Jennie and I exchanged glances. I had no idea what she was thinking. She asked Eric, 'How many people in the car?'
'Two.'
'Was there a woman?'
'Maybe.' But after a moment, he admitted, 'Look, they were both built like men, and they moved like men. But as I said, they were masked, so the truck driver couldn't provide good descriptions. We know one man was extremely tall and lanky. Maybe six foot six or six foot seven.'
Jennie asked, 'Well… was a woman observed at any of the thefts you haven't described?'
'No. But there were no reliable witnesses to the other thefts.'
'No… witnesses.' She asked, 'What about the tall guy?'
'Just at the hijack.'
Jennie began tapping a pen on the table. 'Yet you're assuming all these people are part of the same ring, and you're assuming the female might have been present at other crimes?'
'I'm sure they're one team. And I'm sure she's part of the team. Sometimes she's involved, sometimes not.'
'Did they kill anybody?'
'They planned well enough that they didn't have to.'
Jennie leaned toward him. 'Was that deliberate?'
'I'm sure it was.'
'You're sure, Mr. Tanner? Seven times you've used that word. But, you're not… sure. You're manufacturing assumptions and guesses, and expressing them as facts. Right?'
'I-'
'Beyond the possibility of an inside source, I can't see any resemblance between the two thefts. You have witnesses to two of the crimes, yet none of the same perps were observed at both crime scenes. Correct?'
'Yes… but-'
'One crime was committed on base, employing masquerade, falsified documents, and a nonlethal weapon. The perps showed their faces and left witnesses. Have I described this accurately?'
'Yes, and I-'
'The earlier theft occurred off base. They used guns, they wore masks, and their technique was markedly less clever and less restrained. One theft showed complexity and finesse, the other was simple and coarse. One was a scam, the other your basic armed robbery.' She leaned back into her chair and exhaled a long breath. 'But maybe I'm just dense. Tell me again, what ties them together?'
Clearly, Eric had not been subjected to, nor had he anticipated, this kind of rigorous interrogation. He was becoming flustered, and it showed. He said, 'Well, I see the differences, and… as I said, those differences are-'
'Those differences are enormous. How many weapons or munitions thefts and losses occurred at Fort Hood over the past five years?'
'Well… a lot.'
'A lot?”
'It's our biggest base. Many dozens. Perhaps a hundred or so.'
'Are they all interconnected? Applying your reasoning, the intent, the location, and the desired loot were the same.'
'Look… we all know you can't-'
'That's right, Mr. Tanner-you can't. And now you're suggesting these same people-who aren't actually the same people-are working with Jason Barnes here in Washington. But how would Jason Barnes even know these people?'
'I… I don't know.'
'You don't seem to know much.' The room was completely still. General Tingle, Colonel Johnson, and the two older agents were mesmerized, watching their prize peacock getting his plumage ripped off by a pit bull.
I put a hand on Jennie's leg under the table and squeezed, a signal to back off. Jennie drew a breath. Speaking at Tanner, but clearly to me, she said, 'I hope I'm not being too harsh on you, Mr. Tanner. We're investigating the most serious case in the land. Somebody assassinated three of our highest officials, and coldly murdered thirteen others. Now they are promising to murder our President. You've suggested a link to your case. We need to know if it's worth following. Understand?'
'Sure. And I-'
'Wouldn't you agree there's a compelling difference between this. .. this team of thieves you're hypothesizing, and a trio of expertly trained killers?'
'Well, I think-'
'What you should think-what you should know-there's a threshold in every criminal mind. You're describing thieves who tailor their schemes to avoid having to kill. They have a moral or pragmatic line in the sand.'
'Crime is a stepladder, Miss Margold. Like dope-start with marijuana and eventually you're mainlining heroin.'
Clearly, Jennie did not appreciate this lecture on criminology, and replied, 'Boy… I sure wish I had your intuitive insights before I taught criminal motivation at Quantico for five years.' She looked at me. Turning back to Eric, she said, 'There has to be something you're withholding. Right?'
Eric's face was slightly pink. He was twisting his wedding band around his finger, I thought metaphorically, wishing he was wringing Jennie's neck. 'No… unless you want to hear about the other thefts.'
'I…' She looked at her watch and shook her head dismissively. 'We don't really have time for that.'
Jennie had made her point, but she had been really rough on the poor guy. He kept glancing at General Tingle, probably wondering if he still had a job. Actually, I felt sorry for Eric Tanner.
In a moment of uncharacteristic generosity, I turned to General Tingle and asked, 'Earlier you asked me to hold that thought. What thought?'
He'd been so preoccupied watching Eric being bent over and Roto-Rooted that he needed a moment to come to his senses. 'What? Oh, yes… right. I was going to say, when you raised the issue of an insider, Eric and the CID detachment at Fort Hood went through a painstaking process to try to pinpoint that source.'
I nodded at Eric. It wouldn't hurt to get a few points back on the board, and I said, 'Tell me about that.'
Eric cleared his throat and recovered a little of his cockiness.
'Well, our people considered a number of variables. Soldiers are reassigned every two or three years, so we're sure- uh… we think we're dealing with a civilian employee, somebody with access to range control data, logistics information, information on MP security procedures, and certain other command information.'
'Sounds reasonable.'
'We narrowed it down to five civilian suspects.'
'That's a workable number.'
'Yeah, but that's when we hit a brick wall. They all looked good, and they all had discounting factors. So we sent this list to the Behavioral Science Unit, and we asked them to have a profiler assess our suspects and determine our most likely candidates.'
Sounded like a smart move to me, but Jennie mumbled, 'Good luck.'
The general looked a little surprised. 'What do you mean?'
'I mean, the BSU is up to its ass in serial killers, serial arsonists, serial rapists, and, these days, serial snipers.' She turned to Eric and asked, 'Have you gotten a response yet?'
'No.'
'And you probably won't. Ever,' Jennie informed him. 'The BSU gets perhaps ten thousand requests a year, from the rest of the FBI, from every local and city police department in the country, and, these days, from police forces around the world who've heard of the unit and its unique abilities. The unit's very small and notoriously overworked. Your case is too vague and too trivial to merit their attention. It's probably near the bottom of the
