Chimera

by Ken Goddard

  “That’s also why we asked you and the Chief to take a good soapy shower and go though that decontamination procedure with the evidence box,” Ferreira explained to Achara as she carefully turned the pullet onto its mushroomed tip, “just in case.”

  “Finding anything?” Renwick asked.

  “Um, yeah, definitely picked up some animal hairs — looks like grey, white and light brown — and a bunch of tissue, all tucked up nice and safe under the peeled-back jacketing.” Mumbling to herself now, Ferreira began using the plastic forceps and another plastic probe to carefully remove hairs and bits of bloody tissue from under the mushroomed bullet tip, placing the recovered hairs in a small sterile capped vial and the tissue bits into a second identical vial.

  After another thirty seconds, Ferreira got up, said, “I’ve got my samples,” and walked purposefully out the door of the Criminalistics lab; on her way to the Genetics lab with her vials and notes.

  “My turn,” Renwick said as he moved into the chair vacated by Ferreira, and put his eyes up against the eyepieces of the dissecting microscope. “Let’s see what we’ve got here.”

  As Renwick carefully manipulated the bullet under the microscope with the same plastic forceps, Hager gently slid a folded ‘C-shaped’ two-inch-wide strip of cardboard out of the small evidence box. The top and bottom ‘C’ ends of the cardboard strip were pressed against the base and mouth of a fired brass rifle cartridge casing — the casing being held in place by a twig stuck through the top end of the cardboard and into the cartridge mouth — the entire structure being held tightly together with a looping wrap of duct tape. The effect was a protective three-sided cardboard shield protecting the secured casing from any outside source of abrasion.

  “Looks like a point-two-four-three casing,” Hager said. “I’ll check the base for confirmation after I finish the latent work.”

  “Based on the scope reticule, the bullet appears to be a two-four-three also,” Renwick said, talking mostly to Hager who was now examining the casing under a low-powered magnifying lens. “I’ll confirm with the calipers after I make the scan.” He reached over with one hand to take another series of photos with the digital camera built into the microscope, and then made a few notations to his exam form.

  “The twig’s a nice touch,” Hager said as he continued to examine the surface of the protected casing with an angled flashlight beam. “You teach him that?” he asked, looking back up at Bulatt.

  “All I did was explain the basic principles of preserving evidence; he took it from there,” Bulatt said. “From what I could see, the Chief’s a natural crime scene investigator.”

  “Yes, Chief Narusan is very enthusiastic, and very happy with his new assignment,” Achara added.

  “Well, keep encouraging him; he does a lot better job of collecting and preserving evidence than most of our agents,” Hager said as he placed the ‘’C’ structure back on the workbench, took a series of quick digital photographs from different angles, and then began to make more notations on his evidence exam form.

  “I’m going to start a NIBIN scan on the bullet,” Renwick said as he stood up with the gauze-wrapped bullet in one hand and his notes in the other.

  “Sounds good,” Hager acknowledged as Renwick headed toward the door. “I’ll get the casing over to you in about a half hour or so, as soon as I finish the processing.”

  Then Hager looked up at Bulatt and Achara. “This is the exciting part for us latent-print jockeys; you two like to watch?”

  Latent Print Lab, National Fish amp; Wildlife Forensics Lab

  In the latent print lab, Bulatt and Achara adjusted pairs of orange-tinted goggles over their eyes, and then watched as Hager first carefully fumed the cartridge casing that was now mounted inside a glass-faced fume hood, and then adjusted the beam of an adjustable-frequency light source until the brass surface began to glow.

  “Oh yes,” Hager finally laughed in cheerful satisfaction as he stepped back from the front of the fume hood, allowing Bulatt and Achara a clear view of his work.

  “Is that really a fingerprint?” she asked in a disbelieving whisper.

  “No, my dear, that is what us forensic types call a perfect partial thumbprint,” Hager corrected.

  As if responding to Hager’s words as much as the dial under his fingers, the orange-yellow thumbprint glowed even brighter, each whorl and ridge ending clearly visible to the naked — albeit goggle-aided and protected — eye.

