The storyboard meeting took two hours as Rollie sat on one side of the table with John Latham and the line producer. The cinematographer, Al Beck was complaining already about the mist problems with the camera lenses as they could all see the rolling fog that seemed to surround the island from their view. Angie sat on the other side, writing down keynotes with the stunt coordinator, Kyle Campbell. He was laughing and joking with her easily enough and the two had worked before on several other pictures. Rollie would look over from time to time to see her writing sequence numbers on his gag sheet. Angie did not look at Rollie the entire time of the meeting and he knew she was steamed. This was the cue to him that he should apologize and let her have her way.

 

But, he couldn't. There was no way he was going to see her perched out in the middle of that island, waiting to step on some old artillery shell or falling down into one of the artillery basement catches. From the look of the place on architectural blueprints, it was loaded with places that were dangerous.

 

At the end of the meeting, Angie stood up and walked over to John Latham with her sequence arrangements. Rollie had sat back until now and waited until they were alone, before he approached. Angie saw him and her nostrils flared slightly, the color in her face reddening slightly.

 

"John, think we can talk for a moment, alone?" Rollie asked the director, point-blank in front of Angie.

 

"Well, Rollie, if it's about Angie being pregnant and you wanting to drop her to second seat, she already told me and as far as I am concerned- she is the one I signed a contract with, not you, per se. You two will have to resolve the other issues you have, okay? I have a movie to make and want the best F/X team, you got that?"

 

Rollie looked at Angie, the hurt apparent as she looked down at the ground and nodded; "You got the best team, John and for this movie- you got the best principal operator here."

 

Angie walked off then, leaving Rollie with John. She was regretting the whole pregnancy at the moment, the feeling of tiredness and the stress and impending responsibility were starting to hit her like a ton of bricks but she couldn't and wouldn't let Rollie see that it affected her. She had come too far not to do this picture and get the credit for being the boss on this one. Why now? She thought, despairingly as she made her way back inside the van.

 

Already halfway through compiling the recently conferred gag sequence during the meeting that morning on Ambler, she felt the van floor tilt slightly as the door opened and Rollie came inside. She continued working as he went over to the small refrigerator near her and pulled out a beer.

 

"Little early, isn't it?" she asked, not looking at him except through peripheral vision.

 

Rollie didn't say anything. He went up to the front of the van and sat in the driver's seat, slowly drinking his beer.

 

"Do you want this baby?" Rollie asked suddenly as her fingers stopped on the keyboard in shock. She turned her head, angrily and stood up, walking toward the front of the van.

 

"What does that mean?" she asked, her eyes meeting his fully for the first time since before the meeting that morning.

 

"It means exactly what it means…do you want this baby?"

 

"Rollie, yes- I want this baby but I have to ask you something…what right do you have to embarrass me like that in front of John Latham? I am not an invalid. I am perfectly able to watch my step and am physically able to handle my job. If, for some strange reason, it is because you feel that I am jeopardizing my life or the baby's life- I think you should remember that everyday you are on a set, doing set-ups with charges, working with explosives, gases, etc., you do the same. How is it different? Please explain… because it seems like a double standard, you know?"

 

His eyes seemed to water slightly as she continued to look at him and wonder what had gotten into him lately.

 

"I am not carrying another life with me when I am on the set…I…"

 

"Your life is there! What about that one? You don't think I worry about some of the crazy stunts you pull out there? There have been plenty of times, Rollie, when it was so close, do you realize that?"

 

"Yeah, well, I guess I really didn't think about how much that stressed you out!"

 

"Rollie!"

 

"Angela, I want what's best for everyone, don't you see?"

 

"Yes, but don't you see, I am wearing a lot of hats here, and you have slapped this ten gallon hat on top of me that is smothering me! I can do several things here and still carry this baby, you know?"

 

He put the beer down on the floor and sighed. He was looking straight out the window, across the river at Pollepel Island and shook his head;

 

"I don't want anything to happen to you, Ange. I don't know what I would do if something happened to you, see?"

 

He was suddenly so emotional and Angie wondered who was pregnant here, herself or Rollie?

 

"Rollie, I have to do this picture as principal. It is important to my career, you understand? We can't always work together on every film. We talked about that, right?

 

"Yeah, it's just hard, you know…"

 

"I know, you are a control freak…"

 

"I'm not!"

 

"Oh yes, you are… from the first time I met you, Rollie Tyler."

 

"Okay, I don't like it but I won't cause a stink, fair enough?"

 

"Fair enough," Angie replied, softly and extended her hand.

 

He looked at her gesturing hand for shaking and shook it but pulled her to him, causing her to lose her balance and fall in his lap. A small cry escaped her lips but he had closed over her surprised, opened mouth with his own, sending waves of emotionally charged nerve endings to awaken all over her.

 

"Do you know what I would like to do right now?" he asked her as she came up for air and he played with the top button of her shirt.

 

"Yeah, do the caveman thing and let me know who's the man!" she replied and jumped up, grabbing her clipboard.

 

"You're no fun!" he replied, frowning as he got up from the driver's seat.

 

"Get use to it, you have 6 more months of this…" she told him, detaching Ambler from the workstation and carrying it outside. She stopped and kissed him on the forehead, "Hey, you can show me later what a man you are!" She smiled and walked out as he felt used and abused and shook his head. She had done it again- won her way with him and everyone else. He smiled, a nervous smile at best.

