The glass double doors at the end of the hallway were pulled open before they got to them.

‘I’ll take it from here, thanks,’ the woman said.

The escort nodded at her, then at Hunter and Garcia again, before turning on the balls of his feet and heading back toward the elevator.

Both detectives recognized Michelle Kelly’s voice from the conference call earlier, but she was nothing like either of them had pictured her.

Michelle Kelly looked to be around twenty-eight years old. She was five foot eight, with long, raven-black dyed hair. Her fringe was spiked, falling over her forehead in a skate-punk way. Her deep green eyes were heavily framed by black eyeliner and pale green eye shadow. Her full lips were delicately accented by red lipstick. She had a thin, silver-loop nose-ring through her left nostril, and a second loop ring through the right edge of her bottom lip. She was wearing black Doc Martens over tight black jeans. Her T-shirt was black and red, with a flying skull design. It read ‘Avenged Sevenfold’.

‘Detective Hunter,’ she said, offering her hand. Both of her arms were completely covered in tattoos, all the way to her wrists, which in turn were lined with different bracelets. Her fingernails were manicured and done in black nail varnish. She looked completely at ease and entirely self-confident.

The first thought that crossed Hunter’s mind was that Michelle Kelly hadn’t become an FBI agent out of choice. Hunter had been to the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, more than once. He had dealt with agents and their section chiefs. He had read their rulebook. The Federal Bureau of Investigation was still run under a classical approach – old school. Dress codes, hairstyles and rules of conduct were strictly enforced, especially when inside an official building. Facial piercings and clearly visible tattoos were simply not allowed. Of course, exceptions were made for deep-cover agents who had to infiltrate gangs, cults, criminal organizations, etc., but a regular person applying for a place at the academy with his or her arms covered in ink would’ve been turned away at the gates. Hunter’s conclusion was that Michelle Kelly probably owed the federal government a debt. Maybe she had been a master hacker in her former life. Someone with cyber skills the FBI didn’t have and couldn’t ignore. They had finally caught up with her, and a deal was placed on the table – a very long spell inside or a position with the Cybercrime Division. She took the job.

Hunter took her hand. ‘Ms. Kelly, thanks for seeing us.’ She had soft hands but a very firm grip. ‘This is my partner, Detective Carlos Garcia.’

They shook hands.

‘Please call me Michelle,’ she said, showing them inside a large room that was chilled to a few degrees below comfortable.

Unlike the LAPD Computer Crimes Unit, which resembled a large open-plan high-tech newsroom, the FBI Cybercrime Division looked to be in a league of its own. First impressions were that the inside of the room looked like the bridge of the starship Enterprise. Lights were blinking on and off just about everywhere they looked. The east wall was taken by six massive monitors, each one showing maps, images or lines of data neither Hunter nor Garcia understood. Sixteen spacious desks, covered with monitors and high-tech computer equipment, were scattered around the room. There was no separate enclosure. No office. No visible hierarchy. Inside that room, everyone was equal.

Michelle guided them to the desk closest to the north wall. ‘Dennis Baxter gave me very few details. He said that it would be better if you ran me through the whole story.’ She dragged two chairs from the nearby desks and positioned them in front of her own.

A man in his mid twenties approached them. He had wavy, rust-colored hair, thin lips, longish eyebrows and large and round, almost black eyes. He looked like a pensive owl – the spitting image of what most people imagine a geek would look like, without the thick glasses.

‘This is Harry Mills,’ Michelle said, making the necessary introductions. ‘He’s part of our unit, and a computer genius, with the diplomas to prove it.’

More handshakes.

Harry took a seat and Hunter ran them through everything that had happened so far. Michelle and Harry listened without interrupting.

‘And you managed to record most of the broadcast from the first murder?’ Michelle asked when Hunter was done.

He retrieved a pen drive from his pocket and handed it to her. ‘It’s all in there.’

She quickly connected it to a USB port on the computer on her desk, and for the next seventeen minutes no one said a word.

Thirty-Two

When the footage ended, Michelle pressed the ‘esc’ key on her keyboard. Hunter noticed her hands were not as steady as they were before.

Harry let go of a breath that seemed to have been stuck in his throat for the past seventeen minutes.

‘Jesus!’ he said. ‘Until late this afternoon I had never seen anyone die. I’ve seen pictures of dead bodies . . . I was present during an autopsy, but never actually seen anyone die, never mind being tortured and murdered. Now I’ve seen two.’

Hunter explained the details of his first telephone conversation with the killer, and how the alkali bath came to be.

‘And you believe he tricked you?’ Michelle asked.

Hunter nodded. ‘He knew beforehand that I would choose water. It was all part of the show.’

Michelle finally blinked. ‘Can I get you guys some coffee or something? I certainly need a drink. My throat feels like the Nevada desert.’

‘Coffee would be great, thanks,’ Hunter said.

‘Yeah, for me too,’ Garcia added.

‘I’ll get it,’ Harry said, already getting up.

‘You said that he used an IP address for this transmission, not a web address like the one today?’ Michelle asked.

‘That’s right,’ Hunter said. ‘According to Dennis, it was probably a hijacked IP address.’

Michelle nodded. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me at all, but that’s strange.’

‘What is?’ Hunter asked.

Harry came back with four coffees, a small jug of milk, a container with cubes of brown and white sugar and sachets of sweetener.

‘The fact that the first murder was practically a for-your-eyes-only broadcast,’ Michelle explained, ‘but the second one was let loose over the World Wide Web.’

Hunter tilted his head to one side. ‘Well, according to the caller, the reason why he made the second broadcast a more public affair was because I was no fun the first time around. I didn’t play his game the way he wanted me to.’

‘But you don’t believe that,’ Harry said, handing both detectives a cup of coffee.

Hunter shook his head. ‘He was too well prepared.’

‘He was,’ Michelle agreed. ‘And that’s exactly why it’s strange he didn’t go for a public broadcast the first time around. He already had everything in place. We’ve checked. The domain www.pickadeath.com was registered twenty-nine days ago with a server in Taiwan. I don’t think he did that just in case. He knew he would go public, and that gives us a second huge problem.’

‘Which is?’ Garcia asked.

‘Today’s broadcast was live for exactly twenty-one minutes and eighteen seconds. It received over fifteen thousand hits while it was online. But we’re now living in the social network era. Everyone shares everything.’

‘The footage was cloned,’ Hunter said, anticipating what Michelle was leading to.

‘It was,’ Michelle admitted. ‘Two minutes after the transmission ended, snippets of it were uploaded to several video and social network sites such as YouTube, Dailymotion and Facebook.’

Hunter and Garcia said nothing.