Sergeant! Ch. 02

"Ok."

"Yeah, hold on to the stuff until I get back to you."

"Gotcha. I'll get to Sheila and bring her in."

"Do that. Give me a call when you're settled in."

"Will do."

The ambulance guys took us over to Georgetown University Hospital. It was maybe a 15 minute ride through traffic. But we made it without incident. They rewrapped Betty into the stretcher and told me to wait in the ambulance while they took care of Betty.

I told Betty that I'd be seeing her shortly. "Ok Betty, these guys are going to be hustling you through the ER to a safe house."

"Ok."

"You're going to need to lie low for a couple of days until this blows over."

"Ok."

"You're not much for words are you?"

"Well, it's been kind of overwhelming! Know what I mean?"

I chuckled, "yeah, it has been hasn't it? ....... Don't worry, you'll be ok."

"Ok, ......... I hope." and she smiled at me.

They took Betty into the ER and were back in the ambulance after about 15 minutes. While they were gone I gave Sheila a call on my cell phone.

"Hey Sheila, this is Tim."

"Hey Timmy" she replied. I could hear the happiness in her voice! Made me feel ten feet tall. But back to the business at hand.

"Hey, thanks for putting up with me last night. Hope I didn't overstay the welcome mat."

"No problem! In fact, I'm hoping that my welcome mat gets used a lot more by you..." I could hear the smile in her voice as she said that! Man, she made me hard just thinking of our love making last night! God she was hot!

"You can count on that babe! But I gotta shift gears quickly and talk with you about the reason that I'm calling."

"Yeah, so what's up?"

"Look, I went to see Betty Kremski this morning and had to put her into a safe house."

"What?! What do you mean? Is she ok?" I could hear the fear and fright in her voice.

"Betty's ok but I interrupted a couple of bad guys who were trying to persuade Betty to go with them."

I heard nothing but silence on the other end. "You ok Sheila?"

"Yeah, but this is frightening me."

"Ok, that means that you're normal. So hang in there babe."

"Ok, so what's going to happen next?" she asked.

"Well the reason why I'm calling is that we think you need to go away for a couple of days also and I'm just the sort of guy to take you away from all of this for a couple of days."

"Oh, just like that?"

"Look Sheila, one of them was at your apartment complex. I made him so he probably made me. You're not safe."

"Oh no!"

"Yeah. My sentiments exactly. Where are you right now?"

"At work. I clerk for the Superior Court on Indiana Avenue."

"Ok, you're safe for now. Can you take off for a couple of days? Say it was a family emergency?"

"I think so."

"See if you can and call me back." I gave Sheila my direct cell number.

"I'll let you know." And we broke the connection.

By that time the EMT's were back in the ambulance getting ready to leave the hospital.

"Ok, Tim, where do we drop you?"

"Betty get delivered ok?"

"We got her to a second team who's going with her to the safe house. She should be there in about an hour."

"Where is it?" I asked.

"Don't know. You need to talk to David. We try to compartmentalize things so no one knows too much."

It made a lot of sense to me. That way if there was a security breach somewhere, someone would need to infiltrate the organization at several different places in order to get useful information.

"My ride is parked about a block away from the apartment complex. You probably don't want to have this ambulance seen too close to the building so why don't you drop me off at one of the Metro stations?"

"Sounds good."

And they did. The underground subway system works like a charm in DC. Convenient and gets people to where they need to go. So I hopped a ride and surfaced from my underground ride about three blocks away from Betty's apartment complex.

I had shed the EMT jacket back in the ambulance however kept the cap, and now pulled it low over my eyes as I walked back to my SUV. I scanned the area as I neared my car and spotted at least two suspicious looking vehicles as I got closer. Hmmm. No sense risking it so I kept on walking, leaving the apartment complex and my vehicle behind.

After another three blocks I came across a small park with a couple of benches and sat down on one; facing the street as I did. I pulled out my cell phone and gave David a call.

"David, it's Tim."

"Hey what's up?"

"Listen, I'm on foot and will probably be this way until tonight. You're going to have to have someone else pull in the others on Annalisa's list of friends."

"Ok. Think we should pull everyone in?"

"Yeah, they were trying to grab Betty. I think they probably wanted her to serve as leverage with Annalisa. Maybe they were planning to threaten bodily harm to Betty if Annalisa didn't cooperate with them."

