Ransom X

  Chapter 3 Ask

  “BZZZ” Agent Wagner let the phone rattle along her metal desk. She’d turned the ringer off, but it hardly mattered, as the sound of the phone on “silent” mode could be better described as “almost silent”. The vibration traveled through her fingertips and woke her from a moment of deep concentration.

  Wagner often substituted deep concentration for sleep. “BZZZ” this time the phone moved toward the edge of the desk. Wagner lurched forward to keep it from dropping into a waste paper basket. The caller ID read out 14 voice mails at 9:02 AM. “Totally unacceptable” she thought so forcefully that it echoed and she wondered for a second if she’d said something aloud. Wagner had made 54 phone calls over the night with explicit instructions to get back to her by nine.

  Local law enforcement professionals know better than to leave an FBI agent waiting. She wasn’t going to start thinking about reprisals until ten, but there were going to be follow-up calls, and these would be conferenced with their direct superior to get their attention.

  Her cell phone suddenly burst into a polyphonic song. Only one number had been programmed to ring through and it wasn’t her mother. She stiffened up like a soldier coming to attention. She scolded herself for the reaction. People who want to lead never should allow themselves to act like – well to act like a follower. She was not a follower and she was in fact in charge of her entire class. Wagner had decided early in her cadet days that she would be the first female FBI director, and that it would happen before the age of fifty. Probably she overcompensated when answering the phone with sudden bluntness.

  “I’ll be there in a minute.” Then click. She’d just hung up on the principal, or in her case the deputy director. She batted her eyes quickly until moisture gleamed in the corners, then she licked her lips, an old college trick to keep men looking from her eyes to her mouth. It kept their attention to what she was thinking and what she was saying, and that is the way she liked it.

  There were plenty of reasons to look elsewhere and very few reasons to be disappointed. The stares of men had followed her since her second year of training. She’d been a late bloomer and she hadn’t grown into her 5 ft. 7 inch frame until well past graduation. Wagner didn’t give a second thought to her adult appearance, it was a tool, and she maintained it with artful precision. Something inside drove her to keep a sharp edge on every tool that she had. Her face hardly showed an outward trace that she’d slept only two hours a night for over a week. Her haircut, architectural and perfect provided a jet-black frame around a face filled with unflinching gunmetal resolve, cold and accurate. Her professional attire fit close to an athletic body. Wagner’s eyes were her real assets. On the job they seemed to stare beyond her surroundings, like they were in competition with anything that might confine her.

  Natural light cast a blue tint after filtering through the dual pane windows of one of the most secure buildings in the country. It made the center atrium and social center of the complex feel more like an aquarium. Wagner looked longingly at the coffee cart line before pressing forward into busy hallways, confidently navigating the honeycomb of dividers and private offices that stood between her and the director’s large corner office. She wasn’t going to let herself overreact this time. She was comfortable, in her element, and ready for anything he could possibly throw at her. Or so she thought. It took only one statement from the director and about three steps inside the door from Wagner before she found her composure challenged.

  “How in the hell can you do this to me, Bradley?” Not her best opening line.

  Wagner was shouting from just inside the entryway at a tall, dignified man three times her rank, twice her age. “You’re putting me in left field.”

  Bradley Wilkes had never tolerated crap from underlings. He was the one that the cadets called Ice. He turned toward Wagner eyes ablaze. “Call me Bradley again, agent.”

  “I’m sorry Director Wilkes-”

  “That’s not much better.” He said between clenched teeth.

  “I don’t want to be pulled out of the action. I’m making progress, I keep developing leads –” She changed her tactic, “I want to stay close to ­the team. I’m learning so much just working around you.”

  Wilkes' smile vanished before it reached the production stage. He seemed to take great satisfaction handing over a file. Wagner knew it had to contain some kind of punishment. “Here’s the file, take the train down and meet his supervisor this afternoon.”

  With resignation Wagner let her fingers close around the heavy envelope. It had a picture on the cover of a young man in field fatigues. In the photo, he leaned close into a man tied to a chair. The young interrogator had an expression that was completely unreadable, disturbing in its complete blankness, and the look in the eyes of the man being questioned was pure fear.

