January 17, 2004
The Tower of London – London, England
1025 Greenwich/ 0525 Eastern
Mattie and the twins walked ahead of Harm and Beth, chattering away. For Mattie, she was a little surprised by the size of the fortress as they approached. From the little she had heard, she had been expecting something a little bigger than what was confronting her. Whether it was due to the mass of buildings pressing in or just what the very word fortress denoted in her mind, she wasn't sure. Still, she was more than impressed.
Hillary and Heather were watching their friend. Both of them had been here before, but one of the benefits of that was they got to enjoy Mattie's reactions to what she was seeing. Last night had been fun for them, once they had finished their homework. After dinner, Harm and Beth had let the girls take over the television, while the adults settled in with books. Eventually, they found a movie on one of the channels and watched that. They followed it with a second movie, before heading off to bed.
This morning, they had awoken to Harm fixing a breakfast of scrambled eggs and hash browns. The girls had all come downstairs to find the table set with orange juice and milk out. Each of the girls had picked up a plate and proceeded over to the stove, where Harm dished out the food. They then could fix toast as well, if they wished. The twins had been surprised that Harm was the one doing the cooking, since that was something they had never seen their own father do. He'd often told them that the kitchen was their mother's domain and he went out of his way to stay out of it. Yet, here was Harm who clearly loved to cook and did it well, while Beth was nowhere to be found.
Actually, Beth was on the telephone upstairs. She had already showered and dressed, now she was talking to Bob, the taxi driver the family had met when they first arrived in England. Finding that he was free for the day, she arranged for him to collect the family at 0930 from the house and that they would hire him for the day. After explaining their plans, Bob had seen no overwhelming problems with it. He did tell her that he probably wouldn't be able to park the taxi there and wait for them. Rather, he would drop them off and then come back to collect them, but would keep the taxi free for them. When they were close to being ready to leave, they could simply call him and he would come back.
Beth had been fine with that idea. She would just take her cell phone and use that to call him. Besides, she had no idea how long they would be at the Tower and didn't want to just make the man sit outside and wait for them. The shopping excursion later in the day would be more than enough of that.
Once off the telephone, she went downstairs to eat. Everybody else was already started, with Harm almost done. Beth knew that once he finished, he'd head upstairs for his own shower. She saw the girls all exchanging amused looks at Harm's idea of morning attire, a wash faded T-shirt and sweat pants. Beth was just glad that her husband had remembered to put on a shirt before coming downstairs.
Harm and the girls all finished at about the same time and all of them trekked upstairs to get ready for the day. Beth didn't mind having to do the cleanup, since most of it was just putting the dishes into the dishwasher. The two skillets that Harm had used were put into the sink. They would have to wait a little bit, since Beth didn't want to run any hot water while the others were taking showers.
Harm was the first one downstairs, dressed in jeans and a sweater. Since much of their time would be outside today, he intended to dress warmly and open his coat when they went inside to avoid overheating. When the girls came downstairs, he was happy to see that they too were dressed for the weather. Hillary and Heather were wearing matching sweaters and dark slacks, while Mattie had on jeans and a flannel shirt.
The sound of a horn outside announced the arrival of Bob, who stood waiting by the back door as the group came outside. Hillary and Heather took the rearward facing seats, while the Rabbs sat across from them. The twins had been surprised to learn yesterday that neither Harm nor Beth had a car, though both had international driver's licenses. Still, they were enjoying the running commentary that Bob supplied on the drive to the Tower, something they wouldn't have gotten if Harm or Beth had been driving, Hillary was quite sure.
Arriving at the Tower, the taxi dropped them off as close to the entrance as Bob could get. Letting the girls take the lead, Harm reached into his pocket and found his wallet. When they reached the ticket kiosk, he paid for the admission and they went inside. Seeing a sign, Harm turned to the others and pointed in that direction. Moving along, he could see that a group was forming for the next tour.
"You want to join them?" Harm asked.
"That's sound like a good way to start," Beth said as the girls nodded.
"Well, if y'all are going on the tour, maybe we'll join you," came a voice from behind them, which brought a smile to Harm's face.
"Meg! What are you doing here? I figured you'd be back in Texas by now."
"Commander Alexander didn't say if she was finished with me, so I don't know if I need to stay or not. Besides, when I talked to Mom, she said Patty should see something of London before we came home and that her teacher was quite comfortable with her missing a few days for an opportunity like this," Meg told him. She and Patty were dressed virtually identically in jeans, down filled coats and boots. The only difference was Meg's coat was blue and Patty's was red.
