by Jim Magwood
“Uh-huh. You should sure do that. You and I—we gotta bring some professionalism to this here squad that has been sorely lacking until now.”
CHAPTER 26
“Paul, Jake. Thanks for meeting with us again. We felt we needed to talk some more about this thing, see if we could lay any ideas out. And Detective Shandon, it’s good to meet you. Welcome aboard.”
“Thank you,” Sylvia replied.
“No problem, Frank. You’re buying lunch, right?” “Paul, we kinda thought we’d split the bill this time,
okay?”
“That makes it sound like we did this before. Last time
was just donuts at your place, right?”
“You sure did get into those donuts, though.”
The four men and Sylvia were chuckling as they headed
for the table. They were in Bazin’s on Church, a great restaurant on the west side of D.C., and Julie, one of the owners and
a self-appointed hostess, got them settled at a secluded back
table and took their orders. They asked Julie to just bring them
a table full of appetizers so they could simply snack as they
talked.
Chuck Conrad was the FBI agent in charge of the school
fire incidences and his responsibility had been increased to
include the shooting of Senator Marks and now Councilman
Jessen. He was carrying a small box that appeared to be full of
something. Frank Maine, the head of the Secret Service Presidential Detail, had several file folders with him. Paul, Jake,
Sylvia and the other two all had the feeling that all the incidences, the school and newspaper fires and the shootings,
were somehow all tied together, and they needed a comprehensive strategy session to see if they could fit some puzzle
pieces into place.
“What’s in the box, goose?” Jake asked Chuck. The shoebox size package was sitting on the edge of the table. “I know you guys are running a major search to bring up
anything that relates to these events we’re looking at, so I
thought I’d bring some more items to add to the mess. Since
this has all become an upper government situation, our data
people have also been searching, both for us and for Frank, to
see what we might have in our files. Probably don’t have
much more than you’re coming up with, but there are a couple
of things you might not have details on that we do have.
Things we were looking at specifically in the past.” Frank added, “And I’ve got some files of incidences from
our past that might tie in somehow.”
“Okay. We brought a list of the things we had Sammie,
our data genius, enter into the search system and a summary
list of things that popped out and were somehow matched together. Wanna just talk out your stuff and we’ll see if we have
any matches?”
“Okay, how’ll we do this?”
“Let’s us three split up our list so we can look faster and
then you, or both of you, start going down yours and we’ll see
what comes up.”
The five officers split up the lists and started working
through them. When the food arrived about ten minutes later,
they hadn’t found any major items from Chuck’s list that the
detectives didn’t have, only a few minor ones.
They stopped for a few minutes to get the food going.
With plates of crabmeat spring rolls and crispy oysters, miso
garlic tenderloins, potato and onion ravioli and lollipop lamb
chops, and a huge platter of garlic-herbed french-fries, the table looked like it should break, but they put on their game
faces and quickly started reducing the weight on the poor table. Bazin’s was noted in D.C. for food that simply did not
disappoint, and it was hard to put down the forks long enough
to take the files back up again.
They worked on sorting and re-sorting the files and lists
for more than three hours (and managed to finish the food at
the same time.) In the end, there were only a few items that the
police officers didn’t have on their lists that appeared to be of
any consequence. One seemed to be right up near the top for
consideration, an incident where Senator Marks had been
hosting a conference on gun control and registration. The
audience had actually broken out in a fistfight, a gun had been
pulled out and a man fired a shot at the senator. He wasn’t injured and the man had been subdued by the crowd and hauled
away, but he had been vowing to make the senator pay for
what he had supposedly let happen in the communities. No
one had ever really been able to find out what the man was
referring to. He had served a couple years locally, then had
disappeared as soon as he could.
“Unfortunately, though, it doesn’t appear to have anything to do with schools,” Paul said. “I still think these things
are related somehow.”
Another item was when a group of teenage students had
somehow laid hands on a small packing box of pistols and
small automatic weapons, and in the course of showing them
off at a party off-campus, someone had pulled the trigger on
an automatic that was loaded. Later investigation found that
the Uzi had eight rounds still in the magazine and five of the
teens had been hit. Three had been killed, one crippled with a
lower spine shot and the other had ultimately lost the use of
her hand. The owner of the weapons was never found and
there were no suspicions. The box had been found in an alley. A third incident from about three years before was where
a group of school children in a school bus on a field trip had
apparently driven through a crossfire between two gangs. The
bus driver and four children had been killed and six other children had received serious wounds. When the driver had
slumped over in his seat, the bus had gone out of control,
rolled through a busy intersection and was hit broadside by
several other vehicles before it came to rest nose into a building. Nine other children were hurt in the accident. The gang
members were never identified.
