Date: Tue, 16 May 2023 20:54:37 -0700 From: Boris Chen Subject: Response Team Prequel Chapter 17 (Revised) Chapter 17. We decided to meet the Bonhams at Three Rivers Campground again for a weekend camp-out, two nights, Friday late afternoon to Sunday lunch time. They'd get there first and claim the best tent site (most shade trees). They were going to bring their smoker and do pork ribs again so we offered to bring something (for Friday night) and they agreed we could bring the evening meal, which would be store bought fried chicken and side dishes. We picked mashed potatoes and cole slaw since all of us liked it. We decided to stop at Church's in Alamogordo and get enough for four pieces each (4x4=16), like a sixteen piece monster with big containers of cole slaw and mashed potatoes. It was actually enough food for five people so we'd be eating leftover chicken for breakfast. They wanted us to stop at the party store in Tularosa for beer and whatever else too. We left ELP at 2pm and got to Three Rivers just after 5pm but we made stops along the way. I assembled our dome tent and our sleeping gear while David went on the prowl for tree branches on the ground. Mike and Trina had their smoker hot and loaded when we arrived and it smelled wonderful, I told them I hoped the wind didn't blow it our way all night or we wouldn't be able to sleep! Trina confessed they sold slabs of smoked ribs, which was part of the reason for the camping trips. Like many people, they got complaints about the smoke from neighbors, which was why they switched to using the portable smoker and went camping at least once a month, usually twice. Even though they lived on acreage their house was near the street and the trees captured the smoke and kept it from rising into the sky quickly. By 6:45pm we were sitting around their campfire and eating re-warmed chicken and sides. Trina re-heated the chicken in her iron Dutch oven that hung almost above the campfire. Trina explained the theory of the Dutch oven, how ancient the design was and how it was designed to be an all-in-one kitchen appliance going back to the days when all cooking and heating was done by the fireplace. She demonstrated how it could be used like an oven, kettle, and griddle. Her big black iron pot had a wire handle and a swivel hanging stand they had already screwed into the ground so she could adjust how close it hung to the fire. She used an IR thermometer to check the temperature on the outside and said it would take about twelve minutes to warm the chicken. David whispered to me to buy one for our camping gear, he was very impressed by the versatility. Deciding to buy and use a heavy iron Dutch oven also meant we couldn't buy a pop-up camper because it would take up too much room and weigh too much. ---- We sat there eating and tossing bones into a bowl (we had to dispose of the bones in the park's critter-proof trash can) and drank beers and had a great evening. We talked about weapons and target shooting. We learned Mike had to do quals at the range every year just like us so we decided to practice on paper targets with our .22 cal pistols tomorrow. He's worked on our Brugger & Thomet MP9 machine guns before at WSMR and always did a good job. Mike wore several hats at the range like gunsmith and rocketsmith. I asked if there was water in the creek but they never looked. But judging by the absence of a waterfall sound it had to be dry, plus this was not the right time of year. The sound from the crickets was way down too, just a few scattered about the area. The river near the campsites was actually just a spring fed creek that only ran a few times a year but used to flow all year before the southwestern drought worsened, same story as the Rio Grande River that was 50 miles straight west of here. It was so beautiful here, quiet and peaceful. But being at the base of a very large mountain range had risks, like if a large boulder broke loose overnight and tumbled down the mountainside. That's probably how all the existing boulders got here. They were fully displayed along the riverbed and some of them were as big as a car. The Three Rivers Campground was dotted by some large granite boulders, it's also possible they were belched out of a nearby volcano millions of years ago. I think that within 60 miles of here there were several volcanoes at one time long ago. We talked and drank beer and wine until 10pm and turned in after a very long day. We usually didn't spoon in the tent because it was often too hot. We didn't want to get sweaty and stinky so far from running water. Disposable wipes helped but it wasn't as good as a shower. I still had a nice time cleaning David with unscented wipes. He seemed to accept me being in charge of cleaning him whenever I wanted, especially my favorite parts. We put our camping toilet on the ground on the back side of our tent for some privacy. We always tried to take care of that before we left home and used laxatives trying to avoid it altogether. The campground had a few outhouses but they stunk like all of them. ---- Saturday morning arrived too early, we were slow getting up. David said we'd caught Wine Flu from our second bottle last night, the second bottle after four beers each. We took Alka Seltzer and started getting over the flu after an hour and made ourselves a small breakfast; the Bonham's did the same thing. ---- During breakfast Trina demonstrated how the lid of her Dutch oven could be used upside down for cooking eggs and sausages like a griddle. They turned the oven over and set it upside down on bare ground. She used a shovel to dig hot coals from the fire pit to spread on top, then set the lid (upside down) on the feet and let it heat up like a griddle, then she sprayed it and cooked the eggs and sausages just like at home. Her Dutch oven looked very well seasoned. She said they bought it at an antique store instead of buying it new, they wanted an old one for the existing seasoning and baby smooth surface. Around 9am we were done with our mandatory morning camping chores so we got together to do some target shooting. We were the only people in the park (not unusual for this place considering the location) so we weren't afraid to do some small caliber shooting over in the trees. Because of the terrain our plinking wouldn't be heard down by the rock carvings area. ---- We decided to make it a competition. In the trees about 40 yards from our tent we hung targets with a length of scrap copper wire, paper targets, and some tiny document clamps. We hung four paper targets on the wire in front of a dirt pile for our plinking game. Mike explained he once saw a box of old glass picture tube yokes at a garage sale, each one held over a hundred feet of copper wire. He ran wire from tree to tree like a rope and slipped on document clamps to hang paper targets. All he needed was two trees or sign posts to support the wire. We also set empty plastic bottles on large rocks as targets but no matter how accurate you were