False Prophet

by Richard Davis

  I knew the answer already, but I’d felt compelled to ask.

  ‘Because, Saul, judging by the complexity and scale of these incidents, I’m certain there’s more.’ Parkes paused. ‘And I’m sure it hasn’t passed you by that these incidents have something to do with missing children. You know about that better than anyone. I thought this case would strike a chord.’

  My conversation with Teague ran through my head. So much of what he’d said fit in: the theme of self-inflicted harm; a religion inspiring homicidal devotion; the twentieth anniversary of the first Trade Center attack. The missing link was how this all might involve me. And it seemed the motif of missing children was fast becoming that link.

  I sighed again.

  ‘It’s a good thing you called me back,’ I said. ‘Do me a favor: tell Muldoon I’d like to speak at the meeting. I had a conversation in London – back in May last year – which is looking increasingly relevant to this investigation.’

  Parkes leaned forward and narrowed her eyes. Then she nodded resolutely.

  ‘Right, will do. We’re meeting in the usual place in the SIOC. See you at six-thirty.’

  And with that, I got to my feet and left the room, making sure to knock as I went.

  Chapter 5

  Wednesday, February 27, 2013, 5:45 a.m. EST.

  There was a question nagging at the back of my mind, and a person I wanted to see. So, after downing a lukewarm coffee at the nearest kitchen unit, I took the elevator up to the Criminal Investigative Division on the third floor, the epicenter of all FBI activity in the fight against white collar crime. But while this was a hugely important department, ever since 9/11 it had been forced to take a backseat to the fight against terrorism, which meant a drastic tightening of the purse strings. So it was only after walking down some considerably less glamorous corridors that I reached the Division’s main office – the lecture-hall-shaped venue, teeming with technology, where its major operations were coordinated. And sitting at a computer in the front-row was a man who, though I’d never met him, I knew to be Scott Brendan: the young talent who’d walked out of Princeton and straight into headquarters; the handpicked protégé of the Director of the CID.

  Brendan turned towards me and squinted through his spectacles. Then a flash of recognition crossed his face and he stood to shake my hand.

  The boy looked overworked: his hair was disheveled, his suit creased to hell.

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Mr Marshall. I’m Scott Brendan. Though if you’re looking for Morton Giles, I’m afraid you’re out of luck. He left at two-thirty. He’ll be back about half ten.’

  ‘That lazy bastard,’ I replied with a grin. Brendan smiled awkwardly. Joking was clearly at odds with his straight-laced sensibilities.

  ‘Well, if there’s anything I can do to help, just let me know,’ he said quickly. ‘Am I right in saying you’re here for the situation unfolding in Counterterrorism? The whole building’s gotten wind that something’s happened – something big.’

  I nodded. ‘One minute you’re on the guided tour, the next they’ve roped you into helping out. You know how it is.’

  This time, a smile cracked his face. ‘I can see why you and Morton get along.’

  ‘Likewise,’ I said. ‘Good to meet you, Scott. I’ll be back eleven-ish.’

  ‘See you then.’

  At that, I started towards the door. But before I got two steps I had a change of heart – it’d be fine to ask Brendan after all.

  ‘On second thought, Scott, I wonder if you could do me a favor.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Would you be able to run a search on the name Ivan Drexler?’ I asked, keeping my tone casual.

  Brendan’s fingers scuttled across the keyboard.

  ‘Here we are.’ He clicked on the result. On the left-hand side of the screen appeared a mug shot, taken in ’96, of a youngish man with vivid green eyes, blond hair, and a handsome face. There was a potted history to its right. Brendan started reeling off the essentials.

  ‘Ivan Drexler – born June 21, 1964 in Toronto, Canada. His father: Canadian, though originally of Eastern European extraction. His mother: American. He immigrated to New York City in summer 1983, and was arrested in 1996 for organized drug-dealing – which earned him thirteen years at The Coxsackie Correctional Institute, New York. He was released on June 1, 2009, and went to live with extended family in Hillsborough County, Florida.’

  Brendan paused, his brow crumpling.

