Quantico

CHAPTER SIX Quantico

William Griffin jogged across the lawn to join the group of nine students standing in front of the Biograph theater, on the edge of Hogantown and just across Hoover Road from the towering dorms and walkways and the squat tan bulk of the Academy.

‘All right, listen up,’ Pete Farrow called out. The recruits—two women and seven men: two blacks, one Asian, one Middle-Eastern, five shades of white—stopped talking and assumed parade rest. Compared to the instructor they were a motley bunch, spread over the range of physical specimens: plump and skinny, tall and short, dark-haired and light.

Farrow walked along the loose line. ‘All right, agents, this is it. Today, you will be using equipment worth about two hundred thousand dollars. Try not to break it. Only about twenty percent of our field offices have all this stuff. It is rare. It is valuable. But it is the future—and you will get used to it.

‘If you are a sadist, you are shit out of luck. Some of this new stuff threatens to turn you bloody-minded SOBs into kinder, gentler peace officers.’ Farrow winked in the general direction of William Griffin. ‘Out on the street, if you do this right, nobody has to die. Though I do expect a few sprained ankles and wrenched necks, and we have been known to break arms and even legs. Understood?’

The class nodded in unison.

Three men in gray suits passed behind the students and entered the Bank of Hogantown. They were carrying bagged sandwiches from the Pastime Deli. One turned and said, ‘Farrow’s litter. What do you think? Blood in the gutters?’ The others flashed evil smiles and pushed through the swinging glass doors.

William watched Jane Rowland scratch her ribs under her suit coat and the white FBI Academy golf-style shirt. His underwear itched, too. Something about the diagnostic sensors embedded in the bulletproof weave or the fluid piping that smoothly wrapped around the torso.

Medium-sized piles of equipment lay at their feet. They would soon put on masks and special network jackets. More weight, more wires.

In their holsters they carried blue-handled revolvers filled with paint ball rounds. The Academy cars were equipped with pump-action shotguns with blue stocks that discharged a nasty, smelly pink spray, and mock H&K MP5 9mm carbines that fired nothing but made a horrible racket—all networked training weapons. Everything they did with these guns showed up on monitors somewhere in the recesses of Hogantown.

‘You have made your case,’ Farrow said. ‘You are now about to arrest four suspects who are transporting an illegal substance for sale. This is no longer the good old days of cocaine or heroin. Neuraminoline tartrate, known on the street as Tart, is colorless, odorless, and tasteless—but it is the most dangerous and destructive GM drug on the market today. Loser users tell themselves that Tart is a harmless organic performance enhancer. It produces long-lasting feelings of angelic well-being. But in five percent of its devotees, Tart leads to a degenerative neuromuscular disease called Kepler’s Syndrome. You end up in a wheelchair, drooling, unable to control your bowels and in constant pain. But that’s not the end of Tart’s charms. In an estimated seven percent of users, Tart binds to chromosomes in sex cells— eggs and sperm. It causes distortions that can be passed on to future offspring, who, if they survive beyond the age of two, will suffer the agonies of the damned. Tart makes babies into monsters.’ Farrow slipped on his grid-linked gogs—short for goggles, but actually more like a thick-framed pair of glasses. ‘If that doesn’t psych you for this bust nothing will. Remember—if you screw up, your classmates could get hurt. I do not like to have my heart flutter. I do not want to grieve for lost ducklings. Stay tactical. Use all the skills we’ve taught you. Ready?’

‘Ready!’ they shouted.

‘Suit up and get your Lynxes on the grid. Today we’re all top code, to keep the bad guys from knowing who and where you are, so line up and get your numbers.’ He began handing out strips of paper.

William Griffin put on his gogs and field jacket, labeled with a strip of silver tape with his name on it. He ran his index finger along the bumps and ridges on the forearm Lynx keyboard, logging on to the team server and inputting his number and five fake numbers and positions that his node would disperse like chaff, should someone hack in. The others did the same. They all stood clutching their paintball masks, clear visors with plastic headbands. Cheeks, temples, and ears were no longer protected—hadn’t been for years. Pain was a teacher, a tool.

