Tick... tick... tick...
The only thing worse, I think, than waiting for something important to happen is knowing that there's a good chance that said something important already has happened. It's been a week since Carter bolted with no notice. How long does it take to travel cross-country, especially if you're not driving yourself? I was playing with Amtrak.com and Greyhouond.com earlier. Amtrak can apparently get you from Boston to Seattle in three and a half days, with two transfers; Greyhound can do it in as little as three with five. Of course, who knows if maybe Nat has made arrangements for faster transport at some point.

But, anyway, figure Carter gets to Seattle sometime Wednesday. Assume Nat and her people have been looking into Cater/Samantha's background in the interim, and then spent some time with Carter making sure that she was what she appeared to be and not some FBI sting operation. If I had to guess, I'd guess they performed the switch yesterday.

And then what? Homeland Security has "Martin Hartle" on the no-fly list, and any sort of background check will get their attention. I spoke with some of the local agents yesterday, as they tried to get any information on Nat and Carter that they could, and from what I gather, every law enforcement officer in the Pacific Northwest has "Sam"'s and Nat's and "Martin"'s pictures.

Of course, there's the question of how much worry the local cops will put into it - Nat must be just about ready to pop, and Carter (or, by now, Alexei) is this hundred-pound blonde teenager. How concerned would you be if you didn't know the backstory they have?

-Martina
- posted 4:50 PM - - (archive use only)