by Theo Cage
So I still live in the Palisades, where I grew up as a kid in Washington. My home is on a leafy street in a non-descript bungalow that I bought from a former homicide partner - who moved out to a better life in McLean.
McLean is the county where the famous CIA Headquarters sits behind locked gates. You can feel like you live at the centre of the universe in McLean, but not have to face a shooting gallery every day of your life. How is that fair?
And that’s ironic, because this morning I am reporting to a homicide called in by that very same CIA, only this one is located in a little known building inside the city limits of Washington proper. They call it Building 213. You get there through the Washington Navy Yard at the south end of the city, next to the Potomac River.
Captain Ipscott gave me orders to report to Building 213, alone. A strange request. I’ve never been asked before to leave my partner behind, although sometimes I’ve got to admit, I’ve felt that way myself. Emile always has my back, but he’s not really what you would call a people-person.
Maybe the CIA knows something I don’t.
I’ve heard rumors about 213 - everyone who lives in Washington has. We all know that this used to be the head office for NPIC, the National Photographic Interpretation Center, before it was absorbed by the Department of Defense in the nineties. NPIC used to interpret spy satellite imagery for the rest of the Intelligence community. They also had hundreds of interpreters on staff to who watched foreign TV broadcasts, and monitor telephone and email traffic. Serious stuff even for the town that built the White House. What they do now is anyone’s guess.
I had never been to Building 213 before. It’s hard to believe I have spent all these years in Washington and within spitting distance of Langley, but have never had a run in with the spooks or their handlers. I count myself lucky. The FBI was another matter. They were ever-present in this town, and I had good reason to believe I would again be sparring with the dark side before the week was over.
The Navy Yard is aptly named; a gravel parking lot filled with row upon row of red brick buildings separated by narrow lanes. Finding the building was easy - it was east of building number 212 and just west of 214. There was nothing about the appearance from the outside that would give a visitor any hint as to the buildings real purpose.
Once inside the out-of-place steel and glass entrance, I entered a lobby that looked out on a feature wall of the same red brick. I was surrounded by what was likely very thick bulletproof glass. By the inner door was a camera and speaker. I was asked to provide ID. I purposefully took my time looking for my badge and then passed it quickly under the camera lens. There was a pause then the voice at the other end got serious and asked for a longer look.
“Maybe you should send out your Security guy. A Mr. David Dodge. He’s expecting me. This is a police matter.”
I straightened my tie simply to give me something to do with my hands. I really wanted to rip the video camera off the wall. I’m a big fan of surveillance technology. I also gave big brother a flash of my revolver, which was strapped to my shoulder harness. The chrome handle always looks impressive on a color monitor.
The door clicked ominously and a short woman stepped out into the enclosed lobby. I’m about six foot four and she might have been able to reach my chin with her hands - if she stretched and stood on tiptoes. Not quite a little person, if that’s politically correct - just a very short woman with a very serious look on a face that hadn’t seen much sun this summer.
“Hyde”, I said, “D.C. Homicide.”
I don’t shake hands so I didn’t offer.
She introduced herself as the head of the Technology Group. Vienna Jobime. She pronounced it ‘how-beam’. She wore a light blue smock, like a scientist would wear in a laboratory. She led me through the lobby, down past the brick wall. A security guard asked for my ID again and passed a wand over me. I lifted my jacket and pointed to the gun. He waved me past. We stopped at a bank of modern elevators. Since the building was one floor, I had to guess we were going down. How far I couldn’t guess. I could only imagine the labyrinth below.
"What do they do here at Building 213?” Or even a better question, where were the brass? In a case like this, management was always hovering nearby like a bunch of male lions after a kill. At this particular time they were real conspicuous by their absence. Of course here, they probably just watched you on their monitors. Kept their hands clean that way.
"Jo," she said again, “Just call me Jo.” She looked up, really meeting my eyes for the first time “Our jobs on 3B are pretty ordinary by anyone’s standards. We study satellite imagery. Computer-enhance photos. Monitor telecommunications. The man who died? Frank Scammel? He was part of the photo enhancement team."
We stepped out of the elevator, when the doors opened, into a non-descript hall. "You'll have to wear this badge," she said, handing over a security card with a chrome level, which meant she had to stretch up to it, held a single camera lens. She faced the lens and passed her ID card through a slot on the plate. The door unlocked loudly. As they passed through into a large open space, I turned to her.
"Is that one of those systems that scans your eyes?"
That comment amused her. "No, actually it's much more sophisticated. The camera actually recognizes my face."
We stepped into a larger workspace. Deserted. "What if I look exactly like someone else or I have a brother that looks a lot like me, only not so good looking?"
She was warming to me. I could see it in her face. "It's very accurate. If we took ten photos of you at different distances, under different light, added a mustache or a beard, even intentionally shot it out of focus, then asked the computer to match your face right now against a million others - it would still find all ten in about 999 out of a thousand searches." I whistled. “You still need the card as a backup though. To fool our security you'd need an employees pass card and a nearly identical face. Pretty unlikely, I'd say."