“The problem with these,” Chuck said, “is that none of
them had anything to do with Marks or Jessen or school fires.
Just kids caught in some gun activity. We still don’t have any
real links. Some weapons, some gangs, a fight at a conference,
but nothing that ties them together.”
Frank added, “In addition, where would any of this tie in
to the possible threats against the president? We have the
president and senator, the councilman and that newsman that
got shot at the fire, a bunch of school fires, and some gun incidences. We have gun incidences every day in this city. What
brings them all together?”
Silvia spoke up. “Obviously, I’m new in this, but I’m
wondering do we still think these things are related? Maybe
they’re just separate actions that have no direct relation between them?”
“You could be right, Silvia, but I still have a feeling
they’re together. I keep thinking about the poems. Where’s
that file with them in it, Jake?”
“Here.”
“Yeah, listen to these. ‘They let them go for fun but some
body had a gun.’ That was from the note at the second school
fire. ‘He should have done some thing, but he dint. They dint
a
sk for much, but he said no. They were good, but he dint
care. They got nothing and that isnt fair. This one had too go.’
That was from the senator. ‘They din’ do nothin’ wrong but
they got killed anyway… That politic guy he was no good and
din’ help ‘em. Din’ do nuthin’ for ‘em.’ That was from the
phone message I got at the office. There’s got to be a tie between them. They got hurt because of a gun. He didn’t help
and had to go. They got killed. He was no good and didn’t
help. Granted, these are all from different incidences, but I feel
a thread through them.”
After a moment, Chuck said, “When you read them together like that, I’m getting maybe the same feeling.” Then Frank said quietly, “But why the phone threat directly against the president? ‘He’s gone now. Tell the boss man he’s next. He shoulda done something.’ Where does the president come into it? How does all this tie to him, or him to any of it? He hasn’t done anything to hurt any kids. And he just helped push through that big school funding bill and eve
rybody knows about it. Why him?”
The waiter came to the table and asked if anyone wanted
dessert, but none of them had the stomach for that after the
discussion. Paul picked up the full tab despite the mild protests
of the others. “Next time, folks.” The group left for their offices with a foreboding feeling that they had seriously missed
something, but no idea what, and with a fog of dread over
them that said it wasn’t over.
CHAPTER 27
Frank Maine, the chief Secret Service agent for the president, had given the team his contact’s name at the CIA so Paul decided it was time to get in touch and see if there were any possible leads from that angle. He got through to Ron Kincaide and after introductions quickly got to the heart of his call.
“Ron, did Frank let you know just what we’re doing here?”
“Yes, he clued me in. Said you might be calling. What’s up?”
“Well, we’re investigating, along with the other agencies, the combination of these multiple school fires, and the one at WBAK, plus the shootings of Senator Marks, a newsman and a city councilman. We’ve got every permutation possible plugged into our computer search and so far haven’t got a single piece of linking data we can start to run after. I wondered if you folks might be working this at all and if maybe there might be some kind of an international angle somewhere?”
“Okay, number one, we’re not working it other than just keeping an eye open for anything that comes our way. And, on that, there’s nothing. We don’t see any international links.
“Second, we’ve done a simple search of probably the same data you’ve checked and nothing has popped up. No individuals or groups that seem to have specific grudges against any of the victims. No communication traffic that pops out. Nothing that we could recommend to you at all. It looks blank from our end. A question, though?”
“Sure.”
“Have you plugged any international links into your search? Have you found any names or ideas from your end that we might follow with you?”
“No, nothing. All we’ve done, all the possibilities we’ve had at all, are the actual names of the schools and the individuals involved, with the contents of the notes and so on. Have you seen the notes that were left?”
“Yes, those were sent over to us. Nothing from us on them.”
“Okay. Then we don’t have anything except generalities. Clues? None. There’s just nothing hard out there. There’s some bits of material in the main data base that are trying to give us some hints to get at, but so far nothing we can make heads or tails of. We’ve looked at everything from every possible angle, but nothing comes together. Right now, all we can do is wait and hope something links in the data search.”
“Yeah, I hear you. We have so many of those types of starters that turn out to be dead ends that we want to scream sometimes. We monitor a lot of international calls and e-mails, as you know, and we hear some words that raise flags, but then nothing we can hang anything on. Do you have any specific names other than the victims?”
“No. Nothing at all that would get us started.”
“Well, I wish I could help, but it doesn’t appear that we have anything for you. Just a thought, though. I don’t know what, if anything you might be able to share, but I have a friend, a civilian I’ve worked with, that has the ability to do some pretty big, unofficial, searches world wide. Do you think you might be able to share anything with him—if he’s available to get involved?”
