Flash Point (14 page)

Jenna picked up the file and opened it, scanned the page.

Irv headed for the door. They might hash out the crazy exchange he'd just gifted them with all afternoon, but sooner rather than later, the contents of that folder would culminate in a call or text to him adding another billion and five cyber-sleuthing tasks to his plate. If he was going to take care of the unwanted intruder he'd caught in his own cookie jar during that impromptu scan, he'd better do it now.

‘I'll leave you fine agents to the spoils. Have to pop out of the office to take my bowties to the cleaners, but if you need me, you know where to find me,' Irv said, patting the pants pocket storing his phone.

A chuckle made him turn around. It was Saleda.

‘You take your bowties to the dry-cleaners? Seriously?'

Irv gave her a playful smile. Too easy. ‘What? I like the way their detergent smells, OK?'

Teva squinted. ‘But you don't
wear
bowties.'

He grinned. ‘That
you
know of. Buh-bye, kids!'

He turned and walked out the door.

Jenna's gaze followed Irv out the door, a shamrock green she couldn't quite put her finger on dancing in her mind. Weird. He was always sarcastic, but something about that entire encounter was over the top.

‘So don't keep us in suspense. What's the forum post say?' Porter said.

The shamrock shade drifted away, and Jenna's mind jolted back to the case. She glanced at the printout of the forum post again. ‘At first glance it's just a conversation about that Venture Airways flight that crashed this morning. You know the types. My penis is bigger than the pilot's – I'd have landed that jet on the cliff of the Grand Canyon or some shit like that. Three guys who, from how they talk to each other, sound like they interact regularly. Anyway, at a point, one poster's rant references
The Importance of Being Earnest
. Take a look.'

She laid the letter on the table, and the rest of the team crowded around it to read:

ANONYMOUS NO. 300672441

AS LONG AS THE STATUS QUO REMAINS, THINGS LIKE THIS WILL CONTINUE TO HAPPEN OVER AND OVER AGAIN. PEOPLE WILL DIE FOR NO REASON OTHER THAN THAT THE SAME PERSON SCREENING THAT LINE AT THE AIRPORT IS THE SAME GUY WHO COMMENTS ON SOCIAL MEDIA USING PLENTY OF SUPERFLUOUS COMMAS AND SPELLS SUPERVISOR WITH A Z. NOT THAT MR SCREENER MATTERS, CONSIDERING WHATEVER TSA APPOINTEE WHO GRADUATED WITH ALL C'S FROM COLLEGE AFTER A CALL FROM HIS DAD'S GOLF BUDDY GOT HIM IN DECIDED IT WAS TOO MUCH OF AN INCONVENIENCE TO PILOTS TO HAVE THEM SCREENED IN THE REGULAR LINES. TOO BAD HE WAS TOO BUSY SHINING HIS MOST LIKELY TO SUCCEED PLAQUE FROM MOUNTAIN TOWNVILLE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE TO THINK OF SOMETHING AS PRUDENT AS A SYSTEM THAT WOULD BOTH ENSURE FLIGHT CREWS MADE IT TO THEIR GATES IN TIME TO CIRCUMVENT THOSE PESKY DELAYS WHILE MAINTAINING A THOROUGH SCREENING PROCESS TO PROTECT THE FLIGHT SAFETY OF MILLIONS. —M.

ANONYMOUS NO. 300672442

DUDE, ACCIDENTS HAPPEN. —IS

ANONYMOUS NO. 300672443

IF IT WAS EVEN AN ACCIDENT. THE GOVERNMENT PROBABLY HAD SOMEONE ON THAT PLANE THEY NEEDED TO DISAPPEAR. SO, POOF! —L.U.F.

ANONYMOUS NO. 300672444

YOU TWO IMBECILES THINK THIS IS FUNNY, BUT SO MANY THINGS LIKE THIS WILL CONTINUE UNLESS THE CURRENT SYSTEM IS GUTTED, THROWN OUT, AND REBUILT SO THAT BEFORE YOU CAN BE THE GUY WHO DOUBLE-CHECKS THAT NO ONE HAS A BOMB BEFORE THEY BOARD A PLANE, YOU HAVE TO HAVE GONE TO A SCHOOL THAT REQUIRES YOU TO KNOW THAT THE PEOPLE CONGRATULATING YOU ON YOUR GRADUATION ARE DOING IT WITHOUT A ‘D' IN THE WORD. IT'S NOT ENOUGH TO SHRUG AND SAY, ‘IT IS WHAT IT IS.' IT'S NOW IMPORTANT TO BE EARNEST. TO BE A PART OF THE SOLUTION AND NOT THE PROBLEM. —M.

