Undercover (27 page)

Lindsay bit her lip, but Alexander seemed blissfully unaware of everything. He tugged at his grandmother’s hair and pleaded for candy.

*****

Alex was handcuffed and brought to the local police station in the back of a car that smelled of old urine. He should have expected something like this to happen. He should have known the law was much closer to him than he wanted it to be, but he had been so comfortable in his family life he had chosen not to think about it. They dragged him away right in front of his daughter. There was nothing to be done about it, but he couldn’t help but wonder what scars to the soul she would suffer.

The ride to town seemed much longer than it should have been, and he wondered what Jenny was doing. There would be no way out of this, but he hoped he would get to see her again. Maybe they would eventually allow him visits in prison… No, he would be shipped off to Guantanamo and never heard from again. It was a futile line of thought, and he shrugged it off.

The car pulled into a garage, and he walked through long corridors smelling of ammonia to an interrogation room. They let him sit there alone for a while, probably hoping some more time to think would loosen his tongue. It wouldn’t matter. Even if he wanted to talk to them, there wasn’t anything he
could
say.

Just as his arms went numb from being cuffed behind his back, Tom Johnson and Garth Cooper entered the room, taking seats opposite him. They asked many questions, some relevant and some about the weather, and he answered none. Eventually, Cooper grew frustrated enough to burst out, “What is wrong with you? I’m trying to help you, but I can’t do one thing for you if you won’t talk to us.”

Tom Johnson rolled his eyes and looked exasperated. Johnson already imagined him dead and dumped in some convenient spot. Cooper’s question was, however, something he could respond to, and he met the younger man’s gaze steadily. “Do you not understand?”

Johnson exclaimed, “We understand you’re scum.”

Alex smirked inwardly as the local police told the CIA to shut up. “No, I don’t understand. You have to explain to me.”

When Alex didn’t answer, Garth got to his feet and leaned over the table. “Everyone is innocent until proven otherwise, even you. But that man, right there, has a pile of evidence against you that would reach the ceiling. You don’t seem fanatically religious, your files say you’re completely uninterested in politics, and you’re not a psychopath. You have no strong feelings about anything, besides your family, and they seem to love you back. Educate me, Mr. Roshenko.”

He sat down again and made an exasperated gesture. Alex tilted his head a little to the side. “You seem to be a nice person, Mr. Cooper. My wife and my children are safe from you. You will not torture them or abuse them, or put them in a work camp in some place the devil himself forgot about. There are really bad people out there, people that would make even your Mister Johnson here appear to be a saint. I have never given them reason to take anything out on my family, and I am not going to start now.”

Johnson drawled, “You’ve missed the point here, son. We know what you’ve been doing, and we are a very real threat to you.”

Alex shrugged. “Don’t you think I should get the opportunity to call a lawyer?”

Chapter Thirty

Even though Jenny hurried, it took hours for her to get to the police station, and she worried it would be too late. If Alex wasn’t there anymore, finding him might be impossible. Tom Johnson’s antagonism seemed personal, and it was easy to imagine him locking Alex away somewhere so obscure ordinary people didn’t even know the place existed.

She spent a lot of time on getting an attorney. She had to wait to get to see someone, and explaining what happened seemed to take forever. Once she did, the case became interesting enough for the owner himself to take her on, and seeing a face familiar from TV commercials increased her self confidence. The man in the nice suit asked about everything except whether her husband was guilty or not, and she liked him for that. She didn’t need to get Alex out for long. An hour in the outside world would be more than enough to pick the kids up and head off.

Her new lawyer followed her to the police station, but the officer behind the counter still wouldn’t let them in. Jenny said, “This is outrageous. I’ve paid taxes all my life, and I demand the services of the police. I want to see Garth Cooper.”

She was proud of remembering the man’s name. She wasn’t usually good at that. Names were Alex’s job.

The lawyer put a hand on her shoulder and interrupted smoothly, “There seems to be a grave misunderstanding here that must be corrected.”

