IF IT WAS EVEN AN ACCIDENT. THE GOVERNMENT PROBABLY HAD SOMEONE ON THAT PLANE THEY NEEDED TO DISAPPEAR. SO, POOF! —L.U.F.
ANONYMOUS NO. 300672444
YOU TWO IMBECILES THINK THIS IS FUNNY, BUT SO MANY THINGS LIKE THIS WILL CONTINUE UNLESS THE CURRENT SYSTEM IS GUTTED, THROWN OUT, AND REBUILT SO THAT BEFORE YOU CAN BE THE GUY WHO DOUBLE-CHECKS THAT NO ONE HAS A BOMB BEFORE THEY BOARD A PLANE, YOU HAVE TO HAVE GONE TO A SCHOOL THAT REQUIRES YOU TO KNOW THAT THE PEOPLE CONGRATULATING YOU ON YOUR GRADUATION ARE DOING IT WITHOUT A ‘D’ IN THE WORD. IT’S NOT ENOUGH TO SHRUG AND SAY, ‘IT IS WHAT IT IS.’ IT’S NOW IMPORTANT TO BE EARNEST. TO BE A PART OF THE SOLUTION AND NOT THE PROBLEM. —M.
ANONYMOUS NO. 300672445
HOW EXACTLY DO YOU EXPECT US TO DO THAT? —L.U.F.
ANONYMOUS NO. 300672446
MANY TONGUES TALK, BUT FEW HEADS THINK. THINGS ARE HAPPENING. WE HAVE THE WISDOM, BUT WELCOME IT. WE NEED THINKERS. PRIVATE FORUM, INVITE HAS TO COME FROM THE ADMIN, SO WATCH FOR IT. YOU TWO HATE THIS INSANITY AS MUCH AS I DO. HELP DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. —M.
‘Unless the important to be earnest thing is some sort of weird slang catchphrase sweeping the nation I’m not aware of …’ Saleda said.
‘And we can’t trace an account or anything?’ Teva asked.
‘I guess even wizards have some limitations,’ Saleda said, ‘There are no accounts to trace.’
Jenna scanned the paper again, her eyes lingering on the very last letter of the final post on the printout. An M.
A purple-ish color flashed in. Too much of a reddish tinge to be narcissism, but the color and the feeling she got as she looked at that M – a signature – was cooler than the red pomegranate of confidence. No, it was definitely a mixture of the two. Both the color – a full-bodied glass of Shiraz – and what her gut told her about the state of mind of the person posting as M.
Hubris.
‘Interesting that in a forum that goes as far as it does to maintain anonymity of its posters that a user would identify himself with a signature,’ Jenna said.
‘Well, they’ve talked before, be it here or elsewhere. He clearly has their contact information to invite them to this other private forum,’ Dodd said.
Jenna tapped the M with her fingernail. ‘But this guy, he knows what he’s involved with and how important it is to avoid leaving a trail. And yet, he signs it anyway. Just an initial, one that doesn’t match his real name, I’m sure. He’s in an anonymous, untraceable forum with self-deleting posts. He’s so sure he’s got his bases covered that, like any good narcissist, he’s convinced he’s better than everyone else. Anyone who might be looking for him. A foolish amount of confidence in the wake of such high stakes,’ Jenna said.
‘You’re calling narcissist, then?’ Dodd asked.
Jenna nodded. ‘He sure thinks he could do far better than any of these people. Grandiose sense of his own talents and ideas. And the signature just seals the deal.’
Jenna’s eyes landed on Grey, who was now sitting at the end of the conference table, holding the printout of the forum post in her left hand, her right hand raised high as though she was in a high school Geometry class.
‘Grey?’ Jenna whispered, leaning toward her. Feeling the rest of the team’s eyes on her, including Saleda’s, Jenna cleared her throat, looked at Saleda. ‘Saleda, I think Grey might have something to add.’
‘What do you have for us, Grey?’ Saleda asked.
Grey looked up at Saleda over the top of the printout. ‘It’s just … I think I might be able to figure out who he is. Or what, anyway. Another one of the books used.’
‘The books they took their nicknames from?’ Saleda said, suddenly intent and walking back around the table toward Grey. ‘How?’
Grey pointed a bony finger at the page, traced a line of text. ‘Right here. It says, “Many tongues talk, but few heads think.” Madam Agent Saleda Officer, that’s a quote. From Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables.’
