Falling Star (31 page)

"Has anyone got anything on Eastwood?" said Mike nonchalantly.

"Oh, yes, Mr. Liu," said Martha.  "Selby Eastwood was a true orphan.  Seems his parents came to the United States from Canada.  They were killed in an automobile crash when Eastwood was a child.  They left a trust fund for Eastwood.  It was that trust fund that financed his education through Choate, Harvard, and Yale."

Mike winced ever so slightly.  "My hunch is that he may be part of this network of people who seem to be after us.  There is no way that anyone at Smedleys could have known I was at the Hyatt."

"Just can't admit to yourself that maybe you popped off a collateral, can you," said Mildred, without looking up from her knitting, with a trace of a smile.

"Can you dig further, Martha?" said Mike ignoring the jibe.

"Yes, sir," said Martha, jotting a reminder in her brown leather notepad.

0900 Hours: Friday, June 18, 1993: Tenth Precinct House, Minneapolis, Minnesota

"Pete, there's an FBI agent out here to see you."

"Send him right back," said Wilkinson.

Adams walked back to the Detective Squad Room and let himself through the door.

"How can I help you?" said Wilkinson.

"I saw your report on InfoNet about that alleged Russian spy and wanted to follow up," said Adams, showing his FBI identification and gold badge to Wilkinson.

"You mean that poor schmuck, Bill Sorenson?" said Wilkinson.

"Why do you say that?" said Adams.

"Sorenson was found shot to death in his bicycle repair shop Wednesday evening by two customers.  It may have been a robbery attempt that went sour, we don't know.  Large caliber wounds, however.  Whatever we could find was sent to forensics."

"Do you believe his story?" said Adams, as he kept his emotions in close rein.

Wilkinson shrugged.  "Just too screwy.  When we couldn't find any mention of a guy named Winslow losing it in Mankato -- well, you know, you get them all the time, mostly when the moon is full."

"Yeah, me too," said Adams.  "Just to be on the safe side, can I read Sorenson's file?"

"You bet.  I've got her right here.  Copy whatever you want.  Like some java?"

"Sure, black."

Adams picked up the Sorenson file, found an empty desk, and sat down with the rather thin manila folder.  Inside the folder were the usual police workup sheets, a fresh Polaroid snapshot of the crime scene showing the grotesquely contorted body of a youngish, white male lying amid a jumble of bicycle parts and wheels.  The body was soaked in blood.  Whoever committed the crime had used ammunition large enough to have blown Bill Sorenson apart.

To Adams, who had seen many crime scenes, this did not look like a bungled robbery attempt.  Robbers will kill and run.  Whoever did this stayed to finish the job.  In addition, none of Sorenson's fellow shopkeepers reported hearing gunfire.  Bullets big enough to cause this much carnage had to make a lot of noise.  Unless, of course, the killer had a professionally manufactured silencer.

Whoever killed Sorenson wanted him dead.  Adams saw that Sorenson had been married and made a note to visit his widow.

Wilkinson returned with the coffee in two Styrofoam cups.  He sat down across the desk from Adams.  The coffee was a little bitter, like it was the dregs of the pot, but the warm fluid felt good to the parched FBI agent.

"Any chance I can see the crime scene?" said Adams.

"No problem, we can go in my car if you want."

"Thanks, but I have to go on from there.  Why don't you lead the way?"

"Okay, let me get my coat."

Adams followed Wilkinson up Hennepin Avenue to Franklin Street to the Lake of the Isle Bicycle Repair Shop.  The shop had been cordoned off with yellow crime scene plastic tape.  The forensic people had already come and gone and a lone police officer leaned against the door to the shop.

As Wilkinson came to a stop in front of the store, the police guard stood upright and straightened his uniform.  Adams brought his car to a stop immediately behind the detective's unmarked Chevrolet Caprice.  Wilkinson walked up to the police officer, with Adams right behind him.

"Hi.  This is Special Agent Herb Adams of the FBI.  He'd like to take a look in Mr. Sorenson's shop," said Wilkinson to the officer standing at the door.

"Hello, Officer," said Adams as he shook the policeman's hand.

