Why the Devil Stalks Death

by L. J. Hayward

  Of course people would be thinking about Glen Harraway. It had only been a year since the traitor had been exposed and arrested. The Office as a whole was still under intense review, Intelligence more so than the rest of them. Investigations into the extent of Harraway’s corruption were still turning up nasty secrets and betrayals, and probably would for years to come. Jack could sympathise with the poor assets down in Ex Mon. He knew very well what it was like to be under suspicion when he’d done nothing wrong. Well, wrong within a certain definition of the word, at least. He was sympathetic, but at the same time, as the asset with the ticket on his head, waiting for Eve Garrote to show up, he just hoped the problem in Ex Mon was rooted out before someone else died.

  “It’s got me thinking about the photos,” Lewis continued.

  “Yeah?” Jack sniffed his shirt. Christ, it still stank but it was all he had, so he slid it on and buttoned up. “What about them? Didn’t they get your best angle?”

  “Apart from that, they don’t fit.”

  Lewis’s tone was serious. No hint of his usual joking attitude. His mind had been working just as furiously as Jack’s had while he’d pretended to sleep.

  “How so?” Jack asked, just as serious.

  “Ex Mon hasn’t dropped a ball this big, ever. Not even when Harraway was doctoring information. Unless someone there deliberately let the photos through, which I very much doubt, I think they were planted deliberately. It’s too much of a coincidence, otherwise. We’ve been out of Bangkok for nearly a month now. The Messiah’s been recruiting the best hackers across the world for years. If those photos had been somewhere easily enough accessible the police could find them, then hundreds of that slimeball’s Disciples would have found them long before now. They show us outside of that brothel, where the Messiah disappeared. Even Detective Connors could put that together and get a clue.”

  “It makes sense,” Jack reasoned. “The Disciples did find the photos, they worked out we’re the ones who got their precious digital terrorist, and now I have Eve Garrote after me. What’s your point?”

  “My point is this.” Lewis waved his hands up and down his own body. “Where’s my ticket? I’m in those photos with you and yet, nothing. Not one person on the JSL wants me dead. I’m a little miffed.”

  Despite the deadliness of the subject, Jack snorted. “You’re the only person I know who’d be upset at not getting a death threat.”

  “It’s insulting but telling. The photos implicate both of us in the disappearance of the Messiah, therefore it’s not the Disciples who bought the ticket.”

  “McIntosh said it was a best guess only, not definite.”

  “But it’s what people are fixating on. The biggest mess you’ve been in over the past year is Canberra, and we managed to keep that one sealed tight.”

  Shoving aside his gut reaction to the mention of Canberra, Jack grumbled, “So what’s your theory, then?”

  “Stick with me,” Lewis said in a placating tone. “The ticket came out two hours before you were arrested. When did Connors say he found the photos?”

  Jack eyed him warily for a moment, then closed his eyes. Without needing to go into a trance, he accessed the constantly running, passive surveillance app of the implant, searching through the conversation with Connors in the interrogation room.

  “He didn’t specify. Only said he’d found them when looking into my history. That would have been after the Judge killed one of the Infinity crew.”

  “So, somewhere between 9:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m., let’s say,” Lewis mused.

  Jack shook his head. “Probably from about 10:00 p.m. at the earliest. I left Adam just before then and, if he’s the victim, he would have needed some time to get back to the LAC.”

  Lewis studied him for a moment. “You really think it’s him, don’t you.”

  “From what Connors said, yeah.”

  “I’m sorry. You two seemed to be getting on well.” The carefully chosen words echoed the unasked question from the tearoom.

  Stomach twisting into a painful knot, Jack nodded. “He was a good man.” Shit. He was talking about Adam in the past tense. “Hurry up and spill the rest of your mad theory.”

  “Yeah, okay. So, the photos don’t make sense. The other thing that doesn’t add up is Garrote. No offense, mate, but you’re well below her pay grade.”

