Chapter 13
Delaney confirmed that the camera and speaker, and probably the digital door locks, operated via WiFi—the router thing had a satellite connection, apparently—but had no luck tracing incoming connections.
Something about VPNs, mesh networks.
Who knows.
Delaney promised to pass it off to the two cops—Bowes and Caine—who acted as the unofficial PPD tech department, but made a point of telling Vaughn that he doubted they’d have any luck, either.
Delaney wasn’t completely useless, though, despite Darnell’s comments to the contrary; he identified the strange-looking nozzle on the top of the hydrogen sulfide tank as some sort of automatic trigger.
All signs pointed to the person behind this, their unknown subject—unsub—having set it all up to run remotely.
Death via remote control.
After Dr. Button and CSU tech Landon loaded the bodies bound for the morgue, Darnell ordered Delaney to continue processing the scene—mostly because he didn’t want to do it, not because he expected to find anything of value—and then he and Vaughn headed back to the station.
“You really think this is some sick fuck trying to reenact Squid Game?” Darnell asked. He had his feet up on his desk. Leaned back. Acted as if seeing ten dead bodies didn’t affect him.
And maybe it didn’t. Maybe after you went through something like he had, nothing bothered you anymore. But if that was the case, why the heavy drinking?
“No idea.”
Darnell removed his feet, grabbed a sheet of paper off his desk.
“In the show, they have, like, five hundred contestants, and each is given a number from one to five hundred.”
“Didn’t know you were such a big fan.”
“Meh, not much to do after work anymore.” Darnell’s seriousness suddenly cut through his self-defense shield, which was constructed entirely of dad jokes. “And what can I say? The chick in the show was hot.”
“Right,” Vaughn said, letting his eyes drift upward in annoyance. “One to five hundred, you said?”
Vaughn was picturing the numbers he’d seen on the floor, on and inside the boxes.
Nonconsecutive. Seemingly random.
“Yeah. But . . .” Darnell read from a list that Landon had made. “I’ve got two, three, five, seven, eleven, thirteen, seventeen, nineteen, twenty-three, and twenty-nine, I think? Landon’s writing sucks. What the hell do they mean?”
“Those were the numbers in the boxes?” Vaughn asked.
“Yep. One number in each box—I’m guessing, as most were on the floor—and one number engraved on the top.
Not the same number, though. Box nineteen had number three inside.
Box seven, number two. Can only guess at the others.
I’m thinking that the guy in the middle room lost the game or whatever and went ape shit. Smashed everything.”
Seemed like a reasonable assumption.
His thoughts still on the numbers, Darnell attacked his keyboard.
Vaughn, on the other hand, was thinking about the gas. Post 9/11, whenever gas was used in some sort of crime, the first thing that came to mind was a terrorist attack. A biological weapon.
Anthrax, smallpox, the bubonic plague.
But nothing about the incident at the farm struck Vaughn as an act of terror.
Secluded, rural New Jersey. Not an airport, shopping mall, or sporting event. Nothing highly populated.
Delaney had said that the barn was owned by a defunct LLC. Darnell had added generating a more comprehensive ownership report to Delaney’s growing list of things to do, which could have easily been renamed “Things Darnell Didn’t Want To Do,” but Vaughn doubted that this would lead anywhere.
Terrorists got off on media coverage. The media spread fear as efficiently as any airborne pathogen.
Besides, the victims had likely come to the barn of their own accord—the ME hadn’t noted any defensive wounds other than minor damage to the fingers and nails of some of the victims.
Wounds that he’d hinted were conceivably, feasibly, probably, perhaps a result of them desperately trying to get out when the gas started flowing.
The victims were all men, all between twenty and fifty, if Vaughn had to guess.
These weren’t high school kids. This wasn’t a ‘let’s find a place where we can get high and drink without our parents finding out’ thing.
Maybe it was a game show.
But hydrogen sulfide gas? What the hell even was it, besides something that smelled like someone shit their pants?
Now it was Vaughn’s turn to address his computer. He typed “Hydrogen sulfide gas, H2S” into the search bar.
Primary industrial uses included petroleum refinement, chemical manufacturing, and various lab and research facility applications.
It naturally occurred in wastewater plants.
No central registry, but to use H2S, a corporation required permits from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.
Surprise, surprise—no mention of Squid Game.
Vaughn compiled a list of local places that had or might have access to H2S tanks: River Road Wastewater Treatment Plant, Princeton’s Chemical and Biological Engineering Department (CBE), and some random ass company that offers gas solutions, whatever the hell that meant.
“Prime numbers.”
Vaughn wasn’t sure he’d heard Darnell correctly.
“What?”
“Prime numbers. All of the numbers in the barn are prime numbers.”
“What?” Vaughn said again.
“Prime numbers,” Darnell repeated a third time, his eyes darting to his monitor. “A number that can only be divided by one and itself.”
“I know what a prime number is.” Sorta. “What does it mean?”
Darnell shrugged.
Sometimes it was hard to believe that he was the senior detective, the lead.
Why do I put up with this guy?
“Found some potential places where the gas might have come from.” Vaughn got up, grabbed his coat. “Hey, let me ask you something. What do you know about construction?”
“Construction?”
“Yeah, someone had to build those rooms in the barn.”
“I built a shed once. Hardest part was laying the concrete foundation. The rest? Studs, drywall? Like that? Easy. Can do it in a few hours.”
“Great.” Another dead end. “Alright, gas it is. Let’s go.”