by Fiona Quinn
“Because she was collecting DNA?” I asked, figuring out that ethics plus body debris could only mean DNA.
“Exactly,” DiSarro replied.
Was this a trick?
Hair wouldn’t matter. The only DNA in the hair is if the follicle is still attached. That doesn’t happen in a normal hair shed. The hairs that fall out of our heads and the hairs that come out on our brushes and combs are hair at the end of the cycle. The follicles are gone. Hair, to be useful, would need to be pulled out to retain its follicle.
“I don’t see hair being a DNA ethical issue if it’s randomly found.” That got me a nod of approbation from Cho.
“I guess saliva on a cup might be a better example of someone inadvertently leaving their DNA behind,” DiSarro said.
“So this art installation has something to do with the artist using DNA?”
“Glenda Leibowitz is a Ph.D. candidate in electronic arts,” DiSarro said.
Striker leaned forward. “I’ve never heard of that.” Striker paints in oils, but he loves innovative ideas. He was going to enjoy this case if it had to do with applied art.
“Leibowitz collects a piece of DNA from the city’s assorted human debris. In her lab, she sequences specific genomic regions and enters that information into a software system that she developed. The program then creates a file of a model of the face of the person whose DNA she sampled.”
That’s messed up, I thought. But said, “Creepy.”
Casper tapped the computer, and a close-up of one of the masks was on the screen.
“How does she get from computer analysis to art object?” Striker asked.
“These are 3D printed portraits that are life-sized.” DiSarro pointed at the screen. “Those boxes underneath contain the street sample that started the process.”
“An artist did that? Not a geneticist?” I squinted at the screen, wondering how close she was able to get to reality with her project.
My friend, Dr. Zoe Kealoha, worked with blood markers. She had developed a number of ways to identify someone without going through the time and expense of using DNA testing.
I was trying to recall what she had said about what scientists could now tell with DNA. We had talked about this because of an article I’d read about how anthropologists wanted to see if they could find some functional DNA in a long-ago human. I had asked Zoe her thoughts on whether or not science could tell what they would have looked like.
Scientific algorithms could identify age, sex, even body mass index with fair accuracy.
It became a little more complicated with trying to get a face to match the sample. The whole nature versus nurture thing has an impact not only on our psychological development but also on our physical looks. Maybe the person’s DNA said the gal should have an athletic BMI, but she learned stress eating as a coping mechanism that wouldn’t line up. Maybe the DNA said she should have straight black hair, like the lady walking with Black earlier, but she wanted to dye it red and add a curly perm.
Zoe said that while DNA was better than a random guess at figuring out what folks look like. One of the main problems with developing a useful image—beyond what humans do to change their appearances—was that our facial features are a composite of gene interaction.
While Zoe’s research with blood markers was meant to determine if someone was wrongly accused, it could not say definitively that the person was innocent or not. For that, law enforcement needed DNA. It had its place. But using it to narrow a search by reconstructing the face of a possible criminal through the DNA sequence?
I was skeptical that this artist had the ability to produce statistically correct replications.
“It’s rather genius what she came up with,” DiSarro said, warming to the subject. “In the lab, she cuts the sample into the smallest size she can, puts it into a test tube with the proper chemicals to break it down, sticks it into a centrifuge, rinse repeat until she obtains the purified DNA. A Polymerase chain reaction helps her to focus on that targeted genome. Then she has to send it out to a lab for sequencing.”
“It’s a reputable lab?” I asked.
“In our case,” Cho said, “since this is about criminality and not art, we handed her about a thousand base pair sequences from our crime lab. There was a chain of custody and a high-level of forensic professionalism.”
I focused on him. “Until you handed it to her.”
“Even then. We set up a lab that would maintain the evidentiary integrity.”
I nodded. Set up a lab for her? With that expense and the expense of bringing Iniquus on, this was a big “get” then.
