Delusion in Death (12 page)

She lifted the disc. “Is this speculation or fact?”

“The attacks are fact. There were witnesses, including the boy I spoke of last night—though he’s no longer a boy. You have his name now, and his statement as he related it to me. Others I spoke to, who were in the position to know or find out, state the initial investigation was able to identify most of the components of the substance used. The base was lysergic acid diethylamide, commonly called—”

“LSD. I know what it is.”

“The other components are on the disc, but as I said, can’t be confirmed. I have a connection who was, during the time, in the King’s Army. We weren’t acquainted during the war, but met some years after. He states a suspect was apprehended after the second attack,
taken into custody. The investigation was subsequently closed, and deemed an accident.”

“An accident?”

“Officially, yes. Speculation, as he related the rumors that ran through the ranks. The suspect was transported to an unknown location. My acquaintance believes he was executed, but that can’t be verified. Others believe he was held and used to create an antidote, or still others say the military used him to create more of the substance, perhaps others.”

“No ID on the suspect then?”

“The theory was, and remains, he—or they—were part of the fringe element who believed society had to be destroyed before it could be rebuilt. The Purging, they called it. They were, thankfully, small groups who used any means to destroy homes, buildings, vehicles—hospitals were a favorite target, as were children.”

“Children?”

“They abducted them. Those they abducted they indoctrinated, or attempted to indoctrinate into their ideology. Once they’d purged—people, culture, technology, finance—the children would repopulate and rebuild.”

“Why haven’t I heard of this?”

“The Purging is documented, though whitewashed and diluted. Study your history, Lieutenant. Past is prologue.”

“Shit.” She turned to her board. “Maybe this is some fringe group of terrorists, and I’m going in the wrong direction.”

“Has there been any contact with authorities? Any claim for credit?”

“No. And damn it, this type of group
wants
the credit.”

“I agree. Any attack during the Urbans initiated by these fringe groups was immediately followed by a message sent to the nearest
military or police authority. It was always the same message: ‘Behold a Red Horse.’”

“Horse? What the hell does a horse have to do with it?”

“I remember this,” Roarke added. “I’ve read of this, of them. They didn’t have a specific leader or figurehead, and were for the most part scattered and disorganized. But fervent all the same. They believed the wars, and the social and economic upheaval before them, signaled the end-time. And they not only welcomed it, but sought to help it along to their own ends.”

“Great.” She shoved the disc in her pocket, then a hand through her hair. “Add possible whacked religious fanatic to the mix. What’s with the horse?”

“The Second Horseman of the Apocalypse,” Summerset told her. “‘And when he had opened the second seal I heard the second beast say “Come and See.’”

“‘And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword.’”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Don’t blame him,” Roarke said. “He didn’t actually write it.”

“The red horse is often interpreted to represent war,” Summerset added. “And so they used that symbol, and that passage to symbolize their beliefs, and justify their murder of innocents.” Summerset studied her boards. “I don’t know if it’s what you have now.”

“It’s a hell of a long time to wait between attacks, but I have to follow this up. I appreciate the information.”

“Of course.”

Roarke looked after him when he left. “Difficult memories for him. You understand difficult memories.”

“Yeah, I do. And it’s worse if they decide to make a replay. That horse thing’s from the Bible?”

“Revelation.”

“I’ll need to take a look at it, and at your data. Maybe there’s another connection, personal grievance, greed, and bastardized religion. Abducted kids. We don’t have that. Possibly the killer
was
an abducted kid—toddler gets snatched, raised in Crazy Town, grows up and decides to saddle the red horse.”

She shook her head. “I have to work through this.”

“I’ll leave you to it.” He took her shoulders, drew her in for a kiss. “I’ll come into Central later if I can.”

She went to her desk, called up Roarke’s data. She gauged her time, hit the highlights, ordered the cross to run, and the results to copy to both home and office comps.

While it ran, she read Summerset’s data, picked through it, wrote up her own notes. Somewhere, she mused, there’d be a file on known members of this Red Horse cult. Sealed and buried maybe, but they’d be somewhere.

