Crime Zero (4 page)

Kathy could tell from the look on the judge's face that any chance of Tice's original sentence's being changed had gone. Not long after Decker retook his seat, the judge's stern voice confirmed her fear, announcing that Tice's appeal was denied and he was to return to death row pending execution. Kathy shook her head. She didn't agree with the death penalty any more than any other kind of killing. All her adult life had been focused on one aim: developing a way to modify the genes that coded for senseless violence, making it a thing of the past, an eradicated plague like smallpox. Tice would have been a good subject for her trials if the Food and Drug Administration approval came through on Project Conscience as expected. Dr. Alice Prince, her sponsor at ViroVector, was confident of getting that approval.

She watched Luke rise, shake hands with the DA, and then walk toward her. She stood, uncertain what to do. Suddenly nervous, she remembered how they had last parted, he seeing her off at Logan Airport, both of them making vague promises to stay in touch, both recognizing the end. A kiss good-bye and then not a word exchanged between them for nine years.

"Kathy, what a surprise. And I do mean surprise." There was a fleeting pause before he extended his hand in greeting.

"I know," she said with a smile as she took his hand in hers. Up close he looked tired. "I guess I had a small advantage. I knew you'd be here. Although a courtroom's not exactly the place I thought we'd meet again," she said. "Certainly not on opposing sides in a murder case."

Decker smiled. "I thought we were always on opposing sides."

"Perhaps," she said, feeling the old abrasive itch return. "Anyway, you won today. Another villain safely tucked away on death row."

Decker's eyes flashed for a second as if he were about to meet her challenge. Then he shrugged in that deceptively casual way of his. "You're looking good, Kathy. What are you doing in the States? I thought you were in England."

"I was for almost a year, but then I got a grant from ViroVector to come to Stanford University and continue my work."

"So you've been back in the States eight years?" He frowned.

"I've tried to contact you a few times," she said quickly. "But you were never around when I called, and well, it didn't seem right just to leave a message somehow...."She trailed off.

"Yes, I've been busy, far too busy. So what brought you back? What about that brilliant offer from Cambridge University? The one that made you go back to the U.K. in the first place."

"Excellent academically, but this was better for practical reasons. You know? All the normal stuff, unlimited funds, access to the resources of a leading biotech company, learning from the great Alice Prince. Plus of course the cooperation of your crowd, the FBI. I've been working directly with Director Naylor, and access to the FBI DNA database alone was enough to convince me." She felt as if she were showing off. But she couldn't help it. "Perhaps we could go for a drink or something?" she said, not knowing what else to say. "We could catch up."

"I'd like that," Decker said, checking his watch. "Damn it. But not now. I've got to interview a killer on death row in less than an hour."

Kathy smiled. "I haven't heard that excuse before."

Decker grinned, and in an instant his face changed, and he was the younger man she had known at Harvard. "I'm sorry that didn't come out right. Believe me, I'd much rather have a drink with you. But I can't. I can't do it tonight either, I'm afraid; I'm seeing my grandfather. And I'm due back to Washington tomorrow." He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a card and scribbled something on the back. "Look, I'll be around San Francisco more often in the future. This is my grandfather's address; it's the old family house in the Marina. Give me a call, and we'll catch up when I'm next here. For all I know, you're married with kids by now."

Kathy paused to look into his eyes, but they were giving nothing away. "I've been far too busy to get married, Luke," she said simply. In fact she'd had only three relationships worth talking about in the intervening years, all of which had been at best forgettable. She wasn't short of offers, just offers from people she liked. And apart from the occasional dinner date, usually with men who turned out to have less charm than the contents of a petri dish, she had been single and celibate for the last thirteen months and three weeks, not that she was counting. She reached into her jacket and handed Decker her card. "Anyway, here's where you can contact me when you're next here."

"Thanks," he said. But as soon as they both pocketed each other's cards, she knew they probably wouldn't meet again for at least another nine years. There was simply no reason to. It surprised her how sad this made her feel.

She shook his hand. "Good-bye, Luke. I hope your killer on death row tells you what you want to know."

Chapter 3.

Baghdad, Iraq.Wednesday, October 29, 5:13 P.M.

Salah Khatib could barely see for the sweat pouring off his brow. But his condition had little to do with the heat of the windowless chamber beneath the barracks of Baghdad's Al Taji Camp.

"What are you waiting for? Shoot them!" hissed the captain, his face inches from Private Khatib's ear, his breath hot on his cheek.

Khatib locked his elbow and aimed the heavy pistol at the nearest of the four men kneeling on the floor in front of him, but still he couldn't prevent his hand from shaking.

The four men in uniforms like his own had been caught trying to desert two nights ago. The rumors of the advance south to retake the province of Kuwait had excited most of his fellow soldiers. After all, they were the Northern Corps Armored Division of the elite Republican Guard; it would be their invincible tanks that led the assault. But these four cowards had chosen to desert, not from some conscripted troop but from the well-fed, well-trained Tenth Brigade. These dogs deserved to die. Bullets were a kindness to their shame.

He even knew two of the men and hated them. They had made his life hell when he first joined. But now, given the opportunity to kill them, he couldn't pull the trigger.

And he couldn't understand why.

Khatib loved the army, wanted nothing more than to obey its orders. He had joined two years ago and had never been more content. A twenty-one-year-old mechanic from the back streets of Tikrit, he had been caught in a failed gang robbery, but because of his gift with machines, he had been given a choice of jail or the army. The armored division had given him a sense of direction and belonging he had never felt before. Only a week ago he had received the full batch of vaccinations for going to war. He was destined to be a hero. So why couldn't he obey his captain's order?