  Jack would have been insulted if he didn’t think it as well or know how true it was.

  “On top of Garrote stooping to your level, she picked that ticket up so fast no one else got a chance at it. We found out you’d been arrested because as soon as Intel got the news of her picking up the ticket, they did an active search for you. She was on it before they’d even closed the cuffs.”

  Jesus. This was what Jack got for consorting with an assassin. Maybe Ethan did know Eve Garrote and had told her how shitty Jack had treated him, and this was her coming to her fellow paid killer’s rescue. Jack had to find Ethan before Garrote found him.

  “What if—and promise me you’ll think about it before shouting it down—but what if the ticket isn’t about the Messiah at all,” Lewis said, tone lowering portentously. “What if it’s someone who doesn’t want you to actually catch the Judge?”

  There was no point in arguing with Lewis. Once he set his feet on a certain path, he wouldn’t get off it until he was either vindicated or proved himself wrong. Besides, Jack was of two minds. His friend was right in that it was too coincidental for the ticket to surface now if it was the Disciples who’d bought it, but why the hell would anyone go to all that trouble to protect a serial killer? Lewis hadn’t developed his theory that far, but Jack let Lewis hurry him up to McIntosh’s office. After a brief wait, they were let in and Lewis explained it to their director.

  McIntosh barely let him finish before she authorised Lewis to follow the tangent, giving temporary operational command to Lydia. The speed with which she’d responded said McIntosh either trusted Lewis’s deductions implicitly, or she knew something they didn’t. Neither was more likely than the other, and both were probably true. Despite that, Jack was still hesitant about the whole idea as they headed back down to the eighth. If it was true, then that meant the whole mystery around the Judge was bigger and deeper than just one man fulfilling his own twisted desires. Which blended all too well with Jack’s suspicions after his last argument with Ethan.

  “Where are you going?” Jack asked Lewis as they hit the landing for their floor and the other man kept going.

  “Down to Ex Mon to find whoever’s in charge of investigating those photos and hope something there backs up my theory.”

  “Okay, Don Quixote. Have fun with the windmills.”

  A couple of steps down, Lewis stopped and frowned at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Jack sighed. “I’m not making fun of your theory. More that I just hope it couldn’t be possible. If it’s true, then . . .”

  Knowing the conclusion of that sentence as well as Jack did, Lewis nodded solemnly. “It would explain a few things, though.”

  “Yeah, but not enough things. If you’re going to bother the good folks on the fourth, what am I doing?”

  Lewis smirked. “It’s seminar time. We have a lot of new people on the team, and they need to be brought up speed. Lydia should have them assembled by now. Go, my son, and spread the good serial killer word to the faithful.”

  “Can’t they all just read my reports? And why do you get out of it?”

  “They could, but reports don’t answer questions as well as you do. As for me, I’m the boss, and my job is to delegate, not do.”

  Jack was a killer. Both with the Office and the armed forces. As an SAS lieutenant, he’d given the go-ahead to set charges around a Taliban barracks. He’d depressed the trigger himself, killing dozens of soldiers in one move. He’d shot the enemy, cut their throats, strangled them. As a field operative for the Office, he’d poisoned people, sniped them from a distance, broken necks from behind.

  But no
ne of it, absolutely none of it compared to what Adam described for him now.

  Adam threw out words like manipulation, domination, and control as driving forces behind the actions of serial murderers. He explained the development of the “fantasy”; went through the careful planning, the living and breathing of the desire; the eventual progression to enacting the dreamed-up scenario; to the act itself. He went through the difference between modus operandi and signatures, between staging and posing. Described organised versus disorganised killers, impulsive versus targeted killers.

  All of it in excruciating, juicy detail. The depth Adam went into was painful, pulling dozens of examples straight from memory to illustrate various points.

  And that was just the introduction.

