Chapter 10
I LOVE flowers. You may see tons of flower photos as I post. My son thinks I'm silly posting photos that have nothing to do with my novel. I call it fun. These hollyhocks came from seeds from other hollyhocks that came from other seeds all the way back to my grandmother's backyard hollyhocks. That's quite the heritage! I never look at my pink hollyhocks and don't remember my sweet grandmother.
Hidden Secrets
Leona Palmer Haag
Chapter 10
Matthew Jensen watched waves of heat shimmer on the
pavement. Hot was an understatement that afternoon. He turned his gaze away
from the street beyond the window in front of him and buried his head in the
local newspaper again. Panama was quickly turning into the most boring
experience he'd ever had. Not a single rat was crawling out of the woodwork.
Not that he'd come expecting much, but he had hoped for something.
City news, country news and world news began to blur
together before his eyes into one big printed puddle. Once he'd arrived he'd
hoped to get an assignment and an opportunity to show he still had valuable
capabilities, but had come on such short notice that he'd intentionally been
kept out of the loop. Whether that had been Mitchell's doings or the local
agent's, he didn't know. Monica had her job to do and he'd been reduced to a
sidekick wearing house slippers instead of a major player in steel-toed boots
concealing a blade. It was a huge let down.
That evening, after an uneventful day, Matt stretched
out on the firm hotel bed and watched his wife remove her earrings and then let
her hair fall down from a tight French twist in tight waves of blond curls. She
shook her head and the kinks slightly relaxed. She flicked a brush through it
and frowned.
"Have a good day today?" Matt asked.
She frowned. "If inspecting sweat shops is your
idea of a good day." She turned from the mirror and faced him. "I
didn't find anything out of place. Not one thread. I saw a thousand sewing
machines and a million yard of fabric but nothing else." She waved her
arms in the air. “Nothing!”
Matt watched his wife turned back to the mirror and
scowled. "Matt, I've got two more factories to check out and if they turn
up as clean, this whole trip has been a wild goose chase. Do you know how much
I hate that?" She spun back to face him again.
He shrugged. "No. Tell me about it." He
wasn't really asking, because that was how he felt as well. Nothing productive
had happened since he'd stepped onboard a jet in Dallas.
Monica sat on the chair next to the mirror for a
moment before she jumped up and began pacing. As her steps grew faster and
choppier, her anger spilled out. "I think we were sent here as a
diversion. I think this whole thing is a mask for something else. Something
bigger. To keep us away from finding it. Something big, mean and ugly. Someone
decided to blow a little smoke so the office would send agents to the wrong
fire. With Nick in Dallas playing daddy, that makes three agents out of the
loop." She turned and glared at him.
Matt shrugged. "Maybe so, but where's the fire?
Where should we be looking?"
Monica stopped pacing for a brief moment, then began
wearing out the carpet again. "With Natalie in Maryland for a few days doing
a little non-essential duty to make everyone happy, that makes four agents with
their backs turned." She stopped and spun back to face him. "Where is
the real spark, Matt? Where is the kindling? And the waiting gas can?"
Matt slowly sat up. He reached for a match and lit a
candle and then turned off the lamp beside the bed. "Come here, beautiful
and let's find out."
Monica let out a long, frustrated sigh. "Exactly.
We're way off course in the office. Let's try to stay on course with each other
when we can. We'll tackle work problems in the morning."
Morning found Monica dressing up for yet another tour
of a clothing manufacturing company. Acting as powerful and picky Drusella
Russell, she was responsible for finding a suitable new factory for producing
expensive clothing at a cheap price using low-paid labor. In reality, as Monica
Oscarson-Jensen, she was searching for a legitimate business acting as a front
for exporting weapons or drugs. Or both. With Chi-Chi, a little fluffy fur ball
dog in her arms that could sniff out explosives and gun powder, she had spent
days touring one factory after another hoping to find the one an unidentified informant
had reported.
In contrast, Matt donned a pair of shorts and a white
t-shirt and stuffed his fake ID in his wallet before locking his true identity
in the hotel room safe. As Drusella Russell's personal manager and boyfriend,
Hank Bennion, he stepped out of the room and locked the door. He had
approximately four hours before Monica would return and report her findings. He
had little hope she'd be successful—something his wife always expected and
rarely failed to accomplish.
Matt had spent the early morning on the internet
searching for leads to help her. Nothing. He then turned his attention to
trying to run down a useful chore for himself to do as an agent in Panama. No
luck. He next hunted for a weak link in some dirty deal that he could expose.
