Osborn waived his hand above the airport crowd and called out, “Stephen, over here.”
Dr. Stephen Grant smiled, nodded, and directed Sheryl in the proper direction.
Osborn extended his hand in greeting. “Good morning, Stephen. Glad you’re here. Was the flight all right?”
Stephen shook his head. “Naw. It was pretty bad. I think we’ll go back and do it over.”
Osborn looked at him questioningly.
Stephen slapped him on the arm. “I’m just kidding. It was fine. Randy, I’d like you to meet my fiancé, Sheryl Hauser. Sheryl, this is Agent Randy Osborn.”
He smiled and nodded toward her. “Nice to meet you, Miss Hauser.”
“Call me Sheryl.”
“Okay, Sheryl.” He pointed to the man beside him. “This is agent Mike Borns.” Osborn glanced at Stephen. “He’s babysitting me for the day.”
“Pleasure to meet you, Mike.” Stephen laughed and shook hands.
Sheryl nodded and smiled. “Nice to meet you.”
“Let’s get away from this crowd and sort things out.” He saw that Stephen carried two bags and Sheryl managed a smaller carry-on. “Is that all your baggage?”
“No.” Having picked up his bags, Stephen motioned with his head toward the area behind him. “There’s twelve porters back there somewhere, bringing the rest of hers.”
Sheryl smacked Stephen on the arm. “There are not.” She grinned at the FBI man. “There are only five.”
Borns spoke up. “I can see what kind of day this is going to be.” He nudged Stephen as they walked. “Is she always this way, Dr. Grant?”
“No.” He shook his head. “Only during the daytime.”
“I’m not going to touch that one.”
“Better not,” Sheryl responded. She reached over and took Stephen’s arm with her free hand. Shaking her head, she said, “I’m better sometimes, aren’t I, sweetheart?”
“Yes, dear. Sometimes you only require three porters.”
They all laughed.
Osborn motioned to them. “Let’s get back away from the crowd. Everyone’s after their baggage right now.”
They moved a few steps away. Stephen set his bags down, raised up and stretched his shoulders. Two men wearing sport shirts and slacks rushed from the crowd and bumped into Stephen, knocking him back a step. One of the men looked up at Stephen and shrugged. Both men hurried on without saying a word.
Stephen looked back at the crowd only a few feet away. Another man in a green, short-sleeved shirt approached, looking behind him as he walked, talking on a cell phone. He stopped about two feet from running into Stephen and turned to look forward. He immediately lowered his head, mumbled, “Sorry,” stepped around Stephen and kept walking.
Another man in a red plaid shirt emerged from the crowd toward them, snapped his fingers as if he remembered something, then abruptly turned and headed back into the crowd of people.
Osborn said, “We better move further on down, away from everyone.”
About twenty feet from everyone, Osborn spoke again. “Sheryl, we have reserved a car from Hertz for you. We’ll all go with you to help you get settled. When you’re all set, then we’ll go on to our meeting. We’ll be at the hotel where you are staying. There are directions for everything in this packet.” He handed a brown envelope to her. “Do you have your cell?”
“In my purse.”
“Great. And Stephen, you have yours?”
“Yes.”
“So Sheryl, if you experience any problems, just call Stephen.” He turned to Grant and smiled. “He might not be much help, but at least it’s someone to talk to.” He laughed.
Sheryl picked out a gray Ford Fusion, placed her carry-on bag in the trunk, studied the information packet with directions, asked a couple of questions, and off she went to search for newly discovered treasures.
As she pulled away from the curb, Stephen waved and turned back to the FBI men. The two men were leaning in toward each other, having a private discussion. Osborn almost whispered as he spoke to Mike Borns. Borns nodded, asked a few questions and nodded again. He turned and quickly walked away.
Osborn turned to Stephen and said, “Something has come up. Mike has to leave for awhile. He’ll join us later at the hotel. Right now he has to hurry, so I told him to take the car. We’ll take a cab to the hotel.”
Arriving at the Hyatt Regency Baltimore, the taxi driver gave Stephen’s two bags to the doorman and thanked the two men for using his cab. Osborn instructed the door man to leave the bags at the concierge desk, and they would get them later when they registered.
