Daemon (36 page)

Lindhurst put the remote down. He moved to leave but then turned back toward Vanowen. “What’s in Moscow, Russ?”

Vanowen scowled. “What?”

“I’m just curious why you’re heading to Moscow. Are we setting up a branch office there?”

Vanowen pointed to the door. “Go solve this problem, will you, please?”

Lindhurst regarded Vanowen for a moment more. He knew the old man was hiding something from him. He just didn’t know what.

But for once, Lindhurst had a few cards up his own sleeve. Cards that the old man’s generation didn’t even know existed.

B
lack screen. Suddenly a gleaming chrome logo hissed in from the left while ultrapasteurized techno music thumped in over the title:

News to America

The title twirled into infinity as inset video images crisscrossed the screen, and the music built in tempo. Anji Anderson pushing a microphone at a businessman covering his face. Anderson helping a handicapped child take her first steps on artificial limbs. Anderson typing feverishly at a laptop keyboard in the open air while columns of black smoke towered over a city skyline behind her. Fast cuts following fast cuts. Half a second each. The human brain had to scramble to identify the image, determine whether it presented a threat, and just barely resolved it in time for the next image: Anderson standing, arms akimbo, glowering at the camera in the middle of Times Square while her name slid into place beneath her belt line. The music stopped cold.

The screen flipped immediately to black. A color photograph of a small child faded in. A boy smiling into his birthday cake, surrounded by friends. Anderson’s voice rose. “Peter Andrew Sebeck was born in Simi Valley, California, only son to Marilyn and Wayne Sebeck. He was their ray of hope after the loss of their first daughter to leukemia two years earlier. Outgoing, well liked, Peter was a model child.”

Another picture resolved over the first. It showed Sebeck in a high school football uniform, holding his helmet on his knee, once again smiling.

“Peter appeared to have the perfect life. But his early promise was cut short when he fathered a child at the age of sixteen with Laura Dietrich, a girl he’d known only a short while. Within a year they married. Friends described it as a cold marriage, devoid of tenderness. Yet, to all outward appearances, Pete Sebeck was still a model citizen. He joined the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department at age twenty-one, took night classes to earn a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice, and rose quickly, becoming a twice-decorated officer and later a sergeant of detectives. To his fellow deputies, he was a no-nonsense officer and a family man—a well-respected citizen of Thousand Oaks, California, the safest city in America.”

Chilling music rose. The image changed to a still photo of a menacing Sebeck being escorted in handcuffs, his face a blur of fast-moving rage, lashing out at reporters. It was the type of iconic photograph that made careers. A photo of the year. A symbol of the times.

“But this façade concealed a darker side. Peter Sebeck, convicted mass murderer—nine of his victims federal officers. Another victim, a young colleague who trusted and admired him. Conspirator, embezzler, adulterer. Sex and drug addict. What drives seemingly normal people to commit heinous acts? Is it anger? Greed? Or does evil really exist? Can it possess
you
? Tonight we’ll find out as I interview Peter Sebeck live from Lompoc Federal Prison. This is
News to America
.”

The techno music rose again. A title appeared:

Sebeck on Death Row

The screen resolved on Anderson, sitting erect and alert in medium close-up. She looked businesslike yet sexy in a dark Chanel suit. Her makeup was perfect in the warm glow of camera lights. The lighting had to be done carefully so as not to reflect harshly off the bulletproof glass partition—beyond which sat Detective Sergeant Peter Sebeck. The most hated man in America.

She had helped to make that a reality.

Sebeck stared from behind the small intercom microphone in the prison visitation cell. The studio provided a better sound system for this interview, and a smaller microphone was clipped onto Sebeck’s khaki prison jumpsuit. One quarter of all households in America were anticipated to tune in. Everything was in place, and after a quick smile Anderson began.

“I must confess, Detective Sebeck, I’m surprised you agreed to this interview. I’m the person most responsible for your capture and conviction.”

