Jeffery Deaver Sampler: The Master of the Mind Game

8/6/2019 Jeffery Deaver Sampler: The Master of the Mind Game

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Chapter 1

His hand on the dead-man throttle, the driver o the Serbian Rail diesel

elt the thrill he always did on this particular stretch o railway, headingnorth rom Belgrade and approaching Novi Sad.

This was the route o the amed Arlberg Orient Express, which ranrom Greece through Belgrade and points north rom the 1930s until

the 1960s. O course, he was not piloting a glistening Paci c 231 steamlocomotive towing elegant mahogany-and-brass dining cars, suites andsleepers, where passengers foated upon vapors o luxury and anticipa-tion. He commanded a battered old thing rom America that tugged be-hind it a string o more or less dependable rolling stock packed snugly with mundane cargo.

But still he elt the thrill o history in every vista that the journey o -ered, especially as they approached the river, his river.

And yet he was ill at ease.Among the wagons bound or Budapest, containing coal, scrap metal,

consumer products and timber, there was one that worried him greatly.

It was loaded with drums o MICmethyl isocyanateto be used inHungary in the manu acture o rubber.The drivera round, balding man in a well-worn cap and stained

overallshad been brie ed at length about this deadly chemical by hissupervisor and some idiot rom the Serbian Sa ety and Well-being Trans-portation Oversight Ministry. Some years ago this substance had killedeight thousand people in Bhopal, India, within a ew days o leaking

rom a manu acturing plant there.

Hed acknowledged the danger his cargo presented but, a veteran


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railway man and union member, hed asked, What does that mean orthe journey to Budapest . . . speci cally?

The boss and the bureaucrat had regarded each other with the eyes o o cialdom and, a ter a pause, settled or Just be very care ul.The lights o Novi Sad, Serbias second-largest city, began to coalesce

in the distance, and ahead in the encroaching evening the Danube ap-peared as a pale stripe. In history and in music the river was celebrated.In reality it was brown, undramatic and home to barges and tankers, notcandlelit vessels lled with lovers and Viennese orchestrasor not here,at least. Still, it wasthe Danube, an icon o Balkan pride, and the railway

mans chest always swelled as he took his train over the bridge.His river . . .He peered through the speckled windscreen and inspected the track

be ore him in the headlight o the General Electric diesel. Nothing to beconcerned about.

There were eight notch positions on the throttle, number one beingthe lowest. He was presently at ve and he eased back to three to slowthe train as it entered a series o turns. The 4,000-horsepower enginegrew so ter as it cut back the voltage to the traction motors.

As the cars entered the straight section to the bridge the driver shi tedup to notch ve again and then six. The engine pulsed louder and asterand there came a series o sharp clangs rom behind. The sound was,the driver knew, simply the couplings between wagons protesting at thechange in speed, a minor cacophony hed heard a thousand times in his job. But his imagination told him the noise was the metal containers o

the deadly chemical in car number three, jostling against one another, atrisk o spewing orth their poison.Nonsense, he told himsel and concentrated on keeping the speed

steady. Then, or no reason at all, except that it made him eel better, hetugged at the air horn.


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Chapter 2

Lying at the top o a hill, surrounded by obscuring grass, a man o seri-

ous ace and hunters demeanor heard the wail o a horn in the distance,miles away. A glance told him that the sound had come rom the trainapproaching rom the south. It would arrive here in ten or teen min-utes. He wondered how it might a ect the precarious operation that wasabout to un url.

Shi ting position slightly, he studied the diesel locomotive and thelengthy string o wagons behind it through his night-vision monocular.

Judging that the train was o no consequence to himsel and hisplans, James Bond turned the scope back to the restaurant o the spaand hotel and once again regarded his target through the window. The weathered building was large, yellow stucco with brown trim. Apparentlyit was a avorite with the locals, rom the number o Zastava and Fiatsaloons in the car park.

It was eight orty and the Sunday evening was clear here, near NoviSad, where the Pannonian Plain rose to a landscape that the Serbs called

mountainous, though Bond guessed the adjective must have beenchosen to attract tourists; the rises were mere hills to him, an avid skier.The May air was dry and cool, the surroundings as quiet as an under-takers chapel o rest.Bond shi ted position again. In his thirties, he wassix eet tall and weighed 170 pounds. His black hair was parted on oneside and a comma o loose strands ell over one eye. A three-inch scarran down his right cheek.

This evening hed taken some care with his out t. He was wearing

a dark green jacket and rainproo trousers rom the American company5.11, which made the best tactical clothing on the market. On his eet


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were well-worn leather boots that had been made or pursuit and sureooting in a ght.

As night descended, the lights to the north glowed more intensely:the old city o Novi Sad. As lively and charming as it was now, Bondknew the place had a dark past. A ter the Hungarians had slaughteredthousands o its citizens in January 1942 and fung the bodies into theicy Danube, Novi Sad had become a crucible or partisan resistance.Bond was here tonight to prevent another horror, di erent in nature buto equal or worse magnitude.

Yesterday, Saturday, an alert had rippled through the British intelli-

gence community. GCHQ, in Cheltenham, had decrypted an electronic whisper about an attack later in the week.

meeting at noahs o fce, confrm incident riday night,

20th, estimated initial casualties in the thousands, british

interests adversely a ected, unds trans ers as discussed.

Not long a ter, the government eavesdroppers had also cracked part

o a second text message, sent rom the same phone, same encryptionalgorithm, but to a di erent number.

meet me sunday at restaurant rostilj outside novi sad,

20:00. i am 6+ eet tall, irish accent.

Then the Irishmanwhod courteously, i inadvertently, supplied hisown nicknamehad destroyed the phone or ficked out the batteries, as

had the other text recipients.In London the Joint Intelligence Committee and members o COBRA, the crisis management body, met into the night to assess therisk o Incident 20, so called because o Fridays date.

There was no solid in ormation on the origin or nature o the threatbut MI6 was o the opinion that it was coming out o the tribal regionsin A ghanistan, where al-Qaeda and its a liates had taken to hiringWestern operatives in European countries. Sixs agents in Kabul began a

major e ort to learn more. The Serbian connection had to be pursued,too. And so at ten oclock last night the rangy tentacles o these events


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Carte Blanche 7

had reached out and clutched Bond, whod been sitting in an exclu-sive restaurant o Charing Cross Road with a beauti ul woman, whose

lengthy description o her li e as an underappreciated painter had growntiresome. The message on Bonds mobile had read,NIACT, Call COS.The Night Action alert meant an immediate response was required,

at whatever time it was received. The call to his chie o sta had bless-edly cut the date short and soon he had been en route to Serbia, undera Level 2 project order, authorizing him to identi y the Irishman, planttrackers and other surveillance devices and ollow him. I that provedimpossible, the order authorized Bond to conduct an extraordinary ren-

dition o the Irishman and spirit him back to England or to a black siteon the Continent or interrogation.

So now Bond lay among white narcissi, taking care to avoid the leaveso that beauti ul but poisonous spring fower. He concentrated on peer-ing through the Restoran Rostiljs ront window, on the other side o which the Irishman was sitting over an almost untouched plate and talk-ing to his partner, as yet unidenti ed but Slavic in appearance. Perhapsbecause he was nervous, the local contact had parked elsewhere and walked here, providing no number-plate to scan.

The Irishman had not been so timid. His low-end Mercedes had ar-rived orty minutes ago. Its plate had revealed that the vehicle had beenhired today or cash under a alse name, with a ake British driving li-cense and passport. The man was about Bonds age, perhaps a bit older,six oot two and lean. Hed walked into the restaurant in an ungainly way, his eet turned out. An odd line o blond ringe dipped over a high

orehead and his cheekbones angled down to a square-cut chin.Bond was satis ed that this man was the target. Two hours ago hehad gone into the restaurant or a cup o co ee and stuck a listening device inside the ront door. A man had arrived at the appointed time andspoken to the headwaiter in Englishslowly and loudly, as oreignerso ten do when talking to locals. To Bond, listening through an app onhis phone rom thirty yards away, the accent was clearly mid-Ulstermost likely Bel ast or the surrounding area. Un ortunately the meeting

between the Irishman and his local contact was taking place out o thebugs range.


