The Challenge

by Ridley Pearson

  Larson looked over at the mother. “Where will you be staying while in town?”

  “I don’t see how that’s any of your business,” she said. “But it’s the Grand Hyatt. My son and I are tired. It has been a long trip, and he has a great deal of preparation before the challenge. You are, what? Either FBI or Marshal Service. I’m not sure how to address you.”

  Larson cocked his head, impressed that she knew the difference. “Deputy United States Marshal Roland Larson.”

  “We’d like to get to our hotel now, if you don’t object, Deputy United States Marshal Roland Larson.”

  “Please,” he said, waving them through.

  The boy glanced up at him sheepishly. It was this one glance, more than anything else, that told Larson he wasn’t done with this boy. Guilt was written all over his face. They needed to talk.

  24.

  “I need a minute,” Judy Trapp said to her son when passing the women’s restroom. “Stay right here!”

  “Actually, Mom, I’ll be over with Cairo,” Steel said, pointing to the oversize luggage area. Several signs hung over a long counter; one was for baggage storage, another for lost and found. The terminal-turned-mall hummed loudly as hordes of people milled about. Steel dragged his roller bag over to the counter. His mother, without objection, headed toward WOMEN.

  As Steel approached the counter, a porter was just delivering some golf clubs and Cairo’s carrier through a door to the right. Steel approached the carrier and stuck his fingers through the grate and was licked and nibbled by an affectionate Cairo. The crate didn’t smell so good. Steel felt sorry for the dog.

  As Cairo moved around the tight confines, Steel spotted the briefcase. The baggage handler headed back through the door. A steady stream of people paraded past him. Steel looked around, checking thoroughly for any sign of the man from the train. Not seeing him, he popped open the carrier door, shoved past a wagging Cairo, and grabbed hold of the briefcase. He quickly shut the cage door and lifted the briefcase onto the counter.

  “Lost and found,” he was about to tell the man behind the counter. But he caught himself, afraid the attendant might ask him all sorts of questions he couldn’t answer. What if the man on the train checked the lost and found?

  “May I help you?” the attendant asked.

  “I’d like to check this, please.”

  “It’s a ten dollar deposit,” the man said, pointing out a rate sheet taped to the counter. “Ten bucks covers the first three days, two bucks a day thereafter.”

  Steel dug into his pocket for the bills and change he had collected from trips to the dining car over the course of the trip. He counted out a five, three ones, and enough change to reach ten dollars.

  The attendant passed him a claim tag. “Don’t lose it, kid, or it’ll cost you fifty to get it back. Not that I’d forget you. This here is my department, and I don’t forget a face. But rules is rules.”

  Steel had no intention of ever going back for the briefcase. He would tell the cops about it, and that would be that. But he nodded as if this mattered to him, and he pocketed the claim tag to give to the police.

  Relief flooded through him. He was free of the briefcase at last.

  Or so he thought.

  25.

  “Where are the restrooms, please?” Steel asked the woman behind the hotel registration desk.

  The woman pointed to a hallway across the Grand Hyatt’s lobby, her face expressionless.

  His mother bent down and whispered to him, “Can’t you just hold it? We’ll be in the room in a minute.”

  “If I could, I would. But I can’t,” he said. “Be right back.”

  He crossed the busy lobby, swollen by attendees of the science challenge and their families. There were dozens, maybe hundreds, of people going in every direction. But only one had stood out to Steel: Kaileigh. He’d spotted her furtively waving at him from the alcove marked RESTROOMS/TELEPHONES.

  And he’d made up the excuse of needing the restroom.

  “What’s up?” he said, reaching her.

  She wore a backpack and the same gray sweatshirt from the train. Her hair was a little mussed. She led him toward a bank of pay phones, out of sight of the registration desk. She grabbed his hand—for a second he thought she wanted to hold his hand—then uncurled his tense fingers and placed some change in his open palm.

