Surprise at SeaTac

I thought our troubles were over when we were finally on the plane from Amsterdam to Seattle. I gotta say that Angel knows her business as a travel agent. We sailed through security. I bought a few items at the Duty Free shops at the airport and we were treated like royalty in First Class. Oops. I guess it’s Business Class on this airline. Felt First to me.

11:30 a.m.

I slept a lot of the way home. We landed within an hour of on-schedule and since we were up front in the plane, we got off first and there was no line at Passport Control. That’s when everything started to fall apart. The immigration agent looked hard at my passport and asked me some strange questions about where I’d been. That was when I realized that I only had one stamp in that passport. For all the traveling I did this past two weeks, the only country I entered as Deb Riley was Croatia. This was the first time that I’d been outside the U.S.

He motioned an officer over and I just knew I was well and truly busted. There was already a line of coach class passengers getting fidgety waiting for me to be sent on. I glanced over my shoulder to see if Angel was through and saw that an officer had been called to her agent as well. Next thing I knew I was being led away from Passport Control by a man in uniform with a gun who had a very firm grip on my left arm and my passport. I could tell by the rhythmic clicking of heels on the tile floor that Angel was moving in the same direction.

We were put in separate rooms and the officer left, telling me to please wait quietly. I was surprised that he left me with my roll-aboard bag. It was about ten minutes of fidgeting on the cold metal chair before the door opened again and Silas Grant walked in. I should say hobbled in. He had a cast on one leg and moved with a crutch.

“Silas!” I said in relief.

“Deborah H. Riley,” he answered in a monotone. I was no longer relieved. “What have we here? Fleeing an arrest warrant. Using a false identity. That would include forgery, theft, probably computer crime, concealing negotiable currency on an international flight, I can’t tell you how many penalties there are for forging U.S. Passports. What else should I add? Murder? Kidnapping?”

“Silas! You know that’s not true. You’ve known where I was all along and what I was doing. You told me that guy was there to help me, not to kill me. You said I was doing a good job!”

“Shit, Deb. That’s why I’m here instead of letting Homeland Security intercept you. I swore out warrants for both you and Angel Woodward so we could intercept you here when you got off the plane instead of letting Customs find anything you might have in your baggage. I’ve got an officer collecting your luggage and as soon as he lets me know, we’ll get you two out of here. Until then, we’ve got to make it look like we’re doing our job.”

“Geez, Silas,” I gasped. “You scared me.”

“As you should be scared,” he answered. “Both for the past and the future.”

“What do you mean?”

“The best I’ve been able to put things together, you found out about a warrant for your arrest that was never actually sworn out. You adopted another personality—a very good one, by the way—and hid out in a location where you would have access to a lot of computing power so that you could hack into the customs and immigration control of half a dozen different countries. You assaulted a guard at a certain condo and threw him off a roof, fortunately into a hot tub. Davy, by the way, has decided that security is not really what he is cut out for. Oh yes, there were a lot of forged documents involved in renting a certain condo as well. Then there was using this false identity to get financial instruments from a less than reputable financial source that was under investigation by FinCEN. You further used that false identity to enter another country, then changed identities to another false identity while trespassing on property that you had no business being around. You then chased down a fugitive from FinCEN in Croatia and evaded the help I’d sent for you. You took on a third identity in the process and escaped across the ocean in the company of a known felon and suspected assassin, one Ray Hawkins. He disappeared on that trip, but you entered Italy with the third identity which you lost somewhere between there and Paris. Did I miss anything?”

“Yes, but it’s not worth mentioning,” I said. “That’s the past that scared me crazy for the last two weeks. What’s the future.”

“Eight angry executives want your head.” I groaned. That was just what I needed. With luck Silas would take me to prison.

“Didn’t you arrest them?” I pled. “I sent you all that evidence.”

“I want to put criminals behind bars and make them pay restitution for their crimes,” Silas answered. “But can you imagine what would happen if I arrested the executives of eight major corporations in the Seattle area in one sweep and accused them all of fraud and embezzlement? There isn’t an industry that isn’t touched—tainted if you will—and not a stock price in the entire region that wouldn’t plummet. In one fell swoop I could cause a major economic depression in a region that has been largely immune to the swings that plague the rest of the country periodically. Think of what happened to the employees of Enron when their bosses were accused and tried. Now multiply that by eight.”

“So you’re not doing anything? All that was wasted effort?”

“I didn’t say we weren’t doing anything. I said I wasn’t making arrests. The restitution part, however, I’m a stickler on. We’re having one-on-one meetings with The Committee members. Some of them are remarkably forthcoming about what they were doing as if they couldn’t believe there was anything illegal about it at all.”

“Reinholdt.”

“Others are a little more reluctant to tell tales out of school, as it were.”

“Gilliam,” I supplied.

“Oh you’d be surprised about that one. If you’d stayed put in either Belize or Croatia, he’d have gotten you to safety.”

“What?!” I couldn’t believe my ears. “That sadistic playboy?”

“You’d be surprised how useful a rich, playboy, sports team owner can be if he’s bored and gets approached to do undercover work for the government. And we don’t even have to pay him expenses. I arranged to have him take your friend Teri with him to Belize because I assumed she could recognize you through any disguise. Geoff had his suspicions when you came up with a bug at the dinner party, but Teri confirmed them when she suddenly got sick and followed you to the boat. Geoff was distraught when he discovered you’d both fled, but we when we caught up with Teri at the Belize airport and found you’d actually gone with Ray Hawkins, we were basically in a panic. Hawkins apparently figured he could follow you to Simon Barnett, so he came after you. Thank you for using your own name on the flight from Mexico City to Croatia. At least I was able to get Geoff in position to be where you were when it all came down.”