with a 3.5" barrel, .22 cal pistol it just wasn't very repeatable at sixty feet. Trina won the match because she used a .22cal six shot revolver with a six inch barrel and better sights. We did that until lunch time then after lunch the two of us walked to the trails and didn't see any remnants of the three deaths on the lower hiking trail. We had no idea how that ended up but the place looked like nothing happened. We made it back to our tent two hours later. Judging by the mood and look of our friends they probably fucked while we were hiking. They were smiling a lot and she was kind of clingy on him. Trina never seemed like she was the clingy type but today she was, so maybe we interrupted her getting the hot beef injection. We hung out on our chairs by our tent until the sun was low in the west. We drank beers, read books, and whispered over Whispernet. We privately discussed Mike's body. He took a bottled water shower after we got back but we never saw much, he bathed behind his tent. David was ready to do a play by play as we pretended to read and kept one eye out for a possible skin show. Sunglasses helped hide our interest. She poured tap water out of gallon milk jugs, then it was her turn. ---- The rest of the trip went as planned, we ate ribs (and leftover sides from Church's) on Saturday night and they were wonderful. We consumed a lot of wine and beer and way too much food. After dinner they wrapped racks of ribs in a heavy foil and packed them into a large ice chest. I lost count but I saw them wrap at least ten slabs of ribs. Trina got out a commercial kitchen size box of thick aluminum foil for wrapping. We had a great evening of drinking and laughing, telling lies and jokes. I was hoping the topic of sex would come up but it never did. ---- We left Sunday around 10:30am and drove home. On the long drive home across the desert we talked about buying an ATV that would fit in the truck bed so we could go exploring in the desert near the town of Orogrande (or at the camp site). This trip we checked the mileage from the campsite to our house and it was exactly 111.2 miles and took us 2 hours 10 minutes without any stops. Trina said it took them 40 minutes to get home. She explained that they lived near US-82 and Florida Avenue, 82 ran from Alamogordo to Cloudcroft so they had to drive all the way across town. There were three small ghost towns near Orogrande we wanted to see but they were too far from US-54 to park and walk. We were told the towns looked more like junk piles than typical Hollywood ghost towns with a sheriff's office and a saloon. These towns looked more like old trash dumps. But they were actual mining towns that died when the price of gold dropped enough to put the mines out of business back in the early 1900s. We stopped at a motorcycle dealer and looked at 4-wheel ATVs but couldn't decide so we needed to do some reading online first. We might even decide to buy a pair of dirt bikes instead. The choice came down to either two small dirt bikes or one ATV. Two ATVs won't fit in our truck (unless they were tiny kid-size quads) so one ATV would have to carry both of us. For the bikes we were looking at the Honda CRF125, and for the ATV the Honda TRX250. Out in the desert around WSMR there were no swamps or bogs; just sand and brush. We were leaning towards two bikes so if one died we'd still have transport. The bikes ran about $3100 each, we'd need two, riding gear, and a tailgate ramp. The advantage of the ATV over the bikes would be the wider tires in sand and slightly lower costs with one vehicle instead of two. David favored a pair of bikes. When we priced bikes we included wider tires as options. I'm surprised we left the dealer without spending any money after being there for 90 minutes. On the way home I confessed I was favoring the ATV so we could ride together, but with lots of other ATVers hanging out our homo show of affection might not be appreciated. The ATV crowd we saw was very young and very hetero. We've heard stories of bonfires and public displays of nudity and hetero sex late at night, like a miniature version of Burning Man. ---- Late Sunday night we were alerted for an incident in Minot North Dakota. We raced to the airport, the jet was nearly here. He refueled by the commercial passenger terminal then we left right away. Near the east end of the ELP taxiway the pilot's dispatcher in Kansas City called and said the perp shot himself and we were no longer needed, so he stopped (there were no commercial flights coming or going) and opened the canopy. We carefully climbed down the outside of the jet; David went first. There were several footholds on the outside of the jet. We had to push in to open them and slowly climb down the outside then drop about five feet to the pavement. I hated the long drop to the ground in front of the jet engine intake. The hardest part was finding the toe openings by feeling with your boots. I dropped our bags to David, then I climbed down. From the east end of runway 22 to our office on the ground floor of the passenger terminal it's about a 1.2 mile walk across the desert. We watched the pilot take off while we walked along the taxiway, he looked at us and saluted just before pushing the throttle in. It was incredibly loud when the jet took off down the runway for his home base in far western Missouri. Both of us pushed fingers into our ears because of the noise. It was highly against the rules to be walking on airport property but that's where we got dropped off but nobody noticed us, including the control tower and airport security. We knew the pilots but were not allowed to talk to anyone because of the nature of that type of aircraft. So we were always professionally distant, and them with us too. It was sort of like a sterile cockpit rule all the time inside or near the jet or pilot. That was the first time we got cancelled seconds from take off. It might have been interesting if we had been cancelled seconds after liftoff so he would have had to circle around the city and land again. That would have been one expensive trip around El Paso by jet. Let's not forget that this former combat jet was nowhere near as safe as business jets. It's dangerous just getting inside one of those hand modified people movers. It had almost no safety equipment and was designed to move people as quickly as possible but it was very risky. So far in our service there had been no deaths from jet crashes. Due to air traffic congestion, many of the missions our partners in the east did were transported on small business jets instead of military jets since they rarely traveled as far as we did in the west. And there was talk (in the Pentagon) of re-mapping the country into a fourth district which would remove Minnesota and the Dakotas from our district. The new upper Midwest district would eventually be: Dakotas, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio, with its base in Wisconsin at Volk Field, about halfway between the Twin