by David Grace
Half a dozen questions raced through Greg’s head.
“You said biological agents and toxins? What are we talking about?”
“Chemicals, drugs, things that could be used to make poisons or illegal substances, precursors. I filed a request for an exemption for . . . well, the name wouldn’t mean anything to you, the short version is ACX. It’s on the prohibited list. I have to have a supply of it for my research. He was going to approve my request for an exemption, Greg! He told me that last week. Today was just supposed to be a formality, one last interview and he was going to sign off on it so I could get the ACX past customs. But now he’s disappeared and nobody wants to do anything.”
“OK, Marty, I understand–”
“Greg, you’ve got to find him. As long as he’s just missing I’m stuck in limbo here. I’ve got to get permission to import the ACX in order to complete my research.”
“I understand. Give me the missing guy’s name and contact info.”
“Albert Brownstein, Senior Deputy for the Health & Human Services Department for the Control of Dangerous Biological Agents and Toxins. His office is on Independence Avenue.”
“OK, Marty, I’ll go over there and see what I can find out. In the meantime, email me Brownstein’s contact information and anything else you think might be helpful.”
“You’ll let me know what you find?”
“I’ll call you this afternoon.”
Kane hung up and looked around for Immerson but his boss was still at lunch with Congressman Asshole. Shit! Greg sent Immerson an email on where he was going and retrieved his gun from his bottom desk drawer.
CHAPTER THREE
The Department of Health & Human Services filled a six-story concrete building on Independence Avenue across the street from Bartholdi Park. Washington’s bureaucracy was still struggling with the reality that the farther technology advanced the more mayhem a handful of people could unleash. Back in the days of black powder and brass cannons half a dozen determined malcontents might have managed to take fifteen or twenty lives. Now with C4 and step-by-step instructions on how to make nerve gas just a few clicks away, a couple of nut-jobs could kill thousands and shut down a city of millions. Looking at the endless warren of cubicles that stretched out in front of him Kane wondered if the Government’s efforts to prevent a disaster weren’t little more than a replay of the Dutch boy madly trying to plug the holes in an already collapsing dike.
Brownstein’s subordinate, the Senior Assistant Deputy for the Department for the Control of Dangerous Biological Agents and Toxins, was Sandra Cray. Kane found her in a packing-crate-sized office on the Department’s fourth floor.
“Ms. Cray? I’m Agent Gregory Kane, Department of Homeland Security,” Kane announced, holding up his creds.
Sandra Cray’s chair was jammed between a steel desk mounded with brown folders and a windowless gray wall. Her complexion, already sallow under the fluorescent lights and the glow from an ancient Dell monitor, now paled even more.
“What? Homeland Security?” Cray looked at Kane with an expression halfway between confusion and fright.
Greg took that as an invitation and squeezed into the lone chair with his knees almost bumping against the front edge of her desk. With a long stretch of his arm he closed the door behind him.
“When was the last time you saw Senior Deputy Brownstein?”
“What’s this all about?”
“It’s about the last time you saw or talked with or communicated with Senior Deputy Brownstein. Is there some reason you don’t want to answer that question?”
“What? No. Of course not!”
Frightened people usually talked more than was good for them which was just what Kane wanted. He stared at Sandra Cray and waited for her to begin babbling in an attempt to prove herself innocent of a crime of which she had not yet been accused. It didn’t take long.
“Ummm, last Wednesday, around a quarter after five. I usually stay later but my daughter had a cello recital and I, well, anyway, I said goodnight to him on my way out.”
“And after that? Any calls? Emails?”
“No, I mean, I don’t think so.”
“You don’t think so? What does that mean?”
Cray looked helplessly around her tiny, steel box as if searching for a way out. A picture of a palm tree against a setting sun was stuck to the wall behind her. Kane calculated that she had just enough clearance to swivel around and stare at it during those moments when she felt the room closing in on her.
“I got a text, a partial text, from his cell around eight o’clock Wednesday night. I had my phone turned off for the recital so I didn’t see it until Thursday morning when I was getting ready for work.”
Kane stared at her for a heartbeat then snapped, “Am I supposed to guess what it said?”
Sandra gave him a chastened look and answered with exaggerated care. “Two words: ‘Sandy, I’m’ and that was all.” Kane stared. After another heartbeat she continued. “Albert was the only one who called me ‘Sandy’ so I’m sure it was from him.”
“You don’t like people calling you ‘Sandy’?”
“I’m not a beach!” she snapped, then continued in a forced-calm tone. “My name is Sandra, not Sandy.”
“But Brownstein was your boss and if he wanted to call you ‘Sandy’ you couldn’t stop him.” Sandra just stared at Kane. “When he didn’t show up at work on Thursday did you call him?”
“Of course. I called his home and his cell. He liked to keep his work calls separate from his personal ones so he had two phones, but they both went to voice mail. I also emailed him, several times, but I never got an answer. And I texted him.” Cray gave Kane a “so there” look.
Greg stared at her and conspicuously made a note in his pad. “What did you do next?”
“What do you mean?”
