The Ackerman Thrillers Boxset: 1-6

by Ethan Cross

  Renata, I love you. You and Ian are my world. Explain to him.

  Ray Navarro read the words, folded the paper, and placed the pen back on the table.

  Then he closed his eyes and waited to die.

  He hoped it would be quick. Even though he knew that he didn’t deserve that mercy.

  *

  The interrogation room holding Navarro was on the second floor of the main building. If Powell had followed Marcus’s directions then five men would be guarding Navarro, two in the room with him and three patrolling the surrounding corridors, which would be off-limits to prisoners. Marcus hoped that Powell had understood the importance of those instructions.

  His intuition told him that all roads led back to Navarro. The shooter was the key, but Marcus also couldn’t shake the feeling that they were being led. Was he following clues and investigating or was he simply following a path designed by some unseen puppet master?

  Designed to prove what?

  It’s all about superiority.

  As he and Andrew walked through the corridors of the prison or hospital or whatever Powell wanted to call it, Marcus couldn’t help but remember One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. The hallways of the makeshift prison were dry and institutional. They had fresh new paint, but the grime of the past still showed through. And new paint couldn’t cover the feeling of the place, an aura reminiscent of laboratories and shock therapy. What it did do was add to the smell, combining that new-house smell with Pine-Sol and mildew and sweat.

  Prisoners passed them several times. The inmates or residents, as Powell called them, were allowed to go about their business freely. After all, Saint Nick was always watching and reaching down with the miracles of wirelessly powered and wirelessly controlled shock bracelets and anklets.

  Marcus glanced into some of the rooms. They looked more like tiny apartments than prison cells. Some even had amenities like refrigerators and televisions. Powell had explained that the reward system functioned much like real society. Good behavior meant increased rewards and privileges. It also gave them things to take away from those lifers who often had nothing to lose. For those who would be re-entering society soon, it gave a more realistic view of the world.

  Marcus didn’t necessarily like the idea of murderers getting any kind of reward system, but he understood that there had to be a balance between punishment and rehabilitation.

  Major Ingram, the highest-ranking correctional officer at Foxbury, had volunteered to lead them back down to the interrogation room, in order to discuss security measures. The thickly muscled Major marched military-straight in front of them, explaining the security chokepoints and how he had maximized guard patrols for response times. But Marcus noted that everything still revolved around the cameras and security software.

  Marcus soaked in the words coming from Major Ingram, but he also absorbed information that “normal” people would have disregarded as background noise.

  He tried to focus in on only the relevant bits of data. He supposed normal people did this with ease, but for him there were always a million different distractions, all vying for his attention, demanding to be heard, seen, felt, and analyzed.

  Over the years, he had learned to focus on only what was important, but he couldn’t help but catalog all the other sights and sounds as well. And sometimes, even after years of mental training, he still caught his mind wandering off like it did when he was a kid in Brooklyn.

  And as they walked the corridors, every once in a while, his mind would go on a little journey. His brain would travel down the hall to locate the sound of a leaky faucet. His mind would open the bathroom door, break down the faucet to its base components, and identify the faulty component. Probably just a rubber o-ring that a maintenance guy could pick up at a hardware store for ninety-nine cents.

  Marcus snapped back to reality when he heard the distant sound of running footsteps followed by the not-so-distant clanging of alarm bells.

  *

  All the surrounding guards were converging on the interrogation room holding Navarro. Over a radio on Ingram’s belt, Marcus heard Spinelli saying that Navarro was “down.” The guards swooped in on Navarro’s location like moths to the flame. And Marcus was drawn to the fire as well, although he already knew what they would find.

  He had been stupid. He knew their mastermind had wanted Navarro dead. He should have done more to protect him. A part of Marcus wondered if he had used Navarro as bait. If he had just let Navarro dangle out there, so the mastermind would kill him and give the investigation another clue to follow.

  But that’s something his brother would have done. Not him.

  He shoved past Ingram, past the other guards in the hallway. His shoes squeaked against the speckled green tile as he navigated his way inside the interrogation room itself.

  Navarro was sprawled over on the table, face down, unmoving.

  Jerry Dunn stood behind Navarro, a hand on the dead man’s neck. Dunn said, “He’s dead.”

  Marcus shoved Dunn back from the body. He screamed, “What the hell are you doing in here?”

  The dark-haired young man stammered out some unintelligible reply as he stumbled backward.

  Marcus said, “Did you kill him and then try to act like you found him this way?”

  He stepped toward Dunn again, but Andrew held him back.

  “Whoa,” Andrew said. “Let’s watch the recording and see what actually happened before we make any accusations.”

  Marcus pulled himself under control.

  “Right,” he said. To Major Ingram, he added, “I want Officer Dunn taken into custody until we watch that recording.”

  Marcus then moved back to Navarro’s lifeless form and personally checked for a pulse or any signs of life.

  His findings matched Jerry’s earlier assessment.

  Ray Navarro, the only man who had any firsthand information on the case, had just died. In a locked room, while under constant surveillance.

