by Robert Berke
"If you scream, I will kill you. If you run, I will kill you. If you make any quick movement at all, I am quicker. I will kill you." Vakhrusheva dropped his fake accent and spoke in Russian. Mrs. Ohangangian opened her mouth as if to speak and Vakhrusheva put his finger to his lips to stop her from doing so. "I am looking for a notebook exactly like this one, but with writing in it," he said drawing from his briefcase the blank black notebook that Alice had given him, "Do you know where it is?"
"I don't care about Armenia any more. My husband is dead. He is the one you want to hurt. Its just me and my son, please don't hurt me." She said through her tears. "I'm an old lady. Haven't I been through enough!" She cried and spoke softly. "And Sako is a good boy. He don't do nothing." She pleaded.
"Lady," Vakhrusheva said, "I want to leave you alone and get out of here. Just tell me where this book is and I will leave. Otherwise, in one more minute my colleague will be in here and he won't be as pleasant as me. Believe me, if it's here we will find it. Giving it to me now is the only way to save your son's life and your own. Do you understand me?"
Mrs. Ohangangian tried her best to calm down and stop crying, but still had to answer through sobs, "I've never seen a notebook like that here."
Bobby walked through the front door and quickly assessed the situation. "Fifteen minutes max, boss." Bobby said giving Vakhrusheva his boots-on-the-ground assessment of how long it was safe for them to remain in the house. Vakhrusheva nodded in acknowledgment and tossed Bobby a roll of duct tape from his briefcase. Bobby taped Mrs. Ohangangian's hands together behind her back and then helped her to her feet. After patting her down for phones or weapons, he led her to a kitchen chair and used the tape to tape her feet together and her legs and torso to the chair. Finally he taped over her mouth.
Vakhrusheva and Bobby then proceeded to take a quick tour of the house. Knowing they only had fifteen minutes, they had to focus their search on the most likely places to find the notebook. They searched very neatly, replacing each item they moved to nearly the exact place they had taken it from. They worked quickly and thoroughly. After fifteen minutes of searching, Vakhrusheva signaled to Bobby to take Mrs. Ohangangian to the car. Bobby carefully removed all of the duct tape and stuck the wads of used tape in his pockets. He gave Mrs. Ohangangian instructions to walk to the car and to get in the passenger seat and told her that if she tried to run or scream he would shoot her in the back. Mrs. Ohangangian did as she was told. After she was in the car, Bobby walked to the car and got in the driver's seat and then a few minutes later Vakhrusheva shut the house door behind him, walked to the car and got in the back seat behind Mrs. Ohangangian. Bobby began driving away. "Do you think your son will trade you for a notebook, mom?" Vakhrusheva said menacingly. He then addressed Bobby saying, "this car is hot."
"I have a swap just a couple of blocks from here," Bobby replied.
Vakhrusheva grunted. Of course you do, he thought.
Dr. Beedle was actually pleased to hear that Dr. Bayron had asked to go home. "It demonstrates that he wants to re-engage with life," he told Hermelinda. Dr. Beedle was simply concerned that Dr. Bayron should not be left alone. Hermelinda made arrangements with the babysitter to keep Ellen until she got back and was happy to accompany Dr. Bayron. Smith voiced no objection to her taking him. "Go. Have fun." He said, adding, "I'll be here watching."
Both Dr. Bayron and Hermelinda felt uneasy with that last remark, but neither of them reacted to it. Nonetheless that statement sat between them in the car like a giant invisible matzoh ball as Hermelinda drove Dr. Bayron to his little apartment near Union College. It hung in the air like the stench of rotten eggs as they made their way up the stairs to his front door, and it enveloped them like a blanket as they entered Dr. Bayron's tiny home. They were oblivious to the CIA agent who had followed closely behind them all the way from SmithCorp.
