Dark Revelations

by Duane Swierczynski

  And finally a title card: I WILL

  HELP YOU

  OUT OF THE

  LABYRINTH

  THE WORLD

  IS NOT

  BEYOND SAVING

  Did you see that? Freeze it 2:43 and you can see this fucken guy EXPLODE

  Dollarhyde28 19 seconds ago

  The guy has a point. Fuck the greedy oil companies

  Felding11 1 minute ago

  Hey, FosterK777, what makes this different from showing innocent civillions getting shot 2 hell by U.S. army hellacopters?

  2Buzz2 2 minutes ago

  Can’t believe this is still up, and that we’re all watching this. I mean, this is video footage of a man dying!

  FosterK777 3 minutes ago

  You’re not the real guy

  Dazzaland101010 5 minutes ago

  and the best is yet 2 come

  enterthelabyrinth 6 minutes ago

  chapter 23

  Brussels, Belgium

  The name on the vibrating cell phone was TREY, and even though MEP Alain Pantin was in the middle of seven different projects and two live conference calls in his cramped office near Leopold Park, he plucked the cell from his desk and held it to his ear.

  “Have you been following the news?” Trey asked.

  “Which news?” Pantin asked, squinting, trying to recall the major headlines of the past few hours. The revolution in the Middle East? The collapse of health care in the West? The political sex scandal of the hour?

  “The Labyrinth news.”

  At times, Trey could be infuriatingly cryptic. Out of seemingly nowhere, he’d reference box-office tallies, or the impurity of water sources in the Middle East, or some other bit of global trivia. But Pantin had learned that when the man was interested in something, it was very much worth being interested in it, too.

  “Labyrinth—you mean the killer who’s been leaving riddles?” Pantin asked.

  “Oh, there’s much more to it than that. Have someone on your team put together a summary. No, better yet, I’ll have something sent over. It’s been fascinating me, this thing. The implications could be huge.”

  Pantin didn’t know what that meant. But then again, his mind could never operate with the speed and precision of Trey’s. The two had met at a dinner party in Spain three years ago, and it was Trey who, after just a brief but intense conversation, convinced Pantin that he should consider running for the European Parliament. Pantin politely brushed it off with a joke, then spent the entire night staring at the hotel room ceiling, realizing that yes, this was what his unorthodox career choices had meant him to do. Amazing. It took Trey just minutes and some insightful questions to draw that out of him; Pantin counted it as one of the most profound moments of his life.

  The next morning Pantin called Trey and asked if he’d be interested in joining his campaign team. Trey politely demurred, saying he wouldn’t be able to commit, but he’d willingly give counsel and advice where he could. Pantin was elected by a wide margin, and Trey was the behind-the-scenes man who’d helped him win—as well as become a leading voice in Europarl.

  Pantin was up for reelection, so of course he could indulge Trey his quirks now and then.

  “I heard he struck again,” Pantin said. “Somewhere in the Middle East?”

  “The murders are interesting in their savage and grotesque ways. But if you look past the Grand Guignol and listen to his message, I think you’ve got someone who is truly seeking to engage with the world on a level we’ve never seen before.”

  “Engage?”

  “He’s a killer who’s not in it for the killing. He’s trying to send a message to the world. And what this Labyrinth individual needs is someone to reply to him, from the world stage.”

  “Sure. Interpol,” Pantin said.

  “I was thinking you.”

  “What . . . me?”

  “This is exactly what you need at this point in your career.”

  As a new Belgian member of the European Parliament, Pantin was viewed as a comer with a promising future. Nobody knew that Trey was quietly helping his young protégé pursue that full-time. Pantin didn’t know what Trey did full-time; there were rumors he used to be part of British intelligence, but nothing solid. Trey repeatedly said he would never run for office himself; he liked the backstage wrangling way too much. Being the man behind the men.

  “Isn’t that playing in the gutter?” Pantin asked. “The man’s clearly a psychopath. Seems strange to jump into the conversation, especially since he’s not even operating anywhere near Europe . . .”

  “Forget the crimes and think about his message.”

  “Which is?”

  “Based on his attacks on the entertainment and oil industries,” Trey said, “I’d venture that he has a problem with selfishness and greed. Sounds like the campaign promises of a certain young Europarl member I know.”

  “Surely you’re not suggesting I align myself with a madman.”

  “No. You condemn, and then seize control of the conversation. This Labyrinth may be psychotic, but his rage is fueled by real concerns. Your concerns, actually. This is a way to make your agenda heard in a fairly spectacular way.”

  Pantin paused. The advice seemed to run counter to everything Trey had taught him.

  “I don’t know, Trey.”

