Geistmann

by Singer, Ron

  And what about the food? Surely, if there was a rule against accepting food from strangers, Rocker had brought along his own provisions, some of which he could have eaten before meeting Robinson for breakfast. But he had not acted as if such a rule were in effect. And, like Robinson, he had been driven to distraction by the interminable wait. Why had he not suggested that they just get up and leave? Since other diners had left, their departure would not have been conspicuous. Robinson wondered why he had not made this suggestion, himself.

  The most plausible explanation was inertia. Among Geistmann’s many skills was his ability to sap the will of others. Suddenly, Robinson’s feet felt hot, and he realized he was still wearing his hiking boots. How had he managed to change his pants before leaving his room at the Lodge without taking the boots off? He must have taken them off, put on the neat khaki pants he was now wearing, then put them back on. Geistmann made people make mistakes.

  Weatherbee gave everyone a few moments to finish laughing. Then, he asked for further reactions. “Let’s go around the table, two minutes, maximum, apiece. Please introduce yourselves to Dr. Robinson. Fred?”

  “Fred Neugeborn, FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit,” said the man on Peters’ left. He was a heavily muscled African-American wearing horn-rimmed glasses and the standard dark suit. He exchanged curt nods with Robinson, then spoke directly to him. “I’m a cultural anthropologist, John, I was impressed by the profile you prepared. Since the FBI is also new to this investigation, if you don’t mind, I’ll piggy-back onto a few of your ideas.”

  Without waiting for Robinson’s permission, Neugeborn glanced at his pad. “As Pablo Markowitz observed, Subject seems to be keeping to markers, holidays, that sort of thing. He killed Johnson on Leap Year Day. But today’s explosions weren’t exactly on schedule -–Tuesday, not Sunday or Good Friday. That may mean he anticipated we would think he would strike sooner, so our guard would be down today.”

  Neugeborn shrugged. “Second, as Dr. Robinson noted, Geistmann is a lot like the classical tricksters, from Bugs Bunny and the Road Runner to Anansi, the West African spider. So what’s his next date, April Fools’ Day? Of course, he’s already made fools of us all. And, since he wrong-footed us today, he may try to do it again on April One –or, if he’s running a double game, he may actually commit his next crime, then.”

  One of Robinson’s hobbies was regional dialects. The BAU man spoke Yale B.E. Where had he spent his childhood? Southern California, Robinson guessed, from something soft-edged in his manner, as well as from his smooth, outdoorsy physical fitness-- different from East-coast fitness. But his speech had been almost completely Yaled over.

  “Theme and structure, in this case, symmetry. He’s on some kind of nature jag. The symmetry is trickier, because we’ll probably learn about some intermittent crimes or capers he’s perpetrated on the way down here. I doubt he’s finished, either. So far, one murder, two explosions. I’d say he’s getting ready to kill someone else. And I wouldn’t be surprised if it were another corporate executive whose ‘obscene profits’ in some way involve the exploitation –‘rape,’ he’d call it—of nature. Oh, one more thing. He won’t pith another cosmetics tycoon. He doesn’t repeat himself that specifically, it would be ‘inelegant.’ ” Neugeborn looked at his watch. “My two minutes are up – which is lucky, since that’s all I have.”

  Weatherbee finished scribbling notes on his yellow pad and glanced at Robinson, who had been impressed by both FBI Agents so far. Peters was incisive and tough; Neugeborn, incisive, logical, and well educated, (That was condescending.) He had never met a live Agent before.

  “Thank you, Fred,” said Weatherbee. ”Mauro?”

  Everyone looked at the next man, who, even sitting down, seemed extremely tall. Like his two FBI cohorts, he was very fit and wore the standard suit.

  “Mauro Baltazar. Also BAU, Forensics.” He scanned the table. “Folks, you should understand that this is totally preliminary, not a scintilla of lab work has been completed yet --the explosives, footprints, laxative, knockout darts, nothing. We do know from the puncture wounds that he used a dart gun, five bull’s eyes, which must have been fired in rapid succession. That’s it for now, more to follow, as soon as we have more.”

