CHAPTER 20
Deakin and Eden found themselves driving toward the setting sun on their way back to Los Angeles. Deakin was too keyed up to sleep so Eden flipped her seat back and willed herself to sleep while he drove. She woke an hour or so later when Deakin stopped for coffee. She twisted in her seat and jerked when she felt a hard object in the pocket of the jacket Neal had given her. She stepped out of the car and slipped her hand carefully in the pocket. There she found a small wooden lizard she’d seen in Neal’s workshop. It was a close match to the ones she wore in her ears. She grinned in remembrance and slid it carefully back in her pocket.
This time she drove on through the twilight while Deakin pretended to sleep in the seat next to her. After twenty or thirty minutes, Deakin gave up and pulled out the small books Neal had given him. He slowly read each page and searched for any clues his mother might have left. Then he closed his eyes and ran his fingers lightly across each page. He looked to see if the books had been taken apart and put back together again. He found nothing. Finally he shrugged his shoulders and asked Eden,
“Where are we? And where exactly are we going? On top of that, why are we going anywhere? If we’re only going to find more questions, why don’t we just stay still and see what happens? We just keep running into one dead end after another. What’s left for us to do?”
Eden looked over at the large boy hunched in the seat next to her and smiled at him. “Well, you could get out your cell phone and call Alden. That scientist from Stanford could have left a message with Sam by now. It’s worth a try.”
Deakin pulled out his phone and placed the call. He hung up without leaving a message. He shook his head at Eden and said,
“I think I’ll try Sam. Maybe he’ll answer.”
This time Deakin made contact and listened for several minutes. “Dr. Allen called Sam yesterday to say she was on her way to Seattle to visit my aunt. Damn, I wish we’d known that. I’d like to see her. I could at least talk to her about my mother. There are some other people with her. Sam didn’t quite know who they were or where they fit into the puzzle. She left him a phone number but I’m kind of afraid to call it. It’s too easy to trace phone calls.”
Eden waved away his objections and said, “Don’t worry about that. Even if they find which antenna the call was routed through, we won’t be there any longer. We’re on the move, remember? If ‘they’, whoever ‘they’ are, come to this particular stretch of highway, they won’t find us. Call her. Find out what she’s doing and what’s she’s found out.”
Deakin stared at the numbers on his cell phone for a few minutes before he punched in the numbers. A lovely voice with just a hint of India left in it answered his call. He glanced wildly at Eden and almost flipped his phone off. Then he took a deep breath and asked,
“Is this Dr. Allen? This is Deakin Kimbrough. I just got your message. Uh, did you find my aunt? How was she? Does she want to see me?”
“Deakin, how nice to hear your voice. It’s been so very many years and we’ve all changed so much. Yes, we visited your Aunt Marina. She is doing well in Seattle. She has married and she has three children but she has never forgotten you. She will definitely welcome a visit from you when this situation is over. She remembers many things about your mother and she even has some pictures for you. But, first, we have to get rid of our pursuers. Is there anyone following you right now?”
“No, ma’am, we haven’t seen anyone since we left Sedona. We didn’t talk with Dr. Falk but her brother gave us some children’s books. We’re heading back to California right now. Where are you?”
“We are on our way out of Seattle. We thought we’d drive south from here. Maybe we’ll catch a flight out of Portland.”
Deakin unfolded a map and found Seattle on it. With his finger, he followed the road south through Oregon.
“If you drive down to Oregon, we can try to meet you. That way we’ll all stay out of the airports. Who don’t I call you in four hours or so? Maybe we can meet in Portland or Salem or even somewhere in northern California?”
“Good idea, Deakin. Until then.”
Eden pointed their car in the direction of Bakersfield and the junction with I-5. Deakin flipped restlessly through the books Neal had given him, looking for anything out of the ordinary. This time, in the dim light of dusk, he half-saw, half-imagined slight differences in the thickness of some of the letters. He started over at the beginning of one of the books. He held the pages at an angle and looked across the page instead of directly at it.
“Pull over, Eden. I think I’ve found something and I need your help.”
Eden glanced at the boy and then out at the gathering darkness. The lights of a tiny desert town beckoned in the distance.
“Side of the road or ten minutes to the next town?”
Deakin raised his head and stared blindly in her direction. Then he darted a look out at the vast stretch of open country on both sides of the highway.
“Uh, town is fine, I guess.”
Eden nodded briskly and kept her eyes on the road unwinding in front of them. She soon pulled into the small town. The highway ran down the main street between rows of half-empty stores. A combination gas station/convenience store glittered at the far edge of town. Five or six pickup trucks were parked to the side of the building and teenagers milled around with sodas and cigarettes in their hands. Several boys leaned against the side of one truck and showed off in front of a couple of girls sitting on the open tailgate of another pickup. The girls swung their legs back and forth and smiled brightly at the boys. Seven pairs of eyes watched Eden drive up to the gas pump. The four boys stared out from under the brims of their cowboy hats and elbowed each other as Eden stepped out of the car. She smiled slightly in their direction and nodded as she slid the nozzle into her gas tank. The girls laughed and talked even louder after Deakin unfolded from the front seat and stretched before he headed into the store. Eden quickly followed to pick out snacks and drinks. The girls followed Deakin with their eyes and the boys watched each of Eden’s steps.
Eden then drove the car up next to the building and parked it under a bright floodlight. She and Deakin both forgot about their surroundings as he held the book up to the light. Deakin worked his way slowly through the pages, calling out letters for Eden to write down. When he’d finished the first book, he checked out the second one. This time he found several page numbers had been marked. Eden handed over her page of writing and he looked at the list of numbers first. 4 5 1 2 3 The numbers totaled up to eighteen which meant nothing to Deakin. They could be part of a phone number or an address. How about a birthday? 1/23/45 or 12/3/45. No light bulbs flashed above his head. He mutely held the paper out to Eden. She stared at the numbers blankly and shook her head.
“They could be anything, Deakin. The combination to a safe, the address of their lab, the license plate of their car, part of a Social Security number, a zip code, anything like that. Try the letters while I drive. We need to keep moving, you know.”
Deakin stared into the black desert behind the gas station. What he saw or felt caused a shiver to run through his body. He ran his hand over his face and looked again at the teenagers still leaning against the sides of the trucks. In another life, he would have been one of those boys, laughing and talking and trying to impress the girls. He smiled sadly at them, first feeling sorry for himself, for the childhood he’d missed. Then he looked into the clear eyes of the girl behind the wheel of the car and decided he really had the better deal out of life. Those boys and girls had no idea what the real world was like. They also didn’t know how they’d fare when it was time for them to take care of themselves. Deakin already knew he could fend for himself. He was living proof of it. He smiled slightly as he looked down at the page in his hand and stared at the line of letters Eden had written. They certainly didn’t form any words he could recognize. Several R’s and C’s and a K and some vowels. This was going to be difficult to unravel. Oh, well, as long as Eden was driving, he certainly had time to work on the puzzle in front of him.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
THE BANDIT QUEEN - Chapter 19
CHAPTER 19
Ray and Wendy soaked their bruised and cut feet in the privacy of their motel room. Neither one of them had made the inevitable call to announce the failure of their little foray into the wilderness. Darkness fell quickly in the valleys between the mountains and they’d stumbled up to the cabin just before the light disappeared. They’d dropped into the seats of their SUV with great sighs of relief and settled in to wait for Deakin and Eden to return for their car. Ray started the engine and turned on the heater to warm them up. The headlights automatically turned on and shone on the rocks and trees behind the cabin. It took them several minutes to realize that Deakin’s car was no longer parked in front of theirs. They jumped out and circled the cabin without any luck. Somehow, those two kids had beaten them back and driven away. Now they really had to confess their failure, but neither of them was in any hurry to do so.
Walt Rogers stood outside the large building on the campus of the University of Chicago. Two large men flanked him. Hefty blonde Sven Douglas and dark Albert Harris were menacing enough to scare 99% of the people they questioned. The other 1% were either too stupid to be scared or too tough to be scared of anything human. One doctor named Marianne Wolfe would surely fall in with the 99%. Walt brushed a few creases from his suit and entered the building with his escort. To his surprise, three security guards met them inside the front door and demanded to see their identification. With a sinking feeling in his gut, Walt handed over his identification and waited impatiently while his name was entered on some sign-in sheet. He then signed his name and started to walk away. The guards stopped him and made him wait while the other two men went through the same procedure. Then two of the guards patted the men down and ushered all three of them into a large conference room.
A heavyset woman with flecks of gray in her short black hair sat on the far side of the table with her hands held tensely in her lap. Her eyes darted from one man to the next until she’d decided she didn’t know them. Her voice carried easily in the room and she asked,
“Who are you and why are you here?”
Walt Rogers introduced himself and pulled out the chair directly across the table from the woman. “I assume you are Dr. Marianne Wolfe. I’ve been sent to ask you a few questions about the past. I hope you’ll answer them as truthfully as you can.” He smiled ingratiatingly at her.
Dr. Wolfe stared at the two men standing behind Walt’s chair and then at the security guards flanking the closed door. She nodded her head and pulled out a small voice-activated recorder.
“Would you please repeat your name and the number from your identification? And then the other two gentlemen can do the same. Then you can ask your questions and I will decide whether they can be answered or not.”
Walt stared at the tiny machine on the table in disbelief and said forcefully, “No recording. Uh-uh, no-no, not at all. My agency doesn’t allow the outside taping of any interrogation. You’ll just have to turn off that machine right now and then we can get on with business.”
Dr. Wolfe folded her hands in her lap and stared at the man across the table from her. The silence stretched to a breaking point. Walt’s two backup men broke first and shuffled their feet. They fidgeted with their jackets and jingled the change in their pockets. Walt shifted his position in his chair several times and tried to stare down the woman. The security guards shared tiny smiles over the discomfort of the men. They knew Dr. Wolfe very well and figured she could keep silent for a long time.
After just about the longest ten minutes of his life, Walt Rogers slammed his hand down on the table with a loud smack and said,
“Goddammit, what the hell is going on here? Turn off that damned machine so I can ask you some questions.”
Marianne Wolfe sat silently in her chair and contemplated Walt’s agitation. She’d made a mental bet with herself that he wouldn’t last fifteen minutes without speaking. He’d only lasted ten minutes. One point to her side. Next he’d probably damage her recorder and expect her to give in. He certainly hadn’t done his homework. Her last interrogation had left her with multiple fractures in both legs. What made this pathetic little man think he could make her talk if she chose not to?
Walt slowly stood up and leaned menacingly across the table. He stared into Dr. Wolfe’s calm eyes. What he read there made him angrier than before. He raised his hand to smash the recorder but the slither of guns being pulled from holsters stopped him in midair. Like some stupid beginner, he’d forgotten about the guards behind him. They must have thought he was about to hit the woman instead of the recorder. Walt slowly straightened up and walked stiffly to the door. His two satellites drifted in his wake. The guards kept their guns drawn while escorting the men from the building. Marianne Wolfe waited until they had left the room before she shook the tension from her neck and reached for her metal crutches. She slowly pulled herself to her feet and inched her way to the door. Maybe those men really would leave her alone this time, but she wasn’t going to hold her breath.
Marianne waited until she was seated behind the desk in her own office before she popped the cassette from the recorder and dropped it into her briefcase. Then she pulled out her cell phone and punched in a long series of numbers.
“Mala, dear, this is Marianne. Some dreadful little man came to see me but he never got around to asking me any questions. There was some sort of disagreement with the security guards. He will probably follow me when I leave here so pick somewhere safe for us to meet. I will wait in my office to hear from you.”
Walt Rogers smacked his hand on the roof of his car until the palm turned red and stung like crazy. Then he sent Sven and Harris to stake out different campus exits. He planned to wait here for Dr. Wolfe to leave her office. His plan changed when a security car pulled up beside him and asked him to move his car to another parking lot. He swallowed his anger and meekly drove off the campus, turned around, and returned to his original position. Surely the good doctor would leave before the guards drove past again. This time he slid down in the driver’s seat and kept one eye on the front door of the building and one eye on the rear view mirror. After an hour, he started his car and drove around the campus looking for the Mercedes-Benz registered to Dr. Wolfe. He finally found it parked next to a van with a Press card on the dashboard. A sign on the door said it belonged to The Journal of Applied Physics. As he watched, a man walked out of the building and unlocked the van. He pulled out a stack of glossy magazines and carried them into the building. He returned for another load about ten minutes later. The man brushed his thick brown hair out of his eyes and looked around the parking lot before locking his van and disappearing into the building.
More security guards showed up and this time they escorted Walt off the campus and asked him not to return. He sent Sven in to watch the doctor’s car while he waited outside the main entrance to the campus. Sven watched the Mercedes for thirty minutes before Walt thought to ask him if the van was still parked next to it.
“God damn it, why didn’t you tell me it was gone?”
“What the hell do you mean, Walt? I called you when I got into position but you never answered. So I’ve been watching the Mercedes every since. Anyway, how could I tell you it was gone if I never knew it was there in the first place? Why didn’t you ask about it before now?”
Walt narrowed his eyes and stared fixedly at the small phone in his hand. He finally shook off his thoughts and said, “Oh, just forget it, Sven. Let’s get out of here. We have to find the office of that journal.”
Ian Nelms and Marianne Wolfe had waited until Walt had been shepherded away before they walked slowly to the van. Mala Allen helped Marianne into the back of the van with her and they drove away.
Mala held Marianne’s hand tightly and turned her head away so her old friend wouldn’t see the tears sliding down her cheeks. Ian Nelms glanced at the two women and asked,
“Where are we going? My office and my apartment are out.”
Mala looked questioningly at Marianne and waited for her to speak. “I’d say a change of car is the first order of business. I’m sure that man saw the sign on the door. Park the van in its regular place and we’ll take the train to a friend’s house out by Argonne. He’s been searching for Marina since I first heard from you. Hopefully, he’ll have some news for us.”
Mala fidgeted in her seat and then asked, “Can we trust him? Are you sure he’ll keep our secrets?”
Marianne Wolfe patted the small hand clasped tightly in her own. “Don’t worry, little one. He hasn’t given anything away yet. His name is Martin and he’s my son.”
“I didn’t know you had children. How old is he and where has he been all this time?”
“Don’t be so credulous, Mala. Evan and I were the eldest of the group. It wasn’t anyone’s business but my own, so I never told anyone about Martin. He lived with his father until I recovered enough to take up teaching again. Now he works at Argonne and has been borrowing their computers to search for Helena’s sister.”
Mala, Ian and Martin hurried from the warm terminal at the Seattle airport and jumped into the taxi at the curb. They huddled in separate corners as the taxi slowly churned its way through the icy slush to the address Martin had found in the State Department files. Marina Rimchova had never left the Seattle area. She had married, changed her name, and moved to a new address. Marina Kirk supposedly lived with her husband Wilson and their three children on a quiet street in Seattle. Mala had left a message on her voice mail but had received no reply.
Martin jumped out of the taxi and carefully navigated the slushy sidewalk up to the neat brick house with lights shining out into the grayness of late afternoon. A child answered the door and held the door open in invitation. Martin waved to the other two in the taxi. The three of them stamped their feet on the mat inside the door and waited in silence for someone else to speak. A small dark woman stood in the doorway to the kitchen. She wore the brightly patterned scrubs of a nurse and glanced fearfully around at the three school-age children watching TV in the living room. Finally, she motioned the three people into her kitchen and busied herself making hot tea for them. Without a word she set cups on the kitchen table along with a plate of moist dark spice bread.
Marina nervously twisted her wedding ring around and around her finger as she asked, “What are you doing here? My children don’t know anything about what happened so long ago and my husband doesn’t want to remember it. We have a good life. Please go away and forget about me.”
Mala reached out and placed her hand over Marina’s and said, “We had to come. Things are starting to happen again and we want to stop it all. Dr. Phillips has already been contacted and so have I. This young man is Marianne Wolfe’s son, Martin. Three men visited her just yesterday but found out nothing from her. This other man is Ian Nelms and he has been helping me hunt for you. We’re hoping you know some little something that could help us find what Helena and Alex hid away.”
Tears formed in Marina’s eyes and slowly slid down her cheeks. “But I never knew anything about their work. The only thing of theirs I ever had was their son and those horrible men took him away from me. Why is this starting all over again? Fifteen years is a very long time. Surely their work is of no interest to any one anymore.”
Ian Nelms cleared his throat and said, pedantically, “Well, it’s true that a lot of new ideas have been introduced during those years, but their research could still be the pivotal point for a great many new applications. One of the original group of scientists still works at Los Alamos trying to duplicate Helena’s process, but he hasn’t been successful. But that’s all beside the point. They’re not the ones who’ve rekindled the interest. It’s the boy who’s started it all over again.”
Marina looked at the three people in bewilderment. “What boy? What do you mean?”
Mala said softly, “Why, Alex and Helena’s son, of course. Deakin has come back to life and seems to be asking a lot of questions. We have no idea where he’s been or how he found out about his parents. None of us have even seen him. Evan Phillips heard from him in a roundabout way and told him to get in touch with me. After Evan called me, I immediately left for Chicago to consult with Ian and Marianne. A strange boy, who swore he was only a friend of Deakin’s, got a message through to me and I faxed a letter to Deakin telling him I was looking for you, dear. I don’t think he would have followed me to Chicago. Shall I call the number I was given and leave a message for Deakin? Should he call me or meet us or what?”
Into the silence that followed, Martin Wolfe spoke for the first time. “I’m just a little confused. Just exactly how old is this Deakin? And what does he think he can actually find after all these years?”
Marina raised her head and said with amazement, “Deakin must be almost eighteen years old. Where has he been all this time? Who did he live with? What kind of person is he?”
“Slow down, Marina. We don’t know the answers and it really doesn’t matter either. The only thing that matters is that someone out there wants to stop him. They either don’t want him to find out anything or they want to control his search. They obviously think he might find some of the records Helena hid away. Our next question is: do we help the boy with his search or do we disassociate ourselves from the whole situation?”
The two women stared at Ian and both spoke at once.
“Of course, we have to help the boy.”
Martin broke into the conversation. “There is no ‘of course’ about it at all. My mother was involved in the first investigation and she has never gotten over it. Mrs. Kirk has a husband and three children. She can’t actively risk their lives for this. What we need from Mrs. Kirk is her memories of the last time she saw her sister, what they talked about, what Helena brought with her, that sort of thing. Then, we walk out of her life as if we never existed. If this whole deal ends well and we find Deakin, we’ll bring him for a visit. But, for right now, we need facts.”
Martin pulled a small recorder out of his jacket pocket and set it on the table. “Shall I ask you questions to begin with?”
Marina shook her head decisively. She brushed the cake crumbs on the table into a small pile and then said, in a hollow voice,
“Helena came to my apartment one night. I lived by myself then. Alex was not with her but she brought the baby. She only stayed one night. Late the next afternoon she drove back to Los Angeles by herself. Deakin was almost a year old by then and crawling all over the floor. Helena brought clothes, bottles, toys, and a few books. Mostly she told me about the baby and what he liked and didn’t like. Just before she left, she said she was afraid to keep him with her. Her work was getting very serious and she was spending more and more time away from home. Then she said, ‘Just like father.’ I didn’t ask her any questions after that.”
Martin looked at her quizzically, and asked, “Why not?”
Marina waved her hand in the air. “Oh, that was a very bad time in our childhood. Our father was a scientist in the Soviet Union. I never even knew what he was working on. I just remember that he rarely came home and when he did show up, he was sick and worried. He would just sit in a chair and stare at us while he struggled to breathe. He must have been asthmatic or had emphysema but he never stopped working. One day I realized I hadn’t seen him in quite a long time and I understood he was gone. I didn’t really know ‘death’ but I knew people disappeared and never came back. Mother took care of the three of us. My other sister Leah still lives in Russia. I haven’t seen her in over twenty years. Mother was very frightened of Helena’s intelligence. She didn’t want her to disappear also so she made her hide her abilities but it was too hard for Helena. All Helena wanted to do was to come to the United States to study and work. Mother made me come with her so she wouldn’t be so alone. I stayed with her until she met Alex. I went to Seattle to get away from what she was doing. It frightened me terribly and I was afraid she would disappear too. And she did. I don’t know anything about what she was working on so I can’t help you at all. I don’t want to know what you’re doing either. I just want to know one thing. How is Deakin? I would like to see him sometime. He was such a beautiful baby and so smart too. He learned to talk very quickly and I taught him little rhymes. I was starting to teach him some Russian words when they took him away. Horrible, horrible men just smashed down my door and grabbed up the baby and took him away. They wouldn’t even let me pack up all his toys and clothes. Later on, a woman and a man came to get the baby’s things but I lied to them and said I’d already thrown them away. I kept them for a while until I came to understand that Deakin was never coming back, just like my father and my sister. I packed up everything and gave it all away. Why? What good would those old things be to you?”
