I must not be sidetracked by my feelings of sympathy, mercy.
I want to burn the world.
In reality, the boys had become bored midway through their killing spree and hadn’t used most of the weaponry they’d strapped to themselves. It was the same with Seung-Hui Cho, the Virginia Tech killer. He seemed to burn out his rage much faster than he went through his ammunition. It was all about build-up with these guys. Anticipation of the terror of their victims.
Maybe that was why the killer had left the note for Zac on the steering wheel, warning him that he was going to die. Otherwise, why not just let the thing activate itself the moment he shifted position? Why give him a chance? Why give him time to escape?
So he could think about it.
So he could know death was coming and be afraid.
‘Yow!’ Kash yelped, drew a finger to his lips.
‘What?’
‘I scraped it on the staple.’ He sucked blood from the tiny cut, examined the injury in the light.
I went to the book, sat down next to him. Indeed, there were two staples in the centre of the notebook, holding the pages in place. The bottom fold of one staple was crooked, sticking up slightly, a trap that would catch a careless hand sweeping over it.
I pushed the fold of the staple down. It sprang back up.
Something rushed over me, an electric sensation that made all my injuries come alive at once, my muscles hardening. I snatched the book up and examined it in the light of the living room, tilted it to get the right angle.
‘Oh my God,’ I whispered. ‘There’s a page missing.’
Chapter 81
‘HOW DO YOU know that?’ Snale took the diary from me, examined it, squinting.
‘The staples are crooked. Someone’s bent them outwards to slide the middle page out of the notebook without tearing the paper. They’ve folded the staples back but they’re not completely flat.’ I took the book from her hands. ‘Look. Here. I can see the shape of a square indented in the next page. It isn’t on the previous page. The missing page has left indentations.’
Snale shifted away, her face taut with concentration. She began pulling open drawers and shuffling through them. She found a pencil and a blank sheet of paper and came back to the dining-room table. She flattened the book and began gently shading the pages with the side of the pencil.
‘Shouldn’t we wait for Forensics?’ Kash asked. ‘Get a carbon scan?’
‘We don’t have time,’ I said. ‘It could easily tell us what’s happening next. There was a reason it was removed so carefully.’ My heart was hammering. Watching Snale shading every millimetre of the paper was painful. She experimented, shading lighter and harder, trying to find the best pressure to reveal the pattern underneath. Lines, squares, arrows pointing and labels. A map was emerging before us. Two rows of blocks, some longer, some short, the same distance apart as they were wide.
‘It’s the main street,’ I said. ‘It’s Last Chance Valley.’
Chapter 82
WHITT SLAMMED THE piece of paper against the prison plexiglas and pointed at it.
‘Who the fuck is this?’
He wasn’t usually the type to curse, but his resolve had worn thin. Sitting with Caitlyn McBeal in a room full of people who had all but given up on the idea of ever seeing her again had pushed him over the edge. Whitt’s instinct was to bundle her up, feed her, care for her like a newborn babe.
Sam examined the paper Whitt was holding against the glass of the visitors’ centre, the EFIT image of the man who had almost killed Caitlyn. Sam glanced at Whitt, shrugged.
‘I have no idea.’
‘Enough bullshit.’ Whitt leaned forwards so that his nose was centimetres from the glass. ‘This is the guy. We’ve got him on CCTV purchasing the camera that was found in your apartment.’ He shuffled through his papers and extracted the image from the hock shop. ‘We’ve got Caitlyn saying he was desperately upset at your arrest. He’s around your age. Slim. Long arms. This guy could be your twin. Who the fuck is he?’
‘I don’t know!’ Sam pleaded. ‘I’ve been watching it all morning on the news. I’m telling you, I don’t know the guy! I have never seen him before in my life!’
Whitt let the paper slide from the glass, slumped back in his chair.
‘I don’t believe you,’ he sighed. ‘I can’t anymore. It’s not as though he would tell her you were partners for the benefit of framing you. He didn’t expect her to survive.’
‘He told her we were partners?’
