The Sum of Zero: Part Eight

by Dex

"John. Why don't you tell me that I'm wrong here. Really. Just tell me you didn't try and pull this bullshit stunt and I can let you go," Oscar Adams said quietly, leaning back in his chair and staring at the younger man. John Caulder stared blankly back,

"John." That threw Caulder. He'd seen the Chief mad before. In fact, one of his major hobbies was to drive Oscar Adams into a towering rage. But this was different. Adams wasn't mad; he was angry, and the cold edge of suppressed fury in his voice made John recoil.

"Chief, it was a play based on classified-"

"Classified! I've got a woman dead under police protection by the current flavour of the month serial killer, and you're talking about classified hunches!" Adams exploded, his face flushing darker with anger. "She's dead, John! She's dead after you, and through you the NYPD, said we'd keep her alive! She's dead because you didn't come to me."

"Chief Adams-" Scott started, and Adams' baleful stare swept over to him.

"And you. You government puke. You think I can't find out where you're from and crush your nuts until they're juiced? You withheld evidence on a major case from us, after all the help we've given you! I'm a short stack away from mashing you out in my ashtray as it is. Now shut up!" Adams snarled, and Summers flushed. Only Wolverine had ever come close to this level of abuse. This was made worse by the fact that Oscar Adams was right. Scott cursed himself again for being so stupid; so damn confident that he had all the angles.

"John, you fucked up. Bad. I've talked to Officer Mallory. The official story to both the newspapers and the inquiry board is that you were off duty with her in the bar and saw it happen. Unless someone comes out that Professor Sydney saw you in her office earlier, the story will hold." Adams took a deep breath, cursed, and slammed his hands down on his desk. "It's your shield if this gets out, John. The commissioner is howling for blood on this, and he'll chew your ass out to the street if he finds out."

"Chief, it's my fault, I know. Look, he got ahead of me. I know I blew it but--"

"John, that woman is dead. There aren't excuses. You're too well trained and experienced for this to have happened. Dammit John, you know better! I trained you to goddamn know better, and you let him kill her right in front of you." Oscar Adams pulled a lighter from his desk and lit his cigar.

"Sir, your wife--"

"Fuck my wife. You are officially off the case, Detective. You will bury yourself under a mountain of paperwork and not move until this whole thing is over. Or use your vacation time. I don't really care which. All I know is that I don't want to see you until this is all over."

"I can't. Everything points to him getting closer to something, sir! I don't know what it is, but I'm sure it'll make his killings look like a bike ride. You have to--" Caulder caught the look in Adams eyes and back down. "I mean, that is..."

"I have to? You will go to your desk and file your fucking reports and keep away from goddamn the case, Caulder, or I will be forced to fire my best detective. That is the end of it, John. No more discussion. And you," Adams pointed the lit end of the cigar at Scott. "You and the other agent are gone. I've sent a message to FBI headquarters telling them that no further FBI assistance will be required. You're benched until I get confirmation to send you back to them."

"Chief Adams--"

"This conversation is over."

***

"Look John, this is a very bad idea." Will Piper adjusted his glasses nervously. "I've never seen Adams this angry. If he catches you snooping around, he'll fire you. You might be his golden boy, but after the murder... well, it's not a good idea."

"Will, we all know you're going to take over the investigation. You're the next in line and have been on since the beginning. Hell, you should have gotten it first anyhow. I got lucky when the Iron Maiden found the blade." Caulder tossed another file in the box. "But something is coming to a head, man. I don't know what, but it's going to be bad. Anything I get, I'll pass your way first. You can get the collar and everything. But I need to be involved in this."

"Why?"

"What?"

"Why? John, weird and clever shit aside, this guy is just a murderer. You've dealt with them before without making it a holy crusade. Is it because of the girl in the alley?"

"Why is that the first thing everybody thinks? Like I'm some emotional cripple who can't get past his divorce."

"Because you are an emotional cripple, John. Shit, we all are. Struan hasn't had a date in 18 months. Cortez is on wife two and working up the soon-to-be-number-three on the side, and my last girlfriend is now dating my sister. The Chief has the most stable home life of us all, and that's because he and his wife try to spend no more than an hour a week in each others' presence." Piper shrugged. "This job draws our kind of people, I'm afraid. So yeah, it is about Jenny, isn't it?"

