"I remember that," Jerri said. "Almost a quarter of the Raiders fans were ex-cons, but only five percent of the 49ers. It was totally a Big Brother play. Really irked the civil libertarians."
"That's the one," Sam said. "It was pretty accurate, and they've been refining it since. We've got the traffic camera data and several phone shots from the Jenny Sykes murder, which we can compare to the security tapes from both SLC and Des Moines airport terminals. We got great shots of everyone as they boarded and exited the plane, and we know that D Street's phone was on that plane.
"DHS has some guys vetting the passengers as we speak. Once we know what he looks like, we can search for him on Salt Lake traffic cameras and maybe pin him down. It's needle-in-a-haystack work, but we might get lucky."
Marty grunted.
"We've been through this before," Gene said. "A city simply isn't enough to go on. We give the face-matching program a chance to work, and, failing that, we work like the dickens when we get the neighborhood and the initials. Any other ideas?" Nobody replied. "Questions?"
After a moment, they all shook their heads.
"All right," Gene said. "Keep your thinking caps on. Marty, Jerri, you're on liaison work with the Municipal PD. Carl, Doug, you're with the local Feds. I'll cover the State Police. Go."
He closed his notebook and left the room.
* * *
October 22nd, 10:20 AM MST; FBI Field Offices Training Facility; Salt Lake City, Utah.
Gene grunted in pain as Jerri ducked the jab and delivered a solid kick to his ribs. He grabbed her ankle and twisted, hard. She dropped to the ground and spun free, sweeping his legs out from under him in the process. He hit the mat and rolled left as she flipped to her feet. She hit him four more times when he tried to stand. In theory she was pulling punches, but her fists felt like cast iron. He stumbled to his feet and backed up.
He blocked an open-hand slap and threw himself at her, trying to wrap her in a bear hug. She dropped to her knees and delivered a one-two punch right to his groin. The cup absorbed most of the damage, but the impact knocked him off-balance. He stumbled sideways, twisted, and fell on his rear. Jerri stood and leaned casually against the post on the side of the ring.
"That wasn't right, Jerri!" Marty said from the other side of the ropes.
She smiled, took out her mouth guard, and put out a hand to Gene. "We done?"
He removed his own guard. "I think that's enough getting my butt kicked by a girl for today." She helped him up. "That last move wasn't very sporting."
"Jujitsu isn't sporting. It's about putting the hurt on people."
"That would've done it."
"My turn! My turn!" Marty cried from the sidelines, hopping up and down to get his adrenaline flowing. On the floor next to him, the phone in Gene's duffel bag rang.
"Give me that, would you?" Gene asked Marty.
Marty dug into Gene's duffel, peeked at the phone, and walked over. "It's Sam." He handed it to Gene.
He hit "talk."
"Gene."
"Hey. We got a hit."
"What kind of hit?"
"Traffic camera, last night. Seven-thousand block of Eagle Crest Drive. Physical description looks right, and it matches a face ID'd on both the airport cameras and two of the crowd shots from the Sykes murder at ninety-two and eighty-six percent probabilities. Statistics says it's the same guy. Here are the pictures." Gene's phone beeped and an image appeared. Marty stopped hopping and peered over his shoulder.
The first black and white photograph showed a Caucasian male with dark hair driving a dark Nissan Sentra. The next was a full-color shot of the same man boarding the plane in Des Moines. The third showed him dressed in a nice suit, hurrying away from the Rodeo Drive car bombing. The fourth was the same scene shot at a different angle.
"Tags?" Gene asked.
"Rental," Sam said. "Rented ten days ago by a Paul Renner, paid with cash but with a credit card on file. Hertz doesn't have a security camera at their counter, but the name's too much of a coincidence to think it's not our guy. I can't find a good reason for the alias. The only vaguely famous 'Paul Renner' was a twentieth century German typographer. Nice fonts. Anyway, his social security number belongs to an eighty-three-year-old named Bruce Hutchinson, who lives in a nursing home in Houston. I haven't notified them of the identity theft yet, and I've got a passive credit alert on the card. If he uses it, we'll get him."
"Sweet," Marty said, eavesdropping.
