The Controller

by Matt Brolly

  Mallard nodded to Sucker Punch, seemingly unconcerned that Lynch was now free of cuffs. He was wearing the same clothes as last time, head to toe in black. Lynch tried to determine how long ago that occasion had been but time was becoming an illusion. ‘How long do you intend playing these games, Mallard?’ he said.

  ‘I don’t play games, Mr Lynch. I told you the last time we met that I saw something in you long ago. I thought some time alone would give you cause to consider my suggestion.’

  The sensible move would be to play along with Mallard’s assertions, to say the words Mallard wanted him hear. Lynch held Mallard’s gaze and understood that wasn’t an option. Mallard would see through him. ‘I considered your suggestion and I don’t buy it,’ he said.

  Mallard smiled like a salesman facing an objection. ‘That would be a grave pity, Mr Lynch. As I said, we could do wonderful things together.’

  ‘Do you really need me, Mallard? You seem to be doing OK for yourself as it is. You’ve got your guards, they’re terrified of you but they’re yours and no doubt loyal. You’ve got your wealth, and your connections with the law agencies. What the hell do you want with me?’ Lynch’s pulse was racing but Mallard remained calm.

  ‘People like you and me are rare, Mr Lynch. So very rare. I scour the earth for like-minded souls and can literally count on the fingers on my hands the number of people I’ve met who are like me.’

  ‘Your inner sanctum?’ said Lynch, with a laugh.

  ‘Yes, and one or two you’ve yet to meet.’

  ‘You’re including Balfour on this list?’ said Lynch, dismissively.

  ‘Let’s not drag personal conflicts into this, Mr Lynch. You and Mr Balfour are much more alike than you could ever imagine.’

  ‘That’s where your argument falls down, Mallard. I’m nothing like that prick.’

  Mallard leant closer. ‘You really don’t know yourself, Mr Lynch, do you? Or if you do, you choose not to fully accept what you are.’

  The calming baritone of the Controller’s voice soothed Lynch. He shook himself, fighting the feeling. ‘I’m nothing like Balfour.’

  ‘You have different tastes, certainly,’ said Mallard, with a knowing smile. ‘Yet fundamentally you are alike. Both of you would stop at nothing to get what you want. You have a very flexible approach to morality when it comes between you and your goal.’

  Mallard had alluded to this before and alone in his cell Lynch had dwelt on his previous actions, the lives he’d taken or forsaken in his desire to find Daniel. He’d sacrificed his marriage and all existing relationships. In the last few weeks so many people had died, in part because of him. From that point of view, Mallard was correct. He did have a flexible approach to morality at certain times, but then who didn’t? Morality was a fluid concept. Lynch had witnessed parents protect murdering children, countless colleagues and friends who’d cheated on partners and kept silent. Lynch had made a choice. He’d placed Daniel above everything else. He wasn’t the first parent to do this and wouldn’t be the last. It didn’t make him like Mallard or any of them.

  He was signing his death warrant but he couldn’t play along with the charade anymore. ‘You’re wrong,’ he said, standing.

  Mallard nodded. ‘I’m disappointed to hear that, Mr Lynch.’ He clicked his fingers and Sucker Punch appeared once more, cuffing Lynch before he had time to react. ‘Perhaps it’s time we reunited you with your son.’

  Rage overcame Lynch at the mention of Daniel. Sucker Punch was still behind him so he threw his head back, a sharp aggressive motion making solid contact with Sucker Punch’s nose. Lynch ignored the mumbled complaints of the guard and ran straight towards Mallard who was holding his ground, a curious smile on his face. With his hands cuffed behind him Lynch was off balance. He ran head first at his captor like a bull chasing a red rag. Mallard was ready for him and sidestepped with ease. Lynch managed to remain upright and swiveled around to face Mallard.

  ‘Even you are not going to win this particular fight, Mr Lynch.’

  Lynch shook his head, a line of spittle flying from his mouth. ‘He’s still alive?’ he said, determined not to display his rising emotion.

  ‘We’re both men of our word. Now, I suggest you compose yourself before Mr Travis here takes revenge for his unfortunate injury.’

