Mind in Chains

by Bruce M Perrin

  Marte chuckled, then glanced at the monitor. “Nothing’s going to happen in the next five minutes, and I’ve got my earphone if it does. There’s a galley just down the hall that always has coffee. Want to grab a cup? Since my life is so much seat-of-the-pants, I wouldn’t mind hearing how the other half lives.”

  “I’ll pass on the coffee at this hour, but I’ll tag along.”

  “You’re sure you don’t mind?”

  “Actually, I’d like to stretch my legs.” She nodded and we left for the galley.

  8:39 PM – The St. Louis FBI Field Office

  The coffee trip and back was a welcome diversion. Marte said nothing about Constance and the Crusaders, deciding to spend her time talking about her youth. My impression? She was lucky she was never caught. Or died. There was the night she and a boyfriend “borrowed” her dad’s car and went for a midnight joy ride. They were fourteen. Or the nights, plural, when she had broken into her family’s liquor cabinet for a bottle to share with friends. Or the night she, at the ripe old age of sixteen, had snuck into a strip club with two other girls. That one baffled me, and I’d asked, “Why? You know what women look like.”

  She just grinned and said, “I wasn’t there to see the women.”

  Of course not.

  I noticed that all of her escapades, save the jaunt to the strip club, involved boys. She’d obviously been popular with the opposite sex in high school, and I wondered how much had transitioned to college and beyond. Just looking at her, I would have guessed a lot. But she didn’t volunteer, and it wasn’t the kind of thing you ask an FBI agent you hardly know. In any case, by the end of her stories, I was certain she’d earned the tri-dub label, with just about any combination of W’s you preferred.

  For my part of the breather, I stuck to my later years—college and beyond—where I had this marked tendency to get lost in the trees never realizing it was a forest. I told her about the month I’d spent researching a new car before realizing that the model I wanted had been discontinued. When Marte asked why I hadn’t noticed the lack of data on the new model year, I replied, “Well, I wasn’t expecting any real data until later, so I didn’t miss it.”

  She stared at me so long I thought I was going to have to explain the difference between what I considered data—road-test results, maintenance records, all of which came later—and opinion, which could be generated at any time and didn’t require more than a working tongue. Eventually, however, she broke into laughter.

  The galley wasn’t far, and soon we were back to the Communications room. We entered, Marte taking her position on one side of the table, me on the other. But while the positions were the same, the mood wasn’t. The evening had started lighter than the first talk, but since then, it had become—I guess I’d have to say—friendly. For my part, I liked her laugh. I liked the twinkle in her eye when she talked about her misguided youth. I even wondered if she missed some part of it.

  “Now that I know you analyze every word,” Marte said, pausing for a sip of coffee. “You can’t just sit there, looking off into space. I’ll get self-conscious.”

  “You?” I said, feigning surprise. She smirked. “I was just thinking I should let you get back to work.”

  “Well, at least you’re a lousy liar.” She ran a hand through her hair. “It’s early. You have someplace you need to be?”

  “Not really.”

  “You want to share some of your thoughts about the Crusaders?”

  If she was setting a trap with the request, I couldn’t see how. “This has got to be as bizarre as asking me about bullet trajectories.”

  “Maybe,” allowed Marte. “But when I was at Quantico, there was another NAT—new agent in training—who said he became interested in the Bureau after a psychic solved a big case in his hometown.”

  She must have picked up on my consternation about justifying a psychologist’s remarks with a story about a psychic. She held up a hand. “I’m not saying you’re clairvoyant or anything like that. Just bear with me a second.”

  “OK. I’ll reserve judgment,” I replied.

  “Anyway, the NAT brings it up in class one day, and the instructor doesn’t really defend or attack the practice. Says he’s not familiar with the case. But he goes on to say that whether you believe others have a gift or not, he’s certain a new perspective, a different set of eyes can help. So, how ‘bout it? Help me with a new set of eyes? Even if they’re not all-seeing and all-knowing?”

