From over the radio, they heard the SWAT team leader telling his guys to get ready.
Darger felt a fresh surge of adrenaline as she watched the SWAT van door slide open. Eight men in black gear hopped out. Two more men from the bomb squad waited nearby — one with a German Shepherd on a lead and another in a bulky green bomb disposal suit.
She tried to swallow the tension creeping up from her gut. She never got used to being at a live scene like this. Maybe no one did. The anticipation thrummed in the air. Jittery body language abounded — fidgeting limbs, shimmying shoulders, torsos squirming against the backs of their seats.
Darger slid her eyes over to Loshak and could see the artery in his neck throbbing. His eyes were on the house, unblinking. Well, at least it wasn’t just her.
She knew the SWAT guys loved this. The buzz of energy in the air. The palpable sense of danger. That countdown to go time. Darger thought they were all a little nuts, frankly. She much preferred a quiet scene, after the fact. No wondering if someone was about to get hurt or killed. No pressure to make the correct decision in the span of a single heartbeat.
She blinked and saw that the SWAT team had reached the front gate. The man in front pushed it open and held it aside as the rest of the guys filed through. Half went to the front door. The other half slipped into the alley, heading for the back of the house. They disappeared around a corner, and then a raspy voice crackled over the radio.
“Team 2 in position. Ready when you are.”
“Go, Johnny, go,” the team leader said.
The team in front burst inside first, shattering the door with a battering ram and tossing a flash-bang grenade into the gaping hole.
The men rushed inside, and the radio buzzed with chatter as they searched and cleared the rooms.
“Living room clear.”
“Kitchen is all clear.”
The team leader’s voice came over the radio again.
“Team 2, we’ve secured the ground floor, but I’ve got two sets of stairs here. I’ll take the second floor with Latu. Jarvis and Mooney, you take the basement.”
There was a long pause as the men traversed the stairways. Upstairs, two bedrooms and a bathroom were cleared. They waited to hear about the basement for several more seconds, and eventually Darger started to wonder if they’d lost the radio feed.
The silence was shattered by a voice.
“Furnace room is clear. We’re moving onto the main—”
“Hands on your head! Hands on your head!”
Darger’s entire body clenched. They’d found someone. Huxley?
She said a silent prayer: Please let this go smoothly. Please let them get this guy without anyone getting hurt.
“Hands on your—oh shit.”
Darger held her breath, worried now that something had gone wrong. Each fraction of a second was measured out with the thud of her heartbeat in her ears. And then, finally…
“Jesus. Mooney, are you seeing this?”
“Yeah. Yeah I am.”
Darger’s chest hitched. Tried to breathe but she wouldn’t let it.
“Goddamn it, Jarvis. Is it clear down there or what?” the team leader demanded.
“Well… I mean… there’s someone down here, but… they’re pretty dead.”
CHAPTER 10
Darger huddled with the others outside Huxley’s house. Pacing along the sawhorse barriers planted in the front yard. Everyone fidgeting. Making idle conversation, their voices all sounding high strung with nerves, tight and a little clipped.
Inside, the bomb-sniffing dogs were making their rounds. A team of fierce-eyed German Shepherds doing multiple passes in each room for the sake of thoroughness. Thankfully the place was quite small at just over 900 square feet, including the partially finished basement. More of a shack than anything.
By the time the dog handlers were wrapping up, early word had come back on two fronts and circulated among the group outside. First, the dogs weren’t finding anything — their work would be as comprehensive as possible, but with no signs of any explosive material so far, odds were now beyond 99% that there was nothing of danger here. Second, the tenant — the body in the basement — appeared to have died by a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Darger tried to wrap her head around that. Tyler Huxley had shipped his bomb and gone home and killed himself? The notion intensified her queasiness, made fresh sweat seep from her palms and chest until most of her body felt clammy.
Finally, the dogs and handlers came out one by one and briefed Agent Laboda, confirming what everyone expected by now. No bombs or related materials were found, which was good… but to Darger it still felt wrong. Was a mid-list actor in Long Island really the only target here? The bomber already done in by his own hand?
With a hand signal from Laboda, the sawhorse barrier parted before them, and a flood of law enforcement advanced on the house. As she got in line to file through the front door with the others, Darger saw the guy in the bomb suit slowly shucking it off, piece by piece, just outside. He was covered in sweat but seemed in high spirits, a smile curling the place between his cheeks and chin. Probably any day you didn’t have to get within arm’s reach of something that might explode in your face was a good day in his line of work.
Inside, the light was dim. Peeling wallpaper drooped in the living room, and signs of water damage stained the ceiling brown above that in imperfect circles that looked cloudy. Pilled-up balls of lint coated the fraying carpet — the gray flecks looking like raisins dotting the pale brown shag. The furniture was sparse — it seemed Huxley sat on the floor with his laptop on a battered coffee table, a knee-high desk.