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Through the tunnel o his monocular, Bond now studied his ad- versary, taking note o every detailSmall clues save you. Small er-

rors kill, as the instructors at Fort Monckton were wont to remind.He noted that the Irishmans manner was precise and that he made nounnecessary gestures. When the partner drew a diagram the Irishmanmoved it closer with the rubber o a propelling pencil so that he le t no

ngerprints. He sat with his back to the window and in ront o his part-ner; the surveillance apps on Bonds mobile could not read either set o lips. Once, the Irishman turned quickly, looking outside, as i triggeredby a sixth sense. The pale eyes were devoid o expression. A ter some

time he turned back to the ood that apparently didnt interest him.The meal now seemed to be winding down. Bond eased o the hill-

ock and made his way through widely spaced spruce and pine trees andanemic undergrowth, with clusters o the ubiquitous white fowers. Hepassed a aded sign in Serbian, French and English that had amused him when hed arrived:

SPA AND RE STAURANT ROS TILJ

LOCATED IN A DECLARED THERAP EUTIC

REGION, AND IS RECOMMENDED BY ALL

FOR CONVALESCENCES AFTER SURGERIES,

ESPECIALLY HELPING FOR ACUTE AND

CHRONIC DISEASES OF RESPIRATION

ORGANS, AND ANEMIA. FULL BAR.

He returned to the staging area, behind a decrepit garden shed thatsmelled o engine oil, petrol and piss, near the driveway to the restau-rant. His two comrades, as he thought o them, were waiting here.

James Bond pre erred to operate alone but the plan hed devised re-quired two local agents. They were with the BIA, the Serbian SecurityIn ormation Agency, as benign a name or a spy out t as one could imag-ine. The men, however, were undercover in the uni orm o local police

rom Novi Sad, sporting the golden badge o the Ministry o InternalA airs.


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Carte Blanche 9

Faces squat, heads round, perpetually unsmiling, they wore their hairclose-cropped beneath navy-blue brimmed caps. Their woolen uni orms

were the same shade. One was around orty, the other twenty- ve. De-spite their cover roles as rural o cers, theyd come girded or battle.They carried heavy Beretta pistols and swaths o ammunition. In thebackseat o their borrowed police car, a Volkswagen Jetta, there were twogreen-camoufaged Kalashnikov machine guns, an Uzi and a canvas bago ragmentation hand grenadesserious ones, Swiss HG 85s.

Bond turned to the older agent but be ore he spoke he heard a erceslapping rom behind. His hand moving to his Walther PPS, he whirled

roundto see the younger Serb ramming a pack o cigarettes into hispalm, a ritual that Bond, a ormer smoker, had always ound absurdlysel -conscious and unnecessary.

What was the man thinking?Quiet, he whispered coldly. And put those away. No smoking.Perplexity sidled into the dark eyes. My brother, he smokes all time

he is out on operations. Looks more normal thannot smoking in Ser-bia. On the drive here the young man had prattled on and on about hisbrother, a senior agent with the in amous JSO, technically a unit o thestate secret service, though Bond knew it was really a black-ops paramili-tary group. The young agent had let slipprobably intentionally, or hehad said it with pridethat big brother had ought with Arkans Tigers,a ruthless gang that had committed some o the worst atrocities in the

ghting in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo.Maybe on the streets o Belgrade a cigarette wont be noticed, Bond

muttered, but this is a tactical operation. Put them away.The agent slowly complied. He seemed about to say something tohis partner, then thought better o it, perhaps recalling that Bond had a working knowledge o Serbo-Croatian.

Bond looked again into the restaurant and saw that the Irishman was laying some dinars on the metal trayno traceable credit card, o course. The partner was pulling on a jacket.

All right. Its time. Bond reiterated the plan. In the police car they

would ollow the Irishmans Mercedes out o the drive and along theroad until he was a mile or so rom the restaurant. The Serbian agents


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Carte Blanche 11

tion device used or cloaked radio transmissions on tactical operations.Channel two, he reminded them.

Da, da. The older man sounded bored. They both plugged in ear-pieces.And James Bond asked himsel yet again: Had he planned this prop-

erly? Despite the speed with which the operation had been put together,hed spent hours ormulating the tactics. He believed hed anticipatedevery possible variation.

Except one, it appeared.The Irishman did not do what he absolutely had to.

He didnt leave.The Mercedes turned away rom the drive and rolled out o the car

park on to the lawn beside the restaurant, on the other side o a tallhedge, unseen by the sta and diners. It was heading or a weed-riddled

eld to the east.The younger agent snapped, Govno!What he is doing? The three

men stepped out to get a better view. The older one drew his gun andstarted a ter the car.

Bond waved him to a halt. No! Wait.Hes escaping. He knows about us!Noits something else. The Irishman wasnt driving as i he were

being pursued. He was moving slowly, the Mercedes easing orward, likea boat in a gentle morning swell. Besides, there was no place to escapeto. He was hemmed in by cli s overlooking the Danube, the railway em-bankment and the orest on the Fruska Gora rise.

Bond watched as the Mercedes arrived at the rail track, a hundred yardsrom where they stood. It slowed, made a U-turn and parked, the bonnetacing back toward the restaurant. It was close to a railway work shed and

switch rails, where a second track peeled o rom the main line. Both menclimbed out and the Irishman collected something rom the boot.

Your enemys purpose will dictate your responseBond silently re-cited another maxim rom the lectures at Fort Moncktons SpecialistTraining Center in Gosport. You must nd the adversarys intention.

But what washis purpose?Bond pulled out the monocular again, clicked on the night vision


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and ocused. The partner opened a panel mounted on a signal besidethe switch rails and began ddling with the components inside. Bond

saw that the second track, leading o to the right, was a rusting, disusedspur, ending in a barrier at the top o a hill.So it was sabotage. They were going to derail the train by shunting it

on to the spur. The cars would tumble down the hill into a stream thatfowed into the Danube.

But why?Bond turned the monocular toward the diesel engine and the wag-

ons behind it and saw the answer. The rst two cars contained only scrap

metal but behind them, a canvas-covered fatbed was markedOPASNOST-DANGER! He saw, too, a hazardous-materials diamond, the universal warning sign that told emergency rescuers the risks o a particular ship-ment. Alarmingly, this diamond had high numbers or all three categories:health, instability and infammability. The W at the bottom meant thatthe substance would react dangerously with water. Whatever was beingcarried in that car was in the deadliest category, short o nuclear materials.

The train was now three-quarters o a mile away rom the switchrails, picking up speed to make the gradient to the bridge.

Your enemys purpose will dictate your response. . . .He didnt know how the sabotage related to Incident 20, i at all, but

their immediate goal was clearas was the response Bond now instinc-tively ormulated. He said to the comrades, I they try to leave, blockthem at the drive and take them. No lethal orce.

He leaped into the drivers seat o the Jetta. He pointed the car to-

ward the elds where hed been conducting surveillance and jammeddown the accelerator as he released the clutch. The light car shot orward, engine and gearbox crying out at the rough treatment, as it crashedover brush, saplings, narcissi and the raspberry bushes that grew everywhere in Serbia. Dogs fed and lights in the tiny cottages nearby fickedon. Residents in their gardens waved their arms angrily in protest.

Bond ignored them and concentrated on maintaining his speed as hedrove toward his destination, guided only by scant illumination: a partial

moon above and the doomed trains headlight, ar brighter and rounderthan the lamp o heaven.


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June 2004

THE RULES OF PLAY

THE MAN WHO wanted to kill the young woman sitting beside me wasthree-quarters of a mile behind us, as we drove through a pastoral settingof tobacco and cotton elds this humid morning.

A glance in the rearview mirror revealed a sliver of car, moving at acomfortable pace with the trafc, piloted by a man who by all appear-

ances seemed hardly different from any one of a hundred drivers on thisrecently resurfaced divided highway.

Ofcer Fallow? Alissa began. Then, as Id been urging her for thepast week: Abe?

Yes.Is he still there? Shed seen my gaze.Yes. And sos our tail, I added for reassurance. My protg was

behind the killer, two or three car lengths. He was not the only personfrom our organization on the job.

Okay, Alissa whispered. The woman, in her midthirties, was a whistle-blower against a government contractor that did a lot of work forthe army. The company was adamant that it had done nothing wrong andclaimed it welcomed an investigation. But thered been an attempt onAlissas life a week ago andsince Id been in the army with one of the


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senior commanders at BraggDefense had called me in to guard her.As head of the organization I dont do much eldwork any longer but I was glad to get out, to tell the truth. My typical day was ten hours at my desk in our Alexandria ofce. And in the past month it had been closer

to twelve or fourteen, as we coordinated the protection of ve high-levelorganized crime informants, before handing them over to Witness Pro-tection for their face-lifts.

It was good to be back in the saddle, if only for a week or so.I hit a speed dial button, calling my protg.Its Abe, I said into my hands-free. Where is he now?Make it a half mile. Moving up slowly.The hitter, whose identity we didnt know, was in a nondescript Hyun-

dai sedan, gray.I was behind an eighteen-foot truck, carolina poultry process-

ing company painted on the side. It was empty and being driven by oneof our transport people. In front of that was a car identical to the one I was driving.

