Reflex (19 page)

She raised her eyebrows. "Has something happened?"

Anders wasn't happy with her.

He didn't believe her story about running a bath, then deciding the little plastic bottle of hotel room shampoo was woefully inadequate and that she'd gone out with the cash only, forgetting her phone, the bug, and even the hotel room key. She accounted for the time by saying she'd decided to walk a bit, once out, to clear her head, before buying the shampoo.

She, in turn, wasn't very happy with Anders.

"Who leaked? How did they know where I was?"

They'd apparently left as soon as they'd come, once she turned out to be absent. They'd looked at the bug, apparently, and her phone, for both were suspiciously free of fingerprints, even Millie's.

Anders said, "They probably thought it was a trap when they saw the bug, if they understood what it did."

On the bright side, she had her wallet back, and her phone. She refused the bug. "They looked at it. It may be encrypted, but they still might be able to track it." She looked around the room. "In fact, who says that's not how they found me?"

They were talking down the hall in the hotel's tiny Laundromat. Anders had put quarters in the washer, and turned it on, empty, for the noise. Now that the FBI had finished their forensic search, one of Anders's men was sweeping the room for bugs.

"Not that you'll stay here, of course."

Millie, still angry, still defiant, snapped, "You've got that right."

Anders frowned. "The question is, what to do with you now?"

"You guys aren't doing anything with me. You're leaking like a faucet and I can't trust you."

Anders winced and she added, "That's a second person plural. I don't doubt
you,
Mr. Anders. But something is not right with your organization."

"You still need protection," he said.

He didn't deny it.
She narrowed her eyes. "Indeed I do, but who from?" She licked her lips. "I'm going to ground."

He looked at her, frowning. "Go into hiding? Alone? No support?"

"Isn't that what 'going to ground' means?"

"Well, that's what it means in intelligence circles. Among dog fanciers it can refer to dachshunds or terriers going into a burrow, after a badger or rat—in the dark, teeth against teeth."

"Are you crazy? Going after them? That's your job. I just want to find Davy. Are there any results, yet, about the ambulance with the angel on the door?"

He blinked. "Yes, actually. There's a medical transport firm outside Baltimore that uses ambulances of that description. The FBI is knocking on doors tonight to account for each unit's location and use on the relevant day." He tugged on his chin. "Would you keep the phone—I mean if you go to ground? It's a national account. That way I'd be able to reach you."

"How did you know it's a national account? Never mind—I don't think I want to know. I'll set up an anonymous e-mail account at Yahoo. You do the same. Don't let anybody else know about it."

He frowned. "What names? Anything you can think of has almost certainly been used."

"As I'm going to ground, I'll be rat8765. You can be terrier8765. That should be safe enough. Don't expect quick replies."

"I wouldn't send sensitive material across the nets."

"Just general progress, then, phrased generically. Some things are meaningless without context. If you've really got to talk to me, send a time and a clean telephone number—something totally unconnected to you. My phone will be off. I've heard about those cell tower simulators that can page and locate a phone without ringing it."

He frowned at her. "How would you go to ground?"

She looked at him and didn't say anything.

He laughed grimly. "Okay—when would you?"

She began to get angry. "You talk as if it's still undecided. The last time I was actually kidnapped it was the NSA that did it! Do I have to go to a federal judge again?" She exhaled a deep breath.
This time he's not the enemy.

She didn't want him to suspect that she could jump. He might already, but she didn't want to add any more evidence. "Give me a ride to Dulles and drop me. Just you. Don't tell anybody else. Don't wait after you've dropped me."

He frowned, opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. For a moment he stared at the ratty suspended ceiling before saying, "Okay. Your way."

She blinked, surprised. He'd given in more easily than she'd thought, and that scared her.
He thinks their security is compromised, too.
Grudgingly, she considered the possibility that he hadn't been that proud of his involvement, ten years before.