Looking ahead, she could see plates and bowls in the kitchen crusted with ketchup and the remnants of macaroni and cheese. Haphazard piles of dirty dishware and cutlery dominated the counter space, bulged out of the sink, some of the mess having taken up one corner of the cracked linoleum floor. Crumpled Burger King bags and cups intermingled with the platters. Red splotches seemed to adhere to all of the dinnerware — everything kissed with dried-out Heinz, the bright scarlet going dull and slightly brown as it dehydrated. It was a far cry from Gavin Passmore’s gleaming quartz island.
An odor of dust and soup had persisted in the front room of the house, the smell shifting as Darger strode through the doorway into the kitchen. A weird food stench of some kind wafted around the piles of dirty dishes and fast food wrappers cluttering the space. It reeked like heavily processed meat seasoned with a pungent spice Darger couldn’t place. Reminded her of uncooked hot dogs. The unidentified meat smell immediately made her think of the Jeffrey Dahmer case file — the neighbors had complained that his apartment smelled like chitlins, unaware that they were actually smelling the partially zombified bodies of his victims as they slowly decayed.
“Not to be morbid, but I gotta say, this whole deal is kind of an anticlimax,” Laboda said. “And believe me, I’m not complaining. It’s just I didn’t expect the guy to have taken himself out already.”
“It wasn’t exactly what I was anticipating either,” Loshak said. “The bomber types are usually pretty dedicated to their cause, whatever it may be.”
The four agents made their way through the living room and kitchen and headed down into the basement where the body had been discovered. Cracks slowly opened seams between the cinder blocks along the stairwell. The other outer walls in the cellar were even older, or so it seemed, made of stone and mortar.
Three maps of New York lined one section of drywall that separated a cobweb-covered furnace room from the rest of the basement. Nonsensical graffiti covered another section of the stone in a bright red scrawl, though Darger couldn’t make out much. She read what she thought said, Dominion.
“Just up here, we should find…” Laboda trailed off as they rounded the corner.
Darger saw the legs first. Sprawled. Feet clad in the yellow sneakers she’d seen earlier in the video of Tyler Huxley dropping the package in the mailbox.
&nbs
p; The shotgun still lay on the corpse’s chest. A Mossberg Persuader. Brand new judging from the still flawless matte finish of the pistol grip stock, the unblemished barrel protruding from it.
Her eyes moved on from the weapon. Saw the slack arms resting at his sides, elbows faintly bent. The relaxed pose of someone who fell asleep watching TV.
The stumped jaw was still intact. An angular bone with a plump bottom lip blooming out of it.
Everything from there up was gone.
He’d stuck the muzzle of the gun in his mouth. Blasted a pumpkin ball slug straight up through his palate.
Erased his face. Shattered the rounded dome of his skull.
Distributed his frontal lobe all over this section of the basement. A spray of skull fragments about the size of teeth.
This was more than a wound. It was obliteration.
Laboda sucked his teeth.
“Jesus H. Don’t think we’ll need the autopsy for cause of death.”
They all fell quiet for the span of a few breaths. Stared down at the wreckage that had once been Tyler Huxley’s face.
Blood gone tacky.
The smell of decay.
The medical examiner and an assistant descended on the corpse then. They fished a few items out of the pockets of his jeans — car keys and a balled-up Kleenex came out of the right front, his wallet came out of the back left. The assistant flipped open the wallet, pulled out the driver’s license, and handed it over to Laboda.
“Huxley’s license. No surprise there,” Laboda said, before handing the ID card around. “But we’ve got his prints on record from that shoplifting deal a few months back, so we’ll be able to use those to confirm the identity. Once word got around about the stiff in the basement, I called ahead, so the lab is waiting on the prints. Shouldn’t take long at all to make the comparison.”
While the M.E. continued her preliminary examination, her assistant squatted next to the body and began the fingerprinting process. Lifted the limp arm. Pressed the corpse’s fingers to an ink pad and rolled them onto a white card one by one. The black smudges blossomed on the white paper, swirled with the identifying loops and whorls of his fingerprints.
“Can you tell how long it’s been, doc?” Laboda asked the M.E.
She returned her thermometer to her kit and glanced up at them.
“Rigor mortis has dissipated, so I’d say it’s been over 36 hours. How much over, we won’t know for sure.”
“Based on the timeline it seems like he dropped the package in the mailbox, came home, and within a few hours at most, killed himself,” Darger said.
Everyone was quiet for a few seconds as they processed that.
“You think he started feeling guilty about what he’d done?” Fredrick asked.
Loshak frowned and scratched his chin.
“It’s possible. I think it’s more likely that he got scared. Knew we’d be coming for him.” He shrugged. “It’s not all that uncommon for domestic terrorist types to choose suicide over being caught.”
Laboda blew out a breath.
“Well, I apologize in advance if we dragged you guys all the way out here for nothing. I mean, it’s not exactly as if we need a profile now that the guy’s dead.”
Fredrick cleared her throat.
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” she said.
Darger’s head snapped around to face the woman.
“What do you mean?”
Agent Fredrick aimed a penlight at a piece of lined notebook paper taped to the drywall off to one side of where the body lay.
“He left a note.”
“A suicide note?” Darger moved closer.
Fredrick bit her bottom lip.
“Not exactly.”
The side of the room where the note had been left was directly in the path of the exit wound. The gore slicked the concrete basement floor, and Darger had to step carefully to avoid slipping on the broken pieces of Tyler Huxley’s head.
