Comes a Horseman

  A ridiculous saying came to Alicia’s mind—I wouldn’t be caught dead—and she realized this was what that meant. All the times you primped and groomed and applied your makeup just so, thought Alicia, assuming this woman had shared the cares of her gender. And you end up like this. No one else to impress. Not even yourself.

  She moved her eyes away, keeping the halogens trained on the gruesome orb for the benefit of the two men. The circle of light was wide enough to catch a mustard-streaked knife, bread crumbs, and a thin strip of clear plastic, the kind you tear off a pouch of cold cuts to get at the meat. An empty bread bag, crumpled and flat like a deflated balloon. She shifted the lights just a little and saw the rest of the meat package, empty. Behind it was the mustard bottle. Her eyes roamed the countertop, stopping at the pool of blood.

  “The perp made a sandwich,” she announced.

  “Huh?” It was Fleiser.

  “How do you know the woman didn’t make it herself, before she died?” asked Lindsey.

  Fleiser snorted. “Thanks for clarifying ‘before she died,’ Dave.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “There are crumbs on top of the blood.” She centered the lights on them.

  Fleiser took a step. “Yep. Some of them are still white, unsaturated.”

  “Judas priest.”

  Silence, for a time, as each of them imagined the macabre scene. Alicia sensed that even hard-nosed Lindsey was a bit dumbfounded.

  Then Fleiser said, “What’s that on her forehead?” He edged closer, mindful of the bloody floor.

  “It was in the notice I sent out.” Alicia instructed the video camera to zoom in on the small mark above the right eyebrow.

  “It looks like a burn . . . a brand.” The tech was close enough to kiss the unfortunate Ms. Loeb. “It’s a sun.”

  “A sun?” Lindsey repeated.

  “About the size of a dime. Little flames radiating out from it.”

  “The others were branded the same way,” Alicia said flatly. “She’ll have them on her left palm too. When we find the body.”

  “Is that some satanic symbol?” Lindsey’s tone rose on the word satanic. “We got ourselves a devil worshiper?”

  “Maybe.” After reviewing the case file on the Ft. Collins homicide, Alicia had searched for the sun symbol in the Bureau’s database of symbols and signs. Lots of suns were associated with known occult groups, but nothing precisely matched this one. The closest was a Sonnenrad or Sun Wheel. Originating in ancient Europe, it was especially prominent in Old Norse and Celtic cultures. It depicted crooked rays emanating from a center point. Nazis often used the symbol in place of the swastika, which centuries ago had derived from the Sonnenrad. Neo-Nazis adopted the symbol to circumvent bans on Nazi imagery. In different cultures, the Sonnenrad meant different things, sometimes satanic or occult, but not always.

  She had learned that many religions still deified the sun or had elements of sun worship tinting their general theology, even Hinduism and Buddhism. Cynthia Loeb obviously had some spiritual leanings. A connection?

  “Could mean anything,” she said.

  “It is burned into the skin,” the tech said with some wonder.

  “We think the perp heats something like a small branding iron with a lighter flame.” She bit her lower lip. “Then he applies it.”

  Fleiser nodded.

  Alicia went through the ritual of checking for latents with the infrared and then imbedding the location of each item—head, blood, sandwich supplies, paw print—in the mapping software and evidence databank. After that, she walked back into the hall, stiffly and awkwardly under the cumbersome helmet, vest, arm and leg pads, gloves, and boots.

  She found herself in the awful situation of wanting to get away from the head but knowing the next thing she’d find was the body. That dilemma alone, however, could not explain the extent of her discomfort—why her skin felt clammy, why her heart pranced like a racehorse at the gate, why she had to exert so much willpower to keep from hyperventilating. She had examined hundreds of crime scene photographs, had witnessed the aftermath of heinous acts of violence, had examined gunshot wounds, fatal lacerations, bodies crushed in cars—but there was something about a severed head that got to her. Maybe Brady would have some insight into it; she sure didn’t.

  “Think the murderer left the rest of the body?” Lindsey was right behind her.