Mala looked tiredly across the table and shook her head. “I don’t know what help any of that would be but we have to look. Do you have anything at all that belonged to your sister or to her son? Anything. A picture, a piece of paper, a memory of some favorite place or time.”
Marina pushed herself away from the table and stood up. She left the room for a few minutes and returned carrying a small shoebox. She set it on the table and untied the string looped around it. Then she carefully lifted the lid and looked inside. She slid the box across to Mala and busied herself at the stove, making another pot of hot tea. Mala reached inside the box and pulled out a small pile of papers. She spread them out on the table and carefully read each one. Yellowed newspaper cuttings told the bald tale of the accident that killed Helena and Alex. There were several dark photographs of a lovely woman with long dark hair in a single heavy braid playing on the floor with a happy baby. Martin quickly took the pictures from Mala and held them under the light. He checked the backs and read the date written in tiny figures.
“Was this the last time you saw your sister? Is this when she brought you the baby?”
Marina nodded her head sadly. “Yes, I sent her copies of those pictures and some others. Oh, not of the baby but ones from when we were children. I took those pictures because I was afraid Helena would go away and I’d never see her again. I wanted to make sure her son would know what his mother looked like. I didn’t say all this to Helena but she knew why I did it. She knew because there was no other reason for her to bring me her baby.”
Mala held up another picture of a laughing young couple. On the back was written “Alex and Helena.” Then she unfolded a birth certificate for Deakin Alex Kimbrough complete with footprint.
Marina looked up from pouring hot water into the teapot and said, “We will need that to make sure the boy really is my sister’s son.”
Mala folded it carefully and then replaced it in the box. One more memento lay in the bottom of the box and she pulled it out. She stared at the envelope with the signature scrawled over the sealed flap on the back. A piece of clear tape covered the edge of the flap and crossed the signature. Helena had left this envelope for someone. Mala turned it over and read the name written on the front. Alex, you’ll need this some day. I love you, Helena. Then in parentheses underneath her name, Helena had written For Deakin if Alex is gone.
Mala looked at her friends in confusion. “Do we open this or do we leave it here? Do we take it with us to give to Deakin when he finds us? Marina, what do you wish?”
“I wish it were all over. Since it isn’t over, I will keep the photographs and the birth certificate. You are three very strong people so you take the envelope and give it to the boy who says he is Deakin. If you are uncertain about him, then we will use the birth certificate for proof. Now, would you please go away? My husband will be home soon and he will be very angry if he finds you here.”
Mala slipped the envelope into her bag and walked out of the room with Ian and Martin, leaving the small dark-haired woman sitting at the table and staring at the steam rising from her teacup. One hand rested on the small shoebox but her mind was years in the past. None of them spoke until they were blocks away from Marina’s home and then it was only a question about where to go next.
Martin answered the question by asking the cab driver to take them to a car rental office. Los Angeles was their next destination but he didn’t want to fly there. He also desperately wanted to open the envelope. Maybe it would say where Helena had hidden the computer disks. Then they would have something to deal with and Martin could make those men leave his mother alone forever.
Ray and Wendy soaked their bruised and cut feet in the privacy of their motel room. Neither one of them had made the inevitable call to announce the failure of their little foray into the wilderness. Darkness fell quickly in the valleys between the mountains and they’d stumbled up to the cabin just before the light disappeared. They’d dropped into the seats of their SUV with great sighs of relief and settled in to wait for Deakin and Eden to return for their car. Ray started the engine and turned on the heater to warm them up. The headlights automatically turned on and shone on the rocks and trees behind the cabin. It took them several minutes to realize that Deakin’s car was no longer parked in front of theirs. They jumped out and circled the cabin without any luck. Somehow, those two kids had beaten them back and driven away. Now they really had to confess their failure, but neither of them was in any hurry to do so.
Walt Rogers stood outside the large building on the campus of the University of Chicago. Two large men flanked him. Hefty blonde Sven Douglas and dark Albert Harris were menacing enough to scare 99% of the people they questioned. The other 1% were either too stupid to be scared or too tough to be scared of anything human. One doctor named Marianne Wolfe would surely fall in with the 99%. Walt brushed a few creases from his suit and entered the building with his escort. To his surprise, three security guards met them inside the front door and demanded to see their identification. With a sinking feeling in his gut, Walt handed over his identification and waited impatiently while his name was entered on some sign-in sheet. He then signed his name and started to walk away. The guards stopped him and made him wait while the other two men went through the same procedure. Then two of the guards patted the men down and ushered all three of them into a large conference room.
A heavyset woman with flecks of gray in her short black hair sat on the far side of the table with her hands held tensely in her lap. Her eyes darted from one man to the next until she’d decided she didn’t know them. Her voice carried easily in the room and she asked,
“Who are you and why are you here?”
Walt Rogers introduced himself and pulled out the chair directly across the table from the woman. “I assume you are Dr. Marianne Wolfe. I’ve been sent to ask you a few questions about the past. I hope you’ll answer them as truthfully as you can.” He smiled ingratiatingly at her.
Dr. Wolfe stared at the two men standing behind Walt’s chair and then at the security guards flanking the closed door. She nodded her head and pulled out a small voice-activated recorder.
“Would you please repeat your name and the number from your identification? And then the other two gentlemen can do the same. Then you can ask your questions and I will decide whether they can be answered or not.”
Walt stared at the tiny machine on the table in disbelief and said forcefully, “No recording. Uh-uh, no-no, not at all. My agency doesn’t allow the outside taping of any interrogation. You’ll just have to turn off that machine right now and then we can get on with business.”
Dr. Wolfe folded her hands in her lap and stared at the man across the table from her. The silence stretched to a breaking point. Walt’s two backup men broke first and shuffled their feet. They fidgeted with their jackets and jingled the change in their pockets. Walt shifted his position in his chair several times and tried to stare down the woman. The security guards shared tiny smiles over the discomfort of the men. They knew Dr. Wolfe very well and figured she could keep silent for a long time.
After just about the longest ten minutes of his life, Walt Rogers slammed his hand down on the table with a loud smack and said,
“Goddammit, what the hell is going on here? Turn off that damned machine so I can ask you some questions.”
Marianne Wolfe sat silently in her chair and contemplated Walt’s agitation. She’d made a mental bet with herself that he wouldn’t last fifteen minutes without speaking. He’d only lasted ten minutes. One point to her side. Next he’d probably damage her recorder and expect her to give in. He certainly hadn’t done his homework. Her last interrogation had left her with multiple fractures in both legs. What made this pathetic little man think he could make her talk if she chose not to?
Walt slowly stood up and leaned menacingly across the table. He stared into Dr. Wolfe’s calm eyes. What he read there made him angrier than before. He raised his hand to smash the recorder but the slither of guns being pulled from holsters stopped him in midair. Like some stupid beginner, he’d forgotten about the guards behind him. They must have thought he was about to hit the woman instead of the recorder. Walt slowly straightened up and walked stiffly to the door. His two satellites drifted in his wake. The guards kept their guns drawn while escorting the men from the building. Marianne Wolfe waited until they had left the room before she shook the tension from her neck and reached for her metal crutches. She slowly pulled herself to her feet and inched her way to the door. Maybe those men really would leave her alone this time, but she wasn’t going to hold her breath.
Marianne waited until she was seated behind the desk in her own office before she popped the cassette from the recorder and dropped it into her briefcase. Then she pulled out her cell phone and punched in a long series of numbers.
“Mala, dear, this is Marianne. Some dreadful little man came to see me but he never got around to asking me any questions. There was some sort of disagreement with the security guards. He will probably follow me when I leave here so pick somewhere safe for us to meet. I will wait in my office to hear from you.”
Walt Rogers smacked his hand on the roof of his car until the palm turned red and stung like crazy. Then he sent Sven and Harris to stake out different campus exits. He planned to wait here for Dr. Wolfe to leave her office. His plan changed when a security car pulled up beside him and asked him to move his car to another parking lot. He swallowed his anger and meekly drove off the campus, turned around, and returned to his original position. Surely the good doctor would leave before the guards drove past again. This time he slid down in the driver’s seat and kept one eye on the front door of the building and one eye on the rear view mirror. After an hour, he started his car and drove around the campus looking for the Mercedes-Benz registered to Dr. Wolfe. He finally found it parked next to a van with a Press card on the dashboard. A sign on the door said it belonged to The Journal of Applied Physics. As he watched, a man walked out of the building and unlocked the van. He pulled out a stack of glossy magazines and carried them into the building. He returned for another load about ten minutes later. The man brushed his thick brown hair out of his eyes and looked around the parking lot before locking his van and disappearing into the building.
More security guards showed up and this time they escorted Walt off the campus and asked him not to return. He sent Sven in to watch the doctor’s car while he waited outside the main entrance to the campus. Sven watched the Mercedes for thirty minutes before Walt thought to ask him if the van was still parked next to it.
“God damn it, why didn’t you tell me it was gone?”
“What the hell do you mean, Walt? I called you when I got into position but you never answered. So I’ve been watching the Mercedes every since. Anyway, how could I tell you it was gone if I never knew it was there in the first place? Why didn’t you ask about it before now?”
Walt narrowed his eyes and stared fixedly at the small phone in his hand. He finally shook off his thoughts and said, “Oh, just forget it, Sven. Let’s get out of here. We have to find the office of that journal.”
Ian Nelms and Marianne Wolfe had waited until Walt had been shepherded away before they walked slowly to the van. Mala Allen helped Marianne into the back of the van with her and they drove away.
Mala held Marianne’s hand tightly and turned her head away so her old friend wouldn’t see the tears sliding down her cheeks. Ian Nelms glanced at the two women and asked,
“Where are we going? My office and my apartment are out.”
Mala looked questioningly at Marianne and waited for her to speak. “I’d say a change of car is the first order of business. I’m sure that man saw the sign on the door. Park the van in its regular place and we’ll take the train to a friend’s house out by Argonne. He’s been searching for Marina since I first heard from you. Hopefully, he’ll have some news for us.”
Mala fidgeted in her seat and then asked, “Can we trust him? Are you sure he’ll keep our secrets?”
Marianne Wolfe patted the small hand clasped tightly in her own. “Don’t worry, little one. He hasn’t given anything away yet. His name is Martin and he’s my son.”
“I didn’t know you had children. How old is he and where has he been all this time?”
“Don’t be so credulous, Mala. Evan and I were the eldest of the group. It wasn’t anyone’s business but my own, so I never told anyone about Martin. He lived with his father until I recovered enough to take up teaching again. Now he works at Argonne and has been borrowing their computers to search for Helena’s sister.”
Mala, Ian and Martin hurried from the warm terminal at the Seattle airport and jumped into the taxi at the curb. They huddled in separate corners as the taxi slowly churned its way through the icy slush to the address Martin had found in the State Department files. Marina Rimchova had never left the Seattle area. She had married, changed her name, and moved to a new address. Marina Kirk supposedly lived with her husband Wilson and their three children on a quiet street in Seattle. Mala had left a message on her voice mail but had received no reply.
Martin jumped out of the taxi and carefully navigated the slushy sidewalk up to the neat brick house with lights shining out into the grayness of late afternoon. A child answered the door and held the door open in invitation. Martin waved to the other two in the taxi. The three of them stamped their feet on the mat inside the door and waited in silence for someone else to speak. A small dark woman stood in the doorway to the kitchen. She wore the brightly patterned scrubs of a nurse and glanced fearfully around at the three school-age children watching TV in the living room. Finally, she motioned the three people into her kitchen and busied herself making hot tea for them. Without a word she set cups on the kitchen table along with a plate of moist dark spice bread.
Marina nervously twisted her wedding ring around and around her finger as she asked, “What are you doing here? My children don’t know anything about what happened so long ago and my husband doesn’t want to remember it. We have a good life. Please go away and forget about me.”
Mala reached out and placed her hand over Marina’s and said, “We had to come. Things are starting to happen again and we want to stop it all. Dr. Phillips has already been contacted and so have I. This young man is Marianne Wolfe’s son, Martin. Three men visited her just yesterday but found out nothing from her. This other man is Ian Nelms and he has been helping me hunt for you. We’re hoping you know some little something that could help us find what Helena and Alex hid away.”
Tears formed in Marina’s eyes and slowly slid down her cheeks. “But I never knew anything about their work. The only thing of theirs I ever had was their son and those horrible men took him away from me. Why is this starting all over again? Fifteen years is a very long time. Surely their work is of no interest to any one anymore.”
Ian Nelms cleared his throat and said, pedantically, “Well, it’s true that a lot of new ideas have been introduced during those years, but their research could still be the pivotal point for a great many new applications. One of the original group of scientists still works at Los Alamos trying to duplicate Helena’s process, but he hasn’t been successful. But that’s all beside the point. They’re not the ones who’ve rekindled the interest. It’s the boy who’s started it all over again.”
Marina looked at the three people in bewilderment. “What boy? What do you mean?”
Mala said softly, “Why, Alex and Helena’s son, of course. Deakin has come back to life and seems to be asking a lot of questions. We have no idea where he’s been or how he found out about his parents. None of us have even seen him. Evan Phillips heard from him in a roundabout way and told him to get in touch with me. After Evan called me, I immediately left for Chicago to consult with Ian and Marianne. A strange boy, who swore he was only a friend of Deakin’s, got a message through to me and I faxed a letter to Deakin telling him I was looking for you, dear. I don’t think he would have followed me to Chicago. Shall I call the number I was given and leave a message for Deakin? Should he call me or meet us or what?”
Into the silence that followed, Martin Wolfe spoke for the first time. “I’m just a little confused. Just exactly how old is this Deakin? And what does he think he can actually find after all these years?”
Marina raised her head and said with amazement, “Deakin must be almost eighteen years old. Where has he been all this time? Who did he live with? What kind of person is he?”
“Slow down, Marina. We don’t know the answers and it really doesn’t matter either. The only thing that matters is that someone out there wants to stop him. They either don’t want him to find out anything or they want to control his search. They obviously think he might find some of the records Helena hid away. Our next question is: do we help the boy with his search or do we disassociate ourselves from the whole situation?”
The two women stared at Ian and both spoke at once.
“Of course, we have to help the boy.”
Martin broke into the conversation. “There is no ‘of course’ about it at all. My mother was involved in the first investigation and she has never gotten over it. Mrs. Kirk has a husband and three children. She can’t actively risk their lives for this. What we need from Mrs. Kirk is her memories of the last time she saw her sister, what they talked about, what Helena brought with her, that sort of thing. Then, we walk out of her life as if we never existed. If this whole deal ends well and we find Deakin, we’ll bring him for a visit. But, for right now, we need facts.”
Martin pulled a small recorder out of his jacket pocket and set it on the table. “Shall I ask you questions to begin with?”
Marina shook her head decisively. She brushed the cake crumbs on the table into a small pile and then said, in a hollow voice,
“Helena came to my apartment one night. I lived by myself then. Alex was not with her but she brought the baby. She only stayed one night. Late the next afternoon she drove back to Los Angeles by herself. Deakin was almost a year old by then and crawling all over the floor. Helena brought clothes, bottles, toys, and a few books. Mostly she told me about the baby and what he liked and didn’t like. Just before she left, she said she was afraid to keep him with her. Her work was getting very serious and she was spending more and more time away from home. Then she said, ‘Just like father.’ I didn’t ask her any questions after that.”
Martin looked at her quizzically, and asked, “Why not?”
Marina waved her hand in the air. “Oh, that was a very bad time in our childhood. Our father was a scientist in the Soviet Union. I never even knew what he was working on. I just remember that he rarely came home and when he did show up, he was sick and worried. He would just sit in a chair and stare at us while he struggled to breathe. He must have been asthmatic or had emphysema but he never stopped working. One day I realized I hadn’t seen him in quite a long time and I understood he was gone. I didn’t really know ‘death’ but I knew people disappeared and never came back. Mother took care of the three of us. My other sister Leah still lives in Russia. I haven’t seen her in over twenty years. Mother was very frightened of Helena’s intelligence. She didn’t want her to disappear also so she made her hide her abilities but it was too hard for Helena. All Helena wanted to do was to come to the United States to study and work. Mother made me come with her so she wouldn’t be so alone. I stayed with her until she met Alex. I went to Seattle to get away from what she was doing. It frightened me terribly and I was afraid she would disappear too. And she did. I don’t know anything about what she was working on so I can’t help you at all. I don’t want to know what you’re doing either. I just want to know one thing. How is Deakin? I would like to see him sometime. He was such a beautiful baby and so smart too. He learned to talk very quickly and I taught him little rhymes. I was starting to teach him some Russian words when they took him away. Horrible, horrible men just smashed down my door and grabbed up the baby and took him away. They wouldn’t even let me pack up all his toys and clothes. Later on, a woman and a man came to get the baby’s things but I lied to them and said I’d already thrown them away. I kept them for a while until I came to understand that Deakin was never coming back, just like my father and my sister. I packed up everything and gave it all away. Why? What good would those old things be to you?”
Mala looked tiredly across the table and shook her head. “I don’t know what help any of that would be but we have to look. Do you have anything at all that belonged to your sister or to her son? Anything. A picture, a piece of paper, a memory of some favorite place or time.”
Marina pushed herself away from the table and stood up. She left the room for a few minutes and returned carrying a small shoebox. She set it on the table and untied the string looped around it. Then she carefully lifted the lid and looked inside. She slid the box across to Mala and busied herself at the stove, making another pot of hot tea. Mala reached inside the box and pulled out a small pile of papers. She spread them out on the table and carefully read each one. Yellowed newspaper cuttings told the bald tale of the accident that killed Helena and Alex. There were several dark photographs of a lovely woman with long dark hair in a single heavy braid playing on the floor with a happy baby. Martin quickly took the pictures from Mala and held them under the light. He checked the backs and read the date written in tiny figures.
“Was this the last time you saw your sister? Is this when she brought you the baby?”
Marina nodded her head sadly. “Yes, I sent her copies of those pictures and some others. Oh, not of the baby but ones from when we were children. I took those pictures because I was afraid Helena would go away and I’d never see her again. I wanted to make sure her son would know what his mother looked like. I didn’t say all this to Helena but she knew why I did it. She knew because there was no other reason for her to bring me her baby.”
Mala held up another picture of a laughing young couple. On the back was written “Alex and Helena.” Then she unfolded a birth certificate for Deakin Alex Kimbrough complete with footprint.
Marina looked up from pouring hot water into the teapot and said, “We will need that to make sure the boy really is my sister’s son.”
Mala folded it carefully and then replaced it in the box. One more memento lay in the bottom of the box and she pulled it out. She stared at the envelope with the signature scrawled over the sealed flap on the back. A piece of clear tape covered the edge of the flap and crossed the signature. Helena had left this envelope for someone. Mala turned it over and read the name written on the front. Alex, you’ll need this some day. I love you, Helena. Then in parentheses underneath her name, Helena had written For Deakin if Alex is gone.
Mala looked at her friends in confusion. “Do we open this or do we leave it here? Do we take it with us to give to Deakin when he finds us? Marina, what do you wish?”
“I wish it were all over. Since it isn’t over, I will keep the photographs and the birth certificate. You are three very strong people so you take the envelope and give it to the boy who says he is Deakin. If you are uncertain about him, then we will use the birth certificate for proof. Now, would you please go away? My husband will be home soon and he will be very angry if he finds you here.”
Mala slipped the envelope into her bag and walked out of the room with Ian and Martin, leaving the small dark-haired woman sitting at the table and staring at the steam rising from her teacup. One hand rested on the small shoebox but her mind was years in the past. None of them spoke until they were blocks away from Marina’s home and then it was only a question about where to go next.
