Part 61 (1/2)
She'd gotten around another mouthful of broccoli and tofu in the meantime. This time, she had recovered herself enough to hold up her hand and stall for time while she swallowed. ”Nothing holds across the board,” she said. ”No consistent clubs or interests or sports. There's just one thing that, well, it's not exactly a consistency, but it's an echo. Of sorts. Two of the victims, Wosczyna and Gooding, had recently been victimized in other ways. Gooding got mugged at knifepoint on Spring Break in Fort Lauderdale, and Wosczyna had her car broken into, her laptop and some other things stolen.”
”Somebody could have tracked her through the laptop,” Hafidha said. She reached out sideways and patted her own machine, which sat quietly generating fractal screensavers.
”Hafidha,” Reyes said, ”check if the other victims were recent complainants in any kind of police report, would you?”
Her eyebrows went up, and her plate went down. She spun her chair around, fingers flying. ”Argh. Dammit, boss, the network's still down. Let me try the PC...” She pushed her laptop aside and pulled the flimsy keyboard and mouse of the local Windows machine over with a discernable grimace. ”Nope, nothing. I guess it's the old-fas.h.i.+oned way.”
She snagged the phone off the desk, pulled a number two Ticonderoga pencil out of her braids, and began pus.h.i.+ng b.u.t.tons with the eraser, mouthing ”They had better not a.s.sume I'm your secretary” at Reyes while she did.
Todd, Lau noticed, had stopped eating his spring roll. Reyes obviously noticed too, because he was staring at Todd, waiting for him to speak.
”Flyer,” he said, as if he had been searching his memory banks for the word, and Reyes' eyes went wide. He stood up, set his plate aside, and barreled out of the dark cramped little room.
Hafidha hung up the phone and said, ”All five of them. And before you ask, no, the DOD has not come through with that list of names yet.”
Lau stood up to go after Reyes, but Todd held up a hand. ”He's coming right back.”
And so he was, wearing a single latex glove, a sheet of pale purple paper in the hand it covered. ”Bag.”
Lau, who had already set her food aside, produced one, and held it open until Reyes sealed up the flyer and two push pins and labeled the bag in indelible marker. He handed it to her, and she turned it around and read what was printed on the front: BE AFRAID NO MORE.
Practical self-defense FOR EVERYONE.
Seeing is believing NO GIMMICKS.
Milo Bail Student Center Room 114 EVERY FRIDAY.
7:00 PM.
”That's next door,” said Hafidha, craning over Lau's shoulder.
Lau checked her watch. 8:18.
Todd was reaching for his jacket, Hafidha for her reinforced laptop case. Reyes was already out the door.
The four of them jogged in two rows, but didn't quite break into a run. Hafidha's sidearm bounced against her hip; the rest of her gear counterweighted it on the other side. The laptop swung with every stride, and adrenaline buzzed in her ears.
She'd missed this, and she wouldn't admit she missed it. Not in front of Reyes, who'd given her a place when developments beyond her control had converted her from an a.s.set to the Secret Service to the sort of person adjudged a liability.
Most of the time, she had a pretty good line of patter in convincing herself that her new job and her new gifts made up for what they'd cost her: a job she'd loved, a normal life expectancy, reasonable grocery bills, and a guy who couldn't handle it when his lover started seeing and doing things other people didn't.
Most of the time.
The Milo Bail Student Center was a geometric concrete structure in the brutalist style, surrounded in the long north lat.i.tude summer evening by strolling and rough-housing undergrads. ”We can't get into guns drawn here,” Todd said, with a glance over his shoulder.
”No,” Reyes answered, which might mean, yes, you're right, we can't have a shootout here, and might mean thank you, I have considered your objections and dismissed them. Todd jerked his head straight and patted his holstered sidearm. He didn't pop the snap, though.
Hafidha kept her own hands well away from the paddle holster of her Glock. ”Do we call campus security?”
Reyes shook his head as if Hafidha should have known better than to ask. Stephen Reyes? El Generalissimo? Share authority? He said, ”In here.”
Todd was last through the door, glancing over his shoulder before he followed, covering their backs. Brady might insist on being the last man in line, but whether he was there or not, Hafidha appreciated that n.o.body got on their tail unnoticed while Todd was on the job.
