Dark Revelations (9 page)

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Authors: Duane Swierczynski,Anthony E. Zuiker

BOOK: Dark Revelations
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The other says,
Yeah, a riddle. The nutcase sent a
riddle
!
 
I hope that it is abundantly clear by now that I am not a “nutcase.” Every action has a specific purpose and meaning.
It doesn’t matter that the world doesn’t understand right now.
Those who play the game will pick up the small nuances of what I do.
And those will be the people who help me save the world from itself.
 
Two detectives from the Dubai Police’s General Department of Criminal Investigation arrive at IPC within minutes.
Oil concerns receive prompt and courteous attention from the police.
The shorter of the two is also the wider, and the taller one is balding.
Cheap men, engaged in cheap business, deluding themselves into thinking they are doing something good by protecting cheap lives.
They examine my riddle in a quiet conference room, say that forensics techs are on their way.
With a company as powerful and influential as IPC, the police know to bring out the big guns.
For the time being, these cheap men only nudge the edges of my letter with gloved fingertips, talk about elimination prints from the executive assistants.
They should be poring over the riddle. It will tell them everything.
My riddle, written in English:
I CAN RUN, BUT NEVER WALK,
OFTEN A MURMUR, NEVER TALK,
I HAVE A BED BUT NEVER SLEEP,
I HAVE A MOUTH BUT NEVER EAT.
WHAT AM I?
 
 
LABYRINTH
Instead, they examine the wind-up gold wristwatch—a custom-made Patek Philippe that included a perpetual calendar with the phases of the moon.
An expensive item, hand-built, with only the finest materials.
An exquisite piece of craftsmanship, handled by their sausage-link simian fingers.
The cheap cops talk about examining the timepiece for prints, falling over themselves to impress each other with their forensics knowledge, of which they possess very little.
At long last they finally notice the inscription and date on the back of the watch:
To Everette
My Favorite Infidel
10/11/48
 
One of the detectives calls it in back at headquarters—they need to know who this “Everette” is, what the date means, and if possible, what the hell that line about the infidel means.
The date seems to wedge itself in the fat detective’s mind.
He muses out loud,
Nineteen forty-eight.
A significant, controversial, and turbulent time in the Middle East, and something about it bothers him . . .
As it should.
The taller one notices that the watch seems to be running . . . slow.
The fat one times it against his own digital watch—the wind-up is losing seconds here and there.
He asks,
What does that mean?
I want to tell him,
Go on, keep playing, you’re doing fine.
I listen as they call and ask for the area’s top watchmaker to be brought down to headquarters immediately, and they’re about to transfer the letter and watch back to the lab at headquarters when one of the assistants stops them, says,
Don’t you want the fish?
The detectives stop, look at each other.
Fish?
 
The police are adamant: no details to be leaked to the media.
Not.
A.
Single.
Thing.
 
The expectations of the Dubai Police are as unreasonable as they are unlikely.
Just as I anticipated.
 
They are guilty of forgetting that many employees of the Intertrust Petroleum Corporation are expatriate Americans, and Americans are a nation of loud people who tend to overshare.
The assistants who’d received the fish tank and the package?
No exception.
Even their iron-clad nondisclosure agreements are not enough to dissuade them from bursting at the seams to share what they had experienced. As if events in real life didn’t actually happen unless they were noted and “liked” in the virtual world.
 
IPC executive assistant Lauren Sandovsky is the first to leak information about an hour and twenty-three minutes after the arrival of the packages.
My information virus begins with her, in a short, private direct message to a former boyfriend:
Hey. You’re probably asleep but you will never guess what happened to me at work today.
3 hours ago
 
 
No, beautiful, I’m up. I’m always up. So okay, I’ll bite. What happened to you at work today? Did a sheik invite you to join his harem?
3 hours ago
 
Racist. NO. I think I opened a package sent by a serial killer!!!
3 hours ago
 
WHAT?
2 hours ago
 
You know that Labyrinth thing—the Bethany Millar murder? Well we got this weird package today, and the police think it’s the same guy.
2 hours ago
 
That is insane. Did you take a photo of the package? Can I use it?
2 hours ago
 
Um, yeah . . . but NO you cannot use it. Do you want to get me fired?
2 hours ago
 
Come onnnnnnn . . . I’ll be your best friend. . . . : )
43 minutes ago
 
Seriously, Lauren, how can you NOT share this with me? I live for this stuff!
40 minutes ago
 
Don’t make me get down on my knees and beg.
19 minutes ago
 
FOR YOUR EYES ONLY. Understand, tough guy? [PIX ATTACHMENT: 43728.23.jpg.]
7 minutes ago
 
Oh . . . wow. And yeah, I promise.
1 minute ago
 
Brad Rayner works as a content manager on an alternative news Website based in Chicago, Illinois.
The photo appears on that site approximately seventeen minutes after Brad received it.
I am surprised it takes that long.
chapter 14
 
DARK
 
Over the Atlantic Ocean
 
D
ark was drifting off in a semi-dazed state when the laptop on the table next to him went
ping
. He blinked, looked around, and instantly remembered—oh yeah, I’m inside the plush belly of a Gulfstream G650, racing at Mach 0.9 to meet a man who’s been secretly recruiting me.

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