Disclaimer: I don't own the situations or characters portrayed herein. I'm just playing with them for a while.
Stemwinder 2, Part 1
Billy wasn't a pushover, despite being a kind man with twinkling eyes and a warm smile. When he demanded something, especially using The Voice (as Francine called it) he got it. So when he told Dr. Smyth — told, not requested — that he would go after Lee with a D-1 manhunt, but only on his terms, Dr. Smyth had caved.
"I don't believe it for a minute, Francine," he had told her, with just a little doubt behind his forced confidence. "You saw Lee's eyes at the supermarket."
She had seen his eyes. Desperate eyes, as he had backed away with Sonja clutched tightly as his hostage, begging for time to find the people he sought. But then he had released her and fled, and Amanda had fled too — and like it or not, that meant that the agency had to track them down.
What if they were both in it? What if they really had gone over? It wouldn't be the first time an agent had gone wrong. It wouldn't even be the first time Lee had been suspected of going wrong. Had all the times before been only a dress rehearsal, to see how far he could go and still be cleared as an American agent?
Her heart ached, and the pounding refrain in her head clouded her reason and dulled her reflexes, until the only thing she could think of was: if he's gone over, I can't go on.
She clung to that "if" as if it were a life preserver in shark-infested waters. If he had really gone over, he wouldn't be looking for Sonja so desperately. If he had really gone over, he wouldn't be on the run; he'd be holed up in the Soviet embassy.
They had only a few clues, one of which was Lee's mention of Alexi Makarov setting him up. She got her janitor network on it. They were geniuses — quiet, determined, and capable of breaking into any secure network without leaving traces that they had been there. Better yet, they were loyal to her, not to Dr. Smyth, and he was entirely unaware of their existence.
When she got their report, she took a deep breath, steeled herself, and walked into Billy's office with an expression that was only a little less than the approximation of a smile.
"He was released. Alexi Makarov. Five weeks ago."
Billy's eyes lit up, a little too brightly considering the circumstances. "Find him."
"Yes, sir."
Billy went to the little house in Arlington with only a few other agents. He didn't take Francine — she thought Dotty might remember her as the chimpanzee-loving socialite with the wonderful cook. It was reasonable for the agent who had helped find Joe and who had saved Dr. Zernov to come to the house; if Francine showed up with him it might stretch Amanda's lies to the breaking point.
Had Amanda only told lies to Dotty and the boys, and even to Joe? Or had she lied to Billy and Francine as well?
She seriously hoped not.
While Billy talked to Dotty, Francine was busy with the manhunt. It would seem strange to Dr. Smyth if she had agents looking in all the wrong places and none of the right ones. She dispatched the sharpshooters and the Smyth-loyalists to the most random places she could think of that still felt reasonable. The agents who were the worst shots, the least skilled drivers, or the most loyal to Billy were sent to the more logical places that Lee might frequent.
A couple of people who might have been Lee and Amanda were flushed out of hiding by an overpass, but they were quickly lost. Maybe they weren't even Lee and Amanda after all.
She relaxed a little.
Her heart dropped right into her shoes when the words came over the radio: "Freeze, Scarecrow!"
They had been found, after all.
Gunshots reverberated from the radio, and she caught her breath. More gunshots.
A squeal of tires. A crash of trash cans.
More gunshots.
Silence.