"I put a coffee for you on the table, Major Hunt." The old woman didn't bother to turn around; she continued to deal with her scrambled eggs, sausage, beans, bacon, and other items in preparation for breakfast.
"Thank you, ma'am." Joe moved towards the old wooden table and picked up the large mug, and brought the warm brew to his nose; it smelled lovely.
"You can drop that ma'am stuff. It's Sarah." The lady put four slices of toast in a toaster and hit the plunger.
"Thank you, Mrs Stokes."
The woman looked out of the windows that were above the sink in the kitchen, and out towards the swimming pool. "Looks like Rhea and her father are on their way in."
Joe tried the coffee; it was lovely, black, two sugars, just the way he liked it. Taking another sip, he started to look around the kitchen, which was large and doubled as a dining room. Pictures were covering almost every inch of wall space. A few shelves with the odd antique or souvenir from a trip long ago. Compared to the cooking part of the room, it was a bit of a mess and dated. The kitchen, on the other hand, was ultra modern, with the newest, and most expensive appliances money could buy. The kitchen even had a 48-inch Sub-Zero refrigerator and freezer, which must have cost almost nine thousand dollars.
With Joe's attention absorbed by the giant silver refrigerator, he failed to notice Rhea and her father, both wearing bathrobes, with their hair still wet, enter the kitchen from a door that led out onto the garden lawn. Coming up behind Joe, Rhea draped her arms over his shoulders and gave him a light kiss on the left side of his neck.
"Mom's cooking smells good."
Turning around with her arms still around his neck, Joe's eyes widened when they landed on his colleagues face. This was the most casual he had ever seen her, and she looked gorgeous. Her wet hair was tied back in a ponytail running down her back, and she wasn't wearing any makeup, not that she wore large amounts of makeup usually. "Yes, it does."
Unwrapping her arms from Joe, Rhea took a step back, "This is my father, William."
The man standing just behind Rhea was about Joe's height and was wearing a matching bathrobe to his daughter's. He had short-cropped grey hair and a square jaw. It was evident that the man was in his seventies, but he still looked fit.
"Pleasure to meet you, Sir." Joe put out his hand, and the grey hair man approached, took Joe's hand, and gave it a firm shake.
"Call me Bob, would you Joe." He said with a smile. He released his grip and ran his right hand through his hair, which was still wet, forcing a spray of water to jump up from his scalp. "Looks like we're about ready to go." He directed his attention to his wife and moved towards the cooktop, where Sarah was putting the breakfast on four plates that she had just pulled from the oven.
Rhea pointed out a chair for Joe to take, and he set himself down and continued to sip his coffee while Rhea quickly found some silverware and set the table. She grabbed four glasses from a cabinet and poured orange juice into them, and set them down on the table, before sitting down on a chair across from Joe.
With the assistance of Mr Stokes, the food was brought to the table, and the elder Stokes took their place at opposite ends of the table. Joe watched as Sarah took off her cooking apron and tossed it without a thought towards the kitchen sink. "Right everyone." She glanced around the table. "Please eat."
Taking another sip from his coffee, Joe set his mug down, put his napkin in his lap, picked up his knife and fork, and went after the scrambled eggs first. The eggs were a gorgeous yellow colour and tasted perfect.
"Our eggs are from a small chicken farm down the road. What do you make of them Joe?" Sarah asked.
Joe finished his mouthful. "They're lovely. We weren't eating this well in Paraguay. I'll tell you that much." Joe moved onto the bacon, which was crisp and beautiful.
Bob Stokes took a long sip of his orange juice and looked at Joe. "So what do you think of our little farm?"
"I haven't seen much of it yet, it was rather dark when I arrived this morning, but it seems lovely. I understand that it's been in the family for several generations."
"That's correct. My grandparents bought the property in the 1880's, and there have been Stokes here ever since. I have a brother who lives in Yellowknife, and he brings his family down here about once a summer. Sarah and I try to get up there for at least one week a summer when the weather is good."
