Chapter 3

The following characters appear in this chapter:

Joe

CIA agent, 6’-0’’ tall, 194 pounds, 41 years old, short dark brown hair, blue eyes

Harris

CIA agent, 6’-1’’ tall, 190 pounds, 28 years old, very short black hair, brown eyes

Kowalski

Detective, ‘Bad cop’, 5’-10’’ tall, 200 pounds, 38 years old, brown hair, blue eyes

Freeman

Detective, ‘Good cop’, 6’-1’’ tall, 190 pounds, 36 years old, short black hair, brown eyes

Emma Hankel

Sara’s mother, 5’-4’’ tall, 145 pounds, 36C-26-37, 46 years old, short brown hair, gray eyes

Mr. Barker

Sara’s boss, 5’-9’’ tall, 170 pounds, 44 years old, short brown hair, hazel eyes

Dr. Amanda

ER doctor, 5’-10’’ tall, 145 pounds, 31 years old, short brown hair, gray eyes

Noy

Ultrasound Technician, 5’-0’’ tall, 108 pounds, 25 years old, short black hair, brown eyes

At the same time that Nick was briefing Sara, in a rental house just down the block from his house, there was a discussion taking place between two of the four CIA agents assigned to watch him. The two men, who were the daytime team, were seated in a back bedroom. They were surrounded by video monitors that showed scenes of the house up the street from various angles as well as an overhead view from a drone. There were also recording devices for the tap on his landline phone.

There were a microwave, a coffee dispenser, and a small refrigerator in the room. The trash cans were full as well as several ash trays. Each man had an expensive cell phone that he wore on his belt. In another bedroom, there were four cots and duffel bags with clothing in them. There were two rifles in a rack by the wall, and each man was armed with a pistol. They were in the rear bedroom to keep the individual they had under surveillance from detecting their presence.

Both men were large at about 6’-0’’ tall and around 190 pounds. They had short haircuts and were muscular. The younger man turned to the older one with a question.

“Just what are we doing here, Joe?” the younger man asked.

“We are watching the guy up the street,” Joe answered as if it was obvious.

“Yes, but why? I’ve been here for several days now and can’t see why we or anyone would be interested in him or what he does,” the younger man said.

“You’ve read his dossier, haven’t you, Harris?” Joe asked.

“Yes, and it made about as much sense as this stakeout does,” Harris replied. “Much of it was redacted.”

“You’ve seen that it has a red border, right,” Joe asked.

“Yes, that’s another thing that I don’t understand. It’s not like this guy had been a Seal, Ranger, or Special Forces operator, or even worked for the Company. He was a contract employee, for God’s sake,” Harris replied.

“It doesn’t tell the whole story,” Joe told him calmly.

“I guess not. How does a guy get hired in the early 1960s and sent to Viet Nam as a spook and make the money that he did? I saw the breakdown of what he made on the last sheet in the file. Later he is rehired and sent to eastern Europe and then to Iraq and Syria for a number of years. What the hell for? It doesn’t say. Not only that, but after thirty some years he is retired with full pay and benefits,” Harris demanded in an upset voice.

“I don’t know. What I do know is that the CIA, the NSA, and the Army Security Agency all want this guy watched. I’ve been here for six weeks with only a few days off to change clothes and get paid. This guy is as regular as rain. He gets up the same time every day. He runs or walks four miles or so every morning, seven days a week. He comes back, showers, eats breakfast. Sometimes he writes. Other times he works out on the lawn or in the garden. Twice a week, he goes to classes at a Martial Arts studio. He goes to church on Sundays and shopping on Fridays. This guy has to be eighty years old but looks like he’s thirty-two. I have no idea why we are watching him,” Joe finished in a frustrated voice.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Harris told him.

“No, it doesn’t, but it’s what we are getting paid to do,” Joe reminded him.

“What about these Martial Arts classes that he goes to? Has anyone checked on what he does there?” Harris asked.

