Almost Home
Chapter 4
Until she saw the building, Amanda had been carried along by a tolerable combination of adrenaline and shock. From the moment Billy had disclosed the crisis, to his inquiry of her role in resolving it, to procuring a firearm she never hoped to use, to enduring the near silent ride in Francine's car to the Rosslyn district of Arlington, she had stonewalled her feelings in a feat worthy of Scarecrow himself. But the sight of the building nearly crumbled her resolve. The entire street-side face of it was a crumpled mass of shattered brick and stone, with remnants lying in the street and atop the cars parked there. Black smoke still wafted from within the mess, leaving the air tinged with the sickly sweet odor of charred wood and melted plastic. Emergency workers were delving through the remains of the front offices, but they weren't going to clear out the mess and anyone who might have been caught in it for many hours.
"Oh, my…gosh…" she whispered, fighting an accompanying wave of nausea. Such an inopportune time for that. She swallowed hard.
"Amanda," Francine hissed from next to her in the car. "Stay here. I'm going to—"
"No," Amanda retorted. Her eyes locked on Francine's and she dropped a restraining hand on her arm. "This is one time I am definitely not staying in the car."
An impending argument was cut short by the approach of a man, stocky in build, wearing a well-cut blue suit. He was weaving his way through building debris and people, directly toward Francine's open window.
"Who is it?" Amanda asked, watching him.
Francine pursed her lips and turned to reach into her handbag lying next to her. "Get out your badge, Amanda. It's another fed."
"Sheehan," Amanda murmured, quickly complying with Francine's direction.
The State Department agent reached the car with his badge already fixed in his palm, held aloft for the women to see. "Hold it," he growled, bending down to eye level. "You're not the press, are you?"
With a quirk of the lip, Francine snapped, "Do you see a camera crew anywhere? We're Agency. What do you have?"
The man afforded a passing glance at their I.D.s and raked a hand through his wiry, grizzled hair. "I should have known. Well, you're here just in time. The medics just found a body. Don't know whose yet. Could be ours, could be yours. Come on." And he turned on his heel and began trekking back the way he had come.
Francine blanched and turned to Amanda, only to find her partner had already darted out the passenger door and was trotting up the street after Sheehan. The State agent led them around the building to the rear entrance, which opened to an alley. From behind, the building appeared strangely intact. It was eerie. It reminded Amanda of news reports she had read of tornados that peeled the roof and walls away from a home but left the interior furniture virtually untouched.
A uniformed police officer stood sentry at the door. Sheehan flashed his badge again. "More feds," he muttered, and the officer replied with a grunt of his own and let the three of them pass.
Immediately inside was a maintenance closet to the left with the door propped open, allowing additional light into the building from its window. Partway down the dim corridor lay a mass of rubble extending to the ceiling where the upper floor had collapsed to the office space below. Just in front of the blockage lay a gurney low to the ground, with two paramedics standing in the shadows nearby, waiting on the coroner. A thin blue blanket shrouded the still form on the bed.
Sheehan lifted his chin to the first paramedic to make eye contact. "We're all here. Let's see what you've got."
The paramedics waited until the two women had reached the gurney, and then the man Sheehan had addressed folded the blanket over to reveal a face. Amanda stared blankly. She had never seen the man before in her life. He was older than Lee, with a distinctively chiseled jaw speckled heavily with stubble. He appeared unscathed, at least from the neck up.
"What killed him?" Amanda asked quietly, unable to look away from the lifeless body.
"That's the peculiar thing," the paramedic replied. "It wasn't the bomb. This guy's been shot." Three heads turned abruptly to look at the medic with surprise. "Yeah," he confirmed, "right through the chest. Must have happened just before the bombing. That puts an interesting twist on it."
Francine cleared her throat and looked at Sheehan. "He's not anyone we know. How about you?"
Amanda knew the answer before he spoke. She saw it in the troubled look on his face that had been so casual just moments ago. "Yes," he said slowly. He stood erect and walked away a few paces. "I'll have to call this in to my superior."
