The Secret of Rover

by Rachel Wildavsky

  They were climbing the steps and the great doors were in front of them. Don’t be locked, thought David. Don’t be closed. Alex grasped the massive steel bar that spanned the door and pulled it toward him. It moved in his hand. The building was open!

  Alex held the door as Katie and David passed through. But just as he himself entered—just as the door swung closed between them and their three pursuers—Trixie spoke.

  “We’ll be waiting?” she said in her familiar honey-slicked voice. “We’ll be right here when you come out.”

  With those words, she and her companions vanished into the night.

  They were in at last, in the cavernous glass-fronted lobby of the gray stone building toward which they had been traveling for so many exhausting miles throughout the long, hard day. Katie’s knees all but buckled from the pressure and the relief and the terrible remaining uncertainty.

  Where, precisely, had they arrived? David nudged his sister. Their eyes met and he mouthed, “Look at the wall.” She looked up. There across the wall before them—in letters as high as she was tall—were emblazoned the words:

  UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF STATE

  Above that was the Great Seal of the United States of America, with its fiery eagle clutching an olive branch in one talon and a cluster of arrows in the other. And arrayed below it were flags: dozens and dozens of flags, representing seemingly every country in the world.

  “The State Department,” said Katie quietly. “We’re at the State Department.”

  Now Alex was striding across the gleaming marble floor toward the guard who sat behind a wide desk of polished wood. Katie and David hurried after him. The desk was as long as a city bus and the face of the guard behind it was very stern. But their uncle stood squarely before the guard and looked him straight in the eye.

  “I’m here to see the secretary,” he said.

  The Secretary of State? Uncle Alex?

  “Do you have an appointment?” asked the guard. He turned to his computer and clicked on a screen. “I don’t show anything for her right now.”

  “No,” said Alex boldly. “I don’t have an appointment, but it won’t matter. Would you please just tell her that Alex is in the lobby.”

  Alex is in the lobby?

  They saw it now, and it was brilliant. This was the plan that had taken them from the mountains of Vermont to Washington DC. It was a bluff, and a nervy one: a piece of pure genius. If Alex said he knew the secretary of state, then maybe, just maybe, she would be curious enough to let them in.

  Who would have thought that their reclusive uncle could be so bold? Katie and David quickly composed their faces. They must play along, as if they saw the secretary all the time.

  But would it work? The guard was taking in Alex’s clothes. For the first time the children noticed how badly worn they were, and how many years out-of-date. The guard was eyeing Alex’s hair, too; it looked as if he had cut it himself with a jackknife. He probably had.

  Alex must have seen the skepticism in the guard’s face, because now his chin lifted. He looked the man straight in the eye, and when he spoke again, he did so calmly and with great authority.

  “The secretary is here, I take it,” he said. “She hasn’t gone home for the day? Then would you please tell her that Alex is here, and that he needs to see her. Please tell her,” he said coolly, “that it’s urgent.”

  Urgent. The guard hesitated for another moment. But then he tucked the receiver of his phone between his shoulder and his chin and he punched in a number. As the line rang he looked back to Alex and spoke in a voice that was low and very cold. “You’d better hope she sees you, pal. Because if she doesn’t, I’m calling the cops. Over there,” he said, waving them away to a bench along the opposite wall. “Sit. I’ll let you know.”

  With as much dignity as they could muster, and with footsteps that sounded too loud, they walked back across the great hall and sat themselves down on the bench. The guard’s eyes drilled holes in their backs as they walked.

  “What if she says no?” There was a trace of panic in David’s whisper. “Man, Uncle Alex! The secretary of state!” This was practically like asking to see the president.

  “She won’t say no,” said Alex calmly. “If he tells her what I told him to, she will see us.”

  “How do you know that?” demanded David.

  “And what if he doesn’t tell her?” asked Katie. “What if he chased us away just so he could call the police? We can’t go back out there!”

