by Phil Lollar
Whit shook his head. “Yes, it was—and no, you’re not. The young man in the van with us was Greg Kelly!”
Chapter Ten
“Don’t just sit there; say something!”
Kelly’s left leg bobbed up and down so fast, the folding chair he sat in started scooting backward across the linoleum office floor. He clamped his sweaty, shaking hand on his knee to stop the bouncing and the scooting and glared across a metal desk at his interrogator. After a moment, a cat meowed.
Dr. Blackgaard massaged the head of the large, fluffy gray Persian feline purring in his lap. “Cats are amazing creatures, aren’t they, Gregory? So sleek and gentle, and yet when they’re angry . . .” He suddenly and sharply yanked one of the cat’s ears, and she hissed and spat. “Aw, I’m so sorry, Sasha!” he said soothingly. He immediately began stroking and petting her again, and she lapsed back into gentle purring.
Kelly swallowed hard and wiped a trickle of sweat from his forehead. “L-look, you know me. I’m no spy. The car had a nice-looking radio. That’s what you pay me to do, right? Snatch radios and junk? Well, the other thing also looked good, so I grabbed it, too. I didn’t know it was some kinda top-secret military gizmo until I turned it on.”
“It’s a laptop computer, Gregory, not a gizmo. Why didn’t you come to me right away?”
“It was a normal heist! I was gonna meet you tonight as usual.”
“You went to the airport.”
“I got scared! I didn’t know what to do!”
“You went to the airport, Gregory. You were going to leave, weren’t you?”
Now both of Kelly’s legs started bobbing, and he clasped his sides. “I-I . . . I was scared!”
Blackgaard set Sasha on the desk and leaned forward. “Of me? But why? I’ve always taken good care of you, haven’t I?”
Kelly started rocking back and forth. “Yeah, but . . . this was something different. I mean, it’s hot! I’ve got friends in Cincinnati. I thought I could lie low for a while.”
“And you weren’t trying to sneak out of town to sell the computer to someone else?”
Kelly stopped rocking and flung his hands on the desk. “No! No! I don’t know people like that! Man, right now, I wish I never touched the thing! The police are swarming all over the place!”
Blackgaard rose, strolled over to a water cooler, filled a paper cup, and took a drink. “Did anyone see you at the airport?”
“I never got out of the hotel van.”
“Which hotel?”
“I dunno . . . Excalibur or Excelsior—one of those ‘ex’s’.”
Another sip of water. “So, the driver saw you.”
“Yeah, I guess. Him and two other people—an old man and a girl. But I got out before the van got to the hotel, and I came straight here.” Kelly clasped his sides and started rocking again. “I’m tellin’ you, man, I’m scared!”
Blackgaard gulped down the last of his water, refilled the cup, and set it before Sasha on the desk. She lapped at it daintily. “No need to be, Gregory. I’ll take care of you. Just like always. Your little ‘find’ could serve me very, very well. And you know how I reward those who serve me well.” There was a knock at the door. “Come in.”
The door opened, and Pinky squeezed his way through the entrance and into the office, carrying the laptop. He plopped it on the desk with a dull thunk, which startled Sasha. She bolted off the desk and into a corner, upending the cup and spilling the small amount of water still in it on Kelly’s worn sneakers. He barely noticed.
Blackgaard smiled pleasantly. “Ah, Pinky. Is it the right machine?”
The behemoth shook his head. “No. It’s just a regular laptop.”
Kelly stopped rocking and looked back and forth at them. “But it’s the one I got out of the car! I swear!”
Blackgaard’s pleasant demeanor didn’t change. “Are you sure it’s the wrong one, Pinky?”
“Yes. Da owner’s name is engraved on da bottom. I’ve checked through all da files on da hard disk. Boring. Academic material. No military secrets.”
There was a deadly pause. Blackgaard slowly shifted his coal-black eyes back to Kelly. “Gregory?”
Kelly stared at the computer, mouth agape. “I—I don’t know what happened! That’s it, I tell ya! That’s the one I got! And this morning it had all kinds of military technical junk on it! You gotta believe me!”
