by Steven James
I paused, and Margaret asked me, cordially enough, to clarify the decision-making process I was referring to.
“Well, an offender’s past, familiarity with the region, desire for seclusion during the abduction or attack, awareness of and availability of exit routes, and a lack of visible law enforcement presence all affect his choices regarding the commission of his crime. Offenders choose the time and location of their crimes in order to avoid apprehension.”
“In other words,” Margaret interjected, “their motive is to get away with it?”
Oh.
That was clever.
With one tiny comment she’d found a way to agree with me while bringing up my biggest pet peeve-motive. I glanced at her. She was smiling in a Margarety way.
“Yes.” Follow up on that later, just get through the four points for now. “Thirdly, offenders attempt to save time and money, put in the least amount of effort for the most possible benefit. This affects the routes they take to and from-”
One of the eight doors on the right side of the auditorium edged open. Even though most of the attendees didn’t seem to notice, the movement caught my attention. A woman entered. Naturally beautiful face. Frizzily curled red hair. Coy smile. Wearing a dark green National Academy polo shirt.
I did a double take.
It couldn’t possibly be her.
But it was.
Detective Cheyenne Warren from Denver.
A National Academy shirt? That doesn’t make sense. She’s Cheyenne gave me a slightly embarrassed look for interrupting, then held up her palms in a small sign of surrender, mouthed the word “Sorry,” and headed for the nearest seat.
Margaret cleared her throat slightly, jarring me back to the discussion. “Agent Bowers? You were saying? Motives?”
Motives? Was I…?
I struggled to regain my train of thought, but Cheyenne’s smile had at least momentarily derailed it.
Over the last year I’d served on a joint violent crimes task force with the Denver PD, and Cheyenne and I had worked seven cases together. From the start, we’d both been attracted to each other, no question about that, but first my grief over Christie’s death and then my relationship with one of the profilers here at Quantico had kept us from dating.
Then last month, when Lien-hua and I broke up, Cheyenne hadn’t been shy in letting me know how she felt about me. However, at the time I realized that seeing her would have been, at least initially, a way of dealing with the breakup, and I couldn’t stand the thought of using her, so I’d pulled away even though I knew it had hurt her.
But that was more than three weeks ago.
And now here she was.
Back to the discussion, Pat.
“Yes. I…”
Something about offenders… space and time…
Ah yes.
I wasn’t sure if it was my exact point, but it was close enough: “So, while offenders might act, and in many cases, think, in aberrant or deviant ways, they’re not fundamentally different from the rest of us. They’re not monsters. They’re human beings who understand and interact with their environments in the same ways all human beings do. So…”
Cheyenne had taken a seat in the fifth row and was now watching me attentively, pen in hand. I found it hard not to stare at her.
“Fourthly-”
My cell phone vibrated in my pocket. There’d been enough interruptions already, so I ignored it, but noticed that both Margaret and Lieutenant Doehring were glancing down, Margaret at the phone that sat on the table beside her legal pad, Doehring at his belt.
The fact that all three of us were being paged simultaneously could not possibly be a good sign. Doehring pulled out his phone while Margaret discreetly tapped the screen of hers. I eased mine from my pocket, but I kept my eyes on the audience. “As I was saying, the fourth premise is-”
“Excuse me, Agent Bowers.” Margaret abruptly set her phone down and bent toward her mic. “I’m very sorry about this, everyone, but I’m afraid we’re going to have to end our discussion prematurely tonight.”
I read the text message on my phone: a body had been found in a primate research facility in DC. The message included an address on South Capital Street but no other specifics.
But what caught my attention was the sender’s name: FBI Director Rodale, a man who didn’t get involved in cases unless they were related to national security or involved a nationwide manhunt or unusually high media coverage.
After her terse announcement, Margaret promptly rose and headed toward the hallway.
Since she was the executive assistant director, I wondered if her text had contained more details than mine had. Before I left for the scene I wanted as much information as possible, so I quickly gathered my things and went to find her before she slipped away.
7
I caught up with Margaret just down the hall, near the entrance to the Gerbil Tube that led to the admin building.
“Margaret,” I called. She kept walking.
“Wait.”
She didn’t turn.
“Executive Assistant Director Wellington.”
She stopped. Looked over her shoulder. Eyed me.
“A primate research lab?” As I joined her, I noticed Tessa at the far end of the hallway, picking her way toward me through the already forming crowd. “Why are we getting involved in this? Is it on federal property?”
“No, Agent Bowers, it is not.” I waited for her to elaborate, and at last she said, “A body was found.”
“I know that much, Margaret. But why would Rodale-”
“Because”-her voice was both hushed and laced with urgency-“the victim is Congressman Fischer’s daughter.”
“What?” Now she had my attention.
“House minority leader. From Virginia. Democrat. First District.”
“I know who he is.” I was processing the implications. Quantico is located in Congressman Fischer’s district, and he’d been outspoken lately on shrinking the size of the FBI by up to 20 percent because of what he called “bureaucratic redundancy.” He favored “a more progressive approach to curbing criminal behavior,” although he’d never specified exactly what he meant by that.