Cities and Milwaukee. The big problem was getting congressional approval after they found out we'd be setting up an office there and from time to time would have tiny atomic weapons in the office. That usually didn't go over well with the neighbors. It was easy getting approval for our office at El Paso International because of Fort Bliss but nobody knew about our weapons at our home. Even cousin Mark did not know we had two nukes at home, and he slept the closest to them. Could you imagine what our neighbors would say if they found out we had two tiny A-bombs at home? We've worked with atomic bombs for years and felt perfectly safe. David and I felt the poison gas pellets were way more dangerous than the bombs. The pellets were kept inside a tightly sealed plastic case inside a reinforced pouch on our Batsuit belts. The small cylindrical holder had two caps, one end for sleepers and the other for killer pellets. They were colored differently to identify them quickly and had a letter on both ends. The single biggest secret of our tiny nukes wasn't the nukes but the fissionable material they're made of, that's a huge secret. All we could say was its element #108 and was created in an experimental sodium reactor in Nevada. ---- Towards the end of hurricane season in mid-November we scheduled another week off, from Friday night to Sunday evening the following weekend. That schedule gave us nine days off so we decided to ride the Goldwing to New Orleans to check out the French Quarter, and some tourist attractions. Planning our trip. David showed me videos of a notorious gay bar with go-go boys called the Petting Zoo. They had real go-go boys that danced on a platform behind the bar. For a cash gift some did erotic lap dance routines for about five minutes. Those shows were the big attraction. About half of their go-go boys were twinks. They also had older guys with body hair and abs but we preferred the smooth look (both of us were smooth from our noses to our knees). I got turned on just thinking about it. David said he read you could sometimes touch them during a lap dance, but not all their dancers did 'em. The bar played dance beat and had nightly disco with a DJ and it sounded like great decadent fun. Their promo video also showed go-go boys who would be described as bears. This trip would also have a much higher likelihood of riding in heavy rain (thunderstorms) and heavy traffic, especially between Houston and New Orleans. We picked a hotel in downtown New Orleans because of their indoor motorcycle parking. The total distance was just under 1100 miles each way. At 75mph that meant 15 hours driving time each way. At 40mpg and a five gallon tank we'd have to stop every 200 miles, or four stops daily, not counting the start and end of day fillups. We'd leave Saturday morning early with plans to stop near San Antonio, roughly half-way. On day #2 (Sunday) we'd arrive in New Orleans late in the afternoon, hopefully before sunset. While making reservations David asked if I wanted to take a day trip to south Houston to visit and I said, "No, thank you." Both of our parents lived south of Houston. We decided years ago to limit our contact to Christmas and Mother's Day cards. New Orleans may be gay friendly but our families certainly were not, they made that point very clear a decade ago. Since then we've received no letters or emails updating us on their faint tolerance of our lifestyles. Free country! After we got to New Orleans (locally pronounced: Nawlins) we'd use taxis to get around. We planned on spending four days exploring the area, eating too much, drinking a lot, and petting the go-go boys at least once. And for this trip we'd be leaving our cases and weapons at WSMR for routine maintenance. ---- The day before vacation we'll take both cases up to WSMR for battery checks and software updates for the comms unit, and routine checks and service on our machine guns. I think they were also going to replace our satellite antenna which was glued to the underside of the lid of the case. Our pelican case carried a lot of electronics but most of it sat under the foam rubber and was invisible to us, except the USB ports inside and the charging and antenna ports on the outside. ---- One week before the trip we reserved a room at the Intercontinental which was almost walking distance from the French Quarter. We picked that hotel because of their secure indoor motorcycle parking; we'll also clamp the front wheel to a steel pipe at our parking spot. The motorcycle parking spots had a (2.5 inch) steel pipe (full of concrete) that ran in front all the parking spots. We installed a motion activated silent alarm system on the bike, but it should be safe anyway. ---- Two days (Thursday) before our trip we received another alert, this time up in Santa Fe. Someone was inside a secure building at Los Alamos Labs. Apparently he was a local Indian from the SAN ILDEFONSO Reservation that wandered into the research part of Los Alamos at night and found an unlocked back door and triggered a motion alarm. Let me say up front that the security force at Los Alamos was known for being a bunch of well meaning white haired men and women. When their perp spoke to security over the phone he said he wore a bomb vest and would destroy the building and kill himself unless he was given one mil cash and a car with a tank of gas. Supposedly the only thing he'd actually done so far was trespassing and they hadn't confirmed if he had a bomb vest or not but his story sounded fishy and he admitted living on the San Ildefonso Reservation east of Los Alamos and gave security people his mother's phone number but they'd gotten no answer so far. We took the jet to Santa Fe then had a 25 mile car ride up a winding mountain road to Los Alamos, which was northwest of Santa Fe and was surrounded by Indian lands. There was no credible threat to people or national security yet, they could probably contact his mother and get him talked down and possibly back into alcohol/drug rehab. We decided to take the case just to try to protect the young man from being killed. They said the jet was on the way and we climbed inside when it arrived, the pilot said that the destination being that close he didn't need to re-fuel. We got up there in fourteen minutes (wheels up to touch down) and met a Los Alamos Security man at the luggage claim and rode up the winding road all the way to Los Alamos. We could easily identify him at the airport because his uniform looked like the Boy Scouts without the bandana, and a head full of white hair. He asked to see our ID cards. ---- Neither of us had been to Los Alamos before but we'd seen it in documentaries and old newsreels from the 1940s about the Manhattan Project. The campus looked like a 1940s state university, not like what I pictured at all. The story we were told sounded like their space invader got bored (after smoking meth) and went on Walkabout last night. He wandered into Los Alamos where he tried door knobs