Small Town USA The Rats Below

Julie returned to the lobby and saw Sean in the coffee shop talking to a delegate. Sean was to follow Forsythe today, and although he had never actually met Forsythe, he took the precaution of disguising himself with dark beard, a pair of dark-rimmed glasses, and a cap to cover up the crop of thinning reddish white hair that normally hung loosely about his face. With his old tweed jacket, the look was complete. Julie stood at the door and signaled. Sean excused himself and joined her.

"What's with this outfit?" snickered Juliana.

"Never mind that. I don't want Forsythe to recognize me. What happened to Ricardo?"

"He's OK. His arm was injured, but the police dog died," said Julie.

"Well, too bad it wasn't the other way around."

"That's a terrible thing to say!"

"Yes it is and I meant it. What are you doing today?"

"I told Gutierrez I was going to attend the environmental crime sessions. We're trying to find common threads with international incidents."

"OK, Lassie, my conference session is about to start. I'll see you tonight."

Sean rushed past the police barricade and over to the conference room, where the topic was to be chemical safety. He knew Forsythe was scheduled to attend this session and Sean wanted to make sure he sat near him. When he arrived, Forsythe was sitting in the middle of the room concentrating only on his computer screen, seemingly oblivious to what was going on around him. Sean moved toward him. He sat one seat to the right in the row immediately behind him so that he had a clear view of the computer monitor.