The Monster Hunter Ch. 11-20

"We have no probable cause to get warrants," their Justice Department representative said. "I can't go to a judge because they are related to a victim, not without something else tying them to the killer."

"I know," Angel replied. "We'll continue to work it down until told to do something else. It sounded good in theory, but the number of people involved makes this method less attractive without additional data. Right now, it's a wide net in a small pond."

"Is there anyone in there who stands out? Someone who made threats, promised revenge, anything like that?"

"A dozen or so expressed a desire to pay him back with violence, but nothing outside of what I would call a normal reaction to your child being raped or abused. We've added notes to the spreadsheet where we've found it."

Dan nodded at that. "When you've completed the list, go back, and focus on those people. Work with Justice to see if we can put together cause to subpoena phone records or emails."

"Yes, sir," Angel said.

Brian was next. "We identified three potential baits in Federal custody who might meet our needs. All three were convicted child molesters or traffickers, and all were within two years of release. Two of the three rejected the idea out of hand, saying they were safer in Federal prison than out in the world with the Monster Hunter around. One of them even said he was considering pleading to an additional crime so he could stay safe where he was."

Angel rolled her eyes. "Tell me again why we're after this guy? He's solving crimes with his reputation alone," she mumbled to Mark.

Her partner looked at her. "Don't say that too loud," he replied.

"Something to add, Agent Prentice?" Their boss didn't look happy. "If you have a question, ask it, but no side conversations."

"Yes, sir. Why did you limit the pool to only those two years from the end of the sentence? Why not someone recently convicted? There would be a lot more press coverage of that."

"Primarily because the person would be a flight risk. The AUSA thought it was better to have someone who had already served time in the event things go south," Brian replied. "The third guy wants a lot to take on the risk; he wants us to vacate his conviction and sentence, so he stays free and doesn't have to register as a sex offender. His lawyer doesn't care if we 'discover' a problem with his case, or he gets a Presidential pardon, as long as the conviction goes away."

"What did he do?"

"Abducted and raped a girl when he was seventeen, and she was ten," Brian replied. "The victim couldn't identify him, but a witness got a license plate. He took her from Ohio to his home in Pennsylvania, so it became a Federal case. The search warrant found her underwear, with his DNA on them, in his closet. He worked a plea deal and has served thirteen years of a fifteen-year sentence."

"The President won't even consider a pardon, not for that," our Justice Department representative said. "We're working on a plan to find a problem with the original search warrant that his lawyer can use to overturn the conviction. Without the physical evidence, we don't have enough to charge him, and he goes free. It's the most realistic play, but it makes the FBI's crime lab look bad. It's not going to happen without the Director's express approval."

"How long until the bait would be in place?"

"Six to ten weeks from whenever the plan is signed off by all involved," Brian replied.

"Keep working it in parallel, Brian. I nervous about using a civilian to draw in a killer, but we don't have much else to go on."

"I understand, sir."

Brian sat down, and the boss called Ken forward to brief us on his progress. "Our group was looking for unsolved murders involving convicted or suspected child molesters from six to ten years ago. We found three potential cases. Two we're still looking into, but one is an active homicide investigation as of two hours ago." He put a photograph up on the screen, showing a bearded white male in his forties.

"Excuse me," Angel said as her lunch fought to come back up. She ran out of the room and to the bathroom, arriving just in time.

Ken continued after the door closed. "The death of William Clay Burroughs was initially ruled accidental. Firefighters limited the spread of the fire to the bedroom. The arson investigator blamed it on him falling asleep while smoking. Death was by smoke inhalation."

"Why did it get reclassified?"

"I spoke with the Medical Examiner who did the autopsy, and the detective assigned to the fire investigation. The coroner knew the cause of death was right, but one thing was missing. In almost all cases where a person dies in a fire, they are too drunk or stoned to wake up and move when the fire reaches their body. The toxicology screen didn't show drugs or alcohol."

"Why did he sign off the death as accidental?"

"By then, investigators had located a few dozen pictures he'd kept in his closet. It was some sick stuff; kids as young as toddlers, bondage, and worse. A few of them even showed him participating. The cops shifted their investigation away from his death, and the coroner had a backlog. He didn't push for additional testing. My questioning raised those suspicions again, and the family agreed to have his body exhumed. The second autopsy showed the presence of pancuronium bromide, but not at a lethal concentration."

