The Shadow Maker (44 page)

His fist tightening on the hilt, he held the meat cleaver aloft and advanced.

The first blow severed an artery.

Blood spraying into his face as she started screaming.

But his enemy had tricked him. She’d morphed into somebody else.

He didn’t recognise this woman at all.

Rita could hear the screaming as she pulled up outside Lola’s apartment. As the horror hit her, she realised it was Lola herself.

She hurled herself from the car and all but collided with a figure sprinting from the garden through the rain. She fell to her knees, rolled over and scrambled along on hands and knees, and got to her feet just in time to see a figure in a bronze mask bolt into a black Falcon ute. It was there, in front of her, under the streetlamp.

As she chased after him, whipping the gun from her holster, he was already revving away from the kerb, tyres squealing. She ran, lungs heaving, but he was accelerating off. She stopped, took aim and fired - one, two, three, four shots - the bullets punching holes through the bodywork, the door and splintering the side window.

The car veered violently under the impact - she must have hit him

- but it straightened up and sped away.

The screams were worse than hysterical. What had he done to her?

She was drenched and out of breath as she burst into the apartment, slipping on a thick trail of blood. It led from the bedroom to the bathroom. She rushed there to find Lola, in terror and uncontrolled panic, blood on the tiles, the walls, the mirror, the ceiling - unable to stop the arterial spray from a deep wound in her forearm.

She was shrieking, ‘Help me!’ as Rita pushed her back, sat her on the toilet seat, yanked the cord from her friend’s robe and used it as a ligature, twisting it hard around Lola’s upper arm.

The tourniquet worked. The blood stopped squirting. There were no other injuries.

Lola was sobbing now. There were voices outside. Alarmed neighbours coming inside. Rita shouted at them to call an ambulance.

It arrived as the full force of the storm was breaking. A downpour after the lightning and thunder.

He sped through rain-slicked backstreets and alleyways, every shortcut he knew, blood streaming from his cheek wound, the sound of her gunshots still reverberating in his ears. Despite his close call with death - her last bullet had come within an inch of killing him - his hands were steady, his reflexes fluid, his brain hyper-alert. The game wasn’t over. It had just moved to the ultimate level.

The car thumped over rail lines at an empty level crossing and he accelerated into the next suburb. His enemies were multiplying by the minute. Keeping to side streets, he drove across one main road after another until he reached the park. He sped around the lake through torrential rain, his wheels slapping through leaves scattered by the storm, the wipers slashing against the windscreen.

With time running out, he couldn’t lose momentum, couldn’t falter or hesitate. His game plan would work if he maintained focus - and kept ahead of his opponents.

As suddenly as the rain began, it stopped. He headed for the warehouse entrance at the rear of Xanthus. Using his access key, he drove straight in, the gates clanking shut behind him. The gash on the left side of his face was already congealing, as were the pock marks from glass splinters. He threw away his shirt and used the warehouse washroom to wipe the smeared blood from his neck and rinse the stains from his jeans. Fabric plasters from the first-aid kit were enough to cover the gash on his cheek. Having cleaned himself up he broke open lockers and pulled on someone’s jungle green army shirt. Then it was time to deal with tactics and logistics.

He took the back stairs to the shadowed clutter of the office.

Without switching on a light, he logged on, checked the time and went to work. The first task was to prime a cluster of crippling viruses. Once that was done, he keyed in a countdown and launched them at their targets. Next he triggered a phone search - all the numbers listed to Barbie. The one that was answered - ‘Hello, this better be important’ - gave the location. Next he accessed the online home security system that he’d installed. The multiple screens showed most of the rooms were unoccupied, apart from those hosting the cocktail party. He checked the alarms were off, made sure they stayed that way, then reprogrammed the system to go into a loop over the next hour. That would give him time enough. He logged off and jogged back down the stairs.

The bullet-scarred car had to be abandoned. One of the firm’s white vans was much more suitable in any case. He got the keys, opened it and loaded it with more than a dozen cans of petrol.

His plan was falling into place - in line with the art of guerrilla warfare. Evading capture. Commandeering transport. Improvising weapons. The stakes were higher now but the goal was still the same. To win.

