Death By Degrees (18 page)

I walked up to the couch and lifted the cushions off. The middle one was definitely flatter and had a more ‘lived-in’ feel to it. The others were still quite plump, almost new. There was nothing beneath the cushions, not even a single coin or a chip crumb. Crawford must have kept it clean; had the officers found something under the couch they would have taken only the important piece, not the crumbs.

The more I looked around and saw past the mild disarray caused by the forensics team, the more I realized just how perfectly ordered everything was. I already knew Crawford to be fastidious and exact in his planning, but this took things to a different level. Everything was arranged to perfection, straight lines and equal distances between furniture, the couch and table oriented perfectly with the lines made by the walls. I doubted I could even measure them to be a single minute of a degree off, let alone enough to actually notice with the naked eye.

A single stool was positioned under the breakfast bar in the exact centre, the vertical blinds covering the door that led to the balcony were equidistant. I hated vertical blinds, and the thought of trying to draw them closed so that all of the blinds were the same distance apart and angled in the exact same direction made me want to pull my hair out. They never did what I wanted them to do.

I looked around the apartment and saw that everything was organized and positioned to perfection: the salt-and-pepper shakers that sat in the back corner of the kitchen counter; the microwave and toaster, each with the extra length of cord neatly bound and positioned behind the appliance; the dish towels draped over the handle of the oven and smoothed out in such a way that not a single wrinkle showed.

Everywhere my eyes went I hoped they would find something that would say Kat had been here, that would say where we could find her. I tried to push the thoughts back, to keep my emotions from clouding my vision, but they kept forcing their way to the surface. Evidence was what we needed, and whether it regarded Kat or Crawford, it would still bring me closer to finding her.

I opened the fridge, my pet investigative tool, and what I saw meshed with what I had expected to see. The various jars, bottles and cans were all arranged by contents, size or alphabetically, and all had the labels turned outward. Foods that could spoil were in front of the newer bottles of the same, or in the case of the vegetable crisper on top of the newer package. It was methodical, organized and logical.

It was Crawford.

When I closed the fridge I noticed a note on the door held on by a magnet: LF SL 1030. It took me a moment to realize what it meant, but when I did it was obvious.

Lyon, France to Sri Lanka. 10:30 a.m.

It was the time of the flight I had been on. Crawford had obviously planned for me to be on that plane when he abducted Kat. Maybe he didn’t bank on me getting off of the plane so quickly. Which reminded me…

“Chen, how did you get me off that plane?”

“You mean not in handcuffs?”

I nodded. “And not at gunpoint.”

“Let’s just say that our bosses at INTERPOL have some friends in very high places. Apparently the French Prime Minister made a phone call, but no one wants to confirm that. Either way, you’re here. That’s what matters.”

“Whatever part you played in it, thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

I left Chen in the kitchen and walked into the bedroom. The moment I entered I saw that something was out of place: the nightstand. It had been moved slightly so that it was no longer square with the wall and was now at an almost imperceptible angle. In a normal apartment, I wouldn’t have thought twice about it. I walked up to the nightstand and pushed on the left side. It slid down into the indentations that had been left in the carpet, caused by the nightstand not having been moved for a long time.

The carpet beneath where the nightstand had been began to rise back to its normal height right away confirming the fact that the furniture had only recently been moved. It could’ve been moved by the detectives, but I held onto the hope it had been Crawford who had put it like that.

I opened the drawers and found nothing out of the ordinary. There was a pair of reading glasses, a Bible, and a small container of antacid tablets in the top drawer. The bottom drawer held a few more books. I leafed through the pages of each of the books but nothing fell out nor were there any markings in them. Each book made its way to the bed once I was done looking at it, as did the medicine and reading glasses. The drawers came out easily and I checked them over - front and back, top and bottom – before stacking them one on top of the other beside the bed. The next step was to move the lamp to the floor.

I had hoped that removing the drawers would let me see beneath the nightstand, but there was a bottom panel blocking the view. I lifted it up and moved it a couple of feet to the left but found that there was nothing beneath it aside from carpet a shade lighter than what surrounded it.

Chen came into the bedroom. “What are you looking for?”

“Not sure,” I said. “This was a little out of place, thought maybe he’d done that on purpose to lead us to it. But it seems like it might have been bumped by the detectives.”

Chen walked up to it and grabbed onto the top. “Take the bottom,” he said. “We’ll flip it over.”

We turned it upside-down and set it down on its top surface. The wood panel beneath the bottom drawer looked different from the bottom than it did from the top.

I took out my knife and opened it, locking the blade into place.

Chen just looked on waiting to see what would happen next.

