Dark Revelations

by Duane Swierczynski

“Didn’t you hear me? Get the fuck out now.”

  A wounded look came over Riggins’s face. He opened his mouth to respond, then thought better of it. Instead he dropped the tablet onto Dark’s bed and left without another word.

  After a while of staring at nothing in particular, Dark picked up the tablet, pressed the power button, flicked the on-screen lock. This was a tablet identical to Natasha’s, and it was already opened on a browser page: Labyrinth’s latest video.

  As footage from various religious wars and crusades and even the Twin Towers falling played across the screen, he spoke: LABYRINTH

  More wars have been fought in the name of God than any others. Religion is a leading cause of man’s destruction. Instead of having everyone judge who has the better god, we need to be under one deity that everyone responds to. We shall all share under one god. And the same laws shall apply to all of us . . .

  chapter 65

  DARK

  As Dark stood up from the hospital bed, an icy wave of dizziness washed over him. Every cell in his body screamed: Lie down. You’re not ready for this yet. Every muscle in his back cried out for more rest.

  But that wasn’t an option. He needed to catch this motherfucker now.

  Labyrinth seemed to get off on knowing everyone’s dirtiest, deepest secrets. That told Dark that Labyrinth must have the dirtiest, deepest secret of all.

  All he needed was the man’s true identity—not his avatars or puppets or stand-ins. The real man behind the mask.

  And thanks to Riggins, Dark had an increasingly sharper image of that man.

  Dark thought about the attack on Riggins, which provided the first hint that Labyrinth was able to control and pry secrets out of people. This had been a thread running through the entire case, starting with the homeless Albanian man in L.A., all the way through the body double he used in South Africa and the women who’d been raped by Shane Corbett.

  Labyrinth wasn’t cultivating loyal followers like a terrorist mastermind. He was using a blend of drugs and psychotherapy to brainwash them, Manchurian Candidate–style. Labyrinth only had a few hours with Riggins, but even that was enough time to pry loose his most closely guarded secret. Give him enough time, weeks or even months, and Labyrinth seemed to be able to completely erase someone’s identity or program them for particular tasks.

  With the women in New York, Labyrinth would want to be there, nearby—just to make sure the programming stuck. Plus, he wanted to capture Shane Corbett’s murder on video for instant uploading, apparently a task he didn’t trust to an underling or a stand-in.

  That meant the real Labyrinth was in that hotel—and more important, in the hotel lobby at the same time that Dark and Natasha were there with Riggins. He’d watched them, and had chosen to follow Riggins home.

  Why didn’t Labyrinth follow Dark or Natasha? Maybe he didn’t need to. Maybe the note was right—that Labyrinth was already a “member of the team.”

  He chose to follow Riggins because he could provide something else—a window into Steve Dark’s mind. A weakness to uncover. A secret to be exploited.

  Again, this couldn’t be trusted to anyone else. Labyrinth himself had to be there.

  Dark started to call Natasha but then stopped himself. As much as he hated to admit it, Labyrinth’s note had given him a shot of paranoia. Who could he trust on the team, if there was even the remote possibility that one of the members was in league with Labyrinth? Or if someone on the team was Labyrinth himself?

  So instead he called the contact he remembered from the NYPD directly. In every crime scene, the police take down the names of every possible witness—and that would include the people in the lobby. If Labyrinth had been there, someone would have spoken to him, taken down his name—even if it were an alias.

  It was a start.

  chapter 66

  LABYRINTH

  Scotland Yard

  My delivery boy is not even three steps toward the front entrance before a rabid pack of antiterrorism agents have separated him from the package in his arms.

  My delivery boy is befuddled and he begins to cry.

  The agents do not appear to care—they want that package secured, contained, examined immediately.

  Then again, I cannot blame them.

  The package is wrapped in brown paper and looks like it could contain a toddler.

  My delivery boy pleads with them,

  Whatid I do whatid I do . . .

  But of course, they’re not caring much about explaining why, nor do they seem to have much regard for personal well-being—not after the lessons of the LAPD and the NYPD across the Atlantic.

  But then he turns the tables on them.

  Just like I trained him to do.

  First the tears, then the begging . . . and then, just as I instructed him . . .

  Utter calm.

  A little smile, even.

  The tears, so abundant mere seconds ago, seem to evaporate in the wind.

  My delivery boy says,

  Let me tell you.

  The agents are stunned. They ask,

  Tell us what?

  My delivery boy says,

  He made me memorize it.

  The agents say,

  Memorize what?

  My delivery boy says,

  The riddle.

  And this is what he told them, as they all scurried to write it down verbatim.

  A PRISONER IS TOLD “IF YOU TELL A LIE WE WILL HANG YOU; IF YOU TELL THE TRUTH WE WILL SHOOT YOU.” WHAT STATEMENTS CAN HE MAKE ABOUT THE SITUATION IN ORDER TO SAVE HIMSELF?

  LABYRINTH

  Inside the package, the police will soon discover my gifts:

  There is not a toddler, not any other living thing inside.

  A giant hourglass, with about three hours’ worth of sand left.

  And the tiniest sliver of paper with the letter L printed on it.

