Moaning in pleasure, Cathy said, "You are amazing."
"Thank you."
Another sigh of pleasure escaped from her mouth. She said, "You can do this to me every day."
Kim worked on a particularly tight muscle in Cathy's back and said, "When you marry Mike, I will do this for you every day."
Cathy sighed, but this sigh wasn't one of pleasure. She said, "I don't think he'll marry me."
"Yes, he will," Kim said working the muscles along the spine with her thumbs. She wondered what Cathy did at her job that made her so tense.
"He still loves his first wife," Cathy said.
Kim knew there was an element of truth to that statement. She said, "That is true, but that doesn't prevent him from loving you. Now be quiet and enjoy."
Cathy fell asleep about fifteen minutes later. She didn't remember waking enough to roll over onto her back. Her eyes shot open when she felt Kim diddling her clit with just the right touch. She arched her back and came totally surprised by the climax. She sat up and asked, "How dare you?"
"Massage is not complete until all sources of tension in the body have been relaxed. You are now relaxed," Kim said.
"But..."
"It means nothing. Now go get in the bathing pond. Mike will be home soon," Kim said dismissing any chance for objection. She turned and started packing away the massage oils. Seeing that Cathy hadn't moved she used the voice to command, "Go now."
Cathy found that she was seated in the bathing pond waiting for Mike without realizing how she had gotten there. She wondered if it was possible to package that voice and sell it. She didn't exactly like the idea of a woman bringing her to orgasm, but she had to admit that she was a lot more relaxed after the massage.
Just as Sanjay had predicted, the Premier of China declared war on the United States stating that it was a rogue country that had to be stopped. The President of China had backed him in the declaration of war. It was one of the few speeches of the Premier of China to actually be covered by the American news services.
The world waited for the reaction of President Archer, but he never addressed the declaration of war in one of his speeches. Finally, in a news conference one of the reporters shouted out, "What do you say about the fact that China has declared war on us?"
"He declared war on America. We haven't declared war on him," President Archer answered with a shrug of his shoulders.
"What are you going to do about it?"
"Nothing."
"What do you mean? You'll do nothing?"
President Archer looked at the reporter and answered, "It's very simple. Countries can jump up and down all they want. They can yell us at. I don't care. I'm taking care of America. If anyone attacks us, then we'll come down on them like a ton of bricks. They won't survive. Declaring war is China's way of yelling at us. Big deal. China is not attacking us so I will do nothing to it."
"Are you saying that if China attacks us, that we'll respond?"
"I'm saying that if anyone kills an American, we'll respond without restraint to make sure that the guilty party is punished," President Archer answered.
To say that China was puzzled by his answer would be an understatement. They had expected some sort of significant reaction. They had expected a little saber rattling. There had even been a chance that he would have sent a diplomat to discuss the matter. To be ignored was just insulting. The Premier was furious. He was the head of the Communist Party in China. As a result of the failure of the capitalist experiment his power was on the rise. He had expected to be taken seriously by the United States.
Mike studied the situation board at the front of the room with a frown. There was a map of the Asian Pacific Rim on the main screen. They used a red dot to identify each location where a known terrorist was being tracked. A huge number of red dots had disappeared from the map on the day of the funeral of Jamal bin Laden. All of the remaining dots had moved to Pakistan and they had stayed there ever since that day.
Cathy watched Mike from across the room. She noticed that his coffee had gone cold and wondered what he was thinking. She filled a cup and took it over to his workstation. She left with his cold cup of coffee. He leaned forward and stared at the screen some more.
Charlie had a dozen Predator Drones flying over Thailand. Shirley had another dozen flying over the Philippines. Jim had another dozen flying over Indonesia. Other analysts had drones flying over Malaysia and Brunei. They were looking for any sign of Islamic radicals. They had been doing that for two weeks and had found no one that triggered any alarms.
