DC - Chapter 20

   Panic felt even better yet after a couple more hours of sleep. He pulled into the parking garage, and enjoyed the late summer walk to the Hoover building. He got his usual, now standing, visitor's pass. He had slowly been getting to be a familiar face to the security guys at the entrance. The one he small talked with a few times before waved him over out of the line of visitors. Walking in all the time with a gaggle of state police and a small cadre of real agents, all talking about some case… had cemented his unpaid position as someone there actually doing something. He was no longer just on a field trip, what the agents informally called "bring a kid to work day".

   He smiled when it wasn't his usual visitor's pass… it had been replaced now with his "consultant" badge. He thought how positively silly little things like a laminated piece of paper and plastic with a "title" made you feel all special all over and rejuvenated you. He walked up to what he thought of as his floor, and went to his end of the floor. Found his room. Went in, to see what was up.

   "Hey… look who decided to show up for work…"

   It was Speedy's main FBI contact, the one running and putting together the investigation.

   "Actually, I'm already on a long weekend. I'm on Speedy's orders, to take time off. Get some sleep. Have some fun."

   "I know. You look like you got some sleep, actually."

   "Yeah, I did. I feel better."

   Speedy walked in.

   "There you are. I wondered where you disappeared to."

   "You told me to go out, have some fun. I did."

   Speedy peered at him. Came in and looked him over, smiling.

   "What?"

   "You got laid."

   "Is it that obvious?"

   Speedy smiled, and put his hand on his friend's shoulder.

   "Panic? You disappeared. You didn't come home all night, you weren't even home by the time I left for work this morning. Now, you did make it home, I can see you changed your clothes. You definitely don't look like you were out all night drinking, you actually look like you got some sleep for a change. Not to mention… unless you started wearing perfume on me all of a sudden? You might as well have taken out a billboard advertisement. Then? The icing on the cake? You got that happy retarded look on your face…"

   "Christ, hanging out with cops is fun. You get to do away with that whole pesky thing…"

   "What pesky thing?"

   "It's a lot more fun to just not have a private life."

   Everyone laughed.

   Junior G man wanted to know if he didn't go out to the bar, if he just picked up a hooker instead.

   "No."

   "Coffee shop? Hipster chick?"

   George was smiling…

   "I bet I know."

   "Really?"

   "You closed the deal on the waitress, that's my bet…"

   "Ding ding ding. We have a winner."

   George chuckled…

   "See… I told you she liked you."

   Speedy rolled his eyes and groaned.

   "What's the matter Speedy?"

   "Well, you and George came back raving about the bloody rare steaks. Last night was 'seafood night' instead. We were gonna go get steaks tonight after work. But… now you went and fucked the waitress there, so… you're not gonna want us there I bet. She won't want embarrassed."

   "Actually? Her exact words were… go and brag to your buddies. She said I could show her off after I bragged, if I wanted to. You guys want steak for lunch, or dinner?"

   Speedy eyed him.

   "It's your girl. You want lunch or dinner?"

   "Both. I ain't eating anywhere else until I leave town. I got a good thing going… I go after hours? I get to eat free side dishes, the workers made me lasagna last night…"

   "Then she took you home?"

   "Yeah. She has a great cat, Bitty Kitty seems to really like me… I got hours of sleep. It was heaven."

   "Wait a minute. You spent the night at the restaurant. She fed you lasagna and side dishes. Then took you home, and all you're bragging about is 'the cat liked me' and 'I got a lot of sleep'? Something doesn't add up here…"

   "No, she said I looked tired, and she let me sleep. She woke me up in the morning, and… you know…"

   "Well, we'll see what you trolled up when we go for lunch I guess. George? Honestly, is this a train wreck he rolled into, or what?"

   "No. She's a cute girl. Fun. A little sassy. Kinda girl that will… cross her eyes and stick her tongue out to be funny. Like I said… cute."

   "How did you know she liked him?"

   "I was just guessing. But… something in the way she said 'I am not giving you my phone number'… told me she liked him. Plus, she kept talking to him. I guess he took my advice, and went back there, and closed the deal."