Martin answered the question by asking the cab driver to take them to a car rental office. Los Angeles was their next destination but he didn’t want to fly there. He also desperately wanted to open the envelope. Maybe it would say where Helena had hidden the computer disks. Then they would have something to deal with and Martin could make those men leave his mother alone forever.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
THE BANDIT QUEEN - Chapter 18
CHAPTER 18
Deakin pulled off the highway near the outskirts of Phoenix and handed the reins over to Eden. He might feel comfortable driving on the open road but the crowded highways of the huge city in front of them still frightened him. Eden threaded her way through the heavy traffic in the city and turned north on the highway to Sedona. Deakin had already searched the Internet for any information about their quarry, Dr. Gretchen Falk. He’d found an address for the woman and then visited a travel site for directions to her house. The sun slipped behind a large hill as they drove north. The red rocks and dirt reflected the dying rays of the sun. Eden rolled down her window and sniffed the air as they drove higher into the mountains of northern Arizona. The cool smell of pine trees brought a smile to her face and she remembered other visits to the mountains when she’d been a child. Why hadn’t she been living in the mountains for the last two years of her life? She could have gone to college anywhere in the United States, so why had she chosen to stay in her own city? Was she that attached to her family? Obviously not. She hadn’t called them in days and days. When she and Deakin had finished their quest for information, she thought she’d try living somewhere else for a change. Maybe Boulder or Seattle or even back East somewhere. She glanced through the deepening dusk at the boy sitting next to her. The reflection from the computer screen turned his face an unhealthy gray and drained the life from his eyes. Then he sensed her gaze and smiled into her eyes. She nodded at him and reinforced her decision with one addition. She would take Deakin with her wherever she went. That was now a ‘given.’
Eden drove carefully in the thick traffic heading along the two-lane highway into the resort town of Sedona. She followed the directions past the center of town and off through a canyon between two large peaks. Small patches of snow lay in the shadowed areas under the trees and at the sides of the road. Narrow unpaved roads ran off into the woods and rustic cabins appeared in clearings as she crept along the two-lane road. Deakin called out directions and Eden watched the tenths click off on the odometer. She gestured for Deakin to keep an eye out for a small road to their left. Deakin waved quickly toward a break in the brush but Eden didn’t have time to turn. She slowed down and turned into the next road. She backed up and turned around just as another car whipped around the curve and headed straight for the front of their car. She gunned the car back into the driveway she’d just left and watched in stunned amazement as the car slid around the next curve and whisked out of sight. She turned her head toward Deakin and all he saw was a collection of circles. Her eyes were as wide open in amazement as her mouth, but no sound emerged. Eden closed her mouth with a snap and drove quickly away. She turned her head to look at the smooth expanse of snow covering the road they should take. Then she shook her head and drove carefully back into town to look for a motel. Deakin started to protest and then gave in without a word. Maybe they did need a better plan of attack. Their enemies had been waiting for them every time and he had no reason to think this one would be any different. They’d probably been very rash to drive directly out to Dr. Falk’s house in the first place.
After a decent night’s sleep, Eden stared out at the bright winter sunshine. Before long the snow they’d seen would have melted and they wouldn’t leave a clear trail right up to Dr. Falk’s front door. Eden picked up the phone and called the number Alden had given them. Soon the brusque clipped voice of their quarry demanded a message but gave no indication that she’d return any calls. Eden recorded a short message on the machine but no phone number, only a promise to call back. She then shook Deakin awake and pushed him toward the shower while she pored over the maps she’d picked up in the motel lobby.
Deakin begged and pleaded and whined until Eden grudgingly pulled into the only McDonald’s in the world without bright yellow arches. The Sedona city government had stuck to its guns and refused permits for anything other than teal arches. If they’d had a camera, Deakin would have forced Eden to take his picture next to them.
After breakfast they drove back out the mountain highway and turned into the unplowed dirt road that disappeared into a stand of tall straight evergreen trees. Eden drove carefully into the grove of trees and reluctantly stopped in front of a padlocked metal gate. A large red sign on the gate read: NO TRESPASSING. Eden leaned her chin on the steering wheel and stared at the sign in disgust. Deakin jumped out his door and surveyed the padlock. His head jerked around at the sound of an approaching car and he stared intently at the road behind them. A vehicle had turned into the road but had stopped in the trees where he couldn’t see it. He gestured for Eden to turn their car around and to drive slowly toward the highway while he watched from the side of the road. He moved from tree trunk to tree trunk as Eden inched along the road. Deakin held up his hand to stop her when he caught sight of a black SUV parked sideways across the entrance to the road. Eden gunned her car in reverse and nailed the sign on the gate with her back bumper. The gate crumpled and pulled the hinges away from the gatepost. Deakin dragged the gate out of the way until Eden drove inside the fence. Then he dragged it back into the middle of the road and jumped in with Eden.
“I hope someone is home, Eden, ‘cos we sure can’t go back this way. Do you think she might have a back road?”
Eden waved away his question and concentrated on the rutted path in front of her. It led them around the base of a large mountain and into a small valley surrounded by huge rocks and tall slender trees. Deakin peered between the tree trunks and whooped when he spotted a well-camouflaged cabin in the distance. Eden followed the deep ruts around the back of the cabin and pulled up next to a locked garage. The windows were shuttered and the only human sounds they heard came from the SUV following them along the dirt road. Deakin jumped out of the car and climbed nimbly onto the wide porch encircling the cabin. He methodically checked every door and window until he’d completed the entire circuit of the cabin. Eden tried to break into the garage but that was a bust too. Deakin dropped noiselessly from the porch and grabbed Eden’s hand. He pulled her into the woods cloaking the side of the mountain behind the cabin. They walked quickly but carefully through the trees, making sure they left no footprints in the drifts of snow that still covered the shaded ground under the trees and in the shadows of the rocks.
Deakin pulled Eden behind a huge boulder and climbed to the top of the rock. He shaded his eyes against the bright sun and scanned the area around the cabin. The truck was now parked behind their car and two people moved in and out of Deakin’s view as they too tried to enter the cabin. The woman was muffled in a puffy down jacket with a scarf wrapped around her neck and head. She stood on the front steps and stamped her feet to keep them warm. Her mouth moved constantly but Deakin heard no sound but the wind rustling through the tops of the trees. The man stopped in front of her and yelled in her face. He shook his fist at her. She stood her ground and slapped his fist away. The fist dropped away but was immediately replaced by his left hand. Deakin heard the slap of the man’s palm against the woman’s cheek and saw her reel back against the stair railing. The man stalked off and assaulted the front door of the cabin. Eden hissed at Deakin and waved him down from the rock. She pointed across the small valley at a thin streak of smoke drifting out of a circle of huge boulders. Deakin immediately headed along the side of the mountain. He didn’t want to cross the center of the valley unless there was no other choice. Eden grabbed the tail of his jacket and pointed out a small game trail that angled off in their general direction. A loud clanging alarm from the cabin behind them brought both their heads up in astonishment and they dived swiftly down the game trail. Eden kept her hold on Deakin’s jacket and used his back to screen her face from the onslaught of thin slashing branches from the trees they rushed past. They passed several other game trails that branched off up and down the mountain but they stayed on the largest one. A tiny seasonal creek crossed the path and Eden saw the mingled prints of many small animals who’d dropped in for happy hour. Now the trail angled to their right and the ground flattened out as they slipped through the bushes and trees that covered the far end of the small valley.
Deakin pulled Eden into the shadow of another large rock that had rolled off the mountain in ages past. She dropped to the bare ground and rubbed her calves. She loudly sucked in the thin mountain air as Deakin clambered up on the rock but could see nothing. After a few minutes, he pulled Eden to her feet and they took off jogging along the trail. Deakin stopped at the treeline and stared out across a meadow of tall brown grass and low bare bushes. Eden walked into his back and rested against him as he scanned the area. Their trail ran across the open end of the meadow. Eden finally stepped up next to Deakin and checked out their options. They could now smell the smoke that drifted up out of the rocks and trees about half a mile across the valley floor from where they stood. Eden looked back down the valley toward the cabin but the side of the mountain obscured her view. She looked down at the blinding yellow parka she wore and shivered as she took it off. She stuffed it under a rock with small twigs and branches covering it. Her pond green sweater and dark jeans blended in with the brush around her. She stepped around Deakin and walked to the left along the treeline at the edge of the meadow. Deakin followed her into the dappled shadows of the trees. His black windbreaker and jeans mimicked the long thin lines of the trees. They walked all around the edge of the meadow until they stood against the slope of the next mountain. Eden clambered up the rough ground until she had a view of the whole valley. She could even see the cabin. The SUV had either driven away or had been parked out of sight behind the cabin. Nothing and no one moved through the grass of the meadow. Someone could be following their trail between the rocks but Eden couldn’t see through the trees. The thin spiral of smoke lay ahead of them in a small clearing in a grove of trees. Eden could barely see the roof of a tiny cabin. She pointed it out to Deakin and then studied the area for the best path. Finally, she slid off the rock and just walked off in the right direction. The closer they got to the clearing, the harder their task was. Large boulders covered the area and impenetrable thorn bushes filled in the gaps between the rocks. Deakin finally took the point position and dragged Eden around the thorn bushes, through a small frigid swampy area, and into the snarling jaws of a large unfriendly dog.
Deakin froze in mid-step and Eden cannoned into his back. She peered around at the bared teeth of the large German shepherd and then huddled behind Deakin. Deakin carefully set his foot down on the ground and spoke softly to the dog. Nonsense syllables slipped easily from his mouth. The dog finally stood down from attention and warily backed up a step or two. Deakin held out his hand with his palm down and held still until the dog inched forward to check him out. The snap of breaking twigs instantly brought the dog into his stiff-legged guard mode. His lips lifted to showcase an impressive set of sharp yellow teeth and a growl started low in his throat. Deakin slowly straightened up and scanned the brush behind the dog. Eden caught the first glimpse of the dog’s owner. The brush to the right of the dog rustled slightly and two large hiking boots appeared beneath the lowest branch. Eden followed the line of legs until she could make out the shadowed form of a man. A muffled shout and the slither of rocks down the side the mountain behind them brought four heads up to listen. Eden and Deakin looked quickly behind them and then turned to face the dog. A tall thin man with a long silver ponytail now stood with his hand resting on the dog’s head.
The man shifted his cool gray gaze to the mountainside behind them. Then, without a word, he gestured for the two young people to follow him. He led them along a faint path through the brush and then on a twisty path through a natural boulder fence. He walked straight into the door of a small handmade cabin and disappeared inside. The dog posted himself by the side of the door. Deakin and Eden stared at each other and then, with visible shrugs of their shoulders, walked slowly and silently through the cabin door. One large cluttered room unfolded in front of them. One corner of the room contained a handmade wooden bed covered with a brightly patterned quilt. A small kitchen with a woodburning stove filled another corner. A third corner held a chair, a footstool, a hanging kerosene lamp, and a braided rug on the smooth wood floor. The rest of the cabin was filled to the brim with woodworking tools and various works in progress. The larger of the works had spilled out the far door into a large clearing paved with flagstones from the surrounding mountains. Sunlight spilled crazily in through windows set at different angles in every wall. Eden counted eight windows in the wall directly in front of her. Each one of them was a different shape and size and set at different heights. As Eden turned in a complete circle, she realized the man had just recycled every window he could find. There were windows from old wooden houses, fixed windows from office buildings, several small church windows, windows that slid up and down, windows that cranked open and shut, windows set at floor level, windows set above eye-level, windows set at odd angles, and tiny one-foot square windows up to four foot by six foot plate glass windows. Eden smiled widely and walked to the center of the room to stand in a large pool of light. She reached out to her right and ran her finger lightly along the back of a carved statue of a hawk sitting on a branch. The wood felt almost liquid under her finger. She spied more statues in the clutter of the workroom. Tiny carved field mice sat in nests of wood shavings and wooden lizards peered from behind tools. A large tree trunk with rudimentary carvings on it stood outside on the flagstones. Some day it would be shaped into an amazing totem pole.
The room darkened behind Eden and she turned to see the tall thin man closing the door. Then he unrolled heavy canvas shades down the wall of windows shutting out the light. He continued around the room covering the windows and latching the other door. In the sudden gloom, he said,
“Insulation to keep out the cold. Maybe it’ll keep out those other people if they make it this far. Why do they want you?”
Deakin stepped forward and said, “Bad guys have been following me all my life. I lost them for a few years but they’re back now. I’m Deakin and this is Eden. Who are you? We came to talk to Dr. Falk and they followed us. Do you know Dr. Falk? Do you know where she is? There wasn’t anyone at her cabin.”
A small amount of light flowed from the wood-burning stove and Eden could almost see the tall man in the darkness. He crossed his arms across his chest and contemplated his two visitors.
“I’m Neal. Why on earth are you looking for Gretchen? She doesn’t ever have any visitors. She doesn’t want any.”
A small sigh escaped from Deakin and he smiled slightly. “At least we’re in the right area. You do know her. Can you tell us where she is right now? It’s kinda important.”
The man turned his back on them and fiddled with a kerosene lamp on his kitchen table. After he had lit the lamp and trimmed the wick, he said,
“I didn’t say I knew her. Maybe I just know of her.”
Deakin shook his head decisively. “Uh-uh, Neal, you called her by her first name and you know something about her private life and you live close to her. You must be her friend.”
The man stared at them with his cool gray eyes and finally said, “Gretchen has no real friends. She’s too frightened of people. She’s my stepsister but I lost track of her for a long time. I don’t know what happened to her years ago and I don’t think I want to know. The only thing I do know is that she could never go through it again. She’s way too damaged inside. She’d probably kill herself first. Why do you want to talk to her?”
Deakin drooped against the workbench and shook his head. “It’s a long story and you just said you didn’t want to know about the past. She used to work with my parents and we only want to ask for her help. If she doesn’t want to help us, then we leave. That’s it.”
Eden watched the man’s work-roughened hands pick up a small piece of wood and begin to rub it. Neal then stepped around her and moved to the door. The dog’s growling escalated into sharp loud barks. Eden grabbed Deakin’s hand and pulled him to the far side of the workbench. Neal opened the door and laid his hand on the dog’s head. His mouth quirked into a slightly off-center smile as he listened to the breaking of branches and the slither of rocks out beyond his line of boulders. Angry voices rose above the bushes and reverberated off the rocks.
“Goddammit, Wendy, where the hell are you? I can’t see one damned thing. Are you sure this is the way they came? We’re never going to find our way back to that cabin.”
“Shut up, you asshole. It sure isn’t my fault we lost those kids.”
“Are you saying it’s my fault? Who said we should follow them? Who said they couldn’t go far? Who said we’d catch them in a few minutes? You did, that’s who! So, you goddamned genius, where the hell are they? Oh, and by the way, where the hell are we?”
Just then the man literally fell into the clearing in front of Neal’s cabin. The dog bounced on stiff legs toward the man crumpled in the dirt and growled loudly in his face. The man yelled and clawed in his pocket for his gun. A rifle had appeared in Neal’s hands and he jacked the slide to load it. That sound reached the man’s ears over and above the growling of the dog and he stared up into the grim face of the man standing behind the dog.
“Drop that gun, mister, and I might tell you where the hell you are right now. That’s good, now slide it under the dog’s belly. Good, good. Now, you can sit right there on the ground and tell me what you’re doing in my front yard, other than trying to kill my dog.”
Neal held the rifle on the man while he slowly squatted down to pick up the handgun. Then he listened to the frantic cries of the woman as she struggled through the brush. Neal called to her in a loud voice,
“Go to your left, lady, around that tall red rock. Then you’ll see a path through the rest of the rocks. Don’t forget to raise your hands above your head too. I’ve already taken your buddy’s gun and I’ll be happy to take yours too. Now, don’t stop or I’ll have to send the dog in after you.”
The woman finally clattered through the rocks and stepped into the clearing with her hands raised. She threw a murderous look at her partner and quickly joined him on the ground while the dog bared his teeth at her.
“Slip your gun out onto the ground, please, and slide it over to me.”
The woman smiled brightly at Neal and held her hands palm up. “But I don’t have a gun. I’ve never carried a gun in my life.”
A half-smile tugged at the corner of Neal’s mouth as he said, “Yeah, and I don’t have one either. Reach in with one hand and slide it out. I won’t even threaten to kill your friend here if you don’t do it. I’ll just shoot you and let the dog take care of him.”
The woman shook her blonde hair away from her face and said again, “But I already told you I don’t have a gun.”
Neal considered her for a minute and then said sharply, “Stand up, right now.”
The woman scrambled to her feet and began lowering her hands.
Neal gestured with the barrel of the rifle. “Strip, then. All the way down to nothing. Then I’ll be sure you aren’t armed.”
The woman’s mouth dropped open and she stared around in bewilderment. “What … what do you mean?”
“Lady, I’m getting real tired of this conversation. Start taking off your clothes, all of them, right now.”
A dark, sullen look clamped down on her face and she glared at him. Her right hand dug into the pocket of her parka and jerked out a small revolver. She tossed it petulantly into the dirt about five feet left of his foot. Neal never took his eyes off the pair of them as he kicked the gun backward toward the doorway to the cabin.
This time he smiled at the two intruders and said, “Now, take off your boots. Yes, that’s exactly what I said. Okay, you can stand up and walk out of here. I keep your guns and your boots and you get to leave. It’s a good trade. I don’t know why you tried to break into my cabin and I don’t really want to know why. Tell it to someone who cares. Just, get out of here now and don’t come back. This is private property and you’re trespassing. Hey, look on the bright side. I didn’t take your socks too.”
The man took two steps across the weeds and the rocks and turned back to glare at Neal. “You won’t get away with this. You can’t do this to us. We’re federal agents and I’ll have your ass thrown in jail so fast and so far you won’t see the light of day for years and years.”
Wendy shoved him along the path through the rocks and gingerly picked her way behind him. Neal stood guard until the sound of their voices receded into the murmur of the wind in the trees. Then he locked the door of the cabin behind him and dropped the handguns into a wooden toolbox under the workbench.
“Are those the people who have been following you around?”
Deakin and Eden stepped out of the shadows into the welcoming light of the lamp. Eden smiled at Neal and said,
“Thank you very much. Actually, we’ve never seen those two ever before. How many others have seen by now, Deakin? Twenty, thirty, forty?”
Deakin threw his arm around Eden’s shoulders and shook her lightly. “Don't exaggerate, Eden. Neal will quit believing what we tell him. My best guess would be around ten different people that I’ve seen.” The animation and laughter left his face for a fraction and he hugged Eden hard as he whispered. “I wonder how many others there are out there, waiting for us.”
Eden picked up his despair and leaned slackly against his chest for a minute or two. Then she took a deep breath and turned a calm face toward Neal. “If you can’t point us toward Dr. Falk, can you at least get us back to our car? It’s parked behind Dr. Falk’s cabin.”
Neal stared seriously at the young woman in front of him and then into the eyes of the young man. He shook his head angrily and said,
“I can’t give Gretchen up to you. She gave me this land and I watch out for her in return. All I know is that someone called her a few days ago and upset her totally. She was almost incoherent with fright. She mentioned a few names, uh, something with an M. Maybe Molly and Marian and Alex. Do those mean anything to you?”
Deakin and Eden nodded to each other and then to Neal. “Is that everything she said?”
Neal shook his head. “She gave me something to hold for her. She said I should give it to some preacher boy. I’m guessing you’re the one, son. Look on that shelf behind you. It’s wrapped in brown paper.”
Deakin felt along the shelf until his fingers touched the package. He brushed the dust from it and carried it into the light. He ripped the brown paper and two children’s books dropped onto the table. Deakin opened one and saw his own name written neatly inside the cover. He turned the page and realized he held an alphabet book. A is for Apple. The other was a book of nursery rhymes. There he found The Itsy-Bitsy Spider and Four and Twenty Blackbirds and One, Two, Buckle my Shoe. He clutched the two books and turned away from Eden and Neal. Eden caught sight of a small tear sliding down his cheek but she made no move to touch him. Deakin had finally made tangible contact with his parents and she had no place in his memories.
Neal tugged on her arm and pulled her into the kitchen. He quickly made a pot of hot tea and handed Eden a box of cookies. The two of them sat down at the table and waited for Deakin to join them. When he dropped into the chair beside Eden, he still clutched the two children’s books to his chest.
“Why did your sister have these books? Who gave them to her?”
Neal pushed a cup of tea across the table and said, with a sigh, “I don’t know the answer to any of your questions, boy. Gretchen had that package hidden in the attic of her cabin. She just said she was afraid and she couldn’t talk to anyone about it. She gave it to me because she thought I was stronger than she was now. She’s right too. At one time, she was the stronger one and I followed the lifestyle known as ‘better living through chemistry.’ Drugs, you innocent children, drugs conceived in laboratories. Now, I live out here by myself and watch over the sister who helped me change. Those little books made her cry too. Take them away from here. Later on, I’ll head out into the mountains and find my sister and bring her back home. She’ll be safe until then. Tuck those books under your sweater and let’s go. I’ll take you back to your car and get you safely away too. Then we can forget all about each other, okay?”
