by Bob Mayer
"What luck," the man said. He stepped forward and shoved the pistol under the kneeling girl's chin, the long front sight digging into her skin.
"Leave her alone!" the first girl who had stepped forward yelled. The guard jerked her chain, pulling her back.
"You lied!" the first girl spit out. The guard jerked the chain harder, causing her to stumble to her knees.
The man pulled the trigger, the hammer cocking. He continued through the pull and the hammer went forward. With just a click. The man laughed. He held up his other hand. A bullet was pinched between ringed fingers. It made the same journey through his fingers the vial had, appearing and disappearing. A small pool of urine spread out on the ground beneath the cowering girl.
"You bastard!" the girl who had been staring at him hissed. "You lied."
"I never lie," the man said. He flipped open the chamber of the revolver and slid the bullet in. He rotated it with a practiced move, pointed it at the fifth girl, who was still on the floor, her hands held out in front of her face.
"No!" the first girl yelled.
The man took a step back, leaving six feet between the end of the barrel and the girl's head. The hammer clicked back. The sound of the gun going off was thunderous in the enclosed space. The round hit the cowering girl, going through her hand and hitting her between the eyes. The body pitched backward as the large-caliber bullet exited the back of her head, taking most of her skull with it. Brains and blood splattered the wall and floor.
"I never lie." The man handed the gun back to the larger man. "We will find the One. Use today as a lesson."
"What do you want from this One?" the girl on the end demanded.
The man had handed the revolver back to its owner. He seemed puzzled for a second by the question, whether by the fact she had asked it or by the question itself, it wasn't quite clear. "What do we want? Vengeance." He waved a hand at the guards. "Take them away."
The larger man stood once the girls were pulled out of the room. "We must leave. There is much to be done," he said in French.
The first man nodded, his mind elsewhere. "We must prepare them all now if the One is to be ready."
"Tell the doctor," the larger man said. "He's just been sitting around here anyway. Make him earn some of his money."
Chapter Six
Thorpe stared at the list of names whose service records he was supposed to peruse to make sure they were up to date, then he looked at the clock. It was only 1030 and he felt like he'd been locked in this room forever. The office had no windows, a gray-painted square, about twelve feet by twelve, with just the two issue desks in it. Takamura's area had a little bit of the personal touch in the form of a small pewter figure of the Starship Enterprise set on top of his monitor. The side of his computer was covered with various stickers with sayings from the same show. Takamura wasn't much for talking, the only sound the steady clack-clack of his keys, letting Thorpe know the other man was still alive.
Thorpe started to type the next name when a sudden thought stopped him. He went back to the main menu and entered the enlisted personnel database. He typed: Dublowski, Daniel.
In a few seconds, Sergeant Major Dublowski's personnel records came up on the screen. Thorpe scrolled through until he found Dublowski's evaluation report from the tour of duty in Stuttgart. There was no mention in it, nor should there be, of his daughter. It was a glowing report that a commander would write for a soldier he'd want to serve with again.
Thorpe tapped a pen against the side of the computer monitor as he thought. The one thing that Dublowski had not mentioned was why he had been shipped back to the States so quickly. A normal tour of duty overseas was three years, yet Dublowski had been in Stuttgart less than a year. Thorpe knew that could be explained by his expertise being needed in Delta Force, which always had priority selection throughout the army, but it was still strange. Of course, everyone affiliated with the Omega Missile fiasco had had strange things happen to their lives.
Thorpe ran through the pages that had been scanned in, searching for a copy of the orders that had reassigned Dublowski. He found the order assigning the sergeant major to Germany, but no copy of the stateside reassignment. That was strange, although there was a possibility the file hadn't been updated yet.
"Hey, Takamura," Thorpe called out.
A head poked around the side of the large monitor. "Yes, sir?"
"Is there a way to check on family members?"
"Family members?" A frown creased Takamura's forehead. "Are you in the dependent personnel database?"
