An Inconvenient Spy Ch. 01

She went to the small refrigerator and took out two beers and handed me one and sat down with the other.

"I started another relationship with a girl and it was ok, but now the seed was planted about coming to you and seeing if we still had something began to build. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to see what would happen. A month ago, I told John that I was going to come down here this summer to find you anyway. That was when he reminded me of what he had told me and he also said that I should be prepared to leave in a hurry because he thought something was happening but he wasn't sure. So I had the car overhauled for a trip and I got rid of some things and put my savings in traveler's checks. I was going to leave the next week and then he told me to be ready and told me to tell you K19. I was spooked at this because I didn't know what it meant. When John didn't come home that night, the first thing I did was call Bruce's wife to see if he was there. She was in tears and said no and that Bruce hadn't called or come home either. I didn't wait until morning to leave. I left when I hung up and drove fifty miles down the Interstate and checked into a hotel and paid with traveler's checks. I was scared and thought about calling you but I didn't have your number. The next morning, I watched the news and saw that Bruce had been beaten and mugged outside a gay bar and had died on the way to the hospital. I didn't know if John was with him or not or what was going on. I just got in my car and drove to see you. The rest you know."

We both took a sip form our beer.

"Until we heard about John and the hit and run, I wasn't sure what had happened that night or anything. But since all of the bugging and things, I think that John was really straight about being followed and that he might have been staying away from Bruce and his wife and me to protect us from whatever. So personally, I was infatuated with you and was basically following John's instructions but wasn't sure what motivated those instructions. Since I have been with you, everything that has happened and what I have said has been true. I am your woman if you want me. Sometime, I will have to go back and take care of the situation with John but he was already spending over half of is nights with them and not me and I think we both knew that the we weren't going to continue much longer as a couple. Does this make sense to you?"

"I think so. The business about Bruce and his wife doesn't fit the picture I have been building about John but a paid hit and run pretty well defines that part. If we were closer, it might be worth seeing if the beating of Bruce was caused by the same people or group. They might have used Bruce to get to John. But I doubt that we will find that out from here. As far as you are concerned, yes I want you involved in my life when this all goes away and yes there will be a lot of clean up to do when things get straight. But life has just got a little more confusing is all."

On a whim, I went to the office and asked if I could use her computer to look at the news headlines as mine was acting up. The lady agreed as long as I didn't tie it up too long. I went to Yahoo and looked up the Dallas newspaper headlines. I closed it out a minute later and told her that we had a change of plans and need to leave the next day. She expressed her sorrow that we would leave so soon and I said that I had an emergency at work and that we needed to get on the road to Kansas City. She said that she understood and that she would start calling her standby list in the morning.

I went back to the trailer and told Natalie that we were leaving in the morning, early.

"What happened, Jeff? You sound scared."

"I am. I just looked at today's Dallas paper and they said that Jillian and Gwen had each been shot last night. The only way they could trace us is through Gwen's computer and then only if they could get to the host server since all you were using was a message service. But I want to get a long way from here as soon as we can. I'm going to go get the truck gassed and checked over. If you get the trailer ready, we'll hitch it up early and get on the road and go west. Then we will turn north somewhere in Arizona."

She nodded and started putting things away. As I started to leave the manager came up to me and asked if there was any way we could be out tonight as she had a trailer ready to move in if they could get in tonight. I said that I thought we could do that and that I would be back in a half an hour and get hooked up and disconnected.

Twenty minute later I was back and was ready to unhook the trailer. Natalie came outside and asked what was going on. I explained things to her and she helped disconnect the trailer and get it hitched on the truck. She felt that everything was secure inside. I double checked everything and an hour after I had checked the internet, I pulled the trailer out on the space and we were on the road back down the hill toward the interstate. I had Natalie look at the map for options on how to go west. She said that we could go back to Soccoro and turn west or north to Albuquerque and west or we could go south to Las Cruces and go west. I decided to go south and then west. If anyone came looking for us, I had told the manager that we were going to Kansas City and that meant north and east. So I was going south and west. Once we got on the Interstate, I understood what Jessup had said; the trailer towed like a dream even at the speed limit. It wasn't going to slow us down a bit.

