by Sue Knott
“Hi. I’m Anne.” I tried to smile with as much warmth as I could muster.
“Yeah. Great. Just take a left at the next exit.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a pack of Marlboros.
“I’m sorry. Please don’t smoke in the car. I’ll have an asthma attack.” I was already coughing from the residual smoke hovering over her clothes like its own noxious ecosystem. I opened my window a crack.
With a huff of disgust she shoved the pack back in her purse and started fidgeting with her lighter.
“I was thinking, there may be a way your daughter can make some money off her notebook.”
She stopped fidgeting and gave me her undivided attention.
“If the Glyphs turn out to be as important as many people think they are, I’d bet that a collector would be willing to pay a good price for the notebook even after the contents are posted the website. The notebook would have historical significance.”
“Now you tell me.” She threw her hands in the air and started shaking her head.
‘Now you tell me,’ she says? What the heck did that mean? “Is there anything you need to tell me? Are we still progressing according to plan?”
“Yeah. Everything just like we talked. Don’t worry about it.” But something in the way she said that made me worry more.
I looked in my rearview mirror. Jim was still behind us, discreetly back a few cars. Near as I could tell, nobody else was following. I tried to breathe deep to relax, but it only made my lungs spasm from the rancid smell of stale smoke. My hands clenched the steering wheel in a death grip. I could not wait for this to be over.
As Brandi directed me toward the post office, I couldn’t help but notice that we seemed to be traveling through a nice, middle-class neighborhood. I wondered why Brandi was so desperate for cash that she had been oblivious to her daughter’s safety. Maybe she had some weird jewelry fetish she needed to support. She had diamonds on every finger and draped around her neck. I suspected the diamonds were real. I did not have the same suspicions about her boobs. They were mighty perky for a woman with such leathery skin. She had to have kissed 50 goodbye quite some time ago.
As I was parking in front of the post office, I could see a bunch of girls inside. I was glad I wouldn’t have to wait around. Brandi made me nervous. I thought she might stop outside to have a smoke, but she came in with me. She immediately snapped at one of the girls, “Gerry, give Anne your notebook.”
I tried to put the little girl at ease. She had the demeanor of a dog that had been kicked too many times and was always on the alert for the next boot. “Hi, Gerry. Nice to meet you. You are a very important person to have a notebook with the complete Glyphs.”
“Can you finish this sentence first?” She appeared to be trying to look straight at me, but being blind, she was a touch off.
“Sure, what is it?” She was able to redirect from the sound of my voice. If I didn’t know she was blind, I’d think she was looking straight into my eyes.
“Four dots over a smile, swirly, double hump, side star, side star.” She waited expectantly.
“That’s an easy one. It’s fulcrum, wavy skis, swirly, umbrella.” I wasn’t sure if she’d recognize my references. Everyone had their own way of describing the Glyphs based on what they resembled. Being blind, Gerry might have a difficult time translating my descriptions.
“What’s a fulcrum?”
“Ummm…it’s like a teeter totter.”
“Okay. You passed. Terry, give Anne my notebook.” Gerry seemed relieved. Doubtless, she may have worried her mother was trying to pull a fast one on her. But, people who saw the Glyphs innately trusted one another. It’s hard to explain. That trust was tied with the images somehow.
Terry pulled the notebook out of another girl’s backpack. Gerry was pretty security savvy, not carrying the notebook herself where her mother might get at it. I immediately took it to the copy machine. I couldn’t get this transaction over with fast enough. I still had a feeling Brandi had something up her sleeve.
“Let’s get this copied and uploaded to the net as quickly as possible, so we can all rest easy.” I pulled three copies off each page. The quality of the copies was good. I didn’t think I’d have any trouble scanning and uploading them. I just prayed we could get through the copying without a paper jam.
I was working so fast, I didn’t really have a chance to look at the notebook that closely. But, it did seem she had all the Glyphs in every section. Brandi paced around while I photocopied, stopping every now and then to check on how I was coming. She’d stand at the end of the copy machine, arms folded, jiggling her knee.
Jim stood by the door where he could see what was happening outside the post office as well as inside. Inside didn’t appear to be a problem. There were several patrons, but no one seemed too interested in us. I hadn’t bothered to tell Brandi about Jim. She didn’t need to know I had some extra security. Lord only knows what arrangements she might have made that she wasn’t telling me about. I was pretty sure I saw her texting when I got to the last few pages.
The second I was finished, Brandi grabbed the notebook out of my hands.
“Hey, that’s Gerry’s.” Terry protested.
“No it’s not. It’s mine. I paid for everything you girls have. I own it all. You are just borrowing it.” She was looking at a text as she talked.
“It’s okay,” I tried to comfort the girls, “I have all the pages copied. The notebook shouldn’t matter anymore.”
“We’ve got company!” Jim’s voice sounded truly alarmed. I quickly shoved one set of copies into the stamped, manila envelope I’d brought and deposited it into the mail slot on the wall.
“Oh, God. There’s like five guys with ski masks tumbling out of a van.” Jim started quickly backing toward us. “Somebody call 911!” He shouted to the staff.
“I think they’re here for me.” Brandi started walking toward the door.
