The Cipher

by Maldonado, Isabella

  Sitting in his car in the park, he assessed the cop’s body language and made a quick decision. Letting his jaw hang open and adopting a vacant look, he affected the demeanor of a harmless idiot. “Sorry, lost track of time.”

  The cop spoke as if by rote. “License and registration.”

  He tugged the registration from a clip on the visor before fishing his driver’s license from his wallet. “Here you go, sir.” He figured the “sir” was a nice touch. Very respectful.

  The cop eyed the documents under the flashlight’s beam, then swiveled it around the interior of the car in a deliberate perusal. “You’re a long way from Charlottesville, Mr. Stevenson.”

  He blinked in the glare. “I’ll get there by tomorrow morning.”

  “Don’t let the white-line fever get to you.”

  “Huh?”

  The cop heaved a weary sigh. “That means stay awake, Mr. Stevenson.”

  “Oh.”

  The cop walked away, shaking his head.

  The Cipher had planned for this, but he was still irritated that a perfectly good car and fake ID would have to be destroyed thanks to that asshole cop.

  He tossed the half-eaten burger on the seat next to him and threw the car in reverse, thoughts already on his next move. He backed out of the spot and shifted into drive as he contemplated his situation. That woman’s video was getting more hits than he would have believed possible. It was happening. Everyone wanted to join the hunt, solve his puzzles, step inside his world.

  Those fools from MIT were probably already putting the new code through algorithms and coming up with viable permutations. That would only work for half of the message. The half he wanted them to figure out. The rest of it would require a different kind of insight. The arrogant pricks were about to learn who they were messing with.

  Chapter 15

  1 Newhall Street, San Francisco Office of the Chief Medical Examiner

  Nina gazed down at the L-shaped operating table in the autopsy suite as the fine-boned body on its surface bore silent witness to the Cipher’s brutality. Bathed in the surgical light glaring from overhead, sixteen-year-old Olivia Burch lay on a sheet of cold steel. Detective Ralph Colton of SFPD Homicide, who had supplied the name of the murdered girl, stood to her right. Wade cut his eyes to her from her left.

  “You need to leave?” he asked as a second shudder passed through her.

  No way would she admit the young girl on the table brought back memories of the silvery metal beneath her own body years ago.

  “A bit cold in here.” She made a show of rubbing her hands together and fended off further questions with a touch of snark. “You’d think we were in a morgue or something.”

  They had been ushered into the autopsy suite after the procedure was already underway, a fact Wade had impressed upon her with no small amount of grumbling. He had wanted to be present from the start, which had been expedited due to the nature of the case. Colton had brought them up to speed, but Wade didn’t seem mollified, especially when he had to view the three round burn marks found on the victim’s back by scrolling through photos on the detective’s phone.

  Dr. Donald Fong looked up. “I can’t do much about the room temperature.”

  The assistant ME was short and stocky, his black hair hidden under a disposable cap that matched his white lab coat. The lower half of his face was covered with a surgical mask, and his dark eyes peered out at them from behind a clear plastic shield extending down from his forehead past his chin.

  Nina instantly regretted her ploy. “I’ll be fine.”

  Fong gave her a curt nod and got back to business. “I scanned an overview of the DC autopsy before I started, and there’s no sign of any note left in or on the body of this victim.”

  “Stomach contents?” Wade said. “Maybe she swallowed it.”

  “Empty,” Fong said. “She hadn’t eaten in a long time.”

  “Life on the street,” Colton said. “Hard to tell when your next meal is coming. The beat cop who ID’d her said he’d seen her around for over a year. He’d refer her to CPS every time he came across her, but she’d be back on the street before long.”

  Her eyes met Wade’s. They had found the connection.

  “Each of his victims has been an adolescent female living apart from her biological family,” Wade said. “He looks for the ones separated from the herd. Vulnerable girls with no one to protect them.”

  Is that how Wade viewed her as well? Is that why he hadn’t recommended her for hire? She moved the discussion in another direction. “Did you locate Olivia’s parents?”

