Author's Note: After painstakingly writing this out on my iPhone on Pages, I used my wife's computer to transfer that into Word and subsequently onto . After all that effort…I'm hoping that I'll see reviews – lots of them? …please? For further note, there is no Naval Station Three Rivers in Oakville, Wisconsin, I made that up; just like a lot of squadrons and locations were made up on the JAG TV show. It allows me a little more freedom when I "can't get to the computer to research." And Safari is acting up on my iPhone (keeps wanting to reload).
Animal's Home, 503-4141 Henderson Road, Arlington,VA 1905hrs
The audible closing of the bathroom door and the subsequent click of the locking mechanism enabled Maegyn to be able to coax Animal into a clothed state. To her relief, Harm was as good as his word and did not venture out of the bathroom until she gave him the all clear. Harm looked very reluctant to leave the bathroom and uttered a deep sigh of relief when he found Animal fully clothed in sweat pants and a US Naval Aviation t-shirt.
Harm looked at Animal and muttered "remind me never to drop-by without phoning to make sure the two of you are decent; right now it's going to take gallons of memory bleach to wash away the mental image of you completely naked doing god knows what under the blanket..." He shuddered
Animal growled under his breath but opted to remain silent. It was embarrassing enough and he didn't want to give Harm any more ammunition. Maegyn glared at Harm in pique: the erotic atmosphere that would have been a prelude to a great evening had been totally disrupted. When she couldn't stew in silence any longer she snapped at Harm. "Couldn't this have waited until some other time?!" She asked irritably.
Harm chewed on his words carefully noting that Irish was pretty pissed off. Her green eyes positioned above a scowling mouth appeared to definitely be angry and it wasn't a "green for go" traffic signal". If they were lasers he would have been charred to a crisp. He knew that red-heads had a tendency to have a fiery temper, especially when embarrassed, and if he didn't tread those waters carefully, there was a good chance he could get eviscerated by her, more than likely with a dull spoon before emasculation via vasectomy with a rusty fork. He wondered if he should impart the knowledge he'd gained over the course of his dating life to his older but not so dating experienced friend but then opted against it. The fireworks would probably be phenomenal to watch but would immolate him as well. "My apologies. I know it could have probably waited, but I didn't want to bring personal business into the workplace, which was the only other place that I could have approached Animal." He paused, his gaze taking in both Animal and Irish. "I'd rather leave my personal life at home…so I opted to come here to talk with you."
"And what do I have to do with your personal life?" Animal growled; not connecting the dots to what was being inferred so casually. He wasn't the most patient person in the world and Harm's bush-beating was starting to piss him off. So Harm was batting two for two in pissing people off.
"Cut to the chase!" Maegyn snapped; her patience was rapidly disappearing. "Quit hemming n'haw'ing!" she continued fixing him with a glare that could melt steel.
"It's about Lia…"
Animal and Maegyn looked at each other. "…what?" Harm looking at Animal's face, knew that Animal had no clue as to what he was getting at.
Maegyn didn't either. "What about Lieutenant Commander Gracen?" she asked.
"I'm thinking about asking her if we can commit to a dating relationship…" Harm admitted.
"Good for you, pal…I'm happy for you. If that's all you wanted to tell me…" Animal got out of his seat and was about to usher Harm to the door so that Maegyn and he could get back to some semblance of intimacy when Harm shook his head and…
Said, "Wait…there's something else."
Maegyn face-palmed, shaking her head while Animal snarled irritatedly, "WHAT?!" Harm gulped seeing the rather irritated thunderhead on his friends' faces. "I'm not her dad; I'm not going to give you MY blessing to date her. You want a blessing to go hanky-panky with her, go and talk to her family." Animal growled.
"You know how you and LCDR Gracen couldn't stand each other during the evaluation of the Judge Advocate General office by NAVINSGEN?" Harm said quickly seeing as how Animal and Maegyn were stewing silently due to the continued interruption of their intimate time.
