"You remember us, huh?" one said, everyone's guns then
pointing at each "side", out of instinct of being pointed at, more
than anything else. "You can put those away now," the same one
told the guys. "In fact, you can give us ours' back."
        "Yeah, right!" Buz answered. And Kit wasn't sure what was
exactly happening as they all heard a turboprop - a twin, it sounded
like - shutting down out on the ramp.
        Over at the Jeep, Cincy walked over to the girls, holstered his
gun and helped Jessy off the ground, then helped the other two.
"You're OK now...Deepheart," he said.
        "Wha...?" Jess fumbled for understanding, "you're on our
side?!" as she checked looks with Flece and Savvy, who had no idea
who the guy was, then Jess recognized him from that first day in the
Sky Galley. "Cincy!?..." she said.
        He chuckled, then told her, "I've always been on your side,
Jessica. But we had to be sure about you," and walked her around to
the driver's side and opened the door for her, both of them looking
over at the guys with their guns still pointed at each other. He added,
"I hope your boys realize they can put their guns down now."
        Jessy kept staring at the guys 7o yards away, thought a second,
then yelled, "KIT!"
        "JESS?!" Code yelled back, still aiming down the suits, his
adrenalin getting a repump from hearing her voice.
        "WE'RE WITH CINCY!" she yelled.
        "Jeezuz..." he said under his breath, then yelled, "WE'RE
WITH THE SUITS WE BUSHWHACKED IN VIRGINIA!"
        She was as puzzled as Cody. "Chrise...HE SAYS WE'RE
OK!" She had made the leap of faith. And the Eagles' "Desperado"
was quietly playing on the Jeep's radio, tuned into Monument.
        "We were sent to protect you," the suit leader told the boys
back at the building.
        "SO DO THEY...!" Kit reported back to the girls. He was
struggling to figure it all out, besides getting through the perplexity
that the girls came back or never drove off or found Cincy or
whatever and why.
        "Then put 'm down on the ground, guys," Buz commanded the
agents, and damn if they didn't put their Macs down - slowly - to
Kit's amazement and BR's supreme relief. Buz picked up the
machine guns, gave one to Kit, and went to check on the other four
suits, though there was the sound of four small jet engines spooling
up out on the ramp.
        Jess ran down the road and across the street to the guys, Flee
and Savvy right behind her, and Cincy started walking the same
direction.
        "You're here to protect us?!" Kit asked the suits. "Who do you
work for?"
        "Sshhhiiitttt!" BR let go and braced himself against the building
and, seconds later, Flee reached him and wrapped her arms around
him. Jess hugged Kit, took the Beretta from him, feeling like she
would never ever give it up, but then passed it to Savanna, stopping
her to give it to her before Sav walked up the sidewalk alongside the
building toward the ramp, looking for Buz.
        "Be careful, Savvy," Kit warned her, and she returned her
acknowledgement. Then Kit scolded Jess, "I thought I told you guys
to go to the farm. Fuck!"
        "We voted we couldn't leave you guys," she made up.
        Kit looked at her with a squint, then asked the suits again, "who
do you guys work for?"
        "The government, Mister Cody," the quiet one answered.
        "The government?! WHO's government?!" Kit grilled.
        "Your government," the other answered.
        "And you're really on our side?" Jess asked, the suits taking
pleasure in her voice, face, body and spirit.
        "Yes, they're really on your side," Cincy answered, walking up
to them all. "Good job, boys," he commended the guys in black as
well as, it seemed, Kit, BR and Buz, though The Red was absent,
then quietly added, "...and girls."
        "Thank you, sir," the agents responded, though everyone felt
compelled to the same response, oddly.
        "So who's side are you on?" Kit asked the old man, Kit's mind
going through all they knew about him from the computers - Harvard
Law, CIA and NSA careers being the most prominent.
        "Well, I'm not holding a gun on you, am I?..." Cincy came back,
"you can put those down now...please."
        "And you know them?!" Kit prodded, nodding at the suits.
        "I know of them...Kit...and now have the pleasure of meeting
them..." and Cincy gave a small smile to the agents and they extended
their hands to him for the honor of a shake.
        "How do you know my name?!" Kit asked.
        "You left prints on the 310...among other reasons," the old man
smiled.
        "Aw, goddam...aw, Jessy...aw shit...fuck!"
        "Hey, nothing to worry about now, Hotey," she came back, and
rubbed his back lightly.