  “Closest relative is a grandmother in Oakland.” Colton shook his head. “Grandma didn’t know how to reach the parents, but I’m sure we’ll hear from them soon with all this media coverage.”

  “Look at this,” Fong said, drawing their attention back to the autopsy. “That tooth appears to be freshly broken.”

  He stepped on a hydraulic lift bar, raising the table a few inches to afford a closer view. Extending nitrile-glove-clad hands, he pried Olivia’s mouth wider with gleaming metal tongs and pointed to an incisor with the tip chipped off, exposing a jagged edge.

  “Maybe he punched her,” Colton said.

  Fong shook his head. “There’s no correlating tissue damage to the inside of her upper lip. This tooth was fractured with some sort of instrument inside her mouth.”

  A flash of insight caught Nina off guard. She turned to Wade. “Can I have a word?”

  After giving her an assessing look, he turned and strode from the room without comment.

  As soon as the door closed behind them, Nina spoke in an urgent undertone. “The Cipher used something to spread my mouth. It was like a pair of scissors, but without a sharp edge. He ratcheted my jaw apart, then forced a gag past my teeth.”

  Yet another element of the crime had slipped into a dark crevice of her mind, only to be unearthed by a glimpse of an unrelated scene. Perhaps the steel table, the young girl, and the metal instrument Dr. Fong had used was enough to trigger the long-forgotten detail. How many other tiny mental scraps had gone missing?

  She focused on the revelation and what it might mean. “Who would have something like that?”

  “A dentist.” Wade stroked his jaw, considering. “Or an otolaryngologist.” At Nina’s raised brow, he elaborated. “Ear, nose, and throat doctor.”

  “Obviously, a medical examiner or coroner uses them.” Her mind raced. “We’re talking about someone in a medical profession, but that could include a nurse or a veterinarian too.”

  Wade pulled his buzzing cell phone from his pocket. “It’s Buxton.” Glancing over his shoulder to be sure they were alone, he tapped the screen to put it on speaker.

  Buxton sounded harried. “It’s a five-alarm fire over here. What’s your status, Agent Wade?”

  “I’m at the autopsy with Agent Guerrera and Detective Colton with SFPD Homicide.” He summarized Dr. Fong’s findings and explained what Nina had recalled along with its implications. “What’s going on at Quantico?”

  Buxton grunted. “A photo of the clue left by the unsub is spreading through the internet like a computer virus.”

  “Who posted it?” Wade asked.

  “According to our San Francisco field office, the woman who found the envelope taped to the dumpster failed to mention that she’d uploaded a video of the whole thing, including a still shot of the message, to YouTube.” He heaved a sigh. “And the SFPD beat cop she spoke to didn’t think to ask her either. He took down her info, bagged the envelope, and brought it straight to his sergeant.”

  Nina didn’t blame the officer. This case would change standard procedure in policework going forward. That included how much of a perimeter they would set up around a crime scene. The dumpster was on the wharf, well away from where the body had been recovered.

  Wade seemed to be thinking along the same lines. “At the DC scene, the unsub wanted to be sure we found his messages,” he said. “This time, he lets som
eone in the public stumble across it, and it’s also likely several cameras caught him taping it to the dumpster.”

  “We’re collecting all relevant video.” Buxton’s voice carried through the empty corridor over the tiny phone speaker. “We’ve already got data search parameters set up, and our team is going through the feeds as the detectives bring them to us. We’ll keep reviewing as new material comes in.”

  “It’s performance art,” Wade said. “He’s feeding his growing audience.”

  “If that’s his plan, he succeeded,” Buxton said. “Julian Zarran has just inserted himself into the middle of this mess.”

  Nina had seen several of Zarran’s movies. The action hero was one of the hottest box office draws in Hollywood.

  Buxton continued in a frustrated rush, “People commented and shared the woman’s video until it hit critical mass when Zarran retweeted it to his twenty million followers with an offer of half a million dollars to the first person or group who cracked the code.”

  Wade swore under his breath. “Zarran grew up in San Francisco. I’m sure he thought he was helping.”