"Uh, huh?" Animal looked at him with an irritated expression that bode ill for Harm if he kept on dragging his feet.
"Well, I don't want to have the two of you at each other's throat if I choose to date her on a regular basis." Harm stated, a challenge in his eyes. "…outside of the office that is…where rank structures don't have any meaning." Maegyn was looking at Animal as if to query what all that was about because she didn't get what the animosity between Animal and LCDR Gracen was all about.
"Look, Harm…" Animal said, letting out a big sigh. "As far as I know, all the animosity was coming from the lieutenant commander. I was just doing my job when it came to that investigation."
"Well, unfortunately, she seems to have it in her mind that you had it out for RADM Chegwidden; that you had a personal vendetta against him."
Animal was a little hurt and more than a little outraged. "What the hell?"
"Look, Animal, I tried to dissuade her of that line of thinking, but she seems to think that the admiral's firing was your fault and it's going to be a hell of a long time before she's going to think otherwise."
Animal shrugged his shoulders, "Well…there's nothing I can do about it." He said perfunctorily, almost dismissively as if to not take Lia's position into account. "So what do you want me to say? That I'm going to care about someone else's opinion, that her opinion runs counter to what I was supposed to do as a Naval Inspector General?" His eyes narrowed as he stated to Harm, a little colder than what was needed, "Harm, I'm not going to make apologies for doing my job." Maegyn was wondering what was going on and she thought to herself that she needed to talk to Animal after this interruption was over.
"Yeah, I know." Harm said. "But it also means that I have to straddle the fence between two friends who are fighting."
"Who says we're fighting. I have an opinion which I feel is the right one…and your girlfriend appears to have another opinion counter from mine. That doesn't mean we're fighting."
"Well, you can say what you want, Animal, but I'm starting to get frostbite from both you and Lia when it comes to the other." Harm said.
"Well, that can't be helped; can it?" Animal looked at Harm with a shake of his head in frustration. Really, he didn't understand what LCDR Gracen's animosity towards him was all about and he really didn't have the patience to delve in-depth into it. He looked over at Maegyn who's only experience with the lieutenant commander was a rather frosty goodbye as LCDR Gracen left for the day. Hell, Animal didn't enjoy being used for a shooting target regardless of what ammunition was used whether it was live rounds from a weapon or verbal rounds from what he considered a sixteen incher mouth that would be comparable to the weaponry on a Missouri class battleship. Either way his only assured method for survival would be to take cover. He sighed tiredly wondering how long this would take. "Frankly, Harm. I don't give a flying shit who you date. It really is none of my business." The statement was punctuated by another tired sigh.
Harm exulted internally but he still wasn't entirely sure of Animal's view of the whole matter. "So..." He weighed a measured gaze on his friend. "You won't happen to have any objections if I happen to bring her to a NAVINSGEN function and you won't growl if you happen to see her at one of our leisure activities?" Animal looked slightly confused at the term leisure activity so Harm explained further... "I mean...at a picnic or at any function the soon-to-be Mr. and Mrs. Roberts happen to have."
Incensed at being treated like some recalcitrant two-year-old Animal exploded with a "Jesus Christ! Harm! What the goddamn fucking part of I don't give a fucking sour owl shit didn't register on your braincells?!" Animal shook his head as he aimed a death-stare at Harm whereas Maegyn was torn between whether to be irritated and pitch Harm out the fifth-story window head-first or collapse on the couch in hysterical laughter. It appeared to her that Harm was trying his best to thoroughly dot i's and cross t's but all it was doing was boring the shit out of Animal and making him crabby. Harm, in Maegyn's opinion was dragging things out needlessly and she was certain that Animal had made it perfectly clear where he stood as far as his opinion was concerned on the erstwhile Lieutenant Commander Gracen. And frankly put; Harm was starting to become an irritating nuisance.
