WOULD NOT EVEN TRY TO FIND US. YOU WOULD REALIZE THAT OUR WORK WILL ULTIMATELY BENEFIT ALL MANKIND. OUR WORK IS ALMOST COMPLETE. WE WILL SACRIFICE NO MORE LIVES THAN NECESSARY. WHEN THE TIME IS RIGHT WE SHALL COME TO YOU. YOU MUST TRUST US, AND LEAVE US ALONE.
THANK YOU.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Lenz says. “Notice the use of the pronoun ‘we’? Often that’s a ploy, but in this case it fits with the evidence indicating a team offender situation.”
“You mean like a cult? Like the California police were assuming?”
“No, no. Forget that drivel you heard in New Orleans. True cult murders are almost nonexistent. Ninety-nine percent of cult homicides are committed for standard motives. For example, a cult leader will mask the elimination of a rival as a ceremonial killing. More often than not, it’s lawyers and the media who turn homicides into ‘satanic’ murders.”
Lenz touches the fax with his forefinger. “No, we’re dealing with something altogether different here. No threat at all, you notice that? Not even any baiting. The author was simply trying to communicate his thoughts. He really believes we cannot find him-or them, as the case may be.”
My gut tells me the author of the note may be right.
“Daniel asked whether this might be the work of a disgruntled employee or prankster inside the Bureau,” Lenz muses. “I don’t think there’s much chance of that.”
“But if you’ve never seen a note like this, maybe the killer
“Oh, he wrote it. I perceive the lack of overt threat as
I read softly: “ ‘We will sacrifice no more lives than necessary.’ What do you think that means?”
“We’re dealing with some degree of megalomania here. A tremendous ego-or group of egos-that believes itself a part of some grandiose or holy mission. That’s fairly common. Who knows what kind of twisted logic leads him to think that by killing he is saving the human race. Hitler thought he was sacrificing no more lives than necessary when he murdered six million Jews.”
“I don’t know,” I say, scanning the note again. “The tone is eerie. Like Jonas Salk trying to explain his polio vaccine to a bunch of Stone Age bushmen. You know, ‘Some of you may be paralyzed from this, but in the end it’s for the greater good.’ ”
“Albert Sabin had the live vaccine,” Lenz says softly. “But you’re right.”
“Dallas was his early warning system. This is his response. He invaded the FBI’s computers to send it. That fact alone is his threat. He’s telling you you’re not in his league, Doctor.”
“He’s wrong,” Lenz says quietly. He waves his arm at the arrayed technology. “Tonight is the
“The what?”
“The beginning of the end.”
I memorize the message before Lenz can set it aside.
“I told Daniel I’d get back to him in an hour with an analysis,” he says. “We’re going to spend that hour on EROS. Are you ready to guide me, Cole?”
Despite my fatigue and my anger at being coerced into my present position, a powerful current of excitement is circulating through me. The man who killed Karin Wheat just issued a direct challenge, and no Southern male is very good at ignoring those. It may be juvenile and atavistic, but it definitely gets the pulse pounding. I take a huge bite of cold pizza and wash it down with Diet Coke.
“Let’s nail this arrogant son of a bitch.”
CHAPTER 22
Dr. Lenz and I have been logged onto EROS for nearly two hours. He went into Microsoft Word for five minutes to compose an analysis of the “Strobekker” note and fax it to Daniel Baxter at Quantico, but aside from that, we’ve been trolling the private chat rooms like bass fishermen on a slow morning, casting spinners under likely looking trees and piers, dragging artificial worms across dark bottoms. With Jan Krislov’s conditional approval, Miles has given Lenz the ability to monitor rooms that the subscribers believe to be private. The psychiatrist seems surprised by each new encounter, whether a steamy tryst in Regency England or a postnuclear tete-a-tete in some virtual retropunk dive.
All my system queries on the Strobekker account have come back:
Suddenly my eyes come clear and a numbing tingle heats the back of my arms. “Move over!” I tell Lenz, jumping up from the Toshiba.
Before he can even get out of his chair, I’m clicking the Dell out of the room he was in and into the room I was monitoring.
“What is it?” he asks over my shoulder. “Is it Strobekker?”
“Maybe,” I reply, reclaiming my seat at the Toshiba. “Just read and follow along.”
Lenz takes his chair and leans forward until his nose is almost against the screen of the Dell. “‘Levon’ and ‘Sarah’? Those aren’t his aliases.”
“I think ‘Levon’ is him.”
“Why hasn’t Turner called, then?”
“Read the screen, damn it! Read ‘Levon.’ ”
“This stuff about God?”
“Yes! Look how quickly his responses pop up. And not a single error. Now shut up and read!”
I focus on the dialogue moving down my screen:
LEVON› If it were given to you to create God, what qualities or powers would you give him?
SARAH› What do you mean? I can’t create God. God already exists.
LEVON› But if he _didn’t_ exist. How would you conceive of him?
“What are those marks?” Lenz asks. “I saw them in your printouts. Emphasis?”
“Yeah. Like italics.”
SARAH› Well… I’d make Him all-powerful, like He is.
LEVON› Is he?
SARAH› Of course.
LEVON› And what of the Devil?
SARAH› What about him?
LEVON› Doesn’t Satan have any power?
SARAH› Some. The power to tempt, I guess. But God has more.
LEVON› Then why does evil flourish in the world?
SARAH› Because humans are weak. We choose evil.
LEVON› But why does God _let_ us choose it? Why have evil at all?
SARAH› Well, to test us. Because of free will.
LEVON› But if God made us, Sarah, why must he test us? If God is all-knowing, he must know ahead of time that we are fallible. So the test is meaningless, isn’t it?
SARAH› You’re confusing me. Not everyone chooses evil. Some choose good.
LEVON› Of course. We all choose good _some_ of the time. But we choose evil sometimes as well. Haven’t you done things you were ashamed of?
SARAH› I don’t like this conversation.
LEVON› I’m sorry. I’m a nosey parker, aren’t I? What about this? If you were creating God, what would he _look_ like?