Weve got two miles till the swap, I said.Four voices acknowledged this over four very encrypted com devices.I disconnected. Without looking at her, I said to Alissa, Its going to be ne.I just . . . she said in a whisper. I dont know. She fell silent and

stared into the side-view mirror as if the man who wanted to kill her were

right behind us.Its all going just like we planned. When innocent people nd themselves in situations that require the

presence and protection of people like me, their reaction more often thannot is as much bewilderment as fear. Mortality is tough to process.

But keeping people safe, keeping people alive, is a business like any other. I frequently told this to my protg and the others in the ofce,probably irritating them to no end with both the repetition and the stodgy tone. But I kept on saying it because you cant forget, ever. Its a business, with rigid procedures that we study the way surgeons learn to slice eshprecisely and pilots learn to keep tons of metal safely aloft. These tech-niques have been honed over the years and they worked.

Business . . .Of course, it was also true that the hitter who was behind us at the


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Edge / 3

moment, intent on killing the woman next to me, treatedhis job as a busi-ness too. I knew this sure as steel. He was just as serious as I was, hadstudied procedures as diligently as I had, was smart, IQ-wise and street- wise, and he had advantages over me: His rules were unencumbered by

my constraintsthe Constitution and the laws promulgated thereunder.Still, I believe there is an advantage in being in the right. In all my years of doing this work Id never lost a principal. And I wasnt going tolose Alissa.

A business . . . which meant remaining calm as a surgeon, calm as apilot.

Alissa was not calm, of course. She was breathing hard, worrying hercuff as she stared at a sprawling magnolia tree we were passing, an outriderof a or chestnut forest, bordering a huge cotton eld, the tufts bursting.She was uneasily spinning a thin diamond braceleta treat to herself on arecent birthday. She now glanced at the jewelry and then her palms, which were sweating, and placed her hands on her navy blue skirt. Under my care, Alissa had worn dark clothing exclusively. It was camouage but notbecause she was the target of a professional killer; it was about her weight, which shed wrestled with since adolescence. I knew this because wedshared meals and Id seen the battle up close. Shed also talked quite a bitabout her struggle with weight. Some principals dont need or want cama-raderie. Others, like Alissa, need us to be friends. I dont do well in that rolebut I try and can generally pull it off.

We passed a sign. The exit was a mile and a half away.A business requires simple, smart planning. You cant be reactive inthis line of work and though I hate the word proactive (as opposed to what, antiactive?), the concept is vital to what we do. In this instance,to deliver Alissa safe and sound to the prosecutor for her depositions, Ineeded to keep the hitter in play. Since my protg had been followinghim for hours, we knew where he was and could have taken him at any moment. But if wed done that, whoever had hired him would simply callsomebody else to nish the job. I wanted to keep him on the road for thebetter part of the daylong enough for Alissa to get into the U.S. Attor-neys ofce and give him sufcient information via deposition so that she would no longer be at risk. Once the testimonys down, the hitter has noincentive to eliminate a witness.

The plan Id devised, with my protgs help, was for me to pass the


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Im coming up on the exit. . . . Okay. Here we go.Still doing about sixty, I eased into the exit lane and swung around the

curve, which was surrounded by thick trees. The chicken truck was righton my bumper.

My protg reported, Good. Subject didnt even look your way. Hesgot the decoy in sight and the speeds dropping back to the limit.I paused at the red light where the ramp fed into Route 18, then

turned right. The poultry truck turned left.Subject is continuing on the route, came my protgs voice. Seems

to be working ne. His voice was cool. Im pretty detached about opera-tions but he does me one better. He rarely smiles, never jokes and intruth I dont know much about him, though weve worked together,often closely, for several years. Id like to change that about himhissombernessnot for the sake of the job, since he really is very, very good,but simply because I wish he took more pleasure in what we do. Theendeavor of keeping people safe can be satisfying, even joyous. Especially when it comes to protecting families, which we do with some frequency.

I told him to keep me updated and we disconnected.So, Alissa asked, were safe?Were safe, I told her, hiking the speed up to fty in a forty-ve

zone. In fteen minutes we were meandering along a route that wouldtake us to the outskirts of Raleigh, where wed meet the prosecutor forthe depositions.

The sky was overcast and the scenery was probably what it had beenfor dozens of years: bungalow farmhouses, shacks, trailers and motor vehicles in terminal condition but still functioning if the nursing and luck were right. A gas station offering a brand Id never heard of. Dogs tooth-ing at eas lazily. Women in stressed jeans, overseeing their broods. Men with beer-lean faces and expanding guts, sitting on porches, waiting fornothing. Most likely wondering at our carcontaining the sort of people you dont see much in this neighborhood: a man in a white shirt, dark suitand tie and a woman with a business haircut.

Then we were past the residences and on a road bisecting moreelds. I noted the cotton plants, shedding their growth like popcorn, andI thought of how this same land 150 years ago would have been carpeted with an identical crop; the Civil War, and the people for whom it wasfought, were never far from ones mind when you were in the South.


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My phone rang and I answered.My protgs voice was urgent. Abe.Shoulders tense, I asked, Has he turned off the highway? I wasnt

too concerned; wed exited over a half hour ago. The hitter would be forty

miles away by now.No, still following the decoy. But something just happened. He madea call on his mobile. When he disconnected, it was odd: He was wiping hisface. I moved up two car lengths. It looked like hed been crying.

My breath came quickly as I considered possible reasons for this.Finally one credible, disturbing scenario rose to the top: What if the hit-ter had suspected wed try a decoy and had used one of his own? Hedforced somebody who resembled himjust like the eln man inour decoy carto follow us. The call my protg had just witnessed mighthave been between the driver and the real perp, who was perhaps hold-ing the mans wife or child hostage.

But this, then, meant that the real hitter could be somewhere elseand

A ash of white streaked toward us as a Ford pickup truck appearedfrom the driveway of a sagging, deserted gas station to the left andbounded over the highway. The truck, its front protected by push bars,slammed into our drivers side and shoved us neatly through a tall standof weeds into a shallow ravine. Alissa screamed and I grunted in pain andheard my protg calling my name, then the mobile and the hands-free

ew into the car, propelled by the deploying airbag. We crashed down a ve-foot descent and came to an undramatic stopat the soupy bottom of a shallow creek.

Oh, hed planned his attack perfectly and before I could even clickthe seat belt to get to my gun, hed swung a mallet through the drivers window, shattering it and stunning me with the same blow. My Glock was ripped off my belt and pocketed. Dislocated shoulder, I thought, notmuch blood. I spat broken glass from my mouth and looked to Alissa.She too was stunned but didnt seem hurt badly. The hitter wasnt hold-ing his gun, only the mallet, and I thought that if she ed now shed havea chance to tumble through the underbrush and escape. Not much of achance but something. She had to move immediately, though. Alissa,run, to the left! You can do it! Now!

She yanked the door open and rolled out.


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Edge / 7

I looked back at the road. All I could see was the white truck parkedon the shoulder near a creek where you might hunt frogs for bait, like adozen other trucks Id seen en route. It perfectly blocked anyones viewfrom the road. Just like Id used a truck to mask my escape, I reected

grimly.The hitter was now reaching in to unlatch my door. I squinted in pain,grateful for the mans delay. It meant that Alissa could gain more dis-tance. My people would know our exact position through GPS and couldhave police here in fteen or twenty minutes. She might make it. Please,I thought, turning toward the path shed be escaping down, the shallowcreekbed.

Except that she wasnt running anywhere.Tears rolling down her cheeks, she was standing next to the car with

her head down, arms crossed over her round chest. Was she hurt morebadly than Id thought?

My door was opened and the hitter dragged me out onto the ground, where he expertly slipped nylon restraints on my hands. He released meand I sagged into the sour-scented mud, beside busy crickets.

Restraints? I wondered. I looked at Alissa again, now leaning againstthe car, unable to look my way. Please. She was speaking to our attacker.My mother?

No, she wasnt stunned and wasnt hurt badly and I realized the rea-son she wasnt running: because she had no reason to.

She wasnt the target.I was.The whole terrible truth was obvious. The man standing over me

had somehow gotten to Alissa several weeks before and threatened tohurt her motherto force Alissa to make up a story about corruptionat the government contractor. Because it involved an army base where Iknew the commander, the perp had bet that Id be the shepherd to guardher. For the past week Alissa had been giving this man details about oursecurity procedures. He wasnt a hitter; he was alifter, hired to extractinformation from me. Of course: about the organized crime case Id just worked. I knew the new identities of the ve witnesses whod testied atthe trial. I knew where Witness Protection was placing them.

Gasping for breath through the tears, Alissa was saying, You toldme. . . .


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But the lifter was ignoring her, looking at his watch and placing a call,I deduced, to the man in the decoy car, followed by my protg, fty miles away. He didnt get through. The decoy would have been pulledover, as soon as our crash registered through the mobile phone call.

