Before Cain Strikes

by Joshua Corin

  Up, down. Up, down. Up, down.

  “Is this like a catapult, Mommy? If you push harder enough, maybe you can send me up in the air!”

  “Okay…” replied Esme, a twinkle in her eyes. “Let me try…”

  Up, down. Up, down. Up, down.

  The sky, Sophie’s longed-for destination, groaned with growing darkness.

  The rumbling above reminded Sophie of the ugly noises her stomach had made Thursday night, after they’d returned from the Italian restaurant. “It sounds like God needs Pepto!” She giggled.

  Esme just smiled back at her daughter and replied, “Maybe.”

  “Mommy?”

  “Yeah, sweetie?”

  “Are you and Daddy getting divorced?” When she posed the question, there was no change in Sophie’s facial expression. She’d asked it with exactly the same tone and curiosity she’d had about the fish. “Because I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Who said anything about divorce, Sophie?”

  “Grandpa Les.”

  Of course.

  “Well, sweetie, sometimes Grandpa Les doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

  “Sometimes he smells like old socks.”

  “And sometimes he smells like old socks,” agreed Esme.

  Another echo of thunder. The battered bruises up above were darkening ever further, as if color itself knew better than to stay outside today. The storm would be soon, and mighty.

  “Sophie, I think it’s time to go.”

  Esme expected a protest—they hadn’t been out here very long—but her little girl just shrugged her shoulders okay and hopped off the seesaw once her feet touched the ground. They walked back to the Prius, parked alongside all the other cars. Other parents were escorting their children off the playground now, too. Esme offered a friendly wave to a few of the mothers she recognized. Only one waved back.

  How lovely to be made a pariah for protecting your neighborhood.

  They drove back to the lighthouse. Esme allowed her daughter to pick the music and, predictably, Sophie chose the Beatles. This was her little girl, after all. Sophie was especially fond of Paul McCartney’s music hall contribution to Abbey Road: “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer.” Mother and daughter sang along with the bouncy chorus as they traveled north. The rain erupted in a cloudburst, providing wet percussive backbeats that echoed the “bang bang” of Maxwell’s silver hammer in three-eight time.

  Nolan Worth met them in the parking lot of the lighthouse, with an umbrella and a grin. Esme and Sophie scrunched underneath the vinyl octagon and, on the count of three, they all rushed, mud splashing at their feet, toward the warm, dry interior of the lighthouse. Rafe’s car was gone. Tonight, he and Lester were elsewhere. That was the agreement. She didn’t care where they were and hadn’t even bothered to ask. If she needed to get ahold of her husband, she had his cell phone number. She didn’t plan on getting ahold of her husband. This was her day with her daughter.

  Not too far away, in an unmarked sedan outside the nondescript FBI substation in Melville, New York, Tom was also thinking about Esme’s day with her daughter, among many other things. Esme’s breakdown had hit him hard. Even though so much of it seemed to stem from the dissolution of her marriage, Tom couldn’t help but shoulder some of the guilt himself. Here was his prodigal daughter, his beloved disciple and friend, of whom he was so proud, for whom he cared so much, and circumstances—which he had played a part in creating—had reduced her from a glacier, implacable and fearless, to an icicle being heated into nothingness. He longed for nothing more than to help her out and build her back up, but he couldn’t. Her problems went beyond the scope of his prodigious abilities to solve. She wasn’t a case to be concluded or a criminal to be profiled. She was his Esmeralda, and she was alone, and no amount of “It’ll be okay” or “I’m here for you” counterbalanced the hot truth of that fact.

  Meanwhile, there was the operation. Tom was supposed to be concentrating on the task at hand. Dozens of operatives were waiting for his go-ahead to abort the mission. The rain wasn’t letting up, and this was a weather-dependent operation. Grover could still fire off all of his blanks, but what were the odds that an untrained marksman like himself would notch one kill, let alone nine, in this wind and with this rain? Galileo couldn’t have even accomplished that feat. Credibility was vital here. So why wasn’t Tom signaling the abort?