The conversation for the rest of the meal stayed light, after which Joe helped Mr Stokes clean up and load the dishwasher, while Rhea went upstairs to take off her swimsuit. Mrs Stokes had set Joe's clothing on the kitchen table, which she had taken the liberty of washing, and along with his shoes, which he had left at the house's front door when he had arrived in the early morning hours.
After the dishes had been dealt with, Mr Stokes vanished upstairs to shower and dress, leaving Joe with Mrs Stokes in the kitchen where they discussed a variety of topics, ranging from what Joe's mother typically made for breakfast, to how Joe ended up in Paraguay in the first place. After around ten minutes, Rhea reappeared.
"Want to go for a walk?" She asked. "I need to take Toby out."
"Who is Toby?" Joe asked, not having seen another person in the house since he had arrived.
"He's our Belgian Malinois. He's been kept in the living room since you got here. I wasn't too sure what your thoughts were on dogs." Rhea smiled at Joe.
"I love dogs. I once meet a Malinois named Cairo. Intelligent dogs."
"Perfect. I'll grab Toby, and we can go for a stroll."
Rhea slipped out of the room. Joe could hear her calling for Toby, and when she returned, a bouncing dog came with her. The animal had a gorgeous fawn coat, and black ears and nose. The animals muscles could be seen rippling in its legs, and it apparently seemed excited at the prospect of getting out of the house.
Finding his shoes, Joe brushed off the bottom of his feet before sliding his Converse on, and with Rhea in the lead, he followed her out of the house into the warm morning sun.
When Joe looked back at the house as they started to walk through the yard towards the swimming pool, it gave Joe the impression of a house that belonged farther east. It had a very Rocky Mountain look to it, not what Joe had been expecting. The garden included the swimming pool ended at a dirt road, which had trees lining it and an open field on the other side that stretched for at least 200 yards.
"This is the back of the house," Stokes noted as they started to make their way down the dirt road to the left, while Toby bounded ahead of them. "the entrance to the property is the other way, about a mile down the road."
"How much property do you have?" Joe asked
"I have no idea. We rent out some of the lands to a local farmer for him to raise his own crops." She said with a smile. "I haven't been down here in years. My work with SETI has kept me in San Francisco for the last few years."
"Do you see yourself going back to California after all this is over?" Joe asked, trying to figure where the tall beauty stood.
"That all depends on how things go with Paraguay. There are so many things going on down there that are impossible to tell where things will be in six months, let alone a few years from now."
She picked up a stick, called to Toby, and then hurled the piece of wood into the field to their right. The dog chased after the stick, and returned it to the road, before running after a squirrel that had run across the road. With the dog charging after the rodent, Joe looked at Rhea with a hint of concern.
"Should we chase after him?" he asked.
"Don't worry. There is a fence around the entire property, so Toby can't get out, so I think he'll be fine." She countered.
As they carried on walking down the dirt road, Joe noticed that Rhea was getting closer and closer to him, until she was finally within arm's reach, just to his right, and without him noticing, she put out her left hand and took his hand in hers.
When her warm skin touched Joe's, he almost flinched with surprise, but let her take his hand, and they soon had their finge
rs interlocked.
"I hope you don't mind." Stokes said with a smile on her face.
"No. Not after last night. I've been figuring out how that was going to happen for quite some time. Never did get around to plotting my master plan." Joe looked off into the woods to his left smiling. He had been drawn to the sexy Canadian since the first time he had set his eyes on her while she was lounging on the rooftop terrace in Lima the previous month.
"Well, Joe, I was never under any illusions about you. Combat, fast cars, doing stupid things, those are the things you excel at. Dealing with women, not so much."
Joe wasn't about to argue. He had always been magnificent at getting women into his life and his bed. He just wasn't that good at keeping them there. The fact that one of the most attractive, and unquestionably the most intelligent women he had ever met to take a shine to him was pretty astounding. The last thing he was going to do now was ask why.
