Two Lonely Souls
Chapter 12
The next morning, Isabella and Colby walked down the stairs hand in hand. Isabella was dressed very casually in black yoga pants, one of her many oversized Special Forces t-shirts, and bare feet. She was extremely pale, even under her tan and wore no makeup except mascara and a light lipstick. Her hair was still wet from her earlier shower. She was still bleeding and cramping, but would see to whatever they needed from her before she retired to her room again. She had taken another Tylenol 3 this morning to help manage the horrible cramps from the miscarriage.
Everyone in the room looked up at the couple as they descended, everyone moved towards them in mass to express their condolences. About ¾ of the way down the stairs, Isabella stopped, gripping Colby's hand hard. "Please, everyone. I appreciate your thoughts and condolences. I know you all are at the very least fond of Colby and I and are very sad this has occurred on our account. But if you would spare me, us, the individual discussions I would greatly appreciate it. I would like us to stay focused on our task at hand. There is no need for us to split out priorities as our terrorist has. Colby and I will continue to play our parts and when the time comes, should you need my other skills I will be available, as I was not before. Now, let's eat breakfast and plan for our day."
Isabella ate little except for the sweetened coffee Colby brought her. She nibbled on the fresh fruit and dry toast Rosa brought her. The conversation at the table ranged from the problem at hand to the sports coming up this weekend. Isabella rose from the table and walked into the library where their armory was. She was seeking out 'her' gun and ultimately found it, starting to put it together silently and quickly. She oiled it and tweeked some of the components. She had always basically been a solitary creature, and under great duress always returned to that sense of aloneness. Tommy knew that and entered the library cautiously. He saw she had quickly reassembled her weapon of choice, oiled it down and it was ready to go.
He offered a very soft "Hey baby." before progressing into the room.
"Tommy I need an army or marine base to calibrate this for long distances. Can you make that happen? Distances for a mile or more."
"Sure, baby I always have a plan. We just weren't planning on you being the shooter."
"We may need more really good shooters. Porter is good, but we need Ian Edgerton here. He'll want to piss all over you guys, but just take the highroad."
"We know Edgerton, we'll be fine. I'm more concern about how you are, baby." He said it so softly it was almost a whisper in the wind.
"Just one more regret in a lifetime of regrets Tommy. I know this time I was helpless to do anything about it. Maybe if I was not involved in this op, but Colby thinks it would not have mattered."
"He's right baby. It is much further into the pregnancy that these issues start to happen. This op had nothing to with your miscarriage."
Tommy sat on the couch next to the completely shut down Bella, his arms around her and holding her so tight like he had so many times before. He was her anchor in her life and she was what he lived for. "Bella," he whispered, "You are sure you will not return with me to DC? We can get married and have children of our own."
"Is the great Tommy Gifford poaching in his rival's home?" She raised her head a slight amount and smiled teary eyed at him. "No Tommy, we have made our choices. You chose politics and the military in DC. I chose a tenured professorship and foundation in LA. When this is over I may have to leave LA, but not for DC. I love Colby, and you have read his file, I know it. Can you really think he is any less brave than one your guys or you?"
"No, he is one of the bravest men I have ever known. In my mind, there will never be anyone other than you for me. Just as I think there should never be anyone other than me for you."
"But there is Tommy. His name is Colby Granger. I am engaged to him and I am going to marry him." She took Tommy's face in her hands, "Tommy I cannot be the only one for you, because while I do love you, I love Colby for the much more simple life he will give me. You must find the woman who can meet your needs as well." She kissed him full on the lips, sealing their love, the choice to be apart, and her release of him from her to find another.
She walked out of the library and Colby was standing nearby. He would have heard her entire conversation with Tommy. "I'm sure you have heard a lot you would like explained. I will do so tonight. I promise. Right now, I think we should begin our morning meeting. Colby, know this, I love you. I chose you. Let's go join the others."
"You go ahead. I'm going to talk to Tommy first. Save us both a seat next to you." He kissed her lightly and then walked into the library to speak with Gifford. Isabella looked after him somewhat afraid and somewhat proud of Colby's willingness to take the high road. Gifford would as well and perhaps their love for her would come to a positive end, and not the deadly end it could.
Isabella grabbed another cup of coffee and sat on the sofa, leaving space for Tommy and Colby on either side of her. No one was mistaken about who the spaces were meant for and no one approached to take those places. David came up stairs with another letter delivered to the FBI that had already been printed and tested. The two pages were in separate plastic bags along with the envelope. The letter had an LA postmark with a zip code, but that was probably worthless but someone would run it down. It had been addressed directly to her on the envelope and the letter. Her code name was not used yet.
Before she started to read the letter, she lifted her head to Don. "Can you get Edgerton here? We have several sharp shooters, including Cole and a few of the Ops guys, but we may need Edgerton too. He is one of the top three in the country."
Don smiled snarkily, "With you being number one. Edgerton will love that."
"It will keep him on his game certainly. But Ops and I crossed paths before with Ian and you will have little, if any, refereeing."
