The Laboratory was huge. It needed to be. The Bureau had to process an average of over five thousand criminal acts each year.
It was located on the fourth floor of the Forensic Science Research and Training Centre in Quantico that is located in the Washington Metropolitan Area.
The facility was a shared facility divided into Training and Live cases. The Laboratory was a modern design recently refurbished to have glass panels around the entire perimeter of the Lab and hence was jokingly referred to as ‘the fish bowl.’
Today the Laboratory heaved with the usual turmoil, as students were given specimens to analyse, whilst those already trained pored over reams of paperwork and reports as they painstakingly performed their own analysis of their evidence.
These were the hi-tech detectives, busily annotating and studying their reports.
They spent countless hours sifting through the minutia or crap to find the nuggets of data gold to provide the Agents out in the field with the best and latest information enabling them to apprehend the criminals or suspects.
In the field the suspects were labelled as ‘unsub’s or the ‘unknown subjects of an investigation’.
Entering through the double glass automatic sliding doors after passing through several security checkpoints, Derek Baxter breathed in the atmosphere of the Forensics Laboratory.
He strolled purposefully towards one of his team members, Buck Lewiston. Buck was a weapon specialist.
Baxter as usual referred to him by his last name whereas the rest of the team liked to use his nick name, ‘Bang-Bang’, because of his love of weaponry of any kind. His knowledge of munitions and ballistics was unsurpassed.
Despite this, Baxter still considered him to be a nerd, just like the rest of his team that consisted of Jason Durning; the team’s Material Forensics specialist and Intelligence Analyst, Arnold Thompson who was the team’s Forensic Communications Specialist, Alicia Cambridge who was a Specialist Forensic Profiler, Drew Webster an Advanced Technology Specialist and Lisa Roberts, Specialist Crypto-Linguist.
Baxter carried the latest case allocated to his team, held securely and tucked up under his left armpit. The security warning of Top Secret emblazoned at the top of the folder which bulged with reports.
He tried not to look impressed at the dazzling array of technologically advanced pieces of machinery that were scattered throughout the lab.
He considered himself to be a bit of technophobe. He still owned a Bakelite round dial phone.
According to Baxter’s philosophy, “surfing the Web” was something spiders did in their spare time.
Quantico had certainly changed since he had last trod the hallways during his gruelling twenty one week rookie’s course back in Eighty Three. Of course, he had also changed.
His once strong and virile physique had atrophied over the years due to alcohol abuse and his general apathetic lifestyle. His last medical examination was far from favourable, his diagnosis weighed heavily on his mind.
He nodded his head and smiled at one of the Laboratory assistants, the young girl giving him a polite cursory glance as she continued her work.
He scowled as he caught his reflection in one of the panes of glass that surrounded the Lab. He noted that his once crystal clear storm-grey eyes were now continually bloodshot from excessive drinking.
He stopped walking, reached into his pocket and pulled out a small plastic pill bottle. He opened the cap and poured four small pink and white capsules into his hand. He pushed the pills into his mouth, swallowed, suppressed a cough and then continued walking.
His mood darkened as he consciously pushed the thought of his imminent demise away. It was his closely kept secret that only the Doctors were privy to and they were bound by that Doctor-Patient confidentiality crap.
He caught his reflection again and frowned.
His once roguish good looks had given way to the ever encroaching years of middle age. His forehead creased with lines, the dark brown hair now peppered with silver. His best years were behind him.
He felt sullen when he realised that the girl he had given his attention to was probably not even born when he had last been in Quantico.
The realisation that he had fewer days left on this world than he had already lived through was definitely a sobering thought. It was a thought that depressed him.
Fuck it, he thought. At least I’ve made it to middle age. Lots of people had not made it, and he immediately thought of those who had died in the line of duty.
He had survived; he survived his training and had survived countless cases. Some of which had enabled him to finally rise through the ranks to Senior Special Agent Baxter. Of course now he knew that he was literally on a deadline. At least he knew his ‘use by’ date.
He frowned as he grappled with the thought that he now had the unenviable position of leading a team of agents.
He smiled when he remembered the barbed comments from his old nemesis the DD, Deputy Director Howard Elliott.
“You’ve finally stuffed up enough to be promoted Baxter. God help those poor bastards that will be relying on your leadership skills. The good news is you’re finally out of my face.”
The DD had always been a constant source of angst for Baxter. Especially since they had gone through Quantico together and Elliott had been always been promoted well ahead of him. This had always made the DD a smug son of a bitch who never failed to belittle Baxter at every opportunity.
Baxter was thankful that he was back in Quantico and the DD had been left behind in HQ.
I’m not going to miss that condescending S. O. B. Baxter thought as he started leafing through his report.
However, his reminiscing came to an abrupt end when he was caught off guard by a high pitched voice.
He turned around and immediately recognised the tall, skinny features of Lewiston who had entered the Laboratory after returning from the Ballistics portion of the Lab.
The Ballistics Testing Facility was a special bullet and sound proof enclosure. It was Lewiston’s domain.
