The Cipher

by Maldonado, Isabella

  “You recall our conversation at your club two years ago?” Wade said, taking a seat in a dilapidated ladder-back chair.

  Sorrentino grimaced. “Like I remember my last hemorrhoid.”

  “We’d like to discuss those items you sold.”

  “Not that again.” Sorrentino leaned forward, the chair creaking ominously beneath his girth. “I told you, I haven’t sold any more stuff since you and the other Feds came to see me, and I don’t know nothin’ else about it.” He held up his right hand as if taking an oath, the universal gesture of liars everywhere. “I swear.”

  “Still, let’s go over it again.” Wade pulled out his notebook and opened it. “The last time we spoke, you mentioned that you obtained fighting gloves from your nephew.”

  “That’s right, my brother’s kid, Sammy Sorrentino, he went out of business a long time ago, so I did him a favor and bought his leftover stock.”

  Wade flicked his half-moon readers open and slid them on before consulting his notes. “You paid him five cents on the dollar for every item, then you resold them at your club.” He peered over the top of the glasses. “At full price.”

  Sorrentino cleared his throat. “Well, there’s nothing wrong with making a little money, am I right?”

  “Long as you pay taxes.”

  “Look, we already went over this.” Sorrentino hitched up the corners of his mouth in what appeared to be his best approximation of a disarming smile. “You guys gave me a pass. Are you seriously here to bust my balls for selling some sports equipment at my own establishment? It was quality stuff, everybody loved it. It wasn’t like I was ripping anyone off or anything.”

  “Except your nephew,” Nina said, unable to resist needling him. Sorrentino could have been more helpful to his own family. “How come you could sell the gloves when he couldn’t?”

  She must have surprised him with the question, because his eyes widened as he seemed to notice her for the first time. “Heeeey, aren’t you the famous FBI chick?” He snapped his fingers. “The Warrior Girl, that’s it.” He gave her a speculative perusal. “You want to do a cage match? We could bill it as a special event. Guaranteed we sell out—hell, we could charge double for admission.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Mr. Sorrentino, let me assure you that I have zero interest in a cage match.”

  “You sure? You’re small but I saw that video where you kicked that guy’s ass in the park. I bet you could take most of the female fighters in the circuit.”

  She also figured he’d seen the other video the Cipher had released and knew he could get free publicity from media coverage and make a fortune in ticket sales. He was an opportunist, but not a very bright one.

  “I don’t think you’re hearing me.” She had a strong urge to clean out his ears with the barrel of her Glock. “I will not fight in your club. Or anyone else’s. Ever.”

  Sorrentino shrugged. “Your loss.” He seemed to struggle to pick up the thread of their conversation. “Anyway, the guys all know me. I been around a long time. They trust me. Once a couple of them tried out the gloves, the word spread, and the rest came asking. What was I supposed to do, turn away business?”

  “How many did you sell?” Wade asked.

  “A few.”

  Wade glanced at his notes again. “Last time you said it was over fifty pairs.”

  “Well, if you include the fighting gloves and the tactical gloves, yeah, that’s about right.”

  “Tactical gloves?”

  “MMA fighting gloves are fingerless,” Sorrentino said. “My nephew used the same material to make full gloves too. He was hoping to sell to the military or police as a backup plan, but that didn’t work out neither.”

  “And you never told your nephew about all the sales you made?”

  “Hey, he’d already declared the loss on his taxes. If I split it with him, it would only mess him up with the IRS, and nobody wants that.”

  Nina rolled her eyes. “You’re a real humanitarian.”

  “We need the names of the people you sold them to,” Wade said. “And don’t tell us you don’t know. A guy like you keeps records.”

  Sorrentino spread his hands, palms up. “Look around. Do I seem organized to you?”

  He had a point.

  Wade persisted. “You’re a businessman, and you know about tracking money. Perhaps a search warrant would turn up more information in your files and computers.”

  “I don’t need another rectal exam from the Feds. You guys didn’t find anything last time, and you won’t this time either.”

