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About the Book
Previously published as Crime Zero
When the ultimate solution becomes the ultimate crime …
Violent crime has become a global epidemic, nowhere more so than in the United States. Everything from the death penalty to liberal reforms has failed. Nothing has been effective … until now.
Project Conscience promises to be the solution. It is a bold attempt by a powerful group of scientists, politicians and senior law-enforcement personnel to use gene therapy to treat criminals and cure violent crime. But among their number are those with a more sinister agenda, who would go further and turn the dream of Project Conscience into the nightmare of Crime Zero.
It is up to Luke Decker, a criminal psychologist disillusioned with the growing dependence on genetic science and Dr Kathy Kerr, his one-time lover and ideological adversary, to fight this deadly new scheme, a scheme so ruthless in intent and so vast in scope that it will irrevocably change the evolution of mankind itself…
Praise for The Messiah Code:
‘Jurassic Park meets the quest for the Holy Grail meets Raiders of the Lost Ark’
Mail on Sunday
‘A taut, gripping thriller’
The Times
My greatest debt is to my wife, Jenny, who has always been my true partner in crime. From the start she helped research the plot and characters, developing the good ideas and editing out the bad. Even at the end, when disaster struck and I thought I’d lost the entire completed typescript, she alone kept calm and recovered the computer file.
The other major thank-you is to my editor at Transworld, Bill Scott-Kerr, who invested an unusual amount of time, effort and patience to vastly improve the story.
To research The Crime Code the following sources were invaluable: A Mind to Crime by Anne Moir and David Jessel, On Aggression by Konrad Lorenz, Virus X by Dr Frank Ryan, and In the Blood by Steve Jones. For providing first-hand scientific advice I am grateful to Susan Robinson and Sejal Patel, both of whom used their respective Ph.D.s to weed out and modify my more fanciful inventions. I thank Betty Cordy for reading numerous versions of the book and for providing me with consistent feedback and encouragement. I also thank Bill Reinka, Simon Hoggart and Richard Cordy for their contributions.
Last, but certainly not least, I thank my excellent agent, Patrick Walsh.
‘Certainly there is one gene which is shared by most criminals – and its complete DNA sequence is known. It is the single small gene, carried on the Y chromosome, which makes its carriers male. Most criminals are men: the criminality gene has been found! Needless to say, no one suggests that geneticists should do anything about it.’
STEVE JONES, PROFESSOR OF GENETICS, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON
His head aches and he wants to go home, but he still waits in the cemetery under cover of the short fir tree. The damp bark smells as strong as any perfume. It is 1.57 a.m. The two San Francisco Police Department officers left an hour ago. After three days of staking out the area they and their replacements have been recalled to follow up other leads. The police say they will return in the morning but he knows they have lost the faith. Fourteen-year-old Tammy Lewis is missing and they are concerned that she will end up like the other three. Special Agent Luke Decker should leave too; he has only adviser status here and other cases are piling up on his desk at Quantico.
But Decker can’t go yet. He knows deep in his gut that the killer will return here at night and bring the girl with him – perhaps even alive.
The night air is cool on his face and above him, through the branches of the fir, a crescent moon gazes down. Seventeen miles from San Francisco and nine miles from Oakland, the Gates of Heaven Catholic cemetery is still. Nothing moves and even nearby Interstate 80 is silent.
He retrieves a pair of night-vision glasses from his coat and rereads the inscription on the headstone twenty yards away:
SALLY ANNE JENNINGS
TAKEN 3 AUGUST 2008
AGED 15 YEARS
You were taken from us too soon.
But we shall meet again
in a better place.
Decker grinds his jaw, remembering the crime-scene photos of Sally Anne’s violated body. The killer’s most recent victim must also be his last.
Car tyres on gravel break the silence. He turns to his right and sees a Domino’s pizza van pull into the cemetery’s deserted car lot. Sweat breaks out on his forehead. Decker knows the psychological profile of the killer because he wrote it. And the pizza van fits. His heart is beating fast now, but he feels no triumph about being right again. No excitement at the chase. Just weary sorrow and a vague disquiet that he should know the mind of a killer so well.
A sudden scream from the van rips through the night. It is short and quickly muffled, but Decker crumples inside, feeling her pain and terror himself. He reaches for his cell phone and calls the incident number.
He whispers urgently that the unsub is here. He needs back-up.
A sleepy detective snaps awake. ‘Two squad cars will be there in ten minutes – max,’ he promises.
The van’s rear doors open and a muscular young man with red hair wearing a black T-shirt drags something white out of the back and drops it on the gravel. Decker realizes that ten minutes will not be soon enough. The silent white bundle is moving, and even before he puts the night-vision glasses to his eyes Decker knows it’s a naked girl. Tammy Lewis is gagged and bound, her eyes round with terror. The young man is strong; he lifts her easily over his shoulder and carries her towards the cemetery.
