Disclaimer: Profiler and all characters belongs to NBC, Sanders/Moses Productions, Cynthia Saunders, Stephen Kronish ... Not to me. No copyright infringement intended.
Part X : A needle in a haystack
Bailey's phone rang about half an hour later. George told him Sam and John had joined him and were ready for a briefing. "Tell Grace she should come too" Bailey said. "The autopsy can wait.".
They started the meeting with Grace summarizing her first observations of the body. Then John and Sam reported what they had seen on the scene.
" He emptied your locker." Sam said to Bailey. "What could he find in it ?
- Mainly sportswear. Boxing boots and gloves. A pair of shoes ... One picture of Frances and Ariana. Same as the one on my desk.
- Where is Frances ?" John asked.
" I sent her back to Baltimore. I contacted the local bureau there and asked them to put in place a discrete surveillance."
A short silence settled in. Everyone was waiting for Bailey to talk, but none of them dared pushing him.
" I introduced Billy to Jack Byrch." he finally started. "I served in the same US Marine Corps unit as Billy during my first period in Viet Nam. This was one year before the Chuck Johnson - Tom Meroni episode. We were no real friends, merely war buddies."
" I hadn't heard of him since, until about five years ago. I saw him in the street, begging for a living. I bought him a coffee and we talked a bit. Classical story : war trauma, alcohol, jobs lost, divorce, homeless. I knew Jack was looking for someone to help him with the gym; so I brought him Billy. Jack's been in the army too. He gave Billy a chance."
" Hasn't been easy at the start. Especially with the bottle. But it was getting better lately. He was beginning to regain a little dignity. He even started going out with a woman he had met at the AAA. I met her once or twice. Her first name is Sylvia. I don't know anything else about her. He was living in a social home on Gardner avenue. Besides cleaning up the place, he also watched for the gym when Jack was out of town. Jack let him sleep there."
" There must be an ex-wife and two children somewhere in Atlanta. Must have been fifteen years since they last heard of him. George, could you get me an address ? I'd like to go there myself."
George nodded and confirmed : "I'll find it.".
" I'm sorry I scared you this morning," Bailey continued "but I went to meet an old friend of mine. He gave me a copy of my file at the CIA. He confirmed to me this is the only place where Jack could have seen a link between Tom Meroni and Bailey Malone. The name of Johnson was not in it, for I ignored his name till yesterday. This is why Jack had to go to Bourner. Billy Atkins is mentionned in the file."
" Apparently, this file is a source of inspiration to Jack. The names of the next victims are probably somewhere in these two hundred pages. I've no idea how we can find them before him, but this is the only clue we have so far. We have to find a link between Charles Johnson and Billy Atkins. I knew them at different periods of my life. To my knowledge, they never met each other.
- Chuck saved your life." Sam said. "And in a way, you saved Billy's life. We could start working in that direction.
- In a war, we all more or less save each other's life.
- But it was more personal in these two cases.
- Why should he limit his scope to Bailey's war records ?" George asked.
" This is only an assumption." Sam answered. "But Jack has organized his whole life around me. He does not see Bailey only as a rival, but most probably as a personal ennemy. He's conducting his own private war.
- In the previous Jack's cases," Bailey added " he was playing with us. He gave Sam time to look for him. Here he's acting fast, as one would do on a battle field. In a war, the key is to not let the ennemy enough time to react."
A delivery boy knocked on the door and went in carrying a couple of pizzas. John paid for the food. Everybody had stayed quite until the young man was out of the room. Nobody touched the boxes; they all waited for Bailey to continue.
" Go ahead ! Eat !" he started " Four starving agents would be of no use to me." He smiled and helped himself a slice of pizza. " Grace, once you're finished here, I want you to go back to Billy's autopsy. I don't think Jack left anything conclusive, but it's worth trying. Sam, John and myself will each go through a part of the file and make an exhaustive list of all people mentionned in there. George, we will give you lists of names. I want you to track down all of them. We won't exclude any hypothesis.
- Bailey, " George said " There could be hundreds of them. Even with a computer, it make take months before we can locate each of them !
