Prologue

26 August 2005

By the world’s standards he was quite humane—for a serial killer, that is. He didn’t think of himself of a serial killer, but that’s exactly what he was. In fact, he was almost shocked the first time it occurred to him that he would be perceived that way—when they finally figured out what he was doing. Even still, he was insulted that even the best and brightest in the law enforcement community would almost surely be unable to see his work for what it was: a carefully crafted relief effort.

Unfortunately, for the people who were forced to clean up after him, he was very good at what he did. He was not only a very efficient killer, but he simply did not make mistakes. He knew that of those who operated outside the accepted norms of society (he was at least aware that he fit into that category) almost without exception their downfall came as a result of carelessness and the details that were overlooked. He was never careless, and didn’t overlook anything.

Apart from his ruthless efficiency, he was also compassionate in his work, to his way of thinking. His victims never suffered. He believed, in fact, that his sole purpose in life was to end their suffering. He did what he did because there was entirely too much suffering in this world. People were just too dumb to avoid it, as far as he was concerned. He reasoned that a certain amount of suffering was not only unavoidable, it was actually good for humankind. But this was just too much.

Most people weren’t smart enough to stop doing most of the things that brought them suffering. The world was infested with people who knew better than to do the things they did, but they made the same bad choices day in and day out. That was where he stepped in.

His mission, as he saw it, was to eliminate the people whose bad choices resulted in the greatest amount of suffering. He spent a great deal of time researching possible targets before he made his next selection. They were easy for him to spot. Most of the people who made the worst choices showed them off to the world like a badge of honor.

That wasn’t always true, of course. Some of his victims required ferreting out, but those were much less common. He always did his homework, regardless of who the mark was. He knew everything he needed to know long before making his move. He usually followed them from a distance for at least a few days. Whenever possible he would enter their homes and/or places of business to pick up any information he might have missed previously.

He only had two rules. Rule One was that every victim had to be someone he was certain would be better off dead than alive. That was easy for him, since he believed well over half the human race fell into that category. Rule Two was that the people he chose were not to suffer. They had suffered enough in their lives, even those who primarily caused suffering. He was sure no one could be happy with a life like that, so he had to end them.

He used different weapons and killed in many different ways, but all were as quick and painless as possible. He usually knew the time and place where the kill would happen for as much as a week before the execution, but a few times the plans had broken down. In those cases he had killed as much out of necessity as anything. It was usually just a drug dealer’s junkie girlfriend (who, he believed, was certainly also better off dead) or some other criminal’s equally deviant associate. That was irrelevant anyway, because he believed he was far too important to allow himself to be stopped, even if it meant that innocent blood had to be shed on occasion. It wasn’t that he couldn’t handle prison, or even a death sentence. It was just that he had so much to do. He had to work every day and even still he was falling behind.

He had been on this crusade for almost four years and so far only once had he killed someone he hadn’t believed deserving of his judgment. The situation had been beyond his control. He had been left with no choice except to kill. He had tried to figure a way out, but he had decided that even if he could figure out how to escape, the cop had known too much about him and had to die. He couldn’t let his work be stopped.

Of all the blood on his hands, only the blood of that unfortunate police officer bothered him. It had been nothing but bad luck for both of them—worse for the policeman, of course, but still… He hadn’t been under investigation. He hadn’t done anything, as far as the authorities were concerned. In fact, he didn’t even exist, according to the government of the United States of America. That had been essential in beginning this mission. The cop had simply stumbled onto the scene of an execution. The officer had watched him pull the trigger, not realizing what he had witnessed until it was too late, both for the mark and the witness. It kept him awake at night, knowing that he had killed one of the good guys.

So far most of his victims (there had been sixty-seven of them to date) had been in the western states, but he planned to cleanse as much of the world as he could before his time on earth was over. He began in California because that was where he had lived for most of his life, but he had killed people in every state in the Mountain and Pacific time zones already.