Sebeck regarded her coolly. “I agreed for my own reasons, not yours.”

“So you still claim innocence?”

“I
am
innocent.”

“How do you explain the substantial evidence against you?”

“It was manufactured by Matthew Sobol. He stole my identity years ago.”

“So you still claim that Sobol’s Daemon is real, even though all efforts to discover such a thing have come up empty?”

Sebeck tried to keep his cool. “The government wants people to believe the Daemon is a hoax. They think it takes them off the hook.”

Anderson shook her head sadly. “Detective, you’ve already admitted your relationship with Cheryl Lanthrop—or did Sobol fake that, too?”

“He facilitated it. It was designed to impugn my character.”

“But you’ve been quoted saying—”

“I’ve been incorrectly quoted—most of the time by you. And there’s no appeal to the court of public opinion, is there? But I guess you know that.”

“Then this is a conspiracy against you? Everyone from the media to the police, and Sobol himself, have all conspired to frame you for these murders? You’re completely innocent?”

“I’m guilty of this much: being a bad husband and a worse father. I’m guilty of having an affair and of being too egotistical to realize I was being set up.”

“Please forgive me, Detective, but that sounds far-fetched.”

“Yes. That’s the whole point. It was designed to be far-fetched.”

“Designed by Sobol?”

“Yes.”

“So, you’re asking everyone to believe you, instead of the facts. We’re to believe that Sobol went to Herculean lengths to frame you—spending not just millions but
tens
of millions of dollars in the effort?”

“I’m not asking anyone to believe anything. To be honest, even I wouldn’t believe me.”

“So you don’t blame anyone?”

Sebeck stared hard at her. “Oh, I blame some people. But their time will come.”

“That sounds like a threat. Do you believe the American public will be sympathetic toward threats?”

“I’m not here to talk to the American public.”

“Then who are you here to talk to?”

“The Daemon.”

“The
Daemon
?” Anderson was taken aback. “The Daemon doesn’t exist, Sergeant.”

“You and I both know that isn’t true.”

Anderson shrugged blissfully. “No, I don’t know that.”

“You’re real proud of yourself, aren’t you, Anji? Famous and rich—isn’t that what the Daemon promised you? And all you had to do was sell your soul—if you ever had one.”

“I didn’t come here to be insulted,
ex-
Detective. Why don’t you tell us your side of the Daemon hoax instead? Help us understand your point of view.”

“Keep them entertained, Anji. Keep them busy and distracted. That’s your purpose, isn’t it? I see that now. Be careful, because I’m starting to understand Sobol. Maybe even better than you. I’ve had plenty of time to think in here. Why did Sobol warn me?”

“Sobol warned you? How did he warn you?”

“At his funeral he said he would destroy me. Those were his exact words. And that’s exactly what he did. He destroyed everything that once defined me. It doesn’t make sense that he would warn me—unless he had further plans for me.”

“So he’s your friend now? Does that idea comfort you?”

Sebeck looked her straight in the eye. “Fuck you.”

Anderson clenched her jaw angrily for a moment. Then a pleasant smile spread across her face. “We have a time delay, Detective. But please watch your language. This is a family show.”

“I understand what Sobol meant now.”

“Well, you’re running out of time to solve the case, Sergeant. If the Supreme Court refuses your appeal, you’re scheduled to die by lethal injection. You must be impressed by the unusually swift hand of justice.”

Sebeck contemplated it calmly. “It is unusual, isn’t it?”

“Perhaps it was the murder of those federal officers.”

“Why are you helping this thing? Do you think it will ever let you go? Do you think you will ever be free?”

Anderson ignored him. “You’re undergoing psychiatric treatment. Is that going well?”

“I’m through talking to you. I came here to send a message to the Daemon.”

“Well, you’d better hope it watches television, Detective.”

Sebeck looked directly into the camera. “At Sobol’s funeral, he phoned me. He said that I had to accept the Daemon. That in the months before my death I had to invoke it. And although it will make me sound more insane than ever, my message is this: I, Peter Sebeck, accept the Daemon. And I am ready to face the consequences.”

