Death of Secrets

by Bowen Greenwood

  "Aren’t you Michael Vincent?"

  He bit his lip in surprise. Michael was accustomed to being recognized back in his home town, but not in Washington. He was only a freshman, after all, and not all that well known except in insider circles.

  "Um… yeah, I am. You must be seriously into politics. Listen, give me just a second to make a call here and I’ll be happy to talk."

  "No, I don’t follow politics, but Kathy told me you were a well-built blond guy. She said the two of you would be meeting me here."

  "Oh! Colleen Christina?" When she nodded, Mike continued, "OK, yeah, we were supposed to meet you. But Kathy’s been kidnapped, I have to call the police."

  He turned away toward the phone again, but Colleen's shout of "What?" drew him back again. Over her shoulder, Mike could see other patrons of the coffee shop staring at them.

  "I’ve got to call the cops, she’s been caught by the people trying to get that flash drive back!"

  He tried again to make the call, but Colleen grabbed his shoulder. "She’s my roommate! Tell me what’s going on!"

  Hastily, Mike rushed through a summary of the previous night. He finished with, "And I have no idea who they are or where they took her or anything but I’ve got to get her back!"

  ***

  In her first few minutes in the van, Kathy screamed, kicked, swung her fists and even bit. But before long tight cords bound her arms and legs, and a piece of tape on her mouth kept her screams under control. Even her eyes were covered with a paper bag, denying her the ability to see where they went.

  The drive went on a long time.

  As they drove, Kathy longed for at least a conversation to overhear. But her captors spoke rarely, and when they did it was in whispers. Frustration washed over her, and she resigned herself to her own thoughts.

  Or her own fears. Kathy’s mind stuck on her last encounter with Rat-Face at Mike's house, when he kept hitting her. She knew she'd be facing him again.

  She had never feared more for her physical safety. Kathy set her jaw under the paper bag, and mentally prepared herself to fight. She was being brought to the bearded man again, of that she had no doubt. Whatever he might want to do to her, it would not be without a fight.

  A voice brought Kathy back to dark, chilly reality. "OK, guys, the coast is clear. Let’s carry her inside."

  She felt her legs lifted up then felt herself being dragged off the seat. Her butt thumped painfully to the floor and she scraped her back on the edge of the seat.

  "I said to carry her other end! She’s hot, man, you should be jumping at the chance."

  "Sorry, sorry, I wasn’t ready. I got her now."

  With her hands and feet bound, Kathy decided not to put up a struggle as they carried her. She had no desire to be dropped again. By the sound she could tell when she was brought through a door, and then loaded onto an elevator. After a long ride she knew they left the elevator, and then heard herself being brought through another door. She also felt it when they scraped her side on the way through.

  "She doesn’t have the flash drive on her. We frisked her pretty thoroughly." Kathy couldn’t identify which voice was speaking. "But on the other hand she’s not armed either."

  A new voice, and one she didn’t recognize: "Put her on the couch and go ahead and untie her. Please cooperate, Kathy, and don’t fight. All I want to do is talk to you."

  "Yeah," added a voice next to her ear. "If you kick me again, I’m going to do something about it."

  The cords around her ankles and wrists were cut, and the bag taken off her head. Again, Kathy decided not to resist. The sharp pain when the tape came off her lips made her reconsider, but by then there wasn’t any point.

  Three men stood in the room with her. The two men who had carried her up stood one behind her and one to her right. But the man to her left caught her attention right away.

  He was dressed in black slacks and a turtleneck of the same shade. His square-rimmed glasses had photograde lenses that had gone dark when the lights were turned on. He stood erect, with his hands clasped behind his back. The lenses hid his eyes, but somehow Kathy could feel them studying her, searching for something. His gaunt frame stretched between a face with hard edges and feet two sizes too big for his body. He did not have a beard.

  None of them spoke, so Kathy finally asked, "Who are you?"

  "You don’t need to know." The speaker was the man with the photograde lenses.

