“L.A. is considered a plum assignment for a new agent right out of the Academy,” Mr. Petty said as he flipped through her personnel file. “You originally requested Headquarters, I see here, the Criminal Investigative Division, but they decided to send you to Los Angeles.” He looked up at her over his bifocals. “You have a B.S. in Forensic Science and a Master’s degree in Criminal Psychology from Berkeley,” he continued. “Seems you’ve got a real interest here. Why didn’t you request the Investigative Services Unit? With your background, you would probably have been escorted through the door. I take it you changed your mind?”
She knew there were notes about that in her file. Why was he acting as if he didn’t know anything? Of course. He wanted her to talk, get her slant on things, get her innermost thoughts. Good luck to him on that, she thought. It was true it was her own fault that she was being assigned to Los Angeles and there was no secret as to why.
She forced a smile and shrugged. “The fact is I don’t have the guts to do what those people do every day of their lives and probably in their dreams as well. You’re right that I prepared myself for this career, that I believed it was what I wanted to do with my life, but—” She shrugged again. And swallowed. She’d spent all these years preparing herself, and she’d failed. “It all boils down to no guts.”
“You always wanted to be a Profiler?”
“Yes. I read John Douglas’s book Mindhunter and thought that’s what I wanted to do. Actually I’ve been interested in law enforcement for a very long time, thus my major in college and graduate school.” It was a lie, but that didn’t matter. She told it easily, with no hesitation. She had practically come to believe it herself over the past several years. “I wanted to help get those monsters out of society. But after the lectures by people from ISU, after seeing what they see on a day-to-day basis for just a week, I knew I wouldn’t be able to deal with the horror of it. The Profilers see unspeakable butchery. They live with the results of it. Every one of those monsters leaves a deep mark on them. And the victims, the victims…” She drew a deep breath. “I knew I couldn’t do it.” So now she’d go after bank robbers and he would remain free and she wanted to cry. All this time and commitment and incredibly hard work, and she was going to go after bank robbers. She should have quit, but the truth of the matter was that she didn’t have the energy to redefine herself again, and that’s what it would mean.
Mr. Petty said only, “I couldn’t either. Most folks couldn’t. The burnout rate is incredible in the unit. Marriages don’t do well either. Now, you did excellently at the Academy. You handle firearms well, particularly in mid-distances, you excel at self-defense, you ran the two miles in under sixteen minutes, and your situation judgment was well above average. There’s a little footnote here that says you managed to take down Dillon Savich in a Hogan’s Alley exercise, something never before done by a trainee.” He looked up, his eyebrows raised. “Is that true?”
She remembered her rage when he’d disarmed her twice. Then, just as suddenly, she remembered her laughter when he’d walked away, his boxer shorts showing through the big rip in his pants. “Yes,” she said, “but it was my partner, Porter Forge, who threw me his SIG so I could shoot him. Otherwise I would have died in the line of duty.”
“But it was Dillon who bought the big one,” Petty said. “I wish I could have seen it.” He gave her the most gleeful grin she’d ever seen. Even that bushy mustache of his couldn’t hide it. It was irresistible. It made him suddenly very human.
“It also says that you pulled a Lady Colt .38 on him after he’d knocked the SIG out of your hand. Do you still have this gun?”
“Yes, sir. I learned to use it when I was nineteen. I’m very comfortable with it.”
“I suppose we can all live with that. Ah, I know everyone must comment on your name, Agent Sherlock.”
“Oh yes, sir. No stone left unturned, so to speak, over the years. I’m used to it now.”
“Then I won’t say anything about offering you a pipe.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Let me tell you about your new assignment, Agent Sherlock,” Petty said, and she thought, because I don’t have any guts, I’m going to be catching jerks who rob banks. He continued, “The criminal you brought down in Hogan’s Alley, namely, Dillon Savich, has asked that you be reassigned to his unit.”
Her heart started pounding. “Here in Washington?”
“Yes.”
