Stephen Cannell - Final Victim

"In real life his name is whatever it is, but Mr. Rat doesn't want to tell his or her real-life name. He's using a computer alias… Wind Minstrel. I like it. Very cool." He studied the screen. "Okay, the good news here is this tells us what host computer Wind Minstrel is using. It's a box named 'tropic' at Science and Engineering Administration Services at the University of Florida."

Malavida went into his cracking tool kit, pulled out another disk, and slid it into his PC. He typed "sz," sending the file to his new user's account on Pennet, a file he called "F00." It was a program he had written which would send a phony error message.

"Okay. Now, what I'm trying to do is create a phony system message on Mr. Rat's screen so he will think he has to log in again, and when he does, I'll steal his login and password," Malavida said, grinning. Then he typed:

FOO-ttyr3-root@

"This program's gonna tell Mr. Rat to log in again." On his screen, Malavida showed Karen the message that was being sent to The Rat's computer:

Message from root@ring2Ice. Anon. Pennet. No

ring2Ice login:

"How do you know it's saying that?"

" 'Cause that's what I programmed it to say. It's total bullshit." He smiled at her.

"Cool." She smiled back, but was beginning to get lost. She had a 180 IQ, but didn't have enough ground-level information to understand all of this. She made a mental note to pick up some more books on computer hacking in the U. S. Customs crime lab and speed-read them as soon as she got back to Washington.

On the screen, The Rat logged in again with his username and password:

rat Mut118oR

"We got it. Write this down," Malavida said as Karen grabbed a pen. "We're really in," she said.

"Now all we have to do is follow The Rat to his chat room. That part is a snap. Then we'll just make ourselves look like him and slip in behind."

Out in the backyard, Lockwood and Heather were talking quietly. She was telling him about her riding lessons.

"Daddy, you wouldn't believe how big he is. And I'm taking lessons twice a week. He's so beautiful. He's a Morgan gelding, but my teacher says he's sixteen hands tall. That's as big as an Arabian."

"That's great, honey. I'd love to come see when you have a dressage program."

"I'll call and tell you. This time, I promise… I'll give you plenty of warning." The remark stung him slightly.

Karen stuck her head out the back door. "John, you'd better get in here. You aren't going to believe this… "

The Rat was on the same wooden chair that Shirley always made him sit on when she found out he'd dbeyed the sanctity of the covenant or eaten chocolate or, worse still, the meat they served at the school cafeteria. He could never lie to her, because when he tried, he always lowered his head to avoid her scathing eyes. It was a reflex he couldn't control. If he got caught lying, it always ended up with the fire… She would take him down to the basement and yell at him until he admitted he was foul and ugly. She would leave him there and he would sit on the straight-backed wooden chair, wondering if maybe this time she would not burn him, but she would always come back down later and light the candles.

He knew he was the anti-type of the great mosaic of her faith and that he had not yet begun his hateful journey. Shirley had told him his journey of penance would last two thousand and three hundred days, until he came to his final event, which would be the cleansing and the sanctity of his spirit. She hinted that she knew a way to avoid taking the journey, but she had not told him how or even when that six-year journey would begin. His mistake had been setting fire to the house before he knew all the answers. He had been waiting now for twelve terrible years for his journey through hell. The ax of its awful arrival hung heavy over him, its weight crushing his spirit, slowly turning him into a worthless creature who hid from God and scurried in the dark. Only when he was The Wind Minstrel did it change… but the change was both relief and agony.

It was almost 5:30 P. M. on Sunday afternoon as he sat in the hot enclosed space, the little generator motor purring outside. The shallow tidewater lapped at the side of the huge empty metal hull. There was no breeze and the afternoon Florida heat and humidity were oppressive in the windowless enclosure. He was deep inside an old rusted garbage barge that had once served the businesses on the Little Manatee River. He had bought it when he saw the name in faded letters on the stern.

He was wearing only his Jockey underwear, and his own foul-smelling, sour sweat was all over him. His big, corpulent thighs glistened. Slick, smooth, and white, they were like the underbellies of dead fish. His computer was on an old wooden school desk in front of him. He had a surge protector on the power line leading from the generator.. but something must have happened, because he got the stack error message from the Systems Administrator at Pennet, then he had logged off with Satan and had just reentered the Pennet system. Once accepted, he had shot through cyberspace and returned to the locked chat room that he shared once a week with Satan. He was telnetting from his site to a second site where he had an account under a different username.

Then he would telnet from there to Pennet. He had also set his client-mode to invisible, and the chat channel to private. He had created it that way for security, because he and Satan often discussed their killings.

Satan was one of his special gods. He had vision and strength and was never afraid, even now as he sat in prn on death row in Oslo, Norway. He was an unrestrained carnal visionary. The Rat had read about him in a Death Metal fan magazine. His real name was Peter Van Wilkinsen. Satan Wolf was his stage name, and he was the lead singer for the band Necrophiliac. He was on death row for killing a rival band's lead singer on stage, stabbing him twenty-three times during a battle of the bands that got out of control and turned into a riot. The Rat thought it was a glorious act that gave the singer eternal value.

Satan Wolf was the god of Death Metal. There were a few promising imitators, like Satan T. Bone, in Tampa, but they had not yet achieved the dimension of the original. Talking to Satan Wolf always made The Rat's skin begin to glow as if he were in the beginnings of a transformation. But he knew he was not. He had just coveted in Atlanta and the sensation of transforming took at least a week, sometimes two. The tingling in his nipples and on his skin was just a reminder of what was lying there, waiting to release and glorify him.

"Where did you go?" Satan Wolf typed onto the screen from Oslo. "I had a stack error," The Rat replied.

"Tell me more about Atlanta. You have cut off the arms of this whore, this cunt. You have severed her limbs, which are worthless, lustful appendages. How did it feel? Did you taste her blood this time? It has been a week. How did it feel?"

Satan always wanted him to taste flesh or blood, but meat of any kind was forbidden and punished by fire. He didn't understand that The Rat first coveted, then The Wind Minstrel possessed. They had been corresponding for six months, always at the same time on Sunday. Sunday was a good time for The Rat because it was God's day of rest, and he felt he could better elude His watchful vengeance. It was good for Satan Wolf because the prn staff in Oslo was at half-strength on Sunday, and there was nobody watching him while he used the computer late into the night in the prn law library. He was supposed to be working on his appeal. They left him in the locked room, chained to the floor. He always took a break around midnight and met The Rat in their secret place.