"Yes, no, maybe." Caulder sank into his chair. "She's in Seattle now. Working at a hospital up there."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I ran into her mom downtown a few weeks ago. She caught me up a little bit."

"I don't know why you put yourself through it."

"Just one of those things, Will." John shrugged. "Grass is green, the sky is blue, and I still love my wife, who divorced me to live with another man in Seattle."

"But that doesn't explain the obsession you're developing with this case, John."

"I can't explain it. It was the girl that got me twigged on it, you know. But now... it's just so unreal. Like one of those bad horror novels, where we find out our bad guy has been a thousand year old vampire all along or something. I mean, who uses a weapon only a master engineer could make? And elaborately timed setups. It's unlike any other serial pattern, like the murders are all incidental against a larger goal." Caulder grimaced. "If I could get just the slightest hint of what this guy really wanted, I'm sure I could get him but... I just don't know."

"Figures."

"What?"

"You always have been too smart for you own good, John. You never thought that this guy could be doing it solely based on the fact that he's fucked in the head and the pixies tell him it's a good idea?"

"Too many patterns. That's what bugs me. I know everything is right there for me. I just can't piece it together." Caulder sighed and slapped the lid on the box. "So, do we have a deal?"

"Will it matter if I say no?"

"Not really."

"Alright. But--" Piper pointed a finger at John. "I call the shots, John. You might be the hotshit detective, but I'm not getting canned along side with you. You find something and you call me, right? Remember, for the next few weeks and in regards to this investigation, you're a civilian."

"Deal. I'll give you a call later." John Caulder paused. "Thanks Will."

"Just go before I change my mind and decide to do something stupid like save my career or something." Piper said and turned back to the pile of paperwork on his desk. Caulder slipped out of the room and walked down the hall to the temporary office loaned to Summers and Frost. John poked his head in to see Scott neatly stacking up piles of paper and filing them in a box identical to Caulder's.

"Clearing out?"

"So it seems. Adams has withdrawn the assistance of the department until he hears back from our boss, so we're out of the building." Scott didn't add that he'd also changed hotels, destroyed all major records of their visit, and had Gambit trying to scrounge up a way to delay the FBI's official and confused response to a pair of non-existent agents being kicked out of New York. 'Agents' Frost and Summers might have to pull a quick disappearing act at the end of this case, and Scott didn't want to leave anything behind for them to follow.

"Hey, toss your stuff in the car. We'll meet back at my place."

"Your place?"

"Yeah. I'm taking a couple of weeks off. Stress of the murder, you know."

"So, we're still on the team then?"

"Mostly. It won't be our bust, but that's not really the important part, is it?" Caulder said and Scott grinned back.

"You've got that right." He hefted the first box and headed towards the garage. "I'll tell Frost on the way."

"And hey, if you two need some private time..."

"John, if it wasn't for this box, I'd have to shoot you. Twice."

"Some things are worth it."

***

The Number sat in a tiny pool of light and let his mind whirl. In his mind's eye, he could see the figures dance and flicker like insubstantial flames, joining each other and growing around his carefully computed solutions. He had consigned his notebook to the flames earlier; the final purification before the last sum could come into play. Everything he had to do was locked in his mind; etched in finer detail then any of Martin's images could be.

With nimble fingers, he loaded the cylinder one last time. It was a reminder of his power, to keep him focused during the last step, even though he had no real use for it. His equations had finally been able to work in the untimely death of Sydney, after the horrible hours of terror about the possible permanent loss of his power. He had been forgiven. The new equation was clean and real in his head.

A final sum to deliver on the great tally. A City of Sin, delivered up to purification, along with those who were its worst denizens. Mutants and sinners burning together in the belly of the Great Beast. An angry, swearing, sweaty, vile concrete beast, which had a stake pointed directly at its heart.

The Number turned and the light glazed his glasses opaque for a moment, two flat white circles, set into a deathshead mask. He was the final tool of a long-forging by God. It was so easy to see. His love was revealed as a mutant, to test his resolve. His job was taken away by the agents of the city, to focus him on his mission. And now, he was at the very last stage. The final check of numbers before he could prepare his great canvas.

He heard a faint noise at the edge of his hearing and smiled. Just a few final tests of his worth. He picked up the cylinder with a faint scraping noise and padded out of the room nude. Like a tempered blade, plunged into the fire again and again to burn out the last traces of impurity. The equation was ready. The Number stepped out into the last pyre and smiled like a corpse.

