by Roland Smith
After thirty years as a spy he retired, built a little house on the California coast at Big Sur, and planned to spend the rest of his life watching seabirds soar over the Pacific.
“But plans change,” he said. “The twin towers came crashing down in New York City.”
“You went back to work for the CIA,” Angela said.
“No,” Boone said. “I’d had enough of bureaucratic incompetence. The intelligence community is a culture of absolute paranoia. The CIA doesn’t trust the FBI, the FBI doesn’t trust the CIA, neither of them trust the National Security Agency, the NSA doesn’t trust the Mossad, the Mossad doesn’t trust MI6 in Britain… No one trusts anyone—sometimes with good reason—and as a result nothing gets done.
“I didn’t want to get caught up in this swirl of stupidity again so I put together a team of my own. We contract our services out. Or we look into things that interest us for free. Either way we act independently without somebody in a suit breathing down our necks. In other words, we actually manage to gather valuable intelligence from time to time.”
“What do you do with the intelligence?” Angela asked.
“That depends,” Boone said. “Most of the time we pass it along to government agencies.” He paused. “All of them, at the exact same time without regard to borders, except for the current bad guys of course. One of the problems is that when the CIA, Secret Service, FBI, or the National Security Agency learn something, they don’t share the information outside their organizations, and definitely not outside the U.S. They’re like a kindergartner with a new toy. We force them to play together by making sure they all have the same toy at the same time.”
“What does this have to do with me?” Angela asked.
“How did you find us in the middle of the desert in Nevada?” I asked, desperately trying to inject some reality into the conversation.
Boone looked at us for a moment. “I’ll answer Q’s question first because it’s the easiest to deal with,” he said. “But you’re not going to like the answer. I put a device on your coach and rigged it to cause a breakdown at a certain time.”
The first thing I thought was, car bomb! Angela looked just as alarmed as I felt.
“I told you that you weren’t going to like the answer,” Boone said. “It would have been a lot easier if your parents had taken on a driver, like Buddy wanted. I had it all arranged.”
“We could have been hurt!” Angela said.
Boone shook his head. “Unlikely. It was just a little something on your fuel system that cut off the diesel supply.”
“Does Buddy know about you being a spy?” Angela asked.
“He would be the last person I would tell,” Boone answered. “But he did suggest I try to talk Blaze into taking me on as a driver.”
“So you followed us and ditched your car,” I said.
“It turned out to be a little more involved than that,” Boone said. “You see, when I put my little device under your rig in San Rafael I discovered someone else’s tracking device. It took us awhile to figure out who put it there.”
“Eben Lavi,” Angela said.
“Right,” Boone said.
“Why didn’t you just take the tracking thing off?” I asked, still skeptical of this whole thing.
“I could have, but sometimes it’s better to wait. It gave me a chance to track them without them knowing they were being tracked. You can learn a lot that way. Unfortunately, I had to change plans in Nevada.”
“What happened?” Angela asked.
Boone smiled. “I was following them following you, but I couldn’t have them find you broken down in the desert. Luckily, they stopped for something to eat. I stole their car and had them picked up by the police. The delay put them behind us by several hours. Eben flew to Philly when they got to Salt Lake City. And their driver got to the city ahead of us.
Boone took out his BlackBerry and punched a couple of buttons. He showed us the screen. There was a little red arrow heading east on Interstate 80.
If this was a hoax, it was a pretty elaborate one. I wasn’t as convinced as Angela seemed to be, but I was starting to have second thoughts.
“You put a tracking device on Eben’s car,” I said.
Boone nodded.
“You’ve answered Q’s question,” Angela said. “What about my question?”
Boone glanced across the street at Eben then he stared down at the table for a long time at nothing in particular. Finally, he sighed, raised his pale gray eyes, and locked them on Angela.
“I think there is a 50/50 chance that your mother is still alive,” he said.
Charade
“What?” Angela whispered.
I was surprised that she could even get that much out. I was speechless.
“50/50 chance,” Boone emphasized. “I think that’s why Eben’s following you.”
“And this is why you’re with us,” Angela said quietly.
“I’ll tell you more about that later,” Boone said, looking at his watch. “Right now we have to be somewhere, but first we have to shake your tail.” He pressed a button on his BlackBerry and held it to his ear. “Are you ready? Good. We’ll be right out…”
“Wait a second!” I said. “Who were you talking to? What do you mean, ‘we’ll be right out’?”
Boone was halfway out of his chair. He sat back down. “Q, you’re just going to have to trust me,” he said.
“Well I don’t,” I said. “Why should I?”
“Fair enough,” Boone said calmly. “I’m sorry for the charade, but you’ll come to see that it was necessary. I can’t tell you another thing about Angela’s mother, or anything else, until I’m certain you and Angela are one hundred percent with me on this. And I’ll be the one to determine whether you are with me or not. You’re either in or you’re out.
“I’m going outside to distract our friend.” He nodded toward the door at the back of the restaurant. “That door leads to a service alley. Leave the restaurant separately. Angela, you go first. There’s a produce truck parked there. I want you to climb into the back of the truck. If you don’t get in the truck, I’m gone. You won’t have to worry about whether you trust me or not. You will never see me again. ” He got up and walked out.
