Oh god is he going to have to kidnap two children. 

"Mommy and Auntie Keturah will be," he says, "I don't know about Caleb."

"Oh," says Zaida, thoughtfully, and tries to think whether Caleb will be OK in the house by himself. Maybe Caleb is big enough to do that. Zaida is kind of unclear on how big you need to be to have a house.

Silly Songs With Larry?

"EVERYBODY WANTS A WATER BUFFALO! YOURS IS BIG BUT MINE IS SLOW!"

Zaida is so good. 

At some point it gets late and they get a hotel room for the night. 

"Zaida, I have a very difficult job for you. Only a really bad little girl could do it."

"I am VERY BAD."

"I don't know, I'm not sure if you're bad enough to pull this off."

"I am the MOST bad," she says, and then pulls up her skirt to poke at her collection of still-healing welts. She thinks they're pretty good evidence. "I do things that are bad ALL THE TIME."

He recovers.

"What I need is for you to be very very quiet. The most quiet person, a person who does not make a single sound, while I make this phone call. It is very important you don't make any noise. If you make some noise, ba-- good men might come and take you away from your mommy and back to the Mellons."

Zaida clasps her hands over her mouth to show that she will be THE QUIETEST PERSON EVER.

Fred takes out the quieter toys from the bag. "If you want to say something, you can play with this or this or this."

Zaida nods very seriously and keeps her hands over her mouth.

Well. His not being in prison depends 100% on the self-control of a three-year-old. This is fine. 

He scrolls through his contacts, pauses at one or two likely candidates, then eventually dials Luke Thomas. 

Luke Thomas answers his phone. "Hello?"

Fred puts on what he privately thinks of as his Commander Waterford voice-- deep, firm, authoritative. "This is Commander Waterford. I have a job for you."

"Of course, what can I do for you?"

"The Meltons' daughter has been kidnapped. We suspect terrorist involvement, perhaps Cascadian." Slight emphasis on the 'we'; let him think Commander Waterford is an Eye.

"I see. That's horrible."

"For obvious reasons we cannot go through the usual channels." What obvious reasons? Fred sure doesn't know, but if you say it confidently enough people will feel stupid and not ask. "We believe the terrorists may be in contact with the Meltons' daughter's biological aunt, one Keturah Teller of St. Louis. To help our investigation you must give me her last known address." 

"Of course, right away." It takes him a certain amount of time to find the information, and then Luke very enthusiastically hands over Keturah's last known address. It's not in St. Louis itself, it's in the suburbs across the river in southern Illinois.

"Thank you. You have done your country a great service today."

"Of course, sir. My prayers are with you."

"My prayers are with you as well. I expect good things from your career progression going forward. --And, of course, for national security reasons, I have to ask that you not discuss this with anyone."

"I understand, sir."