by Jon Land
“I need you, Jared,” Kamanski said suddenly, standing so that the Ferryman couldn’t help but notice him.
“I’ve heard that before,” Kimberlain said emotionlessly. “About three years ago, wasn’t it? Not much more than two years after I left The Caretakers.”
“There was a murder Sunday night. An industrialist named Jordan Lime.”
“And here it is Tuesday morning and you haven’t found the killer yet. You must be slipping, Hermes.”
“Lime was worth billions, Jared,” Kamanski went on. “Hired the best security firm money could buy and wired his mansion with equipment that would amaze even that friend of yours.” He paused. “He was ripped apart, mutilated behind sealed doors and windows. No evidence anybody was even in there. The first man was in the room less than a minute after the first scream and found … We’ve got videotapes. We’ve got recordings. We had over twenty guards on the property. No one could have gotten in or out. What happened was impossible.”
Kimberlain’s eyes flickered for the first time. “If my literary knowledge serves me right, you should be looking for a gorilla right out of the Rue Morgue.”
“A gorilla would have been fried by 20,000 volts if he’d tried to get down this chimney, Jared. I’ve had men on this for thirty-six hours straight. The police, too. We’re no further along than we were at the start.”
“We?”
“Pro-Tech, the security firm I’m associated with now, was hired to keep Lime alive.”
“Don’t expect it’s the best time to look for new clients, then. What happened to the Bureau?”
“I thought it was time to move on.”
“Imposing three-year tours on yourself now? I’m impressed.”
“I’m afraid the Bureau agreed with me.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“But the money’s better too. Much. And I’m authorized to offer you any sum you name to help us.”
Ignoring him, Kimberlain moved to another wall of the living room. It was filled with weapons dating back from a hundred to a thousand years. Muskets, flintlocks, six-guns, a collection of knives and swords fit for a museum. Kamanski followed Kimberlain across the room and found himself transfixed.
“I restore them,” Kimberlain told him. “Helps pass the time.”
He took a three-hundred-year-old samurai sword from the wall and sat down with the sword in his lap. A good portion of the blade looked shiny and new; the rest was old and scarred. Kimberlain grasped a set of ultrafine polishing stones from a table next to him and set to work on the weathered portion of the blade. His large, callused hands moved as agilely as a surgeon’s back and forth against a section halfway down from the hilt. Such gentleness, Kamanski noted, and yet alongside it a capacity for such—
“I don’t work for money anymore, David,” the Ferryman said suddenly without looking up. “You should know that.”
“But you remain available. Your file needs updating constantly. You’re quite a busy man, from what I’ve been able to learn.”
“Paybacks, Hermes. They’re to make up for all those assignments you delivered to me from Zeus. I’m doing my best to take care of innocent people who’ve been fucked by bastards like you. Take care, no capital t or c.”
“Taking vengeance is another way of putting it. It’s against the law so far as I know, but I don’t want to quibble.”
Kimberlain looked up coldly from his work. The polishing stones squeaked against the blade. “Are you threatening me, David?”
“I’m not that brave.”
“But you’re still smart; I can see that. Probably smart enough to turn around right now and walk out of here so I can finish watching my movie.”
“What I’ve got might be a challenge for you.”
“That’s what you said about Peet—when was it, a little over three years ago, right?”
Kamanski tried very hard not to react.
“Come now, David, you remember Winston Peet, don’t you? Giant, about seven feet tall, a bald head. He killed seventeen people in as many states. Ripped their heads clean off their bodies after he strangled them. Papers called him the worst serial murderer in modern history. Back when you were with the Bureau. You boys were getting nowhere so you begged me to track down your killer for you, and I came up with Peet. Wanna see the scars? Only you bastards couldn’t get him executed, couldn’t even get him imprisoned.”
“We put him where he’ll never hurt anyone again.”
“In that nuthouse? Bullshit. Someday he’ll get out. Just watch. He writes me letters and tells me so.”
“This time it’s different,” Kamanski said.
“No it isn’t, not to me. See, after the Peet thing, while I was lying there in the hospital damn near dead, I realized I had three choices: I could die, I could become like you, or I could change the course you set my life on. That’s when the paybacks started.”
“But they’ve never stopped, have they?” Kamanski wondered whether the Ferryman would spring on him now. “They come from everywhere, I’m told. You have no phone, no listed address, but still they find you. It’s out of control, can’t you see that?”
“You’re wrong, Hermes,” Kimberlain said quite calmly. “The paybacks reduce the world to something manageably small: just somebody who got fucked, the person that fucked them, and me. The last resort. They’re willing to do whatever it takes to find me, because they’ve got nowhere else to turn. And each one I help brings me a little closer to making up for my actions with The Caretakers.”
“You would have rotted in that stockade, Jared. You owe me for that much. Call this a payback.”
“You used that same argument three years ago when you came to me about Peet. My payback to you is finished.”
Kimberlain went back to his sword. Kamanski figured it was time to toss him the bait.
“Jordan Lime wasn’t the first. There were two other successful industrialists murdered before him. Three incredible, impossible murders. All the victims were among the best-protected men in the country.”
