Level 26

by Anthony E. Zuiker

  He cleared his throat.

  “Sqweegel is a Level 26 killer—the highest rank we now recognize, and about four ranks above what the rest of the world recognizes.”

  That got their attention. The CSIs in this room knew all about the so-called Evil Scale, which ranked killers from the lowest ranks (cases of justifiable homicide, jealous lovers, abused teenagers fighting back) to the highest (torture-murderers, terrorists, sex killers). Mark David Chapman, the man who shot John Lennon, was a mere 7—basically, a homicidal narcissist. Ed Gein, who killed, boiled, and ate his victims, then tanned their flesh for use as lampshades, rated a 13. Ted Bundy rated a 17, while Gary Heidnik and John Wayne Gacy both topped the scales at 22. As far as the world knew, that was as bad as it got.

  But over the past twenty years, Special Circs had encountered killers so extreme that they had been forced to add three new classifications to acknowledge that their skills and methods were far beyond those of Heidnik or Gacy. Their homicidal predilections ran beyond torture and rape; they believed themselves to be vengeful gods walking the earth, and possessed an almost superhuman ability to stalk and punish the victims, whom they considered inferior beings.

  Most of these young agents could only dream about these so-called Level 25 killers. Such beings were so rare and so new, they hadn’t even made it into the textbooks yet.

  And now Riggins was telling them, essentially, that there was something out there even worse.

  Someone whose skills did qualify as superhuman.

  Riggins allowed them a few moments to let the number 26 sink in their brains; then he continued.

  “Crime teams from Israel, Egypt, Germany, and Japan have tried to bring him to justice. Quantico alone has sent twenty operatives after him. They have all failed. His intelligence is off the charts, and he’s never left a single piece of physical evidence.”

  This finally prompted the reaction Riggins wanted—skepticism. After all, physical evidence was where they ate and slept; it was the foundation of their professional lives. Saying there was no physical evidence was like telling an accountant sorry, no numbers.

  A young CSI, female—from San Francisco, Riggins thought—spoke up.

  “Not a single piece of evidence in over two decades? How is that even possible?”

  “We believe that Sqweegel wears a suit—a kind of body condom that covers every square inch, helping him avoid forensic detection.”

  “A body condom?” San Francisco repeated. “Still, there have to be some trace elements of—”

  “Nothing,” Riggins said. “Every time a suspected Sqweegel case pops up, we send in a battalion and place everything that isn’t nailed down into tiny little baggies. We’ve been unable to find any piece of him. No blood or body fluids of any kind, no hair. Not even a stray skin cell.”

  Another CSI—one from Chicago—asked, “How is he linked to his victims, if he leaves no trace? This sounds like a boogeyman somebody cooked up to clear a lot of open cases.”

  “If only,” Riggins said. “No, we know about Sqweegel’s activities because he likes to tell us about them. And from time to time, he sends along evidence.”

  “He’s proud of himself. Showing off,” offered San Francisco.

  “Yes. And unlike some other serial killers, Sqweegel’s not looking for media attention. He’s happy just to let us know what he’s doing. It’s his life’s work, and he sees us—Special Circs, specifically—as his chroniclers.”

  “Sqweegel,” repeated a CSI from Philadelphia. There was a trace of laughter in his voice. “Where did the name come from? That some kind of Special Circs joke?”

  “No,” Riggins said. “The name came from one of his earliest murders—back around 1990, when he was still experimenting. There’s nothing he loves more than an unconventional murder scene. Striking where you least expect it. Say, at a busy suburban car wash on a bright summer day.”

  All eyes were on him now. Like kids awaiting their bedtime story. A car wash?

