Authors: The Sacred Cut
Costa
wondered about the implications of that idea. "They seem very forgiving,
considering the circumstances."
"You
noticed?" she replied with a brief, icy scowl.
"And
Leapman?"
She
cast him a sideways glance.
"Have
you talked this through with him?"
"Do
you really think that would be wise right now? If he doesn't know
already, he'll go ballistic when he discovers how I found out. And if he
does..."
Leapman
knew. At least that's what she suspected. Costa thought about the way the
FBI agent had acted ever since that first unexpected meeting in the Pantheon. Some
unspoken knowledge seemed to underpin everything he did.
"And
the ziggurat?"
She
keyed up something on the computer: a page full of technical archaeological
jargon and three photos of a mound-like site.
"A
ziggurat's a kind of ancient temple in Iraq. My guess is it's what
Kaspar used as a base for his mission. There's nothing in any of the
official records, of course. But a UN archaeological inspection team was sent
into Iraq last summer to try to assess the damage to historical monuments
caused by two wars and the Saddam regime. I found this..."
The
page was about a temple close to a place called Shiltagh, near the banks of the
Euphrates between Al Hillah and Karbala, slap in the middle of ancient
Mesopotamia. It was less well known--or, as the report put it, less well
documented--than the famous ziggurat at Ur. But it had been damaged during
the first Gulf War. What must once have been a low, stepped pyramid was now a
crumbling, wrecked mound, its original outline only faintly discernible. Mortar
craters pockmarked the broad ceremonial staircase entrance.
"Looks
like it must have been a hell of a battle," he murmured.
"Exactly,"
she agreed. "This isn't collateral damage. It's not aerial
bombardment either. There was one big, vicious firefight here and the report
dates the damage to 1991."
"So
why's this place special?"
"For
two reasons. The allied troops never got this far in 1991. There couldn't
have been a pitched battle between conventional soldiers here."
"All
the same--"
She
hit a key and said, interrupting him, "Look at the pattern, Nic. The
sacred cut. It's everywhere. This is where he gets it from."
She
keyed up a photo of what he assumed was the subterranean interior of the
ziggurat. The walls were peppered with bullet marks. Huge chunks had been
carved out of the masonry around the door as if someone had tried to fight off
an entering attacker. But the pattern was unmistakable: carved stucco on the
walls, repeating itself in every direction. And elsewhere too. There were what
looked like spent munitions boxes, wrecked equipment. At the centre was a pile
of dark material, clumped together in a heap.
She
hit the zoom key on the photo. The material became clearer: bales of ancient
camouflage webbing.
"This
has the pattern too," she said. "They'd probably use it for
making sleeping quarters, getting a little privacy. It's just a
coincidence, of course. The webbing's got that shape because that's
how it's made. Maybe it makes it strong, I don't know. But, what
with the walls and the webbing, I imagine that's all he saw when they
came for him, when he watched the rest of his team getting taken, killed, all
around him. On the walls. In the quarters they'd made for themselves. Can
you imagine what that must have been like?"
The
floor, the low, curving ceiling, reminded Nic of what he'd seen painted
in blood in the tiny apartment that stank of meat, just a few hours ago.
"I
imagine it wouldn't leave you. Ever."
"Right,"
she agreed. "So what do you do? You live that nightmare over and over
again until you understand what caused it. You get free. You hunt people down
in the same kind of sacred places and see if that same pattern gives you any
answers."
She
looked into his eyes, not flinching. "Do you think he's found some
answers? Do you think he's even close?"
He
thought of the single word written in blood in the dead woman's
apartment. "Not close enough. When he killed that woman he wrote
something, over and over, underneath the pattern. A question.
"Who?" "
It
didn't seem to make any sense to her either.
"He's
been killing people he knew," she said. "Why would he ask
that?"
"I
don't know. You said they'd all been strangled with a cord?"
"That's
right," she agreed.
"No,
it's not. He didn't use cord. At least not in the Pantheon. It was
this stuff. Webbing, wrapped up into a ligature. Teresa held that information
back. Leapman is going wild. It was the same with the woman we found today. Teresa
got positive ID back from forensic on the first sample. This is US military
issue webbing. You can't buy it retail. And it's not from years ago
either. This particular type wasn't manufactured until last year. As far
as we can work out, the only place it's been used in the field is
Iraq."
"Whoa."
She sighed. "Now you're the one who's going too fast."
He
had to ask. "If this man is that consistent, surely he would have used it
on the others? Did he?"
"I
don't know."
Costa
said nothing.
She
squinted at him, then pointed at the computer. "You think I'm
holding out on you? After this?"
"No."
He laughed. "Not at all."
Her
fingers flew on the keyboard. "Let's see. I've got the
standard reports on here anyway. The ones we sent round to you."
Carefully,
one by one, they went through each of the case file summaries. All were brief,
reduced to just a few pages.
"This
is ridiculous," Emily snapped. "Why the hell didn't I see
this in the first place? Why didn't your people?"
"You're
not a detective. And we didn't have the time. Remember?"
"Sorry."
She'd
left the last document on the screen open. It was the report on her own
father's death. Now that he thought about it, the omission almost
screamed at them from the screen. The summary gave a cause of
death--strangulation--but contained no forensic data on the material
used by the murderer.
"That
can't be normal." Emily pointed at the screen. "Just a cause
of death. Nothing about the actual ligature itself. Forensic would have
information there, wouldn't they? Something that could be useful?"