From within that tiny booth he wove his special magic and showed off his unique expertise. Today was an exception. His usual boyish features portrayed a rather confused demeanour.
Lewiston was a head taller than Baxter. He loped towards Baxter with the vigour of a young man in his twenties. He had unusually scruffy hair for an FBI agent and a strand of it slung across his right eye which, when nervous, he would continually flick away.
His face was pock marked from acne scars. Baxter often wondered whether he was still a virgin. Lewiston never spoke about girls and he didn’t exactly exude testosterone.
Baxter immediately noticed his expression and had to comment.
“What’s rattled your Jimmies, Lewiston?”
Baxter observed the awkwardness of the young agent as he moved towards him and then fumbled in his lab coat pocket. He retrieved a plastic bag which contained a long thin shell casing. He pulled the casing out of the bag and placed it onto the receiving platform of the Ballistics microscope.
“Take a look at this,” he said as he steadied the shell casing, and after adjusting the microscope to what he considered a good image, he then punched in a few commands into the attached input device and an enlarged image of the shell casing suddenly appeared on the attached monitor.
Baxter squinted at the screen and then looked enquiringly at Lewiston.
“It’s a shell casing Lewiston. What are you trying to show me?
You’ve already established that there are no weapons to match the striation marks. I’m not amused if you’ve called me in here to tell me something I already know.”
“Yes I know you’re busy Boss but I thought you’d want to see this.”
Lewiston moved in closer to the input device and magnified the image. He pointed to the striation marks on the outside of the case. He then increased the image further and the faint unmistakeable swirls of a partial finger print suddenly materialised on the casing.
“You’ve found a finger print. Have you run it through AFIS and all the other agencies’ databases?”
“Yes I have Boss. That’s the confusing part.”
“Don’t keep me in suspense Lewiston, I’m not getting any younger and I’ve got other shit to do. Spit it out.”
“I found a definite match for the print.”
“Well that’s great news. Give me the identity of the ‘unsub’ and I’ll have him brought in for questioning.”
“That’s the problem. This is the print of Edward Stringer.”
“Is that supposed to mean something to me?”
“Edward Stringer is deceased, he was a Marine. He was killed in action in the first Gulf War.”
“K. I. A? Crap! What the fuck are you trying to tell me Lewiston? Are you saying that Senator Baker was killed by a dead man? I thought fingerprints were unique.”
“They are unique. However, computerised fingerprint matching technology is only ninety nine percent accurate.
It is theoretically possible that two absolutely identical twins could possess fingerprints that could fall within that other one percent. A DNA sample would be the only way to know for sure.”
“Ok Einstein, did Edward Stringer have an identical twin?”
Lewiston shook his head from side to side as he flicked the strand from his eyes. He grabbed a bundle of notes from the desk and held them out.
“I’m sorry Boss. I have run a complete and comprehensive background check on Stringer. Here is his profile.”
Baxter retrieved the dossier from Lewiston and began flipping through the pages; he frowned when he came to the Ex Marines family history.
“According to this he was an only child. His parents are Bob and Betty Stringer and they are apparently still alive and live in Washington. Is this their latest contact details?”
“Yes they are. But I don’t think they would be able to help.”
“Look Lewiston, unless you or the rest of the team can come up with any other leads I’m going to have a chat with Bob and Betty.
Maybe they have a few skeletons in their closet that we don’t know about.”
“With all due respect Boss, I don’t think it’s a good idea to interrogate them about their dead son.”
Baxter ignored the comment and the look of dismay that ran across Lewiston’s face.
“Thanks Lewiston, but your expertise is ballistics. You can carry on with your investigation here in the lab. Don’t concern yourself with the field work. Leave that to me and the rest of the team ok.”
With that said he tucked the Dossier under his arm, spun around and strode out of the Lab and headed towards his office.
It took twenty minutes to navigate his way back through the security checkpoints and reach his office.
He brushed his hand absently across the name plate secured to the mahogany, unlocked the door and exhaled heavily as he went inside his own private sanctuary.
Baxter’s Quantico office provided a much larger workspace than the single desk that he had occupied at the Washington Headquarters.
Apart from a flagging Bromeliad plant, the decor was otherwise sterile. This office at least had furniture.
Other than the mahogany desk, there was a small two seater settee. It’s leather polished by years of polyester clad backsides. The settee had two matching single chairs.
A small walnut coffee table sat adjacent to the chairs and the settee.
Against Baxter’s better judgement, the door to his office remained open as part of the upper managements’ “open door” policy.
He immediately slumped into his chair, dumped the dossier unceremoniously onto his desk and leant back in his chair.
After reclining in his chair for several minutes with his hands clasped behind his head and his eyes closed in a contemplative state, he finally leant forward and opened the dossier.
He stared at the names of Stringer’s parents again.
He punched in the number of Bob and Betty Stringer on his office commander phone and punched the speaker phone button. As the phone beeped and complained through the dialling sequence, a single thought ran through his mind.
Stringer better have a long lost murderous twin brother or we’re screwed!