Whorl Page 9

  Dave turned and looked at the officer, and squinted past the flashlight beam. The officer lowered the flashlight and leaned down so Dave could better see his face. The face was familiar, but it wasn’t until he checked out the officer’s nameplate that it clicked. “Drake? What’s up? Good to see you. You’re looking good.” He glanced out the windshield. That’s right, Warren bordered Detroit along this stretch of 8 Mile.

  Drake smiled, and peered into the car past Dave. “What are you doing out this late?” Holy shit, who the hell was this in the passenger seat? A hooker?

  “This is my girlfriend, Gina,” Dave said, sticking a thumb at her. “She works at Goldfinger’s. Her car’s in the shop, so I had to pick her up after work.”

  “Hiya doin’?” the cop said to Gina, giving her a very detailed examination. “You a hostess?”

  “Dancer,” she told the dark-haired officer. He looked like most cops to her—bulky and mean, maybe a little stupid.

  Drake raised his eyebrows at Dave, and Dave just smiled. “What have you been up to?” the cop asked him. Dave saw his eyes flick over to Gina’s big bikini-clad tits in the seat next to him. They were like eye magnets, most guys could hardly bear to look away. They made her a lot of money.

  “Waiting to get into the FBI. Had to wait until I was twenty-five to apply. Been working as a P.I. and for an armored car company while I waited.”

  “That’s right, I remember that you wanted to do the fed stuff. You ever decide to come work for us, we’d be happy to have you.”

  “I appreciate that, but I’m not much for being a slave to the radio. Although if I remember, it can get exciting some days….”

  “Shit. We’re still talking about that. Hell of a day.”

  “How’s Kennedy?”

  “He’s good, he’s real good. He’s a sergeant now, and getting close to retirement, but I don’t think he’ll quit any time soon. Gonna have college to pay for pretty soon. I’ll tell him I ran into you.” He handed back Dave’s driver license and CPL. “Nice ride.”

  “Yeah, I’d always wanted one, and I came into some money, so…”

  “Oh, yeah, shit, I heard about that. I’m sorry. Man, you never know, right?”

  “Life’s short,” Dave agreed. “Date a stripper.”

  Drake stared at him for a second, then burst out into laughter. “Life’s short, date a stripper!” he repeated. “That’s awesome, Cobb. I’m gonna get that on a shirt. You stay safe, okay? And good luck with the feebies. I’ll tell everyone I saw you.” He bent down farther and looked at Gina. “Nice meeting you ma’am. You take care of this guy. Cobb makes the rest of us look like pussies.” He tapped the roof of the Mustang twice, then headed back to his cruiser.

  “What was he talking about?” Gina said.

  Dave just shook his head as he started up the Mustang. “Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Why does he call you Cobb?”

  “It’s just a stupid nickname.”

  She made a face. “I swear, sometimes I feel like I don’t know anything about you at all.” She sat back in her seat, then looked at him. “Did you get an inheritance or something?”

  Mickey hadn’t been able to sleep for shit. Not because he thought he was in trouble, but he’d been flying on adrenaline the first time he’d barged upstairs and demanded to see the Director of the Lab. With a whole night to think about their conversation, about going back to speak to the Director concerning something so important, he was a nervous wreck.

  “I can’t believe I just marched right up there,” Mickey mumbled to himself for about the eighth time as he drove in to work even earlier than usual. But what should he have done? Gone to his supervisor? Frank Fortney was a blowhard who was a Yes Man first and a Bureau Kool-Aid drinker second. Actual forensic investigations ranked about tenth on Fortney’s personal priority list.

  Too late for self-recriminations now. And besides, the impromptu meeting with the Director hadn’t gone badly. The man was smart, had seen the importance of Mickey’s discovery right away

  “Where’d you disappear to yesterday afternoon?” Brenda asked as she came swirling into the kitchen. Mickey checked his watch. Only a little after seven a.m., and he was already on his third cup of coffee, but hadn’t done a bit of work. Couldn’t focus. He was planning on heading up to speak to the Director at 9 a.m., but the morning dragged on ahead of him interminably.

