Lynda realized that Marcus knew where his place was. Who not to mess with. He was much smarter than she had realized.
Marcus, Gil, and Lynda went into the conference room and shut the door. Gil explained his idea, and as she expected, Marcus said, “That is a suicide mission.”
Gil responded, “Maybe not. I have some ideas, and just to prove to you that I understand, Lynda and I will both go with you.”
Marcus said, “Nope, we don’t allow no women on these missions. She stays here.”
Lynda stood up, turned to Marcus. “Are you saying that I can’t keep up with the big boys?” She was bristling.
Marcus stuck his chest out. He was not about to back down. “You stay here. Am I clear about that?”
Lynda sat down. She knew why Marcus did not want her to go.
Gil said, “Too much testosterone in the air.”
Neither Marcus nor Lynda would look at each other. Marcus said, “Let’s hear your plan.”
Gil reviewed his plan in great detail. Lynda admired Gil. He put his money where his mouth was.
Then Marcus said, “I still think high casualties. We won’t have air cover.”
Gil said, “I think we can have a plan acceptable to your Commander and use two Seal teams.”
Marcus said, “I disagree One team is enough. We have too many men, we wind up shooting each other.”
That evening Marcus took Lynda out to dinner. Then they went home and he unpacked his clothes. He would wear his working clothes tomorrow: Seal shirt and blue slacks. Marcus did not make an issue of anything; he moved right into the spare bedroom. Lynda told him, “Don’t get any bright ideas about sneaking around at night in my room. I sleep with a gun; I will shoot you.”
He said, “You can’t shoot a ghost.”
She smiled. “That ghost better not bleed on my carpet.”
Marcus grinned. “I think we understand each other.”
Lynda put Ted to bed first, then Tasha. She wore a shorty nightgown just to antagonize Marcus. It did.
His second day at the company was different. He was to lay out his own plan if he could do it anyway that he wanted to. He kept drawing up plans and then throwing them away. The best plan that he could come up with was staging in Qatar, then going by big boat to twenty miles from Bushehr, then going by raft to shore and spending the day hiding, and attacking the facility the next night. His second choice was to stage in Kuwait. Everyone seemed to like the second choice better.
That night everything went fine in the house. Marcus took too long a shower and used all the hot water. Tasha was upset. Marcus’s response was, “Get a bigger hot water heater.”
Marcus rocked Ted to sleep and held him carefully. Ted was to be a year old next week, and then there was Christmas. Marcus would be here for all the events of Christmas and New Year.
The planned assault on Iran was scheduled for the fourteenth of January. Marcus would go back to Pensacola on the third of January, and the team would go to Kuwait on the ninth of January, a tight schedule. The CIA had a new explosive. It could be added to C-4 and then used exactly as C-4, only the combined explosive power was almost ten times higher. It would take fewer men, and their packs would be smaller. The idea was not to blow the reactor up, but to let the Iranians know that the Americans could and would if necessary.
The third night that Marcus was at Lynda’s house, he came into her bedroom. She was already in bed, and he upset her, but not as much as what he said did.
“Lynda, let’s get married now. I can’t wait.”
She forgot all about him invading her privacy. She had a slick comment for him, but forgot all about it. She patted the bed. “Sit down, Marcus.” Then she said, “Geez, Marcus, I know that you want to sleep with me, but goodnight. You sure are in a hurry.”
He smiled at her. “Honey, I have many reasons to want to marry you now, but that is not one of them.”
She smiled back. “Marcus, I don’t know. Give me a night to think about it.”
He said, “Okay,” patted her on the rump, and made his way out of the bedroom. Lynda threw a pillow at him and hit him squarely in the back. He just laughed. She got up, picked her pillow up, and saw him watching her. She put on a little show for him. Then shut the bedroom door.
The next day, Marcus was working on what each man in the unit would do. He came to Gil. He was not sure where to put him, or what to do with him. For the time being he had him just watching the rafts.
The next day, Lynda and Marcus got off early to celebrate Ted’s first birthday. It was hard to believe that he was a year old. He was barely walking. They had a party and had lots of presents for him to open. They went to a pizza place and let him make a mess. While Marcus played with Tasha, Lynda took Ted to the bathroom and cleaned him up, putting clean clothes on him. Lynda came out of the bathroom with Ted. She watched Marcus carrying Tasha on his shoulders like a horse. That made her decision for her.
