Shadow Man

  “Can I have one of those, sir?”

  His eyebrows arch in surprise. “I thought you quit.”

  “I took it up again.”

  He shrugs and gives me the pack. I pull out one of the cigarettes, and he lights it for me. I, too, take a nice, long puff. Yum.

  “Listen, Smoky. You know how it goes. You’ve been around long enough. Your shrink keeps the content of what you guys talk about in complete confidence. But he does submit a report, once a month, giving an overview of where he thinks you’re at.”

  I nod. I know this is true. I don’t take it as any kind of violation. It’s not about privacy or rights. It’s about whether or not I can be trusted to represent the FBI. Or hold a gun.

  “I got a report yesterday. He says you still have a ways to go and are not ready to go back to work. Period. Now you show up at six in the morning and want to go to the scene of a murdered friend?” He shakes his head, vehement. “Like I said: no fucking way.”

  I draw on the cigarette, weighing it in my fingers as I watch him, and try and figure out what to say. I realize that I know why he’s here. Because of me. Because the killer wrote to me. Because he’s worried.

  “Look, sir. Annie King was my friend. Her daughter is still alive up there. She’s got no other family, her dad’s dead, and I’m her godmother. I’d be flying up there anyway. All I’m asking the Bureau for is the courtesy of a ride.”

  He draws smoke down the wrong pipe at this, and actually sputters. “Puh-leeeze! Nice try, but who the fuck do you think you’re talking to, Agent Barrett?” He stabs a finger at me. “I know you better than that, Smoky. Don’t bullshit me. Your friend is dead—and I’m sorry about that, by the way—and you want to go up and get yourself on the case. That’s the truth. And I can’t allow it. One, you’re personally involved, and that excludes you from the get-go. That’s straight from the manual. Two, you’re probably suicidal, and I can’t allow you to step in the middle of a crime scene in that condition.”

  My mouth hangs open. Then my words are filled with fury and shame. “Jesus Christ! Do I have a sign hanging from my neck that says I’ve thought about killing myself?”

  His eyes soften at this. “Nah, no sign. It’s just that we all know we’d think about it if any of us experienced even half of what you did.” He tosses the cigarette to the pavement and doesn’t look at me when he continues speaking. “I thought about smoking on my gun, once.”

  As with Callie at lunch yesterday, I am speechless. He catches this and nods. “It’s true. I lost a partner, about twenty-five years ago, when I was on the LAPD. Lost him because I made a bad decision. I led us into a building without backup, and it was more than we could handle. He paid the price. Family man, beloved husband and father of three. It was my fault, and I thought about correcting that inequity for almost eight months.” He looks at me, and there’s no pity in his gaze. “It’s not that you have a sign hanging from your neck, Smoky. It’s that most of us think we would have blown our brains out by now if we were in your position.”

  This is the essence of AD Jones. No small talk, no dancing around things. It fits him well. You always know where you stand with him. Always.

  I can’t meet his eyes. I throw down my cigarette, half smoked, and grind it out with my foot. I’m doing some careful thinking about what to say next. “Sir. I appreciate what you’re saying. And you’re right, on just about every point, except one.” I look back up at him. I know he’ll want to see my eyes when I say what I say next, to gauge the truth of my words. “I have thought about it. A lot. But yesterday? Yesterday was the first day I knew for sure I wasn’t going to do it. You know what changed?” I point at my team, standing and waiting on the steps. “I went and saw those guys, for the first time since it happened. I went and saw them, and they were still there, and they accepted me. Well, the jury’s still out on James—but the point is, they didn’t pity me or make me feel like a broken piece. I can tell you, flat out, that I’m no longer suicidal. And the reason is that I stepped foot back into the Bureau.” He’s listening. I can tell I haven’t won him over, but I do have his attention. “Look, I’m not ready to take NCAVC Coord back over. I’m sure as hell not ready to be in any tactical situation of any kind. All I’m asking is that you let me dip my toe in the water. Let me go up, make sure Bonnie is taken care of, and let me just lend my mind to this thing, just a little. Callie will still run things. I won’t be armed, and I promise, if I think it’s too much, I’m out.”

