Stories by Elizabeth Bear Part 61

She'd gotten around another mouthful of broccoli and tofu in the meantime. This time, she had recovered herself enough to hold up her hand and stall for time while she swallowed. "Nothing holds across the board," she said. "No consistent clubs or interests or sports. There's just one thing that, well, it's not exactly a consistency, but it's an echo. Of sorts. Two of the victims, Wosczyna and Gooding, had recently been victimized in other ways. Gooding got mugged at knifepoint on Spring Break in Fort Lauderdale, and Wosczyna had her car broken into, her laptop and some other things stolen."

"Somebody could have tracked her through the laptop," Hafidha said. She reached out sideways and patted her own machine, which sat quietly generating fractal screensavers.

"Hafidha," Reyes said, "check if the other victims were recent complainants in any kind of police report, would you?"

Her eyebrows went up, and her plate went down. She spun her chair around, fingers flying. "Argh. Dammit, boss, the network's still down. Let me try the PC..." She pushed her laptop aside and pulled the flimsy keyboard and mouse of the local Windows machine over with a discernable grimace. "Nope, nothing. I guess it's the old-fas.h.i.+oned way."

She snagged the phone off the desk, pulled a number two Ticonderoga pencil out of her braids, and began pus.h.i.+ng b.u.t.tons with the eraser, mouthing "They had better not a.s.sume I'm your secretary" at Reyes while she did.

Todd, Lau noticed, had stopped eating his spring roll. Reyes obviously noticed too, because he was staring at Todd, waiting for him to speak.

"Flyer," he said, as if he had been searching his memory banks for the word, and Reyes' eyes went wide. He stood up, set his plate aside, and barreled out of the dark cramped little room.

Hafidha hung up the phone and said, "All five of them. And before you ask, no, the DOD has not come through with that list of names yet."

Lau stood up to go after Reyes, but Todd held up a hand. "He's coming right back."

And so he was, wearing a single latex glove, a sheet of pale purple paper in the hand it covered. "Bag."

Lau, who had already set her food aside, produced one, and held it open until Reyes sealed up the flyer and two push pins and labeled the bag in indelible marker. He handed it to her, and she turned it around and read what was printed on the front: BE AFRAID NO MORE.

Practical self-defense FOR EVERYONE.

Seeing is believing NO GIMMICKS.

Milo Bail Student Center Room 114 EVERY FRIDAY.

7:00 PM.

"That's next door," said Hafidha, craning over Lau's shoulder.

Lau checked her watch. 8:18.

Todd was reaching for his jacket, Hafidha for her reinforced laptop case. Reyes was already out the door.

The four of them jogged in two rows, but didn't quite break into a run. Hafidha's sidearm bounced against her hip; the rest of her gear counterweighted it on the other side. The laptop swung with every stride, and adrenaline buzzed in her ears.

She'd missed this, and she wouldn't admit she missed it. Not in front of Reyes, who'd given her a place when developments beyond her control had converted her from an a.s.set to the Secret Service to the sort of person adjudged a liability.

Most of the time, she had a pretty good line of patter in convincing herself that her new job and her new gifts made up for what they'd cost her: a job she'd loved, a normal life expectancy, reasonable grocery bills, and a guy who couldn't handle it when his lover started seeing and doing things other people didn't.

Most of the time.

The Milo Bail Student Center was a geometric concrete structure in the brutalist style, surrounded in the long north lat.i.tude summer evening by strolling and rough-housing undergrads. "We can't get into guns drawn here," Todd said, with a glance over his shoulder.

"No," Reyes answered, which might mean, yes, you're right, we can't have a shootout here, and might mean thank you, I have considered your objections and dismissed them. Todd jerked his head straight and patted his holstered sidearm. He didn't pop the snap, though.

Hafidha kept her own hands well away from the paddle holster of her Glock. "Do we call campus security?"

Reyes shook his head as if Hafidha should have known better than to ask. Stephen Reyes? El Generalissimo? Share authority? He said, "In here."

Todd was last through the door, glancing over his shoulder before he followed, covering their backs. Brady might insist on being the last man in line, but whether he was there or not, Hafidha appreciated that n.o.body got on their tail unnoticed while Todd was on the job.

