DISCLAIMER: The AGENCY and all the usual suspects of it and of the King-Stetson family aren't mine; I borrowed them with love from Warner Brothers and from Shoot the Moon and thank them kindly for the years of enjoyment I've received from them. Everything else is a product of my overactive imagination; please don't use the ideas or characters without asking me first.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thank you to the SMK SEASON 5 writers, whose canon I have followed as far as it is written into the season at this time. During SEASON 5, a decision was made NOT to tell the boys about Lee and Amanda's line of work, although the marriage is common knowledge and Dotty finally does know what IFF is all about.
Chapter 6 * Maplewood Drive, Arlington, Virginia * 3:35 p.m. EST (GMT-5)
Marlena must have been really keyed up, Andy commented to Amanda as they cleaned up the remnants of the toddler's birthday party and started to lay out the chips and dips that signalled the start of the adult festivities. Jo's usually back with Marlena in less than 10 minutes.
Jamie's probably showing her the neighborhood. I wouldn't worry.
A toothy grin split his smooth, handsome face and crinkled the area around his slate gray eyes. I can't help it, Amanda. There's another man with her, so I'm insanely jealous because I'm in love.
You noticed, she said in some surprise, laughing off his comment about Jamie being another man. You're more observant than my husband, right, Lee, Sweetheart?
Lee grunted from behind the refrigerator door, then stood up to defend himself. Not more observant. Just more honest with himself. He had long since given up his sensitivity on that subject, admitting to himself, his wife, and his boss that he had been just plain stupid for at least two years, maybe even three. Joanna doesn't think you're aware of your feelings.
The grin became, if possible, wider. Oh, she will. Come Valentine's Day, she'll know I'm aware of my feelings.
Ian come in a few minutes later, expressing some concern over the length of Joanna's absence, as well. Ian's instincts, honed as they were by his training, set Lee's internal alarm ticking.
How about I take a spin around the neighborhood and see if maybe they stopped at the park or something? he asked, more to assure himself than either of the other men.
I'll go with you, Ian and Andy said together.
Amanda shrugged. I don't think there's any reason to worry, but go ahead, you three. Take the Wagoneer, honey.
Lee looked at her with a silly grin. I thought I'd try to fold Andy up and shove him into the back seat of the Corvette, dear. He planted a kiss on her cheek as he brushed by.
Rolling her eyes, Amanda shooed the three agitated men to the front door for their coats and their trek to locate the missing trio. Billy, whose own intuition was niggling at him by now, nodded approvingly, while the three other women traded the universal look with Amanda and went back to the board game they were playing with Philip.
Ten minutes later, the world turned upside down with a phone call from Lee. They found Joanna's car at the park, the window shattered, the interior smelling strongly of tear gas and chloroform, and no evidence of Joanna, Marlena, or Jamie at all.
Dulles International Airport * January 23, 1989 * 4:00 p.m. EST (GMT-5)
I'm impressed that you brought the car seat, the Iraqi Agricultural Attache said to the two men who unloaded Marlena Marley from the back of the plain blue van.
We didn't have a choice, one of the two growled. We couldn't get the harness unfastened quickly enough, so it was easier to cut the seat belt.
the other grunted. You want to give us a hand here?
Tariq Agazi turned his nose up and took a step away, but relented when he saw the murderous gleams in two sets of American mercenary eyes. He settled on holding the door of the van open as the two men moved a young boy and then an adult woman into the cargo hold of the Gulfstream jet sitting in the hangar behind him.
Wait a minute, he said as they finished with the woman he recognized as JoJo Marley. Why the boy?
The older of the two men shrugged. He was in the car. We don't know and we don't care who he is. You hired us to do a job and we did it. The leer of greed touched his eyes. And now we expect to be paid.
You will get your money.
Oh, but you don't understand. We have a little insurance policy called a ransom note ready to be released if we don't make a call at precisely 4:45 this afternoon. The note gives enough details to make your life extremely difficult – diplomatic immunity notwithstanding.
