Mortal Fear

by Greg Iles

  “You mean we can query the system to ask whether or not Strobekker is online?”

  “Not exactly. First of all, you’re not supposed to know his legal name—if Strobekker is his name. Miles or I can search using the account name, but I can’t guarantee Strobekker wouldn’t see us looking for him. God only knows what kind of setup he has, wherever he is.”

  “But I can search using his online aliases?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let’s query for Shiva and Kali right now.”

  “You can only search for one alias at a time. The system will tell you whether the person using that name is online, but not where he or she is. Then you can send the person a message, but there’s no guarantee he’ll answer. The other way is to enter various chat rooms and ask

  ‘Who’s Here?’ ”

  “Will the other people in the room see you ask that?”

  “The minute you enter a room, they see your name pop up on a list in a little window on their screen.”

  “How many rooms are there in the system?”

  “Theoretically, an infinite number.”

  Lenz groans. “I need Strobekker to find me as if by accident. How can we search an infinite number of rooms?”

  “It’s not as bad as it sounds. The number of active rooms fluctuates anywhere from a couple of dozen on a Monday morning to eight or nine hundred on a Friday night. That includes so-called private rooms that hold only two people at a given time.”

  “Nine hundred? You said you or Turner could do a search by the account name. Can you do that from here?”

  “Yes, but I’m sure Miles would already have told the FBI agents at EROS if the Strobekker account was active.”

  Lenz gives me a look that makes plain how little faith he has in Miles’s motives.

  From the Toshiba I log in as SYSOP TWO, give my password, and run an account search for STROBEKKER, DAVID M.

  “Not among those present,” I say, and push the chair away from the Toshiba. “Look, I really need to call my wife. It won’t take more than a couple of minutes.”

  “Well, get me started at something,” Lenz says.

  I wave him out of his chair and mouse him into a lobby room with about ten people in it. “Just read what comes up on your screen. Get a feel for the conversational style. If somebody asks you anything, ignore them. I’ll be back in no time.”

  “Use my cellular,” he advises. “It’s secure. Punch seven-seven-seven-six before you dial your home number. And don’t put a one in front of the area code. And don’t take too long. I want you right here when I get a nibble.”

  A nibble. I almost laugh as I step into the hall with the cellular. The guy thinks he’s fishing. And maybe he is. I punch in the FBI code, then the familiar six-zero-one that encompasses all of Mississippi. Drewe answers after two rings.

  “Harper?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank God.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I was worried. Are you calling from a plane?”

  “No. I’m still in Washington. Virginia, really.”

  “You sound like you’re in a plane.”

  “It’s too complicated to explain. But I should be home before morning. Any more police harassment?”

  “No. Whatever you’re doing, it’s working. I did get one call, though. From that New Orleans detective.”

  “Mayeux?”

  “Yes. He’s worried about you. He said he didn’t know where you were, but he had a feeling you were with the FBI. He told me to warn you not to trust them, Harper. He said the FBI will use you while they need you, then throw you to the dogs.”

  I hear a muffled “Cole?” from inside Lenz’s room. “I’ve got to go, Drewe. Tell your dad everything’s under control. I know he’s worried about all this.”

  “Not right now he’s not. All he can think about right now is Erin.”

  My heart stutters. “Erin? Why’s that?”

  “She and Patrick are having problems again. When I got home tonight she was sitting on our steps with Holly. She drove over from Jackson because she didn’t want to be there when Patrick got home. We drank coffee and played with Holly for hours. Then she went to Mom and Dad’s to spend the night.”

  Jesus. “Did she tell you what was wrong?”

  “She wouldn’t be specific, but it’s serious. Patrick called four times, and he sounded angrier every time.”

  “Is Holly okay?”

  “She senses the tension, but I think Erin and Patrick know enough not to fight in front of her.”

  I wonder. The likely source of Patrick’s “tension” could turn any man violent.

  “Don’t worry about that stuff,” Drewe says buoyantly.

  “Just take care of the police problem and get back here. I love you, you know.”

  “I love you too.” A brief silence. “Bye.”

  “Bye.”

  I shut off Lenz’s cell phone and lean against the wall, my right cheek flush against the cool Sheetrock. She was sitting on the porch steps with Holly . . . wouldn’t be specific . . . he sounded angrier every time—

  “Mr. Cole? You okay?”