“Are you nuts? These guys don’t look friendly.” Jim had grabbed Brandi’s arm.
Brandi indignantly shook him loose. “They’re going to buy the notebook.”
“Even if they do buy it, once they find out the information is public, they’re going to be mad as hell. What’s to stop them from tracking you down?”
“They don’t know me. How they gonna find me?”
“Is there a back way out of here?” I shouted over to the postmaster.
“Yes. And I called 911.”
By this time, all the patrons realized something was going down and had the sense to look nervous.
“They’ve got guns!” Jim shouted. “Everybody outta here.”
Everyone except Brandi and Jim raced to the back door. Fortunately, the post office was one of a row of connected buildings. No one in front could see us pouring out the back. I told the girls to scatter. I was going to run with Terry and Gerry to make sure they were safe, but I instantly realized, I’d only slow them down. All those girls had speed! Terry guided Gerry expertly and they ran like the wind. All the girls were quickly around the corner, into other building or otherwise out of sight in seconds. I poked my head back in the post office. Jim was trying to drag Brandi toward the back, but she bit him hard and broke loose, running out the door, notebook raised in her hand.
There was nothing we could do at that point. Jim and I slipped into the back alley and then in through an unlocked back door of a restaurant a couple shops down. We heard distant sirens. Then shots. Multiple shots. Then tires squealing.
Chapter 44
I could barely drag myself out front. My feet felt like giant blocks of concrete that my wobbly legs couldn’t attempt to lift. Once I heard the shots, I felt like I slipped into an alternate universe. Surely this couldn’t be my world. People did not shoot guns in my world.
I simply wanted to crawl into a corner, curl up in a ball and disappear. I’d been running on adrenalin when I thought that just maybe, there might be some way I could help. But now that the shooting had stopped, the tho
ught of facing the aftermath had me paralyzed with fear. I didn’t want to see what happened. If I didn’t see it, I could cling to the hope that everyone might be all right. But, deep inside, I feared the worst. I imagined innocent people sprawled bleeding and dead across the sidewalk. All because of me. Because of my stupid website.
I can’t begin to describe the level of dread I felt walking toward that restaurant door. Would there be children crying for the dead mommies? Or mothers for their children? Would Jim’s involvement in all this cost him his opportunity to get a medical license? I would have been very happy to have the earth explode. For those endless seconds it took to reach the door, the future seemed too difficult to bear.
We peeked out the door. Any sign of physical threat appeared to have ended. The van with the masked gunmen was gone. Three bleeding bodies were strewn across the pavement. A half dozen or more people were out there. One was bent over the evil mother, trying to stop her bleeding. A couple of the others were holding guns on two masked men, which seemed unnecessary. Except for the blood pouring out of them, they were motionless on the pavement.
Jim rushed over to the mother and started tending her wound. He yelled instructions for the others on how to stop the bleeding of the masked men. No one moved, so I went over to apply pressure as Jim directed. One of the others followed suit.
The guy I tried to help appeared to leaking rather than actively bleeding. “Jim, I think he might be dead.”
Jim asked the woman next to him to apply pressure to the evil mom’s side. He came over, pulled off the mask of the guy at my knees and began administering CPR…mostly chest pumps, but he asked me to deliver a few breaths. It looked like the guy was starting to breathe again. Then the police and ambulances arrived and took over.
An officer helped me to my feet. I was so shaky I could barely say what I had to say. “Tttthh….ttthat lady’s kids,” I realized I was hyperventilating as I gulped for air, “could be in danger…gotta find them.”
“What kind of danger? Where are they?” The officer’s hand on my arm seemed more aggressive than supportive.
I motioned toward the guys on the ground. “There are more – in a van – could be looking for the girls.” I was gaining my composure a bit. “I told the girls to run. They live around here someplace.”
The officer dragged me over to the ambulance they were loading Brandi into. They had her purse. He rifled through it for ID, then radioed for a car to pick up the girls at her address.
Once I knew the girls were going to be taken care of, my brain seemed to spin itself into a daze. Every time I could gather the wherewithal to focus, more police were arriving on the scene. The officer that had me by the arm never let go. It occurred to me that I was being treated like a suspect.
Finally, a detective took me off the officer’s hands. He pulled me aside and started hurling questions at me. He had already interviewed the gun-toting bystanders. (Okay, I guess they weren’t exactly bystanders if they were toting guns.) So, he quickly concluded I knew nothing of the shooting itself. I hadn’t actually seen a thing. I didn’t have a gun. And he didn’t seem to like my explanation as to what led up to the shooting. Apparently, I was the least informed person he’d talked to. Which shocked the heck out of me.
The police seemed not to know what to do with me. They couldn’t charge me with a crime, but they were reluctant to let me go when I had no local address. After much discussion and a couple phone calls, they asked me to sit in a patrol car. The FBI wanted to talk to me. They were on their way.
While sitting alone in the patrol car, I took the opportunity to photograph the photocopies of the notebook with my cell phone. I hoped I was doing an acceptable job. Even though it had grown less pronounced, my hands were still shaking uncontrollably. I had only gotten about half way through the photographing when Agent Adams came to retrieve me.
