A/N: Some more story. Just passing the halfway mark of the story.


(She Was A) Hotel Detective

Chapter Eighteen: Nemur and Strauss


Sarah could see no way of escape; the gun in her back, the man at her side. The gun trained on her from inside the car. She tried to clear her mind — but, unlike dangerous moments in her days as an agent, her heart also needed clearing. Even as the gun jabbed her ribs, her heart was with Chuck; she was more afraid for him than for herself.

It was a wholly new sensation: she had, of course, worried about other agents involved in her missions, worked to keep them safe, but that had been work, duty, mission-dictated, everything a means to the mission end. But this, her fear for Chuck, had nothing to do with a mission and everything to do with him. She had to find a way out of this predicament, a way back to the Palmer House.

She got into the car, sliding along the back seat toward the opposite door. There were two men in the front seat, neither of whom Sarah could recall having seen before. The one in the passenger seat kept his gun cooly and steadily on her. He had blonde hair, a buzz cut, and very light blue eyes. The other man, the driver, was balding. He wore glasses and he looked at her through their lenses and in the reflection of the rearview mirror. His eyes were dark brown, almost black.

The car was a Chrysler — a new Crown Imperial, Sarah thought — and the backseat was large. The man who had been beside her, his gun in her back, was still standing outside of the car, his head and shoulders obscured from Sarah's view. The man was evidently checking the street, checking to see if anyone had witnessed the scene. He finally bent down to get into the car and Sarah gasped.

The man with the gun was Jeff Barnes.

She had not recognized his voice; she barely recognized him now. His eyes, normally glassy and dull, were glinting and alive. His face seemed hard, etched, not doughy and blurry. The clumsy thief of the Palmer House had been transfigured into something — someone — else. Like a lump of clay that had been fired in a kiln.

He looked at her and smiled, a smile full of confidence and cunning. Sarah shook her head. The whole experience was dreamlike, gossamer but cold.

The car pulled away from the curb and Jeff spoke to the driver. "You know where we are going." The balding man nodded.

Jeff turned to Sarah, his smile still in place. "Miss Walker, once-Agent Walker, the fabled Ice Queen, let me introduce Mr. Nemur and Mr. Strauss." He nodded first at the balding man, then the blonde one.

Sarah finally made her mouth work. "Jeff? Jeff Barnes?"

He chuckled, leaning back in the seat but keeping the gun on her. "Yes, that is one of my names. But I think you know me as...Algernon."

Sarah sat stupefied, too shocked to speak. Algernon? Algernon was the code name of Russia's most gifted deep-cover spy, a man the CIA had tried to capture, even to identify, for years, without any success. She had never been sent on a mission that took her path across his but she knew of him by codename. All of Langley did, although some dismissed him as a myth.

Algernon. Sarah's CIA career had been shaped by the Cold War. She had spent years fighting Russian shadows, the KGB. Algernon's was the KGB's shadowiest shadow.

"You...You are…Algernon?"

He chuckled again. "Yes, yes, I am. I believe you now have some sense of my surprise when I realized the hotel detective who had chased me from the Palmer House had been the Ice Queen. I had seen a photograph of you, but it was from long ago when you first joined the Central Intelligence Agency, and you looked, let's say, quite different then."

"How do you know I used to be CIA?" Sarah asked the question, still stunned, not quite looking at Jeff, at Algernon.

Jeff took a moment but did not take his eyes off of her. "Well, I gather you haven't kept it that much of a secret, but it never occurred to me until I heard you tell it to your boyfriend."

"Heard me?" Sarah was lost. When did I...In the hotel room...in 2022? She swallowed, her heart rate sinking as she began to regain control of herself, her old mission habits coming to the fore. "You've bugged 2022?" The possibility had never even crossed Sarah's mind. But Jeff had come out of the room when Andy saw Jeff, when Jeff shot Andy with that tranq. Damn it! I was still just thinking of him as Jeff Barnes. It never occurred to me…Algernon.

Jeff laughed at her. "Yes, Agent Walker, or Detective Walker, yes. I was in that room for a reason, but it was not a burglar's reason. It was for another reason, not a Jeff Barnes reason, but an Algernon reason. I had a plan, a good plan, a plan that went sideways…"

Sarah made herself look at Algernon. It was Jeff. "You have 2022 bugged…But that means…" Despite herself, Sarah blushed hammer-and-sickle red.

