Agent John Gallagher was now looking at another dead man. Oh well. All in a day’s work.
The FBI agent was in a dark, sardonic mood as he hunched over the corpse. The victim was still strapped to a chair in his inner office in the insurance company. The police had to get a locksmith to open the door, which had been locked from the outside.
“What’s his name?”
One of the two Philadelphia police detectives on the scene flipped open his little day book where he had written it down.
“Roger French. Insurance broker. Commercial insurance.”
“So, any thoughts on all this?”
“Remind me again,” the detective said. “Why’s the FBI interested in this?”
“I am investigating a federal crime.”
“And what federal crime would that be?”
“One that is currently under investigation.” Gallagher said with a half-smile. “Look, fellas, I caught the report on my laptop while I was out doing fieldwork on a case a couple states away. I had put a crime profiler submission out over interagency-net. Crimes within driving distance from upper state New York…crimes of a certain nature. Yours popped up. Here I am. Don’t mean to be pushy, but you know we feds have superior jurisdiction. So, what’s your theory?”
The detective wasn’t pleased. But he knew for the time being he had to humor this federal intrusion.
“Maybe a drug deal gone bad,” he suggested. When Gallagher tossed him a skeptical look, the detective added, “This part of town has developed some illegal drug traffic.”
The FBI agent had to ask the obvious, “So, is our guy here, Mr. French, a known drug dealer or user? Or maybe a frequenter at coke or heroin parties?”
The detective looked over at his partner who shook his head no.
“Any hint of drugs found here in this office?”
“Just some Tylenol in his desk.”
Gallagher had to restrain himself at that one. But he kept it professional.
“Any prior criminal record?”
Both detectives shook their heads.
“Any prior arrests? Outstanding warrants against Mr. French? Any judicial warrants of any kind out against him?”
The two detectives kept shaking their heads.
“Does your PD have anything bad to say about Mr. Roger French?” Gallagher said, now venturing into sarcasm. “Parking tickets…books not returned to the public library…”
The senior detective cleared his throat and finally said, “The deceased appears to be clean.”
Gallagher finally had to let it out, and when he did in his tone there was a certain amount of tell me again why am I wasting my time with you guys?
“Yet you fellows are still sticking to the drug-dealing scenario?”
“Meaning what?” the detective retorted.
Gallagher was getting impatient. “Look at this crime scene. The victim was tied to a chair, and by my guess had been connected to that wall socket over there by electric leads…” Gallagher pointed at the tiny burn marks on each earlobe.
“So,” a detective said, “he was…”
“Right, tortured,” Gallagher cut in to save time. “Perfectly standard interrogation technique, of course, if you live in, say, Iran. But, gentlemen, this is Philadelphia…” Then as he surveyed the body he added, “I think he put up a fight. Maybe reluctant to talk, otherwise no need to turn up the juice on this poor guy…”
“Talk about what?”
“That’s what I need to find out. What kind of information did our victim have access to, other than insurance rates and commercial premium amounts? Anything that might be of unique value to some bad guys?”
“We’re not sure.”
“How about any unusual contacts he had. Anything there?”
That’s when the two detectives looked at each other. After a moment, one of them spoke up.
“Mr. French is the son-in-law to Mr. Rocky Bridger, a retired general.”
“Where was the general detailed?”
“The Pentagon.”
Gallagher had already done the math. One of the first things the detectives told him when he had arrived was that Roger French had left a message on the voicemail of his wife saying he was going to be late to their daughter’s basketball game because he had some “last minute business” to attend to. Gallagher figured the killer could have set up a meeting with French. He had computed the drive time from the crime scene in the swamp in the New York State countryside to that part of Philly. Gallagher was starting to get the feeling in his gut, and in his brain, and literally right in front of his eyes, everywhere, that this crime spree he was witnessing was a trail of carefully premeditated mayhem left by Atta Zimler.
“The Pentagon?” Gallagher yelled out loud, to emphasize the obvious.
Two detectives nodded in tandem.
“Fellas,” the agent said, handing his card over to the senior detective, “I would appreciate any updates you can give me on your progress on this case.”
When Agent Gallagher was in his car, he called Miles Zadernack, his supervisor. He was glad Miles picked up the call immediately.
“Miles, Gallagher here. That case I’ve been working on turned up something big. I think it needs a focused, special investigation.”
“What do you have?”
“My favorite subject…Atta Zimler. Miles, I think he’s entered the United States.”
There was a dead silence on the other end for at least ten seconds.
“If that’s true,” Zadernack then said in a deadpan monotone, “that would certainly be remarkable.”
Remarkable? That comment struck Gallagher like something you might expect from a birdwatcher who had just spotted a species he hadn’t seen in a while.
“If it’s true,” Zadernack added again for emphasis.
“I think it is. I’ve been piecing together the trail. It has all the elements of the modus operandi of our terrorist assassin.”
“Yes, but why would he enter the United States in the first place? Seems highly risky for him.”
Gallagher was trying to keep a respectful tone, but it was getting really hard.
“Miles, hey, you’ve got to be kidding. Please, trust me on this one.”
“John,” Miles Zadernack said. “I think we need to meet to discuss this. Face-to-face. Here in the office.”
“I’m in Philly now, following some leads. That’s going to be kinda tough. Time is of the essence—”
“I’m not asking you to come back to New York.”
Gallagher burst out with, “Miles, you’re kidding me—”
But Miles shot back with, “John, I don’t know why you keep saying that. You know I’m not a person who kids around. I want you back here ASAP. Then we’ll talk.”
John Gallagher clicked off his Allfone cell. His chest was burning again. Zadernack had already derailed his investigation of Ivan the Terrible, the talk radio host.
Now this. His first thought was, admittedly, one of base self-preservation. Am I getting canned? Demoted to a desk job? Reassigned to Montana? Something’s coming down. Whatever it is, this is not going to be good for John Gallagher.
What he didn’t expect, though, was something far worse.