by Laer Carroll
"Yep."
"Love you. Bye."
"Me too. Later."
Sasha met Special Agent Carson Cullers at a Chinese restaurant a block from the Manhattan FBI building.
"Thanks for seeing me, Ms. Canaro."
He was a lean wiry man a couple of inches taller than her own five foot ten height. His dress was a dark blue business suit and light blue shirt and red-and-blue striped tie. Polished black shoes. His black hair was short but not ruthlessly so, with a touch of grey on the sides. He seemed to have some Slavic ancestry.
She shook his hand and they sat opposite each other in a booth with high backs. The isolation from others, she was sure, was deliberate. Even she had to ramp up her ears' sensitivity to spy on nearby people's conversations.
Her brief hand contact had told her much about him. He was very fit and healthy, needing no boost from her. If she'd been inclined to give it, which she was not. He was a stranger.
He was also a bit embarrassed, though only she with her extra-human abilities could tell.
"How can I help you?" she said.
"I've heard you called The Bloodhound. Some say you have psychic powers. Others that it's a physical quirk."
"That last is true. I shrug off the psychic. Truth to tell, I welcome being dismissed as a phony. I'm getting so many requests for help I've bumped up my fees very high. And yet I still get requests. Nowadays, I only take jobs where a life is at stake. And if I think I can help. I'm not in the business of holding hands.
"Or providing scapegoats," she add thoughtfully.
"This job would be a little different. Can you smell other things beside people? Such as drugs?"
"Sure. It's a general talent. I basically have a very good nose. I can change sensitivity, too. Thank God. A city has a lot of stinks.
"If you wanted me to detect something specific, it would have to something I've encountered."
Despite their obvious isolation he looked around the interior of the restaurant. It was typical of a lot of Chinese food places she'd visited, lots of gold and red, tables scattered around the floor, well-dressed people of both sexes seated about.
She guessed he needed to nerve himself up to confiding something more sensitive than he'd yet spoken of.
He looked back at her. "It's a tailored version of heroin. The chemistry is a bit strange, but it wouldn't make any sense to explain to a lay person."
"I should have no trouble. I've smelled several varieties of heroin over the years. "
"Where?" His expression was sharp.
She laughed. "You know my work. I meet all kinds of people who can afford it. And who are stupid enough to try it."
"And you didn't report it?"
"What? Go to the police and say I SMELLED it? Even the people who know me still have trouble believing what I can do.
"Though, if any of the users I met were a danger to anyone I'd have gotten the story out somehow. I haven't yet met anyone like that."
He subsided, though still unhappy. That suggested to her that his need was great.
He took a deep breath.
"We've gotten some tips, and surveillance has narrowed our search to four city blocks. We need to narrow it down to one building, however.
"Drug-sniffing dogs would do that. They're conspicuous, however. And they can't talk. You could dress down and walk through the neighborhood. And be specific what you found."
"Then what?"
"That's up to the DEA who have primary responsible for this."
"What would they do?"
He paused. "Probably send in a SWAT team."
"Very well. Let's do this."
It wasn't as simple as that. The DEA had to be convinced this was the right action to take, as a first step.
Much discussion and some arm-twisting and calling in of favors must have taken place. But finally a meet was set up with the leaders of the DEA and the FBI task force which was cooperating on this job.
She met with a half-dozen people near the top floor of the DEA building in Manhattan. The seven-story building took up the entire block. From the conference room those inside could see out over the Hudson river to New Jersey.
The room had beige walls, a long conference table in a dark brown wood, and comfortable padded chairs. Photos were in a row on the two long walls.
She was amused at how the seating was designed to put everyone in their place. The head DEA man sat at the, of course, head of the table. A cohort sat at his left and right hands. Two FBI agents sat further down from them with a seat between them and the nearest DEA man. They were all, DEA and FBI, men.
Carson Cullers led her in and took an empty seat one down from the nearest DEA man, opposite his FBI colleagues. She was intended to sit beside him, farthest from the head of the table, and so in the most inferior position in the room.
The shapechanger had heard her mother's tales of social dominance in organizations. She was not going to be dominated.
They were all dressed formally. She was not. She wore a tee-shirt, shorts, and tennies. Her long platinum hair was in a pony tail. She wore a billed shooter's cap and light-sensitive shooter's shades.
She did not sit. She went to the head of the table. He twisted in his seat and looked up at her, annoyance clear on his face.
She leaned down and sniffed at him.
"You're a smoker and have recently smoked. Probably a half-cigarette. You live with a family of...four kids. One of them is young enough to have pooped his—no, HER, diaper. My guess is you changed it, or were in the room near to your wife—no, probably a nanny. She's young and...Polish, maybe. Some middle European country, anyway."
She walked around the DEA man nearest the two FBI agents. She didn't bother to lean down and sniff. She just kept walking.
"No other smokers in this room, but someone likes lollypops. Lollypops, for a grown man? Someone has had sex this morning."
She walked behind and beyond the two FBI men, giving more details. She came around the end of the table and walked toward Cullers. He had seated himself and was watching her with a combination of amusement and amazement. She guessed he'd still had doubts about her abilities.
