by Margaret Kay
“How did you find me?” She returned his embrace just as fiercely.
“Your tracker. It moved away from your phone. Garcia got the alert and called me.”
“What are you doing here? Your mission was in Anchorage?”
“No, Seattle. Shepherd had our plane fly Lambchop and me here right away when Garcia sounded the alarm.” He led her towards where Lambchop was just pulling the man to his feet.
“He’s the second man who came into the research station Christmas Eve,” she said.
“And he’s the only other one here?” Mother asked.
“Yes, as far as I know,” Annaka answered.
Lambchop’s lips pulled into a compassionate grin. “Are you okay?”
She nodded. “Yes, I am now.”
“I wasn’t going to hurt you,” the man said.
Mother picked up his weapon from the floor. He dropped the mag, then pulled the slide back and ejected the round that was in the pipe. “Yeah, with a loaded .9 mm. You weren’t going to hurt her.”
“Come on, let’s get him out to the other agents,” Lambchop said, nodding towards the rear of the building and the door they’d come through.
“I really need to use the bathroom,” she said, pointing at the door.
“And I’d like to question this piece of shit without external eyes.” Danny walked with her to the door. Lambchop was behind them, his hand curled tightly around her assailant’s bicep. Danny tried the door. It was locked. He motioned her to stand back. He raised a foot and in one quick and powerful thrust, he kicked the door with all his weight behind it. Annaka flinched when it exploded open and banged loudly against the wall.
They crossed the smaller room that had shelves of paintball guns, pellets, and face shields on them and exited through the other door. It was unlocked. Annaka went straight to the ladies’ room. After using the facilities, oh relief, she splashed some water on her face. She was safe.
“Better?” Mother asked her as she rejoined them in the hallway.
She nodded and came in close, wrapping her arms around his waist.
Lambchop pulled the man into the room next to the bathroom. Danny held Annaka’s trembling body tightly to himself as Lambchop roughly pushed the man into the chair.
Lambchop leaned into the man’s face from above him. It was meant to intimidate him, and it did. “You’re lucky I’m the one who will ask you questions and not him.” He pointed at Mother. “If you do not give me straight answers, I’ll let him take over and I won’t stop him as he beats the shit out of you. That’s his woman you threatened. Trust me, he won’t hesitate to hurt you.”
“It’s not what you think. I only wanted to talk with Dr. Sanchez,” he whimpered.
“She’s standing there. Talk,” Lambchop said.
“Pat didn’t want you to be hurt. He did everything he could to keep that from happening,” he insisted. “I wanted to explain. Pat liked you, respected you. This all got way out of hand. It was never supposed to go down the way it did,” he spoke quickly.
“What wasn’t supposed to go down the way it did?” Mother asked, his gaze burning a hole through the frightened man.
“The thing in December.”
Lambchop shook him. “The armed kidnapping. Call it what it was.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be that. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. It got out of hand. They forced it into being more than it was supposed to be, more than Pat agreed to. No one was supposed to get hurt,” he whined.
“Who forced it?” Lambchop asked. “Who was behind it?”
“It wasn’t Pat,” he insisted.
“Who the fuck was it?” Lambchop growled, losing his patience.
The man sighed and nervously glanced around. “You have to protect me. Promise me you’ll protect me,” he begged.
Lambchop nodded.
“Charles Devlin, a VP at Carstairs, will receive a big-ass bonus for expanding the drilling near the inlet. He in turn, reached out to Pat to check on the stability of the inlet floor, you know, seismically.”
“Who the hell are you and how did you know Patrick Keeling?” Mother questioned when he paused.
“My name is Peter Keeling. Pat was my cousin.”
“Cousin?” Annaka repeated.
“Did you know he had a cousin in the area?” Mother asked her.
“No,” she said, shaking her head.
“Let me see some ID,” Lambchop demanded.
Peter took his wallet slowly from his back pocket and handed it to Lambchop. “Peter Keeling from Silver Springs, Maryland.”
“You’re a long way from home,” Mother remarked.
“I guess Pat didn’t really trust Devlin. I’m in between jobs, so he had me come to cover his back, wouldn’t let anyone else hold a gun to his head during that charade at the research building Christmas Eve.”
“It was an armed kidnapping,” Lambchop reminded him.
“It wasn’t supposed to be.” His eyes left Lambchop and affixed on Annaka. “You were supposed to be in the middle of working on your report. The files were supposed to be open on your computer. Pat had talked with you about it. It was supposed to be a robbery to cover up changing your report. You and Pat were going to be left tied up and unharmed in the station after the Carstairs guy changed your report. Pat would get himself free a few hours after we left with the computers, and the fuss over the robbery wouldn’t make anyone think about checking that report. But you weren’t working on your report, so that fucked everything up.”
Annaka recalled how Patrick had asked her repeatedly about her report and what work she planned to get done Christmas Eve.
