killed before,' Monroe said.
'Or he wants us to think he has.'
Monroe smiled tightly. 'He's sure as hell capable of doing it again. Can we agree on that?'
'Yes,' she said. 'I'm with you there.' Her eyes felt dry. 'Who's the quote from?'
'We don't know yet.'
'You okay, Nina?' This was Olbrich.
She nodded, still staring at the note. 'I'm pissed off, that's all. A look-at-me note and a requiem, for God's sake. It's like a lunatic's serving suggestion.'
'This talking about himself in the third person,' Olbrich said. 'Isn't that strange?'
'Not especially,' Nina said. 'It's been observed in interrogation many times. Ted Bundy, for example. It can be a way of getting them to open out. The theory is that it makes it easier for them to describe crimes from which other parts of their mind wish to dissociate. In Bundy's case it also enabled him to describe hypotheticals — 'I imagine a killer would do such and such in this situation' — without technically admitting responsibility. Can we get anything from the nature of the text file itself?'
'Afraid not,' Vince said. 'The disk's standard PC format but the file has no OS signature: could have been written on anything from a Supercomputer to a Palm V. Somebody downstairs is trawling through the directory structure but we don't have a whole lot of optimism on that either. The disk was securely wiped before these files were put on. This is someone who knows about computers.'
'Which could be useful information in itself,' Monroe said.
'Absolutely,' Nina said. 'It says he's under fifty and lives somewhere in the Western world.'
Monroe cocked his head and looked at her. Nina decided it would probably be a good idea if she went home again soon.
'A copy of this is with Profiling in Quantico now,' Monroe said. 'They should have some ideas soon.' His voice was a little louder than usual. He sounded serious, studious, professional, but there was a note of excitement too. That was to be expected: if you didn't get a big buzz out of going after bad guys, you wouldn't be in law enforcement. But ever since Nina had first worked with him, catching a killer called Gary Johnson who had murdered six seniors, all women, in Louisiana in the mid 1990s, Nina had been in no doubt that Monroe had other agendas. The crimes and their solutions were means to an end. She didn't understand quite what the end might be — politics? having the biggest corner office in the Continental USA? — but she knew it motivated him more than any need to look the relatives of victims in the eye and say, 'We got the guy, and he's going down for ever and a day.' Perhaps there was something not too stupid about this. On the few occasions Nina had been able to do something along those lines, the dull expressions on the faces of her audience had not seemed to change a great deal. Six mothers and grandmothers died before their time and in sordid ways: the guy responsible is put in a concrete box for the rest of his life. As a medium of exchange, it didn't really seem to work. Nina didn't believe most of the killers felt the full force of incarceration, because they just didn't understand things the way the rest of us did. They ate, slept, took a dump. They watched television, read comic books. They took courses and meandered through endless appeals which wasted everybody's time and burned enough public money to build half a school. This was, of course, their right. What they didn't have to do was lie, by themselves, in a hole in the ground, with nothing but the slow sound of settling earth to keep them company. They didn't sleep, arms tight by their sides, in a box their children couldn't afford and which they can feel beginning to get damp, starting to rot.
So yes, maybe Monroe had it laid out sensibly. Fight the good fight. Climb the ladder. Then go home to the wife, grab a healthy supper in front of the late news. Who knows — you might even be on it, saving the world. Bottom line was the FBI weren't even directly
'Or he wants us to think he has.'
Monroe smiled tightly. 'He's sure as hell capable of doing it again. Can we agree on that?'
'Yes,' she said. 'I'm with you there.' Her eyes felt dry. 'Who's the quote from?'
'We don't know yet.'
'You okay, Nina?' This was Olbrich.
She nodded, still staring at the note. 'I'm pissed off, that's all. A look-at-me note and a requiem, for God's sake. It's like a lunatic's serving suggestion.'
'This talking about himself in the third person,' Olbrich said. 'Isn't that strange?'
'Not especially,' Nina said. 'It's been observed in interrogation many times. Ted Bundy, for example. It can be a way of getting them to open out. The theory is that it makes it easier for them to describe crimes from which other parts of their mind wish to dissociate. In Bundy's case it also enabled him to describe hypotheticals — 'I imagine a killer would do such and such in this situation' — without technically admitting responsibility. Can we get anything from the nature of the text file itself?'
'Afraid not,' Vince said. 'The disk's standard PC format but the file has no OS signature: could have been written on anything from a Supercomputer to a Palm V. Somebody downstairs is trawling through the directory structure but we don't have a whole lot of optimism on that either. The disk was securely wiped before these files were put on. This is someone who knows about computers.'
'Which could be useful information in itself,' Monroe said.
'Absolutely,' Nina said. 'It says he's under fifty and lives somewhere in the Western world.'
Monroe cocked his head and looked at her. Nina decided it would probably be a good idea if she went home again soon.
'A copy of this is with Profiling in Quantico now,' Monroe said. 'They should have some ideas soon.' His voice was a little louder than usual. He sounded serious, studious, professional, but there was a note of excitement too. That was to be expected: if you didn't get a big buzz out of going after bad guys, you wouldn't be in law enforcement. But ever since Nina had first worked with him, catching a killer called Gary Johnson who had murdered six seniors, all women, in Louisiana in the mid 1990s, Nina had been in no doubt that Monroe had other agendas. The crimes and their solutions were means to an end. She didn't understand quite what the end might be — politics? having the biggest corner office in the Continental USA? — but she knew it motivated him more than any need to look the relatives of victims in the eye and say, 'We got the guy, and he's going down for ever and a day.' Perhaps there was something not too stupid about this. On the few occasions Nina had been able to do something along those lines, the dull expressions on the faces of her audience had not seemed to change a great deal. Six mothers and grandmothers died before their time and in sordid ways: the guy responsible is put in a concrete box for the rest of his life. As a medium of exchange, it didn't really seem to work. Nina didn't believe most of the killers felt the full force of incarceration, because they just didn't understand things the way the rest of us did. They ate, slept, took a dump. They watched television, read comic books. They took courses and meandered through endless appeals which wasted everybody's time and burned enough public money to build half a school. This was, of course, their right. What they didn't have to do was lie, by themselves, in a hole in the ground, with nothing but the slow sound of settling earth to keep them company. They didn't sleep, arms tight by their sides, in a box their children couldn't afford and which they can feel beginning to get damp, starting to rot.
So yes, maybe Monroe had it laid out sensibly. Fight the good fight. Climb the ladder. Then go home to the wife, grab a healthy supper in front of the late news. Who knows — you might even be on it, saving the world. Bottom line was the FBI weren't even directly
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