  Wagner broke her fixation on the photo with the sound of the door opening behind her. She looked up to see the director welcoming in a visitor, “Bob, come in, you’ve met Ashley right?”

  Wagner dropped her folder and stammered. “Your honor.”

  “Is this one of your daughters? I can’t imagine one of your girls would be that polite, or come to think of it carry weapons in a shoulder, and ankle strap.” He identified the positions of Wagner’s concealed weapons despite the fact that there seemed to be no visual evidence. “Must be one of the younger agents. I’m Robert Doorner.”

  Doorner hadn’t visited their office in over three years. It had to be about the case. There must have been a new wrinkle. She realized suddenly that she was standing dumbfounded in front of the director of the FBI. He was about to draw back his lonely extended hand when Agent Wagner grabbed it suddenly, not remembering that her cell phone was still in her palm. A sudden vibration shot up both of their arms. Doorner didn’t show a sign of surprise, he merely commented. “Might have been too quick to judgment.”

  “May we have the room, agent?” She studied the stiff precise military stance, tone. The news he was about to give wasn’t good. Wagner would have still put up her pension to stay in the room and hear it.

  “Yes Deputy director, sir.” Wagner collected herself and her folder; she gave Wilkes one last questioning look before leaving the office, something big was up. The door closed behind her.

  The meeting between the men started on a light note.

  “She’s not much older than my daughter. She looks pretty young to be reporting directly to you Bradley.” He noted.

  “I just gave her some distance. She lobbied hard to get onto this case, and considering how little progress we’ve made –” Wilkes replied setting up the director for the low expectations that he was peddling.

  The director’s brow creased unexpectedly, Wilkes had known him for over twenty years and a display of emotion was almost unheard of. This was the man whose stony demeanor had earned him the nickname “flat line.” He was rumored not to have a pulse. Doorner hid his disappointment so quickly that the expression might have easily been explained as a flicker of the light. His voice presented a gruff charm.

  “I know the type, give them a life raft when the ship’s going down and they look at you like you handed them an anchor.”

  “Exactly,” Wilkes studied the heavily lined face of the operations director; he had been through public scandals, triumphs and years of unnoticed success. He didn’t want to answer the question that came next.

  “So Bradley, is the ship sinking?”

  “I’m sending her to meet with Legacy.”

  Director Doorner sighed, his question had been answered, and it was clear that he wasn’t pleased. “So the lifeboats are in the water. I’ll tell you if this next one goes down it’s going to blow the lid on this operation sky high.”

  THUD THUD THUD. Boxing gloves dug into worn canvas. Wagner worked the bag over like a blood quarrel between her and the center mass. She was going to have to do something she didn’t like to do today.

  THUD THUD THUD. She couldn’t co
ntrol it and it couldn’t be out of her control. There was a life at stake. She wanted a couple more hits before she changed into her travel clothes. Her travel clothes were indistinguishable from her work clothes, but she separated them out as a completely different category in her own mind.

  THUD THUD THUD. Let a little more sweat seep into the hair.

  THUD THUD THUD. Her life had no room for frustration, no room for the variables, uncertainty principles, or randomness. This detour wouldn’t change her course, whoever he was. He would have to bend.

  Thud. Wagner entered the Virginia office, marble stonework over the front portal depicting a woman holding a flag in rippling, curving extension. Wagner was willing to bet that the woman in the pose would rather be holding a cup containing triple cappuccino, like the one that was in her hand. She flashed a badge at the front desk and asked to see regional director Sam Bailey. A fresh-faced clerk was assigned to escort her. He looked out of place in the navy blazer and tie.

  “I’m Dill.” He said in a lazy voice, he stared directly at pinstripes on her chest. “Follow – um follow me, agent -” Wagner said nothing. He finished the sentence in his mind. She walked through the metal detectors, confused when they didn’t go off.

  In a relaxed tone, Dill explained that the equipment had broken down about a week prior and that they still made a show like it worked - to deter the people who might bring in a gun or a knife.

