by Rachel Brune
“I’ve been keeping tabs on him,” said Kyle. “You know. He keeps trying to get deployed, but no one will take him. Everyone is volunteering these days; he has to wait his turn.”
Nina nodded. “Good to hear. Scott’s a good guy, but he needs to get himself back in one piece before they send him back out.”
Kyle took out his gum, wrapped it in a tissue and tossed it in the garbage. “So what did you need to see me about?”
“We got some new information coming in,” said Nina. “I know you guys are working on the other end, but I wanted to run this by you, get your ears perked up in case any of it starts jiving.”
“All right, lay it out,” said Kyle. He reflected on his uncanny ability to be someone’s sounding board. It was an innate talent. And it kept him in the loop.
“We’ve completed our follow-up on the warehouse,” said Nina.
“Find anything good?” he asked.
“Hard to say,” said Nina. “We’ve been tracing some of the weapons. The theory the team’s going off is that they came in by container ship. The shipping labels were counterfeit, making it almost impossible to track their country of origin, or even what ship, once they were loaded. The majority we found were knockoff AKs, probably from China.”
“That’s interesting,” said Kyle.
“Yeah,” said Nina. “Our port security is getting better, but it’s still not impenetrable for someone with enough motivation.”
Nina drained the last of her espresso. She got up and pulled a bottle of water from a small refrigerator. She held it out to Kyle, who shook his head. Opening the bottle of water, she closed the door with her foot and sat back down in her chair. “We got lucky on the serial numbers—they’re all in sequence, so if we do find any more we’ll know how they got here. But as far as finding where they went…” She thought for a moment, then shrugged. “We’re going to need some luck for that to happen.”
Kyle’s phone beeped a text in his pocket. He pulled it halfway out, checked the message and put it back. “Sorry, the natives are getting restless.” He stood up. “Well, I don’t know what to say. If you want, I could have Gina do some research, run some searches, see what pops up.”
Nina smiled. “Thanks, that would be great. And hey, Kyle?”
“Yeah?” He paused in the doorway.
“Thanks for helping me out with Scott. I know I put you in a little bit of an awkward situation.”
“Don’t worry about it,” said Kyle. He grinned as he headed out the door.
The grin faded as the door closed behind him. Nina had put him in an awkward position. He and Scott had been peers for a long time, and it was difficult to be thrust into the role of his boss. Especially with everything that was going on. He didn’t want to be Scott’s superior, and he was glad that the man kept avoiding his calls. Easier for everyone.
“I thought you were still on probation.”
Gina’s greeting reached Scott as he helped himself to the first cup of coffee from the sludge machine in the hall.
“Mac called and told me to come back in,” said Scott. He had tried to time it so that he would come in and not to be noticed. “Apparently there’s a filing emergency and they need all hands on deck.”
Gina frowned. “Nobody told me you were coming back.”
“They probably didn’t think it was important,” said Scott. “I mean, I’m just coming back to admin duty.”
“Fine.” Gina shrugged and kept walking to her office.
Scott put powdered creamer in his cup, half-heartedly stirred it a few times, then gave up and took a sip. Fermented pond scum had nothing on the swill that brewed out of the company coffeemaker. He grimaced. He had meant to stop and pick up coffee on the way in, but had left late. His internet in the apartment was slow, and it had taken him a minute to send out one last deployment request. This one was for a slot in a logistics battalion. It would have meant a solid year sitting behind a desk for twelve plus hours a day, and for the first time he wondered if getting a slot would even be worth it. At least in New York, he could stop for a beer after work.
Scott began walking down the hall. He stopped, turned around. Mark poked his head around the corner.
“Is she gone?”
“Get over here.” Scott shook his head. The kid had called him about the newest e-mail that had arrived the night before, and Scott had told him to bring a copy by.
Mark caught up with him as he strode down the hallway. “Do you realize your bosses’ names rhyme?”
“What?” The non sequitur caught Mabry off guard.
“You know—Gina and Nina,” said Mark. “Their names rhyme.”
“Gina’s not my boss,” said Mabry. They had arrived at the door to MacAllister’s office.
“I thought…” Mark trailed off.
“Listen, when we get in there, let me do most of the talking,” said Scott. “If there’s a question I can’t answer, I’ll throw you the ball, but let me shape this thing.”
“But I’m the one bringing this intel to you,” said Mark.
“No,” said Scott. “You’re the one bringing us another anonymous e-mail that we can’t trace, that doesn’t match the first e-mail, and that your station has plastered all over the evening news for everyone to see. Thanks, by the way, for giving these assholes all that extra publicity.”
“Sorry,” said Mark. “I thought my producer was going to wait for me to do the story about the threat to my life.”
“Also,” said Scott. “There’s the little matter of I’m not actually supposed to be following these types of leads. So if you don’t want to just get thrown out of Mac’s office, you’ll let me handle things.”
“Okay, fine.”
“Good.”
Scott knocked on the door.
The first thing Mark noticed was that MacAllister didn’t have his own office. There were two other desks in the small room, although Kyle did have the biggest. The other two were currently unoccupied, so the men had the room to themselves.