"Who is he?" Francine pressed.
"It's Jim," Sheehan said with a grimace. He glanced at Francine and Amanda and remembered to elaborate. "James Albertson. I know him from cryptology. He was a helluva guy, a good agent. One of the best." He finished his epithet and pushed open the door, shaking his head regretfully as he stepped back outside into the morning sun.
Claiming the role of lead agent, Francine placed the status call to Billy that afternoon. They were at the State Department building not far from the explosion for the second time that day, after a chase for information that had yielded nothing but dead ends.
Francine's feet hurt. She would sooner jaywalk naked down Pennsylvania Avenue than admit it, but her stunning designer heels were killing her. This pavement pounding brand of fieldwork was not compatible with Prada, and Amanda's arch-supported department store flats that Francine so liked to ridicule in her mind's eye were now serving as nothing but added insult. She alternated standing on one foot and then the other as she relayed to Billy the scant information she had to give.
"We talked to the liaison officer at the INR and all he would say is the same thing Culpepper told us," she complained.
"Virtually nothing," Billy confirmed.
"He said James Albertson is part of an internal investigation and they do not want our assistance." She wrinkled her nose with disgust at the thought of the condescending manner the words had been spoken to her and added in mimicry, "They sympathize with our predicament, but they cannot provide at this time any information we would find helpful."
On his end, Billy sighed before he made reply. "How's Amanda holding up?"
Francine glanced out the office window in front of her to where the other woman stood some distance away, deep in conversation with a State Department employee from the adjacent cryptology department. Then she looked around and reached for a nearby office chair, pulled it closer, and plopped down on it. "I'm afraid for her, Billy. She assumes she's still going to find Lee alive. She's in denial."
With an edge, Billy retorted, "It's called hope, Francine, and it's not a bad thing to have."
"But if you had seen—"
"Don't be too quick to pronounce him, Francine. He's come through tighter scrapes than this. Maybe Amanda's on to something. Anyway, by tomorrow I'm sure we'll all know one way or the other."
A heavy silence hung in the air while Francine propped her forehead on her hand, biting hard on her lip and blinking away a rare display of tears. Nothing gave her real pain in her work like keeping friends. Though she generally avoided such bother, at least on any deep level, Lee was different. He was such a part of her personal and professional history, she could almost consider him family. Well, maybe family in a rather dysfunctional sort of way.
Billy waited a while before conceding to a point. "You can let Amanda explore all the avenues out there. It's only been a matter of hours so far. Just don't let her get too involved in the Albertson deal. I have received advice from more than one quarter today to leave that to the INR, so I don't want you two stepping on any State Department toes. What about the police report? Witnesses?"
Francine drew a deep breath and refocused on the job at hand. "Other than James Albertson and the gunshot, everything is looking like you'd expect. We noticed just one irregularity in the witness accounts."
"Which is?"
"Two people from an upstairs apartment next door were transported to an area hospital after being evacuated by the fire department. Witness reports agree as far as seeing the paramedics and the two victims. One witness initially said she thought there were paramedics assisting someone before the fire department arrived at the scene, but on further questioning, she retracted and admitted she could have been mistaken. We've checked all the area hospitals, and no one has passed through the emergency rooms matching Lee's description."
There was momentary silence on the line before Billy responded. "For the record, I never asked you this, and you never answered. What have you found out about Albertson? Maybe there's some idea of who might have shot him. Maybe Albertson was the mole and Lee was the shooter."
"No," Francine said. "Lee wasn't even armed."
"What? Why not?"
Francine shot another glance toward Amanda, who had moved with her companion toward a distant wall of the room. He was pointing out something among a series of framed photographs and commendations hung there. "Amanda said he left his gun at the Agency. He was prepared for an interview. He didn't think he needed a gun."
Another sigh. "I see. What's your next move?"
Francine rose to stand and ignored the screams from her blistered feet. "I'm coming in. I think we've done all we can until that building gets cleared out."
When Francine left the auxiliary office, she found Amanda more animated than she had seen her all morning.