We arrived in a large computer workroom lit largely by the glow of dozens of large color computer monitors. Still no humans in sight.
"Coffee break?" I asked.
"We asked most of our personnel to leave this area for a few hours. Partly due to security," she waved at the screens, "and partly to give you some elbow room."
"I'll need to ask them some questions."
"That can be arranged privately," she said, holding a side door open. This was a smaller room, the walls covered with large color photos - some old politicians, military equipment, airplanes and weapons, a shot of Beyonce in bed with George W. Bush. When Jobime saw me eye it she explained, "George was in on the joke."
I stepped up to the large framed photograph. "It's amazing how good they’ve gotten at this stuff. The shadows are perfect . . ."
"Scammel was one of our best. He'd been with us for over twenty years, almost back to the punch card days." She paused, then swallowed. “He is lying over there behind that desk. We haven’t touched anything or gone near the body.”
"Do you want to leave me here for awhile?" I asked her.
"It's OK. My father was a doctor. I saw lots of blood by the time I was twelve." I wasn’t convinced. I’d seen a lot of blood too, but that didn’t make it any easier.
We walked around a large desk unit, and there was Frank Scammel, the programmer/designer. There was more than a lot of blood. He was about forty-something, longish thinning hair. He wore a white Grateful Dead T-shirt, a laughing skull on the back leering up at me. He was lying on his face, blood surrounding him on all sides, one arm tucked underneath. He was a big guy, almost as big as me. Only more fat. Or at least I liked to think so. Soft and white around the middle too. I walked around the pool of congealing blood. He’s been here for a while.
“When was it reported?"
"Four this morning our shift supervisor rang in and found him. She called out one of our security people, David Dodge."
“And Dodge. What did he do?"
"He cordoned off this room, and locked
down the building. Then called Washington Homicide."
"Locked down?"
"No one leaves. No one enters. Standard stuff."
"You're saying since four o'clock no one has been allowed to leave?"
She nodded.
"Why didn't we get a call until 7:25 AM?"
She hesitated. "Lock-down takes a while. You can talk to Dodge about it. Internal security matters . . . "
"Excuse me?"
"The project he was working on?" she pointed to the body. "We had to remove the files and documents."
I scratched my head, my eyes narrowing. "That's evidence, Jo."
"It's also national security. The work we do is highly classified,” she said flatly.
"You move evidence, Ms. Vienna, you break the law. It may be national security, but it's still breaking the law."
"My orders come from the Director at Langley. That's our law around here. You can talk to him. He reports directly to the President."
I glared at her for a minute, and then turned back to the body. She threw in the reference to the President like it should end the conversation. I was guessing I wouldn’t be talking to either the President or the Director of the CIA in this case. I would be buried in the basement along with all the other old files. Then I smiled, a big self-effacing grin that I hoped would be hard for her to resist.
I shook my head. The brass was always there. Sometimes you just couldn’t see them. But you could always smell them.
"You CIA types. National security. Covert operations. The problems of the world on your shoulders. Weighty matters. And then here lies Frank, valued employee, now dead. And I'm just a cop off the streets who can't do a damn thing to help you figure out why. Cause the evidence's gone." I closed my book and filed my pen away in an inside pocket. Then I turned for the door.
“Where are you going?" she asked.
"Gonna call the boys in blue to come pick up this mess. Not much more I can do here."
"But you haven't even looked at anything, done any investigation!"
I stopped, shoved my hands into my coat pockets. "I know a cleaned room when I see one. You people are good. Really good. All that's left is the blood. And I'm sure you have something in your bag of tricks to make that go away too."
I reached for the door, and then turned back to the color wall photo. "By the way, can I get you guys to do one of those with me in bed with Beyonce too? That would look great in the rec room." She stared at me. I stood there, my shoulders hunched over, trying to look as guileless as possible.
"I . . . can't believe that . . . "
"The Beyonce thing? Hey. It's no big deal. I know you're the CIA. You got bigger fish to fry."
"I don't have time for games, detective."
"Too busy re-writing all those rule books?"
Jo's complexion was turning pink. "The Washington Police tell us they're sending their best detective. You show up, take one look at the . . . "
I Pointed. "Crime scene?"
"Yes. One look at the crime scene, and then you disappear for lunch. We have donuts in our cafeteria too, you know!"
I squinted at her. "Ahhhh. A donut joke." I looked at my watch, a scratched Seiko that was a gift many years ago from my wife. "Usually it comes quicker though. Right after the introductions."
She stared at me.
"What was Frank working on?" I asked.
"I told you, I can't say."
"OK. Why not just give me a hint - before anyone else shows up. I promise I won't phone the Post."
She put both hands in the pockets of her lab coat. "Video. He built programs that manipulated video. I can’t say anymore and I don’t see how it’s relevant to his death."
"Video’s of?"
