Backfire (2 page)

Criminal Apprehension Unit (CAU)

Hoover Building

Washington, D.C.

Earlier on Thursday

Denny Roper from Security came into Savich’s office and handed him a plain white legal-sized envelope. Savich studied the big black block-printed handwriting:
DILLON SAVICH, CRIMINAL APPREHENSION UNIT, THIRD FLOOR
. That was it. No address.

Roper said, “A visitor told Briggs at security check-in in the lobby that he noticed this envelope propped against the outside door on the Pennsylvania Avenue entrance. Briggs wanted me to look at it before it came to you, just in case.

“We put it through the X-ray, checked it out for biologics. There’s nothing gnarly like anthrax on the envelope or on that one piece of paper—but it’s curious, Savich. The person who sent it knows not only the name of your unit but your location—third floor.”

Savich unfolded the single white sheet of paper. The same black block printing:
FOR WHAT YOU DID YOU DESERVE THIS
.

“I hope you’ve got some idea what that clown is talking about.”

Savich said, “Not a clue. Tell me you have the visitor who handed over the envelope to Briggs.”

“No, the guy walked away while Briggs was looking at the envelope. You know there are lots of tourists coming in this time of morning. Briggs called out, but the guy was gone, disappeared in the crowd. But we’ve got lots of good camera coverage of him, a close-up when he’s speaking to Briggs. You think he was the one who wrote it?”

“Since it isn’t possible to get into the lobby without a thorough security check, why not do it this way? Hey, I found this envelope, not a clue what it is or who left it.”

Roper said, “Would you like to have a look-see at this surveillance video?”

Savich nodded.

“Since he spoke to Briggs, we also have his voice on tape, nice and clear. He looked and acted like an ordinary guy, according to Briggs, but I wanted some of you experts to double-check it for us.” Roper paused, looked up at all the faces focused on him and Savich, not more than two feet outside of Savich’s office. “It looks like your people are already interested. I’ll get things set up in the conference room,” and Roper walked out, waving the disk at the agents as he passed them.

Savich read the note again:

FOR WHAT YOU DID YOU DESERVE THIS

He sat back in his chair, closed his eyes, and thought:
What
had he done? Exactly
what
did he deserve? It was clearly a threat, but from whom? It had been only two weeks since they’d brought down Ted Bundy’s mad daughter, Kirsten Bolger. There was her mother, her stepfather, and her aunt Sentra to think about. Anyone else? Well, there was the family of her lover and partner Bruce Comafield, but both families were solidly middle-class, with a great deal to lose. When he’d met with them after Comafield’s death and Kirsten’s capture, they’d been in a state of shock. Sometimes shocks like that upended a person’s whole world, but no, those folks just didn’t seem likely.

Who else? Behind his closed eyes, Savich saw a kaleidoscope of tumbled vivid memories of blood and death and brutal faces, too much and too many.
We’re a failed species,
he thought, not for the first time. He opened his eyes to see his wife, Sherlock, standing in front of him, her eyes on the open sheet of paper.

Sherlock said, “Denny’s got the DVD ready, said we might all want to see it. What’s going on? What’s in that letter?”

“It’s a weird threat. What I don’t like is that it was delivered personally. Come on, let’s have a look at the guy who gave it to Briggs in the lobby.”

He watched Sherlock shove a thick corking curl of hair behind her ear. He’d give it two seconds before another curl worked its way out of one of the clips and sprang forward. The clips never seemed to work very well. She said, “Everybody watched Denny come in and give you this envelope. Good thing you’re involving all of us, or you’d be mobbed in here.”

“That’s what Roper seemed to think. It shouldn’t take very long. We’ll see if that brainpower can figure something out.” She gave him a long assessing look, then turned and walked out of his office. He watched her walk in that no-nonsense stride, a traffic-stopper in those sexy black boots of hers. She was wearing her signature low-cut black pants and white blouse. He felt his heartbeat quicken. Could Sherlock be in danger because of something he’d done?

When Savich walked in with the envelope, Sherlock said, “Okay, Dillon, tell everyone what’s in the letter before we watch the video.”

Savich unfolded the single white sheet and said in an emotionless voice, “
For what you did you deserve this.
That’s it, nothing else. Now, let’s see what we’ve got, Denny.”

There were nine agents, including Shirley, a gum-chewing grandmother and the unit secretary, with bright red hair this week, and one of the two unit clerks who would bet on anything with you and usually win. Denny Roper hit play and they all leaned forward to watch the sharp, high-res picture. Lots of tourists in the security line, all of them talking, dozens of conversations overlapping. The two security guards behind Plexiglas greeting and questioning everyone, handing out IDs, a smooth, practiced routine. Roper paused the DVD. “It’s exactly nine-fifteen this morning. Here he comes.”

