John Gallagher finally pulled into Grand Central Station at 7:30 in the morning. The train had been delayed getting out of the Philly station. Then another delay at one of the stops. After grabbing a cup of coffee at a window snack stand, he dashed up the stairs and outside to catch a cab.
His meeting with Miles Zadernack was set for 8:30. With crosstown rush hour, he’d be lucky to be on time.
In the middle of traffic, which was crawling along like a slug, he received a call from Sally Borcheck. She’d finished working on the video image.
“Great timing,” Gallagher said. “I need this for a conference. What’s the bottom line?”
“Oh, no, I’m not giving it to you,” she snapped back. “Not until I go over some preliminaries first.”
In the cab Gallagher pretended to strangle his Allfone with both hands.
He said, “Sally, can’t we skip that stuff? I’m really in a rush.”
“Look, you’re the one who caught me in my comfy pj’s in front of the TV. I was already halfway into the old version of The Detective with Robert Mitchum. I love that movie. And they almost never run that one on television. So back off, John—”
“Give me a break here, Sally—”
“No, you give me a break. I did you a favor. And I know what’s going to happen. You’ll use my analysis as the reason for some Normandy invasion you want to launch somewhere. And if things go bad, who do you think the Bureau’s going to blame?”
“Me, of course,” Gallagher said. “But fine. You win. Give me the drill.”
“Okay,” she began. “Facial ID in biometric matches depends on the quality of the subject image. In this case, that video clip you sent me was not good.”
“But adequate for analysis. Right? Tell me it was minimally adequate?”
Borcheck sighed. “Yeah, minimally adequate. Now there are eighty facial variants we use to create a face print. Skull size, facial measurements, interrelationships between facial structures…”
“Eighty variants. Good. Moving on…”
“Range of certainty on the upper scale is measured from sixty to ninety percent.”
“And how’d you score this one?”
“Remembering the qualifiers I just mentioned—”
“Sure. Right. What’s the score?”
“I rated your video image at a sixty-seven percent certainty that the facial characteristics in the video matched that of the known subject, Atta Zimler.”
“Certainty…I love that word.”
“Yeah, but it’s on the low end of certainty,” Borcheck reminded him.
“But only because of the poor quality of the video and the angle that the guy had with his head partially obscured.”
“True. On the other hand, with better video and a full face shot, who knows, maybe we’d have much less than a sixty-seven percent match…in other words, no match at all.”
But Gallagher didn’t care about the negative possibilities. Right now he had the necessary forensic basis to pursue a full investigation of Atta Zimler’s presence within the United States. He was on a roll.
“Sally, I got what I need,” Gallagher said as he reached over to pay the taxi driver. “You’re brilliant!”
Gallagher rushed his way through security at the Bureau headquarters by 8:35. He was in Miles Zadernack’s office at 8:39.
Miles was dressed in his black suit, pressed white shirt, and plain single-colored tie.
Gallagher was crumpled from the all-night train ride and was sweaty.
“Miles, I’ve got some breaking stuff I need to tell you about,” Gallagher said.
“And I have some things to tell you,” Zadernack said blandly. “Let’s start with my agenda item first.”
“Sure.”
“You are going to have to remove yourself from any further investigation into Atta Zimler.”
Gallagher kept up his grin and nodded his head athletically up and down. He half-expected this. But he figured he now had something he could wedge in the door before his supervisor closed it on him completely.
“Okay, which is what I wanted to talk to you about,” he started to say. But Zadernack cut in. It was clear he had a speech and he was going to make it. “You don’t understand, John. You are being removed from any further investigation. Not just dealing with Atta Zimler, but any fieldwork. For the time being. You’re being placed on desk duty here at headquarters. Meanwhile, I’m arranging for you to take some counseling in Bureau professionalism.”
Gallagher was getting red in the face. “Wait just a minute—”
“This is exactly what I’m talking about,” Zadernack said. “Your attitude borders on insubordination—which is a serious problem!”
But Gallagher was going to bull his way through. “I have a facial match between Atta Zimler and a suspect who just tortured and murdered the son-in-law of a former high-ranking Pentagon general. It just happened. Over in Philadelphia. We have a forensic match, Miles. Come on—”
“Our forensics?”