Decker reaches for his gun and releases the safety. He has won the FBI shooting competition at Quantico with the SIG semi-automatic every year for the last five years, but he dislikes using the gun for real. It means he’s failed. But he has no choice now. If he does nothing the man will carry Tammy Lewis to Sally Anne’s grave, where he will lay her down, torture and rape her. Then, when he is satisfied, he will kill her and defile her body. Decker knows this with a gut-wrenching certainty as absolute as if he’s already witnessed the crime.
He waits for the man to lay Tammy down on the grave and start to untie her ankles before coming up behind him. Decker is ten feet away when he sees a knife flash in the man’s hand.
‘FBI!’ he shouts. His voice sounds alien in the stillness of the night. ‘Drop the knife, put your hands up and back away from her.’
Crouching over his victim the red-haired man looks over his shoulder, his long face surprised and uncertain. He hesitates.
‘Now!’ orders Decker. But the man doesn’t drop the knife. He turns and raises it high into the air. The curved blade mirrors the white sickle of the moon as a bellow of rage cuts through the darkness. Then, in one furious movement, he brings it scything down towards the girl with the force of a guillotine …
‘The defence calls Dr Kathryn Kerr.’
It was her name that jolted Luke Decker from the events in the graveyard nine weeks before and back to the warm stuffy chamber of the San Francisco appeal court. Above the judge’s bench the clock showed 10.07 and the calendar below it the date: Wednesday, 29 October 2008. The hushed oak-panelled courtroom carried every sound, but when the woman’s name was called Decker couldn’t believe he’d heard it right.
What the hell was Kathy Kerr doing here?
Reorienting himself, Decker blinked his green eyes and ran a hand though his cropped blond hair. Shifting in his chair he looked around the panelled court. The judge, a bald man with a permanent pained frown, sat at the front of the chamber with both the prosecution and defence teams facing him on either side. Decker sat with the prosecution behind the District Attorney. This wasn’t a full trial and there were few people in the public gallery behind him, except some junior press. No relatives of the dead girls had come, but Decker gained some satisfaction from noting that Tammy Lewis’s family wouldn’t have been among them. At least she had been saved.
Turning to his right, the first person he noticed was Wayne Tice, sitting beside his defence attorney. The killer’s right arm was still in a sling from where Decker had shot him in the shoulder. Tice caught his eye and flashed his crooked teeth in a cold, unrepentant smile. Luke ignored him. The man had been found guilty and condemned to death almost a month ago. This hearing was an attempt by his defence team to gain Tice leniency and a chance for rehabilitation. As the FBI forensic psychologist responsible for catching Tice, Special Agent Decker had been asked by the DA to comment on his psychological state and ensure that the man wasn’t allowed back on the streets.
Now it appeared that Kathy Kerr, the woman he had last seen almost ten years ago, was here to help Tice.
He watched the woman take her seat and be sworn in. Decker couldn’t help staring at her, although she seemed oblivious to his presence. She was slimmer and her glasses were gone, no doubt replaced by contacts, and her navy suit was smarter than the jeans and T-shirt she’d favoured in their Harvard days.
‘Please state your name, occupation and qualifications,’ requested Tice’s attorney, Ricardo Latona.
The witness unconsciously raised a hand and attempted to run it through her dark hair before remembering it was tied back in a French plait. A flash of memory intruded on Decker’s thoughts. No doubt she had tried to restrain her cascade of unruly curls in order to look authoritative. Decker guessed that many people still underestimated the formidable intellect behind the packaging of open smile, Celtic fair skin, freckles and pale-blue eyes.
‘My name is Dr Kathryn Kerr and I am a research fellow in behavioural genetics at Stanford University. I have a degree in microbiology from Cambridge University in England and a Ph.D. in behavioural genetics from Harvard.’
Her voice had lost none of its soft Edinburgh burr. In many ways Kathy Kerr had hardly changed and Decker wondered whether she would think the same of his appearance. The woman he had known all those years ago still seemed at once vulnerable and wild – both of which were only half true. He couldn’t help wondering whether she used her maiden name professionally or because she was still unmarried.
‘Dr Kerr, could you briefly outline the nature of your work, please?’ requested the attorney.
‘I specialize in the genetic science of criminal and anti-social behaviour. Apart from teaching at the university, most of my research work at Stanford is funded by the biotech company ViroVector Solutions and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.’
Decker raised an eyebrow. He didn’t know she’d returned from England, let alone that she was working with his people at the Bureau. He wondered how long she’d been at Stanford.
‘I realize that many aspects of your work with the FBI will be confidential,’ said Latona, ‘but isn’t it true that one aspect of your research involves identifying the genetic risk factors for criminal behaviour?’
‘Yes.’
Her eyes met Luke’s for the first time. He tried to read her gaze but for once his famed powers of perception failed him. Although he had no idea that she was part of the Bureau project to explore the genetic roots of crime, he had heard of it. Everyone had. After all, nature not nurture was the new religion at the FBI. Criminals were born not made, so the senior hierarchy believed, particularly Madeline Naylor, the first female director in the Bureau’s long and illustrious history.