ANONYMOUS NO. 300672445

HOW EXACTLY DO YOU EXPECT US TO DO THAT? —L.U.F.

ANONYMOUS NO. 300672446

MANY TONGUES TALK, BUT FEW HEADS THINK. THINGS ARE HAPPENING. WE HAVE THE WISDOM, BUT WELCOME IT. WE NEED THINKERS. PRIVATE FORUM, INVITE HAS TO COME FROM THE ADMIN, SO WATCH FOR IT. YOU TWO HATE THIS INSANITY AS MUCH AS I DO. HELP DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. —M.

‘Unless the important to be earnest thing is some sort of weird slang catchphrase sweeping the nation I'm not aware of …' Saleda said.

‘And we can't trace an account or anything?' Teva asked.

‘I guess even wizards have some limitations,' Saleda said, ‘There are no accounts to trace.'

Jenna scanned the paper again, her eyes lingering on the very last letter of the final post on the printout. An M.

A purple-ish color flashed in. Too much of a reddish tinge to be narcissism, but the color and the feeling she got as she looked at that M – a signature – was cooler than the red pomegranate of confidence. No, it was definitely a mixture of the two. Both the color – a full-bodied glass of Shiraz – and what her gut told her about the state of mind of the person posting as M.

Hubris.

‘Interesting that in a forum that goes as far as it does to maintain anonymity of its posters that a user would identify himself with a signature,' Jenna said.

‘Well, they've talked before, be it here or elsewhere. He clearly has their contact information to invite them to this other private forum,' Dodd said.

Jenna tapped the M with her fingernail. ‘But this guy, he knows what he's involved with and how important it is to avoid leaving a trail. And yet, he signs it anyway. Just an initial, one that doesn't match his real name, I'm sure. He's in an anonymous, untraceable forum with self-deleting posts. He's so sure he's got his bases covered that, like any good narcissist, he's convinced he's better than everyone else. Anyone who might be looking for him. A foolish amount of confidence in the wake of such high stakes,' Jenna said.

‘You're calling narcissist, then?' Dodd asked.

Jenna nodded. ‘He sure thinks he could do far better than any of these people. Grandiose sense of his own talents and ideas. And the signature just seals the deal.'

Jenna's eyes landed on Grey, who was now sitting at the end of the conference table, holding the printout of the forum post in her left hand, her right hand raised high as though she was in a high school Geometry class.

‘Grey?' Jenna whispered, leaning toward her. Feeling the rest of the team's eyes on her, including Saleda's, Jenna cleared her throat, looked at Saleda. ‘Saleda, I think Grey might have something to add.'

‘What do you have for us, Grey?' Saleda asked.

Grey looked up at Saleda over the top of the printout. ‘It's just … I think I might be able to figure out who he is. Or what, anyway. Another one of the books used.'

‘The books they took their nicknames from?' Saleda said, suddenly intent and walking back around the table toward Grey. ‘How?'

Grey pointed a bony finger at the page, traced a line of text. ‘Right here. It says, “Many tongues talk, but few heads think.” Madam Agent Saleda Officer, that's a quote. From Victor Hugo's
Les Miserables.
'

Pinkish-orange apricot flashed in. Congruency.

‘So
Les Miserables
joins the ranks with Sherlock Holmes,
To Kill a Mockingbird
, and one of approximately nine million novels Cardinal Richelieu managed to make a cameo in,' Jenna said.

‘How
did
that guy get so famous? He's got to be the most Hollywood Cardinal ever,' Porter said.

Saleda moved to the white board and picked up a dry erase marker. ‘What does the newest addition to the lineup of the book club from hell tell us about the group?'

All heads turned towards Grey.

She stared back at them, the stray frizzy wisps of blonde around her face blowing under the air conditioner vent above her, her hands folded neatly on the table in front of her, attentive.

Jenna bit her lip to keep it together. For Grey, this was behaving. She was being a polite student, and she wouldn't take subtle social cues like this when, to her, the question wasn't literal enough for her to think she could add to the conversation.

Jenna's reading of
Les Miserables
in high school seemed ages ago, and even though she and Charley had seen the musical version of Hugo's masterpiece last year at the Olney, she couldn't quite draw up the intricacies of the scenes she could picture. The one detail from the story that sprang to mind was one character's name. The mustard color of correlation flashed in. Marius.