Congress’s budget debates had been going on all week on Capitol Hill, and since Fischer’s brother had been the vice president during the last administration, the congressman had clout and connections, and the last I heard he was gaining support for slashing the Bureau’s funding. Needless to say, he was not the most popular political figure around the Academy at the moment.
She looked at her watch. “I have two calls to make. Director Rodale reassigned Agent Hawkins to this case, so he’ll meet you at the scene. I’ll come as soon as I can.”
Normally, Margaret would work the strings on something like this from behind her desk, but with the inevitable media firestorm, I had a feeling she might see this as a chance to gain some political or administrative clout by being present at the scene near those television cameras.
She turned on her heels, strode away, and a moment later Tessa arrived by my side.
Obviously, I couldn’t take her with me to the crime scene, but the house where we were staying for the summer was in the opposite direction, so I didn’t have time to take her back there either.
I decided I could drop her off at a coffee shop or mall on the way. Not ideal, since I could be wrapped up for hours, but at the moment no better options popped to mind.
“C’mon.” I placed my hand gently on her shoulder and guided her toward a side door to the parking lot. “It’s time to go.”
“It’s bad, isn’t it?”
There was no sense trying to hide it. “It’s not good.”
It looked like she was going to ask more questions, but she remained silent. We’d nearly made it to the exit when I heard footsteps behind me. The sound of someone running.
I turned.
“Pat.” Cheyenne jogged toward us. “Is there anything I can do?”
“I wis
h,” I said, and I meant it. She was one of the best detectives I’d ever met. For a moment I thought of the Bureau’s Joint Op program of involving National Academy students in ongoing cases-both to train them and learn from them-but a pile of paperwork that would take hours to fill out stood in the way.
I wanted to ask her how she’d managed to wrangle her way into the National Academy, which typically involves a six-month application process, but that conversation could wait. I did, however, add, “I’m surprised to see you here.”
“I’m surprised to be here,” she replied ambiguously. The three of us reached the door. I pushed it open as Cheyenne nodded to Tessa and said warmly, “Ms. Ellis.”
“Detective Warren.” A hint of confusion. “Aren’t you supposed to be in Denver?”
“I had some personal leave coming, and they had a last-minute opening in the National Academy.”
The explanation was thin, making me even more curious.
The three of us stepped into the cloud-darkened evening.
Large round raindrops were plunking onto the pavement. Thunder rumbled overhead. The storm had arrived.
“Tessa,” I said. “Let me talk to Detective Warren for a second.” I tossed her the car keys. “I’ll be right there.”
After a glance at Cheyenne and then at me, Tessa went on ahead.
“Listen,” I said. “Things are-”
“I know you need to go.” Cheyenne cut me off. “I’ll explain everything later.”
I accepted that. “This looks like it might be messy.”
“Yeah, no kidding. Fischer’s daughter.”
“How did you-?”
Using her body to shield her phone from the rain, she held it up so I could see the screen. A video of a newscaster doing a remote in downtown DC was playing. Beside the reporter was the photo of an attractive woman in her early twenties. The name beneath it read: Mollie Fischer. “CNN, FOX, and CNS News are already there. Live feed on the Internet.”
“Wonderful.”
Lightning slithered and crackled across the sky, and Cheyenne’s eyes flicked toward it. “She was only twenty-two.” Her voice was soft and sad and I didn’t know how to respond. After a small moment she gestured toward Tessa, who was climbing into the car to get out of the intensifying rain. “You’re not taking her with you, are you?”
“I’ll drop her off somewhere on the way.”
Cheyenne and I started toward my car. “I can take her back to your place for you.”
“No, it’s okay. We’ll-”
“Pat.” Cheyenne laid her hand on my forearm. “You read too much into things. I just want to help. Just as a friend. Honestly.”
She was right; I was seeing ulterior motives in her offer and it bugged me that she’d nailed it. I felt a little embarrassed and yet slightly flattered that she could read me so easily.
Cheyenne removed her hand, waited for my reply.
Just let her help.
“Honestly, if you could take her home, that would be great.”
“Great.”
We jogged toward the car, and I opened the passenger-side door. “Raven, Detective Warren is going to give you a ride back to the house.”
With Tessa’s insatiable curiosity I expected her to ask to come along to the crime scene, which she did. “You know I can’t do that,” I countered. “Besides, there’s a dead body there and you might see-”
She swung her legs out of the car. “Yeah, I get it.”
Cheyenne started toward the south end of the parking lot. “My car’s over here.”
“I’ll see you at the house, Tessa,” I said.
“Okay.”
The two of them were hurrying toward Cheyenne’s car. “Hey, thanks again,” I called to Cheyenne.
“No problem,” she hollered back with a wave of her hand.
I got into my car. Flipped on the radio to listen for any breaking news.
And headed to the scene of Mollie Fischer’s murder.
