The Dark Trail

by J. C. Fields

  “Sean?”

  He took his eyes off the phone and looked at her.

  “What happens if you don’t solve this before you have to retire?”

  Returning his attention to the cell phone, he said, “That’s not going to happen.”

  She placed her hand on his arm. “I understand how you feel—”

  “I can’t think that way, Stephanie.” He shot her a glare. “I…” He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and shook his head.

  “Sean, you’re putting too much pressure on yourself.”

  With a harsh tone, he said, “Well, who the hell else is going to get it done?”

  She smiled. “Last I knew, about fourteen thousand other special agents who work for the FBI.”

  He stared at her and blinked several times. After a while he chuckled. “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “Allowing me to see how absurd I’m acting.”

  “That’s what a wife is for, to point out when her husband is being absurd.” She chuckled as well.

  “To be honest with you, I don’t know what I will do if I have to retire before we find Alan’s killer.” He raised his hands and dry rubbed his face. “All I know is I have to try before I do.”

  “Now that’s the Sean Kruger I fell in love with.”

  He patted her hand and leaned back in the uncomfortable seat. “Jimmie’s going to San Jose, California tomorrow and Sandy to Atlanta. I’m hoping they learn enough to give JR a direction. At least that’s the plan.”

  She nodded. “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to dig into Alan’s old case files before he went into management. Something from his past may have sparked his behind-the-scenes investigation. Possibly something he left undone and couldn’t get off his mind.” He paused. “There’s a reason he started looking into cold cases again.”

  “Alan went into management a long time ago, Sean. How far back do you think this goes?”

  “Not sure—the cold cases he identified only go back five years. That’s why I want to look at his old cases.” He paused. “Maybe something’s there.”

  She started to reply, but a sudden announcement for their flight interrupted her.

  ***

  The next morning, Kruger was in his office before sunrise accessing case files on his laptop from the bureau archives.

  Stephanie appeared at the door to his home office with a cup of coffee in her hand. “Did you forget you made coffee?”

  He looked up, blinked a few times and gave her a slight smile. “Apparently I did. Is that one mine?”

  She nodded and placed it on his desk. “Any luck?”

  “Not yet. I thought I would start with his unsolved cases. He didn’t have that many, so it won’t take too long to go through them.”

  “What if it wasn’t an unsolved case? What then?”

  He took a sip of coffee. “It’s possible. Hell, Steph, I’m not even sure what I’m looking for. It could have been something he ran across recently. He hasn’t been out in the field for fifteen years.”

  “So, you’re basically looking for a needle in a haystack.”

  Kruger studied the black liquid in his mug. “I have to start somewhere.”

  “What about his notes?”

  With a shake of his head, he said, “We went through them very carefully. None of us found a reference to why he started looking at these specific cases. Alan’s investigative notes were always precise, succinct and written in non-literary prose. His conclusions were based on logic without speculation.”

  “So, in other words, he didn’t include opinions.”

  “Only on rare occasions.”

  “Then look for the rare occasion.”

  With his coffee halfway to his lips, he stopped and stared at his wife. A grin appeared and he took a sip. “That is an excellent idea.”

  After helping Stephanie get the kids fed and dressed for their day, he returned to his office and started reviewing the downloaded files. The house was quiet with the kids in school and Stephanie at the university. It was mid-morning when he found the first hint of why Alan Seltzer had started looking at the cold cases that led to his murder.

  ***

  Kruger parked his gun-metal gray Ford Mustang GT in an angled slot in front of a nondescript brick two-story office building on the southwest side of Springfield. The time approached noon and the surrounding area was busy with pedestrian and automobile traffic.

  Kruger exited the car and stood on the sidewalk in front of the building taking in the surroundings. On the west side stood a high-end restaurant and to the east, an office with the names of four lawyers. Across the street was an urgent care facility and an expensive-looking daycare center.

  Walking through the front door, he waved at the receptionist and headed toward the staircase leading to the second floor. At the top, the din of multiple one-sided conversations from the cubicle farm assaulted his senses. Kruger frowned. Normally, the sound of JR’s technical staff discussing computer problems with clients did not reach this level of intensity.

  He worked his way around the outside wall toward JR’s personal cubicle next to a soundproof conference room. As he approached, JR pointed toward a chair next to him.

  As he sat, Kruger said, “What’s all the commotion about?”

  “We had an influx of new clients while I was in DC.” He gestured toward the room. “This is the result.”

  “Any particular reason?”

  “Yeah. Let’s go into the conference room, I’ll explain.”

  Before entering the room, Kruger filled a cup at the coffee service next to JR’s cubicle. When he shut the door, the sudden quiet lay in stark contrast to the commotion outside. After a sip of the brew, he asked, “Do I need to come back when you aren’t so busy?”

  JR shook his head. “Alexia is handling it. What’ve you got?”

  Kruger handed JR a small flash drive. As he watched the computer genius insert the device into a laptop and access the files, he asked, “So, why all the new clients?”