Twenty
Pinkish-orange apricot flashed in. Congruency.
‘So Les Miserables joins the ranks with Sherlock Holmes, To Kill a Mockingbird, and one of approximately nine million novels Cardinal Richelieu managed to make a cameo in,’ Jenna said.
‘How did that guy get so famous? He’s got to be the most Hollywood Cardinal ever,’ Porter said.
Saleda moved to the white board and picked up a dry erase marker. ‘What does the newest addition to the lineup of the book club from hell tell us about the group?’
All heads turned towards Grey.
She stared back at them, the stray frizzy wisps of blonde around her face blowing under the air conditioner vent above her, her hands folded neatly on the table in front of her, attentive.
Jenna bit her lip to keep it together. For Grey, this was behaving. She was being a polite student, and she wouldn’t take subtle social cues like this when, to her, the question wasn’t literal enough for her to think she could add to the conversation.
Jenna’s reading of Les Miserables in high school seemed ages ago, and even though she and Charley had seen the musical version of Hugo’s masterpiece last year at the Olney, she couldn’t quite draw up the intricacies of the scenes she could picture. The one detail from the story that sprang to mind was one character’s name. The mustard color of correlation flashed in. Marius.
M.
‘I think our Sword Boy’s nickname is Marius,’ Jenna said. She turned to Grey. ‘Marius was part of a radical group of students planning an uprising in the book, right?’
Grey nodded. ‘The author used the students at the barricades as a device to highlight the real political unrest of the time in France.’
Teva leaned in, elbows on the table. ‘I remember the students building the barricade and fighting, but to be honest, I wasn’t a hundred percent on what they were trying to accomplish. All I really understood was that they didn’t trust the law enforcement, because of that one complete asshole cop who dogs everyone for the stupidest stuff.’
‘Javert,’ Grey acknowledged. ‘And yes, he was just doing his job, but you’re right that he and law enforcement weren’t trusted by many in that time and place; they didn’t serve everyone. The uprisings of the student group and France of that time in real life were to fight pecking orders controlling everything—’
‘I think what Grey means is both the book and reality reflect the social inequality in France at a time when the country had a rigid class system and people were treated according to where they fell in it,’ Dodd explained.
Grey gave a nod. ‘Those screwball inn keepers were rich only because they took everyone’s money, but they gallivant about the whole story while Officer OCD would chase a bread thief to Mars if he had to.’
‘So you’re saying, in the novel, the government doesn’t deal with crimes based on severity. True criminals are barely punished if wealthy, but there’s hell to pay for petty crime if you’re on the wrong end of the social hierarchy?’ Porter recapped.
‘The students were fighting the corrupt system of greed and, yes, class,’ Grey said.
Jenna slid the printout of the forum post back over, skimmed it again. ‘This group’s rebelling against something, but it sounds like, if anything, they want a class.’
Dodd looked over her shoulder at the paper. ‘You’re right. UNSUB does seem to get his panties in a twist over punctuation errors—’
‘And there’s that comment about people shouldn’t be allowed to graduate high school unless they can spell properly,’ Saleda said.
Orchid flashed in. This group didn’t want a more just society. They wanted a smarter one.
‘If I had to guess, I’d say this group wants the country to be run only by the intellectual elite, which tells us they all think they belong in that categorization,’ Jenna said. ‘What I don’t understand yet is how the attack at the bank and what they’re planning next furthers that agenda.’
Dodd shook his head sadly. ‘This group differs in themes, for sure. The theme of Les
Mis has to do with the importance of love and compassion. What we saw in that bank doesn’t match any definition of compassion I’ve heard.’
A thought tickled the back of Jenna’s mind. The scene left for them in the bank. Importance of love and compassion.
‘But they do think it’s “important to be earnest,”’ Jenna said. Russian violet flashed in again. ‘Have any of you noticed that all four pieces of literature we’ve identified as being associated with this group so far also have stage play versions?’
Dodd cocked his head. ‘Are they? To Kill a Mockingbird, sure. Les Miserables is obviously one. Is anything in the Sherlock Holmes series?’
Grey cleared her throat. ‘Of course. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself teamed up with a co-writer and made up a four act play that drew from three novels in the series.’