It was not as though he was limiting himself to these states, however. He had killed several people in New York and Chicago, but that had only been because they had crossed his path at times when he hadn’t already selected his next mark. He didn’t travel for the purpose of killing, since there were more than enough worthy candidates for his program close to home. He saw no reason to move on just yet.

Today’s victim, for example, had lived next door to him when they were children. He had watched from a distance as Karl Crewes, first as a small boy, then as a teenager, and later as an adult, had caused so much pain for everyone close to him. It was due in large part to the pain in Karl’s own life, but that was no excuse. He had to be stopped. It was time to end the suffering.

Karl’s parents had died several years before, leaving the house to him. There were no siblings, just two ex-wives and a half a dozen children from the exes and another even less permanent coupling. He had heard the screams of both wives being beaten before and after they became exes, as well as the cries of the children. He smiled grimly as he realized that Karl Crewes really had been the beginning of it all.

His original motivation to begin this quest had come from observing this monster next door. Karl had been a holy terror as a child and he grew into a juvenile of the highest delinquency. The most remarkable thing about Karl’s life was that he had been a criminal—and a sloppy one at that—for most of his life, yet he had never spent so much as a single night under lock and key. Karl Crewes sold and used drugs. He abused women and children. He lied, cheated, and stole from everyone around him. He had not been responsible for the deaths of any innocents, at least not directly, but that was the closest thing to a point on the positive side of Karl’s ledger.

Long ago it had become obvious that Karl needed to die, but it didn’t make sense to begin so close to home. So he had let Karl Crewes live, a mistake he had regretted too often in recent months. Every time he checked on Karl it seemed more people were getting hurt by Karl’s actions—including, but not limited to Karl’s ex-wives and ex-girlfriends, Karl’s children, and Karl himself. All these facts had culminated in the execution scheduled for tonight.

He waited until the sun went down and then went out the back door of his parents’ house. They knew nothing of their son’s mission or even his opinions about humankind. He kept his real thoughts inside, as they were not suitable for polite conversation. His parents thought he was in town to visit them. They were aware of Karl Crewes, of course, but they did nothing to stem the flow of pain and agony that seeped out from under the doors and through the open windows of the house next door.

That was about to change. He hid in the shadows, watching Karl through the kitchen window. Karl sat on a folding chair that strained at his bulk in front of a rickety card table, eating a slice of pizza and drinking a Miller Genuine Draft from a bottle. The television was on and turned up very loud. He shook his head in disgust as Karl casually tossed his pizza crust on the floor.

It was almost time.

He waited until Karl finished the last slice of pizza and drained the last drop from his third MGD before making his move. Stealth and secrecy were unimportant. His weapon of choice for this particular job was a Sig Sauer p226 with a silencer. He was certain that Karl didn’t have a gun—not anywhere that it would help him, anyway. He would step through the back door, which was unlocked, and turn the corner into the room where Karl sat. Two bullets in his forehead would be enough. He would have plenty of time to take a picture of his victim and still be gone before Karl’s corpse toppled out of the wobbly chair.

He moved quickly now, through the door and around the corner.

“Hello, Karl,” he said.

“What the…” Karl began.

“Shh!” He held a finger to his lips.

Karl was so shocked that he managed to comply by default. There was recognition in Karl’s eyes but only on a subconscious level. Karl knew the man before him, but he couldn’t remember why, nor from where he knew him.

“Such a sad life you lead, Karl.”

“What…“ Karl began, but a quick shake of the intruder’s head caused him to repent of the decision to speak.

“You know, Karl, selling narcotics is supposed to be glamorous profession,” the derision in his tone was obvious. He looked around exaggeratedly for effect. “But you… you aren’t very good at it, I’m afraid. No fancy cars or penthouse suites for you. You’re supposed to be wearing expensive suits and gaudy jewelry.

“Instead, you have…” he looked around again and then shook his head in disgust. “Well, it doesn’t matter anymore. You’ve caused much pain in your life, Karl. It’s time for that pain to end. For all of them, but especially for you. Goodbye, Karl.”