  They got into the elevator and went to the top, the third floor. Cracked masonry tiles made a line down the center of the corridor. The line of broken tiles led to the door of Sam Bailey.

  The clerk opened the door and entered without knocking. Bailey was on the phone and nodded pleasantly at the interruption. He silently offered something wrapped in tin foil to the clerk, a slice of homemade bread.

  “Blackcurrant banana bread, my wife’s newest specialty.” He shielded the phone to explain. “Honey, I have to go. I’ll get their impressions for sure.”

  He put down the phone, smiled up at Wagner. Wagner felt like she’d been dropped in the Deep South even though she was only twenty miles out of Washington. The capitol of the confederacy was only fifty miles away from the capitol of the union and yet the division of attitude was still wider than stubborn geographical distance would allow. Wagner stared at Bailey across a gorge so wide and so deep that she felt like if she’d stepped forward she might lose her balance and fall into the black current bread abysmal.

  The clerk broke the silence “Tell Cecille, it’s the best yet.”

  “I’ll let her know.”

  The clerk backed out of the room, taking every last moment to stare at Wagner.

  Wagner scanned the room, looking for some opening for their conversation. A series of framed fly-fishing images were against the far wall, a solid body iron cast safe sat behind the desk, it had the original FBI logo painted in raised gold leaf on the crown of the lock. The only window had blinds shut.

  “It’s a southern custom to flatter the cooking of a man’s wife. It’s like winding a watch, doesn’t make much sense to anything but the insides, but it does keep things moving smoothly.”

  Wagner put out her hand. “How about a handshake?”

  “Excuse the crumbs.” He shook her hand then pointed to a chair. Wagner sat.

  Bailey looked her up and down. “So, what’s your game plan for getting him on the case?”

  “It’s orders from Washington.”

  Bailey couldn’t contain a long high-pitched chuckle. “Have you read his file?”

  Wagner had, on the train from Washington. She knew that Legacy had taken over the cold cases division five years ago. He had taken a dead-end job and made it into modern mythology, an untapped niche. Cold case review was a formality before Legacy walked into the position. After the percentage of cases closed jumped, Legacy had become a bit of a magnet for unsolved crime. Bailey now received requests for his assistance around the clock.

  “Unsolvable crime is a better way to put it. Everything that hit a dead end, all the sudden had a previously unseen outlet once Legacy started looking into it.” Bailey took pride in the fact that his backwater office had a bit of star quality in the basement. “He thinks different than us, agent.”

  “How?”

  He walked to the window searching for an explanation. “It’s like that spider web on that stem, see it?” Wagner nodded. “You and I might notice a pattern, develop ideas about the geometry, the location of flies, how the prey became trapped by the sticky threads.”

  Bailey turned back to Wagner, and in a warm tone. “Legacy would look at that and tell you which strand the spider made first and which repair he made last, and it gives him insight to where the next fly will be caught. His web is oh so tangled.”

  “I bet he doesn’t have to use conditioner either, and his hair is still full and manageable.” Her voice was dry, snide.

  “He developed his own method, instead of tracing clues back to the criminal, he projects his theories forward. He creates a profile of what the criminal will do based on what they have already done or who they should be. He got his psy-ops training as an interrogator.”

  “And he was pretty good. His files indicate that he was considered the top talker in the FBI.”

  “He was a lot better than that, miss. I still think that someone up your office and other offices around Washington are praying that he’ll finish his rehabilitation down here and come back to work. The Army says he could crack stone by glancing at it.” Bailey lit a cigarette and blew smoke out the window. “Still legal in Virginia.” He gazed out the window, posed like a statue. He had an indifferent way about himself. It was easy to see how he’d gotten to the top. He’d never asked anyone for permission to do anything. Wagner studied that part of him, because it was the only part worth her time.

  Bailey seemed to have a perpetual inward smile, an amusement with himself that made everything he did seem annoying. The satisfaction that he took in being watched made Wagner choke on the cold breeze that blew in from the north. It smelled like vanity mixed with stale apples and tobacco. She cleared her throat.