"Just making sure you understand all the ramifications of my dating Lieutenant Commander Gracen would be. Animal." Harm said almost too smugly. "Because I really don't want this to affect our friendship." He explained, hoping his friend would understand the meaning.
Maegyn, irritable, grumbled acidly, "...like tonight didn't affect our friendship." She arched an eyebrow meaningfully at the clothes still scattered on the floor causing Harm to wince. "yeah, phone is a very useful device, Hammer. You really need to learn to use it!" She commented sarcastically.
Harm winced as Maegyn's verbal shot hit home; right on the mark amidst the embarrassment elicited by Animal's resultant snicker. If he'd been only a few moments later he would have caught them on the couch in a passionate clinch in flagrante delicto, which would have been embarrassing for Animal and Maegyn and provided an unwanted image in Harm's mind that would have taken more than a lifetime of mental bleach to remove.
Liandra's Apartment, 614-2475 Virginia Avenue, Georgetown, Washington DC, 1925 hrs
At the same moment of the trio's conversing, the subject of their conversation was engrossed in a case file at home, her thoughts intent on the case that she was assigned to cover which would entail a investigation to Norfolk, which was only a day trip. Over the past three days which she had been back at JAG, she had been pondering on Harm and the course of their friendship. Knowing that Harm and she would require a few days to really settle into their positions again, she had buried herself in her work refraining from picking up the phone to call Harm.
With Harm transferring to NAVINSGEN and Mac shuffling off to RLSO San Diego, there was a lot of upheaval in the office. She smiled grimly to herself. The new dynamic in the office was going to take a lot of getting used to.
Her new partner was eager to dive into the cases to show her mettle and Lia, being the more experienced and senior attorney had to rein her in a bit albeit done professionally and not antagonistically. Lia saw Meg as a challenge, to mold her into a "no-holds barred; take no prisoners" attorney in the mold of Harm, yet flexible enough to figure out a different strategy when the case dictated it. Meg, having been in Japan, had seen a few cases but not to the extent that either Harm or Lia had experienced and Lia planned to leave RADM Morris with a damned good attorney before she made the jump to judiciary. It still tugged at her painfully to see RADM Morris in the familiar office she had been in so many times before. To not see her mentor was jarring. It had meant a lot that RADM Chegwidden had taken the time to advise her on her career steps and the knowledge that he would no longer be there to offer her counsel rankled.
Her cell-phone vibrated on her desk in her office, "Gracen!" She answered perfunctorily, hoping that it was Harm.
"Hi, Lia…" Meg's voice emanated from the receiver. "You ready for that four and a half hour drive down to Norfolk tomorrow?"
"Yeah…" Lia responded as she gave the receiver a gloomy look. "You've researched case file so that we know just what we're dealing with? Because I've got the case file open on my desk right now." She casually looked over at the file regarding a Boatswain's Mate 2nd that was on charge for dereliction of duty. Article 92 - Failure to Obey Order or Regulation was the official term for it, Lia thought to herself. And a further charge of Article 89—Disrespect toward a superior commissioned officer – plainly put, Lia pondered that telling a superior commissioned officer that he had the braincells of a sea cucumber and to promptly go fuck himself was not the proper manner of discourse between junior non-comm and senior commissioned officer.
"Yeah, are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Meg replied.
"Articles 89 and 92 for starters." Lia stated as she chuckled under her breath. "You come up with that too? Because I'm also waiting until we interview before we even think of charging anything else to that rap-sheet."
"Who was the officer?" Meg asked.
"Lieutenant Robert Wiggins." Lia stated, paused for a brief moment and then said, "I want to interview who ever was on that liberty boat that was inbound to the USS Tuxpan."
"Tuxpan?" Meg inquired curiously – there were a number of US Navy destroyers, but the Tuxpan wasn't one that she had heard of before.
