Welcome to the first chapter of Necessary Chance, book fifteen and the big finale of Operation Quickline.
It’s the holiday season. First, Sid gets the shock of his life, which sends him and his wife, Lisa, into working a case for their top-secret counter-espionage business. Then family concerns make life even crazier. Sid and Lisa are up against it, taking the chances they need to take without blowing their covers.
To Breanna, 10/23/00
Today’s Topic: Spending the Holidays Together
So, your mom is cool with the two of you joining me and the Whole Fam-Damily. I’m glad. I’d really hate to be without you. Christmas is a big deal for us, and I want to be with the people I love, especially you.
But I think it’s only fair to make sure you and your mom know what you’re letting yourselves in for. You know our monthly birthday parties? It’s almost a whole month of that, plus the Then-Somes, namely the various friends we all have.
This year is going to be even crazier, since we’re all going to D.C. to see Darby and Alicia do the big New Year’s Eve concert at the Kennedy Center. Every day we will be there, you know Sy is going to be rousting us out to see everything there is to see in the Nation’s Capital, and I do mean everything. I swear, I do not know how he does it. He’s seventy-six and does not stop when he’s in touring mode. Trust me, last summer in New Zealand was nothing.
Okay. We’ve got Thanksgiving settled. I don’t know why we split up more for that holiday, given how much everyone in my family loves to eat, but Aunt Mae and Uncle Neil want to see his family in Nebraska, and that gives them the chance to do it. Which makes it easier for Grandma and Grandpa Wycherly to go see their families in South Florida. So, our Thanksgiving will be just about us, your mom, and my parents, Sy and Stella, and Ellen. (Did I forget anyone?)
Saturday and Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend, though, is when the chaos starts. We go over to the O’Malleys’ early in the day on Saturday to help them get the lights up at their house and otherwise decorate. And then there’s a party. Then everybody comes to my parents’ place on Sunday after Mass to do the same there, and there’s another party. There will be multiple shopping trips after this, sometimes en masse, sometimes in smaller groups, during which we will probably hit every mall in the greater Los Angeles area. Yes, there will be lots and lots of presents, but the majority of them will be jokes, a couple things that somebody really needs or wants, and/or homemade. Not everybody has my parents’ and my cash flow, so that evens things out and nobody has to compete or get loaded down with stuff they don’t need, and we all still get lots of presents to open. If it rains, there will probably be a ski trip. You did great in New Zealand. And if your mother wants to learn, you know Mom and Aunt Mae will be happy to teach her.
On the second Sunday of December, Aunt Mae and Uncle Neil have their open house. The Whole Fam-Damily will be there, plus lots of friends, a lot of whom you’ve met already. There will be more outings and trips to malls. The last weekend before Christmas, the party starts at my parents’ place. Everyone descends on it Friday night, some stay overnight, others go back and forth. Sy and Stella usually go back to their place since it’s so close to Mom and Dad’s and Stella doesn’t have to wear clothes there. The Then-Somes usually come over after Mass on Sunday. Christmas Eve, Darby and Alicia will be with her parents, aunts, uncles, and grandparents, but they’ll be at Midnight Mass at my parents’ parish, along with the rest of the Whole Fam-Damily. Dad’s usually playing organ for Frank Lonnergan and the choir.
For some reason, on Boxing Day, we do an outing, but this year I think that’s when we’re leaving for D.C. Yes, Dad got your mom a ticket. I bought yours. We’ll figure out who’s rooming with your mom later, probably Janey and Ellen.
And so it goes on until New Year’s Day and sometimes after.
The worst of it is, Mom, Aunt Mae, and Grandma all get a little nuts. They are the anti-Scrooges. They make Whos look like Grinches. The annual Christmas pajamas and nightgowns are the worst of it, and Aunt Mae is already bugging me for yours and your mother’s sizes. Mom not only wears Christmas sweaters, she makes them. One year, she wanted to make a set of matching sweaters for the three of us and the dogs. Thank God, Dad and I talked her out of it. I may not have as easy a time talking her out of matching sweaters for the two of us. This from a woman who despises cute so much that when someone gave her a bunch of cutesy potholders, she took them to the shooting range and used them for target practice.
