Fatal Error

by F. Paul Wilson

  “Yeah.” He leaned forward. “Look, Russ, kidnapping is best left to the big boys. They’ve got assets and manpower and teams specially trained—”

  “He’s scared shitless to make that call. I told him I knew a guy who could look into it and keep it outside the system.”

  “Sorry, Russ. No way.”

  5

  “Drexler, I have a task for you.”

  Ernst straightened in his chair as he recognized the voice: the One.

  His office seemed to shrink around him. Contact with the One never failed to make him feel like a frightened child. He grabbed a pen and poised it over the legal pad before him.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you remember the woman who created such a nuisance last summer?”

  “Louise Myers? The woman posting on the nine/eleven sites?”

  “Yes. Her.”

  Everyone Ernst had sent against that woman had ended up dead. A bit more than a nuisance. Quite a bit more.

  “Did you ever find her?”

  “No, sir. We gave up on the search some months ago. She’s stopped posting and there didn’t seem much hope—”

  “Resume the search. Widen it. Find her.”

  “Is there something I should know?”

  “Merely a contingency plan. She has a book I may have use for. She’s in the city. I could find her myself if I were there, but I am in the middle of something else at the moment.”

  “I’ll get on it right away.”

  “Also, a package shall be arriving for your safekeeping. As for the woman, remember this: I want no contact. Locate her, but do not contact her.”

  “No contact? But—”

  He was gone.

  The One had said to widen the search. Ernst assumed that meant mobilizing more than just the Order. He called his right-hand man, Kristof Szeto, and told him to fax a copy of her picture to the head of security for the Dormentalists—their Grand Paladin—as well as get it out to the members of the Order.

  “The Myers woman,” Szeto said in Eastern Europe–flavored English. “Yes, this is good. This time we will find her. I have score to settle—”

  “No settling anything.” Ernst knew he was still bridling from losing so many men to her. “No contact.”

  “But—”

  “A personal directive from the One.”

  A pause, then, “Well, in that case . . .”

  Hank Thompson had strolled in—as usual, without knocking—toward the end of the conversation.

  “Her again?” he said when Ernst hung up. He was tall and trim, with a dark, shaggy mane. “Didn’t you track her to Wyoming?”

  Ernst nodded. “We did. But that was as close as we came. It turned out to be a dead end.”

  “I thought we gave up on her.”

  “The One, apparently, has not.”

  He dropped his lanky form into a chair. “He says ‘boo’ and your bosses drop everything, right?”

  Ernst sighed. “The Ancient Fraternal Septimus Order—”

  “Is this where you remind me once more that you and your Order have loaned this building to me and my guys? I know that. And we’re grateful.”

  Thompson’s posturing could be entertaining at times, tiring at others.

  “The Order is devoted to the One’s cause. I am an Actuator for the Order. It is my duty to carry out his wishes. It is to your benefit to do the same.”

  “Says who?”

  “The One.” Ernst pointed to the corner behind Thompson. “Why don’t you ask him yourself.”

  It gave him enormous satisfaction to watch the color drain from the man’s face as he did a slow turn, then flush with anger when he realized he’d been had.

  “You son of a bitch!”

  Ernst allowed a smile. Thompson was an odd case. A combustible farrago of intelligence and animal cunning. An ex-con who’d had the drive to write an internationally bestselling . . . how to classify his book? Kick was a manifesto and a memoir and a call to arms. A Mein Kampf without the racism. His call to kick down the doors that penned you in and evolve into something new cut through racial, religious, and ethnic barriers.

  It is time to separate yourselves from the herd. You know who you are. You know who I’m talking to. You don’t belong with the herd. Come out of hiding. Step away from the crowd. Let the dissimilation begin!

  People everywhere—mostly males, an unusually high percentage of whom came with criminal records—answered the call and began thinking of themselves as “Kickers,” even going so far as to have the Kicker Man, the symbol of what Thompson called “the Kicker Evolution,” tattooed on their hands.

  The strange thing was, Thompson had gathered this huge, worldwide following that cut across all national and cultural boundaries, with no idea of what to do with them.

