Love, Destiny, and Murder

Competitors

3 - The Competitor

MEMO

To: President Schuler

From: Department Chair Lester, Mathematics Graduate School

Subject: Mr. Harrison

I must plead once again to consider releasing Harris Harrison from the School of Mathematics. This situation is becoming just too much.

Last week he called Nobel candidate Dr. Wu an i***t, to his face and in front of the bulk of the incoming class of graduate mathematics students. Despite several written warnings, he still refers to my staff of professors as morons with their “heads up their asses.” This is in addition to his obsession with proving wrong many of the papers my staff has published.

I am aware that genius can come with baggage and that his undergraduate students see him as some sort of anti-hero, but I must insist on maintaining decorum and professionalism in the School of Mathematics. This situation cannot be tolerated.

On Friday I attended a lunch with two gentlemen from the…well, they really didn’t say where they were from inside the government. They only said they were from one of the intelligence services and they wanted to speak to me. They introduce themselves as Mr. Smith and Mr. Jones. I thought that was the worst cover story I’ve ever heard in my life; however, later I would learn their real last names were Smith and Jones.

“We have a serious security concern we would like to discuss with you,” began Mr. Smith.

Mr. Jones continued, “And the people at the University of Chicago said you have the unique combination of skills and, um, mental capacities we need.”

I had done my graduate work at the University of Chicago, but I wasn’t sure exactly what people they were referencing. It was rather obvious they are very reluctant to reveal anything to me. It was more likely they were seeking a very smart person with a distinctly anti-social mind. So, I decided to break the ice.

“You need a problem-solving person with a high level of education that can think like a psychopath.”

The two men looked at each other nervously Mr. Smith cleared his throat and nodded.

“Yes, we are dealing with a potential psychopath and we need to predict his next move.”

“And the Chicago people recommended me?” I asked.

“Ah, yes, they did,” responded Mr. Jones.

“A lovely insult,” I said. And then I leaned back and smiled. “What do you need to know?”

They went into the usual routine of telling me that I would have to promise to never tell anyone what was about to be told to me. Naturally, I agreed and then they proceeded to tell me almost nothing.

Overseas surveillance had picked up communications with a well-known terrorist in a country that was unnamed. The agents on the ground had been tracking this individual but had lost him in Singapore.

“Guys,” I said to stop them, “if you want me to be of any help you will need to be more specific. Nothing you tell me is likely to be secret. I am already assuming that the intercept was captured by a Project Bearcat satellite.”

The two men looked startled. They looked at each other and then they looked at me. “How did you know about that?” they asked.

With a wave of my arms, I replied, “Everybody knows about that! Can we drop the pretenses and get on with some production work?”

More looking at each other and then some whispering followed by agreement.

God, people are annoying, especially government people.

In the 1970s an engineer at Martin Marietta was preparing a satellite for its launch. However, he needed several pounds of ballast to get the correct weight for the launch vehicle. As an experiment, he took a simple handheld Bearcat brand radio scanner and connected it to a tape recorder. This he placed as ballast on the satellite to see if the little scanner would pick up anything from Earth while it was in its brief orbit.

When the satellite was recovered, he dug out the tape recorder and listened. It turned out a lot of radio signals were detected. Including one telephone conversation from a cell phone. A conversation between a man and his mistress. The conversation was quite obscene and fascinating.

The engineer rushed into his boss’s office to play back the conversation. After much laughter and fist-pumping his boss declared this was something the company should exploit. So, he called the National Security Agency and let them know they had developed a method for eavesdropping on cell phone calls from orbit. Since then every cell phone listening satellite built was classified under the name Project Bearcat.

Apparently, Mr. Jones and Mr. Smith were not avid users of the Internet. Although Bearcat was a national secret at the highest level, it was freely discussed in several forums on the World Wide Web.

“I will need a digital copy of the intercepted transmission,” I stated.

“You don’t have proper security clearance to listen,” they countered.

“I don’t need to hear it. I just need the actual digital values recorded at each point in the timeline.”

“Why?” they asked.

“Because I have a partner that can turn that into a math model that can tell us more about the people talking.”

Mr. Smith and Mr. Jones looked at me skeptically. But in the end, they agreed they would provide the needed numbers.

“I will use the peaks and valleys in the voice pattern to determine his state of mind,” I assured them. “Now tell me more about the man.”

Smith leaned forward. “I cannot tell you his name or country of origin.”

“Don’t need to know it,” I responded, “I just need to know his state of mind. We can call him Mr. X.”

