There were about twenty serial killers in on it, but he didn’t know all of them. Just a few. He knew more that had not accepted the proposition than had. He wasn’t sure what the payment was for them, but it hadn’t seemed to be enough. He’d killed Deacon Priest to stop the man from telling us that Fulton had escorted him to the meeting with the other Marshal.
His last bit of information was that none of the women were supposed to make it out of the prison alive. It was the cover story. The prison erupted in a riot so that the male serials could get to the females and do what serial killers do best. He wasn’t entirely sure if it was to bring down the Fortress or just get female serials out of it. I had a theory that I wasn’t voicing. If I were right, then it would shed some light on things. If I was wrong, we would spend hours chasing a dead end and we couldn’t afford that right now.
However, Jackie and Hannah had both said they were going to be paid in escape plans when they were moved to a less secure prison. If that was the case, then it was possible that the entire thing was to a) attack the Serial Killer and Mass Murderer infrastructure and b) make sure women were never put into the Fortress again. To me that sounded like a female that didn’t want to be stuck behind the walls of the Fortress, for whatever reason was behind all of this. Yet, it was just a theory and not a great one at that. We still didn’t have all the puzzle pieces. It was just as likely that the mastermind had lied to the women and that there was no payment plan if they made it out alive, just the contingency to kill them.
Malachi asked for a show of hands of anyone that had been contacted by the mystery Marshal. None went up. I hadn’t really expected them too, but I had been hopeful. This lot wasn’t suitable for such practices. They were the ones that didn’t mind being locked away. They were the ones that thought it was better for them to be in here than out there. It was what drove their loyalty to the Marshals. Brent Timmons had once told me he wouldn’t make it more than two days on the outside without killing and knew his place was within these walls. Here, he was safe and the world was safe from him. It was hard to argue with logic like that.
Killers like this were the minority. They were the ones that no longer had the arrogance to believe they could get away with their crimes indefinitely. They were neither happy nor unhappy. Their blood lust still called to them, but they had learned to ignore it. They were more like me than the monsters on the outside of cafeteria. Also like me, they did occasionally kill one another and they could make that work for them for a long time.
The cafeteria was one story, but it wasn’t a normal one story. A balcony ran around the room at roughly fifteen feet. The entrance to this restricted position was hidden from view at the moment. There was approximately another ten feet above it. It made the first floor ceilings exceptionally tall. However, tall ceilings were part of the hallmark of the Fortress and added to the moniker it had earned. My eyes continued to sweep along it. It was empty, devoid of life, but when the uprising had started, there should have been people up there. Marshals with tear gas canisters, and in emergencies, the ability to release gas canisters with sedative properties.
Yet, the floor was not littered with this debris. Not a single one seemed to have been launched into the unruly crowd. The door that held the precious canisters was closed, and from what I could tell, still latched.
I knew from my few familiarization visits that three people were up there during meal times. It seemed farfetched that all three would be involved. That was a lot of corruption, one or two Marshals, maybe. Three was possible, but unlikely, to get one in the women’s ward plus three that were going to be in the cafeteria seemed nearly impossible.
“Dominic,” I called him over, refusing to move. I was fairly sure I was one giant bruise. Dominic Lazar came over. “Who was up there when this started?”
“Fulton, Peart, and myself,” Dominic said.
“Why didn’t you go for the canisters of tear and sedation canisters?”
“The door wouldn’t unlock,” Dominic answered. “When we realized this, we came down the stairs, entered the kitchen, and came into the dining hall to help deal with the riot. However, the moment I entered the room, I could tell something was different. One of the serial killers had a large knife, nothing like we keep on the premises, so I rushed to where I had seen Eric and Patterson. I knew if they were both alive and I stuck with them, I’d be okay.”
“You decided to trust your life with serial killers instead of Marshals?” Parsons asked.
