by Kirk Russell
My back was hurting worse than it had in a long time, and it worried me. To be active duty you need to be physically fit. There’s a running test I wouldn’t pass today. Or even come close to passing.
“What are you taking for pain?” Mara asked with a blank face as if we’d never talked about it before.
“Tylenol and Aleve, and if it’s bad enough I’ll take a NORCO 5.”
“That’s an opioid?”
“It’s hydrocodone and acetaminophen, so a mix, but I only take the NORCOs at night, and only if it’s bad. I also have Percocet but try not to use it.”
“When did you last use Percocet?”
“A couple of nights ago.”
“Are there any other drugs?”
“Those are the ones I use.”
Mara shifted in his chair and his eyes flickered back to mine, and then to the wall behind me as he asked, “So no other drugs?”
“I have OxyContin but try to avoid taking it.”
“Are you on it now?”
“No.”
“When is the last time you saw your doctor?”
“I don’t know, two or three months ago, but not about my back. That doctor is a specialist. He’s booked months ahead.”
“Schedule something. I’m being asked, and I need a better explanation.”
“I’ll do that, but the flare-up will probably die down before the appointment comes around.”
“Make the appointment anyway. Assistant Special Agent in Charge Esposito, the ASAC, wants more information. So do others. Your ‘flare-up’ as you call it has lasted longer than some of the higher-ups are comfortable with, so I’ll be blunt. Active duty is on the line.”
I nodded and said, “I’ll make an appointment.”
I’ve counted on Mara to defend me and say, It’s okay, Grale is solving cases and getting the job done. His back goes through bad periods occasionally, but it’ll get better. Or that’s the conversation I imagined.
“It’s been over a month,” Mara said. “I get asked all the time about what’s up with your back. You need to see a specialist; you can’t downplay this or micromanage what people think. You can’t just ride this one out. You need to get proactive.”
“I’ll do that.”
“I hope you hear me.”
“I do.”
I stood to leave and Mara said, “We’re not done. There’s a video clip you need to see.”
“What is it? A video of me walking with a limp?”
“It was taken at the Metaline Falls Border Station north of Spokane where they’re testing new facial-recognition and body-type-identifier software. A man who crossed at Metaline triggered the software, but the percentage of recognition wasn’t definitive, and they’ve had a recent string of false positives so they let him through.”
“Crossed when?”
“Three days ago. August second.”
“That’s a while.”
“It is. They brought him inside and questioned him at length. That gave the cameras a better look, but the problem with the individual in question is a lack of up-to-date photos. The man in the video you’re about to watch was very enthusiastic about his national park reservations at Yellowstone and Zion, but so far, he hasn’t showed up at either of them. Analysts at headquarters reviewed the video. That’s when your name came up.”
“My name?”
“Your name.”
There were only a few ways that could happen. A cold feeling ran down my spine as I said, “Metaline Falls.”
“That’s right, Metaline Falls. From there it’s a two-hour drive to Spokane.”
“Run the video,” I said.
“Here you go.” Mara started the video as he slid his laptop over to me. “The man you’re looking at hired a driver to pick him up at a train station in Canada and take him to a hotel in Spokane. The driver is a local they don’t have suspicions about. She dated someone working at the Metaline station and grew up in the area. She’s known.”
“Known by whom?”
“Several border agents at Metaline know her.”
“What’s the name of the train station where she picked him up?”
“I don’t have it, but I’ll get it if you recognize the individual in question.”
I stopped the video on a clear view of the man’s face as Mara said, “They questioned him inside at length. He showed the border patrol officers his national park reservations and told them he’d waited on hold last September to get one of the government cabins in Zion and knew what room he had at Yellowstone Lodge and what the view was from there. He wanted to go back to the car and get the new camera with a 300-millimeter lens he’d bought for the trip to show them some of its features, which is to say he wasn’t in a hurry to leave.”
“What it says is he took over the conversation.”
Mara mulled that over, then said, “Yeah, maybe. Grale, maybe you just hit the truth. Several agencies are waiting for your answer, so take your time.”
The video was already enough for me, but I reached for my phone and called up a series of photos, none of which were very good. Throughout his career he’d avoided being photographed.
“What height did the software put him at?” I asked.
“Six foot two to six foot four.”
I nodded then said, “He’s six foot three. In France they call him l’homme des chiffres. The Numbers Man. The numbers were on a diagram French intelligence found in a hotel room. The numbers tied to the names of people he assassinated with a bomb as they sat down for a dinner. They found typewritten details on each individual in a dossier the French said was thick as a novel, as if he’d studied at length everyone who sat down at that table and was killed. He made notes he numbered and gave each person a number and made lists of the numbers that applied to the notes. This guy is a trip. If he’s here, others are too. He’d be part of a team. Part of, but still somehow alone.”
“You really have spent time on him, haven’t you?” Mara asked.
I looked at Mara as I thought about Dalz entering the US. Dalz had killed our military officers, diplomats, spies, and tourists, but as far as we knew, he’d never come here.