In one of those huge rooms filled with computers? Oh God, no. She’d rather have bank robbers. She didn’t want to play with computers. She was competent with computer programming, but she was far from an intuitive genius like Savich. The stories about what he could do with a computer were told and retold at the Academy. He was a legend. She couldn’t imagine working for a legend. On the other hand, wouldn’t he have access to everything? Just maybe—“What is his unit?”
“It’s the Criminal Apprehension Unit, or CAU for short. They work with the Investigative Services Unit for background and profiles, get their take on things, that sort of thing. Then they deal directly with local authorities when a criminal takes his show on the road—in other words, when a criminal goes from one state to another. Agent Savich has developed a different approach for apprehending criminals. I’ll let him tell you about it. You will be using your academic qualifications, Agent Sherlock. We do try to match up agents’ interests and areas of expertise with their assignments. Although you might have seriously doubted that if you’d gotten sent to Los Angeles.”
She wanted to leap over the desk and hug Mr. Petty. She couldn’t speak for a moment. She’d thought she’d doomed herself after she’d realized she simply couldn’t survive in the ISU as a Profiler. The week she’d spent there had left her so ill she’d endured the old nightmares in blazing, hideous color for well over a week, replete with all the terror, as fresh as it had been seven years before. She just knew, deep down, that she could have never gotten used to it, and the ISU people did admit that many folks couldn’t ever deal with it, no matter how hard they tried. No, she wouldn’t have been able to survive it, not with the horror of the job combined with the horror of the nightmares.
But now, she felt an incredible surge of excitement. She hadn’t known about Savich’s unit, which was strange because there was always gossip about everything and everyone at the Academy. And this sort of unit would provide her with an ideal vantage point. At the very least, she would be able to access all the files, all the collected data impossible for her to see otherwise. And no one would wonder at her curiosity, not if she was careful. Oh yes, and she would have free time. She closed her eyes with relief.
She’d never felt as though anyone was looking after her before. It was frightening because she hadn’t believed in much of anything since that long ago night seven years ago. She’d had a goal, nothing more, just that goal. And now she had a real chance at realizing it.
“Now, it’s two-twenty,” Mr. Petty said. “Agent Savich wants to see you in ten minutes. I hope you can deal with this work. It’s not profiling, but I don’t doubt that it will be difficult at times, depending on the case and how intimately involved you have to become in it. At least you won’t be six floors down at Quantico working in a bomb shelter with no windows.”
“The people in the ISU deserve a big raise.”
“And lots more help as well, which is one of the reasons Agent Savich’s unit was formed. Now, I’ll let him tell you all about it. Then you can make a decision.”
“May I ask, sir, why Agent Savich requested me?”
There was that unholy grin again. “I think he really can’t believe that you beat him, Agent Sherlock. Actually, you will have to ask him that.”
He rose and walked her to the door of his small office. “I’m joking, of course. The Unit is three turns down this hallway and to the right. Turn left after another four doors and two conference rooms. It’s just there on the left. Are you getting used to the Puzzle Palace?”
“No, sir
. This place is a maze.”
“It’s got more than two million square feet. It boggles a normal mind. I still get lost, and my wife tells me I’m not all that normal. Give yourself another ten years, Agent Sherlock.”
Mr. Petty shook her hand. “Welcome to the Bureau. I hope you find your work rewarding. Ah, did anyone ever refer to a tweed hat?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Sorry, Agent Sherlock.”
It was hard not to run out the door of his office. She didn’t even stop at the women’s room.
SAVICH looked up. “You found me in ten minutes,” he said, looking down at his Mickey Mouse wristwatch. “That’s good, Sherlock. I understand from Colin Petty that you’re wondering why I had you reassigned to my unit.”
