Anatomy of Fear

28

NEW YORK POST

PORTRAITS OF MURDER

By Lou Sands

Three vicious murders appear to have a connection. Though the NYPD would not confirm the link, sources close to the investigation suggest that the victims had drawings, portraits which looked like them, attached to their dead bodies. The families of Harrison Stone of Brooklyn, Daniel Rice and Roberto Acosta, both of Manhattan, would not comment, except to voice their frustration that police have not yet apprehended a suspect. Investigators denied the connection, pointing out that the methods of killing has varied: two victims shot, one stabbed. Chief of Department Perry Denton refused comment. But as one unnamed source said, “A serial killer is never something the police department is eager to confirm.”

A serial killer?

He shakes his head, thinking he should not be surprised, that it is probably a plant, a conspiracy between the press and the government to make him out to be a monster, a villain in the public’s eye.

The fact that the homicides occurred in different locations has brought together several precincts in what appears to be a full-scale, though confidential, manhunt. The recent murder of a young prostitute, whose body was found near Manhattan’s Chelsea Piers complex, may also figure into the case, though it has not yet been confirmed. What has been confirmed is that agents from the Manhattan FBI Bureau and Quantico have been brought into the case.

Of course he knew the FBI had joined the case. He’d expected it. And it does not worry him. Many of the people he most admires have been the subject of FBI investigations, and he is proud to join their ranks.

According to an unnamed source, one of the police department’s most sought-after forensic artists, Nathan Rodriguez, has been brought into the case. It’s been suggested that a witness may have survived an attack and is working with the sketch artist to create a composite image of the killer.

What? His fingers coil and crimp the edges of the newspaper like an insect’s teeth about to gnaw at it.

A sketch artist? Making a composite? Of me?

But there is no way he has been seen. He is sure of that. And no one has survived, so how is it possible?

He heads down the stairs quickly, unlocks the door, flips on the light, his breathing so loud it’s like a growl as he smoothes the newspaper onto his work table and stares until the type blurs.

He paces back and forth, back and forth, trying to get his fury under control, manages to sit, fingers thumping at the keyboard as he signs into a chat room. He finds a few familiar names, proposes a game, and tugs his PlayStation headset over his ears so he can hear the other players, nerve endings tingling as the screen flashes blood-red and one of the players says, “Let’s do some damage.”

He chooses his favorite over-the-shoulder point of view staring down a rifle’s sight line at a surrealistic war zone. Figures dart across the screen, and he fires off virtual ammo at a virtual enemy while the actual men roar racial epithets, their curses and heavy breathing piped through his headset directly into his brain along with the rat-a-tat of gunfire and exploding bombs. The pixilated figures die and spawn, die and spawn, over and over, bouncing back to virtual life seconds after being virtually killed, and it starts to backfire, eroding his confidence rather than building it, and he thinks that he will never accomplish what he needs to do. He tears the headset off and hurls it across the room. It hits the cinder-block wall, cracks, and crashes to the floor. He stares at the cyberspace enemy, who refuse to die, skittering across a now mute screen.

He closes his eyes, but the men are still racing across his retina. He takes a deep breath, then another, and when he opens his eyes and sees the posters on his walls and the sketches on his desk, begins to feel stronger. Then he looks at the newspaper article and his paranoia springs back to life like those spawning figures.

He sits forward, shakes out his limbs, lays his fingers back onto his keyboard, and types an e-mail to the man who calls himself Swift.

From: ‹Nordicman@interstate.com›

Sent: Sunday, March 19, 2006, 2:58 A.M.

To: ‹swift@flochart.net›

Subject: Checking in

Do you have time to talk?

He stares at the screen until an e-mail pops up.

From: ‹swift@flochart.net›

Sent: Sunday, March 19, 2006, 3:03 A.M.

To: ‹Nordicman@interstate.com›

Subject: Warning

Don·t think a call right now is a good idea but what gives?

He’s not exactly sure what to say, why he has e-mailed Swift in the first place. Perhaps it’s because the image of Swift’s basement arsenal made him feel safe. He writes:

Have the feeling someone may be watching me.

Swift responds:

Same feeling here. think something is going down. do not call. repeat. do not call. better to not be in touch at all. erase this message.

What does Swift mean? Something is going down.

His heart is pounding again.

He closes his eyes, chooses a statement from his readings, and begins to repeat it:

“To give death and receive it. To give death and receive it. To give death and receive it To give death and receive it To give death and receive it to give death and receive it to give death and receive it ogivedeathandreceiveitogivedeathandreceiveit togivedeathandreceiveitogivedeathandreceiveit…

Light-headed from holding his breath, the anxiety begins to lift. From behind closed lids, rays of sunlight appear and the mission statement unfurls like a banner:

And then he hears God’s voice, and the plan He offers up is simple.