Ethan glanced up and down the street, one eye now open at all times for their mysterious stalker.
‘We’ll look into that,’ he replied. ‘The MO is similar to the murders down at Hell Gate Field, right? No forensics, no motive?’
Lopez nodded. ‘Figures, but there’s nothing to connect the dead clerk with the two losers we found in that warehouse. They couldn’t be further removed from each other.’
Ethan saw an SUV pull into the street and cruise toward them.
‘We’ll be in touch,’ he said to Karina. ‘Anything else comes up, let us know. Okay?’
‘Sure,’ she replied. ‘Where are you guys going?’
‘Research,’ Lopez replied as Ethan opened the SUV’s back door. ‘We’ll let you know what we find out.’
Ethan climbed aboard the SUV with Lopez, the vehicle pulling smoothly away from the sidewalk.
‘Morning,’ Jarvis said as he twisted in his seat to look at them. ‘What’s the story at the courthouse so far?’
‘No news,’ Ethan said. ‘Local police are stumped, no forensics, no evidence at all and certainly no suspects. Victims are currently assumed to be unconnected.’
‘But the MO is the same,’ Lopez added. ‘Technically, they’re both examples of a perfect murder with nothing at all to go on. I’ve never seen anything like it before.’
‘So Ethan said,’ Jarvis replied. ‘And you said you felt as though you weren’t alone?’
Ethan nodded and explained the unusual things that they had witnessed the previous night.
‘Something’s going on here and it may have something to do with Karina Thorne,’ Ethan said.
‘We don’t know that,’ Lopez protested. ‘How about we stick to what we do know and save the speculation for later, okay?’
Ethan looked at Jarvis. ‘What about our mysterious friend? Did you manage to follow him?’
Jarvis cast Ethan a hurt look. ‘Seriously, you need to ask?’
‘Who is he?’ Lopez snapped.
‘We don’t know, yet,’ Jarvis admitted. ‘We spotted him right after you called me. I put one guy on the street and then stayed in the vehicle to back them up. The mark seemed to watch you both for a while, snapped a few pictures and then took off north. We followed him for several minutes but he kept his face well covered against the weather and observation. Stayed outside, too, never caught the subway or a cab.’
‘The rough weather gave him a reason to keep his hood up,’ Ethan speculated, ‘and avoid being identified. Where did he go?’
‘My man followed him as far as Central Park but was given the slip,’ Jarvis admitted. ‘It’s his best guess that the mark realized he was being followed and took off at the first available opportunity.’
Ethan sat back in his seat in exasperation. ‘Who the hell is this dude? He’s definitely not CIA, they’d have shot or arrested us by now.’
‘I keep telling you, you don’t need to worry about them,’ Jarvis insisted. ‘They’re not on your case anymore and won’t be as long as I have something to do with it.’
Lopez gestured to the driver of the SUV. ‘So where are we going now?’
Jarvis looked back at them. ‘Your call last night raised a few questions at the DIA when I relayed the details of the case back to them. We’re going to see somebody who might understand what’s going on here.’
‘I’ll believe that when I see it,’ Lopez murmured, ‘literally.’
‘We don’t even know what we saw,’ Ethan said. ‘The whole event lasted seconds, and the spiral patterns on the window of the court could have been caused by some kind of wind effect. It was blowing a gale last night.’
‘That’s possible,’ Jarvis agreed, ‘but it doesn’t explain what happened in the warehouse. If the two cases are connected, as you yourself said you suspected them to be, then the person we’re going to visit might be able to explain how.’
The SUV drove north up onto Washington Square, pulling in alongside the New York University. The halls occupied one entire length of the block opposite the tree-lined square, a row of tall buildings with an almost Gothic appearance. Ethan got out of the vehicle with Lopez and followed Jarvis into the nearest entrance.
‘I didn’t think scientists at accredited universities did research into ghosts,’ Lopez said to Ethan as they walked through the building, ‘if that’s what this is about.’
