Chapter 9
CHAPTER 9
“Enter,” Alex replied to the knock on his office door and looked up expectantly as Wes walked in.
“Sir, I’m on the travel desk this morning and we’re tracking a Navy Lieutenant Jeff Arwood and a JT Chambers expected to arrive at this office this evening. You’re designated the point of contact. There’s a situation you need to be informed about.”
Oh, fuck. Alex glanced at his watch. They should be in the air. Did they miss their flight? He mentally shrugged. We’ll get them on the next one. He chastised himself for double guessing. Any number of things could have gone wrong. They had thrown this plan together without enough information. He knew better than to do that.
“What’s the situation?”
“O’Hare airport is closing around fifteen hundred hours due to a snowstorm. The two will be able to land in Chicago, but the seventeen hundred hours flight to Washington has been canceled. I’ve already checked with our executive jet service, and they will not be taking off either. The storm is expected to pass by zero one hundred hours and O’Hare anticipates resuming flights by zero six hundred. I can get them both on our executive jet service’s flight at ten hundred hours tomorrow. The record doesn’t indicate their security status, so I haven’t booked hotel rooms for them.”
Damn. Alex hadn’t considered a security level for this personal operation. Since JT would soon be his son, he should have the same security as baby Riccardo; level one. He didn’t believe that anyone would know about his soon-to-be relationship with JT, but Alex was always shocked at how much intelligence bad guys could decipher. Nothing had been labeled top secret so every phone call between the navy lieutenant and Commander John Carson as well as to and from Alex was in the public domain. Then there was the social services woman. Fuck. His and Katlin’s names may already be in Kansas public records directly affiliated with JT. He’d get Brett, his computer geek extraordinaire, on that right away.
Wes stood eagerly in front of Alex’s large oak desk.
“Security level one.” That was the highest level they had at Guardian Security.
Wes’s eyebrows winged up.
Alex knew he should explain. “The lieutenant is escorting my soon-to-be…” Alex didn’t know what to call JT. He finally decided on “adopted son.” He quickly corrected himself because he knew formal adoption could take months, “My foster son.” That didn’t sound right either.
Wes smiled. “I had no idea you were considering fostering. Jeannie and I have fostered several children since leaving the Air Force.” He paused for a moment before asking, “Sir, do you mind me asking where you went through your fostering classes? The State of Virginia can be a real bitch kitty if you didn’t take them here.”
Alex knew he looked like a deer in headlights. “I didn’t know we had to have special classes to foster a child.”
“Yes.” Wes pointed to the leather visitor seat, asking permission. With a nod from Alex, he sat down. “They want you to be prepared. In this area, you never know what you’re going to get. There are so many babies that are born to addicted mothers. If you’re getting an older child, many of them have been abused either by their parents or by previous foster parents.” He shook his head. “It’s a sad situation and can tear even a solid marriage apart.”
Alex shrugged that off and added, “This is a very unique situation.” How much to say? These men gossiped like high school girls, but he’d learned to get the truth out there before rampant lies escalated. “My best friend was killed in combat several years ago and we’ve just discovered that he wanted me to raise his son if his baby mama died of the cancer she was fighting.”
Wes let out a long sigh. “I’m so sorry for your loss, sir.”
“It seems like a lifetime ago.” And wasn’t that the truth. So much had happened to him since Ty’s death. He’d resigned his commission from the Marine Corps, created Guardian Security, discovered that Katlin was his silent partner, all the shit with Jack Ashford right up to the moment that both he and Katlin shot the fucker killing him, Kat’s pregnancy, and their precious baby boy.
And now they would have another son.
“If I may ask, did the mother pass away recently?”
“No.” At least Alex didn’t think so.
“So,” Wes hesitated. “Has the child been with a relative or in foster care?”
“He’s been in foster care system for at least a couple years.” If Alex’s information was correct.
“So, it wasn’t in the mother’s will for the child to go to you?”
Alex could see where Wes was going with this line of questioning. “I don’t know if she even knew of Tyler’s wishes for his son. They weren’t married.” Because Ty was married to Katlin at the time. “Now she’s my wife.” Sir Walter Scott was correct when he wrote, “ Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive .” He wondered if the letters Ty had written before his death could be considered his last will and testament. He’d have to retrieve all those letters to strengthen his court case, because it was obvious this was not going to be cut and dry.
Wes stood. “I have no idea how the state will handle this, but please know that I’m here if you need an insider’s information about the fostering system. Returning to our original subject, I’ll change the status to level one security. May I suggest that instead of putting the lieutenant and,” Wes smiled, “your new son, JT, into a hotel with a security detail, that we have them met at the airport with a car and a detail and take them to the Guardian Security Center in Chicago. There is no place more secure.”