  Baltazar came from the southwest, most likely the Arizona-New Mexico border region. Robinson also guessed that he wore powerful Varilux contact lenses: he seemed to re-focus each time he looked up from his notes.

  “Mauro, please!” said Weatherbee, looking disappointed. “A couple of guesses, at least?”

  Baltazar shrugged. “If you insist. He wasn’t wearing snowshoes, some kind of customized dress shoes. From that and the suit, I assume he was spoofing us –the FBI. I made molds, left and right, so I should be able to be more precise about the footwear when I hear back from the lab in, say, thirty-six hours.”

  “I like that,” said Weatherbee, “the shoes. Throw us another bone, Mauro.”

  Baltazar shrugged again. “Okay, but this is really seat-of-the-pants. He may have used a self-concocted stimulant laxative, the active ingredient of which is senna, an odorless plant extract --very hard to detect. Unless Rocker has extremely sensitive taste buds, Subject could have dosed him with this stuff in the eggs, ham, almost anything. A minute or two after the effects kicked in, Rocker says he popped one of those horse pills from our kit, the ones we call ‘corks,’ which are basically a combination of rice, gelatin, banana and apple –1000 per cent concentration. But it still took him almost ten minutes before he could even pull his pants back up. Pharmacologically speaking, like everything else, Geistmann knew exactly what he was doing.” Baltazar glanced around the room with a grimace. Robinson liked him.

  Next, without waiting to be asked, the officer to Baltazar’s left, a bulky man with a five-o’clock shadow, spoke up. “That’s our Geistmann for you!” he said gruffly, glancing at Robinson. “Colonel Andelko Erceg, Southeast European Cooperative Initiative.” The Colonel was dressed very differently from the FBI and USMS reps. His cheap-looking shiny blue suit, pink shirt with long pointy collar tabs, and fat redtie cried out, “Film Noir, c.1950.” His name and inflections marked him as a Serb or a Croate.

  “Yes,” he said, “as usual, he is showing off and playing with fire: the shoes, the suit. More to the point, he landed his glider just outside of the town of Luray, then walked to the jail, where the local police officer spotted him immediately. Question: why hadn’t the policeman been alerted that Geistmann might be coming? We’ll find his small red car at one of the international airports, probably Richmond, quicker to get to from Luray than Reagan. He will have shifted identities again, and by the time we guess where he’s going next, he’ll have switched at least once more. By now, we all know the M.O.: cat and mouse, mouse and cat. He’s always at least one step ahead of us.” The Colonel nodded in agreement with his own observations.

  “Thanks, Andelko!” Weatherbee said. He cleared his throat. “Since we’re starting to repeat ourselves, why don’t we skip ahead? I’ve had my Assistant, Peter, prepare a special report. Since the report ties into Andelko’s comments, this may be the time.... “ He paused, scanning the table.

  No one visibly responded. A few of the policemen sipped from their water bottles. The rest doodled on the yellow pads or tapped at their keyboards. When the representative from the Eurasian Organized Crime Working Group (EOCWG), who sat directly to Robinson’s right, spoke up, abruptly and out-of-turn, Robinson wondered if his motive might be rivalry with his Balkan counterpart. His nametag read, “Diodor Fedoruk.” Like Erceg, he wore a shiny suit and funny fat tie, but his had two broad stripes, blue above gold, which, as Robinson knew, was the pattern on the Ukrainian flag.

  “Agreed, Arnold.” He had a deep, resonant voice. “Everything Andelko just say very true. One more point, please, then one small question only. Your pardon, please, Peter?” Peter, two seats to Fedoruk’s right, gave him a curt nod. “I want to underline very much Dr. Neugeborn’s important point about pattern.
Geistmann, we all know, very orderly. Now this American adventure of his, consider: Begin with one murder, Johnson, Orville. A very neat murder, almost no blood, nothing at all like, for example, the Frenchman in 2005, Dr. Toularelle, and also not like Donduceni, neither?”

  Toularelle: a completely new name to Robinson, presumably beyond his security clearance. Fedoruk plowed ahead.