They then clipped health stats boxes to their belts and arranged their shoulder-mounted holsters. Farrow checked them over, as solicitous as a mother hen.

‘Keep boxy stuff away from your mid-back. Clip everything to the side. If you fall backward on a hard surface, you could injure your spine.’

They sheepishly readjusted. This was basic stuff and already they were screwing up.

Farrow checked his slate. ‘Mr. Al-Husam, you’re not on the grid. Get your numbers.’

Fouad Al-Husam, a small man with beautiful black eyes and a round, almost feminine face, touched his keyboard, trying to find the bumps. Farrow approached him and patted his jacket sleeve. ‘Here,’ he said, and lifted Al-Husam’s arm to the right place. ‘Follow the guide ridges.’ Al-Husam smiled but his face darkened with embarrassment.

‘Still not there,’ Farrow said after a few seconds. ‘Reboot your pad. I have eight Lynxes on the grid, all healthy and happy. I see code in action. Good scatter. Ms. Lee, are you happy?’

Lee was the shortest and lightest person in the group but that did not faze Farrow. He was running her hard through her paces. ‘Yes, sir, I am happy,’ she called out.

‘Happy to be here at the Q?’

‘Sir, I am very happy to be here at the Q.’

‘We are not Gyrenes, Ms. Lee. Academy mandates snappy repartee. Show me your FBI beef.’

‘Happy as an aardvark under a full moon…at the Q, sir.’

Farrow’s grin was tepid. ‘Is wit truly dead?’ He glanced around the group, raising his shoulders in a long, sad shrug.

They all laughed.

‘Focus,’ Farrow shouted. ‘You’ve been working toward this moment for three weeks. You have the bastards in your sights. Remember your training. You ARE ready.’

William quietly sucked in his breath. He was far from sure of that. Standing beside him, Jane Rowland looked confident—hard as a piece of glass and about as brittle.

‘Okay—Al-Husam, you’re on the grid. You can stop fiddling with the keys.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘You are knights in high-tech armor,’ Farrow said. ‘Make the flame-tormented shade of Mr. Hoover proud. Let’s go.’

‘Right, coach,’ William Griffin said under his breath as they fanned out.

They dispersed as four teams in four vehicles. William and Jane Rowland had drawn chits and were partnered for the bust. They climbed into an unmarked tan Caprice from the last century. Rowland took the wheel. ‘Ready?’ she asked William, face forward.

‘I am icy.’ He grinned.

Rowland rotated and poked her finger. ‘Don’t mess up,’ she instructed. ‘We have our docs, right?’

William held up his steno pad and a plastic folder full of paper-copy warrants and mug shots. The actors in the shots looked tough and bored.

‘We’ll do fine,’ he said. ‘You’ll do great.’

Rowland gave William a don’t patronize me scowl and cinched her seat belt. A helicopter blew overhead. Rowland flinched. Hostage Rescue Team personnel dressed in black and armed to the teeth hung out of the chopper doors like commandoes, waiting to abseil down to a roof. Hogantown could get crowded and noisy. Ten or twelve practicals could fill any given day.

‘Yeah. Right,’ Rowland said. She started the Caprice, pulled out onto Hogan Boulevard and drove around the corner and down Ness Avenue to their stake-out, just across the two-way street from the Giga-Mart parking lot. The suspects had been sighted shopping there this morning by an alert police officer, who had traced one of the men back to the Dogwood Hotel and the other to the Tolson Arms apartments. The Dogwood was across the street from the Giga-Mart. The Giga-Mart was small but functional. Its shelves had been stocked with goods that agents and Marines could buy but its clerks doubled as actors in Academy scenarios.

William put on his gogs and waited for the display to come up. The data and graphics looked greenish blue in the daytime, red at night. A little bell dinged in his earnode. He heard his own pulse magnified. He sounded nervous. He checked the pong sensor that detected human stress chemistry. The watch displayed three green lights, one yellow. Yeah, he was nervous. So was Rowland.

