Chapter 4

Lana was late getting home and her cell phone was going to voicemail. I had received a call from Steven's Kindergarten, asking me who was coming to get him, as Lana had not showed at the school at her normal time; and it was now over half an hour after Steven was scheduled for his usual afternoon pick-up.

I retrieved Steven, which required my leaving the office a bit early, and we were both finishing a makeshift supper of hot dogs, potato chips, and sliced apples. I had tried for about the fifth time to get hold of Lana and was beginning to worry when it kept going to her voicemail.

I was watching Special Report with Bret Baer. The news coming out of Washington, concerning the FBI's big case against one of their own, had turned grim. Somehow, someone had gotten to the recently-arrested Supervisory Special Agent Emmett Van Horn while he was being detained at a Federal holding facility inside the District.

Fox News Reporter James Rosen was on the scene, reporting back to Bret with the news. "Van Horn evidently had been struck in the head and was declared dead at the scene by medical first responders, with unnamed sources indicating that Van Horn had died from blunt force trauma.

"The FBI is, of course, conducting a thorough internal investigation as to just how this type of thing could happen with such a high-visibility prisoner in their own custody. They are also scrambling to preserve the integrity and continuity of the case that they were building against Russian organized crime in the U.S. with the evidence and testimony that they were expecting to get out of the late Supervisory Special Agent Van Horn." (Rosen looks down and away as they cut to file footage of someone from the Bureau reiterating almost verbatim just what the reporter had presented; followed by transition back to the live shot of Rosen).

"Meanwhile, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee are furious about all of this. Ranking Member, Senator..." and Rosen went on to indicate the ire that Senate and House oversight members were demonstrating; especially in this year of off-year elections. Rosen concluded with his wrap-up, and Baer took the flip.

"Our panel will take on these events in our discussion later. Meanwhile, we take a look at what some of our affiliates outside the Beltway are reporting today..."

This is where I normally tune out for a moment in the news, following the high drama that they always build into the 'A-Block' segment, or the opening news story each night. I was just about to mute it for a moment, when I heard something that caused my blood to freeze.

"From our affiliate WBFF, Fox 45, in Baltimore, Maryland, comes the story of a mysterious but deadly gas leak in an office complex in Columbia, Maryland. At least twenty people died, all working for a local stock brokerage, when they were overcome by deadly gas fumes that evidently caught them at their workstations before any of them realized what was happening. And from our affiliate KRIV, Fox 26, in Houston, Texas..."

At this point, I had stabbed my finger at the remote to try to tune in one of the DC-Area local stations. My brain was working frantically while my heart was slowly sinking. Unfortunately, by this point, most of the local stations were either on commercial break for mattress shops or local retirement centers or reverse mortgages, or were covering the late summer training camps for the Redskins or the Ravens. In frustration, I kept mashing buttons on the remote.

And then my phone rang. Caller ID showed a number I did not recognize, but I was too distracted by my overactive brain to think about letting the call simply go to the machine. I blindly answered it.

"Yes!"

"Mr. Brodie," said a voice that was vaguely familiar.

"Yes," I said curtly, ready to scream and hang up if it was someone from the Campaign for Life, or the Disabled American Veterans, or any of the robo-calling political campaigns that had already started with the primaries this past spring.

"This is FBI Special Agent Fife, Mr. Brodie," said the voice on the other end. "We..." was as far as he got.

"That thing in Columbia; was that her place?" I interrupted frantically. "I mean was that where Lana was working for you people? Is she all right? Do you know anything at all about... ?" Here Fife interrupted me.

"Mr. Brodie, if you will allow me," Fife said softly, "I wanted to get out to Rosslyn to see you personally on this, but things are going crazy around here with all that is happening today. I just wanted to call to tell you that Lana's..." and that is as far as he got before I began yelling into the phone.

"Is she all right? Has she been harmed? If you have allowed anything to happen to my wife, I swear that I will..." I had to pause for a split second to stifle a sob that was working its way into my throat, and Fife took advantage of the pause.