She stood behind what was to be her chair. The head of the table opened his mouth to say something. She cut him off.
"Somewhere in this room you've brought some drug samples. Four of their containers have been opened enough to release odors. There are two heroin types, one very crude, the other very refined. There's a sample of marijuana and one of some drug I've never encountered. Whatever it is, an overdose will kill you quick. Nasty stuff. I hate the taste."
She sat down, took off her shades, and assumed a look of sweet innocence to rival one of her younger sister Gia's best.
Cullers laughed. The DEA man on the head DEA man's right smiled. Other looks were variously appalled, annoyed, and very, very vacant.
"Sasha Canaro," said the DEA head man, shaking his head slightly. "Quite an entrance. I guess your reputation isn't as exaggerated as we'd thought.
"I'm Special Agent in Charge Jameson Holloway of Task Force Red Rose. The name is not arbitrary. The particular drug we're concerned about has been modified by a chemical found in roses. It's very strong, addicting, and possibly lethal. This has caused us to assign a high priority to interdicting it.
"Let me introduce you around the table. This—" He waved to his right and went around the table. He introduced the FBI men as well, showing that he'd already assimilated them into "his" task force.
The ice broken, they got down to business. Sasha was soon part of the group. She'd always been able to work as a team member. And since becoming a shapechanger she'd learned to use her esoteric powers to bend other's emotions. As now, toward friendliness. She couldn't make big changes in people's personalities, but she could influence them slightly and—over time—quite a lot.
Four days later, on a Friday morning, she joined the team at the DEA headquarters. Lower in the building in a room devoted to makeup and disguise she was m
ade to look like a much older woman. Her hair was temp-dyed to a dull brown and teased into a rat's nest. The hair-dresser was not as skilled as those at fashion shoots. Sasha had to complain when the woman was too rough with her hair.
Of course she could make her hairs tougher than tire rubber, but that limited their mobility. She normally kept it more vulnerable.
Dressed in worn jeans and blouse and a ratty coat she walked around the room. With coaching she was able to walk with a barely noticeable limp, to walk looking up and around with a restless unseeing gaze, and talk to herself.
The acting coach said, "Very good. Remember, don't overplay. Imagine you're playing to a TV camera close up, not to the upper balcony over a stage.
"Now here, swish this in your mouth and gargle and spit it out."
He handed her a glass her nose told her was whisky. She did as commanded. Then the coach spilt a few drops on her coat front.
"Notice it's only a little. Same idea. Don't overplay."
At the same time three men and a woman were being disguised. They would walk two ahead and two behind as she walked. They were well-armed and highly trained agents who would make sure she was safe. The Department of Justice was taking no chances on such a famous personality.
She got to meet her four body guards in the staging area before they set out. She shook each one's hand and made sure they were in top health and alertness.
"Don't be too quick to come to my rescue. I can take care of most threats and make it look like an accident."
They agreed, somewhat dubiously. "Remember," she said with a straight face. "Don't overplay."
At that one man snickered. The woman grinned.
A last minute short briefing by SAIC Holloway and the five were loaded into an SUV. It crossed from Manhattan under the East River to Long Island.
A couple of miles further they got out, walked to the nearest subway station, and took a train to a dilapidated Queens neighborhood. They walked up the stairs into the outside air. Two of the men walked ahead of her, took opposite sides of a street, and disappeared into the crowd.
Sasha followed after giving them about a hundred feet of lead. Behind her the woman and the third man gave her a lead on them the same distance and followed.
They walked a half mile, zigzagging to take them into an even more dilapidated area. This one was lined with tired apartment buildings and down-at-heels office buildings and factories, some of them vacant.
At one point Sasha heard behind her the female and male bodyguard get into a loud fake argument. This signaled her they'd reached the target four blocks, though she didn't need the reminder. She'd memorized the map of the four and the surrounding blocks as well.
She turned left, north, and walked a block, turned right, and proceeded an unsteady path east two blocks. At a corner liquor store she bought a bottle of cheap whiskey, taking her time counting out crumpled one-dollar bills, then even more slowly counting out small coins, including a whole dollar in pennies.
Patiently the balding Russian clerk waited. Finally he gave her the bottle in a brown paper bag.
Sasha trudged out, a tiny spring in her step as if she was eager to find a safe place to take a drink.
Two blocks to the south she stopped and looked all around her. There were not a lot of people here. She opened the bottle, carefully shaped the neck of the brown bag so only the bottle lip projected. Then she took a long swig of the drink.
The fiery liquid poured down her throat. She caught it in a sac made on the instant. It would not be absorbed into her blood. Instead it would be available for her to vomit on anyone who accosted her. She added a little neurotoxin that would put any human to sleep within a half hour.
Now she slowly took the last leg of her rectangular journey. This took her back west toward Manhattan. She stopped after a block and took another long swig. This one she let into her gut where it was almost instantly burned.
The scent of the Rose Red heroin was coming from the nearest, south-west, building of the four-block rectangle.
To be sure she leaned against that building and spent some time drinking from her bottle. She boosted her hearing. There were people in the first floor of the drug-dealers' building. Their scent told her they were all men. And young.