"Yeah. Possible motive. In fact, very good possible motive."

"I touched basis with Sheila and she's in a safe place for the day. I'll extract her later today. Where should I take her?"

"We have a safe house nearby that Betty was taken to. You can take Sheila there as well. Let me know before you get there. I need to let them know when to expect you." David then gave me the address for the safe house which put it in a neighborhood of small homes in the neighborhood of 34th and P Street. Close to Georgetown University and not too far away from the capitol.

In the meantime, Sheila had called back and left a voice message for me, 'I got the okay to take off for a couple of days. Call me back.' So I called her back.

"Sheila, it's Tim. Got your message. It'll be better if I pick you up later this afternoon. You ok till then?"

"Ok. You know where my office is?"

"I think I can find it. If not, I'll give you a call."

"When should I expect you?"

"Let's make it around 4:00. That sounds like a good time. Wait for me in your office until I call." I figured that traffic should be building by then that would make it easier for me to get to my SUV and take off without attracting too much attention to myself. And she'd be safer waiting for me in her office than out on the street.

"Ok, see you then."

After I hung up I went to find something to eat as it was past two in the afternoon and I hadn't eaten since the night before. I found a deli around the corner from the park and order a hoagie with a bowl of soup. As I waited for my order, I glanced over a rack of tourist type literature displayed next to the cash register.

There's a ton of these racks all over the place. They hold all sorts of display cards for city tours, horse drawn carriage rides through the capitol, resorts and hotels. I figured that I'd probably deserve a nice vacation after this assignment was over. That is, if they didn't send me back over to la-la land. Oh well, I can only hope.

So I picked up a few tourist display cards to read while I had my lunch. If nothing else, they at least kept my mind occupied while I ate. One was for Miami Beach, another for a resort in Virginia, one for a hotel up in Niagra, and even a nudist resort in Alexandria (although they called it 'clothing optional'). Oh well! I can dream!

After cleaning up after lunch, it was after 3 pm so I figured that it was time to retrieve my SUV from its parking space. I walked the seven blocks back to my vehicle, keeping my eyes pealed all the way back. Luckily, both foot and automobile traffic had picked up considerably so I blended in with everyone else. I made it to my vehicle, hopped in and took off.

I tried to keep part of my attention on my rear view mirror to see if any other vehicle was trying to keep up with me but that didn't appear to be the case. After traveling a couple of blocks and a couple of turns here and there later, I felt comfortable that no one was following me.

I drove over to the Superior Court and parked in one of the visitor parking stalls. Glancing around, I failed to see anything that looked suspicious. But then again, if the bad guys were good then I probably wouldn't have been able to see them anyway. So what, Tim. Just deal with it. So I gave Sheila a call and she picked up on the first ring.

"Hi."

"Hi, its me."

"Yeah. Where are you?"

"In the visitor parking lot."

"Ok, I'll be out in a few minutes."

"Wait. I'll come get you."

"Ok. 3rd floor, room 317."

With that, I left my vehicle and made it up to Sheila's office. Her office was still full of people, which was good. I didn't think the bad guys were going to do anything if there were any witnesses around. Sheila gathered up her things and we were out the door.

I kept scanning the area as we walked over to my car. So far so good. Nothing apparent. I helped Sheila up into the SUV then locked and shut her door. Still nothing. One last scan before I climbed in myself. Still nothing. But I couldn't help have the feeling that we were being watched. My intuition was tingling that something wasn't right.

As I pulled out of the parking lot, I kept visually scanning the area. Still nothing. But as I took the first turn onto the Indiana Avenue, I saw a light blue, late model sedan back out of a parking stall fairly rapidly. Hmmmm. Sure enough. They took the corner and headed off in our direction. Looked as if they intended to follow us and see where we were headed. Don't know if they had previously made my car. If they did then they probably had a GPS unit on it as well. If they hadn't then they needed to stay on my tail. Only one way to find out short of having my vehicle electronically swept; that was to make them work to stay on my tail.

"Sheila, make sure you're buckled in tight and hold on!" I yelled at her.