Sebeck turned to the prison guards and federal officials standing behind Anderson. “That message needs to get out. She’ll try to cut it from the interview—and when she does, you’ll know she’s afraid. You’ll know she’s in collusion with the Daemon. If you think I’m a nutcase, then that’s all the more reason to get my message out there. It proves your case against me. It condemns me.”

Anderson watched grimly from beyond the bulletproof partition. “Sergeant, there is no Daemon. But I’ll be happy to pass along the message.”

Sebeck pointed at her. “You and I will meet again.”

Anderson felt strangely exhilarated. Sebeck was sexy when he was pissed off—and god, did this guy have balls. He was going to die, but he was going down swinging. She motioned to stop rolling camera, then locked eyes with Sebeck. “I’ll convey the message. Have no doubt.”

She had a direct line, after all.

And word from the Daemon was that Sebeck must die.

I
n a dark storage room in a nondescript export company in the Huang Cun Industrial Zone of Dongguan City, China, a low-end server stood wedged between stacks of toner cartridges and counterfeit software packages. A long-forgotten CAT-5 cable ran from the back of the machine, snaking behind towering boxes containing yet more boxes, and terminated in a Fast-Ethernet jack just to the left of an overloaded electrical outlet—both lost to sight behind cases of Communist Party propaganda pamphlets, printed specifically for use as props in Western theme restaurants. The Ethernet jack ran in turn to the company network, which in turn led to the corporate Web server, which in turn led to the world.

The computer fan hummed as the machine used RSS to scan the contents of the same four hundred Web sites every minute. And at exactly seventeen minutes past midnight, Greenwich Mean Time, the machine stopped scanning.

The computer’s hard drive whined to life and started clicking feverishly—sending out packets to hundreds of IP addresses before committing digital suicide by erasing itself.

Another Daemon event had been triggered.

“W
hat the hell is going on with these numbers, people?” Russell Vanowen, Jr., looked up from the P&Ls in his executive financial summary. He frowned down the burled walnut table running the length of his paneled corporate boardroom. The familiar faces of two dozen Leland board members and senior executives stared back. The faces were all the more familiar because he served on their boards, too. “I’ve got seven divisions running over budget, with only IT on target. What the hell is going on here? Why didn’t I receive any guidance on this?”

Harris Brieknewcz, the CFO, shook his head slowly. “Russ, let me stop you right there. These numbers are wrong.”

“Wrong? How are they wrong?”

“Wrong as in not right. Look…” He slid an open binder across the table. Other execs passed it on to Vanowen. “This is what we’re getting from our off-line systems.”

“What the hell, Harris—you mean
spreadsheets
? You’re passing me spreadsheets? Why did I spend fifty million dollars on a real-time enterprise accounting system if we can just use spreadsheets?”

“The accounting system is wrong. Things are being assigned to the wrong cost centers.”

“Forget cost centers—we’re sixty million dollars over budget this month. It doesn’t matter how you move the shells around. You’ll still have the same number of shells.”

“Yes, but the numbers aren’t being assigned to the correct cost centers—”

“Well, then your people are screwing up the entries—”

“They’re not screwing up the data entry, Russ. We’re not sixty million dollars off the mark this month from keying errors. I had my people start recording these problems because—”

“Why is this the first I’ve heard about it?”

Brieknewcz stopped, girded himself, then continued. “You haven’t heard about it because Lindhurst told me they’d fix it. It’s under his purview, not mine. IT runs the accounting system.”

Milton Hewitt, the executive VP of the brokerage division, leaned forward. “He’s right, Russ. Our cost centers are under budget this period, and we exceeded our revenue targets. But these reports coming out of the accounting system are all screwed up.”

Several others voiced their agreement.

Vanowen threw up his hands. “Jesus H. fucking Christ…” He looked around. “Lindhurst! Where’s Lindhurst?”

