The Ormsons, Mark and Cindy, agreed to let Michael talk. They were clearly frightened, especially of the FBI personnel, but
they seemed to trust Detective Hampton. Most people did, she knew. She was pretty and sincere and had a disarming smile that
she used when she needed to.
“I’m interested in the game called the Four Horsemen,” Hampton said to the boy. “That’s the only reason I’m here, Michael.
I need your help.”
The teenager dropped his chin to his chest again and then shook his head back and forth. Hampton watched the nervous boy and
decided to take a chance with him. She had a hunch that she wanted to play.
“Michael, whatever you think you’ve done wrong, it’s nothing to us. It’s
nothing
. We don’t care what you’ve done on your computer. This isn’t about you or your family
or
your hacking. There have been some terrible murders in Washington, and there might be a connection to this game called the
Four Horsemen. Please help us, Michael. You’re the only one who can. You’re the only one.”
Mark Ormson, who was a radiologist at Georgetown University Hospital, leaned forward on the black leather couch in the den.
He looked more frightened now than when he’d gotten home. “I’m beginning to think I better get a lawyer,” he said.
Patsy Hampton shook her head and smiled kindly at both parents. “This is
not
about your son, Mr. and Mrs. Ormson. He’s not in any trouble with us, I assure you.”
She turned back to the teenager. “
Michael
, what do you know about the Four Horsemen? We know you’re not one of the players. We know it’s a very private game.”
The boy looked up. She could tell that he liked her, and maybe trusted her some. “Hardly anything, ma’am. I don’t know too
much.”
Hampton nodded. “This is very important to us, Michael. Someone is killing people in the Southeast part of Washington—
for real
, Michael. This is not a fantasy game. I think you can help us. You can save others from getting murdered.”
Michael dropped his head again. He had hardly looked at his mother and father since they arrived. “I’m good with computers.
You probably already figured that out.”
Detective Hampton kept nodding, giving the boy positive reinforcement. “We know you are, Michael. We had trouble tracing you
here. You’re
very
good with computers. My friend Chuck Hufstedler at the FBI was really impressed. When all this is over, you can see where
he works. You’ll like him, and you’ll love his equipment.”
Michael smiled, showing off large, protruding teeth with braces. “Back at the beginning of summer, probably late in June,
this guy came into the Gamester’s Chatroom—where you found me.”
Patsy Hampton tried to hold eye contact with the boy. She needed him badly; she had a feeling that this was a big break, her
biggest so far.
Michael continued to speak softly. “He sort of, like he took over the conversation. Actually, he was pretty much a control
freak about it. He kept putting down Highlander, D & D, Millennium, all the hot games that are out now. Wouldn’t let anybody
else get a word in. Almost seemed like he was high on something.
“He kept hinting about this completely different game he played called the Four Horsemen. It was like he didn’t want to tell
us about it, but then he would give out bits and pieces anyway, but not much. He wouldn’t shut up.
“He said the characters in Dungeons and Dragons, Dune, and Condottiere were predictable and boring—which, I must admit,
they are sometimes. Then he said some of the characters in his game were
chaotic evil
instead of
lawful good
. He said they weren’t fake heroes like in most RPGs; his characters were more like people in real life. They were basically
selfish, didn’t really care about others, didn’t follow society’s rules. He said Horsemen was the ultimate fantasy game. That
was all he would tell us about the Four Horsemen, but it was enough. I mean, you could see it was a game for total psychos.”
“What was his call name?” Agent Dwyer asked Michael.
“Call name, or his real name?” Michael asked, and offered up a sly, superior smile.
Agent Dwyer and Hampton looked at each other.
Call name, or his real name?
They turned back to Michael.
“I traced him, just like you traced me. I got through his encryptions. I know his name, and I know where he lives. Even where
he works. It’s Shafer—Geoffrey Shafer. He works at the British Embassy, on Massachusetts Avenue. He’s some kind of information
analyst there, according to the embassy’s Web site. He’s forty-four years old.”
Michael Ormson looked sheepishly around the room. He made eye contact with his parents, who finally looked relieved. Then
he looked back at Hampton. “Is any of that stuff helpful to you? Did I help?”
