“Fine, fine, but I'll be damned if I'm going to do any hacking inside the HPD Net for you two. I've already got the damned FBI upset with me, Lucas.”
Lucas stared at Randy Oglesby's bright blue eyes and boyish features, doubting that Randy could ever or would ever look old or sinister or capable of anything but honesty and forthrightness, yet he daily indulged in an electronic dishonesty in his work, or at least he had since Lucas had known him, since Dr. Sanger had entrusted her secrets about the case to him. Again, Lucas wondered if Randy could be trusted, if he had been gotten to, not only by the FBI, but by forces closer at hand.
“I'll call Dr. Sanger. You come right back. We have more work to do. It's imperative we take these final steps, Randy.
“Randy frowned, nodded and took Darlene by the arm. “I'll be half an hour.
“Lucas immediately telephoned Meredyth, telling her to meet him at Randy's apartment.
“What's up?” she asked.
“Not over the phone. Just get here as quickly as you can.”
“I have an evening planned, Lucas.”
'Tell Conrad it's an emergency, tell him you've got a wigged-out cop on your hands, tell him anything.”
“Damn,” she muttered. 'This better be good, Lucas.”
“I can't promise you anything, but I have a direction.”
“Well, now, that would be novel.” Her sarcasm was more biting than she'd meant it to be. “Sorry, I'm just so frustrated.”
“With the case or with Conrad?” he joked.
She fumed at the other end. He could feel it. “I'll see you there as soon as possible.”
She hung up, and Lucas stared at the phone a moment before returning it to its cradle. He wondered what direction he was talking about and why he felt so strongly that he must see Meredyth tonight.
THIRTY-ONE
“It's not over,” Lucas told Meredyth and Randy when they had all assembled. “The priest did not act alone.”
Randy exchanged a disturbed look with Meredyth. “You think the same way?”
Meredyth slowly nodded.
Randy swore under his breath and started pacing. “The man was a lunatic.”
“Agreed.”
“He had a Messiah complex.”
“Agreed.”
“He thought he could hideously destroy people, whole families, and that his actions would be rewarded by God.”
“Agreed.”
“In the man's mad rantings, he calls himself Helsinger and Questor I, doesn't he?”
“Agreed.”
“But that's not enough for you two?”
“Agreed.”
“Damn… damn,” muttered Randy as he paced, nervously biting at his nails. “I've got something to show you, something I was afraid to show anyone, still am,” he qualified, going for his desk, tearing open a bottom drawer, rummaging there and coming out with a sheet of computer paper.
Meredyth looked over Lucas's shoulder. “What is it?” Lucas stared at the bulletin board message he held in his hand while Randy explained, saying, “I located that just after you two went off to South Dakota, but I didn't know what to make of it until I heard about your being ambushed there.”
With Meredyth looking over his shoulder, Lucas read the veiled threat on their lives.
764LTclass="underline" \C42119\Category42… Topic 49LOG… Message 440… Sat-July 30-1996…2:10:21
Questor 1… Helsinger's Pit…
Q1: There is a further threat. A new enemy has risen in perdition this realm. These are two enforcer demons – male and female. They must be stopped. Do all necessary to protect the brothers and sisters and children of Helsinger. Reply this board after evil is wiped out. God's speed to you Questor 1
END TRANSMISSION Category 42, Topic49LOG…2:13:26
Category 42…. Topic 49LOG…Message 441… Sat. July 30, 1996…3:55:05
Questor 2…. from the Pit….
Q2: Understood-will take care of perdition's problem.
END TRANSMISSION. Category 42, Topic 49LOG…3:57:01
Category 42…. Topic 49LOG…. Message 442 Sun-July 31, 1996 --8:10
Questor 1….
Time to take out all threats-Set trap and exterminate the mice. No more fun and games. Eliminate the leaders of our enemy. See message drop new station.
END FINAL TRANSMISSION. THIS EMAIL.
“Good Lord,” Meredyth said with a gasp. “It's an electronically ordered hit.”
Lucas agreed. “And we were-probably still are-the targets.” He turned back to Randy and asked, “How did you come by it?”
“Surfing the Net; purely accidentally, I assure you. When Aguilar and his goons were killed, I figured it was over, so I put it aside. I'd planned to talk to Meredyth about it when… when things settled a bit.”
“How did you come by it?” he repeated.
“Like I said, damn it. I was plugging into any Helsinger Pit activity, not expecting to find anything.”
Lucas badgered, repeating his words. “Not expecting to find anything?”
“The Net is jammed full with such trash, but as it happens, nobody's really playing that particular gloom and doom game anymore, except maybe Aguilar and his friends.”
“It's not over, kid, just because you want it to be,” replied Lucas, staring a hole in Randy. “It doesn't work that way.”
Meredyth snatched at Lucas's arm, saying, 'Take it easy, Lucas.”
Lucas pulled away, while Randy, taking offense, shouted,
“Hey, I'm nobody's fool, Lucas! I know this much: Any damned ranting lunatic nowadays who has access to a computer can and will set up his own vigilante committee, just as Aguilar set up his own little electronic shrine to declare himself the vanguard of a war against Satan-the authority, the one fount of truth, the goddamned cyberspace church, where all his followers and converts either kneel before him or die. And you know who Satan was to this guy, Lucas? You, Redskin, you and Dr. Sanger and me… yeah, me…”
Randy fell into an overstuffed chair, throw pillows flying.
“But he didn't act alone,” countered Lucas. “I can feel it in my bones.”
“Four, no, five died alongside him!” countered Randy, sitting up.
“No, not followers. There was a mastermind behind the whole damned thing. I can't put my finger on it, but I believe Phil Lawrence is somehow involved, him and his pals Pardee and Amelford.”
Randy looked for Meredyth's support, his hands going up in the air. “So, you want to rattle some more cages, is that it?”
“Lucas thinks,” began Meredyth, “we think… Aguilar took the fall for a much bigger operation. The same thought must've crossed your mind, too, Randy.”
“It might have… it might've, sure, but I was smart enough to run away from it…”
“What about Lawrence, Randy?” she cajoled. “We need to eliminate him. Can you scan his computer for anything like this?” She held out the sheet of paper that represented their death warrants.
“I did it already, once.”
Meredyth and Lucas looked from Randy to one another. “And…” she finally said.
“That's when I came across this.” He walked to the computer console and turned on the monitor; onscreen was the encrypted message, using the same category number and log number as the threat on Meredyth and Lucas. It was the message to kill the Shirleys, although their names were not spelled out.
Randy's state-of-the-art computer was so silent, Lucas had not known it was on. “You say you got this from Lawrence's computer files?”
“I found it while tracing the other message's origin. I followed the computer tracks right into Lawrence's files. He's Helsinger One.”
“Damn, then that makes it conclusive proof.”
“Proof for whom?” asked Randy. “Who's going to believe us? Before we're all killed, that is. Damn, I wish I'd never met you two…”
Randy was shaken, his face a mask of fear illuminated only by the dim light reflecting off his computer screen. He wheeled so they could not study the fear in him.
Lucas again wondered about Randy. He had told them that he'd played Helsinger's Pit as a child, that it had become an addiction for him for a while. Suppose the baby-faced computer whiz had never actually overcome his addiction? Suppose he was behind the real-time, real-life vampire stalking murders? Suppose he was Father Aguilar's light and salvation? Lucas felt a thousand doubts swirling about his head. “How long have you known about Lawrence's involvement? Why didn't you confide in us before now? Why did we have to drag this from you?” Lucas said, suddenly turning on Randy.