Lisa’s Voice
I took in a deep breath of satisfaction. It was Friday afternoon, the first of December. Christmas was officially in season. I love Christmas. We’d already decorated the outside of the house the weekend before. As I half-sang “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear,” I scratched Blueberry kitty between the ears, then went back to the white, green, and red sweater I was knitting. The gray short-haired cat was snuggled up on my lap. Our other two cats and the two dogs had decided to make themselves scarce, and with good reason.
My husband, Sid, our son Nick, and my nephew Darby were engaged in a most delicate maneuver, that of moving the walnut baby grand piano from our library to the big living room. The guys had already turned around the ebony baby grand to make it easier to slide the walnut in next to it.
Yeah, I know. Two baby grand pianos seem a bit much. We also have an upright upstairs in the music and workroom next to Sid’s and my bedroom, not to mention several electronic keyboards here, there, and everywhere. We have multiple pianos because Sid is a pianist. Four and a half years ago, when we originally laid out the plan for the house, Sid wanted a piano in the living room to play for what was technically my family, but by that point had become just as much his family. I loved having a separate library with a piano in there so that I could read while Sid played. Or knit while Sid played. Since we have money, Sid decided we might as well have baby grands in both rooms.
Then Sid had found and reconciled with Stella, the aunt who had raised him. She was the one who had taught him to play in the first place, and is a very accomplished pianist and teacher. So, rather than force them to switch off playing, it was kind of fun to let them both play at the same time. This year, they wanted to do the Brahms waltzes for two pianos, Opus 39. Which necessitated turning the ebony piano one-hundred and eighty degrees, then moving the walnut in through the front hall into the living room, then tuning both because the movement, no matter how gentle, would tweak something that no one but Sid, Stella, or Darby, who is also a musician, would hear.
It had to be done well before Christmas so that Sid and Stella had time to rehearse and, if I’m honest, fight over it. Those two are always bickering, but oddly enough, there’s a fondness to it that belies the crankiness.
“Alright,” said Sid. He’s not a large man, just around three inches taller than me, and I’m average. He has a solid, muscular build with dark, wavy hair, a cleft chin, and bright blue eyes. “I think we’ve got it.”
Darby pushed his glasses up on his freckled nose.
“The ebony needs to go a little more that way,” he said as if Sid didn’t know what he was doing. “We don’t want them too close together.”
Darby has red hair and green eyes. At sixteen, he was already six feet tall, and we were wondering if he’d get any taller. While his shoulders are fairly well developed – no surprise, he’s a violinist – the rest of his frame is pretty slight. He was also getting more than a little smart-mouthed of late.
Sid shot Darby a quick glare, then looked at the pianos and grimaced. “You might have a point. Let’s do it.”
Nick sighed. I could tell he was getting antsy. He’d been six-one for the past eight months, so we were thinking he might have finally stopped growing. He, too, was sixteen, so it wasn’t a given that he’d reached his adult height. His frame is well muscled, like his father’s, and Nick has the same cleft chin, wavy, dark hair, and blue eyes as Sid. Unlike his father, though, he prefers to wear glasses. Sid wears contact lenses. Both are very near-sighted. Nick’s hair was only somewhat longer than Sid’s, though, because the Catholic high school Nick goes to won’t let him wear it past his collar.
“Mom, can you take notes, please?” Nick asked.
“Sure.” I put down my sweater and found the notebook that Nick had dropped on the end table next to the sofa where I’d put my feet up. Blueberry squeaked her displeasure at being disturbed, but turned a couple times, kneaded my leg, and curled up again.
The living room is a large, long, open space that runs through the middle of the house. A hallway from the front door and the library runs across the front of it to Sid’s and my office. The walls are a very light blue. While there is normally just the ebony baby grand on the one side of the room, on the other are three conversation groupings. The center section has a long couch upholstered in a muted blue and green stripe, with matching blue wing-back chairs flanking it. Each of the two conversation groups on either side of the long couch has a love seat along the same wall and two overstuffed chairs. The two love seats have the same blue and green stripe upholstery, but there’s green upholstery on the overstuffed chairs. The floors are shiny dark wood, so it’s relatively easy to re-group things when we need or want to.
