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DARWIN'S GAME
By Wayne Webb
CHAPTER 45
Agent Levy was not the best of moods this week,
likely the final week for the Darwin's Game fiasco, with any luck and
hopefully the tide of political pressure and heat brought to bear on
him would start to ease with it. The Game had been going for a long time now,
ten weeks and soon to be nine installments, though depending on who
you spoke to it may have been already nice and coming up to ten. The embarrassment to the men in charge of the bureau, who
in turn too the embarrassment of the men in charge of the government,
was filtered down, but not watered down, until it poured out all on
Agent Levy.
Levy had been there since the start, numerous
agents and senior departmental heads all left their mark on the
investigation, but it was known to be a hopeless cause and hence they
all found a way to take responsibilities from him, then neatly lay
the blame back as they cycled through more bodies in hope of finding
a solution. It was not likely going to happen though, despite the
usual slew of positive thinking that came with any high profile case,
this was tinged with a central theme of delay and diversion. Most of
the people who were 'playing' the game, were so unsympathetic that it
was hard not to take your time, allow just that one more episode to
roll by in the vain hope that new leads would arise rather than
beating down the doors of anyone and everything connected to the
first round.
As each new video came into the office a new
slant on the investigation would ensue and the lion's share of
resources would switch to the new angle. With Darwin it was more a
case where there were too many clues, and yet not one of them lead to
anything. Then a new batch of information would come in and tie up
more and more staff and processing time on following them through.
Levy realized early on that they were seeing what Darwin wanted them
to see, even the Darwin Town they had found in Montana, was created
with the idea in mind that it would one day be in his hands. Maybe
not Agent Dan Levy specifically, though he could not put that idea
past the crafty mastermind at this stage, but certainly it was
intended to go to the lead investigator and distract them from the
real site. Which may or may not have even been in the continental
United States, it was impossible to know without a follow up from the
Italian authorities if that site was not a decoy as well.
Darwin had gone to enormous lengths to cover
his tracks, wave little red herrings in their faces and continue in
the Game already several steps ahead of everyone. None of the usual
points of interest applied like in the bigger serial cases. There
appeared to be no manifesto, despite it being a situation rife with
imagery and moralist themes, there was no specific message. There was
no gloating and no communication to anyone except the two men at
Facts Alone, who were clearly just pawns in the Game the same as the
Media, the general Public and the Bureau themselves. He made no
clues that were visible and there was none of the usual “trying to
get attention/trying to get caught” business that always marked the
brave FBI agents final dash to save the latest victim in the Freak of
the Week serial killer exploitation movie of the week.
The last episode, the desert triangle was the
latest distraction that he already knew would be a waste of time. A
frenzy of activity started as soon as the video was available, by
moving outside the sudden excess of outdoor shots meant that there
was the possibility of determining a location. There was also a
single tree in one of the shots, as Vargas ran past in on the way to
his own point of the sniper triangle. The tree was quickly identified
as the Desert Ironwood, AKA the Arizona Ironwood and only found in
the Sonoran Desert, which put the campsite in one of two possible
states. The terrain and the brief glimpse of a horizon in one angle,
very briefly, was made into a 3D complex wire-frame and uploaded to
the FBI's powerful data crunching warehouse to seek and match it to
the terabytes of data they had on the land in the United States.
Levy knew that this was a waste of time, or he
suspected it would be. Darwin had fooled them into thinking the
Darwin Town was outdoors, when it was not. Then fooled them into
thinking that it was in Montana, when it was in Italy, maybe. The
idea that this was not going to lead anywhere was an unpopular one,
but he made his point anyway, there was little else to lose now. The
bureau knew how this kind of thing worked, they were good at it and
jumped head first into the data crunching and analysis that brought
home the case winners in their eyes.
This was a Modus Operandi for Darwin, throw out
loads of information that looks useful but so far had proved to not
be. Levy concentrated as much as he could on the first disc that
arrived, circling back to the original list of players and tried to
block out all the noise created by their subsequent appearances. He
knew that there must have been some people involved in the escapes,
the faked deaths and the disappearances, but so far they were all
coming up empty. It boggled the mind that people just did not notice
when the people they were assigned to watch day in and day out could
simply be replaced, removed or in some cases look dead without them
noticing. Of course all of these cases happened before the start of
the game and no one had any cause to suspect that they were not where
they were supposed to be, or who they were supposed to be.
