Remote (22 page)

“But not by yourself.”

“No.  I considered that—but the solution I came up with was much more elegant.  Many of the targets I wished to eliminate were protected by their own social status, and you can only attain status if those you associate with are willing to give it to you.  Those associates are complicit in the target’s culpability through their unspoken support of his actions—or, at the very least, their unwillingness to condemn it—which allows him to then retain the status that protects him.  The solution?  Turn his supporters into his assassins.”

“Very
Julius Caesar
of you.”

“Thank you.  It solves many problems with a single stroke.  Of course, there’s no guarantee that whoever arises to replace my target won’t be equally as bad—but no system is perfect.”

Classic sociopathic behavior,
Jack thought
.  Full of self-aggrandizement and rationalization, while lacking any empathy or moral center.
 It more or less confirmed his opinion of Remote’s personality.

But what Remote said next surprised him.

“But that’s—that’s just a description of the process.  I can get very focused on process sometimes, it’s just who I am.  Sometimes I feel like that’s all my life is, a series of ongoing processes that started with my conception and will end when my corpse has been reduced to little more than organic molecules.  But this—what I’m doing, what I’m accomplishing—this is different.  This has
meaning
.”

Remote’s voice had changed, taken on an intensity Jack hadn’t heard before.  “Most people, I think, stumble through their lives without much self-awareness.  If I had done that, I’d be a drooling vegetable in a hospital ward by now.  I
had
to engage, to be hyper-aware, because there was this layer of insulation between me and the rest of the world—this layer I had to always be cognizant of, always had to compensate for.   My vigilance was about more than physical self-preservation—it was the one of the tools I used to understand a world that was profoundly different.

“I
studied
pain, Jack.  I studied its effects, its causes, its consequences.  I needed to know what I was missing.  I would have given anything to feel what every other person alive seemed to hate. 

“But then, one day, it came to me.  I’m uniquely equipped for this task.  I can make the world a demonstrably better place.  See, I know I lack empathy, Jack—but that’s the thing; I
know
.  And I’ve developed extremely advanced skills to make up for it.”

Jack knew what he was talking about.  In order to function and remain undetected in society, sociopaths learned to mimic genuine human emotions, even when they were incapable of feeling them.  It was how monsters like Ted Bundy had managed to remain virtually invisible, even as he stalked and killed dozens of young women.

Remote shook his head as if reading Jack’s mind.  “No, I’m not talking about protective coloration.  I’m talking about
analysis
.  I’m talking about
data-mining emotions
.  Maybe I can’t feel any visceral connection to other human beings, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be . . . be
useful
.”

A growing feeling churned in the pit of Jack’s stomach.  It had been a long time since he’d allowed himself to feel anything while he was working, but he felt something now.  It was an emotion he couldn’t put a name to, compounded of horror and pity and recognition. 

Jack had turned himself into a monster to serve the greater good.  So had Remote—but where Jack’s genesis had been a soul-crushing overload of pain, Remote’s had been a complete lack of the same. 

“It’s all about pain, Jack.  Everything is.  It drives people on so many levels.  And the more I studied it, the more I realized that I was like, like a man with a natural immunity to the Black Plague wandering through Medieval Europe.  It lets me
fix
things, Jack.”

“How?  By putting people out of their misery?”

“No.  By removing the
cause
of their pain.  Just like you do.”

“That’s—that’s not what I do.”

“Yes, you do.  Torturing your targets is incidental, you said it yourself.  We’re like surgeons, Jack—we cut into the body of society, yes, but we remove what’s making the body sick.  It’s ugly, brutal work, and sometimes society suffers in the short term—but ultimately, it’s beneficial.  Not to us, but to everyone else.  That’s why I do what I do . . . and I know you do, too.”

They stared at each other.  Jack knew how manipulative sociopaths could be—but he also knew the truth when he heard it.

It was what he did, after all.

Without saying a word, Jack got up and left the room.

***

He’d been wrong about Remote. 

