Stay buckled up my fellow nerds, the roller coaster just came down the first hill and rounded the corner and look, another hill and is that a corkscrew and inverted drop ahead?
May 16th, 2001, Wednesday:
"Mr. and Mrs. Gallo, I'm sorry to say we are at a loss with what is happening to your child. We've contacted the world's foremost pediatric care facilities hoping someone might have a clue as to what is going on with her. So far the results from all the tests are unfavorable and no one seems to be able to explain it. We're very sorry. We just don't have anything else we can recommend we pursue. At this time, we'd recommend you spend as much time with Amanda as you can. Thankfully she'll be in and out of consciousness so that she'll have peace at times. But if you both are there when she is conscious she'll have your love and presence to reassure her." The team's lead Dr explained sadly.
"How long?" Cabe barely choked out as tears flooded his eyes. He grabbed hold of Rebecca as she cried out in despair.
"With the way her vitals are acting, at best a few weeks, but more like a few days. We're sorry, we can't be more specific. Would you like for us to have clergy come see you?" The Dr asked them.
"I'll call our local priest, but thank you." Cabe choked out even as they walked back into Amanda's room where for the moment she was sleeping, blissfully unaware of the fate headed her way.
"I don't know if I can do this, Rebecca." Cabe told her.
"We've got to just hold on Cabe, we've got to be strong and support each other." Rebecca replied. "Don't you have to be at the school to take over Paige's detail?" Rebecca asked.
Cabe shrugged.
"I suppose I better call Mr. Dineen and tell him I'm taking a leave of absence." Cabe finally said as he slowly stood up. "I'll go outside and call him."
Rebecca just nodded as she squeezed his hand and then watched him disappear from the room.
Cabe walked the hallway to the elevator slowly. The staff watched him with sadness as he moved further down the hall. Cabe's hand barely had the strength to rise up and press the little button. As the elevator dinged announcing its arrival one of the nursing assistants stepped up and took Cabe's hand in hers and laid him into the elevator.
"Are you going to the first floor?" She asked softly.
Cabe nodded as he saw her reach out and pressed the button with a 1 on it. A few moments later they stepped out of the elevator onto the main floor.
"Where did you want to go?" She asked him softly.
"Outside, I need to call my boss." Cabe told her.
She nodded and escorted him out to the courtyard.
"I'll be just inside when you are ready to go back in." she told him before she turned and walked back into the hospital.
"Thank you." Cabe managed to say before the doors closed. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. He arrowed through the contact list and then stopped on "Ralph Dineen - Embassy". He pressed okay and the phone switched screens and displayed, "Calling".
"Mr. Dineen, an agent Cabe Gallo, is on line 2." Debbie announced as Ralph answered his intercom.
"Thank you Debbie." Ralph said as he picked up his phone and pushed line 2. "Cabe, how are you?"
Cabe took in a sharp breath at that question and he held it for a few seconds as he made several strangling noises trying to regain his self control.
"Cabe? What's wrong?" Ralph asked quickly at the sounds of distress.
Cabe began breathing a bit faster as his eyes closed and tears ran down his cheeks.
Ralph reached over and hit his intercom button.
"Debbie, get a trace on this phone call, now!" Ralph demanded.
"Come on Cabe, talk to me. What is going on?" Ralph asked.
"I, I." Cabe swallowed hard as he tried again. "I-I've got to ask for time off Mr. Dineen, immediately." Cabe told him after several moments.
"Cabe, of course if you need time off, we can get another agent to fill in. But what is going on? I don't like the sound of your breathing." Ralph asked with concern.
"A-Amanda, my daughter. She's really sick. doctors don't know what it is or how to help her. They're only giving her a few weeks at best." Cabe choked out.
"Oh dear Lord, Cabe, I am so sorry. What can I do for you and your wife?" Ralph asked.
"I don't know of anything you can do sir. Just the understanding and acceptance of me taking time off I guess." Cabe told him.
"Cabe, of course. I can't imagine. I'm going to make some calls, get some of the top pediatric specialists I know involved, if that is okay with you." Ralph told him as he tried to remember his wife's name.
"I'm not sure what good it can do, but thank you." Cabe told him.
"Alright, Cabe, you and Rebecca support and continue loving each other. If either of you need anything, you reach out to me. Okay?" Ralph told him.
"Thank you sir. I'm going back inside." Cabe told him.
"Take care Cabe." Ralph told him before he hung up.
Walter met up with Paige as she came out of her last period class and they quickly embraced and kissed before they turned and left with her detail. Walter frowned looking at the two agents who followed her around inside of the school.
"Isn't Cabe supposed to be here?" Walter asked.
"You're right it is his afternoon to take over. Agent Todd?" Paige asked as they walked.
"He called in, he's taking some time off. Not sure when he'll be back." Agent Todd told them.
