by Chris Carter
‘Yes.’
‘So, are you ready for an adventure?’
‘Go fuck yourself.’
‘Oh, I forgot. One more rule. You curse at me again, your daughter dies. No questions asked.’
Agent Fisher began trembling from a combination of anger and fear, not for her life, but for her daughter’s.
‘OK,’ the man said. ‘Grab your car keys. We’re going on a road trip.’
Ninety-Four
The first thing that the man instructed Agent Fisher to do was to change her shoes into something a lot more comfortable. ‘Shoes you can run in’, were actually the words he used. After that, he told her to pack her regular weapon, jump in her car and drive south, joining the US-101 from North Los Angeles Street.
‘OK,’ Agent Fisher said as she finally got onto the freeway. ‘So where am I going here?’
‘Oh, we’re taking a ride to a great little horse ranch I found.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s a great place for a stand-off.’
‘A stand-off?’
‘Well, I’ll explain as we get nearer.’
Agent Fisher knew that she had to keep the man talking for as long as she could. As long as he was talking he couldn’t be hurting Heather, and that was all that mattered right then.
‘Why are you doing this?’
‘Because you called me a “pathetic loser”, you called me dumb – well, not in so many words, but you did. You said that I was an inadequate person. What do you think, Special Agent Fisher? Do you think that you can just go around spreading lies about people and not suffer any consequences? Sorry, but that’s not the way the world goes.’
‘You’re doing this,’ Agent Fisher asked in disbelief, ‘you’ve kidnapped my daughter because you want an apology?’
‘Oh, no, no. It’s way too late for an apology now. But you’ll see what I want in due time. It’s not my fault if you are not worthy of my work. It’s not my fault if your intellect is too constricted to understand the magnitude, the importance of what I’m doing.’
‘You mean collecting body parts?’
The man went quiet for a moment.
‘What?’ Agent Fisher pushed. ‘You think we haven’t figured that out?’ She was careful not to sound too aggressive. She had no idea what sort of temper the caller had, but she could guess. If he got so offended as to kidnap her daughter just because she called him a ‘loser’ in a press conference, who knew what he would be capable of if she insulted him in a direct conversation? ‘Your Latin clues were very clever. It took us a while. We considered several different theories, but we got there in the end.’
‘I’m glad that you have finally figured out the clues, Special Agent Fisher, but the real question is: do you understand it? Do you see the importance of what I’m doing?’
‘No, I don’t,’ Agent Fisher admitted. ‘You’re killing people to rob them of their body parts. What’s the grand vision there? What is the master plan behind any of that?’
‘You really don’t see it, do you, Special Agent Fisher? We live in a screwed-up world, a false world where almost nothing is real anymore. Everywhere you look, most of what you see is fake, even the bodies you see – fake cheekbones, fake lips, fake noses, fake hair, fake eyelashes, fake breasts, fake muscles, fake bums, fake smiles, fake teeth, fake nails, fake skin color, eye color, hair color . . . everything. Our whole lives are nothing more than one huge lie. Online we have one thousand friends, but in real life we barely have three. We pretend to be what we’re not, to impress people we don’t like. In cyberspace we lead a fantastic life – we post pictures and statuses that suggest one thing, when in reality we are just the opposite. We lie, we cheat, we steal, we deceive, we pretend . . . we do anything to maintain the fake appearance that we are happy with ourselves . . . happy with our lives, without realizing that what is actually making us miserable is the lying, the fakeness, the pretending. The more we lie, the sadder we get, but we can’t stop it. We’ve all been sucked into this false world that no one can get out of, so we just have to keep on going. Keep on pretending. Keep on lying. We are all con artists. All of us.’
The man paused for breath.
‘Me? I am simply visionary enough to be able to see what is real, what matters most, what is really valuable in this world, but unfortunately we can’t collect “truth”, so I decided to go after the next most valuable commodity on earth. True beauty. The kind that cannot be fabricated, copied, or duplicated, no matter who you are or how much money you have.’
