Not the End of the World (30 page)

‘I’ll admit that remains a very real possibility, but on the other hand, this is pretty large‐
scale for a first offence. This isn’t bombing one‐
oh‐
one, this is something you graduate to. From the look of the bomb on the boat, the guy’s no expert, but he’s no beginner either. His bomb isn’t super‐
sophisticated, but it’ll do the job. And he knows both those facts too – that’s why he put a camera on the device and issued orders not to screw with it. It probably wouldn’t take much defusing, but it would still take longer than for him to notice and press the button on the detonator.’

‘Okay,’ she said, her expression still challenging but her voice slightly less combative. ‘So what can you cross‐
check against? What else do—’

‘He’s a computer nerd.’

Everyone looked round in surprise. It was Kennedy who had interrupted.

‘Yes, well, he seems versed in computers,’ Brisko agreed, ‘but these days, who—’

‘He’s a computer nerd, believe me,’ Kennedy continued. The Scottish guy’s voice was a low, easy drawl that sounded effortlessly sardonic. Kind of tone that could wish you good morning and part of you would suspect he was somehow taking the piss. ‘And he is one guy, working on his own. He’s Nigel No‐
Friends, sitting at home every night with his PC, his X-Files posters and his Believers albums. This is obviously a social group the FBI don’t have a typing profile for, which if you ask me is negligent, because there’s fuckin’ thousands of them.’

‘How can you possibly—’ began Steel, but Kennedy was in flow.

‘Listen. There’s a difference between being computer‐
literate or even a computer expert and being a computer nerd. The difference is that the former use computers to achieve something, and the latter think use of computers is a worthy achievement in itself. The former might take pride in their work, but the latter is proud simply of having done their work on a computer, whatever that work might be.

‘Take these messages, for a start. He didnae need to tell umpteen TV and radio stations and news agencies in order to get the result he was looking for. He only needed to tell the one. And he didnae need to tell them all at the same time, either, with some smart‐
arse programme that keeps the bomb icon cloaked until an appointed moment. He was showing off. Showing off to himself and showing off to you guys. He’s also running the signal from his TV cameras into his computer instead of into a telly, or as well as into a telly, so he could show off by putting those video playback windows into his wee electronic press release. If he only wanted to prove he had surveillance running, he could have quoted the frequencies and let you check it out for yourselves.

‘But if you want conclusive evidence, you just need to take a look at the text. His English is fuckin’ appalling. Dead giveaway.’

‘What?’ Steel asked. He seemed happy to go along with the previous theorising, but this had lost him.

‘Have you ever seen any of these news‐
group things on the Internet? It’s like syntax meets chaos theory. Problem with computer nerds is they were always happiest in maths and science lessons at school. This guy knows how to use state‐
of‐
the‐
art digital electronics, but he doesn’t know how to use a fuckin’ apostrophe.’

‘He’s right,’ Bannon observed. ‘From the message, it looks like this guy took English at Dan Quayle Junior High. But wait. If he sent these messages to so many computers, isn’t there a way of tracing the source?’

Steel shook his head. ‘I asked our own computer nerd the same question already. He told me a guy like this wouldn’t be dumb enough to send anything direct; he’d do it all through the Net, and probably through a firewall, which would totally cover his tracks. The most we could hope for – and even this would be a long shot – would be to identify which service provider the files emanated from, on the off‐
chance that he hasn’t bounced the stuff all round the globe en route. But even then, these servers have thousands of people hooked up at the same time. He said it would be like trying to unravel a ball of string the size of Jupiter. It can be done, but only if you’ve got a spare thousand years. Forget it.’

‘All right, Peter, have ’em cross‐
refer Christian fundamentalists and computer, er, enthusiasts,’ Brisko instructed.

‘Sure thing. I can get our analysts to sift through fundamentalist news groups and websites. It’s long odds they’ll deliver something against such a tight clock, but there’s no harm trying.’

‘Cross‐
refer Communion of the Saved too,’ Witherson interjected.

‘What’d you say?’

