Operation: A Roving Commission: Numbers on the Wall

[x-dominion.livejournal.com]

A tiny clue provides a moment of hope for the investigation.



If there was one thing that the FBI did especially well, it was interoffice communications. One of the first people hired for the nascent bureau had been a telephone switchboard operator and the trend had continued. Within thirty minutes of his email, they were sitting down in one of the conference rooms, waiting for the Kansas City Field Office to come online. After a pause, the connection was made on the other end, and a voice came on the line.

"Agent Kane? This is Agent Carlton and Agent Lee."

"Good afternoon. Thanks for taking the time to talk to us."

"Hey, if it might turn up a lead on this damn case, it's worth it."

"So nothing new has turned up?" Terry asked, leaning forward on her elbows, her arms crossed on the table top. She played with a pen, twirling it like a baton through her fingers. The question was part perfunctory, part wistful. She didn't expect it, but it'd be nice if for once, someone would hand them a ribbon wrapped clue.

"That was Agent Cassidy," Brand chimed in, rolling her eyes slightly. "I'm Agent Brand. I assume if there had been something new, you would have added to the report?"

There was a long pause on the call; obviously both agents trying to figure out just what kind of power struggle was going on. Finally, one of them got back on the call.

"We're about two weeks past the point that we can reasonably hold out hope that it's a kidnapping for profit." His voice was flat, and Kane picked up the warning signs.

"Agent Carlton? Why don't you run us through from the start?"

"Not a lot to tell. Angela Robinson, age 15, disappeared from her family home on January 10th. According to her friends at school, she had gone home during lunch to change clothes. There were no signs of a struggle, and the note left behind for her parents simply listed a time, date and location for a quarter million to be delivered. We staked out the location and the father performed the drop, but no one was there and there was no attempt to recover the money by the perpetrator."

No power struggle. They're all friends here, right? Terry shot Brand a look for the eye roll, but asked anyway, "Any indication they simply abandoned the drop? That they knew it was under surveillance?"

"Normally in that situation, the kidnapper will get in touch with the parents again, to threaten them or demand more money. In this case, we haven't heard anything." Kane had pulled up Lee and Carlton's records, and both men were very experienced in kidnapping cases. "And that's the worrisome part. If the motive is money, that's the hook to keep them on the line. They don't want the kid, they just want to get paid. Unfortunately, now we have to approach it as if they wanted Angela and the ransom is just an afterthought."

"And if they wanted the kid, it really doesn't look good for her." Brand tapped a finger against her cheek, green nails matching her lips and hair. "Just out of curiosity... had Angela shown any signs of being a mutant?"

"Naturally blue hair. Parents claimed to dye it to the neighbours, but admitted it to us. They thought at first it might have been some kind of extremist group." There was a pause. "They said that the hair was the only sign of being a mutant. She didn't have any powers that they knew of."

"So no recent unexplained incidents, strange runs of good luck? Or bad?" Terry asked, giving her pen and extra strong twirl. It flew out of her fingers, clipped the edge or the table and landed on the floor.

"Not really sure what you mean, but it's not relevant to our case if she had some kind of powers." Lee said. "The only thing that doesn't fit is that there was a call made from the house at the time of the kidnapping to an international number. But the person was on the line less than two seconds before it disconnected. Our regional director said he'd see if he could get Interpol to look into it, but even if it was a signal, we don't know how it could fit."

Brand's eyebrows rose, the SHIELD agent for once honestly curious about the information revealed. "So we both have elements in common. One of the abductees was a mutant and there was a two second call made to an international number," she summed up. "One element is a coincidence. Two's a conspiracy."
"Three is a delicious fruit basket. Thanks Agents. If we turn up anything relevant to your case, we'll pass it along." Kane said, with everyone giving the usual goodbyes before he cut the connection. "Irish, can you talk to somebody in Interpol?"

"Just wondering how they were finding out about her," Terry explained in a low voice murmur, then glanced at Kane and nodded. "Oh, I can be talking to a number of people in Interpol..." she said cryptically and stood to sneak around the table to pick her pen up.