‘They don’t,’ Jarvis replied, over his shoulder, for Ethan, ‘at least not officially, but there are a few here who spend their free time chasing up reports of hauntings and similar phenomena. Most wouldn’t talk about it but one seems happy to help in a murder case, albeit off the record.’
Jarvis led them to an office in the psychology department of the building and knocked before entering. Ethan and Lopez followed him into the small room, and found there waiting for them a surprisingly casually dressed woman. In her forties, with long black hair, wearing a short leather jacket, faded blue jeans and sneakers, Ethan figured that she was some kind of New Age lecturer, the type who somehow managed to be more cool than their students.
‘Professor Amanda Bowen,’ Jarvis greeted her with a shake of her hand, and introduced Ethan and Lopez.
‘What can I do for you?’ she asked Ethan and Lopez directly. ‘Doug said that you had encountered something unusual during a murder investigation.’
‘We don’t know what we encountered,’ Lopez replied. ‘What we do know is that we now have three homicides, all of which have been conducted in a way that can only be described as impossible.’
‘Impossible, how?’ Professor Bowen asked.
Ethan explained the nature of each of the crime scenes, the lack of forensics and the circumstances in which each of the victims had died. Professor Bowen bore an expression of deep interest that slowly dissolved into something akin to fear as Ethan outlined the case. When he had finished, she looked at each of them in turn for a few moments, before speaking.
‘And this event that you witnessed last night?’ she asked. ‘Did you actually see anything?’
Lopez shrugged as she replied: ‘It’s kind of hard to describe. We didn’t see what it was, but we saw its effect on things like dust motes and falling rain. There was something there for sure, you could feel the drop in temperature and a sort of static charge on the air.’
Professor Bowen nodded, then turned to a bookshelf nearby and selected a weighty tome that she laid down on her desk in front of them. Ethan watched as she opened the pages and flipped through, before stopping on one page and turning the book toward them.
‘You ever heard of one of these before?’ she asked.
Ethan looked down at the page and felt something unpleasant ripple beneath his skin, cold and foreign.
The image on the page was reproduced, according to the caption beneath it, from an ancient medieval woodcut. The crude, heavy lines and simplistic visualization did little to deter from the apparent ferocity of the phantom shape that towered over a victim cowering on his knees. Drawn by the artist to resemble flames rising from a nearby fire, the spectral terror loomed over the man, who was clasping his chest and screaming.
Beneath the caption was the image title:
An encounter withe the Wraithe.
Bulgaria, 1586
Lopez looked up at Professor Bowen. ‘What’s a wraith?’
The professor gave her a worried look. ‘Bad news, that’s what.’
28
5TH PRECINCT POLICE DEPARTMENT, NEW YORK CITY
‘Who are they, really?’
Karina Thorne stood in Donovan’s office, aware of the eyes of the rest of the team watching her.
‘I know about as much as you do,’ she replied. ‘Their boss, Jarvis, keeps his cards real close to his chest. But they’re the real deal and they’re helping us.’
‘What about Warner?’ Donovan pressed. ‘He’s trouble, isn’t he? I can tell it just by looking at him.’
‘I don’t know,’ Karina insisted. ‘What difference does it make? They�
��re here to help. It’s not like we’re making any headway without them.’
Donovan tossed a letter across his desk to face her. ‘You got any explanation for this?’
Karina looked down at the letter. It was from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who had originally automatically become a part of the investigation because the Pay-Go hit had been on a Federally insured property. Contrary to television cop shows, the FBI routinely assisted police on investigations and that assistance was generally gratefully received, their immense resources and ability to investigate across state borders an asset. But even before the New York FBI Field Office had been able to make an assessment of the crimes, the case had been subject to a jurisdiction request from an even more clandestine agency: the Defense Intelligence Agency.
‘So what?’ Karina asked. ‘We know they got jurisdiction of the case, don’t we?’
‘Read further,’ Donovan said, and tapped a lower paragraph of the letter with the end of a pen. Karina read down and quickly spotted the names of Ethan Warner and Nicola Lopez, both under the overall command of Douglas Ian Jarvis. ‘You see who authorized the change of jurisdiction?’ he asked her.