  “And now, explosions. What is theme? As Dr. N. has said, something to do with nature. Johnson do cruelty to animals, experiments, make shit loads of money, so Geistmann do ‘experiment’ on the experimenter. Next come explosions at Shenandoah Park. Park is also nature. Something he don’t like about this place? Who can say, Geistmann crazy! Maybe Dr. John Robinson here going to answer that one.” He smiled playfully at the newcomer and continued.

  “But why these explosions? The cars he bomb” (finally ‘b’ pronounced), “very expansive cars.” He waved a long-fingered hand in the air, a cavalier gesture. “I make one further point only, again repeating from Dr. Neugeborn: the next crime will be another murder. That will close circle of Geistmann’s American adventures. After that, poof, he disappear again.” Fedoruk shook his head. “Oh, I almost forget --my question for you, please, Arnold. Why there were no sharp shooters in woods to kill Geistmann when he fly through the air like that?”

  Robinson did not believe Fedoruk had really forgotten this question, which had also occurred to him, and which was an implicit criticism of the Coordinator. He felt a collective intake of breath around the table. But, apparently unfazed, Weatherbee smiled, steepled his fingers, and promptly replied,

  “Well,” he said, “we had discussed that option, hadn’t we? Diodor? Scott? Weston?” He looked to Fedoruk, who did not react, then to Peters, and then to the very large African-American U.S. Marshal on Peter’s left, both of whom nodded confirmation. “As you recall, I was with you guys. If we got the chance, the clear shot, I wanted to kill him, get this long and embarrassing business over with, once and for all.” He sighed, the picture of frustration. “But, as some of you also know, I was overruled by my own boss, the Secretary-General.”

  He paused, apparently making a decision. “I don’t think I’ll be telling tales out of school if I give you the gist of Don’s argument. But, if it even needs saying, I will ask you to keep this to yourselves.” He scanned the room. Everyone was paying close attention now. “Secretary Warfield wants Geistmann alive. His reasoning is that to catch and interrogate someone like this could push the science of criminal profiling ahead two or three generations. Well, my question to him, to Don, was –is-- would it be worth the risk? Don thought so. Do I agree? Honestly? I‘m not sure. That’s why he gets the big bucks.

  “But he gave me a second directive, and I quote: ‘If he escapes again, next time terminate him with extreme prejudice.’ Questions? Comments?” Some of the reps shook their heads. “All right, then? Peter, tell us the real reason we can’t catch Geistmann.”

  Robinson noted that no one was calling Geistmann “Subject,” anymore. But, just as Peter was opening his mouth, Weatherbee’s cell began ringing madly on the table beside him. While everyone waited, he opened the phone and listened for a few moments.

  “Shit! Bring it right in,” he said, his face reddening. Then, to the men around the table: “There’s a new message --from right up there.” He pointed a trembling finger toward the window that framed the magnificent Rotunda.

  At a few minutes past four, Geistmann reached Richmond, where he took I-64 through town to the International Airport, a.k.a. Byrd Field, named, as he knew, for the aviator brother in the famous senatorial family said to be descended from Pocahontas. Locking the little red car in a crowded section of the long-term parking structure just beside the elevated walkway to the terminal, he carried his new duffel bag and the ever-present attache’ case into the men’s room of the parking garage. He waited in a stall until the room was empty, then darted across to the larger stall, for the handicapped.

  There, he changed his physical identity to the new one for which he also carried documentation in the case. Stuffing the men-in-black outfit into the duffel, he returned to the car where, using the lid of the trunk for cover, he transferred the outfit from bag to trunk. Still carrying the bag and case, he crossed to the terminal, where he put his new name on Stand By for the 6:55 p.m. flight to Albuquerque, New Mexico. Assured he would get on, he was told to report to the gate by six. Still carrying the two pieces of luggage, he proceeded to an airport bar, where, as a reward for the successful completion of the Virginian enterprise, he sampled the local pulled pork, washing it down with a glass of the least objectionable-sounding beer on offer, an also-local Pilsner that proved inoffensive.

  As he ate and drank, then waited for his flight to be called, Geistmann busied himself with his BlackBerry, planning some final details for his next venture. As usual, he had an immediate contingency plan. If he did not get on the flight, the final one of the day, he would backtrack to Richmond and disappear into the nightlife, perhaps even finding a professional with whom to refresh himself until morning. But, by shortly after seven, Geistmann was airborne.