"That's strange. I wonder what came up that he needed time off?" Paige wondered out loud.
"Well it isn't a birthday or anniversary." Walter told her as they made their way outside of the school. "Or at least no anniversary he's told me about."
They saw Happy standing down by the SUV waiting on them.
"Come on you two. I got things to do." Happy complained.
Paige laughed as she shook her head.
"Boy, since you challenged the course work and got advanced four school years you sure are getting bossy." Paige grinned at her little sister.
Happy stuck her tongue out at her.
Walter and Paige both laughed.
"Actually I want to see if my penpal has written me back yet." Happy told them as they turned to begin walking down the road.
"Penpal? When did you get a penpal?" Paige asked, clearly surprised.
"It was a new school assignment last week. All the participating school students from all over the world submit a profile and then some computer algorithm matches people up based on the profile. Can't we take the SUV?" Happy asked them as they began walking down the hill.
"You can if you want, we're walking. Who did you get matched up with?" Paige asked.
"Well, believe it or not, I was the odd one out. There wasn't another student left to match with." Happy told her as she walked along with them. "Story of my life before you guys."
"Aww, that's horrible. They should have gotten another student to participate. Wait, if there were an odd number, who did you get matched with?" Paige asked, completely confused.
Happy giggled at the expression on her face.
"I'm actually talking to the guy who designed the algorithm. He wrote to me to apologize that they didn't have enough participants to get me a penpal. He got his masters at sixteen and he is working towards his doctorate now at seventeen, from Harvard. And we exchange emails every other day." Happy told them quite proudly.
"Uh, so how old is he now?" Paige asked warily.
"I just told you, he's still seventeen." Happy told her.
"And you're nine, does Mom and Dad know about this?" Paige asked.
"Well they know he's a penpal." Happy said evasively.
"Happy Dineen!" Paige said, shocked. "You need to tell Mom as soon as we get home." Paige demanded.
Happy rolled her eyes.
"I'll think about it." Happy told her.
"You'll do more than think about it." Paige told her.
"You won't tell on me, Paige." Happy told her.
"If you don't tell them the truth I will." Paige told her.
"Fine, you tell them about Toby and I'll tell them you and Walter are having sex." Happy told quietly but with defiance.
Paige's mouth opened wide even as her cheeks flushed.
Walter's cheeks also flushed as he looked around but didn't see anyone who might have heard, or at least didn't already suspect what was happening, among the agents.
"How do you know?" Paige demanded.
"Are you kidding? The way you were acting a few weeks ago? You might as well have hired a skywriter. Because it was clear you were panicking that you were pregnant." Happy told her.
"Oh God." Paige exclaimed as she turned and buried her face in Walter's shoulder.
"Did you really have to reveal that to us, Happy?" Walter asked disappointedly.
"I just want to be sure we're all together on this." Happy told him.
The three of them frowned as they got to the Dineen house and saw Ralph's SUV already there.
"Okay, first Cabe needs time off and now Dad is home early. I'm beginning to think like Happy and this doesn't seem good." Paige told Walter.
"Well whatever it is, I'm here with you." Walter told her as he squeezed her hand.
They walked inside and Walter closed the door.
"Mom, Dad?" Paige called out.
"We're in the family room sweetheart." Veronica replied.
Paige squeezed Walter and Happy's hands as they walked to the family room.
"There's my two girls and my boy." Ralph said, smiling at them as they stepped into view.
"Welcome home Daddy, what's wrong?" Paige asked warily.
"Well apparently you guys already have a feeling for something." Ralph sighed. "I have some bad news kids. Agent Gallo has requested an indefinite leave of absence. His daughter is very ill and the doctors have no idea what is happening with her. They are still doing some genetic testing to see if it might reveal anything but as for now, she only has at most a few weeks. Most likely less than a week." Ralph told them.
"Poor Cabe." Paige said as tears welled up in her eyes.
Walter's eyes turned red with tears as well and he just nodded.
"Is there anything we can do?" Walter finally asked.
"Well, if you want, you three can come with us. I've talked with Father Matthew at the church to join us to light some candles and say some prayers for Amanda and her parents." Ralph told them as they stood.
Walter and Paige both nodded quickly. Happy had looked towards her bedroom and her computer that was up there. She was dying to see if Toby had written her back or not but she cared about Cabe.
"I think I'd like to go too." Happy finally told them.
May 24th, 2001, Thursday:
Walter sat with Paige and their combined family as they had their evening meal together when Ralph's cell phone rang. Ralph stood up and stepped out of the room.
"Good evening, Ralph Dineen speaking." Ralph answered his phone. "Wait, they did what?" Ralph listened even as he moved into the living room and turned on the TV and changed to CNN. Ralph's eyes closed as he saw bombs falling on Baghdad. "Dear Lord in Heaven."
