That afternoon, Eddie sat waiting in Agent Nyler's office—Eddie's home, these last two days—watching the endless traffic flow through the street several floors below. From his seat, he couldn't see Nyler's computer screen, and it had been for that reason that Nyler had asked him to take the place by the window. The agent was sorting through classified information from the Department of Homeland Security, searching for Eddie's father, hoping to locate him in a list of travelers to Caracas.
Information… How you responded to a given situation depended largely on what information you possessed. Now they needed information on Eddie's father.
A part of Eddie yearned for the hunt—the delving for information, the discovery of what his target had been doing and why… He loved to hunt bad people, especially. He had always longed to be the one who set things right, who tracked down the bad guys and made them pay. His father, ironically, was the one who had taught him how to hide, how to hunt, how to gather the right information without being caught. Now he was hunting his father who, much more than Eddie himself, was an expert at elusion; finding him would be no easy task. And this hunt offered no excitement, but only grim sorrow.
Agent Nyler scribbled some notes on a sheet of paper. "Does your father go by any other aliases?" he asked without looking up at Eddie.
"I'm sure he does," the young man responded, "but those are the ones I know about."
Nyler punched a few more keys at the computer, then stood and gestured toward his chair. "Here, you take over."
"What?" Eddie asked, astonished, but he moved to Nyler's chair anyway.
"I'm hungry. You do the searching while I get us some lunch. These"—he pointed to a list of names he had scrawled on his paper, along with bits of demographic information beside each—"are the names of U.S. citizens who have traveled into Venezuela in the past seventy-two hours. Legally, that is."
"Wait a second," Eddie interrupted him, "you can't let me see this. This is classified. Why are you—"
"I'm not letting you see anything," Nyler cut him off in turn. "I'm giving you a list of names and asking you to look around on the Internet for relevant information about them while I go get us something to eat."
Eddie stared at Nyler, bemused. What was the man up to? Surely he was trying to set Eddie up somehow, but how? Did he think Eddie was still working with his father? Was that what this was about?
"You like Greek food?"
Eddie blinked at him. "Er, never had any."
"I'll get you some. There's a little Greek spot a couple blocks from here. I'll be back in twenty minutes. See what you can find." Nyler threw his jacket around his shoulders and strode out of the room.
Eddie stared after him. He should have arrested me two days ago! Why this charade? He'd have more leverage on me if he took me into custody and then bargained for my help… Not that they hadn't already done some bargaining, at Eddie's father's house in Edmonds.
Apparently, Agent Nyler wasn't concerned about having him in custody just yet. Shaking his head, Eddie turned to the computer screen—I'm sitting at an FBI computer!—opened the web browser, and began to search for the names Nyler had given him. Could Eddie get into trouble for using a government computer if an FBI agent had told him to? Was that Nyler's strategy here? Surely Nyler himself would be culpable if anyone found out he was letting Eddie use his terminal.
Most of the names Eddie checked turned up nothing of interest. But just before Nyler returned—
"Hey, I got something!" Eddie blurted out like a child catching his first fish as Agent Nyler stepped into the room, bringing two bags of food. He flushed red as Nyler calmly placed one of the bags on the desk for him and stepped around to see the screen. "This Dr. Wilson," Eddie said, clicking to enlarge a photograph he had found of a pale-skinned man in shoulder-length hair under a stocking cap, "I recognize him. He was one of the doctors who helped my father with Zach ten years ago."
"And he just happened to fly into Caracas last night?" Nyler mused, scanning the note he had jotted down about the man. "That's not going to be a coincidence, is it?"
"Zach's right," Eddie confirmed. "My father's in Caracas. And he's calling in an old friend to help him."
Opening his bag of food, Agent Nyler seated himself on the corner of his desk. "Tell me something, young man," he began, drawing out a sandwich wrapped in paper. "You had an FBI computer all to yourself for twenty minutes, all sorts of classified information at your fingertips. Why didn't you look at something more interesting than public web pages?"
Eddie's breath caught. He didn't understand where Nyler was going with this. "What do you mean?" he asked warily. "Who says I didn't?"
"I sent Gail to get the food," Nyler explained, "while I watched what you were doing from another terminal. You didn't even try to look at anything classified. That's just as well—all the classified stuff is password protected. But I don't think you knew that. Yet you didn't even try."
Eddie was uncertain how to reply. "I—that wasn't what you told me to do! Besides, I found something without going into classified…databases or whatever. Isn't that what you wanted? Is this some kind of set-up?" He asked that last with more bite than he had intended; but having said it, he did not back down.
Nyler responded with a bite of his own—from his sandwich. Something in his eyes relaxed. He smiled as he chewed. "Yeah, it was a set-up," he replied. "I had to know if I could trust you."
Eddie blinked at him. "Trust me? You should be arresting me! What are you talking—"
Nyler chewed his food and gestured toward Eddie's bag. "Eat, son! We have a long trip ahead of us."
"Trip?"
"I'm taking you to Caracas with me, if I can get it cleared. I think I can." Nyler watched for Eddie's reaction.
Eddie gaped at him, at a momentary loss for words. "Caracas? I—I can't," he stammered. "I have a job. At least, I hope I do, after missing these last few days."
"I'll take care of it," Nyler answered.
"But I…" Eddie dropped his hands into his lap. Why did he feel like a fish being reeled in here?
"I'll need you. Maybe Venezuelan authorities can track your father down on their own, maybe not. He was slippery enough here in Seattle—he probably hides even more carefully there, where he's a foreigner. If they can't track him down, maybe you can. Besides," Nyler added, "you can give us a positive ID on him from a distance, in case he proves difficult to take in."
Eddie was still confused. "You could do this without me."
"I suppose," Nyler admitted, "but I'd rather do it with you. Think of it as penance for your crimes."
"Penance? So you're not going to arrest me?"
The agent smiled and shrugged. "Prosecutor Terry—my friend—is willing to wait until this case is wrapped up before he decides whether to press charges against you. I'd say he's rather pleased with your cooperation so far."
"Then I'm…free to go?" Eddie ventured.
"If you like," Nyler said, taking another bite of his sandwich.
Eddie stood up; Nyler's eyes followed Eddie, but the agent did not move from the corner of his desk. Eddie reached for the bag Nyler had given him—he might as well take his food—and walked to the door at a slow pace. He fully expected Nyler to order him back to a chair, but the agent chewed silently on another bite of his sandwich. Eddie stepped out the door and into the hall. He walked a few steps, but no sound came from Nyler's office.
He strode deliberately to the end of the hall, then stopped and leaned a shoulder against the wall. He was really, truly free to go? The thought confused him.
But it also brought clarity. If he was free, he could go home, he could go back to work, he could swing by the Flemings' place and help Craig fix those two broken doors…
Or… Something more important needed to be done. Zach was still in danger.
Eddie turned and strode back into Agent Nyler's office. The agent had not moved from the corner of his desk.
"I'll go," Eddie declared.
"I thought you would," Nyler responded with a hint of a grin. "Eat your food. It will take a few hours to make all the arrangements."
*****
The Boy Who Appeared from the Rain Page 130