Chapter 10: Break In & Total Surrender
It was a considerable shock when, after just a short jaunt our shopping for a few things, we arrived back at the apartment Wednesday afternoon to find traffic clogging the little side street, then the security gate knocked flat like it had been run down by a tank, and people all over the place gawking and milling around. I think I was a little slow to react, but suddenly I caught the drift… something was not right.
I told Christine to get out of sight and down on the floor. She looked at me strangely, but the tone in my voice carried the tenseness that moved her to action. Another tenant was right in front of us and hesitated to enter the driveway, and that hesitation allowed me a second to react, my intercept antennae now extended and sensitive to whatever might be out of place. In the distance I could hear police sirens, possibly associated, perhaps not; no way to tell at the moment. I decided to drive past as if we were not residents at all,
I drove on, slowly, trying to act normal and unconcerned, and not identifiable as the man with the pretty young girl they were hunting. I was watching for cars nearby with one or two men in them that might be watching for us to come home, didn't see anyone suspicious, but I knew, too, that my untrained eye could just as easily have missed something obvious. I continued on, making a couple of turns, then across the Ballard Bridge and South on 15th Avenue West, off on Dravus and intending to turn up the hill into rabbit warren of small streets that was Queen Anne Hill. The trip across the bridge was the basic sweep to clear our baffles, and I called Christine to assist and watch for cars following us. She was keen as a bloodhound now and very sharp-eyed. I knew she understood me when I used terms from my past, and that ‘clearing the baffles' was a submariner's term for swinging around to do a sonar search directly behind you to check for any other boats in hot pursuit. It also triggered as well our captain & XO games – of which more shortly – and set a serious team player mood for us. She responded instantly.
At Dravus, I changed my mind, turned right first, then into the QFC parking lot to stop amid several other cars with customers constantly coming and going into the market. Any car following us would have to tip his hand, or so we supposed.
After about ten minutes, during which no cars at all suspicious came by, I concluded that, even had they been watching for us and put a tail on us we had evidently lost them. ‘Evidently' is a qualifier that should keep in the forefront that we could not really be sure.
Christine was quiet and tense as we waited together and watched. I took her hand as she sat next to me, and that little gesture seemed to lighten her anxiety some. The thought passed through my mind that she had matured considerably in these last months. She was frightened, but she was not a terror-stricken, helpless child any more. What had she become? I looked at her as she studied the cars driving into or past the parking lot, watching, sifting, analyzing. She was picking up on the cunning and learning from her experiences, and was a stronger and more self-confident young lady. OK, she was because she felt she could depend on me to lead and teach. Probably so, and I'll take credit for that. There was, nevertheless, something about her… she was a fighter! She was not about to surrender or give in!
Only another man of like inclination can probably imagine what that can do to a fellow's heart. It is one thing to draw one's sword in defense of the helpless waif, and that is surely an honor unto itself, but there is something immensely gratifying to a crusading knight to find that the lady he defends is a lady of stature in her own right. Though it be she remains dependant on him for ultimate safety, even in the face of challenge and stress she gathers her wits about her and applies her talents and skills in any way she can, and stands at his side willingly, courageously, loyally… yes, lovingly, come what may.
There is much in the media nowadays that suggests to women how to win and influence men, presenting a plethora of little formulae and techniques. For men so shallow that simple tricks taught in a slick magazine can bend their will, perhaps that is all they deserve.
For a woman of substance, however, with some gray matter between her ears and a vibrant heart, the infallible way – at least in my estimation – to hold on to the affection of a man drawn to her, and to whom she chooses to give her heart, is to stand bravely as the woman she is striving to become, taking her place at his side with loyalty and love and bearing with him the heavy weather of tumult and tribulation their ship will certainly encounter on life's tempestuous seas.
And there she sat, right there, next to me, watching carefully, struggling to not let her fears get the best of her, still leaning on me heavily for strength, following my lead and wanting to be right where she was at that moment… at my side.
If you are a girl reading this, the matter may seem hard to understand. It's simple, really. It's love; it's what love does… always. When the chips are down, you stand together! And together in love you have the strength of at least ten… and more.
If you have experienced that phenomenon, you know whereof I speak; if not, well, you have extraordinarily rich adventures still ahead.