Jones summarized the details from FBI profilers working on this case. Mr. X had attained a Ph.D. in biology at a University in the United Kingdom. He had been a foreign student with excellent grades. Upon return to his native land, he began to associate with radical groups. Soon he declared his allegiance to the Jihad. In multiple public statements, he declared that he would not rest until 100 million Americans were dead.

Naturally, that put him on the surveillance radar. Once the various intelligence agencies had dug deeper into his history, they discovered that he scored high on the psychopathic scale. Therefore, he had the means of developing biological weapons and personal motivation to carry out a major attack.

“If you had a drone on him,” I said, “then he is further motivated to take big chances.” With that comment, I caught the nervous glance of Mr. Smith, so Mr. X was a drone target. Odds were high that a terminate order was coming down the chain of command when Mr. X disappeared.

“For example,” I continued, “he would take the chance of hiring someone that looked like him to throw your people off of his trail.”

Mr. Jones looked quite agitated by my conjecture, meaning this is exactly what had happened.

“What makes you so sure?” asked a skeptical Mr. Smith.

“It’s the way a psychopath thinks. A psychopath lives with a burning need to control a situation, even to the point of taking a life. Mr. X knows you are following him. He is delighted to throw you off course to demonstrate his intellectual superiority.”

They sat there and considered what I had said.

“What do you need to know?” I asked.

“Where is he going? Is he planning an attack?”

“Give me two days and I can tell you where he is going. And, yes, he is planning an attack. There would be no other reason to leave the protection of home.”

I thanked them, and they paid for lunch. Just the way I like lunch to end.

Later that day Mr. Smith would email to me a string of numbers. I forwarded these to Harris to analyze with his mathematical magic.

#

At the end of the workday, Alisha reported back to me.

“How did it go?” I asked her.

“Not bad,” she reported. “As you said, he requested lots of coffee. Then around three, he started swearing and throwing things in his office.”

I tried to act like this was all normal behavior for any human being. I smiled and nodded.

“Then he demanded to see my ink.”

“See your what?” I asked, still smiling.

“You know, my tattoos on my arm. He wanted me to roll up my sleeves to see them.”

Perfect, this is a massive Human Resources violation. But, she had more.

“He especially likes the death's head with ‘In Death is Honor’ written on the forehead of the skull.”

Trying not to cringe, I probed further. “Anything else?”

“He said I was the coolest girl he had ever met and then pledge his eternal love and protection of me.”

“And…” I hated to ask this, “are you comfortable with Mr. Harrison.”

“Dude, yeah. He’s the best,” she replied.

“Glad you enjoyed your first day. Will you be joining us tomorrow?”

“Yeah, I want to see what he does next.”

“Thank you, Alisha, and good night.” And now I must pray that no one in her family is a lawyer.

4 - The Definition of Life

Iskandar’s Google Search History - November 19

“m*********r”

“Serial killers”

“American economy”

“American politics”

“Concentration of population centers in the United States”

“Sources for nuclear materials”

“Sources of biological incubator”

“Visa requirements to enter United States”

“Most common vehicles on roads in United States”

One of the key pieces of evidence to gather during the outbreak of a major disease is the first victim, also called patient zero. On the morning of June 27th, patient zero was brought to the University of Iowa in the back of a pickup truck. There was no point in finding a more comfortable means of transportation. Patient Zero was already dead, discovered by a farmer named Jessie Brown of Kirkspring, Iowa. Farmer Brown had found patient zero lying dead near the fence line that separated the farmer’s house from his cornfield.

The people in the admissions area were familiar with the sight of disease, but the condition of patient zero caused alarm. The victim was covered in black spots that seemed to ooze a clear substance. Luckily, Dr. Bradley Gill was available. Dr. Gill was a well-known expert on diseases. When he arrived a few minutes later he had everyone wash their hands and then ordered them away into temporary isolation.

Patient zero was laid out on an examination table in a room with strict atmospheric controls to prevent the spread of pathogens. Dr. Gill was perplexed. He had never seen anything like this case. The victim had died quickly, obviously ravaged by the disease. The disease resembled nothing he had ever seen before in his twenty-five years of practice.

Instinctively, Dr. Gill knew that if a disease like this were to spread, the results could be catastrophic. He was glad for the gloves and mask that he wore. He needed time to think. He stood back and observed. This victim was likely healthy just a few days ago. Patient Zero was about four feet tall, far from mature, and had once stood straight and tall. Now, this victim was dead. Patient Zero was very important to all humans because Patient Zero was a corn stalk.