Reluctantly, the Iraqi admitted to himself that he had been bested. His instructions had been to kill the two men before he got on the plane; under the circumstances, he would have to let them go. The others would just have to understand.
You'll find the money in the case inside the car over there, he finally said, pointing to the rental car with Maryland plates he was driving under a false ID.
The younger man went to the car while the older man, pulled a pistol out of a shoulder holster and trained the weapon on the foreigner. After a few minutes, the man at the car called out, It's all here!
Well, then we'll be going off to make our phone call now. It was a pleasure doing business with you.
Agazi grimaced and turned away from the man with the pistol toward the plane. he replied bitterly, climbing into the cargo hold and out of view.
The two men pulled away in the van a moment later, stopping a safe distance away to watch as the plane taxied away from the hangar toward the flight line. The older man sighed and looked at his partner in the driver's seat. Why do I think we've just signed three death warrants?
Do you care?
Silence followed for several moments as they watched the jet take off and bank away toward the Atlantic Ocean.
Enough to give the cops an anonymous tip, was the answer, quietly delivered as the van picked up speed heading toward the Maryland border.
The Agency/Georgetown Portal * 5:07 p.m. EST (GMT-5)
Dotty West had been the first to recover from the frozen silence that ensued after Lee's abrupt phone call. Well, Mr. Melrose, it looks like I'll get to see what my daughter and son-in-law can do when you all work openly together for a change. Her tone was brittle, cracked like the surface of a skating pond not quite frozen solid.
Amanda started, but Billy placed a hand gently on her arm and stopped her from going on.
Mrs. West – Dotty. We will do everything we can to get Jamie and the Marleys back. I'm going to need some help organizing things, though. Is there a place I can use a phone without interruption?
Calmed somewhat by Billy's tone, Dotty motioned toward the recently converted garage.
Amanda and Francine went with Billy into the new study, which was equipped with a secure phone, facsimile, and connections into the Agency computer network. It was also soundproofed. The three agents worked frantically to get the word out to all the necessary federal and state agencies about the kidnapping, adding Amanda's intuitive leap that this had something to do with Andy Forest and with the attack on Israel where such information could be included.
With that connection, Billy ordered Lee and Ian to take Dr. Forest to the Agency, and decided that everyone else needed to be there, too. He rounded up a worried, protesting Dotty, a scared but defiant Philip, and his own wife in the available cars and led them in caravan to the IFF offices, where the Q Bureau became the command center.
Everyone arrived at about the same time; hugs and assurances were exchanged all around before Billy could pull his own agents and Ian aside long enough to figure out a game plan. Amanda, Lee, I know you weren't going to tell Philip and Jamie about your real jobs yet, but I don't think there's anyway we can keep Philip from finding out this time, Billy opened reluctantly. I need the two of you working on this if you're up to it, and he'll wonder why you aren't waiting with him and Dotty – and why Dotty isn't concerned that you're not there.
He's right, Amanda, Lee said before his wife could object, running his hand through his hair. We could get away with me for a little while, giving a statement, but you weren't there, so we have no excuse for you. Or for Francine.
Ian nodded. Andy already knows that I'm Naval Intelligence and that I'm assigned as his bodyguard for the duration. He may live with his head in the clouds, but he'll put this together very quickly once we start asking questions – if he hasn't already.
The two women traded glances; neither of them wanted to reveal the last secret to Lee and Amanda's sons, but the difference between keeping the secret and doing all they could to save Marlena, JoJo, and Jamie was just too great. Each nodded sadly.
I'll break the news to him, Amanda. And to Dr. Forest.
Billy had returned a few minutes later with a strange smile: Philip, to whom the whole thing was an exciting distraction from his terror, began pumping Mr. Melrose for stories he hadn't really wanted to tell the teen without his parents present for the embarrassment. Andy had just looked at him in shock for a few moments, then nodded and demanded to be part of the analytical team.
