The Torso Murders

by Lee Perry

  They stared at the screen, watching as customers entered and left the store and Catherine squinted, “You can clearly see cars when they drive by…”

  “But not the plates…”

  “Well,” Catherine reached in her coat pocket and pulled out a flash drive, “not on this thing, no.” She plugged in the drive to a USB connector and copied the entire software program and camera files. “I’ll bet we can boost the images with some better software at the bureau.”

  Howell Township, NJ

  He parked in the garage and checked to make sure the plastic ties around the groggy CEO’s thighs, ankles, and wrists binding his hands behind his back were snug and secure. Once Stealth Networks was behind him he had been careful to stop where there were no security cameras and opened the trunk long enough to remove the battery from Boehne’s cell phone. Now that he was safe at home, he removed the other personal items from Boehne’s pockets before again slamming the trunk lid closed. Exhausted, he retreated to his bedroom to take a nap. He slept for hours and when he awoke and blinked at the bright sunlight streaming in his window, he suddenly panicked and ran to the garage to see if his catch had escaped.

  He was panting when he burst in the side door; Calm yourself… he scolded silently, See? The trunk is still closed; he’s still in there… He stood at the back of his car and closed his eyes, silently repeating his mantra until his breathing and pounding heart slowed. Sliding a hand in his pants pocket, he activated the trunk release on his remote and lifted the lid. He cocked his head thoughtfully to one side as he calmly gazed down at his catch. Mike Boehne’s face was tear-stained and his nose had run, leaving dried snot tracks across his right cheek where it drained.

  “What do you want?” He asked, his voice sounding like rustling dry leaves.

  Jonas noted distantly the dark stain on Boehne’s crotch; He wet his pants too, just like… His brows knit in a frown, unable to remember which of his previous catches had also urinated. Oh well… he has been waiting a long time.

  Mike Boehne cleared his throat, “I said; what do you want?”

  “I need your user names, passwords, everything you use at Stealth.”

  “No.” Boehne said hoarsely, “I can pay you whatever you want, name your price…”

  Jonas drew a slow deep breath in through his nose and walked to his workbench. He withdrew his black serrated folding knife from his kit and returned to the trunk. Boehne lay mostly on his back and wordless, Jonas quickly opened the man’s pants.

  “Hey, whoa!” Boehne was scared and his voice shook, “I said I’ll pay you whatever you want, okay?”

  Jonas yanked down the slacks and boxer shorts, exposing his privates then snapped open the folding knife in front of Boehne’s face, its black blade glinting dully in the light of the bare overhead bulb.

  “Look, LOOK!” Boehne cried, his eyes wide with fear, “just name your price, NAME IT! I’ll pay whatever you want, I SWEAR!”

  “I have no need of your money,” Jonas said calmly, “only access. Tell me the user names and passwords that will give me complete and total access to Stealth Networks, or I will cut it off.”

  “OKAY, OKAY!” In a voice that quaked uncontrollably, he told Jonas everything, his corporate administrator user name and password as well as the secret user name and password he created for himself no one knew about, including the board of directors. When Jonas slammed the trunk lid closed, he was reciting his offshore bank passwords and account numbers and when he heard his abductor leave the garage, he burst into tears.

  New York City, NY

  While Jordan drove them back, Catherine sent the data on her flash drive to a talented video technician at the bureau via her tablet, asking for a rush analysis clearing up the images on the license plates outside the liquor store’s glass doors and windows for the night Darrel Lesous disappeared.

  He had finished by the time they got back to their desks and Catherine called him, “We’re looking at it now, thanks Ken,” she grinned at the data on her screen, “you are a massive help.” She hung up and turned to Jordan, sitting beside her, “So?”

  She pointed at the screen, “Well, we can see the cars pulling in and leaving the parking lot more clearly... Kenny has software that recognizes letters and numbers when you highlight them and he just plugged the field right into the motor vehicle commission’s database.”

