The Decoy (32 page)

Furnish paces up and down the prep room, gesturing with the book as he recites:

There are some men who like to bite and kiss

the sucked-out breasts of anorexic sluts,

extracting every precious drop of bliss,

like squeezing an old orange of its juice.

For others, it's like woodworm in the brain:

they're eaten through with unfulfilled desires,

while others still pump death into a vein,

or suck it deep into their poisoned lungs.

And if you're of the moralizing faction

for whom pornography, and pyromania, and rape

give no apparent satisfaction,

I say, you simply haven't got the guts.

And yet, in this menagerie of the perverse —

libertines, addicts, fantasists and prudes —

there is still one exhibit even worse,

a creature more depraved than all of these.

He does not have the loudest cry,

his cage is often quiet and still,

yet he destroys creation with a sigh,

or crunches in his yawning jaws the world.

He weeps with boredom — and dreams of death.

He smokes his hookah — and smiles with every breath.

Who is this monster? My friend, you know him, too.

My brother — my double — hypocrite reader! — it is you.

He sighs reverently and closes the book.

'It won't work,' she says.

'Won't it?' He glances at his computer. 'We've got over two hundred participants already. You really think there aren't a thousand people in the world who, given the opportunity to become murderers in the secrecy of their own homes or offices, won't take it? Forty per cent of all Internet traffic is hardcore pornography. Of those millions, aren't there just a thousand who, in their darkest, unrealized dreams, really want to be like me?' He gestures at the digital camera. 'But please, why not put your point of view directly to our guests? We're wired for sound as well as pictures. They can hear you fine. Tell them why you shouldn't die. Perhaps they'll decide you're right and go away.'

She stares at the little glass iris in the middle of the camera, as dark and unresponsive as the barrel of a gun. 'Listen to me, all of you,' she says. She's enough of an actress to keep from breaking down, but her voice shakes a little as she says, 'I'm not just some picture on your computer screen. I am a real person. For breakfast I had Cheerios and milk. I read the newspaper, the same as you did. I got annoyed with the rain, just like you sometimes do. I could be anybody you know, one of your relatives perhaps, or your next girlfriend. By staying on this site you are going to kill me. It won't be like some computer file wiping itself, it will be messy and painful and real. Think how you will feel about yourself after that happens. And log off now. Please.'

'Very good,' he murmurs. He goes over to the screen. 'And effective, too. Forty-six people have logged off as a result of your appeal.' He pauses. 'However, they are more than compensated for by the three hundred and twenty three who didn't.'

'We need to access this camera,' Connie says, staring at the press release. 'We need to see what's going on in there.'

'What happens if nine hundred and ninety nine sick fuckers have already done just that?' Frank demands. 'How are we going to explain that it was the NYPD who killed her?'

'One more viewer is unlikely to make the difference.'

'That's what every creep who's already watching is telling himself. Not to mention all the news desks who have hooked up in the so-called public interest and the guys who are taping it at home in the hope of making a few bucks.'

'There's a risk in adding to his audience, granted. But we need to balance that against the potential gain to our rescue. Access the site.'

After a moment, Frank nods at Rob Fleming. Fleming clicks on the link, and they see a grainy image of Claire, trussed to a trolley.

'What's that she's on? Some kind of gurney?' Frank mutters.

'It's a morgue trolley,' Connie says slowly. 'He's taken her to a mortuary. That means we can trace her, Frank. He can't be more than an hour's drive from where she was lifted.'

Frank turns to the computer crimes technician. 'Rob? Any way of listing all the morticians within fifty miles of Westchester?'

'Sure. There are a dozen sites that will give you a list.' Fleming's hands clatter across the keys. 'Found one,' he says. 'I'll print it out.'

'How many addresses?'

'About ninety.'

'Ninety?' Frank looks despondent. 'We'll never check out that many in time.'

Connie says, 'Do you have any
old
telephone directories?'

He shrugs. 'I guess. Why?'

'He'll need somewhere that's gone out of business. Quite recently, so the premises haven't been sold on yet. If you could find a directory from a year or so ago, and cross-check it against Rob's list, then any names that were on the old list, but not the new one, might have closed down in the interim. Do you see?'

Frank's already striding out of the room, looking for telephone books.