Decker had always disagreed with this philosophy. In his experience criminals – and their victims – were shaped by their backgrounds. At thirty-five, Decker was one of the youngest-ever heads of the behavioural sciences division at the FBI’s training academy in Quantico, Virginia. His unit was once the glamour division of the Bureau; Hollywood films had been based on its exploits. It specialized in helping police forces target suspects for serial killings, bombings or other apparently motiveless crimes by developing psychological profiles of possible offenders based on the methodology of the crime.
Under the new regime, however, the behavioural sciences division had become ghettoized. Physiology not psychology was where all the money went now. The criminal brain was far more interesting than the criminal mind. PET brain scans, adrenalin levels, skin conductivity, theta activity and serotonin neurotransmitters were seen as the future of crime control – crowned, of course, by the promises of genetic science.
The new ideology had prompted Decker to tender his resignation last month and accept the offer of a professorship at Berkeley to teach criminal psychology. He had done his time on the front line – ten years in the minds of the sickest killers had taken its toll – he could achieve more now by training and inspiring a new generation of mindhunters. His mother’s sudden death eighteen months before had also made him realize that he hadn’t seen enough of her or his grandfather in the last ten years. He had been living out of a tiny apartment in Washington DC, travelling the country and failing to put down roots. It was time for him to settle back here on the West Coast, where his grandfather still lived, and sort out his life rather than trying to save everybody else’s.
McCloud, the deputy director of the FBI, had refused his resignation, asking him to reconsider. But with every day that Decker stayed, the more he knew he had to go. He had already picked his successor. So after finishing off this case, and interviewing Karl Axelman in San Quentin this afternoon, he would return to Quantico and tell McCloud his decision was final.
‘Thank you for agreeing to come here today, Dr Kerr,’ said the defence lawyer with a smile. Ricardo Latona was a squat man with thinning dark hair. He turned to the judge. ‘The reason we requested this hearing and the reason we asked Dr Kerr to give evidence today is that we believe a new approach to crime is long overdue.
‘It is now apparent from all the research that biology is a central factor in crime, interacting with social, cultural and economic influences. This knowledge raises key questions. If someone is biologically predisposed to crime, should he be punished or helped? If he is sick, do we dare to treat him? Or do we feel that treatment somehow excuses “criminality” and robs us of the need to punish? Is society civilized enough to equate justice with the merciful treatment of a disease, or must it always be linked to punishment?’
Decker watched Latona pause and turn to Tice, a man who had abducted and murdered three girls, and would have murdered a fourth if Decker hadn’t prevented him. ‘Wayne Tice has done wrong,’ said Latona in his soothing, reasonable voice. ‘No-one denies that, and he has been convicted of terrible crimes. But we intend to show that they were the result of genetically inherited biochemical factors beyond his control, for which a just, humane society would seek medical treatment, not the death penalty.’
Decker groaned. He was no advocate of the death penalty, so long as dangerous people were kept off the street. But the idea that genes determined violent behaviour was abhorrent to him and totally at odds with his work over the past fifteen years. Criminals already had enough excuses to avoid taking responsibility for their actions, without blaming their choice of parents too.
‘Dr Kerr, would you please outline the key scientific evidence which demonstrates that biology is a central factor in violent behaviour and crime.’
Kathy Kerr cleared her throat and paused for a moment. ‘Let me start with a few facts. First, biology is only one of several interrelated factors – including cultural, social and economic influences – that lie at the root of violent crime. But the more we have learnt over recent years the more important we now understand it to be. Second, the biggest biological factor is gender. The world over, it is men who commit over ninety per cent of all violent crimes.’
Decker thought back to their Harvard days, nine years ago. His criminal psychology Ph.D. on using patterns of behaviour to diagnose an offender’s state of mind and determine his likelihood of re-offending, rather than relying solely on the patient’s own opinion, had been much praised. But Kathy Kerr’s Ph.D. paper on behavioural genetics entitled ‘Why men commit ninety per cent of all violent crime’ had been so groundbreaking that it had been published in Nature, one of the world’s two most prestigious science journals. He hadn’t agreed with it, but he’d had to concede it was brilliant.
Kathy continued, warming to her subject. ‘The male brain is different from the female brain, and understanding these differences is pivotal to understanding the small subset of criminally violent males. A chemical mixture of neurotransmitters and hormones drives the brain. Let me deal with neurotransmitters first. These are the chemical messengers controlling the flow of electrical messages in the network of nerve cells that allow the complex neural networks of the brain to communicate with each other. They influence and facilitate the thoughts of our mind and the actions of our bodies.
‘Now, there are four key neurotransmitters. Three of them – dopamine, adrenalin and epinephrine – are very similar. They fuel the brain, stimulating many of our emotional and physical impulses such as the “fight or flight” reflex. The fourth is serotonin; this is the vital brake that inhibits and modifies our waking behaviour. Its specific function is to link the impulsive limbic part of the brain with the more civilized cortex. Put simply, without serotonin we would have no conscience or inhibitions.
