Way of Escape (7 page)

“I can ask. I think you must do that,” said Lena, secure in her advice.

Bonnie fell back into the big chair and looked at the ceiling. “I think I'm in shock.”

“Come, come,” Lena waved at her, “we must fill out this form. We must send it special delivery right away. The Pastorkirche official, she is named Birgitta Algbak—what a
komisk
…a comical name!—she must register you immediately in your parish.”

“Okay, okay,” Bonnie took in a deep breath and sat up. “You read to me and I'll answer.”

“First, you must put in the name of your children.” Lena had a pen poised.

“Children?” A chill went through Bonnie Ixey. That damned bottom line. Again the thought raced through her mind—what would she tell the girls? But especially, how would she, could she, explain all this to Trisha?

When Bonnie arrived home, to the welcoming big yellow house on Ixey Posie Farm, she sat down hard in a kitchen nook chair and gasped four times. This was not about her sudden wealth. This was about the hideous close call.

She had gotten into her car outside of Lena's, still in a daze. In the corner of her eye, she had noticed what she had thought was a student, a young man, dark, foreign probably, probably up from California Polytechnic State University. There were lots of Middle Eastern students attending Cal Poly down in San Luis Obispo. He was in a droptop, oversized jeep and he started his engine the same moment she did. He drove at a fair distance along behind her.

Then just above the seafood market on that sharp blind curve that Morro Avenue makes, he gunned his engine and slammed the jeep into low gear and roared past her forcing an oncoming delivery truck to swerve and almost crash into her. Front bumpers touching, the truck and her car sat on the curve until she and the truck driver could catch their breaths and step out. They agreed that there was little they could do. No one had been hurt. There were many, many students driving such jeeps at Cal Poly and at the local junior college, Questa. She and the driver had congratulated each other on escaping with their lives and vehicles intact, gotten back in, and driven off.

Slowly, Bonnie turned around in the chair and regarded the bright, warm winter sun reflecting off the patio. Past the patio and the backyard were the rows and rows of winter garden flowers, bulbs, trees, shrubs, and plastic-covered nurseries that were all now tended by a Japanese woman to whom she had given over management after Ike had died last year. The woman had done exceptionally well at converting portions of the land to Oriental spice production. They were going to make an excellent profit from the ginseng alone.

Calmed by the thought of her husband's, her real husband that is, beloved farm being well cared for, her mind went to present matters. Her heart rate went back to normal and her breathing eased. She decided she really needed to talk to the one person who might clear up the whole business about the Carl J. Mink she had been arm-twisted into helping all those years ago. Bonnie swung the chair back and dug through the telephone desk drawer. There at the bottom was an address book she had not looked in since…well, since the college reunion seven years ago.

Beside the name and address and phone number for Toby Hughes was scribbled with a different colored ink the updated phone numbers and addresses for him. There was a home number and a business number. He had been working for Batelen, Inc., a high security think tank for engineering geniuses in Bethesda, Maryland. It would be midafternoon there. Should she call his home, which might mean having to talk to his wife? No, not wise. She'd leave a message at his work.

The number rang and after a series of buzzes, hums, and beeps put her onto his answering machine. “This is the desk of…” said a tinny recording of a female voice, followed by Toby's voice, “Toby Hughes;” then the female voice saying, “Please leave a message.”

After the beep, she said slowly and distinctly, “Toby, remember me? Bonnie Ixey? From college? I must talk to you about someone we knew a long time ago, someone you told me was Carl J. Mink. Can you call me right away? This is very important. Thanks. My number, in case you've lost it, is 805-555-3024.”

CHAPTER 5: ALGBAK

We have an operative free in San Luis Obispo,” said Russ Snow to his boss, “I'm getting him on the phone right now.”

Tidewater paused, two files in hand, nodded, put the files into his briefcase, and closed it, setting it upright on the desk so he wouldn't forget to take it home with him. Sitting, Marion Tidewater took the phone from his assistant, covered the mouthpiece, and asked Russ, “What's the name?”