  Wade scowled. “Because you make sure everything’s off the books.”

  “Because there’s nothing there to find,” Sorrentino said, his voice rising with the righteous indignation of the truly corrupt. “Look, I keep track of my business, but this wasn’t my business. It was my nephew’s. I figure anything I sold was making up for my original investment.”

  Apparently conceding defeat on that front, Wade moved on. “Do you have a copy of the club’s schedule? One that shows which fighters were in a match and on what night?”

  “Sure. How far back you need to go?”

  “How far back can you go?”

  Sorrentino opened his arms wide in a magnanimous gesture, the picture of honesty. “To when I converted the club from boxing to MMA about twelve years ago, when I started selling them gloves to the fighters.”

  Wade leaned forward, eager. “Do you have the schedule here?”

  “I keep it on the computer at my club. I can email it to you.”

  “See that you do,” Wade said. “Today.”

  “What’s the hurry?” Sorrentino’s entire demeanor shifted as he went from defensive to calculating. “Hey, you guys are investigating that serial killer, the Cipher. This doesn’t have anything to do with that, does it?” His beady eyes darted back and forth between them. “If I provide information, I should get a reward, right? I mean, that Hollywood guy’s offering a million now, so what are the Feds paying?”

  “We’re offering you the opportunity to continue to operate your club,” Wade said. “As opposed to sharing a cell with a guy half your age who wants to show you his fighting skills in a cage match behind actual bars.”

  “No need for threats.” Sorrentino held up placating hands. “Just asking is all.”

  “Now you’ve got your answer.” Wade handed him a business card. “I’ll be expecting an email from you within two hours.” He stood. “Same as last time. You are not to speak about the subject of this conversation with anyone, understood?”

  “Who am I going to tell?” Sorrentino struggled to his feet. “I never said a word to anyone last time and I won’t now. It only makes me look bad.”

  “That goes for your wife too.”

  Sorrentino waved the notion off. “I don’t tell her shit. She’ll only be disappointed you two aren’t taking me away in cuffs.”

  As they left Sorrentino to his domestic bliss and treaded out to the SUV, Nina considered the situation. They had learned precious little from the fight club owner, but perhaps his database would provide useful information. At least they could eliminate fighters who had been in the cage during the times they knew the Cipher had been active.

  It wasn’t much to go on, and she was growing frustrated. The unsub continued to land solid blows, damaging her reputation, thwarting the investigation, and humiliating her in the process. She, on the other hand, was shadowboxing.

  Despite days of intensive investigation, he remained as much of a cipher as ever.

  Chapter 30

  After a long day poring over old case files from the Beltway Stalker investigation, Nina craved a long, hot shower. The shower she’d taken in the locker room at Quantico after her run had been slightly above lukewarm. She had managed to clean herself up before going out on the interview with Sorrentino, but it hadn’t been a pleasant experience.

  She’d come back to her apartment that evening and headed straight for the bathroom, only to be interrupted
by her doorbell. Hair dripping, Nina tightened the satin belt around her short bathrobe and picked up her gun. Palming the weapon, she padded to her door and stood on tiptoe to peer out the peephole. A mussed pile of jet-black hair with an artful streak of cobalt took up most of the small portal.

  Sighing, Nina ducked into the kitchen to stash her Glock in an upper cabinet. She darted back to the door and flung it open, beckoning Bianca inside. “Don’t you have homework or something?”

  She deliberately kept her tone brisk and playful, as if she had not been subjected to the worst public humiliation of her life a few hours earlier.

  “Already done,” Bianca said, playing her part without missing a beat. “Saw your car outside. Came to check on you.”

  “I don’t need a seventeen-year-old to make sure I’m okay.”

  Bianca followed her into the kitchen. “Everyone in the building is talking about it.”

  No point in pretending she didn’t understand. “I’ll bet they are.”

  “It was all over campus too,” Bianca said. “People got freaked watching the video on their phones. Once my psych professor realized no one was paying attention in class, he decided to include it in today’s abnormal psychology lecture.”