===OO=OOO=OO===

There are two. One in New Jersey and one in Tannersville, up in the Catskill mountains.

'We'd better split up,' Frank says. 'I'll take the city one first, then come on up if he isn't there.'

'I'll go with Mike,' Connie says.

Frank shoots her a look. 'You think Tannersville's the one?'

'He likes rural communities, Frank. Isolation. If I was a gambler, that's the one I'd put my money on.'

'Right now,' Frank mutters, 'we're all gamblers.'

===OO=OOO=OO===

Fleming stays behind to try to organize a news blackout. To begin with, the major news stations agree to leave the story alone. But when it becomes clear that it's already travelling across the Internet like a fire sweeping across a dry prairie, they instantly break their promises and the story. As one of the editors says to Rob, with only a hint of regret, once the genie's out of the bottle, it can't be pushed back in.

Rob phones Frank to tell him.

'Shit,' Frank says. 'Well, is there any way we can keep track of how many people are hitting the site? At least that way we'll know when we're out of time.'

'There is, but only if I stay on the site myself.'

'Do it.'

Frank gets to the disused mortuary in New Jersey slightly ahead of the SWAT team. The doors are boarded up, and he kicks them in while the armed snipers are still dispersing around the building.

A wino, sleeping off a bottle of Thunderbird in the derelict building, gets the shock of his life.

Frank phones through to Positano.

'Mike? There's nothing here. Looks like it's Tannersville after all. Take it easy, will you? We're half an hour or so behind you.'

===OO=OOO=OO===

In the prep room, Glenn Furnish croons as he works on Claire's make-up. Occasionally he holds a mirror up for her so she can see his handiwork. She no longer recognizes the person he shows her. Her skin has been toned an ugly, artificial pink. Highlights of rouge in her cheeks make her look like a doll. Her eyelashes stick out straight and stiff as spider's legs.

'They'll get bored,' she says. A strange coldness is numbing her arm from the needle in her forearm. Some of the fluid is already seeping into her from the ancient machine. 'They'll think it's a hoax.'

He shakes his head impatiently. 'They've seen the other pictures. They know I don't hoax my customers.' He stands back. 'Perfect, even if I say so myself. Let's see how the numbers are stacking up, shall we?' He checks the computer. 'Five hundred and eighty three. Welcome, friends. Thank you for your patience. We just have to fill a few more seats, and then the freak show will begin.'

===OO=OOO=OO===

Once they're off the Thruway, the road up into the hills narrows considerably, twisting and turning as it negotiates the foothills of Hunter Mountain. Unable to overtake on the blind corners, the police cars are forced to slow to a more normal pace.

They're not using the radios, in case he's got a scanner tuned to the police frequency. In the lead car, Positano's cellphone rings.

It's Frank. 'Hey, Mike. You got an ETA yet?'

''Bout twenty minutes. We're pushing it as much as we can.'

'OK. I'm right behind you. Listen, Rob hasn't had any luck getting that website off air, but he thinks it might be possible to spam it.'

'Spam it? What's that?'

'If a large number of people all try to hit the site at the same time, it'll crash the software.'

'I thought people hitting the site was what he needed to start the device?'

'Yeah, but it won't be able to cope with more than a few dozen at a time. Rob thinks that if he can get a couple of thousand, the site will just freeze up.'

Positano thinks. 'Won't he kill her anyway?'

'Maybe. Let me speak to Dr Leichtman for a minute.'

Positano hands the phone across. Connie listens, then says, 'Possibly, but he'll waste valuable time trying to fix the problem first. Do it, Frank. It's the best option we've got.'

===OO=OOO=OO===

'Seven hundred and ninety,' Glenn says. He inhales deeply. His nervous, jerky energy has been replaced by a purposeful calm.

Claire's seen that kind of focused energy before, in actors, as pre-performance nerves are gradually replaced by a sense of the inevitable approach of curtain-up.

===OO=OOO=OO===

'OK, Rob. Go ahead and try it,' Frank repeats into his phone.

'Right. I'm going to send a press release and an e-mail simultaneously. We'll ask everyone who wants to help, first to send the e-mail on to five other people, and second, to access the site at exactly six p.m. Eastern Time.'

Frank looks at his watch. 'That's forty minutes away.'

'It has to be six, Frank. That way we get overlap with the West Coast and Europe.'