After studying the information recovered on the disks that had been found in the hotel room of one of the key figures at the Jamal bin Laden funeral, Harold McKinsey sat back in his chair and said, "All of the information that I found says that they were going to take over the government of the Philippines during the funeral. Our attack destroyed their attempt to stage a coup."
"Tell me something we don't know," Shirley said.
Mike gestured to Cathy without taking his eyes off the situation board. She went over to him and he said, "I need your fingers."
"Sure," Cathy said sitting down at a terminal.
Mike said, "Link Jamal Pakistan Jihad Revolution Tape India."
Cathy typed in the words and hit return after Mike had stopped speaking. A dozen articles were found. She said, "We've got a dozen articles."
"Select Link Death."
After Cathy typed in the words, she said, "There's one article."
"What does it say?" Mike asked.
"It says that Jamal bin Laden made a tape in Pakistan vowing that he would carry forth Jihad and remove the leader who had supported the Americans. The tape appeared shortly after his death," Cathy said summarizing the article.
Mike asked, "What's the India connection?"
"India was to be taken by forces attacking from Pakistan and by Muslims inside the country," Cathy answered.
"He had a plan and someone is following it," Mike said nodding his head. For two weeks he had been trying to figure out why there were so many terrorists in Pakistan. At first he thought they would try to have a coup in Pakistan, but questioned that hypothesis since it was the most terrorist friendly country in the entire area. He laughed when he realized just how far off base his thoughts had been. He said, "They aren't planning on taking over Pakistan. The government there already supports them. They are after India."
Harold asked, "So what do we do?"
"The key is in India," Mike said. Looking over at the rest of the crew, he said, "I want a copy of that tape."
"Does Kim give you massages?" Cathy asked one night while they were out at dinner together.
"Yes," Mike answered wondering why she was suddenly asking about massages. He felt a little guilty about how they always ended, particularly now that he had a girlfriend. He had asked Kim not to end them as she did, but she ignored his requests saying that a massage was not complete until all sources of tension were relieved.
With a sinking feeling in her stomach, Cathy asked, "How often?"
"Maybe once a month or so," Mike answered.
"Is that all?" Cathy asked amazed that he wasn't getting one every night. If she were him, she'd be begging for a massage every chance she got.
"Yes," Mike answered. Seeing that she wanted more than one word answers to her questions, he said, "She gives me a massage when I've been particularly tense or there is some important event coming up. She does it only when she thinks that I should be relaxed. I don't ever ask her for one. She just decides that it is time."
"Oh," Cathy said staring down at her plate. She had a half of a tuna steak remaining on her plate but the fact was that she wasn't all that hungry.
"Is there something the matter?" Mike asked.
Licking her lips, Cathy said, "She gave me a massage the other day."
"Oh," Mike said. Curious, he asked, "How was it?"
"It was heavenly," Cathy answered staring at her plate. She counted the pieces of asparagus left on the plate trying to figure out how to say what was bothering her. Mike had started to take a sip of water when she added, "She gave me a happy ending."
Despite being very surprised by the admission, Mike didn't choke on his sip of water. He swallowed it feeling his heart pounding hard in his chest. Rather than admit that his massages ended the same way, he said, "I'm surprised to hear that. I didn't know that there was such a thing as a happy ending for women."
"Don't be so surprised," Cathy said looking at Mike. With a little ice in her voice, she asked, "Did you think that women couldn't come at the end of a massage just like a man?"
"I hadn't really thought about it," Mike answered not knowing what to say.
"Oh," Cathy said feeling awkward at her slight outburst of anger. She asked, "Why don't you get massages more often?"
"Um, I just don't feel comfortable asking for a massage. She is the one who insists on giving them to me. She has this voice she uses and I can't say no," Mike said.
Having experienced the voice, Cathy nodded her head and said, "I know what you mean about the voice."
"You've heard it?" Mike asked.