"What is pancuronium bromide?"

"It's a synthetic, aminosteroid-based muscle relaxant used in euthanasia, and as the second chemical for the cocktail used in lethal injections. The drug at this concentration would prevent voluntary muscle use while not blocking pain receptors or affecting mental function. Someone injected him with enough of the drug that he was unable to move, speak, or protect himself. He died wide awake, fully aware of everything that was going on. The Medical Examiner said he must have felt every lick of the flame while he laid there on the bed, helpless and unable to scream."

"Jesus." Supervisory Special Agent Robinson leaned forward and put his head on the table. "When was this?"

"December 28^th, 2011, in Terre Haute, Indiana," Ken replied. While he spoke, Angel came back into the room. She was pale and didn't look well as she took her spot next to her partner.

"Any signs of torture? Evidence that would tie him to the Monster Hunter?"

"Not enough to definitively say he was the first victim just yet. We're still pulling strings with the photographs and evidence we've gotten from the case."

The boss nodded. "Get the information on the victims to Angel's group so they can add relatives to their spreadsheet."

"I'll get them what I have so far. We've only identified a couple of Burrough's victims so far." He looked over at Angel. "I'd like to speak to you and Angel after the meeting."

"Anything else, people?" No one spoke up. "No one says anything about Burrough until we've conclusively included or excluded him from the Monster Hunter's victims. Get back to work." Everyone got up to leave, including Angel. "Special Agent Johnson, sit down," he told her. He waited for everyone else to leave the room, then had Ken close the door.

"Are you all right, Special Agent Johnson? You ran out of here like you were sick," her boss said.

"I'll be fine, sir," Angel replied.

"Angel, you have to tell him, or I will," Ken said softly.

"I can't," she said as tears started to flow.

"Show me what?"

Ken opened a folder and handed over a copy of a photograph. It showed a girl, maybe four years old, with pale skin and brown hair, as William Burroughs raped her from behind. Angel put her head down on the table, unable to look at the picture a second time. "The girl in this photo was freed in a raid when she was six. Her name was Angel Glennon, no living relatives. She went into foster care in Wisconsin until records stopped a year later."

"I was adopted," Angel said without looking up.

Her boss looked at the photo, then over at his agent. "Fuck."

Ch. 19

Supervisory Special Agent Dan Robinson knew he had a problem, but he didn't know yet just how big it was. "That's you in the photo," he said softly.

Special Agent Angel Johnson raised her head and looked over at Ken. "No one was supposed to know," she said as her voice broke. "I was a little girl. He HURT ME!" Angel slid to the floor, curling up under the table in the fetal position as she cried.

Ken and Dan were shocked by her reaction. "Ken, go out and tell Mark to get in here. Don't say a fucking word to anyone else about what you know. It's none of their business."

"Yes, sir," he said.

Dan put the photo into his desk drawer, then picked up his phone and made two calls; one to Medical, the next to the Special Agent In Charge of the Washington, DC office. Mark arrived while on that call; he saw Angel and pulled her into his arms, rocking her as she cried. The first staff EMT made it there a minute later, and Dan stood by the door so no one in the office could see what was going on. "Go back to work," he told the concerned group who knew something was going on with Angel inside the room.

Ten minutes later, Angel was still hyperventilating, and efforts to calm her weren't working. Dan stepped aside as security escorted two ambulance EMT's inside, pushing a gurney before them. He watched as they moved Angel onto it and hooked up the machines. He waved Mark over. "How is she doing?"

"I never knew how much she had buried," he said. "How did I miss this?"

"She hid it well," Dan replied. The beeping sound told him her heart was racing, and they put an oxygen mask over her face as she was gasping for breath. "Go with her to the hospital. God, I don't even know who to call."

Mark pulled out his phone. "I've got her brother's number; she doesn't have any other family. I'll make the call." He moved over to the corner of the room to do so, keeping an eye on Angel. "Where are you taking her?"

"George Washington University Hospital," one of the EMTs answered.

Mark made the call, and Michael didn't answer, so he left a message and followed up with a text. "I'm going to get my car, and I'll follow the ambulance."