When Jack had been hunting the online serial killer group that called themselves The Pack, the very first one he’d gone after had been Djinn-X, the hacker who’d set up the website he named the Stalking Ground.  Djinn-X had recognized a basic truism that applied to virtually everyone, sociopaths and psychopaths included: all people craved community.  No matter how isolated or damaged the psyche, there was something deep within a human being that couldn’t stand being alone.  Sharing knowledge, receiving the approval of your peers, being able to express yourself to others who’d undergone the same things you had; all these traits were wired into the DNA of
Homo sapiens
and would not be denied.  Djinn-X had used this insight to find others like himself, creating his own tribe out of the homicidal misfits that had previously hunted and killed alone.  For a brief while they had experienced belonging—until Jack tracked them down, one by one.

Jack realized something for the first time.  On some level, he’d envied them. 

Remote wasn’t the only one indulging in rationalization.  Looking back over his own motivations, Jack was stunned at how blithely he’d lied to himself.  He could have tipped off the police or the FBI.  He could have trapped and interrogated Remote’s drone instead of using himself as a stalking goat.  But he hadn’t, because he’d wanted—
needed
—to meet the man himself. 

Nikki was a good partner, but Jack had shielded her from the worst of what he did.  It wasn’t that she wouldn’t understand—it was that he didn’t
want
her to understand. 

But Remote already understood. 

And now, Jack understood something, too. 

***

“If we’re going to work together,” said Jack, “I’m going to need to know a little more about you.”

Remote nodded.  He didn’t seem surprised at all, which Jack found irritating.

“What would you like to know?”

Jack considered the question carefully.  A demand for hard information—Remote’s real name, exactly where his house was located—was the wrong approach.  It wasn’t what he really wanted to know, anyway.  Not yet.

“Tell me what’s it like.  Living with your condition, growing up being different.”

Now Remote did look surprised.  “Well, it was—strange.  My parents made me wear a protective suit.  Helmet, goggles, gloves, everything padded.  I had trouble with manual dexterity until I was nine or ten.  I learned how to talk late, because most of the time I wore a special mouth guard, strapped onto my head.  I kept me from biting my own tongue off.”

“How did you eat?”

“Through a straw, mostly.  Purees, lukewarm soups.  I’ve never quite developed the habit of eating anything chewier than soft cheese on white bread.”

Jack remembered how carefully Remote had eaten his sandwich.  “What about friends?”

“Didn’t have any—too dangerous.  My parents encouraged sedentary activities like reading or watching films on DVD.  But when I was ten, I discovered video games.”  He grinned.  “That was the turning point.  I could do crazy, violent things without any fear of hurting myself.  My parents had to regulate how much I played, or I would have spent all my time blowing things up on a screen.”

“Yeah.  It’s good to see you’ve come so far.”

Remote laughed.  “Oh, believe me, I’m not blind to the parallels.  And it’s true, I never feel more alive than when I’m piloting some drone into a life-or-death situation, one command away from turning their insides into paste.”  The casual glee in his voice turned Jack’s skin cold.   “But I’m not delusional, Jack.  I know what I’m doing is not a game, that it has consequences.  The consequences are
why
I do it.”

“Even when someone dies who isn’t supposed to?”

Remote shook his head.  “It’s unfortunate when that happens, Jack.  But you’re the one who keeps bringing up necessity.”

“True.”  Jack paused, staring off to the side while collecting his thoughts.  “Now I’m going to tell you a little bit about myself.  Before I became the Closer, I was an artist; I worked in a variety of mediums, but modern sculpture was where I was most comfortable.  I have a pretty good imagination, but I never imagined that the things I learned while practicing my craft would one day apply to what I do now.  As a matter of fact, when I first realized that certain . . .
techniques
were crossing over, I resisted.”

Remote nodded, but didn’t comment.

“But eventually I realized that being an artist was more than what I did; it’s who I am.  I can’t change that.  I can control what I do, but I can’t change the sum of all the experiences that make me a person.  So I’m trying to integrate the two, but it’s hard.  Very hard.”

