Spider

16

FBI Field Office, New York Not since he'd discovered that his sister was a lesbian had Special Agent Howie Baumguard been so stunned and speechless.

The air-con in his office had broken down – again – and it was now steam-room hot. He rubbed sweat from his creased brow with the thumb and forefinger of his left hand while he tried to work out what to do next.

Howie clicked the mouse on his desk pad and dragged the image that had just been sent through to his flat screen. 'God damn it! God damn it!' he shouted to an empty office.

He flipped the picture 180 degrees one way, and then rotated it back the other way. He changed the colour several times, examined it upside down and back to front. 'Jesus H. Christ!' he swore again at the empty room.

Howie quarter-framed the image and docked it in the top left-hand corner of his screen, then maximized another two shrunken frames and started to examine them through a similar process of flipping, rotating and decolouring. The new 360-degree imaging kit he was using was so sharp and realistic that he felt he could almost pick objects up off the screen and toss them around in his hands like a baseball.

'God damn it!' he shouted, finally reaching the limit of his patience.

Howie stood up and headed to the Men's room. Not only because he'd drunk so much coffee that he desperately needed a leak, but also because he needed to buy himself a little more thinking time.

He freshened up and returned painfully slowly to his desk, almost as though he was afraid of getting back there. Instead of sitting down, he chose to stand behind his swivel chair, his sausage-fingered hands drumming on the top curve of the seat, his eyes locked on his desk monitor.

'God damn!' Nothing had changed. It was still as disturbing as it had been the first time he'd seen it.

The computer showed three clear shots.

Shot one was of a cardboard box.

Shot two was of Sarah Kearney's decapitated skull.

But it was shot three that was making Howie curse out loud in an empty room. Full frame on the flat screen was the address on the box, the very thing that had made airport security scan the package and alert Howie's office. In black felt pen were the words 'Fragile. For the attention of Jack King, c/o the FBI.'