The new rookies began to pour out of the conference room followed by a frazzled looking Francine. Lee couldn't help but laugh at the sight of her. Her perfectly coiffed hair from this morning was now quite mussed and her once glossy lips had lost their shine. Lee walked over to her with laughter still escaping his lips.
"You look like you could use a big cup of coffee!"
"Shot of tequila is more like it. Lee, I swear these rookie agents get younger and younger every single year and hardly have a brain between them. There's no way that we were ever that green!"
"Oh, come on, Francine! They can't be that bad. There must be at least one promising agent in the bunch? Someone you can mentor?"
Francine rolled her eyes at Lee in an exasperated manner. "I have had this class for the past 6-weeks and not one of them has stood out as anything but slightly above average. Most of them will be fine behind a desk, but out in the field…..forget it. They'd be dead in a matter of weeks."
"Well…..maybe they are just waiting for you to inspire them! I seem to remember you used to have some rather umm…interesting ways to offer up inspiration in the old days!"
Lee let out a chuckle as he took a sip of his coffee. Francine looked at Lee with a blank expression on her face.
"Lee, that is not funny", she said dryly. "And even if I did resort to….well those types of things, I swear that most of them would have no idea what to do with it."
Lee continued to chuckle both at Francine's frustration with the new recruits and with the thought of how the Francine of 10 years ago would have handled this situation. Francine pointed her finger at Lee, her big blue eyes opened wide.
"Lee, seriously…not funny! Don't you have something better to do than stand around here and laugh at me? Why don't you go harass Amanda?"
"Well for your information, Amanda is not here today. She had some interviews out in the field and then was going back home to rest." Lee's mood quickly changed from jovial agent to concerned husband. "She barely slept at all last night. The conversation with the boys really is weighing on her. I know she feels really betrayed by Joe, too." Lee checked his watch. "She should be calling me fairly soon, I would imagine, letting me know she is back at home."
"Oh that's right…she said she had those defection interviews. Those are usually so boring and tedious. Who is she interviewing?"
Lee thought for a moment. "You know? I actually have no idea. I don't think I ever asked her. Huh….that is not like me. Damn it! I can't believe I never touched base with her about the interviews."
"Well, I'm sure if you are that concerned, she probably has the information on her desk somewhere."
Lee slowly nodded his head as he contemplated Francine's comment. "Yeah! Good idea. I'm going to go check it out. Good luck with your class!"
Lee gave Francine a wink as he headed to Amanda's office.
SMK SMK SMK SMK SMK SMK SMK SMK
Amanda stared at the gun that was pointed at her and then at the silver haired woman that had her finger on the trigger. Her blue eyes were sad…..hardened. Her lips were tight and pulled into a scowl. Her completion, although somewhat wrinkled, was like porcelain. She was a beautiful woman that showed the hard life she had lived. Natasha pushed Amanda further into the living room. She grabbed Amanda's purse from her shoulder and grasped it close. She then took the leather satchel that contained Amanda's files and put them both on the credenza on the opposite side of the sunlit room. Amanda began to speak to her captor.
"I'm sorry Mrs. Alezczeck but I think you have me confused with someone else. If you'll just put down the gun, we can talk about this and I am sure we will see that this is all a misunderstanding."
An evil laugh escaped Ekaterina's lips.
"Oh there is no mistake and I do not have you confused with someone else. Your husband is the American agent Lee Stetson. I believe they now call him Scarecrow. They didn't call him that when I had the displeasure of meeting him….when he took away everything that I loved…EVERYTHING THAT MATTERED TO ME!"
Amanda took a step back. She was quickly realizing that she was in real trouble. She had to think fast. This was supposed to be a simple interview and then a quick trip home. What had she missed in the preliminary research; obviously something big. Her heart began to beat faster. Amanda decided to use her gift of rambling to buy her some time.
"Well, I really don't know anything about that. I didn't even know Lee in the days before they called him Scarecrow. It sounds like something that happened a long time ago. Why don't we all just sit down and we can talk about….."
"Nyet! We will not talk! We will wait!"
"What are we going to wait for?" Amanda asked, almost afraid to hear the answer. Ekaterina took in a deep breath and regained her composure.
"We will be waiting for the rest of the guests to arrive to our party. And once they are all here, we will be inviting the guest of honor to join us….Lee Stetson himself. Tell me, Mrs. Stetson…..when is your baby due?" She used the gun to gesture at Amanda's belly. Amanda immediately wrapped her arms around her middle instinctively trying to protect her unborn baby. "You and the scarecrow must be very excited. A child is a wonderful blessing. But then, you already know that, don't you?"
Natasha pushed Amanda down into the waiting chair and began to tie her arms to the wooded arm rests. Amanda felt given the current situation, being out numbered and a gun pointed at the baby, it was best not to try and fight Natasha. Amanda stared coldly at the pair and tried to create an escape plan in her head. Natasha finished tying Amanda's arms and legs to the chair.
"Thank you, Tasha. Why don't you go attend to your errand?"
