Take the Cannoli

 190.

Julie relieves a security officer whom I have not met. As is her custom she does so ten minutes before the top of the hour, a habit we had drilled into us by a special ops instructor who insisted that one was twenty minutes late if not ten early. I am fairly sure that it is a Monday. I am prepare for this to be a red-letter, Oscar winning day regardless.

She has a quick change-of-shift conversation with the new guy, hangs her down jacket up on a brushed aluminum hook and caries her backpack to the chair waiting at bedside to my left. Once seated she searches her pack as she eyes the metrics behind me and asks about my present disposition.

"I'm good, what happened to TOM?"

"Whoa, did you have a quad this morning? Easy does it cowboy, we have the whole day."

"Sure, but let's agree that from this moment forward everything, everything, is on an accelerated schedule, a tactic of which I am sure you need no additional explanation." I say, somewhat surprised by the sound of my no-nonsense tone.

She takes a deep breath, spending the bulk of the exhale gathering the patience and presence it will take to accurately tell the story.

I gather from this that she has opted for the SparkNotes version, more a binary report than the retelling of a beloved tale. For an odd reason I hope I am wrong and she takes poetic license to embellish as necessary.

She is looking over several sheets of paper, what I am sure are the culmination of many hours of detailed note taking, what I also assume to be a painstakingly unbiased accounting of the abject failure of our mission, the passing of our highest ranking officer and the unknown whereabouts of our major asset. People have been tried for treason for less.

She begins. "You and Drysdale had completed the final phase of drone testing, and were putting the time frames in place for the test in Colorado with Warden Daniels."

"What about The Old Man?" I childishly interrupt.

"I'm getting to that, please calm down and let me finish with the broad strokes, there will be a thousand questions when I am done, so please let's do this my way," she asks with parental tough-love.

I nod in contrite agreement.

"Davis and I were solidifying the arrangement with Adleson and his goons. TOM was mollifying Senator Hartaugh keeping the whole operation moving towards its intended dramatic conclusion and Ms Hayes, was quite busy squelching an internal mutiny among her band of domestic terrorists, keeping her cover intact and finishing the engineering details of the drone lift." At this she pauses to allow me to grasp the down-steam consequences of each situation. Satisfied with both my comprehension and attention, she continues, "We were at D minus two when the fat hit the shan. It was straight outta The Godfather. Over the course of an hour somebody, obviously with good intel, managed to sneak to your six and get off four rounds at point-blank range, TOM had what by all indications was a massive heart attack and the Queen was, we suspect, kidnapped during a clumsy coupe by her crew of bloodthirsty thugs."

At this she again pauses. She looks at me with an odd stare as an auditioning actress might after a read. She tilts her head right while raising both brows waiting for a response.

"Take the cannoli, leave the gun."