by Casey Hill
CRIME SCENE
CSI Reilly Steel – Series Prequel
Casey Hill
Copyright © Casey Hill 2014
The right of Casey Hill to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author. You must not circulate this book in any format.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.
Chapter 1
Forty miles south of Washington, DC in Prince William County, Virginia is the small town of Quantico.
Bordered on one side by the Potomac River and on the remaining three sides by the Marine Corps base, Quantico is home to the FBI training center. Situated among lush forestry, the 547 acre property is where recruits run obstacle courses, engage in firearms training and participate in mock hostage and terrorist scenarios in Hogan’s Alley, the FBI’s “real world” training town.
It was the world Reilly Steel was born for. That was her first thought when she’d arrived at the Academy.
As she stepped off the bus one bright spring morning, she breathed in the fresh, crisp air. The next twenty weeks or so would make or break her and as far as she was concerned she’d already been broken plenty of times.
Now it was time to be remade.
In her 27 years, Reilly had seen more misery and faced more challenges than most people twice her age. Hardened and determined, she knew she was ready for whatever challenges awaited her on the other side of the guard shack.
Hoisting her purse onto her shoulder, and her suitcase rolling behind her, she strode up to the guard’s gate.
“Reilly Steel reporting for training, sir,” she said. The guard, whose name tag read ‘Owens’ glanced at her and realizing she was actually being polite and not snide like some of the other newbies, he gave her a small nod.
“Identification and acceptance letter please,” he requested, holding out his hand. Reilly took the documents from her purse and handed them to him.
Owens looked over the documents, returned them to Reilly and released the gate. “Welcome to Quantico and the FBI training center,” he’d said. Then pausing a moment, he added, “I hope you stick around.”
Reilly glanced at him but could not discern whether he was being sarcastic or sincere. A tall, blonde-haired and blue-eyed Californian, she was used to snide comments from people who doubted her abilities based solely on her appearance. Shrugging it off in any case, she thanked Owens and entered the grounds.
She arrived at the dorm room listed on her registration papers and found it already occupied. The woman looked to be about Reilly’s age, with thick auburn-red hair cut in a bob, wide green eyes, and a spate of freckles across her nose.
“Hi!” she chirped animatedly. “You must be Reilly. I’m Faye Williamson.”
“Nice to meet you.”
The two roommates began unpacking, rearranging the room and getting to know one another. Both were from California, but from different areas; Reilly grew up in San Francisco, while Faye resided in Roseville near Sacramento. Reilly came from a working-class background while Faye’s family was decidedly affluent. Despite their differences, both women sensed that a true friendship had begun. Though Reilly was surprised at how open and forthcoming Faye was about her family, background and pretty much anything else they talked about.
A naturally reticent person by nature, she was taken aback by Faye’s willingness to reveal absolutely everything there was to know about her — in the space of about a half hour. Reilly wondered if such a tendency would help or hinder her new friend in their future career. Typically for her own part, she didn’t reveal all that much about herself or her own background, save for the fact that she lived with her father in Marin County, had one sister and her mother was deceased. Simple straightforward facts, yet hiding a world of complications.
The two spent the remainder of the day walking the grounds and familiarizing themselves with the facility. “This place is so huge,” commented Faye. “If we weren’t in shape when we got here, we will be just from walking around campus.”
Reilly had to agree; she’d known Quantico was massive, but now she was actually on the grounds, the training facility seemed larger than life.
Eventually, they decided to go back to their room and relax. “We might as well take a load off while we can,” commented Faye. “Tomorrow is our first official day of training, and I have a feeling it’s going to be a bear.”
***
“Welcome to the FBI Training Center, and your first introduction to forensic analysis,” Special Supervisory Agent Rob Crichton greeted the new recruits the following morning. A tall, athletic looking man who looked to be in his late-forties with sandy-colored hair and weather-beaten skin, Crichton had a stern face but Reilly thought, the faint twinkle in his eye suggested he sounded a lot tougher than he actually was. “Over the next few weeks, we’ll be spending quite a bit of time together.”
Everyone in the room was attentive: all were facing forward, FBI-issue pens in hands and corresponding blank notebooks on desks, all the students wearing identical blue polo shirts and khaki pants. A few looked nervous. Most looked excited.
“Now,” continued SSA Crichton, “you’ve all had a chance to get settled in, yes?” He paused, scanned the room for signs of agreement then continued, “Good. If not, you’d better get to it, because if you haven’t figured it out already, free time is not something agents in training have a lot of.” Several students chuckled.
“Given that today is your first day,” he continued, “some of you may think we’ll take it easy on you. Not a chance. We make you hit the ground running around here, and for good reason. The bad guys don’t wait around until we feel up to catching them.”
More chuckles and nods of agreement. “You all know about Hogan’s Alley?” he ventured. More nods. “Excellent. We’ll be hitting there sometime this week. We’re not going to tell you when, or what the scenario will be, just be ready.”
