7
Intentional End
Chapter 15
October 12
Friday Morning
Bobby walked up the block from parking his vehicle, carrying a bag of pastries, fruit and juice when a man turned from a shop window and stepped in stride with him, "Detective, may I have a word?"
Bobby stopped and looked at the man; it was the agent, Wycoff, from Deakins' office; the man who told him about Gleason being away for a while.
"What do you want?" Bobby glanced up the street to the apartment building; Gleason was alone up there.
"Let's walk," Wycoff said, taking hold of Bobby's right arm, squeezing tightly. He began to move, but Bobby resisted.
"Is Gleason OK?"
"Yes, yes, Detective, your lovely wife is fine. Sleeping actually, she is going to sleep for several hours. That was some banging you gave her last night. She's quite a piece of ass, eh?"
Bobby dropped the bag of food and took a swing, but a second man came from nowhere and grabbed Bobby's left arm, preventing the swing from connecting. "What have you done with her?" he hissed.
"Detective, calm down. We have done nothing to her. She is fine. Now, please, stop drawing attention and let us discuss how things are going to be, shall we?" Wycoff guided Bobby into the back seat of a dark sedan parked right outside the apartment lobby door. As he entered, Bobby spotted a white van across the street and knew it held back up for these two and perhaps surveillance equipment.
The second man slid in beside Bobby, he had retrieved the dropped bag and set it on the floor; Wycoff sat in front. The driver never moved.
Turning in the seat to face Bobby, Wycoff said, "Now, Detective, you have been warned, on numerous occasions, by several people, to stop investigating your wife's whereabouts and actions during her absence. As promised, she was returned to you safe and sound and now it is up to you to let life return to normal."
Bobby listened and his mind ran. "Who are you?"
The agent closed his eyes and shook his head sadly. "You know, they told me you were highly intelligent. I would have thought that you would be smart enough to know when to stop when told to stop." The two men stared at each other. Then Wycoff continued with mock exasperation, "All right, you are not going to let this go, I see. So, what do you want to know?"
"Who are you?" Bobby asked again.
"As I told you when we first met, I work for the FBI."
Bobby did not believe this for a minute. "Where did you take Gleason?"
"She spent a few days in Helsinki at the beginning and end of her trip and the rest of the time she was working in Pushtovkin, a small province in the upper Russian tundra."
"What kind of work was she doing?"
"She was using her expertise as a linguist to identify and translate a bit of found writing."
"Why all the secrecy?"
"Ah, now that, Detective, is classified. I cannot reveal the specific nature of her work. Suffice it to say, she completed the work given to her."
"Why does she speak Russian when she didn't before?"
Wycoff scoffed, shook his head again and said, "Your wife is a gifted linguist, Detective. She assimilated the language most naturally. Sadly, you have no idea how many languages your wife speaks. You should spend more time with her. There's a lot you don't know." The agent smiled smugly and waited.
Bobby's gut burned. He could have killed this man right here.
"Anything else?" Wycoff asked.
"Was she raped?"
Wycoff's demeanor changed ever so slightly and Bobby caught it. "She was, wasn't she?" Bobby knew he had them. The confirmation that his wife was raped sent his mind reeling; he would deal with that reality later. Right now, he had to seize this opportunity.
Bobby continued, "A civilian, while in the employ of a government agency, shall be held to the highest measures of safety and well being. Isn't that right, Wycoff?" Wycoff did not reply.
"You know who did it, don't you, an American." Bobby knew he had the upper hand. "Gleason was working for the FBI and was raped by an American also in the employ of the FBI." Wycoff and Bobby both knew the ramifications of this reality; if true, an investigation would ensue and charges filed. Moreover, thought Wycoff, the expedition would be exposed and he could not let that happen.
"Detective, you are spouting the deranged imaginings of a jealous husband. No such thing happened. Besides, how could you prove it? What evidence would you produce? Especially after the fucking you gave her last night?"
Bobby came over the back of the front seat and had his hands around Wycoff's throat before the second agent could move. Both he and the driver fought to get Bobby off the other man. Finally, Bobby realised what he was doing and his hands sprung away from Wycoff's throat. Wycoff fell against the dash sucking air, coughing. The second agent pulled Bobby into the back seat and Bobby shoved him away. The four men all panted, catching their breath.
Wycoff slowly recovered, and rubbing his neck, still gasping and coughing, whispered hoarsely, "Detective, go see to your wife." Then, to the agent sitting beside Bobby, he said, "Get him out of here." To himself, Wycoff said, I am not done with you, you son of a bitch; and Bobby thought the same.
The agent stepped from the car with the bag of food in hand, Bobby exited, rounded the back end of the car, took the offered bag and the agent facetiously brushed lint from Bobby's coat. Bobby jerked away and watched as the agent slid back into the car and both the sedan and the van across the street pulled away. He watched the sedan turn right at the corner. Then he turned, unlocked the lobby door and ran up to his apartment. The door stood ajar.
Bobby dropped the bag on his chair and dashed to the bedroom, that door was open as well. Gleason lay curled on her left side as was usual. He darted around the bed and knelt beside her, "Gleason, Honey wake up. Wake up, Gleason!" He shook her with some fervor and she moaned. Bobby unfolded her arms and searched inside her forearms, looking for anything. There, there it was, inside her right elbow, the pinprick of a needle. They wouldn't be stupid enough to leave the syringe, he thought, nor would they give her anything dangerous. What did Wycoff say . . . she'll be asleep for hours. Bobby felt her head, no fever. Just let her sleep. Let her sleep. He covered her shoulders and kissed her gently. Then he stood, went to the kitchen and left Gleason a note that he would be back by one. He locked the door on his way out and jogged to his car.
