by Chris Carter
Hunter had committed the information to memory, but he also had the photo saved on his phone.
‘I need it now,’ the Werewolf commanded.
‘I know you do,’ Hunter said, trying his best to sound as calm as possible. His wet clothes chilled his body, making him shiver. ‘That’s the real reason why you brought me here. You need that information.’
The Werewolf studied the detective tied to the metal chair for several long seconds.
‘Oh, I see,’ he finally said, taking a couple of steps forward. ‘You think that what you did – crossing out the information, keeping it in some safe place . . .’ The Werewolf paused as his eyes narrowed at Hunter before a sparkle of realization lit them up again. He gave Hunter a cold smile. ‘Let me guess, that safe place is your head, right? You memorized it all, didn’t you?’
Hunter stayed quiet.
‘But of course you did.’ Another smile from the Werewolf, this one without the slightest hint of humor. ‘So you think that that would give you what, Detective Hunter, some sort of bargaining power?’
Once again, Hunter stayed quiet.
‘Please, allow me another guess here,’ the Werewolf continued, placing his diary on the control desk. ‘You want to exchange the information in your head for the little bitch, am I right?’
‘I’m just trying to stick to our original deal,’ Hunter replied. Every word he spoke made more fireworks of pain explode in his skull. ‘The diary for Angela, remember? I had a hunch that you wouldn’t stick to your side of the bargain, so I improvised.’
The Werewolf chuckled, sarcastically.
‘Says the man who inserted a tracker into the back cover of my diary,’ he said. ‘You broke the rules first, Detective. Not me. You would’ve gotten the girl. I gave you my word on that.’
‘And I was simply supposed to trust you?’ Hunter questioned.
The Werewolf’s gaze met Hunter’s. ‘Yes, you were.’
Right then, Hunter heard and saw something in the Werewolf’s voice and eyes that he wasn’t expecting – a sincerity that almost convinced him that he was telling the truth.
Hunter decided to test his opponent.
‘Trust needs to be earned,’ he said. ‘You should know that. It’s one of the first things they teach you in the military.’
This remark caught the Werewolf by surprise and he once again locked eyes with Hunter.
‘Are you sure you want to go there, Detective?’ he asked, his body becoming more tense. ‘What would you know about the military, anyway? You’ve never served. You’ve never toured. You’ve never seen combat.’
From the Werewolf’s tone of voice, Hunter could tell that he had hit a nerve. He had to make a split-second decision to either push it further or simply let it go.
Hunter chose to push it.
‘The police academy teaches many of the same principles as the military,’ he replied. ‘And you’re wrong. Every investigation I’ve been a part of is a tour of duty. Every time I had to face a criminal – any sort of criminal – is combat. We have both served our country, but we’ve done it in different capacities, that’s all.’
‘Oh, is that what you believe, Detective? Really? That we are equals?’
‘Oh no, I don’t believe that we are equals,’ Hunter replied. ‘There’s a huge difference between you and me. I didn’t turn rogue. I didn’t betray my country’s trust, or the “to protect and to serve” vow I made years ago. I didn’t start murdering people for money and selling the footage on the Dark Web.’
As he said those words, Hunter saw something change inside the Werewolf’s eyes.
That was when he knew that he’d made the wrong decision.
He shouldn’t have pushed.
Eighty-Six
A well-placed blow to the solar plexus – a complex network of nerves located in the abdomen – can cause the diaphragm to spasm, momentarily sending it into paralysis. When that happens, the lungs deflate fast, giving the person the sensation that the wind has been knocked out of them. Breathing becomes difficult and the heart struggles to regain its pace.
Hunter’s last few words to the Werewolf seemed to have that same effect, almost making him gasp for air. Their eyes were locked. It didn’t take an expert to see that anger burned red within the ex-soldier.
Hunter immediately regretted what he’d just said. Maybe he should’ve waited a little longer before playing that card, but it was too late to backpedal now. Hunter decided that his best move was to keep going.
‘Yes,’ he admitted, his voice firm, his tone unexcited. ‘We figured out what those lines of text meant. We found the Dark Web chat room. We found the “voices”.’
For a heartbeat, the Werewolf looked like he was about to lose control.
‘Did you log in?’ he asked in a voice heavy with rage.
Instead of replying, Hunter studied the man before him.
‘Did – you – log – in?’ the Werewolf asked again, this time through clenched teeth.
‘Yes,’ Hunter finally admitted. ‘I did. Clever handle, by the way – Miles Sitrom – Latin. Sounds like a common American name. Second word, backwards – Mortis. Put them together and boom – Miles Mortis.’ Hunter’s Latin pronunciation was right on the money. ‘Soldier of Death. Is that how you see yourself?’
The Werewolf stood still.
‘Did any of the voices come into the room?’ he asked. ‘Did you chat with anyone?’
Once again, instead of replying, Hunter studied the man before him.
‘You better answer me, Detective, or I swear to God that little bitch in there dies, right here, right now.’ The Werewolf’s head tilted in the direction of the metal door behind him.
