“How the hell did the FBI manage to lose a sixteen-year-old kid?”
Now Littlefield met her eye. “We had no reason to believe he was
going to make a break for it.”
“And you had no reason to believe he wasn’t either,” Sean pointed out. “But from the WFO? Really?”
“How?” demanded Michelle.
“Does it matter?” asked Littlefield.
“It might just help us find him.”
Littlefield slumped in his chair.
“He said he was hungry. Wanted a hot dog and curly fries from the vendor outside. He also wanted some air. Sent one of the old codger uniforms with him. Our guy had two dogs and a pack of fries in his hands and was trying to pay for the food when the kid took off across the street like a rocket. Right in the middle of rush hour. In less than a minute he was gone. Our guy said the boy could flat-out run.”
“Uh, yeah, he’s sixteen freaking years old with long legs,” said Michelle. “And he’s on the swim team, which means he has tons of endurance. But I’m sure you knew all that. Which makes me wonder why you sent an old codger out with him in the first place!”
“He wasn’t under arrest. He wasn’t being detained.”
“It was your job to keep him safe. Now he could be anywhere,” said Michelle. “Including dead.”
“Okay, I get all that,” said Littlefield miserably. “I screwed up.” He looked from one to the other. “So what now?”
“Now we find Tyler before some other folks do,” said Sean. He added, “I’m assuming we’re free to go?”
“For the time being. But I’ll feel a lot better if I send some agents with you. For personal protection, of course.”
“No offense,” said Michelle. “But the Secret Service does personal protection a lot better than you, so we’re good to go.”
“So what did the president want with you two?” asked Littlefield.
Michelle said, “To congratulate us on our work to date.”
“Cut the crap. What did he want?”
“He wants us to do something,” said Sean. “And we’re thinking about it.”
“The president asks you to do something and you’re thinking about it?” Littlefield said incredulously.
“You know,” said Michelle. “That’s exactly how he sounded too. Well, take care, we’ll be going now.”
She put her hand on the knob and eyed Sean. An invisible message seemed to have been telegraphed between them.
Sean said, “We’ll keep you abreast of our investigation if you do the same.”
“You know I can’t promise that,” said Littlefield.
“Good,” said Sean. “Then we’ll keep you in the dark on ours too.”
They left.
As they walked down the hall Michelle said, “Where do you think Tyler went?”
“He got a message back from his dad. My guess is he got another one.”
Sean was already pulling his phone out and checking the back door he had established on Tyler’s Gmail account.