  “You’ve got to call the front desk,” she said. “Make your voice as deep as you can. Tell them you’re my father, Mr. Augustine. Mention my name. Say that you’re running late but that you’re dropping me off at the hotel front door and you’d like them to give me a key to the room. Tell them the credit card’s on file—which it is—and that you’ll be checking in later.”

  “This is crazy.”

  “You’ve got to do it for me.”

  “Why?” he asked.

  She just stared at him. And somehow he knew she was right. “Okay,” he said. She was already putting coins into the phone and dialing the number. “Ask for the front desk,” she said.

  “My voice isn’t exactly deep,” he reminded her.

  “It’s deeper than mine,” she said.

  A woman answered, and Steel asked for the front desk. He then dropped his chin and tried to sound older, repeating word for word exactly what she’d told him. This was the way his mind worked: he didn’t need to hear something a second time.

  To his surprise, the woman on the other end said, “We would be happy to accommodate Kaileigh, Mr. Augustine. My name’s Angela and I’m currently on duty, but I’m just making note of it in the computer. She can talk to any of our hotel representatives.”

  “You’ve been most helpful,” Steel croaked out. He hung up the phone and shrugged.

  Kaileigh’s eyes filled with delight and gratitude. For a moment he felt like celebrating with her, but then the worst thing happened.

  He spotted the woman from the train: the woman who had left the briefcase behind. She was casing the lobby, clearly looking for something or someone.

  He pulled Kaileigh with him to get a better look as the woman moved out of view. His mother finished up at the desk and was looking impatient. The woman spun around, still searching—for him, he imagined.

  But then things got even worse: the woman seemed to lock onto his mother. She moved toward her.

  “Your turn to do me a favor,” he said quickly and without reservation. “Stop that woman and turn her around. Ask directions or something. I’ve got to get to my mom before she does.” He didn’t wait for her answer. He bravely charged across the crowded lobby, putting people between him and the woman from the train, making a beeline for his mother.

  Kaileigh came to his rescue, tugging on the woman’s sleeve and turning her around. With the woman’s back turned, Steel reached his mother—who was waiting with a bellman and a trolley filled with the dog carrier and their bags—grabbed her by the arm and moved her toward the elevators.

  “Steel?” she said, surprised by his behavior.

  “I’m kinda in a hurry, Mom.” He couldn’t immediately think of an excuse. “The stalls in the men’s room…they were all occupied.” He made a face of urgency.

  “Oh, I see,” she said, hurrying to keep up with him.

  Steel quickly glanced over his shoulder to see Kaileigh still engaging the woman from the train. Kaileigh met eyes with him and, unseen by the woman, motioned for him to hurry. When the woman turned her head searchingly, Kaileigh tugged once more on her sleeve, winning her attention and buying Steel and his mother just enough time to reach the elevators without being seen.

  The last thing he saw was Kaileigh breaking free of the woman and heading toward registration.

  26.

  Natalie Shufman hurried through the lobby for the street and fresh air. She’d been looking for the boy when a young girl had tugged on her sleeve and detained her. In that instant she’d spied a uniformed cop patrolling the lobby and, taking no chances, she’d left immediately.

  She wondered
if her own people had ways of tracking her. She hadn’t checked in since the call she’d placed from Chicago’s Union Station. They had to be wondering why. Trying to find the boy was not the smartest thing she’d ever done. But she felt an obligation to alert the boy of the trouble he was in.

  The adrenaline settled out of her as she reached the sidewalk. She knew the boy’s name—Steven Trapp—from studying the science challenge program.

  Now out on the street, she wasn’t sure what to do. She’d broken the rules by coming to Washington. Her disobedience would carry consequences. She had to do this quickly. The group struck fast, and violently. She needed to get back to Chicago as soon as possible. She’d think of some excuse for her absence once she got back.

