The Prophet (16 page)

Maggie forced a smile onto her face, but she was shaking so badly and felt so overwhelmed with rage that the gesture was impossible to hold. Marcus sat dumbfounded for a moment, apparently unsure of what to say or how to react. She had caught him red-handed. His betrayal crept inside her heart and made her feel cold all over.

“Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend, Marcus?”

He glanced between them and finally said, “Maggie, this is Special Agent Vasques with the FBI. She’s working on this case with us. And Vasques, this is Special Agent Carlisle. She works out of my unit at the DOJ.”

Maggie looked at Vasques, sizing up the competition. The dark-haired agent was quite beautiful with a tanned complexion the color of light caramel, high cheekbones, and large brown eyes. She resisted the urge to punch the woman in the face. It wasn’t Vasques’s fault that Marcus had stabbed her in the back.

“Pleasure to meet you,” Maggie said in a clipped tone, and they shook hands.

Vasques’s thoughts were written across her face. The FBI agent could tell that something was going on here, and she said, “You know, I’m sure you want to get Agent Carlisle caught up to speed, and I want to check in with Belacourt. So I think I’m going to head on out.”

“Okay, I’ll give you a ride back to your office.”

As Vasques grabbed her purse and slid from the booth, she said, “Don’t worry about it. I’ll just catch a cab.”

Marcus opened his mouth to protest, but Maggie gave him a fierce look. His words died in his throat. They sat silently for a few moments, just staring at each other. Maggie broke the silence first. “Now I see why you didn’t want me to come along.”

“Oh please, Maggie. I don’t know what you’re suggesting, but you’re way out of line.”

“You know damn well what was going on here.”

“I do know one thing. I have an agent under my command that’s disobeyed my direct orders. Just like she did in Harrisburg. What do you think I should do about that?”

She couldn’t contain herself any longer. She spun from her chair and slapped his coffee cup off the table and into his lap. Then she stormed out of the restaurant. She felt like falling to her knees and crying, screaming, breaking things. How could she have been so stupid and blind?

She heard Marcus calling after her, but she didn’t want to see him at that moment. She wasn’t sure if she ever wanted to see him again.

His hand wrapped around her bicep, but she ripped free of his grasp. “Don’t touch me!”

“Dammit, Maggie! What the hell has gotten into you? You’re acting crazy.”

“So now
I’m
crazy, huh? I suppose that’s why you don’t want me with you on investigations. Because I’m so nuts.”

“Don’t put words in my mouth. I said you’re
acting
crazy. There’s a difference.”

“Don’t worry about it. Doesn’t matter, anyway.” She rammed her fist against the elevator call button. “Maybe, if you hurry, you can still catch your girlfriend.”

He breathed out with a low growl and cracked his neck to the side. She recognized the gesture. He did it, whether consciously or unconsciously, every time he was getting ready for a fight. “Maggie, let’s just calm down and talk about this.”

“I don’t have anything to say.”

“Then shut up and listen! There’s nothing going on. And even if there was, it’s really none of your business.”

Her eyes went wide. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. First, he betrayed her, and then he acted like they’d never had anything going between them to start with. Not knowing what else to say, she just slapped him across the face. The elevator dinged behind her, and its doors slid open. Maggie stepped inside and pounded the button to close the doors again and shut out the rest of the world.

When Marcus entered the hotel room, Andrew was standing in front of the display board, looking at images of some type of small office building. He turned at his partner’s approach and said, “Did Maggie find you?”

Marcus slapped his leather jacket down onto the room’s couch and shot Andrew a contemptuous look. “Oh, she found me. By the way, thanks for the heads-up. Nice to know you’ve got my back.”

“Why? What happened?” Andrew looked him up and down. “Are you wet?”

Marcus dropped onto the couch as though his legs could no longer support his weight. He rubbed his temples and growled in the back of his throat. “To be honest, I have no idea what just happened. Maggie, who I had ordered to stay behind, shows up, causes a scene, dumps coffee on me, slaps me. The way she was acting, I suppose I’m lucky she didn’t shoot me.”