After letting Hermelinda in, Dr. Bayron excused himself to use the bathroom. The apartment was neat and clean. Clearly it had not gone untouched during the months that Dr. Bayron had been missing, hospitalized and subsequently imprisoned at SmithCorp. Hermelinda surmised that he had a cleaning girl who kept coming even in Bayron's absence. The apartment was almost completely bare. There was a reclining chair and a coffee table in the living room. Against all of the walls were cardboard file boxes stacked three high with handwritten markings on their sides. There was no television set that she could see nor a phone nor a computer. In the kitchen was a small table and two matching chairs. Hermelinda surmised that they must have been a set. There was no art on the walls. The most technological thing in the entire apartment was a coffee maker.
A Formica counter separated the kitchen from the living room and it was covered with unopened mail.
Hermelinda peeked into the bedroom and saw a full sized bed, neatly made. On either side of the bed were nightstands, each with a matching lamp. One nightstand also had a clock and some magazines on it and the other had a single picture frame holding a glossy five by seven photo. She was trying to make out the faces in the photo when Dr. Bayron approached her from behind.
"My wife and son." He said. "We went to Martha's Vineyard that year."
"I'm so sorry, Doug." Hermelinda said, knowing that those words really only had meaning to her.
"I haven't slept in my own bed in a long time," Bayron said as he slipped his shoes off and lay down. "I'm going to take a nap. Make yourself at home," he said as he shut his eyes.
Hermelinda backed away from the bedroom door and headed for the recliner in the living room. She decided that she would take a nap too. She sat in the recliner and shut her eyes, but found it impossible to sleep. In just a few minutes she was able to hear Doug Bayron snoring, lightly, in the next room. She got up and glanced at some of his unopened mail almost all of which seemed to be bills and advertisements. She went to the bathroom and washed her hands for no reason.
She went back to the kitchen and looked in the cupboards which were empty except for a set of dishes: four big plates, four little plates, and four bowls. The refrigerator was empty but for an open box of baking soda and a jar of pickles. She went back to the easy chair and shut her eyes again, but again she could not rest. Bayron's snoring had gotten louder, and the chair was not truly as comfortable as she thought it would be even when she had it in full recline.
She got up again and this time snuck quietly into the bedroom and around to the far side of the bed. She picked up the picture that she had been unable to see from the doorway. Dr. Bayron was barely recognizable. He had long black hair tied back into a pony tail, and a short black beard. He was wearing a leather motorcycle jacket. In the picture his arm was draped around the shoulders of a raven-haired beauty, who at the moment the picture was taken was looking at Doug with eyes that seemed almost worshipful. In his other arm, propped against his hip was a little black-haired boy. The boy had Doug's eyes and nose, but clearly the lips of the woman in the picture. Doug himself was beaming into the camera with a grin which bordered on goofy. Hermelinda had never seen Dr. Bayron like that: relaxed and happy.
She turned to face the sleeping Dr. Bayron and tried to find the man in the picture. She could see a little of the same face, although it bore more lines. What wasn't grey was still black. But his eyes had become different. They had become dimmer, or duller. Deader. Were his old radiant eyes locked away somewhere behind these new, lifeless eyes? she wondered.
Had anyone ever loved him as much as the two strangers she saw in the picture?
Dr. Bayron became agitated and turned from his back to his side facing away from Hermelinda. Hermelinda slipped off her shoes, climbed into the bed, put her arm over his shoulder and hugged him close to her. He did not awaken from this, but Hermelinda soon found herself drifting off to sleep.
Julian and Gonzales sat in Julian's Buick listening in to the conversation going on between Cruz and Kitty in the restaurant. It was clear to them that Cruz wasn't going to learn much from Kitty. In fact, it was clear that she had been wel
l rehearsed in how to answer questions about the business and Cruz did not want to expose his cover by pressing her on the more nonsensical portions of her "official story".
The two older men listened quietly as the conversation trailed off into small talk and then what sounded like actual, personal engagement. Julian thought to himself that either Cruz was the greatest actor in the world or else he was genuinely falling for Kitty, the erstwhile dancer from the Moviestar Topless. Julian wondered whether Gonzales was thinking the same thing. He looked to see if he could read the construction of Gonzales' mind from the expression on his face and was surprised to see that Gonzales was asleep.
