Agents and Angels Ch. 03

Now, as lunch was finishing up, Katherine Woodburn took to the podium. "Our first speaker today," she said, "is a woman who has shattered glass ceiling after glass ceiling to to become a Captain in the Town & County Police Force. She has earned the TCPD's Medal of Valor, Distinguished Service Award, and two Purple Orders for being wounded in the line of duty. Please join me in welcoming Captain Cindy Ross!"

Applause was strong as Cindy took to the podium. She was wearing civilian clothes, and no medals or insignia to reveal that she was a Police Officer. Only a certain bulkiness about her betrayed the fact that she was wearing light armor under her blouse and jacket, and the jacket itself was lined with a thin layer of fabric armor.

"Thank you." Cindy said. "I am honored to be here today to talk with you..."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

At the Cabin, Teresa Croyle and I were watching the Symposium, which was being broadcast on Public Access television by KXTC cameras.

"You really like watching this stuff?" Teresa said, sounding a bit bored as she petted Buddy, who was in her lap.

"It's not 'The Flash'," I said, "but at least I'm not watching 'Barney' cartoons... for the... one... hundred... thousandth... time..." Teresa tried not to laugh, and failed. Buddy looked up to see what that strange sound was, having heard it so rarely...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"And now Captain Ross will take questions." said Katherine Woodburn.

"Captain," asked one woman in the middle of the room, "how will you break through the remaining glass ceilings, to truly reach the top of the Police Force?"

"Well," said Cindy, "I can always run for Sheriff." There was polite laughter, though some were taking her seriously. Cindy went on: "I do need to say that I'm very happy where I am within the TCPD. I don't aspire to be Chief of Police just because I'm a woman. And I'll tell you now... he may be a man, but there is no man nor woman to equal Commander Don Troy in his current position. He belongs there, he was born to be there, and I have no aspirations to that position while he occupies it."

"Captain," said another woman, State Rep. Marsha Collins (R) of Eastphalia, "you said in your remarks that you believe men and women must work together for everyone to achieve, regardless of gender. Are you saying that women's achievement is in the hands of and at the mercy of men?"

"No, not at all." Cindy said. "What I was saying is that in most professions, women are working with men, and more will be achieved by cooperation and mutual understanding than by playing the 'gender card'. I'm saying there's nothing wrong with rising through merit and achievement, nor working for or with men that will promote a woman based upon merit."

"What would you have done if a man had tried to hold you back for being a woman?" asked a woman in the back of the room.

Cindy held up the green crowbar. "I'd have kick his ass." There was some laughter at that. "Seriously," Cindy went on, "there are men out there that will do that. My point was that there are a lot of men that will not, that are not holding women back for being women, and some women are making the mistake of throwing out the baby with the bath water and accusing those good men of the same things they're accusing the bad men of. I'm saying to choose your spots. I've been blessed to work for some very great men, Chief Griswold, Chief Moynahan, and Commander Troy. And woman or not, I'll say right now that I appreciate all they've taught me and done for me."

Katherine gave Cindy the sign that it was time to move on. Cindy said "And now it is my pleasure and honor to introduce to you a man that needs no introduction. Whatever your political viewpoints, it is only right that we hear from the man who is guiding our State's political course. Please welcome Governor Val Jared."

The applause was polite, but not very strong. Some of it may have been Cindy's rather controversial remarks that men weren't the most evil things on earth. Some of it may have been that they'd been told by the Press to hate Val Jared, so they hated him.

Governor Jared stood up and was shaking hands with Cindy. The 'vibe' hit her, and hard. She turned to look, and saw within the Press Corps in the back of the room two men raising black objects. They were not cameras.

"GUN!" yelled Cindy. She grabbed Jared in a bear hug and began tackling him to the floor.

*POW!* *POW!* *POW!* *POW!* *POW!**POW!*

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"Holy fuck!" I almost screamed out as I saw what was happening on the television screen. Two men were raking the podium and front table with pistol fire. Cindy had tackled Jared, but I couldn't tell if she'd done so in time. And my wife Laura had also been seated at that table...

"Stay here! Watch the kids!" I ordered Teresa. I flew out of the room, got my gunbelt and badge out of my office room (locked, what with all the kids running around), and hurtled out the front door to my Police SUV...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

When I got to the Lakeside Inn & Suites, I was admitted by NCPD Captain Paul Price. Red crowbar in hand, I rushed into the hotel and down the hallway. It was absolute chaos, people running back and forth, Press all over the place, Police and medics coming in.

