Survivor: 1 (32 page)

The rays of the dying sun beat upon the back of Tim's
neck. As he reached the desert floor, he heard the light
churr of rattlesnakes rattling their tails, agitated that he
was nearby. Tim stepped carefully down the path he had
taken, being careful not to step near rocks or plants or
gopher holes. They wouldn't have to worry about wildlife
tomorrow afternoon in the heat of the day. It would just
be the three of them: he, Animal, and Lisa.

He still didn't know how they were going to get Lisa
out here. Rick had told him he was working on that now,
but to stay by the phone in his room; there was a good
possibility his services might still be needed in assisting
in the actual abduction. All Rick had asked of him in his
original phone call was to make sure Animal was in Las
Vegas by tomorrow morning. 'Choose a location, then
have Jeff picked up at the airport tomorrow morning at
eight. When you've picked out the location, call me.
Make sure you and Animal are ready.' Tim had assured
Rick that he wouldn't let him down.

Tim was glad he wouldn't have to worry too much
about abducting the bitch this time. Rick didn't elaborate, but Tim guessed he was relying on his contacts on
the East Coast to fly somebody in to assist in the actual
abduction. How they were going to do it Mm didn't
know, but it was out of his hands. He had one job, and
one job only. Running the camera.

And by tomorrow evening at this time they would have
it. On film.

And if the weather held up, everything elseincluding what was left of Lisa Miller after Animal was
finished with her-would be washed away. By the following day, Tim would have his money, including his
share of the bonus Rick had gotten out of the pedophilia
group in the Pacific Northwest who had paid for the
footage of the baby, and then he would begin thinking
about his next plan.

First item on the agenda: Completely disappear.
Change his identity.

Then, when he felt safe and set up in a location nobody in the business would even think of looking for
him, start thinking of a way to snare Rick Shectman and
Animal under the cross-hairs of the federal authorities.

He could do it. He was pretty confident that if the cops
could get to Rick, surprise him somehow, they would
have all the evidence they needed in Shectman's records. They could find the clients who had bought the
baby snuff film, and sweeping arrests would be made.
Tim would make a deal-he'd spill the beans on the
whole operation in exchange for total immunity from
prosecution and witness protection.

But he'd only do it if he was one hundred percent confident he could get such a deal. He'd do some sniffing
around first under his new identity. If it appeared that he
couldn't make such a deal, he'd find another way to expose the group. Make an anonymous call or something.
Maybe in the next day or so, if he was able to, he would
get close enough to Rick Shectman's office to get the
information he needed. He knew that was next to
impossible-Shectman was extremely secretive about
his clients, and rumor was he had the backing of the
Russian mafia to protect him-but it was worth a try. He had to do something to stop the memories of the screaming going on in his head.

The wailing screams of pain that sounded so much
like the wails of an infant ...

... or a rabbit...

Tim Murray took a deep breath. He felt a little better
about himself now that he had made up his mind to expose the group. He thought about this as he walked back
to the SUV Tomorrow was going to be a good day; he was
going to go through the job, do it good to win back Rick
Shectman's confidence in him, and then he was going to
return to Los Angeles to get ready for the next step. He
was looking forward to it.

Morning.

Brad sat on a chair at the desk, his back to the curtained window. Lisa was asleep, a snuggled form beneath
the thick blankets. He watched the slow rise and fall of
her chest as she breathed, ever vigilant in monitoring her
behavior and health. Every time her breath hitched just a
little Brad would jump, wondering if she was in the
throes of another nightmare. She had screamed herself
awake three times last night, clawing at the air, scrambling to run away as if someone was chasing her, and
each time she shot out of a dead sleep Brad would grab
her, shake her out of her dream-state until she finally
snapped out of it, looking around the room wide-eyed,
uncomprehendingly, until she saw where she really was,
that she really was safe, and then she would collapse
into Brad's arms, crying fitful tears.

