One by One (4 page)

Captain Blake thought about it for a second. ‘No diplomatic relations,’ she said. ‘Not only does the United States have no jurisdiction, but even a diplomatic approach, such as calling the server company and asking for their help, would fail.’

‘That’s right. He could’ve also hijacked the IP address,’ Baxter added. ‘It’s like stealing number plates from a car and putting them on yours to avoid being caught.’

‘Can that be done?’ Captain Blake asked.

‘If he’s good enough, sure.’

‘So we’ve got nothing?’

Baxter shook his head. ‘Though I have to admit that we’re limited in what we can do at the Computer Crimes Unit.’ He pushed his wire-rimmed glasses up the bridge of his round nose. ‘Our investigations are usually restricted to crimes committed using computer-stored information, or sabotage to computer-stored information. In other words, database and information hacking – from private individual computers to schools, banks and corporations. This kind of thing isn’t really what we deal with.’

‘Fantastic,’ the captain said, not impressed.

‘The FBI Cybercrime Division, on the other hand,’ Baxter said, moving on, ‘is a much more powerful unit. They deal with every kind of cybercrime. They even have the power and the equipment to terminate any internet transmission made from within the US territory from their office.’

Captain Blake pulled a face. ‘So you’re saying that we should get the FBI involved?’

It was no secret that the FBI and any police force in any American state didn’t have the best of relations, no matter what politicians and heads of departments said.

‘Not really,’ Baxter replied. ‘I was just stating a fact. There’s nothing the FBI can do now. The transmission is over. The site is dead. Let me show you.’ He pointed to the computer on her desk. ‘May I?’

‘Go right ahead.’ Captain Blake pushed her chair back a couple of feet.

Baxter leaned over the captain’s keyboard, typed the IP address into the Internet browser’s address bar and hit the ‘enter’ key. It took only a few seconds for a web page to load: ERROR 404 – PAGE CANNOT BE FOUND.

‘The site isn’t there anymore,’ Baxter said. ‘I already set up a small program that carries on checking that address every ten seconds. If anything comes up again, we’ll know.’ His eyebrows arched. ‘But if it does, maybe you should consider at least liaising with the LA FBI Cybercrime Division.’

Captain Blake scowled at him and then looked at Hunter, who remained quiet.

‘The head of the unit there is a good friend of mine, Michelle Kelly. She’s not your typical FBI agent. Trust me, when it comes to knowing about cyberspace, the buck stops with her. The FBI is much better equipped than the LAPD to track these kinds of cybercriminals down. Back at the Computer Crimes Unit, we liaise with them all the time. They aren’t pretentious field agents in black suits, dark shades and earpieces. They’re computer geeks.’ Baxter smiled. ‘Just like me.’

‘I’d say let’s cross that bridge when we get there,’ Hunter replied, looking at Baxter. ‘Like you’ve said, there’s nothing they can do now, and we’ve got nothing to indicate that this is a federal case, so at the moment I see no point in bringing the FBI into this. At this early stage it will only complicate things.’

‘I agree,’ Captain Blake said. ‘If at a later stage it becomes necessary that we liaise with them, we will, but for now, no FBI.’ She addressed Baxter again. ‘Could this transmission have been watched by anyone else, like the general public?’

‘In theory, yes,’ Baxter confirmed. ‘It wasn’t a secure transmission, meaning it didn’t require a password to access the page. If anyone other than us came across that web transmission by chance, then yes, they could’ve watched it, just like we did. But I have to add that that is very unlikely.’

Captain Blake nodded and turned to address Hunter. ‘OK, so we’ve got to assume this whole thing is real. My first question is – why you? The call went directly to your desk. On the phone, he asked for you by name.’

‘I’ve been asking myself that same question, and at the moment the answer is – I’m not sure,’ Hunter replied. ‘There are basically two ways an outside call can end up on a detective’s desk. Either the caller dials the RHD number and adds the specific desk extension when prompted, or he calls the RHD switchboard and asks to be put through to a specific detective.’

‘And?’

‘The call didn’t come through the switchboard. I’ve already checked. The caller dialed my extension directly.’

‘So my question still stands,’ the captain pushed. ‘Why you? And how did he get your extension number?’

‘He could’ve gotten hold of one of my cards somewhere,’ Hunter said.

