Dark Revelations
Page 1
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
chapter 1 - LABYRINTH
chapter 2 - DARK
chapter 3 - LABYRINTH
chapter 4 - DARK
chapter 5 - DARK
chapter 6 - LABYRINTH
chapter 7 - DARK
chapter 8 - DARK
chapter 9 - DARK
chapter 10 - RIGGINS
chapter 11 - DARK
chapter 12 - DARK
chapter 13 - LABYRINTH
chapter 14 - DARK
chapter 15 - RIGGINS
chapter 16 - DARK
chapter 17 - DARK
chapter 18 - LABYRINTH
chapter 19 - DARK
chapter 20 - DARK
chapter 21 - DARK
chapter 22 - DARK
chapter 23
chapter 24 - DARK
chapter 25 - LABYRINTH
chapter 26 - DARK
chapter 27 - DARK
chapter 28 - LABYRINTH
chapter 29
chapter 30 - DARK
chapter 31 - LABYRINTH
chapter 32 - DARK
chapter 33
chapter 34
chapter 35
chapter 36 - BLAIR
chapter 37 - DARK
chapter 38 - LABYRINTH
chapter 39 - LABYRINTH
chapter 40 - DARK
chapter 41 - DARK
chapter 42
chapter 43 - RIGGINS
chapter 44 - LABYRINTH
chapter 45 - DARK
chapter 46 - DARK
chapter 47 - DARK
chapter 48 - DARK
chapter 49 - DARK
chapter 50
chapter 51
chapter 52 - DARK
chapter 53 - LABYRINTH
chapter 54 - DARK
chapter 55 - LABYRINTH
chapter 56 - DARK
chapter 57 - DARK
chapter 58 - RIGGINS
chapter 59 - RIGGINS
chapter 60
chapter 61
chapter 62
chapter 63 - DARK
chapter 64 - DARK
chapter 65 - DARK
chapter 66 - LABYRINTH
chapter 67
chapter 68 - DARK
chapter 69 - DARK
chapter 70 - LABYRINTH
chapter 71
chapter 72 - DARK
chapter 73 - LABYRINTH
chapter 74 - DARK
chapter 75 - DARK
chapter 76 - LABYRINTH
chapter 77
chapter 78 - DARK
chapter 79 - DARK
chapter 80 - DARK
chapter 81 - LABYRINTH
chapter 82 - DARK
chapter 83 - LABYRINTH
chapter 84 - DARK
chapter 85 - DARK
chapter 86
chapter 87
chapter 88 - DARK
chapter 89 - DARK
chapter 90 - DARK
Acknowledgements
dark revelations
about the authors
also by anthony e. zuiker
also by anthony e. zuiker
LEVEL 26: Dark Origins
LEVEL 26: Dark Prophecy
DUTTON
Published by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.); Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England; Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd); Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd); Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi–110 017, India; Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd); Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Published by Dutton, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
First printing, January 2012
Copyright © 2012 by Anthony E. Zuiker
All rights reserved
REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Zuiker, Anthony E., 1968–
Dark revelations : a Level 26 thriller featuring Steve Dark / by Anthony E. Zuiker with
Duane Swierczynski. p. cm.
ISBN : 978-1-101-56309-0
I. Swierczynski, Duane. II. Title.
PS3626.U35D375 2011
813’.6—dc23 2011033065
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
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http://us.penguingroup.com
To Uncle Denis Scinta, my biggest fan
It is well-known among law enforcement personnel that murderers can be categorized as belonging to one of twenty-five levels of evil, from the naïve opportunists starting out at Level 1 to the organized, premeditated torture-murderers who inhabit Level 25.
What almost no one knows is that a new category of killer has emerged. And only one man is capable of stopping them.
His targets:
Level 26 killers.
His methods:
Whatever it takes.
His name:
Steve Dark.
WILL
YOU
STEP
INSIDE
THE
LABYRINTH . . . ?
chapter 1
LABYRINTH
The homeless man sways back and forth, back and forth, on the street corner just across from the big gleaming white phallus of Los Angeles City Hall.
He’s either preparing to cross the street or keel over and die.
But he won’t die.
Not yet, anyway.
After a few moments he wipes his brow, hoists the box under his arm, then ambles across the street.
Good puppet.
Watch him walk through the neatly designed plaza, enter the front doors of the gleaming new Police Administration Building, and make his way right up to the smooth polished wood partition of the security checkpoint.
The homeless man stands there and waits for a guard to see him, just as instructed.
Guard asks,
Help you?
