Jenny pulled a disgusted face. ‘You guys, this is sick. You gonna watch some poor dude get killed live over the Internet?’
‘Hell yeah,’ Spinner said. ‘And I don’t know what you’re complaining about. You watch all those crap reality shows on TV.’
‘That doesn’t even compare, Spinner,’ Jenny spat back.
‘You bet your ass it doesn’t. This beats them all hands down. They should call this
‘Have you voted?’ Spinner asked, not really concerned about Jenny.
‘Not yet.’
‘Well, give me a sec,’ Spinner said, reaching into his pocket for his phone. ‘OK, gimme the address, and let’s get this sucker cooked.’
‘You’ve got to be shitting me,’ Captain Blake said. ‘How can that be possible when he’s broadcasting all this right now?’
‘Because he’s controlling the camera and everything else remotely,’ Hunter replied. ‘That’s how.’
The captain thought about it for a beat. ‘Sonofabitch,’ she mumbled. ‘Is he in the park?’ she asked Seth.
City Hall Park, or South Lawn, as it was called by many, is a 1.7-acre green park area shaded by a dense canopy of trees that fronted the famous Los Angeles City Hall building. It sits on West 1st Street directly across the road from the entrance to the PAB.
‘He could be,’ Seth admitted. ‘We had to use triangula-tion,’ he explained, ‘which is not as accurate as if the phone he was using carried a GPS chip. But even then, because we’re talking about downtown Los Angeles, the triangulation accuracy is much better than if he was calling from out of town somewhere – we narrowed it down to an area of only fifty to a hundred meters.’
‘And that area is right outside the PAB?’ Captain Blake asked again, still doubtful.
‘That’s correct,’ Seth confirmed one more time.
‘OK, thank you,’ the captain said and hastily reached for the phone on Garcia’s desk again.
‘What are you going to do, Captain?’ Hunter asked.
‘Get everyone I can out there. What do you think?’
‘And ask them to do what?’ Garcia this time. ‘Arrest every male carrying a cellphone?’
She paused, her eyes rolling from Garcia to Hunter. ‘The psycho who is responsible for this is just outside our front door.’ She pointed to the computer screen. ‘You want me to sit here and do nothing?’
CLOCK: 4:41, 4:40, 4:39 . . .
CRUSH: 8155.
STRETCH: 8146.
‘He probably
‘Carlos is right, Captain,’ Hunter agreed. ‘He wanted us to know that he was calling from just outside the PAB, and I’m sure he knew exactly how long it would take us to triangulate his call.’
‘It’s been almost six minutes since he disconnected,’ Garcia announced. ‘He’s probably miles away from here now.’
‘I don’t think he will be,’ Hunter countered. ‘I don’t think he’ll be far at all.’
Captain Blake just glared at him.
‘As Carlos said,’ he explained, ‘he’s too arrogant, and this game of cat and mouse excites him too much. He came all the way to our doorstep to tease us and to make his game a little more challenging and fun . . . at least for him. He’ll want to see how we react to his little joke. He’ll be observing West 1st Street and the South Lawn from somewhere close . . .’ Hunter paused, considering something. The memory of the second victim’s bedroom and what they found on the glass wall behind the curtains coming back to him. ‘No, wait, I’m wrong,’ he said. ‘He won’t be observing just to see how we react. He’ll be observing to see if we find it.’
Captain Blake’s forehead creased. ‘Find what?’
‘Some sort of clue,’ Hunter said. ‘Because that’s how he likes to play.’
Captain Blake picked up the phone on Garcia’s desk once again, dialed an internal extension and started barking commands down the line.
‘Tell them to check out the park and the roads immediately surrounding the PAB, Captain,’ Hunter said. ‘Tell them to look everywhere – trashcans, park benches, flowerbeds, street gutters, everything.’
CLOCK: 3:15, 3:14, 3:13 . . .
CRUSH: 9199.
STRETCH: 9180.
On the screen the camera zoomed in on the man tied to the wooden table. The fear etched on his face had intensified ten-fold, as if he’d received some kind of warning or had simply sensed his time was about to run out.
It was a proven fact that if a human being is deprived of one of his/her senses, the remaining ones compensate by over-sensitizing. Maybe it was that, together with a super flow of adrenaline, that gave him a new surge of strength, and all of a sudden he sprang to life, fighting against his restraints once again, tugging, pulling, shaking and kicking as hard as he could. It was all for nothing. The leather straps were too well secured, the chains too strong. No one, no matter how physically fit or strong they were, would’ve been powerful enough to escape that torture table.
Just as suddenly as the man’s new fight had begun, it ended. The little strength he had left had now been completely drained from his body. All his hopes and prayers had abandoned him.
‘Because this is the crazy reality we live in today, Captain,’ Hunter said. ‘No one cares. People upload their
, or gang fight videos to YouTube, and it gets hundreds of thousands of hits. The more violent the better. And people are begging for more. You give them real violence – not staged, no actors, no fake – and you will have people out there jumping for joy. You turn it into a “reality show” and give people the chance to participate by voting, and you will have millions tuning in, itching to click that button just for the hell of it. The killer knows that. He knows the psychology behind it. He knows the mad society we live in. That’s why he’s so confident. It’s a game he knows he can’t lose – a winning formula we see every day on TV.’
The camera zoomed in on the man’s face. His teary eyes saddened even further. There was nothing else in them. He knew it was over.
The captain’s cellphone vibrated inside her pocket once again. This time she didn’t even look at it, letting it ring out.
CLOCK: 2:04, 2:03, 2:02 . . .
CRUSH: 9969.
STRETCH: 9965.
Total silence.
CLOCK: 1:49, 1:48, 1:47 . . .
CRUSH: 9995.
STRETCH: 9995.
Everyone held their breath.