Natasha nodded to her mother and walked out the front door. Amanda wondered where she was going and who the other 'guests' that were to arrive. She was running through procedure in her mind when she realized that she never told Lee where she was going today. Amanda had planned on discussing her day today with him last night, but the talk with the boys pushed everything else from her mind. He wasn't expecting to see her at the agency today. It would probably be several hours before he even realizes she's missing and by then, it may be too late. She then thought about the gun in her purse. Natasha had not opened the purse to look through it. She just put it on the credenza…..if there was only a way Amanda could get free, she could get to her purse and to the gun.
Ekaterina walked over to Amanda and touched her pregnant stomach. Amanda jumped at the touch and could feel the rage begin to rise within her. The old woman's touch made her skin crawl.
"Yes. Children are indeed a gift. Isn't that right, Mrs. Stetson or shall I call you Amanda? You already know what a blessing children can be because you already have two boys: Philip and Jamie."
Amanda's eyes widened at the mention of her sons. She didn't know how much to confirm. Panic began to rise within her.
"Two very handsome boys. I can't wait to meet them in person. Tell me-does Mr. Stetson mind that they are not his own children? Or does he love them like his own? Would he be upset if something were to happen to them?"
Amanda opened her mouth to speak but no words came out.
"Oh, don't worry, Amanda. I am not going to hurt you, Philip, Jamie or your baby…at least not yet."
SMK SMK SMK SMK SMK SMK SMK SMK
Lee sat down at Amanda's neat as a pin desk. He let out a heavy sigh as he began opening drawers to find some clue as to where she was today.
"At least with the piles on my desk you have at least some idea of where to start looking!" he said out loud to himself.
Lee began to get frustrated that the answer wasn't popping out at him. Then he remembered that Amanda said she had the files with her at home.
"OK, so no files. Where else can I look?" He sat back in her chair and studied her desk. "There has to be a clue here somewhere. Ah! Her calendar!"
Lee opened the top drawer and retrieved the calendar that Amanda used to keep track of her appointments and other things that needed scheduling. He flipped the pages until he found the current week's pages.
"Dr.'s appointment on Thursday…..good to know. OK….where are you today, Amanda? 9:00am meeting with Fredrick Mueller, 11:00am meeting with Natasha Petrovich and Ekaterina E. Alezczeck." Lee continued to scan the pages to see if there was mention of addresses or phone numbers. "Damn! Nothing!"
Lee picked up the phone and dialed.
"Research! This is Hill"
"Agent Hill, this is Lee Stetson."
"Oh yes, how can I help you, Sir?"
"I need to know if Amanda Stetson had you research a few people recently that have inquired about defecting."
"Yes she did. I helped her with that myself."
"Great, I need the addresses for the people that you researched for her."
"Sure, hold on a sec"
Lee frantically searched for something to write with and a piece of paper to write on. There were no pens or pencils in sight.
"Damn it, Amanda! Do you have to put EVERYTHING away?"
Finally, Lee found a dull pencil in the back of the drawer and began to scribble the addresses on the back of Amanda's calendar.
"Ok, thanks. Was there anything unusual about the people you researched? Any kind of flags come up?"
"Not a thing with Mueller. He seems clean as a whistle. Very low security risk. Finding information on the other two was a bit more difficult. We couldn't go back as far with them as we did with Mueller. The U.S.S.R is not as easy to get information out of, as I am sure you know. What we did find out didn't seem too scary: a ballerina and her mother. Both of them are widows. Doesn't seem to be any KGB connections."
"How far were you able to go back?"
"Uh…looks like '75."
"'75? That's not really that far back. You couldn't find ANYTHING else?"
"Nope. Mrs. Stetson mentioned to me that she thought she would not be recommending that they be allowed to defect given their spotty back ground check but she was going to wait until after the interview today."
"Amanda told you all this?"
"Well, you know how friendly Mrs. Stetson can be….and we just got to chatting and…."
Lee rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah. I know Amanda likes to chat. Any idea what she was hoping to find out?"
"Well, mainly why there doesn't seem to be much information before '75. Alezczeck was Ekaterina's second marriage. There was no sign of her until '75."
"What was her married name before that?"
"We were still waiting to get that information as of last Friday. Can you hold on a second and I can see if that has come in yet?"
"Sure."
Lee scanned the weeks to come in Amanda's calendar. He smiled when he saw that their anniversary was only a few weeks away. He made a mental note to do something extra special for Amanda this year.
"Mr. Stetson?"
"Yeah, I'm here. Did you get the name?"
"Yes we did. Her name was Egorov. Ekaterina Egorov and her daughter Natasha Egorov."
Lee's stomach dropped and he felt his face drain of all its blood. After all these years….this can't be a coincidence.
"Are you sure? Egorov?"
"Positive….…hello? Hello, Mr. Stetson?"
Lee had slammed down the phone. He sat back in Amanda's chair and brought his hands to his temples, stunned at the information he had just received. "Damn it! Damn it, Amanda! What have you walked into?"
To be continued…