Steve Forrester and Emmett Druperman sat in comfortable chairs at the oversize conference table in the Bridge. They rose to greet their scheduled visitors, LVMPD Lieutenant Frank Marshall and another, slightly older man.
Marshall said: “Mr. Druperman, I’d like to introduce Sergeant Morris Jaworski. He heads up our Forensics Division. Which includes profiling, electronics, and Crime Scene Investigation.” Jaworski was a short, rotund man whose graying hair badly needed cutting. He wore scuffed mallwalkers, baggy gray trousers, and a tweed sports jacket bearing traces of fingerprint ink on the cuffs.
The scruffy sergeant shook hands with the casino executives. “Glad to meet you, Mr. Druperman. And it’s good to see you again, Steve. How many years has it been?”
“Three years since I left the department, Moe.”
“They still talk about you at the house. You and Frank were a hell of a team.”
“The operative word is ‘were,’” Marshall remarked acidly.
“Am I missing something here, fellas?” Jaworski asked innocently.
“Nothing important, Moe,” said Forrester, glancing daggers at his ex-partner. “Maybe we should get down to business.”
“Steve’s right.” Druperman looked at his watch and addressed the two law enforcement officers: “Gentlemen, I don’t have a lot of time. Thank you both for your interest in our little problem. As we all know, these assholes have murdered one of our guests. All I want to know is, what is the police department going to do about it?”
“May I answer this one, Frank?” Sergeant Jaworski asked courteously. Marshall nodded, and Jaworski continued: “Sir, now that we’ve had a
couple of days to analyze the data, I believe that we may be closing in on a solution to your ‘little problem.’
“Our primary objective, of course, is to identify the extortionists, this ‘Thanatos’ group. The first and most obvious source of information about them is the letters they have sent. Despite their cleverness in avoiding fingerprints or other identifying marks on the paper, my people have still managed to infer a great deal. We know the type of computer that generated the letters and the type of printer that output them. Not greatly significant in and of itself, but in combination with other evidence, it’s information that may secure a conviction later on. Of course, that doesn’t help us right now. We need to find these people and stop them before anyone else gets hurt.
“What’s far more interesting, and this could really lead somewhere, is the actual wording of the letters.” Jaworski pulled photocopies of the extortion letters from his battered briefcase and spread them flat on the conference table. “Have you noticed how stiff and awkward the wording is? I’ll give you a couple of examples.” He picked up one of the copies. “Our writer talks about the ‘stake,’ presumably referring to money, when he means the ‘stakes.’ Instead of saying, ‘What will happen is shown here on the videotape,’ he writes, ‘What will happen is on the videotape herewith shown.’ The words are all there, but it’s not the way you or I would phrase it. And this: rather than writing, ‘There is no defense against us,’ he twists it around to read, ‘Against us there is no defense.’ Nothing grammatically wrong, but it doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, does it? So what does this tell us about the writer? In our opinion, he is highly intelligent—but English is obviously not his first language. Here’s another tipoff: on both envelopes, the label say, ‘President of LVCA.’ Standard American business English would be ‘President comma LVCA.’ He writes ‘can not’ as two words instead of one—something no computer spell-checker would ever catch. Anyway, the rather convoluted syntax, the insertion of adverb clauses in front of the verb, the placement of exclamation marks after imperative sentences—all this leads us to believe that this writer’s native language is German.” Jaworski consulted his notes. “Our linguistics people have also noted certain unusual adverbs that confirm this theory. ‘Herewith’ and ‘therein’ are rarely used in English, except perhaps in legal documents, yet their direct translations, ‘hiermit’ and ‘darein,’ are everyday words in German.
“Now for the signature. As we all know by now, Thanatos was the Greek god of death. This allusion reveals that our writer is well versed in
the classics, but that’s not all it tells us. Taken in combination with the tenor of the letters, our profiler believes that the writer is a small male with a massive superiority complex. He likens himself to a god. He uses expressions such as ‘we have the knowledge and the power’ and ‘against us there is no defense.’ Egomaniacs are usually male and often smaller than average in stature—just think of Napoleon!
“There is also some rather inconclusive evidence that the subject’s sexual urges are … abnormal. We can infer with some certainty that he is not married. At least, not in the accepted sense.”