#

Three days into her new job, Alisha was busy vacuum brewing the first pot of coffee for the GFT Solutions office when her phone rang. It startled her. Her phone wasn’t supposed to ring. She didn’t have access to incoming calls. As it continued to ring, she approached it with caution. After the fifth ring, she decided to answer it but wasn’t quite sure what to say.

“Um, like, GFT Solutions,” she offered.

“This is Guy Madison, from the Department of Agriculture. Is Harris Harrison available?”

“Hold on, I will check.”

Alisha had no idea where the hold button was on the phone or if it even had one. So, she laid the phone down and tiptoed over to Harrison’s office a few feet away. She could see Harrison still asleep on the couch after a night of mischief.

“Mr. Harrison? There is some government guy on my phone that wants to talk to you.”

Without opening his eyes Harris responded, “That’s nice. Tell him I will be there in a minute.”

Alisha passed the message along and then held the phone until Harris came stumbling out of his office. He stared at the phone.

“How did you get a call? That’s not supposed to happen.”

Alisha shrugged. Then she watched Harris take her chair. With nothing else to do she sat on the desk and listened.

“You have a dead what?” asked Harris.

After a pause, Harris said, “Yes, I can switch us to a secure and encrypted line. Hang on.”

With that, he pushed the hold button, passed his hand back and forth over the receiver as if casting a magic spell and then went back to the call.

“There, the line is now fully encrypted.” He made circling motions around the side of his head indicating he thought the caller was crazy.

“Yes, I am aware of the importance of corn to the world food supply,” he stated, although he neither knew or cared about the wonderful world of corn.

“And how far has it spread?”

Another pause.

“Really, just one stalk.” Now Harris was staring at the ceiling with a classic you-have-to-be-kidding-me look.

“Our rate is $5,000 a day.”

A long pause, and then a look of surprise on his face.

“I will be there tomorrow.”

Harris hung up the phone and looked at Alisha.

“Moron,” he stated.

“What did he want?” she asked.

“He wants me to save the world. I quoted him double our rate and he went for it. Sucker.”

“It sounded like you didn’t want to help him,” she offered.

“I don’t,” said Harris. “But he just offered to pay me to have fun. Who knows, I might even solve his problem in the process.”

Harris walked back towards the coffee pot and poured a large cup.

“Morons,” he observed. “You gotta love ‘em.”

#

Harrison’s call meant money for the company. My meeting with Smith and Jones represented a possible flow of money over many months. So far, so good. We just needed to produce results.

I started with the 100 million dead Americans boast. There cannot be a lot of people making that claim. If there are, not many of those would have advanced degrees from well-known universities. A trip to Grandpa Google got me the name of the man.

Iskandar Robinson. Son of a Mr. Johnathan Robinson and Mrs. Fareeda Robinson of the United Kingdom. He was a natural born English citizen living in Pakistan and she was his local guide and assistance before they married. Their son, Iskandar, was recently the Assistant to the Minister of Agriculture of Pakistan. He had been removed from his position due to association with known terrorist groups. He now calls himself Habib X. “Until we are all freed from the s*****y of the West, I have no last name.”

This guy was a real piece of work. First, he rips off Malcolm X and then he declares eternal war on the United States.

I headed over to the Long War Journal database to see if he was on their radar. He was but there was very little information. The only useful bit was that he had not pledged his allegiance to any specific Jihad leader or group. Most likely, this guy didn’t like to share the glory.

I called out to Wendy in the outer office. “Wendy, can you call Bobbie and have him run a computer hack?”

“What do you need?” she replied.

“College records from the United Kingdom.”

“I’ll call him on each of his cell phones and patch him though.”

Two cell phones and a burn phone later, Wendy reached Bobbie. He was in class at college. He would call back in about forty minutes. An hour later he called, and I gave him Iskandar’s name and told him that I needed to see what classes he attended and which professor was his doctoral advisor.

Bobbie went to work. Results soon followed.

#

Harrison stuck his head into my office just long enough to let me know that he was off to Iowa for a few days. I asked him if he was going to get paid for this adventure. He gave the thumbs up, so he was good to go as far as I was concerned.

He also gave me a copy of the results from analyzing the data pattern of the intercepted phone call.

“This is a list of the keywords and phrases to look for in other communications that should lead back to your man,” he said as he tossed a file folder on my desk. “The envelope inside is my bet for where he is going next. Alisha is holding my dollar.”

And with that, he was out the door.

Harris had thought about flying but decided it was a good day to have the government provide him with entertainment. Therefore, he went to a local car rental agency. Once on the lot, the rental agent walked Harris down to a handful of remaining cars.