  “I’m just here to hand him an assignment then walk him through the work. Holed up in the basement you say?” She was ready to leave. Wagner turned on her heels and headed for the door.

  Bailey was used to subordinates that tolerated him and waited patiently while he was grandstanding. He nearly dropped his cigarette as he tried to cut her off. “You’ll need a strategy or he won’t even acknowledge you’re there.”

  Wagner was too quick to the door, and with a raised eyebrow and confident smirk she breezed through the doorway. She would get his attention. She had a reputation too, nothing got past her and to prove it she added one last comment. “You should have used a four wheel dolly when you moved that safe in, spread the weight.” She walked over broken tiles to the elevator. She pressed the button.

  Bailey’s raised voice echoed down the hall calling in a sugary superior tone. “At least change your shoes.” Change my shoes thought Wagner? Then she remembered, she was in Virginia, people didn’t have to make sense here, and if they did even a fraction of the time they were put in a position of power.

  Bing! The elevator arrived at the lowest level. A wash of green tinted light made the dingy cream-colored walls look like they were somehow bent. A trick of uniform light, flat surfaces can appear continuous over long stretches and the eye doesn’t appreciate that kind of continuity. The eye will instinctively strain to make something else, and the walls seem to flex. Wagner’s shoes made a clicking sound, which echoed down the hall. The buzz of the lights and a faint rumble of the furnace accompanied her like a choir. The sad thing was, the music was about to take a turn for the worse. She opened the door that had lettering on the inset frosted windows: Cold Cases, room BB2, Martin Legacy.

  She straightened her suit, took a deep breath and stepped into the room. The bad attitude that had been cultivated over a morning of disappointments
would see her through, she was sure of it. This would be done, and she’d be headed back to Washington by mid-day.

  Twenty minutes later she was standing in Bailey’s office. Her lips quivered in visible fury.

  Bailey’s voice was sticky sweet barely veiling his expectation. “Didn’t say nothing? Didn’t even raise his head? Probably thought you were the secretary, the women around here wear shoes like that.” Bailey left a lazy ring finger extended toward her shoes, raising his gaze and seeing if Wagner would rebound. Wagner met his stare and after a moment of internal calculation and then she smiled at him. It was a hollow smile, but appearances were all that Bailey respected anyway.

  “I need to get to know more about Legacy. May I sit? May I have a piece of that delicious bread now?”

  A beaming response from Bailey told her that she’d behaved properly. “Wouldn’t that be the way to start off?”

  Wagner took notes for the better part of an hour. She learned of Legacy’s rise through Special Forces to become one of the most heralded field officers in the history of the American Military complex. He was what they called an “information quantity,” which was the title given to the top interrogation specialists. These people were considered so vital during the cold war that they were the only agents shared by CIA, NSA, military and FBI. In intelligence circles it was well known that there were three people who got called when information had to be extracted. Two of them belonged to the other side, or sides, Gerhard Shulz worked out of Egypt, he’d shattered men made out of steel. Chrysa Valcheck, better known as the Chrysanthemum, was a medical doctor, organic chemist and sympathetic ear for the Ukraine secret service. It was rumored that people that entered her office ultimately begged for the opportunity to tell their secrets and that she would only let them tell after she was finished breaking their mind into a thousand pieces.

  Legacy’s ability to get information out of human sources was based on a technique that became known as Hollow Man. It was a modification of a common technique used where the interrogator assembles a series of educated guesses then presents them as facts depending upon the reaction of the person in custody. His intuition had such an overlap with reality that it was hard for anyone to keep a secret as he drilled so far into the bedrock of fact on which they were standing. Legacy’s methods relied on him getting inside the mind – perhaps the mind isn’t the best way to put it - inside the sequence of thoughts of anyone sitting across from him. Rational or irrational, fanatic or cold calculating capitalists all have an inner logic that is like a code, Legacy seemed to always crack the code and get inside. He was always in use.

  “Human nature is the same the world over, I guess.”

