," Dale said triumphantly.
Casting his eye around the room again, Dale's acceptance of the situation seemed to be the general consensus by those who sat with him.
They were all well-aware it was no small feat to have dodged that sort of bullet.
Branson breathed a sigh of relief, because what had troubled him for so long, had mostly melted away.
Settling down to eat, the crew discussed putting a plan in motion. They would to set their lives aside without it becoming too noticeable to the rest of the circle that worked around them.
Branson and Dale would spend the bulk of their time sorting through the documents with Jo and Caitlin helping when they found any free time while also having to keep Santini Air running like a well-oiled machine.
Anything that really needed close attention could be delt with as a group.
The remaining colleagues main priority, was to get The Lady back up in the air as quickly as they could.
With the primary mission yet to be unveiled, there was an undercurrent of excitement to get started with their preliminary projects, just so they could find out.
One thing was always certain, if Airwolf had anything to do with it, it was bound to have them in the thick of it.
Branson, who had been filled with dread with everything that Chapman had dredged up the day before, had a spring in his step now that he had finally aired some of the most pressing demons from the past.
Once Branson got over his resentment of Chapman's clever exposure of his past life, he might have to thank Chapman for it one day.
Jo too was relieved that the man who she always thought too good to be true had not sailed through his life unscathed. While it irked her that he had never disclosed that information to her previously, she understood how he wanted to avoid living up to the reputation of The Cad that he'd been labeled with in the past by a media who contracted themselves as entertainers – not journalists.
Nash and Dale were far more liberal with letting bygones be bygones but did acknowledge that they wouldn't know how accepting they would have been if they found out Branson was a playboy in the most literal way.
With Branson dating his mom, Nash was naturally fiercely protective of her.
And because he was Dale's uncle, well that was just too gross to think about.
Caitlin, Saint John and Le had also discussed the revelations. After all, Saint John had been a CIA operative, and while he was none the wiser at the time, they had pulled the wool over he, also his brother's eyes via the FIRM.
By pitching opposing BS stories to keep them compliant, he'd finally figured out their game after String exposed the agencies in his dying moments and as a consequence, had lost complete faith in them.
Caitlin who tried to see the good in everyone and everything was starting to grasp the idea that any and all of the Alphabet agencies where for the most part, fully bought and paid for.
She had been suspicious of Michael coming back into their lives after the whole debacle with Dom, String and Saint John, and this of course made her instantly paranoid about their current situation.
"What about Project Guardian? Can we trust them?" she asked earnestly over breakfast that morning.
Le chimed in, "They're black ops, so who knows for sure? But I guess the best we've got to go on, is that the enemy of our enemy is our friend. And Project Guardian is definitely going after something that the other guys have let slip by for way too long."