He was wearing a white shirt rolled up to his elbows, a navy blue tie, and navy slacks. A navy blazer was hanging on a coatrack in the corner of his office. He rose slowly from behind his desk as he spoke. He was big, at least six two, dark, and very muscular. In addition to the martial arts, he clearly worked out regularly. She’d heard some of the trainees call him a regular he-man, not a G-man. She knew just how strong and fast he was, since he’d worked her over in that Hogan’s Alley exercise. Her stomach had hurt for three days after that head butt. If she didn’t know he was an agent, she would have been terrified of him. He looked hard as nails. He was patiently looking at her. What had he been talking about? Oh yes, why he’d wanted her reassigned to this unit.
She smiled and said, “Yes, sir.”
Savich came around his desk and shook her hand. “Sit down and we can discuss it.”
There were two chairs facing his desk, clearly FBI issue. On top of the desk was an FBI-issue computer. Beside it was a laptop that was open and humming, definitely not FBI issue. It was slightly slanted toward her, and she could see the green print on the black background, a graph of some kind. Was this little computer the one she’d heard everyone say that Savich made dance?
“Coffee?”
She shook her head.
“Do you know much about computers, Sherlock?” Just Sherlock, no agent in front of it. It sounded fine to her. He was looking at her expectantly. She hated to disappoint him, but there was no choice.
“Not all that much, sir, just enough so I can write reports and hook into the databases I will need to do my job.”
To her unspeakable relief, he smiled. “Good, I wouldn’t want any real competition in my own unit. I hear you had wanted to be a Profiler but ultimately felt you couldn’t deal with the atrocities that flood the unit every moment of every day and well into the night.”
“That’s right. How did you know that? I just left Mr. Petty less than fifteen minutes ago.”
“No telepathy.” He pointed to the phone. “It comes in handy, though I much prefer e-mail. I agree with you, actually. I couldn’t do it either. The burnout rate for Profilers is pretty high, as I’m sure you’ve heard. Since they spend so much time focusing on the worst in humanity, they wind up having a difficult time relating to regular folks. They lose perspective on normal life. They don’t know their kids. Their marriages go under.”
She sat forward a bit in her seat, smoothing her navy blue skirt as she said, “I spent a week with them. I know I saw only a small part of what they do. That’s when I knew I didn’t have what it took. I felt as if I’d failed.”
“What any endeavor takes, Sherlock, is a whole lot of different talents. Because you don’t end up profiling doesn’t mean you’ve failed. Actually, I think what we do leaves us more on the normal side of things than not.
“Now, I asked to have you assigned to me because academically you appear to have what I need. Your academic credentials are impressive. I did wonder, though. Why did you take off a year between your sophomore and junior years of college?”
“I was sick. Mononucleosis.”
“Okay, yes, here’s an entry about that. I don’t know why I missed it.” She watched him flip through more pages, watched his dark eyes scan the page. He hadn’t missed it. She couldn’t imagine he’d ever miss a thing. She would have to be careful around him. He read quickly. He frowned once. He looked up at her. “I didn’t think mono took a person out for a whole year.”
“I don’t know about that. I just wasn’t worth much for about nine or ten months, run-down, really tired.”
He looked down at a page of paper that was faceup on his desktop. “You just turned twenty-seven, I see, and you came directly to the Bureau after completing your Master’s degree.”
“Yes.”
“This is your first job.”
“Yes.” She knew he wanted more from her in the way of answers, but she wasn’t about to comply. Direct question, direct answer; that’s all she’d give him. She’d heard about his reputation. He wasn’t only smart; he was very good at reading people. She didn’t want him reading anything about her that she didn’t want read. She was very used to being careful. She wouldn’t stop now. She couldn’t afford to.
He was frowning at her. He tossed her file onto the desktop. She was wearing a no-nonsense dark blue business suit with a white blouse. Her curly red hair was pulled severely back, held at the base of her neck with a gold clamp. He saw her for a moment after he’d butted her into the petunias in Hogan’s Alley. Her hair had been drawn back then, but curls had pulled loose and corkscrewed around her face. She was on the point of being too thin, her cheekbones too prominent. But she’d taken him, not lost her composure, her training. He said, “Do you know what this unit does, Sherlock?”
“Mr. Petty said when a criminal takes his show on the road, we’re many times called in by the local police to help catch him.”