We turned west in Las Cruces and by midnight we were at the Arizona border. I decided to pull into a roadside park for the rest of the night and that we would continue early and continue north in the morning. It now appeared that they were on our trail but probably still didn't know what kind of vehicle we were in or that we now had a trailer. On the chance that someone might remember us and the truck, I decided to lose the camper top tomorrow and we would become just another pickup on the road heading for the Grand Canyon although we were going to bypass the Grand canyon and head for a small town near the four corners. From there, we could go in four different directions easily.

We locked up the truck and got in the trailer and locked it also. We only had a small battery operated light to see with but it was enough for us to undress and crawl into bed. For the first time, I got my 9mm pistol out and put it close by as I slept.

I woke up just before dawn and dressed with Natalie just behind me. Without saying a word to each other as we got back in the truck and started down the road. I had the gun under my seat. We turned north on a road that said the next town was fifteen miles. We decided to stop there for breakfast and coffee. I still had over half a tank of gas but I decided to top up the tank anyway. We ate and as we drove out of town, I saw what appeared to be a deserted junk yard and I pulled over and stopped. I told Nat what I wanted to do and she helped me. Twenty minutes later, the topper was leaning against the fence and we were a regular pick up driving up the road going north. I had no idea if any of these things I was doing made any difference, but it felt like I was doing something to help our situation.

Five miles after we started driving again, Natalie leaned over and put her head on my shoulder and quietly said, "Jeff, I love you."

"What brought that on?"

"I have had these strong feelings about you as I told you. But as we have gone along on this adventure or whatever it is, every time you stop and do something or make a decision, I feel more and more comfortable being with you. I thought about it in bed last night and was going to say something this morning but I didn't. Then when you stopped and took the camper off, I was really overwhelmed at how strongly you were working to take care of us. I can't envision life after this without being by your side. I think I really want to be with you and have babies with you."

"Assuming we survive this, I will take you anywhere and have as many babies with you as you want. I'm having a difficult time thinking about the future without you too."

"Then, I think we now know what we are running towards."

"You may be right. Honey, when we get into Colorado, I may want to take a chance that we haven't tried yet. I have a college friend of mine whose brother is an FBI agent. I might decide to look my friend up and see about making contact with his brother. What do you think?"

"Honey, I am so confused right now about who or what we can trust, I would agree to go along with anything you said. If you think that it is the right thing to do, then let's do it."

"I'm still thinking about it." We drove into southern Colorado in the early afternoon and stopped at campground for the rest of the day and night. Once again, I had a feeling of relative safety. The campground had a computer for customer use and so after setting the trailer on its pad and getting hooked up, I went to the club room and did a search for my friend. He wasn't hard to find since he was a real estate agent just outside of Denver. I looked up the FBI office in Denver and found that his brother was the senior agent and head of the local office. I wrote down their phone numbers and then scanned the Dallas and New Mexico news. There was nothing new in the Dallas paper and nothing out of the ordinary in the New Mexico paper. For the moment, I felt more secure than I had been in awhile. At least we weren't leaving a trail of blood behind us right now. I went back to the trailer and found Natalie busy cooking the chicken we hadn't eaten the night before.

"We need to get ice for this ice box every day or everything in it is going to spoil before we eat it. The chicken had been frozen when I got it and it seems like it thawed out just about right. It smells good so I decided to cook it. It might be a little tough because I am going make sure that it is well done."

"I will eat it if you will." I grinned at her.

"Why don't you open a bottle of the wine? We've had a long day already."

"That sounds like a plan to me." I opened a bottle of the red wine and poured two cups since we didn't have any wine glasses. I settled down and turned on the television.