William glanced up at the Eyes in the Sky—cameras jutting out over the intersection from a power pole on the corner. A red light was on—surveillance was underway. The Masters of the Universe, agent instructors in the second floor command center above the Bank of Hogan, were waiting to pass judgment. MAVs—Micro Air Vehicles equipped with cameras—buzzed overhead.

William and Rowland were to take point once the suspects had been spotted. Team two and team three would serve as reinforcements and backup as each arrest was made. Team four would stand ready to intercept fleeing vehicles if necessary.

‘Team one to all teams,’ William said. Their grid lights blinked in his gogs. ‘Are we set?’

‘Team two in rear view of your position,’ came the response through their earnodes. That was Matty’s soft drawl—George Matty and Al-Husam had been partnered, almost certainly to Matty’s displeasure. He was a deep Mississippi boy and generally kept quiet around Al-Husam, but so far had played things professionally. And well he might. Al-Husam was special, they all knew that. Bigger judges than the Masters of the Universe were looking down on Quantico this year.

‘Team three here. We’re at Tolson Arms.’ Team three was Errol Henson, Nicky Di Martinez, and Carla Lee. They were in the dark blue engineering van, equipped for surveillance and carrying the Lynx server.

‘Team four setting up on State Street.’ Team four was Finch and Greavy, heavy-set men with bulldog expressions and quiet, efficient manners. ‘We’d like video hookups as soon as possible. Let us know which way they’re coming, gang.’

‘Apartment twelve at Tolson has motion,’ Lee said. ‘Lights are on.’

‘What’s parked out front, team three?’ William asked.

‘Five cars and a pickup,’ Errol Henson responded. His voice trembled. They were all high with excitement, like a brace of puppies chasing ducks for the first time.

William glanced at Rowland. She pressed her lips together.

‘Our suspect, Geronimo del Torres, is driving a 1959 Chevy Impala, primer gray with mottled paint, tinted windows, a work in progress, according to our sheet,’ Lee said.

‘We don’t see it,’ Henson said. ‘I like Impalas.’

Someone else said, ‘I catch and eat Impalas.’

‘Identify, joker,’ Farrow growled in all their ears, his voice like an angry God.

‘Team two, that’s me, Matty, sir.’

‘Tongues in neutral, team two.’

‘Yes, sir. Wit, sir.’

‘Team three here. A man and a woman, both Hispanic, are leaving unit twelve. They’re getting into a late model blue Camaro, license plate Wonka MF8905. Neither resembles del Torres.’

Hogantown police activities involved residents of five fictitious states: Graceland, Oceania, Sylvania, Wonka, and Numbutt. White-collar criminals usually came from Sylvania, smart crooks and contraband dealers of any stripe from Graceland; violent crooks from Wonka; drug dealers and dumb-asses from Numbutt. Profiling on that basis, however, was discouraged.

Matty pushed his head back against the neck rest. ‘I watched you in Rough-and-Tough. Very impressive.’

‘Thank you,’ Fouad Al-Husam said.

‘Natural born killer instinct.’

‘Not so killer,’ Al-Husam said. ‘They are images and cutouts, not people.’

‘Felt real to me. I wanted to throw up.’

‘Perhaps so did I,’ Al-Husam said.

‘Arabs don’t naturally like killing? That’s kind of news, isn’t it?’

‘I am not Arab,’ Al-Husam said, and he looked out of the car side window to avoid showing his irritation.

Matty glanced at Al-Husam. ‘I always feel like praying before going into practicals. How about you?’

Al-Husam nodded. ‘A little prayer,’ he said.

‘You pray five times a day, don’t you?’

‘Of course.’

‘I hope you don’t need to get down and pray right here,’ Matty said. ‘That would be inconvenient.’

Al-Husam took a shallow breath.

‘Five times a day. That’s more than my grandma used to do. She and my mama put me off praying. They were always asking for little things. “God, make my garden green. God, let me grow the prettiest roses, the biggest tomatoes. God, I hope the pot roast doesn’t burn.” See what I mean? But going through Quantico, I totally get it. “God, don’t let me screw up.” Where do you pray when you have to?’