Deakin pulled off the highway near the outskirts of Phoenix and handed the reins over to Eden. He might feel comfortable driving on the open road but the crowded highways of the huge city in front of them still frightened him. Eden threaded her way through the heavy traffic in the city and turned north on the highway to Sedona. Deakin had already searched the Internet for any information about their quarry, Dr. Gretchen Falk. He’d found an address for the woman and then visited a travel site for directions to her house. The sun slipped behind a large hill as they drove north. The red rocks and dirt reflected the dying rays of the sun. Eden rolled down her window and sniffed the air as they drove higher into the mountains of northern Arizona. The cool smell of pine trees brought a smile to her face and she remembered other visits to the mountains when she’d been a child. Why hadn’t she been living in the mountains for the last two years of her life? She could have gone to college anywhere in the United States, so why had she chosen to stay in her own city? Was she that attached to her family? Obviously not. She hadn’t called them in days and days. When she and Deakin had finished their quest for information, she thought she’d try living somewhere else for a change. Maybe Boulder or Seattle or even back East somewhere. She glanced through the deepening dusk at the boy sitting next to her. The reflection from the computer screen turned his face an unhealthy gray and drained the life from his eyes. Then he sensed her gaze and smiled into her eyes. She nodded at him and reinforced her decision with one addition. She would take Deakin with her wherever she went. That was now a ‘given.’
Eden drove carefully in the thick traffic heading along the two-lane highway into the resort town of Sedona. She followed the directions past the center of town and off through a canyon between two large peaks. Small patches of snow lay in the shadowed areas under the trees and at the sides of the road. Narrow unpaved roads ran off into the woods and rustic cabins appeared in clearings as she crept along the two-lane road. Deakin called out directions and Eden watched the tenths click off on the odometer. She gestured for Deakin to keep an eye out for a small road to their left. Deakin waved quickly toward a break in the brush but Eden didn’t have time to turn. She slowed down and turned into the next road. She backed up and turned around just as another car whipped around the curve and headed straight for the front of their car. She gunned the car back into the driveway she’d just left and watched in stunned amazement as the car slid around the next curve and whisked out of sight. She turned her head toward Deakin and all he saw was a collection of circles. Her eyes were as wide open in amazement as her mouth, but no sound emerged. Eden closed her mouth with a snap and drove quickly away. She turned her head to look at the smooth expanse of snow covering the road they should take. Then she shook her head and drove carefully back into town to look for a motel. Deakin started to protest and then gave in without a word. Maybe they did need a better plan of attack. Their enemies had been waiting for them every time and he had no reason to think this one would be any different. They’d probably been very rash to drive directly out to Dr. Falk’s house in the first place.
After a decent night’s sleep, Eden stared out at the bright winter sunshine. Before long the snow they’d seen would have melted and they wouldn’t leave a clear trail right up to Dr. Falk’s front door. Eden picked up the phone and called the number Alden had given them. Soon the brusque clipped voice of their quarry demanded a message but gave no indication that she’d return any calls. Eden recorded a short message on the machine but no phone number, only a promise to call back. She then shook Deakin awake and pushed him toward the shower while she pored over the maps she’d picked up in the motel lobby.
Deakin begged and pleaded and whined until Eden grudgingly pulled into the only McDonald’s in the world without bright yellow arches. The Sedona city government had stuck to its guns and refused permits for anything other than teal arches. If they’d had a camera, Deakin would have forced Eden to take his picture next to them.
After breakfast they drove back out the mountain highway and turned into the unplowed dirt road that disappeared into a stand of tall straight evergreen trees. Eden drove carefully into the grove of trees and reluctantly stopped in front of a padlocked metal gate. A large red sign on the gate read: NO TRESPASSING. Eden leaned her chin on the steering wheel and stared at the sign in disgust. Deakin jumped out his door and surveyed the padlock. His head jerked around at the sound of an approaching car and he stared intently at the road behind them. A vehicle had turned into the road but had stopped in the trees where he couldn’t see it. He gestured for Eden to turn their car around and to drive slowly toward the highway while he watched from the side of the road. He moved from tree trunk to tree trunk as Eden inched along the road. Deakin held up his hand to stop her when he caught sight of a black SUV parked sideways across the entrance to the road. Eden gunned her car in reverse and nailed the sign on the gate with her back bumper. The gate crumpled and pulled the hinges away from the gatepost. Deakin dragged the gate out of the way until Eden drove inside the fence. Then he dragged it back into the middle of the road and jumped in with Eden.
“I hope someone is home, Eden, ‘cos we sure can’t go back this way. Do you think she might have a back road?”
Eden waved away his question and concentrated on the rutted path in front of her. It led them around the base of a large mountain and into a small valley surrounded by huge rocks and tall slender trees. Deakin peered between the tree trunks and whooped when he spotted a well-camouflaged cabin in the distance. Eden followed the deep ruts around the back of the cabin and pulled up next to a locked garage. The windows were shuttered and the only human sounds they heard came from the SUV following them along the dirt road. Deakin jumped out of the car and climbed nimbly onto the wide porch encircling the cabin. He methodically checked every door and window until he’d completed the entire circuit of the cabin. Eden tried to break into the garage but that was a bust too. Deakin dropped noiselessly from the porch and grabbed Eden’s hand. He pulled her into the woods cloaking the side of the mountain behind the cabin. They walked quickly but carefully through the trees, making sure they left no footprints in the drifts of snow that still covered the shaded ground under the trees and in the shadows of the rocks.
Deakin pulled Eden behind a huge boulder and climbed to the top of the rock. He shaded his eyes against the bright sun and scanned the area around the cabin. The truck was now parked behind their car and two people moved in and out of Deakin’s view as they too tried to enter the cabin. The woman was muffled in a puffy down jacket with a scarf wrapped around her neck and head. She stood on the front steps and stamped her feet to keep them warm. Her mouth moved constantly but Deakin heard no sound but the wind rustling through the tops of the trees. The man stopped in front of her and yelled in her face. He shook his fist at her. She stood her ground and slapped his fist away. The fist dropped away but was immediately replaced by his left hand. Deakin heard the slap of the man’s palm against the woman’s cheek and saw her reel back against the stair railing. The man stalked off and assaulted the front door of the cabin. Eden hissed at Deakin and waved him down from the rock. She pointed across the small valley at a thin streak of smoke drifting out of a circle of huge boulders. Deakin immediately headed along the side of the mountain. He didn’t want to cross the center of the valley unless there was no other choice. Eden grabbed the tail of his jacket and pointed out a small game trail that angled off in their general direction. A loud clanging alarm from the cabin behind them brought both their heads up in astonishment and they dived swiftly down the game trail. Eden kept her hold on Deakin’s jacket and used his back to screen her face from the onslaught of thin slashing branches from the trees they rushed past. They passed several other game trails that branched off up and down the mountain but they stayed on the largest one. A tiny seasonal creek crossed the path and Eden saw the mingled prints of many small animals who’d dropped in for happy hour. Now the trail angled to their right and the ground flattened out as they slipped through the bushes and trees that covered the far end of the small valley.
Deakin pulled Eden into the shadow of another large rock that had rolled off the mountain in ages past. She dropped to the bare ground and rubbed her calves. She loudly sucked in the thin mountain air as Deakin clambered up on the rock but could see nothing. After a few minutes, he pulled Eden to her feet and they took off jogging along the trail. Deakin stopped at the treeline and stared out across a meadow of tall brown grass and low bare bushes. Eden walked into his back and rested against him as he scanned the area. Their trail ran across the open end of the meadow. Eden finally stepped up next to Deakin and checked out their options. They could now smell the smoke that drifted up out of the rocks and trees about half a mile across the valley floor from where they stood. Eden looked back down the valley toward the cabin but the side of the mountain obscured her view. She looked down at the blinding yellow parka she wore and shivered as she took it off. She stuffed it under a rock with small twigs and branches covering it. Her pond green sweater and dark jeans blended in with the brush around her. She stepped around Deakin and walked to the left along the treeline at the edge of the meadow. Deakin followed her into the dappled shadows of the trees. His black windbreaker and jeans mimicked the long thin lines of the trees. They walked all around the edge of the meadow until they stood against the slope of the next mountain. Eden clambered up the rough ground until she had a view of the whole valley. She could even see the cabin. The SUV had either driven away or had been parked out of sight behind the cabin. Nothing and no one moved through the grass of the meadow. Someone could be following their trail between the rocks but Eden couldn’t see through the trees. The thin spiral of smoke lay ahead of them in a small clearing in a grove of trees. Eden could barely see the roof of a tiny cabin. She pointed it out to Deakin and then studied the area for the best path. Finally, she slid off the rock and just walked off in the right direction. The closer they got to the clearing, the harder their task was. Large boulders covered the area and impenetrable thorn bushes filled in the gaps between the rocks. Deakin finally took the point position and dragged Eden around the thorn bushes, through a small frigid swampy area, and into the snarling jaws of a large unfriendly dog.
Deakin froze in mid-step and Eden cannoned into his back. She peered around at the bared teeth of the large German shepherd and then huddled behind Deakin. Deakin carefully set his foot down on the ground and spoke softly to the dog. Nonsense syllables slipped easily from his mouth. The dog finally stood down from attention and warily backed up a step or two. Deakin held out his hand with his palm down and held still until the dog inched forward to check him out. The snap of breaking twigs instantly brought the dog into his stiff-legged guard mode. His lips lifted to showcase an impressive set of sharp yellow teeth and a growl started low in his throat. Deakin slowly straightened up and scanned the brush behind the dog. Eden caught the first glimpse of the dog’s owner. The brush to the right of the dog rustled slightly and two large hiking boots appeared beneath the lowest branch. Eden followed the line of legs until she could make out the shadowed form of a man. A muffled shout and the slither of rocks down the side the mountain behind them brought four heads up to listen. Eden and Deakin looked quickly behind them and then turned to face the dog. A tall thin man with a long silver ponytail now stood with his hand resting on the dog’s head.
The man shifted his cool gray gaze to the mountainside behind them. Then, without a word, he gestured for the two young people to follow him. He led them along a faint path through the brush and then on a twisty path through a natural boulder fence. He walked straight into the door of a small handmade cabin and disappeared inside. The dog posted himself by the side of the door. Deakin and Eden stared at each other and then, with visible shrugs of their shoulders, walked slowly and silently through the cabin door. One large cluttered room unfolded in front of them. One corner of the room contained a handmade wooden bed covered with a brightly patterned quilt. A small kitchen with a woodburning stove filled another corner. A third corner held a chair, a footstool, a hanging kerosene lamp, and a braided rug on the smooth wood floor. The rest of the cabin was filled to the brim with woodworking tools and various works in progress. The larger of the works had spilled out the far door into a large clearing paved with flagstones from the surrounding mountains. Sunlight spilled crazily in through windows set at different angles in every wall. Eden counted eight windows in the wall directly in front of her. Each one of them was a different shape and size and set at different heights. As Eden turned in a complete circle, she realized the man had just recycled every window he could find. There were windows from old wooden houses, fixed windows from office buildings, several small church windows, windows that slid up and down, windows that cranked open and shut, windows set at floor level, windows set above eye-level, windows set at odd angles, and tiny one-foot square windows up to four foot by six foot plate glass windows. Eden smiled widely and walked to the center of the room to stand in a large pool of light. She reached out to her right and ran her finger lightly along the back of a carved statue of a hawk sitting on a branch. The wood felt almost liquid under her finger. She spied more statues in the clutter of the workroom. Tiny carved field mice sat in nests of wood shavings and wooden lizards peered from behind tools. A large tree trunk with rudimentary carvings on it stood outside on the flagstones. Some day it would be shaped into an amazing totem pole.
The room darkened behind Eden and she turned to see the tall thin man closing the door. Then he unrolled heavy canvas shades down the wall of windows shutting out the light. He continued around the room covering the windows and latching the other door. In the sudden gloom, he said,
“Insulation to keep out the cold. Maybe it’ll keep out those other people if they make it this far. Why do they want you?”
Deakin stepped forward and said, “Bad guys have been following me all my life. I lost them for a few years but they’re back now. I’m Deakin and this is Eden. Who are you? We came to talk to Dr. Falk and they followed us. Do you know Dr. Falk? Do you know where she is? There wasn’t anyone at her cabin.”
A small amount of light flowed from the wood-burning stove and Eden could almost see the tall man in the darkness. He crossed his arms across his chest and contemplated his two visitors.
“I’m Neal. Why on earth are you looking for Gretchen? She doesn’t ever have any visitors. She doesn’t want any.”
A small sigh escaped from Deakin and he smiled slightly. “At least we’re in the right area. You do know her. Can you tell us where she is right now? It’s kinda important.”
The man turned his back on them and fiddled with a kerosene lamp on his kitchen table. After he had lit the lamp and trimmed the wick, he said,
“I didn’t say I knew her. Maybe I just know of her.”
Deakin shook his head decisively. “Uh-uh, Neal, you called her by her first name and you know something about her private life and you live close to her. You must be her friend.”
The man stared at them with his cool gray eyes and finally said, “Gretchen has no real friends. She’s too frightened of people. She’s my stepsister but I lost track of her for a long time. I don’t know what happened to her years ago and I don’t think I want to know. The only thing I do know is that she could never go through it again. She’s way too damaged inside. She’d probably kill herself first. Why do you want to talk to her?”
Deakin drooped against the workbench and shook his head. “It’s a long story and you just said you didn’t want to know about the past. She used to work with my parents and we only want to ask for her help. If she doesn’t want to help us, then we leave. That’s it.”
Eden watched the man’s work-roughened hands pick up a small piece of wood and begin to rub it. Neal then stepped around her and moved to the door. The dog’s growling escalated into sharp loud barks. Eden grabbed Deakin’s hand and pulled him to the far side of the workbench. Neal opened the door and laid his hand on the dog’s head. His mouth quirked into a slightly off-center smile as he listened to the breaking of branches and the slither of rocks out beyond his line of boulders. Angry voices rose above the bushes and reverberated off the rocks.
“Goddammit, Wendy, where the hell are you? I can’t see one damned thing. Are you sure this is the way they came? We’re never going to find our way back to that cabin.”
“Shut up, you asshole. It sure isn’t my fault we lost those kids.”
“Are you saying it’s my fault? Who said we should follow them? Who said they couldn’t go far? Who said we’d catch them in a few minutes? You did, that’s who! So, you goddamned genius, where the hell are they? Oh, and by the way, where the hell are we?”
Just then the man literally fell into the clearing in front of Neal’s cabin. The dog bounced on stiff legs toward the man crumpled in the dirt and growled loudly in his face. The man yelled and clawed in his pocket for his gun. A rifle had appeared in Neal’s hands and he jacked the slide to load it. That sound reached the man’s ears over and above the growling of the dog and he stared up into the grim face of the man standing behind the dog.
“Drop that gun, mister, and I might tell you where the hell you are right now. That’s good, now slide it under the dog’s belly. Good, good. Now, you can sit right there on the ground and tell me what you’re doing in my front yard, other than trying to kill my dog.”
Neal held the rifle on the man while he slowly squatted down to pick up the handgun. Then he listened to the frantic cries of the woman as she struggled through the brush. Neal called to her in a loud voice,
“Go to your left, lady, around that tall red rock. Then you’ll see a path through the rest of the rocks. Don’t forget to raise your hands above your head too. I’ve already taken your buddy’s gun and I’ll be happy to take yours too. Now, don’t stop or I’ll have to send the dog in after you.”
The woman finally clattered through the rocks and stepped into the clearing with her hands raised. She threw a murderous look at her partner and quickly joined him on the ground while the dog bared his teeth at her.
“Slip your gun out onto the ground, please, and slide it over to me.”
The woman smiled brightly at Neal and held her hands palm up. “But I don’t have a gun. I’ve never carried a gun in my life.”
A half-smile tugged at the corner of Neal’s mouth as he said, “Yeah, and I don’t have one either. Reach in with one hand and slide it out. I won’t even threaten to kill your friend here if you don’t do it. I’ll just shoot you and let the dog take care of him.”
The woman shook her blonde hair away from her face and said again, “But I already told you I don’t have a gun.”
Neal considered her for a minute and then said sharply, “Stand up, right now.”
The woman scrambled to her feet and began lowering her hands.
Neal gestured with the barrel of the rifle. “Strip, then. All the way down to nothing. Then I’ll be sure you aren’t armed.”
The woman’s mouth dropped open and she stared around in bewilderment. “What … what do you mean?”
“Lady, I’m getting real tired of this conversation. Start taking off your clothes, all of them, right now.”
A dark, sullen look clamped down on her face and she glared at him. Her right hand dug into the pocket of her parka and jerked out a small revolver. She tossed it petulantly into the dirt about five feet left of his foot. Neal never took his eyes off the pair of them as he kicked the gun backward toward the doorway to the cabin.
This time he smiled at the two intruders and said, “Now, take off your boots. Yes, that’s exactly what I said. Okay, you can stand up and walk out of here. I keep your guns and your boots and you get to leave. It’s a good trade. I don’t know why you tried to break into my cabin and I don’t really want to know why. Tell it to someone who cares. Just, get out of here now and don’t come back. This is private property and you’re trespassing. Hey, look on the bright side. I didn’t take your socks too.”
The man took two steps across the weeds and the rocks and turned back to glare at Neal. “You won’t get away with this. You can’t do this to us. We’re federal agents and I’ll have your ass thrown in jail so fast and so far you won’t see the light of day for years and years.”
Wendy shoved him along the path through the rocks and gingerly picked her way behind him. Neal stood guard until the sound of their voices receded into the murmur of the wind in the trees. Then he locked the door of the cabin behind him and dropped the handguns into a wooden toolbox under the workbench.
“Are those the people who have been following you around?”
Deakin and Eden stepped out of the shadows into the welcoming light of the lamp. Eden smiled at Neal and said,
“Thank you very much. Actually, we’ve never seen those two ever before. How many others have seen by now, Deakin? Twenty, thirty, forty?”
Deakin threw his arm around Eden’s shoulders and shook her lightly. “Don't exaggerate, Eden. Neal will quit believing what we tell him. My best guess would be around ten different people that I’ve seen.” The animation and laughter left his face for a fraction and he hugged Eden hard as he whispered. “I wonder how many others there are out there, waiting for us.”
Eden picked up his despair and leaned slackly against his chest for a minute or two. Then she took a deep breath and turned a calm face toward Neal. “If you can’t point us toward Dr. Falk, can you at least get us back to our car? It’s parked behind Dr. Falk’s cabin.”
Neal stared seriously at the young woman in front of him and then into the eyes of the young man. He shook his head angrily and said,
“I can’t give Gretchen up to you. She gave me this land and I watch out for her in return. All I know is that someone called her a few days ago and upset her totally. She was almost incoherent with fright. She mentioned a few names, uh, something with an M. Maybe Molly and Marian and Alex. Do those mean anything to you?”
Deakin and Eden nodded to each other and then to Neal. “Is that everything she said?”
Neal shook his head. “She gave me something to hold for her. She said I should give it to some preacher boy. I’m guessing you’re the one, son. Look on that shelf behind you. It’s wrapped in brown paper.”
Deakin felt along the shelf until his fingers touched the package. He brushed the dust from it and carried it into the light. He ripped the brown paper and two children’s books dropped onto the table. Deakin opened one and saw his own name written neatly inside the cover. He turned the page and realized he held an alphabet book. A is for Apple. The other was a book of nursery rhymes. There he found The Itsy-Bitsy Spider and Four and Twenty Blackbirds and One, Two, Buckle my Shoe. He clutched the two books and turned away from Eden and Neal. Eden caught sight of a small tear sliding down his cheek but she made no move to touch him. Deakin had finally made tangible contact with his parents and she had no place in his memories.
Neal tugged on her arm and pulled her into the kitchen. He quickly made a pot of hot tea and handed Eden a box of cookies. The two of them sat down at the table and waited for Deakin to join them. When he dropped into the chair beside Eden, he still clutched the two children’s books to his chest.
“Why did your sister have these books? Who gave them to her?”
