Perimeter

by M. A. Rothman

  The thing that bothered Nate the most about everything he’d read in the police report was the note about the witness stating that FBI had been at the scene and left.

  “Dr. Gutierrez,” Nate said, “did the FBI agents give you their names?”

  The doctor shook his head. “No. One of them waved a badge, but I didn’t really get a chance to see it. It was late, and the lights in the parking lot weren’t working.”

  In the report, the cops had noted that the lights in the parking lot had been shot out with some type of pellet gun. They’d found broken glass at the base of the light poles.

  “Did you notice anything unusual about the three agents who entered your apartment? Were they wearing gloves? Were their guns drawn? What was their demeanor?”

  “None of them pulled out their guns. I happened to catch a glimpse of a gun on the agent who was standing outside with me. It was in his shoulder holster. The others might have had them as well, but I didn’t see them.” Gutierrez paused. “I’m not sure what you mean by their demeanor. The man outside kind of just stared at me. He looked tense. Almost immediately, I heard the cops’ sirens, and the three that had gone in came rushing back out. Oh, but before that, I heard breaking glass and what I thought might have been someone swearing in German.” He laughed nervously. “It’s all kind of a blur now. I know it doesn’t make much sense.”

  Nate inhaled deeply, trying not to show any reaction. “You heard them speak German?”

  “Well, I took German in high school. I can’t claim any fluency, but you know, in high school you make sure to learn the curse words. And that’s what it sounded like it to me.”

  “What specifically did you hear?”

  Gutierrez frowned. “Well, as the sirens were getting louder, I thought I heard ‘Zur Hölle damit,’ which I think means ‘to hell with it.’” With a pained expression, the doctor shook his head. “I think that’s what I heard, but I really can’t be sure. I was a little freaked out at the time.”

  “That’s completely understandable, Dr. Gutierrez.” Nate kept his cool even as alarm bells sounded in his mind. “Where did the agents go when they left?”

  “They just ran back down the stairs. Didn’t even say a word to me. I didn’t really pay attention to where they went afterwards. My mind was kind of focused on the police siren and then the flashing lights as the cop cars arrived. Although… I did notice a van leaving the parking lot just as the cops arrived. It could have been them.”

  “Did you happen to notice the make of the van? Model, color?”

  “It was black, or at least a really dark gray. Not sure about the rest. It was a panel van—no windows except up front. But beyond that… I don’t know. It was too far away for me to see too much detail. Heck, I didn’t even see which direction they turned out of the parking lot.”

  Nate sat back. This hadn’t been in the report. A panel van? If he were conducting some kind of multi-person tactical op, that would be a reasonable choice of vehicle.

  “The report noted that your home laptop was missing. You didn’t notice anything else missing?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “So, you didn’t have any work-related items missing?”

  Gutierrez shook his head. “I don’t keep work stuff at home anymore.”

  “Really? That surprises me. Most folks nowadays tend to bring a bit of work back home with them.”

  “Well, I used to. But my project got ‘roomed,’ which means no details of my project are allowed to leave the site. So I stopped working from home.”

  “Roomed. That’s a new term for me.”

  The doctor shrugged. “I think they call it ‘roomed’ because it’s supposed to convey the idea that you’re taken into a room and sworn to secrecy about what you’re working on above and beyond the normal NDAs. However, there is no ‘room’ per se. It’s just what AgriMed calls special projects that have registered special access and different rules for security.”

  “Ah. That’s kind of like what we call a compartmented classification, in government parlance. Interesting.” Nate drummed his fingers on the table, wracking his brain for another angle of questions that might provide useful information. “Can you think of anything else from that night that might help me with my investigation? Anything you didn’t already cover with the police?”

  “No, I don’t think so.” Dr. Gutierrez cleared his throat. “May I ask you a question?”

  “Shoot.”

  “Why would the FBI have been at my place? And—was it the FBI?”

  Nate kept his expression neutral. “I’m afraid I can’t answer either of those questions. Let’s just say that I’ll be following up on both of those counts.”

  The doctor looked worried. “Am I in danger? Is there anything else I should do?”

  Feeling sympathy for the man, Nate said, “No, I don’t think so. But I’ll talk to the Arlington PD and see if I can get them to patrol your area a bit more often.”

  He shook hands with the doctor and handed him his card. “If you remember anything else or have a need, call me.”

  “Thank you.” Gutierrez peered at the card and his demeanor brightened a touch. “And please let me know if I can answer any other questions.”

  “Actually…” Nate smiled. “Can you point me to the main parking lot? I think I got lost after the fourth or fifth turn in this building.”

  ###

  Back in his office at Quantico, Nate scrounged through his files, looking for his notes on that other AgriMed case—the girl rescued from the island in the Pacific.

  There was no reason to suspect the two incidents were related, but neither of them sat well with him, and he couldn’t help but wonder.

  He looked through his notes. The girl, Katherine O’Reilly, she’d signed an NDA with AgriMed—and yet she also smuggled some files from that island lab. Clearly the place had valuable secrets. The kind of secrets worth stealing.

  And then there was the possible involvement of German intelligence. Could it be mere coincidence that Dr. Gutierrez heard those men speaking German?

