CHAPTER 17
UNIT: A Slumbering Team Reliant
SITUATION: Break-in Noises in The Dark
LOCATION: Team Reliant Offices
TIME: 0400 hours Local Time, Current Date
With all team personnel upstairs and sleep, the office, downstairs, was necessarily dark. The building and its occupants slumbered. The team members were in their assigned rooms, which made it an opportune time for the misery makers who had followed Slover back from one of his secret trips to the brothels of Yalu Street.
The thing that woke Dawn and the members of the team upstairs was the crashing of bricks and rocks through the plate glass windows downstairs. In the quiet of the night, the noise was sudden and tumultuous. The first thing that Dawn and those who were awakened by the chaos said to themselves was, “What the hell is going on?” As the noise continued for approximately five minutes, everyone upstairs had been awakened by that noise. They each grabbed a semi-appropriate item of clothing and hurried the downstairs.
Dawn saw that Spence was clothed in slacks, bedroom slippers, and a long sleeve shirt which he was buttoning up as he stood at the bottom of the stairs trying to find out what had occurred.
She saw Harvey standing behind him holding a flashlight. He was clothed in a bedtime robe. He shined the flashlight around the floor of the office area. His flashlight revealed broken window glass gleaming brightly.. She heard his response, “Don’t anyone go on that floor barefooted.”
She stood behind him. A nighttime sleeping eye mask was pulled up to her forehead. She wore an evening robe. Her first response was and erupted “Oh, my God.”
Before she could say more, she heard, Slover, who stood behind her and was clothed in a pair of slacks and a T-shirt. The shirt made his upper muscular attire appear form fitted. He ordered, “Some-body turn on a light.”
Someone found the light switch and flipped it up. The light revealed more than just the broken windows. Spence’s office Windows were shattered. Broken glass in large shards and gleaming cracked pieces covered his desk, his chair, and his floor. The secretarial area showed not only broken glass, but is also revealed bricks lying on top of broken computer keyboards and broken monitors.
Dawn watched while with furrowed brown, Spence took in the scene and ordered, “All right, people, get some clothes on, grab some brooms, and let’s get this office area cleaned up. Pearly, I want you to check the back shop to see what is damaged there.”
She watched as Pearly whispered “On my way, boss.”
She heard Spence say, “Okay, people, I want to know what caused this.”
Dawn offered, “Just before I heard their car doors slam, I heard one of them shout, ‘Stay away from Yalu Street.’”
“That is very interesting. They didn’t say stay out of the tunnel. That might have been more appropriate. However, they were specific about Yalu Street. What is it about Yalu Street that has caused them to tie us to Yalu Street? I mean what is there on Yalu Street, other than General Jagwi, that we would be interested in? Further how is it that they have been able to track someone to this specific location?”
Everyone in the room turned to look at Slover.
“Why is everyone looking at me?”
Dawn turned slowly to look at Slover. “It’s the fact that you spend time, lots of time, satisfying your imaginary needs. As a matter of fact, you were not here in the Commons Room playing cards with the others. So, really, where were you?”
Slover hesitated, “Uhm… I was… I was downtown. I was visiting… other friends.”
Harvey asked, “Which friends?”
“Uhm… A group of… uhm uh female friends.” He glanced quickly at Dawn, then, just as quickly, looked away.
Harvey asked again, “At what location?”
Slover was quiet. His face was downcast. He whispered, “Up and down Yalu Street.” Though his answer was a whisper, it resounded in the ears of the team.
Her question was intended to be a mild rebuke, but it echoed in the ears of the team as a shotgun blast, “Yalu Street? You were on Yalu Street this night? Slover do you realize what you have done?”
Slover shook his head slightly.
“Number one, you have destroyed my confidence in you. You told me you were through with Yalu Street.”
Slover stuttered, “Yes but, I have needs.”
“Needs? You don’t have needs. You have habits. Bad habits. Really bad habits.”
“But I…”
“No buts. I am disgusted with you.”
Harvey took up Dawn’s count, “Number two, you have led someone on Yalu Street back to our headquarters with the possible result being that you have increased the danger of someone seeing past our disguise of financial managers. They knew on Yalu Street previously that you were in the Army, due to the tales you told them. So why wouldn’t they think that you are still in the Army. I mean, you are still in Korea. That would include us. That would allow them to see past our disguise.”
Spence continued to count, “Number three, you have put all of us at risk. You are directly responsible for the damage done to our office and to our reputation. We cannot report this to the police because it would become public. Everyone would know. I would charge the cost of replacement of my windows and our equipment against your pay, but you would be in debt to us for the next 20 years.”
Dude’s mutter was clear in the silence, “Man, how can any of us trust you to be on any of our missions if what you do leads the enemy to us?”
Pearly’s comment was quiet, “Gosh, I used to think you were really something.”
Spence ended the conversations, “We will discuss this issue tomorrow morning in my office.”
Slover’s face was red. His muscles flexed and relaxed and flexed. He turned to go up the stairs and the 50 members of the team stepped aside like a silent Red Sea as he attempted to escape the condemnation.
Harvey began dividing the team members into cleanup groups, some sweeping, some gathering, and some carrying out loads of debris.
Dawn told Harvey, “I’m going to talk to him.”
Harvey pointed up the stairs in agreement.
She knocked on Slover’s door. She got no response. She turned the doorknob and let go of the door. On its own, the door was silent in its opening. Slover sat on the edge of his bunk with his hands between his knees, shaking.
She was direct. “You should be shaking. You should be shaking with remorse, regret, and with shame.”
His head jerked up at the word ‘shame.’ “Why would I be ashamed?”
She ticked off on her fingers the reasons she thought so, “One, after you had been beaten nearly to death in that Kaesong prison, and two, after I had risked my life, three, Sergeant Kim’s life, and our, farmer Nongjangju’s life, and five, the lives of the backup team helping to rescue you from that prison, six, you promised me in the hospital that you were through with Yalu Street." Then, louder than before, "And seven, I believed you for it.”
“But I have needs.”
“No, you don’t. You have habits. Bad habits.”
“But I really have …”
“Don’t give me that. That’s a lie perpetrated by men who only want easily available sex, or just plain sex with no commitment.”
“But I really do …”
“Don’t. If it weren’t for the fact that you’re a really brilliant analyst, there wouldn’t be anything admirable about you. I did love you. Although I don’t know what it was about you that I loved. I thought we might have a chance to really do something together, but now I can’t remember what it might have been. And right now, I don’t even like you.”
She thought if his body might have been any less muscular, and if he had been frail, his body might have fallen to pieces on the floor, and she might have felt some remorse for shaming him so. However, the image of a very well-built man crumbling on the inside was equally clear to Dawn.
She could sense it. Before she turned to go, she let one sentence hang in the air, “I will still partner with you on an occasional mission because I know you still have the skills, but don’t ask me to feel anything else.”
He turned his head toward his bedroom window in stunned silence, but in his window, he saw only the light of the moon considerably diminished from the light of the sun.
She turned off his overhead light and walked away leaving his door open.