Reilly was grinning like a Cheshire cat. Secretly, she wished they were going to Hogan’s Alley right now. She’d heard all about the legendary venue and the real-life situations acted out in the FBI’s own mock town.
“Founded” in 1987 and located on over 10 acres of Academy grounds, most of the town’s structures were classrooms, offices or facades, a bank (which was robbed frequently), a hotel, mayor’s office, post office, a used car lot (whose cars aren’t really for sale), and several homes and businesses — complete with a deli that did actually serve sandwiches.
It was for all intents and purposes, a functioning town, though populated by actors whose job it was to generally be as uncooperative as possible, thus testing trainee’s abilities in a worst case scenario. To Reilly, this sounded like a lot of fun.
Later that day, the recruits changed into running attire and met on the running track. They were soon joined by another class. As the two groups began pre-run stretching exercises, Faye whispered to Reilly, “It looks like all the really cute guys are in the other class. Check out that hottie over there, about three o’clock.”
She glanced over and saw a tall, muscular, guy who looked to be about thirty years old. He noticed the two women looking at him, and instantly puffed up like a proud pigeon. Reilly rolled her eyes and whispered, “Not my type. Too self-absorbed.”
“How can you tell from here?” Faye asked, mystified. “I think he’s very cute.”
The coach
’s whistle shrilled and he shouted for them all to line up on the track. Then his whistle sounded again, and the students began to run.
Not surprisingly, the tall guy Faye was interested in took off like a gazelle, pumping his long legs and quickly pulling ahead of the crowd.
Reilly paced herself, knowing that putting out a lot of energy at the start of the five mile run would leave her too depleted by the final laps. She watched Faye’s “hottie” round the first corner and wondered how long before he lost his advantage and began to tire and fall behind.
She was surprised. He kept up a good pace for quite some time before grudgingly slowing, and even then finished his five miles before the majority of the other students. Any sliver of admiration Reilly might have felt was quickly extinguished however, when she watched him smirk and saunter off the field, scanning to see which girls were watching him as he strode away. She resolved to find out who he was, for the sole purpose of avoiding him in the future.
Faye caught up with her after the run. “Dang, he’s fast,” she exclaimed. “Impressive run. I need to find out his name.”
Reilly sighed. “What you need is to forget about guys and focus.”
“Come on, it’s our first day. Of course I’m going to check out the guys! Aren’t you? Heck, we have to have some entertainment during the day.”
“Precisely,” Reilly replied, indicating their surroundings. “Surely being part of all this is entertainment enough. Forget the guys, they’ll still be around when the training is done.”
Faye laughed and shook her head. “I swear I am going to get you to go on a date if it’s the last thing I do.”
“Good luck with that,” Reilly shot back, smiling.
There was some heavy competition — she was already in love with Quantico.
Chapter 2
At dinner that evening, SSA Rob Crichton came into the cafeteria. Addressing the new recruits, he said, “I know we’ve given you a lot today, but we’ve got one more thing before you’re off duty.” A few groaned. “Hey, get used to it,” he continued. “Twelve hour days are the norm here. Besides I think you’ll like this assignment. We’re going to check out the VirtSim.”
Reilly heard several other students let out whoops of joy.
The Academy’s VirtSim was a unique and coveted piece of law enforcement training equipment, developed specifically for the FBI. “I see several of you are already familiar with this tool. In case you aren’t, I’ll explain briefly. VirtSim stands for Virtual Reality Tactical Training Simulator. It’s a three-dimensional simulator that uses motion capture technology to record a participant’s full body motion in a virtual 360-degree tactical environment. In other words, the environment will look and feel real to you. There will be avatars representing good guys or bad guys, what we call ‘friendlies’ or ‘hostiles.’” He smirked a little. “Obviously the goal is to shoot the hostiles and not the friendlies.”
Ten minutes later, the new recruits stood in the VirtSim room.
“As you can see, there’s not much to this room,” said Crichton. “That’s because it’s not the room that’s important. It’s the technology, and if you’ve never done a 360-degree virtual reality simulation before, this is going to blow your mind. I’d like to introduce you to one of our assistant instructors,” he continued.
Turning slightly to his right, he indicated a man who stepped forward. Reilly heard Faye draw in a sharp breath; the man was none other than the arrogant “hottie” from the track.
“This is Jake Callahan, assistant instructor for VirtSim.” He paused, then continued, “Jake is here because he’s one of the most accurate and fastest students in VirtSim, so he’s highly qualified to show you how to maneuver in the simulation. Remember, this is virtual reality, so it feels a bit different from the real world, even if it looks like it. Okay, Jake, take them in.”
Jake stepped forward. “Thanks for the intro,” he said with a smug smile. Reilly was really beginning to really dislike the guy. She glanced at Faye, who was staring at Jake as though he was golden. She rolled her eyes and returned her attention to the obnoxious older recruit. “Okay, so what’s going to happen is this: we’re going to get you guys into the VR gear. When the simulation starts, you’ll be in the chosen scenario with both hostiles and friendlies. The goal is to shoot the hostiles and protect the friendlies and your fellow agents.
