“About twenty minutes northwest of here.” Alex checked a map.

The intensity in the room cranked up another notch even as a swell of relief crashed over them all. Sweat started to form on Yael’s back. She swallowed to loosen her dry throat and turned her attention back to the information zipping down one panel on her screen. The task force hadn’t been one hundred percent certain Evi1Geni-us was still stateside, let alone in Houston. Based on past “events” the FBI behavioral analysts figured the auction would likely go down in the vicinity of where the victim had been kidnapped—at a storage location, empty property, or unused warehouse nearby. Unfortunately, in this part of Texas, at this time year, that didn’t exactly narrow things down.

They hadn’t even been positive Anya Baker had been taken by Evi1Geni-us or that she was the intended victim for today’s macabre online auction until the bastard had turned the camera on ten minutes ago. Alex Parker had had a strong enough hunch that they’d all flown down here the moment the monster had posted an auction was imminent approximately an hour after Anya had disappeared.

The task force had spent New Year’s Eve setting up this Command Center before crashing at a nearby hotel for a few hours’ sleep. Anya’s kidnap fitted the killer’s MO even though they hadn’t figured out exactly how the asshole chose his victims. That was one of the reasons it had taken so long to get even this close to the sicko.

Three heavily armed, black-clad men hunched over their own monitors coordinating with the tactical units. Members of the Hostage Rescue Team were currently loaded into vehicles idling at two separate locations around the city. An Enhanced SWAT team made up a third group on the east side. She heard one of the three HRT guys in the room get on the radio to tell Echo unit to head northwest. They all knew Evi1Geni-us was tricky and he could be spoofing Alex in some way so the tactical units wanted to split up to cover as much ground as possible.

“First voting option is up,” Agent Chen said quietly.

Option 1: Removing the bitch’s clothes using, A) Knife, B) Scissors, C) Bare hands.

Immediately the votes started pouring in. Out of the corner of her eye Yael watched her boss’s mouth tighten.

The vultures who’d tuned in—at a cost of five thousand US dollars a feed, capped at one hundred feeds—got to vote on exactly how things went down from here. Each vote cost another thousand dollars. All attendees had to commit to a minimum of five votes per auction. The more votes someone made the more likely they were to receive an invitation to the next party. It was an exclusive club and demand far exceeded available slots.

What viewers might not appreciate was that anyone who watched a murder without reporting it was facing possible accessory charges. Anyone who paid to watch a murder was looking at definite accessory and possible accomplice charges.