Instead, the unit continued onto Lovettsville Road. Pam just laughed. “The call to my safe house is a lot more exciting than some traffic infraction,” she said as the Land Rover picked up speed.
Sebastian was now in front of Pam and Tim, and he was apparently unaware that they were following. The SUV turned off of US Route 15 and into a gas station on the right-hand side.
“Got you bastards now,” Pam said under her breath as she rammed the Mercedes SUV from behind.
The SUV moved up about five feet. The driver’s side window came down, and Sebastian stuck his head out.
“He doesn’t know it was us who hit him,” Tim said as he started to get out.
“Hold on, Tim. He does now.” They could both see that Sebastian had produced a gun.
Sebastian took off again and drove back out on US 15, this time turning left and heading north to Maryland. Pam was right on his tail. Sebastian’s SUV picked up speed as he approached the Point of Rocks Bridge.
Traffic was still backed up beginning in the middle of the bridge, and Sebastian had no choice but to stop. Pam was now directly behind the Mercedes SUV, and she rammed it once again, this time pushing Sebastian’s SUV into the vehicle directly in front of it.
“I’ll take care of Sebastian. Tim, you take care of Toby,” Pam ordered as she got out of the Land Rover, gun in hand.
The driver in the vehicle in front of Sebastian was apparently getting out of his vehicle to inspect the damage. Tim heard Pam yell, “Sir, please remain in your vehicle! United States Marshals!”
The guy probably saw Pam walking down the middle of the road with the Glock in her hands and decided not to argue. Meanwhile, Tim got out of the Land Rover and racked the shotgun just as Toby emerged from the SUV with the M16 on full automatic. Toby fired a burst of bullets as Tim dove back into the Land Rover. Tim could hear the bullets hit the various parts of the Land Rover and was surprised that none managed to hit him.
Tim knew that he had maybe one chance to stand and fire the shotgun at Toby, but Tim could hear Toby walking toward him, calling his name. “Come out, Tim!” he heard Toby say in a singsong voice, which was very creepy.
Tim then heard a voice that sounded like Mary Ann’s, except he had never heard her sound this way. “Toby, you son of a bitch!” Mary Ann screamed, and Tim stuck his head up to see Mary Ann attack Toby with a tire iron.
Tim watched as Toby tried to hold off Mary Ann with one hand while still gripping his M16 with the other. When he was finally able to wrestle the tire iron away from Mary Ann, he threw it to the side. Toby then grabbed Mary Ann by the hair and banged her head into the side of the SUV. Mary Ann fell to the ground like a rag doll.
Toby looked up and froze. While Toby had been fighting off Mary Ann, Tim had moved closer and had leveled the shotgun directly at Toby’s head. The two men stared at each other for a second—and then Tim pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened. The gun must have jammed when Tim was using the butt of the weapon to break into the plumbing van. Tim tried in vain to eject the shotgun shell, but he heard Toby laugh and looked up to see the M16 pointed directly at him.
“It’s just not your day, dude,” Toby said.
But then his head seemed to explode right before Tim’s eyes. Brains and blood came flying out, and Toby’s limp body fell to the ground.
Tim took a step back and looked to his left to see Pam holding her Glock 19 9mm. Pam had simply walked over, pointed at Toby’s head, and fired. He never saw it coming.
Tim was about to say something to Pam when he noticed that she now had her Glock pointed directly at him. “I’ve been thinking, Tim, that your presence here at the safe house is going to be difficult for us to explain,” Pam said.
“Us?” Tim asked.
“Sebastian and me. You see, when we write this up as an internal security incident, too many people are going to want to know what you were doing here in the first place. After all, you are supposed to be retired and living in Baltimore. You’re just going to be hard to explain. Please understand, it’s nothing personal.”
“Pam, come now. It’s time for us to go.”
It was Sebastian. He had walked up to Pam, and they were now both standing on the yellow double line of the road.
Pam had turned to say something to Sebastian when Tim saw what looked like all of the blood drain out of her face. Pam must have seen the pickup truck coming straight for them. Sebastian never did.