“So, Plan B was a kidnapping. When and how was Annaka ever going to be freed?” Mother demanded.
“On New Years’ Eve Pat was going to say he saw them drive away, and that he broke out of the room he was being held in. He’d rescue her and be the hero. He would never have hurt you, Dr. Sanchez.”
“But certainly, they knew I’d go back and amend the report,” Annaka argued.
“It wouldn’t have mattered. The agreement would already have been signed to allow for the survey. Plus, Pat was hoping you’d just be glad to be released and let it go. He was going to try to convince you by saying he was worried they’d come back after you both.”
“Why did Patrick do it?” Annaka asked.
“Money, a lot of money. Pat was getting ready to transfer out of Alaska. He hated it here. The fifty thousand that Devlin was paying him would go a long way to live a little more comfortably in Hawaii, his next assignment with the USGS. Even though the cost of living was so high there, the per diem for the station wasn’t much more than for working in Alaska.”
“Patrick never said anything about a new assignment away from Alaska,” Annaka said.
“Doesn’t mean he wasn’t going to. That’s easy enough to check on with the USGS,” Lambchop said.
“Do you have any proof? Was there a go between or were all the conversations between Devlin and Keeling?” Mother pressed.
“Pat said that some guy named Troy transmitted information between him and Devlin, but that guy didn’t know jack-shit about what was really going on. There was also some guy on the rig that was in on it. I don’t know his name. I overheard a conversation he had with Pat through his phone. That guy talked really fucking loud, twangy hillbilly. He knew exactly what was going to go down, threatened Dr. Sanchez which pissed Pat off. He’s the one who provided the data that was entered into the report by Franz. That was the guy who was part of the charade Christmas Eve.”
“Franz is the name of the other man who entered the research station with you and Patrick?” Mother asked.
Peter Keeling nodded. “He was Devlin’s man.”
“Wasn’t anyone even the least bit concerned about the possibility of a quake?” Annaka asked. “Or did the money negate worrying about any possible disaster?”
“Look, Pat didn’t think the risk was that great.”
“He wa
s wrong!” Annaka snapped. “Nineteen men died on oil rig C-Three because of greed.”
“Easy, cariño,” Mother soothed. Then his eyes went to Peter Keeling. “What are you still doing here? And why did you come after Annaka today?”
“I’ve been negotiating with Devlin to get the other half of the money he promised Pat. I wasn’t stalking you or anything, Dr. Sanchez. I’ve been staying at the hotel and when I saw you there this morning, I wanted to try to set things right with you. I thought if you’d just listen that you’d understand that it wasn’t supposed to happen like it did. Pat would want you to know that it got out of hand.”
“He’s dead. Obviously, it did,” she retorted. “The only way you can even try to come close to making this right is to cooperate with authorities and get Devlin and that other guy.”
“I will,” Keeling swore.
Lambchop pulled him to his feet. “Let’s get you to those authorities now.”
“Wait,” Annaka said. “One last thing. Patrick had pictures of me on his phone. He’d been following me. What the hell was that about?”
Peter Keeling shook his head. “I don’t know. He never said anything to me about it.”
“And that cabin was set up to hold her, Keeling had been up there that morning,” Mother said. “I don’t buy for one second that it hadn’t been a part of the plan.”
“I don’t know anything about that,” Peter insisted.
“Someone blew up my house,” Annaka said. “They tried to kill me. What do you know about that?”
“Nothing,” Peter Keeling swore. “But I wouldn’t put it past Devlin. He’s a bad dude. I don’t think Pat even knew how bad he is.”
Her gaze flew to Danny. “I’m done here. I’m done listening to him.”
Mother draped his coat over Annaka’s shoulders before he led her out of the building. He watched her rub her eyes against the bright afternoon sun. “We’ll stop by the hotel to get your things before we head to the airport. I’m not sure we can make the hearing you were going to speak at. If it’s not already over, it will be soon. We’re flying back to Seattle right away.”
She glanced around at all the activity. There were three marked police cars and three SUVs with men in jackets that read FBI, milling around. “What time is it?”
“Nearly fifteen hundred.”
Annaka did the math in her head. It was nearly three p.m. She watched Lambchop hand Peter Keeling’s gun to a man wearing a jacket that read FBI near one of the SUVs. Peter Keeling sat in the backseat. She heard murmurs of their conversation, material witness, immunity deal request, protection. Then that agent walked up to where she and Danny stood.
Agent Wheeler introduced himself and took her statement. She tightly held Danny’s hand as she recounted the events of the morning. She still couldn’t wrap her mind around the fact that it was nearly three in the afternoon. She’d hid in that crate in the paintball arena for hours.
Then she noticed the white panel van parked haphazardly nearby, more like abandoned. She wondered who had moved it there. Had Peter Keeling left her hiding in the paintball arena and moved it there? If so, she would have had an opportunity to get away. Instead, she had hid. She’d been paralyzed by fear, unable to move for the longest time.