‘Yes,’ Hunter said, giving him a single nod. ‘Voice one and two. They joined the chat just seconds after I logged in.’
That was Hunter’s second blow to the Werewolf’s mental solar plexus. He could see the killer’s eyes glow with fury.
‘Now listen up and listen carefully, Detective. I need you to think back to the chat. I need to know what was said, and I mean the exact words you typed . . . the exact words the voices used. The little bitch’s life depends on it.’
‘Not much was said,’ Hunter told him.
‘I don’t give a flying fuck how much was said. But I do need to know exactly what was said. As much, or as little as it was. And I need to know now.’
The stress levels in the Werewolf’s tone of voice were beginning to change.
‘OK,’ Hunter said, before slowly recounting exactly what had happened inside Vince Keller’s office that same morning. He could recall every word.
Once Hunter told him about the water-damaged computer story that he had cooked up as an excuse to why he’d logged into the chat room, the Werewolf closed his eyes as if he were in pain.
‘The voices would’ve traced your computer,’ the Werewolf said. ‘Their technology is state of the art. They would’ve known it wasn’t me.’
‘No, they wouldn’t,’ Hunter countered. ‘Because so is ours. The firewalls protecting the computers at the Technical Investigation Division scramble the IP address and reroute the connection several times over. We were logged in for less than two minutes. Even if they had the technology to unscramble the address, there wasn’t enough time to do it. Not to mention that the connection was made over the Dark Web. Maybe they could trace it in a movie, but not in real life.’
‘Still, you shouldn’t have done that, Detective. You really shouldn’t have logged in. And for that, you will have to pay.’
The Werewolf reached for the weapon on the control desk and pointed it at Hunter’s head. The silencer was gone.
‘You said that the police academy teaches you the same principles as they do in the military, right?’ he asked.
Hunter’s entire body went rigid.
The ex-soldier didn’t give Hunter a chance to reply.
‘Well, let me ask you something else, Detective – did they teach you to shoot like this?’
The Werewolf squeezed the trigger twice in quick succession.
The famous ‘double-tap’.
Eighty-Seven
Angela Wood sat in the dark, her back against the cold and rough cinderblock wall, her arms hugging her legs, her head down, tucked in between her knees. Her hand still hurt from the electric shock she’d received earlier. Her eyes were puffy and red from crying.
She had had forgotten how exhausting crying really was. She’d forgotten how much energy it took – physically, mentally and emotionally. After her brother’s death, Angela had spent months at the mercy of tears. Those crying months had drained so much energy out of her that she would pass out from seemingly no reason at all.
Right then, sitting in that dark and cold cell, Angela felt as shattered as she had felt back in those dreadful months.
Physically, at that moment, she knew she wouldn’t be able to outrun a ten-year-old. She was so frightened that just about anything – a noise from outside her door, the light being turned on, even the sound of a fly buzzing past her ear–would trigger more tears and make her body start shivering uncontrollably.
The darkness that she’d been sitting in, coupled with her crippling emotional state, meant she’d lost track of time. She really couldn’t tell if she’d been locked in that cell for hours, days, or even weeks. Her mind wasn’t processing things as it should anymore. All she could do was to concentrate on her breathing – in, out, in, out – but fear turned even breathing into an uphill struggle.
Angela had just blown a third warm breath into her cupped hands to try to warm them up when all of a sudden . . .
BANG! . . . BANG!
Two blasts that sounded like an explosion. So loud that they made her cell door vibrate, almost activating the sprinklers on the ceiling.
In the blink of an eye, Angela’s heartbeat went from resting pace to tachycardia, because she knew exactly what that sound was. She’d heard it a few times, before.
It was the sound of shots being fired.
Eighty-Eight
Inside the underground control room, the sound of the Werewolf’s unsuppressed 9mm pistol going off rivaled that of a cannon, bouncing off the walls like a crazy pinball.
Smoke and the unmistakable smell of gunpowder filled the air inside the room, which made the Werewolf smile. He loved that smell. All of a sudden, he broke into a loud laughter.
On the metal chair, about eight paces in front of the ex-soldier, Hunter sat absolutely still, his unblinking eyes glued to the weapon still held firmly by the Werewolf, his chest rising and falling in an odd rhythm.
‘You should see your face,’ the Werewolf said. ‘Oh wow, that was funny.’
From how hard the Werewolf was laughing, Hunter could tell that his mind had been severely fractured.
It took the Werewolf almost a minute to compose himself. ‘Anyway, my question still stands, Detective – did they teach you to shoot like that at the police academy?’
The Werewolf’s accuracy had been unerring. Hunter had not only heard both rounds flying past him, but he had also felt the bullets’ air displacement. The first round zoomed by less than an inch from his right ear and the second less than an inch from his left.
Hunter refilled his lungs with air to try to calm his nerves and stop his body from shivering. His heart seemed to have tumbled upwards, lodging itself somewhere in his throat.
He waited a moment to see if he felt any pain – nothing. He then finally moved his head, first right, then left, his eyes moving everywhere, checking his body for blood – nothing.
