3rd World Products, Book 17 (29 page)

What had Susan done? I looked for more info and learned nothing. Charges? None. Investigation only at this point. Typical, but not so typical was a gag order. I tracked the gag order uphill. It had originated in Tallahassee. At whose request and why?

The trail led to NIA agent Gwen Munin, who’d been sent to Ocala to look into Figler’s ‘activities’. Hm. No further info. No notes. No recordings. Just the pickup order and a gag order. Interesting.

Walking back into the kitchen, I said, “Toni’s in trouble. The cops have her. I’m going to head over there and see what’s up.”

Tanya said, “I’ll come with you. I know a few cops.” With a grin, she added, “I know a few lawyers, too.”

Grabbing her purse, Marie said, “Me, too. What’s she in for?”

As we headed for the door, I replied, “Obstructing justice and resisting arrest.”

Once we were aboard Galatea, I put up a screen so Tanya and Marie could do some rooting of their own and linked to my core to see what else I could find out about Susan Figler. Oh, wait. Doctor Figler. She’d apparently been fascinated by science all her life and held four degrees, two of which were in math and physics.

Her DMV picture showed a mousy-looking brunette woman. Twenty-eight, five-three, one-ten. A nice face, but the clothes, hair, and glasses of a true nerd. I referenced her high school and college yearbooks and found essentially the same. Not one you’d expect be on the run from the NIA. Also not the type I was used to seeing in Toni-the-gym-rat’s company.

I tried to track her phone, a late-model do-everything gadget on a no-limit-minutes plan. Turning it off wouldn’t have prevented locating it, so she must have the battery out. Keyword-fishing through her phone records turned up nothing. I sent probes to look for a computer in her apartment. Nope. She wasn’t the type not to have one, so she had it or the NIA had it.

Motion to my right caught my attention. Tanya was trying to keep Marie from interrupting me.

She hissed, “Mom, leave him alone! I’ve seen him do this before!”

Marie hissed back, “Yeah? Then what the
hell
is he doing?”

“I don’t know, dammit, but in a minute he’ll probably tell us he’s figured everything out! Now sit down and let-him-alone!”

When I turned to look at them, I held a hand in a ‘stay put’ sort of gesture, then returned to my searches. Probes to the homes of known friends and family didn’t find Susan. She was last seen at Toni’s, so I sent probes to the condo. There were three sets of footprints in the grass under and near the bathroom window. Well, not ‘footprints’, exactly. More like indentations that hadn’t recovered.

Two larger sets of indentations could be accounted for by the trails in the grass from the porch. One smaller set had been pressed heavily into the grass directly below the window, then they’d left a trail to the back fence. I almost overlooked the fact that they led completely up to the fence, but lacked the depth of those under the window.

If she’d jumped, she’d have heavily dented the grass and dirt. On general principles, I checked behind the fence. Below the low wall surrounding the back yards of the complex was a concrete walkway. Probes found no traces of scuffing or grass stains on the wall’s ledge.

Hm. Back to the trails leading up to the fence. Backtracking them, I found the heavier indentations I’d been looking for about five feet from the fence. She’d backed up and taken a running leap. But if not to heave herself over the six-foot fence, then why? The only thing that came to mind was ‘to reach the top’. Then what?

Turning the probe, I saw only the tiny shed that came with each condo. Could it be that easy? The probe passed through the shed’s thin metal wall and found Susan sitting on a folded tarp on the floor. Her back was to the far shed wall and her knees were drawn up so she could rest her arms and face against them. Asleep? Crying? No. Waiting, apparently. She lifted her head, checked her watch, sighed, and pulled a water bottle from her backpack’s side net pocket.

As Susan sipped, I sent probes to make sure the condo was empty. It was, but I had no doubt someone was watching it. I wondered why there’d been no ‘general principles’ search of the property. We landed and I had Tea extend her stealth field to encompass the shed, then I stepped down to the paving-stone pathway.

Sending a heavy stun into the shed, I slid the door back so the ladies could see what I’d ‘found’. They hurried to the shed and I said, “I’ve got Susan. Somebody get her backpack and water bottle and anything else that doesn’t seem to belong there.”

As I hefted Susan and eased her out the door, Marie entered the shed. I had Tea make a bed and laid Susan on it, told Tanya not to wake her, and went back to the shed for another look.