  “Whatever his intentions were, he sparked a frenzy,” Buxton said. “As if we didn’t have enough to do, every armchair sleuth with a calculator has submitted potential solutions to the code, each one more improbable than the last. There are so many suggested answers that we can’t vet them all. The right one could be somewhere in the mix, but it’s lost in all the static.”

  “What about our analysts?” Nina said. “Is Crypto on it?”

  “Of course.” Buxton sounded irritated. “They’ll let me know when they’re reasonably certain they have the right answer. They’ve come up with several possibilities at this point, each leading to different conclusions. We can’t afford to take a wrong turn by leaping on the first possible solution that comes up.”

  “This guy is either highly strategic or damned lucky,” Wade said. “The amount of chaos this is causing hampers everything we’re doing.”

  “In the past forty minutes since Zarran’s announcement, more teams have formed to claim the prize,” Buxton said. “Those students from MIT who figured out his last clue are on all the unsub’s social media sites. They’re calling themselves the Brew Crew now. I can guess what they’ll spend the prize money on if they win.”

  “What are they saying to the Cipher in their posts?” she asked.

  “That they’ll break his kindergarten code before breakfast.”

  Wade grimaced. “Dammit, they’re challenging his intelligence. His need for dominance will drive him to retaliate. He might move up the deadline.”

  That was the opening Nina had been waiting for. She pretended as if an idea had just occurred to her. “There might be a way to buy some time.”

  Wade gave her a wary look, but Buxton sounded curious. “What do you have in mind, Agent Guerrera?”

  “Let’s respond to him directly.” She spoke quickly, wanting to outline her plan before Wade could interrupt. “On his Facebook page or his Twitter feed, or wherever. If he’s talking to us, we might be able to convince him to delay his plans. At the very least, we could get him to say something revealing or give Cyber Crime a better shot at following any virtual bread crumbs back to him.”

  Wade wasted no time objecting. “Engaging him on social media directly will elevate his narcissism.” He looked at Nina as he spoke to their boss. “Furthermore, we don’t know enough about him yet. Any inadvertent comment from us could provoke him further if we say the wrong thing.”

  “Speaking of which,” Buxton cut in, “Agent Breck is on standby to shut down all of his social media accounts. We would have done it already, but Cyber Crime is developing a new component to an existing program to trace his location. Unfortunately, the Cipher is living up to his name. He’s led us down a lot of rabbit holes so far.”

  “Then this is the perfect time to keep him active online,” Nina said. “Ignoring him hasn’t worked. Shutting him down won’t either. He’ll set up new profiles as fast as we can take them offline. Another girl is dead. If this clue is like the last one, it’ll lead us to another body in forty-eight”—she glanced at her watch—“make that forty-six hours. We have plenty to gain and nothing to lose by trying a different approach.”

  Wade glared at her. She took it as a positive. Her position made sense, and they both knew it.

  Buxton’s response crackled in the air between them. “I agree with Agent Guerrera. We need to try something different. I’ll have someone from the team here at Quantico send him a direct message rather than posting something on his page. We’ll send it from our official account, so he knows it’s really us.”

  Nina had wedged her foot in the door. Time to kick it open. “Sir, I need to be the one who communicates with him.”

  “Explain.” Buxton bit out the word after a brief pause.

  “If he’s fixated on me, he won’t be able to resist. He’ll—”

  “He’ll get inside your head,” Wade said, interrupting her. “He’ll use the opportunity to torment you, and we need you focused on the case.”

  Nina bristled. “Are you saying he’ll rattle me so badly I can’t think straight? Because if you are, then you may have read my files, but you still don’t know me at all.” She took a step toward him, invading his personal space. “People have tried to bully me my whole life, but I’ve managed to hold my ground pretty damn well.”

  Wade turned away, hiding his expression and perhaps grasping her underlying message.

  “I want both of you back here ASAP,” Buxton said into the silence. “I’ve gotten authorization for a full-time task force dedicated to this investigation. We’re setting it up in one of the large conference rooms at the academy in Quantico for logistical and security reasons. We’ll discuss the messaging idea when you arrive. The San Francisco field office can continue to work with the SFPD on the murder there, but our job is to prevent the next one.”