As he caught up with them in the corridor, he said, ”Guys, if this is a Vietnam vet targeting college students, and he's arranged a mentoring relations.h.i.+p with them, then based on the language in his flyer I think we need to consider the scenario Chaz presented, and be prepared for a charismatic leader situation.”
”Charismatic leader?” Hafidha asked.
”Cult,” Reyes said. ”We have to get him away from the kids.”
”Or?”
”Or they might sacrifice themselves to protect him. He will certainly be willing to sacrifice them.” Todd's face was paper-colored, his lips bloodless.
”I heard Falkner was at Waco,” Lau said, voice taut.
Todd nodded. ”You heard right. You ever hear of a place called Jonestown, Guyana?” Hafidha and Lau both nodded. Before her time, but not forgotten; the site of a ma.s.s murder/suicide of almost a thousand followers of the charismatic leader, Jim Jones. Hafidha resolved to google it up when she had Internet access again, and see if she could figure out what exactly was making Todd look like a binge drinker with room-spins. ”You're saying he's brainwashed them.”
”Common misconception,” Reyes said. ”It's not really brainwas.h.i.+ng, not in the Hollywood sense. It's the imposition of a communal reality. Creating a sense of belonging. In-group versus out-group. Manipulation of the bonding impulse. Everybody wants to feel chosen.”
Todd put a hand on Reyes' arm. ”Remember,” he said. ”They're just a bunch of stupid kids.”
When they came down the hall, Reyes knew he was already too late. Students stood in cl.u.s.ters outside room 114, chatting in groups of three or four. He took the nearest-a blond boy, five-eleven, one-eighty, gay, probably a Chemistry major by the caffeine molecule on his t-s.h.i.+rt-by the sleeve and turned him away from his boyfriend, ready for whatever reaction might follow. The kid dropped effortlessly into a balanced pose, his left hand moving to intercept an antic.i.p.ated blow, the right turning to knock Reyes' left hand away.
Reyes, prepared, stepped back before the kid made contact. Whatever else, the potential UNSUB was teaching his students to take care of themselves.
Reyes asked, ”Is the instructor still here?”
”Jim?” The boy blinked gray-blue eyes. ”No, he went that way.” He pointed down the hall. ”With the advanced students. The wheelchair ramp, but he left ten-”
Reyes took off running, his team strung out behind him, Hafidha gaining with every stride of her long legs and the rest holding position. Undergrads flattened themselves against the corridor walls as Reyes bawled Coming through! Coming through!
Todd was yelling something too, maybe make a hole, while the women saved their breath for running. It didn't matter. When they reached the sidewalk, there was no one in sight except undergrads, moving industriously in the narrow s.p.a.ce between red brick buildings. Evening was drawing up, a gray northern lengthening of the shadows. ”Wheelchair ramp,” Reyes said, and Lau turned around and looked at it.
She said, ”The self-defense instructor is in a wheelchair?”
”Vets,” Todd said, shoving his left hand into his pants pocket in something Reyes thought was an unconscious gesture, ”wind up missing a lot of body parts.”
Reyes rocked on feet bruised sore from running on pavement in dress shoes. ”Hafidha, I need to know who reserved that room-”
She already had her cell to her ear. She held up one finger, mumbling into the mouthpiece, and then said ”Thank you” in a tone that didn't mean thank you at all and shook her head. ”Network,” she said, thumbing the red b.u.t.ton, frustration dripping from every word. ”Friday night at supper time. Nebraska.” That last with infinite bitterness, though Reyes would wager that the IT departments of plenty of east coast colleges wouldn't have acquitted themselves any better. ”I'll call Worth, one sec, and see if she has that squad roster for us yet-Daph, any luck? Oh, for the love of Mike. Hey, can you transfer me? No, I'll handle it. No, honey, you're doing fine, they just think they can walk on you because you aren't me. Transfer, please?”
What followed was one of the most polite a.s.s-reamings Stephen Reyes had ever made it his pleasure to hear. By the time Hafidha was done, even Todd was looking at her with respect, and Lau had dilated pupils.
”Macgillivray,” she said, finally, after a listening pause. ”And the fourth fireteam member was James Cauldwell.”
”James,” said Lau.
Reyes said, ”Jim.”