“Okay, you used Leibowitz’s artist skills to find a bad guy. But now, you’re not sure if you have the bad guy or some rando who happened to leave some DNA behind?”
“Exactly.” Cho shifted his weight in his seat and sent a fleeting glance toward Casper as if admitting such to me was a no-no.
“What did she collect?” Striker asked.
“CIA officers did the collection. Cigarette butts. Luckily, our target smokes.”
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“What?”
“That your target smokes. I mean, if you knew what your target looked like, you wouldn’t have needed this process, right?” I canted my head. “A crime happened, and there was a fresh butt on the scene. Someone thought, ‘Could be our guy, let’s test it out.’ But in practicality, you don’t know that.”
“With one sample, I would agree,” Casper said. “However, we have four instances where a butt was found at the crime scene, and the DNA matches on all specimens. We feel confident that we have the right DNA. So we offered it to the artist, she made a face mask. We found the guy on surveillance cameras at the time of the crimes.”
Knowing this about DNA, if I had ever become a serial criminal and had a vicious streak with an enemy who was a smoker, I’d collect their old butts in a little plastic baggie in my freezer. I’d leave one or two behind at each crime scene. That way, the investigators would say precisely what this CIA officer was saying.
I wasn’t giving a lot of credence to the cigarettes. But this was a fascinating and ethically questionable new tool that might be deployed. I was looking forward to talking this over with Zoe. Maybe she and I could take a trip to New York City and go see this installation.
Good? Bad? Yeah, rules should be put in place, and I’d like to hear Zoe’s take on it since she was a stickler for ethics.
“But you’re not convinced that it’s the right guy based on other… No.” I tapped my chin. “You think you have the right guy, but you don’t have evidence other than his proximity, and you’ve found holes in your speculation. Enough holes that you don’t think that this will make it through the grand jury when you hand it over to a prosecutor. What crime? What continent?”
“Espionage. Europe,” Casper said.
“Foreign player?” Striker asked.
Casper stuck his tongue between his teeth and lip, making his mouth bulge outward. It was a modified signal that he was feeling aggressive, if not violent, about the subject. “American.”
This was actually more interesting than I thought it would be, in a creepy and disturbing way. “Please continue. I’m assuming that you went to the extremes to engage with this artist because this person of interest didn’t have a DNA sample in the government data banks. And I’m betting that no one in his family did one of those home DNA testing kits because they wanted to know where their ancestors came from, so there was no familial DNA to track down.”
“Correct,” Cho said.
I blinked as I processed the information. “So what traits could the artist use to develop her conclusions?”
“Gender, eye color, weight ranges, anything important that could change facial morphology.” DiSarro reached up to rub the space between his eyes and swept a thumb up his cheek bone. “She said there are about fifty-ish traits that she’s analyzed. Putting those trait parameters into the software program, she prints off
a 3D structure that could model the person’s face.”
“You tested her theory?” I asked.
Casper leaned forward and typed into the computer. Up came a picture of DiSarro next to one of the creepy pigmented death masks. It was a close, if not an exact likeness.
Simultaneously amazing and disturbing.
“From there, she creates a sculpture and paints them hyper-realistically,” DiSarro concluded.
“Okay,” I said. “Now, what do you want from us?”
Chapter Fourteen
Casper swiped his hand down his tie. “We started with a customer question—how did the top-secret information get into the hands of the bad actors. We sent that question to our relevant collection specialists who determined which collection platforms—” He turned to me, offering an avuncular smile. He was going to slowly lead me through an intelligence cycle, baby step by baby step.
“Cigarette butts?” I asked with a bat of my lashes, trying to move this along.
“This includes human intelligence—people who will give us useful data.” He turned his attention to Striker, who sat stoically listening. “In this case, it was determined that we needed assets.” He caught my eye. “An asset is a term that the CIA uses, but we use other synonyms like sources or agents. We aren’t CIA agents.” He pointed at each of the three.