  None of them could have known what was on the veteran special agent’s mind, not even Grover Kirk, up there on the roof, no less wet than if he were underwater. For one, Grover was too busy trying to keep the soaked sniper rifle from sliding out of his hands.

  As for the nine targeted agents in the conference room on the second floor, they were impatiently debating whether or not to contact Tom themselves. The operation called for radio silence (unless Tom were to breach it), but proceeding in this weather was ridiculous. Why wasn’t he signaling the abort? They all recognized the important theatrical value that they played here, but they all also knew when enough was enough. It was time to call it a day. It was time to return home, cuddle up with a hot cup of coffee and watch some college football with their kids.

  The operation was scheduled for 4:44 p.m. It was now 4:41 p.m.

  From his vantage point at street level, Tom could see the tip of Grover’s rifle and he could see the sheer surface of the conference room bay window. An hour ago he could have seen through the window and into the conference room itself, but the dark weather made that prohibitive. Could Grover even see his targets? Tom sighed. He was aware of how precarious the whole operation had become. But he was also aware of how absolutely essential it was that this operation succeed. This was their best opportunity to end Cain42 and his World Wide Web of violence. Perhaps they should have had a second operation on the back burner in case this one went FUBAR, but Tom had never been a fan of fallbacks. People with fallbacks tended not to commit as fully to their primary objective. People with fallbacks had a safety net.

  Tom Piper worked best without a safety net.

  And yet: 4:42 p.m.

  He picked up his walkie-talkie. When he’d started his career, more than thirty years earlier, walkie-talkies had been these cumbersome pieces of machinery with long metal antennae that one had to extend to full length in order to send and receive a proper signal. The walkie-talkie in his hands was small and light, its wobbly antenna apparently made out of rubber. Technology was shrinking the world.

  And the world at this moment was very, very wet.

  Should he abort the operation?

  Even a nearby bystander was wondering that very same question. He was a thin man in a ball cap who had taken shelter from the elements under the protective cover of a bus stop kiosk. Kid-friendly movie advertisements decorated the two interior walls of the kiosk. Thanksgiving was high time for children’s entertainment. The thin man in the ball cap enjoyed movies and plays. After all, this was the primary reason he was there in downtown Melville—to watch theater unfold, if it was going to unfold, if the special agent in the unmarked sedan didn’t call off the show. Cain42 so hoped he didn’t call off the show.

  Tailing Grover Kirk to this location had been a piece of cake, and once Cain42 saw the rifle and followed its barrel to the second-story window, the whole plan fell into place in his mind. He was tempted to climb up to the rooftop and keep his buddy Galileofan company. He was tempted to load live rounds into the rifle and watch the line between fantasy and reality blur. But no. Sometimes it was better just to wait and observe. He had something better in mind, anyway, his own bit of theater, for Monday afternoon, a kind of gift for the FBI for their efforts here on his behalf. Because surely all of this was being orchestrated for him, just as the Great Hunt was being orchestrated for them. He wanted Galileofan to win as badly as the FBI did.

  He wondered how far they were going to take this charade. Would they be using stage blood on the “victims”? How were they going to mimic the rifle shots through the windowpane? Was there a second sh
ooter somewhere about? No, that would be too dangerous. They probably had the window rigged from inside, precut and lined with fishing wire. Once the blanks fired, someone in the conference room would tug the fishing wire and the window would crash inward. How very Hollywood.

  And all for his benefit.

  He felt honored. He really hoped the operation wasn’t aborted. If only this goddamn cloudburst would let up…

  4:43 p.m.

  What time were they scheduled to go? It had to be soon. Everyone was in place. The special agent had the walkie-talkie in his hand. One way or another, it had to be soon. Cain42 adjusted his ball cap. He was excited. His gaze fixed on the sniper rifle, little more than a thin black line poking out from the rooftop of a midlevel high-rise. If he hadn’t been following Grover’s movements, he might not have seen it at all.

  “Do it,” he whispered. His voice came out in a wheeze. If he wasn’t careful, he’d have to be put on a portable ventilator again. Goddamn asthma.