At the far end of the living room is the dining room, with its lovely dark cherry wood table and the beautiful Louis Fifteen breakfront. Then there’s another hallway and the huge TV or rumpus room beyond that.
Along with Nick’s wire-bound notebook was a sheet of mimeographed paper with a list of questions.
“Okay,” I said, pulling a pen from the round wires binding the lined sheets together. “Where were we?”
“Um, we’ve got date of birth for both you and Dad,” Nick said. “And places of birth.”
I looked at the notebook. “Yep, except your dad was born in New York, not San Francisco.” I sighed. “Do you have a date of birth and place for your first mom yet?”
“Yeah.” Nick brightened, even as he grunted with the effort to move the ebony piano the micrometers that Sid and Darby had decreed.
It wasn’t that hard. Both of the pianos have wheels on their legs.
“That’s good,” said Darby. “What do you think, Uncle Sid?”
“That looks great. We’d better get on the tuning. Thanks, Nick.”
Nick sighed, then flopped into the wing-back next to me and took the notebook and pen from me.
“New York, Dad?”
“Yeah,” said Sid. “We didn’t move to San Francisco until after I was two. Or was I three?”
Darby laughed a little. He and Nick were working on a family history. Both boys went to the same high school. They and their mutual best friend, Josh Sandoval, all had the same project. The assignment was for their religion class. According to the letter that had been sent home with each of the boys, the idea was to get the kids to not only think about faith as something that happened within a family experience, but also get them talking to their parents and grandparents in a non-judgmental way that would lead to better communication.
I suppose I could afford to be a little complacent about the communication thing. Not only did Sid and I have an excellent relationship with Nick, Darby enjoyed a darned good relationship with his parents, too. Well, most of the time, he did. The assignment had purposely been given right on top of the Christmas holidays because that’s when extended family tended to be around.
“I want to know what your mom said about her sibling,” Darby said to Nick. He grinned as Sid got out the tuning forks and started plinking the keys.
Darby’s mother is my older sister, Mae. Her one and only sibling is me.
“She didn’t yet.” Nick grinned at me. “Well? Describe your sibling.”
“Oh.” I took a deep breath. “That’s always been kind of a weird relationship. I mean, we love each other, but for some reason, she gets really competitive about me. I don’t know why. She was always the one everyone looked up to. She got the straight A’s in school. Everyone always wanted me to be more like her because she was so well-behaved.”
Darby laughed. “She said you always got what you wanted, and everyone paid more attention to you.”
I shrugged. “Probably because I was causing more trouble.”
Nick looked at Darby. “I can’t wait to see what Grandma Wycherly says.”
“You got it, dude!”
The two high-fived each other, then Sid asked Darby to play various keys on the walnut.
Nick and Darby weren’t only cousins, they were best friends and had been ever since Nick had been brought to Sid’s and my doorstep by Nick’s first mother.
“Dad, your earliest memory.”
Sid sighed and blinked. “Um. I think it was an Italian grocer who lived underneath us in Greenwich Village. I remember his eyes. They were really blue.” He shook his head. “Not much more than that.”
“And what were you doing around this date when you were sixteen?” Nick scribbled busily.
Sid laughed. “Probably working. I’d grown a mustache and gotten my job at the French restaurant. I was busing tables until Christmas Day itself, when I’d volunteered to work. They needed some extra waiters, so I got a shot at waiting that day and pulled it off well enough that they made me an apprentice waiter.”
“Why’d you work Christmas?” Darby asked.
“Stella and I didn’t celebrate,” said Sid. “She didn’t believe in it. I didn’t think it was that big a deal. I knew others who didn’t celebrate, either. So, when I had a shot at working and getting some extra bucks for the overtime, I went for it. Not to mention all the great tips I got.”
Darby frowned. “You didn’t celebrate Christmas?”
“Nope. Not until I did with you guys when you were nine.”
Darby gaped. “Really? That was your first Christmas?”
Sid looked over at me with a fond smile. “Yeah, it was.”
“I didn’t know that.” Darby shook his head in wonder, then plinked a key. “That E is still off.”
“It most certainly is.” Sid tossed Darby the tuning wrench, and Darby went to work.