A man—or a woman; it was hard to tell—came through the Pennsylvania Avenue entrance ahead of a dozen or so tourists. He stood in line, speaking to no one. When he reached the Plexiglas, he handed the envelope to Briggs. He was wearing loose jeans, an FBI hoodie pulled up over his head, and sunglasses, all of which would have had to come off if he went through security, which he’d had no intention of doing. He, or she?

Roper said, “I had them filter out everything but Briggs’s voice and the man’s. Listen again.”

“What can I do for you, sir?”

“I found this envelope propped against the glass right outside. I brought it to you before it got trampled or tossed or whatever.” A low voice, not particularly deep, but clear as a bell. A nice voice, really, calm, unhurried. And young.

Briggs accepted the envelope, studied it for a second, and the man blended into the group of tourists behind him. They saw him walk out the Pennsylvania Avenue exit and disappear. Roper said, “All slow and easy, not a care in the world. And that’s it.” Roper turned off the video.

Dane Carver said, “You’ve figured out his size?”

Roper said, “He’s five-eight, weighs about one hundred thirty-five pounds. So what do you think?”

Ruth Warnecki Noble said, “I’d like to watch this a dozen more times, but first impression? He’s slight for a guy, but I’d say he’s male, twenty to twenty-five.”

Dane said, “Or a pretty average female. But I agree, the walk makes you think man. But who knows? He never took off his hoodie and sunglasses.”

Savich said, “We’ll get the DVD to Operations Technology at Quantico. They’ll enlarge, enhance, depixelate the face, do some reconstruction for us. The lab at Quantico can work on the audio recording.”

There was a knock on the conference room door. It was an audio tech, Chuck Manson, who swore every single week he would have his name changed, but he never did. Savich suspected it was because he really enjoyed the attention. “Ninety-eight percent chance it’s a man, and under thirty,” Manson said, and disappeared.

“Okay, if Chuck says it’s a guy, I’ll take his word for it,” Roper said. “I’ve asked for possible brands on the pants and hoodie, we’ll see.”

Lucy Carlyle said, “He has to look up when he speaks to Briggs, then his head goes down again. He knows he’s on camera. It’s a giveaway.”

Savich’s second-in-command, Ollie Hamish, said, “Denny, did you speak to the other security guard behind the Plexiglas? His name’s Brady, right?”

Roper nodded. “Brady remembers the guy, what with the envelope delivery, but neither Brady nor Briggs can tell us much that’s helpful.”

“I’d like to speak to both Briggs and Brady myself later,” Savich said as he stood.

Roper nodded. “I’ll send both of them up.”

Savich shook his head. “No, let me come down to the mezzanine to your turf.”

Cooper McKnight sat forward. “Unless this guy’s a loon, he’s got to be from one of our cases. We could start with the most recent gnarly one—Bundy’s daughter. Even though Comafield’s close relatives seemed normal as apple pie, who knows? Maybe there’s a nutso in there.”

Roper looked at Savich. “I’ll leave the video. Let me know when you want to speak to my people.” He paused in the conference room doorway, a big man, built like a thick, knotted rope, Savich had always thought, and added, “I don’t like this punk coming into our house like that. There are a lot of brains in this room, so take care of this for us.”

Sherlock read the note again. “
For what you did you deserve this.
Something
you
did specifically, Dillon, so it’s got to be a case you were personally involved with. There’s Lissy Smiley, for example—that was up close and personal. But it could take weeks to make sure there’s no one, absolutely no one, who would care enough about any of the dozens of perps we’ve brought down to do something this nuts.”

Dane Carver said, “I wonder what the threat is, exactly?
For what you did you deserve this.
What is
this
? Is he targeting someone specific?”

All eyes turned to Sherlock.

Sherlock splayed her hands in front of her. “It doesn’t have to be me. All right, all right, I’ll be really careful. We’ve got the guy on camera, we’ll get a good facial reconstruction. It’s our best lead.”

Savich saw everyone was looking at him now. He tried to keep his face blank, but it was hard. He realized he was clutching his pen too tightly. It was Sherlock, he simply knew the threat was directed at Sherlock. Who else? He wanted to say something, but nothing came out. He couldn’t stand himself.
Get it together.
He said, his voice sounding calm and in control, “If any of you come up with anything we haven’t mentioned, let me know. I’m going down to the security section, speak to Briggs and Brady. Sherlock, you and Dane start work on this.”

