Mortal Fear

by Greg Iles

  “But you don’t know it was only one penetration. If he’s in the system now, and he has the super-postmaster privilege, that means he could have read your messages to me, which would tell him the FBI was onto him.”

  There is a long silence. “Brahma is not in the system now. But even if he were, he could only have read my messages during the interval between my posting them and your picking them up. Unless you saved them to a file. Did you do that?”

  “No. I printed hard copies and deleted them.”

  “What time did you do that?”

  “Just before I talked to Eleanor.”

  “So stop worrying. And get off my case. All it would take is basic postmaster for Brahma to read your warning to Eleanor.”

  Miles is right. “You just stop looking over my shoulder, goddamn it.”

  “I can’t guarantee that.”

  At least he’s honest. “Miles, I want the super-postmaster privilege and any others I don’t know about.”

  “I can’t give you that. Jan has already blocked your access to the accounting database.”

  “What?”

  “What did you expect, Harper?”

  “Listen to me. If Strobekker or Brahma or whoever is still roaming our system, I’ve got to know I can see everything he can. If I can’t, I’m off EROS as of now.”

  “Let me think about it. The FBI phone traces are going nowhere, but I’ve been going back over some of Brahma’s old e-mail—”

  “How did you get that?”

  “I pulled it out of your computer.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t get your panties in a wad. It was necessary. I’ve got other sources too. The thing is, Brahma’s using an anonymous remailer for his e-mail.”

  “What does that mean in practical terms?”

  “Regular e-mail is traceable. You can look at the packet headers and get a user name, or at least take back-bearings and get a rough physical location. But Brahma doesn’t use the EROS-mail feature. He sends his e-mail to our servers via the anonymous remailer, which is in Finland, and then through the Internet. The remailer strips off his address and adds a random one. I spoke to its operator about a half hour ago.”

  “Have you told the FBI?”

  “Oh sure, we’re like Boris and Natasha here, man.”

  “Can they get info on Brahma from the remailing service?”

  “There’s a precedent for getting cooperation from the police in some countries in extreme cases, but the guy who runs this service sounded like a wild man. A real anarchist. He’s probably destroying all his records right now.”

  “That’s why Brahma chose him.”

  “Obviously. Brahma’s a clever boy, Harper. Too clever for Baxter’s techs, I fear.” Miles is clearly enjoying himself. “We’ve still got FBI agents camped out up here. They’re guarding our file vault like it’s the tomb of Christ, waiting for the time lock to open and give them the master client list.”

  “Great. Now we’re back to where we were when you changed the subject. Give me the super-postmaster privilege or I’m shutting down my EROS interface.”

  He doesn’t answer for some time. Then he says, “Type S-I-D-D-H-A-R-T-H-A after your password at the sysop prompt. Got it?”

  “Siddhartha as in the Herman Hesse novel?”

  “As in the Buddha. But that’s close enough.”

  “I think you’ve gone weird on me, man.”

  “I always was, Harper. You know that. Ciao.”

  And he is gone.

  I sit thinking in the soft glow of the EROS screen.

  Siddhartha? Brahma?

  I don’t know or care much about Eastern religions, but Miles certainly seems to. And though I do not know the significance of this, or whether it has significance at all, I am suddenly reminded of Drewe’s speculation about Oriental medicine and the use of bizarre trophies to restore vitality. I always related such things to Japan, and Buddha fits with Japan, though the Buddha himself was Indian. Brahma and Shiva make me think of India too. I remember from my meeting in New Orleans that the only murder victim who was not Caucasian was Indian. Also that an Indian hair was found at one of the crime scenes. I see no tangible links between these facts, yet I know too well that my knowledge of such things does not even rate as sketchy. They could easily be connected just beyond my myopic mental vision.

  Life would be much simpler if the FBI could follow a trail of digital bread crumbs back to the lair of the killer. But Miles has little faith that this will happen, and something tells me he is right. That we have yet to make out even the silhouette of the creature behind these murders.

