Challenge (11 page)

46.

Grym arrived at the top of the impossibly long escalator leading from the Metro station, shielding his eyes from the intense sunlight. He took a moment to get his bearings, then found the street sign he was after, thinking that Washington was one of the most difficult cities to navigate. The briefcase felt ridiculously heavy given its lack of contents. The burden was more psychological than physical.

He trudged down the sidewalk, fighting for a chance to walk a straight line instead of stepping out of the way of people, increasingly upset at the lack of any system. In his world there was power and obedience, absolute order when required. Never mind that his soldiers were druggies and dropouts; they followed orders. His orders. Or his brother’s. The world could do with a little less chaos and a lot more order.

He took a left, walked three blocks, and then a right. He stopped just long enough to drink in the beauty of the old cathedral. A recently constructed sign out front read:
THE CHURCH OF HIGHER PURPOSE
. It displayed the time of services and the television channel that carried a live broadcast.

Step by step, he climbed toward the church’s massive door. Suddenly the briefcase felt heavier than ever.

47.

Steel sat at a table in the back of Starbucks, but only a few footsteps from the side door and freedom. He didn’t recognize anyone, and wouldn’t have trusted them even if he had. He kept an eye out for the woman from the platform and the man from the train. That was why he’d picked a table near the side door. Kaileigh was his secret weapon. She’d been in another tree across the street when the agent had cut the deal with Steel. On her way down, she’d spotted the other agent watching Steel. If it hadn’t been for her, Steel would have never known about that guy. Now she was sitting at an outside table near the side door, sipping an iced drink from a straw, keeping watch. They had a clear view of each other through the plate glass. If she removed the straw from the lid, then that was the signal that someone she recognized was coming. He’d be ready to run, and she’d be dumping her chair as a roadblock, the second he cleared the side door.

He knew he was in big trouble. He’d left the challenge without permission. The federal agent was trying to protect him from something. There was no way to undo that kind of stuff, but the idea of seeing his mom and of possibly remaining in the competition kept him in his chair.

Kaileigh had bought him an iced vanilla cream, and his stomach appreciated it. He waited. He wanted help finding his father. He wanted to give back the briefcase. He saw the chance to start all over, and he wanted that more than anything.

He kept watch, his eyes ticking between the shop’s front door and the lid to Kaileigh’s drink. The loud lady behind the counter seemed to be looking right at him. He overheard mention of the science challenge. For a few days, fourteen-year-olds in this town were rock stars: the
Washington Post
had run the headline “Teen Einsteins.”

There were other kids in the coffee shop, all accompanied by at least one parent. He recognized some of them from the challenge. There were laptops open, cell phones in use.

Kaileigh pulled the straw from her drink. In the process the lid came off, and the drink spilled all over the place.

The front door opened. It was the same agent—tall, with a magazine-cover face. Steel tensed as the agent looked over at him.

About to flee out the side door, Steel spotted his mother. Suddenly he felt a lump in his throat. He wanted to run over to her, but for some reason he restrained himself. He didn’t know how much trouble he was in, wasn’t sure if he should tell her about having seen his father. Would she believe him, or think it was a lame excuse?

As the two reached his table, he finally stood and his mother hugged him. He actually hugged her back. She started crying, and he felt awful for having taken off.

“I’m fine, Mom,” he reassured her.

They sat down. The man introduced himself as United States Deputy Marshal Larson. But they knew each other from the train station.

The marshal offered to get them both something. Steel ordered a hot chocolate with whipped cream and a cinnamon roll. His mother requested a latte with skim milk and shavings.

With Larson away from the table, Steel’s mother said, “I was so worried.” She stared at him through wet eyes. Then she reached over and touched the back of his hand. Her nails were chewed.

“I was all right, Mom.”

“You scared me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Was it something I did?” she said. “Did I embarrass you or something?”

“Mom…”

“A woman whom Marshal Larson believes is the same woman from the train platform…”

Steel couldn’t keep the surprise off his face.

“She threatened me…us. Told us to leave.”

“It’s complicated,” Steel said. He looked over to make sure the marshal wasn’t listening in. “Dad was backstage at the challenge. He was watching me.”

Judy Trapp jumped like she’d grabbed on to an electric wire.

“That’s why I took off. But he took off, too. Why would he do that?”