This meant the lifter knew he didnt have as much time as he wouldhave liked. I wondered how long I could hold out against the torture.Please, Alissa whispered again. My mother. You said if I did what

you wanted . . . Please, is she all right?The lifter glanced toward her and, as an afterthought, it seemed, took

a pistol from his belt and shot her twice in the head.I grimaced, felt the sting of despair.He took a battered manila envelope from his inside jacket and, open-

ing it, knelt beside me and shook the contents onto the ground. I couldntsee what they were. He pulled off my shoes and socks.

In a soft voice he asked, You know the information I need?I nodded yes.Will you tell me?If I could hold out for fteen minutes there was a chance local police

would get here while I was still alive. I shook my head no.Impassive, as if my response were neither good or bad, he set to work.Hold out for fteen minutes, I told myself.I gave my rst scream thirty seconds later. Another followed shortly

after that and from then on every exhalation was a shrill cry. Tears owed

and pain raged like re throughout my body.Thirteen minutes, I reected. Twelve . . .But, though I couldnt say for certain, probably no more than six or

seven passed before I gasped, Stop, stop! He did. And I told him exactly what he wanted to know.

He jotted the information and stood. Keys to the truck dangled in hisleft hand. In his right was the pistol. He aimed the automatic toward thecenter of my forehead and what I felt was mostly relief, a terrible relief,that at least the pain would cease.

The man eased back and squinted slightly in anticipation of the gun-shot, and I found myself w


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September 2010

SATURDAY

The object of the game is to invade and capture the opponentsCastle or slay his Royalty. . . .

FROM THE INSTRUCTIONS TO THE BOARD GAME FEUDAL


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Chapter 1

WEVE GOT A bad one, Corte.Go ahead, I said into the stalk microphone. I was at my desk, on a

hands-free. I set down the old handwritten note Id been reading.The principal and his familyre in Fairfax. Theres a go-ahead order

for a lifter and seems like hes under some time pressure.How much?A couple of days.You know who hired him?Thats a negative, son.It was Saturday, early. In this business, we drew odd hours and work-

weeks of varying lengths. Mine had just begun a couple of days ago andId nished a small job late yesterday afternoon. I was to have spent the

day tidying up paperwork, something I enjoy, but in my organization were on call constantly.Keep going, Freddy. Thered been something about his tone. Ten

years of working with somebody, even sporadically, in this line of workgives you clues.

The FBI agent, never known for hesitating, now hesitated. Finally:Okay, Corte, the thing is . . . ?

What?The lifters Henry Loving. . . . I know, I know. But its conrmed.After a moment, in which the only sounds I could hear were my heart

and a whisper of blood through my ears, I responded automatically,though pointlessly, Hes dead. Rhode Island.

Was dead. Was reported dead.I glanced at trees outside my window, stirring in the faint September


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12 / Jeffery Deaver

breeze, then looked over my desk. It was neat but small and cheaply made.On it were several pieces of paper, each demanding more or less of my attention, as well as a small carton that FedEx had delivered to the townhouse, only a few blocks from my ofce, that morning. It was an eBay pur-

chase Id been looking forward to receiving. Id planned to examine thecontents of the box on my lunch hour today. I now slid it aside.Go on.In Providence? Somebody else was in the building. Freddy lled in

this missing puzzle piece, though Id almost instantly deducedcorrectly,from the agents accountexactly what had happened. Two years ago the warehouse Henry Loving had been hiding in, after eeing a trap Id setfor him, had burned to the ground. The forensic people had a clear DNAmatch on the body inside. Even badly burned, a corpse will leave aboutten million samples of that pesky deoxyribonucleic acid. Which you canthide or destroy so it doesnt make sense to try.

But what you can do is, afterward, get to the DNA lab technicians andforce them to lieto certify that the body was yours.

Loving was the sort who would have anticipated my trap. Before he went after my principals, hed have a backup plan devised: kidnapping ahomeless man or a runaway and stashing him in the warehouse, just incase he needed to escape. This was a clever idea, threatening a lab tech,and not so far-fetched when you considered that Henry Lovings uniqueart was manipulating people to do things they didnt want to do.

So, suddenly, a man a lot of other people had been contentId goso far as to use the word happyto see die in a re was now very muchalive.

A shadow in my doorway. It was Aaron Ellis, the head of our organi-zation, the man I reported to directly. Blond and ercely broad of shoul-der. His thin lips parted. He didnt know I was on the phone. You hear?Rhode Islandit wasnt Loving after all.

Im on with Freddy now. Gesturing toward the hands-free.My ofce in ten?Sure.He vanished on deft feet encased in brown tasseled loafers, which

clashed with his light blue slacks.I said to the FBI agent, in his ofce about ten miles from mine, That

was Aaron.


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Edge / 13

I know, Freddy replied. My boss briefed your boss. Im brieng you. Well be working it together, son. Call me when you can.

Wait, I said. The principals, in Fairfax? You send any agents tobabysit?

Not yet. This just happened.Get somebody there now.Apparently Lovings nowhere near yet.Do it anyway.WellDo it anyway.Your wish, et cetera, et cetera.Freddy disconnected before I could say anything more.Henry Loving . . .I sat for a moment and again looked out the window of my organizations

unmarked headquarters in Old Town Alexandria, the building aggressively ugly, 1970s ugly. I stared at a wedge of grass, an antique store, a Starbucksand a few bushes in a parking strip. The bushes lined up in a staggered fash-ion toward the Masonic Temple, like theyd been planted by a Dan Browncharacter sending a message via landscaping rather than an email.

My eyes returned to the FedEx box and the documents on my desk.One stapled stack of papers was a lease for a safe house near Silver

Spring, Maryland. Id have to negotiate the rent down, assuming a coveridentity to do so.

One document was a release order for the principal Id successfully delivered yesterday to two solemn men, in equally solemn suits, whoseofces were in Langley, Virginia. I signed the order and put it into my out box.

The last slip of paper, which Id been reading when Freddy called, Idbrought with me without intending to. In the town house last night Idlocated a board game whose instructions Id wanted to reread and hadopened the box to nd this sheetan old to-do list for a holiday party, with names of guests to call, groceries and decorations to buy. Id absently tucked the yellowing document into my pocket and discovered it thismorning. The party had been years ago. It was the last thing I wanted tobe reminded of at the moment.

I looked at the handwriting on the faded rectangle and fed it into my burn box, which turned it into confetti.


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14 / Jeffery Deaver

I placed the FedEx box into the safe behind my desknothing fancy,no eye scans, just a clicking combination lockand rose. I tugged on adark suit jacket over my white shirt, which was what I usually wore in theofce, even when working weekends. I stepped out of my ofce, turn-

ing left toward my bosss, and walked along the lengthy corridors gray carpet, striped with sunlight, falling pale through the mirrored, bullet-resistant windows. My mind was no longer on real estate values in Mary-land or delivery service packages or unwanted reminders from the past,but focused exclusively on the reappearance of Henry Lovingthe man who, six years earlier, had tortured and murdered my mentor and closefriend, Abe Fallow, in a gulley beside a North Carolina cotton eld, as Idlistened to his cries through his still-connected phone.

Seven minutes of screams until the merciful gunshot, delivered notmercifully at all, but as a simple matter of professional efciency.


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Chapter 1

"How long did it take them to die?"The man this question was posed to didn't

seem to hear it. He looked in the rearviewmirror again and concen trated on his driv ing .The hour was justpast midnight and thestreets in lower Manhattan were icy. Acold

front had swept the sky clear and turned anearlier snow toslick glaze on the asphalt and con-

crete. The two men were in the rattlingBand-Aid-mobile, as Cleve r Vincent had d ubbed the tan S U V It was a fewyears ol d; the brakes n eeded servicin g and the tires replac ing. Bu ttaking a stolen vehicle in for work would not be a wise idea, espe-cially since two of its recentpassengers were now murder victims.

Th e driv er a lean man i n his fifties, wi th tr im black hairmadea careful turn down a sidestreet and continued his journey, neverspeeding, making precise turns, perfectly centered in his lane. He'ddrive the same whether thestreets were sl ippery or dry, whe ther thevehiclehad just been involved in murder or not.

Careful, meticulous. How long did it take?Big VincentVincentwith long,sausage fingers, always damp,

and a taut brown belt stretching the first holeshivered hard. He'dbeen waiting on thestreet corner after his night shift as a word-processing temp. It was bitterlycold but Vincentdidn't like the lobby

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of his building. The light was greenish and the walls were coveredwith big mirrors in which he could see his oval body from all angles.So he'd stepped into the clear, cold December air and paced and atea candy bar. Okay, two.

