Because he had used a four-word sentence as his search criterion, the search engine would first look for all the words together, and in the order Hunter had typed them in. Those results would be placed at the top of the results list. Once the search engine had run out of matches for all the words in that specific order, it would then automatically start searching for any of the four individual words, or combination of them, in or out of order. That’s why it had returned so many results.
Hunter clicked on the topmost result, which took him to a specialized website. He spent some time there, browsing through its pages and searching its archives, but didn’t find what he was looking for.
He returned to the results page and tried the second link from the top. Again, after spending several minutes searching the site’s archives, he got nowhere.
He repeated the unfruitful process eighteen more times, until he finally came across an obscure website. The strange thing was that as soon as the website’s front page loaded onto his screen, Hunter felt an odd tingle scratch at the back of his neck. He shook the sensation away and used the site’s internal search engine, typing in a combination of key words and a date. It returned fifteen files. The site’s search engine wasn’t very good, and entering a date made no difference whatsoever. He decided that the easiest thing to do was to check all fifteen results.
He didn’t have to. The one he was looking for was the fourth one.
He sat back and rubbed his face with both hands. The images on his screen collided with the memories inside his head with absurd force.
The file had been uploaded by someone who called him/herself DarkXX1000. Hunter tried all he could to find out the real identity for the person behind that Internet handle, but didn’t get very far. He decided to go back to it later.
He spent the next hour and a half doing a combination search between the Internet and general-public-restricted files, which, as an LAPD officer, he was able to access. They didn’t reveal much either.
His eyes were itching and watering from squinting at the screen for so long. He took a bathroom break before pouring himself another cup of strong black coffee. Pacing the room, Hunter allowed his mind to go through everything he had uncovered up to that point – a lot, but many details were still missing. What he needed was help. Disregarding the late hour, he reached for his cellphone and dialed Michelle’s number. She answered after the third ring.
‘Michelle,’ Hunter said. ‘My turn to apologize for calling you so late and out of office hours.’
Michelle chuckled. ‘Well, the term “office hours” does not apply to the FBI. My shift started the day I was hired, and it’s only due to finish in about—’ she paused, as if calculating how long ‘—forty-five years.’
‘That’s a long shift.’
‘You’re telling me?’ Another chuckle. ‘OK, so what’s up?’
Hunter told her about everything he’d found so far, and what he was still after. When he was done, Michelle was speechless.
‘Michelle, are you still there?’
‘Um . . . yeah. Are you sure about this?’
‘As sure as I will ever be.’
‘OK. I’ll see what I can find out and I’ll call you back. It might be late . . . or early, depending on how you look at it.’
‘I’m not going anywhere.’
Ninety-Six
Michelle called back just before six in the morning. She had finally managed to find out all the information Hunter had requested, including the name of the person behind the handle DarkXX1000. By 8:00 a.m., Hunter was heading an urgent meeting inside the windowless briefing room down in the basement of the PAB.
The room was a rectangular concrete box that resembled an old-fashioned high school classroom. Sixteen desks were arranged in four rows of four, the first starting about three feet from the wooden podium at the front of the room, behind which Hunter was standing. To his left, a large, white projection screen; to his right, a large flip chart mounted onto a tripod.
Garcia and Captain Blake were sitting at both ends of the first row, two desks apart. Behind and in between them was Michelle Kelly, who had told Hunter that she wanted in. The two last rows were taken by a SWAT team, eight strong, all wearing bulletproof vests over black fatigues. The tense and uncomfortable murmur that spiked the air inside the room came to a complete stop as soon as Hunter coughed to clear his throat.
All eyes went to him.
‘OK, I’ll give you the entire story from the beginning,’ he said, nodding at Jack Fallon, the SWAT team captain standing at the back of the room, just behind the last row of SWAT agents.
Fallon dimmed the lights.
Hunter pressed the button on the clicker he had on his right hand, and the portrait photograph of a teenage boy was projected onto the white screen. The boy looked to be no older than sixteen, with a prominent brow, distinct cheekbones and a delicate nose covered in freckles. His eyes, clear and pale blue, perfectly complemented his wavy, dark blond hair. He was a good-looking kid.
‘This is Brandon Fisher,’ Hunter began. ‘Until two and a half years ago, Brandon was a student at Jefferson High in south Los Angeles. Despite being terribly shy and sometimes withdrawn, he was an intelligent kid, with the grades to prove it, mostly As and Bs. Brandon was also a very promising quarterback, with a much-talked-about left arm. His chances for a university football scholarship were very high.’ Hunter moved from behind the podium. ‘A few weeks after receiving his driver’s license, Brandon was involved in a very serious collision at the junction between West Washington Boulevard and South La Brea Avenue. The accident took place at 2:41 a.m.,’ Hunter explained. ‘Even though Brandon was a novice to driving, the accident wasn’t his fault. Other than the fact that three distinct witnesses testified to it, LA Traffic PD also had photographic evidence supplied by the red-light-infraction-activated camera at that junction. The other driver jumped the red light.’
Hunter pressed the clicker again. Brandon Fisher’s portrait was substituted by a series of six photographs, positioned two by two in three rows. The sequence of events depicted on them clearly showed a dark blue Ford Mustang running over a red light and colliding with a silver Chevrolet Cruze. The Mustang speed shown at the bottom right-hand corner of every picture was 55mph.
‘The collision sent Brandon’s car spinning twenty-seven yards into West Washington Boulevard,’ Hunter said. ‘There was no one else inside the vehicle with him. Brandon fractured his left arm, both of his legs, received severe cuts to his face and body and broke several ribs, one of which perforated his left lung.’
Another click and a new portrait of Brandon Fisher took over the entire projection screen. Murmurs and curse words came from the SWAT agents. Hunter saw Garcia cringe. He saw Captain Blake and Michelle Kelly gasp and bring a hand to their mouths in surprise.
Brandon’s eyes now carried a sadness that seemed contagious. His once good-looking face was severely disfigured by two large scars and several small ones. The larger of the two scars had missed his left eye by a fraction, but it had cut across his small nose, brutally deforming it, before moving down to traverse both of his lips, tipping the entire left side of his mouth downward, as if it’d been melted into an eternal sorrowful smile. The second large scar started at the top left side of his forehead, just under his scalp, and moved unsteadily all the way across to his right ear, slicing through the top of his right eyebrow and stretching it out of shape, together with his eyelid.