I’M ON A MISSION FROM GOD screamed the headline.

“It’s a one-on-one interview with Prior Silver,” realized Frankel. “Given directly to Monte Ferguson.”

Chapter 27

27

I’M ON A MISSION FROM GOD

As told to Monte Ferguson

When one sits across from Prior Silver, one swears they are talking to your average garage mechanic, the forty-five-year-old’s former profession, not the man responsible for a string of robberies two decades ago in London’s Financial District, or one of the most notorious serial killers to ever prowl across two continents.

Having contacted this reporter directly, Silver expressed a desire to discuss the multiple murders—but only with an assurance that no one else be present, in a place of his choosing, undisclosed to Scotland Yard or any other law enforcement agency.

Mild-mannered, polite, and soft-spoken, Silver could just have been delivering a treatise on the workings of the Alfa Romeos he used to service instead of discussing the murder spree that has recently terrorized London and Manhattan.

Ferguson: Let’s start with why you wanted to conduct this interview.

Silver: I thought it was time to set the record straight.

Ferguson: Why? Were there false accusations being made against you?

Silver: Not so much false as misleading.

Ferguson: You don’t deny that you brutally murdered eight people, two in New York and six here in Greater London?

Silver: I’ve been doing the Lord’s work.

Ferguson: How so?

(At this point, Prior Silver pulled out a Bible and read from a marked passage).

Silver: Ezekiel chapter 18, verses 21 and 22. “If the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die. All his transgressions that he hath committed, they shall not be mentioned unto him: in his righteousness that he hath done he shall live.”

Ferguson: It sounds like you felt driven to commit these crimes out of some desire for repentance.

Silver: Yes. For crimes in my past.

Ferguson: The bank robberies in the Financial District twenty years ago.

Silver: Exactly.

Ferguson: But isn’t that what prison was for? That you would repent while you served your time and might possibly find salvation?

Silver: That was only the first step. I vowed that upon my release I would continue my commitment to the Lord’s statutes and seek to punish those who did not.

Ferguson: And by statutes, I take it you mean the Ten Commandments?

Silver: That is correct.

Ferguson: And thus anointed yourself judge, jury, and executioner.

Silver: I was only doing the Lord’s bidding.

Ferguson: By slaughtering them in cold blood.

Silver: By sending them to eternity marked for their transgressions.

Ferguson: Marked? Marked how?

Silver: With a Roman numeral on their brow to wear until the End of Days.

“So much for holding that piece of information for ourselves,” said Frankel.