Jeremy didnt like the way his evening was going. He’d come hom with the dead Blackberry and then he’d found his microwave was acting up. The timer had been on the fritz for a while. Now it had decided to kill him. Who was it - Jim Gaffigan - that had talked about Hot Pockets? Something about them being designed just to know how drunk you are - they live in your freezer and at some random time in the future you ask yourself, “am I drunk enough to eat this thing”
Jeremy popped the Pepperoni hot pocket in the microwave and pushed “on” deciding that he’d return in a few minutes to check on it. Nothing went “ding” and he forgot it as he got engrossed in processing his email. Then the eruption threatened to go nova in his lower intestine. What was wrong with things? Did he have a semi-colon or something? He groaned as his insides cramped and unclunched again. Something shifted. An alien wanted to be born and it wasnt planning to burst through his chest this time either.
He took off upstairs tearing at his belt at the same time. Hs zipper stuck half-way but that didnt matter, he tore his pants over his hips in a smooth combined move simaltaneous with planting his ass onto the toilet seat.
Some time later, measured not in the explosion itself but in the wimpering afterward and a wash with nice cool water, he breathed a sigh of relief and returned to his email. There was smoke in the air. The Hot Pocket! He dashed into the kitchen in time to see black smoke roiling out of the microwave. Flamed burned bright, the oil burning first with pastry following soon afterward. The white of the wall behind the unit was blackening with smoke damage. Jeremy turned and searched in the under-stairs cupboard for a fire extinguisher. Yes! He spun around and sprayed the corner of the worktop. The fire fizzled and went out. Foam piled up. So much for dinner.
Jeremy sighed. Possibly a good thing anyhow, as Jim Gaffigan said, “Hot Pocket for breakfast, Hot Pocket for lunch … dead by dinner time.”
He returned to the living room unable to face the cleaning task of dealing with the mess, with the wall, with the frazzled microwave. Maybe its time had come. Had it gone to silicon heaven - where the iron lays down with the lamp?
Outside in the grey sedan one of the two men was asleep. The other was toying with a black laptop. Duct tape held the computer to another black box. The USB ports of the laptop connected back to a single wide ribbon connector snaked into the footwell and appeared again at the back of the other device. On the laptop screen a pair of lines scanned to an fro - top to bottom, left to right - then back again. Ghostly lines hovered like after images outlining a small “Google Earth” login and indicating the road, the houses, and a bright green hot hovered inside Jeremy’s house. As the man watched the green dot split into two. The device tried to resolve the echo, treating one as noise. It popped up a prompt as the two signals split asking the operator to confirm the stronger signal as real.
“F’kin technology, I dont know.” he said, hitting ‘Enter’. The second blip faded from the screen just as it looked to be exiting the house. The green blip on screen moved around the house then stopped in what the man assumed to be the bedroom.
Ian Nottingham watched through the scope of his rifle. Four men advanced on Jeremy’s house, two pairs criss-crossing one another’s paths as though under enemy fire and needing to keep point. He was tempted to take one down with a well-placed shot. They wouldnt need four men for their task anyhow. Who’d notice a dead cult member? His finger tightened on the trigger. One of the lead pair pulled a device from his belt and consulted the screen. Nottingham thumbed a switch and a green overlay appeared across the rifle scope - a green dot pulsed and split into two. One remained at angle and range to still be in the house. The other past the two pairs of black-clad men who advanced on the house.
The rear pair moved in close and the four men confered for a moment, deciding to pair off again to follow both traces. Interesting. Nottingham tracked the distance and elevation with his rifle wondering if he should wing the quary to make things easier? He swung the rifle back to the other pair and watched them enter the house. They emerged minutes later with a wiry individual between them. There was a bag over his head and he dragged his feet like a man emerging from concussion. Nottingham scanned back to the other pair. What they thought they were following, he didnt know, but Darwin had sealed their fate. He thumbed the safety of the rifle, took aim and dropped the shorter of the two with a single bullet to the eye socket. His companion spun around looking for the source of the shot then bolted back to where the they had parked an old minivan. His words rushed out in a river, hands waved and Nottingham could imagine the story he spun to the others - snipers, ninjas, ghosts, ghouls and goblins. The man with the bag over his head was bundled into the back of the vehicle and they drove off.
Nottingham slid into a safe hiding spot close to where the cult was preparing the offering. Curiosity urged him to reveal himself and get a better view but he resisted and stayed hidden. The abducted movie executive, Jeremy something, wimpered and gave muffled cries for help while the group finished chanting. The gag was removed. His screaming was cut short and reduced to strangled gurgles. There was a hiss from the nearby fire. The rest of the ceremony was remarkably swift. After the cult had left Nottingham slipped out of hiding, pulled a small pouch from his pocket and paused next to Jeremy’s mangled remains. From the pouch he pulled a single wooden splinter and a broken fragment of a tooth. He pressed them into the flesh of the corpse then left.
