Hanna Lance, Sebastian Lee, The general, Cartright and Keiran O'Reilly are my own characters.
Joe Sullivan is not.
Hope you like it!
Please, please. please review.
"He's on his way," Hanna said as she hung up the phone and stood up to leave the office.
"Who's on his way?" Joe asked curiously, opening the door for her.
"My assistant Kieran O'Reilly with some research material and some more tools. He will be here tomorrow, so can you inform Group Captain Fowler and arrange a car to pick him up, please?
"On it." Joe said lingering at the door to the office, fiddling with the handle. "What are we doing today? More digging?"
"Yes, why? Need to be someplace else today?" Hanna turned to face him and smiled. "Shovelling dirt not your cup of tea?"
"Not really, no." Joe was relieved that he didn't have to lie to her to get out of digging.
"See you at lunch," he said as he strode out towards the airfield. He headed to the supply room. The supplies were kept in a large room, as big as a football pitch. It was packed full with rows of shelves packed with uniforms, tools, ….. etc.
Joe looked for the aisle where the boots where stored and found it within minutes, that particular shelf was at the back of the room. When he got to the kind of boot he was looking for he stopped dead in his tracks.
There were hundreds of boxes, no thousands! Joe sighed and wandered along the aisle trying to spot something out of place. On his second round, he noticed that one box's lid was ajar and that one of the boots inside had a faint smudge on the tip of the toe.
He picked it up and examined it more closely. Whoever had worn these boots had been in a hurry when cleaning them, there was still earth on the soles.
"Huh!" he said as he noticed that the boots were the same size as his own, a large 13. Now that was strange, he was one of only a few who had that size in shoes on the base, and that was helpful. If he could find the other size 13's then he might find who had been digging in the crater.
As he was leaving he bumped into the Supply Officer who was sorting the shelf stocked with shirts.
"Hey, Joe! What have you been up to?" He straitened and came to stand in front of Joe.
"Eh, well, you know Dave, hiding from Fowler. He wants me to write a report on the car accident, and I rather not, since I was out most of the time…. "Joe smiled impishly.
Dave sighed and shook his head. Joe would always be Joe. He bent to pick up a load of shirts to put on the shelf and Joe made his escape before Dave remembered to ask him what he'd been up to, entering the supply room without permission. Joe paused at the door and turned hesitantly back do face Dave.
"Eh… Dave?" Dave looked up. "Has there been a break in recently?"
"Yes, rather strange actually. It happened a few days ago. They forced the lock on that door and made a real mess, but as far as we know, they didn't take anything."
"What, nothing's missing?" Joe's face was astonished as he watched Dave shake his head.
"Nothing. That's what's bugging me. Why break in to a supply room and not take anything?"
"Yeah, well that's a good question. I've gotta go Dave, see ya!" Joe wanted to be alone to think things through. So, there had been a break in around the same time as the bomb fell, making the crater and revealing the Viking artefacts.
*
"Care for a second date?" Joe asked Hanna with a smile on his face.
"We haven't had a first date."
"Yes, we have, we ate dinner and then we were forced off the road, remember?" Hanna and Joe were having lunch in the mess hall, Hanna getting inviting glances from the other tables. Joe was secretly proud that this goddess of a woman was sitting with him, hence the smug smile on his face. Hanna, on the other hand, was oblivious to the attention as she was picking a piece of meatloaf to pieces on her plate.
"Well, I wouldn't call that a date. So in order to have a second date you normally have a first date." She looked up through her eyelashes to see his reaction. She did not regret turning him down the first time he had asked her. She believed that he was too confident in his ability to knock a woman off her feet, a phenomenon she had observed happened often to women around Joe, and that he would have to work if he wanted her to go out with him.
"Fine. Hanna would you like to go on a first date with me?"
"Well, I don't know… What would we do? I hope you didn't count the car crash as an exiting twist that you would like to repeat. I am afraid that I will have to burst your bubble by saying that normal people usually go into shock, you smiled the whole walk home…"
"Could it have anything to do with the company I was with? And no, I would not count a car crash as part of the normal dating procedure. I was thinking more along the lines of dinner, dancing… you know, a date."
Before Hanna could reply a clerk came up to their table and saluted Joe.
Turning to Hanna, she said:
"Miss Lance, there is someone to see you. He's parked his van in the visitor's parking lot."
"You really did bring everything, didn't you?" Joe commented as Kieran O'Reilly unloaded box after box from the van, adding to himself that he wondered if there was anything left in the office.
Ignoring Joe, Hanna greeted O'Reilly with a warm smile. Too warm, Joe thought and walked around the van, memorising the tire size, markings and the registration number.
"Well, you sounded like you needed the stuff pretty quick, so I figured, why wait until tomorrow? I didn't have anything else to do… and here I am." He spread his arms wide and gave Hanna a smile that lit up his face. That boy's head over heals for Hanna, and she's completely unaware of it, Joe mused.
"Thanks, Kieran, I do really need it, but I could have waited until tomorrow. Now, where will you stay? You can't drive all the way back to London."
"Well, I was hoping I could stay with you… and help you with things here," Kieran added as he saw Hanna beginning to say that she was living at a lodging house and wasn't sure if she could ask the Group Captain and Mrs Brown if they could take on another person.
"Well, I do need help, and that makes you free to do something more important than follow me around, Squadron Leader Williams."
"I wasn't aware that I was following you around," Joe muttered to himself under his breath.
"No, no, I like the digging, and besides I really feel that I'm getting the hang of this archaeology business. I can help you, easily enough. History is beginning to grow on me." Joe said in earnest and stepped in front of Kieran, blocking him from Hanna.
"But I want to help. I can do all the research while you dig, Hanna." Kieran took a step around Joe and knew he had won Hanna over.
"Well, I do hate doing research…" Hanna started to say when the Group Captain strode towards them, a huge smile on his face.
"Kieran! How are you? Why didn't you tell me that you were coming?"
"Well, George, I didn't want to interrupt your work. There is a war on and everything. Oh, yeah, I mean Group Captain Fowler. "
"No, no, don't say that, you're not disturbing anything. You will have to stay the night at least; it was a while since I saw a familiar face. I'm sure we can arrange somewhere for you to stay."
Drat, Joe thought. The kid's staying.
Well, what did you think? You've read it now, and I hope you enjoyed it but it would be great if you let me know if you did or not.
So please review