What Comes Next

by John Katzenbach

  “In other words, Audie, it was the perfect time and the ideal situation to not pay adequate attention.”

  There were twenty men in the patrol and they’d come that same way three uneventful times before in the prior week. Brian had described the setting: a thick stand of dark jungle trees seventy-five yards away on the right side of a wide-open rice paddy, a few huts, and a pathway to the local village off to the left. A couple of farmers were working the fields in the late afternoon. It was a setting filled with familiar, benign images. There was absolutely nothing out of the ordinary.

  When he told the story, Brian repeated this at least three times. Ordinary. Ordinary. Ordinary.

  The word had seemed like a curse.

  They were dog tired and they wanted to get back to the firebase, have a meal, rest, maybe get cleaned up at least a little. There was, he would tell his brother, no reason whatsoever to stop.

  But this day—Brian always remembered it was a Tuesday—he did. The men he was leading slumped to the ground. Fifty-pound packs in ­hundred-and-ten-degree heat sapped the decision-making process, Brian liked to tell his brother. Maybe you can study that, he would say. There was some grumbling—it’s often far more exhausting to stop than it is to keep going. The men sullenly sucked water from near-empty canteens and smoked cigarettes while Brian trained his binoculars onto the tree line. He had concentrated hard, slowly moving his vision over each shape and shadow. He’d seen nothing. Absolutely nothing. It only made him feel worse.

  “Audie, you can tell, sometimes. When everything is right but it isn’t really. And that is what overcame me that day. It was all too right. Too right by a half.”

  And so what Brian had done was chart out the entire tree line on his grid map, and then he’d called in the coordinates to the firebase after lying to the artillery officer telling him he’d spotted movement in the trees.

  The first round had landed short and killed the two farmers and sent pieces of a water buffalo flying bloodily into the air. Brian had ignored these murders, calmly adjusted fire over his radio, and seconds later sent high explosives tearing into the jungle. The earth had shaken. The air had filled with the sucking noise of shells descending. The explosions ripped the tree line into shreds, sending deadly showers of wood and metal into the sky.

  Within a few moments the barrage was ended.

  The men in the platoon hadn’t been eager to inspect the damage, but that was what he ordered them to do. They walked silently past the bodies of the farmers. Glistening viscera and body parts lay strewn throughout the green shoots of budding rice. Blood like oil seemed to ride the watery surface of the paddies. People were just emerging from the village and the first distant wails of despair rose into the afternoon heat. And then they’d arrived at something nightmarish.

  There must have been more than a company of NVA waiting for them in the tree line precisely where Brian had directed the artillery barrage. Everywhere they looked there were bodies and parts of bodies. They were blown apart, tangled in tree stumps. Heads. Arms. Legs. Ripped torsos. The barely recognizable yet unmistakable results of direct hits by a 75mm howitzer shell. There were blood trails everywhere, shattered equipment, and a landscape soaked with gore. A few wounded men moaned. Others may have dragged themselves deeper into the jungle, whether to regroup or to die Brian had been unsure. He hadn’t cared.

  None of his men said anything. A few whistles and some rapid breathing as they stepped through pools of blood. They simply followed Brian’s lead and systematically walked from each concealed emplacement shooting any of the wounded enemy. He said he couldn’t remember giving that order, but he must have. Then he had counted the dead. More than ­seventy-eight were totaled up, a significant victory in something that hadn’t even been a fight. It was a slaughter. Every man in the platoon had understood that if they’d done what they had done the other times they’d arrived at that particular rice field they all would have been killed in the ambush. No one ever questioned Brian’s instincts after that. That was what he’d told his brother.

  And command gave him a medal.

  But, Adrian thought, he never said this with pride, only sadness.

  His brother, he thought, was trapped by his own history.

  He wondered if he could say the same about himself.

  “I think you can, Audie.”

  He turned around but he could only hear his brother, not see him.

  Small groups of students were making their way between the classrooms, and a distant bell tower chimed 3 p.m. Adrian remembered that this was the same hour of the day his brother had called in the accidental barrage that had saved his life.

  He hurried on. The university was a hodgepodge of architecture, the modern sidled up next to the antique. Buildings with sweeping curves and wide window expanses looked out over grassy lawns and old wooden framed houses that had been converted into dormitories.

  He was pleased to see that nothing much had changed since he’d retired.

  The psychology department was located in one of the mid-modern buildings. It was a brick-and-mortar square space, with wide doors and an undistinguished if ivy-covered exterior. Adrian had always liked the idea that it was such an unremarkable building. It lacked the insistence of design that the business school or the chemistry department had. He thought the advantage of such a nondescript place was that it gave freer rein to the ideas that were exercised within. It hid—instead of shouted—all their intelligence.

  Adrian climbed the stairs to the third floor.

  He reminded himself that he was heading to room 302, and his lips moved as he repeated the name of the man he intended to see. It was an old friend and colleague but he didn’t want to display any of his disease inside the hallways of his department. Keep it all straight, he told himself. Every detail.

