Apocalypse

10

‘Jesus.’

Lopez stared at the message as she joined them in the room.

‘Charles Purcell told me to come here immediately,’ Sears explained to Ethan as they stood looking at the message. ‘He told me that I must contact you. He kept insisting that time was of the essence and that if I didn’t do what he was asking, the killers of his family would never be brought to justice.’

Ethan found himself still transfixed by the scrawled message on the wall.

‘Today is June 28,’ he said.

‘Yup,’ Sears confirmed. ‘Whatever that time means, it’s referring to something that hasn’t happened yet. Given what Charles Purcell has managed to do so far, my guess is that he’s completely lost his mind and that this is all some kind of goddamn freak show that he’s arranged, all based around him. Most killers are severely narcissistic and display exactly this kind of behavior.’

‘Like I said,’ Lopez nodded, ‘this is the start of his game and it’s all about him. He’s the star, we’re the audience, and he’ll continue to crave more and more attention right up to the moment he’s captured or gets himself killed.’

Ethan looked at Sears.

‘Except for the fact that he did accurately predict the future, right?’

‘He did,’ Sears conceded. ‘That part, I got no explanation for.’

‘Anything else?’ Ethan asked.

‘The opposite wall,’ Sears said, and gestured behind them. ‘We haven’t got a clue what the hell it means.’

Ethan turned and strode across to the window, pulling aside threadbare net curtains to reveal another message written on the wall just above the window pane in small, precise strokes.

‘Looks like some kind of equation written backwards,’ Lopez said as she moved alongside Ethan and peered at the strange symbols. ‘Same person wrote both messages?’

‘Purcell was a physicist,’ Ethan suggested. ‘He’d have spent much of his life using math. It fits his history, if nothing else.’

‘You actually know what it means?’ Sears asked.

‘Not in the slightest,’ Ethan admitted. ‘And how did he know I would come here at all?’

Sears smiled but it was tinged with anxiety.

‘I got a letter this morning, sent by UPS, from Charles Purcell. It had a picture of you, taken off a website from your old high school in Illinois. It helped us track you down, and that’s how your man at the Defense Intelligence Agency got involved. We called the FBI when we realized that we were getting out of our depth. They wrote us off, but the DIA picked up the case.’

Sears slipped a print from his pocket and showed it to Ethan. The image showed a young man in his late teens, his light-brown hair still scruffy despite having been combed for the shot, his gray eyes clear and sharp. Ethan’s jaw looked slightly leaner than it did now, and the creases etched into his skin by years of physical and mental hardship were missing, but there was no mistaking the defiant set of his shoulders and the crooked grin on his face.

‘You were actually almost cute once,’ Lopez said, with a smirk. ‘The hell happened?’

‘Life,’ Ethan replied. ‘This code must mean something. Why did he write a huge message for me on that wall, but then conceal a tiny one over here?’

‘Either the guy’s crazy or he’s just trying to buy himself time to get away,’ Lopez replied. ‘By the time we’re finished decoding this, even if that’s possible, Purcell could be clean out of the state.’

Ethan shook his head.

‘He could have been clean out of the state without doing any of this. He’s leaving us messages, leaving us a trail.’

‘Why leave anything?’ Lopez asked. ‘And why us? Why you? You’ve never met this guy. Surely if he’d wanted private detectives on his case he’d have contacted someone in Florida instead, somebody nearby?’

Ethan nodded in agreement but could find nothing to say that could explain Charles Purcell’s bizarre actions.

‘My guess,’ Sears said, ‘is that he’s suffered some kind of mental breakdown and all of this is the result of his illness. Until I’m convinced otherwise, I’m putting out an APB for this guy as a wanted murderer. We need him off the streets and in custody because we can’t risk the chance that he won’t hit some other family just like he’s iced his own. Believe me, once these freaks really lose the plot, anyone and anything is fair game.’

Sears headed out of the lounge to leave the apartment. As Ethan turned to follow, his gaze settled on the mirror hanging on the wall opposite the window. He focused on the reflection of the room around them and then a smile curled from the corner of his mouth.

‘Maybe Charles Purcell knows exactly what he’s doing.’