The Leviathan Effect

by James Lilliefors

  The Vice President looked to the President, who was staring at the computer monitors. Finally, the President glanced at Dr. Wu, the blue glow of the monitors coloring his face. “Is this consistent with a storm that may break apart or turn back to sea in the morning?”

  Wu sighed, feeling the need to stay neutral. It was how he had operated for years. It was the reason he was here in this room with the President of the United States. “Yes and no, sir. It has slowed down very slightly, and, as Dr. Romfo just indicated, some of the outer bands do appear to be breaking apart. It’s becoming a slightly smaller system, overall, in other words.”

  “But …?”

  “But it is still quite well organized at its center. And it’s actually taken an odd turn over the past couple of hours. First to the south and then slightly to the northwest. Based on past models, that’s often—I won’t say usually, but often—a dangerous sign.”

  “Dangerous why?” the Vice President asked.

  “Because it’s introducing a new trajectory that threatens a larger piece of real estate. South-to-north as opposed to a more direct east-to-west hit at a single mid-Atlantic location, where the land would weaken it. The worst-case scenario now is that it will skirt the entire seaboard, bringing hurricane force effects along a thousand-mile stretch of coast.”

  “Jesus,” said the Vice President.

  “And what time frame are we looking at?”

  “At this point? It looks like we’ll be seeing significant effects tomorrow, with the first direct impact maybe forty-eight hours from now. But there’s still a great deal of wiggle room. Depending on what other systems might come into play.”

  The President turned to Dr. Wu. “All right. We’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and see what this looks like in the morning. People like to wake up to good news,” he said, smiling weakly. “In the meantime, we’ll continue to mobilize emergency efforts, anticipating a worst case.”

  “Yes, sir.” Dr. Wu looked to the swirling color-enhanced image of Alexander. No one said anything.

  10:21 P.M.

  Dmitry Petrenko glanced from the bank of monitors along the wall of the underground facility to Victor Zorn’s face in the blue glow of a computer monitor. His skin had taken on a waxen quality as it sometimes did when he was very tired, but he still had the confident swagger in his walk. He was confident by nature, not by circumstances. It was dangerous to fall under his spell, as Petrenko himself had done, long ago. He had a personality that worked like a magic trick, Volkov used to say. Now, though, for the first time in years, Petrenko was feeling a little sorry for Victor, knowing that he had worked all of his life for this evening and the next day. To be the leader of this operation. Knowing that Volkov had trusted him implicitly, giving him the reins. But also knowing that if he failed, Mr. Zorn, as he called himself, would never have another chance.

  There were three workstations in the room, each with three computer screens lined up side by side. Wires and extension cords snaked across the floor. The facility felt temporary, which it was, part of a parcel of land that Mr. Zorn had purchased more than a year ago, with financing from Vladimir Volkov. It was only a hollowed space, the walls and ceiling made of rock, the floor an overlaid metal mesh.

  Now, all at once, it seemed, there were serious problems with Mr. Zorn’s operation, and Mr. Zorn was having difficulty handling them. “The true test of character is how we respond to troubles,” Volkov liked to say. Mr. Zorn seemed to be auditioning a variety of responses, all the while keeping up his front. At first, he had been too nervous; now, it seemed, the opposite: nonchalant, showing his dimples as if everything were proceeding as projected.

  But it wasn’t.

  The outcome of this operation was actually quite simple, Petrenko knew, like that of any sporting event. There were only ever two possible results. If Mr. Zorn pulled this off, and the American president went on television to announce the partnership, then he won. If anything else happened, he lost. The loss in this case would almost certainly be permanent for him.

  But Petrenko could see that Mr. Zorn was not thinking in those terms. He wasn’t made that way. There was too much at stake for him to admit the possibility of a massive miscalculation. Yet it had been more than eight hours now since they had turned off the laser heaters and the mitigation was not following any of the projections Mr. Zorn had prepared for the Americans—and for Volkov. Worse, he was pretending that it did not matter, that they were simply in a “transition phase.”

