The Ackerman Thrillers Boxset

by Ethan Cross

  The robed man raised his face to the camera, but his identity was concealed beneath a white theater mask. It was the tragedy mask. One half of the pair of masks often associated with stage productions and acting troops. The mask displayed the guise of a frowning man. In the killer’s version, black tears ran down both of the mask’s white cheeks.

  When the man on the video spoke, his voice was deep and distorted, obviously employing some kind of electronic voice-altering software. He said, “You may call me Judas. What you have seen on this video was merely a demonstration of what will happen to Renata Navarro and her son. If you don’t stop me, that is. And by the time you see this video, the sand will already be falling.”

  A group of numbers appeared on the screen. Marcus immediately recognized the numbers as latitude and longitude.

  Judas said, “Go to these coordinates, and you will find a clue to their whereabouts. If you’re quick, maybe you can save them before the sand takes them away. You’ll find an old shipping container there. Only two may enter the container. The agent in charge of this investigation and Warden Scott Powell. The two will enter and retrieve the clue. Only those two. And they are not to bring any communication devices into the container. They enter the container alone. Completely alone. If my instructions are not followed to the letter, Renata and Ian Navarro will be buried alive.”

  *

  Ackerman had been imagining mass graves being covered over with dirt when the lights came on in his administrative segregation, or Ad Seg, cell. He sat in the middle of the room on the floor, legs crossed. He squinted through the light until his eyes adjusted, and he saw his brother on the opposite side of the glass.

  Marcus said, “That little stunt may cost your life. Fagan is probably going to have you transferred back to DC and put to death.”

  Ackerman laughed. “Executed for following orders? Hardly. You worry too much, baby brother.”

  “Following orders? Your mission was never to try and beat this prison. All you had to do was gather some intelligence from inside the prison system. Ask some questions. Keep a low profile. But instead, you immediately start trying to prove how smart and fast you are. And you nearly kill a man.”

  “I just gave him a little love tap. Believe me, brother, when I want someone dead, the person in question does not merely get a little choked up and piss their pants. They die.”

  Marcus rubbed at his temples. “I don’t have time for this. Our bad guy has a woman and a little boy chained up in a box somewhere. I have better things to do. I just wanted to tell you in person to get used to solitary confinement. You’re not leaving that cell.”

  Ackerman pushed himself to his feet and approached the bars. “You asked me to help you find this killer. That’s all I was doing. By all accounts, things are escalating. He’s getting bolder. Time is not on our side. What I did out there established instant credibility. It also helps to prove that I’m not a plant or a spy. Now, after what I just did, maybe my questions will be answered. Under normal circumstances, I could have administered a bit of calculated torture and extracted anything you needed from anyone here. But working inside the confines of this unnatural environment of anti-violence, my task became a lot more complicated. I needed to go big.”

  “You never have a problem with that.”

  “If you’re going to be a bear, be a grizzly.”

  Marcus closed his eyes and cracked his neck. He checked his watch and said, “The tactical team from the sheriff’s office is sweeping an area about twenty minutes from here. I need to be ready to go in when they’re done. We’ll talk when I get back.”

  “Brother,” Ackerman said, “you need to get out in front of this train or it’s going to run you over.”

  “Thanks for the update. You haven’t been any help with that so far.”

  “Listen, I’m sorry about making a spectacle of myself. Maybe it wasn’t the optimum choice. But you have to understand that I have trouble processing the difference between the most direct path to an objective and the socially appropriate one. When the concept of fear eludes you, it makes such distinctions seem so abstract.”

  “It’s not complicated. The Golden Rule. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

  “But I enjoy pain, so that would mean—”

  “Seriously? Throw me a bone here. Give me some sign that you understand me.”

  “I’ll never be normal. You know that, don’t you?”

  Marcus ran a hand through his hair and said, “I know. And I know that’s not your fault, but I also know that you can do better. You can blend in. You’ve done it before.”

  “I’ll try harder.”

  Marcus held his gaze a moment and then said, “Don’t make me regret this.”

  *

  Sheriff Hall’s tactical team had already scouted the coordinates that Judas had provided and found the old intermodal shipping container, the kind normally found on a cargo ship or a train or the back of a truck, sitting in the middle of nowhere, nothing around it but cactus and scrub brush for miles. Marcus instructed them to hold back to a perimeter of a few hundred yards and not to approach the container itself. Judas had been very specific about no one but him and Powell entering the container, and they had also been instructed to bring in no communication devices of any kind. Marcus didn’t like the idea of going in blind with no backup, but they had little choice. The lives of a young mother and her son hung in the balance.

  Powell drove a big, off-white Chrysler SUV and now sat behind the wheel, following the flashing lights of a police escort. Powell had stuck his phone in a car cradle mounted to the dash. Apparently, he had turned it off at some point, because he held the button to activate the device and then swore at the sight of a voicemail notification that appeared on the screen. Powell said, “Damn it! I missed another one.”

  “Another what?”