"The battle of Tuxpan was from the Mexican-American War: the First Battle of Tuxpan was the only major battle fought during the Mexican-American War at Tuxpan, Mexico. It was also a decisive victory for Commodore Matthew Perry which altered the course of the Mexican-American War. He utilized his squadron of ships to blockade the eastern Mexican ports and then shelled the hell out of the Mexican artillery batteries." Lia informed her showing her major in military history. "The DDG-962 USS Tuxpan was named after the battle which America won. She's stationed out of Norfolk and is a part of US Second Fleet. She was assigned to Joint Task Force 120 which is set to leave for the Persian Gulf when the matter involving this case went down. The CO opted to beach the BN2 and leave without him. He will render his testimony by closed circuit television during the court case…"
Meg was silent for a long moment as Lia went over the reasons why she wanted to interview the other sailors on the liberty boat where it was alleged the incident took place and Meg knew that it wouldn't be good to go into the investigation with a closed mind to other eventualities. After all, RADM Morris intended to make certain that the investigative team uncovered every bit of evidence as fairly and impartially as possible. Lia was heading for the judiciary and the admiral wanted to make sure that he had chosen a potential judge that wouldn't pigeonhole an accused if he was innocent or vice versa. And considering how thorough Lia was in briefing her tonight, Meg knew working with LCDR Gracen was going to ratchet up her own skills in the courtroom. In fact she was looking forward to the investigation.
Lia on the other hand was missing Harm and the fact he hadn't called rankled a bit but knowing that he was over at NAVINSGEN, busy getting into the swing of things and used to the change in duties, his time was probably at a minimum. In her experience while over at NAVINSGEN, she'd barely gotten her feet wet in terms of her primary duties when she was punted back to JAG. But now that she was back at JAG, familiar turf under her feet, she was immersed in investigations trying to even out the loss to the Judge Advocate of their top stellar attorney to the pencil pushing ledger-bashing pukes at NAVINSGEN, no insult intended to the erstwhile and very capable Lieutenant Commander Manetti. In the back of her mind, Lia had realized that this investigation was a test of her abilities and a stark reminder that RADM Morris was not in the least bit unaware of her head to head conflict with Captain Nakamura and the Article 89/92 case was a reminder to her to mind her manners with a superior officer and she had taken that chastisement at face-value.
Meg and she had a half-hour conversation on the phone regarding the particulars of the case so that they were well-versed on what they would be dealing with once they got down to Norfolk later tomorrow morning and Meg signed off stating she needed to go round herself up some grub.
Animal's Home, 503-4141 Henderson Road, Arlington,VA 1945hrs
Animal, by the time of the next go-around with Harm with regards to the rather pugnacious Lieutenant Commander was starting to get a headache right between his two eyes, which resisted all attempts to rub it away with two forefingers above the nasal ridge. His only mental thought was make it stop! Maegyn noticing this, and realizing that if she didn't do something tangible to make him shut up, that Harm would end up talking circles around Animal while the clock hands made endless circles ticking away the time, interjected rather forcefully, "Harm, we're going around in circles. I believe that Animal made it absolutely clear that he has no objections to you dating Lieutenant Commander Gracen. I also believe that Animal will not instigate anything with regards to starting a verbal brawl with the lieutenant commander and furthermore, we've been going over this for forty minutes now! For the love of Pete, isn't that enough?" Animal shot her a grateful glance.
Harm's jaw dropped open. Irish's vehement exhortation, to Animal's amusement, had created a never-before-seen moment: a speechless lawyer. "Well…um…" he stammered nonplussed.
"Enough!" Maegyn snapped and reached over, yanked Harm bodily out of the chair. "I believe you got your answer, which I think is good enough." Smirking evilly at Harm for a long moment. "Now, Animal and I were in the midst of some private time…of course you're welcome to watch if you want…" she just about burst out laughing when Harm paled and made a beeline for the door.