“False bottom,” I said, followed just after by “I think.” I began to pry at the wood and with a little effort and a couple of creaks the piece came loose. An envelope was taped to the underside of the original panel, “Lincoln” written on the front of it.

“Nice work, Link,” Chen said.

“He made it pretty obvious. Moved the nightstand just out of place – probably killed him to do it.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty OCD in here.”

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder could present itself in a number of ways, but Crawford fell into the category of ‘counters and arrangers’ – a category I found myself darting in and out of. The apartment showed the order and symmetry common among people with this type of OCD and we had already seen his obsession with numbers and how things were arranged given the connection between the position of the bodies, the birthdates of the victims and the connection to the verses of Revelations. Crawford would likely have felt the need to bring order to chaos, fixing anything that seemed out of order to him.

The deliberate action of leaving the nightstand out of place would have taken a lot of willpower. The urge to push it back into place would have been overwhelming.

I already had a pair of latex gloves on, so I picked up the envelope and pulled it away from the panel. The tape peeled away with it.

The envelope wasn’t sealed; the flap had just been folded inside to keep it closed. I pulled it open and removed the contents: a tri-folded piece of computer paper and a Polaroid. The Polaroid was positioned so that I couldn’t miss it when I took it out – it was a picture of Kat. She was sitting in a chair, her hands apparently bound behind her and with a blindfold covering her eyes. The background was a standard white wall, like you would find in any apartment building or home. Nothing about the picture stood out, everything aside from Kat herself was so generic.

Kat looked okay though, unhurt at least. I knew that there could be a lot that the picture didn’t show, but from what I could see she was fine physically. I held the picture in my hand and stared at it, as if I looked at it long enough and hard enough I’d know where to find her.

“Can I?” Chen said, reaching for the paper. I let him take it from my hand.

Chen unfolded the letter and began to read. “Lincoln, I hope that it was you that found this. If it was, I did not underestimate you. I believe you already will know the next step, and you know that there is very little time left. I will see you in Israel, Lincoln. There’s a very nice hotel in Jerusalem. I took the liberty of booking rooms for you, Kara and ‘Chen’.”

“Is that it?”

“No,” Chen said, handing the paper to me. I took it and skimmed past the first paragraph and the hotel’s address.

“I’m sorry about abducting Katarzyna. She is innocent in all of this and it is unfortunate that she was chosen to suffer. You needed something to push you along, Lincoln, and I do believe I succeeded in finding the right motivator. Of course, nothing I do is ever done alone. Take solace though, in a few days time none of it will matter. You and Kat will find yourselves together once more. But if I am wrong in everything, you will see her once more in this life. I can only hope that when that time comes, you are still as she remembers.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“I… I don’t know. Is she…” I didn’t want to say it.

“Does he say anything else?”

“Yours fraternally, Duncan Crawford. Audacity to call us brothers. Son of a bitch. She’s not dead, Chen. She can’t be.”

Chen put his hand on my shoulder and led me out of the bedroom. Once we were back in the main part of the apartment he took the letter and photo from my hand and put them back into the envelope.

“We can’t trust a word of this, Link. You know that.”

“I know. It’s all a game to him and he enjoys fucking with us. I just don’t know what he means. Is she dead and it’ll take forever to find her? Or is she alive somewhere?”

“She’s alive, Link. Focus on the good, alright? We’ll find her.”

I nodded and looked down at my hand to where the Polaroid had been. I didn’t even need to see it to know what it looked like.

That image had been etched into my mind and could never be erased.

Chapter Nineteen

W
e arrived in Israel the following afternoon and made our way to our hotel in Jerusalem within walking distance of the Christian Quarter and the Old City. The church was one of Jerusalem’s most holy sites and was built on the site of Jesus’s crucifixion, burial and resurrection. It was a little bizarre going to the hotel that Crawford had reserved for us, but it was the best chance we had of catching him.

Kara, Chen and I didn’t go alone. We had Eddie as well. Then there were the eight additional agents assigned two to each of us as well as assistance from the
Mishteret Yisrael
. It was the Hebrew name given to the Israeli Police, albeit written using our alphabet. Like in France, Israel had one civilian police force that covered the country and no municipal police forces. The service consisted of thirty-five thousand employees and an additional seventy-thousand volunteer Civil Guard members.

We were well taken care of and had all the assistance we required, however we also weren’t stupid. The rooms that had been reserved for us were thoroughly searched for any bugs, bombs or other problematic items. Even when the search came up negative, we were provided with different rooms. Crawford had reserved the rooms with a false name, paying ahead of time in cash. He’d also reserved one for himself, but we found it to be empty and it looked as though he had never set foot in it.

