“Lee, when we get home tonight I want us to tell the boys together. They are both crazy about you and I think they will take it better from both of us.”

“Okay. No arguments from me. I have been waiting for this moment for months. I only hope they will be as happy as you seem to think they will be.”

“Why wouldn’t they be?” asked Amanda.

“Well, they are in for several surprises, a new stepfather, a baby brother or sister, and a new male in their environment.” Lee’s voice betrayed his nerves about the transition.

“It is way past time for them to have a steady male in their lives. Joe had done better this year but they need someone constant. They need you.” Amanda was certain that Lee was exactly what her boys needed on their lives at this point. The teenage years could be very difficult and they needed a strong male role model and in her eyes Lee was perfect.

“Well, sometimes I think I need them much more than they will ever need me. I already have more now than I ever thought I would have in you and in our love. I just hope that we don’t push them too hard with this.”

Amanda stood and came around the corner of her desk in the Q bureau. She wrapped her arms around her beloved husband and kissed him softly on the lips. He crushed her to his chest and vowed silently to never let her go out of his life. Reluctantly, he let her go and said, “We have to go now. The meet is in 30 minutes. Do you have everything you need for the drop?”

“Yes, I have the bag for the disk. I have the password memorized and I have my best backup, you.”

“Do you have your weapon?” He looked at her hard.

“Yes, but you don’t really think I need it do you?” Amanda’s eyes were large in her face at the thought of having to fire the gun Lee insisted she carry and practice with at least three times weekly. She was a fairly good shot but the thought of having to shoot someone was more than she could bear.

“You don’t think I would let you do this if I thought there was any real danger? Especially now with the baby, my baby that you are carrying? D.C. is a known contact and we are going to be in a very public place. I am not really worried at all.”

“Then why did you ask if I had the thing?” She asked with exasperation in her voice.

“I know you don’t like it Amanda, but you need to keep it with you at all times, especially now that we are about to go public. We need to be able to protect our family at all times.”

With that last comment, they started out the door and to the assigned drop point to meet the informant at the correct time. The drop was to take place at the public zoo in the ladies restroom, hence the need for Amanda to make the pickup instead of Lee. The plan was simple really. She was to go in the first stall, pick up the canvas bag with the disk in it, leave the empty one she carried and walk out. There would be no real contact with D.C. for Amanda or Lee at this time. There would be a call the next day to verify receipt of the list of projected targets of the communist community in the USA that was encoded on the disk. Not a thrilling mission but a potentially important one if the information was real.

The couple proceeded to the designated facility and Amanda walked in alone. Lee waited for 5 minutes before he began to worry. Slowly he opened the door of the restroom just to peek in for a reassuring glimpse of his wife and to see if the holdup was serious. When he did not see her, he opened the door wider only to be thrown back by the blast that filled the room with smoke and flames. He stood quickly, calling for backup in the wire that he had worn mostly out of habit, rather than the need for security on what was supposed to be milk run.

Desperately he called her name. “AMANDA!” He ran to the door of the burning building, trying to peer inside. When he saw flames obstructing the doorway, he ran into the smoke anyway. He had to find his wife. He would be lost without her. The backup team arrived and put out the flames and pulled the nearly smoke overcome Scarecrow out of the building to a waiting Billy.

‘Scarecrow, what happened? Where is Amanda?” He led Lee away from the ruins when he would have gone back in to look some more. “Stop man and tell me what happened.” Billy demanded.

“God Billy, she went in to make the pickup. She went in there and I have to go get her! I always go get her!” He surged to his feet and ran to the destroyed building. He was stopped at the door by a fireman exiting the building. “Sir, you can’t go in there. It’s NOT safe.”

An angry Lee shook off the man’s hold on his arm. “My wife is in there you idiot.”

“ No sir we have searched the whole place. There is no one in there.”

A devastated Lee sat down hard on the nearby bench and looked at Billy in a daze. She was not there. Where did she go? “ I was right outside the door the whole time. There was no way to get by me.”

Billy sat down next to Lee. “We will find her, but first maybe you better repeat what you just said to that man. Did I hear you say your wife was in there?”