The Denver station opened their early news with an update from Dallas on the "growing mystery" of the government analysts being killed. The only news was that arrests had been made in the murders of Jillian and Gwen. The gunmen were professionals involved with a Washington gang that was implicated in the hit and run of a senior analyst in that area and another in Texas. The FBI reported that there was no trace of the two missing analysts but that there were indications that other people were tracking them as well as the authorities. Natalie had stopped what she was doing and had her hand on my shoulder as she listened to the update with me.

"Nat, I think that it is time we talk to someone who can give us some answers and maybe some help. We have some serious people on our tail and we don't even know who they are."

"Honey, I told you that I would go along with whatever you decide."

"Then we will drive to Denver tomorrow and see what happens."

"Fine. I'll get dinner finished so we can get to bed early and get an early start."

"Ok, baby. I'm getting hungry."

We ate dinner and went to bed early. Unfortunately, we got up early and often as we spent the night throwing up dinner and most of the other body fluid we had in us. Natalie cried because she felt like she poisoned us. I told her to hush; that it wasn't her fault and I held her for a long time after we finished vomiting. We finally fell asleep and slept late. When we woke, we were both weak and dehydrated. I brought us each several bottle of water to drink and made extra sweet coffee to get some sugar in our systems. When I felt good enough to walk, I went to the camp store and bought some oranges and muffins along with some sport drinks to wash them down. It was a horrible mix but we needed something in our systems and something to get our chemistry back in balance. Finally, at 11:00, we both felt good enough to go try to eat some solid food. I unhitched the trailer and we drove to an IHOP and we ate oatmeal and pancakes but didn't eat any meat or dairy. Then we drove back to the trailer and took a nap. We woke again at 6:00 and both felt almost normal. We drove to another restaurant and ate a vegetable plate with beans as our protein and washed dinner down with colas. We went back to the trailer and Natalie cuddled in my arms. After all we had been through; the one thing that almost brought us to our knees was some bad chicken. I decided that we would eat in restaurants for the rest of our trip and keep ice and drinks only in the ice chest cooler.

We actually made love that night although it wasn't energetic or long. We just expressed our love for each other in the simplest way we knew how. The next morning we followed our original plan but delayed for a day.

We arrived in Denver at 3:00 in the afternoon and I found Tim's office on the western edge of the city. After driving around to get familiar with the area, I parked and locked the truck and trailer in a public lot three blocks from his office and we walked to the street where his office was located. I had told Natalie what to say to him to get him to come meet us. I didn't want my name spoken in the office where others might hear it. I waited across the street in a little sports bar and had three beers and a platter of chips and salsa waiting when she and Tim came in. Tim's face lit up like a candle when he recognized me and he was about to say my name out loud when I put my finger to my lips and shook my head. His face stopped and he suddenly realized what he had been about to do. They came over and sat down and Tim whispered, "Jeff, I can't believe that you are here. I have been following things and wondered where you have been hiding. Shit man, you have all of us scared to death for you. I'll bet half of our class has called me in the past couple of days to see if I knew anything."

"Thanks Tim, I'm sorry that so many people are worried about me but Natalie has just as many people worried about her and we are scared to make ourselves known. That's why I came to you. Can you get your brother down here without telling him why? I need to talk to him and hopefully find some things out."

"He and I are going to the Rockies game tonight. He should be here to pick me up in about a half hour."

"Is this the best place to talk or is there somewhere else better?"

"This will be a good place until about 6:30 and then it will get busy before the game."

"Hopefully, we can be out of here by 6:30. Go meet him and bring him here without telling him we are here. Then I need to talk as close to uninterrupted as I can. Can you do that?"

"For you, anything."

"Is your brother still the honest cop?"

"He is so squeaky clean that he makes Mother Teresa look corrupt. Why?"

"Right now I am having serious trust issues with anyone even the Feds. At least four of the people we worked with are dead and I have a suspicion that the guys doing this aren't working without inside help."