‘In a roundabout way.’
Sam scratched at his neck then shook his head violently, like he was trying to clear water from his ears.
‘How did she survive?’ Sam asked.
‘She got away.’
‘Maybe he planned that.’
‘I doubt it. She killed a homeless man. She fought for her life to get out of that place. When Tox found her, she was crawling on the ground. The experts reckon she had mere days left.’
‘Look.’ Sam shifted closer to the glass. ‘I need you to keep believing in me or I’ll never get out of here.’
‘If you want to get out of here, you better keep looking at this damned picture and figure out who the hell he is.’ Whitt left the image resting face-up on the counter. He said nothing as he headed past the security guards and into the hall.
Whitt hated to admit it, but he was beginning to wonder if Sam Blue was exactly where he belonged.
Chapter 83
IT WAS A massacre plan. As the missing page emerged, my heart sank lower and lower. Before, when the diary had been mainly praise for spree killers, research into bombs and weaponry, I could underestimate the diarist’s plans for the people of Last Chance Valley. But I could see now this killer planned to make sure no one survived.
The buildings of the main street made two identical columns down the centre of the page, on the right the post office, a hardware store, a tiny cafe and a supermarket, among others. On the left, across the street from the post office, lay Snale’s tiny police station, a single-storey square with a single interrogation room, a single cell, desk space for two and the armoury. Next came the pub with its rear car park, a farming supply store and a mechanic’s, also with a wide asphalt parking lot.
Four main buildings, shoulder to shoulder, forming two identical blocks.
Around the buildings, the diarist had marked a dotted line, the path of his plan.
Step one: Kill Officer Snale in police station. Acquire weapons.
Step two: Plant device #1 in the car park behind pub. Set timer.
Step three: Take the semitrailer from the mechanic car park and use it to block off bottom of the main street, creating a U-shape to trap victims.
Step five: Plant devices #2 and #3 in semitrailer. Set timers.
Step four: Get John Destro and secure upper balcony of the post office.
Kash, Snale and I looked over the faint map, following the steps.
‘This is terrifying,’ Snale murmured. A thin sheen of sweat glistened at her hairline.
‘You’re the tactics guy,’ I told Kash. ‘What do you think?’
A brief smile flashed over his features. A truce between us, his mass-casualty expertise finally coming into play.
‘It’s a single-man operation,’ he said. ‘All the steps are sequential. There’s nothing here to indicate that there are two people acting simultaneously. Whoever he is, he’s pretty confident. Step one – taking out you, Vicky, as you man the police station. That’s no mean feat. I don’t imagine he’s just going to waltz in there and you’re going to hand him the keys to the armoury.’
‘Unless he’s already got a gun,’ Snale said. ‘And he’s just going to surprise me and upgrade from whatever he has to one of the semiautomatics.’
There was a moment of tense silence. Kash put a finger on the paper and traced the dotted line.
‘He then goes and plants what I can only imagine is one of his bombs in the car park behind the pub. He takes a
semitrailer and uses that to block off the street, effectively making a trap. This first bomb must be to drive everyone out of the pub, into the street. The truck explodes, blocking off an escape that way. Everyone is herded into this space.’ He pointed to the centre of the map, the U-shape made by the buildings and the burning truck. ‘They’re rounded up like cattle. The road up past the post office is the only way out. And from the balcony, with a semiautomatic, he’s ready to pick them off one by one as they run for their lives.’
‘It’s …’ Snale was lost for words. She pursed her lips.
‘It’s very sophisticated,’ Kash finished for her, looking over the page. ‘It uses crowd-herding tactics to maximise the death toll. He’d have learned that from the spree killers he’s studied. Anticipate where the victims will cluster naturally. Predict their movements when they panic, and channel them into the line of fire by securing the exits. It’s interesting, though, that he doesn’t channel the survivors of the initial blasts into a final explosion. He wants to shoot them down one at a time.’