‘Wherever there is room. Shall we concentrate?’ Al-Husam asked.

‘I am concentrating. Got it. Hoo-ah!’ Matty exclaimed, and touched his gogs.

Al-Husam jerked in surprise, that this man should proclaim Huwa, the name of the essence, Qul Huwa Llahu Ahad—Say, He is God, He is One.

‘That plate was on the board,’ Matty said, triumphant. ‘Let’s run a check before the others catch it.’

‘Of course,’ Al-Husam said.

William twitched in his worn bucket seat. ‘We had a bulletin on that vehicle,’ he said to Rowland. ‘I saw it in the briefing room.’ He pulled out his notebook and flipped through the pages, then resorted to the button pad hidden in his sleeve, to bring up the case on his gogs. Before he could find what he wanted, in his ear he heard Matty saying, ‘We ID that as belonging to a Constanza Valenzuela, registered guest worker from Honduras, no criminal record, nothing on VICAP.’

William frowned intensely at Rowland. ‘I’m sure there’s more,’ he said. Both worked their keypads. William’s face brightened and he parted his lips.

Al-Husam broke in before he could speak. ‘We have info that Ms. Valenzuela has gone missing in Wonka and that her car has not been located.’

‘What’s a stolen car from Wonka doing here in Virginia?’ William asked, muting his headset. ‘Highly suspicious.’

‘Confirm with a case number, Al-Husam,’ Farrow instructed. ‘Give the other teams all you have so they can log in and exercise their own judgment.’

Now it was Al-Husam’s turn to be slow.

Rowland butted in and read out an FBI Crime Index Case Number, issued to the Wonka Department of Public Safety. ‘VICAP not yet filed,’ she added.

‘Why no VICAP, Ms. Rowland?’ Farrow asked.

‘Recent missing person report,’ Rowland answered crisply. ‘Wonka authorities do not yet know whether a violent crime is involved, sir. That could be a car filled with buyers or partners. Or a mule’s car. It could lead us to the Impala.’

‘We’re on it, team three,’ said Matty. ‘Will follow.’

‘Team three will backup,’ Henson offered.

‘Negative,’ William said. ‘Team two is sufficient. Let’s head toward the Dogwood and see if we can find that Impala on our own.’

‘Roger that, team one,’ Henson said.

Rowland nodded and turned the old Caprice around in the middle of the street, heading toward the Dogwood Motel.

Team four reported they had bubble gum at the ready.

‘Just relax,’ William said. ‘We’re doing fine.’

Rowland narrowed her eyes.

If the Impala suspected it was being tracked, then eluded them and left Hogantown—which, of necessity, had few real escape routes—then Farrow would be very disappointed.

A map of the area around the motel popped up on William’s display. His eyes were tearing up—the image in his gogs was too bright. The map began to wriggle. None of the students had been fitted—these were generics and his tended to slide down his nose. He blinked and looked far left, then back. The view cleared. He saw two red dots moving south on Rosa Parks street—team two and team three. A small video square in the upper right corner showed what the van was seeing: team two’s Ford Crown Victoria and the suspect blue Camaro with Wonka plates. Traffic was light in Hogantown today. It would almost certainly get worse once they made their stop. Farrow liked to keep up the pressure and the presence of too many civilians in the line of fire would certainly do that.

Griffith dimmed the display in his gogs and concentrated on the street. ‘There,’ he said. The Impala was parked in front of the motel about a block and a half away. Two men were loading boxes into the open trunk. Rowland slowed. William touched his hand to his holstered pistol. It lightly buzzed approval—instantly recognizing the keycode in his Lynx. Some field agents resorted to surgery to hide their small cylindrical keycode units.

Rowland kept one hand on the wheel and reached down to connect with her own gun.

The men by the Impala glanced over their shoulders and spotted the Caprice. They slammed the trunk and rushed to the open car doors. William compared them to the mug shots. One matched the description: Geronimo del Torres, bulky, dark, denim jacket with cholo markings and baggy pants. The other was a younger male, ID unknown.