  “Mom pulls in,” Riggins continued, “kid, about four years old, sitting in the front seat. He loves the car wash and wants to watch the wipers and the big floppy brushes and all of that. Well, about halfway through, the crew hears screaming. Horrible, anguished screams—and you could hear it over the noise of the machines. Nobody can tell where the hell it’s coming from. They stop other cars from going in; they turn everything off. But by this time, the mom and her kid are almost out of the car wash, the driver’s door is ajar, and there’s soap and blood running down the driver’s-side door. Manager freaks, gets his crew to seal off both entrance and exit—clearly, the monster who did this is still inside. They call the cops.

  “The mother is just gone. Sliced up so thoroughly, we were still finding pieces of her in the car weeks later.

  “The kid was untouched. He sat in the front seat and watched the whole thing.

  “By this point, he was the only human being who’d ever seen Sqweegel and lived. So we questioned him. Asked him to describe the man in the car wash.

  “All he would say was sqweegel. Sqweeeeeegel. Imitating the sounds he heard while he watched his mother die.”

  Riggins looked around the room, then said, “The name kind of stuck.”

  After a few moments, the San Francisco CSI asked, “You said the staff guarded both exits. How did he get out of the car wash unseen?”

  “He didn’t.”

  “Sqweegel stayed inside?”

  “We discovered that he’d hidden himself in there the night before. He must have snuck in just before closing, and then wormed his way up among the tubes and hoses. He was able to bend his body to avoid the electric eyes that would normally trigger the next hose or brush to start moving, as well as the car wash’s security system. Then he twisted and crammed his body up inside the metal frame that holds the foam applicators and scrubbers in place. There’s barely enough room for a house cat up there, but somehow he forced himself to fit inside. And then he stayed there for at least eighteen hours, perfectly still, even as a million moving parts whirled and buzzed around him.”

  Riggins let that sink in, then continued.

  “The attack on the mother took place midafternoon. Best we can tell, Sqweegel was waiting for the right victim to come rolling down the conveyor system.”

  “You still haven’t told us how he got out.”

  Riggins was feeling a little better about this whole thing now. A few of these kids—San Francisco and Philly—seemed genuinely curious.

  “Sqweegel hid in the trunk of the car. Below the pullout floor panel, where you’re supposed to keep an extra tire? He curled himself up in there, like a fetus in a womb, knees under his chin, thighs pressed up against his chest, feet bent back at an unnatural position…and he waited. We think it was at least a day before he let himself out—right there in the middle of our garage. And the only reason we know is because he left us a note.”

  Their blank stares were downright unnerving.

  What Riggins hadn’t told them was that the note was left on his desk. Freaked him right out. Still did, to be perfectly honest.

  So did the next part, which he shared with the class:

  “We received a new Sqweegel message yesterday morning.”

  chapter 6

  Riggins had opened the package personally. An eight-millimeter canister packed inside a standard FedEx box. The label read: “SENATOR’S CUNT MISTRESS—7/28/98,” which was what he’d played for them a few minutes before. The clip showed the brutal torture-murder of Lisa Summers—a woman believed to be romantically linked to a certain U.S. senator back in the late 1990s. An oldie but goodie.

  This, too, was how Sqweegel operated. Telling his own tale out of chronological order. The handwritten notes and evidence and audiotapes and—in this case—films were selected and sent in a sequence that meant something to Sqweegel. Even if no one in Quantico knew what that was. What they knew for certain was that the arrival of a new reel of film meant that Sqweegel was signaling the begin
ning of something else.

  “The new mailing included the film you just watched,” Riggins explained. “What’s worrisome is the timing. He sent us a note a week ago, and another a week before that. Usually, he waits months—sometimes years. For some reason, he’s ramping up.”

  “Escalating,” said San Francisco.

  “Yes,” Riggins replied. “After a few years abroad, we believe he’s returned to America. All victims were on the East Coast—three in Manhattan alone. Just a stone’s throw from where you’re sitting right now. This guy is kicking on our back door, trying to get our attention. Well, we’d like to give it to him before he claims another life. Our utmost attention.”

  What Riggins couldn’t share with the class: The shockwaves had reached the top brass at the Department of Justice in record time. And strangely, they had spread to other branches of the government, too.