"At the end of the massage I kind of objected to the happy ending. She shut me down so fast it made my head spin," Cathy said. She looked over at him and asked, "Does she give you happy endings?"
There weren't too many ways to duck that specific of a question. He answered, "Yes, but it is very clinical on her part."
Having experienced it, she wouldn't have believed any other answer. Biting her lower lip, she asked, "Would you mind if she occasionally gave me a massage in the future?"
"No," Mike answered wondering if it was the answer she wanted to hear.
Feeling relieved, Cathy said, "Thank you."
"You're welcome," Mike said wondering if she was going to ask him not to get happy endings from Kim.
"Have you had any news about when we're moving to Texas?" Cathy asked changing the subject.
Confused by the sudden change in subject, Mike answered, "No."
Mike finished the report on the Pakistan/India situation. The two countries were not in his jurisdiction, a fact that irritated him. The terrorists were there and nothing was happening in his part of the world. His team had devastated the terrorist organizations operating in that area. Even the small but very active group in Thailand had been taken out at the Jamal bin Laden funeral. The government of Thailand had used the opportunity to round up the remaining suspected terrorists.
It had taken him forever to type up the report, but he had wanted full authorship of it. Using the mouse, he sent off the report. Sitting back, he sighed. He looked around the room and saw that everyone was just idly browsing the database looking for something that would require their attention.
When the situation status board started flashing, everyone looked up to see what was happening. The alert level shifted from the normal high level to the highest level in one jump. The message that China had just launched fourteen missiles appeared on the alert window. Everyone turned to their computer to get more information, but Mike said, "Hold on. Don't tax the system."
Totally freaked at the messages on the board, Charlie asked, "What's going on?"
"China has launched some missiles. Let the groups that are dealing with China do their jobs," Mike said watching the screen.
Another message saying that a missile had been destroyed showed up on the alert screen. Then another message to the same effect showed up. Mike watched as the first alert scrolled off the screen as more messages scrolled past stating that missiles were being destroyed. The last message said that all missiles launched had been destroyed.
"What's going on?" Jim asked staring at the board.
"All of the missiles that were launched were destroyed," Mike said stating the obvious. The messages had been military SITREP messages that came directly from military feeds rather than the civilian feeds.
"Less than thirty seconds passed between the first and last message," Charlie said. He wondered if they hadn't watched some sort of glitch in the software.
"That's about right," Mike said. He looked over at the news service noting that there wasn't anything on the news about the launch.
"Do you know what is going on?" Shirley asked looking over at Mike.
Mike didn't like being put on the spot like that. He answered, "This is speculation, but it would appear that China is following through on their declaration of war and has launched some missiles towards us. Either they changed their minds or we destroyed them."
The entire room waited to see what happened next. A message appeared that Russia had gone on high alert. It was obvious that they had observed the launch and subsequent destruction of the missiles. A few minutes later, England, Australia, and Germany went on high alert as well. Mike watched as more nations changed their readiness status.
Shaking her head, Shirley said, "The whole world is watching this. I wonder who they are rooting for."
Thirty minutes passed before there was another message announcing that twenty-eight missiles had been launched. As had happened earlier, messages announcing the destruction of the missiles scrolled past too fast to read. Watching the messages scroll past, Mike realized who was redirecting the messages to his location. He smiled at the thought that Sanjay was sharing the information with him.
Noticing that Jim was picking up a phone, Mike said, "I wouldn't call any of the other locations. I doubt they are seeing what we are watching."
Jim looked over at Mike and asked, "Are you telling me that we're the only ones seeing this?"
"Us and the China bureau," Mike answered with a short nod of his head.
"Why us?"
"Well, I'm pretty sure that it is because of my position in Homeland Security," Mike answered dodging the question.
"Oh," Shirley said looking at Mike puzzled. There was probably a lot more to the story than Mike was telling them. She knew that further questions would go unanswered.