“We’ll be in touch if we need any other information,” Wheeler said. He thanked her and moved away.
“I need to contact Remi and let her know why I didn’t make it to the hearing.”
“Both Remi and Clint are still under FBI protection. They were advised of your disappearance and were asked to relay that information to Remi and Clint,” Lambchop said.
“Can you get word to them that I’m okay? I’ll call Remi later.”
Lambchop nodded, a compassionate expression on his face. “I’ll take care of it.”
She nodded and then turned to Danny. “My flight leaves at six-thirty. I can probably make that flight while you fly back to Seattle.”
He could see how shaky she was. Her attempt to project a strong exterior fell flat. He didn’t think a solo flight to Chicago was the best thing for her. “Or you could come with us. We’ll be working this mission for a few more days, but I’d feel better if you hung out at the hotel while we’re working. You’d be close by if you needed anything.”
“Are you sure that would be okay?”
Mother smiled a confident grin. “It would. And besides, I’d rather share my hotel room with you than with Lambchop.”
Annaka’s lips tipped into a smile. “I’d like that too. I’d be lying if I said this wasn’t scary. I’m not sure how easily I’ll be able to go to sleep tonight. Having you there would help.”
“Maybe another video call with Joe?” Mother suggested.
“Yes. I think I’d like that,” she agreed.
“I’m glad we were so close. It was only a three-hour flight. I’m sorry you missed the hearing.”
“That’s okay about the hearing. I have no plans to keep my position here. I would not want to come back here every month or so. I’m happy with the position at the Shedd Aquarium and I plan to teach a few classes.”
“Are you sure, cariño?” Mother asked as he opened the back door for her. He motioned her in. “Take some time and think about it. You don’t have to decide today.”
Annaka slid to the middle of the back seat as Lambchop slid in the other side. “Yes, I’m sure. If they won’t let me monitor and report on the whale’s patterns completely from Illinois, I’m done.” She glanced around at the other buildings as the car drove out of the small industrial park. “Can we stop at a drive through or someplace? I haven’t eaten today, and I am starving.”
“Absolutely,” Mother assured her.
“There is a Popeyes, a Wendy’s, and a McDonald’s up ahead,” Wheeler said from the driver’s seat.
“Popeyes sounds good,” Annaka replied. Then she gazed at Danny. “Is your plane at JBER?”
“No, at a private hangar at Ted Stevens,” he answered.
The three-hour flight into SeaTac aboard the Lear Jet was comfortable, a nice surprise as she had thought they would again be inside the cargo plane. Annaka snuggled against Danny but didn’t sleep. Lambchop sat nearby. He sensed that Annaka just needed the quiet, so he said nothing.
Annaka’s thoughts were preoccupied with all that Peter Keeling had said. She finally spoke as the plane descended in preparation for landing. “I want someone to push Peter Keeling harder about the kidnapping plan and the pictures of me that were on Patrick’s phone. I need to know why Patrick took those pictures of me. And I need to know why that cabin was set up the way it was. I don’t believe the plan wasn’t to kidnap me.”
Mother caressed her arm where he held her. “Sometimes, the answers just aren’t there. They may have died with Patrick Keeling.”
“That’s not good enough,” Annaka declared.
“It may be all we get,” Lambchop said. “For the record, I believed Peter Keeling that he didn’t know about the pictures, not so much about the cabin. We’ll have the FBI push him, but you need to find a way to let it go if we don’t get any answers. It’ll drive you crazy if you don’t.”
“Some of those answers may come from Devlin,” Mother said.
“Or Wally Dalton,” Lambchop added. “He has to be the one Peter Keeling implicated. There will be enough to get a warrant to obtain a voice sample from him to compare to the deleted voicemail we found on Patrick Keeling’s phone. This is going to take time, Annaka.”
“I know you’re right,” she admitted. “But I want answers. I need to know for sure that Devlin had someone rig my house to blow up and I want him punished for it.”
“The FBI will go at him regarding your house too. I for one, am convinced he was behind it. I think there will be more than enough to put him away for a very long time, even if he isn’t charged with it. At some point, you may have to take that as the win,” Mother said.
Annaka nodded, but she didn’t like it one bit.
After they depl
aned and were driving towards the hotel, Annaka decided she had to talk with Joe Lassiter again. Danny promised he’d reach out to him and get it set up. Hopefully, Joe would be free and could call her this evening.
Lambchop pulled the vehicle up to the hotel, parking beneath the canopy that stretched over the driveway. “I’ll wait here while you bring her to our room.”
Mother slung her backpack over his shoulder and took her hand. He walked her to the elevator. “I’m not sure if I’ll be back before you turn in, but I’ll be back before midnight. When you get hungry for dinner, call room service.” He nodded towards the hotel restaurant as the elevator door opened. “I’d prefer you don’t leave the room tonight.”