The Cipher

by Maldonado, Isabella

  Her body jerked upright. She turned to Wade, mouth forming words that would not come.

  His brows furrowed. “What is it?”

  “Trina,” she managed.

  “What about Trina?” Kent looked completely baffled.

  A cascade of memories showered through her, washing away the fog and bringing clarity. “That EMT who came to the scene in Phoenix. He had to cut Trina’s shackles to get her loose. She kept freaking out and he ended up grabbing her wrists.” Nina glanced away, embarrassed at her overreaction. “I kind of lost it when he did that.”

  She didn’t mention that she’d elbowed the paramedic. Buxton would read it in her 302 soon enough, and she would face whatever discipline the Bureau doled out.

  “What was it about the EMT?” Kent asked.

  “Something he said.” She was pulling fragments from the corners of her mind, stitching them into a pattern. “He shouted at Trina. Told her we were trying to help her.”

  “I don’t understand the significance,” Kent said.

  “That’s why I reacted to him.” She was practically vibrating with excitement. “When the Fairfax EMT got up in my face, he told me they were trying to help me. He said I should learn to master myself.”

  “Master yourself?” Kent picked up on it first. “Strange word choice.”

  She was relieved they were getting it now. “Exactly.”

  Wade’s forehead creased in confusion. “What’s the significance?”

  It had all come back to her. The weight of his body crushing down on her back, pinning her to the table. The musky smell of his sweat. The feel of his hot breath against her ear as he spoke.

  “That’s what the Cipher kept whispering in my ear.”

  Chapter 45

  Nina rushed across the Gulfstream’s oversize aisle. Breck, who had apparently been engrossed in her computer, looked up in surprise.

  Unable to contain her excitement, Nina plopped down in the empty seat next to Breck. “We’ve got a lead.” When Breck merely continued to stare at her, she smacked her palm on the table. “An honest-to-god, real-as-shit, genuine lead.”

  She felt Wade’s presence behind her.

  “The paramedic who treated the injuries on her back eleven years ago,” he said by way of explanation.

  She and Wade spent the next ten minutes filling Breck in on her epiphany as the others listened, answering the whole team’s questions as they came. She should have been mentally drained, but she felt completely energized, and her excitement proved contagious. The torpor that had engulfed the team a half hour ago was replaced by fervor.

  Buxton pulled out his leather portfolio and picked up the onboard sat phone. “I’m calling the task force.”

  Their supervisor was in his element. Buxton allocated assignments to various teams of field agents and analysts. It was as if the largest law enforcement agency in the United States had been holding its collective breath, waiting for this moment. This was the second time they had a viable lead to pursue, and, like he had before, Buxton wasted no time bringing every resource at his disposal to bear.

  Nina heard him task one of the teams with tracking down reports from police and rescue personnel who responded to the crossing guard’s 9-1-1 call. This was the result she was most anxious to see.

  “Things are clicking into place,” Kent said. “Like the medical tape residue and a variable schedule with lots of time off between shifts.”

  “I’ll make sure those shifts are cross-checked with the dates of kidnappings and murders,” Buxton said with his fingers over the receiver before resuming his conversation.

  Breck bent toward her laptop again. “A paramedic would have knowledge of crime scenes and how to cover his tracks from forensic analysis.” Her fingers began a staccato rhythm on the keyboard. “He might have gotten access to municipal government computers to identify potential targets in the system too.”

  Wade eased into a chair across the aisle. “I’m still not sure how he chooses his victims, but that will become clearer going forward. He may vary his methods, which would make sense, given the apparent randomness of other aspects of the crimes.”

  Within fifteen minutes, Buxton interrupted their ongoing discussion with an update. “The team going through the records discovered the police didn’t list the names of the paramedics in their report. However, because the call involved an injury to a juvenile who was a ward of the state, the Fairfax County Fire Department retained their records.”

  “Do we have a name?” Nina asked.

  “The two EMTs who responded to the call were Halberd Falk and Brian Dagget, both still on the job. Falk transferred to a fire station in Franconia, but Dagget still works out of the firehouse in Springfield.”

  Two possible names. Team FBI was a hell of a lot closer than they had been that morning.

  Buxton nodded to Breck. “They uploaded employee photos of both EMTs to the task force database. Why don’t you access the file and let’s take a look?”

  Breck opened a link to the FBI’s secure server and moused over to one of the folder icons created by the task force. Nina’s heart pounded so hard she thought it might burst as she waited for the first image to load.

  When the man’s face appeared, she let out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding.

  Dagget was white with blond hair and blue eyes. The image was in the ballpark with the DNA predictive image program. Was it him? She couldn’t be sure.

  Breck swiped the touch screen, bringing up the next photo. This was the moment of truth. If Falk didn’t match the predictive description at all, they would know it was Dagget.

  The image of a man resolved itself on the screen, and Nina sucked in an audible gasp as she looked at another man with blond hair and blue eyes. Falk could have been Dagget’s cousin. She drew closer, her nose almost touching the screen, paying special attention to the area around the eyes. The only part of the Cipher she had ever seen without a disguise.

  “Well?” Kent said into the silence as everyone watched her reaction.