  He knocked and then pushed open the door.

  “Roger?” he said, stepping inside.

  A trim, bald man with a basketball player’s height and lanky build was crouched in front of a computer screen, an attractive young woman seated nearby, a nervous look on her face. The office itself was overflowing with books jammed onto black steel shelving. There was also a selection of wanted posters issued by the FBI, making one wall seem like that of a post office. Across from that was a framed movie poster from The Silence of the Lambs signed in black ink by the director and the screenwriter.

  “Adrian! The famous Professor Thomas! Come in, come in!” Professor Roger Parsons unfolded from his seat and clutched Adrian’s hand in greeting.

  “I don’t mean to interrupt a student conference . . .”

  “No, no, not at all. Miss Lewis and I were just going over her midterm paper, which was actually quite excellent . . .”

  Adrian shook hands with the young woman.

  “I was wondering, Roger, if I could call on your expertise a little.”

  “Of course! My goodness, it’s been months since anyone has seen you around here . . . and now this unexpected pleasure. How have you been? And how can I help you?”

  “Should I leave, professor?” the student interjected. Roger Parsons looked to Adrian for an answer. Adrian was glad because he wouldn’t have to answer the first of his old friend’s questions.

  “Does young Miss Lewis know anything about unusual criminal patterns of behavior?”

  “Indeed she does,” boomed Roger.

  “Then she should stay.”

  The young woman shifted about, a little nonplussed but clearly pleased to be asked to remain. Adrian wondered whether she knew who he was, but his younger former colleague filled her in instantly.

  “This is the most distinguished professor, a mentor to us all, they are naming the faculty lounge after,” he said. “And honored we are that he has dropped in, even with a question or two.”

  “I wish I knew more about abnormal psychology,
” Adrian said.

  “Well, I think you underestimate yourself, professor. But what you don’t know, I will be happy to fill you in on,” Roger replied. “And what is your question?”

  “Criminal couples,” Adrian said softly. “Male and female partnerships.”

  Roger nodded. “Ah . . . fascinating. There are several different relevant profiles. What sort of crime are we talking about?”

  “A random kidnapping. Snatching someone unknown from a neighborhood street.”

  Roger’s eyebrows curved upward.

  “Very unusual. Very rare.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “And the purpose of this abduction?”

  “Uncertain at this moment.”

  “Money? Sex? Or perversion?”

  “I don’t know. Not yet.”

  “Probably all three. And more,” Parsons said, musing out loud. “Certainly nothing good, and probably much evil.”

  Adrian nodded, and his onetime colleague slid instantly into college-lecture drone.

  “That makes it much harder. Most often, what we know about these sorts of criminals we glean after they’ve been uncovered. Sort of retroactively fitting the psychological parts of the puzzle together. It all makes perfect sense afterward.”

  “Can’t do that now. Have to move ahead on little bits of information.”

  Roger Parsons stretched out his long legs and thought hard. “Is this someone you know . . . This isn’t just an academic inquiry, is it?”

  “Not exactly. A young person I came in brief contact with. I’m trying to help out some neighbors.”

  Adrian hesitated, and then added, “Your discretion is important. And yours, too.” He addressed this to the young woman, who seemed a little terrified at the direction the conversation was going. “It’s a crime that seems”—Adrian hesitated—“to be unfolding. I can’t tell you exactly how.”

  “The abducted . . . what do you know about her?”

  “Young. Teenage. Very troubled. Very smart. Very attractive.”

  “And the police . . .”

  “Trying to sort through. They are insistently concrete, which I don’t know is going to be a help.”

  Roger nodded again. “Yes. You are right on that score. Facts might solve a crime when there’s a body. But that isn’t the case?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Good. And you’re absolutely sure it was an unknown man and a woman who stole her and not necessarily some people who knew her?”

  “Yes. Certain. Or as certain as I can be.”

  The younger professor thought again.

  “You want me to speculate? That’s all it would be. Pure speculation.”

  Adrian didn’t reply. He knew he wouldn’t have to.

  “Well, it’s about sex, of course, in all probability. But it’s also about control. The couple will likely get erotic pleasure out of enslavement. They will feed their own arousal on each other’s enjoyment. So many possible factors. I would need much more information to give you an accurate profile.”

  “I don’t have much more. Not yet.”

  Roger continued to think deeply. “Well, one thing, Adrian. And don’t hold me to this if it ever comes up, but I think I would focus on purpose if I were you and trying to make sense of the situation you describe.”

  “Purpose? How so?”

  “Well, how will the victim create grandiosity, importance, and a sense of power for the criminal couple? Beyond the sexual toying, what is it that they hope to gain . . . because there will be something. It might be hidden, it might not. Power. Control. Many psychological factors in this sort of crime. None of them, alas, very pretty.”

  “How would the police go about solving . . .”