"Oh shit. You know that Danny isn't going to want to let you go?"

"I expect so but I need to talk to someone and I'll try to convince him to let us go. I've got to give it a try."

"Alright, I'll get him here and will try to keep the riff raff away from you. I know the owner pretty well and I'll try to keep folks seated up front."

"Thanks, Tim. I can't tell you how important this is."

Tim got up and went back across the street and waited outside. Natalie moved to sit next to me and held my hand which had begun to shake. That helped me settle down some.

I saw a car pull up in front and Tim got in and pointed to the parking lot next to his office. Then I saw the two men walking towards the bar. Tim's older brother Dan looked exactly like you would expect an ex-marine to look; tall with an athlete's body, and a very short military haircut. Tim led him inside and toward us before his eyes adjusted to the dark. When Dan was standing at the table, Tim said, "Danny, this is Jeff Franklin and Natalie Fisher. Please listen to them for a while. I'm going to go get the owner to keep the back here empty for awhile."

Without taking his eyes off of either of us, he said, "That's a very good idea, Tim. Bring me a iced tea; the beer is going to have to wait." Then he sat down. "Well Jeff and Natalie, half of the FBI in the country is looking for you two and you came and found me. Where do you want to start?"

His voice and his attitude immediately gave me confidence that I had made the right decision." Thanks for listening, Dan. This has been a tough week for us and I am almost out of ideas. I decided to talk to you and then I will let you use your judgment on how to proceed." I then told him our story without leaving out any details except a couple of ones that I wasn't ready to tell him.

When I finished with our journey, he asked, "Do you have any idea of why they are after you?"

"That is now a point of speculation. We don't know for sure but I think it has something to do with the reports we wrote a couple of years ago and this new push for the Energy Bill that the senator was pushed on the talk show on Sunday."

Dan's eyes narrowed and he thought for a moment before he said, "expand on that a little for me."

I briefly told him the story about my report and then Natalie's. He knew about my report, of course. Then I told him about our suspicions based on what the senator had talked about on Sunday and that almost everything he had promoted was totally alien to everything that our reports had said even though we had solid research behind our reports. Finally I said that my thought was that if our reports and the data were released publically at this time, the whole thing would crumble along with several prominent political careers.

Then Dan asked, "So what is your plan?" I told him about trying to get Natalie's notes and recreate her research and turn it over to someone either a news organization or some other trustworthy group and let them check things out and do what they needed to do.

During this whole time, Dan had not asked any questions about what I had told him. He sat back and thought for a moment and then he started talking in a quiet voice.

"In spite of what the news people have been talking about, most of the hard details haven't and probably won't be released any time soon. So what I am about to tell you is just so that you will have a couple of your blanks filled in. Jeff your house was hit by rockets fired from a helicopter which had been flown in from Alabama. The two dead guys and three others that we arrested were domestic goons hired by the country that you mentioned. They are being held in a safe and out of the way place where they can contact no one. The goons who have been killing the others and trying to catch up to you are all from a different gang who was paid almost a million dollars to put a cork in anyone they found in their way plus those that they were told to get rid of. It hasn't been reported but two other senior analysts who worked with your husband were also killed because they also had reported negatively on the new president of that country. We suspect that he killed his brother and then his father to take control of the country. His goal seems to get some kind of industrial scheme going to skim money from it to train terrorists to come back here and cause more problems. You were right, Ms. Fisher, he is a nutcase. And you are also right Jeff, the big oil companies have bought into the story about the big oil field and have funded a major push in Congress to get this bill passed and done. We have been following this for about five years as it has changed forms several times. But now there are bodies in the street and the director wants action. What I can tell you right now is that we know and are keeping an eye on most of the gang members and they will be picked up if they spit on the street. The big problem is that there is one team of pros on the loose that have been like you guys; they are invisible. We don't know who they are or what they look like. All we know is that they are here and are waiting for word from someone to go into action. We assume that you are the prime targets but there may be others too."