"That's my own screen saver. Designed it myself."
"Great."
"On screen," Takamura said into the boom mike.
The screensaver disappeared. The photos of the six young girls filled equal shares of the TV.
"Jesus," Thorpe whispered.
"That's what I thought," Takamura concurred.
Thorpe walked past Takamura to the screen. He put his hands out, running down each side, across the images.
"They could be sisters," he said, taking in the faces. Each girl had straight blond hair and blue eyes. Their faces were all thin and angular. All except one.
"Why is Terri Dublowski different from the other five?" Thorpe asked.
"I don't know. It's not only the hair and eyes," Takamura said. "They are all between five-foot and five-two. All weigh between ninety and one hundred and ten pounds. All except Dublowski's daughter. Those five can't be a coincidence."
"No," Thorpe agreed, "they can't."
Chapter Ten
Hello?"
The girl's disembodied voice echoed down the hallway. There was no answer, so she called out again. Steel doors with small slits in them at eye level lined the hall. The voice was coming out of one of the slits, muffled, a whisper fearful of being heard by the wrong person.
"Hello?"
"Keep quiet!" another female voice hissed. "They told us not to speak! They'll hear!"
"I'm Terri. Terri Dublowski," the voice said. "Who are you?"
There was a long silence.
A third voice finally spoke. "I'm Leslie. Leslie Marker."
"Leslie," Terri said, drawing the name out.
"They told us not to talk," the second voice repeated.
"And we didn't," Terri replied. "Look what that got us. Does anyone know the name of the girl they shot?"
There was a long silence, then the second voice spoke. "Patricia."
"You knew her?" Terri asked.
"She was my friend."
"How did you end up here?" Terri asked.
The words tumbled out, as if a dam of silence had been broken. "We were together. In Germany. On the train. The man — the one who shot her — he offered us money. To go to a party. We got on his plane. He must have drugged us. We woke up here."
"That's what happened to me!" a new voice interjected excitedly.
"Does anyone know where we are?" Terri asked.
Silence answered that question.
"We can't give in," Terri finally said.
"If we don't, we'll end up like Patricia!"
"What's your name?" Lisa asked the second girl.
"Cathy. Cathy Walker."
Terri Dublowski pressed up against the steel door, her lips next to the slot. She didn't know how long she had been here. Her last memories before this cell were of walking in the forest outside Stuttgart, heading for home. Footsteps behind her in the dark. To her side. Then darkness. She awoke in this cell and she still didn't know how long she had been here. There was no way to tell day and night. Meals were shoved through a slot at the bottom of the door in no pattern that she could discern. She had not even known there were others until she was taken out of her cell earlier and marched in line to the room with the two men.
"There's one more," Terri hissed through the slot. "I saw you. Talk to us!"
There were a few seconds of silence, then Patty added her plea. "Talk to us!"
A tiny voice quavered, so low Terri had to press her ear against the slot to hear it. "I'm Mary."
"Hello, Mary," Terri said, then Cathy and Leslie also said hello.
"We're in this together," Terri said. "We have to stand together."
"What do they want?" Leslie asked.
"I don't know," Terri said.
"What did they mean by 'the One'?" Mary asked.
"I don't even know who they are," Terri said. "Do any of you know who the two men are?"
"The Jewel Man," Leslie said. "That's what I heard the small one called. The one with all the rings on his fingers. The one who shot Patricia. I was at a party. I met him in a disco in Stuttgart and he said he'd take me to this party. I went with him. He took me to a plane at the airport. A small jet. We flew for a while — I don't know how long. Then there was this party."
The words were tumbling down the hallway from Leslie in a rush. "They were rich. The people at the party. I could tell that. It was like he was showing me off or something. They were from all different countries. All different languages. When dawn came, I got scared. People at the party called him Jewel or something like that. The Jewel Man. All those rings."
"I told him I wanted to go home and he just laughed at me. I'd been drinking. And doing some coke. I knew it was bad, knew he was bad, but — I don't know."
"What happened next?" Terri prodded.
"I don't know," Leslie repeated. "I must have passed out. I woke here. That's all. No one's said anything to me. I don't even know how long I've been here. What do they want?"
"I don't know," Terri said. "They haven't said anything to me either." She proceeded to tell the story of how she had ended up here — as much as she knew.
"They got me at night too!" Mary said when Terri was done. She proceeded to tell her own story of abduction. She'd also been invited to a party by the Jewel Man. And when she awoke, found herself imprisoned in the cell.
"There's one thing we have to keep in mind," Terri said when the other girls were done. "If they are looking for one, that means the other three are expendable like Patricia. So no matter what the One is, none of us can become it, because by doing so, you condemn the rest of us."
Chapter Eleven
Sergeant Major Dublowski shuffled through the downloaded pictures, lingering over each one, until his daughter's picture was back on top. He leaned back against the torn upholstery in the cab of his battered pickup truck.
"We know it's not random, now," Thorpe said. "At least with the other five. There's a pattern."
Dublowski nodded ever so slightly. They were parked outside of the Delta Force compound — the Ranch — several miles from the main post of Fort Bragg. Thorpe had called Dublowski as soon as he had arrived at work and arranged to meet him here. The sergeant major had driven out the main gate of the compound and parked behind Thorpe's rent-a-car.
"This isn't good," Dublowski finally said.
"I know," Thorpe concurred.
"This means there is a serial killer and she's dead," Dublowski continued.
"That's not necessarily true," Thorpe said. "She looks different than the other five, Dan. Maybe something else happened to her. These other five might be connected and something entirely differently happened to her. Hell, we don't even know what happened to the other five."
"Don't bullshit me," Dublowski said. He tapped the pictures against the steering wheel. "Any idea who's doing it?"
"I'm working on it," Thorpe said.
"I want the son-of-a-bitch. You get me a name. I don't care where he is or who he is. I'm going to make sure he never gets another girl and he pays for what he's done."
Thorpe had expected that. "I've got someone doing some checking, seeing if they can find us some names. I'm going to Europe tomorrow. I'll be able to do some firsthand looking. I need some help, though."
Dublowski looked at Thorpe for the first time since getting the pictures. "What do you need?"
"I'm going to need some contacts in Europe. Someone on the German side of the house. Someone on the American. And maybe someone who knows both sides."
Dublowski nodded. "I'll call them for you. There's a guy in GSG-9, a Major Rotzinger. I'll have one my buddies in Europe Special Ops Command, Master Sergeant Joe King, arrange a meeting. You need anything, King's the man."
"What about someone outside the military?"
Dublowski thought for a few seconds. "Yeah, there's this guy. Retired E-8, lives over there, outside Stuttgart. His wife is German. He wasn't Special Forces qualified — a supply man assigned to Det-A for a while — but he's good people. He might be willing to help."