“That’s why you were assigned here. Johnson, the guy you are replacing, followed him to those classes after a couple of weeks here. He actually went inside, against our instructions, to watch what he was doing. It turned out that he wasn’t just taking classes. He was teaching some of the most advanced classes and sparring with the head of the school. Johnson told me that it looked like he was teaching the head of the school new moves. They relieved Johnson for following him in person,” Joe finished.

Shortly after nine o’clock, I transferred both of us to a clump of trees in Brittlebank Park near where Lockwood Dr. makes about a fifty degree turn to become Fishburne St. The Headquarters of the Charleston Police Department is located there at 180 Lockwood Dr. There are huge parking lots in the area for not only the police department, but for other city offices like the court house, the South Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles, the Charleston Marriott hotel, and the Joseph P. Riley, Jr. ball park. Traffic was rather light this time of the morning. Sara was looking around at where we were in amazement.

“Where are we?” she asked after a short time looking at the area.

“The two connected buildings across the street are the Municipal Court building and the Police Headquarters,” I told her pointing across the double lanes of traffic in each direction that were separated by a broad grassy median.

“I’m going to do a line-of-sight transfer of you to the steps of the police department. Go up the steps and into the building. On entering the lobby, you will see someone behind a desk. If they don’t recognize you as you approach them, tell him or her who you are and ask to see the detectives in homicide,” I told her. Sara didn’t look well on hearing this.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be in there with you, but invisible. I’ll take care of things if you have trouble with those investigating your case,” I reassured her.

“Are you ready?” I asked after a few seconds.

“Yes, I guess so,” she answered but didn’t sound convinced. I cast the transfer spell and sent her to the steps leading up into the building. Following that, I cast the invisibility spell and transferred into the lobby of the building.

Inside, I saw Sara enter the lobby, look around, and then turn toward the area where the Desk Sergeant was located. He looked up as she approached and stopped in front of him.

“You’re the woman from the stabbing case last night!” he said in a surprised voice.

“Yes, I’m Sara Hankel. I would like to see those working on my case. I saw the request for me to appear here last night,” she told him. The sergeant looked around for someone to escort her to homicide, finally spotting someone talking to a group of other officers.

“Hey, Zorro,” he called to an officer playing with a large knife, “take this lady back to homicide.”

“Sure, sarge,” the officer said putting the knife away while ogling Sara. “Right this way, ma’am,” he told her. Sara followed him a bit reluctantly having seen the large knife. I followed along behind them, still invisible.

On reaching the Homicide Department, two of the detectives there at desks immediately jumped up and took possession of Sara and moved her over near their desks.

“I’m Detective Kowalski, and this is Detective Freeman. Where have you been for the last twelve hours plus?” Kowalski, the more forceful of the two, demanded before noticing that she was walking easily and had no signs of being stabbed recently.

“Are you okay?” Freeman, the more laid-back one, asked.

“Yes, I’m fine now, but I have absolutely no idea of where I have been since being stabbed last night,” she informed them. It was obvious from their expressions, that they didn’t believe her.

“What do you mean, you have no idea where you have been for the last twelve hours plus?” Kowalski demanded in an irate voice, having taken the ‘bad cop’ role.

“How did you get here?” Freeman asked in a kinder voice. “Did someone drive you here? Why aren’t you in a hospital after such a brutal stabbing? We have seen the videos of the attack, and your disappearance with the knife still in you,” Freeman continued.

“Can I explain what I do know? Then you will understand,” Sara asked in a weepy voice, as if ready to cry.

“Yes, go ahead but have a seat first,” both detectives told her and guided her to the chair near their desks. Kowalski turned on a recording device as she was seated. She then proceeded to tell them the story that I had created and ended by removing the two notes from her purse. It was still obvious that both detectives doubted what she had told them.