  JR looked up and pushed his rimless glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Remember when we first met, I was dealing with Abel Pymel by myself?”

  Kruger nodded.

  “I wrote a rather nasty computer virus I planned to use on his company’s computer system. I can’t remember the reason, but I decided not to let it into the wild, never used it and completely forgot about it.”

  “There’s a however in there somewhere.”

  “Yeah—there is. That virus is now on the internet infecting computers. How it got there is the question I’ve been trying to answer all morning.”

  “Maybe someone else wrote it.”

  “Nope.” JR shook his head. “It’s mine. I’ve been looking at the code all morning and it’s exactly like I wrote it eight years ago.”

  “Huh.”

  “That’s what I said when Alexia brought it to my attention.”

  “That still didn’t answer my original question about why the influx of new clients.”

  “Word of mouth.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “I know. I don’t have an answer. Neither does Alexia.”

  “Any speculation?”

  “On the influx of clients, no. On the virus, we think someone got into our system during the DDS attack two years ago. Looked around, found the virus and stole it.”

  “Wouldn’t they have needed to know what to look for to find it?”

  JR shook his head. “Not if they already knew it was there.”

  “So, what are you saying, JR?”

  “I’m speculating here, but we know the Russians were behind the DDS attack, right?”

  “That’s what you told me.”

  “They were, trust me. It is also common knowledge that Russian hackers participate in dark web chatrooms all the time.”

  “Oh, boy. I’m not going to like this, am I?”

  “Probably not. I wrote the thing as an experiment
during the last few months I lived in New York. After I moved here and before I met you and Joseph, I rewrote it and made it even more malicious. It became more of a mental exercise in programming. I used it as a topic for discussions in dark web chatrooms on various occasions. What I’m thinking is I got careless at some point and a Russian hacker figured out who I was. Whoever that person was became involved with the DDS attack on my company two years ago and found the virus.”

  Kruger frowned. “You can’t be serious. You’re speculating.”

  “It’s the only explanation I can come up with.”

  “Are you saying your company is the only one getting all this new business?”

  JR shook his head and snorted. “I’m not that egotistical. No, I think someone figured out there’s a lot of money to be made and had the perfect tool to do so. Most companies just pay the ransom, get the encryption key and move on. Others don’t and probably spend more money fixing it than they would by just paying the ransom.”

  Kruger crossed his arms. “You’re making a lot of assumptions with few facts to base them on.”

  “Yes.”

  “Think about all the coincidences your assumptions involve.”

  JR smiled. “Kind of makes you crazy, doesn’t it?”

  His answer was a long hard stare.

  Chapter 9

  San Jose, California

  Jimmie Gibbs shook Rachel Lee’s hand. He noted a firm and calloused grip. Her appearance matched his expectations from their conversations on the phone. Short black hair, piercing dark almond-shaped eyes, a slender athletic body and an air of confidence.

  “Agent Gibbs, how can I be of assistance?” Her tone hinted at reserve and caution.

  “Thank you for agreeing to see me, Agent Lee. As I said on the phone, I’m on a taskforce looking into five unsolved murders here in the San Jose area.”

  Having driven separately, the two FBI agents met at the location where the college professor’s body had been discovered. Gibbs continued, “We believe all of these cold cases are related.”

  Lee nodded and referred to a Samsung tablet she carried. “I’ve reviewed my case notes from the one in Almaden Lake Park. Per your request, we checked with the four other municipalities and have their case notes also.” She looked up at Gibbs. “I suspected the same thing, but I don’t see a pattern here, Agent.”

  As they started walking toward the spot where Lee indicated the victim’s body had been found, he said, “Please call me, Jimmie.”

  She smiled and nodded. “I’m Rachel.” She pointed to a spot under a tall cottonwood tree. “Professor Ming was found there. No sign of a struggle and no blood. We believe she was killed elsewhere and dumped here.” She handed the tablet to Gibbs.

  He swiped the screen to change the pictures. “This report doesn’t mention a location for the murder. Any idea of where she was killed?”

  Lee shook her head. “Never determined. Some of us believe it was in the faculty parking lot at the university.”

  Gibbs raised his eyes from the tablet. “Why?”

  “She was last seen walking from her office on campus toward her car, which, by the way, has never been located.”

  “Huh.”

  “This was in between semesters in January. So, it gets dark around five o’clock here. Her partner filed a report with the San Jose police after she failed to return home after work. Something she never did.”

  With a nod, Gibbs said, “How long before the body was found?”

  “Local police got a call around nine that night about a body in the park.”

  He nodded again. “Why was the bureau called in?”

  “Because Professor Ming was of Chinese descent and gay, the SJPD declared it a hate crime and handed it over to us.”

  “In other words, they couldn’t figure it out and dumped it into the bureau’s lap.”

  “Pretty much.”

  Gibbs studied the tablet. “What about the other cases I told you about? Any similarities?”