  "How did you find me? I thought we did a pretty good job of hiding."

  "You did, but while we couldn’t find you we did find your roommate. She told a friend of hers on line that she was staying with her boyfriend, and we followed her from there, figuring she’d meet up with you eventually. We were right.

  "But none of that matters. All you need to know is that the flash drive you took is private property. Keeping it would be theft. Theft…" he paused, took his glasses off, and produced a handkerchief to wipe the lenses before putting them back on, "…has consequences."

  His expression changed to a smile. "Returning it to us would have consequences too. Such as enriching you substantially. Since you have no use for the drive at all, and no way of even reading the contents, it’s hard to understand why you still have it."

  Kathy felt a bit of confusion. The bearded man had offered her a hundred thousand bucks, then withdrew the offer when she told him about Colleen trying to read the drive. Now, they were offering her money again? Something, she thought wryly, doesn’t compute.

  She made an effort to absorb every detail of the room. She was seated in a chair that reminded her of those in the waiting room of a not-very-prosperous business. At her left hand was an end table, and another chair beside it made something of a conversation square. Those were the only furnishings in the room. White walls bare of decorations had three plain doors, one of them obviously the one she’d come in through. There was also one window.

  "Maybe because I don’t have it."

  "I happen to know that’s not true."

  "And maybe that’s why I haven’t given it to you. Whoever you are, you’ve got no right to come barging into my life the way you have!"

  The man with the glasses stood up and turned away. "I’m sure we can put a price on the discomfort."

  "You can’t put a price on what I went through last night!"

  Glasses turned around and gave her a stare. He even blinked. "What happened to you last night?"

  "Don’t try to fool me! I know who you work for, and you can tell him he’s never going to lay a hand on me again! Never!"

  The man in the glasses peered at her. "I assure you, I work for no one but myself. And if you’ll simply give us the flash drive, then no one need ever lay a hand on you again. We’d be happy to pay you for it."

  Still thinking of Carlos the bearded man, Kathy replied only with a silent stare.

  Glasses shrugged and crossed his arms. "It’s called comparison shopping," he said. "Simply buying the drive from you has a price. What that price is, I don’t know yet, but obviously I don’t want to pay more than I have to. On the other hand, getting the drive from you … without your cooperation … also has a price. I’m pretty sure I know how much it will cost me to do that, even allowing for things like the increased attention that a murder investigation will bring. So which one’s the bargain? When you might be selling your life, you don’t want to be undersold."

  He gestured to the two men, and walked toward the door. "Set your price, Kathy. I’ll be back."

  All three of them left through a cheap metal door, and Kathy was alone. Immediately she ran to check the door, and found it solidly locked. She crossed the room and tried the other two with similar results. That left the window, but it was locked too.

  She ran the fingers of both hands through her hair, and paced across the room. Her mind was on her last encounter with the bearded man, and not having to go through it again.

  The window was the only thing even close to an option. Locked it might be, bu
t it was also glass, and Kathy knew she could break glass. Unfortunately, a glance outside revealed a drop of more stories than she could count. The people below didn’t quite look like ants, but they didn’t look much larger than action figures, either.

  She paced some more. The complete lack of any decor at all bothered her. There was no artwork, no furnishings, not even a light in the room except the ceiling fixture that was installed in the place. Even college boys didn’t live this sparsely.

  She walked over to the door her captors had left through, and pressed her ear up against it. She could just hear a whispered conversation in the hall, but none of the words came through. So, she was guarded.

  She walked back to the window. Peering out, she saw a ledge that was wide enough to stand on – barely. There was drain pipe against the wall outside the window.

  Kathy sat staring at it for a long time. It was a long way if she fell. A long way.

  She caught her breath, and took a long moment to think. Whoever these men were, they were obviously holding her for the bearded man. And Kathy couldn’t bear the thought of confronting him again. Not when she was all alone. She couldn’t bring herself to think it.

