Simple Simon

Chapter Five The Bell Curve

G. Nicholas Kudrow usually paused only long enough at his secretary’s desk to grab the morning’s briefs, but her look this day stopped him cold.

“Mr. Folger is in there,” Sharon said, her expression hinting at the futile battle that had been fought and lost not long before.

“So he is,” Kudrow said, seeming not very surprised as he took the briefs in hand and entered his office.

Brad Folger, in an uncharacteristic three-piece gray number, sat in a chair facing Kudrow’s neat desk, his back to the door, the Lichtenstein staring down at him. “What time did they wake you up?”

Kudrow let the door close of its own accord and walked around his assistant. He placed his briefs where he would remember them in a few minutes and set his briefcase aside his desk. He did not sit. “At four this morning. And you?”

“I’ve been fucking awake since two!” Folger swore, his crossed legs and folded hands incongruous with the rage on his tired face.

Kudrow adjusted his glasses and moved his chair close before sitting. “You managed a shave.”

“A shave…” Folger’s posture loosened now, and he slid close to the desk, leaning toward Kudrow. “Are you fucking brain dead?”

“Watch it,” Kudrow snapped.

Folger fell back in mock apology. “Oh, pardon moi. I forgot — I wasn’t the one who brought Mike Bell in.”

“This wasn’t the plan.”

“You bring Bell in and you expected a plan to be followed?” Folger challenged.

“He fit the requirements. I didn’t know his weaknesses like you did.”

“Exactly why I was called in at two!”

“Ease up, Bradley,” Kudrow suggested with a coolness that hinted at waning patience.

“You knew he’d be linked to me,” Folger said.

“They came to my house,” Kudrow informed his deputy.

“Poor fucking Nick,” Folger said, standing angrily and showing Kudrow his back as he seethed.

Kudrow sensed the tantrum was over and let his deputy’s emotion simmer away while he began perusing the morning briefs.

Folger turned back to the sound of shuffling paper. “Nick, why didn’t you ask me about Bell? You knew I was the one that had him booted when I was in O.”

Nothing interesting from the stations in the Caribbean. “You answered your own question, Brad. What would you have told me?”

“Just what you think.”

“Next question.” Some tidbits, interestingly enough, from Chile. Traffic from the Russian Antarctic station to home. Ozone measurements. Surprise, the hole isn’t that big on their instruments either.

“Wonderful,” Folger commented through a dry throat. He felt parched, and like he’d stepped from the real world to some horrid parallel universe created a few days earlier by one stupid phone call. “So what did they ask you?”

“They asked me about you,” Kudrow said, hiding the pleasure, and power, he felt in doing so. He saved Europe for later. No one could figure that continent out before noon.

“Wonderful,” Folger repeated. He began pacing in the path worn by Kudrow.

“At least he died with his screw up,” Kudrow said. “And I can assure you things will be quite different now.”

Folger slowed, his feet taking a second to catch up with his brain, which had been frozen mid-thought by the statement. “Things? What things? You’re not going on with this?”

“If you will recall, Brad, as a Deputy Director I have authority to initiate investigations as needed to ensure the security of our product.” Kudrow noted the incredulous, gaping stare directed at him. “Or are you too frazzled to remember that? Do you need the day to recompose yourself?”

“You’re going to do it.”

“We are going to find out what we can about this kid who made the call. Right now we don’t know much, not even if your old O buddy learned anything before he died.”

My old O buddy. Folger looked away.

“All we know for sure is that the kid is staying with his doctor.”

“Why does he need a doctor?” Folger asked, the timbre sucked from his voice, replaced by a tired hollowness.

“He’s autistic.” Kudrow nodded when his assistant looked his way. “An interesting spin, wouldn’t you say.”

Folger chuckled weakly and rubbed his eyes. “An interesting spin. Yeah, that’s the way to look at it.”

Kudrow folded his hands slowly on his desk. “Maybe you need more than a day, Brad.”

Folger felt the threat slide by. His concern was elsewhere. “You know, Nick, if they know who Bell is, or was, this will go beyond the local police.”

“It already has.”

“I’m not talking about our security.”

Kudrow let his assistant’s worry die slowly without response. “The beauty of a rogue is that it explains itself eventually.”

“You hope,” Folger said.

Kudrow said nothing and returned to the morning briefs. Somewhere during the silence Folger left his office. When the door clicked shut, G. Nicholas Kudrow’s eyes came up and fixed on it for a long time.