“Someone gave Deacon Priest that knife. It wasn’t an inmate and the inmate’s visitors weren’t smuggling it in. Eric is a killer of cop killers and we have some history. I knew I’d be safe with him,” Dominic said.
“History?” I made it a question.
“Marshal Lazar came to my defense once,” Eric said absently, not even turning around to look at me. “A few years ago, we had this mean cuss of a Marshal in here. He was just killing time until retirement. Since I was small and didn’t seem particularly dangerous, he decided to make an example of me so that the others wouldn’t get out of line. Marshal Lazar stopped him and reported him. He was transferred the following day and Lazar went to bat for me, making sure I wasn’t punished for the blow or two I landed.”
“Not everyone in here is an animal,” Dominic told me. “As a matter of fact, most of them, if you treat them with respect, will treat you the same. There are exceptions, but the block I work on is mostly that way.”
There was no need for further explanation. I suddenly realized how the Fortress was organized. The loyals were all in the same cellblock. There were a few miscreants, but those were the exception, not the rule. In theory, if they had all been in their cellblock when the uprising had happened, they could have helped shut it down. Since they were having lunch, they had been rendered impotent. The area had been one of the first to be secured. A few of the rowdier ones had been let loose, but the others had all been forced to stay in the cafeteria, trapped and encircled. They wouldn’t have stood a chance if they had gone out to help.
Someone would have needed to enter the master codes on the doors in each cellblock. Someone would have had to make sure the situation in the cafeteria was handled properly. Someone would have needed to be in charge of the women’s ward. Someone would have needed to be in charge of keeping the tactical teams from getting the upper hand. Finally, someone would have been needed to detonate the bombs. That wasn’t work you left to serial killers if you wanted it done right. That meant four on the inside, one on the outside, and a way to communicate with the outside person. We had discovered two of the five Marshals. I wondered if three million dollars was the going price for all of them.
I trusted Dominic Lazar. I trusted Parsons. I trusted the SCTU and VCU. I trusted Demetrius Lazar. I trusted most of the serial killers. Everyone else was suspect. There were approximately one hundred US Marshals staffed by the Fortress during this shift. They worked twelve hours a day, three days a week. That meant all five had to be in the same rotation this week for it to work. It was a Tuesday, which was the day new staff members were introduced to their duties. I took a count of uniforms. There was no way we had one hundred Marshals in the cafeteria. We might have had forty-five or fifty. A portion of them were beaten and battered.
“I think we should go look for the missing Marshals,” I announced, forcing myself to stand up before I became stiff. My foot hurt when I put weight on it.
“You know they are probably dead, right?” Malachi asked.
“That was my thought too, but I have not seen any dead Marshals,” I responded. “Has anyone else?”
“No,” Caleb admitted.
“I have a nagging what if scenario in my head. We have not seen dead ones because they are not dead. They are being held. It could be why we only see the serial killers sporadically. Large groups of them would be needed to hold fifty or more US Marshals. My guess is they have been locked inside cells somewhere that we just have not been to yet, but we would need to find the
m to confirm that.”
Twenty-four
“Your foot is broken,” Eric told me.
“I’m aware,” I snipped.
“And you can feel it,” Eric sighed. “You are not going anywhere. You want to send a search party for the Marshals, fine, but you are not leaving this room again.”
“Besides, by my calculations, they would need at least five US Marshals to pull this off. Today is newbie day, but I’m not noticing a lot of unfamiliar faces among the Marshals,” Patterson gave me a look. I understood it. The new recruits could account for the extra manpower to pull this off. Most of the Marshals here were secluded from their fellow officers. They wouldn’t really know one from another when they first started. A hacker could arrange some very interesting things, like fake IDs and fake records. A good hacker could get them transferred to the Fortress. Almost no one would be the wiser.
“Let me see your foot,” Caleb demanded.
“You are not Xavier,” I replied.
