by Chris Carter
‘What do you mean?’ Garcia said, checking Hunter’s target. ‘Any of those shots would’ve halted any perpetrator.’
‘That’s true,’ Michelle accepted. ‘But I did say kill shots only, didn’t I?’ She glared at Hunter. ‘Want to go again?’
Hunter thumbed the safety on and returned the pistol to Harry. ‘There’s no point. I was going for kill shots,’ he admitted, locking eyes with his partner.
Garcia avoided Michelle’s gaze, afraid she would’ve read him like a book. Time and time again, down at the LAPD’s practice range, he’d seen Hunter empty entire clips on a moving target’s forehead, thirty yards away. Fifteen shots, clustered together in an area never larger than the diameter of a tennis ball. Garcia was a good shot himself, but he’d never seen anyone as accurate as Hunter with a handgun. On a standing target twenty-two yards away, he was sure Hunter could’ve drawn eyes and a smile on the target’s face.
Hunter looked at Michelle. ‘I did mean it when I said that was great shooting earlier.’
Awkward feet shuffling.
‘I’m sorry for taking a stab at you, and for forcing you to shoot,’ Michelle finally said, ejecting the ammo clip from her gun. ‘It hasn’t been the best of days.’
‘You can say that again,’ Garcia agreed.
Hunter simply nodded.
Both detectives understood that refusing to shoot, or achieving a better score with the target, had the potential to unconsciously aggravate Michelle’s already upset state of mind. Playing along, and coming second best without being too obvious, had had a comforting and soothing psychological effect for Michelle. The effect was immediate. Though she was still visibly upset, the hostility she showed just moments ago was now under control.
‘Can you explain how come we could see the Internet broadcast earlier today, but you couldn’t?’ Garcia asked, not wanting to waste any more time.
‘Sure,’ Michelle said. ‘But let’s get away from this noise first.’
Sixty-Nine
‘There are several ways to block a viewer from watching a live online broadcast,’ Michelle said as they boarded the elevator back up to the Cybercrime Division’s floor. ‘The easiest one is by identifying the viewer’s computer IP address.’
Garcia looked at Michelle blankly.
The elevator doors opened and they made their way down the corridor.
‘Remember when I said that a computer’s IP address is like a license plate or a telephone number?’ Michelle asked. ‘Every computer has a unique identifying one.’
‘Um-huh.’
Harry swiped the security door before typing in the code and allowing everyone back into the cold, starship Enterprise-looking office.
‘OK,’ Michelle continued. ‘So just like a cellphone, if a person calls out, but doesn’t activate caller ID secrecy, the cellphone receiving the call can easily see the number that’s calling in, right? It appears on the caller display.’
‘Yes.’
‘Same with computers. The difference is, unless you’re an expert with some clever gadgets, you can’t hide your computer’s IP address. There’s no caller ID secrecy feature for people to activate on their computers.’
‘In fact,’ Harry jumped in, ‘every time you connect to any website on the World Wide Web, the host computer records your IP address. It’s their first line of defense against fraud. With an IP address, it makes identifying where the connection came from a lot easier.’
Garcia thought about it for a second. ‘So if you’re a computer programmer, and you know the computer’s IP address in question, you could write some code to block it, whenever it tries to connect to the site.’
‘Or in our case, the opposite,’ Hunter said. ‘The killer could’ve written some code that allowed only one IP address to connect – ours – blocking everyone else’s. That’s why we could see the broadcast but no one else could.’
‘Exactly,’ Michelle and Harry said in unison.
‘But that means he has to know the specific IP address to the computers in our office,’ Garcia said. ‘How easy is it to obtain them?’
‘Depends on how clever you are,’ Harry replied. ‘And this guy is very.’
‘When we couldn’t connect to the broadcast after you called us,’ Michelle explained. ‘We started trying to figure out how he managed to block us out. We came to that same conclusion. In order for him to do so, he needed to know the specific IP addresses for the computers in your office.’ She shrugged. ‘But how did he get them?’
