by Steven James
Victor set his cell phone beside the papers on his desk so it would be available if his accountant called, then he perused the latest profitmargin reports and tapped his fingers to the rhythm of a tune he’d heard while driving to work earlier in the day.
Yes. Things were going well. Very, very well.
He glanced out the window at San Diego, the desert by the sea that humans had staked out as paradise. Victor liked looking down on this city. All the antlike inhabitants. Drones busily going about their petty suburban lives—
“Mr. Drake, sir.” A sultry female voice interrupted his thoughts. He’d hired the woman behind the voice just for the way she sounded. He pressed the intercom. “Yes?”
“I have General Biscayne on the line.”
Victor’s fingers stopped tapping.
Biscayne.
Again.
Who cares if you work at the Pentagon? You do not go calling one of the world’s richest men whenever you want to. No, you do not.
On the other hand . . . the billions of dollars that the Pentagon’s research and development arm, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, was spending on this project could buy the general a few extra minutes of micromanaging.
“I’ll take it on my private line,” he told the voice he loved.
Victor swung the office door shut, snatched up his landline phone, and tried to hide the irritation in his voice. “General. Good of you to call.”
“I wondered if you might have gone home for the day.”
“I like to work late.” Victor calculated the time in the Eastern Time Zone. “You must like to as well.”
“Hate it. Just got out of a marathon DARPA meeting, and we are, how shall I say, anxious to see the progress on Project Rukh.”
“Well, I have good news, General: we’ve nearly completed the prototype. It’ll be ready in only a couple of—”
“Actually, we want to see it now. ASAP. Give it a test run. See how well it performs.”
Just the idea that they questioned whether it would work was insulting to Victor. Just the idea! You don’t build the country’s most profitable biotech firm by delivering faulty products—which was why Victor had arranged for his own internal tests. “When we deliver it to you, General, I guarantee it’ll work.”
“Well, if it does, I guarantee you that Drake Enterprises will be well-positioned when the bidding comes for DARPA’s next project. But, if the device is not ready, we’re pulling the plug on this thing. You’ve had two years to make it work, and so far we have nothing but a 2.5 billion dollar microwave—not exactly what you were contracted to build.”
Victor could feel his grip tightening around the phone. He knew that if he lost the contract and word somehow leaked to the press— which the government would make certain happened—stocks would plummet and he would lose billions.
Not only that, but in the obligatory investigation that his board of directors would call for, it was possible, just possible, that some inconsistencies might be found in the third quarter earnings statements from 2007. And after Enron and WorldCom, that might not fare so well for Drake Enterprises and its CEO.
Even worse, someone might uncover evidence of the tests.
“Drake,” snapped the general, jarring him back to the conversation. “I’ll be arriving on Thursday. I’ve scheduled a Project Rukh Oversight Committee meeting for 1400 hours sharp. I want you there.”
“General, that won’t be necessary. I can assure you that—”
“I want to see firsthand what our taxpayer money has gone toward producing. And I’m telling you now, the device had better work.”
“But not in two and a half days. That’s not possible. We have thousands of pages of research to evaluate before final delivery. It’s not enough time—”
“You’ve had two years. That’s plenty of time.”
Victor had to try his hardest not to let on that he was speaking through gritted teeth. “Well, then. I look forward to your visit—” And before he could finish his sentence, the general hung up.
Drake slammed down the receiver. No one hangs up on Victor Drake. No one!
He yanked out a desk drawer, twisted open a bottle of pills, swallowed five of them, and then pocketed the bottle for later. Smacked the drawer shut.
So.
All right then.
They wanted to make sure it worked. Well, OK.
One more test.
One final test.
Tonight.
That would at least give Dr. Kurvetek Tuesday and Wednesday, two full days, to evaluate the results before the general arrived.
Victor called the team members and told them that he needed their services one last time and that they had better bring in some definitive results. He only used four men because he’d learned over the years that it’s difficult to keep things confidential, so the fewer people who know your secrets, the better. He asked the fourth man, “Do you have the site picked out?”
“Have I ever let you down?”
“All right. You know the drill. Just don’t get there early.”
A pause. “The money better be transferred within twenty-four hours this time. I don’t like to wait.”
“It will be. Don’t worry about that.”
Victor ended the call and elevatored down to the parking garage, all the while trying not to think about the general’s veiled threats concerning future contracts.
Just forget him. Forget Biscayne. Go home and relax. By morning, the test will be completed and you’ll be able to give him exactly what he asked for.
Victor fired up his Jaguar, roared out of the garage, and aimed his car toward his estate on La Jolla Farms Road.
While his four team members prepared for the test.
4
As Tessa and I ate, I tried to steer the conversation away from my work, but when we were nearly done with our salads, Tessa steered us back. “So, Patrick. Is it true you have the highest clearance record for cases involving serial offenders in the history of the FBI?”
“Wow. That was random.”
“You’re not allowed to say that. You’re over thirty.”