After a while, I called the management agency and inquired. Yes, it had been our apartment. Information was sparse, but four men, one witness said she thought there had been five, in a blue van, thoroughly ransacked the apartment. The lady was apologetic that such a thing had happened and wanted to help. I told her not to worry; we were all right and would be in touch in a day or two.
Christine had heard my side of the brief conversation, and I filled her in on the rest. The big question was now, obviously, how had they found us, and what do we do about it.
"Christine, let's think through the situation carefully.
"Did we leave anything at the apartment that would identify us? Mail, catalogs with our names, books, documents or papers of any kind, any of our school stuff, anything at all?"
We had gone over just this kind of eventuality several times, and in executing our security plan we routinely packed up our personal belongings when we went anywhere in the car. I always took the laptop with me in the car, and even there I weekly backed up onto a CD and mailed the disc off to our secure storage site where we saved any papers and documents of long term significance. It was an elaborate, involved, often inconvenient security procedure, but at times like this, we both knew we had not been wasting our time.
We concluded after some time looking at what we had with us in the back seat that we had not been lax. Then I heard a gasp. She had her hand over her mouth and looked at me.
"
My wedding dress
! It was boxed up to go to storage but it was still in the apartment!" Her attachment to her dress was deep. It was for me too. She had been drop dead gorgeous in that dress, and those were my daughter's words to me at the occasion, but I agreed entirely. She looked at me hopefully.
"I think it way too dangerous for us to go back, even for your dress. We may be able to work out some technique to get someone else to recover your dress and pass it to us. Let me think about that a bit." She was disappointed, and it showed in her eyes, along with her trust in my judgment.
"Anything that could identify us?" The white box with her dress was a generic, unmarked carton, and we had intentionally not marked it in any way. Before leaving it in the storage place, our plan was to mark it with a code and enter it on our catalog of possessions in the subdirectory on the laptop.
She took her time, and I could almost hear the gears grinding in that pretty head of hers, and she looked over the back seat at the boxes and bags we had with us, counting, cataloging, checking carefully. "No, Darling, I can't think of a thing. All my class materials are in my briefcase and file box," and then she turned to me distressed again. "That nice set of kitchen knives you gave me is there; I guess that's lost now, huh?" And then she giggled, "and the rest of your blueberry pie, too!"
We had fixed a blueberry pie together the previous afternoon, mostly as a play project together. She had done the filling, I the crust. We had found fresh blueberries on sale at the market and it was her idea. Making a pie together is a good example of the crazy little things we did for fun, and we seldom missed having a grand time. It had turned out just dandy and we had each eaten two pieces with vanilla ice cream on the side. There were two more pieces left, and now they would likely go uneaten… unsavored.
Nevertheless, how had they found us?
I continued to cast about for any thread of our existence left trailing out behind for someone to uncover. I could see nowhere we had left a track. The sense of the unseen enemy being just a step behind us was very unnerving to me. Christine was stronger now, but still, her lighthearted playfulness had fled and she was quiet and pensive, watching me and how I reacted, keying her emotions and confidence level off mine. I guess that's what it means to trust your husband with everything, and I think she did.
By now, I was involving Christine in most of my planning and analysis, and using her as a sounding board. Her job, as we divvied up the labor, was to seek to poke holes in any plan I came up with. She had countered sweetly at first that she didn't want to have to find fault with my efforts like that, saying it so tenderly that she just made my heart jump for joy. I had told her at the time, assuming a stern and impartial team-leader kind of voice – that's all relative, of course, we were almost always in a playful frolic anyway – that she was part of the team, and her talents were an important element of the combined effort, that any plan she presented would be scrutinized for oversights as well, and that she was expected to contribute her very best to the team's success.
She had remained quiet for a long moment, and then responded, "Is that how you talked to those sailors who were with you on the submarine?"
I had forgotten about that. I had told her about my submarine recon missions and how we worked so closely together and it was exciting to be so successful and a tremendous professional stimulation, and all that. How very quickly, I thought to myself, she related diverse bits of information. Impressive!
"Yes, as a matter of fact, that's right," I responded. Then, since her eyes were all a-twinkle for me, I added, "You know, you'd make one hell of a fine executive officer, Darling! I'd only let you go to sea on my ship, of course. No transfers!"
It was just heart-stopping how quickly she bounced right back, enthusiasm in her voice and a twinkle in those pretty eyes, "Would I get to call you the captain then?"
