Джеймс Паттерсон - Cross Kill

With Special Agent Batra navigating the web via a link to a supercomputer, the search took all of fourteen minutes.

“Quite a few that mention Soneji,” Batra said, gesturing at the screen, and then scrolling down before tapping on a link. “But I’m betting this is the one you’re looking for.”

I squinted to read the link. “ZRXQT?”

“Anonymous, or at least attempting anonymity,” Batra said. “And it’s locked and encrypted. But I ran a filter that picked up traces of commands going into and out of that website. The density of Soneji mentions in those traces is through the roof compared to every other site that talks about him.”

“You can’t get in?”

“I didn’t say that,” Batra said, as if I’d insulted her. “You drink tea?”

“Coffee,” I said.

She gestured across the room. “There’s a break room over there. If you’d be so kind as to bring me some hot tea, Dr. Cross. I should be able to get inside by the time you come back.”

I thought it was kind of funny that Batra had started the conversation as my subordinate and was now ordering me around. Then again, I hadn’t a clue about how she was doing what she was doing. Then again, she was at one with the internet.

“Oolong?” I asked.

“Fine,” Batra said, already engrossed in her work.

I found the coffee and the tea, but when I returned, she was still typing.

“Got it?”

“Not yet,” she said, irritated. “It’s sophisticated, multilevel, and...”

Lines of code began to fill the page. Batra seemed to speed-read the code as it rolled by, because, after twenty seconds of this, she said, “Oh, of course.”

She gave the computer another command, and a homepage appeared, featuring a cement wall in some abandoned building. Across the wall in dripping black graffiti letters, it read Long Live The Soneji!

I won’t bore you with a page-by-page description of the www.thesoneji.net website. There may be archives of it still up on the internet for those interested.

For those of you less inclined to explore the dark side of the web, it’s enough to know that Gary Soneji had developed a cult of personality in the decade since I’d seen him burn, hundreds of digital devotees who worshipped him with the kind of fervor I’d previously assigned to Appalachian snake handlers and the Hare Krishnas.

They called themselves The Soneji, and they seemed to know almost every nuance of the life of the kidnapper and mass murderer. In addition to an extensive biography, there were hundreds of lurid photos, links to articles, and an online chat forum where members hotly debated all things Soneji.

The hottest topics?

Number one that day was the John Sampson shooting.

The Soneji were generally ecstatic that my partner had been shot and barely clung to life, but a few posts stood out.

Napper2 wrote, Gary fuckin’ got Sampson!

Gary’s so back, The Waste Man agreed.

Only thing better would be Cross on a Cross, wrote Black Hole.

That day’s coming sooner than later, said Gary’s Girl. Gary’s missed Cross twice. He won’t miss a third time.

Aside from being the subject of homicidal speculation, something bothered me about that last post, the one from Gary’s Girl. I studied it and the others, trying to figure out what was different.

“They think he’s alive,” Agent Batra offered.

“Yeah, that’s hot thread number two,” I said. “Let’s take a look there, and come back.”

She clicked on the “Resurrection Man” thread.

Cross saw him, came face to face with Gary, wrote Sapper9. Shit his pants, is what I heard.

Cross was hit in first attack, wrote Chosen One. Soneji’s aim is true. Cross is just lucky.

Beemer answered, My respect for Gary is profound, but he is not alive. That is impossible.

The believers among The Soneji went berserk on Beemer for having the gall to challenge the consensus. Beemer was attacked from all sides. To his credit, Beemer fought back.

Call me Doubting Thomas, but show me the evidence. Can I put my finger through Soneji’s hand? Can I see where the lance pierced his side?

You could if he trusted you the way he trusts me, wrote Gary’s Girl.

Beemer wrote, So you’ve seen him, GG?

After a long pause, Gary’s Girl wrote, I have. With my own two eyes.

Pic? Beemer said.

A minute passed, and then two. Five minutes after his demand, Beemer wrote, Funny how illusions can seem so real.

A second later the screen blinked and a picture appeared.

Taken at night, it was a selfie of a big, muscular woman gone goth, heavy on the black on black right down to the lipstick. She was grinning raunchily and sitting in the lap of a man with wispy red hair. His hands held her across her deep, leather-clad cleavage, and he had buried three quarters of his face into the side of her neck.

The other quarter, however, including his right eye, was clearly visible.

He was staring right into the camera with an amused and lecherous expression that seemed designed to taunt the lens and me. He knew I’d see the picture someday and be infuriated.

I was sure of that. It was the kind of thing Soneji would do.

“That him?” Batra asked. “Gary Soneji?”

“Close enough. Can you track down Gary’s Girl?”

The FBI cyber agent thought about that, and then said, “Give me twenty minutes, maybe less.”

At five o’clock that afternoon, Bree and I drove through the tiny rural community of Flintstone, Maryland, past the Flintstone Post Office, the Stone Age Café, and Carl’s Gas and Grub.

We found a side street off Route 144, and drove down a wooded lane to a freshly painted green ranch house set off all by itself in a meticulously tended yard. A shiny new Audi Q5 sat in the driveway.

“I thought you said she’s on welfare,” Bree said.

“Food stamps, too,” I said.

We parked behind the Audi and got out. AC/DC was blasting from inside the house. We went to the front door and found it ajar.

I tried the bell. It was broken.

Bree knocked and called out, “Delilah Pinder?”

We heard nothing in response but the howling of an electric guitar against a thundering baseline.

“Door’s open,” I said. “We’re checking on her well-being.”

“Be my guest,” Bree said.

I pushed open the door and found myself in a room decorated with brand-new leather furniture and a big curved HD television. The music throbbed on from somewhere deeper inside the house.

We checked the kitchen, saw boxes of appliances that hadn’t even been opened, and then headed down the hallway toward the source of the music. The first door on the left was a home gym with Olympic weight-lifting equipment. The music came from the room at the end of the hall.

There was a lull in the song, just enough that I heard a woman’s voice cry, “That’s it!” before the throbbing, wailing song drowned her out.

The door to that room at the end of the hall was cracked open two inches. A brilliant light shone through.

“Delilah Pinder?” I called out.

No answer.

I stepped forward and pushed the door open enough to get a comprehensive view of a very muscular and artificially busty woman up on all fours on a four-poster bed. Gyrating her hips in time with the beat, she was naked, and looking over her shoulder at a GoPro camera mounted on a tripod.

I just stood there, stunned for a moment, long enough for Bree to nudge me, and long enough for Delilah Pinder to look around and spot me.

“Christ!” she screamed and flung herself forward on the bed.

I thought she was diving for modesty, but she hit some kind of panic button and the door slammed shut in my face and locked.