The FBI Thrillers Collection Books 6-10 - Catherine Coulter [431]
“Don’t forget, the murderer followed an extremely high-risk script. He actually struck down a Supreme Court police officer, he took his uniform and entered the building itself. Even in some fundamentalist mind, this was a huge risk. And then garroting Justice Califano and slipping away? That was not the act of a bomber, or a shooter in a crowd. That was the act of a single man, done in a very personal way.
“The chances are greater, as many of you have already concluded, that this murder was personal. It was up close and hands-on. Revenge, possibly. Justice Stewart Califano served as a DA, an Assistant Attorney General, and the Attorney General before he was named an Associate Justice of the New York Court of Appeals in 1979. He prosecuted drug dealers, mobsters—people who could have spent twenty years in jail planning to murder him. We will scour every high-profile case he was involved in throughout those years.
“At the same time, we can’t afford to take the chance that the murder wasn’t the work of terrorists or a madman for the simple reason that Justice Califano’s murder could be the opening assault with more to come. Extra security has been provided, not only to the Justices, but to a number of elected federal officials as well. As you know, federal marshals accompany the Justices only when they travel. They have temporarily extended their protection to twenty-four/seven.
“All of you, many through painful experience, know that the media will be following all these directives right along with us. When they find out which of you are involved in the case, they’ll hound you. We will expect your usual professionalism. You will refer all press questions to DAD Maitland for official comment.
“We’ve got all of Justice Califano’s phone logs and contacts, his computers, both from his chambers and his home, and those of his law clerks and secretaries. We have a list of all pending cases that the Supreme Court will be hearing, also cases handed down in the past years in which Justice Califano played a critical role in reversing decisions such as those involving race, abortion, individual death penalty cases, and the like. The list is daunting, but we’ll take them on.
“Investigation of the crime scene itself and preliminary interviews are already ongoing, as you know. We have divided you into twelve teams of four agents each. Ollie Hamish will be posting your names and handing out assignments to each team, hoping to key in to the strengths and experience of the members. We are fortunate to have the teams made up of agents from a wide variety of FBI divisions and units assigned to us. It is true what Director Mueller said. We are the best police force and intelligence community in the world, and we will solve this and do it quickly.
“By the way, you will have a unique resource available to you from my own unit that is new to many of you. We have developed a number of computer programs that allow us to combine data-mining capability with an artificial intelligence engine—we call the program MAX, after my laptop. We have found it extremely useful to us, though we haven’t made it available this broadly before, or in a case of this importance.
“I’ve assigned agents Drucker, Bruner, and Hart to instruct you about its capabilities. Some of you will be asked to work with them on this project. All of you will have the benefit of any information MAX provides. If you haven’t worked with these agents before, I’ll tell you they’re excellent detail people. They share with MAX an uncanny ability to help you when everything