She jumped to the Aerie from a woman's toilet stall outside security near the A and C shuttle gates. With security being what it was in the nation's airports after 911, she couldn't swear there wasn't a hidden video camera in the toilet, but she risked it anyway.

The fire had burned down but the embers still glowed in the stove. She added another log and some pine needles for encouragement, closed the tempered glass door, and went to bed.

The sheets were cold at first, and faintly musty. She slept well for the first time since Davy had been taken.

She breakfasted in New York. The same shadowy basement stairs she'd used the night before put her on Sullivan Street and she had a huge pear-ginger muffin and coffee at Once Upon a Tart. She'd been in D.C. long enough to shift her circadian rhythms to the east coast, but had slept late enough that the restaurant was less than busy.

After eating, she took a long walk up to Twentieth on Sixth Avenue and ducked into Kinko's where she paid cash for enough internet time to set up the e-mail account rat8765. While she was logged in, she sent a test message to terrier8765 letting Anders know the account was active.

Dog-breath,

Account active. Will check daily, when possible.

Yours truly,

Ratty

After sending it she browsed the news at CNN and ABC, waiting fifteen minutes before going back to Yahoo to see if her message had bounced. It hadn't.

The talks were off again in Palestine. More fighting in India. In the midst of a terrible drought, Afghanistan was now flooding. Successful expansion of International Space Station. Rioting in Zimbabwe, Argentina, and Islamabad. Five more car bombs in Baghdad and two in Falluja.

When she went back, not only had her message not bounced, there was a reply from terrier8765.

Dear Ratty,

News of medical transport and bad boys. And other.

Sincerely,

Dog-breath.

ps. 703-345-2818 after seven eastern.

Millie jumped to D.C. before making the call, managing, after some thought and imagination, Sojee's alleyway off of H Street, where Sojee had fainted in the rain. She huddled there, hidden behind a garbage can, and hit the send button on her cell phone.

The alleyway had a streetlight opposite its mouth, but slightly down the street. A great swath of the other side of the alley was awash with light, but Millie's side was deep in shadow. While the phone connected, she pulled a bundle of recycled cardboard over and sat on it, leaning back against the brick building. The was a ring on the line and Anders answered.

"I'm impressed."

A small rat, or a large mouse—Millie wasn't sure—ran along the far side of the alley. Millie pulled her feet in closer and watched it distrustfully. "What has impressed you?"

"A team of our guys went into Dulles after you but you lost them. They were watching all the ground transport within minutes of you being dropped but you slipped past them."

She stiffened. "We had a deal!" The rat looked toward her, balanced on its hind feet and sniffing the air.

"I didn't send them! Apparently I'm not completely 'in the loop' on this thing. They LoJacked my vehicle." He paused. "They nearly fired me off the case because I let you go to ground."

"Now that's the NSA I know and love. Why didn't they fire you?"
If that rat comes one foot closer, I swear I'll throw the phone at it.

"Because I stood my ground, I suspect. I pointed out that we were clearly still compromised and that I wouldn't give you up to anybody until we'd cleaned house—so, if they wanted to lose contact with you, they could go right ahead and fire me."

The rat turned back to the far wall and continued to an open trash can. "Good for you. What makes them think I didn't fly out?"

"You aren't on any of the passenger manifests and you aren't on any of the security cameras. How
did
you get out of there?"

The rat poised itself and then jumped vertically, all the way up to the top of the can. The sudden movement made her jerk.
I jumped, just like the rat.
She had no idea rats could jump so high.

She had prepared an answer for Anders's question. "Parking garage. I paid a woman three hundred dollars to drive me out. I said my abusive alcoholic boyfriend was after me and he was watching the taxi and bus stands. I hid on the floor in the back seat." She bit her lip. She hated lying.

The rat was out of sight but she could hear it rustling through the trash.

He laughed. "Very nice. Not the sort of thing one would report. You have someplace safe to stay? You're not using your plastic, I hope?"

"Give me some credit—I mean credit for sense. What was the other news?"