So it was that, a little more than two hours after the abduction, when an anonymous tip was delivered via telephone to the local CBS affiliate, Billy was surrounded in his office by Amanda and Lee, holding each other tightly on the couch; Andy, standing stiff and silent by the door, and Francine and Ian, close by Andy with hands loosely and openly intertwined.
at least three voices shouted in unison. Mayhem followed for a few brief seconds as three agents and a bodyguard all tried to dive out the door for telephones in the same instant.
Billy said far more calmly than he felt. When he had their attention, he gave orders. Francine, get the FAA on the line – I want to know the flight plans of every Gulfstream that left Dulles in the last three hours. Amanda, Scarecrow, work with Colonel Marlowe and Dr. Forest to get every scrap of information you can on threats toward him or to Joanna in the past year and a half. Work the connection between Dr. Palmer and all this, too! he added as an afterthought.
Dr. Palmer? Andy asked in utter confusion.
Ian looked up sharply at his charge. She didn't tell you, did she?
Billy waved his staff off to their tasks as Dr. Forest crumpled down to the couch left empty by Lee and Amanda's departure. Jo kept saying she needed to talk to me seriously last night, but all I wanted to do was play with Marlena and goof off with Jo. We played pool until after midnight last night so I wouldn't have to hear her serious talk.
Colonel Marlowe looked at Billy, got a confirming nod, ran his hand through his hair – Billy stifled an inappropriate but tension breaking laugh – sighed and stuttered a couple of times before he could say, Frank Palmer has disappeared and was last seen in the company of a known information broker with ties to both Eastern Bloc countries and terrorist groups, including the PLO and Hamas.
Forest shrank into the sofa, no longer able to hold in the agonizing terror he had felt for the last three hours. The news about Palmer broke him, but even through the bitter tears of self-recrimination, he was able to confirm for Billy and Ian what Joanna had said the day before. It's got to be the polysulphuric ionization effect. It sterilizes soil down to bedrock and has a half-life of twenty years, we think.
Is it radioactive? Billy asked with alarm.
No, no, not at all. In this case, half-life refers to the stability of the chemical bond under average environmental conditions. At the moment, we don't have a solution for this. Andy went on to explain how the chemical worked and what would be necessary for a group to use it; when the chemist was finished, Billy told Francine to get the Mossad section chief for the Washington diplomatic corps in for a full briefing as soon as possible.
Up in the Q Bureau, with Jeannie Melrose lending silent support, Amanda brought Jeannie, Dotty, and Philip up to date on the leads the agents now had. Then she laid down the law. Mother, you and Philip are going to stay in a safe house tonight. I've talked to Joe and told him as much as we know, and he and Carrie will be picked up to stay at the safe house, too. Don't worry about our house; Lee and I will get what you need.
What about school tomorrow? Philip asked hesitantly.
Mother looked at son, her professional demeanor slipping as she saw Jamie's face in Philip's expectant visage. I don't know, she said softly, looking away and wiping a tear off her cheek.
Yes, Sweetheart?
Jamie is okay, her older son declared. I can feel it – just like I could feel that you were okay when you ran off to get Lee out of trouble.
Amanda just opened her arms and engulfed her son, sobbing openly for the first time since Lee called with the news. Dotty joined them, wondering aloud if the national security of the United States was worth this heartbreak yet again.
Philip glared at his grandmother. Jamie is okay, Grandma. And yes, the United States is worth this. Mom wouldn't do what she does if she didn't think so, and neither would Lee or Mr. Melrose.
Dotty accepted her grandson's admonition without comment, marvelling yet again to herself that despite the unorthodox life her daughter had led in the past five and a half years, her grandsons seemed to be none the worse for wear, and indeed, better for it – Jamie's abduction aside. So she kissed her daughter's teary cheek and her grandson's cool forehead and prayed fervently for a quick and positive resolution to the situation.