They had identified the person who had taken
the place of David Wilson finally, he had been a man who had been in
a coma unidentified, a John Doe with no known connections or
relatives. He had been hit by a car, the driver had fled the scene
and the victim left to die in the streets. He did not die though and
all attempts to identify him came up with nothing. If it were not for
the sheer luck of his face being on a TV show that was following up
on the Darwin's players lives, that connection might never have been
made. The hospital he had been in was not even in Montana, it was in
Hawaii and no one realized he was missing. A clerical error had
consigned the bed to a deceased record and then no one knew that it
was not the other person that had cleared the bed and removed the
poor unfortunate soul away. Then one of the nurses saw the face out
of the corner of her eye when passing a television set in the day
room at work, and the face triggered something in her memory. A few
well placed questions and an examination of the photos they had on
file later and they were on the way to identifying the man who was
now in hospital in David Wilson's bed in Montana. A check of DNA held
on file in Hawaii with a fresh sample of the man in Montana and a
positive match was made. No one was still any the wiser as to who he
was or where he had come from prior to the hit and run, but it
certainly looked like it was good luck that Darwin's kidnapping had
effected. That clerical error meant that he would have been sent to
cremation, possibly not being picked up that he was still alive by
the attendants, as to all outward appearances his breathing
unassisted was so shallow and his vitals so weak that he could have
been cremated alive. Instead he ended up in a warmed bed in a cold
state, but alive and in sharp focus by the FBI who were determined to
find out more about him and connect him to Darwin if possible.
Levy was in San Francisco again, checking up on
the Facts Alone team, looking again at that first delivery and
checking in on the offices of Blake Hilliard, Jacob Edgerton was
still out of the country under an assumed name. He drove slowly
across town to the office building where they shared space with a
few other companies, tempted by the money to make a new home
elsewhere but waiting until all the intensity of the Game dies down
before making any big decisions. They certainly had the traffic and
the income right here and now, but after this wave had passed who
much of it would stay with them and how much would they lose back to
traditional news sources? It was an unknown element and the future of
the company was no longer in doubt thanks to the influx of funds, but
the popularity of the site would drop away again over time, it was a
matter of careful planning to take advantage of the next wave,
whatever that would be that would make it last for decades not just
the next few years.
Dan Levy dropped by the coffee shop just
outside the office building and grabbed himself a takeaway and a
Danish, he had gotten a taste for them early on in the investigation
and was looking forward to his morning ritual of caffeine and sugar
more than waiting out the last day of the week chasing down clues
that would be leading nowhere. The pessimism he felt from working
this case, undoubtedly his last one in the FBI, was beginning to war
him down. The sense of humor he had started out with had dried up and
the procedural steps that had given him comfort through his career
now seemed like a millstone around his neck. There were a few stops
along the way where he knew that if he squeezed hard enough, some
cracks would appear. That level of intensity would require him to
step outside the law and trample a few peoples rights to get at the
pressure points. He also came to the conclusion that not all of these
perceived weaknesses he could exploit would lead to Darwin or be even
vaguely related to him, but he would not know until he applied that
pressure.
That was an advantage that the bad guys had,
not having the law of conscience applied to themselves. It was an
uneven playing field and the game would never get to a win or a draw
as long as one side had no rules while the other played to every
restriction as if it were gospel. His resignation was ready and on
his desk back at his office, signed but undated and waiting for the
last episode to come in, to wind down the chase he already knew was
like running on a treadmill. The last episode was due this weekend,
Monday if Darwin stuck to any pattern, but as unpredictable as always
he had ditched the expected more than once to deliver both early and
late.