"Great, Sam," Gene said. "Put out an APB on that Sentra and on 'Paul Renner,' but under no circumstances should law enforcement apprehend. If they see it, tail him, but only if they can do it covertly, and notify me. And get a warrant for that rental paperwork. We might be able to confirm prints off it."
"Got it," Sam said.
"Look into that typographer. The alias might not be a coincidence. It might tell us something about him."
"Sure thing."
"And Sam?"
"Yeah?"
"Tell Carl and Doug to be ready to move at a moment's notice."
"Will do."
He hung up the phone and looked at Jerri. "Shower up. If they find him, we go get him."
Jerri sized up Marty. "Next time, Marty."
Marty grinned. "It'll be my pleasure."
Chapter 5
October 24th, 8:08 AM MST; Sheila Jones' Apartment; Salt Lake City, Utah.
Sheila smiled and stretched languorously on the bed, listening to the shower as last night's e-date got ready for the day. Some kind of business meeting or something. She ran her hands down her naked body and shuddered in remembered pleasure. She fought back the cloud of Ecstasy and alcohol of the previous night to grasp at his name. Pete? Pat? Something like that.
Good fuck, whatever his name was. She'd have to ask for his number. She got up and strolled to the kitchen to rummage through the fridge for some milk. As she reached in, she noticed a small scratch on her wrist. Now where did I get that? she thought, mentally reminding herself to get some Neosporin once the guy got out of the shower. Or maybe I should join him? She frowned. Maybe I won't ask for his number, she thought, glaring at the half-gallon as if it were the milk's fault that she had bad taste in men.
She chugged a couple of gulps from the carton and was putting it back when the front window shattered. Her mouth open in an "O" of shock, she stared at the little hockey-puck-like object that skittered across the floor. Her brain had just enough time to register that she should probably duck or hide or at least close the fridge door or something when the flash-bang grenade went off.
Sheila found herself sprawled naked in a widening pool of milk, staring at the ceiling. Her head felt like a popped balloon, and she tasted blood. The milk felt cold on her back and soaked her hair. She hadn't realized there were so many cobwebs in the corners of her kitchen. Maybe I ought to dust more.
She tried to clear her thoughts as sound rushed back in. Boots thumped everywhere, and she heard a man shout, "CLEAR!" Only then did she realize that a short black kid stood over her with some kind of machine gun. He had F.B.I. emblazoned on his bulletproof vest and jacket.
"Can you hear me?" His eyes were cold. She nodded. "Sheila Jones?" he asked again, wasting no time on superfluous talk. She nodded again. She felt like a marching band was drumming its way around her skull. "Where's Paul Renner?" Fuck, that was his name. Paul.
"Um. Shower." She pointed toward the bathroom. He took off at a dead run. Sheila fainted.
The bathroom door was ajar. Carl pushed it open with his left hand while Jerri covered him. Fog billowed from the muggy room. Condensation covered both the tiny window and the large mirror. Hot water streamed down in the shower. Carl crept forward, both hands tight on the fully automatic MP5. The safety was off. He inched forward. One hand on the trigger, he reached with the other and yanked back the shower curtain. The water sprayed on empty porcelain.
Carl stepped back. "Master bath's clear," he said over the COM. "Jerri, check the bedroom closet."
"Got it," she said from behind.
Carl took a doubtful look at the window, cracked to let in a breeze. No way a guy could fit through there, even if it were wide open. He peered out, his weapon raised and ready to fire.
The burst of pain as his elbow dislocated was the first indication that he wasn't alone. Carl tried to cry out, but a strike to the throat silenced him. His mouth worked like a fish’s, gasping for breath that wouldn't come. D Street wrenched his arm behind his back. Carl felt ligaments tear and tendons rupture even as the killer plucked the MP5 from his hand.
Ah, shit, this guy's fast, was the last thing Carl had a chance to think before another blow dropped him like a sack of meat. He squirmed on the ground but couldn't summon the mental energy to do anything else. His eyes rolled into the back of his head.