Keep him talking, Agent Fisher kept on telling herself.
‘You don’t really know what you’ve done, do you?’ she asked.
‘I know exactly what I’ve done.’
‘Do you know about your first victim, Kristine Rivers? Do you know who she was? Who she really was?’
The man went quiet.
‘She was the niece of the FBI’s NCAVC director. Do you know what that means? It means that the Bureau will never stop looking for you. Never.’
Agent Fisher paused, allowing the man to savor those words.
‘I wasn’t lying when I said that the net is closing around you,’ she continued. ‘There are tens of agents working this case, each covering a different aspect of the investigation. You won’t be able to hide forever. We’ll get to you sooner rather than later, but I can help you.’ Agent Fisher’s voice took a tender tone. ‘Please just let my daughter go. I know you don’t really want to hurt her. You don’t really want to hurt an innocent fourteen-year-old girl whose understanding of this world, this false world you hate so much, isn’t like ours. Please, just let Heather go and I will testify on your behalf. I promise you. I’ll tell the court how merciful you were.’
‘Enough,’ the man said, his voice angry. ‘Do you really think you can win me over with your soft talk?’ The man laughed. ‘I WAS merciful, or didn’t your pathologists figure that out? There was never any torture. Never any pain. No suffering. Once they were gone, I placed them in the most respectful position there is – resting placidly on their backs. They should be thankful to me. Do you know why? Because I immortalized them. And now you want to talk about helping me out? You make me laugh. Who’s pathetic now, huh? As for being able to hurt an innocent person? Why don’t you ask Lucia, your daughter’s babysitter?’
Agent Fisher felt her stomach churn. ‘What have you done?’
‘Let’s just say that there was a lot of blood.’
‘What have you done?’ Tears came into Agent Fisher’s eyes.
‘One day what I’m doing will be understood, Special Agent Fisher. My collection will be understood. It will be seen as the most valuable collection on this planet. You’ll see. Just give it time.’
Agent Fisher heard keyboard clicks coming through her Bluetooth earpiece.
‘OK, you’re coming up to an exit on the right. I want you to take it.’
Agent Fisher followed the caller’s instructions until he told her to park by some heavy bushes on the side of the dirt road she’d been driving on for the past few minutes. They were in the middle of absolutely nowhere.
‘Now what?’ she asked.
‘Now I want you to get on the phone and call the rest of the investigative team. The team that were with you in Tucson. All three of them. Tell them that you have got a lead on a suspect, or anything you like, but be convincing, because you’ll only have one chance. Get them to come to you. You guys are about to storm the suspect’s hideout place.’
Left with no options, Agent Fisher had to do as she was told.
‘I’m impressed,’ the man said after she made all three calls. ‘You have actually figured out about the Optum platform.’
Agent Fisher squeezed her eyes tight in anger. To convince Hunter, Garcia and Agent Williams to come meet her, she had told them that Cyber Crime had managed to track the breach to the Optum platform. Now the killer knew the FBI knew about how he was gathering information about his victims. Even if she managed to get out of this,
their only lead on how to actually track this killer down was now lost.
‘Anyway,’ the man continued. ‘Now we wait. Don’t worry. I’ll guide you through every single step. I’ll even tell you what to say, if the situation warrants it. And don’t try to do anything silly, because I have eyes everywhere. The entire ranch is covered in cameras and from where I am, I can control lights, doors, noises, anything I want. All you need to do is follow the script exactly how I tell you and little Heather here won’t have to worry about the big bad man.’
Ninety-Five
The man did guide Agent Fisher through absolutely every single step of the way, sometimes even telling her exactly what to say. He was also the one who had created the noise that had first startled Agent Williams. Through his cameras, he had watched as both agents approached and entered the first horse enclosure on the left. As Agent Williams moved to the internal door that linked enclosures one to two, the man ordered Agent Fisher to shoot her partner.