  *

  FILE #750265-6726-690

  Zolotov, Dmitry - AKA The Judas Killer

  State Exhibit F

  Description: Diary Entry

  My father was fat and lazy, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew that a con man, even a small-time con man like himself, needed to go where the money was. And the money and the biggest marks alike were most plentiful in the United States. So before my tenth birthday, we had conned and robbed our way into the good ol’ US of A, fake documents and all.

  What Father didn’t count on was the fact that a lot of the old cons he got away with on the streets of Moscow didn’t work in America, either because of cultural differences or the greater diligence of law enforcement. Either way, a man with my father’s skill set, who also wanted to only work a few hours a week and be blackout drunk the rest of the time, was limited in his opportunities for employment. Which forced Father to be inventive.

  I was eleven years old when he created the first iteration of The Judas Game.

  We were working the midway at a traveling carnival. The kind which moves from town to town, county to county, leaching onto community events and local festivals. Most people didn’t realize, but the different games at the midway weren’t operated by the carnival itself. The big carnival company handled the rides and the bookings and setting up the events, but the actual slots and spaces for games on the midway were rented. Someone with a game that they thought would be popular could rent the “privilege” to run it there in the midway.

  So next time you’re walking through the carnival, take notice of the man running the duck pond and the balloon game and the water guns. In some cases, that game is that man’s business and all he owns in the world. That little booth is his means of putting food on the table. Respect that.

  My father was like that for a while. He had purchased an old wheel of chance game from one place or another and had weaseled his way onto the circuit as part of Mr. Mackey’s Magical Midways, touring over half the country. Which wouldn’t have been a bad life for me
. It was at least better than starving on the streets of Moscow. But there were times when we had to pay as much as $1,600 for the “privilege” at some of the bigger fairs. Add that up with the cost of the little trinkets we gave away, and we were barely making enough money to keep father drunk and me from starving.

  As I said, Father wasn’t stupid. In fact, when circumstances demanded it, he was quite shrewd. He knew that we needed to adapt. Father loved the theater and had once dreamed of being a stage actor. Unfortunately, he was ugly and had no talent. A note to historians—you can take my word on this as a statement of fact. I fully believe that any other sources you could unearth about my father will corroborate my assessments.

  So Father decided to incorporate a bit of theater into the midway.

  He left the old “Wheel of Chance” game in my capable hands—with him still making all of the profit, of course—and he rented out another space right beside me. That meant twice the “privilege” payment. And Father had no extra money to buy a game or build one of his own. Plus, most of the cheap and easy options were taken. The duck pond, ring toss, ball toss, and the like. The only way to stand out among the other established and time-tested games was to do something that cost money. Games that required air-driven BB guns and water spraying equipment.

  But that was where Father got inventive and pulled back to his roots in the theater.

  He set out to design a game with no start-up cost that could also be the top-grossing “attraction” on the midway. And my father was not a humble man. Not a reserved man. He bragged about what he was going to accomplish before he even had the slightest clue of how he would attain it.

  Father believed that the selfish nature of man informed all of our decisions. He firmly felt that when faced with a choice, every person will always choose the option that would benefit him or her the most.

  I disagree with Father. People aren’t that black and white and clear cut. But he was right in thinking that it wouldn’t take a lot of money being on the line for a person to sell out a friend.

  So Father started out to design a theatrical game involving betrayal, a concept he felt to be the one thing shared by all humanity. It didn’t take long for the title of “The Judas Game” to be born

  2

  ANDREW HELD HIS TONGUE UNTIL they were alone and running back toward Control Center East. The CCE occupied the floor beneath Powell’s office. Ingram had mentioned earlier that the entire Ivory Tower could be closed off and was one of the only areas of the prison that residents were never allowed to enter.

  Andrew said, “It’s time we talk about what’s going on with you.”

  Marcus said, “I know.”

  No challenge. No smartass comment. Andrew wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or not.

  He said, “Let’s start with Pittsburgh.”

  Marcus paused long enough for Andrew to think further prompting was required, but then Marcus said, “Now’s not the time. The killer is here. We have him, and I’m not letting him slip away.”

  Marcus seemed to have increased his pace to illustrate the point. He pulled ahead in the empty corridor, and Andrew kicked his legs into the next gear to catch up. Residents watched them from every room. Earlier, the metal doors of each cell had been open, allowing the inmates to roam freely and go about their daily business, the goal being a simulated society. Andrew guessed that the alarm had triggered a command for all of the residents to return to their apartments. He had noticed that the left bracelet on each prisoner’s wrist contained what looked to be a small speaker. Maybe the alert had triggered a command that was then transmitted out to the bracelets. He certainly hadn’t heard such an announcement over any kind of prison PA system.

  Either way, the residents were back in their cells and secured. That fact made Andrew feel much safer, despite Powell’s assurances about his security and software.

  As Andrew came up beside Marcus, he said, “There’s never a good time, just the time we have.”

  “You get that from a fortune cookie?”

  “Are you not in good enough shape to talk and run?”

  “I can still run circles around you.”

  Marcus sped up again. Andrew matched him and said between breaths, “The Director said that after Pittsburgh, Fagan is ready to pounce if you screw up.”

