Watching the interrogation of Jurgen Voss from behind the one-way mirror in the Southwest Area Command Station interview room, Steve Forrester could not shake a pervasive sense of déjà vu.
Eventually he figured it out. It was the same feeling he always experienced in the catwalks at the Galaxy—he was once again the reluctant voyeur, keyhole peeking through the eye in the sky and feeling guilty about it. In fairness to himself, both Frank Marshall and Morris Jaworski had asked him to stay for a while and audit the interview. “Just in case us hack cops miss anything,” Lieutenant Frank Marshall had added. Ignoring the sarcasm, Forrester had immediately agreed to the request and now watched, fascinated, as the two veteran police officers plied their trade. It had been three years since the casino executive had been on the other side of the glass, and he had to admit that he sometimes missed the job. He lit another Vantage 100 and returned his attention to the morality play being acted out under the bright lights just a few feet from where he sat in darkness.
“Jurgen, it’s time to quit playing games,” he heard Frank Marshall say. “We’ve got enough evidence against you right now to get an indictment—”
“You have nothing,” said the little German, folding his arms resolutely across his scrawny chest and tucking his hands in his armpits, a move that also served to conceal his mutilated fingertips from his questioners. “I am a card counter und I rented some videos—like many other people. What does this prove?”
“Tell us where the fire will take place, Jurgen,” said Marshall wearily. “Now, before hundreds of people die.”
“I do not know what you are talking about.”
“Who are your associates? What are their names? If you give us the information now, maybe we can cut some kind of deal.”
“I have no information for you.”
“Jurgen, where’s the fire?”
“I do not know.”
“Where’s the fire?”
Voss shook his head stubbornly, set his thin lips in a firm line, and contemplated the ceiling. He knew his tormentors had no real evidence against him. They were clutching at straws, and it was only a matter of time before they would be obliged to release him.
Marshall glanced at Moe Jaworski, then at his watch. Less than two hours to go. Time to play hardball. He rose from his chair, opened the door, and beckoned to the men waiting outside.
Two of Jaworski’s forensic programming technicians entered the room. One of the technicians was bearing a computer monitor; the other carried the computer itself and a keyboard.
“Set it up here on the table, please, so Jurgen can see it,” said Morris Jaworski. While the technicians connected cables, Frank Marshall drew Jaworski aside. “Have we got it all, Moe?” he asked quietly.
“Enough to give this skell a real shock,” Jaworski whispered back.
While they were talking, the technicians had plugged in the equipment and booted up the system. “All set, Sarge,” one of them reported.
“Thanks, fellas.”
The two men left the room. Under the harsh fluorescent lights, only Jurgen Voss, Frank Marshall, and Morris Jaworski remained. Steve Forrester continued to observe through the one-way mirror.
“You know, Jurgen, we could really make things easy for you if you’d cooperate. If it was somebody else that did the killings, tell us now,” Marshall said pleasantly to their suspect, laying a friendly hand on Voss’s bony shoulder. “Give up the names of your pals and tell us where the fire is going to be, you might even walk away from this.”
Jurgen Voss had been momentarily puzzled by the introduction of the computer into the interview room, but he relaxed as he realized that this must be another of their simpleminded police tricks. And now this Marshall was apparently to be cast as the good cop. Would these idioten never learn? “To the police I have nothing to say.”
Frank Marshall shrugged and nodded to Jaworski.
The police scientist depressed a button on the wall-mounted video camera. He then enunciated for the record the date, time, location, and identities of the three persons present in the room. He continued, “Jurgen Voss, you are under arrest for the murders of Barnaby Galt Leopold and Antonio Giovanni Francisco, and for attempted extortion against Emmett Druperman and the Las Vegas Casino Association.
“This interview is being videotaped.
“You have the right to remain silent. If you give up that right, anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have a right to an attorney and to have your attorney present during questioning. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you. Do you understand your rights?”
“Of course. Do I look stupid?” Jurgen was mildly surprised by the sudden shift in the attitude of the police and by the formalization of his status as a suspect. But he remained composed.
“Do you wish to have an attorney present?”
“Nein. I will get one only when I sue you for false arrest.”
Frank Marshall, no longer the good cop, leaned in closer to the suspect. “Is that so, mister? Well, you may change your mind when you hear what we found out about Thanatos.”
“Thanatos? Ich kenne nicht diese Thanatos … .”
“Don’t act dumb, shithead, you know exactly what I mean. For openers, our forensic programmers have discovered some very interesting stuff on your computer—”
Voss suddenly sat bolt upright on the hard wooden chair. “What? You had no right—”
“Oh, yes, we did,” said Marshall grimly. “We obtained a search warrant last night authorizing us to examine all your computer files.”