  She summoned her courage and returned to the hotel. She headed to a house phone and was about to pick up the receiver when she spotted the curved eye of a security camera looking down onto her from the ceiling. Once the mother reported the call—and she was sure to do so—Security could trace it to a particular phone, the location of the phone to a particular security camera, the camera to her face. Her face.

  She couldn’t use the phone to warn them. She’d need to meet with the boy and the mother in person.

  This wasn’t going to be easy.

  27.

  Grym tapped his watch, wondering if the time could possibly be correct. He’d fallen asleep in the hotel room. He glanced outside at the dusk. But it wasn’t dusk; it was dawn. He recalled leaving the train station and riding a city bus to within a few blocks of the Grand Hyatt. He recalled checking into a hotel just down the street from the Hyatt. He remembered the walk-through of the Hyatt and the adjoining convention center, staking out where the science challenge would take place, getting his bearings.

  But he had lain down for a nap and fallen asleep—for the night. The science challenge’s orientation was scheduled for nine a.m., less than two hours from now.

  He had to use that time—when mother and son would be occupied with the orientation.

  He needed that briefcase; he’d do anything to get it, including breaking and entering.

  He quickly showered and changed clothes, the time ticking in his head. It was imperative that by Sunday morning he have the contents of that briefcase in hand. He concentrated on this one task, blotting out all else. There had to be a way.

  28.

  SATURDAY, MAY 31,

  OPENING DAY,

  THE CHALLENGE

  Opening day of the science challenge competition always drew a large crowd: parents, corporate sponsors, and the press. The floor of the conference center had been turned into a kind of gymnasium, with bleachers on the sides. The contestants occupied chairs on a raised platform at one end of the rectangular floor. The judges occupied the very front row of the stage.

  There were fifty students taking part in the challenge, one from each state, but many of the states had sent a reserve challenger as well—in case for any reason the chosen participant couldn’t take part—so Steel’s impression was that there were more like seventy kids onstage.

  The event began with a demonstration. Last year’s winner took the floor. A robot went out and tried to pick up a glass. The glass shattered and the crowd let out a collective sigh of disappointment, only to be surprised when a second robot scurried out and cleaned up the mess.

  The crowd applauded.

  The introductions began. As each name was called, the student rose, walked to the front of the stage near a microphone, and shook hands with the judges, then returned to the seating area.

  “It’s going to be okay,” he whispered to the boy sitting next to him, whose name tag read: JIMMY KRUEGER.

  “Those are TV cameras,” Jimmy croaked.

  “Yeah,” Steel said out of the corner of his mouth, “but who’s going to watch the National Science Challenge besides our grandparents?”

  Jimmy cracked a smile. He breathed for what sounded like the first time in several minutes. “I’m Jimmy,” he said.

  “Yeah. I’m Steven. But I’m called Steel.” He paused as he watched the boy try to digest this. “It’s a long story,” he said.

  “Montana,” Jimmy said.

  “Indiana,” replied Steel.

  The stage lights bore down on him from high overhead, blinding him from seeing the audience. He discovered if he tipped his head slightly and raised his hand, he could see better. He saw Kaileigh in the bleachers, thinking what an injustice it was that her invention had been stolen and she wasn’t sitting up here with him. There were a lot of people out there—most of them adults. His heart did a little dance in his chest.

  To watch the audience was to see proud parents mouthing the name of their kid as he or she was introduced, to see the cameras in the far back of the room turning their single gray eyes in one direction or another, to see journalists taking notes.

  There, two rows up the bleachers on the left, Steel spotted his mother. Her face begged him not to be mad for staring.

  Steel nervously looked away and caught sight of West Virginia: a tall girl who wore thick glasses and had invented an automatic gear box for a mountain bike.

  He shielded his eyes: was that who he thought it was?

  “There’s no way I’m ever going to win this thing,” Jimmy said, discouraged.

  Steel mumbled, “But we get a private tour of the Air and Space Museum and free passes to the Spy Museum. You gotta admit that’s kinda cool.” He couldn’t get over what he’d seen—whom he’d seen.

