A/N – maurbill wrote - Super excellent job and you certainly do deserve an award for this.
Well thank you very much maurbill, those are very kind words. Actually this particular story has not been nominated because it is unfinished but I just found out that the nomination process has been extended until March 8th. So what do you think, should I get my 'vogue on' and get this thing finished before then:-)

After googleing lots of pictures of Union Station I couldn't find any pictures that showed that there might be lockers in the place but for the purposes of this story they exist. I apologize to any purists who are reading and saying to themselves "But Union Station doesn't have lockers" I do try where I can to make things correct and true to real life, but sometimes as authors we need to bend reality just a wee bit.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Becky arrived at Union Station before ten in the morning and made her way directly to the locker number 457. It felt oddly like she was nine years old again, and was playing some sort of secret agent game with her cousin. She found herself looking around at all of the travelers sitting in the sectioned seats trying to imagine which of these people would visit the planter at the north end of the station to retrieve the key. After she opened the locker and deposited the duffel bag she turned toward the ticket booth at the end of the station.

'The north end of the station silly.'

Lack of sleep and stress were beginning to take a toll on the young woman. She was starting to feel slightly giddy. When she arrived at the large planter with a palm tree in it she sat down on the edge of the pot. She looked up at the tree trying to decide if it was a real palm tree like the ones lining the front of the station or some fake thing. The leaves were too high to touch and the bark felt rough but it wasn't plastic. Becky realized that she had no idea what the bark of a real palm tree felt like and she ran her hand along its surface trying to get a feel for it.

As she did this the small key accidentally dropped from her fingers and she almost bent to retrieve it when she realized what she had done. She looked down and could clearly see the key from her perch on the edge of the pot but it was close to the side and if she stood up she was sure that the key would not be visible.

She looked up and stared at the leaves at the top of the tree and decided that they were real. Then her gaze fell to the crowded station as she watched passengers come and go to the train platforms down at the far end. She noticed a roped off eating area with several square tables all donned with pristine white tablecloths.

She picked up her purse and the small suitcase and headed for one of those tables that was in clear view of the planter. After getting a large Mocha Latte and a cheese Danish she settled down to watch. If she was going to play this stupid game of Shell's then she wanted to know who was going to be retrieving the money that she had stolen from her parents.


Shelly Arbury got another visitor at eleven o'clock that morning. She now knew that the phones that were used to speak to visitors were not monitored or recorded. She had spoken to several of the other more hardened looking inmates who all seemed to sense a need to give her either a wide berth or respect. They saw in her the same thing that Marco Benadero did; the eyes of a predator.

What she learned was that those phones couldn't be monitored because the communication between an inmate and their lawyer was private and privileged information. Shelly smiled at that for she wasn't entirely sure how she would arrange a contract without getting caught. She would still need to be careful because a guard could casually overhear her end of the conversation as the walked up and down the line of prisoners sitting in the visiting booths.

The man who came to see her was a tall and dangerous looking character. He had deep set black eyes and short cropped jet black hair. He was sporting a days worth of dark stubble on his face and his tin lips were set in a hard straight line. She noted his strong tight muscular arms and broad shoulders. This man was Saborgia's muscle. He wasn't the assassin but the fact that he was sent here to retrieve information spoke of an agreement.

Shelly sat down and picked up the phone to speak to this man. He didn't initially pick up the phone on his end but instead sat studying her. She met his gaze with an unflinching and piercing stare.

'So the local muscle is going to try and size me up?'

Shelly put the phone down and after one more evil look at this man that showed no fear of any kind she started to stand up to leave. The man on the other side of the glass picked up the phone and a gleam of triumph shown in Shelly's eyes as she sat back down. She continued to look at this man for a moment before picking up the phone again.

The man didn't gat a chance to say anything before Shelly spoke in a quiet yet commanding tone.

"Union Station, Locker 457. Look for the key in the planter near the ticket booth at the north end of the station. Special Agent Don Eppes and Professor Charles Eppes have caused me a fair bit of trouble. They need to be spoken to about that."

The man finally spoke but his voice held a slight note of respect. This woman spoke and acted like she was the head of a powerful family like the one he worked for. She had no fear and broached no question to her instructions. She spoke as if they would be followed without question or reservation.

"Did you see the morning news?"

Shelly knew what the man was referring to. She had seen the broadcast about Agent Eppes' death, but she didn't buy it. This was a rouse to throw any would-be assassin off the trail.

"Don't believe everything you see on TV. The reward for hard work and investigation will be ample even for Tony's standards. Get it done."