  “A call from my daughter. She’s on a month-long mission trip to India. So time zones are obviously an issue, and reception is spotty. And me having to deal with all this mess. She’s called and left me messages several times, but I haven’t actually spoken with her for two weeks now. I know she’s okay. She says so in the messages, but it’s still so frustrating not to be able to hear her voice and know that she’s okay. You’ll understand one day when your son is older.”

  My son.

  Marcus felt a hot stabbing of guilt. He hadn’t even thought about Dylan since they had arrived at the prison.

  What kind of father was he? What kind of father should he be?

  He said, “I heard that your daughter is engaged to your PR guy, Bradley Reese.”

  “Yes. Bit of a whirlwind romance, I’m afraid. But he seems like a good kid. Sharp. I’ve kind of taken him under my wing. He makes her happy. That’s the important thing, I suppose. But it’s hard for a father to let go.”

  “Did you run a check on him?”

  Powell laughed. “Of course. Everything seems to be in place with him. No more than a speeding ticket. And he’s an orphan, so there are no in-laws to contend with. Still, she’s my baby girl. I worry.”

  Marcus said nothing.

  Powell added, “But you shouldn’t worry, kid. At least not about what you’re worrying about. You’ll never have it all figured out when it comes to raising children. If you do your best, you’ll be fine. You’ll make a lot of mistakes. But making mistakes isn’t the thing to focus on. Turn your eyes to how you can correct those mistakes. Be a wiser man tomorrow than you are today.”

  “But what if I screw him up? I hunt these men. Men who once upon a time I would have called evil. But now I would call them disturbed or sick.”

  “You don’t believe in evil? I’m not sure I’d go that far. I’ve seen a lot of evil in my life.”

  Marcus said, “I believe in evil. I just don’t believe that people are evil. I think that men carry out evil deeds because they’ve been corrupted in one way or another, by lots of unseen forces. Things they had no control over. Society, family, mental i
llness, the devil.”

  “So you feel sorry for men like Judas? You don’t think it’s his fault? That we should blame the culture?”

  “I don’t think we should blame anyone or anything. Unless you believe in the devil, I suppose. But maybe even he’s really just another lost soul. Blame isn’t important. It’s like you said. What do we do about it? That’s where we come in. These men hurt others and corrupt others. Someone has to stop that cycle. And that’s what we do. It’s what we have to do. Think about it. People fall into one of three groups in regard to that cycle. Those who perpetuate the pattern of violence and pain. Those who bury their heads in the sand. And those who do their best to break the cycle and make the world a better place, one person at a time.”

  “And that’s also why I believe in Foxbury.”

  “The point is that most of these men that I hunt have been harmed the most by the men and women who should have protected them and raised them to be the kind of people who break that cycle in one way or another. Instead, by either neglect or a darkness of their own, the parents of the men I hunt almost always contributed to putting their kids on the road to Crazy Town.”

  Powell said, “And you think that somehow your parenting is going to cause your son to be mayor of Crazy Town?”

  Marcus wanted to say that Dylan had it in his genes, but he wasn’t sure how much Powell knew about his heritage. Instead, he said, “I suppose it’s just natural to think that way. To worry about the job you’re doing as a parent.”

  Powell nodded. “I think every good parent asks themselves that question at some point. Am I doing something wrong? Am I screwing up my kid? That’s normal. The best advice I can give you is to make sure that he knows you love him and you’re proud of him. If you do those two things, then he’ll be fine.”

  “But what if I’m just not cut out to be a father? What if I don’t have those loving, nurturing instincts?”

  “I’ve noticed that you’re very focused in on your cases. You get very wrapped up in them emotionally. You worry a lot about stopping these men and saving the victims. You get inside the heads of these killers. You get so intense about accomplishing that task that you forget about everything else.”

  “Maybe. What’s your point?”

  “Just a warning not to forget about your son being part of that mission. You want to be one of the people who breaks the cycle? He’s one of your best chances to do that. Put as much focus into being a good father as you put into catching bad guys, and I promise you that Dylan will turn out to be a great man.”

  The cop car ahead of them pulled off the highway onto a path of nothing but sand and gravel. Five minutes later, they were at Sheriff Hall’s perimeter. Marcus stepped from Powell’s Chrysler and looked down at the intermodal shipping container in the center of a small valley below.

  Maggie was the first to approach them. She wore a black DOJ windbreaker over her bullet-resistant vest and tactical gear. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a ponytail.

  “About time,” she said.

  Marcus couldn’t see her eyes through her dark aviator sunglasses. He said, “Don’t start.”

  “Had to go visit your big brother, huh?”

  “I said, don’t start. It was a two-minute conversation, and the tactical team needed to secure the scene anyway. Now’s not the time.”

  “You’re right,” she said. “But I don’t like this, Marcus.”

  “What’s to like?”

  “This guy’s playing with us. We can’t go by his rules.”

  “Oh, I guarantee whatever it is he’s cooked up is all designed to prove his superiority to us. That’s why he wants us here. We need to get ahead of him.”

  She said, “That’s what I was thinking. I think I should go check out the training academy for the guards. Ask around about everyone who works at Foxbury. See if anyone has had any problems. Anything strange during training. There could be a clue there.”

  “It’s worth a shot. Take Major Ingram with you. And now that I think about, take that Dunn kid with you as well.”

