“I think it’s time we had a talk,” the voice said, and I turned slowly to look up into the face of the man in the gray suit.
I felt as if everything in me had suddenly dried up, as if my heart had stopped beating and I couldn’t get my breath.
Charlie looked startled and scared, too, but at least he could still speak. “Who’re you?” he asked.
I looked around to see if it was worthwhile to scream for help, but we’d picked this area because there weren’t any people in it right now, and there still weren’t. Oh, we could see a few travelers off in the distance, but there was no one close to us, and certainly none of the security officers I’d hoped for.
Whatever this man intended to do, nobody was likely to stop him. I gulped audibly.
The stranger who had accosted us reached inside his jacket, and I felt myself turning to mush. Was he going to shoot us, right here?
It wasn’t a gun he produced, though. Instead it looked like a black leather wallet. Only when he opened it up it wasn’t money inside. There was a silver-colored badge, very official looking, and an I.D. card with his picture on it. I was too stunned to read it all, but he told us the important part.
“Agent James Santori, Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
Eddie exhaled a tremulous breath. “You mean you’re not going to shoot us?”
For a moment the man’s face was so serious I thought Eddie might be wrong about that, and then Agent Santori’s mouth twitched a little. “Not right this minute,” he said. “But I want to talk to you.”
Charlie’s fingers tightened on the handle of the briefcase we’d appropriated from the locker. He cleared his throat. “What about?” he asked, as if he had no idea.
“About a couple of men you may remember. One of them traveled with you on the plane down from Seattle. The other one came in shortly behind you in Portland, on a charter flight, and came on from there on your continuing flight.”
We looked at each other and nodded. I had started to breathe again. I wasn’t as scared of an F.B.I. agent as I was of The Enemy who had attacked Mrs. Basker, but I wasn’t sure what they did to you if you’d taken a briefcase that didn’t belong to you out of a locker. Had he watched us empty the locker? Did he realize it wasn’t our case? Had he heard what Charlie said just before he approached us?
“Sure,” Charlie said finally. “Mr. Upton and the guy in the Hawaiian shirt.”
“Those are the ones,” Agent Santori agreed. “What do you know about them?”
I would have just told him, but Charlie was stubborn. He said later he figured the guy would take the briefcase and we’d never know what it was about unless he resisted at least a little.
“What’s going on? Why are you investigating them?”
Eddie was braver than I was, too. “Are they drug dealers or something like that?” he wanted to know.
The F.B.I. man ignored him. He seemed to sense that Charlie was the leader and spoke directly to him. “You’re aware that these men have been following you, and that they’re dangerous.” He hesitated. “Very dangerous.”
“Sure,” Charlie admitted.
“So what do you know about them? What called your attention to them in the first place?”
I opened my mouth to reply, but Agent Santori wasn’t looking at me, and then Charlie said the most outrageous thing. My mouth was still open, only now it was sagging at Charlie’s nerve.
“What’s in it for us?” Charlie asked.
For a minute I thought the F.B.I. agent was going to put handcuffs on him and search him. He didn’t say anything and Charlie pushed harder.
“If we tell you everything and you don’t tell us anything, it’s not a very fair trade,” Charlie said. “What kind of case are we mixed up in?”
Agent Santori’s face was as scary as when I’d first noticed him watching us. “Blackmail is a criminal offense, you know.”
“I’m not asking for money,” Charlie told him brazenly, “just information. Is it a drug case? Or what?”
The man’s voice went very soft. “Are you saying you won’t cooperate by answering questions?”
“No, sir. But it’s not fair not to tell us anything, in exchange for what we know. It’s not a matter of national security, I’m pretty sure of that. They’re just crooks, right? Tell us what’s going on, and we’ll be happy to tell you what we’ve found out, right, gang?”
Even while he had me worried that he’d get us all locked up, I had to confess to a certain admiration for his effrontery. (That was one of those words I learned when Grandma was doing her puzzles.) I’d never have dared talk to him that way, and I didn’t think Eddie would have, either. My dad once referred to Charlie as “all brass and a mile wide,” and I finally saw what he meant.
Eddie did find the courage to back Charlie up, though. “Sure. We’ll tell what we’ve found out.”
Between the two of them they made it sound like we’d found out a lot, and I supposed maybe we had if the contents of the briefcase were as valuable—or as incriminating—as we guessed.