Sasha walked unsteadily westward to the cross street. She turned north, walked a block, turned right, and entered the street to the north of the building. Yes, the wind off the Long Island Sound told her the building to the north, one of the four possible target buildings, was clear.
She'd completed the rectangle. She was sure of the target building.
The shapechanger walked a mile to the west to a rendezvous.
There near a small deli she leaned against the side of a building until she saw her trailing bodyguards nearing her. They stopped at fifty yards, the limit they were to approach. The woman and man were now together, supposedly their loud differences forgotten.
Sasha approached the two. She pretended to be begging the woman for money. What she actually said was different.
"I know which building it is. It's time to call this a day and re-plan."
The woman was shaking her head as if to say no. Instead she said, "Are you sure? We're supposed to take another pass in an hour."
"It's unneeded. I'm leaving for the home base."
The male gave her a push, spoke as if angrily. He didn't have to pretend. "OK, if you're sure. But it's your responsibility and your ass if you're wrong."
Sadly "poor rejected drunk" turned and wobbled off to the subway station they were to use to return to the DEA HQ.
"You're absolutely sure?" said DEA SAIC Holloway .
"Yes. I smelled the Rose. It's very strong. They have a lot of it there. I also scented actual roses, or something very close to it. I smelled gun metal, gun oil, the brass of ammunition. I also smelled several volatile fluids, alcohol and something like dry-cleaner fluid."
"You're sure it's that building?"
"I went to the north side of it. The wind from the Sound swept over the buildings to the north. They were clean."
There was one woman on the task force in addition to the female bodyguard. She was a chemist specializing in drug-making.
"The odors match the manufacturing process. Had you heard about them before now, Sasha?"
"No. This is all new to me. Most of my previous actions have involved natural organic material. Blood, semen, tears—"
"Tears?!"
The immortal looked at her. "Rape victims weep. And they are distinctive tears. They carry despair and shame and— If you don't mind, I'd rather not dwell upon it. This 'gift' of mine is sometimes a curse."
The woman, older, grey-haired, seemingly quite tough, looked a bit sick. A few men hid the same reaction.
Holloway looked at the SWAT officer who would head the capture team. Captain Demir was squat, powerful, graceful. His scent suggested he had some Turkish blood in his ancestry, and he had a matching Middle-Eastern look. His head was shaven. His uniform was all dark blues, jacket, shirt, pants. His tie was black and tucked beneath the third and fourth buttons of his shirt, the rest of it out of sight.
His three companions wore the same uniform. Two were his lieutenants; Sasha didn't know the function of the last.
"I still think we're relying too much on this voodoo stuff. But I've got my orders.
"We go in early Sunday morning, 3:00 am. If any of them party Saturday night they'll be less alert then. And later in the week there's too much chance they'll disperse with a new shipment."
Holloway said, "But then we could grab them piecemeal. Concentrate our forces on each smaller group."
"No. Too much chance one would use a cell-phone before they're caught, warn their base."
The shapechanger spoke. "What if they're already warned? Did we check for remote closed-circuit cameras? Or some roving gang members who might have noticed all the surveillance and put two-and-two together?"
"Of course we checked for such. Don't teach your e
lders how to suck eggs."
He was already annoyed with her. No further remarks she made would change his mind. Given more time her biochemical persuasions could ease his antagonism. But they worked slowly unless she wanted practically brainwash the man. And then he'd be useless.
It was late Friday now. Sasha just had time to make some preparations for the raid. She wasn't supposed to be on it. But she would be.
She showed up at the action gathering place at an anonymous building in the Lower East Side, almost on the eastern edge of Chinatown. She had a temp badge for the DEA building and it worked here as well. A guard just inside the door inspected it and her photo closely, then did the same for her.
She was dressed in a light brown work shirt and dark brown jeans, wore work boots, and had her hair up in a bun. She carried a bag. He examined the contents, weapons, body armor, and an over-sweater with big white FBI letters on it. He called over an FBI agent.
"This is one of yours." He turned back to his post.
Sasha had zipped up the bag. The FBI man, one she'd seen around but whose name she'd forgotten, did not inspect it.
"You're on this detail, Ms. Canaro? I thought your work was done."
"Nope. I'm supposed to observe. From far back. A mile far back I'm guessing." She grimaced.
He nodded, beckoned her to follow him.
Sasha was relieved. She'd been ready to apply heavy biochemical persuasion and maybe a 15-minute short-term memory wipe, but preferred not to when simple deception would do. But she was going to be in on this action—if they needed her.
If not she would fade away as only she could.
She stashed her bag with a lot of similar bags and stayed near invisible for the next two hours. Hurry up and wait seemed to the order of every military or police operation she'd ever heard of or participated in. Though there was plenty of busyness by the bosses. Another anonymous troop sitting on the floor against a wall was ignored. That there were two groups, FBI and DEA, helped her. Few of them knew everyone.
At 3:00 am minus an hour people began to move. All the troops had long ago taken off the civilian clothes they'd worn to the gathering place and dressed in all-black uniforms. They'd geared up with weapons, armor, helmets, comm equipment, and all the other paraphernalia of a military force.