Karina looked down at the letter and felt a wave of disbelief wash over her. The signatures of some of America’s most powerful military figures adorned the bottom of the letter.
‘The Joint Chiefs of Staff , ’ she whispered.
‘Jesus would be outranked by these guys,’ Donovan said, tossing his pen aside. ‘Who the hell are these people? This is a double-homicide case, now a triple. Sure, it’s unusual and possibly even the work of a serial killer, but since when does the Joint Chiefs of Staff get involved in something like this? They’re not usually interested in anything less than the invasion of entire countries.’
Karina looked straight at Donovan. ‘More to the point, why are you so opposed to them being here? Who cares if it’s FBI or DIA who are tackling the case? You saw what happened in the courthouse. We’re out of our depth here.’
‘We sure as hell will be, if we lose face to your new friends!’ Donovan snapped. ‘I had them checked out, Karina. They’re nothing but bail bondsmen and bounty hunters, working out of a little office in Chicago. How the hell do people like that get involved with the DIA and JCOS?’
Karina frowned as she thought back. ‘Didn’t Jarvis say that he and Ethan served together in the Marines? Maybe they watch out for each other, got to work together on this?’
Jackson shook his head. ‘Seriously? The DIA, with all of its resources, hires a couple of gumshoes out of Chicago and sends them all the way out here to work on this case? They came down here to talk about the death of Aaron Lymes, who we know was a former CIA man. Now they’re taking over everything we’re doing and I want to know why.’
‘I don’t know,’ Karina insisted, and looked at Donovan. ‘Why the hell are you giving me a hard time over this? It’s not like I invited them in on the case.’
‘But you invited them to stay at your apartment, so I heard,’ Donovan snapped. ‘Getting a little cozy with them, aren’t you?’
‘They’re helpful,’ Karina snapped. ‘Which is more than you’re being right now.’
‘Helpful,’ Donovan echoed, watching her. ‘You want to know the most interesting thing I found out about them?’
‘Amaze me.’
‘Our new friends haven’t been seen or heard of for six months. I called Chicago and asked them to send a squad car round for a look-see. There’s no mountain of mail by the front door, so somebody’s collecting it for them, and their homes are in good order. But they haven’t taken a single phone call through their office in six months, nor have either of them made any credit-card transactions or used the cellphones they’re contracted to.’
Karina’s eyes narrowed. ‘You’ve had the police on their case?’
‘Damned straight.’ Donovan nodded. ‘Why wouldn’t I, when they’re sneaking around here? Now they’re getting the backing of major military muscle and we don’t know why. I don’t know what the hell’s going on here but I don’t like it.’
‘What the hell do you want me to say?’ Karina asked. ‘Sure, something’s off about them but they’re not obstructing us. Why the hell would you be so worried about all of this? I want as many people on this case as possible. You think the Chiefs of Staff will pull them off just because you don’t like it?’
‘I haven’t asked them yet,’ Donovan rumbled in reply. ‘And this photographer who keeps following them? They tried to tell me it was a bail-runner. If so, it must be the dumbest criminal in history to keep hanging around the kind of people who will put them back in jail.’
Karina felt entirely unable to defend Nicola, but, at the same time, she genuinely had no idea what the hell was going on. Nicola’s colleague, Ethan, seemed competent but troubled, as though he were on his own private mission.
‘Honestly,’ Karina replied, ‘I haven’t got a damned clue what they’re doing. They’ve only been here a couple of days, for Christ’s sake. I’ll talk to them and try to find out what’s going on, okay?’
‘You do that,’ Donovan shot back as he got up and grabbed his jacket. ‘I’ve got enough to deal with here without having to keep an eye on your damned friends. The media’s already suspicious about the murders and there’s a growing concern that there’s a serial killer out there. The mayor’s on my ass to solve this. With the case in the hands of the DIA, we’re powerless, it’ll probably be solved without fanfare and it will look for all the world as though this department can’t catch killers.’ Donovan barged past Karina and headed out of the office door. ‘There’s no way I’m letting that happen, understood?’
