"Do you know much about computers, Sherlock?" Just Sherlock, no agent in front of it. It sounded fine to her. He was looking at her expectantly. She hated to disappoint him, but there was no choice.
"Not all that much, sir, just enough so I can write reports and hook into the databases I will need to do my job."
To her unspeakable relief, he smiled. "Good, I wouldn't want any real competition in my own unit. I hear you had wanted to be a Profiler, but ultimately felt you couldn't deal with the atrocities that flood the unit every moment of every day and well into the night."
"That's right. How did you know that? I just left Mr. Petty less than fifteen minutes ago."
"No telepathy." He pointed to the phone. "It comes in handy, though I much prefer e-mail. I agree with you, actually. I couldn't do it either. The burnout rate for Profilers is pretty high, as I'm sure you've heard. Since they spend so much time focusing on the worst in humanity, they wind up having a difficult time relating to regular folks. They lose perspective on normal life. They don't know their kids. Their marriages go under."
She sat forward a bit in her seat, smoothing her navy blue skirt as she said, "I spent a week with them. I know I saw only a small part of what they do. That's when I knew I didn't have what it took. I felt as if I'd failed."
"What any endeavor takes, Sherlock, is a whole lot of different talents. Just because you don't end up profiling doesn't mean you've failed. Actually, I think what we do leaves us more on the normal side of things than not.
"Now, I asked to have you assigned to me because academically you appear to have what I need. Your academic credentials are impressive. I did wonder, though. Why did you take off a year between your sophomore and junior years of college?''
"I was sick. Mononucleosis."
"Okay, yes, here's an entry about that. I don't know why I missed it." She watched him flip through more pages. He hadn't missed it. She couldn't imagine that he'd ever miss a thing. She would have to be careful around him. He read quickly. He frowned once. He looked up at her. "I didn't think mono took a person out for a whole year."
"I don't know about that. I just wasn't worth much for about nine or ten months, run-down, really tired."
He looked down at a page of paper that was faceup on his desktop. "You just turned twenty-seven, I see, and you came directly to the Bureau after completing your Master's degree."
"Yes."
"This is your first job."
"Yes." She knew he wanted more from her in the way of answers, but she wasn't about to comply. Direct question, direct answer; that's all she'd give him. She'd heard about his reputation. He wasn't only smart; he was very good at reading people. She didn't want him reading anything about her that she didn't want read. She was very used to being careful. She wouldn't stop now. She couldn't afford to.
He was frowning at her. He tossed her file onto the desktop. She was wearing a no-nonsense dark blue business suit with a white blouse. Her hair, a deep auburn color, was pulled severely back, held at the base of her neck with a gold clamp.
He saw her for a moment after he'd butted her into the petunias in Hogan's Alley. Her hair had been drawn back then. She was on the point of being too thin, her cheekbones too prominent. But she'd taken him, not lost her composure, her training. He said, "Do you know what this unit does, Sherlock?"
"Mr. Petty said that when a criminal took his show on the road, we're many times called in by the local police to help catch him."
"Yes. We don't deal in kidnappings. Other folk do that brilliantly. No, primarily we stick to the kinds of monsters who don't stop killing until we stop them. Also, like the ISU, we do deal with local agencies who think an outside eye just might see something they missed on a local crime. Usually homicide." He paused and sat back, just looking at her, seeing her yet again on her back in the petunia bed. "Also, like the ISU, we only go in when we're asked. It's our job to be very mental, intuitive, objective. We don't do profiling like the ISU. We're computer-based. We use special programs to help us look at crimes from many different angles. The programs correlate all the data from two or more crimes that seem to have been committed by the same person in order to bring everything possibly relevant, possibly important, into focus. We call the main program the PAP, the Predictive Analogue Program."
"You wrote the programs, didn't you, sir? And that's why you're the head of the unit?"
He grinned at her. "Yeah. I'd been working on prototypes a long time before the unit got started. I like catching the guys who prey on society and, truth be told, the computer, as far as I'm concerned, is the best tool to take them out. But that's all it is, Sherlock, a tool. It can turn up patterns, weird correlations, but we have to put the data in there in order to get the patterns. Then of course we have to see the patterns and read them correctly. It comes down to how we look at the possible outcomes and alternatives the computer gives us; it's how we decide what data we plug into it. You'll see that PAP has an amazing number of protocols. One of my people will teach you the program. With luck, your academic background in forensics and psychology will enable you to come up with more parameters, more protocols, more ways of sniffing out pertinent data and correlating information to look at crimes in different ways, all with the goal of catching the criminals."
She wanted to sign on the dotted line right that minute. She wanted to learn everything in the next five minutes. She wanted, most of all, to ask him when she could have access to everything he did. She managed to keep her mouth shut.
"We do a lot of traveling, Sherlock, often at a moment's notice. It's gotten heavier as more and more cops hear about us and want to see what our analysis has to offer. What kind of home life do you have? I see you're not married, but do you have a boyfriend? Someone you are used to spending time with?"
"No."
He felt as if he were trying to open a can with his fingernails. "Would you like to have your lawyer present?" .
She blinked at that. "I don't understand, sir."
"You are short on words, Sherlock. I was being facetious."
"I'm sorry if you don't think I'm talking enough, sir."
He wanted to tell her she'd talk all he wanted her to soon enough. He was good. Actually, he was better with a computer, but he could also loosen a tongue with the best of them in the Bureau. But for now he'd play it her way. Nothing but the facts. He said, "You don't live with anyone?"
"No, sir."
"Where do you live, Agent Sherlock?"
"Nowhere at the moment, sir. I thought I was being assigned to Los Angeles. Since I'll be staying in Washington I'll have to find an apartment."
Three sentences. She was getting positively chatty.
"We'll be able to help you on that. Do you have stuff in storage?''
"Not much, sir."
There was a faint beep. "Just a moment," Savich said and looked at the computer screen on his laptop. He rubbed his jaw as he read. Then he typed quickly, looked at the screen, tapped his fingertips on the desktop, then nodded. He looked up at her. He was grinning like a maniac. "E-mail. Finally, finally, we're going to have a chance to catch the Toaster."
4
SAVICH LOOKED AS IF HE wanted to jump on his desk and dance. He couldn't stop grinning and rubbing his hands together.
"The Toaster, sir?"
"Oh yes. On this one, I had feelers out with everyone. Excuse me, Agent Sherlock." He lifted the receiver on his phone and began to punch in numbers. He put it down and cursed softly. "I forgot. Ellis's wife is having their baby; she just went into the hospital an hour ago and so he's not available. No, I won't ask him. He'll insist on coming, but he needs to be with his wife. It's their first kid. But he's going to be really pissed to miss this. No, I just can't. He's gotta be there." He looked down at his hands a moment, then back up at her. He looked just a bit worried. "What do you think of trial by fire?''