  It was time to look into those stolen files again.

  ###

  Ten minutes later, Nate was showing his badge at the evidence lockup. “I filed into evidence a printout on case #541982A and requested a translation of the material from German. Is it done yet?”

  The gray-haired woman typed at her terminal. “Case 541982A, you said? I can’t find anything under that record number.”

  “Yes, that’s the case number.”

  She frowned at his badge. “Let me try your name.” More typing at the computer and the woman lifted up her glasses and peered at the screen. “Okay, yes. I see a record that you submitted something for lab analysis, but nothing for translation.”

  “One second.” Feeling frustrated, Nate yanked his smartphone from his pocket and flipped through his photos. He found the picture he wanted—of an evidence receipt with a barcode on it. He showed it to the woman.

  “Here’s the receipt I received when filing it. I was told it would take a couple weeks. It’s been a couple weeks.”

  The woman waved a barcode scanner over the image, then checked her computer. “Huh. The computer says there’s no record of that.”

  Nate cursed loudly, and the woman’s face paled.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “But how’s that possible?”

  The woman shrugged. “I really don’t know. I can call our IT department if it would help. They’ll probably know what’s wrong.”

  Nate scowled. “Ma’am, what’s your name?”

  The woman looked uneasy. “Janice.”

  “And Janice, how long have you been working evidence?”

  “About twenty years.”

  “And in those twenty years, how often has evidence gone missing?”

  Janice looked indignant. “It doesn’t.”

  Nate pointed at the image of the receipt on his phone and cleared his
throat.

  “W-well,” Janice stammered. “It never did before we computerized.”

  “Are you saying it now happens on occasion?”

  “I mean… no. Well, not really. It’s not so often as that. But once or twice. A couple records have vanished in the system even when I still had hard copies of the original evidence submission.”

  “And what did you do?”

  Janice shrugged. “Filed a report to IT. That’s what I’m supposed to do.”

  Nate took a deep breath and tried to contain his anger. “Well then, do that. Find my evidence. I’ll be back.”

  Without waiting for a response, he turned and stormed out.

  ###

  “Are you sure about that?” Jeff asked, turning from his PC and staring at Nate across his desk. “That’s a serious accusation.”

  Nate’s blood was still boiling as he sat in his supervisor’s office. “I’m sure. Both the print and audio recordings that I filed into evidence have gone missing.”

  “Okay, I’m not denying that that’s a problem. But before flying off the handle, let’s give them a chance to track it down. Why do you need that evidence so urgently, anyway?”

  “It shouldn’t matter when I need it, Jeff! I should be able to get to it. I filed the damned thing in our so-called secure lockup. I was supposed to get the German translated. Instead the thing is gone. It’s bullshit. And I don’t think it was an accident. I just got done talking to some poor shit working at AgriMed, a Dr. Juan Gutierrez. He had his apartment broken into, and they tore that place apart. They were looking for something specific. And get this—some ‘FBI guys’ showed up immediately after. And one of them spoke German.”

  “What?” Jeff asked.

  “I’m telling you, if the cops hadn’t been seconds away, things might not have turned out so well for this poor doctor. Something stinks here.”

  Jeff frowned. “You don’t think those were actual FBI agents.”

  Nate shook his head. “Based on how they behaved, I’ll bet you a steak dinner they weren’t. They didn’t follow any of the standard protocols. And they fled without a word when the cops arrived. Possibly in a black panel van.”

  “Then who do you think they were?”

  “German intelligence?”

  Jeff grimaced. “I was afraid you’d say that.” He paused. “What was that doctor’s name again?”

  “Juan Gutierrez. Why?”

  Jeff reached down, opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a file folder. “Remember how I was going to research that DRWN compartment?”

  As his supervisor opened the folder, Nate caught sight of a printout. “Oh, thank god! I totally forgot I gave you a copy of that report.” Nate beamed across Jeff’s desk. “So, what did you find out about the compartment?”

  Jeff began thumbing through the thick report. “I got no joy out of the security officer. He claimed there was no such compartment, so as far as I’m concerned, the markings on here are bullshit.”

  “Well, they’re certainly not public.”

  “Of course not. I’m not about to do anything with it. But I did end up reading through this thing, and…”

  “You read it? Most of it was in German.”

  Jeff cocked an eyebrow. “Both my parents were German. I grew up speaking it.” He flipped another page and his finger landed on a passage. “Aha, here it is. I knew that Gutierrez rang a bell.” He read the report aloud. “Gutierrez has checked in version 3.4, but the algorithm results need more analysis before being deployed.”

  Nate felt a moment of surprise. “You think it’s the same Gutierrez?”

  Jeff shrugged. “This is the only passage where I remember the name being mentioned. But if it is him, the way I read it, it sounds as though they were monitoring his activity—maybe even stealing what the good doctor was working on. Which would line up with his apartment being ransacked.”

  “It sounds like Gutierrez is on their wish list.” Nate’s mind churned with the new information. “And perhaps the O’Reilly girl too.”

  “Well, maybe we can use that to our advantage,” Jeff said. “If we can’t figure out what’s going on through our own internal machine, let’s see what we can learn by observing O’Reilly and Gutierrez.”