“Dad, this is going to be a two-parter, ‘cause it’s about both my moms.” Nick referred to both his birth mother and me as his moms.
“Okay.”
“How did you meet my first mom, and how did you meet my second mom?”
I’m the second mom. It’s not a rating. It’s when I came into Nick’s life.
Sid chuckled. “It’s the same answer for both. I met them in a bar. It’s where I met most women back then. Your first mom was looking for sex, which immediately made her attractive to me. Your second mom was in trouble, and I couldn’t help myself.”
Sid used to sleep around a lot. It wasn’t the usual sleazy sort of thing. Stella had simply raised him to believe in free love. I’m religious and believe that sex is best within the commitment of marriage. Sid had been impressed by my willingness to stick to my standards and had hired me, and then we had to go and fall in love with each other.
As if it were ordained to come at the most awkward time, the pager I wore at my waist buzzed. Sid and I exchanged glances. He’d gotten the page, too. Nick saw us and knew what was up. Blueberry felt the vibration and fled. Darby, thank God, was oblivious.
You see, within the structures of the FBI and the CIA are several shadow agencies so secret that mostly only their members know they exist. Sid and I work for one called Operation Quickline. Nick knows we do top secret work for the government, but little more than that.
The page probably meant work coming in, and since it could sometimes be urgent, I decided I’d better answer it.
“Shoot,” I said, getting up. “Darby, I just now remembered, your mom wants me to call. Are you staying here tonight?”
He shook his head. “Nah. I gotta go home. Mom’s making us clean up the place for next weekend.”
The O’Malley Open House was a big deal for the family. Mae and her husband, Neil, had almost canceled it this year because it was a lot of work, but the kids really wanted to have it. So, Mae decided that if the kids wanted it that badly, they could help get their place cleaned and fixed up. Which, of course, I already knew. I’d only asked to give Darby a plausible reason for my departure from the room. Not that Darby was likely to have noticed, but I didn’t want to give him a chance to, just in case.
I checked my watch as I went into the office in the front corner of the house. It was quarter ‘til four. Sid, Nick, and I were supposed to meet Sid’s old high school buddy Tom Freeman and Angelique Carter (Tom’s girlfriend and one of Sid’s former lovers) at a restaurant in a nearby mall around six-thirty.
As I’d suspected, the page was from an agent fresh in from overseas. He had a floppy disk in his possession, and he also gave me the password to open the files on the disk once he’d passed it to me. I arranged to have him come to the mall by five. He told me he’d be reading a copy of some foreign newspaper and would leave it behind once I’d signaled him.
I also called Mae and told her that Darby was planning on being home that weekend instead of at our place.
“He’d darned well better be,” Mae grumbled. “But thanks for confirming it.”
The tuning was finished by the time I walked back into the living room.
“Dad said that he filed for his deferment right away,” Darby was saying as he put his violin case on the walnut piano’s bench. “He wanted to go to dental school, so he got it, and by the time he was done, the war was over.”
Sid shrugged. “That’s how it went sometimes.” He glared at the keys to the ebony piano.
Sid and Neil are the same age and had turned nineteen in 1969, the age when a lot of guys got drafted to go into the armed forces.
“Why didn’t you try for a deferment, Dad?” Nick asked. “Stella told me you had that scholarship to USF.”
“They weren’t going to give me one with an undecided major,” Sid grumbled. He started arranging sheet music on the piano’s stand. “Or a music major, or anything I was likely to be studying.”
I was surprised that Sid was talking about when he’d gotten drafted. He seldom talks about anything connected to his time in the Vietnam War.
Sid winced. “Besides, I had no idea what I was going to do with my life. I decided to go in because it was something to do and found out what a colossal mistake I’d made about five minutes after I arrived at boot camp.” He looked up at me. “What did Mae want?”
“Nothing much.” I looked at Nick. “But she did remind me that Nick has some Christmas shopping to do before the party. Why don’t I take him now and meet you guys at the restaurant?”
“I can drive you over there, Uncle Sid,” Darby rosined his bow then picked up his violin. “That way, we can get some practice time in.”
I walked over to the couch. “Am I dressed up enough for dinner?”