M.

‘I think our Sword Boy's nickname is Marius,' Jenna said. She turned to Grey. ‘Marius was part of a radical group of students planning an uprising in the book, right?'

Grey nodded. ‘The author used the students at the barricades as a device to highlight the real political unrest of the time in France.'

Teva leaned in, elbows on the table. ‘I remember the students building the barricade and fighting, but to be honest, I wasn't a hundred percent on what they were trying to accomplish. All I really understood was that they didn't trust the law enforcement, because of that one complete asshole cop who dogs everyone for the stupidest stuff.'

‘Javert,' Grey acknowledged. ‘And yes, he was just doing his job, but you're right that he and law enforcement weren't trusted by many in that time and place; they didn't serve everyone. The uprisings of the student group and France of that time in real life were to fight pecking orders controlling everything—'

‘I think what Grey means is both the book and reality reflect the social inequality in France at a time when the country had a rigid class system and people were treated according to where they fell in it,' Dodd explained.

Grey gave a nod. ‘Those screwball inn keepers were rich only because they took everyone's money, but they gallivant about the whole story while Officer OCD would chase a bread thief to Mars if he had to.'

‘So you're saying, in the novel, the government doesn't deal with crimes based on severity. True criminals are barely punished if wealthy, but there's hell to pay for petty crime if you're on the wrong end of the social hierarchy?' Porter recapped.

‘The students were fighting the corrupt system of greed and, yes, class,' Grey said.

Jenna slid the printout of the forum post back over, skimmed it again. ‘This group's rebelling against something, but it sounds like, if anything, they
want
a class.'

Dodd looked over her shoulder at the paper. ‘You're right. UNSUB does seem to get his panties in a twist over punctuation errors—'

‘And there's that comment about people shouldn't be allowed to graduate high school unless they can spell properly,' Saleda said.

Orchid flashed in. This group didn't want a more just society. They wanted a smarter one.

‘If I had to guess, I'd say this group wants the country to be run only by the intellectual elite, which tells us they all think they belong in that categorization,' Jenna said. ‘What I don't understand yet is how the attack at the bank and what they're planning next furthers that agenda.'

Dodd shook his head sadly. ‘This group differs in themes, for sure. The theme of
Les Mis
has to do with the importance of love and compassion. What we saw in that bank doesn't match any definition of compassion I've heard.'

A thought tickled the back of Jenna's mind.
The scene left for them in the bank.
Importance of love and compassion.

‘But they do think it's “important to be earnest,”' Jenna said. Russian violet flashed in again. ‘Have any of you noticed that all four pieces of literature we've identified as being associated with this group so far also have stage play versions?'

Dodd cocked his head. ‘Are they?
To Kill a Mockingbird,
sure.
Les Miserables
is obviously one. Is anything in the Sherlock Holmes series?'

Grey cleared her throat. ‘Of course. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself teamed up with a co-writer and made up a four act play that drew from three novels in the series.'

‘And
The Importance of Being Earnest
is definitely one,' Saleda said. ‘I had to go watch my niece in it at her summer camp last year.'

‘Is there a play with Richelieu in it?' Porter asked.

Jenna shrugged, took out her smartphone to do a quick Google search.

‘Definitely. It's proper title is
Or the Conspiracy
, but it's called
Richelieu
more often than not. Written in 1839 by a British writer,' Grey chimed in.

They stared back at her, mouths gaping. She really
was
a walking database of literary information.

She stared back at them, unfazed. ‘The pen is mightier than the sword. That was the big standout line.'

‘Uh-huh,' Saleda said in disbelief.

‘Actually, my brother and I just saw
Les Mis
last summer at the Olney,' Jenna said, an iridescent white flashing in as her inklings began to crystallize and form into a theory. She glanced at Porter, who was sitting at the conference table with his iPhone. ‘Hey, Porter. Pull up the Olney Theatre Centre's website and tell me what other productions they've staged in the past year besides
Les Miserables.
'

‘Sure thing,' he said, tapping letters on his phone. He scrolled down the page. ‘Last season's shows included
Les Mis, A Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Damn Yankees, A Few Good Men, Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella, Pippin,
and … oh, look!
The Importance of Being Earnest.
'

‘Could be a coincidence,' Teva said.

‘Could be a big fat X marks the spot,' Dodd replied.

It might
be
a coincidence, but it wasn't a bad angle to check out. The theatric Russian violet that had flashed in at the murder scene, the choice of weapons, and the magnitude of the attack for show.