  Lynch smirked at the fallen guard who held his broken nose as if it would fall off. ‘I’m ready.’

  ‘Then follow me. Get up, Travis.’

  Mallard walked across the altar of the church followed by Lynch, the sound of their footsteps echoing on the marble floors. Travis moved in behind Lynch, his breathing ragged, the smell of blood and fear pouring from his body. Mallard bent down and lifted a trap door and disappeared below. Lynch peered over the opening, surprised to see an ornate wooden staircase leading down.

  ‘Steady now, we wouldn’t want you falling,’ said Sucker Punch, as Lynch took his first step.

  Thirteen steps down, expensive artwork hung on the walls of a well-lit room, the modernity reminding Lynch of the circular room where he’d first met Mallard.

  ‘Our gateway,’ said Mallard, pointing towards a second set of doors.

  Lynch followed his captor. The adrenaline in his system was unwelcome, a result of fear and unease rather than excitement. Mallard pulled open the doors and Lynch was surprised to see the interior of an elevator similar to any he would expect to see in an upmarket office building.

  ‘Very few people get to see what you are about to, Mr Lynch. At least, not from this side.’

  Lynch fought his apprehension, his determination coming from the promise of seeing Daniel again. He was unable to tell if the descent was an illusion. He couldn’t sense any movement as the doors shut and they stood in silence. Mallard was lost in thought, a serene look on his face as he swayed on the spot.

  Minutes later, the elevator stopped with a gentle bump. The doors opened and Mallard ushered him into hell itself.

  44

  McBride was owed a favor by one of the OTD team, William Hawken, who agreed to analyze the data downloaded from the three Gunn vehicles. ‘Shouldn’t take me more than thirty minutes,’ said Hawken, who was dressed more like a vagrant than a member of the FBI. His overgrown salt and pepper beard draped down onto the chest hairs beneath his floral patterned short-sleeved shirt.

  As Rose waited in the canteen area with McBride, she felt the eyes of the other agents boring into her. She had become a celebrity in the Bureau for all the wrong reasons. Many of her colleagues still blamed her for the events at the compound. The building was full of misinformation and Rose was experienced enough to realize there always had to be a scapegoat.

  ‘What exactly is it you’re hoping for?’ asked McBride, who either wasn’t suffering the same insecurity or was hiding it better than her. He was tucking into a burger, sauce dripping from the bun onto the side of his chin. He chewed on his last mouthful before shrugging his shoulders as he waited for her to respond.

  ‘I don’t believe in coincidence,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah but there are coincidences and coincidences,’ said McBride, wiping his face with a napkin. ‘Mallard’s business interests are vast. If you looked hard enough you could probably link him with practically everyone.’

  ‘Something’s not right here. You know it as well as I do. The Gunn family wasn’t killed by accident. It wasn’t a random murder, it was planned. Razinski may have taken things too far, but he was meant to be there that day.’

  ‘Maybe so,’ said McBride, finishing another mouthful of burger. ‘But the link to Mallard is so slim it’s almost non-existent.’

  ‘Have Miller and Roberts got to you as well?’ said Rose, sounding sharper than intended.

  ‘I will pretend I didn’t hear that. Listen you know I’m on your side it’s just that…’

  ‘What?’ said Rose, interrupting. ‘You want me to give this up and be known as the agent who was responsible for the multiple deaths at the compound? You want me to give up on Lynch as
well? He was one of us, remember. If we had listened to him to begin with this could all have been prevented,’ she said, realizing after she’d spoken that she was repeating an earlier argument.

  ‘I’m not saying we give up on it, more refocus. Continue our work on Balfour, see what we can find there.’

  A distant part of her accepted he was right. If she’d been viewing the case from the outside she would have given the same advice. She was working on little more than a hunch, and hunches were something she couldn’t abide. Real police work was completed by hard work and diligence, by analyzing facts and evidence. Hunches were for a bygone era, for rogue detectives, for fiction and television. She would wait to see what the tech team came back with and plan from there. If a new approach was what was needed then so be it.