  She had expected to have the same visceral response she’d had when she looked at the phenotype-generated image, but she didn’t. Were the men too much alike?

  “Dammit. I can’t be sure.” An idea surfaced. She snapped her eyes to Breck. “Do you have access to the list of names Sorrentino gave us?”

  Breck’s face split into a grin. “Stand by.”

  Everyone was back in a holding pattern as Breck moused around the desktop, opening various files.

  “Got it,” she said, swiveling the screen slightly so Nina could see. “I entered the names on an Excel spreadsheet so all I have to do is sort alphabetically.”

  Wade peered over Nina’s shoulder. “I swear, if both of these guys fight at the club, I say we lock them up anyway and sort it out later.”

  “At this point, I wouldn’t rule that out,” Buxton said.

  A few more clicks and the spreadsheet shifted, rearranging the columns. There was only one matching name. Only one suspect. Nina blew out a long breath.

  Halberd Falk was their man.

  Buxton, who had been gripping the sat phone with a hand over the receiver again, put it back to his ear and began firing off new instructions.

  A large warm hand rested on her shoulder, and she glanced up to see Kent gazing intently at her.

  “You okay?”

  Surprising herself, she did not feel the need to shrink away from the contact. “I’m good, thanks.”

  And she truly was. She had faced her demons to find the missing piece they needed. She turned to Wade. “And thank you too.”

  She felt like his true partner. The man who she had thought was heartless. The man who had tried to block her entry into the Bureau. The man who she now considered an ally and a friend.

  “You did all the heavy lifting.” Wade colored slightly, then added, “Thank you for trusting me after what I did to you.”

  Kent glanced from one to the other, trying to read the subt
ext. “What did you do to her, Wade?”

  Nina answered for Wade. “What he thought he had to . . . at the time.” She gave Kent a look designed to communicate that, to her, the matter was closed.

  Breck let out an excited squeak. “You guys are never going to believe this.” She glanced up at them. “Guess what his fighting name is?”

  Wade groaned. “If you tell me it’s the Cipher, I’m going to—”

  “Odin,” Breck said. “As in the god from Norse mythology.”

  The connection hit Nina with a jolt. “Dr. Borr’s son mentioned Odin.”

  “Borr was Odin’s father,” Wade said. “That makes perfect sense. Falk would have considered Dr. Borr to be his actual father. The man responsible for creating him, in a way. Hell, for all we know he might have been Falk’s biological father if he decided to use his own DNA again.”

  Nina’s mind whirled with the implications. “Falk probably also bought into all of Dr. Borr’s eugenics philosophies. Even though Borr died before Falk would have been old enough to meet him, he could have read about him.”

  “Didn’t Borr’s son say Odin was a one-eyed god?” Kent asked no one in particular.

  “He was,” Wade said, apparently up on his Norse mythology. “He supposedly sacrificed one of his eyes so that he could see all, know all.”

  A chill swept through Nina. “My god’s eye necklace,” she breathed, her hand reflexively going to her throat where it had once hung. “And that comment he made when we were DM’ing about how he was always watching.”

  “I could write a dissertation on this guy,” Wade muttered.

  For the next twenty minutes, they huddled together to review the previous cases from a new perspective.

  “We’re getting reports back now,” Buxton called out, interrupting them. “It’s only preliminary at this point. By the time they’re finished, we’ll know this guy’s preschool teacher’s maiden name.”

  Scary how much information the Bureau could amass in one hour with those kinds of resources.

  “The scores on his admissions tests into the EMT program were off the charts,” Buxton began. “He’s also a damned good fighter from what we’ve heard.” His finger trailed down the page of notes. “He’s a loner. Lives by himself in a single-family home on the western side of Fairfax County. We’re getting a search warrant for the property now. Should be able to execute it tonight.”

  “Is he on duty today?” Kent asked.

  “He’s currently on a leave of absence from work,” Buxton said. “Told his supervisor he needed to take care of an ailing aunt in Boise.”

  “Let me guess,” Nina said, rolling her eyes. “No aunt?”

  “Bingo.”

  “What’s his shift schedule?” Breck asked.

  “His squad works two days on, two days off, two days on, four days off.” Buxton allowed a rare grin. “They’ve matched up the dates. All of the abductions occurred at the beginning of a two-day or four-day break.”

  “How far back did they check?” Wade asked. “Do we know about the time around Guerrera’s abduction?”

  “He had just returned to duty after a disciplinary suspension,” Buxton said. “Got into a scuffle with a firefighter in the locker room at the station house. Broke the guy’s nose.”

  Wade nodded. “That would count as a precipitating stressor. His career was in jeopardy, which would cause him to feel pressure.”

  “I’ll bet that’s when he started cage fighting,” Kent said. “Consciously or not, he was trying to find an outlet for his aggression.”

  Nina felt a rush as another piece fell neatly into place. “That would explain the trace evidence found in my case. If he started at the club during his suspension, he would have needed to buy MMA gloves. I’m sure Sorrentino would have sold him a pair.”

  She recognized the sensation of momentum. The case was building.

  “Anything more on his personal life?” Wade asked.

