Point of Control Read Free

the tips of his fingers, possibly from chemical burns. But it’s not recent.” She looked up at Jocelyn. “I’ll know more after I send a tissue sample to the lab for analysis.”
    Jocelyn tuned out for a moment, wondering what else she could do to identify this guy—short of running a dead-face photo in the newspaper.
    “This is interesting.” The medical examiner’s voice held surprise and excitement as she lifted something tiny with a pair of long-handled tweezers.
    “What is it?”
    “Some kind of microchip, and I found it under his tongue.”
    What the hell? Her investigation hadn’t turned up any witnesses, but based on the location, she’d assumed some gangbanger had killed the man for his cell phone and wallet. The microchip made her rethink that. Clearly, the victim had hidden the chip from his assailant. What was on this bit of silicon that made someone kill him for it?

C HAPTER 5
    Monday, March 16, 6:23 p.m., Washington, DC
    Bailey sat in the Dulles Airport terminal reading the file on Milton Thurgood, a brilliant metallurgical engineer who’d discovered an acid-and-heat method for extracting rare earth metals from mining operations. He’d also been arrested several times for public meltdowns in which he shouted at and sometimes accosted strangers. Once he’d come after his wife with a shovel, but when police responded to the disturbance, she convinced them to let it go, claiming her husband had simply forgotten to take his medication. Thurgood obviously had violent tendencies, and if he’d quit taking his meds altogether, he might have been capable of plotting and carrying out a murder. Which could also make him unpredictable and hard to locate. The background data, which had likely come from the Australian Federal Police, didn’t include Thurgood’s actual diagnosis. Too bad. Mental disorders fascinated her.
    Her own mental condition was often referred to as antisocial personality disorder , which sounded more palatable than sociopath , but they weren’t the same diagnosis. The public, and even most mental health professionals, wrongly assumed all sociopaths were criminals or forces of destruction, just like people with ASPD. The truth was that sociopaths, an estimated 4 percent of the population, were specifically defined by their inability to empathize with other people or feel guilt about their own behavior. Those qualities alone didn’t make them criminals. Instead, sociopaths fell along a continuum. Those on the moderate-to-low end, like herself, didn’t take any pleasure in hurting anyone. They just didn’t suffer guilt if it happened. Her emotional experiences were different from other people’s too. If various emotions were like colors for empaths, hers were shades of gray. Low-end sociopaths included a lot of high achievers, such as rapid-rising CEOs and politicians. Not to mention some law enforcement personnel, who were attracted to the career because it offered both power and a firm structure to help keep themselves in line.
    On the high end of the continuum were those commonly thought of as psychopaths, because they enjoyed tormenting and sometimes killing people. Many psychopaths were also brilliant and successful, but others lacked intellectual capacity or ambition and were often frustrated by their mediocre lives. Those types often ended up in prison. Sociopaths were as varied as any other group that shared a single characteristic or belief.
    An elderly man approached and gestured at the empty seat next to her. “Excuse me. May I sit here?”
    “I’d prefer that you didn’t.”
    He looked taken aback.
    Bailey smiled and shrugged to lessen the sting. She had to be true to herself when she could. He shook his head and walked away. She went back to reading. But there was little else about Thurgood that was helpful.
    Her cell chirped and Bailey pulled it from her satchel. A 303 area code. Denver, her hometown, where her father still lived, but it wasn’t his number. He