Chapter 65

The phone rang. Picking it up, I hoped it wasn't anyone important.

"Sampson? Get your fucking ass down here. Now!"

It wasn't.

I looked over at the clock. It was just 12:55. It was too close to Sally's time. She was more important. In fact, she was just coming to the door. I looked up at her and smiled. Fuck this telephone shit. Our times together were becoming too precious. I never knew what she was going to come up with, but I think I liked the 'nothing' days the best. We often just sat quietly holding each other, not talking, not petting, just being. Doin' nothin'.

"I'll be there at 2:30." Sally heard me and smiled at the timing.

"Now, Sampson."

I suppose I should have told him I didn't like to be ordered around, especially by someone in his position. It tended to make me angry. I was already well on my way to pissed off.

"2:30, asshole!" I told him, again.

He changed his tone, and I finally recognized that what I was hearing wasn't arrogance, but fear. Out of control fear.

"Look. It's not me, sir. But the directors are going to be really pissed if they have to wait that long."

Now my curiosity was piqued.

"Directors? As in plural?"

"Yeah, butt face. Ours, the FBI's, the CIA's, and another guy that has those three spooked out of their shorts. Believe me, they don't want to sit in there and drink coffee with that guy for an hour and a half."

"No shit?"

"No shit! Now get a move on!"

"OK. I'll leave as soon as I can get away."

We both knew I had no intention of leaving any sooner than I had said before. Let the bastards be a bit uncomfortable. It still beat a long night living with the rats...

"Now, you motherfucker..."

I heard as I hung up the phone. I smiled up at Sally and went to her with my arms open. I had a bad feeling I was going to need all the love and support I could get my hands on. Sally must have sensed my need for her comfort and love. It was a 'nothing' day.

I think she wondered why I cried when 2:00 came.

I got to the anonymous building downtown at 2:20. I waited outside the door, in clear view of the security cameras for 15 minutes. It was too much hassle for them to come out and get me, then have to get cycled back in. Sometimes things work in your favor.

By the time I got through security it was 2:45. I walked into the conference room and sat down. Four government suits stared back at me. Well, three, anyway. The fourth one was too expensive to be government issue, which meant only the government could have afforded it.

One of the men I knew better than the others because I had worked for him, in my prior life. I knew two of the others as they were in the news occasionally, political appointments and congressional hearings. The fourth man looked familiar, as if I had seen him somewhere. It was more like I had sensed his presence somewhere, like a dullness or deadness on the fringes of my consciousness. Or like a disease. I decided didn't like him. When I looked at him, I had a foreboding sense I was looking at myself in 10 years time. It scared the shit out of me. Not that I would be alive in 10 years, but in seeing what I could become.

FBI started in.

"Where the Hell did you get this evidence?"

The briefcase and its contents were on the table.

I told them the story, starting with Sally's involvement with Gary. I told them about finding Nicole and taking her and Simone into my home and into my protection. Since they had my report on Gary's demise and my part in it, I left that out. I related that Simone had had difficulties adjusting to the new situation and run away. I said I had traced her — I didn't say how — to the warehouse and rescued her.

"But that was months ago, Sampson! Do you realize how much time you've wasted?"

I didn't want them to know how frightened I had been of dealing with that briefcase. I had successfully forgotten about that particular ugliness until we moved and it showed up. Like a bad penny. But this FBI guy was a real asshole. And he was scared, too.

"Well, I figured you were still sifting the evidence you got from that child molester's house you had under observation for all those years," I shot back.

The FBI had taken public credit for putting away Gary, when it had been handed to them on a silver platter. That kind of positive PR meant billions of dollars in increased funding.

"Fuck you!"

I didn't answer.

"Why did you wait so long, son?" CIA was more intelligent, smoother. Still an asshole.

"It wasn't part of my mission."

"I don't understand. Was this an official mission?" he asked, turning to my old director.

He shook his head, then looked at me. "If I may?" he asked.

I nodded.

"Mr. Sampson's mission, as he had been trained to defined it, was to recover the young girl. Our agents are trained to be focused, mission specific. I'm surprised he brought out the case at all, to be truthful. It shows a break in his training."

He looked at me with a raised eyebrow. That look had ended more than one career and they had all been damned good agents.

"It wasn't entirely voluntary, Sir, as I recall. I remember I couldn't find the door, I remember my head kept turning to face the corner this case was hidden in. The girl later told me she was tugging my ear, turning me so I would find it. This was her find, not mine."

"That would be Miss Le Brech, the young girl, right? Dr. Schwartz has said some very nice things about her."

"Yes. Simone. She is my stepdaughter now. She wasn't at that time."

"Very nice for you, I'm sure. Can we get back to the fucking point?"

That was Mr. FBI again.

"You're telling me that you didn't have any idea what was in the case? I find that hard to believe!"

I shrugged. Fuck him. But something wasn't right. Suddenly, the stench of panic in the room made sense.

"God damn it! You bastards didn't have a clue. Even after I handed you that guy's house and all those tapes, all the pictures and the dead fucking bodies. I'm right, aren't I? You're all sitting here chewing on my ass because I'm the only one who has any god damn fucking clue what's going on. Oh, God help us!"

I looked at them accusingly, demanding a response. Finally the scary one nodded.

"What the press, what no one outside of a very, very small circle knows is that the funerals that were televised were almost all staged. No one had missed those 34 girls. No one had ever reported them gone. No one."