  “Got pulled off on a side project. Very hush hush. It involves Elvis,” he told her conspiratorially.

  “Awesome. Tell him I said hi.”

  Mickey was standing in front of the Director’s secretary exactly at nine a.m. “Michael Mitchell, to see the Director,” he told her quietly. He hoped she couldn’t see how sweaty he was.

  The woman nodded, stood up, and gestured for him to follow. Apparently the Director had told her to expect Mickey. “Sir?” she said, standing in Stephenson’s doorway.

  Stephenson looked up from some papers. To Mickey’s eye he looked tired. “Thank you Maggie,” he told her, then stood up. Stephenson walked over to the doorway. “No calls,” he told his secretary, and closed the door behind Mickey. Stephenson headed back to his seat, distractedly pointing Mickey to the chair in front of his desk.

  “Okay, son, talk to me,” Stephenson said. “You look like you’ve had a long night. What are you thinking?”

  Mickey took a deep breath. “Sir, I really don’t think the importance of this can be underestimated. To the world of forensics, I mean. It’s a complete paradigm shift, at least when it comes to fingerprinting as a means of identification.”

  Boone was nodding, but inside he felt cold. Everything that the young fingerprint examiner was saying was true….if the public found out about his discovery. If they didn’t, then nothing changed. It was honestly that simple. “I asked you to think about the big picture on this, how your discovery will affect….nearly everything we do. And you tell me that it will be a paradigm shift?”

  “Yes sir.” That was clearly obvious, surely the Director could see that?

  “Hmm. Let me tell you what will happen from a practical viewpoint,” the Director told Mickey. “If the FBI announces that we have discovered fingerprints are no longer a reliable way to unquestioningly identify an individual, every person who has been convicted of a crime in this country, where fingerprints were simply even submitted as evidence in their trial, will ask for a mistrial. And they’ll get it. We’re talking hundreds of thousands of felons, if I had to guess. And that’s just in this country. Around the world, I can’t even imagine what the reaction will be. But this news could result in literally millions of hardened criminals being set free.”

  “Yes sir, at least in the short term, until they can get new trials.”

  Stephenson stared at him. “New trials? Do you know how backlogged our court system already is? It’s already overwhelmed, everywhere. To arrange thousands, tens of thousands of new trials? You're talking a process that would take at least a decade, if not two. Cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Maybe billions.”

  “Yes sir, like I said, in the short term, I know, it will be quite a mess. But at the end, I believe we’ll come out the stronger for it. And who knows, maybe one or two of those men in prison right now actually is innocent. Like I mentioned yesterday, I can’t believe Anderson is the only person in this world of six billion people whose fingerprints match somebody else.”

  “I can see you’re a scientist,” the Lab Director said to him slowly. “I can’t fault your logic.” He frowned, leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “What would you say if I ordered you to keep this secret, if I told you that telling anyone would violate the terms of your employment?”

  Mickey frowned as well. “Sir….it doesn’t. This is a general scientific discovery, not classified information from an intelligence briefing. It does not violate any of the non-disclosure agreements I’ve signed.”

  Stephenson nodded quickly. “Okay. I wanted—I needed to ask you, to see exactly
how you felt. The science…that’s more important to you than anything, isn’t it?”

  “Sir, that’s why I’m here.”

  “I’m glad to hear. Okay, Mr. Mitchell, you tell me what you think we—I—the Bureau—should do.”

  “I think half-measures just won’t do with this one, sir. I’d recommend a press conference. Get all the facts out there. Not releasing Mr. Anderson’s name, of course, just stating the facts that the FBI lab has determined that it is possible, however unlikely, that two people can share a fingerprint.”

  “And if releasing the facts of this discovery to the public results in tens of thousands of dangerous felons being released from prison to await new trials? Bad, truly evil people?”