I had on a full, hip-length blouse with a pink background and mauve paisley print over black leggings and a short black vest with fringe. I picked up my black flat boots and slid them on.
“Yeah. You look good.” Sid smiled at me.
I went over and gave him a nice kiss. Nick scrambled up and followed me. He was wearing a t-shirt, a tan plaid dress shirt over that, and baggy jeans, practically formal wear for a kid his age. I could almost hear Sid sighing.
“See you later, Dad.”
We got to the mall early for the drop. Nick agreed to play lookout. We found our contact right on time, and I gave the signal. The man folded up his newspaper, set it down on the bench he was sitting on, looked around for a minute or two, then checked his watch, and hurried off, leaving the newspaper. I ran over to the bench and grabbed the newspaper, as if I were trying to return it to him. Since he was gone, I shook my head and jammed the newspaper into my huge black purse. Nick and I continued our walk around the mall. Sometime shortly after five-thirty, Nick stiffened.
“Mom, we’ve got a tail,” he said quietly. He is so good at spotting tails.
“How long?”
Nick frowned. “Just a second ago. I didn’t see him or anyone else around when you made the pickup.” Nick softly sighed. “Here he comes.”
The man was just under average height. He had light brown hair that ringed a goodly-receded hairline. His face was long, and he wore wire-rimmed glasses. He had on a tan wool sport coat over dark jeans and cowboy boots. He walked up as if he were about to say hi.
It’s one of those things you do in the spy business. Someone strange approaches, and you scan and assess for a potential threat. I don’t even think about it. I just do it. Funny thing was, the man saw me and did the same thing. It took less than a second. Nick, on the other hand, got the man’s full attention. The stranger smiled weakly.
“I apologize,” he said. “I thought you were someone else.” He gazed at Nick again and smiled oddly. “By God, you look like him, though.”
I smiled. “No problem.”
At least, Nick hadn’t rolled his eyes. It doesn’t happen that often, but he does look so much like his father that people (mostly women) sometimes think that’s who he is. We continued shopping and got a couple of presents. I went to the Williams Sonoma store and got a bag from them to put the presents in to tease Sid. He loves Williams Sonoma, although he’d probably figure that there wasn’t anything in that bag for him. I was much cagier than that. When it got close to six-thirty, Nick and I went to the restaurant where the dinner was supposed to be. Tom and Ange were already there.
Tom is a big guy with broad shoulders and wheat-colored hair just starting to show some gray. He wore wire-rimmed glasses and a black sport coat over a dress shirt and light blue jeans. Angelique had pulled back her full, brown hair and was still wearing the suit she’d worn to her job at the local FBI office that day. They got up to hug and greet us, then I sat down next to Ange, with Nick on my other side. I could still see the door to the restaurant from there. A minute later, Sid showed up, wearing a suit and tie. He patted Nick’s shoulder, quickly kissed me, then hugged Ange and shook hands with Tom. He sat down on Tom’s other side, where he could see the door to the restaurant.
“So, what’s this all about?” Sid asked.
“That’s just it,” said Tom. “I don’t entirely know. This private investigator said that he had a case that might involve us and some other guys, and wanted to have dinner with us. Ange was able to verify his license, so we thought, what the heck.”
Ange coordinates programs and equipment for above-board agents and a few of us belonging to shadow agencies, such as Quickline. Tom didn’t know about Sid’s and my side business, but Ange did.
Sid suddenly gaped at a couple coming into the restaurant, and Tom did, too. The hostess pointed us out to the couple, and they approached, with the man gaping in the same way.
He was taller than Sid, but shorter than Tom, with a square face and dark hair cut short and parted on the side. He wore a suit that didn’t quite fit his bulky frame and a loud tie. His wife, who was also portly with a round face, had on a silky polyester dress.
“Can it be?” the man yelped. “Sid? Tom?”
Tom jumped up and laughed. “Wallace! I’ll be damned.”
Sid was on his feet, grinning and shaking hands with Wallace. “You look good, buddy. How’ve you been?”