“Yes, you did, Laughalot.”
GEOFFREY SHAFER HAD VOWED he would not get high on pharmaceuticals tonight. He’d also decided he was going to keep his fantasies
under control, under wraps. He understood precisely what the psychobabbling profilers on the murder cases would be thinking:
his fantasy life was escalating, and he was approaching a rage state. And the profilers would be exactly right—which was
why he was playing it cool for a while.
He was a skillful cook—skilled at a lot of things, actually. He sometimes put together elaborate meals for his family, and
even large dinner parties with friends. When he cooked, he liked to have the family with him in the kitchen; he loved an audience,
even his wife and kids.
“Tonight we’ll be eating classic Thai,” he announced to Lucy and the children as they watched him work. He was feeling a little
hyper, and reminded himself not to let things get out of hand at home. Maybe he ought to take some Valium before he began
to cook. All he’d taken so far was a little Xanax.
“What sets Thai food apart from other Southeast Asian cuisines are the explicit rules for proportions of ingredients, especially
seasonings,” he said as he prepared a centerpiece of carved vegetables.
“Thai is a distinctive cuisine, blending Chinese, Indonesian, Indian, Portuguese, Malaysian. Bet you didn’t know that, Tricia
and Erica.”
The little girls laughed, confused—so much like their mother.
He put jasmine blossoms in Lucy’s hair. Then a blossom each for the twins. He tried the same with Robert, but his son pulled
away, laughing.
“Nothing too hot tonight, darling?” Lucy said. “The children.”
“The children, of course, dear. Speaking of hot, the real heat comes from capsaicin, which is stored in the ribs of these
chili peppers. Capsaicin is an irritant and burns whatever it touches, even skin, so it’s wise to wear gloves. I’m not wearing
gloves, of course, because I’m not wise. Also, I’m a little crazy.” He laughed. Everyone did. But Lucy looked worried.
Shafer served the dinner himself, without any help, and he announced the name of each dish both in Thai and in English.
“Plaa meuk yaang
, or roast squid. Delicious.” “
Mieng kum
, leaf rolls with ‘treasures.’ Yummy.”
“Plaa yaang kaeng phet
, grilled snapper with red curry sauce. Delectable. A
little
hot, though. Hmmm.”
He watched them tentatively sample each course; as they tasted the snapper, tears began to run down their faces. Erica began
to choke.
“Daddy, it’s too hot!” Robert complained, gulping.
Shafer smiled and nodded blithely. He loved this—the flowing tears, his perfect little family in pain. He savored each exquisite
moment of their suffering. He’d managed to turn the dinner into a tantalizing game, after all.
At quarter to nine he kissed Lucy and started off on his “constitutional,” as he called his nightly disappearing act. He went
out to the Jag and drove a few blocks to Phelps Place, a quiet street without many lights.
He took liberal doses of Thorazine
and
Librium, then injected himself with Toradol. He took another Xanax.
Then he went to his doctor’s.
SHAFER DIDN’T LIKE the arrogant, asshole doormen at Boo Cassady’s building, and they didn’t like him, he decided.
Who needed their approval, anyway? They were shiftless, lazy incompetents, incapable of doing much more than holding open
doors and offering up ingratiating smiles to fat-cat tenants.
“I’m here to see Dr. Cassady,” Shafer announced to the familiar black wanker with
Mal
jauntily pinned on his lapel. It was probably there so that he wouldn’t forget his own name.
“Right,” said Mal.
“Isn’t that ‘Right,
sir’?
”
“Right, sir. I’ll ring up Dr. Cassady. Wait right here, sir.”
He could hear Boo through the doorman’s staticky phone receiver. She had no doubt left explicit instructions that he be let
up immediately. She certainly knew he was coming—they’d talked during the car ride from his house.
“You can go up now, sir,” the doorman finally said.
“I’m fucking her brains out, Mal,” Shafer said. He waltzed to the elevators with a grin. “You watch that door now. Don’t let
anyone take it.”