Neal pushed a cup of tea across the table and said, with a sigh, “I don’t know the answer to any of your questions, boy. Gretchen had that package hidden in the attic of her cabin. She just said she was afraid and she couldn’t talk to anyone about it. She gave it to me because she thought I was stronger than she was now. She’s right too. At one time, she was the stronger one and I followed the lifestyle known as ‘better living through chemistry.’ Drugs, you innocent children, drugs conceived in laboratories. Now, I live out here by myself and watch over the sister who helped me change. Those little books made her cry too. Take them away from here. Later on, I’ll head out into the mountains and find my sister and bring her back home. She’ll be safe until then. Tuck those books under your sweater and let’s go. I’ll take you back to your car and get you safely away too. Then we can forget all about each other, okay?”
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
THE BANDIT QUEEN - Chapter 17
CHAPTER 17
Walt Rogers paced the narrow confines of his motel room and smacked the wall with the flat of his hand before he turned to face the opposite direction. He carried his cell phone in his other hand and cursed it with each smack on the wall. When it finally rang, he almost dropped it in his haste to answer it.
“Talk.”
Walt nodded his head as he listened to the calm voice in his ear telling him that the two young people had disappeared in San Francisco. No one had seen them since they’d gotten off the bus from Los Angeles. “Throw a net around the other people he could be looking for. Any news of the Allen woman? Was she seen at the airport? Is her car missing? Where is her husband? What? What? What?”
“Now, Walt, just slow down a minute. You know I’ll get to everything as soon as I can. No sightings on Dr. Allen. Her car is not in her garage but her husband’s is. Neighbors say he has been in Hong Kong for several weeks on some big construction project. He’s not expected home for months. I’ll contact his company and find out if his wife told him where she was going. I already put her car out as a stolen vehicle. In the meantime, I have men checking parking lots at all the airports for miles around. We’ll hear from that sometime. Who shall I send to Chicago or Los Alamos or Arizona? I could just alert security at Los Alamos and let them watch for her or the kids. What do you think?”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s good enough for Los Alamos. Just make sure they know it’s a national security issue. Send Ray and Wendy to Arizona. That’s a small town and I want them to keep a low profile. Who’s available for Chicago?”
“Sven’s in Detroit on another problem and Harris is in New York City. Either one of them could be routed to Chicago.”
“Send them both. Brief them thoroughly and make sure they’re looking for any of these people, okay? I’ll be waiting here for another few hours. Then I may go back to LA and take Dr. Evan Phillips to pieces. The boy has to have talked to him or gotten a message to him somehow. Keep me posted.”
Walt savagely punched the button on his phone and shoved it in the pocket of his jacket. He paced around the room a few more times and then dropped on the bed. He lay on his back and stared at the ceiling for almost thirty minutes. When he finally clambered to his feet, the lines of anger had left his face. He rotated his shoulders to release the tension in his back and neck. He smiled a small secret smile and walked out the door to his car.
Walt Rogers pulled up to the UCLA campus and checked in with the security guards for the second time. This time the guards were not as helpful as before and refused to talk with him until the head of the security staff could be located. Walt flashed his credentials to no avail and waited in seething anger until a calm man with gray hair and penetrating eyes entered the room. The man wore a well-cut dark gray suit and expensive shoes.
“Bradley Watson, head of security for this campus. What can I do for you, Agent Rogers?”
“You can damn well help me with my interrogation of Dr. Phillips, that’s what you can do for me. I’ve been waiting here for thirty minutes and I demand that you bring the man to me.”
“Demand all you want, Mr. Rogers, but until I have authorization from your department, you don’t operate on this campus. Dr. Phillips has filed a complaint with the local office of the FBI and with the Attorney-General of the state of California. Our university attorneys have advised us that we are not to assist you in any way until these claims and any others filed by our employees are settled.”
“Goddammit, man, this is a national security issue. You don’t know what you’re messing with here or who you’re messing with. I am on a job with the highest priority and when I ask for help, you’re supposed to give it to me.”
“Well, if it is the highest priority, then your office should get in touch with our attorneys very soon. Until that happens, you might as well have a seat and wait because you aren’t entering our campus with the intention of interrogating Dr. Phillips or any one else.”
Bradley Watson rested a hip on the corner of the watch commander’s desk and offered Walt a wooden chair in front of the desk. Walt rejected the chair and stalked to the window in the far wall of the office. He jerked his cell phone out of his pocket and angrily punched in the number for his contact, Tom Adams. The impersonal tones of a machine asked him to leave a message. He growled his name in the phone and then punched in the number for his lieutenant, Art Johnson. When he was forced to leave a message yet again, he almost threw his phone through the window. He stopped himself just before he let go of it and set it on the desk with deliberate slowness. He glanced quickly into Bradley Watson’s face and was almost positive he’d just missed a smile. Well, it wouldn’t be long before he’d show this pissant who was important and who wasn’t.
Walt smiled grimly at the men surrounding him and forced himself to sit calmly in the chair in front of the desk. After he finished this job for Clark Duncan, he’d do a little investigating and screw up the life of the man sitting across the desk from him. Walt glanced again at the calm face and recognized a hint of authority he’d missed when he first met the man. Bradley Watson was definitely not a retired city cop as he’d first assumed. When Tom Adams or Art Johnson returned his calls, he would drop Watson’s name into the conversation and wait for a reaction.
Walt was seriously angry when his cell phone finally rang about forty-five minutes later. He never even had a chance to detail the situation before Tom cut him off.
“Shut up, Walt. Don’t say another word. The shit has hit the fan here in the office. Duncan is frothing at the mouth and swearing to everyone that he told you not to make any waves. Just back away from that university and apologize for bothering them. Do it now. I’ll call you back in thirty minutes.”
A click sounded very loud in Walt’s ear. He thoughtfully slid the phone into his jacket pocket and smiled tightly at the head of security. “Well, I guess that’s that. I’ll be back when all this is sorted out. My office will make an appointment with Dr. Phillips and his attorneys and we’ll thrash this all out then. Sorry to have bothered you.”
Walt reached across the desk and touched the Bradley’s hand. Then he walked steadily out the door and drove away from the campus. He pulled into the parking lot of a large shopping center and waited impatiently for Tom’s call. After thirty minutes had passed, Walt was banging on his steering wheel again and talking to himself. He held the phone out in front of his face and mentally willed it to ring. When he finally tossed it onto the seat in resignation, it rang. He grabbed it up and barked his name.
Tom Adams’ voice grated in his ear. “Don’t snarl at me, you asshole. I don’t know what you did at that campus but you sure ruffled a lot of feathers. You are not to speak with Dr. Phillips again, ever. If he needs to be questioned for any reason, someone else will be sent. I don’t want to hear what you did or didn’t do. It doesn’t matter at all. The word from the top is that you are ‘persona non grata’ out there so do your investigating somewhere else. Clark has also sent word that there are to be no retaliations against anyone at the University. Do you understand? You must have really hit a nerve or messed in someone else’s investigation. Back off and go somewhere else.”
“Goddammit, Tom, you know what it means when we get this severe a reaction. They’re covering up something and we need to find out what it is.”
“No, Walt, ‘we’ do not. Someone else might work on it but not you.”
“Do you know what it is?”
“No, I don’t. Obviously, I didn’t need to know. It must be part of a different investigation that’s more important. What’s next for you, Walt?”
“Oh, hell, Chicago, I guess. I have a feeling that’s where one of my professors has gone. I’ll call you when I get there. Sven and Harris will meet me there. Is there anything about the University of Chicago I should know?”
“Yes, a lot of their professors have security clearances so they do lots of work for the government. No threats and no weapons and no violence.”
“How the hell am I supposed to find out anything if I can’t even ask a question?”
“I didn’t say you couldn’t ask. I just said you couldn’t hold a loaded gun in your hand when you asked.”
Walt stabbed the button to cut off his phone without saying another word. Then he called Art and left him another message. He needed a flight to Chicago and he needed it this afternoon. He drove directly to the airport and stepped into a bar to wait for Art to return his call. Two scotches later, his cell phone rang. Somehow, he wasn’t very surprised when Art told him his flight didn’t leave for another two hours.
A woman slid onto the stool next to him and bumped slightly into his shoulder as she set her purse on the bar. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to bang into you.”
She smiled at him and ordered a glass of wine from the bartender. She ran her finger lightly around the rim of the wine glass and stared into the red liquid inside. She pushed her shoulder length brown hair behind her ear with her right hand and drank some of the wine. A loud commercial caught her attention and she watched the small television screen while she sipped her wine. Walt watched her from the corner of his eyes and noticed the flashing rings on her hands and the glitter of her earrings. As near as Walt could tell, she was skating very close to her fortieth birthday. Her dress and shoes looked fairly expensive. Hell, he had two hours to kill before his flight. What would it hurt to talk for a while with a pretty woman?
Walt waited for the woman to drink more of her wine before he waved to the bartender. He ordered another scotch and then asked the woman if he could buy her another glass of wine. She looked him squarely in the face for the first time and narrowed her eyes in concentration. Then she smiled widely and pushed her glass toward the bartender.
“I’m Alison Brown and like everyone else around here, I’m waiting for a flight.”
“Walt Ralston. My flight leaves in two hours. How about yours?”
Just as Alison opened her mouth to answer, Walt’s phone rang. He grabbed it and answered it. He turned his head away from Alison and listened intently to the voice of his assistant Art. When he finished, he set the phone on the bar with a smile and faced Alison again.
She waited until she had his attention and then she answered his question. “Well, Mr. Walt Ralston, I have a two-hour wait also.” She turned on her stool to face him and carried her glass to her mouth. She watched him over the rim of the glass as he took a hefty slug of scotch and water. “Where are you headed? I’m on my way to Dallas. Will you be back in LA in about a week? Maybe I could buy you a drink since you bought me one.”
“Oh, I don’t live here, just passing through on business. I’m on my way to Chicago and I don’t know where I’ll be after that. What are you doing in Dallas? Don’t tell me you have ‘business’ there?”
She gurgled a low laugh and playfully touched his arm. She finished the wine in her glass and pushed it toward the bartender. “Now, what makes you think I’m not a business woman? I have my own business here in LA. I’m an interior designer. I’m on my way to Dallas to consult with a client and also to find new product sources for my more ‘western clients.’ Let me give you one of my cards and maybe you could call me when you’re back in LA.”
Alison picked up her small purse and reached inside for a business card. When the bartender set down another glass of wine, she motioned toward Walt’s glass and slid a ten-dollar bill across the bar. She pulled out her cell phone and finally slid out an ornately printed card. She handed the card to Walt just as the bartender slid another scotch and water in front of him. Alison picked up her phone and slid it into the small purse. Walt stared at the small card and smiled at it before he slid it into his jacket pocket. Then he noticed his cell phone on the bar next to a fresh drink so he slid it into his pocket also. He picked up his drink and held it out to Alison.
“Here’s to a new ‘friendship’!”
She touched his glass with her wine glass and drank a sip. “What kind of business are you in, Mr. Walt Ralston?”
“Um, I do confidential audits for businesses. You know, for takeovers or buy-outs. I also do background checks on employees. Some companies want some kind of audit before they sign big contracts with other companies, just to make sure these other companies can deliver. I travel all over the world.”
A loud announcement blared through the terminal and Alison cocked her ear. “They’re calling my flight. It’s been nice visiting with you, Walt. Please give me a call if you’re ever back in LA.” She held out her hand and shook his hand before she carefully slid off the stool and walked down to her gate. Walt stared down into his drink and wondered what would have happened if they hadn’t met in an airport. He shook his head and tossed down his drink.
Walt’s flight was called in the next couple of minutes, so he left the bar and joined the line of travelers funneling into the small door of the airplane. He settled into his seat and ignored the people sitting around him. As soon as he could, he tipped his seat back and closed his eyes. Behind his blank face, his mind replayed the events of the last few days. He tried to remember everything he’d seen and heard and then made tentative plans for his arrival in Chicago.
Walt was almost the first person off the plane and hurried through the long tunnel with extra long strides. He scanned the faces of the people in the terminal, recognized no one, and then slipped his phone out of his pocket. He flipped it open, and punched in the speed dial number for Tom Adams. Nothing happened. He shook the phone, punched the numbers again, and scowled when he heard silence. He angrily stabbed at the tiny buttons with his forefinger and pulled up the screen of speed dial numbers. It was totally blank. Now, Walt really stared at the small receiver in his left hand. Unconsciously, he weighed it and accepted its size as correct. He shook his head at the small phone and wondered fleetingly if it was time for a new one. This time he punched in Tom’s entire phone number and heard the ringing sound in his ear. A tiny smile lifted the corners of his mouth as he listened to Tom’s directions. Within minutes a well-dressed woman in her mid-thirties was driving him away from the airport and into the huge city in search of more answers. This time he would be the soul of politeness when he questioned Marianne Wolfe, excuse me, Dr. Marianne Wolfe. Walt growled slightly under his breath. These over-educated intellectuals were either the hardest ones to deal with or the easiest. He’d already hit a couple of hard ones. Maybe this one would be an easy one.
Alison Brown swayed out of the airport bar and turned to her left. She kept to the same slow rhythm until she judged it safe to hurry. Her legs took longer and longer strides as she slid between and around slower moving traffic. She glanced up at the rows of lighted signs signifying everything from bars to shops to bathrooms and counted off the bathrooms as she passed them. She ducked into the fourth one she came to and joined the short line of patiently waiting women and children. The young woman in front of her slightly turned her head and looked down at the shiny black high heels on Alison’s feet. Then she glanced at her face and nodded. Alison looked into the black eyes of the woman and then saw the small gold tooth at the very edge of her smile. Contact made and acknowledged. Within a very few minutes, Alison had turned over Mr. Walt Ralston’s cell phone and dropped the word “Chicago” into the smooth brown ear of the young woman in line. She changed clothes in the stall and left the bathroom looking far different from the woman who’d shared a few minutes with a strange man in a bar. Jeans, sweatshirt, and sneakers will change the looks of any woman, no matter her age, size, or coloring. Alison attached herself to a family group heading for the baggage area and drifted out of the terminal without seeing or being seen by Walt Ralston.
Walt Rogers paced the narrow confines of his motel room and smacked the wall with the flat of his hand before he turned to face the opposite direction. He carried his cell phone in his other hand and cursed it with each smack on the wall. When it finally rang, he almost dropped it in his haste to answer it.
“Talk.”
Walt nodded his head as he listened to the calm voice in his ear telling him that the two young people had disappeared in San Francisco. No one had seen them since they’d gotten off the bus from Los Angeles. “Throw a net around the other people he could be looking for. Any news of the Allen woman? Was she seen at the airport? Is her car missing? Where is her husband? What? What? What?”
“Now, Walt, just slow down a minute. You know I’ll get to everything as soon as I can. No sightings on Dr. Allen. Her car is not in her garage but her husband’s is. Neighbors say he has been in Hong Kong for several weeks on some big construction project. He’s not expected home for months. I’ll contact his company and find out if his wife told him where she was going. I already put her car out as a stolen vehicle. In the meantime, I have men checking parking lots at all the airports for miles around. We’ll hear from that sometime. Who shall I send to Chicago or Los Alamos or Arizona? I could just alert security at Los Alamos and let them watch for her or the kids. What do you think?”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s good enough for Los Alamos. Just make sure they know it’s a national security issue. Send Ray and Wendy to Arizona. That’s a small town and I want them to keep a low profile. Who’s available for Chicago?”
“Sven’s in Detroit on another problem and Harris is in New York City. Either one of them could be routed to Chicago.”
“Send them both. Brief them thoroughly and make sure they’re looking for any of these people, okay? I’ll be waiting here for another few hours. Then I may go back to LA and take Dr. Evan Phillips to pieces. The boy has to have talked to him or gotten a message to him somehow. Keep me posted.”
Walt savagely punched the button on his phone and shoved it in the pocket of his jacket. He paced around the room a few more times and then dropped on the bed. He lay on his back and stared at the ceiling for almost thirty minutes. When he finally clambered to his feet, the lines of anger had left his face. He rotated his shoulders to release the tension in his back and neck. He smiled a small secret smile and walked out the door to his car.
Walt Rogers pulled up to the UCLA campus and checked in with the security guards for the second time. This time the guards were not as helpful as before and refused to talk with him until the head of the security staff could be located. Walt flashed his credentials to no avail and waited in seething anger until a calm man with gray hair and penetrating eyes entered the room. The man wore a well-cut dark gray suit and expensive shoes.
“Bradley Watson, head of security for this campus. What can I do for you, Agent Rogers?”
“You can damn well help me with my interrogation of Dr. Phillips, that’s what you can do for me. I’ve been waiting here for thirty minutes and I demand that you bring the man to me.”
“Demand all you want, Mr. Rogers, but until I have authorization from your department, you don’t operate on this campus. Dr. Phillips has filed a complaint with the local office of the FBI and with the Attorney-General of the state of California. Our university attorneys have advised us that we are not to assist you in any way until these claims and any others filed by our employees are settled.”
“Goddammit, man, this is a national security issue. You don’t know what you’re messing with here or who you’re messing with. I am on a job with the highest priority and when I ask for help, you’re supposed to give it to me.”
“Well, if it is the highest priority, then your office should get in touch with our attorneys very soon. Until that happens, you might as well have a seat and wait because you aren’t entering our campus with the intention of interrogating Dr. Phillips or any one else.”
Bradley Watson rested a hip on the corner of the watch commander’s desk and offered Walt a wooden chair in front of the desk. Walt rejected the chair and stalked to the window in the far wall of the office. He jerked his cell phone out of his pocket and angrily punched in the number for his contact, Tom Adams. The impersonal tones of a machine asked him to leave a message. He growled his name in the phone and then punched in the number for his lieutenant, Art Johnson. When he was forced to leave a message yet again, he almost threw his phone through the window. He stopped himself just before he let go of it and set it on the desk with deliberate slowness. He glanced quickly into Bradley Watson’s face and was almost positive he’d just missed a smile. Well, it wouldn’t be long before he’d show this pissant who was important and who wasn’t.
Walt smiled grimly at the men surrounding him and forced himself to sit calmly in the chair in front of the desk. After he finished this job for Clark Duncan, he’d do a little investigating and screw up the life of the man sitting across the desk from him. Walt glanced again at the calm face and recognized a hint of authority he’d missed when he first met the man. Bradley Watson was definitely not a retired city cop as he’d first assumed. When Tom Adams or Art Johnson returned his calls, he would drop Watson’s name into the conversation and wait for a reaction.
Walt was seriously angry when his cell phone finally rang about forty-five minutes later. He never even had a chance to detail the situation before Tom cut him off.
“Shut up, Walt. Don’t say another word. The shit has hit the fan here in the office. Duncan is frothing at the mouth and swearing to everyone that he told you not to make any waves. Just back away from that university and apologize for bothering them. Do it now. I’ll call you back in thirty minutes.”
A click sounded very loud in Walt’s ear. He thoughtfully slid the phone into his jacket pocket and smiled tightly at the head of security. “Well, I guess that’s that. I’ll be back when all this is sorted out. My office will make an appointment with Dr. Phillips and his attorneys and we’ll thrash this all out then. Sorry to have bothered you.”
Walt reached across the desk and touched the Bradley’s hand. Then he walked steadily out the door and drove away from the campus. He pulled into the parking lot of a large shopping center and waited impatiently for Tom’s call. After thirty minutes had passed, Walt was banging on his steering wheel again and talking to himself. He held the phone out in front of his face and mentally willed it to ring. When he finally tossed it onto the seat in resignation, it rang. He grabbed it up and barked his name.
Tom Adams’ voice grated in his ear. “Don’t snarl at me, you asshole. I don’t know what you did at that campus but you sure ruffled a lot of feathers. You are not to speak with Dr. Phillips again, ever. If he needs to be questioned for any reason, someone else will be sent. I don’t want to hear what you did or didn’t do. It doesn’t matter at all. The word from the top is that you are ‘persona non grata’ out there so do your investigating somewhere else. Clark has also sent word that there are to be no retaliations against anyone at the University. Do you understand? You must have really hit a nerve or messed in someone else’s investigation. Back off and go somewhere else.”
“Goddammit, Tom, you know what it means when we get this severe a reaction. They’re covering up something and we need to find out what it is.”
“No, Walt, ‘we’ do not. Someone else might work on it but not you.”
“Do you know what it is?”
“No, I don’t. Obviously, I didn’t need to know. It must be part of a different investigation that’s more important. What’s next for you, Walt?”
“Oh, hell, Chicago, I guess. I have a feeling that’s where one of my professors has gone. I’ll call you when I get there. Sven and Harris will meet me there. Is there anything about the University of Chicago I should know?”
