Apex Predator (44 page)

The question brought Barlow back to the moment, snapped him out of his tirade, but not completely.

He’d been talking more to himself than Loomis. Now that he realized Loomis would have questions of his own, he was more engaged than he had been, “Yes, quite a bit of work, actually. There have been instances such as these for some time now, Mr. Loomis. I dare say they’ve been occurring throughout history. And they’ve been vastly misunderstood, misjudged.”

Steven wanted him to be clear, specific, “You mean other murderers? Other rapists and murderers of children? Is that what you mean when you say other instances such as this?”

Barlow paused briefly, with a startled look on his face, “What? No, of course not! But, Mr. Loomis, I think you and I both know that Mr. Riche wasn’t just an ordinary murderer, don’t we? No, what I mean is that there have been many more instances before, even before a record was kept, where something else, something far beyond the crude vulgarity of a mere murderer undertook a task they could not complete. Instances where sad souls, tortured by conflicting emotions and the inadequacies of the human mind, decided to embrace their nature.

“Murderers, psychopaths as you call them, Mr. Loomis, those that don’t murder out of greed or jealousy or other simple human failings, are most likely half-breeds, individuals who have not yet evolved into something beyond human, but who feel the same needs, the same hunger, that those that have evolved feel. They don’t have the tools required to satisfy that hunger, to understand who and what they are and they simply act on their instincts.

“What I am talking about, Mr. Loomis, is perfect predators, engineered for their purpose. Their intellect, their ability to blend in perfectly into their surroundings, the meticulous nature of their planning and their execution, those are the things I am interested in.

“I have had the privilege to hear of their activities, to listen while they impassively and naturally explained their purpose, their ultimate plan. No emotion, no anger or rage to be found, highly developed intelligence devoted to a single purpose with no ulterior motives, no agendas. That, Mr. Loomis, is what I am interested in.

“You have pulled back the curtain and you’ve let the world in on
their
world. But, Mr. Loomis, I wonder if you understand what you are in for. The world is simply not ready, you see, to accept that they exist because it would mean accepting that humans are no longer at the top of the food chain and that, my dear sir, is not something the world is ready to accept.”

Steven was now certain that he was speaking to one of them. Barlow had been speaking of his interests, but he was really referring to himself and to others like him. Steven was now aware of a different feeling, rage. Rage at what was in front of him, rage at what it represented and rage that he could refer to his daughter and the rest of the girls as so many leavings, byproducts of some higher purpose.

He was afraid of what might happen if he let Barlow continue, but he also wanted to make sure he knew exactly where they stood before he left. “Maybe, maybe that’s true, maybe the world is not ready, but now they’ll have no choice but to take notice, to acknowledge that these things exist. Perhaps the system will continue to deny it, but people, everyday people, will know and they’ll prepare as best they can, do what they can do to protect themselves and their children.

“I believe we are done here, Dr. Barlow, I have nothing else to say to you and I would advise you not to say anything to
me
. You’re right, I have felt it, I have felt what you are talking about, the intelligence behind it, the careful planning, and the absolute and complete lack of anything human behind it. I know when I am in its presence again. It’s not something I arrive at using my reasoning, it’s something I
feel.

“
Now, I’m busy and I need you to leave, but before you do, I want to make something perfectly clear to you and I would counsel you to pay heed. If I see you anywhere near the trial, anywhere near this building or within 10 square blocks of my house and my family, I will kill you.”

Steven was speaking in even, reasoned tones, but his eyes were narrowed into an intense, direct stare that looked into and through Barlow. His body was now tightened into a pitched, hair-trigger tension, a tension that many adversaries had experienced right before they had died. Barlow listened, a fascinated expression on his face. Loomis knew what he was and why he was here, truly remarkable. This had not been a part of any of the things Barlow had expected. He had expected grief, sadness, perhaps some outrage about his inquiry, but he had never expected to be made. Loomis had in fact felt what he had been amongst, knew exactly what he had been a part of, fascinating. Still, Barlow could sense the danger he was in. That was also something he had never faced before and never expected. He had never done this with someone who had taken as many lives as Loomis, who was as familiar with death as he was. Every time he had done this before, he had gotten what he wanted, the men and women with whom he had spoken had not known it, but they had always given him what he had wanted, the confirmation he longed for. Never like this, however, good lord, never like this. He did not respond with feigned outrage at any accusation or threat that Steven had leveled at him, but both men knew they were far beyond that.

He smiled a satisfied smile and cocked his head to one side, like a dog listening to high-pitched sound, “You would, wouldn’t you? You would kill me with no hesitation, fascinating, most fascinating indeed. You won’t be bothered by me any further, Mr. Loomis. You have nothing to be concerned with at all, not from me anyway.

“I am most grateful for your time, most grateful. You have given me much more than I could have ever hoped for, far more. Goodbye, Mr. Loomis. I dare say we may cross paths once again.”

Neither man went to shake hands. Barlow simply stood up and walked to the office door. Steven stood up but did not move from where he was.

Before he opened the door to leave, with his hand on the doorknob and without looking back, Barlow said one last thing, “It’s simply nature, Mr. Loomis, simply nature moving forward. Nothing evil or forbidden, just nature.”

And with that Barlow walked through the door, closing it behind him. Stephanie came into the office once the man had left. Steven was sitting at the table with one hand over his mouth, clearly deep in thought. Stephanie became instantly concerned. She had seen the look before, never because of something good.

“Are you alright? You’re a bit pale.”

Steven looked up at her, “Huh? Oh, yeah. Just thinking, just thinking.”

Stephanie decided to leave it alone. He would have told her if it had been something he wanted to talk about, always had.

“I’m going home, Steph. I just came in to talk to him, but I have to get back home.”

