The Shield of Darius (13 page)

“We won’t last forever,” Ben said sharply. “Neither of us. We’ve got to go - one or both.” He plopped down heavily on the bed and sat quietly beside his cellmate in the darkness of the room. For a long moment neither spoke.

“If you make it, there’s some people I want you to see,” Jim said finally. “Some things I want you to tell them.”

“I’ll get you out…”

“Now just shut up and listen to me for a damn minute. I’m never getting out of here and I want you to listen.”

Ben was quiet and Jim went on.

“You find my Mary and tell her I thought of her every day. Tell her that since I’ve been in here I’ve come to know what a lucky guy I’ve been…and that I asked her to give up a helluva lot so I could get what I wanted. I know I’ve been real selfish that way. Tell her if I had a chance I’d come back and give her all the time she always wanted to go spend with the girls and the grandkids, and to travel around. And don’t let her feel bad about me disappearing on that damn trip…since she’ll think she talked me into it. It was long overdue. And tell her too…” His voice grew husky. “…that I love her more than I ever could tell her. That’s why I didn’t too often.”

Ben leaned forward and wrapped his arms around his friend’s shaking shoulders.

“Don’t give up on me, Jim. I’ll get you out.”

“You just tell her for me. And the girls too. You find them and tell them their dad loved them.

TWELVE

Amy Trossen looked up at the wall clock above the filing cabinet opposite her desk. Three-fifteen. It had been three-fifteen for at least twenty minutes. Fridays never seemed to end, now that they marked the beginning of her weekends with Javad. She opened the desk file drawer and lifted the flap of her navy leather handbag, checking for the fifth time since noon to see that she had remembered the latest list of names. He had called last evening, asking her to come to Philadelphia this time, even though she was expecting him in Arlington.

“I want to make this weekend something special,” he said.

“Special? In what way?”

“It’s a surprise. Just get here as early as you can tomorrow. I can’t wait to see you.”

“Javad, that’s not fair. You know I can’t stand surprises. Give me a hint.”

“Would you still like to quit that job and move to Philadelphia?”

Her heart leapt and she started to speak but choked in mid-sentence. “Please don’t…don’t tease me. You know I want that more than anything.”

“Then you’d better get your own passport current if it isn’t already. We may need it in a week or two.”

“For Paris? Like we talked about?”

“And the Riviera. Maybe Rome.”

“We can skip the Riviera. You know I hate myself in a swimsuit.”

“You look wonderful to me in anything…or nothing. But I don’t think we’ll have much time to swim anyway.”

She laughed coyly, still embarrassed but excited by his intimacy.

“I’ve had my passport ready for months. Should I give notice tomorrow?”

“Just quit. Use vacation.”

“I can’t do that. They’ll need time to find someone, and….”

“All right. Two weeks’ notice. But not a minute longer.”

The call had left her too excited to sleep and too giddy now to concentrate on her work. She glanced again at the clock. Three twenty-one. Nine minutes until she dropped her resignation on Mr. Rose’s desk and tried to slip out to miss some of the weekend traffic while Rose had his coronary. An early start could shave fifty minutes off the trip. But Rose would probably spend thirty minutes trying to talk her out of it, dogging her around the office like a bloodhound until quitting time.

“Busy right up to four-thirty,” he would say, his round red face beading with sweat. “Just because we’re moving on doesn’t mean we can quit early today. There are people counting on us.” Everything was plural to Mr. Rose.

As she thought of her boss, he stepped from his glass-faced office and signaled for her to come. Amy pushed the drawer closed with her knee and picked up a note pad. Worse yet, he might get her into the middle of some unfinished business and ask her to stay late.

Another gentleman was with Rose in the office, a good looking fiftyish man in an expensive gray suit. He stood as she entered, awaiting Rose’s introduction. Her boss ignored the prompt.

“Amy Trossen,” she said, extending her hand.

“Chris Falen. The Secretary’s office called this morning to see if you people here could assist with something I’m working on. Your colleagues tell me you are the person who might be able to help.”

“I’m flattered. I’ll certainly do what I can.” She hoped his problem wouldn’t keep her beyond four-thirty.

