Marked Man II - 02 (2 page)

Bollier was about to object that she did not but she realized that she was leaning against the roof of her car, rubbing at her eyes as she talked.

“Maybe.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I just have a bad feeling, that’s all.”

Agent Clemons could not contain the disdain creeping into his tone. Bollier had been nothing but an intolerable wet blanket lately, and she knew it.

“You have a bad feeling about everything nowadays.”

“I know. Just.”

“Just nothing. Take a deep breath and a cold shower. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Fine.”

Bollier hung up and climbed back into her car, which was still too hot for driving. She decided to wait for the air to cool and the rush hour traffic to clear. There was no hurry after all. For the detective, the only home life waiting was at the bottom of a bottle of Canadian Club whiskey. The bottle was an ideal companion. Like Jordan in the bridge dream, the bottle did not judge, did not have any expectations, and would always be there waiting.

…

Special Agent Kyle Clemons flipped his phone shut and put it away. He addressed the star witness, who was busy dunking his head inside a bowl of ice chips that typically were meant for chilling champagne.

“Uri. You going to be ready tomorrow?”

Uri Grigoryevich came up for air and looked at him. He was the very face of discomfort.

“Niyet! I am going to die tonight. I am going to die of this heat.”

“Don’t be so dramatic. Look it’s only…”

Clemons checked the thermometer and decided not to be specific.

“It’s not THAT hot Uri.”

“Da. It is THAT hot. It is impossibly hot. And I will die tonight. I can feel it.”

Clemons looked across the room to the other FBI agents he’d assigned to watch over him. They shrugged and sipped at their ice teas. The hotel was less than ideal, especially considering the ventilation situation, but it was only a short term fix. Once Uri had done his job testifying he could be shuttled off to whatever frigid utopia he had in mind. For three months he had been stewing in federal custody, constantly under guard from a rotating team of agents that put up with Uri’s nonsense in twelve hour shifts. The previous week Agent Utapi had asked Clemons for permission to shoot Uri in the face. Clemons replied that shooting the prosecution’s key witness was expressly forbidden. At least until his testimony was concluded.

Uri Grigoriyevich was an addict and most likely a murderer. Worse though, he was an insufferable superstitious prig. In the first several weeks Uri was obsessed with having his bed arranged so that he could sleep facing southwest. When the feds asked Uri why it was so important he told them that the Sonora desert was host to a despicable airborne spectre that haunted men as they lie asleep. He had to face southwest so as to fight off this threat if he saw it coming.

Methamphetamine withdrawal can manifest such hallucinations. Clemons knew this, but he didn’t know of any recovering addicts that continued to believe such crap even long after the meth was flushed from their system. Uri Grigoriyevich was the exception to every rule. The fly in every jar of ointment.

The feds shuttled him to hotels around the east coast and the Midwest, staying no longer than three nights in any particular location. In the past the Russians had proved disturbingly proficient at having witnesses killed even in police custody so Agent Clemons took no chances. When they travelled Uri had to be bound and quartered in the back of a windowless van. He was never allowed to leave the hotel rooms, under any circumstances. Uri begged to use the spa, or swim in the pool, or most of all, check his e-mails but Clemons never relented.

The matter of the e-mails was a distraction that had tested Clemons’ patience farther than he ever could have thought it would. Uri positively hounded the agents with him whenever he saw a computer in the lobby at check-in.

“Just zis once? I must answer to my grandmozer zat I am okay.”

“No.”

“You are bully man! BIG bully! Cannot you let zis man e-mail his grandmozer even once.”

Agent Clemons knew that Uri had no grandmother to keep in touch with. As far as he could tell the only messages Uri had ever received were from sadist and masochist porn sites. His patience was exhausted with the constant requests.

“If you ask again Uri I’m going to drop you off in front of Shirokov’s front door and leave you there.”

This threat usually worked to quiet him. While Uri Grigoriyevich was frightened of the desert, three o’clock in the morning, the state of Michigan, pomegranates, and an assortment of other nonsensical phobias, nothing got him to shut up faster than the sound of Shirokov’s name.

Lately Uri had been telling the rotating cadre of federal agents that he was going to die. As spring transformed to summer it became an all-consuming terror. Agent Clemons was beginning to wonder just how well Uri could possibly stand trial when he was consumed by that level of fear.

If Uri heard a faucet dripping he went into a frenzy until the drip was put to a stop. He was convinced that the United States government was dispersing biochemical agents through the water supply in a sadistic experiment on its citizens. If they were travelling Uri always checked the skies for trails left by airliners passing overhead. Uri called them chemtrails, and claimed that these too contained chemical agents. Every single airplane flying over U.S. airspace was party to a massive criminal conspiracy. All that was needed to create an extinction-level event was to introduce one extra compound into the toxic mix.

Listening to Uri’s theories sometimes made Agent Clemons wonder why he had ever become a federal agent in the first place. Other times he thought about writing a memoir once he retired so he could include all of the absurd stories he’d been subjected too. In his psychological profile of Uri Grigoriyevich, Clemons classified him as a possible paranoid schizophrenic and an ideal example of the criminal thought process.