until he found one that was unlocked and went inside looking for something to drink (and maybe to take a nap) and sobered up over time, then called 911 and was tricked into saying he was wearing an explosive vest. Anywhere on Los Alamos you called 911 the call was intercepted by their security staff which was how his call for help was misconstrued as a threat. He believed they wouldn't help him unless he repeated back their story. The building he entered was a two story materials testing lab, he got in through the door they opened to roll out the trash dumpster but didn't shut it all the way. We had a discussion with the Los Alamos driver about our high level of clearance on the ride up there and he reported that information to security on the radio before we got up the hill. We told him the jet transport he saw us arrive in was only used by a select number of US Senators, the President, and Vice President, that alone was proof enough. Our first stop was at the main gate, which was where the bullshit blossomed. Their `know your customer' kicked into high gear. I could tell David quickly got tired of their game. They took our pictures and made us temporary badges that said VISITOR in huge red letters. He whispered to me it was one step above a yellow star; these bozos had too much time and money so they fabricated security threats to justify their paychecks. David reminded them four times that they called us for help, not the other way around. We rode in a campus security car to the site where two FBI cars were parked and local campus security, as well as an incident command trailer. "Huh, this one isn't stainless steel like the one in Seattle." I told David as we walked across the parking lot. David dropped our visitor badges in the back seat of the car with the intent to see if anyone at the scene noticed or cared. We stepped-up into the trailer and talked to the person in charge about the guy inside and got their latest update; we offered to put him to sleep quickly, were they ready to go? The guy in charge clearly wanted to drag it out and wanted to negotiate with him over the phone more and turn what could be a ten minute incident into an hours long dramatic negotiation. So we sat in the back of their trailer with our bags and waited for them to decide what to do. David told me, "I got it! The merit badge their commander needed next was `successful negotiation with a terrorist,' which was why he wasn't ready to end it." We both laughed hysterically and one guy looked in on us to see what was so funny. ---- After another hour they asked for our help and I repeated our offer to put the perp to sleep (again) so they could walk in and neutralize the alleged bombs and take him into custody; just like David offered 70 minutes earlier. Suddenly it sounded like a good idea and they accepted. While David was talking I tried to read their note pads on the desk to see what notes they'd taken recently. They talked to his (intoxicated) mother on the phone and got lots of information. Yes, he was an alcoholic and mentally slow and was off his meds but wouldn't hurt anyone regardless. She said the only weapon he owned was a fishing pole and fillet knife that was at home on the kitchen counter. We were shown part of the floor plan where he was hiding inside in the first floor janitorial area, near where they kept the trash dumpster inside. He was in a corner not visualized by any camera but they'd seen glimpses of his bare feet. As we discussed the floor plan of that part of the first floor they made a big deal out of not being able to show the rest of it. The conversation went something like this: Boy Scout: "This is the blue print of the first floor." He partially unrolled a blueprint on the central desk and tapped a large room where the perp was located. "I can't unroll the print any further." David asked, "Where's the front door?" he asked pointing at the blue print. Inside their incident command trailer we were only about 80 feet from the front door of the two story building that had a sign by the door that said `Materials Testing Lab.' Boy Scout: "Right here, they're connected by this hallway, there's a double door at the end of the hallway to the maintenance area." He tapped on the doors but kept a death grip on the other half of the blueprint (which was still rolled up). David asked: "Roughly, how far is it from the front doors to the maintenance room doors?" Boy Scout: "Maybe sixty feet, but I can't show you the rest of the print." David sat there with a puzzled look on his face, and whispered: `here we go.' Then he said out loud: "I only need to see those parts, by the doors and the maintenance area. I don't need to see the rest of it." After a few seconds of staring at the print David asked, "Is the front door unlocked?" Boy Scout: "No, it's a secure building, it's locked all the time." David told me to walk over to the doors and check the gap, so I left and jogged over to look at it. Sure enough the doors had a gap at the lock big enough to stick your pinky finger all the way inside. I whispered that to him on the walk back. David told the commander, "What we can do is send a tiny drone through the front door, down the hallway, into the maintenance room and put him asleep with gas, then after the gas clears your people can go in and handcuff him." Boy Scout: "What about his bomb vest?" David said, "We can check if he's wearing anything before we put him to sleep." Boy Scout: "We can't let you inside the building without special clearance from the post command." David said, "We don't need to go inside, we use a tiny mechanical drone so we don't need to go in the building." Boy Scout: "You can do that without seeing the rest of the blue print?" David smiled at him then lowered his shoulders when he realized he was talking to a moron. "Can you hear me okay?" Boy Scout: "Yes Sir." David spoke: "We do not need to go inside the building, nor do we need to see the blue print aside from the front doors and down the hallway, and inside the maintenance area, that's it. I hope I said it clearly that time." Boy Scout: "I don't think you're taking this threat seriously." David nearly laughed but ignored his comment and asked him if the bomb squad was ready and he said yes, he can signal them to approach. David gestured to the phone. The lead Boy Scout picked up the phone and called his dispatcher and told them to send the bomb squad over and report to the I.C. trailer. I grabbed the spider and turned it on, put on my glasses, and left the trailer and walked across the parking lot, up their sidewalk, and stopped by the front doors and carefully set the spider on the door handle and walked back to the trailer. While I did that David powered-on the pelican case and put on his glasses and connected the joystick. Assuming they were watching I gave their camera the thumbs up. Just then the bomb squad vehicle drove into the parking lot and parked beside the IC trailer. All they were missing now was a VW Beetle full of