‘While neurotransmitters are responsible for the instigation of specific actions, hormones influence the broad pattern of behaviour, although the interaction between them is complex. Again put simply, the higher the level of androgens, particularly testosterone, the higher a man’s aggression and the lower his empathy with the pain or feelings of others.’
Nodding, Latona stepped in. ‘So overall the male brain is more specifically wired and fuelled for aggression, impulsiveness and crime than the female brain. But this doesn’t mean that all men are violent criminals …’
‘Of course not,’ said Kathy with a wry smile. ‘Violent criminals are the small minority of men well outside the norm for whom these natural differences have become amplified, exaggerated. There exists a range of physiological tests on which they can be reliably assessed versus the norm. For example, we can measure levels of MAO in the blood, an enzyme which acts as a marker for the neurotransmitter serotonin. And we can monitor levels of brain activity with PET scans and electroencephalograms—’
‘OK,’ interrupted Latona, ‘so violent criminals are physiologically different. But how exactly does genetics fit into this picture?’
‘The recent invention of the Genescope has enabled scientists to read an organism’s entire sequence of genetic instructions. By conducting aggression studies on primates, my team and I have identified seventeen key genes that code for the production of critical hormones and neurotransmitters in male primates – including humans.
‘These interdependent genes effectively determine man’s aggressive behaviour. And depending on how each gene’s promoter – or volume control – is set, we can tell how loudly that gene will express its instructions. For example, we can predict dangerously low levels of serotonin or high levels of testosterone by studying the calibration of these genes. What we discovered was that although everyone’s gene settings change in reaction to particular stimuli, almost every individual has different base settings. If you see these seventeen key genes as cards, then every man is dealt a slightly different hand.’
‘Is it true that although this work was done originally on apes it is now relevant to humans?’ Latona asked.
‘Yes, much of my recent work confirms these findings in men.’
‘So a man’s genes determine if he’s going to become a criminal or not?’
‘To an extent. But I stress what I said earlier: environmental, social and cultural factors also have an influence. However, the crucial point is that humans are different from animals because they possess consciousness. This means that they are aware of the consequences of their actions. So regardless of any genetic predisposition, free will still plays a significant part in the choices humans make. But certainly some men, regardless of other influences, will find it more difficult than others to behave as society expects them to. The genes they inherited from their parents give them little choice.’
Decker smiled. She sounded convincing. But then she’d always been a good teacher, with a flair for simplifying the most complex problem. As far as she was concerned the world was one big puzzle that, if she thought about it hard enough and long enough, could be broken down into its component parts to find the one overarching rule that explained everything. To her the whole was never greater than the sum of its parts. And that had been their problem. To him the whole was everything. He could never understand how humanity could be reduced to a line of programming. In the short time Kathy Kerr and Decker had been lovers during that last summer at Harvard they had spent most of their time in heated argument. The only area where they hadn’t been incompatible was in bed. He thought of the five or six half-serious relationships he’d had in the last nine years and quickly realized that, despite or perhaps because of the friction, none shone as vividly in his memory as those few summer months with her.
‘You’re aware of Wayne Tice’s family history, aren’t you, Dr Kerr?’ asked the lawyer, pulling out a large board and placing it on an easel by the judge. The network of names and lines on the board formed a simple family tree.
‘Yes. That’s why I agreed to be involved in this case.’
As the lawyer turned to the chart, Luke knew what was coming. He too had studied Tice’s family and shook his head as Latona explained that the spidery lines leading to boldly typed names revealed how four generations of Tice men had, with two individual exceptions, been drawn to crime. All were famed for their tempers and aggressive drive. ‘Think twice before you marry a Tice’ was a watchword in their hometown.
The chart infuriated Decker. What did Tice have to complain about? He still had both parents and he had a brother. Apart from his mother being domineering and his successful brother making him feel inadequate, Tice had had it better than most. Decker would have given anything to have a whole family and to have known his father.
Fluent in Russian, Captain Richard Decker had been an interrogator with the US Navy at the height of the Cold War. As a child Decker had often fantasized about his father using his psychological skills to prise a piece of information vital to the safety of the free world from some recalcitrant Red admiral. Decker’s mother used to reassure him that his own uncanny and unsettling ability to see into the minds of others must have been inherited from his brilliant father. But of course the Russians hadn’t killed Captain Richard Decker; some street punk in San Francisco had. That was one of the reasons Decker had joined the Bureau – to fight the war on the streets.
Turning back to Kathy, the lawyer asked, ‘Dr Kerr, you have applied your battery of tests to my client – and his immediate living family.’
‘That’s correct. I conducted a gene scan on Wayne Tice and a series of ancillary tests, checking serotonin, testosterone and adrenalin levels. I also gave him a PET scan to probe brain activity on his frontal lobe. Tice’s readings put him in the top five per cent in terms of propensity to violence. His male relations also have dangerous readings, although not nearly as high.’
‘So would it be fair to say that he and most of the menfolk in his family, through no fault of their own, carry a gene calibration that makes them predisposed to aggressive behaviour and crime?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘But, broadly speaking,’ interrupted the lawyer, keen not to let nuances of interpretation cloud his crucial point, ‘isn’t it the case that Wayne Tice dances to the beat of a more violent drum?’
