The Firefly

by P. T. Deutermann

  “Certainly,” Malone replied. He went through the two alarms, the discovery of four sets of human remains, the special nature of an oxygen-fed fire as it pertained to evidence and human victims, and then the almost archaeological investigation that followed.

  “What got your attention?” Swamp asked when Malone had finished.

  “Several things. First, one of the toa—um, victims, I mean, was found over by the door, an expended fire extinguisher near her hands, like she’d seen the fire and tried to get on it. Never happen in an explosive atmosphere. Goes too fast, and you can’t move once the temp inside your lungs gets to twelve hundred.”

  Swamp grimaced at the thought. “And second?”

  “Second was the fact that the fire kept going for so long. You know, people who build operating rooms are sensitive to fire danger. Plus, they use a lot of metal or hard plastic to make it easier to sanitize. So there shouldn’t have been that much to burn, other than maybe ceiling tile. No carpets, no wood furniture. And yet this place looked like the inside of a blast furnace. Even melted a couple of the gas bottles.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning the oxygen supply and whatever the gas was stayed on.”

  “You said four victims: two docs, two nurses.”

  “That’s the third thing. No patient. Or any instruments on the side tables. There were instruments on the floor.”

  “What could the building itself tell you?”

  “Not that much, once you got away from the blast furnace. We were able to wet down the rest of the building and save most of it, except for what was smoke-or water-damaged. But the fire itself didn’t spread much, except up—got to the roof.”

  “Their records?”

  “We got partials. Their computers melted, but we’ve got several carbonized boxes of paper records. Did I mention that this was an interesting little plastic surgery practice? Because it surely was. For those records still readable, all the patient names were in numerical code. We never found the key. Both surgeons were Pakistani. One apparently the main man, the other one fresh out of medical school and then specialty training here in the States.”

  “Doing whom—wives of Washington VIPs?”

  “No. Even though we don’t have any names, all the surgery was apparently done on males. And at night. For this crew anyway.”

  “‘This crew’?”

  “Yeah, another interesting bit. During the day, there was another set of docs, Americans, who did the normal stuff—tummy tucks and boob jobs. Totally separate from the night crew. Separate admin office, separate records, separate staff. Same OR. The American docs owned the building—bank held the mortgage—and they told us they subleased to the night docs.”

  “And knew nothing, saw nothing, heard nothing about the night crew?”

  “Like those famous little monkeys, all in a row. All legal, by the way. Separate but current building permits and licenses. The senior day doc said that the night crew’s clients wanted total privacy, which is why everything was done at night. He said these guys specialized in incremental physio-plasty, which means doing what you do in small operations, so the patient ‘has work,’ but since it’s done over a prolonged period of time, no one notices.”

  “Could you tell anything about the work?”

  “Our medical guys say it consisted of two main categories: the standard cosmetic upgrades—facial work, hair implants, lipo work—and then more complicated procedures—facial-bone reconstruction, hair replacement, composite skin grafts on fingers and toes, iris coloration, even some retinal displacements, whatever those are. There’s even a hint of a partial sex-change procedure. Remember now, we got mostly fragments.”

  “Skin grafts on fingers? You’re talking identity changes.”

  “What I thought, too. I’m no doc, but the Bureau lab people picked right up on that, too.”

  “And all the night patients names are in code?”

  “Yeah.” Malone got up to refill his coffee cup. The two agents joined him at the coffee machine on the corner table. “Our Homicide people talked to the Bureau. The Feebs hinted that they had some information on the Paki docs, but they wouldn’t share. You know how they can get.”

  Swamp nodded. The old feds-versus-locals problem. Washington’s obsession with turf wars made it even worse than elsewhere in the country, despite the new cabinet department. “So what inspired you to send a report to the White House protective detail?” Swamp asked.

  “One record,” Malone said. “Lemme show you.” He reached into an evidence box on the floor and withdrew a plastic evidence envelope with what looked like a steel clipboard inside. “This here’s a medical-file board.”

