The frightened man on the screen looked straight at the camera. Hunter quickly pressed the ‘print screen’ key on his keyboard, saving a snapshot of his entire desktop to the computer’s clipboard. He now had what he hoped would be an identifiable shot of the man’s face.
‘Now, the reason why I’m calling you, Detective, is because I need your help.’
On the screen, the man started panting heavily. Fearful sweat covered his entire body. He was on the brink of a panic attack.
‘OK, let’s take it easy,’ Hunter replied, being certain to keep his voice calm but authoritative. ‘Tell me how I can help you?’
Silence.
Hunter knew the caller was still on the line. ‘I’ll do everything I can to help you. Just tell me how.’
‘Well . . .’ the caller responded. ‘You can decide how he’s going to die.’
‘Please tell me you’ve got a location for this creep,’ Garcia said as the phone was answered at the other end.
‘Not yet, Detective,’ the woman replied. ‘We need another minute or so. Keep him talking.’
‘He doesn’t want to talk anymore.’
‘We’re getting there, but we need a little more time.’
‘Shit!’ He shook his head at Hunter and signaled him to keep the caller talking. ‘Let me know the second you get something.’ He disconnected and tapped back into Hunter’s call.
‘Fire or water, Detective?’ the caller said.
Hunter frowned. ‘What?’
‘Fire or water?’ the caller repeated in an amused tone. ‘The pipes inside the glass enclosure you can see on your screen are capable of spitting out fire or filling the enclosure with water.’
Hunter’s heart stuttered.
‘So pick, Detective Hunter. Would you like to watch him die by fire or water? Shall we drown him or burn him alive?’ It didn’t sound like a joke.
Garcia shifted in his chair.
‘Wait a moment,’ Hunter said, trying to keep his voice steady. ‘You don’t have to do this.’
‘I know I don’t, but I want to. It should be fun, don’t you think?’ The indifference in the caller’s voice was mesmerizing.
‘C’mon, c’mon,’ Garcia urged between clenched teeth, staring at the line lights on his phone. Still nothing from Operations.
‘Choose, Detective,’ the caller ordered. ‘I want
‘I suggest you pick one, Detective, because I promise you that the alternative is much worse.’
‘You know I can’t make that decision . . .’
‘CHOOSE,’ the caller shouted down the line.
‘OK,’ Hunter’s voice remained calm. ‘I choose neither of the two.’
‘That’s not an option.’
‘Yes, it is. Let’s talk about this for a minute.’
The caller laughed angrily. ‘Let’s not. Talking time is over. It’s decision time now, Detective. If you don’t pick . . . I will. Either way, he dies.’
A red light started flashing on Garcia’s phone. He quickly swapped calls. ‘Tell me you’ve got him.’
‘We’ve got him, Detective.’ Excitement colored the woman’s voice. ‘He’s in . . .’ She paused for a moment. ‘What the hell?’
‘What?’ Garcia pushed. ‘Where is he?’
‘What the hell is going on?’ Garcia heard the woman say, but he knew she wasn’t talking to him. He heard some more undecipherable whispers coming from the other end of the line. Something was wrong.
‘Somebody better talk to me.’ Garcia’s voice raised about half an octave.
‘It’s no good, Detective,’ the woman finally answered. ‘We thought we had him in Norwalk, but suddenly the signal jumped to Temple City, then to El Monte, now it’s showing the call is coming from Long Beach. He’s rerouting the signal every five seconds. Even if we keep him on the phone for an hour, we wouldn’t be able to pinpoint him.’ She paused for a moment. ‘The signal just moved to Hollywood. Sorry, Detective. This guy knows what he’s doing.’
‘Shit!’ Garcia tapped back into Hunter’s call and shook his head. ‘He’s bouncing the signal,’ he whispered. ‘We can’t get his location.’
Hunter squeezed his eyes tight. ‘Why are you doing this?’ he asked the caller.
‘Because I want to,’ the caller came back. ‘You have three seconds to make your choice, Detective Hunter. Fire or water? Flip a coin if you need to. Ask your partner. I know he’s listening in.’
Garcia said nothing.
‘Wait,’ Hunter said. ‘How can I make a choice if I don’t even know who he is, or why you have him in that tank? C’mon, talk to me. Tell me what this is all about.’
The caller laughed again. ‘That’s something you will have to find out for yourself, Detective. Two seconds.’
‘Don’t do this. We can help each other.’
Garcia’s eyes had left his computer screen and were now locked on Hunter.
