Challenge (7 page)
Authors: Ridley Pearson
FRIDAY, MAY 30,
ONE DAY BEFORE
THE CHALLENGE
Platform eleven at Washington, D.C.'s Union Station was crowded with passengers moving tightly in a herd from the train to the station. Burdened by carry-on luggage and weary from days of travel, the passengers moved along quietly and with little regard to one another.
Steel and Judy Trapp were among the last to leave the train, partly because Steel—who had rarely left their sleeper compartment over the past twelve hours—took his time getting packed and ready. Also because they had to finalize arrangements to pick up Cairo once they were inside the terminal. Judy Trapp pestered her son with disapproving clicks of the tongue and exaggerated sighs, waiting for him to join her. “Hurry up, Steel!”
“I am hurrying,” Steel said.
“You’re usually the first out the door. What’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” he said. Steel had spent most of his time preparing his description of the invention—to him the most difficult part of the science challenge. He would have to speak—all by himself—to a panel of five judges, explaining both the technology behind his project and its possible practical application. He wished his father were here to drill him—his father understood his project way better than his mother did—and nearly asked his mother what was going on with his dad’s absence, but couldn’t bring himself to raise the issue.
His mother had chosen to get as many images in front of him as possible, because of Steel’s photographic memory. Steel had “invented” an electronic sniffer, combining some existing technologies into a roving, space age–looking device the size of a large dinner plate and shaped like a lentil. The interior electronics and mechanics were all his own invention, and his mother repeatedly quizzed him on its engineering and operation the way she believed the judging panel might.
Now, as they walked together through an empty train car, Steel struggled with a roller bag that belonged to his dad, bumping it against armrests and seats. Inside the bag was his science project protected by tightly packed clothes. He didn’t like bumping it against anything. He caught sight out a window of the baggage trolley—a line of carts pulled by a small tractor—on which he spotted Cairo’s crate. “Mom!” he said, pointing.
But by the time she looked, the baggage had passed, and she’d missed it. But she wouldn’t admit to that. “Yes, dear,” she said, pretending to have seen whatever it was.
As they rode an escalator up toward the terminal, Steel felt a rush of excitement: Washington, D.C., the National Science Challenge. For a moment he forgot the briefcase in the back of the crate—and the three people out there looking for him.
“Wait for me at the top,” his mother instructed, correctly anticipating he’d want to hurry off to find Cairo.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said.
As the escalator carried him to the top, it was like a screen had been pulled down, and with it a view of the terminal appeared. But it wasn’t what Steel had expected. Instead he saw several policemen, a pair of tables, and black restrainers strung between posts, funneling passengers to a central checkpoint. Beyond the checkpoint were restaurants and shops—part train station, part mall.
Steel instinctively took a step backward and down a step, now alongside his mother on the escalator.
“Steel?” she said.
“Police,” he said, wishing he hadn’t.
“It’s just security. They’re only trying to keep us safe. Nothing wrong with that.”
But to Steel there was plenty wrong. The checkpoint was attended by a pair of uniformed policemen, but it was the two guys in suits that bothered Steel—one of whom he recognized immediately as being the federal agent who had looked into their sleeping compartment and asked questions. That had been in Toledo, a day earlier. What was the same man doing here?
“What’s the matter, Steel?” his mother asked as he slowed. “You’re as white as a sheet. Don’t be afraid of them. They’re on our side.”
Steel kept quiet, unable to get a word out. He looked around for Kaileigh and wondered if they were after her.
Larson asked Hampton, “How about this one?”
“The woman looks familiar. Yeah, I spoke with them.”
Larson watched the way the kid struggled with a roller bag. Kids could make even the simplest task look difficult. He had a stepdaughter who was in a hurry to grow up, and this boy and his clumsiness reminded him of her.
“Hello,” Larson greeted the pair.
“Hi.” A voice breaking between boy and man. Eyes that didn’t look up, didn’t make contact. A
tween
—stuck between his innocent past and a mysterious future.
“Good trip?” Larson asked. “Enjoy the train?”
“I guess,” the boy said.
“Hello,” the mother said.
Hampton asked for their tickets and ID. He added, “Tickets for both of you. ID only for you, ma’am. We don’t need ID for the boy.”
“Agent Hampton spoke to you earlier,” Larson told the boy.