  “You don’t have to know. I agree, this is a risky and bold play. So all I’m suggesting is that you start paying attention to Labyrinth seriously. Read all you can. Think about his message. Sometimes a revolution begins from the act of a single individual. Look at Tunisia, and that poor son of a bitch who set himself on fire. You could call him a madman, but he had a message, too, and the message went viral. This Labyrinth? I don’t think he’s going to stop anytime soon, and the world will need someone to respond. Turn a positive out of the negative. I think it should be you.”

  “Thanks, Trey. You’ve given me a lot to think about.”

  “I’ll send over a clip file within the hour.”

  Pantin hung up the phone and politely excused himself from the two conference calls in progress and stared out at the park, visible through his office window. As usual, Trey’s advice was the kind that shocked initially, but needed time to worm its way down into his brain.

  When, suddenly, the advice would make perfect sense. People liked a leader who could project an air of calm and rationality into the global conversation.

  Pantin smiled, despite himself.

  Come on, Labyrinth.

  Let’s see what you’ve got.

  New York Times

  Breaking: Is Labyrinth posting on social media?

  AP News

  Breaking: Texas oil executive assaulted by pack of teenagers quoting “Labyrinth” speech.

  Guardian

  Breaking: Green organizations call for boycott of IPC gasoline products pending investigation into “Labyrinth” charges.

  chapter 24

  DARK

  Dubai, United Arab Emirates

  Dark had been taunted before. Sqweegel—his longtime nemesis, and a so-called forensic-proof killer—had been dispatched over five years ago, but was still partly alive in a secret corner of Dark’s mind. Sqweegel had fixated on Steve Dark himself, forcing Dark out of his cocoon, leading him around the country on a blood-soaked trail of savagery and leaving fresh corpses in his wake until a final showdown. A confrontation that took everything from Dark. So if there was one thing Dark had grown to loathe, it was the taunts from killers who thought they were stronger, faster, smarter than the cops who chased them.

  But Dark had Labyrinth’s game now.

  The riddle gave the method of murder. With the actress and the producer, it had been literal: shot, hung, drowned, just as in the riddle. With the oil executive, he had been destroyed by an artificial river.

  The artifact pointed to who. The nude sketch. The extinct fish from California.

  And finally, the timepiece revealed when. But it also lent insight to the who and the method
. Everything was symbolic. Everything carefully thought out in advance.

  Taunting them.

  But that, Dark realized, would work to his advantage. Labyrinth’s inflexibility was his vulnerability. He was like a madman setting up an overly elaborate Rube Goldberg–style trap. All Dark had to do was remove one piece in advance, and watch it come crashing down around him. It was familiar, in a sick way. If Dark had been sharper, he could have sensed the pattern with Sqweegel a lot earlier. This felt like karma handing him a cosmic do-over.

  Still, that didn’t explain Blair’s—and Global Alliance’s—interest in this case.

  “I want to talk to Blair,” Dark told Natasha Garcon.

  “You’ve got a phone.”

  “A number would be great.”

  Natasha sighed. She’d spent the past few hours trying to coax every possible second of surveillance footage from the resort owners, and was weary from the effort. The fact that they obviously had trouble dealing with a woman didn’t help, either. She made a big show of pulling her cell phone out of her pocket, thumbing through her contacts, pressing the screen, then handing the phone to Dark.

  “Thanks,” he said, then held the phone to his ear. Blair answered after the first ring.

  “What’s the latest, Natasha?”

  Dark didn’t bother with an explanation. Instead he asked, “Something’s bugging me.”

  “Ah, Dark,” Blair said. “What is it?”

  “From all that you’ve told me, Global Alliance operates in the shadow world, neutralizing threats before they surface. This has already surfaced. The whole world is beginning to talk about this. What do we bring to the table that no other law enforcement agency isn’t already doing? I feel like we’re batting cleanup here.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “Focus our efforts on thinking a step ahead. Forget Dubai for now. It’s over, and he’s received the impact he wanted. We’ve lost this round of his game. Let’s start thinking about this like chess, and outthink his next move.”

  There was silence on the line, and for a moment, Dark suspected that he may have pushed back too hard.

  But instead Blair told him,

  “You’re right. Let me talk to Natasha.”

  chapter 25

  LABYRINTH

  Now the world is finally rousing from its slumber and starting to pay attention.

  I read it all, the headlines

  Tweets

  status updates

  push notifications

  blog posts

  comments

  And yes, people are starting to pay attention.

  Make one bold statement, they can still write you off as an eccentric—the act could be a one-off. The media said as much. People understood, and could deal with, aberrations. Even shock wears off. Consider the lessons of 9/11. Normalcy returns quickly. People want to be normal. They crave it, because it is safe and reassuring.

  To truly make a global change you have to follow it up with another statement.

  One that shows the depth of your message.

  One that shows you are serious.

  This is the way you save the world.

  One shock at a time.

  Not long after landing in Johannesburg I take a taxi to my rented workstation in a nondescript skyscraper and begin preparing my next gift. They know me here. They smile and nod because I am polite and nice and handsome and well-groomed and not in their presence long enough to make any other kind of impression. They may have seen me once, somewhere, on TV perhaps.... But they don’t comment or gawk—that would be rude.