‘The first-ever broadcast,’ Hunter said, thinking back.
‘Bingo.’ Michelle smiled.
Garcia looked at Hunter. ‘The first-ever broadcast?’
‘It wasn’t open to the public,’ Hunter said. ‘Only to us, remember? He called us, gave us an IP address and asked us to type it into the address bar. We were the only ones watching that broadcast. No one else.’
‘So if you were the only ones,’ Michelle said, ‘and the killer knew you were the only ones connecting to his server, the IP address, or addresses, the host computer recorded that day must belong to you.’
‘Sonofabitch,’ Garcia whispered.
‘Dead simple,’ Harry said. ‘And dead clever. Without you guys suspecting a thing, he singled your IP addresses out right then. It seems he’s been playing you from the start.’
Seventy
When Hunter got to the Police Administration Building the next morning, Garcia was already at his desk, reading over the last of Christina Stevenson’s emails. Despite the freshly ironed shirt, the clean-shaven face and the hair pulled back into a tidy ponytail, he looked tired. Hunter doubted he’d had more than a couple of hours’ sleep.
‘How’s Anna?’ Hunter asked.
‘She barely slept last night,’ Garcia said, pushing himself away from his desk for a moment. ‘And the few hours she did were punctured by nightmares.’
Despite sensing the hidden anger in Garcia’s words, Hunter knew there was nothing he could say that would make any sort of difference. He stayed silent.
‘I can see you didn’t sleep much either,’ Garcia said, moving the subject along.
‘Well, no surprise there,’ Hunter replied. ‘Still nothing interesting from the emails?’
Garcia shook his head and shrugged. ‘I’ve got through all of them now. Not a damn thing, but we did get an email from forensics this morning. Just like they expected, the lock on the glass door to Christina Stevenson’s bedroom was bumped. That was how the killer got access to the house. The exam on the fibers found in her room has, so far, proved inconclusive. They could’ve come from any garment inside her wardrobe, but they’ll carry on testing.’
Hunter nodded, fired up his computer, and while it booted up he poured himself a strong cup of coffee – the third one this morning, and it wasn’t even 8:30 a.m. yet. As soon as he sat down, there was a knock at the door.
‘Come in,’ Hunter called out.
A young uniformed police officer pushed the door open and stepped inside. ‘Detective Hunter?’
‘Right here,’ Hunter said, lifting his coffee cup as if toasting something.
‘This just came for you. It was delivered by someone from the LA Times.’ As the officer handed Hunter a small, sealed envelope, his gaze wandered past the detective’s shoulder toward the pictures board on the south wall. His body tensed, and his eyes lit up with a mixture of curiosity and shock.
‘Is there anything else?’ Hunter quickly said, gently stepping to his left to obstruct the officer’s view.
‘Um . . . no, sir.’
Hunter thanked the young officer and escorted him back to the door.
Inside the envelope he found a USB pen drive and an LA Times complimentary slip with a handwritten note.
Here are the files you asked for. I hope they help. Pamela Hays.
‘What’s that?’ Garcia asked.
‘About two years’ worth of articles by Christina Stevenson.’
Hunter connected the pen drive
to his computer.
Garcia walked over to check it out.
As the contents loaded onto Hunter’s screen, he let out a frustrated breath. ‘Damn!’
‘Phew,’ Garcia whistled.‘Six hundred and sixty-nine files?’ He half chuckled, half coughed. ‘Good luck with those. I hope they’re at least more interesting than her emails.’ He gestured back toward his computer.
‘I wouldn’t bet on it.’
The immediate problem Hunter faced was that the files weren’t searchable text files. Every document in that USB pen drive was actually a scanned image of the newspaper page with the published article. No file titles, just published dates. He would have to read through them all.