‘Yes,’ said Kathy cautiously.
Latona smiled and turned to the judge. ‘So, your Honour, Wayne Tice was born with a particular set of genes, calibrated in such a way that he had to commit murder.’
‘That’s not what I said,’ protested Kathy. ‘I am talking about predisposition. No more, no less. Ultimately a person decides—’
‘Excuse me, your Honour,’ the lawyer deftly corrected himself, before the frowning judge could intervene. ‘He was predisposed to commit violent crime. But the point is this: how can Wayne Tice be punished for his actions? He should be counselled, not executed. He was only doing what he was born to do.’
Latona paused and turned back to Kathy Kerr.
‘How can we put a young man to death for simply doing what came naturally?’
After giving evidence to Latona and then the District Attorney, Kathy Kerr retook her seat. Glad her session was over, she began to relax. Unless she was teaching she always felt uncomfortable speaking in public, especially in court, where any words could be twisted to suit a purpose. After Latona had finished with her the DA had given her a tough time, but she’d expected that. Latona had angered her, though, trying to use her evidence to shift all responsibility for the horrific murders from Tice. She had only agreed to testify because Tice was a classic case; and he would make an excellent research subject, assuming that ViroVector received the expected FDA approval to begin Project Conscience Phase Two efficacy trials. Kathy didn’t support the notion that Tice’s genes allowed him to shirk all responsibility for his actions.
There was one other reason she had felt uncomfortable giving her testimony. She had known that Luke Decker was going to be here.
Watching the tall FBI agent take her place on the witness stand she was surprised at how much he’d changed. His appearance was similar: the lean physique a little broader perhaps, the blond hair shorter and the face more defined, but those penetrating green eyes had lost none of their sensitive intelligence. It was his bearing that was different. He had more presence somehow; his gait was more confident, as if the hunted younger man she had once known had now become the hunter.
Like most of America she’d seen the press coverage of Decker carrying Tammy Lewis from the graveyard near Oakland, his face a mask of rage. She’d recognized that look from years ago when his night terrors used to wake her at three in the morning.
Back then, of course, they had been lovers. She’d known Luke Decker was different from that first time she’d walked into him in the Harvard library, knocking his pile of books all over the floor. Each book had been about the darker side of humanity, from biographies of Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy to textbooks on the criminal mind. But as she’d apologized he’d just laughed and piled his books up under his chin, making a joke about how heavy a bit of night-time reading could be.
Even then she had discouraged men’s advances, refusing to be distracted from her work, but she could still taste the disappointment when those soft green eyes had examined her, smiled again and moved on. Decker had made no attempt to exploit the occasion, so she’d had to stammer something about helping him carry his books – the least she could do after knocking them over.
‘If you like.’ He’d shrugged with a casualness that had both frustrated and delighted her.
They couldn’t agree on anything they discussed, but within two weeks they made love, and for those precious, magical moments they were in total accord. After that they had become inseparable, but he’d always seemed to retain some small part of himself. Kathy felt she only caught a true glimpse of his soul during those terrifying nights when he would sit bolt upright in bed, drenched in sweat, his eyes wide open. He would start speaking to some invisible presence directly in front of him, his voice angry: ‘You wanted control, didn’t you? That was why you did it. You didn’t actually want them dead. You only wanted slaves who would do whatever you wanted without ruining the fantasy. That’s right,’ he’d conclude, having solved some puzzle troubling his subconscious. Then he would lie down again. At first she’d tried to soothe him, until she realized that he’d remained asleep throughout. In the mornings he would remember nothing, except resolving something that had been worrying him. It took her weeks to realize that he had an ability to understand man’s baser desires which went beyond normal experience. And that this ability haunted him.
His mother told him his intuition came from his father, but Kathy knew Decker felt it was more than just intuition. He was scared that somehow he was tainted.
While still at Harvard he would follow national cases and write in with advice to the relevant police authorities or even the FBI. She’d always felt he was driven by some inner force, trying to exorcize something deep within himself – something she couldn’t reach, let alone soothe.
She could handle the arguments and the fact that they couldn’t agree on anything, especially their views on the roots of crime. It was his reserve she found the hardest to take. He could never relax and just be. He always seemed to be on the defensive, always on guard against himself. And as independent as she was, she needed at least one thing from their relationship: to be needed.
But now, as Luke answered the District Attorney’s questions, she found herself asking what might have been, if the timing had been different.
When she’d returned to the States from Cambridge she often heard of him through her dealings with the FBI. But on the few occasions when she made a half-hearted attempt to contact him he had always been unavailable. In fact, he seemed to be forever in transit around the country, helping solve crimes or teaching local police forces profiling techniques. Despite the new regime’s reliance on hard science and biology, time and time again Special Agent Luke Decker had proved himself indispensable in solving the more intractable cases. She’d heard that his colleagues, no mean mindhunters themselves, called him ‘Luke the Spook’, a tribute to his ability. She only hoped that by hunting down the demons in others, Luke had found some respite from those warring inside himself.