  This shouldn’t be too difficult for them to figure out.

  My delivery boy then closes his eyes and keeps the smile locked in on his tiny face, just like I trained him to do.

  He knows he did a good job.

  I am across the street, watching him do a good job.

  He smiles in the belief I will reward him when this is over. Like all good boys he wants nothing more than to please his master.

  I found this delivery boy turning tricks for drugs in Brixton.

  I showed him a better life.

  Taught him how to act.

  How to lie with utter conviction.

  I wasn’t lying to him, either.

  He will continue to enjoy a better life, starting in three hours.

  chapter 67

  After the Cormac Johnson interview, Alain Pantin found that his star was in ascendance like never before. His press officer was overwhelmed with media requests from around the world, both television and print. The hook, of course, was the ongoing Labyrinth attacks, but it was as if audiences were now prepped to wait for Alain Pantin’s analysis of each attack, and the message behind it.

  Each interview began to follow a familiar pattern. The public condemnation:

  “What he did to that American stockbroker—and those poor women—that was simply hideous, don’t you agree, Mr. Pantin?”

  Followed by a quick casting of suspicion over the victim:

  “If the allegations prove to be true, however, then some might even say that Shane Corbett got off a bit light. If what they’re alleging is true, of course.”

  And then finally, an attack on the system behind the victim:

  “Isn’t this a commentary on certain people believing they don’t have to account for any of their actions, no matter how despicable?”

  Up until this point, Pantin would nod, condemn, and silently agree that yes, there does seem to be something suspicious about the victims. Tsk-tsk, tut-tut, they really should catch this maniac immediately.

  But Pantin would truly shine when unpacking the message, because the message is what everyone secretly wanted to hear. />
  That unchecked greed and power needed to be punished.

  Even if it meant being sliced to pieces with the jagged edges of broken champagne flutes.

  Pantin understood the mass appeal. Back in primary school, there was always a certain delight in watching a classroom troublemaker being called to the front of the room for a public chiding (or if the professors were old enough, a public whipping). You would shake your head and pretend to sympathize, but inside you were cheering. Because it was a rare delight to watch the wicked receive their just punishment. It even emboldened you to the point where if the troublemaker turned his attention to you . . . well, you might dish out some of that punishment yourself.

  “You don’t need a broken champagne flute to take down the Shane Corbetts of the world,” Pantin would say. “You need a new system that safeguards against the Shane Corbetts, that doesn’t tolerate their greed, nor practically encourage it with lavish bonuses and luxuries that most people in the world will never enjoy.”

  It wasn’t a Labyrinth attack until you had Alain Pantin unpacking it for you, sussing out the truth behind the carnage.

  And Pantin found himself in a slightly surreal position of having to select the biggest media markets, because . . . well, there wasn’t time to speak to them all.

  chapter 68

  DARK

  Dark almost found himself in a fistfight with the guards posted at his door—they had been under strict orders from Blair to not let Dark leave until the doctors had given their complete consent.

  “Move out of my way,” Dark told the sides of human beef blocking his exit.

  “We need to confirm this with Control,” one of them said. “Wait here until . . .”

  “Oh fuck this,” Dark said, pushing himself into the narrow space between them so suddenly that they had no choice but to part.

  “Mr. Dark! You can’t go!”

  A few yards away Dark stopped and turned. “What are you going to do? Shoot me? I need a ride back to headquarters. Are you going to take me there, or do I have to catch a cab? Which, by the way, might really piss off your boss.”

  The guards saw there was little point in arguing.

  When Dark arrived at Global Alliance HQ—against the wishes of his doctor—the team was poring over a high-resolution scan of a sliver of paper.

  “Hey,” Dark said, walking into the room toward his usual chair.

  Blair blinked. “Are you cleared to leave?”

  “Yeah. What do we have?”

  Natasha quickly recapped: a package to Scotland Yard, containing an hourglass and a tiny fragment of paper.

  “What’s that?” Dark asked, narrowing his eyes. “An L? For Labyrinth?”

  “Maybe,” Blair said. “But it’s not the letter itself that is disturbing; it’s the source. Experts are telling us that this was clipped from one of the four 1215 exemplifications of the Magna Carta.”

  “Uh, actually, it’s just ‘Magna Carta,’” said O’Brian. “At least, in academic circles.”

  Magna Carta: the foundation of British—and by extension, modern—law.

  Dark nodded. “He mentioned the word law in his previous video. He’s going after the legal establishment, somewhere in London. So where are these four copies kept?”

  “Two at the British Library, one at Salisbury Cathedral, and another is a touring copy, though it has been kept for long periods of time at Fort Knox in the U.S.,” said Blair. “No one is reporting a break-in. Nor would they, for obvious reasons.”

  “Well, Labyrinth got in somehow.”

  “It’s a joke,” O’Brian said.

  The group turned to stare at him.

  “No, literally,” O’Brian continued, “a joke, from spook circles. I may or not have worked for various intelligence outfits at some period of time in my long and storied career, and I may or may not have had occasion to share a pint or five with various intelligence officers . . .”

  “The point, Deckland?” Blair asked.