‘And The Importance of Being Earnest is definitely one,’ Saleda said. ‘I had to go watch my niece in it at her summer camp last year.’
‘Is there a play with Richelieu in it?’ Porter asked.
Jenna shrugged, took out her smartphone to do a quick Google search.
‘Definitely. It’s proper title is Or the Conspiracy, but it’s called Richelieu more often than not. Written in 1839 by a British writer,’ Grey chimed in.
They stared back at her, mouths gaping. She really was a walking database of literary information.
She stared back at them, unfazed. ‘The pen is mightier than the sword. That was the big standout line.’
‘Uh-huh,’ Saleda said in disbelief.
‘Actually, my brother and I just saw Les Mis last summer at the Olney,’ Jenna said, an iridescent white flashing in as her inklings began to crystallize and form into a theory. She glanced at Porter, who was sitting at the conference table with his iPhone. ‘Hey, Porter. Pull up the Olney Theatre Centre’s website and tell me what other productions they’ve staged in the past year besides Les Miserables.’
‘Sure thing,’ he said, tapping letters on his phone. He scrolled down the page. ‘Last season’s shows included Les Mis, A Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Damn Yankees, A Few Good Men, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella, Pippin, and … oh, look! The Importance of Being Earnest.’
‘Could be a coincidence,’ Teva said.
‘Could be a big fat X marks the spot,’ Dodd replied.
It might be a coincidence, but it wasn’t a bad angle to check out. The theatric Russian violet that had flashed in at the murder scene, the choice of weapons, and the magnitude of the attack for show.
‘Teva, get Irv on the line and have him cross-reference all the bank victims and employees for ties to the Olney Theatre Centre. I know this is different from our usual cases and it’s most likely the victims were random, but until we have the perps in custody and know exactly how this went down, I’m not ready to write off checking victim profiles for connections. The DC sniper’s victims looked random, too, but turned out they were meant to look that way so he could kill his wife and not be a suspect,’ Saleda said.
‘Doesn’t hurt to check all the angles,’ Jenna said. ‘Victim connections or not, if they met through the theatre, maybe that’s how they picked their character or literature piece.’
‘Damn,’ Teva said.
‘Irv’s not answering.’
Huh. For Irv, that was unusual. But even though somehow she always subconsciously thought Irv hacked databases, sent them reports, and chugged Monster energy drinks in his sleep, he was a real human being and probably needed to go somewhere to buy those energy drinks every once in a while. He had said he was running an errand.
‘We could just go to this theatre, poke into some of its records ourselves,’ Teva suggested.
Saleda shook her head. ‘The theatre is an avenue I want to explore, but I’m not going to go traipsing down there to grill a bunch of actors and directors unless we’ve got something more concrete to go on.’
Grey hummed from her corner chair. ‘You have one. For fun. Even the Earnest play thinks jobs and everything else should be fun. It says pleasure should be the only reason anyone goes anywhere.’ She smiled neatly, watching her fingers slowly unravel a thread on her blouse. ‘But at the same time, what M wrote from Les Miserables about many tongues talking … that isn’t a line in the stage show. Only the novel.’
And while Jenna duly noted the latter portion of Grey’s statement, it was the first part of it that made pear green flash in.
Trivial. The color for trivial flashed at the moment Grey mentioned the word pleasure in conjunction with The Importance of Being Earnest quote, claiming it was the only reason anyone should go anywhere.
A theory whipped around in Jenna’s mind. ‘If you ask anyone what they do in their lives they consider vital – so important they can’t skip it – most would list stuff like paying bills, going to work, weddings … funerals. Not anything for fun. Fun isn’t prioritized.
‘The bank crew left us a note and a message. They said to take trivial things in life very seriously. This group, they’re radicals, but they believe they’re intellectually elite. They could just strike anywhere, set off another attack without warning. I thought at first the note warning us was just to cause fear, but I think it’s more. I think they’re playing a game with us.’
‘You mean you think they left us a way to find them if we’re smart enough to figure it out?’ Teva said in disbelief.
Jenna smirked. ‘A little test. To see if we’re worthy. And the theatre that played two shows associated with our group last year, there’s a chance it’s a coincidence. But there’s a chance it’s not.
‘Going to a play would be a trivial leisure activity. Maybe they’re telling us where to find them – or putting us at the starting gate, anyway.’
