The Esther Code

by Michael Danneman

  Chapter 45

  For weeks now, Jamie has been monitoring several potential victims. Each one of them has been contacted and warned of the threat. Jamie was not surprised when most of them denied any connection to the Nazis. It does not matter to Jamie, but she can at least make them aware of a serial killer who might target them. Yet many of them dismissed

  the warning, while others took it very seriously.

  She has narrowed the list down to twenty-five of the most likely victims. Her favorite is Bernard Wagner, who was investigated twice for a potential role in the Lidice massacre in Czechoslovakia. He fits the profile completely. They have asked him to report anything unusual and are carefully monitoring his phone lines.

  It is less than a week before the expected murder date. Thanks to Fredericks, most of the load has been taken off Jamie’s back and shared among several agents, including Phil and Joey. A break came when a Marcel Mueller called and reported some strange phone calls.

  Her smartphone starts to buzz. Jamie picks it up off her desk and opens a text from Phil. It reads, “More strange phone calls to Mueller, come now!”

  Jamie jumps up from her desk and makes her way through the maze of cubicles to an office with a plaque that reads, “Special Agent Philip Clark.” His office is almost an exact replica of her own, except that his room is decorated with framed posters of basketball players and a couple of basketball trophies. Even if Jamie were to forget that Phil had played basketball in college, his office will always remind her.

  Jamie stands at the doorway of his office. Phil is on the phone, but he looks up at her and motions her to come in.

  “What happened?” Jamie asks, as soon as he replaces the receiver in its cradle.

  “So my guy here, Marcel Mueller, has been called several times yesterday and today. Each time it is from a different burner phone,” Phil explains, pulling up on his computer the phone records of the potential victim. “First call was at about 10:00 A.M., next at 2:00 P.M., then 8:00 P.M. Today, the calls started at 8:00 A.M., then 11:00 A.M., then we just got one more about ten minutes ago, at 4:00 P.M.,” Phil shares, pointing to each time on the screen. “He reported to me, saying that, most of the time, the person immediately hung up after he answered. Twice a man asked if Jack was home,” Phil informs her.

  “Looks like the perp could be trying to figure out the schedule of his next victim?” Jamie theorizes aloud.

  “Exactly my thought. He also said he saw a white car parked at the curb. A white male got out of the car and took pictures of the house and then drove away.

  “This is our perp’s next victim. There’s no doubt in my mind,” Phil concludes, smiling proudly. “We are going to catch this guy.”

  Some of the other victims had gotten some similar calls a week before they were targeted. Jamie is sure that Phil is right—this is their guy.

  “I’ll inform Fredericks.”

  “We’ve got him,” Phil repeats with confidence.

  “Not yet, but very soon,” Jamie agrees cautiously, returning the smile. “I still want somebody on Bernard Wagner.”

  Chapter 46

  Wednesday morning, September 25, 2013.

  Outside, a car drives by, doing at least double the speed limit for a quiet neighborhood. Simon ignores the noise and only watches the rise and fall of the man’s chest as he snores loudly in his bed. The clock beside the bed reads 2:08 A.M. It is barely two hours into September 25th, but it is enough for Simon. A ten-second pause in the breathing ends with a loud, gasping breath and a snore twice as loud as normal.

  You really should have gotten your sleep apnea treated.

  László Kovács’s poor sleep quality has provided Simon with this perfect opportunity to end his life.

  A week earlier, Simon sent a circular in the mail that read, “Does your spouse’s snoring affect your sleep? We are studying the side effects of living with a snorer. Participants will receive $1,000 for participating in our 2-week study. You have been randomly selected, and a representative will contact you soon.” It was addressed to Mrs. Kovács and, the same evening it was delivered, Simon called, posing as the representative.

  Playing the part of a researcher, Simon explained exactly how they could participate in the snoring research study to receive the money. He told her that, as part of the study, they would simply need to sleep in separate rooms for two weeks. Then they would need only to answer a few questions each evening, about their days and overall moods. In return, he promised them a check for a thousand dollars, to be paid as soon as the questionnaire was filled out and returned.

