Undercover with the Hottie (Investigating the Hottie) (14 page)

“Subcutaneous? You mean it's planted under her skin?” Will asked.

“Yes. Nic has one as well. Christie's is no longer transmitting.”

“We don't know where she is? Does somebody have her?”  How could this be happening?

“Where's Nic?” Will asked.

“He's at our New York Headquarters trying to make some headway. We know that she removed her contact lens almost as soon as she went into the gym. She apparently had something in her eye. We have video all the way to the sink in the locker room, and then we go dark.”

“Well it had to be the guy, right? Mr. Smith? He must have spotted her.”

“We don't know. It's been six hours.”

“What does that mean? Should they have contacted us? Would they? Would there be a ransom note?” I practically vomited my questions.

“Amanda, I can tell you what the standard operating procedures are. Normally, if an agent is taken, the agent will refuse to acknowledge their connection with GASI. GASI will also disavow the agent unless there is something to be gained by negotiating. However, in this case, Christie most likely was not discovered to be doing anything embarrassing to the US. She wasn't caught at UN Headquarters which could have been a problem if Mr. Smith had gone to the office rather than the gym. Nic is optimistic that Christie can talk her way out of any number of difficult situations with ease.”  She reached out and covered my hand with hers. “Your aunt is well trained. She has won numerous medals and commendations. She is equipped with everything she needs to extricate herself. Meanwhile, there are dozens of agents working on locating her.”

“How could this happen? Why now? Oh my God has this happened before? Has she been abducted and tortured? Is that what's happening now?”  I started to hyperventilate.

“Amanda, dear. You need to relax. I don't think we have any paper bags here, so my only option will be to slap you.”

I quit breathing mid-inhale. Then I gulped in a breath, let out a peal of hysterical laughter, and started to cry.

Will put his arm around me, and I let him, but I stared straight ahead at Grandma.

“Do we need to stop? Do you need a minute?” she asked.

I shook my head.

“You want me to continue?”

I nodded. I needed her to keep talking because if I had time to fall apart, I would.

“Now, we don't know if that Ethan had anything to do with Christie's disappearance, but we can't rule it out. We got your transmissions of the Wishing Wall. We've tried to work with the photo of the wall to find his 'wish,' and we haven't had any luck. However, I can get better resolution from the storage unit in your phone than from the images that were transmitted. Go ahead and plug it up to my laptop.”  She handed me her laptop and the cord.

I plugged the phone in and imported the photos. We'd ended up with ten.

“Blow it up to 1000 percent. Will, bring the printer over here and plug it up.”

Will did, and then I printed. The GASI app printed the page across ten sheets of paper which made it much larger and easier to see.

“Wow,” Will said, spreading them out on the table in the proper order. “There are seriously a lot of pieces of confetti on that wall.”

“Do you know where he was standing when he pinned his up?” Grandma asked.

“Somewhere in the top half. I think if you divide the board into five sections across, it would have to be in one of the middle three sections. And he had a green piece of confetti,” I said.

“Right,” Will said. “He was standing next to me. I don't remember him reaching overhead, so maybe start about here at the highest.”

Grandma handed us each a marker. “We'll each take part of this area and comb through it. Do we have any idea what his handwriting might look like?”

I hadn't managed to get a sample.

Will pulled a scrap of paper out of his pocket. “I had him write down some specs on a couple of amps for me. It's a lot of numbers, but there are some words to compare.”

I looked at the scrap of paper.

“You did great, Will,” I said. “I was trying to figure out a way to get a sample of his handwriting, but I couldn't come up with a way to do it.”

He smiled at me for a minute.

“Let's run that through the copier, so we'll each have one. Take a picture with your phone and text it to our analysts. Then we can get down to business.”

“Are you sure this is important?” I asked. “Can't we do something to help Christie?”

Grandma looked me in the eye and said, “This is how we are helping Christie.”

Will found the wish first. “Guys, I have it, but I don't think Ethan has anything to do with the assassination plot.”

“Why not?” I asked, leaning over to see what he'd found. “What did he write?”