“I can help you with that, Jack.  I
know
—“

Jack held up a hand, cutting him off.  “No.  You’ve found a way to make your life work, and I respect that.  But sometimes merging your concerns isn’t the right way to find balance; sometimes, you need opposing forces keeping each other in check.

“In art, two of those forces are money and integrity.  You need to make a living so you can keep making stuff, but you have to be faithful to whatever creative vision is in your head.  There has to be a line you won’t cross, a point where commercial motivation kills what you’re trying to say.  I never got to that point in my art—I was never successful enough—but I think I know where that line is, now.”

Remote’s voice was quiet.  “And I’m it?”

“It’s a line I’ve already crossed, Mr. Remote.  I killed someone once, not because of what he’d done, but what he might do.  I killed out of expediency. I can’t undo what I did, but I can choose not to do it again.  I can choose not to compromise when it comes to the life of innocents, even if it ultimately costs me my own life.”

“That’s the difference between us, then.  I’m willing to sacrifice others for the greater good—you’re only willing to sacrifice yourself.”

“That’s how it has to be. I can’t work with you--you have to answer for what you’ve done.” 

“You don’t sound very happy about that, Jack.”

“I’m not.  I believe you honestly want to make the world a better place, even if it’s a world you don’t belong to.  I know what that’s like.”

“You won’t work with me, you can’t break me—and killing me ensures the death of more innocents.  We seem to be at an impasse, Jack.”

“Maybe not.  I have an idea . . . “

P
ART
T
HREE:
O
PERATION

Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal.
–Albert Einstein

C
HAPTER
N
INETEEN

Tanner studied his target through a pair of Swarovski EL 42 binoculars, a high-end optics package that did well in low light and produced an absolutely spectacular, gem-sharp image.  They were a little heavy, but they fit in his hands so comfortably it made up for the weight.  He’d spent two and half thousand dollars on them, but they were the best on the market—and one of the perks of what he did was the excuse to blow money on toys. 

Tanner was in the passenger seat of a five-year old sedan, a vehicle he’d obtained specifically to do surveillance: an ex-cop car bought at auction, with an Interceptor engine and heavy-duty suspension.  He’d painted it white, regretfully removed the crash bumper—too distinctive—added a few dents, and kept it dirty just to make it even more unremarkable. 

His target was just closing up for the day.  The sign over the glass doors he was locking read ABEL PRINTERS.  In smaller print below that were the words, “If you’re ready and willing, we’re Abel!”

The man pocketing his keys was in his fifties, with a prominent belly sticking out from his brown suit jacket and a squashed, puffy face topped by unkempt gray hair.  He walked—waddled, really—over to his own vehicle, a beat-up Ford of indeterminate make, got in and started it up.

Tanner waited a minute after he’d pulled away, then started his own engine and followed.

“Subject’s habits remain as predictable as a junkie with an itchy arm,” Tanner said.  He had a tiny digital recorder on the dash, and he liked to pretend he was a film noir detective from the Forties when he dictated his notes.  “Go to work, send someone working the counter for coffee at ten, lunch at one, and coffee again at three.  Go home at five.  Today’s the weekend, though—maybe he’ll go off-script and do something radical.  I hope not, the excitement could kill me.”

The gruff boredom in his voice was an affectation, part of the game he was playing with himself.  In fact, Tanner was so excited he could barely stand it. 

Tonight.  He was pretty sure he was going to get to do it tonight.

Everything he needed was in the trunk.  Well, not everything; there were a few things at the motel room, but they were all set up and ready to go.  That part of the operation didn’t interest Tanner as much though—it was where he handed off control to his boss, and then Tanner’s part was pretty much over. 

His phone chirped at him, telling him he had a text.  He read it as he drove, his glance flicking from the tiny screen in his hand to the road and back again. 

Remote: Operation is a go.  Obtain target and wait at site 2 for further instructions.