"Meg, I'd like you to meet my family," Harm said, seeing Meg's eyes grow large as she saw a woman who was plainly Harm's wife and the three teenage girls standing with her. "This is my wife, Lieutenant Commander Elizabeth Hawkes and our daughter, Mattie, and Mattie's friends Hillary and Heather Parkhurst."
"Call me Beth, please. Any friend of Harm's…." Beth said as she held out her hand.
"It's nice to meet the woman who finally corralled Harm."
Beth and Meg shared a look as they shook hands.
"You've got a beautiful daughter, Meg."
"So do you, Beth."
The tour was getting ready to start, cutting the talk short. So, the enlarged group headed off, listening to the Yeoman Warder who was serving as their guide. The uniform was interesting, to Harm's eye, although it didn't look exactly comfortable. He was interested to hear that all of the Warders were former NCOs or Warrant Officers with more than twenty-two years of service, meaning that the ribbons they wore had been earned, rather than handed out as a prop to fit an image.
As they went along, Mattie was more and more impressed. Not just with the history of the Tower, itself, but also with the long history of England. America's little over two hundred years seemed like a blink of the eye where compared with a fortress that had stood for almost one thousand. And the whole thing was smack in the middle of a modern metropolis, with skyscrapers dotting the skyline in the distance and a bridge right next to the Tower.
In some respects, this felt like a visit to Williamsburg to here. People in period costumes mixed with people in modern clothing, talking about events from long ago. Yet, for some reason, here it was just more real than she remembered her class visit to that colonial town as being. Looking over at the twins, she was happy to see that they were enjoying the visit just as much as she was.
After the tour, the group went into the White Tower and proceeded through the arms collection. This was followed by a visit to the Jewel House and the crown jewels, then it was time for a late lunch at one of the nearby restaurants. Seeing that Harm had guests with them, Meg begged off. She and Patty did agree to join the family for dinner tomorrow evening, however, as there was a lot of catching up to do.
When lunch was over, the group split up. Beth would take the girls out shopping, while Harm decided to go home and relax. To this end, he waited with them until Bob returned. Then, after they left in the taxi, Harm flagged down a second one to take him home. But first, he had the driver stop at a book store. He had finished his last book last night and needed something new to read.
VOQ – RAF West Ruislip, England
1757 Greenwich/ 1257 Eastern
After hitting something of a mental wall yesterday, Commander Alexander had spent the morning just relaxing. She had traveled into London after breakfast and gone to a couple of museums, before having a late lunch. Then, she took a brief walk through Saint James' park, before finally making her way back out to her temporary accommodations and the work that was still waiting. Her goal had been to recharge her batteries and it had worked, as she now felt more than ready to go.
She kept reflecting that it was something Admiral Chegwidden had said that had given her pause yesterday. With that in mind, she ignored the forms she hadn't looked at yet and turned her attention back to the ones she'd already gone through. If it wasn't here, then she would have to take out the case files and look back through them as well. She just knew that there was something.
Two hours later and she finally found what had been nagging at her. With it, a giant piece of her puzzle seemingly came together. For there on the flight manifest of the C-130 was a name Alexander had not previously connected to Captain Krennick, yet the coincidence of them both being on the same flight was too much for her to believe and went a long way to explaining things.
What Alexander didn't know was that five rooms away, Alison was staring at the same sheet of paper and silently praying that the connection wouldn't be made. Yet, she wasn't prepared to count on prayers and wishes. Rather, opening the nightstand drawer, she removed a small pistol and looked at it for several long moments.
Alison had been counting on the passage of time when she'd started to weave her web of lies. She had doubted that Rabb, with his known aversion for paperwork, would have kept detailed records going back eight years. So, her bank statement with the expenses for the weekend on it, would have been the only real evidence and the rest would have been merely his word versus hers. So, all she had believed that she needed to do was hope some of the mud she was slinging would stick and raise doubts in the mind of Admiral Morris.
As for the military's records, she had figured that would be a maze too deep and cluttered to dig through before time ran out on the prosecution. If not for the production of the documents yesterday meaning that she needed the time to go through them, Alison would have strongly objected to any motion for more time by the prosecution. Her right to a speedy trial and all that, even knowing that Admiral Morris would have still given the time but at least getting the objection on record.
But, unfortunately for Alison, it hadn't worked out that way. Commander Alexander had just kept digging and digging, before finally getting lucky. So, Alison had no choice but to believe that the connection would be figured out. That was why she needed a back-up plan, one that seemed a little extreme until one saw it from Alison's perspective. If she was found guilty on all charges and specifications, she was already facing close to thirty years. As old as she already was, thirty years was essentially a life sentence anyway. So there really wasn't that much to lose and a hell of a lot to gain, wasn't there?