Die Trying

grays in the video,” the tech said. “Then I can give you your mug shots in color.”

    THE COMMANDER SELECTED six women from that morning’s punishment detail. He used the ones with the most demerits, because the task was going to be hard and unpleasant. He stood them at attention and drew his huge bulk up to its full height in front of them. He waited to see which of them would be the first to glance away from his face. When he was satisfied none of them dared to, he explained their duties. The blood had sprayed all over the room, hurled around by the savage centrifugal force of the blade. Chips of bone had spattered everywhere. He told them to heat water in the cookhouse and carry it over in buckets. He told them to draw scrubbing brushes and rags and disinfectant from the stores. He told them they had two hours to get the room looking pristine again. Any longer than that, they would earn more demerits.

    IT TOOK TWO hours to get the data. Milosevic and Brogan went out to the dry-cleaning establishment. They closed the place down and swarmed all over it like surveyors. They drew a plan with measurements accurate to the nearest quarter-inch. They took the camera off the wall and brought it back with them. They tore up the floor and took the tiles. They took two smocks from the woman and two posters off the wall, because they thought they might help with the colorizing process. Back on the sixth floor of the Federal Building, the chief tech took another two hours to input the data. Then he ran the test, using Holly Johnson to calibrate the program.
    “What do you think?” he asked McGrath.
    McGrath looked hard at the full-face picture of Holly. Then he passed it around. Milosevic got it last and stared at it hardest. Covered some parts with his hand and frowned.
    “Makes her look too thin,” he said. “I think the bottom right quarter is wrong. Not enough width there, somehow.”
    “I agree,” McGrath said. “Makes her jaw look weird.”
    The chief tech exited to a menu screen and adjusted a couple of numbers. Ran the test again. The laser printer whirred. The sheet of stiff paper came out.
    “That’s better,” McGrath said. “Just about on the nose.”
    “Color OK?” the tech asked.
    “Should be a darker peach,” Milosevic said. “On her dress. I know that dress. Some kind of an Italian thing.”
    The tech exited to a color palette.
    “Show me,” he said.
    Milosevic pointed to a particular shade.
    “More like that,” he said.
    They ran the test again. The hard disk chattered and the laser printer whirred.
    “That’s better,” Milosevic said. “Dress is right. Hair color is better as well.”
    “OK,” the tech said. He saved all the parameters to disk. “Let’s go to work here.”
    The FBI never uses latest-generation equipment. The feeling is it’s better to use stuff that has been proven in the field. So the tech chief’s computer was actually a little slower than the computers in the rich kids’ bedrooms up and down the North Shore. But not much slower. It gave McGrath five prints within forty minutes. Four mug shots of the four kidnappers, and a close-up side view of the front half of their car. All in glowing color, all with the grain enhanced and smoothed away. McGrath thought they were the best damn pictures he had ever seen.
    “Thanks, chief,” he said. “These are brilliant. Best work anybody has done around here for a long time. But don’t say a word. Big secret, right?”
    He clapped the tech on the shoulder and left him feeling like the most important guy in the whole building.

    THE SIX WOMEN worked hard and finished just before their two hours were up. The tiny cracks between the boards were their biggest problem. The cracks were tight, but not tight enough to stop the blood seeping in. But they were too tight to get a brush down in there. They had to sluice them out with water and rag them dry. The boards were turning a wet brown color. The women were praying they wouldn’t warp as they dried. Two of them were throwing up. It was adding to their workload. But they finished in time for the commander’s inspection. They stood rigidly at attention on the damp floor and waited. He checked everywhere, with the wet boards creaking under his bulk. But he was satisfied with their work and gave them another two hours to clean the smears off the corridor and the staircase, where the body had been dragged away.

    THE CAR WAS easy. It was quickly identified as a Lexus.