Jeff smirked at her and Strauss turned to leer at her openly. Jeff spoke, his tone light. "Yes, yes, it does. Nemur and Strauss were...shall we say, disappointed...that you and Mr. Bartowski needed to remain so quiet. Strauss also lamented that we did not have any cameras in the room, since," Algernon glanced at Strauss, "how did you put it, 'it would have been most enjoyable to watch as well as hear the Ice Queen melt,' correct, Strauss?" Strauss nodded, his buzz cut shining in the lights of the car behind them.

"Strauss is something of a poet, Detective Walker."

The thought that someone had been listening to her and Chuck make love was awful, but Sarah had no time to dwell on it. "You mentioned a plan?"

"Yes, you see, I was supposed to meet someone at the Palmer House, in Room 2022. That person was supposed to bring me records, books, in which I have a special interest. We were going to meet in 2022, but she was...unavoidably detained…eternally detained."

"Maria Tomek."

"Yes, poor, dead, Maria Tomek. Kaput."

"So, you didn't kill her?"

"Detective Walker, please. I am a spy, but I am also a civilized man. I kill only when killing is unavoidable. No, Detective, I did not kill Maria Tomek, nor did any of my associates, or anyone on...my side. This was an American killing."

It was crazy, given the situation, but Sarah set up, her heart expanding. "Do you know who did?"

Algernon shrugged, shaking his head. "No, we had no bug in her room. None of us saw who did it. We assume it was a mob hit, but evidently, the FBI suspects Mr. Bartowski. We are, frankly, unsure — but like you, we do not believe it was Mr. Bartowski. "

A thought struck Sarah, a non-sequitur, but it was out before she could classify it as such. "But you...you are an...American."

Algernon grinned and answered in a showy southern drawl. "As American as apple pie, Darlin'."

Sarah recoiled from him.

A puzzled look passed over his face, then he nodded. "Ah, yes, Daddy. You see, we know quite a bit about your history, Detective Walker, including your days before the CIA. We don't know much — but we know enough to know that your childhood was not...idyllic. Not entirely sugar and spice and everything nice. You have been lying for your entire life, a liar before you came of age, Daddy's liar, your lies ultimately his. And then you became Joad's liar. But those lies, though directed by him, were your own."

Algernon said 'Joad' with noticeable venom.

"Not a big fan of the Director?" Sarah did not want to talk about her childhood with Algernon. With anyone, really. Chuck, maybe. Yes, Chuck.

"No, I am not a fan. I'd like to think of him as my nemesis, and of me as his, but I realize that is a bit too romantic a way of thinking. But he is the worst sort of man, not because of his political views but because he has none, although he pretends he does. I wish to fight an enemy who believes in something, Detective, something other than himself or herself. Honor among spies, you see. But there can be little honor when a hollow man presides over one side. His hollowness...spreads."

Sarah stared at Algernon. As he continued talking, he became increasingly intense, increasingly eloquent. She had almost lost Jeff Barnes in Algernon.

She shook her head, trying to bring back the bumbling thief, but he was gone. Perhaps that was partly because what Algernon said was true. Joad was hollow. Sarah had increasingly come to know it, and to feel him somehow hollowing her out too. The Interrogation Class had been a prime example. But so too had been Paris.

"I see, Detective, that you do not disagree with me. Perhaps that is why you found your way out of our little Cold War and became instead interested in...Hot-Pillow Houses?"

Sarah did not answer. "What is it, Jeff, Algernon, that you want with me, from me?"

"I have come to broker a deal. I want the records Maria Tomek had, the Manny Sklar records."

"Why? What does Moscow care about the Chicago Outfit?"

"That is not your concern, Detective. Your concern is finding those records. Searching for them, for me, would be much more difficult. My use of that tranq gun in your hotel, while unavoidable, was a mistake, one I do not normally make, and I cannot risk showing up inside the Palmer House again. So, you will be my legs, and my eyes, ears, and hands. You will find them for me."

"Maria Tomek was going to just...give them to you? To a Russian spy, to the KGB?"

"Not just give. We were going to pay her handsomely, and she was planning to defect."

"Wait," Sarah said, waving her hands until she saw Algernon's hand tighten on his gun, "you're telling me she was defecting...East...America to the Soviet Union?"

Algernon nodded, a large smile on his face. "With a hammer in one hand, a sickle in the other, and a worker's song in her heart."

"Shit."

"Indeed. Just my reaction when she was killed before we could meet with her, talk to her, arrange to get the records."

"But if you want them, they must have more in them than incriminating evidence against Tony Accardo."

Algernon did not nod or shake his head. "Not a matter for your speculation, Detective."

"But, why would you ever imagine I would...Oh, my God, Chuck. You have Chuck."

