Chapter 18

Chris continues the Narrative:

The following character is named and appears in the final chapters:

Master Anthony

the large man in expensive clothes, 5’-10’’ tall, 295 pounds, 38 years of age, brown hair, blue eyes

Carry and I crashed in our room while the guys used the spare room. Once I had Carry alone in our room, I had to find out why she had been so frantic all of the way here from our apartments.

“Why were you so upset after dad called?” I asked my normally calm and confident sister.

“I know that this will sound silly, but a couple of days ago I had a dream that mom had been killed in a firefight, and I was afraid that it had come true. I was so afraid that I had lost her and would never see her again,” she finished near tears once more.

“But dad assured us that they were all fine,” I reminded her.

“I thought that he just didn’t want us to worry,” Carry answered. “I just couldn’t lose my mom,” she said again in tears.

“You know that dad is a straight shooter and wouldn’t do something like that,” I reminded her and pulled Carry to me and hugged her for many minutes until she seemed better.

“I know, but I was sooo worried,” she told me after a time before we both laid down following that and were soon asleep.

It was just after 1330 hrs. when Dad awakened us and the guys. We all dressed in our Agency supplied business clothing, and then Carry and I packed our black working clothes in a small duffel bag. Dad supplied the guys with some of his black working clothes that didn’t fit him anymore along with duffel bags. The Suburban had a lock box in the back for the storage of weapons, and our shotguns and ammunition went in there with our clothing bags in the space behind it.

Traffic wasn’t too bad this time of day, and we made good time on the way to downtown Atlanta from our farm out in the country. We knew where the Agency’s offices were, as dad had shown us where they were located a number of times while we were growing up. We pulled into the underground parking garage of their building with no trouble, since we were in an Agency vehicle. Upstairs in their office, the warrants were waiting for us, and we thanked the AIC for getting them and were then on our way to the lawyer’s office.

By the time that Greg Hawthorn had gotten away from his hotel unseen, it was after 12:15, and he was sure that the lazy lawyer was at lunch since their offices were closed from noon to 1:00. After driving around for a time, he found a parking place on the street not far from the lawyer’s offices. Since it would be necessary to wait, he went to lunch also, and consequently he didn’t arrive at the office of the law firm that Stevens belonged to until 1:30.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Gray, but Mr. Stevens isn’t back yet. Would you care to wait?” the secretary asked when he inquired about Stevens.

“I’ll wait,” Hawthorn told her in a disgusted voice and slumped into a chair there. It was just after 2:00 when lawyer Stevens returned from lunch with several other members of the firm. He was shocked to see Gray / Hawthorn there waiting for him.

“We need to talk,” Hawthorn told him rising from the chair where he had been waiting. Stevens didn’t look like he was at all anxious to talk to Hawthorn again, but Hawthorn clamped a hand on his elbow and guided him back toward his office. Once inside, he released his painful grip the lawyer’s elbow and closed the door, locking it.

“We have problems,” he told Stevens in a growl, shoving him into a chair.

“WE? How do you figure that WE have problems. You may have problems, but they don’t necessarily extend to my client or me,” Stevens told him in an attempt to disassociate himself from Hawthorn and whatever troubles he might have.

“If I go down, it won’t be alone,” Hawthorn assured him with a wicked grin.

“Just what are these problems?” Stevens asked, suddenly afraid.

“My bank account and my government credit card have both been put on hold. Also the Major and his men are missing, but their vehicles are still at the motel,” Hawthorn told him, but didn’t mention the ransacked rooms.

“Missing? How could they be missing?” Stevens demanded.

“Something could have gone wrong last night,” Hawthorn grudging admitted.

“Could have? You don’t know for sure, and you came in here this morning to draw the second payment?” Stevens demanded in a shocked voice.

“No, I don’t know, and those damned people at the Agency’s offices aren’t telling me anything. The Agency would be the ones blocking my bank account and credit card also,” Hawthorn admitted in an angry voice.

“I need to disappear, and you and your boss are going to finance my trip,” he continued as he drew his pistol. “How much money do you have here?” he demanded pointing it at Stevens.

“There is only a few hundred dollars kept here for supplies and incidentals,” Stevens told him.

“What about checks?” Greg demanded.

“The check that I gave you is the only one that I had, and it was supplied by my client on an account under a different name,” Stevens told him nervously.

“Then we’ll go to see your employer and get the money from him,” Greg told him, as he grabbed the lawyer by the front of his shirt with his left hand yanking him out of the chair while keeping him covered with the gun in his right hand.

“We’ll go out the back way,” he told the lawyer who was surprised that he knew about the back exit, and he began to worry about just what else the man in the gray suit might know about him and his partner. The trip to the car was fairly short, but Hawthorn kept the gun on the lawyer all of the way there. He shoved him into the front passenger seat, locking that door before getting in on the driver’s side and driving away.