Paul Renner inspected the submachine gun while Special Agent Carl Brent twitched at his feet. There was a round in the chamber, a fully loaded magazine, and the safety was off. He kicked the downed man in the temple, hard, with his steel-toed boot. Should have looked up, he thought. With an amused smile, he stepped through the doorway and into the bedroom.
Special Agent Jerri Bates had a fantastic ass. Paul took a moment to admire it as she rifled through the closet, pounding on the walls with the heel of her hand. His grin got bigger as she called out to her partner, her voice muffled by the clothes.
The closet was a dead end. There weren't any secret hidey-holes, nowhere for the perp to go, nowhere to hide. I hope Marty and Gene are having more luck in the front. Jerri banged around a bit more just to be sure, then called out, "Carl, he's not in the closet. There's no escape route here!"
"I know," said a man's voice. It wasn't Carl. "Nice guns, these HKs."
Jerri's fingers twitched on her weapon, and she readied herself to turn and fire.
"Don't," the killer said, his voice full of contempt. She froze. "Slowly, drop the gun and put your hands in the air." In spite of herself, she did so. Oh, God, who's going to tell my mom that I'm dead?
She turned around, a tear forming in her eye, and looked at the killer. The D Street Killer was so ordinary that he would blend into any crowd. Almost six feet tall, black hair, brown eyes, handsome but not enough to stand out in any given company. Jesus, she thought, I could walk right by him a thousand times and never recognize him. Even so, she scanned him for anything that might be useful later. A tiny scar on his right eyebrow. A slight asymmetry to his smile. Not that it matters. I'm already dead. She glanced at the boots protruding from the bathroom door. Poor Carl.
Images flashed through her head. Her mother, laughing as she tried to blow out the five candles on her first real birthday cake. Her friend Angela pushing her on the swing set in third grade. Her first kiss. Her last kiss, only two weeks before. She closed her eyes, filled only with regret. The killer's voice was as soft as silk. "There's no money in this," he said, almost sadly, and her world went black.
* * *
October 24th, 8:31 AM MST; Sheila Jones' Apartment; Salt Lake City, Utah.
Gene looked around the apartment, his head throbbing in spite of the cocktail of Benadryl, Advil, and Sudafed he'd downed an hour before. Between a brutal sinus infection and being the Special Agent-in-Charge of this botch-job of an operation, he had good reason for misery. He glared at Marty with unbridled anger, his red face turning redder with the exertion. "How can a guy just disappear out a window barely big enough for a cat?"
"Don't know, Gene," Marty said. "I don't think he ever got in the fucking shower in the first place. Probably wasn't even in the bathroom when Carl went in there." Marty sneered and held up his thumb and index finger. "We were this fucking close to nabbing that motherfucker, Gene. This close." He dropped his hand. "Still, we didn't come away entirely empty-handed. Whoever LRJ is, he's safe. For now." With a glance at Carl he continued. "Hey, Carl, show him what we got."
Carl limped over with two sealed plastic bags, the latex gloves a sharp contrast to his dark brown skin. He held up the bags with the arm not in a sling and winced at the effort. The left side of his face was a swollen, purple bruise. Gene almost felt bad for whining to himself about his own head. Almost.
Carl sounded confident, though he looked ready to collapse. "Two wallets, four IDs, six credit cards, two debit cards—both local—and a cell phone, prepaid I-590, same one Sam was tracking, and the same one that sent the text this morning. LRJ, Poplar Grove. We're monitoring the account—these things have 'net-accessible mailboxes—even though we know he's too smart to use it again. Sam's checking the balances on the bank accounts so we can seize them."
Sam broke in. "Yeah, not much. A couple grand in each account. The credit cards are all identity-theft. The aliases are all bunk. We're sending some people to check on the addresses, though."
Darn it, Gene thought. The addresses never check out.
Carl continued. "I think the woman's worthless, met him through one of those online dating services. Last night was their first date. Jerri and Doug are interrogating her now."
Carl inclined his head toward the bedroom where Sheila Jones sat in a flimsy nightgown, flanked by Doug and Jerri.
Gene's headache was relentless. "Yeah, okay, Carl. Let me know what Sam turns up. In the meantime, get some rest." He turned to his brother. "Marty, talk to local and have them set up interviews with all our LRJs. How many of them do we have?"
