Don't Look Away (Veronica Sloan)

by Leslie A. Kelly

  Shaking his head in bemusement, Daniels looked around the crime scene as well and whistled. “Sweet Jesus Christ in a catamaran, what a mess.”

  “Definitely.”

  “Want to wager a guess as to why you’n me seem to be the only ones looking ready to dive in? Where the hell’s the forensics team?”

  She had no idea. Strange. Very strange.

  “And where’s the blood? Doesn’t look like there’s enough for something so...drastic.”

  The question had already crossed Ronnie’s mind. Because in a scene with as much carnage as this one, she would have expected to see all six quarts of the woman’s blood puddled on the floor. But there wasn’t much, except small amounts pooled around each internal organ, limb or other unidentifiable body part, and thin lines of it spider-webbing across the cement floor.

  Another member of the Secret Service team, who’d been securing the perimeter, joined them right outside the yellow Crime Scene tape he’d just finished putting up. “It’s down there.”

  Glancing in the direction he pointed out, Ronnie spotted a rusty drain grate about eighteen inches from a large, sinew-covered mass. Then she blinked, because the grate couldn’t be rusty. The White House reconstruction had only begun eight months ago, after years of political fighting over the project. Some money-conscious lawmakers had wanted to raze the site and turn it into a garden of mourning since no president would ever be allowed to live in a publicly-accessible location like this one again. But a lot of the country wanted the building, whether the number one guy was going to live there or not. And they’d staged a national referendum to get it.

  Nice to know her fellow Americans had rediscovered their spines.

  “I assume that’s the victim’s blood making it look rusty?” she asked the man.

  He nodded. “Down the pipes it went. Under the ground.”

  They all thought the same thing. The spot under this ground was particularly damned.

  Daniels shook his head. “What kind of sick, twisted mind would think to do something like this? Here, of all places?”

  “Actually, a sick, twisted mind is about the only logical explanation I can come up with right now,” Ronnie said.

  Because it had to take one warped person to commit murder near the exact spot where the first explosions had rocked the White House that day.

  Now, after years of investigation and Congressional hearings, everyone knew how the deeply-imbedded terrorists had done it. That they had found a way to get below the sub-basement via maintenance access tunnels for the Metro system running around and beneath the National Mall. They’d been inside the damn walls, using the White House’s security and secret tunnel system. They’d had volunteers working on the construction of the controversial Deep Underground Command Center, which was supposed to make the president and the White House safer and had instead given access to prime bombing spots to the nation’s enemies.

  But back then? Well, nobody had conceived that several sleeper cells in existence since before even the 2001 attacks had been placing their people in the D.C. Metro Transit Authority, the park service, the food service. They’d been tour guides, construction workers, maintenance workers at major monuments and docents at national museums. They’d worked in the White House itself.

  And they had been patient. So very patient. Working, living normal lives, raising families. Yet still digging tunnels wide enough for a man with chemicals and explosives and detonators to crawl through, day after day, month after month. Building. Preparing. Stockpiling.

  God in heaven, she really was standing within feet of where the whole thing had started.

  “You Sloan?”

  Ronnie didn’t even have to see him to know she was finally being approached by a senior security officer. His you’re-pissing-in-my-soup tone said it all. Steeling herself to not fall into any power battles with another department, she turned to greet him. “Yes. And my partner, Detective Daniels.”

  She wasn’t sure if the Feds would make an issue over Daniels’s presence, since, according to the dispatcher, Ronnie had been the only one mentioned by name. But new nationwide regulations said officers in every branch were supposed to stick with a partner while on duty. Not only, unfortunately, to watch each other’s backs, but also to watch each other.

  One of the 10/20 terrorists had been a cop. Another had posed as one.

  The real cop had been the one in charge of taking out the Capitol Building but, thankfully, had screwed up and only wiped-out a men’s bathroom. The ineptitude of the terrorist-slash-D.C.P.D. officer, not to mention the Congress=toilet thing, had eventually made for some late-night talk show jokes...when America had started laughing again. Maybe sometime around 2019.