Inside the shop, Adams found pretty much what he expected to see, a typical homicide scene.  He wondered why he thought he would have found anything different.  In real life, however, the extent of the carnage was far more extensive than the small Polaroid could ever hope to depict.  The heavy, distinct smell of blood permeated throughout the small shop, along with the smell of metal and oil.  The hot humid Minnesota summer afternoon did little to stave off the smell of death in this store.

After walking through the shop and noting the position of the chalked outline of a body on the floor, a grim faced Adams walked out into the sunlight.

"Did Sorenson indicate that he had any enemies?" said Adams.

"No one except maybe that Tim fellow that I mentioned in my InfoNet report," said Pete.

"Do you have anything more on this Tim?"

"Nope."

"Thanks a lot.  I'd consider this matter closed."

1130 Hours: Friday, June 18, 1993: James Arms Apartments, Minneapolis, Minnesota

"Can I help you?"

"I'm Special Agent Herbert Adams of the Federal Bureau of Investigation," said Adams, as he displayed his identification and gold badge through the narrow opening in the door.  "I'd like to ask Mrs. Sorenson some questions."

"Look, my sister has answered all the questions the Minneapolis police have asked her, can't you leave her alone at a time like this?"

"Believe me; I would not intrude unless I had to.  I really need to talk to Mrs. Sorenson."

"What the hell do you feds want anyway?"

From the other room, a woman said, "Let him in."

With that, the young man unlatched the safety chain and opened the door for Adams.  A young, pretty, but hard-looking woman with bleached blond hair, probably no older than twenty-one, came into the living room of the one-bedroom apartment.  She wore a sweatshirt much too large for her small frame and stone washed-dungarees.  Her blue eyes were rimmed with red and her mascara had run from crying.  She held a tissue in one hand.

"I'm LuEllen Sorenson," said the woman between sniffles.  "This is my older brother, Jon, please excuse him.  He was just trying to help."

"No problem, Mrs. Sorenson.  I'm really sorry to intrude at a time like this.  But we have to follow up on a report that your husband made yesterday to the Minneapolis police."

"That detective, Mr. Wilkinson, asked me about the report yesterday," said LuEllen.  "I just don't know anything about that.  It isn't like Bill at all."

"Was he upset about anything recently?"

"Yes, something he wouldn't talk about.  But he seemed to have snapped out of it in the afternoon."

"Do you know a Tim?"

"Detective Wilkinson asked me that too.  I don't know any Tim.  Do you know if he had any friends named Tim, Jon?" LuEllen asked her brother.

"No."

"How long were you married to Bill Sorenson?" Adams said.

"We were married two years last June."

"Forgive me if I ask too many personal questions, Mrs. Sorenson.  How long did you know your husband before you were married?"

"I met him about a year before we were married, during the picnic that me and a bunch of my girlfriends had near the volleyball field on Lake of the Isle to celebrate graduating from Southwest High School.  While we were having our lunch, one of the girls, you know how they get, saw Bill sitting by himself just looking at the lake.  She went right up to him and asked if he wouldn't join us.  Real shy, kind of nice looking, you know.  Later on, when we went to Valley Fair, Bill went with."

"When did you start to date him seriously?"

"That fall Bill just sort of fell in with our crowd and we got kind of real close.  Bill proposed on New Year's eve, real romantic like."

"How well do you know his family?"

"Bill was born in Illinois, his daddy died in Vietnam and his momma sort of lost touch after she left Bill with his grandparents."

"Are his grandparents still alive?"

"No, they both passed on about a year before we met."

"Have you ever met his mother?"

"No, Bill lost touch with her after his daddy's death.  Why is this important?"

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Sorenson.  We just have to ask all sorts of questions to try to find out what happened to your husband.  One final question.  Do you have a copy of his birth certificate?"

"Sure do," said LuEllen as she went to a small end table next to the couch and started looking through it.  "Here it is."

"Thank you," responded Adams.

The birth certificate was issued for William Edward Sorenson, born January 12, 1967, in Rosston, Illinois.

"Mrs. Sorenson, do you mind if I borrowed this for a while?" Adams said calmly, hiding his obvious surprise to see Rosston appearing once again.

"If it will help.  Can you make sure I get it back?"

"Absolutely, I'll make sure of that myself."

"Okay."

"Thank you very much, Mrs. Sorenson.  I'm sorry about your husband."

"Do you think you'll get the guy who killed my Bill?"

"We'll do our best."