‘I don’t know whether Tice should be executed or not,’ she suddenly heard Decker say. His voice wasn’t raised, but from his tone she could tell he was angry. ‘That isn’t my province. My only concern is that he isn’t allowed out on the streets again – ever.’ For all his faults and distrust of the genetic revolution, Decker had one quality that she admired above all others: an almost naïve integrity.
But when Latona took his turn to question him, the defence lawyer soon realized that Decker was no patsy.
‘Surely after hearing Dr Kerr’s evidence you must concede that Tice needs help? That he’s genetically programmed to do what he did?’
Decker smiled, a wide disarming smile that seemed to say, Surely you don’t expect any reasonable human being to believe that. Then he turned to Kathy. ‘Dr Kerr and I disagree on the relative importance of genetic predetermination. Genes may well be a factor, but they are only that: one in a series of factors. And they certainly aren’t an excuse. But yes, I believe your client does need help. However, I’m also convinced he will always remain dangerous whatever treatment he may or may not receive. Let me tell you something about how he came to be the way he is.’ At that moment Decker turned to Tice. Decker was still smiling, and his smile was genuinely compassionate. For the first time in the glare of the court’s attention Tice looked self-conscious, his cocky, defiant grin frozen on his face.
‘Wayne Tice is now twenty-one, and until his arrest he lived at home with his parents. His elder brother, Jerry, is a successful manager for a major insurance company. Jerry attended UCLA and had a string of girlfriends. He has recently married and has a beautiful wife. Both parents doted on Jerry, whereas they told Wayne not to expect too much from life. His mother continually reminded him that he wasn’t as smart or as good-looking as his brother.’
Still looking at Tice, Decker began to address him directly, sounding as if he was Tice’s best friend and confidant. There was no judgement or censure in his voice. ‘Your first overtures with girls weren’t happy, were they, Wayne? They couldn’t look beyond your crooked teeth, freckles and ginger hair, could they?’
Latona interrupted, his voice betraying a sudden slip in his slick composure. ‘Excuse me, Special Agent Decker, but I don’t believe that manipulative questioning of the defendant—’
Decker’s eyes remained locked with Tice’s, oblivious to Latona, to everything except his connection with the killer. He continued to talk, ‘And you felt shy. You wanted them to like you, but they were unkind. They laughed at you, didn’t they?’
Tice looked uncertain now.
‘Your Honour, this line of leading interrogation is outrageous,’ said Latona.
The judge paused, looking from Tice to Decker as he considered. ‘This isn’t a trial, Counsel. This is a hearing, and I want to hear where this goes.’
Decker continued. ‘So every day you went to the gym to get stronger and stronger. How much can you press now? One-fifty, one-sixty?’
‘Two hundred,’ said Tice without thinking.
Decker raised an eyebrow in surprise. ‘That’s more than me and I’m about three inches taller than you. That’s pretty impressive.’
Tice smiled.
‘You do martial arts too, don’t you, Wayne? Karate, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah.’
‘What belt?’
‘Black.’
Again Decker looked impressed and this time he smiled the smile of a proud elder brother. ‘Only ever got to brown myself.’
Kathy saw Latona start to object, but the judge waved him down, watching the exchange. ‘Must have really made you mad to have achieved all that and still be regarded as a loser by your mother,’ said Decker. ‘I would have been pissed.’
Tice said nothing; he just stared at Decker as if he was the first guy in the whole goddamn world to understand his shitty life.
‘But you loved your mother and couldn’t hit out at her. So you thought you’d teach one of the girls a lesson – one of the pretty girls who’d laughed at you. One day a young girl about the same age as the ones who used to diss you at high school came into the pizza parlour, and although she was real nice, you knew she was mocking you. She didn’t even realize that you’d grown up, that you’d improved. You could now press two hundred and had a black belt at karate. But she was still giving you the brush-off, like you were some geek at school.’
Tice looked white, his eyes wide.
‘Am I right?’
Tice didn’t actually nod but Kathy could tell he wanted to.
‘Killing her and the second girl felt good, didn’t it? You got what you wanted: the control. You taught them that you weren’t some loser. You taught them respect and then you killed them. But the third girl was different, Wayne, you covered her head when you killed her. You felt bad about Sally Anne Jennings, didn’t you? She liked you. Came to visit you at the pizza parlour and talked to you – really talked to you, like you were a regular guy. Am I right?’
Kathy saw Tice’s Adam’s apple bob in his throat, then he gave a definite nod.
‘But you killed her anyway. Mistaking her kindness for something else, you made a pass at her, and when she got scared you killed her. You felt bad about it, so you covered her face, tried to depersonalize her. But you still felt bad about it afterwards, couldn’t get her out of your head. You thought she was judging you. So when the next girl came along – Tammy Lewis – you decided to take her to Sally Anne’s grave. You wanted to show Sally Anne that she didn’t have any hold over you.’ Decker shook his head. It was a gesture of sadness. ‘But I was waiting for you. If it’s any consolation, Wayne, it wouldn’t have worked. You’d still have felt bad about killing Sally Anne, however many girls you raped and killed on her gravestone. In fact it would have got worse.’