Everyone could hear the explosions and they all got up and moved into the living room to see Ralph standing there staring at the screen and the bombs exploding all around.
"Daddy?" Paige asked as she ran up and grabbed hold of him.
"The US has bombed Baghdad, sweetheart." Ralph told her as he gave her a one arm hug and then kissed the top of her head.
Walter was off to the side as his eyes were intent on the smaller views that CNN was displaying while showing the explosions on the rest of the screen.
Everyone else moved up and were gathered around Ralph as they watched, stunned in disbelief.
"Did you have any idea they were going to do this Ralph?" Veronica asked as she hugged her husband.
Ralph shook his head.
"They do their best to keep this information away from me. They know I'll try and stop them so I can try to negotiate for what they want. The damn war barons love to blow things up." Ralph sighed.
Walter's brilliant mind was running calculations and probabilities over and over as he saw how the planes had flown into and out of Baghdad and he came to the same conclusion for a third time and his eyes went wide.
"Cabe, what did you do?" Walter said in a fearful voice even as he dug his cell phone out of his pants pocket.
"Walter?" Paige asked as she turned and saw him panicking.
Walter fumbled with his cell phone for a moment before finally pulling up Cabe's phone number and pressed okay and the phone dialed for him.
"Hey son, this isn't a good time." Cabe answered his phone wearily.
"Cabe, what did you do?" Walter demanded loudly.
Everyone turned to look as Paige stepped over.
"Walter?" Paige questioned.
"What are you talking about son?" Cabe asked, confused.
"Cabe, the US, they are bombing Baghdad. And they are using MY aid package algorithm to protect the planes. Cabe, I designed that to maximize safety of assets, not to guarantee accuracy of delivery." Walter said desperately.
"Son, I." Cabe started.
"Cabe, do you understand what I'm saying? They are using my algorithm and because of how I designed it, thousands and thousands of innocent lives are going to be lost. What did you do?" Walter all but screamed the last.
Walter's eyes went large as he dropped his phone and ran across the room and grabbed the waste can that was kept behind one of the chairs and began throwing up.
Paige grimaced but moved to one of the downstair's bathrooms and got him a wet washcloth.
Ralph turned off the TV even as he picked up Walter's phone as he heard Cabe calling his name over and over.
"Cabe, it's Ralph Dineen. Look, I know you got a lot going on right now, but we're going to have to have a conversation tomorrow." Ralph told him and then ended the call.
After he'd thrown up all he had in him, Walter let Paige wipe his face down and then she led him to the bathroom while Sean grabbed the waste can and took it to another bathroom and cleaned it out.
Walter sat on the rim of the tub crying after Paige helped him to clean up and wash his mouth out. Paige stood there between his legs as he clung to her. Paige had her arms wrapped around Walter's head and she was humming softly to him and occasionally kissed the top of his head.
"I can't believe this happened." Walter finally said out loud.
"I'm so sorry Walter. Someone abused you in a really bad way. They took advantage of your desire to help people and used it to further their own goals.
"You don't think I'm a monster?" Walter asked fearfully.
"Why would I ever think you were a monster? They lied to you Walter. They gave you a line full of bull poop. If they'd told you the truth you would have never helped them." Paige told him as she ran her fingers through his hair.
"Thank you." Walter kissed Paige's stomach through her blouse.
Greetings! Hope you kept your hands inside! hehe
Railman - Sean said those punches really drove his point home. lol hehe No worries on the pharmacist/chemist. In another future chapter I have to take some liberty over another area that in reality can't be done in Ireland, not aliens though, well, there will be a story at some point where there is an alien of sorts in Ireland. lol Good luck figuring that out. lol
Pearliegirl - Thank you! Well, were you prepared? hehe Knowing this chapter was next after your comment it made me really chuckle.
Susan - Ralph blushed and said "Thanks". But he was quick to admit that he sometimes gets it wrong too...Yet another future chapter to reveal.
Margaret - Ralph is a pretty good guy in my book.
Jewel - Thank you! The last 2 weeks haven't been good for me writing wise. While I added a little to the current story I have for Lady Knight, it is still moving very slowly. I'm not sure when it will be ready to post. Sorry.
Heleen - Thank you! A couple of my friends know the last 2 weeks haven't been good writing wise for me. Easter had been my favorite married holiday. But then Easter dinner Sunday with the family really hit me hard and it really knocked me for a loop. Something I haven't given voice to, was that all three things this month culminated yesterday and made me question if I should even continue writing. Which of course my response to that is a resounding yes. I have to be creative, it isn't a question, it isn't a want, it is like breathing and water, it has to happen. But of course the longer the desire to write wains the harder it seems to invoke again. But, I've fought through similar feelings and I will fight through this as well. Until then, I've got a nice backlog of Callan to post until I do. lol
To the Adventure! -Tim