  The wife readily agreed. Simon told her that he would be mailing them the questionnaire and to start as soon as they received it. The next day, Simon sent off the fake form. A week later, the wife and husband are still sleeping separately, as prescribed. This allows Simon to finish his task without having to worry about the wife. So far, he has killed no one who was innocent, and he does not want to start, especially not now that he is at the end of his list.

  He stands over his last victim. A hellish monster. This frail man used the façade of the Hungarian police force to evict Simon’s grandmother and great-grandparents from their home. He was also his great-uncle’s friend’s brother. He personally knew who he was evicting. He beat Simon’s great-grandfather senseless, so that the women had to help him walk away from his own home. The story, told by his grandmother, replays in Simon’s head as he looks at the man. The horrible images she painted in his mind, of the beatings, and of how this man forced them into the ghetto, until they would be transported to the concentration camps, give Simon strength to finish his final task. This man sealed their fates. He sent Simon’s great-grandparents to their graves.

  Oh, how Simon wants to wake up this demon, so he can know what is about to happen to him. So he can know that justice is finally about to be served. But Simon knows, too, that he cannot risk waking the wife in the next room. No, the satisfaction of revenge will have to lie completely in this vicious animal’s death.

  Simon approaches the bed and carefully slides the garrote under the man’s pillow and around his neck. Simon waits for him to exhale completely. With one smooth motion, Simon simultaneously pulls the garrote and sits on the creature’s knees to prevent him from kicking. After a few moments, the life leaves the monster, and Simon feels relief. Elation fills him, the joy of knowing that he has kept his promise. As always, Simon leaves a note. This one reads “ASI” and “vizata.” On the back of the note, Simon added, “one more to go.” As he is leaving the house, Simon places an envelope with a thousand dollars cash in the mailbox.

  Chapter 47

  Wednesday, September 25, 2013

  Jamie waits patiently in the bedroom of Marcel Mueller’s home. Phil Clark and Joey Hughes are also with her. Tyler is sitting in an unmarked car down the street. Several local police officers are inside the house, and others are hidden around the perimeter. It is close to 9:52 A.M., and, even though Marcel Mueller is safely hidden, Jamie is nervous, worried that they have tipped off the murderer to their presence. It is quiet. Jamie walks slowly around the home, looking at Mueller’s things.

  A picture on the wall shows Mueller in a German uniform, standing with his buddies, somewhere near the sea. As Jamie looks around, she realizes that there are many pictures on the wall from World War II. The bookcase in the room next to the bedroom is filled with several books in German. It is strange that Mueller has not tried to hide that he was a German soldier in World War II. None of the other victims had anything in their homes that was associated with Germany. She notices a picture of Mueller standing proudly in front of a Navy vessel. Jamie feels uneasy about her discovery. She leaves the spare bedroom and heads down the hallway to show Phil.

  Suddenly her earpiece bursts into life.

  “A lone man has just come around the corner onto this block. Car is a late-model, blue Toyota Camry,” Tyler’s voice announces.

  Then, “He is parking his car two houses down,” Tyler
reports.

  And, shortly, “Target is walking toward the house; he is carrying a red rose.”

  “He is walking up the driveway,” Tyler tells them.

  “Get ready,” Phil’s voice adds.

  They had left the door conspicuously ajar.

  Paul Delaney taps lightly on it as he pushes it wider and steps through to the foyer.

  “Hello?”

  “FBI, freeze!” Jamie shouts.

  “Oh, shit!” Delaney exclaims, as he spins around and pulls a pistol out of his back pocket. Jamie fires immediately, hitting Delaney in the right shoulder and knocking him backwards and onto the tiled floor. Phil steps on the hand holding the gun, immobilizing it. He points his own gun directly at Delaney’s face and booms, “One move, and I’ll blow your head off!”

  Delaney looks up and wails, “You shot me! Dammit! You shot me!”

  “Next time, don’t pull a gun on the FBI. You’re under arrest.”

  “Under arrest? For what? Reaching for my gun when you scared the shit out of me? Jesus Christ! You shot me!”

