Page 52 of Tiger on the Prowl

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By the next morning, the search with the facial recognition software had yielded no actionable results. While Smith had shown up on various traffic cams as well as security cameras all over Washington D.C., none had given any indication as to who he was, where he was going, and where he came from. None of them had been with cars that would have allowed Jay and his fellow agents to trace ownership of the car, and thus reveal Smith’s identity.

“I also ran his picture against all driver’s licenses issued in D.C., Maryland, and Virginia. Nothing,” Fox reported, swiveling away from his monitor and facing Jay and the rest of the gang.

“We know he has a driver’s license,” Jay said. “Maybe it was issued in another state.”

Fox shrugged. “He would have had to exchange it for one in whichever state he lives now. And we’re assuming he lives in D.C., Maryland, or Virginia. Everything else would be too far to drive into D.C. daily.”

“Do you even know if he works in D.C.?” Olivia asked.

“If he’s part of the CIA, or another government agency, which he kind of has to, given all we know about him, then he would have to live somewhere close. Which means he would have had to get a license from one of those three DMVs within sixty days of moving here,” Jay explained.

“Yeah, if he changed his residence. But what if he didn’t? What if he kept his official residence wherever he’s from originally?” Olivia asked. “I mean, congresspeople do it all the time. They are residents of their home states, but they are in D.C. most of the year to represent their state. Smith could do the same, you know, maybe for tax reasons?”

“That’s a good point,” Jay admitted. He hadn’t thought of that himself. He looked at Fox. “Can we run his photo through all the other DMVs in the country?”

“Sure we can,” Fox said, then grimaced, “but that means hacking into every state’s DMV database. That’s time consuming. We need to narrow down the search.”

“Let’s figure out how,” Ace said. “Suggestions?”

“Did Smith have an accent?” Phoebe asked. “Michelle? You spoke to him several times. And Jay too.”

Jay exchanged a look with Michelle, but they both shrugged. “I couldn’t hear anything in particular, but then most of the time I was drugged out of my mind after he’d captured me.”

“Frankly, he sounded like he was from around here,” Michelle said. “Definitely not a Southerner, nor from New York. Those accents I’d recognize.”

Yankee nodded. “When he had Lilly in his grips at that warehouse we blew up, I was too focused on trying to free Lilly that I wasn’t paying attention.”

“He didn’t say much anyway,” Lilly confirmed, “but I’m with Michelle. He’s not a Southerner or a New Yorker.”

“Then maybe we should do what I suggested to Jay yesterday,” Olivia said. “Go through the guest list of my sister’s wedding, and eliminate everybody we can identify via social media and driver’s licenses and whatever else Fox and Michelle can find on the internet. Whoever we can’t identify must be Smith.”

Jay exchanged a look with the other three Stargate agents. “Worth a shot. The list can’t be that long. Right, Olivia? Maybe two hundred people?”

“More like three hundred, but we can exclude the women immediately. That brings it down to less than a hundred-and-fifty. And I’ll recognize at least a few of the guests.”

“Let’s do it,” Ace agreed.

“Okay, I’ll get my computer,” Olivia said.

Minutes later, Olivia sat at a desk in the computer room, her laptop in front of her, Fox by her side.

“Here’s the spreadsheet,” she explained. “In the first column are the people who got invited; their addresses are in column two. The third column shows who confirmed that they were coming. And in the fourth column are any additional notes such as somebody requesting a vegan meal or reporting any food allergies.”

“Wow, you’d never know you were the creative type,” Fox said.

“Writers have to be organized,” Olivia replied.

“Okay,” Fox said, speaking to everybody now. “We’ll all take names from the list and start digging in.”

Jay put his hand on Olivia’s shoulder, and she looked up at him. “Olivia, you’ll need to take those people off that you know can’t be Smith, starting with your family, the bridesmaids, the groom and so on.”

She nodded. “I’m on it.” She started highlighting names and making notes next to them and looked up at the gang. “There were a few of Timothy’s college buddies I danced with. Those I’ll exclude too. They’re too young to be Smith. And I took a photo of the groom’s father, and Jay didn’t recognize him as Smith either. Then there are the women, those can go too.” She tapped on her keyboard and continued highlighting.

“Here we go.”

“Let me project the list on the large screen on the wall,” Fox said and reached for a cable, and plugged it into one of the ports on Olivia’s laptop.