Double Cross

Chapter 97

THE NEXT ORDER OF BUSINESS was pretty clear to all three of us: we got the Cyber Unit at the FBI involved with the new site. Our contact now was Anjali Patel, a tiny woman, no more than five feet, with steely gray eyes. Kitz’s replacement. I wondered how much time Anjali had spent thinking about the fact that someone was killed doing the job she now had.

We met her in her second-floor cubicle at the Hoover Building. She had the new DCAK site up on two screens and was navigating from her laptop while she talked to us.

“Here’s the situation, guys. There’s no instance of DCAK anywhere in his code, including the metatags, which are what search engines look at. That probably explains why no one else has found it so far.”

“As long as it stays that way, we’d like to keep it up online,” Bree said. “We’ve got a potential communication going, and we don’t want to blow it unless we absolutely have to.”

That established, Patel moved on.

A few minutes later, she looked up from her work. “Here’s the other thing, guys. This site is something of a hybrid. Most of the content was posted using a normal file-transfer program, but two of the images, here and here”-she used her mouse to circle the photos of Kitz and his killer-“were moblogged.”

Before we could ask, she explained, “Posted to the Web using a mobile phone.”

“Is that easier to trace?” I asked, hoping that it would be but doubting it.

“In this particular case, yes.”

She slid a piece of paper around for us to see. It was a Verizon statement, with a billing address.

In Babb, Montana.

“Maybe he’s finally made a mistake. Does the name Tyler Bell mean anything to you?” Anjali asked.

“Should it?” said Bree.

“Not necessarily. Just thought I’d throw it out there. The phone DCAK used was likely stolen.”

Patel started to turn back to her computer.

“Hold on a second,” I said.

I was looking at the Verizon statement. “That last name- Bell. I had a case a while ago when I was still with the Bureau. Happened out in LA. It was coded ‘Mary Smith.’ Or ‘Mary, Mary.’ ”

“Sure, I know it.” Patel nodded. “The Hollywood murders. Actors, producers, and such. That’s when I first heard of you, actually.”

“The perp on that case was a Bell. Michael Bell.” He had killed several innocent people-and then nearly killed me.

“How fast can you find out about known living relatives of Michael Bell’s?” I asked Anjali. “I know that he has daughters.”

“Shouldn’t be hard.”

“And we should get someone over to this Tyler Bell’s house in Montana. See if he’s home,” Bree contributed.

“Why do I think he won’t be?” Sampson said.

Bree was already dialing her cell phone. “Maybe because Tyler Bell is here in Washington.”

Anjali set us up at a few empty desks, and Sampson and I each picked up a different thread. He quickly found five Tyler Bells listed in the general DC area, three of them right in the city. It was a long shot that he was listed here, but these leads would have to be checked out.

I did a run through the Uniform Crime Report. There was no record of Tyler Bell, or Ty Bell, at least for the last five years.

That’s as far as I got before Bree came back over, still holding her phone against one ear.

“I’ve got Montana State Police on the line. Guess who disappeared three months ago? Hint, hint. Last name rhymes with hell.”