  No. There was something wrong with this storm. Something Mr. Zorn hadn’t prepared for. It was not responding as it should have. It was almost as if the storm were somehow trying to undo all of their efforts, trying to defeat them.

  Already, Mr. Zorn had relayed manufactured figures to the White House. He had done that with several of the investors, as well, Petrenko had noticed, during the buildup. “An American trick,” he had heard Mr. Zorn say once, in a hushed voice, to his chief scientist Ivan Letkov. It was how corporations like Enron had appeased their investors during rough patches, he said. They invented “fair value” projections and “interim results” until the “weather turned.” He was playing this trick at a fairly safe level now; but if he was forced to do it again, at the 8 A.M. briefing, the stakes would rise significantly. And it would become increasingly difficult for Mr. Zorn to align his numbers with reality. Soon, the group’s credibility would be lost. And Volkov would not be pleased.

  The next report to the Americans would be at 8 A.M. By then, the storm was supposed to have begun breaking apart.

  Petrenko would be in the room well before then, doing his job. It was a very simple job, but it was becoming a painful one. All he had to do was observe. To watch and to listen. And report.

  BLAINE COULDN’T MOVE. It was as if she were suspended between consciousness and unconsciousness. Unable to open her eyes, unaware of where she was. Then, gradually, the outside began to seep in. She tasted the damp air. Heard rain thudding on a metal covering. Felt metal bands squeezing her wrists. Recognized smells, earth scents—wet soil, minerals, rain. And then she heard a subtler, more distant sound of water; the rushing of a creek, perhaps. Finally she opened her eyes to the cold darkness.

  When she tried to move, she felt a stab of pain in her shoulder; and then a duller ache around her right eye.

  She was in the back seat of a car. The door was wide open to the night. It was cold and raining and her clothes were damp, stuck to her skin. She lay still and let her eyes adjust—trees, a slope of hillside, a wooden covering of some sort, which blocked the natural light of the sky. There was no artificial light in any direction here, but wild, occasional flashes of lightning that lit up the trees. She was deep in a sloping woods somewhere. Maybe a park.

  Then she sensed movement—a shape shuffling beneath the wooden covering—and heard a scramble of footsteps on gravel in the rain and knew that the man was back.

  She took a deliberate breath and closed her eyes, waiting for him. Trying to scoot back but feeling the sharp pain from her shoulder and the side of her head. She saw the man standing outside, wearing what looked like a flak jacket, not moving. Then the seat gave as the man moved on top of her and she felt his damp clothing against her skin and smelled the earthy scent of his jacket and the alcohol on his breath.

  Whispering: “Okay? Are you awake yet?”

  Blaine squinted: dark eyes looking at her, inches away.

  “Speak?” he said, pushing something metal against her face. “Speak.”

  Blaine turned her head and felt herself shudder. “What?”

  “Speak into this,” he hissed. “Say you’re okay.”

  Blaine felt the wet metal on her cheek again, then realized what it was.

  A telephone. He was holding a cell phone next to her face.

  “Okay?”

  He pulled it back, pressed a number and then held it to her lips. “Speak.”

  “Help,” she said, her voice sounding distant, like someone else’s.
“I’m in the back seat of a car in the woods.”

  She stared into the man’s eyes.

  “Where? Where are you? Give me a reference point.”

  Charles Mallory.

  “In a park. Deep in the woods. You’re right. It’s east—”

  The killer yanked the phone back and clicked it off.

  “What were you going to say?”

  Blaine went silent. She watched his eyes as he tried to flatten himself on top of her and felt a panic, realizing that he was probably going to torture and molest her before killing her.

  “What were you going to say?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Okay,” he whispered. “Okay.” He pushed the phone in his pocket and began to touch Blaine again, grunting crudely, his hand going up and down roughly between her legs. She struggled against him, lifting her knees as a buffer.

  “Don’t,” she said. “Don’t!”

  Hearing her voice, he suddenly seemed to lose interest. He sat up. Backed away, stepped outside. Blaine listened to the rain, and heard the sound of a zipper. She breathed deeply, waiting, trying to sit up.