  Mickey was pretty sure he was being tested, so he was completely honest even though it made him sound a little naïve. “Sir, I have faith in our justice system. In the short term this might—well, it will cause a lot of problems, but we’re stronger than that.”

  “’We’?”

  “The justice system. America.”

  Stephenson laid his hands flat on his desk. He paused long enough to take two breaths, then said, “Whatever plans you might have had for this evening, you should cancel them. We have a six o’clock appointment with Director Gonh.”

  Mickey blinked. A meeting with the FBI Director himself. That only made sense, a discovery as important as this, but knowing it was important, and hearing you had an appointment with the Director of the FBI, were two different things.

  Stephenson looked him in the eye and said very firmly, “Until we talk to the Director, and until he schedules this press conference, you are to say nothing to no one about any of this, are we clear? Not a word. You made the discovery, but there’s a right way and a wrong way to do this. I’m sure you’ll be standing up there next to the Director when he makes his statement to the press, but he’s the guy who has to make the announcement, understand? You do not want to be the guy who pisses off the Director by stealing his thunder. Not a soul. Do we understand each other?”

  Mickey was so startled by the image of him standing next to the Director of the FBI while camera flashes strobed and reporters yelled questions that he almost forgot to respond. “Uh, yes sir! Perfectly.”

  Stephenson nodded sharply. “Good. I’m not sure where we’re actually going to meet the Director, he’s a very busy man, but be ready at five o’clock to take a ride. I will call you this afternoon when I have more details. What’s your extension?”

  Mickey went about his work the rest of the day on autopilot, almost in a daze. He’d only been with the Bureau nine months, and this kind of thing….this was a once-in-a-lifetime event. Hell, once in ten lifetimes. It was surreal. Stephenson didn’t have to worry about him telling anybody, he could hardly believe it himself. He was afraid that if he told somebody, he’d wake up from the dream, he’d fall through the looking-glass and find himself back on planet Earth.

  He tried to shake it off, tried to focus on his job, running the prints of more FBI Special Agent applicants, but after what he’d discovered that could hardly capture his attention. Mickey looked through the stack of files on his desk absently, wanting to look at Anderson’s file again, then realized Director Stephenson had it.

  What a crazy world. Maybe if one of the other fingerprint techs in the unit had been the one to run Anderson’s prints, they never would have discovered the truth. Or they would have just shrugged off the match. Matches. And what would happen if Anderson got printed again, for whatever reason? Chances are the prints would come right back to the FBI, to be run against their database. The FBI was the final word on fingerprint matches in so many ways, but there wasn’t really anybody checking their work, not really. Mickey looked up from his musings to see Frank Fortney standing in his doorway and looking out over the cubicles. Looking at Mickey. Not sure whether to smile or nod or what, Mickey nervously bent his head back down.

  He was busily typing up a report when his phone rang, and he picked it up without thinking. “Mitchell.”

  “Mr. Mitchell, our meeting has been moved back due to a conflict,” Director Stephenson told him. “Meet me in the downstairs parking garage at eight p.m. I’ll have a car.”

  “Uh, yes sir,” he said, heart beating a little faster. That was all Stephenson had to say to him, and hung up without another word. Mickey put his receiver back down, and stared at it for a good minute. Then he checked his watch. Then looked back at the phone.

  Shit. He was thinking too much, that was the problem. Too much imagination. Maybe if he was more of a team player, more of a Bureau man…..

  He finished his report, then looked at his coffee cup. There was just enough cold coffee in it to cover the bottom. He splashed it on his shirt, then stood up and walked to Fortney’s office. He knocked, and his supervisor looked up from his computer.

  With a disgusted look on his face, Mickey pointed at the coffee stain on his white shirt. “I’m having one of those days. Okay if I take off a little early today? I can put in for some PTO if you want, I’ve got a bunch saved up.”

  Fortney glanced at the clock on the wall, above a framed portrait of the President. Just after four p.m. “Nah, don’t worry about it. I’ve had those days too. I’ve got to leave early today myself. Just make sure you log off your computer, and I’ll see you tomorrow. Um, Mitchell?”

