Last Spy Standing – part 1. by Pauline

I have to say a big thank you to Helen for her input.

What was it about warm summer days in Santa Barbara that made for self-examination, he wondered? Maybe it was the golden spears of light shooting down from the clouds forming and then rolling in over the Pacific, the fat, water-laden clouds flattening themselves above the water as hot California winds were forced upwards over the ocean, causing that beautiful, radiant glow that never ceased to amaze those that lived near, and upon, the sea. At the Nelson Institute of Marine Research, the admiral’s living quarters/office took full advantage of their unobstructed ocean-front view. One couldn’t help but feel calm and collected, in a place like this. It reminded him of days on the boat in the middle of that ocean, when they weren’t really in a hurry to get anywhere; when standing topside was a delight, when the sea was almost flat, when, he could swear, he saw a mermaid head or two pop up.

Get hold of yourself, Crane, it’s only a BBQ, he laughed to himself.

But it was a day when cares melted away, where if one -- or more -- of your best friends asked for your latest “sea story,” you’d give ‘em a good one. So, he’d would pass along one, or two, or three.

He’d had a scare at the beginning of the week, in the middle of another ONI assignment that had taken him away from the Institute, away from Seaview. Where he could tick off his Reserve duties at the same time. A win-win situation. So, when the time came during a stand-down while the boat underwent a yearly inspection by the NRC; even nuclear submarines had to be certified “safe;” he’d taken advantage of the chance to do something different for a change. And fulfil the ONI assignment at the same time. Who know that the gas in a smoke grenade would set off his crazy system? No one could have anticipated that.

Now that everything was over and he was back at NIMR, Admiral Nelson had invited his CO and XO for a barbecue at his home on base. And the drinks cooler was full, too. Well, it had been when they started the day. They’d been there for a while now. It was almost chow time.

“You’ve got to understand this is all hearsay, what the guy told the ONI agents after he’d been arrested. But he’d no reason to lie; they had ‘em dead to rights by what I’d told them, and he knew it. So, settle in, me hearties, and let me tell you a tale of a disgruntled lieutenant with big plans, a lieutenant commander who zigged when he shoulda zagged, and a Narcotics Bureau agent that got way more than he bargained for.”

“Just a moment, Commander Crane!” Admiral Harriman Nelson, USN, (ret.) intoned in his best ‘I’m a four-star admiral and you’re not’ baritone voice.

“Sir!” Lee Crane, USNR had just begun to reach for the cooler where the alcoholic drinks were stored. Instead, he snapped to attention, heels together, toes out slightly, hands hanging straight down at his sides. Eyes forward. Never mind that he had on a pair of sandals, his Academy t-shirt and old workout shorts. He was in perfect formation.

“Is what you’re about to tell us going to be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?” He turned to the blonde man sitting in the lawn chair at his side, who was grinning for all he was worth, and indicated he needed another beer. Charles “Chip” Morton, executive officer of the Seaview, was happy to oblige. He reached into the cooler between the two of them and handed the admiral a beer, taking one for himself and keeping one in readiness for Lee. Nelson accepted it with a gracious nod, settled into his own lawn chair, and checked on the barbecue; the coals were coming along nicely, they’d be ready for the steaks soon -- and waited for his sub captain to answer.

“Uh, sir, yes, sir? Close enough for government work, sir?”

“Good enough for me, son. Carry on. Chip, give that man a drink.”

Lee accepted the bottle and thumped his rear and the rest of him on the picnic bench they’d set up next to the barbecue, so he could keep an eye on the coals. Any minute now, he reckoned.