Clemons had his own theory: that brain science would one day determine not only who would become criminals, but also could predict where, when, and who they would strike.

Uri was the missing link in abnormal psychology; an absolute prodigy of an example of what happens when you take two parts poverty, one part bad parenting, and a dash of traumatic head injuries in childhood. Clemons was past trying to dissuade Uri from his paranoid ramblings.

“Ok you’re right. You’re probably going to die tonight. But what do you want to eat for breakfast in the morning? I’ll bring it with me in the morning when I come to pick you up.”

“Eggs, scrambled eggs. Wiz ze hot sauce on side.”

“Alright. Well enjoy dying Uri. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Agent Clemons waved good-bye to Uri Grigoriyevich for the last time. On his way out he took Agent Packer aside and instructed him not to let Uri anywhere near a computer under any circumstances and to tell the midnight shift agents the same. The fed smiled and nodded and wished his superior a good night’s rest before the big day.

…

There was a new FBI man who came at midnight. Uri did not recognize him from any of the other teams that had been assigned to guard him. Upon his arrival Agent Packer and his partner questioned the man. Who was he? Why was he here? Why they weren’t notified of the switch?

Apparently the FBI man was a replacement for another FBI man who had called in sick that morning. No other arrangements could be made in time. Because Agent Packer and his partner knew the other man they did not object too hard, and after a few minutes they departed, wishing Uri a sardonic good night’s sleep on the way out.

Once they were gone the new FBI agent walked over to where Uri was sitting in the corner, chain-smoking cigarettes and pretending to listen to an NPR broadcast on the radio. He had a large American face that had age lines etched from the corners of his mouth, extending out to the rough-hewn plains of his cheeks. His eyes were green and they twinkled when he offered his hand to shake.

“Uri Grigory… GrigoWhatIsIt… hell I’ll just call ya Uri. My name is Agent Winstone. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

Absently Uri reached out and shook Agent Winstone’s hand. He was hypnotized by the green of his eyes and the blistering red cheeks covered in stubble that to Uri’s mind resembled cacti growing in an inhospitable stretch of the Sonora desert.

“You are going to kill me.”

The new FBI man chuckled awkwardly and looked at his partner.

“He says that to everybody he meets. Going on a month now.”

“Why are you here to kill me? Who has sent you to do zis?”

The other agent who had spent six of the last twelve weeks keeping a very close eye on Uri sighed and apologized to his colleague.

“He’s nuts. Now he’s going to tell you about his big covert CIA depopulation theory.”

Uri’s mind was almost going so fast that his lips could barely keep up. He fidgeted in the seat, eyes watering from the smoke.

“Is it Langley? Zey know zat I know about the chemtrails. Zat’s it isn’t it? Or the flouride in ze water supply, zey know zat I know and so zey must be rid of me.”

For a while Agent Winstone tried to explain that he was not part of some shady international cabal of drug-and-gun-runners and only had Uri’s best interests at heart. He had been working with the Bureau for eight years and had never let anything happen to a witness under his charge, but it was no use. Uri Grigoriyevich made up his mind that Agent Winstone had been ushered forth from some seedy government orifice to slay him and once his mind was made up there was virtually no changing it.

Agent Winstone grew tired of trying to calm Uri down after a few minutes and settled in on one of the twin beds. He kicked off his shoes and sat half up with his legs splayed out and hands resting behind his head. Uri noticed a run in one of Agent Winstone’s black socks. It went from the big toe almost all the way down to the heel.

“You mind if I put something on?”

The imperfection in the FBI agent’s sock had so absorbed Uri that he didn’t notice the question was put to him. None of the other agents who were assigned to guard Uri ever had a stain or a blemish on their clothes. It struck him as incredibly odd.

“Uri. You mind?”

The witness shook himself out of his daze and looked at Agent Winstone.

“Eh?’

He was holding the remote for the TV and gesturing to the blank black screen. Uri shrugged and said that he did not care and was not truly paying any attention to the radio program anyway. The new FBI man nodded politely and flipped through the channels, clicking the button over and over until he stopped on a baseball game. Four pitches were thrown in three minutes and Uri’s attention span was lost, absorbed once more in the agent’s sock.

Agent Hinckley came out of the bathroom stuffing his shirt into the waist of his pants. The weapon on his hip holster was the same standard glock that Uri assumed the FBI handed out to all of its people. Maybe when you graduated from the FBI academy they handed you a glock right along with your diploma. Uri had not spoken to the agents much about their jobs, he was satisfied to let his mind wander through the morass of possibilities. It was more fun to him this way, to imagine how a federal agent’s life might be like, rather than to learn of the dull reality. Perhaps when he was through testifying and relocated to Alaska he could investigate becoming an agent of some kind. Uri let himself day-dream about his future life in that bleak, cold wasteland until he drifted off to sleep.

Shortly after three in the morning Uri was roused by the sound of shouting. Outside a man’s voice was raised in anger, but Uri could not make out the specifics. Agent Hinckley got up and went to the window and flicked the curtain aside.

“What is it?” Agent Winstone asked from the bed.