Capitol murder

Chapter Thirty-six

Ginny was nervous during her walk to the Department of Justice. She kept searching the crowds for Clarence Little even though Brad had assured her that the escaped serial killer was on the other side of the continent. When she entered the building through the Pennsylvania Avenue entrance, a security guard asked her for her identification. She showed him her badge before swiping it across a scanning device. Then she stepped into a glass-walled security area. When she left the area on the other side, another security guard checked to see if her face matched the photo on the badge.

Getting in today was a lot easier than getting in the first day she’d showed up for work. She didn’t have a badge, so the guards wouldn’t let her in, and she wasn’t on any list. She had called Human Resources, but the person she’d dealt with was on vacation. Finally, Ginny had stopped a kind soul on his way into the building and explained her problem. He had taken pity on her and told her boss that a newbie was waiting on the sidewalk.

Life hadn’t gotten much easier once she was inside. She had her own desk, but no computer or telephone for almost a week, and she shared an office with two other new trial attorneys. The good news was that she got along with her office mates, and the work was more interesting than her work in the big firms she had left.

Ginny had been placed in the Fraud Section, where she helped prosecute health-care scammers, telemarketing schemes, and identity theft. It wasn’t as sexy as taking down organized crime figures or terrorists. Mom-and-pop credit-card fraud wasn’t the subject of many big-budget movies or TV shows. Still, she felt good about protecting citizens as opposed to well-heeled corporations.

Ginny also appreciated the manageable hours she put in at DOJ. She wasn’t paid as much as she’d been paid at Rankin, Lusk, but she didn’t come in to work at seven and leave at ten, either, and her weekends were usually free. The people she worked with were just as bright as the Rankin, Lusk crowd, and they were definitely more dedicated. Very few of her fellow associates at her Portland and D.C. firms were enthusiastic about looking up property records at two in the morning or combing through corporate accounts for weeks on end. And her fellow prosecutors were more fun. Friday-afternoon happy hour at one of the watering holes in the neighborhood was a common occurrence, and it was not unusual to find a deputy chief mingling with the troops. On the rare occasion when the associates in her Oregon or Washington firms had been able to leave work in time for happy hour, no senior partners had deigned to rub shoulders with them.

The main drawback to working Fraud was the travel. She hadn’t been sent on the road yet, but she’d been told that she could expect to go to Omaha, Nebraska, in a few weeks to work with the local United States attorney on a major health-care scam. She wasn’t looking forward to being separated from Brad or living in Nebraska during the winter.

Ginny said hello to her office mates before booting up her computer. She had barely gotten comfortable when her door opened and Terrence Crawford walked in. He was dressed immaculately as usual, but there were dark shadows under his eyes, and he had the look of someone who had not slept much. Ginny’s office mates were both women, and he looked at each in turn.

“Striker?” Crawford barked.

Ginny had never met Crawford, but he had a scary reputation, and she raised her hand timidly like a first-grader called on to recite to the class on the first day of school.

“Pack up your stuff,” he ordered. “You’re moving over to CTS.”

Ginny blinked and her office mates gave her an odd look. The DOJ was organized into nine divisions, Criminal being the biggest. The National Security Division included Counterespionage (CES), the Office of Intelligence (OI), and Counterterrorism (CTS). Ginny couldn’t think of a single thing in her background that qualified her to be in the Counterterrorism section.

Ginny’s first impressions of her new boss were not very positive. Crawford ignored her as he led the way to the second floor, making Ginny feel like a stewardess bag the deputy assistant attorney general was reluctantly dragging behind him. Things looked up when Crawford stopped at an open door.

“This is where you’ll work,” he said.

Ginny peeked in. The office was empty, and it was a decent size. She hoped she wouldn’t be sharing it with anyone.

“Can I ask you a question?” Ginny said.

“You want to know why you’ve moved, right?”

“I am curious.”

“Don’t you like the assignment?”

“It’s definitely not that.”

“Then what? Don’t you think you can handle the work?” Crawford challenged.

“No, don’t get me wrong. I’m really excited, but I haven’t been here all that long.”

“The work you’ll be doing could be done by a first-year law student, and you’re up here because one of the attorneys on the team that’s prosecuting the FedEx bombers jumped ship without much notice to get rich at one of the big firms.

“Now get settled in. You’re going to have to get a special clearance to work with us. It takes thirty days, but I’ll see about getting it expedited. And I’ll have an STU brought down this afternoon.”

“An STU?”

“Better get up to date on the lingo, Striker. Secure Telecommunications Unit. It’s a computer. Put in a key and press a button, and it scrambles everything around so you can access secure databases. I’d grab a quick lunch if I were you, because someone is going to be piling that empty desk with really boring shit in no time flat.”