  Special Agent Margie Ressler is standing before me with a tray piled with sliced pizza, paper towels, a glass of ice, and a Diet Coke. She looks like a waitress in a college town, where restaurants are blessed with a pool of potential employees overqualified in every department.

  “You look like you’re in a daze,” she says.

  “I’m fine.”

  “When was the last time you ate?”

  “It’s been awhile.”

  “Here.” She holds a slice of pizza within biting distance. Something about Agent Ressler encourages informality, so I lean forward and take a bite. The spicy cheese is a moist explosion in my mouth.

  “Mmmm. Better than crawfish étouffée.”

  She grimaces. “I’d think anything was better than that.”

  “Ever had it?”

  “No.”

  “Then you don’t know what you’re slandering.”

  She laughs lightly. “You don’t look like most computer jocks I know.”

  “That’s because I’m not one. I’ve got a knack for applications, but that’s it. I guess it’s sort of like driving a car. I’m a good driver, but I couldn’t rebuild an engine if my life depended on it.”

  “I’ll bet you can change the oil, though.”

  “Are we flirting, Agent Ressler?”

  She grins. “I guess we are. Call me Margie. I think I’m flirting because I know I might be trapped here for a long time.”

  “It seems like dangerous duty.”

  “Decoy work?”

  “Yes. I guess you’ve done it a lot, though.”

  “No. This is my first time. I’ve only been out of the academy a couple of years.”

  “Cole,” Lenz calls, his voice like a hand on my sleeve.

  “Are you out there?”

  Margie laughs. “He sounds mad.” She drops her voice. “I wouldn’t want that bird mad at me. He’s a strange one.”

  “He grows on you.” I smile and slip the cell phone into my pants pocket. “I’ll take the tray, Margie. You be careful.”

  “No sweat,” she says with a toss of her hair. Then she turns and trots back down the stairs.

  At the bedroom door I pause. I’d intended to make one other call while out here. Eleanor Rigby. Miles interrupted my first attempt to warn her off EROS, and I haven’t managed to do it since. The hard bulge of the cell phone in my pocket offers a chance, but instinct tells me that any number I call on the “secure” FBI phone could later be identified and traced to a name. I’ll have to find another way.

  “This is fascinating,” Lenz says as I enter the room.

  “These conversations are a free-for-all.”

  “You mean threads,” I correct him, setting down the tray.

  “Threads?”

  “That’s the online term for conversation, on EROS anyway. On other services ‘chat�
� is the correct term, but on EROS ‘thread’ covers pretty much any conversation. In special interest forums, a ‘thread’ is where a few people get on one subject and everyone puts in their two cents’ worth. Like ‘Coping with AIDS’ in the gay forum. Any time of day or night, clients can read what’s already been said and post a reply if they want.”

  I sit down in the swivel chair and begin munching on the pizza. “Let’s scan the forum headings, just to give you an idea of what’s out there.”

  I click the mouse on GENERAL INTEREST FORUMS, and the thread headings appear in a column window:ABORTION RIGHTS UPDATE

  ACTS OF LOVE [GRAPHIC FILE (UNDER CONSTRUCTION) DECODING SOFTWARE REQUIRED]

  ACTORS’ STUDIO

  ANALISM

  BREAST CANCER, NOT THE END OF YOUR SEX LIFE

  BREAST REDUCTION/ENLARGEMENT, IS IT SAFE?

  BRIEF ENCOUNTERS

  CAMILLE [PAGLIA]

  CINEMA VÉRITÉ

  COPING WITH AIDS

  “Paglia?” says Lenz. “Camille Paglia is on EROS?”

  “I can’t tell you that. But clicking on that heading will lead you to a discussion of her works. There are over a hundred headings, but you get the idea.”

  I’m reaching for my mouse when Lenz stops my hand and says, “I’d like to see them all.”

  I can almost see his eyes focus on the more provocative selections. My eyes gravitate to those I know as the more popular or strange.