"Go," Dan said. He took possession of her firearm and badge, locking them in his desk, then walked with them as they wheeled her out. Her coworkers stood back, watching the young agent go by and wondering what just happened. They loaded her into the waiting ambulance out front, and Dan closed the door. Mark pulled behind them in his SUV, his flasher on the roof, as the ambulance left moved into traffic.

Dan walked back inside, his phone buzzing. "The Senior Agent-In-Charge wants you in her office in twenty minutes," the secretary said.

"Understood," he said as he ended the call. He had enough time to stop by the office, where people were still hounding Ken for details on what happened. "Listen up, people. Special Agent Johnson was not feeling well and is heading to the hospital to find out why. Her partner will keep me informed of her status, which is not life-threatening. Get back to work; we've got a serial killer to find." The agents went back to their desks as he headed back to the elevator.

When Dan arrived at the top floor office, he found it crowded with senior people. "Dan Robinson is the supervisory agent for Special Agent Johnson," SAIC Laura Patterson said as he walked in. "Dan, this is Nancy Gottleib from Human Resources, Doctor Len Dawkins, our Medical Review Officer, Doctor Patricia Cornwall, staff psychologist, and Carter Lewis, from Legal." He shook hands with them before Laura motioned for them to sit at the small conference table in her office. "Dan, if you could bring us up to speed on what happened today in the Monster Hunter Task Force office."

Dan looked over at the doctors. "How much can I talk about without running afoul of HIPAA regulations?" The federal law regulated third-party disclosure of medical information without the consent of the person involved.

Doctor Dawkins answered quickly. "Don't share any medical information, diagnosis, or condition that Agent Johnson has not given you specific permission to share. You can report what you observed, but not any conclusions the EMTs might have spoken."

Dan nodded. "We were at the afternoon staff meeting, going over the progress of our teams. Agent Johnson presented the status of her group and seemed fine to me. A few minutes later, another agent was briefing the group on a suspicious death they were investigating that occurred three years before the first Monster Hunter murder. When the victim's picture went up on the screen, I saw Agent Johnson get up and rush out of the room. She was pale and looked like she was about to throw up."

Doctor Cornwall looked up, as a photo might be a trigger for a psychological reaction. "No warning signs? She didn't say anything before?"

"Not that I know of. Agent Johnson was talking to her partner just before that, but I don't know what they talked about." He looked at the group, thinking about what to say next. "Can I speak to internal case matters in front of them?"

"Continue," SAIC Patterson said.

"Our theory was that the first Monster Hunter victim was someone linked to the killer, probably as the father of one of the victims. We weren't getting anywhere with the first one attributed to him, so we asked if we were sure that man was the first. Ken found he might not be; a case from nine years ago called an accidental death caused by falling asleep while smoking in bed. They exhumed his body, and tests showed the presence of a powerful paralytic drug. It is now a murder case. The original investigators found a stash of child porn in his closet, and among them was this photo."

He took the picture out of the folder and slid it to the SAIC. She let out a gasp, then pushed it to the doctors. "That's Special Agent Johnson?"

Dan nodded. "When she saw the photograph, she froze and then put her head on her arms to hide her face. The girl in the photo was Angel Glennon; she'd been imprisoned and repeatedly raped by a man and the people who paid him, and it went on for years. She was six years old when rescued, no living relatives, and went into foster care before disappearing. Special Agent Johnson said she was adopted. I asked her if that was her in the photo, and she started crying. She replied, 'he hurt me,' before she slid to the ground and went into a fetal position. I called her partner, the EMTs, and you, and that brings you up to date."

"Jesus," the SAIC said. She looked at the doctors. "Did you know about this?"

Doctor Dawkins shook his head, no. "I skimmed her FBI medical records before coming up here. There were no entries for childhood sexual abuse, and she was not receiving any treatment for psychological disorders or problems."

"Was there any evidence in her work?"

"She worked hard and got results, and that's why I requested her assignment to the task force," Dan replied. "Nothing in my experience pointed to this. She got a lot of professional satisfaction from busting these guys and rescuing children from bad situations, but everyone in that group has that. I don't think you'd be able to hack it otherwise."