“We’ve got a Chevy Cruze, a Jeep Wrangler, and a Mustang GT convertible,” said the young man.

“Be serious,” said Harris. “Mustang.”

Ten minutes later Harris was headed out to Des Moines with the top down and the music of the 1980’s blaring.

#

Back at the office, I had to get further into the head of Mister X. The government judged him to be psychopathic and I had no evidence to indicate any other possibility. The guy was really into himself and not afraid to make promises and pronouncements that would either gather followers or get you killed.

The college information would be key. He was smart, but how smart? Did he excel at everything or just some things? Did he get into any type of trouble? Did he treat women badly or vanish for long periods of time?

Just then the phone rang. It was Bobbie.

“Just started working on Iskandar,” he said. “I haven’t started the college hack yet, but his name rang a bell on one of the databases I have on file.

“Which one?” I asked.

“Scotland Yard.”

There was a pause. “Seriously?” I asked.

“Yep. A town near the university had three women brutally murdered over a six-month period. Iskandar was one of the suspects brought in for questioning.”

“Was he arrested?”

“Nope, just questioned. No one was ever charged due to lack of evidence.”

Another pause to think.

“Thanks, Bobbie. Let me know when you get the criminal records.”

With that, I hung up the phone and spat out an obscenity. Wendy heard it and giggled.

“Good news?” she asked from the other room.

“The best,” I replied sarcastically.

When the Scotland Yard files popped into my email a few minutes later I poured a new cup of coffee and started to read.

Victim number one was an eighteen-year-old woman from a nearby village. She had gone out with friends to a pub near the university. She danced with several men and went outside with two of them during the night. At just before two o’clock in the morning her friends lost track of her. They searched outside when they left and called her cell phone with no answer.

The next day she didn’t turn up, so her parents called the police. Her body was discovered in a field just outside of town. She had been sexually assaulted, stabbed, and had her left eyeball “surgically removed.” The eyeball was not found.

Five weeks later a 23-year-old woman from the University’s library staff went missing after her weekend work shift. Her body was found in her apartment. She had been stabbed to death somewhere else and then taken to her apartment. Again, one eyeball was missing. However, when they did a full examination of the body, they found an eyeball in the woman’s mouth. It wasn’t hers. Instead, it turned out, it belonged to the first victim.

At that point, Scotland Yard came running. The same knife used on both women and the classic “calling card” pattern of a psychopathic serial killer. Eventually, a third victim was found. The eyeball was missing and never found. The second victim’s eyeball was in the third victim's mouth.

Most people look at this type of information with fascination or disgust. It’s a different form of information to me. In college, I performed an extensive research project on the engineering aspects of murder. The exercise taught me a lot about murderers and how psychotic killers are obsessively logical. In this case, instead of grueling details, I see the deliberate attempt to confuse the evidence and I see a message being transmitted by the killer. The key points are the text of the message and the intended recipient.

In this case, the eyeball trick is to attract the attention of the police. The killer is very smart. A normal psychopath would keep the eyeballs as trophies. The message reads, “I am the world’s best killer. Follow my eyes.” Charming.

The intended recipient is the authorities, not just the police. This killer feels he is above authority and much cleverer than anyone else. He moves the bodies, makes sure no fingerprints or weapons are found, and plans each killing carefully to avoid witnesses.

What I always find interesting is how many suspects the police initially identify. In this case, over a dozen men. Iskandar Robinson was one of them. He was very cool and evasive during questioning. He is the type of psychopath that will sit down and plan the killing of multiple people for the express purpose of racking up numbers the world cannot ignore. Iskandar fits the profile. He would have the intelligence, motivation, and drive to commit m*********r.

Now I really needed to know what subjects he concentrated on in college. Inside my head was a growing feeling of dread. Most likely his soul was also damaged, a kindred spirit.

While I waited for the college records, I cracked open Harris’ file and glanced at the list of words and phrases. I knew his mathematics had taken the digital peaks and valleys of the intercepted voice and turned them into a number set. From this, he elevated the set into an actual information field. The field would not have enough data to be complete, but the holes in the field could be extrapolated. The results were represented by the list I held, the most likely phrases he would use that were related to what he was planning.

Then I looked at Harris’ envelope with his guess on Iskandar’s location. My guess about Iskandar’s location was based on the inner workings of a disturbed mind. Which guess should I forward to the government?

After flipping the envelope over and over in one hand for a minute, I finally took the plunge and opened the sealed flap.

We both had guessed the same destination: North Korea.