  “Kids,” said their uncle, “this is my best hand, and I’ve just played it.”

  Great.

  There was a loud click from across the lobby. The guard had hung up the phone and now he stepped down from behind his desk. Slowly he sauntered across the floor to where they sat. Katie’s eyes were riveted to his hip, where a gun hung low in a leather holster. His hand rested on top of it and it bumped against his leg with every step.

  The guard stopped before the bench and stared down at them with ill-concealed dislike. “OK,” he said reluctantly. “You can head on up. Seventh floor.” And he gestured loosely toward a metal detector at the far end of the lobby. “Step through the machine, and the elevator’s to the left.”

  “She’s going to see us?” David blurted this out.

  “’At’s what she said. Don’t ask me why,” said the guard, turning away.

  Success. Katie and David met each other’s eyes and barely restrained themselves from whooping out loud. Katie turned to her uncle in jubilation. “Uncle Alex!” she whispered. “You did—”

  But her cry of triumph broke off, unspoken. Alex did not look jubilant at all. A flush had flooded his face and he rose unsteadily to his feet.

  What on earth could be wrong?

  Their uncle had just accomplished something amazing. He had done many amazing things, in fact—amazing for him, anyway. He had left his home in the woods and taken to the highway for the first time in practically forever. He had traveled almost six hundred miles in a single day—she had seen the map. He had eaten fast food and liked it, even. He had outrun three thugs in black suits and outsmarted a hostile guard. And he had just talked their way in to see one of the highest-ranking officials in the U.S. government.

  And best of all, thanks to their uncle they now had a chance to save their mom and dad and Theo. The secretary couldn’t say no. When she’d heard their story—and she would now definitely hear their story—she couldn’t refuse to help.

  So why did Alex look nervous now? The secretary couldn’t refuse to help them—could she?

  “This way!” said their uncle. His voice was brisk, but he still looked flustered and distracted. “We’ll just step through this machine.” And without even thinking, he headed straight for the metal detector.

  No. Katie reached out and seized her uncle’s arm, jerking him to a stop. Metal detectors were supposed to look for weapons, right? If, after all this, the guards discovered what Alex had in his pocket . . .

  Her uncle’s eyes skittered nervously and the guard looked at him with frank suspicion. Even though the guard had invited them in to see the secretary, his hand still rested on his holster. Katie turned so that only Alex could see her face and mouthed, “Your gun.”

  Alex clapped his hand to his head. It was clear that he had completely forgotten.

  “Yes,” he said out loud. “My niece reminds me.” He looked the guard in the eye and, without hesitating, he reached into his pocket and withdrew his pistol. Gripping it with the handle forward so that he was not pointing it, he offered it to the guard. “You’ll want to hold on to this while we’re upstairs,” he said.

  The guard’s eyes popped. For an awful moment Katie and David feared that he might withdraw the permission he had just granted. The expression on Alex’s face wasn’t helping. He looked like his thoughts were a thousand miles away. What had come over him? In this urgent situation, Alex suddenly looked nutty.

  For a long moment the guard simply stared at him. It was t
he stare of a predator at a small, loathsome animal that it considers too disgusting to eat. Then he turned to call across the lobby to the guard stationed at the metal detector.

  “Pat ’em down!” the main guard barked. And he walked back to his desk, bearing Alex’s gun with him.

  Through the metal detector they filed. Afterward all three of them were individually searched with a metal-detecting wand and patted down by hand. Alex was still in outer space, and he had to be asked twice to put his backpack on the conveyor belt. The deep suspicion on the face of the attendant turned to deeper disgust when the pack was found to contain only stale bread crusts and the rind of an old cheese.

  “Left, Uncle Alex!” David seized his uncle’s arm and tugged him in the proper direction. “Elevator’s to the left!”

  “That’s where I was going,” said Alex peevishly, turning around to follow his nephew. Then he ran his hand nervously through his hair. “Where’s the bathroom?” he asked unhappily, muttering to himself. “Ought to check a mirror. Should have brought a comb.”