On the elevator ride to the mezzanine, Savich remembered the shoot-out in Mr. Patil’s Shop ’n Go in Georgetown. Was it only three weeks ago? The woman he’d had to shoot, her name was Elsa Heinz. Who else knew Savich had shot her? Everyone, of course. It was in the papers, his name included. Was someone who knew her out for revenge against him? A loved one for a loved one?

He put her out of his head. Threats were part of the job. Both he and Sherlock knew that. They and the CAU would deal with it.

Georgetown

Washington, D.C.

Friday morning

Five a.m.

Sean leapt impossibly high, caught the football from his mother, and took off toward the end of a park that was really a baseball field, with Savich on his heels. Savich couldn’t catch him because Sean’s legs were stilt-long, eating up huge swathes of ground, and he was rounding bases for some reason, clutching the football tight to his chest, heading for home, and John Lennon was suddenly singing into Savich’s left ear in his flat whiny-smooth voice about imagining people getting along, like that would ever happen.

Savich reared up in bed and automatically looked at the clock.
Five a.m. Not good. No telephone call was ever good at five a.m.

He picked up his cell. “Savich.”

“Dillon, you’ve got to come, quickly, it’s bad, it’s really bad, I’m afraid—” Molly Hunt’s voice, choking and thick with tears and fear. Dillon thought,
Not little Emma, who’d survived so much—

“I’m putting you on speakerphone so Sherlock can hear you. Tell us what’s happened, Molly.”

Sherlock was leaning up beside him, her face pale in the predawn, her hair tangled wildly around her face.

“Someone shot Ramsey in the back. I don’t know if he’s going to make it; he’s in surgery. Everyone’s here, but I need you and Sherlock. You’ve got to come and find out who did this to him. Please, please, come quickly.”

Ramsey shot?
Savich couldn’t get his brain around it. He hadn’t seen Ramsey for six months, since he, Sherlock, and Sean last visited San Francisco. It had been more than five years, he realized now, since Ramsey had saved six-year-old Emma’s life and hooked up with her mother, Molly.

Ramsey shot?

“Molly, take a deep breath. That’s right. Now slow down and tell us exactly what happened.” But he was thinking,
Why Ramsey? He’s a federal judge, removed from that sort of violence—but a man who judged others was a man who gathered enemies.

“He’s in surgery,” Molly said again. “The nurses say they don’t know anything yet, but I know it can’t be good. He was shot in the back—” she said, and broke off. He heard her breathing, harsh and fast, and then her voice, choked, frantic: “Please, Dillon, you and Sherlock, you’ve got to come.”

Savich and Sherlock both asked questions and let her ramble, knowing she was trying to get it together. She told them Lieutenant Virginia Trolley was there with her, and they realized she was probably listening to their questions and Molly’s answers. They’d met Virginia and her husband a couple of times when they’d visited San Francisco over the past five years.

“Molly, let me speak to Virginia.” Virginia came on the line. “Dillon, the SFPD responded and arrived at Ramsey’s house right after midnight. I arrived ten minutes later. Since it was dark, we didn’t bother to look for footprints while I was there. No one wanted to mess up the crime scene bumbling around with flashlights.”

“Have you spoken to Cheney?”

Virginia said, “Cheney arrived at Ramsey’s house when I was leaving. He called me a couple minutes ago, told me he’s assigned Special Agent Harry Christoff to lead the case, but he, Cheney, will be monitoring every detail. He wondered if shooting Ramsey was a revenge deal. It’s too soon to know, but I’ll tell you, it sure feels like it.” Virginia’s voice dropped lower. “Molly needs you guys. Can you come out here?”

“We’ll be there as soon as we can.”

When he punched off, he took Sherlock in his arms and held her close, stroking his hand up and down her back.

“He’ll make it,” Sherlock said against his neck. “Ramsey’s got to make it. He’s one of the good guys, Dillon. He will make it. How could this happen, and right on top of this threat to you?”

No, the threat’s not aimed at me, it’s aimed at you. Or Sean.

Cheney Stone called back as Savich was stepping out of the shower. He’d made it back to the hospital and learned that Ramsey had survived surgery and was in the surgical ICU. Molly, though, was a mess. “I asked the doc to give her Valium to calm her. You know what? He did. It seems to have helped her.

“Ah, here’s Virginia. Let’s go to speakerphone.”

“Is Emma all right?” Savich asked.