  I chuckled, but my amusement was short-lived. I was having trouble believing what I was about to do. “You’re very convincing, Special Agent Marte. Just don’t blame me when you hear only hunches you discarded a month ago.”

  “Fair enough,” she replied.

  “Well, one thing that’s puzzling. You have pictures of Constance, obviously. They’re in the paper. You must have fingerprints, too. I’ve never seen her wearing gloves. And I’m guessing you have DNA as well. There was something about broken glass and blood in one article.”

  “Yeah, we’re not sure how the reporters got that tidbit. Maybe the maintenance man.”

  Her comment was probably as close to a confirmation as I was likely to get, so I went on. “But even with all that, you don’t have a name. And your database of fingerprints must include a big chunk of the adult population in the U.S.”

  “Over one-hundred million people,” said Marte. “If you’re thinking she might be foreign, we’re looking into that.”

  “Or some subpopulation of the U.S. that’s not well represented in your database. Maybe rural areas?”

  “Maybe,” said Marte.

  My gaze drifted toward the television. “Looks like Conroy is wrapping up,” I said, as the shot shifted between the man bowing on the stage and the audience standing and chanting something.

  “It does,” replied Marte. “Anything else on Constance before we wrap up?”

  Anything else?

  I expected her to hustle me out the door, not ask for more. In fact, I would have preferred it, as my hunches about the Crusaders got even less defensible from here. My security blanket of actual data was getting rather thin.

  “To me anyway, it seems like her attacks have been shots across the bow. Warnings, rather than attempts to kill. The first two bombs were placed and timed so that it was unlikely anyone would get hurt. The third bomb, the one that killed the professor at St. Louis University? It sounded like a confluence of unlikely events. He came in unusually early, and apparently, he was holding the box when it went off. Or at least, that’s the way it sounded in the news.”

  “So, you don’t think she’s just learning?” Marte tilted her head as she returned her coffee cup to the table.

  “Maybe,” I replied. “But I don’t think so. Learning to make a bomb lethal would take time—figuring out the amount of explosive, what to pack around it, and so on? But knowing where it should go and when it should explode? That’s not something she’d need to learn; it needs to explode near people. And the shot at Dr. Greenwood is just another example. It wasn’t meant to kill unless we want to argue that Constance is learning rifles as well as bombs.”

  “I agree, the possibility makes sense,” said Marte. “If the Crusaders can get people’s support without bloodshed, so much the better. They avoid the possibility of a backlash. Of course, the million-dollar question, in that case, is, how much patience do they have? How long before they stop sending notices and start sending bodies?”

  I really had no idea. Marte, on the other hand, had some thoughts. “With Constance shooting into Ms. Veles’s apartment, I wonder if they’re getting close now? I’m not saying the shot was more than a warning, but maybe the message is changing. With that shot, maybe she’s telling people they’re not safe even at home.”

  “Scary thought,” I replied.

  It now seemed more of a two-way street. Not that I expected Marte to reveal evidence known only to the FBI, but she appeared willing to discuss her thinking. That being the case, I said, “Somethin
g I’ve been wondering. Is rolling back the clock on medical science worth killing for? I mean, abortion has long been a lightning rod. And I’ve seen heated words over some experimental medical procedures like genetic editing or stem cell research. But across the board hatred of medicine?”

  Marte responded almost immediately. “Maybe it’s my job, but that’s not hard for me to believe. Last survey, there were nearly 1,000 hate groups in the United States, their anger based on anything from sexual orientation to skin color. So, a group that hates how medicine is changing everything from our looks to the length of our lives?” Marte held out two empty hands. “Doesn’t surprise me. Of course, in this case, it might be just one looney with a gun. Oops, that’s the wrong word to use in front of a psychologist, right?”

  “Yeah, I prefer rifle.” Marte smirked. “But the idea it’s one person seems unlikely,” I said after a beat.

  “Your reasons?” asked Marte.