Two of the men were looking up at him now, as if aware that something was wrong.

"Shoot them!" The captain seethed, his lips almost touching Khatib's ear.

"Sir, we can shoot them," whispered Ali Keram, one of the five other soldiers standing at the back of the chamber.

"No," said the captain, his face red with rage. He pulled a revolver from his holster and pushed it into Khatib's temple. "I gave an order to Private Khatib, and he will obey it. If you don't follow my orders, I will shoot you dead. Now do your duty."

Using the sleeve of his tunic, Khatib rubbed the sweat from his face, the rough fabric scratching the pustules and acne that had broken out on his cheeks. Black flecks stuck to his sleeve. His hair had started falling out four days ago. He tried to clear his mind, but it was impossible. Last night he saw hallucinations of people he and his old gang had robbed in the past. They'd come to him in his bunk back at the barracks, taunting him, admonishing him for his petty sins. Now he felt so torn and confused he didn't know what was happening to him. Over the past few days he had been beset, on the one hand, by surges of raging aggression and, on the other, by sloughs of guilt-ridden depression. He had tried to disguise his mood swings, but now he didn't even want to go to war. He could even understand why these dogs had deserted.

Standing there in the gloomy underground chamber staring at the soiled walls, leveling his pistol at the men, he was unable to pull the trigger. As the snout of the captain's revolver ground into Khatib's temple, he felt such mental torment that he found himself closing his eyes and pushing his head against the officer's revolver, willing him to fire. He was terrified of dying, but at that moment it seemed like an escape.

Slumping his shoulders, Salah Khatib dropped his gun onto the stone floor.

He didn't hear the captain's order to the other soldiers or see them step forward, heard only their shots reverberate deafeningly around the confined space. Opening his eyes, he saw the deserters jerk to the ground, a pool of red spreading from their bodies, adding to the marks that already soiled the stone floor.

It was with a sense of relieved detachment that Khatib heard the shot fired from the captain's pistol before the bullet plowed into his brain.

San Quentin Penitentiary, The Same Day, 3:19 P.M.

Driving over the Golden Gate Bridge from the courthouse, Luke Decker turned off the car radio. He was sick of hearing about the Iraq crisis and next week's presidential election. Pamela Weiss already had his vote; a woman couldn't make more of a mess of things than her male predecessors. He adjusted his Ray-Bans and glanced out across the bay. The sky was a clear pale blue, and the darker sea below was bejeweled with reflections from the afternoon sun and the small armada of yachts and boats. The scene reminded Decker of his childhood, when his mother and grandfather used to take him up Coit Tower to look out across the Pacific. As a child he would stare out into the blue and imagine the heroic father he never knew waving from the bridge of a mighty warship, returning home from some secret and glorious mission.

Decker had been brought up in the Bay Area and had roots here. He may have neglected them, particularly his grandfather and the few old friends he still had from his college days at Berkeley before he left for Harvard and the all-consuming FBI, but they still existed. He was convinced that he was doing the right thing leaving the gray oppressive bureau and returning here to teach at Berkeley. Perhaps he would follow up his surprise meeting with Kathy Kerr. Yeah, right. All he needed now was Kathy Kerr back in his life just when he was getting himself together. Round-the-clock arguments and his world turned upside down.

Leaving the bridge and passing through Marin County, he glanced at the open files on the passenger seat of the Ford rental. A man's face stared out at him from a color photograph on the top of a pile of documents. The face was handsome with high cheekbones, green eyes, and lightly tanned skin. His thick silver hair was cut short and neatly styled. He looked like a powerful politician, an eminent doctor, or a charismatic captain of industry.

But Karl Axelman was none of these things. He was a killer who made Wayne Tice look like a choirboy.

Dubbed the Collector by the media, Axelman was still the only serial killer in American legal history to have been convicted and condemned to death without any trace of the bodies being found. A successful construction site foreman for thirty years, Axelman had been arrested seven years ago for the murders of at least twelve teenage girls over a period spanning decades.

Twelve neatly labeled boxes, giving each girl's full name, physical statistics, date, and place of abduction, were discovered in a concealed chamber built into a wall of his house in San Jose. Each box contained the clothing the girls had last worn, their personal effects, and an audiotape. On the tape Axelman could be heard giving each victim a minute to explain why she should be spared. All were forbidden to hesitate, repeat themselves, or cry while pleading for their lives. It would seem that all failed. None was seen again.

Decker hadn't been directly involved in the case, but he'd read the files and formed his own impression. Now in his mid-fifties, Axelman was still a master of control. He had been a highly organized killer who honed his technique over the years. His profile showed that he had probably broken the law most of his life, starting with indecent assaults, graduating to violent rapes and finally murders. The twelve teenage girls had been abducted over a twenty-year period, at roughly eighteen-month intervals. This told Decker that each abduction had been planned in meticulous detail, with the stalking and anticipation giving Axelman as much excitement as the eventual act itself. The fact that the bodies had never been found meant Axelman had stored them someplace where he could visit them again and again, thus enabling him to stave off his need to kill for long intervals.

Karl Axelman would have gone undetected too, if seven years ago his Jeep Cherokee hadn't been involved in a collision on the Bay Bridge. The California Highway Patrol had found playing on his deck a tape of one of the girls pleading for her life. Axelman evidently listened for pleasure to the tape, stacked alongside the Carpenters and Leonard Cohen, as he drove from his home to the construction site he was working on. Decker guessed it was one more trophy, along with the boxed belongings of each victim, that allowed him to relive his crimes and delay the need to kill again until he was fully sated.