"Did you see that!?" Cherry sounded both excited and a bit apprehensive as her voice interrupted the stillness of the evening. Startled by the question that so abruptly pierced the silence, Robyn jumped before replying, "I'm not... sure". Her eyes had been half closed. The gentle sound of the surf coupled with the cool March Sea Breeze had begun lulling her into a state of half consciousness.

Crossing the street, he looked at his wristwatch - 7:05. He was a good 25 minutes early. He had hoped to arrive before the girls, so as not to be caught off guard by more of their ridiculous antics. If it was only up to him, this meeting would not even be taking place. As soon as he got back to his hotel room from the incident at White Point Garden, Smith made a phone call to his superiors and strongly recommended dropping these two childish girls from the list of qualified candidates, "It's time to find someone else." he stated, "these two simply are not going to work out."

...the two ladies looked at each other and smiled. "We'll do it" they both answered simultaneously as they shifted their attention back to Mr. Smith.

Around the corner of the center room of the deck, Maryanne crouched listening intently to the conversation between Smith and her two friends. When she heard them say, "We'll do it.", she gasped so loudly...

Tomorrow we'll be going to the Charleston Navy Base. We'll board a transport boat from there that'll take us to the Coast Guard station on the west side of the Charleston Peninsula. After a brief meeting with the base commander there, we'll get back on board the transport vessel which will then take us down to the Coast Guard equestrian training station on Hilton Head Island."

John Smith retired in 1937 at the age of 38. Immediately thereafter the FBI recruited and moved him to their headquarters in D.C. He was taller than the average man, 5'11'', broad-shouldered and weighed about 220 lbs., none of which appeared to be fat.

Both Cherry and Robyn were having a hard time keeping up and processing all that was being said during the briefing. The notes helped some, but they were full of acronyms as well as unfamiliar verbiage. Their main objective was to gain a better understanding as to where they would be positioned. Neither of them were very familiar with Kiawah or Seabrook Islands and seeing them on the map wasn't helping nearly as much as they had hoped.

"How's your private investigator business doing?"

"It's Okay... but I know you didn't call me at this hour all the way from D.C. just to ask me how my business was doing." Ben Tuttle responded. "So... what's up Bart?"

"Well, I'm not calling from D.C. Ben. I'm actually right here in Charleston, and I need you to look into something for me."

Commander Chilton greeted his guests at the entrance of the Coast Guard Headquarters Building and welcomed them inside. He was young for an officer of his rank and genuinely excited to meet the three of them and give them all a tour at the conclusion of the meeting.

The meeting was informal, and for the most part mobile. He had several maps mounted on the walls behind glass all over the place. As he was explaining things, he would draw lines and arrows on the glass with a type of black wax or crayon pencil. Then to get a different perspective, he would lead everyone over to a different map and draw on that glass as well. He explained things in such a way that made it easy to understand and definitely not boring.

"You can call me Mark, ma'am."

"Well Mark, you can call me Robyn, but whatever you call me, please do not call me ma'am again."

"Yes ma'am... I mean uh yes... okay."

Both ladies laughed and Cherry introduced herself, "Hi Mark, I'm Cherry and thank you for that kind offer. If you get the approval, we will certainly take you up on it. Oh, and please do not call me ma'am either."