The Tower (1999) (11 page)

There was a great deal of agency lore surrounding this man, but it was anybody's guess as to how much of it was true. After he'd lost an eye in a freak accident or an operation, depending on which version one heard, he had taken the code name Wotan, referring to the German god who had traded an eye for knowledge. His remaining eye had grown quite sensitive to light, so he kept the room dimly lit. There was, however, almost as much artifice to his surroundings as there was need, since Wotan enjoyed his status as the agency mystery. By remaining in the shadows, he appeared even more intimidating and powerful, which was precisely what he wanted.

"Sit down, Agent Travers," he said quietly, his voice that of an older man.

Travers sat in the small chair ten feet from the desk, dangling her arm to allow the briefcase to rest on the floor. She stared at the row of blank screens set into the wall. When Wotan took meetings, which was not often, he turned off the video monitors.

"Yes, Wotan?"

"Any leads on Atlasia?"

"Well, sir, we found the speedboat about ten miles offshore. It appears he had set it so it would be headed out to sea, so we can't exactly pinpoint where he got out. He may have drowned. We put out roadblocks and sent search parties through all the beachside towns in proximity to the Tower, but there's nothing so far."

"It appears we have a child in need of punishment," Wotan said softly. "And the Tower?"

"Everyone there died except Claude Rivers, an Eleventh Leveler. The sleeper."

Wotan nodded in recognition. "Peter Briggs himself has ordered Rivers back in there as quickly as possible. Plus, I don't want him mingling with the other prisoners and guards. It puts them in danger."

"I'll inform Warden Banks."

"How'd Rivers survive?"

"It was an unusually high tide, so the water eventually covered up even his cell, but he ripped the U pipe out of his toilet and used it as a snorkel. The water's surface was only about four inches above the top of his ceiling bars. He spent the better part of an hour staring at the rippling air just out of reach before the emergency crew arrived.

"We notified all the prisoners' families, and no one should be a problem, with the exception of Cyprus's mother." She paused and pursed her lips. "She's a real bitch, sir."

Wotan leaned forward and light from the dim lamp fell on his face. Travers saw his bare eye socket, the skin stretched over the hole.

"I called Briggs first thing this morning. We're not going to fool around on this one." Wotan drummed his fingers on the desktop, then stopped. "I want Marlow on it," he commanded softly.

Travers shifted uneasily in her chair. "Sir, can't you give us more time on this? Marlow's a hell of a guy to unleash in this situation-- it's like letting a fifteen-year-old loose in a whorehouse, if you'll pardon the metaphor."

"It's a simile. And I want him."

A moment of silence followed, broken when Wotan cracked his knuckles by pulling his fingers down at the joint with the thumb of the same hand, one at a time. He paused between each pop, letting the noise fill the air. When he finished his fingers, he made a fist with his thumb inside and tightened it. His thumb cracked sharply. Then, he cracked the fingers of his other hand in similar fashion.

Travers sat quietly in the chair and waited for this ritual to end. She cleared her throat nervously. "Very well, sir. We'll put out the retainer and update him. Marlow usually works alone when he tracks, but we'll give him the flexibility to take another agent-partner if he needs it. He usually doesn't like the distraction, though."

Travers rose from the chair. "Wotan, sir . . . we will keep intelligence on it, won't we?"

"Of course. Just don't interfere with Marlow. I want him well-oiled and on course as soon as possible." His fingers traced the edge of the weighty marble ashtray that sat always within his arm's reach on the desktop. "Marlow will bring him in. He always does."

Travers had to lean forward to hear Wotan's final words, his voice was so faint. She snapped her head in a quick nod and left the room as Wotan ran his fingers gently over the bare socket of his left eye.

Chapter
17

A L L A D E R laughed softly as he wiped the noses of the two children. Their arms and legs were bound with gray duct tape and they lay struggling on the couch. The tape was also wound around their heads several times, covering their eyes but leaving the rest of their faces exposed.

The bodies of their parents lay on the carpet next to the couch. The woman's body was sprawled over her dead husband, her limbs interlocked with his. Their heads, arms, and legs were positioned at unnatural angles. Although Allander had intended them to look like two people holding each other intimately, they looked more like broken action figures.

Before arranging this deadly embrace, Allander had carefully gouged out their eyes with a knife he had found in the kitchen. It had taken him some time to get up the courage to approach the woman. The first thing he had done was to wet a towel and smear the white beauty mask off her face.

Now, he sat on a love seat with his knees pulled up to his chest. He hugged himself and grinned as he addressed the children.

"I'm certain that your estimation of your mother and father was rather hyperbolic anyway. Parents are deified by their children, but as you can see, the idols in the temple have come tumbling down." He extended a foot and touched the woman's corpse.

The little girl choked on a sob. "What did you do to my mommy?"

Allander chewed his cheek and squinted. "Let's just say I did nothing you didn't want to do yourself. I only put your desires into action. You see, that's the worst part about being a child--you're too small to have an impact on anything. Just a confused mind and a weak body with tiny little fingers insufficient to grasp and swing a blunt object."

He took the girl's hand and caressed her trembling fingers tenderly until she jerked them away. They brushed the ragged tape that covered his ring finger and a jolt of pain shot through his hand.

The boy was clearly too petrified to speak. His legs poked out of the large leg holes in his shorts, looking foolishly small and unimportant.

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to dispose of you both for the time being," Allander said.

The girl's chest began to shake uncontrollably and she jerked around on the sofa and pulled at the tape on her wrists.

"Oh no. Oh no no no." Allander threw his head back and laughed a deep, rolling laugh. "I'm not going to kill you. Just move you to the bedroom, away from the watchful eyes of your parents." Standing up, he faced the children and his voice dropped. "They see not what they do."