As he caught up with them in the corridor, he said, "Guys, if this is a Vietnam vet targeting college students, and he's arranged a mentoring relations.h.i.+p with them, then based on the language in his flyer I think we need to consider the scenario Chaz presented, and be prepared for a charismatic leader situation."

"Charismatic leader?" Hafidha asked.

"Cult," Reyes said. "We have to get him away from the kids."

"Or?"

"Or they might sacrifice themselves to protect him. He will certainly be willing to sacrifice them." Todd's face was paper-colored, his lips bloodless.

"I heard Falkner was at Waco," Lau said, voice taut.

Todd nodded. "You heard right. You ever hear of a place called Jonestown, Guyana?" Hafidha and Lau both nodded. Before her time, but not forgotten; the site of a ma.s.s murder/suicide of almost a thousand followers of the charismatic leader, Jim Jones. Hafidha resolved to google it up when she had Internet access again, and see if she could figure out what exactly was making Todd look like a binge drinker with room-spins. "You're saying he's brainwashed them."

"Common misconception," Reyes said. "It's not really brainwas.h.i.+ng, not in the Hollywood sense. It's the imposition of a communal reality. Creating a sense of belonging. In-group versus out-group. Manipulation of the bonding impulse. Everybody wants to feel chosen."

Todd put a hand on Reyes' arm. "Remember," he said. "They're just a bunch of stupid kids."

When they came down the hall, Reyes knew he was already too late. Students stood in cl.u.s.ters outside room 114, chatting in groups of three or four. He took the nearest-a blond boy, five-eleven, one-eighty, gay, probably a Chemistry major by the caffeine molecule on his t-s.h.i.+rt-by the sleeve and turned him away from his boyfriend, ready for whatever reaction might follow. The kid dropped effortlessly into a balanced pose, his left hand moving to intercept an antic.i.p.ated blow, the right turning to knock Reyes' left hand away.

Reyes, prepared, stepped back before the kid made contact. Whatever else, the potential UNSUB was teaching his students to take care of themselves.

Reyes asked, "Is the instructor still here?"

"Jim?" The boy blinked gray-blue eyes. "No, he went that way." He pointed down the hall. "With the advanced students. The wheelchair ramp, but he left ten-"

Reyes took off running, his team strung out behind him, Hafidha gaining with every stride of her long legs and the rest holding position. Undergrads flattened themselves against the corridor walls as Reyes bawled Coming through! Coming through!

Todd was yelling something too, maybe make a hole, while the women saved their breath for running. It didn't matter. When they reached the sidewalk, there was no one in sight except undergrads, moving industriously in the narrow s.p.a.ce between red brick buildings. Evening was drawing up, a gray northern lengthening of the shadows. "Wheelchair ramp," Reyes said, and Lau turned around and looked at it.

She said, "The self-defense instructor is in a wheelchair?"

"Vets," Todd said, shoving his left hand into his pants pocket in something Reyes thought was an unconscious gesture, "wind up missing a lot of body parts."

Reyes rocked on feet bruised sore from running on pavement in dress shoes. "Hafidha, I need to know who reserved that room-"

She already had her cell to her ear. She held up one finger, mumbling into the mouthpiece, and then said "Thank you" in a tone that didn't mean thank you at all and shook her head. "Network," she said, thumbing the red b.u.t.ton, frustration dripping from every word. "Friday night at supper time. Nebraska." That last with infinite bitterness, though Reyes would wager that the IT departments of plenty of east coast colleges wouldn't have acquitted themselves any better. "I'll call Worth, one sec, and see if she has that squad roster for us yet-Daph, any luck? Oh, for the love of Mike. Hey, can you transfer me? No, I'll handle it. No, honey, you're doing fine, they just think they can walk on you because you aren't me. Transfer, please?"

What followed was one of the most polite a.s.s-reamings Stephen Reyes had ever made it his pleasure to hear. By the time Hafidha was done, even Todd was looking at her with respect, and Lau had dilated pupils.