Marie handed me the bag and bottle and said, “That’s all of it.”

I looked inside anyway. She was right. Nothing else in there looked as if it hadn’t been there for quite a while. But there was a grocery bag hanging on a rake handle. I sent a tendril to get it and opened it as I stepped back aboard Tea.

Tanya asked, “Why’d you take that?”

“It seemed like a good idea.”

Lifting out a candy wrapper, I showed it to her as if it might mean something interesting, then dropped it back into the bag and asked Tea to take us up to a mile. As we lifted, I sent probes into Susan’s backpack. Four more candy bars, a laptop and cordless mouse, pens, paper, odds and ends. She essentially used it as a big purse.

Linking my core into Susan’s laptop, I looked for reasons the NIA might be after her. The hard drive had four primary partitions, but one was nested with extended partitions, two of which were formatted with ext3 and encrypted. Cute, but if the NIA got their hands on her laptop, they’d find the hidden partitions.

I had my core grab a copy of the hard drive and start decoding. It began slamming combinations at the encryption. I left it to do its thing as I asked Tea to take us to the police station and sent a field to wake Susan.

She stirred slightly, opened her eyes, and then sat bolt upright, staring at us. Her mouth opened and I sent theta waves to head off whatever she was about to scream or shout. She yawned and smiled, so I let up a bit to let her head clear.

When she again started to speak, I interrupted with, “Susan, the cops have my friend Toni. We’re on our way to see if we can spring her. Why’s the NIA after you?”

Susan’s mouth closed again, then she asked, “Who are you people? Are you with 3rd World Products?”

“No time for chat. Answer my question. Tell me why I shouldn’t trade you for my friend.”

Meeting my gaze, she said, “Toni’s my friend, too, and she didn’t want them to get me. Doesn’t that tell you something?”

“No. Loyalties can be misguided. Why’s the NIA after you?”

Susan sat straight, glared at me, and said, “Get her out of jail first. If she says you’re okay, I’ll tell you.”

Marie said, “I’ll check her bag for drugs.”

Holding up a ‘stop’ hand, I shook my head. “Already done. No drugs or anything else illegal.”

Somewhat acidly, she asked, “Would you mind if I verified that?”

Thumbing at Susan, I said, “She might. At this point, she’s a passenger, not a prisoner.”

Tanya yelped, “What?! She’s the reason Toni’s in jail!”

Glancing at Susan, then at Tanya, Marie said, “By the way, I forgot to ask… who’s Toni?”

About to say something else, Tanya stopped and looked at me. So did Marie and Susan.

Tanya said, “She’s a friend Ed and I have in common. And Susan, apparently.”

Pointing over the side, I said, “We’re here. Tea, keep Susan aboard while we try to spring Toni, please. Stun her if she tries to get off.”

I used the silver hull field and we descended with an audience of half a dozen cops in the station lobby, then stepped through the field to the ground and turned to hand the ladies down.

Two cops who knew me from assisting at accidents seemed glad to see me. We stood shaking hands and introducing each other for a few moments, then one asked why we were there.

After I explained that Toni might have acted a bit impulsively in offering Susan shelter, a plainclothes cop nearby tapped a button on his phone and said, “I was there, sir. She put one of our men on the floor like it was nothing. She’s had some kind of training.”

My probe traced the phone’s intercom link to an office directly behind the bullpen area. The listener was Lieutenant Jameson, the one who’d detailed two cops to go with the NIA to Toni’s condo.

I said, “I know. I trained her to neutralize a threat and apologize if necessary. He grabbed her.”

The guy gave me a fisheye and asked, “So? That’s how we do things. We secure the location.”

“Uh, huh. I’ve seen the invasion technique. If I’d answered the door and been grabbed, I’d have put him down, too. Why’d he grab her? What did she do to deserve it?”

“She was going to warn her friend.”

“Unlikely. Toni’s friend was in the bathroom. As scared as she was, she was probably already out the window when Toni answered the door. Seems likely Toni was just standing there wondering what the hell was going on. So why’d he grab her?”

Another cop stood up and stated, “When we enter a house on a call, we immobilize anyone present until we sort things out.”

“There was no warrant.”

“We had probable cause to believe Figler was there.”