  But the alternative was hardly reassuring. She was afraid to look down from the window again – her first glimpse had been enough. But she couldn’t resist for long, and eyeballed the drain pipe. She stared long and hard. If she slipped, she would plummet a good ten stories and die quite messily on the sidewalk below.

  Kathy prayed. "OK, I’ve never put my life in your hands quite this literally before. I’m scared to stay, but I’m scared to try to get away. Please help."

  She stared at the window at the drain pipe, and slowly the confidence grew in her. She was in good shape. She could do it.

  You can do it.

  Having decided that it could be done, that left only getting through the window. And since the furniture wasn’t bolted down, that wouldn’t be difficult. Kathy turned to examine the chairs. She picked one up. Not very heavy, but definitely heavy enough to do the glass in. Carrying the chair, she stepped a small distance away from the rest of the furniture. As a test, she swung it once in a broad arc around her body. Again, she could do it.

  She carried the chair over to the window.

  "Last chance to back out, Kathy," she muttered, feeling her heart go into overdrive in her chest. She took several long, deep breaths. She hefted the chair, and stood there holding it for a moment.

  A last minute fear seized her, and she set the chair down. She walked to the window, and looked out again. No obstacles between her and the drain pipe. She’d wondered at the last moment if she’d missed something like a clothes line, but there was nothing. Sucking in her breath, she picked up the chair again.

  After another deep breath, she gave herself a count. "One… Two… Three!"

  She swung the chair.

  The sound of the breaking shocked her with how loud it was. Glass shattered and flew. Most of the debris went outward, and Kathy thought belatedly of the risk to passersby on the street. A few shards dropped into the room, and tinkled to the ground.

  She heard a curse and then the sound of a key being inserted into the lock of the room’s door.

  Immediately her memory flooded with the fact that there was a guard right outside her door. While entertaining thoughts like, "I knew I forgot something," Kathy took several quick swipes of the leg of the chair to clear as much of the rest of the broken glass out of the frame as she could, and then she worked her way up onto the sill.

  She perched like a gargoyle there, toes curled over the ledge and hands gripping the window sill. Behind her, the door slammed open and she heard a shout, but didn’t pay attention to the words. With one last whisper of "help me Lord," Kathy grabbed the drain pipe and began to clamber down.

  The process was halfway between climbing and falling. She wasn't quite strong enough, and the pipe was too smooth, for her to hold herself still just by grabbing it. But just when she'd slip and start to fall, she'd hit the next floor, where there was a ledge on which she could get a toehold. She'd stop, catch her breath, and then slip down another ten feet or so.

  The process repeated again and again, until she reached the second story, where the pipe ended. Kathy let herself slide as far down as she could, until she ran out of pipe, and her hands clasped around empty air, and she dropped.

  This landing came hard. She crumpled to the ground and sat there, gasping, her legs punishing her for the abuse. Only the sight of a service door opening into the alley brought her to her feet. Painfully, she started trotting away.

  A voice behind her called out, "Kathy, wait!" Instead she tried to pick up the pace, coming to a full run and ignoring the pain in her legs. When she heard the clatter of running footsteps behind her, she increased her speed again, sprinting now for the end of the alley.

  Once there she turned the corner onto a street and found herself in the middle of a throng of pedestrian traffic. Thank you God. It was harder to run, now, with so many people around her. But the crowd made her feel safe from assault by her mysterious captors. She pushed, elbowed and shoved when she needed to, and ran when she had a clear space.

  Her head swiveled back to look over her shoulder, and she couldn’t make out pursuers back there. No doubt the crowd would make it as hard for them to keep her in sight as it was for her to keep running. Nevertheless, she didn’t slow down any more than congestion required.

  ***

  Colleen listened as Mike recounted the story of Kathy’s abduction from the street in broad daylight. When he finished, Mike just shook his head.

  "I’ve gotta call the cops," he said. "My chief of staff will kill me. D.W. will kill me. He always taught me to control how the news comes out, and this is letting it as far out of my control as can be."