  “Anyway, it’s an old joke. What’s the ultimate final exam for spy school? Why, breaking into Fort Knox and stealing back Magna Carta . . . for England! This tells me that our Labyrinth, if not a former member of British intelligence, is at the least very well acquainted with their culture.”

  Dark thought about Labyrinth’s skill at “turning” people. Brainwashing drugs. The ability to cross borders undetected. Access to secret documents and letterhead. It would seem to make sense that Labyrinth was a former spook.

  Blair, meanwhile, seemed eager to change the subject. “And the riddle?”

  A PRISONER IS TOLD “IF YOU TELL A LIE WE WILL HANG YOU; IF YOU TELL THE TRUTH WE WILL SHOOT YOU.” WHAT STATEMENTS CAN HE MAKE ABOUT THE SITUATION IN ORDER TO SAVE HIMSELF?

  Dark said, “The prisoner has to say, ‘You are going to hang me.’ They can’t hang him, because that would mean the prisoner didn’t lie. And they can’t shoot him, because that would mean he didn’t tell the truth.”

  “Brilliant,” O’Brian said. “More word games. No wonder this one is pinned to lawyers.”

  chapter 69

  DARK

  As the team tried to figure out the method of murder (hanging versus shooting?) and the precise target (which lawyer?),

  Dark noticed something strange. Everyone in the room seemed unusually guarded, playing their own theories close to the chest. That’s when it occurred to him: Labyrinth had sent other messages, too.

  “Are we going to just sit around and eyeball each other?” Dark asked. “Or are we going to talk about what’s really on our minds?”

  Natasha said, “You received one, too, then. A letter, saying that Labyrinth was one of us.”

  “Yeah,” Dark said. “On my hospital tray.”

  “Mine was in bed waiting for me at my flat,” Natasha said.

  O’Brian found his note propped on the keyboard of his home computer. Hans Roeding declined to say exactly where his note had been left, but it was clear that it had been a source of great embarrassment. No soldier the caliber of Roeding likes to admit a weakness at his place of residence.

  O’Brian smiled. “Look, I’ll save everyone some time here. Labyrinth is actually me. Yeah, I thought things were getting a little boring around here, so I decided to create this amazing supervillain just to liven things up.”

  “Don’t joke,” Roeding said. “Not funny.”

  “And see, I would suspect that you are Labyrinth, big guy, but you’re really shitty at riddles. Unless . . .” O’Brian narrowed his eyes in faux suspicion. “Unless that’s just a cover, and you’re going to kill us all!”

  “Shut up.”

  Blair interrupted. “This means nothing. None of you are Labyrinth.”

  “Sure, easy for you to say,” O’Brian said. “For all we know, you could be Labyrinth. You’ve set up this entire operation just to catch yourself.” He looked around at his teammates. “That’s it, isn’t it? Holy shit, paranoia is such an intoxicating drug.”

  “This means nothing,” Blair said, “because I’ve been receiving taunting messages from Labyrinth like this since the beginning.”

  “What?” Dark asked. “And you didn’t share them? Do you fucking understand how investigations work, Blair? No clue is too small.”

  “Like you, I was keeping that close to my chest,” Blair said, “knowing that he was simply trying to undermine the team. Sharing that with you would have been disastrous for this investigation. I’ve ignored the messages, so now it seems he’s reached out to you.”

  “How does he even know who we are?” Natasha asked.

  “Unless,” Roeding said, “he is sitting in this room with us right now. Who is the only person who has claimed to have seen Labyrinth in the flesh?”

  Dark said, “You think I faked that fight and threw myself out of a fucking window?”

  “It’s a good cover, you have to admit,” said O’Brian.

  “Dark isn’t making that up,” Natasha said. “I have proof.”

  “What
proof?” O’Brian asked. “The two of you could be in league . . .”

  “Enough,” said Blair. “Labyrinth is not a member of this team. I’ve had each of you investigated and background checked to within an inch of your very lives. Which is why I trust the people in this room utterly and completely. He’s trying to play us against each other, and I’m not going to let that happen. None of you are Labyrinth. End of discussion.”

  chapter 70

  LABYRINTH

  I walk through the halls of the most prestigious law firm in all of London. It’s a short trip from Edinburgh. Lovely trains, too. I like the sandwiches they serve.

  At the office, no one tries to stop me—they smile and nod, even.

  They know me, after all.

  I’m very familiar with the work of this firm, as I’ve employed them in the past.

  They’re superb lawyers.

  They’re especially good at springing criminals out of investigative and legal traps.

  Like the serial rapist who was set free last week, who even winked at one of the victims who’d had the courage to testify against him in open court.

  But their specialty is white-collar criminals.

  Like the embezzler who happens to be a relative of a prominent member of Parliament. Picked the pockets of a national antipoverty agency and used the proceeds in the most brazen manner possible . . . and wouldn’t have to return a dime. Ever.

  It’s the reason I retained them years ago to handle some of my affairs.

  Finally I glide across a plush rug to a corner office, where a lawyer in a bespoke suit is reading over documents.

  My own personal lawyer.

  Handsome.

  Neatly groomed.

  The latest stylish cologne from the pages of GQ UK rising from his flesh.