“Other agencies are waiting on your response,” Mara said.
“It’s Dalz. The question is, why is he here?”
4
Jace
FBI Special Agent Kristen Blujace loaded a U-Haul earlier that morning in Oakland with the help of two neighbors in their early twenties. Both had smelled of last night’s alcohol and dope. Neither had finished high school or had steady jobs, but they talked as if things were going well. Jace saw something different, but liked and cared for them. She hugged each before leaving.
“If you ever need a reference for a job or if things just aren’t going right, call me. Or if you just want to talk, okay?”
The rented van was a wide drive, wider even than the black FBI Suburban she’d driven for years as an agent. She’d liked the Suburban but not the look people gave it, thinking it’s a fed vehicle all washed and clean and guzzling gas with one person inside. The government always taking care of itself first is what they really thought, same as Congress and government officials with their guaranteed health care, talking like they know what it’s like not to have it.
The U-Haul took up most of the lane, and with traffic bumper to bumper it was watch and go, not just stop and go, until she was south of the Bay Area. Only then did her thoughts stop jumping around.
She didn’t know where this move’s changes would lead. In the San Francisco FBI Field Office, she’d worked longer and longer hours. She laid out her clothes at night, knew exactly what she’d put on early the next morning, how many minutes in the bathroom getting ready, and what she’d eat going out the door. She lived alone and focused on investigations. It wasn’t working. No other way to say it, but in Vegas
, maybe she’d meet somebody and start again. And her dad was there, her dad whom she hadn’t talked to since she was five years old. Her feelings were a whole mix of things when she pictured knocking on his door.
Older agents who were more accustomed to moves understood her practical reasons for Las Vegas: going where you can at least save some money and someday buy a house that’s not a million bucks or more for some worn-down relic with two bedrooms, new paint, and a realtor driving a flashy car. The move to Vegas made more sense to those agents than her younger FBI friends. Those who knew her best put the move down to the motorcycle accident that left her former fiancé brain-dead. His body lived with a caregiver in a cottage behind Gene’s mother’s house in Sausalito. Jace needed somewhere she could start again.
In some ways she thought of the FBI as her family, and she was simply moving to another branch of the family. She’d floated that family idea yesterday with her San Francisco supervisor, who shook her head and laughed before turning serious.
“Your family is there for you when you screw up. You screw up in the FBI and you’ll be handing in your badge and gun. That isn’t going to happen to you, but remember that, Jace. Don’t ever forget it.”
When Jace became an FBI agent, she became part of something larger, something that mattered. Family was the wrong word, but she needed the connection with other agents. Jace was driven and needed purpose. She was like Grale in that way and wanted to learn more about investigating from him. He had a way of making things happen.
Her mind cleared more as she drove south in the long, flat Central Valley. The Sierras were off to her left, hazy in the distance. Her phone rang as she crossed the Tehachapi Mountains. It was her new domestic terrorism squad supervisor, Ted Mara, calling back again, so maybe he was a touchy-feely type of supervisor or maybe something had happened.
“How’s the drive going, Agent Blujace?”
“Going well. I might get in a little earlier than I’d thought.”
“That’s all good, but I’m going to tell you something now you’re not going to like.”
“What does it have to do with?”
“Agent Grale. I know you like him and that you worked with him during the electrical-grid attacks.”
“You and I talked about him,” Jace said.
“I know we did, but this is different. Metro police here in Las Vegas have an undercover drug operation underway and claim they videoed Grale making street buys of illicit painkillers.”
It took her a moment before she said anything. “I don’t believe that. Not Grale, of all people, he wouldn’t be doing that.”
“My reaction too,” Mara said, “but his back is as bad as I can remember. He’s hurting. He’s in pain and has dealt with pain for a long time. Metro is certain Grale is buying from a dealer they expect to take down. Their call was somewhere between a courtesy call and a warning. We have some time to act. I don’t know how much, but probably not long or they wouldn’t be calling. I have to notify the Office of Professional Responsibility, but we can investigate within the squad before they take over, so we’re going to.”
“OPR Grale?”
“I know it’s hard to believe, but get past that. I’m going to ask you to be a part of investigating. If you can’t see yourself doing that, I’ll assign someone else to team with Grale. I’m sorry, Agent Blujace, I really am, but I want to keep it very discreet, as quiet as possible, and you’re new. No one knows you so that makes you a good fit. How familiar are you with Grale’s injuries?”
It took her a moment to answer. She couldn’t get her head around it.
“Has he told you what medications he takes?” Mara asked.
“If he has, I don’t remember.” She remembered the lap pool. “He swims. He’s got a lap pool.”
Jace tried to picture Grale making street buys but couldn’t get there.
“I don’t believe it,” she said more softly.
“I don’t either, but that’s not the way to approach this.”
“What about his girlfriend? She’s a doctor. Have you called her?”
“Not yet. How close are you to Grale?”
