by Неизвестный
But something happened that night in the warehouse. Kate still wasn’t sure why their backup was missing, or how Trask discovered that Denise had turned on him. But suddenly it was Paige, Kate, and Evan against five well-armed men, and poor Denise was presumed dead.
After that failed operation, Trask and his sidekick, Roger Morton, went underground. But Kate had seen him—the man behind Trask Enterprises. They could no longer be public in their pornography operation because the FBI wanted both Trask and Morton for questioning in the death of two agents. Roger Morton himself had even been captured on camera raping Paige.
Still, five years later, they had enough money, shell corporations, false names, and real people to keep all the balls in the air while they stayed in the shadows. Kate knew Trask was still behind many of the major sex sites out there, pulling in millions of dollars, all to pay for his one big show every year.
Her computer beeped, bringing her attention back to her computer. She looked at the screen. It was him, Trask. The countdown had already begun.
47:35:09.
She took only small pleasure that it had taken less than twenty-five minutes to isolate his feed.
The first four hours were free. After that, the audience had to pay to keep watching.
It cost twenty-five thousand dollars to watch the psychological and physical torture of a young woman. Watch her fear grow. Watch her be raped.
Watch her be killed.
An added bonus to those who paid was a “best of” series of highlights from previous rapes and kills.
Rapes that were under the false disclaimer of “fantasy role-playing.” Kills that Trask claimed were staged. But Kate knew the difference between fake blood and real blood. She knew the difference between the eyes of the living and those of the dead.
The first four hours cost nothing, to draw in the perverts and give them a taste of what was to come. Encourage them to mortgage their houses, cash in their retirements, steal from their friends and family to pay for the privilege of actually watching a woman die.
The room where it happened was usually plain, devoid of identifying features. Wood paneling, like in the cabin where Paige Henshaw had died. Little or no natural light.
Trask’s latest victim looked college age and was very beautiful—Trask preferred to kill pretty girls. This girl was still clothed, her face both terrified and strong under the glare of two spotlights from behind the camera. Kate stared into her eyes. This one was a fighter. She would not give in.
Kate ran to the bathroom and vomited into the toilet. She puked until there was nothing left, and still dry heaves wracked her body.
Trask was back and he had another victim. Forty-eight hours and this defiant girl would be dead.
Correction, forty-seven hours twenty-two minutes and ten seconds.
Kate sat back at her computer terminal and brought up her secure e-mail server. She sent a message to the only person she still trusted in the FBI.
HE’S BACK. CLICK HERE FOR THE FEED.
K.
She hesitated just a moment. There was always a chance the authorities could find her. Extradite her and bring her before the Office of Professional Responsibility—the FBI version of Internal Affairs. Losing her job was the least of Kate’s concerns. She’d been running for five years; she had no job to return to. It was losing her freedom, being prosecuted for the botched operation that resulted in her lover, Evan, and her partner, Paige, being killed.
Her former boss, Jeff Merritt, had threatened her before she went after Paige alone all those years ago. “It’s your fault Paige was kidnapped. If she dies, it’s on your head and I will make sure you end up locked in prison for life.”
For five years she had quietly sent the FBI everything she had learned, but every lead had turned into a dead end. Two years ago she’d been close, but Trask had set up a trap and a team of top federal agents had nearly lost their lives, further setting Kate’s former boss against her. He wanted her head, and Kate knew he’d gladly sever it from her body.
But could she do nothing? It wasn’t her fault that the previous locations she had isolated had become dead ends. Trask was a computer genius. Even when she thought she’d uncovered all his tricks, he came up with new ones.
What else could she do except analyze every trick he used and keep looking for him through the vast Internet? There were millions of satellite transmissions, but only one was his. One would lead to him. She’d been close many times, but he was always a step ahead. When she slept, she heard him laughing at her failures.
Kate stared at the live feed. Watched as the dark-haired beauty was tied to a chair. Watched the camera zoom to her face. The fear in her young eyes, the strength of her profile. A knife at her neck, menacingly wielded by a man Kate didn’t recognize. She captured his image for analysis.
The sound suddenly came on, loud, vibrating. Music. Then it was cut off, replaced by Trask’s voice, low, proper, formal. “Meet Lucy. Watch her for free until the countdown hits forty-four hours. Then click on the link for a secure business transaction. Isn’t she lovely?”
Lucy gasped, her breath coming fast, louder, her body shaking. The onscreen creep moved the knife away and Kate watched a small trail of blood flow from the poor girl’s neck. Down to her jacket.
“Let me go!” Lucy screamed.
Laughter was heard in the background.
A disclaimer scrolled along the bottom of the screen:
“Kill the Whore” is fantasy rape role-playing. All players are actors. No one is seriously hurt during the production of this special.
Kate hit Send. Then she grabbed her coffee mug and threw it against the far wall.
* * *
THREE
THE KINCAID FAMILY mobilized to find Lucy. The detective, Carina, pulling in law enforcement personnel; the computer e-crimes expert, Patrick, creating an online timeline; PI Connor working his sources.
And Dillon was asked the same question a dozen times.
“Who would do this?” his mother asked this time. “Who would take our Lucy?”