Jenny grumbled, “You have to read people their Miranda Rights, say what they’re accused of. This country has a constitution, and you can’t just snatch people away from their houses without a word.”

The man by her side filled in, “Did you book him? If he’s not properly arrested, you have to let him go. Surely, you realize this?”

Jenny filled in, “I’ll talk to the media. To my senator. It’ll be an Internet scandal, you know, one of those things people sign petitions about.”

The man behind the counter didn’t change his facial expression, but he took them to an empty office with bare walls and simple wooden furniture. He probably just wanted them out of the lobby.

She shuddered when she sat down. The room probably wasn’t cold, but it
seemed
cold. She wanted her husband. She wanted him to hold her and tell her everything would be alright, whether it was true or not. She wasn’t cut out for these kinds of things.

*****

In the interrogation room, Garth leaned back in his chair, ignoring both Tom Johnson and their Russian prisoner. He didn’t doubt Alex performed the deeds in Johnson’s files, but he wondered if he wouldn’t have acted the same way. He was sorely tempted to let the man go.

Alex’s sardonic voice woke him from his thoughts, “Is he always like this?”

Looking up, he realized Johnson paced the room. The man from the CIA stopped and pointed towards Alex. “This man is under
my
jurisdiction. He should already be on his way to a safe holding place. Are you working with him? Are you delaying me on purpose?”

Garth didn’t have time to answer; someone knocked on the door, and Johnson shouted, “What?”

A young officer peeked in and looked at Garth. “Sir, can I have a word with you?”

His first instinct was to say, “No,” but he stepped outside anyway.

“His wife is here, sir, and she brought an attorney. It’s that guy from TV.”

Garth nodded. It was a matter of time. He had gotten a glimpse of Alex’s motivation, and through the man, he knew the family. Mrs. Roshenko was not a woman who’d sit home and wait.

The younger man fidgeted, looking much too nervous for an officer of the law. “There’s more, sir.”

Thinking this day couldn’t get any more screwed up, Garth asked with a sigh, “And what is that?”

“They… Uh, they know he hasn’t been properly processed. Since he’s not booked, they’re demanding his release. And they want to see you and Mr. Johnson, sir.” He lowered his voice, “She yelled at me about the constitution and amendments for quite some time. I don’t want to be unconstitutional, sir.”

Garth smirked and thought this too was inevitable. There were risks in not following protocol. The prisoner had asked for a lawyer, but wasn’t technically entitled to one as long as he wasn’t arrested. Johnson liked that; he didn’t want Alex to have legal representation. He wanted to tuck the Russian away quietly, quickly, and without a trial. Garth, on the other hand, liked following rules and regulations. Johnson was right. He was stalling, waiting for something to tip the scale.

He opened the door just enough to stick his head in. Johnson was back in his chair, leaning over the table. “You don’t stand a chance. The local police here are infuriating, but they’re just a bump in the road. You’re going where the sun never shines, son.”

Alex watched with distant interest, as if all the commotion wasn’t really about him. Garth cleared his throat, “Tom, I need to see you.”

*****

Jenny and her new friend the lawyer waited in the empty office. She envied the man’s composure. He, of course, didn’t have anything at stake, but it would be nice to be as serene as he looked.

“When did you say they picked him up? Do you think your husband has told them anything?”

She shook her head. Alex wouldn’t talk, not even if he was tortured, and since they were still in America, she wasn’t worried about
that.
Normally, this line of thought would have struck her as amusing, but there wasn’t anything normal about this.

Now, with reality staring her in the eyes, she couldn’t believe they allowed themselves to be wooed into false security for this long. They should have run long ago, but she had been too happy with their life to take it seriously, and he went along with her wish, of course. He always did. If anything happened to him, if she wasn’t able to get him out of here, it would be her fault.

Maybe Cooper wouldn’t show up. Maybe they would be kept in this room forever. Maybe the police forgot about them, or maybe the man bringing them in there never intended for them to talk to anyone. He probably just pretended to be helpful to get peace and quiet while they moved Alex to heaven knew where.

