From the Blue

by Mark Stephens

  He’d worry about that later.

  Right now, he was on the hunt. His mouth was dry in anticipation of the impending endgame. His blood was up and he could feel the rush that always came when the hounds were chasing after the fox. No matter how smart that fox was, once the hounds caught his scent, it was over. This investigation had caught a break. Whoever was behind this had left behind a scent and he had it now. He could smell them, taste them now and, like that poor hound, he’d never give up the hunt.

  Ten minutes out, word came from Wilkinson that the assault team had arrived on scene. Rather than wait for their arrival, Mark ordered them to secure the area and the house. His anxiety level ratcheted up a dozen notches and his foot pressed the accelerator to the floor.

  Mark skidded to a stop behind the assault van and both men piled out of the sedan. He and Angelo slipped on their flak jackets, checked their weapons and were waved past the two guards that stood sentry at the end of the drive. The first agent on scene met them halfway up the drive.

  “Sir.” The remaining agent from the first team greeted them as they approached the house.

  “Status?” Mark asked without preamble.

  “The house is primarily deserted. We’re scouring the perimeter, but it appears that our two visitors today were alone.”

  “And inside?”

  “Beyond securing it, we’ve left that up to you, Agent.”

  Mark nodded and gestured towards Angelo. A federal CSU team would be along by evening, but he wanted to get a look before they did. He wanted to get an unadulterated look before everything was secured and packed up. Maybe he could get a sense of these two by seeing what they saw.

  Using his elbow, he shoved the door open and scanned the room before entering. The house was much like the others, having been abandoned for some time. Abandoned, but judging by the muddy footprints, not unoccupied.

  “What do you make of all this?” Angelo asked his partner as he walked in and looked over the room.

  Pieces of conduits and wire littered the bare floor. Several metal tables had been left behind as well as two larger machines of an unknown function. Two jagged, but empty hooks stuck out from one of the walls, identical to the ones they had found in the other houses.

  There wasn’t much here to go on.

  Still, it’s more than we’ve found before. Mark thought to himself.

  “It looks like this might’ve been an earlier site, or maybe a staging area of some kind. They weren’t expecting to be found here or else they wouldn’t have left anything behind.” His partner said with no small amount of excited anticipation in his voice.

  Mark looked over the discarded machine parts and moved further into the room, while his partner checked out the adjoining rooms, stepping gingerly as he tried not to disturb the dirt imprints on the flooring. These scraps could be a part of anything, so he dismissed them. What did draw his attention were the steel boxes at the far end of the room.

  From his pocket, he withdrew a pair of latex gloves and pulled them over his hands as he neared the tallest of the pair. He gripped the handle and eased it open, finding nothing inside but dark stains. As he closed the door and happened to look down, he noticed a row of symbols on the side of the smaller apparatus.

  Agent Fitzsimmons knelt to get a closer look at them. “Come here. What do you make of these?”

  Angelo came out of one of the rooms, moved over to his partner and knelt down on his haunches beside him to take a look at what he had found. “Looks like a language of some kind to me. But none I recognize. No letters or numbers. Just crude pictographs. In fact, they sort of look like hieroglyphs.”

  “Hieroglyphs?”

  “Yeah, like they used in ancient Egypt or the Mayan lamguage.” Angelo didn’t elaborate any further. He was sure his partner knew what hieroglyphs were. What neither of them knew was why a millenniums-old dead written language was doing on the side of what looked like a modern machine.

  Both men stood up and glanced over the room one more time.

  “Anything in there?” Mark asked and nudged his head in the direction of the two doorways.

  “Nothing of interest.” Angelo answered, deep in thought.

  “Well, I guess we’ll have to wait for the forensics report.” Disappointment was evident as Mark Fitzsimmons spoke. He had been hoping that they would find something a little more concrete in here. Maybe even an answer or two. Instead, they only found more questions. That seemed to be the theme of this investigation and he wasn’t exactly happy about it. At least, he still had the two suspects to go after.

