Both men were furious about their failure to kill the pair, and it was fortunate indeed for Milton Farb that he wasn’t at home right now.
The two men pulled out their flashlights and started searching. Farb’s place wasn’t that large, but it was filled with books and expensive computer and video equipment for his Web design business. Also located there was the one thing Reinke and Peters hadn’t counted on: a wireless infrared surveillance system that looked like overhead track lighting. Located in each room, it was now recording their movements, and had also sounded a silent alarm to a security firm that Milton had hired because of several previous burglaries. The system ran off a regular household outlet with a battery backup. He’d stopped using a loud alarm because in his neighborhood the police took their time coming and the alerted thieves had always been long gone before their arrival.
As the pair searched the house, their amazement grew with each new discovery.
“This guy’s a freaking nutcase,” Peters said as they explored the kitchen. The canned goods in the pantry were all neatly labeled and placed in excruciatingly precise order. The utensils hung from a rack on the wall arranged from largest to smallest. The pots and pans were organized the same way on a large rack over the stove. Even the oven mitts were lined up with precision, as were all the dishes in the cupboards. The place was a monument to fastidiousness of the most zealous kind.
When they went upstairs and poked around Milton’s bedroom and closet area, it was more of the same.
Reinke came out of the master bathroom shaking his head. “You’re not going to believe this. This bozo has torn off each sheet of the toilet paper and stacked them in a wicker box beside the toilet with instructions on disposal. I mean what do you do with toilet paper except flush it!”
In the bedroom closet Peters said, “Yeah, well, come in here and tell me who puts their socks on hangers?”
A moment later they were both staring at the socks and the tri-folded underwear and shirts that all hung on wooden hangers in precise order, with the shirts fully buttoned, including the cuffs. And they were organized by season. The men weren’t guessing at this, as Milton had helpfully posted pictures depicting winter, summer, spring and fall.
Finding nothing useful in the master bedroom, the two NIC men slipped into the other room upstairs that had been fitted out as an office. They both were immediately drawn to Milton’s desk, where every item there was laid at right angles to its neighbor.
And finally in this house of perfect order they found something that they could actually use. It was in a box marked “Receipts,” on a shelf behind Milton’s desk, and the receipts, they quickly determined, were divided by both month and product. From the box, Reinke plucked out a credit card slip that had a name on it.
“Chastity Hayes,” Reinke read. “Want to bet that’s his girlfriend?”
“If a guy like that can have a girlfriend.”
Each probably thinking the same thing, they shone their lights on the wall of Milton’s office. The pictures there were arranged in a very elaborate configuration that Peters recognized first. “It’s a double helix. DNA. This guy is a total freak.”
Reinke’s light flickered across one picture and then came back to it.
“Love, Chastity,” Reinke read at the bottom of the picture, which showed Chastity in a revealing bathing suit and blowing a kiss to the photographer, presumably Milton.
“That’s his girlfriend?” a stunned Reinke said as he eyed a picture of Milton next to the one with Chastity in her bikini. “How the hell does a geek like that get a chick like that?”
“Nurturing instinct,” Peters answered promptly. “Some women love to play mother.”
Peters pulled out an electronic device that looked like a larger version of a BlackBerry and typed in the name Chastity Hayes. A minute later three possibilities came up. Restricting his search to the Washington, D.C., area, Peters found Chastity Hayes, accountant and the owner of a house in Chevy Chase, Maryland. In addition it revealed her educational, medical, employment and financial history. As Peters ran his gaze down the info pouring over his tiny screen, Reinke pointed a finger at one line. “She was in a psych hospital for a while. I bet you she’s OCD like Farb.”
“At least we know where she lives. And if Farb isn’t here”—Peters glanced once more at the photo of the lovely Chastity—“chances are he’s there. Because that’s where I’d be sleeping if I were him.”
The noise in the back of the house froze them both. They were footsteps. And then they heard a groan and a thudding sound.
They pulled their guns and moved in the direction of those noises.
When they reached the kitchen, they saw it. The man was on the floor, unconscious. They both started when they saw the uniform.
“Rental cop,” Reinke said finally. “We must’ve tripped some alarm.”
“Yeah, but who the hell knocked him out?”
They looked around nervously.
“Let’s get out of here,” Reinke whispered.
They slipped out the back of the house and soon reached their car a block over.
“Do we hit the chick tonight?” Peters asked.
“No, you don’t,” a voice said causing both of them to jump.
They turned and saw Tom Hemingway rising from the backseat. He did not look very happy.
“You’ve had a singularly unproductive night,” he began ominously.
he wanted: number 10.
He unlocked it and drew out the contents, sat down and spread the materials out on a desk kept in the vault.
The file he was perusing was officially marked “J.C.” Those two initials could stand for many things, including Jesus Christ. However, they didn’t refer to the Son of God, but were simply the initials of a remarkable flesh-and-blood man named John Carr.
As Gray read through the exploits of Carr’s career at the CIA, his head continued to shake in absolute amazement at what the man had accomplished. And survived! Although it could be argued that the world was a more dangerous place now, it was not appreciably more perilous currently than when John Carr worked for the Agency.
As Gray came to the last pages of John Carr’s career at Langley, it ended, the way it had meant to end, with burial at Arlington Cemetery with full military honors, although John Carr had not technically worked for the army for years and had not died in a uniform. After that, his entire past had been wiped clean from every record in the United States. Gray had seen to that personally based on orders from the highest level at the CIA.