Having come into the federal office straight from work himself, she found him strangely dressed on a workday. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt and a light blue windbreaker. His hair, a dirty blond or light brown, was barely brushed.
Then again, apparently, she was the one off-base in her pantsuit; they had saidcruise. Well, she had enough in hergo-bag for a cruise. Shorts, halter dresses, T-shirts. She just wished she had a slightly better bathing suit, but that could probably be obtained on the ship. She did love sitting high above the water at the pool of a cruise ship. Generally, she loved cruising.
But she would be “cruising” with a strange federal operative—on an even stranger case.
Coming here, she’d been given the briefest information from her own supervising agent, but she still knew so little. She had been told she’d been specifically requested for the case by the upper echelons at the federal and local level because of her knowledge of and affiliation with cruise ships in general. She’d done her own research on her would-be partner as well—he had been born with the surname and his ancestors went all the way back to the Revolutionary War. And as was often enough the case with those who entered into law enforcement, his father had been a cop.
She didn’t know much more because many of the cases he had worked on were classified as confidential.
And so...
There they were, she and the man she had just met in person, in Assistant Director Glen Alonzo’s office in Miami, learning about the strange and convoluted case they’d be working on.
Despite Alonzo’s ramblings, she knew that at the heart of his words was the genuine belief that they were being tasked with something deeply important.
It was strange. Was it even really a case? Yes, in the minds of those above their pay grades, there was definitely a case, or they wouldn’t be there. From what she was learning, when things that werethatstrangehappened, something was going on.
And it all had to do with computer systems, the internet,gaming and, of course, AI. But the world grew savvier day by day when it came to such tech, so if someone was trying to eliminate every brilliant techie they had a long, long way to go.
“The ever-human hunt for more and more,” Alonzo said. “Greed. Power. I’m not seeing any kind of personal vendetta. I’m assuming, as our best minds seem to believe, that people are dying because of what they do, not who they are. But, when you put all the puzzle pieces together, they’ve all attended the same meetings, workshops or conventions around the country at one time or another.”
“They might have met,” Wesley said. “But from what I’m hearing so far, I agree with ourbest minds. This sounds like a power play—since it is unlikely that this kind of situation could simply occur in what appears to be exactly the same way in different places.”
“There have been many ways to look at this. While there seems to be a consensus on a course of action, an opportunity to infiltrate the community, we certainly can’t guarantee that we know what is going on. The first few episodes initially went unnoticed because they occurred in different jurisdictions—in three different states—and then we were notified by a survivor who read about another death, got frustrated at the local level, and asked us to come in, and thus our current involvement as part of a task force with many agencies involved. As we started piecing the events together, we noticed that there appeared to be a pattern in which people had suddenly started committing suicide or killing others before killing themselves. While it escaped national attention at first, it beats the odds of chance. Naturally, before I spoke to the two of you and your supervising directors—and the director himself—we did the necessary deep dives and research on those involved. It’s crazy. We know why it took a while. When the suicidesstarted, it appeared to be more thanpossiblethat some of those who died were in a state of depression or had a self-perceived reason, but...”
Assistant Director Glen Alonzo stared at Chloe and Wesley, shaking his head.
“Am I making any sense yet?” Alonzo asked.
“Of course. Sadly,” Chloe said, “people do commit suicide. And I understand with the crime scenes they found, local law enforcement assumed that to be the case.”
“Well, we’re not sending you out blind—you’ve a few hours here to read everything that we’ve got. You must be on the ship by four thirty. It’s just noon now,” he added.
“Um, sir, pardon me,” Chloe said. “I’m still a little blind. I don’t know what cruise we’re going on and why you’re convinced that going on a cruise can help solve—”
He smiled at that. “And you’re right to be curious, eh? Once you’ve studied the situation, I hope you’ll understand—and that our suspicions are on the money. Though, honestly, in my younger days, I’d have jumped at the opportunity to visit a cruise ship instead of the back alley behind a crack den. And we’ve all had a few of those.”
She smiled. “Trust me, sir, I’ve nothing against cruises—” Chloe began.
“Of course not!” Alonzo said. He managed to smile. “Special Agent McMurray, I’ve naturally read your service files frontward and backward. We’re well aware you and your last partner, Agent Rodriguez, played it all out and captured the boatyard killer. You know this state and you know this city. You’ve also been on cruise ships since you were a kid.”
The man who would be her partner on the upcoming voyage was studying her.
Had he investigated her background, as well? Of course. Who wouldn’t have done so? When you were suddenlythrown on a case you knew nothing about with a partner who wasn’t even from the same agency, you did your homework.
“Nothing against a cruise,” she repeated.
“All right, then. We’ll start with the bad,” Alonzo said. He pointed across his desk to the large video screen in his office and hit keys on his computer, indicating to them that they needed to take the seats in front of his desk and watch.
They did so.
And Alonzo began, tapping keys on his computer to change the images onscreen as he spoke.
“Jesup, Georgia. Frank Adams, forty, husband and father, technician for Adler Displays. They claim to make the best screens for everything: movies, gaming, you name it. His wife found him with a shotgun between his knees and still in his mouth. No note. But the gun was between his knees. At first accepted as a suicide, case closed. A month later, Cassandra Little and her husband, Hank. Hank was shot dead. Cassandra was found with the Smith and Wesson that killed him—and her—in her hands. They were in Palatka, Florida. An obvious murder-suicide. Oh, they both worked for Brandon Solutions, another tech company, one that’s huge in cybersecurity. Third instance. Randy Templeton, Montgomery, Alabama, found in his bathtub, electrocuted, his electric shaver in the water with him. He worked for the local city government, online data. No note, but neighbors heard him and his wife argue frequently, so they thought that his wife had threatened to walk out and his depression had caught up with him. The wife, Myra Templeton, denied she’d ever said that she was leaving. She said they had fought, yes. All married couples did. She didn’t accept his death as a suicide. But the police became suspicious, through their friendly neighbors, that she might look to be as sweet as candy but have evil inside. Their suspicion—no solidclues, no proof—was that she had murdered him. Not possible. She can be seen on a security video all day at a symposium on mental health. The woman is a therapist. Now she’s the first who came to the Feds when the local police ignored her—and suspected her. She’d found references to the other events in the news. Then we have what happened in Broward County last week. A meeting of enlisted personnel and civilians who worked for the military, a party of six. Five were shot and killed and, you guessed it—as I’m sure you already saw in the news—the sixth person, a young woman named Jane Sewell, was found with her gun—a six-shooter—in her mouth. All planned out so well! And every shot straight through the heart. Was she ever in the military? No, she was a civilian working with the others. Motive? Jealous of those higher up, or was she maybe a home-grown terrorist? Her parents denied it fervently, came to us, too, and we were ready since we’d already started looking into the other odd deaths. Now, we’re pulling legal strategies and exhuming corpses, trying to determine if something had been missed in the autopsies on the deceased that might help us. As you are aware, only certain drugs are tested in such victims in a customary autopsy. Oh, yeah, one more interesting fact, the weapons involved were tested for fingerprints. None whatsoever were there except for those of the person left with the weapon. Our firearms experts say that—especially since a few of the prints appear to be backward—that the condition they were discovered in is, once again, more than ‘questionable.’”
“I can easily see why these are suspicious occurrences, and yes, it does appear that there is, beyond a doubt, something going on. Though on what level, who knows at this point,” Wesley Law said, speaking up. “But these were all on land,” Wesley said, “So—”
“Milestones,” Alonzo told them.
