Читать книгу Measure Of Darkness - Chris Jordan, Chris Jordan - Страница 13

Chapter Five

Free Thought Radicals

At 6:00 p.m. precisely we convene in the library for the first case briefing, which is always a big deal. Naomi is a stickler for being on time, so the protocol is to show up a minute or two early, take your seat and try to sit up straight. Boss lady is never there to begin with; she always makes an entrance, and this evening is no exception. The other notable entrance of the evening belongs to Dane Porter, our attorney. Dane is five foot nothing, but feisty, and has a legal mind that’s the antidote to every blond joke. How many blond lawyers does it take to keep Naomi Nantz and her team out of jail when they overstep the bounds? Exactly one.

“Sorry I missed all the excitement,” Dane says, sauntering in on spike heels that should be registered as weapons. She’s wearing a hand-tailored power suit—wide pinstripes on a dark blue background, trim lapels, a tight-vested waist—and a custom-made handbag given to her by a female hip-hop artist (a famous one, who shall remain nameless here because she likes handguns) who happens to dance to the same music as the lovely lawyer.

“Was it really a helicopter attack? Men on ropes?” she asks Jack, who is busy examining his well-buffed nails.

“That’s affirmative,” he says.

“Alice?” Dane says, flashing me a radiant smile. “Tell me lover boy is joking.”

“Never saw the helicopter,” I say, “but there were definitely men on ropes. With guns.”

“How exciting!”

“Good evening, Counselor,” says Naomi, entering with laptop in hand. She takes the temporary command seat, directly across the table from me.

As usual it will be my job to take meticulous notes in my personal shorthand, in a form known only to myself, and to keep a precise chronology of the ongoing investigation, updated on a daily and sometimes hourly basis. The active case briefings are never, ever electronically recorded for a variety of reasons, legal and otherwise. The idea is to prevent criminals we might be investigating—or interested law enforcement agencies—from hacking into our system and determining what we know at any given moment. It’s not paranoia, because it actually happened on an earlier case, hence the precautions.

“We convene this evening in extraordinary circumstances,” Naomi begins. “A man was kidnapped from this premises by agents unknown, possibly for the purposes of enhanced interrogation. We have as yet no clue as to his whereabouts, his state of health or who, exactly, is holding him. This is intolerable, and tonight we begin the process of finding out what happened and why. Teddy, you’ll present first. Start with the murder victim.”

Teddy’s hands shake slightly as he presses a key on his laptop. An image lights up the screen. “Joseph Vincent Keener,” he announces, gathering confidence. “Age forty-two. Born, Hanover, New Hampshire.”

We’re looking at a head shot of Joseph Keener, wearing an ill-fitting suit and tie. A round, unremarkable face. Heavy black-rimmed glasses and just a hint of jowls, despite a scrawny neck that doesn’t quite fill his shirt collar. High forehead with the beginnings of pattern baldness thinning his light brown hair. His ears stick out, making him look oddly vulnerable. He’s not smiling and was glancing to the side and slightly down when the shutter clicked. Even in a formal head shot with studio lighting he seems to be lost in a world of his own.

There’s a moment of awkward silence. We’re looking at a dead man.

Teddy says, “Keener was a ward of the state—his parents, both talented musicians, died in an accident—and he was raised in a succession of foster homes from infancy. Somehow he managed to get himself enrolled at Caltech, age fifteen, which pretty much says it all. Language skills pretty average, but mathematical concepts and theoretical geometry are off the charts. When Shane called him a genius he wasn’t exaggerating. After Caltech, Joseph Keener came back East to pursue doctoral studies in quantum physics at MIT and was eventually made a full professor. There’s no mention of a marriage, or indeed of any family at all. Professor Keener is widely published, and considered something of a recluse with a possible social interaction deficit, but at MIT that’s not exactly unusual. His lectures are well attended, and despite a shyness that causes him to avert his eyes while in conversation, Professor Keener is able to take questions and lead discussions with his brilliant and often challenging students. That’s a quote, more or less.”

“A quote,” Jack says, puzzled. “Where’d you get it? You didn’t leave the residence, correct? Didn’t interview any associates?”

“There’s a site for student evals.”

“Evals?”

“Evaluations,” Teddy explains. “Some were real flamers, others seemed fair and balanced. But they all commented on Professor Keener’s social awkwardness, one way or another.”

Jack nods, gives him a thumbs-up. “Way to go, kid. That would have taken me at least a day’s worth of shoe leather.”