As Tommy and Colby reentered the room unseen, one of the Ops guys spoke up. "Yeah, the biggest problem is keeping Ian off of Bella. She can handle it gracefully, but Gifford not so much."
Tommy's deep booming voice spoke up, "I'll be as nice as pie until he touches her. But of course, now it is up to Granger to protect her."
"Oh my," Isabella put on her thickest Southern accent, "all the big ole' men fightin' over li'l ole' me?" She dropped the accent and her irritation showed through. "You Neanderthals seem to have forgotten I can kick all your asses, so I can certainly handled Ian. Don, while you work on getting Edgerton here, I will translate this letter. I'll be in the library, alone please." She grabbed a laptop, some paper and a pen.
Charlie proceeded to review with the team his model he and Amita had created, which gave the teams the information they would need to fill in the model. They decided to dress as census takers and to play it as casually as possible to gather the information needed to fill in Charlie's model.
Don announced Edgerton would be on his way and be here within the next two hours. He was surprised they were not meeting at the FBI HQ, but pleased he would get to see Isabella again. Isabella just smirked as she heard that while she wrapped up her translation.
She made copies for everyone and walked back into the room.
"That was fast!" Don exclaimed.
"It's a much easier dialect. He has our attention, he no longer seems to have a need to show off the rare and ancient languages. He has played word games in this letter and also used some rather esoteric literature references, I suppose for my benefit."
She tossed Charlie the tiny drive to put into his laptop so they could all look at the letter and her translation. "He continues to use the same name. Have we gotten anywhere with his name, either as is or some other form including Anglicized on passport info?"
"We haven't heard back but I'll go follow up on it now."
"David stay on that phone until you get someone who could tell us something."
"He is aware that the bomb in the car did not go off, but he was sure my people would be checking on that so he never felt it was truly a risk to me, his beloved, whom he would never want to hurt. He begins his literature devices by declaring our love like Lancelot and Guinevere because they had fallen in love while he was a warrior and she was not. This may indicate he does not know my history. Guinevere has an affair outside of wedlock with Lancelot and once caught they decide to burn her to death, but Lancelot rides to her rescue and takes her to a nunnery. Then he compares us to Tristan and Isolde, who were tragically in love but from different lands and their love was doomed because Tristan fought for duty and honor and all Isolde believed was love ruled over everything. Then he of course ends with Romeo and Juliet, the most trite of all doomed love stories, where they are so in love they die together when their families keep them apart. The cleverest, if most disconcerting analogy he uses, is Hamlet and Ophelia. She is to marry Hamlet, but he refuses her because of his own self-righteous tragedy. So he orders her to a nunnery, and she kills herself instead. The whole thing makes me nauseous, if it doesn't you. He gets everything very close to correct, but then his spin on it awkward and forced."
Colby spoke up, "Some of us in this room are familiar these stories, and others not so much, so I take it in your summaries you have said what wasn't quite right?"
"No I didn't think anyone cared that much about trivial literary complexities. For the most part, the common theme is obviously doomed love, separated by family, by country, by marriage, or by not loving another enough. He sees he and I in one or several or all of these scenarios. In all of them the man always dies, but the woman may or may not. There may be a message there."
"The second part of the letter gives more specifics about his likely target. It's like he wants us to guess. I don't know if this is meant to mislead us from the actual target, or if he almost wants to get caught or killed without killing so many others. There is still no mention of method, but perhaps you can read something I don't see. He talks about bodies of water, the roundness of the sun at sunset, the thumping of the drums, the thrill of the masses , the pollution of the air if the crack of the rifles does not stop it."
"He signs it with undying love into the ever after, you are the only virgin (several snickers at that comment were heard--Shut up you bunch of adolescents), I will ever require in the rivers of honey. If you cannot come with me, then I will wait for you with Allah. Yours forever, Irja Haji"
Don shook his head, "I think we can figure out his clues, but I'd rather take out the cell before it gets to that point. And Isa, sorry baby, but you are grounded for good here in the Penthouse."
"Until you need me to take him out."
"We've got others to go in for the kill. Edgerton should be here any minute, dressed in plain clothes. We got Porter, we got some of your expert Ops guys. We may not need you."
"You'll need me. He'll set it up so I am the one who takes him out. I bet he knows exactly who I am. The guy dies, and the girl lives, most of the time."
Don looked at Isabella. "There is not a soul in this room that would say 'most of the time' is good enough. You stay put. We'll know more, and we will make the call. Edgerton will be here soon. I'm going to get the Ops teams set up with census forms etc. Guys, go get dressed, young casual, sunglasses, and plan to speak Arabic in these homes and baseball hats would be good to hide your faces and heads."
"You aren't leaving her here alone with Edgerton are you?" Tommy asked.
"No, Colby, Charlie, me and Amita will stay behind. She won't be alone, but you don't really think he would hurt her?"
"More worried about him getting hurt really. But she is in no shape, emotionally and probably physically to deal with him."
"Hello, right here." Isabella spoke up annoyed at being talked as if she wasn't there. " I'm going to be upstairs for a while anyway. Only Colby and Amita are allowed up there. That is it. Come get me when you need me."