Murder at the FBI (2 page)

Whenever Chris Saksis and Ross Lizenby went out as a couple, which had only been happening the past few months, heads turned. He was as handsome as she was beautiful. They’d had little time to explore areas of mutual interest—except for sports. Lizenby had no peer in martial arts during his FBI training at Quantico. He was an avid tennis player and jogger, and a powerful swimmer. He usually beat Saksis at tennis, but just barely. They were a good match.

They walked to the street where their cars were parked. “Will I see you tonight?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Sorry. Pritchard’s got the whole SPOVAC team in high gear for the next couple of days. Nights, too. Maybe Monday, Tuesday.”

“Okay.” They kissed, a gentle touching of the lips, then a little harder, careful to keep their bodies apart for the sake of onlookers.

“I’ll call you,” he said.

***

The first tour of the morning was ushered into the tiered theater for the firing-range demonstration. The curtains were drawn over the bulletproof glass. The 200 tourists spoke in hushed tones; the room created that aura. There was something sacrosanct about it. Too, there was the anticipation of what they would see. Almost everyone had heard from someone else who’d taken the tour about the deadly proficiency they would witness. Would he miss this morning? Most hoped he wouldn’t so that they could tell
their
friends of the marksmanship they’d seen on their tour of the FBI. A few hoped he
would
miss, but those were the ones who always hoped for failure in others.

Special Agent Paul Harrison entered the range through its interior door. He knew he was upset at having to rush and told himself to calm down. Good shooting depended on relaxed muscles and a slow heartbeat.

He looked down the range. A fresh paper target was in place. The weapons were on the table. He quickly checked them. They were loaded.

He drew a series of deep breaths, then flicked the switch. The curtains opened with a “whooooosh.” Staring at him from behind the glass wall were 200 eager faces. He picked up the microphone, turned it on, and welcomed the crowd. He told them what weapons he’d be using, weighed the .357 magnum in his long, slender hand, raised it, and discharged its rounds. He took the M–16, saw that it was on single-shot, and fired a few rounds, then changed to semiautomatic and then full
automatic. As he fired he detected a slight tremor in his left hand and hoped it hadn’t interfered with another perfect performance. It if had, the gasps would not be as loud, the applause more polite than enthusiastic. It had happened only once before in his four months as firing-range demonstrator. One bullet had strayed an inch from the paper heart. The tour guides had kidded him about it, and although he’d laughed along with them, he hadn’t appreciated it.

He killed the lights in the range and turned on the single lamp behind the target. It took him a few seconds to realize that the light wasn’t shining through the holes. “What the—?” Then, the reason became shockingly apparent. The body of a man in a blue suit hung on a hook from the overhead trolley behind the target. It pitched forward, tearing through the paper and landing face-first on the concrete floor.

Special Agent Paul Harrison started toward the body, then remembered the 200 people behind him, most of whom were standing to get a better look. He quickly closed the drapes, picked up a telephone, and punched in a single digit. A member of the internal security force answered.

“This is Paul Harrison on the range.”

“Yeah, Paul, how are you?”

“Not too good. Get somebody’s ass down here right away. We’ve got a big problem.”

***

“Did he kill him?” Harry Jones’s niece asked her father.

“I think so. I think he did.”

His wife’s eyes rolled to the top of her head and she fainted.

Ten minutes later the dead man in the blue suit rested on a steel table in the FBI’s forensic laboratory. Identification had been made the moment Harrison and others from building security looked down at the body on the firing-range floor. His name was George L. Pritchard; he’d been a special agent for seventeen years. He’d worked in field offices for most of his career, but a year ago had been brought into headquarters to establish a new tactical division known as SPOVAC—Special Office of Violent Activities (Criminal). Its focus was on “serial killers” and mass murderers.

A dozen men in white medical coats surrounded the steel table. Each was a forensic specialist, most were medical examiners from cities around the country who happened to be in the lab that morning as part of an FBI training seminar on new techniques
of using lividity to determine the time of death in murder victims. The FBI did little actual forensic work, functioning more as a statistical and research center, but it was fully equipped and staffed for autopsies. Two other steel tables against the wall held corpses the visiting physicians had been working on when Pritchard was rushed into the lab.