  He opened the Ziploc bag and pulled out the file board. A faint odor of char seeped out of the bag. “I found this while I was getting ready for the cold-case board. It’s a medical/surgical record. Evidence log said it was picked up out in the hallway, right near the OR.” He flipped back the metal front cover.

  “This thing was exposed to direct fire, because the front and back several pages are burned beyond legibility. The parts recovered from the crease of the file holder indicate the pages were standard post-op reports. Except for these three pages.” He wedged open the clipboard and handed over three pieces of paper to Swamp. The edges were badly scorched, and the paper had that peculiar stiffness that comes when it’s been wetted and then dried.

  “The lab’s done its thing, so they can be handled. These notes, or whatever they are, were all the way in the middle of the file. They appear to be typed transcript. Or maybe voice-recognition text. Hard to tell.”

  “Yeah, my boss said something about these quacks taping their patients when they were under anesthesia. Is there a name?”

  “Nope. Still just the code number—two-oh-oh-three-four-one. We found other pieces of transcripts like this in some of the office records, although, like I said, we’re talking just fragments here. And lots of it was gibberish, of course. This one’s no different, except for one block of text, which I highlighted.”

  A young woman stuck her head in and told Malone that the chief of detectives wanted to see him. “You’ll have to excuse me for a minute,” he said, getting up. “But here’s the thing: This guy, whoever he is, I think he’s talking about bombing the Capitol on the night of the State of the Union address.”

  Swamp’s head jerked up. “Whoa,” he said.

  “I should tell you that I’m the only one thinks this. Others disagree. It isn’t exactly crystal-clear. Look for yourself. I’ll be right back. Hopefully.”

  Gary White moved his chair so he could see. Swamp laid out the three charred pages of double-spaced typing. There were words and phrases in English and also, surprisingly, in German, although the typist had transcribed everything phonetically, misspelling many of the German words. The transcript had page breaks and dates, indicating the record had been assembled over the course of the last year. There was babbling about face-cutting, strange sounds in the patient’s ears, painful breasts, what had sounded to the transcriber as some undecipherable names, then single words such as rain and steel and oil. A reference to a mountain of money, Faust, and two masters. Then more German words.

  “That’s German?” White asked.

  “Yes,” Swamp said. “Stream of unconsciousness. Random words, sometimes associated, sometimes not. Like these names: Hitler, Heydrich, Himmler, Hess. Then something about ‘H’s.’…I see what Malone meant about it being obscure.”

  “What did he highlight?”

  Swamp looked at the third page. The text was fractional. “Soon now…[undecipherable]…Head right off…right off!…Union Staat speech…Sieg und Götterdamerung…Leichen regnen verden…[undecipherable] Bomb…bomb…bomb…Heil [something]—Hitler?…Five H’s…[unintelligible German word]…[something] five…Hitler…Himmler…Heydrich…Hess…Heismann…Soon, very soon, Ammie Schwein.”

  White shook his head. “I got the ‘Heil Hitler’ bit; can you make out the rest?”


  “Yeah. I did a year and a half in Germany during my exchange tour across the river; plus, I took German in college. The word Staat translates as ‘state.’ That could, as Malone thinks, refer to the State of the Union address. The word Götterdamerung refers to the Twilight of the Gods. Think Valkyries going down in flames in a Wagnerian opera. A hugely dramatic finale. Leichen regnen verden means literally that it’s gonna rain death or dead bodies. Ammie is pejorative German slang for Americans. Schwein means ‘pig.’ The ‘Five H’s’ beats me, other than the names that follow were the stars of the Nazi firmament. All except that last one—I don’t recognize Heismann. But bottom line? I think Malone could be right: Somebody’s babbling under the anesthesia about a bombing during the State of the Union speech.”

  Malone walked back in. “You get through the German stuff?”

  “I speak some German,” Swamp said. “This seems fairly provocative to me. This is what you sent over to the White House?”

  “Right,” Malone said, sitting down. “I remembered that the Secret Service does the security survey for the State of the Union address, too.”