Hunter sat back and took a deep breath. The first thing he wanted to do was to find the article Christina Stevenson had written about Thomas Paulsen, the software millionaire. Pamela Hays had told him that Christina had written the article about four months ago, so that’s where he started, opening and quickly scanning through every file where its publishing date was within that time bracket. It didn’t take him long. He hit the jackpot on the twelfth file he opened.
The article had been a two-page spread. Christina Stevenson had spent two months gathering information and interviewing past and present employees from PaulsenSystems. The result had been an open book on sexual harassment, bribery and intimidation. Christina Stevenson made the fifty-one-year-old software magnate look and sound like a sexual predator.
The article began by telling the story of how a young Thomas Paulsen, only twenty-one at the time and a computer enthusiast, saw an opening in the market and a golden opportunity to start a software company. He then borrowed whatever he could from family and friends and started PaulsenSystems from his parents’ garage in Pasadena. He made his first million a year and a half later.
The article also carried three photographs of Paulsen. One was a professional portrait, also found on the company’s website, but the other two were more personal, taken inside a nightclub – hidden-camera style. The first one showed Paulsen kissing the neck of a brunette woman who looked to be at least twenty years younger than him. The second photo showed him with his hand firmly planted on the woman’s ass.
The story went on to reveal that the young woman was actually Thomas Paulsen’s new secretary. She’d been with the company for six months. According to the paper, Paulsen would do his best to wine, dine and charm any employee he took a fancy to, take them to bed and then intimidate them into keeping their mouth shut, in whichever way necessary, including terrorizing them. The story ended by saying that the accurate number of women Thomas Paulsen had taken advantage of was unknown, but he’d been doing it for over twenty years.
Hunter had no doubt that a story like that one, with a front-page call on a high-circulating national newspaper like the LA Times, would’ve seriously rocked Paulsen’s personal life and public image.
Hunter spent the next hour or so searching the net for aftermath and spin-off articles. He wanted to find out what sort of snowball Christina’s piece had started. He found several. And the snowball had been big and damaging.
A very interesting article he came across had also come from the entertainment desk at the LA Times, published two and a half months ago, but it hadn’t been written by Christina. The article talked about how Christina’s report had stabbed at the heart of Paulsen’s marriage. Gabriela, Paulsen’s wife of twenty-seven years, had no idea of what her husband had been getting up to with some of his female employees. She had filed for divorce a month after the article was published. It was also reported that their twenty-five-year-old daughter had stopped talking to him.
Another hour and Hunter had found numerous articles referring to Paulsen’s company. He had business contracts all over the country, and apparently, due to Christina’s story and the moral issues it touched, several of them had been terminated. Financially, PaulsenSystems had taken a sizable hit.
As Hunter read each article, he passed it over to Garcia.
‘Christina Stevenson’s story cost Paulsen a hell of a lot,’ Hunter said. ‘In every aspect of his life. If anyone had a good reason to go after her, Thomas Paulsen did.’
‘True,’ Garcia agreed. ‘But as far as we know, he had no reason to go after Kevin Lee Parker, our first victim.’
Hunter pulled a face. ‘As far as we know.’
Garcia smiled. He knew exactly what was going through his partner’s mind.
‘I’ll get a team on it,’ he said, reaching for the phone on his desk.
Before Garcia came off his phone, the one on Hunter’s desk rang.
‘Detective Hunter, Homicide Special,’ he answered it while trying to massage his aching neck.
‘Guess what, Detective,’ the caller said with the same electrifying enthusiasm of a television hit show host. ‘It’s show time again.’
Seventy-One
Garcia was still on the phone to the research team when he noticed the look on Hunter’s face. A look so cold it could’ve frozen the air inside their office. A look that could only mean one thing – the killer was at work again.
Immediately Garcia thought of Anna, and his heart almost exploded inside his chest. He cut his conversation mid-sentence, slammed the phone down and frantically reached for the keyboard on his desk.
Hunter switched the call into loudspeaker mode before also reaching for his keyboard.
