Death By Degrees

by Harrison Drake

  Eddie was finding the whole discussion a little too funny. “It’s like how you never piss off the people who handle your food.”

  “Oh, because they’ll spit in it,” Najat said. It sounded like more of a question than a statement.

  “Bingo. I gave out way more warnings then tickets, especially for minor offences and people who were speeding but not going way too fast. Always found letting them go with a bit of a lecture had a better effect. They got the point and were happy not to get fined. But there were always some who talked themselves into tickets.”

  “General rule of thumb,” Eddie said, “always comes back to the golden rule.”

  “Clearly they don’t teach that rule enough. It should be one of those ‘write this out a thousand times a day’ things. I mean, my kids get it. Do unto others, right? Not that hard. Somewhere along the years though, we forget all about it.”

  “Of course then there are the ones who are just born assholes.”

  “Very true, Eddie. Though I like to think those people are few and far between.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  The next week went by without much excitement. Kara and Chen had returned the day before Eddie, Najat and I got back from Japan. Aside from adding to our ever-growing pile of documents, crime scene photos and other evidence, little came of their trip. Every one of the sixty-five bodies had now been exhumed and Eddie had been hard at work putting the finishing touches on his interactive database. It was coming along nicely, giving us easy access to all of the information in one handy-little computer program.

  Eddie’s talents had come in handy and, despite his eccentricities, he had become a very valuable member of the team. All of it was well beyond my abilities and even in its almost finished but still working state, we were able to navigate the data with ease thanks to a large touchscreen monitor.

  We were all gathered around the screen and staring at the various pieces of data and images that pulled up with each touch.

  “Lincoln.”

  The voice came from behind me, but it was one I knew.

  “Kat, I’m surprised they let you in. These guys are a little ridiculous about that.”

  Kat laughed and smiled. “They’ve gotten used to me, I guess. You know how it is, it’s a lot easier to just go along with it than to try to tell me not to do something.”

  “True,” I said. I looked at the man and woman who were her constant companions. “I feel sorry for both of you. This is probably the most difficult assignment you’ve ever been given.”

  Kat shot me a glare. “I’d be angry with you if it wasn’t the truth. I can’t say I like this. It’s a little creepy seeing them – no offense – every time I turn around.”

  They didn’t look offended. They actually didn’t look anything at all. It was like in the movies, the expressionless bodyguards who never showed any emotion. Was that part of the criteria for selection? Her guards, as well as the officers guarding Julie and the kids, were all contracted out from the national police force. INTERPOL didn’t have the numbers to assign that many agents as guards. Regardless of where they came from, I knew they were well-trained and would protect Kat and the kids with their lives.

  “Any progress?”

  “Not yet, babe. We’ve got so much information to go through. We still haven’t found any links between the victims or any reason as to why he chose them.”

  “Is that them?”

  The left side of the screen consisted of a long column that ran from top to bottom and contained the names, dates of birth, last known residences and a small photo of each victim along with their physical descriptors, namely height and weight, hair and eye colour.

  “How do I… do I just scroll down with my finger?”

  “Yeah, just touch here and drag down.”

  Even on such a large monitor, only ten victims showed at a time. Kat scrolled through the names, from Ahmad Abbas to Xiao Wong.

  “You have them in alphabetical order? Was that your idea?”

  It would have made sense if it had been. All of my DVDs, video games, CDs, books and anything else that could be were sorted and arranged in alphabetical order by title, or author/artist then title. Kat always made fun of me for it, said I had undiagnosed obsessive compulsive disorder, but it was just easier. When I needed something, I knew where to find it.

  “Actually, it was Eddie’s doing. He’s just as anal about alphabetizing things as I am.”

  “Hard to believe.”

  “Are you here to help or hinder?”

  “I’m here to say hello, be a fresh set of eyes and, of course, harass you a little. Have you reordered them at all? Like by age or location or date of birth to see if something sticks out?”

  “We had them arranged by country before. It was easier to find them this way though.”

  “What about in the order they were killed?”

  “Can you do that, Eddie?”

  “It’ll take me a bit,” he said. “Shouldn’t be too hard. Fifteen minutes?”

  “Want a coffee then? It’ll give me something else to do instead of just staring at you while you work.”

  “Yeah, sure. Thanks, Lincoln.”

  “Everyone else?”

  The answers were as expected with Kara and Najat both wanting coffee and Chen joining with me on the tea side of the battlefield.

  Kat and I left the office with the guards in tow. I was armed as usual, but three guns for four people was better than one for two. We left the building and made our way down the Quai toward a Starbuck’s only a short distance from headquarters. While I preferred Tim Horton’s, there were none in France and Starbuck’s, despite costing far more than I was used to paying for beverages, was infinitely better than the instant crap they had back at headquarters.