  He puts his hands in his coat pockets and gives me a long, fierce look. He’s studying me, hard. Weighing all the possibilities, every risk. When he looks away and sighs, I know I have convinced him.

  “I just know I’m going to regret this, but fine. Here’s the deal. You go, you get the kid, you look around. You can put in your two cents with the team. But you are not running the show. And the moment you feel even a little wobbly, you pull yourself the fuck out. I mean it, Smoky. I need you back, don’t misunderstand me. But I need you back whole, and that means I don’t necessarily need you back now. You understand?”

  I bob my head like a child or a new army recruit, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir. I’m going, and I feel that this is an important thing. A victory. He raises a hand, waving Callie over. When she arrives, he tells her what he told me.

  “You got it?” he asks, stern.

  “Yes, sir. Understood.”

  He shoots me one last glance. “You guys have a plane to catch. Get out of here.”

  I walk away with Callie before he can change his mind.

  “I’d love to know how you pulled that one off, honey-love,” she murmurs to me. “Just know that as far as I’m concerned, it’s your show until you tell me otherwise.”

  I don’t reply. I’m too busy wondering if I’ve made a terrible mistake by getting back on the team.

  9

  SINCE WHEN DID we rate a private jet?” I ask.

  “Remember I told you that we’d had two child abductions and recovered one alive?” Callie asks.

  I nod.

  “Don Plummer was the father of the little girl we got back alive. He owns a small flight company. They sell planes, have a flying school, things like that. He offered to give the Bureau a jet pro bono, which of course we had to turn down. But—with no prompting from us—he wrote the Director and worked out giving us access when needed for a low price.” She shrugs and gestures at our surroundings. “So when we need to get somewhere fast…”

  There’s an addition to the team on this flight. Some young-looking kid who seems to barely fit into his FBI persona. He looks like he should have an earring in one ear and gum in his mouth. I squint and see a hole for a piercing in his left lobe. Jeez. Maybe he does wear one when he’s not on duty. He’d been introduced to me as a loaner from Computer Crimes. He sits a little off from everyone else, looking rumpled and half awake. An outsider.

  I look around. “Where’s Alan?” I ask.

  A response comes from the front of the plane. More of a growl. “I’m up here.” And that’s all he says.

  I look at Callie, eyebrows raised. She shrugs.

  “Something’s bugging him. He looked pretty pissed when we got here.” She gazes toward him for a moment, then shakes her head. “I’d leave it alone for now, honey-love.”

  I look toward the shadows that Alan is sitting in, wanting to do something. But Callie is right. And I need to be brought up to speed.

  “Fill me in,” I say, accepting this. “What do we have?”

  I turn to James as I say this. He stares back at me, and I can see the hostility flaring up in his eyes. He radiates disapproval.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” he says.

  I fold my arms and look at him. “Yeah, well, I am.”

  “It violates procedure. You’ll be a liability to this investigation.” He shakes his head. “You probably don’t even have psych clearance yet, do you?”

  Callie remains silent, and I’m thankful. This is a key moment, something I need
to resolve myself.

  “AD Jones cleared me.” I frown at him. “Jesus, James. Annie King was a friend of mine.”

  He stabs a finger toward me. “All the more reason you shouldn’t be here. You’re too close to the investigation, and you’ll fuck it up.”

  Some part of me registers that an outsider, listening to this, would be aghast. They would not be able to believe that James is saying what he is saying. I’m inured to it—to some extent. This is James. This is how he is, and what he does. Besides, it’s working for me. I’m feeling something stir inside. The old coldness, what I always used to use to handle James, to rein him in. I grip on to this and let it leak into my eyes.

  “I’m here. I’m not going away. Deal with it, and give me all the details. Stop fucking with me.”

  He pauses for a moment, examines me. I see him settle back. He shakes his head once in disapproval, but I know that he’s given in. “Fine. But I want it on record that I think this is a blatant violation of Bureau policy.”