circus clowns, or maybe Harpo Marx. When I got inside I whispered to David we were ready. He asked the commander if they were ready and he said yes, but repeated that we couldn't go inside the building. We glanced at each other and rolled our eyes. It looked like our lack of curiosity in their building actually hurt their elderly feelings. Using a small wired joystick I steered the spider between the doors, and down to the floor inside and paused briefly. Then using the floor plan we steered the spider down the hallway towards the maintenance area, under the door and up the block wall and onto the desktop where he was sound asleep. We found the perp asleep on a rolling office chair, with his head on his arms on the desk with his eyes closed, we heard him snoring as we looked around that room. We asked if they were ready to run inside and take him into custody and they said the bomb squad was ready, so we turned on our tablet computer and showed them with advanced thermal/metal scans he was wearing a t-shirt under a hoodie and had no bombs or metal on him. Our spider sensed no electronics near or on his body except the telephone on the desk. It clearly showed the zipper on his hoodie and his jeans, the rivets at the corners of his pockets, and a thin cross on a metallic necklace around his neck but no other metal on or near his body. If I adjusted the image it could even show his flesh under his clothes but that would be a violation to show classified stuff the spiders could do. We could even image his dick and his pubic hairs too but that was classified as well. The boy scouts didn't need to know that shit. They passed the tablet computer around and agreed, he was a slender young man with very long black hair, facial sores, arm and hand sores, probably a meth user and alcoholic and was asleep and they could put handcuffs on him before he woke up possibly in alcohol withdrawal symptoms. We suggested they cuff his ankles first since they were already together and could be done without much physical contact. They agreed to try their luck and have someone enter with two pairs of cuffs, so we moved the spider across the desk near his arms and did a short burn of a gas pellet and started a nine minute timer, then Barney Fife could enter and cuff the scary `unarmed sleeping terrorist.' David whispered to me the only thing that was terrorizing about him was how he made known their security flaws. He probably never hurt a person in his life, except fish in the river. Then he added that his thumbs looked too well defined to be a threat to anyone except maybe an online combat simulator which was probably all he did during the day in his mother's spare bedroom. ---- After eight minutes one of the scouts ran to the front door crouched low like he was avoiding live rifle fire or helicopter wash. The guy unlocked the door and ran back to the bomb squad van and slammed the door shut. One of the gray haired boy scouts entered the front door, turned down the hallway and entered the room. We saw him on our glasses as he got on his hands and knees and quietly handcuffed his ankles then slid his arms across the desk and cuffed his wrists. When the second cuff was in place we moved the spider to a floor drain to watch them check their perp to see if he had any weapons. They unzipped his hoodie and lifted his shirt then patted down his entire body to his ankles and discovered he was wearing a jail-style monitor around his ankle. He used his radio to tell the chief Boy Scout the 'terrorist' was unarmed and in custody but very much asleep. That was when I activated self destruct mode and asked for a ride to the airport. While they did that I shut down our gear after I advised ELP things here were done, we'd be leaving soon for the airport in Santa Fe. It took them thirty minutes to arrange transportation to the city because campus security were all `in shock' after their first ever encounter with `terrorism.' This was the scenario they'd trained for over the past two years when the directive came down to develop plans and teams and implement them right away. We jokingly expected to see guards calling their wives in tears after their `near-death' experience. I whispered to David that their event was about as dangerous as watching an episode of Sesame Street. David slapped my arm after saying that, because I was supposed to show sympathy for the victims, which was also very sarcastic and funny. We stood outside by the few security people who smoked (we usually hung out with the smokers) while we waited for our ride to town. David suggested we get back into our street clothes. So standing outside in busy parking lot in the afternoon sun we stripped and got back into our street clothes. ---- On the ride down the winding road to town our elderly driver said the perp was 24 years old, 5'10" 118lbs, single and unemployed. According to their records he graduated from high school (five years ago) and that was the only productive thing he ever did. His mother was 65 and his father died of liver failure at age 48 at the VA hospital in Albuquerque. He asked if we wanted his name and date of birth but we declined that info and said we'd call him Mr. X in our records. Our driver said they were no longer allowed to use gender or marital status words in their reports. Our driver wanted to know who we worked for but since he didn't need to know we made up something and told him we worked for the Drug Enforcement Agency. That made him really quiet so we talked over Whispernet the rest of the ride to the airport. David said I should have told him we worked for MIB because our Batsuits were mostly black. I whispered back, "G.I.B." and he chuckled back. The driver looked at us in his mirror when we laughed without talking out loud. I'm sure that would be in his report too. When we got near I-25 we used a cell to call our OD for a plane ride home, he said, "...tomorrow 8:50am, grab a hotel room near the airport." That's exactly what we did. On the ride down to Santa Fe our driver explained that Los Alamos did weapons research and prototyping but no longer built weapons, that was mostly done in Nevada. David whispered that he felt it should be done on the top floor of a high-rise building inside the beltway, we both laughed again. He whispered to me he was surprised they didn't off-shore atomic weapon manufacturing to China. ---- We got a room at the Airport Sheraton and sat at the bar and got toasted on wine and had their Grande Nachos Deluxe platter. Our table had a view of the pool so we watched some couples make out in the deep water. It appeared we were not the only gay couple at the bar but we needed to avoid the locals since the place was probably infested with undercover FBI informants due to its proximity to Los Alamos. There was a vast amount of military stuff in New Mexico statewide. We both liked the TV series MST3000, and did our own version of that over Whispernet. We watched couples make out in the pool and added our own dialog, which