"Hey, Maddux!" this was the first time that Fife had addressed me by my first name and it got my attention. "Listen; I don't have any information for you about Lana's condition. I am sorry. What I was trying to say was that Lana's supervisor at Tamerlane, Zach Taylor, is in the hospital, along with two other people, following their exposure to what we believe was a deliberate attempt at murder by asphyxiation."

"What are you talking about? Murder by... ?" I stammered.

"If you have seen the news out of Columbia, then you know about the deaths at that office complex that the press is attributing to a gas leak. The Bureau's investigators--in consultation with the local law enforcement, survivors of the incident, and the medical professionals treating the folks there--believe that the place where your wife was working came under an attack by unknown assailants, using some sort of chemical agent that they introduced into the ventilation system."

"You mean like a poison gas?" I asked, as my brain started to function at a normal rate of speed, and my memory centers kicked in, horrified at the implications for my wife and the others working with her. Fife answered before I could say anything else.

"Yes. We know that twenty people died today in the attack, including two of our own undercover Special Agents, and at least one of our contractors working for Tamerlane. But, we do not have any information about the location or condition of your wife, Lana."

I leaped in at that point. "What do you mean ... you don't have any information... ?" I asked, now getting a bit frantic.

"That is exactly what I said; and what I mean." At this, FBI Special Agent Gary Fife--known as 'Barney' to his friends and fellow agents--actually let some of his stoic demeanor slip, when his voice came across to me as almost grief-stricken in the way it sounded.

"Maddux ... Lana has disappeared."

I had finally given up in frustration after speaking with Barney for over half an hour. Our call had concluded with his promises to keep me informed of any--and he emphasized the word 'any'--developments in the case.

After I hung up, I had to turn my attention to my son, Steven. I had all but ignored my son for almost an hour now. And, at that time of the evening, with food within reach, a mess was sure to ensue. And it did. He had gotten mustard and ketchup all over everything from his hair all the way down to the feet of two of the table's legs.

I hastily got all things spillable out of reach, and got a wet dish towel to deal with the rest. Steven fought my attempts to clean his person, but he sat and finished the last of his potato chips as I got down on my knees to clean up the mess under the table. He was asking me, "Where's Mom?" a couple of times. This question caused me to have to fight to keep the fear out of my voice or off my face when I told him that she was working late this evening.

I finally got the mess cleaned up and got Steven upstairs, bathed, read to, and bedded down for the night. And then I began my sleepless night of worry.

Special Agent Fife had said that I did not need to call the local police, either the Arlington County Police, who covered Rosslyn, or the Howard County Police in Columbia, Maryland, as the Feds had taken the lead on the case, since it involved elements of organized interstate--and maybe even international--crime, terrorism, and kidnapping.

I made a call to Zach Taylor's cell phone early the next morning, in hopes that he would be allowed to have his phone with him in the hospital where he was recovering. He had not been allowed a phone while in ICU. But on the ward where he was now resting he was allowed, as he informed me after he answered his phone immediately. He then began offering his supportive sentiments at my distress over Lana's disappearance. Zach told me that he and the rest of his team at Tamerlane were distressed as well at having lost one of their colleagues in the gas attack and at Lana's having gone missing under such mysterious circumstances.

Before we concluded the phone conversation, Zach assured me that he would check within the company, as well as with some of his law enforcement contacts at the Federal, state, and local levels routinely. They would try to get feelers out to their sources in the underground community in order to find out any information that might be available, until Lana had been found and--his words, designed to encourage me--brought back safely.

On the morning 'Fox and Friends' show, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Steve Doocy, and Brian Kilmeade were showing a helicopter view of a major crime scene. They said that there were reports of multiple deaths and hints from anonymous sources at the disruption of a major federal criminal investigation. The insert at the upper left corner of the screen read, '7:12 a.m., Columbia, Maryland.' There was nothing substantial in the report and I knew, from what Barney had told me, that the Feds would be very circumspect about the timing and quantity of information that they would release to the public.