“What do I mean? Your boss goes missing. You can’t reach him. You’ve got an interrupted after-hours text from him. Are you telling me that you just ignored it and decided that eventually he’d show up dead or alive?”
“Are you saying that Albert is dead?”
Jesus, how stupid is this woman? Kane thought but somehow managed not to say it out loud. Instead he took a deep breath and tried again.
“Was Mr. Brownstein having any problems that you were aware of? Money trouble? Disputes with anyone?”
“No. Our relationship was strictly business.”
Why would she go out of her way to add that? Kane thought. Does that mean she’s trying to cover up the fact that something was going on or that she would be insulted if anyone thought that she had become involved with Brownstein?
“You didn’t socialize?”
“No.” Sandra gave Kane a hard look. OK, Kane thought. You wouldn’t touch him with a ten-foot pole. Got it.
“Has anything unusual happened in the last few weeks? Was Mr. Brownstein upset, nervous, preoccupied, different in any way?”
“No, he was the same as always, but as I said, we didn’t have a personal relationship so I wouldn’t know anything about what was going on in his private life.”
Yeah, I got that loud and clear, Kane thought.
“Did you do anything in response to Mr. Brownstein’s absence?”
“I called Albert’s boss, our boss, the Deputy Assistant Director and I told him that Albert hadn’t come into work.”
“When did you do that?”
Cray glanced at the ceiling as if trying to remember the formula for calculating the circumference of a circle.
“Friday afternoon,” she said finally with a hint of pride. “Well, I didn’t want to get Albert in trouble if he was just, well, I don’t know, enjoying himself a little too much.”
“Did he do that, sometimes miss work because he was enjoying himself too much?”
“Albert? No, never. You could set your watch by him, but, well, there’s always the first time, isn’t there?”
No, there isn’t, Kane thought but just nodded for
her to continue. She just stared at him.
“What did the Deputy Assistant Director say when you told him about Mr. Brownstein not coming to work?”
“He checked Albert’s file and said that Albert had six weeks accrued vacation so he was entitled to some time off.” She paused but in response to Kane’s stare finally continued. “He said that I should keep the office going until Albert returned and that I should keep a record of the number of days he missed so that his vacation time could be adjusted when he came back. He told me that if I hadn’t heard from Albert by the close of business today that I should call someone and file a report and to keep him in the loop.”
“So, you’re planning on filing a missing person’s report this afternoon?”
“If Albert hasn’t contacted me by then, yes, well, tomorrow actually. I’ve got a PTA meeting tonight and I won’t have time to sit around some police station filling out forms.”
Sandra glanced at a watercolor of a cat in an overstuffed chair taped to the wall. A juvenile hand had printed “Mr. Bonkers” in purple ink at the bottom.
“Your daughter’s work?” Kane asked, pointing at the picture.
“Olivia. She’s ten.” For the first time Sandra Cray smiled.
Within thirty seconds of entering her office Kane had been frustrated to the point of wanting to strangle Sandra Cray but now his anger melted in the glow of her smile. He hadn’t missed the lack of a ring and the cheap drugstore makeup and her hair going brown at the roots. Sandra Cray was a single mother stuck in a prison cell of an office pushing papers from one side of her desk to the other for forty hours a week all in order to build some kind of a future for her child. Cello lessons and PTA meetings and a boss who called her by a name usually applied to a beach.
Jesus, what’s wrong with me? Kane thought.
“Is that what you want me to do? File a missing person’s report?”
“No,” Kane said, feeling empty inside. “I’ll take care of it. I need Mr. Brownstein’s numbers, his email and his home address.”
Sandra punched a few buttons and a few seconds later handed Kane a page ejected from the printer.
“I’m going to check out Mr. Brownstein’s home. I’ll have some more questions for you after that. Call me if you hear from him.” Kane stood and gave her his card: Agent Gregory Kane, Department of Homeland Security, Office of Special Investigations. Cray gave it a disinterested glance and dropped it face-down on her desk.
“Open or closed?” Kane asked as he maneuvered himself out the door.
“Closed.”
Kane nodded, then took a quick, final glance at Mr. Bonkers before locking Sandra Cray back into her cell.
CHAPTER FOUR
Kane almost made it to Brownstein’s apartment before his boss caught up with him. For a moment Greg considered letting the call go to voice mail. A host of excuses – dead battery, dead zone, heavy traffic – flitted through his mind but they were all stopgap measures at best. Eventually he’d have to deal with Immerson and he figured that he might as well do it now.
“Kane.”
“What do you think you’re doing? You’re not supposed to be in the field without your partner.”
“Useless is attending a seminar on Transformative Political Correctness and Advanced Paper Pushing.”
“His name is Eustace, not Useless! I’ve warned you about creating a hostile work environment, Kane.”
“I guess I confused his name with his job performance. I suppose that’s why he’s taking the Political Correctness seminar. Sorry, it won’t happen again.”
“You know it’s not . . . .” Immerson paused, familiar by now with Kane’s habit of getting the other person so irritated that they lost sight of what they wanted to talk to him about in the first place. “Just get back here until your partner returns.”
“I would but this is an emergency. Lives are at stake.”
“Lives are at stake?”