Every LEO knew who I was, and they did not bar my progress as I went into the room. My first observation caused me great relief: my wife Laura was okay. She was attending a young woman who had been shot and was lying on the floor. Katherine Woodburn was nearby, sobbing.

"Who is that?" I asked Katherine as I came up to them.

"That's Queenie, that's what we call her. She's the Queen of Opposition Research on my staff." said Katherine, between sobs.

Laura was giving commands to a medic that came up, her hands covered with blood. "Sucking chest wound. Keep this over it, and pressed down, all the way to the Hospital." The medics evacuated Queenie out the door to the back kitchen areas, and a moment later I heard the sirens of an ambulance headed to University Hospital.

"You okay?" I asked Laura as she finally recognized me. Must've been the red crowbar that gave my identity away. Must be a bad time to think sick jokes like that, I then thought to myself.

"I'm fine." Laura said, not sounding all that 'fine'.

"She saved my life." said Katherine. "She tackled me when those bastards began shooting."

My wife had spent most of her life in the service of the Central Intelligence Agency, many times in foreign lands on spy missions. She all but had eyes in the back of her head, and was always aware of the tactical situation in a room... which also came in handy with two children and two dogs in her household.

She'd seen the movement of the perps, and almost beyond conscious effort had realized what was happening. She instinctively had lunged to tackle Katherine to the ground as bullets began flying over their heads.

"The Governor is okay." said Police Chief Molly Evans, coming up to me. "Your Captain of Detectives tackled him, saving his life."

"Where is she?" I asked, looking around. Then I saw her, in the back of the room. A bullet had glanced off the armor under her clothing, just under her shoulder. An inch higher and it might've gotten under it and to her armpit, like Teresa had suffered in the pit at Ward Harvester. (Author's note: 'A Tiny Slip', Ch. 01.) As it was, it embedded in the cloth, going six inches within the layers just above her deltoid.

Lucky. Lucky Green Crowbar.

I went up to her. "She's okay, sir." said the medic checking her.

"Well," I said, "you did duck." Cindy nodded, saying nothing, also looking a bit dazed, as if her near-miss was just now mentally catching up to her.

I turned and saw LEOs examining the front table. What most people didn't and don't know is that a plate of plexiglass was fastened to the table, hidden by the tablecloth, acting as a bulletproof shield in case bullets start flying. Today, they were flying. Several impacted the plexiglass. None got through.

I went up to Molly, who was in the center of the room, giving instructions. When she was done, she turned to me and said "Consider your help asked for by the NCPD."

"Delighted to be of service." I replied. "What happened?"

"Two bastards began shooting from the back, among the Press Corps." Molly said. "They had on suits and ties and fake Press badges. My guys TASERed the perps from behind, and we've got them in custody now. No ID on them yet; fingerprints came back negative."

"Interesting." I said. "How's the Governor?"

"Alive and well, thanks to my baby sister." Molly said, with some fire in her voice. She did not like her sister having been shot at. "They rushed him out of here through the back hallway. He's probably halfway back to Midtown by now."

NCPD Detective German came up to me. "Sir, do these guys look familiar?" He showed me pictures of the arrested perps he'd taken with his Police iPhone. I examined the photos. They were white men, both medium height, one with dark brown hair, the other with lighter brown hair. They looked like they could blend into any crowd and not be noticed.

"I can't recall seeing them before." I said. "Send those pics to the TCPD, and I'll have the FBI run the faces through their facial recognition software and see if a match comes up." German sent the photos, and I called Jerome Davis and asked him to handle the identification process.

Police were now processing everyone, getting their stories. They were all the same... shooting started from the back, everyone hit the floor, bullets flew overhead. Only Queenie was hit, square in the middle of her chest. She'd been off to the side of the room, ready to relay messages to or from Senator Woodburn. She'd turned when the gunfire began, and one bullet came straight her way.

"Hmmmm," I said as I began looking everything. "So all the bullets flew forward, at the front table, at the Governor, except for this one bullet. What does that suggest to you, Detective German?"