As Vincent was glancing up at the full moon, a shockinglywhitedisk visible for a moment through a canyon of buildings,the Watch-

maker reflected aloud, "How long did it take them to die? Inter-esting."Vincent had known the Watchmakerwhose real name was

Gerald Duncanfor only a short time but he'd learned that youasked the man questions at your own risk. Even a simple query couldopen the door to a monologue. Man, could he talk. And his answerswere always organized, like a college professor's. Vincent knew thatthe silence for the last few minutes was because Duncan was consid-ering his answer.

Vincentopened a can of Pepsi. He was cold but he needed some-

thing sweet. He chugged it and put the empty can in his pocket. Heate a packet of peanut butter crackers. Duncan looked over to makesure Vincent was wearing gloves. They always wore gloves in theBand-Aid-Mobile.

Meticulous . . ."I'd say there are several answers to that," Duncan said in his

soft, detached voice. "For instance, the first one I killedwas twenty-four, so you could say it took him twenty-four years to die."

Like,yeah . . . thought Clever Vincent with the sarcasm of ateenager, though he had to admit that this obvious answer hadn't oc-

curred to him."The other was thirty-two, I think."A police car drove by, the opposite way. The blood in Vincents

temples began pounding but Duncan didn't react. The cops showedno interest in the stolen Explorer.

"Anotherway to answer the question," Duncan said, "is to con-sider the elapsed time from the moment I started until their heartsstopped beating. That's probably what you meant. See, people wantto put time into easy-to-digest frames of reference. That's valid, aslong as it's helpful . Knowingthe contractions come every twenty sec-

onds is helpful. So is knowing that the athlete ran a mile in threeminutes, fifty-eight seconds, so he wins the race. Specifically howlong it took them tonight to die . . . well, that isn't important, as longas it wasn't fast." A glance at Vincent. "I'm not being criticalof yourquestion."

"No,"Vincent said, not caring i f he was critical.Vincent Reynolds

4 / J e f f e r y D e a v e r


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didn't have many friends and could put up with a lot from GeraldDuncan."I was just curious."

"I understand. I just didn't pay any attention. But the next one,I'll time it."

"The girl? Tomorrow?"Vincent's heart beat just a bit faster.H e nodded. "Later today, you mean."

It was after midnight. With Gerald Duncan you had to be pre-cise, especially when it came to time."Right."Hungry Vincent had nosed out Clever Vincent now that he was

thinkingof Joanne, the girl who'd die next. Later today . . .The killer drove in a compl icated pattern back to their temporary

home in the Chelsea district of Manhattan, south of Midtown, nearthe river. The streets were deserted; the temperature was in theteens and the wind flowed steadily through the narrow streets.

Duncan parked at a curb and shut the engine off, set the parkingbrake. The men stepped out. They walked for a half block throughthe icy wind. Duncan glanced down at his shadow on the sidewalk,cast by the moon. "I've thought of another answer. About how longit took them to die."

Vincent shivered againmostly, but not only, from the cold."When you look at it from their point of view," the killer said,

"you could say that it took forever."

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Chapter 2

What is that?From his squeaky chair in the warm of-

fice, the big man sipped coffee and squintedthrough the bright morning light toward thefar end of the pier. He was the morning su-pervisor of the tugboat repair operation, lo-

cated on the HudsonRivernorth of GreenwichVillage. There was a Moran with a bum diesel

due to dock in forty minu tes but at the moment thepier was empty and the supervisor was enjoying the warmth of theshed, where he sat with his feet up on the desk, coffee cradledagainst his chest. He wiped some condensation off the window andlooked again.

What is it?A small black box sat by theedge of the pier, the sidethat faced

Jersey. It hadn't beenthere when the facilityhad closed atsix yester-day, and nobody would have docked afterthat. Had to come fromthe la nd side. There was a chain -link fence to prevent pedestriansand passersby from getting into thefacility, but, as the man knewfrom the m issing tools and trash drums (go figure), i f somebodywanted to breakin, they would .

But why leave something?H e stared for a while, thinking, Itscold out, its windy, the

coffees just right. Then he decided, Oh,hell, better check. He

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pulled on his thick gray jacket, gloves and hat and, taking a last slugof coffee, stepped outside into the breathtaking air.

The supervisor made his way through the wind along the pier, hiswatering eyes focused on the black box.

The hell is it? The thing was rectangular, less than a foot high,and the low sunlight sharply reflected off something on the front. He

squinted against the glare. The whitecapped water of the Hudsonslushed against the pilings below.Ten feet away from the box he paused, realizingwhat it was.A clock. A n old-fashioned one, with those funny numbers

Romannumeralsand a moon face on the front. Looked expensive.He glanced at his watch and saw the clockwas working;the time wasaccurate. Who'd leave a nice thing like that here? Well, allright, I gotmyself a present.

As he stepped forward to pick it up, though, his legs went outfrom under him and he had a moment of pure panic thinking he'd

tumble into the river. But he went straight down, landing on thepatch of ice he hadn't seen, and slid no further.Wincing in pain, gasping, he pulled himself to his feet. The man

glanced down and saw that this wasn't normal ice. It was reddishbrown.

"Oh, Christ ," he whispered as he stared at the large patch of blood, which had pooled near the clock and frozen slick. He leanedforward and his shock deepened when he realized how the bloodhad gotten there. He saw what looked like bloody fingernail markson the wooden decking of the pier, as if someone with slashed fin-

gers or wrists had been holding on to keep from falling into thechurningwaters of the river.H e crept to the edge and looked down. No one was floating in the

choppy water. He wasn't surprised; i f what he imagined was true, thefrozen blood meant the poor bastard had been here a while ago and,i f he hadn't been saved, his body'd be halfway to Liberty Island bynow.

Fumblingfor his cell phone, he backed away and pu lled his gloveoff with his teeth. A final glance at the clock, then he hurried back tothe shed, calling the police with a stubby, quaking finger.

Before and After.Th e city was different now, after that morning in September, af-

ter the explosions, the huge tails of smoke, the buildings that disap-peared.



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You couldn't deny it. You could talk about the resilience, themettle, the get-back-to-work attitude of New Yorkers, and that wastrue. But people stillpaused when planes made that final approachto LaGuardiaand seemed a bit lower than normal. Youcrossed thestreet, wide, around an abandoned shopping bag. You weren't sur-prised to see soldiers or police dressed in dark uniforms carrying

black, military-stylemachine guns.The ThanksgivingDay parade had come and gone without inci-dent and now Christmas was in full swing, crowds everywhere. Butfloating atop the festivities, like a reflection in a department storesholidaywindow,was the persistent image of the towers that no longwere, the people no longer with us. And, of course, the big question:What would happen next?

LincolnRhyme had his own Before and After and he understoodthis concept very well. There was a time he could walk and functionand then came the time when he could not. One moment he was as

healthy as everyone else, searching a crime scene, and a minute latera beam had snapped his neck and left him a C-4 quadriplegic,almostcompletelyparalyzed from the shoulders down.

Before and After. . .There are moments that change you forever.And yet, Lincoln Rhyme believed, i f you make too grave an icon

of them, then the events become more potent. A nd the bad guyswin.

Now, early on a cold Tuesday morning, these were Rhymesthoughts as he listened to a National Public Radio announcer, in her

unshakable F M voice, report about a parade planned for the day aftertomorrow,followedby some ceremonies and meetings of governmentofficials, all of which logically should have been held in the nation'scapital.But the up-with-New-Yorkattitude had prevailed and specta-tors, as well as protesters, wouldbe present in force and clogging thestreets, making the life of security-sensitive police around Wall Streetfar more difficult.As with politics,so with sports: Play-offs that shouldoccur in New Jersey were now scheduled for Madison SquareGardenas a display, for some reason, of patriotism. Rhyme won-dered cynicallyif next year's Boston Marathon would be held in New

York City. Before and After. . .Rhyme had come to believe that he himself really wasn't much

different in the After. His physical condition,his skyline,you couldsay, had changed. But he was essentially the same person as in theBefore: a cop and a scientist who was impatient, temperamental



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(okay, sometimes obnoxious), relentless and intolerant of incompe-tence and laziness. He didn't play the gimp card, didn't whine, didn'tmake an issue of his condition (though good luck to any buildingowners who didn'tmeet the Americans withDisabilitiesAct require-ments for door width and ramps when he was at a crimescene intheir buildings).

As he listened to the report now, the factthat certain people inthe city seemed to begiving in to self-pity irritated him. "I'm goingto write a letter," he announced to Thorn.

The slim young aide, in dark slacks, whit e shirt and thick sweater(Rhyme's Ce ntra l Park West townhouse suffered from a bad heatingsystem and ancient insulation), glanced up from where he wasoverdecorating for Christmas. Rhyme enjoyed the irony of his plac-ing a miniature evergreentree on a table below which apresent,though an unwrapped one, already waited: a box of adult disposablediapers.

