FBI Field Office, New York It took Jack King ten minutes to shake everyone's hand and another twenty to hug, kiss and say hi to all his female ex-colleagues.
'Man, you really should go to the Men's room and get brushed up,' said Howie. 'I've seen dudes come back from stag weekends with less lipstick on their collars.'
'It's a small price to pay for popularity,' joked Jack, deciding to take his advice. 'I'll see you in the briefing room.'
The pow-wow was a big one.
It was chaired by FBI Field Office director Joe Marsh, a small, thin man in his early forties with hair greying at the temples and a natural smile that most politicians would pay half their campaign funds for. To his right was NYPD deputy commissioner of operations Steven Flintoff, a barrel-chested oxofa guy with short-cut ginger hair and his trademark rolled-up sleeves. Behavioural scientists Howie Baumguard and Angelita Fernandez came next around the circular table, followed by Elizabeth Laing, a Roseanne Barr lookalike employed as press information officer for the NYPD, and Julian Hopkins, the FBI's local press guy. They were still pouring each other coffee and water when Jack walked in and greeted them with a confident, 'Good morning everybody!'
A spontaneous ripple of applause erupted and Marsh rose to shake his hand. 'Good to see you back, Jack. Come and sit here right next to me.'
'Good to be back,' said Jack. 'Though I must say it actually feels like I've never been away. Same case, same room, just a few changed faces.'
'Angelita Fernandez,' said the profiler, leaning over the table to shake his hand. 'We kind of met by video conference.'
'We did indeed. Nice to meet you for real,' said Jack.
The rest of the room took it in turns to table-stretch and introduce themselves, then Marsh got down to business. 'For the sake of the press officers, Jack King is with us as a consultant. Ideally, we don't want his name mentioned at all, but let's be realistic, this ugly old mug of his is so well known that once he's been around a few days, you can be sure the papers will all be asking you what the hell he's doing back on the scene. No interviews with Jack, no comments from Jack, let's say he's over here just catching up with old friends. You got it?'
Laing and Hopkins both nodded.
'Good,' said Marsh. 'In a minute or two we're going to dial-in Malcolm Thompson on a line from Quantico and agree our strategy for the next few days. Jack, Malcolm is the new head of the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime. He's still at the ballbuster stage at the moment but he'll be fine when he's settled in.' Marsh slapped both hands lightly on the table. 'Okay, Howie, Angelita, before we call Mal, what's the latest?'
Howie kicked off. 'We've interviewed the journalist Tariq el Daher. After what we might call a reluctant beginning, he's come round to our way of thinking.' He nodded towards the NYPD's deputy commissioner of operations. 'Stevie's guys are fixing his office right now with full A and V recording and tracking equipment, phones, computers, the lot. This time we should be able to get into any new video feed from the perp practically the second it happens.'
'And he was fine with that?' checked Marsh.
'Absolutely. A total model of cooperation,' said Howie grinning in a way that everyone around the table understood.
'Is the material still out there in hyper-space?' asked Jack.
'No,' said Fernandez. 'Tariq called us about ten minutes ago and said his access code didn't work any more.'
Jack thought for a second about dongles and bomb fuses and zipper disasters. 'Is the code itself of any significance?' he asked. 'Does 898989 mean anything to anyone? Is it the Pan Arabia office number, have we tried it as a phone number, have we run the number itself through the Internet?'
'I Googled it,' said Fernandez.
'And?' asked Marsh.
'A hundred and sixteen thousand entries. I've been through about twenty.'
The whole room laughed.
'The domain name 898989 is already registered with someone. They're quite legit, no connection at all. It also gets you a gardening centre in England and a strange website called "Just Curious".' Fernandez paused for effect, then added, 'Sorry folks, that's also legit. I got excited as well because it has a motto on the front: "Strangers Helping Strangers".'
'What the hell is it?' asked Flintoff.
'You just ask a question anonymously and the whole world answers it and gives you advice,' explained Fernandez.
'Sounds great,' said Howie. 'Stick one on from us, and tell the whole world out there that we're just curious as hell to know where BRK is, someone should have seen him.' They all laughed again.
'Not a bad idea,' said Jack. 'Knowing what an egotistical son of a bitch BRK is, there's just a chance he might visit the site and respond. Unfortunately, I suspect a million other fruitcakes will as well.'
'What else?' said Marsh. 'We have to move things along.'
Howie picked up the ball again. 'The bad news for the day is that it looks like one of our possible witnesses, a guy who could ID our perp, got stiffed. The guys over in Myrtle had been following up on a delivery boy from UMail2Anywhere called Stanley Mossman. Best Fernandez tells you the rest; she just got off the phone to Myrtle.'
Fernandez took up the story. 'Stan the Man turned up in the trunk of his own car at the long-stay out at Myrtle International. I don't know all the details but from what Gene Saunders said, it looks like BRK arranged to meet him there and wasted him. The kid seems to have had his throat cut while standing around the back of his own vehicle, then the killer popped the trunk and bundled him in there.'
'Surveillance cameras, forensics?' asked Marsh.
Fernandez nodded. 'Yes, sir, all underway. The doc's doing the post-mortem tomorrow but he saw the body in situ. Says it's a single-bladed, short and razor-sharp knife. Cut was made from behind. Done real quick and hard.' She ran a finger across her throat and made the slashing sound shweep!
'It's a pro kill,' said Howie. 'He probably got the kid to put something in the trunk of his car, weaseled up behind him, then out comes some kind of flick blade and in a flash he takes out Stan's jugular.'
'Is it too much to hope that this was all captured on camera?' asked Marsh.
Fernandez smiled. 'I think you're a mind-reader, boss. The parking lot wasn't one of the regular approved ones; it was on an old building lot a couple of blocks behind Jetport Road. No cameras.'
'That's interesting,' said Jack. 'To pick a parking lot that doesn't have surveillance cameras you first have to visit the ones that do, and eliminate them. Let's get someone in Myrtle to call all the car rental places near the airport and have them save their surveillance footage from the last three weeks; there's an outside chance they may have caught him on tape.'
'Sounds great viewing for some wet-behind-the-ears detective in Horry County,' said Marsh.
Jack poured himself water, then added, 'Guess Myrtle have impounded the car?'
'Forensics have it in their playpen already,' said Fernandez. 'If there are any hairs, fibres or trace evidence of any kind, they'll find it.'
'There's just one drawback,' said Howie.
Jack finished his sentence for him, 'We don't have a friggin' suspect to match it to.'