  “We’ll be on the next direct flight,” Wade said, still not meeting her eyes.

  Buxton sounded fatigued. “Speaking of air travel, I’ve got teams coordinating forensic analysis of both scenes and checking flight manifests. We’re collecting the names of every passenger who flew from Reagan, BWI, or Dulles into San Francisco in the past three days.”

  Nina picked up on the subtext—as well as the weariness—behind his words. There was nothing to compare the passenger lists with except the usual criminal databases, which she doubted contained the unsub’s name. Buxton wanted the information ready so they would have another series of passengers for comparison when he struck again.

  When another girl died.

  Chapter 16

  The next day

  Cipher Task Force

  FBI Academy, Quantico

  A light tap on her arm drew Nina’s attention from the wall chart in front of her. She turned to see one of a cadre of the computer forensics specialists gazing down at her.

  “The Cipher just responded to your DM on Twitter,” he said.

  In the hour since the morning briefing had ended, Nina had been waiting to see if the Cipher would bite. In the interim, she’d joined the rest of her team and a host of other agents, analysts, and support staff to convert one of the larger meeting rooms at Quantico into command central for the growing task force Buxton had established during their absence in California.

  Enormous charts filled with crime scene photographs, copies of the coded messages, and maps covered the walls. Workstations grouped by assignment stood in clusters, occupying the floor space. A low hum of activity buzzed through the room, creating a sense of forward momentum as each team analyzed components of the information they had gleaned so far.

  Nina put down her coffee and threaded her way across the sprawling meeting area to the computer terminal designated as the social media communications center. She perched on a chair in front of the glowing screen, Wade and Kent flanking her.

  “Interact with him as long as you can,” Breck called to her
from her workstation a few feet away where she hunkered with two other cyber specialists. “The slippery bastard keeps rerouting, but we might be able to catch up if we have enough time.”

  She nodded her understanding. Breck had helped convince Buxton to let her contact the Cipher directly by pointing out that Nina had a better chance than anyone of holding the unsub’s attention.

  Kent had grudgingly endorsed the plan as well, provided Nina allowed him to coach her responses, no doubt planning to use his psycholinguistic analysis skills.

  The lone holdout, Wade finally conceded that he could use the opportunity to flesh out his profile of the Cipher by watching his responses to Nina in real time. He stationed himself to her right, notepad and pen in hand, half-moon readers resting near the end of his nose.

  Breck sent the Cipher direct messages from the FBI’s official Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts the previous night, but it had taken until now for him to answer. He’d chosen Twitter.

  Nina reread the opening message they had all agreed to. Designed to pique his interest, the opening salvo was brief and to the point.

  FBI: NINA GUERRERA WANTS TO SPEAK WITH YOU.

  The response was equally terse.

  CIPHER: IS THIS THE WARRIOR GIRL?

  “He bit,” Kent said. “Don’t give him anything to work with. I want to see how quickly he believes you.”

  FBI: IT’S ME.

  CIPHER: PROVE IT. TELL ME SOMETHING ONLY THE WARRIOR GIRL WOULD KNOW. U HAVE 10 SECONDS.

  “He doesn’t want you to have time to research,” Wade said. “It’s a test.”

  Kent’s deep voice came from over her left shoulder. “He’s also establishing control over the parameters of the communication. He has to feel like he’s in charge. Give him a detail that reflects how he controlled you.”

  FBI: YOU GRABBED ME BY THE PONYTAIL.

  CIPHER: TELL ME SOMETHING THAT WOULDN’T BE IN ANY POLICE REPORT. MAKE IT GOOD OR WE’RE DONE.

  Resting her fingers on the keyboard, Nina scoured her brain for something small but specific. She had been lying facedown on the table, head turned to one side, the hard metallic surface against her tear-streaked cheek. The Cipher stepped out of her line of sight for a few moments. Her eyes raked the area in search of an exit, spotting a door on the opposite wall. To the right of the doorframe was . . .