The truck must have been traveling at 50 miles per hour when it struck Sebastian and then Pam. Sebastian ended up crushed under the truck’s wheels, while Pam was found about twenty feet down the road. She had broken her neck, and Tim saw that her eyes were open, staring up to the sky. Tim thought that he saw tears in them. Later on, Tim was told that the driver never saw them because Sebastian’s dark overcoat had made them look like part of the black SUV.
Tim looked back to see that there were now several people gathered around Mary Ann, and they appeared to be caring for her. Tim began to hear more sirens, this time coming from both the Maryland and Virginia sides of the bridge. Traffic was jammed in every direction.
Tim turned and walked back to the Virginia side and saw a Loudoun County Sheriff’s Deputy standing next to his cruiser. The accident on the bridge would be under the jurisdiction of the State of Maryland, so the Loudoun County officer was just watching. Tim opened his wallet and found the piece of paper that Pam had given him with the name and phone number of the County Liaison Officer. Tim approached the young deputy and handed him the paper.
“Officer, my name is Tim Hall, and I am with the Central Intelligent Agency. I have pertinent information concerning this event on the bridge, and I need to speak with this officer and this officer only.”
The young deputy looked at Tim, looked at the piece of paper, and then looked at Tim once again.
“So, you’re telling me that you can only speak with Captain Henderson? I’m not sure if Captain Henderson is on duty right now,” the deputy said.
“Not a problem, officer. Just call dispatch or your supervisor and tell them that you have a CIA Case Officer who needs to confer with Captain Henderson. They will know what to do.” Tim was trying his best to be as nice as possible to the young deputy.
“Okay, sir. You better sit in the car while I make the phone call.” The deputy opened the back door to his police cruiser, and Tim got in.
“I guess we will have to see what happens next,” Tim said, but he was now alone with no one to hear him.
Chapter 31
Tim sat in the back of the Loudoun County Sheriff’s car and watched the deputy speak on his cell phone. Tim could tell by the young deputy’s body language that he had been placed on hold at least twice. The deputy then began to pace back and forth and appeared to be explaining to someone how a CIA Case Officer happened to be in the back seat of his police car. Tim realized that he was officially retired and was no longer a Case Officer but trying to explain all of that to the young man would just confuse the issue. No, it was always best to keep it simple.
Tim could hear bits and pieces of the conversation, such as, “No, he approached me,” and “No, he is not armed.” Finally, the phone conversation reached some kind of conclusion, and the deputy got back into his car.
“Mr. Hall? I have been instructed to transport you to Leesburg, where you will be contacted by government officials.”
The deputy placed his cruiser in drive and pulled onto Route 15. The road had been closed down in both directions, so there was no traffic for a change.
“I do have one question, Mr. Hall. Do you have anything to do with that house on the hill off of Lovettsville Road?”
“Yes, officer,” Tim replied.
“Okay, that’s all I need to know.” The young officer’s attitude toward Tim had changed from one of suspicion to one of deference.
As they drove toward Leesburg, Tim watched a number of marked and unmarked police vehicles heading to the Point of Rocks Bridge. Tim got
the feeling that the young deputy wanted to ask Tim if he knew what had happened on the bridge. Tim was trying to figure that out as well.
Although it had appeared that Tim and Pam were working together against Sebastian, this had never really been the case. Sebastian and Pam had always been working together against Tim—and Tim, in his heart, had always known this. Tim had wanted to believe otherwise, but he’d reached the same conclusion the night before. Tim, Pam, and Sebastian were never in a plot together; it had always been Pam and Sebastian.
Tim was now sure that he and Lilly Lin had discovered Pam and Sebastian’s plot, but Lilly was murdered by Pam before she could report it. Meanwhile, Tim had foiled Pam and Sebastian’s Bitcoin plan by sabotaging their Bitcoin account. Tim had changed the account to require a two-factor PIN number—or, in other words, in order to withdraw and transfer funds, the user would need a second PIN number. A PIN number that neither Pam nor Sebastian even knew about until they’d tried to spend the Bitcoins. Only Tim knew the two-factor PIN number, and Tim now lived in Baltimore with an erased memory. Sebastian had done a very good job of erasing Tim’s memory, believing that he and Pam would have no further need of Tim Hall.