All of our work had yet to reveal the location for Crawford’s finale, but we knew it was somewhere close by. The site would be around this hotel, he had wanted us close. It wasn’t about succeeding for him anymore, it was about succeeding right under our noses. I could only hope that his cockiness would also be his downfall. We had only several hours to go until it was Friday in Israel, and we had no concept of the time that he had made his plans for.

We left our bags in the hotel rooms and went to the nearby police detachment to meet with the team that had been assembled. It was a mix of regular officers and
Yamam
officers – members of a world-renowned elite team referred to as the Special Police Unit. We were also assigned our very own Bible scholar. The discussion had been based on where and when we could expect Crawford to make his move. These questions were more readily answerable than the question of what his move was.

“Everything we have points here. Not only did he choose this hotel, the data Eddie obtained from analyzing the burial directions led us here.” I looked across the large round table to him. “Eddie?” I said, giving him the floor.

Eddie stood up and walked to the large projection screen where his program was displayed. The map that was onscreen showed the location of each body as well as the line leading from the body to Jerusalem.

“I’ve been doing everything I can to refine the calculations, but we have to assume some error. Crawford would not have been able to dig the graves and position the bodies exactly. We can minimize the margin for error, but not remove it. Right now, we’re down to about a one kilometre radius centred not far from the hotel. I’ve tried to get more accurate, but I don’t know if it’s possible. I’ve also been trying to get the exact positioning of the body using the timestamps on the photos and the shadows that were being cast when the pictures were taken.”

“Doesn’t sound easy,” I said.

“It’s not. And I don’t think it’ll bring us much closer. The error in the burials may still leave us at the same radius even if we do get some more exact numbers. If a large enough number of the bodies were buried at imperfect angles or if the bodies shifted in the dirt after burial, we won’t narrow it down.”

“Keep at it, it’s the best we have right now.” I looked toward Kara and nodded for her to begin. We had barely spoken about anything other than the case since our last conversation. It was easier for both of us to pretend it hadn’t happened.

“I feel a little silly going through this with an expert here,” she said as she shuffled papers on the table.

“Please,” the scholar said. “I need to know what you have learned so far.”

Kara nodded. “The birthdate of every victim went in order and matched up to verses in the Book of Revelations. Based on Crawford’s own admissions, he’s trying to bring about a new peace on earth, one that he says he won’t be alive for. He believes he received his ‘mission’” she said, making quotes in the air with her fingers, “during a near-death experience as a result of a plane crash. From the date of the crash, tomorrow will be the twelve-hundred-and-sixtieth day, three-and-a-half years by the Hebrew calendar.”

The scholar nodded and Kara continued, slightly bolstered. “There are a lot of things we aren’t sure of, such as why sixty-six victims? I believe it has something to do with the mark of the beast, but of course, it’s six hundred too low. I believe that his ‘finale’, this final plan of his, involves killing hundreds of people. Not everyone is so sure though.”

Chen spoke up at this point. “We haven’t seen anything from him that states mass murder. Every killing has been ritualized. He takes his time. He’s careful, cautious; patient even. I see this leaning more toward the targeting of someone high-ranking, possibly a religious official.”

“I have to agree with Kara,” I said. “The way he spoke of this, I always envisioned something large in scale rather than scope. Targeting an official is too simple, too quiet an attack. He wants to instill fear, he wants to bring the Book of Revelations to life. One death won’t do that, but hundreds? If he succeeds in creating utter chaos, the verse about bodies lying in the streets for three-and-a-half days may come to pass.”

“I believe you are right,” the scholar said with a thick accent. “I apologize, we skipped formal introductions. My name is Zachariah Aronowitz. I am a Rabbi, but I have spent many years studying all scripture including Revelations. What you have told me and what I have read of this Duncan Crawford, it seems he thinks he can cause the beast to come.”

“And then what? That forces the second coming?”

“I believe so. If that is the case, then this finale will be something very large and deadly. He may try to kill as many believers as possible. These will be innocent people.”

“And this would please the beast.”

“It would, but we are talking about someone delusional.”

Everyone nodded. There was no debating that subject. Crawford was insane.

“Is there anything in Revelations that would tell us when this will happen?”

Zachariah shook his head. “No. But the Gospel of Mark states, or so we believe, that Christ died at three-o’clock in the afternoon. The burial shrouds and the crosses carved into the skulls, it is ritual. And you believe that the victims were stabbed?”

“Yes, in the abdomen.”

“Like Christ. Then, that would make for a fitting time.”

“The next question is where is this going to happen. Everywhere in this city is a holy site, we can’t shut them all down or guard them all. Eddie, what about that radius?”

“Not sure I’m confident enough in my numbers.”

“Can we stretch it a little bit, just to be safe?”

“We could, but we’d be guarding a ton of spots.”

“Aren’t we already?” I said, looking at the map with the shaded red circle.