“Okay, so the bad guy’s name was Mark Jensen. A two-striper. I found out later he had eyes way bigger than his stomach, lots of trips to Vegas, gambling, girls, you know the drill. Stuff that a lieutenant’s pay wasn’t good enough for. He’d found out he wasn’t going to get promoted, and wasn’t interested in trying for a second look, either. So, he was getting booted when his time was up. But our boy had a problem. There were some really bad guys wanting a whole bunch of money that he didn’t have. Perfect candidate for our comrades on the other side to get in touch. And get in touch they did. It’s easy, when you know how.” Lee took a swig out of his bottle. “So, when word got out that it was possible that the Poseidon SSBN project was in danger of being compromised, well, it wasn’t hard to figure out who might be responsible. ONI had been watching him for months. And who just happened to need to fulfil some reserve duty and was on ONI’s payroll at the same time?” Lee pointed a thumb at himself. “This guy.”

Chip swivelled his head over to Admiral Nelson. “Is a prerequisite of ONI training that you become a hammy actor?”

Nelson spoke out of the side of his mouth. “I believe it’s the first starred point on the list.”

“Explains everything, then, sir.”

“Do you want to hear this story, or not?”

Nelson waved a desultory hand. “Carry on.”

Lee settled back, stretched his long legs out and started up again.

“Well, you know that I’d been detailed to Long Beach for a couple of months, called back to the regular Navy to serve on an advisory board working on the Poseidon SSBNs.  It was all very above board. There was no secret to the assignment; I’d welcomed the task, eager to cover my drill time and learn more about this latest addition to the Navy’s complement of ships. What I’d hadn’t counted on is what ONI had uncovered: someone in the office was suspected of selling information. And lucky for them, they had an ONI agent on site to found out who it was.

“Okay, so Jenson had waited for everyone to hit the beach, and leave they did, it being Friday. First, let me let you know that the Navy “big wigs” had thought they’d be clever, putting the headquarters for the project in a nondescript building in the Long Beach Naval Shipyard rather than a regular office, making sure that the military personnel working there ditched their uniforms for civvies, taking extra security precautions, checking and double-checking everything. What they hadn’t counted on is one civilian scientist who didn’t bother to secure highly classified documents as well as he should have.”

“There’s always one,” Chip intoned, and Nelson nodded gravely.

“Well, I’d be out of a job if everybody took security seriously. And had no problem selling their country’s secrets out for money,” Lee added. “So, everybody leaves, and we figure Jensen waited for a while, just making sure. Then headed up to Dr. Gentry’s office on the second floor. Now, at least the guy locked the door, but that was no obstacle, Jensen had made himself a key. He’d planned ahead. Do the job on Friday, head out of town, nobody would miss him until Monday when he didn’t show up for work. Maybe not even then, he was just a pencil-pusher. Might even get another day or two out of it before somebody really noticed. All this time I’m in the office next to Gentry, just waiting for Jensen to find the file with the discs in it. Then I was going to hightail it out of there, get in my car and follow him to his drop-off point. We needed evidence of him making the pass-off. There were going to be other agents to make the arrest. Or so I thought. Anyway, I can imagine what was going through Jensen’s mind: ‘Today smoggy California, tomorrow the Maldives, baby.’ That’s what I’d be thinking, anyway.”

“Really,” Nelson said, dryly. “That’s the first thing you’d be thinking, after selling out your country. At least you picked a country that has no extradition treaty.”

“Exactly,” Lee said, grinning. “Can’t say I’m not a planner.”

“Good thing he’s on our side, Admiral,” Chip interjected.

“I’m beginning to wonder.”

“Will you two just stop!? Besides, you’re embarrassing our guest. He’s the one that can tell you the next part. I wasn’t there for how this all set up, was I, Agent Wyatt?”

The “guest” had been taking all this in from his comfortable beach chair, quietly drinking his beer while his hosts had bantered amongst themselves. Lee Crane had invited him to the BBQ, telling him that Admiral Nelson wanted to meet the man who had practically arrested him for being a traitor. That Lee had said this with a smile on his face had convinced Jason Wyatt that ‘all had been forgiven.’ And when Lee announced that “sea stories” would be on the agenda, like they always were, and the Mark Jensen’s story would be the first one up, Wyatt had prepared himself for a doozy of a tale. So, while Lee regaled them with the beginning, setting the stage as it were, he gathered his thoughts for what he remembered of that day. Luckily, it hadn’t been all that long ago….