Stephen was impressed with the magnificent appearance of the hotel interior. The lobby had a high, recessed ceiling with a circle of indirect lighting softening the entrance. Oversize white tile highlighted by small black diamond shapes provided a spacious, open feeling. The semi-circle hotel desk of polished oak added a richness to the ambiance. The well-dressed hotel desk clerks all paused from their business to smile graciously at the two men as they walked past the desk and down the hall to the elevator.
“There are five conference rooms on the second floor. We have three of them at one end. Our meeting will be in the middle room. We have reserved the conference rooms on each side of it for privacy.”
Stephen nodded.
Osborn added, “You’ll find we have taken every precaution to ensure absolute secrecy for our meeting. I’ll show you.”
They walked into the conference room and found three men busy checking the ceiling, walls and electrical outlets. Osborn walked up to a short man in a tan suit. “Hi, Tom. How’s everything looking?”
The man glanced past Osborn to Stephen. “Oh,” Osborn responded. “This is Dr. Stephen Grant, our guest.” He motioned to the man beside him. “This is Tom Bradford. He’s one of our security experts.”
Bradford looked back to Osborn. “Everything’s in place. It’s clean. We’ve checked for everything. No mikes, no cameras, no transmitters, no bugs of any kind. And we now have our new portable acoustic noise generator here and working. It’s pretty cool. It projects noise around the room’s perimeter, not directly into the room itself. This allows for conversation at normal levels while preventing eavesdropping devices that rely on acoustic leakage.” He shrugged. “There are no windows, so that is not a problem. We are all secure, sir. You are ready to hold your meeting.”
“Thanks, Tom.” Osborn turned back to Stephen. “Let’s sit down and talk a minute before everyone gets here.” He motioned toward the far side of the conference table.
The room itself was fairly large, with two long conference tables sitting end-to-end in the middle of the room. Tables with black marble tops glistened, reflecting the recessed lights in the tall ceiling. Heavily padded tan leather chairs lined each side of the tables, providing room for 20 people. Each chair had the seat, back and arms molded together as one piece, then covered with leather and padding, almost like easy chairs.
Sitting down, the FBI agent spoke in a hushed voice. “I didn’t want to worry you earlier, but you need to know. You are being followed.”
Stephen’s eyes lit up and his eyebrows raised. “How do you know? I didn’t see anyone.”
“That’s because he’s good ─ but not good enough. We spotted him at the airport. Do you remember a guy in a green shirt with a cell phone?”
“Yes. He, uh, almost bumped into me.”
“That’s him. He probably picked you up when you got your baggage, just before we met. I think he pretended to talk on the cell phone so he could get close enough to you. He took your picture.” Osborn nodded. “Got a pretty good close-up.”
Stephen frowned. “Why would anyone want to follow me? Are you sure it’s me, and not Sheryl?”
“Yes. He stayed with us rather than follow her when she left the airport. I don’t think there’s anyone else following her.”
“I hope not,” Stephen exclaimed.
“Sorry, but I didn’t have enough people ready to dispatch. She does have a cell phone. We’ll tell her once she’s back. Try not to worry, I don’t think she is a target. But you ─” he pointed at Stephen, “You’re a different story.”
Stephen sighed. “You’re sure? Sure I’m being followed?”
“Yes. I’m sorry. We watched him at the airport taking several pictures of both you and Sheryl with his cell phone. He must have needed confirmation that he’d identified the correct target.”
“Why do you keep calling me a target? That’s rather scary.”
“Figure of speech. Just a term for someone you want followed.”
Stephen became nervous. “Do you think he’s here in the hotel now?”
“Not yet. But he probably will be soon. I have a man in the lobby watching for him.”
“What would they want with me?”
“Damned if I know. But we’re going to find out who he is and what he wants. Mike began shadowing him at the airport and has been following him ever since. We’re using all our contacts now to find out who he is. Maybe that will tell us what he wants.”
Swallowing hard, Stephen said, “So I’m just a sitting duck, a ... a target until he does something. Randy,” Stephen reached over and put his hand on Osborn’s shoulder. “I was shot at, remember, at Central Park. They missed. Maybe someone is out there who wants me dead. This guy might not miss again.”
“You need to calm down, Stephen. We don’t know what this guy wants. But we are following him. We will keep him in sight, and react if needed, before he can do anything to hurt you.”
“So in the meantime ...”
“In the meantime, you go on with business as normal.”
“I’m not sure any of this is normal. That’s why we’re here.”
Osborn gave Stephen a knowing smile. “You’ll be fine.”