The mother nudged the boy, who finally looked up.
“To my mother. Yes, sir,” the boy answered.
Spotting an identification tag on the suitcase, Larson asked him, “Are you Kyle?”
“No. He’s my dad. He’s…” He looked to the mother.
“He couldn’t make the trip,” the woman answered.
The woman’s eyes suggested something was wrong. Larson didn’t push it.
He described what they knew of Aaron Grym. “Did you happen to see such a man on the train?” Their answers were carried on their faces before they shook their heads.
The woman said how there had been a lot of men on the train matching that description. “We took a sleeper from Toledo,” she explained, as if that excused them.
Larson assumed the suspect had been on that train at some point. He could have jumped from the moving train, or left at an earlier station without detection.
The boy’s face carried a troubled expression. Larson wondered if this stemmed from discussion of the dad—or something else.
“What’s your name?” Larson asked the boy.
Larson hadn’t asked any other kid for a name. Hearing the question put Hampton on alert; he stood taller and moved slightly to his right, putting himself between the terminal and the two.
“Steel,” the boy answered. “Steven,” he corrected.
“Steven, let me explain something: if a man matching this description said anything to you…if you observed…if you oversaw him doing something he wasn’t supposed to, but are now afraid to say anything—”
“What exactly are you implying?” the mother asked, interrupting.
Steel shook his head.
Larson took a risk, deciding to push the boy; he fit the general look of the boy on the platform. “Tell me about the woman—the woman out on the platform.”
“My son thought she’d left the briefcase on the train. He tried to return it to her, and she wouldn’t accept it. We turned it over to the conductor,” Judy answered. “That’s all there is to it.”
Larson and Hampton exchanged looks.
“Which conductor?” Hampton asked.
“I couldn’t possibly tell you,” the mother said. “I’m sorry.”
With a nod from Larson, Hampton took off toward the train.
“Is Washington your final destination?” Larson asked Steel.
The boy nodded. “The National Science Challenge.”
Larson looked over at the mother. “Where will you be staying while in town?”
“I don’t see how that’s any of your business,” she said. “But it’s the Grand Hyatt. My son and I are tired. It has been a long trip, and he has a great deal of preparation before the challenge. You are, what? Either FBI or Marshal Service. I’m not sure how to address you.”
Larson cocked his head, impressed that she knew the difference. “Deputy United States Marshal Roland Larson.”
“We’d like to get to our hotel now, if you don’t object, Deputy United States Marshal Roland Larson.”
“Please,” he said, waving them through.
The boy glanced up at him sheepishly. It was this one glance, more than anything else, that told Larson he wasn’t done with this boy. Guilt was written all over his face. They needed to talk.
“I need a minute,” Judy Trapp said to her son when passing the women’s restroom. “Stay right here!”
“Actually, Mom, I’ll be over with Cairo,” Steel said, pointing to the oversize luggage area. Several signs hung over a long counter; one was for baggage storage, another for lost and found. The terminal-turned-mall hummed loudly as hordes of people milled about. Steel dragged his roller bag over to the counter. His mother, without objection, headed toward
WOMEN
.
As Steel approached the counter, a porter was just delivering some golf clubs and Cairo’s carrier through a door to the right. Steel approached the carrier and stuck his fingers through the grate and was licked and nibbled by an affectionate Cairo. The crate didn’t smell so good. Steel felt sorry for the dog.
As Cairo moved around the tight confines, Steel spotted the briefcase. The baggage handler headed back through the door. A steady stream of people paraded past him. Steel looked around, checking thoroughly for any sign of the man from the train. Not seeing him, he popped open the carrier door, shoved past a wagging Cairo, and grabbed hold of the briefcase. He quickly shut the cage door and lifted the briefcase onto the counter.
“Lost and found,” he was about to tell the man behind the counter. But he caught himself, afraid the attendant might ask him all sorts of questions he couldn’t answer. What if the man on the train checked the lost and found?
“May I help you?” the attendant asked.
“I’d like to check this, please.”
“It’s a ten dollar deposit,” the man said, pointing out a rate sheet taped to the counter. “Ten bucks covers the first three days, two bucks a day thereafter.”
Steel dug into his pocket for the bills and change he had collected from trips to the dining car over the course of the trip. He counted out a five, three ones, and enough change to reach ten dollars.
