Flash Point Page 8

  In the background, Porter’s laugh sounded over the others. ‘Now we just need to know what literary role an ex-military man with a crazy-deadly diver’s knife would play. I don’t think Boo Radley was known for shark-killing.’

  ‘One very vague, not-usable-at-the-moment-but-maybe-usable-in-the-maybe-near-or-maybe-far-future list coming up. What else can I do for you, my liege?’

  Jenna glanced at the other team members, noting the macaroni and cheese orange-yellow of prudence that flashed in. They hadn’t put together a hard and fast profile of the whole group yet, but she felt confident that it wouldn’t hurt anything for Irv to be on the lookout for a few things she was sure were going to come into play.

  ‘Maybe one more minor task, oh, hack-savvy-one,’ Jenna said. She really should run this by Saleda before she did it, but that would mean risking the chance of her saying no. It wouldn’t be good to get caught up in looking for things that weren’t pertinent, but the literature details were pertinent. They had to be. ‘Do some looking around for any subversive groups with some kind of tie to classic literature. The group we’re looking for will be well-educated and intellectuals. Because of the type of literary references it’s likely they’re either college students or people who have some college education. They’re a hodgepodge of personality types, so they won’t all be the same sex, race, or socio-economic background, another factor that lends to the college theme since it’s possibly an ideal place where a group of all walks of life might meet. They may call each other by character names or use character names for Internet handles. The group or its members will also be active on blogs and websites of newspapers and other media, probably often commenting on controversial news items or writing letters to the editor. So far, the literature references we have to go on are The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee – the character Scout in particular – and the character of Cardinal Richelieu, who is from …’

  Shit. Where the hell was Grey Hechinger when you needed her?

  ‘A bunch of shit,’ Irv said. ‘Got it. I’m on it, though no promises. That’s a really vague request until there’s more to go on.’

  ‘Thanks, Irv. By the way, any more news on—’

  ‘No word from the Wordplay Wonder yet, if that’s what you were about to ask. I’m working on it, but right now it seems like she’s trying as hard to stay out of touch with you as you were with her before now,’ Irv replied.

  Damn it, Grey. Off your meds again, are you?

  Then again, if Grey was going to be of use to them, she’d probably need to be off her meds.

  ‘OK. Keep me posted,’ Jenna said, then hung up.

  She looked to Saleda, ready to take whatever lashing her leader had in store for her after giving a profile they hadn’t agreed to yet. She wouldn’t blame Saleda. It was blatantly seditious behavior if she’d made the call behind closed doors, but in front of the whole team with their leader present went beyond rebellious.

  Saleda stared back at her, eyes reproachful and cold.

  Then, a very long second later, Saleda rolled her eyes, smirked. ‘OK, moving on. What else on this video do we have that’s of use in individual profiles? If Jenna’s going to get a jump on the rest of us here, we’ll have this end covered so we get a participation trophy when the thing is solved.’

  Thirteen

  Jenna blinked, unable to believe Saleda was willing to let it go so easily. What the heck kind of leader would be OK with looking the way she’d just made Saleda look? Quick. Engage the team with something else.

  ‘Slender and WASP aren’t the only pair visibly working together,’ Porter said before Jenna’s brain had a chance to think of something to shift the topic to. ‘Rewind it to right near when WASP guy enters and keep it playing.’

  Saleda obliged. This time, when WASP UNSUB entered, though, Porter pointed to the door. ‘Keep watching here. The kill is hard to see on the footage.’

  Another black figure entered the bank, headed directly toward one of the bank managers’ desks on the left side. Specifically, the farthest one from the door, passing a few other attackers actively in fights with their victims, but unconcerned by potential victims save the one who would become his target.

  When the figure reached the third desk, he produced a weapon swiftly from his clothing, then stepped to the side, where his next movements were blocked by another fight going on almost directly in front of the desk as Slender UNSUB and WASP UNSUB took on another victim.

