Echo of War

12

Once the evidence response team was done processing and returning the apartment to its original condition, Oliver called in the surveillance team, made sure everything was in order, then called ahead to Quantico with news of the indented writing from Selmain’s notebook. When he and McBride arrived, a technician from Questioned Documents was waiting.

McBride had worked with his share of QDs before, most of which had come in the form of ransom notes and bogus statements, so he knew the process well.

For indented writing, there are two primary recovery methods. The most complex, which is reserved for indentations too faint for the human eye to see, is ED, or electrostatic detection. The document in question is covered with a transparent Mylar sheath which is drawn tight to the paper with a vacuum and then exposed to repeated high-voltage charges that allow static to accumulate in microscopic indentations. Once done, the Mylar is “misted” with powdered toner which settles into the charged indentations. The document is then photographed and converted into a negative image to highlight the indentations.

The second and simpler method is called oblique or graze lighting. Angled lamps of varying intensities are shined onto the document’s surface from various angles to better reveal furrows and shadows. Finally, multiple photographic exposures are taken and fed into a computer which creates a matched collage.

Though Oliver and McBride suspected the indentation from Selmani’s apartment had been beneath only a single sheet of paper, Oliver requested the former method be used since ED leaves the document undamaged and unchanged. If this case ever went to trial, he wanted to make sure the evidence was above reproach.

As they waited, McBride called the agent-in-charge at the Root estate. Mr. Root, McBride learned, was taking a nap. As he did most of his waking hours, the former DCI passed the time by alternately staring at the phone and into space. Every time an agent’s cell phone trilled, Root wandered around the house until he found the source, stared hopefully at the agent, and then wandered off again.

“How’s he doing?” Oliver asked when McBride disconnected.

“Not good. I wish we had something solid to give him. He needs it.”

“Maybe this’ll be it. We’re getting close.”

“Is that intuition or a professional opinion?”

“Both,” Oliver replied, then added, “More of the first, though.”

An hour after arriving, the Questioned Documents expert returned with the results. “Good news, bad news.”

“Bad news first,” Oliver said.

“We could only lift one more number.”

“Good news?”

“We found an apostrophe and an extra letter.” He placed the negative image photo on the table before them:

“My guess,” the tech said, “Bob isn’t a person. It’s a given name — probably a business. Not a lot of people jot phone numbers like that—’Bob’s house,’ or ‘Bob’s cabin.’ Based on the decimal groupings you can assume some blanks. Fill those in and you get ten digits.”

“Area code and phone number,” said McBride. “We’re just about the only country that uses parentheses and dashes. In Europe its mostly decimal points or spaces.”

“Right,” said the tech.

Oliver asked him, “How about Albania?”

“I’ll check, but I’d say yes. You’re lucky, actually. Aside from getting a complete number, you got the next best thing — last digit in the area code, first in the prefix, and the final two numbers. Combine that with a place name and the computer should be able to make short work of it.”

And it did.

Working from the area code digit, the computer spit out a list of thirty-nine candidates, ranging from Wyoming to Florida to dozens of points in between. The first digit in the prefix further narrowed the list, the eight and ninth digits further still. For the sake of thoroughness, Oliver asked first for a printout of all residential numbers that were listed for men named Robert or Bob, but as the counter on the computer screen swept past the 9,000 mark, he halted the search and switched to business listings with “Bob’s” in the title. This narrowed the field to nearly fourteen hundred.

“Still too many to cover,” Oliver said. “We’d be at it until Christmas.”

With the Golden 48 gone and still no contact from the kidnappers, Oliver and McBride agreed they had to make some assumptions, the first being that the indentation Selmani had left behind wasn’t an innocent note, not the telephone number to Bob’s Ice Cream Parlor or Bob’s Supermarket As the HRT commander had described it, Selmani’s apartment was a flophouse, a logistical staging area for the kidnappers. Following that logic, anything they found there had to serve the operation.

“So let’s narrow it geographically,” Oliver said. “Try D.C., Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania.”

The computer tech, a blonde in her early twenties, punched some keys, waited for the results to come up, then said. ‘Two hundred twelve businesses with ‘Bob’s’ in the title.”

“Still too many.”

“Okay, how about this,” McBride said. “Think before and after. What did they need before the kidnapping to get it done, and what did they need after to get away? First, transportation.”

“All kinds, or just ground?” the technician asked.

“Everything.”

She punched keys. “Done.”

Oliver said, “Hardware stores, army surplus …”

“Got it What else?”

“Camping outfitters.”

She punched more keys, men looked up. “Anything else?”

“No, give it a shot,” said McBride.

She hit enter. Ten seconds passed, then the results popped onto the screen. “How about twenty-seven?” she said.

Oliver grinned. “Better.” He looked at McBride. “Back to canvassing.”