  ‘You not going to eat?’ said McBride, eyeing her half-eaten burger.

  ‘Jesus, you sound more and more like my mother,’ she said, regretting her words as soon as they’d left her mouth. ‘I’m getting coffee. Do you want anything?’

  McBride took a bite of her burger and put his thumb up.

  Hawken was at the table by the time she returned with the coffees. He smiled as she walked over and took one of the cups from her. ‘Good news or bad news?’ he said.

  ‘Anything,’ said Rose, drinking from the second cup of coffee before McBride had a chance to take it from her.

  ‘Well, the bad news is that the majority of journeys in all three cars were pretty routine. Gunn’s work vehicle recorded daily trips to and from work. Mrs Gunn’s vehicle had a similar predictable pattern. I’ve printed out a list of all destinations and corresponding routes. I’ll leave the proper investigating work to you, maybe what you’re looking for is in there.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Rose. ‘You mentioned something about good news?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Hawken, taking another drink of coffee, some of the liquid clinging to his beard. ‘Good news is perhaps a stretch too far. Interesting might be a better choice. The Land Rover appears to be used for one particular recurring journey, long trip too, very long trip. Five hundred odd miles away from Gunn’s home into the wilds of West Texas, Davis Mountain country. What was interesting, what caught my eye, was the way the journey stopped.’

  ‘Stopped?’ said McBride.

  ‘Yes it’s really quite interesting between 490.2 and 490.9 miles into the journey, and this was always depending on minor deviation to the route, the signal just stops.’

  ‘So that is where he stopped the car?’ said Rose.

  Hawken lifted his finger. ‘No, that is exactly the point. The signal stopped but the car was still going, our diagnostics tell us the car continues for another twenty to twenty-five minutes on each of the trips with no GPS signal showing. On the return journey the same thing happens. The car runs twenty to twenty-five minutes with no signal whatsoever and then at the some point it springs to life.’

  Rose took the file from Hawken and studied the coordinates shown on the map.

  ‘So he just turned off the GPS whenever he reached this point?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ said Hawken, the smile on his face broadening until the side of his eyes were full of deep wrinkled lines. ‘That is the interesting thing. It wasn’t done manually, it was automatic. If I didn’t know better, I would have said the car went underground at this point. This would be the most logical explanation for his GPS failing.’

  ‘Is there any other reason his GPS would stop working?’ asked Rose.

  ‘The only other thing I can think of is a malfunction with the car’s GPS, but this isn’t the case as it works fine; or that someone was jamming the signal.’

  ‘How can you do that?’

  ‘It’s not that difficult. It’s illegal, but quite easy to do. We use such technology in certain locations if you get my drift?’

  ‘In this instance?’ asked McBride

  ‘No, no, no,’ said Hawken. ‘I’m just saying. Could be a military organization, could be some private land, could be a rogue civilian, could be coincidence.’ Hawken got to his feet. ‘I’ll leave that up to the professionals,’ he said, making a bizarre circular gesture with his hand like a commoner signaling to royalty.

  ‘Thanks, Will, I owe you one,’ said McBride.

  ‘My pleasure,’ said Hawken. ‘Let me know what you find once you get there,’ he said.

  McBride glanced Rose, his face downcast presumably at the thought of a five hundred mile journey.

  Rose matched Hawken’s smile. ‘We will do,’ she said.

  ‘You didn’t think we were going to sit on this did you?’ said Rose, the following morning at five am. She was doing her best to cheer up the somber looking McBride.

  ‘I guess not,’ said McBride, who sat in the passenger seat, dark glasses on, nursing a coffee, staring at the window like a teenager on vacation with his parents.

  After meeting with Hawken, they’d studied the area where Gunn’s GPS signal failed. She didn’t know what to expect when she got there. The main issue, as Hawken had pointed out via email, was that Gunn could have gone in any direction once his signal had gone blank. In twenty to twenty-five minutes, he could have travelled another twenty to forty miles or even more depending on his speed. Which left them with a huge circumference tracking area. Rose oscillated between optimism that she was on the right track, and fear that her investigation was spiraling out of control. Sometimes letting go was the hardest decision and, from an outsider’s position, it could look like she was clutching at imaginary straws.