Blackgaard picked up the paper cup from the desk. “You wouldn’t be foolish enough to try to double-cross me . . .” He crushed the cup dramatically. “Would you?”
Kelly reeled back into his chair, nearly tipping it over. “No! No! Never! Really! Please!” He held up his hands in surrender, breathing hard. Tears trickled down his cheeks.
Blackgaard placed a soothing hand on Kelly’s shoulder. “All right, all right. Calm down. I believe you.”
Kelly slowly lowered his hands, though he was still wide-eyed, and his breathing remained labored. Blackgaard patted his shoulder reassuringly. “Pinky, I think Gregory needs some fresh air and food. Are you hungry, Gregory?”
Kelly nodded hesitantly. “Y-yeah . . . kinda.”
Blackgaard looked at Pinky. “Arrange for something to eat.”
Pinky frowned. “Eat?”
Blackgaard raised his eyebrows and nodded at Kelly. “Yes, take care of Gregory . . . all right?”
Pinky’s brow furrowed for a long moment, and then suddenly his eyebrows rose as well. He nodded at Blackgaard. “Oh! Sure! Come on, Gregory.”
Kelly arose warily from his chair and then grabbed Blackgaard’s arm. “Wait a minute—you can help me get outta Chicago, right? I can’t afford to get caught. Not again!”
Blackgaard looked at Kelly’s hand, and the young man slowly removed it from his arm. Blackgaard then looked at him and smiled warmly. “Trust me.” He banked the crushed paper cup off the wall and into the trash can. “The police will never find you.”
Kelly looked uncertain for a moment and then exhaled, relieved. “Thanks. You won’t regret this. I mean it.”
“I know, I know.”
Pinky held the door and gestured for Kelly to walk through it. Once he did, Pinky gave Blackgaard a knowing glance and nod and then shut the door.
Blackgaard retrieved Sasha from the corner, returned to his desk chair, and sank into it. “Bunglers! I’m surrounded by bunglers!” Sasha meowed, and Blackgaard stroked her head absently. This whole assignment had been one large boondoggle from the get-go. His American contact had told him what an idiot General Howell was—how he had gone to a conference on the West Coast, had taken with him a laptop loaded with government secrets, and had actually left it at the conference!
Howell didn’t want anyone to know what he had done, so he hired a private courier to drive it back to him in Washington, DC. But as further proof of the general’s imbecility, he left the courier’s itinerary sitting on his desk where anyone—including the American contact—could read it! It would be like taking candy from a baby!
The cat meowed again, and Blackgaard sighed heavily. “Oh, Sasha, it was all going to be so easy, wasn’t it? Disguise Pinky as the courier, have him ‘commandeer’ the computer and bring it directly back here . . . only, Pinky makes a pit stop and Kelly steals the computer from him! And then Kelly grabs the wrong one out of a hotel van!” He scoffed. “Sounds like a Marx Brothers movie, if I believe Kelly actually made an honest mistake.”
He pondered the possibility for a moment and then shook his head. “He doesn’t have the brains for anything else. But the chances of there being two identical computers in the back of the same hotel van are . . .” He sighed again, put Sasha on the desk, and then picked up the laptop. “Still . . . let’s see whose name is on the bottom of this one.” He flipped it over. “A little chat with him might—”
He stopped, stunned, hardly believing his eyes. The name plate on the bottom of the computer read,
“Property of John A. Whittaker, Whit’s End, Odyssey.”
A smile slowly
curled Blackgaard’s lips, which turned into a chuckle, which morphed into a full-throated, robust laugh! “Oh, Sasha!” he croaked. “It truly is a small world!” He burst out laughing again, and it grew in intensity . . . deeper, darker . . . filling the office, the warehouse, and the alleyway outside.
Chapter Eleven
Whit and Connie sat in front of an old wooden desk in a small office at the local police precinct. Whit cleaned his glasses patiently with a handkerchief, while Connie glanced up at the clock on the wall for the umpteenth time and huffed. “How much longer do you think we’ll have to wait?”
