The Tower

Allander leaned forward in his chair, his eyes focused intently on the TV.

"Marlow has been called in by the FBI to locate Allander Atlasia," Alissa continued. "He came to fame tracking the Black Ribbon Strangler, and has since been involved in over half a dozen high-profile cases."

A tape of Jade at an awards banquet appeared. He was seen attempting to smile as an older agent pinned a medal to his chest. Action footage of Jade leaving the federal building and pushing his way through a sea of reporters followed.

"No comment. No comment. NO COMMENT!" he shouted to them. The reporters cleared as he got into his bullet-riddled black car.

Alissa's face appeared onscreen again, and she smiled into the camera. "FBI Chief of Homicide Brad McGuire had this to say."

Standing behind a podium, McGuire straightened his tie. As he spoke, his face was illuminated by dozens of flashes. "Jade Marlow is the nation's best criminal tracker, bar none. We are extremely confident that he'll locate Atlasia and bring him in."

The TV cut back to Alissa. "California's senior senator, Peter Briggs, also expressed optimism about Marlow's involvement."

She paused momentarily and brushed her hair out of her face. "It looks like we can all sleep easier with Jade Marlow on the case. For Channel 5 Eyewitness News, this is Alissa Anvers."

Allander was flushed with anger. He tapped his fingers on the arm of the love seat as he spoke to the television. "How precious," he sneered. "I've become a pawn in their game."

He couldn't believe the audacity of Agent McGuire and the press. The impudence. They'd all but promised he'd be caught. Didn't they understand what they were up against? He was a mastermind. He'd broken out of a facility that nobody had ever left alive. He'd virtually destroyed it. And they thought that a bumbling agent could track him down like a foolish animal. Some imbecile named Jade, Jade Marlow.

As quickly as his rage had flared, it subsided. He sighed. "I do love games," he said softly to the empty room. "Let's see if Mr. Marlow can keep up."

Rising suddenly from the love seat, he began to pace about the room, chuckling softly and shaking his head. He stopped mid-step and whirled to face the television, which was rolling old publicity footage of Jade. His smile fled.

On the edge of sleep, in the fringes of the dappled orange-and-yellow light that flickered across the insides of Allander's eyelids, something waited, something terrible, like a dead body in a closet. Years had passed during which he had hardly slept at all, but as he had grown older and stronger, he had learned how to relax himself in the right ways. With all that had happened in the past two days, however, he found that relaxing was not easy.

Allander lay on the bed in the master bedroom and watched the fan make lazy circles above his head. Every time he began to drift off, he'd awaken with saliva flooding the sides of his tongue and a shallowness in his chest that restricted his breathing to short gasps. He knew that this time he couldn't push it down. After struggling himself awake a few more times, he surrendered to the terror. He knew that when it came this strong, it was going to have its way with him. He dozed off, and it seized him.

Allander had been taken when he was seven. The man was thick through the hips and buttocks and had a potbelly that hung over his belt. But worst of all was the gray stubble that peppered his puffy face.

They had tracked him for three days before they'd caught him. A checkout girl at the grocery store had recognized him from his sketch. They'd followed him to a filth-ridden motel behind a large freeway. When they'd broken in, he'd reached under his pillow for a gun and they had opened fire, making him dance, his body jiggling foolishly as the bullets entered it.

What they had found inside the motel room was unlike anything the veteran police staff had seen in their careers, and unlike anything they would see again.

Allander had been tied tightly to a chair, thick rope binding his wrists and ankles. He'd been naked, and a small shock of pubic hair had been painted, with a black permanent marker, above his prepubescent penis. He sat in his own defecation; it was later surmised that he had not been allowed movement except when molested or forced to perform acts.

The room had seemed the harrowing entrance to a world beyond reality, perhaps even the doorway to hell itself. It had been scattered with feces and blood, and illuminated only by a blinking television screen. Pornographic videos and magazines littered the floor, showing men with chains, women with animals, children with men. Sex tools of extreme perversion lay beside the more traditional handcuffs, whips, and blindfolds. Sets of masks were also discovered-leather masks with zippers crisscrossing the front, masks that merely covered around the eyes, masks of women's faces.