  A short, older, bespectacled man in a USMS uniform hurried into the conference room pushing a cart with a DVD player on it. Finding an outlet on the wall behind Weatherbee, he plugged the machine in and, exchanging a nod with the Coordinator, he left. Weatherbee stood up, grabbed the remote, and turned on the DVD. Those at his sides craned their necks to see, their chairs screeching into position.

  A man in a simply cut gray suit and black balaclava strode into the picture. Standing directly below and in front of the camera, he silently mouthed two words, so slowly and distinctly that, even wearing the balaclava, he made himself perfectly clear.

  THE GARDENS

  Episode Eight

  GEISTMANN, Episode Eight.

  Tuesday, March 25th, Charlottesville, Virginia.

  THE GARDENS.

  That was the entire message. Geistmann turned to his left and walked out of the camera’s line of fire. There was a hubbub at the table. Chairs were pushed back, coins and hardware jingled, everyone was talking at once.

  “Sit down, folks!” ordered Weatherbee. “Please.” They sat. “We’re not going to gang-tackle him in whichever of the ten campus gardens he means. He’s already gone. Look.” He pointed the remote at the upper left corner of the screen: “FRIDAY, MARCH 21ST, 19:07 PM.”

  “Why the hell,” asked Peters, “are we only seeing this tape now? Who’s been sitting on it for four days?”

  Weatherbee shrugged. “We’ll find out soon enough. Maybe it was the long weekend, maybe half of campus security was off duty. Meanwhile, Mauro, take your people through the gardens until you find ... hmm, what will you find?”

  Baltazar, who, like everyone else, had stood up, sat down, then stood up again, obviously in need of further instructions.

  “A note,” Robinson blurted out. “The next clue in his treasure hunt.”

  “Where should we look?” Baltazar asked Robinson.

  “Stuck in one of the walls in a garden, but probably not cemented in.”

  While everyone else looked at Robinson as if they were taking his measure, Fedoruk spoke again. “Dr. John correct. Anyone who love Jefferson, as Geistmann do, must love these low walls, the famous, beautiful, serpenteen walls. Jefferson hate straight lines, more light with curves. So Geistmann has left his note --without damaging sacred walls.” Robinson was impressed.

  Weatherbee nodded to Baltazar, who hurried from the room. The others sat back down. The Coordinator reversed the DVD, and they watched the ten-second clip six or seven more times.

  “Reactions?” he asked. There were none. “Thanks, John,” he said, with a curt nod. “We’ll find out soon enough whether you’re right. Well, then, this leads us back to where we were before we were interrupted. Peter? You all know Peter Dykstra, of course, my factotum and personal techie.” Weatherbee nodded across the table. Peter was sitting with his hands folded. With his long, th
in frame, pale, nervous eyes, and cropped, very light hair, he looked like a greyhound waiting to be unleashed. “Go!”

  From beneath his pad, Peter produced several loose sheets of notes on yellow legal paper. As he made each point in his presentation, he ticked it off with a black Sharpie.

  “Well, gentlemen,” he began, in his high, nasal voice, “we’ve just had yet another example of the hypothesis I’m about to advance. ‘Why can’t we catch Geistmann?’ Because he anticipates every single one of our moves! Consider the present sequence. Four days ago, he visits the Rotunda. He proceeds to the Lodge, does his thing this morning, and, by now, has presumably left the area. Also, consider how fitting it is that we’re all --every single active member of JOLETAF, plus Dr. Robinson—we’re all sitting here looking up the lawn toward the Rotunda, as we continue our frustrating pursuit. Then, presto, there he is, whispering his two words to us --as it were, in our faces. Just as he knew we’d be in the audience for his glider show this morning.”

  “Can we still catch him before he leaves the state? Probably not. He never leaves timing to chance, and, as Andelko pointed out, he will already have shifted identities again. But shouldn’t we have stopped all flights out of Richmond, Reagan and Dulles? Shouldn’t we have body-searched everyone at the Lodge, maybe even before he did his thing? Well, unfortunately, no, negative –to both questions.”