“My head’s spinning,” I said. Silas’s cell phone rang. When he’d finished speaking he reached to his belt and came up with handcuffs.

“Time to head for the car,” he said. He cuffed me to him and I still pulled my bag while he used his other hand to manipulate his cane and bum leg. In the hall we met another officer with Angel and were led into a network of tunnels to an underground garage where Silas had two cars waiting. I was a little ticked that he didn’t let Angel and me ride together, but he climbed into the back seat with me, still keeping the cuffs on.

Being cuffed wrist-to-wrist doesn’t leave a lot of options open as to where you can put your hand. I didn’t really think much of it when Silas put his hand on top of mine. When we were out of the airport and on the road, however, he leaned over and whispered to me.

“I was worried about you, Deb,” he said. Then he squeezed my hand and unlocked the cuffs.

WTF?

1:30 p.m.

Had to get a bite to eat before telling the last part of my Christmas surprises. Silas had Angel and me driven directly to my apartment. He came up with us and we were met at the door by Cinnamon and the smell of a roast turkey.

“Merry Christmas,” Cinnamon said, lingering as she kissed me on the cheek when I came in the room. I noticed she spent considerably less effort on her peck on Angel’s cheek, and somewhat more on Si. One of the other officers brought all our luggage up and then told Silas he’d be available when he wanted to leave. Maizie came running to me, sniffed up one leg and down the other and decided I was okay. She stood on her hind legs until I knelt down on the floor to pet her.

I looked around my apartment and then looked again. At first all I’d noticed was that there were holiday decorations up. Then I noticed that the “tree” was made of cardboard boxes. I started to tell Cinnamon that it was very creative when I realized that my things weren’t in their usual places. In fact, they weren’t anywhere.

“Cinnamon,” I said, “What’s going on?”

“Honey, you forgot,” Cinnamon said. “With all that’s happened in the last couple of months, you probably haven’t even looked at your mail. Your lease is up. The manager came by while I was here last week and handed me an eviction notice. Apparently they are redoing the apartments in this building and turning them into condos. It’s a big thing right now.”

“I’m being evicted? What am I supposed to do? I won’t go!”

“Sure you will, honey. You’ve got that other little apartment. I met your landlady, Mrs. Prior when she brought Maizie over a few days ago. The first thing she asked was when you were going to move into the apartment. I told her that it looked like the end of the month. I thought I’d get a head start for you and start packing.”

There was too much going on for me to respond, but Geez! I go away for a few days and my whole life is changed. But that wasn’t the end of the news. Teri was there, too, and we both hugged each other and started talking at once about how worried we were about each other. Then in the middle of the giggles of relief, she stopped and got real serious on me.

“Deb, I’ve got a new boyfriend!” she blurted out.

“No way!” I said. “Why didn’t you bring him over. We’re having a party.”

“I invited him,” she said, “but I told him he couldn’t come until you were home.”

“Why not?” There was a knock on my apartment door and I turned to answer it.

“Because you really need to give him permission to come into your home.” I pulled the door open and almost slammed it back shut in the face of Goeff Gilliam. I turned to Teri with my mouth hanging open to my knees.

“Him?” I said. Teri nodded. My best friend was dating a member of The Committee—okay, maybe an undercover federal agent on The Committee—who was a reputed playboy, sadist, and womanizer. I turned back to the door.

“Miss Riley,” he said. “I’m glad to officially meet you. I’m sorry if we got off on the wrong foot the first time.”

“Come in, Mr. Gilliam,” I said formally. “But if you are going to date my best friend, could we please call each other by our first names. I’m Deb.”

“I’m Goeff,” he responded with a smile. “Pleased to meet you.” He stepped into the room and was caught up in a lip-lock with Teri that had the rest of us turning away to give them privacy.

“Well, Merry Christmas, everybody,” I said, “and God bless us all.”

“Come to the table, everybody,” Cinnamon called. “The chef says he’s ready to serve.”

“Chef?” I asked. “Who now?” The question was answered as my advisor, Lars Anderson walked in from the kitchen with a huge turkey on a platter and sit it on the table. “Lars! I exclaimed and rushed to hug him.

“Merry Christmas, Riley,” he said.

We all sat and Angel and I were called upon to relate our story. It was helped along by Silas, Cinnamon, Teri, and Goeff all adding bits about their parts. The puzzle pieces all seemed to fit together somehow, but Angel and I carefully avoided details about how Ray Hawkins departed from this world. We’ll talk to Silas about it, but no one needs to know that Angel shot him with a harpoon. We just said he fell overboard and we didn’t see him again.

Well, with Brenda Barnett in a Belize jail on drug running charges under a pseudonym that the US government denies knowing, and The Committee all agreeing to make restitution, it’s beginning to sound like my first case is being wrapped up nice and tidy. I’ve finished most of the packing that Cinnamon didn’t already do and tomorrow after I’ve been in to inspect my office, we’ll start moving my stuff over to Dag’s apartment.

Will I ever think of it as my apartment? Or is the whole life I’m living just a continuation of his? I’ve got to do some serious thinking.