  Jamie tells him to roll over onto his stomach, then reaches for her handcuffs. As she pulls his bullet-torn shoulder, Delaney lets out an agonizing scream. Jamie is unfazed and quickly secures his hands behind his back.

  Phil reads Delaney his Miranda rights. Jamie takes the perp’s pistol and searches him for a wire ligature of some kind. The murder weapon. She does not find anything except his wallet, car keys, and cell phone.

  “Should we call an ambulance or let him bleed to death?”

  “Your call,” Joey answers automatically. “I’m fine either way.”

  Delaney looks up, petrified. Of course, they will not let him bleed out, but they will not give him any sympathy either.

  Phil radios Tyler that the perp has been shot and to summon an ambulance. Jamie throws the keys to Joey and tells him to go search the car. At that order, Paul Delaney, still writhing in pain, begins protesting that they have no right to search his car. Jamie informs him that, the second he stepped into the house, he gave them probable cause to search everything he owns.

  Joey returns a few minutes later, wearing latex gloves and holding two Ziploc bags each containing a garrote.

  “Voilà!” he boasts.

  Jamie demonstrates noticeable relief when she sees the murder weapon. “You are under arrest for the murder of Alfred Weiss, as well as eight others,” she informs the perp commandingly.

  “What?” the man says, “You’ve got the wrong guy. I didn’t kill anyone!”

  “Tell it to the judge.”

  There is an awkward moment of silence. Delaney sort of whimpers in pain and protest, but no one pays him any attention. Finally, they hear the wail of a siren approaching from the distance.

  Jamie’s cell phone rings. It is Fredericks. Before she can tell him it is all over, he states, “Another victim was found this morning. Elderly male. Strangled. Just across town from where Mueller lives.”

  Jamie feels a little defeated. She did not save him. The news is like a bucket of ice water poured over her head. “Who was the victim?” she demands. “Was it Bernard Wagner?”

  “It was a man named László Kovács.”

  Jamie raises her gaze skyward, then lets her head slump forward so she is looking at her shoes. “Send me the address.”

  “Right, I’ll text it to you.”

  “Great, thank you.” Her mind spins in circles. Two murders in one day? Well, that would explain why the garrote has dried blood on it. She wanted so badly to keep the killer from striking again. Her only consolation is the certainty that László Kovács will be the last victim.

  I’ve finally got the son of a bitch!

  Chapter 48

  In January of 1945, the bombs, once heard in the distance, came closer. Edit was told they were going to burn the camp down and evacuate everyone. Edit and Anna had made some wraps for our feet, to stay warm. I was also able to get a coat from Canada. Each person was given a small loaf of rock-hard bread as they left the camp. The men and women were evacuated separately. It was freezing cold, and there was snow on the ground. Anyone who could not keep up was shot on the spot. I was separated from Edit and Dr. Anna during the long thirty-five-mile march to Wodzislaw, Poland. So many died along the way, but I made it. I made it! Starving, frozen, but I made it. What would be my reward for making it? I was placed into an open-air cattle car that was full of frozen snow.

  You can imagine cold, but you cannot imagine riding in an open-air car, in the snow, already a mere specimen of skin and bones. We finally arrived at Ravensbruck concentration camp for women. After all of that, to actually be sent to another concentration camp. I was frozen and severely frostbitten when I arrived. I was put to work on a potato farm right outside the camp. I worked there until the camp was liberated on April 30th by the Russian army. I made it to Berlin where I met my husband, of blessed memory.

  My husband and his brothers were conscripted into the Hungarian labor force. He and his brothers would escape the Hungarian labor camp, live in the forests of Hungary and Poland, join the Polish resistance, be captured, escape again, and join the Russian resistance. They lived as the Bielski partisans did, in the forests of Europe. He would hide wherever he could. One morning, after hiding in a barn, he would awake to find his brother Shaya hanging from a telephone wire. Killed, probably by villagers or Nazi sympathizers. He would never know.