"No, Detective, although we did think about that and although it remains a measure we might take. But it is very risky; hard to get him out of the hotel. FBI, police, who knows? No, given the events in 2022, and given the lengths to which you seem willing to go to save Mr. Bartowski, we thought we might be able to enlist you another way, while leaving him where he is. You see, the KGB's scientists have been working on a slow-acting poison. It is quite miraculous. Once in the bloodstream, it is undetectable, except to a very precise testing mechanism made only in the Soviet Union. Your CIA, your government, knows nothing of the poison or the technology involved. Once introduced into the bloodstream, the toxin takes approximately 60 hours to produce death. The...victim...is not symptomatic before the final hours."

Sarah felt like she could not breathe, like a clamp was squeezing her heart.

"There is an antidote. As of," Algernon held up his wrist so that the light from the car behind them lit up his watch face, "an hour ago, another of my agents entered 2022 and tranqed your...boyfriend. He then dosed him with the toxin."

"I. Will. Kill. You. You. Bastard."

Algernon sat back, raising his gun higher. "Ah, there she is, the Ice Queen. Melted, perhaps, but now re-formed. And not always quiet." Strauss was watching Sarah closely now from the front seat.

"So, you have a little less than 60 hours in which to find Maria Tomek's records and give them to me.

"I will trade you the antidote for the records," he smiled, "even Steven, as we Americans say. If you let anyone in on what we have done to Mr. Bartowski, I will not give you the antidote, and Mr. Bartowski will die. His final few hours will be...remarkably unpleasant."

Sarah steeled herself, made herself breathe. "How can I know that you've actually done it, poisoned him."

"You can't. But I should show you something."

Nemur took one hand off the wheel and clicked on the dome light. Strauss handed a manila folder over the seat to Algernon. He opened it and handed Sarah a photograph.

She felt her stomach heave — and she was not inexperienced with horrors. A woman was in the photograph, her limbs knotted unnaturally, so severely that some of her bones must have been fractured, broken. She was twisted on the ground in a pool of bloody vomit, her tongue extended from her mouth, her face set in agony.

"One of our test victims. You cannot know we have dosed Mr. Bartowski, but are you willing to take this chance with him? Oh, and one other thing. Do not forget that, despite her desire to solve the murder of the woman she was supposed to protect, Agent Rizzo's truest interest is in finding those records, too. If she finds them first, well..." Algernon waved the photograph and it seemed to come to horrific life, a nightmarish one-page flipbook.

Sarah shook her head. "How can I contact you once I have the records?"

"Just say that you have them, while you are standing in Room 2022, sort of like Dorothy and her Ruby Slippers. 'There's no place like home, there's no place like home'. I will call the room directly and give you instructions."

The car pulled over. Sarah recognized the street. It was not far from the Palmer House. "Good hunting, Agent Walker. Welcome back into the shadows. You have 58 and one-half hours before Mr. Bartowski ties himself in knots. I hate to do this, but, you know, the fortunes of the Cold War."

Sarah got out of the car. She looked at the license plate but it was a temporary tag. She was sure it was stolen, the tag or the car. Maybe both.

She did not stay to watch the car disappear. She began to run toward the Palmer House. Toward Chuck. Toward her boyfriend.


Sarah opened 2022. It was dark. She flicked the light.

Chuck was asleep on the bed. He was wearing only his boxers. A tranq dart was still embedded in his abdomen.

Sarah gave a muffled cry and ran to the bathroom. She ran a glass of water and grabbed a handful of toilet paper. She ran back to the bed. With delicate care, she wrapped the toilet paper around the dart and pulled it out of Chuck, and put it in the nightstand drawer. The feeling of it leaving his body made her slightly dizzy. Then she started looking him over, as closely as she could, trying to find evidence of another needle.

She could not find it. She found a spot on his neck but it might have been nothing more than a place he nicked himself while shaving. She was peering at it as closely as she could when she felt a hand on her bottom.

"SSssarah. S'that you?" She pulled up so that she could see his eyes. They were out-of-focus still, druggy. "SSssarah, I ssshouldnnnn't say thisss, cause, cause it'lllll scare you. I thoughttt'd scare meeee, toooo. But it reallly doessssn't. I luuuuv youuu, I'm almost cert...certa...I'm almossst ssure."

Sarah felt her tears form in her eyes. She sat up and wiped at them with her hand, Chuck seemed to have fallen under again.

She looked around the room, bewildered. The tape recorder was on the armchair. The 'transcript' Chuck wrote beside it. It looked like he had made the tape, the one she had planned to use against Larkin.

Did it matter now who killed Maria Tomek? All that mattered was the threat to Chuck, the possibility he had been poisoned.