"No, I'm still in the active duty database."
"Sir, we're not supposed to go into areas for which we aren't authorized."
"Can you access family members?" Thorpe repeated.
Takamura reluctantly nodded. "If they have an ID card, they're in the computer. You have to access whoever the person is who has the primary ID card, then you can get to all dependents, or family members as they're now called, off the main page menu. In the lower right-hand corner there should be a small box labeled FM—family members."
Thorpe saw the box where Takamura had directed him. He clicked on it. There were two names listed. Marge, Dublowski's wife, and Terri, his daughter. Thorpe clicked on Terri's name.
He was surprised when a very pretty face appeared in the upper left part of the screen. Black hair framed piercingly green eyes. Terri had grown up in the past four years. The rest of the screen was filled with her basic data that was on the card: date of birth, blood type, expiration date, which was listed as her eighteenth birthday. That birthday was only a month away, Thorpe noted.
Thorpe noticed an asterisk in the lower right corner followed by a string of numbers. "Hey, what's this?"
Takamura walked around and looked. "CID case number."
"Can we access it?"
"Yes, sir, but we'll get a come-back tag."
"A what?" Thorpe asked.
"Someone will know we accessed it and they'll probably want to know why. You can't dig into CID records without authorization." He looked at Thorpe. "We don't have authorization, do we, sir?"
"No, we don't."
"What's happened," Takamura explained, "is that a new level of security has been added to the Department of Defense central database—indeed, every federal database—to prevent unauthorized access. The first, and old, level of security is a password. But since you and I have a password, along with tens of thousands of other people, there was seen a need for more security against unauthorized searches or against hackers breaking into the system illegally. So 'tag' programs were developed and installed. What they are . . ." Takamura paused, trying to decide how to explain it to the computer-illiterate Thorpe.
"The best way to visualize a tag is that it is sort of a mirror. It picks up someone doing an inquiry or search and bounces it back to find out who that someone is by noting their password and log-on location. Then the security personnel can track down whoever's making an unauthorized search. All the top-secret databases have them. I would assume CID has one due to the sensitive nature of their files."
Thorpe leaned back in his chair while Takamura returned to his computer. Thorpe thought for a while, then picked up the phone. He got an outside line and quickly dialed. It was picked up on the second ring.
"Anti-terrorism liaison, Colonel Parker."
"This is Mike Thorpe, SOCOM weenie here at Fort Bragg," Thorpe said.
"Mike," Parker said. "How's Bragg?"
"New buildings, same old shit."
"Where do they have you?"
"SOCOM G-l."
"You should have called me. I might have been able to get you some real work," Parker said.
"I should have called someone," Thorpe agreed.
"What's up?"
"I need your thoughts on something."
"Shoot."
Thorpe quickly sketched the story of Dublowski's daughter, then waited to see what Parker would say.
"No contact at all with the family, either by
the daughter or somebody who might have taken her?" Parker asked.
"No."
"That's not good," Parker said.
"Dublowski didn't say it, but I know he thinks she's dead," Thorpe said. "I knew Terri and I agree with him that she wouldn't run away."
"If she's the victim of foul play," Parker said, "then it was either a random act or part of a pattern. A random act of violence usually involves someone she knows."
"Dublowski would have suspected something if someone she knew was involved."
"What about him?"
"What?"
"Police always look to the immediate family in cases of murder."
"Not no, but hell no," Thorpe said. "Dublowski would never have harmed his daughter."
"The mother?"
"Parker . . ." there was a warning edge to Thorpe's voice.
"Mike, sometimes you don't know people as well as you would like to think you do."
"Let's leave the family out of it for the moment," Thorpe said. "All right?"
"Okay," Parker agreed. "If it wasn't someone she knew, then it most likely wasn't random. If she'd been in an accident her body would have been found. That really only leaves one thing."
"What's that?"
"She's part of a pattern of killings. You're talking about a serial killer."