With that Shelly hung up the phone and stood up from the visiting booth. She turned a walked away with the air of a general who had given orders to her troops. This was not lost on her visitor who also hung up the phone and walked away.


Becky was so tired by one in the afternoon that she was having some difficulty keeping her eyes open but she kept ordering Latte's and reading a book that she had purchased from the concession stand so that she could continue to watch for whom ever was going to visit the locker. She didn't know what to expect, but it certainly wasn't the tall dangerous looking man who approached the plant stand and sat down on its edge. He glanced down and saw the key but rather than pick it up he turned his gaze up and stared directly at Becky locking eyes with her.

Becky was so taken aback by this that she didn't know what to do. This man had a deadly serious look in his eyes and she felt like a bucket of ice had dropped into her stomach. She wanted to look away but she couldn't tear her gaze from the man as he stood up and walked purposefully toward her.

Stark terror blossomed inside Becky's chest and she reached down for the suitcase intending on running as quickly as she could but it was too late for that. The man had reached the table that she occupied in only a few great strides and he placed a firm hand on her shoulder as he sat down at the table.

"I… I… I… was ju..just leaving if you wa… want this table" she squeaked out.

"What I want; is to know who you are and why you are watching the pick-up. You are not an agent that much is clear from the fear in your eyes and your wholly unprofessional manner. I have been watching you for the past forty minutes and it appears that you are alone, so who are you?"

"Wh… what? I… I don't know what you're talking about!"

The man's grip on her shoulder tightened painfully and she let out a little shriek.

"Quiet! This is what is going to happen little missy. You are going to go get the key and then go to that locker. You will then come back to this table with the money and sit down. If you deviate from what I have told you in any way I will kill you. Do you understand?"

Becky thought that she might faint from the sheer panic that coursed through her veins. The man's hand tightened a little more and she whimpered and nodded her head. He slowly let go of her shoulder and she stood on shaking legs. Her head was spinning as she made her way across the station to the planter and gratefully sank down on it to rest her head in her hands. Tears had begun to drop down her face but with a look from the tall man she reached down and retrieved the key.

She stood up again and began to make her way to the far end of the station near the train platforms where the lockers were and up to number 457. Her hands were shaking so badly and her vision was blurred by tears that she dropped the key twice while trying to fit it into the lock. She nervously glanced back and saw that the man had picked up her bags and had followed her down the length of the station and took a seat near by watching her.

She choked back a sob and tried once again to fit the key into the lock. A young man in jeans and a tee shirt happened to be sitting close to Becky and heard her sobbing. He got up and walked over to her.

"Can I help you with that, miss?" he asked politely. His face was full of concern for the terrified looking woman and he glanced around just in time to see a very tall and menacing looking man behind him.

"Move along boy, this is none of your concern." The man turned to Becky and said, "You had better hurry it up Stella, you know that Dad doesn't like to be kept waiting."

Becky turned back to the locker and managed to fit the key into the lock and turn it. The young man in the jeans started to move off not wanting to get embroiled in some sort of family fight but he looked at Becky.

Becky was even more terrified that this unknown man would hurt the boy who was trying to help her and improvised not wanting to get this Good Samaritan hurt on her account. She turned to the man and frowned.

"Jesus Christ Jared, he was just offering to help since I dropped the key. Get a grip." She turned back to the young man and said, "Don't mind my brother; he is always cranky when he doesn't get his midday coffee, but thank you for being so kind."

The locker door popped open and she smiled as warmly as she could. "See I've got it now. Thank you again, it's nice to know that chivalry isn't completely dead."

Becky retrieved the duffel bag and turned toward the large man holding her bags. She walked past him feeling like she would faint and made her way purposefully back toward the table with the large man following behind her. Before she reached the dining area he bent down and hissed in her ear.

"Keep moving, straight out to the front entrance then to the parking lot on the west side of the building."

Once they had gained the outside and the bright afternoon sun, Becky had a wild thought of dropping the duffel bag and making a run for it, but the tall man seemed to anticipate that move and suddenly she had his vice like grip on her shoulder again.

"We are headed for the navy blue Continental over there." he said, steering her toward the car with the hand on her shoulder.

A few feet from the car the man pulled out a remote control and pointed it at the vehicle unlocking it. He took the duffel bag from her hands and shoved her toward the car.

"Get in the back seat."

Becky was too frightened to think about disobeying and pulled open the rear door on the driver's side of the car. Once she was in the car he also got in and hit a button that automatically locked the doors. She had no escape from him now.

"What do you want with me?"

The man didn't answer but rather tossed her bags on the floor of the passenger side then proceeded to open the duffel bag.

