James Swain - The Program

He drove to a 7/11 and locked himself in the restroom. He washed the blood off his hands and splashed cold water on his face. He felt tired. Taking another life no longer brought the same thrill it once did. It was more a matter of habit now. Like eating and sleeping and going to work.

He appraised his reflection in the mirror. His hair was flecked with gray, and his eyes, so pretty when he was young, had turned listless and old.

He bought a sixteen-ounce coffee, which he drank in his car. He thought about Wayne. The teenager was seventeen, the same age he’d been when he’d started killing prostitutes in Havana. Wayne’s whole life was spread out before him. It excited Renaldo to think about all the things Wayne might accomplish, if given the right start.

He drove back to the house, determined to give Wayne that chance.

Nothing died on a computer.

Deep within every hard drive were trails of a computer’s activity. People who sent and received emails were especially vulnerable. Traces of emails remained on a computer long after the actual messages were erased. Few people knew how to clean away these traces, and hardly anyone ever did.

Then there was data. Every single document that was created by, or stored on a computer left a history, even if the document was erased from the file it had been created in, and from the computer’s recycle bin. That data was also there, waiting to be found.

Finally, there was metadata. Every document on a computer was loaded with hidden data. Who created the document, where it had been sent, all the changes and alterations that have been made to it, were all recorded like a giant footprint.

All of the information was there, and all of it could be found.

“So find it,” Linderman said.

The tech out of FBI’s Jacksonville office grinned. His name was Chip Williams, and he was old school, with a starched white shirt, a thin, perfectly knotted necktie, and a military-style buzz cut. Williams sat in front of Alvin Hodges’s computer in the prison’s records department, looking for traces of Crutch’s activity on the hard drive.

“This could take a while,” Williams said.

“Take as long as you want,” Linderman replied. “Our suspect isn’t going anywhere.”

Williams began by downloading a special software program into the computer. Then his fingers danced across the keyboard like a concert pianist. Within seconds, hundreds of domain names scrolled down the screen like movie credits.

“Looks like your suspect has been spending a lot of time surfing the Internet,” Williams said. “A lot of these domain names are law enforcement web sites. He would have needed a password to enter most of them.”

“He’s a computer expert. He could have hacked them.”

“Any idea what he was looking for?”

“No. Could he have been downloading information from these sites, and storing it in some secret area of the hard drive?”

“That’s not so easy, even for an expert.”

“He used to do work for NASA.”

“Well, then sure. No problem.”

“Search the hard drive as thoroughly as you can. I’m going upstairs to the warden’s office. Call me if you find anything interesting.”

“Will do,” Williams said.

Leaving the records department, Linderman leaned against the cool concrete wall in the hallway outside. He tried not to think about the deck of cold case playing cards in his pocket, or the scribbling he’d seen on Danni’s card. He reminded himself that he’d come to Starke Prison to find the man who’d abducted Wayne Ladd. That was his first priority. Everything else had to wait.

Only he couldn’t wait.

This was Danni.

In college he’d studied philosophy. One discussion had always stood out. A father takes his young daughter and her best friend to the beach. The two girls go swimming, and are pulled out by the tide. The father can only save one child from drowning. Which one does he save?

The answer was his daughter. The father could always forgive himself for letting another child drown, but he could never forgive himself for letting his daughter perish.

He took the deck out of his pocket and slipped the cards from the box. Finding Danni’s card, he held it up to the dim overhead light. Writing filled the margins, the letters so faint that he couldn’t make out what they said.

“Damn it,” he said.

He put the cards away. Scrutinizing Danni’s card would have to wait.

He took the stairs to the warden’s office.

He entered without knocking. Jenkins sat at his desk while Wood hovered beside him, both staring at Jenkin’s computer. Neither man lifted their gaze.

“Find something good?” Linderman asked.

“I’m not sure what we’ve found,” Wood said.

He came around the desk. On the screen was one of the index cards from Crutch’s cell. The handwriting had been blown up and was clearly legible. It was a psychological profile of Mr. Hyde, a serial killer who’d terrorized Seattle for over a decade.

Linderman had profiled Mr. Hyde at Quantico, and knew a great deal about him. Mr. Hyde was a pansexual, and would have sex with any object, man, woman or child. Crutch’s profile contained information he’d never seen before, including intimate details about Mr. Hyde’s abusive childhood, his early sexual experiences, an addiction to pornography and S &M, and the types of violent fantasies that plagued him. Several sentences were underlined, including Lived in attic as a boy and Does not know meaning of love .

“What did you find on the other index cards?” Linderman asked.

“There are fifteen index cards in all,” Wood said. “Each contains a detailed profile of a serial killer in the United States who’s still at large. There’s the Gray Man, the Denver Ripper, the Necktie Killer in Boston, and a dozen more.”

“How about Killer X in Fort Lauderdale?” Linderman asked.

“Here’s there, too.”

“Let me see the card.”

The index card containing Killer X’s profile appeared on Jenkin’s computer. It was as detailed as Mr. Hyde’s, and included facts about Killer X’s upbringing that had eluded law enforcement, including an addiction to bodybuilding and certain men’s grooming products. A line at the bottom of the card caught his eye.

Can’t get enough of his victims. Just like SOS. Should be easy to find.

“Jesus Christ,” Wood said. “He was trying to track these guys down, wasn’t he?”

“Yes, and he succeeded with Killer X,” Linderman said. “Let me ask you a question. Did you find any mention on the cards of Wayne Ladd?

“No,” Wood said.

“How about Robert Nardelli or Barry Reedy? They were the first two victims.”

“Nothing about them, either,” Wood said. “So far, we haven’t found any evidence linking Crutch to those crimes.”

Linderman went to the window and looked down onto the yard. He had traveled to the prison fully expecting to find evidence that would link Crutch to Mr. Clean, and his crimes. Without that proof, he couldn’t move the investigation forward.

In the distance, he saw the inmates returning to their cellblock. Crutch was in the same position in the rear of the line, chatting amicably with the guard. He still doesn’t know we’re here. It gave Linderman an idea, and he went back to the desk.

“I want to give Crutch a cell phone tonight,” he said.

“Why – so he can call this killer again?” Jenkins said.

“Yes. Crutch doesn’t know we’re on to him. That’s to our advantage. We’ll give him a slave phone, and monitor his calls.”

“A slave phone?”

“They’re cell phones equipped with special monitoring chips that are tracked using satellites,” Linderman explained. “It will tell us the phone number of anyone Crutch talks to, and let us eavesdrop on his conversations.”