"Absolutely.
A couple of years ago Teresa Lupo coaxed some skin samples out of forensic when
they were about to give up on a domestic we had. When they took a good look
again they had proof the husband was responsible. He'd pulled the cord so
tightly he'd left material there himself."
Emily
glowered at the screen. "Watch this. I still have some clearance."
She
hit the keys. The modem inside the machine cracked and whistled. Costa watched
her thrash her way through more security screens than he'd ever seen in
his life. Finally she got to where she wanted: a report topped by the FBI logo.
The full file, of which until then he'd only seen the summary.
"Forensic,
forensic, forensic..." she whispered. "
Shit
!"
She'd
scrolled down until she found the section. It contained just four words:
PENDING. REFER TO HIGHER AUTHORITY.
"You
could..." he began to say.
"...
try the others? You bet."
She
bent down over the computer, head in hands, furious. Costa gingerly put a hand
on her shoulder, then removed it.
"Emily?"
"Say
something useful. Say something I want to hear."
"You
just made a discovery. You've just worked out what those people were
really killed with. Not just "cord." The same thing we found here.
US military webbing. Maybe he brought it with him. Maybe he acquired it here. Either
way, we know. Why else?"
She
took her head out of her hands and smiled brightly at him. "Christ,
you're right, too. It's the dog that didn't bark."
Costa
looked baffled.
"I'll
explain later, Nic. Now what do we do?"
The
last thing she wanted, he thought. "We leave this till the morning. We
continue this conversation with other people around."
"Is
that what you want?" At least she didn't argue. There weren't
many options open to them.
"You
mean, am I scared?" he asked.
"Kind
of."
"No."
"Don't
you ever get scared?"
He
looked around the living room. It felt good with another person there. The fires
were doing their job at last. The place finally seemed warm, human.
"Not
here," he answered. "Not now. But I have to tell you, another
fifteen minutes and I fall fast asleep, Agent Deacon. You'd better have
something else to amaze me."
"Oh,
I have," she said with a grin, and went back to stabbing the keys of the
machine.
PERONI
HAD NEVER DONE well on the weapons range, never paid much attention to the
smart-ass firearms monkeys who thought you could run the world through the
sights of a gun. He was a vice cop. He didn't mind frontline work. When
he was a senior officer he'd made damn sure he didn't let his men
take risks he'd never face himself. All the same, vice was nothing like
this. It was pimps and hookers, turf wars and stupid, cheated johns. Black and
white in the corners sometimes, but more often a difficult, indeterminate shade
of grey. Not something shapeless moving through the dark, unknown, unseen,
looking to kill for no real reason at all.
Peroni
did what seemed natural, put his big arms out and covered the girl with his
body. A futile gesture, one designed more for reassurance than anything else. The
huge door opposite was completely shut. The side exit was doubtless locked too.
This killer made no mistakes. They couldn't flee. They couldn't do
much but wait and face whatever lay out there.
And think
...
Even
a stupid old vice cop could do that.
"What
do you want?" he yelled into the darkness.
Someone
moved, feet tapping on the ancient stone floor, a menacing presence shifting
around the echoing interior like a ghost. He could be anywhere. The sound of
his shoes on the hard floor bounced around the upturned stone eyelid, came at
them from every direction.
"
What
do you want
?" Peroni yelled again.
The
footsteps stopped. The hall was silent except for the faint rumble of a lone
car making it through the night in the distant world beyond.
"What's
mine."
It
was an American voice. Flat, middle-aged, monotonous. A voice that sounded as
if most of the life had been squeezed out of it somewhere along the line. Peroni
wondered if he could guess where it came from. If he could just point the
service pistol in that direction, loose off a few shots and hope
something--good luck, God, the remnants of a benevolent spirit still
lurking here--would send one piece of metal spinning in the right
direction.
But
he didn't believe in God or ghosts. You had to make your own way.
Peroni
turned, still doing his best to cover the kid behind him, peered into her face
and held out his hand. She was clutching the wallet, thin fingers tight on the
leather, as if it were the most precious thing in the world.
"Laila,"
he whispered. "Please..."
Stealing's a bad thing
, he wanted to say. Stealing gets you into big
trouble, marks you out for life, as visibly as if you were wearing a sign round
your neck saying "evil." Or a magical symbol carved out of your
back.
That
was why cops like him spent their working days chasing little thieves, looking
for those telltale marks. It was too hard trying to catch the big, smart guys,
the ones who carried scalpels and didn't baulk at using them. And as for
the really big fish--well, they just got immunity from their paid
politicians anyway. None of which helped a dumb cop on the street to work out
the difference between what was truly good and bad.
She
passed the wallet over to him without a word, eyes glittering, shiny, full of
fear.
"Here!"
Peroni bellowed into the darkness and sent the wallet spinning out into the
heart of the building, hard enough, he hoped, to take it into the shade on the
other side where their unseen stalker could collect it, say a quick thank-you,
then disappear into the night leaving everyone safe and sound.
Instead,
the thing fell with a gentle thud, slap bang in the middle of the tiny mound of
snow building beneath the oculus, and sat there under the silver light like a
beacon, like a bright, shiny trap.
"I
didn't mean to do that," Peroni said, half to himself, half to the
figure hiding in the dark. "I'm not playing any tricks here,
friend. Just take the damn wallet and go, will you?"