Over the Atlantic Ocean * 8:38 pm Mid-Atlantic Time (GMT-4)
JoJo woke to her daughter's incoherent moaning beside her. It took her several long moments to get her bearings as she tried to shush Marlena; she gave up when she realized that there was tape over her mouth – which was just about the same time that she realized that she was securely tied into the jump seat in which she rested. Her head throbbed when she opened her eyes to the dimly lit cabin of the Gulfstream and she kept them open only long enough to lay eyes on Jamie King, tied up beside her in the other jump seat and mercifully still immobile and unaware.
Marlena's moaning brought attention to the threesome; the sounds of a tall, Mediterranean featured man coming toward them made JoJo open her eyes, only to see an evil leer on his face. Ah, you've awakened, he said in precisely clipped British-accented English. That's probably not for the best; you might have been more comfortable remaining unconscious.
JoJo merely nodded in agreement; Marlena shrank back from him and tried to scream through the duct tape over her mouth.
So sorry, little one. You'll just have to suffer. I just cannot abide the wails and fussing of an irritated child on an airplane, can you?
JoJo recognized him as he kept up a steady stream of inanity – the Iraqi Agricultural Attaché, the man who had pulled Andy away from the group just before Mr. Bush arrived at the ball. The nightmare only got worse when the man noticed that Jamie was awake, staring silently at JoJo with tears in his eyes.
The mystery child. You're certainly not a man if you're crying like that. I don't know why I bothered to let them load you on the plane. I should have just killed you and those two. But then their fail-safe – if they really had one – might have gotten us unwarranted attention from all the wrong people. He paced half the length of the plane each trip, rambling about how his employers would be so appreciative and how foolproof his plan was. This would guarantee that Israel would cease to exist in less than a week because the Gardener would be so distraught by the disappearance of his lover and her child that he could not work effectively to counter the measures already set in motion. And since no one knew that anything was set to happen, the world would be taken by surprise.
Jamie just looked at the man in horror, unable to process the magnitude of the plans he revealed. JoJo, professional through and through, let her natural ability to record information take over and simply observed the man as she worked surreptitiously to free her hands. She had no thoughts of escape; she simply wanted to put her arms around her daughter and to comfort the poor teen across the aisle who had trusted her to be a safe driver but now needed her to be so much more.
After working through several minutes of the man's pacing and rambling. JoJo finally had her hands loose from her bonds. When Agazi turned his back to start the path away from his captives, JoJo quickly moved her hands around to her face and tore off the duct tape from her mouth, wincing silently at the pain that came from ripping delicate hairs out, too. She kept the silence for several more minutes as the man continued his agitated behavior. Obviously, he wasn't paying too much attention to his captives.
JoJo finally spoke when she recognized an all too familiar expression on Marlene's pensive face. Uh, excuse me, but I think you'd better let me take my daughter to the lavatory, she said to the man's back.
He spun around, frightened and revealing just how out of his depth he really was. How – wha – yo – NO! he fumbled, covering the distance from the apogee of his path to the perigee in two long strides.
Please trust me on this. You really want me to take her to the lavatory, and you've got about 60 seconds to cut her free before...
Jamie's eyes went wider, something he hadn't thought possible, when he realized what exactly the young girl's mother was trying to say. It hurt; and he realized that he had his new contacts in and didn't have his glasses with him. The thought of not being able to see pushed his fear up, and he shrank back in his seat as far as his bindings would allow while their captor focused on Ms. Marley.
After a very brief internal dialog with himself, the Iraqi admitted with disgust that JoJo had an excellent point. He swore forcefully in three languages – words that JoJo recognized – and two others that she could surmise meanings from as he used a large utility knife to slice through the ropes holding Marlena immobile in her car seat.
JoJo saw the look of shock and loathing in the man's eyes as she reached out to pick Marlena up out of the seat. Interesting, she mused as she cradled her unnaturally silent daughter against herself, Mr. Agazi hadn't quite put the absence of my gag together with the fact that my hands thus had to be untied. Out loud to the little girl, she asked, Potty, honey?