  Ernst had solved that problem, but the key was to let Thompson think it was all his idea.

  “Speaking of sons of bitches and looking for people,” Thompson said, “what about that guy we were after?”

  Although Ernst knew exactly who he meant, he said, “And what ‘guy’ would that be?”

  “The one who tasered us.”

  “Oh, him. I’ve gotten past that.”

  True, at least as far as being tasered. But he hadn’t gotten past what the man had said to him. He’d known things he shouldn’t have. And something about him had been hauntingly familiar.

  “Well, I haven’t. Shave off that beard and I bet he’d have been the same guy who stole the Compendium from me.” His hands knotted into fists. “If I ever get hold of that fuck . . .”

  Another thing about Thompson, he held grudges. Ernst couldn’t resist rubbing salt in the wound.

  “Ironic that he was within reach so many times, right under your nose here in the Lodge, posing as one of your followers. Why, you might even have spoken to him on occasion.”

  Thompson spoke through his teeth. “Don’t think I haven’t thought about that.” He shook himself. “What’s the latest on the virus?”

  Thompson appeared to want a change of subject.

  “The virus is perfected, but we’re working on adding one last feature to the payload.”

  Thompson grunted. “You’ve been working on this since last summer. When are we going to get it done?”

  Valez was in charge of a crucial feature of the virus that everyone hoped would complete the coding, but he was experiencing odd delays.

  “Good question. I’ll make a call right now.”

  He punched in Valez’s number. The man picked up right away.

  “Yes, Mister D.”

  “Where are we with the code?”

  “As I mentioned earlier, I had trouble with the, um, setup, but everything is in line now.”

  “How long?”

  “Two days, tops.”

  “Very good.” Ernst ended the call and looked at Thompson. “Two days. Then we have to incorporate it into the virus and make sure it works the way we wish. Then we release the virus. It should take it only a couple of days to replicate and spread globally.”

  “So we’re talking the weekend.” He rubbed his hands together. “About fucking time.”

  “What did you expect? Bringing down the Internet is hardly child’s play.”

  6

  Jack was feeling a little annoyed with himself as he knocked on the door to Munir Habib’s apartment in the Turtle Bay high-rise. He’d pulled on a pair of thin leather gloves downstairs, worn his Mets cap with the brim low over his face, and had kept his head down in the foyer and during the elevator ride. Good chance this mess was going to end up in the hands of officialdom and he didn’t want to leave behind anything that belonged to him, not fingerprints, and especially not a face on a security camera.

  Still didn’t know how he’d let Russ talk him into this. Had to hand it to the guy, he was persistent. Pulled out all the stops:

  Munir was one of his few friends, a good guy who didn’t deserve this and was an emotional wreck over it, and had Russ ever ask
ed Jack for a favor, no, and hadn’t he always come through every time Jack needed something, yes, so couldn’t Jack do this for him, because he wasn’t asking for a freebie, the guy would pay, just go and listen to him, please-please-please?

  Jack had agreed, just to shut him up.

  He’d called, but Russ’s pal wouldn’t discuss it on the phone. Too scared. Had to be face-to-face. Normally Jack would never do a first meet in the customer’s place, but Russ had vouched for him, so . . .

  The door was opened by a short, stocky, fortyish man with milk-chocolate skin, a square face, and bright eyes as black as the stiff, straight hair on his head. His clothes were badly wrinkled, like he’d slept in them, and he looked halfway to zombie.

  “You’re the one who called?” he said in barely accented English.

  Jack nodded and extended his hand. “Mister Habib, I assume.”

  They shook, followed by a few beats of silence as he stared at Jack. Jack knew that look.

  Here it comes . . . here it comes . . .

  “I was expecting . . .”

  “Someone different? You and everybody else.”

  They all expected someone bigger, someone darker, someone meaner looking. Not the deliberately average-looking Joe before them.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, well, this is the guy you get. Mind if I come in?”

  Habib stuck his head out the door and cast furtive looks up and down the hall.