Friday, noon, and Art Jefferson was already exhausted. He pressed his hands against his face and yawned hard. When he pulled them away, Lomax was standing in the doorway, mild smile twisted by the prominent scar on his cheek.

“You could scare children, you know.”

Lomax nodded and came in. “Only when I need to.” He plopped into the small couch across the office. “You look as whipped as I feel.”

“The nights have been rough.”

“How’s he doing?”

Art shrugged. “I don’t know. You ask him and he just repeats the question. All I know for sure is that he hardly sleeps. He stands and rocks most of the night until he’s so tired he drops off.”

“That’s a hell of a thing to deal with,” Lomax observed. “Sometimes I wonder if God dreamed these things up on a bad day.”

“That would explain it.”

Lomax moved from the couch to a chair near the desk. “How’s Anne holding up?”

Art breathed deeply. “She’s doing it somehow. The University gave her some time so she could deal with Simon. That helps.”

Lomax agreed with a slow nod that had preface written all over it.

“What?” Art asked.

“I have to give you a case. It could get fairly involved.”

Art eased back and did a few neck rolls. “All right.”

“This is quiet. You only use resources if absolutely necessary.”

Interested now, Art straightened in his chair. “Resources.”

“Other personnel in the office. You don’t go outside under any circumstances.”

“A one man show, is what you’re saying.”

“Yes. The file’s in your vault on the system. The reference name is ROMA.”

“You want to give me a quick synopsis?” Art probed.

“It has to do with your houseguest.”

“Simon?”

Lomax nodded. “NCIC got a DoD hit on the fingerprints of the guy who killed Simon’s parents. Not even a category hit. The prints were a hospital set taken when the guy was wounded in Grenada.” The National Crime Information Center had links to fingerprint files of other government entities, and in this instance at least, the system worked perfectly.

“Who was he?”

“The name was Mike Bell. He was Marine Recon, and apparently did work for about a dozen government agencies after that.”

“Work?” Art questioned. “We’re not talking nine to five.”

“We’re talking nine millimeter,” Lomax confirmed.

“I doubt that’s in his records.”

“Look at the holes,” Lomax suggested. “Holes are where things happen.”

“Was he working for anyone when this happened?”

Lomax shook his head. “It doesn’t look like it. He was excused from his last position over a year ago.”

“What position?”

“He was doing ‘training activities’ at Fort Meade,” Lomax answered doubtfully.

“A Marine training at an Army base?” Art wondered with equal doubt.

“Meade is a big place,” Lomax said as a reminder. From the look on the A-SAC’s face he saw that he got it.

“I’ll take a look at that hole.”

Lomax pushed himself up from the chair and arched a crick from his back. “Chicago PD is backing off until we have a chance to look at it.”

“There’s no family to demand answers,” Art said. He felt the sadness of that fact.

Lomax thought quietly for a moment, then asked, “Do you think he might talk about it?”

“I don’t know.”

Lomax nodded without pressing the point. “Let me know what you find.”

“Will do,” Art assured the SAC, and called up his personal ‘vault’ on the computer system as Lomax left. After entering his password, graphical icon folders dotted the screen. He noticed the new one right away and double clicked on it.

A vapid, coarse face stared back at him a second later, red hair atop and a crooked cleft in the chin. Art looked long at it, not even bothering with the written information yet. He studied the eyes, the lines of age, the crook of the mouth. On the generous monitor the face was as large as his. Mike Bell could have been sitting two feet from him.

“So, what did you want with Simon’s family?”

The answer did not come, but Art did not expect it yet. The dead did not come right out and answer. You had to drag it out of them. And it only made it easier if you already hated them.

“Do you have anything to declare?” the youthful customs inspector at the Vancouver, B.C., International Airport inquired of the oddly exotic Asian woman as she set her purse on the inspection table before him.

Keiko Kimura smiled behind dark glasses and beneath a silky blonde wig. “Only that you’re cute.”

The inspector, mindful of the plainclothes Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer standing a few feet away, suppressed a smile and dutifully examined the woman’s passport. “Miss Jiang, you are coming from Hong Kong?”

Keiko nodded. The glasses hid her eyes, and she doubted that the scrumptious young man would notice the difference between Japanese and Chinese features. Oh, if only that dreadful Canadian lilt didn’t taint his speech he might pass for American. But that really did not matter. America was not far away. A short drive. So close.

The inspector took a quick look in Miss Jiang’s purse, and handed her passport back. “Enjoy your stay in Canada.”

“I will,” Keiko said, and left the customs area with an exaggerated wiggle in her walk. The inspector admired her until she disappeared into the terminal.