 

David Grant was on the computer at his desk, working on-line. He had just finished a revision of his calculations below the arsenal under Bannerman's Castle on Pollepel. Of course, this was far from the job he was supposed to have been doing for the paper. Michael needed the last bits of information to make it complete- the plan to destroy, once and for all, the operations group that had kept him a virtual prisoner for the past five years. Without a doubt, this was the closest he had ever gotten to the final pieces of the puzzle he had been putting together for the ultimate goal- total obliteration of this splinter faction of the CIA. Unrecognized and denied by the government, it was as real and vital to its cause as the day it had been formed, in the early sixties.

 

"Hey! Cool maze- you playing Dungeons and Dragons?" asked the print man who had come by to drop off the new edition.

 

Michael looked up, startled for a moment and smiled, "Yeah, something like that…don't tell anyone though- I'm not suppose to be playing on company time!" he said softly in a whisper as the young man nodded with assurance.

 

"No problem there," the man replied, "my lips are sealed! You gotta know that I love D&D!"

 

"Great! Maybe we'll do a game sometime, huh?" Michael said, quickly as he waved him off. The editor was heading down the aisle toward him. The print man nodded, seeing the boss and headed off to drop off the new paper at another desk.

 

"Grant! You got that piece finished? The one about the protest on Pollepel Island over that movie being shot out there?" The burly man asked, squinting at him with a beefy-red face.

 

"Just finished it..on the way," Michael answered, smiling slightly.

 

The editor grumbled and walked over to harrass another staff writer as Michael returned to screen and entered in the last measurements he had taken under the arsenal. Once entered, he waited and hoped. His command of geometry was limited. What he needed was a good computer graphics artist or CAD operator or both, he thought but then, he couldn't bring anyone else into this.

 

He looked around at the busy newsroom and then back to his screen. With the extra plotting equations placed, he suddenly could see the rooms forming- the ones he knew were there. He smiled, pulling out an old map that was crumbling in his hands, and compared- they were the same! He looked at the typewritten title on the old map and grinned. It read; 'OSS Bunker, 1947- Pollepel.'

 

David Grant would be coming back to the movie location in the morning. He would find out the shooting schedule and then, go back to the island late that night. In this manner, he could try to dig through the collapsed part of the shaft that led to the rooms where the files had been kept. He was also hoping for a small miracle as he thought of Mira's face on the movie sound stage from two days earlier. He would be coming back to her, and hopefully, that day would be soon.

 

The sets for the location shooting were almost finished by the end of the day. The actual set of the "Flying Dutchman" sailing ship was nothing more than a sturdy land stage of the bow, stern and cannon gunports.

 

Angie had finished working out the details for the next day's shoot. She was very confident that her sequences would go off without mishap. She felt very good about this picture, her first, and the exuberance showed in the way she worked with crew and director. Rollie had to admire her for that and her stubbornness.

 

In the hard bed, they shared that night, they both were restless and fitful sleepers. Angie had conked out at her computer station and Rollie had to wake her up and put her to bed. At that point, she was restless and turning frequently, bumping into him, a hand across his face at times as he let out a deep breath and would return it to its owner. Her recent tiredness alarmed him but she had said it was normal right now at this stage and so he reluctantly watched as she turned over on her side away from him, moaning slightly.

 

"I can't get to sleep…" she suddenly said, rolling over on her back as Rollie, who had just about dozed off, opened his eyes and looked at her in the dim light that shone from the outside security light.

 

He kissed the nape of her neck as he pushed her over on her side and moved up next to her, molding himself to her as she smiled and relaxed. His hands slid down over her breasts and she moaned slightly.

 

He made love to her that night, slowly and utterly more satisfying than she could ever have dreamed of as he kept her back to him, their faces never looking at each other. It was not exhausting at all and she finally turned over, his face buried in her hair over her shoulder now. He was sleeping soundly and she smiled; kissing the tip of his nose;

 

"And I was the one who was tired," she said softly, closing her eyes and fell asleep then, restless no more.

 

The alarm rang off at five in the morning, as both stirred, searching for the horrible contraption they had bought and kept all the way over at the other side of the room so that it would make them get up.

 

"Morning…" Angie said, yawning and beating Rollie to the bathroom.

 

"Yeah, you've been beating me lately to the toilet, you know," he said as she walked out, he, patting the cowlick at the back of her head.

 

"Yep, the old bladder is getting pushed around, I think," she mumbled, as she tried to find her robe.

 

There was a knock on the door, and Angie answered, peering out to see that Latham's assistant, Bill Casey was standing there, yawning himself.

 

"Hey, Angie- There's a guy at the gate, says he knows Rollie and you, but he's a reporter so I wouldn't let him in without your say-so. He says his name is David Grant."

 

Angie looked back inside where Rollie was getting dressed and then stepped outside the door for a moment and lowered her voice;

 

"I don't know any David Grant, much less, want a reporter in here. Send him away, okay?"

 

"Sure thing, they're a bunch of vultures, anyway!" Bill replied, shaking his head.

 

"Yeah, this vulture is a big, bad one who loves to feed off Rollie and me," she replied as he departed from her view. She walked back inside and smiled as Rollie came up to her.

 

"Hey there, Ms. Tyler. You feeling okay this morning, was that anything important?

 

"I'm fine, Rol. And no, it wasn't important at all."