Drs. Justice and Lockwood had told Tim and Pam the truth about Tim being drugged in China, but there was no automobile accident, as Sebastian had always claimed. No, Sebastian and Pam, thinking that they’d gotten away with the murder of Lilly Lin, now needed to get rid of Tim, but killing him would have been a major problem. The Agency had sent three agents to China, after all, and it expected three to return. If one of the agents had indeed been killed while on an official mission, there would have been a major investigation.
Sebastian and Pam would never be able to get away with murdering Tim, but what if Tim were to become ill or be involved in an accident? And what if Tim suffered amnesia, or better yet, retrograde amnesia, which was where a person could not recall anything before a traumatic event? Tim had even spoken to Pam and Sebastian about such cases and had unknowingly given them a roadmap for how something like that could happen. He’d even told Sebastian and Pam which drugs could be used to induce such a state. So, it turned out that Sebastian was partially correct. Tim did essentially plan his own amnesia. That was the one aspect of the ordeal that Tim was very embarrassed about. He had trusted both Sebastian and Pam to such an extent that he had given them a way to do him in.
Tim was also feeling badly about Mary Ann and wondering if she was all right. It had been a very long time since Tim had witnessed anyone take the amount of abuse that Mary Ann had been forced to endure. If she really was an undercover cop, then she could have bailed out of the assignment at any point, but she stuck with it. It was also not lost on Tim that Mary Ann’s last-ditch effort to fight off Toby with the tire iron had saved his life. Toby had every intention of killing Tim and probably would have, if not for Mary Ann.
Then there was Toby. What had Toby known? Did Toby know what Sebastian and Pam were up to, or was he just doing what he was told? Toby was not supposed to kidnap Pam outside the doctor’s office and was definitely not supposed to give her the hypo. That was meant for Tim in a last-ditch effort to discover the second PIN number. Tim also believed that Sebastian sent Toby to kill the two doctors in Leesburg, just as he’d been sent to kill Dr. Gray in Baltimore. If not for Mary Ann’s quick thinking, the two doctors in Leesburg would indeed be dead.
And what about the escape from the safe room and the fight in the basement? Did Sebastian know that Pam planned the escape, and was Toby supposed to be waiting for them, or did he just happen to be down there? Was shooting Darrel just an accident? Tim realized that he would probably never know the answers to any of these questions.
On the bridge, Tim was sure that Pam had come around the corner intending to shoot Toby and him, and probably Mary Ann as well. That had been what Sebastian and Pam had been speaking about while Tim and Mary Ann were fighting off Toby. How fucking stupid, it all was, and what a dumb way for his wife to die. Pam had most likely told Sebastian to stay in the SUV, and if he had, then Pam would have finished the job.
No question about it, Pam really did think that killing her husband was the most practical thing to do. Tim tried to recall her last words to him. Something about how he would be hard to explain. Ten seconds later, she was dead, and now it was up to Tim to try to explain everything.
When Tim and the deputy sheriff entered the town of Leesburg, Tim expected to be taken to the Adult Detention Center, which was the new and modern Loudoun County jail. However, the deputy instead drove Tim into the Old Town section of Leesburg and behind the County Courthouse.
The car came to a stop, and the deputy got out and opened Tim’s door. “It was good to meet you, Mr. Hall,” he told Tim as he returned to his car and drove away.
Tim turned to see two well-dressed men and one very well-dressed woman waiting for him. The woman did the talking. “Mr. Hall? My name is Beverly Andrews. Would you like to tell us what this is all about?”