  But she felt the give of the seat cushion again and smelled him as he climbed back on top of her. Then she felt something poking against her face and twisted her head away.

  “No,” she said.

  “No?”

  “No.”

  She felt him rubbing against her in the dark. She shifted her head and smelled him, the animal scent of his groin as he jerked himself against the side of her face, his knees moving awkwardly and a little desperately on top of her, as if he were trying to straddle her chest. He pulled back and leaned closer, and then she sensed that he was trying to kiss her, his fake beard bristling against her mouth. Dark eyes. Strange, like there was no center to them, no real pupil. As if he lacked the ability to focus.

  He reached under her shirt again, massaging her breasts with his right hand, as if he were kneading bread, breathing heavily. She smelled the stench of him again as he scooted forward into her face and she gagged, catching herself before she vomited.

  “If I put something in your mouth, you wouldn’t bite it, would you?” he whispered. “You aren’t going to bite me.” He was straddling her shoulders now and she felt him rocking slightly, breathing deeply in and out. Suddenly, his open hand smacked the right side of her face. Blaine stung with pain. “You would, wouldn’t you? That’s why I’m not going to do it. I’m not going to give you that particular pleasure tonight. But I’ll give you another one.”

  He slapped her again, and a moment later, apropos nothing, Catherine Blaine suddenly understood. The other part. The motivation. It all made sense to her. Just like that. She closed her eyes as he lifted himself up and ground his penis against the side of her face, her eyes and nose, grunting maniacally, his left hand jerking frantically, the fingertips of his right hand jabbing at her cheeks, squeezing her face until she hurt. Grunting. Of course, she thought. Of course.

  She felt a warm liquid sliding down her neck and the man pulling himself off of her roughly, putting his full weight on her legs as he backed out awkwardly, breathing heavily like an athlete finished with competition.

  With a dry rag he carefully wiped her off. Then he walked out into the rain, made the rag wet and came back in the car and wiped her off again. This time, as he lifted off of her, Blaine rose up and rammed her knee into his groin. The man let out a sharp yelp and recoiled.

  “Motherfucker!” he said, doing a dance outside the opened car door. Blaine felt a momentary triumph and tried to rise to a sitting position. But the man came slamming in on top of her, punching her face wildly with both hands, jabbing her with his elbows. Blaine’s panic turned to anger. She moved her head from side to side, missing most of it. “Bitch!” he said. “Fucking motherfucking bitch!”

  Then it stopped. And suddenly, it seemed, the man was gone. He stood outside attentively, as if he had heard something approaching. And then he ran, half limping into the rain.

  Blaine sat up, her face smarting, catching her breath. Listening. Seeing the shapes of bare trees in the darkness and puzzling through what she had just come to realize. Dates. Times. Motivation. Why Easton had done it.

  Suddenly, she understood the whole thing.

  FORTY-SIX

  MALLORY HEARD BLAINE’S VOICE in his head as he waited in the rain for Chaplin: In a park. Deep in the woods. You’re right. It’s east—

  He had followed the GPS indicator to a parking area by the Western Ridge Trail of Rock Creek Park. He had parked and walked out into the woods along the mouth of the trail, studying the darkened, sloping landscape of the parkland, which suddenly lit up with wild jags of cloud-to-cloud electricity that startled his eyes. He turned, his vision so stunned that he didn’t see the headlights approaching until the car was right in front of him.

  Chaplin parked his Cadillac Escalade next to Mallory’s car. Mallory opened the passenger door and slid in.

  “Sorry,” Chaplin said. “Have you been waiting?”

  “It’s all right. She’s in there, isn’t she?”

  “Looks like it.” The only light was the glow of his computer screen on the front seat between them. Mallory noticed that Chaplin was dressed in a head-to-toe plastic covering.

  “What’s funny?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Do you want an umbrella?”

  “A little rain never hurt anyone,” Mallory said. He watched the downpour through the trees. Saw a violent spray of lightning illuminate the tree tops.

  “Jesus,” Chaplin said.