Teddy tries to hide his grin, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist (or a physicist for that matter) to see that he’s pleased. For the first month or so on the job he was so intimidated by the former FBI agent that he avoided him whenever possible. To be fair it took dapper Jack a while to get used to Teddy’s fashion statements, in particular the piercings, which he refers to as “staples,” as in, hey kid, what’s with the staple in your cheek? Lately they seem to have entered a zone of mutual tolerance and now, perhaps, collegial respect.

“In addition to teaching full-time at MIT, Professor Keener helped found QuantaGate, an R & D firm in Waltham, out on 128.”

“Sounds familiar,” Naomi muses. “A defense contractor, I believe.”

Teddy looks startled. “Correct. Something to do with developing a quantum computer, which as far as I know is pretty much still theoretical. The stuff on the Net is very vague, mostly PR postings about the founding of the company. If we want more specifics on what exactly they’re working on, or how far they’ve gotten, I’d have to get into the DOD.”

Naomi’s eyes glint. “You will absolutely not attempt to hack into the Department of Defense, is that understood?”

“Oh yeah, understood,” Teddy says, without really backing down. “I understand I could do it, but you don’t want me to.”

Naomi says, “A quantum computer, theoretical or not, would be of interest to any number of covert agencies from any number of countries. It’s probable that’s what Shane referred to as a top-secret project. We’ll come back to that, but for now let’s stick with the victim’s bio. You say you found no mention of Professor Keener being the father of a five-year-old boy?”

“No,” Teddy says. “Not by the students or the staff. They pretty much peg him as an SWG. That’s, um, Single White Geek in eval shorthand. Professor Keener’s biweekly deduction for the university medical is for a single plan, and there are no births registered naming him as a father in any databases. From what I can tell this kid is so missing he doesn’t exist.”

“Sounds like your shoe leather might be useful after all, Jack,” Naomi suggests. “Who were his parents, how did they die, what was his experience in foster care? Maybe somebody from his past would know about personal things, like having a child out of wedlock.”

“I’ll get on it,” he says, making an entry in his notebook.

“Let’s move on to Randall Shane,” Naomi suggests.

The photo of the victim is replaced by a recent snapshot of Randall Shane, seen from the waist up and looking very purposeful and muscular. Teddy says, “This was posted on the Facebook page of a woman whose daughter was recovered by Mr. Shane, and who was effusive in her praise. He’s camera-shy and asked her to take it down, which she did, but it wasn’t deleted from the cache.”

We learn that Shane, 46, graduated from a public high school in East Hampstead, Long Island, and eventually from Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York, with a degree in computer science. While at Rochester he met the woman he would eventually marry. Recruited as a civilian software engineer by the FBI to help modernize their fingerprint database, he’d eventually applied to and been accepted as a special agent, in which capacity he continued until the deaths of his wife and daughter, after which he resigned from the FBI.

“That’s the standard bio on the guy,” Teddy says. “There’s more, of course.”

“Hold on, cowboy,” Dane says. “Are you telling us that bad boy is a computer geek? With those guns?”

“Guns?” Naomi asks, puzzled. “He was unarmed.”

“Muscles, silly.” Dane poses, cocking her right arm. “Biceps.”

“Ah,” says Naomi, satisfied. “Continue.”

Teddy is new enough to the team to still be made uneasy by the frequent, challenging interruptions, encouraged by boss lady, who believes that banter and peer pressure create what she calls “free thought radicals.” The back-and-forth is all part of her method, which can be difficult for a person as naturally shy as Teddy. He swallows hard, takes a deep breath, finds his place. “In those days Shane was kind of a geek at heart, if not in appearance. That’s how the FBI used him, too. He spent about half his career testifying or lecturing on methods of forensic identification, not out in the field. He was basically an expert with a cool badge. They still use his program for the fingerprint database.”

Naomi interrupts, as is her wont: “Jack? Does that accord with your personal knowledge?”

“Yep,” says Jack, adjusting the crease of his slacks. “The kid has it right.”

Naomi’s attention returns to Teddy. “Continue.”

He takes a breath, nods. “So everything changes one rainy Sunday night in New Jersey. Shane and his wife and kid are driving back from D.C. to New York. Mr. Shane at this time works out of the FBI field office in Manhattan.”

“They’re in Washington why?”

“Um, school project for the daughter. Visiting the Smithsonian.”

“Keep going.”