Tice sat slumped in his chair, shaking his head. He looked as stunned as the rest of the silent courtroom.
Then Decker turned quickly to the judge and gestured at the chart of Tice’s family tree. ‘This isn’t about genetics. In fact, Tice’s own brother is in many ways a model citizen. This is about a man who’s programming came from the screwed-up signals of sex, violence, inadequacy and love he received from his family and his peer group. Tice, like all of us, is a creation of his past. But ultimately he chose to do what he did and the responsibility rests with him. Tice is a very dangerous man. He has acquired a taste for controlling women that he can’t win through normal mating rituals. And the risk that he will revert to this behaviour in the future is very high. It’s not in his genes, it’s there in his head.’
Kathy could tell from the look on the judge’s face that any chance of Tice’s original sentence being changed had gone. And not long after Decker retook his seat, the judge’s stern voice confirmed her fear, announcing that Tice’s appeal had failed and that he was to return to death row pending execution. Kathy shook her head. She didn’t agree with the death penalty any more than any other kind of killing. All her adult life had been focused on one aim: developing a way to modify the genes that predetermined senseless violence, to make it a thing of the past, an eradicated plague like smallpox. And Tice would have been a good subject for her trials if the Food and Drug Administration approval on Project Conscience came through as expected. Dr Alice Prince, her sponsor at ViroVector, was confident.
Turning, she watched Luke rise, shake hands with the DA and then walk towards her. She stood, uncertain what to do. Suddenly nervous, she remembered how they had last parted. Him seeing her off at Logan airport, both of them making vague promises to stay in touch, both recognizing the end. A kiss goodbye and then not a word exchanged between them for nine years.
‘Kathy, what a surprise. And I do mean surprise.’
There was a fleeting pause before he extended his hand in greeting.
‘I know,’ she said with a smile as she took his hand in hers. Up close he looked tired. ‘I guess I had a small advantage. I knew you’d be here. Although a courtroom’s not exactly the place I thought we’d meet again,’ she said. ‘Certainly not on opposing sides in a murder case.’
Decker smiled. ‘I thought we were always on opposing sides.’
‘Perhaps,’ she said, feeling the old abrasive itch return. ‘Anyway, you won today. Another villain safely tucked away on death row.’
Decker’s eyes flashed for a second, as if he were about to meet her challenge. Then he shrugged in that deceptively casual way of his. ‘You’re looking good, Kathy. What are you doing in the States? I thought you were in England.’
‘I was for almost a year, but then I got a grant from ViroVector to come to Stanford University and continue my work.’
‘So you’ve been back in the States eight years?’ He frowned.
‘I’ve tried to contact you a few times,’ she said quickly. ‘But you were never around when I called and, well, it didn’t seem right just to leave a message somehow …’ she trailed off.
‘Yes, I’ve been busy – far too busy. So what brought you back? What about that brilliant offer from Cambridge? The one that made you go back to the UK in the first place.’
‘Excellent academically, but this was better for practical reasons. You know, all the normal stuff: unlimited funds, access to the resources of a leading biotech company, learning from the great Alice Prince, plus, of course, the co-operation of your crowd, the FBI. I’ve been working with Director Naylor, and access to the FBI DNA database alone was enough to convince me.’ She felt like she was showing off, but she couldn’t help it. ‘Perhaps we could go for a drink or something?’ she said, not knowing what else to say. ‘We could catch up.’
‘I’d like that,’ Decker said, checking his watch. ‘Damn it! But not now. I’ve got to interview a killer on death row in less than an hour.’
Kathy smiled. ‘I haven’t heard that excuse before.’
Decker grinned, and in an instant his face changed and he was the younger man she’d known at Harvard. ‘I’m sorry, that didn’t come out right. Believe me, I’d much rather have a drink with you. But I can’t. I can’t do tonight, either, I’m afraid. I’m seeing my grandfather. And I’m due back in Washington tomorrow.’ He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a card, then he scribbled something on the back. ‘Look, I’ll be around San Francisco more often in the future. This is my grandfather’s address; it’s the old family house in the Marina District. Give me a call and we’ll catch up when I’m next over. For all I know you’re married with kids by now.’
Kathy paused to look into his eyes, but they were giving nothing away. ‘I’ve been far too busy to get married, Luke,’ she said simply. In fact she’d had only three relationships worth talking about in the last nine years – all of which had been at best forgettable. She wasn’t short of offers, just offers from people she liked. And apart from the occasional dinner date, usually with men who turned out to have less charm than the contents of a Petri dish, she’d been single and celibate for the last thirteen months and three weeks – not that she was counting. Reaching into her jacket she handed Decker her card. ‘Anyway, here’s where you can contact me when you’re next over.’
‘Thanks,’ he said. But as soon as they’d both pocketed each other’s cards she knew they probably wouldn’t meet again for at least another nine years. There was simply no reason to. And it surprised her how sad this made her feel.
