A red faced BB interrupted the conversation when he sat at the table with them."Martha, em, I have a, ah, a question to ask you," BB stammered. At her... curious nod he continued. "Sheila wants to, em, stay at the ranch this week instead of going back to the valley," he concluded hurriedly."Well," Martha said slowly. She had to hide her grin. "That wasn't a question young man. It was a statement of what your fiancé wants. I do have some questions for you. I know you've added a couple of rooms on. " She proceeded to tell Elizabeth a story and didn't finish until early afternoon. Bernard had been married very briefly just out of college and shortly after his divorce had become engaged. The engagement was broken off suddenly and it had been several years since he had had a woman in his life. The summer before she invited Elizabeth to the lake, Marie had sat on this porch with Bernard on a similarly rainy day and asked him about his love life. His frankness had not surprised her. She rarely. And, oh yeah , she goes to Westcott Hall. And Becky and Ann go there too,and I didn't even know that. And she says the school knows she's "a veryunusual kinda girl" but not all the teachers, she doesn't think, and onlysome of the kids but that it is OK, and she is in tenth grade and alreadysixteen, and she's got a brother that is just started in medical school,and a sister that is in college for the second year, and a little brotherthat is fourteen and an eighth grader and has the hots for. They confirmed that three heavily armed men were inthe room. One was wounded in the left shoulder. They also heard the mentalking in Russian. The plan was for a fast assault into the room. Steve decided to waituntil three AM so that the suspects would either be asleep or verytired. Flash-bang grenades would be thrown into the room prior to theassault teams as the goal was to capture as many of the suspects aspossible. Steve had to emphasize this to his team during the briefing. "Look, Iknow.
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