  “Don’t worry,” Jack said. “No one’s seen me. And I took the elevator up an extra two floors and walked down. But if you keep me standing out here, pretty soon—”

  “Yes-yes. Come in. Please.”

  Jack stepped inside and let Habib close the door behind him.

  “You’ve got the down payment?”

  He nodded. “Yes. I was afraid I could not get so much cash on such short notice.”

  “Keep it for now. I haven’t decided yet whether we’ll be doing business. What’s the story? Russ thinks your wife and son have been kidnapped. Is that it?”

  The man broke down and sobbed. “Save my family. Please save my family.”

  Jack’s throat constricted. The pain in those words . . .

  He tried to imagine how he’d feel if Gia and Vicky were being held for ransom. Couldn’t.

  “Take it easy. Let’s sit down and you tell me about it.”

  He led Jack past a small, cluttered kitchen, past a room with an inflatable fighter jet hanging from the ceiling and a New York Giants banner tacked to the wall—his son’s, no doubt—ending in an office that had probably started out as a third bedroom but was crammed with computers and monitors.

  “This where you and Russ play MMO games?” Jack said, trying to sound knowledgeable.

  “What? Oh, yes.”

  He sat at the desk, Jack pulled up a straight-backed chair.

  “It’s true: My wife and son have been kidnapped and are being held hostage.”

  Jack noted that he didn’t say “ransom.”

  Russ had sworn the guy hadn’t called the cops. Said he was too scared by the kidnapper’s threats. Jack believed Russ, but didn’t know if he could believe Habib.

  “Why not call the cops? I know it’s SOP for kidnappers to tell you not to, but . . .”

  Habib reached inside his jacket and pulled out some photos. His hand trembled as he passed them over.

  “This is why.”

  The first showed an attractive blond woman, thirty or so, dressed in a white blouse and a dark skirt, gagged and bound to a chair in front of a blank, unpainted wall. A red plastic funnel had been inserted through the gag into her mouth. A can of Drano lay propped in her lap. Her eyes held Jack for a moment—pale blue and utterly terrified. Caution: Contains lye was block printed across the bottom of the photo.

  Jack grimaced and moved to the next. At first he wasn’t sure what he was looking at, like one of those pictures you get when the camera accidentally goes off in your hand. A big meat cleaver took up most of the frame, but the rest was—

  He bit the inside of his cheek when he recognized the bare lower belly of a little boy, his hairless pubes, his little penis laid out on the chopping block, the cleaver next to it, ominously close.

  Okay. Habib hadn’t called the cops.

  Jack handed them back.

  “How much do they want?”

  “I don’t believe it is a ‘they.’ I think it is a ‘he.’ And he does not seem to want money. At least not yet.”

  “Psycho?”

  “I think so. He seems to hate Arabs—all Arabs—and has picked on me.” Habib’s features knotted as his voice cracked. “Why me?”

  Jack realized how close this guy was to tumbling over the edge. He didn’t want him to start blubbering again.

  “Easy,” he said softly. “Easy.”

  Habib rubbed his hands over his face, and when next he looked at Jack, his features were blotchy but composed.

  “Yes. I must remain calm. I must not lose control. For Barbara. And Robby.”

  Jack had another nightmare flash of Gia and Vicky in the hands of some of the psychos he’d had to deal with and knew at that moment he wanted to work with Habib. The guy was okay.

  “An Arab hater. One of Kahane’s old crew, maybe?”

  “No. Not a Jew. At least not that I can tell. He keeps referring to a sister who was killed in the Twin Towers. I’ve told him that I’m an American citizen just like him. But he says I’m from Saudi Arabia, and Saudis brought down the Towers and an Arab’s an Arab as far as he’s concerned.”

  Jack stiffened. The Towers again? Last summer he’d become embroiled in the intrigue and paranoia surrounding their fall. The consequences were still reverberating through his life.

  “Start at the beginning,” he said. “Any hint this was coming?”

  “Nothing. Everything in our lives has been going normally.”

  “How about someone from the old country?”