Kimberlain tried to keep on with the polishing, but clearly his mind was starting to drift.
“Come on, Jared, do I have to spell it out for you? Somewhere out there is a serial killer operating on a supersophisticated level. Think about future targets for this nutcase. Maybe the President will be next. You think the country could handle that right now?”
“You’re asking me to become a Caretaker again.”
“I’m asking you to go after a madman who may soon be in a position to hold the entire country hostage. You’re the only one who can do it, Jared. This is your game.”
The Ferryman inspected the progress he had made on the ancient sword. It was slow work, but it was gratifying to see the past come back to life in his hands.
“I’ll think about it,” he said, without looking up. “I’ll let you know.”
“When?”
“Get out of here, David, and let me finish this side.”
Chapter 3
“YOU MENTIONED THERE WERE two other murders,” Kimberlain said to Kamanski an hour later in the backseat of the car. The driver kept one hand on the wheel; with the other he massaged a shoulder sore from the pressure of his arms being laced together.
“Two that we know of,” Kamanski said. “There could be more. Law-enforcement agencies aren’t admitting there’s a pattern yet.” They were still two hours from the airfield, and he wouldn’t feel sure the Ferryman was with him until their plane took off for Connecticut.
“Tell me about those two.”
“Not as puzzling as the murder of Jordan Lime but just as effective,” Kamanski said. “The first was Benjamin Turan.”
“Experimental metals. Steel with the weight and texture of plastic and all the resiliency of iron.”
“I thought you were out of touch.”
“Not entirely.”
“Turan did plenty of traveling abroad. Brought the importance of security home with him. He employed round-the-clo
ck guards and even had a dummy car.”
“So what happened?”
“Grabbed the latch to open the rear door of one of his limos one morning and got fried by fifteen thousand volts.”
“Interesting. Chauffeur around?”
“In the front seat. Got fried too. That kind of voltage doesn’t discriminate.”
“Okay, how was it done?”
“A separate battery was installed in the trunk to supply the power source, and the car was wired with superconductive fusing. The killer didn’t waste an inch, either. The only terminal we found was the one plugged into the latch Turan grabbed for. Thing was, the car was locked in the garage all the time. And the dummy limo wasn’t wired, just the one Turan planned to use that morning.”
“He would have used it eventually.”
“You miss my point. Turan’s use of a dummy car included using a double for himself. The odds were fifty-fifty that it would’ve been the double that got fried instead of him. I can’t accept that. The killer wired the right limo because he knew it was right even before Turan made his choice.”
“Psychic maybe?”
“I wouldn’t dismiss anything.”
A few moments of silence passed before the Ferryman spoke again.
“What about the other?”
“Adam Rand.”
“Rand Industries?”
“You do surprise me, Jared.”
“News reaches even the backwoods of Vermont. Rand Industries revolutionized the auto industry with their hypersensitive transmission. A whole new way of driving. The fuel injection of the nineties. Rand had to be worth a billion on his bad days in the market.”
“Which puts him in the same league as Turan. And Lime. You can see what I was getting at back at the cabin. We’re facing the ultimate serial killer here.”
Kimberlain looked at him across the seat. “That’s a pretty strong statement considering the last time we worked together.”
“With good reason. Jordan Lime ordered twenty-five thousand-dollar-a-day security from Pro-Tech after the Rand murder two weeks ago. And in spite of that, this killer still found a way through, impossible as it seems.”
“How’d Rand buy it?”
“In his sleep.”
“Really?”
“His bed was blown up.” Kamanski hesitated to let his point sink in. “Our killer likes a challenge and takes on a greater one each time. He’s proving that nobody’s safe. He’s rendered all levels of security impotent.”
“How can you be so sure it’s one man?”
“Simple. A group would have an aim, a purpose. Someone would have heard from them by now with a list of demands. But there’s been nothing. This is sport for our man. I can feel it.”
Kimberlain was nodding. “So what we’ve got so far are a new kind of steel and a revolutionary transmission. What’s Lime’s claim to fame?”
“Most recently, a transistor coupling that resists burnout. Since these couplings had such a high breakdown rate, that discovery would have placed him above Turan and Rand before too much longer.” Kamanski realized what the Ferryman was getting at. “You think our killer is keying on the product, not the people, in choosing his victims?”
“Probably a combination of the two. Anything’s possible with the kind of mind we’re facing here, if you’re right about it being only one mind,” Kimberlain told him, unaware that his hands had clenched involuntarily into fists. “Serial killers key on something that attracts them and keeps attracting them. While they’re active no other factor is as important as that one single thing, because it allows them to attain their own version of superiority. It dominates their consciousness. Killing allows them to maintain the illusion that they’re still in control, and even to increase that control. And killing the object of their obsession maintains their feeling of superiority.”
“You’re talking about Peet.”
“A worthy suspect.”
“Forget it. He remains under twenty-four-hour guard. He never even leaves his cell without a four-man escort.”
“That’s not much for him to overcome.”