“Good to see you on your feet,” said MacAllister. To Mark: “And you—you look good for someone whose picture and whereabouts in conjunction with an alleged terrorist death threat were just plastered all over national television.”
“Thanks,” said Mark. “I’ve been trying to explain to Scott that I didn’t give my producer permission to do that.”
The two cops busted up laughing.
“What?” asked Mark. “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing,” said Scott. Mac made to open his mouth. “Mac—”
“We gotta tell him,” said MacAllister.
“Tell me what?” asked Mark.
“Your boss—” Kyle stopped at Scott’s expression. “Scott, I’m going to tell him.” To Mark: “Okay, when we saw the news last night, I had Nina Torres, our boss, call your producer.”
“And?” asked Mark.
“And we were going to offer you police protection,” said MacAllister. “At least until they stopped flashing you all over the TV screen.”
“Do you know you’re listed on one hundred and fifty-seven different Web sites?” asked Scott. “Twelve of those Web sites actually contained personal information, such as your home telephone and address.”
“I’ve been meaning to get an unlisted number,” said Mark.
“You might want to think about doing that sooner rather than later,” said MacAllister. “I don’t think your boss has your best interests at heart. He flatly refused any sort of protection at all.”
Mark thought about the legions of certifiable nut jobs he had spent most of the night accepting friend invitations from on Facebook, and nodded in agreement.
“So if you want, we can still arrange that for you,” said MacAllister.
“That’s not actually why we’re here,” said Mark.
MacAllister raised his eyebrow at the plural pronoun.
“Show him.” Scott leaned against one of the empty desks, arms crossed.
Mark pulled a thin
portfolio out of his messenger bag. He opened it onto the top of the desk. The other two men gathered around. The reporter in Mark was impatient to get to the meat of the story, but he elected to start at the beginning.
Laying out two pages side-by-side, Mark began. “This e-mail, here on the right, is the original message that I brought to Scott.”
“Hang on,” said MacAllister. “I think I know where this is going, and I don’t like it one bit. Scott—please tell me that you’re not going to be showing me proof that you are doing the exact opposite of what I told you to do.”
Scott shrugged. “Kid’s got an interesting point. I told him you’d give him five minutes.”
MacAllister shook his head. “I don’t believe this. Nina is going to kick my ass.”
“Five minutes,” said Scott. “Please.”
“Jesus Christ, you’re killing me here,” said Kyle. He rubbed his eyes with his palms, then folded his arms across his chest. “Fine. Let’s see what you’ve got. But you owe me big time for not telling Nina you’re still kicking this around.”
Mark looked at Scott, but the cop was doing his best poker face. His hands shaking slightly, Mark laid out two more pieces of paper next to the first.
“This e-mail is one I received last night,” said Mark. He pointed down. Both the original and the sequel were diagrammed in red boxes. Each red box had a number, which corresponded to a note on the companion page. When he wasn’t fending off internet hobgoblins, he had spent the rest of the night carefully going through each of the texts, marking at least ten identical turns of phrase. Although the second e-mail was sent from a different address, and signed by a different name, the two messages had obviously come from the same person or group.
MacAllister picked up the second message and began to read. Eight long paragraphs of extremist ranting resolved into two clear statements at the end of the message. The first was an unequivocal claim of responsibility for the mosque bombing. The second was a promise of emasculation, torture, and death to the reporter and the cop who had been on the scene.
MacAllister raised his head. “So you don’t want police protection. What’s the point of this?”
“Well, these two messages are obviously from the same group,” said Mark. “So it proves they’re trying to communicate.”
“Many terrorist groups want to communicate,” said MacAllister. “It’s why they blow up buildings and kill innocent civilians. Sending e-mail messages to some hyperactive reporter is just a more cost-effective way to do it.”
“But look there,” said Mark, pointing to the responsibility claim. “They’re saying they’re the ones who did the bombing. Can’t you use this to trace them?”
Kyle shook his head. “Are you kidding me?”
Scott caught the look Mark threw at him, and shook his head. He was going to wait for MacAllister to say his piece.
“Do you know how many groups have claimed responsibility for that explosion?” asked Kyle. “Six. Six known groups. As in, six terrorist organizations that we know exist and have the means to pull something like this off. This piece of paper?” He closed the portfolio dismissively, wrinkling Mark’s carefully prepared presentation. “This is nothing. This is some naïve reporter giving more importance to a bunch of wannabes than they deserve.”
“I can’t believe you’re going to ignore this,” said Mark.
“We’re not going to ignore it,” said MacAllister. “We’re going to check it out. We check everything out. Keyword here is ‘we,’ not ‘you,’ are going to check it out.”
Scott started to speak, but MacAllister raised an intercepting hand. “Mr. Granger, we need a moment.” He picked up the portfolio and handed it back to the reporter. Mark hesitated a moment. Scott nodded. He went out the door, careful not to close it all the way.
MacAllister waited for him to leave, then shut the door all the way behind him.