Morris Jaworski paused momentarily to survey his audience. Forrester was fascinated by the policeman’s discourse. Druperman appeared impressed. Only Marshall, who had heard it all before, looked bored. Jaworski continued, “Another thing the letters tell us: our subject is at least computer-literate, and most probably quite knowledgeable. For example, according to the second note, he has evidently secured Steve’s cell-phone number—even though Frank has pointed out that it isn’t listed. He could have got the number from one of your staff, except that I understand only a few of your more senior people know it. Is that correct, Steve?”
“Some key people have it for contacting me in emergencies. I doubt if any of them would have divulged it.”
“So, most likely, he hacked his way into the Sprint database. Probable conclusion? He’s a computer freak.
“And the writer is very likely living in this area. He knows about Steve. He knows of Mr. Druperman’s position as president of the LVCA. And just logically, gentlemen, it would be extremely difficult for anyone to pull the strings in an extortion scheme like this from any distance.
“All right. With your permission, I’ll summarize. We’re looking for a physically small, very intelligent, and highly egocentric man, probably with a German accent. He is a computer expert and he’s from this area. Of course, there are still many people who fit this profile, but the information does narrow our search parameters significantly.”
“Do you think this man is acting alone?” Steve asked. “The letters keep saying ‘we’ and ‘us.’”
“Good point, Steve. The simple answer is, it’s highly unlikely he’s running this scheme by himself. If he were, with his ego, he’d definitely be expressing himself in the first-person singular. And quite frankly, it’s just too big an operation for one man to handle. Somebody had to prepare the videotapes, somebody had to obtain the cantharidin and slip it into the
sugar … somebody had to plan this whole thing. No, it’s almost certainly not the work of just one individual. We believe Thanatos—I guess that’s what we’ll call them—is a gang.
“One of the gang members had to have been very familiar with the operations of this hotel in order to have successfully slipped the first package into Mr. Druperman’s mailbox without being spotted. This suggests the possibility of his being a Galaxy employee. We’ve already run the list that Steve gave us through the NCIC computer in Washington, but so far there just isn’t anybody on your staff who fits the profile—and who has access to the mailroom. It’s another reason to believe we’re dealing with more than one subject here.
“Anyway, gentlemen, that’s what the letters tell us. Now—and this may surprise you—the other potential source of information about Thanatos is the movie clips they included. We can tell that they weren’t recorded off the air or from cable TV. Which means they must have been copied from videotapes.” The police scientist leaned back in his chair. “Frank is coordinating this aspect of the investigation.”
“It’s going to take a lot of shoe leather, but we’re putting three teams on it, starting today,” said Marshall. “The first clip was from the movie Seven with Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt. The second one turns out to be from Extreme Measures. Starring Gene Hackman and Hugh Grant, among others. But again, it doesn’t really matter what the movies are about or who’s in them. The point is, we know the titles, so we can canvass video-rental stores in the metro area to find out who’s taken out these two specific movies over the past month or so. As Moe said, Thanatos had to have rented or purchased originals to make the copies from. Neither one of the movies is a new release, so that should make for a shorter list.
“Once we’ve got this information, we’ll cross-match it with Steve’s list of possibles among Galaxy employees. Finally we’ll check the results of that search with the NCIC database again and see what shakes loose this time.”
Morris Jaworski picked up the discourse again. “Meanwhile, we’ve asked local law enforcement departments from San Francisco to Phoenix to check pharmaceutical suppliers and see if we can nail down who purchased the cantharidin. Unfortunately, it’s a needle-in-a-haystack situation, and there’s not much chance of a quick breakthrough there.
“The last thing I wanted to mention is the cell phone. We assume from the letter that Thanatos has obtained Mr. Forrester’s number. Well, working
with the phone companies, our technicians can easily discover the phone number that the subject is dialing from—unless he routes his calls through some kind of electronic relay. If he calls you over regular landlines, Centel can tell us precisely where he’s phoning from. If he’s using a cellular unit, it’s trickier but still doable. Every cell phone has a built-in electronic MIN—a mobile identification number—so the Sprint people can provide us with the name and address of the person to whom the unit is registered. Unless they’re using a purchased phone card, in which case we’re out of luck.”
Druperman rose from his chair and began to pace. “Gentlemen, this is all highly fascinating. But let’s get back to reality. What do we do right now?”