  “Almost right. Actually it’s the PRU. The White House protective detail is focused exclusively on protecting the president and his family, twenty-four/seven. This would have gone right to PRU—Protective Research Unit. They handle all the threat-analysis work.”

  Malone shrugged. “Whatever. They sent you.”

  Swamp smiled as he sat back in his chair. “After a fashion,” he said. “And I now understand why they’re treating it as a firefly. If I’m reading it right, the target’s a year away.”

  “How so?”

  “This is an inauguration year. There won’t be a State of the Union speech until next year.”

  “Well now,” Malone said, “technically, that’s true, but there will be a presidential address to a joint session of Congress next month. I know that because we’re already scheduling damn near a year’s worth of overtime for that and the inauguration. Securitywise, it’s just about the same thing. A foreigner might not know the difference.”

  Swamp nodded, acknowledging Malone’s point. “Still,” he said, “the Secret Service is totally absorbed right now in getting ready for the inauguration. My guess is that they shrugged this one off because they have more pressing threats. But still…”

  “Yeah,” Malone said. “I’m gonna keep my investigation open, see if we can explain that fire better. This other shit, that’s officially over to you guys. We’ll share any evidence, anything we find out, of course.”

  “Appreciate it,” Swamp said. “As I remember, the papers said that one nurse survived this disaster—by not being there.”

  “Right,” Malone said, reaching for another file. “A Ms. Connie Wall. Had the night off. We should have an interview record. Yeah, right here. She was at home when the deal went down. Horrified. Seemed genuinely shocked at what happened. Confirmed there were oh-two and nitrous-oxide tanks in the surgery. Didn’t know who was being operated on that night. This is before we knew about the codes and shit. Interview terminated due to subject’s becoming medium hysterical.”

  “I’d guess that the nurses never did know who was being operated on,” Swamp said, tapping the metal file. “This one’s coded in the name box, just like the other ones you mentioned. Okay. I’d like to do two things. One, go see the scene of the fire, preferably with you as guide. And two, talk to the nurse.”

  “No problem with the fire scene,” Malone said, looking at his daybook. “How about four-thirty today? And as for the nurse, you’re on your own.”

  Swamp looked at Gary. “Works for me,” he said.

  Heismann saw the pretty banker approaching from the direction of the L’Enfant Plaza Metro station. He moved casually from the middle of the park bench to the end. The Mall was moderately populated, it being lunchtime on this cloudy January day. Three young bureaucrats in shirts and ties were gamely trying to throw a Frisbee while pretending it was warm outside. Heismann was wearing a suit and tie under his dark green loden overcoat, and a matching hat to keep his head warm in the cold January breeze. His square-rimmed oversized sunglasses covered most of his features. His beard appeared to be about three weeks old, even though it wasn’t real.

  He opened up a white deli lunch bag and began to root around in it. He tried not to smile when he saw the newspaper tucked under the princeling’s arm. Amir—or was it Emir?—Mutaib abd Allah, managing director of the Royal Kingdom Bank, loved American and British spy movies and fancied himself thoroughly grounded in operational tradecraft. The Wall Street Journal was folded in thirds under his right arm. For identification, of course, as if Heismann wouldn’t recognize him, even after eleven months. For his part, Heismann had been told to display a white bag. He mentally rolled his eyes as he remembered all this nonsense.

  Mutaib sat down on the far end of Heismann’s bench, nodded politely to him, and unfolded the newspaper. Staying in character, Heismann obligingly didn’t look at him again. He spied the Coke in the bag. Shaken, not stirred, as he remembered. Best be careful opening it, then.

  “The fire appears to have been rather a success,” Mutaib said quietly from behind his newspaper. He was about the same size as Heismann, with light olive skin, a delicately hooked hose, dark eyes, and a sculpted black goatee. He affected a passable Oxbridge accent when he spoke English, even though he’d finished his English schooling at the public school stage. He looked exactly like what he was: a casually cosmopolitan Saudi Arabian businessman assigned here in Washington to the Royal Kingdom Bank. Heismann was convinced the Arab was also a flaming homosexual.

