Fruition

"Well, Mrs. Watney, you're doing perfectly," her obstetrician said as she set Mindy's chart on the counter.

"How far along am I?" Mindy asked.

"It appears you conceived right around Thanksgiving, so about seven weeks now."

"Oh, that night," Mindy said, and chuckled to herself.

The OB laughed. "You know I find a lot of women can pinpoint the day. It's funny." She adjusted her stethoscope around her neck and wrote in Mindy's chart. "Come back next month and we'll check in, but so far everything looks normal and healthy." She looked up and smiled. "Happy new year, Mindy."

Clara and Stefani were waiting in the lobby for her. "Well?" Clara asked as Mindy came back out the door to the exam rooms.

"Everything is fine," Mindy told her. "And I'm famished, let's eat."

"Charles is pulling the car around front," Stefanie told them. "I made reservations at Carlo's for us."

"I could eat a steak," Mindy said chuckling. "I could eat a cow!"

"You have been on a bit of a protein binge lately," Clara said as she opened the office door for them.

"I was too at this point," Stefani said. "With both of my girls I just couldn't get enough red meat." She shook her head. "Course that was fourteen and sixteen years ago. Time flies."

"They okay with Mom and Dad being gone for a week?" Mindy asked.

"It's not like they're alone," Stefanie said with a laugh. "My mom is more of a disciplinarian than I am, they'll be happy to see us back home."

They stepped into the elevator on the obstetrics floor, and a young woman yelled. "Hold the elevator please!" She rushed in just as the doors closed, and turned to them with a smile. "Thanks, I really am late, so… I…" she stopped and her eyes went wide. She just stared in shock at who was in the elevator with her.

Mindy smiled. "Mindy Watney," she said, and she held out her hand.

"Stefani Germanotta," Stefani said, and she too shook the woman's hand.

"Clara Purnell," Clara said, as she took the woman's hand.

"Vixen Thomas," the stunned woman said. "Wow, uh, pleased to meet you all," she stammered. "Especially you Mrs. Purnell."

Stefani and Mindy looked at each other with puzzled expressions. "Where're you headed in such a rush?" Stefanie asked.

"Lunch with my husband," she said and giggled. "He doesn't know yet." She looked at Mindy. "Are you?"

Mindy nodded. "Can you keep that to yourself for a few more days?"

Vixen smiled. "Of course," she said. "Except for my husband, and I'll swear him to secrecy."

Mindy chuckled. "I can't keep anything from Mark either."

"He knows?" Vixen asked.

Mindy nodded. "Where are you at?" she asked.

"Five weeks. We've been trying for a while." Vixen replied. "And you?"

"Seven," she said and snickered. "It just sort of happened. We were planning for next year so I could get Ares five off the ground."

Clara smirked. "They'll work around it, Min. Brendon depends on you, and he'll get it sorted out."

"I bet Mark's overjoyed," Vixen said.

Clara and Stefanie laughed. "He over something alright," Clara said as she chortled.

"He's gone a bit overboard with safety," Mindy said and rolled her eyes.

Stefani nudged her with her hip. "You're going to love those hand rails in about four months."

Clara looked wistful. "And it's never too early to baby proof," she said softly, staring into nothing.

Mindy and Stefani shared a look and a nod. It'll happen, Mindy thought. You and Rich need to take some time for just the two of you. Don't worry, it'll happen, Clara.

Vixen turned to Clara. "My husband is going to be so jealous," she said. "Meeting you would be the highlight of the year for him," she gushed.

Stefani and Mindy shared a surprised and amused look as they turned to each other and chuckled, this happened to them, not Clara.

"He's an engineer for Pepcon," Vixen continued. "They make Ammonium perchlorate, it's one of the precursors for the solid rocket fuel. His whole department are huge fans of your husbands, and after Mark and Mindy's wedding, when you two started dating? They were like a group of gossiping hens."

Stefani and Mindy laughed. "Let's take a picture to prove it to them then," Stefani said. They gathered behind Vixen in the elevator, and she held her phone at arm length and took a picture. Later, it was enlarged, framed, and sat on her desk. Her smiling face, surrounded by Stefani, Mindy and Clara's.

The elevator chimed and the door opened on the first floor. "So pleased to meet you, Mrs. Purnell, Mrs. Watney," Vixen said. Then she turned to Stefani and bowed. "My lady."

They all snickered, and then smiled and waved at their new friend as she hurried toward the parking structure.

(*)

"It's time," the woman with the raven hair said.

"Are we still using the bomb, Althea?" Kevin Paulson, a fat man with the grey beard asked.

"Yes," Althea Delray replied.

"That'll take almost everybody," Eileen Stanton said, shaking her grey haired head.

"We've prepared," Kevin said. "We've divided into teams. It takes ten to buy the materials and prep and load the bomb, two to drive it to the destination, two in the chase car, five to make sure the Watneys are there, and four more for the guard at the gates."

"Tell them we go tomorrow night," Althea Delray said.

(*)

"Tell them we go tomorrow night," played out of Andrew's tablet. Across the conference room Hannah Smyth nodded grimly. "Notify Chen and Jason," she said. "I'll tell Stan and Ethan." she smiled. "Janice can tell Pierre tonight."

(*)

On a small plot of land north of Houston sat an old farm. The original forty acres had been divided several times, and now the farm house sat among a group of out buildings and a barn on a crowded lot surrounded by fallow fields waiting for spring. An unusual amount of activity was going on there for an early winter day.

People went in and out of the barn frequently. Large bags of fertilizer and five gallon containers of deasil fuel made their way from the beds of trucks and trunks of cars into the barn. The cars and trucks had been pulling into the drive of the farm for hours over the course of the morning, as more and more people gathered there.

