Untraceable Page #13

Christmas tree.

Disgusted, Marsh changes the channel.

RADIO FEMALE TALK JOCK (O.S.)

--the list of who my girlfriends

and I think he should kill next.

Number 1:
Paris Hilton’s dog.

Number 2:
Paris Hilton. Number 3-

65.

Marsh changes the channel again.

RADIO MINISTER:

--the Samaritan of today give comfort

to the fallen stranger on the road to

Jericho? Oh, no, because he travels

the information super-highway! He’s

oblivious to the reality of human

suffering, because he lives in a

virtual reality! Friends, the world

wide web is nothing more than-

Marsh changes the channel again. Mozart. She leaves it.

EXT. CYBER DIVISION HEADQUARTERS -- MORNING.

MEDIA TRUCKS and SCORES OF REPORTERS crowd the gate. Marsh,

hating it, drives through the crowd. Reporters yell

questions and flash photos, as she passes.

.

EXT. CYBER DIVISION HEADQUARTERS LOT -- LATER -- MORNING.

Marsh, walking quickly across the crowded parking lot, nears

the front entrance.

Box leans against the building, smoking, sipping coffee,

reading The Washington Post. She walks over. He shows her

the article he’s reading. It bears a handsome professional

headshot of Carver.

BOX:

They condemn the site, refuse to

publish its name, then they mention

that it’s all over the Web and that

an eight year old could find it.

Box flips his cigarette and moves.

BOX (cont’d)

I guess it doesn’t matter. It’s

out there. It’s everywhere.

As he and Marsh enter the building, he drops the newspaper in

the trash.

OFF THE NEWSPAPER headshot of Jerry Carver-

DISSOLVE TO THE REAL JERRY CARVER, hanging dead from the Ping-

Pong table, crusted black with dried blood. Flies swarm in

celebration.

Behind him, the Viewer counter flies past 31,000,000....

66.

THE CAMERA MOVES OVER to reveal Owen, oblivious to the

horror, sitting at a work table, hunched over his computer.

CLOSE ON HIS COMPUTER SCREEN, filled with mundane folders.

His cursor moves from folder to folder, deciding which one to

open. It stops on “Photos.”

.

Click. A long list JPEG FILES opens. The cursor moves to

one marked “Drunk Me.” Click.

A COLOR PHOTO OF MARSH opens, showing her years ago, laughing

at a bar, with her pals from Quantico.

Owen closes it. Moves his cursor down the list. Stops on

one marked “Mom.” A photo opens of Stella, beaming with

happiness, feeding Annie as a two-year-old.

Owen closes it. Moves his cursor. Stops on another photo

and clicks. A photo of Annie opens, as we know her today,

grinning and adorable, on a playground swing.

Owen stares at it for a long, long time.

INT. ASCENDING ELEVATOR -- MINUTE LATER -- MORNING.

Marsh and Box are alone in the elevator. Their eyes meet in

the silver reflection of the doors.

BOX:

Annie forgive you for bailing on

the cook-out?

MARSH:

Only after I read her three bedtime

stories.

BOX:

A small price to pay.

Marsh smiles and her eyes bounce away. Box studies her

reflection. She catches him looking.

MARSH:

What?

BOX:

I knew you were familiar.

(beat)

Rick and I came up together.

(no reaction)

Haskins.

Marsh stares, blinks a few times.

67.

MARSH:

He introduced us?

BOX:

No, we never met. I just saw you.

At his funeral.

Marsh nods slowly, revealing nothing. The doors open,

separating their reflections.

INT. TASK FORCE COMMAND CENTER -- LATER -- MORNING.

The room is crowded with LOCAL AGENTS, setting up a more

complex command center. A huge map of the area covers one

wall. More computers have been brought in.

On one large plasma screen, we see Carver’s dead body, with

the Viewer counter spinning past 38,000,000. Box and Marsh

enter and look around at all the activity. Griffin walks

over, excited, speaking under his breath-

GRIFFIN:

Brooks finally made it a special...

and he brought in the profiler you

asked for. Two, in fact.

.

MARSH:

It’s about time.

BOX:

What’s a special?

GRIFFIN:

When we transfer agents from other

divisions to cover our regular

cases, so our agents, who know the

area, can join the task force.

MARSH:

What woke him up?

GRIFFIN:

A phone call from the Director.

Who got one from the Secretary of

Homeland Security. Whose niece

used to date Jerry Carver’s son.

Marsh has to smile at the absurdity.

MARSH:

I guess all politics is local.

68.

INT. TASK FORCE COMMAND CENTER -- LATER -- DAYS LATER.

Marsh, Box, and Griffin sit with TWO DOZEN OTHER OFFICERS

some uniformed, some not, from a variety of agencies,

listening to FBI profiler HANK DAIGLE, 55, burly, crusty,

genial-

.

DAIGLE:

Well, the son of a b*tch knows his

way around a computer. He knows

something about medicine, too. Is

he a psychopath? To some extent,

sure. No conscience. Sees other

people as articles...objects...to

be controlled with violence. He’s

probably on the younger side, too.

Might already have served some jail

time.

His partner MIKE INMAN, late 30’s, a straighter arrow, joins

in--

.

INMAN:

But in real life, mental disorders

don’t come in tidy packages. They

overlap sometimes, which is what I

think we’re looking at here. The

lack of a sexual component, for

example -- that’s abnormal for

psychopaths. So is his mastery of

computers. Psychopaths lack the

focus to excel at much of anything.

So, my guess is the subject’s got

paranoid tendencies, as well.

Which would make him a less social

individual, more likely to withdraw

into cyberspace and-

BOX:

What do you think the piece of

sh*t’s trying to say with these

killings?

People are surprised by the interruption, and some are

confused by the question. Not Marsh.

DAIGLE:

Sounds like you’ve got a theory.

Box takes a beat to order his thoughts. As he speaks, Marsh

becomes increasingly interested in, and impressed by, what he

has to say:

69.

BOX:

There’re plenty of ways to kill.

Our guy invites the public to join

in. The American public. No

foreigners allowed. And he invites

them to kill who? Fellow

Americans. Good citizens. That,

plus the cartoon, the music -- if

you ask me, it shows contempt not

just for the victim, but for every

one who watches...all his helpers.

He reminds me of the Unabomber...a

paranoid with delusions of grandeur

...using violence to critique

society. In other words, a f***in’

terrorist. Except what this one’s

trying to say I’m not sure. Guess

I’ll have to wait and read his

manifesto.

.

(beat)

That make any sense?

INMAN:

It does, and I’ll answer with a

question. Society’s been around a

long time. Why did the subject

start attacking it now? Start

killing now? I’d be on the lookout

for an inciting event, something

personal in a suspect’s life that

might have set him off.

Marsh takes this in.

INT. CYBER DIVISION HALLWAY -- LATER -- DAY.

As the meeting adjourns, Task Force members fill the hallway.

Marsh walks up to Box-

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