“I don’t know. I’m sure the police are doing their best.” Whit pocketed the handkerchief and redonned his glasses.
“Do you think we’ll still have time to see the Sears Tower before it closes?”
Whit smiled. “We’ll try.”
The door opened, and in walked a lanky man with blond hair cropped in a crew cut, wearing a cheap suit and a serious expression and holding a file. He crossed to them and shook their hands. “I’m terribly sorry for the delay, Mr. Whittaker, Miss Kendall. I’m Special Agent Frank Phillips with an investigative unit in the Department of Defense. We’re working with the Chicago police on this case—or more accurately, they’re working with us.” He moved behind the desk and sat in a swivel chair.
Whit’s eyes narrowed. “So, they’ve pulled in the Special Branch for this.”
Phillips opened the file and scanned it. “This is very serious, Mr. Whittaker. That computer has to be found. Now, I’ve been reading over the statements and description of Greg Kelly you gave Detective Baker a few minutes ago.”
“A few hours, you mean,” Connie growled, crossing her arms.
Phillips shot her a glance. “Yes, well, as I said, I’m sorry for the wait. Normally you would’ve been out of here by now, but your position, Mr. Whittaker, required an additional security check.”
“You had to double-check Whit? Why?”
Phillips looked at her boss. “Mr. Whittaker knows the answer to that, I think.”
Whit turned to her. “Remember Applesauce, Connie?”
Connie’s brow furrowed. “The computer program? How could I forget it? It made Whit’s End go crazy! I—” She stopped and her eyes widened. “You made that for the Department of Defense?!”
Whit shrugged. “Among others.”
Now Phillips’s brow furrowed. “She knows about Applesauce?”
“Nothing that would breach security,” Whit replied.
Connie touched Whit’s arm. “But . . . you destroyed Applesauce!”
Whit smiled. “It’s not the only program I’ve worked on, Connie.”
“Once an agent, always an agent—eh, Whittaker?” Phillips smirked.
Connie’s jaw dropped. “An agent?”
“That was a very long time ago,” Whit said quickly and then turned to Phillips. “Can we get on with this, please? I don’t think you’ve kept us here because you want to review my past.”
Phillips nodded, serious again. “You’re right. You’re still here because now that I know who you really are, I’d like to establish your connection with all this.”
“There is no connection beyond what I’ve already told you.”
Phillips leaned back in his chair. “Come now,” he said skeptically. “A government computer gets stolen, and I’m supposed to believe that you—a man who spends a lot of time working on government computer projects—just happened to be in the same van as the suspected thief?”
Connie stiffened. “It may sound odd, but that’s what happened.”
“Uh-huh . . . who are you working for, Mr. Whittaker?”
“I’m not working for anyone, Mr. Phillips, and I don’t believe you have security clearance to ask me these questions.”
Phillips bolted forward. “I’m cleared to ask whatever I need to ask to find this computer before it falls into the wrong hands—if it hasn’t already.”
Whit’s piercing blue eyes met Phillips’s and stared right through him. “And I assure you that the account of what we’ve done and who we’ve seen since arriving in Chicago is the truth. That’s as much as I can do to help you find that computer.”
Phillips slowly backed away but kept his eyes on Whit’s. “All right. But I will be in touch again.”
“I look forward to it,” Whit said with deadly calm. “Can we go now?”
Phillips smiled grimly. “Of course. I don’t want to hold up your visit to the Sears Tower. Have a nice day.”
The unmarked police cruiser ferrying Whit and Connie back to the Excelsior pulled up in front of the hotel and stopped. Connie exited from the backseat and Whit from the front passenger side. He turned back and looked at the officer. “Thanks for the lift!”
The officer nodded. “No problem!” He touched the brim of his hat. Whit smiled, closed the door, and stepped back from the curb as the car pulled away and blended into traffic.
Connie moved closer to him. “I’m gonna tell you right up front that I don’t like that Agent Phillips. He’s too nosy.”
Whit turned to her, and they headed toward the hotel’s main entrance. “He’s just doing his job.”
“Maybe, but there was a point there where it almost sounded like he thought you stole that computer!”
