THE BANDIT QUEEN - Chapter 21 continued

The guard escorted the nurse to the elevator and held the car for the rest of the parade. They followed a maze of corridors and eventually entered the security office. Walls of television monitors filled three of the four walls and constantly changed views. Marina stared interestedly at the monitors and tried to identify each door and corridor she saw. She was amazed at the number of cameras that were mounted all over the building. Even the administrator’s offices were monitored. She made a mental promise that she would never adjust her bra or pick her nose outside the relative safety of the women’s bathroom.
Marina turned quickly and smiled shyly at the man who’d just joined them in the office. He showed them into an empty break room and gestured toward the coffee pot in the corner. Walt brusquely shook his head and dropped into a chair at one of the tables. Captain Garrison pulled out a chair for Marina and settled her carefully. Then he held out his hand for Walt’s identification. Walt reluctantly pulled it out of his pocket and flipped it open. Just as he started to flip it closed, the captain took it from his hand and read it with interest.
“Okay, Mr. Rogers, ask your questions. Ma’am, I’ll be right back here if you need me.”
He patted Marina on her shoulder and sat in a chair behind her. Walt frowned in his direction and reached for his identification wallet on the table. Marina turned it around and read the name on it. Then she folded her hands on the table and waited patiently for the man to begin.
“Are you Marina Kirk? Formerly from the Soviet Union? Sister of Helena Rimchova?”
Marina nodded her head in reply to each of his questions and then waited for more. There always were more questions. At least, that was her experience.
“Now, did someone visit you yesterday? Who was it and what did they want?”
“Why are you asking? This is all about things that were over long ago and people who died long ago. Why do you care? My sister and her husband died at the hands of your people. Will I die now? What about my husband and my children? Will they die also? Will they die no matter what I say? If I tell you the truth, will they die? If I lie to you, will they also die?”
Walt looked at her in bewilderment. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, lady. I just want to know about the people who came to see you yesterday and what they wanted from you. Then I want to know where they’re going next. That’s all I want. I don’t know anything about any dead people.”
Marina gulped a little and then said, “Three people came to see me yesterday but I didn’t know who they were. They claimed to be old friends of my sister but they had no proof. I asked them questions but they couldn’t answer them. I gave them tea and we talked but about nothing of importance. They wanted to know about my sister’s work but I never knew anything about it. So they left and didn’t tell me where they would go next. That’s all I know.”
Marina tried to stand up but Walt grabbed her hands and held them down on the table. “Now, look, lady, you have to tell me everything they said. If you don’t, we’ll take you down to our office here and really talk to you. If you still won’t tell us anything, then we’ll just have to deport you back to Russia.”
Marina sat carefully back in her chair and clenched her hands tightly. She took a deep breath and said, “You can’t do that. I am a citizen now. My husband and my children are citizens. You can’t make me go back. Your people took my sister and her husband to your offices and they died. The only reason you didn’t kill their baby was because he was with me. When your men came to my house and took the baby away from me, I knew I would never see him again either. Did you kill the baby also? Where is he now? I was too afraid to ask questions back then. Now, I am a grown woman and I will ask the questions. What happened to my sister and her husband? Where did you take their baby and what happened to him? Why don’t you answer my questions? Is it not fair? I am supposed to answer your questions but you won’t answer mine. I don’t want to talk about this any more. My beautiful brilliant sister is dead. Who knows what she would have done if she hadn’t been killed? And her beautiful baby too. I am his family. Why did you take him away from me?”
A phone rang in the stillness and Marina pulled her cell phone out of her pocket. She answered it and then listened for a minute.
“You have to excuse me. My patients need me. Unless you plan on killing more children, I must go back to work.”
Marina smiled tightly at the security guard sitting behind her and walked sedately out of the room without a backward glance. Only the people she passed in the hallway could see the tears coursing down her face. She wiped them angrily away and hurried to the small patients who depended on her.
Walt had leaped out of his chair and reached for her arm, but Marina was too fast for him. By the time he got his legs untangled from his chair, the security captain was standing in the doorway watching Marina hurry away. Walt kicked the chair in exasperation and gestured curtly for Sven and Harris to follow him out.