"Letter?"H e explained his theorythat it was more patriotic to go aboutbusiness as usual. "I'm going to give 'emhell. The Times, I think."

"Why don't you?" asked the aide, whose profession was known as"caregiver" (though Thorn saidthat, being in the employ of LincolnRhyme,his job description was really "saint").

"I 'm going to," Rhyme said adamantly."Good for you . . . though, one thing?"Rhyme lifted an eyebrow. The criminalist coul da nd didget

great expression out of hisextant body parts: shoulders, face and

head."Most of the people whosay they're going to wri te a letter don't.People whodo write letters just go ahead and write them. They don'tannounce it. Ever notice that?"

"Thank yo u for the brill iant insight into psychology, Thorn . Yo uknow that nothing's going tostop me now."

"Good,"repeated the aide.Using the touchpad controller, the criminalist drove his red

Storm Arrow wheelchair closer to one of thehalf dozen large, flat-screen monito rs in the room .

"Co mma nd, " he said into the voice-recog nition system, via a m i-crophone attached to the chair."Word processor."Word Perfec t dutifully opene d on the screen."Command,type. 'Dear sirs.' Command, colon. Command, para-

graph. Command, type, Tt has come to my attention'"The doorbell rang and Thorn went to see who the visitor was.



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Rhyme closed hiseyes and was composing hisrant to the worldwhen a voice intruded. "Hey,Line. Me rry Christmas."

"Uhm, ditto," Rhyme grumbled to paunchy, disheveled LonSellitto,wal king throug h the doorway. Th e big detective had to ma-neuver carefully; the room had been a quaint parlor in theVictorianera but now was chockablock with forensic sciencegear: optical mi -

croscopes, an elect ron microscope, a gas chromatograph, laboratorybeakers and racks, pipettes, petri dishes, centrifuges, chemicals,books and magazines, computers and thick wires, wh ich ran every-where. (When Rhyme began doing forensic consulting out of histown house, the power-hungry equipment frequently wo uld blowcircuit breakers. The juice running into the place probably equaledthe combinedusage by everyone else on the block.)

"Command,volume, levelthree/' The environmental control unitobediently turned downNPR.

"Not in the spirit of the season, are we?" the detec tive asked.

Rhyme didn't answer. He looked back at the monitor."Hey, Jackson." Sellittobent down and petted asmall, longhaireddog curled up in anN Y P Devidence box. He was temporarilylivinghere; his former owner, Thorn's elderlyaunt, had passed away re-cently in Westport, Connecticut, after a long illness. Among theyoung man's inheritances was Jackson, a Havanese. The breed, re-lated to the bichon frise, originated in Cuba. Jackson was stayinghere until Thorn cou ldfind a good home for him.

"We got a bad one,Line," Sellitto said, standing up. He started totake off his overcoat but changed his mind. "Jesus, it'scold. Is this a

record?""Don't know. Don't spend much time on the Weather Channel."H e thought of a good opening paragraph of his letter to the editor.

"Bad," Sellitto repeated.Rhyme glanced at Sellitto with a cocked eyebrow."Two homicides,same M . O . More or less.""Lots of 'bad ones' outthere, Lon. Why'rethese any badder?" As

often happened in the tedious days betweencases Rhyme was in abad mood;of al l the perps he'd come across, the worst was boredom.

But Sellitto had worked with Rhyme for years and was immune

to the criminalist's attitudes. "Got acall

from theBig Building.

Brasswant you andAmeliaon this one. They said they're insisting.""Oh, insisting?""I prom ised I wouldn'ttell you they saidthat. Youdon't like to be

insisted.""Can we get to the 'bad'part, Lo n? Or isthat too much to ask?"



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"Where's Amelia?""Westchester, on a case. Should be back soon."The detective held up a wait-a-minute finger as his cell phone

rang. He had a conversation, nodding and jotting notes. He discon-nected and glanced at Rhyme. "Okay,here we have it. Sometime lastnight our perp, he grabs"

"He?" Rhyme asked pointedly."Okay. We don't know the gender for sure.""Sex.""What?"Rhyme said, "Genders a linguisticconcept. It refers to designat-

ing words male or female in certain languages. Sex is a biologicalconcept differentiating male and female organisms."

"Thanks for the grammar lesson," the detective muttered."Maybe it ' ll help if I'm ever on Jeopardy! Anyway, he grabs somepoor schmuck and takes 'em to that boat repair pier on the Hudson.

We're not exactly sure how he does it, but he forces the guy, orwoman, to hang on over the river and then cuts their wrists.The vieholds on for a while, looks likelongenough to lose a shitload of bloodbut then just lets go."

"Body?""Not yet. Coast Guard and ESU're searching.""I heard plural.""Okay.Th en we get another call a few minutes later. To check out

an alleydowntown,off Cedar,near Broadway.The perp s got anothervie. A uniform finds this guy duct-taped and on his back. The perprigged this iron barweighs maybe seventy-five poundsabove hisneck. The vie has to hold it up to keep from getting his throatcrushed."

"Seventy-fivepounds? Okay, given the strength issues, I'll grantyou the perp's sex probably is male."

Thorn came into the room with coffee and pastries. Sellitto, hisweight a constant issue, went for the Danish first, his diet hibernatedduring the holidays.He finished half and, wiping his mouth, contin-ued. "So the vies holding up the bar. Which maybe he does for awhilebuthe doesn't make it."

"Who's the vie?""Name's Theodore Adams. Lived near Battery Park. A nine-one-

one came in last night from a woman said her brother was supposedto meet her for dinner and never showed. That's the name she gave.Sergeant from the precinct was going to call her this morning."



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Lincoln Rhyme generally didn'tfind soft descriptions helpful.But he concededthat "bad" fit the situation.

So did the word"intriguing."He asked, "Why do you say it's thesame M.O.?"

"Perp left acallingcard at both scenes.Clocks.""As in tick-tock?"

"Yup. The first one was by the pool of blood on the pier. Theother was next to thevie s head. It waslike the doer wanted them tosee it. And, I guess,hear it."

"Describethem. The clocks.""Lookedold-fashioned. That's all I know.""Not a bom b?" N owaday sin the time of the Afterevery item

of evidence that ticked was routinely checked for explosives."Nope. Won't go bang. But the squadsent 'em up to Rodmans

Neck to check for bio or chemicalagents. Same brandof clock, lookslike. Spooky, one of the respondings said. Has this face of a moon on

it . Oh , and just incase we were slow, he left anote under the clocks.Com put er printout. N o handwriting.""And they said . . . ?"Sellitto glanced down at his notebook, not relying on memory.

Rhyme appreciated this in the detective. H e wasn't bri lliant but hewas a bulldo g and di d everything slowly and wit h perfection. H eread, " The full Cold Moon is in the sky, shining on the corpse of earth, signifying the hour to die and en d the journey begun atbirth. '" He looked up at Rhyme. "It was signed 'the Watchmaker.'"

"We've got two vies and a lunar motif." Often, an astronomical

reference meant that the killerwas planning to strike multiple times."He 's got more on the agenda.""Hey, why d'you think I'm here,Line?"Rhyme glanced at the beginning of his missive to theTimes. H e

closed his word-processing program. The essay about Before andAfter would have to wait.



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September 13, 1999

SON OF MANSON FOUND GUILTYIN CROYTON FAMILY MURDERS

sa l inas , ca l i fornia Daniel Raymond Pell, 35, wasconvicted today on four counts of rst-degree murder andone count of manslaughter by a Monterey County jury afteronly ve hours of deliberations.

Justice has been done, lead prosecutor James J.Reynolds told reporters after the verdict was announced.This is an extremely dangerous man, who committed hor-rendous crimes.

Pell became known as the Son of Manson because of the parallels between his life and that of convicted mur-derer Charles Manson, who in 1969 was responsible for theritualistic slayings of the actress Sharon Tate and severalother individuals in Southern California. Police foundmany books and articles about Manson in Pells house fol-lowing his arrest.

The murder convictions were for the May 7 deaths of William Croyton, his wife and two of their three children inCarmel, Calif., 120 miles south of San Francisco. Themanslaughter charge arose from the death of James New-berg, 24, who lived with Pell and accompanied him tothe Croyton house the night of the murders. The prosecu-tor asserted that Newberg initially intended to assist in themurders but was then killed by Pell after he changed hismind.

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Croyton, 56, was a wealthy electrical engineer and com-puter innovator. His Cupertino, Calif., company, in theheart of Silicon Valley, produces state-of-the-art programsthat are found in much of the worlds most popular personal

computer software.Because of Pells interest in Manson, there was specula-tion that the killings had ideological overtones, as did themurders for which Manson was convicted, but robbery wasthe most likely reason for the break-in, Reynolds said. Pellhas dozens of prior convictions for shoplifting, burglary androbbery, dating back to his teens.