"Um…well, thanks…but no thanks." Harm stammered as he reached the door opening it to usher himself out. "Sorry to interrupt you, Animal, Irish, I'll see you, Animal…tomorrow at work…" and amscrayed, closing the door behind him.
As Animal uttered a long-held sigh of relief, Maegyn came over to him and sat down, letting out a rather annoyed huff. "That sure was a buzzkill." She commented, her tone deadpan. "And just when I received word that I have to head back to Lemoore in another week. We don't have a whole lot of time left to enjoy ourselves…" she intimated as she slowly started running her fingers gently up and down Animal's bare arm.
"So, what happens with our relationship while you're gone at Lemoore?" Animal asked.
"Well, every chance I get, I'll head east when I'm not on deployment, and every chance you get, how about you try to meet up with me out there?" Maegyn offered gauging his reaction to the suggestion.
Office of the Naval Inspector General, Pentagon Detachment 0715hrs
"Good morning, sir." YN1 Carran said, standing at attention, as Animal gave her a quick grin as he strode past.
"As you were, Yeoman One." Animal replied. "Has Lieutenant Commander Rabb made it in yet?"
"Yes, sir, he's already in with Lieutenant Commander Manetti, sir, going over the latest files on the Fallon move by Topgun. There was a directive from the CNO telling the office to get someone out there to go over the files and do an inspection to make sure that everything was legit. According to the CNO, it's going to require a trip to both Fallon and Miramar, sir."
"That's fine, just let the lieutenant commander know that he's expected in my office as soon as he's done with LCDR Manetti." Animal replied, over his shoulder, as he headed into his office. Pausing for a brief moment as he crossed over the threshold, he informed the yeoman,"And I'll be out of the office from 1240 to 1420, as I have an appointment with Lieutenant Commander Parker."
"Aye-aye, Sir!" YN1 Carran replied.
"…and Morna," Animal grinned using his yeoman's first name to indicated casualness, "Any chance I could get a Pepsi from the fridge?"
"Right away, sir." His yeoman answered with a return smile.
Animal proceeded to enter his office, shutting the door behind him. It was Thursday and he grinned recalling seeing his former yeoman at VF-41 Black Aces alert and at attention that Monday morning resplendent in dress blue crackerjacks at 0730 hrs on the dot.
"Good morning. Yeoman Two" Animal had stated as he looked over at YN2 Leon Trebalos. "Glad you could make it."
Leon had thanked him for the opportunity to be assigned to the Pentagon and to NAVINSGEN and the boost to his career. Animal had introduced him to the rest of the staff at the office as well as to his predecessor, YN1 Morna Carran, who would be showing him the ropes for the next two weeks until such time as a post requiring upward mobility was found for her. She had to make Chief and NAVINSGEN was not such a post.
Pulling a file from the stack in the in-folder, he cracked it open. Reading through the first notations, his brow furrowed. There was a glaring discrepancy in a program that had been assigned $30M for R&D he since they were asking for more funds only half-way through the R&D phase. This would be something that he and Harm would have to tackle together.
Hitting the intercom, he asked his yeoman to tell Lieutenant Commander Rabb to come to his office. It was about ten minutes later when a knock at the door caused him to bark "ENTER!" Harm entered the office followed by YN2 Trebalos holding a silver platter with a can of Pepsi and a tall glass with ice. "Thank you, Yeoman Two." Animal grinned briefly as the Yeoman excused himself.
As YN2 Trebalos left, Harm braced to attention two paces from the front of Animal's desk, silently waiting for Animal to inform him of the reason for the call to his office.
"Good" Animal noted perfunctorily, pausing for a long moment then continuing. "You know anything about Naval Station Three Rivers testing facility in Oakville, Wisconsin?" He asked figuring that Harm would intuitively know just exactly what was tested at that facility.