  “Fagan’s a bureaucrat. He’s all bark.”

  “The Director doesn’t think so. He says Fagan is ready to retire you and put Ackerman in the ground.”

  Marcus said nothing.

  “Is it just rage? You having trouble controlling it?”

  “I don’t know what it is. Sometimes I wonder if a piece of me died down in Thomas White’s dungeon.”

  Andrew, barely finding the breath to form words, said, “I can’t imagine what you’ve been through.”

  “Sure you can. We all have our scars.”

  They reached the security checkpoint leading up to the Ivory Tower, and Andrew was glad for the chance to catch his breath. The guard, sitting inside a small room behind what was probably three inches of bullet-resistant glass, allowed them access to the secure elevator.

  Once inside, Marcus stood straight up and down, looking anxious and ready to strike but not at all fatigued by the run from the murder scene.

  Andrew bent over and placed his hands on his knees. He said, “You’re not alone.”

  “I know.”

  “You can talk to me.”

  “I know. I appreciate it.”

  He grabbed Marcus by the arm. “I mean it. Sometimes, I understand that doing this job means that you have to let the demon out. And that’s fine. Use that. But don’t give it too much space in your head. Don’t let the demon start calling the shots.”

  The elevator bounced and dipped at their arrival. The doors parted. Marcus started to walk through them, but then he turned back and said, “But what if the demon is the only part I have left?”

  *

  Marcus paced back and forth in front of the wall of monitors, balling his fists and cracking his neck. He could see the last frame of Ray Navarro’s life still hanging in suspended animation on the interconnected network of seamless screens. He said, “Are you sure no one touched him?”

  “Positive,” Spinelli said. “I’ve checked back through hours of video and the software has an interaction search that can display every physical exchange.”

  “You need to check every frame manually.”

  “I have people on it.”

  Marcus turned to Andrew and said, “Could he have been poisoned before the shooting?”

  Andrew tapped his fingernails against his front teeth as he considered the idea. Marcus hated when Andrew did that, but he was also certain that his own annoying habits outweighed a bit of tooth tapping, so he kept his mouth shut about it.

  After five taps, Andrew said, “It’s certainly possible, but I would have expected Navarro to be showing more physical symptoms leading up to his death, if that was the case.” Andrew said to Spinelli, “Can you play it back again? Right before he slumped over?”

  The wall of screens showed Navarro, still alive, secured to the table. There was a guard in the corner of the room. Marcus didn’t recognize him. It wasn’t Jerry Dunn. Officer Dunn had only shown up afterward. He hadn’t visited Navarro before the alarm.

  Still, something about Jerry Dunn rubbed Marcus the wrong way.

  He tried to ignore the feeling. He had a habit of instantly analyzing a person and deciding whether he liked them within about two seconds of meeting them. The problem was that his intuition wasn’t always correct. People did surprise him. And even if he did like the person, that didn’t correlate with them being worthy of his trust. He had often liked and loved the people who had hurt him the most. And just because he didn’t like someone as a person, that didn’t make them the person he was hunting.

  Spinelli clicked her touchpad to play the video again. Marcus watched as Navarro glanced around the storage room. Navarro seemed to be waiting for something, anti
cipating something. Ray would adjust the position of his arms, look to his wrist as if to check a watch, look to the guard as if to ask for the time. Marcus sensed the building anticipation even from the recorded event. Navarro looked like a man awaiting his execution, wanting to do something to influence what was happening and what was coming but being powerless to change the outcome.

  Navarro was deep in concentration, eyes darting back and forth, and then the man just went blank. All the anticipation. All the worry. Everything that Ray Navarro was and was becoming was gone.

  Eyes still open but vacant, Navarro slowly slumped forward and sprawled across the gray metal table.

  Andrew said, “See that. That looks more like a fast-acting poison to me rather than something that would take hours.”

  Marcus stopped pacing, cracked his neck, and said, “Unless he wasn’t really poisoned.”

  “But what else could have had that kind of effect?” Powell said from somewhere behind him.

  The words seemed to shake Marcus from a stupor. He supposed that a part of him had registered Powell and a few of his people enter the control room, but he had been so singularly focused on the case and what clue to follow next that he had subconsciously chosen to ignore them.

  He looked Powell straight in the eyes and said, “We need to shut down the whole thing. Evacuate the prison. Send your residents somewhere else.”

  Powell laughed. “That’s very helpful. Thank you. Rather than finding whoever is trying to sabotage my company and my project, let’s just give them what they want. Let’s shut it down!”

  “You could reopen once we catch this guy.”

  “If we shut down, we never reopen.”

  Marcus rubbed at the spot on his chest where his old cross necklace had once hung. It had been a gift from his mother. His father had taken it from him the previous year, right before tossing him into a dark hole. The necklace had never been recovered, and Marcus decided to have a cross necklace tattooed into that spot instead of replacing his old one. That way no one could ever take that away from him. The flesh surrounding the tattoo was still a little sore. He pressed his fingers against the spot and imagined the necklace that had once hung there. It helped him think, helped him to find the right path.