  ‘This is odd. He died on June 20, 2009, when the floor to his bedroom gave way due to a sinkhole caving in beneath the property, causing him to fall to his death. His body was deemed irretrievable. A freak accident. Just a day before his forty-fifth birthday.’

  Brendan looked at me. I nodded casually, then thanked him and strolled out of the room.

  Teague wasn’t kidding when he’d said Drexler had been swallowed up by the earth. And just like Teague, I didn’t buy it.

  Chapter 6

  Wednesday, February 27, 2013.

  After a quick cigarette outside, I made my way up to the conference room within Strategic Information and Operation Center on the fifth floor, the ultra-secure thirty-five room hub used as the Bureau’s Situation Room in times of emergency, and perhaps the only part of Hoover as cutting edge as the subterranean wing. And though I was the first to arrive at the venue – a large room, with walls adorned with portraits of Bureau agents whose heroism could never be made public – the seven identical dossiers dispersed around the oversized oak table told me how many others were due to attend this meeting.

  Over the next ten minutes, these six key players arrived. Stewart Eastland, the round-bodied National Security Chief. James Danahy, the Counterterrorism Director, looking fresh-faced and alert. Joseph Fairclough, the White House Counterterrorism Chief, acting as the President’s eyes and ears. Alex Schneider, the Chief of the Radical Fundamentalist Unit – a handsome, well-groomed woman, looking dogged and determined. Lucinda Parkes, wearing a smile that could’ve been mistaken for a grimace. And finally Robin Muldoon, the Director of the FBI, whose soft face and aristocratic mannerisms belied a shrewd and courageous man, and who was the only one to greet me with anything more than a nod: he came over and shook my hand. He’d held me in high regard ever since I’d won the Bronze Star for Valor in Iraq. He’d won the same accolade himself in Vietnam.

  Before long, everyone had settled in, and at 6:30 a.m., after having thanked everyone for coming, Muldoon instigated proceedings. He began by outlining why these three incidents had been taken to the situation room, referencing the date they took place, the notes left behind, the fact they’d clearly been carried out by a fairly large group of conspirators, and their sensational nature. Next, he clarified that, while the possibility of collusion with Jihadist elements wasn’t being written off, the entity behind these attacks was being treated not as Jihadist, but as an independent rogue religious group in its own right. Finally, he outlined how the meeting would unfold:

  ‘As we go through the incidents in turn,’ he said, ‘Stuart Eastland will summarize the basics, then James Danahy will follow up with salient circumstantial details. Alex Schneider will then explain why this matter should come under the remit of The Radical Fundamentalist Unit, after which there will be a contribution from Saul Marshall.’

  At that, Muldoon nodded at Eastland, who opened the dossier, and began:

  ‘Bestselling author Amanda Jasmine Aimes was discovered dead in the freezer room of the restaurant at The Mayflower Hotel, Washington DC. The kitchen staff found her body at 5:32 a.m., within an igloo-type structure. It is thought she was forced within the structure on Sunday morning, then was slowly crushed to death as her breath froze upon the inner walls. Her body had been wrapped in insulative material to ensure it was the pressure that killed her, not the temperature. Her right-hand index finger had been amputated before her entrapment, and tied around her neck. The post-mortem suggests she died early Tuesday morning. A handwritten note was af
fixed to the igloo reading: More to come.’

  Danahy cleared his throat and started reading:

  ‘The restaurant’s kitchen had long been in need of renovation, and its manager, Ms Nikita Prabhakar, had been putting out feelers for a quote. It appears she was approached in early January by a start-up called Larder Vixen, run by a young lady who’d identified herself as Ms Sofi Halltun. Halltun quoted an extremely competitive price for the kitchen, and suggested her team do the work from February 23 to February 25: the weekend plus Monday. Prabhakar agreed to take them on.

  ‘Now, here’s where Aimes comes in. Every year since 2009, she’d stayed at the Mayflower throughout February, using it as a writing retreat. When she moved in on February 1, 2013, she insisted on privacy – just as she’d done in previous years – rarely leaving her room, and living off room service. Apparently staff would routinely not see her for days – Aimes ordered her meals through handwritten notes, and hid when staff came by. Only a few members of staff, and a few of her friends and family, knew she was there at all.