  “He did at the other killings.” She hesitated. Through the opening at the end of the hall, she could see an overturned end table or plant stand. A ring of keys and scrap of paper lay near it on the floor. A crack in the hardwood snaked over from deeper in the room, like a river on a map. Then she understood and swallowed hard. The crack was actually a thick ribbon of blood.

  “Well then?” Lindsey called from farther behind. “Get a move on!”

  She moved toward the room.

  Lindsey grunted. “So that thing’s supposed to suggest a sequence for processing this place?”

  Alicia knew what he was thinking: Entry through a back bedroom. A head in the kitchen. The place of the attack—obviously—in the front room. The crime scene was expanding, growing in size and complexity by the second. It could quickly get out of hand once the rest of the team plowed into the house.

  “We call it a POA—plan of attack. It suggests which techs should enter when and what they should process to preserve as much evidence as possible. I’ll also give you most of the information your people will need for their reports.”

  “Right away?”

  “As soon as I plug it into the printer. It’ll spit out a blueprint with evidence markings; a master sequential list of steps, designed to minimize damage; and the same list broken down by personnel, so each person knows precisely what to do, without redundancy or omissions.”

  “Well . . . I’ll need to consider them first.”

  “Of course.”

  The corpse’s feet and legs came into view. As Alicia stepped out of the hall, the halogen beams slid up the body, making painfully evident the violence of the woman’s demise: splotches and dots of brownish crimson speckled the top of her beige shorts and the bottom of her chambray shirt, growing in number and size, like a gradated screen, as more of her was revealed. By midthorax, the blood obliterated the shirt altogether. A stub of neck protruded from the collar—more neck than Alicia thought possible. It stopped cleanly where the head should have been, making her think of a badly framed photograph.

  Using the keyboard strapped to her left forearm and the laser on her fingertip, she entered the body’s coordinates. Another key click and the lasers at the top of the helmet, which had been cascading around the room, all swung forward and down. They converged on the body and began flitting over it so fast that they appeared as one growing red luminance engulfing the corpse. A still camera mounted at ear level snapped and hummed: its 35-millimeter film would provide flawless images to the Luddites still resistant to the high-res digital video accumulating on the hard drive.

  As soon as this process was finished, she turned away. In front of the fireplace there was a palette with drying clumps of paint. Beside it was an acrylic wastebasket, still glistening with wet paint. She bent to take in the illustration.

  “Do the overhead light switch,” said Lindsey behind her, “so I can turn it on.”

  She turned to see him pointing. “Infrared first,” she said and began the routine again: lights off, infrareds on, lights on, laser-mark the evidence . . . New location, lights off, infrared on, lights on, laser-mark . . . until she’d covered the entire room. Finally, she checked the light switch and surrounding area for latents. “Clean,” she squawked through the helmet’s pitiful speakers. He threw the switch. The glare of the halogens prevented her from detecting any change in the ambient lighting.

  There was nothing else to look at but the body again. Squatting, she positioned herself to capture the top of the neck—wet, complicated anatomy that was never intended for display. Next, she trained the CSD’s variou
s systems on one of Cynthia Loeb’s mutilated wrists. Veins and tendons jutted out from a gaping wound like a torn electrical cable. The mess was surprisingly bloodless, as if it had been washed clean. Or—her stomach contracted—licked clean. A constellation of tiny punctures fanning out from the wound bore witness to the animals that had somehow assisted in the slaying. A pool of blood had formed in the woman’s open palm. On the fleshy orb under the thumb, the small branded sun. The ring finger had been chewed off.

  Alicia stood suddenly. The weight of the helmet tried to throw her over. She took a step back to keep from falling, knocking into a piece of furniture behind her. It let out a deep chirp as it slid over the wooden floor. She swore under her breath. In her mind she saw herself stumbling about the room, pulled along by the weight of the helmet, careening against furniture and walls, crushing evidence, tripping over the body . . . Suppressing her curiosity over which piece of furniture she had bumped, she forced herself to stand still. When she felt equilibrium return, she powered down the system, unshackled the helmet from its shoulder-pad moorings, and pulled it off. She stood there, wavering slightly, holding the helmet with both hands. The overhead lights were on all right but seemed inadequate for the room. Her head felt ready to explode.