Saleda was silent a moment, seeming to consider, before she finally spoke. ‘It wouldn’t be the first time a criminal played games with investigators. Worthy theory. Let’s check out the Olney.’
Twenty-one
Irv slammed the door of his bright blue Honda HR-V. The surroundings weren’t exactly where he’d pictured ending up once he knew who he was tracking down, but somehow, it fit all the same.
The swooshes of skateboards flying up and down the concrete of vertical ramps hit his ears, whoops and hollers of teens showing off for each other on the jumps at the street-skating park inside of Veteran’s Memorial Park. Irv stepped up to the chain-link fence enclosing the rink, his feet sinking into the grass. He wasn’t wearing the required helmet and pads required to enter the self-maintained park. Didn’t matter. He wasn’t there to skate, and he couldn’t even if he had been.
This moment couldn’t get any weirder. Not considering the sight that met him inside the open-flow course. Not that hackers capable of breaking into the FBI database with Irv’s own credentials shouldn’t skateboard. It seemed as good a hobby as any. This one just happened to be a particularly odd case. It was downright bizarre, so much that he might’ve thought the GPS coordinates he’d gotten off the cell phone might have been wrong, had a certain telltale sign not stood beside the fence wagging his tail, giving away his pal.
Irv leaned into the fence, fingers twined in the links. ‘You’re just full of surprises, Yancy.’
The skater in the neon yellow helmet hopped from his board, landing deftly despite his metal handicap. He scooped up his plain black board and trudged toward him. ‘Yeah, well, I figured the next step to add in the bionic man routine would be go-go-Gadget wheels.’
Yancy exited the gate and stepped past Irv to a kid who had to be around ten, sitting on the bench facing the park. Yancy dug in his pocket and pulled out some bills, handed them off. ‘Thanks, buddy. See you next time.’
As Yancy turned back to Irv, Irv cocked his head. ‘You let just any kid in a public park watch your dog? I’d have figured some of Jenna’s super-secret protective strategies would’ve rubbed off on you by now.’
Yancy smiled, squatted beside the brown dachshund, and unscrewed the cap of the water bottle sitting beside the plastic d
og bowl. ‘Eh, the kid can’t get in the park without adult supervision, so one day when I saw them turning him away I made him a deal: watch the sausage while I skate, and I’ll supervise while he does. Kid drove a hard bargain. Asked for two dollars per service as an insurance fee in case Oboe bites him. I give him three hoping I’d get lucky and he’d finally kidnap the little bastard.’
Irv chuckled. The guy talked a big game where the dog was concerned, but to be such a pain in Yancy’s ass, the two sure seemed inseparable.
‘So, what made you take up skating? I wouldn’t have figured you’d have a lot of extra time on your hands these days with watching Ayana so much, answering dispatch, and dating,’ Irv said.
‘Can’t be all work and no play, I guess. Decided I needed a hobby that involved something other than sitting in front of my PC while Oboe sits beside me and gets fat. Plus, there’s this great coffee shop down the road that thinks I’m a veteran and always gives me free stuff, and Oboe can still do his fat thing,’ Yancy said. ‘But I figure since you somehow knew I was here, you still spend lots of time in front of your PC. All work, Irv. It’s not good for you.’
You don’t know the half of it.
‘Idle hands are the devil’s playground,’ Irv cut back. He folded his arms. ‘Speaking of, you’ve been busy, Yancy. New skating hobby aside. What I want to know is which was it for? Work or play?’
Here we go.
Yancy fought for focus against the hailstorm of thoughts railing in his mind, willed himself not to break Irv’s eye contact. ‘Neither.’
Sweat trickled down his neck as he squinted at the tech analyst under the hot Virginia sun. He’d known this would probably happen. Expected it, even. He was good. Bit rusty, but good enough to hack into FBI data, but even then, there were only so many ways to keep from leaving traces, and his best ideas were only ever going to be delay tactics, not magic, particularly with someone as good as Irv dogging his trail.
The image of Oboe running out of CiCi’s house with the note tucked under his collar last year flashed into his mind. Then, the picture of Ayana playing on the swing set outside her new preschool. He blinked, squinted to try to hold eye contact with Irv even though the smiling image of Ayana as she held the chain links of the swing tight in her fists with pink-painted fingernails seared forward, threatening his focus.
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