  “My god, a perfect print, how is that possible after all those hours in the sun and rain?” Achara whispered, still visibly enthralled by the glowing evidence.

  “Very simple,” Hager said. “Every time you load a cartridge into a rifle magazine or chamber, you apply a perfectly identifiable latent fingerprint to the oily surface of that cartridge, which does not get obliterated when the cartridge is fired or ejected or lays around in a rainforest for several days, as this one apparently did. So, if the scene investigator knows what he or she is doing, and collects the casing properly — and gets it to the lab without rubbing it against any other casings or objects — we can usually visualize that print and make a database search.”

  “And you’re going to be able to do that with this fingerprint; run a database search?” Achara asked, wanting confirmation.”

  “Not a problem; we rarely get a print this nice to work with,” Hager confirmed.

  “How long will it take to get results back?” Bulatt asked.

  “On a print that distinct? Once I get the print scanned and coded, anywhere from five minutes to an hour, if we’re lucky.”

  “And if not?”

  Several hours, maybe several days,” Hager replied. “Depends on a lot of factors we don’t control. I could give it a higher priority, but you said you wanted to stay low-profile on our data runs.”

  “Low profile is better,” Bulatt said, and then looked over at Achara. “Why don’t we go have dinner, check into a hotel, get some sleep, and let these guys do their work.”

  “That sounds like a very nice idea,” Achara said, nodding sleepily. “I think my brain and my body are residing in different countries.”

  “Already taken care of,” Renwick said from the doorway. “We made reservations for you at the Windmill Inn, a couple of miles down the road. Take one of our lab rigs.” Renwick tossed a set of keys to Bulatt. “There are a lot of nice restaurants downtown, take your pick. Be back here by nine A.M. tomorrow, and we may have something for you.”

  “Any place you recommend?” Bulatt asked.

  Renwick and Hager looked at each other.

  “The Kat Wok?” Hager suggested.

  Renwick looked over at Achara. “How do you feel about Pan Asian stir-fry?”

  “Depends on who’s doing the cooking,” she said with a tired smile. “If you were eating there tonight, instead of working, what would you order?”

  “Probably grilled salmon, or the beer batter shrimp, along with the saffron rice and a spinach salad,” Renwick said.

  “And don’t forget the Szechwan beans as an appetizer,” Hager added. “You can make a meal out of the beans, if you don’t mind a lot of garlic.”

  Bulatt and Achara looked at each other in unspoken agreement.

  “Yes,” Achara said with a dimpled smile, “the Kat Wok will do just fine.”

  “You guys are welcome to join us,” Bulatt said as he got up from the chair. “Special Ops is buying.”

  “Appreciate the offer,” Renwick said, “but Steve, Juliana and I are going to have to rack up some serious overtime if you want — ”

  “Pardon the interruption, folks,” a heavyset woman with shoulder-length red hair who looked to be in her mid-forties said as she walked into the room with a no-nonsense stride and stopped in front of Bulatt, who immediately stood up. “Hi,” she said, sticking out her hand, “I’m Linda.”

  “Ged,” Bulatt said as he met her surprisingly firm handshake. “And this is Captain Achara Kulawnit from the Forestry Division of Thailand.�
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  “Achara will do fine,” Achara said as she also stood up and shook Linda Reston’s hand. “I’m very pleased to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about your work, and your sons.”

  “Don’t get me started on those two. I blame it all on their father,” Reston said as she took a grainy eight-by-ten photo out of a manila folder in her left hand and placed it on the lab bench. “What I need to know, right now, is if any of you recognize this fellow?

  Bulatt took a quick look at the face of a man looking out the driver’s side window of a dark SUV and said: “yeah, I do. He’s some kind of federal government spook; goes by the name John Smith — at least with me, anyway.”

  “And you know him from where?” Reston pressed.

  “We gotten into a couple of altercations, first in Phuket a couple of days ago, and then at an electronics shop up in Redmond yesterday,” Bulatt said. “Both of us happened to be looking for the same people, and our wires got tangled.”