“Really? Did she have any reason to be upset?”

“Don’t you start too. Number one, we were just having dinner. Number two, Maggie and I called things off a while back. We should never have got involved. It was a mistake.”

Andrew sat down on the small mahogany coffee table in front of the couch. “You don’t really believe that. Besides, to hear her tell it, the two of you are just on a break while you get your head together.”

“Is that what she told you?”

“What did you tell her?”

“When?”

“When you called it off.”

Marcus thought about the incident in Harrisburg. They had been investigating a string of shootings where the killer was targeting young mothers. Maggie had gone to check out a lead that paid off with a name and address. He ordered her to wait, but she decided to question the guy on her own. The killer shot her in the shoulder with a little Davis .32 ACP pistol right there on his own front porch. It was a cheap gun that had a reputation for jamming up, and true to form, a shell casing stovepiped just as he was about to shoot her in the head. It had given her just enough time to get out her backup weapon and take the killer down. But she had almost died that day. It had only been pure dumb luck that had kept her alive.

Marcus realized then that he could never have any semblance of a normal life. Anyone that he loved was in danger because of his line of work. He had always wanted a family of his own. Emily Morgan would probably have said that it stemmed from a subconscious desire to replace the family he had lost, and maybe she would have been right. Either way, fate had other plans for him.

It was only a few days after Harrisburg when he had ended their relationship. He had told Maggie that the stress of the job was too hard and he needed some time to . . .

“Oh crap. I can see how she might have gotten that impression.”

“Why would you want to break up with her, anyway? Maggie’s incredible. I don’t know what she sees in you.”

“Thanks, wingman. I’m glad that I can always count on you.”

“I’m just saying.”

“You say too much.”

Andrew added, “You don’t say enough. You keep it all bottled up inside. So are you going to tell me?”

Marcus sighed and reached for a cup of day-old cold coffee sitting on an end table. He choked back the contents with a cough and a wince. “After what happened in Harrisburg, I just couldn’t imagine doing what we do and trying to have a real relationship or a family. It’s just not worth the risk. You know what they call a brave man with a family?”

Andrew shook his head. “No.”

“They call him a coward.”

Andrew laughed. “So what’s your plan? Are you going to be a warrior monk devoted to a higher cause?” He groaned and tapped his fist on the coffee table. “You just . . .”

“Spit it out,” Marcus said.

“You’re so smart and yet sometimes you are so dumb. You can’t refuse to enjoy life out of fear that something bad may happen. If you do that, something bad already
has
happened.”

“You don’t understand. Everyone that I’ve ever cared about has been taken from me. I don’t want to worry about anyone anymore.”

Andrew bit down on his lower lip as his eyes took on a watery sheen. Then he leaned in close and whispered, “You don’t think I understand? I’d give anything,
anything,
to have my little girl back. But even as bad as it hurts, if I had to choose, I would much rather have known her and lost her than never to have had her at all.”

Marcus swallowed hard and clenched his eyes shut. Andrew was right.
He was an asshole.
“Andrew, listen, I’m sorry to have—”

Andrew stood up and walked back to the display board. “Forget it. Just get over here and take a look at this. Stan’s found a lead on the Anarchist.”

Marcus punched the icon to connect with Stan, and after a moment of watching the loading indicator spin, Stan’s bearded face appeared on the screen. “Hey there, boss. How’s it hanging?”

Stan’s head and chest filled a three-foot section of the screen. His long sandy blond beard stretched down his chest, cutting a path between a tattoo of Popeye on one pectoral and Super Mario smashing through a block on the other side. Marcus cocked his head and said, “Stan, tell me you’re wearing pants.”

“There’s nobody else here. Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful.”

With a shake of his head, Marcus ignored the remark and continued, “Andrew said you found something.”

