The Jefferson Allegiance

Observation Room

Chapter Five

Burns paused before entering the observation room.  He pulled a worn, laminated card out of the sweatband of his fedora.  The hat—and card—had been given to him by his mother when he graduated the FBI Academy.  She’d been a fan of the old movies, when the G-Men wore fedoras and took down the bad guys with tommy-guns blazing.  He’d been slightly embarrassed then, but over the years he’d grown to love the hat and the words on the card:

I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

He squred his shoulders and slid the card back into the sweatband, and then entered the observation room behind the one-way glass.  He was surprised to see that the two detail FBI agents were gone, replaced by a short, rough-looking older man, obviously someone with more rank than a field agent.  He had a bald head, a smashed nose and ice-blue eyes.  Those eyes pierced right through Burns.

“I’m Assistant Director in Charge, Turnbull.  I’m your liaison to the National Security Council.  General LaGrange was an important person.”  Turnbull pointed at the screen of a GPS monitor.  A dot moved out of the interrogation room and down the corridor toward the elevators.  “The transmitter is broadcasting clearly,” Turnbull said.  He had an open file on the desk.

“Where are the two officers who gave me the transmitter?” Burns asked.

“I’m handling this,” Turnbull said.  “But you lead the murder investigation.”

“Then what are you handling?” Burns wanted to know.  He received no answer.  “You’re letting me take point so you don’t catch any shit.  This goes wrong, it’ll be my hit.  It goes right, you’ll grab the credit anyway.”

“There will be no credit,” Turnbull said.  “We’ve got the story under wraps.  There won’t be any news of it in the newspapers or on TV.”  He smiled without humor, putting a finger to his lips.  “This is hush-hush.”

“Right.”  

“You’re one of our top profilers from what I understand.”

“Don’t believe everything you hear.”

“I didn’t hear it,” Turnbull said.  “I just read it.”  He held up the file marked “Top Secret, For Official Use Only,” on the cover:  Burns’s personnel folder.

“How did you get that?”  Burns winced as soon as he asked the question.  An ADiC could get anyone’s file.  

Turnbull flipped up a couple of pages.  “You have a degree in psychology.  Interesting.  I suppose that helps you as a profiler.”

“At times.  Experience is the best teacher.”

“What do you make of that Thomas Jefferson, Edgar Allan Poe bullshit?” Turnbull asked.  

 “I don’t know.”

“Think we have a serial killer on our hands?”

“I doubt it,” Burns said.

“Why?”

“These murders were very controlled and efficient with no physical evidence left by the killer other than footprints in the snow.  Although the killer tortured the men, I think it was most likely a result of trying to get information from them, not for some sick pleasure, although there might have been some secondary gain.”