The scenario we’re using tonight will be the shopping mall. A gunman is loose in the mall, and it’s our job to take him down without killing any shoppers or store employees. Okay, let’s get rolling.”
The students put on the gear, and the simulation began.
Reilly was surprised at how very real, and at the same time surreal the simulation felt. Looking down at her hands, they seemed strangely far away as though they belonged to someone else, yet still felt very much a part of her.
In the earpiece, she heard Jake say, “Okay, before the actual scenario starts, we’re going to take a few minutes just to move around, so you can get the idea of how it feels when you maneuver.” The students began to walk around, flexing their extremities, pulling out their “weapons,” walking, jogging and touching objects in the simulation.
Reilly was surprised when she reached out to touch a fern in one of the pots of greenery in the center of the ‘mall’ and felt the edges of the leaves, just as real as the ones her mom had planted on their patio back home.
She briefly reflected that those same patio plants would likely be dead by the time she finished training; Reilly was the only one who remembered to care for them, and her father seldom had visitors or even ventured out there except to smoke. Despite all his other bad habits, Mike Steel refused to smoke in the house because he disliked the stale smell.
It made her momentarily sad; in a way those plants were about the only thing in the house that had survived her mother’s passing.
She shook off the thought and continued to explore the virtual world. After a few more minutes, she heard Jake’s voice say, “Okay, get ready. Here we go.”
Suddenly, the empty mall filled with people. Shoppers of all ages milled about, unaware of the impending danger. Reilly stood ready, knowing shots would ring out soon.
She didn’t have long to wait. Automatic gunfire erupted from the upper level of the mall. People screamed and began running around. Some hit the floor, covering their heads. Many headed for the exits.
Reilly pushed her way through the crowd, heading for the escalator and the upper level. Scanning the tiers above her head, she tried to locate the gunman. It was difficult, as the shifting sea of people kept jostling her and cutting across her line of sight.
She deftly avoided them, focused on the upper level, and continued to scan for the shooter as she leaped up the escalator stairs, taking them two at a time and not waiting for the mechanism.
Skidding behind a door display in front of a department store, she heard another burst of gunfire, more screams, and a man’s voice yelling, “I’m gonna kill all of you. Damn idiot consumers. You’re gonna all die now, you greedy sons of bitches.”
Another burst of gunfire and more screams. Reilly peered cautiously around the display. She saw the gunman, about 20 yards away, standing near the railing of the second level near a health food store. Looking around for her fellow recruits, she noted that several of them had also made it to the second level and had eyes on the gunman.
Shoppers and store employees continued to pour out of the various shops, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible to avoid the shooter’s attention. But the gunman heard the activity behind him, whirled around, and grabbed a woman as she tried to run away. She screamed as he grabbed her by her white coat (Reilly assumed she was a cosmetics sales person from a nearby makeup boutique), pulled her in front of him, and waved the gun in the air.
“This bitch is gonna die if you all don’t back off,” he snarled. Reilly made eye contact with the recruit nearest her, a guy named Jason, and indicated she intended to rush the gunman from behind and
that he should cover her. Looking at her fellow recruits who had also made it to the second level, she made eye contact, communicated her plans with signals, received nods of agreement, and prepared to act.
Reilly crept from behind the display, moving low and slowly along the wall, crossing doorways as quickly as possible and taking shelter behind signs and displays as she went. So far, so good. The gunman hadn’t noticed her movements. Cautiously, she made for the next object that could provide cover – a large cement pot containing more forestry and ferns.
Suddenly, there was a crash. The gunman spun around, looking for the source of the noise. As he scanned the area, his eyes lit on Reilly, who dove for cover, but not quite soon enough. The gunman caught the movement out of the corner of his eye. He spun towards Reilly and leveled his weapon at her.
She froze, then took a chance. Diving for the nearest open doorway she rolled to the side as the gunman fired. She heard the ping of bullets near her head, and instinctively hunkered down. Her heart was pounding a million miles an hour; her ears rang with the sound of gunfire. She heard the gunman curse and let loose another burst of bullets in an arc surrounding him. A customer appearing from a nearby doorway made a break for the escalator. The shooter turned and fired. The woman went down.
Despite knowing this was a simulation, Reilly felt ill at the woman’s demise. Her heart still racing, she tried to determine the best course of action. Peering out again from behind her makeshift cover, she looked for her fellow agents. Nearly all of them were up on the second level now; Reilly imagined a few were still on the lower level, guarding any escalators and stairwells the perpetrator might use for escape.
She tried to make eye contact again with Jason, but his attention was elsewhere, and she didn’t want to make any sound that might draw the gunman’s eye.
He was still standing near the railing, holding the hysterical woman in front of him, and waving the gun around. He looked crazed; his hair was disheveled, and even from a distance, you could see the dark circles under his eyes. His skin tone was waxy and dull, and his teeth were nearly black. Drug addict, thought Reilly. Most likely meth.
