The Bricklayer

The door opened and the director walked in. “You guys been waiting long?” He fell unceremoniously into the chair behind his desk, grinding his eyes with the heels of his hands until he felt the tiny optic shocks that told him that was enough. He had gotten little sleep since the murders started, and the command performance at the White House had taken out of him what little was left.

Assistant Director Don Kaulcrick was sitting next to Kate. At fifty-three, he was the FBI’s senior assistant director. He was tall with a disjointed thi

“Don, I was summoned to the White House,” Lasker said. “That’s like asking Marie Antoinette if the blade was nice and sharp. Kate, how are you?”

“Just fine, sir.”

“They’re not happy with us at 1600 Pe

After a few seconds, Kate said, “At the first three murder scenes, the killer or killers took the time to police up the casings. All we had were the slugs to identify the gun, but they got sloppy with this one last night. A forty-caliber cartridge was found near the body.”

“That’s it. That’s the extent of the good news?” Lasker said. “I know I’m not as up on this stuff as you are, but why would you pick up the casing when the slug in the body can identify the gun?” the director asked.

“Maybe they were hoping that the slug would be damaged enough that it couldn’t be identified. They used hollow points, which tend to deform a great deal more as they pass through the human body,” Kaulcrick offered.

“I suppose,” Lasker said. “What else?”

Kate said, “I’m not sure this is good news.” She hesitated. Lasker gave her an unenthusiastic wave of the hand to continue. “So far, the people I sent to Las Vegas haven’t been able to find any sign of Bertok having taken a flight out of there.”

Lasker looked at the woman that he had heard male agents refer to as “too good-looking to be a female agent.” She was tall with a figure that was both athletic and feminine. Her face would have had a blond, girl-next-door i

“Yes, sir, I chose the agents carefully.”

“All good investigators?”

“Not particularly. I went purely for obedience. As far as the investigation, I know what needs to be done, and I’m reading all reports to make sure it’s getting done. I just wanted agents who above all else could keep their mouths closed.”

“In today’s Bureau? Please tell me how to accomplish that.”

A corner of Kate’s mouth lifted sardonically. “I picked only the most serious climbers.” “Climbers” was a term street agents used to stereotype the most serious promotion seekers. “I told them if they did a good job, their name would be put on a priority list, but if this leaked out in any fashion, whether it was their doing or not, they’d seen their last promotion.”

Lasker smiled. “Sounds foolproof.” The director looked at Kaulcrick. “What else?”

He slid a report across Lasker’s desk. “This is the latest analysis of the recording from Dan West’s murder. The transcription is pretty much the same. That whispering voice the killer used makes it hard to distinguish. Like you suggested, the recording was played for Bertok’s supervisor in L.A. to see if he could identify the voice. All he would say was it might be him.”

The director turned to the transcription portion of the report. “And what about the language?”

Kate pulled out a different document. “Psycholinguistics said that a couple of phrases have definite overtones of someone familiar with FBI jargon, particularly ‘BU’ for Bureau and ‘surveillance’ instead of the more commonly used ‘backup.’ And due to the killer saying things like ‘you are young’ and ‘the old BU was tougher,’ the conversation has the subtlety of an older agent lecturing a younger one. But there’s not enough to draw any definitive conclusions about the identity of the killer.”

“So there’s nothing to say it isn’t Bertok.”

“Unfortunately, no,” Kaulcrick said.

“They seemed to know everything we tried to do at the New Hampshire drop. Does that take an insider’s knowledge?” the director asked.

Kate said, “Not necessarily. Dummy packages have been used in the past, and it has been made public in court testimony. From the outset, they probably pla

“If it is him, it’s going to kill us when it comes out,” Lasker said. “But for right now, the longer we can delay it, the more operating room we’ll have.”

“We still have to find him. What makes it so difficult is that we’re looking for one of our own, and we can’t even tell our own,” Kaulcrick said. “Plus he knows all our procedures and has two million dollars to be creative with.”

Lasker took a moment to consider what Kaulcrick had said and then asked, “Are we getting any closer to identifying this group? Is this really a group?”

Kate said, “It’s been my experience that almost invariably extortionists who work alone will use plural pronouns like ‘we,’ ‘us,’ ‘our.’ It’s part of their intimidation process to make the victim believe that the extortionist has more manpower than he does.”

“So what you’re saying is that this could be just one man.”

“I’m saying it’s a possibility.”

“Is there any record of ‘pentad’ anywhere in our files?”

“Since the first murder, we have been ru

Kate said, “We’ve got a half dozen agents going through all the Waco and Ruby Ridge nut files. There’s a few leads being generated, but nothing with much promise.”

“For the moment, let’s assume Bertok is not involved in the killings. Anyone have any theories why they picked him?”

Kate said, “He was a street agent who worked extortion cases. Maybe they ran into him somewhere or read his name in the paper. It might be another one of their ploys to make us think they know more about what we’re doing than we do.”