  “You — you’re subject White?!” Reston blinked in surprise.

  “One of his men referred to me by that name,” Bulatt said hesitantly. “How would you know that?”

  Reston was fumbling in her manila folder, and came up with a stapled-together set of pages which she began flipping through quickly.

  “Bit of an altercation?” Reston looked up from her papers, her eyes widened in disbelief. “ You’re the federal wildlife agent who beat the crap out of two of Smith’s operatives and shot a third?!”

  “It sounds worse than it really was,” Bulatt said defensively. “The two goons in the parking lot wanted to walk away with my evidence, and the third guy drew a gun on me. None of them identified themselves as being a federal anything. What did they expect me to do, put my hands up, surrender, and hand over my evidence? Besides, the third guy was wearing a vest; I just bruised him up a little bit.”

  “Which is presumably why he’s only lying in a Seattle hospital with his two buddies, listed as ‘out of action for an indeterminate time,’ instead of being planted,” Reston said, shaking her head. “Do you have any idea who your ‘John Smith’ is?”

  “Some kind of Internal Affairs honcho from the Agency; or, at least, that’s what he implied. Can I see that report?”

  “No, this report does not exist,” Reston said firmly. “And, yes, he does work for the Agency; but his name is not Smith, and that is not what he does.”

  “How would you — ?” Bulatt started to say, but then remembered. “Oh yeah, that’s right, you used to — ”

  “Work for the bastards when they were more civilized, and when the ‘John Smith’ teams were used sparingly and carefully controlled,” Reston finished.

  “He claims to be one of the controllers,” Bulatt said.

  “Yeah, that’s a funny one. Has it occurred to any of you to wonder where I got that photograph?” Reston gestured at the photo lying on the bench.

  “That looks like it was taken by one of our lab surveillance cameras,” Hager said hesitantly.

  “Kudos to the latent print guy,” Reston said with only a slight trace of sarcasm.

  Bulatt picked it up and examined the familiar face for a moment before his eyes flicked down to the imprinted numerals at the bottom of the photo. He blinked in surprise and then quickly checked his watch. “Jesus, this was taken an hour ago?!”

  “Outside the lab, on Campus Way, and hour and seven minutes ago,” Reston corrected.

  “That son-of-a-bitch tailed a U.S. Marshall’s plane here — to Ashland?!” Bulatt’s eyes blazed.

  “Not just to Ashland,” Reston corrected again, “to your specific hotel in Ashland. ‘Smith’ and five of his men checked in to the Windmill a little over two hours ago; probably because someone here at the lab made reservations in your real names with a government credit card.” Reston looked over at Hager who nodded ruefully. “These people have incredible resources. That’s how they work.”

  “They?”

  “The snake-eaters… hunter/killer teams,” Reston said. “Seriously dangerous people. You were out of your mind to mess with them up in Redmond.”

  “And they’re all checked in at the Windmill in, right now?” Bulatt asked.

  “All except for the guy taking first watch.”

  “And where is he?”

  “Behind the building, in the Campus way cul-de-sac.”

  “Ah, excuse me,” Bulatt said as he got up, looked around the room, grabbed a roll of nylon strapping tape, and disappeared out the doorway.

  “Hey, where the hell is he going?!” Reston demanded, looking around at Hager and Achara, both of whom shrugged their shoulders.

  “My father says that Khun Ged is a man who instinctively confronts evil, because he knows no other way of dealing with it,” Achara said calmly. “Therefore, I would assume he’s going outside to confront evil.”

  “Jesus,” Reston muttered as she lunged for a computer terminal.

  While Reston was busy punching keys and working her mouse, Captain Achara Kulawnit calmly walked over to the lab bench, picked up the ‘non-existent’ report, and began to read.

  Outside the National Fish and Wildlife Forensics Lab

  The man ‘John Smith’ left on first watch in the dark blue SUV was still searching the broadband for a good AM station when he caught movement out of the corner of his eye, looked up, saw a government-licensed pickup truck pull out of the rear parking lot of the National Fish amp; wildlife Forensics Lab and turn up Campus way — in his direction — at a high rate of speed, and with all lights off.