‘You think he’s a fundamentalist Christian. I think we can get more specific than that,’ she explained. ‘He’s one of Luther St John’s little devotees. He refers to me as the Whore of Babylon – that’s copyright the Rev nineteen ninety‐
eight. And St John’s been mouthing off about the AFFM for months, long before his Legion of Decency rally at Little Nuremberg across from the Vista. I’d say Luther wasn’t the only one planning a public event to coincide with the film market.’

‘And what is this Community of whatchamacallit?’ Brisko enquired.

‘Communion of the Saved. That’s the people who fully subscribe – and I mean that financially as well as ideologically – to the hard line of the Rev’s thinking. What you might accurately call the fully paid‐
up members of the St John hardcore, people whose commitment goes a bit deeper than just paying to get CFC on their cable system. Fanatics. People who find regular Christian fundamentalism a little too warm and fuzzy.’

‘Well there’s no question marks over this guy’s commitment,’ Kennedy observed, dabbing delicately at his injured arm with some tissue paper. ‘Just a shame somebody sold him a Bible with all the tolerance and forgiveness passages missing. He should sue the Gideons.’

‘You don’t know the half of it,’ Witherson said, her voice lowering ominously. ‘There’s a lot of those Bibles around. These people think everyone outside their “Communion” is a sinner, damned before God’s eyes. They think they’re the only folks with any chance of missing out on the big fire, because contrary to what that wishy‐
washy pinko Jesus asshole said, their God isn’t all that forgiving. If you aren’t toeing the line as closely as they are, you’re Satan’s Pop‐
tarts. Toast. Trouble is, there’s a fine line between imagining someone’s eternal soul is condemned and thinking their earthly life is worthless. Safe to say this guy crossed it way back.’

‘So would there be a list of these people at St John’s organisation?’ Larry asked.

‘Bound to be,’ she said. ‘St John’s mob computerise everything on a database. They got records of all cable subscribers, obviously, but I’m told they got records of how much individuals donated and when: times of year, intervals, regularity. So that they know exactly how much they can squeeze people for and when’s the best time to call, from the well‐
off businessman to the widow in the trailer‐
park.’

‘How do you know all this shit?’

‘When someone identifies you as an omen of the Apocalypse, Sergeant, you’re kind of forced to take an interest. My money says the bomber’s name is on St John’s computer. Cross‐
check that.’

‘We can’t,’ Brisko said flatly. ‘Whether someone belonged to this Communion thing is not a detail that would have been recorded if they were ever arrested, questioned or even just listed on our files. No more than whether they belonged to the Raiders’ fan club. It’s not like if they were a member of the Klan or some other extremist group.’

‘No, not much.’

‘It’s easy with hindsight, Miss Witherson. Until now, membership of this organisation has never been associated with any kind of crime or even any kind of threat.’

‘Yeah, but you can get a list from St John anyway,’ she argued.

‘We don’t have the power to demand that. It’s subject to data protection and confidentiality regulations.’

‘Oh yeah, like that normally stops you. Why don’t you hack it? If it was some fundamentalist Islamic set‐
up you’d—’

‘Why don’t you just ask St John for it?’ Kennedy suggested. It was difficult with that voice to guess whether he was being serious. Witherson, who had had longer to get used to the guy’s flippancy, nonetheless shot him a look that warned him she was still a long way from enjoying it.

‘I don’t mean phone up and say please,’ he explained. ‘Although you’d have to do that in the first instance. But I mean lean on St John. Put a spin on it. He’s been standing across the road telling everyone how movies influence people to do violent and terrible things, but you can point out or threaten to point out – that it was listening to him and watching his shitey TV station that influenced this bampot.’

‘You’re right,’ Steel said, nodding. ‘You’re damn right. We can use the media on this one. St John whipped up the hysteria, he pointed the finger at the AFFM and he’s been attacking Miss Witherson for months. He can argue that no one should be held responsible for the actions of a madman, but he’s gonna look extremely unChristian if he doesn’t make some kind of reparation, especially if he obstructs our investigation. St John knows what crucifixion‐
by‐
media feels like. He’s not gonna want a second spell on the cross.’

