Greg Bear: Quantico

‘Okay,’ Gerber said, and stuck his hands in his pockets. They were walking side by side now, the best of chums.

The WAGD was still quiet.

‘The second vehicle could have followed at a discreet distance,’ Rebecca said. ‘Porter lit up and pulled the rig over for inspection. Maybe the driver couldn’t produce the right papers. He called for backup but didn’t get a response.’

‘We received no request for backup,’ Gerber said, but he wasn’t disagreeing.

‘Porter’s Infodeck told him he was off the grid and he couldn’t make direct radio contact. His display told him he was being jammed.’

‘All right.’

‘With the rig pulled over, the occupant or occupants of the second vehicle decided to make a run for it. Porter suspected this was the jammer, got his wind up, ordered his first quarry to stay put, and took off after the second truck.’

Gerber looked thoughtful. ‘Evidence?’ he asked pleasantly.

‘Nothing, really,’ Rose said. ‘Unless we count tire marks a few miles back, two vehicles peeling out, not far from a long set of truck tracks in the gravel.’

‘Mm,’ Gerber said, and his smile broadened. She wasn’t ahead of him yet. He knew about those marks. ‘Jammers work for hire and don’t carry contraband. Porter knew the drill. He would have let the little one go.’

‘But you said he was a gambler,’ Rose said. ‘Right? Unmarried, eager, a Vegas kind of guy. Patrol was his life. For just a few seconds, he couldn’t think past the glory of making a twofer-of pulling over a rich cargo, and grabbing a jammer besides.’

‘Are we about to cast aspersions on an officer who can’t defend himself?’ Gerber asked. His face was professionally blank but his pupils had widened.

‘Not at all,’ Rose said. ‘Happens to the best of us.’

Gerber squinted. ‘Tell me, why would any driver risk a chase and the hoosegow for a load of old printers?’

Gerber had spent a lifetime figuring out what people were really interested in. Rose walked back toward the burnt-out patrol car. ‘Porter reacquired his perspective after a peek in the rear view mirror. He saw the rig get underway and quickly decided to give up on the jammer. He and the rig played a little chicken. Risky, but maybe not out of character. He got in front and tried to brake the rig to a stop-got tapped, spun out…and the rig jackknifed and flipped. Porter ended up by the side of the road, reversed.’

She stood beside the distorted, blackened curve of the cruiser’s driver’s side door. ‘Porter squatted behind the door and drew down on the truck cab. Based on chase maneuvers and the spin-out, his Infodeck would have automatically attempted to re-connect and call for urgent backup, and he probably surmised the jammer would soon be out of range.’

‘All right,’ Gerber said. ‘Now explain to me, how did he end up getting shot? Did the jammer return? Was he caught in a crossfire?’

Botnik and Earl approached. ‘No fingerprints or blood inside the truck cab,’ Botnik told Rose. ‘No food items or cups or urine jugs. Nothing much at all. We’re fuming and dusting the exterior, but I’ll bet the driver was wearing gloves.’

Rose stood behind the burned-out cruiser door, looked back at the rig, drew sight-lines. Then she and Botnik crossed the highway and walked along the south side. Gerber and Earl glanced both ways for traffic-the road was almost empty-and followed. ‘Did you work the ditch here, off the shoulder?’ she asked.

Gerber turned to Earl. The younger man shook his head, uncertain whether he was admitting to a mistake.

Botnik caught on right away. ‘Jesus. Sounds like some sort of combat vet.’

Gerber was now the one short on rope. He looked along the length of the ditch and saw how a man could have exited the International and crawled along the ditch without being seen. His face wrinkled. ‘Shit.’

‘After the wreck,’ Rose said, ‘Porter may have called for the driver to get out or shout if he was unable to comply.’ She took two steps into the ditch, put her hand on her hips, raised her right arm, then lined up her eye and her pointing finger with the position that Porter would have assumed beside his cruiser. ‘From this angle, the shooter could have watched and waited until Porter got impatient and stood up. The first shot passed over the hood and between the door and the window frame and hit Porter in his left shoulder. Porter may have been knocked half about, then lurched forward and hung on to the door. The second shot could have passed through his neck, spinning him around again, and the third impacted the chest. The neck wound, was it from the side or rear?’

Gerber pointed to the right rear of his own neck.

She stepped gingerly along the rocks. ‘Rough crawl, but someone well-trained could have done it in thirty seconds or less. Your shooter pushed up…Here and here.’ She pointed to the rain-softened remains of two gouges, one shallow, one deep in the gravel and dirt. ‘Knee mark. Toe of shoe or boot digging in. No sole imprint. He shot your patrolman three times, then walked across the highway and made sure he was dead or dying. The assailant then dragged Porter away from the car.’

She finished with, ‘Our shooter unplugged the Infodeck, removed the officer’s data vest, tossed it in the car, then set the car on fire and cooked the memory so there wouldn’t be any record. But for some reason, the assailant was squeamish about letting an officer burn. Even a dead one.’

Gerber’s jaw muscles flexed. ‘All that, for old printers?’ he asked.

Botnik gave Rose a hard stare.

‘I can’t see it,’ Gerber said. ‘Too many holes. I think we have drug runners getting creative. Maybe this time, the escort vehicle carried both contraband and jamming equipment, with the International truck, full of a dummy load, acting as decoy. Hell, you could pack ten million dollars worth of Tart in a suitcase. Maybe Porter saw the printers, surmised the rig wasn’t carrying, and went after the jammer. That explains the tire tracks.’

‘Then why would the driver of the rig light out?’ Rose asked. ‘Why not just stay put, act innocent, plead to a misdemeanor and get a ticket?’

Because he did not want anyone to learn about his printers.

The bastard knows I’m looking for him.

‘I believe in the competence of our patrol officers,’ Gerber said, his face flushed. ‘We’re done here, Agent Rose.’

‘Mm hmm.’ Rose knelt in the gravel and rocks and looked hard at the ground around the knee imprint and the toe mark. Didn’t feel right torching an officer. What sort of smuggler…?

A former cop?

Rose pictured the driver of the International biting on his glove’s fingers to pull it off. It could have dangled from his teeth as he fired at Porter. She got down on her hands and knees. Urban cops tended to wear close-weave protected gloves, to reduce the chances of cuts or needle pricks during pat-downs. Many wore Turtleskins. Rose preferred Friskmasters. ‘Did anybody find a glove?’ she asked.

‘No, ma’am,’ Gerber said.

Rebecca measured the distance between the toe marks. A smooth stone in just the right place had been pressed down and twisted, the dirt scrunched up around its perimeter. She picked it up. A fleashit speck of rain-washed blood had fallen on the tumbled-smooth surface. She palmed the stone, and then saw another drop of blood, unmistakable, on a pebble nested in a patch of sand. ‘Something here,’ she said. The young analysts joined her in the ditch. As they worked over the area, she pocketed the larger rock, unseen.

‘Could be a ground squirrel or a coyote,’ Gerber said with a sniff.

‘I’d like to be copied on any human DNA results.’