“Great! Oh, this is my wife, Lottie. Lottie, these are my old friends from high school. This is Sid Hackbirn, and Tom Freeman, and uh…” He stopped as he saw Angelique and me, but then laughed at Nick. “You, I’m guessing, are related to Sid.”
“Yeah. My dad.” Nick chuckled.
Wallace grinned. “You got caught?”
“I did, indeed.” Sid laughed. “This is my son, Nick Flaherty, and my wife, Lisa Wycherly. Lisa, Nick, this is Wallace Merton.”
“Married, too.” Wallace cursed.
“And my girlfriend, Angelique Carter,” Tom said.
We all shook hands, and Wallace and Lottie sat down, only to get up another moment later, when another man walked into the restaurant and gaped. He was about the same height as Wallace, but thinner with light hair and a decided paunch hanging over his dark dress slacks. He wore a dress shirt with a colorful sweater over it.
“Bob Kinney, as I live and breathe,” said Tom, getting up, also.
There was another round of introductions, with Nick provoking yet another jab at Sid’s former lifestyle.
“So, Sid, you’re married?” Bob asked.
“Yeah. Three and a half years now. Four in March.”
Wallace, Lottie, and Bob all glanced at Nick, then at me.
Sid’s grin got just a touch tight. “Lisa is Nick’s second mom.”
“You were married before?” Wallace asked.
“No. In fact, I didn’t even know I had Nick until he was eleven. How about you guys? Wallace, how long have you been married?”
“Too long,” said Wallace. Lottie backhanded him lightly on the arm. “Well, maybe not too long.”
“Sixteen years now,” Lottie said, smiling. “And we have two kids. Our daughter is fourteen and our son is twelve.”
“I’m a bachelor and likely to stay so,” said Bob. “If I have any kids, I don’t know about them and don’t want to. What about you, Tom?”
“My first wife and I got divorced in nineteen-eighty. No kids. I met Ange at Sid and Lisa’s wedding, and we’ve been together ever since. So, what all have you guys been doing?”
Wallace Merton was an electrical engineer and worked in Torrance for a firm specializing in printer interfaces. Bob was a medical doctor and general practitioner, with an office in Walnut Creek, a suburb of San Francisco and Oakland, although he lived in Berkeley. Tom teaches American Literature and creative writing at a high school in the city of Los Angeles.
“I used to teach at our old high school,” Tom said. “Until I met Ange.”
He would have continued, but Sid looked at the man coming into the restaurant at that moment and gasped. It was the same man who had talked to Nick and me earlier. The other men looked, and a hush fell. They recognized him, but couldn’t believe what they were seeing at the same time.
“It’s gotta be his brother,” Sid finally said, swallowing.
“He didn’t have a brother,” muttered Bob.
“Cousin.”
“Hi, guys. Wallace, Bob, Tom.” The man paused as he looked at my husband. “Sid.”
“Loser?” Bob asked. “Loser Renfrew?”
“In the flesh,” the man said.
“You’re dead.” Sid looked at him in utter shock. “Your name is on the fucking wall. You’re dead.”
“There are a few mistakes on that wall,” Loser said, referring to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Tom frowned. “But your sister and your mom… There was a funeral. I was there.”
“I, uh, know.” Loser found a chair, pulled it up to the table, and sat down between Lottie and Bob. He looked at Sid. “You know how bad it was. I couldn’t take it. I had to get out of there. A guy in my unit was about to go home. Had the orders in his pocket when he got his face blown off. I swapped dog tags with him and ran like hell. They thought he was me, and I disappeared.”
Sid glared at him. “You swapped dog tags?”
Loser looked pleadingly at him. “Sid, you know what it was like. I had to.”
“And I stayed. Two years, I stayed.”
I had never seen Sid so shaken and so angry before. I looked over at Nick, who looked vaguely terrified.
“That’s it.” Sid scrambled to his feet. “I’m leaving. You guys have all the fun you want. I’m leaving.”
He strode to the restaurant door. I shot a quick look at Angelique, who nodded, then Nick and I hurried after him. Sid trembled as we caught up with him outside the mall movie theater. I pulled him into my arms and just held him. Nick slid his arm across his shoulders. Sid finally swallowed, and we took him home.
Thank you for reading. For more information about the Operation Quickline series, click here.
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