“You’re cleared to go,” Agent Jason Wyatt from Narcotics spoke into his radio.

“Copy that.”

He eased out from behind a truck and moved cautiously along the side of the diner to the entry. Signalling his partner, Jerry Morrell, he kicked open the door and threw in a percussion grenade. He could hear shouts and breaking glass from inside as his fellow agents stormed the rear of the building.

They had been watching the diner after a tip-off that it was being used by Mexican drug traffickers. After gathering evidence, they had mounted a joint raid in conjunction with military police from the naval base.

The smoke from the grenade was starting to clear and Wyatt stepped inside, gun held at the ready. There was some token gun fire, but it was quickly silenced by another grenade.

“Search the building; make sure we round everyone up.” Stepping over the unconscious body of a man, Wyatt quickly crouched and checked for a pulse before moving further into the building to join the other members of the team.

“All clear,” Agent Morrell reported, removing his gas mask.

Wyatt nodded, removing his own gas mask and glancing around the interior. Several men were being herded out in handcuffs, including a very surprised looking Naval officer. “Better get the medics in here to check the wounded.”

Another agent nodded and moved away, speaking into his radio.

“Jason, in here,” Morrell called from the kitchen in the back of the diner.

“What’s the matter?” Wyatt asked as he walked over.

The Narcotics Bureau agent and a uniformed Military Policeman stood over the unconscious form of a dark-haired man on the floor, dressed in civilian clothes. Wyatt pointed downwards.

Wyatt knelt beside the man and put two fingers to his neck to check for a pulse. Finding a strong one, he got to his feet. “He’s just been knocked cold, looks like, but we need to be sure. So don’t move him until the medics get here. Then stuff him in the wagon with the others.”

“There’s just one problem. Tell him, Petty Officer.”

“Agent Wyatt, I know this guy.”

“And that’s how you came to make Commander Crane’s acquaintance, Agent Wyatt?” Nelson and Chip had been engrossed in the story, Lee, too, since this was the first time he’d heard what had really gone on in the diner.

“Yeah, quite the intro it was, Admiral Nelson. Luckily Petty Officer Ortega recognized him. Otherwise, he was headed for the slammer. After he woke up, of course.”

“Always a lucky man, our Captain,” Chip intoned.

“I should look up this petty officer and thank him. I wonder where he remembered me from. The name doesn’t ring a bell.”

“Well, he works out of Long Beach Shore Patrol if you want to find him, sir. Anyway,” Wyatt continued, waving his beer bottle around, “we get everything sorted out, the coroner’s there for the bodies, Crime Scene’s starting to go over everything, we’re just getting ready to take the bad guys to jail and Commander Crane, here, to the naval hospital when the Navy intelligence agents showed up.”

“So, you know they weren’t where they were supposed to be, either!” Lee shouted. “They were supposed to be at the Diner the whole time! Did they tell you why they were late?”

“Not a word to me, Commander.”

“Lee, call me Lee. Okay if I call you Jason? I feel like we’re old buddies now,” Lee said with a grin. “Chip, time to put on the steaks?”

“Couple more minutes, Lee,” Chip answered, getting up from his chair and running his hand over the coals. Lee formed the “okay” sign with his hand.

“Sure, Lee. Nah, I obviously wasn’t on their need-to-know list. Anyway, all they did was take one look at you, I guess to make sure you were still breathing, which you were,” he said, laughing, “and then they turned all their attention to the Naval lieutenant we had in cuffs. They searched him and found those discs you were so interested in later.”

“Did they take anybody else away with them besides Jensen? He had to be there to meet somebody. How else was he gonna get his money? The guy was greedy, not stupid.”