His cellphone rang while stuck in the morning DC rush, “This is Booth -” he paused to listen to the other end of the call, “- Yes, I’m on my way.”
It was amazing, once he activated lights and siren how quickly the otherwise stationary cars moved out of the way to let his large black SUV through. He made it to his office to find two men already inside. The older of the two was standing to examine he various certificates and memorabilia displayed on the wall. The other sat waiting, hands folded in his lap covering a plain manilla file.
“Good morning gentlemen, sorry I’m late - DC traffic - ” Booth began
The man by the wall didnt turn around, merely raised his hand for silence, “Seeley Booth, Army Ranger sniper, final rank sergeant. Honorable discharge, forty-nine confirmed kills. Am I missing anything?”
Booth began to speak, “Well, no -“
The man turned around, “Then you will understand when I say that this matter is one of national security and to be treated as such. Let me make myself perfectly clear. You are to talk to no-one, share information with no-one and above all, trust no-one. Am I understood?”
“Yes.”
The man cocked an eyebrow and Booth corrected himself, “Yes, sir.”
“Good. We have an understanding. Larson, the file.”
The man in the chair turned around to hand Booth the file he was babysitting. Booth flipped it open to find gruesome pictures of a corpse on top of the paperwork.
“Whoa. What happened to his guy?”
The man in the chair, Larson, spoke “Our medical examiner is calling it an animal attack despite the fact that the wounds dont match with any local species and we couldnt match a murder weapon.”
Booth smiled, “Now, that’s the sort of thing Bones likes: a food mystery. Now, which letter agency are you nice boys with - CIA? NSA?”
The man by the wall raised an eyebrow, “Come now. You know better than to ask questions like that. National Security. It’s all you need to know.”
Booth closed the file and tossed it back to Larson, “Since when did a dead movie executive become a national security matter, and why come all the way to DC when he died in … what … LA?”
Larson was about to speak and the older man silenced him, “Alright. You win, its a national security matter when technology not-yet in the hands of any agency winds up in our movie producer’s lower intestine. It’s a national security matter when said technology is at least five years ahead of that used presently by the CIA. And as you know, neither they nor the NSA have license to operate domestically. I’m sure you understand the nature of things. Technically the FBI must be eyes, ears, hands and feet on this case -“
Booth interrupted, “- with you as the head, of course.”
The man inclined his head in mock salute, “Of course.”
Booth paused then reached out for the file. Larson handed it to him and Booth leafed through it again, “My squints will need access to the body and murder scene.”
“Impossible.”
Booth made eye contact, “Do you want this solved or not?”
“Others are reclaiming … technology … from the scene of the crime and the deceased.”
“Alright, have the sanitized remains shipped to the Jeffersonian.”
Larson stood up and extended a hand. Booth frowned and looked at the older man by the wall who nodded. A handshake was exchanged and the two men left.
As Booth sat down he realized in the entire conversation the one had never given his name. He shrugged and hit speed-dial on this phone, “Bones! How are you? I’ve got a live one headed your way -” he paused, grinning, “- alright, you got me there, not a literal live one … I know, you work with the deceased. Yes, recently deceased are more likely to be Doctor Saroyan’s area. Look, this is coming special delivery and I want your eyes on it. Dont use an intern. Your findings will be held under lock and key - National Security I’m afraid. Catch you later.”
He hung up, put his feet up on his desk and scanned through the file.
The team assembled around the corpse. Three large men in well cut suits stood protectively nearby.
“Who’re the spooks?” Hodgins asked waving a hand toward them.
Cam spoke, “Act like they’re not here. They’re here to guard the body - something about national security. So, who’s first up?” She scanned faces, Angela looked a little ill at the state of the body, Brennan looked disinterested possibily due to the quantity of flesh still intact, only Hodgins looked interested enough to jump in.
“Doctor Hodgins: full work up -“
Jack interrupted her, rubbing his hands together, “You got it boss, bugs, slime and particulates. You want him next Cam?”
Cam nodded and the team dispersed.
Hodgins arrived in Cam’s office wearing a huge smile and carrying a file, “You will want to see this…”
“I will?”
He laughed, “Oh yeah. Take a look…”
She took the file and leafed through the contents, “They didnt tell us a location for what they’re claiming was an animal attack, but your conclusion -“
”- My conclusion is that he died on a hillside within sight of the HOLLYWOOD sign - soil and wood splinters confirm it. Except for one. Oh, and the other two anomolies have me stumped too: see?”