was funny but looked odd to see us staring and laughing without talking. ---- We recorded our notes the next morning (Friday) while walking to the passenger terminal. Our flight was on a small regional jet that stopped in Las Cruces first, then El Paso. We got back to the office at 1:35pm and home an hour later. Our boss (Captain Jones) left before we arrived, which was probably a good thing because we haven't been getting along well lately. We checked our messages then left on the long drive to WSMR to drop off our gear. ---- Just for fun on the drive home from WSMR we called Cousin Mark to check on him, he had a lady over and couldn't chat so we hung up after wishing him luck. David reminded him to scrub with lots of soap and water after the blessed event. He knew we were kidding. While he lived with us we got into conversations about old medical beliefs that slowly faded away over the years and somehow we got started joking with him like we were his grandmother giving him outdated advice, but the bottom line was we cared that he was okay. We spent the rest of the day getting ready to leave tomorrow morning. We'd already packed our clothes but still had to pack bathroom stuff. David suggested we make a bathroom case that stayed on the bike. Since the three trunks on the back of the Goldwing were oddly shaped we researched luggage. The two side cases (aka: saddle bags) gave us a choice of brands of soft zipper cases that fit perfectly inside the fiberglass saddlebags. The case in the middle was large enough to hold our clothes, but we planned on doing laundry at the hotel. Most good hotels had laundry facilities but they might not be promoted, you had to ask for access. We always packed our own laundry detergent tablets instead of taking a chance with vending machines. We also carried a tiny gasoline can in case of emergency, it held about 3/4 of a gallon and did not leak vapors. The middle case was the largest one, about the same volume inside as a smaller carry-on suitcase. It was big enough for both of our clothes and bathroom gear. We bought a nice soft zipper case that perfectly fit inside the trunk so we could easily grab it out and walk in the hotel. Less commonly used clothes or gear was carried in the side cases. We agreed that the guy in the back seat (co-pilot/navigator) also served as backrest for the pilot. The body position for the Goldwing pilot was similar to driving a car. The forecast said we were not likely to encounter cool weather on this trip but rain was likely east of Houston. We had two rain suits each for the two rain scenarios: 1. it might drizzle. 2. Major rain storm is in our path. On a motorcycle on the highway lots of rain comes from the tires of trucks and large vehicles. It shot out at a low angle instead of falling from the sky. At 70mph on the highway in the rain it is nearly impossible to stay totally dry. Most riders adopted an acceptance of getting wet and dressed accordingly. We felt the biggest problem with the rain was related to visibility (rain drops on the helmet face shield and the windshield. Rain drops on the face shield were a problem due to the wind. The helmet face shield tended to retain drops in the middle but blow them off the sides. We always applied Rain-x to our face shields, which helped. Most bikers I knew got off the highway during the rain. The biggest danger came from loss of traction on very wet pavement, us and other vehicles. Riding a bike in a thunderstorm was scary and probably dangerous. ---- Saturday morning we left on the Honda for New Orleans well before sun-up and morning traffic. Like many cities in hot climates the work day for people that worked outside started (and ended) early in El Paso. For Midwest cities the morning rush might start at 6am but El Paso started around 4am, but the afternoon rush started around 1pm and started to fizzle out after 4:30pm. Our helmets didn't have anything to shield our eyes from the rising sun. On I-10 we really had to watch the road because there were some very large chunks of truck tire on the pavement we had to dodge. Hitting a chunk of tire on a motorcycle at 80mph could be deadly. Hitting anything at 80mph on a motorcycle was usually a day wrecker. During the long drive east it was interesting to watch the transition from the Chihuahua Desert to the grasslands and then into the coastal climate near the Gulf of Mexico. We both pointed out signs of change like the sudden appearance of trees that lost leaves in the fall or the end of certain desert plants. The one thing that wasn't marked and we felt should be was the first/last mountain in sight of I-10. There were hills east of the mountains but the difference between hills and mountains was big. As we zoomed along (without our pelican case) at 75mph I spent time with my hands under his shirt. I leaned against his back and ran my hands all over his stomach. We always picked a type of vehicle and called them out loud. On this trip we picked three wheel motorcycles. Every time I saw one I rubbed one finger over his tit, he squeezed my knee, which was against his thigh (my knees were his elbow rests). ---- Our first stop was Fort Stockton and the second stop was Kerrville Texas. While the bike was at the gas pump we took turns going to the bathroom. I went inside the store to get two bottles of water and pre-pay for gas. Since he was driving I poured his water into a squeeze bottle because he couldn't drink with the full coverage helmet on. Months ago we sliced the pockets of his jacket so I could reach inside. I mostly rubbed his tummy and occasionally up to his chest but mostly just kept my hands on his soft stomach. I liked to move one fingertip in and around his belly button for hours during the trip. When I did that we were usually pressed together so he relaxed back against me to give his lower back muscles a rest. One of my duties in the back seat was to read all the signs, watch for posted radar traps, nice places to eat, alerts about roadwork, and signs of bad weather or animals that might run onto the highway. We had a radar detector on the front of the bike which helped but we mostly drove at the same speed as the trucks. Without our gear we had to obey all traffic laws. The license plate on the bike had a sticker to inform law enforcement we were federal agents but it was small and often ignored by cops. On the truck we had another one that was twice as big beside the license plate. He wanted to add another to the window on the back of the truck. The stickers were secret but looked very similar to part of the Samsonite logo, the 'O' in Samsonite looked sort of like a ship's propeller, our group added a faint shape inside the O. At a distance you wouldn't notice the difference. ---- Since the weather was great we pushed our endurance and drove all the way around San Antonio and stopped at a Motel-8 in Seguin Texas. At roadside motels we picked ones with first floor rooms so we could park directly outside our window to keep