“You want us to believe that some ’Wizard’ removed you from the scene of the attack, and then somehow healed a major stab wound before depositing you in a hotel room somewhere for the night?” Kowalski asked in an incredulous voice after she had finished.

“And that he moved you here by Magical means this morning. Also, that you have never seen him or her?” Freeman asked following that.

“I told you what I know. I never saw anyone until I appeared in front of this building a short time ago,” Sara told them with tears on her cheeks. Kowalski got up from his desk and leaned over her threateningly.

“Are you the real Sara Hankel? Let’s see some identification, lady. I think you are an impostor looking for some face time on the news,” Kowalski told her. Sara produced her driver’s license, her work pass, and a copy of the rent bill for her apartment from her purse. Both detectives looked at them, before checking her driver’s license on their computer.

“Yes, this appears to be her driver’s license,” Freeman said after a time on the computer, but he didn’t sound convinced.

“When did you get the license?” Kowalski demanded.

“When I passed my driving test when I was eighteen,” she told him but was interrupted by the arrival of two other people who turned out to be her mother and her boss, Mr. Barker. Her mother seemed shocked to see her there.

“Sara, are you alright?” she immediately asked looking at her daughter.

“Why are you here? You should be in a hospital. I saw how that terrible man stabbed you, and you fell to the ground with the knife still in you. Then you disappeared. Where did you go? What happened to you?” her mother demanded in an agitated voice, without giving her a chance to answer the first question.

“Hello, Sara. Are you alright? You didn’t look very well at the end of the video that I saw,” her boss, Mr. Barker, asked in a smooth unflustered voice.

“I’m alright now, sir. I was healed by a Wizard, but I never saw him, or possibly her. When I awoke in a motel / hotel room somewhere, I was healed but still sore. There was food and a television. I saw the videos of the attack. This morning there was more food, and then I wound up here in front of this building. I have no idea who did all of that for me,” she told her mother and her boss, repeating what she had told the detectives earlier.

“Do you have any idea where the motel / hotel room was?” Mr. Barker asked.

“No, there was no window in the room, or any papers indicating which hotel / motel it could be. There was no phone either,” she told him, just before Kowalski broke into the conversation.

“Are you sure that this is your daughter and your employee?” he demanded of both newcomers.

“Yes, that is my daughter, Sara. You think I wouldn’t know my own daughter?” Mrs. Hankel demanded in an upset voice, as she regarded him with contempt.

“This is definitely the young woman who works for me,” Mr. Barker added. “You are the ones who called earlier this morning and demanded that we appear here. Is this why?” he continued.

“Sara, you should see a doctor. I wouldn’t trust some ’Wizard’ to have healed you completely. You could have internal medical problems,” her mother told her.

“Yes!” Kowalski quickly agreed. “We would like to see that she is healed completely. We’ll have her taken to the hospital and have her examined by a competent physician,” he continued with a smirk, as he had an ulterior motive.

“I will go with her. I don’t trust you people to not lock her up on some trumped up charge,” Mrs. Hankel told them in a determined voice. She was obviously a woman who was used to having her own way.

“I need to return to work, if you don’t require me any longer,” Mr. Barker told them before turning to Sara.

“When you are well enough to return to work, come into the office. You still have a job,” he told her before leaving.

He left leaving me with a very good impression of him. I was still invisible and wondering where this was going.

“We can have a uniform (uniformed police officer) drive her over to MUSC (Medical University of South Carolina) Medical Center on Ashley Ave. to have her looked at,” Kowalski suggested.

“One of us is going to need to go with her, or they will be there all day waiting to see someone,” Freeman told him. “I’ll go,” he added with a smile. “You can work on the killing of the three gang members. We still don’t have a clue what killed them or who did it,” he finished much to Kowalski’s displeasure.

“If you ladies will follow me, I’ll get you over to the hospital in my cruiser,” Freeman told the women on rising from his desk. The ladies followed him out and I followed them. In the hallway. Sara stopped near the ladies’ room.