Katherine Woodburn was still where she had been while watching Laura work to save Queenie. Laura had washed her hands in a large bowl of warm water that the restaurant staff had brought her, and was coming up to me now.

"Wha?..." Katherine gasped. "Commander, are you saying that Queenie was shot on purpose?"

"Oh my God." said German. "But... why?"

"That's what we have to find out." I said. "But yes, Senator. Only one bullet went anywhere but at the Governor's table... and hit Queenie square in the chest. So yes, I have to entertain the idea that it was deliberate, and she was targeted..."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

After her statement was taken, Senator Katherine Woodburn was allowed to leave and go to University Hospital. She and staff and security occupied the waiting room and hallways of the trauma room floor.

"They rushed her into surgery." said Priya Ajmani, who'd rushed to the hospital herself as other reporters covered the story in Nextdoor County. "We've had no word on her condition, other than it's grave."

An half hour later, Dr. Morgan came out of operating room area into the hallway. Katherine was at the Nurse's Station and saw him down the hallway... not walking. Finally, he began walking slowly down the hallway, which is the worst thing one can see when a doctor comes out of emergency surgery.

"Doctor?" Katherine said, her voice wavering. "Doctor?"

"I'm sorry, Ms. Woodburn." said Dr. Morgan. "We did all we could. But there was too much damage to her heart and major blood vessels. I'm sorry; she's gone..."

Part 15 - Crowbar Saturday Night

It was a somber Saturday night at the Cabin. When Cindy had come in, Carole looked up at her and said "Are you o-kay, Aunt Cindy?"

Cindy picked Carole up and said "I'm just fine, sweetie. Just fine." Carole replied by giving Cindy a big hug.

"Learning how to duck is becoming a too-common thing around here." said Teresa as she gave Cindy a hug herself. Cindy smiled wanly and nodded.

Laura got a hug from Carole, too. And no one had said anything in front of the kids about Laura's escape from death, but when she sat down in the greatroom, Bowser bounded up to her and looked up at her with the same 'Are you o-kay?' look that Carole had given Cindy. Laura patted her thighs and Bowser jumped up onto her lap and allowed some dog-petting therapy to occur. Good psychology for the psychologist.

Chief Griswold had arrived, along with his wife, having been invited over for supper. As all the women talked and took turns petting the dogs, the Chief and I went onto the deck outside, oblivious of the cold.

"I talked to Val a couple of hours ago." said Griswold. "He's grateful to Cindy, and he's glad your wife is okay. He's pissed about the assassination attempt, and at the security failures."

"I don't blame him." I said. "According to hotel camera footage, the perps apparently had hidden guns in the kitchen areas some time before today, but the guns weren't found. They secured them on their persons after the security checks of all people, then they melded into the Press. No one really remembers seeing them before the shooting began. None of the Press people knew them, and all of them said they thought they must be new reporters."

"Have things really come to the point where they are trying to murder Val Jared?" asked the Chief, mostly to himself. "Really?"

"Something's off about all this." I said, watching the logs burning in the fire pot. "And why kill Queenie? She was a real bitch, but why was she targeted? Did she find something out she wasn't supposed to know?"

"I doubt it." said the Chief. "Or Katherine Woodburn would be dead, too. Or maybe she was the target? Not Val?"

"Cindy has a bullet lodged in her armor to testify that it was Jared they were going for." I said. "Katherine was lucky; Laura tackled her quickly. And the NCPD did very well; they had the perps TASERed from behind almost immediately."

My cellphone rang. "This is Julius Jefferson, Commander." said the FBI Agent when I answered. "We just got I.D. hits for your perps. Crenshaw recognized them as being part of the Mob out of Southport, and we ran them through the computers for that, and got something. They may have worked for Jerry Morelli. Minor guys, and not known to be hit men or hired killers."

"With Morelli in prison, who is commanding his people?" I asked. Jefferson asked me to hold on, and a minute later Ted Crenshaw got on the line. I asked him the same question.

"Commander," he said, "these guys have been drifting around since you busted Morelli." (Author's note: 'Film Noir'.) "They were probably not trusted enough to be picked up by Orrin B. Taggert, but Richard Langdon is one possibility. There's also a Hispanic guy named Valdez that's been gaining some power in Southport; he's in league with the Domingo Shipping guy you busted up. He might've hired these guys to kill Jared over the Immigration issues."