  I hunted when I was a boy. I gave it up the day my cousin put four Number 6 shotgun pellets into my right calf. It was a late February afternoon, and we’d gotten separated. I was following what I thought was a rabbit into a thicket. My cousin heard a noise and thought fate had handed him an out-of-season deer. I don’t blame him for shooting. Five seconds later and I might have shot him. Neither of us could see what we were after. That’s the way it goes sometimes. But I’ve often wondered what would have happened had it been something other than rabbits we were chasing. A bear, say. Something that would have seen me lying there bleeding on the ground and come over to finish the job. That’s the way it goes sometimes too. It all depends on the quarry you choose to hunt.

  Chapter 11

  Dear Father,

  Panikkar telephoned early this morning, saying he had to see me. I feared the worst, and I was not far wrong. When he arrived I was in the basement, settling Jenny in. After I came up, I found him waiting in the study with Kali. Panikkar told me that he and Bhagat had “endured all they could”—his words. I expected next to hear him say that he had gone to the police, who would arrive at any minute.

  How wrong I was. Instead of delivering a sermon of moral outrage, he demanded more money. He must have thought I was ripe for fleecing, with the procedure so close. The mendacity of man is his undoing. I was prepared to pay, but when Panikkar mentioned the amount it stunned me. As I tried to explain my position, I saw movement in the shadows behind him. Like a mantis Kali swung her thin brown arm over his shoulder and plunged her dagger into his belly.

  There was nothing I could do. It was plain from the spray that the first stroke had pierced the abdominal descending aorta. Before I could utter three sentences she had eviscerated him, while Panikkar stared at his butchered belly in horror. True to her namesake, Kali removed his head and hung it by the hair from her belt. I realized how dangerous this development was, of course, but it was oddly satisfying after all Panikkar’s grousing. Thank God it was him, rather than Bhagat. Anesthesia is a nice luxury, especially for the patient. In future I can do the typing myself.

  I feared that when Panikkar did not contact Bhagat with news of our meeting, Bhagat would go to the police. But Kali knew what to do. She called Bhagat and told him the procedure would be performed tonight as planned. Bhagat asked to speak to Panikkar, but Kali told him Panikkar was busy with me in the basement. She said Bhagat could collect the bonus that Panikkar had negotiated, but only after the procedure was completed. When Bhagat expressed anxiety, Kali told him to park outside the rear door. Panikkar would assure him that all was well.

  When Bhagat pulled up, Kali switched on the interior light and held Panikkar’s severed head up to our door window on a pole. From outside, all Bhagat saw was Panikkar’s face (which was never very animated anyway) and a beckoning hand. The fool parked his car and entered with a smile.

  Kali sat him down and explained in their language what had transpired, all the while with Panikkar’s head hanging from her belt. The expression on Bhagat’s face defied description. Not a word passed his lips. When he rose to leave, Kali informed him that the procedure would proceed as scheduled. He had two hours to rest before getting into his scrubs.

  Panikkar be damned. Tonight I go in.

  Chapter 12

  I come awake expecting to see fine blue lines of daylight around my heavy
window blinds, but there is only darkness.

  My telephone is ringing.

  I have to get up to answer it. Sweat cools on my skin as I feel my way across the air-conditioned office to the phone.

  “Hello?”

  “Is this hopper school?” asks a whisper of a voice.

  “What?”

  The whisper gets louder. “Is this Harper Cole?”

  “Yes. Who the hell is this? If you’re a cop, call me in the morning.”

  “I’m not a cop.”

  The voice sounds nervous. Nervous and young. “I’m sleeping. What do you want?”

  “This is David Charles. Do you remember me?”

  “No.”

  “You talked to me a couple of times on the phone. I’m one of the techs at EROS.”

  My eyes click open. “Yeah, I remember you.”

  “No, you don’t. That’s okay. I’m one of Miles’s assistants.”

  “What can I do for you . . . David?”

  “I’m not sure. I just thought I’d better talk to you. You know the FBI is up here, right?”

  “Yes. Trying to do phone traces?”