  ‘On February 23, the kitchen-fitters arrived. The group was described by witnesses as five Caucasian youths between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five – four men, and Sofi Halltun herself. This team quickly cordoned off the restaurant, and started work. At 7:03 a.m., February 24, the power to the hotel’s security suite went down – a room occupied by a security guard monitoring multiple CCTV feeds. The fitters claimed they’d accidentally cut the power. It is thought that during the following hour – while security were restoring power – Aimes was coerced from her bedroom to the kitchen. It was then, we believe, she was forced into the igloo, and the entrance sealed.

  ‘The staff claim that the food delivered to Aimes’s room kept on disappearing, and that they continued to receive handwritten orders. We speculate a sixth perpetrator was smuggled into the room. This would explain a second power-cut at 8:04 p.m. Monday – just as the team was finishing up – which would’ve given this individual opportunity to escape.

  ‘We’re going all out with forensics and eye-witness reports, but we’re yet to find a substantial lead. They cleared up after themselves meticulously.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Muldoon. ‘Stewart, the Woolf incident?’

  Again, Eastland spoke:

  ‘Aaron Woolf was found dead in his apartment on West 86th Street, Manhattan – hanging from a length of rope tied to a light fixture above a metallic table – by an NYPD officer at 10:03 a.m. Though the post-mortem indicates strangulation as cause of death, it’s thought that Woolf’s assailants made him stand upon the table, then heated it from below, forcing him to jump. We estimate Woolf died between 7 and 8 a.m., after which his right-hand index finger was amputated and tied around his neck. A handwritten message left on the table read: In loving memory of 02.26.1993.’

  Eastland nodded at Danahy, who took over:

  ‘There were two parts to this operation. The first was the removal of the residents from the other two apartments on Woolf’s floor. On February 26, at approximately 4:30 a.m., two men in NYPD uniforms coerced retired couple, Mr and Mrs Roy and Belinda Benson, from their apartment at gunpoint, put them in an unmarked white van, then blindfolded them. Just under five hours later, at about 9:20 a.m., they released the couple near Cunningham Park, Queens, unharmed. Almost the identical thing happened to the occupant of the other apartment, Ms Sarah Sullivan. She was coerced from her apartment by two uniformed men at about 5 a.m., and was also released at about 9:20 a.m. on the opposite side of Cunningham Park. The Bensons alerted the police immediately after their release.

  ‘The second part of the operation is more uncertain. Woolf’s apartment is on the second-top floor. The top floor consists of a penthouse owned by a Russian who leaves it unoccupied throughout winter. We speculate that a number of perpetrators entered the building at different times during the preceding week, and squatted in the penthouse.

  ‘On the morning of the attack, we know the building’s elevator was disabled at 7 a.m. from a control box on the top floor, for a duration of ten minutes; that the phone line to Woolf’s apartment was cut at 7:05 a.m.; and that the door to the seventh floor stairwell – forensics tell us – was locked for a period of time. We also found Woolf’s mobile in the Benson apartment. Of course, these measures all point towards preventing Woolf from escaping; but the latter also suggests his flat might’ve been surreptitiously broken into in the hours prior to his attack. We speculate that the assailants staggered their departure over the hours following Woolf’s death.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Muldoon.

  Eastland took this as a cue to start on the third incident:

  ‘A family of four were found dead at approximately 9 a.m. at their isolated suburban home in Medford Lakes, Philadelphia. The bodies of Joe and Gillian Walsh (fifty-two and forty-eight years of age), and their children, Cosmo and Zenobia (eight and six years of age), were discovered by their cleaner tied up in a windowless upstairs bathroom. The cleaner forced her way into this locked room after discovering blood in the hallway. It is thought – based on forensics and post-mortem reports – that the assailants coerced the family into this room, then rendered it hermetically sealed, causing the victims to suffocate on their own carbon dioxide emissions. But this was only after each victim had had their right-hand index finger amputated, and tied around their neck, hence the blood in the hallway. All four victims died between 6 and 8 a.m. Pinned to the bathroom door was a message reading: To do what Yousef couldn’t.’

