Mortal Fear. Greg Iles

it reads: ‘The dawn is breaking on a new world, a jungle world in which the lean spirits roam with sharp claws. If I am a hyena I am a lean and hungry one: I go forth to fatten myself.’ Mean anything to you?”

      The skin on the back of my neck is tingling. “Yes. I mean, I recognize the passage. It’s Henry Miller.”

      “The porn author?”

      “Miller wasn’t really a porn author. Not as you think of it. But that’s not important. The passage is from Tropic of Cancer.”

      “How do you know that? Nobody here did.”

      “Dr. Lenz must not be there. He would have known it.”

      “You’re right. He’s out of pocket just now.”

      “Tropic of Cancer is a classic of erotic literature. I’m sure it’s still in print.”

      “Which means anybody could walk into a bookstore and buy one?”

      “Probably not any bookstore. Not the chains. You’d probably find it in stores that cater to a literary crowd, or else in erotic bookstores.”

      “Thanks. That helps.”

      “What kind of killer leaves notes in French, Mr. Baxter? You ever see that before?”

      “Never. The translator in Michigan said it was probably written by a highly educated French native. Very elegant, he said. I’ve sent it to a psycholinguistics specialist at Syracuse. He won’t be able to look at it before morning, though. The Mill Creek police aren’t telling the Press about the note, by the way. They’re using it to screen false confessions.”

      “Hey, I’m not talking to a soul.”

      “I’ve got a really bad feeling about this one,” he says, almost to himself.

      “Why?” I ask, not admitting that I have the same feeling.

      “The UNSUB has killed all the other victims at the scenes. Now he takes one away, no signs of violence. If this is our guy—and my gut tells me it is—he’s varying his behavior more than any killer I’ve ever seen. He could be starting to come apart, to lose control of what’s driving him. But I don’t think so. He seems able to choose whatever crime signature he wants, which means he’s not driven beyond the point of control. If you hadn’t called with Rosalind May’s name, we never would have connected this crime to the others. You understand?”

      “Too well.”

      “I appreciate the help, Cole. It’s nice to know someone at EROS realizes we’re the good guys.”

      I say nothing.

      “Talked to your friend Turner lately?”

      “No. I mean, not directly. He sent me some email. Nothing important.”

      Baxter waits. “Right.”

      “What will you do now?”

      “Pray he makes a mistake.”

       THIRTEEN

       Dear Father,

       The procedure failed.

       That is not wholly accurate. I was prevented from finishing by an unrelated accident. As Kali brought out the patient, she showed signs of hysteria. Unlike the Navy girl, Jenny, who adapted quickly, this one seemed not to have settled her nerves since we took her. Kali told me privately that Jenny had attempted to calm and reassure May during the night (quite ironic, considering the respective fates that awaited them) but the older woman would not be comforted. I’d had to sedate her at gunpoint the first night to get her to sleep at all.

       I took the precaution of using curare prior to Jenny’s euthanization, to prevent her screaming or making any other sounds that might alarm May. But it was no use. As Bhagat and Kali struggled to get May onto the table, she spied a few drops of blood that had resulted from Jenny’s procedure. She began to shriek and flail, using her bound hands like a club. Even Kali could not frighten her into submission.

       It was then that I made my mistake. I imagined that if I explained the simplicity of the procedure, and the remarkable benefits that would likely accrue to her because of it, May would calm down. But my speech had the opposite effect. When she heard me explain the necessity of opening the sternum, her face went white and she gripped her left arm. Needless to say, I attempted to save her, but it was useless. In four minutes she was dead.

       She died of a massive myocardial infarction, and no one could have been more surprised than I. There were no relevant risk factors in her history. As unscientific as it may sound, I believe the woman died of pure terror. When she flatlined, doubt assailed me like a shadow. Should I stop? Should I go on?

       Then I thought of Ponce de Leon, thrashing through the bug-infested jungles of Florida, fighting the mosquitoes and the mud and the alligators and the natives and disease, searching, ever searching for the mystical mythical Fountain of Youth. How the image of it must have burned inside his brain, gushing with pure shining water, liquid with restorative power, holding out its promise to mankind, the possibility of revoking God’s harshest decree. And all the time that poor Spaniard was carrying the true fountain with him, inside his head, millimeters from the very space where his seductive vision burned.

       We know that now.

       Soon I shall stand alone at the pinnacle of the species, the only man with the courage to reach into the fountain.

       Soon I shall spit in the face of God.

       FOURTEEN

      It’s 10.30 A.M. and I am tired of talking to cops. Houston cops. L.A. cops. Oregon cops. San Francisco cops. Mill Creek, Michigan, cops. I’ve repeated the same story I told the New Orleans police and the FBI so many times that I know it like the Lord’s Prayer, and to detectives who seemed to be writing each word with the slowness of fourth graders practicing penmanship.

      “Stupid sons of bitches!” I shout to my empty office. “You never heard of tape recorders?”

      I feel a little better. Some of the cops I talked to want to arrest me, I could tell. Me, Miles, and the other seven people who have access to the master client list. All of them asked why we haven’t shut down EROS, and some yelled while they asked me. The Michigan cops were the worst, probably because they’re dealing with a kidnapping rather than a murder. I referred them all to Daniel Baxter of the FBI. Let them take their complaints to the Great Stone Face.

      When the phone rings again, I grab it as if to smash it against my desk, but I restrain myself and put it to my ear.

      “Harper, it’s me.” Drewe’s voice is tight with pent-up emotion.

      “What is it? What happened?”

      “A lot of things.”

      A wave of heat rolls up my back and neck as an image of Erin flashes in my mind. “Where are you?”

      “Woman’s Hospital.”

      “Can you talk? What is it?”

      “The FBI,” she says quietly.

      “What? They called you?”

      “No. They called my bosses. They called my friends.”

      “What?”

      “And not just the FBI. A detective from New Orleans called the hospital administrator and asked permission to question