Then I took a hard right on the next cross street coming up. As I pulled away from the intersection, I floored the gas pedal and rapidly left our friends behind. It didn't dawn on them that they had been discovered until they made the intersection also. Then they floored it as well in an attempt to get me back into a range that made surveillance easier.

I was a good four or five blocks in front of them when I made another hard left turn against traffic onto another side street. Then it was a quick left turn again headed back towards the way we came, except on a parallel street. Then a quick right to head off on a tangent. I slowed back down to a normal speed and found a WalMart. Ducking into the parking lot, we were just another SUV in a sea of vehicles!

"Ok Sheila, we're going to do a little walking so get your things together." I instructed her. Her eyes were wide open, nostrils flared and mouth wide open as she gulped copious amounts of air and hyperventilated!

"DAMN TIM!" was all she could say!

"Yeah sorry about that. We had a tail and I needed to shake him."

"Ok, so now what?" she asked.

"Now I make a phone call." And pulled out my phone to call David.

"Hey bossman. How's it swinging?" I asked at Betno answered his phone.

"They're swinging but I don't know if that's good or bad!" David laughed. "So what's up?"

"Picked up a tail when I went to pick up Sheila. They were probably watching her office."

"Yeah. Makes sense. So now they know your car, too."

"Yeah. I'll need another chariot."

"Can do. Let me arrange for one and get back to you. In the meantime, what are you going to do?"

"Sheila and I are going to loose ourselves for awhile. Been thinking of taking a vacation anyway. At least for a day or two."

"Sounds good to me, but no more than a day or two. Ok?"

"Thanks boss. Say any word on the lab search?"

"Yeah. Found a place that you can take the stuff to but it's in Alexandria. Think you can handle a delivery?"

"Yeah, I think so." So David gave me the name and address of the lab.

I figured that since my vehicle was made that it was probably not a good idea to use it any further. So I pulled my gym bag from the back seat and began to fill it with my other stuff in the car. I always carry a spare change of clothes as I never knew when I'd need it. Got my spare rounds from under the driver's seat, the charge cards and the pile of cash still wrapped in a plain white wrapper, and the stuff that I took from Annalisa's lab.

While I was doing that, Sheila untangled herself from her seatbelt and straightened herself out.

"So what's the plan?" she asked in a quite voice.

"We need to stay low for a day or so, then I get you to the safe house.....you ok?"

"Just a little unnerved by all of this....." she replied in a soft, scared voice.

"We need to leave this vehicle behind so get your stuff together and split."

"You said that we need to get away for a day or two?"

"Yeah."

"If we're going to do that, I need to pick up some things and a change of clothes."

"No sweat. WalMart's right there so we can get anything you need." I pulled out a few bucks from my stash and gave it to her to cover whatever she needed to buy.

"Hey thanks......hey! This is way too much!" I had given Sheila $500.

"No sweat honey. Just get whatever you need."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure. Besides, it's not my money."

"Huh?"

"Yeah, just think of it as per diem."

While she was shopping, Betno called back and told me that he had a car waiting for me at the lab in Alexandria. I just needed to get over there to pick it up. He also updated me on the effort to find Annalisa. Seems that the bad guys were beginning to get desperate and have moved up the deadline to turn over the cash and the other two scientists. We had two days left otherwise she was going turn up somewhere very much un-alive.

"David, sounds like we need to change our strategy. We don't have time to play footsies with these guys."

"Yeah, agree. What do you suggest?"

"Well, since they're trying to tail me, why don't I jump back into the SUV and allow them to tail me somewhere then you guys jump them and we play questions and answers?"

"Hey, not bad for a rookie!"

"So?"

"Yeah, the more I think about it the more I like it......ok, ditch the other car idea. Get back into your SUV and lead them down to Alexandria to the lab. We'll have a reception committee join the parade before you get there and give them a proper greeting."

"Sounds good. Plus I'm beginning to like this car."

"Ha! Don't get too attached to it! Government property you know!"

"Shit! Too bad!"

"Ha! See you. And take care."

"You too."

By then Sheila had picked up her stuff. I advised her of the change in plans and we returned to my SUV. We pulled out of the parking lot and began to drive around the neighborhood to see if I could pick up our tail again. And sure enough, by the time I had gone four blocks I say a white sedan with two guys in the front street pull out several cars behind me. I took a turn several blocks down and they followed. Ok, the game was on!