“Yes, a lot of their professors have security clearances so they do lots of work for the government. No threats and no weapons and no violence.”
“How the hell am I supposed to find out anything if I can’t even ask a question?”
“I didn’t say you couldn’t ask. I just said you couldn’t hold a loaded gun in your hand when you asked.”
Walt stabbed the button to cut off his phone without saying another word. Then he called Art and left him another message. He needed a flight to Chicago and he needed it this afternoon. He drove directly to the airport and stepped into a bar to wait for Art to return his call. Two scotches later, his cell phone rang. Somehow, he wasn’t very surprised when Art told him his flight didn’t leave for another two hours.
A woman slid onto the stool next to him and bumped slightly into his shoulder as she set her purse on the bar. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to bang into you.”
She smiled at him and ordered a glass of wine from the bartender. She ran her finger lightly around the rim of the wine glass and stared into the red liquid inside. She pushed her shoulder length brown hair behind her ear with her right hand and drank some of the wine. A loud commercial caught her attention and she watched the small television screen while she sipped her wine. Walt watched her from the corner of his eyes and noticed the flashing rings on her hands and the glitter of her earrings. As near as Walt could tell, she was skating very close to her fortieth birthday. Her dress and shoes looked fairly expensive. Hell, he had two hours to kill before his flight. What would it hurt to talk for a while with a pretty woman?
Walt waited for the woman to drink more of her wine before he waved to the bartender. He ordered another scotch and then asked the woman if he could buy her another glass of wine. She looked him squarely in the face for the first time and narrowed her eyes in concentration. Then she smiled widely and pushed her glass toward the bartender.
“I’m Alison Brown and like everyone else around here, I’m waiting for a flight.”
“Walt Ralston. My flight leaves in two hours. How about yours?”
Just as Alison opened her mouth to answer, Walt’s phone rang. He grabbed it and answered it. He turned his head away from Alison and listened intently to the voice of his assistant Art. When he finished, he set the phone on the bar with a smile and faced Alison again.
She waited until she had his attention and then she answered his question. “Well, Mr. Walt Ralston, I have a two-hour wait also.” She turned on her stool to face him and carried her glass to her mouth. She watched him over the rim of the glass as he took a hefty slug of scotch and water. “Where are you headed? I’m on my way to Dallas. Will you be back in LA in about a week? Maybe I could buy you a drink since you bought me one.”
“Oh, I don’t live here, just passing through on business. I’m on my way to Chicago and I don’t know where I’ll be after that. What are you doing in Dallas? Don’t tell me you have ‘business’ there?”
She gurgled a low laugh and playfully touched his arm. She finished the wine in her glass and pushed it toward the bartender. “Now, what makes you think I’m not a business woman? I have my own business here in LA. I’m an interior designer. I’m on my way to Dallas to consult with a client and also to find new product sources for my more ‘western clients.’ Let me give you one of my cards and maybe you could call me when you’re back in LA.”
Alison picked up her small purse and reached inside for a business card. When the bartender set down another glass of wine, she motioned toward Walt’s glass and slid a ten-dollar bill across the bar. She pulled out her cell phone and finally slid out an ornately printed card. She handed the card to Walt just as the bartender slid another scotch and water in front of him. Alison picked up her phone and slid it into the small purse. Walt stared at the small card and smiled at it before he slid it into his jacket pocket. Then he noticed his cell phone on the bar next to a fresh drink so he slid it into his pocket also. He picked up his drink and held it out to Alison.
“Here’s to a new ‘friendship’!”
She touched his glass with her wine glass and drank a sip. “What kind of business are you in, Mr. Walt Ralston?”
“Um, I do confidential audits for businesses. You know, for takeovers or buy-outs. I also do background checks on employees. Some companies want some kind of audit before they sign big contracts with other companies, just to make sure these other companies can deliver. I travel all over the world.”
A loud announcement blared through the terminal and Alison cocked her ear. “They’re calling my flight. It’s been nice visiting with you, Walt. Please give me a call if you’re ever back in LA.” She held out her hand and shook his hand before she carefully slid off the stool and walked down to her gate. Walt stared down into his drink and wondered what would have happened if they hadn’t met in an airport. He shook his head and tossed down his drink.
Walt’s flight was called in the next couple of minutes, so he left the bar and joined the line of travelers funneling into the small door of the airplane. He settled into his seat and ignored the people sitting around him. As soon as he could, he tipped his seat back and closed his eyes. Behind his blank face, his mind replayed the events of the last few days. He tried to remember everything he’d seen and heard and then made tentative plans for his arrival in Chicago.
Walt was almost the first person off the plane and hurried through the long tunnel with extra long strides. He scanned the faces of the people in the terminal, recognized no one, and then slipped his phone out of his pocket. He flipped it open, and punched in the speed dial number for Tom Adams. Nothing happened. He shook the phone, punched the numbers again, and scowled when he heard silence. He angrily stabbed at the tiny buttons with his forefinger and pulled up the screen of speed dial numbers. It was totally blank. Now, Walt really stared at the small receiver in his left hand. Unconsciously, he weighed it and accepted its size as correct. He shook his head at the small phone and wondered fleetingly if it was time for a new one. This time he punched in Tom’s entire phone number and heard the ringing sound in his ear. A tiny smile lifted the corners of his mouth as he listened to Tom’s directions. Within minutes a well-dressed woman in her mid-thirties was driving him away from the airport and into the huge city in search of more answers. This time he would be the soul of politeness when he questioned Marianne Wolfe, excuse me, Dr. Marianne Wolfe. Walt growled slightly under his breath. These over-educated intellectuals were either the hardest ones to deal with or the easiest. He’d already hit a couple of hard ones. Maybe this one would be an easy one.
Alison Brown swayed out of the airport bar and turned to her left. She kept to the same slow rhythm until she judged it safe to hurry. Her legs took longer and longer strides as she slid between and around slower moving traffic. She glanced up at the rows of lighted signs signifying everything from bars to shops to bathrooms and counted off the bathrooms as she passed them. She ducked into the fourth one she came to and joined the short line of patiently waiting women and children. The young woman in front of her slightly turned her head and looked down at the shiny black high heels on Alison’s feet. Then she glanced at her face and nodded. Alison looked into the black eyes of the woman and then saw the small gold tooth at the very edge of her smile. Contact made and acknowledged. Within a very few minutes, Alison had turned over Mr. Walt Ralston’s cell phone and dropped the word “Chicago” into the smooth brown ear of the young woman in line. She changed clothes in the stall and left the bathroom looking far different from the woman who’d shared a few minutes with a strange man in a bar. Jeans, sweatshirt, and sneakers will change the looks of any woman, no matter her age, size, or coloring. Alison attached herself to a family group heading for the baggage area and drifted out of the terminal without seeing or being seen by Walt Ralston.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
THE BANDIT QUEEN - Chapter 16
CHAPTER 16
Eden scrunched around in her bus seat until she was comfortable. Then she deliberately closed her eyes and left Deakin to his own devices. To her own surprise she slept most of the way to San Francisco. Deakin woke her up as they drove through the chain of cities that bordered San Francisco. At one point he motioned to a highway sign that listed the exit for Stanford. They both craned their heads to look but couldn’t see the campus from their side of the bus. They rode clear to the main bus station in the center of San Francisco.
As they wandered out into the waiting room of the station, a young man detached himself from the wall and jerked his head in their direction. He’d thrown his windbreaker over his shoulder and rolled up the sleeves of his tee shirt. A small tattoo of a lizard peeked out from under his left sleeve. Eden flipped a braid over her shoulder to give him a look at her earrings. He glanced interestedly at Deakin and then walked out of the building. Eden and Deakin followed him down the crowded street. The man slipped into a small video shop and then out the back door to a narrow alley running between a long line of two and three story buildings.
Deakin and Eden stepped behind a large trash bin and watched the man talk to a group of street people who’d turned the alley into their home. Then they followed him to a door halfway down the alley. They slid between two cardboard houses and into the back room of a liquor store. The man pointed up the back stairs before he continued into the store.
Eden and Deakin climbed the dirty staircase and found themselves on the top floor of an old apartment building. Years of marginal living had left layers of ingrained dirt and grime all over the floors and the walls. The windows at either end of the long hallway let in only a slight glow. They walked slowly and quietly along the hall and looked at each door in turn. At the far end, they came to a door with a small lizard scratched in the wood under the apartment number. Eden looked inquiringly at Deakin and then shrugged her shoulders. She knocked softly on the door and watched in surprise as it opened slowly. A voice floated out of the gloom of the apartment and said,
“Come in, come in. I’ve been waiting for you. Alden sent word you’d be heading this way. Lock the door behind you. I don’t want anyone else coming in right now.”
Deakin followed Eden through the fragrant smoke that filled the room and tracked the voice to its source. The glow from the screens of three monitors illuminated the room. Incense burners lined every window sill and the combination of scents gave Eden an immediate headache. She squinted at the young man in front of her and smiled into his green eyes.
“Yikes, Alden didn’t tell me one of you was a girl. If I’d known, I’d have gotten dressed. I guess you’ll just have to put up with my boxers. Pull up a chair and tell me what I can do for you. Alden says it’s dangerous and not to leave a trail.”
Deakin sat down next to the young man and held out his hand. “Deakin, here, and Eden, there. We need a way to reach someone at Stanford without getting caught. Hopefully, she’ll want to meet us and won’t turn us in to the bad guys immediately. What do we do first?”
The young man smiled at Eden and said, “Sam, that’s me. Employee or student at Stanford. Professor, cafeteria worker, maintenance man, chancellor, what?”
“I assume she’s a professor. Mala Goswami Allen. I’m guessing math or science.”
Sam’s fingers drifted over his keyboard but his indecision stopped him. “What kind of bad guys are we talking here?”
“Really bad ones. Lots of them and they have access to everything which probably means government of some kind. They kill people, that’s how bad they are.” “In that case, we’ll try an end run. Will they be watching this woman, tapping her phone, accessing her email?”
“Yes, definitely. We’d like to meet her if possible. Otherwise, a cell phone message or a written message would be fine. I’ll give you the questions to ask her.”
Sam nodded with a thoughtful look on his face and made his decision. “Give me the questions now and give me a hook. You know, something that’ll prove I’m in the deal with you. A name or a story, something that will make her believe you’re alive. I don’t know when I’ll get in touch with her. You two go down the hall to room #6. Crash there, take a shower, eat anything you can find. I’ll send someone when I have news.”
Hours later, a soft knock on the apartment door jerked Deakin out of his light sleep. Eden just turned over and pulled the covers over her head. Deakin patted her shoulder and slipped quietly out of the room. A definite crackle of electricity met him as he followed Sam into his room. Sam pushed him into a chair and dropped a few papers into his lap. Deakin picked up the papers and realized the words were printed on fax paper. His eyes misted over as he read the words on the first page. He shook his head and tried again. Sam walked to the window and stared out into a city night still lit by all the colors of the neon rainbow. When he glanced back, he realized Deakin wasn’t reading yet.
“I took a roundabout way of getting in touch with this woman. I ran the phone call through a couple of cell phones and then through a bank of pay phones in Los Angeles. I spoke directly to her and asked her your questions. She sent that answer to you. Let me know if I can do anything else for you. I checked in with Alden and he and the boys are doing just fine. Nobody seems to be searching for him right now so he’s staying under the radar for a while before he powers up the whole network again.”
Deakin nodded to Sam and looked back down at the pages in his lap. He took a deep breath and began reading.
Dear Deakin, I am no longer at the university so do not call me or search there for me. The phone call from your friend took me back in time to a life I’d almost forgotten. Almost, but not quite. Your beautiful mother Helena was my friend, the best friend of my life. We had such a great time working on the laser project. We were all young and idealistic and believed we were working for the good of all mankind. Our entire focus was on our work, not on the world around us. Dr. Phillips was older than we were but he was more like an advisor than a leader or an employer. He pointed us in the right direction and let us run with the ideas we came up with. We had the best of equipment and supplies and gave no thought whatsoever to the source of the money to pay for it all. Research for the sake of research, pure research was our daily bread. We developed many wonderful research avenues and some of those avenues have borne fruit. Many of the everyday uses of lasers were originated by the six of us. Helena, Alex, Marianne, Andy, Gretchen, and I – we were the core research group. Dr. Phillips watched over us and pushed us in certain directions but he wasn’t part of our group. Daniel Rivers who died along with Helena and Alex was not a scientist like the rest of us. He was a businessman from the beginning. He constantly urged us to consider the monetary aspects of our research. He thought we should market all these laser applications ourselves but the rest of us were so naïve. We were developing products for the common good and we were going to give our discoveries away so everyone could benefit equally.
Helena was a brilliant scientist. We all followed her lead. Alex was very intelligent also but he was more down to earth than Helena. He constantly made sure we considered the practical applications of all our ideas. We all worked happily together until Helena became pregnant. She then developed an entirely different direction for our research. Purely from a research point of view, it was dramatically interesting. She said she came up with the focus of the project when she thought about the development of her baby. She wondered if a laser could reverse the entire process of birth. Instead of the division of cells into more and ever more cells, maybe the laser could do the opposite and melt away cells until the object was back to its original beginning cell. I tried to talk her out of the project but Daniel egged her on. After eighteen months or so, Helena was ready to try out her idea. She had already melted plastic and aluminum into nothing. Now, Dr. Phillips and Daniel wanted us to try the laser on a white rat. Surely an animal could not be vaporized by a laser but, in the interest of science, we had to try. Helena refused to be a part of the experiment and argued long and hard against it. In deference to her feelings, Dr. Phillips experimented on rocks and plants which all disappeared without a trace.
At this point, Helena awoke to the possible uses of her laser and was horrified. Dr. Phillips arranged for a test on the rat while Helena was not around. Six or seven hard-faced men showed up for the test and filmed it. The laser either vaporized or melted the rat into nothingness, not even a smudge on the table. Smiles creased those hard faces as they walked away with the film they’d made. I told Helena about the men and watched the tears stream down her face. She was very quiet for a few days and worked late into the night. Then one morning she and Alex didn’t come to work and we never saw either of them again. The whole lab had been wrecked and the files emptied. All our research had been destroyed. I called Helena’s sister Marina who lived in Seattle. She said she had the baby but Helena had gone back to LA. Helena and Alex had cleared the computers of all the data and attempted to destroy the hardware. They were partially successful. Most of the hard data on the development of the laser disappeared and only fragments were left. The copies they’d made were never found. We were all questioned over and over for days and weeks but none of us knew where Alex and Helena had gone or what they’d done with the data they’d taken.
At the time, we were not allowed to communicate with anyone else and we were kept in strict solitary confinement. My native culture helped me remain sane in the face of an insane situation. Yoga and meditation filled the long silent hours. The others were not as fortunate. Dr. Phillips had a breakdown and spent several years in therapy before he was able to continue working. Andy Yang moved to Los Alamos and tried to duplicate the research but he was not half the scientist Helena had been. Marianne Wolfe is now at the University of Chicago. She suffered fractures in both her legs from some “unknown” accident and walks with metal braces and crutches now. She does no research anymore and teaches graduate level math classes. Gretchen Falk disappeared from sight. I never heard anything about her for years and years until I picked up a textbook she’d written. I tried to call her but she never returned my calls. Through a friend of my husband’s, I sent her a message and she sent me a reply the same way. “Leave me alone. I refuse to revisit the past. Let me live the rest of my life on my own.”
Alex, Helena, and Daniel Rivers all died, supposedly in a car accident. I never thought that was the truth but I had no proof. I hope they died easily but somehow I doubt it. Later, I received a frantic phone call from your Aunt Marina. Someone had taken you away and refused to let her keep you. I tried to comfort her but I fear I was not much help. I had recently been released from custody and my health was fragile. After I recuperated, I tried to call Marina but she was no longer in Seattle. A year later, on the anniversary of Helena’s death, I drove to Seattle and searched for Marina. I found no trace of her whereabouts. Maybe her visa had been revoked and she returned to Russia. Maybe she’s living right across the border in Canada.
Now that you have returned from the dead, I have taken up the search again. A few years ago, I met a man at a conference who knew about our laser research in a general way. He’d heard rumors and he even mentioned your mother’s name. I questioned him about his sources and he gave the name "Marina” as his primary informant. I am now in search of this man. We have kept in touch over the last year or two and have both continued the search for Marina. His name is Ian Nelms and he lives in Chicago. I will look up Marianne while I am there. I never asked her if she knew Helena’s sister.
Be very careful, my child. Please stay alive until I can see you. Your mother once was the dearest person in the world to me. I would like to see how you have grown. Do not try to contact my husband. He is not in the country at this time and has no idea what I am doing.
I will send messages to this number but I will not give you a number to contact me.
Mala Goswami Allen
Deakin looked up as Eden entered the room. Then he passed the pages over to her and sat silently while she read them. She folded the pages into a compact package and slid them into her backpack. She touched Deakin on the shoulder and jerked him out of his reverie. He patted her hand and asked Sam to collect any more messages Mala Allen might send.
“Where do I forward them?”
“Uh, send them to Alden. I’ll always stay in touch with him.”
“Is there anything I can do for you right now?”
“Check on that name she said. The one in Chicago.” He held out his hand to Eden and waited for her to pull the papers out. “Here it is. Ian Nelms. He’s in Chicago somewhere. Could you check him out while we decide where to go next?”
Eden and Deakin leaned against the far wall of the room while Sam hit his keyboard with great energy. “If Mala is covering Chicago, we don’t need to show up there also. We should find a car somewhere and head for Arizona and New Mexico. I don’t know how much we can find out but we have to try.”
Eden nodded her head and then jerked her head in Sam’s direction.
“C’mere, guys. Here’s the man. It says here that he’s the editor of some scientific journal. He’s really somebody big in the science world. Look at all those initials after his name.”
Sam clicked a few times and papers rolled out of his printer. He passed the pages over to Deakin and continued searching. More and more pages appeared until Sam shut down his search.
“If you want more from me, I’ll have to bounce around and come in from a different door. I can’t stay on very long at a time before someone starts to get curious.”
Deakin shook his head and said, “This should be enough for now, Sam. Thanks for everything. One last question and then we’re out of here. Where do we find a car? One that’s good for some highway travel?”
Sam narrowed his eyes and stared off into the distance. Finally, he wrote an address on a piece of scrap paper and handed it to Eden. “Talk to Joshua. He’ll help you out.” Then he waved as the two silently slipped out his door and disappeared into the gloom of the hallway.
Eden stopped in the pale early morning sunshine and looked around for the address Sam had given them. A short block of tired old shops met her gaze. She and Deakin crossed to the other side of the street and pushed open the door of a dingy secondhand store. They passed between racks of musty clothes into the dim interior of the shop. A disembodied voice called out of the gloom,
“Look around. I’ll be out in a minute.”
As soon as the man ducked through the curtain across the doorway in the far corner of the room, Deakin spoke. “Are you Joshua?”
“Yes, I am and who might you be?”
A round young man with small hands and feet appeared in front of Deakin and appraised him from head to foot. Then he scrutinized Eden. His gaze stopped at her earrings and he smiled slightly and pulled the curtain aside in welcome. Eden stepped through the doorway first and stopped in amazement. The room in front of her was furnished with beautifully polished antique furniture. Thick oriental rugs covered the scarred floor. She stepped gingerly onto the carpet and tip-toed to a wooden chair positioned next to a dropleaf table. Deakin followed her into the room but he stopped before his feet touched the fringe of the rug. The round man slipped easily through the door and herded Deakin across the room to the small kitchen area. He tweaked Eden’s earring as he bustled past her. Deakin leaned against the refrigerator and smiled as he took a cup of coffee from the man’s tiny hands. He laughed as Eden joined him.
“Are you afraid you’ll break something?”
Eden nodded emphatically and carefully held the china coffee cup in both her hands. Joshua crossed his arms across his chest and said, “Someone obviously sent you here for some reason. What do you want from me?”
Deakin noticed the small ring on Joshua’s pinky. A tiny lizard had been carved along the surface of the ring. “Sam gave us your name and address. We need a car that will make it to Arizona and New Mexico.”
A small frown creased Joshua’s forehead. Eden amended Deakin’s request. “Actually we need to buy a car and it needs to be a clean car no one’s looking for.”
Joshua raised his eyes to the ceiling and mentally ran through his list of available of merchandise. Then he smiled at the Eden and said, “I can find you something. It’ll cost you two thousand dollars, cash. Come back around lunchtime; say 1:00 and it’ll be parked around back. You can pay me when you pick it up.”