  By the time they stopped for lunch, Jack’s head was busting with so much information and imagery he couldn’t meet Adam’s gaze for longer than a moment or two. Thankfully, the profiler volunteered to fetch sandwiches from a café down the road, took their orders, and left him alone for a precious few minutes.

  “I’m sorry about Adam.” Steph surfaced from her work to smile at him comfortingly. “He likes to show off, and, well, it’s a bit of a ritual, hazing the newbies. You kept up really well, though.”

  “So, it’s not him . . .” Making me pay for turning him down last night. “Not just me, then?”

  “Oh, no. He does it to everyone. The guy before you had to leave about halfway through the opening speech to ‘take an important call.’ The trick with dealing with Adam is to give as much as you get. Once he knows he can’t walk all over you, he backs off a bit.”

  Jack nodded his thanks and took a walk around the perimeter of the room to stretch his legs. Stephanie seemed to understand his need for a bit of silence and left him to it.

  He ended up by the window, looking out at Sydney, stretching away into the distance. Spent a while concentrating on something other than the work, to give himself a breather from it all. None of the big landmarks were visible from his position, but they were the superficial parts of Sydney. They weren’t the things Jack looked to when he needed to be grounded. He homed in on the sand of the beaches, the tangle of the streets, the skyline, the people going about their lives. This time, though, he had the added weight of knowing Ethan was out there, in the same city. Here, with him.

  It worked to fix him in the here and now, fetching back the last part of him that was still in Bangkok, hunting down the Messiah.

  After lunch, he felt ready to continue, and Adam took him through the details of the Judge’s victims. It was easier going this time, as Jack found that using the terms Adam had given him in the morning helped distance him from the raw brutality and sickness of the scenes. The technique was one he was familiar with. Occasionally, in order to get a job done, thinking of the enemy as something other than a person with hopes and dreams was necessary.

  “What about the newest victims?” Jack asked when Adam stopped after the first two victims in Melbourne.

  “I haven’t completely worked the new victims out,” Adam admitted sourly. “Part of that, I think, is because the scenes feel like they’re not entirely about the victim. Like I said this morning, he’s escalating, but not in the usual direction. He’s a ‘mission-orientated’ killer, meaning he’s there for the actual killing and getting a certain outcome. He leaves the Bible verses to make sure that we know what outcome that is. Punishing his victims because they’re bad. He is policeman, judge, and God.”

  At Steph clearing her throat meaningfully, Adam added, “But he’s not delusional. It’s not like he thinks he’s God, or a judge or a policeman, because frankly, they’re below him. He’s operating on an entirely different level to everyone else.”

  “Conceited,” Jack offered.

  “Without a doubt.” Adam gave him a proud smile. “You just got your passing grade. Welcome to the wonderful world of profiling.”

  “Thought you didn’t like that word.”

  “I don’t. Too many incorrect assumptions hang off it. But for you, it’s fine. You’re an armchair profiler.” He grinned cheekily.

  “My, my.” Steph didn’t take her gaze off her laptop. “I think it’s love.”

  Adam threw a pen at her, laughing. She dodged without looking up.

  Jack looked from one to the other, enjoying the clear comradery and teasing affection between them. “How long have you pair been working together?”

  “Since the dawn of time,” Adam said at the same time Steph said, “Far too long.”

  Chuckling, Jack said, “Seriously, though.”

  “This time, we’ve been on this case for nearly two weeks now, but it’s like living in each other’s pockets,” Steph said. “Since it’s been just us most of the time, we’ve been working long hours.”

  “Long hours,” Adam agreed. “Have worked together before, though. Then there was that steamy vacay we took to America together.”

  Jack quirked a curious brow.

  “FBI training course,” Steph cleared up. “That’s where I first met him. Are you done trying to traumatise the poor man?” she asked Adam.

  “For today.”

  “Good. Jack, I think you can call it a day. Tomorrow, we’ll put you to real use. Could you be here by eight?”