‘You see, Detective Hunter, what you don’t realize is that I am the best there is.’ Pride coated the Werewolf’s words. ‘With a reliable 9mm pistol like this one . . .’ He showed Hunter his Sig Sauer P228. ‘I can hit a moving target the size of a basketball from two hundred yards away. A still target with favorable wind conditions?’ He shrugged. ‘Three hundred yards – maybe a little more. I’ve done it before. Give me a sniper’s rifle and I’ll drop a mark from a mile away. That’s what the US military has taught me to do, Detective.’
Hunter noticed that some of the tension in the Werewolf’s voice and demeanor had begun to dissipate, and he had a pretty good idea why.
He had been in similar situations before – face-to-face with a killer – where the killer had had the upper hand and could’ve ended Hunter’s life in a blink of an eye, but instead of doing so, the killer had talked.
Without any exceptions, there was always a reason behind why each and every serial killer killed. That reason, or reasons, might not make much sense to anyone else but the killer, but there was always a reason; and deep down, they all felt an almost uncontrollable need to explain themselves . . . They wanted others to understand why they were doing what they were doing . . . they wanted others, even if only for an instant, to see life through their eyes, no matter how distorted that vision might be. But most of all, they wanted the world to understand that they didn’t consider themselves to be crazy.
In the case of someone like the Werewolf, that desire to be understood – to explain himself – would be multiplied exponentially and it wasn’t difficult to understand why.
The Werewolf was an ex-soldier. More so, he was a veteran – someone with at least one tour of duty under his belt. He had fought for his country, he had killed for his country and he had been prepared to die for his country. That meant that he had spent a part of his life living under one of the strictest codes of conduct there ever was – the US military code of conduct – which, if put in layman’s terms, could be summarized into one simple word: honor.
Hunter understood that there would have to be a very strong reason for why someone who had been prepared to live, kill and die in the name of honor had undergone such a huge U-turn from what he once so wholeheartedly believed. And the Werewolf would want Hunter to know what that reason was. Such a huge U-turn in someone’s personality, especially when that someone had once sworn to protect the oppressed, would also bring on two of the most psychologically destructive feelings there ever were – guilt and shame.
Hunter was experienced enough to know that if a killer wanted to talk, then his best move was to let him.
‘That’s right, Detective,’ the Werewolf continued. ‘The military taught me how to kill people – with weapons, with my bare hands . . . and I was good at what I did . . .’ He paused, as if he was rethinking his words. ‘No, actually, I was great at what I did. I was the best.’
Hunter expected the ex-soldier to carry on, but he went quiet again. Hunter was also experienced enough to know that that was not a good sign. He pushed.
‘Were you Special Forces?’ he asked.
The Werewolf laughed, sarcastically.
‘Compared to what we did, Detective, Special Forces was an amateur unit.’
As he held Hunter’s stare for several long seconds, the ex-soldier’s posture relaxed some more. All of a sudden, he gave Hunter a careless shrug, as if saying, ‘Oh, what the hell.’
‘We were a clandestine outfit,’ the Werewolf explained. ‘A kill team . . . an assassination squad . . . call it whatever you like.’ He placed his weapon on the control desk once again.
That was definitely a good sign.
‘What did you call it?’ Hunter asked, his interest genuine.
The Werewolf smiled. ‘Officially, we never had a title.’ He shrugged again. ‘Officially, we never existed. You won’t find any paperwork or electronic records on us. How can you find anything on an outfit with no name? Where do you look? What do you search for? They didn’t even use our real names. We were enlisted with false names for the protection of the unit. But as a joke, we sometimes referred to ourselves as “Mission Impossible”, because we were told from the start that if any of our operations were ever unsuccessful . . . if any of the members in our squad were taken or killed in action, our government would dis-avow all knowledge of us.’ He paused for a beat. ‘Mission Impossible, get it?’
Hunter’s
eyebrows arched in response.
‘We were never deployed anywhere to keep the peace,’ the Werewolf continued, ‘or to aid the needy, to protect the weak, to survey hostile terrain, to search for weapons of mass destruction, or any of the other pile of bullshit our government tends to feed the press and the public every time our troops join a conflict. If we were deployed anywhere, that was the end of the line . . . sometimes for a single individual, sometimes for a whole group. We didn’t take hostages and we didn’t negotiate. What we did was put a final stop to a situation that had somehow gotten out of control. And we were as final as it got.’
Once again, the Werewolf went quiet. Once again, Hunter re-engaged, but this time he didn’t beat around the bush.
‘So what happened?’
The Werewolf looked back at Hunter with a blank expression on his face. ‘What do you mean?’
‘What I mean is, how does someone who was trained to kill or die for his country – someone who was part of an elite military squad . . . someone who lived by a very strict code of conduct – how does that someone start selling murders over the Dark Web?’
The Werewolf laughed again. This time it wasn’t a sarcastic laugh, it was a disillusioned one.
‘Because as it turns out, Detective,’ he replied, ‘the press and the public aren’t the only ones who get lied to by our government.’ He allowed his eyes to meet Hunter’s once again and Hunter saw something change in them. He just didn’t know exactly what it was.