'How hard is it to put your hands on an M110?' I recognized Jim Heekin's voice from the Directorate of Intelligence.
'They're made in only one place,' Steedman told us. 'Knight's Armament Company in Titusville, Florida.'
I'd already been tracking this, so I spoke up here.
'So far, all of Knight's stock is accounted for,' I said. 'But once these systems hit the field, mostly in Iraq and Afghanistan, they can and do go missing. Souvenirs from the war, that kind of thing. So they're pretty much impossible to trace.'
'Detective Cross, this is Captain Oliverez at Capitol Police. Didn't your report say the fingerprints you found on Eighteenth Street were nonmilitary?'
'Yes,' I said. 'But we're not ready to rule out a military connection, in terms of how the weapon might have been procured and how it's been used. In fact, that brings up another point.' I'd been sitting on this one for half a day, but really it made no sense not to share it with the group now.
'Let me stress something here,' I said. 'I want to keep this out of the press until we have some kind of proof either way. I know it's like herding cats – there's a lot of us on this call – but I'm counting on your discretion across the board here.'
'Whatever happens in Vegas…,' someone joked, and there were a few soft laughs.
'The point is this,' I said. 'All of these systems we're talking about are crew-served weapons. The military model is one shooter and one spotter in the field.' I could hear people on the line mumbling to one another in their various conference rooms. 'So you can see where I'm going here. It could be shades of two thousand two all over again. We're probably not looking for a single shooter anymore. Most likely, we're looking for a two-man team.'
Chapter 30
AS SAMPSON AND I came out of the conference room, we found Joyce Catalone from our Communications Office standing outside the door.
'I was just going to pull you out,' she said. 'I'm glad I didn't have to.'
I looked at my watch – four forty-five. That meant at least three dozen reporters were downstairs, waiting to grill me for their five and six o'clock news cycles. Damn it – it was time to feed the beast.
Joyce and Sampson walked down with me. We took the stairs so she could run through a few things for me to consider on the way.
'Keisha Samuels from the Post wants to do a profile for the Sunday magazine.'
'No,' I told her. 'I like Keisha, she's smart and she's fair, but it's too early for that kind of in-depth piece.'
'And I've got CNN and MSNBC both ready to give this thing thirty minutes in prime time, if you're ready to sit down.'
'Joyce, I'm not doing any special coverage until we have something we want to get out there. I wish to hell that we did.'
'No prob,' she said, 'but don't come crying to me when you want some coverage and they've moved on to something else.' Joyce was an old hand in the department and the unofficial mother hen of Investigative Services.
'I never cry,' I said.
'Except when I get you on the ropes,' Sampson said, and threw a punch my way.
'That's your breath – not your punches,' I told him.
We'd reached the ground floor, and Joyce stopped with her hand on the door. 'Excuse me, Beavis? Butt-Head? We ready to focus, here?' She was also excellent at her job and great to have as backup at these daily press briefings, which could get kind of hectic.
Did I say 'kind of'? A buzzing swarm of reporters came at us the second we hit the front steps of the Daly Building.
'Alex! What can you tell us about Woodley Park?'
'Detective Cross, over here!'
'Is there truth to the rumors -'
'People!' Joyce shouted over the group. Her volume was the stuff of legend around the office. 'Let the man make his statement first! Please.'
I quickly ran down the facts of the last twenty-four hours and said what I could about the Bureau's ballistics report without going into too much detail. After that, it was back to the free-for-all.
Channel 4 got in first. I recognized the microphone but not the reporter, who looked about twelve years old to me. 'Alex, do you have any message for the sniper? Anything you want him to know?'
For the first time, something like quiet broke out on the steps. Everybody wanted to hear my answer to that one.
'We'd welcome contact of any kind from whoever is responsible for these shootings,' I said into the cameras. 'You know where to find us.'
It wasn't a great sound bite, and it wasn't badass or anything else that some people out there might have wanted me to say. But within the investigation, we were all in agreement: there would be no goading, no lines in the sand, and no public characterizing of the killer – or killers – until we knew more about who we were dealing with, here.
'Next question. James!' Joyce called out, just to keep things focused and moving along.
It was James Dowd, one of the national NBC correspondents. He had a thick pad of notes in his hand, which he worked off of as he spoke.
'Detective Cross, is there any truth to the rumors about a blue Buick Skylark with New York plates – or a dark- colored, rusted-out Suburban – near the scene in Woodley Park? And can you tell us if either of those vehicles has been traced back to the killer?'
I was pissed and taken off guard all at once. The problem was, Dowd was good.
The truth was, I had an old friend – Jerome Thurman from First District – quietly following up on both of those leads from the night of the Dlouhy murder. So far, all we had was a mile-long list of matching vehicles from the DMV, and no proof that any of them were connected in any way to the shootings.
But more than that, we had a strong desire to keep this information under wraps. Obviously someone had spoken to the press, which was ironic given my lecture about discretion on the FIG call just a few minutes ago.
I gave the only answer I could. 'I have no comment on that at this time.' It was like dangling a steak in front of a pack of wild dogs. The whole mass of them pressed in even closer.
'People!' Joyce tried again. 'One at a time. You know how this works!'
It was a losing battle, though. I threw out at least four more 'no comments' and stonewalled until someone finally changed the subject. But the damage was already done. If either of those vehicles did in fact belong to the snipers, they now had full warning, and we'd just lost an important advantage.
It was our first major leak of the investigation, but something told me it wasn't going to be our last.
Chapter 31
LISA GIAMETTI LOOKED at her watch for maybe the tenth time. She was going to wait five more minutes and then take off. It was just amazing, the way some people didn't think twice about wasting your time in this business.
Four and a half minutes into the five she'd allowed, a dark-blue BMW pulled up and double-parked in front of the house. Better late than never anyway. Nice car.
She checked her teeth in the rearview mirror, ran a hand through her short auburn hair, and got out to meet the client.
