The Sixth Station(24)

The message replayed. “Ms. Russo? This is Maureen Wright-Lewis. I’d very much like to speak with you. I have some information about the terrorist ben Yusef. I know who he actually is. Or I should say I know who he is not.

“You’ll see that there is no identifying number on this phone. You can contact me at 012-292-766-8588. I think you need to hear what I have to say. And, Ms. Russo? Take care. You don’t know what you’re dealing with.”

Huh? Either she’d started whispering at the end or the connection had turned bad. I couldn’t be sure. I don’t know what I’m dealing with? I think I already figured that out, lady.

I wrote down what I thought the number was on a scrap of paper, but when I tried to rewind, I heard, “This extension is no longer valid.”

The dreaded HR machine had cut me off already. I had no job, but I did have a lead: Maureen Wright-Lewis. Maybe I could get a magazine to assign me the story—if I had the right number.

I Googled “Maureen Wright-Lewis” into the browser on my cell. Bingo! Big-time traitor—never caught. Double agent for the United States, who was accused of selling secrets to the Soviets. Traced as far as the netherworld of the backstreets of Luxor, Egypt. Alleged spottings over the decades in Baghdad, Jerusalem, and Tibet. The latest Wikipedia entries had her both dead and currently living in Fallujah. Right.

She gets around pretty good for a—what?—dead sixty-whatever-year-old.





8





Intrigued, however, and not wanting to read it on the small screen of my phone, I hit the power key on my desktop, and typed in my username and password.

“Invalid” popped up. Oh.

I guess Brandt was worried that I would, God forbid, steal my own e-mails. I’d become a non-person—one that Peg, the office manager, would “clean up,” by packing up my things as though I’d never been here.

Was there really anything I couldn’t live without on top of or inside that desk? Not anymore.

I rushed out through the newsroom past the dozen or so reporters who still, unaware of what had happened, either gave me half waves or “Hey, nice job” comments before turning back to their screens.

I walked as quickly as I could without raising suspicions and then bounded out the glass double doors and to the elevator bank, before HR had a chance to yank my press credentials. I knew the NYPD press pass and my standard ID door pass would be invalidated, but if I was successful in finding Wright-Lewis she’d never know they had been invalidated. But then again, she used to be a spy.…

I slowly made my way back to my apartment through the crowds that had re-formed while I was getting shit-canned, holding my press credentials high over my head. The police and agents along the way let me pass in the cordoned-off security lanes, but I wondered how much longer I could get away with it and whether I was committing some kind of crime in this terrorist-paranoid atmosphere.

I made it up to my apartment, opened the door, and walked in. The first thing I spotted was the overturned bookcase: Hundreds of books lay scattered; the coffee table, leg broken, was overturned and off to the side; clothes that had been in the front coat closet were thrown everywhere. Even the refrigerator was opened, with fresh produce and frozen food lying in piles on the floor, along with boxes of cereal, sugar, and you name it tossed from the cabinets.

I’d been to enough crime scenes to know that this was a professional trashing. Someone or someones wanted to scare me—let me know they’d been in and had violated my living space.

Trust no one.

I ran out, slamming the door behind me, and decided the monitored elevator was a better bet than the stairs, in case someone was lying in wait for me.

When the elevator door opened at “1,” I called out, “Larry!” to the day doorman, who hadn’t been on duty when I’d left earlier that morning. “My apartment’s been broken into! Who came into the building?”

“No one, I swear, Miss Russo, no one,” he said, rushing over and leaving the door unmanned. But we’d been notified that during the trial, the lobby entrance doors would be locked to keep protestors out. I could see the crowds outside pushing against the barricades.

I reached into my bag and rooted around until I found Sergeant Clements’s card, grabbed my cell phone, and dialed her number. Nothing. Right. My cell phone was company-issue, and it too had been turned off.

I asked Larry for his phone and dialed her up. It went directly to voice mail. I walked outside in the crowd, holding up my press credentials, and flagged down the first cop I saw.

“Alessandra Russo, The Standard,” I said, grabbing onto her uniform shirtsleeve to keep from getting shoved. “My apartment’s been broken into,” I screamed over the din of the crowd, who had picked up the chanting where they’d left off the day before.