  Colleen spoke up. "Um, I can maybe help you a bit there. Why would it have to be you who called the police? I’m her roommate, I could do it. You wouldn’t even have to be involved."

  He looked at her. "I never thought of it that way."

  She nodded. "It’s OK, I understand. But listen, I’m not sure we should go to the police yet."

  "Are you crazy?" Michael nearly shouted. "What else can we do? We don’t even have the foggiest idea who took her, let alone where they took her, so we’re sort of out of luck when it comes to rescuing her ourselves."

  "Listen to me," Colleen urged, gripping his shoulders. "Just listen for a sec. It’s obvious that the only reason this is happening at all is that stupid flash drive, right? And I have it, right?"

  He nodded glumly, and Colleen went on. "OK, then. Whoever they are, they will be back in touch with us, because they want that drive. With kidnapping, the criminals usually want to keep the police out, and just get the ransom. We know for a fact that Kathy is useless to them without the flash drive. So why don’t we just wait for them to call and tell us how to make the exchange? We might even be putting her more at risk by calling the cops."

  Michael turned away from her and stared out the window. He looked back, and then away again. Finally he said, "OK, you’re right. I don’t like just doing nothing, but you’re right, they have to come back to us. Then we just give them the flash drive and get Kathy back."

  She nodded.

  "OK," Mike said. "Let’s go back to our hotel room, so Kathy has a way to contact us if they ask her to."

  The walk to the hotel went quickly, with neither one in the mood to talk much. Once inside, Colleen sat silently at the table, watching the Congressman. Tilting her head to one side, she appraised him. So this was the guy Kathy talked about. Attractive, she thought, and a member of Congress to boot. It wasn’t everyone who had a Congressman fall for her.

  After a long silence that grew increasingly uncomfortable, Colleen decided to try starting a conversation. Just sitting around brooding about what might be happening to Kathy was unhealthy. Trouble was, she didn’t quite know what to say to him.

  "I’ve never known a Congressman b
efore."

  He laughed. "Lucky you. By and large they’re a cutthroat bunch."

  "You seem nice enough."

  His face seemed to light up a bit. "Did Kathy tell you that about me?"

  Colleen laughed. "What, I can’t have formed my own opinion about you?"

  His burgeoning smile melted a bit, but not totally. "Yeah, I suppose so. I just thought …"

  "That she talks about you." Colleen grinned. Men were all the same. "You’re a politician. Is it a good idea for you to fall this hard for her?"

  Michael blushed. "Well, that’s exactly what I was thinking, actually. I don’t know whether to be glad that she’s interested enough to talk about me or worried that when she talks about me it puts my career at risk."

  Colleen gave him a mysterious half smile. "Well, yeah, she has talked to me about you a little bit. But I don’t think she has to anyone else. Except maybe at the club. From what she says it sounds like they all know you’re in politics."

  He sighed. "Yeah, that can’t be helped. Waitresses overhear conversations, stuff like that."

  Colleen nodded, and Mike went on. "So do you think I have a chance with her?"

  She laughed. "Don’t you men ever get out of junior high? Do you want me to give her a note asking her to go steady with you?"

  He blushed again. "Well, I can’t help it. She’s so…" Another sigh escaped his lips.

  "So beautiful, sexy, funny, smart – yeah, yeah. Guys always sound the same when they’re in love." She stopped to laugh. "Oh come on, don’t look so embarrassed. It’s cute, in its own way. And to answer your question as best I can, yeah, I think you have a chance. Circumstances being different, I imagine the two of you would already be dating."

  "What circumstances?"

  She looked at him. "OK, I don’t know you that well, so I can afford to just be honest. I know my roommate. God’s everything to her. Does she have any reason to believe you share that?"

  His eyes widened and he stammered.

  He mumbled and looked away, and Colleen patted him on the back as she stood up. "Look, don’t worry about it. From what I’ve seen of you, you seem like a decent guy. She says the same thing. Assuming you are a decent guy, then that’ll come through and you’ll be fine."