moved in a new direction and put the word out that the Veiled Knights are cyber mercenaries or hackers for hire. Cyber terrorism, fraud, documents, assassinations and drugs. You name it—he’ll do it...for a price. He’s amassed a fortune.”
“What do we know about Broodryk’s most recent whereabouts?”
“Intelligence indicates he prefers to operate out of Africa in general. Not only is it home, it’s easier for him to move from country to country without detection. We do know that at one time or the other, he has had compounds in Johannesburg and Port Elizabeth, both of which are in South Africa. He also has been traced to the cities of Luanda in Angola, Niamey in Niger and Victoria in Seychelles. Most recently, we have determined he was operating out of Gabon during his attack on the high school in Washington, DC. The odds are extremely high he’s still on the African continent. However, we are unable to isolate his specific location at this time.”
I jotted some notes. “Does he have a family? Wife, children or a significant other?”
“None that we know of. We obtained his psychological reports from the prison, where he was required to undergo monthly examinations. The reports indicate he has a highly narcissistic personality with an overstated sense of self, a deep-seated need for admiration and a complete lack of empathy, among a range of other sociopathic tendencies. That kind of personality doesn’t lend itself to long-lasting relationships, although we can’t rule it out. We just don’t know. However, despite his need for attention and admiration, the last photo we have of him is the one of him taken in prison.” She nodded to a guy with a laptop and Broodryk’s photo appeared on the smart board.
I shuddered. Broodryk’s albinism—his white hair and pale skin—caused his face to blend into the stark white backdrop. His eyes freaked me out the most. They should have been a beautiful bluish white, but they were utterly devoid of emotion. Sociopath was an apt description for him.
“No one that we know of has seen him in person since this picture was taken.” She cleared her throat gently. “No one except you. Can you advise us on his appearance?”
I set my pen down. “The fact that I saw him via a computer screen filters it some. But he looks very much the same. A little thinner in the cheeks and face—perhaps from age and maturity. But the eyes are identical. As of a few weeks ago, he hadn’t changed the color or style of his hair. He still presented as albino.”
She made a note of her own. “Okay, thanks. Doesn’t mean he hasn’t changed things up by now, but it’s good to know.”
Slash stepped into the room. Our eyes met and he gave me a small nod. Woodward acknowledged him and then motioned to a thin, red-headed guy who sat farther down the table.
The guy lifted a hand. “I’m Stuart Levy and I work with the NSA. My team was assigned the analysis of the painting in the video and the potential significance of it as part of a code. This is what we know so far from the video itself and the research we compiled in the short time we had.”
He clicked on his laptop. The painting appeared on the smart board. “We think this is the painting hanging on the wall. It’s a replica, of course, and it’s called
The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb
. German painter Hans Holbein is believed to have painted it in 1521. The painting is oil on wood and is 30.5 by 200 centimeters. It currently hangs in the Kunstmuseum in Basel, Switzerland. The painting depicts a life-size, biologically accurate rendering of Jesus Christ lying in his tomb. Art critics agree that Holbein, who reportedly unearthed a dead body to use as a model for the painting, wanted to show a realistic view of Jesus suffering the fate of an ordinary man. The decay and malformation of the body is consistent with what a body might look like after twenty-four to forty-eight hours in a warm environment. We ran several
“What do we know about Broodryk’s most recent whereabouts?”
“Intelligence indicates he prefers to operate out of Africa in general. Not only is it home, it’s easier for him to move from country to country without detection. We do know that at one time or the other, he has had compounds in Johannesburg and Port Elizabeth, both of which are in South Africa. He also has been traced to the cities of Luanda in Angola, Niamey in Niger and Victoria in Seychelles. Most recently, we have determined he was operating out of Gabon during his attack on the high school in Washington, DC. The odds are extremely high he’s still on the African continent. However, we are unable to isolate his specific location at this time.”
I jotted some notes. “Does he have a family? Wife, children or a significant other?”
“None that we know of. We obtained his psychological reports from the prison, where he was required to undergo monthly examinations. The reports indicate he has a highly narcissistic personality with an overstated sense of self, a deep-seated need for admiration and a complete lack of empathy, among a range of other sociopathic tendencies. That kind of personality doesn’t lend itself to long-lasting relationships, although we can’t rule it out. We just don’t know. However, despite his need for attention and admiration, the last photo we have of him is the one of him taken in prison.” She nodded to a guy with a laptop and Broodryk’s photo appeared on the smart board.
I shuddered. Broodryk’s albinism—his white hair and pale skin—caused his face to blend into the stark white backdrop. His eyes freaked me out the most. They should have been a beautiful bluish white, but they were utterly devoid of emotion. Sociopath was an apt description for him.
“No one that we know of has seen him in person since this picture was taken.” She cleared her throat gently. “No one except you. Can you advise us on his appearance?”
I set my pen down. “The fact that I saw him via a computer screen filters it some. But he looks very much the same. A little thinner in the cheeks and face—perhaps from age and maturity. But the eyes are identical. As of a few weeks ago, he hadn’t changed the color or style of his hair. He still presented as albino.”
She made a note of her own. “Okay, thanks. Doesn’t mean he hasn’t changed things up by now, but it’s good to know.”
Slash stepped into the room. Our eyes met and he gave me a small nod. Woodward acknowledged him and then motioned to a thin, red-headed guy who sat farther down the table.
The guy lifted a hand. “I’m Stuart Levy and I work with the NSA. My team was assigned the analysis of the painting in the video and the potential significance of it as part of a code. This is what we know so far from the video itself and the research we compiled in the short time we had.”
He clicked on his laptop. The painting appeared on the smart board. “We think this is the painting hanging on the wall. It’s a replica, of course, and it’s called
The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb
. German painter Hans Holbein is believed to have painted it in 1521. The painting is oil on wood and is 30.5 by 200 centimeters. It currently hangs in the Kunstmuseum in Basel, Switzerland. The painting depicts a life-size, biologically accurate rendering of Jesus Christ lying in his tomb. Art critics agree that Holbein, who reportedly unearthed a dead body to use as a model for the painting, wanted to show a realistic view of Jesus suffering the fate of an ordinary man. The decay and malformation of the body is consistent with what a body might look like after twenty-four to forty-eight hours in a warm environment. We ran several
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