I took a slim breath. “Tessa, where did you hear that statistic?”
“Fox News. A couple of weeks ago. After that whole thing with Ramirez.”
Julio Ramirez had abducted young boys from playgrounds in Maine. He would take them to his home, do the things to them that parents have nightmares about, then lock them in a pit in his basement until they starved to death. Eight in all. My friend, Special Agent Ralph Hawkins, and I had caught him just after the first of the year.
“Well, I’m not sure if that stat is exactly accurate.”
She punched her fork into her salad and stuffed an olive into her mouth. “They said it was.”
“You can’t always trust what you hear. Look, I don’t really want to talk about all this right now. Let’s plan our schedule for the next couple—”
“They only call you in when everyone else is, like, totally stumped—which is pretty cool, by the way, I have to say.”
“Thank you. Now, let’s talk about—”
“But don’t get a big head or anything,” she said. “Because, I don’t really get it.”
“You don’t get what?”
“What you do.”
I didn’t like where this was going. “I thought you read the two books I wrote?”
“Well, I did. Sort of.”
“Sort of?”
She dropped her gaze. Let it wander around the table. “I did read ’em, I mean . . . until I fell asleep.”
A needle through my ego. Punctured. Drifting to the ground. “You fell asleep reading my books?”
“Look, I didn’t mean to, OK? It’s just . . . I couldn’t help it.” She stuffed some lettuce into her mouth. “No offense or anything, but don’t quit your day job.”
How nice.
“Anyway.” Talking with her mouth full again, “What I mean is, maybe you can explain it b
etter in person than on paper.”
Boy, she really knew how to lay on the compliments.
I decided to go for it, though. I might not get another chance.
But make it quick, then get back to planning the week.
“OK. Let’s see, where to start . . . So, crimes only occur when five factors intersect.”
“Time, location, offender, victim or object of desire, and lack of supervision or law enforcement presence. That was in the introduction to Understanding Crime and Space. I hadn’t fallen asleep yet.”
“Well, that’s encouraging.” I grabbed a saltshaker and slid it in front of me. It would be too complex to talk through all fourteen fires, but I could at least give her an idea of what I do by referencing four or five of them. “So then, with these arsons, let’s say this is the site of the first fire . . .” I tapped the saltshaker, then moved the pepper to the far side of the table. “The next arson was down here, south of San Diego in Chula Vista . . .” I put the rental car keys behind my salad bowl. “And the third fire was here, in Claire-mont . . .” I moved the coffee creamer and the teacup into position. “And these are fires four and five, what does that tell you?”
“Nothing. They’re just spread out all over.”
“Actually, it tells us several things.” I crumpled up a napkin and set it in the middle of the table.
“Is that the next fire?”
“No, it’s where I believe the arsonist might live. Think about this for a minute: if you started those fires, do you think you’d be familiar with the area?”
“I guess. So I’d know how to get away.”
“Right. But if you committed the crimes too close to your home, you might draw too much attention to yourself.” I dipped my finger in the bread oil and drew two concentric circles around the napkin, the outer one enclosing the salt and pepper fires. As I did so, our server approached, took one look at me finger-painting on the table, spun on his heels, and returned to the kitchen.
“So,” I continued, “you end up with a range, the ideal range, a comfort zone, in between these circles. Far, but not too far. Close, but not too close.”
She put my knife in the range, but on the other side of the table from the pepper. “Like the next fire might be here?”
“Right. Maybe. But I study what’s been done, not what might happen.”
“Does it change? This comfort zone thing? As you get more and more fires?”
“Yes. Because the arsonist isn’t going to keep setting fires in an area where there would be heightened law enforcement activity. So I ask myself, ‘What’s the significance of these locations to our offender?’ I look at the location, timing, and progression of the fires, compare that to the comfort zone, and then work backward to try and find the most likely location for the offender’s home base—which might be where he lives or maybe where he works. We call it the hot zone.”
“Sounds simple.”
“In principle, yes. But you need to take into account all of the locations associated with the fires, as well as pathways to and from the scenes. There are a lot of mathematical formulas involved, algorithms based on travel theory, cognitive mapping, stuff like that.” “They call it a geographic profile, right?”
“Yes.” I took a small bite of salad. “But it’s not like a behavioral profile. Nothing like that.”
“Yeah, you told me that before.”
“Anyway, all the locations, right? So, where he bought the ac-celerants, where the fires occurred, which fire alarms were set off first, the location of the person calling 911, sight lines.” As I said the words sight lines, I glanced at the table and noticed something. “Hang on.” I moved my large salad bowl just to the left of the comfort zone. “Can you see the salad fork from there?”
She shook her head.
“What about the keys?”
She shook her head again. “The bowl is in the way.”
Hmm. Yes.
“The bowl is in the way,” I repeated softly.
“What’s the bowl?” she asked.
I inspected the table, moved a few condiments around. “I think it might be Petco Park. Where the Padres play.”