  “I’m Senior Special Agent Johansen. Thank you for coming.”

  “We would have been here sooner, but the traffic outside the gates was...well, you know.”

  He managed a nod that was somehow both reassuring and condescending at the same time. “It’s all right.”

  SSA Johansen was an agency man all the way. Fifty’ish, lean, with a closely-trimmed head of graying brown hair and hooded brown eyes. A pair of dark sunglasses rested on top of his head. If he had been wearing a black, conservatively cut suit, he’d have looked like a classic example of a Secret Service agent from pre-10/20. Instead, he was dressed just like the first two guys, only his clothes were navy instead of green.

  Ronnie would lay money he hated the uniform. The Secret Service Agents had squawked the loudest when the newly formed NDLE—National Department of Law Enforcement—had issued one of its first national regulations: no street clothes outside of undercover operations for any branch of law enforcement. The squawking hadn’t made a bit of difference since they’d no longer been able to use the argument that they needed to “blend in” to do their job protecting the president. Because the president was now surrounded by an entire squad of Marines whenever he so much as walked from his bed to his toilet. When he was in public, it was a platoon. So the S.S. had finally had to give up the dark-suit look and don uniforms just like every beat cop in the country.

  “Her name was Leanne Carr,” Johansen said, emotionless as he glanced down at a severed human foot. A little bit of pretty peach polish was visible through the smear of blood on the big toenail.

  “That much I’ve heard. And that’s about all.”

  “Construction worker found her today. Crews came in early to make up for the couple of days they missed because of the shut-down for yesterday’s events and a foreman found her.”

  Ronnie hoped the guy had not eaten breakfast first. Considering she didn’t see it anywhere on the floor, she figured he hadn’t.

  “She’s scattered across a ten yard area in this section of the basement. Nowhere else.” Frowning, he added, “At least, we don’t think so. We haven’t accounted for everything so far.”

  Remembering where Bailey had gone, Ronnie asked, “No chance of any undiscovered evidence in the room you’re using as a base of operations?”

  A small shake of his head told her it had been thoroughly swept. “We’re set up on the main floor, two levels above here. That floor’s further along, with a few offices already in use by the construction managers, project supervisors, and us. The doors were all still locked, the interiors untouched, completely clean.”

  All valid information. But not the information she wanted to know.

  “SSA Johansen,” she asked, needing to find out if her burgeoning suspicions were correct, “was I called in here because of a jurisdictional issue with the city? Because nobody’s entirely clear on who has jurisdiction over the unoccupied remains of the White House? Or was it for…another reason?”

  He didn’t respond for a moment, merely assessing her with a level stare, as if sizing up her age. Her experience. Her looks. She was used to the extra scrutiny, having met a lot of law enforcement officers who figured being a pretty cop with big tits meant she didn’t have a brain. So she said nothing, merely meeting his stare w
ith a cool one of her own until he was finished doing his sexist thing.

  Finally, his tone grudging, he admitted, “You’re the only O.E.P.I.S. investigator in the city.”

  Her heart, which had gone into standby mode while she waited for his response, started beating again. A surge of adrenaline burst through her, fueling every cell in her body with anticipation and excitement. If it wasn’t so damn morbid she’d want to kiss poor Leanne Carr’s bloody toes.

  But Ronnie kept her reaction to herself. She didn’t hint by as much as a quirk of her mouth that she was thrilled to finally get to work on a real O.E.P.I.S.—or Eye-Squad, as she and her fellow trainees had begun calling it—investigation. A murder, no less.

  “The initial scan of her I.D. chip flagged her as having gone through the optical implantation four months ago, which was why we immediately called you in. Our instructions were to leave the scene exactly as it was found until your arrival.”