  He stripped off the latex gloves and folded them into his pocket. He exited the house with his partner close behind and stopped for a moment to relay orders to the assault leader, who was stationed at the front door. Stepping on the creaking wooden stairs, they started back down the drive towards their sedan.

  As they rounded the last bend, Mark’s cell phone began buzzing incessantly in his pocket.

  “Fitzsimmons.” He spoke into it when he thumbed the green ‘ACCEPT’ button. Angelo could hear the faint voice coming from the phone, accented by his partner’s agitation. “They did what? How? Have they searched the area? OK, tell them to keep an eye on the vehicle in case they return.”

  Mark pressed the end button abruptly and slammed his fist on the hood of the car, alerting the nearest members of the assault squad. Two of them began to approach before Angelo waved them off.

  “What is it?”

  “The surveillance team lost our suspects.” Mark’s voice was angry and Angelo knew enough to keep his distance.

  “How did that happen?”

  Mark Fitzsimmons took a deep breath to settle his temper before he relayed the information he had just received.

  “It seems that our field team had no problem following the signal. Our suspects drove around and made a few stops, which were marked down, nowhere odd. A grocery store. A drug store. And a McDonalds. Eventually, they parked their car in a hotel lot reserved for beachgoers. They got out and walked down to the beach and left our team’s view.”

  Mark motioned for Angelo to get in their car as he continued the story.

  “Our agents followed them out to the beach, only a minute behind them, but the pair had disappeared. They searched the beach, but came up empty. Their car is still parked there, unlocked and empty. They were able to lift some prints off the handles unseen and sent the scans to the lab, but no one has returned to claim the car yet. They called it in twenty minutes ago. They must’ve been seen.”

  Mark turned the ignition key and felt the familiar rumble and purr of the powerful engine. He had calmed down some from his initial anger, but he couldn’t believe how easily his agents were made and given the slip. He eased the car around in a u-turn and began to speed away.

  “Well, maybe they’ll come back for the car later.” Angelo interjected optimistically as they hit the blacktop for the main road.

  “No, they won’t. They tagged us somehow and abandoned the vehicle.” He thought for a second as he sped down the road. “Arrange to have the car towed and impounded. We’ll have a team go over it. Have Wilkinson recall the second surveillance team for a debriefing.”

  Angelo felt the frustration from his partner and empathized with him. For six weeks, they had come up against brick wall after brick wall with more questions than answers. Now they had squandered two good leads in the space of a few hours.

  “Well,” he spoke up in the uncomfortable silence of the car, trying to find a positive spin on the day, “at least we have pictures of them now.”

  Chapter 16 – Catching the Scent

  Fitzsimmons and Rodriguez drove back to the rented condo in silence. Neither of them wanted to voice the aggravation that they both felt. Evening had fallen and night was covering the land in shadow.

  The four field agents returned to the fold and finished their debrief. CSU had scoured the cabin and collected everything there was to collect. Chinese food was ordered and eaten
, but conversation was sparse. By midnight, the house was quiet. Only Mark seemed to have trouble settling from the events of the day.

  He spent a restless night on the living room couch, giving Angelo the bedroom to himself. The others had retired hours ago, yet he continued to toss and turn in his unsuccessful bid for sleep. Trying to calm his racing mind, he had gotten up and looked over the giant wall map, trying to jog anything he could from the information there. Frustrated, he’d lay back down on the plush cushions. When he did finally doze off, it only lasted a few hours.

  By the time the eastern sky began to lighten, he stopped trying to get any rest. The clock on the microwave read 5:34 as he moved quietly through the kitchen, making coffee. Not long after, the strong smell of brew permeated the house and coaxed Angelo out from the bedroom. They exchanged few pleasantries since neither man was much for mornings.