“Well, the answer is no. The only other guys that were there were our bad guys, the ones we expected to see. Well, and you.”

Lee’s brow furrowed. “Damn. What went wrong? What happened to his contact? I only went inside as far as the kitchen, so didn’t get a chance to see who else was there beside Jensen. I was only in there a couple minutes when all hell broke loose, never got a chance to see anybody else.”

“So, what happened after that?” Chip asked

“Well, then I woke up in a hospital with a raging headache, and my left wrist in a cast,” Lee answered. “I knew that smell. A hospital it was. Man, my head ached and I felt nauseous. Which was not helped by finding a very angry Agent Wyatt standing over me.”

Lee shut his eyes for a moment, remembering. He was lying in a hospital bed, his left wrist in a cast, and his head hurt like the blazes, but this wasn’t med bay. The fluorescent light was too bright, the room much too big. He swallowed down nausea, hearing the voice of the man standing beside the bed….

“Commander Crane?”

“Who... are you? Where… am I? And how do you know who I am?” He shivered, pulling the blanket higher.

“I’m Agent Jason Wyatt. You’re in Long Beach Naval Hospital. And lucky for you, one of my guys recognized you. Otherwise, you’d be in a prison ward and not in this plushy private room.”

“Agent... FBI?” The man was around thirty, tall with dark blonde hair. He wore the usual dark suit and tie.

“Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs.”

Lee closed his eyes; he was still drowsy and disorientated. It was difficult to think. Forcing his eyes open, Lee tried to focus his thought. “Do you...have the discs?”

“I guess I can tell you that some scary Naval Intelligence people showed up right after all hell broke loose and took something. They’re the reason you’re here and not in that prison ward I was telling you about. Is that what you’re talking about?”

Lee rolled his head. “Classified, Agent Wyatt. I was heading out the door when you guys burst in, and damn if I didn’t slip on one of the canisters and go down.” He raised the cast. “That’s when I must of done this. And then taken in a lung-full of the gas, I guess. My timing stinks, obviously. Did they get Jensen?”

“Is that what you were doing there? Selling classified information? Who’s Jensen?” Wyatt accused.

The suggestion was so ridiculous, it was almost laughable. However, Lee was not in the mood for laughter. Making no attempt to hide his discomfort, he groaned and propped himself onto his right side, closing his eyes, trying to escape the light. “Hardly. Just trying to take down a guy that was selling classified information.”

At that moment a nurse entered the room and approached the bed. “You’re awake, how are you feeling?” she asked.

“Head aches ...dizzy ...feel sick,” Lee replied without opening his eyes.

The Navy nurse picked up the wrist without the cast and checked his vitals. “I’ll have the doctor prescribe something for the nausea. You had a rather unusual reaction to the gas, Commander.”

“You get anything else for me, Agent Wyatt?”

“That depends.” Wyatt answered. “What is a reserve Navy officer, and the captain of the nuclear submarine Seaview, doing at a diner that DEA and Customs and Border Patrol has been watching for weeks?”

“Probably the same thing you are. Catching the bad guys. Just different ones, maybe.”

“So you say. What---”

“Agent, I think the questions can wait. My patient needs to rest.” The nurse glanced from Wyatt to Lee disapprovingly. She was one of the senior nurses on the floor, a lieutenant commander with years of service. Her charges were all that mattered. No way would she let this civilian bully anyone under her care.

The agent’s lips thinned, but he stopped the questioning. “I’ll be just outside. Don’t try anything, Crane,” Wyatt warned as he turned to leave.

“Furthest thing from my mind,” Lee said wearily….

“Furthest thing from my mind,” the guy says,” Wyatt said, laughing, and his audience joined in. “Are you always a comedian, Lee?”

“I try to be, when the situation calls for it.”

“The nurse helped, too. She wasn’t about to let me get away with badgering her patient.”