  Wagner looked up from her notes. This was getting her prepared, but she knew that history wouldn’t help her get in the door. She had to find something that interested the man now. Legacy wasn’t interested in himself, his own accomplishments or his own capabilities. If he were, he’d be back doing his old job; he certainly wouldn’t be in the basement of a regional office. Bailey’s patient smile made her dive right back in, “Tell me more about his daughter.”

  Wagner had read about the death of Legacy’s wife, but the details were blacked out on her report, making the tidbit of information from Bailey quite haunting. “He was five minutes late getting home, literally minutes away from stopping the whole thing.”

  Bailey paused, uncertain of how far to go, Wagner picked up the tail end of the story, “I saw in the report that his daughter sat tied to a chair in the closet.”

  Bailey added, “Thankfully not watching her mother bleed out.”

  Bailey continued adding details about Legacy’s life while sucking deep re-filtering the smoky air through the lit end of another cigarette. Bailey’s face maintained a loathsome shade of exquisite indifference. Wagner decided that she had what she needed, or at the very least, had all she could take.

  Bailey lit a slim, long black cigarette off of the dying embers of his last. Wagner couldn’t keep the curiosity off of her face even though the slightest digression meant more time in his presence. A sour thought. Bailey wafted the tip in circles, drawing attention to his mannerisms. “I never smoke the same brand of cigarette twice in one day,” he continued with a self-satisfied smile “I wouldn’t want to become addicted.”

  Bailey was supplying her with more than textbook information. She wondered why. Wagner saw that vanity was the driving factor for Bailey, he might be showing off, but she also recognized a strong officious streak in the man - he must have gotten permission from above to give out secure parts of Legacy’s file. The idea he was simply stupid crossed her mind; it was an attractive thought, one that she would revisit many times in her future associations with Bailey. Wagner knew there was still more to the story even after Bailey stopped talking. Should she go strong or weak - that was the question. She leaned forward, Bailey’s eyes took a predictable parabolic arc downward. The frustrated pout of Wagner’s lips was pure art.

  “I just need something to get his attention, is there anything he considers important, or something he’s protective of, anything at all?” She asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Something that connects in with his emotional side, has anything ever caused an outbreak of temper or anger?”

  He didn’t take a moment to think, “He doesn’t have an emotional side.”

  She decided it was time to test his pride.

  “This briefing is useless then, they told me at headquarters that you had very limited influence with him–”

  “There was a time when he came up here because he couldn’t get to his daughter’s web cam. He was going to leave to check up on her until tech fixed the blamed thing. I guess technology frustrates him as much as it does the rest of us.”

  Wagner slid a slim laptop out of her briefcase. Asking no permission, she pulled a network wire out of Bailey’s computer and plugged it in to her own.

  Bailey remarked how her computer suited her. “An odd convergence.”

  Wagner looked at the screen, her fingers tapped the keys then traced the sleek lines tilting the screen to get a better viewing angle. She must have driven the high school debate club crazy. It was probably a coincidence that Bailey stared at all of the ports on the backside of her machine.

  Wagner had found what she was looking for, as the face of Legacy’s daughter, Chess appeared on screen. Her home page loaded and Wagner hinted at a breakthrough for the first time since crossing the Mason-Dixon line. Chess was the best way to get to Legacy. She clicked on Chess' bio page and read. Afterward she left with a plan.

  Twenty minutes passed, three different brands of cigarettes littered the ashtray before Wagner poked her head back into the office.

  “I need an access card, I’ll be here for another day.”

  “Was it something I said?”

  Wagner flipped her hair and smirked, then said with an edge “Isn’t it always about you?”

  He chuckled through his nose, and then skidded a set of keys across his desk, her hands were filled and she caught them at the edge of the desk with her thigh. Bailey’s eyes reflected the glowing tip of his cigarette, satisfied. “Wilkes said that you never sleep.”

  She eased away from cold metal and let the keys drop into her cupped hand. Wagner looked up and to her surprise Bailey had slipped past her and was standing in the doorway ready to leave.

  “There’s a gym and a shower on the second floor. That and keys to the records room should keep you busy for the night.”