Once she’d organized for the briefing, she decided she’d program Revelation to audio on her vehicle computer. Save time.

She hauled up everything she needed, snagged her coat on the way out.

She intended to bypass her office, head straight to the conference room to update the board, program the new images. And spotted Nadine Furst, Channel 75’s top screen reporter, best-selling author, and dogged crime beat investigator pacing the corridor outside her bullpen.

They may have been friends, but at the moment, the always
camera-ready, sharp-eyed Nadine was the last thing she wanted to deal with.

Nadine’s power-red toothpick heels clicked, and the glossy pink bakery box she carried swung back and forth with her movements. Eve wondered why, of all days, her men hadn’t snatched the baked goods and given Nadine a pass into her office.

Couldn’t get past her, Eve calculated, and into the conference room where even Nadine didn’t have the balls to intrude.

Eve moved forward, recognizing by those clicking heels and the swinging box Nadine was steamed.

“Getting an early start today,” Eve commented on Nadine’s return trip.

Those cat-green eyes fired. “You don’t return my half dozen contacts, and Jenkinson—
Jenkinson
, for God’s sake—turns down three dozen handmade pastries and tells me I have to wait out here or in the lounge. I get nothing but spin and double-speak from the media liaison. I deserve better than this, Dallas. Goddamn it.”

“I haven’t returned your contacts or any from the media. We’re Code Blue until the media conference later today.” Eve shot up a hand before Nadine could snarl a response. “My men, including Jenkinson, have more on their minds than pastries. Whatever you think you deserve, Nadine, there are times you just have to wait.”

“If you don’t trust me after all this—”

“It’s not a matter of trust. It’s about time and priorities. I can give you five minutes, and that’s all.” She turned into the bullpen, held out her hand for the bakery box. Jaw tight, Nadine shoved it at her. “Go on into my office. I’ll be right there.”

Leaving Nadine to go or stay, she crossed to Jenkinson’s desk.

“Sorry, LT. I couldn’t order her out of the building, but—”

“No problem.” She dropped her bag on his desk. “The minute Peabody gets in, give that to her, tell her to start setting up in the conference room. She’ll figure it out.”

“You got it.”

Eve plopped the big pink box beside the bag. “Fuel up. It’s going to be a long one.”

His tired face brightened. “Yes, sir!”

She heard, as she started toward her office, the stampede as detectives and uniforms surged Jenkinson.

Rather than taking the undeniably uncomfortable visitor’s chair, Nadine stood at Eve’s skinny window, arms folded.

“What group is responsible for the attack on the bar? Has Homeland or any government anti-terrorist organization joined this investigation? How many individuals infiltrated the bar, and do you have any in custody? Will you confirm a biological agent was used in this attack? There are sources that claim some of the victims were induced to injure or even kill others. Can you confirm?”

While Nadine rolled out questions, Eve rested her hip on the corner of her desk, waited.

“You just wasted a chunk of your five. You can be quiet, listen to what I can and will tell you, or you can keep wasting your time.”

“This is bullshit, Dallas.”

“No, it’s not bullshit, not when over eighty people are dead. Not when families, friends, neighbors are reeling from the shock of that loss. Not when the handful of survivors is struggling with intense physical and emotional trauma.”

“I spent time with some of those families and friends yesterday. I know what they’re dealing with. You’re not giving them any answers.”

“I can’t. Not yet. The reason you’re in this office, and I’m talking to you isn’t because we’re friends. We’ve both got jobs to do, and we’re both damn good at our jobs. You’re in here because you’re the best I know, and because I know whatever I tell you to hold, you’ll hold. I don’t doubt that, and I don’t have to ask for your word. That’s not friendship either, it’s knowing what you do isn’t just a job to you, any more than mine is to me. So be quiet, and listen, or let me get back to what I have to do.”

Nadine took a long breath, rolled her shoulders, shook back her streaky blond hair. Then she moved to the visitor’s chair, sat.

“Okay. I’m listening.”