"At bed check, Ms. Johnson was unconscious, blood pressure very low and heartbeat very fast. They transferred her to D.C. General but she never turned up. Shortly after the ambulance left, another city ambulance showed up, responding to the call."

She forgot about the rat. "The first ambulance was a fake and somebody drugged her!"

"Looks that way. We'll know soon enough. Before they transferred her, St. Elizabeth's drew blood."

"What on earth could they want Sojee for?"

Anders was slow in answering.

"Tell me!" Millie said.

"They could want intelligence on how much we know. Considering how effective Ms. Johnson was in defeating their attempted kidnapping, they may think she's an operative, someone in the know. Or, if they assume she's your friend, they may want her as a lever, to influence you."

Poor Sojee.
"I don't suppose the first ambulance had an angel on the door?"

"Not that anyone saw. You call for a D.C. ambulance and an ambulance with the right colors shows up—people see what they expect to see."

Millie thought about the drugstore clerk the night before. "Yes, don't they just."

"However, Angel of Mercy Medical Transport in Ellicot City, Maryland, is missing another ambulance. They're the company I mentioned last night, with the angel on the door."

"Another? Did they lose one last month?"

"As a matter of fact, they did. Last month's vehicle turned up in a parking garage at Logan airport. Four days after
that
night."

"Boston? They took Davy to Boston?"

"I seriously doubt it. These people aren't stupid. We're checking on it, though, and cross-checking the movements of Mr. Padgett and friends at Bochstettler and Associates."

"You said you had news of them. Padgett?"

"Not Padgett. The FBI agent he shot is stable and expected to recover. The Bureau is not happy.

"It turns out your friend from the National Gallery, the woman that Agent Martingale recognized, has been associated with BA in the past. Miss Hyacinth Pope flew from Logan to BWI two days after the snatch."

"Where is she now?"

"We don't know."

"You guys didn't follow her from the Museum?"

"Yes, but we only had one vehicle tailing Padgett's van and he dropped Ms. Pope before moving in on you and Ms. Johnson. The tail followed orders and stuck with Padgett. That's
how
we discovered they were up to something more active than surveillance."

"Do you think she was the one who left the ambulance at Logan?"

"It's possible. Or it could've been the last leg of a longer trip—we haven't finished tracing possible flight connections. Her originating city might be where they really took Davy."

"What are you and the FBI doing about Sojee?"

"Everything in our power."

Millie touched her tongue to her upper lip, then said impulsively, "It's just that I have my doubts that a homeless mental patient would command their full attention."

The rat appeared again, at the rim of the garbage can, and hopped a foot horizontally to the next can.

Anders cleared his throat before saying, "Perhaps not usually, but remember our interest in this. Whoever took Ms. Johnson also took, as you so cogently put it, a national intelligence asset. In addition, the Bureau takes a
very
dim view of their agents being shot. Mr. Padgett definitely
got
the FBI's attention."

Millie shuddered. She was struggling with the unpleasant sensation of being
grateful
that an FBI agent had been shot. Three more rats were moving along the base of the far wall.
Ugh. Time to go.

"Any other news?"

Anders said, "No."

"Find them! Both of them."

"We're working on it."

The rats swiveled around, looking at her. One crept out into the middle of the alley.

"Gotta go."

She jumped, not bothering to disconnect the call. "Rats! Yuck!" Her voice echoed off the Aerie's rock walls and she shuddered again. The phone beeped and displayed "Signal Lost" and then the "Searching for Service" message. She powered it down.

Rats.

Going to ground would
never
have that meaning to her.

Davy's head felt several times too big. It throbbed. He took a deep breath of air and his stomach heaved. He stank—all the old familiar odors—and he was in danger of vomiting in reaction.

He tried to push himself into a sitting position but something was awkward—wasn't working right. His right eye did not want to open, but his left eye showed him that he was in the box and that his wrists were now joined by handcuffs. One of his old chains was padlocked to the links between the wrist cuffs. The other ran to the ankle restraint now back on his left leg.