  They headed out of San Antonio on the I-10. The road was desolate, the scenery seemingly unchanging. Even after all these years Rose had yet to overcome her sense of wonder at the vastness of the state. Isolated houses dotted the never-ending landscape, the occasional built up area flashing by on the edges of the interstate. It was beyond her understanding how people lived in such solitude. Although happy in her own company, and at times welcoming such isolation, there was something unfathomable about being so far from civilization. She pictured the inhabitants of the lone houses and wondered if they were staring back at her as she drove, and if they felt comfort in the occasional passing stranger.

  They stopped for an early lunch in Del Rio, near the air force base.

  ‘How are we on securing a meeting with Mallard?’ asked Rose, cracking a taco shell.

  ‘I’m not even sure if Mallard exists,’ said McBride, turning towards her and catching her faraway gaze. ‘I’m just passed from one lawyer to the next and the fact that I’m a government agent doesn’t appear to give me any leeway.’

  ‘Can we not send it higher up the food chain?’ said Rose.

  ‘Miller and Roberts, you mean?’ said McBride, with an ironic laugh. ‘They washed their hands of this case some time ago. They’re not going to get involved, contacting some reclusive billionaire with the vague connections we have.’

  ‘Well... keep trying. I do appreciate you sticking by me on this.’

  The left corner of McBride’s mouth curled into a smile. ‘Anything for my partner.’

  ‘So we’re partners?’ said Rose, matching his smile.

  ‘It looks that way,’ said McBride, reaching into his jacket pocket for his shades.

  ‘Don’t you dare.’

  McBride’s hand hovered by the seam of his inside pocket before he placed it on his forehead and gave her a mock salute. ‘I wouldn’t dream of it, boss.’

  Four hours later they were approaching Otisville, the area where Gunn’s GPS had failed. ‘It should be any second now,’ said McBride, looking at the map on his phone.

  They’d left the highway and were on a minor road, barren land surrounding them on every side. Rose’s sense of isolation had intensified over the last thirty minutes, the broken tarmac of the road and their car the only sign of modernity in their entire field of vision. ‘Now,’ said McBride, hitting the dashboard with undue force as his GPS signal disappeared. Rose continued driving for fifty more yards before pulling over.

 
; ‘Jesus this is convenient,’ said McBride.

  Rose had stopped at a crossroads, the road continuing straight ahead and forking to the left and right. ‘You ever feel like you’re in a game, Agent Rose?’ said McBride, gazing in all directions.

  ‘Continually,’ said Rose.

  They were ten miles south of Otisville. Rose’s research had revealed that the Rock Island Railroad, a now defunct network running from St Louis, had once passed close to the area.

  They left the car, Rose checking her phone for the dead signal. Heat rose from the road. Above her, she heard the faint buzz of the electrical wire that stretched across the sky, held together by wooden pylons. It was desolate but still contained signs of life.

  ‘Never thought I’d have to use one of these again,’ said McBride, unfolding a map of the local area.

  Rose squinted at the small area McBride pointed to on the map. ‘If we go east, we’ll reach civilization sooner,’ he said.

  ‘We don’t want civilization,’ said Rose, pointing south. ‘Gunn drove a further twenty-five minutes without GPS coverage.’

  ‘True, but he could have gone any direction. He could have moved inland, meandered through these small country lanes.’

  Rose rubbed the sweat from her brow, droplets of the salty liquid stinging her eyes. She could tell McBride thought it was a lost cause. It would be easy to drive away from this and return to normality but the loss of GPS signal was an anomaly that had to be investigated. ‘Come on, we’ve come this far. Might as well see it out.’

  McBride grimaced, and placed his shades on. ‘You’re the boss,’ he said.

  They took the road west, McBride glued to his iPad. Twenty minutes in and the road had deteriorated further in quality. The road markings vanished, and the various potholes were testing the viability of the car’s suspension.

  ‘You realize we’re totally screwed if we break down now. This is the sort of thing you read about, though it’s usually clueless tourists rather than seasoned FBI agents.’