‘What?’ she had whispered back in a quiet voice that escaped her partner’s ears.
‘You heard it right, Special Agent Fisher. I want you to shoot him. Don’t hesitate. If you do, I swear I’ll start cutting your little girl. Shoot him. Shoot him NOW.’
‘I’m sorry, Larry. I’m so, so sorry.’
‘Sorry for what?’ Agent Williams had asked.
‘SHOOT HIM, or this little ugly bitch will start bleeding.’
‘For this.’ She squeezed the trigger twice.
‘OK, now get ready, because here come the other two.’
The man had watched as Hunter and Garcia exited the house and dashed toward the old stable building. He controlled the opening and closing of enclosure doors to give the impression that there was someone else in there with them. He also told Agent Fisher what to say when Hunter had suggested that she and Garcia team up to check the enclosures on the right.
‘OK,’ the man had said. ‘Let’s take out the guy on the right first. He has just entered the second enclosure. Go after him and shoot him dead. Shoot him three times, not two. Go . . . now.’
Once Agent Fisher had followed her orders, the man told her to run back to the first enclosure and wait.
On one of his monitors, the man watched as Hunter rushed out of the enclosures on the left, following the sound of the gunshots. When Hunter had entered the third enclosure, the man told Agent Fisher to also rush back into it and put on a good show, pretending she had just got there.
The man was pleasantly surprised with how good an actress Agent Fisher could be.
‘Don’t worry about finishing this one off,’ the man had said once Hunter had ordered Agent Fisher to stay with Garcia and call an ambulance. ‘He will bleed out anyway. Just let him suffer. Let’s go finish this. Let’s go take down this last one and I promise you, you will see your daughter again.’
The man observed as Hunter returned to the corridor between the two enclosures and slowly began moving forward.
‘OK,’ he said to Agent Fisher. ‘Move to the fourth enclosure. You’ll come out just behind him. Let’s go end this.’
The man listened as Agent Fisher told Hunter to drop his weapon and kick it toward her. When she told him that her daughter had been taken from her, the man’s eyes widened.
‘What are you doing, Special Agent Fisher? You better get back to the plan or your daughter dies.’
‘No,’ Agent Fisher had replied. ‘He deserves an explanation. They all did.’
The man thought about it for a split second. So what if she told him why she was doing what she was doing? He would die anyway.
‘OK, go ahead. Get it off your chest.’
As the man watched Hunter through the camera buttons on Agent Fisher’s coat, he got a bad feeling. There was something about the man he was watching that bothered him. To him, Hunter looked dangerous. A lot more dangerous than the other two. He decided it was time to end that game once and for all.
‘All right. That’s enough. I want you to shoot him. I want you to shoot him NOW, or I will rape this little bitch before I cut her, do you hear me? Shoot him. Shoot him NOW.’
BANG.
Ninety-Six
Hunter had no idea how many times Agent Fisher squeezed the trigger, but he only heard the first shot, and for some reason, that single blast sounded a lot louder than any gunshot he had ever heard, but still Hunter never closed his eyes. He would not give her or whomever it was that was watching them through the cameras the pleasure of seeing him flinch. Instead, Hunter looked straight into Agent Fisher’s eyes.
He saw the tears and the anguish in them. He saw the undying love of a mother who needed to protect her child. He saw the turmoil she was going through, the emptiness reflected from her soul. He also watched as her weapon hand was practically blown to pieces by the shotgun blast that came from her left.
A twelve-gauge shotgun cartridge releases tens of lead pellets. Upon exiting the gun barrel, the pellets spread out like a ‘ball of death’ traveling toward its target. That ball of death hit mainly Agent Fisher’s hand, nearly obliterating it, but some of the pellets did hit her arm, chest and stomach, causing blood, muscle and bone to splatter in all directions. Her gun was catapulted across the floor and her body dropped to the ground like an empty sack of potatoes.
Hunter’s eyes shot to his right and he saw Garcia standing there with smoke coming out of his shotgun. Hunter blinked twice to make sure he wasn’t seeing things.
