Sandra chatted with some of the members of the critical response team, feeling somewhat refreshed after a long nap. Her phone rang. Picking it up, she got one of her administrative assistants. “Sandra, Director Alvarez is on the line for you.”
“Yes, I will take it. Thanks.” Sandra felt a sudden tenseness and her heart raced. “Afternoon, Sir.”
The Director started off with a long sigh. “Sandra. The situation is getting very ugly. We now have information on threats in at least three other cities and four other countries. None of these threats are in the San Francisco Bay Area. How is your situation?”
Sandra felt like a deer in headlights. She wanted to lie but it was not in her nature. Besides, the director had a stack of reports from earlier in the day. “Sir, at the moment everything is pretty quiet. However, there are a large number of what can best be called mercenaries in place armed with heavy weapons like machine guns, RPGs, and mortars. I am expecting it all to get wild tonight when what we think is the ship carrying drugs comes in. Can you get us some military assets?”
Director Alvarez answered with another sigh. “Sandra, we have unofficially gone to threat level red. We are mobilizing all of the military assets that we can for the known situations, domestically and internationally. We need to pull everything that we can from you by midnight tonight. You will have to do with only your regular staff.”
“But Sir, we will be heavily outgunned. Agents will die.”
“Millions of Americans might be dead before the end of the day tomorrow if we don’t act decisively. We have information suggesting that some of the terrorists may have short-range ballistic missiles with tactical nuclear warheads. We are trying to decide if we need to evacuate cities like Las Vegas.”
Sandra could hear what was almost a sob in her boss’s voice. “Sir, please reconsider?”
“No Sandra. These orders come directly from the President. This is a dark day in United States history.”
After the Director hung up, she leaned back in her chair. Suddenly, she did not like her job at all. But being the dedicated servant she was, she decided to continue to do the best with what she had. Derek and DeMario happened to be in the room.
“Derek, you better check with your boss, things are getting worse very quickly. In the meantime, can I borrow DeMario for a special reconnaissance?”
Derek looked over at DeMario. “Sure, what did you have in mind?”
“I think that everything is going to hit the fan tonight. Jack London Square has some kind of wine festival going on. I understand that it is packed with people. It is awfully close to the Fairchild Group container ship dock. Could you have DeMario take a walk through the area to check for anything out of the ordinary? Also, we may have to get the Oakland Police to carry out an evacuation on short notice. We may have some leverage to do so. You should know that the Department of Homeland Security has unofficially gone to alert level red.”
Derek quickly went back to his highest level of alertness. “I will call Langley right away. DM, what do you think?”
DeMario had been sitting in a folding chair watching the monitors. “No problem, I can be over there in a few minutes. I will need to change my clothes to fit in better. I know something about this wine festival. You should know that there will likely be some people there who will know me.”
Derek did not show any more emotion. “So much the better for your cover for people who don’t know you. You will look like you fit in.”
Joe and Elise had everything set up, including the Gambaro Winery Banner just in time for the opening of the gates to the Jack London Square Wine Festival. People had been lining up for almost a half-hour at the ticket booth, where they were able to immediately buy tickets, and at the entrance gate, where they had to wait for the official opening. When the clock stood at 4:00 PM, the ticket takers started taking tickets and handing out wine glasses engraved with the wine event logo.
The first patrons through the gate made a mad dash for the Berkeley Culinary Institute Cooking School gourmet food counters, to make sure that they could fill up some of the small paper plates before the onrush. There was a broad mix of people. From twenty somethings to sixty somethings, there was quite a range of ages present. From fit to the not-so-fit, almost every body type imaginable was here to taste award winning wines. Sure enough, the temperatures were warm, and the widely varying degrees of modesty and bare skin on many of the women were sure to please Joe’s acquaintance Philippe.
Elise stood with Joe behind the table of wine bottles. A poster board with pictures of the winery sat on the table along with several bottles of wine. Their gold medal and best of class plaques stood on the table resting on stands. Elise placed vases of flowers and doilies to dress up their table.
Continued ...