Whit shrugged. “I’m sure he considers that a distinct possibility.”
“What? But why?”
“When you’re dealing with the kind of information that’s on that computer, Connie, you have to suspect everyone—especially all who may have had access to that information.”
Connie growled. “Well, I guess that’s true, but now . . . well, now that he . . . that he . . .”
Whit grinned. “Knows who I am?”
“Yeah!”
“Believe me, Connie, that’s not as big of a deal as you think it is.”
Connie sniffed. “Yeah, well, it’s not every day you find out your boss is a special agent!”
“Was,” Whit corrected, “and it was a long time ago—and I don’t wanna talk about it.”
“But—”
The Excelsior’s doorman interrupted her. “May I get the door for you, ma’am?”
Connie looked at him, surprised. “Oh—uh, thank you!” The doorman obliged, and Whit and Connie entered the lobby.
Whit nodded at the doorman as he passed. “Thanks.”
Connie immediately turned to Whit to continue their conversation, but Whit held up a hand. “I mean it, Connie.” He headed across the ornate lobby toward the elevator.
She sighed with frustration and followed. “Okay, okay. We won’t talk about it. But do you think Phillips trusts you now?”
“No. I’m sure he doesn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Didn’t you wonder how he knew we wanted to see the Sears Tower today?”
Connie shrugged. “I figured we said something about it.”
“We did—before he came in.”
Connie stopped in her tracks. “You mean—”
Whit also stopped, and nodded. “The office was bugged. They were listening in on our conversation while we were waiting. That’s how they work.”
Fear flashed across Connie’s face. “Oh, brother. This is starting to give me the creeps.”
Whit put a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t let it spook you. As far as I’m concerned, we’ve done our duty and should get on with our sightseeing—”
“Pardon me.”
Whit and Connie both whipped around. A thin and thinly mustachioed, official-looking hotel employee with dark, slicked-down hair had appeared next to them, almost silently. “You’re John Whittaker and Connie Kendall, correct?”
“That’s right,” Whit replied.
“I’m Victor Herman, the manager of this hotel. Would you be so kind as to come to my office? It’s rather an emergency.”
Connie’s eyes widened. “Emergency?”
“Yes. Please follow me.”
Chapter Twelve
A few
moments later, they all walked through the door of the hotel manager’s office. It was a large room, tastefully decorated, with a highly polished executive oak desk and plush desk chair at one end, and an equally polished small oak conference table with comfy padded chairs at the other. An oak bookcase lined one of the walls, but its shelves contained surprisingly few books and instead were loaded with framed pictures, knickknacks, and pretentious bibelots.
Mr. Herman mopped his brow with a silk handkerchief. “In the twenty-five years that I’ve been working for the Excelsior, we’ve only had this sort of thing happen three times.”
“What sort of thing?” Whit asked.
Mr. Herman closed the door and lowered his voice. “An attempted break-in.”
“Break-in!” Connie shouted.
Mr. Herman held up his hands. “Not your room, Miss Kendall—Mr. Whittaker’s.”
“An ‘attempted’ break-in?” asked Whit.
Mr. Herman nodded. “Yes. It happened about an hour ago. Thelma, one of our cleaning staff, came upon the culprits just as they tried to break into your room.”
“Culprits—there were more than one?”
“Two sharply dressed, very professional-looking men. They ran when Thelma shouted. We didn’t catch them, unfortunately. I put your things in the hotel safe, just in case.”
Whit took a breath. “I see. Mind if I have a look?”
“No, of course not!” Mr. Herman headed for the bookcase. “It’s right over here—”
Suddenly Connie headed for the office door. “I’m going up to check my stuff.”
Mr. Herman stopped and backtracked. “Uh, I’m positive they didn’t touch your room, Miss Kendall. Our hotel security officers have already been in.”
At the door, Connie looked at Whit. “I still wanna check it.”
Whit nodded. “I think you should. But, Mr. Herman, would you please have one of your people let her in the room?”
“Certainly!” Mr. Herman moved to his desk, picked up the phone receiver, and punched a button. “Yes, this is Mr. Herman . . .”