Gallery of the Dead

Ninety-Four

The first thing that the man instructed Agent Fisher to do was to change her shoes into something a lot more comfortable. ‘Shoes you can run in’, were actually the words he used. After that, he told her to pack her regular weapon, jump in her car and drive south, joining the US-101 from North Los Angeles Street.

‘OK,’ Agent Fisher said as she finally got onto the freeway. ‘So where am I going here?’

‘Oh, we’re taking a ride to a great little horse ranch I found.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it’s a great place for a stand-off.’

‘A stand-off?’

‘Well, I’ll explain as we get nearer.’

Agent Fisher knew that she had to keep the man talking for as long as she could. As long as he was talking he couldn’t be hurting Heather, and that was all that mattered right then.

‘Why are you doing this?’

‘Because you called me a “pathetic loser”, you called me dumb — well, not in so many words, but you did. You said that I was an inadequate person. What do you think, Special Agent Fisher? Do you think that you can just go around spreading lies about people and not suffer any consequences? Sorry, but that’s not the way the world goes.’

‘You’re doing this,’ Agent Fisher asked in disbelief, ‘you’ve kidnapped my daughter because you want an apology?’

‘Oh, no, no. It’s way too late for an apology now. But you’ll see what I want in due time. It’s not my fault if you are not worthy of my work. It’s not my fault if your intellect is too constricted to understand the magnitude, the importance of what I’m doing.’

‘You mean collecting body parts?’

The man went quiet for a moment.

‘What?’ Agent Fisher pushed. ‘You think we haven’t figured that out?’ She was careful not to sound too aggressive. She had no idea what sort of temper the caller had, but she could guess. If he got so offended as to kidnap her daughter just because she called him a ‘loser’ in a press conference, who knew what he would be capable of if she insulted him in a direct conversation? ‘Your Latin clues were very clever. It took us a while. We considered several different theories, but we got there in the end.’

‘I’m glad that you have finally figured out the clues, Special Agent Fisher, but the real question is: do you understand it? Do you see the importance of what I’m doing?’

‘No, I don’t,’ Agent Fisher admitted. ‘You’re killing people to rob them of their body parts. What’s the grand vision there? What is the master plan behind any of that?’

‘You really don’t see it, do you, Special Agent Fisher? We live in a screwed-up world, a false world where almost nothing is real anymore. Everywhere you look, most of what you see is fake, even the bodies you see — fake cheekbones, fake lips, fake noses, fake hair, fake eyelashes, fake breasts, fake muscles, fake bums, fake smiles, fake teeth, fake nails, fake skin color, eye color, hair color... everything. Our whole lives are nothing more than one huge lie. Online we have one thousand friends, but in real life we barely have three. We pretend to be what we’re not, to impress people we don’t like. In cyberspace we lead a fantastic life — we post pictures and statuses that suggest one thing, when in reality we are just the opposite. We lie, we cheat, we steal, we deceive, we pretend... we do anything to maintain the fake appearance that we are happy with ourselves... happy with our lives, without realizing that what is actually making us miserable is the lying, the fakeness, the pretending. The more we lie, the sadder we get, but we can’t stop it. We’ve all been sucked into this false world that no one can get out of, so we just have to keep on going. Keep on pretending. Keep on lying. We are all con artists. All of us.’

The man paused for breath.

‘Me? I am simply visionary enough to be able to see what is real, what matters most, what is really valuable in this world, but unfortunately we can’t collect “truth”, so I decided to go after the next most valuable commodity on earth. True beauty. The kind that cannot be fabricated, copied, or duplicated, no matter who you are or how much money you have.’

Keep him talking, Agent Fisher kept on telling herself.

‘You don’t really know what you’ve done, do you?’ she asked.

‘I know exactly what I’ve done.’

‘Do you know about your first victim, Kristine Rivers? Do you know who she was? Who she really was?’

The man went quiet.

‘She was the niece of the FBI’s NCAVC director. Do you know what that means? It means that the Bureau will never stop looking for you. Never.’

Agent Fisher paused, allowing the man to savor those words.

‘I wasn’t lying when I said that the net is closing around you,’ she continued. ‘There are tens of agents working this case, each covering a different aspect of the investigation. You won’t be able to hide forever. We’ll get to you sooner rather than later, but I can help you.’ Agent Fisher’s voice took a tender tone. ‘Please just let my daughter go. I know you don’t really want to hurt her. You don’t really want to hurt an innocent fourteen-year-old girl whose understanding of this world, this false world you hate so much, isn’t like ours. Please, just let Heather go and I will testify on your behalf. I promise you. I’ll tell the court how merciful you were.’

‘Enough,’ the man said, his voice angry. ‘Do you really think you can win me over with your soft talk?’ The man laughed. ‘I WAS merciful, or didn’t your pathologists figure that out? There was never any torture. Never any pain. No suffering. Once they were gone, I placed them in the most respectful position there is — resting placidly on their backs. They should be thankful to me. Do you know why? Because I immortalized them. And now you want to talk about helping me out? You make me laugh. Who’s pathetic now, huh? As for being able to hurt an innocent person? Why don’t you ask Lucia, your daughter’s babysitter?’

Agent Fisher felt her stomach churn. ‘What have you done?’

‘Let’s just say that there was a lot of blood.’

‘What have you done?’ Tears came into Agent Fisher’s eyes.

‘One day what I’m doing will be understood, Special Agent Fisher. My collection will be understood. It will be seen as the most valuable collection on this planet. You’ll see. Just give it time.’

Agent Fisher heard keyboard clicks coming through her Bluetooth earpiece.

‘OK, you’re coming up to an exit on the right. I want you to take it.’

Agent Fisher followed the caller’s instructions until he told her to park by some heavy bushes on the side of the dirt road she’d been driving on for the past few minutes. They were in the middle of absolutely nowhere.

‘Now what?’ she asked.

‘Now I want you to get on the phone and call the rest of the investigative team. The team that were with you in Tucson. All three of them. Tell them that you have got a lead on a suspect, or anything you like, but be convincing, because you’ll only have one chance. Get them to come to you. You guys are about to storm the suspect’s hideout place.’

Left with no options, Agent Fisher had to do as she was told.

‘I’m impressed,’ the man said after she made all three calls. ‘You have actually figured out about the Optum platform.’

Agent Fisher squeezed her eyes tight in anger. To convince Hunter, Garcia and Agent Williams to come meet her, she had told them that Cyber Crime had managed to track the breach to the Optum platform. Now the killer knew the FBI knew about how he was gathering information about his victims. Even if she managed to get out of this, their only lead on how to actually track this killer down was now lost.

‘Anyway,’ the man continued. ‘Now we wait. Don’t worry. I’ll guide you through every single step. I’ll even tell you what to say, if the situation warrants it. And don’t try to do anything silly, because I have eyes everywhere. The entire ranch is covered in cameras and from where I am, I can control lights, doors, noises, anything I want. All you need to do is follow the script exactly how I tell you and little Heather here won’t have to worry about the big bad man.’