Agent Santori was regarding Charlie as if he were some loathsome variety of worm. “You kids traveling alone? No chaperones?”
“No. I’m thirteen. We don’t need a baby-sitter,” Charlie said.
“Then you’re mature enough to know that the best thing to do when a federal agent asks questions is to answer them.”
“Sure. I told you we’ll cooperate fully. So what’s the big deal about a trade of information? Just tell us what kind of a case it is. Not the names of the criminals, necessarily, but what the case is about. Besides the fact that they hit old Mrs. Basker over the head and put her in the hospital to get her bag, what’s going on?”
The state I was in, it was a miracle I could notice anything except that I was in a cold sweat of nervousness. But I was pretty sure that Charlie had just given him one bit of information he hadn’t had before. He didn’t know about Mrs. Basker.
His next words proved it. “When did they do this? Hit this old lady?”
“In Portland Airport, a few hours ago,” Eddie said, before Charlie barked, “We’re going to trade information, remember?”
The F.B.I. agent considered this for long seconds. In the silence I heard a jet taking off, far in the distance.
“All right,” Agent Santori said finally, not sounding the least bit friendly. “I’ll give you a couple of basic facts, and then you’ll answer my questions. Either here, and in full, or in my office at the Federal Building. You got that straight?”
Charlie nodded, and I let out a little of the breath I’d been holding.
“Okay. You’ve stumbled into a case involving large sums of money, taken in on stolen merchandise that has been sold across state lines and international borders, which makes the crime fall under the jurisdiction of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. This illegally earned money is being moved around the country by couriers so that it can be put back into circulation through legitimate businesses—”
“Money laundering!” Charlie exclaimed. “Isn’t that what they call it?”
“Correct. There is considerable money involved, and the men who are doing it have a lot at stake. They are very dangerous. Nobody for a bunch of kids to get mixed up with, because they could easily get hurt.” He was back to his former point. “And that is why you are now going to sit down and tell me exactly how you got involved with these people and what you’ve learned about them.”
“Sure,” Charlie said. His eyes were glowing. I thought he was probably already wondering if he’d get his picture in the paper.
At that moment the voice on the P.A. system caught our attention: “Will Charlie Portwood come to the nearest white courtesy telephone, please? Charlie Portwood?”
“It’s for us! It’s Aunt Molly, she’s finally here!” I cried in relief. “We have to go find one of those white phones right away!” I no longer cared about the contents of the briefcase or The Enemy. I wanted to turn the whole mess over to Aunt Molly and let her deal with it, including the F.B.I. agent.
“Just a minute,” Agent Santori began, but Charlie spoke urgently. “We’ll talk to you in a minute, sir, but right now we have to answer the page. Our aunt’s expecting us, and she won’t know where we are. She’ll be worried. Besides,” Charlie added, “we should have an adult present when we answer questions anyway, shouldn’t we?”
Agent Santori gave him the kind of look my dad gave me when I mentioned wanting to have my hair dyed red. “You want your lawyer present, too?”
Charlie grinned. I suppose that he, too, felt better knowing rescue was at hand in the form of Aunt Molly. “It wouldn’t hurt,” he agreed.
“Come on,” I urged. “We’ve got to answer the page.”
Agent Santori nodded sardonically. “All right. Go ahead. As soon as your aunt joins you, we’ll talk.” He made it sound like a threat.
He came along behind us as we hurried to find one of the white phones, but he didn’t make any effort to keep up. I was eager to talk to Aunt Molly, but it was Charlie who got there first.
“Hi, Aunt Molly. Yeah, we got here all right. Is your friend okay? Good. Uh, yeah, we’re near Gate . . .”
He turned around to see what the nearest gate number was, and froze.
I turned slowly, too, and saw Eddie’s face change before my own must have.
Mr. Upton was there, and the guy in the Hawaiian shirt, but not the F.B.I. agent. I glanced around wildly for Agent Santori, who was nowhere in sight even though he’d only been a few yards behind us.
Mr. Upton spoke very softly. “Hang up the phone, kid.”
The gun he was pointing at Charlie’s belt buckle was quite enough to assure our cooperation.
And without a word, before he could tell Aunt Molly where we were, Charlie replaced the receiver.