“Claybourne, Curt Claybourne out of the LA station.” Russ half whispered.

Into the phone, Marion Tidewater announced himself and proceeded with, “Claybourne, are you assigned anything you can't get out of for a few days?” Tidewater listened and nodded, “Okay, I want you to tail a lady named Bonnie Seastrand Ixey.” There was a pause and Tidewater smiled, “Yes, I guess she could be the same as the Ixey of the Ixey Posie Farm. I certainly wouldn't know. Well, as surprising as it is to you, I want you on her…yep, twenty-four hours, so get a sub for when you need it. And do a complete background check.”

Tidewater paused again, then answered, “Don't be so sure. The Ixeys may have been stanchions of the community and Mrs. Ixey just a librarian but, trust me, that may be all surface stuff. Don't expect it to be as tame as you believe right now. Especially, keep your eyes peeled for Iranian Security operatives.”

Tidewater grinned at whatever was being said on the other end and added, “You betcha, ISF guys. Don't think the Saudis are on it yet. Can't be sure so be careful. Your little librarian's hot property.” Another pause and Tidewater said, “You do that. Report daily or if anything major breaks. Yeah, thanks, Agent Claybourne.” He handed the phone back to Russ Snow who traded him for the folder in his left hand.

“This,” Russ put the phone back as he indicated the manila folder, “is all the material I could collect this afternoon on your Mrs. Bonnie Ixey.”

“Thanks, Snow, you're fast,” Tidewater heaved his stocky body out of his chair, added the folder to the ones already in his briefcase and headed for the door.

“Ummm, might I ask a question,” began Russ, “about this case?”

“Case?” The bulgy black eyes regarded the taller, handsome young man with ill-concealed envy.

“Well, this Ixey thing,” Russ plunged ahead. “Just, I'm really new to putting tails on people and doing operative stuff, you know, since I did my first two years here in the documents section.”

“Yeah, right,” Tidewater paused at the door. “You're obviously good at tracking book-style information down and that's valuable to me, guy. What's more valuable on this side of the building is the real world stuff. So you gotta learn how we do that, right?”

Russ Snow nodded with the proper humility and went on with a very low voice, “For example, why do we care what a battered women's shelter does or what happens to a fifty-year-old widow in Morro Bay, California?”

Tidewater had a hand on the doorknob. He considered for a moment before deciding how much to tell this new man. “It ain't the women really, ‘cause they don't have any value to us, it's this international smuggling of persons. We simply don't know how EW does it.”

“How'd we even know they were doing it?” Russ got braver.

“That old weasel Sadiq-Fath asked me to look into it on this end about three years ago,” laughed Tidewater, grimly. “Seems an EW operative, a haji, an Islamic holy man, no less, got a condemned Baha'i woman smack out of the high security prison in Tabriz. That's in central Iran, for God's sake. Got her to India, we still don't know how, where a Tibetan monk sent her along as a stewardess on a BOAC jet to Australia where she disappeared into the outback. Damned ingenious. Pissed the hell out of Sadiq-Fath.”

Tidewater moved into the common room where the secretaries were hustling toward the double security doors and said over his shoulders as an afterthought, “Sadiq-Fath put a fatwa out on the haji and threw in anybody from EW he could identify for good measure.”

“A fatwa?” Russ queried.

Tidewater nodded, a grim expression on his face. “That's a death sentence given by the holy guys of Islam. You don't want one of those in your worst nightmare. It's what that writer, Rushdie had put on him. Any righteous Muslim is supposed to kill a person with a fatwa laid on him, on sight. Tried, convicted, and executed in one fell swoop!”

“Shit!” exclaimed Russ. “So what we want to know is how EW manages these rescues?” Snow persisted, staying close.

The senior officer, now moving toward the door and home at a faster pace, glanced back. “Our agency wants the inside scoop on any subversive activity like this.”

“Subversive?” Russ Snow raised his thick black eyebrows.