  “No problem. I can stay longer if you need.”

  She waved him out. “I’d rather we not burn you out too quick. Go, try to sleep. Just let me call for an escort.”

  “Don’t worry.” Adam stood and indicated Jack get moving. “I’ll see him out.”

  “If I’m a loaner and not allowed to roam on my own, why are you?” Jack asked as they headed towards the lift.

  Adam winked. “I’m special.” He flashed a laminated card that hung around his neck under his tie. “I’m AFRG, so I’m like ‘affiliated’ staff. Australian Forensic Reference Group,” he explained when Jack looked puzzled. “We’re a bunch of professionals the BAU put together to help them out with serial cases. Based in Melbourne and we don’t normally go to jobs. I’m not usually this hands-on, but since Steph was getting so much flak from ADFIS and Dumay, I offered to come up and help.”

  That made Jack pause. “You’re here on your own? The BAU didn’t send you?”

  “Nope.”

  Shaking his head as they stepped out of the lift on the ground floor and headed towards the foyer, Jack said, “Are you doing more here than you would back home, though?”

  Adam stopped walking, and Jack saw a new expression on his face. There were no winks, no smiles, no forthcoming jokes. He was deadly serious. “Yeah, I am. I’m supporting a friend in a difficult situation. That’s more than worth the expense.”

  Jack felt like shit-heel. In his defence, he’d only seen the smart-alec, irreverent, smirking man, even during all the dark and sick subjects they’d touched on today. Seeing this side of him was a bit of a surprise.

  “How do you stay so . . . happy doing this for a job?” Jack was genuinely curious.

  Adam studied him with those searching eyes for an uncomfortable minute, then he grinned, once more the joker. “It’s either this or madness, right?”

  Letting out a long breath, Jack turned and kept walking. Adam caught up and stayed with him all the way outside and over to his bike.

  “Nice.” Adam ran an appreciative hand over the seat of the bike.

  “Know anything about bikes?” Jack asked.

  “Not a thing.”

  Jack laughed, preparing to put his helmet on.

  “I think we should go somewhere for a drink,” Adam said.

  Jack put the helmet on the seat. “We talked about this, remember.”

  “I’m not angling for anything other than a few drinks. Remember what I said? About being friends.” He did lean closer, though, voice lowering. “And the other offer is still there, too.”

  It was interesting how what had been tempting the night before was now amusing. All because Ethan was here.

  “I don’t think so,” Jack said blandly.
<
br />   Adam smirked. “About which offer? The drinks or the blowjob?”

  “The BJ,” Jack found himself answering without thinking about it. “You might still get the drinks, if you work at it. Goodbye, Quinn. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Adam laughed and gave Jack a mock salute as he got on the bike and rode away.

  Jack spent the ride to the Office trying not to feel guilty about not shooting Adam down completely.

  After what felt to be an inordinately long first day debrief—mostly because he was compelled to admit his prior connection to Dr. Adam Quinn, sparking a discussion on how beneficial, or detrimental, it would be to the case—Jack got home after nine. Disappointingly, Victoria wasn’t in the garage and the apartment was empty. The sting of Ethan’s absence was mildly mitigated by finding a note in his precise handwriting, saying he would be back “later.”

  Feeling dirty from the day’s information overload, Jack showered, ate a quick dinner of toast and cereal, then watched a late news broadcast to see if anything interesting had happened elsewhere in the world. Nothing had, and eventually, he had to concede defeat and go to bed. Though he didn’t think he’d be able to have a good night’s sleep with Adam’s lecture swirling around his brain, Jack was dozing when he heard the alarm system beep. Before he’d cleared the sheets, it beeped the all clear, and a moment later, Ethan’s lean shadow appeared in the doorway to the bedroom.

  “This is ‘later’?” Jack sank back onto the bed.

  “Arguably.” Ethan slid out of his jacket. “I did mean to be here sooner, but I lost track of time.”