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Bobby took the elevator to the sixth floor and found Derek in surveillance. "Derek, I, I need to talk with you."
"Sure, what's up?" Derek was young, just out of the academy, graduating, not as a cop, but as a surveillance expert. He was impressed with Detective Bobby Goren, he had heard stories about this guy, how smart, brave, odd.
"I need a sweeper, the best you have; something that will find government grade cameras and mikes."
"You want me to put together a sweep team?"
"Uh, no, no." Bobby looked down, stepped back two steps and his left hand scratched at a spot behind his left ear. "I, I need to check it out myself." He glanced up at the young man, and then held his gaze.
Derek processed what his hero of sorts was saying. "I see." He struggled. "Uhm, do you have any paperwork for this equipment?" he asked softly.
Bobby shook his head, no. Derek nodded in understanding. "Oh, man." He struggled some more, then, he turned, went to a shelf, removed a bin and pulled out a tool that looked like the cross between a cyborg pancake turner and a heavy-duty flyswatter. He slipped the unit in the plastic carrier bag that had held his lunch and slid it across the counter. Barely above a whisper, Derek said, "Be sure to turn it on; go slowly, an inch off the surface, cover every inch. If it's government grade, it could be the size of a small screw head."
Bobby took the bag and his eyes said it all. He slipped the bag into the inner jacket pocket and returned to the elevator, pushed the down arrow and waited. The elevator doors opened and there stood Eames. Shit!
"Bobby!"
"Yeah." Bobby pushed the button for the fifth floor. He did not want to engage with Eames.
"How's Gleason? Everything ok? Are you back already?"
The elevator moved so slowly. "Uh, no, no, I'll be back on Tuesday." Finally, the doors opened and Bobby stepped out. He turned and took a step, and then another and the elevator doors closed. He stepped back and pushed the down button again.
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Bobby went straight to the bedroom and found Gleason still asleep. She had turned over and seemed to be breathing deeply. He put his fingers against the pulse in her neck. He didn't know what the drugs she had been given might do to her heart. Her pulse was slow, as it usually was, but strong and steady. He pulled up the covers and pushed the hair away from her face. She mumbled something and stretched.
"Honey?"
"Я не могу прочитать это. Это не походит ни на что, я видел." I cannot read this. This is like nothing I have seen.
Gleason frowned, then snuggled, pulling Bobby's pillow toward her.
Bobby sighed heavily and removed the sweeper from his jacket pocket. He laid it on the bed and then removed his jacket, trading it for the sweeper. He moved to the foot of the bed and looked at his sleeping wife. Where would those bastards hide a camera? He looked from the bed to the dresser, to the painting over it. He flipped on the switch, reached up and began his search.
Twice, Gleason mumbled in her sleep, but he could not make out whether it was English or Russian. The sweeper made no sound, the digital read-out did not move. He swept the wall across from the foot of the bed and everything against it. He swept the wall and furniture on his side of the bed. He did the same with the opposite wall. Bobby sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the wall behind the headboard, he did not want to disturb Gleason, so that wall would wait.
He sat, stared and opened his mind. Bobby did what he always did when faced with a loose thread, a mass of details he could not pattern out, he opened his mind. He had been able to do this since he was a boy. He just stopped thinking and literally opened his mind to nothing. His head tilted slightly to the left, just slightly, his eyes seemed to unfocus, his lips pursed and he breathed deeply and slowly. Images floated in and out of a pair of opened doors in his mind. Doors. Open doors. Bobby's eyes strayed to the bedroom door, standing open. He stood, moved to it and shut it.
There, the top hinge, the top hinge had been replaced with one bearing a button camera. Bobby stared at it, and then he went to the hall closet and took a hammer and flat head screwdriver from his toolbox. He returned to the bedroom, shut the door, placed the screwdriver against the tiny lens, and hit the end of the screwdriver's handle sharply. He hit it again and heard the lens crack. Then, he used the screwdriver and hammer to remove the pin and from the top and bottom hinges and then he removed them as well.
The hammering woke Gleason, "Bobby?" She sounded drugged.
"It's ok, Honey. Go back to sleep," he said over his shoulder.
"What are you doing?" she mumbled, struggling to sit up.
"I'm fixing the door, that's all. Go back to sleep."
"Ok," and she snuggled back into her pillow, hugging Bobby's to her chest.
Bobby removed the hinges and leaned the door against the wall. He returned the sweeper to the bag, slipped on his jacket, dropped the hinges, pins and screws into his pocket and drove back to One Police Plaza.
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"Jeeze, what did you do? Why'd you smash it?"
"What can you tell me about it?"
"Well, not much in this condition." Derek looked up at the tall man.
Bobby leaned with both hands on the counter and fumed. "Look, can you tell if it was infrared?"
Derek looked at the man he admired for a beat and then said, "Let me take a look at this, let me see what I find. Uh, it's gonna take about twenty minutes or so. You wanna come back or wait?"
Bobby thought a moment and then said, "I'll be back." He left and took the elevator to the eleventh floor. He strode straight into Deakins' office and shut the door.
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