At 7:00 a.m., there was a meeting within the FBI.
It was a huge meeting, with Jodie's serial shooter team, Akai Shūichi's serial killer team, and James' team.
Together with Jodie's group, they're all connected to the 'Master' in one way or another.
The atmosphere in the conference room was so stagnant that it was almost as if it was a Monday morning, when the three serial murders were linked together by a single person, creating a case that had not yet resulted in a major accident, but was clearly very serious.
So stagnant that it was almost like being asleep on a Monday morning.
Jodie clapped her hands, "Wake up."
She was still at the front of the table, standing at the side of the projector, but this time not as a leader, but as an introducer.
Before she actually opened her mouth to introduce them, she swept her eyes over the three colleagues who were her equals and more senior than herself, and then over Akai Shūichi, before saying, "This time, our target is the 'Master', a criminal who has appeared in the last month, and who has been unanimously discussed as being of a higher danger."
"The first time he appeared was near the scene of a serial murder, where he bumped into Mr. Akai, who detected that someone had been there from the smell of the scene."
"If it wasn't Mr. Akai, it's possible that the FBI didn't take the first encounter with this criminal seriously and treated the second and third encounters as if they were the first," Jodie explained, "So have there been any other 'encounters that were ignored because the FBI agent in question didn't take them seriously' before? No."
"One, the 'Master' has white hair and a distinctive appearance, even if he is not a suspicious person, just a quick glance, the FBI agent will remember him and report it when he hears about it, but so far, no FBI report has been made earlier than the time when Mr. Akai encountered him."
"Second, according to 'Inuo', he went to the airport to pick up his 'Master'."
"The 'Master' had just gotten off the plane."
The plane.
No one in the meeting said anything, but there was a kind of animation in the corners of everyone's eyes, as if they'd caught a clue.
Jodie understood.
She said calmly, "I've checked all the planes that came into New York that day, and none of the passengers match the 'Master'."
"I've checked airport surveillance everywhere, and I can't find any boarding surveillance of the 'Master', not even one that's broken."
This means that the 'Master' didn't simply destroy the cameras, if that's the case, then the FBI would be better off looking for him.
It's the fact that no one can be found, no information can be found, and it's as if they've appeared out of thin air, that's the scariest thing of all.
"The second time, it was Thanksgiving," Jodie said briefly, "and the third time, it was the hotel, linked to the serial murders James was responsible for."
"The fourth time, it was the New York manhunt,"
She looked to Akai Shūichi, "a three-hour manhunt for the 'Master' across three or four boroughs, headed by Mr Akai."
"The fifth, this time, was a threatening game that linked two serial murders,"
"He found my address and Mr. Akai's, and before five o'clock, before the FBI investigators were off duty, he placed a threatening 'gift',"
Briefly listing them, she said, "What does this gentleman want?"
It was a question that could be asked without thinking, and to which the FBI almost instinctively replied: "Provocation."
Criminals always care about the police.
James visibly hesitated, hesitated for a moment, "His attitude towards the FBI, it seems..."
He didn't say the words out loud, instead looking to Akai Shūichi, "What do you think, Akai?"
"Seems to be on the friendly side," Akai Shūichi said what James didn't quite dare to say, adding what he thought was a premise, "compared to the treatment of criminals."
Jodie nods, "Yes, on the friendly side,"
She glanced at the threatening greeting card on the projector, "Threatening warnings, but on the friendly side."
Though it sounded a little shifty, it wasn't shifty, any more than Akai Shūichi arriving home at five o'clock to sign for the mail on time had a valid reason for doing so, so everyone else had to read the time a few times with a smile on their face.
The reason the threatening cards are friendly is simple: "He knows who the murderer is."
"The threatening cards were written in the same handwriting, not by the killers of the two murders, but by the 'Master'," Jodie raised the corners of her lips, "who told us who the two killers were going to target next, and that's good news anyway, isn't it?"
Serial murders that weren't solved by the police in the first two or three cases either had some fatal limitation of the times, or the perpetrator was a smart guy, more or less in his head.
Most of them don't just kill randomly, they have a plan.
And if there's a plan, there's a plan.
Some excellent students or professors who have taken relevant crime courses in college and have gained some knowledge of crime can deduce the next step of the murderer based on his crime habits, so it's not very creepy for the 'Master' to find the real murderer and anticipate the murderer's move before he does it.
Ignoring the threat of the third card, and just looking at the first two, the 'master' is really friendly with the FBI, almost like a consultant to them.
And: "Since our first meeting, he's handed us five criminals, named a serial murder case that was missed, given information on the next victims of the four serial murders,"
Jodie inquired, "Is it friendly to the 'Master', do you have any questions?"
Adding, "Of course, 'friendly' is not the normal person's idea of friendly, it's the criminal's idea of friendly,"
"He seems to be,"
she mused for a few seconds, "an 'enforcer' type of criminal?"
Akai Shūichi said, "I presume, he wants to cooperate with the FBI."
"The premise is: equal cooperation."
Equal cooperation, of course, in the case of an even match.
The implication is that the criminal is testing the FBI's strength, and if it doesn't meet his expectations, he'll be as gentle and considerate as he is now, and as ruthless as he is when he changes his face.
...Although the current 'spring breeze gentle and considerate' is not quite normal human-style tenderness.
James whispered, "Counselor."
This is not a secret within the FBI, crime is broken down into all walks of life, FBI investigators of course can not line line proficient, so there is an external consultant, and proficient in a particular line of criminals is always more understanding of their peers, some criminals who are not immediately executed, may be in some areas more or less to help the FBI, belong to a number of special, temporarily undisclosed consultant.