The girl's bedroom was pink and yellow and splendid. The wallpaper had grand stripes of dancing color, and the bed was adorned with a flowing canopy. Above the girl's desk were several cut-out letters that had been colored with crayons.

The letters were aligned with an ordered sloppiness that only a child's hand could have accomplished. "L-E-A-H." They were proud, bright and confident. Allander stared in fascination at the girl's name, standing with one child tucked under each arm. "Astounding." He shook the girl gently. "Such self-affirmation. To be admired in a budding woman."

He laid the children side by side on the mattress underneath the canopy and unwrapped their wrists, allowing their groping hands to meet and clasp together. Then, he secured their fearful handhold and taped their other arms down to their sides.

After kissing both children on their foreheads, he stood back and admired his work. His fingertips moved lovingly over the boy's face, lingering for a moment on his lips. Running his other hand smoothly down his own stomach, Allander fondled himself. He moved his hand from the boy's lips, across his rosy cheeks to the back of his head and held it there for a moment before turning away.

It would be easy, but not quite what he wanted. The woman in the mask had scared him, but he had dominated her. The boy was nothing next to that.

He cleared his throat and found his voice again. "Brother King, Sister Queen. So much contradiction harmonized in a single pair. Play, children, and see each other not."

Allander stood naked in front of the full-length bathroom mirror and stared at his pale, bruised body. His dirt-covered feet had left marks on the white carpet. Gazing at the mirror through his tangled locks, he looked at the crusted blood on his bottom lip, the swirls of dried salt that clung to his chest, the small leaf of seaweed pasted by his left nipple, and the thin, wiry stubble that sprouted unevenly around his jaw and throat.

Peeling off the tape, he looked at the red slit in his finger. It was a brand, he decided. They had marked him like an animal, right across his own fingerprint.

He reached out his hand and touched the mirror. "What have they done to you?" he said aloud, his query bouncing off the white walls of the bathroom.

Allander sat on the love seat in the living room wearing a royal-blue silk shirt and a loose pair of pants with a drawstring. He had showered, shaved carefully, and re-dressed his finger. He had decided on the exotic outfit after trying on several; he felt it looked somehow princely on him.

He swirled some milk around in his highball glass and leaned back against the sofa, closing his eyes. After a few minutes, his head lolled back, and in his mind he caught a glimpse of an overweight man pulling a clown mask over his unruly hair. Images of heads with the eyes gouged out and a hand wiping a white mask from a woman's face flashed rapidly through his mind. He awoke with a start, the glass of milk sliding from his grasp. He watched the milk spread across the carpet, sinking into the soft fibers. It reminded him of semen.

He was instantly alert, his eyes darting around until he realized where he was. "Ah, there's the rub," he said, and walked to the kitchen to make himself a cup of coffee.

The boy and girl lay next to each other, the sound of their breathing all that interrupted the perfect silence of the room.

"Leah?" the boy said.

"Ssssshhhh, Robbie. Don't talk. We don't know what the man will do."

"Is he gonna--" Robbie's breath caught in his throat and he started gasping, sucking air in and out through his wavering lips. Leah pressed his hand tightly.

Robbie finally regained control of his breathing and continued. "Is the man gonna hurt us?"

Leah didn't respond right away, but squeezed Robbie's hand again. Their palms were both sweating profusely and the moisture mingled to make a slick seal.

"I think he already has," she replied.

Chapter
18

J A D E awoke as sunlight filtered through the curtains and fell across his eyes. He threw back the thick black comforter and rolled out of bed. Stretching his arms over his head, he cracked his back from its base to just below the line of his shoulders. Then he rolled his arms back over his head to pop his shoulder sockets. He let his head go limp and swung it back and forth, groaning with pleasure as he felt the little snaps running up the sides of his neck.

He enjoyed waking up alone now. He had had any number of girlfriends in the past, but stayed with them only until they got in the way. Eventually, of course, they all got in the way.

His last relationship had reached the point where she stayed over several times a week. But then she began to get annoyed when he got called out at night. He could hear her sighing and rolling under the covers as he spoke on the phone.

She had been there the night he got the call on the Black Ribbon Strangler. Three o'clock in the morning, he was out of bed and dressed in seconds. She looked over at him, eyes and jaw set firmly. "It's just not normal, Jade. You're not even with me when you're with me. You're consumed with your job. Consumed with it. I can't stand it anymore. Not like this."

His back was to her as he pulled on his shoes.

"Guess that doesn't leave me with much of a choice, does it?" he answered, and she started to smile. "Door locks behind you on your way out." He got up and left without even turning around to look at her.

"Without even turning around," she had sobbed to her friends later.

That was the last time he had spoken to her. And the next night seemed like the best night of sleep of his life.

He especially appreciated his solitude in the morning, like now, as he walked over and opened the blinds, letting in full sunlight. His bedroom, like the rest of the house, was sparsely furnished. Bookcases, filled with psychology and forensic pathology texts, faced his bed from the left side. A few pictures were arrayed on top of the shelves: Jade and Tony at a baseball game, Jade running the hundred for the UCLA track-and-field team, Jade at the batting cages. Next to them was a picture of a young boy with drooping features. It was an old snapshot with creased corners, and the small metal frame around it was greatly worn.

Jade walked over to his bookshelf and picked up the framed picture of the boy. He held it tenderly for a moment, then ran his thumb across his lip and set it back down. The normal scowl returned to his face.

After jumping into his Nike cross-trainers and a pair of running shorts, Jade mixed himself a fruit drink and swallowed it in a few gulps. The screen door banged twice behind him as he took off down the street, enjoying the fresh morning air.