‘Team one here. We have Impala and suspect del Torres in sight,’ William said. ‘There’s two in the front seat, one’s a possible juvenile. I see no one in the back seat.’

The doors of the Impala slammed and the car’s tires squealed.

‘They’re fleeing the scene!’

The wide, heavy car peeled out from in front of the motel and took a sharp left down Ness Avenue, the longest street in Hogantown.

‘Gives him room to pick up speed,’ Rowland said, spinning the wheel and turning left as she lit up the dash lights. ‘He’s going for the Freedom.’

If the Impala made it to the Freedom Highway, they would have to change their plans, not a good thing. Highway pursuit was not desirable since it was always rush hour and the next off ramp—so they had been told—led directly into Gangsta City. In fact the onramp led nowhere and the nonexistent Gangsta City meant a forfeit.

Rowland gunned the Caprice. A few wary pedestrians jumped to the curb and flipped them off. Heads leaned out of windows on second-floor buildings.

‘This is fun,’ she said. ‘Like playing Vice City when I was a kid.’

‘My dad never let me play that,’ William said.

‘Makes you smarter,’ Rowland said.

Then, abruptly, team three’s van roared into the intersection ahead. The Impala skidded to a halt, tail wagging, tires smoking. They were a block from the onramp. Lee got out and drew down on the fugitives.

The blue Camaro came to a stop at the cross street ahead. Two people got out, one male, one female. Both put up their hands. From William’s perspective, both cars were in a line—and the engineering van was moving slowly onto that line, a bad situation for putting colleagues in jeopardy.

Team two came out of Melvin Purvis Boulevard and pulled up behind them. Two unknown vehicles joined the tail of the procession, honking. William and Rowland unstrapped their holsters. Rowland pulled up to the curb twenty feet behind the Impala, parking at an angle so that the engine block provided maximum protection. The visor cam blinked red. ‘We’re on the record,’ she said. ‘Let’s do it.’

William exited first and squatted behind the door with gun poised to gauge the situation. The two occupants of the Impala faced forward, hands out of sight.

‘Exit your car!’ Rowland shouted.

‘FBI,’ William prompted. ‘Tell ’em.’

Fuck. ‘This is the FBI!’ Rowland called out. ‘Get out of the car with your hands in plain sight.’

William repeated the command in Spanish.

They did not respond.

‘Get out of the car, hands in plain sight, now.’

Smoke puffed from the tailpipe. The driver, presumably del Torres, stuck out his arm and waved as if giving them permission to go around. ‘Joker,’ William said.

Team two angled their car and blocked the street behind them. Matty exited with a pump shotgun and positioned himself behind the Caprice’s right rear bumper.

William tried to focus on the corner video image in his gogs but sweat was dripping in his eye and he could barely make out anything.

‘Team three in place,’ Henson announced in his ear. ‘We’re at the corner of Hoover and Grand. We’re going to block their escape.’

William instructed, ‘Pull around and hem them in, team two.’

‘Roger that,’ Matty said. ‘Fred, stay with team one. I’ll block.’

Al-Husam exited the car, pistol drawn, finger resting on the trigger guard. The Glock had no safety, merely a little flippy switch on the trigger itself that went down way too smooth and fast. Matty drove the Crown Victoria around the Impala and wedged the right front wheel against the curb, almost slamming their bumper into a blue mailbox.

‘They’re eyeballing and grinning,’ Matty said. Al-Husam walked up behind William.

‘It’s my collar,’ Rowland said.

‘Quaint,’ Al-Husam said.

‘Just, you know, throw down on them, with your guns,’ Rowland said. Her face was slick with sweat. Beneath the jacket, William’s shirt clung damp as a washrag despite the coolness in the morning air.

Rowland approached the left bumper of the Impala, parked a generous three feet from the curb. She assumed a classic Weaver stance and trained her mock SIG on the heads in the rear window. William stayed in a crouch behind his door, also aiming at the Impala’s rear window. Al-Husam took a stance behind the Caprice’s driver side door.