“So what’s the real story here?” asked Mabry.
Kyle was angry, and finally showing it. “The story here is that you are supposed to be on light admin duty following probation, and the first day back you’re bringing me more of the same shit that got you in trouble in the first place.”
“Why did you keep me here?” asked Scott.
Kyle frowned at the sudden change in topic. “I don’t quite follow.”
“After I almost shot that kid back in September,” said Scott. “Why did you keep me on instead of sending me back to the force?”
“If you’ll recall, I had nothing to do with that. Nina sent you to me,” said Kyle. “As for why I agreed? You’ve got experience in the field—good experience. The kind that most of our analysts don’t ever see. I thought it would be helpful to have someone who knew the situation on the ground in the same room as the people who saw the larger picture.”
“So, what you’re saying is, you kept me on for my experience,” said Scott, “but the minute that experience tells me something you don’t want to hear, you’re going to shut me down?”
“Oh for Christ’s sake …”
“No, hear me out.” Scott uncrossed his arms, rested his palms against the desk. It hunched his shoulders. “These guys—the ones who really did that bombing—they are off the books and leaving no trail. We tried to trace the IP address these two emails came from, but they led nowhere. They were sent from two separate cafés in two different boroughs at two different times of the day and two different days of the week. The e-mail addresses they were sent from were only used to send that one message.”
Scott crossed his arms back over his chest. “No one remembers seeing anyone out of the ordinary those two days, and none of the regulars checked out as a possible match. It means these guys might not be geniuses, but they are smarter than your run-of-the-mill wannabe. Which makes me worried that they are not wannabes. Which makes me believe that they are planning something that when it happens, we are going to look back and say to ourselves, ‘Why didn’t we see this coming?’”
“So because we aren’t jumping through hoops to trace something you’ve just admitted doesn’t lead anywhere, you think I’m ignoring this?” asked MacAllister.
“Bullshit,” said Scott. “You are ignoring it, and you wouldn’t have known where anything went if I hadn’t gotten there first.”
“Jesus, Scott,” said Kyle. “You’ve seen the piles of paper we generate following these piece-of-crap leads. Just what exactly are you hoping to accomplish that you haven’t already done, even if you were doing it when you were supposed to be sitting at a desk recovering from the last time you got blown up?”
Scott took a minute to sort through the explosion of words brought on by his friend’s frustration. Finally, he shrugged.
“I don’t know, man,” said Scott. “I don’t know what I’ll find. All I’m asking you is to let me look for it.”
“No.” MacAllister shook his head. “I’m telling you this as your boss and as your friend. Keep your happy little butt at the boring little desk and start churning out paperwork. Stay away from anything that makes it look like you are even thinking about pursuing a lead.
“And don’t think that I don’t know about the fact that you’re volunteering for every overseas tour you can find. We have the same friends up at brigade, who keep telling me about your attempts to waive dwell time and get back out to the fight. Can you honestly tell me you think you should go back out there with your head where it is right now?”
Scott opened his mouth.
“No, keep listening,” said MacAllister. “You need this time to get your head on straight. So whatever you two are running around after—forget it. I mean it. Keep pushing this issue, and I’ll wrap you up in so much administrative paperwork you won’t be able to find your badge.”
Scott had been in the military long enough to recognize a brick wall when he saw one.
“You get it?” asked Kyle.
“Yeah,” said Scott. “I get it.”
Leaving his coffee cup on Mac’s desk, he let himsel
f out of the room.
In the hall, Mark looked at him expectantly, but Scott kept walking straight past him and down the corridor. He hurried after.
Outside, the air was chilly, but the sun had slightly warmed the building wall. Scott leaned against it and took out a cigarette. The conversation with MacAllister rang in his ears. He knew his friend was right. But he also knew what his instincts were telling him, and the collision of these two pieces of knowledge was making it hard to keep control of the anger that seemed his ever-constant companion.
“So?” asked Mark. He adjusted his bag to put the portfolio back inside. “What did he say?”
Scott showed no emotion. His face reminded Mark of the first time they had met, when the cop had beat him down on the plane. It was far more frightening, in a way, than any amount of shouting or remonstrations.
“He said they’re going to ignore it until it’s too late.”
Kyle barged into Nina’s office and helped himself to a bottle of water from her refrigerator. He chugged half the bottle before coming up for air. Nina raised an eyebrow, looking up from her book. She closed it, keeping her index finger between the pages to mark where she left off.
“Do I need to ask?” she asked.
Kyle grimaced. “I’m about to shoot one of my oldest friends.”
“Take a seat,” said Nina. She gestured to the half a sandwich on her desk. Mac had caught her on her lunch hour. “Want the other half of my sandwich?”
“Yes.” Mac took the sandwich. Nina watched as he wolfed it down. He followed it with another swig from the bottle of water. “Thank you.”
“No problem,” she said.
“What are you reading?” he asked.
“Something one of the guys recommended,” she said. “Talks about the global network of criminal activity. There’s a section in here about the link between global trafficking and terrorism.”