The group talked about the problems for another ten minutes before SAIC Patterson closed the meeting out. "To summarize: Special Agent Johnson is on medical leave with pay starting immediately. Agent Robinson will hold her gun and badge pending resolution. In the meantime, Doctor Dawkins and Doctor Cornwall will review her medical history and treatment. They will report to me with a recommendation on when and if she can return to her duties. In the meantime, HR and Legal will review her record and determine if she provided any false information in her application or medical screening." She looked around the room. "Dan, if the man who abused Agent Johnson is determined to be a victim of the Monster Hunter, she's off the task force. It's not a reflection on her competence; it is a matter of policy. We can't have an agent with a grudge on a task force looking for a man with a grudge."

"I understand, Ma'am."

"Are you heading for the hospital?"

"Yes, Ma'am. I'll text you an update on her when I have one."

"What happened to this agent as a young girl sickens me. If she can overcome that childhood and function as an agent, I respect the hell out of her. I'm not looking to run her out, but I want to make sure she gets the help she needs." She stood up, and everyone walked out of her office.

Ch. 20

Angel's panic attack was still in progress when she arrived at George Washington Hospital's Emergency Room. The doctor gave her Xanax to calm her down and sent a blood sample off for analysis. By the time the results came in, her heart rate and vitals had returned to normal ranges. "Physically, you're in great shape," the doctor told her. "You had a panic attack, and it was a fairly severe one. Have you had these before?"

Angel was reluctant to speak to her about anything. "The Bureau doesn't know about things I buried long ago," she told the doctor. "Can I keep this discussion between us?"

"I can keep the specifics out of your chart, but the treatment for panic episodes like the one you just had involves therapy. You're going to have to talk to someone about it. I'm sure the FBI doctors will want to talk to you before you go back to work."

Angel laid her head back, still in shock over how quickly everything in her life had changed. "I'm screwed," she whispered.

A woman in her fifties came into the treatment room. "Angel Johnson, this is Doctor Greyson. She is a staff psychiatrist who can help get you on a path to recovery."

Angel sat up and looked at her. "Not interested."

"It's important we understand the trigger for this attack and help you learn to prevent them," Doctor Greyson replied. "We can start while it is fresh."

Angel looked at the ER doctor. "Doctor, is there anything physically wrong with me that would prevent my discharge now?"

"No, but these panic attacks can be serious."

Angel looked at Doctor Greyson. "The treatment you recommend is outpatient, correct?"

"Yes, in these cases, we would begin with weekly cognitive behavior therapy sessions. I could also prescribe anti-depressants to help even your emotions out."

"I am refusing additional treatment, Doctors. Discharge me; I want to go home." The doctors tried to talk her into staying, but she was adamant. "Look, I'm not a danger to myself or others. There was no violence or threat of violence. You cannot hold me, and I don't want to be here. Sign the damn papers, Doc. I'm getting dressed."

"I'll sign you out against medical advice," Doc said. "You'll need a ride home; you can't drive with the Xanax in your system. I think your partner is still in the waiting room." Doctor Greyson gave me her card and told me to call and make an appointment; Angel tossed the card in the trash as soon as she walked out of the room. She dressed quickly, noting the absence of her gun and badge. The nurse came in and went over her discharge instructions, and she was free to go.

She smiled at Mark and Dan as she walked into the lobby of the ER. "I'm fine," she told them. "I need to rest up a bit, that's all."

"Doc said you'd need a ride home. I'll take you, and I'll see if I can get your car home tomorrow," Mark said. The three started to walk towards the parking lot.

Angel looked over at her boss. "I'm sorry about the excitement. I'll be back in the morning. Do you still have my gun and badge?"

Dan paused as they reached Mark's car. "It's not that simple, Agent Johnson. You're on paid medical leave, effective immediately. You cannot return to duty until cleared to do so by the Bureau's medical department."

Angel froze; she knew what that meant. They would want to know everything about today's episode and demand access to her health records that she'd hidden from them. When her health coverage changed after her parent's death, Angel stopped seeing her therapist and discontinued her medication. She knew she might not get accepted into the Wisconsin State Patrol if they knew her background, and she couldn't take anti-depressants and pass the drug screenings. She lived with the nightmares and the anxiety. It was the price of her professional life. "Why are you doing this to me? I got a little emotional!"