Deakin and Eden left by the back door and found themselves in a narrow alley. They turned to the left and headed for the bright sunshine. Deakin grabbed Eden’s arm as they reached the end of the alley and kept her from leaving the shadows. He peered out and then quickly stepped out to join a group of teenagers going into an ice cream shop. Eden followed along behind and grabbed the small round table in the corner. Deakin joined her a short while later and handed her a dripping cone. She laughingly licked the sweet drips from the side of the cone. Then she spoke softly under the cover of taking a bite of ice cream.
“No one’s watching us. Where do we go from here?”
“Find someplace to eat lunch and then come back. What else is there for us to do?”
Eden watched a police car pull to the curb in front of the window and one man stepped out the passenger door. He grabbed the arm of a young boy walking past and pulled him over to the police car. He seemed to be showing him a several pictures but the boy shook his head. Finally the officer let go of the boy’s arm and watched him scurry down the sidewalk. Eden slid her chair farther back in the corner and gestured Deakin to move closer to her. He started to turn his head but she pulled on the front of his shirt.
“Cops out in front. Showing pictures around and asking questions. Might be about us or it might not.”
Deakin nodded in understanding and calmly licked his cone while Eden monitored the sidewalk outside the window. Soon the policeman gave up and the car drove away. A city bus pulled up to the corner in a cloud of diesel smoke and they ran to board it. Several miles down the road they left the bus, crossed the street and entered the open iron gates of a small green park. A children’s playground occupied one end of the park. Rose bushes marched along the blackened iron fence and a grove of trees filled the farthest corner. Benches were dotted around the park and dogs nosed through the trees. Squirrels yelled down at the dogs and jumped from branch to branch in frantic attempts to get away from the canine intruders. Deakin and Eden dropped onto a bench near the trees and huddled together as clouds covered the sun before the ground could warm up in the sunshine. Deakin wrapped his arm around Eden and held her close to his side.
“We have about three hours to wait. Ten more minutes on this cold bench will be long enough for me. There’s a library on that corner. We could at least read the newspapers. What do you say, girl?”
Eden hid her face inside his jacket and shivered. “Anywhere out of this chill. Surely they’ll have a bathroom too. Indoor plumbing would be a definite blessing. Otherwise, I’ll be over there under the trees fighting with the dogs.”
Deakin chuckled under his breath and pulled her to her feet. They entered the library just as another police car pulled up across from the park.
Eden scrunched around in her bus seat until she was comfortable. Then she deliberately closed her eyes and left Deakin to his own devices. To her own surprise she slept most of the way to San Francisco. Deakin woke her up as they drove through the chain of cities that bordered San Francisco. At one point he motioned to a highway sign that listed the exit for Stanford. They both craned their heads to look but couldn’t see the campus from their side of the bus. They rode clear to the main bus station in the center of San Francisco.
As they wandered out into the waiting room of the station, a young man detached himself from the wall and jerked his head in their direction. He’d thrown his windbreaker over his shoulder and rolled up the sleeves of his tee shirt. A small tattoo of a lizard peeked out from under his left sleeve. Eden flipped a braid over her shoulder to give him a look at her earrings. He glanced interestedly at Deakin and then walked out of the building. Eden and Deakin followed him down the crowded street. The man slipped into a small video shop and then out the back door to a narrow alley running between a long line of two and three story buildings.
Deakin and Eden stepped behind a large trash bin and watched the man talk to a group of street people who’d turned the alley into their home. Then they followed him to a door halfway down the alley. They slid between two cardboard houses and into the back room of a liquor store. The man pointed up the back stairs before he continued into the store.
Eden and Deakin climbed the dirty staircase and found themselves on the top floor of an old apartment building. Years of marginal living had left layers of ingrained dirt and grime all over the floors and the walls. The windows at either end of the long hallway let in only a slight glow. They walked slowly and quietly along the hall and looked at each door in turn. At the far end, they came to a door with a small lizard scratched in the wood under the apartment number. Eden looked inquiringly at Deakin and then shrugged her shoulders. She knocked softly on the door and watched in surprise as it opened slowly. A voice floated out of the gloom of the apartment and said,
“Come in, come in. I’ve been waiting for you. Alden sent word you’d be heading this way. Lock the door behind you. I don’t want anyone else coming in right now.”
Deakin followed Eden through the fragrant smoke that filled the room and tracked the voice to its source. The glow from the screens of three monitors illuminated the room. Incense burners lined every window sill and the combination of scents gave Eden an immediate headache. She squinted at the young man in front of her and smiled into his green eyes.
“Yikes, Alden didn’t tell me one of you was a girl. If I’d known, I’d have gotten dressed. I guess you’ll just have to put up with my boxers. Pull up a chair and tell me what I can do for you. Alden says it’s dangerous and not to leave a trail.”
Deakin sat down next to the young man and held out his hand. “Deakin, here, and Eden, there. We need a way to reach someone at Stanford without getting caught. Hopefully, she’ll want to meet us and won’t turn us in to the bad guys immediately. What do we do first?”
The young man smiled at Eden and said, “Sam, that’s me. Employee or student at Stanford. Professor, cafeteria worker, maintenance man, chancellor, what?”
“I assume she’s a professor. Mala Goswami Allen. I’m guessing math or science.”
Sam’s fingers drifted over his keyboard but his indecision stopped him. “What kind of bad guys are we talking here?”
“Really bad ones. Lots of them and they have access to everything which probably means government of some kind. They kill people, that’s how bad they are.” “In that case, we’ll try an end run. Will they be watching this woman, tapping her phone, accessing her email?”
“Yes, definitely. We’d like to meet her if possible. Otherwise, a cell phone message or a written message would be fine. I’ll give you the questions to ask her.”
Sam nodded with a thoughtful look on his face and made his decision. “Give me the questions now and give me a hook. You know, something that’ll prove I’m in the deal with you. A name or a story, something that will make her believe you’re alive. I don’t know when I’ll get in touch with her. You two go down the hall to room #6. Crash there, take a shower, eat anything you can find. I’ll send someone when I have news.”
Hours later, a soft knock on the apartment door jerked Deakin out of his light sleep. Eden just turned over and pulled the covers over her head. Deakin patted her shoulder and slipped quietly out of the room. A definite crackle of electricity met him as he followed Sam into his room. Sam pushed him into a chair and dropped a few papers into his lap. Deakin picked up the papers and realized the words were printed on fax paper. His eyes misted over as he read the words on the first page. He shook his head and tried again. Sam walked to the window and stared out into a city night still lit by all the colors of the neon rainbow. When he glanced back, he realized Deakin wasn’t reading yet.
“I took a roundabout way of getting in touch with this woman. I ran the phone call through a couple of cell phones and then through a bank of pay phones in Los Angeles. I spoke directly to her and asked her your questions. She sent that answer to you. Let me know if I can do anything else for you. I checked in with Alden and he and the boys are doing just fine. Nobody seems to be searching for him right now so he’s staying under the radar for a while before he powers up the whole network again.”
Deakin nodded to Sam and looked back down at the pages in his lap. He took a deep breath and began reading.
Dear Deakin, I am no longer at the university so do not call me or search there for me. The phone call from your friend took me back in time to a life I’d almost forgotten. Almost, but not quite. Your beautiful mother Helena was my friend, the best friend of my life. We had such a great time working on the laser project. We were all young and idealistic and believed we were working for the good of all mankind. Our entire focus was on our work, not on the world around us. Dr. Phillips was older than we were but he was more like an advisor than a leader or an employer. He pointed us in the right direction and let us run with the ideas we came up with. We had the best of equipment and supplies and gave no thought whatsoever to the source of the money to pay for it all. Research for the sake of research, pure research was our daily bread. We developed many wonderful research avenues and some of those avenues have borne fruit. Many of the everyday uses of lasers were originated by the six of us. Helena, Alex, Marianne, Andy, Gretchen, and I – we were the core research group. Dr. Phillips watched over us and pushed us in certain directions but he wasn’t part of our group. Daniel Rivers who died along with Helena and Alex was not a scientist like the rest of us. He was a businessman from the beginning. He constantly urged us to consider the monetary aspects of our research. He thought we should market all these laser applications ourselves but the rest of us were so naïve. We were developing products for the common good and we were going to give our discoveries away so everyone could benefit equally.
Helena was a brilliant scientist. We all followed her lead. Alex was very intelligent also but he was more down to earth than Helena. He constantly made sure we considered the practical applications of all our ideas. We all worked happily together until Helena became pregnant. She then developed an entirely different direction for our research. Purely from a research point of view, it was dramatically interesting. She said she came up with the focus of the project when she thought about the development of her baby. She wondered if a laser could reverse the entire process of birth. Instead of the division of cells into more and ever more cells, maybe the laser could do the opposite and melt away cells until the object was back to its original beginning cell. I tried to talk her out of the project but Daniel egged her on. After eighteen months or so, Helena was ready to try out her idea. She had already melted plastic and aluminum into nothing. Now, Dr. Phillips and Daniel wanted us to try the laser on a white rat. Surely an animal could not be vaporized by a laser but, in the interest of science, we had to try. Helena refused to be a part of the experiment and argued long and hard against it. In deference to her feelings, Dr. Phillips experimented on rocks and plants which all disappeared without a trace.
At this point, Helena awoke to the possible uses of her laser and was horrified. Dr. Phillips arranged for a test on the rat while Helena was not around. Six or seven hard-faced men showed up for the test and filmed it. The laser either vaporized or melted the rat into nothingness, not even a smudge on the table. Smiles creased those hard faces as they walked away with the film they’d made. I told Helena about the men and watched the tears stream down her face. She was very quiet for a few days and worked late into the night. Then one morning she and Alex didn’t come to work and we never saw either of them again. The whole lab had been wrecked and the files emptied. All our research had been destroyed. I called Helena’s sister Marina who lived in Seattle. She said she had the baby but Helena had gone back to LA. Helena and Alex had cleared the computers of all the data and attempted to destroy the hardware. They were partially successful. Most of the hard data on the development of the laser disappeared and only fragments were left. The copies they’d made were never found. We were all questioned over and over for days and weeks but none of us knew where Alex and Helena had gone or what they’d done with the data they’d taken.
At the time, we were not allowed to communicate with anyone else and we were kept in strict solitary confinement. My native culture helped me remain sane in the face of an insane situation. Yoga and meditation filled the long silent hours. The others were not as fortunate. Dr. Phillips had a breakdown and spent several years in therapy before he was able to continue working. Andy Yang moved to Los Alamos and tried to duplicate the research but he was not half the scientist Helena had been. Marianne Wolfe is now at the University of Chicago. She suffered fractures in both her legs from some “unknown” accident and walks with metal braces and crutches now. She does no research anymore and teaches graduate level math classes. Gretchen Falk disappeared from sight. I never heard anything about her for years and years until I picked up a textbook she’d written. I tried to call her but she never returned my calls. Through a friend of my husband’s, I sent her a message and she sent me a reply the same way. “Leave me alone. I refuse to revisit the past. Let me live the rest of my life on my own.”
Alex, Helena, and Daniel Rivers all died, supposedly in a car accident. I never thought that was the truth but I had no proof. I hope they died easily but somehow I doubt it. Later, I received a frantic phone call from your Aunt Marina. Someone had taken you away and refused to let her keep you. I tried to comfort her but I fear I was not much help. I had recently been released from custody and my health was fragile. After I recuperated, I tried to call Marina but she was no longer in Seattle. A year later, on the anniversary of Helena’s death, I drove to Seattle and searched for Marina. I found no trace of her whereabouts. Maybe her visa had been revoked and she returned to Russia. Maybe she’s living right across the border in Canada.
Now that you have returned from the dead, I have taken up the search again. A few years ago, I met a man at a conference who knew about our laser research in a general way. He’d heard rumors and he even mentioned your mother’s name. I questioned him about his sources and he gave the name "Marina” as his primary informant. I am now in search of this man. We have kept in touch over the last year or two and have both continued the search for Marina. His name is Ian Nelms and he lives in Chicago. I will look up Marianne while I am there. I never asked her if she knew Helena’s sister.
Be very careful, my child. Please stay alive until I can see you. Your mother once was the dearest person in the world to me. I would like to see how you have grown. Do not try to contact my husband. He is not in the country at this time and has no idea what I am doing.
I will send messages to this number but I will not give you a number to contact me.
Mala Goswami Allen
Deakin looked up as Eden entered the room. Then he passed the pages over to her and sat silently while she read them. She folded the pages into a compact package and slid them into her backpack. She touched Deakin on the shoulder and jerked him out of his reverie. He patted her hand and asked Sam to collect any more messages Mala Allen might send.
“Where do I forward them?”
“Uh, send them to Alden. I’ll always stay in touch with him.”
“Is there anything I can do for you right now?”
“Check on that name she said. The one in Chicago.” He held out his hand to Eden and waited for her to pull the papers out. “Here it is. Ian Nelms. He’s in Chicago somewhere. Could you check him out while we decide where to go next?”
Eden and Deakin leaned against the far wall of the room while Sam hit his keyboard with great energy. “If Mala is covering Chicago, we don’t need to show up there also. We should find a car somewhere and head for Arizona and New Mexico. I don’t know how much we can find out but we have to try.”
Eden nodded her head and then jerked her head in Sam’s direction.
“C’mere, guys. Here’s the man. It says here that he’s the editor of some scientific journal. He’s really somebody big in the science world. Look at all those initials after his name.”
Sam clicked a few times and papers rolled out of his printer. He passed the pages over to Deakin and continued searching. More and more pages appeared until Sam shut down his search.
“If you want more from me, I’ll have to bounce around and come in from a different door. I can’t stay on very long at a time before someone starts to get curious.”
Deakin shook his head and said, “This should be enough for now, Sam. Thanks for everything. One last question and then we’re out of here. Where do we find a car? One that’s good for some highway travel?”
Sam narrowed his eyes and stared off into the distance. Finally, he wrote an address on a piece of scrap paper and handed it to Eden. “Talk to Joshua. He’ll help you out.” Then he waved as the two silently slipped out his door and disappeared into the gloom of the hallway.
Eden stopped in the pale early morning sunshine and looked around for the address Sam had given them. A short block of tired old shops met her gaze. She and Deakin crossed to the other side of the street and pushed open the door of a dingy secondhand store. They passed between racks of musty clothes into the dim interior of the shop. A disembodied voice called out of the gloom,
“Look around. I’ll be out in a minute.”
As soon as the man ducked through the curtain across the doorway in the far corner of the room, Deakin spoke. “Are you Joshua?”
“Yes, I am and who might you be?”
A round young man with small hands and feet appeared in front of Deakin and appraised him from head to foot. Then he scrutinized Eden. His gaze stopped at her earrings and he smiled slightly and pulled the curtain aside in welcome. Eden stepped through the doorway first and stopped in amazement. The room in front of her was furnished with beautifully polished antique furniture. Thick oriental rugs covered the scarred floor. She stepped gingerly onto the carpet and tip-toed to a wooden chair positioned next to a dropleaf table. Deakin followed her into the room but he stopped before his feet touched the fringe of the rug. The round man slipped easily through the door and herded Deakin across the room to the small kitchen area. He tweaked Eden’s earring as he bustled past her. Deakin leaned against the refrigerator and smiled as he took a cup of coffee from the man’s tiny hands. He laughed as Eden joined him.
“Are you afraid you’ll break something?”
Eden nodded emphatically and carefully held the china coffee cup in both her hands. Joshua crossed his arms across his chest and said, “Someone obviously sent you here for some reason. What do you want from me?”
Deakin noticed the small ring on Joshua’s pinky. A tiny lizard had been carved along the surface of the ring. “Sam gave us your name and address. We need a car that will make it to Arizona and New Mexico.”
A small frown creased Joshua’s forehead. Eden amended Deakin’s request. “Actually we need to buy a car and it needs to be a clean car no one’s looking for.”
Joshua raised his eyes to the ceiling and mentally ran through his list of available of merchandise. Then he smiled at the Eden and said, “I can find you something. It’ll cost you two thousand dollars, cash. Come back around lunchtime; say 1:00 and it’ll be parked around back. You can pay me when you pick it up.”
Deakin and Eden left by the back door and found themselves in a narrow alley. They turned to the left and headed for the bright sunshine. Deakin grabbed Eden’s arm as they reached the end of the alley and kept her from leaving the shadows. He peered out and then quickly stepped out to join a group of teenagers going into an ice cream shop. Eden followed along behind and grabbed the small round table in the corner. Deakin joined her a short while later and handed her a dripping cone. She laughingly licked the sweet drips from the side of the cone. Then she spoke softly under the cover of taking a bite of ice cream.
“No one’s watching us. Where do we go from here?”
“Find someplace to eat lunch and then come back. What else is there for us to do?”
Eden watched a police car pull to the curb in front of the window and one man stepped out the passenger door. He grabbed the arm of a young boy walking past and pulled him over to the police car. He seemed to be showing him a several pictures but the boy shook his head. Finally the officer let go of the boy’s arm and watched him scurry down the sidewalk. Eden slid her chair farther back in the corner and gestured Deakin to move closer to her. He started to turn his head but she pulled on the front of his shirt.
“Cops out in front. Showing pictures around and asking questions. Might be about us or it might not.”
Deakin nodded in understanding and calmly licked his cone while Eden monitored the sidewalk outside the window. Soon the policeman gave up and the car drove away. A city bus pulled up to the corner in a cloud of diesel smoke and they ran to board it. Several miles down the road they left the bus, crossed the street and entered the open iron gates of a small green park. A children’s playground occupied one end of the park. Rose bushes marched along the blackened iron fence and a grove of trees filled the farthest corner. Benches were dotted around the park and dogs nosed through the trees. Squirrels yelled down at the dogs and jumped from branch to branch in frantic attempts to get away from the canine intruders. Deakin and Eden dropped onto a bench near the trees and huddled together as clouds covered the sun before the ground could warm up in the sunshine. Deakin wrapped his arm around Eden and held her close to his side.
“We have about three hours to wait. Ten more minutes on this cold bench will be long enough for me. There’s a library on that corner. We could at least read the newspapers. What do you say, girl?”
Eden hid her face inside his jacket and shivered. “Anywhere out of this chill. Surely they’ll have a bathroom too. Indoor plumbing would be a definite blessing. Otherwise, I’ll be over there under the trees fighting with the dogs.”
Deakin chuckled under his breath and pulled her to her feet. They entered the library just as another police car pulled up across from the park.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
THE BANDIT QUEEN - Chapter 15
CHAPTER 15
Walt Rogers kept in constant touch with his agents from his vantage point in an unmarked white van parked near Dr. Phillips’ office. All the watchers carried pictures of both Eden and Deakin taken from the security cameras at the Salt Lake City airport but they were handicapped from the beginning. Two out of every three girls had long hair of every shade from stark white to pitch black. Deakin look-alikes walked along every sidewalk and in and out of every building. It was like picking two ants out of entire anthill. The agents constantly checked their photos but had no luck in spotting either the boy or the girl.
Several older men and women entered or left the building but no student tried to talk to them. One of the watchers thought she saw Eden heading for another building several blocks away but she lost sight of her in the swirling masses of students moving around the campus. A large man in his late twenties had blocked her from view as he hurried out the door of the science building and headed for the nearest cafeteria. He returned fifteen or twenty minutes later with a white sack in one hand and a soda in the other. He entered the building and loped up the stairs. As he walked down the hallway, he met Dr. Phillips near the men’s bathroom. No overt sign passed between the two men but Dr. Phillips moved on with a slightly lighter step.
The agents in place around the science building began to get frustrated with their stake-out and moved into different positions as the hours passed. Finally, one or two of them at a time would follow a girl who might be Eden or a boy who slightly resembled Deakin. It never occurred to them to follow the older student who carried a large armful of heavy books. As soon as he turned in the direction of the library, the agents quickly forgot him.
Ten minutes later an agitated command blasted in each of their ears. The electronics expert in Walt’s van had just received information from the university computer showing the use of Eden’s identification card in the library. All the agents converged quickly on the library and blocked the doors of the building. Three of them fanned out from the building and worked their way along the wide sidewalks, looking for anyone running away from the library. They stopped ten or twelve students who didn’t match either of the photos. As soon as each of them showed identification in a different name, they were released and sent on their way.
The other agents worked through all the floors of the library until they’d seen id’s for everyone inside the building. Walt cursed as he stood in the entrance of the library. Just for the record, he asked for the title of the book Eden had checked out. Zen and the Art of Archery. “Crap,” thought Walt as he left in the building in a rage.