  They say,

  Hello.

  And make a comment about the weather or inquire about my flight. So I humor them and say,

  Did you know they charge for pillows now? Isn’t that the craziest thing? I like comfort just like the next guy, but for nine euro I’ll stay a little uncomfortable.

  They laugh and smile along with me, even though what I am saying isn’t very funny.

  I look at them and continue,

  I hope you’ll forgive the wrinkles in my jacket. Turns out it works just as well as a pillow—of course, you have to remember to take the pens out of your pocket!

  More laughs, more enthusiastic now, because that’s how they’re trained.

  I could draw them into a corner and say a few words and within an hour they’d be slicing their own throats and drawing pentagrams on the walls with their own blood.

  Just by talking to them.

  But no.

  There is another package to prepare.

  I take the elevator upstairs to my private office where my guest is already waiting for me.

  All told this is relatively easy; I had the materials shipped here months ago through a series of cutouts and drop boxes, none of it traceable back to me.

  Even if someone were clever enough to trace the movements of the boxes, seizing and opening them would reveal essentially meaningless objects:

  A book.

  A sculpted piece of stone.

  But if you understood the game . . .

  It would mean everything.

  And soon they will.

  chapter 26

  DARK

  Airspace over Europe

  By the time the team was flown back to France, everyone was exhausted. For all of that effort, the suspect known as Labyrinth had left no fingerprint, digital or otherwise. No equipment, no gear, no reservations, no shipping orders, no human contact whatsoever. It was as if a ghost had sent the tank of fish and the gold watch and scrawled the riddle on company letterhead.

  Now it was time to head back to the real Global Alliance headquarters to plot their counterattack.

  “I just realized,” Dark said, “that I have no idea where we’re going. Where is the Global Alliance HQ?”

  O’Brian smirked. “He didn’t tell you about it? Oh, you’re going to love it.”

  Paris, France

  Almost two hundred years ago, Paris began pulling the limestone from beneath its feet to construct its magnificent buildings. What remained were a series of underground quarries that were later put to use by mushroom fighters, French resistance fighters, Nazi invaders, and more recently—urban explorers who routinely broke into the web of tunnels and pits for parties or just the sheer thrill of it. The French made it illegal to wander through this tunnel back in the 1950s, but that didn’t stop the cataphiles.

  It also didn’t stop Damien Blair when it came time to choose a headquarters for his burgeoning Global Alliance.

  Access to GA HQ was difficult unless you were Blair or a member of his team. Armed guards staked out the three entrances: a hidden elevator in a skyscraper above, a subterranean loading dock on a secret level of a parking garage (large enough to accommodate vehicles)—and, as an emergency failsafe, a sewage junction a few blocks away. Even if you were to blast your way past the armed guards—many of them as skilled at combat as Hans Roeding, since he’d trained them—the only way to access the tunnels was through a complex series of biometric devices. And once again, unless you were Blair or one of his handpicked team members, the shape of your iris and the curve of your earlobes and the whorl of the skin on your nose and the structure of the veins on the backs of your hands would give you away. Lockdown. Alarms. Entrapment. After that, you would need an extremely good lawyer.

  The main complex was six stories beneath street level, which included a briefing room, weapons room, state-of-the-art forensics laboratory, library, gym, and quarters for the team members.

  As the newest member, Dark had been given a spartan room along with some basics: clothes (his size, and a perfect fit), a grooming kit, a new smartphone, tablet computer. Blair told him that he could order whatever he needed on the tablet computer; the goods would be delivered to the guards by the loading dock within six hours. If he needed something in a rush, simply mark it as urgent and it would arrive by courier within thirty minutes. Just like pizza, Dark thought.

  But what Dark wanted most
was to call his daughter, Sibby, hear her voice. It was three A.M. at home, however. He couldn’t wake her on a school day.

  So instead he crawled into the stiff double bed he’d been given and told himself it would be good to grab a few hours’ sleep, at the very least. Dark hadn’t slept in days, now that he thought about it. Not since hearing about the first Labyrinth package.

  And he could not sleep, now, either.

  His brain refused to turn off.

  Not until he figured out the killer’s next move.

  When Dark’s mind was fixed on a case, there was little else he could do. It was almost as if he went into a fugue state, the movie theater inside his mind playing flashes of the crime scenes (the bloody river, the alarm clock, the gold watch, the blown-out interrogation room, the finger, the sketch of Bethany Millar) on an endless loop while the logical part of his mind tried to piece them together. Some sick fuck out there had obsessed over these same objects....

  So where had his mind gone next?

  What was Labyrinth obsessing over now?

  Before the pieces came together, however, the killer struck again.

  AP News

  Breaking: Reports of a new Labyrinth riddle in South Africa.