The Pieces Fit

The next hour was a flurry of piecing information together and formulating a plan. Lee would have preferred to keep their group as small as possible, but Beaman was already sticking his neck out for them, and he had a grudging respect for how Andrew had handled Amanda's obvious decision earlier. Plus, Hacker was experienced, intelligent, and had a range of contacts that Minter wouldn't be able to access or neutralize... or mobilize against Amanda and Francine.

Hacker did, however, make the well-meaning mistake of asking Oliver if he was following everything everyone was saying. Poor Andy. Unlike Amanda, Oliver was not used to being underestimated.

"Fielder's staged suicide was meant to implicate his brother's company in the Summit bombing. Logically, whoever shot him knew that was who rigged the building. Fielder made and received calls from Minter last night. The first call was right after we were locked out of my files. They probably used his connection to the demolition to set him up to receive and report that notification, if it ever happened. Since he survived the attack and was able to implicate Minter, it follows that Minter either was directly involved with, or knew who was responsible for that night."

Then he dropped the real (555) BIG-BOOM: the missing link to Undersecretary Oldfield. "I read the proposal Oldfield's company submitted to the Earthquake Engineering Center for the Rapids Project. One of the chief consultants on that project was named Frank Fielder. That's either the connection, or one hell of a coincidence. That's all in the file we downloaded last night."

Beaman confirmed that Frank Fielder was Fred's younger brother.

They all knew the ties to Minter were circumstantial, and unless Fielder recovered or they could get his brother to corroborate, the link to the Assistant Director relied only on Beaman's word. They doubted they'd find any evidence in Fielder's office that would definitively link Minter to the setup. He was in Fred's office enough to explain any stray fingerprints the tech team might find. They figured that when the slug was found, it would match the gun in Fred's hand.

Lee was the first to recognize the potentially fatal flaw in the set-up. All four agents knew that Fielder had been stripped of his weapons permit three years ago, before Minter had been promoted to the D.C. office. Fred could not have cleared the Security checkpoint with a gun, nor could he have accessed the in-house armory.

The checkpoint was Minter's added security measure. It would be poetic if it came back to haunt him.

Oliver surprised them again by suggesting the pistol's registration would be classified information, protected by whatever agency handled things like that for Cabinet members, rather than in public or Agency records. Andrew thought he could get that information from his FBI contacts and possibly confirm another tie to Oldfield.

Lee hoped their line of reasoning would raise enough questions at the hearing to at least delay the confirmation, pending investigation. One step at a time. We have to get there in one piece first.

Amanda understood that Efraim and Fred could both be in grave danger. She called certain members of her old in-house network of support staff to quietly keep eyes on them. She was the kind of loyal friend who had kept in touch with her contacts while on leave. She also knew which ones were likely to be awake and on duty at this hour. They were happy to help Amanda, even though they thought Fielder was a morose old creep.

A lot depended on Fred's recovery.

Francine knew Eff would want to visit his friend but cautioned him to stay away. Killing two birds with one stone was a convenience nobody wanted to offer up on a silver platter. She was glad she thought of that before he had to hang up. Eff was rather a pet and she'd hate to see anything bad happen to him.

Someone with authority had finally been reached to put The Agency in lockdown. She of course could have put them on lockdown herself, but knew they'd find someone else with that ability soon. It was more important to get what information they could before outside communication was blocked, and to stay off radar. She trusted Beaman to delete evidence of their communication.

Next, they had to find a way to get at least Lee and Oliver to D.C. for the hearing, make sure Francine and Amanda were protected, and if possible, find out if Minter had left D.C. ...and if he had Oldfield with him. Francine had no doubt that Oldfield would have insisted on coming if Minter was in fact handling the D1 himself. She hadn't forgotten the acting Secretary's unwanted attentions and his vague threats that she'd regret ignoring him.

Not really too much to ask before breakfast, now is it? she thought.

Oliver noticed her tense up a little when she mentioned Oldfield. He took her hand protectively. After last night, he'd have happily died for her. Well, at least taken some damage for her.

Lee saw the gesture and braced himself for the backlash. NOBODY got away with recognizing Francine's vulnerability before she was willing to admit it, especially in public. Well, except himself and Amanda. Andrew's presence made this "public". He was surprised to see her slip a little closer and allow Oliver to put his arm around her. She'd always been as uncomfortable with public affection as she was with vulnerability. He randomly wondered how much he'd contributed to that.

Did I miss something? I know they were flirting last night, but... He saw Amanda's knowing smile. Whatever he'd missed, his wife obviously hadn't. These women! I love em. I'd even die for em -for real if necessary. But sometimes I just don't understand em.

He was glad Beaman wasn't here to witness his beloved muse's reaction. Watching grown men cry was embarrassing.

Andrew suggested moving Francine's car to his garage. They'd told him about transplanting the bug when he mentioned the rather obvious possibility that she'd been tracked. There was a good chance that it was still an effective decoy. He'd ridden over on his bicycle so he could approach the house indirectly if necessary. He wanted to stay to be part of the planning, but knew that he could help most from home, putting out feelers to his network. He didn't miss the irony of Amanda hugging him as she walked him to the door with Francine's keys.

Lee took the lead. "Okay, we should probably assume they're coming here. It's what, an eight-hour drive?"

"About seven, under six if they push it." Amanda had made the drive a few times to visit her mother. She'd made it in considerably under six hours when her stepfather was rushed to the hospital right after Halloween.

Nobody wondered whether they drove or flew. Flying leaves a paper trail, and being able to make arrangements on such short notice in the middle of the night was strictly the stuff of action movies, not real life. Plus, they'd need a way to get around once they got here. So, driving a few hours was almost a certainty. Assuming they'd left almost immediately after setting Fred Fielder up... Oh no.

If they were coming -and it would be foolish to suspect otherwise- they'd already had more than enough time to have made it to the area. It was also likely that they'd thought to track down Amanda's address, since the plan seemed to be to kidnap her to get to Francine.

They obviously didn't know who they were dealing with. Amanda did. The odds weren't pretty. Against Minter, she'd give herself 50/50 odds on escaping alone, 90/10 on escaping with Francine's help...and exactly zero percent on Francine willingly surrendering, especially with Oldfield thrown into the equation. To be fair, she'd give Francine the same odds if their positions were reversed.

Think, Mrs. King. THINK! Thank goodness Jamie and the kids aren't here to get caught in the crossfire.

Wait! That's it. Empty nest! "They know I live here, but they don't know if Francine's been here, or if I'm even home. I wouldn't have been, if I'd gone on the cruise with the kids."

She quickly outlined her plan and scrawled instructions for an imaginary house sitter and placed the note, along with a few $20 bills on the table in the dining room. Francine had caught on instantly and gone upstairs to get her bag and the bags from the mall and put the room back in order. They put everything out of sight in the trunk of Jamie's Mercedes. Amanda figured they'd take that car to D.C. since it wasn't registered to any of them. Jamie would understand if they weren't back by the time he got home from vacation.

It was a good, simple plan and it probably would have worked if they'd come up with it just a few minutes earlier.