I shoved my phone and the papers into my jacket pocket before I got out of the car. Agent Adams spoke to me perfunctorily. I think he was totally confused about the whole situation. He didn’t know whether I was a bad guy or a good guy, but I think he was leaning toward “bad guy.” I couldn’t blame him. I mean, I was involved in an incident that left three people shot.
“Ms. Shannon, I need you to come down to headquarters and answer some questions for me.” Agent Adams gave no indication that this was a request rather than a demand.
“I’d be happy to, but first, I really need make sure that the little girls are safe. Could you find out if the police have them?”
“I’ll get that information for you on our drive downtown.” I could tell that he wasn’t concerned at all about the girls.
“No, you don’t understand. I think these girls could be in danger. I can’t go anywhere until I know they’re safe.”
He gave me a totally exasperated look, but went over to consult with the police, keeping a wary eye on me the entire time. He reported back to me that the police had the girls at their station and were waiting for social services to come and pick them up.
“Social services? What are you nuts!” I couldn’t believe that I had the nerve to raise my voice to this guy. But, I was so worried over the incompetence of everyone involved that I just couldn’t help myself. “The guys that were here –the van full of masked men with automatic machine guns – they could be after the girls. You know, I’m really not going to be comfortable unless those girls are with me. Can you arrange for them to get an armed escort down to the FBI headquarters?”
“That’s out of the question. The girls belong with social services. It’s out of my jurisdiction.”
“Then I’m afraid I won’t be able to join you downtown. I have to go to the police station and see what I can do about getting those girls some protection.”
Adams literally threw his hands up in the air. “There’s nothing you can do. It’s a matter for social services. They’ll find the girls’ relatives.”
“I doubt social services or the girls’ relatives will be able to handle an armed assault. They won’t understand what they’re up against. You don’t understand what you’re up against.”
“Then why don’t you tell me?” Adams’ voice was dripping with sarcasm.
“The guys in the van probably aren’t local thugs. They’re likely either terrorists or have ties to enemy nations. They shot the girls’ mother. They may want the girls dead as well. If they do, they may stop at nothing.”
To Agent Adams credit, he seemed to then appreciate the severity of the situation. He had two police cars take the girls to the FBI office in Newark. Jim and I, along with all the armed bystanders, were shepherded to the FBI office in separate patrol cars. I managed to finish photographing and uploading Gerry’s pages during the ride. They might not be entirely legible…but the more info in the public domain, the safer we all would be.
At the FBI headquarters, each of us was interviewed in a separate room. I told them everything I felt they needed to know. It didn’t take long – I really didn’t know that much. All I could tell them was that I thought Brandi was trying to make money off a Glyphs notebook in her possession. I didn’t know how she made arrangements with the armed entourage. Mostly, I just had questions about what actually happened. It seemed like the agents knew a lot more than I did, but they weren’t telling me.
“The police mentioned that you had some papers. Where are they now?” Agent Adams was still treating me like a bad guy.
“In my pocket.”
“What are they?”
“Photocopies of the notebook.”
“I see. I’ll take those.” Agent Adams held out his hand.
“I’m afraid I can’t give them to you.” I wondered if they could force me to hand them over. I wasn’t too worried. In addition to the copies I mailed myself, I had shoved another set of photocopies into my bra. I was determined to treat each of the three sets like gold.
“I’m afraid you have no choice. Please give them to me.”
“I believe I do have a choice
. I’ve done nothing wrong. They are my private property.”
“It’s a matter of national security, which overrides personal property.” Adams continued to hold out his hand.
“I don’t believe it’s a matter of national security.”
“That’s not for you to decide.”
“Well, I have to post clear copies of these papers online, first. Until I post the papers online, I believe everyone involved is in danger. Myself, the girls, their mother…even you. You can have the papers right after I post them.”
“No, I need them now.”
“Tell you what. Let me make photocopies and then I’ll give you the originals.”
“No, I’m afraid that won’t be acceptable.”
“Did you hear the part about those little girls being in danger?”
“The gunmen appear to have taken the original notebook before they fled. No one is in danger.”
“Do you know if there is only one set of bad guys after the notebook? Because I don’t know. I don’t see how anyone can know. None of this ends until the Glyphs are posted for the world to see.” I stood up. I figured it was time to force my hand. “I’m sorry. I’ve told you what I know. I have to go now.”
Agent Adams stood up to block my path. “You can’t go right now. Homeland Security wants to interview you.”
“Homeland Security?” I sank back down into my chair and held my head in my hands. Those were the guys with the waterboards, weren’t they? The guys with the warrantless arrests? I needed to get someone who understood the legal system on my side – and fast – before some government agency could make me disappear. “I would like to call an attorney.”
At that moment there was a knock at the door. “Ms. Shannon’s attorney is here.” The agents exchanged comments in whispers I could not hear.
“Hello, Ms. Shannon, I’m Dana McKenny. I’ll be representing you. Are you being treated well?” The attorney offered me her hand. I grasped it as if grabbing a lifeline.
“Are you my court appointed attorney?” My voice was a little shaky. The mention of Homeland Security had really thrown me for a loop.