As he drove away from Xanthus a police helicopter swept through the sky above him, its searchlight probing the streets below. But in the lanes behind the firm there wasn’t a police car in sight. The van threaded a course to the highway where it joined the late-night traffic heading towards the suburb of Brighton.

Rita sat beside the hospital bed, head in hands, tears running down her cheeks. Lola lay there bandaged, sedated, weakened by a loss of blood. But she was strong, and first aid had been applied in time. The violence and the trauma of the attack would leave her with one ragged scar on her arm, and a deeper, invisible one in the reaches of her mind. Her fate could have been a lot worse. With that thought in mind, Rita wiped away her tears. Then, leaving her sleeping friend to the care of the nurses, she drove back towards the police complex.

Jack Loftus was pacing up and down the communications room when she arrived. He was listening to incoming calls, waiting for news from the manhunt. Every available patrol officer was out on the road and the helicopter was extending its search radius. Flynn’s apartment was among the places staked out, should he put in an appearance there. A squad car was discreetly parked opposite the front gates of Xanthus, but so far there’d been no sign of him. Local police in the Latrobe Valley were keeping a watch on his family home in case he was making his way back to his roots. The longer he was on the loose the wider the search would become. Uniformed police had taped off Lola’s apartment, where the Hacker had left perfect impressions of his shoes. The soles were neatly etched in her blood. And detectives had bagged the weapon - the meat cleaver that had been embedded in her arm.

‘If he’s smart he’s lying low somewhere,’ said Loftus.

‘He’s more than smart.’ Rita was leaning on a desk. ‘He’s acting with a lucid intellect.’

‘That makes him unpredictable.’

‘Not necessarily. He’s also violently ill. That’s why his crimes are so grotesque. And because his actions are compulsive they can be predicted.’ Her mind was searching for clues. ‘All we need to know is which part of the delusion he’s following.’

‘Is there anything Flynn said?’

‘It’s not Flynn we’re hunting,’ she corrected him. ‘It’s the Hacker.’

‘How does that help us?’ asked Loftus.

‘Because he plays by the rules of the cave.’ She pulled herself up from the desk. ‘Jack, I need to get into the Xanthus building.’

‘Now?’

‘Yes.’

‘But it’s got a squad car out front. If he turns up they’ll grab him.’

‘I need to get inside,’ she insisted.

‘We’d need a warrant.’

‘There’s a quicker way. Get Nash to tell Giselle Barbie to tell her husband to call you immediately. He’s on a private line somewhere.’

‘Why Nash?’

‘They’re pals.’

Loftus picked up the nearest phone and put in a call to Nash.

He was finishing his coffee when the call came on his mobile, Barbie saying, ‘I’m always happy to help the police. No explanation needed. My security guard will be there in ten minutes to open up the place.’

Loftus thanked him and turned to Rita. She was already heading for the door.

‘Don’t go in alone,’ he called after her.

He dimmed the lights and pulled off the road, parking in a street lined with oleander bushes. There was no sign of pursuit. He was still ahead of the game. The wind had died away and the storm’s retreat had left a humid calm in the night air. Already the water from the downpour was draining away. From nearby came the sounds of laughter and excited chatter. The cocktail party guests were enjoying themselves. Good for them. They’d soon have something shocking to talk about.

Senses on high alert, he climbed the side gate and dropped into the broad back garden of Barbie’s mansion. There was no one around.

Crossing the lawn, he skirted the swimming pool and went inside through open patio doors. The room he wanted was at the end of the hall. He let himself into the study and closed the door behind him. Inside was the locked wooden cabinet he remembered that contained Barbie’s prized collection of imported hunting rifles.

Using the heavy base of a television award statuette, he broke open the lock. The rifles stood in their rack like a small arsenal. He grabbed a lightweight .308 with a fibreglass-reinforced synthetic stock and black rubber recoil pad - a Remington 700 ADL. The stock and metalwork had a non-reflective black matte finish - just right for night hunting. He lifted it out and felt its comfortable weight.

Yes, this was definitely the one. Collecting a box of bullets, he slipped out of the house as invisibly as he’d arrived, gun under his arm. Not even the security cameras would record his visit.

