The Left-Handed Truth Chapter 22

Chapter 22 : We need to talk.

He reached in his pocket pulled out a typical government identification folder and opened without looking. He was Special Agent Fred Kosloski, F.B.I.

“Thanks. I was pretty sure you were from the Bureau.”

“Oh, and why did you think that?”

“Look, I know Nicole wasn’t supposed to tell anyone where she was or what she was doing, but I was able to track her down by fairly straightforward means. She boarded a chartered private jet in Saginaw. A friend in the business told me who owned the aircraft and where it was going.

“Once I knew it was heading to Beverly, I went back to my files on the Hepplinger Foundation where Nicole works and started digging. When I came across SOCK, I noticed there were some strange things about it. I made an educated guess. When I heard about the explosion here, I put two and two together. Nicole never told me anything about this project. I figured it out on my own.”

He looked at me right in the eye and didn’t blink. He was trying to make up his mind about something.

“Wait here,” he said at length, turning to walk back toward the other suited man. He had a few words with him, then started back toward me.

“Come with me,” he said. “I want you to talk to someone.”

I really didn’t have much choice. I had to know what happened to Nicole and this was the first hint that I might be getting somewhere. I followed him to another ubiquitous black SUV and got in the passenger side. We drove in silence westward to what looked like a secure area in the industrial part of town. A gate guard checked the driver’s identification and waved us forward.

We pulled up in front of a nondescript building that might have been offices with a warehouse in the back. I didn’t need to be told to follow agent Kosloski. We stepped into a room that looked like a reception area.

“I’ll be back in a couple of minutes,” the agent said. “Help yourself to a coffee if you like.”

“Thanks,” I nodded.

Just what I needed, more caffeine. Didn’t matter though, I made myself a coffee with extra cream and sat in an uncomfortable wooden chair that looked like it was older than my father. Kosloski was gone for over fifteen minutes before he returned, standing at the door he had gone through.

“Come in, please,” he said politely.

I was happy the attitude was good with this agent. I didn’t feel he was trying to intimidate me. I was ushered into an equally austere office and an older man, slim and dressed in the obligatory dark suit stood and stuck out his hand.

“I’m Special Agent Crandall, Mr. Travers. I’m in charge of the operation here. Have a seat. We need to talk.”

I nodded and sat in a slightly more comfortable wooden chair with a covered foam pad on the seat. It wasn’t the kind of chair I would expect if I was going to be interrogated.

“We’ve had a chance to look you up, Mr. Travers. You appear to be a solid citizen. No black marks against you. Agent Kosloski said you didn’t have much trouble tracking Ms. Carlisle here.”

“I have some contacts that the rest of the public wouldn’t have access to. I’m a reporter and I do feature stories. Some of the people I do stories on are grateful and when I need a favor, usually information, they often respond. As I told Agent Kosloski, it was a simple matter to find out where Nicole’s plane was headed.”

“You told him that you were able to look up Hepplinger files. How did you do that?”

“I wrote a feature piece on the foundation about eighteen months ago. I did quite a few interviews and a fair amount research on them as background. Not everything I learned went into the story, but I kept all the files anyway. As it turned out, Hepplinger only had five clients in this area and three of them were not likely to be subject to scrutiny by any government agency. The two that stuck out were FONE and SOCK. I checked out FONE and discovered it was almost dormant. SOCK, on the other hand, seemed to be dripping in cash and had grown exponentially since the Hepplinger grant had been issued.”

“And that alerted your ‘Spidey Senses,'” he grinned.

“Yes,” I chuckled at the strange metaphor.

“You’re very good at this, Mr. Travers. Unfortunately, if you could track us down that way, I’m sure others can too.”

“Look,” I interrupted. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m only here for one thing and that’s to find out what’s happened to my fiancée.”

“Well, you can relax. She survived the blast with fairly minor injuries. She’s lost some of her hearing, but our doctors think she will recover most if not all of it. The rest is cuts and bruises. She is one sore lady right now.”

I let my head fall back and let out an audible sigh of relief. “Thank God.”

“We’ve set up a field hospital in this building and as you can imagine, we’ve secured it pretty tightly. I can’t let you see her just yet, but I’m guessing later today I can slip you in for a few minutes.”

“Thank you. I have a cell phone. This is my number,” I said passing him my card.

“We’ll call you when it’s time. Relax, Mr. Travers. She’s going to be fine. You look like you’ve been through the wringer in the past eighteen hours, so get some rest.”

“Is this project of hers over now?” I asked.

He nodded, “Yes, it’s done. She did a hell of a job untangling the web that was woven by the people behind SOCK. We’ve got enough to round up the main characters in this mess. The explosion was an attempt to cover their tracks but it was bungled and besides, it was far too late for that. We’re keeping the survivors under wraps in case some fool tries to silence someone who knows what they’ve been up to.”

“Is Nicole still in any danger?”

“No. I don’t think anyone knew who she was. We never let anyone know she was with Hepplinger. As far as they knew, she was doing an audit for the I.R.S. They weren’t about to mess with a government agency until some nutbar decided to use C4 to put an end to their work here. Unfortunately for him, he went up with the building and took three of his comrades with him.

“Take care of that young lady, Mr. Travers. She’s someone special. Did she tell you I offered her a job in our forensics department?”

“No. She didn’t, but I’m not surprised. She refused to talk about anything related to her project.”

“Well, there you go. Shows you what kind of woman she is. Oh, by the way, I have something for you,” he said, opening a drawer and handing me a small envelope.

I opened it as saw her engagement ring and a gold chain and locket inside.

“Thanks. Thanks for taking care of her.”

“You might as well stick around if she’s going to be released in a day or so. We’ll give you a ride home to Saginaw on our plane. Much quicker and less hassle,” he grinned.