The security detail is used to men (sometimes women) showing up in this condition, looking for handouts or a smoke or a bathroom, but this homeless man merely smiles, revealing rotted, pulpy gums and meth-ravaged teeth, holding up the box like a moron, wordlessly gesturing for the guard to take it.
Just like I told him to.
The expression on the guard’s face practically screams:
BOMB
Everybody scrambles.
The new administration building has state-of-the-art antiterrorism gear—you don’t go dropping $437 million on a new police facility without dedicating a fat chunk of that money to security, not in this post-9/11 world where government buildings, and public servants, are prime targets.
Through the plate-glass windows I watch as the homeless man and his box are forcefully and quickly separated.
I sit on the bench and sip a cup of slightly bitter shade-grown coffee.
At long last, it begins.
I can do many things.
Things you couldn’t even begin to imagine.
Powers, skills, and abilities beyond the human ken.
However, I cannot see through walls.
Still, I know exactly what is happening inside police HQ right this very second.
By now, the suspected B-O-M-B would have been brought to an outside facility for examination using the latest equipment. X-rays. Chemical tests. Each test costing the residents of Los Angeles a stunning amount of money.
The old protocol used to be simple: Blow it up first, sift the remains later.
But not now, in these heightened times.
If only they would open the box, all would be explained. But I knew they wouldn’t open the box, because they feared a bomb might be inside.
And truth be told, they are right. I did send a bomb.
Only it’s not in the box.
Now the homeless man would be brought to an interrogation room with two deputy chiefs of the Counter-Terrorism and Special Operations Bureau.
I checked the rosters and knew exactly who would be in that room with the foul-smelling homeless man.
Men with checkered pasts.
And the homeless man wouldn’t say a word. He’d be semi-coherent, at best.
Wouldn’t ask for a lawyer, nor respond to direct questioning.
Wouldn’t dare.
Just like I trained him.
[To enter the Labyrinth, please go to Level26.com and enter the code: boom]
chapter 2
DARK
Downtown Los Angeles, California
When Steve Dark arrived at the chaotic scene at LAPD HQ a burly row of uniforms yelled and tried to push him back—no access, no nothing, don’t care who you’re with, don’t care what you say. Dark calmly removed the cell phone from his jeans pocket, pressed a button, then showed the screen to the nearest cop.
“Oh, okay,” one of them mumbled, then parted to let him through. “Guys, he’s okay. Let him in.”
Dark still had his get-into-any-crime-scene-free pass, courtesy of Lisa Graysmith. The digital image on his phone allowed him passage into pretty much any law enforcement perimeter in the world. It was a universal COOPERATE WITH ME OR ELSE badge, with clearances at the highest level. Dark had received it in an instant, but he knew it could just as easily be taken away.
He was led to the interrogation room, which had been rocked by the explosion. The blast, Dark could see, was brutal yet short-range: meant to kill those in close proximity, but not cause structural damage to the building. The rooms were too small, too well insulated. The blast would have nowhere to go but through them all. Dark thought about the flesh ripped from bone, the pulpy fragments of what used to be a human life splattered over the walls of the interrogation room.
“What happened?”
An LAPD crime scene investigator glanced at Dark’s badge, then explained that the two detectives were in the same room with the suspect—a homeless man who’d carried in a suspicious package.
“Turns out the package wasn’t the worry,” the CSI said. “The guy was a living bomb. We’re trying to pull enough together to figure out what type.”
“Where’s the other package?” Dark asked.
“Over in the forensics lab. Ask for Josh—”
“Banner? Yeah, I know him. Thanks.”
Dark had heard about the blast while making breakfast for his daughter. He immediately put on his headphones and tuned in to the police band for the details: A homeless man had shown up at LAPD headquarters with a package thought to be a bomb. But instead of the package exploding, the man did—killing two seasoned deputy chiefs and injuring six. Within minutes Dark was handing off his daughter to his mother-in-law and climbing into his Mustang, hell-bent for downtown.
This was no ordinary terrorist incident.
Ordinary terrorists don’t leave mysterious packages behind.
Steve Dark used to be a cop.
The best of the best, working for the most elite manhunting unit in the FBI—Special Circumstances Division. He’d worked for Agent Tom Riggins, the man who’d carved Special Circs out of the Justice Department’s ViCAP—Violent Criminal Apprehension Program—during the mid-1980s. For years, Riggins and Dark and their colleagues hunted the worst monsters to ever scuttle across the face of the earth. And Dark was usually leading the hunt.
