One by One Read online

  ‘What the hell is going on?’ Garcia heard the woman say, but he knew she wasn’t talking to him. He heard some more undecipherable whispers coming from the other end of the line. Something was wrong.

  ‘Somebody better talk to me.’ Garcia’s voice raised about half an octave.

  ‘It’s no good, Detective,’ the woman finally answered. ‘We thought we had him in Norwalk, but suddenly the signal jumped to Temple City, then to El Monte, now it’s showing the call is coming from Long Beach. He’s rerouting the signal every five seconds. Even if we keep him on the phone for an hour, we wouldn’t be able to pinpoint him.’ She paused for a moment. ‘The signal just moved to Hollywood. Sorry, Detective. This guy knows what he’s doing.’

  ‘Shit!’ Garcia tapped back into Hunter’s call and shook his head. ‘He’s bouncing the signal,’ he whispered. ‘We can’t get his location.’

  Hunter squeezed his eyes tight. ‘Why are you doing this?’ he asked the caller.

  ‘Because I want to,’ the caller came back. ‘You have three seconds to make your choice, Detective Hunter. Fire or water? Flip a coin if you need to. Ask your partner. I know he’s listening in.’

  Garcia said nothing.

  ‘Wait,’ Hunter said. ‘How can I make a choice if I don’t even know who he is, or why you have him in that tank? C’mon, talk to me. Tell me what this is all about.’

  The caller laughed again. ‘That’s something you will have to find out for yourself, Detective. Two seconds.’

  ‘Don’t do this. We can help each other.’

  Garcia’s eyes had left his computer screen and were now locked on Hunter.

  ‘One second, Detective.’

  ‘C’mon, talk to me,’ Hunter said again. ‘We can figure this out. We can come up with a better solution for whatever this is.’

  Garcia held his breath.

  ‘The solution is either fire or water, Detective. Anyway, time’s up. So what is it going to be?’

  ‘Look, there’s got to be another way we can . . .’

  TOC, TOC, TOC.

  The sound exploded through Hunter and Garcia’s phone so loudly that their heads jerked back, as if they had been slapped across the face. It sounded like the caller had slammed his receiver against a wooden surface three times to get their attention.

  ‘You don’t seem to be listening to me, Detective Hunter. We are through talking. The only word I want to hear from you right now is either fire or water. Nothing else.’

  Hunter said nothing.

  ‘Suit yourself. You don’t want to pick, I will. And I pick fi—’

  ‘Water,’ Hunter said in a firm voice. ‘I choose water.’

  The caller paused and let out an amused chuckle. ‘You know what, Detective? I knew you would choose water.’

  Hunter stayed silent.

  ‘It was obvious, really. When you considered the options you had, death by drowning seemed less awful, more humane, less painful and quicker than being burned alive, right? But have you ever seen anyone drown, Detective?’

  Silence.

  ‘Have you ever seen the despairing look on a person’s eyes as he holds his breath for as long as he can, knowing death is all around him and closing in fast?’

  Hunter ran a hand through his short hair.

  ‘Have you ever seen the way a drowning man frantically looks around himself, confused, searching for a miracle that is just not there? A miracle that will never come?’

  Still silence.

  ‘Have you seen the way the body convulses, as if it was being electrocuted, as the person finally lets go of hope and breathes his first mouthful of water? The way his eyes almost bulge out of his skull as water enters his lungs and he slowly starts to suffocate?’ The caller deliberately breathed out heavily. ‘Did you know that it’s impossible to keep your eyes shut when you’re drowning? It’s an automatic motor reaction when a person’s brain is starved of oxygen.’

  Garcia’s gaze returned to his screen.

  The caller laughed one more time. This time a relaxed giggle. ‘Keep on watching, Detective. This show is just about to get much better.’

  The line went dead.

  Five

  All of a sudden and with incredible speed, water started jetting out of the holes on both pipes inside the glass enclosure. The man tied to the chair was caught by surprise, and fear made his whole body jerk violently. His eyes widened in complete desperation as he realized what was happening. Despite the gag in his mouth, he started screaming, frantically, but on the other side of the screen Hunter and Garcia couldn’t hear a sound.