  Roger shook his head. “Unlikely. At least, not until a body was found. Or, like in the case of those Mormon cultists with multiple wives, the child managed to escape. Except usually they don’t. Escape is very hard for these sorts of hostages. From the comfort of our own homes we like to think Well, why didn’t they just run away and call the cops but that requires psychological leaps that are very difficult to make. No, not easy at all . . .”

  “So the police . . .”

  Parsons waved his arm in the air as if snatching a rebound off the glass. “When they actually have a body, either dead or alive, then they can backtrack their way. Maybe. Probably not. In either situation, I would not allow myself to hope for a satisfactory outcome.”

  Adrian nodded. There’s something else. He heard his brother’s voice echoing in his ear.

  “There’s something else,” Roger said quietly, as if the dead, too, had prompted him.

  Adrian waited for an answer.

  “There’s a clock running on this sort of crime.”

  “A clock?”

  “Yes. As long as the victim is providing excitement, titillation, passion, what have you, she is exceptionally valuable to the couple. But as soon as that stops or they tire of her or they exhaust the fund of arousal she brings then she is worthless. And she will be discarded.”

  “Released?”

  “No. Not necessarily.”

  There was a momentary silence, as the two professors contemplated the circumstances before them. In that brief moment they both heard the young student sharply inhale, as if a cold breeze had entered the small office. They turned toward Miss Lewis.

  She had her head down as if she was shy about what she was going to say, and her cheeks had reddened, flushed by the thought that had jumped into her mind. Her voice was soft and hesitant.

  “Ian Brady and Myra Hindley,” she said. “England, 1966. The Moors Murders.”

  Roger Parsons clapped his hands enthusiastically. “Yes,” he said, his voice suddenly booming in the small office. “Absolutely, Miss Lewis. Bravo. A fine observation. Adrian, you might start there.”

  The student managed a smile, hearing her professor’s praise in his tone of voice, although Adrian thought it must be hard, in a way, to know the names and depraved acts of notorious serial killers at such a young age.

  14

  Even in the darkness that encompassed her world, Jennifer was haphazardly building a picture of where she was. This was accompanied by just the first gleanings of understanding about what was happening to her. She knew she was in some sort of basement room and she knew that she was being kept alive for some reason. And she knew that nothing in her sixteen years had prepared her for what was taking place.

  Then she hoped she was wrong, although she was unsure what she wanted to be wrong about.

  She wrapped her fingers together, in her lap, like someone at prayer. Then, just as slowly, she undid her hands and clenched them into fists.

  When she fastened on the real—the bed, the chain and collar around her neck, the camp toilet—she was capable of drawing a misshapen portrait of her surroundings in her head. But when she allowed her imagination to consider what was going to happen to her, fear overcame her. She was constantly on the verge of dissolving into tears, or even fainting with terror. She ricocheted between the rational and agony.

  Inwardly, she repeated to herself, I’m still alive. I’m still alive.

  When she had these moments of composure, she tried hard to sharpen her hearing and her sense of smell. Touch, she guessed, was limited but might eventually tell her something.

  She was poised on the edge of the bed. Beneath her toes she could feel the cold cement of the floor. Her stomach growled with hunger, but she didn’t know if she could actually eat. She was terribly thirsty again, but she was unsure if she would have the guts to take another taste of water—even if it was offered to her.

  The room was quiet except for her breathing.

  There were two rooms, really, she told herself. The black room inside the mask and the
room she was being held in. She knew that she had to learn as much as she could about each. If she didn’t—if she simply waited for things to happen to her—she knew there would be nothing left except despair.

  And waiting for whatever the end would be.

  Jennifer fought panic every waking second.

  She told herself it did no good to revisit what had happened, other than to try to draw a mental picture of the two people who had stolen her from the street in her neighborhood. But when she pictured herself walking through the early spring gloom of dusk, on a sidewalk in a place that she had known since she was a baby, it plunged her into a darkness deeper than that created by her hood. She had been ripped from everything she knew, and even a brief recollection of where she came from nearly stopped her heart. She felt dizzy, but she insisted to herself that she needed to focus. It was what her teachers in the school she hated so much had always complained about: Jennifer, you need to concentrate on the material. You’d be such a fine student if only you would . . .

  All right, she said as if answering their nitpicking. Now I’ll focus.

  So she sat still and tried. The man’s eyes. The woman’s hat pulled down. How big were they? What did they wear? She took a deep breath and it was as if she could still smell the man’s scent and she was back pressed against the floor of the truck, unable to breathe, crushed by his strength. Suddenly, she was unable to prevent herself from slapping at her skin, trying to wipe away the sensation that he had somehow marked her. She itched and scratched at her arms, as if it were poison ivy covering her. But when she felt welts and sensed bleeding she made herself stop, which took more strength than she knew she had.

  All right. The woman. Her flat voice had been terrifying. The woman had come into the basement room and been the one talking about rules but not saying how to obey them. Jennifer tried to recall every word the woman had said to her, but it was lost in the fog of the drug that had made her pass out.