        Buz came back with Savvy, arm in arm, with four more guys
carrying Macs. And the Big Red One announced, "it's OK, guys,
they're WPG! And the rest of their guys..." nodding toward the suits,
"got the drop on the other four inside the Sabre, and are now taking
them wherever!"
        "DAMN!" Code, Jess, Flee and BR answered pretty much
together, and Kit and BR dropped their arms that were attached to
their hands that held the guns.
        "So...uh...we're OK..?" Kit summed, and everyone looked
around at everybody and nodded.
        "You're OK," Cincy, a suit and the head WPG guy all
answered.
        "Well...damn...seems we owe you all one nice laurel of eternal
gratitude," Kit added, hugging Jessy as Flee and BR came over and
joined in.
        "O, just this life will be fine," Cincy chuckled.
        "But...you were after us..." Jess said, back to the puzzle.
        "I was just keeping an eye on you...princess...as a favor to
your grand dad...but it got a little out of hand because of what you
were doing and...orders change...."
        "My grand dad...?!" Jess's brow furrowed.
        "We just go back a long way, honey. Well...this is all over...I
suggest you guys head on out to your farm before security or police
come by," and the old man started toward Kit and Buz, carefully, to
take the Macs back.
        But Kit resisted. "Wait a damn minute..." he said, "how do we
know orders won't change again?!"
        "You don't," the old man answered, but smiled.
        "Well..." Kitto breathed out with a frustrated snicker, "I guess
we'll hang on to these, then...until we can get some straight fucking
answers."
        "You're not going to ask us to take our clothes off again, are
you?" one of the suits smirked.
        "We just want you to stay on our side," Jess came back, then
went to give them hugs and thank them adding, "sorry we had to do
that to you." Then she went over to Cincy and hugged and thanked
him very sweetly, then it was the four WPG guys, all of them
quipping that they would be staying on her side. And that "party"
pretty much died down in a few minutes and Jess invited everyone
out to the farm as Kit returned the suits' handguns to them.
        Cincy declined the invitation, adding, with a wink, "...I've got
a 310 and Citation to keep an eye on."
        The suits also declined, saying that they had to get going. But
the WPG'ers told our guys that they were assigned to protect
"Deepheart", adding, when asked, that they had received their orders
directly from Sundance. And a couple of them left for the office to
arrange their ground transportation. Kit lastly thanked Cincy for
protecting the girls, when he got that part of the story from Jess.
Then he returned the Macs to the agents as Savvy handed the
Beretta to Jess.
        The old man said, "you could have lost them...Buffalo...I sure
would be a lot more careful if I were you," he smiled.
        Kit was shocked to reality's core. "Holy fuck..." He was going
through Cincy knowing that nickname and the thought of losing Jess
simultaneously, "you're right..." feeling Jessy's arms and soul around
him. And he felt the truth, and was embarassed and angry at himself,
and looked away to nothing in particular.
        "It was my fault," Buz volunteered, almost in a debrief mode
of tone, "I should have gone with the girls." But he was kidding.
        "Me too," BR added, giving a little smile.
        "Yep," Kit said, appreciating the joke. Then he looked in
Jessy's face - the veritable face of God to him - and took the same
route: "you guys sure fucked up," and turned his eyes away from
her, the look of God imprinted in his face from hers, it seemed, and
looked at the guys with raised brows and a smirk and they all saw
that truth. They had been damn lucky. Once again. "We were just
lucky there weren't agents waiting for us on the ground," he
surmised.
        "Yep...you were..." one of the suits said, "...have you figured
out why...yet?" and gave a little smile over to Cincy.
        "Um...no...I haven't," Kit admitted.
        "The old man here," the other suit said, nodding toward Cincy,
"didn't call in for backup for your four troublemakers like he was
told to...and took care of hanging them up in ATC so they couldn't
get in ahead of you."
        Kit's, "I'll be damned" came out with Jess's, "Jeeeezzuzz" and
the others' exclamations, and Jessy went over to hug Cincy again.
        "Just following orders," the old man said, relishing her hug.
        "Orders from whom?" Kit asked.
        "Can't tell you, son...sorry," Cincy answered.
        "You're going to have to tell me about you and grampa," Jess
said softly as she released her hug and looked in his face.
        "Sometime, sweetheart...sometime..." he answered and smiled
at her.

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