- These are war records and those men were soldiers. Some are probably dead by now. I want you to make three initial categories : the dead, the ones still in the army, and those who have left. You can also eliminate all people currently not in United States : to our knowledge, Jack never killed abroad.
- Johnson was dead." Grace noted. " Jack could as well go for any member of the families of the people you have known.
- He could also select any body linked to Bailey's past but not in this file." Sam added. " But for the moment, that's all we've got and we don't have much choice. George, let me know when you get your first results : I'll try to refine the profiles of potential victims."
Bailey nodded. They finished their quick lunch and started to work. The afternoon went by as Bailey had planned it. After the autopsy, which did not revealed anything particularly interesting, Grace came back and gave them a hand with the file. They had all stayed in the command center, except for Bailey who had isolated himself in his office. He was calling them from time to time to give George new names and ask about the progress of the team.
It was 9 pm when they finally came to the last pages of the file. As a whole, the team had built up a list of 264 possible names. George had been able to find 94 of them, 12 of which had left the US. Sam was concentrating on the ones which had had a similar relationship with Bailey as Atkins and Johnson, i.e. which either had in a way saved Bailey's life, or which life Bailey had saved. Bailey was right : wars made these kind of situation happen more frequently ! She had come to a total of 24 so far and was expecting more to come.
Grace and John were about to start studying the 58 other cases when Bailey joined them. No need to be an FBI profiler to see he was tired and depressed. He helped himself a coffee and sit at the table next to Sam.
" Anything new ?" he asked.
" I still have 174 names to locate. " George started. " I think I could do 90% of them by tomorrow night. The problem is that some of them could be false ids, and well protected ones.
- I'll try to check them with Quantico. Sam ?
- I've been trying to limit the range vs. what George told us about Johnson and Atkins. It will take time, Bailey." Sam was trying to put as much optimism in her voice as she could, but it didn't fool Bailey.
Neither Grace nor John had anything else to add.
" OK, that's enough for one day. Everybody home now. We'll start again tomorrow morning." Bailey said. " Try not to be late !" he added with a smile.
His four colleagues stared at him with unhidden surprise. Bailey was not the kind of boss concerned with overtime, especially when Jack was involved. None of them moved.
" Come on !" Bailey said. " Disappear ! Look, we're all tired and need a break. We're not even close to having a clue. It won't do no good staying here whole night. We could even miss something important by persisting now."
Grace, John and George stood up, waved goodbye and left the room without a word. Sam let a few seconds pass.
" Are we going home ?" she asked.
" Yeah." he answered. "You want a drive ?
- Just a drive ?
Bailey made a pause before answering.
" Sam, don't take it bad ... but I don't feel much like company tonight.
- Bail ...
- I know, Sam, I know. I just need a little time alone ... a drink or two and some sleep.
- I've got a bottle back home.
- Don't worry, baby, I'll be fine.
- OK. I just hope you remember how bad I hate being over-protected !"
Bailey laughed. He lifted his hand to Sam's cheek and brought her face close to his. He first gently rubbed his lips on hers, and then gave her one of those passionate kisses she couldn't resist to. They stayed like this in each other's arms for about ten minutes. Then Bailey withdrew and looked straight in Sam's eyes.
" I remember, honey." he said. "I just want to be sure you know how bad I love protecting you."
She smiled and gave him a last kiss. They both stood up and left the FBI building holding each other's hand. They parted on the parking lot.
" See you tomorrow." Bailey said
" Don't drink too much !" she answered.
Sam went to her car and waited till Bailey had gone. Last thing she wanted was to leave him alone, but she also knew him too well to believe he would accept her help so easily. Sam knew perfectly well how it feels to see innocent people around you being killed just because a lunatic is obsessed by you. She knew the guilt that goes with it, better than anybody else. She also knew nobody could really help in such circumstances. If one man was able to handle this kind of monstruosity, it was Bailey.
She started her engine and went to join Chloe and Angel.
To be continued ... R&R, Thanks.
Absolut.