“Jersey Turnpike. Shane’s feeling sleepy, so his wife takes over the driving. He nods off, and at some point the vehicle is sideswiped by a freight truck. When he wakes up in the wreckage, wife and daughter are both dead. As you might expect, the man himself was a wreck for a while. He resigns from the Bureau and eventually establishes himself as a legendary finder of lost children, but he retains a number of key contacts who still work for the FBI, including the current Assistant Director of Counterterrorism.”

“A-Dick,” Jack says, smiling, throwing it out there.

“What?”

“That’s what they call an assistant director. An AD or A-Dick. Not necessarily a term of affection.”

“As I was saying,” Teddy says, elbowing his way back into the conversation, “there’s some indication that Assistant Director Bevins is a friend with benefits.”

“They sleep together?”

“Past tense, if it happened. But they’re still close.”

“Jack?”

“A matter of speculation,” he admits with an indifferent shrug. “Nobody knew for sure and they certainly weren’t saying.”

“Okay. The counterterrorism connection is interesting, given what’s happened,” Naomi points out. “Let’s keep that in mind as we move on.”

“How did he first get in the business of rescuing kidnapped kids?” Dane wants to know. “Was that part of his purview at the Bureau?”

“No. Later, after the accident, while he was undergoing therapy for a sleep disorder. An acquaintance asked for help, he managed to recover the child and found a new calling.”

“Back up there,” Naomi says. “Sleep disorder?”

“Yeah. I don’t know if it’s weird or ironic or what, but ever since he woke up from the accident, Mr. Shane has suffered from a peculiar, possibly unique sleep disorder. Like they’ve studied him, written articles about it.”

“Ironic would not be the correct term,” Naomi suggests. “Tragic would be the correct term. Is that agreed?”

“Great song, though,” Dane interjects airily.

“Nuts,” Jack says, suddenly animated. “If you don’t know what ironic means, don’t use it in the lyrics. Rain on a wedding day isn’t irony, it’s bad weather. It sucks, but it isn’t ironic.”

Naomi interjects, “Enough on the golden-oldie lyrics. Back to subject, please. Teddy?”

“A death row pardon two minutes too late is definitely ironic,” Teddy points out, in a small, hesitant voice.

“Teddy!”

“Okay, okay. Took a while to separate the facts from the legend, but despite or possibly because of his sleep disorder, which means he sometimes stays awake for days at a time and eventually hallucinates, Randall Shane is considered to be among the best solo operatives who specialize in child recovery.”

“Not among,” Jack says, arms folded. “The best, period. Randall Shane is the last of the real kid finders. They broke the mold.”

Teddy shrugs his narrow shoulders, as if to concede the point. “Unlike many in the field, which can be pretty shady, monetary gain does not seem to be his primary motivation. For him it’s a calling.”

“Most of his cases are pro bono,” Jack concedes.

“Seventy percent,” Teddy says.

“Whatever, Shane ain’t about the money. He can’t even afford to drive a decent car,” Jack says.

Teddy suddenly has a mischievous glint in his eyes. “Current ride, a five-year-old Townie, previously registered to John B. Delancey of Gloucester, Mass.”

Jack shrugs his wide, well-tailored shoulders, but he’s no doubt impressed. “Donation to a good cause. And no, I didn’t get a tax deduction because Shane has never registered as a nonprofit, although he should.”

Teddy keeps going. “Current residence, Humble, New York. Small town in the general vicinity of Rochester.”

“Humble?” Dane says, grinning. “Is that ironic?”

Naomi sighs loudly, which effectively stops the banter. “You have more?” she asks.

“Tons,” says Teddy. “I found more than a hundred references to the so-called Shane’s Sleep Disorder Syndrome. Plus interesting facts on a variety of his cases.”

“Excellent, but hold for now,” Naomi says. “Jack, can you bring us up to speed on the murder investigation?”

Jack flips open his small reporter’s notebook. Strictly a prop, in my opinion, but he’s never without it. “So far everything Shane told me checks out. Cambridge homicide detectives are investigating the death by gunshot of Joseph Keener at his residence on Putnam Avenue, approximately two miles from the campus. The murder happened early this morning. State police are assisting—that means they’ll eventually run the investigation, in all probability—and the FBI is all over the scene.”

“Anybody you know?”

“Cambridge, affirmative, Staties, affirmative. I’m meeting with my state police source this evening. Hopefully he’ll have more to add.”

“Anything from your old colleagues in the FBI?”

“As you know, my former associates are mostly in the Boston field office, and normally the locals would be responding, assuming the murder has some federal connection. But this is a special team sent in directly from Justice. Unknown to me on a personal level.”