“We’ll find her,” he grimly replied.
Dillon knew all too well the type of psychopath who took a girl like Lucy. As a forensic psychiatrist, it was his job to get into their heads, to listen to their abnormal fantasies, to learn what made them hurt people, in the hopes that someday the authorities could reduce violent crime, make society safer.
And all Dillon’s insider knowledge made sitting here, in the kitchen, trying to console his mother, that much more frustrating.
He knew what kind of person would kidnap Lucy. He knew what kind of fantasies he harbored, what he would do to her simply because he could. Killers didn’t feel remorse or emotion or guilt like normal people. They enjoyed inflicting pain. That Lucy was with such a person terrified Dillon.
Nick Thomas walked into the kitchen, making eye contact with Dillon.
“What?” Rosa Kincaid asked. “Did you find her?”
“No, ma’am. Not yet. I’m sorry. Where’s the Colonel?”
“In his office. On the phone. Calling everyone we can think of.” Rosa looked at Dillon. “It’s been sixteen hours. That’s bad, isn’t it? Justin was killed immediately after—”
Dillon pulled his mother into a fierce hug. “We’re going to find her. You can’t compare this with what happened to Justin.” Eleven years ago Dillon’s seven-year-old nephew had been kidnapped from his bedroom and murdered. The random act of violence had changed everyone in the family. Dillon had planned to go into sports medicine; instead, he became a forensic psychiatrist in an attempt to make sense of what was so wrong in the world.
Nick motioned with his head that he needed Dillon to follow him upstairs. Dillon nodded. “Mama, let me take you to Dad’s office.”
“No, I need to make coffee. And something to eat. When Carina and Connor get back they’ll be hungry.”
“Are you sure?”
“Go. Find Lucy,” said Rosa Kincaid, her Cuban features fier
cely determined.
Dillon followed Nick upstairs to Lucy’s bedroom, where Patrick was working on Lucy’s computer. “I got a call from a friend in the FBI. They found Lucy.”
From his tone, Dillon was certain Lucy was dead. “What happened?” His voice cracked with emotion.
Nick rested a hand on his arm. “She’s still alive.”
“Where?”
As soon as Nick opened the door, Patrick let out a vicious curse. Dillon stared at the computer screen.
Lucy.
She was tied to a chair, her long dark hair loose and tangled, her dark eyes looking wild beneath smeared makeup. When she jerked her head up, Dillon said, “It’s a webcam.”
“Live,” Patrick said, “and the fucking FBI doesn’t know where it’s coming from!”
“What are those numbers?” Dillon asked. In the bottom right-hand corner there appeared to be a digital clock of some sort with the numbers running backward.
46:02:36. 46:02:35.
“I don’t know yet,” Patrick said. “Nick’s FBI contact sent us this link and asked if she was Lucy.”
Though technically the FBI wouldn’t get involved in a typical missing persons case this quickly, Nick’s best friend was the special agent in charge out of Seattle, Quincy Peterson. He had unofficially put the word out about Lucy.
Nick dialed a number from the house phone and put it on speaker. “Peterson,” the voice answered.
“Quinn, it’s Nick Thomas. I have you on a speakerphone with Dillon and Patrick Kincaid, Lucy’s brothers.”
“Is it her?” Quinn asked.
“Yes,” Patrick said through his clenched jaw.
“Shit.”
“Agent Peterson,” Dillon asked, “what’s going on? How did you find her?”
“A friend found the link.”
“And you don’t know where Lucy is being held?”
“No. The webcam feed is masked. He bounces the data all over the world before it’s fed into a server and shown. That server is rotated continually to prevent us from tracking him. We have Quantico putting all their best people on it, and my friend is working on tracking the feed as well, but it’s difficult.”
Patrick interjected, “That doesn’t make me feel any better. Does this ‘friend’ have a name?”
“The FBI is getting involved. We’re assembling a task force of the best agents in the country to find your sister.”
“What can we do?” Dillon asked, realizing Peterson had avoided the question about his “friend.” “My brother Patrick is the head of e-crimes. We can—”
“What I need is a recap of exactly what happened when Lucy disappeared. Any witnesses?”
“No,” Dillon said. “She disappeared between nine and eleven yesterday morning. She was supposed to be meeting someone at Starbucks before her graduation, and her car, with her purse and keys inside, was found in the parking lot, but no one saw anything. The employees didn’t think she’d been inside.”
Nick spoke up. “We learned she’d planned on meeting someone she met online.”
“Who?”
“His name is Trevor Conrad and he’s supposed to be a student at Georgetown, but we can’t find any record of him.”
“I need her computer,” Quinn said. “I’ll send someone from the local FBI office to pick it up.”
“No,” Dillon said.
“Hell, no,” Patrick concurred. “We’ll bring it to the task force. Consider yourself working very closely with the San Diego Police Department.”
“I don’t think—” Quinn began, then relented. “All right. We’re basing operations out of the San Diego field office. I’m on my way down there now.”
“Agent Peterson,” Dillon said, “what are those numbers in the bottom right corner?”
When Quinn didn’t say anything for a minute, Dillon prompted, “It looks like a countdown.”