‘Or he could’ve called the RHD switchboard anytime before the call in question and simply asked for the extension number,’ Garcia said. ‘Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if he hacked into our system and obtained a list of detectives’ names from there. He was bouncing his call signal around like a pro, and he had some sort of firewall good enough to stop the LAPD’s Computer Crimes Unit from getting to him. My guess is that he knows his way around cyberspace.’

‘I’d have to agree,’ Baxter said.

‘So you’re saying that he could’ve picked Robert’s name by chance from a list of all RHD detectives?’ Captain Blake asked.

Baxter shrugged. ‘It’s possible.’

‘Strange coincidence, don’t you think?’ the captain added. ‘Given that a UV case like this would’ve gone straight to Robert anyway.’

Inside the Robbery Homicide Division, Hunter was part of a special branch. The Homicide Special Section was created to deal solely with serial, high-profile and homicide cases requiring extensive investigative time and expertise. But Hunter had an even more specialized task. Due to his criminal behavior psychology background, he was always assigned to cases where overwhelming sadism and brutality had been used by the perpetrator. The department referred to such cases as UV –
Ultra-Violent.

‘Maybe it wasn’t a coincidence,’ Baxter came back. ‘Maybe he
wanted
Robert on the case, and this was his way of making sure he got him.’

Captain Blake’s eyes widened a little, waiting for Baxter to carry on. He did.

‘Robert’s name has been in the papers and on TV plenty of times. He’s worked on most of the department’s high-profile cases for the past . . . I don’t know how many years, and he usually gets his guy.’

Captain Blake couldn’t argue with that. Hunter’s name had been in the papers again just a few months ago, when he and Garcia closed the investigation into a serial killer the press had dubbed The Sculptor.

‘Maybe the caller picked Robert because of his reputation,’ Baxter said. ‘Maybe he read his name in the
LA Times
or saw his face on the evening news.’ He indicated the captain’s computer screen. ‘You saw the footage; you heard the call recording, right? This guy is cocky and challenging. He’s daring. He stayed on the phone for that long because he knew we wouldn’t be able to trace the call. He knew we wouldn’t be able to track down his web transmission either.’ Baxter paused and scratched his nose. ‘He forced Robert to choose how the victim was going to die, for chrissakes, and then threw a twist into it. It’s like he’s playing a game. And he doesn’t want to play it against just any detective. He wants a challenge. He wants the one the papers talk about.’

The captain thought about it for an instant. ‘Great,’ she said. ‘That’s all we need, a new psycho playing
catch me if you can
.’

‘No,’ Hunter replied. ‘He’s playing
catch me before I kill again.
’

Nine

Hunter and Garcia’s office was a 22-square-meter concrete box at the far end of the Robbery Homicide Division’s floor. It didn’t have much more than two desks, three old-fashioned filing cabinets and a large white magnetic board that doubled up as an investigation pictures board, but it felt claustrophobic nonetheless.

Back at their desks, both detectives watched the Internet footage and listened to the telephone recording over and over again. Baxter had supplied Hunter and Garcia with a software application that allowed them to advance the recorded footage frame by frame. And that was exactly what they’d been doing for the past four and a half hours, analyzing every inch of every frame, looking for anything that could give them any sort of clue, no matter how small.

The camera work concentrated mainly on the glass enclosure and on the man inside it. Every once in a while it would zoom in onto the victim’s face, or something floating on the bloody water. It had broken that pattern only once, when it panned right to show the wall clock and today’s copy of the
LA Times.

The wall was made of red bricks and mortar. It could’ve been anywhere – a basement, a backyard shed, a room inside a house or even a small garage in some godforsaken place.

The clock fixed to the wall was a round battery clock of about 13 inches in diameter with a black frame. It had an easy-to-read white dial with Arabic numerals, black minute and hour hands and a red second hand. There was no manufacturer’s name on its face. Hunter sent a snapshot of the clock to his research team, but he knew that the chances of their linking it to a specific shop, and then identifying the buyer, were almost impossible.

The floor was nondescript and made of concrete. Again, it could’ve been just about anywhere.

