DC

(Source)

Chapman had the host seat her at a table with a nice view of the Potomac, her server came by, she ordered water with a lemon slice, and a chopped spinach salad. While it was a meeting, it was in a restaurant, and it was lunchtime, so she was going to eat. The drive from her office hadn't been too bad, but it was still DC traffic.

She heard a familiar voice as she was digging into her salad, she looked up and sure enough, it was the man she was supposed to meet with.

"Hi, Beth," Jack Morgan said with a grin as he sat down across the table from her.

"Pretty ballsy, Jack, meeting like this."

"I remembered that when you lived in Old Town you liked this place."

"Well yeah, I still get down here from Annapolis from time to time. I didn't move to the moon you know."

Morgan blushed, he and Chapman had been a 'thing' when they were in the Navy. She flew helicopters, he had been a surface warfare officer, specializing in boarding operations.¹ They had spent a number of months in the Persian Gulf, he had been assigned to a destroyer, she had been on the same ship as part of the Air Detachment. They had behaved aboard ship, but the few port calls the ship had made, they had not.

After her helicopter had gone down in a sandstorm and she had badly injured her back, they had gone their separate ways. She had been stationed at ONI while undergoing rehabilitation, he had stayed at sea until he got out of the Navy a year later. Eventually she had been medically retired with three years to go until her twenty, he had separated from the Navy when he'd been passed over for lieutenant commander for the second time.

She often wondered what would have happened had they been closer in age, she had at least six years on him.

"Anything I need to know about?" Morgan asked.

"You've got no worries on my end." Chapman answered.

"What's good here?" Morgan asked as he glanced at the menu the server had dropped off.

"Food's better in the evening, the only reason I'm here at lunch is I like the view."

"Hhmm, ah, I'm not hungry anyway, call me?" Morgan said as he stood up to leave.

"Only if I have to, Jack. Only if I have to."

Johansen was just hanging up his phone when Morgan walked into the office. Johansen gave him a sour look.

"Where the hell have you been?"

Morgan sat, uninvited, before he answered, "I was down in Alexandria, thought I had a lead on something, but it turned out to be nothing."

"What kind of lead?"

"Let's go for a walk Ephraim, it's nice outside."

"Spill it, Morgan."

"I heard a rumor that someone who works at the Pentagon, the E Ring² mind you, may, or may not, have heard something about our little after hours activities."

Johansen's face paled slightly. "Anybody important, or some staffer?"

"Like I said, it didn't pan out. The guy I talked to, a staffer, is an old buddy of mine, another blackshoe³ sailor, he'd heard one of the flags say something offhand about 'traitors in our midst.' Turns out he was talking about a Marine who's rooting for Army this fall."

Johansen raised an eyebrow at that.

"The Marine's son plays tackle for West Point."

"Ah. So this was much ado about nothing?"

"It kinda concerns me that this staffer would think to bring it up to me, what does he know, or thinks he knows?"

Johansen, "I'd ask for a name, but I don't want to go poking around over in Arlington. Best let sleeping dogs lie. If something comes up, will this guy get in touch?"

"I doubt it, he's headed back to sea in a couple of months."

As Johansen walked back to his building, Morgan went to his car. In the glovebox was a burner phone, he opened it and hit a single button.

"Yes?"

"I brought the bait, don't know if the fish are biting."

The phone clicked off on the other end.

On the way back to his apartment, Morgan stopped at a convenience store and picked up a six pack. The phone, which he'd snapped in half before putting it in a paper bag with a rather ripe banana peel, went into the trash outside the door. The chip from the phone was somewhere on 295, just past the sign for Exit 1A. He had snapped that in half as well.

Vice Admiral Tom Shaeffer was tired. It had been a long day and it wasn't over yet. It was just past 1900 and he had another meeting over at the Navy Yard which would probably run until midnight.

As he settled into the back seat of his car, his driver, Master Sergeant Turner Johns, USMC, turned to him, handing him a paper sack. "I bought you a sandwich, Admiral. Tomatoes and cheese on dark rye. Mayo, no pickles."

"Thanks, T. Did you get to eat?"

"Yessir, went home to Mama and the kids while you were hobnobbing with the Congresscritters. Had some red beans and rice, some boudin, and a nice cold beer. Ya shoulda come with me, Sir."

"You're right. Talking with those bastards from up on the Hill always makes me want to shoot myself."

"Take it easy, Sir. They'll get theirs. You know what they say, right?"

"I do, T, I do. What goes around, comes around. After you drop me off at the Yard, go ahead and go home. I'll leave a message as to what time to collect me tomorrow morning."

"Roger that, Sir."

"I have not yet begun to fight," the Admiral said softly as he exited the car.

MSgt. Johns nodded as he drove off, "Amen to that."

¹ Morgan would have been part of the Navy's Visit, Board, Search, and Seizure (VBSS) teams. Very active in the Persian Gulf at certain points in history.

² The most senior military and civilian officials of the Department of Defense and their staffs work in the E Ring.

³ Surface Warfare Officers (SWOs) are often referred to as "black shoes" due to the color of their footwear when not in whites. Naval aviators are especially fond of referring to them that way. Aviators wear brown shoes, my son, a SWO, did some heavy eye-rolling when his baby sister, a Naval Flight Officer, bought her first pair of brown shoes to wear with her khakis after being winged.