"I'll defer to your judgement on this issue." Joe gave her hand a squeeze while he continued to look off into the distance, taking in the scope of the property they were walking around.
Keeping a tight grip on Joe's hand, Rhea stopped in her tracks and pulled Joe towards her. The action made Joe swing in, trying not to make eye contact as he got nearer. As their torsos touched, Joe looked down at Rhea with almost a stunned look on his face.
"Let go, action-man." She joked as she brought her hands up to the backs of Joe's head, and gently coaxed his head into a position where she could get onto eye-level when she was on her tippy-toes. As their eyes finally met, Joe felt a sudden weakness in his gut, because he realised for the first time, in a very long time, that he was more than infatuated with some girl.
When the kiss finally came, it was soft, gentle, and full of passion. Nothing too substantial, and certainly no tongue, it was just right. Eyes closed, arms wrapped around each other, letting only the sounds of their pounding hearts make any sound.
24
When the C-17 landed in Paraguay five days later with Joe and Rhea onboard, not much had changed locally, but a lot had changed for Joe. In the early days of his assignment to the SETI team, he had behaved like he had since puberty, chasing everything with a heartbeat and a beautiful face. He did have a steady girlfriend in university, Allison Ashmore, but that didn't make it past the six-month part, that was mainly due to her dislike for Joe's interest in a career in the army, and they had only been Freshmen at the time.
The weather in Paraguay was similar to Maryland, just not as humid, which Joe wasn't going to complain about, he was, however, going to miss the morning swims that he had taken with Rhea in Canada, and the twice-daily walks with Toby, who always found something to chase after. He had to admit that spending time with Rhea's family had been a success, but he had also enjoyed himself, and he was fairly confident that he hadn't embarrassed himself. Or maybe just a little bit by being always drunk under the table by Rhea's father, and the fact that the matron of the house played the guitar better than he did. Yep, other than those two things, roaring success.
As the rear ramp of the Globemaster finished lowering, Joe caught the first glance of his baby being illuminated by the South American sky for the first time. With a little help from the President, the Air Force had agreed to fly his '67 Stingray down to Paraguay. With the road from Mariscal Estigarribia to the growing town near the crash site a subsidiary of Tohil repaved the road, Joe had some reassurance that his car wouldn't be bounced to death on the 123-mile drive north.
Rhea had collected her bag and came up next to Joe to watch the Air Force ground crew take the strappings off the vintage racer.
"I can't believe they let you bring that thing down here." She shook her head, "I'm surprised that something that old is still road worthy."
Joe smiled. "You science people are always looking forward. You can learn a lot from the past."
"At least tell me it's fast." Doctor Stokes said sarcastically.
Joe smiled. Not a happy smile, an old-school mischievous Joe Hunt smile. 30 minutes later, the Corvette was tearing north at 140 miles per hour. The car was running like a dream. Joe had his local 'Vette guy in Florida give the vehicle a full tune up a week before it was picked up for shipment to Paraguay, and now, Joe was taking full advantage of it.
With the top down, and the wind whipping through Rhea's long, slightly curly, hair, it became apparent to Joe that they had more in common than he had first expected because there was a giant grin on the face of the woman sitting in the passenger seat. She wasn't the least bit worried about the speed, the car, the road, or what could happen. She was enjoying the moment.
The roar of the mighty V8 engine sent any animals near the road scurrying for safety well before the car came into view. Luckily for Joe, this area of Paraguay was not known for its traffic cops.
As they got within a mile of the clearing that had been converted into a small village, Joe slowed the car. "Were you expecting anything to have changed in our absence?" he asked.
"No. I talked with Doctor Jannsen last night. She said that everything has been going like clockwork. She did mention that Ranix enquired after the data pad that he gave Stephenson last month."
