“Is that…Is that an…?”
Amal leaned toward the guy by the window who turned his head to look at the F-16 that flew by their window.
That was when panic erupted both inside and outside of Amal. She turned to look at the other side, where another F-16 fighter jet pulled up and seemed to be escorting them.
Around her, all the passengers sat up straight and started to talk. People looked around them, casting nervous glances around the cabin. Tension was thick in the air, lots of furrowed brows and frowns. Some pulled out their phones and began to film. Amal decided to do the same. If nothing else, then to document her last hours in case the phone survived.
Finally, an announcement was made by the captain.
“Ladies and gentlemen. We are preparing to make an emergency landing in a few minutes. Please make sure you are all in position. Seats are up, seatbelts fastened. I need all of you to remain calm.”
“Kind of hard when you don’t sound calm,” Amal said to the camera. She felt terrified as she stared out at the F-16 escorting the airplane, then spoke with a low voice to her camera.
“What I’m asking myself right now, just like probably most of the people here, is if they will shoot us down if necessary? I mean, that’s why they’re there, right? That’s what I heard, at least. To protect the people on the ground. Why else would they send out military planes?”
The man sitting next to Amal whimpered slightly. Amal couldn’t blame him. She was terrified, too, and she was beginning to wonder if she’d make it out alive. The cabin crew tried to keep their cool, but Amal could see how anxious they were. Amal felt claustrophobic. The cabin suddenly seemed so small. People were chatting nervously to one another. A child was crying and asking her mother if they’d make it home alive.
“I heard there was a bomb on the plane,” someone turned her head and said. “Someone further up heard the cabin crew talking to one another, mentioning the word bomb.”
That confirmed Amal’s deepest fear. That was why the F-16 planes were there. If the person who brought the bomb threatened to explode it, they’d shoot them all down.
The thought wasn’t exactly calming.
“Why isn’t the pilot saying anything?” the guy sitting next to her asked. “He hasn’t said a word since he told us we’re going to make an emergency landing.”
Amal nodded. He was onto something. Usually, when there was bad weather, he’d give updates regularly to calm the passengers, but now—when there was actual danger—he remained silent.
Was it because he was scared too?
The thought didn’t feel reassuring to Amal. Yet, she continued to film with her phone. Not because she thought it would make her even more famous or because she thought about her millions of YouTube followers who might want to watch it.
No, it was all she knew how to do in a situation where she felt utterly helpless.
Chapter 20
I grabbed a book from the shelf and put it on the table in front of him. He took it into his hands and looked at it, front and back.
“You wrote this?”
I nodded. “I’m not showing you this to brag, but just to tell you that I’ve been studying serial killers for many years, and I’m considered to be somewhat of an expert. What I wrote about in this particular book is that, after studying more than two hundred serial killers, I concluded that most of them communicate in some way or another about their murders. Either during the murders or afterward. They talk about it somehow. Now, how they do it differs a lot. Some like to taunt the police, while others leave clues. A few try to explain their murders, while others try to justify their actions. Often, they leave messages at the crime scene, written on walls, or leave clues on the body or small notes at the crime scene. In my experience, when dealing with serial killers, as soon as you discover their means of communication, you can start tracking them down. That’s the best way to go about it. So, that’s what I did. I spent hours and hours researching the old cases, and I couldn’t figure out how this killer was speaking to me. How was he trying to leave me clues? There were, of course, the similarities in the killings, the time of the call, the choice of victims, and that they all use the same live-stream platform Twitch, and so on, but I knew there had to be more. And that’s when it hit me. It had been right in front of me all the time. The killer did inform me of the next victim; he even warned them.”
“Really? How?”
“By meeting up with them in the game Call of Duty – WWII.”
Liam wrinkled his forehead. “In the game?”
I nodded. “You’ll understand why it took me so long to figure out because it’s an online game. It wasn’t until I realized that several of the victims were in the middle of playing that game when the police came to their house. The first one, Victim zero, Peter James…”
“EvilPeterPan,” Liam said.
“Yes. He was playing the game when the police came to his house. It was all streamed live to his six million YouTube followers. You can’t see what happens, but you can hear everything that takes place, including the moment he is shot out on his front porch. I later saw it from a different angle, from the officer’s bodycam when it was made public.”
“You’re telling me this person, this serial killer or swatter or whatever you call him, meets with his next victims inside of Call of Duty, and then what? Like, how did you know that my Tim was going to be one of them?”
“I had to start playing it myself,” I said, “in order to figure it out. I don’t know how much you know about it, but it’s a multiplayer game, a shooting game that simulates combat from a soldier’s point of view during World War II. You play in teams and help each other out, fighting through events like D-day, and they’ve also added Nazi-zombies to make it even more creepy. Anyway, when I took a closer look into Peter James’ case, I kept coming back to the fact that he was playing when it happened, and that was the case for others as well. Not all of them. But then I thought, who could he have been playing with? I called my dad, who is a very skilled computer geek, and asked him what to do. He hacked into Peter’s account and found the players he had been playing within the twenty-four hours before it happened. Then he did the same with some of the other victims and managed to find one player profile that kept turning up. Under the name FaZeYourFeaRs.”
“So, that’s the guy?” Liam asked. “Can’t he be tracked?”
“It’s not that easy, I’m afraid. Not with this guy. He doesn’t leave any trace when calling in the threats, and he makes it look like they actually come from the house they’re about to swat, or a cell phone of the victim’s. And he doesn’t let himself be tracked either. We tried, but it led to an address in Singapore that, within minutes, changed to an address in South Africa. My dad says it’s common for hackers to hide their whereabouts this way. This killer is a skilled hacker, and, so far, he’s stayed under the radar. He knows his victim’s identity and personal information before he teams up with them in the game. That’s the only way I can see that he can do what he does. He chooses them carefully and does his research first before he makes his move, is my guess. I have naturally talked to the FBI about him and told them all I know, but they can’t open a case with so little proof. I have been tracing him relentlessly in the game and tried to keep track of what he’s up to, but it’s easier said than done. I managed to see him team up with victim nine, and twenty-four hours later, he was dead. When I saw him team up with your son, I knew I had to try and warn you.”