Nathaniel's Chorus. Gary Lightfoot

not looking up at Cliff, acknowledges him, “Thanks for the Intel.”

      Cliff continues to walk away from the table and goes toward the side door, where he opens it and holds the door for Chairman Branch and Senators Bernard and Aaronson. The three Senators take their places as the Right Reverend Jeremiah Branch gavels the session to come to order.

      Φ Π Ψ

      Sitting on the couch in Footboards, in Long Beach, are Nathan and Neil who are watching the live feed on CSPAN.

      Nathan calls to his wife, “Nancy, Branch is starting the hearing! Hurry, did you find Jeff’s phone number?”

      Nancy comes trotting into the room while pressing numbers on the phone. As she hands the phone to Nathan she says, “Here you go honey, it’s ringing.”

      Φ Π Ψ

      Chairman Branch waves his hand to quiet the media who started to move after catching the entrance of the three Senators.

      “Quiet please, quiet!”

      The sound of a small boy making the sound of a racecar breaks the silence,

      “ringa, ding, ding, ding . . . ringggggggg, a-ding, ding, ding, ding, ring, ring-ring!”

      Jeff at first ignores the sound then he tries to discreetly silence his phone.

      The media in attendance begin to chuckle, and then laughter breaks out as Jeff raises his hand. Chairman Branch, not amused, reprimands Jeff.

      “This is not second grade counselor Alexander, do you have something to say?”

      “I’m sorry sir, it’s my phone.”

      “Well do you need permission to answer it?”

      “No sir, I was going to ask permission to take this call outside.”

      “Oh, by all means, please counselor Alexander, we will be more than glad to wait for you.” Chairman Branch, proud of his insult toward Jeff, sits back and grins.

      “Begging your pardon sir, but I believe, we were waiting for you.”

      Chairman Branch, now visibly angry begins to speak, but is stopped when Nathaniel interrupts him,

      “What my friend meant to say is that you don’t have to wait on us, you can continue your inquest anytime you think you’re ready.”

      Reverend Branch now boils over and blurts back at Nathaniel and Jeff as his southern drawl becomes less rehearsed,

      “Now just you wait one second boy! I want y’all to know that this here examination is no joke. You two just might find yourselves running down the wrong trail. Hell boys, finding a way out of this, just might be harder than finding teeth on a hen!”

      Senator Aaronson attempts to stop Reverend Branch’s sermon,

      “Senator Branch, I for one could use a short break, I ah, I forgot something in my office.”

      Senator Branch composes himself and officially grants a 5-minute break.

      Nathaniel tells Jeff that he’s going to the bathroom; Jeff remains in the hall and answers his phone while sitting at the table.

      “Hello, who is this?”

      “Hey Jeff, it’s Nathan. Man dude, I didn’t think this call was going to cause such a major drama out there. The whole thing was caught on CSPAN.”

      “That’s okay Junior, how you guys doing?”

      “We’re doing fine. Listen, we can’t get in touch with Nathaniel, we’ve tried all his phones and get busy signals.”

      “How ‘bout mine?”

      Nathan laughs, “Jeff, we’re talking on your phone now.”

      “Oh yeah.” Jeff says embarrassedly, “I can’t do cloak and dagger stuff.”

      “Listen Jeff, we recognized the Chairman’s aide, his name is Cliff Cortez.”

      “I already know that, Nathaniel told me yesterday.”

      “What? How would he know him?”

      Jeff looks around to see if anyone is close enough to hear him, he then whispers into the phone. “Watch Nate, listen to what he says.”

      “What did you say?”

      “Got to go.”

      As Nathan and Neil watch CSPAN, they see Jeff close his phone.

      Neil looks over at Nathan, “What did he say?”

      “He said he had to go.”

      “No bro, what did he say before that?”

      Nathan gets up from the couch and walks across the room,

      “He said to watch Nate, listen to what he says.”

      “Now just what the heck does that mean?”

      Nathan begins to walk around the room and look at the pictures on the wall, pictures of former military days. As he walks he begins to think out loud.

      “Watch Nate, listen to what he says. Not listen to Nate, but watch Nate.”

      Neil begins to think like Nathan, “I don’t know Junior, do you think it’s some kind of code?”

      “Yep, I sure do.”

      Nathan calls out for his wife again, “Honey, do you know where our old family phonebook is? We’re going to need help on this.”

      Nancy comes walking into the room with the phonebook,

      “What numbers do you need?”

      “I’m going to call the guys from the service we knew.”

      Neil opens up his bag that he brought from Mexico, “I’ve got a list I started a couple of years ago. I put it on a thumb drive.”

      Neil finds the thumb drive and hands it to Nathan.

      Nathan inserts it into his computer and opens the file. He begins sorting them out and putting them into a program he wrote to automatically compare the numbers listed with current listings in the United States. As he initiates the program he says to Neil, “Have you kept in touch with anybody from team Tiger?”

      “Yep, I talk to Chris Thomas pretty regular, at least twice a month.”

      “What’s he doing now?” Nathan asks while watching the computer screen.

      “He flies for an airline full time and helps his wife, Asela, run a flight school out of Long Beach Airport.”

      Nathan searches the database for Chris’s phone number, “Why don’t you call and see if he’s in town.”

      Neil pulls his cell phone out and keys the number in, after a few rings, Asela answers,

      “Hello, C & A Aviation, where would you like to fly today?”

      “Hey Asela, this is Neil, how you guys doing?”

      “We’re doing great Neil, are you in town?”

      “I’m over at Junior’s, we were wondering if Chris was home.”

      “No I’m sorry, he’s not right now, but he should be landing soon. I was just walking out the door. He’s finishing a 4 day trip this morning, I’m supposed to pick him up in about an hour at LAX.”

      “Say Asela, would you mind if Junior and I pick him up?”

      “No, not at all. You guys want to come over for lunch?”

      “No thanks, but we might swing by and let Chris change clothes.”

      Neil finishes his conversation with Asela as Nathan is working the computer program searching records nationwide. Nathan rolls his chair back from the computer