Stephanie watched as he picked up his things and got ready to leave, “That man gave me the creeps. I don’t know why, he looked nice enough, but he just had this little grin on his face while he waited for you. Just sat perfectly still with his hands on his lap and that stupid grin.”

As he was walking to leave, Steven looked at her, gave her a sad smile and a little kiss on the forehead, “Yeah, I know what you mean. I’ll see you, Steph.”

He went down into the garage where the driver was waiting for him. On his way home, his mind was racing with possibilities. He should have checked the man out more thoroughly before agreeing to meet with him – damn that had been sloppy – but he had been happy about the news Drew had given him and he wanted to get out of the house. Besides, he would have most likely run into mentions of Barlow in his capacity as a profiler and would have still met with him. Now, with the weight of the trial looming over him, he had to concentrate on the case, put everything else out of his mind. He knew he had to do it, but he also knew, with absolute certainty, that he would never be able to put Barlow out of his mind. If there was one thing he had learned from Tracy’s disappearance, it was that hard as he might try, he was just not capable of lying to himself. Once he got home, the first thing he did was to call Beth. He missed her, missed the sound of her voice. He would never tell her about Barlow, about what he was or that he had met with him.

After asking about the kids and her parents, Steven explained to Beth that right now they were in ‘wait and see’ mode. The DA was analyzing the case and weighing his options, that’s what Drew and Max had said. They had also said that there would most likely be an evidentiary hearing to determine whether the court would even allow the defense to move forward. They had explained that the DA would be asking the court to find, as a matter of law, that Donald Riche was a human being. That had started another round of pundits and legal experts proffering their opinion on the matter. It was on every single news channel and there were millions of results online.

Steven and Beth had almost gotten into a fight when she insisted on coming to New York to be with him and he insisted that she would be far better in a safe place, somewhere they couldn’t be accosted by a mob of reporters. In the end Steven had won, his had been the most reasoned argument and she knew it, but she was still upset.

The truth was that Steven needed elbow room. He had to figure out what to do next. As soon as he got off the phone with his wife, he went online to research Nigel Barlow. He found hundreds of hits from all across the country. He had been telling the truth, he did profiling work for the FBI and various other law enforcement agencies. It was obvious the man worked all over the country. The most recent cases Steven had been able to find were in California and Utah. In both of those instances, there were several people missing and in both, law enforcement was treating them as missing persons but were almost certainly also treating them as murders. Barlow had been a consultant in both instances and no suspects had been apprehended. As he was looking through the information, Steven also found three cases where Barlow had not been a consultant, but rather the therapist that the accused murderers had been going to before their crimes. Steven knew that he would never be able to testify to anything that the accused had said to him during their sessions, but the defense teams in each of the cases had brought him up to support their claims that their client had been under treatment. In each of the cases, the defense had made a claim of diminished mental capacity or insanity, and in each of the cases, the defense had failed and the accused had been convicted of multiple counts of first-degree murder. After staring at the computer for three hours, Steven had a clear picture of who, of what, Barlow was. In every single case he had been involved in, it had been young, college-age men that had gone missing. All of them had come from well-to-do families, all of them had gone missing without a trace and none of them had been found. Barlow had consulted with the FBI and the local police. In every one of the cases, police had not been called initially because it had taken a while for the men to be reported missing.

As he kept reading, Steven noticed that the murder victims in each of the cases where Barlow had been mentioned as having treated the defendant also happened to be young men. A picture was beginning to emerge, a picture that was almost too hard to fathom, but given what he now knew, what he had been through, it was a picture he could not ignore. He believed that Barlow was a
Homo sapiens predaer
and that he had been responsible for the disappearances. Either he had done it himself or, more than likely, he had directed others like him to do it. He could not imagine the horrors those men had faced at the hands of one or maybe more of these predators. The information Steven had found went back a full 10 years and in that time Barlow had been on the move almost constantly. He knew these things because of what he had been through, but he was also aware that to anyone looking in from the outside it might look like the paranoid mind of someone who has suffered a great loss and who had faced unimaginable evil. He needed for a fresh set of eyes to look at this, at everything he had found about Barlow and to have someone else’s opinion, and he thought he knew who he would call on.

Cecil and Thurman Meeks were identical twins. They had served under Steven the last three years he was with the SEALs. Both men were just about six feet tall, slender, but with broad shoulders and powerful legs, always dressed in identical Armani or Hugo Boss suits, but different-colored ties. The Twins, as they were known, were black with light blue-green eyes and the only way to tell them apart was how they wore their hair or, as was most often the case, how they wore their facial hair. Both men’s heads were shaved to a smooth shine. Cecil had a goatee while Thurman was clean-shaven. Steven could also tell them apart because of the small, almost imperceptible scar that was just behind Thurman’s ear, a scar courtesy of flying shrapnel from an IED. The Twins had left the service at the same time that Steven had and while he went the corporate route, they went into business for themselves. They had enough contacts around the world and the skills necessary to ensure they would never be out of work. Steven knew that the General called on them from time to time for ‘off the books’ operations. His boss had never offered and Steven had never asked, but he knew that they were called when there could be no trace of company involvement in whatever it was they were doing. They were two of the best operators that Steven had ever worked with and they did everything with one prime, underlying principle: loyalty. The Twins were loyal to those they respected and no amount of money or influence would ever change their zeal. The other thing that Steven knew he could count on was discretion. No matter what it was that he would ask them to do, he knew it would never go beyond them, ever.

He’d asked both men to come to his house to discuss what he needed done and that they do so as discreetly as possible. Both men had arrived in a furniture moving van wearing overalls with the company’s logo on them. Cecil was also wearing a Yankees baseball cap.