Show of Evil

'We're ready for her,' the nurse yelled back.

Another doctor dashed from the receiving room, his gown streaked with blood, and headed up the hall.

'Excuse me,' Vail said, but the MD waved him off.

 'Not now,' he said, and ran off towards the operating room.

Vail looked through the door of Receiving and saw a nurse pull a sheet over a body. Two feet away, a team of doctors and nurses worked frantically to prepare another victim for treatment. A nurse burst out of the room carrying a clipboard.

'Excuse me,' Vail said. 'We're trying to find the night superintendent.'

'Down the hall, lift to the first floor, third door on your left, Mrs Wilonski,' she said without looking at them or slowing down.

'Thanks,' Vail said.

They found the night superintendent's station and a nurse paged Eve Wilonski, the super on duty, then raced off, advising them to stay put.

'If you don't, she'll never find you,' she said.

'Doesn't anybody around here walk?' Meyer asked.

The lift door swung open and a short, square woman in a rigidly starched uniform marched towards them. Her stern face wore the ferocious expression of a bulldog.

'Gentlemen, I'm Eve Wilonski, night super. Sorry I'm in a rush right now, we've got a mess in Emergency.'

'We came up that way. I'm Martin Vail, acting DA'

'Yes, sir, I recognized you from pictures in the paper.'

'These are two of my associates, Ben Meyer and Harve St Claire.'

'Gentlemen,' she said with a nod.

'What happened?'

'Three-car pileup on LaSalle,' she said. 'Three dead, six trying to stay alive. A drive-by on the south side with a dead three-year-old and her mother hanging on by her fingernails. We got two heart attacks and they just brought one in for this psych ward who was standing on the marquee of the Chicago Theatre peeing on people walking by on the sidewalk. That's in the last forty minutes and it isn't even eleven o'clock yet. It's just warming up out there.'

'Sorry to bother you when things are so crazy,' said Vail.

'It's always crazy down there,' she said casually. 'Do we have a problem with the district attorney's office, too?'

'No, we do. I need to take a look at your billing office and also find out if anyone was in there at three o'clock this afternoon.'

'That office closes at two-thirty on weekends,' she said.

'I know. But we have reason to believe that someone was in there at three. It's imperative we know who that person was.'

'Maybe a cleaning person, somebody like that?' St Claire suggested.

'That's quite possible,' she said. 'If it's an emergency, I can call Mr Laverne at home. He's the billing supervisor. Someone could have been working overtime.'

'That would help a lot,' Vail said.

'May I ask what this is about?'

'A hacker,' Meyer said casually. 'We have reason to believe someone may be hacking into your billing computer. The consequences could be serious.'

'Oh, my God,' she said. She flipped through a staff telephone directory, her finger tracking down the rows of staffers and stopping at Laverne's name. She dialled the number and waited for what seemed an eternity.

'He's not home,' St Claire moaned.

'Mr Laverne?' she said suddenly. 'I'm sorry to bother you at home, this is Eve Wilonski. I have the district attorney here. He'd like to speak to you.' She handed the phone to Vail.

'Mr Laverne, this is Martin Vail.'

'Yes, Mr Vail.'

'Mr Laverne, we're checking on a computer problem and we need to know if anyone in your department worked overtime today.'

'I did.'

'You did? Were you there at three o'clock?'

'Yes, sir, I was talking to a pharmaceutical company on the West Coast.'

'Was anyone else in the room at the time?'

'Uh, yes. Hines, I think is the name. Cleans up. Is this about the hacker?'

His question surprised Vail. 'You know about that?'

'I was there when the message came across the modem line.'

'What message?'

'Well, it was crazy. Something about a fox and someone named Hydra.'

'Hydra? Do you remember exactly what the message said?'

'Let's see. First it said "Hydra, Fox is free." Then it repeated the name Hydra a couple of times. Then I jumped in and asked who Hydra was and who was online and the connection went dead.'

'And you say Hines was in there at the time?'

'Yes. Came in while I was on the phone.'

'Thank you, Mr Laverne. You've been a great help.'

'It was a hacker, right?'

'Yes. We're investigating it.'

'I knew it. Too nutty to be anything else. You people always work this late at night?'

'When it's something this important. Thanks, Mr Laverne. Goodbye.' He cradled the phone. 'Do you know someone in clean-up named Hines?'

'Yes. Rudi Hines.'

'Show Ms Wilonski the picture of Tribble,' Vail said to St Claire.

Harvey took a flat wallet out of his pocket and removed the photograph of Tribble supplied by the Justine Clinic.

'Is this Rudi Hines?' Vail asked.

She looked at the photograph and shook her head. 'No, this is a man. Rudi Hines is a woman.'

Her answer stopped conversation for a moment. Vail looked at St Claire. 'Show her the other one,' he said. St Claire showed her the photo of Rene Hutchinson. She studied it for a moment and then slowly nodded. 'Yes, her hair's darker and much shorter, but that's Rudi.'

'Can we take a look at the billing office?'

'Of course.' She took a ring of keys out of a drawer and led them down a maze of hallways to a fairly large room with several desks and a bank of computers at the rear. The screens faced away from the door. Meyer walked straight back to them and stopped short.

'Christ, look at this,' he said. They all crowded around the screen and read the message:

Very Clever…

The prince who keeps the world in awe;

 The judge whose dictates fix the law;

The rich, the poor, the great, the small,

Are levelled - death confounds them all.

Hydra

'I don't know what the hell it is, but it'll be in one of Rushman's books, that's for damn sure,' St Claire said.

 'What's it mean?' Eve Wilonski asked. 'Who is Hydra?'

'Greek mythology, ma'am,' St Claire answered. 'Hydra was a demon with two heads. Every time Ulysses cut one of 'em off, she grew two more in its place.'

'Or maybe grew a new name whenever things got hot?' suggested Vail.

'Maybe,' agreed St Claire.

'He's telling us something, Harve. Everything he does sends a message - names, quotes, everything. He's taunting us.' Vail read it again and then a chill rippled through him. He repeated the second line aloud: ' "The judge whose dictates fix the law." '

'Shoat?'

'What other judge could it be? I'll get Shock Johnson on the portable.'

St Claire turned back to Eve Wilonski. 'Tell you what the message really means, ma'am. It means we need an address on this here Rudi Hines ASAP,' he said.

Stenner parked the car in front of Venable's house and opened the door for her. As they approached the front door, he drew his gun. Venable was surprised. Stenner always seemed so totally in control, it was hard to imagine him armed. He took her gently by the arm, stepped in front of her at the door, and held out his hand for the key. She gave it to him and he unlocked the door, then swung it open with his foot. He moved cautiously into the foyer, then moved quickly and professionally through the first floor, checking the living room, kitchen, guest bedroom, and all the closets.

'We're clear down here,' he said. The outside guard was sitting on the terrace with his back to the door. He was wearing earphones and listening to a Walkman.

'I could have walked out there and pulled the chair out from under him, he wouldn't know the difference,' Stenner said, walking to the door of the terrace. 'I want him to stay in here with you while I check the second floor.'