One child survived the attack, a daughter, Theresa, 9.Pell overlooked the girl, who was in her bed asleep and hid-den by her toys. Because of this, she became known as the

Sleeping Doll.Like Charles Manson, the criminal he admired, Pell ex-

uded a dark charisma and attracted a group of devoted andfanatical followers, whom he called his Familya termborrowed from the Manson clanand over whom he exer-cised absolute control. At the time of the Croyton murdersthis group included Newberg and three women, all livingtogether in a shabby house in Seaside, north of Monterey,Calif. They are Rebecca Shefeld, 26, Linda Whiteld, 20,and Samantha McCoy, 19. Whiteld is the daughter of Lyman Whiteld, president and CEO of Santa Clara Bankand Trust, headquartered in Cupertino, the fourth largestbanking chain in the state.

The women were not charged in the deaths of the Croy-tons or Newberg but were convicted of multiple counts of larceny, trespass, fraud and receiving stolen property. Whit-eld was also convicted of hampering an investigation, per- jury and destroying evidence. As part of a plea bargain,Shefeld and McCoy were sentenced to three years inprison, Whiteld to four and a half.

Pells behavior at trial also echoed Charles Mansons. He would sit motionless at the defense table and stare at jurorsand witnesses in apparent attempts to intimidate them.



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There were reports that he believed he had psychic powers.The defendant was removed once from the courtroom aftera witness broke down under his gaze.

The jury begins sentencing deliberations tomorrow. Pell

could get the death penalty.

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Chapter 1

The interrogation began like any other.Kathryn Dance entered the interview room and found the forty-three-

year-old man sitting at a metal table, shackled, looking up at her closely. Sub-

jects always did this, of course, though never with such astonishing eyes.Their color was a blue unlike sky or ocean or famous gems.

Good morning, she said, sitting down across from him.And to you, replied Daniel Pell, the man who eight years ago had

knifed to death four members of a family for reasons hed never shared. His voice was soft.

A slight smile on his bearded face, the small, sinewy man sat back, re-laxed. His head, covered with long, gray-black hair, was cocked to the side. While most jailhouse interrogations were accompanied by a jingling sound-track of handcuff chains as subjects tried to prove their innocence withbroad, predictable gestures, Daniel Pell sat perfectly still.

To Dance, a specialist in interrogation and kinesicsbody languagePells demeanor and posture suggested caution, but also condence and, cu-riously, amusement. He wore an orange jumpsuit, stenciled with CapitolaCorrectional Facility on the chest and Inmate unnecessarily decoratingthe back.

At the moment, though, Pell and Dance were not in Capitola but, rather,a secure interview room at the county courthouse in Salinas, forty milesaway.

Pell continued his examination. First, he took in Dances own eyesagreen complementary to his blue and framed by square, black-rimmedglasses. He then regarded her French-braided, dark blond hair, the black jacket and beneath it the thick, unrevealing white blouse. He noted too theempty holster on her hip. He was meticulous and in no hurry. (Interviewers

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and interviewees share mutual curiosity. She told the students in her interro-gation seminars, Theyre studying you as hard as youre studying themusually even harder, since they have more to lose.)

Dance shed in her blue Coach purse for her ID card, not reacting as she

saw a tiny toy bat, from last years Halloween, that either twelve-year-old Wes, his younger sister, Maggie, or possibly both conspirators had slippedinto the bag that morning as a practical joke. She thought: Hows this for acontrasting life? An hour ago she was having breakfast with her children inthe kitchen of their homey Victorian house in idyllic Pacic Grove, two exu-berant dogs at their feet begging for bacon, and now here she sat, across a very different table from a convicted murderer.

She found the ID and displayed it. He stared for a long moment, easingforward. Dance. Interesting name. Wonder where it comes from. And theCalifornia Bureau . . . what is that?

Bureau of Investigation. Like an FBI for the state. Now, Mr. Pell, youunderstand that this conversation is being recorded?

He glanced at the mirror, behind which a video camera was hummingaway. You folks think we really believe thats there so we can x up our hair?

Mirrors werent placed in interrogation rooms to hide cameras and wit-nessesthere are far better high-tech ways to do sobut because peopleare less inclined to lie when they can see themselves.

Dance gave a faint smile. And you understand that you can withdrawfrom this interview anytime you want and that you have a right to an attor-ney?

I know more criminal procedure than the entire graduating class of Hastings Law rolled up together. Which is a pretty funny image, when youthink about it.

More articulate than Dance expected. More clever too.The previous week, Daniel Raymond Pell, serving a life sentence for the

1999 murders of William Croyton, his wife and two of their children, had ap-proached a fellow prisoner due to be released from Capitola and tried tobribe him to run an errand after he was free. Pell told him about some evi-dence hed disposed of in a Salinas well years ago and explained that he was worried the items would implicate him in the unsolved murder of a wealthy farm owner. Hed read recently that Salinas was revamping its water system.This had jogged his memory and hed grown concerned that the evidence would be discovered. He wanted the prisoner to nd and dispose of it.

Pell picked the wrong man to enlist, though. The short-timer spilled to



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the warden, who called the Monterey County Sheriffs Ofce. Investigators wondered if Pell was talking about the unsolved murder of farm ownerRobert Herron, beaten to death a decade ago. The murder weapon, proba-bly a claw hammer, was never found. The Sheriffs Ofce sent a team to

search all the wells in that part of town. Sure enough, they found a tatteredT-shirt, a claw hammer and an empty wallet with the initialsR.H. stampedon it. Two ngerprints on the hammer were Daniel Pells.

The Monterey County prosecutor decided to present the case to thegrand jury in Salinas, and asked CBI Agent Kathryn Dance to interview him,in hopes of a confession.

Dance now began the interrogation, asking, How long did you live inthe Monterey area?

He seemed surprised that she didnt immediately begin to browbeat. Afew years.

Where?Seaside. A town of about thirty thousand, north of Monterey on High-

way 1, populated mostly by young working families and retirees. You gotmore for your hard-earned money there, he explained. More than in yourfancy Carmel. His eyes alighted on her face.

His grammar and syntax were good, she noted, ignoring his shing expe-dition for information about her residence.

Dance continued to ask about his life in Seaside and in prison, observinghim the whole while: how he behaved when she asked the questions andhow he behaved when he answered. She wasnt doing this to get informa-tionshed done her homework and knew the answers to everything sheaskedbut was instead establishing his behavioral baseline.

In spotting lies, interrogators consider three factors: nonverbal behavior(body language, or kinesics), verbal quality (pitch of voice or pauses beforeanswering) and verbal content (what the suspect says). The rst two are farmore reliable indications of deception, since its much easier to control what we say thanhow we say it and our bodys natural reaction when we do.

The baseline is a catalog of those behaviors exhibited when the subject istelling the truth. This is the standard the interrogator will compare later withthe subjects behavior when he might have a reason to lie. Any differencesbetween the two suggest deception.

Finally Dance had a good prole of the truthful Daniel Pell and movedto the crux of her mission in this modern, sterile courthouse on a foggy morning in June. Id like to ask you a few questions about Robert Herron.

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Eyes sweeping her, now rening their examination: the abalone shellnecklace, which her mother had made, at her throat. Then Dances short,pink-polished nails. The gray pearl ring on the wedding-band nger got twoglances.

How did you meet Herron?Youre assuming I did. But, no, never met him in my life. I swear.The last sentence was a deception ag, though his body language wasnt

giving off signals that suggested he was lying.But you told the prisoner in Capitola that you wanted him to go to the

well and nd the hammer and wallet.No, thats whathe told the warden. Pell offered another amused smile.

Why dont you talk to him about it? Youve got sharp eyes, Ofcer Dance.Ive seen them looking me over, deciding if Im being straight with you. Illbet you could tell in a ash that that boy was lying.

She gave no reaction, but reected that it was very rare for a suspect torealize he was being analyzed kinesically.

But then how did he know about the evidence in the well?Oh, Ive got that gured out. Somebody stole a hammer of mine, killed

Herron with it and planted it to blame me. They wore gloves. Those rubberones everybody wears onCSI.

Still relaxed. The body language wasnt any different from his baseline.He was showing only emblemscommon gestures that tended to substitutefor words, like shrugs and nger pointing. There were no adaptors, whichsignal tension, or affect displayssigns that he was experiencing emotion.

But if he wanted to do that, Dance pointed out, wouldnt the killer justcall the police then and tell them where the hammer was? Why wait morethan ten years?