“I…I don’t mean to be disrespectful, Steel,” his mother said, “but I think if your father were here, I would know about it. Don’t you?”

“Whatever,” Steel said. “I knew you wouldn’t believe me.”

“It’s not that.”

“Of course it is. You never believe me on stuff like that. Why do you think I took off? It was Dad.”

Larson returned. He was a lot nicer than Steel had expected. Halfway through his hot chocolate, Steel found himself telling Larson about seeing the woman leave the briefcase on the train and some of what followed.

Larson looked at him intensely. “Your mother told me some of that. And while it’s all important to us, it still doesn’t explain their continuing interest in you.”

Steel glanced out the window. Kaileigh was at her table, looking like she was about to come out of her skin. She clearly couldn’t believe he was talking to the agent. Steel considered waving her inside, but feared he might upset her by doing so. If she wanted to come in, she’d come in.

“There’s more, isn’t there?” the marshal asked.

He looked up at his mother, then over at Marshal Larson. One promise he’d always kept with his parents was not lying to them. A few fibs, to be sure, but never a major lie.

He considered that Larson was basically a federal cop, and wondered if Larson would arrest him for having messed with the briefcase.

Larson apparently sensed his coming to grips with this. “My job,” he said, “is to protect you and keep you out of trouble. I’m not here to punish you, Steel. I want to help.”

“Sure you do,” Steel said sarcastically.

“Steel!” his mother said sharply.

“At some point, you have to trust someone,” the marshal said.

Steel thought about this. It was true: he hadn’t trusted or believed anyone but Kaileigh lately, and it was wearing on him.

“You were curious,” the man continued. “I would have been too.”

His mother’s reproachful look stung him.

“I went back to check on Cairo,” Steel said. “Remember, Mom? That first day? And there was the briefcase. They’d put it in the lost and found.” He recounted how temptation had won out and he’d explored the briefcase, resulting in one of the feet coming unscrewed. He left out anything about Kaileigh.

He felt the marshal’s penetrating eyes on him. “You never got the briefcase open?”

“No!” Steel answered a little too hotly. “I promise. I never opened it.”

“Which brings us to what you saw inside.”

Steel made the mistake of meeting his mother’s eyes.

“Steel?” she said curiously, “did you
see
something?”

“I told you: I never got it open.”

“Something’s scaring you, Steel,” the marshal said. “And it has to be more than simply picking up that briefcase.”

So Steel told him. He blurted it out. “There was this photograph…this lady…all tied up and stuff…and it really freaked me out because her mouth was taped and she looked…I don’t know how to describe it…but it was for real…and I couldn’t give it back…not if it meant they were going to do something bad to her…and why was the briefcase so important if they
weren’t
going to hurt her?”

“You kept it,” the marshal stated. His voice carried both surprise and something that bordered on relief. “You kept the briefcase.
That
is why they’re after you.
That,”
he said to Steel’s mother, “is why the woman threatened you. Whatever’s in that briefcase puts you both at risk.”

Steel’s mother and the federal agent stared at him. Their attention felt like the hot lights onstage at the challenge.

“I…ah…” he said.

“I didn’t see any briefcase when we stopped you in Union Station,” the marshal said.

“I…hid it. In Cairo’s crate. The back of her crate.”

His mother’s face once again held both shock and disappointment.

He said, “I didn’t know what else to do.”

“It’s okay, son. Where is it now? Where’s the briefcase, Steel?”

“You know who that woman is, don’t you?” Steel said accusingly. “What’s with that? What’s going on?”

“Steel! Please excuse him, officer. He’s upset.”

“They want the briefcase. Where’s the briefcase, Steel?”

“Who says I still have it?”

“Steel! I won’t have you talking like that. Answer the man.”

“I checked it at the station.”

The marshal exhaled audibly. “Do you have a ticket stub? A receipt?”

He nodded.

His mother’s face knotted in concern.

Steel asked, “Please, can I still be in the challenge?”

48.

Grym’s footfalls reverberated on the cold stone floor, the former cathedral’s vaulted ceiling towering overhead. The Church of Higher Purpose occupied what had, for nearly two centuries, been a Catholic cathedral. Its ancient pews were now covered with deep-purple velvet cushions; stage lights were mounted high at the top of the stone columns; several scaffolding rigs held large television cameras. There was a public-address sound system suitable for a rock concert. Grym had been raised a Catholic, and he found the setting both soothing and confusing. It looked more like a television studio than a church.

When he reached the altar, out of habit he crossed himself. He then moved to the right. He passed through a door, down a more modern hallway that carried framed posters announcing stadium prayer events, and listing “The Right Reverend Jimmy Case” in bold letters. He heard the hum of computers. A man stepped into the hallway and greeted him with a false smile.

“Hello, sir! Welcome. These are actually private offices. There’s a sign—” He paused as Grym walked right past him, gently connecting shoulders. “Sir? Excuse me!”

Grym turned. “Reverend Case is expecting me.”

He reached the door marked
OFFICE
and walked in without knocking. There, he was greeted by a male secretary, equally surprised by the intrusion. As the secretary rose to intercept him, Grym held up a hand. “No visitors,” he said. He let himself in through the only door available.

THE RIGHT REVEREND JIMMY CASE
, read the name plaque at the edge of an enormous antique writing desk. On the walls hung dozens of framed photographs of Case with prominent politicians. Lots of forced smiles.

The Reverend occupied the chair behind the desk, looking as though he’d been saddled with an enormous burden. The two had never met, but Case had no question as to who this man was. Grym placed the briefcase on the edge of the desk, removed the photograph, and set it down in front of the television preacher.

“Sunday morning,” Grym said. He shut the case, turned, and walked to the door.

“Don’t hurt her,” the man’s quavering voice called out.

“That’s up to you,” Grym said, with his back turned toward the man. “Entirely up to you.”

49.

Larson pulled a veil of calm over his troubled face as he stood waiting and watching the boy ransack his own belongings.

“I swear,” Steel said, “I put the ticket—the receipt, the claim tag—in the Bible. It was the one place I knew my mother wouldn’t look.”

Judy Trapp pursed her lips and blushed. “The room’s been cleaned,” she said. “Perhaps it fell out during the cleaning.”

“Has anything else been disturbed?” Larson asked.

“What are you suggesting?” Judy Trapp said.

“Please. Look around. Other than a typical hotel cleaning, has anything changed?”

“It would be easier to answer that if it hadn’t been cleaned,” Judy said.

Mother and son took a moment to check their belongings.

Steel looked over at the agent. “Someone got in here? Is that what you’re saying? Is that possible? Did that man take my claim check?”

“What man?” asked Deputy Marshal Larson.

50.

Natalie Shufman had spotted the contact from across the lobby an hour earlier. She hadn’t recognized him—not his face, anyway. It was the way he walked. The way he moved. A determination about him. An
evil
about him that she’d come to identify. She’d traveled in a dark world for a long time now, but there was no getting used to it. Seeing this guy, she immediately feared for the boy: he’d come here to harm the boy, to question the boy, to kill the boy. She had little doubt about this.

She’d warned the mother too late. The mother hadn’t listened. It was all going impossibly wrong. Because of her, a boy’s life was now in jeopardy. She wouldn’t be able to live with herself if anything happened to him. She had to do something.

She had to follow—to keep an eye on the boy.

To protect the boy at all costs.

51.

Steel waited to hear something about the briefcase. The agent had left to retrieve it—if possible. He stole a glance into his mother’s troubled eyes. Her silence told him that she was furious. Whatever her initial concern for him had been, she now seemed to be considering how to punish him appropriately.

He hoped the marshal would return: he had much more to tell him. He wanted to figure out what was going on with his dad, for one thing.

“What about the challenge?” he asked, testing to see if she was ready to talk.

“How can you think about that
now?”
she asked, barely containing her anger.

He knew she was thinking of his dad. How could she not be?

“I’d still like to compete in the challenge, if I can,” he said. He knew she’d want this as well; it all depended on how mad she was. “I was only trying to help. I thought she’d left her briefcase.”

“And if you’d left it at that, we wouldn’t be here.” She started to look over at him, but her eyes never lifted off the floor. The words came painfully for her. “What you did was
wrong.
On the train, you said you were going to the bathroom while I was on the phone.”

“I didn’t actually
say
anything.” This was a matter of honor for Steel—a longstanding promise. “And when I came back, I didn’t tell you about finding the briefcase—I admit that—but I didn’t lie about it either.”

“Semantics.”

“I didn’t lie,” he mumbled. Then he gathered his courage. “Are you and Dad getting a divorce?”

He appreciated the shock that registered on her face, because it said to him she’d never heard of such a thing—had never considered it. Either that, or she’d been expecting the question and was now acting.

“What?” she muttered.

“You and Dad.”

“Divorce? Steel, I love your father. As far as I know, he loves me. Whatever gave you such an idea?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Him missing the challenge, for one. And all those secret phone calls you’re always having. And the way you don’t talk about him, and you don’t let me talk to him. I don’t know.”

“He’s…” She screwed up her face while contemplating how to answer. “He’s busy.”

“Selling stuff. I’m sure.”

“Don’t give me that tone, young man. He’s busy, and you’re going to have to accept that the same way I do.”

“You’re lying to me,” he said. “I can see it in your eyes, and don’t try to tell me you’re not. And if you can lie, then why are the rules different for me?”

She met his eyes. Then she glanced at the door, as if someone might come in. But the door was locked and bolted, so that was unlikely. She said, “Your father’s not a salesman.”

Steel’s breath caught. He swallowed. “Okay…”

“His job is extremely dangerous, and it’s secret in nature, and so…he thought it better to use what I guess you’d call a cover story—to protect
you.
Not him. His concern was always for you.” She pushed some hair behind her ear, a nervous gesture he was well familiar with. “He’s an FBI agent, Steel.” She watched for his response, and although he felt as if he’d eaten ice cream too fast, he tried to give nothing away. He wanted more. “Undercover work. The highest security clearance. He reports to a man who reports to the director. That may not sound like much, but it’s a big deal if you’re in the FBI.”

He wanted to discuss who had lied to whom. He wanted to explode in a rant and let her know just how upsetting it was to hear this. But it was also incredibly cool—his father an FBI agent—and it seemed the longer he kept his mouth shut, the more she talked. He knew this about her anyway: when his mother got nervous she could talk your ear off—although most of the time she said little of interest when in this state.

“He’s been on a case,” she continued. “I’m not supposed to know any of this, but I do. And with your memory…well…for once you’ve got to forget everything I’m about to tell you.” She waited for him to nod. “He was working on a case involving a gang in the Chicago area with ties to very bad people. Someone must have found out about him, and they sabotaged his plane. The plane caught fire. If he wasn’t such a good pilot…” She held herself together, but was clearly on the verge of losing it. “But he pulled off an emergency landing. No one could know he was alive after that. And he was worried about us. That’s why he’s missing the science challenge. He didn’t want us on that train. We argued, and I misunderstood, and I put us on that train for all the wrong reasons. You knew I was upset, but I couldn’t explain. It’s a difficult and dangerous case he’s on. It’s had me rattled, and I’m sorry for that. Usually your father and I talk at least once a day, sometimes for hours. On this current assignment he rarely checks in, and when he does…when we’ve spoken…it’s just that he doesn’t want to lie to you, and he knew you’d have questions—”

“You think?”

“Don’t get short with me, young man.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s complicated,” she said.

“You’ve lied to me for
years.
Both of you! I can’t believe this.”

“We knew you were getting old enough to talk to about it. I honestly think your dad intended to do that on this trip. And then he couldn’t take the trip, and I know how upset he is about it.”

“And you know nothing about whatever it is he’s doing?” he asked skeptically.

“We established a long time ago that I’d know nothing about his work. The families of undercover agents…well…we’re
all
at risk because of what he does. The more we know, the greater the risk. It’s better this way. Difficult, but safer for all.”

“But…” Steel struggled with what she was telling him. “Are you telling me…?” He couldn’t articulate all the thoughts and emotions swirling in his head and heart. It was like a loud rock song was generating a searing line of heat between his ears. He wanted to run. He felt cheated.
All this time,
he thought. “FBI?” he managed to croak out.

“I know it’s a lot to take in,” she said. “We’d always planned on telling you together. It’s really his right to tell you, not mine. But given the circumstances…”

A knock on the door sent a jolt flooding through him. His mother collected herself—he hadn’t noticed she had been crying through her explanation. She called out, “Just a minute!” toward the door, and she blew her nose and checked herself in the bathroom mirror. She then peered through the peephole and said, “It’s Marshal Larson.”

She opened the door. Larson, looking grave, stepped into the room and bolted the door behind him.

“It’s gone,” he said. “Someone…a man…claimed the briefcase an hour ago.”