  “Ooo,” Catherine enthused, “so you can see the registered owner info… nice.”

  “He says all we need to do is pause the payback and click on the plate to see the ID…” Her voice faded as she stared at the screen, pausing and clicking on the license plates.” Several minutes passed while she clicked on cars entering and leaving the parking lot across the street until she groaned, “Oh, this is still going to take a while.”

  More minutes passed in silence as they stared at the screen while Jordan clicked the mouse on and off until, “Hey…” she paused the video.

  “What?”

  “This car pulling out of the lot… didn’t it just pull in a few minutes ago?” She dragged the cursor back until she found it.

  Catherine noted the time, “It pulls in at 11:23 and leaves twenty-two minutes later…”

  Jordan pushed the time forward again and froze the playback on the image of the car leaving. “Okay,” she clicked on the plate, “let’s see who you are.”

  “Jonas Alden!” Catherine’s jaw dropped, “Oh my god, that’s the head writer who got fired over the flash crash at SAEx!”

  “Yes, he is.”

  “So,” Catherine licked suddenly dry lips, “why go to the bar all the SAEx employees hang out at if you’ve been fired?”

  Jordan stood and grabbed the jacket she tossed over the back of her chair, “Why go there at all and then sit in the parking lot for twenty-two minutes, and then leave?”

  “No one saw him in the bar that night did they? I think they would have remembered him if he did…”

  “All excellent questions...” She grinned and absently patted her hands over her gun, keys, phone and badge wallet, “I’m gonna go ask him and see what his answers are.”

  “Hey,” Catherine stood, “don’t you think you should have someone go with you?”

  “Stewart’s part of the abduction task force now...” She bent to give her a quick kiss, “I’ll call the local PD for back up if I need them.”

  Howell Township, NJ

  He had used Boehne’s private user name and password to access Stealth Network and laughed aloud when he realized the CEO was serious when he said no one knew he maintained private, complete and total access of his company. He must have been quite a code writer in his day. He spent hours familiarizing himself with Stealth algorithms before uploading his program. And now it lies in wait, he smiled, gazing at the graph on his large monitor; It looks like a high speed electrocardiogram, buzzing at the low spectrum of existence… he grinned, for now. His eyes dropped to the smaller screen on his laptop just in front of it and he watched the countdown to program initiation, And when it is finally released on the Network, it will hardly be noticed until the moment it executes Wall Street, like a bullet to the brain, he snorted, although by comparison even that’s too slow… He stopped abruptly and froze so he could focus on the thought. A long minute passed and he grinned again, Yes, a bullet to the brain… perfect.

  He checked his program a final time to assure himself it would execute precisely as written, then got up and retrieved the cleaning kit and his gun. He methodically cleaned and reloaded it just like the videos taught him. A .38 can be just as lethal as a .357 magnum when fired at point blank range. His head cocked to one side, I wonder how much of a mess it will make.

  He returned to his laptop and watched the timer counting down for several long seconds before he went to the front door; A new symbol is now required to reflect the beginning of a new era... He nodded, engrossed by this thoughts, The execution must be symbolic, a bullet to the brain, like my code once it has entered Wall Street, stopping it u
tterly in an instant. The stock market is full of bastards and thieves and no one is doing anything to stop them. No one, but me.

  New York City, NY

  As soon as Jordan left, Catherine called Bea to tell her of their progress and to ask if they could finally get a warrant for the rogue code that caused the SAEx flash crash if Jordan arrested Alden. She then went back to working on the concealed code in Ryan’s SAEx datastream. So what if it was Alden that was secretly tracking him? What if, for whatever reason, he hacked his company account… She scrolled through the subtly altered code from the beginning and paused when she saw the tiniest hiccup in the algorithm. Hang on, I saw this last time, but now that we think it was the head writer who hacked Ryan, now let’s say that’s just part one of a sneaky hack event by a smart company code writer… She marked it and continued the scroll again. Several minutes went by when she slammed back in her seat, staring at the screen, “Oh my god, I get it! He spread it out through the algorithm but structured it to interact as one set… Oh, my god,” She groaned, “it’s like that movie…” She snatched at her desk phone and frantically called Jordan, The call is coming from inside the house! SAEx’s head code writer hacked both Lesous and Ryan… He killed them and turned them into torsos…