Blake was in his office when Levy got into the
office, most of the staffers and interns now feeling much richer and
happier with their lot knew who he was and waved hi or avoided eye
contact depending on their individual level of paranoia regarding the
FBI and government in general. Dan walked through the desks casually,
like he worked here on regular basis, he spotted a new bodyguard from
Dragon Ridge, one he did not know personally but one who had clocked
him and sat a little straighter in his chair outside Blake's office
from the moment their eyes met, as the lift doors parted.
Dan nodded to him and pointed at the office,
asking a permission they both knew he did not need but the courtesy
was welcomed anyway. Blake was on the phone and making notes as Dan
came into the room and pulled up a chair across from his desk. He
turned the piece of paper he was jotting something down on so that
Dan could not see it and then he nodded and made some noises of
agreement to the person down the end of the phone.
“He's here now, just walked in, hang on?”
Blake put his phone down on the table and hit the soft-key for
speakerphone.
“Agent Levy?” The echoing voice of Jacob
Edgerton came down the line from Italy.
“Jake? Can I call you Jake? Or is it Jacob?”
Levy sipped his coffee and wished he had another Danish and a coat,
he felt a little like Colombo, disheveled unimposing, but without any
of the clues or answers. He brushed at the legs of his trousers
absently, thinking that this was just another day when he was
suddenly shocked into a cold and frozen pose by what he heard next.
“I met Darwin. He's here in Rome.” Blake
was grinning at the slack jawed reaction of Agent Levy who was about
to process the same problem that Jacob had when meeting Darwin a few
hours earlier, too many questions and not enough brain space
unaffected by shock to ask them coherently.
But the first question never came as a loud
clanging noise and a shudder went through the building. The phone
that Jacob was on fell to the floor and he could be heard faintly
calling through the line asking what was happening. Blake picked the
phone up and tucked in his headset and switched it on, dropping the
phone into his pocket.
“Something loud and heavy, don't know we're
checking now, stay on the line.”
Levy was already out the door and following the
Bodyguard who was talking into his cabled earpiece and microphone
heading for the stairwell. A number of the staffers were looking at
the ceiling as both Dan and Blake came through the main area and saw
them pointing up, indictaing where the noise had originated from.
A quick scan of the lifts showed that both of
them were in the lobby a floor or two below them and that the
stairway door was open, that was where the Dragon Ridge man had gone.
Taking steps two at a time Levy was right behind him in short order
as he too drew his weapon and made his way to the fifth and final
floor of the building. Blake was bringing up the rear and providing a
limited commentary to his business partner on the other end of the
line. At the fifth floor they found the tenants of that level looking
up the stairs and telling that a few ceiling tiles had crashed onto
their desks and that something had crashed into the roof. Levy
quickly pushed his way ahead of the bodyguard who rounded on his
charge and covered him between him and the Agent making his way
upwards.
The door to the roof flung open into the
sunshine and there in the middle of the roof was a metal box embedded
into the hard covering that was the weather proof surface on the skin
of the building. Agent Levy checked the area, holding the others back
with a hand and scanning about for unknown elements before waving
them behind him and making his way to the box. The object was
rectangular and taller than it was wide, it looked like a safe, but
where the dial would have been in a traditional combination lock was
a keypad, an LCD screen a few inches wide and a thumb scanner.
Agent Levy read what was written on the label
and he took some pictures with his phone, sending them immediately
back to his office where they could be identified and analysed.
“Mr Hilliard? Blake? This is for you,
apparently.” He crooked a finger at the man who was relaying the
proceedings to Jacob in Italy. He approached the box and saw the same
witting on the LCD display above the numeric keypad that Dan had just
taken pictures of.
Mr Hilliard, Right Thumb.
Shrugging he pressed his thumb to the scanner
and all three jumped a little when a sharp high pitched beep gave
them all an audible shock. Then the keypad lit up and the writing
changed.
Input Nine Digit Code
(you have three attempts left)
Jacob repeated the numbers down the line to
Blake and haltingly he entered the number and heard a hissing and a
click as the door popped open to reveal two discs, one with Facts
Alone written on it and one with The FBI on it. Agent Levy grabbed
both and after a half second of hesitation handed the Facts Alone
marked copy to Blake and asked him.
“Can I borrow some of your bandwidth please?”
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