What Comes Next by John Katzenbach Read Free Book Online

viewers at least at that moment could tell she was still alive. She might have been unconscious, drugged, or even asleep, but after perhaps thirty seconds she twitched, and one of the chains restraining her rattled.
    One of the partygoers gasped. Someone said in French, “Est-ce-que c’est vrai?” But no one answered the question, except perhaps with silence and by the way they craned forward, trying to see more closely.
    In English, another partier said, “It’s a performance. She must be an actress hired specifically for the webcast.”
    The sequined woman looked over at the man and shook her head. Her reply was tinged with her Slavic accent, but delivered impeccably: “Many people thought that, at the start of the prior series. But eventually, as the days pass, one realizes that there are no actors willing to play these roles.”
    She looked back at the screen. The hooded figure seemed to shiver and then turned her head sharply, as if someone just out of camera sight had entered the room. The viewers could see her strain against the chains gripping her.
    Then, almost as swiftly as it had arrived, this image froze on the screen, as if it had suddenly been caught like a picture of a bird in flight. It dissolved into black and once again there was a question in bloodred writing: Want to See More?
    This inquiry was followed on the screen by a demand for credit card information and a subscription fee structure. One could purchase some minutes, up to an hour, or a multihour block. One could also buy a day, or more. There was a large fee cited for SERIES #4 FULL ACCESS WITH INTERACTIVE BOARD. At the bottom of the entries was a large electronic stopwatch, also in bright red. It was set to 00:00. This was followed by the words: Day One. All the party attendees saw as the clock suddenly clicked forward 1 second, then 2 ... as it began to keep time. It was a little like the digital clock that marks the elapsed length of a tennis match at Wimbledon or the U.S. Open.
    Just beyond that was a statement: Series #4 potential duration 1 week to 1 month.
    At the party, someone shouted in Russian, “Come on, Dimitri! Buy the whole package… start to finish! You’ve got the money!” This was accompanied by nervous laughter and bursts of acclamation and agreement as the man with the mustache first turned to the gathering, arms spread wide, as if asking what he should do, before he grinned, made a small, theatrical bow, and punched in some credit card numbers. As soon as he did this the screen filled with a prompt for a password. The man nodded to the sequined lady and gestured toward his computer keyboard. She smiled and typed in some letters. One might have imagined that she wrote out her lover’s in-the-bedroom nickname. The party host smiled and signaled a white-jacketed waiter at the rear of the penthouse to refill glasses as his well-heeled guests settled into a fascinated quiet waiting for a final electronic confirmation of the sale.
    Others, around the world, were awaiting the same thing.
    There was no typical user at Whatcomesnext.com although there were probably a much lower percentage of women than men and the public nature of the party in Moscow was an exception; most of the clients signed on to Whatcomesnext.com in private locations, where they could watch the drama unfold on Series #4 in quiet solitude. The website had created a sign-on system filled with access identification through blind passwords, double- and triple-secured, followed by a dizzying sequence of high-speed transfers to various Web engines in eastern Europe and India. It was a system that had been set up by sophisticated electronic thinking and had survived more than one effort by police to penetrate it. But because it didn’t seem to have a political view—that is, the site wasn’t favored by terrorist organizations—and it didn’t deal overtly in child pornography, it had survived these modest and only occasional intrusions. In truth, the