Tonia and the two men were seated at a booth in the far corner when Hilde and Lonnie entered. A young woman with thick, sandy-colored dreadlocks bundled atop her head looked up with a friendly expression as they walked in. She had the tanned face of an avid outdoors enthusiast, probably a hiker or kayaker who spent many hours unprotected in the wind and sun. Wrinkles at the edges of her eyes and mouth rendered evidence of weather damage, giving her a prematurely aged look that put her in her mid-to-late thirties even though her body language suggested she was probably closer to twenty-five. Against her dark skin, a gold stud glimmered in the side of her nose, and a large gold pin shone in contrast to the eyebrow through which it pierced. Whether or not such scar-inducing jewelry was to a person's taste, the young lady was quite attractive nonetheless.
She smiled as the two ladies walked in and said, “Hi, welcome to Snow City. Just the two of you this afternoon?”
Tonia saw Hilde and Lonnie right away and stood up, calling out and motioning them to the table.
Hilde pointed that direction and said, “That's our party.”
The smiling woman called after them as they headed toward the booth. “Would you like a menu? We still have lunch and serve breakfast all day.”
Lonnie suddenly realized she was more than just hungry. She was, in fact, famished.
“Yes, please. Could you bring it to our friend’s table?”
“Sure thing.” The woman reached the table just a moment after the two women sat down. She set the menus and glasses of ice water in front of each of them, then gathered the used dishes from the table.
“Would the rest of you like something else? More coffee, maybe?”
“Sure.” Warner’s face softened slightly as he handed the cup to her. She took it with smile and a nod.
“I’ll be right back.”
The young woman walked away with his cup. She was thin and fit, with feminine curves accentuated by a hiker’s muscular physique. Warner followed her with his eyes for a few seconds, then turned back to the remnants of French fries on his plate.
“Damn, Warner,” Tonia said, “is that an attraction to the opposite sex I see on your face?”
“Huh?” Warner nearly choked on a fry.
“He’s blushing,” Tomer said. “Looks real enough to me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Warner looked down at his plate and stuffed two more fries into his mouth.
Tonia turned towards Hilde. “Mr. Roboto has been hassling me and Tony all day for being friendly with each other.” Tonia nudged Tomer with her shoulder in a playful flirtatious gesture.
Lonnie’s eyes went wide and she coughed at the image. “You and Tony?”
Warner looked up from his plate and blurted out, “They’ve been flirting like teenage puppies since they met.”
“You’re just jealous,” Tonia said. She wrapped her arm through Tomer’s. “At least I’ve got a date for tonight. Better than you can say, Mr. Personality.”
The young woman came back with Warner’s coffee.
“Hey.” Tonia looked up at the waitress with a smile. “You seem nice. What’s your name?”
“Thank you. It’s Myriam, with a ‘y.’” A friendly sparkle lit her eyes as she glanced around the table. Her gaze stopped on Warner as she handed his coffee down. Warner squeezed out a tight smile, his eyes softening as he looked up.
“Got a boyfriend, Myriam with a ‘y’?” Tonia asked.
Warner blushed, and his gaze fell back to his French fries.
“Nope. Spent four years in the Army, then got out and went to college. Just finished last month, so I've never had time until now.”
“Army? Well, you certainly look like an outdoorsy type,” Tonia said. “I bet you like hiking and kayaking.”
“Yeah, I do,” Myriam said. “You too?”
“Me, no,” Tonia replied. She pointed across the table with an open-handed gesture, “but Warner here does all that kind of wild man stuff.”
“You’d better ask Myriam out, Warner,” Tomer blurted. “Army, wilderness chick — she’s definitely your type. And probably your last hope.”
“You clearly find her attractive,” Tonia added.
“You’ve been staring at her since we walked in,” Tomer said.
“So just ask, man,” Tonia said.
Myriam’s tan skin turned bright pink. Warner’s face flushed beet red. He looked up apologetically. “Please excuse my co-workers.” His voice stayed smooth despite the purple of his complexion. “They’re not very well educated in social manners.”
“Uh…” Myriam turned toward Hilde, who had remained silent the whole time. “Can I take your order ma’am?”
“Yes.” Hilde was only half amused by the discussion and wanted to get to business. “Turkey club with coleslaw, please, and iced tea with lemon.”
Lonnie ordered a cold roast beef sandwich, a side of jalapenos, and water with lots of lime wedges. Myriam glanced at Warner, her expression somewhere between sympathetic and bewildered.
“I’ll have that right out,” she said, her voice a little shaky. She turned and walked quickly back to the kitchen.
“You’d better not leave here without her phone number,” Tonia said.
“That would be unforgivable,” Tomer added.
Warner just shook his head and looked out the window, the purple in his cheeks slowly diminishing.
“Sorry to break the mood, but we have a serious issue we need to address,” Hilde said. “There’s a possible tango in town.”
Warner’s attention snapped to Hilde like an alerted guard dog.
“Details,” he said. His face color quickly returned to normal.
“A terrorist in Anchorage?” Tomer said. “Nothing has come across our radar.”
“Remember that car accident a few days ago,” Lonnie said, “the one with the newly married couple?”
“Yeah,” Warner replied.
“I was there,” Lonnie told him. “Immediately after the accident, a man pulled up in a white Audi and offered to help. I felt strange about him and his companions, as if he had somehow caused the accident, like maybe he was chasing the man who hit the couple. Next day, Hilde recognized him on the news.”
“He’s a known operator named Steven Farrah,” Hilde said. “I spent the morning at the FBI building, checking into his full cover story.”
Seriousness descended on the group as the two women explained what happened at the rail yard and their husbands' discoveries at the port. The discussion paused briefly when Myriam brought plates of food, then continued once she left. Once the explanation was done, they started brainstorming, voices low.
“Okay, how would he hit the president in this environment?” Tomer asked.
Hilde swallowed the final bite of her sandwich. “He’s a petroleum engineer by education.”
“That would obviously be his cover,” Lonnie said wiping her lips with a napkin then dropping it onto her empty plate, “but how would he use that for an assault on the president?”
“Describe again what Marcus and Mike saw at the port,” Warner’s eyes blazed with intense concentration as if he were crunching data with a built-in in computer in his head.