“The Senior Deputy Director of the HHS Department for the Control of Dangerous Biological Agents and Toxins has gone missing.”
“What?”
“42 USC 351A,” Kane answered knowing that the cryptic reference would raise Immerson’s frustration level another few points.
“What the hell are you babbling about?”
“That’s the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness Response Act section that deals with the control of biological agents and toxins. The Department of Health and Human Services oversees the importation of potentially dangerous biological agents and toxins. Albert Brownstein is the HHS administrator who handles importation permits and exemptions. He’s the guy in charge of keeping bio-weapons out of the country and he’s gone missing. Obviously this is a job for Homeland Security.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s a job for you. Come back here, now. You can open a case file and it’ll be assigned to the next team in the rotation.”
“Sure, I could do that but what if at this very moment someone is using Brownstein’s stolen credentials to bring in some kind of a bio-weapon? I mean, how would it look if hundreds of people died and then the press found out that we could have stopped it but that you pulled me out of the field because you were afraid that it was too dangerous for me to be alone on the streets of Washington D.C. without an armed escort?”
Immerson waited five seconds before he trusted himself to speak.
“Kane, I’m giving you a direct order. You have until six o’clock to get back to this office and file the proper paperwork on this supposed case.” The line went dead.
Greg smiled and went looking for Brownstein’s building manager.
* * *
“I have to have keys in case there’s a fire or something,” Henry Appel said defensively as he opened a battered file cabinet.
“It would be irresponsible not to,” Kane agreed.
“Ummm, 506 . . . 506 . . . 506,” Appel muttered as he leafed through a drawer of manila folders. “Yup, here it is, 506, Albert Brownstein. Do you want the lease app?”
“I just need access to the apartment for now.”
Appel toyed with the key.
“I’m not supposed to give these out, you know. Not without a warrant I mean.”
“It’s all right, Mr. Appel. I’m authorized.” Kane bent forward and lowered his voice. “It’s a matter of National Security.”
Appel stared for half a second then almost forced the key into Kane’s hand.
“I won’t tell anybody,” Appel whispered.
“Good man,” Kane said giving Appel a little nod. Washington was a city obsessed with terrorists.
Warrant? I don’t need no stinkin’ warrant, Kane thought as he moved from Brownstein’s bedroom to what Kane named the “hobby room.” Originally it had been a second bedroom but now it contained a high-end photo printer, a Win 7 computer and a top-of-the line 23-inch high-def monitor.
Brownstein hadn’t bothered to enable password protection and when Kane pressed the “Start” button he saw that Photoshop was the last application that had been used. It didn’t take long to discover that the hard disk was filled with photographs. Kane found a two-thousand dollar DSLR and four extra lenses in the closet. A sampling of the computer’s images – trees, flowers, leaves and waterfalls – boiled down to one word: boring.
An hour later Kane finished his search of Brownstein’s emails, web browser history and address book. He found nothing even remotely interesting. You could set your watch by him, Sandra Cray said and it looked like she had been right. Albert Brownstein was as boring as they came. If there were any clues here about what had happened to him or where he had gone Kane wasn’t going to find them this afternoon.
Greg copied Brownstein’s address book, email folders and his on-line phone bills to a flash drive more out of habit than with any hope they would help him find the missing bureaucrat. Whatever had happened hadn’t had anything to do with this apartment or any of Brownstein’s friends or acquaintances. Kane was sure of that. No, something o
r someone out of left field had caused Albert Brownstein to go missing and Kane didn’t have the slightest idea of what or who that could have been.
When Greg returned the key to Henry Appel he put a cautionary finger to his lips. Appel gave Kane a little wink and silently closed his door.
CHAPTER FIVE
Kane had quickly learned that the key to successfully dealing with Fred Immerson was knowing how far he could push things before his boss snapped. Kane returned to the office at twenty after five, waved cheerily at Immerson and started the paperwork on Albert Brownstein’s disappearance. Most of the other investigators had already left but Kane noticed Danny Rosewood pounding away on Stan Ewald’s computer.
“Agent Ewald said it was OK to use his machine,” Danny said when he noticed Kane watching him.
“Good.”
“He gave me a tip on interrogation techniques and I wanted to put it in my journal.” Rosewood gave Kane a weak smile.
“Good,” Kane repeated and turned back to his own machine. After a few more seconds of silence he heard Danny’s fingers back on the keys. He wants to talk about being an Agent, Greg thought, then corrected himself. He wants a friend.
Greg had just finished the case-intake notes when he felt a hand on his shoulder.
“Hey, partner, having any fun?”
“Barrels and barrels,” Kane said, refusing to look up.
“Word is,” Grant Eustace grabbed a chair and rolled up next to Kane, “that Dad might be able to get us a piece of the Supremes Case.”
Kane turned away from the monitor and tried to figure out which of Useless’ irritations to respond to first. He wouldn’t have minded Useless calling Immerson “Dad” if he had had the balls to do it to the boss’ face, but, no, whenever Immerson was around Useless was all “Yes, Mr. Immerson” and “No, Mr. Immerson.” As far as Kane was concerned calling Immerson “Dad” only behind his back was the hallmark of a coward and a suck-up.