"Ted," I said, "I've got a feeling that we need to look in a different direction. The usual suspects: Samuel Russell, Graham Collins, Wilson Hammonds."

"I'll start checking," said Crenshaw, "but why do you suspect them, beyond the obvious reasons they hate Jared?"

"Because of the one person who was killed." I replied. "She was a Democrat staffer. I'll fill you in on it later. By the way, how's Muscone doing?"

"He's okay." said Crenshaw. "Martin Nash and Sandra Speer are helping him and his kids with everything. We're watching out for Red Brooke, and we put him on the Top Ten Most Wanted list. We'll get him."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"Yes, I could tell she didn't have a chance." Laura said as most of us adults had nightcaps before bedtime. Todd, Teresa, Cindy and Callie were already pretty buzzed, as was Chief Griswold. Laura wasn't there yet, but was working on a stiff drink. I was thinking about her working on my stiff cock as I sipped my drink.

"How can you tell?" asked Todd. "I mean... as a doctor. Sorry, but I have a morbid fascination for things like that."

"Like uncle, like nephew." said Cindy.

"What did happen?" I asked. Yeah, I was morbidly fascinated, too.

Laura said "She was already in deep shock when I got to her. Sucking chest wound, which if not immediately treated, would prevent her from breathing. But there was already a lot of blood, and her eyes were dilated and fixed. I did what I could, but Dr. Morgan said the damage to her heart and blood vessels to her lungs were just too much... the shock wave of the bullet pretty much turned them to jelly."

"O-kay." said Mrs. Griswold. "I think I know why I didn't go into Medicine. I appreciate your ability to do that, Doctor Fredricson, and to help others, but I'm just too squeamish for this. I don't even like it when Grizz guts the fish he catches."

So we all went to bed. The Chief and his wife were staying in the third bedroom, Maggie and Phyllis were staying upstairs with all the kids, and Cindy, Callie, Teresa and Todd were in the basement room... acting themselves not unlike kids at a slumber party.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Cindy and Teresa were sitting up on their mattresses, side by side, drinking their mixed drinks, and watching what had unfolded before them.

It seemed that a very buzzed Callie Carrington and a very buzzed Todd Burke had begun flirting, then messing around. When no objection came from their significant others, who were talking amongst themselves, Callie's hands began exploring Todd's groin... and the massive sausage between his legs.

"Mmmm, what do we have here?" Callie had cooed as Todd had helped her get his pants down and off. He lay back on his futon as Callie began stroking his cock to throbbing hardness, and it was soon at its enormous ten-inch length.

Then he groaned as Callie began kissing and licking her way up and down his long, thick cockshaft as her hand gently jacked the base. Finally, beautiful blonde slowly licked the tip of her tongue up the shaft to the fat cockhead atop it, circled the helmeted head a couple of times... and then engulfed his meat as her full lips slid down over him and down his length.

"Uhhhh!" Todd gasped as almost all of his cock was engulfed in Callie's hot sucking mouth and throat. Cindy and Teresa saw the top of Callie's head bobbing as she fellated Todd, vigorously sucking him. Todd moaned again, and the other women realized that the lovely blonde porn star was sucking voraciously as she took him into her throat, the suction causing sensations in his huge shaft like nothing else could do.

"It looks like your fiancée is sucking my fiancé's big cock." whispered Teresa to Cindy.

"She really can suck a golf ball through a garden hose." Cindy replied, making a brief giggling sound before drinking some more of her drink. If Todd or Callie heard anything they didn't show it.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Meanwhile, I was in the place I loved to be most: on top of my naked wife, her legs pulled back and wrapped around my back, the heels of her elegant, shapely feet pressing into my asscheeks and upper thighs, her arms around my neck and shoulders. My tongue was probing deeply into Laura's mouth as my throbbing, iron-hard cock was slowly sliding in and out of her sopping wet cunt.

"Oh yeah, that's good." Laura gasped as I grinded my loins into hers, balls-deep in pleasure. "Yeah, fuck me just like that... slow and deep... oh, yeah..." I slid my hands down her sides and under her asscheeks. Gripping those magnificent globes and kneading them in my hands, I began pulling her into me as pumped her with slow, short strokes, keeping my throbbing, iron-hard cock mostly sheathed in her pussy's wet heat...