‘Okay Peter,’ Brisko said, pulling out his portable phone, ‘I’ll get McCluskey on to St John’s people. He’ll paint a picture of the anticipated coverage that Francis Bacon would puke at. You talk to the silicon section. Then we’ll play Snap.’

The two Feds commenced their respective phone calls, Brisko engaging deferential tones as he talked to someone a lot further up the chain of command with a progress report. Or, more accurately, an ideas report. Progress would be if any of these lines attracted a bite and they got some feedback.

Bannon, with a daughter about Witherson’s age, was fussing solicitously over the poor girl and probably getting on her nerves, offering yet another cup of coffee to the person in the world least in need of caffeine stimulation to stay sharp and alert. She remained polite, but Larry suspected she would accept sympathy and support from only one source: the guy sitting on the other side of her. He could only imagine what the two of them had gone through together on that roof, and whether it was that alone that had made the connection, but neither looked a good bet to survive long without the other right then, and Larry sure knew all about that.

‘Thanks for sticking around,’ he heard her tell Kennedy. She spoke as if everyone else had left the room. Guess there were times when you cared less about privacy; Madeleine Witherson was probably the most public figure in the world at that moment, so comparatively a room with just two Feds and two cops in it was splendid isolation.

‘Any time,’ Kennedy told her. ‘Besides, I’ve nowhere else to go. I was here to cover the AFFM. Now there isn’t one. This tit blew up the market and now he’s threatening to murder my writer.’

‘God bless America, huh?’

‘Oh ay. Wonder if the bomber knows what it feels like to have an apple pie shoved up his arse while it’s still in the hot oven dish. ’Cause he will if I get my fuckin’ hands on him.’

There was a rap on the glass partition before Arguello stuck his head round the door. ‘Hey Captain, we got another message on the computer. It just popped up on every screen in the building. It’s for real, it’s got the codeword. You better check it out.’

They turned to the computer screen on the castor‐
wheeled workstation next to Bannon’s desk, it having been rolled against the wall to make room for the assembly. Larry noticed that the screen‐
saver – a little guy in LAPD uniform chasing a crook with the full striped jumper, mask and swag‐
bag regalia round the black square – had been cleared, presumably by the appearance of the new icon.

‘Charming,’ Witherson observed. The icon was an elaborately crafted knife, unmistakably a sacrificial dagger, or ‘sacraficial’ in the mind of the sub‐
literate bomber.

Bannon double‐
clicked on it.

‘Mother fucker,’ Bannon muttered.

‘Oh, I don’t doubt it for a minute,’ said Witherson. ‘Beggars can’t be choosers.’

‘I guess we misunderstood the original message,’ Bannon said. ‘When he said “by the dawn’s early light”, we assumed he was giving us until dawn. But he specifically wants it to happen then. Why?’

‘He wants to give us all time to talk about it,’ the girl said. ‘He wants the whole watching world to sit up all night saying “will she or won’t she?” and yabbering on about the moral issues raised by this situation. Won’t be long before they’ve all forgotten about the morality of what the bomber’s done because they’ll be busy discussing the morality of what I’ve done, and what the movie business has done to precipitate this. By midnight this asshole’s not going to be the bad guy any more, he’s going to be “a symptom of America’s spiritual decline” – just like the pornography, promiscuity and godlessness he’s striking out against. Trust me, there will be more bullshit spoken between now and dawn than on any single night in the history of this planet. You’re gonna need waders to watch TV this evening.’

‘She’s right,’ agreed Steel. ‘Guy wants a lot more than the standard fifteen minutes. Shit, he isn’t just going to be the lead item on the news, he’s going to be the whole schedule on every network.’

‘He and me,’ Witherson observed bitterly. ‘Good excuse to trawl through last year’s scandal and sensation one more time, remind everybody on the moral Right of all that I’ve done to bring this upon myself. God works in mysterious ways, those self‐
righteous fucks’ll be saying to themselves.’

‘Now calm down, Miss Witherson,’ Brisko implored, lowering his tones to what he probably thought was soothing. Larry winced. No matter how human G‐
men got, they still forgot how much easier it was from the grandstand.