“Right,” Stan said. “I was trying to figure out a way to narrow down the list of psychologists and therapists, so I contacted an old friend that works for the NSA to get her thoughts. She works in an offshoot of the Echelon Project. You know, Big Brother kind of stuff. They have a monitoring system in place that tracks all email and phone traffic in the country. But it’s not all read or stored. Only items containing flagged keywords are investigated. So my friend tells me that they actually monitor for certain religious keywords, watching out for extremists. Stuff like Jihad, Great Satan, Apocalypse, Cleansing Fire. That kind of thing. I’m not sure exactly how the algorithm works, but I assume it’s more complicated than just pulling out those words, otherwise they’d be sorting through false positives well after the world goes boom. It’s a pretty slick set-up. This chick is the real deal, boss. And, good lordy, she is uber-hot. Back at MIT, she used to—”

“What did she find, Stan?” Marcus interrupted.

“There was an email flagged from a therapist asking a colleague for some advice about a patient that he thought was really dangerous. It had a lot of those naughty keywords in it as the doc describes the patient. And then . . . you ready for it? Gimme a drum roll.”

Marcus waited for the pay-off, but Stan actually seemed to be waiting for him to give a drum roll. He raised his eyebrows, and Stan said, “Fine. You’re no fun. As I was saying, this patient believes himself to be the Antichrist.”

“Okay, that could be our guy. You have an address? We’ll pay him a visit.”

“That’s the problem. This therapist is like a caveman. He still keeps his records on paper.” Stan raised his eyebrows and bobbed his head. “I know, right, craziness.”

Marcus thought about it for a moment and then replied, “Send me the address and any details you have about the building. Security, blueprints, anything you can find. What about my satanism expert? Did you track somebody down?”

“Of course I did. Found a dude named Ellery Rowland. You’ve got a meeting with him later this evening. I’ll text you the details.”

Andrew said, “How are we going to check out the therapist lead and meet with this guy at the same time? It would sure be nice if we had another agent here in town to help us out.”

Marcus groaned, but he knew that Andrew was right. They needed to use every resource at their disposal, and he refused to allow his personal issues to interfere with an investigation. “Fine. Stan, contact Maggie and have her meet with Ellery Rowland.”

“Why can’t
you
ask her, boss? You two not speaking?” The big man chuckled in a throaty staccato rhythm. “Sounds juicy. Come on. Gimme the details.”

“Goodbye, Stan,” Marcus said, killing the connection.

He checked the time on his phone. The staff from a therapist’s office would surely have all gone home for the evening. If the Anarchist followed his pattern, and there was no reason to think that he wouldn’t, he’d abduct another woman within a few hours. Another dead girl, another grieving family. More pain, blood, and tears. Unless they could find him first.

He turned to Andrew and said, “Are you ready to do a little breaking and entering?”

It took some time for Stan to hack into the database of the secur-ity company employed to keep watch over the therapist’s office, but it had been well worth the wait. They had all the info they needed to make sure that they could get in and out of the building without any complications. So after changing their clothes and gathering the necessary supplies, Marcus and Andrew headed out toward the psychologist’s office on Chicago’s South Side.

Andrew drove the Yukon while Marcus sat in the passenger seat and tried to close his eyes and rest for a few minutes. He was out of his migraine medicine, but he’d swallowed a handful of extra-strength Tylenol before leaving. The pills had helped to quell the throbbing in his skull, but they did little to shut out the other images and thoughts that kept his mind burning through a constant stream of data. And that day had contained more than its fair share of unpleasant data to be processed. First, he had made an ass out of himself at the briefing and had humiliated Vasques. At least he had been able to recover from that one. He hadn’t been so lucky in his confrontations with Belacourt and Maggie. And then there was Ackerman.

When Ackerman’s calls had first begun, Marcus had thought that the killer was taunting him, trying to prove his superiority. But now he realized that Ackerman really just wanted a friend. A part of him pitied the killer for the terrible things that had been done to him and for his distorted perceptions of the world and right and wrong, but in the back of his mind, Marcus knew that either he was going to kill Ackerman or Ackerman was going to kill him. He cringed, thinking of the number of opportunities that the killer might have passed up. The bottom line was that if Ackerman wanted him or anyone he cared about to die, there was little that he could do to protect himself or his friends.