an eye on the bike. ---- By the time we got our room key and parked it was 6:02pm and the sky was getting dark. It was cloudy and 83 degrees, 89 % humidity and felt very muggy outside. We cranked up the AC unit and crashed on the bed, it felt nice to stretch out. I wanted to take a nap but he was hungry so we walked to the diner next door and ordered breakfast since it was their specialty. Their sign out front proclaimed, `Breakfast all day,' and had an image of a busty waitress in a mini skirt carrying a tray loaded with steamy food. ---- We ate omelets, toast, sausage patties, and tall glasses of water. The omelets were enormous, like three eggs with tons of stuff inside, like ham, cheese, diced peppers, mushrooms, and J-pepper chunks. They looked like Christmas decorations with all the colorful chunks of pepper inside. I didn't eat all of mine but I ate the sausages. The menu said all the ingredients were from farms around San Antonio. David reminded me why we no longer went to IHop because we preferred real eggs over IHop's eggs that looked like thin sheets of yellow foam rubber. Back at the hotel (which did not have a pool) we crashed on the bed and slept all night. My alarm went off at 4am and we went back to the diner. At home we're used to espresso but this place had regular diner coffee, which tasted a lot different. The first thing we noticed was the lack of krema on top. ---- We left at 5am on I-10 heading east. Overnight the clouds disappeared and the sky was totally clear. According to the GPS we were 9.9 hours from the hotel in downtown New Orleans which would put us there at around 5-7pm their time. We hoped to miss the morning traffic across Houston. David said we'd get to Houston around 10am and I-10 ran across the center of the city and should be heavy for a while, he'd need my eyeballs to follow the signs across the city. The further east we drove the flatter the land became and the taller/thicker the trees grew. The trees and soil changed from desert to dirt and we saw more birds and less bare ground. Houston was in a tropical climate because it's only one hour from the Gulf of Mexico but San Antonio still had prickly pear cactus and barren flat rocky ground. Something we both commented on was the first highway distance sign that showed miles to New Orleans. I spent about two hours that morning with my hands on David inside his jacket but mostly on his flanks but it was nice being connected like that, it was something I couldn't do in his truck. This morning we did not play a 'spot the vehicle' game. He wanted to focus on traffic. ---- We only stopped for gas, lunch, and potty breaks and snacked on beef jerky we 'd brought from home. By the time we arrived in New Orleans I was hungry and stiff. When we got into heavy city traffic it looked like it might rain but we weren't in our rain suits. Luck was on our side and the rain held off until after we parked in the hotel garage. They had a small drop-off area at the hotel entrance so David went in while I stood beside the bike. When he came back out with our door key cards the valet offered to park the Goldwing for us but David wanted to drive so he could lock it to the pipe the way he wanted. David was a fanatic about protecting the bike. This hotel was in a tall building and the garage entrance was on the other side of the block so we drove around the block and into the garage. David parked with the front tire against the pipe then got out the U-Bolt and clamped it to their pipe. Then we got our case out and walked inside through their garage entrance. It was a long walk down an ugly service hallway back to the main lobby then into the elevator to the 6th floor and our room with a view to the north over the huge lake and the parts of the city that flooded. When we opened the curtains I told David it was raining with lightning outside, he walked over and stood beside me and watched the storm from our 6th floor window. He got his cell, turned it on, and tried to film the lightning strikes. We used menus in the room to find food to order over the phone. David did that while I got stuff organized for a trip to their laundry room. On the bike we always carried laundry detergent and a small vinyl case full of quarters. David did the food ordering and got a delivery time of 45 minutes, to meet the car at the hotel drop-off driveway. While the clock was counting down we went to the laundry and did one load wearing our old hospital scrubs. When our food was about to arrive he went down to the lobby to meet the driver. We got two foot-long Po'Boys with Italian cold cuts and lots of veggies but no mayo or mustard. We had them add oil and vinegar, salt, pepper, and a twelve pack of Miller Lite. The bread was nice and crunchy and we had a great dinner in the hotel laundromat on the third floor. Since we were the only people doing laundry we belched loudly and talked out loud too. After that we went to our room and finished eating and took showers and went to the pool (with cold beers) and did a few laps then hung out in the deep end and sipped our beers. Cold beer in a heated pool was a great combination. We were the only obviously gay couple at the pool so we kept our thing cool. Luckily there were no kids so no screaming and running kids to ruin the atmosphere. Back in our room we put the remaining four beer cans in the refrig and went to bed early, 9pm and set the alarm for 8am. ---- It seemed my hours of rubbing him paid off, he was rather hornish so I played bottom that night, face down in bed. David fucked me hard and rubbed his face all over my upper back and sucked my ear lobes too. The top of my skull hit the headboard three times during his climax. That was one of the few times that he grunted loudly with each thrust of his hips and contraction of his prostate. He shoved really hard then collapsed on my back all sweaty but satisfied. We stayed in that position for a long time, then he finally rolled off and fell asleep quickly. In fact, I think he dozed off while still on top of me. I turned to look at him and saw he had a smile in his sleep. Maybe it's weird but I always felt happiness after he came in me. In my mind it was the most intimate thing a man could give, his seed, the effort, and intimacy of sharing the moment with you. Of course he got something in return but I received his gift. I'd trained David years ago when he fucked me in that position it was fine to do it for himself, don't try to satisfy me, just do it all for his own pleasure. I tried to make sure he had a few chances every month to fuck me any way he wished to keep my hubby happy. It was like a gift for his dick. Monday Morning: We ate a small crappy breakfast at the hotel then used our laptop to research places to see and what tours cost. We learned the hotel was visited by five tour vans, our first choice was one (four hours) that covered old cemeteries and historical sites (some haunted). The tour took us to historic places around the French Quarter and got