Everyone glanced around theatrically. They knew he wasn’t present. Again.

Vanowen dropped his leather folio onto the table with a
bang
. “Goddamnit! Janice!”

The disembodied voice of Vanowen’s secretary carried over from somewhere among the chairs lining the wall. “Yes, Russ.”

“Is Lindhurst in today? Has he been reminded of this meeting? The monthly
board meeting
?”

“I checked his calendar. He should be in. I phoned him this morning.”

“And what did he say?”

“Voice mail. I left three messages. And I e-mailed him.”

“Goddamnit! Did you call his cell phone?”

“Voice mail. Voice mail on his home and car phones, too.”

Chris Hempers, the COO, raised a finger to call attention to himself. “I flew to the trade summit in Montreal with him yesterday.”

“He left town with this going on? Is he back in the office?”

Hempers nodded. “We took one of the Gulfstreams—Ludivic, Ryans, Lindhurst, and I.”

Several voices said simultaneously, “He’s here.”

They smelled blood—a career being cut short—and the possibility of a high-level opening for a friend or relation.

Vanowen was building a head of steam—for which he was justifiably famous. “Well, now I know why he doesn’t want to be here. His folks have screwed up the accounting system, and they hid the problems from me. I hope Lindhurst has a drug problem, because that’s about the only thing that would explain this. Janice, get him on this phone right now.” He pointed to the cutting-edge speakerphone in the center of the tabletop.

“I just tried his line again, Russ. Voice mail.”

“Goddamnit!” Vanowen glanced around. “Board members, please carry on with the agenda. Ryans, you preside. I’m going to retrieve our Mr. Lindhurst, and we’ll get to the bottom of this right now.”

Like most companies, Leland Equity Group maintained a data center where no window offices would be lost—in the basement. Thus, Leland’s fifty-story office tower had several temperature-controlled subbasements linked directly into the fiber optic network running beneath the streets of downtown Chicago. From the subbasement the IT department’s tendrils spread to every corner of the building, snaking up all fifty floors through trunk lines that fanned out on each floor to tap every employee individually.

As Vanowen took the separate bank of elevators leading into the basement, he realized how like the
Sacculina
parasite the IT department was. And lately it had been growing. Without authorization.

Lindhurst said he’d taken care of this.

Months ago, Lindhurst had moved from his corner office on the forty-ninth floor into the windowless bowels of the building. It was an unprecedented gesture of hands-on management. To Vanowen’s delight, Lindhurst presided over a two-month bloodbath of IT layoffs. Purging the department of “questionable individuals,” cleansing the global organization, and hiring new people who had no doubt where their loyalties should lie. And Leland Equity not only remained, it thrived like never before. The would-be Daemon was stopped—Lindhurst had succeeded, and not a word about their little “difficulty” had made it into the press. The problem was gone.

But now something frightening was happening. The accounting system was wrong. They were a private equity house, for chrissakes. They had to know how to add and subtract numbers.

Vanowen was starting to wonder whether Lindhurst had manufactured this whole threat. Was he that ambitious? Was he that clever?

No way.

Lindhurst certainly had his little fiefdom locked down tight now. Even Vanowen had to order lobby security to enter a code into the keypad in the elevators to get them to move down into the subbasement. The place was like a missile silo. Perhaps Lindhurst was getting too distant from upper management. Perhaps it was time to pull him back into the executive suite. Or to fire him. Vanowen pondered this as the elevator doors opened onto a long, featureless white hallway on level B-2. Uncharacteristically, the hall ran straight ahead, no right or left. Vanowen had never been down here. The corridor stretched for what looked like a hundred feet or more. It had the plastic smell of new construction. Not a sign, a receptionist desk, or anything. He hesitated a moment.

But Vanowen still felt a bit of anger, so he strode out and down the hall, his expensive shoes clacking on the black tile floor.

What the hell kind of place is this?