The message that all of the missiles had been destroyed showed up on the screen. The alert level was still at Red. A new alert message showed up that said that the red alert level was due to the launch of missiles by China, but that all missiles had been destroyed. Mike said, "That's the general alert message that's been sent to all of the Homeland Security locations."
Charlie stared at the screen and said, "I've got to know what is going on there."
Mike said, "We don't want to overload the system. Let the China folks deal with it."
Shirley watched the situation board shaking her head. She said, "There's nothing on the news."
"I doubt that it will show up for quite a while," Mike said. He figured the news would leak out from Europe, probably as an attack on the reputation of the United States.
The afternoon passed very slowly. There were three more sets of missile launches. Everyone wondered about the American response to the launches, but there was no news about it. Mike looked down at his e-mail and noticed a message from Sanjay. Curious, he double-clicked on it. After reading it, he burst out laughing.
Curious, everyone turned to look at him. They didn't find anything funny about the situation. When he didn't say anything, every one turned to Cathy and gestured towards Mike with their heads. Getting the hint, Cathy asked, "What's so funny?"
Smiling, Mike looked around the room noticing that he was the center of attention. He said, "I just got an e-mail with a copy of President Archer's official response to the Chinese."
"What was it?"
"President Archer sent an e-mail to the Premier asking if he was having technical problems with his missiles," Mike answered. He looked up at the board and saw that there was an additional announcement of another round missile launches. He wondered how many more the Chinese had in their stockpile. He thought back to the discussion with the Admiral thinking that the man had clearly understated the effectiveness of the laser systems.
When the notice that all of the missiles had been destroyed appeared on the screen, he picked up the telephone and dialed Sanjay's number. When Sanjay answered, he said, "This is Mike. Thanks for including us in the feed."
"I thought you might want to know what was happening considering our discussion with the President," Sanjay said.
Mike could imagine Sanjay's head bobbling on the other end of the line. Smiling, he said, "I do appreciate it. I won't keep you from your work any longer."
"That's okay. We're doing nothing here except watching the action," Sanjay said. He was silent for a minute and then asked, "Are you up to going fishing this weekend?"
"I'd love to go fishing, but I'll have to ask Cathy," Mike answered unaware of the smirks on everyone's faces in the room. Cathy had the grace to blush.
Sanjay laughed and said, "Smart man."
Later that evening, Mike was alone at the Internet Café going through surveillance videos looking for terrorists. It had been months since he had found one and he was beginning to think that they had gotten them all. He pulled up the terrorist watch list and scanned the names on it. Selecting the most dangerous of them, he read the biography of the Abdul ibn Yuusuf in the hope that it would give him a clue as to where he might be hiding.
It was a very interesting story. The man had been raised in Israel in a Muslim section of Jerusalem. He had attended school with Jews and had graduated near the top of his class. He went on to study chemistry at Columbia University in New York City although he had lived in Jersey City, New Jersey. After graduation, he had gone to Casablanca, Morocco where he had worked with Saad al- Houssaini, also known as the Chemist. After reading what the man had done with his chemical knowledge, Mike said, "You're a dangerous bastard."
Mike studied the pictures of the man trying to imagine how he could change his appearance to escape notice. An idea came to him and he scrolled up through the biography to reread a section of it. Shaking his head, he said, "He wouldn't. He would."
Mike, with his two-fingered typing, entered the command to identify the surveillance cameras in the Williamsburg district of Brooklyn. He tapped into the archived tapes and ran the face recognition program. It took an hour and a half, but there was a match for Abdul ibn Yuusuf with a high confidence level. Mike pulled up the section of video and stared at the man walking down the street. Sitting back in his chair, he said, "You sneaky bastard. You moved into a Jewish neighborhood where your Semitic features would allow you to pass as Jewish."
Mike picked up the phone and dialed the Chief of Police. When the phone was answered, he said, "This is Mike Bowman from Homeland Security. I need to speak to the Chief of Police."