She shook his hand. ‘Goodbye, Luke. I hope your killer on death row tells you what you want to know.’
Baghdad, Iraq. The same day. 5.13 p.m.
Salah Khatib could barely see for the sweat pouring off his brow. But his condition had little to do with the heat of the windowless chamber beneath the barracks of Baghdad’s Al Taji Camp.
‘What are you waiting for? Shoot them!’ hissed the captain, his face inches from Private Khatib’s ear, his breath hot on his cheek.
Khatib locked his elbow and aimed the heavy pistol at the nearest of the four men kneeling on the floor in front of him, but still he couldn’t prevent his hand from shaking.
The four men in uniforms like his own had been caught trying to desert two nights ago. The rumours of the advance south to retake the province of Kuwait had excited most of his fellow soldiers. After all, they were the Northern Corps armoured division of the elite Republican Guard; it would be their invincible tanks that led the assault. But these four cowards had chosen to desert; not from some conscripted troop, but from the well-fed, well-trained Tenth Brigade. These dogs deserved to die. Bullets were a kindness to their shame.
He even knew two of the men and hated them. They had made his life hell when he’d first joined. But now, given the opportunity to kill them, he couldn’t pull the trigger.
And he couldn’t understand why.
Khatib loved the army and wanted nothing more than to obey its orders. He had joined two years ago and had never been more content. A twenty-one-year-old mechanic from the back streets of Tikrit, he had been caught in a failed gang robbery, but because of his gift with machines he had been given the choice of gaol or the army. The armoured division had given him a sense of direction and belonging he’d never felt before. Only a week ago he had received the full batch of vaccinations for going to war. He was destined to be a hero. So why couldn’t he obey his captain’s order?
Two of the men were looking up at him now, as if aware that something was wrong.
‘Shoot them!’ seethed the captain, his lips almost touching Khatib’s ear.
‘Sir, we can shoot them,’ whispered Ali Keram, one of the five other soldiers standing at the back of the chamber.
‘No,’ said the captain, his face red with rage. He pulled a revolver from his holster and pushed it into Khatib’s temple. ‘I gave an order to Private Khatib and he will obey it. If you don’t follow my orders I will shoot you dead. Now do your duty.’
Using the sleeve of his tunic Khatib rubbed the sweat from his face, the rough fabric scratching the pustules and acne that had broken out on his cheeks. Black flecks stuck to his sleeve. His hair had started falling out four days ago. He tried to clear his mind, but it was impossible. Last night he’d seen hallucinations of people he and his old gang had robbed in the past. They’d come to him in his bunk back at the barracks, taunting him, admonishing him for his petty sins. And now he felt so torn and confused he didn’t know what was happening to him. Over the last few days he had been beset by surges of raging aggression, followed by sloughs of guilt-ridden depression. He had tried to disguise his mood swings but now he didn’t even want to go to war. He could even understand why these dogs had deserted.
Standing there in the gloomy underground chamber, staring at the soiled walls, levelling his pistol at the men, he was unable to pull the trigger. As the snout of the captain’s revolver ground into Khatib’s temple he felt such mental torment that he found himself closing his eyes and pushing his head against the officer’s revolver, willing him to fire. He was terrified of dying, but at that moment it seemed like an escape.
Slumping his shoulders, Salah Khatib dropped his gun onto the stone floor.
He didn’t hear the captain’s order to the other soldiers or see them step forward, he only heard the shots reverberate deafeningly around the confined space. Opening his eyes he saw the deserters jerk to the ground, a pool of red spreading from their bodies adding to the marks that already soiled the stone floor.
It was with a sense of relieved detachment that Khatib heard the shot fired from the captain’s pistol before the bullet ploughed into his brain.
San Quentin State Penitentiary, California. The same day. 3.19 p.m.
Diving over the Golden Gate Bridge from the courthouse, Luke Decker turned off the car radio. He was sick of hearing about the Iraq crisis and next week’s presidential election. Pamela Weiss already had his vote; a woman couldn’t make more of a mess of things than her male predecessors. He adjusted his Ray-Bans and glanced out across the bay. The sky was a clear, pale blue and the darker sea below was bejewelled with reflections from the afternoon sun and the small armada of yachts and boats. The scene reminded Decker of his childhood, when his mother and grandfather used to take him up Coit Tower to look out across the Pacific. As a child he would stare out into the blue and imagine the heroic father he never knew waving from the bridge of a mighty warship, returning home from some secret and glorious mission.
Decker had been brought up in the bay area and had roots here. He may have neglected them, particularly his grandfather and the few old friends he still had from his college days at Berkeley, before he left for Harvard and the all-consuming FBI, but they still existed. He was convinced that he was doing the right thing leaving the grey, oppressive Bureau and returning here to teach at Berkeley. Perhaps he would follow up his surprise meeting with Kathy Kerr. Yeah right. All he needed now was Kathy Kerr back in his life, just when he was getting himself together – round-the-clock arguments and his world turned upside down.
Leaving the bridge and passing through Marin