Play To Kill

Gino slid his eyes to look over at Magozzi. 'The Tiara Club film was way more entertaining'

    Magozzi nodded.

    Gino started fidgeting. 'Man, this is more boring than what we were doing back in the office. What do you say we break for lunch, then…'

    'Stop!' McLaren said, then pointed to the screen. 'See? Same two kids. Exact same skater punk clothes, same faces.'

    Magozzi and Gino were now breathing down McLaren's neck. 'I think Johnny's right,' Magozzi said. 'What kind of time frame are we looking at?'

    Tinker scrawled down the time stamp, then went back to the mall footage and compared them. 'About two hours apart. You might have something, Johnny.'

    Gino shrugged and pushed up the sleeves of his wrinkled white button-down. 'Or not. Could just be bored kids making the rounds. And I gotta tell you, these two don't look bright enough to tie their own shoes, let alone pull something like this off.'

    Yeah, but the same two guys at two different sites? I don't know, that's kind of a coincidence.'

    Gino blew out a breath. 'If they show up at another site, then I'll jump on board.'

    'Pull up some chairs and we'll check out some more tape.'

    Gino rolled his eyes. 'Great.'

    It took another half hour before McLaren found what he was looking for - the same two kids, loitering around the Crystal Court in the IDS building, about half an hour after they'd been filmed at the Metrodome. 'Goddamn. These could be our perps. Two kids.'

    Just like Chelsea suspected, Magozzi thought.

    Gino leaned back and rubbed his eyes. 'We've still got a problem. We didn't see them drop any boxes. So this doesn't prove anything.'

    'Yeah, but it might be enough to bring them in for questioning. If we can figure out who the hell they are.'

    'Good luck with that. How are you going to match identities with a couple faces in a city with a few hundred thousand people? We can't question them if we don't know who they are or where they live.'

    'I have an idea,' Magozzi said quietly.

    The other three detectives looked at him hopefully.

    'Do you remember that facial-recognition software Monkeewrench developed?'

    McLaren scrunched his face up for a moment, then his eyes widened. Yeah. That was the program that basically tied up the old Nazi case, right?'

    'Exactly. You input the photo of the person you want to identify and the program cross-references with images on the Web and looks for a match.'

    Gino smiled. 'And there's one thing you can count on - kids have their pictures plastered all over the Web.'

Chapter Thirty-four

    Gino spent most of the ride to Harley's on the phone with Angela. He hung up just as Magozzi turned onto Summit Avenue.

    'Everything okay at the B and B?'

    'Better than okay. There's a pool and a restaurant that has cheese curds on the menu. And here I am, fighting crime with an empty stomach and a bad donut hangover.'

    'What's the mood on the street?'

    'She said people are pretty spooked. Nobody's actually letting themselves believe the threat is credible, but so what? They're still white-knuckling it in Somerset, Wisconsin, just in case. One hell of a big power trip for our doer, or doers.'

    'Reminds you how vulnerable we all are. The price of a free society.'

    Gino nodded emphatically. 'Exactly. What a big problem that is. But, fortunately, I have a great solution - martial law for a few months with you and me in charge. Shut down the Web, beer and fresh donuts for the troops. And all our generals will drive confiscated Caddies just like this one.' He let out a miserable sigh. 'This is depressing. Do you really think kids are behind this?'

    'I don't know. What's scarier? Criminally warped kids on the rampage or real terrorists?'

    'I don't think you can split hairs when it comes to terrorism, which is what this is, plain and simple, no matter who's behind it. But at least if it's kids, there's probably nothing in any of the jars except water or something else lame, right? I mean, I'm no Chelsea Thomas, profiling goddess of the modern world, but I know how those little antisocial bastards' minds work. They go for the big bang, but they usually don't have mass slaughter on their minds.'

    'The Columbine kids had bombs, and they obviously had mass slaughter on their minds. Hell, they probably used blueprints from some terrorist website.'

    Gino scowled. 'Thanks for that. And by the way, the Web is really starting to piss me off. It's like a meet- and-greet for sociopaths all of a sudden.'

    'Access and anonymity. If you're a scumbag, it's the perfect storm. But in the end, it's the same old criminals, just a different venue.'

    'Yeah, I suppose. Too bad we're always playing catch-up and doing damage control.'

    'That's what this job is about. It's what this job has always been about. You win some, you lose some, and you do as much good as you can along the way.'

    Gino grunted. 'Christ, Leo. You're sounding like one of those scary, late-night TV inspirational speakers. And here I am, wondering what our new shrink friend would say about the kind of personality that picks a career where your chance of failure is about as good as your chance of success.'

    'She would say we're noble, gallant, right-fighters. Maybe even modern-day superheroes. She has to think that way, because she picked the same field we did.'

    'Masochism?'

    'Yep.' He pulled into Harley's driveway and parked behind the airport-rental Fed-mobile that obviously belonged to John Smith, then smiled a little when he saw Roadrunner, waiting anxiously on the front steps for them.

    'Damnit,' Gino said under his breath. 'I can't get used to seeing the skinny guy in jeans. It's just wrong.'

    Roadrunner waved as they approached, then held out his hand. 'Hey, guys. You have a disk for me?'

    Magozzi handed him a CD in a plastic sleeve and gave him an affectionate pat on the shoulder. 'Three clips of the same two kids at three of the box sites. How long do you think it's going to take?'

    Roadrunner's brow wrinkled. 'I don't know… the program is pretty bloated, out of sheer necessity. We've tweaked it a little since the last time we used it, but it could still take a while. Come on in, make yourselves at home, I want to get started on this right away.'

    Roadrunner ignored the elevator and took the stairs three at a time up to the office, while Gino headed straight for the kitchen, Magozzi on his heels. They startled John Smith, who was standing by the refrigerator, drinking a glass of orange juice. The poor man looked almost embarrassed for having been caught in the midst of a perfectly normal, human act. 'Good afternoon, Detectives.'

    Gino's eyes scanned the empty countertops in disappointment. 'Afternoon, Agent Smith.'

    'Good work with the surveillance footage. Let's hope it will help bring this situation to a quick resolution. I was informed that five of the boxes have been cleared.'

    Magozzi nodded. 'That's right. No explosives, plain glycerin in the jars.'

    'So eight more to go.'

    Gino snorted. 'Eight more that we know about. There could be another hundred out there that we just haven't found yet. Or maybe the frigging bastards are still out there planting the things, we don't know. Nobody's taking a powder on this thing. Not your guys, not ours.'

    'How is your murder investigation progressing?'