  Howell Township, NJ

  He dragged Boehne from the trunk of his car and left him on the black drip pan in the middle of his garage floor while he pulled his car out of the garage and closed the door. When he returned through the side door, his smile was indulgent when he caught Boehne struggling weakly against the plastic ties, “It’s ironic,” he said in a quiet voice, “I positioned their right arms so they pointed accusingly at datacenters. I didn’t even realize most of them were yours.” He stood over him, “Your datacenters… and your signal amplifiers are the minions, the enablers who give HFT’s the secret power over Wall Street.” Boehne was silent as he looked up at him. “I know now when I positioned my catches the symbolism was not meant for the common man, it was meant for me, so I could see what I needed to do.” He suddenly smiled and chuckled, “And all I needed to do was capture the network and turn it against itself.”

  “I don’t get it,” Mike Boehne rasped, “what do you want?”

  “I’m going to take down Spread Networks and Wall Street in less than the blink of an eye.” Although frightened, Boehne still looked at him disbelievingly. “Remember that big flash crash at SAEx?” His smile was pleasant, “I was the father of that… inadvertently, of course, but I did create the code that caused the crash that day. I managed to stop it, but later I realized what everyone called a rogue code was actually the genesis of Life itself.” He gazed at the far garage wall, not seeing it, “Digital Life, but Life nonetheless. I’ve decided to call it Algorithmic Biogenesis. My code is going to take down Wall Street the instant before the closing bell today.” He grinned down at him, “Everyone in the market will know something bad has happened, but they won’t know for sure until the opening bell sounds tomorrow morning and nothing happens.” He chuckled, “The algorithm I’ve created is digital life, and given the slightest push, it will generate… procreate on its own. After it destroys Wall Street and the technologists of the world understand they cannot stop a living code we’ll finally be able to get on with the business of actual living… and I can return to writing code fulltime.” His smile was sublime and he drew in a slow deep clearing breath, “I’ll spend my remaining sentient days writing living code and studying digital life and how it interacts with our world… digital reality existing in its own time and space.”

  “Holy fuck.” Boehne whispered.

  Jonas looked at him as though he had forgotten he was there, “Do you know who I am?”

  It had started to rain when Jordan pulled off the road and into the trees; she had checked the satellite map while she was stuck in traffic and was disturbed by how closely the overhead view appeared to match Catherine’s sketches in her dream journal. I have a very bad feeling about this. She drove down the graveled driveway, carved in a straight line through the woods until it made a sharp right turn around a dense grove of mature White Ash and Eastern White Pines. The second the bureau car emerged from the woods, she slammed on the brakes. The driveway continued in a straight line through a gently sloping green pasture that ended at a white house with multi-paned windows.

  She quickly shifted into reverse and retreated into the safety of the woods, backing the car off the graveled drive and between two trees. She cut the engine and called the local police department. She identified herself and asked to speak to the shift supervisor, again identifying herself and telling her she needed backup to take a serial murder suspect into custody at 32 Olde Noah Hunt Road, in Howell Township. The moment she hung up her phone rang and she jumped even though she could see it was Catherine calling her.

  “Hey, I…”

  “It’s him, Jordan!” Catherine said in a rush, “I know it is, I’m such an idiot! It didn’t even occur to me to check the aerial view of his place until I found the hacks in his code!”

  “I know,” Jordan unbuckled the seatbelt and pulled it free, “I’m here; hiding in the woods at the end of his driveway and from what I could see the house looks just like your sketches.”