Donovan stormed out of the office. Karina stared after him, as Jackson raised an eyebrow and turned to follow their boss out.
Glen Ryan leaned against the wall and folded his arms as he looked at her.
‘He’s got a point, Karina,’ he said finally. ‘This could really cause a major problem for the department. We need to be seen to catch this asshole ourselves, whoever it is, not be bailed out by the government.’
Karina shook her head. ‘I don’t give a damn about who catches the killer, as long as they’re caught. What’s the matter with you?’
‘This is about more than just the case, Karina!’ Glen snapped. ‘This is about our jobs. There are cuts going on, in case you hadn’t noticed? The economy’s in free-fall and if we can’t do our job then what’s to stop the department just cutting us loose altogether?’
Karina rubbed her temples wearily. ‘We’d have more money if you didn’t insist on living alone.’
‘Jesus,’ Glen murmured, ‘not this again. I like having my independence, okay? I don’t want to be—’
‘Tied down,’ Karina cut him off. ‘Sure, I know the tune, Glen, okay? But I barely earn enough to eat and I know you’re in the same position. It makes sense, especially if this all goes south. You going to be able to keep your rent going without a job?’
Glen looked away from her for a moment, out of the window, as though seeking a distraction. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Crap!’ Karina snapped. ‘You know. If you’re this bothered about it then maybe we should just quit right now because we’re hardly together except when we’re working.’
‘I don’t want to do that,’ Glen replied quickly.
‘Then what the hell do you want? You haven’t stayed at my place for days.’
Glen dragged a hand down his face and nodded. ‘I know, I’m sorry, I’ve just been real busy, okay? Maybe I’ll come over tonight?’
Karina stared at him for a long moment.
‘Terrific,’ she replied as she walked out of the office. ‘You wait until I have people sleeping on my couch and then you want to come over.’
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake!’ Glen almost shouted as he stormed after her. ‘You want to send me a written invitation next time?’
Karina didn’t reply as she stalked away through the station.
29
<
br /> Professor Bowen gestured to the open page of the book on her desk as she spoke.
‘A wraith is a disembodied spirit,’ she explained, ‘a ghost, but not the kind that you’d ordinarily think of.’
‘There’s more than one type?’ Ethan asked.
Professor Bowen stepped away from her desk and gestured to the books lining her shelves in their hundreds.
‘People think of ghosts and hauntings in much the same way,’ she explained. ‘They imagine translucent figures drifting down the halls of old houses, or maybe spirits interfering with household objects and such-like. But the supposedly paranormal aspect of existence is one that has been documented for centuries and is only really just starting to enter the public conscience as a real and tangible aspect of what it is to be alive.’
‘Would a crisis-apparition have anything to do with what we’ve described?’ Lopez asked.
Professor Bowen seemed surprised. ‘You know about crisis-apparitions?’
‘A friend of ours worked on a government project back in the 1960s,’ Ethan explained. ‘He was charged with studying crisis-apparitions that were recorded during the First World War.’
Professor Bowen nodded. ‘There were hundreds of them and in many conflicts beforehand, but it was only during the beginning of the last century that reliable first-hand accounts were recorded in detail. But a crisis-apparition is usually a benign event, a loved one saying goodbye to a family member.’
Ethan glanced at Jarvis, who was listening intently but saying nothing. For once, it seemed, he was learning as they were.
‘So wouldn’t that consist of absolute proof that the soul, or spirit, or whatever, can exist outside of the body and brain?’ Ethan asked Professor Bowen.
‘It is evidence,’ she replied, ‘but not absolute proof. Science requires as proof something tangible, something that can be measured and quantified and replicated in a laboratory. A personal experience, even one that confirms knowledge of a loved one’s death when there is no way of receiving that information by normal means, can only be judged by science as being unexplained. To just say something happened is not an answer, as no meaningful conclusion can be drawn from the statement and, thus, science has nothing to say.’
The Eternity Project Page 17