Part 11 (1/2)
”Not house cats,” Tiger told him. ”Maybe a jungle cat, we couldn't say for sure. But we found plenty of bodies with regular cats around them ... and the cats were still alive.”
”That's the hook,” Cross said. ”They don't care about-”
”Who?” Percy leaned forward.
”Cats. Cats don't bond to humans the way dogs do. Whoever they are, they only hunt humans. In at least some of all those other kills you told me about, dogs were hacked too. The killers came for the humans and the dogs tried to protect them. Nothing personal to the killers-the dogs just got in the way.”
”Silent whistle,” Tiger said, almost to herself.
”Hearing range, yeah,” Cross picked up her thread. ”I don't know about cats, but dogs, no question they can hear harmonics humans can't.”
”Dogs can hear them coming?” Percy asked, as if the whole picture was finally snapping into focus.
Cross shrugged. ”It'd fit, right? The dogs hear ... whatever this thing is. Or maybe they smell it. Either way, they go right into protection mode. But the humans they're trying to protect wouldn't get that message-they'd think the dogs were snarling at shadows.”
”That is why our people always had dogs,” Tracker confirmed. ”But the ... Simbas, if that's who they are ... there's still something almost ... clean about what they do. It is as if they only hunt hunters.”
”Or they only kill killers,” Cross narrowed it down.
”What about this one, then?” Percy challenged, pulling out an eight-by-ten photo of a signature-kill corpse hanging from a jungle gym in a kid's playground. ”This guy wasn't even armed.”
Cross picked up the photo and studied the scene. Flipped it over, read the ID information on the back. ”There's info here,” he said. ”Can any of you except Blondie's girlfriend work that computer?”
Tiger shook her head. Tracker's answer was silence.
”I can't make it sing and dance the way that slope b.i.t.c.h does,” Percy said, ”but I can get some basic stuff out of it. What do you want?”
”A BCI?”
”Can do,” Percy responded, planting his heavyweight body on Wanda's stool. He started banging away immediately, jeopardizing the keyboard with vicious two-finger blasts.
Cross lit a cigarette. So did Tracker.
Tiger said nothing. And missed nothing.
They waited.
”Son of a b.i.t.c.h!” Percy said, staring at the screen. ”He was a G.o.dd.a.m.ned pedophile.”
”A what?” from Tiger.
”Baby-raper,” Cross told her. ”That's what he was doing in that playground. Hunting. Stalking the ground, picking out a target. You understand?”
She nodded, a warrior's stony mask dropping over her gorgeous features.
”And now all of us do,” Tracker added grimly.
THE BLOND man and Wanda entered the War Room together. Wanda sniffed at the smell of smoke. But her annoyance instantly vanished at the far worse violation she detected: in her absence, someone had dared to touch her computer. Her dark eyes whipped around the van. Only Tiger reacted ... with a fake-seductive wink.
”Learn anything?” the blond man asked.
n.o.body answered.
”You know what we want,” the blond said to Cross. ”And you want to see a grant of immunity all typed out and signed, with a blank s.p.a.ce where the crime should be. With the same exact computer, printer, and paper that was originally used, so you end up with a perfect match. Okay, you've got it.”
”Sure I do.”
”What kind of proof could we possibly give you?”
Cross put two fingers against his jawline, as if he was thinking it through. The blond man kept a barely veiled smug look on his fox-face.
Cross snapped his fingers with an ”I've got it!” expression on his face. ”If you're really all that connected, you should be able to tell me where this guy is,” Cross said, pulling an old mug shot out of his coat.
”Who's this?” Blondie asked.
”A baby-killer,” Cross told him. ”A baby-killer with real immunity. New face, new name. He's doing lightweight time ... somewhere.”
The blond man handed the mug shot behind him, without looking. ”Wanda ...”
Wanda s.n.a.t.c.hed the mug shot and placed it on a photoimage enhancer. She pixilated it carefully, then used a digital scanner to break the face into tiny components, each with its own number/letter series. She was playing her keyboard like a first-chair cellist, her face glowing with the joy of the chase.
As she worked, her movements told Cross that this genre of hunting was Wanda's raison d'etre. As each new piece of information came up on her screen, she reacted in a distinct but subtle parallel to a woman being worked up to o.r.g.a.s.m.
NAME/NATAL/GIVEN: SLOc.u.m, LINDSAY, NMI.
NAME/CODE: INSIDER-KP.
NAME/CURRENT: FELTON, REGINALD D. (ANIEL).
The same process occurred, much more dramatically, with the face itself. Cross watched as it progressed from the original through the various stages of plastic surgery to its current configuration, which bore no resemblance to the original mug shot.
At Wanda's touch, information continued to play across the screen: LOCATION/U.S. INSTILLED. #11-C.
SECURITY LEVEL - 1.
Wanda hit a final b.u.t.ton and a printout flowed into her hands. She handed it over to the blond man, who, in turn, pa.s.sed it to Cross.
”Satisfied now?”
”You got yourself a deal,” Cross replied.