The three men landed back at the office around noon. Dennis Lofton met them at the door with a smile. “Well, well, just the men I was waiting for. I have some news for you and a brand new phone. One of our names rented a car and headed south toward Oregon. Martin Graham was the name. He lives in Chicago and works at Argonne Lab. Care to guess who his mother is? No, well, Dr. Marianne Wolfe. So, he definitely is one of the fugitives. Although, I’m still not clear why you’re chasing these people. They all seem to be upstanding members of their respective communities.”
Walt glared at the agent and barked, “Need to know basis. What road did they take out of this place? We need a car to follow them. We’ll be ready to leave in twenty minutes or so.”
Dennis raised his index finger and spoke slowly so Walt would catch every word.
“I’ve been instructed to tell you to rent a car if you have to follow these people. We’re running low on vehicles and don’t loan them out. They never seem to come back.”
Walt’s mouth opened and closed but no sound escaped. He looked at Sven and Harris and then back at Dennis. “B-b-b-but I always borrow vehicles wherever I am. What do you mean, I can’t have one of yours? That’s ridiculous! Just let me make a call or two and then we’ll see what you have to say.”
Walt reached for the phone on the nearest desk, but Dennis caught his arm and handed him the new cell phone.
“Call on your own account number. We’re on quite a strict budget here in Seattle. I’ll be back from lunch in an hour if you need me for anything else.”
Walt stared at the agent’s retreating back and shook his head to clear it of some unwelcome thought. He smiled a slightly superior smile and said to his two men, “Things are really different out here in the boondocks. Glad we work for the big boys and don’t have to count pennies.”
Then he punched in a long series of numbers and tapped his foot until the call was answered. “Walt Rogers, here. Tom Adams, please. Well, where the hell is he? . . . Okay, you set up a car for me then. I’m in Seattle and I need to drive to California. I also want you to put out a call for a rental vehicle heading south from here and probably driving through Portland. Don’t stop the vehicle – just have someone sit on it till I get there. That should do it for now.”
“Yes, sir. I have recorded your instructions and I will pass them on to Mr. Adams as soon as he contacts me. Have a nice day, sir.”
“Whoa, hold it right there. I don’t want you to wait at all. You do it right now and tell Tom about it later. I can’t wait until Tom gets back from wherever the hell he is. Get on this now!”
The calm pedantic voice droned on in Walt’s ear. “I’m sorry, sir, but I’m not tasked to make these arrangements. I can and will put out the call for that rental vehicle heading for Portland but Agent Adams is the only one who can authorize the expenditure of a rental vehicle for you. I’ll be sure to tell him it’s urgent.”
“That’s not good enough. Let me talk to your superior. Right now!”
Sven and Harris eyed each other behind Walt’s back and pantomimed smoke coming out his ears.
“Agent Adams is my superior and he is not available right now. Be assured that I will pass on your requests ASAP. Good day, sir.”
A determined look settled on Walt’s face as he stared at the phone in his hand. Then he pulled out the wallet holding his identification and slipped a small piece of paper from behind the card. He punched in the number and waited impatiently for the call to be answered. His right foot tapped on the floor as he listened to the rings. Finally, a polite voice answered the call and promised to transfer the call to the correct extension. Walt’s foot tapped faster and faster and he hummed a tuneless drone under his breath. A few minutes later, he had his chance to speak.
“Listen, Mr. Duncan, this is Walt Rogers. I’m in Seattle and I’m getting the runaround out here. I need a car to chase down some people and the assholes here won’t give me one. Some guy named Dennis wouldn’t even let me use their phone. How the hell am I supposed to get this job done if I can’t get any help?”
“Excuse me, Walt, but why are you calling me? Your contact is Tom Adams. Call him, not me.”
“Wait just a minute. I’ve just tried to call him but I can’t get him and he hasn’t returned my calls. What the hell is going on? Don’t you want me to succeed?”
“I don’t have anything to do with the details of your assignment. Tom is the expert and that is why I rely on him. I’m sure he’ll get to you as soon as he can. There is a big crisis right now and he may be involved in another investigation at the same time. Be assured he will talk to you at the first possible moment.”
“Am I supposed to stand here with my finger up my nose and wait until he happens to remember to call me? I was given an assignment and without help, I can’t complete it. At least authorize me to take a car. That will get us on the road after these people.”
“I’d advise you to wait until you hear from Tom. I just can’t break into his business, you know. He’s already made his decisions and we can’t second-guess him. If I hear from him, I’ll tell him you’re waiting for a call. Good-bye, Walt.”