Will sighed. “He wrote, 'Please let my parents and my friends accept me for who I really am.'”

Oh... I did
not
see that coming.

“Poor kid,” Grandma said. “He must be having a hard time.”

“I think he's going to tell his parents he's gay,” I said.

“Probably,” Will said, nodding. “But it could refer to other things.”

Grandma shook her head. “Whatever it is he is struggling with, he's not involved. There goes that lead.”

“I feel kind of bad for snooping,” I admitted.

“We didn't have a choice,” Will said. “And we won't tell anybody.”

I was freaking out about telling my parents I was a spy. I hadn't been thinking about anyone's problems but mine. I hoped Ethan's parents took it okay. I sent my wish tumbling out into the universe with Ethan's.

Thirty minutes later, Nic Skyped in. “Hey, guys.”  He looked weary as he shoved his hand through his hair. “So far the off-site meetings of those leaders we talked about earlier appear to be innocent and unrelated to our case. As for Christie, we've run heat scans on the gym building. We haven't found her. It is unlikely that she's in the building at this point, and we will be sending in a team to search every nook and cranny. We'd like to try something first.”  His eyes darted to Grandma. “I haven't discussed this with Brenda yet. A couple of the analysts have suggested we send Will and Amanda to the gym.”

“Nicholas!” Grandma exclaimed. “You cannot be serious!”

“I know, Brenda. Let me lay it out. If there is no danger in the gym, they can go in and look for clues that might lead us to her. If there is danger in the gym and we have Will and Amanda adequately protected, we might provoke the enemy to poor judgment.”

Grandma put her hands on her hips, and I thought Nic was lucky he was far away from her wrath.

“Now, listen here, Nic. You are talking about using these children as bait, and no amount of carefully chosen words is going to change that fact. We are not using Will and Amanda as bait!”

“Do you think it would work?” Will asked. “Could you really keep us safe?”

“No, Will,” Grandma commanded.

“We don't have any leads,” I said. “Nothing at all to go on. She could be anywhere right now. Anywhere.”

“Brenda, we wouldn't take any chances with them. We'd have extra teams in the area. We'd fit them with full monitoring, heart-rate, real time audio, the works. We could send two agents in as parents, but they would significantly decrease our chances of success. The analysts only give a twenty-three percent chance of successfully extracting any information with a team of four.”

“We'll do it,” Will and I both said at the same time.

Next thing I knew, the three of us were in a cab to the Upper East Side. We met up with Nic and a team from GASI in an empty office space between a podiatrist and a dentist. They gave us guest passes to the gym, wired us for sound, planted devices in our running shoes, and went over the plan.

I followed Will into the gym and tried to regulate my breathing. The day didn't seem real. At this point, I was past miserable, past tired, beyond panicking. There was a zone where I had nothing left to lose. I would do whatever it took to get my aunt back. I would do it well, and nobody would stand in my way.

We reached the counter and whipped out our passes. The tan, white toothed guy behind the counter motioned for us to sign in on the second clipboard. We signed in as Will and Amanda Parker. Then we headed to the dressing rooms. I didn't want to separate, but we had earbuds and could keep in contact. GASI agents, including Nic and Grandma, were monitoring our every move.

I pushed through the door to the Women's locker room. Was this where it happened to Christie? Was this where she disappeared? I went to the sink where she'd taken out her contact lens. Had she gone from here to the men's locker room without the lens? Had she located Smith's phone and gym bag?

If she'd struggled here, she would have tried to signal us in some way. Could somebody have sneaked up and disabled her before she had a chance to fight? I didn't think so. Even with one finger in her eye and bent over the sink.

There was no way to search this area without being obvious about it. I had backup in case anybody had eyes on me in the locker room. I pulled the mag lite out of my gym bag and went over the sink and counter carefully. Nothing of interest. No blood. Some hair but it was the wrong color and probably belonged to someone who had stood over the sink to brush their hair. I wanted to find that contact lens. For all I knew, she had it in her pocket, but I wanted the reassurance of finding some tiny part of her. And there was a chance that she had recorded something more.