us back at the hotel at 12:50pm, then we took a taxi to Central Grocery for an authentic Sicilian Muffuletta sandwich and a cold root beer. After lunch we walked around and went past the place with the go-go boys but they didn't open until 5pm. So we went back to the hotel and took a nap. Let me tell you that city was so cockeyed my internal compass short circuited because nothing in that city sat north-south, it's shaped like a giant snake. I always felt lost but kept those thoughts to myself because David seemed to know where we were. El Paso had the same problem but it wasn't curvy like New Orleans. Many of the north-south streets in El Paso sat at angles because of the mountains. ---- My alarm clock went off at 6pm. We showered and took a cab to the club, paid the cover, and sat at the bar fifteen minutes before the first show started. Our cab driver said most gay businesses were located around Bourbon Street at Saint Anne Street, but were also thinly scattered around the entire city but lots of those were quiet about it. He also said that some places started flying our flag just to attract customers but were only gay tolerant (not gay owned). He dropped us off near the front door and wished us a good time, `...and good hunting.' We didn't pick this place to go hunting, we went there to watch the go-go boys and maybe pet one. The bar played videos on TV screens of their more famous parties, like their last Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras) party. We ordered something like tortilla chips with melted Mexi-cheese and diced peppers but it was pretty mild so we sprinkled on crushed red peppers but they were mild too, or stale. The place looked wild on youtube videos but it wasn't wild tonight. The first boy stepped on stage ten minutes late, he wore nice knee length shorts, a tie-dyed t-shirt, and a backwards cap with the Saints team logo. The music and lighting changed when he started his routine. At first all he did was dance and look closely at the people seated at the bar, then he started using the bottom of his t-shirt to wipe his mouth, which exposed his belly button and hairless tummy. That created some yells from the back of the bar. When he started to look like he was getting warm he pulled off his shirt but had a skin-tight tank top under it. His routine seemed to depend on a bartender because as he removed each piece of clothing he tossed it to the bartender, he held them tightly to his face to enjoy the twink's body scent. Slowly his clothes disappeared and he danced in what I could describe as a custom made mesh black Speedo but the rest of him was exposed. He flashed every part of his body as he danced to songs I never heard before but the beat was loud and thumping. His suit was tight enough we could see the contours of his limp dick and sometimes his testicles too. The first dancer was 98% hairless except for a thin trail leading up to his belly button hole. We could easily see his limp dick in his Speedo, sometimes we even saw the ridge around the edge of his dick head through the fabric. His titties were flat and round and a little bigger than a quarter with a nice dark red color. I had fantasies about slowly dragging my tongue across them but would settle for my husband's which were nearly three times wider. I noticed he shaved his arm pits and had almost no sign of facial hair but David said he had make-up on his face. David noticed I was in a trance staring at his body so he elbowed me to snap out of it. When I went to the bathroom I stopped by the bouncer and paid for a lap dance for my husband then went back to sit down. I wanted it to be a surprise but I think he sort of expected I would buy one for him. When he finished his time on stage and the second guy walked out the first boy soon appeared on the floor around the tables and bar, David was his third customer. I asked what he thought of the first kid and he said he was cute, twinkish, and very smooth, then he looked at me and winked because those words were also how he described my body. We watched the first kid as he worked some laps around the bar and on a platform in the back some guy with a spotlight kept him brightly lit as he worked the room and grew his collection of tips. Another guy with a bucket followed him because he didn't have enough space for tips around his waist. The dancer boy stopped beside David and (leaned into him) whispered in his ear then ran his hand across his chest then slid that hand up his shirt and rubbed his bare chest then turned David and climbed on his lap and wiggled his butt cheeks firmly into David's crotch. David looked embarrassed but excited so I stood up and watched from the side. The boy lifted David's shirt and rubbed his entire front side against David and sat on his lap with his hands on David's shoulders. I watched them from a foot away I saw the go-go boy had almost no chest muscles, just round flat nipples and very soft flesh, he sort of looked like a very large nine year old boy with a very sexy tummy and belly button. I got behind David and lifted his shirt to his shoulders and the dancer kid ran his hands all over David's front side then bent over and licked his left tit. He spent about four minutes with his hands all over David, who I could tell was getting hugely turned on. David rubbed the dancer's entire front side and licked one of his tits too. During his lap dance other guys came by to watch both of them, more than a few grabbed a feel of naked flesh. David said one guy rubbed his tit a few times but he just ignored it but that might have been what made him hard. When the dance was done they both looked down and saw the dancer's head had wiggled up out of his Speedo, so David carefully pulled out his waistband and pushed it back inside, the kid kissed him on the mouth and went to do his next lap dance. That cost me $120 cash for about six minutes. The guy did four dances then left on break for a couple hours and probably a costume change. After things calmed down I asked how much the kid made for his hour at the brass pole then on laps and David said he probably made at least five hundred bucks and would do it again in a few hours. Then he chuckled and told me I could do it if we lived here. "What did you think when he stood next to you?" "I thought it was a mistake at first, then I noticed he was shorter than I expected. He really looked like a kid but I bet he was in his mid-twenties" He replied. "Was it worth the money?" I asked. "How much did that cost?" He asked and I told him it was $120. David laughed, "Yep, he was worth it. He's super cute and super soft, his flesh was like velvet." I leaned my mouth to his ear and told him there was nothing on earth as soft and nice feeling as his nipples. David looked me in the eye and smiled. Then I looked around and saw nobody was nearby so I reached over and grabbed his crotch to see if he was still hard and felt he was almost fully hard still. I told him I'd take care of him back at the hotel.