  ‘Oh my God,’ Garcia said, bringing his closed right fist to his mouth. ‘He’s not bullshitting. He’s going to do it. He’s going to drown the guy, goddammit.’

  The man kicked and wiggled ferociously inside the enclosure, but his restraints wouldn’t give an inch. He couldn’t break free no matter what he did. The chair was solidly bolted to the floor.

  ‘This is insane,’ Garcia said.

  Hunter stood still, his eyes unblinking, staring at his computer screen. He knew that from their office there was absolutely nothing they could do – except maybe collect evidence. ‘Is there a way we can record this?’ he asked.

  Garcia shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I don’t think so.’

  Hunter reached for his phone again and got the LAPD switchboard.

  ‘Punch me through to the head of the Computer Crimes Unit, now. This is urgent.’

  Two seconds later he heard a ringing tone. Four seconds after that the phone was answered by a baritone voice.

  ‘Dennis Baxter, LAPD Computer Crimes Unit.’

  ‘Dennis, this is Detective Hunter from Homicide Special.’

  ‘Hello, Detective, how can I assist you?’

  ‘Tell me, is there a way I can record a live webcam broadcast that I’m watching on my computer right now?’

  Baxter laughed. ‘Wow, is she that hot?’

  ‘Is there a way or not, Dennis?’

  Hunter’s tone knocked the play out of Baxter’s voice.

  ‘Not unless you have some sort of screen recording software installed on your computer,’ he answered.

  ‘Will I have one?’

  ‘On an LAPD office computer? Not as standard. You can put in a request and IT will install one for you in a day or two.’

  ‘No good. I need to capture what’s on my screen right now.’

  A split-second pause.

  ‘Well, I can do it from here,’ Baxter said. ‘If you’re watching something live over the net, just give me the web address. I can log into the same website and capture it for you. How does that sound?’

  ‘Good enough. Let’s try it.’ Hunter gave Baxter the sequence of numbers the caller had given him minutes earlier.

  ‘An IP address?’ Baxter asked.

  ‘That’s right. Aren’t they traceable?’ Hunter asked.

  ‘Yes. That’s actually their main purpose. They work almost like a license number plate for every computer connected to the net. With that, I can pretty much tell you the exact location of the source computer.’

  Hunter frowned. Could the caller have made such a silly mistake?

  ‘Do you want me to start a trace?’ Baxter asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘OK. I’ll get back to you as soon as I get anything.’ He disconnected.

  The water was already reaching the man’s waist. At that speed, Hunter calculated that the man would be completely submerged in another minute and a half, maybe two.

  ‘Operations said that there was no way they could trace the call?’ Hunter asked Garcia.

  ‘That’s right. He was bouncing the signal all over town.’

  The water reached the man’s stomach. He was still trying to wiggle himself free, but he was steadily losing energy. He was shivering even more now. A combination of uncontrollable fear and the water temperature, Hunter guessed.

  There was nothing Hunter or Garcia could say, so they both went eerily quiet, watchin
g death rise inch by inch around the man on their computer screens.

  The phone on Hunter’s desk rang again.

  ‘Detective, is this for real?’ Dennis Baxter asked.

  ‘Right now, I have no reason to believe it isn’t. Are you capturing it?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m recording it.’

  ‘Any luck with tracing it?’

  ‘Not yet. It can take a few minutes.’

  ‘Get back to me if you get anything.’

  ‘Sure.’

  The water reached the man’s chest, and the camera slowly zoomed in on his face. He was sobbing. Hope had left his eyes. He was giving up.

  ‘I don’t think I can watch this,’ Garcia said, moving from behind his desk and pacing the room.

  The water reached the man’s shoulders. In a minute it would be past his nose, and death would arrive with the next breath. He closed his eyes and waited. He wasn’t trying to break free anymore.

  The water reached the underside of his chin, and then, without any warning, it stopped. Not a drop more came out of the pipes.