“I’ll go look for a vending machine or something. I need some water.”

The lawyer nodded, and she tried to open the door. Nothing happened. “Oh my God, we’re locked in. Can they do that?”

Just as she was about to panic, she heard someone fumble with the lock on the other side. Cooper and Johnson stepped over the threshold, and she hollered, “You locked me in!”

Cooper nodded, “Mrs. Roshenko.”

Jenny opened her mouth again, but didn’t get a chance to say anything. Her new lawyer talked. She didn’t understand half of it, but she liked the sound of the words. They were big, formal, and intimidating. Even more than that, she liked the way he refused to let Johnson interrupt him. She got the general idea: Were they really holding a man without making a proper arrest? Depriving him of his constitutional right to an attorney? How long did they intend to keep a hard working family man, a loving husband and father of two in jail without a chance to see a judge to plead for bail?

She knew a Grand Jury would have to decide if the case was even worth hearing, but she had a very dim idea of what a grand jury really was. Looking at Johnson, the man seemed amused. He probably didn’t have any intention of Alex ever getting near a jury of any kind.

Her lawyer was warmed up now, and almost sounded like a TV preacher. “When this beautiful woman entered my office earlier today and I saw these pretty eyes shed tears over her man so abruptly torn away from her arms, I knew I would have to help her. You will see her on TV, America will know the injustice this lady and her family have suffered at the hands of police breaking the laws, denying due process, and destroying the very foundation of innocent until proven guilty on which this country was built.”

Cooper lifted an eyebrow, and Johnson seemed completely unfazed. The lawyer pulled out his cell phone and let a finger hover over the keypad. “I have the mayor on speed-dial here. The media are going to have a field day with this. This young woman here, this young mother with her wonderful children, fighting for her husband who was unlawfully ripped away from her by law enforcement agencies. It will be a scandal. A media disaster. You will set him free, or at least give him the chance to appear before a judge to get a bail set.”

Hopelessness crept in on Jenny. She would never see Alex again. Threatening with media sounded desperate, and her eyes filled with tears as she realized how slim her chance of getting her husband back really was. Cooper scrutinized her, and she didn’t care if he saw her cry. He seemed to come to a decision; he pulled out a cell phone. “Bring Mr. Roshenko up to me.”

It might be bad for her karma, but Jenny still wished the man from the CIA would have a heart attack right then and there. He looked like it might happen. She heard Cooper from a great distance. “Your husband will be arrested and booked, and I’ll arrange for him to see the judge. Odds are you’ll be able to buy him out.”

Johnson stared, “You can’t do this. The very minute that man leaves this building he’ll disappear again. He is
my
prisoner.”

Cooper shrugged. “It is the law. I uphold the law.”

“Let me talk to you outside.”

Jenny exchanged a glance with her lawyer, who shrugged. He looked amused when she put an ear against the door. Outside, Johnson hollered, “He’s not supposed to be in the system. How can you be so incompetent? I bet you she’s guilty too. She can’t have lived with the man for this long without knowing.”

*****

Down in the interrogation room, Alex waited in silence. He stared straight ahead and tried not to think. There would be many days like this between now and death, and he might just as well get used to emptying his head and making the best of it. When the door opened, he expected the caricature of intelligence officer to reappear and start yelling at him, but it was a young man in plain uniform.

When his shackles opened, he rubbed his wrists, trying to get the blood flowing. He followed the young officer without questions, careful not to show any emotions. He
was
curious as they walked up several flights of stairs and into a corridor lined with plain doors, but he didn’t see any reason to let anyone know.

His escort unlocked one of the doors and nodded to him to enter, and in the next moment, his wife came almost flying through the air, throwing herself at him. He caught her and held her tight, not at all surprised to find her crying. Holding her, running his hand over her hair, he wanted to cry too.

This time, they read his Miranda Rights properly, in front of the lawyer who took great care to point out nothing he said up until this point could be used against him.