"How much is in this bag?"

Becky didn't answer at first. She was still trying to piece together how she had ended up in this predicament.

"How much!"

She jumped at the sound of his voice and quickly said, "Three Hundred Thousand. Look, I was told to put the money in that locker. I don't know what it's for or who it's for. I just wanted to see who would pick it up. It's my parent's money; I had a right to know who was taking it."

The man shot her a startled look.

"Your parent's money?"

"Yes, my cousin got into trouble and is in jail. She had me steal it out of their retirement savings and bring it here. I think it's supposed to pay for some fancy lawyer."

"Hmmm, well let's go see your cousin about it shall we?"

"I can't go see her! They are looking for me too; it's all because of her! I just did this one last thing for her. You have the money now, you can let me go. I'm not a part of what ever she has gotten herself into. Please I don't want to be here."

The man put the money down and turned his head to look at the frightened woman in the back seat. He had sized up Shelly Arbury the moment he laid eyes on her and it was hard to believe that this woman was even remotely related. None-the-less it seems that her story fit with what he knew about the new 'client' but he wasn't taking any chances. If there was an FBI agent involved then he wanted to be certain that there were no screw ups.

"If you didn't want to be a part of this, then you should have left as soon as you dropped the cash."

He turned around in his seat and started the engine then drove off toward East LA. He was going to have to get her some fake ID in order to get her into the prison. If the Feds were looking for this woman she would need a new alias if she were going to travel with him.


Charlie decided to begin his work even before the e-mail from Larry came in. The program could be applied at any time to scrub his hard drive clean. The first order of business was to clean out all of the data that he needed to keep, assuming that he would still be a free man or even alive when this was over with. He began by attaching all of his work for his classes, two open FBI investigation data streams that he had been working on as well as his Cognitive Emergence Theory work to e-mails that he sent to his computer in his office at Cal Sci.

He sent all the files for a long term NSA project that he had been consulting on for the last six months along with an e-mail to Bob Thompkins. That message read:

Hello Bob,
As you may well know by now, my life has taken a very bad turn.
I may even need to turn to you in the future. I hope that I can count on you if I need to.
Attached you will find all of the data that I have compiled for the Orange Project.
I do not believe that I will be able to finish the assignment. To continue this work you may
want to investigate the abilities and background of a mathematician named Marshall Penfield.
He has the skill set required to pick up where I left off. Marshall is not a particularly easy man
to work with, but I have complete confidence that he will be able to bring this project to its completion.
Charlie.

Once Charlie had cleaned out the hard drive on his laptop he began his work. He had positioned himself in the corner of the living area so that the only way either his father or Agent Hodges could see his computer screen would be to step behind him to look at what he was doing. He took a deep breath and cleared his mind before he began his hack into the Department of Justice's main computer systems.

Alan woke up just past two thirty that afternoon and was slightly dismayed to see his son pounding away furiously at his computer. He stepped over to Agent Hodges who sat reading a book at the dinette table.

"How long has he been up and working, Dan?"

Dan Hodges looked up into the concerned eyes of the older man and understood his fear. He had heard about the young mathematician's predilection for loosing himself in his equations when he was stressed out, but he didn't think that was the case this time.

"He woke up around one, made some coffee, took a shower and made a phone call. Then he started working and has been at it since."

Alan looked up sharply at Charlie when Dan told him what his son had been doing.

"He made a phone call? Is that allowed? Who did he contact?"

Dan stood up and poured a cup of coffee for Alan and brought it to him.

"Don't worry, he kept it short and he understood what he was allowed to say or not say. I think he called a friend. This entire thing has worn him down quite a bit and I think he just needed to hear a friendly voice. The call was less than five minutes and the phone is on a scrambler."

"Hummm. I'm not sure I like this though. What could he be working on so furiously at a time like this?"

Charlie had heard his father get up and walk over to the agent. He kept tapping away on his computer but a portion of his mind followed the conversation. He couldn't afford to become so engrossed in his work that he was found out because he became oblivious to what was happening around him.

"Dad, if you must know, I called Larry. Agent Hodges is right; I needed to hear a friendly voice. He saw the news and…
… well lets just say that he needed to hear my voice as much as I needed to hear his. As to what I could be working on so furiously at a time like this; I thought we had already covered that in the car."

Alan set his coffee on the table and walked over to the living room and took a seat on the couch.

"I'm sorry, Charlie; I guess I'm probably over reacting a little. I didn't realize that you had even heard me come into the room. I guess it's clear that you aren't…
… well you know."

