Prayer by Philip Kerr

Academy always left me feeling like I was never going to make ASAC.
    “Gil, I flip a coin ten times and it comes up heads all ten of them, do I whisper conspiracy? Or do I shrug it off as a coincidence? We’re the Federal Bureau of Investigation not the Foolish Bureau of Ingenuousness. Your request for a case file is an investigator’s Oscar Wilde line. One’s unfortunate, two is careless, and three is Title 18.”
    Title 18, of the U.S. Code, Section 351, was what empowered the special agents and officials of the FBI to investigate violations of federal statutes.
    “Helen? What do you think?”
    Helen shifted uncomfortably on her chair and crossed her long legs, as if that might afford her some time to come down on one side of the argument or the other. I already knew Helen was in favor of further investigation. The question was, would she fold in the face of Gisela’s ace: Gisela was the boss.
    “What you said about coincidence makes sense,” said Helen. “But sometimes it seems to me that life shows us what we need to know. Before I came into this room, Gil had me convinced there might be a real fire at the end of this smoke trail. Now I’m not so sure. On the other hand, if it were me, I’d probably trust his instincts, for a while at least. Maybe a week or two. Just to see what his nose turns up. Couldn’t do any harm. Might even do him some good.”
    Gisela looked at Anne. “What do you think?”
    “I get a nose for things, too,” said Anne. “I like patterns. I believe in them. I see connections where there are no connections. I hear what you say, boss, but I’ve an idea that there will come a time—not too long from now—when computers will make the idea of coincidence and randomness seem obsolete, and we’ll see things for what they really are. Coincidence will seem logical.”
    Helen and Anne were right, of course. But so was Gisela. I made it three-to-one in favor of further investigation, although Gisela’s one was more than three, of course. I could tell she was a little disappointed that the sorority had sided with me, but that’s how it is, and maybe Anne and Helen had just had more time to think about the case than Gisela had.
    “I have to justify this to Chuck and I don’t want him making me look like some breast-Fed dancing around her handbag,” said Gisela. “Gil Martins is not the guy wearing a new set of balls here. I am, and I want to keep them for a while. If I do decide to green-light a domestic terrorism inquiry, what’s your next step, Gil?”
    “Swoop down for a closer look. Helen and I would go to Washington, Boston, and New York. See if we can’t dig up more on those three deaths than the local police did. Hope that the lab guys find something on Osborne’s computer. And pray that we get a lead, I guess. Or maybe another victim. If someone is behind this, I doubt they’ll be satisfied with three deaths and one case of acute catatonia. Either way, I figure we can chase down all the facts in a couple of weeks. As it happens, I think you can spare me. Army CID’s got an informer alongside Johnny Sack Brown and they’re keeping us up to speed with the HIDDEN group’s plans to acquire a Switchblade system. Chicago FBI’s chasing up a lead on those two ELF fugitives.”
    Gisela nodded.
    “Okay,” she said. “That’s all for now, folks. I’ll think about what you’ve all said and let you know my decision when I’ve made one.”

EIGHT
    A week later, with nothing to show but a handful of expense receipts and inconclusive field reports, my swoop felt more like a belly flop. We’d struck out in Washington and New York, and now that we were in Boston, it looked as if we were going to strike out there, too. The only consolation was that we were staying with my mom and dad at their large South End house—a ten-minute car ride away from the Boston FBI office in downtown where we endured the silent mockery of our colleagues. Cops and feds have the hardest eyes in the