***

Aaron adjusted his sport coat as he stepped out of the cab. It was starting to finally cool off in the evening, cutting down some of the oven-like nights the New York summer had been subjecting them to. Not that heat bothered him any more. He'd trained for two years in Syria and then another two on the Sinai. The hot haze and tang of sand would never really leave him, he thought. The heavy weight of the .45 pressed against the small of his back in its holster. Despite what the movies believed, a shoulder holster was the worst of all worlds for holding a weapon. It was too cumbersome to draw from, too easy to spot in a crowd, and interfered with the mobility of the shooter. Aaron's break-away holster was at the small of his back, and from experience, he could clear it and be firing in under seconds. It also was a touch harder to spot, often giving them the element of surprise.

Not that it would be a factor, he thought, looking at the lines of houses crouched on the East River. They all had the same look of desperate lower class; the wooden faces huddled right up to the sidewalk. It was a line of twisted and warped porches, fronted by a foot of brown and patchy grass. A few trash cans overflowed at the curb with a haze of flies buzzed around its contents. Aaron smiled. That meant no alarm systems, nosy neighbours, and best of all, no one to find the results of his work for days. If the target had cats, it would take even longer.

Aaron walked down the street, hands in his pockets and looking straight ahead. His eyes flicked back and forth behind his sunglasses, ticking off numbers and analyzing the surroundings. He'd have no trouble with his escape if it came to it. The East River could pose some trouble, but if he tracked back towards Central Park, only a city wide dragnet would be able to catch him.

As Aaron passed number 31, he smiled. It was a house like all the rest, but more so. In place of the heavy shades the rest of the houses had, the front windows were tightly shuttered. There was no car parked in front, and he could only see a rusting chain-link door down the alley between the next house. Aaron continued to the end of the street, and turned left, walking down to the car drive that ran behind the houses and turned down it. He counted chimney pots until he was at the back of 31.

It really was so simple. The man Eckert had killed was in the phone book, and a few hours of discrete surveillance had revealed that it was still occupied. David John Webster had died to give Thomas Allen Eckert new life, and now Thomas Allen Eckert would die to for the profit of Aaron. He opened the back gate and crept into the forgotten backyard.

A path led up to a small raised stoop, and Aaron followed it, stepping carefully as he climbed the rudely made stairs. He kept close to the wall to avoid any creaking boards and crouched by the door. He could see the windows of the house had actually been painted black behind the shutters, to shut out all light coming in or out. The rear door was plain wood, dark paint bubbled and crazed by decades of neglect. Aaron tried the knob.

It was locked, but by the feel of it, not too securely. Judging by the warping of the door frame and the rust on the knob, picking it would be pointless. Aaron drew out a screwdriver from his pocket and dug the flat head into the crack between door and frame, just below the lock plate. There was a brief resistance, and then a short snapping noise as the bolt released. It sounded very loud in Aaron's ears, and he stood still for a long moment, breathing softly and straining his ears for any noise from the house. After minutes of frozen silence, Aaron pocketed the screwdriver and drew out the big .45. The silencer screwed into the front made the gun a blunt and ugly looking instrument of death. Aaron eased off the safety and took a deep breath. He nudged the door further open and with his weapon in front of him, stepped inside the house.

***

Emma Frost handed her files to Scott as she stepped out of the car in front of Caulder's building. She had received a condensed version of the two men's interview with Chief Adams, and had removed her files from the office to her hotel room immediately. Emma had also taken one last trip down to the morgue to speak with Doctor Sharpe, questioning her about the medical details of Paul Wilkes autopsy. The police in South Carolina had faxed her all the documents they had on the case, and Lillian Sharpe had poured over them while Emma waited.

Sharpe's opinion was that the killing had been either done by a teen or a small adult. And by a trained professional. She had held up a copy of an x-ray for Frost, and circled the highly accurate blows to the throat, spine and ribs. The attacker used a number of strikes to break through bones which a normal adult male would only need a single blow. The precision of the strikes ruled out an attack by a drifter or a junkie, unless he'd been trained in staff or sword fighting. Emma had received Scott's call during the session, and Sharpe promised to follow up with her if she discovered anything further.

"Is that it?"

"Unless I should have brought a bottle of wine and the corset, Scott."

"Emma--" Scott sighed.

"Yes, I know dear. The urges, the longing... perhaps if you spoke to Jean? She seems fairly open-minded." Emma said smiling, and Scott ground his teeth together.

