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“Yes, ma’am. Set up, monitored, and tested. Apparently, it’s like a whole control center there. You weren’t planning on entertaining soon, were you?”
She smiled back at him. “No, I guess I’m going to be making pies and sandwiches for some hungry, hunky guys with tats and attitude.”
“They better not, at least not around you. You let me know if anyone gets out of line.”
“Oh, wow. You wouldn’t be jealous, would you?”
“Just making sure they have the fear of God in them if they touch a hair on your body or make you feel uncomfortable. I’d be polite as could be their wives.”
He continued to work, now closing in on her ankles. He chuckled.
“What? Are they swollen?”
“Nothing wrong with your ankles, honey, although I wish I could do this to you all over. No, I was just thinking that this part is kind of fun really. You know we have all these gadgets now. We get to test out all kinds of cool stuff on the Teams. And Silver Team is no different. Paul Taylor and a couple of the other guys are real gadget nuts. They can devise things you and I have never even thought about before. He and Coop have contests making listening devices out of household appliances or kids’ toys. It’s like a ritual whenever they get together.”
“How’s Sally taking all of this, or have they said?”
Harper laughed. “You know, I actually think she likes it. I think she would’ve been a great CIA agent or State Department special agent. She loves the action. She really does. She doesn’t like to be pushed around. She’s not a bully, but she loves standing up to bullies.”
That seemed so like Sally. “She’s missed her calling.”
“Never too late to start. I think she’s having the time of her life.”
Lydia sat back, closing her eyes again and enjoying the massage.
“How do you like Patterson?” he asked.
“I can see why you trust him. He’s pretty levelheaded. Would’ve been nice to meet the president,” she said, leaning in his direction and stretching out her spine.
“Yeah, well, he’s pretty busy right now, but you’ll get a chance. Trust me.”
“So you worked with him before when you were on the Teams?”
“Who? Collins? No, never met him until this year.”
“No, Patterson.”
“Before he made admiral, yes. He did ground support work for us, helping us stage two or three really high-level raids involving two separate Teams and Special Operators from Delta Force, others too. He doesn’t much like the international force groups, but he’s a good egg. A good man to have on your side. And he’s levelheaded. He doesn’t run off half-cocked. Very calm under pressure. I’ve never seen him get flustered. We need cool heads to work on this stuff.”
“So this is all new then. They’re trying to set up this new team and figure out how they’re going to respond to things?”
“Well, it’s been something the SEAL Teams have known about for a long time. There’s always been talk amongst us in the Brotherhood that, if everything went to hell, we’d all jump in and do something. I mean, something other than try to, you know, run for a public office, which is an honorable way to attack some of the problems we have as a country and the leadership. But some of us, we can’t do that. We’re not ready to hang things up and quit fighting. That’s all we’ve been able to do up until now.”
“Now that you have Silver Team?”
“Yes, ma’am. An idea whose time has come, for sure. Gives us a chance, a fighting chance to combat some of these things. So now that we have to deal with all these threats coming in from all over, and it’s like our country is a vortex, sucking all the bad guys in and making things so unsafe. They’re coming from all over the world, just like Lipori said. You heard him on the tape I played you. He’s right.”
“They just walk right in.”
“It’s like taking candy from a baby. It’s about time we start realizing we need to protect our own first. Before we go out there spilling our treasure elsewhere. Not that defending our allies and the innocents all over the world isn’t still a good idea! What’s different now is that we’re actually making it a mission to keep the homeland safe other than just rules and regulations. Only good citizens follow rules. The bad actors don’t give a darn. Rules were made for the good guys. We’re here for the bad guys.”
“I’m all for it. I think it’s smart.”
“I want to caution you about one thing, though, Lydia. It’s still not official. I mean, we have the charter and everything, but the public doesn’t know about this yet. Trust me, and in weeks to come, maybe months or a year or two, everybody’s gonna know about us. But for right now, we aren’t telling anybody except for those in the need to know. I think only people we absolutely know we can trust are in on this. And I’d like to keep it that way, for everybody’s safety. It’ll also make us more effective.”
“Kinda like when the SEAL Teams were created in the 1960s, right?”
“Yup. They even named the first SEAL Team number 10 because they wanted the Russians to think there were nine other teams already formed. Wanted to make them think that they were behind the times. It was kind of an interesting strategy, don’t you think?”