  “Is that thing off?” Lindsey’s voice was loud after the relative isolation of the helmet.

  Alicia took a deep breath—a mistake, since she managed only to fill her sinuses and lungs with the heavy odor of blood. “It’s off.”

  “Thank God,” he said and released a dazzling example of volcanic flatulence.

  Just what she needed. Alicia spun on her heels and strode away.

  10

  Ben-Gurion Airport

  Near Tel Aviv, Israel

  As usual, the big, black Mercedes limousine was waiting on the tarmac for the Gulfstream IV bearing Fr. Adalberto Randall. He eyed it through a porthole as he waited for the pilot to open the door, lower the steps, and offer a hand. He was old, too old for this. His back was bent and his knees were shot and he no longer possessed the muscle mass that would have compensated for these deficiencies in a younger man. At least he did not have to fly commercial.

  The limo’s back door opened as he approached. Leaning out, Pippino Farago grazed him with his eyes before disappearing back into the cool darkness of the car’s interior.

  Climbing in wrenched Randall’s back even more.

  The passenger compartment was laid out like a living room, with two plush bench seats facing each other—one directly behind the driver’s seat and one at the rear. Pip and his boss, Luco Scaramuzzi, lounged in the rear seat, so Randall fell back into the one facing them.

  Luco smiled warmly. He leaned forward to extend his hand, and Father Randall shook it.

  “Good to see you again, Father,” Luco said. He was one of the handsomest men the priest had ever seen, on-screen or off—he could have been George Clooney’s Italian brother. He was lithe, muscular, and tall. At forty-two, his thick salt-and-pepper hair had not receded one centimeter off his forehead.

  And God had not denied the man any trappings to make the most out of his good looks. If charm were a poker hand, Luco came up with a royal flush every time. Children adored him, men wanted to be him, and women . . . well, whoever coined the phrase “God’s gift to women” must have had Luco Scaramuzzi in mind.

  Randall smiled inwardly at the gaudiness of his description. You’d think he was the man’s press agent instead of his theologian. But he offered no apologies. It was all true; bless him, it was.

  Randall supposed Luco required every one of his superior genes to achieve the goals he had set for himself. And that reminded him of another of Luco’s qualities: he was a hard worker. He never seemed to sleep. When he wasn’t tending to his duties as ambassador of Italy to Israel, he was planning world domination . . . really. Or toning his muscles in his workout room, scuba diving off the Lipari Islands, skiing on St. Moritz . . . or doing whatever seemed strenuous and fun.

  So with all that going for him, it was a shame the man was also the embodiment of pure evil. His history of bad deeds included the deflowering of young girls, sexual affairs for the sole purpose of breaking a husband’s heart, robbery, embezzlement, extortion, arson, battery. And murder; don’t forget murder.

  In fact, it was his assassination of a politician five years ago in the Asia House—the very building from which he now conducted his own politicking—that secured his position as ambassador.

  If someone asked Randall what he was doing with such a despicable person, he’d lie. But he had his reasons, and he was able to look at himself in the mirror at night. Most nights.

  “Father, you want something to drink?” Luco asked. He pulled a bottle of springwater from the limo’s small refrigerator for himself.

  “Wine, please.”

  Luco slid a bottle out enough to read the label.

  “Brunello di Montalcino?”

  “Splendid.”

  Luco uncorked the bottle, poured a taste into a Riedel Vinum wineglass, and offered it to Randall.

  He held up his hand. “I’m sure it’s fine.”

  Luco poured half a glass and handed it to him.

  “Pip?”

  Luco’s assistant raised his hand to decline. He was staring out the window, lost in some problem. Randall thought he knew what it was.

  Luco stretched out his legs, checked the crease in his trousers, sipped his water. At last he said, “You ready, Father?”

  Father Randall smiled, his thin lips turning the color of his skin. “I have your bombshell.”