I simply had to resign myself to the fact that all I could do was wait ... and wait ... and wait.

I had now already waited for a month. My heart had begun to change the nature of its ache--from the short-term ache of missing a loved one who was gone temporarily, to the long-term ache of missing a mate who may be gone forever.

Zach met with me for lunch about two weeks after he had been sprung from the hospital. He told me that the files I had received and then sent to him and Fife were what finally got Van Horn pulled in, since the case had been building for weeks prior to that. The Bureau had needed just one more piece of conclusive evidence in order to hit the 'go' button on Van Horn's arrest.

Lana had given me more than enough to pass on in order to initiate the shutdown of SSA Van Horn's little personal enterprise. Zach basically told me what Lana had told me before her disappearance. There had been some suspicion for some time about the fact that some of the cases that SSA Van Horn had been supervising, over a period of the previous two years, had seemed to come up short just before the bust had been about to go down.

Zach told me that the Feds had verified, through physical forensic testing, that the place that Lana had been working had been attacked with some sort of incapacitating agent similar to the gas that had been used in Russia against Chechen terrorists in a school auditorium. Russian Federation Alpha Group forces had used the unidentified chemical agent to try to incapacitate the bad guys--with the ghastly results of so many collateral civilian hostage casualties due to the effects of the chemical agent.

In this case, there were at least twenty dead at the Columbia facility, where there were usually thirty-eight employed on a regular basis. There was no news released to the public about the whereabouts of the others who worked there. The bodies of the two undercover FBI Special Agents and the Tamerlane contractor were confirmed as being among those found on the premises during the investigation so far.

Zach said that the Bureau was working with all of their legitimate law-enforcement contacts to locate Lana. He also said that he and his co-workers at Tamerlane were working their legitimate contacts as well; but he, along with a couple of others, were also still speaking with long-time informants who roamed around in the black and gray areas in which no one worried a lot about being law-abiding. If there was any news available from any of his sources about Lana's whereabouts, Zach would let me know.

Over the next six months, I received twice-weekly calls from the Bureau, usually from Barney Fife, and calls two or three times a week from Zach Taylor, trying to keep me up to speed on what they were learning and doing about Lana's disappearance.

Once, after four months, I'd had my hopes raised that they had found Lana. But those hopes were quickly dashed when I heard that they had discovered a group of eight women (teenage girls, actually) in a house in Ocean City, Maryland, where the women had quite simply been used as sex slaves by Russian mobsters. The 'alleged' criminals captured there had lawyered up quickly and said not a word--typical of Russian criminals who feared that their family members would die as well as they would if they broke their silence.

After six months, the calls dwindled to once a week; and, eventually, the only contact was an email from Zach once in a while with no indication of any real progress in the case, despite his best efforts to offer me encouragement.

I did not give up hope, but it was hard. I tried to explain to Steven why Mom was not home yet, after all this time. He did not forget her, and I kept her picture by his bed so that he would not. I know for a fact that he cried himself to sleep on his fifth birthday, when his mother was not there with him to celebrate.

After a year, my personal life remained on hold, except for being the best dad that I could for Steven. I did not date, and I just did not have the heart to seek legal action in order to have Lana declared dead or to divorce her on the grounds of abandonment. I was still pissed at the Bureau either for their lack of progress in the investigation or for keeping their information close-hold; and for having to rely on Zach Taylor, a contractor, for any real updates--the few that there were.

My mom and dad had called from Anchorage after I had left a voice mail message for them about what was going on. They had offered to come back to the Lower 48 to commiserate with me and to be nearby for me and Steven, but I told them that things were pretty steady-state by then and I did not want them to make that God-awful long trip back east.

Alexei and Sonja Savin were supportive of me, but distraught at the disappearance of their daughter. Alexei said more than once that he was not surprised. All his life, back in Belarus, people had simply disappeared--vanished overnight--quite often at the hands of the government, but sometimes at the hands of criminals. Alexei said that the people simply cried at their losses for a while and then moved on with life, realizing that they simply could do nothing about their missing loved ones.