Walt flipped his phone shut angrily and gestured for his two shadows to follow him out the door. He stopped just outside the front door of the office building and stared around for an idea. A taxi splashed to a stop ten feet away from them and two men jumped out. Walt moved quickly and grabbed the door before it slammed shut. He would just rent a car on his own if those idiots wouldn’t give him one. They could fight over the bill later.

Clark Duncan swiftly cut off the connection with Walt Rogers and set his phone down on the wide desk. He smiled grimly at the four men scattered around his office.
“Well, what do we do about Walt? He seems to be on the trail of someone who could lead him to the boy. Do we stop the investigation right now? Or do we let him run? Do we really want to catch this boy? I’m not too sure we want this whole story out in public. It doesn’t paint a very pretty picture of the way the agency works. Public sympathy will definitely be on the side of the poor orphan boy whose parents were killed by the government.”
The oldest man in the room leaned against the edge of the window and stared at the cars driving in and out the security gate. He turned slowly back to the room and ran his tired eyes over the other men. His gray hair was brushed back from his face and his hands shook slightly as he slipped them into his pockets. He rocked back and forth on his toes. Only one man met his eyes and nodded reluctantly to his unspoken inquiry. Then his low, gravelly voice filled the room.
“Well, it looks as though Todd and I are in agreement. We vote for abandoning the whole project. I’m too old to think killing a boy will solve the problem. There are too many people involved, too many people who will be missed if they all disappear. We just can’t keep this under wraps any more. If the boy had never surfaced, we wouldn’t have to make any decisions. But he did and now we either have to kill him and everyone around him or back off and let the whole thing drift away.”
A middle-sized bulldog of a man with the thick neck and heavy shoulders of a weightlifter straightened up from his post against the opposite wall and shook his head vigorously.
“We can’t let this get out right now. We have had way too much negative press over the last six months. We can’t add this on top. Sure, the original scenario played out years ago but the public doesn’t care about that. They love to hear about our mistakes, not our successes. I, for one, don’t want to be the one who has to explain this to the director. He doesn’t understand how we work. That’s the trouble with going outside the agency to pick the director. Someone who worked his way up through the ranks would at least understand how this all happened. I vote to continue the investigation and shut down all avenues that would lead back to us.”
Clark Duncan leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers in front of his face.
“Donald, in some ways I agree with you. I also don’t relish explaining the workings of the agency to people who know nothing about guaranteeing the security of the nation. Then again, I also agree with Bill and Todd. This boy certainly doesn’t deserve to disappear just because of something that happened when he was a baby. The longer he stays on the run, the longer the list of people involved grows. If we’d caught the boy and the girl back at the beginning before they talked to anyone else, we wouldn’t be facing this problem. Now, we have no idea how far the ripples have spread. That’s very ambivalent of me, I know, but that’s one of the reasons I sit in this chair. I can see both sides of the problem. Tom, you’ve been in on this since we heard about the boy. Where do you stand?”
Tom Adams leaned forward in his chair and stared at the nameplate on the desk for a minute. Then he let out a large sigh and said,
“I think we’d be a hell of a lot better off if we got rid of Walt Rogers and let the boy alone. You know, I just don’t have the stomach to work with someone like Rogers any more. The world has changed greatly since I started working here. Now, I have a son about the age of this boy and I certainly would never want Walt Rogers chasing him down. The ‘Walts’ of our business should not be sent after innocent boys. Send them after hardened drug traffickers or crazed bombers or serial killers. But not after children. I vote with Clark.”
“Now, wait a minute, guys. Just how do you really know this boy is as innocent as you think he is? What if he really does know all about what happened to his parents? What do we do then?”
Clark Duncan waved the bulldog back into his corner. “Get real, Donald. How would this boy ever find out about it? He was only a baby when it all went down. Just how much do you remember from when you were still in diapers?”
“Yeah, yeah, I know that but he could have gotten information from some of these other people. What if they told him something?”
“Something they didn’t tell us years ago? Not possible, Donald. Give it up. Tom, pull Walt off the case and bring him back here. We’ll get a report written and it’ll be over with. The boy will give up when he realizes there is nothing to find out and that’ll be the end of it all. Reassign the two men Walt has with him. They could be sent to Wyoming to help in the investigation of the sheriff with the stash of illegal weapons. Anything else we need to discuss?”