“I don’t think this will take very long,” Mr. Falen said, seeming to read her mind. “But we need to speak confidentially. Is there a room we could use, Mr. Rose?”

Rose fumbled with a pile of folders on his desk and dropped them into a battered briefcase. “Use mine. I’ve got to drop these off over at State and no one will bother you. Just pull the door shut as you leave. It locks itself.”

Mr. Falen nodded pleasantly and beckoned Amy to a chair beside a small conference table in the corner of Rose’s office. As her boss hurriedly left the room, the man with the special assignment from the Secretary pulled a chair up beside her and drew a folded sheet of paper from the inside breast pocket of his jacket. Amy decided that up close, he looked older than fifty.

“We’re trying to find a common link among some people,” he said. “They’re all recent passport applicants and we thought someone in this office might see something we’re overlooking.” He unfolded the paper and spread it in front of her on the table.

As Amy scanned the list, an icy hand gripped her stomach and squeezed it into a cold, cramping knot.

              Lynn Ashland, Minneapolis, MN

              James Cannon, Portland, OR

              Robert J. Carter, Cincinnati, OH

              Marshall D. Chambers, New York, NY

              Phyllis Douglas, Dallas, TX

The last name on the list was not in alphabetical order but had been written in by hand; Arthur Ramirez, Albuquerque, NM. She slowly drew a deep breath to fight the suffocating cramp.

“I’m afraid I can’t help much without more information about these people.”

“I believe there’s someone in this office who will see the connection without needing more information.”

“Perhaps we should ask that person.”

“That’s why I specifically wanted you, Ms. Trossen.”

“You think it might be me?” She knew she was lying badly.

“I hoped it might be. I’m not suggesting this connection’s necessarily a negative one.”

She again looked at the list. “I can’t imagine you investigating a positive one. As much as I’d like to help, I’m afraid I’m not the right person.”

He reached again into his inside pocket, drew out another sheet of paper and spread it on top of the first. It was a photocopy of Amy’s bank statement.

“Maybe this will help,” Mr. Falen said in a tone that wavered between patience and irritation. “Some months ago you started getting a nice little salary supplement. From what I can tell from some of your friends, you haven’t taken on another job. Do you want to tell me about this?”

The icy fist that held Amy’s stomach gave it another twist and reached up into her mind to pull out even colder thoughts.

“Am I being investigated, Mr. Falen?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that, exactly. But I’ve got a situation here that I think you can help me with.”

She sat erect and swallowed hard. “Why don’t you just come to the point? Tell me why you want to know about these people.”

“Let me ask, and you answer,” he said coolly.

She turned to him, feeling thin and homely and afraid.

“I don’t know if I have the answers you want. If you tell me why you’re interested in these people, I might better understand how I can help.”

Mr. Falen’s pale eyes studied her carefully for a long moment, looking beyond her own and back into her thoughts to watch her struggle. He reached over and lifted the list of names back onto the bank statement.

“These people all disappeared without a trace while they were traveling overseas,” he said simply.

Amy closed her eyes slowly and let the questions all rush forward. Could the names have come from some place other than her lists? Could someone else be getting them from Javad without him knowing? Could she have allowed herself to be…? She knew that she could and her insides turned to gelatin as she leaned forward onto her hands.

“Somebody’s caught you in something here, haven’t they Ms. Trossen?”  Mr. Falen said quietly. She nodded slightly.

“This probably isn’t the best place to talk about it. Get what you need from your desk and let’s go somewhere.”

Without knowing how, Amy found her desk and collected her purse, following Christopher Falen out of the building. He drove south to the west end of the Capitol Mall where they walked beside the reflecting pool while she told him about Javad Esfarjahni, the carpet shop in Philadelphia, and his plan to expand the business by marketing to travel-minded people nationwide. She finished with his phone call of the evening before.

“You got screwed over,” he said. “I know how you must feel.”

