(A/N: If you read Chapter Eleven, and it did NOT mention a holograph Ralph does just before docking in Seattle, at the end of the chapter, you've read the wrong one. I pulled that chapter and posted the updated Ch. 11, in which I added that scene. It's important to know for this chapter.)

Bill and Ralph, between them, outlined to Roy and Kim everything they'd picked up on the holograph as they were returning to Seattle. This time, going to Bremerton and not to work, Bill wore some comfortable old jeans, a polo shirt and a light jacket, with sneakers for walking comfort. The others were similarly attired. Bill didn't forget the binoculars this time, and had O'Neil carry the small set in her bag.

Ralph had a bookbag with him, holding the bottle of solution Professor Hinkley had made to neutralize the red mercury. Ralph had been right when he'd said to Bill that perhaps his uncle could come up with something that could render the material inert, and indeed the Professor had done so.

Ralph paid close attention as his uncle explained to him what he had to do with it, once they (hopefully) found the substance.

"It's quite simple, really, Ralph. You remember chem class well enough to know how to mix solutions, I'm sure. Same here: just add it slowly, let it mix gently and it should finish the job for you. It won't create any heat, but to be safe, don't shake it up too much."

"Right, thanks, Uncle Roy. I'll remember." His uncle watched as Ralph put the bottle in his bookbag. To all appearances, it was a water bottle or something similar; nothing too unusual.

Now they were to the point where the ferryboat was about to make its ninety degree turn to go straight into the dock. Maxwell hadn't noted anyone following them this time, thank goodness. Keeping an eye on the guy yesterday had detracted from enjoying the sights and had kept his nerves on edge.

Bill took his little binoculars and began scanning what he could of the shipyard. He could see the tops of submarines in drydocks, looked closely at the hammerhead crane, and noted once again that there were no guards in the appropriate towers.

"Humph," he complained to himself.

He looked as long as he could until he felt the bump, indicating they'd come to a stop at the dock. When he put the binoculars down, he saw Ralph, Roy and Kim were already moving to the exit with the crowd.

"Hey, wait up!" he yelled, running toward them.

"See anything significant?" Ralph asked.

"Naw, nothing. I'm sure they do it that way on purpose, though. From here, the public eye, it's pretty inocuous." He lowered his head, leaning close to Ralph's ear. "I couldn't see anything that might indicate where the nuclear fuel is."

As they went with the crowd down the steps to the terminal, Bill spotted three men in suits at the bottom. They maintained their gaze on him and his party the whole way down.

Ut oh, Bill thought, smiling slightly. Looks like I've been caught.

He was right.

As he reached the bottom step, the taller of the three men, Bill's own height, took him by the arm. The other two indicated to Ralph, Roy and Kim that they should come along as well.

"Look, guys, I can explain," Bill started.

The man kept hold of Bill's arm. "Over here, sir, if you don't mind."

Bill didn't argue, of course. This might be the "in" they were looking for, to get inside the shipyard. He remained quiet until the men stopped the four of them along the railing, overlooking the small beach.

"I need to see your ID, sir, and you three as well."

"Sure," Bill said. When he lifted his arm to reach for his FBI ID and badge, his shoulder holster showed. The man closest to him grabbed Bill's hand and held it in place. The DOD agent reached in to remove the firearm.

"If you'll let me finish getting my ID, it'll explain a lot."

"All right, slowly though," the man answered.

Bill flipped the wallet open, and the man examined it. The other two were looking at the others' IDs as well.

"FBI? What're you doing here? Who are these three?"

"I can explain a lot to you. I'm working on a case I'd been on a few years back, here in Seattle, and we've got some new intel in. I came back to see if we can get this matter closed." Bill looked around at the people still hanging around the terminal, apparently waiting for buses.

"This is a bad place to talk about this. Can we go to your office, and I'll tell you more?"

The man, who was obviously in charge, looked at the other three.

Bill saw his curiosity. "Okay, the lady is O'Neil. She is on witness protection; she's the one who gave us this new information, so she's deep into it. My boss can verify it. This is Professor Roy Hinkley, whose scientific expertise has been invaluable in this. You'll find out why shortly. And this is his nephew, Ralph Hinkley. He's sort of along to play tourist."

The three men examined their IDs once again. One looked up at Professor Hinkley, then back to Bill. "He's not government, and neither is his nephew."

"Kid, I'm willing to bet Professor Hinkley has higher security clearance than you do."

