1 A Little Push

by matahari2

Summary / Disclaimer, Etc.: See Chapter One.

Chapter Five - A Little Good News

Amanda hadn't slept well either. It had been nice to see Reed Davenport again, and yes, they had passed a pleasant evening, but the old sparks definitely did not ignite. And what was with him anyway, questioning her reaction to seeing Lee and Emily at the same restaurant. It was just an odd coincidence, that's all. Oh well, Reed would be on his way back to California today, so she wouldn't be seeing him again any time soon. Just as well.

"Good morning, Mother, " Amanda said cheerily.

"Good morning, Dear," Dotty said, "did you remember that Jamie has that orthodontist appointment this morning at 9:00?"

"Thanks for reminding me, Mother. I'd better call them at work to let them know I'll be in a little later than usual this morning," Amanda said, before dialing the direct number for the Q Bureau.

"Stetson."

"Good Morning, Lee. I'm sorry, but I'll have to come in later than I usually do today..." Amanda began.

Lee cut her off with "Late night? Just how was your evening with Ralph?"

"Reed. His name is Reed, and my evening was just fine, thanks, but it has nothing to do with why I'll be late today. I'd forgotten to let you know that I have to take Jamie to the orthodontist this morning. I should be in about 10:30 or so," Amanda stated.

"Okay, then," Lee said, "I'll see you later."

Amanda called up the stairs, "Jamie, are you ready to go? Come on, we only have 20 minutes!"

"Coming, Mom!" Jamie called back as he hurried down the stairs.

By the time Amanda arrived at IFF, Lee and Francine had just finished briefing the security team on what kinds of disguised weapons to look for, and reminding them to require secondary picture ID before letting anyone into RFK stadium on Friday morning.

Lee Stetson was just saying, "...but before we let you go, we do have some potentially good news. We've picked up some radio transmissions from the vicinity of the Georgetown campus which may help us find the Red February members who've been selected to carry out their 'activities' for tomorrow and Friday. We'll have those tapes transcribed by some time this afternoon, and we'll bring you up to date. That's all we have right now." With that, the team members exited the conference room.

Lee noticed Amanda just entering the bullpen, and greeted her with "Good! You're here. We have some tapes we need you to transcribe, ASAP."

"Good morning to you, too, Lee, " Amanda half-scolded, as Lee turned her around and guided her toward the elevator.

"Good morning. At least I hope it's a good morning," Lee said. "See, we picked up some radio transmissions from somewhere near the Georgetown campus, and if you can transcribe our tapes as quickly as possible, it may help us to figure out something about who we're dealing with, and maybe where they are staying. So you'd be contributing even more to helping us to solve this case and protect the Pope and his aides and all the innocent people who will be at either the private mass or the youth rally. You can use my PC in the Q Bureau if you want."

"Okay, sure, I'll get right on it. Are the tapes upstairs?" Amanda asked.

"Yeah, on my desk." Lee replied. "And if you have any questions, or if you pick up on anything interesting, I'll be in with Billy for awhile, so you can call down to his office."

"All right," Amanda said, as she entered the elevator for the ride to the Georgetown foyer.

Amanda had been typing the transcriptions for just half an hour when she placed a call to Billy Melrose's office. "Melrose here."

"Mr. Melrose? It's Amanda. I've just been working on these transcriptions for a little while, but I think I've noticed something you all may want to follow up on."

"Just a second, Amanda, let me put you on speaker. Okay, go ahead."

"All right. Well, for one thing, there appear to be three people in the room, someone called 'Aldo', and there's a 'Paolo' and a 'Gianni' that he refers to, and seems to talk to part of the time. This Aldo sounds fairly young. At any rate, Sir, do we know any of the names of the Red February members? I understand that many of them are Italian college students, and there must be thousands of Italians with those first names, but...does this help?"