“It is,” Quinn finally said.
Dillon was almost afraid to ask, but he did nonetheless.
“A countdown to what?”
“Murder.”
Kate monitored her bank of computer screens as her enhanced programs attempted to triangulate the location of Trask’s signal. The largest screen, the one in the middle, was the live feed of the victim.
Kate did pull-ups on a bar she’d installed in her room as she watched the young woman on the screen. The girl sat frozen, defiant, scared. Trask wouldn’t let her stay like that too long. But for now, he was still whetting his viewers’ appetite, showing them the prize. He’d probably give them something before the first free hours were up, something to entice them to pay the twenty-five thousand.
At four hours, FBI Agent Paige Henshaw had been raped.
Sweat coated her skin, but Kate continued the pull-ups until her arms shook. She dropped and did crunches. The air was too thin up here in the mountains to run, so she’d modified her routine, keeping it intense, building her strength.
She came up on a crunch and caught movement in the center screen. One of Trask’s goons had untied the victim and was holding her from behind. Another man, Roger Morton—the man who’d first raped Paige—held a knife.
Kate jumped up and touched the screen. No! If the power of her will could stop what was happening, the earth would stop rotating on its axis.
Roger held the knife in front of the girl’s face. Her eyes went wide and she visibly shook. He put the tip of the knife at her throat, then in one swift motion ripped her blouse with his other hand.
She flinched, the knife cutting into her throat just enough to draw blood. Roger and the goon laughed and pulled off her blouse. She wore a black lace bra. Something she had probably picked up with a girlfriend at the mall, enjoying the feeling of maturity, of growing up, of femininity.
Now its sexy lace was her humiliation.
“Show your fans what you’ve got, Lucy baby.” Roger stepped aside so the camera could pan the girl’s chest.
She pulled away from the grasp of the bastard behind her and punched Roger in the face. She almost got in another jab, but the men wrestled her to the ground. She fought and cried out, not in pain but in rage.
“Keep fighting, honey,” Kate said to the screen. “Keep the spirit alive. Don’t let them defeat you.”
Roger slugged the girl and a voice from off-camera said, “Don’t.”
Trask.
Goose bumps rose on Kate’s arms. Her scalp tingled. Her chest tightened. The bastard was watching. Why should she be surprised? Why would it be any different from how it had been five years ago? Three years ago? She’d slowed down Trask’s operation, but hadn’t ended it. Other girls had died after Paige.
Kate double-checked her programs, helpless to do anything but wait for the computer to find a weakness, and pray that it wasn’t another clever trap. Each girl Trask had killed had provided her with more tools to locate him, but he was improving his security at the same rate she was improving her hacking ability. Last year the FBI had almost lost another agent based on her intelligence.
Or lack thereof, she thought with dread. After she’d sent that last set of data, she had discovered that Trask had set a trap for the federal rescue team. Jeff Merritt hadn’t wanted to use Kate’s information in the first place, but when she sent him her analysis, he had jumped at it, walking right into Trask’s trap, ignoring Kate’s warnings to be cautious, that it might be another of Trask’s ruses. If only she’d had more time, more resources, more help.
Her instant messenger beeped. Only one person had her IM identity.
She sat down and read the message.
Kate, it’s me. I know you’re there.
She typed.
You don’t know. You’re just guessing.
I know you’re there because you won’t leave until she’s dead or you locate him.
What do you want?
She didn’t need any of Quinn Peterson’s crap. He typed,
The hostage is Lucy Kincaid. She’s eighteen and was supposed to graduate from high school ye
sterday. Trask used the name Trevor Conrad to lure her out. We need your help.
I already helped. I sent you the link less than twenty-five minutes after it went up.
I know you’re tracking him. You can’t go after him alone.
Do I have immunity?
A long pause on the screen before Quinn typed,
You know I can’t do that. But I’m on your side. I’ll do anything and everything I can.
I’m not coming back until I find him. Otherwise everything I’ve done since Paige died will have been for nothing.
She shut down the IM so Quinn couldn’t argue with her. He’d been her only link with the outside world during the last five years, and she would always be grateful to him. But the truth was, he couldn’t give her freedom. And last year he had been as frustrated as Jeff Merritt that her information had led the feds into a trap.
She’d rather be in a prison of her own making than railroaded into a jail cell by her own people. They should have listened to her when she had told them it might be a trap. But Merritt was as headstrong as she was about bringing Paige’s killer to justice. He’d jumped the gun. Was that Kate’s fault? She’d warned them.
It was just Kate now. Her versus Trask. She wasn’t about to jeopardize any more lives. If Merritt and the others had been killed, their deaths would have been on her conscience, no matter what she’d tried to do to protect them.
The center screen showed that Roger and the goon had wrestled the girl—Lucy—to the floor. She was positioned on the ground, tied to metal hoops protruding from the beige carpet. The camera panned over her breasts and face.
His voice, Trask or Conrad or whatever name the bastard was using now, came over cyberspace clearly.
“Only thirty more minutes to enjoy the free show. If you’d like to continue after that, log on to my secure server and use your credit card to purchase the entire forty-eight hours for only fifty thousand dollars.”