by Andrew Mayne
I give him a cold stare.
“It looked like you were staring at something in the dark back in that warehouse, Jessica. For the life of me I couldn’t remember what was there. Then I realized it must have been something that wasn’t there. A person. Who were you looking at? In the darkness, who do you see?”
My mouth opens but I don’t have an answer.
“Their lives served a greater purpose. Where others had doubt, they now have certainty. We live in an age of miracles.”
“All you did was construct elaborate lies.”
“Isn’t that the root of all faith? The belief in something that isn’t true—at least something you have no reason to believe is true? And what do you know? Maybe I am a god.”
I raise an eyebrow at the holding cell. “So you’re here by choice?”
“Jesus could have escaped his Roman prison cell if it was necessary.”
I roll my eyes. The television is playing behind me at a low volume. He shifts his gaze from me to the screen for a moment.
“It doesn’t matter if you believe me. It only takes a few.” The last words come out slowly. He’s distracted.
“There’s a gift shop next to his cell in Jerusalem,” I tell him. “Do you think he planned on that? Think things got a little off-message after he died?”
Haywood is pretending to not watch the television set. “His disciples . . . they spread the word . . . they . . .” His words trail off as he tries to focus on the television. His fingers twitch as he thinks about turning the volume up.
I stare straight back at him and don’t acknowledge the television. Behind me the pilot, the man who tried to kill me on the Warlock’s order, is talking to a camera. Diagrams of the Empire State Building and medical reports flash on the screen. He’s exposing the charade.
“. . . I began to suspect it was all a lie . . . but I was too afraid . . .” says the pilot.
I give Haywood a thin smile of my own. “When Jesus died, Peter didn’t go running around calling him a fraud. Did he? That’s the real problem in being a god; you don’t get to control the message.”
Haywood’s facial muscles slacken for an instant, then grow tense. His wrists pull at the handcuffs fastened to the table.
Behind me the pilot continues the exposé, calling Haywood a charlatan; the whole thing a lie. Haywood is furious. His most trusted confidant is revealing everything. His Peter has become a Judas.
We don’t know what the pilot really knew. It doesn’t matter. Like any other magician, Haywood knows his weakest link is the people he trusts with his secrets. Right now he’s watching his most devout disciple call him a fake.
It’s a trick, of course. Eventually he’ll realize it was his own trick. It’s Gerald on the tape using his computer program to mimic the pilot. We pulled enough audio and video from the camera on the plane to make it work.
The whole thing was done on the sly without official approval. Ailes ran it by Chisholm over drinks in a Georgetown bar. Both understand the game is deeper than just arresting people. This is psy-ops. Going after cults is sticky business. The only effective way is to destroy them from within.
We don’t know who else he has out there. But I’m sure when they see this they’ll have some soul-searching to do. If they’re smart, they’ll come to us before Damian finds them.
I stand. Haywood stares up at me and tries to say something. He wants to sound confident. Words fail him.
“You don’t know the whole plan!” he shouts as I head toward the door.
“I don’t care. Nobody cares. All you are is a liar now. A liar and a murderer.” I let the door slam behind me, leaving him alone in the cell. Without an audience.
68
To: Alan Parkworth, Assistant Director, FBI Cyber Division
From: Dr. Trey Goode, Director, NSA Intra-Agency Cryptographic Working Group
Alan,
As per your request we ran all the linked files from the “Warlock” defacement of the FBI home page through the GlyphR system. Sorry it took so long to get to it. I think you guys need to take a look at the raw data for the .PNG image of the defaced FBI logo. The image is 120K but actual image data it only about 20k. There appears to be another file encoded in there.
Assuming best-of-breed encryption, it’d take our system a long time to get through this. Back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest your crypto machine using the Kunaki-Stein Elliptical might be able to do it in approximately six years, six months, six days . . . Yeah, I know how ominous that sounds.
We tasked our cypher for thirty hours on the first sequence as a test. We found one possible word: Eternicon.
Does this mean anything to you guys?
I wish we had the resources to commit on this. But since it looks like you guys caught the guy, it might be a waste of time.
Sincerely,
Trey
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Special thanks to my father, a federal agent, whose cases and incredible experiences inspired me and whose unwavering support encouraged me. Thanks to my brother, an FBI agent, for providing me with helpful information and forgiveness for the dramatic license I took. Justin Robert Young for his essential help at every stage of this book. My literary agents, Erica Spellman Silverman and Robert Gottlieb. My editor, Hannah Wood, for her dedication to this book. James Randi, a great mentor who taught me how we’re deceived, and more importantly, why we need to believe. Ken Montgomery, Mary Jaras, Gerry Ohrstrom, Matt Ridley, Dr. Paul Zak, Joke & Biagio, Brian Brushwood, the Weird Things podcast listeners, Diamond Club <> and the Mayniacs.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ANDREW MAYNE is the star of A&E’s magic reality show Don’t Trust Andrew Mayne, and has worked for David Copperfield, Penn & Teller, and David Blaine. With the support of Johnny Carson, Mayne founded a program that uses magic to teach critical thinking skills in public schools for the James Randi Educational Foundation, and his “Wizard School” segments aired nationwide on public television. He lives in Los Angeles.
WWW.ANDREWMAYNE.COM
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COPYRIGHT
Cover design by Jarrod Taylor
Cover photograph © Shelby Robinson/Arcangel Images
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ANGEL KILLER Copyright © 2012, 2014 by Andrew Mayne. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
ISBN 978-0-06-234887-6
EPub Edition September 2014 ISBN 9780062348883
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* Case 093478-89 from a .txt file found on a forensic examination of a server used to coordinate a DDoS attack on the Justice Department servers.