Checkmate

by Steven James

Once he was on-screen he said, “Angela hasn’t been able to find anything pertinent regarding that Latin phrase or the English translation relating to sculptures or CD covers. The Vatican has assured us that they’re going to do whatever they can to help, but so far they haven’t come up with anything either.”

  Maybe the sentence isn’t from anywhere. Maybe the text was written up specifically for you.

  “What do we know about the Semtex?” I asked him.

  “Two hundred pounds were taken.”

  “What?” I gasped. “I thought it was only twenty.”

  “Yeah, well, so did we. An extra zero got dropped out of the initial reports. And from what we can tell only a few pounds would have been needed at the NCAVC to cause that extent of damage. We could be looking at a much bigger attack on the horizon.”

  “A shipment that size of Semtex was lost and we didn’t hear about it on the news?” Voss said skeptically.

  “It’s not exactly something the Army was excited to publicize, but, believe me, I’m looking into it.”

  “With that much Semtex”—it was Voss again—“how much damage could you do to . . . say, a skyscraper?”

  Ralph answered this time, drawing from his background as an Army Ranger. “If you knew what you were doing and where to place it, and, of course, depending on the size of the building and its structural integrity, you could probably bring one down.”

  After we’d all had a chance to take that in, I asked Gonzalez what else we knew.

  “The Semtex was shipped last Monday. It was supposed to go to Fort Bragg, but it never arrived.”

  “What does that mean, ‘it never arrived’?” I said. “It didn’t just disappear en route. What are we talking about here?”

  “Yeah”—Gonzalez scratched with irritation at his scar—“that’s pretty much what I said. I’ll let you know more as soon as I find anything else out.”

  After the video conference, Voss adjourned the meeting and Ralph and I went with him to his office. Once the three of us were alone, Ralph said, “Talk to me about your joint task force work with the CMPD.”

  Charlotte is a little different than many major cities in that its police department covers the whole county rather than just the city proper. They ended up with the somewhat cumbersome name of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, or CMPD for short.

  Voss was slow in responding to Ralph’s question. “You know how these things can be.”

  “Tell me how these things can be.”

  He glanced at the clock on the wall, then back at Ralph. “I’ll put it this way: They’re not the most cooperative department I’ve ever worked with.”

  “And how many is that?”

  “Three. Before I came here.”

  The FBI works with hundreds of state and local law enforcement agencies across the country, as well as dozens of other government agencies. There are more than seventeen thousand different law-enforcement entities in the U.S., many with overlapping jurisdictions. And, despite how things are portrayed in the movies, in real life the Bureau usually has a positive working relationship with local law enforcement.

  It didn’t sound like that was the case in Charlotte, though.

  “What can we do here to help you?” Voss asked us.

  “Let’s start by taking a look at your city,” I replied.

  My phone is a beta version of one in development for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, a branch of the Defense Department. Because of my involvement with geospatial applications in law enforcement, they were letting me use it so I could give them feedback on the user interface.

  The phone was able to project a three-dimensional hologram based on aggregate geospatial data from our defense satellites, a program known as FALCON, or the Federal Aerospace Locator and Covert Operation Network.

  It was a bit like virtually flying through a city on Google Earth, but you could manipulate the images with your hands—throw them into a digital trash bin, enlarge and shrink the objects floating in front of you, zoom in, zoom out. It was pretty slick, and from what I’d heard, it wasn’t going to be that long before this technology would be commercially available for the general public.

  I pulled up the 3-D map of Charlotte’s Uptown, then tapped the button to project the hologram of the city. It hovered half a meter above the table. I adjusted it until it was about a meter wide, then zoomed in on Uptown.

  “I’ve never seen anything like that,” Voss muttered.

  “Yeah, it’s one of his favorite toys,” Ralph told him. “I’m asking for one for Christmas.”

  “Better be good. Santa’s watching.”

  I wasn’t sure if Voss was trying to be funny or not. The guy was hard to read.

  “Right,” Ralph said uncertainly, as if he were trying to discern Voss’s intent as well.

  Zooming out, I rotated the hologram, turning the city before me, and it took only a moment to notice that the center of Charlotte was laid out in a grid but the residential areas had winding, meandering streets.

  With Voss’s help we identified the Mint Museum’s two locations—one Uptown, and one on Randolph Road, where the theft had taken place. We also looked at possible travel routes to and from the museum and noted which streets might have traffic cameras.

  After I’d closed up the phone, Voss said to me, “So, they say you don’t believe in motive.”

  “Who says that?”

  “I heard it around.”

  Well, news travels fast.

  “That’s not quite the case, but here’s where I’m coming from.”

  And then I told him the truth about motives.

  29

  “All of us are motivated to do things,” I said, “but trying to accurately guess what someone else might’ve been thinking prior to committing a crime is fruitless. Many times we don’t even understand what motivates the actions we take ourselves. How can we claim to know someone else’s motivation when we can’t even pinpoint our own?”

