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Lili was driving through the rain on the Mass Turnpike when the phone rang through her car console. It said ‘SA Mayet Elsayed.’ “Hello, Mayet.”
“Hi Lili. Have you heard from Martha Eames?”
Lili hit the rumble strip in the breakdown lane and quickly recovered. “How could I hear from Martha? She’s in WITSEC.”
“She’s gone,” said Mayet. “The US Marshals were compromised. A Marshal guarding her was injured in a shooting, wherever they were staying. They transferred her to another location, but then she disappeared. They didn’t catch the shooter.”
Lili was stunned. “How could this happen? This is a disaster!”
“I’m sorry. I’m as angry as you must be. But, based on video-surveillance, it seems that Ms. Eames left of her own accord. Do you know where she would go?”
“Well, I think she’s very smart. I don’t think she’d go home. If I were her, I’d go into that underground railroad of hers.”
“That’s what I thought. How can I find her there?”
“It’s probably more secure than WITSEC. I don’t think you could find her there, but we may be able to find out if she entered their network. Based on my understanding, they don’t keep track of where anyone ends up. It’s a blind system.”
“Well, she might try to contact you. If she does, will you let me know, please?”
“If she contacts me, I’ll let you know, but I don’t think we’ll find her. The best I can do is to try and establish a way of leaving her a message. I don’t think it would work if the FBI or the US Marshals try to contact her. But I’m her friend. Who could possibly be after her that could compromise the US Marshals?”
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LILI WAS BESIDE HERSELF as she continued to drive. Martha survived a second attempt on her life. The people guarding her were compromised. The US government! So, she’s on her own, somewhere. She would have contacted SafeUR. She would have been given a place, a time, and a contact with a false name. She would have been driven to some ‘stops along the way,’ with different drivers. Ultimately, she would have been delivered to a final destination.
She would end up in a safe place to live and work to support herself. She doesn’t have access to her savings or her Social Security, or whatever other income she previously had. The network must have some way of keeping people from divulging their names to the IRS. False names? Working under the table?
Martha’s pretty old. What did she do before she retired? She was a school teacher. She must be taking medications. How would she get those? She could be in Denver, Phoenix, LA, Newark, or anywhere. I don’t think I can find her. How can I leave a message for her?
All these thoughts kept rolling around in Lili’s head until she got home. She felt exhausted. A glass of red wine with her tuna sandwich helped her to relax a bit. She called Gil and filled him in. He didn’t have any great ideas, but he said that maybe Martha would contact her. That might be the only thing she could do. Wait for Martha to contact her.
Lili unpacked and started a load of laundry. She got the mail from her mailbox. It was mostly junk, except for a couple of bank statements and auto-paid bill receipts. Why was she still getting hard copies of electronically paid bills? She’d have to go online and fix those. What a pain. As she went to file her paperwork, she saw the folder on her desk with Martha’s DNA test results. She’d promised Martha that she’d have her forensic genealogist, look into it. She texted Jeanie Peridot and asked her if she’d look at a friend’s DNA test results to find out who her relatives are.
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GIL AND MIKE STOOD by the wall of the gym, watching Jazz perform her gymnastic events. Gil could see Ziggy and Dez through the large hallway windows fooling around in the building, with Julia keeping a watchful eye. Jazz had a determined look in her eyes as she ran across the floor mat as fast as she could, then launched into a series of cartwheels and roundoffs, some with one hand, some with no hands at all. It made Gil both proud and nervous to watch her flying through the air. She was amazing, better than the other girls her age. Julia was trying to help manage the event, while watching her other kids and trying to catch some of Jazz’s routine.
Next, Jazz was up on the balance beam. She did a series of moves followed by an intricate dismount, and she totally stuck the landing! Gil knew how important that was from watching the Olympics every few years. He wondered whose genes Jazz had inherited that enabled her to do these things. Certainly not his. Probably not those of Cynthia, his late wife, either. His memory stirred as he thought about the way Cyn moved so gracefully, but she wasn’t the athletic type. His heart ached for her at moments like this.
While Jazz waited for her next event, Gil thought about Martha’s predicament. It overwhelmed his mind whenever he thought about it. Two attempts on her life, witness protection compromised, two people shot and killed, and another injured. She’s eighty-one years old! And now she’s on the run. Poor Lili, all wrapped up in this. She’s got to be going crazy. Gil thought that he should be with her for morale support, if nothing else. He’d go to her tomorrow.
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GIL GOT TO LILI’S HOUSE before lunchtime. He knocked on the door and walked in as he said hello. “We’re in here,” said Lili.
In the living room, Gil found Lili and a younger woman sitting next to each other on the couch. There was a mess of papers spread out on the coffee table in front of them. Lili popped up and gave Gil a kiss. “This is my friend Jeanie Peridot. She’s the forensic genealogist I’ve told you about.” Jeanie blushed and coyly said hi.
Gil got a bit flustered. Jeanie was supermodel-gorgeous. “Oh right. Martha’s stuff.”
“Yes, I thought I’d get her genealogy looked at, like I promised her.”
“I like doing these personal studies as a break from looking for criminals,” said Jeanie. “Usually I get lots of old pictures and some old documents to help. But apparently, Martha was adopted as a baby and had no family history that she knew of. Maybe we can find some for her.”
“Well, don’t let me distract you. I’ll just get some water. Can I get you anything to drink?”
“No thanks, we’re all set,” said Lili. “So, where were we? Oh yeah, Martha said that her maiden name was Stone. She was adopted from an orphanage in England. Gil came back into the living room and sat down to listen.
“Was Stone an adopted surname or her birth surname?”
“I don’t remember what she said, exactly. It could be either.”
Jeanie typed some notes into her tablet computer. “When I look at the DNA results, the results with the closest matches are from South America, and one from The Netherlands. The matches aren’t that close, though. Some have German names and some Spanish or Portuguese. As you said, the results show that she’s forty-two percent Jewish and twenty-eight percent Bavarian. A lot of Jewish people have German names. Quite a few German and Jewish people went to South America during and shortly after World War II. What I think I should do first is to upload her DNA results to see if there are matches with the other ancestry DNA companies. We’ll see if we can find some more closer matches. That will give us a more thorough picture. Once we get those results, I’ll get into record searches and see if we can build her ancestral narrative.”
They gathered up the papers and Jeanie got ready to leave. “It’ll take me a few weeks to make some progress on this. I’ll let you know.” Jeanie gave Lili a hug. “It was nice to meet you, Gil.”
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“YOU GUYS SEEMED VERY cozy on the couch there,” said Gil, with a concerned look on his face.
“You’re jealous!” said Lili, smiling. She skipped over to Gil and put her arms around his neck. “You have nothing to worry about. I’m a very monogamous person. If I ever wanted to move on, I’d tell you before I did. And, right now, I don’t see that happening.” She looked at his expression and said, “Jeanie is pretty hot, though, isn’t she?”
“Oh yeah.”
“She’s very into women, though, so you’re out of luck.”
Lili’s phone rang and she began chatting and laughing. Gil scrolled through the latest news on his phone. Lili’s call ended and she said, “That was my sister Amy. We’ve got a wedding to go to next June-ish on Long Island.”
“What’s Amy like?”
“She’s the ultimate material girl. Her husband Phillip is a broker on Wall Street. She’s very into lots of makeup and jewelry, stuff like that. She made her daughter Darcy’s engagement seem like an impending business merger. She kept going on about her fiancé’s family’s financial and social status.”
“I’m not going to like that.”
“Me neither, but they’re family. We’ll just think of it as a satire. I’m sure the food will be good.”