"How do you know so much about this?" Thorpe asked, surprised by her rapid deductions.
"Part of my job is to coordinate between various federal agencies' special operations forces on anti-terrorism—DOD isn't the only one that has them. The FBI has its HRT, Hostage Rescue Team, and as an adjunct to that they have their Investigative Support Unit. The ones who get called into tough cases that the locals have trouble with. Used to be called Behavioral Sciences?"
"I've heard of them," Thorpe said.
"They do more than just serial killers, although that's the stuff that gets them headlines. I work with the guy who heads the unit on terrorist profiles. We talked about a lot of subjects—he wanted to know about Kilten and McKenzie."
Thorpe remembered the two men—the scientist who tried to destroy his own creation, the Omega Missile, and the former navy SEAL that Kilten had picked to help him who had an agenda of his own.
"They get their suspect profiles by doing a psychological study on people who have committed the same types of acts. Needless to say, McKenzie and Kilten weren't around to interview, so he's been tracking down those who knew them. He also said they were doing a profile of Hill—the NSA adviser who set up the Red Flyer missions—which I thought was kind of interesting."
Thorpe had tried to distance himself as much as possible from those events. He remembered getting a message on his machine from someone in the FBI—probably the same man— wanting to know about McKenzie who had been with Thorpe on the beach in Lebanon. For a moment, Thorpe was back there, being chased by an Israeli army tank, after gunning down several CIA guards while attempting to stop the transfer of weapons-grade plutonium.
Thorpe shivered. "Back to Dan's daughter," he prompted.
"Since he was asking me so much, I asked him a bunch of questions. It's pretty interesting. Like they can predict what sort of car a type of killer will be driving and that sort of stuff. They've made a real science of it."
"He told me that when someone disappears and foul play is suspected, it's one of three things. Someone the victim knew committing a murder, a kidnap where you'll hear from the kidnappers, or a serial murderer. From what you've said it's not the first or the second, so that leaves us the third. A serial killer in Germany."
It was a conclusion that Thorpe had considered but shied away from. "Why do you say serial killer? Why not an accident or someone who kills just once? A random act?"
"I'm just telling you what this guy told me and they are the best in the world at what they do. It's kind of scary how well they can profile those nutcases."
"If there's foul play involved then it's either someone she knows or someone she doesn't. If it was someone she knew, then it seems to me that Dan would have suspected that someone. Since he doesn't, it has to be a stranger. If it's a stranger, the FBI guy said the really dangerous thing is that then it's most likely not an isolated incident. It will happen again or it happened before."
"That's pretty pessimistic," Thorpe said.
"No, it's pretty realistic," Parker said. "And serial killers don't just stop. They go until they're caught or they die."
"Did this guy say anything about the victims? Would they be the same type of person or just whoever happened to be in the area?"
"Usually the victims fit a pattern. Same sex, usually same age, sometimes they even look alike."
"Okay, that gives me an idea."
"Glad I could help," Parker said. "If you need anything else, you'll let me know, right?"
"Right."
"Okay." There was a short, awkward pause. "Mike?"
"I've got to go now," Thorpe said.
"Okay. Call me—if you need anything, all right?"
"Right." The phone went dead.
Thorpe put the receiver down and stared at the computer. "Hey, Takamura."
"Yes, sir?"
"I want to find something out on the computer, but I don't know how to do it."
Takamura face broke into a smile. "What do you want the computer to do?"
"Can you get the computer to bring up all records that have a CID report tag on them?"
Takamura nodded. "All soldiers assigned to this command, yes. But that's outside our province of work, sir."
"Let me worry about what we're supposed to be working on."
"Sir—"
Thorpe tapped his collar where the yellow oak leaf of his rank was sewn. "I take responsibility. Can you bring up whether a family member has a CID file?"
"Yes, sir."
Thorpe stared at Takamura, who finally got the hint and began typing.
