Page 63 of Protecting Silver
It wasn’t the words, but the tone of his agent’s voice that caused him to lift his head and scowl. He glanced over and saw John Decker raise his head as well. “Go ahead, I’m listening.”
“Remember a few weeks back and I reported to you about the takedown of Eddie Freedman?”
“Yes, what about it?”
“Do you also recall that I told you if it wasn’t for your brother, then we might not have been able to apprehend Freedman?”
“Go on,” Daniel said, and noted that Decker had stood and made his way over to Daniel’s side to look at the agent before him.
“He’s here.”
“Freedman? Why is he out of jail?”
“No, the man I assumed was your brother. He and Silver Roundtree are standing in the hall right now. They would have come up earlier, but security down in the lobby were laughing at them.”
“Why?” Decker demanded.
“I’ll let you figure it out,” Tamara said as she turned to the side, and called out, “You can come in now.” Tamara turned back and watched her boss and the other man as the door opened wider and Silver entered first. She stood off to the side, and allowed an unobstructed view of Atwal as he entered the office, sans the baseball cap Tamara had given him to wear minutes ago.
“Holy fucking shit,” both Daniel and Decker said as one. As Daniel jumped to his feet, Decker fell back into the chair beside the desk. Both of them wore expressions of shock.
“Holy shit,” Patch said as he stopped in his tracks, and stared at the man behind the desk who had jumped to his feet when Patch had entered the office. He looked back at Silver and held his hand out. Once she gripped his, he felt a calm come over him. With that calm, he strode forward with Silver by his side, and held his hand out. “Douglas Atwal, I have a case to discuss with you.”
“Okay,” Daniel was too stunned to say anything else, but it was Decker who jumped to his feet and took over the conversation.
“I’m former FBI agent John Decker—”
Patch spoke before he could continue. “We’ll talk later, I’m not here about my potential kidnapping, I’m here to discuss the man who kidnapped me, and sold me several times. After some extensive investigation work from a friend of mine, we’ve been able to track him down to here in Chicago. I’d like to propose a sting operation to take him down.” Patch’s announcement left the three agents in stunned silence. The first person to react was Agent Babcock. She hurried to the door and disappeared. When she returned she had another chair with her, and told her boss that she’d told Samantha to hold all his calls. Then, she directed everyone to sit over in the seating area where Decker had been working. She and Silver then made coffee from the pot in the corner, and left the men staring at one another.
Once the area was ready, Tamara whistled to get their attention. “It seems like we need to hear Mr. Atwal out, so let’s all sit down here and listen.”
“Please, call me Patch.”
“Patch?” Daniel asked.
“My former Marine team name. I was a medic in the marines, and I’d patch people up and send them on their way.”
“You were a Marine?” Decker asked.
“We’ll get to that,” Silver said as she approached them. She took Patch’s hand and led him over to a love seat. After he sat down, she pulled the files they’d brought and laid them on the table before the seating areas. “Please, gentlemen, we know the shock this might have on you, and we anticipated that, but we have some important business to discuss first. If you’d please join us, we’ll answer some of your questions as we go along. Believe me, it all ties in to what’s running through your mind right now.”
It was either her tone or her personality, but as soon as Silver stopped talking, the others joined them. Patch noticed that Agent Babcock had grabbed a pad of paper from a shelf, and a pen off her boss’s desk before she settled in the seat she’d brought in. Atwater and Decker sat in the overstuffed chairs on the other side of the table and faced Patch and Silver. Silver looked at Patch and took his hand in hers, and gave it a gentle squeeze.
“Okay then,” Patch began. “I know going forward, you’re going to have a lot of questions, but could you please refrain from asking them, until I get to the meat of why I’m here.”
“Before we start,” Decker said. “We haven’t been properly introduced yet, but as I said earlier, I’m former agent John Decker. I’d like to get a sample of your DNA before we go any further. If you said you’d talk to me later, then you know why.”
“I do, but don’t worry about it,” Patch leaned forward and pulled one file from the stack and used a finger to push it across the table in front of him. Everyone paused and watched as Decker pulled it toward him, picked it up, then opened it. Less than a minute later, he looked at Patch with a grin on his face.
“Thank you,” he said, and gave the folder to Atwater who read the contents and they all watched as his eyebrows disappeared in his hairline.
“Damn. Okay, like you said, we’ll get to that. My name is Daniel Atwater.”
“And as I said earlier, I’m Douglas Atwal, but I believe my name had been changed in the past. Now, just a snapshot of background on me. Feel free to take notes.” Patch waited until the two men gathered their supplies and rejoined them. This time, Daniel had bottles of water to add with the coffee in the center of the table. When they gave him the go ahead, he rubbed his sweaty hands on his thighs and began.
“Again, this will be just a quick five-minute recap of my childhood before I’ll get into the crux of why I’m here. I have no memories before the age of four. My first memory is of living with a family by the name of Foster, Max and Carole, and they had a daughter a little older than me, her name was Patty. When I was in kindergarten, I was called to the office, and my caseworker was there. He removed me from school, when I asked him why, he said my foster father had called and said he’d lost his job and they couldn’t afford me any longer. I later found out it was all lies. When we left the school, it was just before lunchtime, and we drove for hours. It was well after dark when we arrived at our destination.”
Patch paused and picked up his coffee to sip. Drawing in a deep breath, he settled back and let it out in a rush. “I was told to wait in the car, Merrick, my caseworker went to the door, a woman answered, and she gave him an envelope. As clear as day, so clear I’m willing to testify in a court of law to what I saw, Merrick took out the contents and counted cash. However, I couldn’t tell you how much was there, but it was cash. He stuffed the envelope in his pocket and came to get me. I stayed with a woman by the name of Sally Albert. She told me she was my new foster mother. Oh, when Merrick took me out of the school, I only had the clothes on my back. I stayed with Albert for two years, then Merrick showed up and took me away again. I was eight. The new home he put me in was a horror show. The man beat me as well as the other fosters, he stayed home all day and drank and partied, while his wife worked two jobs to pay the bills. After only a few weeks, I called Merrick myself and told him to come get me, or I was calling the cops. He arrived in under two hours.”