"Hey, Captain," Julian said tapping Gonzales on the shoulder to wake him up. "I think your boy can handle himself from here." Gonzales was also surprised and a little embarrassed when he realized that he had dozed. In fact, Julian could have sworn he saw him blush."
"There's no denying it Waterstone, age comes to us all."
"The night is for the young, Cap. We belong in our beds."
Gonzales started the car and wordlessly drove Julian home.
In fact, Josey Cruz and Kitty O'Malley weren't the only young people who had enjoyed the peaceful evening well into the night. Sharky was a little drunk and a little high and in a good mood. He had gone to see a friend's band play that night in town and had gotten a girl's phone number. He always felt so awkward around girls, that he rarely went home with a phone number and almost never with an actual girl. He made an excuse to leave right after she had given him her phone number, afraid that he might say something stupid and that she would lose interest in him. After he left, he studied the phone number for anomalies, analyzing it like code to see if maybe it was just dial-a-joke or some other number provided just to give him a blow-off. The number looked real enough. The exchange put her in Rosendale Estates, not too far from his own home.
As he pulled his motorcycle into the driveway, he could tell immediately that something was wrong. There were too many lights on in the house. His mother sometimes waited for him to come home, but she was always careful to turn out the lights that she wasn't using. It wasn't like her to forget things like that. He opened the door a little apprehensively and everything appeared to be in order but for the fact that his mother didn't ask, "Sako, is that you?"
"Mom?" He asked quietly into the empty house. Not hearing any response or any noise at all for that matter, sent a chill down his spine. "Mom?" He asked again a little louder as he crept further into the house. She still didn't answer and he started to grow more and more agitated. As he ran through the house looking for his mother and calling out, "Mom!", "Mom!", his mind ran through different possible scenarios, each one worse than the last. After he was satisfied that she wasn't in the house. He sat and tried to calm himself down. Upon resting, he decided that maybe she was confused about the time and went out of the house for some reason. Maybe a neighbor had called and needed help. He called her cell phone.
Her phone rang twice before it was answered. "Ah, Mr. Sharky," Vakhrusheva said, "I've been expecting your call."
"Who is this?" Sharky demanded to know.
"I don't think you are presently in a position to ask questions, Mr. Sharky," Vakhrusheva answered in the most menacing tone he could muster, "but what is important for you to know is that your mother is fine. She is with my colleague and she is very worried about you."
"Where is she!" Sharky demanded again.
"Apparently I haven't made the rules clear and I do not intend to stay on the phone very long. So please take note of the fact that for security reasons I will have to abandon this phone quickly so that it cannot be tracked. After I abandon this phone you will have no way to contact me so this may be the last conversation we ever have. Seeing as how you have no choice but to trust me as a man of my word, you must believe that I will return your mother to you unharmed and well fed provided you do something for me. Otherwise, I will kill her one piece at a time. Do you know what that means Mr. Sharky?" Vakhrusheva did not wait for Sharky to answer. "It means that first I will cut off her feet, then her hands, then her legs, then her arms. Please, picture this in your mind as you conduct yourself over the next few hours." Vakhrusheva paused to let Sharky envision this torture. "Now, what I want you to do, is to find a little black notebook that belongs to Dr. Bayron. I trust you know what I am talking about, no?"
"Yeah," said Sharky.
"Well I think you know exactly where it is and I am gambling your mother's life on that suspicion. If you find it and give it to me she lives. If you don't, she dies. Understood?"
"Yeah," Sharky said with burning anger.
"If you tell anyone about this call, she dies. If anyone follows you when you deliver the book, she dies. Your mother will be released exactly 24 hours after you give me the book, provided of course that no one has interfered. This is clear?"
"Yes." Sharky said.
"Great. Be at the Schenectady Amtrack station tomorrow at 6:00 a.m. and bring your phone. I will give you further instructions from there." Vakhrusheva immediately hung up the phone.