She stopped abruptly and turned on him, her face pale and drawn. “You can’t have any idea how I feel. You can’t even begin to…” She found herself shaking a tight fist in his face, wanting to chase him from her life and memory and return to the delicious, lusty warmth she’d basked in as she’d driven to work eight hours earlier. She wanted Javad to be with her. To tell her it wasn’t true. To slap across the face until he bled while she screamed that she hated him. To wrap her in his arms and make her forget that anything else mattered.

Falen looked into her quivering fist without expression. “I know this doesn’t help much, but you aren’t the first person to fall for this kind of thing. The meeting at the Kennedy Center wasn’t an accident. You were singled out because of what you know.”

“And because of who I am,” she whispered. “A silly, ugly, lonely old maid who just wanted…” Tears stung her eyes and a lump choked her words into a moaning sob.

She turned her face away from him and they walked in silence.

“Are these names the only ones you’ve given him?” Falen asked after a few moments.

She shook her head. “I gave him four or five each time. Your list only has one or two from each group.”

“Have you given him any names since Ramirez?”

Amy stopped again and took the new list from her purse.

“I’m supposed to give these to him tonight.”

He opened the paper and scanned the list quickly. “Would you still be willing to take it?”

She shook her head violently. Mr. Falen looked down the reflecting pool toward the Washington Monument, then back at the names.

“I’m the only one who knows about this, Ms. Trossen. The State Department gave me permission to talk to you because they knew I was working on something important, but they don’t have any idea what. You screwed up. But you were a victim. Not the first. Not the last. It’s not the worst thing that’s ever happened in this town and I could probably forget about it. But I’d need some help from you.”

“I won’t go see him,” she said emphatically. “If I did, I’d start crying and would probably ruin everything anyway. You do to me what you have to, but I won’t go see him”.

“Would you call him? Tell him you’re sick and you’ll send him the list.”

“If I say I’m sick, he’ll come. He’s very good that way. What is it exactly you’re trying to get done?”

“I want to know what happened to these twenty-nine people.”

“Why don’t you just go pick him up and ask him?” Her voice snapped bitterly, partly at Falen, partly at her betraying lover.

“Because I suspect he won’t tell me. I need to watch him work one of these through. How about calling to say your mother in New Hampshire’s been in an accident and you need to go up there to be with her. If you have trouble controlling your voice, that would explain it.”

“My mother? She’s in St. Louis - or dead by now. Javad knows I haven’t heard from her in years.

“She’s in New Hampshire,” Falen said. “She married seven years ago and lives in Keene.”

Amy turned to him again, surprised and disgusted at this man who knew so much about her.

“Javad still wouldn’t believe the story. Why would I go see her

now?”

“If she was in a wreck and someone called to tell you, wouldn’t you go see her?”

Amy remembered the late nights in the yellow house on Taylor Avenue. She had often thought since that she had grown up with a woman much like herself. Someone who needed to be loved and didn’t know how to go about it.

“You know a lot about me, don’t you, Mr. Falen?”

”I think I know enough to believe you can pull this off. Will you?”

Amy again started to walk. She felt Javad’s hands touching her face. His body pressed against her as he kissed her neck and whispered that she was beautiful. She wondered what he thought when she left him; if he laughed at her thin, shapeless body and joked about her obsessive affection for him. “Yes,” she said. “I’ll call him. What do I need to say?”

“Tell him you just got the call and you’re leaving tonight, will mail the list on your way out of town, and will call as soon as you know something.”

“What if he asks about the marriage plans and the trip to Europe?”

“If he’s playing the considerate role you say he is, he won’t. He’ll tell you everything will be fine.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

“You play him for a change. Tell him that if he really loves you he’ll understand how important this is. He won’t give you any trouble. Do you have a cell phone with you?”

They found a quiet place north of the Vietnam Memorial and Falen stood beside her as she made the call.

“If he asks about the traffic, tell him you just left your building,” he suggested.

She didn’t cry. In fact, it had been easy. And Falen was right about Javad’s response. He consoled her gently and told her she was doing the right thing and to take what time she needed.

“How will I make it through a week without you?” he murmured. She closed her eyes, and worked to relax her clenched jaw.

“I’ll call as soon as I can. It may not be long. She’s in very serious condition.”