"Detective Hyde, imagine a foreign country is preparing an attack on one of the military installation owned by an ally. They think it only holds a few tanks, a few planes. No big problem for them. We take photos inside and then manipulate them so that it appears that the area is bristling with deadly technology. A dozen F-18's. A few bombers. We create a video out of the imagery. We send it out to the news media. They broadcast it. The enemy sees it. It cools their ardor for the attack."
I was impressed. "But Frank's not the only guy who knows how to do this stuff. Hollywood is full of them."
She closed her eyes - started to take a deep breath - and then winced. Her father may have been a country doctor, but it still hadn't prepared her for the smell of death in a small closed room. "He was one of the best, but you're right."
"No motive there then? No international incident. But then, you guys have already figured that out."
"Pardon?"
"There was a murder at Langley. In '67. You didn't think we knew about it? You people were so deep into the cold-war thing then, you probably though it wasn't even necessary to call the good old Washington Police."
She folded her arms. "I obviously wasn't here in '67. I wasn’t even born yet."
"But you knew about it." She sat down in one of the computer chairs, swiveled back and forth for a moment. "So, what do you know about Frank?" I asked, pulling out my trusty ‘no batteries required” note pad again.
She sounded weary. She was a classic A-type, ready to wind down into tears, but working hard to hold it back. "He was a technoid. Built his own graphics stations. Wrote some of the first software we used for simulations back in the nineties. Quiet type. As you can see, a bit eccentric for the CIA. But some kind of genius, really. He kept to himself. And for all we can tell, he died because of a computer virus. I guess that's appropriate."
I stood back on my heels, stretching. It had been about twenty-four hours since I slept last. "Computer virus? Now I thought those things only messed up computers. You think they're going after people now, too?"
She was searching for the height adjustment on the chair, her feet not quite touching the floor. "I don't know what to think. We've been sensitive to this virus business ever since a sixteen-year-old kid shut down the entire early-warning system in the late 90's. With a virus he wrote in his high school computer class."
I moved around the room, expecting our forensic team to arrive at any minute. "Yeah. I heard about that one. I don't remember any bodies involved though."
She took a deep breath. "We have what is supposed to be the most sophisticated computer firewall system in the world - a wall that stops everything. Nothing gets through . . . that is, until about two months ago. We've had dozens of hits since then."
I looked up from my notes, so Jo explained, "Every time we get a security breach we call it a hit. This thing comes in, messes up files, screws up whatever it can, then disappears, like a hit and run driver. It's even started leaving messages with our staff."
"Have you got copies?"
"You mean copies of the message? Only one. We got lucky and captured one yesterday."
I squinted at her. She expected I would have lost my patience by now. "Pictures. Movies. Some of it pornographic."
I frowned and shook my head. "Just another sicko hacker on the loose?"
"When you say hacker, that infers someone getting access over high-speed data lines. The techs assure me that can't happen here. Even God himself couldn't place a call into this building if we didn't want him to."
"So how does the virus get in?"
"We don't know. And since this thing is definitely a virus, it still has to be in here somewhere. It's what they call a worm. It wiggles in and then goes into hiding, waiting to pop up again. In a way, it's never gone. We've got some worm expert from Canada working on it as we speak."
I stopped writing. "You had to import a worm expert? The CIA couldn't come up with one of their own?"
"It's a specialized field." The obviousness of that statement hung in the air for a moment. Worm experts. I didn't think it was appropriate to laugh in the company of a fresh corpse so I just chewed on my lip.
"You think Frank was involved?"
She shrugged, not really surprised by the question. "His j
ob was to create very realistic but false environments. Real enough to fool the other guys. One of our technicians said the virus was like watching MTV from Hell. So we can’t rule the possibility out." She jumped down off the chair. “That stays here by the way. As I said, this is all very classified.”
"Could this have been a game for him? A little espionage of his own? Was he happy?"
"Who knows?” She was clearly puzzled by the question. “I thought he liked the work. But he was pretty much a loner. Divorced for ten years. Had a daughter, but he never talked about her. Not much of a life outside of his work."
"We’ll need the computers he had in this room before you cleaned it. All of them. There may be something there that gives us a clue as to what he was up to. You going to let me look at those other files? The one you captured?"
"Of course."
I scanned the room one more time. "I don't know about this virus. But I do know he wasn't killed by a computer bug."
"He died at precisely the time we had a record of this virus violating his computer."
"Coincidence," I said.
"How can you be so sure?"
"Frank was in a hurry to die. There's no sign of a struggle. Pretty hard to have another person slice your abdominal wall open and not get their foot prints in the offal."
"Wha . . . " She looked up, shock blasting the color out of her cheeks.
"I've seen it before. It's not pretty, but it works, Frank committed Hari Kari."
"My God!"
"And he did it with the sharpest thing he could find in a hurry - which means this wasn't very well thought out."
"With what?" she asked.
"A screwdriver," I said.
NOTES FROM THE AUTHOR
I hope you enjoyed the short story Crispy Critters. If you have any comments or opinions I would love to hear them. Just write me at [email protected]
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A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR