COP

by Jim Magwood

  The third column was just a random arrangement of numbers and letters with no patterns at all. Some were five or six digits, some were ten or more. And with no identification as to what they were. Maybe some kind of code, he thought.

  The fourth column he couldn’t see any pattern to at all. It was simply all plus or minus signs. It looked like maybe seventy or eighty percent were plusses, the rest minuses, but with no pattern to them.

  It appeared that his system had found these lists somewhere, then had sorted them by date, then by phone number (if that’s what all this really is, he thought.) So, did it mean anything? Or was it simply a list of calls from someone to someone? Or to multiple someone’s?

  On an impulse, he grabbed his phone and called one of the numbers with a Texas prefix. “Houston First National Bank,” the voice answered. Roger responded with a simple “wrong number,” then called another number, this time with an international prefix.

  “Thank you for calling Nordbank. How may I help you?” “I’m sorry. Maybe I called the wrong number. Where are

  you located?”

  “This is the English line for Nordbank in Hamburg, Ger

  many, sir. May we help?”

  “No, I did get the wrong number. But, thank you.” Roger then quickly called the same number back, waited a

  second and then dialed the suffix. The number immediately

  rang but turned into a contact sound like a fax line would give.

  Maybe that made it bypass the operator and go right into the

  bank system itself?

  He hung up and leaned back in his chair, trying to determine whether there was anything here to follow. Without

  some other kind of link to the list, he felt that he had simply

  stumbled onto a list that meant nothing. With nothing that

  spurred him into investigating the data further, he saved and

  then closed the list in his system and moved back to looking at

  the many other links that had come up. Roger saved almost

  everything he researched with the thought that you never knew

  when something might ring bells.

  There were several items that mentioned D.C. schools

  along with news broadcasts, journalists, children (of course)

  and many crimes. WBAK had thousands of listings of every

  sort. There were references to all of the school fires, but they

  didn’t link to anything else of importance. There was a long

  list of incidences regarding children and violence—robberies,

  assaults, deaths, shootings. Most of them were crimes against

  or involving individuals, but several mentioned groups. One

  was a swim team that had died in a bus crash. Another was a

  group that had been caught in a gangland shooting. Another

  reported a group where a school building had collapsed and

  injured several. There were several, but nothing that seemed to

  link to the fires and shootings.

  Roger had a personal policy of trying to never get impatient or frustrated in his research efforts, so he just kept on

  looking at the lists. He knew that eventually there would be

  some kind of a clue to what he was researching, or there wouldn’t be. He would shrug his shoulders and just keep on looking. Almost always, he would find the links he was looking for. And one good link would open up a path for an expanded search, and then a larger path, and on. Right now, though, he was seeing nothing. No links. No references to

  names he was researching. Basically nothing.

  Suddenly he remembered he had not called Paul Corbin in

  D.C., so he picked up the phone and dialed. He got through

  the switchboard, then to Paul’s desk and identified himself.

  Paul’s immediate response was, “We’ve been working on

  these things for weeks and you’ve solved it in a couple of

  days? Tell me I’m right—please.”

  Roger laughed and let him know that he wasn’t able to

  work miracles—at least not that quickly. Then he went on to

  ask about the so-called demon squads and how they figured in

  these cases.

  Paul asked, “What have you found? Are you talking about

  specific groups? And working today?”

  Roger gave him the little he had so far, mostly suspicions

  from his messages with Jacob, but he basically said the groups

  were real and still working. At which, Paul detailed for him

  the conversation the trio of officers had had and their plan to

  follow up with Sarge.

  “Let me throw a couple more things into the pot, if you

  don’t mind.”

  “That’ll be okay, Paul. If it’s something that might impact

  the search we’re on, then the more the merrier.”

  Paul then gave him some information on the other cases

  they were working—the fact that Senator Marks had been

  killed, and Councilman Jessen wounded, by bullets that

  matched the other crimes; the shooting at Speaker Mildowney’s party. He said that they had no leads at all except

  that the bullets matched each other. No suspects; nothing. Roger affirmed he would add those names and events into

  the search and would keep after it. Then they hung up. The search he was running was totally open ended. He

  had the various names and events, to which he added the ones Paul had just given him, but he had made no restrictions. Anything that matched those items in any way was to be logged. Also, anything that just appeared odd or out of place. That’s why the list of numbers had come up. They were a major something and looked odd, but in this case didn’t link to any of the events. He had specifically entered anything he could think of regarding the possible demon squads, but the only things that had come up so far were rumors and theories and mystery books that referenced them. Nothing that ap

  peared real or that linked to the other events.