The attendant passed him a claim tag. “Don’t lose it, kid, or it’ll cost you fifty to get it back. Not that I’d forget you. This here is my department, and I don’t forget a face. But rules is rules.”
Steel had no intention of ever going back for the briefcase. He would tell the cops about it, and that would be that. But he nodded as if this mattered to him, and he pocketed the claim tag to give to the police.
Relief flooded through him. He was free of the briefcase at last.
Or so he thought.
“Where are the restrooms, please?” Steel asked the woman behind the hotel registration desk.
The woman pointed to a hallway across the Grand Hyatt’s lobby, her face expressionless.
His mother bent down and whispered to him, “Can’t you just hold it? We’ll be in the room in a minute.”
“If I could, I would. But I can’t,” he said. “Be right back.”
He crossed the busy lobby, swollen by attendees of the science challenge and their families. There were dozens, maybe hundreds, of people going in every direction. But only one had stood out to Steel: Kaileigh. He’d spotted her furtively waving at him from the alcove marked
RESTROOMS/TELEPHONES
.
And he’d made up the excuse of needing the restroom.
“What’s up?” he said, reaching her.
She wore a backpack and the same gray sweatshirt from the train. Her hair was a little mussed. She led him toward a bank of pay phones, out of sight of the registration desk. She grabbed his hand—for a second he thought she wanted to hold his hand—then uncurled his tense fingers and placed some change in his open palm.
“You’ve got to call the front desk,” she said. “Make your voice as deep as you can. Tell them you’re my father, Mr. Augustine. Mention my name. Say that you’re running late but that you’re dropping me off at the hotel front door and you’d like them to give me a key to the room. Tell them the credit card’s on file—which it is—and that you’ll be checking in later.”
“This is crazy.”
“You’ve got to do it for me.”
“Why?” he asked.
She just stared at him. And somehow he knew she was right. “Okay,” he said. She was already putting coins into the phone and dialing the number. “Ask for the front desk,” she said.
“My voice isn’t exactly deep,” he reminded her.
“It’s deeper than mine,” she said.
A woman answered, and Steel asked for the front desk. He then dropped his chin and tried to sound older, repeating word for word exactly what she’d told him. This was the way his mind worked: he didn’t need to hear something a second time.
To his surprise, the woman on the other end said, “We would be happy to accommodate Kaileigh, Mr. Augustine. My name’s Angela and I’m currently on duty, but I’m just making note of it in the computer. She can talk to any of our hotel representatives.”
“You’ve been most helpful,” Steel croaked out. He hung up the phone and shrugged.
Kaileigh’s eyes filled with delight and gratitude. For a moment he felt like celebrating with her, but then the worst thing happened.
He spotted the woman from the train: the woman who had left the briefcase behind. She was casing the lobby, clearly looking for something or someone.
He pulled Kaileigh with him to get a better look as the woman moved out of view. His mother finished up at the desk and was looking impatient. The woman spun around, still searching—
for him,
he imagined.
But then things got even worse: the woman seemed to lock onto his mother. She moved toward her.
“Your turn to do me a favor,” he said quickly and without reservation. “Stop that woman and turn her around. Ask directions or something. I’ve got to get to my mom before she does.” He didn’t wait for her answer. He bravely charged across the crowded lobby, putting people between him and the woman from the train, making a beeline for his mother.
Kaileigh came to his rescue, tugging on the woman’s sleeve and turning her around. With the woman’s back turned, Steel reached his mother—who was waiting with a bellman and a trolley filled with the dog carrier and their bags—grabbed her by the arm and moved her toward the elevators.
“Steel?” she said, surprised by his behavior.
“I’m kinda in a hurry, Mom.” He couldn’t immediately think of an excuse. “The stalls in the men’s room…they were all occupied.” He made a face of urgency.
“Oh, I see,” she said, hurrying to keep up with him.
Steel quickly glanced over his shoulder to see Kaileigh still engaging the woman from the train. Kaileigh met eyes with him and, unseen by the woman, motioned for him to hurry. When the woman turned her head searchingly, Kaileigh tugged once more on her sleeve, winning her attention and buying Steel and his mother just enough time to reach the elevators without being seen.
The last thing he saw was Kaileigh breaking free of the woman and heading toward registration.