  “I can’t stress enough how important this meeting is.”

  “I understand.”

  “Then what are we babbling for?” Luco laughed.

  Every six to twelve months, Luco’s board of directors—that’s how Randall thought of the Council—met with Luco in Jerusalem to review activities and progress, to strategize, and, if warranted, to grant Luco more control over the empire that awaited him. Randall’s duty was to continually confirm Luco’s status as rightful heir. It was a job like none other in the world, for these meetings and these directors were like none other in the world.

  Each meeting was a battle of wits: Luco making every attempt to win over the board, detractors doing their best to knock him down. Today’s meeting was particularly crucial. Not only did Luco intend to wrest more power from the board’s grasp, but the outcome also would either encourage or dampen the faith of his worldwide followers. Next Sunday night, a select number of these believers—who were not as influential as the Council but nevertheless important to Luco’s ascension—would meet in Jerusalem for what Randall thought of as a pep rally. Equal parts mass, reception, and ceremony, the event was officially and enigmatically called the Gathering.

  He turned to the window and watched the landscape stream past. They were approaching Sha’ar Hagai, where the corpses of armor-plated vehicles from the War of Independence rusted among the mimosas. The land here was vegetative and green, hemmed in by the Judean hills, which were actually mountains, in their own scruffy way as beautiful as any Italy had to offer. Except the Alps. Nothing compared to them.

  Luco watched something approaching on his side of the car. He pushed a button on his armrest. The glass partition that separated the cab from the passenger compartment slid down into the driver’s seat back.

  “Sir?” the driver said.

  “Pull over here, Tullio.”

  Pip spun to look out his side of the limousine, instantly alert for danger. Seeing nothing but countryside, he fell to his knees and leaned toward Luco’s window. “What is it?”

  “Children. Down in the meadow.”

  “The stone throwers? But if we just keep going—”

  “Shhhhh.” Luco opened the door, letting dust and heat billow in. He stepped out. Just beyond the shoulder, the ground sloped steeply for a dozen feet, then sailed off in a rolling meadow toward the mountains. Bushes and trees cast splotchy shadows, tricking the eye into se
eing more than was there, and less. A perfect place to hide—unless you were naive enough to wear white T-shirts. There were six of them, all boys, huddled behind a large shrub fifty yards away. They were talking to one another and glancing up at the vehicles going by on the highway. Probably waiting for a nice, window-lined bus to come around the bend. They were unaware of the stopped limousine. Luco ducked his head under the door frame. “Pip, give me your gun.”

  “My gun?”

  Randall leaned forward. “Luco . . . ?”

  Luco snapped his fingers impatiently. Pip pulled his semiautomatic pistol from a shoulder holster, hesitated, and then placed it in Luco’s hand.

  “Luco!” Randall said sharply. “What are you doing? This is not—”

  “Hush!” Luco snapped. He stepped away from the car to the edge of the shoulder.

  “Hey!” he yelled.

  The little faces turned his way. The youngest about ten, the oldest maybe fourteen. They dropped out of sight behind the bush.

  Luco reached inside his jacket for a handkerchief. He wiped the entire pistol, ejected the magazine, and rubbed it down. Randall knew that the gun was untraceable; that was Luco’s way.

  Luco looked up to see the kids eyeing him again. He waited for a beat-up Peugeot minivan to pass. Then, with no other cars in sight, he held the pistol high above his head, waggling it. He tossed it down the embankment toward the gawking boys.

  Randall shook his head. He pulled a battered silver cigarette case from his breast pocket, extracted a hand-rolled cigarette, and pushed it between his lips. He summoned a flame from an old Zippo. He leaned toward the open car door, blew out a stream of smoke, and glanced at Luco—his back to the car, hands on his hips, waiting to see what the children would do. Turning, he saw that Pip was looking the other way, out the window again.

  Pip’s left leg was shorter than his right, the result of a tragic boyhood accident. The shorter leg was crossed over the other, and Randall squinted at what looked like two paperback books taped to the bottom of his left shoe.