He covered the mouthpiece.
“My wife loves intrigue.”
Lilly smiled.
Swann clicked off.
When they turned onto Tenth Street he reached into his coat pocket, and palmed the glass ampoule.
It would not be long now.
SIXTY-SEVEN
AT 11:45 PM, the team started assembling in the duty room. IN addition to the homicide detectives, a call had gone out to off-duty members of the Five Squad. They also had a call in to a man named Arthur Lake, president of the Philadelphia chapter of the International Brotherhood of Magicians.
TONY PARK HAD BEEN WORKING the computer for more than four hours.
“Detectives.”
Jessica and Byrne crossed the room.
“What’s up, Tony?”
“There’s a new video on his GothOde page.”
“Have you run it?”
“I have not. I was waiting for you.”
They gathered around a computer terminal. Tony Park clicked on the last image. The screen changed to an individual page.
“This last one was uploaded twenty minutes ago,” Park said. “It already has two hundred viewings. This guy has a following.”
“Play it.”
Park turned up the volume, clicked on the video. It was the same man in the other videos, dressed in an identical manner. But this time he was standing on a dark street. Behind him was City Hall.
“Life is a puzzle, n’est-ce pas?” he began, speaking directly to the camera. “If you are watching this, then you know the game is on.
“You have seen the first four illusions. There are three to go. Seven Wonders in all.”
On the video, there was a special effect. Three smaller screens appeared below him. On the smaller screens were three teenage girls. All sat in darkened rooms.
“One illusion at 2:00 AM. One illusion at 4:00 AM. And the grand finale at 6:00 AM. This is going to be spectacular. It will light up the night.” The man leaned forward slightly. “Can you solve the puzzle in time? Can you find the maidens? Are you good enough?”
One by one the small screens went black.
“Here is a clue,” the man said. “He flies between Begichev and Geltser.”
The man then turned and pointed toward City Hall.
“Watch the clock. The dance begins at midnight.”
He waved a hand, and disappeared. The video ended.
“What does he mean, watch the clock?” Jessica asked.
BYRNE SLAMMED on the brakes as he pulled the car over into the center of the intersection of North Broad and Arch streets, about a block away from city hall. It was approximately the same vantage point as the killer in the last video.
He and Jessica got out of the car. The flashing dashboard light strobed across the tall buildings. There was nothing out of the ordinary about the clock tower at City Hall. Not at first.
Then it happened.
At the stroke of midnight the huge clock face turned bloodred.
“Oh my God,” Jessica said.
The sky over Philadelphia flashed with lightning. Detective Kevin Byrne looked at his partner, at his watch.
It was just after midnight. If this monster was telling the truth—and there was absolutely no reason to doubt him—they had less than two hours to save the first girl.
PART III
DEATH
CLOCK
In the cool of the night time
The clocks pick off the points…
—CARL SANDBURG, Interior
SIXTY-EIGHT
12:26 AM
TWENTY-TWO DETECTIVES FROM THE PHILADELPHIA POLICE DEPARTMENT’S homicide unit met in the briefing room on the first floor of the Roundhouse. They ranged in age from thirty-one to sixty-three, in experience from just a few months in the unit to more than thirty years. Eight of these detectives had been on duty for more than fourteen hours—including Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano. Six had been called from home. The other ten were already on last-out, but were no longer working cases or leads. Half of this raucous group had to be called in from the street.
For these twenty-two men and women there was only one case at the moment.
An unidentified man with four confirmed kills was threatening the lives of three other people; three females who investigators believed to be under the age of eighteen.
They did not yet have ID on any of the potential victims.
The whiteboard was divided into seven columns. From left to right:
Elise Beausoleil. The Garden of Flowers.
Monica Renzi. The Girl Without a Middle.
Caitlin O’Riordan. The Drowning Girl.
Katja Dovic. The Girl in the Sword Box.
The next three columns were blank.
AT 12:35 AM Captain Lee Chapman walked into the briefing room. A man stood next to him.
“This is Mr. Arthur Lake,” Chapman said. “He is the president of the Philadelphia chapter of the International Brotherhood of Magicians. He has graciously agreed to help us.”
In his early sixties, Arthur Lake was well-dressed in a tan cotton blazer, dark chocolate slacks, polished loafers. His hair was a little long, a pewter gray. In addition to his duties at the IBM, he was an investment counselor at Wachovia.
After the introductions were made, Byrne asked, “Have you seen the videos?”
“I have,” Lake said. “I found them most disturbing.”
He would get no argument from anyone in the room.
“I’ll be happy to answer any and all questions you may have,” Lake added. “But I need to say something first.”
“By all means, sir.”
Lake took a moment. “My hope is that this… these events do not reflect on my profession, my community, or any of the people within it.”
Byrne knew where the man was going. He understood. “I can assure you: no one in this room thinks that. No one in the department thinks that.”
Lake nodded. He seemed a little more at ease. For the moment.
“What can you tell us about what you’ve seen on these videos?” Byrne asked.
“Two things, really,” Lake said. “One I think will help at this moment, the other I’m afraid will not.”
“Good news first.”
“Well, first off, I recognize all four illusions, of course. There’s nothing really different or exotic going on here. Blackstone’s Garden of Flowers, Houdini’s Water Torture Cell, or a variation on it, the Sword Box, the Girl Without a Middle. They’ve been known by different names, have had many variations over the years, but the effects are very similar. They are performed all over the world. From small cabarets and clubs to the biggest venues in Las Vegas.”
“Do you recognize any of the devices?” Byrne asked. “What I mean by that is, do you know any of them by manufacturer?”
“I’d have to see the videos a few more times to tell you that. Bear in mind, almost all of the larger stage illusions are manufactured by rather small specialty companies. As you might imagine, there is not a lot of call for them, so they are not mass produced. When you get into smaller devices—devices used for coin, card, and silk magic, the staples of close-up—the demand grows. Stage magic devices are quite often extremely sophisticated, manufactured to highly detailed blueprints and exacting specifications. They are made in relatively small wood and machine shops all over the world.”
“Do any of these smaller manufacturers come to mind?” Byrne asked.