Stanislav Vladimir Itamolov watched it all through the eyepiece of the scope on his rifle. "They all seem to have arrived," he muttered quietly into the microphone on his collar.

"Copy, agreed," Ethan Thomas' voice said in his ear. "We hold until they bring out the truck."

"Da," Stan said and flex his arms and legs under the camouflage blanket the mimicked the field he was laying in. It was cold, but not nearly as bad as it had been in Afghanistan the last time he and Ethan had worked together, and he had gotten a good sleep in on the plane in from Argentina. "I am ready."

"Just like Tokzar," Stan muttered.

"Plevin," Ethan said.

"Net, Lukovo?"

"Lukovo," Ethan agreed.

(*)

Ho Chen had come from a long line of spies, ten centuries worth, and he was very good. He smiled. His new friends were exceptional spies themselves, and that they trusted him so completely made him feel honor bound to complete his part of the mission perfectly. He adjusted the tie on his security guard uniform and looked down at the little toy he had brought with him today.

It appeared to be nothing more than a Kindle 20, but it wasn't. The small black hemisphere that now adorned the top of the guard shack contained a tiny scanner. From DC to gamma rays, it scanned the surrounding half mile, and it had been designed to show any warm blooded life in that area as a silhouette on the screen. More, it had enough processing to identify humans from other large mammals, and it highlight them in bolder colors.

The five watchers had to be uncomfortable out there in the woods with all the bugs, he thought, but the four waiting in the van in the golf club car park across the street were his main concern. He looked down at the black bundle on the floor. "Only the wankers die," Hannah's voice said in his head, so the guard slept on in the captive bag. Around three the following morning he would awaken with the world's worst headache, but he would be alive, Chen thought.

The sun was starting to set and he saw the shapes in the van shuffling around in the back. "I'm moving on the van," he said into his wrist.

"Understood," Hannah's voice said in his ear.

(*)

Hannah Smyth looked through the canopy at the blind a hundred feet away. Pierre DeSaint was a very handsome man, it was little wonder he was the superior spy he was, and that Janice was as entranced as she was. He was also, as all of them were, an efficient killer. From their perches in the trees they could easily see the five people watching the house in their military standard camouflage gear. She flexed her shoulders and adjusted the rifle resting between her knees. Taking careful aim she practiced the shots for her three. "Tag, tag, tag," she said in rapid succession as they passed through her scope.

Pierre heard her soft rehearsal and he snickered. "Going for drinks wiz Stan after?" he asked softly into his collar.

"Yeah," Hannah replied. "Plays his cards right and it'll be more than that."

"You people!" Chen said, and as he crept from the guard shack into the surrounding woods, and Hannah and Pierre sniggered.

(*)

"I'll get it," Mark said as he went to the door. Andrew Gardner stood there when he opened it.

"Andrew?" Mark said curiously.

Andrew looked at him knowingly "Tonight," he said.

Mark nodded. "Mindy, your chess nemesis is here."

"Andrew," Mindy said, laughing, as she rounded the entrance to the dining room. "Come for another ass kicking?"

"I'll remind you, Mrs. Watney, that we're even," Andrew said with a smirk. "And I'd be happy to play the tie breaker while we wait for the all clear."

Mindy nodded knowingly. "I see."

"See what?" Stefani said from behind her.

"Miss Germanotta," Andrew said. "Wonderful to meet you in person."

Mark smiled. "Steff, this is Andrew Gardner, he works for Janice and Hannah."

"She knows?" Andrew muttered to Mark without moving his mouth.

"A little, not everything," Mark muttered back.

"I love them," Stefani said. "Hannah is so funny and Janice is so sweet."

Andrew snorted. Janice Perrin and sweet were mutually exclusive in his opinion.

"Come on in," Mindy said. "I'll get you your Guinness and we'll settle this."

Mark looked over at Stefani. "Get David and meet me in the greenhouse, you guys can help me plant. They'll be a while," he said and chuckled. "No yelling this time," he admonished both of them while shaking his finger at them.

Mindy and Andrew both wore the same offended expression, and Stefani howled with laughter.

(*)

Stan sighted in on the driver of the truck as a large group of people exited the barn with it.

(*)

Mindy moved her bishop, and she placed Andrew in check.

(*)

Ethan put the crosshairs over the heart of the woman driving the car in front of the truck

(*)

Andrew moved his rook, blocking Mindy's bishop, and she took the rook. "Check," she said.

(*)

"Now," Ethan said quietly.

(*)

Andrew moved his king sideways. Mindy countered with a diagonal move of her queen. "Check," she said with a feral grin.

(*)

Two small holes appeared in the windshields of the truck and the car with soft ticks, and the drivers, Kevin Paulson and Eileen Stanton slumped over, dead.

(*)

In the van at the golf club parking lot four men slid the side door open, and they found a short man, dressed head to foot in black, standing there in front of them. "Naocan," came from under his hood, and the man jumped into the van with them.

(*)

Andrew wiped a drop of sweat from his forehead and moved his last pawn into a defensive position. Mindy moved her knight. "Check," she said again.

(*)

"Go," Hannah's voice said in Pierre's ear. Two small pops sounded almost simultaneously. They were flowed by three more.

(*)

"Mate," Mindy said, and she knocked Andrew's queen over with her Knight.

(*)

Ethan changed weapons quickly. The M1 Garand was an old, heavy piece, but it shot incendiary rounds far better than most modern rifles. He leveled it at the center of the truck and fired.

(*)

"Zank you," Janice said to the cab driver as she paid him. "Zere is no need to wait. I will call for anozer when I am finished. It will be several hours." Smiling to herself as the cab drove away, she turned, and then walked up the long drive to the house in the woods of Tennessee.

(*)

Everything about these nutbags came from their own writings

.

They are real, they are serious, and some of them are violent.

Naocan idiot