“Navy nurses are not known for their solitude toward outsiders. I’ve been glad for their running interference plenty of times. Comes in very handy. By the way, I guess I should tell you I was awake when you checked in on me again.”

“What!”

“Sure, when that Doctor Ross was checking on me, I was awake. Was just pretending to be asleep. Keeps me out of a lot of trouble that way. Got to hear him tell you my wrist was just sprained, not broken.”

“So, you know we were going to have to spring you?”

“Sure, but I already knew you had no reason to keep me,” Lee said, grinning. “You had already told me the ONI guys had been there, and taken away Jensen. They would have told you why I was there. I guess there’s only one thing I don’t understand, why the Narcotics guys just had to visit the Institute.”

“That wasn’t me! That was my boss!” Wyatt exclaimed.

“Your… boss,” Lee answered, his voice sceptical.

Okay, I confess I called him right after everything went down. He doesn’t like it if we don’t keep him in the loop.”

“Sounds similar to a boss I know,” Lee mumbled. “Not you, sir,” Lee added as Nelson’s head came up. “Somebody in Washington I know.”

Wyatt grinned and continued his tale. “Yeah? Anyway, this was before your boys showed up. Sorry, he just likes to cover all our asses. And he’s a bit of a gung ho guy. He was in the army,” Wyatt added, laughing. So he sent a couple of guys from the L.A. office up to Santa Barbara. I found out later they got their asses handed to them.” Wyatt’s face split in a huge grin.

Everyone’s head swivelled to Admiral Nelson, who was busily engaged in taking a long drink from his beer.

Lee spoke up. “Admiral, you’ll have to take over from here. I don’t know what went on from this point, except what you have told me.”

“How come I miss all the fun?” Chip asked, pouting his lips.

“Because you managed to be in Bremerton doing your own drill time, dummy. Next time, have better timing,” Lee responded, punching his best friend on the arm.

“Well, it had been a really busy time here at the Institute,” Nelson replied in his deep, baritone voice. With Lee away doing his TAD, and Chip doing his drill duty, I was rather unusually busy.…”

Admiral Nelson replaced the receiver and sighed. It seemed like his phone had hardly stopped ringing this morning and with both Lee and Chip away, he was especially busy. Between the navy and requests from the scientific community, Seaview was spending more and more time at sea, which of course, was what she was built for. But it meant that there was less time to keep up with all the paperwork as well as his own scientific research.

Returning his attention to the letters in front of him, he picked up a pen. Angie, his secretary had left the letters for him to approve and sign.

He was once more interrupted by the intercom. “Yes, Angie, what it is?”

“Excuse me, Admiral, but there are two agents here from the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs.” It took a moment for her to get the rest of her words out. “They have a warrant to search Lee’s home and cabin aboard Seaview.”

“Like hell they will,” Nelson exploded. “All right, Angie, send them in.”

The two men were typical agents, wearing dark blue suits, white shirts and blue ties. “Admiral, I’m Agent Spears, this is Agent Kendrick. We have a warrant to search Commander Crane’s home and his cabin aboard the Seaview.” Agent Spears pulled a piece of paper out of his jacket and put it down on Nelson’s desk.

Nelson stared down at it and then slowly stood up. “I’m sorry, gentlemen, but I cannot permit that. Seaview is involved in some top-secret projects and I am certain that you do not have the necessary security clearances.”

“I’m sure that went over like a lead balloon, Admiral. Wish I could have been there to see the famous Nelson stare-down!”

“Oh, you’re seen it a few times, Lee, I’m sure. I even think you’ve been the recipient a time or two. Anyway, these two gentlemen were not to be deterred. I remember something about ‘refusing to cooperate with a federal investigation, Commander Crane suspected of selling information, et cetera, et cetera.’ I of course made it quite clear that that was a bunch of bull-- an outrageous statement.”

“You don’t need to clean up your language around me, Admiral Nelson,” Wyatt said.