Charlie sighed and shook his head slightly. He needed to nip these kinds of questions in the bud right now.

"Look, Dad I need to work. This is how I deal with stress. I'm worried about Don, and about us. There is always the possibility that we could still be in danger. Would you rather have me sitting in a corner waiting for the inevitable assassination attempt?"

"No, of course not Charlie, but I know that when you get too focused you have a tendency to keep it up until you are ready to drop from sheer exhaustion. I'm your father; I'm supposed to be worried about you."

"I promise that I will break for meals and sleep, but you also have to understand that if I get on a line of reasoning that I can't break from, I won't. I have to work out the equations when they are here." he said, tapping his temple. "If I don't, I'll loose them in the rush of numbers. I really need you to understand this, Dad."

Alan got up and approached Charlie who instinctively hit the minimize function on the application he was using before his father could inadvertently see the screen. Alan put a gentle hand on his shoulder and gave it a squeeze.

"I do understand. Have you eaten since you got up?"

Charlie's stomach growled at that thought and Alan just raised an eyebrow before returning to the kitchen to look for something to make for a late lunch for them.

Charlie dutifully ate the sandwich that Alan made for him and when he returned to the computer he saw that Larry had indeed sent him an e-mail with the program attached.

Charles,
The program is attached. I went to the bank and set up an account under
a fake name then did a wire transfer from that account. Tomorrow I will
go back to the bank and close the account. This e-mail is coming from a
blank user account at the Net Café off campus so it should be completely untraceable.
Larry.

Charlie smiled at the screen. Larry was smart and even though he obviously suspected that his friend was up to something that was less than above board, he still came through for him. Now nothing could be tied to Larry and Charlie breathed a sigh of relief.

He opened the program and began the install process so that all of his on-line key strokes would be deleted from the hard drive when he ran the program. It took almost half an hour to set up the program and get it fully installed on his laptop which started to make him feel somewhat antsy. Once the set up was complete he went back to the work he had started on trying to covertly hack into the DOJ mainframe.


Shelley was more than a little surprised to find that she had two visitors waiting to see her and astonished to see her cousin Becky with Saborgia's muscle. She approached the visiting booth cautiously and sat down. She was clearly shaken by seeing the woman and the man picked up the phone.

"She says that she is your cousin. I found her watching the pick up at Union Station. Is there something that you want to share?"

Shelly turned her gaze from her cousin's tortured features and stared hard at the man on the phone. She was most displeased to see that Becky had been crying and she suspected that the way she kept rubbing her left shoulder had something to do with this man.

"She is my cousin and she was only doing as she was told. She knows nothing, she's just a mule. I wanted to be sure that there were no problems with the transfer and instructed her to wait and tell me when the money had been collected. I will be speaking personally to Tony about your manhandling my cousin. I can see that you have hurt her and that does not sit well with me."

Shelly's tone held barely contained fury and she had pure murder in her eyes. Her countenance was so full of raw fury that the man actually felt a twinge of fear.

"Cool yer jets, I didn't hurt her. I held her shoulder a little tighter than I should have maybe but I didn't rough her up. I had to be sure that this wasn't a set up, that's my job."

"We'll see what your job is when Tony gets a piece of my mind; for right now let me talk to her."

The man held the phone over to Becky who didn't really want to take it but she did and looked directly at her cousin. She couldn't stop the tears that formed in her eyes at this point and simply allowed them to drop down her face.

"Oh baby, don't cry. I'm sorry that brute hurt you honey, but everything will be all right now. What name did you use to get in here to see me?"

Becky looked at the man sitting next to her and said, "Stella Tandy; he arranged the ID. Shell, what is this all about? No wait never mind, I don't want to know. I don't want to be a part of what ever is happening with you. I did this thing for you and now we're square. I never want to see you again Shell."

"Oh don't be like that, I promise everything will be just fine. I'll get out of here in a couple of months once the trial is over and we can do like we always planned. We'll head south and enjoy the surf and the sun for as long as we want. This is only a small setback; I'll take care of everything, just like I always have. You know I have always taken care of both of us. This bastard will pay for hurting you Beck; that I promise."

"You don't get it do you Shell? I don't want you to take care of anything any more. I don't want to be a part of your life anymore. You're wrong Shell; something about you has been wrong since we were kids. The wrongness in you used to be fun, and exciting, but now it scares me. I have to leave. Everything that was my life; my job, my home, my parents, even my name is gone and I can never go back. I gave up everything for you and now I don't have anything else to give."

Becky stood up from the chair that she was sitting in and handed the phone back to the tall man. She turned and walked out without saying another word.