Chapter 13
They took my stuff, and the hard-looking female agent patted me down very thoroughly, then they loaded me first into the SUV and then one of the Blackhawks.
I probably shouldn’t have fastened my own safety harness, but it was kind of second nature, and I was busy studying the mix of people on board with me.
Agent Frayer sat next to Agent Chen, who was next to Agent Steele, all sitting across from me.
All three watched me like I was the most interesting bug they had seen all day.
Agent Resting Judge Face sat pressed up close to me on my right and the guy who had driven the SUV was on my left.
Carmine and Kessler. And then Agent Rao, who sat next to Kessler.
“Cassie, you mentioned a serial killer?” Agent Frayer said over the headset.
“I think so. I was going to wait till I got to meet Red. She’ll need to dip into my observations to see if they pan out.”
“How are you aware of a serial killer and we aren’t?” Frayer asked.
“Hmm. Well, how do I put this? I see stuff that others don’t. Patterns,” I said. “I was up a little late last night reading the news. Did some research.”
Agent RJF on my right snorted.
“Agent Carmine is not a believer,” I noted.
“ Agent Carmine, you have a touch of New York City in your voice. Are you any relation to Congressman Tony Carmine? A niece, maybe? I remember an article from two years and three months ago about him. He and his wife, Claire, don’t have children but his brother, Jesus, has a daughter and a son.
The daughter, Roselyn, was mentioned to be in law enforcement. That you?”
Resting Judgy Face stiffened up and whipped around to glare at me but didn’t say a word. Turning back to the agents across the passenger space, I found various degrees of fascination looking back at me.
“Have your computer data people run a search on how many elected officials across the country have died in the last three years or so versus the historical average. Mayors, at least one governor, state and federal representatives, judges, and DAs. It’s gonna be a whack number.”
“On it,” a female voice said over the headset.
“Is that Red? Hi, Red,” I said.
There was a moment of silence, then came “Hello, Miss Blake.”
“You’re sincerely excited to meet our data expert?” Dr. Chen asked.
“I am. Doctor Chen, a lot of what I do is observe data and find patterns. But Red is the one who will be able to determine if what I see is real or random chance. So yeah.”
“This data you observe, where does it originate?” Steele asked.
“News mostly. Internet news.”
Agent Carmine snorted again.
I glanced her way, then back at the three interested agents. They just watched me.
“Ah. Is this some kind of testing protocol?” I asked.
“What do you mean?” Dr. Chen asked.
It was my turn to snort. “I get it. Very subtle take on good cop bad cop. Interested cops and bitch cop, maybe. Let’s hold off until Red does some follow-up. Wait… do you have a Red too?” I asked Agent Frayer.
She smiled. “I do. I have a Steve.”
“Is there a cybercrime group too? Or crypto crime maybe?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Well, there’s more of that crap going on than everything else combined,” I said, crossing my arms and leaning back. A thought occurred to me, and I looked to my left. “Agent Kessler, you’re ex-military, right? A Marine, maybe?”
He looked at me, face blank. Blank-ish. I still read some tells though.
“Marines have a manner about them,” I said. “Never been able to define it, but it’s there.”
“You can’t determine what leads you to believe Agent Kessler was a Marine?” Dr. Chen.
“Is. Once a Marine, always a Marine. No. It just happens. Usually, I figure it out, but sometimes not. I put stuff together and it’s not always fully evident as to what tripped my switch.”
“How can you be certain…” Chen asked, but I interrupted.
“Instinct, intuition, gut feeling. You have those too. Everyone does. I would bet a thousand dollars of the cash sitting in the pack at Carmine’s feet that Agent Kessler is a Marine.”
“What about Agent Carmine?”
“Air Force, pararescue. But I know that fact because I read it in an article… in the news.” I leaned back and closed my eyes.
I heard a soft click in my headset, then Agent Steele said something that was lost in noise of the helicopter. Since I didn’t hear anything else in my headphones, I figured he was on another channel. Likely talking with Red. My eyes stayed shut. Not my circus, not my monkeys.