   Panic smiled and nodded his head, held his hands up…

   "Okay… we can do this anytime, guys… anyone have an update on George? Elvis? Anything?"

   Speedy's main contact gave him a brief rundown. George had just left for the data department.

   "Junior G is the point man for the data search. He did a preliminary search, got an early pool of faces for George to sift through, see if anything stands out. Before you ask? No good hits yet. Honestly, this was really broad… we wanna see what kind of faces he pulls out right now to keep looking at. It's… kind of a test."

   "How is this a test?"

   "Well… if you didn't know it already, witness IDs can be attacked in court, and you'd be surprised how well a lawyer can tear a so called positive ID to shreds in front of a jury."

   "The point being, for us laymen?"

   "At this early phase, with so much riding on this? He's looking through a big pool of faces, just to see… okay, this doesn't leave this office? Internal only, we're seeing how well he can… pick out a gypsy face from a crowd of other similar looking races mixed around them."

   "You wanna see if you can fool him with… Arabic faces and shit like that…"

   "And the reverse, Panic… we want to see if he just thinks any Gypsy is 'almost him', over and over again."

   "Does George know you're fucking with him?"

   "Eh… yes and no. He knows this is an early test phase. He doesn't know how the tests are set up."

   "Well… how's he doing so far."

   "Actually? Pretty damned good. When we put a number of gypsy faces that are slightly similar, into a big pool of related races that fit the generic description? He keeps shaking his head 'no no no'. He flags most of the generic gypsy faces though, to point out that these are similar, but, he knows its not Elvis."

   "And this is telling you…?"

   "It's telling us… we're most likely right… Elvis is a Gypsy, plain and simple. That's really good for a start."

   "How do you move on then?"

   "We're slowly going to narrow the field. Getting more and more specific on features he points out. That will be a crucial point… he'll either start flagging almost all the faces, or, giving us the 'no no no' and keep looking."

   "Are… you doing anything else, so that if George does get a good ID… you're in a better position to get a jump on this?"

   "As George moves up so to speak through the layers towards a preliminary ID? The priority given to the camera tests rises with it. The idea being, that the closer George gets, the closer the rest gets."

   "Can I get a readers digest version of that?"

   "Junior G? You're on…"

   "Panic… you know what a multiplexer is?"

   "Standard multiplex setup for a camera, would be the classic 4-cam view on one video screen we all know from gas station surveillance videos we've all seen."

   "Okay. Good. Then… you know that most systems typically handle 8 cams, even though they only usually include 4 cams in the store kit?"

   "Yeah…"

   "Well… imagine an 8 cam multiplex system… with each of those 8 camera shots? Showing another 8 cams…"

   "So, it's do-able?"

   "Yes and no. Watching 64 teeny videos in a checkerboard on a screen? You really can't see much. It's not practical then, to expect 8 of 8 of 8… and so on. Each cam would be a couple of pixels wide, the monitoring agent wouldn't see shit."

   "What's the work around for that?"

   "We're making a trial, with what we call infrared traps. Remember the old electric eye systems in the old days, that opened big doors? Same principle… you break an infrared laser beam that's invisible, it sets the next 8 cameras rolling, it brings that set of multiplex into bigger view."

   "What about motion?"

   "You do a lot of single game camera setups before?"

   "A few…"

   "How well do game cams work around leaves and grass with the slightest bit of wind? Rain? This shit tends to go down right before a storm. Wind. If you don't locate your game cam perfect, don't you just get a ream of a zillion pictures of empty grass? And video of waving twigs and branches? This is no different."

   "Anything else?"

   "Actually, yes. I'm starting to try out thermal."

   "For all the cams? Wouldn't that be way too expensive?"

   "Actually yes. But… I'm thinking using thermal for the trapping. Motion and a thermal signature, would activate the next so many cameras for a certain period of capture."

   "You think that will work?"

