Chapter 3
"MISSING?! WHAT DO YOU MEAN MISSING? HOW CAN SOMEONE UNDER 24 HOUR SUPERVISION GO MISSING?"
"I'll explain when you get here"
Jane got dressed as quickly as humanly possible, grabbed her ID and gun and ran to the residence from her dorm on the other side of the building
She immediately grabbed Frost by the collar and pushed him against the wall
"How could you let this happen? What were you doing? How did she go missing?" she hissed at him
"Jane, it wasn't anyone's fault. It was a well thought out plan"
"How the FUCK did we not know about this? This is LITERALLY our jobs" she said raising her voice "We are supposed to MONITOR any THREATS against the PRESIDENT and his FAMILY" her voice getting louder again
"RIZZOLI, GET OVER HERE. NOW" her boss yelled at her
She let go of Frost and walked over to where her boss was standing
"This wasn't his fault, this was a serious breach of our systems. We didn't know about it, because our algorithms didn't pick anything up about Ms Isles"
"Doctor"
"Excuse me"
"Doctor Isles. She has a professional title Sir"
He narrowed his eyes are her and was about to say something, when one of the computer techs they were standing by spoke
"I'll run the algorithms again for any mention of a doctor, or medical code names"
"If it helps" Jane interjected "She was an ME in Boston before she came here"
"I'll add that in too, thank you Agent Rizzoli"
"How did this happen Sir?" Jane asked her boss
He sighed
"Frost noticed the camera's were playing 5 minutes off feed on a loop. It's not noticeable unless you are looking at the time codes. He got permission to reset the cameras, however, once he reset it it took the whole camera system down for 3 minutes. At the same time, someone had got into our communication system and alerted the perimeter agents to a possible intruder on the lawn."
Jane looked dumbstruck "How did this happen?"
"We're trying to find out. These guys were smart, they knew about our protocol, about how the perimeter agents would change their formation when there was a suspected intruder"
Jane nodded. She knew exactly what happened. She had been subjected to weekly drills during her training.
"Whoever did this was good. They were in and out in less than 8 minutes"
"It's got to be in an inside job?"
"Maybe, or a failed recruit"
"They would have needed help Sir, we don't show systems until they land a placement on site"
"True. I need you to look into all former employees - Retired or otherwise, all failed probies and anyone that didn't make the cut"
"Yes Sir"
"Speak to one of the techs, they'll get you names" and with that he walked off, leaving Jane alone with the tech.
"We've already pulled up a list for you. Records have been informed you'll need their files"
"Thanks…"
"Keith"
"Thanks Keith" she smiled.
He handed her a list and off she went
8 hours later she had been through all through all the files and was no closer to having any leads, nothing stood out. She rubbed her eyes and decided to go get some food.
No sooner had she reached the break room, Keith ran in panting
"Agent Rizzoli, I've been looking for you everywhere"
"What's up, have you found something"
"I'm not too sure, possibly. Follow me"
She grabbed some communal fruit and followed him out the door. He pulled her over a chair to sit on.
"Here is all the chatter from the last year, several threats to the former President that came to nothing, a few to our new President that also came to nothing when investigated. Now if you look here" He pointed to a sequence on his screen "It looked like nothing, gibberish if you will, when the algorithm seen it, so it wasn't picked up."
"Queen of Dead"
"Yes, the chatter on this particular subject started the day of her first solo public appearance"
"Have we got anything else?"
"Yes" He smiled
Just as he said this, Frost came around the corner with a bunch of sandwiches for everyone
"Hey Jane"
"Hey Frost, I'm sorry about earlier"
He waved his hand
"Its ok, it happened on my watch."
"I know but…"
"It's fine, I probably would have done the same if the roles were reversed"
She smiled at him, and gratefully accepted a sandwich from him
"You're just in time"
"Oh?"
"Keith here is about to show us what he's found"
Frost beamed and pulled up a chair
Keith entered some commands on his keyboard and brought up some information on the big screen in front of him.
"Here is a private message board, it's hard to find unless you know what you're looking for. Most of the posts are nothing more than people letting off steam and making idol threats to politicians. 99% of the time it we find nothing after we investigate but every now and again we find something more"
Jane and Frost stared intently at the screen, scanning the messages and posts waiting for something to show up
"Anyway, this post was made on the same day she opened up the health clinic here in DC"
He brought up a post that simply read
The Queen of the Dead will pay for what's she done
Jane and Frost looked at each other then back at Keith
"Someone then commented under that post to ask who this was. Rather than posting it in the thread, he replied via a private message… Here"
He brought up another window that showed up the private message
Foxglove's spawn
Frost and Jane looked at Keith confused as to how this was relevant
"Foxglove was supposed to be President Isles Secret Service code name"
"OOOOOHHHH" They chorused
"It wasn't picked up because he never used that one in the end, he went with Bulldog. It's not very often a president or presidential candidate changes their code name. Last one that did that was Bush Senior"
"Do you have the footage from the event? Maybe something happened we didn't see?"
Keith brought up the TV footage from the opening and pressed play. They watched intently, looking for anything out of the ordinary. They played it through several times, not noticing anything unusual
Jane smiled to herself when she saw the way Maura put her arm around her when she had stepped back after cutting the ribbon.
Frost spoke, and brought her out of her daydream
"Did you ping the IP address"
"Yes, all messages were sent from an internet cafe in Boston"
"As if they still exist" Jane added
"You'd be surprised agent Rizzoli, there are 17 internet cafe's in the centre of DC alone."
she signed
"Are these messaged timestamped? Does the cafe have CCTV? Have we requested a copy of it?
"We're working on it, but the most recent messages were sent from a public WIFI system here in DC."
"I bet you're going to tell me that looking for the person sending those messages on that WiFi is impossible"
"I wouldn't say impossible, I'd say needle in a haystack"
"So impossible"
"I don't like the phrase impossible Agent Rizzoli, but our best bet is to get the CCTV footage from the cafe and run it against facial recognition on the CCTV from the area that WiFi services"
"Ok, how long until we get it?" Frost asked
"We have one of our agents heading over now" Keith answered
"Ok. I need some coffee" Frost said rubbing his
"Have you slept yet?" Jane asked him
"The President's daughter is missing"
Jane took that as a no
"Get some rest. We've have to wait for the footage coming in, then for it to be run through facial rec before we can even do anything"
"I'll sleep if you do" He said
Jane looked at her watch. It was 2pm. She had only had 3 hours sleep in 24
"Fine. Keith, are you going to be working on this?"
"Yes Agent Rizzoli, I'll let you know as soon as we get something"
"Thank you" She smiled at him.
Frost and Jane both left to get some sleep
Jane was awoken by a phone call a few hours later
"Rizzoli"
"Agent Rizzoli, It's Keith. We've got the CCTV footage and are just about to run it through facial recognition."
"Thank you, I'll be right over"
She got dressed, called Frost and they both headed over.
"Good afternoon Agents" Keith greeted them
"Can we see the footage please?" Frost asked
"Sure thing"
He made a few clicks and brought it up
"This is 15 minutes before, and 15 minutes after the message was posted"
He pressed play on the footage, and they watched it. Jane saw a familiar presence walk into the cafe, and head for the counter. The Lady pointed him to an empty computer chair. They watched him move towards the computer and sit down. He looked around the room until he found what he was looking
And he looked straight into the security camera. Jane's blood ran cold.
Charles Hoyt