  “Yeah. The atmosphere is really tense. They’ve got agents guarding the file vault, and Miles is acting really weird. He’s pretty paranoid about the government.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Well . . . the thing is . . . your access to the accounting database was cut off, right?”

  “Yes. Jan Krislov ordered that, if I’m not mistaken.”

  “You are. Miles did it. I mean, he told me to do it.”

  I feel a strange giddiness. “What are you trying to tell me, David?”

  “Well, I just thought you should know. About two hours ago, I realized that another blind-draft account had been terminated for insufficient funds. It happened this morning. It belonged to a woman—”

  I feel my mouth go dry.

  “—named Rosalind May. She’s from Mill Creek, Michigan. At first I didn’t think anything about it. But then I realized she was on a list I saw in Miles’s office.”

  Shit.

  “It was a list of blind-draft women who haven’t been logging on but are still paying their fees. There are about fifty of them. Anyway, I decided to check and see whether May had logged on at all in the last few months. She seemed to lose interest about three months ago. But then I saw that she’d logged on every night for five nights, starting last week. She dropped off again two nights ago. And then today her secret account was overdrawn. Like she needed to make a deposit but wasn’t around to do it. You know?”

  Yes, I know—

  “And the thing is . . . Miles hasn’t told the FBI yet.”

  “Jesus.”

  “And since he hasn’t told them,” Charles says hesitantly, “I don’t feel too good about walking up to these suits and volunteering the information. You know? I figured since you first reported the murders, you might know how to handle it.”

  The weight of this information is too great to absorb quickly.

  “Harper?”

  “You were right to call me, David. I’ll take care of it.”

  “You will? Wow. Okay, man.” The relief in the tech’s voice is palpable. “Look, I gotta go. Miles is all over the office right now. I don’t think he’s been to sleep in like fifty hours.”

  “Try to get him to rest,” I say uselessly.

  “Yeah, okay. I will. And, uh . . . try to keep me out of this, okay?”

  He hangs up.

  I switch on my halogen desk lamp and dig through my wallet for Daniel Baxter’s card. I dial the number before I have time to second-guess myself.

  “Investigative Support Unit, Quantico,” says a crisp female voice.

  “I need to speak to Daniel Baxter immediately.”

  “Your name?”

  “Harper Cole. It’s about the EROS case.”

  “Hold, please.”

  A Muzak confection of old Carpenters tunes assaults my ears for nearly two minutes before Baxter comes on the line. An out-of-tune violin is still ringing in my head when he says, “Cole? What you got?”

  “It’s five a.m.,” I say, looking at my desk clock. “You work all night?”

  “It’s six a.m. here. What you got? I’m pretty busy.”

  “You’re about to be a lot busier.”

  Baxter catches his breath. “Spit it out, son.”

  “I just learned that another blind-draft account went to zero. It was terminated today. It belonged to a woman.”

  “Jesus Christ. Not this soon. You got a name?”

  “Rosalind May. Mill Creek, Michigan.”

  “Rosalind like in Shakespeare, or Rosalynn like Rosalynn Carter?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How’d you find out about it?”

  I remember David Charles’s plea for protection. “Worry about that later. Can’t you just check the name?”

  “I’ll do it right now. Anything else I should know?”

  “No. As soon as you find out anything, please give me a call. I mean immediately. You owe me that much.”

  “I’ll buzz you. I’m going to call the Mill Creek P.D. right now.”

  I get up from the halogen glow and walk down the hall to check on Drewe. She left the bedroom door open when she went to bed, a good sign. As she snores softly, I discern her face in the moonlight trickling through the window. Her mouth is slightly open, her skin luminous in the shadows. I don’t know how long I stand there, but the muted chirping of my office phone snaps me out of my trance and I slip quickly back up the hall to get it.

  “This is Harper.”

  “It’s bad, Cole.”

  My blood pressure drops so rapidly I grab the desk to steady myself. “She’s dead?”

  “Worse.”

  “What? What’s worse than dead?”