  “Why?”

  “To see if you can get a feel for him. He’s as much a suspect as anyone else, plus he inserted himself into the investigation.”

  “But he was at the prison when the shooting occurred? He couldn’t have killed the software designer.”

  “No, but that assumes that this Judas is a one-man operation. Never assume.”

  “If I go to the academy, I’ll be asking questions about Jerry Dunn while he’s in the room.”

  “Exactly. See how he handles that. I think that will tell us more than what’s in the file.”

  “Okay, I’ll pick them up and head over to the academy. I checked with Ingram earlier, and it’s only about an hour’s drive from here. Maybe I’ll see if the Director wants to tag along as well.”

  “The Director went to pick up his FBI friend, Special Agent Derus, from the airport in Phoenix. Apparently, he would actually get here quicker by flying in there and driving than flying to Tucson. Because of the flight schedules. The Director figured he could save time by briefing Derus on the way, and he has an interview scheduled with the competitor that Powell mentioned. But I think you’ll be okay on your own.”

  “I always am.”

  “Just keep someone from the team updated on what you find.”

  Maggie looked at him like she wanted to say more, but she ultimately just turned and walked over to the rented minivan she had driven to the scene.

  Sheriff Hall walked up and handed Marcus a pair of binoculars as his men fitted Powell with a Kevlar vest. Marcus had already slipped his body armor on in the car. Judas had said no communication devices. He didn’t say anything about protective gear. And who knew what they would face inside that container.

  Marcus looked down the rise to the corrugated metal container. It was forty feet long, eight foot high by eight foot wide. Dull red in color but showing signs of several years of wear, its surface was marred by the kind of scratches and scrapes it would have acquired during a few hundred loadings and unloadings. But it wasn’t worn to the point that it looked like it had been sitting out here in the desert for very long. More like someone had purchased a used container and transported it out here recently.

  Sheriff Hall said, “There are no wires or cables we’ve discovered leading up to it, but there are a pair of solar panels on the back side. So it probably has power inside.”

  “Who owns the land?”

  “Old farmer. Lived here for about forty years. He never comes out this far.”

  Marcus handed Sheriff Hall his cell phone. Hall said, “If you have any problems in there, you give a shout, and we’ll come running. I have my men listening with parabolic microphones. Backup is only a few seconds away.”

  Marcus nodded. “Thank you.” Then to Powell, he said, “You ready for this?”

  Powell gave a little laugh. “I don’t miss this kind of work at all. But yes, let’s go break that cycle.”

  *

  Andrew listened over the radio in the control room as Marcus and Powell prepared to enter the container. He hated that he wasn’t there with Marcus. But there wasn’t anything he could do to help, and Marcus had asked him to stay behind and quarterback Ackerman and the other avenues of the investigation.

  His phone vibrated with a message from Stan, which he hoped pertained to one of those other avenues. It read, Video me. Have some info.

  To Spinelli, he said, “Can you do Skype on your system?” She tore herself from the keyboard of the main terminal and picked up the laptop Reese had left for them. She plugged it back in and, after setting up the program and asking for Stan’s username, she brought a picture of their team’s tech guru up on the screen.

  The big New Englander sat behind his desk back at their headquarters in Rose Hill, VA. If you didn’t count the tattoos—several of which displayed old video game characters—then Stan was nude from the waist up. At least that’s all they could see of him.

  “Cl
othes, Stan. We’ve talked about this.”

  “I’m a nudist.”

  “You’re not a nudist.”

  “Don’t tell me how to live my life.”

  “There are ladies present.”

  Spinelli leaned forward into the frame of the laptop’s webcam and waved. She smiled as she said, “I don’t mind.”

  Stan said, “Well, hello, pretty lady. You like what you see? Here’s my newest tatt.” Stan flexed his pectoral muscles and made a tattoo of Q*bert jump up and down. Spinelli laughed. Andrew wondered how Stan kept getting tattoos when he was agoraphobic. Did tattoo artists make house calls?

  Andrew said, “What did you find?”

  “The coin you pulled out of the dude’s stomach was a Tyrian shekel. Or an excellent replica. And it matches the coin found on Peter Spinelli. I did some research on it, which I’ve sent to all of your phones. But the highlight is that the original Judas is believed to have been paid with Tyrian shekels. They were the Biblical pieces of silver.”

  “That makes sense. He’s using the coin as a calling card.”

  “Also, based on your search criteria, I’ve narrowed your list of suspect guards down to a list of six. And I’ve sent that info to all of your phones as well.”

  “Anything unusual in the backgrounds?”

  “All of these guys had been vetted already, so they look shiny and clean. But our guy definitely has the skills to falsify a background. I’m digging deeper on all of them.”

  “Dig as deep as you need to, by whatever means necessary.”

  “Always do.”

  “What about the analysis on Judas’s video?”

  Stan said, “Marcus was right. It’s not Renata Navarro in the video. The woman is most likely in her late twenties, early thirties. Caucasian. And about that classified file Marcus told me to check regarding her scar … He was right on that too. How is he going to play that whole deal for now?”