The young man scowled at Bill, obviously not happy with being called "kid," and turned to Roy. "Do you have something to that effect, sir?"

Roy dug another card from his wallet and handed it over. Apparently it was enough.

"I see," the Department of Defense man said, handing the ID back to Roy.

He turned once more to face Bill. "All right, Mr. Maxwell. You, Professor Hinkley and Ms. O'Neil can return to our security office, and we'll clear this up."

Roy looked at Ralph, then back to the man. "What about my nephew?"

"Sorry, I don't see any need for him to be there. No clearance, obviously, and being your nephew doesn't make it okay."

The three tried to look disappointed, and turned to console Ralph. O'Neil winked at him, and he smiled.

"It's okay, Uncle Roy, I'm sure there are LOTS of fun things to do in Bremerton!" Ralph gushed.

The DOD man smirked at Ralph before leading the whole group away. "Yes, it's called 'Go to Seattle.' This way, gentlemen, ma'am."

Once to the security office within the shipyard, Bill gave the DOD agent all of Carlisle's contact information.

"Here, go ahead and call to confirm. We can wait. Oh, can you let me talk to him as well?"

"Sure, hang on, I'm going to call from my office," the man said.

A few minutes later, the agent called out from his inner office, "Mr. Maxwell! You can talk to your boss now."

Bill took the handset and said, "Boss, before you say anything, I've got her here with me and she's the one who gave me the intel to re-open this case. You KNOW she's going to have a lot of great stuff to tell us about these bad guys she's been working with!"

Bill heard Carlisle sputter through the receiver, obviously interrupted from the scolding he'd wanted to give Maxwell.

There was silence for a few seconds, and Bill asked, "Boss?"

He heard a heavy sigh. "Yes, Maxwell. All right, just give me a full report when you get back! Tell them to contact me if they need anything else for confirmation." Click.

"That went well," Bill smiled when he returned to the outer office.

The DOD agent leaned against a table, looking at the three of them patiently.

"Okay, who's going to start this little party? Mr. Maxwell?"

"I don't want to review my entire case right here, right now. I just have to tell you one thing: Go check your inventory of nuclear material."

The man couldn't disguise his surprise. "What?"

"This case that Carlisle and I were working on in Seattle a few years back was to nail some no-brainers who were trying to sneak nuclear material across the border. We think they may've pilfered some, somehow, from right here at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard."

"Impossible! There's no WAY, our security is tight as a drum! It's so top secret that I don't even know all the measures they take. They do it that way on purpose, so no single person knows all of it."

Bill shook his head. "That's as may be, but still, if you could just have it inventoried? Physically checked, eyeball it, don't rely on your computers to tell you what's what."

The two men stared at one another.

Bill tried another angle. "Please."

"The stockpile, though, I mean, come ON, no security on the planet is better than what we've got between Hanford and here!"

"Humor me. Humor US. The Professor is here for his knowledge of the material; with his clearance, maybe he could even come along to look?"

That did it. This man didn't want anyone snooping around HIS turf, Bill was certain, and he was right.

"All right, all right, I'll have it checked. Immediately. By OUR men, not yours. It'll probably be an hour or so; there's a canteen right across Farragut if you want to grab a bite and come back. They'll give you badges at the front desk before you exit." He looked at his watch. "Come back in, say, 90 minutes."

When the three left, after procuring their temporary badges indicating they were only permitted into the canteen and back, Bill sensed Ralph by his shoulder.

"Have you found anything?" Bill whispered, looking both ways to cross the busy thoroughfare through the shipyard.

"No," he heard whispered back. "I'll keep looking. I'll find you." And with that, Ralph was gone.

Having found a map of the shipyard, Ralph had begun a slow, methodical search after the DOD had led his friends and uncle away. He was looking for that one rusty manhole cover they'd seen in the holograph the previous evening. It was a big 'yard, he was finding out. He'd encountered Bill, O'Neil and his uncle at the bend of the main road through the shipyard, Farragut Avenue. He glanced down the stretch he hadn't explored yet, noting the unnatural looking hill on the side of the avenue Bill, Kim and Roy had dashed across.

Curious as to what this hill was, he moved closer and found a placque. It stated that this was an underground bunker, built in World War II, and could occupy, in a pinch, 10,000 people. Essentially the entire population of Bremerton, at the time, could take shelter there in case of attack.

"Hmmm," thought Ralph, thinking this would be an ideal place to stash away a medium-sized container, as his Uncle Roy had told him the red mercury would most likely be in. The sign said the bunker was now used for general shipyard storage, with only a small portion still used for sheltering, in case of a haz-mat emergency in the vicinity.