“I appreciate that, Agent Wyatt. “I’m just trying to recall how offended I felt at the moment. The pieces were beginning to fall into place at this point. Especially when next they told me he’d been apprehended in a drug bust in Long Beach Naval Shipyard. Well, I knew that was ridiculous. Then, it came to me. Lee’s secondment to the Integrated Product Team, working on the Poseidon SSBNs, was obviously a cover for an ONI operation. Well, contacting Johnson about this wouldn’t get these men out of my office. There was only one thing to do. I stabbed my finger down on my intercom.

“Angie, get me the Office of the Attorney General of the United States. Their eyes get rather large at that moment, as you can imagine. Ah, Agent Wyatt, I can see your eyes getting rather large, too.”

“Yes, sir, uh, nothing much like this has happened to me, sir.”

Jason had been taking all of this in, amazed at the entire story. Things like this just didn’t happen in his world. Busting bad guys in the middle of derelict apartment buildings in downtown L.A., stake-outs in the back of beyond out in the desert, taking down Mexican drug lords on Navy bases in Long Beach, sure, some excitement there. But Lee and Chip had met him at the NIMR front gate and then driven him down to the dock where Seaview was berthed, had given him a tour of the submarine before driving him over to Admiral Nelson’s beachfront home. What stories he’d tell in the office tomorrow!

“Yes, well, when you can, go to the top, Agent Wyatt. That’s how you get things done.”

“With all due respect, Admiral Nelson, maybe in your world, sir.”

“Ah, yes, can certainly understand, that,” Nelson responded, chuckling. “In any event, I got my old friend the Attorney General on the phone, and explained to him I would not be honouring this search warrant, and why. And handed over the phone.” The grin on his face spoke volumes. “There were quite a few ‘Yes, sirs,’ ‘No, sirs, ‘We understand, sirs’. The upshot was, the search warrant went quietly back into Agent Spears’ pocket. I then ascertained where Commander Crane was, found out he was at the Long Beach Naval Hospital, and then got our mutual good friend Admiral Johnson on the phone. I put him on speaker phone so that the two agents would know that everything was above board.

“Bill,” I said, “I have two agents in my office from the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. They thought they were searching Lee’s home and cabin, but they were misinformed. Just what did you have Lee involved in now? Of course, he informs us that it’s nothing he intends to discuss over the telephone. That’s fine, says I. Just the bare bones will do. So, he hemmed and hawed, but did manage to tell us that Lee was on an undercover operation, they’d arrested the suspect and recovered the information. So, Lee was in the clear, and could return to NIMR as soon as he'd been debriefed. Correction, I said. He could be debriefed upon his return to Santa Barbara. Send somebody to us, not the other way around. And I was sending two members of my staff to pick him up -- immediately. And hung up the phone before he could protest.” Nelson took a long, satisfying drink from his beer.

“Wow, I wish I knew somebody that had this kind of power,” Jason said, the awe plainly showing on his face.

“All in a day’s work at the Nelson Institute of Marine Research,” Lee said.

“So, I immediately told Angie to get hold Jamie -- Doctor Jamieson, our Chief Medical Officer, along with Kowalski, and get them over to my office right away. And turned back to the two agents, thanking them for their time and informing them that they could find their way out of my office and back to their own. I must say, they took it with all good grace.”

“We know when we’re beaten, Admiral,” Jason said.

“From here, it’s up to you to carry on the story, you and Jason, Lee. And Will, all I can say is it was an anxious few hours just waiting for the three of you to get back here. If I hadn’t been tied up at the institute, I’ve had gone to the hospital myself.

“Not half as anxious as me waiting for Agent Wyatt here to give me the third degree.”

“Now, what makes you think I was ever going to do that?”