  “Ah, we’re still in the ‘new-set-of-eyes’ mode. Well, the time requirements for one thing. Besides the obvious—the time spent learning and making bombs—someone has developed basic computer skills and has gained a great deal of medical expertise. And the athletic skills Constance has shown? Those don’t come without a lot of long hours. Then, the time spent in checking out the targets. Other than the shot at Dr. Greenwood, the locations were scouted in advance. The first two bombings may not have required that much upfront planning, but apparently, Constance used one of the few windows in the SLU building that had not been replaced by a newer, stronger design. She never would have gotten in, if she hadn’t known where the building was vulnerable.”

  Marte’s jaw dropped. “Was that fact in the news?”

  “Oops, I’m back to being a person of interest.”

  She rolled her eyes dramatically. Marte had obviously turned that expression into an art form.

  “I happened to be on campus for a meeting, and it was in the school newspaper,” I replied.

  Marte nodded. “I didn’t know that fact was out there. But you’re right. Constance knows exactly where everything is, including the security cameras. She comes up to them, then winks or waves or some crap like that. And the media has plenty of those pictures.”

  I nodded, recalling several.

  Marte picked up her coffee but set it back down without taking a sip. She frowned, a hand coming up to massage her forehead. I had the impression she was debating how much more she could say.

  “The preplanning goes even deeper than weak windows and photo ops,” she said after the pause. “Several times, we’ve seen her wait for something to happen, like a guard passing by on his rounds. And we think she wears something like a beeper that cues her when it’s time to act. We have video where she’s glancing at her wrist before she moves. That, too, suggests she’s not working alone.”

  “Not unless she’s beeping herself,” I replied. “But that’s interesting. It’s like the Crusader mastermind is trying to pull a lot of the decision-making out of her hands. He or she rings the bell and Constance jumps.”

  “Seems that way,” replied Marte. Then, she grinned. “Just don’t go all psychologist on me and try to tell me Constance could be replaced by Pavlov’s dog. Ring the bell and boom.”

  “Well, make the bombs small enough ….”

  Pavlov wasn’t the correct reference unless drooling was going to set off the bomb, but correcting this detail was obsessive, even in my view. Marte picked up her drink, the remnants of her early amusement still showing in her eyes. She took a sip and leaned back in the chair.

  In the back of my mind, there was an earlier topic we hadn’t completed, and with the break in the conversation, it was a good time to ask. “We’ve been putting a lot of emphasis on Constance’s planning for these attacks. Does it bother you that there doesn’t seem to be much, if any, for the shot at Greenwood?”

  But Marte didn’t respond, didn’t even acknowledge that I was talking. She had moved forward in her chair, and her eyes were fixed on the computer monitor I couldn’t see. After a moment, she said, “Dammit.”

  9:21 PM – The St. Louis FBI Field Office

  My head snapped around toward the television. Apparently, in the 10 or 15 minutes since I had last looked, most of the crowd had departed. The hotel had cleared some of the chairs from the floor in front of the stage, creating a space where Conroy could mingle with a few of his well-wishers and patrons. But the individual I saw standing next to him was neither. It was Sister Constance.

  I looked back at Marte, expecting her to find someone to escort me from the building. But as if reading my thoughts, she said, “They’re fully manned, so I’m sticking here until I’m called. You can stay and watch the TV if you want.”

  “OK,” I said simply, not wanting to talk over anything that might be coming through her earpiece.

  I turned to the television. The camera was apparently positioned in the back of the ballroom. Dozens of rows of empty chairs appeared between it and the cleared area near the stage. The camera shot swept to the back of the room where I saw a set of double doors and several rally-goers. One of them looked a great deal like Greenwood, but if so, that was hardly surprising; she would be interested in Conroy’s message. They were being hurried out by a police officer. He closed and positioned himself in front of the doors after the last one had left.

  The shoulder of someone in a blue jacket appeared, and the television shot lurched. A hand flashed across the picture. It shifted to the floor in a series of jerky images of carpet and door threshold. The cable station cut to a female reporter standing in a hallway.

  “End of my video,” I muttered without thinking.

