Michelle had another sip of her drink and drew in a long, heavy breath. ‘We came across a new piece of information today.’ Her tone went serious. Playtime was definitely over.
‘About this afternoon’s broadcast?’
Hunter already knew that the video had gone viral. Snippets, snapshots and even the full nineteen minutes and thirty-four seconds of it had been uploaded to so many different Internet sites no one could keep track anymore. If there were someone out there who hadn’t seen it yet, they would soon.
‘Actually, we think it might have affected the previous one too, but there’s no way we can be sure.’
It was Hunter’s turn to lean forward and place his elbows on the table.
‘I’ve told you this before,’ Michelle proceeded. ‘But we don’t really come across offenders who can shield themselves so proficiently from a FBI Cybercrime Division counterattack. And though I’m sure that we would eventually find a way through his defense system, I’m aware that we just don’t have the time, because every time he transmits, someone else gets tortured and murdered.’ She paused and finished the rest of her drink in one large gulp, her hands just a little unsteady. It wasn’t hard for Hunter to guess that images of the killer’s third victim being dismembered on the rack were popping into her head as she spoke.
‘During today’s broadcast,’ Michelle carried on, ‘we again threw everything we had at it, and we got exactly the same result as before – nothing. Every time we got past one of his defense layers, there was a thicker one waiting for us just behind it.’
Hunter could see the frustration building up in her eyes.
‘But this time we weren’t the only ones who tried launching a counterattack.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I had already contacted the head of the FBI Cybercrime Division in Washington. Their office deals mainly with cyber terrorism, which is great, because I knew they would approach the killer’s transmission in a different way.’ She tilted her head slightly to one side in an almost coy gesture. ‘I had also got in touch with a very good friend of mine who lives in Michigan. Someone I knew before I joined the FBI. He’s not part of any law-enforcement agency, but apart from Harry he’s the best programmer and cyber hacker I know. I thought that maybe he could help, especially because I know he wouldn’t look at the transmission from a law-enforcer’s point of view.’
She paused, maybe waiting for some sort of disapproving look or words to come from Hunter for failing to consult him first. There were neither.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Did they have better luck than you?’
‘That’s the problem, Robert,’ Michelle said. ‘Neither could even see the site.’
‘What? Why?’
‘They were blocked out.’
Hunter’s frown deepened.
‘The killer used the same kind of “IP address exclusion” program that blocked us out from Carlos’ wife’s transmission yesterday.’
Hunter was trying to process this new piece of information in silence.
‘As I told you before,’ Michelle said, ‘a computer’s IP address works in the same way a telephone number does. It also has a prefix that identifies the country, the state and even the city where the computer is located.’
Hunter acknowledged it.
‘Well, that’s exactly how the killer did it. He blocked off every IP address from outside California.’
‘The rest of the world too?’
Michelle nodded. ‘California, that’s it. No one else was allowed to watch it.’
Hunter breathed out slowly. The new question now banging a gong inside his head was: why would the killer do such a thing? Since day one, Hunter feared that all this killer wanted to do was to broadcast a morbid and brutal ‘killing show’. Something that would mimic the hundreds of reality TV and cable programs fighting for viewing space inside people’s homes. Hunter figured that maybe what the killer wanted was to prove how messed-up the world really was. How a celebrity- and ‘reality contest’-obsessed society would take part and vote on absolutely anything, even murder, if dressed up and presented to them in the right way. And the one thing all these game shows fight for is audience. The more the better, the more successful the show. So why restrict it only to California, when through the Internet he could’ve broadcast to the world?
As if reading Hunter’s thoughts, Michelle said, ‘No, I can’t come up with a single reason why he would do that either.’
They both went silent for a while.
‘I haven’t had the time to reanalyze the footage from this afternoon yet,’ Michelle finally said. Paused. Looked down at her glass, and then back at Hunter. ‘No. I’m lying. I haven’t had the stomach to reanalyze it yet. And I’m dreading the fact that I will have to. I’m dreading the fact that we can’t get to him, and sooner or later he’ll broadcast again.’
For the first time Hunter saw a hint of fear creep into Michelle’s eyes. The kind of fear that takes shape during the day and then re-forms much stronger in nightmares. Tonight, Michelle would do anything not to go to sleep.
Eighty-Five
Hunter and Michelle stayed at the Rainbow until closing time, but soon after Michelle’s revelation that the killer had blocked out every IP address from outside California, it became clear that both of their brains needed a break from the case, even if only for a few hours. Hunter did his best to lighten the mood and distance the subject from their investigation.
Alcohol had started to relax them, and they talked about music, films, hobbies, drinks, food, even sports. Hunter found out that Michelle could ballroom-dance, and had once knocked an FBI instructor out with a kick to the groin after he tried to grope her during a hand-to-hand combat class. In turn, Michelle found out that Hunter had never been outside the USA, couldn’t stand cauliflower, and when he was a kid he had taught himself how to play keyboards and joined a band just to impress a girl. It didn’t work. She fell for the guitar player.
After the Rainbow shut for the night, Hunter put Michelle in a cab and took one himself.
Hunter must have nodded off sometime during the early hours of the morning, because, when he awakened, the day was just breaking outside his living-room window. His neck muscles were stiff, and every joint in his body ached with the irritation of falling asleep in an uncomfortable chair.
He had a quick shower and an even quicker breakfast before calling Garcia and telling him that he was through with the waiting game and had decided to pay Thomas Paulsen a visit that morning. True, he had nothing to really warrant an interview with the software millionaire other than the fact that Christina Stevenson, their second victim, had written a very damaging exposé on how he had sexually harassed many of his employees over a very long period of time. An exposé that had cost Paulsen millions, wrecked his twenty-seven-year marriage and severely damaged his relationship with his only daughter. Though Hunter also knew that they had nothing to link Paulsen to their first or third victim, experience had taught him that a face-to-face could reveal much more in a few minutes than days of research sitting behind a desk.
PaulsenSystems was located just off Ventura Freeway, in the very affluent San Fernando Valley neighborhood of Woodland Hills, in northwest Los Angeles. Hunter had called the company just to make sure Thomas Paulsen would be in that morning. His secretary said he would be. Hunter made no appointment.
The drive from the PAB took Hunter and Garcia just over an hour. Traffic was as heavy as any other weekday morning, and Hunter used the time to tell his partner the news Michelle had told him the night before. Garcia also couldn’t make any sense of it. He too believed that this killer would’ve wanted as much exposure as he could get, so why restrict his viewers to California only?