Zippo. Nada. Too bad. He’d turned up nothing.
Discouraged, Matt turned to petty crime. It was better
than reading the local newspaper and wishing he wasn't on vacation. He left the
hotel and wandered as if aimlessly to the tourist district where overly
colorful trinkets were on display as if they were all handmade by local
artisans and worth every balboa. He browsed through a few open shops and even
asked questions about the cost and origin—all in English. He bought a gaudy,
cheap necklace and matching bracelet in purple, orange and green for his
sweetheart, knowing it was something Monica would never be caught dead wearing.
He had a good laugh over it. Maybe he could talk her into wearing it to dinner.
Was he persuasive enough for that? Probably not, but it would be a fun
experience. He laughed again.
With a bottle of soda he paused to lean against a wall
and watch the tourists and observe the crime. It only took a few seconds to
spot the first incident. A beautiful senorita appeared in the crowd. She was
dressed like the other tourists, but something made her stand out. Just a
little edge of difference in her actions and appearance caught his attention.
Matt checked his watch. He gave her exactly thirty
seconds—a generous amount of time in his estimation—to select her victim. Ten
seconds later he was sure he'd nailed it on the head. A pretty blond woman
admiring a scarf.
Matt checked his watch again. He gave the
golden-haired local senorita sixty seconds—a generous amount of time in his
estimation—to accomplish her crime. Twenty nine seconds later the senorita was
within striking distance. Eight seconds later she was moving away having
successfully, and unknowingly to her victim, achieved her goal.
Matt allowed himself thirteen seconds to intercept the
senorita and another ten to retrieve the stolen wallet through a gentle bump of
his own. He didn't time himself, but assumed it only took twenty-three seconds.
For fun he tossed in one Spanish word whispered in the pretty senorita's ear,
"Prison."
Returning the wallet was a littler messier.
"Ma'am! Ma'am!" he called until the blond woman finally turned her
attention to him. "I—I think you dropped this back there where you bought
your scarf," he said as if panting.
The woman looked shocked, and her husband, who now
thought he ought to join her and maybe defend or protect her, looked relieved.
"Maybe you should use the zipper in that
suitcase-like bag. Maybe don't pull the wallet out again. Maybe…" Matt
shrugged as if unsure how to prevent it from happening again. He wanted to say,
"Maybe watch for theft. Maybe pay attention. This isn't middle America."
Matt received his thanks and left while the couple
opened the wallet to inspect the contents. He suspected he'd really only
stopped one crime, but the senorita had probably committed ten more as she'd
hastily fled the scene. Her chances of returning within a few minutes were high
as well.
With his good deed done for the day, Matt left to find
a place to eat lunch. He ordered something that sounded half American in a
little café and reached for his wallet.
Gone!
He'd been a victim too? He no longer possessed a
credit card with no real account number, a driver's license for someone that
didn't exist, and a dozen photos of the wife and kids back home whom he'd never met, married or sired. Gone
was the library card, fake parking validation and security parking pass. Gone
were his stack of bogus business cards. He'd also lost eight well-worn American
dollar bills totallying nearly a hundred dollars, and a few receipts for things he never bought, including dry cleaning for a shirts he didn't own. He was humiliated. So
much for being a smart guy. Some hero he turned out to be.
Matt dug into a front pocket in his shorts and
retrieved a wad of bills and paid for his lunch. He sat down at a table under a
bright umbrella and pulled out his cell phone to notify the office of his bad
luck. He took the first bite of his meal and just as he was ready to punch in
the phone number, his phone beeped. The incoming text message read: Check in
ASAP.
Matt groaned. They knew already? Someone must have
tried to use the credit card. He knew he was in for a lecture. Maybe immediate
recall. Suspension? His whole week had been lousy and now his day had gone from
bad to worse. He decided to finish lunch before he faced the music.
End Chapter 10
You know, I'm a little bit confused, here. I really thought I had that ugly rat climb all over Natalie in a previous version of my novel. It went up a leg and sat on her head and scared the crap out of her, etc. I wonder what happened to that scene. Did I edit it right out of the book because I thought there was no way the rat wouldn't have triggered the crossbows? Probably. Obviously, I over-thought the whole thing during some rewrite. Trust me, it was really funny. Truly horrible! Now I wish I'd left it in. I guess some things improve as a manuscript is edited, but some good things are lost. Oh well. I hope you're enjoying Hidden Secrets.
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