  With coffee in hand, Mark meandered out through the patio doors on the far end of the living room. There, he leaned against the railing and watched the sun begin its rise into the sky. The day always began so simply, so innocently, so cleanly and peacefully. It was nice to remind himself of that before he became mired in what the day brought. Somehow he knew that today was going to be chin high in it.

  After copious amounts of coffee and a hot shower, he had finished some paperwork, answered his email and checked in with the director. By that time, they day had begun to stir to life as had the agents in residence. The quiet he had enjoyed was replaced with conversation and the rustle of seven more people moving around.

  Mark allowed everyone an hour to ease into the day before he put on his agent’s hat and handed out assignments. They quickly found that their boss could be a taskmaster.

  The first field team would continue the search grids for abandoned houses. He and Angelo with the second team would split the surrounding areas nearest to the abandoned car into sections and begin canvassing the area with pictures of the suspects. Mark chose the middle section for himself and his partner, the most populous, which included most of Inlet Cove’s residences and its downtown district.

  Deciding that their more formal attire would be more authoritative, Mark and Angelo took off for Inlet Cove at around ten. They parked the sedan on a side street and took to the sidewalks for a building by building search. By 10:30, amidst the rising temperature and stifling humidity, both agents had begun to regret their clothing decision.

  As the sun beat down on them ferociously, they began to feel the sweat trickle down their backs and the front of their chests. Their clean white shirts stuck to them like a second skin. Their only reprieve was when they were invited into a residence or business and its air conditioned interior, but that was a rare occurrence. They were finding that Inlet Cove was a very insular community and their black suits and Federal IDs didn’t exactly inure them to its residents.

  Their frustration began to simmer off of them like excess heat being reflected off the asphalt of the roads they crossed. The other team checked in hourly and by three o’clock, there hadn’t even been a hint of recognition from any of the town’s residents. Mark decided then that he and Angelo would hit the shops on the main drag before recalling the teams and regrouping.

  Leaving their sedan parked on the side street in the shade, the two agents walked the remaining block to the center of town. Starting at the barber shop, they worked their way down to the pharmacy, the hardware supply store and two realtor offices.

  Picking up some bottled water at the ice cream parlor, they continued their trek down three blocks of businesses and began working their way down the other side of the street.

  Their trek was still yielding no results, but, at least, Mark thought, they were inside with air conditioning some of the time. And the business owners that they spoke to were more congenial than the bored housewives had been. Still, he felt clammy and dirty as if he had just gotten out of the gym and all he wanted to do was get into the shower.

  As they came out of Betty’s Boutiques, the last store on the drag, still unsuccessful, Mark Fitzsimmons could almost imagine the cool water of the shower rinsing the grime away. Before he could cross back over the street and head back to the car, he felt a nudge on his arm.

  “Missed one.” The deep, accented voice said beside him and he looked in the direction that Angelo was pointing. Halfway down the block, he could see the red and white awning stretched over the sidewalk. “Looks like a restaurant.”

  With heavy feet, both men began the short walk down the block, both eager to finish the day and begin planning for tomorrow.

  Just one more to go.

  They found the door locked, but people were bustling about inside. Standing in the shadow underneath the red and white canopy, Angelo rapped loudly on the glass of the door, reading Panucci’s in dark letters with their hours of operation listed under it. The clear glass rattled loudly in its metal frame, shockingly loud amidst the still summer air.

  A blond girl inside looked up annoyingly at the interruption and mouthed the words ‘We’re closed’ at the pair. She turned back to setting up her tables, effectively ignoring the two men in dark suits at the door. Angelo laughed a little and rapped on the glass again. This time, it was followed by his badge being pressed up against the glass.

  “Let’s see if she pays attention to us now.” The girl looked up angrily at the insistent disturbance and the agents watched as her jaw dropped and her eyes widened comically at the sight of the badge. A sudden look of fear dominated her features and she hurried over to the door, twisting the locks and deadbolt.