“You make yourself known?”

He shakes his head. “Not yet. Just to my guy in the Cambridge Major Crimes Unit and he won’t mention our interest unless I ask him to. He knows the deal.”

“Good,” Naomi says. “Let’s stay at arm’s length from our friends in federal law enforcement until we’ve had a peek at the big picture. That being said, did you get any sense they’re aware that Randall Shane has been seized and/or arrested by agents unknown?”

“The opposite. There’s an APB out on him as a so-called ‘person of interest.’ He’s their prime suspect and they think he’s in the wind.”

“Set the scene,” Naomi suggests. “Shower us with details.”

“There’s not all that much, I’m afraid. Cambridge police were alerted by a 911 call that originated from the Keener residence at 5:42 a.m. The caller would not give his name, but stated a man had been killed. That was Shane, so they’ll have him on digital audio making the call, for whatever that’s worth. The first mobile unit responded to the scene in ten minutes or less, found the front door open and the victim facedown in a pool of blood in the hallway, a few yards from the front door. Major Crimes and forensic units arrive, as well as the medical examiner. The M.E. determines the victim died of a single shot to the back of the head. Clotting and body temp suggest he’d been dead for no more than an hour or so before the call was made. No weapon recovered at the scene. Detectives did a canvas and his neighbors described him as the usual: shy type, kept to himself, very quiet. No one heard the gunshot.”

“Any indication of a child in the home?”

Jack shakes his head. “The investigating detective told me it was the residence of a single man, living alone. Cambridge police are unaware of any missing child connected with the victim. No such report was ever filed. There is no indication of a child in the home, not even a photo. No toys, no games, no bedroom set up for a kid, nothing.”

“No sign of a child,” Naomi muses, keenly interested. “How very odd. Two possibilities immediately present themselves. Either the victim has a child and all evidence has been removed from the home—surely he’d have pictures even if the mother has custody?—or the victim never had a child, certainly not a missing child, and Shane was somehow duped for reasons unknown.”

“To set him up for murder,” Jack suggests.

Naomi nods to herself, tapping her pen, wheels turning. “Okay, fine, that’s our theory of the moment, in deference to your relationship with the suspect—but he remains a prime suspect unless or until the evidence leads us elsewhere.”

“He didn’t do it.”

“You’re a friend. I need more.”

“Fine,” Jack says, with a steely edge to his voice.

“Now please explain the discrepancy,” she suggests.

“What discrepancy?” Jack says, all innocence.

“You rendezvous with your buddy Randall Shane at 7:00 a.m. and yet you don’t show up here until 8:30 a.m. Kendall Square is at most fifteen minutes from this location. Where did you go? What did you do?”

Jack sighs. “We attempted to break into a motel.”

“A motel located where?”

“The Residence Inn off Kendall Square. Shane thought it likely that he’d been lured to the victim’s home so that evidence could be planted in his room.”

“That’s his theory.”

“Yes.”

Silence. Everybody fidgets, including Jack. Uncomfortable moments accumulate. Finally I stick my oar in and go, “Um, attempted to break in?”

“I know,” Jack says with a sigh. “Embarrassing. Two former special agents, and we couldn’t manage to break into a motel room. We had the key card, so it wasn’t even a break-in, technically. My only excuse, the place was being staked out by state police detectives, and they happened to be good.”

“They must have been very good,” Naomi suggests.

“More stubborn than good, but still. The plan was, Shane creates a diversion, I slip into his room and check it out for planted evidence.”

“What kind of diversion?”

“An exploding vehicle just around the corner from the motel. Specifically a small GMC pickup truck with a full tank of gas.”

“Failed to explode?”

“Oh, it exploded,” Jack says with some satisfaction. “The cab went fifty yards in one direction, the chassis in another, mostly straight up. Produced a very impressive fireball and a really nice mushroom cloud of black smoke. But the damn Staties didn’t move. It was like they were expecting a diversion and determined not to budge. No way I could get into the room undetected, which had been the whole point.”

Dane stirs, says, “Hey, I don’t get it. How’d they know to stake out Shane’s motel room less than an hour after the crime was reported? How did they even know he was involved at that point? The Cambridge cops had barely taken possession of the scene, let alone been in a position to identify suspects, or pass it on to the state police.”

“Good question,” Jack says. “Shane told me the motel must have been under surveillance before he called 911. He gets back to the vicinity of the motel ten minutes after he makes the call, the state police were already in place, well established. That’s when he knows for sure he’s being set up and that’s when he calls me.”