“Let me see your foot anyway,” Caleb said. I growled, but took off my shoe. It was indeed broken. Caleb had to cut my sock off. My toes were all smashed at odd angles, blood had dried on them. One bone stuck out the top. “If you can reenter the darkness, that would be to your advantage, because what I’m about to do is going to hurt like hell.”
I tried, but the calm eluded me now. Caleb grabbed my foot and pushed the bone back in. He yelled for something, but it was lost among the screaming in my head. I felt tape, cold and sticky, being wrapped around something else cold and hard. Then he grabbed my toes. I punched him in the face. It caused his head to jerk, but he just kept working on my foot. When he had finished, there was a nice whelp forming under his eye and the skin was already turning colors. My foot felt like it had been hit with a jackhammer and there were pieces of plastic attached with tape to it.
“At least she didn’t kick you,” Patterson said as Caleb touched the spot under his eye. “Legs like that and those boots, she can do real damage with those.” I thought about telling my grandfather to go jump in a lake, but didn’t. If I opened my mouth, I might scream and I did not want to scream in a room full of serial killers. I could not expose much more weakness.
“I’ll go look for the Marshals,” Malachi told me. “Caleb, stay here. Eric, you too.” Malachi took about ten serial killers with him, including Patterson and Brent Timmons, two FBI agents, and two Marshals that he knew from the neighborhood.
“Great, while they’re gone, I recommend the remaining conspirators come forward and start talking,” Caleb said as soon as they left. He stood up and looked around. No one moved. “Look, we’re going to figure it out. You can save yourself some time and trouble if you just admit it.” Still none of the Marshals moved.
“Fine, Dominic,” I looked back at the one Marshal that had been in the cafeteria that I trusted. “Let’s go up to the canister holder.”
“Me,” Peart stood up. He was young, maybe mid-twenties. He looked ill as he said it. “But you have to understand, not all of us were given money.”
“What were you given?” I asked. He handed me a photo. There was a girl in it, maybe late teens. She had duct tape on her mouth. Her eyes were wide, glistening, and a dark shade of blue. Tear stains streaked down both cheeks. There was a newspaper in her lap with yesterday’s date.
“I was offered money, but I refused it. Then yesterday, I get a call from my mom saying my sister didn’t return home from play practice. Instead, she found an envelope taped to the front door. This picture was inside along with all the details of what I was supposed to do and not do. The only thing I was supposed to do was break off my key in the canister lock when someone tried to kill someone else today inside the cafeteria. Considering the small price to pay for her safe return, I did it.”
“Why didn’t you report it?” Dominic asked.
“I tried, but when I made the call, I got a recording and less than ten minutes later, my sister’s finger showed up at my mom’s house. Whoever it was knew I had tried to report it and my sister got cut up for it.”
“Where does your mom live?” I asked.
“Lee’s Summit,” Peart looked at the floor. “My sister’s probably dead by now.”
“We do not know that for sure, but it does change some things,” I told him. Eric motioned me over to him. I stood where I was, not wanting to move away from the table, which was currently holding my weight off my foot. After a moment, Eric came towards me.
“Nyleena, this guy’s sister, whoever is doing this is very well organized,” he whispered.
“I know. And I think he is using one or more serial killers who are still at large to help,” I whispered back.
“You were a student, but do you remember the uprising in LA?” Eric’s voice was still hushed. I nodded. “The ones they caught said it was all organized through the internet. But the organizer had shift changes of the LAPD, knew the names of all the FBI agents, US Marshals, and Secret Service that responded as well as a list of their relatives. There was a theory that it was organized by a cop.” I nodded again. “What if it wasn’t just a cop? What if it is some sort of partnership between a cop and a hacker?”
“When I was in New Orleans, someone managed to drug Fiona and me. They placed us in bed together and took nude photos that they released on the internet. I have been wracking my brain for some time now trying to figure out how they managed. I have a suspect. He is a US Marshal and a hacker. He replaced Lucas when Lucas had to go into hiding, but I have no proof. Right now, he is standing outside in one of the sniper towers, hopefully not near Xavier.”
