A Family Affair
Chapter 4
This was a first for Tank in the number of years which Rangeman existed. There was an emergency update meeting in Ranger's apartment with just the core team sitting around his dining room table. It was quite obvious to those attending long ago, Ranger lost his heart to Stephanie, but now his infant daughter was sharing that honor. She held a special spot in all of Rangeman Trenton.
The 7th floor apartment became the residence of Stephanie and her infant daughter while he was 'in the wind'. She was in the chair next to him, but he had possession of his dark eyed baby girl sitting there at the head of the table. You would have sworn the Cuban actually gave birth because since coming back from the 'dead', he was the very possessive parent of his dark eyed daughter.
Bobby and Lester were attending amid their shock which hadn't completely wore off seeing the man whose funeral they attended earlier in the day, but they were there. Each was going over the upcoming schedule of President Cosgrove for the next month. The telephone next to Ranger rang.
"Yo. Good Afternoon, General Warwick."
Stephanie rolled her eyes wondering if he would answer that way if the one and only President of the United States was on the phone. She giggled at the idea of the Pope. "Yo, Pope."
"Babe," Ranger mouthed.
She stuck her tongue out at him and this Cuban ESP.
"Major, is the team assembled?" the manly deep voiced asked.
Ranger replied, "Yes, General, and Stephanie Plum is here. I need her help in this situation."
"Ah, Miss Plum, Carlos has told me about your intuition. This is of the most urgency and highly classified information."
Not able to stop herself from saying, "Just like Ranger being 'dead' and coming back as someone else without telling anyone! Particularly me!" She realized what came out of her mouth clamping a hand over it. "Sorry, General," she mumbled.
The table of Rangemen was chuckling.
"I was warned you speak your mind, Miss Plum." Even he chuckled. "I wanted to get him home alive and out of that situation as fast as possible. It was the best we could come up with on such short notice. You have my apologies on the anguish."
"You don't know," she mumbled locking eyes with Ranger. Addison was happily sucking on a pacifier in her father's arms.
"I have some making up to do, General, after this is over."
"I'll leave that to you, Carlos. But let's get back to the matter at hand, the President's life. The terrorist chatter around the world over the last few days has really picked up considerably. That leads us to believe something is up in the immediate future."
"Any confirmation on the location, Sir?" Tank questioned. The evil eyes Stephanie was giving his friend and the dark ones crinkled at the corners attempting to 'tempt' was comical.
"No, Captain. You have the President's upcoming schedule. He isn't changing it and if he does suddenly, that will be a dead giveaway that we know."
The infant with the pink elephant pacifier made a 'not so quiet' sucking sound making her presence known.
"Major, are you sure this is a secure line. I'm hearing noise in the line."
Ranger was smirking at the daughter looking up with his brown eyes at him doing a very good 'Maggie Simpson' impression working her tinted cheeks. "It's secure, General Warwick. There has been a new addition to our Plum-Manoso household while I was away. Let me introduce you to Addison Marie. She's enjoying her," Ranger said stopping a second to glance at his daughter's mother, "binkie." He chuckled at word.
They heard the intake of breath over the telephone. "Congratulations, Carlos. This is a first for me. A civilian mother and baby in attendance. Is your daughter lending assistance, too?" He asked surprised hearing the pride in his top operative's voice. He was always the lone wolf.
"No, Sir, she's being perfect like her mother."
Stephanie mouthed "Suck-up" rolling her eyes. He gave her a sexy "Babe" in return that his lips formed causing her to melt.
"We need to determine that location. I'll let your team get to work. Notify me on any breaks, Carlos."
"Yes, General Warwick."
His phone manners were as bad as Ranger's. Next they heard the dial tone with no 'Good-bye'.
"Can't anyone end a telephone conversation decently," Stephanie quipped.
"It's the government, Babe, and it's not in the training."
She squinted her blue eyes at his smart ass remark.
Tank spoke up explaining the report. "I ran the actual address of each location the President has a meeting or appearance in the next thirty days. None had any '2510' or even '1025' in it.
"It could be October 25th," Stephanie suggested. "Ranger, I could check zip codes with the combinations of '2510' and cross-reference those with the cities to see if we have a match on this list."
"Do it, Babe, and begin searching the appointments in the next seven days for any type of reference to the numbers. Lester and Bobby, check the longitude and latitude coordinates of these places. The combination of those numbers has to mean something," Ranger instructed. "Tank, run a security check in the US and overseas on Aamirah bin Rooh ul Qist. He's doing this himself. Let's see if we can trace his path. I'm going over the report Warwick gave me again. Dismissed."
"Glad you aren't dead," Lester patted his Boss on the back before leaving the apartment.
Bobby followed him with a 'Me too'.
"Ranger, do you think we'll be able to stop Rooh ul Qist? While he has kept a low profile in the world and has the reputation of being deadly accurate in his plans, only a handful of people are known to be able to recognize him."
"True and I'm one of them, but he can't disguise the limp he has. We need to figure out the location and stop his plans."
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After changing Addie with Ranger right there in the bedroom not missing anything, Stephanie settled on the floor with her laptop. She could give her a bottle of expressed milk and begin her searches.
Before reading his file again, Ranger decided to head to 6. Ella and Luis should be aware Ranger was alive. He didn't want his housekeeper to faint seeing him when she brought Stephanie dinner. He would let the remainder of the world know he was alive and still the best Bad Ass after this state of affairs was over. Actually, he was looking forward to being locked on the 7th floor with his woman and their daughter.
The zip code searches were mostly dead-ends. The areas in West Virginia using '2510' as the first four digits in the zip code weren't on the list for the current month or Stephanie searched three months in the future on President's schedule.
If she reversed the number using '1025', then that did reference specific banking addresses. Using '10256' returned Deutsche Bank, NY for the financial district in Manhattan. It was a possibility, but something told her that wasn't the right spot she was searching for in her investigation.
She and Ranger stopped their work only to eat and give Addie a bath. It was a long rollercoaster of a day and she was beginning to wear down. Believing Ranger was dead, Stephanie didn't sleep much over the last week and her daughter wasn't quite sleeping through the night.
"Babe, let's go to bed," Ranger told Stephanie. She just came out of the shower toweling her curls, she was still running searches on the locations President Sterling was scheduled to visit in the new few days. The date 'October 25' didn't have anything significant happen in history that jumped out her when it was checked in correlation to his schedule.
"Let me check on the searches and I'll be right there, Ranger."
He waited, but his Babe didn't come back to the bedroom. He slipped from under the sheets making her to come to bed. He just wanted to hold her all night. Walking through the bedroom doorway, Ranger and Stephanie ran into each other.
"Ranger, I know the place!"