  ‘This is one of the two victims who had blunt force trauma pre-mortem. Those blunt force wounds didn’t kill him, though. One clean, deliberate severing of his carotid did, and it was the only stab wound on his body,’ Porter explained. He traced his finger in the air away from where whatever Blunt Force UNSUB was doing was now blocked by the action of WASP UNSUB and the banker at the desk in front of him and back toward the bank entrance. ‘But watch – the next one in the door also heads straight for the third desk.’

  Saleda nodded, keeping her eyes on the screen as Blunt Force UNSUB walked away, and the figure who had followed Blunt Force to where Blunt Force’s victim had collapsed after a severe beating stepped in, bent down behind the third desk.

  ‘So … the other victim who had pre-mortem blunt force wounds. What was his cause of death?’ Teva asked.

  ‘What can I say?’ Porter said. ‘There must’ve been a two-for-one coupon for the relentless beating, severed carotid special.’

  Puce flashed in. Synchronicity.

  ‘Well, fast-forward it to the other victim that matched that MO. Maybe from another angle, we can make out what Blunt Force’s blunt object is,’ Dodd said.

  ‘And what the hell his creepy Wing Man did to the victim behind that desk after Blunt Force got bored with him,’ Teva said.

  Saleda pressed play, and the footage started right where they’d left off. While Wing Man UNSUB was apparently finishing off the guy behind the desk, Blunt Force UNSUB rushed in the opposite direction and, in seconds, attacked a graying man in camouflage pants and a rebel flag T-shirt. This time, even though Blunt Force UNSUB’s back was to the camera as he savagely beat the man until he crumpled to the ground in front of the teller counter, unable to move, it was easy to tell Blunt Force UNSUB’s weapon wasn’t anything you’d expect.

  ‘Is that a whip?’ Teva asked, leaning closer to the screen as if that inch would make the granulated video suddenly crystal clear.

  ‘No lashes on the victim,’ Jenna muttered, both in answer to Teva as well as to herself. What is he using?

  ‘It’s … it looks like a cane or something. Size-wise. But not the way it bends,’ Teva said.

  Jenna flinched. ‘It’s a riding crop, I think.’

  Dodd looked skeptical. ‘Riding crop? Causing blunt trauma? Doubt it.’

  ‘You’re telling me in a room full of investigators not one of you is a Sherlock Holmes fan?’

  Every head turned toward the door – toward the new voice – but Jenna already knew who it was. She wasn’t sure how she’d gotten inside Quantico and made it to the door to ridicule them, nor how she was now here when Irv had already said he hadn’t found her. And yet, the creamy vanilla color Jenna associated with her flashed in at the first hint of her voice, and she was sure of the face she’d see when she turned toward the doorway.

  Sure enough, Grey Hechinger stood framed there, her pasty-pale white skin practically glowing in the fluorescent lights, the cascade of frizzy curls so blonde they were colorless pulled in a messy ponytail at the base of her neck.

  But Grey didn’t give Jenna the opportunity to introduce her, because as always, normal rules of social interaction didn’t occur to Grey. They wouldn’t. Ever. What would occur to her would be whatever she found most interesting. It was one of many reasons she had such trouble in social settings and appearing normal in any way.

  The other reason being she was schizotypal.

  Grey laughed, her head lolling back with a cheery, amused expression
crossing her face. ‘You already know they’re calling themselves by book character names, and that this guy works with a partner. Surely you must have realized when you saw the riding crop that the guy holding it has to be Sherlock Holmes, and his surgically precise companion, very obviously, would be Mr Watson.’

  Fourteen

  ‘Everyone, meet Grey Hechinger,’ Jenna said, ‘my literature and linguistics contact.’

  Saleda turned to Jenna, her face incredulous. Jenna simply smiled. It wasn’t like she was freaking excited about this, either. But what the heck was she supposed to do? Grey was already presenting herself as the right person for this job, despite the many things that should immediately disqualify her.

  Irv stepped in behind Grey. ‘Sorry. She showed up at the gate asking for me, and … well, we were kind of—’

  ‘Hunting me like a feral animal that wouldn’t be smart enough to find its hunter first?’ Grey cut in, looking at no one in particular as she glanced absentmindedly around the room like she was on a tour. Her voice was soft and amused. Almost sing-songy.