  Marte glanced at the picture on the TV. Her gaze moved to my face, her lips pressing together tightly. She raised a hand, palm up, and with a single curl of her fingers, waved me to her side of the table without a word. Her hand went back to her earpiece as her attention apparently shifted to a communication.

  As I positioned myself beside and slightly behind her, I was amazed by the quality of the picture on the computer monitor. It was not the dark, grainy video from a car or shoulder camera, but rather, a high-resolution, color image.

  The shot zoomed in on Constance and Conroy, a lump rising in my throat as the details became clearer. Conroy was wearing a thick, black vest, his hands handcuffed in front of him. There was a small, blinking light on the vest near his right shoulder. Two wires—one white, one red—crisscrossed in front so that they would have to be cut to remove the garment. A thick, leather band, perhaps a dog collar, circled Conroy’s neck. Constance’s right wrist was handcuffed to the band. In that hand, she held a short, red cylinder, her thumb pressed down on its top.

  “A dead man's switch,” Marte said softly. “If the signal between the switch and the bomb is broken for any reason—released button, cut wires, dead battery—it’s all over.”

  I nodded, feeling my body tense further, even though we were a couple of miles away. The camera zoomed in, the countenances of Conroy and Constance now taking up the entire screen. Conroy’s face was red. His lips trembled as he gulped air. Sweat beaded on his forehead; a drop ran down to his cheek. I wondered if Constance’s thumb might slip if he hyperventilated and passed out. He appeared to be on the brink.

  Constance’s demeanor, on the other hand, could hardly be more different. She was slowly canvassing the area, her gaze not lingering on any spot for long. Her breathing was slow and regular. Her hand was steady. And the look on her face? It wasn’t exactly a smile, but rather, a look of …. My mind almost refused the thought. She looked contented.

  “We’re going to try to get some agents closer,” Marte said. Her voice was soft, volume not needed in a room where all I could hear was my heart racing.

  On the screen, I saw the house lights go down and a spotlight came on. Constance disappeared from the close-up. The collar tightened around Conroy’s neck, then he too was pulled from the picture. I flinched from the sudden movement, instinctively duckin
g from the blast that didn’t come. In a moment, the camera zoomed out to show the hostage and his taker in the middle of the cleared area. Conroy was bent over at the waist, coughing. Constance crouched slightly behind him, a hand shading her eyes. After a moment, Conroy caught his breath and started yelling something. The spotlight went out, and the room lights came back up.

  Marte reached over to the computer and tapped a few keys. “Room mic,” she said simply. I could hear Conroy’s sporadic coughing, the muffled sounds of movement in the background. The camera zoomed in again but not as close this time. Still, the faces were large enough to see that Conroy had gone from red to purple. His eyes glistened with tears. Constance, however, still looked calm, as if she didn’t have a care in the world.

  How is that possible?

  “Look at Constance,” I whispered to Marte, hoping I wasn’t talking over anything.

  Marte said nothing for a moment, her stare fixed on the monitor. “That seems really bad to me,” she finally replied. “Even the fanatics would be sweating bullets by now, but she doesn’t appear fazed at all.”

  What was going on? Were we playing into the Crusaders’ hands? And if so, where did their scenario lead? Ten million dollars in ransom to fight the medical community? An airplane to a foreign country? But I didn’t need to wonder long. Constance held up her empty left hand, then slowly reached into a pocket and pulled out a digital recorder. She pushed a button, and an electronically altered voice came from the device.

  It took me a moment to adjust to the strange changes in pitch and tempo, but soon, the sounds became words. “For much too long, the American people have let medicine prop up our physical bodies, letting our hearts and souls become cesspools of decaying morality. For much too long, we have taken our health out of the hands of nature and put it into the hands of men driven by greed and delusions of grandeur. Too long have we let medicine play God. And now, payment for our arrogance has come due. Medicine has started to pay, and today, one more of their immoral rank will forfeit his life toward relieving some small portion of that debt. With him, he’ll take one of our innocent souls, Sister Constance, but such is the price we pay for our medical hubris.”