Chris Carter - Gallery of the Dead

‘Also,’ Garcia carried on, ‘probably just to please his mother, Arthur Weber started studying medicine at home — reading books, watching videos, searching the internet... whatever.’

‘Now would be a good time to mention Arthur Weber’s IQ,’ Hunter cut in. ‘Rated at one hundred and fifty-two, which would put him comfortably inside the genius bracket.’

Captain Blake frowned at him.

‘What I’m trying to say here is that from books alone he could learn just as well and as easily as if he’d attended classes in an Ivy League university. And that was where all of his medical knowledge came from — books.’

‘How about his computer company?’ the captain asked. ‘Where did that come from? Wasn’t that how he made his fortune?’

‘It was,’ Hunter replied. ‘And it all came from his genius. From what we’ve gathered, Arthur Weber was a natural when it came to computers. He started messing around with them at a very early age and it all just made sense to him — the codes, the electronics... all of it. He started creating his own applications at the age of ten. From there it all escalated naturally. He set up his company at twenty-three and by twenty-five, he was already a millionaire.’

‘So what happened with him?’ the captain asked. ‘His mother’s obsession with physical perfection just rubbed off on him?’

‘In a reverse sort of way,’ Hunter said, nodding.

‘What does that mean, Robert?’

‘It will take countless therapy sessions for anyone to be able to properly get to the bottom of it,’ Hunter explained. ‘And that’s only if Mr. Weber decides to talk, but his mother’s obsession no doubt left him with much deeper scars than simply physical ones. Scars that no plastic surgeon can ever fix. But the catch was, unlike his mother, and probably because of his mother, Weber didn’t seek to be perfect himself. His mother had tried that on her and on him and it hadn’t worked. He knew that. He could see that. Chances are that he even hated her for it, but he still admired perfection. He had to. It was drilled into his brain probably since he was a baby.’

‘So he searched the country for people with perfect body parts?’ Captain Blake asked skeptically.

‘The rare and unusual ones,’ Hunter replied. ‘But not in a freaky way, in a more natural, rare way.’

‘So he didn’t actually hate those people for being perfect,’ Captain Blake concluded. ‘He envied them.’

‘We think so, yes,’ Hunter agreed. ‘That’s probably why he never hurt any of them, but again, the real truth about Arthur Weber’s darkest demons will only come out if he ever decides to speak up.’

‘His mother passed away three and a half years ago.’ Garcia took over again. ‘From complications from one of her plastic surgeries. That probably messed his mind up even more. A year after she passed, he sold his company and the speculation is that he began planning his collection then. With his computer knowledge, tapping into the Optum integrated information and technology platform to obtain his victims’ medical records wasn’t much of a problem. The rest, as they say, is history.’

‘Did he have any more victims lined up?’ Captain Blake asked. ‘Does anyone know?’

‘Apparently, yes.’ Kennedy was the one to reply this time. ‘A seventeen-year-old girl from Sentinel, a very small town in Arizona. She had complete heterochromia, with one dark-brown eye and the other light blue. An extremely rare condition.’

‘She has no idea that her life has just been saved, does she?’ Garcia asked.

Kennedy simply shook his head.

‘And where is Arthur Weber now?’ Captain Blake asked.

‘In the infirmary of one of our Federal Detention Centers,’ Kennedy replied.

‘Infirmary?’ Hunter asked.

‘Yesterday morning he came down with a very bad case of food poisoning,’ Kennedy clarified. ‘Arthur Weber had a very OCD personality. At home he never deviated too far from his preferred meals. It appears that his stomach hasn’t really approved of our federal facility’s cuisine. Not yet, anyway.’

The comment brought a smile to everyone’s faces.

That morning, due to a broken-down truck by exit road number four, it took Tyler Weaver exactly twenty-eight minutes and thirty-one seconds to drive the nine miles between his house and his work place. That was about twelve minutes more than usual. Parking the car took him another forty-eight seconds. The walk between the staff parking lot and the staff door were responsible for another thirty-three seconds. Security check, clocking in, dumping his bag in his locker and a quick trip to the bathroom added another eight minutes and forty-nine seconds to his time. Grabbing a quick coffee at the staff room and the final walk down the corridor that led to the control room took another one minute and twenty-seven seconds — which meant that in total it took Federal Detention Center infirmary control-room guard Tyler Weaver exactly forty minutes and eight seconds to go from his door all the way to the worst day of his life.

Guard Weaver felt his heart go from resting to tachycardia as he got near the west wing control room — the infirmary’s maximum-security wing. The square control room with large bullet-proof glass windows was never, ever left unattended, having always a minimum of two officers inside it at any time of day or night, but from halfway down the corridor Guard Weaver could see no one, which was worrying fact number one. Worrying fact number two was that the control room’s assault-proof door was wide open and unattended; but the most disturbing fact of all was the large blood smear that Guard Weaver could see against the inside of the control room’s bullet-proof glass.

‘No, no, no...’ His voice got louder as he went from walking to the fastest sprint he’d ever done. With each step, the large ball of keys that hung from his belt bounced loudly against his right thigh.

Guard Weaver reached the control-room door in two seconds and nightmare became reality.

On the floor inside the control room, Guards Vargas and Bates lay in one massive pool of blood, both of their throats slit.

‘Jesus Christ!’

Guard Weaver had to step over Vargas’s body to reach the blood-splattered cell monitors. Only one maximum-security prisoner was supposed to be in the ward that day. Guard Weaver checked the monitor broadcasting the images from infirmary cell one.

Empty.

Lying in another pool of blood inside the cell was another body, who had been stripped naked. Guard Weaver immediately recognized the body he could see on the monitor as belonging to Guard Torres.

He felt his airways constrict. Breathing became a struggle.

‘Shit, shit, shit.’

Though he knew it was way too late, the first thing Guard Weaver did was raise the alarm, then with trembling fingers he called the FBI Academy in Quantico.

‘Special Agent Larry Williams’ funeral will be in two days’ time,’ Kennedy said, as he got ready to leave Hunter and Garcia’s office. ‘It will be held in Washington DC. I just thought you’d like to know, in case you guys can make it.’

‘He was a great agent,’ Garcia said.

‘He was one of my best,’ Kennedy came back.

‘So what will happen to Special Agent Fisher?’ Captain Blake asked.

‘Not a special agent anymore,’ Kennedy replied. ‘And once she leaves hospital she will go to prison; there are no questions about that. There will be no trial, as she already said that she wouldn’t contest any charges brought against her.’ There was undeniable sadness in Kennedy’s eyes. ‘She was also a great agent, but first and foremost she was a mother. Nothing can compete with that. She simply followed her heart. She did what she had to do to save her daughter.’ Kennedy paused by the door to Hunter and Garcia’s office. ‘She told me to tell you that she will be forever in your debt, Robert.’