  Great. A professor at George Washington University had incorporated her into his curriculum. She pictured a lecture hall full of coeds scribbling notes as they analyzed the unsub’s mind, then decided it might be interesting to hear an academic’s take.

  “What did he say?”

  “Basically, he took an hour of our lives we will never get back to tell us the Cipher is a complete whack-a-doo.” Bianca shook her head. “Captain Obvious at the podium.”

  She saw through the snark. Bianca was worried. She rested a hand on the girl’s slender shoulder. “We’ll get him, mi’ja.”

  Bianca wasn’t the type to be comforted by platitudes. “Spoken like a true G-woman. The fan club would be proud.”

  Nina narrowed her eyes. “Fan club?”

  Bianca moved past her, opening the refrigerator door. “You know, a group of people who admire someone or what they do.”

  “I know what a fan club is.” She walked to the fridge, reached an arm around Bianca, and slammed the door shut. “What aren’t you telling me, Bee?”

  Bianca straightened. “Don’t use that interrogation crap on me. It won’t work.”

  Nina continued to stare at her.

  “And don’t look at me like that either.” Bianca rested a hand on her hip. “I know what you’re doing.”

  Nina didn’t move. “Spill.”

  Bianca studied her shoes. “Man, if they could see you now, half of them would drop you for the hot guy.”

  “Wait, what hot guy?”

  Bianca blew out a sigh redolent with all the frustration of a teenage genius forced to explain herself. Again. “Give me your laptop.”

  Nina fetched the computer from the coffee table where she’d put it next to the living room sofa and placed it in Bianca’s outstretched hand.

  “Look,” Bianca said, tapping on the keyboard. “Someone created a fan page and posted a roster for Team FBI.” She turned the laptop to face Nina. “People are voting for their favorite feebs.”

  Appalled, Nina swiped her finger down the screen. Candid shots of raid-jacketed federal agents at various crime scenes scrolled by. “What the hell is this?”

  “People got pictures of you and that old guy, Agent Wade, working the cases in DC, San Francisco, and Boston, so everyone knows you two are the lead investigators.”

  “Old guy?”

  “But in Boston, suddenly we get two other agents.” Bianca went on as if Nina hadn’t spoken. “A red-haired chick and a total hottie with a G.I. Joe haircut and glasses.”

  “And you refer to them as Ginger and G-man Joe?”

  “Not me,” Bianca said, overly innocent. “I didn’t come up with those nicknames.”

  “I can’t believe this is happening,” Nina said. “Another ring added to the circus.”

  Bianca tapped the screen. “No one knows who the tall black guy in the dark suit is either.”

  “That would be Supervisory Special Agent Buxton. Our boss.”

  “Got it.” Bianca handed her the computer and tugged a cell phone from her back pocket.

  “Hold on. You’d better not be texting that out.”

  “Me? No.”

  Watching Bianca thumb-typing gave Nina a sneaking suspicion. “Who set up this FBI fan page?”

  “No idea.”

  Bianca’s tell. A reflexive knee-jerk denial with zero eye contact.

  “It was you.” Nina jabbed a finger at her. “You and your friends.”

  “Look, that psycho killer has a fan page,” Bianca said, full of attitude. “He gets a cool nickname. Everyone calls him the Cipher. The good guys should have all that too.”

  She knew some serial killers attracted groupies but hadn’t heard about this new twist in the current investigation. “Where is the Cipher’s fan page?” She pushed the laptop back at Bianca. “Show me.”

  Bianca stowed her phone away again and pulled up a website as Nina held the computer. Images of the clues and the videos popped up. She would refer the page to Cyber Crime. They might already be monitoring it, but she had to be sure.

  She closed the laptop and looked at Bianca. “Some people are fascinated by violent criminals. Notorious murderers receive love letters and marriage proposals sent to them in prison by total strangers.”

  “My psych professor called it hybristophilia.” Bianca curled her lip. “People with major issues who fall for psycho killers. I don’t get it.”