He tried to recall any descriptions of the IT department by other executives, but came up empty. He kept clicking down the interminable hallway. There were no doors. He squinted ahead, but the hallway somehow seemed to disappear in a dim blackness. Surely he should be able to see the end of it.

He glanced back at the elevator door. It was nearly a hundred feet back. Could they have mistakenly sent him to the storage floor?

He turned front again and peered into the distance. Damnedest thing.

Then something impossible happened. A female voice spoke to him from the air six inches in front of his face.
“Why have you come here?”

Vanowen jumped back three feet and nearly fell on his ass. His gasp echoed down the hallway in both directions. He took a moment to catch his breath. He held his chest, still gasping for air. Was he having a coronary?

The voice spoke again, from that spot in midair.
“You were commanded to stay out of this place.”

It was like a ghost. But it was a computer voice, wasn’t it? He could just get a hint of artificiality in it. British. Leland had a sophisticated voice response system on their customer service phone lines. Lindhurst had demonstrated it to the board last year. It reduced call center costs by 90 percent—it was cheaper than India. But it didn’t speak in midair.

This was just a trick.

Vanowen was getting his wits back. And his anger. This prank was way out of line. “Lindhurst! Get me Lindhurst, goddamnit!” Vanowen’s voice echoed. “I will not be treated this way!”

“QUIET!”
The word was so loud it ripped the fabric of the air around him. It was a physical presence that bowled him over and sent him sprawling backward, where he lay in the hallway, dazed. His ears were ringing. His eyes watering. It was possibly the loudest sound he’d ever experienced.

He felt a trickle running from his right nostril, and he dabbed a hand up—coming back with blood. “Jesus…” He pulled a silk handkerchief from his pocket and held it to his face. His hands were trembling uncontrollably.

It quickly swelled to panic. He crawled on his hands and knees, then got to his feet and started running back the way he came. He hadn’t actually run in years, but adrenaline carried him the hundred feet back to the elevator. He arrived panting and nearly hysterical.

But there was no button. The elevator doors were like brushed steel gates. This was impossible. There was no call button. How could there be no button?

The Voice was right beside his ear, as if he hadn’t moved. He could feel the air vibrating.
“Your company belongs to me now. Your divisions will obey their new budgets. If any division heads object, send them to me.”

Vanowen’s hands were still trembling. It was Lindhurst. Lindhurst was…or someone was behind this. It was extortion. This was a scare tactic.

“Of course, you doubt that I am real. You doubt that I am Sobol’s Daemon, and you doubt that my power spans the globe. I will prove to you the extent of my reach.”
There was a pause.
“I just caused you millions of dollars in personal losses. Losses across your portfolio and unrelated to this company. You will either learn from this event, or I will seize your personal wealth and eject you from this company. I will be watching you. Do you understand this final warning?”

Vanowen stared at the air, still trembling. Waiting for it to end.

“DO YOU UNDERSTAND?”

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” He was covering his ears and face with the handkerchief—practically weeping.

The elevator doors suddenly opened, and Vanowen fell inside. He scrambled on his hands and knees and curled up in the farthest corner.

The Voice spoke again, but from the hallway, as if it were standing there, seeing him off.
“If you fight me, I will only hurt you more.”

With that, the elevator doors slammed together with frightful force. The car began to ascend.

Vanowen sat there shaking, blood running down his face.

Vanowen spent the remainder of the afternoon in a daze in his corner office, receiving a parade of phone calls from his attorneys and brokers. Millions of dollars had disappeared from his dozens of brokerage and bank accounts. More worrisome were the missing funds in the half-dozen offshore holding companies and the two dozen limited partnerships in which he held assets—some of which were secret even to his wife, much less people at Leland. All told, almost 10 percent of his wealth had disappeared in the blink of an eye. He had just lost eighty million dollars at separate institutions—some of which he held under assumed names.

As he sat there, still shaking, he suddenly realized the enormity of the monster that had just brushed past him. It was colossally huge. And as powerful as he had always felt, he felt insignificant before it.

He was now an employee of Daemon Industries LLC.