Tim spent the next seven hours telling the same story to seven different teams of Agency analysts. These interviews took place in a nondescript four-story office building in a nondescript office park outside of the town of Leesburg. Tim told them about Sebastian and Pam, about Mary Ann Layback and the Adults in the Room PowerPoint presentation. They did seem especially interested in the conspiracy to replace the current President with Republicans from past administrations. They were also very interested in how Tim seemed to know what type of poisons the President had been poisoned with and how he’d managed to determine that. Some of the teams that interviewed Tim played hardball and even suggested that Tim could be convicted of espionage and spend the rest of his life behind bars. Others suggested that Tim should hire a lawyer. A few people called Tim a hero, but one team called him a traitor. And one team even suggested that Tim write a book. However, Tim knew deep down that they did not have anything on him because he’d done nothing wrong except be a houseguest at a home owned by his former employer.
Drs. Justice and Lockwood did not want to press charges. In their opinion, Tim and the woman from the FBI had saved them and their daughter’s life, plus the media was calling Joanna a hero for facing down her kidnappers and saving the President’s life. Her parents knew the truth, of course, but the entire experience had bought them closer together as a family, so why let the truth get in the way of that?
Tim had also found out that Mary Ann Layback, whose real name was Mary Ann Wilson, was indeed working undercover. Tim only discovered this because some of the interrogation team members kept referring to Mary Ann as Special Agent Wilson. Tim finally put it together, and he was told in no uncertain terms that he was not to have any further contact with Agent Wilson. The FBI was not happy at all about one of their Agents having a relationship while undercover. Lie, cheat, and steal, but for god’s sake, do not have a sexual relationship while working undercover. After all, the FBI has standards.
At the eighth hour of the interviews, Tim was ready to call it a day and requested that he either be arrested and charged or set free. That request was ignored. At the ninth hour, Tim was taken to see a man by the name of Robert F. Fredericks, the Director of the Human Resources Resettlement Program. Tim had no clue what Mr. Fredericks wanted to see him about, but he was happy that it appeared to be a one-on-one meeting and not a group interview.
Tim was led to a corner office which overlooked the Dulles Greenway. The Dulles Greenway was the closest thing Loudoun County had to a freeway. Mr. Frederick’s administrative assistant seated Tim and asked if he would like a beverage. Tim asked for and received a Coke Zero.
“Mr. Fredericks will be with you in a minute, Mr. Hall,” the assistant told Tim, leaving the room. Tim stared out the window and watched the traffic go by. It was dark out, but traffic still appeared heavy. Commuters coming and going, Tim thought. Typical Northern Virginia. Typical DC.
A quick three knocks sounded at the door, and in came a tall man of six foot four, Tim estimated,
with thinning salt and pepper hair. He stood at Tim’s side and introduced himself. “Mr. Hall? I’m Bob Fredericks.”
“Tim Hall, Mr. Fredericks,” Tim replied as he began to get to his feet.
“Please call me Bob,” Mr. Fredericks told him, walking around to his side of the desk and opening a folder as he sat down. “You’ve had quite a day, Mr. Hall.”
“Please call me Tim,” Tim interjected.
“Very well, Tim. I do realize that it has been a traumatic day, with the death of your wife. However, I understand that you were estranged?”
“Yes, three or four years now,” Tim replied, though he really no longer remembered how long it had been.
“Yes, quite the day. Tim, my job is to make sure our agents are properly settled once they leave active service, and I will get straight to the point. Would you consider taking over for your wife at the Lovettsville Road secured facility, otherwise known as the safe house?”
The question caught Tim off guard. At best, Tim figured that he would be sent home to Baltimore. At worst, he would be transferred to the jail in Alexandria, VA so he could stand trial for espionage at the Eastern District Federal Court House.
“Yes, I would be happy to do it.” Tim’s quick response to the question surprised even him.
“Wonderful. Would you consider starting tonight?” Bob asked.
“I don’t see why not...but why the hurry, Bob?”
“You may have guests arriving soon, and it’s important to us that we have someone there who we can trust,” Bob explained. He picked up his phone and dialed a three-digit number. “Gail? Tim Hall is taking the safe house position and will need an ID made before he leaves tonight. Wonderful.”
The Adults in the Room Page 24