“Yes. We don’t deal in kidnappings. Other folk do that brilliantly. No, primarily we stick to the kinds of monsters who don’t stop killing until we stop them. Also, like the ISU, we do deal with local agencies who think an outside eye might see something they missed on a local crime. Usually homicide.” He paused and sat back, just looking at her, seeing her yet again on her back in the petunia bed. “Also, like the ISU, we only go in when we’re asked. It’s our job to be very mental, intuitive, objective. We don’t do profiling like the ISU. We’re computer-based. We use special programs to help us look at crimes from many different angles. The programs correlate all the data from two or more crimes that seem to have been committed by the same person in order to bring everything possibly relevant, possibly important, into focus. We call the main program the PAP, the Predictive Analogue Program.”
“You wrote the programs, didn’t you, sir? And that’s why you’re the head of the unit?”
He grinned at her. “Yeah. I’d been working on prototypes a long time before the unit got started. I like catching the guys who prey on society and, truth be told, the computer, as far as I’m concerned, is the best tool to take them out. But that’s all it is, Sherlock, a tool. It can turn up patterns, weird correlations, but we have to put the data in there in order to get the patterns. Then of course we have to see the patterns and read them correctly. It comes down to how we look at the possible outcomes and alternatives the computer gives us; it’s how we decide what data we plug into it. You’ll see that PAP has an amazing number of protocols. One of my people will teach you the program. With luck, your academic background in forensics and psychology will enable you to come up with more parameters, more protocols, more ways of sniffing out pertinent data and correlating information to look at crimes in different ways, all with the goal of catching the criminals.”
She wanted to sign on the dotted line right that minute. She wanted to learn everything in the next five minutes. She wanted, most of all, to ask him when she could have access to everything he did. She managed to keep her mouth shut.
“We do a lot of traveling, Sherlock, often at a moment’s notice. It’s gotten heavier as more and more cops hear about us and want to see what our analysis has to offer. What kind of home life do you have? I see you’re not married, but do you have a boyfriend? Someone you
are used to spending time with?”
“No.”
He felt as if he were trying to open a can with his fingernails. “Would you like to have your lawyer present?”
She blinked at that. “I don’t understand, sir.”
“You are short on words, Sherlock. I was being facetious.”
“I’m sorry if you don’t think I’m talking enough, sir.”
He wanted to tell her she’d talk all he wanted her to soon enough. He was good. Actually, he was better with a computer, but he could also loosen a tongue with the best of them in the Bureau. But for now he’d play it her way. Nothing but the facts. He said, “You don’t live with anyone?”
“No, sir.”
“Where do you live, Agent Sherlock?”
“Nowhere at the moment, sir. I thought I was being assigned to Los Angeles. Since I’ll be staying in Washington I’ll have to find an apartment.”
Three sentences. She was getting positively chatty.
“We’ll be able to help you on that. Do you have stuff in storage?”
“Not much, sir.”
There was a faint beep. “Just a moment,” Savich said and looked at the computer screen on his laptop. He rubbed his jaw as he read. Then he typed quickly, looked at the screen, tapped his fingertips on the desktop, then nodded. He looked up at her. He was grinning like a maniac. “E-mail. Finally, finally, we’re going to have a chance to catch the Toaster.”
FOUR
Savich looked as if he wanted to jump on his desk and dance. He couldn’t stop grinning and rubbing his hands together.
“The Toaster, sir?”
“Oh yes. On this one, I had feelers out with everyone. Excuse me, Agent Sherlock.” He pulled out his cell phone and began to punch in numbers, then abruptly punched off. “I forgot. Ellis’s wife is having their baby; she went into the hospital an hour ago and so he’s not available. No, I won’t ask him. He’ll insist on coming, but he needs to be with his wife. It’s their first kid. But he’s going to be really pissed to miss this. No, I just can’t. He’s gotta be there.” He looked down at his hands a moment, then back up at her. He looked just a bit worried. “What do you think of trial by fire?”
The Beginning Page 36