“A three-mile swim through frigid waters would follow even if he did.”
“He could manage it. Believe me.”
“Not behind bars he couldn’t.”
Kimberlain smiled. “I’m glad I didn’t kill you back at the cabin, David, but I should have three years ago.”
The plane brought them to a small airfield in southern Connecticut, where a helicopter was waiting to carry them the short distance to the Lime estate.
“I had the room sealed,” Kamanski explained above the chopper’s roar as they buckled themselves in. “Body parts removed, of course, but nothing else altered.”
“You’re a true professional, David,” Kimberlain said. And when they were in the air, through the headset, “I’ll want to hear and see your tapes first. I want to experience it from the perspective of all your helpless security guards.”
“I’ll arrange it.”
The vastness of the Lime estate was the first thing that struck Kimberlain. It was much too large for anything but an entire army to patrol. Kamanski said Pro-Tech had made it impregnable and boasted that the surveillance equipment could pick out a fly if it wasn’t wired properly. The Ferryman nodded and let him drone on, not bothering to point out that all that hadn’t been able to stop Jordan Lime from being mutilated in his bedroom.
The front gate was still manned, but the perimeter guards had been dismissed. The sprawling mansion was shrouded by the misty, damp day, and the drizzle felt like ice against Kimberlain’s cheeks as Kamanski led him up the steps to the mansion’s entrance. The marble foyer that had contained the surveillance station was empty, so they made their way to the library, which had a big-screen television with a built-in VCR.
The tape in question was already loaded.
“There’s nothing to see,” Kamanski claimed. “I’ve been over it myself a hundred times.”
“Push PLAY, David.”
Kamanski punched the button and the screen filled with the last image of Jordan Lime’s bedroom, its occupant resting beneath the covers, unaware of the awful violence that was to come. There was the crash of glass, and in the next instant the picture became a snowy, almost total blur.
“What was the crash?”
“Picture fell off the wall.”
“How?”
“We don’t know.”
Now the blur was in motion, darkened seconds later by the splash of blood against the lens. Kimberlain rewound the tape and watched it a second time. “Any idea what caused the video breakup?”
“The feed line running from the wall was partially severed.”
“And the line ran close to the picture that conveniently slipped from the wall?”
“Close enough.”
Kimberlain watched the tape again, this time with the volume turned up higher. He didn’t know precisely what he had been expecting, but this was worse. Total silence, then the sudden, awful screams—sounds of a struggle, maybe—followed by the dripping of blood.
“What if the killer was already inside the room when Lime hit the sack?”
Kamanski shook his head. “No way. The room was checked before Lime entered and was under guard all day. Even supposing the killer could have hidden himself for a number of hours, the security system is equipped with motion detectors sensitive enough to pick up breathing. No readings all day. I’ll show you the printouts if you like.”
“I’ll take your word, Hermes. I also assume you’ve had the audio on the tape slowed and filtered.”
Kamanski nodded. “We brought every single sound up to a hundred times its normal resonance and separated each one into individual segments.”
“Footsteps?”
“Not that we could find. If there were any, they got lost in the screaming.”
“Let me see the bedroom,” said the Ferryman.
Kamanski hadn’t been exaggerating in the helicopter. Other than th
e removal of severed body parts and other remnants of the corpse, nothing in Jordan Lime’s bedroom had been touched. Huge pools of dried blood were everywhere—on the floor, the sheets, the rug. Fingers of near black reached out from the walls in frozen animation, seeming almost to slither as Kimberlain gazed at them.
He moved about the room and in his own mind could see it all happening, Jordan Lime being torn limb from limb. But he couldn’t visualize the actual murder. All he saw were the pieces being scattered to the sounds of the horrible screaming he had heard on the tape downstairs. He tried once again for a fix on Lime, tried to envision what had done this to him, but drew a blank. Very often when the Ferryman walked onto a crime scene he could feel the residue of the perpetrator as clearly as he could see the crawling fingers of blood in Lime’s bedroom. But now he was coming up empty. Stick with the technical, then, he urged himself. “The floors?” he asked.
Kamanski was just behind him. “Dusted and electronically scanned. No footprints other than Lime’s.”
“Inconclusive. The killer could have worn shoes with Teflon-coated soles. No marks or residue that way.”
“Granted, except Teflon squeaks on wood. We’d have heard something on the tape.”
The Ferryman continued to gaze about the room. He focused on the window. “Was that open Sunday night?”
“Yes, but the glass curtains covering it are reinforced with steel linings. Bulletproof and electrified. Our man didn’t come through that way. Nothing living did, anyway.”
The Ferryman was still looking that way. “A ray,” he said. “A ray fired from a good distance beyond the window. Your steel lining might not stop that.”
“But a ray would certainly have left heat fringes on the severed body parts. Lime’s limbs were sliced off. A sword like the one you were polishing back in Vermont. That’s what we’ve been thinking about.”
“Wielded by a killer who couldn’t possibly have been in the room.”
“The theory’s not perfect.”
“I want to bring that inventor friend of mine in on this,” the Ferryman said.