Virginia said, “She was bordering on shock at first, with everything that was happening, but Emma’s a tough little nut, she’ll hold it together. When I was at the house I heard her tell her brother Cal she’d play him the theme from Harry Potter on the piano this morning—with variations—if he stopped shining a flashlight into Gage’s eyes. Cal said he wanted to see if it would cause seizures.” Virginia’s voice hitched. “Where’d a three-year-old kid hear about lights and seizures?”

Savich said, “Don’t ask. Our flight gets in this afternoon. You playing nice with Cheney? And Harry Christoff?”

“Oh, yeah, Cheney’s a nice guy”—pause—“he’ll throw us some crumbs, even though you FBI guys are going to have jurisdiction. All I hear about Christoff is that he came off an ugly divorce a year and a half ago, and he’s been a nasty git ever since.”

Savich heard Cheney say in the background, “Crumbs? You know what we know. Hey, and Harry’s not a nasty git any longer, he’s just nasty.”

Virginia said, “And you, Mr. SAC? You’re newly married. That means you’re stupid happy all the time. Wait till you’re married a few years, then I’ll check back in with you. My guess is you’ll still be stupid, but the happy part isn’t a given.”

Cheney said, “I’ll be sure to pass that along to Julia.”

Stupid happy?
Savich liked the sound of that.

—

Savich said to Virginia,
“Since you’ve known Ramsey for a long time, you know his habits, his friends. Cheney and Agent Christoff will see you as a valued resource.”

Virginia gave a curiously charming snort. “Sure, like I’ll expect to see that from any of his precious special agents.” She sighed. “Every single cop in San Francisco wants to help get this crazy craphead, Dillon. You know Ramsey’s a hero, even after five years, he’s still Judge Dredd to all of us.”

Savich remembered how Ramsey had been dubbed Judge Dredd by local and world media after he’d jumped down from the bench, black robes flying, and single-handedly took out the three gunmen who’d invaded his courtroom with guns and violence and death.

He said, “Keep repeating that to Cheney and Christoff.”

“Just saying, Dillon. This is tough, really tough. It’s personal, not only for me but for most of the force.”

“We’ll get the crazy craphead together, then, Virginia,” Sherlock said. “See you later today.”

Ramsey,
Savich thought,
who did you push over the edge?
And then he realized he and Sherlock would be three thousand miles away from the guy who’d written the letter to him. And they could take Sean with them, to stay at his grandparents’. That was a relief.

—

Cheney called again
when they were on their way to Dulles. “Here’s what I know so far. Ramsey postponed a hearing at a trial yesterday morning because he believed the federal prosecutor wasn’t conducting the case properly, that he might have been threatened. He met with the federal marshal and the U.S. attorney, who are all in the same building with us, as you know.

“Now the prosecutor is a twelve-year veteran, Assistant U.S. Attorney Mickey O’Rourke. Ramsey had asked to speak to him in chambers, naturally, after he came to suspect Mickey might be purposefully jeopardizing the case. Mickey made an excuse. According to Olivia, Ramsey’s secretary, Ramsey told O’Rourke he wanted him and his people at the meeting he was calling. Mickey didn’t show, and none of his staff had any clue where he was. They hadn’t seen him since Ramsey adjourned the hearing, and they were worried about him. His second chair said Mickey seemed off. But this? No one could believe it. In any case, we can’t find O’Rourke. He’s now officially missing. There’s quite an uproar, as you can imagine.”

“The name of the defendant?”

“There are two co-defendants, Clive and Cindy Cahill, up for the murder of a rich software geek here in Silicon Valley. Either the Cahills have lots of money stashed offshore or they have some rich friends, because they have hired a first-rate counsel.”

But once the prosecutor was suspected, Savich thought, what would it matter which judge presided anymore? And O’Rourke’s disappearance would mean only a delay. None of it made sense yet to Savich.

He asked, “Why are the Cahills a federal case?”

Cheney said, “Because there’s espionage involved, that’s why. The murder victim, Mark Lindy, was working on a top-secret project for the government, and was probably murdered because of it. That’s why the FBI handled the case and not local law enforcement. We’ve got the Cahills pretty cold on the murder, but we could never find out the particulars of the project Lindy was into, because it involved national security. You know the CIA—they refused to tell us anything at all, even with CIA operations officers out here digging around.

“Even if a foreign government did set the Cahills on Mark Lindy, I don’t know which one. I’ll be speaking to O’Rourke’s team again while you’re in the air, see exactly what they have, if anything, that might help us find him.”

“All right, Cheney, see you this afternoon,” Savich said. He and his laptop MAX had a lot of reading to do about the Cahills on their way to California.

And flying with Sean was always a treat.