  Irv’s chin dipped, and his shoulders curled forward. He caught Jenna’s eye. Shrugged.

  Jenna waved off the nervous questions written on Irv’s face. They didn’t have to worry about Grey getting mad. She didn’t seem it, and anger wasn’t one of her go-to emotions, anyway. She was just awkward and, as usual, oblivious to rules of common courtesy. Jenna watched the woman wander around the conference room she hadn’t been invited into, taking long, anything-but-furtive peeks at notes, pictures, and other case materials lying out on the table. It would never have occurred to Grey that the hunted becoming the hunter statement might’ve drawn a response ranging from pissed as hell at best and menacing and dangerous at worst.

  ‘So, that online banking thing is looking better than ever,’ Grey said, staring down at one of the crime scene photos that, technically, she shouldn’t even be in the room with. Sure, Jenna wanted to consult her, but she’d always planned to carefully control everything in reference to the case that Grey saw, handled, heard …

  Metallic copper flashed in, the same shade that had popped in when she and Charley had taken A to the zoo the week Dad had the flu. They’d watched in awe from behind the metal bars as the two cheetahs playfully tackled each other, rolling on the grass. She’d explained to Ayana that day, as the copper flashed in, how the cheetahs were friends, but it was only safe for humans to watch them from a distance. If the cheetahs tackled a person, it would probably be more forceful and not as friendly. Hard to control.

  ‘Look, chiquita,’ Porter said, taking a step toward Grey and snatching the folder Grey had been looking at off the table, ‘you may have been invited here, but that doesn’t mean you can tour the place like—’

  ‘Wait a second. Was she invited here?’ Teva cut in.

  Grey turned her head toward Teva, her expression flat. ‘Well, no, but …’

  ‘I had called her several times,’ Irv said. ‘She did know we were looking for her.’

  Jenna shook her head and stepped toward Irv, bit her bottom lip to stifle a humorless laugh. She closed her lips but kept wearing the sarcastic smile. ‘She knew someone was looking for her. She didn’t know who, or from where …’ Jenna turned slowly to face Grey. ‘She most definitely wasn’t invited to Quantico …’

  God help me, I thought I was done with this sort of interrogation. Ayana’s three, but at least she gives straight answers.

  Grey’s face remained unchanged, as Jenna knew it would. The woman blinked three times, stared. ‘Well, I listened to the talk message on my squawk box from a private investigator … PI he said. Said he got my name from someone at the college. Said he had a stalking case he was working on. Client hired him because she has a guess who the Snoopy watching her is, but the police guys don’t have enough evidence to put handcuffs on him. But the PI guy got hold of a letter the stalker left for the object of his desire and wants it compared to the writing on some postcards the guessed-Snoopy wrote his sister. Said the guy at the college thought I could help determine if the stalker letter and the guessed-Snoopy’s postcards were written by the same hand,’ Grey said. Then she shook her head, laughed. ‘Man, if my sister handed across some postcards to someone trying to prove me a Snoopy, I’d be pissed.’ She paused, cocked her head. ‘But then again, I guess if my brother was a Snoopy, I’d want him locked away for it, too. Huh.’

  Jenna’s face seared as she saw the disapproving, uncertain looks being exchanged in the room around her. It wasn’t that Grey’s peculiar speech patterns and way of structuring her sentences embarrassed her. Her fellow teammates were smart enough to discern that the weird little idiosyncrasies peppering her words and even the bizarre getup Gray wore had to be manifestations of a personality disorder.

  The rusty, brown-tinged color of primer red flashed in. She’d associated it with embarrassment at least since high school, a connection that might or might not have something to do with how mortified she’d been when her Dad had dropped her off at the school dance and all the kids who’d seen her exit the ’55 Chevy had told her she must be confused, that the farm equipment had to be parked out past the softball field.