  “I’m not sure I follow.”

  “Take hate crimes, for instance. A man can scribble racist graffiti on a wall and be charged with felony criminal mischief and maybe face a sentence of one or even up to seven years. But if a judge or a jury decides that it was a hate crime the offender might get ten to thirty years in prison, depending on local and state statutes. But how do you know hate motivated it? That’s speculation and it could send someone away for decades. That’s not justice.”

  “You have to trust the system, Pat,” said Ralph.

  Needless to say, we did not see eye to eye on this issue.

  This wasn’t really the time to debate the merits of punishment in the pursuit of justice, but I didn’t need to worry about it since Voss took us in another direction.

  “But isn’t establishing motive the first step in figuring out a crime?”

  “If it’s a step at all,” I said, “it should be the last one. We should be in the business of collecting and analyzing evidence, not involved in trying to guess what someone was thinking before he might have or might not have taken a specific action. You can never confirm a motive, you can only speculate as to one. Whatever the motive for the crime, offenders ask themselves four questions, even if they’re not aware that they’re doing so.”

  “What are those?”

  “How much do I want this thing? How much am I willing to risk to get it? How much will I benefit if I get it? How will I get away with this action without getting caught?”

  He mulled that over for a moment. “So evaluating risk and rewards.”

  “Exactly.”

  “But all this stuff about geography . . .” He gestured toward the phone. “How is that going to help us here?”

  “I want a couple of agents working up a full comparative case analysis to see if there are more crimes linked to this case besides the robbe
ry of the Catawba weaponry here in Charlotte, the homicide of Jerome Cole, and the attack on the NCAVC.”

  “And don’t forget the shooting at the DEA headquarters last week.”

  “So far there’s no evidence that’s related,” Ralph corrected him. “But the Semtex is.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “We track its movement—its travel route, the exact timing and location of the robbery as well as why it wasn’t made public earlier. We find those things and we might find the link we need.”

  “But those are all very different crimes,” Voss noted. “What are you suggesting we look for?”

  “Based on what our guy did to Cole, we know he’s violent and he’s forensically aware, and this is not likely his first offense. He might have been arrested before and learned from his mistakes.”

  “So, physical or sexual assaults? Torture?”

  “Yes, and even petty crimes, misdemeanors, moving-vehicle violations on the day of the robbery, traffic-camera footage—anything. We need to see if he left any other footprints in time and space for us to find, mistakes that might lead us to where he is now.”

  I’d taught a lot about comparative case analysis at the Academy and a good example of failure in the realm of police investigation actually had to do with an investigation here in Charlotte. “It happened here with Wallace.” I sometimes talk to myself and think aloud and now I didn’t realize I’d spoken the words until Voss said, “What do you mean?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “You said it happened here with Wallace.”

  “Henry Louis Wallace back in the nineties.”

  “Oh.” Voss nodded. Apparently he recognized the name after all. “The Charlotte Strangler.”

  “Yes.”

  “Nine women,” Voss said, “all African-Americans murdered within a two-year span.”

  Wallace had also confessed to killing a prostitute here in Charlotte, as well as another ten women while he was stationed at military bases around the world, but I didn’t bother to correct Voss.

  “Raped too,” he added.

  “Most of them were, yes. But law enforcement failed to link the cases. Two of the women lived in the same apartment building, two had worked at the same Bojangles’ restaurant, two at the same Taco Bell, five had known connections to that restaurant manager’s friends and relatives.”

  “And that was Wallace?”

  “It was. He killed the last three women within a three-day span. If the police had taken a closer look at the travel routes, awareness space, and links between the previous victims, they could have pinpointed Wallace as a suspect earlier.”

  “And saved those three women.”

  “It’s possible,” I acknowledged.

  “So, focus on finding links between locations and victims?”

  “Exactly. Who knows your city the best? Here among your agents?”

  He looked at me curiously. “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “This guy who killed Jerome Cole, he’s been leaving clues that relate to Charlotte’s history. You can only learn so much from staring at maps and holograms. I want to drive around the city. I need someone to guide me.”

  He considered that. “Well, I mean, we’ve been consulting with this one guy over the last couple days. He does tours of the city—you know, history tours, that sort of thing. We found him through the Chamber of Commerce. He’s not an agent, but he seems pretty well-informed about Charlotte and, like I say, we’ve been talking with him, so he’s familiar with working with the Bureau.”

  “That’ll work.”

  “Name’s Guido Lombardi.”

  Ralph blinked. “Your local expert on Charlotte, North Carolina, is a guy named Guido Lombardi?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “Just . . . No reason.”

  We made the arrangements to meet Guido at the Chamber of Commerce office Uptown and then, after Voss assured us one more time that he would do all he could to help us, Ralph and I took off to meet the man who was going to escort us around the city.