"Yeah. I haven't seen that thing in a while either. I hope you're not thinking what I'm thinking."
"Which is?" She asked.
"That the Tohil douche bags have it, and aren't going to give it back.""That could complicate things. We know that Tohil wants access to their technology, but would they risk stealing something?" The thought visibly concerned Rhea that Tohil would have done something so brazen.
"I think that we have to assume that they'd do a lot to get what they want. They did pay billions of dollars to the local government to start with. At some point, they are going to want to see a return on their investment." Joe pulled off the highway onto a smaller road that had been manned by a Paraguayan army unit but now was guarded by a few Paraguayan soldiers and several men dressed in black fatigues that Joe didn't recognise.
Once they were through the checkpoint, Joe looked over his shoulder back at the men in black. "Heckler and Koch G36's." He said, about the weapons that the men in black were carrying.
"Is that supposed to mean anything to me?" Rhea asked.
"Did those security guys look funny to you?"
"Now that you mention it, they didn't look very local."
Joe pursed his lips and accelerated away from the checkpoint. "Something funny is going on."
Ten minutes later they were parked and looked around the tiny village, which had taken on a much different look than the one that Doctor Jannsen described to Rhea the previous evening.
Standing next to his car, Joe couldn't help but notice that there were a large number of black-clad people walking around, and eight new armoured vehicles parked near the Tohil headquarters, some equipped with what looked like advanced anti-tank weapons mounted on them.
Joe caught sight of Doctor Temple strolling by and called out to him. "Bobby!"
The burly jovial American bounded over. "Good to see you guys."
"What's going on with all the fascists?" Joe asked.
"Tohil's private security. They flew in overnight. When I woke up this morning, they were everywhere."
Joe looked around; there must have been almost a hundred men, armed and wearing matching black uniforms. "Where are these guys from?"
"I don't know. I've heard lots of German, some French and I think some Afrikaans. They're mercenaries." he said dryly. He looked at Joe, then over to the armoured vehicles that were parked about thirty yards away. "What are those things on top of those cars over there?"
Joe took off his sunglasses and gave the vehicles a good look. "I'd say they've got themselves a few different systems, Javelins, AT-4s, and what look like a remote weapons station on two of the vehicles with .50 calibre machine guns, and one with a Gatling gun."
Bobby looked over to Doctor Stokes before looking back at Joe. "That sounds like a lot of firepower to me." He said.
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Joe put his sunglasses back on. "It is."
25
The next six days went by without any significant developments. A pathway was cleared to allow the large flatbed trucks carrying the containers with the massive cranes to reach the crash site, and finally, the trucks began to arrive.
It would take a team from Mammoet six weeks to get the cranes fully operational, and during that time, the SETI team couldn't help but loosen what had been an iron grip on access to the crash site. Tohil employees were now needed to approach the alien ship with Mammoet employees as steps were put into place to begin the necessary repairs on the underside of the ship's hull.
Joe was all too aware of the enormous influx of men with all types of devices taking every reading under the sun near the spacecraft. While only SETI personnel were allowed into the ship, Ranix had let Joe know of his slight trepidation as the noose around the stricken ship tightened.
What Joe was more concerned about, and what he had not told Ranix, was that the Paraguayan military ring that was still surrounding the crash site at what was once considered a generous distance had been reduced to just a perimeter of one kilometre, and an inner ring had been established 500 yards away by the Tohil security personnel. It was getting to feel more and more like an armed camp and almost had the feeling that there was a prison being constructed around the crashed ship.
By the time the crane was half assembled, the atmosphere around the accident site, and around the world had changed in many ways. Doctor Von Dutch had attended the World Religions Conference in Nairobi, and the conclusions, and opinions of many of the representatives there, were openly hostile to the aliens. Von Dutch, now working as Tohil Technologies religious consultant, believed that everything must be done to protect humanity and its faiths from the offworlders.
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