Oliver called in every available body he could find and rammed them into the conference room. Between agents and administrative personnel, the group numbered fifteen.

“The sheets you’ve got are a list of businesses in a five-state radius that we believe our suspect may have visited either shortly before or shortly after the kidnapping. Work the phones. Best case, fax the attached photo to the local cops and have them take it to the store; have them talk to the owner and every employee they’ve got. Failing that, fax the photo directly to the store. Lean hard on them. We need a break and we need it fast.

“The subject has shown a fondness for stolen credit cards and pickpocketing. The credit cards he used to buy the Stonewalker boots and to rent the Ford Econoline were not only stolen the same day they were used, but within a ten-mile radius of the stores. Use that as a red flag; ask the local cops for any reports of pickpocketing. If you get a report and a possible sighting of Selmani at one of the stores on the list, that’ll be our guy.”

“You hope,” one of the agents said.

“Hope, hell,” Oliver replied, shooting a glance at McBride. “I’m praying. It’s worked so far.”

There was general laughter.

“Another thing,” McBride said, “Our guy’s from Albania, so his grasp of English may be shaky; he may have a heavy accent.”

“If you get anything — even a faint maybe—call me. If a credit card was used, get a copy of it and send it to QD; they’re standing by. Any other questions?” There were none. “Okay, let’s get to it.”

Seventy minutes later they got their first nibble.

Earlier that day a man in Quaker Hills, a suburb of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, reported a credit card missing to the local police. Upon leaving a movie theater the night before, he found his car open, but found nothing missing or disturbed, so he assumed he’d simply forgotten to lock the door. The next afternoon he remembered the emergency credit card he kept in the glove compartment, went to check on it, and found it missing.

“If that was all, I might have let it pass,” the agent named Kathy Berelli told Oliver, “but there’s also a Bob’s Boat Rental in Erbs Mill, a town on the Susquehanna about thirteen miles southeast of Lancaster.”

Oliver’s head snapped up from his notepad. “And?”

“I’ve got the Lancaster County Sheriffs on their way there now. Said they’d get back to us — and I quote—‘lickety-split’” Berelli shrugged.

Oliver looked at McBride. “How long is—”

“No idea, John. Somewhere between real quick and not too long, probably.”

Oliver exhaled heavily. “God almighty.”

As it turned out, lickety split turned out to be thirty-four minutes.

An agent popped his head in the door, pointed to Berelli, then to the phone. As if on cue, it rang. Berelii pressed the speakerphone button. “Agent Berelli.”

“Yes, ma’am, this is Deputy Sheriff Lewen.”

“I hear you, Deputy. I’ve got you on speakerphone with two other agents.”

“Uh-huh. Okay then. I drove out to Bob’s and showed them the picture. Bob’s wife Eunice recognized him right away. He’d been in as soon as they opened this morning at seven. She said he had a funny accent; thought he might be Russian, but wasn’t sure.”

“Did he rent something … buy something?”

“Both. Bought some grocery items and such, and rented a pontoon boat for a week.”

“Credit card?”

“Yep. I’ve got the original slip. Our secretary’s puttin’ it on the fax now.”

“Thanks, Deputy Lewen. You might have just broken our case.”

“Yeah? Well, that’s great Listen, is this guy dangerous? What’s his deal?”

Berelli looked at Oliver, who hesitated, then said, “Deputy Lewen, this is Special Agent Collin Oliver. If this pans out, we’ll probably be meeting in person before the day’s out. I’m not going to lie to you, the man we’re looking for is a suspect in a multiple murder and kidnapping. We don’t think he’s a threat to the general public, but if he’s sighted, don’t try to apprehend him. He may be holding a hostage.”

“Holy cow.”

“We’d like to get to him without ripping him off.”

“Well, yeah, I can see that, but I gotta tell somebody about this.”

“I understand. We’re on the line with the Pennsylvania State Police right now.” Oliver looked at Berelli and formed a phone with his thumb and pinky finger; she nodded and hurried from the room. “We’ll have them contact you directly.”

“I guess that’ll work.”

“Until then, we need to make sure we don’t spook this guy. Don’t go looking for him.”

“Gotchya.”

Oliver disconnected. As he did so, the technician from Questioned Documents walked in. He was holding the fax of the credit card slip. “Same guy,” he said. “I’ll need the original to be sure, but it’s a ninety percent match. Same loops and baseline drops as the other slips. It’s him.”

Oliver sat still for a long five seconds, then chuckled. He looked up at McBride. “I’ll be damned. That’s it, mat’s what we needed. Now we just have to find out how the hell we get to Erb’s Mill.”

“That’s the easy part,” McBride replied. “What I wanna know is why the hell he needs a boat, and where he’s going with it.”