  “Duly noted.” My voice is a knife edge of sarcasm that dulls against his indifference.

  “Good.” Now I see his eyes unfocus a bit. He doesn’t have a file in front of him, but that computer brain of his is putting all the facts at his fingertips. “Her body was found yesterday. They figure she was killed three days before that.”

  I start at this. “Three days?”

  “Yes.”

  “So how was the body found? Where?”

  “The SF cops got an e-mail. It included an attachment, some photos. Of her. They went over to check it out, and they found the body and the child.”

  My heart thuds in my chest, and I sense my stomach acids churning. I feel a sour burp just waiting to get out. “Are you telling me that her daughter was there for more than three days with her dead mother?” My voice comes out loud. Not a yell, but close. James looks at me, his face calm. Just relating the facts.

  “Worse. The killer tied her to her mother’s corpse. Face-to-face. She was tied like that for the whole time.”

  Blood rushes to my head, and I feel faint. The burp comes up, silent but awful. I can feel its taste in my mouth. I put a hand to my forehead.

  “Where’s Bonnie now?”

  “She’s at one of the local hospitals, under guard. She’s catatonic. Hasn’t said a word since they found her.”

  Silence at that. Callie breaks it.

  “There’s more, honey-love. Things we need you to hear before we land. Otherwise you are going to be caught flat-footed.”

  I dread what is coming. I dread it like I dread going to sleep at night. But I grab on to myself, hard, and shake. I hope no one notices. “Go ahead. Hit me with all of it.”

  “Three things, and I’ll just lay them all out, one after the other. First, she left her daughter to you, Smoky. The killer found her will and left it next to the body for us to find. You’re named as the guardian. Second, your friend was running a sex site on the Internet that she was personally starring in. Third, the killer’s e-mail to the cops included a letter addressed to you.”

  My mouth hangs open. I feel like I have been beaten. As if, instead of speaking, Callie had grabbed a golf club and whacked me with it. My head is spinning. Through my shock, I register a very selfish emotion, one that shames me, but one I also grab on to with a death grip. It is fear of losing it in front of my team. Of how that will make me look, especially to James. Selfish, yes, but I recognize it for what it is, the tool I can use to get myself under control.

  I grapple with the shock and sorrow that are struggling for dominance and manage to push them aside enough to speak. I’m surprised at the sound of my voice when it comes out: flat and steady.

  “Let me take this point by point. On the first one, I’ll deal with that myself. Let’s address the second one. You’re saying she was some kind of…Internet prostitute?”

  A voice pipes up. “No, ma’am, that’s not accurate at all.”

  It’s the young kid from Computer Crimes. Mr. Earring. I look at him.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Leo. Leo Carnes. I’m on loan here because of the e-mail, but also because of what your friend did for a living.”

  I give him a good once-over. He returns my gaze without flinching. He’s a good-looking kid, probably twenty-four or twenty-five. Dark hair, calm eyes. “Which was what? You said I wasn’t accurate. So explain it to us.”

  He moves up a few seats nearer to us; invited into the inner circle, he leaps at the opportunity. Everyone wants to belong. “It’s kind of a long explanation.”

  “We have the time. Go ahead.”

  He nods, a gleam coming to his eye that I recognize as excitement. Computers are his thing, what he is passionate about. “To understand it, you have to understand that pornography on the Internet is an entirely different subculture from pornography in the ‘real world.’” He’s settling back, relaxing, getting ready to give a lecture on a subject he knows everything about. It’s his moment in the spotlight, and I’m happy to let him have it. It gives me time to settle my thoughts and my stomach. And something to think about besides little Bonnie, staring at her dead mother’s face for three days.

  “Go on.”