She went up to Marcus. She said, “Yes.”
He looked at her strangely. He said, “Yes what?” Then it hit him. He pulled Tasha off his shoulders and hugged Lynda, Ted and Tasha all at the same time. He yelled, “Yahoo!” and did his little jig. Tasha danced with him.
She said, “Saturday, not tomorrow.”
Marcus was okay with what ever she said.
When Lynda got home, she called her mother and told her. They wanted to be at the wedding. Marcus called his parents. They would fly in Friday and be there Saturday for the ceremony. He also called his Seal buddies. They would all be there too.
On Friday people began to arrive. Lynda’s house was full of Seals and family members. Tasha hung closely to Marcus. She felt safe around him. Ted walked through the house like everyone was his friend. Then Lynda saw Marcus’s dad pick up Ted and hug him, she shed a few tears of happiness.
The next morning everyone assembled at the little church. The minister performed the ceremony. All the Seals stood with Marcus. Tasha stood with her mother. It was a little unbalanced. They exchanged rings and the ceremony was over. Her new name was Lynda Lanelle Handley. Afterward, they had the reception at a restaurant. Tasha danced with each of the Seals. She was in heaven, just like her mother was.
That night, Lynda and Marcus slept together for the first time. They had to postpone the honeymoon. But neither was disappointed.
Sunday, they all went back to the little church. They really dominated one side of the aisle. The Seals were all in their dress uniforms, and the minister announced the new couple at the beginning of the service. Marcus and Lynda stood. Everyone clapped for them.
After lunch the Seals all left to go back to Pensacola. Marcus’s parents left, and it was just the four of them and Lynda’s parents. Her parents took the kids and left Marcus and Lynda alone. They did not waste their alone time.
On Monday morning, Marcus put Tasha on the school bus. They went to work together. They held hands all the way. He had on his fatigues. Lynda showed everyone, including Tom, her wedding ring. She missed Billy, Bobby, Marilyn, and of course Ted. She sat in her chair and reminisced. Everyone on the original team was dead except for her and Wayne. And she had been the rookie. Everyone in the department recognized that something was going on, and fortunately left her alone.
Marcus came in and his presence broke the spell. She came out of the trance. She had a new life. The old one was gone, forever. She worked hard to smile at her new husband.
Tom came in and saw her sitting there. Even Tom recognized that she was deep in a trance. He walked up and set by her and held her hand. He said, “It’s all right, Lynda, let it go.”
She snapped out of it almost immediately, and had a smile on her face. She looked at Tom and said, “They are all gone!”
He smiled, and said, “Honey, you have a new life. The old one is gone.”
It seemed that everyone was tiptoeing around her. As soon as he was sure that she was out of it, To
m clapped his hands and said, “Okay, guys, show’s over. Let’s get back to work.”
The hum of activity picked up tenfold.
On the eighth of January, Lynda talked with Wanda and told her what was going to happen. That she would be gone about a week. Wanda had no problems. Marcus did! He knew what she planned. He was in high gear thinking of reasons for her to stay home. In the end, Lynda won out, but the war was not lost. Marcus even used the issue that he would be protecting her, and that he would probably get killed doing it. Nothing seemed to work. His new wife was hard-headed.
On the ninth, she and Gil flew with the sixteen Seals to Kuwait. Lynda had no idea that Kuwait was such a beautiful oil-filled country, even though it was mostly sand.
She was fitted for body armor by one of the Seals. They had to manipulate the armor to get it to fit. Marcus seethed. However, Marcus watched his new wife around the other Seals. She was cheering them on, making them laugh and smile. He was proud of her.
The seals prepared the two rafts and tied them down securely on the large Navy boat or small ship. They would leave before dusk on the following day. Marcus waited on his chance to say what he had to say.
Lynda was wearing shorts and a tee shirt, and had the tee shirt tied in a knot at the belly to let some air in. Even though it was January, it was still hot. Most of the Seals had tiny shirts on that had their arms open. She continually saw naturally bulging muscles. It was amazing the shape that the