8
Brad stood anonymously in the crowd of people watching the television screens.
Despite the storm, fifteen people had gathered outside Williamson’s Electronics Store on Connecticut Avenue near Union Station in the heart of downtown DC.
The high-end television showroom featured Sony, LG, Samsung, and Bang amp; Olufsen’s next generation of organic light-emitting diode televisions. Razor-thin screens, sixty-five inch, seventy inch, and larger. The world’s most expensive home theater systems on display and facing the street.
From observing the store over the last few weeks, Brad knew it wasn’t unusual to find half a dozen people pausing by the window, coveting the TVs. In fact, the store’s popularity was one of the reasons he’d chosen it.
Now, the grainy images carried on each screen looked like a movie in the tradition of Blair Witch or Cloverfield, but each television contained six different camera angles, and the time marker at the bottom of each screen made it clear that the feed was live.
The videos showed the interior of an expansive building, a walkway between walled-in glass enclosures at least twenty feet tall. Speakers located beneath the storefront’s overhang projected the sound of the chattering monkeys, baboons, gorillas, and other primates as they swung from thick ropes and clambered over the stout limbs of artificial trees, obviously constructed to hold the apes’ immense weight.
A flurry of FBI agents and DC police, easily identifiable by the letters emblazoned on their jackets, moved into and out of the picture.
Because of the indistinct shadows and the glare off the glass, it was difficult to tell how many bodies lay inside the farthest primate cage on the left. At least one. Maybe as many as three.
No one else knew this, but the footage was only being transmitted to this one location.
Brad listened quietly as those around him tried to figure out what was going on: “It’s some kind of gorilla zoo or something,” somebody said.
“Is this live?” a man in a gray Valentino suit asked. “This is live, isn’t it?”
“They were talking about this on the news,” the woman beside him said. “I think it’s a senator’s kid who was killed.”
“Killed?”
“That’s the security cameras from inside the building.”
“No, it was a congressman,” someone said.
“Fischer’s daughter. That’s what I heard.”
Brad had snugged a Washington Nationals baseball cap over his head to shield his eyes from view and wore a fake, scraggly beard. Actually, disguises were one of his specialties.
He’d turned his collar up against the weather and was dressed in the reeking, tattered clothes he’d stolen from a homeless man he’d beaten senseless half an hour ago. Dressed as he was, Brad looked just like any other nameless, faceless vagrant.
Invisible.
In plain sight.
He wished he could stand here and watch for hours, but it was time to go.
He had a busy night-one more murder to commit, C-4 to pack into the metal tubes, a detonation sequence to set up.
And a few other chores.
He walked four blocks to the handicapped accessible van that he and Astrid were using; the van where he’d left the next two victims tied and gagged. Personally, he would have preferred leaving them unconscious, had planned to, but Astrid had told him it would be more fun if they were awake, anticipating what was to come.
Since they knew each other, if they hadn’t been blindfolded, they would have been comforted. As it was, in the end, the impact would be so much greater this way.
One would die tonight.
The other would spend the night with him and Astrid at the house.
9
The Gunderson Foundation Primate Research Center
1311 South Capital Street
Washington DC
8:26 p.m.
Raindrops slashed against the windshield. Tiny dark knives in the deepening twilight.
Yellow police tape surrounded the facility and tw
isted and snapped in the sharp wind. Fifteen patrol cars sat angled to the curb, lights still on. Colors lancing the rain.
The facility’s underground parking garage had been cordoned off, so I parked on the street behind one of the police cruisers. Already, half a dozen cable and network news crews were lining the neighboring streets.
Just what we needed.
Despite the media presence, the news coverage on the radio had been sketchy. The reporters couldn’t seem to agree on whether there was one body or two or maybe three, whether or not the police had a suspect in custody, and whether or not Congressman Fischer was actually in the city or overseas meeting with soldiers in Afghanistan.
Clusters of FBI agents, Metro Police officers (who have jurisdiction over the city), Capitol police officers (who protect Capitol Hill), and even US Marshals stood around the entrance to the building.
American law enforcement is set up like a plate of spaghetti, and the individual noodles overlap, wind together, and get entangled all the time. Depending on the type of crime and where it’s committed, you might have eight or nine state and federal law enforcement entities, intelligence agencies, military units, defense organizations, and justice department agencies all trying to investigate it.
And most likely not sharing information all that efficiently as they do.
Each of the armed forces has their own division of criminal forensic investigators; add in a helping of the ATF, DEA, CIA, FBI, NSA, the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, the US Marshals Service and Federal Air Marshals, the Secret Service, US Customs and Border Protection, the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, even the Office of Inspector General for the United States Postal Service-as well as regional and state law enforcement, sheriff’s departments, and the six classified investigative agencies that don’t appear on any government books It’s mind-boggling.
All too often, conducting an investigation is like sticking your fork into the mess and twirling. Sometimes I’m amazed any crime gets solved or any terrorist attack gets thwarted.