  “I have no ‘old country.’ I’ve spent more of my life in America than in Saudi Arabia. My father was on long-term assignment here with Saud Petroleum. I grew up in New York. I was in college here when he was transferred back. I spent two months in the land of my birth and realized that my homeland was here. I made my hajj, then returned to New York. I finished school and became a citizen—much to the dismay of my father, I might add.”

  “Still could be someone from over there behind it. I mean, your wife doesn’t look like she’s from that part of the world.”

  “Barbara was born and raised in Westchester.”

  That surprised Jack. “Not Muslim? I’d have thought that would be against the Koran or something.”

  “It’s against the law for Muslim women to marry infidel men, but not the other way around. If there’s a pre-nup that the infidel woman will convert to Islam, it’s okay.”

  “So she converted?”

  He shook his head. “No. She’s an atheist. Thinks religion’s silly.”

  “Well, there you go. Sounds to me like your marrying someone like that drove one of these fundamentalist nutcases—”

  “No. Positively not.” Habib’s face hardened. Absolute conviction steeled his voice. “A true Muslim would never do what this man has done to me.”

  “Don’t be so sure.”

  “He made me . . . he made me eat . . .” The rest of the sentence seemed to be lodged in Habib’s throat. “. . . pork. And made me drink alcohol with it. Pork!”

  Jack shook his head. “I take it you’re still a believer then?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t pray six times a day or go to mosque, but some cultural proscriptions are so ingrained . . .”

  But still, what was the big deal? Jack could think of things a whole lot worse he could have been forced to do.

  “What’d you have to do—eat a ham on rye?”

  “No. Ribs. He told me to go to a certain restaurant on Forty-seventh Street this past Friday at noon and buy a rack of baby back ribs. Then he wanted me to stand outside on
the sidewalk to eat them and wash them down with a bottle of beer.”

  “Did you?”

  Habib bowed his head. “Yes.”

  Jack was tempted to ask if he liked the taste but stifled the question. Some folks took this stuff very seriously. He’d never been able to fathom how otherwise intelligent people allowed their dietary habits to be controlled by something written in a book thousands of years ago by someone who didn’t have indoor plumbing. But then he didn’t understand a lot of things about a lot of people. He freely admitted that. And what they ate or didn’t eat, for whatever reasons, was the least of those mysteries.

  “So you ate pork and drank a beer to save your wife and child. Nobody’s going to issue a fatwa for that. Or are they?”

  “He made me choose between Allah and my family,” Habib said. “I chose my family.”

  Jack figured if you had a god who couldn’t forgive you for that, it was time to reassess that relationship, maybe the whole god thing. But he offered a more circumspect response.

  “Well, I doubt if Allah or any sane person would forgive you if you hadn’t.”

  “But don’t you see? He made me do it at noon on Friday.”

  “So?”

  “That is when I should have been in my mosque, praying. It is one of the five duties. No follower of Islam would make a fellow Muslim do that. He is not a Muslim, I tell you. You need only listen to the recording to know that.”

  “What recording?”

  “I’ve been using my answering machine to record the monster’s calls.”

  “Great. We’ll get to that in a minute. Okay, so he’s not Muslim. What about enemies? Got any?”

  “No. We lead a quiet life. I run the IT department at Saud Petrol. I have no enemies. Not many friends to speak of except Russ. Barbara and I keep very much to ourselves.”

  If that was true—and Jack had learned the hard way over the years never to take what the customer said at face value—then Habib was indeed the victim of a psycho. And Jack hated dealing with psychos. They didn’t follow the rules. They tended to have their own queer logic. Anything could happen. Anything.

  “All right. Let’s start at the beginning. When did you first realize something was wrong?”

  “When I came home from work Thursday night and found our apartment empty. I checked the answering machine and heard a distorted voice telling me he had my wife and son and that they’d be fine if I did as I was told and didn’t go to the police. And if I had any thought of going to the police in spite of what he’d said, I should look on the dresser in our bedroom. The photographs were there.” Habib rubbed a hand across his eyes. “I sat up all night waiting for the phone to ring. He finally called me Friday morning.”