  Within hours the secretary of defense himself was personally applying pressure to Special Circs to wrap this case up…imediately. Riggins was a little mystified by the muscle. Yes, this was a serious threat. The idea of a Level 26 killer loose in the world was terrifying. And yes, Sqweegel seemed to be ready to do something bigger and bolder than ever. But Sqweegel had been killing for a long time. And the new message didn’t explain the offer he had been empowered to make to the operatives gathered in this room.

  But he had to make it anyway.

  That was the whole point of this morning meeting.

  “You are the elite,” Riggins said. “The best in this country at what you do. So here’s the offer, straight from the top. Take this monster down, and you’ll receive full salary for life. A twenty-five-million-dollar bonus. Complete erasure of your identity. A clean slate and the kind of life most of us can only dream of. This is a career maker, and at the same time, your golden parachute.”

  He paused to let the image sink in.

  “So who wants it?”

  Riggins waited expectantly.

  Again, a deafening silence filled the room. Everyone still seemed a bit stunned by the one-two punch of the snuff film and Riggins’s talk. Blank faces gazed at one another with staggered eye contact.

  Everyone tried to deflect—looking at one another like school-children, praying that one of them, just one of them, knew the answer to the damned algebra problem. Or more likely, praying that one of them, just one of them, wasn’t terrified out of his or her mind by what they had just seen on the screen.

  Riggins waited, but he knew what had probably happened. Word had leaked. When they were summoned from their home units, they started talking to each other—even though they were on strict orders not to utter a syllable about the trip.

  Maybe even the name “Sqweegel” came up—it was quite possible that their colleagues or their bosses had assisted on the earlier hunts for the monster. They were here because they were smart kids; a few of them would have pieced it together.

  And at some point in the last twelve hours, one of them had figured out that every agent who took the lead on the Sqweegel case ended up either dead or on life support in barely recognizable human form.

  So in the end, Riggins received the result he knew he’d receive—even as his superiors ordered him to go through the motions:

  Nobody came forward.

  Riggins wanted to yell at them. Hurl his coffee cup. Shatter it on one of their pimply, Ivy League–educated skulls. Ask them why they’re in this if they didn’t really want to be in this.

  But no. That wouldn’t do any good.

  Even Riggins had to admit that the offer was on the absurd side. Just like the government to throw piles of money at problems they only pretended to understand. Hell, all the money in the world wouldn’t matter if you ended up dead—or worse. And that was a certainty when it came to Sqweegel.

  He was a predator of men unlike any other. As lethal as a knife in your skull, but as immaterial as a phantom.

  There was only one man even remotely qualified for this case. The one man who had locked eyes with Sqweegel and managed to survive the encounter.

  The same man who would never, ever take it.

  chapter 7

  The classroom was now empty, the students long departed for home. Riggins wondered whether he’d just single-handedly shattered the confidence of every decent CSI from coast to coast. Nobody likes to admit they can’t handle something, that a case is too frightening for them.

  Riggins had known that this was a bad idea from the beginning. He wished he’d listened to his gut instead of his superiors. It wasn’t their fault, either. They were reacting to orders from on high themselves.

  Constance Brielle approached, put her hand on Riggins’s shoulder, squeezed it a little. “They’re ready down the hall.”

  “Great,” Riggins said. “Awesome. Isn’t that what you kids say?”

  “I wouldn’t know, Tom. I haven’t been a kid for fifteen years.”

  “Bah. You’re still a kid.”

  “Somehow, coming from you, that’s sort of sweet.”

  She tried to smile at him, and Riggins appreciated that. He liked Constance because she reminded him of Dark, before all of the crazy shit happened to him. Constance was smart. Tough. Drawn to the flame, but agile enough to avoid being consumed by it. She got off on recognition of her skills. One kind word—even a casual attaboy—was enough to fuel her for months.