  “That’s why the forensics people aren’t here?”

  “They’re waiting for you.” His tone was terse.

  Wonderful. Another reason for him to resent her presence.

  “Let them do their jobs, Agent Johansen,” she murmured. “Keeping other investigators out is not what O.E.P.I.S. is about.”

  No, it wasn’t. Securing the evidence wasn’t her job. Seeing the crime through the eyes of the witness, the perpetrator—or, in Leanne Carr’s case, the victim—was.

  SSA Johansen reached up and touched a button on the tiny radio attached to his collar. “Tell forensics they’re clear to proceed.”

  He had called for them just like that, at her say-so, which startled her. Ronnie had never fully believed the assurances that the O.E.P.I.S. investigators would take the lead in any case involving one of the program participants no matter what other agencies were involved. Neither had any of the other real cops she’d trained with out in Texas.

  Well, one had believed it, but he hadn’t been a cop. He’d been an FBI agent, and also the cockiest, most confident son of a bitch she’d ever met. She really wished she could forget about him—Special Agent Jeremy Sykes—but somehow, she’d just been unable to do it. The man had stuck in her mind the way a splinter might stick in her finger. Both left her irritated and wishing she could get them out from under her skin.

  She had to wonder if he’d worked his first O.E.P. murder investigation yet and hoped he hadn’t. She’d like to beat Sykes to the punch. They’d played a game of one-upsmanship from the moment they’d met…probably because they hadn’t been able to play the kind of games she suspected they both really wanted to play together.

  Johansen might have conceded the investigation for now, but he obviously didn’t like it. His mouth was pursed in a tight grimace as he continued. “The victim worked as the administrative assistant to the head of the Phoenix Group. They’re the ones overseeing all aspects of the reconstruction of the Mall.” He cleared his throat. “I mean...Patriot Square.”

  She understood his discomfort. This rah-rah-patriotism frenzy was sometimes tough to swallow. Ronnie was as patriotic as the next person, she just didn’t particularly want to strip naked and clothe herself in the stars and stripes.

  “So she had a sensitive position?”

  He nodded once. “Pretty high clearance.”

  “That makes sense,” she murmured. She turned to Daniels. “Every person approached and asked to participate in the second phase of testing of the Optical Evidence Program had to have a high-level security clearance.”

  “Yeah, I know,” he said with a wry grin, silently reminding her he knew better than most. “I’ve always wondered how smart that was. People privy to a lot of secrets would make really tempting targets if the bad guys ever found out about this program.”

  Frankly, Ronnie had thought the same thing when she’d heard. “Yeah, but they wanted the testing kept hush-hush and half of those they asked turned them down.”

  “But half said yes,” Daniels said, sounding thoughtful.

  Yes, they had said yes. And that surprised her most of all.

  Every person approached had been made fully aware of the risks, including the big one: The O.E.P. device was sycophantic to the optic nerve. Device and nerve were inextricably bound together—they had to be for the device to function properly. Meaning, if the camera ever had to be removed, it would be nearly impossible to do it without causing permanent damage to sensitive tissues. Blindness in one eye was a near certainty. There was a good chance of losing vision in both.

  Five-thousand people had done it, anyway, lured not by their interest in the progression of science—ha—but by the staggering amount of money the U.S. government offered.

  Of those who had said no, their security clearances meant they wouldn’t talk about the invitation. The government hadn’t wanted anybody whispering about the new technology, which sounded at best like a science fiction story and at worst like a really scary version of Big Brother.

  Christ, if the civil rights guys had ranted about Americans getting simple little I.D. chips implanted in their arms, they would lose their minds over the thought of cameras being inserted into test subjects’ brains.

  Of course, the first set of test subjects probably wouldn’t have caused too much of a fuss. Phase One, begun the year after the 2017 attack—A.D.C. in street terms—had involved a different type of lab rat. So nobody had really cared whether they could keep their mouths shut; it wasn’t like there was anybody for them to tell.