I wasn’t sure what response he wanted here—surprise? Astonishment? A slap to my forehead that gosh, I’d been using the wrong terminology?
“Targeters, operations officers, staff operations officers are all involved. These highly educated, highly trained, highly professional intelligence officers give the leads to our field agents for covert action.”
“Who was your customer that posed the question?” I asked, trying to get him to stop with his CIA 101 lecture. Yeah, I was aware that he didn’t perceive me as a “highly” or a “professional,” but really, whatever. His reading of who I was didn’t matter in my analysis, and soon I’d be out the door and headed over to talk to Finley at the FBI.
“The Pentagon.”
“Thank you,” I said sweetly. “And can you tell me which station was developing the assets?”
“No.”
“Are one of you the collection management officer?” I looked from one man to the next. That was a no. “Who vetted the material that you’re sharing today?” I thought maybe if I threw out my own CIA vocabulary that we could move on from kindergarten.
“I did,” Cho said, looking decidedly uncomfortable.
“I appreciate your effort to bring me up to speed on the CIA processes. Since we have limited time in this meeting, I'd like to know what information you were able to glean from your Red Cell artist? What you wanted to accomplish by hiring Iniquus.” I paused. “Other than checking your superior’s boxes, that is.”
Striker reached under the table and squeezed my thigh. I could interpret that as a warning that I was about to overstep. But I preferred to interpret it as Striker getting totally turned on by my take-charge attitude.
Casper chewed his upper lip. “I’m going to show you some video. Please watch carefully. I’ve printed off the image that was created by the artist. I was told that you are an expert at body language.” He paused. “I think that’s a pseudo-science without real applicability in this instance. But… I was told to run this by you, and that’s why we’re here.”
For twenty-five minutes, we watched the surveillance videos. Some were grainy security camera feeds, some much more high-tech and easily viewed and interpreted.
And honestly, I didn’t know why I was here. Wasn’t this obvious?
The footage came to an end. Casper tapped his computer again. The lights came up. “Body language interpretation isn’t going to get us what we need.”
“I agree with you,” I said. “Well, body language is helpful here, but it’s not going to give you the information you’re asking for. Those are two different things.”
“Yeah? What’s that?” Casper leaned back in his chair, lacing his fingers and posting his hands on his head. It was an alpha body language move. He was spreading his arms like a frilled lizard to take up space and show dominance.
“You want me to prove that you’re focused in on the right guy. And I can tell you -ish.”
“-ish? How professional.”
“That face you made, disdain. That’s fine. I’m not particularly interested in winning you over. From your expressions, I can tell you that someone above you insisted that you call me in. You didn’t want to do that, but you couldn’t say no, so what you did instead was you contracted Strike Force to come. This is your baby, and you don’t need some young whippersnapper coming into your office and blowing some information your way. Especially since you don’t really believe in the science of body language.”
Mmmm, I hit the nail on the head. “And frankly, I’ve had a long day, and I have a lot of work to do.” I checked the time on my phone. “I need to be at the FBI very soon. So let me just cut to the chase. You both do and do not have the right guy. And by that, I mean, your focusing on the wrong crime.”
“What crime do you think we should focus on then?” DiSarro asked.
“Conspiracy.” I stood and walked toward the windows. The sun had popped out behind a bank of black clouds. I’d just use my own power move to make them squint at me. “I think I see your problem. Gentlemen, your officers are playing the three doors game on the Monty Hall show. You’ll remember that game. There are three doors, one has the grand prize of a new car, and then there are two goats. Only one door is a winner. What you’ve found are the goats, which have their value but certainly aren’t the big prize.”
“What now?” Cho posted his elbows on the table.
“First a story.” I leaned my hips into the ledge and crossed my feet at the ankles, looking comfortable and relaxed by design. “I would like to tell you the tale of Agent 355, during the Revolutionary War.”