"I may have something to go on, Francine," she practically chortled. "See, Don Golding—that cryptology specialist over there-and I were talking about Lee and the bombing, and he agrees with me that the witness who saw paramedics taking someone before the fire department came might be a break in this."
"The witness couldn't even swear to that," Francine began, but found herself cut off by the momentum of Amanda's excitement.
"And then there's Galen Pratt," she continued. "You see, he called in sick today, which is the only unusual movement in the cryptology unit in the last twenty-four hours, other than Mr. Albertson getting assigned the drop last night." She grimaced. "And getting shot today."
Mystified, Francine echoed, "Galen Pratt?"
"He and Mr. Albertson were very close. Galen is a really bright young man who got his job as a cryptology clerk earlier this year because Mr. Albertson vouched for him. There's a picture on the wall right over there of Galen. He's one of the 1986 rookies. Apparently, Mr. Albertson gave him rides to work almost every day."
Francine looked briefly in the indicated direction, but quickly turned back to Amanda. "Why do we care about Pratt?"
Amanda shook her head sadly. "Galen doesn't even know about Mr. Albertson yet, since he was off sick today." She looked at Francine with a glint in her brown eyes. "He should be informed, since they were such good friends. And Don Golding gave me this address…" She held up a scrap of paper.
"Amanda, you want to see a guy just because he called in sick today? Why? Just because he knew Albertson?"
"They worked together, they were friends, they carpooled. Maybe he knows something that could tell us what happened with the drop with Lee." Her face was bright with hope and there was a determined set to her jaw.
Francine lowered her eyes. "We can't do this, Amanda."
"But this might be the—"
"Amanda!" Francine said sharply, stopping her mid-thought. She looked up again, grim. "We can't investigate Albertson. We have no authority."
Amanda looked at her and said nothing.
"The witness report was shaky at best. We're not allowed to get involved in anything having to do with Albertson. I'm ready to get back to the Agency and wait to hear from Sheehan. He's still at the Farland Building and he's going to call as soon as anything turns up. Let's just get back and you can run it by Billy and—"
"You've already decided Lee is dead, haven't you?" There was a dangerous edge to Amanda's voice now. This time, Francine fell silent. Amanda pinned her with a glare before she turned away and crossed the floor to the elevator. She pressed the down button and waited, lips tight and face sullen.
Slowly, Francine trailed after her, stopping a short distance behind her. Quietly, she said, "I'm sorry, Amanda. Maybe I wish I could share your optimism, but I don't. I can't hope for things against logic. I can't will the things I want into being true. I've been doing this work for too long."
Amanda's shoulders slumped. But when she turned around, her expression was softened, not with defeat, but with compassion. "I'm not willing anything, Francine. I'm just not giving Lee up for dead until I see it with my own eyes." She paused as the elevator doors opened and she stepped aside to let the occupants out. The two women entered the compartment together, and Amanda pressed the ground floor button and continued. "I know Lee has been your friend for a long time, and I know you've worked in this business a lot longer than I have. But I am married to a field agent, Francine. That's where I have experience and you don't. I didn't marry Lee thinking it was ever going to be easy. But you can't make a marriage in this business work if you jump to the worst conclusion every time something goes wrong. I don't think any marriage would survive that way."
They both drifted into silence for a while. Then, as the elevator doors opened, Francine said with a self-deprecating laugh, "I used to wonder what in the world a man like Lee Stetson ever saw in an ordinary suburban homemaker." She met Amanda's questioning stare and shrugged ironically, her smile fading. "That was just your cover all along, wasn't it?"
The sun was still shining brightly when they left the building and joined the sidewalk traffic. Not far in the distance, the blown out Farland Building had stopped emitting smoke, but emergency workers and their trucks were still present, clearing out the debris. Amanda stopped and watched their progress attentively, her face inscrutable.
"Hey, I'm parked over here," Francine called, preparing to cross the street.