It's common for even the basic police force to have spies, who tend to be people who have been around on the streets and are not too easy to get along with, who know a lot of the rules of the underworld, who can track things down better than the police can.
It's a gray area of consensus.
The FBI understood why the first item on the agenda was not the four cards, but the owner's attitude toward the FBI.
It was a delicate matter, but considering the strength that the 'Master' had shown so far, it was a matter that would do more good than harm to the FBI.
It was just: "...Then won't we arrest him?"
An FBI investigator hesitated.
James was the first to retort, "Of course not. Cooperation is cooperation, and catching criminals is catching criminals."
Mr. Criminal would have laughed at the FBI if he'd given up his arrest for cooperating.
"I presume," Akai Shūichi spoke up, pausing for about two or three seconds before continuing, "that he is not averse to being arrested."
"If we can successfully decipher the victim and the location of the murder, and apprehend the killer before the next victim is killed, then there might be some surprises."
＊
There are four cards in total, and two of the first victims hint at the time of day and their occupation. Jodie's card is a night worker, which could be a decent worker working the night shift at a bar or hotel or something like that, or it could be an unorthodox worker.
Akai Shūichi's card is a high school student coming home from school at noon.
The two times were staggered, so with a little bit of liver, we could barely get through the stakeout.
It's nighttime, so we start with Jodie's card locations: fountains, theaters, and alleys.
New York has a lot of such places, there are fountains in the square parks and theaters almost all over the New York, but together meet the three locations are not many.
After a thorough screening process, the FBI finally selected three locations that fit the bill.
The three locations are large locations, consisting of one small location after another, because there are currently four teams involved, the three teams are investigating the serial murders of the FBI has chosen a large location, their own team of FBI investigators precisely assigned to disguise themselves as passers-by to go to the large location including the various small locations near the squatting, Jodie group by Jodie to assign.
One of the locations was Times Square.
It was a familiar location to Akai Shūichi, who had passed by it while chasing Ichijō Mirai, and chose it when faced with three locations.
Times Square was James' responsibility, and with all the theaters in the area, it was a big job to watch for clues without spooking them.
Most of the FBI disguised themselves as cab drivers, janitors, and homeless people, while a few stayed in the neighborhood in their private cars during their shifts, and a few took up temporary residence in the neighborhood.
Akai Shūichi chose to disguise himself as a cab driver.
Wearing a knit cap to hide his long hair, he pulled up near Times Square, scanning the crowds around him as he listened to James' orders in his headset.
It's dark, New York is lit up with glittering neon lights, countless in the daytime some conspicuous garbage hidden in a variety of shadows, not too obvious up, a considerable portion of the public has gone home, only part of the familiar groups of people are still outside.
At night in New York, even adult men are afraid to walk alone in the shadows of the corner, every time you walk through some streets, you will receive and garbage living with the eyes of the homeless, and most likely will be robbed.
Even the Times Square neighborhood is not immune.
Akai Shūichi parked in a relatively shiny and safe spot, he swept over the hobos not far away and whispered to James, "The hobos who live in the neighborhood are more sensitive to their kind in the neighborhood, so tell your men to be on the lookout for possible danger."
"Okay," James agreed immediately, "Then during the daytime, we can take a few of the hobos back for questioning and ask them if they've seen any gray-haired young men or similar murderers in existence?"
"No," Akai Shūichi vetoed, "even if we take just one or two hobos or give them the benefit of the doubt for questioning in a remote corner, in less than two days, all of the hobos around will know that the FBI is squatting around the neighborhood looking for the killer."
"The fact that he left a decrypted greeting card means that the killer didn't realize that his next, next target had been figured out."
There's nothing wrong with a stakeout, except that if the stakeout is too lousy, it's easy to spook a suspect.
If the criminal does not alert the serial killer, but gives the FBI a clue, and the FBI alerts them, then it is a laughing matter, and they are not qualified to talk about cooperation.
This is probably the first step of the 'Master's' test.
"Really a scary guy," James took a deep breath, and suddenly said, "you can actually in the case of just see a side, will be concerned about the past, really..."
"With your ability, it should be very easy for you to obtain a higher status, right? Why do you still..."
Akai Shūichi: "My goal is not within the FBI."
He has more important things to do.
James, vaguely aware of some of this, lowered his voice and uttered a key word over the private channel of only two people, "'Satan'?"
"I heard Jodie say, 'Inuo' in the recording of the statement, had said that the 'Master' to him to give passionate accosting, used 'Messiah' this name."
"He's Asian and an almost unbelievable criminal,"
What kind of criminal can figure out what other criminals are going to do every time? It's like reading minds. It's a horrible criminal.
Is it true that such a criminal would have been unknown until he arrived in New York?
Definitely not.
...So, does the name 'Messiah' mean something?
"You're trying to say that 'Satan' means a lot to a lot of criminals," Akai Shūichi said lightly, "Yes, since he became famous three years ago by shocking the world with three consecutive bloody incidents, there's been a lot of imitators around the world."
Criminals also worship the strong, even more than ordinary people understand the horror of 'Satan', ordinary people may not pay attention to the news, do not understand this criminal code name in three years ago painted a stroke of how bloody and tragic, but the police and criminals are quite clear.
James was trying to say that 'Messiah' could be 'Satan'.
After all, there are always a few clever criminals, one or two at a time.
But, "No."
Akai Shūichi said, "He's not 'Satan'."