He pointed to the last page: a single splinter of wood, a bone fragment and a fleck of metal.
“The metal was particularly interesting - I extracted it from just inside the anus. Whoever this guy was, he’d eaten metal filings for lunch. I need you to sign-off on electron microscope time to dig into the metal fleck some more though.”
He held out a pen with an eager, schoolboy look.
“What do you hope to find?” she asked.
“Are you kidding me - we have three spooks watching our every move and the corpse has metal particulates lodged in his anus? I’ve been telling people for years that the NSA had been running field-ops domestically, despite their license to only passively monitor foreign communications. My bet: this little baby is some kind of NSA tacking device.”
Cam laughed, “OK. Go … and dont make me regret signing off on this.”
“Angela, do you have a face or a name for me?” Cam asked as she stepped into the office.
“Not only do I have both, I have his resume and can tell you his last three lovers. I am that good.”
Angela grinned. Cam stepped over to her computer station, sure enough there was a man’s face and a web-browser pointing to IMDB.COM.
“IMDB?” Cam asked.
“The Internet Movie DataBase. Our corpse is Jeremy Altringham, the movie producer, famous for his blow-out with Uwe Boll last year over the direction that the movie was taking. It was all over the celebrity gossip news along with his turbulent love-life, the affair with that German model…” Angela tailed off noting Cam’s expression.
“I’ll email the details.”
Cam nodded.
“Oh, and good work Ang.”
Booth arrived just as the team was heading out of the office, “Am I late?”
“Yes Booth, you’re late. Can it wait until morning?” Cam asked.
“Afraid not. I need your findings on the John Doe that arrived.”
The team turned around and made for the conference room.
Cam kicked off, “The tongue was removed. No trace was found. Wounds were consistent with carnivorous teeth but I couldnt get a sense of the animal’s jaw dimension. The bites arent consistent, but it fell into place once I scaled up the animal. Get this: the jaws closed on either side of the body and are consistent with a bite and shake movement from a jaw approximately three feet long.”
Booth waved a hand, “You what? That cant be - we’d be looking for a dinosaur.”
Hodgins laughed, “You realize what you just said, right?”
Booth shook his head.
“Angela ID’d the body as Jeremy Altringham, who rumours have linked to the production of Jurassic Park 5. He makes monster movies for a living.”
Booth grinned as he got the joke, “Alright. And what’s his current project?”
“No-one knows. Its rumoured to be in trouble though - funding issues - they went to an outside investor just recently to get an injection of private capital just to finish the movie. No-one can explain the budget over-run however. Word is, though, it’s big and its nasty.”
Booth turned to Hodgins, “Do you have anything to add?”
He laughed.
“Oh boy do I. I can tell you that the crime scene was in sight of the HOLLYWOOD sign, but there’s particulate evidence pointing toward a tree you would never see outside of Hawaii. A single splinter. Our killers left a calling card - something they knew that we would find.”
Booth made a note of this, “Anything else?”
“Yeah. A bone fragment. It’s old and something that creeped me out once I had ID’d the sucker… shark tooth. Ladies and gentleman, I believe we’re looking for a giant shark-man - a shark that walks on land. And he’s big too.”
Booth raised an eyebrow, “A shark man?”
“Oh, suck all the fun out of things. It was a shark tooth and our victim was torn to pieces by an animal attack. Oh … but there’s more!” he paused for breath and added a few moments of theatrical silence, “A metal fragment lodged in his anus.”
Booth grimaced, “his …”
“… yes, his anus. Electron microscope showed circuits and articulation. An autonomous, self-propelled spy-bug the size of a piece of course-grained ground black pepper. Hence the spooks. God I love my job!”
Booth looked at Brennan, “Bones? Anything to add?”
She paused and scanned her notebook, “Yes, but Doctors Saroyan and Hodgins arent going to like my findings.”
“Oh? Do tell…” he prompted.
“The bones show striations …” she grinned, but no-one got her joke, “… consistent with teeth but when I compared front and rear of the bones I noticed a number of anomalies I couldn’t explain. Firstly, the teeth marks on the bones dont line up and secondly the depth is wholly inconsistent with a bite of this size.”
Booth waited, trying to look thoughtful, then gave up. “Alright, in non-squint speak?”
“The marks were faked. Two individuals acting as upper and lower jaw synchronized their blows with remarkable accuracy but couldn’t perfectly match the movement of a real jawbone. If I had to speculate I’d say that genuine teeth were mounted onto some sort of rod and he was beaten and torn to pieces by a pair of men acting in consort.”
“So it’s murder, and I am looking for more than one suspect?” Booth asked.
“Yes, perhaps even a group. You’re looking for well-built men able to exert considerable force. They have clearly practiced and choreographed this move.”