XX.  November

Ant leaned on his cane for support.  It irritated him that he even had to use a cane but he also recognized as much as he fussed about using one he still needed it.  He had been out of commission for far too long and was anxious to get back to work.  The general didn’t clear him for active duty so he decided this was a perfect time to initiate his plan.  He had painstakingly assembled his team for one specific mission.  Now it was time to implement it.

He walked into the room where his team patiently waited for him. 

Cooper stood in the corner and nodded at him.  While he was in the hospital, they had worked out this presentation.  The time had come to lay the cards out on the table and get everyone on the same page.

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XIX. Still September

The next few minutes passed as a blur for Cooper. Al called for assistance to help with Ant. A bomb squad was dispatched to the hotel room to inspect the bomb. Another team arrived to apprehend the suspect. Through it all, Cooper stayed with Ant. He even insisted on riding in the ambulance with him. The connection he felt with the man couldn’t be explained and it even surprised him. All he knew is Ant had to be okay. He just had to be.

And so, when he overheard a couple of agents talking about how the suspect had gotten away and was no where to be found, he didn’t register his disappointment in losing the opportunity to look for the notebook.  For the first time since he knew its name, the Samson Pill was far from his thoughts.

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XVIII.  Still September

Cooper stood very still.  “Okay, what’s the plan?” he asked.

“I’d very much like to not die here,” Al sized him up and refrained from adding with present company. Since those might be her last words she thought she should at least die with the pretense of being nice.

“Yeah, it would be a bummer if we were the last people we each saw,” Cooper said finishing her thought.  He scanned the room.  “Are you sure about this?”

She rolled her eyes.  “Pretty sure, yeah.”

“Okay, I’ll just call for help,” he took his phone out of his pocket and dialed Ant’s number.  “Ant’s not answering.”  He dialed another number.  “Actually, my phone doesn’t seem to be working.”  He shook it to see if that would fix it.

“I’m sure they jammed all communication,” she said.  “Look what they did to the hotel’s phone.”  The phone was ripped out from the wall. 

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XVII.  Later in September

Cooper sat in the van listening on a headset and stewing about the fact that he was essentially sitting in a forced “time-out” in the van.  The mission started off normal enough.  Cooper reviewed it in his head: bad guy enters hotel because he has a dinner appointment set up with other baddies.  Team Coop follows said bad guy to hotel.  The team has a certain objective.  In this case, it was surveillance.  They listen for incriminating key words like “weapon” or “bomb” or “kill.”  Blah, blah, blah.  That kind of thing, they hear what they need and send a team to move in.  All very routine.  All very boring for Cooper.

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