‘No, no, no, no . . .’ Garcia whispered to himself as he typed the address into the address bar, his fingers unsteady.
The website loaded on both detectives’ screens in just a couple of seconds.
Glaring.
Squinting.
Confusion.
‘Shit!’ Garcia finally breathed out, slumping back down onto his chair with a thud. His instinctive emotional response was relief. They were looking at a close-up shot of someone’s face, but that someone wasn’t Anna. He was a white male who looked to be in his mid thirties. He had an oval-shaped face, a round nose, plump cheeks, thin eyebrows and short darkish hair.
The images were shrouded by a green tint, indicating that the killer was once again using night-vision lenses. Just like with the first two victims, the pictures were being broadcast from a dark place.
The man’s eyes were darting from side to side, scared . . . confused . . . pleading . . . searching for an answer. It was easy to tell that they were light in color, but the green tint made it impossible to be specific. A leather gag had been strapped so tight around the man’s mouth it was cutting into his skin. Fear and sweat covered his entire face.
Silently Hunter signaled Garcia to call Michelle and Harry at the FBI Cybercrime Division. He knew that the call was already being recorded by Operations.
Garcia quickly used his cellphone, cupping a hand over his mouth to minimize the noise.
‘The website is back online,’ he whispered into the phone when Michelle answered.
‘We know,’ she replied, her voice tense. ‘I was just about to call you. We’re trying, but he’s using mirror sites again, reflecting the broadcast from server to server. We can’t track it.’
Garcia suspected that would be the case.
‘Has he called you guys again?’ she asked.
‘He’s on the line right now.’ Garcia got up and placed his cellphone on Hunter’s desk so Michelle could listen in.
Suddenly, just like with the broadcast of the second victim, the word GUILTY was displayed, centered at the bottom of the picture.
Then, on the top right-hand corner of the screen, a new number sequence was displayed – 0123. They waited for another letter sequence similar to ‘SSV to appear on the top left-hand corner of the screen, but it never came.
‘The rules are the same as last time, Detective,’ the caller said, almost laughing. ‘But today I am feeling generous . . . and dare I say it, a little confident, even. So instead of a thousand votes in ten minutes, let’s make it ten thousand votes in ten minutes. What do you say, huh? That should give you a prayer.�
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Hunter didn’t reply.
About halfway down the right-hand edge of the screen, the word STRETCH appeared, followed by the number zero and a green button. A fraction of a second later, directly underneath it, the word CRUSH appeared, also followed by a zero and a button. Both buttons were deactivated for the time being.
Hunter and Garcia frowned at the screen at the same time, and as they did the camera started to slowly zoom out.
Little by little, the man’s whole body started to come into view. He was wearing nothing but a pair of dark boxer shorts. He wasn’t a slim man, but he certainly couldn’t be called overweight either. He looked to be lying down on some sort of wide wooden table. His arms were extended high above his head in a V shape. His armpits had been shaved clean. His legs had been placed a little wider than shoulder length apart, and were also completely stretched out.
It took several long seconds for the zooming out to be completed. Only then Hunter and Garcia could see the man’s hands and feet, and that was when they finally figured out what the sadistic voting process meant.
Seventy-Two
Thick leather cuffs had been firmly strapped around the man’s wrists and ankles. Those cuffs were, in turn, attached to the ends of four sturdy-looking metal chains, which were then connected to mechanical rollers. The entire device looked just like an improvised but updated version of the rack, one of the most sadistic medieval torture apparatuses ever created, used to slowly stretch a person’s limbs until they were ripped from the body.
Inside Hunter’s office, they could hear a pin drop.
‘From the silence I hear,’ the caller’s voice came blasting through the phone’s loudspeakers, ‘I assume you are starting to get the picture.’ He laughed a cartoon dog laugh.
Again, no reply from either detective.
‘But that picture isn’t complete yet,’ the caller continued. ‘So let me remedy that for you.’