She found a clean area and leaned in to read the note without touching it.
The message was scrawled in spiky, aggressive lettering.
By the time you read this, I’ll be dead, but what I’ve set into motion will only be beginning.
The first bomb has gone off by now. So it begins.
Starting at midnight tonight, a bomb will go off roughly every eight hours, and a target will be neutralized.
The targets are of no significance politically.
They are cultural icons. Celebrities. Actors. Reality TV figures and the like.
Be honest. Fiery death could make some of these folks more likable.
Doesn’t that bland host of the karaoke show become more compelling after he’s been blown to pieces?
How about the fashion model trying to break into the mainstream taking shrapnel to her jugular?
The juicy lead role of her dreams.
You piggies have a chance, however, to stop some of the carnage.
What better way to get attention to my message than to invite the police and public alike to play a little game?
Here’s how it works:
Chunks of my journal are strewn about the city. Hidden. Each one contains clues to the next chunk, and likewise, each one divulges the details of one of the little toys I’ve prepared for one of America’s sweethearts.
Clues for names. Clues for places.
Everything you’d need to locate and disarm one of the bombs is there.
All I ask in return is that you read the journal. Really read it. Consider what I am presenting.
Ironically, killing celebrities will make me a celebrity.
For the next 24 hours or so, as my bombs either go off or don’t, I may well be the most famous person on the planet.
An unflattering photo of my face will be plastered in a box just over the news anchor’s shoulder.
It will be worth it.
My ideas will be dissected and debated the whole world round, chunks of my journal translated into damn near every language on the globe.
The game begins.
Pour yourself a cup of coffee. And if you must sleep tonight, be sure to keep those DVRs rolling.
From Hell,
T. H.
Darger reached out, her gloved fingertips barely touching the edge of the paper. She turned the note over and found tiny lettering on the back.
They say you’re not just a pretty face. But I wonder what you’ll do without it. Staring at yourself on screen, that looking glass mounted in every living room, like Narcissus staring into the pond. Rewind yourself. Replay yourself. An endless loop of you, you, you. Too stupid to look away long enough to eat or drink. Too stupid to live.
From over her shoulder, Darger heard Laboda’s voice.
“It’s going to be a long night.”
CHAPTER 11
Goosebumps rippled over Darger’s skin. Cold feelings crawling all over her, reaching inside of her.
More bombs.
Christ.
Her gaze stayed trained on that sheet of notebook paper. Blinking. Not really looking at it anymore. Some daze overtaking her body, her being, keeping her still. After a few seconds, a gloved hand plucked the note from the wall and the sheet of paper seemed to float away from her.
Laboda and Fredrick immediately pulled out their phones, putting in calls to their superiors to update them on this newest revelation.
Darger replayed the note in her head again, trying to parse it in any way she could. Read into it.
Starting at midnight tonight, a bomb will go off roughly every eight hours…
For the next 24 hours or so, as my bombs either go off or don’t…
The simple math seemed to suggest three more bombs. One scheduled to go off at midnight, another at 8 A.M., and finally 4 P.M.
Around her, the scene grew frantic. Her colleagues scrambled to come up with a plan. She heard Laboda barking at another agent to tell the bomb squad not to leave. Fredrick was yelling something into her phone about contacting the
Department of Homeland Security.
There’d been a brief calm once they found Huxley dead, a moment where they’d thought the worst was over. But this note, with its promise of more bombs, more explosions, more death, had thrown everyone into a frenzy.
More bombs. More victims. We have to find them before it’s too late.
A game Huxley had called it, and that sent a fresh chill through Darger’s flesh. Icy tendrils roiled in her forearms, in her hands.
Her mind went to Leonard Stump. All his philosophical talk was a guise, a cover for the way he liked playing with people. Liked to capture them and hold them under a microscope like an insect while he pulled off one leg at a time. The place where he’d put a bullet in her prickled at the suggestion, but then she pictured him as she’d last seen him: in jail, looking frail and pathetic, an eye patch covering the place where his last victim had taken her revenge. The strange feeling in her scalp vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
My wounds have healed, but Stump’s eye is never coming back. She took satisfaction in that. Just like the broken bits of Tyler Huxley’s skull will never piece themselves back together.
Another wave of crime scene techs entered the basement then, and the frenzied energy in the tight space ratcheted up a notch. The air grew stuffy with all the people crowded down here — muggy — and it was beginning to feel cramped. The physical discomfort seemed only to feed the sense of dread Darger was sure they all felt.
The clock was ticking, and no one knew where to start. Had Passmore been a random target? Chosen simply because he was an actor on the rise? Or was he someone with whom Huxley had some personal connection? The latter seemed unlikely, she thought, but if the victims were being selected at random, it’d make their job even more difficult.
He mentioned clues, she reminded herself. It’s a game.
Darger tumbled snippets of the note around in her head again. Tried to think, to get her brain to connect the dots somewhere.
There was something to the back side of the note. Something about the language. Vague and almost playful.
Violet Darger | Book 8 | Countdown To Midnight Page 6