“Boy, oh, boy,” one of the doctors muttered, referring to the gaping hole in Pritchard’s chest, created by the series of bullet wounds in a circle three inches in diameter. “Some shot.”

“Look here,” another doctor said, pointing to a single bullet hole slightly higher than the rest. It had been made by a small-caliber weapon. “A .22,” the doctor speculated.

By now, the doorway and hall were jammed with people who’d heard about what had happened. Ross Lizenby, Pritchard’s assistant on the SPOVAC team, pushed through the crowd. “Let me through, come on, move,” he said as he gained access to the lab. He couldn’t see past the wall of white coats. “Is it George Pritchard?” he asked.

Lizenby wedged himself between white coats. “It is,” he said to himself. He looked around. “I’m Special Agent Lizenby,” he announced in a loud voice. “Director Shelton is awaiting my report. I want everyone to vacate this room with the exception of the lab chief and any agent who happened to be here when the deceased was delivered.” When no one moved, he shouted, “Now, damn it!”

Soon, Lizenby stood next to the steel table with the head of the forensic lab and a young agent who’d been there observing the seminar out of
curiosity. Lizenby picked up a phone and dialed the office of the director of the FBI, R. Bruce Shelton. He identified himself to a secretary and was immediately put through. “The deceased
is
Special Agent George Pritchard, sir. Death appears to have been caused by multiple gunshot wounds to the chest.” He listened for a moment, said, “Yes, sir,” and hung up. He said to the lab chief, “Seal this room off, and that means to everyone. Get a staff together for an autopsy, but wait until I get back to you. I’m meeting with the director now.” He started to leave and then glanced back at the young agent. “You were here?” he asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“Come on.”

They went to the seventh floor and entered the reception area of the director’s office suite. A middle-aged woman behind a desk immediately said, “He’s in the dining room, Mr. Lizenby. He said for you to go there.”

They walked thirty feet to the executive dining room and knocked. “Come in.” They opened the door. Seated at an oval dining table having his hair trimmed by the kitchen’s head chef was R. Bruce Shelton, director of the FBI since his appointment by the president four years ago. It was a ten-year appointment, but rumors had been thick lately that he intended to resign within the year.

“Good morning, sir,” Lizenby said.

“Good morning,” Shelton answered. He pulled off the cloth that kept hair from falling on his white shirt and said to the chef-barber, “That’s fine, thanks, Joe.” When Joe was gone, Shelton asked
of Lizenby, “Who’s this?” nodding at the young agent.

“He’s, uh—”

“Special Agent Jankowski, sir.”

“Agent Jankowski was in the lab when the body arrived,” Lizenby said.

“And?” Shelton said to Jankowski.

“Well, sir, I was just there for a few minutes. I was on my way to my office and stopped in because I was curious. They’re having a seminar on forensic medicine and—”

“Please, get to the point,” Shelton said.

“Yes, sir. Two gentlemen from building security, accompanied by a special agent, brought the deceased in and placed him on the only empty table. He appeared to have been shot numerous times in the chest.”

“And?”

“And… that’s all I know, sir. I intended to leave but—”

“Who were the security men and the agent who accompanied the body?”

“Names? I don’t—” He looked to Lizenby.

“We’re getting those, sir,” Lizenby said.

Shelton swiveled in his chair and brushed away loose hair from the back of his neck. “It happened on the firing range? On our own goddamn firing range? Who did it?”

“We don’t know that yet, sir,” Lizenby said.

“It
was
an accident,” Shelton said, standing and walking to a large window.

“We presume that, sir, but at this stage it’s impossible to know what did exactly happen.”

“Witnesses?” Shelton asked, his back to them.

Lizenby took a few steps toward the director and said, “Sir, I think we need a little more time to come up with the answers. It just happened. I suggest I get back downstairs and—”

Shelton slowly turned. He fixed Lizenby with steel-cold gray eyes and said, “I want this entire matter resolved before the day is out. I want nothing said to anyone about this except for those who must know. There is to be a total blackout about this. Does anyone outside this building know what’s happened?”

Lizenby hesitated before saying, “Sir, there were two hundred tourists at the range as part of the tour.”