  “Yes sir?”

  “How old are you now?”

  “Twenty-five.”

  Fortney nodded. “Have you ever thought about applying to the Bureau as an agent? You do a good job, you’re smart, and you’re a conscientious worker. I’m glad I’ve got you in my group, but there’s a lot of room for advancement with the FBI.”

  “Thank you,” Mickey said, trying not to sound too surprised. “I have thought about it….but I know that even if I wanted to come straight back to the lab I couldn’t. I’d have to do at least a couple years at a field office, and right now I like what I’m doing too much.”

  Fortney laughed. “Well hell, if you like working here so much I’m not going to tell you to leave, but you keep it in mind, okay? The FBI’s big, lots of places to go and things to do as a Special Agent, especially with your skills and background. There’s no place else that you could go and have the same opportunity that you do here.”

  Ben came into the apartment as Mickey was getting ready to leave. He was surprised to see Mickey, normally the lab rat wasn’t back until close to six. Ben had cut work early because he had a date with his girlfriend, which meant, after dealing with traffic, he’d arrived home at an hour that would be considered normal for any American who didn’t have to deal with Beltway traffic.

  “You’re home early. What, are you leaving already?”

  “Yeah, I’ve got a meeting. For work. Tonight.”

  “You okay?” Mickey looked a little stressed out.

  Mickey stopped, then turned to his roommate. “Ben, you know all those conspiracy movies you love to watch? All the spy novels you read/? I’ve been thinking about them today. You know, everybody involved in a conspiracy seems to end up dead or in prison.” When he was leaving Quantico there were agents training at what sounded like at least one of the nearby shooting ranges, and waves of gunfire were echoing off the front of the Lab. It hadn’t helped his state of mind.

  “What? Hey, why are you all dressed up?” He eyed Mickey’s fresh shirt and tie, and the suitcoat in his hand. “You got a date?”

  Mickey got off the elevator and looked around the parking garage, then checked his watch. Nine thirty exactly. Stephenson had called him again at seven o’clock to tell him the meeting had been pushed back again, which hadn’t made Mickey any less nervous. By that time he’d been alone at his desk for over an hour; even the hardest working person in their group long departed for home. Fortney had been gone by the time Mickey had returned to the office in his fresh clothes.

  The FBI Lab building itself wasn’t very old at all, which meant that neither was the underground parking garage; inste
ad of a dimly lit, cramped structure, it was open, and well lit. The garage was reserved for supervisors and the Bureau’s pool cars, and Mickey would have to have a lot more years on the job before he was allowed to park down there, although this wasn’t his first visit. Normally it was pretty packed with cars, but at this hour of the night there weren’t a lot of vehicles visible.

  He heard the sound of tires on concrete echoing off the walls, but couldn’t tell from which direction. Mickey looked around, then watched a big Lincoln pull around the corner and stop at the curb in front of him. The rear window behind the driver, a bored agent Mickey didn’t recognize, slid down. “Hop on in,” Lab Director Stephenson told him from the far side of the back seat. He was barely visible in the dim interior. “I got us a driver tonight.”

  Mickey opened the door and climbed in behind the driver. He felt very uncomfortable, but did his best to hide his unease as the window slid back up and the driver pulled away. “Hopefully traffic won’t be so bad this hour of the night, but you never know,” Stephenson told him amicably. He eyed Mickey’s suit coat and tie but didn’t say anything. The driver stayed silent. The radio was on in the front seat, very low, tuned to a news channel.

  As they pulled up the ramp and exited the underground structure the setting sun was turning the sky orange. Mickey glanced at the Director, who was busy texting on his phone, then at the back of the driver’s head. As they got on the road to head off the military base, he leaned back into the leather seat and tried to relax.

  They rolled north up I-95 as the sun set to their left, traffic thick but moving steadily. Ten minutes into the trip, the driver, who at that point hadn’t said a word, informed them, “Bad accident on 395 past the Beltway. Going to have to take the long way in.”