I caught Shoshana waving her hand behind me. I turned and she said, “I’m calling now to let her know we’re on the way.”
I knew why she’d said it. She was trying to tell Wolffe that the plan was already in motion, and him trying to stop it could adversely affect the very thing he was trying to achieve. Which was actually pretty smart.
George said, “You’re leaving now? Who’s the contact?”
“Sir, if I told you that, you’d really think we were crazy. Just trust me on this, please.”
He said, “Pike, I need more than that.”
I saw Shoshana dialing and said, “Hang on, sir.”
Shoshana put the phone on speaker, then waited on it to connect. When it did, she said, “Hello, Lia, this is Shoshana, the woman you met today. I just wanted to touch base and say we’re on the way. Should be there in the next twenty minutes.”
The speaker spat out, “No, we can’t meet at this hour. I have guests.”
Perplexed, Shoshana looked at Pike and said, “We had a meeting. What do you mean you can’t now?”
Shoshana held out the phone so we could all listen in, and the phone said, “I told you to come at the end of the day. That’s what I said. The end of day. It’s too late now.”
Shoshana heard the words and I saw the dark angel inside of her start to blossom, but I didn’t understand why. She looked at me while speaking into the phone. She said, “We’re coming. Hold on. We’ll be there within twenty minutes. And I’m bringing a wrecking crew.”
The speaker said, “I understand. It’s not like there are a lot of them. Only one.”
The phone disconnected and I said, “What was that about? What wrecking crew?”
“You. You and everyone else in this room. Did you not hear what she said?”
On the couch, Jennifer said, “Holy crap. It just clicked. She said ‘end of day’ as in End of Days.”
Shoshana stood up, her face a mask of death. She said, “Lia’s under the control of the killer, and he’s the only one there.”
I heard someone calling my name and realized I was still on the virtual private network video with George Wolffe. He said again, “Pike! What’s happening?”
I turned to the computer and said, “I need an immediate hit on a cell phone and the follow-on exploitation of the Wi-Fi network it’s associated with.”
I typed in the number, sent it, and he said, “What?”
“Sir, I don’t have time to explain. Get Creed on the cell number. Tell him to ping it, then exploit it, finding the Wi-Fi node it’s attached to. I have to go.”
“Go where?”
I stood up and said, “Go save the inspector.” I heard him yelling at me, but like everyone else, I was too busy putting on lethal kit to answer.
Chapter 45
Lia disconnected the phone and handed it to the killer. He said, “What was that about? I’m not good with surprises.”
She said, “Nothing. A woman who wanted to talk to me about a missing persons case. She’s been flighty since she initially reported. The kid’s a runaway. There’s no reason for you to go after her as well.”
He chuckled and said, “You think I’m some sort of monster, and I can see why, but you miss some things.”
Lia tried to appear sympathetic, saying, “What? Let me help you. Let me keep you from making another mistake.”
He said, “You will help me. Right now. Take a seat in that chair.”
She did. He went behind her and pulled her arms together, saying, “Where are your handcuffs?”
She flicked her head to her purse, and he said, “Hold your hands there.”
He found them, then returned, threading the cuffs through a spine of the chair, then cinching them to her wrists.
He returned to her front and said, “I’m not a bad man. I’m honestly not. I’m trying to cleanse the world of vermin just like you do in your job, but I’m going to do it with a single event instead of one at a time.”
Lia realized he was crazy. Like, literally batshit crazy. He had a strange flicker in his eyes, both of them dancing around, as if he was on a different plane. She’d seen it before with addicts, but she knew he hadn’t taken drugs. He was clinically insane.
She said, “Let me go now, and we can both do what’s right. You do yours and I’ll do mine.”
He laughed and said, “It’s too late for that. You’ve found my little brood of bodies, but I promise you, from the depths of my soul, I didn’t want to kill them. I really didn’t. Well, except for that last one. I set her up to find you, and you graciously took the bait.”
She said, “You don’t need to do this. It’s not too late for redemption.”
She saw his eyes open at the term. “Redemption? Yes, yes. That’s what this is all about. The Rapture is coming soon. You’re a good woman, so you’d be one of the chosen, but I’m going to have to send you earlier than the rest of humanity.”
He went in front of her, judging her mouth’s angle to his waist, and said, “Yes. This will work.”
She let her false sympathy disappear, spitting out, “What the fuck do you want?”
He grabbed her hair and shook her skull, saying, “I want what was taken from me. I want pleasure. I want to eliminate the scourge of humanity in the world. You can help with the first, and by your death, you’ll help with the second.”
He released her hair, letting her head fall back against the chair. She said nothing. He went to the backpack he’d brought and said, “Have you ever heard of ISIS?”
She remained mute.
He said, “Of course you have. Savages. Evil incarnate. Spawn of that religion called Islam.”
He pulled out what looked like a collar, only it had lumps in it, and a small digital display like a watch. He said, “They are the reason the world is so twisted. They represent all that is wrong on our earth, and it’s been that way since the Crusades.”
He approached her and she began to struggle. He slapped her face and said, “Be still. This thing isn’t that precise. You move too much and you might set it off. It has a motion detector, but I’m not sure how sensitive it is.”
She said, “What is it?”
He placed it around her neck and cinched it tight, using a Fastex buckle to complete the loop, just like a dog collar. He said, “It’s called an ISIS necktie. Something they used to great amusement in Syria. They would put it on a man, then tell him if he could run outside the range of the signal, he’d live.” He held up what looked like a key fob. “Of course, that never happened. His head was popped off his body by the explosives as he ran away.”
Lia had thought she was dealing with a serial killer. She now knew it was much, much worse. This man was something else entirely. She began to pant, the adrenaline flooding through her body, her skin beginning to sweat.
He cupped her chin and said, “Don’t worry. I won’t use this to kill you. It’s just a precaution to gain compliance.”
Breathing through an open mouth, feeling the death coming, she said, “Compliance for what?”
He said, “I’m ashamed to show you. But I’m glad you took off your bra. It might help.”