Author: Sam

Story: Speed Trap: 16 of 23

Series: Speed-Burn

Setting: September 19, 2005: Washington DC: late night. September 20, 2005: Washington, DC: early morning.

Note: Anyone remember this poor neglected soul?

Feedback: Yes, please? Especially constructive. samwise_baggins@yahoo.co.uk

Webpage: http://www.geocities.com/samwise_baggins/index.html

September 19, 2005; Washington DC; late night:

Too frustrated with the stonewalling she’d been getting on the Avery case, Ivana Gideon found it increasingly difficult to get much satisfaction out of the last ten months of work. As a Federal Profiler, she was pretty much in constant demand all over the nation, but with each success was the overshadowing, continuing failure to help one particular man: Joe Avery, the Federal Witness whose life she had saved. Especially grating were the constant blocks apparently thrown in her way by her supervisor, Agent Jonathan Fredericks. She could almost believe that he wanted Joe to fail in the program, but that made little sense; Fredericks was the one who’d had Joe put in the program in the first place.

Still, there were things that bothered her about how the case had been, and apparently was still being, mishandled. Primary on the list of wrongs was the fact that Joe had been assigned to New York, a place he’d lived in his past, and a job in a police crime lab, something that jeopardized his entire new identity if the New York police recognized the man. Also, he’d never actually received the starting funds he was supposed to have gotten. He’d been inducted into the program with a hole through his heart, but received only the bare minimal of medical treatment which the program had apparently balked at paying for; at least a month of his health care had come at Ivana’s own expense, and she was still paying off those bills, without Federal reimbursement.

Aside from the location, missing funds, and lack of health care, however, was the most disturbing notion that Fredericks didn’t seem to think Joe Avery needed protection. This fact had become rather blatant over the last week, in fact. The head of the New York City Crime Lab, a detective Taylor, was investigating a man very similar to Joe, and he’d made no secret of his search; it was very likely someone had finally recognized the man from his previous life. It was only a matter of time before the detective got a response from the right people and Joe’s new identity would be shattered.

Gun runner-turned-state’s evidence or not, Joe had to be protected so he could appear on the stand, and Ivana intended to see him get that chance. In order to do that, though, she had to get the man some protection, had to put an end to the inquiries by detective Taylor, had to get those funds he needed to follow up for his heart. It had been a miracle he’d survived at all; he couldn’t count on miracles to keep him alive too long, even with a staid, boring lab job.

Her musings were interrupted when a disruptive buzzing sound filled her office. Glancing up, a frown on her pretty face, the blonde agent called out expectantly, “Come in.” By now people should know that when her door was shut, she was immersed in a case, even if they wouldn’t know it was the Avery case Fredericks had so foolishly assigned her ten months ago.

Speak of the Devil...

When the door opened, it was to reveal the lean, almost predatory features of her boss, Agent Fredericks. Dark green eyes, comparable in color to the thick, old fashioned glass used long ago for soda bottles, seemed to bore right through a person. Black hair, liberally sprinkled with white, was slicked back in a style reminiscent of the old greasers from the 1950’s. His suit was always impeccable, and he wore it like he had been born to it. With a walk that was more strut than stroll, and a way of keeping his hand on his service weapon, Ivana always felt as if Fredericks was some mob family survivor always on the lookout for the old gang to hunt him down now that he flipped to the side of the Feds. As always, Ivana had to push the unflattering image away.

“Yes, sir?” Her Scandinavian accent, a heritage received from her first generation American parents, was always stronger in the presence of her abrasive supervisor. He had a way of making her feel like an outsider, which naturally made her angry. She had as much right to be in… Ivana pushed away the old defensive argument, as well. It wouldn’t do to rub Fredericks the wrong way when she was trying so hard to get him to help Joe.

With a frown that threatened Ivana’s normal calm, Fredericks called out, “I’m going to New York to check on that Avery case you’ve been whining about. Hope you’re happy, Gideon.” The man darted back out of the room.

Ivana sighed and went back to typing on her computer, still searching for more information about Joe’s case, which was pretty sketchy at the moment, “Yes, sir.”

He picked a fine time to look into this, she thought sarcastically. Nine o’clock at night... he’ll need to catch a late flight, so he won’t be able to see Joe until tomorrow morning.