  COPROPHILIA

  DE SADE RECONSIDERED

  DOMINANT FEMALE

  EROTIC FINE ARTS [GRAPHIC FILE (UNDER CONSTRUCTION) DECODING SOFTWARE REQUIRED]

  EROTIC LITERATURE SALON

  EUROTRASH BIN

  FEMINISM 101

  FETISHISM [23 SUBCATEGORIES]

  FROTTEURISM

  GAY MAN’S WORLD [28 SUBCATEGORIES]

  GOD IN THE BEDROOM

  HETS ONLY [HETEROSEXUALS]

  HIV POSITIVE?

  INCEST SURVIVORS: WOMEN ONLY

  ISLAND OF LESBOS [31 SUBCATEGORIES]

  JAN KRISLOV [THE CEO ANSWERS YOUR QUESTIONS]

  MEDICAL-SEXUAL QUESTIONS [M.D.s RESPOND AS TIME PERMITS]

  NECROPHILIA

  PHONE SEX, STUCK IN ADOLESCENCE

  PRIVACY RIGHTS (14 SUBCATEGORIES)

  QUEER NATION

  RAPE COUNSELING

  ROMANCE

  SEX POLICE

  UROPHILIA

  VOYEURISM

  YOUNGER MEN, OLDER WOMEN

  ZOOPHILIA

  “Many of these are medical terms,” Lenz observes.

  “Drewe had to bring home a DSM-III-R manual just so I could figure out what some of them meant. Now I name a lot of the threads myself.”

  “Are there many physicians on EROS?”

  “A fair number.”

  “How many?”

  “Over a hundred.”

  Lenz seems to be thinking. “Are these headings permanent?”

  “Some are, but the idea of EROS is to be dynamic, to respond as various needs arise. For example, ‘ISLAND OF LESBOS’ is constant, but many of its subcategories change every day. It covers all kinds of lesbian behavior and interests.”

  “Let’s look.”

  I click the mouse on LESBOS and watch the new window open, revealing another column of thread titles.

  “What’s ‘Penetrating Discussion’?”

  “Some lesbians are into penetration, others aren’t. They discuss various objects to use for it. What’s better, natural versus artificial, like that. I figured you knew all about this stuff.”

  “I have some lesbian patients who use vegetables for stimulation. I sometimes think about it when I walk through the produce section of a grocery.”

  “That’s garden-variety stuff, pardon the pun. You know what shocked me? They talk about size a lot. One woman said most vegetables were too large for her. She said the perfect thing to use was an Oscar Mayer wiener. Don’t laugh—it’s true. I said, ‘Isn’t that too soft for the job?’ And you know what she said? ‘Not if you freeze it.’ If you freeze it!”

  Lenz beams with the pleasure of a man who is rarely shocked. “But how does she stand the temperature? That could damage her tissues.”

  “That’s exactly what I said. She told me that when she’s ready, she just takes one out of the freezer and runs it under hot water for about sixty seconds. Then it’s perfect.” I shake my head. “I’m telling you, anything you can possibly think of, it’s already been done and posted on EROS.”

  “What about these graphics files?”

  “That’s Miles’s project. Jan Krislov originally wanted EROS to be purely text-based. She saw that as another way to keep the level of discussion high. But the demand for graphics has become so great, and the technology so much better, that she’s had to give in. The whole thing is Miles’s baby, of course.”

  While Lenz nods thoughtfully, I click out of the forum and into the live-chat area. “I guess we’d better start checking room by room for prose that sounds like our man.”

  Lenz takes something from a drawer. “I’m going to tape our session,” he says, pressing a button on a small Olympus recorder. “That way I won’t have to make notes of any instructions you give me. It’ll save—”

  The psychiatrist jumps as one of the phones on the desk rings. He looks to see which number it is, then answers. While he turns away and speaks too low for me to hear, I punch up the EROS e-mail window on the Toshiba and compose a quick message to Eleanor Rigby: Please DO NOT log on to EROS again until you hear from me. Strange things happening. Will send further mail via Internet. HARPER. Before sending the message, I disable the Auto-File function so that no record of this note will be saved to Lenz’s hard drive. Then I click the mouse on SEND NOW. MESSAGE MAILED flashes just as Lenz hangs up the phone.

  “That was Daniel Baxter,” he says, his voice brimming with excitement.

  “What is it?”

  “Strobekker just contacted the Bureau.”

  “What?”