  “Oxygen,” Heismann muttered, pretending to watch the antics of the Frisbee threesome. Mutaib was technically his field controller, so Heismann, who hated homosexuals, carefully erased all vestiges of contempt from his voice. He took a bite out of his machine-stamped sandwich, made a face, and returned the miserable thing to its wrappings. He then cracked open the Coke. He despised American fast food, and the pasty sandwich confirmed his worst expectations. The Coke, at least, was drinkable.

  “Well then. Any loose ends?” Mutaib asked.

  That question was much too casual, Heismann thought. The Washington Post had carried a detailed story of the fire at the cosmetic surgery clinic weeks ago, but the story had died out. So why the questions now? There had been a list of the victims, plus the fact that one nurse, Ms. Connie Wall, had not come in for work that night. Fortuitously, for both her and the plan, as it turned out. “The nurse, of course,” he said.

  “Ah, yes, the nurse,” Mutaib replied, turning a page and then grappling with the paper as a gust of wind tried to steal it. Heismann shivered. Why couldn’t we have done this over the phone? he wondered. But then he remembered where he was, in Washington, where one never knew who or what was listening to your phone conversations. The city was the headquarters of the FBI, CIA, ATF, DEA, the Secret Service, DIA, NSA, and a host of lesser federal law-enforcement and intelligence agencies, so anyone in the game had to assume that the entire municipal phone system was bugged and cross-bugged. Heismann did not own or ever use a cell phone. He pushed the remains of his sandwich deeper into the white bag and opened a small bag of chips.

  “Does she need, um, attending to, then?” Mutaib asked.

  “Not immediately,” Heismann replied. They stopped talking as three pretty young women came strolling by, conducting a surprisingly frank anatomical commentary on the Frisbee players.

  “But ultimately, yes, hmm?”

  Yes, dear, Heismann thought. Ultimately, all the loose ends had to be tied off. Including Emir Mutaib. “You forget,” he replied, “that we can use her for stage two of the bait. Plus, if I terminate her now, the authorities will have separate deaths connected to the same incident. As things stand, it was a fire, with one lucky survivor. If she dies now, any investigator with half a brain would notice.”

  “Quite so,” Mutaib said approvingly. Heismann thought that the Arab was also watching the three F
risbee players. Disgusting. “Will you require tracking assistance on her?”

  Heismann sighed. “It is nothing. I have been into her house. She lives alone up near Rock Creek Park. It will be no problem. Do we know if the Ammies took the bait?”

  “Bit too soon, I should think. One assumes the first indication will come from our contacts at Interpol. A sudden American interest in one Jäger Heismann. Then we’ll know. Not before.”

  Heismann had told his Arab controller at the very beginning that he intended to wipe out the clinic when they had fulfilled their side of the contract. The Arabs hadn’t seemed to care one way or the other. The Americans, however, might take a different view if they saw through the “accidental” nature of the fire. If they were competent, they would. “And you have no one inside the city police department?” he asked.

  Mutaib made a dismissive gesture with his left hand. “The Washington Police Department? Whatever for? They are fools.”

  Heismann grunted. For the arson investigation, idiot. On the other hand, the real threat to his mission here would come from the federal police, not the city police. Especially this city’s police.

  “The bank will know at once,” Mutaib said. “In the meantime, we have acquired the house.”

  Heismann sat up straighter and glanced around. This was important. “Ah, yes? Within range?”

  “Absolutely. Well within range. A duplex row house behind Capitol Hill on Sixth Street, southeast, just above South Carolina Avenue. Right on the edge of the so-called gentrification area.”

  “Southeast?”

  “Yes. Think of the Capitol being in the center of a gun sight’s crosshairs.”

  “Yes, precisely,” Heismann said, nodding.

  Mutaib suppressed a smile. “No, I mean for orientation purposes. The Capitol is the city center. The crosshairs divide the city into four quadrants, northwest, northeast, southeast, southwest. All addresses in this city are given with their quadrant.”

  “Ach, I understand. And duplex? This means two houses together, ya?”