HQ stopped that as well. They did make some phone calls and found out that there was an expedition, which ended badly. Of course, they couldn’t confirm anything. All they could find out was that one boy apparently was consumed by some sort of ancient curse and another disappeared after the expedition. Nobody knows what happened to them for real.”
I knew Eric was just the messenger, and that he didn’t like giving us this news. He continued in a calm voice. “Pike, please, all we have is that some sort of ‘ancient curse’ caused the disappearance of a boy. If we ran after every rumor like that, we’d be spending all of our time chasing Bigfoot.”
“Okay. Fine. I’d like you to send a cable out to that effect. Can you at least do that?”
Eric shook his head. “Pike, I’d really like to help, but we’ve done more than we should have already. I’m not going to send out any more unsolicited cables. If HQ asks for clarification, I’ll do so, but I’m not sending anything else out on your say-so.”
I turned and walked away before I did something I’d regret, not even bothering to say good-bye to him. Jennifer caught up with me outside.
“What are we going to do now?”
“Nothing. We’re getting on a bus to Belize City and going home. We’re done.”
I said the last two words with more force than necessary, causing her to look up sharply. I covered up the slip, speaking softer. “Look, this is over. Nobody cares and we can’t do anything with it by ourselves. We gave it our best shot and got further than I thought we would. Let’s just get home and see if we’re going to be arrested for murder. We’re in enough trouble already without pushing this any further.”
“Well, I just don’t think we should quit.”
She saw me start to react and held up a hand. “Wait — before you go into asshole mode — hear me out. We believe that these guys are up to no good. Nobody else does, and maybe they’re right, but what if they’re not? Can’t we do something else? You’re the expert. Have we exhausted all our options?”
I thought about what she said, feeling a little slimy that I wanted to continue more for the sense of mission than saving anyone’s life.
“Well, if you want to foot the bill, we can go to D.C. and contact Kurt again. We don’t have a lot, but we do have a few things he hasn’t seen. We can give him the e-mail addresses for further tracking, get a real translation of the initial message, and tell him that the superficial investigation in Guatemala supports what we said. Is that what you want to do?”
We walked in silence for a minute. She said, “Yes.”
Jennifer crossed her arms. “Yeah. I
After exiting our flight in Atlanta, we proceeded down the narrow gateway funneling us into the customs complex of the United States. We had a connecting flight into Washington but still had to pass through U.S. Immigration to continue. We moved up to the counter together, where I showed my passport. The man behind the counter ran the bar code and stiffened.
I watched his expression turn to stone. He asked Jennifer, “Are you traveling together?”
She said yes and handed him her passport. He ran it through the scanner, his face showing no emotion. Turning back from the computer, he became pleasant.
“I’m afraid that I’m going to have to ask both of you to follow me. We’re going to need some additional information about your trip.”
I felt the hair stand up on the back of my neck.
Remaining pleasant, I asked, “Questions about what? We were only gone a few days. We can answer them right here.”
The customs agent remained deadpan, giving me no indication that he was a threat, but also no indication that he was friendly. “Sir, this won’t take but a couple of seconds. We’ve had some trouble with U.S. citizens coming back from Central America. All we want you to do is take a little survey to help us facilitate future travel. I don’t want to hold up the line here to do that. Once you’re done, you’ll be on your way.”
As we moved down the hallway to the secondary interrogation rooms, I dismissed the Charleston angle, since suspected murderers would have been arrested and handcuffed immediately. We were walking free and clear behind the customs official. I relaxed, thinking that maybe Kurt had set up a method to contact us, since he had left Belize before I could give him a phone number.
Entering the secondary interrogation area, I stood behind the customs official, listening to him tell the man at the desk who we were and where we were going. I waited while the man typed in the information. I saw a reflection of the computer screen on the windowpane to the man’s right. In it were the passport photos of both Jennifer and me, surrounded by words that were inverted due to the mirror image. I couldn’t make out what the paragraph underneath our pictures said, but did decipher the words above them: “WANTED FOR QUESTIONING ON SUSPECTED TERRORISM ACTIVITIES.” A spurt of adrenaline jolted my body.
Projecting an outward calm, I asked, “Can we use the bathroom before we do anything else? We haven’t had a chance to go since we landed.”
The agent said, “This won’t take a minute. Once we give you the surveys, you can do whatever you would like.”
I nodded, my mind racing. I knew what was about to happen. We would be separated and taken to different interrogation rooms. We would be locked in and questioned for hours. The interrogators would compare notes on the answers that we gave to see if they matched up. Using that information, they would continue the questioning. Since I hadn’t bothered to develop a cover story with Jennifer, it would do me no good to lie. Whatever I said wouldn’t match what Jennifer said. On top of that, Jennifer would more than likely tell the truth, believing that the truth would be the best course of action. Unfortunately, our story was so unbelievable that it would cause the customs agents to become
I had no idea why we were flagged in the Homeland Security system, but had no doubt that the second Jennifer mentioned two Arab terrorists with a WMD, we would be locked up until we could prove we weren’t associated with them. We could be detained for days, if not weeks.
To compound matters, I had to do it without harming the agents. This wasn’t their fault. They got paid to intercept terrorists.
The agent at the desk said, “Good to go. Rooms seven and thirteen. Rob and Kenny are tied up right now, but they’ll be down in ten minutes. They’ll meet you there.”
The first agent nodded, telling us, “Follow me.” He turned and punched in the code to the cipher lock of the door leading into the interior hallway, and presumably the secondary interrogation facilities. I checked out the man behind the computer, seeing that he had taken off his equipment belt and hung it on the wall behind him.
I knew why they were acting so pleasant — it was to prevent a scuffle in front of any passengers or other civilians. What I didn’t understand was why they had used only one agent to do this. They should have a man behind me and a man in front, preventing me from taking out both at the same time.
Before the man could open the door, I threw my left arm around his neck and drew the Glock 19 from the holster on the agent’s right hip. I raised my right leg and racked the slide of the Glock on the edge of my boot. I
