She shot him a scowl. “Hilarious.”
“I asked him to wake you,” Buxton said. “I let you and Agent Wade catch a quick nap, but we have things to discuss before we land.”
Seated across from her next to Buxton, Wade was rubbing his eyes with the palms of his hands. After their cross-country travels with almost no downtime, the undertow of jet lag had pulled Nina down as she boarded one of the FBI’s leased Gulfstream jets at Reagan National. The Director had personally authorized a dedicated jet for their team for the duration of the investigation. From this point on, they would go to each site as a unit, conveying information to the task force back at Quantico.
Kent handed them each a steaming mug of black coffee. Nina had never been aboard a Gulfstream but, given what she’d heard about them, wasn’t surprised to see a steel carafe sitting on the polished surface of the table that extended from the side of the main cabin.
“I want to update you on the most recent findings from the task force,” Buxton began. “We compared the manifests of flights into Logan from all major airports out of San Francisco or the DC area, in case he flew back there first. There were no matching names.”
Nina took a sip, the bitter warmth of the drink seeping into her system. “So he used an alias, or he didn’t fly.”
“It’s unlikely he used ground transportation due to the short time frame between murders, but it’s possible to drive from DC to San Francisco in forty-two hours without speeding,” Buxton said.
“Driving would be almost as risky as flying,” Breck said. “A lot could go wrong on a cross-country road trip.”
Wade stretched and stifled a yawn. “An unsub with the Cipher’s character traits might consider it exciting. Might enjoy demonstrating his capability. Even if only to himself.”
“He’s confident in his abilities,” Kent said. “He might drive, but that would mean he’s either self-employed or has a job where he could be gone for four or five days in a row without drawing attention.”
Nina hadn’t given much thought to the Cipher’s career choice. Could he possibly work in a cubicle farm in a standard corporate environment? Other killers had.
“Given his computer skills, he probably has a tech job,” Nina said. “Maybe one with flexible hours where he consults online or something where he doesn’t even need an office.”
“A less structured occupation seems likely,” Buxton said. Keeping the reports moving as usual, he turned to Kent. “Did you touch base with forensics?”
“The autopsy of the DC victim is complete,” Kent said. “In layman’s terms, the unsub scrubbed the girl’s body with a chemical agent before rolling her around in the dumpster.” He spread his hands. “Basically, we have a mountain of trace materials. It’s like picking out a grain of sand on the beach. And with all that cross contamination, any evidence we get will be compromised.”
“What kind of chemical agent did he use?” Nina asked. “Was it something unusual or difficult to obtain?”
“A medical-grade detergent that sterilizes, disinfects, and destroys DNA,” Kent said.
“What kind of cleaner does that?” Nina had seen crime scene techs use luminol to locate DNA on floors mopped with straight bleach.
“One that incorporates oxygen into the mix,” Kent said. “Degrades the samples.”
“Could they identify the specific brand?” Buxton asked. “Are there a limited number of manufacturers?”
“The chemical compounds that make up the detergent are present in several brands commonly used in hospitals all over the country.” Kent sighed as he slid his black glasses off and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Can’t trace it that way.”
“Hospitals?” Nina straightened, recalling the memory jarred loose at the autopsy in San Francisco. “That instrument the unsub used to force open my mouth was like the one the ME had. Now he uses a medical-grade cleaning agent. Could the Cipher be a doctor or a surgeon?”
“A surgeon with a god complex,” Wade said. “Never heard of that before.”
Kent grinned at the sarcasm. “It would match some of the behaviors we’re seeing.”
“Let’s keep that in our back pocket,” Buxton said. “We might be able to use it to narrow our search going forward.”
“Well, he might be a doctor.” Breck, who had been typing on her laptop, abruptly stopped. “Or he might be a busboy who knows how to do a Google search. It’s not hard, look.” She swiveled her laptop around on the fold-out table attached to her seat’s armrest. A list of oxygenated chemical cleaning agents filled the screen.
“He’s obviously comfortable with computers,” Nina said. “How smart would he have to be to figure out a way to confuse forensic analysis?”
“His speech patterns indicate he’s either highly educated or well read.” Kent pushed his glasses back on. “Either way, an above-average IQ is likely.”
Wade rested his mug on the table. “That last clue tells us he’s smart. He used two forms of encryption, both of which required secondary extrapolation.”
Nina was grateful Bianca had dropped by her apartment. The girl’s T-shirt, and her substantial brain power, had been the keys to unlocking the unsub’s code. Jaime, on the other hand, would probably think twice before coming by on another pretext. Good news all around, then.
“I agree that the unsub gives the appearance of advanced intellectual ability, but Breck has a point,” Buxton said. “He could simply be adept with computers.” He turned to her. “Any updates from Video Forensics on either case?”
Breck pulled the laptop back around and tapped the keys. “We were able to follow the van he used in the DC case onto the Dulles Toll Road. He exited onto Route Twenty-Eight and kept heading west until there were no more cameras.”
“He drove me west from Alexandria to Chantilly when he’d kidnapped me,” Nina said. “In the same van or one just like it.”
Buxton opened a leather portfolio embossed with the FBI seal and made a note. “We should check the same parcel of land where he took you before, but I doubt he’d be careless enough to build a new shed there.”
“We could get satellite photos of the whole area,” Breck added. “Use the eye in the sky to spot any unauthorized structures on the property.”
“I’ll make the request,” Buxton said, still scribbling.
Breck nodded. “In the meantime, I just received a file from the task force video team. We’ve been working with visual data from both cases to create a better suspect composite.”
Nina perked up. They hadn’t had enough to even attempt a sketch before. This was the kind of information that could crack the case. She put down her coffee and listened carefully.
“We cleaned up the images of him from the alley in DC as best we could, considering the ball cap and facial hair. Nothing matches any face-rec databases, but when we superimposed the images with footage from San Francisco, we got enough definition to take a stab at a computer-generated composite.”
Nina stood. “Can I see?” She stepped into the aisle and padded toward Breck.
“What did he look like in San Francisco?” Wade asked.