Tidewater stopped in his tracks and gave the new man a penetrating glare, “Damned right, Snow. Somehow these women and often children along with them get expert false passports made, new identities, hustled from one country to another with impunity. Their husbands are completely stymied. Sometimes even parents of the woman are kept in the dark. It's the process, Snow, the system. We wanna know their system.” The ugly man glowered. “What EW is doing is illegal. Don't forget that in any ill-advised moments of kind-hearted, liberal, weak-kneed leanings, Snow. It obviates everything HS has in place and our agency don't like it much neither. Hell! It borders on kidnapping.”

Snow got the message. Be very careful how he asked questions. Don't give away his own feelings, ever. He smiled and bowed slightly toward his boss. “Well, such an ingenious system will offer me a real challenge. I look forward to solving your puzzle.”

The older man seemed mollified. “Yeah, you got a useful curiosity, guy. Keep it bridled, that's all, saddled and reined in. Okay?”

“Sure thing,” said Snow.

Tidewater strode after the last of the secretaries toward the big security doors. As he was punching out, he called back to Snow, “Have me beeped if Ixey buys it. ‘ Cause if she does, we gotta make a move on the baron's money. Okay?”

“Yessir,” Snow replied from across the room. He watched his boss go out, watched the big doors latch shut behind the last secretary and he felt a chill cascade down his spine. He went into his cubby and sat down at the computer. The material he'd gathered on Mrs. Bonnie Ixey still glowed on the screen. He was glad he had not succumbed to telling Tidewater that today had been Bonnie Ixey's fiftieth birthday. It would have made Russell Snow seem just that much more a hated liberal. A softhearted wimp. A pussy of the first order.

The tall young man sighed. This was not turning into the job he'd imagined when he'd applied to get out of documents. True, the information-gathering department had taught him a life's worth of computer search skills, but it was deadly dull. Most of it had been straight-out clerical work and of course, he'd been completely desk bound. He'd gone days in mid-December when he hadn't seen daylight at all. He'd come to work at seven a.m. in the pitch dark and gotten loose around six-thirty p.m. when the darkness had settled in again. Certainly this was not a happy situation for a boy from the wilds of northern Minnesota.

When word had come down that he'd gotten the assistantship to Tidewater, everyone, including his former supervisor, had raved. Tidewater had an excellent reputation, or so the portrait had been painted. Adventure lay in wait for Russell Snow. But here, on his first day, he had already become genuinely discomfited. He knew it was due to the fact that his first real assignment, Mrs. Ixey, had, as of today, achieved the age at which a woman became an elder in his tribe and he, Russell Snow, might well have to stand by and report her assassination.

It was a truth that he was not the dedicated tribal warrior his Menomonee father would have desired, although Russ had gone to Harvard, as his Mohican mother had wanted. Russell Snow-from-Night-Sky was, in the eyes of the greater Iroquois nation, a shining example to the coming generations, which was the most important thing the greater Iroquois nation considered in judging people.

That he had chosen to work at the Agency didn't go down well. His father had written it off as Russ's wanting to sow wild oats. Russ had told his dad that the experience in the most complex information gathering organization in the world would assure him a job for the rest of his life. That part, at least, was true.

Russ noted that Mrs. Ixey had an e-mail address. Old lady's up-to-date, he smiled. It was all he could do to keep his fingers from typing out a simple little message and sending it through some nondescript and anonymous source. As he pushed save and filed the information in the bowels of cyberspace, he wondered what he could have said? You're in danger, watch your back, the ISF is after you? He reflected sadly that the chances of her believing such a message were very minimal. A woman her age, with her well-documented staid background, would hardly be able to come to terms with suddenly being the center of international intrigue.

Russ morosely decided to brave the nasty traffic and the miserable snowy weather and go home to his little house near the river. Whatever information might come into the office would be routed over his computer and sent to the one he had at home. He'd rigged that up last year so he'd never be out of touch with the Agency. For safe keeping though, he had established a security code to keep his own stuff private.