"Macgillivray," she said, finally, after a listening pause. "And the fourth fireteam member was James Cauldwell."

"James," said Lau.

Reyes said, "Jim."

Hafidha continued relaying: "All members of the 258th Marine Brigade; all saw service in Vietnam 1971-1972. The first three killed, the fourth critically wounded in April of 1972. Weren't we out of Vietnam by then?"

"Easter Offensive?" Reyes asked, looking at Todd.

Todd nodded. "Military advisors."

Hafidha looked between them. "I wasn't born yet," she said. "Okay, I have Quantico searching for a local address for Cauldwell. And-nothing. Wanna bet he's using an alias?"

"No bet," Reyes said. He turned, began to pace. "I cannot believe he's out there somewhere with potential vics, and we're stuck here at the mercy of a flaky network."

"It's like those nightmares where you're running up stairs ahead of the monster," Hafidha said.

Reyes whirled at the end of an arc, shook his head. "All right, next step. Todd, Lau. Head back in and interview as many students as possible. Maybe one of them knows where he takes the kids."

Todd and Lau nodded and withdrew. Todd still had his maimed hand fisted in his pants pocket. Reyes thought, Someday, Solomon, I will determine which of your stories are truth, and which are fiction.

"I've got another idea," Hafidha said, unlimbering her laptop. "This is a college campus. Somebody's got a wildcat Wi-Fi set up. And I saw warchalk on the way in."

"Warchalk?"

Hafidha plumped down on the concrete where the building would cast a shadow over her screen, "Quoth Wikipedia, warchalking is: 'the drawing of symbols in public places to advertise an open Wi-Fi wireless network.' As opposed to those non-Wi-Fi wireless networks. They're hobo signs for geeks. Let me see what I can find."

Act IV Nothing, at first, though Hafidha was giving herself a headache from grinding her teeth. It had to be out there, though; she could see the paired semicircles from where she sat, chalked in yellow under a protective overhang, and she needed a network that bad. "Come on, baby," she said, petting the contact pad, ignoring the grumbles of her gastric system. "Find it."

Reyes leaned over her shoulder as if fascinated, even though she wasn't doing anything interesting. Hafidha grimaced and scooted a little left, closer to the symbol. If the Wi-Fi node ran off the campus network, she was hosed.

Somebody's baby's mind was at stake. She could not afford to be hosed.

Lau trotted back down the steps, vaulting the rail rather than making the turn. "Todd is getting the names of the five students he took with. At absolute worst we can contact families, get cell numbers, and start calling them. Get APBs out on their cars, if they didn't all travel in the same vehicle."

"Six in a single car?" Hafidha asked, without raising her eyes from the screen. "Wheelchair," Reyes said. "Van."

Hafidha took a deep breath, s.h.i.+fted her b.u.t.tocks again, let her fingertips hover over the keys, and prayed. Please just two bars of signal. Please. Just two bars- As if someone had heard her, or that last scooch to the left had made the difference, blue dots flickered into existence at the bottom of the screen. Two, three, five glorious bars. "Hah!" she said. "Okay, I have it. Ten seconds."

In fact, the entire network seemed to have risen from the grave, and Hafidha silently retracted everything mean she had said about the IT department of the University of Nebraska, Omaha. She logged in, flipped to student activities, and in under six seconds had the name of the student organization that had reserved the room. And the names of its officers. And- "James Baker," she said, and Reyes slapped his forehead.

"G.o.d d.a.m.n," he said. "He's using the name of one of his buddies. Okay, check all four names, and all potential combinations for local addresses. Lau-"

But she had already vanished inside to fetch Todd.

In the car, on the way to Baker ne Cauldwell's address, Hafidha's laptop maintained perfect signal, and-sitting in the back seat, typing away like a mad thing while Reyes drove-she shook her head at the miracle. Reyes was muttering something into his headset. Lau stared out the rear pa.s.senger-side window with stern concentration.