  Behind his uncle’s back, David raised his eyebrows inquisitively at Katie. What was the deal with him? She shrugged, but inwardly her concern was deepening. Having gotten them this far, Alex must not choose this crucial moment to fall apart.

  I’ll do the talking, thought Katie. If he can’t explain what happened, I will. Mentally she began composing what she would say.

  The elevator arrived with a bright ping, and wordlessly they all stepped inside it. Alex reached out for the button marked 5 and David quickly redirected his finger to the 7. “I know what I’m doing,” snapped Alex.

  “Sure—sorry,” said David soothingly. Now his eyebrows telegraphed wild alarm at his sister. Their uncle didn’t even notice. He was elsewhere.

  The car rumbled upward and then jolted gently to a stop, causing Alex to stumble slightly. He probably hasn’t been on one of these for years, Katie realized. To their surprise, the doors slid open to reveal a small gilded lobby dominated by a massive mahogany door. Outside the door an armed and uniformed guard stood at attention.

  None of them had expected this formality in an office building. Now they were all disconcerted.

  “Mr. Alex?” said the guard respectfully.

  Still inside the elevator, Alex nodded dumbly. As he did so the doors started to close. The guard stepped forward quickly and reached out to stop them. Politely he appeared not to notice their confusion. “Right this way,” he said pleasantly. “Madam Secretary will see you now.”

  After everything that had gone before it, in the end it was this courtesy that reduced all of them to jelly. Like robots with quivering knees they walked out of the elevator. With a flourish the guard pulled open the great door and stepped aside for them to pass through. They could not turn back now.

  With Alex in the middle and Katie and David on either side of him, they stepped into a cavernous and magnificent room. And far away on the distant side of it—behind a vast desk like a dark ship, and beneath a towering, ornately carved ceiling—a small, pale, thin woman in a blue suit rose to her feet.

  She lifted her hands anxiously to her hair, smoothing it. Just like Uncle Alex, thought Katie fleetingly.

  And what about Alex? Standing between Katie and David and gazing at the secretary with suddenly rapt eyes, he raised his hands to his heart.

  “Darling?” he asked. He sounded as if he were choking.

  “Oh, sweetheart,” the secretary replied. “Sweetheart, it’s been so long.”

  Somehow, Katie and David were ushered from the room. Despite the emergency that had brought them there, they did not resist this. It was pretty obvious that, for a few moments at least, their uncle and the secretary of state needed to be alone.

  They found themselves back in the gilded lobby, sitting on a pair of gilded chairs, with the mahogany door firmly closed.

  A uniformed attendant came and offered them sodas. They accepted, grateful for the cold refreshment.

  “Well,” said David between greedy sips, “that explains a lot.”

  “I can’t believe I never figured it out,” said Katie, aggravated. Her uncle had had a girlfriend. Of course.

  “This may take a while,” said David. “He hasn’t seen her since—how long has it been? A couple decades?”

  “And Mom and Dad always liked her when we saw her on the news and stuff. They always said she was really good! Why didn’t I get it?”

  “Katie, one of these days you’re going to have to lighten up. Like, because Mom and Dad liked the secretary of state, you should have figured out that she was Uncle Alex’s girlfriend? Relax. This is very, very good for us.” David was elated. Definitely, definitely this lady would help.

  “I don’t know,” said Katie worriedly. “Remember that they did break up. They broke up so badly that he became a hermit for fifteen years.”

  “Fifteen. Right. I forgot,” said David cheerfully.

  “She could still be mad.”

  “‘Sweetheart,’” David repeated in a breathy, high-pitched voice. “‘Sweetheart, it’s been—’”

  “OK, she didn’t sound mad.” Katie grinned, despite herself. “I wonder what they’re talking about in there,” she added.

  With that, the door opened. Two flushed and shining faces appeared behind it, beckoning Katie and David in. “Come on back,” said their uncle happily. “The secretary wants to hear your story.”