Of course, for tonight, this was all dependent on if the snow didn't worsen and knock out power again. He sauntered to the big double doors, slipped his card through the punch-out clock, put in his code, and the latch on the doors clicked open. The cavernous long hallway was chilly compared to the offices. He bundled his down-filled, thigh-length coat around him and threw the hood over his head. He was glad he had kept the trusty old Land Cruiser.

Sture woke up feeling like he had a hangover, which was not true, not this morning. He was too stressed last night to have gone with his buddies into the small village of Norrkoping for beer and pizza. He would have been very poor company. And it was lucky he hadn't. His father had called at eleven to tell him nothing could be done about the financial mess in Israel.

Just what the kid needed, Sture thought bitterly. Now he'd have to put off going into Stockholm until this afternoon, perhaps even until tomorrow. His autopsy lab results were all hanging on, waiting for him to arrive. His professor had to be notified that he wouldn't make it to the lecture on child abuse trauma this afternoon and what the accounts department would say…! Damn! Why him?

The bedroom was chilly. They never kept much heat on in the castle and although the living quarters in this wing were tolerable, it still meant a brisk awakening. The six-foot six-inch tall, skinny lad stretched, looked out the window into the darkness through the beautiful lace curtains. Only this year had the centuries-old ones been replaced by some of more modern, washable material, but in exact imitation of the old ones which had been folded away safely in the vast attic with original furniture, paintings—God knows what all was stored up there. Even some weapons and armor, Sture recalled.

Icicles hung from the upper outside window frame and sparkled from the reflected light of his room and the lamps around the faraway stables. Snow, brittle and dry, blew in huge mounds across the balcony. Beyond, in the shadowy early morning darkness, below on what in summer was the broad lawn, deer and a couple of
alg
—the cow-size Swedish moose—picked their way along a deeply trodden, snow-lined path from the frozen river toward the barns. Winter-feed had always been available to the wildlife. Birds in great numbers came, as did the birdwatchers from all over Scandinavia. The predators came too: foxes, wild dogs and cats, stoats, weasels and naturally, what the estate was famous for, mink. Last week, Sven, the head groundskeeper and stable man had sworn he'd seen a wolf. There had been rumors in Sweden for the last five years that some wolves had returned, probably running over the Finnish ice pack straight from Siberia. Maybe. Maybe.

Sture could hear the brittle snow rustle like dried leaves along the balcony. He guessed it was near minus thirty-five degrees Fahrenheit out there with a wind chill factor of about sixty below. Normal for central Sweden in late January.

He buzzed for Gustav before slipping into warm underwear and sweats. He'd change into his polypros before he set off for Norrkoping. He dreaded the whole prospect of going into town, of going to the Pastorkirche. No different than any warm-blooded Swede, he despised the whole business of dealing with bureaucratic officials. Sture, like most Swedish fellows of twenty-two was still very much a kid, comfortable, well cared for, raised in a totally undemanding environment. He would only after college have to face the frantic workaholism of the grown-up Scandinavian existence, and university studies for someone of his status, an incipient Baron with lots of money, could go on for as long as he desired being a student.

Or so it had seemed three days ago. His father's predicament, now Sture's also, was quite rudely interrupting his pleasant lifestyle. He was putting on fuzzy slippers over heavy socks when Gustav knocked discreetly and stuck his grizzled head in.

“
God morgan, ers nad. Vad will er?
”

“
Kom in
,” Sture ordered. “Some breakfast first and then call around my car, I have to go into town this morning.”

“
Jawohl, min herrevalde
,” the ancient servant responded. Gustav had been more of an attending parent than his father, but then he'd helped raise his dad too. The ancient one handed the young man a woolen overshirt and reached to help button it and was brushed off by Sture. Gustav backed away politely and asked, “Do you wish to drive yourself or have Krister drive?”

“I'll drive…” said Sture, by habit, and stopped in mid-sentence. “ No, have Krister drive. We'll take the big Saab. It'll be sure to make a better impression on those damned bureaucratic toads when I pull up in that.”