“It’s already too many,” Zachariah said. “Even if we were to shut down every site within that circle, there are so many more outside of it. Close them all down and he might move elsewhere.”

“So what are you saying then?” All eyes turned to Chen. “Business as usual? And it’s doesn’t change whether it’s one person being targeted or hundreds. We can’t cover every square inch of the Holy Land.”

The eyes then turned to me for whatever reason. As if I had any better idea of what we ought to be doing.

“Nothing is going to happen before sunrise tomorrow. He wants to make an impact and he needs people around to do that. Starting at sunrise we put armed plain clothes police, military, civil guards, anything you have in every sacred and/or crowded place within the circle and extending at least another five hundred metres. They should be in teams of two, two teams to a site minimum but probably more depending on the size.” I paused for a moment, let the request sink in. “Can it be done?”

The
Rav Pakad
, the highest ranking police officer in the room and equivalent to our Superintendents, looked at me and simply nodded. “We will need time. Try to find where it will be.”

With that a number of officers stood up and followed him out of the room. It was like a form of unspoken communication; they just knew they were the ones required. Others remained in the room to assist us in attempting to narrow down the location, if we were able to. Eddie was far from convinced and was very worried we’d end up overlooking the actual site.

“We’re covering a kilometre and a half radius, Eddie. Or that’s the plan, if we get enough people. I don’t think we’re going to pull anyone from anywhere. If we can narrow it down though, we can put some extra people on those areas.”

“Okay. I just don’t want to be responsible for choosing the wrong location and screwing everything up.”

“You can’t screw it up, Eddie. You can only get us closer. And that means, I hope, closer to Kat.”

Eddie nodded and a solemn look crossed his face. He seemed like he had something to say, but then he turned toward the screen once more and went back to work. Kat was the elephant in the room. She was what we were all thinking of, even if we didn’t want to say it. It was obvious for me, but I had to hope this would lead us to her. If not, I had to keep telling myself that I had a job to do, that hundreds of lives could depend on me doing that job.

I honestly didn’t give a damn if those people lived or died at that point, Kat was number one, but I knew she would care. If I sacrificed everything to find and save her but at the cost of hundreds of innocent lives she would never forgive me or herself. The guilt would destroy her. And so I found myself abiding by her ethics, doing as I knew she would want me to do, even if it was killing me.

It wasn’t just me though, and when I got the kids on the phone I knew that I had to put an end to this quickly.

“I wish you never had to go, Daddy,” Kasia said. “I want you to come home.”

“I will very soon, honey. I’m sorry, but I had to go.”

They were on speaker phone which made the conversation more confusing as it bounced back and forth without any warning.

“He has to catch the bad guy, Kasia,” Link said. “Right?”

“That’s right. And as soon as we do I’ll be home.”

“With Mommy?”

“I hope so, sweetheart, I really do.”

“You’re going to find her, aren’t you?”

“We’re doing everything we can, Link. We’ll find her,” I said, hoping they couldn’t hear the uncertainty in my voice.

“We miss you,” Link said.

“I’m scared. Can you come home now?”

“I can’t Kasia. I hope that I’ll be on a plane the day after tomorrow though. I’ll be home as soon as I can be.”

I could hear her start to cry. “It’s not soon enough,” she said before I could hear her footsteps take her away. My daughter was crying somewhere in someone else’s apartment and being comforted by a friend. Her mother was missing, her father was off on some wild goose chase, and she was pretty much alone.

My anger was building up – anger at myself and at Crawford – and it worried me. Anger was not a good emotion to bring into a situation like this. I needed to stay calm, to not let my thoughts and emotions get the better of me. If I did, Crawford would end up getting the better of me as well.

“Is she alright, buddy?”

“I think so, she’s just sad. I am too. We miss mommy and then you had to leave.”

“I know,” I said, but he didn’t let me finish the rest of my thought.

“You have to catch him though, okay? You have to get Mommy back.”

“I know, Link. I’m trying. I’ll be home soon, I promise. Can you get Kasia back? I have to go.”

“Okay,” he said. I heard him walk away and could hear voices in the background. A minute or so later he came back to the phone. “She said she doesn’t want to talk anymore.”

I should’ve expected it, but it was a crushing blow. “Oh… okay, Link. I love you and I’ll see you soon. Tell Kasia I love her too, alright?”

“Okay, bye Daddy.”

I could hear the sadness in his voice. It tore into me like a thousand knives and gave me no other choice but to shut down. Emotions were a hindrance at this point, and I needed a shield from them. And like it was the easiest thing in the world to do, I cut myself off from the world, from the pain and anguish that life had thrown our way.

“Bye, Link. I’ll see you soon.”