  Amazingly, he would survive the war, and, although having had an extraordinarily difficult journey, he did not have to endure the brutality of a concentration camp—he escaped with his remarkable, humble, quiet strength, having fought and resisted the Nazis at every opportunity.

  Chapter 49

  Simon sits alone at his favorite restaurant. The waitress brings him a scotch on the rocks. He raises the glass and toasts his success. It is finally over. He played the FBI like a fine-tuned violin. They will not be coming after him. They have made their arrest. He thinks about Paul Delaney. He will be getting the punishment he deserves. In his perfectly executed finale, justice was served twice.

  Simon smiles to himself. He remembers sitting at the Starbucks, on his computer, chatting online. He was posing as a fifteen-year-old girl. Paul Delaney was on the other end, devouring everything Simon wrote to him. Simon had him right where he wanted him, eating out of the palm of his hand.

  Without an arrest and conviction, the FBI will always be looking for him. Could they find him? Highly unlikely. Yet, a life always wondering if today is the day they come to get him is not the life Simon can live. Someone must be convicted. Sending an innocent man to jail is not Simon’s style. Of course, if he could have a criminal who deserves punishment take the fall, then that is a different story. Paul Delaney.

  It was three years ago. The case was all over the news. A beautiful high school student was sexually assaulted, and the accused sexual predator walked free. The entire community was outraged by the case because there was an error in the collection of the evidence. The rape kit was mishandled by the nurse in the emergency room rendering it inadmissible in court. The case became her word against his. Paul Delaney was released back into the world, a free man.

  Simon’s plan was to fix that mistake. Paul Delaney will finally be getting the prison sentence he deserves. Despite the amount of time that has lapsed since the ordeal, Simon has kept track of the rapist. Not only will Delaney’s crime be punished, but an arrest and conviction for killing the Nazis will close the case and put a stop to any continued pursuit. He gave the FBI enough information to figure out when he would strike next. He led the FBI to the home of the last victim. The FBI will be waiting for the murderer to show up. He just had to get Delaney there on Hoshana Raba, September 25.

  In a chat window, he typed:

  “w2m?”

  Using the lingo of a teenager chatting online, he convinced Delaney that he was a fifteen-year-old girl totally in love. With this most recent question, Simon had set the snare. Want to meet, Paul Dela
ney? While Simon waited for Delaney’s answer, he copied research files about the last three victims onto the rapist’s computer.

  An answer popped up, “yid”, which means, “Yes, I do.”

  “I’ll make it worth your while.”

  “Parents are working, I can skip school on 9/25. Can’t wait to finally meet.” He entered the address into the chat window. Delaney fell for the bait and went to the “girl’s” house on that day, while “her parents were gone.” And the FBI was waiting for him.

  “ibt” replied Delaney. “I’ll be there.”

  “gr8 p911 ttyl lysm.” Simon typed, which is “great, parent emergency, talk to you later, love you so much.”

  “lu2” came the rapist’s final reply, “love you, too.”

  Paul Delaney did not realize that the chat came from his very own computer. Simon had hacked it, and Delaney had no way of knowing. First, Simon snatched an Internet bill from Delaney’s mail. Second, he called the service provider, impersonating Delaney and using the information on the statement to get through the security questions, Simon asked for the IP address of the Internet router in the rapist’s home and received it.

  Next, Simon went into the router with the default password, which most people never change. He found an unused port and tunneled through the firewall. Bingo. Simon was in. First thing he did was install a keystroke logger and a packet sniffer. These two programs provided Simon with everything he needed. They told him exactly what websites Delaney visited, as well as his passwords, favorite websites, and all other movement on his computer.

  After a couple of weeks of tracking Delaney’s computer movements, Simon created an account on one of the chat websites that Delaney frequented. He got Delaney interested, and the rapist took the bait easily. The best part, to Simon, is the fact that, when the FBI checks Delaney’s computer, they will find the files on the victims that Simon has stealthily placed. He got a college student to drive to the rendezvous house, park on the street, get out of the car and take pictures, then e-mail it to an account that he made from Delaney’s IP address. When he got the photo, he sent the kid a $100 gift card.