There was a great shifting around the table. I had felt the undercurrent of their disdain since I walked in. No one asked me to fetch them a cup of coffee, but they viewed me as Striker’s subservient. Brought here for no discernable reason and now flapping my gums.
Whatever.
I planned to tell them my little story and then explain why they were chasing the goats, then walk away before I damaged Iniquus’s reputation by being petty—which was the most benign feeling I was experiencing.
Black walked away from me at the elevator bank.
Saw me and decided to ignore me and walk away.
It had been eight months. And the CIA owed me my freedom.
“According to historians,” I explained, “there’s no information about Agent 355 other than they know she was a woman. Those who have tried, since Revolutionary times, to figure out the mystery have failed. It was almost like she was a time traveler. Oh, they thought they had her name a few times. Serenity Bryant, they postulated. The soldiers arrested Serenity multiple times. They had a noose hung at the gallows awaiting a head and a neck. Now, it was really unusual that Serenity Bryant would be accused by the British soldiers. Serenity was the eldest daughter in a family of British loyalists. Her father wielded both money and prestige. Invariably, at trial, someone of equal social standing and who knew the family would come forward and say that it was impossible that Serenity has stolen the secret papers or had spied. She always had an alibi. She had been busy tending them on their sick bed or was busy caring for the poor the day the espionage had happened.”
I leaned over the table and poured myself a glass of water. I took a slow sip, knowing full well I was irritating people as they wished I’d just get to the point.
But I had been trained in many things by my CIA operator father and later by my mentor, Spyder McGraw.
One of those things was magic.
With magic, if you just went right for the big bang of the reveal? Well, it wasn’t very theatrical, and I didn’t get the gasp at the end.
This was performative.
I�
��d get to the jazz hands at the finale.
“Agent 355 was dangerous to the Loyalists. The Tories thought that perhaps the spy was a maid in a high-ranking Red Coat household where, as she served, she would have contact with British officers and overhear what was said over cards or drinks. A lot is unknown.” I gave a slight shrug. “One thing that is known about Agent 355 is that she helped to uncover General Benedict Arnold’s plans of betrayal. And her work led to the arrest of Andre, Arnold’s contact, by the Colonials. West Point was saved. Andre hanged.”
Pens twiddled in the officers’ hands.
“While Agent 355 is now listed as a woman named Abigail, a former slave owned by Anna Strong, in reality, the spy was a woman named Serenity Bryant.” I paused for effect. “She was my seventh-great grandmother. I will tell you also that Grandmother Bryant was thirty years old when this took place. How did she thwart the gallows, and how did she spy for America? When you know the whole story, it seems quite easy and obvious. Serenity had an identical twin named Mercy. She had been married at the age of sixteen to a fifty-year-old Loyalist, Jacob Witherspoon, who moved Mercy to Williamsburg, Virginia.” I glanced from man to man. “I’m sure that’s a place near and dear to all of your hearts, having spent a good amount of time in the area during your training at The Farm.”
Slight nods. Making this personal to them brightened their interest a bit.
“Mercy was amongst people who were arguing about the need for independence. Indeed, she had been outside of the Capitol Building on July fourth when Thomas Jefferson read the Declaration of Independence from the west balcony.”
I lowered my voice to sound conspiratorial. “Soon after, there was a fire at their house on the Duke of Gloucester Street.”
Heads nodded, recognizing the location.
“Mercy had been convinced about the righteousness of the Colonials’ cause. So, when the fire alarm went up and the servants were shrieking for help, Mercy threw on a dark cloak and grabbed a satchel that she’d been preparing from her trunk. Slipping out into the night and disappearing, everyone thought she’d died in the blaze. No one even considered that she existed. And where did Mercy go? She was secretly transported via colonial sympathizers to her family’s mansion in New York. There, she and her sister took turns being out and about. It took immense cunning, forethought, and courage. But they succeeded. And now historians call Serenity and Mercy Officer 355 as if they were only one person.”