Marlena nodded vehemently through her fear, violet eyes huge in her pale, sweaty face.
She needs water or juice, and so does the boy, JoJo commanded as she turned toward the lavatory behind her. I doubt your masters would be happy with two dead American children.
The man glared at her back, irritated at her calmness and at her perception. Needing to hurt someone, he stepped over to Jamie King and ripped the silver tape off the boy's mouth savagely, eliciting a scream and hot, stinging tears from the young man.
The ripping sound and Jamie's subsequent scream echoed through the lavatory, making JoJo wince in sympathy. Marlena moaned behind her own gag; clearly she wanted to talk, but JoJo wasn't wasn't sure she could put her little girl through the torture, however brief, of removing the tape. With a sigh, she started to explain the scream. Honey, that was Jamie. It hurt him very much when the man took the tape off his mouth. Do you want –
Marlena reached out and took her mother's hand, brought it to her own mouth.
This is going to hurt. More than a bandaid. A lot more. It's okay to cry if you need to, she tore in one swift movement, when I take the tape off.
Marlena whispered with dry eyes and a huge smile. Go to Jamie. Wipe me, please.
Wondering at her daughter's fortitude, JoJo did as requested. She helped her little girl get her hands and face washed – evoking a giggle by creating matching bubbly beards on their faces in the process – and picked her up to carry her back into the cabin that was their prison cell.
JoJo was surprised to see that Jamie had also been untied, and more so that he was alone in the back of the plane. Marlena practically leapt from her arms into the teen's lap as JoJo shot the boy a questioning look.
Jamie hugged Marlena close and replied to JoJo's look around the tiny hands that tried to soothe the angry welts left when Jamie's gag had been so violently removed. I told him we'd have to be pretty stupid to try to escape at 30,000 feet.
For the first time in what felt like months but was, according to her watch, only 4 hours and 45 minutes, JoJo felt like laughing. She leaned down and kissed Jamie's cheek. Lee Stetson may not be your biological father, but he certainly has trained you well.
Georgetown Portal, The Agency * 8:50 p.m. EST (GMT-5)
Lee! Virginia State Police may have a lead for us! Francine ran through the Bullpen waving a long strip of thermal paper from a fax machine. Breathlessly, she skidded into Billy's office, interrupting several things: Ian, Amanda, and Andy indexing threats received against Project EDIN and its staff; Billy studying Andy's latest report on suspected Soviet biochemical production; and Lee pacing and blaming himself for the disappearance of Jamie and the Marleys.
Lee snatched the paper from her before anyone else could react.
They found the burned out remains of a car whose Vehicle Identification Number matches the one assigned to the license plate on the car our guys in Newport News got pictures of – the one that information broker who met with Dr. Palmer was driving.
Andy whooped, as much to relieve stress as anything, knowing that this was just one tiny piece of a much larger puzzle.
Don't get your hopes up, Doctor, Billy warned. This may be a dead end if we can't pick up a thread from here. He took the fax from Lee, scanned it. Scarecrow, you and Amanda get on the phone with the Richmond and Roanoke offices – let's see if she stopped anywhere along the way. Get them pictures ASAP. Francine, check the airlines – let's see if this woman had reservations on a plane leaving Roanoke, Knoxville, or Nashville. And bug the FAA while you're at it for an update on those Gulfstreams. Colonel Marlowe, call the NSA and see if they've got anything in the past week's diplomatic traffic that might give us an edge. And you, Doctor Forest, need to go to the safe house with the Kings and Mrs. West. I promised the boys at the Pentagon that you'd be ready for your briefing with them at 9 o'clock tomorrow morning, whatever the situation here.
Mr, Melrose, uh, I really ought to go with him, Ian said. He is, after all, my responsibility. And JoJo will murder me in cold blood if anything happens to him.
Billy looked thoughtfully at the Marine for a long moment. All true. Okay, after you talk with NSA, take him out to the house. Let's move, folks.