“And you responded, even though you may have been assisting in the commission of a felony murder.”

“Damn right. I’ve known the guy since the Academy. No way did he murder a client.”

“And did detectives recover a murder weapon?”

Jack shakes his head. “Not yet, and not from the motel room.”

“So your working theory was mistaken and nothing was planted to incriminate Shane?”

“I didn’t say that. The detectives found a bloodstained shirt under the bathroom sink in his room.”

“Ah. You’re assuming that’s the forensic link. Shane’s DNA on the shirt, blood matched to the professor?”

“That’s my assumption.”

“But the murder weapon is still out there.”

“So far.”

Naomi announces, “Excellent case briefing.”

To an outside observer she might seem inordinately pleased, considering the subject matter, but that’s the way she rolls. “We’ll assume for now that Shane is alive and being held in some unknown location for purposes of interrogation, pretty much as he predicted. If they’d wanted to kill him they would have done so, rather than go to the trouble of seizing him from this residence. Dane, you’ll work your sources at the Justice Department, see if there’s any scuttlebutt on Randall Shane, or any known involvement by a covert security agency.”

“Whatever this is, it’s buried deeper than deep,” Dane says. “I think a personal appearance is warranted. Show the flag.”

“Agreed,” Naomi says. “Take the shuttle.”

Dane pouts. “I was thinking the Gulfstream.”

Naomi, very firm: “Not warranted.”

“But the Benefactor is always very generous with his—”

“Shuttle. End of discussion.”

“Yes, ma’am,” says Dane, crossing her arms across her chest. “Ma’am” being what she calls boss lady when she doesn’t get her way.

Naomi ignores the attorney being spoiled and childish—the Benefactor’s personal Gulfstream is indeed at our disposal, but only for exigent circumstances—and turns to the elder male in our presence, the handsome alpha dog.

“Jack, you’ll turn up whatever you can on additional background on the victim and his theoretical son. And see about infiltrating QuantaGate.”

“Budget considerations?” he asks, looking up from his notebook with a furtive glance at the still-pouting Dane.

“Whoever it takes.”

“Great. I’ll go with the Invisible Man. Assuming he’s available.”

The Invisible Man is an operative Jack has used in the past. None of us have ever seen him. I’m assuming he’s not actually invisible.

“Use whatever operatives you see fit,” Naomi says. “And there may be another line of inquiry worth pursuing. As I recall, QuantaGate was financed by local venture capitalist Jonny Bing. Who I believe is an acquaintance of yours, Dane.”

Dane, startled, bursts out laughing. “You recalled or you Googled?”

“I recall,” Naomi says firmly. “Am I wrong?”

“We partied once or twice a few years ago,” Dane admits. “You remember Sasha? The party planner? When Sash and I were having our little thing, one of her top clients was Jonny Bing. Sash always called him Jonny Bling, which I thought was pretty cute. Of course at the time I thought everything she did and said was cute. Anyhow, Jonny had these amazing parties on his yacht. Looked more like a cruise ship to me, but you know how that goes. For an egocentric billionaire, he’s really kind of cool. Wild sense of humor, and he likes to see that a good time is had by all. If you want, I can call his people, see if he’ll consent to an interview.”

“Absolutely. Do it,” Naomi says. “Are the assignments clear? Dane? Jack? Alice? Yes? Teddy, you will continue to mine data but will steer clear of the Department of Defense. I remind you all that certain agencies within the national security community have been known to run covert operations under the Patriot Act, answerable to basically no one. At this time we’ll continue to keep a low profile with local law enforcement, and allow them to proceed on the murder case unhindered. Our primary task is to determine if the victim has a child, as Shane apparently believed, and if that child is in fact missing, and, if so, to recover the boy alive. Anything else is secondary, including, at the moment, the safe return of Randall Shane—and that’s the way he’d want it, I’m sure. Clear? Good. We’ll reconvene at 7:00 a.m. for the morning brief. Jack, given the early kickoff tomorrow morning, you may want to spend the night at the residence.”

“Only if there’s a chocolate mint under my pillow.”

“Always. Further thoughts, anyone?”

Jack impishly raises his hand. “Comment on ‘Ironic,’ the so-called pop song by Alanis What’s-her-face. A traffic jam when you’re already late is not ironic, it’s maddening or unfortunate. Red Sox beating Baltimore seventeen to ten and Don Orsillo announcing, ‘This is a real pitcher’s battle.’ That’s irony. Case closed.”

Naomi rolls her eyes.