  He shot off a quick message to Jacob Asch to let him

  know there was basically no progress, then decided to get

  some real sleep, not just another nap at the keyboard. The

  system would run without him and would have more information for him to review in the morning.

  The ragged man was restless and paced back and forth.

  He dripped sweat. The room had no heating or cooling, so was

  hot or cold without relief depending on the season. It didn’t

  bother him. His mind didn’t really dwell on things like that.

  Life had been a lot worse in years past. This was just here and

  now. Nothing else really registered.

  The soldier was vaguely concerned that the bomb hadn’t

  gone off. He didn’t read or listen to news, but would have

  heard through the grapevine if it had. He hadn’t set the device

  himself, of course, but worried that the lack of a result might

  be blamed on him anyway. Someone always had to take the

  fall. That’s just the way it was. But he did wonder why it

  hadn’t gone off. It had been on the list and should have been

  able to be marked off.

  He looked over at the large handgun by the bed and

  thought he would like to go out on his own. Doing something

  himself would help ease the restlessness and give him something else to think about. Maybe just do a complete stranger?

  That could never be traced and he knew he wouldn’t be seen.

  You couldn’t see nothing.

  He stopped pacing as his mind started to picture the action

  that would take place. Perhaps it would be one of the street

  girls. Or one of the teens that wandered the streets here from

  uptown looking for some action. Driving daddy’s
Lincoln and

  spending daddy’s money, acting bad. He laughed when he

  thought that it would simply be too easy. The civilians just had

  no concept of the ease of killing. They didn’t think that way. They had rules, even the ones who didn’t live by rules. You did things in certain ways. You made points. You collected trophies. You did things because they were necessary to pro

  tect yourself or your business or way of life.

  They had no concept of killing just because you wanted

  to. Because it relieved stress and calmed nerves. Because

  someone was out of place and you wanted them in their right

  place. Someone did you wrong and there was no discussion—

  just end it so it couldn’t happen again.

  The hearts of the civilians would pound. The shaking

  would go on and on. They would wonder if they had been

  seen, look over their shoulder, run away. If they could take the

  action in the first place. The adrenaline would rocket upward

  and have them wired so tight they would be ready to scream,

  then would drop so fast they often collapsed. They would live

  with the aftermath forever. It would haunt them, plague them,

  cause them to wish for forgiveness but never be able to accept

  it even if it was given. There would be terrible memories forever. Civilians couldn’t handle it, even the bad ones. The only ones who could come close to killing and

  maiming without thought or concern were the druggers—the

  Colombians, some Russians, a few Mexican or Oriental gangs.

  Not even many of them. Most of them would stage big events

  and have the leaders there posturing. Most of them didn’t kill

  just because it felt good. Walk up to someone they didn’t

  know with a smile and just do them.

  Just thinking about it helped relieve some of his stress and

  his mind started to clear. He thought of going after a policeman; thought of how much that would put things right. He

  could see the policeman on the ground; watched him struggle

  and drain away. Then his mind switched again and he thought

  of a police lady. She would make more of a statement. It

  would be more fun to choose her, then watch her go down and

  down…

  “Jake, why can’t we get started on this? All of these events—all the time that’s gone by and we don’t even have a starting place. What are we missing? What are we overlook

  ing?”

  “Been thinking the same thing myself. I’ve never had

  anything like this before. I’ve had single crimes with nothing

  that ever comes of them, but nothing of this magnitude.

  Somebody always turns in a friend; somebody brags in a bar;

  something gets dropped at a scene. But this? Just nothing? It’s

  just too perfect.”

  Sylvia said, “Are we thinking too big? Or maybe too

  small? Are we trying to put a major gang into this thing and

  it’s all only one person? Or the other way around? It really is a

  major conspiracy with dozens of people involved?” “But could this be only one person?” Jake asked. “Could

  one person have been in all these places and done all these

  things by themselves? I don’t think so.”

  “I agree,” she replied. “It’s too big for one. Things too

  spread out and moving too fast. But maybe just two or three?

  Or, are we really looking at a gang or something?” “If we are,” Paul added, “the Secret Service is going to

  have a fit. We have a major gang going after the president and

  other officials? This city will tighten up so hard and fast nobody will go anywhere or get anything done. The government

  will practically shut down.”

  “Should we tell them? Let them know of that possibility?” “I, personally, am not ready to start that chaos. Besides,

  we don’t have any proof to lay on the table. Just a wild

  maybe.”

  Sylvia said again, “I agree. We have to have something to

  go on first. But back to where we started: Do we have any

  thoughts of what this is all about? Where it might be going?

  There’s got to be something.”

  Jake leaned back in his chair and said quietly, “What if?