‘It’s the same reason he left the note on the steering wheel,’ I said. ‘The same reason he was pacing at the site of Theo Campbell’s death. He wants to give them time to think about what’s happening to them. Time to …’ I shrugged. ‘I don’t know. To feel …’
‘Sorry,’ Kash said.
‘Sorry for what?’ Snale said.
I flipped through the diary. The only thing I could think that united all the spree killers in the diary was their rage. Their desire to be punishers.
I didn’t want to die, but I would have no choice. Vengeance is the only path.
I will get you all back.
You could have stopped this.
‘You were right, Harry,’ Kash said. ‘You were right from the start. It’s not terrorism. He’s not trying to make a political statement. To get people to act. This is pure vengeance. He wants the people of Last Chance Valley to feel sorry for whatever it is they’ve done to cause this.’
‘What have we done?’ Snale asked. There were tears in her eyes now. She sighed helplessly. I watched her leave the table for the bathroom, swiping at her cheeks.
I turned back to the map. ‘The plan really seems to be all about maximising casualties,’ I said. ‘So we can assume it’ll go off when the most people possible are at the local pub, if the killer hasn’t abandoned his plan.’
‘I don’t see why he would have,’ Kash said. ‘He knows we have the diary. But he doesn’t know we have the plan page. He has no reason to suspect that the plan has been compromised.’
‘So when are most people down at the pub?’
‘Most of the town is there every Saturday night,’ Snale said from the doorway.
We all looked at the calendar on the wall. We had two days to stop a massacre.
Chapter 84
WE CALLED DEZ and asked him to get the word out that people weren’t to congregate in the town. Snale left us for Zac Taby’s parents’ house with a pair of counsellors who had flown in from White Cliffs.
I sat in the passenger seat of Kash’s car and deleted the many text messages from journalists on my phone, some about Last Chance Valley’s deaths, more about Sam. I looked up the EFIT image of the man Caitlyn McBeal was telling the world was my brother’s accomplice. I didn’t know him. I wanted, so desperately, to feel some spark of recognition. I ran my eyes over his long, straight nose and dark eyes, over the shape of his shaved head. Like most EFIT images, I knew this would be a cleaner, slightly dimmed version of the real man. But there was no trigger in my brain. Not even the softest soundings of alarm.
I looked at the time. In four minutes, Sam would have access to the prison phones. Kash was walking towards the car. I had my finger poised over the answer button.
‘My brother’s going to call me in a minute.’
‘Oh. Do you want –’
‘No, it’s fine. Let’s get rolling.’
The phone rang. Kash shifted uncomfortably in his seat as he started the car.
‘Hi, Sammy,’ I said.
‘This is a reverse charge call from Silverwater Metropolitan Remand and Reception Centre, a division of Silverwater Correctional Complex. If you wish to accept the call, press one.’
‘Urgh. I always forget about the automated message,’ I sighed. Kash gave an awkward smile.
‘Harry?’ It was Sam.
‘Hi.’ I could feel myself smiling, despite the heaviness in my heart. ‘Are you OK?’
‘I’m a bit numb, to be honest,’ he said. ‘When they said they had a picture of the guy I was so ready for it to be someone I knew. I mean, it would have to be, right? I was ready to be in an absolute rage. But this guy – I don’t know him. Do you?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Never seen him before in my life.’
‘This is unbelievable.’ Sam sounded scared. I sounded scared, too. My voice was coming back to me, half a second later, the recording device used by the prison echoing as it taped us. ‘Maybe if they catch him, it can all come to an end.’
‘Whitt and Tox are on it,’ I said. ‘I’m going to wrap up here, and then I’ll be right there with them.’
‘I’d rather you weren’t,’ he said. ‘Harry, he got into my apartment. He can get into yours. What he did to those women. He’s an animal. He’s smart and he’s vicious.’
‘I’m pretty vicious myself, you know.’
Kash smiled beside me as he drove.
‘I know you are, but I just don’t need anything else to worry about. If I know you’re out there in the desert I can at least pretend you’re safe.’
