Tina gasped, hand on her throat, “ B-be-tte? Is she alright?  Was she hurt?”

“No…no… don’t worry, Bette is alright.”

Tom thought for a second, “Did you get the message earlier?”

Tina nodded her head.  Relieved about Tom’s news, but tears were forming in her eyes.

At some point late in the morning, Cheryl had passed on a message that she jotted down verbatim from the colonel, “Tina, the carousel is spinning normally, and my wife was wearing a cat’s eye brooch when she went to church on Sunday.”

“Do you have any idea about what all that means?,” Cheryl asked, one eyebrow raised as she handed the message to Tina.

“Yeah… good news!,” Tina responded excitedly.

Now, at the mid-afternoon of the same day, Tom was telling her about Bette being ambushed, in a similar manner as Mike and his team were.

“But there was a patrol nearby that heard the gunfire, and had managed to engage the shooters,” Tom continued.

“So, no one was hurt?”

“No, no one.  They were fortunate that the patrol had re-routed from their planned route towards the area Bette and the team were in.  So the patrol walked into the blind spot of the shooters, and managed to distract them with their own gunfire, even if they were not really armed sufficiently to keep up any kind of sustained engagement.”

Tina’s hand was in her throat area, running her other hand nervously through her hair. She was nodding her head absentmindedly, while Tom recounted the day’s events to her.

“Do you know when I can talk to Bette?”

Tom was shaking his head, “I’m not sure, but I’ll check with Cheryl.”

“Okay, thanks.  And thanks for coming over to let me know about what happened out there to Bette and the team,” her voice was shaky as she reached out to touch his arm.

Tom pursed his lips, offering Tina a small smile, as if to signal to the blonde that he’d caught both her relief and her shaky voice.  “No problem, Tina.”

After a moment, he opened his arms to offer Tina a hug.

Tina stepped forward to accept it, grateful for the sympathy offered.

As he embraced Tina, Cheryl walked by.

She coughed to let them know she was around.  They disengaged from the embrace unhurriedly.