Twisted

For Rascal, with all my love
.

And to Rhonda, with thanks for being there

during a time of insurmountable grief,

for offering me a unique depth of understanding,

honesty, and compassion, and for being a kindred spirit—

one I’m proud to call my friend.

Please refer to the accompanying chart for information on how groups and resources mentioned in this book interrelate.

ADIC
Assistant Director in Charge:
Of the fifty-six
FBI
field offices nationwide, only the three largest are headed up by ADICs. Those are the New York, Los Angeles, and Washington field offices. Each of the remaining field offices is headed up by a
SAC
(Special Agent in Charge).

BAU
Behavioral Analysis Unit:
One of the three components of the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crimes (
NCAVC
), the
BAU
provides behavioral-based investigative and operational support through case experience, research, and training to complex and time-sensitive crimes, usually involving acts or threats of violence.

CE
Criminal Enterprise:
A group of individuals with an identified hierarchy, or comparable structure, engaged in criminal activity similar to the infamous organized-crime groups. The New York field office squad that deals with Asian Criminal Enterprise is designated C-6. C-6 is, in fact, a task force, including members both of the
FBI
and of the
NYPD
.

CCTV
Closed Circuit Television:
utilized for surveillance.

CIRG
Critical Incident Response Group:
facilitates the FBI’s rapid response to, and the management of, crisis situations. Contains three main branches: (1) Operations Support Branch, (2) Tactical Support Branch (Hostage Rescue Team, or
HRT
, and Crisis Negotiation Unit, or
CNU
, are components of this
CIRG
branch), and (3) National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime (
BAU
is a component of this
CIRG
branch).

CNT
Crisis Negotiation Team:
the specific team members, trained by the
CNU
, and located at individual field offices, who handle crisis negotiations in their respective territories.

CNU
Crisis Negotiation Unit:
an integral part of the Operations Support Branch of
CIRG
. The
CNU
is responsible for the Crisis (Hostage) Negotiation Program, including operations, training, research, and program management.

CODIS
Combined
DNA
Index System:
allows federal, state, and local crime labs to exchange, share, and compare
DNA
profiles electronically, linking crimes to one another and to convicted offenders.

Dai Lo
“Elder Brother”:
a Cantonese term referring to the gang leader. The term is accepted by all Asian gangs, regardless of which dialect is spoken by their members.

Enhanced SWAT:
Of the fifty-six
FBI
field offices, nine have enhanced
SWAT
teams. Those enhanced teams are larger in number than the regular
SWAT
teams, and have more extensive tactical equipment. They are also the immediate backup to
HRT
(Hostage Rescue Team—the third branch of
CIRG
[the Tactical Support Branch]—which is the full-time national-level tactical team based in Quantico, Virginia).

ERT
Evidence Response Team:
special agents who collect, identify, manage, and preserve crime-scene evidence. (Note:
ERT
is the federal counterpart of [and sometimes coordinates their efforts with] local Crime Scene Investigation [CSI] Units.) There are
ERT
members in each of the FBI’s fifty-six field offices.

ICE
Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

M.E.
Medical Examiner.

NCAVC
National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crimes:
This branch of
CIRG
combines investigative and operational support functions, research, and training to assist federal, state, local, and foreign law enforcement agencies investigating unusual or repetitive violent crimes.

NSA
National Security Agency.

OPA
Office of Public Affairs:
Located at
FBI
headquarters,
OPA
is the office that supplies the media with up-to-the-minute access to breaking news, vital information, latest press releases, stories, congressional testimony and speeches, etc.

RA
Resident Agencies:
Smaller satellite branches of each field office, responsible for a portion of the field office’s territory. For example, the Newark Field Office (in New Jersey) has five RAs in its jurisdiction: Atlantic City, Franklin Township, Garret Mountain, Trenton, and Red Bank.

ROTC
Reserve Officer Training Corps:
college-based, officer commissioning program for all branches of the U.S. Armed Forces (with the exception of the Coast Guard).

RTCC
Real Time Crime Center (
NYPD
):
conducts rapid analysis of citywide crime to provide a real-time assessment of emerging crime, crime patterns, and emerging criminal suspects citywide. Originally just for homicides and shootings, now expanded to include other major crimes.

SA
Special Agent:
Trainees who complete the intensive twenty-one-week training program at the
FBI
Academy in Quantico graduate and become Special Agents.

SABT
Special Agent Bomb Technicians:
special agents who go through additional training to become specialists in finding, assessing, and disrupting incendiary and explosive devices.

SSA
Supervisory Special Agent:
Special agents who are promoted and have a managerial role in a squad or at
FBI
headquarters.

SWAT
Special Weapons and Tactics:
Special agents specifically trained in extended weaponry and tactical expertise in order to be able to intervene in high-risk events such as arrests, search warrants, barricades, and hostage situations.

Unsub
Unknown Subject:
Just as
perp
is police lingo for perpetrator,
subject or offender
is
FBI
lingo for the same. If the identity of the subject is not known, he/she is referred to as the Unsub.

