free him.

According to Air Force Doctrine Document 3-12, or AFDD 3-12, released back on October 26, 2010, there are millions of attempts to hack into the US military’s computers every day. And, as Terry knew all too well, that number had only continued to rise since then.

But a much earlier hack was the one that was going to make all the difference in his case-and was the one that, indirectly, was going to help set him free.

On October 1, 2003, at 03:25, Chinese hackers broke into the Naval Ocean Systems Center in San Diego, California, and downloaded more than four terabytes of data.

It gave them just the information they needed to hop onto the Department of Defense’s Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communication System.

When the Bush Administration first became aware of the malware placed onto the JWICS by the Chinese in early 2004, they responded quickly and took steps to protect the one means of communication with nuclear weapons systems that was not connected to or dependent on the internet in any way, the only viable nonsatellite, non-web-based means of contacting submarines: extremely low frequency electromagnetic signals, emitted from a small base in northern Wisconsin-or more specifically, from the part of the base that had never been made public.

And now, that very safety net that the military had put into place to guard against hackers was the one Terry was going to exploit to get out of this detainment facility and away from the reach of the CIA.

And back together with Cassandra.

Calculating the time, Terry knew that it was almost 8:30 p.m. in Wisconsin.

Okay.

He wheeled to the bathroom to make a call to his partner to verify that all was in place for tomorrow.

39

After signing out and leaving my irate nurse behind, I met Jake in the lobby of the hospital.

Reluctantly, but out of necessity, I used a pair of crutches to get to the car, then as we headed into the blizzard he filled me in: state patrol had found the Peterbilt truck that I’d seen crossing the bridge above the Chippewa River. It was parked at a restaurant about twenty miles west of Woodborough, but there were no other cars or snowmobiles missing at the restaurant and no one matching Alexei’s description had been seen entering the premises.

“It’s like he just disappeared,” Jake said.

“No. He’s smart. He abducted someone else in the parking lot and left with ’em in their vehicle so there wouldn’t be any immediate suspicion.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because it’s what I would’ve done.”

Jake was quiet.

“Any sign of the driver of the semi?”

“No. Still unaccounted for.”

It was possible that the suspect had left the driver alive, perhaps to use as leverage like he’d done with Ellory, but even though I tried to hold out hope, I couldn’t help but think of the truck driver only in the past tense.

Anger.

This guy Chekov was mine.

Jake went on, “No sign of Ellory, but if he drowned in that river like you said, that’s no surprise.”

“What do you mean if he drowned?”

“I was just noting that they haven’t found his body yet.”

“He went under, Jake. He didn’t come up.”

A moment. “Okay.” Then, “The divers never made it down from Ashland, and with this storm it doesn’t look like they will.”

No surprise there.

“Where’s Natasha?”

“With Linnaman at the hospital. Last I heard, she was assisting him with the autopsies of Ardis and Lizzie Pickron.”

The snowfall illuminated by our headlights wasn’t letting up, and the road we were on hadn’t been plowed recently. Drifts, some nearly three feet high, were forming, jutting out perpendicular to the shoulders. I’d let Jake drive, and he was doing his best to avoid the drifts, but it didn’t seem like he was used to driving in this kind of weather.

The going was slow.

“I also talked with Torres,” he said. “They discovered Reiser’s body near the trailer park. And get this: his lungs are gone.”

Basque.

“He must have found out how close we were to catching Reiser and decided he was a liability,” Jake speculated.

Analyze and investigate; don’t assume.

“Time of death?”

“They’re not sure yet. Still working on that. I haven’t heard from the ERT, but I’m expecting we’ll find souvenirs hidden somewhere in the trailer. Probably press clippings too.”

Most serial killers keep tokens or emblems of their crimes-body parts of the victims, fingernails, hair, or jewelry, clothing, or accessories, so Jake’s words didn’t surprise me. I thought again of the profile he had drawn up on Reiser. “You’re still thinking he followed coverage of his crimes? Documented them?”

“Yeah, if I’m calling this right, I’d say our guy is a scrapbooker for sure.”

I told Jake about Alexei’s claim that he wasn’t responsible for killing the Pickron family. “It seemed important to him that I not associate him with the murder of Ardis and Lizzie.”

“Typical assassin mentality,” he said, profiling on the spot. “They have their own unique, individualized set of moral values and convictions. Often they see violence that isn’t mission-oriented as immoral, but violence committed in the context of their professional life as simply necessary. Mental compartmentalization.”

Jake was right.

But he was also wrong. It’s not just assassins who do that, we all do. Freud once said that rationalization makes the world go round, and whatever else he got wrong, he nailed that one.

Everyone rationalizes their own immorality-people have affairs and yet look their spouses in the eye, they cheat on their taxes and then get mad at corruption on Wall Street, they lie outright to their bosses to get ahead and still manage to feel good about themselves, to have high self-esteem.

Mental compartmentalization.

Rationalization.

Without it we’d have to live in the daily recognition of who we really are, what we’re really capable of. And that’s something most people avoid at all costs.

As Lien-hua had told me once, “We run from the past and it chases us; we dive into urgency, but nothing deep is ultimately healed.”

Despite my reticence to trust Jake’s profiles and observations, I had to admit that he was iterating some of the same thoughts I’d had since my confrontation with Alexei at the river. If we were right about the assassin’s state of mind, I wondered if there might be a way to use his skewed moral grounding against him. To trap him. To bring him in.

The conversation faded into silence, and about ten minutes later we arrived at the motel. I tried to stand on my own, but my ankle screamed at me and I had to lean against the car. I hid the gesture from Jake as much as I could.

He went on ahead, and after crutching my way inside, I used my room phone to call my own cell number, to

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