‘One second, Detective.’
‘C’mon, talk to me,’ Hunter said again. ‘We can figure this out. We can come up with a better solution for whatever this is.’
Garcia held his breath.
‘The solution is either fire or water, Detective. Anyway, time’s up. So what is it going to be?’
‘Look, there’s got to be another way we can . . .’
TOC, TOC, TOC.
The sound exploded through Hunter and Garcia’s phone so loudly that their heads jerked back, as if they had been slapped across the face. It sounded like the caller had slammed his receiver against a wooden surface three times to get their attention.
‘You don’t seem to be listening to me, Detective Hunter. We are through talking. The only word I want to hear from you right now is either
‘Water,’ Hunter said in a firm voice. ‘I choose water.’
The caller paused and let out an amused chuckle. ‘You know what, Detective? I knew you would choose water.’
Hunter stayed silent.
‘It was obvious, really. When you considered the options you had, death by drowning seemed less awful, more humane, less painful and quicker than being burned alive, right? But have you ever seen anyone drown, Detective?’
Silence.
‘Have you ever seen the despairing look on a person’s eyes as he holds his breath for as long as he can, knowing death is all around him and closing in fast?’
Hunter ran a hand through his short hair.
‘Have you ever seen the way a drowning man frantically looks around himself, confused, searching for a miracle that is just not there? A miracle that will never come?’
Still silence.
‘Have you seen the way the body convulses, as if it was being electrocuted, as the person finally lets go of hope and breathes his first mouthful of water? The way his eyes almost bulge out of his skull as water enters his lungs and he slowly starts to suffocate?’ The caller deliberately breathed out heavily. ‘Did you know that it’s impossible to keep your eyes shut when you’re drowning? It’s an automatic motor reaction when a person’s brain is starved of oxygen.’
Garcia’s gaze returned to his screen.
The caller laughed one more time. This time a relaxed giggle. ‘Keep on watching, Detective. This show is just about to get much better.’
The line went dead.
Five
All of a sudden and with incredible speed, water started jetting out of the holes on both pipes inside the glass enclosure. The man tied to the chair was caught by surprise, and fear made his whole body jerk violently. His eyes widened in complete desperation as he realized what was happening. Despite the gag in his mouth, he started screaming, frantically, but on the other side of the screen Hunter and Garcia couldn’t hear a sound.
‘Oh my God,’ Garcia said, bringing his closed right fist to his mouth. ‘He’s not bullshitting. He’s going to do it. He’s going to drown the guy, goddammit.’
The man kicked and wiggled ferociously inside the enclosure, but his restraints wouldn’t give an inch. He couldn’t break free no matter what he did. The chair was solidly bolted to the floor.
‘This is insane,’ Garcia said.
Hunter stood still, his eyes unblinking, staring at his computer screen. He knew that from their office there was absolutely nothing they could do – except maybe collect evidence. ‘Is there a way we can record this?’ he asked.
Garcia shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I don’t think so.’
Hunter reached for his phone again and got the LAPD switchboard.
‘Punch me through to the head of the Computer Crimes Unit,
‘Dennis Baxter, LAPD Computer Crimes Unit.’
‘Dennis, this is Detective Hunter from Homicide Special.’
‘Hello, Detective, how can I assist you?’
‘Tell me, is there a way I can record a live webcam broadcast that I’m watching on my computer right now?’
Baxter laughed. ‘Wow, is she that hot?’
‘Is there a way or not, Dennis?’
Hunter’s tone knocked the play out of Baxter’s voice.
‘Not unless you have some sort of screen recording software installed on your computer,’ he answered.
‘Will I have one?’
‘On an LAPD office computer? Not as standard. You can put in a request and IT will install one for you in a day or two.’
‘No good. I need to capture what’s on my screen right now.’
A split-second pause.
‘Well, I can do it from here,’ Baxter said. ‘If you’re watching something live over the net, just give me the web address. I can log into the same website and capture it for you. How does that sound?’
‘Good enough. Let’s try it.’ Hunter gave Baxter the sequence of numbers the caller had given him minutes earlier.
‘An IP address?’ Baxter asked.
‘That’s right. Aren’t they traceable?’ Hunter asked.
‘Yes. That’s actually their main purpose. They work almost like a license number plate for every computer connected to the net. With that, I can pretty much tell you the exact location of the source computer.’
Hunter frowned. Could the caller have made such a silly mistake?
‘Do you want me to start a trace?’ Baxter asked.
‘Yes.’