Amanda shook her head. "Go on back without me," she said. She smiled at Francine's expression of concern. "I have Lee's spare key. I think I'll go ahead and bring his car back home. I still have to speak with Mother about…well, I have to talk to my mother," she said, wilting.
"You'll be okay?" Francine asked, her blue eyes earnest.
Amanda nodded. "I'll check in later. Right now, I probably should spend some time with my family."
The silver Corvette was not difficult to find, parked close to the street in the public lot next to the State Department building. Amanda got in, belted up, and turned the key in the ignition. For one moment, her eyes fell on the empty coffee mug in the drink holder, still smelling faintly of Brazilian roast, and a surge of emotion overtook her before she could stop it. She unclicked the seat belt and threw open the door, hanging her head out to throw up on the pavement while a stream of tears ran down her face.
It took twenty minutes and some conveniently handy saltine crackers to recover her emotional and physical equilibrium and start up the car again. She pulled onto the highway and headed across the bridge, away from Arlington. She was going home, but she was making just one little stop first.
On a street lined with rows of nondescript apartment buildings on the northeast end of the city, she parked the Corvette on the street and checked the scrap of paper on the seat beside her. Then she slung her purse over her shoulder and slid out of the car. She entered the foyer of one particular building and stood beside a wall of mailbox doors. One of them was labeled 'G. Pratt.' She noted the number and ascended the stairs. She found the second floor apartment and stood at the door, collecting her thoughts before landing three solid raps on it. At first, there was no answer. She looked up at the partially burnt-out light fixture dangling from the ceiling. Feeling her courage swell, she stood more upright and rapped again. "Is anyone here?" she called.
She heard movement on the other side of the door. After a moment, it opened just a crack. "Who is it?" asked a soft, female voice.
"I'm an agent with the federal government," she said, pulling her badge from her purse. "I need to speak with Galen Pratt."
The door closed, and then opened again, wide, revealing a small-framed young girl with curly blond hair twisted in a loose knot atop her head. She frowned. "Is this about Galen calling in sick?"
"No," Amanda replied, allowing the girl to study her badge. "Actually, I'm not with the State Department. Is Galen here?"
The girl nodded. "But he's indisposed right now. What agency are you from? Does this have to do with Galen's work?" Her brow was knitted with worry.
Amanda offered a smile she hoped was reassuring. "No, no. Actually, there's been…well…" She hesitated. "Have you heard on the news about the bombing in the Rosslyn district this morning? I'm here about that."
"I heard about it."
"A man from Galen's department has lost his life, and an agent from my organization is missing. I really do need to speak with Galen."
"Oh." The girl looked at the ground for a while, her face grim but otherwise unreadable. She looked up again, her expression and posture stiff. "He's not…I mean, Galen isn't actually here right now." She bit her lip. "I can have him call you when he gets back."
"You'll be here? Do you live here too?"
The girl gave a shake of her head. "No, I just come over a lot. Galen is my brother. I'm Carolyn Pratt." She dipped her head uncomfortably and mumbled, "I think he might have gone to the pharmacy or something. I know he's been sick today. He's never sick, so he must really feel rotten. I just got here, and he's not home right now. I don't know when he'll be back." She looked over her shoulder into the apartment and turned back to Amanda. "I'd ask you to come in and wait, but I have to leave. I have a class."
Amanda sighed and nodded. She replaced her badge in her purse and drew out a simple business card printed with her name and IFF phone number. "I really would like to talk to him in person. Would you leave a message to have him call me when he gets in?" She held out the card to Carolyn, who hesitated before she took it and examined it.
"Stetson," she read, staring at the card.
"Yep, that's me."
An awkward silence stretched between them before Carolyn looked up again, her deep blue eyes wide and serious. "I'll get the message to him," she said quietly. "I'll tell him to call you." She smiled weakly and nodded her goodbye.
Amanda returned the smile with no greater enthusiasm. Whether Galen would ever receive the message was a matter of lousy odds. As she turned to leave, Amanda heard the door close and the deadbolt lock into place. It had the sound of finality, like the lead she was following. Just one more dead end.