“Step one, I suggest we put a reverse trace on Mr. Forrester’s cell phone,” said Jaworski. “I’ll have our technicians contact the Sprint computer switch. They can monitor the line and get us the originating number that Thanatos is calling from. Step two, in case they call from a wireline, we’ll have Centel activate a central office trace and use their surveillance software to bridge us in.”
“You do that,” Emmett said impatiently. “But you haven’t answered my question. I’m asking, what do we do about the money? What do we say when they call? Why did we even humor these killers by running that ad and agreeing to their cockamamy terms?”
“Mostly to buy ourselves some time,” Frank Marshall reminded the CEO. “The longer we have to work the case, the more likely we are to catch the perps.”
“Good,” said Druperman, “because I spoke to some key guys in the association and they backed my position a hundred percent. We’re not paying, and that’s it. So you people are gonna have to work around the money thing.”
Marshall nodded his head. “I hear you loud and clear, Mr. Druperman, and I agree with your decision. We always discourage payments to kidnappers and extortionists. We don’t tell them that, of course. We need to keep their hopes alive while we work.
“And that’s where you come in, sir. Please don’t let them know you don’t intend to pay. I suggest that when they call, you try to negotiate their price down. Offer five million instead of ten. If that doesn’t work, play for time. See if you can get us a week, two weeks, or even more. I can practically guarantee that if you swing that for us, we’ll nip this little operation in the bud before anybody else gets hurt.”
Druperman winced as one of his hemorrhoids flared up, a reaction Marshall misread as skepticism.
“Don’t get me wrong here, Mr. Druperman—I don’t mean to sound patronizing. I’m sure you don’t need negotiating lessons from the police department.”
“It’s not that,” said the CEO. “You guys are the experts, and I’ll take your advice. Now if there’s nothing else …?”
“I assume we have the Galaxy’s permission to tap Mr. Forrester’s cell phone … .”
Steve nodded, and the two police officers left the Bridge.
Still in some discomfort, Druperman walked bandy-legged over to his desk, indicating that the meeting was over. “Okay, Steve,” he said. “If they’re gonna call me on your phone, I’ll need the goddamn thing handy.”
“I’ll leave it with you, Emmett,” said Forrester, taking it out of his pocket and handing it to his boss. “Oh, and one more thing.” He leaned over Druperman’s massive mahogany desktop and rotated the speakerphone so the microphone side was facing him.
“What are you—?”
Forrester raised a finger to his lips, then spoke loudly into the speakerphone: “Did you get all that, Edith?”
There was no response, but after a moment a distinct click could be heard.
Druperman looked puzzled. “What was that all about?” he asked.
“Nothing important, Emmett. Just tying up a few loose ends.”
For a moment, the suggestion of a twinkle relieved the extreme droopiness of the CEO’s features. Then another wave of hemorrhoidal pain washed it away.
A crimson-faced Edith Frick refused to meet Steve Forrester’s eyes as he stood over her desk in Emmett Druperman’s outer office.
Forrester addressed her pleasantly. “Hello, Edith.”
“H-hello, Mr. Forrester.”
“I wonder if you could help me with something, Edith. You wouldn’t by any chance know how rumors about that poisoning got started—even before it happened, now, would you?”
“I-I’m sure I don’t know … .”
“I’m sure you don’t, either, Edith.” Forrester said sympathetically,
maintaining a poker face with some difficulty. “But just in case anybody’s intercom accidentally happens to get turned on during any more of Mr. Druperman’s private meetings, I’m having certain electronic equipment installed in his office. It’ll tell us who’s listening so we can have criminal charges brought against them for … wiretapping and invasion of privacy.”
“I-I don’t think that will be n-necessary, Mr. Forrester,” Edith Frick responded in a shaky voice. Eyes downcast, she pretended to be busy with the papers on her desk.
“Well, golly, Edith, that is a comfort.” By this time, Steve was fairly bursting inside and was forced to beat a hasty retreat before he exploded into laughter.
The call came sooner than anyone expected.
Alone in his office, less than an hour after the others had left, Emmett Druperman picked up Forrester’s cell phone and flipped it open. “Hello.”
“Druperman?” It was an echoey voice, strangely high-pitched.