. . . 10,000.
Seventy-Seven
On their computer monitors, the entire picture faded to black, as if the broadcasting camera had been turned off. A second later the word STRETCH reappeared, larger, blood-red, blinking at the center of the dark screen, quickly followed by the number 10,000.
Everyone inside Hunter’s office was transfixed.
As the blinking word and number faded out, the images of the man tied to the wooden table faded back in. This time there were no other distractions on the screen – no buttons, or words, or numbers – nothing.
The camera had zoomed out, once again enabling all viewers to see the man’s entire stretched-out body, together with all four leather straps and a portion of the chains.
Captain Blake brought both hands to her face, cupping them over her nose and mouth, as if about to say a prayer, but no words left her lips.
Suddenly a metal grinding mechanical noise exploded through the computer speakers on both detectives’ desks, sending a horror wave across the room. The rollers had been activated.
‘What the hell?’ the captain blurted out.
‘He enabled the camera’s microphone,’ Hunter said, feeling his heart rate pick up speed inside his chest. ‘He wants us to hear him die.’
The tension in the room was pierced by the man’s first agonizing scream, muffled only by the tight gag around his mouth. It sent shivers down everyone’s spine.
‘There are over a quarter of a million viewers watching this,’ Michelle, who was still on the phone, announced. Her voice was cloaked by an angry sadness.
‘Isn’t there any way you can scramble this broadcast?’ Captain Blake asked her.
‘I wish there was,’ a defeated Michelle replied.
The man screamed again, this time trying to form words, but the gag and the excruciating pain he was going through made whatever he was trying to say indecipherable. Spit and blood flew out of the corners of his mouth, producing a thin red mist, only to splash back down again onto his face, neck and chest.
Reflexively the man stretched his neck as far as it would go, as if that would give his arms and legs an extra centimeter or two and ease his agony, even if just for a brief moment. It didn’t work. Pain had now reached every fiber of every muscle in his body. Soon those fibers would be stretched beyond human endurance, which would cause them to lose their ability to contract, rendering them completely ineffective. After that, the fibers would start to slowly tear, ripping his muscles in a multitude of ways and locations, and drowning his body in unimaginable pain.
The man’s eyes rolled back into his head and his eyelids flickered like butterfly wings over them for a second or two. It looked like he was about to pass out, but instead he coughed violently a couple of times before throwing his head to one side and vomiting.
Captain Blake looked away.
Hunter clenched his fists.
The next noise the man made wasn’t so much a scream but a guttural shriek that stabbed at everyone’s eardrums.
Garcia anxiously brought a hand to his face, half rubbing his forehead, half shielding his eyes. His subconscious mind was once again playing with him.
POP! POP!
Two distinct popping noises followed in quick succession.
Hunter’s jaw tightened and he softly closed his eyes for just an instant. He knew those popping noises were the sound of snapping cartilage, ligaments and maybe even tendons. Pretty soon they would hear the tormenting sound of bones fracturing.
The man’s eyes came back from his head, but they had no more focus in them, wandering deliriously, as if he’d been drugged.
The leather straps were now cutting deep into the man’s skin and flesh – blood was dripping from his wrists, drawing thin red veins on his forearms. His feet were also covered in blood from where the straps had dug into his ankles.
The next sound they heard were bone breaks.
‘Oh my God! No.’ They all heard Michelle plead through the phone.
The skin around the man’s armpits was starting to rupture.
Captain Blake kept her eyes on the screen but placed her hands over her ears. She wasn’t sure how much more she could take.
As the mechanical rollers started working harder to overcome the resistance posed by skin and muscle, their grinding sound became louder, more piercing, like an office shredder fighting to chew through too many sheets of paper.
The man made as if he was about to scream again, but he had no more strength left in him, no more air in his lungs, no more voice in his vocal cords . . . no more life to give. His head slumped to one side and his eyes disappeared back into his head a millisecond before his eyelids closed over them. His body convulsed a couple of times, and that was when blood really started dripping from his armpits, as the man-made rack finally started to rip his arms away from his body.
It would now be just a matter of seconds before the pressure applied by the rollers snapped the brachial artery, the major blood vessel in the upper arms, producing massive blood loss.
They all watched it happen.
Blood gushed out from the man’s torso, where the arms had once been, with incredible speed and pressure.
The armless man writhed and twitched several times, but each one less erratic than the previous, until he lay motionless.
Three seconds later the website went offline.
had gone offline. Captain Blake was back in her office. She had spent most of that time on the phone to the mayor of Los Angeles, the Chief of Police and the governor of California. Everybody wanted answers, but all she had were more questions.
Not surprisingly, the press was already bombarding the LAPD Media Relations Office with hundreds of questions and interview requests. Captain Blake was still refusing to schedule a press conference because she knew exactly what would happen. Questions and comments would be lobbed at them from all corners of the room – some defiant, some angry, but all of them derisive of what the LAPD and the Homicide Special Section had accomplished so far. The captain knew that they wouldn’t be able to supply answers to anything, not yet, and that would simply fuel the press to criticize their efforts and sensationalize the story even more. No, for now, still no questions.
Instead, the LAPD Media Relations Office would issue a new statement to the press. The statement would reveal nothing at all about the progress of the investigation. The true purpose behind it was to ask the press and the media for their cooperation in launching an appeal for the identity of the latest victim. The statement would be accompanied by a portrait photograph of the victim, captured from the early part of the broadcast, asking every paper to print it out, and every TV station to broadcast it as soon as possible. Somebody out there had to know who he was.
Hunter sat at his desk, trying his best to gather his thoughts together while his gut fought waves of nausea and an almost incontrollable desire to be sick. He knew he needed to watch the entire broadcast recording again, probably several times over, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it quite yet. Right now, what he really needed was to get out of that office.