  She opened the door of the restaurant and stepped aside as Mark and Angelo walked into the smell of freshly baked bread, simmering sauces and seasonings. The chill of the overworked air conditioner swept over them, cooling the sweat that had accumulated on them.

  “Can I help you, officers?” Angelo looked down at the nametag on the girl’s amply stretched shirt. His gaze lingered a bit longer than necessary and threatened to become a leer, but the girl didn’t seem to mind.

  “Maybe, Charlene. Do you recognize any of these people?” He laid three pictures out on one of the checkered tablecloths. Charlene looked at the federal officers warily and then bent down to scrutinize the photographs.

  Pointing at the slightly grainy picture of the bulky man and the photo of their John Doe victim, she commented, “This guy I’ve never seen before. Or this one.”

  But there was a definite look of recognition when she looked at the third one. Her eyes twitched as she looked upon the picture of the younger suspect and she started biting her bottom lip nervously. Mark immediately picked up on her change of expression and asked her, “This one you know?”

  He could see her expression change to one of uncertainty and he had to seize the moment before she decided to hide what she knew.

  “Miss, just so you know, if you withhold any information, if you know this boy and don’t tell us, you would be obstructing a federal investigation. Depending on the outcome, you could be serving a very long jail term.” Playing the prison card almost always got a confession out of the younger ones, who didn’t have the experience to demand a lawyer. And, as he predicted, she folded like a house of cards.

  “This guy was in here the other night.” Her lips quivered a bit and her voice had lost some of its volume and brashness. Charlene’s meticulously manicured, ruby red fingernail tapped the last picture.

  “What was he doing?” Mark’s voice took on his authoritative tone, hoping to push back the young girl’s fear and reassure her at the same time. “Remember, you haven’t done anything wrong. We just want to know who this guy is and ask him a few questions. No one is in trouble.”

  Charlene’s eyes looked up from the picture, still unsure as to what was going on, but certain that she didn’t want to go to jail. “He was in here with a girl. They were on a date, I think. I waited on them. I don’t know his name and he paid his bill in cash, which was weird. Most everyone pays by credit card in here.”

  “
He was here on a date?” Not something a terrorist would stop to do unless it was a contact. “Do you know who she was?”

  “I think her name is Dylan, Dylan Roberts, but I might be wrong. She was a couple of years behind me at Beach Side High. She’d probably be a junior or senior now.”

  OK. What kind of contact goes to high school? Maybe he’s scoping out his next experiment?

  “You say they were here on a date?”

  “That’s what it seemed to be.”

  The girl was keeping her answers short. Mark didn’t think she was hiding anything necessarily, but she wasn’t volunteering anymore than she had to. He’d have to pull more out of her.

  “How do you know they were on a date?”

  “They were acting like it. Talking about stupid stuff. Holding hands. Sharing a pizza. You know, date stuff.”

  “What were they talking about?” Angelo asked her.

  “Well, I wasn’t exactly sitting down with them, but they were telling stories about their childhood. He was asking her questions about her favorite things: colors, flowers, stuff like that.”

  “Do you recall any other parts of the conversation?”

  “Nothing specific. I was kinda busy with the dinner rush.”

  “Could you give us a description of her?” Angelo interceded. The young waitress began to rattle off a list of physical cues, which the agent wrote down.

  Mark and Angelo looked at each other and smiled. Finally, a workable lead, something they could use to find these men and bring them in for questioning. He looked at his notebook and the name he had jotted down ‘Dylan Roberts’ as well as the high school and physical description. He wrote down 16-18 and circled it. Dylan was a unique name for a girl. There couldn’t be that many of them if the last name was wrong.

  “Anything else you remember?”

  “No. Not really.”

  “Well, if you do remember something more or see either of them, please give us a call.” Angelo reached into his pocket and withdrew a small white business card and handed it to her. They thanked her for her assistance and left the flustered waitress to finish her opening sidework. As soon as they emerged back into the blistering heat, Mark’s cell phone was out and he was barking orders into it.