But maybe the killer had found something in Maria Tomek's room? Or maybe she had told the killer something? Maybe The Clown killed her and maybe he already found the books, gave them to Accardo?

No, she needed to know who killed Tomek. The problem was now that she was not just pitted against Rizzo and Lakoff and Larkin and Shaw and The Clown and Accardo, she was pitted against Algernon and the KGB. And the KGB knew where Chuck was and had the room bugged. She could not remove the bugs — that had been an unspoken point of Algernon's when he told her to say she had the books while standing in the room.

Chuck moved on the bed, groaned lightly. Sarah put her hand on his head. He did not feel feverish. He would likely wake up from the drug soon. Oh, God, what do I tell him when he wakes up? What do I tell Ellie? Do I tell Ellie?

Sarah felt dizzy, utterly and completely overwhelmed. As an agent, she had been a model of competence. Now…

She shook herself, took a deep breath. She wasn't going to make anything better by falling apart herself. What had Algernon said?

Welcome back to the shadows.

She grabbed a sheet of hotel stationery and she wrote Chuck a quick note.


C,

Stopped by. You were asleep. You were talking in your sleep. You're charming when you are somnambulistic.

Something came up that brought me back to the hotel. I hope to return in another couple of hours. Go back to sleep. I will join you as soon as I can.

Her hand paused.

Yours,

S


Sarah found Devon in the basement office. He was on break, drinking coffee and working problems from a college chemistry book.

He did a double-take when she came into the room. "Sarah? I thought you were going to spend tonight at home? That's what your note said." He held up the pink rectangle, waving it, and Sarah flashed back on the Algernon waving the photograph.

"Something came up. Have you been up on the twentieth floor?" She asked the question in a whisper.

"No, should I have been?" He whispered too.

"No, but did you see anyone in the hotel who...attracted your attention?"

He shook his head. "I did have a weird conversation with Agent Rizzo. She seemed to be trying to convince me that Mrs. Mills, um, Ellie, might be involved in the Tomek murder. I told her I just didn't think so. She seemed...well," Devon lowered his already whispery more, "...pissed."

Sarah could not think of any way to protect Chuck. Devon would be expected to be back in the lobby. He could do a corridor pass or two, but that was all. She asked him to do it and he agreed.

When he left the office, she double-checked her gun, Larkin's gun. She still had her combat knife.

She had thought she might face Larkin earlier that day. Events had not worked out for that to happen. Too bad for him. Earlier, he would have faced Detective Walker. Tonight, he would get a visit from Agent Walker, the Ice Queen.

She had melted. She had re-formed, crystallized.


Sarah had never been to Bryce Larkin's apartment, although he had tried to finagle her there on each of their three dates. Especially the third, which Larkin had expected to end a particular way. Sarah could still remember the dumbfounded look on his face as she got into a cab.

It was late, and it was cold, and it was going to be hard to find a cab now. She stood down the block from the hotel and signaled at several. Finally, one stopped.

She slid inside and gave the man the address. He nodded. He was wearing a Bears cap and his face was swallowed by a dark beard. He did not speak.

Sarah could feel the bent bobby pins she had used earlier in the day in her coat pocket. She would have to get into the building and then into Larkin's apartment. If she succeeded, Bryce Larkin would finally have Sarah Walker in his bedroom.

Had Algernon poisoned Chuck? How could Sarah know? What he told her was not outside the bounds of possibility, even if it seemed unlikely. If she took Chuck for medical help, she would expose him to the FBI, the mob. The KGB too.

Maybe Ellie could help. Ellie had been in medical school; she wanted to go back. Sarah would have to talk to her as soon as she got back to the hotel. But she would have to make sure Rizzo was not aware of the visit. Sarah would need to get Ellie up to Chuck's room.

"Here we are," the beard pronounced his only words. "Jesus, it's getting cold."

Sarah nodded as she paid. The snow was swirling in the beams of the headlights, the wind blowing it almost sideways.

She got out of the car and looked up at Larkin's dark apartment building. His room was on the third floor. Now she just needed to get inside.

She shivered. Cold.

Chuck loves me. He's almost sure. Warm.

With a grim smile, she walked up to the enshadowed entrance to the apartment building, her hand in her coat pocket, wrapped around the combat knife's hilt.


A/N: A major chapter in our story. Some things are slowly coming into focus. Some folks too.

I appreciate the responses to the last chapter. I had this chapter written already, so I decided to post it. I thought it was a fun chapter. Still making up my mind on whether to continue.

Nemur and Strauss are the two scientists who develop the intelligence-enhancing surgery in Flowers for Algernon.

Thoughts?