The SmithCorp Building was deserted except for the security guards and cleaning crews. And of course, Smith himself, who had been wiling away the hours listening in on cell conversations and watching the world through security cameras as he had demonstrated during the day. Not only had he heard the entire conversation between Sharky and Vakhrusheva but, because of the unique technological nature of his mind, he actually had it in code just like a digital recording. Shit, he thought in his lifelike mind. He embraced the warm feeling of a distinctly human emotion even if he could not understand precisely what it was. "Shit," he said again when he realized that he knew exactly the notebook that was being discussed. "Shit," he said for a third time, though he could not deny that he was mildly pleased to have a mission.
He opened a spreadsheet and began breaking his new project into its component parts.
Early the next morning, Gonzales awoke to the ringing of his secure, red phone. He creaked a little as he climbed out of bed and was disappointed to see that he had slept until five thirty in the morning. There would be no jog today. He answered the phone, "Gonzales."
"Cruz." Cruz responded in hushed tones. He was whispering.
"What do you have?" Gonzales asked.
Cruz answered, still whispering, "I got a call last night from the guy we put on Bayron. He's out of SmithCorp and back at his own apartment. Hermelinda is with him. I think this may be our only opportunity to confront him."
"Okay. Meet me in front of his apartment at 9:00. Let me know if anything changes."
"Will do, boss," Cruz responded almost inaudibly.
"By the way, Mr. Cruz, I cannot help but notice that you are speaking very quietly. I am assuming that you do not need to be reminded of the special risks that accompany becoming romantically involved with a person of interest in an investigation. I will, however, give you the same advice my father gave me: ‘if you can't be good, at least be careful.' Have I made myself clear?"
"Yes sir," Cruz answered, eager to crawl back into Kitty's comfortable Queen sized bed for the few hours he had left before meeting Gonzales.
CHAPTER XX.
Sharky stood in the lobby of the Amtrack station in downtown Schenectady staring at his cell phone and waiting for something to happen. What if my cell phone dies? What if I lose the signal and don't get the instructions? What if I have to go to the bathroom? There is too much that can go wrong, he thought. He walked around the station trying to make sure that he positioned himself where he got the strongest signal. At 6:05 his phone beeped receipt of a text message from a number which was clearly out of the country based on the number of digits on it. "Take the 6:22 to Penn Station."
He went to the ticket counter and asked for a ticket. "Name?" The ticket agent asked.
He told her his name. As he reached for his wallet.
"Okay," the ticket agent said. "This ticket's already been paid for. I just need to see your ID."
He drew his license out of his wallet and handed it to the agent who glanced at it for a mere moment before handing it back to him with his ticket. "Have a nice trip," she said.
"Who paid for my ticket?" Sharky asked.
The ticket agent raised her shoulders and said, "I wouldn't know that, sir. Your train's on Platform 1, up the escalator to the right."
Smith had been monitoring Sharky's phone all morning. ‘6:22 to Penn Station' processed through Smith's mind and he accessed the timetable for that train. Sharky would arrive in three and a half hours. That gave him dread little time to get to the bottom of things. He wanted to call Dr. Bayron but he knew that Bayron had not been carrying a cell phone and had no home phone, or computer, or any other connection to the outside world from his apartment. He geolocated Hermelinda's phone to Bayron's apartment and called it, but she had it set to silent and the vibrating did not wake her.
What woke her was the sound of the front door intercom buzzing in the living room. This woke Bayron too and he was momentarily startled to see that Hermelinda had slept with him through the night without his having known. Or maybe he did know as his dreams had been unusually pleasant. He smiled uncomfortably at her and left to answer the intercom. He pressed the button and said, "hello?"
"Dr. Douglas Bayron?" Josey asked adopting a commanding voice.
"Yes?" Dr. Bayron answered.
"This is special agent Josey Cruz of the CIA and my colleague Marco Gonzales. It is imperative that we speak to you right away. We believe you may be in danger."