He walked all along the avenue, which paralleled the oddly-shaped, angular 'hill,' carefully avoiding shipyard workers as they walked to and from their destinations. He had to move quietly when people were nearby, or his boots would crunch against the gravel that had drifted onto the sidewalk.

He saw a variety of coverings, most a mystery to their purpose, and some instinct told him to look UP at one point. A wave of deja vu swept over him, and he knew he had the right spot.

Ah, it's in THERE, he thought happily to himself. We've almost done it!

He looked around to be sure nobody was nearby. He slowly and very carefully began to pull the very rusty iron bars back. He didn't want to break them, for fear of drawing attention to his location. Once the bars were back enough to grant him access, he gently pushed the metal covering in, holding the edges so tightly that he dented the panel with his suit-enhanced strength. Once he was through, he bent the bars back into a similar position as before, and put the cover loosely back into place.

The room he found himself in was big, and dimly lit by some old bulbs with wire over them to protect from breakage. Ralph slowly began touching the various containers, to see if he could get a holograph, but they'd all been residing in there for so long that any vibes they'd had were long dissipated.

He saw one container, that looked newer than those surrounding it, and picked it up. It was about the size of a water jug one might use in a dispenser. Within seconds of hefting it, he picked up a holograph.

One man was running into another room, where two men were sitting playing cards.

"There're some FEDS here, we've got to move on this!"

Ralph realized he was looking at men already in the shipyard, and apparently they were heading this way.

Another man, older than the other two, said "We can't mess this up, men! It took us YEARS to get that stuff, and if we don't take this chance, it'll be years before we can get more! You know how it is, first it takes months for one batch, THEN you've got to be the lucky one to win it, THEN you've got to get it into the States!"

By the time the man finished his little dissertation, the three of them were heading out the door. Ralph knew he didn't have long; for all he knew, they were in the run-down building across Farragut, only seconds away!

He opened the cannister and looked in. The material he saw was red all right; the shimmering was almost hypnotizing. It looked like liquid cinnabar, a deep rich red. His uncle had assured him it was not toxic to breathe the fumes, but Ralph held his breath any way. He poured the contents of his bottle into the cannister, covered the larger container up and very gently stirred it together.

Seconds after he put the cannister back into its original spot, the three men tore into the room from an entrance Ralph hadn't noticed earlier. To his surprise, however, they went to another container, one that looked heavier and thicker than the one he'd just handled.

"Here, you get the nuke material, and I'll grab the mercury."

Oh God, Ralph thought. That's nuclear fuel! Hidden right here under everyone's noses!

He moved away from the container he'd handled to let the man close to him take it. The three of them were about to make their escape!

As Ralph followed, keeping tabs on them, an unholy howling started and as he watched, shipyard personnel made beelines to the nearest buildings to them. Within a minute, all doors and windows were sealed tight.

"Attention, all shipyard personnel! We are now in a Security One lockdown. Repeat, Security One lockdown. Please remain in the building in which you are sheltering until the All Clear has been given. This is not a drill. Repeat, Security One lockdown. Building marshalls, please follow outlined procedure until this emergency has concluded."

"SHIT!" one of the men yelled, as they found themselves stuck out in the open, one holding a heavy container of nuclear fuel, another holding a container of red mercury.

"They're on to us, men, RUN! Between the buildings, head for the water! There's a sub there waiting for us!"

Ralph stared in frustration as the men made tracks between two grubby looking, nondescript buildings. In this labyrinth, and being familiar with it, these three could actually get away! And he couldn't do anything to stop them, or his secret would be out.

He looked down the road, back to the big building Bill and the others had gone to earlier, and saw Bill, his uncle, O'Neil and six MP's running down Farragut, then cutting across as they saw the small party of men.

One MP fired off a warning shot, which only spurred the fleeing men on.

"RALPH!" Bill screamed, knowing his friend and partner would be in the area.

That's all Ralph needed, now that he knew official help was on the way to finish apprehending the men. He took three steps, a leap, and he was airborne. Having to concentrate on flying AND remaining invisible was taxing him, and he looked down, startled, to see a red-sleeved arm.

"Oh, NO!" he screamed, and one of the men turned at the sound. He was so startled at seeing a man flying behind him in a red suit that he tripped, and the heavy container of nuclear material was airborne as well.