“I don’t know what Whitney plans to say in the media conference. I haven’t had time to connect with the liaison. Whatever I tell you that isn’t part of that statement, part of what the NYPSD released to the public, has to hold.”

“All right. I want to record—”

“You can’t. Take notes if you need to in that weird code of yours. Your eyes only.”

“You’re starting to spook me,” Nadine said as she dug out a notebook.

“I haven’t even started. We’ve identified a chemical substance that was released in the bar. Hallucinogenic base that causes paranoid delusions and violent behavior. It acts quickly, only lasts a short amount of time, but long enough. It’s airborne, and as far as we know, these effects are also limited in area.”

“Like the bar, with the doors and windows closed, the air circulation helping disperse it.”

At least she didn’t have to cross every “T” with Nadine. She gave her what she could, what seemed enough to set Nadine’s reporter’s instincts humming.

“Nobody’s taken credit or issued a political statement, so you believe an individual or individuals are responsible.”

“It’s most probable,” Eve confirmed. “However, I have some information from a source.” And this, Eve thought, was where Nadine and her research chops would serve.

She outlined, briefly, Red Horse, The Purging. “I’ve only begun to dig into that angle,” she continued. “I’m going to assign men to follow that up. You could look into that, dig into that, but whoever you use can’t know it may be connected to this investigation.”

“Got it. I don’t know much about that group, and history class was a long time ago, but didn’t they take kids—for brainwashing? I haven’t heard anything about child abductions.”

“No. It’s a lead, an angle, with enough similarities to warrant a good, careful look.

“That’s all I can give you, and I’ve got a briefing.”

Nadine got to her feet. “I’m going to want more.”

“What I can, when I can. I can’t promise.”

“You didn’t need my word, I don’t need your promise. It’s professional respect, yes, but you’re wrong, Dallas. It’s also friendship.”

She started out, paused, smiled a little. “I hate to admit this, but Jenkinson hurt my feelings when he turned down my pastries.”

“It was harder on him, believe me, than you.”

“I’m soft on him, on all of them. Good hunting, Dallas,” she added, and walked out on her power shoes.

Since she was there, Eve programmed a cup of coffee, and carried it with her to the conference room.

The reliable Peabody was updating the board.

“I’m putting up the current crop of persons of interest on a separate board,” she told Eve. “Otherwise, the visual gets complicated to the eye.”

As she’d done exactly the same in her home office, Eve nodded. “We’ll need a third board. I have another angle I pulled out before I handed it off to Jenkinson. What do you know about the Urban Wars–era cult Red Horse?”

“Hard-line religious cult. Doctrine based on specific interpretations of Revelation. They were fanatics, dedicated to preparing for the end-time, which they believed had begun with the upheaval leading up to the Urban Wars. In their skewed vision, they saw themselves as servants or followers of the second horse—the red horse, of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, which represents war, or general violence. Small, scattered groups attacked, bombed, set fires as part of their mission, and abducted children—no older than eight—as they believed their minds and souls were still pure enough to be indoctrinated. When the general population was destroyed, they would inherit the earth and repopulate it with true believers. They called this The Purging.”

Eve stared at her with narrowed eyes. “How the hell do you know all that?”

Just a bit smug, Peabody buffed her nails on her cranberry-colored jacket. “We studied it in school.”

“I thought Free-Agers studied herbs and flowers and fluffy woodland creatures, and how to weave blankets.”

“That—and a bunch of stuff. They also teach about wars, history, religious intolerance. You know, the ills of society and stuff. So you get the knowledge, the big pictures, and are free to choose your own path.”

“Huh. Have you read Revelation?”

“Some of it. It’s really scary.” Smug died off in a shudder. “It gave me nightmares.”

“Killer angels, pestilence, fiery pits, and death. I can’t imagine
why. When we get to that part of the briefing, you summarize, just like you did for me.”

“This was Red Horse?”

“You were doing so well, now you’re jumping to conclusions. Detectives detect, they don’t jump. Plus it’s a stupid name for a murderous cult. It sounds like they should be frolicking in a meadow.”

“Maybe that was the point.”

“Maybe so.”