Angel Killer Read online

  Three days after the process server presented me with the lawsuit, the drug dealer was found facedown in a Dumpster with a piece of wire wrapped around his neck. He’d been strangled to death. There weren’t any leads or an overwhelming desire to put too much effort into solving the case. It was written off as a robbery.

  The jack of spades they found in his pocket didn’t seem important to anyone other than me.

  The jack of spades was the first card I picked when I met Damian at the magic conference and he showed me a trick. It’s his favorite card.

  I think about the murder every time I see him. I can never let myself forget what he’s capable of doing. No matter how charming. No matter the smile. I’m pretty sure he has the capacity to be a cold-blooded killer.

  “I’ve got three minutes, Jessica,” he says.

  The television is playing a news report about an airplane that landed on the beach. It looks like Fort Lauderdale.

  Damian turns up the volume. “Navy officials are trying to confirm if it is indeed one of the original Avenger bombers last seen in 1945 that some claim were lost in the Bermuda Triangle . . . Authorities have sealed the sandbar off and aren’t allowing news crews close enough to take photographs of the body inside . . .”

  I forget about the gun in my hand.

  The World War II plane is sitting on a sandbar with Coast Guard boats on either side. Thick fuselage and stubby wings, like a huge engine with a plane built around it. A tarp is over the long cockpit section. The bomber looks as if it’s been sitting on the bottom of the ocean for a hundred years. Maybe it has.

  Damian points to the television. “I bet you anything the pilot is going to be a dead ringer for one of the missing airmen from 1945. Your bad boy loves duplicates. Doesn’t he?”

  Damian flashes me a smile. He has an almost gleeful look on his face. The Warlock connection doesn’t hit me at first. The screen flashes a close-up look at the bomber, then a graphic of the Bermuda Triangle like you see on those paranormal shows, and some archival photos of the bombers.

  I knew on some level the Warlock was going to try something bigger and even more impressive, but this is just beyond the pale.

  The plane looks exactly like the photograph of one that went missing more than fifty years ago. Now it’s come back with a corpse inside.

  A reporter on the beach says the Pentagon is trying to track down the serial numbers. They haven’t made any comment about the body. But I bet Damian is right.

  “One minute.” Damian stands up.

  I’m still looking at the television.

  “A word of warning, darling. What’s the one thing magicians hate more than anything else in the world?” He steps out onto my balcony and leans over the railing.

  I turn away from the television. “A skeptic.”

  “Clever girl.” He blows me a kiss, then climbs over.

  “Damian!” I call out to him.

  By the time I get to the ledge, he’s gone.

  I live on the nineteenth floor.

  My phone rings at the same time the police knock on my door.

  I try to explain to the cops that it’s a false alarm. They look a little suspicious and want to stay longer and ask me questions. I think it has to do with how I’m dressed. Meanwhile, Ailes is on the phone telling me to get to the airfield in forty minutes. Assistant Director Breyer had a change of heart.

  They need me in Fort Lauderdale as soon as possible.

  15

  I BARELY MAKE IT to the airfield in time. Fortunately, I’m not the last one on the FBI jet. It’s a full plane. All forty seats are taken up by forensic specialists and some naval officials teaching at the FBI academy who requested to come aboard. Our last passenger is an older man, a retired pilot who teaches history at the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis. Although we’ve all been looking up the same Wikipedia page on our laptops and phones, he gives us the overview of the mystery on the trip down.

  The Avengers were torpedo bombers launched after Pearl Harbor and used to turn the tide of naval warfare in World War II. Flight 19 was a routine training mission out of the military airbase in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, now the site of the city’s airport. On December 5, 1945, months after the end of the war, five Avenger bombers with a total crew of fourteen took off in the afternoon under clear skies. At some point they appeared to become disoriented, reporting erratic compass readings. They were under the impression that they were hundreds of miles away from their radio position. Contact was lost and a rescue mission was launched. A Mariner seaplane with a crew of thirteen exploded in midair during the search and all hands were lost.

  The wreckage of Flight 19 was never found. Dozens of Avenger bombers had been ditched in that part of the Atlantic during similar missions and never recovered. The pilot in charge of Flight 19 had bailed out of similar planes twice in the past. What made Flight 19 notorious were the erratic radio and compass readings, the loss of all the crew, the complete lack of wreckage and the loss of the rescue plane, all in clear weather.

  The historian explains that statistically, this kind of event was to be expected, given the number of flights flown out of that base during World War II. In all, ninety-three men lost their lives on similar missions.

  But the numbers haven’t detracted from the mystery. Conspiracy theorists love to hold up Flight 19 as one of the big unsolved unusual events of the twentieth century. The fact that the ocean is vast and it’s hard to find things there doesn’t do much to dispel the idea that something paranormal has taken place.

  Before we land, we receive confirmation that the body of the man dressed in a pilot uniform found in the plane resembles one of the missing airmen physically. By the time we get to the scene, the bomb squad from the Miami field office is going over the plane inch by inch looking for a trap.

  A1A, the highway that runs along the beach, has been blocked off, but that hasn’t stopped several hundred people gathering to see the missing plane. Our van passes at least six news trucks before we get to the police line.