A grinning Lee answered, “Well there was a few minutes there when I’m pretty sure you didn’t like my answers. Especially since I was being really evasive, since I knew I couldn’t really tell you anything. There was a lot of your ‘time for you to start talking’ and a lot of me ‘depends on what you want to talk about.’ Just the nature of the job, Jason.”

“I understand, Lee. We sort of do the same thing, just not to the degree you do.”

“I did tell him about following Lieutenant Jensen, because I already knew that the Navy had taken away Jensen, finally, and gotten the discs. That’s all I cared about. I reiterated I had nothing to do with any drug bust, and he said they’d wanted more proof about that and that they were executing a search warrant at the Institute. If I hadn’t been feeling so nauseous, I would have doubled over laughing, because I knew how Admiral Nelson would deal with that. We went back and forth for a while, then my knights in shining armour showed up.

“The door opens and four guys come in. I recognized Kowalski and Jamie right away, but the other two are strangers. The IDs come out immediately. For once, I hear the sweetest words in the world: ‘Naval Intelligence. Commander Crane works for us. ‘We’ll be taking over from here.’ Anything you’d like to add, here, Jason?”

“Well, I immediately objected, of course, but I knew it was a losing battle. If I caused any trouble, that Navy nurse would have had me on the floor in a New York minute. So, I gave up gracefully, to live to fight my battles another day. And, here I am.”

“And glad to have you,” Lee said, clinking his beer bottle with his. “The doctor came in, released me, I got dressed and we bailed out of there before anybody could say different. Jamie asked me a few questions, I gave him the usual noncommittal answers, and I rode back with the two ONI agents in their car and gave ‘em a nice, comprehensive debriefing. Not that there was much to say. Still haven’t gotten an answer to why ONI was late getting to the diner. Nor have I found out yet what happened to Jensen’s contact. At least Jensen didn’t get away, that’s the important part. Chip, I think the coals are ready for the steaks to go on. Wasn’t until I got back that I got the details about the search warrant. Sure sorry I missed that.” Lee looked on as Chip placed the ribeyes on the grate. The potatoes had already been cooking for a while, tucked up in their foil jackets deep within the depths of the barbecue bowl. “A few minutes, gentlemen, and it’ll be dinnertime. I’ll get the salads out of the cooler. Another beer?”

oOo

Lee stretched, and patted his stomach, smiling to himself. Damn, that had been one fine dinner. Around him, Chip, Admiral Nelson and Jason were doing the same, relaxing and enjoying what had been a wonderful evening. The patio lights were on now, and they were enjoying the last rays from the summer sun. Somewhere, a sandpiper was calling for its mate.

Nelson still had his penthouse on the top floor of the administration building, but had moved here to the beach front property after Lee had told him about the ‘mansion’ in his nightmare, while recovering from the after effects of the disastrous Venice fiasco. Jamie had also said that living over the shop was not contusive to the Admiral getting away from the job and relaxing.

Jason was the first one to stir. “Damn, I could get used to this.”

Lee smiled. “Yeah, can’t beat the beach for a nice evening. Where do you live?”

“I work out of the L.A. main office, but I live in the Valley, in Studio City. Share a place with my brother, he’s going to UCLA. Speaking of, I should be heading home.” Rising up, he took a couple of unsteady steps.

“Uh, I don’t think you should think about driving tonight, Jason. We’ve got plenty of guest quarters here. Let us put you up.”

“Aww, you don’t have to.”

Admiral Nelson chimed in. “No drinking and driving on our watch, son. In fact, leave your car here, I’ll have the duty car come and get you. Then tomorrow you can breakfast on board the Seaview, and we’ll get you back here to pick up your car.”

Wyatt’s eyes grew very large. “You’re treating a guy who wanted to throw Commander Crane into the hoosegow awfully nice.”

Lee and Chip joined in the laughter as Nelson responded, “We try to keep law enforcement on our side. City, County, State and Federal. You never know when you might need a friend.”

“Just as long as your last name isn’t Johnson. We’ve decided to leave him off the list.”