I didn't think she believed me, but she said, 'I would advise you to wear body armor. I have extras here I can loan you.'
I had the urge to strip and show Ms. Lopez that bullets just passed through me with no effect. I said, 'Thank you, but-'
Kate interrupted, 'Thank you, we'll borrow the body armor.' She informed Ms. Lopez, 'Never ask a man if he wants a bulletproof vest or a pair of mittens. Just make him put it on.'
Ms. Lopez smiled knowingly.
Well, I was feeling really special now, surrounded by nurturing, caring females who knew what was best for dopy little Johnny. But then I thought about Asad Khalil, and I hoped they had a vest in my size.
So off we went into their locked armament room behind a steel door. Inside the room were all the goodies- rifles, shotguns, stun grenades, handcuffs, and so on.
Ms. Lopez said, 'You can try the vests on in the men's and ladies' room, if you wish.'
Kate thanked Agent Lopez as she left.
I took off my tie, jacket, and shirt, and said to Kate, 'I won't peek.'
She took off her Heinz ketchup jacket and her blouse, and I peeked.
We both found our size and strapped on the body armor. I said, 'This is just like a scene in the X-Files-'
'Stop with the fucking X-Files.'
'But doesn't it bug you that those two never get it on?'
'She doesn't love him. She respects him and he respects her, and they don't want to lose or complicate that special relationship of trust.'
'Say again?'
'Personally, I think they should be fucking by now.'
We exited the armory and thanked Agent Lopez. Chuck, who had picked us up at the community hospital heliport, escorted us back out to the parking lot and drove us toward the house of Mr. Elwood 'Chip' Wiggins.
A lot of thoughts ran through my mind as the car moved west toward the left coast. I'd come a long way to be here, but Mr. Asad Khalil had come a much longer way. His journey had begun in a place called Al Azziziyah somewhere in Libya, a long time ago. He and Chip Wiggins had, for a few brief minutes, shared a point in space and time on the night of April 15, 1986. Now, Asad Khalil wanted to repay the visit, and Mr. Wiggins didn't know he had company calling. Or, Chip Wiggins had already met Asad Khalil, and the business was finished. In that case, no one would show up at the Wiggins house, ever. But if Wiggins and Khalil had not yet met, I wondered who would be the first to come walking up the driveway.
The sunlight was almost gone, and the streetlights had come on.
As we approached Wiggins' neighborhood, Chuck radioed ahead to the stakeout units around Wiggins' house, so that they didn't get nervous or trigger-happy. Chuck then used his cell phone to call the agents inside the Wiggins house for the same reason, and I said, 'Tell them to put coffee on.'
Chuck didn't pass this along, and I could tell by his end of the phone conversation that the agents in the house weren't thrilled about the unexpected company. Fuck 'em. It's still my case.
Anyway, we drove through the long, straight streets of a suburban neighborhood that Chuck said was near the ocean, though I didn't see or smell the ocean. All the houses were on undersized lots, and the houses themselves were all single-story stucco boxes with attached garages and red-tile roofs, plus at least one palm tree per house. It didn't seem to be an expensive neighborhood, but in California, there was no way to tell, and neither did I care. I said to Chuck, 'Were these houses always here, or did they come down in a mudslide from the mountains?'
Chuck chuckled and replied, 'They slid down from the last earthquake, which preceded the wildfires.'
I liked Chuck.
Happily, I didn't spot any of the stakeout units, and more happily, I didn't spot any kids around.
Chuck said, 'That's the house on the right-second from the cross street.'
'You mean the white stucco with the red-tile roof and the palm tree?'
'Yeah… they all… second from the end.'
Kate, riding in the rear, kicked the back of my seat, which was some sort of signal, I guess.
Chuck said, 'I'll stop, you exit, and off I go. Front door is unlocked.'
I'd noticed when I got in the car that the interior lights had been disconnected, just like on the East Coast, which was reassuring. It was possible these people knew what they were doing.
The car stopped, Kate and I got out quickly, and without running moved up the broken concrete walkway. To the right of the door was a large picture window with the Venetian blinds shut. In my old neighborhood, the whole block would have been hip to the strange goings-on by this time, but this block looked like a scene from a 1950s B-movie where everyone is dead from atomic radiation. Or maybe the Feds had evacuated the neighborhood.
So, I opened the door, and in we went. There was no foyer, and we found ourselves in a combination L- shaped living room/dining room, lit only by a single dim table lamp. A man and a woman stood in the middle of the room, wearing blue slacks and shirts, FBI nylon windbreakers with creds attached. They had big grins on their faces, and their hands were outstretched in greeting. Not really.
The man did say, 'I'm Roger Fleming, and this is Kim Rhee.'
Ms. Rhee was Oriental, now called East Asian, and by her name I guessed she was of Korean ethnicity. Roger was white bread and mayonnaise. I said, 'I guess you know our names-I'm the one called Kate.'
Agent Fleming did not smile and neither did Agent Rhee. Some people get all serious when they're waiting around for a deadly shoot-out. Cops tend to yuck it up, probably to cover their nervousness, but the Feds take everything seriously, including, I'm sure, a day at the beach.
Agent Rhee inquired, 'How long will you be staying?'
I replied, 'As long as it takes.'
Kate said, 'We don't intend to become involved with the actual apprehension of the suspect, if he shows up here, unless you need us. We're here only to help identify him, and to take a statement after he's apprehended. Also, we will escort him back to New York or Washington to answer a variety of Federal charges.'
That wasn't exactly what I had in mind, but it was good for Fleming and Rhee to hear that one of us was sane.
Ms. Mayfield continued her mission statement and said, 'If Mr. Wiggins shows up first, then we'll interview him and ask that he turn over the premises to us, then someone here can escort him to another location. In either case, we intend to remain in this house waiting for the suspect, who we believe is headed this way.'
Ms. Rhee replied, 'We have determined that six is the optimum number of agents we want in the house for safety and logistical reasons. So if the suspect shows up at this location, we'll ask you to take a position in a back room, which we'll show you.'
I said, 'Look, Ms. Rhee, Mr. Fleming, we could all be here a long time, sharing the bathroom and bedrooms, so why don't we cut the shit and try to get along? Okay?'
No response.
Kate, to her credit, changed her tone and said, 'We've worked this case since Asad Khalil landed in New York. We've seen over three hundred dead people aboard the aircraft he arrived in, we've had a member of our team murdered, our secretary murdered, and the duty officer murdered.'
And so on. She put it to them, too nicely, I thought, but they got the message and actually nodded when Kate was finished.
Meanwhile, I looked around the living room, which was sparse, yet tasteless. Also, untidy, which I'd like to blame on the Feds, but which I thought was probably a reflection of Mr. Wiggins' attitude toward life.
Ms. Rhee offered to introduce us to her colleagues, and we followed her into the kitchen, while Mr. Fleming took up his position at the front picture window, peering through the Venetian blinds. High-tech. But, of course, someone on stakeout would tip us if anyone approached the house.
The kitchen was dimly lit by a soft fluorescent bulb under a cabinet, but I could see that the kitchen was circa 1955, and in it were another man and woman, also wearing the urban commando outfit of dark trousers, dark blue shirts, and nylon windbreakers. Their blue baseball caps sat on the counter. The man was seated at the small kitchen table, reading a stack of case reports with a flashlight. The woman was positioned at the back door, peering through the small door window.
Ms. Rhee introduced us to the gentleman, whose name, like my own, was Juan, though his last name was a mouthful of Spanish that I didn't catch. The lady was black, and her name was Edie. She gave us a wave as she