  This is chaos. The sun is barely up and the streets are filled. Although I shouldn’t be surprised in a town that specializes in bars that open before most places stop selling breakfast.

  After the cemetery incident, people are primed for another so-called miracle. When the news broke about the plane, they all came. Nobody has said it aloud yet, but I get the sense people believe these things are connected. This is the age of dark mysteries.

  On the trip down I surfed the Web and found hundreds of articles and discussions making religious connections to Chloe’s graveyard spectacle. Everyone has an opinion. From the secular to the religious. The Warlock started more than one fire. Nothing sparks a discussion of religion like bringing back the dead.

  I follow our team over the barrier that blocks the sand from blowing into the streets of Fort Lauderdale. The crowd, pushed back to the sidewalk, is filled with a mixture of locals and tourists. I notice more than a few holding crucifixes and watching with what looks like worry on their faces. I spot a man carrying a picket sign with “Leviticus 24:16” written on it. I make a note to look it up.

  Clear as can be, several hundred yards offshore, there’s the plane. We all stop to look. Several people pull out their phones to snap photos. I glance behind us at the rows of hotels and restaurants and see onlookers crowding every balcony and roof with access. I spot several long-range lenses, the kind professionals use.

  I can’t deny the spectacle. The scene reminds me of something out of the opening of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, where the missing fleet of planes shows up in the desert. I guess that was the idea—if this is staged by the Warlock. But I already know it is. I get the feeling the crowd is waiting for something else to happen, like an alien stepping out of the Avenger.

  There’s only a handful of law enforcement officers on the sandbar. FBI agents dressed like armored beetles probe the aircraft for a bomb. The bureau’s hazardous devices unit is trained to dismantle everything from letter
bombs to suitcase nukes. This situation is made even more complicated by the shifting ground. To fight the afternoon tide, Broward sheriff’s deputies and the Fort Lauderdale police have improvised a barricade of sandbags around the plane. They’ve also beached several boats on the sandbar to serve as work platforms.

  After we introduce ourselves, an FBI field agent hands Knoll a radio. Knoll tells the head of the bomb squad that our biggest concern is the body. He turns to me and raises an eyebrow, asking if I think that’s correct.

  I can’t remember ever being put on the spot like this with people’s lives at stake. I can see the men we’re talking about. I shake my head. “We shouldn’t take the chance. If the plane is a fake, he’ll want to cover his tracks on that too.” I turn to one of our naval experts who took the flight down with us. “Are there any serial numbers or markings that wouldn’t be known publicly?”

  He folds his cap over in his hands. He’s got that close-cropped hair and boyish look a lot of military men still hold on to, like overgrown Boy Scouts. “There are four standard markers. One in the cockpit. Two in the engines and one on the tail. Parts are switched around a lot, but those would remain constant.”

  I’m sure the Warlock knows this. “Yes, but if all four match, would you say that was the plane? Definitively?”

  He thinks for a moment, then shakes his head. “No. We’d then look for serial numbers on the engines and other parts. Those can be switched out, so they’re not as definitive, but they’d tell us something.” I can tell he’s as nervous as I am. We don’t want to see the men on the sandbar blown apart by our mistaken assumptions.

  One bomb tech is on a ladder looking into the cockpit, while another is examining the engine behind the propeller shaft with a mirror. With that metal casing, the whole plane looks like a bomb to me.

  I don’t know what to say to Knoll. I decide on just being honest. “I’m not sure. If the Warlock thinks he could be exposed, he’s going to destroy the evidence. And if that’s not one of the missing planes, then I think we’re in a bad situation.”

  All of us are thinking about the duplicate Chloe bursting into flames. We’re afraid that this could end even more spectacularly. Besides the fuselage and wings, he could have buried something in the sandbar. The bomb squad is sweeping the area with handheld metal detectors and chemical sensors.

  Knoll leans into me and half whispers. I can tell he’s embarrassed to ask the question. “Could it be the real thing?”

  I’ve been wondering too. Unlike a girl coming back to life, it’s theoretically possible someone found the long-lost plane. But still. “Maybe. Maybe.”

  The naval officer disagrees. “That can’t be one of the planes. Maybe something else pulled off the floor of the ocean, but it’s a million to one it’s from Flight 19.”

  Knoll takes the cautionary approach and radios over to the head of the bomb squad. “I think we should pull back for now. There’s a chance the whole thing could be set to explode in our faces.” He pauses, then adds, “Again.”

  16

  THERE ARE MORE than a thousand people observing us from the highway along the beach. The wide sidewalks are packed with locals and tourists. Everyone is here to witness the miracle they saw on television, waiting to find out if it’s a hoax. Crowds have filled the area between the water and the streets on both sides of the barrier. News helicopters are flying around in a circle, covering the scene from all angles.

  It’s a sunny day. That water is sparkling and a nice breeze fights back the heat of the sun. If you ignore the airplane on the sandbar, news crews and law enforcement, it could be the crowd that shows up for a Fourth of July display or air show. A great day to pull off something like this. I look at the faces observing us. The Warlock has to be among them somewhere. He’s enjoying every minute of the show. He watched us pull back the bomb squad and congratulated himself on making us overthink everything.