Being smart, Id guess. Better to bide his time. Then spring the trap.But why would the real killer call the prisoner in Capitola? Why not just

call the police directly?A hesitation. Then a laugh. His blue eyes shone with excitement, which

seemed genuine. Because theyre involved too. The police. Sure . . . Thecops realize the Herron case hasnt been solved and they want to blamesomebody. Why not me? Theyve already got me in jail. Ill bet the copsplanted the hammer themselves.

Lets work with this a little. Therere two different things youre saying.First, somebody stole your hammer before Herron was killed, murderedhim with it and now, all this time later, dimes you out. But your second ver-

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sion is that the police got your hammerafter Herron was killed by someoneelse altogether and planted it in the well to blame you. Thosere contradic-tory. Its either one or the other. Which do you think?

Hm. Pell thought for a few seconds. Okay, Ill go with number two.

The police. Its a setup. Im sure thats what happened.She looked him in the eyes, green on blue. Nodding agreeably.Lets consider that. First, where would the police have gotten the ham-mer?

He thought. When they arrested me for that Carmel thing.The Croyton murders in ninety-nine?Right. All the evidence they took from my house in Seaside.Dances brows furrowed. I doubt that. Evidence is accounted for too

closely. No, Id go for a more credible scenario: that the hammer was stolenrecently. Where else could somebody nd a hammer of yours? Do you have

any property in the state?No.Any relatives or friends who couldve had some tools of yours?Not really. Which wasnt an answer to a yes-or-no question; it was even slipperier

than I dont recall. Dance noticed too that Pell had put his hands, tipped with long, clean nails, on the table at the word relatives. This was a devia-tion from baseline behavior. It didnt mean lying, but he was feeling stress.The questions were upsetting him.

Daniel, do you have any relations living in California?He hesitated, must have assessed that she was the sort to check out every

commentwhich she wasand said, The only one lefts my aunt. Down inBakerseld.

Is her name Pell?Another pause. Yep . . . Thats good thinking, Ofcer Dance. Ill bet the

deputies who dropped the ball on the Herron case stole that hammer fromher house and planted it. Theyre the ones behind this whole thing. Why dont you talk to them?

All right. Now lets think about the wallet. Where could thatve comefrom? . . . Heres a thought. What if its not Robert Herrons wallet at all? What if this rogue cop were talking about just bought a wallet, hadR.H.stamped in the leather, then hid that and the hammer in the well? It couldvebeen last month. Or even last week. What do you think about that, Daniel?

Pell lowered his headshe couldnt see his eyesand said nothing.

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It was unfolding just as shed planned.Dance had forced him to pick the more credible of two explanations for

his innocenceand proceeded to prove it wasnt credible at all. No sane jury would believe that the police had fabricated evidence and stolen tools

from a house hundreds of miles away from the crime scene. Pell was now re-alizing the mistake hed made. The trap was about to close on him.Checkmate . . .Her heart thumped a bit and she was thinking that the next words out of

his mouth might be about a plea bargain.She was wrong.His eyes snapped open and bored into hers with pure malevolence. He

lunged forward as far as he could. Only the chains hooked to the metalchair, grounded with bolts to the tile oor, stopped him from sinking histeeth into her.

She jerked back, gasping.You goddamn bitch! Oh, I get it now. Sure, youre part of it too! Yeah,

yeah, blame Daniel. Its always my fault! Im the easy target. And you comein here sounding like a friend, asking me a few questions. Jesus, youre justlike the rest of them!

Her heart was pounding furiously now, and she was afraid. But she notedquickly that the restraints were secure and he couldnt reach her. She turnedto the mirror, behind which the ofcer manning the video camera was surely rising to his feet right now to help her. But she shook her head his way. It wasimportant to see where this was going.

Then suddenly Pells fury was replaced with a cold calm. He sat back,caught his breath and looked her over again. Youre in your thirties, OfcerDance. Youre somewhat pretty. You seem straight to me, so I guaranteetheres a man in your life. Or has been. A third glance at the pearl ring.

If you dont like my theory, Daniel, lets come up with another one.About what really happened to Robert Herron.

As if she hadnt even spoken. And youve got children, right? Sure, youdo. I can see that. Tell me all about them. Tell me about the little ones. Closein age, and not too old, Ill bet.

This unnerved her and she thought instantly of Maggie and Wes. But shestruggled not to react. He doesntknow I have children, of course. He cant.But he acts as if hes certain. Was there something about my behavior henoted? Something that suggested to him that Im a mother?

Theyre studying you as hard as youre studying them. . . .

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Listen to me, Daniel, she said smoothly, an outburst isnt going to helpanything.

Ive got friends on the outside, you know. They owe me. Theyd love tocome visit you. Or hang with your husband and children. Yeah, its a tough

life being a cop. The little ones spend a lot of time alone, dont they? Theydprobably love some friends to play with.Dance returned his gaze, never inching. She asked, Could you tell me

about your relationship with that prisoner in Capitola?Yes, I could. But I wont. His emotionless words mocked her, suggest-

ing that, for a professional interrogator, shed phrased her question care-lessly. In a soft voice he added, I think its time to go back to my cell.



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Chapter 2

Alonzo Sandy Sandoval, the Monterey County prosecutor, was a hand-some, round man with a thick head of black hair and an ample mustache. Hesat in his ofce, two ights above the lockup, behind a desk littered with

les. Hi, Kathryn. So, our boy . . . Did he beat his breast and cry,Meaculpa?

Not exactly. Dance sat down, peered into the coffee cup shed left onthe desk forty-ve minutes ago. Nondairy creamer scummed the surface. Irate it as, oh, one of the least successful interrogations of all time.

You look shook, boss, said a short, wiry young man, with freckles andcurly red hair, wearing jeans, a T-shirt and a plaid sports coat. TJs outt wasunconventional for an investigative agent with the CBIthe most conserva-tive law-enforcement agency in the Great Bear Statebut so was pretty much everything else about him. Around thirty and single, TJ Scanlon livedin the hills of Carmel Valley, his house a ramshackle place that could havebeen a diorama in a counterculture museum depicting California life in the1960s. TJ tended to work solo much of the time, surveillance and under-cover, rather than pairing up with another CBI agent, which was thebureaus standard procedure. But Dances regular partner was in Mexico onan extradition and TJ had jumped at the chance to help out and see the Sonof Manson.

Not shook. Justcurious. She explained how the interview had beengoing ne when, suddenly, Pell turned on her. Under TJs skeptical gaze, sheconceded, Okay, Im alittle shook. Ive been threatened before. But his were the worst kinds of threats.

Worst? asked Juan Millar, a tall, dark-complexioned young detective with the Investigations Division of the MCSOthe Monterey County Sheriffs Ofce, which was headquartered not far from the courthouse.

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Calm threats, Dance said.TJ lled in, Cheerful threats. You know youre in trouble when they stop

screaming and start whispering.The little ones spend a lot of time alone. . . .

What happened? Sandoval asked, seemingly more concerned aboutthe state of his case than threats against Dance.When he denied knowing Herron, there was no stress reaction at all. It

was only when I had him talking about police conspiracy that he started toexhibit aversion and negation. Some extremity movement too, deviatingfrom his baseline.

Kathryn Dance was often called a human lie detector, but that wasnt ac-curate; in reality she, like all successful kinesic analysts and interrogators, was a stressdetector. This was the key to deception; once she spotted stress,shed probe the topic that gave rise to it and dig until the subject broke.

Kinesics experts identify several different types of stress individuals ex-perience. The stress that arises primarily when someone isnt telling the whole truth is called deception stress. But people also experience generalstress, which occurs when they are merely uneasy or nervous, and has noth-ing to do with lying. Its what someone feels when, say, hes late for work, hasto give a speech in public or is afraid of physical harm. Dance had found thatdifferent kinesic behaviors signal the two kinds of stress.

She explained this and added, My sense was that hed lost control of theinterview and couldnt get it back. So he went ballistic.

Even though what you were saying supported his defense? Lanky JuanMillar absently scratched his left hand. In the eshy Y between the index n-ger and thumb was a scar, the remnant of a removed gang tat.

Exactly.Then Dances mind made one of its curious jumps. A to B to X . She

couldnt explain how they happened. But she always paid attention. Where was Robert Herron murdered? She walked to a map of Monterey County on Sandovals wall.

Here. The prosecutor touched an area in the yellow trapezoid.And the well where they found the hammer and wallet?About here, make it.It was a quarter mile from the crime scene, in a residential area.Dance was staring at the map.She felt TJs eyes on her. Whats wrong, boss?You have a picture of the well? she asked.



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Sandoval dug in the le. Juans forensic people shot a lot of pics.Crime scene boys love their toys, Millar said, the rhyme sounding odd

from the mouth of such a Boy Scout. He gave a shy smile. I heard thatsomewhere.

The prosecutor produced a stack of color photographs, rifed throughthem until he found t

Jeffery Deaver Sampler: The Master of the Mind Game

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