For the past three hours, though, her sleep had been
calm. Brad watched her as she slept, his own fatigue
weighing heavily on him. He hadn't gotten much sleep
last night at all-four hours tops maybe. Even then, what
sleep he had gotten was in fits and starts. He had spent
most of the evening pacing the floor of their room,
watching mindless television programming with Lisa, trying to talk to her while she still sat unresponsive. He had
ordered room-service dinners, had tried to get her to eat
some soup, but the most she would do was look at it with
disinterest. He had eaten the soup after he had finished
his own food, then set the tray back outside their door.

He had tried to talk to Lisa, but she wouldn't respond.
He'd told her that everything was working out, that Billy
told him the authorities were closing in on this Tim Murray character and that they should know by tomorrow
morning if he was in custody. He also told her that he
was going to get her help, they'd get through this together, do whatever it took. And then he would wait for
some kind of reaction-anything-and be greeted with
that same blank, unresponsive look.

He tried to take solace in calling his parents. He gave
them the latest news, expressing his anguish that Lisa
wasn't getting any better. His mother informed him that
they had found Lisa a good psychiatrist in California, that
they had called him after talking with William Grecko,
and that William was working on getting Lisa transferred
to a maximum-security hospital for her own safety under
this psychiatrist's care. "Billy thinks he can have her in by
tomorrow evening," his mother had told him, and Brad
felt a little better upon hearing that. His father was obviously still reeling from the shock of all that had happened in the past forty-eight hours and kept mostly
silent, listening in on the extension, voicing his support and hopes that things concluded soon. Talking to both of
them had made him feel a trifle better.

He had called Lisa's parents and informed them of the
latest, making special effort to let them know that they
were close to not only catching the scumbags who had
done this, but getting Lisa psychological care as well.
Lisa's mother, Emily, had burst into tears when Brad tried
to get Lisa to talk to her mother, Brad had heard Emily
break down as he sat on the bed, trying to get Lisa to talk.
Lisa's father, Dean, came on the line and asked Brad to
call them tomorrow morning. "Even if nothing happens,
just call" he'd said. Brad had agreed, and that had been
the end of the phone calls for last night.

Around eleven-thirty, Brad decided that Lisa had had
enough TV and turned it off. He had skimmed down to
his boxer shorts and slid into bed beside her. Lisa had
still been sitting up in bed, her eyes still staring ahead of
her at the blank TV Brad had gently taken her shoulders
and said, "Come on, honey, let's try to get some sleep."
Moving her to a lying position had been like moving a
mannequin, and once he'd gotten her to lie down, Brad
lay down himself. He'd faced her, noting her still-open
eyes, her blank expression unmoved. Then the floodgates opened and he bawled. He cried and sobbed,
reaching out blindly for Lisa, who didn't resist or react,
and that made him cry harder. And as Brad cried, the
frustrations and anger and sadness welling out of him,
tapped from some deep well within his soul, he felt yet
another pang of rage toward the men who had done this,
and that had dried the well of his tears. That anger had
kept him awake most of the night, lying in bed beside
Lisa, both of them staring up at the ceiling; Brad feeling
the twin emotions of rage and sorrow, Lisa trapped in her
own private hell, battling her own demons.

At some point, Brad must have gotten some sleep. He
remembered coming to awareness and glancing at the
clock on the nightstand and seeing that an hour or two
had passed. On the third sense of wakefulness, he'd
turned to check on Lisa and saw that she had drifted off
to sleep finally. He'd watched her for a while then, lying
on his side until he fell asleep for another hour and a half.

He woke up again at six-thirty, then dosed his eyes, trying to fall back to sleep again. Sleep didn't come back,
though, so he got up after thirty minutes. He took a peek
outside; it was overcast but not yet stormy. The news report last night reported that Las Vegas was in for a torrential rainstorm that was expected to arrive this afternoon.
Brad had slipped into a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt,
then sat in the chair by the bed, watching Lisa sleep.

He glanced at the dock again. Seven thirty-five. He
yawned. He wasn't going to get any more sleep, but
maybe Lisa would. He hoped so. He mentally added up
the numbers of when he figured Lisa might have fallen
asleep, guessed that it had been around four-thirty or
five. He hoped she slept in till at least one, and with that
in mind he got to his feet, walked over to the desk,
picked up the phone, and called room service.