“I don’t know him that well, but I’ve learned a lot from him. I can say that. He’s more street than computer, but he’s both. He’s technology and street, pretty unusual for an older agent.”
“Is he a mentor to you?”
Her radar picked up on something in the way he asked that.
“Sorta, maybe, though I don’t know what a mentor really is. I know people get called that. Grale and I are about work. We’re alike that way. You know I want to work with him, right?”
“Did he encourage you to transfer?”
“No. I floated the idea with him once but haven’t told him that I went through with it.”
“I told him you’re coming in this afternoon and that I want you two to work together initially. He’s all for that, but you haven’t talked to him since the transfer was approved?”
“That’s right, I haven’t.”
Why was he asking in that way? It bothered her, but she pushed the feeling aside for now.
“If you agree to help investigate him, it’s going to feel like betrayal. Are you up to that?”
“What happens if I’m not?”
“Then I’ll put someone else on the squad with him.”
“Put me with Grale.”
“Drive and think about it and let’s talk again later today.”
“I don’t need to think about it. If someone is going to do it, assign me.”
“I want you to think about it, but let me ask you this: When you worked the grid attacks with him, did he ever talk about how he deals with pain?”
“No.”
“Did you ever notice anything that suggested drug use?”
“No.”
“Would you know it if you saw it?”
“I would.”
I’ve seen drugged-out people like you would never guess, Supervisor Mara. People I know, she thought. Curled up in the corner of a filthy house, her cousin did guys one after another just to get her next fix.
“Think about it and we’ll talk, and I want to say we’re looking forward to you joining DT squad. We’ve got a vehicle waiting for you and a desk you’ll share. Is there anything I can do to help your transition?”
“Just put me with Grale. I’m an FBI agent first. I’ll do what’s needed, and I’d like to come in tomorrow. I’ll want part of the day to move, but I don’t have much stuff. I’d rather come in and learn the office in the afternoon than arrange towels in a closet.”
During the grid attacks she’d learned from Grale, and Jace craved learning. She wanted to be the very best at her job—developing a case, writing the proposal, the whole thing. For miles she turned the idea of Grale addicted to drugs in her head and then decided there was nothing she could do other than what Mara said: investigate and find out. Pain can grind down anyone, and she’d seen Grale wince getting out of the car after long drives they’d made during the grid attacks.
She stopped in Barstow for gas then got back on I-15 to Vegas. When she’d left the Bay Area it was windy and cold, but now the truck’s air conditioner couldn’t keep up. Last time she talked with Grale he’d casually said it was 112 degrees as if that was normal. Or maybe the people in Las Vegas are like dogs that get beaten every day and only understand crazy.
She could deal with the heat, but a wave of sorrow caught her. It came up through her chest and over her heart as she pictured taking down Grale. Supervisor Mara must think it’s real and serious. Why else would he call? She drove the last miles to Vegas picturing busting Grale. It was a lousy feeling on the way to her clean start.
5
Midafternoon, Ralin called me and sounded hopeful. “Indie found something you may want to take a look at. Base regulations prevent me from sending it to yo
u, but you can come see for yourself. It’s an image taken by a freeway onramp traffic camera last night. Indie identified the driver’s face as Eric’s.”
“Eric Indonal?”
“Yes, and he’s driving a pickup pulling a camping or fishing trailer. If he owns a pickup or a trailer I’ve never seen either, though I do remember something about a trailer. Indie is very good at facial ID, and if it knows any face better than Eric’s, I’d be surprised.”
“Yours included?”
“Yes.”
“What does Indonal usually drive?”
“An old Toyota four-door he got from his aunt. He doesn’t care much about cars.”
“Have you ever seen him driving a pickup?”
“No.”
“How good of an image is it?”
“It’s poor. It’s something only an AI at this level could use to come up with an ID. If you want a look at it, I’ll call the guard gate and tell them you’re coming. They’ll wave you through. I’ll be here. Just ask for me.”
Forty minutes later, I passed through the Independence Base gate and drove the straight road across the desert plain to the building housing the AI. A DoD security officer walked me to Ralin’s office.
Ralin’s face was hidden behind a computer when I came in. A half-eaten chicken breast and fried potatoes sat in an oily cardboard container on his desk. The room smelled of it. We looked at frames of photos taken from the video cam at the freeway onramp, and in particular one image of a pickup towing a small recreational trailer last night. Only part of the upper half of the face of a man driving the pickup was visible. It was disappointing, but I didn’t say so.
“Indie is tapped into various local networks, including traffic cams, and AI is far better than humans at facial recognition,” Ralin said. “Indie looked at all of the Las Vegas traffic cam videos and puts a high probability on this partial face being Eric.”
Ralin glanced over, possibly looking for a reaction before continuing. “You may have read about Chinese police using AI some years ago to pick a man out of 60,000 faces at a concert and arrest him? Since then, AI has only gotten better. Indie pulled this image from an onramp feeding I-15 east. It knows every pore and hair of Eric’s, Alan’s, and my faces, so I have to take this seriously.”