“This is crazy,” I said, getting out my phone.
“What are you doing?” Angela asked.
“Calling Mom.”
“No,” Angela said. She looked numb.
“Boone…is…a…nut…case,” I said slowly. “Did you happen to notice that he sounded like an entirely different human being? I think he has some kind of split personality.”
“I think he’s telling the truth,” Angela said quietly.
“Even if he is, this is still crazy. We can’t climb into the back of a produce truck in an alley and be driven off to who knows where. What if Boone and Mr. Flannel Shirt are working together? What if Boone is the bad guy in all of this? What if this is just an elaborate setup? What if he’s trying to kidnap us?”
“There are a lot easier ways to kidnap us than this,” Angela said. “He and whoever he’s working with could have abducted us anytime this evening.” She pointed to my phone. “Do you think he’d leave us in a public place with two cell phones if he wanted to kidnap us?”
I looked down at my phone.
“If you tell your mom,” Angela continued, “it’s all over. They’ll cancel the tour. And I’ll never find out what happened to my mother.” She stood up. “I’m going to get into a produce truck in an alley to be driven off to who knows where. You can do whatever you want. But I’m going to find out if my mother is still alive.” She walked over to the back door and disappeared through it without looking back.
This is stupid! I thought.
I called Mom. She answered on the fourth ring.
“Hi, Q!”
“Hi, Mom.”
“The interviews are over,” she said. “Thank God! And Buddy’s found us a place to rehearse, so we should be in good shape f
or tomorrow’s appearance. Roger and the band are already over there setting up the equipment. My new PA, Marie, and I are just finished doing some shopping. We found a couple of great outfits for tomorrow.”
“I bet they’re red,” I said.
Mom laughed. “As a matter of fact they are. We’re in the limo headed to the rehearsal hall. Traffic’s terrible! What movie are you going to see?”
James Bond, I thought. I pictured her in the back of that limo getting ready to sing in front of millions of people and I could feel her excitement. I pictured Angela sitting in the back of a produce truck and I could feel how ticked off she was at me.
“We don’t know yet,” I said. “We’re about ready to head over to the theater. I was just checking in to see how you’re doing.”
“I’m a little tired,” Mom said. “But I’m looking forward to tomorrow. By the way, the satellite television in the coach won’t work inside the warehouse. If you want to see us you’ll have to get Boone to take you someplace where you can watch the show tomorrow morning. We’re performing at the end of the first and second hours. But don’t worry if you miss it. We’ll get a tape.”
Boone might have a TV in the room where he’ll be holding us hostage, I thought.
“We’ll find a television,” I said.
“Hang on…” Mom said. I could hear another woman talking in the background. “Oh all right… Marie tells me that we’re here, Q. I better go. Don’t stay up too late and be good. I love you.”
“I love you too.”
I looked out the window. Eben Lavi was looking at his cell phone. He flipped it closed, put it back in his pocket, then leaned against the building with his arms across his chest as if he didn’t have a care in the world. I didn’t see Boone anywhere.
Mr. Little
Angela was sitting on a box of lettuce. Croc was leaning on a box of bananas. I sat on a box of apples across from them. An old woman wearing a green smock pulled the door closed with barely a glance. It was so dark inside I couldn’t see Angela. The latch clanged into place and it occurred to me that not only was I being forced to eat vegetables I was now being voluntarily kidnapped by vegetables. I guess I was a little hysterical because as the truck rumbled out of the alley I started laughing. When I finally stopped I heard Angela crying. I thought they were tears of regret. That she had finally realized what a boneheaded move we had just made. I reached out and tried to find her hand and found Croc’s tongue instead
“Don’t worry,” I said, wiping Croc’s goo on my cargoes. “As soon as they stop we’ll jump out and run. The old woman who locked us in didn’t look that fast.”
“I just don’t understand how she could do something like that?” Angela said tearfully.
“You mean the old woman?”
“No,” Angela said. “How could my mom leave me and Dad? How could she let us think that she was dead?”
I guess she hadn’t been crying because we had just made the biggest mistake of our lives.
“What kind of mother would do something like that?” she asked.
I didn’t have any answers for her, but I did think about her question and came up with a few questions of my own: If Angela’s mom was still alive was my mom really married to Roger? Was Roger my stepfather? Was Angela my stepsister? Was Boone really a former spy?
The truck came to a stop less than ten minutes after we started. Boone slid the door open.
“Let’s go,” he said and started across the dark street with Croc at his heels.
I still couldn’t get over his personality transformation. He was like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. As soon as we got out, the truck took off.
“I guess we’re not being kidnapped,” Angela said, pointing to Boone.
He was heading straight for the most famous brick building in the United States—Independence Hall. I recognized it because we had written about it on our Web page that afternoon. This was the place where George Washington was appointed commander in chief of the Continental Army in 1775 and the Declaration of Independence was adopted in 1776.
“Yeah,” I said. “But what are we doing here? It’s closed.”