  Nobody batted an eyelash at the three business-attire clad armed persons escorting a woman through the streets of Lyon. It must have been somewhat second nature for the people who lived near INTERPOL to see people coming and going with all sorts of entourages. We ordered our drinks and Kat and I each carried a tray back with us. I was surprised when both of her current guards, whose names I really needed to learn, accepted my offer of a coffee.

  They wouldn’t touch their drinks though until we were safe within headquarters, and I was okay with that. I’d have to drop the tray to get to my gun and it was reassuring to know that they didn’t have to. We were certain Crawford was back in France and I was always looking around, watching for him. No matter how many times I thought I’d seen him, I’d double-take and he wouldn’t be there or it would be someone who looked nothing like him.

  We were all becoming slightly paranoid, but with good reason. He had shown that he had little to no fear and that he was more than capable of keeping better tabs on us than we were of him. Granted, he always knew where to find us. We hadn’t seen or heard from him though since we got back to Lyon. Maybe he didn’t want to take his chances, maybe Eddie wiping his access to my phone’s GPS had made him not want to risk trying to tail us out of headquarters to wherever we were going.

  I wasn’t complaining though. It was nice to be free of him.

  We made it back to the office a few minutes later and were greeted by happy and thirsty people. It was amazing how something as simple as a coffee run could have such an effect on morale.

  “Just in time, Lincoln,” Eddie said. The program loaded up on the screen once more and there was our list of victims in the order of their deaths.

  “There you have it, Kat, in order starting with…” I took a step forward and looked at the first name. “John Patmos. Born January 1st, 1972. Went missing April 27th, 2007.”

  “John Patmos?”

  “Yeah, John William Patmos.”

  “This may be nothing, Lincoln, but some theologians believe that a person known
as John of Patmos was the writer of the Book of Revelations, not John the Apostle.” Kat walked up and looked at the screens. “All of the birthdates are in order.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “This Mr. Patmos was born January 1st. The next victim January 3rd, then 7th, and so on.”

  She was right. I scrolled through the victims and she was absolutely right. They were killed in order of their birthdates. And once December was reached it started over in January once more and kept going from there.

  “The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John.”

  I looked back at Kat. “What was that?”

  “Revelations 1:1.”

  “And you have it memorized?”

  She smiled and held up her phone. “Bible app.”

  “There really is one for everything.”

  “If the birthdates are for what I think they are, then Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near.”

  “Let me guess, Revelations 1:3?”

  “Exactly.” Najat, Kara, Eddie, Chen and even the guards had gathered around, eyes wide and mouths agape.

  “What’s 1:7 then?”

  “Look, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of him. So shall it be! Amen.”

  Kat looked at the monitor and at the next victim. “March 3rd, 1986,” I said.

  She looked at her phone and scrolled through the pages. “Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; obey it, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you.”

  “That’s 3:3? Sounds like a bit of a threat.”

  “This part is where John sends letters to each of the seven Anatolian churches, acting as though he were their bishop. I would say more that they’re orders than threats.”

  “He seems to skip a lot, the next victims were born June 10th and 11th.”

  “That takes us into the part that deals with the seven seals, let me see… Revelations 6:10. Okay. They called out in a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of earth and avenge our blood?” Then verse eleven says Then each of them were given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and brothers who were to be killed as they had been was completed.”

  I buried my face in my hands then ran my hands through my hair, pulling slightly. “Okay, but what does this all mean? Is he just insane? Like shouldn’t he be standing on a corner with a sign saying ‘Repent, the end is near’?”

  “I’m sure he’s nuts. I don’t think any of us would say otherwise,” Kat said. She took another look at her phone. “It’s almost like he’s basing his killings on the Book of Revelations. In his own way he’s telling the story once again through these murders.”

  “When I talked to him on the phone, he mentioned a grand finale. How does the book end?”

  “With a new Heaven, Earth and Jerusalem and Christ saying that he is coming soon. But, that’s the very end. Before that it’s the whole fire and brimstone, end of the world, Four Horsemen story. It’s not a nice tale.”

  “So before everything becomes all wonderful and happy, there’s an apocalypse, literally, of biblical proportions.”

  Kat nodded. She didn’t look too thrilled, none of us did. We were all worried about what this meant.

  “So that leaves one major question… what does he consider the grand finale, the apocalypse or the second coming?”

  “I hate to say it, but I think you should prepare for the worst.”