  What if it’s only one guy, maybe with a small handful of others he’s leading, so to speak? He’s got to have a reason,

  wouldn’t you agree? What could be driving him? What could

  have affected him that would be driving him?”

  They all sat quietly for a moment, then Paul said, “Okay.

  What could be the theories, then? Something happened to him.

  He got audited on his tax returns and they sent him to the

  poorhouse. That would be something that happened to him

  personally. Directly.”

  “Or,” Sylvia added, “it was something that happened to

  somebody else that he got upset with and decided to avenge?

  Maybe he’s taken up the cause for all the other people that

  have had IRS trouble. Maybe not him, directly, but for everyone else.”

  “But, if it’s that, then we have the wide open theories

  again. Somebody in Alaska got audited; somebody in Pennsylvania wrote an article in a Website; he reads it and starts to

  attack the government. Without some kind of hard lead, that

  thinking won’t get us anywhere.” Then Paul added, “I like the

  first thought better. It lets us develop some theories to maybe

  run with, at least until some hard clue shows up.”

  Again, the trio was silent.

  “I do, too, Paul,” Jake said. “Let’s throw out the wild giant-conspiracy theories for a while and concentrate on just a

  couple of guys. Maybe one leader with a grudge and a couple

  of helpers. Or a couple of guys who know each other and

  came to the same anger together. Joined up to do something

  about something. Where would that lead us?”

  The team lapsed into deep thinking again. Too many possibilities, they knew. Try to sort them out, boil them down to a

  handful that they could think through.

  Then Sylvia said, “I wonder if Sammie could run some

  kind of index of the stuff he’s collected? Maybe a directory or

  catalog or something? Something that would put everything

  he’s got into some kind of groupings of the same kind of

  events. Do you get what I’m saying? Anything about guns under one column. Kids under another. Political things under another. Schools, and so on. Something that we could look at

  and maybe see a pattern, or a couple of them.”

  “Yeah,” Paul replied. “Maybe several things could group

  together and get stronger than just individual items on their

  own. I like that.”

  Jake was already picking up the phone and they heard him

  explaining their idea to Sammie. “Right. Can they be sorted

  like that? Yeah, I think that would be okay. Yeah, things could

  be in more than one category. Might even give us more of a

  linking picture. Yeah, how long would it take? Just a couple of

  hours? Yeah, good. Yeah, call us when you get it done and can

  you then send it to each of us? Yeah, printing would be way

  too much paper. Besides, if we each had the file, the lists,

  from you, we could then resort if we felt like it. How big

  would it be? Would it fit on our laptops? Yeah, do it. Good.

  Later.”

  He looked at the others and said, “He’ll have it for us in a

  coup
le of hours.”

  Sylvia replied, “I would suggest we get out of here when

  we get the data. Go home or something and study on our own,

  in quiet. Let our brains dig through the stuff separately and see

  what comes up. If anything happens, we could always call

  each other.”

  “Yeah,” Paul said. “If we don’t get called out, we could

  spend the night thinking the stuff through. Then tomorrow’s

  just a regular workday. We meet back here and see if we’ve

  come up with something. Okay?”

  They all agreed, then set about clearing anything from

  their work piles they could so they would be free for the night.

  By mid-afternoon, Sammie had sent them the file and they

  were on the way to their respective homes, anxious to start

  digging for a first thread to lead them.

  CHAPTER 55

  “What is it?” Paul mumbled into the phone.

  “Dispatch, sir. Sorry, but you have another school fire. Do you have your notepad ready?”

  He struggled to sit up and glanced at the clock. 2:14. You’ve got to be kidding. Doesn’t this guy sleep?

  “Okay. I’ve got it.”

  “It’s the Benning Elementary School, sir, at 100 41st Street, NE. Do you have that?”

  “Yeah. Have the others been called?”

  “Calling them now, sir. You were number one.”

  “Okay. Tell them I’m on my way direct. I’ll see them there.”

  “Yessir. Wish I could say have a good night.”

  “Yeah.”

  They rang off and Paul stuck his head under the shower, threw on yesterday’s clothes and raced out the door—without coffee. He lived on Dexter Street in the Northwest, near the George Washington University and he would usually head to the office downtown by easier, slower surface streets. He didn’t enjoy facing the rushes on the major routes. Now, however, at two in the morning, he headed for the fastest routes possible and, with his rooftop gumball clearing the way, drove hard to the school over in the Northeast.

  Benning turned out to be just another school, nothing special, no reason why anyone should be taking out this continual grudge against it. Jake lived closer and so was already there and they started trying to find anything around the perimeter of the building. The school was basically one large building right on the street and was fully engaged, with the fire crews valiantly trying to keep things down and bring them under control, but there was no way the two men could get anywhere close to the building.