  “I’d rather have a chance at winning. My father expects me to win. Yours?”

  He forgot about Jimmy’s question, and never answered. Because he panicked.

  There, between the cameras at the back, stood the same two agents who had stopped him in Union Station. Federal agents.

  29.

  Larson and Hampton stood next to a camera tripod. Larson had no great love of the press, and he was uncomfortable standing near them. All of a sudden it felt to him as if the kid onstage had spotted him.

  He signaled Hampton, and the two split up. Hampton took one set of bleachers, Larson the other. The plan was to work their way closer to the stage while searching for a man matching Grym’s description.

  But what followed surprised Larson: the moment he and Hampton passed halfway, a woman rose from her seat in the bleachers, moved down to the floor, and came right for him.

  Larson recognized her as the boy’s mother: Judy Trapp.

  She stopped only inches from him, and though at first she made an effort to contain her voice, reason gave way to emotion, and with it her volume increased.

  “How dare you follow us here! What is it you want? Do you know what kind of trouble you’re causing? Steel needs to concentrate.”

  The judge onstage was continuing the introductions.

  Judy headed back to her seat.

  The judge rambled on, but neither Larson nor Judy Trapp was listening.

  Larson’s phone vibrated at his side. He glanced over and saw Hampton with a phone to his ear.

  “Yeah?” Larson answered.

  “I’ve just spotted the woman from the train. Fifth row, on the aisle.”

  Larson identified the woman. Same hairstyle. Maybe Hispanic. He couldn’t be sure.

  “Move in.”

  30.

  Steel couldn’t breathe. It was like one of those nightmares that can’t get any worse, and then it does. First his mother had gotten up from her seat—a major embarrassment. Then she’d approached the tall agent.

  He felt cold all of a sudden. Cold, and sick to his stomach.

  31.

  Grym spent less than an hour at Shipping Central, a copy shop that offered everything from Internet access to FedEx. He color photocopied his Michigan driver’s license—registered in the name of George Peters—on to a clear mailing label, and then tested attaching it to a blank, white luggage tag that cost all of a dollar. It looked good. Then he bought time on the computer-and-scanner combination and scanned his driver’s l
icense. All he needed was the right last name—the family name the room would be registered under. Working with Photoshop, he changed the name from George Peters to George Trapp, printed it out on a clear mailing label, and fixed the label to the luggage tag. A careful policeman would spot his handiwork in little time, but Grym was betting that a hotel desk clerk would not scrutinize the license too closely. As it turned out, he was right.

  He explained to the clerk at the Grand Hyatt that he’d arrived after his wife and son, and wanted to check in and then meet them at the science challenge. He made himself into an impatient father, eager not to miss his son’s big moment.

  He kept the license in his hand as he presented it; he did not pass it to the man behind the registration desk. The clerk glanced up at it, saw his picture, and confirmed the family name. “Welcome, Mr. Trapp.” A moment later, Grym had a key card to room 1434.

  He knocked twice. Waited. Knocked again. As he’d expected, mother and son were down in the convention center at the science challenge. Grym entered the small room. A short hallway led to a bathroom to his right and a closet to his left. The room held two queen-size beds, both unmade, an armoire that contained a TV, a desk and chair, and blackout drapes on the windows. He heard the thump of the dog’s excited tail and spotted the beige plastic crate in the corner.

  The open mouth of an unzipped duffel bag called to him from a bench at the foot of the bed. He spotted a roller bag, also open. He made quick work of searching the room for the briefcase.

  It wasn’t there.

  He kept his work patient and calm: he didn’t want them knowing he’d been here. Wondering if the kid had somehow gotten the briefcase open, he went about searching for the photograph—the all-important photograph. This search had to be done even more carefully, and he went about it methodically, leaving no spot untouched. He checked inside the dog cage: nothing.