“What’s his motive?” Eric asked.
“He has got borderline personality disorder, and seems to have psychopathic tendencies. He really wants Fiona’s job. Fiona did some serious digging after those photos came out. Hunter’s father was a serial killer. One morning, his father took him hunting, for people, not deer. They spotted some hikers. He seems to have cracked under the pressure and shot his father instead of the woman his father was trying to get him to kill,” I told my older brother.
“Hunter? As in Jeffrey Hunter?” Eric asked.
“His father’s name is Jeffrey. His name is Christian.”
“You realize that Jeff Hunter is one of the men running around outside this room?” Eric said.
“No, I did not know that. The report does not mention what happened to him.”
“The Hunters are worth millions, Aislinn, and it’s old money. They struck it rich during the gold rush in Colorado. A series of good investments kept increasing the family funds, and now they own dozens of companies. To avoid a huge scandal, Jeff Hunter’s name was legally changed and the files sealed. He was forced to plead guilty. All of it was done by his father.”
“How do you know all that?” I asked.
“You should have a conversation with our grandfather one day. He’s a wealth of information.”
“Why does Patterson know all this?” I frowned.
“Because Patterson has connections. You don’t remain at large for as long as he did without some friends in high places. Patterson has three identities, all of them legal. There’s a good chance that people have been helping him remain free for a long, long time. He only gave himself up because he wanted to. Roughly, a dozen serial killers are out there that you will never have case files for. People like Apex and the Butcher are among them. They serve a purpose on the outside because they have a tendency to kill serial killers. They are not sanctioned like you or Malachi, but they also aren’t priority cases.”
“I have a case file on Apex though,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, and how much information is actually in it? A bullet? A couple of ballistics matches?” Eric snarked. I didn’t respond because that was pretty much all that was in there and I had learned recently that Apex was once a cop. He might still be, I didn’t know. I did believe Eric was right. Malachi’s files on the Butcher had always been woefully slim. Considering the Butcher had turned out to be my gr
andfather, it was possible that Patterson and Eric knew exactly what they were talking about. “You and Malachi both working to catch serial killers isn’t an accident either. I sound like a conspiracy nut, but I think you were both chosen for the jobs. I think Patterson, Apex, and a few others had a hand in guiding you two into your current positions.”
“Fine, I thought this had something to do with the Marshals, but what if it has something to do with Jeffrey Hunter?”
“It would make sense. Patterson, myself, Yuri, a few other people in here in our cellblock knows who he really is. Killing us could be to protect that secret. This morning’s chaos would have been a great distraction for this part of the plan. Also, until this morning, Jeffrey Hunter was in our cellblock. The warden moved him out and into another cell block before breakfast.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know everything,” Eric answered. “However, rumor has it that we have a new one coming in tomorrow, one of Malachi’s captures from before. Legal wrangling has tied him up for a prolonged period of time, but the UK finally tried and convicted him and a deal was struck that he would serve his time here.”
“Who?” I asked, unfamiliar with the case.
“Fredrick Stein, the Cannibal of the Atlantic.”
The Cannibal was one bad dude. He’d worked on shipping vessels, killing and eating the crews. Two ships were completely empty when they were found floating in international waters. It was hard to take out an entire crew, but he had managed. Then he’d jump ship with a life raft and rowed in one direction until he reached land. Aside from holding the loyals in the same cellblock, they also held some of the more dangerous serial killers. Fredrick Stein fit the bill. I was somewhat surprised he wasn’t being put in the secure ward. When he’d been caught for stealing in the UK at some port city, he bit off two of his fingers and his thumb to escape his handcuffs. He arrived in the US not long afterwards, hand wrapped and still working. That had been nearly nine years ago. I had forgotten all about the case. Now, I wondered if his arrival tomorrow was influencing the takeover. It would be dangerous to have someone like him running around.
Fortified Dreams Page 17