"Upstairs."

"My, how forward." Frost laughed and walked into the building. John was in the lobby to buzz them in, and took part of the file load from Scott.

"Agent Frost."

"Detective Caulder. I'm guessing that we are not off the case yet."

"In a sense. We'll talk... upstairs, I mean." John hit a button and walked into the elevator, followed by the two mutants. His apartment was on the ninth floor, occupying an odd almost turret-like extension of the older building. Emma stepped inside and removed her coat, eyes roving over the rooms. John and Scott followed her in, and dropped their piles on the table in his kitchen.

"Detective. You're breaking the stereotype, you know." Frost said, looking over the neat apartment. It was clean enough to be sterile, and the furnishings only furthered that atmosphere. His coffee table, bookshelves, chairs and stands were in naked pine, only varnished to make the blond wood shine. The rest of the furniture was steel pipped or covered in tan leather. Even his kitchen was a clockwork-like array of steel counter tops, steel pots and pans, wooden racks, and pine tables. Emma noted the lack of paintings, posters or pictures on the white walls, but saw the furniture had been arranged as if to once showcase ones that had been there. There were also gaps in the room; places where something had been placed and had later been removed.

"If it helps, the only thing in my fridge is old Chinese food, a six pack, and some mustard." Caulder said as he sat down on the couch.

"Reality makes sense again. Thank you." Frost nodded and sat opposite him. Scott had been sorting through a pile of notes in the kitchen, and brought them back to the living room with him.

"So, John. You're officially off this investigation, right."

"Yes."

"Won't you be breaking the law by doing this?"

"Just doing my duty as a private citizen to assist the police." Caulder said, and Scott could see how uncomfortable he was with it. Caulder obviously took the view he'd espoused in the diner very seriously, and was breaking a lot of his own personal rules working outside his capacity as a police officer.

"Technically, we are still on the case. The NYPD can't just dismiss FBI involvement in a matter, especially in a terrorism investigation." Scott said. He'd made a quick check of the actual jurisdictions of federal agents verses that of police forces, and found a dozen loopholes he could use to get police assistance, no matter how unwilling Adams might be. That is, as long as his report to the real FBI was delayed and befuddled. "Which means if trouble appears, you are legally compelled to assist us."

"I didn't know that." John said, and Summers watched him relax a bit, the tension draining slowly from his position. That was good, because they'd need Caulder at his best to catch the murderer. More important, Scott had seen how good a cop John Caulder was, and that he wasn't worried about race or genetics when it came to suspects; only facts. The more John Caulders that existed, the less difficult it would be for the X-Men to do what they had to.

"So, if we are satisfied with the legalities of our little investigations, may we get to the facts." Emma said, picking up a notepad and flipping it open. "Shall we review?"

"Alright." John Picked up his pen and opened his own notebook. "We have a series of murders committed in New York over the last seven months. All of those murders where timed to coincide with incendiary bombings by the Friends of Humanity. All the names of the victims and the order of their deaths are linked to a list of special operatives in the government. Each murder was done using an incredibly specialized projectile weapon, which requires amazing skill to tool and use effectively. Each of the victims was a mutant of varying levels."

"Right." Scott shuffled a few pieces of paper. " We know that our killer got the lists from a piggybacked connection to the FoH computers, which means he had to have been known by the organization well enough to have had some access to the secure areas of the building. He also seems of spend a great deal of time researching his victims, enough to get close to them without any alarm."

"Here's where it gets interesting, gentlemen." Emma stacked a set of notes in front of her and looked at the two men. "Our killer is a man named Thomas Allen Eckert. He was a mechanical engineer for both the CIA and after that, the Zero Tolerance campaign."

"Yeah, but he's been in an asylum for the last year, hasn't he?"

"It's better than that, detective. He's been dead for the last three months."

"Excuse me?"

"According to the hospital, Thomas Allen Eckert committed suicide by self-immolation. His body was identified and he was declared dead by local authorities." Emma said, and John suppressed a groan.

"So, our main suspect is a man who's been dead for months? Man, I love this town."

"It's not that supernatural, Detective. Eckert had a man who used to visit regularly. In fact, his visits can be tied in with the schedule of bombings in New York. Eckert was building explosives for the FoH, and switching identities with this man to do so. He also used his time out to kill his first victims."

"So, there are two of them?" Summers asked.