  4:44 p.m.

  Tom put the walkie-talkie down.

  Grover Kirk pulled the wet trigger on the rifle. And pulled. And pulled.

  The bay window on the second story fell inward.

  Tom smiled, relieved.

  Cain42 smiled, relieved.

  The show had begun.

  23

  Lufthansa Flight 883, with nonstop service from Zurich, Switzerland, to Newark, New Jersey, was delayed six hours due to snow before finally taking off on Sunday evening, flying ten hours, thirty minutes, and eventually touching down stateside…on Sunday evening. Jefferson Harbinger countered any impatience, jet lag or all-around misery through the tried-and-true: constant intoxication. His cocktail of choice was two parts absinthe, one part champagne, and both were readily available in luscious Switzerland (absinthe being a Swiss invention and champagne being a popular import from neighboring France). The stewardesses in first class were reluctant to curb his binging for two reasons: one, he frightened them; and two, eventually he had to pass out.

  What could Jefferson Harbinger have possibly done to frighten such seasoned Swiss stewardesses? It was simple, really. Shortly after takeoff, before he’d even mixed one drink, Jefferson had opened a sketch pad, which he’d rested on his lap, and with a sharpened HB pencil he began to draw a picture on a blank page. This, of course, attracted the curiosity of the other passengers, not to mention the flight crew. After all, this was first class. Perhaps the young man with the unruly red hair, pleasantly sketching away mere meters from where they sat, was a famous artist.

  When the plane leveled off at thirty thousand feet, the stewardesses started walking the cabin, taking orders for drinks. It fell to Cerise, a tall, freckle-faced femme who happened to have a thing for artists, to ask Jefferson Harbinger what he wanted. The angle he held the pad made it nearly impossible for Cerise to sneak a glimpse—and she tried.

  “Do you know how to make a Hemingway?” he asked, without raising his eyes from his work. His voice was high and reedy, and his long red curls bounced about his forehead as he sketched. “If you do, that’d be lovely. If you don’t, I’ll instruct you.”

  “I don’t,” replied Cerise.

  “Two parts absinthe, one part champagne.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  She mixed the drink and handed it to him. He took it with his right hand and with his left, he moved on to shading, adding shadows and depth. Surely he was almost finished with his sketch. Surely it wouldn’t be rude of her to ask for a peek. He sipped his cocktail and a small grin percolated below his long flat nose.

  Anna, the senior flight attendant, signaled for Cerise to keep moving. Reluctantly, the tall, freckle-faced femme nodded. Her curiosity would have to remain unsatisfied. But as Cerise stepped to the next row—

  “Miss?”

  The redheaded young man touched her wrist.

  “Yes, sir?” She saw his glass was already empty. Even the ice was gone. “I’ll refill your drink in a moment. I just need to tend to the other passengers.”

  “Oh, I know. But I thought I’d give you a reward for mixing my drink so well.”

  A reward? Could it be…?

  Yes, it could! He tore the finished drawing out of his sketch pad and handed it to her, that small grin of his showing very little teeth. But his green eyes betrayed his sense of anticipation. The pupils were huge. He watched the stewardess’s face beam as she took his gift, and then her focus went from him to it.

  It was a full body portrait of Cerise. Rather than outfitted in her snug Lufthansa uniform, though, Jefferson had drawn on a pair of lederhosen and what appeared to be a black nylon bra. The rest of her figure, including her privates, was well-outlined and nude. But that wasn’t what caused Cerise to freak out. She was a liberated woman. What caused Cerise to freak out were the fishing hooks.

  Ten fishing hooks were embedded in her throat, five on each side of her concave thyroid. And these hooks were pulling the flesh of her neck open as if each skin flap were the leaf of a book and the book was being held open for all to see, its contents viscous tissue, veins and muscle, drooling blood all the way down to her nylon cleavage.

  Ten similar hooks were embedded in her vagina.

  To her credit, she didn’t scream. She did freak out, though, and quickly passed down the aisle to Anna, who was in the fore kitchen.