We arrived at the building housing the law offices of the firm that lawyer Stevens worked for just before 15:00 hrs. The four of us looked like young business professional as we exited the Suburban and walked to the building. Their offices were located on the third floor, and we rode the elevator up. The elevator doors opened onto a small lobby. The only doors on this floor were those of the law firm directly in front of us.

“How are we going to do this?” Roy asked from beside me.

“Let’s just enter and ask to see Randolph Stevens. We’ll save the warrant for a back up in case we have any trouble,” I told him and the others.

“Sounds like a plan,” Carry agreed, and Chuck just nodded, as we moved toward the entrance and opened the glass office doors. The interior was nicely carpeted and had dark blue wall paper with narrow vertical red stripes. There was a large reception desk that appeared to be made of mahogany with a blond secretary sitting behind it.

“How may I help you?” she asked, as we entered.

“We are here to see Mr. Randolph Stevens about a problem with some land,” I told her.

“I see. Mr. Stevens is with a client presently, have a seat, I’m sure that he will be finished shortly,” she told us. There were a number of chairs there, and we sat down for a short time, but after ten minutes, I was tired of waiting.

“How much longer do you expect him to be?” I asked the Secretary.

“I thought he would have finished by now. The gentleman in a gray suit was waiting when he returned from lunch,” she told us before turning to the intercom system and pressing a button.

“Mr. Stevens, you have clients waiting out here. Will you be much longer?” she asked but got no reply. The four of us were on our feet at the mention of a man in a gray suit. I opened the folder that I was carrying and removed one of the pictures of Hawthorn before stepping up to the desk.

“Is this the man who was waiting for him?” I demanded.

“I can’t answer that, client identity is restricted to those who need to know,” she answered but from the look on her face on seeing the picture, I was sure that it had been Hawthorn. I pulled my Federal ID and badge out and stuck it in her face.

“We are Federal Agents. The man in that picture is a wanted criminal. Where is Stevens’s office?” I demanded as Carry passed me the warrant for Greg Hawthorn. The Secretary was shocked on seeing it, and the guns that we four had drawn.

“He is wanted for murder and assassination,” I told the shocked woman.

“His office is number six on the right,” she managed to tell us but was quite pale from the shock of what she had learned.

“Stay here,” I told her, as we started toward the hall on the right side of her desk.

“Roy cover the hallway behind us,” I told him as the rest of us moved down the hall to the door with the number six on it. We stacked up outside the door. I was in the lead, Carry was behind me with Chuck bring up the rear while Roy watched our backs.

“On three,” I said as I tested the door knob which moved easily as I drew my bubble up around me. “One, two, three,” I counted, threw open the door, and quickly moved inside and to the right. Carry followed me in and moved to the left.

“Federal Agents!” we shouted, as we quickly swept the office with our pistols and eyes, but it was apparent that it was empty. Still, we checked under the desk and in the small closet to be sure before canceling our bubbles.

“They’re gone,” Carry said just before Roy appeared in the door with an older man in an expensive suit.

“What is going on here?” the man demanded, only slightly taken back by the sight of our weapons.

“We are looking for this man and had reason to believe that he had contacted Randolph Stevens. The secretary confirmed that this man, Greg Hawthorn, was here when Mr. Stevens returned from lunch,” I told him as Carry showed him the picture and the warrant.

“Is there another way out of here besides the front door?” I asked him after he had looked at the picture and the warrant.

“Yes, there is a back stairs that leads to the rear of the building,” he told us.

“We’ll check that. If you hear from Mr. Stevens, have him contact our Atlanta office at... !” and I gave him the phone number before we moved out of the empty office, and the man pointed down the hall to where the door to the back stairs were. There was no one on the stairs, either those above or those below the third floor, because we checked in both directions.

“What’s our next move?” Roy asked, as we exited the rear of the building.

“We’ll need to check his house to see if Hawthorn took him there. If they aren’t there, we need to check on his boss’s estate, and that could be a problem,” I told him.

“A problem how?” Chuck asked.

“It’s a private gated estate, and we will need to see what it will require to gain entry to it,” I told him, as we hurried to the Suburban. Once we were on the road to the north side of the city, Carry called dad on her cell phone.

“Dad, we’re on the way to the lawyer’s house. Hawthorn was at his office this afternoon, but both were gone when we arrived there. Can you meet us at the ice cream parlor where you used to take us. We will need to go to the estate if they aren’t at his house,” Carry told him.

“All right, sweetie. I’ll meet you there as soon I can. Traffic will already be getting bad when I leave, so it may take a while to get there. I’ll try the back way and see if that is any better,” dad told us before disconnecting.

“Hand me that map book,” Carry next told Chuck in the back seat, and he passed it to her. Dad had included it along with the other things that we were taking with us.

“I’ll look up his address in the map book after putting it in the car’s GPS device. Between the two of them, it should be easy to locate his house,” Carry told me as she got busy.