  “Rosalind May has been missing for fifty to sixty hours. That’s Rosalind with a D. Two nights ago she was dropped off at her home by a date at eleven p.m. Sometime during the night, she apparently let someone into her house or else voluntarily left to meet them. She hasn’t been seen since. In my experience that’s worse than dead. It means very painful things.”

  “Oh, God. You think it was our guy? Strobekker?”

  Baxter hesitates. “I don’t know. I’d say yes, but there’s one thing that doesn’t fit. One very big thing.”

  “What?”

  “Rosalind May is fifty years old. She has two grown sons. All the other victims were twenty-six or under.”

  “Except Karin Wheat,” I remind him. “She was forty-seven.”

  “Yeah. And one other thing.”

  “What?”

  “This UNSUB left a note. The police didn’t find it until last night. One of their detectives decided to poke through her computer—”

  “There was EROS software on the drive?” I cut in.

  “No. Just like the other cases. Anyway, this Michigan detective was poking through her computer, and he found a WordPerfect file he couldn’t read.”

  “It was encrypted?”

  “Not digitally. It was in French.”

  “French? You’re sure the UNSUB left it?”

  “You tell me. The translation’s about a paragraph long, but the end of it reads: ‘The dawn is breaking on a new world, a jungle world in which the lean spirits roam with sharp claws. If I am a hyena I am a lean and hungry one: I go forth to fatten myself.’ Mean anything to you?”

  The skin on the back of my neck is tingling. “Yes. I mean, I recognize the passage. It’s Henry Miller.”

  “The porn author?”

  “Miller wasn’t really a porn author. Not as you think of it. But that’s not important. The passage is from Tropic of Cancer.”

  “How do you know that? Nobody here did.”

  “Dr. Lenz must not be there. He would have known it.”

  “You’re right. He’s out of pocket just now.”

  “Tropic of Cancer is a classic of erotic literature. I’m sure it’s stil
l in print.”

  “Which means anybody could walk into a bookstore and buy one?”

  “Probably not any bookstore. Not the chains. You’d probably find it in stores that cater to a literary crowd, or else in erotic bookstores.”

  “Thanks. That helps.”

  “What kind of killer leaves notes in French, Mr. Baxter? You ever see that before?”

  “Never. The translator in Michigan said it was probably written by a highly educated French native. Very elegant, he said. I’ve sent it to a psycholinguistics specialist at Syracuse. He won’t be able to look at it before morning, though. The Mill Creek police aren’t telling the press about the note, by the way. They’re using it to screen false confessions.”

  “Hey, I’m not talking to a soul.”

  “I’ve got a really bad feeling about this one,” he says, almost to himself.

  “Why?” I ask, not admitting that I have the same feeling.

  “The UNSUB has killed all the other victims at the scenes. Now he takes one away, no signs of violence. If this is our guy—and my gut tells me it is—he’s varying his behavior more than any killer I’ve ever seen. He could be starting to come apart, to lose control of what’s driving him. But I don’t think so. He seems able to choose whatever crime signature he wants, which means he’s not driven beyond the point of control. If you hadn’t called with Rosalind May’s name, we never would have connected this crime to the others. You understand?”

  “Too well.”

  “I appreciate the help, Cole. It’s nice to know someone at EROS realizes we’re the good guys.”

  I say nothing.

  “Talked to your friend Turner lately?”

  “No. I mean, not directly. He sent me some e-mail. Nothing important.”

  Baxter waits. “Right.”

  “What will you do now?”

  “Pray he makes a mistake.”

  Chapter 13

  Dear Father,

  The procedure failed.

  That is not wholly accurate. I was prevented from finishing by an unrelated accident. As Kali brought out the patient, she showed signs of hysteria. Unlike the Navy girl, Jenny, who adapted quickly, this one seemed not to have settled her nerves since we took her. Kali told me privately that Jenny had attempted to calm and reassure May during the night (quite ironic, considering the respective fates that awaited them) but the older woman would not be comforted. I’d had to sedate her at gunpoint the first night to get her to sleep at all.