  “She just called me a few minutes ago,” Mallory said. “I’m sure it’s a trap, but I don’t think we have a lot of alternatives right now. What do you have?”

  Chaplin hit several keys, changing images on his laptop. “Both readings show she’s in there.” He turned his computer, giving Mallory the GPS readings from her phone and the homing device on a split screen.

  “What’s there, exactly?”

  “Seems to be a covered picnic area. We’re probably less than a quarter mile away.”

  “Okay.”

  Mallory could feel Chaplin looking at him.

  “You’re not thinking of going in there?” Chaplin asked. Mallory was silent. “I would strongly recommend against it if you are,” he said, reverting to his formal tone.

  “What would you recommend we do instead?”

  “Notify the police. Have them execute a raid.”

  “No, can’t do that. He sees police coming, he runs. Or worse, he might kill Catherine. Where exactly is your GPS signal showing she is? Can I see?”

  He studied the satellite map, then enlarged it to show Mallory. “I did a map search of the area. This is a rain shelter, evidently. A picnic area. Two tables, a grill, looks like. There’s an object there that appears to be a car or an SUV.”

  “Is it static?”

  “Yes, both signals have remained static for twenty to twenty-five minutes.”

  “Okay.” Mallory examined the set-up some more, then looked out at the slope of the hillside. Back and forth. He enlarged the area of the map image, opening it up to the north. “I’m guessing he might be in this area, up the hill, near the next picnic area. It would give him a fairly clean vantage point.” He stared into the rain, figuring.

  “For what?” Chaplin asked.

  “For getting off a sniper round.”

  “How would you know that? And what makes you think it’s just one person?”

  “It’s one person. I’m pretty sure.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he’s done this before.”

  Mallory again felt Chaplin looking at him. “How would you know?”

  “The list I gave you,” he said. “June seventeenth, 2007. A reporter named Michael Dunlopen was found in a remote wooded area with a gunshot wound to the head. The bullet was .243-caliber, from a hunting rifle. DNA was found in the man’s car but never matched with anyone. August twenty-first, 2006, a woman was se
xually assaulted at a motel in Wyoming and then shot once in the head. Hair, skin, fingerprints, and semen were found at the scene but never identified. Some of the DNA samples were female, some male. February fifth, 2005, the body of a man named Frank Johnson was found in the woods in central North Carolina, dead from a single shot to the head, again a hunting rifle, .243-caliber. I finally realized what connects these cases: the killer’s MO. The DNA clues are obviously decoys. He finds a discarded coffee cup or a hair sample and leaves it behind. Also, he takes people out with shots to the head. They’re all variations of a theme.”

  Chaplin was silent. Mallory took the safety off his Beretta. “We’re talking about a military man,” he continued, feeling a gathering of adrenaline. “Military people have hierarchal, ordered ways of doing things. They repeat what’s worked before. But he’s also an intelligence man. Intelligence people improvise. I think he’s both. I’m guessing if he’s luring me to a very specific spot, he’s going to use a sniper rifle. And aim for the head.”

  Chaplin was breathing through his nose. “And what if he improvises?”

  “Then I might be in trouble. But we have greater resources than he does.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I mean, there’s two of us. And you’ve got night-vision goggles. Right?”

  Chaplin took a deep nasal breath. “What are you suggesting?”

  “You go up the hill wearing your night-vision gear. Try to find him or his car. I’ll go down toward the target.”

  Chaplin fidgeted with what he’d brought. “I’d advise against that,” he said.

  “I know you would. But that’s what we’re going to do. Unless you want to stay here in the car and wait for me. If that’s what you prefer, okay.”

  Chaplin looked out at the rain through the small round opening in his hood. He didn’t say anything.

  THERE WAS A car parked by the picnic area closest to the trail head. Wild, silent jags of lightning lit up the woods and Mallory saw it twice: a dark-colored SUV maybe an eighth of a mile down the trail. He walked sideways through the woods, several steps at a time, avoiding the trail. The ground was slippery with mud and leaves, and his shoes lost traction several times going downhill.