  She was also an extraordinarily pretty woman, with full ruby lips and precise little hands that drew your attention. Her dark hair was pulled back behind her head with a no-nonsense clip, revealing the elegant angles of her face. Not that Riggins would ever consider making a move. He’d gone that route before, and it accounted for one of the ex-wives who now wished him dead.

  “Come on,” Riggins said. “Let’s get this over with.”

  An international conference call had been scheduled for eight thirty that morning.

  A consortium of forensic psychiatrists from the top crime-fighting agencies in the world—including those from Italy, Japan, and France—had recently pieced together the criteria for a Level 26 killer and strongly urged immediate action. Those countries had pooled their money and were now awaiting the name and CV of the Special Circs agent who would be leading this new, no-holds-barred task force dedicated to capturing Sqweegel.

  The secretary of defense himself, Norman Wycoff, would also be present, at the request of none other than the president of the United States. Apparently, Sqweegel had joined the short list of national security risks.

  All eyes would be on Riggins in a matter of minutes. He’d never been more on the spot than he was right now. He could feel the perspiration beginning to collect on the back of his neck and knew it wouldn’t be long before he sweated through his black suit.

  Constance led the way down the hall, then positioned herself in front of a bank of monitors and slipped on a headset.

  Riggins stood behind her, bracing himself.

  The world wanted answers but Riggins had none. All he could hear was the pulse-hammering footsteps of Norman Wycoff thundering down the hallway.

  To join the U.N. conference call, log into LEVEL26.com and enter the code: dark

  chapter 8

  Dulles International Airport

  9:17 A.M.

  The meeting had been brief, and exactly the kind of utter and complete abortion Riggins had expected.

  Namely because Riggins didn’t—couldn’t—tell them what they wanted to hear. No one wanted the job of chasing Sqweegel.

  But the secretary of defense made matters worse when he pulled rank on Riggins in front of everyone—Constance and the Special Circs support staff, as well General Costanza from Italy, General St. Pierre from France, and Minster Yako from Japan—all of them the top law enforcement officers in their respective countries. It was like being upbraided in front of the whole world.

  And as a result, the offer of $25 million pooled from Italy, France, and Japan had been swiftly rescinded.

  Now Robert Dohman—the secretary of def
ense’s hatchet man—led Riggins down the tarmac to the Boeing C-32 that was serving under the call sign Air Force Two. Dohman was either doing a poor job of making small talk or doing an excellent job of annoying Riggins.

  “So nobody took the offer, huh,” Dohman said.

  Riggins gave a tight smile. “I’m sure you heard what happened in the teleconference, Dohman. Your boss doesn’t keep you on that short a leash.”

  “Did you mention the bonus?”

  “Yes, seeing as that was a key part of the offer.”

  “And nobody bit? Not a single one of your agents could use an extra twenty-five million?”

  Dohman had bushy eyebrows, a bad comb-over, melanoma-addled skin. There was a black leather briefcase handcuffed to his beefy wrist.

  This fuckhead knew exactly what had happened in that disastrous teleconference. Riggins admitted that nobody had taken the offer. Talks went tits up, and everyone left the room angry, including Riggins.

  And of course, General Costanza—Italy’s top crime fighter—had to go and bring up Dark’s name, which then got the secretary of defense in a lather. How many times could he tell them that Dark was out? Dead and gone, when it came to Special Circs.

  Riggins wasn’t even sure that Dark shouldn’t be arrested, considering the things he suspected he had done after walking away from Special Circs.

  No matter—the secretary hadn’t believed Riggins. Because a short while later Dohman stopped by personally to escort Riggins to Dulles. The secretary of defense was making a trip west anyway, and it was suggested that Riggins join him.

  Suggested, in the same way that an umpire suggests that a batter is out.

  chapter 9

  9:22 A.M.

  Air Force Two is not what you’d imagine—all polished wood and leather chairs and scotch in beveled glass tumblers and the lingering scent of Macanudo cigars.