And where was Ackerman getting his information?

All those situations, questions and worries, combined with the details of the Anarchist case, created a constant twisting vortex of information that assaulted his mind every time he closed his eyes.

Frustrated, dejected, and exhausted, he watched the buildings, lights, and pavement flow past. He wished that he could block out the barrage of data—sounds of the city, people, vehicles, groans and creaks of the Yukon, sloshing of the tires through the snow pack on the road, Andrew’s breathing, the hum of the heater, a rattle in the dashboard. His mind broke the dashboard and heating system apart. Analyzing how the components fitted together, their interconnections, their weak spots. A three-dimensional blueprint appeared in his head, spinning, twisting.

He resisted the urge to pound his fists against his skull. He was so tired. He thought of a ranch he had spent some time on in Asherton, Texas. It had been so calm there. Not as many distractions. It had been the last time his mind had felt even slightly at ease. But Asherton was also where he had met Francis Ackerman and where his indoctrination into the Shepherd Organization had begun.

“Do you think we should stop by the hospital and check on Allen?” Andrew said.

“I don’t know.” Marcus wanted to make sure that Allen was okay, but he also assumed that the Brubaker family had arrived in force by now. It was his fault that Allen was confined to that bed. His fault that his mentor might never walk again. Ackerman had been after
him
, and Allen had just stepped into the crossfire. He wasn’t ready to look into the eyes of Allen’s wife and children and see the pain and fear that he had caused. “He should rest tonight. We’ll stop in and see him tomorrow.”

Andrew changed lanes, and Marcus’s gaze wandered to the rear-view mirror. He suddenly sat forward in his seat. “Take your next left,” he said in a tight, urgent tone.

“Okay. What’s up?” Andrew said.

“Three cars back. White Ford Taurus. I’ve seen it three times today.”

“Are you sure?”

“Last time I spotted it, I memorized the license plate. I’m sure.”

Andrew took the left turn onto a side street. The Taurus turned as well, but it kept a good distance back. Andrew said, “How do you want to play it?”

“Take the next sharp right you see that’s hidden by a building. Hug the right-hand sidewalk and slow down just enough for me to hop out. Then make sure that you get stopped at the next light.”

“Okay. Get ready.”

Marcus prepared himself as Andrew took the next turn and followed his instructions. Marcus stepped from the vehicle onto the sidewalk as soon as the Taurus was out of sight. Andrew barely slowed. Marcus pulled the hood of his sweatshirt up and blended in with the other pedestrians. At that hour, foot traffic was sparse, but the Taurus’s driver wouldn’t be looking for him on the sidewalk anyway.

He kept his stride casual, quick and purposeful but not hurried. From the corner of his eye, he saw the Taurus slip past. Andrew sat ahead of him at the next red light. It was a four-lane road, and a red Jeep with a soft top waited directly behind Andrew. Next in line was the Taurus.

Glancing around at the passersby and not seeing anyone close, Marcus decided to make his move. His right hand slipped beneath his leather jacket and pulled the Sig Sauer P220 from its holster. With his left, he whipped out a spring-assisted knife. It was a quality weapon designed for quick one-handed access and had a Tungsten DLC coated blade and a grip with fiberglass inserts. The bottom of the knife was also equipped with a seat-belt cutter and a glass-breaker, a sharp metal cone designed to provide rapid entry for first responders in emergency situations. He used the tool now as he rushed up to the passenger window of the Taurus. In a swift and violent movement, he swung his left arm and the tip of the glass breaker against the window. The result was an explosion of glass shards bursting into the vehicle and a startled yell from the man inside.

Marcus wasted no time in unlocking the door and slipping into the passenger seat with his gun pointed at the vehicle’s occupant. The light turned green. “Drive,” he said.