  “Starting in around 1978, you had something called BBSs—Bulletin Board Systems. Actually the full name was Computerized Bulletin Board Systems. These were the first nongovernment, public-accessible networks. If you had a modem and a computer, you could post up messages, do file sharing, and so on. Of course, back then, almost all the users were scientists or supernerds. But the reason this is relevant is that BBSs became a place to post up porn pics. You could share them, trade them, whatever. And at this point, we’re not just talking Wild West, we are talking undiscovered country. No oversight, nada. Something important to porn users because—”

  James chimes in: “It was free, and it was private.”

  Leo grins and bobs his head. “Exactly! You didn’t have to sneak in the back of some porno shop and brown-bag it. You could lock your bedroom door and download your porno pics without fear of discovery. It was HUGE. So, BBSs were the only public game in town, and they were everywhere, and porn was already everywhere on them.

  “BBSs pretty much drop away as the Internet evolves and Web sites start coming out, and browsers, and dot-com names, and all that stuff. BBSs were always basically for posting, with the viewing being done after download. Now you have Web sites, where you can see it as fast as you connect to it. So what happens with porn?” He smiles. “What actually happened is twofold: You had some smart businessmen—I’m talking guys who already had money—who started to develop adult Web sites on the Net. Some were from the audiotext industry—”

  “Which is what?” I interrupt.

  “Sorry. Phone sex. These guys who were already raking in the dough on phone sex saw the Web and realized its potential for porn. Private, pay-per-view, on-demand whack-off material for the everyday guy. They poured a bunch of money into buying existing pornography. Pics scanned in by the hundreds of thousands and posted up on Web sites. In order to view them, you had to whip out your credit card. And that is where things changed in porn.”

  Callie frowns. “What do you mean, changed?”

  “I’m getting to that. See, up to that point, porn was pretty much a ‘hands on’ kind of thing. If you were selling videos, for example, you were up to your neck in the industry. In other words, you’d been on movie sets, seen sex going on in front of you, knew the people, maybe even been in front of the camera yourself. It’s always been a very tight, small group. But with Web sites, these early guys, they were a whole new breed. There was a layer between them and the actual creation of the stuff. They had money, and they paid the pornographers for their pics. They put them up on the Web and charged to view them. You see the difference? These guys weren’t pornographers, not in the classical sense. They were businessmen. With marketing plans, offices, staff, the whole nine yards. They weren’t coming across as some sleazy substrata of society
anymore. And it paid off. Some of those first companies make eighty to a hundred million a year now.”

  “Wow,” Callie says. Leo nods.

  “Yeah, wow. It may not seem like a big deal to us, but if you really dig into the history of porn, it was a paradigm shift. To be honest? Most of the people making porn in the early eighties were from the seventies. We’re talking a lot of drugs, promiscuous sex, all the clichés. But these new Internet guys? Most of them weren’t involved in wife swapping or snorting coke while getting a blow job, any of that. Most of them had never been on a porn set in their life. They were guys in business suits, making millions off the newest thing. They started to make it, well, respectable. As much as porn can be.”

  “You said ‘twofold.’ What’s the other part of it?”

  “While these business guys were carving out their empires, you had another whole ‘adult revolution’ happening. This was at a more grassroots level. Rather than Web sites that were a collection of pics of professional porn stars, you had women or couples creating Web sites that were centered around themselves and their real-life sexual escapades. These weren’t people trying to make a living off porn. These were people doing it for fun. Getting off on the exhibitionism of it. It was called ‘amateur porn.’”

  Callie rolls her eyes. “You’re not talking to babes in the woods here, honey-love. I think most of us know what amateur porn is. The ‘girl next door,’ swingers, blah blah blah.”

  “Sure, sorry. I’m in lecture mode. The relevance is, the demand for that type of porn turned out to be just as big as the demand for ‘pro porn.’ So much so that most of these women or couples couldn’t afford to keep it up for free, as a hobby. The costs of having their Web sites accessed by so many people became prohibitive. So they started charging as well. A few of those who started early on made millions. And—and this is the key thing you have to understand—these were not porn-industry people. They didn’t know anyone in the adult-video industry. They weren’t in magazines, or in videos in adult bookstores. These were people driven first not by money but by the enjoyment of what they were doing.