  “Ich… Wir…hat…”

  Anna raised an eyebrow and replied in perfectly enunciated Queen’s English, “Stop babbling, child, and tell me what’s wrong.”

  Cerise showed her the sketch and pointed to the redheaded young man.

  Disgusted, Anna snatched the sheet of paper and stomped in high heels toward Jefferson Harbinger, who’d commenced another sketch.

  “Sir…”

  He didn’t look up at her. “Another Hemingway, if you please.”

  “Sir…”

  “If you don’t know how to make it, ask the girl with the freckles.”

  He still didn’t look up. His arm, fast at work, blocked Anna from spying the subject of his latest piece, but she lacked Cerise’s curiosity, especially having had the misfortune to behold the subject of his first piece.

  “Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to stop.”

  Now he looked up. “Is my art interfering with the cockpit?”

  “You know very well the effect your ‘art’ has had.”

  “Actually, I don’t,” he replied. “I have hopes and desires like every other man, but that’s all. I want to believe that all my work has a profound effect on someone. Take my latest piece, for example.”

  And he showed Anna his latest piece.

  And she began to gag.

  “Now if you would be so kind, ma’am, please get me another Hemingway. Two parts absinthe, one part champagne. And be quick about it. Unless, that is, you want to try to take away my pencils. I might like to see you try.”

  His thick tongue slimed its way across his thin lips.

  She got him another drink, and told the other flight attendants to leave him alone. She watched him down cocktail after cocktail, hoping and desiring that this would be the one to slow him down and knock him out. But he remained conscious, sipping and, when the muse struck him, drawing.

  He completed eleven more pieces.

  By the time they began their approach to Newark International, Anna—always the stalwart rock among her crew—was a trembling wreck. She’d already informed the captain, Adam Ludvorg, of the situation, and he’d notified airport security; apparently, a team of policemen was already waiting at the gate to take Jefferson Harbinger into custody. Anna was gratified. On the basis of the drawings, airport security could have maybe roughed him up a bit, but he hadn’t broken any law, and he knew he hadn’t broken any law.

  Except apparently he had broken a law or the team of policemen wouldn’t be already waiting at the gate. Anna could just imagine what obscene crime he had committed. She didn’t want to imagine, but she couldn’t help herself. The drawings had unleashed a flood of darknes
s into her brain and she couldn’t empty it out.

  The plane touched down on the rain-swept tarmac at Newark International. Its journey of ten hours and change was almost complete. Anna, who had the drawings secured in an issue of Le Monde, took note of how relieved poor Cerise appeared. That girl would be heading straight to the airport bar. Good. Maybe Anna would join her. They’d order something hard to blast away their demons.

  Like absinthe and champagne.

  Anna had to swallow to keep from vomiting.

  As they taxied to the gate, Jefferson removed his PDA from the inside pocket of his parka and sent off a quick email to Cain42, informing him that the favor he’d requested had been completed. Jefferson then brought up the website itself. With four hours left until Monday, he was curious to see who was winning the Great Hunt. Galileofan, eh? Tip of the hat to the newbie. Jefferson tried to enlarge the thumbnail photograph that Galileofan had taken of his nine kills, but his PDA’s touch screen refused to respond. The only reason he held on to the piece of crap was to please his aunt Carolyn. She’d given it to him for his birthday. Family meant a lot to Jefferson Harbinger.

  They came to a stop at the gate.

  When the cabin door finally opened and the small army of well-armed Kevlar-vested SWAT officers poured into the airplane, Anna immediately rose to her feet and handed the magazine to the last one in. She then strolled to the kitchen and threw up in the sink.

  The SWAT officers formed a semicircle around Jefferson. Their pistols were at the ready. Their safeties were off.

  “Evening, officers,” he said. “What seems to be the problem?”

  At Tom’s request, Briggs and Vitucci had placed Jefferson Harbinger in the filthiest interview room they had. As Tom had guessed, the redheaded young man did not take well to filth, even going so far as to try to scrub the mildew off his own chair with one of his manacles.

  To Vitucci, the whole thing smacked of irony.