"Maybe so, Amanda. We'll look into the names we do know already, and check airport security tapes for the last several days to see if we find a match with any of the photos we have on file as well," Billy offered. "In the meantime, please finish the rest of the transcriptions and bring the printouts down to my office as soon as you can."

"Yes Sir. I'm on it," she said, as they disconnected.

There would be no friendly lunches today. Amanda worked through and finished the transcriptions by 1:30 and carried the printouts down to Billy Melrose's office.

Billy thanked her for finishing so quickly, and asked, "Was there anything special that you noticed on the rest of the tapes?"

"Well, yes, Sir. One of the transmissions was interrupted by Room Service, " Amanda replied. To Billy's and Lee's questioning looks, she answered, "I heard a knock on the door, and then I heard another man say 'Franklin Room Service', and then 'Aldo' told 'Paolo' to send the guy away, because they hadn't ordered anything from room service, and he didn't want to be disturbed."

"Did you say Franklin?" Lee asked.

Amanda replied, "Yeah, that's right, the guy did say 'Franklin Room Service'."

"Okay," Lee went on, "There are probably half a dozen hotels in the DC area with 'Franklin' in their names. At least we have a bit of a head start, since we know the transmissions are coming from somewhere in or near Georgetown. Billy...do you have a DC Yellow Pages?"

Billy handed the thick yellow book across to Lee, and he started thumbing through the Hotel listings, "All right, there's a Hotel Franklin on M Street...that's too far away...then there's the Benjamin Franklin Hotel on Thomas Jefferson Street in Georgetown. That could be it. We'll need to have someone watch that hotel, starting tonight. It'll help once we have ID's on the other two suspects Amanda heard in the room, but..."

Amanda cut him off mid-sentence. "Other two suspects? Does that mean you've identified one of them?"

Billy answered, "Yes, Amanda. While you were upstairs working on the transcriptions, we got a confirmed match on a photo we have of one Aldo Necci. He just arrived at National Airport this past Sunday, on United flight number 805 from Rome."

"Excuse me, Sir, did you say Necci?" Amanda asked.

Lee answered this time. "That's right, Amanda. This Aldo Necci is Franco Necci's nephew. Apparently Aldo's father and mother died in an accident when he was 7, and Uncle Franco took him under his wing, so to speak."

Billy took matters in hand and assigned a team of watchers to the Benjamin Franklin Hotel starting at 6:00 p.m., and told Lee and Amanda, "well, I suppose that's as much as we can do for right now. If we pick up any more transmissions tonight, do you think you could come in early tomorrow and transcribe them, Amanda?"

"Yes Sir. I can be here by 8:00 tomorrow morning" Amanda said, with a nod.

With that, Billy gave them both a wave of dismissal, and they left his office. As they moved toward the elevator, Amanda started, "Lee, I'm sorry to have to do this to you again today, but..."

"What?" Lee stopped her, "Another hot date with Reed?"

"No. Phillip's Soccer practice. And no, no date, hot or otherwise, with Reed. He left for California this morning,"

"Or otherwise?"

"What?" she said, realizing she'd let out too much, "oh, well, I guess I just meant, last night was okay, but there was just no 'spark', if you know what I mean..."

"Yeah, I think I've heard enough 'Amandaspeak' to catch the meaning, " Lee countered with a lopsided grin. 'Good,' he thought, but he wasn't volunteering to say it.

She just laughed softly and shook her head as they entered the elevator. When they arrived at the Georgetown foyer, Amanda was surprised to see that Lee was also headed out of the building. "Leaving so soon?" she asked. "Another date with...what's her name?"

"Leslie. Leslie O'Connor. Since I've missed the last three due to work, I think I owe it to her not to miss this one, " Lee said.

"All right. Well, have a good evening. See you tomorrow." But Amanda thought, 'He owes it to her? Why did he make it sound like an obligation he had to perform, not an encounter he was looking forward to? Sometimes I don't think the man knows his own mind!'

TO BE CONTINUED