“Two hundred—where are they?”

“I believe they were allowed to leave the building.”

Shelton slammed his fist against the wall. “I hope that’s not true, Mr. Lizenby. If it is, I hold you personally responsible.”

“Sir, I wasn’t even—”

“Get me answers. Good ones, and fast.”

“Yes, sir.”

Shelton said to the young agent, “Mr. Jan—what was your name?”

“Jankowski, sir.”

“What office are you in?”

“A temporary assignment to administration, sir.”

“Go to your office and stay there. Talk to no one. Understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

Ross Lizenby went directly to the firing range. He took the back stairs instead of the elevator, thinking with each step that he wished he hadn’t
been where he was, and when, at the time Pritchard’s body was discovered. He’d just walked into his office at SPOVAC when his phone had rung. It had been Wayne Gormley, one of three assistant directors named by Shelton shortly after his appointment as director. Gormley’s division was investigation. SPOVAC came under it. The other two directors managed the administration and law enforcement areas of the bureau. Gormley’s message to Lizenby had been short and to the point. There had been a shooting death on the firing range. The deceased appeared to be a special agent. “Check it out and report to the director and me immediately.”

Lizenby was tired. He’d been in the building until two that morning working on a SPOVAC report that was due on Gormley’s desk that afternoon. He’d planned to spend the night with Chris Saksis, but when he called her at two she vetoed the idea. Breakfast would have to suffice. He was tired, edgy, and irritable. And he didn’t like R. Bruce Shelton, hadn’t from the day he arrived as director. He hadn’t particularly liked George Pritchard, either, but that didn’t matter anymore.

He opened the door to a closet-size office just off the firing range where Paul Harrison was cleaning a revolver. “Hello, Paul,” Lizenby said.

Harrison slowly shook his head. “I don’t believe it,” he said.

“You might as well. Pritchard’s dead. What in hell happened?”

Harrison shrugged. “I was giving the demo and—Hey, Ross, are you here on official business?”

“Official?”

“You taking statements?”

Lizenby nodded. “The director has me on this.”

Harrison raised his eyebrows and smiled. “I never saw him,” he said. “I fired and wondered why the back light wasn’t coming through the holes. Then, he falls off the track, right through the target.”

“You never saw him?”

“Right.”

“He didn’t move?”

“No.”

“He was hanging there knowing he was going to get a gut full of bullets and he never said anything?”

“Nothing. I never saw him. Look, Ross, I was late, didn’t have much of a chance to look around. I ran in, the folks were out there in their seats and I did my thing.”

Lizenby looked down at the magnum Harrison had been cleaning. “Did you fire that?”

Harrison laughed. “Hell, no. The weapons I used are on the table in the range. Come on, Ross, give me credit for some smarts.”

“What about the tourists who saw it?”

Another shrug. “They left.”

“Shelton will hang whoever let them leave.”

“It wasn’t me. I called security, that’s all. They arrived and I checked the body with them. It was George. I couldn’t believe it. They canceled all tours for the rest of the day.”

Lizenby nodded. “Hang around, Paul. Shelton might want to talk to you.”

“I’m not going anywhere. I really can’t believe it. Can you?”

“Shelton isn’t interested in what we believe. He
wants answers, and for Chrissake, don’t talk to anybody about it unless you hear from me.”

“You’re heading this?”

“I hope not. Right now I’m on the griddle because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Check you later.”

***

Special Agent Charles Nostrand, who, as director of the Office of Congressional and Public Affairs for the bureau, was responsible for handling the press, called the office of Director R. Bruce Shelton.

“Sir, we’re being swamped with press about the incident this morning. There’s a couple of dozen reporters waiting outside, and the phones are ringing nonstop.”

“It was an accident, an unfortunate accident,” Shelton said softly.

“Yes, sir, but they want details.”

“They’ll get details when we have them.”

“I know sir, but—”

“Prepare a short release and get it up to me right away. An accident on the firing range resulted in the unfortunate death of a dedicated and exemplary special agent of the FBI. Couch it. It’s the first time anything like this has happened. It was
purely
an accident. Special Agent Pritchard was—”