  Buxton consulted his notes. “Never married, no children that we know of. Parents are both deceased. His mother died of an aneurysm when he was five years old, and his father fell down the stairs at the family home when Falk was twenty-one.” Buxton quirked a brow. “Only the two of them were there when it happened. Ruled an accident.”

  Wade spoke with absolute certainty. “I have no doubt his old man abused him. Falk pushed him down those stairs.”

  “He inherited the house,” Buxton said. “But he bought a home closer to his work.”

  Nina held up a finger. “Hold on a sec.” Something about the timeline triggered a thought. “If Falk is thirty-two now, then he would have been twenty-one eleven years ago.”

  “Depending on the date,” Buxton said. “What’s your point, Agent Guerrera?”

  “When exactly did his father die?”

  Buxton glanced down again. “September twenty-eighth.”

  “Falk treated my injury from the belt six days later,” she said, heart thudding. “Probably his first day back after the burial.” She glanced at Wade. “And his disciplinary suspension, which must have been why he was at home with his father. That’s when everything happened.”

  “Another precipitating stressor,” Wade said, voice kicking up a notch as he grew animated. “If his first murder was his father, Falk would be on edge, wondering if anyone would figure out what he’d done.”

  “And once a predator acts on his fantasies the first time, everything changes,” Kent said, picking up where Wade left off. “He scratches the itch, but then he can’t stop because the itch keeps coming back. I’m guessing he fantasized about murdering his father for years before he finally did it.”

  Wade’s gray eyes were locked on Nina’s. “He’s under extreme pressure in his job and his personal life when he meets you. He sees that you’ve been abused, and he slots you into the category of victim. Then you fight him as he’s trying to treat your injuries, and something snaps. He cannot tolerate disrespect from someone he views as inferior.”

  She tried to see it from Falk’s perspective. “Then I escape from him, and he can’t take it. He’s superior in every way, I shouldn’t have been able to defy him.”

  Wade nodded. “It’s a challenge to his entire belief system. To set things right, he must put you in your place, control every aspect of your life, including your death.”

  Her mind came to a sickening conclusion. “So all of those other girls . . .”

  “Were proxies,” Wade finished for her. “Until he found you again.”

  She wanted to scream, to rage against the injustice of it. She could not possibly have known what she had set in motion the day she escaped from one kind of hell only to enter another, but she felt the weight of it on her soul. So many lives destroyed. So much pain and suffering.

  “We have to find this bastard,” she said. “We have to stop him.” She was concerned about the depth of the information they had gathered in such a short period of time. “All these feelers going out, word might get back to him. I don’t want to spook him.”

  “They’re keeping the questions low key,” Buxton said. “No reason to believe he knows we’re onto him yet.”

  “Do we have enough to arrest him right now?” Breck asked.

  Buxton shook his head. “The US Attorney wants a DNA match.”

  “Which means we’ll need a search warrant for a buccal swab,” Nina said.

  “Agents on the task force are writing an affidavit now,” Buxton said. “Even rushing, it’ll take a couple of hours to complete the paperwork. Then they’ll need to get a federal judge to issue the search warrant. Realistically, it will be about three or four hours until we have it in hand.”

  “If we’re lucky.” Nina groaned. “Otherwise we’ll have to wait until morning.”

  “I won’t let that happen,” Buxton said. “And while we’re waiting, I’ve contacted HRT. They’ll deploy a team to execute the warrant.”

  She was impressed. The Hostage Rescue Team, colocated with them at the academy in Quanti
co, executed high-risk arrests and surveillance operations among many other tactical duties and assignments. The fact that they were being brought in at this critical stage demonstrated the Bureau’s commitment to capturing the Cipher. Clearly, Buxton wasn’t taking any chances. For the first time, she appreciated the impact this case was having on his career. Everyone from the Director down would be watching. No wonder his features showed signs of strain and fatigue.

  “We hope to catch him at home tonight when we serve the search warrant,” Buxton continued. “Then we can take him in for questioning and get a buccal swab for his DNA.”

  “Do we alert the public?” Wade said. “We can’t let him kidnap another girl.”

  “As soon as we get a fix on his location, HRT will put him under constant surveillance until we’re ready to go.” Buxton lifted a shoulder. “I don’t like it, but it’s the best we can do before we have a warrant.”

  “And we have no idea where he is now?” Kent asked.

  Buxton shook his head. “Not due back at work for two days. Not at the fight club. There’s no aunt in Boise.” He slid off his readers and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “He’s a ghost.”

  Nina fumed in silence. She could finally put a name to her nemesis but couldn’t lay hands on him. Where was he? More importantly, what was he doing?

  “We’ll be landing in under an hour,” Buxton said, breaking into her reverie. “I want each of you to go home and put on your raid gear. As soon as the warrant’s issued, I’ll send out a blast text with the location of the command post, where you will report for a preop briefing with HRT. This is a full-court press, people. We’re going to get this bastard tonight.”

  Despite the SSA’s pronouncement, a sense of foreboding settled over Nina. Falk was out there somewhere, fueled by rage and whatever demons possessed him. And she had no doubt he was on the hunt. Would they be able to get to him before he found his next target?

  Chapter 46