Without conscious thought, Ralph homed in on the container and seemingly DREW it to him, and it smacked into his waiting hands. By this time, he'd been so focused on the container that he tumbled to the ground, rolling with it and hugging the dangerous material to him as he came to a stop.

Bill, seeing his friend on the ground, turned to the MPs and pointed in the opposite direction. "THAT WAY!"

The soldiers ran in the direction Bill was pointing, and he ran to Ralph.

"Are you all right?"

"Yes, of course, GET THEM! They're heading for a sub waiting for them offshore!"

Bill laughed, and Ralph looked up at him, stunned by his reaction.

"Ralph, when they went to lockdown, the first thing they did was put a line of MPs along the waterline. Those nerts aren't getting any where." Bill pointed to the heavy container. "Is that what I think it is?"

Ralph stood up, still clutching the container. "Sure is. Nuclear fuel. Soon as they heard there were Feds here, they came right for me. I holographed them when I picked up the cannister of red mercury. Which has since been altered; all they're carrying now is a harmless mercury solution."

"Whew! Great job, kid!"

He turned when he heard Roy and O'Neil come up from behind them, having left the chase to the FBI agent and the MPs.

"He did it, Professor! He got the solution in just before the bad guys showed up for the nuke material and the red mercury!"

"Excellent, Ralph!" Roy beamed, clapping his nephew on the shoulder. "So what do we do from here, wait for them to return and give them their little container back?"

"Yep, that's the scenario!" Bill said, smiling at the three.

He looked over the Professor's shoulder to see the original DOD agents he'd been talking to earlier approach.

"Uh, Ralph, time for you to vanish again. Leave that here!" he exclaimed as Ralph and everything he was holding began to fade out.

"Oh yeah," his partner said, and Bill saw the container seem to reappear as Ralph let it go.

The older DOD Agent looked confused when his party joined Bill's.

"What was that? What did you see, a guy in a red suit?"

The three looked at one another, playing at being confused at such a question.

"Hmmm, not me. But we did see THIS! One of the dudes tripped and almost dropped it. One of your guys caught it in time, so no harm done. Is that the missing fuel, then?"

"YES, great, Maxwell!" He motioned for his men to get the container, and turned back to face Bill, Roy and O'Neil.

"Agent Maxwell, Professor Hinkley, Ms. O'Neil, I can't tell you how grateful we are to you for this. If you hadn't come along today, we wouldn't even have known that material was missing! We're going to start a new policy of physically inventorying the material EVERY WEEK, from here on in, regardless of what our computer records show! I can't imagine how many lives you just saved today!"

No, you can't, they all three wanted to say. But they didn't.

"All in a day's work, Agent Christenson. The real thanks goes to O'Neil here. It was her tip that gave us the final pieces to our old case, so we could close it and be done with it. And the Professor here for his knowledge of the material, what we were going to have to look for. It was a team effort."

"Excellent, excellent," he said, beaming once more at the three. "I'll be sure to tell Mr. Carlisle what an extraordinary help you've all been to national security!"

The man offered to give the three a lift to the gate, for the next ferry.

"Trust me, you wanna be out of here before 4:02 when everyone's off-shift."

"I think you're right, pal," Bill said, grinning. The man waved a little scooter down, and the two men climbed in back, leaving the front seat for O'Neil. She smiled at the driver.

"Hanson, please take these folks to the main gate, so they can make the next boat home."

"Yes, sir, with pleasure!" He grinned back at O'Neil and they were off for the short ride.

When they'd been let off, and exited the shipyard, Ralph waited at the intersection for their approach. He stood behind a building, and as they moved by him, he jumped out and grabbed Bill.

"DOH, darn it, Ralph, don't DO that!" his partner laughed. All four were in good spirits, knowing they'd averted a disaster of monumental proportions.

Bill was happy as they rounded the bend a few yards later to see a ferryboat just slipping into the dock.

"Thank gawd, we won't have long to wait. I think I've seen enough of Bremerton, Washington, to last my lifetime!"

The other three agreed, and all four gratefully boarded the next boat to Seattle. Now they had the rest of the week to really be tourists, before heading back to their lives in Los Angeles.

(So this concludes "Lilacs II." Thanks to everyone who submitted a review, it's greatly appreciated! Stay tuned for more GAH fanfic from me. I'm not promising if "Lilacs III," which will be done from the GI POV, is next up, but it will be written, as will "Lilacs IV," the conclusion to what I'm calling...obviously...the Lilacs Series.)