One of the friendly cops said, “That really is enough to go in on.”

“It’s enough if you’re after someone who’s suspected of something in particular. Exactly what is Toni suspected of doing?”

The other cop said, “We really can’t discuss that with you, sir.”

“You’ll discuss it with me or a very unfriendly lawyer who’ll want to dig a lot deeper. You were there, so you know what really happened. Can you tell me what crime Figler was suspected of having committed? Since it was actually an NIA matter, why weren’t you guys waiting outside? And women were involved, so why weren’t there any female cops in the group to handle them? Want me to keep going? What’ll it cost your department if Toni files a complaint and sues? Is it really worth the hassle and expense?”

Another cop in plainclothes got up from his desk and strolled over to us as he said, “Sir, I’d like to know how you know so much about this matter.”

First things first; always make them identify themselves.

I asked, “And you are?”

“Detective Rains.”

“You called it a ‘matter’, not a case. That means you haven’t filed any charges. It isn’t too late to let her go.”

His gaze narrowed. “I asked how you know so much, sir.”

Not a convenient question, but they can be countered. Meeting his gaze for a moment, I linked to my core for a remote view of the details I’d already gleaned concerning ‘this matter’ before I spoke.

“Yeah, I heard you. Detective Rains; I’ll tell you what I know instead and see how things go from there. The NIA agents were Lassiter and Marchetto out of Tallahassee. They didn’t have a warrant and didn’t tell anyone here why they were looking for Figler. The local cops on the scene were Sepulveda and Leitman.”

Thumbing at the first plainclothes cop, I said, “He’s Leitman. They were detailed by Lieutenant Jameson to ‘informally assist’ the NIA. While ‘informal assistance’ is real friendly, it isn’t considered proper procedure. Everybody rushed into the condo the second Toni opened the door and Sepulveda got tossed when he grabbed her. While two guys stayed with Toni, two checked rooms for Figler. When they didn’t find her, they went to the back yard and followed grass trails to the fence, where the trail ended. At this very moment, neither you guys nor the NIA have the slightest idea where to look for Figler. All you have to show for that very questionable excursion into Toni’s home is a woman who reacted to the surprise of being unnecessarily manhandled by an eager young member of your group.”

Taking a breath, I leaned over Leitman’s desk and spoke to the phone as I added, “The best thing you could do at this point is let her go and let the NIA do its own damned grunt work, because if I have to leave today without Toni, I’ll be back bright and early with a hungry lawyer and the news media tomorrow.”

Nobody spoke as I straightened up and faced the group. Leitman and Rains looked fairly pissed. Even one of the friendlies looked a bit miffed. The other friendly had retreated to his desk. Marie and Tanya stood on either side of me looking unhappy and determined. The tableau was broken when a door opened at the rear of the office and another plainclothes cop approached us.

He stopped beside Rains and glanced around once before he looked at me and said, “Until now, I’d been wanting to meet you.”

Turning to Leitman, he said, “Go get her. Sign her out.”

Leitman nodded and left.

I asked, “Are you gonna let this little fuss offset all the stuff I did that made you want to meet me?”

Jameson eyed me tightly for a moment, then nodded. “Yes. You came into my house waving a lawyer at us.”

Thumbing at Rains, I said, “I didn’t wave the lawyer until someone stonewalled me. Besides, you know I’m right. She could retire on what she’d cost the city in a lawsuit. The NIA used you and left you holding the bag for their sins.”

“Be that as it may…” Jameson looked around, raised his voice slightly, and said, “Everybody back to work,” then he looked at Rains and added, “Including you.”

Turning back to the ladies and me, he said, “Wait here. She’ll be out shortly,” and headed back to his office.

Marie whispered a barely audible, “Well done,” while Tanya stepped to a nearby desk for another chair.

The cop there said, “Sorry, ma’am, I’ll need that.”

Was he just being difficult? Whatever. I called up my board, raised it to the height of a chair, and sat on it. Patting the board, I invited the ladies to join me. Both did so with smiles as a number of people in the office stared. Others got up to see what was going on and they also stared. A few came over for a closer look and questions. Jameson came out of his office again and strode up to us.

Eyeing the board, he snapped, “What the hell is that thing?!”

I shrugged. “You told us to wait here. There weren’t enough chairs, so I improvised.”