VICAP
Violent Criminal Apprehension Center:
Another of the three components of
NCAVC
,
VICAP
is a nationwide data information center to collect, collate, and analyze violent crimes, particularly murder.

One final note: The fictitious artificial-intelligence software program created by Dr. Elliot Lyman in
Twisted,
along with its crime analysis capabilities, were inspired by some cutting-edge law enforcement research, the Classification System for Serial Criminal Patterns (
CSSCP
).
CSSCP
was developed by Professor Thomas Muscarello at DePaul University, working with detectives from the Chicago Police Department.

DATE:
19 March

TIME:
2100 hours

OBJECTIVE:
Athena

She was a true warrior.

Subduing her had required all my skill and training. Even the weapon hadn’t been enough to make her submit. Not like the others. Not until she’d felt the prick of the blade, sensed drops of her own blood trickling down her neck. At that point she’d quivered, then gone still. She was too smart not to. She wanted to fight. I could see it in her eyes. But she didn’t. In the end, I’d won. I injected her with the Nembutal, and in five minutes her eyes went dull and her body went limp.

I had her.

Her warm, drugged body slumped against my shoulder. It felt good. My timing and execution had been perfect. It was spring break. She wouldn’t be missed for days.

By then it would be too late.

John Jay College of Criminal Justice

New York City

March 20, 4 P.M.

The auditorium crackled with anticipation.

It was the final seminar of the two-day “Crimes Against Women: How Not to Become Another Statistic” conference. The panel of experts included Jimmy O’Donnelly, an
NYPD
detective from the Special Victims Unit; Sharon McNally, a psychologist who specialized in counseling victims of violent crimes; Dr. Charles Hewitt, a professor of statistics and mathematics right here at John Jay; Dr. Lillian Doyle, also a John Jay professor but in the sociology department; Lawrence Clark, a retired supervisory special agent from the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, a component of the NCAVC—the investigative branch of the Bureau’s Critical Incident Response Group.

And Sloane Burbank, the final name on this impressive list of experts.

All of them had spoken. Now it was her turn.

The moderator ran through Sloane’s impressive credentials, which included a year in the Manhattan D.A.’s Office before joining the
FBI
full-time, where she was trained as a crisis negotiator by the
CNU
, the operational branch of the FBI’s
CIRG
division. Currently, she was an independent consultant who worked with law enforcement, corporations, and educational institutions, training them in crisis management and resolution. She was also a certified Krav Maga instructor. And all at thirty years old.

With an admiring nod in her direction, the moderator stepped away from the mike and turned the room over to Sloane.

Amid enthusiastic applause, Sloane rose from behind the speaker table, thinking for the dozenth time how good she sounded on paper. And she
was
good—just not as good as she’d been a year ago. Then again, perception outweighed reality. She was the only one who’d know the difference.

Exuding her usual energy and self-assurance, Sloane unbuttoned her blazer and tossed it over the back of her chair. She wasn’t surprised by the skepticism she saw on some of the faces in the audience. Their reaction was nothing new. And it was something she’d used to her advantage more times than not.

Despite her impressive résumé, she was a fine-boned woman with a delicate frame and the fresh-scrubbed features of a college student. That made people doubt her abilities—enough so that many of them wrote her off.

Let them. It gave her the advantage. And having the advantage gave her power.

As Sloane knew, power came in many forms.

She pulled on her protective gloves and walked to the front of the room, dead center, with the aisle stretching before her, and the two sections of the auditorium split on either side of her.

“So far tonight, you’ve heard about coping with the aftermath of a physical attack, ways to avoid one, and some profiles of typical victims and assailants,” she began. “Every bit of what you learned is true. But there’s another truth. We can’t always control the circumstances in which we find ourselves. So what happens when you wind up in a parking lot alone at night, your car is ten rows back, and a creepy guy who’s built like a Hummer is lying in wait?”

She held out her gloved hands, palms up, to show she was unarmed, then pointed at her pocketless and holsterless black turtleneck and slacks. “I’m dressed just like you would be. No weapon. No handy object to act as one. And no purse, although if I had one, I wouldn’t have time to grab for my cell phone or, even better, for a can of pepper spray. That’s why I learned Krav Maga.”

A spark of interest flickered in the audience’s eyes—even those who’d been Doubting Thomases.

“Brief background,” she began. “Krav Maga is a whole different breed of self-defense. Its roots trace back to Czechoslovakia during the rise of Nazi terrorism. It was founded by Imi Lichtenfeld, who refined his street-fighting skills protecting his and other Jewish families from attack. Lichtenfeld later emigrated to Israel, further developed those techniques, and then taught them as chief instructor for the Israeli Defense Forces. In Hebrew,
Krav Maga
means ‘contact combat’—training designed for the unpredictable nature of street fighting. There are no rules. No trophies for good form. Only survival.”

As Sloane spoke, a brawny man wearing a ski mask crept out from behind the curtains at the front of the room, visible to the audience, but not to Sloane.