I lay on the floor, shining the light up under the counter and over the floor. Nothing. A bottle of blue ammonia sat at the end of the counter. Could someone already have wiped it down in here?

I went over to the small trash can and pulled it from the wall. I up-ended it on the counter, sending paper towels scattering. An empty water bottle rolled across the counter. The only other thing in there besides discarded paper towels was half a bagel and an empty can of spray deodorant. I set the can right side up on the counter and prepared to sort through the paper towels. That's when I saw it. The lens was stuck to the outside of the can, positioned about an inch down from the rim and nearly centered. The lens was looking right at me.

“Nic,” I said into the empty room. “I found her contact lens. It was positioned to see whatever went down if it went down in here. Is there any chance that we could retrieve images from it?”

“Amanda, the lens would stop transmitting once it was more than twenty feet from the support hardware.” Nic's voice had regained its missing energy. “If it truly isn't damaged, we should be able to reprogram it to send to another support pack and retrieve everything it photographed.”  

“So should I grab this and go?”

“Yes, get the lens and put it on your tongue. Whatever you do, don't swallow it. Pull out your phone and hold it like you're reading a text. Will, hold yours to your ear. Bring your gym bags and walk back out. Will, tell the imaginary person on the phone that you are both on your way as you pass the desk. Make it look like you just got an emergency call, and you are needed home immediately.”

“Got it.” I took one long look at the lens on the side of the trash can. I willed my gag reflex to remain calm, and I plucked the lens off and placed it in my mouth. I tossed the mag lite in the bag, whipped out my phone, and made my run for it.

Will waited at the door to the Women's Locker room. He played his part perfectly. We didn't do more than nod at the guy behind the desk on our way out.

The chill slapped us in the face as we exited the building. A black SUV screeched to a stop at the curb. The passenger window was down and we could see Nic behind the wheel. I practically pulled the door of its hinges with the adrenaline racing through me, and then I climbed in and slammed the door. Will dove into the back seat, and Nic screeched off.

“We'll go to the NYC Headquarters,” he said. “They'll have everything we need, and our covers are blown by now anyway.”

I carefully removed the lens from my tongue. “Do you really think we might get something we can use?”

“Yes,” he said. Then he glanced over his shoulder. “Will, call your grandmother. Tell her you're both safe.”

We walked into the building and went to the seventh floor. Retinal scanners confirmed our identities before we were allowed to pass into the Agency's space. A group of five people in lab coats greeted us and held out a petri dish. I opened my hand to drop in the lens, but it was stuck to my hand. I automatically started to shake my hand to dislodge it, and the group yelled for me to stop. I froze, terrified that I'd hurt the only link we had to my aunt. One of the women squirted the lens with a liquid and pulled it off gently with her gloved fingers. She set it in the dish, and the five of them rushed away with the urgency and efficiency of an organ transplant team.

Nic ushered us down a hall and into a large open room where Grandma stood in front of one of a line of desk-top computers. Three men in business suits stood with her. Grandma was watching the team that had taken the lens from me. They stood around a large counter ten feet away. They had a computer as well and several strange devices hooked to it.

We walked over to Grandma, who immediately hugged Will and then me. She actually sniffled once before releasing me. Then she said, “They could get the lens back online any second.”  She turned back to her computer.

“Will,” Nic said, “meet my division director, Section Chief Jobson.”

Will shook hands with the dark-haired tall man who had an air of authority about him.

Then, Nic introduced me, and I shook his hand as well.

Section Chief Jobson said, “I can't tell you how impressed we are with the two of you. I thank you and your country thanks you.” He paused for us to absorb his compliment. “We will recover your aunt. Her safe return is our top priority.”

I nodded, not sure what to say.

“Agents Pasvantis and Garcia, this is Will Middleton and Amanda Peterson.”

Each of them shook our hands, telling us they had heard so many good things about us.

“Did anything come in while I was in the field?” Nic asked.

“Sorry, Nic,” Agent Garcia said. “Nothing yet.”

Nic frowned and then quickly covered with a neutral expression. He was trying to hide his worry from us, but I knew things were not good.