  “Could you do me a favor and shut down your FBI fan page?”

  Bianca went back to checking her cell phone, avoiding both Nina’s gaze and the question.

  Nina crossed her arms. “Could you at least keep away from the investigation?”

  “In case you hadn’t noticed, everyone on the planet is involved with this investigation. I thought you might appreciate it if someone did it for the right reasons.” Her voice broke. “I just can’t stand . . . what he did to you . . .”

  Nina took a step toward her. “Bee, it’s okay, I—”

  “It’s not okay,” Bianca said. “Nothing about this is okay. I don’t care what you say, there’s no way I’m going to stand by and let that asshole post more footage of him torturing you. Not if I can do something to help you guys find him.”

  After a long silence, Nina laid the laptop on the kitchen table and sat down. Making a calculated decision about how much to share, she motioned for Bianca to sit in the chair across from her. “Our team is dissecting the video. We’ve already figured some things out that we didn’t know before. We’re going to stop him.”

  “Before he carries out his promise to show more of that video?”

  She swallowed the lump forming in her throat as she envisioned Bianca watching the next sixty seconds.

  “Please leave it alone, Bee. I don’t want you looking at his feeds, reading his posts, or doing anything else that puts his poison in your head. Leave him to us. We’ll track him down.”

  “You have a lot more faith in those feeb techies than I do.”

  “They’re really good at what they do.”

  “Yeah?” Bianca reached across the table to open the laptop. “Then how come they missed this?” She spun the screen to face her, tapped it several times, then angled it toward Nina. “I’m assuming you don’t know since you haven’t mentioned it.”

  She eyed the image. “This must be some sort of sick joke.”

  “It’s real,” Bianca said, tapping an icon to play a short video clip. “There’s the proof.”

  Nina stood and stalked to the coffee table in the tiny living room. She snatched up her phone and pressed the first speed-dial number.

  “Wade here.”

  She wasted no time on pleasantries. “I’m sending you a link.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “You know how
we were wondering why we didn’t find a clue from the unsub in Boston with a puzzle leading us to another city?”

  “I’m listening.” Wariness put an edge in Wade’s tone.

  “Some moron made a video showing where he found an envelope under a trash can about a quarter mile off the Freedom Trail. He listed it for auction on eBay. The bidding opened at twenty-five thousand. It’s already past sixty grand.”

  Chapter 31

  Traffic was a nightmare the next morning, and Nina had barely managed to get through security at both the Marine Corps and FBI Quantico checkpoints before the briefing was scheduled to begin. She had rushed to the largest meeting space in the sprawling facility, the nerve center of the growing task force.

  Sliding into a chair between Wade and Kent, she sent Breck a brief smile across the long rectangular table. She deliberately trained her gaze toward the head of the table, pretending she hadn’t noticed the surreptitious glances in her direction from agents and analysts she didn’t know. Her colleagues, like millions of others, had obviously seen the video.

  “All right, people,” Buxton said, abruptly quelling all sidebar conversations. “We have a lot of ground to cover. I want to make this quick so we can get back to our respective assignments. Let’s start with last night’s eBay fiasco.” He turned to Nina. “Agent Guerrera, can you start by telling us how you learned about the auction?”

  “My next-door neighbor is fostering a seventeen-year-old girl who’s finishing up her undergraduate degree at GW.” A wry grin lifted the edge of her mouth. “She’s got a scary-high IQ and a serious social media addiction. She showed me the link someone posted to an eBay auction.”

  Breck spoke up. “Our team spotted it at the same time your neighbor did.” She gave her head a bewildered shake. “That girl should work for the Bureau when she graduates.”

  Nina grinned. “She’d end up running the place.”

  Apparently satisfied with her explanation, Buxton gestured toward a slender man in a slightly rumpled suit sitting a few seats down from him. “This is Supervisory Special Agent Jay Yakamura from the Boston field office. His team followed up on the clue that was listed for sale on eBay.”