  ‘What the hell?’ Hunter and Garcia looked at each other for a second and then back at the screen. Surprise etched on both their faces.

  ‘It was a goddamn hoax,’ Garcia said, approaching Hunter. A nervous smile on his face. ‘Some nutcase pulling our chain.’

  Hunter wasn’t so sure.

  At that exact moment the phone on Hunter’s desk rang again.

  Six

  The sound of the phone ringing cut through the silence like thunder ripping through a night sky.

  ‘You are very clever, Detective Hunter,’ the caller said.

  Hunter quickly signaled Garcia one more time, and within seconds the call was being recorded again.

  ‘You almost had me fooled,’ the caller carried on. ‘I thought your concern for the victim was quite touching. Once you realized there was no way you could save him, you picked what seemed to be the less sadistic, less painful and quicker death of the two choices I gave you. But that was only half of the story, wasn’t it?’

  Garcia looked confused.

  Hunter said nothing.

  ‘I figured out the hidden reason behind your choice, Detective.’

  No reply.

  ‘You realized I was about to pick fire, and you quickly interrupted me and chose water.’ A self-assured laugh. ‘Water would’ve given you hope, right?’

  ‘Hope?’ Garcia mouthed the word, frowning at Hunter.

  ‘The hope that when, and if, you come across the body, maybe your—’ the caller put on a silly voice ‘—super-advanced, high-tech forensics lab could uncover something. Maybe on his skin, or hair, or a trace of something under his nails or inside his mouth. Who knows what microscopic clues I might have left behind, isn’t that right, Detective Hunter? But fire would’ve destroyed it all. It would’ve carbonized his entire body and everything else with it. No clues left, microscopic or not.’

  Garcia hadn’t thought of that.

  ‘But if he drowns, the body is intact.’ The caller moved on. ‘Death comes from suffocation . . . skin, hair, nails . . . nothing gets destroyed. It’s all there ready to be analyzed.’ The caller paused for breath. ‘There might be a million things to find. Even the water in his lungs could provide you with some sort of clue. That’s why you chose water, isn’t it, Detective? If you can’t save him, do the next best thing.’ The caller let out an animated laugh. ‘Always thinking like a detective. Oh, you’re no fun.’

  Hunter gave himself a subtle headshake. ‘You were right the first time around. My concern was the victim’s suffering.’

  ‘Of course it was. But . . . just in case I’m right, guess what? I was already prepared for it.’

  The man on the screen had reopened his eyes. He was still shivering. Despite the darkness, he looked around himself, waiting . . . listening.

  Nothing. Not a sound. The water had stopped.

  Behind the gag his mouth twisted into a shy smile. A glimmer of hope returned to his eyes, as if it all had been just a bad dream . . . a sick joke. He swallowed hard, closed his eyes and tilted his head back, as if thanking God. Tears found their way through his closed eyelids and cascaded down his face.

  ‘Keep on watching, Detective.’ There was a proud ring to the caller’s voice. ‘Because you’re about to get the “Cirque du Soleil” of shows.’ He disconnected.

  On the screen the water level started decreasing.

  ‘He’s draining the container,’ Garcia said.

  Hunter nodded.

  The water drained fast. In a matter of seconds its level had gone back down to the man’s chest.

  Then it stopped.

  ‘What the hell is going on?’ Garcia asked, lifting his palms up.

  Hunter shook his head. His full attention never leaving the screen.

  The camera zoomed out just a little, and all of a sudden the submerged portion of the pipes sprang back into life. Like a Jacuzzi bath, the underwater jets ruffled the water as they spat more liquid into the enclosure. But there was something different this time. As the colorless liquid exited the pipes and mixed with the water, it was producing an odd effect, as if the new liquid was denser than that already inside the enclosure.

  Hunter leaned forward, bringing his face closer to the monitor.

  ‘That’s not water,’ he said.

  ‘What?’ Garcia asked, standing right behind him. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Different density,’ Hunter replied, pointing at his screen. ‘Whatever he’s pumping into that tank, it isn’t water this time.’