  Nate smiled. “Are you authorizing 24/7 surveillance?”

  “Yes, let’s put a couple hooks in the water and see what we catch.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Frank O’Reilly ached from head to toe as he walked toward pasture number five. And yet it was good to be out and about. In a way, the pain felt therapeutic.

  Jasper raced beside him, leaping through the tall grass with the energy of an overgrown puppy.

  “Jasper, you also glad to finally be out of the house?”

  The dog woofed in affirmation and went bounding about, chasing after whatever imaginary things caught his attention.

  Frank stretched his back. “Been too darn long in that chair is what it is.”

  Despite his aches, the shooting pains were finally beginning to subside—which was why he’d finally left the house. Megan was still worried. She kept touching his head and warning him that he had a fever. But he didn’t feel sick. Well, sure he was sick, but not that kind of sick.

  She did manage to convince him to call the docs at the VA to let them know. After all, they were running a test, right? They’d want to know how it was turning out. Earlier in the morning, he’d spent a good ten minutes trying to reach them. But nobody answered the direct number he’d been given for the trial administrator, so eventually he just called the main number at the VA and left a voice mail for that Dr. Müller.

  At the gate of pasture five, the heifer that Buck had isolated from the herd a week earlier came over to greet Frank. Buck had been worried that she’d caught red nose. Normally Frank would have put the animal down, but she was carrying a calf, so he’d held off until they were sure. Still, she couldn’t be with the rest of the herd and risk contagion.

  Jasper barked at some unseen thing deeper in the pasture and raced off to chase it.

  Glancing at a bale of hay, Frank scratched the side of her head. “How you doing, girl? You eating okay?” The animal’s nasal passages did look inflamed. That worried him.

  The heifer nudged him with the side of her head.

  He smiled. “Listen, girl, if you get better, we’ll put you back in with the rest, but not before. You just keep eating and drinking…”

  Frank’s voice trailed off as he glanced at the thermos he had clipped to his belt. He smiled.

  Worth a shot.

  He grabbed a large metal bowl from under the watering trough. Usually they used it to clear the trough of debris, but it would serve. He set it on the ground and winced with pain as he knelt next to it.

  The heifer followed him, out of curiosity or loneliness. Frank pushed her head away as she bent down to lick at the bowl.

  He opened the thermos, took a big swig, poured the rest into the bowl, and held the bowl up to the heifer.

  She immediately began slurping it down.

  “Hell, girl, I guess you’re thirsty.”

  Jasper came racing across the empty pasture, barking up a storm. Frank squinted and realized a rabbit was leading the crazy dog on a zigzagging race. He laughed as the rabbit darted down a hole and Jasper came to a skidding halt. The chocolate lab lurched up on his back feet and slammed his front paws on the ground a few times, probably hoping to scare the rabbit.

  Frank shook his head. He had to admit, Jasper had grown on him. The dog was undeniably smarter than any dog he’d ever heard of, and he had a personality all his own.

  Jasper crouched low and barked at where the rabbit had disappeared, as if waiting for it to reappear.

  Frank yelled across the field, “Jasper, give it up! That rabbit is probably halfway to Timbuktu by now.”

  The sound of hooves announced the arrival of Buck. The ranch hand was showing the first hints o
f a beard; it gave his boyish face a more rugged look. Jasper came bounding across the pasture to greet him.

  Buck smiled broadly as he dismounted. “My goodness, it’s good to see you on your feet again, Mr. O’Reilly.”

  “Not quite six feet under yet.”

  “Checking on the heifer?”

  “Yup. I figure let’s leave her be for another week. If she’s really sick, we’ll know soon enough. If she’s looking fine, we’ll put her in with the rest.” He looked at the animal, who was now munching on the hay. “She looks pretty big. How long before she’s due?”

  Buck removed his baseball cap. His shock of orange-red hair shone brightly in the sun, making it look like it was on fire. He scratched his head and held a pensive expression. “Won’t be long now. I reckon she’s due in three or four weeks.”

  Jasper pressed his head against Frank’s right hip. Frank scratched his ear. “Well, let’s keep her fed and happy. We’ll see what happens.”

  “Yes, sir.” Buck put his baseball cap back on and asked, “You going to start doing the rounds again with me and the boys?”

  Frank stretched out his arms, feeling both the muscular ache from lack of use as well as the heat coming from his joints. He shrugged. “I think I’m going to take it a bit slow. I’m still on the mend. In fact, right now, I think I’m in need of a nap.”

  Buck gave him a toothy grin. “Well, boys and me all look forward to when you’re back out with us.” He patted at the radio on his belt. “Just holler if you need anything, okay?”

  Frank waved at Buck and he began walking toward the house.

  Jasper led the way home. Frank’s body was burning with a familiar ache that kept reminding him, Not all is well.

  Frank gazed up at the sky and quietly prayed, “If I’m going to go, just end it quick. Don’t let the girls suffer because of me.”

  ###

  Kathy sat at the dining room table, drinking a glass of water and watching her father. He was squatting on the living room floor, fixing the coffee table’s loose leg.