Boo was in the hallway to meet him when the elevator cruised to a stop on ten. She was wearing at least five thousand dollars’
worth of clothes from Escada. She had a great body, but she looked like a bullfighter or a marching-band leader in the gaudy
outfit. No wonder her first two husbands had divorced her. The second husband had been a therapist and treating M.D. Still,
she was a good, steady mistress who gave much better than she got. More important, she was able to get him Thorazine, Librium,
Ativan, Xanax. Most of the drugs were samples from drug-company representatives; her husband had left them behind when they’d
split. The number of “samples” left by the drug reps amazed Shafer, but she assured him it was common practice. She had other
“friends” who were doctors, and she hinted to Shafer that they helped her out in return for an occasional fuck. She could
get all the drugs he needed.
Shafer wanted to take her right there in the hall, and he knew Boo would like the spontaneity and the passion that were so
clearly missing from her life. Not tonight, though. He had more basic needs: the drugs.
“You don’t look too happy to see me, Geoff,” she complained. She took his face in her manicured hands. Christ, her long, varnished
red nails scared him. “What happened, darling? Something’s happened. Tell Boo what it is.”
Shafer took her in his arms and held her tightly against his chest. She had large soft breasts, great legs, too. He stroked
her frosted blond hair and nuzzled her with his chin. He loved the power he had over her—his goddamned shrink.
“I don’t want to talk about it just yet. I’m here with you. I feel much better already.”
“What happened, darling? What’s wrong? You have to share these things with me.”
So he made up a story on the spot, acted it out. Nothing to it. “Lucy claims she knows about us. God, she was paranoid
before
I started to see you. Lucy always threatens to destroy my life. She says she’ll leave me. Sue for what fucking little I have.
Her father will have me fired, then blackball me in the government
and
in the private sector, which he’s perfectly capable of doing. The worst thing is, she’s poisoning the children, turning them
against me. They use the same belittling phrases that she does: ‘colossal failure,’ ‘underachiever,’ ‘get a real job, Daddy.’
Some days I wonder whether it isn’t true.”
Boo kissed him lightly on the forehead. “No, no, darling. You’re well thought of at the embassy. I know you’re a loving dad.
You just have a bitchy, mean-spirited, spoiled-rotten wife who gets you down on yourself. Don’t let her do it.”
He knew what she wanted to hear next, so he told her. “Well, I won’t have a bitchy wife for much longer. I swear to God I
won’t, Boo. I love you dearly, and I’m going to leave Lucy soon.”
He looked at her heavily made-up face and watched as tears formed and ruined her look. “I love you, Geoff,” she whispered,
and Shafer smiled as if he were pleased to hear it.
God, he was so good at this.
Lies.
Fantasies.
Role-playing games.
He unbuttoned the front of her mauve silk blouse, fondled her, then carried her inside to the sofa.
“This is my idea of therapy,” he whispered hotly in Boo’s ear. “This is all the therapy I need.”
I HAD BEEN UP since before five that morning. I had to call Inspector Patrick Busby in Bermuda. I wanted to talk to him every
day, sometimes more than once, but I stopped myself.
It would only make things worse, strain my relations with the local police, and signal that I didn’t trust them to handle
the investigation properly.
“Patrick, it’s Alex Cross calling from Washington. Did I catch you at a good time? Can you talk for a moment now?” I asked.
I always tried to sound as upbeat as possible.
I wasn’t, of course. I had been up pacing the house, and already had breakfast with Nana. Then I’d waited impatiently until
eight-thirty Bermuda time to call Busby at the station house in Hamilton. He was an efficient man, and I knew he was there
every morning by eight.
I could picture the thin, wiry policeman as we talked on the phone. I could see the tidy cubicle office where he worked. And
superimposed over everything, I could still see Christine on her moped waving good-bye to me on that perfectly sunny afternoon.
“I have a few things for you from my contact at Interpol,” I said. I told him about an abduction of a woman on Jamaica earlier
in the summer, and another in Barbados; both were similar, though not identical, to Christine’s disappearance. I didn’t think
they were connected, really, but I wanted to give him something, anything.
Patrick Busby was a thoughtful and patient man; he remained silent until I had finished talking before asking his usual quota
of logical questions. I had observed that he was flawed as an interrogator because he was so polite. But at least he hadn’t
given up.