“Yes. Who’s speaking?”
A distinct pause. “This is Thanatos. Did you enjoy my sneak previews?”
“You murdering bastard!” Emmett did not need to fake the anger; he merely augmented and intensified what he already felt. It added credibility to his negotiating position. Keeping opponents off guard had always been the cornerstone of his bargaining technique. Whether he was stonewalling unions, haggling with entertainers, or buying time from extortionists, he firmly believed that the best defense was a good offense. There’d be no groveling to these scum. “You killed that man in the coffee shop!”
There was another noticeable pause before the mechanical voice answered. “Fucking right, Mister Cee-Ee-Oh. Want to find out who’s next?”
“Get to the point, sicko.”
Pause. “I’ll ignore that remark, Druperman. Like the letter said, you will transfer ten million dollars to the following account—”
“Now listen, you greedy son of a bitch.” Two miles away, in a windowless room at the Sprint switching center, the LVMPD technician winced and adjusted her headphones. “There’s no fucking way the association’s gonna authorize that size of … payment. However—I might be able to convince them to kick in something, you know, just to avoid any future incidents and get you off our back. Would you be willing to settle for a smaller amount? How about five million?”
Pause. “Absolutely not. The ten million is nonnegotiable. Wire the money to the following numbered account.”
“Wait a minute.”
Pause. “Don’t interrupt again, Emmett, or I’ll hang up and you’ll be sorry. Be a good boy and wire the money to the Banco Internacional de Panama in Panama City, account number two-three-six-sev—”
“Whoa—go slower; I’m trying to write this down.”
Pause. “Don’t bother. I’m sure the cops are taping the conversation. Hey, fellas, how are you? How’s the trace going?” The caller laughed, an odd squawky sound, and repeated the account number. There was another noise in the background: some kind of interference, the police technician thought. She’d be able to check it later on the tapes. “You have until Monday at five P.M. If we haven’t received confirmation from the bank by then—”
“Wait a minute. Today’s Friday. You’re only giving us three days, and there’s a weekend in there, for Chrissake. We’ll need at least … two weeks to get the money together.”
Pause. “Bullshit. Just pass the hat ’round to your pals in the casino association. They keep more than that in their fucking petty-cash drawers.”
“Give us a week, anyway.” The background noise on the line became louder.
Pause. “Monday. Ten million. That’s final.” Pause. “This will be our last voice communication with you.”
There was a click, and the strange voice was replaced by a hollow silence.
“Christ, Jurgen, I could hardly hear myself think over the racket from that goddamn train,” said Dan Shiller to his associate, who was busy unplugging the microphone from the back of the PC. “I wonder if they heard it at the other end.”
“Most probably they could not hear it. Anyway, it does not matter. There is absolutely no way to trace the call.” Voss tapped out a command on the keyboard, then pushed two keys simultaneously and the screen went blank. “Your conversation was routed through four independent Internet servers on four continents. And a special voice filter has disguised completely your identity. Even with the most sophisticated equipment available, they will never be able to generate a usable voiceprint.”
“So now we wait, huh?” said Buster Malloy.
“Not for long, Buster,” said Shiller emotionlessly. “I guarantee you’ll be back in action in three days.”
“Okay, Christie,” said police scientist Morris Jaworski to his young audio technician. “What do you make of it?”
“I don’t know, Sergeant,” she replied, removing her headphones. “They used some kind of filtering device or digital signal processor. No way a voiceprint analysis is going to help us here. I can check out that background noise, though. Maybe it’ll tell us something.”
“What about the trace, David?” Jaworski asked another technician.
“Well, the call didn’t come from any cell phone—and it didn’t originate from any wireline, either.”
“So where the hell did it come from? Outer space?”
“Close, Sarge. The call originated in cyberspace.”
“You mean the Internet?”
“Yep.”
“Can it be traced back to the source?”
“I doubt it. You know that pause just before the guy spoke every time? I’m pretty sure that was lag.”
“Lag?”
“You know, the time it takes a signal to travel to the satellite and back. Probably bounced up and down three or four times, if they routed the call through a number of Internet servers. It’s like when they’re talking to somebody across the world on TV—that’s only one relay, but even then you get a noticeable pause. The speed of light ain’t all that fast, Sarge.”