  Nope, she felt like a fool because of what the team had to think of her for seeking out the woman in the room with them. For claiming that the awkward, rambling person using a shiny black coffee mug on their conference table to check that none of her breakfast was stuck in her teeth was the most qualified expert on the planet to assist them as they worked to crack the worst case of domestic terrorism since 9/11.

  Finally, Porter broke the hush in the otherwise silent room. ‘So, a private investigator called you for a linguistics consult. What does that have to do with us?’

  Seeming like she hadn’t even heard the question, Grey continued her own train of thought right where she’d left off. ‘Only, my brother wasn’t. A Snoopy. Wasn’t a PI, either. Neither was this guy on my squawk box,’ she said, looking down at where she was moving two coffee cups around the table like they were racecars.

  ‘How do you know that, Grey?’ Jenna pressed.

  Go on, Grey, give them a little taste of why they shouldn’t write you off just yet.

  Grey looked up at Jenna, her face flat. ‘Because in the message he left on my squawk box, he asked if I would compare the writing on the postcards to the letters from the UNSUB,’ she said evenly. She looked down, resumed urging her cup-cars forward on the table as though racing them. ‘PIs don’t say UNSUB.’

  Jenna caught the impressed glance Saleda shot her way, but Grey kept talking.

  ‘No clue what an UNSUB is, honestly. Google told me that. Term federal agents use to refer to an Unidentified Subject, it said. Didn’t worry about it much, though. Maybe the PI guy retired from the FBI so he could PI. I decided I’d reply to him on the squawk box in a few days.’

  ‘What changed the plan?’ Dodd asked.

  ‘The fact that my old roommate Keely called me to tell me someone had talked on her squawk box about needing to find me to return some book he borrowed. She played me the message on her squawk box, and it sure sounded like Mr PI Guy.’

  Saleda glared at Irv. ‘Why would you not use the same story with the roommate?’

  Irv’s eyes got wider. ‘I don’t know. I guess in the time I spend doing my job cross-referencing and data hacking for you guys that it’s been years since I was a member of the A-Team?’

  Grey paid them no attention. ‘Well, I didn’t have to be the brightest light in the candelabra to calculate that a federal agent was looking for me. I could also compute that, for some reason, he didn’t want to clarify himself. All I could decide was if it was so secret, I might better find out who he was and what he found necessary of me before he came to me so that if it was bad, I could figure out what to do.’

  Bothering to point out that Grey could’ve simply returned Irv’s call would’ve been pointless to someone with a tendency toward paranoia, so instead, Jenna asked the only real question t
hat mattered now. ‘But how did you know to come here? There are FBI field offices all over the place. Surely he didn’t call from his office phone,’ she said, slowly turning to stare down Irv.

  ‘Easy,’ Grey said. ‘Message he left on my squawker mentioned he couldn’t pay much for the letter looking since the client was a pro bono, but if I’d do the favor, he’d treat me to lunch. Went on to postulate he knew the best barbecue place on earth,’ Grey said, having abandoned the cup-cars in favor of folding a napkin as though it was origami.

  Saleda rubbed her temples. ‘Which brought you here because?’

  Grey blinked again. ‘Monty’s. He knew Monty’s. In Quantico. The only people who know about Monty’s are local.’

  ‘So you knew to come to Quantico. But how did you know to ask the guys at the gate for Irv by name?’ Teva asked.

  ‘I didn’t,’ Grey said, reaching into her pocket and holding up her phone. ‘My squawk box handed his voice to them.’

  ‘Right,’ Irv said, shifting his weight on to the foot closest to the door. ‘Well, I’ll just leave you all to it and get … um … back to … um …’

  ‘Yes, Irv, go. I can figure out how to deal with my expert FBI data analyst not knowing to buy a burner phone or come up with a convincing backstory later,’ Saleda said.

  Irv shrugged, palms up. ‘What can I say? If anybody needs me, I’ll be in my computer cave, searching for government dissenters, ideological zealots, and all that general hate sort of stuff … and listening to some self-help tapes on reclaiming my underappreciated, in-office balls.’

  Saleda turned to Jenna. ‘I need a word with you.’

  Saleda’s heels clicked on the tile as she walked out the door behind Irv.