‘Fucking bitch,’ Garcia said, now looking at Hunter. ‘She shot me three times.’
He noticed the mesmerized look on Hunter’s face.
‘What, you think that when I went back to my car to pick up the Twins here that was the only thing I picked up?’ He shook his head, unzipped his jacket and used his knuckles to knock against the Kevlar vest underneath it. ‘Oh hell no. I also grabbed my second-best friend here – Mr. Not Today. There’s a reason I keep it in the boot of my car.’
‘But you’re bleeding,’ Hunter said.
‘One of her bullets grazed the inside of my left arm.’ Garcia lifted his arm to show the wound. ‘Hurts like a motherfucker.’
Hunter rushed to Agent Fisher’s body on the ground. She had fallen inside enclosure number four on the right, just by the door.
Garcia was right behind him. ‘Shall I shoot her again?’ he asked as he got to Hunter.
Hunter lifted a finger to his lips while shaking his head at Garcia. He then pointed at his ear and made a circular motion with his finger to indicate that there were others listening.
Garcia halted.
A few more gestures told Garcia that there were cameras around.
As Garcia took a step back and began scanning the walls inside the enclosure, this time for cameras, Hunter quickly checked Agent Fisher. She was still alive, but losing a lot of blood through the horrible wound on her right arm. Hunter took off his belt and used it as a tourniquet to reduce the bleeding before searching her pockets. He found the cellphone the man had sent her, but it was shot, completely destroyed by one of the shotgun pellets.
‘Motherfucker,’ Garcia said as he identified a tiny camera above the inside of the door to the enclosure. He moved to the tip of his toes and grabbed it off the wall. It was round and small, the size of a coat button. ‘No microphones,’ he said to Hunter. ‘This is a visual aid only.’
‘Whoever this guy is,’ Hunter said, ‘he’s got no ears here anymore. The phone is shot to pieces.’
‘How is she?’ Garcia asked.
‘Alive, but she’s losing blood fast. We need an ambulance here, now.’
‘I’m on it.’
‘And wrap something around your arm wound,’ Hunter said. ‘Before you bleed out, too.’
‘I’m on it.’
While Garcia called for back-up, Hunter called Adrian Kennedy. As they waited, Hunter stayed with Agent Fisher while Garcia went around the stables collecting every camera he could find. There were thirty-two in total – one inside each enclosure and four on t
he center corridor.
It took the FBI back-up team and the ambulances less than forty minutes to get there. Adrian Kennedy was inside a jet and on his way. Agent Fisher was still alive, but the paramedics didn’t sound very hopeful about the chances of her actually surviving.
‘So the killer’s got her daughter?’ Garcia asked, after Hunter had told him the little he had gathered just before Agent Fisher got shot. His arm had already been bandaged up.
‘That’s what she said.’
‘So chances are, she’s dead.’
‘I’m not so sure,’ Hunter replied.
‘How come?’
‘Your shotgun blast obliterated the cellphone in her pocket, which means that the killer lost ears on this place immediately. He had eyes, but no ears anymore. What he saw through the cameras was Erica getting shot by you and falling to the ground like a corpse. He probably thinks she’s dead.’
‘She still might be,’ Garcia said.
‘But not yet,’ Hunter retorted. ‘Anyway, if the killer thinks Agent Fisher is dead, what’s the point in killing her daughter? Remember, this is a killer who has always been merciful with his victims. He never tortures them. He’s not after that kind of pleasure.’ Hunter shook his head. ‘No. I don’t think he’s going to hurt her. I think he’ll just let her go.’
Right then, Hunter felt his cellphone vibrate inside his jacket pocket.
‘Detective Hunter, UVC Unit,’ he answered straight away. He listened for several seconds, his expression changing from tired and worried to completely surprised. ‘You’re kidding. Send those photos to my cellphone now. I’ll wait and I’ll call you back.’