"No. David John Webster is likely the body identified as Eckert. Both men were about the same height and weight, body type and looks. Eckert was a voluntary patient, which means he wasn't guarded too closely or forced to follow a regimen. That's how they were able to switch identities. Obviously, Eckert decided he needed to be out permanently to finish his work. He killed Webster, set his body on fire, and then used his identity to leave the hospital. Webster was a low level member of the FoH. A kind of office boy for a terrorist group. It makes sense to use him as a courier for the bombs. He was low enough not to know anything and loyal enough to never talk."

"So, Eckert is the killer for sure?"

"He fits the profile. He believes himself to be the reincarnation of John Martin, a turn of the century painter and engineer. He used to paint huge canvases of biblical scenes of destruction and Armageddon, between designing sewer systems and subway passages for the city of London." Emma pulled out copies of the drawings she'd received at the hospital and passed them over. "Obviously, Eckert is taking direct action against those who he's identified as sinners. Mutants are at the top of his list."

"Why?"

"He feels deep betrayal from one. I believe Eckert was abused by his mother, either physically or sexually. He has too many of the normal repressive traits of a mother-dominated psyche evident for that not to have happened. His father died when he was very young, and has never had a real elder male figure. Maybe Bastion acted as one for a while. That's just speculation, though."

"Might not be so far off. I remember this case in Brooklyn a couple of years ago. Guy working in a butcher shop most of his life. The owner finally decides to sell it. The thing is that the owner has been like a father to this guy, since he just lives with his mother. He feels that selling this business is like trying to disown him. He grabs the owner, kills him, feeds him through the grinder, and sells him to all his customers as a big sale the next day. Saves a batch to cook for his mother for dinner. Then he offs her with a fileting knife and hangs himself." Caulder said.

"I can see why the police don't get many dinner invitations." Emma said dryly.

"Still..."

"In any case, when his mother died, Eckert was sent to a private school. I believe he fell in love with a boy named Paul Wilkes. I'm not sure if it was an obsession on Eckert's part or if they had an actual relationship. However, at some point, Wilkes tells Eckert that he's a mutant. Something that Eckert has been raised to believe is evil and unclean. He blames Wilkes for betraying him, like his mother, and kills him. He also abuses the corpse sexually after the killing, in a way to assert his new power." Emma steepled her long fingers in front of her face and leaned back. "And after our killer has his epiphany about Martin, the two divergent psychosis merge. He's been 'forged' for a holy purpose as the new Martin."

"And what purpose is that?"

"I don't know." Emma sighed. "That's what's been bothering me. I can't guess at what kind of goal he could have decided on. Some mass punishment of the wicked, I'd assume. But we know that Eckert doesn't have a nuclear warhead in his basement, so it has to be something different."

"Great. So he's even crazier then we thought, and wants to punish all of us."

"Essentially correct, detective. Eckert is a classic serial killer. A man in his early forties, secretly homosexual, a lone wolf, socially inept, and painfully shy. A skilled man who takes pride in his vicious but 'brilliant' instruments of death and is carrying a traumatic secret from his childhood." Emma closed her notepad and set it down.

"Yes, but now what? We know all about him, but how do we catch him?" John Caulder snorted in disgust and tossed down his pen.

"How about the phone book?" Scott said, and Caulder laughed.

"I don't think Information has a serial killer directory."

"John, Emma, think about this for a second. This is a man obsessed with new identities, correct? The sort that draws a kind of personal power from them."

"True."

"He gained his freedom as David John Webster. Why wouldn't he assume that name to maintain it?" Scott said, and Emma's eyes went wide for a brief moment.

"Scott, for once, I am speechless. You're right. He'd have assumed Webster's life around his own for a sense of safety." Emma dug through her files and pulled out a sheet of paper, handing it over to Caulder. "This is Webster's address. If Agent Summers is right, we should find him there."

"This is too thin to call Piper on. We'll have to check it out ourselves. If we find him, we can make up some kind of story for Piper to use." Caulder looked at the paper for a minute. "You really think he'd be this predictable?"

"It's not predictability. After all, what kind of idiot would go investigating a dead man for murder?"

"Us." Caulder said and laughed. He put the piece of paper down and reached for his jacket. He had that same tingle on the back of his neck as before; Frost and Summers were right. Eckert was the killer and he'd be there. And then Caulder could send him to the hell that he so feverishly killed for.

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