“Really? Well, I am certain this has done you no good. My files are secure. Und my hardware is tamperproof—”
“Are you referring to the plastic explosive my guys found inside the computer cases, you little bastard?” Jaworski interjected. “Just be grateful we disarmed it before it blew somebody’s fingers off. Otherwise, you’d be facing charges of aggravated assault on top of everything else.”
Jurgen paled. “I did not expect you to—”
“And furthermore,” Jaworski cut in, “you’re not nearly as smart as you think you are when it comes to protecting your data with tricky barriers. Our forensic programmers found your password on a magnetic card in your
wallet. After that it took them less than two hours to mine your entire goddamn system.”
Voss slumped back in his chair and mumbled an imprecation in German. He prayed that they had not discovered his terrible secret, the one only a few special friends knew about, the real reason he had erected so many security barriers around his computer system.
“What was that?” Morris snapped.
“Nothing. I only—”
“We’re wasting time,” Frank interrupted. “Let’s cut to the chase and tell Jurgen exactly what we know. Then maybe he’ll tell us what he knows about Thanatos’s coming attractions. Including the fire.”
“All right, Jurgen, listen carefully,” said Jaworski, straddling a chair in front of Voss. “We know you rented the movies that were used in the extortion packages—and we found the equipment you used to make the copies. We matched the type of printer used for the extortion notes to your laser printer. Our audio specialists identified the background noise on the phone call your pal made to Emmett Druperman—it was from a train that just happened to be passing through your neighborhood at the exact time of the call. Oh yes—and that DSP software of yours that we found incorporates a voice filter that precisely re-creates the voice pattern on your partner’s call to Druperman.”
“All this proves nothing,” the little man protested weakly. So far, they had not mentioned his shameful secret. Perhaps his luck was holding and they had not mined deeply enough … .
“Shut up. I’m not finished. We have evidence that one of your accomplices is Buster Malloy … .”
Behind the thick lenses, Jurgen’s eyes widened momentarily at the mention of Malloy’s name, but he managed to suppress any other reaction.
“ … and look what we found on one of your hard drives!” Jaworski pressed a key to turn on the computer screen, then double-clicked on an icon. The retouched scan of the big Irishman’s face stared back at his accomplice, who had begun to perspire visibly. “Recognize him?”
“I …”
“You and Malloy must have become very good friends on your way to jail last spring. And I have to congratulate you; that was a wonderful California driver’s license you made for your new friend. With the color laser printer and the laminator, you could make up the whole thing in that dusty little room of yours, couldn’t you?”
Morris paused and stared coldly at the little man. The bravado had faded; the police scientist noted a slight twitch, an almost imperceptible trembling. “Okay, Jurgen,” he continued sarcastically. “Help me out here. What was the name you used on the license?” Jaworski raised an eyebrow quizzically and waited. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten? Think hard!” There was no response from the shaken Voss. “Harry Jackson, wasn’t it? Frank, correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that the same alias Jurgen gave Steve Forrester at the Galaxy?”
“That’s right, Moe,” said Marshall. “I thought Mr. Voss here was supposed to be some kind of Einstein. I sure as hell didn’t think he’d be stupid enough to pick a name he’d already used.
“And you know what else, Jurgen?” the police lieutenant continued. “Somebody purchased some cantharidin—that’s Spanish fly to us laymen—at an L.A. pharmaceutical supply house just a few days before the poisoning at the Galaxy. Using a California driver’s license in the name of Harry Jackson as ID! And—guess what?—somebody who looked a lot like Buster Malloy was seen in the Cosmic Café just before Barney Leopold’s last coffee break. Sitting at the same table. How’s that for a bunch of coincidences, Jurgen?”
Voss’s brain reeled, but he remained silent.
“Okay, Mr. Jurgen Voss,” said Morris Jaworski. “We’ll give you one more chance to save your miserable ass. All we need right now is for you to answer two questions, and I can guarantee you that you’ll be very, very sorry if you don’t. Who else is involved in Thanatos? And—where’s the fire?”
Now uncaring who saw, Jurgen raised a ragged, bleeding thumbnail to his mouth and began to chew. He must be strong. He must admit to nothing. He was afraid that if he tried to speak, his voice would break. And there could be no weakness now. With a supreme effort, he swallowed hard and managed to stammer, “I-I am sorry. I still have … nothing to tell you.”
“In that case,” said Jaworski sternly, rising from his chair and picking up the mouse, “we will have to advise federal authorities about the filth we found on your computer.”
Voss’s heart almost stopped. Finally, the truth was out.
Jurgen Voss had always felt superior to the other boys in the village of Löcknitz. The smallest and weakest of his peer group, he knew nonetheless
that he, Jurgen, was more intelligent than any of them. From an early age the stick-frail boy with the large head had inured himself to the insults and the catcalls, refusing to dignify them with a reaction, scuttling home every day after school to escape the harassment and to bury himself in his father’s engineering manuals and mathematical textbooks.