With that LuEllen sat down on the couch clutching a photograph of Bill Sorenson and started sobbing quietly.  Her brother sat down next to her and held his sister close.  He looked up hostilely at Adams.

"Are you through now?"

"Yes, I'll let myself out the front door."

0900 Hours: Saturday, June 19, 1993: CSAC Offices, Washington, D.C.

Adams ran his fingers through his hair.  "Boy, this case is getting crazier and crazier.  The body count is piling up."

Adams was in the antiseptic conference room of the CSAC in Washington along with Mike, Mildred, Martha, and Smith.

"What happened in Minneapolis, Herb?" asked Mike.

"You know that crazy report from Minneapolis?  The one in which a bicycle shop owner confessed to killing Winslow?  Well, he's dead, blown to pieces just like Winslow and that Clark fellow in Des Moines."

"I'll bet it was Tim Walsh," said Mildred.

"Well, he did say to some detective that he knew a Tim," said Adams.

"Sorenson was another false ID," Martha said.

Adams sighed.  "Thought he might be."

"Have you gotten any more on the communications angle, Martha?" said Mike.

"Yes, it seems that all DOD telelink communications and computer operations get screened on a random basis by a telecommunications group at the Pentagon.  This group is responsible for maintaining high quality communications, so it has the ability to randomly scan messages for quality checks."

Mike looked up abruptly.

"That sounds scary.  Are these guys cleared for such work?"

Martha nodded.  "The group is cleared to top secret.  Each member of the group goes through a security check once a year.  Anyway, I've made an appointment to visit the office Monday to find out exactly how they perform their monitoring duties.  They're supposed to be my kind of people, all hackers, so it should be fun."

Changing the subject, Mike looked to Mildred.  "Shouldn't we plan a visit to Mr. Walsh?"

"Sounds good, but how do we pull it off?  He's already seen me."

"I don't think he's seen me yet," said Mike.

"Come on, Mike.  A Chinese in Minneapolis?  You'll stand out like a sore thumb," said Smith.  Minnesota, of course, was widely known for its fair skinned, blond Scandinavian population.

"Actually not," said Adams.  "The Asian population in the Twin Cities has dramatically risen in the past ten years what with the Hmong immigration and increased Asian graduate student population at the University."

"Let's get back to business," said Smith.  "When is your meeting with the communications group, Martha?"

"Tomorrow morning at 10 a.m.," said Martha.

"Mike, the old man doesn't want you or Mildred to go solo.  I'm teaming you with Adams.  Mildred, you're teamed with Martha," commanded Smith.

"Sexist!" spit out Mildred.

Smith shrugged.  "That's my call.  Besides, Mike and Adams have been working together already and I want Martha to have backup."

1993: Dimitri

0630 Hours: Sunday, June 20, 1993: Minneapolis, Minnesota

"Dimitri."  The softly spoken words were chilling and mysterious.  Even the cold, calculating mind of Tim Walsh, conditioned to remain calm no matter what, was moved by that voice.

"Yes, Leader."

"The events of the last few days have changed our mission.  You must prepare to leave for Amsterdam, where you will receive your next assignment.  Your skills are needed elsewhere.  Go with dispatch, my son."

1000 Hours: Sunday, June 20, 1993: Minneapolis, Minnesota

Mike and Adams stopped the Avis rental car in front of Walsh Auto Repair on Lake Street.  Both Adams and Mike had carefully rehearsed the scene earlier that morning.  They would speak to Tim Walsh and when he was off guard, Adams would pounce on him and take him prisoner.  Mike was to stand watch to assure against Walsh having assistants.

The small garage appeared open for business despite it being Sunday and they could see a sole mechanic working on a Ford Granada in one of the repair bays.  The blue-coveralled mechanic was completely immersed in solving some problem with the automobile.  The lighting in the garage was dim and the mechanic had a lamp hanging on the hood of the Granada.  He did not hear Mike and Adams enter.

The smell of gasoline, used rubber tires, and dirty crankcase oil in the typically humid, hot June Minnesota day was oppressive.  Mike could just feel the airborne oil seeping into his freshly dry-cleaned summer suit.

Mike quietly reached for his Walther and took the weapon out of its holster.  Adams had already done so.  His Glock 22 pistol which he held behind his back was drawn and cocked.  Slowly, the two agents slipped silently up to the man in the blue coveralls.