   "Yes and no. The more sensitive we make it, the more false positives we get, the more hard drives we fill up quicker. We fill up too many too quick? We lose our eyes until we service it. The less sensitive? We run the risk of not picking up enough times we should. It's a dance."

   "Am I being naive, that I figured you guys did this all the time?"

   "Oh, we do surveillance a lot. The problem is… we normally have a location, or a set of prime locations. We honestly can't find a case of spreading out over this much area before. Think of it in terms of a drug deal… you know where the drug deal will go down at. This? Is more like… well, the only thing I have to compare it against? The roadway cams, and a lot of the city grid cams…"

   "Any alternatives?"

   "Boots on the ground. Human beings are amazingly capable of scanning an area and watching out. Activating a bank of surveillance… the university location? Is probably do-able… the south side of Pittsburgh? I can't pretend it isn't too big. Maybe a mixed human-automated approach… maybe. We're looking into it."

   "What don't I know, that I wish I knew?"

   Junior G, the electronics and surveillance expert… was done with his spiel. He pointed to the senior agent to take back over…

   "Couple things. Some opinions, are that the university hunting ground is the place to put most of the assets. Smaller hunting ground, better chances. The flip side of that coin? Limited opportunities. If we do the same thing, but try as best we can to attempt to cover as much of the south side waterways access points as we can? There's more… possible incidents in that bigger, richer hunting ground."

   "Why are you making that face you're making?"

   "I won't lie to you Panic… one of our best options, for overall possible success? Is that we won't know until after the fact, then we can comb through everything recorded. I know this sounds horrible, but… honest to god himself? We're up against a wall. Most people have trouble believing there's even a killer out there, and… well… if we can prove an accidental drowning victim, was walked out drugged on video, put into the water? We'll know day and time of death. We'll know more or less exactly where he goes into the water at. Right after, not three days later when the floater bobs up."

   "Is there any good, or… better news in all of this?"

   "Yes…"

   "Thank god and give me that, then…"

   "The better of an ID George comes up with? The better chance we have of watching GPS tracking, and trying to predict the… general time and general place."

   Panic was starting to get what he internally thought of as… "the speech". The speech, as he thought of it… was always different, yet, always the same. In the real world, we have to realize this… if we are to face reality? We have to admit that. In a perfect world, sure, we could do such and such.

   Panic's eyes glazed over for a bit. A flash of anger, that he let Speedy see, then he smiled and hid it and just looked down at the floor. Panic was hearing the rest of the speech, but he was letting it fall to background noise. He wasn't tuning it out, yet he wasn't paying full attention and tuning in.

   Speedy now knew Panic for long enough, and more importantly… well enough… so, he uniquely recognized the situation. This was the moment when Panic would either cut a "moral fit" like a little kid, or suck it up and take it one more time. Speedy walked near Panic. Without realizing he was physically doing it, he got in between Panic deflating down into the chair nearest him and the agent in charge who was unknowingly poking him with a sharp stick.

   Speedy looked down at his friend and searched his face, searched his eyes. Panic just had the detached face of a person who knew it wasn't the right time to try anything and would just weather it. Speedy had to guess the right thing to do, and Speedy did what Speedy did best… he made a snap decision. Instantly, on gut hunch and just went with it.

   Speedy winked at Panic and stood fully erect, stretched and yawned…

   "All right, all right… reality is… well fuck it, it's reality. It is what it is…"

   Panic looked up at Speedy with a questioning look for just him. It asked 'what the fuck'. Speedy shot him a flash of a smile and another sly wink. Then Speedy's contact raised his voice.

   "Panic… none of us that carry our little shields like to admit it, but… we have real world issues. Money. Manpower. Meetings. I'm asking you, to stay with me, to stay with us. Let us manage this."

   Speedy looked back at his contact, that was more or less the agent in charge of all this developing. Made a waving motion up and down off of his wrist. It said 'Down, boy. We get it.' The man trailed off and let his friend Speedy manage his own friend, Panic.

   "Hey. I know on some level, I just need to let the plumbers handle the plumbing. Right?"

   The main agent nodded his head.