  Now, though, that the program was being tested on five-thousand normal, average adults out there living normal, average lives, ensuring they wouldn’t talk about the tiny devices inside their heads was a pretty big necessity. Not only for security. But also because it could seriously freak the shit out of people.

  “Have you worked many of these cases so far, Detective?” Johansen asked, his chin stiff, as if he found the subject distasteful.

  “Several.”

  During her training. Not in the field. In the real world, she had worked exactly zero.

  The agent’s brow lifted. “I didn’t know there were several cases in the metro area involving people who are part of this...experiment.”

  Smiling humorlessly, Ronnie admitted, “Several death-row inmates were involved with the beta testing.”

  That finished the man’s questions and he nodded once, then shut his mouth. Funny, people always reacted one of two ways when they thought about what she did. Either being awed and asking a million morbid questions. Or deciding she was a ghoul and not wanting to know a single thing.

  “Hot damn, Ron, this is it. And what a place to start. It’s like winning the murder lottery.”

  Daniels was one of the awed ones.

  “I don’t suppose Leanne Carr would consider herself a jackpot,” Ronnie murmured, letting her tone convey her unspoken message to her partner. Daniels was a great detective, fearless, street smart, with ingrained cop instincts that always led him to conclusions others struggled to reach. But oh, the man lacked tact.

  “No. Not a jackpot,” Daniels said, sounding suitably contrite. “Just another poor victim of what has to be the ungodliest spot on the face of the earth.”

  Amen to that.

  All of them shifted their gazes down to the floor. Silence descended for a long moment. Then her partner, ever the pragmatic, cleared his throat.

  “Yes?” Johansen asked.

  Daniels frowned before asking the question that had been flitting around the back of Ronnie’s brain for the past several minutes. The one she hadn’t pulled into focus until he started speaking.

  “Uh, when you say you haven’t ‘accounted’ for everything, does that mean something’s missing?” Shrugging and giving one of his disarming I’m-just-a-dumb-good-old-boy looks, Daniels added, “Because, call me crazy, but I’m looking all over this place and there’s something I’m just not seein’.”

  A slow flush of color rose up Johansen’s face, an incongruous splash of pink on the implacable agent’s
cheeks. He cleared his throat. Shifted foot to foot. Looked more and more uncomfortable.

  Her partner, meanwhile, just crossed his arms and smiled. Ronnie knew what he was getting at before he continued. But his statement made it all the more real. All the more awful.

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, Johansen, but, let me take a wild guess here,” Daniels said. “One of the parts you guys haven’t been able to find yet, is it by any chance the part above the shoulders?”

  The agent cleared his throat. A fine line of sweat appeared just above his top lip, though the basement air was cool and moist. Nastily moist. “That is correct.”

  And just like that, Ronnie’s worst fears, which she had been shoving away for the past ten minutes, were fully realized.

  So much for her first O.E.P.I.S. case.

  Because it was going to be pretty hard to evaluate the data on a microchip implanted in Leanne Carr’s brain if they couldn’t find her head.

  Chapter 3

  It was not always easy being thought of as the modern-day equivalent of the Nazi doctor Joseph Mengele. Phineas Tate had made that realization six years ago when he had won international fame—and infamy—for either being the savior of mankind, or the instrument of its inevitable destruction. Or both.

  Melodrama, that’s what he had always thought of the controversy. Still, sparking an international debate had been quite a feat for a seventy-year-old scientist who’d been working in relative obscurity at Virginia Tech for most of his adult life.

  “And if you had known, would you have done things any differently?” he asked aloud, speaking to himself as he often did these days. After all, who better since so few understood the workings of his brain?

  Would he rewrite his own past? It was something he pondered on occasion when in a contemplative mood. But not for long, because, at the end of the day, he hadn’t known—couldn’t have known—what would happen. There was therefore no gain in considering the matter.