“Excellent idea.” Alex nodded. “I’ll personally call Steve and get him working on the arrangements for today and tonight. You handle getting them here to Washington tomorrow.”
“I’m on it,” Wes said as he exited Alex’s office.
His phone call to Steve, his Chicago Center manager, was fast and easy. Alex was surprised at how comfortable he was telling his friend about the situation with JT. He wasn’t sure how his next call would go.
“Well, hello, love of my life. I didn’t expect to hear from you for a few hours yet.” Katlin paused. “Did they miss their plane?”
Alex could hear the disappointment in her voice. “No, but they’re going to miss the next one. O’Hare is getting slammed with a snowstorm and shutting down within an hour after they arrive. I’m so sorry. It looks like we won’t get to meet our new son until tomorrow.”
“I heard about O’Hare. We have people stuck in Chicago as well. Have you found a hotel room for them yet? My guys are having a hard time finding rooms.”
Alex smiled inwardly at the good men who worked for him. “I’m having a detail meet them at the airport and take them directly to the Chicago Center. Steve is preparing an apartment for them as I speak. We’ve got them on the executive jet service flying out tomorrow morning.”
“That works out better for me anyway. Hang on.” She spouted orders to someone. If the background noise was any indication, she was in a very crowded room. Most likely she was in the operations center, the hub of her job overseeing hundreds of missions undertaken by Homeland Security. “I’ve got a real shit show going down in Israel at the moment and I’m not comfortable turning it over to my number two. But I’ve got a minute to talk to you.”
The background noise died as he heard a door close. “Okay, I’m in my office. I could tell by your voice something else is wrong.”
Damn. He thought he’d hidden his feelings. He let out a long slow breath. “I think I’m going to do a deep dive into JT’s recent past. Did you know that Jeannie and Wes are foster parents? He’s on the travel desk today and brought up several questions that I couldn’t answer.”
“Do that and share the highlights with me on our drive home,” she ordered as though he worked for her. He smiled. He was used to it. Fortunately, she often took orders from him. “Oh, before I forget, we need to stop at the grocery store and pick up the food I ordered. I just heard from Black Swan team two. They’re all coming to brunch on Christmas morning.”
He could hear the excitement in her voice.
“Most of them have to take off around noon and catch a plane. Once they heard we were starting the brunch buffet at nine they all decided they could make it.”
“That’s great. All the Ladies together again in one place.” Alex mentally reminded himself to check out today’s deliveries. Black Swan team one, their spouses, fiancés, significant others, and children were all spending the night in the huge house on the expansive estate he and Katlin had purchased just three months ago. As a kid growing up on the bad side of D.C., he’d never seen a place as big as the one they now owned. He had horses! As a child growing up in the city, he’d certainly not considered owning farm animals. Now, he and Katlin enjoyed riding around their estate in the evening.
“We need to buy JT a pony,” Alex blurted out.
“What a great idea,” she said with glee. “He can go riding with us. Do you think we can get one by tomorrow?”
Alex laughed. “You could probably make that happen, but I think he’s going to have enough strange and new things to get used to before we throw in ponies and barn chores. But speaking of Christmas, I saw you online last night ordering more stuff.”
“I want him to have gifts under the tree. He needs to feel welcome into our big, huge family.” Her voice was almost pleading. “You won’t believe how many gifts Daniel and Nita are bringing over for their two children.”
“Are you ready for this, Kat?” Alex felt he needed to clarify. “Not Christmas. I mean JT. We haven’t had much time to talk about it.” Now might not be the right time, but Alex was going to talk about the elephant in the room, or in this case, on the phone. Wes’s warning about damaged foster children continued to bounce around the back of his brain. “We talked about it a little bit in bed last night, but you never said how you truly feel about raising Ty’s son. What if he’s a little shit?”
“Then we get the help we need. We learn how to help him, and he works his way through whatever is troubling him.” It was her turn to inhale and let out a long slow breath. “Like Uncle Francis said, every child is a gift from God, and he has seen fit to give us JT. There’s a reason God brought him to us at this time. Whether it’s for him, for us, or maybe it’s even for Riccardo to have a big brother, I don’t know. But through the grace of God, I’m going to be the best mother I can be to both our boys and any other children we have. Oh, yeah, and the best stepmother to Jenny. By the way, I talked with Grace today. She and Griffin caught an earlier flight so they will be here tomorrow night with Jenny.”
“JT is going to meet a lot of people tomorrow.” Alex hoped tomorrow wasn’t going to be too overwhelming for everybody.
“Oh, fuck,” Katlin said under her breath. “I’ve got to go. Fucking Hamas. I love you. Tell me everything you found out about JT tonight on the way home.” The line went dead.