Chapter Two
Sybil gritted her teeth as she read the odious message from the
potential mass murderer. If she did not have a position of significant law
enforcement responsibility, she might have shunted the problem of dealing with
the weirdo to the LAPD or left it to the FBI. But she could not forget her
experience with the diabolical pharmaceutical company operating from the Congo,
which threatened untold millions of people around the world. She had worked
with FBI, police forces, military units, French, Canadian, English, and
American, law enforcement; and together, they had brought the massive criminal
enterprise down. She had been personally and directly involved, even having to
kill. Sybil had vowed never again to allow herself to get directly involved;
after all, she was the boss, and she had personnel who worked for her who could
handle it well. That would be the easy way.
She knew she was losing her argument with herself and thought that
was absurd; but she also knew that in the currently politically charged and extreme
political correctness society, she would have to start low and to go slow. She
started with a letter to Chief Anderson, LAPD, with whom she had worked before
and sent a copy to Landon Murphy, the DFBI.
Chief Lawrence
Anderson
Los Angeles Police Department
Larry: I studied your letter regarding the Beelzebub character
multiple times and came to the conclusion, as I am sure you did, that this is a
credible threat to at least the national security of the United States. I have
dealt with many such threats during my career. Too often, they are written of
as lunatics, or zealots for some cause or another that have become unhinged. I
have determined that that is rare. Whatever drives this Beelzebub, it is not
likely to be mental illness, or even ideology, despite his alt-right rantings.
Whatever resources we have, you are welcome to; but you know that I cannot get
the Company involved in strictly domestic affairs, especially when it appears
that we are dealing with an American, and a citizen at that. Get Landon Murphy
and his feds involved now; don’t try to handle it alone. The minute this
monster indicates a multi- or transnational involvement, my department and I
will join with all our might.
I would wish you good luck, if I believed in that sort of thing. I
do believe in you and your superb officers. Please keep me in the loop.
Your colleague,
Sybil Norcroft
As soon as she completed the letter and wired it off through
secure lines, Sybil wanted to kick herself for her timidity. However, she had worked
in Washington long enough to know that it was more than her career was worth to
get involved in what was likely to turn out as a sensational media circus
without having an international element to give her an entre. It was not as if
she was swamped with demanding crises around the world. Her PDAs [Presidential
Daily Briefings] with President Willets had become comparatively dull for the
last month or so. The two of them had a little laugh over that, done with
crossed fingers.
The next outrage was predictable. It took place in Milwaukee
during a peaceful march by a group of striking public high school teachers. A
group of skin-heads and neo-nazis marched along Main Street headed directly
towards the strikers. Both groups had city parade permits. The confrontational
attitude of the alt-right marchers was evident by the Confederate, Aryan
Supremacy, and Nazi, flags they waved and their racist and anti-Semitic
signage. The two determined groups came face-to-face in front of the large
Walmart store.
The two groups hardly had time to call out their rhetoric when two
bombs exploded—one on each end of the marchers--causing panic, confusion,
injures, and nearly 100 deaths on each end. Teachers and skin-heads alike were
victims. The talking heads on the news did not know what to make of that fact;
so, they chose their usual sides and vilified the left or the right as was
their wont to do. The local police called in the FBI, and together they pledged
to bring the perpetrator or perpetrators to justice in a coordinated effort.
The only saving grace was that the incident did not appear to have significant
racial overtones.
The Milwaukee “incident” was characterized as the work of
political extremists, terrorists, disgruntled employees, and lunatics—all
without evidence. After the usual five-day news cycle, interest faded, as it
usually does.
Interest rekindled when The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel daily
morning broadsheet published a letter from an unknown character who called
himself “Beelzebub” on day six. Because interest had been so intense initially,
the editors elected to publish it on the front page above the fold.
“I heard nothing from my first letter to the LA Times; so, maybe this’ll get your attention. I warned you that
Beelzebub was on his way. Well, I’m here. I done it; the lefties and the
right-wingers both got a dose. Speculate, make stupid ideas, or call in every
cop from this country and from the rest of the world; but there’s nothing you
can do. THE END IS NEAR!”
-Beelzebub
With that newspaper announcement, the editor of the LA Times informed the LA chief of police that they would print the
original letter. Chief Anderson agreed and allowed a short statement from him
to be placed in a side-bar, “The LA Police Department is aware of this
dangerous individual or group and is actively involved in an investigation with
the support and cooperation of the FBI.”
Those two newspapers with their millions of subscribers lit a fire
of interest in Beelzebub. Preachers, ideologues, talk shows, commentators, and news
outlets, saturated the nation’s airwaves. Sybil and her co-horts in law
enforcement cringed and prepared for worse.
It did not take long. Bombs and letters from Beelzebub popped up
in a deadly deluge over the next month. Bombings made the news in the Salt Lake Tribune [re: The recently renovated public library
which was holding a celebration—sixty two wounded, twenty-two killed], The Minneapolis StarTribune [re: a hip-hop concert by
the Rampagers in the Armory Music Venue—112 wounded, sixty-four killed], Albany, New York Times Union [re: the Vintage Bad Boys opening in the
Hollow—fifty-six wounded, eighteen killed], and in the Odessa American newspaper in Odessa, Texas [re: three
explosions in the Ratliff Stadium during the yearly Odessa-Midland grudge high
school football game—284 wounded, 177 killed].
Aside from the different venues in the different cities, the MO was
disturbingly familiar. The fuses and detonators evaluated by the FBI were
nearly clones of each other; letters sent to the various newspapers were
undeniably from the same person—same writing style, paper from the same batch
of German-made expensive writing paper, identical signatures as confirmed by
FBI handwriting experts, and with the first new letter, a well-executed symbol
of a horned devil surrounded by official symbols of six different religions
from around the developed world. Beelzebub demanded that his symbol be kept
secret [“it is copyrighted” he said]; so, his letters and his great work could
be verified.
Neurosurgeon turned Author who writes with Gripping Realism
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