Paul thought for a moment, then responded, “That might be something that would help. I’d have to get things cleared from this end, but if you vouch for him, maybe we could do something. Do you have a name?”
“Let me check with him first. See if he’s okay with it. I’ll get back to you one way or the other. Okay?”
“Sure. Sounds like more than I’ve got right now. Thanks, Ron. Maybe we can meet some time. Get to know one another?”
“Sounds good, Paul. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Talk to you then.”
“Okay. Thanks for talking.”
CHAPTER 28
Jeff Sheldon had been thinking about ideas for a major event for days. He wanted something that would disrupt the government, certainly, but without physically injuring any innocents. Just disruption and chaos. Although money was not his priority, if an event could add to his “retirement fund,” that would simply be topping on the ice cream. But, so far the event had not come to him.
He was working on a project given to him by a client, presumably the Drug Enforcement Agency by the nature of the request. He was to find anything possible on a certain Anthony Bilden, home in New York City, other residences in San Diego, Denver and Boise, businesses of many sorts in several other cities throughout the country. He was also supposedly linked to several international cities through business dealings and travel, so the search was one that was expanding every time Jeff looked at the computer screen. The normal research done by the DEA had shown that Bilden had money and lots of it, but they were trying to find links from him to other organizations, so Jeff had been given the request.
Jeff had found several references to drugs in the material he had already come up with, so his guess that the DEA was the requesting agency was pretty solid. His only contact with them was a Frank Barter who had brought him the project and left a phone number and e-mail address. Jeff had already traced the phone number backwards to a vacant rental home in Alexandria, and the e-mail went through several cutouts around the country before coming back to the Washington area, again to the house in Alexandria.
“Always follow the money” and “find the signals” were two maxims Jeff had learned years ago. Everything but cash left some kind of trail: checks, credit cards, stocks and bonds, loans, hotel and airline reservations, online purchases—even cash many times. And with most everything having moved from paper to electronics long ago, there was almost nothing that didn’t leave an electronic trail. Today that included phone conversations, faxes and telexes, e-mails. Everything. Facial character recognition software could key in on John Jones from Podunk from the picture he posted in his Facebook account and be waiting for him when he showed up anywhere. And fingerprints? There weren’t many people anymore that could say they had never had a fingerprint taken. Especially when they even put them on credit cards now. European crossborder ID cards; fingerprinting of almost all newborns and children; licensing almost everyone for almost everything.
Jeff chuckled as he thought of how many resources and databases he had available to him. It was becoming almost too easy. He could find anything electronic. Electronics would lead him to paper trails and places where paper was still used and stored. And that enabled him to send an official looking request to Francine at Noplace County Courthouse who would happily copy that paper document and fax it to him. Or,
even better, scan it and send it electronically.
He looked at the screen as a beep sounded telling him another link was being reported. It was a plane ticket Bilden had purchased a year before to Athens, Greece—and suddenly a plan came to mind.
He quickly keyed into the in-house travel agency used by the DEA people, broke through their simple security and looked at the hundreds of travel reservations that had been booked for days and months ahead. Also all the ones that were from months past. He laughed aloud as his fingers flew across the keys, canceling all the upcoming reservations and then wiping out all the bookings and billings for services already used. A fit of juvenile giggling hit him so hard he almost rolled out of his chair thinking about the childishness of what he was doing, but also how devastating it would be. Nobody would go anywhere and they wouldn’t even know they weren’t until too late. Nobody would get paid for all the travel that had already been completed.
When he recovered from his giggles, he thought of one more thing. He quickly keyed into the travel agency database of all the credit cards customers had ever used. He composed an electronic message from the agency informing the card issuers the individual cards had just been reported stolen that day, to cancel the cards immediately and to hold or report anyone trying to use them for anything. He knew that many of the cards were quite likely personal cards being used for personal travel and so forth, but figured, they’re all government, so enjoy the pain, folks.
At that, the paroxysms of laughter hit him again and he had to wheel away from the computer to enable himself to calm down. In less than an hour, he had caused so many government people so much trouble he almost couldn’t believe it himself. He almost started to look up other agencies to do the same to, but then decided he had had enough fun for one day. True, it wouldn’t bring the country down or start a war or anything, but it would certainly cause chaos.
He felt it coming on again and finally was laughing so hard the tears were flowing.
Paul sat quietly in the dark of his living room. Funny, he thought, that ‘the dark’ bothers me but being ‘in’ the dark doesn’t. Except when I can’t see in it. I wonder what the difference is? He tried to think of reasons for his problem—his fear, he admitted—but nothing came to mind. His mind ran through all the what-ifs. He tried to psychoanalyze himself. He thought about different Biblical references. Nothing, though. Just empty questions. And the dark.