  “Alicia,” said the secretary, correcting him. Then she smiled joyfully at the children. “You must call me Alicia. And please, do come in.”

  They slid off their chairs and, clutching their drinks, Katie and David stepped between their beaming uncle and the equally beaming Alicia and back into her beautiful office. This room was so large that it had what appeared to be its own living room on one side of it, complete with sofas and overstuffed chairs and softly glowing lamps. Outside the secretary’s enormous windows the night sky was black. Over on her desk half of a roast beef sandwich sat uneaten. They had interrupted her dinner.

  “It’s a good thing you work so hard,” said Katie shyly.

  They all turned to look at her. “I mean, it’s so late. We were afraid you might have gone home.”

  “Oh, I never go home,” said Alicia, laughing ruefully. “I just seem to live here. It’s wonderful to meet both of you,” she added warmly. “Katie, you’re the image of your father. And David, I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but you look just like your mother. And your uncle, too,” she said, and her voice deepened slightly as she gazed once again at Alex. She sighed. “I haven’t seen either of them in years.”

  How strange it was to realize that the secretary—no, Alicia—knew their parents.

  “Neither have we,” David chimed in. “Well, not really years. It just feels like that.”

  The secretary’s face grew grave. “Yes,” she said. “Alex has just been telling me. Please sit.” She ushered them over to the softest of the sofas. “And do begin at the beginning.”

  This time there were many interruptions as they told their story. The secretary had a number of questions about Trixie and her crew, and though she was polite, she did break in to ask. And when she heard about their race across Washington DC her face darkened.

  “You won’t be going back on the street until we have all three of them,” she said in a voice that allowed for no argument.

  In a kind way, Alicia asked Katie and David to set aside the story of their long journey to their uncle Alex’s. She looked forward to hearing it, she explained, but their parents’ situation was urgent and for now, they should tell her only about the Katkajanians. And they should say everything, holding nothing back.

  “I think we have said everything,” said Katie. “I think that’s everything we know. But now”—she paused, surprised to feel the waters rush up behind her eyes—“now we’re just afraid—we’re worried that—”

  “They said they’d kill our parents if we told,” said David bluntly. “And we’ve just told you
, and by now those guys on the street know it. So we’re really glad you’re going to help. But it would be great if—I mean, thanks, and everything—but it would be great if you could help fast.”

  Katie leaned forward. “What he means is—”

  But Alicia covered Katie’s hand with her own, stopping her. “I know exactly what he means,” she said. “And he’s exactly right.”

  Rising to her feet she walked briskly across her office to her desk. She stepped behind it and picked up a phone unlike any David or Katie had ever seen. She pushed a button on this strange phone and spoke into it.

  “It’s Alicia,” she said. “I need Security in my office, now.”

  Almost instantly the gilded doors of the secretary’s office swung open. In swept a grim-faced man carrying a hard plastic case, a frowning woman clutching a laptop, and a couple of boulderlike guards. The guards appeared to be wired for sound. Tiny microphones were mounted beside their unsmiling mouths and small, flat speakers were strapped over their ears.

  In rapid, no-nonsense tones, Alicia told them about the three Katkajanians who were lurking outside the building. The grim-faced man turned immediately to the children and Alex. He seemed to be in charge.

  “How many?” he ordered. “Height of the male? Approximate age of the first woman?”

  The frowning woman dropped onto a chair, flipped open her laptop, and began furiously typing as David and Katie and their uncle tumbled over one another in their rush to describe Trixie, Hair, and Nose.

  “They’re occupying a house as well,” added Alicia, breaking in. “You’ll need to get a team out there ASAP. Kids, your address?”

  The man tossed his plastic case onto a tabletop, snapped it open, and removed the largest cell phone the kids had ever seen. He repeated their address into the phone.

  “It’s a secure line,” explained Alicia in a low voice.