“I guess we’ll find out,” Angela said. Except for a little redness around her eyes she seemed to have recovered. “And do me a favor,” she added. “Don’t even mention my mother to Boone. Let him bring the subject up when he’s ready.”
“Whatever,” I said, still thinking this whole cloak-anddagger thing was ridiculous.
“I mean it, Q!” Angela insisted. “I think Boone is having second thoughts about all this. I don’t want him to abandon us without finding out what he knows about my mother.”
“All right,” I said. “I’ll keep my mouth shut. But I still think this is nuts.”
Without breaking stride, Boone turned his head and said, “Hurry up, we need to get off the street.”
We got to the back entrance of Independence Hall just as the door was opened by a man in a three-piece suit. Standing next to him was a giant uniformed guard.
“Are you Mr. Boone?” the man in the suit asked with undisguised disapproval.
“Yes,” Boone said.
“My name is Neville Little. I am the superintendent of the Independence Hall National Historical Park.” He nodded at the giant guard. “And this is our head of security, Brod Bagert. I’m sorry, but we’re going to need to see some identification.”
Boone impatiently pulled his wallet out of his hip pocket and handed a laminated card to him. Mr. Little scrutinized the card as if it contained the entire text of the Declaration of Independence.
Boone looked over his shoulder at the street, then back at Mr. Little. “Could we hurry this up?”
“We’re just being cautious,” Mr. Little said.
“That’s great, but could we be cautious inside?”
Brod stood up a little straighter and his right hand dropped toward the black automatic hanging on his belt.
Mr. Little gave the card back in slow motion then looked down at Croc with distaste. “I’m afraid we don’t allow dogs inside Independence Hall, unless of course they are service dogs, which he obviously is not.”
Apparently Boone’s disguise didn’t always work to his advantage, but he had a way around that. He whipped out his phone and hit a speed dial button.
“It’s Boone,” he said, not taking his eyes off the superintendent. “Yeah… well, Mr. Neville Little, superintendent of the Independence Hall National Historical Park, doesn’t seem to understand the gravity of the situation… Yes, he’s standing right here with a security guard who looks like he’s about to pull his gun on us… Sure.” Boone handed the BlackBerry to Mr. Little. “It’s for you.”
Mr. Little held the phone to his ear. I couldn’t hear who was on the other end, but it was clearly someone Mr. Little knew. His eyes widened and his face turned as red as the building’s bricks. “Yes sir,” he said, handing the phone back with a lot less bluster than he’d had a moment before.
Boone slipped the BlackBerry into his pocket without even bothering to check if whoever was on the other end was still on the line. He started through the door, but Brod stepped in front of him.
“No!” Mr. Little shrieked. “It’s okay. They’re all welcome inside. Including the dog.”
Croc’s nails clicked on the old wooden floor as we followed Mr. Little and the guard down a narrow hallway.
“I think we have everything set up per your instructions,” Mr. Little said, as he led us up a set of stairs. “I’ve dismissed all the security people except for Brod. He’ll be manning the front desk alone tonight and will stay out of your way.”
“Good,” Boone said curtly.
I still wasn’t convinced that Boone was a former spy, but he was obviously someone with influential friends. Mr. Little was now fluttering around him like a nervous butterfly. Brod still looked suspicious.
“I’ve set you up in the conference room,” Mr. Little said, unlocking a door.
Inside was a long rustic tabl
e surrounded by vintage chairs. Hanging on one of the walls was a large mirror mounted in an ornate gilded frame. Beneath it was an old overstuffed loveseat. Sitting on the table was a television with a built-in DVD player, which looked totally out of place among the antiques.
“This is not a playroom,” Mr. Little said, eyeing Angela and me. “The table and chairs are some of the original furniture from the Hall.”
He turned to Brod. “I guess you’d better get back down to the front desk.”
Brod looked at Boone. “I switched the cameras off like Mr. Little requested. How long will they be off?”
“A couple of hours. We’ll let you know when you can turn them back on. Don’t let anyone inside. And I don’t care who they say they are. Is that clear?”
Brod gave Boone a surly nod and left the room.
“I appreciate your time, Mr. Little,” Boone said. “We can handle it from here.”
“Of course,” Mr. Little said. “I’ll be in my office if you need—”
Boone shook his head. “I’m afraid you’ll have to leave the building too. National Security.”
Mr. Little turned bright red in outrage, but recovered quickly. “Of course. I’ll just get my things.”
As soon as Mr. Little left, Boone pulled out some kind of electronic gadget from his pack and started running it along the walls.
“What are you doing?” Angela asked.
“Sweeping the room for listening devices,” Boone said. “It’s not likely there are any, but you never know.”
“Why are we at Independence Hall?” I asked.
“You are here for a history lesson,” Boone said. “But it’s not one you will be putting on your Web page, or telling another living soul about…ever.”
Cat and Mouse
“Take a seat,” Boone said.
Angela and I sat down across from him.
“We have to wait a few minutes to make sure Mr. Little is out of here and the building is secure,” Boone said. “While we’re waiting let me see your BlackBerrys.”