September 20, 2005; Washington DC; early morning:

03:00

Ivana groaned as she glanced at her office wall clock: another long, sleepless night. Her doctor was going to kill her. Joe better appreciate what she was doing for him; the odd sleep and eating schedules were wreaking havoc with her diabetes.

Reaching over to flick her computer off, she frowned at the sight of the flashing e-mail indicator. Quickly, she opened it and her eyes widened. Ivana re-read the message two times before the full implications finally sunk into her over-tired brain. “Shit!” Quickly, she closed the program and hit the right sequence to secure her computer from interlopers then grabbed her purse and ran for the door.

As she found her car in the vast underground lot, fumbling with her keys in one hand and her cell phone in the other, the agent’s mind was racing through all of the facts she’d gathered for ten months. Shit! She should have suspected something more sinister when his identifiers hadn’t matched! If I’m too late…

Putting the phone to her ear, listening to the ringing coming from the other end, Ivana finally managed to get her car door opened. She slid into the seat, “C’mon, pick up, Joe.” Over and over again, she repeated the words like a mantra. As the worried blonde fumbled her key into the ignition, she heard the tone that signaled pick-up.

“Hey, Joe? It’s Ivana.”

“Joe?” the feminine voice on the other side momentarily confused the agent. What the hell was a woman doing…? Never mind, too much information. Joe wanted a woman over, it was a free country. The next words, however, worried her even more. “Oh, no. Joe’s not here, he left for Miami last night; he’s on hurricane rescue. I’ve sublet his apartment.” She paused for breath then went on, “I'm one of the New York temporary replacements, Lindsay Monroe. I could take a message, but I’m not sure when he’ll get it.” The woman with the mid-west accent seemed eager to help, despite the extremely early hour. “You can contact the Miami-Dade Police; that’s where he was sent.”

“Miami-Dade? Damn!” This just kept getting worse and worse. “Okay, do me a favor, Miss Monroe. This is Federal Agent Ivana Gideon. Joe is working an important case with me. There should be an Agent Fredericks, John Fredericks, showing up later today looking for Joe. Let him know I’ve got everything under control.”

Lindsay laughed softly on the other side. “You missed him. He showed up here about an hour or two ago. He’s either at the airport now, or if he got lucky, he found a plane to Miami already.”

“Shit!”

“Excuse me?” Lindsay’s tone became a little less friendly, a little more censored.

Ivana sighed, drawing in her anger. “Nothing. Thanks, Miss Monroe. I appreciate your help.” Before the woman on the other side could think to say anything else, Ivana was cancelling the call then dialing once more.

She never had approved of people talking on the phone while driving, but this was an emergency. Taking a turn rather too quickly, swearing at the maneuvering she had to perform to keep the SUV on the road, Ivana impatiently waited for the airport to answer. When they did, she was already pulling into the Washington-Dulles airport. “This is Agent Gideon of the FBI. I need to get to Miami as quickly as possible.”

Slamming her car to a stop in a long-term parking spot, Ivana grabbed her purse and headed for the terminal. She was listening to the clerk’s account about the hurricane warnings and the danger of flying down. When the man said they were only allowing hurricane rescue to fly down that morning, Ivana jumped on the excuse.

“Well, that’s why I’m going!” She spotted the lone clerk, on the phone at his podium, and hurried over. Slamming her badge on the desk, displaying her credentials for him, she hung up and firmly stated, “I have a victim in the Federal Witness Protection Program who is stuck in the Miami area. I need to get him out of there to safety, but he has a heart condition and needs help… now! I need to be on the very next flight out.” Leaning towards the man, who was staring at her as if he had no idea what he should do, Ivana made sure her words were clear and precise. “If he dies, I will hold you personally responsible.”

With that threat hanging over him, and no actual procedures in place for such a circumstance, the man made a quick decision. He started typing as quickly as he could, verifying and re-verifying her credentials as he did so. “I have a flight for volunteers going out in three hours, Ma’am. That’s the earliest we have. It’ll be landing in Orlando at approximately…”

“Fine, I’ll take it,” she cut him off, handing over her Federal credit card. Ivana felt no guilt at using her business expenses; she had been assigned Joe’s safety, after all, and that was exactly what she was going to Miami more: Joe’s safety from a man who’d tried to kill him once, and may well do so again.