‘OK. I’ll get back to you as soon as I get anything.’ He disconnected.
The water was already reaching the man’s waist. At that speed, Hunter calculated that the man would be completely submerged in another minute and a half, maybe two.
‘Operations said that there was no way they could trace the call?’ Hunter asked Garcia.
‘That’s right. He was bouncing the signal all over town.’
The water reached the man’s stomach. He was still trying to wiggle himself free, but he was steadily losing energy. He was shivering even more now. A combination of uncontrollable fear and the water temperature, Hunter guessed.
There was nothing Hunter or Garcia could say, so they both went eerily quiet, watching death rise inch by inch around the man on their computer screens.
The phone on Hunter’s desk rang again.
‘Detective, is this for real?’ Dennis Baxter asked.
‘Right now, I have no reason to believe it isn’t. Are you capturing it?’
‘Yeah, I’m recording it.’
‘Any luck with tracing it?’
‘Not yet. It can take a few minutes.’
‘Get back to me if you get anything.’
‘Sure.’
The water reached the man’s chest, and the camera slowly zoomed in on his face. He was sobbing. Hope had left his eyes. He was giving up.
‘I don’t think I can watch this,’ Garcia said, moving from behind his desk and pacing the room.
The water reached the man’s shoulders. In a minute it would be past his nose, and death would arrive with the next breath. He closed his eyes and waited. He wasn’t trying to break free anymore.
The water reached the underside of his chin, and then, without any warning, it stopped. Not a drop more came out of the pipes.
‘What the hell?’ Hunter and Garcia looked at each other for a second and then back at the screen. Surprise etched on both their faces.
‘It was a goddamn hoax,’ Garcia said, approaching Hunter. A nervous smile on his face. ‘Some nutcase pulling our chain.’
Hunter wasn’t so sure.
At that exact moment the phone on Hunter’s desk rang again.
‘You are very clever, Detective Hunter,’ the caller said.
Hunter quickly signaled Garcia one more time, and within seconds the call was being recorded again.
‘You almost had me fooled,’ the caller carried on. ‘I thought your concern for the victim was quite touching. Once you realized there was no way you could save him, you picked what seemed to be the less sadistic, less painful and quicker death of the two choices I gave you. But that was only half of the story, wasn’t it?’
Garcia looked confused.
Hunter said nothing.
‘I figured out the hidden reason behind your choice, Detective.’
No reply.
‘You realized I was about to pick fire, and you quickly interrupted me and chose water.’ A self-assured laugh. ‘Water would’ve given you hope, right?’
‘Hope?’ Garcia mouthed the word, frowning at Hunter.
‘The hope that when, and if, you come across the body, maybe your—’ the caller put on a silly voice ‘
could uncover something. Maybe on his skin, or hair, or a trace of something under his nails or inside his mouth. Who knows what microscopic clues I might have left behind, isn’t that right, Detective Hunter? But fire would’ve destroyed it all. It would’ve carbonized his entire body and everything else with it. No clues left, microscopic or not.’
Garcia hadn’t thought of that.
‘But if he drowns, the body is intact.’ The caller moved on. ‘Death comes from suffocation . . . skin, hair, nails . . . nothing gets destroyed. It’s all there ready to be analyzed.’ The caller paused for breath. ‘There might be a million things to find. Even the water in his lungs could provide you with some sort of clue. That’s why you chose water, isn’t it, Detective? If you can’t save him, do the next best thing.’ The caller let out an animated laugh. ‘Always thinking like a detective. Oh, you’re no fun.’
Hunter gave himself a subtle headshake. ‘You were right the first time around. My concern was the victim’s suffering.’
‘Of course it was. But . . . just in case I’m right, guess what? I was already prepared for it.’
The man on the screen had reopened his eyes. He was still shivering. Despite the darkness, he looked around himself, waiting . . . listening.
Nothing. Not a sound. The water had stopped.
Behind the gag his mouth twisted into a shy smile. A glimmer of hope returned to his eyes, as if it all had been just a bad dream . . . a sick joke. He swallowed hard, closed his eyes and tilted his head back, as if thanking God. Tears found their way through his closed eyelids and cascaded down his face.
‘Keep on watching, Detective.’ There was a proud ring to the caller’s voice. ‘Because you’re about to get the “Cirque du Soleil” of shows.’ He disconnected.
On the screen the water level started decreasing.
‘He’s draining the container,’ Garcia said.
Hunter nodded.
The water drained fast. In a matter of seconds its level had gone back down to the man’s chest.