Because, for as long as he could remember, Jurgen Voss had experienced an ongoing love affair with numbers. To him, they were not simply symbols on paper, they were living things. They spoke to him, they invited him to explore their delicious intricacies, they entranced him with their perfect logic. They were his friends, his protectors, his refuge from the storm. Life for the small boy in the East German village was tolerable.
Until the night of his seventh birthday.
After that, there was no escape from the night terrors.
He did not know which was more unbearable—the physical pain or the awful shame he felt that night. Upon leaving Jurgen’s bed after repeatedly ramming the horrible great thing into him, his father had sworn him to secrecy and promised terrible retribution if the boy ever mentioned the incident to his mother or anyone else.
Two nights later the event was repeated. It became a recurring nightmare for the seven-year-old, happening with increasing frequency. There was no one the boy could turn to for help. He was afraid to tell his mother and doubted in any case that she would believe him. He could not turn to the priest; how do you tell a man of God that you have sinned so terribly? One day he haltingly tried to blurt out his awful secret to his ten-year-old brother; the older boy paled and turned away, refusing to speak of the matter. Jurgen thought he noticed tears welling up in his brother’s eyes.
Jurgen’s father was a civil engineer, an employee of the East German government. Life was difficult for the Voss family; they lived in the cold northern reaches of what was then East Germany, near the Baltic Sea. Food was scarce and luxuries nonexistent. Yet when the elder Voss announced that the family would flee to America, Jurgen’s only reaction was to hope that perhaps in the new land the visits from his father would cease.
But his hopes were dashed. Immediately after settling in the modest Minneapolis house, the night terrors became more frequent—and more ferocious. For two more years they persisted, until Jurgen could tolerate no more. Gathering his courage, the fifteen-year-old tremblingly told his father that the nocturnal visits must stop, that he would quite simply kill himself if the older man continued his incestuous practices.
The threat worked. Jurgen’s father finally stopped doing the shameful thing, and from that day forward rarely even spoke to the boy.
In high school Jurgen Voss fit the profile of the archetypal nerd. Moderately severe strabismus forced him to wear thick glasses; he was skinny and totally unathletic. An innate shyness compounded the problem. Jurgen became something of a loner, developing a persona among his unsympathetic fellow students as the dorky-looking whiz kid with the funny accent—which he never lost—and the bad haircut. His intellectual superiority did not promote any kind of serious social life, while the baggage he carried from a thousand nights of abuse had robbed him of any chance for a normal sex life.
Many of the boys in his class, their hormones raging, dedicated a large portion of their teenage energy to the active pursuit of girls. Others, too shy to date, nevertheless bragged incessantly to their friends about imagined conquests or fantasized privately about their female classmates.
But not Jurgen. He knew that he was somehow different. Certainly girls held no attraction for him—in fact, they frightened him. He felt empty and alone. He told himself he did not care; he had his numbers.
And yet there were the urges. Always the urges. Secret fantasies he could tell no one about, private yearnings so terrible that Voss tried desperately to deny them. For years, right through his teens and early twenties, he believed that he was alone with his unspeakable desires.
Then came Jurgen’s awakening: his introduction to the wonderful world of computers and his subsequent discovery of the Internet. The message on the ’Net was plain: this is the one place where you do not have to be ashamed of your feelings, where you are not alone, where there are others like you who have banded together in secret to fulfill these forbidden fantasies.
But we must be careful; even in cyberspace there are those who would revile us for our desires.
We must never be found out by those who would shame and punish us.
Voss slumped in his chair, feeling now the full measure of his inquisitors’ contempt.
Jaworski clicked on a file and began to scroll through color photographs of small boys in various lewd poses—some naked, some being brutally abused by adults, some being tortured by men dressed in leather and rubber garments. There seemed to be an endless supply of pictures, many accompanied by lurid, graphic text.
“We’ve counted over three hundred pictures like these, Jurgen. Did you know it’s a federal offense to possess or transmit child pornography?” The police sergeant clicked another file open. “‘The Pedophile Plaza,’” he read from the screen. “Looks like Jurgen’s got his own chat room, Frank. And guess who’s been making dates on it to meet little boys—in Arizona and California?”
“Not Jurgen?”
“Yep. Wonder if he knows that traveling across state lines with the intent to have sex with a minor is also a federal crime.”
“I’ll bet he knows he could get ten years for it. And I’ll bet he knows what happens to pedophiles in jail.”
A now pale and trembling Voss had a sudden flashback to his narrow escape from the biker in the holding cell at Spring Mountain.
“That’s gotta be why he was so protective about his computer files.”
“Look at this, Moe. He’s got the names and addresses of his little boyfriends and even how much he paid them. Plus the names of his buddies in the Pedophile Plaza.”