“Bark Park.”
“Right.” I looked at the relationship of the salad bowl to the teacup and coffee creamer.
Yes, yes. You’ll need to look into that.
“What is it?” she asked.
Wait, Pat. Be here right now. Not somewhere else.
“Nothing.” I shook the thought loose. I could come back to it later, after she was in bed. “Anyway, when I compare all those factors to the traffic patterns at the time of the crime, the layout of the roads, bridges, bodies of water, demographics, population distribution, I can begin to . . . well, you get the idea. Most investigators ask, ‘Why did this happen?’ or ‘What was the offender thinking?’ or ‘How could anyone do such a thing?’ But I ask, ‘When was the offender here?’ ‘Where did he go?’ and ‘Where is he now?’ That’s environmental criminology in a nutshell.”
She studied the table. Looked at the salt and pepper shakers, the keys, the salad bowl, the circle of oil, the coffee creamer. “And you got a doctorate in this?”
“Well, yes, I—”
“How many years of school was that again?”
“OK. So, the aquarium. Sharks. I heard the Sherrod Aquarium has more than a dozen different species—”
“So, you don’t look for motive?”
If only more investigators were as persistent as she was. I tapped my finger against the table. “Not so much. No.”
“Why not?”
“Trying to guess someone’s motives always ends up being nothing more than speculation, Tessa. It’s based on inference rather than deduction, on intuition rather than evidence, and there’s no way to confirm or to refute your guesswork. I’m an investigator, not a mind reader.”
“What does Agent Jiang think of that? It’s a sore spot, isn’t it? Between the two of you?”
This conversation was going farther and farther astray. “We hold each other in high regard.”
“So I’ve noticed,” she said under her breath.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.” She took one final gulp of her root beer. “So, can you tell where the next fire is gonna be?”
I shook my head. “No. Like I mentioned before, I work backward to try and find the home base of the offender. I don’t do so well with predicting the future.”
“But try. I mean, if you were going to.”
“I can’t predict the future, Tessa.”
“OK.” She flew her eyes to the other side of the room. “Whatever.”
“You can pout all you like, it’s not going to help me predict the future.”
“Fine. Whatever. I’m not pouting.”
Still no eye contact.
Then she added quiet, nonchalant humming.
Wonderful.
OK. Fine. I studied the table, moved a few more objects around to represent the different fires so far. If I were going to predict the next fire, where would it be? I leaned over the empty salad bowl and checked the sight lines, then used my dessert fork to verify the distances between the fire sites represented on the table.
A few ideas. Nothing solid.
She watched me playing with the silverware and seasonings. “A doctorate, huh?”
“Listen.” I took the napkin and wiped the oil off the table. “Do you want any dessert?”
She seemed to be considering it when one of the servers paused beside her and lowered a platter of the pork tenderloin with mango and pineapple sauce onto the table next to us.
Tessa grimaced. “Ew, that is so disgusting.” I noticed that she pulled back one of the rubber bands she wore around her wrist and snapped it against her skin. “The poor pig. You can still see the blood.”
Slaughterhouses.
Yes, you can. You can still see the blood.
“I think I’m gonna be sick.” She stood. “Let’s go.”
“I’ll wait for you outside.” She grabbed the khaki canvas satchel that she uses as a purse and hurried for the door.
5
After taking care of our bill, I stepped outside and found Tessa waiting beneath one of the orange-yellow vapor streetlights nearby. She was writing something in the small notebook she often carries with her. When she saw me, she surreptitiously slipped the pen and notebook back into her satchel.
I decided not to pry.
The wind had picked up even more since we’d entered the restaurant, and it whipped her shoulder-length black hair around her head in a small frenzy. “So,” she said. “How many people were in there when we left?”
“Tessa, I don’t want to do this.”
“Sure you do, c’mon.”
“Let’s go, OK?”
She folded her arms. Leaned against the streetlight. I knew she wouldn’t budge until I answered her.
“All right. Sixty-two.”
“When we entered?”
“Forty-nine. How did you know I’d keep track?”
“It’s what you do. Which one of the servers worked there the longest?”
“Tessa—”
“You don’t know, do you? That’s why you’re avoiding the question.”
“Allison Reynolds. She was the one with six piercings in her left ear, three in her right. Based on her route proficiency, I’d say she’s been working at Geraldo’s for over two years. I heard a few snatches of dialogue. She’s from the Midwest, most likely southwestern Michigan or northern Indiana.”
After a quiet moment. “You can’t turn it off, can you?”
I drummed an anxious finger against my leg. “You ready to go?”
“I don’t really want to go back to the hotel yet.”
I thought for a moment. I don’t remember exactly when, but at some point in the last couple months, I’d first started calling Tessa “Raven.” She’d always reminded me of a raven, and sometimes the nickname just slipped out, as it did now, “Well, then, Raven, how about a walk beside the world’s only ocean?”