That left one of his Web-page visitors, one who had forwarded the brain piece to Daryl. His contributors literally numbered in the hundreds of thousands over a decade. It would be a grueling and time-consuming search, necessitating cooperation among hundreds of agents and from Cahil's Internet server.
If Combs could find a link between the Manning girl from her computer in Florida to Cahil's website, Jessica felt hopeful that they could get a court order to open up the Internet server's records. Short of that, as J.T. said, they'd have to rely on the hacking skills of their Cyber Squad. She tried to fall back asleep on that hopeful thought, but a phone call awakened her.
“ Dr. Coran… Agent Owens in Morristown.”
“ Agent, what is it?” She glanced at the clock which read 11:43 P.M.
“ Thought you'd like to hear it from us first.”
“ Don't tell me. They found a woman's body at Cahil's place?”
“ No… sorry… bad news about Max Strand.”
“ What? What's that?”
“ Max was… he was killed sometime yesterday in a park a few blocks from Cahil's house. He… he was bludgeoned to death by a pair of homeless guys in the park. They're in custody, ratting each other out.”
“ Oh, my God.”
“ But Max did something strange just before he died. Thought you ought to know about it.”
“ What's that?”
“ He made off with one of the cat brains from Cahil's freezer.” “Made off with it? What the hell do you mean? Made off with it?”
“ Took it with him… to the park. He cut it open there and kinda
… kinda, I don't know, threw it around. All of the brain pieces were scattered, as if…”
Jessica tried to picture it. “As if he were searching for something?”
“ Yeah… yeah, that's what it looked like. Strange as hell.”
Searching for something like the Island of Rheil in humans? she wondered.
Jessica further wondered what this might mean. How many people are to be infected in one manner or another with Cahil's dangerous notions? She thanked Owens and said good night, and somehow the aloneness and the night became larger tenfold.
TEN
I am dying of thirst by the side of the fountain.
John Thorpe had tried to relax on his flight back to Quantico, Virginia. He had made mental notes on what he'd found on Cahil's website. He thought that many of the E-mail visitors to the Cahil Web page sounded like teens and preteens at play, getting a kick out of the zaniness of it all. But then many others sounded truly psychotic. Teeny-bopper or psychotic-a hard distinction to make in real life much less in cyberspace. He chuckled.
J.T. knew Jessica would want him to create a watch list from the countless numbers on the page's history, but that could take a month or more of full-time work to compile, and even when finished, it would only be a list of coded names. He wondered how they could get at the truly disturbed among all the hits. He had no way of telling from this end if any of the Digger's actual victims had logged on; nor had he any way of learning who the Seeker was without help from the online server, a difficult thing to get.
His flight back to Quantico with the computer safely stowed away had given him time to rest and contemplate how to best handle the niggling problem. He decided he would have to split the task among a small army of computer adepts who could weed out the actual crazoids from the youngsters at play, given certain key words to use as cross references.
To date, however, he was unsure what those words might be, but he knew the expert linguists with the bureau could help out there. They knew the jargon of the day and what kids would be speaking as opposed to a disturbed adult. J.T. had already looked closely at those Web contacts who strongly agreed or disagreed with Cahil's bizarre notions. Anyone doing so vehemently either way might well prove fixated on the strange arguments Cahil routinely put forth. He had also noted that anyone fixated would likely pump out reams to argue for or against Cahil's beliefs. The sheer length and breadth of the messages on the bulletin boards and in the chat rooms by the same user must prove a useful guide as well. The Seeker had a great deal to say, and he sounded somewhat sophisticated by comparison to others J.T. had looked at, but he was by no means the only Web visitor who looked like a candidate. In fact, there were many, and Thorpe had only scratched the surface.
He wanted to get the process underway as quickly as possible even before he'd spoken to Jessica. To that end, he had contacted Eriq to get him back to Quantico as fast as possible. J.T. had met the private jet at the Morristown airport, and they had wheeled Cahil's computer on board. Then en route to headquarters, he got a phone call from Santiva saying they were certain that Cahil was the Digger. After that, Thorpe had relaxed the idea of working so hard to crack the computer problems facing him. He started breathing a bit easier.
“ You know what strikes me, Eriq?” asked J.T. over the phone from the plane.
“ What's that?” “The numbers-the sheer numbers of people in the world so bored as to want to spend time with Cahil's rantings.”
“ Manson had the same kind of worldwide following on his site. And all his reams of news to his constituents was one long stream of consciousness, all of which read as lunatic rantings. Still they came.”
“ If you write it, they will come?”
Santiva laughed in response.
“ So, how did Cahil react when you guys put that brain tissue in front of him? Did he freak out?”
“ Hardly phased him. He says it was sent to him by a fan on his website. Says he held on to it for us, as evidence against the guy, but we think the 'other guy' is another of his identities. He's got this schizo routine down pat.”
“ I will need computer experts to help dissect the hard drive.”
“ As much as we can spare or dig up. Don't worry, something will be done. I want you to bury this freak, John.”
J.T. said goodbye and then dozed off. He awakened in what seemed minutes when the plane touched down at Quantico. He had barely gotten settled in at the lab with the confiscated computer when Jessica telephoned. He was amazed at the disparity in how each of the two-Chief Santiva and Jessica-had characterized the Cahil interrogation, and obviously, they were going off in separate directions. He worried about getting caught in the crossfire that would likely result. Both of them were more than colleagues, they were friends.
And now his friends were clearly at odds over just what was gained from today's interrogations.
He knew from experience that when the lead investigators saw everything so differently as this, the momentum of the case would suffer. Keep your head down, he told himself as he got off the line with Jessica.
Valdosta, Georgia Late that same night
Grant Kenyon cruised the deserted streets of late-night Valdosta, finding nothing of interest to Phillip. He had stopped at a hotel earlier and had used their computer to make contact with Cahil's website, but for some unaccountable reason he could not get through. He wondered if anything had happened to Cahil. He wondered if he dared try to get through on his own laptop, fearful it could be traced if authorities had apprehended Cahil and his computer.
Now he drove around the too-small city of 42,000. He felt exposed here; everybody in this town must be a local. Still, Phillip wanted him to persist, and so he did. Cruising on. Looking for an opportunity. He had failed with a local Valdosta girl with whom he'd made contact through Cahil's website. She had failed to show up. Not uncommon in the computer-dating scene, as evidenced by several occasions when he had been stood up.
As he drove, Grant Kenyon thought of his days in medical school, which had fed his fascination for the brain.