"Let me get him, sir," the woman replied.
Mike could hear her say, "Chief, it's the Hunter. It sounds like he found another one."
When the Chief picked up the phone, Mike asked, "Why did she call me the Hunter?"
"Dr. Bowman, you have a reputation for finding the worst of the worst. At the National Conference of Mayors and Police Chiefs, one of the speakers referred to you as the Hunter. It describes you very well," the man answered, "Did you find another one?"
"Yes, I did and you're not going to believe where he is hiding," Mike answered rather surprised by the reputation that he had acquired.
The world held its collective breath waiting for the response by the United States to the attack by China. After twenty-four hours passed without a reaction from the country, the tension in diplomatic circles had reached very high levels. After forty-eight hours, the governments of quite a few countries were really sweating in the belief that the American response was going to be massive since it took so long for it to act.
It took China thirty hours to admit to the powerbrokers in the Middle East that they had failed. It took less than an hour for news of the failure to echo throughout the Middle East. This was another setback in the Jihad against America. There had been a long line of failures ever since President Archer had stepped into office and this was clearly the worst. For a radical element that thought Allah was on its side, this was a major blow.
Inside the halls of government in China, there was absolute chaos. The Premier was furious at the failure of the missiles to reach their targets. He had used the entire powerbase of the Communist Party to push through the attack knowing that if the oil supply stopped that it would be the Communist Party that fell rather than the State Government of China.
It took the news services almost a hundred hours to learn that something of significance had occurred, but no one truly knew any of the details of what had happened. The reports suggested that somewhere between one and a hundred missiles had been launched. The explanations as to why the missiles had not reached the United States varied from a last minute send of a self-destruct code, a technical problem, and a missile defense system.
Despite repeated questions about the incident by the press, President Archer only gave a crooked little smiled and said, "We are still considering our response."
The interesting aspect of the entire episode was that little smile sent chills down the spines of world leaders everywhere. With everyone fully convinced that President Archer bordered on psychotic, that smile was interpreted as a direct threat. With visions of a nuclear winter settling over the globe, the President of China had the Premier arrested while trying to figure out what could be done to appease the United States.
The President of China decided that the one thing he could do was to take care of the North Korean situation. The Communist Party members had not wanted to remove a loyal Communist from power there and had done everything in their power to prevent a real resolution to the tensions between North Korea and the United States. He did not know that was exactly what the analysts in the China Section of Homeland Security had predicted he would do. The President of the United States wasn't going to say a word to China until North Korea had a different leader.
Feeling in the mood for an ice cream sundae, Mike called over to Kim, "I'm thinking of going out for an ice cream. Are you interested in coming with me?"
If there was one thing in the world that Kim Sung loved, it was ice cream. She was at the door in flash saying, "I'm ready to go."
Mike chuckled and said, "All right."
The pair of them went out to the car. It was still light out and people were outside taking advantage of the cooling temperatures. While Mike drove down the street, Kim looked around at the neighbors. Puzzled, she said, "There are a lot of women who are not wearing their tops."
"Yes. I've noticed that," Mike said.
"Why?"
"They are telling the terrorists that they aren't afraid of them," Mike said.
Kim was silent for a minute. They passed a topless woman who had to be eighty years old. She stared at the woman and said, "That is a very old woman. She is older than me."
"Yes, she is," Mike said glancing in the direction that Kim was looking.
They arrived at the ice cream parlor. It was a little store on the corner of a strip mall. There were two tables inside, but most people stood around outside eating their cones. There was a small crowd outside and a long line inside. Many of the women were standing around topless. Mike looked at them and said, "I'm sorry. Would you rather go somewhere else?"
"Why?"
"I'm sure there's a place where people are wearing clothes," Mike said.
"Bah. I'm old woman. They have nothing I haven't seen thousands of
times," Kim said. She looked at the ice cream store and said, "I want
to try Rocky Road this time."