  “He sent a message to Daniel’s personal e-mail address at Quantico. Could that be possible?”

  “Sure, if the Quantico computers are connected to the Internet.”

  “Some are. But the Unit’s computers are supposed to be sealed off from the outside. This message came across the internal e-mail system, the same way a secret case memo would. The Quantico technicians say they can’t locate the source of the message. Daniel is rattled. He’s faxing us a copy now.”

  The fax machine rings on cue, and we both stare at the slowly emerging page. When Lenz is sure no more is to come, he tears off the curled sheet and lays it on the desk. It reads:PLEASE STOP TRYING TO LOCATE US. YOU CANNOT SUCCEED. YOU WERE NOT EVEN CLOSE TODAY IN DALLAS. AN INNOCENT MAN DIED FOR NOTHING. IF YOU KNEW WHAT WE ARE TRYING TO ACCOMPLISH, YOU WOULD NOT EVEN TRY TO FIND US. YOU WOULD REALIZE THAT OUR WORK WILL ULTIMATELY BENEFIT ALL MANKIND. OUR WORK IS ALMOST COMPLETE. WE WILL SACRIFICE NO MORE LIVES THAN NECESSARY. WHEN THE TIME IS RIGHT WE SHALL COME TO YOU. YOU MUST TRUST US, AND LEAVE US ALONE.

  THANK YOU.

  “I’ve never seen anything like this,” Lenz says. “Notice the use of the pronoun ‘we’? Often that’s a ploy, but in this case it fits with the evidence indicating a team offender situation.”

  “You mean like a cult? Like the California police were assuming?”

  “No, no. Forget that drivel you heard in New Orleans. True cult murders are almost nonexistent. Ninety-nine percent of cult homicides are committed for standard motives. For example, a cult leader will mask the elimination of a rival as a ceremonial killing. More often than not, it’s lawyers and the media who turn homicides into ‘satanic’ murders.”

  Lenz touches the fax with his forefinger. “No, we’re dealing with something altogether different here. No threat at all, you notice that? Not even any baiting. The author was simply trying to communicate his thoughts. He really believes we cannot find him—or them, as the case may be.”

  My gut tells me the
author of the note may be right.

  “Daniel asked whether this might be the work of a disgruntled employee or prankster inside the Bureau,” Lenz muses. “I don’t think there’s much chance of that.”

  “But if you’ve never seen a note like this, maybe the killer didn’t write it.”

  “Oh, he wrote it. I perceive the lack of overt threat as more dangerous. The work of a more confident, and thus more organized, personality. And here . . . I think he actually believes we might stop hunting him if we understood his ‘work,’ whatever that is.”

  I read softly: “ ‘We will sacrifice no more lives than necessary.’ What do you think that means?”

  “We’re dealing with some degree of megalomania here. A tremendous ego—or group of egos—that believes itself a part of some grandiose or holy mission. That’s fairly common. Who knows what kind of twisted logic leads him to think that by killing he is saving the human race. Hitler thought he was sacrificing no more lives than necessary when he murdered six million Jews.”

  “I don’t know,” I say, scanning the note again. “The tone is eerie. Like Jonas Salk trying to explain his polio vaccine to a bunch of Stone Age bushmen. You know, ‘Some of you may be paralyzed from this, but in the end it’s for the greater good.’ ”

  “Albert Sabin had the live vaccine,” Lenz says softly. “But you’re right.”

  “Dallas was his early warning system. This is his response. He invaded the FBI’s computers to send it. That fact alone is his threat. He’s telling you you’re not in his league, Doctor.”

  “He’s wrong,” Lenz says quietly. He waves his arm at the arrayed technology. “Tonight is the commencement de la fin.”

  “The what?”

  “The beginning of the end.”

  I memorize the message before Lenz can set it aside.

  “I told Daniel I’d get back to him in an hour with an analysis,” he says. “We’re going to spend that hour on EROS. Are you ready to guide me, Cole?”

  Despite my fatigue and my anger at being coerced into my present position, a powerful current of excitement is circulating through me. The man who killed Karin Wheat just issued a direct challenge, and no Southern male is very good at ignoring those. It may be juvenile and atavistic, but it definitely gets the pulse pounding. I take a huge bite of cold pizza and wash it down with Diet Coke.