Before he could start the endgame he needed to gauge the heaviness of the trigger, feel the recoil, and check out the scope.

He drove to a deserted point on the foreshore. Here, lying among tea-trees with waves foaming against rocks below, he fired off three shots. His target was the door of a brightly coloured bathing box under a distant light. As he peered through the sights he could see the neat pattern of holes. It boded well for what was coming. How gratifying it was going to be to use Barbie’s rifle as an assassin’s weapon. What a deadly irony.

The manhunt was fully operational when the communications system at the police complex malfunctioned, with radio interference, jammed phone lines, computers going offline. A virus attack was coming in waves. Clearly someone was blitzing the system from outside.

Chaos ensued as engineers grappled with the problems.

Loftus stomped around his office swearing with frustration. At its most crucial point the investigation was becoming uncoordinated and in danger of unravelling. He was losing contact with his officers.

Detectives weren’t responding. Patrol cars couldn’t call in. Even the helicopter was out of reach.

As the problems escalated Mace burst into his office. The Homicide chief grabbed a chair and sat down heavily.

‘He’s blinded us electronically,’ said Loftus.

‘Have you come across anything like this before?’

‘No.’

‘So what’s he up to?’ Mace ran a hand through his hair. ‘Is he covering his escape?’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Loftus. ‘I think it’s gamesmanship.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He’s planning something nasty. And he doesn’t want us getting in the way.’

Rita stood in the Xanthus storage area with the security guard and two squad car detectives, in front of them a black Falcon ute with blood and bullet holes in it. Lockers had been broken open, petrol cans removed, and the guard told them a white van was missing. A discarded shirt lay where it had been tossed, the stains showing where he’d bled down the front. A packet of medical dressings lay open in the washroom.

‘You scored a direct hit,’ said one of the detectives.

‘Superficial,’ said Rita, distracted.

‘How’d you know he was here?’ he asked.

‘Guesswork.’

‘Based on what?’

‘On hints he dropped,’ she said, glancing at the shattered windows of the car. ‘And because he’s on a mission.’

She turned abruptly and walked towards her car, punching in Loftus’s mobile number. Busy again. She tried his direct line but that was busy too, as was the switchboard. She gave up and sat in her car thinking it through.

When her phone rang it was Dale Quinn on the line.

‘Thank God I’ve got hold of you,’ he said. ‘I can’t raise anyone at police headquarters. The system’s crashed.’

‘That figures,’ Rita groaned. ‘We’re up against the best in the field.’

‘But I’ve got to tell them!’ Quinn shouted. ‘They’re completely wrong!’

‘You did what I asked?’

‘Yes, I went back to Flynn’s apartment to double-check like you wanted me to. I dusted the DVD pack he threw down when he bolted, and you were right - the prints aren’t a match. Flynn is definitely not the Hacker!’

‘That means it can only be one person and he wrong-footed all of us,’ said Rita, her heart pounding. ‘He’s the brightest of the lot

- and genuinely insane. I’ve got to stop him.’

She knew where to go because he’d told her - you end up back at the starting point. It had to be the casino, the location of his kerbside pick-up, the spot where Emma Schultz was collected on her way to becoming the first victim.

Rita turned the key in the ignition and sped towards the casino complex. Arriving, she left her car in the tower forecourt and ran towards the riverbank promenade, dodging crowds of people as she did. Again she tried to phone Loftus. Again she couldn’t get him.

Then, at last, her mobile rang.

‘Jack?’ she breathed into the phone.

‘No, it’s Martin Barbie.’ His voice was unfriendly. ‘I’m calling you because I can’t reach anyone at police headquarters.’

‘The lines are jammed,’ she said, scanning passers-by while she spoke. ‘Where are you?’

‘My suite. The one you visited.’

‘I tried to get hold of you earlier.’

‘I was otherwise engaged - with private business.’

‘Spare me the details.’ She didn’t have time to waste. ‘What do you want?’

‘To report a threatening phone call. From Josh Barrett.’

She stopped abruptly. ‘When did he call?’

‘Five minutes ago.’

‘Tell me what he said.’ She kept looking around. ‘Exactly.’