“The feds would eat this guy alive, Frank.”
Frank Marshall returned his attention to the exposed sex offender. “Okay. No more fucking around, you perverted little son of a bitch,” he said quietly. “Tell us what we want to know and maybe—just maybe—we’ll forget about turning this garbage over to the FBI.”
Jurgen’s head swam and his ears rang.
They had the evidence about Thanatos. Probably enough to convict him. He had gambled and lost. Suddenly the murders he had helped plan were no longer abstract problems in science; they were real and he would be made to pay for his part in them. The hopelessness of his position slowly penetrated the darkest recesses of Jurgen Voss’s mind. Under the harsh fluorescent lights, the enormity of his crimes became clear to him. No longer could he delude himself that Thanatos had simply been an elegant intellectual exercise. He had participated in the killing of two innocent men—and these policemen knew it. At this moment he stood on the threshold of allowing hundreds more to be burned alive.
But what was even more unbearable, his awful secret had been exposed. Now the entire world would see him for what he was: a disgusting, despicable molester of little children, a predator of the sickest kind. The little man’s shoulders heaved; he removed his thick glasses and buried his face in his hands.
Should he try to clear his conscience by saving others?
Or should he take the other way out?
“That’s right, operator,” said Dan Shiller into the mouthpiece of the Tropicana’s lobby phone. “Charge the call to my room. William Smith in twenty-seven fourteen.”
For a few moments, strange sounds filtered through the line. Beeps, buzzes, a hollow burbling. Finally, a distant voice answered, “Buenos dias, Banco Internacional de Panamá.”
After a brief exchange, Shiller hung up the phone and smiled grimly.
Druperman was still hanging tough.
“Glimme an Irish whiskey with a beer back,” said Buster Malloy to the bartender at Billy Bob’s.
“B and B, easy ice,” Dan Shiller added.
“Did you call the bank?”
“Uh-huh. And guess what. Not a nickel in the account.”
“Too bad,” said Buster with an unpleasant grin. “Looks like I’m gonna have to warm things up.”
“Everything set?”
“Yeah. Took me five trips with the backpack, but it’s all there.”
The two uncaptured members of Thanatos lapsed into silence until the drinks arrived. Malloy snorted his whiskey in one gulp and turned to Shiller. “The cops raided my place this afternoon,” he said flatly. “Just like you said. The little wanker must’ve squealed on me.”
Shiller nodded. “I see. Well, look on the bright side, Buster. Now we’re talking a two-way split.”
“Yeah. I guess that’s good,” the big Irishman said unenthusiastically. An expression of concern clouded his ruddy visage. “Listen, Shiller, do you think maybe Jurgen blew the location of the fire?”
“I dunno. It’s entirely possible. Get there early. If the place is crawling with tourists and not cops, he hasn’t blown it. In that case, wait till eight-thirty to push the button. But no later, you understand?”
“Why no later?”
“Because eight-thirty is their peak time. And they close the rides at nine.”
“Okay.”
“If it’s the other way around—I mean police all over, then he probably has squealed. Doesn’t mean they’ll have found all the devices, though. Set ’em off right away. At least you’ll get some cops.”
Buster’s pulse quickened slightly in anticipation of the carnage, albeit limited. He smiled broadly.
Dan noted the reaction to his mention of killing. It made even the totally amoral grifter a little uneasy. There was no question now that the big man enjoyed killing. He’d already proved it twice. Shiller wondered how many other times Malloy had murdered. To cover his discomfiture and fill a potentially embarrassing void in the conversation, Dan blurted out the next thing that popped into his mind: “So, ah, Buster, did you stay in the boom box last night?”
“Where else? It ain’t bad except for the stink of fertilizer. You?”
“I … move around a lot. They’ll never find Dan Shiller. Jurgen knew jack shit about me. He couldn’t have told ’em anything.”
“You got the envelope with the video and the letter?”
“Voss’s last contributions to the cause. Yeah, it’s in the car. I’ll courier it to Druperman tonight.”
“And then …?”
“Meet me here again Friday, same time.”
Malloy swilled the last of his beer. “You know, Shiller,” he said, sliding off the barstool, “I gotta say my piece now in case things … get fucked up. I didn’t like you at first, an’ I still think you’re a real bastard. But you sure are a smart one. Not book-smart like that little prick Jurgen, but street-smart.”
Dan Shiller grunted in surprise. “Coming from you, Buster, I’ll take that as a compliment.” Seeing that Malloy was in the mood for truth—and tired of pussyfooting around the subject—he added impulsively, “For a borderline psycho, you’re not such a bad guy yourself.”
Buster Malloy’s expression froze. He stared hard at his accomplice. Then he turned on his heel and walked away.
At that moment, Dan Shiller wished he’d kept his big mouth shut.