  Him. I keep thinking of the Warlock in the singular. I look back at the plane sitting on the sandbar. Could one man pull that off?

  “Lieutenant, how much does one of those planes weigh?”

  The naval officer answers without hesitation. “Unloaded, ten thousand pounds.”

  “Could one man get that out there by himself?” Local police had been checking for witnesses, but so far none have shown up.

  “I don’t know. I’ve been wondering that myself.”

  I rephrase the question from the abstract. It’s always been a good trick to get people to think of the possible. “If you had to do it, how would you?”

  The lieutenant crosses his arms and squints at the plane. “I’d use flotation rings. Basically make a raft around it. You could use salvage balloons to do that. That’s how they move concrete blocks around under water for construction. They take forever to inflate.”

  “But he doesn’t have to inflate them while people are watching. He just has to tow the plane from wherever and park it over the sandbar at high tide and let it drop.” I pull out my phone to look up tides on the Internet.

  “Three-fifty a.m.,” he replies from memory. “That’s high tide.”

  Knoll has been listening while he waits for the head of the bomb squad to report back with an alternate plan. “We’ll start looking in on that. Meanwhile, they’re going to try to rig a robot against salt water and get it out there to do the inspection. Anyplace we should look first?”

  The lieutenant thinks this over carefully. “We already got the first four serials. Can it take a look inside the engine compartment? The serial number there is actually etched into the engine block.”

  “I think so. We can cut it open. The robot has a diamond saw.” Knoll radios instructions to the head of the bomb squad.

  I feel a wave of relief that we’re going to continue the inspection with everyone at a safe distance. Although I get the feeling the Warlock isn’t going to repeat the first stunt.

  All of this inspecting and prodding reminds me of the setup for one of my grandfather’s illusions. For the premiere show, the police chief of whatever town we were in would be invited onstage to inspect the locks and the packing case. Local warehouse workers would manhandle the chains. Grandfather would make a big show of proving everything was real. The subtext was showing how much smarter he was than all the idiots onstage.

  That was part of why Houdini was so popular. He cheated death and defied authority. Now the Warlock is teasing the ultimate law enforcement authority in the world. We’re all amped about the plane exploding because there’s just no way it could be the real missing Avenger and pilot. But maybe that’s his trick . . .

  A half hour later, the bomb squad is bringing the plastic-wrapped robot over to the plane on a boat. A technician in a truck on shore will control it while the supervisors watch the robot’s camera feed in handheld monitors. Knoll holds up his screen so we can see.

  Bomb robot work is a slow process. Because of the dangerous nature, the tech doesn’t want to make any mistakes, like overcompensating on the controls. It’s like trying to fix your car with baseball gloves on both hands.

  An armored tech places the robot on the inside of the sandbag barrier. Thick treads push it across the sand to the plane. The robot comes to a stop near the front and starts to extend an arm on a telescoping base. At full extension, it comes halfway to the engine compartment.

  To help the robot operator, a mechanic familiar with the make of the plane is on the radio explaining where to cut. He sounds so specific that first I think he’s reading from a manual. Then I overhear he’s actually on the phone from an air museum outside Orlando, describing the plane they have on display as he takes it apart.

  On Knoll’s screen, the diamond-tipped blade starts spinning. The tech moves the edge a few centimeters and it begins cutting into the casing over the engine. The rusted metal sprays out a cloud of brown dust as the saw carves a hole the size of a book. The grinding sound carries across the water. Once the smoke clears, the robot uses an arm to pull the piece away and sticks a
camera into the engine compartment.

  The technician takes several minutes to get the camera over the location of the engine serial number. When the numbers finally come into view, he calls them out over the radio.

  A new voice, someone who sounds like he’s indoors somewhere, calls the numbers back out for confirmation. He’s probably in a dark basement library under the Pentagon poring through a repair log that hasn’t seen light in half a century.

  I look at the two dozen other officials watching the monitor Knoll is holding up for us. I know what they’re thinking. It’s what the Warlock desires. He wants us to hope the numbers match.

  Forgetting the dead man in the pilot’s seat, probably another innocent victim, we all want this to be true. We want this to be one of the missing planes . . .

  We want the mystery to be bigger than us. We want novelty of the unexpected.

  We want to be entertained.

  There’s a disconnect around me between the horrible acts and the spectacle.

  That sickens me. I can understand the power fantasies men sometimes have about serial killers. It’s something else when we’re waiting for confirmation that would give proof to this asshole’s illusion.

  We have this strange desire for symmetry. Humans are pattern seekers. We’re designed by nature to get a little buzz every time something connects in a novel way. It’s why we play Sudoku, enjoy simple video games, and watch TV shows with different characters but the same plots.

  We love patterns.

  Even dark patterns.

  The tech continues calling numbers.

  We wait for the man in the basement to respond. No one is breathing, for fear of missing the moment.

  I look at everyone around me. I know it’s not real. Somehow we’re all about to be deceived, or it’s going to fall apart. Regardless of what the man in the Pentagon basement says, it’s a trick.

  But I know it won’t fall apart here.

  Damn him.