'OK. Do it. I just hope you're right.'

===OO=OOO=OO===

The police cars pull up a quarter of a mile from the derelict mortuary, their sirens off.

As the guns and armour are being issued, Connie joins the line. Seeing her, Positano comes across.

'You're to stay by the radio,' he says quietly. 'Orders from Frank.'

'Why? I might be able—'

'If there's going to be shooting, you have to stay back. Sorry, but that's the way it is.'

'You ever done Hostage and Negotiation, Mike?'

The detective shakes his head.

'What about these other guys?'

'Them neither.'

'You might need me, then.'

He puts a hand on her shoulder. 'If any kind of negotiation starts up, we'll call for you. But right now, the plan doesn't call for any talking.'

===OO=OOO=OO===

At the rear of the derelict building is a hearse. Positano feels the hood.

'Still warm,' he says quietly. 'He's here all right.'

Silently, the armed policemen begin to creep into position.

===OO=OOO=OO===

Glenn looks at the screen. 'Nine hundred and fifteen participants,' he says gloatingly. 'Not long now, Claire. Not very long at all. Nine hundred and sixteen. Nine hundred and twenty.' He closes his eyes. 'I can feel it coming. Like a wave. Get ready.'

===OO=OOO=OO===

Twenty to six.

As Fleming's e-mail snakes from computer to computer, it subdivides and subdivides again, like a cell after the instant of conception, doubling and redoubling of its own accord. Its components flow from computer to computer, criss-crossing the Atlantic as tiny pulses of light, bouncing from satellite to satellite in the form of radio waves, streams of ethereal dots and dashes that, once reassembled, turn themselves back into words, thoughts and ideas — an appeal for help.

===OO=OOO=OO===

Inside the prep room, Glenn reaches over and turns a switch on the pump. As it chugs into life, she cannot prevent herself from crying out.

'Don't worry,' he says. 'Just making sure it's all primed and ready to go.' His fingers check her restraints. 'And now I shall say my farewells. This piece doesn't require my presence, so I'll leave you.' For an instant his eyes, as clear and untroubled as a child's, gaze down on her. Then he turns the laptop towards her, so that she can see her own face on the screen. 'I'll be watching,' he says.

Then he leaves the room.

She hadn't considered that he might leave her to die without him.

She waits. Silence.

She starts to yell at them, at the unseen watchers lurking behind the camera, at the faceless, digitized, anonymous lusts she can feel sniffing at her; nosing her tentatively, like a pack of dogs gradually creeping towards their prey, ready to scurry back at any moment.

===OO=OOO=OO===

The second hand hoists noiselessly upwards on Positano's watch, like the police siege ladders being hoisted noiselessly against the walls of the old building.

'Now,' he says.

===OO=OOO=OO===

Claire screams. The screen of the laptop goes white.

Internet Explorer is unable to display this page. It may have moved to a different location, or the computer you are connecting to may be busy. Please try connecting later.

From somewhere outside, she hears the sound of breaking glass.

===OO=OOO=OO===

Connie, waiting by the cars, hears someone crashing through the undergrowth. All around her, police radios are crackling into life. She looks up.

Glenn Furnish is standing there, twenty yards away, watching her.

Slowly she raises her gun.

His face betrays no expression, other than mild surprise. Her finger tightens on the trigger.

Behind him there's a shout, and the sound of people coming after him. He turns and crashes off down the hill. For a second, perhaps two, she has him in her sights.

She lowers the gun.

===OO=OOO=OO===

Furnish careers down the hillside, out of control. The ground is uneven, and his pursuers can't get a decent shot, handicapped by their guns and body armour. He's getting away from them by the time he reaches the road. He sprints across it and half jumps, half slides down to the next bend, just as Frank comes around it at the head of the second cavalcade of police cars. There's an impact, and for a moment Furnish is spread across the windscreen as the car fishtails out of control and slides down the hillside sideways. Then Frank draws his gun and shoots him twice through the glass. The glass turns first crazy like a cobweb, and then red, before the whole screen collapses in on him and the young man falls through onto Frank's lap. His lips form a word, and he whispers something, or tries to, but Frank's second bullet has punctured his lung, and his voice has no pressure behind it to speak the words: just an empty hiss, like air escaping from a balloon.