"That won't activate the CID tag program, will it?" Thorpe asked.
"Not if we restrict the search to the SOCOM personnel database and don't try to actually get into the files. Of course, the current total army database has well over a million people in it, including family members and—"
"Restrict it to Special Operations personnel assigned to Germany," Thorpe said.
"How far back do you want me to look?"
"Let's say two years."
Takamura got to work. After twenty minutes, he looked up. "I've got thirty-one hits on CID reports on Special Forces military personnel and family members in the past two years in Germany."
Thorpe frowned. Those reports could be anything from shoplifting at the PX, to a capital crime, to their quarters getting broken into. "Can you cross-reference those hits with those families that have been investigated by Social Services?"
Takamura's answer was to begin typing. A few minutes later he was done. "Eight."
Thorpe had been thinking while he was working. "Now can you narrow it down to families that have daughters, aged fourteen to eighteen?"
Takamura was having fun. "That won't be too hard." Another couple of minutes and the field had further been reduced. "Four."
"Can you display those records?"
"The computer is set."
Thorpe reclaimed his seat. "Thanks."
As he expected, Dublowski's name was on the list. There were three other names. The first one was a staff sergeant who had been accused of molesting his daughter. There was no indication that the daughter had disappeared. The second one was a daughter who had been picked up for stealing an automobile off post.
Thorpe was beginning to think this was a dead end when the third name came up. A daughter, age seventeen, was reported missing. The family lived near Stuttgart, just as Dublowski had. CID had investigated and concluded she had run away. Thorpe jotted down the name of the soldier and his current assignment: Tenth Special Forces Group, Fort Carson, Colorado.
So perhaps there was another one, Thorpe thought as he leaned back in the seat. It was slim. But then aga
in, there were a lot more American servicemen overseas than the Special Operations soldiers that Takamura had accessed.
"Hey, Takamura. Could you expand that search you just did to the entire army? All personnel assigned to Germany?"
Takamura tapped a pencil against the side of his glasses. "I suppose I could. I'd have to go on line with the main database in Washington though, sir."
"Will you get in trouble for that?" Thorpe asked.
"No. We do it all the time. It's just that it would take a while. If I do the past ten years with the variables you gave me, the computer will have to shift through a couple of million records looking for those specific variables."
"Will you do it?"
In answer, Takamura gestured for Thorpe to relinquish his seat. It only took Takamura ten minutes to set the search up, but the running took over an hour and a half. Thorpe grew impatient with the little clock on the face of the computer screen whose little hands going around in a circle indicated the computer was working.
At one point he asked Takamura why the computer couldn't just start showing personnel records as they fit the description, but Takamura responded with a ten-minute discourse on the inner workings of the machine and system that made Thorpe wish he had never asked.
Thorpe didn't understand computers and he didn't particularly care to. Nor did he particularly like them. He felt that people were overdependent on them. After what had happened with the Omega Missile in Louisiana, he would never completely trust a computer again. It had been Kilten's point that taking the human element out of the nuclear launch loop and letting computers make decisions was a dangerous course to embark on.
To hammer his point home, Kilten had recruited McKenzie and seized control of the Omega Missile, a command and control system designed to target and launch all the United States' nuclear weapons. He'd accomplished most of that by taking over the master computer that controlled the Omega Missile. After that traumatic experience, Thorpe was uneasy whenever people talked about the wonderful things computers could do.
Thorpe had noted during the Gulf War that every unit in the army now carried a small handheld GPR, global positioning receiver computer, that gave the bearer's location anywhere on the planet. He felt that soldiers were getting too dependent on the technology and wouldn't be able to find their way using the old map and compass. He'd just read that the Naval Academy was going to stop teaching celestial navigation to its student officers, making them completely dependent on satellite positioning systems. He wondered what those officers would do if the satellites were destroyed or electromagnetic pulse from a nuclear explosion disabled their electronic receiving systems.