Harm nodded and replied, "it's not usually talked about, sir." Harm knew that there were some black programs at Three Rivers. And those programs didn't use funds officially slated to any of the legit programs that were able to be talked about. Animal nodded. Handing over the file to Harm he indicated the R&D additional funds request. Harm looked down the ledger and noted what Animal had pointed out. But for a regular program to ask for that kind of additional funds was out of the ordinary. "Are we investigating this? Harm asked recalling his own dealings with a certain agency. He'd required the help of a certain Marine Col. Barrett to pull his ass out of the fire. Investigating such matters was tricky and more than dangerous if one was dealing with corrupt individuals. Harm wasn't about to assume anything. Assuming was a good way to get dead!
"We're going to do our research before heading into this one!" Animal said, looking squarely at Harm with a no-nonsense stare. "We'll depart for Three Rivers next Friday after doing our due diligence. I don't want to be caught off-guard on this one."
"Understood, sir."
"Get the requisition reports for the program in question for the past ten years. That will go to establish a pattern of what is normal for a program like this. Also get me the names of the program department heads in those past ten years and do a background check on them all. I want all of this done by secure today. We'll need to study that information." Animal ordered.
"Are you thinking there may be some illegal activity going on, sir?" Harm asked. "Possible embezzlement?"
"Right now, I don't know but I'd bet a wart on a toad there's something dirty going on!" Animal stated as his expression turned serious. "I don't know what's going on, but we're damned sure going to find out!"
Lia's cell phone, Naval Station Norfolk, Norfolk, VA,1145hrs
While conferring with LCDR Meg Austin on the new information they had learned, the two officers walked towards the mess deck building. As the building came into sight, Liandra's cell-phone went off. "Just a moment..." Lia said as she pointed at her cell phone, now in her hand, explaining the interruption. Meg nodded in response as they both headed towards a bench so Lia could answer the call.
"Lieutenant Commander Gracen!" Lia answeed her phone citing rank and last name.
"Lia! I'm glad I got you!" Harm's warm voice on the other end of the phone connection caused her to grin.
Lia answered affectionately, "Hey Harm? What's going on?" Clasping the phone receiver to her ear she waited for Harm's reply.
"I'm going to be out of town for an investigation for about a week and a half."
"What for?"
She could practically feel the wince in his voice. "Unfortunately; it was on a need-to-know basis and..." He paused.
Lia sounded disappointed. "...and I don't have need to know." She finished for him. By now having been in the Navy this long, she knew there were some things best not talked about and evidently the investigation that Harm was going on was one of them.
"Hey; would you be interested in dinner and a movie when I get back?" Harm asked; his voice nervously anticipatory.
Lia let him stew nervously for a little while as she pondered her response to the question looking over at Meg who was waiting with the patience of a saint though Meg would never let slip that patience was never one of her strong suits. But Meg returned an inquiring glance and Lia cupped her hand over the cell-phone's mouthpiece and stage-whispered just loud enough for Meg to hear. "It's Harm."
Meg grinned back at her,"Yeah. I kinda guessed that from the cheery hey Harm when you answered the phone." She laughed.
"Lia? You still there?" Harm was really nervous at the delay that Lia was making in coming to a decision.
"Yeah, I'm still there..." Lia answered cheerily, her voice alive with merriment while Meg just grinned. "You know I can eat a lot."
"I'm sure my wallet can absorb the damage." Harm replied confidently.
"Well..." Lia responded shooting a mischievous glance at Meg winding up with a zinger. "You do know that I can eat one whole New York Style gourmet cheesecake all by my lil'ol self. That might make a sizeable dent in your wallet."
"Sweetheart." Harm, from the sound of his voice, hesitantly tried out an endearment to gauge her reaction to it. "I'm sure that you couldn't even approach making that much of a dent that my credit card couldn't cover..."
"Uh..." Lia's eyes opened wide as her mouth dropped open causing Meg to look at her strangely. She covered the phone briefly and shot Meg a look of awed disbelief. "He called me sweetheart." She said in a barely audible voice which was very near a whisper.
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