“To look for serial killers?”
“No. At least that wasn’t what I was told. Officially SOCOM wanted to get better at identifying the types of soldiers in its units and which ones were successful and which ones weren’t so that could refine their recruitment and training process. Also, I worked with the Special Warfare Training Center, which Sam commanded, in their selection and assessment process.”
Gant remembered the psychological screening process he’d gone through years ago when he’d gone into his first Special Operations unit. He mentally processed what Golden had just told him. “So you can check your database and try to find the targets that would do these things?”
“Yes. At least get us a ballpark list.”
“And you planned on doing this when?”
“When you’re done asking me questions.” She paused. “However, I’ve been off the job for a year, so I need to update my database.”
Gant held up a hand. “Wait. I need to understand this. I work off what I see, hard evidence. You’re working off of theory. You give me a target, I’m not going to be reading him a Miranda warning. I’m going to be pointing a gun at his head with my finger on the trigger. I need more than just a best guess.”
“I’m not guessing,” Golden said. “I have spent most of my professional career working on the theory behind predictive indicators. Before I was recruited into the FBI I was in private practice, dealing mostly with young adults in the court system. After a few years of dealing with the broken psyches that a truly dysfunctional home can produce, I was left wondering why only a handful of men, because they are always men, become sexual sadists and murderers. At first I thought it was the depth of the abuse. Then I wondered if it was the length of the abuse. After years of investigating the backgrounds of true sexual sadists, I became of the opinion that it was the perversity of the abuse that set the stage for killing. Sometimes, I think there may be a genetic code for sadism, and that the parent introduces the stressor which produces the inevitable psychic break.”
Gant took the opportunity to voice his opinion. “That’s exactly the kind of crap I hate. I don’t give a shit how fucked your childhood is, if you’re not crazy, and these guys aren’t in the legal sense of the word, your behavior is a choice. Like you said, women don’t commit these crimes, yet they come from places just as fucked up. I know your work is important, but you’re just giving these guys an excuse.”
“OK, now I want you to tell me what you really think.” Surprisingly she was smiling.
Gant realized she’d pushed him for a reaction and he’d fallen into it.
Golden leaned forward. “What my research does is to help catch these killers. I don’t care if it gives them an excuse from here to China. The point is that if we can track some guy down by the cigarette burns on his feet from childhood then great.
“Of course, it’s not as simple as that. But I know it can work because we did track down a killer using the database when I was at the FBI. They gave me the scene of the crime, and I gave the agents conditions that could produce such a sadistic response. And we were lucky, because the situation indicated the killer was based at Fort Sill and I was allowed access to the personnel files of everyone there.”
“Tell me about it,” Gant said, intrigued in spite of his misgivings.
“We had three bodies within six months all found in abandoned sheds around small farms on the outskirts of Fort Sill. The women were different races, different ages and had different builds so the conventional profilers were having trouble from the get-go. The victims had all been strangled and they also had severe postmortem injuries. They had all been violated with branches from nearby trees. Also, the branches became larger with each murder, so that the last victim was basically ripped in half to accommodate what was essentially a tree limb.” She stopped talking and leaned back covering her eyes with a hand as if blocking out the picture.
“I thought you didn’t do field work,” Gant said.
“I did all this from Quantico. They gave me access to the photos and videos of the crime scenes.”
For a moment Gant felt sorry for her. She knew too much. Had seen too many things that were beyond comprehension. He realized he had ascribed the wrong motives for her reaction at the kill scene in Tennessee. But the feeling passed quickly.
Golden finished the story. “The reinvention here was the branch. That the victims were killed by manual strangulation meant that there was strong emotion involved. The killer hated these women and killed them in a brutal but also sexualized manner. The signature of the murders, the tree branches, occurred after death.
“The victims shared no physical traits, so one must assume that they themselves were of little importance to the fantasy of this killer. The postmortem violation evolved as the killings continued. This to me was significant. I began my search in the medical records for boys or adolescents abused with branches or wood of any type. I found a medical report for a ten-year old boy born in Oklahoma. He had been hospitalized because, according to his mother, he had been climbing a tree and fell. On his way down, he hit a limb and drove a small branch up his rectum, which perforated his abdominal wall. The boy was also covered with bruises and he had old bondage scars. He was taken from his mother and placed in foster care. His mother successfully litigated for custody. He was returned to live with her. Unsupervised. After that he joined the army, but luckily for us his medical records followed him and he was arrested for the three murders. He confessed within thirty minutes.”
“Shit.” Gant wondered if the whole world was mad.
“No shit.” Golden wasn’t smiling, but she did seem to understand his thoughts.
“So when are you going to run this program?” Gant asked.
“It’s been running,” Golden said. “It takes a while but I really don’t have enough data yet.”
“You mean killings.”
“I also need to update my data at Bragg.”
“Why were you living on Hilton Head?” Gant asked, the unexpected question causing her to stare at him in surprise.
“After my son—“ she paused. “I was offered free use of a house there.”
“By who?”
“A man from Special Operations Command. Why do you ask?”
“I was living on Pritchards Island. One island up the coast. For a year and a half. Nero knew this. I don’t think you were offered a house so close to me by chance.”
Both fell silent as the plane banked and descended, taking them toward another scene of violence.
Emily tried to control her breathing as she increased the pressure on the wire. It had taken her four hours to get to this point. The near end pushed deeper into the open wounds on the tips of her fingers but she ignored the pain. She was on the latch, she was sure of it. And it was moving. Just a little bit more—
A guttural cry escaped her lips as the wire snapped, the bloody remnant slipping from her fingers and falling into the dirt. Emily began sobbing and this time she couldn’t stop. She curled into a tight ball, arms clasped around her knees, the sudden defeat layered on top of the strain of the past twenty-four hours breaking through her dam of resolve.
From his hide position, the Sniper calmly watched the girl. Then he nodded to himself as he gathered his gear, confident she wasn’t going anywhere any time soon. Most importantly, she wasn’t smiling any more.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Gant looked up from the police report and watched the vacationers blissfully walking along the beach, unaware that a girl had been killed here the previous night.
“Hard to keep a crime scene intact with the tide,” Golden noted. She looked at Gant. “Why are we here?”