He consulted a map of the campus and then sent his people to the city bus company. They spoke with the drivers of any buses that stopped along the outer edges of the campus. None of the drivers recognized the photos of Deakin and Eden but that wasn’t so surprising. Thousands of students rode the buses and half of them resembled the photos. Walt pushed the search further and further afield. The agents visited car rental agencies and airports. They collected security videos from everyone who had them and set up a viewing center. Later in the evening, Walt slotted in the video from the central bus station in Los Angeles. There he caught a glimpse of a girl wearing a Lakers cap who could be Eden. He took the time to check the entire segment in case Deakin showed but the girl seemed to be alone. Walt memorized the face of the clerk who’d helped her and the time listed in the corner of the video. Then he ran to his car and drove to the main bus station in Central LA.
Just as he had expected, the clerk he needed to speak with had already left work for the day. Walt spent some time with the clerk on duty and pinned down the tickets that had been sold around the time shown on the film. Two tickets to Las Vegas, one to San Diego, one to Phoenix, two to San Francisco, and one to Sacramento. “Damn, it could be the one to Phoenix or the two to San Francisco. Hell, it could be any of these for some reason I know nothing about.”
Walt left the terminal armed with the name and address of the clerk. Just to be on the safe side, he sent agents to each of the destinations with orders to flash the photos and call him ASAP with any leads.
Walt hammered his fist on the door of the apartment rented in Stephanie Fisher’s name. A small voice called from inside. “Who’s there?”
Walt grimaced when he realized the voice originated about halfway up the door. He estimated the age of his questioner was seven to eight years old.
“Police. Is your mother home?”
“I can’t open the door for nobody. You have to come back some other time. Bye-bye.”
Small feet ticked away from the door and left Walt standing all by himself. He sighed with exasperation and hammered on the door to his right. No one answered that door so he tried the door to the left. An older woman called through the door and then opened it a few inches. She spoke through the crack in the door.
“Show me your badge. You don’t look like a cop to me.”
Walt held up his identification and waited impatiently for the woman to read his name. One eye peered through the two-inch crack and stared at Walt’s face.
“Could you open the door, ma’am? I need to ask some questions about your neighbor.”
“Say what you got to say but say it quick. The chain stays on the door and the door closes real soon.”
“Do you know if Stephanie Fisher still lives next door? When will she get home from work?”
“She still lives there but what gives you the idea I’d know her comings and goings. It ain’t none of my business. She’s a grown woman, a nice woman who takes care of her family the best she can all by herself. All I know is she works days. Good-bye, Mr. Rogers.”
The door snicked closed, narrowly missing Walt’s nose. He angrily stared around the metal balcony that ran around the entire second floor of this small apartment building. He glanced down into the darkened weedy courtyard as several older children argued over sharing a skateboard. He leapt down the stairs and pulled up in front of the three boys.
“Do any of you know Stephanie Fisher? She lives in #209 up there. I need to talk to her right now. When will she be home from work?”
Two of the boys stepped slightly away from the boy who held the skateboard. Their eyes slid sideways and flicked across his face and then they both stared down at their own shoes. The boy in the center glanced up at Walt from under his eyelids and asked,
“What you want to know about her for? She hasn’t done anything.”
“Don’t worry, boy. I just need to talk to her about something that happened at work. When will she be home?”
A car door slammed in the parking lot behind the building and a tired woman in her thirties walked out of the gloom of the parking lot and into the sparsely lit courtyard. The other two boys vanished silently into the shadows when Walt turned his head to stare at the woman. She stopped and transferred her sack of groceries from her right hip to her left. She reached her hand out to the boy and gathered him into her side.
“Who are you and what are you doing with my son?”
“Stephanie Fisher?” Walt flipped out his identification yet again and then quickly slipped the wallet back into his pocket. “I need to ask you some questions about your work. Could we go up to your apartment and talk?”
Stephanie nodded and led the way up the stairs. She turned just inside her door and closed the door behind Walt. She hugged her small daughter, sent both children to the kitchen with the groceries and gestured Walt to the couch. He cleared the coffee table with his arm and lay down pictures of Eden and Deakin. Stephanie knelt on the floor and stared at the pictures. She glanced questioningly up at Walt.
“She showed up on your security cameras. According to computer records, she could have bought one or two tickets to several different cities. Do you remember her? Did you see him?”
Stephanie picked up the picture of Deakin and shook her head. “I don’t remember him at all. She looks kind of familiar but I’m not sure.” She slid the pictures of Eden into a row and stared at them all.
“On the security film, she wore a Lakers cap and a sweatshirt.”
Stephanie frowned a little as she looked again at Eden’s face. “I’m just not positive. I have the feeling she wasn’t going very far. Not out of California, at least. Could you tell on the tape how much she paid?”
“It looked like she counted out four or five bills – maybe tens or twenties. The technicians are still checking that out.”
“If there is a California destination on your list, then that was hers.”
“One ticket to San Diego, one to Sacramento, or two to San Francisco.”
Stephanie dropped the pictures on the table. “Two tickets, I seem to remember she bought two tickets. She was polite. Lots of our passengers are rude and pushy but she wasn’t. What’s she done?”
Walt shook his head and gathered up his pictures. He dropped a card on the table. “If you think of anything else, call that number and leave me a message.” He nodded to the woman and her children and disappeared out her door.
Walt pulled out his cell phone and called in the information before he started his car and headed for San Francisco. One of his agents had already made a positive hit at the bus station in San Francisco. More agents had flooded the area but none had scored any other hits yet. Walt called in all his men and sent them to San Francisco. He wanted agents covering airports, bus stations, train stations, car rental agencies, and boat docks too. He pointed his car north and raced to the Bay area. He knew he was getting close to Eden and Deakin. He could feel it in his bones. His hands clenched tighter on the steering wheel and he leaned right and left as he slid through traffic, unconsciously using his body to propel the car faster and faster through the darkness.
Just as he closed in on the city of San Francisco, Walt’s cell phone beeped in the silence of the car. He answered it without taking his eyes off the cars in front of him. When the caller had finished speaking, Walt clicked the phone off and tossed it into the passenger seat next to him. There had been no further sightings of the two teenagers so Walt was now headed for Stanford University and an early morning meeting with Dr. Mala Allen.
Walt arrived at the university first thing the next morning and stopped at the guard station near the main entrance to the campus. A few flashes of his identification brought instant cooperation and an escort to the correct building. He ran up the stairs to the second floor and stopped outside the door of Dr. Allen’s office. A handwritten sign had been taped to the frosted glass in the door.
FAMILY EMERGENCY
No office hours or classes until Monday
Walt smacked the flat of his hand on the doorframe and looked around for someone else to question. The security guard who had escorted him to the building appeared at the head of the stairs. Walt grabbed him by the arm and hauled him up to the door.
“When did she leave? Who do we ask?”
The guard pointed to the double wooden doors at the end of the hallway. Walt loped down the hall with the guard close behind him. He pulled open one of the doors and stepped into a large office with a wooden counter running the width of the room. Students crowded in the narrow area in front of the counter and filled the benches along the wall. Walt shoved his way through the crowd and waved peremptorily toward one of the clerks. She stared at him over her glasses and pointed to a small machine on the counter.
“Take a number and we’ll get to you.”
Walt slapped his hand on the counter and waved again at the woman. “Over here, now.” He pulled the guard to his side and then pushed him toward the woman. He cannoned into several students who closed ranks to keep him back. They were all patiently waiting their turns. Why didn’t he?
The guard leaned across the counter and spoke loudly to the clerk. She looked down the counter and saw the identification in Walt’s hand. She stretched out her hand for the wallet, copied down the name and number, compared the picture with the man, and then handed it back. She then gestured to the end of the counter where a small door led into the office behind her. Just as Walt’s hand touched the door handle, she buzzed the door open and pointed to an office in the far corner.
The guard followed Walt as he threaded his way through the desks and chairs. Walt rapped his knuckles on the doorframe and entered the small office. There he found that Dr. Allen had been called away during the night. Some member of her family had been in an accident and she had left town immediately. Walt came away from the office with a list of family members from Dr. Allen’s personnel file and hurried to his car. He instructed the guard to monitor the doctor’s phone and office just in case Deakin and Eden showed up. He sat in his car and called the phone numbers he’d been given without connecting with a single live voice. He smacked his hand on the steering wheel in anger and frustration. He should have picked up these two children by now. He had no idea how they’d eluded him so far. Sheer luck, he guessed. He made a final call to his second-in-command, a rabbity-faced man with the soul of a viper. Art Johnson would have shackled his own grandmother to the wall to find out a piece of information.
“Art, she’s not here. Send agents to all the other names on that list I gave you. Make sure those kids can’t reach any of these people. I’ll find out where the good Dr. Allen has gone to and who told her to run. Call me with any information.”
Walt flipped his phone closed and collected the rest of his agents at the security guard post at the front gate. He sent one agent off to check phone records and several others to check out the local friends and relatives of Dr. Allen.
None of those people knew anything about Dr. Allen’s whereabouts or about any emergency that could have called her away from her job. One unidentified phone call had reached her home phone. It had been placed from a pay phone outside a convenience store in the Los Angeles area. Walt snorted in disgust. Soon it would be his turn for some good luck. He’d catch the two kids sooner or later.
Walt Rogers kept in constant touch with his agents from his vantage point in an unmarked white van parked near Dr. Phillips’ office. All the watchers carried pictures of both Eden and Deakin taken from the security cameras at the Salt Lake City airport but they were handicapped from the beginning. Two out of every three girls had long hair of every shade from stark white to pitch black. Deakin look-alikes walked along every sidewalk and in and out of every building. It was like picking two ants out of entire anthill. The agents constantly checked their photos but had no luck in spotting either the boy or the girl.
Several older men and women entered or left the building but no student tried to talk to them. One of the watchers thought she saw Eden heading for another building several blocks away but she lost sight of her in the swirling masses of students moving around the campus. A large man in his late twenties had blocked her from view as he hurried out the door of the science building and headed for the nearest cafeteria. He returned fifteen or twenty minutes later with a white sack in one hand and a soda in the other. He entered the building and loped up the stairs. As he walked down the hallway, he met Dr. Phillips near the men’s bathroom. No overt sign passed between the two men but Dr. Phillips moved on with a slightly lighter step.
The agents in place around the science building began to get frustrated with their stake-out and moved into different positions as the hours passed. Finally, one or two of them at a time would follow a girl who might be Eden or a boy who slightly resembled Deakin. It never occurred to them to follow the older student who carried a large armful of heavy books. As soon as he turned in the direction of the library, the agents quickly forgot him.
Ten minutes later an agitated command blasted in each of their ears. The electronics expert in Walt’s van had just received information from the university computer showing the use of Eden’s identification card in the library. All the agents converged quickly on the library and blocked the doors of the building. Three of them fanned out from the building and worked their way along the wide sidewalks, looking for anyone running away from the library. They stopped ten or twelve students who didn’t match either of the photos. As soon as each of them showed identification in a different name, they were released and sent on their way.
The other agents worked through all the floors of the library until they’d seen id’s for everyone inside the building. Walt cursed as he stood in the entrance of the library. Just for the record, he asked for the title of the book Eden had checked out. Zen and the Art of Archery. “Crap,” thought Walt as he left in the building in a rage.
He consulted a map of the campus and then sent his people to the city bus company. They spoke with the drivers of any buses that stopped along the outer edges of the campus. None of the drivers recognized the photos of Deakin and Eden but that wasn’t so surprising. Thousands of students rode the buses and half of them resembled the photos. Walt pushed the search further and further afield. The agents visited car rental agencies and airports. They collected security videos from everyone who had them and set up a viewing center. Later in the evening, Walt slotted in the video from the central bus station in Los Angeles. There he caught a glimpse of a girl wearing a Lakers cap who could be Eden. He took the time to check the entire segment in case Deakin showed but the girl seemed to be alone. Walt memorized the face of the clerk who’d helped her and the time listed in the corner of the video. Then he ran to his car and drove to the main bus station in Central LA.
Just as he had expected, the clerk he needed to speak with had already left work for the day. Walt spent some time with the clerk on duty and pinned down the tickets that had been sold around the time shown on the film. Two tickets to Las Vegas, one to San Diego, one to Phoenix, two to San Francisco, and one to Sacramento. “Damn, it could be the one to Phoenix or the two to San Francisco. Hell, it could be any of these for some reason I know nothing about.”
Walt left the terminal armed with the name and address of the clerk. Just to be on the safe side, he sent agents to each of the destinations with orders to flash the photos and call him ASAP with any leads.
Walt hammered his fist on the door of the apartment rented in Stephanie Fisher’s name. A small voice called from inside. “Who’s there?”
Walt grimaced when he realized the voice originated about halfway up the door. He estimated the age of his questioner was seven to eight years old.
“Police. Is your mother home?”
“I can’t open the door for nobody. You have to come back some other time. Bye-bye.”
Small feet ticked away from the door and left Walt standing all by himself. He sighed with exasperation and hammered on the door to his right. No one answered that door so he tried the door to the left. An older woman called through the door and then opened it a few inches. She spoke through the crack in the door.
“Show me your badge. You don’t look like a cop to me.”
Walt held up his identification and waited impatiently for the woman to read his name. One eye peered through the two-inch crack and stared at Walt’s face.
“Could you open the door, ma’am? I need to ask some questions about your neighbor.”
“Say what you got to say but say it quick. The chain stays on the door and the door closes real soon.”
“Do you know if Stephanie Fisher still lives next door? When will she get home from work?”
“She still lives there but what gives you the idea I’d know her comings and goings. It ain’t none of my business. She’s a grown woman, a nice woman who takes care of her family the best she can all by herself. All I know is she works days. Good-bye, Mr. Rogers.”
The door snicked closed, narrowly missing Walt’s nose. He angrily stared around the metal balcony that ran around the entire second floor of this small apartment building. He glanced down into the darkened weedy courtyard as several older children argued over sharing a skateboard. He leapt down the stairs and pulled up in front of the three boys.
“Do any of you know Stephanie Fisher? She lives in #209 up there. I need to talk to her right now. When will she be home from work?”
Two of the boys stepped slightly away from the boy who held the skateboard. Their eyes slid sideways and flicked across his face and then they both stared down at their own shoes. The boy in the center glanced up at Walt from under his eyelids and asked,
“What you want to know about her for? She hasn’t done anything.”
“Don’t worry, boy. I just need to talk to her about something that happened at work. When will she be home?”
A car door slammed in the parking lot behind the building and a tired woman in her thirties walked out of the gloom of the parking lot and into the sparsely lit courtyard. The other two boys vanished silently into the shadows when Walt turned his head to stare at the woman. She stopped and transferred her sack of groceries from her right hip to her left. She reached her hand out to the boy and gathered him into her side.
“Who are you and what are you doing with my son?”
“Stephanie Fisher?” Walt flipped out his identification yet again and then quickly slipped the wallet back into his pocket. “I need to ask you some questions about your work. Could we go up to your apartment and talk?”
Stephanie nodded and led the way up the stairs. She turned just inside her door and closed the door behind Walt. She hugged her small daughter, sent both children to the kitchen with the groceries and gestured Walt to the couch. He cleared the coffee table with his arm and lay down pictures of Eden and Deakin. Stephanie knelt on the floor and stared at the pictures. She glanced questioningly up at Walt.
“She showed up on your security cameras. According to computer records, she could have bought one or two tickets to several different cities. Do you remember her? Did you see him?”
Stephanie picked up the picture of Deakin and shook her head. “I don’t remember him at all. She looks kind of familiar but I’m not sure.” She slid the pictures of Eden into a row and stared at them all.
“On the security film, she wore a Lakers cap and a sweatshirt.”
Stephanie frowned a little as she looked again at Eden’s face. “I’m just not positive. I have the feeling she wasn’t going very far. Not out of California, at least. Could you tell on the tape how much she paid?”
“It looked like she counted out four or five bills – maybe tens or twenties. The technicians are still checking that out.”
“If there is a California destination on your list, then that was hers.”
“One ticket to San Diego, one to Sacramento, or two to San Francisco.”
Stephanie dropped the pictures on the table. “Two tickets, I seem to remember she bought two tickets. She was polite. Lots of our passengers are rude and pushy but she wasn’t. What’s she done?”
Walt shook his head and gathered up his pictures. He dropped a card on the table. “If you think of anything else, call that number and leave me a message.” He nodded to the woman and her children and disappeared out her door.
Walt pulled out his cell phone and called in the information before he started his car and headed for San Francisco. One of his agents had already made a positive hit at the bus station in San Francisco. More agents had flooded the area but none had scored any other hits yet. Walt called in all his men and sent them to San Francisco. He wanted agents covering airports, bus stations, train stations, car rental agencies, and boat docks too. He pointed his car north and raced to the Bay area. He knew he was getting close to Eden and Deakin. He could feel it in his bones. His hands clenched tighter on the steering wheel and he leaned right and left as he slid through traffic, unconsciously using his body to propel the car faster and faster through the darkness.
Just as he closed in on the city of San Francisco, Walt’s cell phone beeped in the silence of the car. He answered it without taking his eyes off the cars in front of him. When the caller had finished speaking, Walt clicked the phone off and tossed it into the passenger seat next to him. There had been no further sightings of the two teenagers so Walt was now headed for Stanford University and an early morning meeting with Dr. Mala Allen.
Walt arrived at the university first thing the next morning and stopped at the guard station near the main entrance to the campus. A few flashes of his identification brought instant cooperation and an escort to the correct building. He ran up the stairs to the second floor and stopped outside the door of Dr. Allen’s office. A handwritten sign had been taped to the frosted glass in the door.
FAMILY EMERGENCY
No office hours or classes until Monday
Walt smacked the flat of his hand on the doorframe and looked around for someone else to question. The security guard who had escorted him to the building appeared at the head of the stairs. Walt grabbed him by the arm and hauled him up to the door.
“When did she leave? Who do we ask?”
The guard pointed to the double wooden doors at the end of the hallway. Walt loped down the hall with the guard close behind him. He pulled open one of the doors and stepped into a large office with a wooden counter running the width of the room. Students crowded in the narrow area in front of the counter and filled the benches along the wall. Walt shoved his way through the crowd and waved peremptorily toward one of the clerks. She stared at him over her glasses and pointed to a small machine on the counter.
“Take a number and we’ll get to you.”
Walt slapped his hand on the counter and waved again at the woman. “Over here, now.” He pulled the guard to his side and then pushed him toward the woman. He cannoned into several students who closed ranks to keep him back. They were all patiently waiting their turns. Why didn’t he?
The guard leaned across the counter and spoke loudly to the clerk. She looked down the counter and saw the identification in Walt’s hand. She stretched out her hand for the wallet, copied down the name and number, compared the picture with the man, and then handed it back. She then gestured to the end of the counter where a small door led into the office behind her. Just as Walt’s hand touched the door handle, she buzzed the door open and pointed to an office in the far corner.
The guard followed Walt as he threaded his way through the desks and chairs. Walt rapped his knuckles on the doorframe and entered the small office. There he found that Dr. Allen had been called away during the night. Some member of her family had been in an accident and she had left town immediately. Walt came away from the office with a list of family members from Dr. Allen’s personnel file and hurried to his car. He instructed the guard to monitor the doctor’s phone and office just in case Deakin and Eden showed up. He sat in his car and called the phone numbers he’d been given without connecting with a single live voice. He smacked his hand on the steering wheel in anger and frustration. He should have picked up these two children by now. He had no idea how they’d eluded him so far. Sheer luck, he guessed. He made a final call to his second-in-command, a rabbity-faced man with the soul of a viper. Art Johnson would have shackled his own grandmother to the wall to find out a piece of information.
“Art, she’s not here. Send agents to all the other names on that list I gave you. Make sure those kids can’t reach any of these people. I’ll find out where the good Dr. Allen has gone to and who told her to run. Call me with any information.”
Walt flipped his phone closed and collected the rest of his agents at the security guard post at the front gate. He sent one agent off to check phone records and several others to check out the local friends and relatives of Dr. Allen.
None of those people knew anything about Dr. Allen’s whereabouts or about any emergency that could have called her away from her job. One unidentified phone call had reached her home phone. It had been placed from a pay phone outside a convenience store in the Los Angeles area. Walt snorted in disgust. Soon it would be his turn for some good luck. He’d catch the two kids sooner or later.
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