   "Hey, my parent's plumber, he used to let this little kid watch him, as long as I promised to stay out of the way and not ask too many questions. I'm a smart little kid… for the time being, can I just watch the plumbers? If I stay out of the way for now."

   The agent came over. Put his hand on his shoulder. Patted it.

   "Yeah, sure. I know this part is tough. It always is. Don't think that I don't get it, because I do. Look, this is a football game, like it or not. We need to win the game, not the play. We need to win the war, not the battle."

   "No, I get it. To have a chance, we need stick with the coach's strategy. Hey, you're the coach right now. Call the plays. On some level… I realize I'm a kicker and we're running and passing right now. If I need to be happy with sitting on the bench until I'm needed to go kick a field goal, that's my job. Speedy's your assistant coach. He can help you call plays. I know I need to get used to sitting on the sidelines. You mind if I go get a hot-dog to sit on the bench?"

   "No. Not at all. Look… this thing was a sandlot football game."

   He pointed at Panic.

   "Then? It turned into a high school football game."

   He pointed at Speedy.

   "Now, its a college game… we can't take the wild chances you take in a sandlot or high school game now. There's too much at stake."

   He pointed at himself and waved to indicate the room and building around him.

   Panic shook the agent's hand.

   "It's okay. Play your game. Do what you do. It's no big deal if one more player is sitting on the sidelines. As long as it doesn't cost you anything, right?"

   "Hey… make no mistake about this, Panic. If I'm the coach? I'm trying to manage the team's effort. The owners only give me so much money to buy so many players. If I get another player or two, that I don't have to pay for? Hey, I'd be a fool to not take it. Look… Speedy? Yeah, he's my assistant coach, he's played this game before. You? You're his assistant. I call the plays, sure. But, I bounce ideas off of Speedy. I wouldn't want to do without my assistant coach right now. Speedy… likes to bounce ideas off of you. The formula? Its… working right now. I don't like to change a winning formula."

   Panic smiled… warmly.

   "I know you're right. Hey, this is a team effort. At least I'm on the team. That's something."

   "Thanks, Panic. I'm glad you understand. Look, Speedy keeps me in his loop. I know you run yourself ragged. He explained to me how you… worked. I won't claim to understand it? But I wasn't kidding… I won't change a winning formula."

   "Hey coach? I'm going to get a hot dog…"

   The agent laughed…

   "Go ahead… just don't spoil your appetite for lunch!"

   Panic laughed easily with him. Shot Speedy a sly grin, and went to walk out and off. Speedy saw Panic have silly fun. He skipped along like a little kid and made a funny noise. Everyone chuckled at his antics, and he was off.

   Speedy was a man who worked on hunches, as much as he worked on logic and reason and management of resources. Speedy knew something had just happened, but for the life of him… he couldn't explain what it was.

   He decided, that what bugged him? Was that Panic in his experience, would have… should have… challenged the agent. Forcefully or gently, Panic definitely marched to the tune of a different drummer. Speedy knew long ago, one did not simply give Panic the "team speech #457", and Panic just shrugged his shoulders and went along with it.

   But he just saw him do it. Maybe Panic had gone one too many nights with too little sleep. Spent one too many days surrounded by the machine that was the FBI, in the beehive of activity that was the Hoover building. Maybe he finally lost his own personal "salmon's drive" to fight his way upstream, and was going to just let the wave wash over him, and carry him out to sea.

   Speedy sat there, silently contemplating. Speedy was reminded of a phenomenon reported by many victims of violent crime. Most people who were suddenly attacked, would later report that they had a sense of something being off, but couldn't put their finger on it… until it happened. Whatever it was.

   Odd. Speedy didn't think he was about to be attacked, but he still had some sense of something being slightly amiss. Something was off. Something didn't fit.

   Then again? It could be a spot of indigestion just as well as anything important…

   "Earth to Speedy… earth to Speedy… come in, Speedy!"

   "Huh?"

   "You said you'd help me go over these request forms. Let's see if we can buzz through them before lunch, okay?"

   "Oh. Yeah, sure…"