“Yes. Sally Borcheck in biometrics. She did a match from some lobby surveillance video taken at the time of the murder and at the scene of the crime.”
“What level of certainty?”
Now Gallagher had to swallow hard. This was the hard sell. “Sixty-seven percent. But this was from lobby video. Zimler was clearly trying to duck away from the camera. But we’re still within the ranges of certainty we need for an investigation. Enough for probable cause for warrants, wiretaps, you name it.”
Zadernack gave his favorite emotionless, plaster-of-paris expression. He spoke in something just above a monotone. But what he had to say was outrageous. “Okay, John. Take a deep breath. All right? Relax. Here’s the story. We’ve been told that Atta Zimler is in custody. In Paris.”
“Who took him in?”
“We’re waiting for confirmation, but the attorney general himself has told us to stand down. We don’t want to risk some false identification of innocent persons. Apparently, some foreign diplomat is entering the U.S. and is worried he’ll be flagged as Zimler. That’s all I know.”
Gallagher shut his eyes and shook his head as he spoke. “No, we wouldn’t want that. Sure, maybe a psychopathic terrorist might slip through our fingers and mosey around America slashing, killing, torturing. But the main thing is we treat people nicely—”
“That’s enough!” Zadernack nearly shouted. It was a rare show of emotion. Then he continued. “John, it’s called ‘Bureau professionalism.’ You’ll learn all about it in your counseling sessions. That’s all for now. I’ve got some other matters to attend to. Thank you for your time. Vera, my secretary, will assign you a desk.”
Gallagher felt his brain go numb, like someone had given him a shot of novocaine there but forgot to do the surgery.
He walked out to Vera’s desk. She smiled courteously and led him to a cubicle, not even an office. She pointed to a desk. “This will be your work area,” she said. Then she left.
Gallagher sat down at the desk. He knew then that he was standing on the banks of a Rubicon. A place where, years later, he would look back and realize he needed to make one really smart decision. Something that would make sense, a path that would insure his future.
He would be retiring before long. He had put too much into his work at the Bureau to trash it all now. So there was a serious question pending: Was he going to throw it all away for a mere sixty-seven percent certainty? The more he thought about it the more it didn’t make any sense. Man, sixty-seven percent isn’t even a passing grade. That’s flunking.
Then he drummed his fingers on the naked desk top in front of him. He couldn’t shake another competing thought: On the other hand sixty-seven might be passing after all. Some teachers grade sixty-to-seventy as a D. Right? And then there’s the fact that some teachers grade on a curve…
He propelled himself up on his feet. He walked fast, past Vera’s desk on his way to the elevator.
“Agent Gallagher?” Vera called out toward his quickly moving frame.
“Gotta feed the meter,” he called back and disappeared into the elevator.
When he was on the street he put in a call to Ken Leary over at the CIA.
“Ken, Gallagher here. Got to talk fast. They’re closing me down on my investigation into Zimler.”
“I need any further updates you have on Zimler or the murder of that professor over in Bucharest. And I need it in like, oh, five minutes.”
“You’re really out there on this one, John. And I don’t know how much I can afford to stick my neck out any more than I have.”
“If you ever owed me money, Ken, all debts are cancelled. How about that?”
“Actually, you owe me money—”
“Okay, forget it. Look, Ken. I really need this. You know how long I’ve been after this sicko, Zimler.”
Leary took a full five seconds.
Gallagher was pacing on the sidewalk, looking around to make sure he wasn’t being observed.
Finally Leary spoke. “Look, there’s a Korean laundry about two blocks from my office. Yang’s Dry Cleaning. Meet me there in ten minutes.”
“First, tell me something,” Gallagher asked.
“What?”
“Do you have more stuff on Zimler or not? I can’t afford to waste time.”
“Uh, figure it out, John,” Leary said with a laugh. “We’re going to discuss possible clandestine information from the CIA about a world-class terrorist, and I chose a Korean dry cleaners as the meeting place. What does that tell you?”