Ian hit pay dirt thirty minutes later. The NSA transmitted the translated tapes from the previous Monday through Saturday midday into the Agency's sophisticated monitoring equipment. Instinctively, Ian focused on the tapes from the Middle Eastern embassies and the third tape he scanned had the conversation between Tariq Agazi and the men in Baghdad and Tehran from the night of the inauguration. All Ian had to hear was to know he had the next clue.
Down in the sound lab, the group gathered to listen to the chat, unnerved by the uninflected tones of the translators speaking such cold words. The NSA couldn't ID the voices in the original tape, but when Ian switched back to the Arabic original, Andy Forest recognized one right off the bat.
Good work, Colonel. Get him out of here – and as soon as you're finished at the Pentagon tomorrow, please come back. We'll need you again if they'll let you go. Ian nodded and dragged the biochemist out, ignoring the quiet protests Andy offered as proof that he could stay the night and still be okay for the morning.
Stubborn, isn't he? Lee asked, earning a long-suffering sigh from his wife and broad grins from Billy and Francine.
Where do we go from here, sir? Amanda asked, leaning against the arm of the chair in which her husband sat.
You two are going to pay a visit on the Iraqi Embassy. I'm sure you can come up with a good reason to try to see this attache Dr. Forest met the other night. Francine, get someone to transcribe this tape and get our own translation of the tape, too. Do it yourself if you have to – your Arabic is good enough. I want to know everything the NSA and CIA know about the other two men on that tape, so get on that, too. I'm not liking this, not at all.
What about the tip the TV station received? Any further word on who might have called it in? Lee ran his hand through his hair before he wrapped his arm around Amanda.
No. The team we sent out to Dulles couldn't even pinpoint the hangar conclusively. Too many were closed up for the night. We start over at sunrise tomorrow. Billy looked each of his agents in the eyes. We'll get them back. I just hope the Mossad and the CIA can stop the Agagites before they release anything.
Tel Aviv, Israel * January 24, 1989 * 6:37 a.m. (GMT+2)
Ali smiled at the map hanging in his flat on the outskirts of the city. Business had boomed yesterday as parents made last minute arrangements for Purim parties; his men had delivered 42 canisters of aerosol Tabun to houses around the city; he thought with delight at the prospect of balloons popping, spreading the lethal gas droplets all over the city. The VX-2 production had been slow, but that would still be delivered to a few small gatherings at public places during today's runs. Preparations at the hotel had gone as he envisioned. His contact in the security division of the Mossad, a deep cover Soviet mole, he suspected, had done the final clearance himself, certifying for the Prime Minister's staff that the arrangements were adequate.
The information from Dr. Palmer proved to be sent from Allah. Even now, some of his well-placed, most trusted men were transporting sprayer tanks to a half-dozen airfields around Tel Aviv for arial spraying before the holiday started at sundown. Timed just right, the devastation would not be noticed until tomorrow, or on some kibbutzim, perhaps even Wednesday.
Only one piece was not perfect. The idiot contact at the embassy in Washington hadn't followed out his orders as instructed and had left a few – albeit very loose – threads that the Americans just might get lucky enough to pull in the right way to unravel the kidnapping plot. The telephone conversation between the kidnapper and Ali had been pointed while the Gulfstream refueled in the Azores: A boy?
A boy. I don't know who he is, and he won't say more than his first name. But he appears to be very close to the Marleys.
Complications. Take him off the plane and get him into enough light that your contact can get a picture of him. Maybe we can turn this to our advantage.
That had been an hour ago. The fax copy of the Polaroid wasn't great, but it was good enough to start with. Ali had intelligence specialists in two countries working on an ID, and hopefully soon they would have enough to release the ransom note. CNN would make an excellent tool in this regard. The only question left was whether to wait until he had the Marleys and the mystery boy safely in his possession or to release the note as soon as he knew who the boy belonged to. Or perhaps to wait until after the first incident tonight, when confusion would be heightened. So many options, so much destruction. It was promising to be a very good day – as long as the Americans didn't get lucky.