  ‘They suffocated on their own carbon dioxide emissions?’ Fairclough broke in. ‘How the hell does that work?’

  Eastland looked at him intently.

  ‘It’s quite simple. You’ve got a bathroom of about 170 cubic feet with four people inside, each producing about half a cubic foot of carbon dioxide an hour – carbon dioxide that can’t escape because of airtight sealant applied to the cracks in the doors, the ventilator fan, the light fixtures, and anything else you can think of. Even if the children were producing a bit less than that, it wouldn’t take more than about seven hours before you had at least twelve cubic feet of carbon dioxide present. With that much in the atmosphere, the respiratory system can’t function: death by carbon dioxide poisoning is inevitable.’

  There was a moment of silence as we all absorbed this; then Danahy took the reins:

  ‘Due to the isolated nature of the venue, it’s harder for us to establish what happened. Most likely, the assailants entered this detached property sometime during the evening of February 25. However, there’s no sign of forced entry meaning either the assailants had a key, a door had been left unlocked, or somebody admitted them entry. From there, the perpetrators overpowered the family. Given how few signs there are of struggle, it appears to have been a professional job. We don’t know when the assailants departed.’

  Danahy leaned back. All eyes turned to Muldoon.

  ‘And then we have the element connecting these killings, aside from the amputations and the theme of self-infliction,’ said Muldoon. ‘Namely, missing children. Woolf was a single father who’d lost a sixteen-year-old son in 2011, and Aimes was a single mother who’d lost a fifteen-year-old daughter in 2010. Joe and Gillian Walsh had had a third child, a daughter, who went missing in late 2009 – at seventeen years of age. These three individuals are all on the Bureau’s missing persons list.

  ‘As we continue to piece things together, I’ve taken the reference to Yousef as a direct and serious threat. Of course, he famously failed to take down the World Trade Center. But there was also his failed Manila Plan, involving time-bombs on 747s headed for America. So I’ve put all aviation involving American airspace on highest alert.

  ‘Now, I’d like to hand over to our Chief at The Radical Fundamentalist Unit, Alex Schneider, who’ll provide some insights into the mentality of the people we’re dealing with.’

  Schneider nodded at Muldoon, then stood. She was the sort who’d see this situation not as a tragedy, but as a challenge. Som
ething to pit her intellect against.

  ‘Thank you, Robin,’ she said. ‘There are two clear indicators we’re dealing with a religion. The first is the strangeness of the violence. The second is the group ritualism. Let’s start with the strangeness. In most religions, you have a clearly set out moral code which – in the religion’s purest form – is to be strictly adhered to. However, sometimes you get a religion with a twisted moral code – a religion in which bizarre or violent behavior is condoned. In such a circumstance, because of the group-based nature of religion, this twisted moral code becomes legitimized to the individual by the group, as the individual sees those around them treating this dubious moral code as commonplace and good. As a result, what might seem strange or evil to an outsider, will come to appear normal and moral to an insider.

  ‘Now, with these three incidents, there are many aspects that seem strange: the self-inflicted nature of the murders, the amputated fingers, the targeting of family members of missing persons. I feel confident that each of these peculiarities was motivated by, and can be understood through, the religion’s moral code and internal logic. Obviously, we don’t know what this religion, nor its logic, is, but it’s easy to conjecture how a religion might justify these acts. For example, the self-infliction could’ve been meant as a karmic punishment; and perhaps what these people have been punished for is for negligently allowing a family member to go missing. As I say, these are just speculations, but they demonstrate the feasibility of this theory. Where there’s strange violence, there’s often deviant religion.

  ‘The second tell-tale sign we’re dealing with a religion is the group ritualism. Group rituals are used by all religions to create a sense of community among followers, and are usually orientated around praying, singing, and eating. In these instances, however, the group ritual was murder. This kind of violent group ritual has historically been used by radical religions who want to go a step further, and create fanatical bonds between the individual and group by having its followers collectively participate in something emotionally extreme. So violent group ritualism is not only a symptom of a radical religion, but a cause of it, too.