Sam was always like that when we were kids. Protective. Worrisome. When we were placed in different homes he would sometimes run away from his placement to find me, even if he had to catch the train from one side of the state to the other. Just to see me in person with his own eyes and confirm I was alright. I felt a powerful yearning to be home with him, to be on the hunt for the man in the picture.
I told Sam we were going to catch this guy. One way or another. I’d spend every dollar I had. I would give up my job, my life, my freedom, if that was what it took.
I sent a text message to Tox Barnes, the beginnings of an idea tingling in the back of my mind.
Something to try, I typed. Maybe go round my apartment and turn the lights or TV on. If he broke into Sam’s place, maybe he’ll break into mine. Worth a shot.
Tox didn’t answer. He rarely did. But I knew he would know it was a good trap to set. Whoever this man was, he was obsessed with my brother. Now that Sam was off limits, maybe I could lure him over to me.
Chapter 85
KASH HAD WOKEN me from a thin sleep at sunrise by nudging the edge of my bed with his heavy boot. I’d heard him huffing around at 3 am and it seemed he hadn’t showered. He smelled of sweat.
‘It’s all a set-up,’ he said.
‘I’m going to need coffee if you’re going to be vague,’ I said. A shimmer of hope went through me that he was talking about Sam’s case, but he was holding a laptop, and when he sat down beside me I saw it was full of Qantas ticketing information.
‘Jace Robit’s crew are making a run for it.’ Kash pointed to the screen. ‘An ASIO buddy sent me these after I put in for security checks on Robit and his three mates. In the last six months, all four of them have applied for passports. They’ve each booked a one-way ticket to Ngurah Rai Airport in Denpasar. All leaving on the same day.’
‘When?’
‘Next week.’
‘They could be going on a bucks’ weekend.’ I rubbed my eyes.
‘John Stieg,’ Kash brought up a mugshot of Jace’s short, thick-bodied friend, ‘he’s closed all his online gaming accounts and cashed in the remaining credit. Frank Scullen’s divided his bank accounts with his wife in half and taken his share out in cash. Damien Ponch sold his truck.’
‘A big bucks’ weekend.’
‘One-way tickets, Blue.’ Kash nudged me. ‘Focus. I think this whole thing has been a misdir
ect. An exit strategy. They’re not on the offensive. They’re trying to hold us off, ensure we only react to the wrong circumstances.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Get your things.’ He got up and kicked my bag towards me. ‘I’ll explain on the way. Last Chance might be in more danger than we thought.’
Chapter 86
KASH HAD THE binoculars trained on Jace Robit’s house and was slowly adjusting the focus, the dial making a soft clicking as he rolled it with his fingers. The agent had plenty of high-tech equipment in his truck. Beyond the windshield, affixed to the hood of the car, a parabolic microphone was pointed towards the house on the plain. Now and then it picked up voices from inside, the clunking and shuffling of objects.
Robit’s three friends were inside with him: Frank Scullen, John Stieg and Damien Ponch. When the heat is on, criminals tend to band together, which isn’t clever behaviour. Drug dealers call more frequent meetings. Bank robbers organise a late-night rendezvous. Young partygoers who got out of control one weekend and assaulted a girl all come together for a crisis talk to get their stories straight. Kash was muttering reconnaissance to himself like he couldn’t help it, marking out distances and wind direction.
‘Four confirmed in the interior,’ he murmured. ‘None visible on the exterior.’
‘Yo, General Patton.’ I slapped his chest. ‘Tell me what’s going on.’
‘Here’s my theory. The gold we found at Chief Campbell’s place belonged to these guys,’ Kash said.
‘What makes you suspect that?’
‘Think about it. Chief Campbell’s got eighty K worth of gold stashed in his house, and his wife doesn’t know about it. It’s not recorded as evidence at the police station. The very first people Olivia Campbell pointed to as suspects were these guys. She sensed they were a threat to her husband. She asked him what he was up to, and he said it was a drug sting. Well, we know that’s not true. There’s nothing in the police log about a sting operation. Snale knew nothing about it.’