  Lee shook her head. “None that jump out at me.”

  “What about the victims?”

  “Two females and three males.”

  “What about ethnicity?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You mentioned Professor Ming was Chinese—what about the others?”

  “I’m not sure. I didn’t look at that aspect of it. Let me see the tablet.”

  He handed it back and watched as she scrolled through the files. After five minutes she looked up at Gibbs. “One Chinese, one from South Korea, two from Japan and one from Vietnam, all from the Pacific Rim. All first generation born here or in the case of the victim from Vietnam, brought here as a child.”

  Gibbs nodded. “If you look at the time of the murders, they all occurred in between semesters or when a university had a break in classes.”

  She was rapidly swiping the screen. “Damn, you’re right.” She looked up at Gibbs. “What else?”

  “I doubt this information is in the files, but we think there is a connection between the five individuals. Probably a university.”

  She crossed her arms. “Come clean, Jimmie. What do you guys think is going on here?”

  “At the moment our premise is the suspect may be an academic and at one time worked for a college or university in the area. All of his victims are highly educated professionals and of similar ethnic background. We don’t know for sure, but we think all the victims have something in common. What that is, we don’t know yet. We also believe the suspect changes universities frequently.”

  “How the heck can you determine that?”

  He gave her a half smile. “As my boss calls it, old fashioned detective work. I start at San Jose State and get a list of professors who were only at the university during the time period of the murders.”

  “What if you don’t find anyone like that at San Jose State?”

  “Then I’ll have to check some of the other schools in the area.”

  “So, is all of this related to the murder of Deputy Director Seltzer?”

  Gibbs nodded.

  “Count me in. Our SAC told me to give you all the help you needed.”

  ***

  It took two days and a trip to twelve area colleges before they had a list of five possible suspects. Jimmie Gibbs stared at his notes while Rachel Lee drove him back to his hotel. She glanced at him. “What’s our next step?”

  “I’m not sure. I need to talk to Sean Kruger and get his ideas.”

  “What’s he like to work for?”

  Gibbs smiled. “Best boss I’ve ever had and that includes some excellent ones in the Navy.”

  “You were in the Navy?”

  He nodded. “Ten years.”

  “What’d you do?”

  He hesitated, not sure exactly how to answer. “Uh—special forces.”

  She glanced at him again with wide eyes. “You were a Navy Seal?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you know Gary Lee?”

  “Yeah, I did. Great guy. How do you know him?”

  “He was my brother.”

  “Was?” Gibbs paused. “What happened?”

  She stared ahead and just shook her head.

  “I’m sorry, Rachel. I didn’t know. When?”

  “Last summer. We were never told where he was when it happened.”

  Gibbs was quiet. Finally, all he could think to say was, “Yeah, that’s pretty standard.”

  Silence permeated the car’s interior as Rachel Lee navigated the afternoon traffic.

  When they pulled into the hotel parking lot, he turned to her. “I’d like to talk to Professor Ming’s partner. Do you think she would meet with us?”

  “I can ask. When do you want to do it?”

  “Tonight, or first thing in the morning. I’m flying home tomorrow afternoon.”

  Lee nodded. He stepped out of the car and as she drove away, he dialed Sean Kruger.

  “Kruger.”

  “Sean, it’s Jimmie.”

>   “Did you find anything?”

  “Maybe. We’ve identified five individuals who worked for area universities and were only here during the year and a half the murders occurred.”

  “Is there a way to check to see if there are any connections between those individuals and the victims?”

  “I want to talk to one of the victim’s partner before I head back. I’m curious to see if any of the names mean anything to her.”

  “That’s a good idea. Can you send the names to JR tonight?”

  “Yeah, I’m back at the hotel and will email them in a few minutes.”

  “When do you get back tomorrow?”

  “Very late.”

  “Yeah, I’ve made those flights from the west coast. Not fun. Let’s talk on Friday.”

  ***

  Gibbs followed Rachel Lee into the apartment once occupied by Professor Yuan Chen and the woman they were meeting. Maria Simms was petite in stature, mid-fifties with gray streaks in her dark brown hair. She was dressed professionally and Gibbs noticed a laptop sitting on the kitchen table.

  Lee introduced them. “Maria, this is Special Agent James Gibbs. He is looking into Yuan’s murder.”

  The small woman blinked several times and extended her hand. “It’s been four years, Agent. Why is the FBI suddenly interested?”

  “I’m not at liberty to discuss details at the moment, but I can tell you the case is being reopened.”

  Her eyebrows rose and she gave him a lopsided smile. “I’m an appellate court judge, agent. I can keep a secret.”

  Gibbs hesitated for a few moments and then gave her an overview. When he was done, she remained quiet for several moments. “I see. So, you don’t think it was random.”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Let me see the names of the other victims.”

  He handed her the list as she put on half-readers. She remained quiet as she studied the list. A frown appeared and she pointed to a name. “Nguyen Minh.”

  “How were they connected?”