  “What the — !”

  Reacting instantly, as he’d been trained, the man turned on the SUV’s engine and started to reach for his safety belt.

  At that moment, the on-coming truck’s high-beam headlights erupted in a blinding burst of light that caused the man to bring his hands up, reflexively, to protect his eyes. In doing so, he never saw the truck suddenly swerve directly toward the front bumper of his vehicle.

  The impact flung the watchman forward, his face and upper torso impacting the amazingly responsive air-bag with such force that his legs and lower body were driven back and then under the bag and steering wheel.

  Stunned, the watchman was barely aware of being dragged out of the SUV, or of being sat upright a split second before a sharply-driven elbow slammed down into the space between his neck and shoulder joint; the resulting hydrostolic shock from the blow sending a mass of blood rushing into his brain and rendering him instantly unconscious.

  Moments later, as he began to regain consciousness, the watchman was vaguely aware of being in a dark and enclosed space with his mouth loosely taped, his ankles taped together, and his wrists taped behind his back.

  Minutes later, the watchman was fully aware that he was lying on his back; jammed into the rear seat floor of the SUV; effectively encased by the fully-backed-up and reclined front seats; and unable to get to his cell phone and pistol that were no longer attached to his belt.

  Renwick was waiting as Bulatt drove the lab pickup back into its assigned space, got out, and then walked over to the Lab’s rear parking lot door.

  “Sorry about the bumper,” Bulatt said. “Tell your boss I’ll file the accident report when I get back to the office, and arrange for a replacement vehicle.”

  “I’ll tell him,” Renwick said agreeably, “but I have a feeling he’ll settle for a copy of the surveillance tape.”

  “Steve and Linda tell you what’s going on?”

  “Yeah, they filled me in,” Renwick said. “You special ops guys have an interesting approach to problem-solving.”

  “I haven’t solved much yet, but I did learn something,” Bulatt said. “Did you know those assholes get to rent vehicles equipped with that Satellite Security system that can track their cars all over the U.S. — presumably in case they forgot where they left them — and even unlocks the damned things remotely if they lose their keys or lock them inside the car?”

  “No, I didn’t” Renwick admitted as they wal
ked down the hallway toward the criminalistics exam room. “Sounds like an expensive option. The Service makes us rent compact cars with no frills. God knows what we’d have to do if we lost our keys. Probably have to walk.”

  “Exactly,” Bulatt said, nodding. “Which reminds me, do you remember that big case that one of our special ops agents — Henry Lightstone — worked last year? The one where we asked you to track back on the country and population source of a bunch of hairy-legged critters?”

  “I think it’s safe to say the entire lab is aware of that case,” Renwick said, “mostly due to reoccurring nightmares.”

  “You guys ever get the genetics worked out?”

  “I don’t think so. Too many other higher priority issues; although I’ll bet if you took a vote amongst the lab staff — ”

  “So they’re still here?”

  “Every one of the damned things; in their own tanks, and locked securely in the bug room. Or at least we assume they’re all there. I seriously doubt that anyone’s gone back there to take a count, except for the university kid we hired to do the feeding.” Renwick gave Bulatt a questioning look. “Why, are you thinking about taking them with you?”

  “Yeah,” Bulatt said. “That’s exactly what I was thinking about.”

  Conference Room, National Fish amp; Wildlife Forensics Lab

  Twenty minutes later, when Bulatt walked back into the lab conference room with a large cardboard box in his hand, he found Donn Renwick, Steve Hager, Juliana Ferreira, Linda Reston and her twin sons waiting for him. The boys were now sitting extremely close to Achara at the far end of the table, and pointing out something on a computer screen.

  “Things are about to get interesting,” Bulatt said as he carefully placed the box on the floor and then sat down in the one empty chair.

  “You mean more interesting than assaulting federal agents, and stuffing them in the back of a SUV?” Reston inquired.

  “I think so,” Bulatt said, nodding.

  “Before you tell us why that might be the case, maybe we should fill you in on a few things first,” Renwick suggested.