  30

  “My job is to keep an eye on you,” Beck told Tessa.

  She was standing beside his sedan. A few moments ago he’d stepped out when he saw her approaching and now he was scanning the neighborhood. Alert and vigilant. It made her feel safe.

  “Well, far be it from me to keep you from fulfilling your duty,” she said.

  Wait, don’t sound too excited to have him tag along. It’ll seem like that’s what you want.

  But it is.

  Well, you can’t let him know that!

  Slightly conflicted, she said, “I think I’ll be safe from the bad guys while I’m in the Library of Congress.”

  Lien-hua was at the Academy, where the NCAVC team had set up shop after their building was attacked, so Tessa was here alone with Beck.

  “Will it distract you if I sit at a table near you?” he asked. He hadn’t shaved that morning and he had this slightly scruffy look going on.

  Um. Yes.

  “Why would that distract me?”

  “Good. Then I think I’ll come in with you.”

  “I’m afraid you’re out of luck there, Agent Danner.” She dug through her purse and fished out her Library of Congress card. “You can’t get into the main reading room without one of these.”

  He pulled out his creds. “I think I’ll be alright. If they give me a hard time I’ll just tell ’em I’m your research assistant.”

  “My assistant, huh?”

  “Whatever it takes to keep you safe.”

  Oh, man, why does he have to keep saying things like that?!

  She put her Library of Congress ID card away and just went for it: “In that case, do you really think we need to take two cars? I mean, does that really make sense—having to find two parking spots?”

  “Hop in.” Beck walked around to the passenger’s side and opened the door for her. “I’ll drive.”

  + + +

  Guido wore black jeans and a pink polo shirt. Medium height, brown hair, early forties, an easily forgettable face. When he greeted us he shook my hand a little too enthusiastically. “Good to meet you, good to meet you. I’d be glad to show y’all around.”

  “Okay,” I replied.

  Ralph handed him the keys to our rental car. “You drive. The curator of the Mint Museum will be meeting us there at eleven thirty—at the Randolph Road location. That means you have eighty minutes to give us the history of Charlotte. Let’s get started with downtown.”

  “Actually, we don’t call it downtown,” Guido gently corrected him. “We call it Uptown, or maybe Center City.”

  “Ah.” Ralph’s tone was impossible to read. “Good to know.”

  “You see”—we were walking to the car—“interestingly enough it was a bit of a controversy. Back in the seventies the city went through the process of trying to decide what to call it. Finally landed on Uptown because, even though it’s not so evident now, it was originally located on a hill. It was a trade route for the Native Americans. It’s where the settlers used to—”

  “Excuse me,” I interrupted him as we arrived at the car. “A trade route for Native Americans? Catawba?”

  “Yes, yes. Very good.” Guido sounded impressed. “And Cherokee. That’s how it came to be called Trade Street.”

  “That’s where we start.” Ralph swung his door open. “Take us up Trade Street.”

  31

  The drive into the heart of DC had passed quickly. Now Beck walked alongside Tessa as they approached the Library of Congress.

  “A lot of history here in this city,” he said.

  “You know, I’m not a big fan of history.”

  “You don’t like history?”

  “I mean, I like the stories. But names? Dates? Come on. And when you ask a history teacher why i
t’s so important, they always give you the same answer.”

  “Let me guess: ‘We study history so we can learn from it, so we don’t repeat the same mistakes again.’”

  “Exactly. But how does knowing the dates of the Chicago fire help us learn not to make that mistake again? Most teachers don’t use it as an example of how you need to be careful with lanterns while you’re milking a cow.”

  They reached the steps.

  “That’s just a theory, about the cow, isn’t it?”

  “Either way, what does it have to do with daily life? And it’s not like you’re ever gonna need to know the names of all the presidents—like someone randomly asks you who the twenty-second president of the United States is and you’re like—‘Grover Cleveland, who was also the twenty-fourth,’ and then—”

  “Is that true?”

  “What?”

  “That Grover Cleveland was the twenty-second and the twenty-fourth president?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So you remembered.”

  The two of them got in line to enter the building.

  “I remember a lot of stuff, but that doesn’t mean any of it is useful. Point is: No history teacher I’ve ever had teaches history from that perspective. They never say, ‘Okay, here’s what happened during Grover Cleveland’s presidency and here’s what we can learn from it and apply to our lives today so we don’t make the same mistakes he did.’ Doesn’t happen. Instead they end up feeding you facts—dates and names—instead of application. The very reason they use to justify their jobs—using the past as examples and warnings for the present—is the very thing they almost universally fail to do.”

  They passed through the doors, entered the building, and got in line to step through the metal detector.

  Beck was quiet.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “I always liked history.”

  “Oh.”

  “It was my favorite subject in school, actually.”

  Tessa, you are such an idiot!

  “Really, um . . . You know, I get that. When you think about it, it’s . . . I mean, it can be sort of . . .”