  “Oh, my god…”

  “Yeah,” the rain began to pound on the car’s roof and she raised her voice slightly, “I’ve called for backup so that’s why I’m waiting here in the trees.” She twisted to look in the back seat, “Wish I’d thought to grab a rain slicker, it’s really starting to come down over here.”

  “Good…” Catherine sounded relieved, “I mean that you’re waiting for help, that’s good.”

  “Excellent work as always, Doctor Bern...” Jordan froze in her seat, What’s that? She cocked her head to one side, listening, is someone crying?

  “Jordan?”

  “I gotta’ go…”

  “Are the police there?”

  “Yeah, just about, I’ll call you back in a few…” She snatched the car keys from the ignition, “Love you.” She hung up and turned the ringer and vibrate modes off her phone before slipping it into her jacket pocket. She got out of the car and manually locked the door before quietly pushing it closed and slipped the keys in her other jacket pocket. Walking cautiously onto the graveled driveway, she walked until she exited the trees and could look down the straight sloping driveway to the white garage and house. I could swear I heard someone crying… She absently patted one hand over her service weapon and the other over the spare magazine she kept on the back of her waistband. She stepped off the graveled drive and onto the flattened grass, I wish the rain would fall more quietly… she groused silently, running her hands back over her now rain-soaked hair, pushing it from her face and uncovering her ears. She strained to hear past the falling rain and when she heard the distant crying sound again, she took off running.

  “It’ll be quick, I promise.” Jonas assured him, “and more painless than the death I gave your predecessors.” He rolled him forward onto his stomach and pressed a foot against his back to hold him still, “They all had to watch when I cut their heads off, I’m putting a bullet in the back of your brain first.”

  Boehne began sobbing as soon as Jonas pulled the revolver from the back of his waistband. “PLEASE!” He shrieked, “PLEASE JESUS GOD PLEASE DON’T KILL ME!”

  A clap of thunder sounded overhead and Jonas smiled broadly, “See? Even the heavens are watching and sending their approval.”

  Jordan ran the length of the long driveway as fast as she could in the pounding rain; she had half assumed Alden had already killed Mike Boehne until she heard the crying, and as the skies darkened overhead in the strengthening storm, she could see light filling the garage windows and she pulled her weapon.

  Boehne was shaking violently as he sobbed and wailed; writhing on the dip pan and Jonas slid his booted foot higher on his back and against the back of his neck, “Hold still, you don’t want me to miss do you?”

  Jordan kicked in the door,
“FBI! HANDS UP!” she shouted; her service weapon held extended in both hands, pointed at Alden’s chest.

  Both Boehne and Jonas yelled in surprise but Jonas still managed to swing his revolver from Boehne to Jordan.

  “Don’t!” Jonas shouted and struggled to lower his voice, “Don’t, let me finish, please.”

  “Finish what?”

  “Let me destroy Wall Street. This is my last catch, I promise, he is the perfect example… the perfect symbol to the world of how corrupt a system the stock market is.”

  Rain dripped off the end of Jordan’s nose and gun, “It’s over now, Jonas, put the gun down and you can explain it everyone, okay?”

  “No.” He kept the gun trained on her, “I am stopping big banks and traders from screwing over every investor in this country, not the one small moral independent exchange that exists, not the FBI, no one can stop the flash traders or make a difference for good, only me, I’ve written the code… understand?”

  “I get it,” she said, keeping her tone conversational, “Wall Street is rigged and you want revenge, but how can you justify killing people?”

  “How can I…” He looked genuinely confused, “They deserved it.” He shrugged, “I didn’t know if I was going to make a difference, in the beginning I had no expectation I could stop the cruel disregard for basic decency, for common courtesy… the single-minded greed let alone the massive skullduggery… the all consuming and consumptive tumor that is Wall Street!” His voice grew in intensity and he calmed himself. “I only sought justice, vengeance, retribution... and I can stop it now… I can. I have written the code.” He gave Boehne a shove with his foot, “His datacenters and string of signal amplifiers will infect the entire global market in one tenth of a millionth of a second…”