William Grecko had been in his Santa Ana office for only
fifteen minutes when his private line rang. He picked up
on the first ring. "Yeah?"

"William? It's Detective Orr. How are you this morning?"

"'that depends on what kind of news you've got for
me," William said. He felt like shit. He'd cut himself shaving, and his head pounded from a hangover. The coffee
in the percolator was still brewing, and his stomach
churned. "What's up?"

"You know that the surveillance photo of the suspect known as Jeff went out over the wires yesterday evening,
right?-

"Yeah. Anything yet?"

'Nothing" Detective On sounded frustrated. He was
the only investigator on the case who William felt was
taking it seriously. "We got no ID yet. FBI has been checking their records, and so far nothing on that end, too.
We're discussing putting the photo on the FBI Web site,
maybe some other places"

"And what's keeping you from doing it?" William felt his
jaw clench.

Detective On sighed, and William could sense what
was coming instinctively. "Listen, we're hitting dead ends
everywhere on this. Golgotha personnel have been questioned extensively, including all the board of directors.
They're really pissed, and the Orange County Sheriff's Department is double-pissed. The Golgotha people are talking lawsuits, and so far we have nothing on them. No
DNA evidence, no material witnesses, no nothing on this
thing. You were at that cabin yesterday with us, William.
You know there's not much else we can go on
without-"

"So what am I supposed to do?" William asked, his
voice breaking. "How am I supposed to protect my client
from-"

"Listen, I'm sorry. But there's not much to go on except
for Lisa Miller's word that she saw the Martinez woman
being kidnapped and abused. We have no suspects, at
least none we can name. We've turned up nothing in all
the databases. We've-"

"What about the FBI?" William said, feeling his head
pound. He closed his eyes, trying to control himself and
get past the pain. "I've read a lot of shit about snuff films
the past few days, and everything keeps pointing to the FBI, that they've been investigating illegal pornography
for years."

"They've been investigating it for years and they've
turned up nothing," Detective Orr said. "There's lots of rumors about it, lots of people say they've seen them, but
the sightings are all once-removed. The FBI's been on this
since the mid-seventies. Their official position on it is that
snuff films don't exist."

"You believe that?"

Detective Orr paused. "I don't know what to believe."

"In 1970, if I had told you that there were a group of
guys that got their jollies off by trading pictures of grown
men having sex with little boys and that there was an underground market for it, would you have believed me?"

An awkward pause. William had him. "No," Orr admitted, his voice wearing a tinge of defeat.

"And why not?"

"People just .. " He hesitated. "People didn't just believe that kind of shit existed back then."

"Same rules apply here," William said. He leaned over
his desk, resting his elbows on the mahogany surface.
"Remember that thing in the news not too long ago
about that woman who was convicted of cruelty to animals? She'd been stomping on mice with high heels for a
series of porno films. Remember that?"

"Yeah," Detective On said. The tone of his voice told
Billy that the detective remembered the incident clearly.
For all he knew, On had inside information on the case.

"A guy was busted with her," William continued. "They
had been making what are known as'crush videos' for a
select number of clients. People pay anywhere from fifty
to a few hundred bucks to collect videotapes of women
crushing small animals with their high heels. Don't you
think that if there are people that get their sexual jollies off on that, there might be even sicker people out there
who get off on watching people die?"

`I understand your argument, William, but-'

"I know it's hard for you to believe, but this shit is real.
I believe Lisa Miller. She's not the type of person who
takes to flights of fancy. I believe that what she saw, that
what almost happened to her, really happened. I believe
that what happened to her is odd, yeah; I admit that. By
all accounts, these guys target runaways that people
won't miss. They don't go after people with families, people that will leave behind loved ones. I think the reason
why the FBI is saying snuff films don't exist is because
they can't penetrate the subculture that deeply. I believe
the real audience for this stuff is less than a few thousand
worldwide. When you stack that up against those crush
films or bestiality films or other hardcore S&M films,
that's nothing. I think that's why the FBI says they don't
exist-the market hardly registers on their pulse. Know
what I mean?"