Mortal Fear

“You see that?” I ask. “Christ. One session and he’s got this woman ready to do anything he wants.”

“He simply played to her needs,” says Lenz. “As I intend to play to his. A little mysticism, a little danger, a little sex.”

“Forty-six years old and simpering like a schoolgirl. She was practically begging for a chance to tell him where to get her.”

Lenz taps his fingers on the desk and exhales heavily. “That’s common with serial killers. Many times the victim acquiesces to a situation that puts her in harm’s way. Often when she’s in an environment where she feels no immediate danger, such as this one, she makes a critical mistake. The last one she’ll ever make.”

“It’s like she’s on standby for murder.”

“No question about it.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Calm down, Cole. He’s not close to her yet. I’ll call Turner back and get ‘Sarah’s’ real identity. Then Baxter can have the local police department wherever she lives do a drive-by at her residence, use some pretense to verify that she’s okay.”

“You really think that’s enough?”

Lenz punches the speed dial code for EROS. “Within four hours we’ll have FBI surveillance on her around the clock. If she’s in a major city, less than one hour. Daniel’s already got the budget approved.”

“You’re relying on the zero error rate to tell you he isn’t close to her. But what if he’s changed his methods? He already changed his victim profile, you said. What if he’s changed his hunting method too? Shit! We’ve got to shut down the network!”

“Calm down, Cole! You sound like a rookie cop.”

“Okay… okay. I’m just trying to cover every angle.”

Lenz speaks to Miles in measured tones. Even hearing only one side of the conversation, I can tell the phone trace went nowhere. Glancing over to make sure Lenz isn’t watching, I send a copy of the entire Levon-Sarah thread to my personal mailbox in EROS’s server.

“Sarah’s legal name is Phoebe Tyler,” announces Lenz, stabbing another speed-dial code. “She is indeed forty-six years old and a resident of Aurora, Illinois. The Chicago field office can have a team at her house in thirty- five minutes. They’ll use a ruse to ensure that she’s okay, then organize around-the-clock surveillance. Daniel? Arthur here….”

I am eyeing one of the cold pizza slices when Lenz shouts, “What?” As I look up, he snaps, “Do it,” and hangs up.

“What is it?”

“Strobekker again.”

Suddenly the pizza I ate two hours ago burns upward toward the center of my chest. “He hasn’t killed Phoebe Tyler. He couldn’t have!”

Lenz stands up and leans over the fax machine with his hands on the table. “No. He sent Daniel another message.”

I close my eyes in relief. “When?”

“Thirty seconds after the conversation between Levon and Sarah ended.”

“Man, does this guy have our number. What did the message say?”

“Daniel’s faxing it to us now. This is clearly a reaction to the Bureau’s attempts to trace his phone connection, yes?”

“Got to be.”

“Could Strobekker have known we were watching his Levon-Sarah exchange?”

“I don’t think so. I mean, if he were in the system as a sysop, or had root access, Miles would know about it. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. A lot of people know a hell of a lot more about computers than I do.”

The fax machine rings. Lenz picks up the receiver and hits the SEND/RECEIVE key. “Daniel is considering arresting Turner,” he says without looking up.

“What?”

His eyes stay on the fax machine. “There’s a great deal of pressure from the police departments involved to arrest you both.”

“Goddamn it! I’m sick of this intimidation!”

“Don’t worry, no one’s going to arrest you. But arresting Turner might keep the local gendarmes at bay for a while. Multijurisdictional investigations are always difficult. And this one is worse than most.”

I read the new message as it curls out of the fax machine:

YOU HAVE NOT STOPPED HUNTING US. I ASKED NICELY. IF YOU DO NOT CEASE, I SHALL BE FORCED TO ENTER YOUR GAME, AND AT YOUR LEVEL. I DO NOT THINK YOU WILL LIKE THE RESULT.

REMEMBER DALLAS.

“Now the threat,” says Lenz.

“If he’s so confident we’ll never find him,” I ask, “why is he worried about us hunting him?”

“Good point. Notice the pronoun change? The ‘I’ creeps in now. Note the proper use of ‘shall.’ And no contractions. I think this man has considerable education.”

My eyes glance over the fax paper, all but unseeing. “You know what I think? I think that whole Levon-Sarah thread was bait.”

“Mmmm?” Lenz murmurs. “Meaning?”

“Meaning the whole thing was done just to see whether we’d be able to localize him to a chat room or isolate a phone line at EROS, et cetera. To see how far we could get.”

“And we did localize him to a room.”

“It was luck.”

“But he doesn’t know that,” Lenz points out.

“No, but I don’t think you realize what his use of a new alias means. Either he has gained sysop privileges, or he has access to at least one-and possibly hundreds-of other legitimate accounts.”

“Wouldn’t a legitimate client quickly complain about an unauthorized person using his or her account?”

“No. That’s the beauty of EROS. For Strobekker, I mean. We’re expensive, but we charge a flat fee. Someone who knows my user name and password could log on for hours as me without me being the wiser or even giving a damn if I was.”

“You mean-”

“I mean if Strobekker knows the names and passwords of legitimate account holders-if he really has a copy of the master client list and the clients’ passwords-you may never be able to trace him. Because the only way we’ll know what to trace is by searching room to room for his goddamn prose style. You saw how long it took us tonight, and we were lucky.”

Lenz grunts and turns away from me. He stands in silence, like a man in defeat. But then I see a tensing of his posture.

“What is it?” I ask softly.

His right arm rises and points to the Dell’s softly glowing monitor. “Levon’s back. In a lobby.” The psychiatrist drops into his chair and pulls up to the Dell. “How do I approach him?”

“Don’t. Just watch him.”

“You said yourself we’d be lucky to find him.”

“And I don’t believe in luck.”

Lenz clicks his mouse and types something into the Dell.

“Don’t bite, Doctor. He’s in control right now. I don’t see any advantage until we can turn the tables-”

It’s no use. Lenz-under the alias “Lilith”-has already invited “Levon” to join him in a private room. My fingers tremble as I wait for Brahma’s response. The words appear in a flash without a single error:

LEVON› I don’t believe we’ve met before.

“Got him!” Lenz cries, his fingers flying across the keyboard.

LILITH› I just joined the network. I’m trying to get a feel for what’s out here in cyberspace. So far, I must confess I’m a bit disappointed.

LEVON› How so?