The screen print Hunter took of his desktop came out perfect. The man sitting inside the glass enclosure was looking directly at the camera. Hunter had already emailed the picture to the Missing Persons Unit. The agent he spoke to on the phone told him that because of the gag wrapped tight around the victim’s mouth, the face recognition software would only be able to analyze a limited number of facial comparison points. If the man had indeed been reported missing, it could still be enough for a match, but they had to wait and see. Hunter told the agent to search for entries dating back only a week. He had a feeling that the caller hadn’t kidnapped and kept the victim for more than a day or two before throwing him into that glass tank. Victims kept in captivity for anywhere over forty-eight hours always showed signs of it – exhausted and drained face and eyes from lack of sleep, or spaced-out eyes from being doped. Personal hygiene also suffered considerably, and there were always the inevitable signs of malnourishment. The victim inside that tank had displayed none of it.

‘There’s nothing here,’ Garcia said, sitting back in his chair and rubbing his exhausted eyes. ‘There was nothing in that room except that water tank, the victim, the clock, the newspaper and the camera that broadcast the whole thing. This guy isn’t stupid, Robert. He knew we would be recording the broadcast and then scrutinizing it to hell.’

Hunter breathed out before also rubbing his tired eyes. ‘I know.’

‘I, for one, can’t watch this anymore.’ Garcia got up and walked over to the small window on the west wall. ‘The desperate, pleading look in the victim’s eyes . . .’ He shook his head. ‘Every time I look at them I can feel his fear crawling up my skin like a fire centipede. And there’s nothing I can do but watch him die again, and again, and again. It’s screwing with my mind.’

Hunter was also sick of the footage. What really turned his stomach inside out was watching how the man’s face had lit up with hope once he realized the water had stopped. And then, just a minute later, how his eyes burned with terrifying dread, as the liquid surrounding his whole body started burning and eating away at his skin and flesh. Hunter could pinpoint the exact moment the man gave up the fight, as he finally understood that he would never be getting out of there alive. The killer was just toying with him.

‘Did you pick up anything from his tone of voice or something?’ Garcia asked.

‘No. He was calm throughout the whole conversation, except for when he yelled at me to make a choice. Other than that there were no angry bursts, no overexcitement, nothing. He was always in control of his emotions and of the conversation.’ Hunter leaned back on his chair. ‘But there’s one thing that bothers me.’

‘What’s that?’

‘When I told him that he didn’t have to do that.’

Garcia nodded. ‘He said that he knew he didn’t, but he wanted to. He said that it would be fun.’

‘That’s right, and that could indicate that the victim was nobody in particular. Probably a complete random choice.’

‘So this guy is just another fucking psycho, killing people for kicks.’

‘We don’t know yet,’ Hunter replied. ‘The problem is – when I told him that I couldn’t make a decision because I didn’t know why the victim was being held captive, the caller told me that that was something I would have to find out for myself.’

‘And?’

‘And that would indicate that the victim
wasn’t
a totally random choice. That there was a specific reason why he was chosen, but he wasn’t about to tell us.’

‘So he’s literally fucking with us.’

‘We don’t know yet,’ Hunter said again before pushing himself away from his desk, checking his watch and letting out a deflated breath. ‘But I’m through with this as well.’ He powered down his computer. The same helpless feeling that had overtaken him when he was watching the live broadcast returned, burning an empty hole inside his chest. There was nothing else they could squeeze out of that Internet footage or audio recording. Right now, all they could hope for was some sort of development from the Missing Persons Unit.

Ten

Hunter sat in the dark, staring out the living-room window of his small one-bedroom apartment in Huntington Park. He lived alone – no wife, no kids, no girlfriends. He’d never been married, and the relationships he had were never long term. He had tried in the past, but being a detective with the Homicide Special Section in one of the most violent cities in America had a way of taking its toll on any relationship, no matter how casual.

Hunter had another sip of his strong black coffee and checked his watch – 4:51 a.m. He’d managed only four hours of sleep, but for him that was as close to sleeping bliss as he could ever get.

Hunter’s battle with insomnia had started very early in his life, triggered by the death of his mother when he was only seven. The nightmares were so devastating that as a self-defense mechanism his brain did all it could to keep him awake at night. Instead of falling asleep, Hunter read ferociously. Books became his refuge, his castle. A safe place where the ghastly nightmares couldn’t breach the gates.