  ‘What the hell is it, then?’

  At that moment something started flashing at the top right-hand corner of the picture. Four letters inside parentheses. The first, third and fourth were in capitals.

  (NaOH)

  ‘Is that a chemical formula?’ Garcia pointed to it.

  ‘Yes.’ Hunter breathed out.

  ‘For what?’ Garcia rushed back to his computer and opened a new tab on his web browser.

  ‘No need to search for it, Carlos,’ Hunter said grimly. ‘That’s the chemical formula for sodium hydroxide . . . caustic soda.’

  Seven

  Garcia felt a knot tighten in his throat. Years ago, when he was still just a uniformed LAPD cop, he’d responded to a domestic violence incident where a jealous boyfriend had thrown half a pint of caustic soda in his girlfriend’s face. The boyfriend fled the scene but was arrested five days later. Garcia still remembered helping the paramedics strap the girlfriend down to the gurney. Her face was just a mess of raw flesh and burned skin. Her lips looked like they had melted onto her teeth. Her right ear and nose had totally disintegrated, and the solution burned holes into one of her eyeballs.

  Garcia looked at Hunter over his computer. ‘No way. Are you sure?’

  Hunter nodded. ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘Sonofabitch.’

  The phone on Hunter’s desk rang again. It was Dennis Baxter from the Computer Crimes Unit.

  ‘Detective,’ he said in an anxious voice. ‘NaOH is caustic soda. Sodium hydroxide.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘Shit, man. That stuff is highly corrosive. Many times worse than acid. If somebody is dumping sodium hydroxide into that much water, for now, the solution will be over-diluted and not very strong, but soon . . .’ He went silent.

  ‘It will turn that whole thing into an alkaline bath,’ Hunter finished the sentence Baxter couldn’t.

  ‘That’s right. And you know what that will do?’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘Holy shit, Detective. What’s going on?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Did you manage to trace the transmission?’

  ‘Yes. It’s coming from Taiwan.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Exactly. Whoever is doing this . . . he’s good. It’s either a hijacked IP address or he stole one from a Taiwanese server pool. Bottom line . . . We can’t trace it.’

  Hunter put the phone down. ‘We can’t
get him through the Internet transmission either,’ he told Garcia.

  ‘Shit. This is messed up, man.’

  The man on the screen started shaking again. But this time Hunter could tell it wasn’t from fear or cold. It was excruciating pain. The solution was getting stronger and starting to corrode his skin. His mouth opened wide to release an agonizing scream that neither Hunter nor Garcia could hear. Secretly, both detectives were relieved by the lack of sound.

  As more and more caustic soda was added to the mixture, the water started gaining a faint, dull, milky color.

  The man closed his eyes and started shaking his head violently from side to side, as if having a seizure. The alkaline bath was starting to scrape away his skin like an electric sander. It took only a few seconds for the first pieces of skin to be ripped from his body.

  Hunter rubbed his face with both hands. He had never felt so helpless.

  As more and more skin started to float around the tank, the water began to change color again. It was now going pink. His entire body was bleeding.

  The camera zoomed in on something else floating inside the enclosure.

  ‘What is that?’ Garcia asked, pulling a face.

  Hunter pinched his bottom lip. ‘It’s a fingernail. His body is dissolving.’

  The camera zoomed in on another one, and another one. The solution had already dissolved his cuticles and most of the nail beds on his fingers and toes.

  The water was getting bloodier. They couldn’t see through it anymore. The man’s face, though, was still above the water line.

  The victim had lost control of his body, which was now shaking incessantly, guided only by pain. His eyes had rolled back into his head. His mouth was contorted into an excruciating shape. His teeth were relentlessly grinding against each other, and he was now bleeding from the gums, nose and ears as well.

  The water was starting to boil.

  The man convulsed for the last time. His chest kicked forward so violently it looked like there was something inside it, trying to explode out of his body. His chin fell to his chest, submerging his face under the bloody water and sodium hydroxide mixture.

  There was no more movement.

  The camera zoomed out, showing the entire glass enclosure.