Until one of the monsters struck back in the worst way imaginable. Dark had been raised by a loving foster family here in California. His new parents, Victor and Laura, thought they would never be able to conceive. They adopted Steve. Then soon after, Laura got pregnant. Twin boys. Still, they treated Steve no differently than his younger siblings.
Years later, a forensic-proof killer who came to be known as Sqweegel butchered Dark’s foster family in the most brutal way Riggins had ever seen. Dark left Special Circs and crawled into seclusion. He only came out when Riggins forced him to—and together, in a grueling cross-country chase, they caught the maniac responsible.
But at a terrible cost. During their final confrontation, Dark had lost his true love, his bedrock of sanity—his wife, Sibby.
Now Dark was hunting the monsters on his own and trying to raise his five-year-old daughter, Sibby—named for her mother. Dark hunted killers without a badge, without Riggins, without the support of the FBI, without any official sanction whatsoever.
In its place, Dark had the clandestine support of a silent patron with ultradeep pockets and forensic gear that would be the envy of any law enforcement division in the world.
This support allowed Dark to walk into any crime scene and do what he was born to do:
Catch the monster.
One elevator ride and three turns later down a clean, bright antiseptic hallway, Dark found Josh Banner’s lab.
“What do you have, Banner?”
“Well, we ran every explosives test and we . . .”
Banner froze midsentence then spun around on his stool, a confused look on his face.
“Huh? Steve? What the heck are you doing here? You’re not back with Special Circs are you? Because if you are . . . Wait, don’t answer that. I don’t want to know, do I?”
Dark and Banner shared a peculiar history. Five years ago, Banner had helped Dark track down Sqweegel. Banner joined Special Circs soon after, and worked with Dark for four years until circumstances put them on opposite sides of a case. Even though Dark had officially cleared his name, he could tell that Banner was still wary. And since that case, Banner had panicked and jumped back to his old job in the forensics unit of the LAPD.
“No, I’m not with Special Circs,” Dark said. “So what was in the package?”
“Can I . . . uh . . . I mean, am I allowed to speak to you?” Banner asked, glancing around nervously at the other techs in the room.
Dark showed him the badge on his phone. “Yeah, you can.”
“All righty then,” Banner said, clearly relieved there were no ethical dilemmas to navigate. Dark showed him the badge; Banner would show him the evidence. “Well, there were no explosives in the box. The terrorism guys did every possible test on it, and then I did a few more. Not even a microbe of anything that could go boom. So we cut it open and found something really weird.”
Banner led Dark over to the main desk positioned in the middle of th
e room. On the surface were three objects:
A handwritten note.
An alarm clock.
And a drawing on a piece of paper ripped from an artist’s sketch pad.
“Ta-da,” Banner said. “And yeah, none of it makes any sense.”
“Let’s start with the note,” Dark said.
“Well, the message was written in allegedly analysis-proof plain block letters,” Banner explained. “We’ve got a handwriting expert working on it. Strangely enough, the note was on LAPD stationery—straight from the chief of police’s office. And it was not a threat letter. Not an obvious threat letter, anyway.”
Dark leaned over for a closer look. Written on the note was a riddle:A WOMAN SHOOTS HER HUSBAND. THEN SHE HOLDS HIM UNDER WATER FOR OVER 5 MINUTES. FINALLY, SHE HANGS HIM. BUT 5 MINUTES L ATER THEY BOTH GO OUT AND ENJOY A WONDERFUL DINNER TOGETHER . HOW CAN THIS BE?
LABYRINTH
Dark pondered it for a moment but decided to move on. If this unknown subject—“Labyrinth”—wanted the focus to be the riddle, then he would have sent it alone. Chances were, the riddle would only make sense in context, when examined with the other two objects.
And you don’t kill two cops in cold blood without having something important to say.
“What’s the deal with the alarm clock?” Dark asked. “Anything unusual?”
“Yeah, that gave the bomb squad guys a nice little jolt when they X-rayed it, let me tell you,” Banner said. “But there were no traces of explosives, no hidden wires, no nothing. The clock is harmless, unable to trigger anything except a really annoying ringing sound.”
Dark looked it over. The thing looked like it had been plucked from someone’s bedside table back in the 1950s. “Maybe it’s merely parts for a test run.”
Test runs that had been so popular over the past year. Send bomb parts through—timers, wires, circuit boards—then sit back and watch how a particular security detail reacts. Or doesn’t react. Homegrown anarchists and international terrorists have tried it plenty of times before. The entire state of California was still reeling after the bombing of the Niantic Tower up in San Francisco a few months back. Security precautions, already tight, were now sphincter tight. The thinking was, you don’t waste real explosives until you’ve exploited the right gaps in security.