"Eighteen," Marty said. "I'm on it." He walked out of the apartment and down the steps to the car.
Gene entered the bedroom and glowered at the woman they'd found in the kitchen. Doug spoke while Jerri stared at the wall. Gene motioned to her, and they stepped into the hallway for privacy.
"Sorry, boss," she said.
"Not your fault, Jerri. It was a clean Op. We were just outsmarted." They'd been outsmarted for three years, and the team before them for another seven.
Jerri sighed, her face doubtful. "If you say so."
Gene's expression, already worried, became downright grave. "What exactly does that mean, Agent Bates?"
She snarled. "Guy had me cold, Gene. I was dead. Dead." She frowned at the tile floor where they had found Carl. "He didn't do me, didn't do Carl. Hell, he barely even touched me." She gave an apologetic look through the doorway. Gene followed her gaze to Carl, leaning against the wall in the next room. Carl might never regain the use of his arm. "It doesn't make any goddamn sense. Why let us live, especially now that he knows that we know what he looks like?" Her eyes shone with such ferocity that for a moment Gene could see what Marty saw in her.
"Shouldn't surprise us, Jerri. The only M.O. this guy's got is that there isn't any M.O. No serial in the books would have let you or Carl live."
Jerri looked at the floor and said, "There's no money in it."
"What?" Gene asked, confused.
She repeated herself with more certainty, looking him dead in the eyes. "'There's no money in it.' That's what D Street said just before he took me down. What's it mean?"
Gene grimaced. "I don't know, Jerri. But I think we ought to find out."
Over the next three days, two text messages were sent to the phone recovered in Sheila Jones' apartment. They were encrypted, and both a single line in length. Sam knew they were gibberish code-phrases. Phrases that, even if they hacked the encryption, wouldn't mean anything unless she knew what each word represented. "Blue moon sits on the hen's egg" or some crap like that. Even if they weren't gibberish, they were too short to bust open. She'd sent them to cryptanalysis anyway.
Chapter 6
November 14th, 5:18 PM EST; J. Edgar Hoover Building; Washington, D.C.
Gene sat at his desk, working on the Salt Lake City report. He'd been staring at a computer monitor for six hours straight and felt like it. His team, along with countless behind-the-scenes forensics experts, had been working sixteen-hour days for two weeks straight. His phone chirped, and he hit "speaker."
"Palomini."
"Hey," Sam said. "We have our LRJ."
"Fant
astic. Who is it?"
"Lawrence Reginald Johnson, Jr., retired garbage man and grandfather."
Gene put his head in his hands and rubbed his temples. "Any pattern matches?"
"None so far. No correlation between Mr. Johnson and any of the other victims."
"No surprise there," Gene said. "Why do we think it's him?"
"We know it's him," Sam said, "because Larry has a blog that almost nobody reads. But he was logged six times in the past three months through municipal firewalls. Once from Los Angeles; once from Syracuse, New York; once from Rochester, Minnesota; again from Los Angeles; and twice from Des Moines. In that order. Do those locations sound familiar?"
Gene played dumb. "Gee, Sam, they almost sound like D Street's travel patterns. I assume the dates match what we have from the phone?"
"Yup. Sure do!" Sam's enthusiasm matched his own.
"Awesome work, Sam. Double-check the rest of our LRJs, and let PC know they'll be able to let them go soon."
"Will do. FYI, I'm still trying to crack the encryption on those text messages, but I'm not hopeful. Chad DelGatto from crypto has an idea about using area-code iterations and an Apex-Lucinda approach to break the—"
Gene cut her off. "Sounds good, Sam. Let me know how it goes." He'd never studied cryptography, and she'd never stop explaining once she got rolling.
"Right." She hung up.
Gene turned back to his paperwork. Another hour or two, and he'd be done for the week. But first, he had to figure out what to do with Larry Johnson, Jr. An idea came to him, and he picked up the phone.
* * *
November 16th, 8:20 AM CST; Home of Agent Robert Barnhoorn; St. Louis, Missouri.
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