  She didn’t have to say it, I already was. Crawford had told me he wouldn’t survive to see the changes he helped to usher in. And when I asked him if he was going to bring about peace on earth, an end to hunger and all that, he had said “precisely”. I had been joking around, but clearly he wasn’t.

  “He told me he wasn’t going to survive to see the changes he helped to make, at least not from here. It’s as if he thinks he’s bringing this all about.”

  “Bringing what about? The second coming? He thinks he can force that to happen?”

  “I don’t know.” I sat down and shook my head. “I don’t have a clue anymore what he’s doing. We need to find him though, before he can do whatever he has planned.”

  “I’ll leave you to it,” Kat said. “I promised Kasia and Link I’d volunteer at their school today and I’m probably going to be a few minutes late as it is. Text me if you need anything.”

  “Will do.” Kat walked over and leaned down to give me a kiss. Then she turned and gave a royal wave. “Allons-y,” she said to her entourage. Let’s go. They remained as stoic as always but the rest of us got a kick out of it.

  “Almost forgot,” she said, sticking her head back in the doorway. “Did you ever figure anything else about the directions of the graves?”

  “Nothing yet. They all seem to be random.”

  She nodded. “Okay, I’ve got to go.”

  The kids had been enrolled in a public school nearby along with Aidan and Anya. It was nice for the kids to be in the same classes and able to hang out together so much as it wasn’t often that we all were able to get together. Chen and his family lived near Ottawa, a solid seven-hour drive from our home in London. We tried to get together at least twice a year, but even that was difficult.

  Now they were in school together and living in the same apartment building. My only fear was that it would end up being too much togetherness, but after a week it didn’t seem like they were slowing down or getting annoyed with each other.

  Then there was also the fact that friends meant back-up, and when you were the new kid, foreign and under protection from armed guards all at once, making new friends was difficult. They didn’t seem too bothered by the constant attention they were receiving or by the people who followed them wherever they went. Link and Aidan of course thought it was cool, whereas Kasia and Anya just didn’t care.

  We got back to work pairing the birthdates of the victims with the corresponding passages from the Book of Revelations. Then we hit a snag.

  “Okay, we’ve got one born December 12th, but the next victim’s birthdate is in January. How does that work? We go back to the first chapter?” Chen wasn’t the only one confused. I looked on the computer where I had found the Book of Revelations online.

  “Therefore rejoice, you heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the sea because the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short. What is the next date?”

  “January 6th,” Chen said.

  “Maybe just go to the next chapter and keep going from there? So… He opened his mouth to blaspheme God, and to slander his name and his dwelling place and those who live in heaven. Okay, so we’re talking about the beast of the apocalypse. Out of curiosity, you know, see if we’re on the right path, what’s the birthdate on the last victim?”

  “October 12th.”

  “So then, that would be…” I hit ‘Page Down’ several times and found it. Okay, Revelations 22:12, “Behold, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to everyone according to what he has done.”

  Chen walked over and looked at the screen. “Okay, so the book ends at verse 22:21. So our next two victims have to have birthdays between October 13th and the 21st. That narrows things down a little, but not by much considering he could target anyone on earth.”

  I should have noticed it then, but for whatever reason I didn’t. It was the biggest mistake I could have ever made.r />
  The next week passed the same as the one before. We still hadn’t heard from Crawford and all attempts we made to track him met with failure. He had been using disposable phones, sending emails through numerous proxy servers and using every means in his arsenal to cover his tracks and hide his location. He was smart and he was capable. We had traced the location of the phone call he made to me when we arrived in Lyon to an area about a block away, but the exact location of the call couldn’t be pinpointed – it only gave us a range.

  To make matters worse we weren’t even certain if he was back in France. We had no idea how he was traveling without being caught, but the possibility existed that he was still in Japan, hiding out and unable to escape. The Japanese were still doing everything they could to try to find him and determine if he was still there, and Arata was kind enough to keep me updated on their progress.

  Or lack thereof.

  The day was going as all the others had, we sat in the office poring over all of the evidence we’d accumulated and tried to find something new, something that would lead us to Crawford. Nothing was presenting itself though. We had no idea where he would kill again, so even knowing the month and day of the victim’s birth really didn’t help to narrow thing down. Divide seven billion by three-hundred-and-sixty-five and you’re still left with over nineteen million potential victims. And we had a range of eight days, so around a hundred-and-sixty million. That number could be reduced since all of Crawford’s victims had been over the age of sixteen, but it still left us with a number of at least one hundred million.

  Definitely not going to help us.

  “Is there any way we can figure out where he’ll strike next?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “It seems to be pretty random. The victims are scattered all over the map, and no matter how much I rack my brain on it, I can’t see a pattern.”