Todd, on the horn to one of Reyes' carefully selected sympathetic federal judges, was explaining that they were enroute to the home of a suspect linked to several victims whose families were prepared to swear they had been abused into emotional breakdowns, and would she please be so kind as to have her secretary fax the warrant to this number so Hafidha could print it out en route, yes I know it's Friday night, sorry my cell got dropped, yes that was me, I called back, witnesses place him in the company of five young people right now and there may be civilians in danger in the house as we speak, please send it on? Oh, thank you.

"What would we do without collusion?" Lau asked.

Reyes snorted through his nose.

"Uck," Todd said, staring at his closed phone, a muscle twitching in the corner of his jaw. "I kind of miss the Fourth Amendment."

"I am become s.h.i.+va, Destroyer of Worlds," Hafidha said, sympathetically. "El Jefe, honey, do we want to send Omaha PD on ahead?" Her stomach rumbled again. She rubbed it, mourning the half-eaten dinner back at the university. She was still hungry enough to feel dizzy, and she'd gone through her stash of almonds and peanut b.u.t.ter crackers already.

d.a.m.ned beta metabolism. It sounded like fun until you had to live with it.

"No," Reyes said. "I don't want to send in a bunch of uninformed, unsupervised alphas when this could go cattywumpus in ways we can't begin to articulate. Tactical can meet us at the house. We go in together."

"Six of them," she reminded, and touched her gun. "Four of us."

"One of them," Reyes said. "Five potential hostages. Four of us."

She checked the laptop again, and the GPS. "Five minutes inbound. I wish Brady were here. Okay, more info. Cauldwell, or Baker, has been teaching that self-defense cla.s.s for seventeen years. Under an a.s.sumed name the whole time. Go figure."

"Maybe he was hiding from the government," Todd said, dryly. "He's not registered with the local VA."

"He must have converted over the summer. Oh. Here. Isn't this interesting. Jessica Cauldwell. Age 34. Local resident. UNO graduate, actually. Raped and murdered in her home in June of last year-"

"His daughter?" Lau asked, incredulous. "Please, tell me he didn't."

"No," Hafidha said, and Lau let out a long shuddering breath. "They caught a perp, DNA match. Actually, the BAU were involved; she was his third vic. But none of this makes any sense. Why was he using an alias seventeen years before he apparently converted?"

Reyes said, "He was concealing his ident.i.ty from his daughter. I bet you'll find he started teaching that self-defense cla.s.s around the time she matriculated. He wanted to be close enough to keep an eye on her, and she didn't know him and had some reason to think she didn't want to know him. Mom unhappy about getting half a husband back from the war?"

"I won't take that bet," said Todd, shoulders rising around his ears.

Hafidha's stomach clenched. "G.o.d, does anybody have a candy bar? I'll pay back with interest."

Todd reached back into the pocket where he'd stowed the cell phone, and came up with a Twix. He handed it to her diagonally across the car with his left hand. Hafidha s.n.a.t.c.hed the candy. Sol had started the wrapper for her, which was the only reason she could manage it with shaking fingers. She shoved chocolate-coated cookie twigs into her mouth, barely chewing, smearing her fingers and face like a child's. "G.o.d, not enough. Send peanuts. Anything."

When she lifted her head, she caught sight of Reyes' steady gaze in the mirror. "Doctor Stephen, are you driving?"

"Hafidha," he answered, "what on earth are you using as a Wi-Fi spot?"

"It's the same Wi-Fi spot."

"For the last fifteen miles?"

Hafidha's racing thoughts crashed like the Three Stooges coming up to a flight of stairs. Her hands reached for the keyboard, jerked back, fell to the sides. "Oh," she said, in a very little voice. "Campus network. City network? Omaha have munic.i.p.al Wi-Fi?"

"I just got off the phone with President Woodward," Reyes said. "He mentioned that the university network is still down. How are you feeling back there, Hafidha?"

Oh G.o.d. A catastrophic wave of understanding shook her. She grabbed the lid of the laptop and pulled it nearly shut without powering the machine down.

Reyes' eyes were still seeking hers in the mirror, and how the h.e.l.l was he driving the car? But he didn't pull over, and he didn't turn around.

It was, on one level, a tremendous display of trust. His back was to her. She was sitting immediately behind him, and even though Lau and Todd had turned to stare, neither one had a weapon in hand.