The Controller

by Matt Brolly

  ‘It was confirmation.’

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘I ransacked his fucking house.’

  Haig’s lawyer rolled his eyes at his client’s last statement.

  ‘Laney was there. She gave me permission. She was worried about him,’ said Haig, justifying his actions.

  ‘Tell us what you found,’ said Miller.

  ‘I went through everything, every single thing in that house. I was there for sixteen hours minimum,’ said Haig, warming to his role of storyteller.

  ‘Didn’t find anything. We put everything back in place before Gunn returned. Over the next couple of days I contemplated confronting Gunn but for all I knew it could be something innocuous. Some lover he’d taken to the wilderness. The car accident could have been simply an accident, the fake insurance documents fake insurance. And then Razinski killed them and it was too late.’

  ‘I hope for everyone’s sake that your tale doesn’t end there,’ said Rose.

  ‘Obviously, I knew it wasn’t a coincidence from the off. I spent all those days wondering what the hell it all meant. Then I found out what happened at the compound.’ Haig gazed at the floor. ‘All this shit about the Railroad. I started to think that Gunn was eliminated because of my interest in him, that somehow Gunn was working for them and that I was getting too close.’

  ‘Why didn’t they take you out instead if that was the case?’

  ‘Well, exactly. My guess was that there was less heat this way.’

  ‘A four person slaughter, and an armed attack at an FBI compound,’ said Miller, with a snort.

  ‘Look, I don’t know. Maybe if my officer hadn’t been on the scene, and if we hadn’t cornered Razinski, the worst wouldn’t have happened. Razinski would have killed Gunn and been done with it.’

  ‘What else did you discover, Iain?’ asked Rose.

  Haig sighed, and turned to his lawyer who was trying to ignore him. ‘It was after I saw those tracks engraved onto Razinski’s arms that I remembered something from Gunn’s house. I’d dismissed it before as there was no correlation. But after you told me about the Railroad organization I remembered a little booklet I’d seen. It was in his safe along with a few other books. It was an old book so I thought it might be valuable. It was a history of the railroads in the state.’

  ‘Where is this book now?’

  ‘I took it.’

  ‘God damn, man. You tampered with evidence as well,’ said Miller.

  ‘You saw what happened to the Gunn family, what happened to your agents. If they could do that to the feds then what hope did I have if they came for me?’

  ‘What did you find in the book, Iain?’ said Rose.

  Haig looked defiant. ‘I told you. I know where they are.’

  Rose wanted to believe him but struggled to see how an old book about railroads could reveal their location.

  ‘For the love of God, tell us man,’ said Miller.

  ‘Gunn had highlighted a passage. A defunct freight line, last used in the early twentieth century. He’d underlined an entry. St Bernadette’s Church. I ran a search for the place online but there were no results. If it ever existed, it’s been erased from history. The town, the church, the railroad line. I’ve been to the County library, even went to the State library. I’ve gone through microfiche until it was coming out of my ass. The only proof that this place ever existed is in this little book. If you don’t find them there then fuck it they don’t exist. You can lock me up for good.’

  ‘Believe me, we will,’ said Miller.

  ‘Where’s the book?’ asked Rose.

  ‘In my safe. I presume you’re already searching through my stuff?’

  Rose nodded.

  ‘In my office there is a loose floorboard beneath my desk where you’ll find a floor safe. The combination is 52639.’

  ‘Laney,’ said Rose, glancing at the alphanumeric interface on her phone.

  ‘Yes,’ said Haig. ‘Laney.’

  49

  Lynch’s days alone in the faux hotel room hadn’t prepared him for this. He wasn’t quite in pitch darkness - at infrequent intervals light from the floodlights spilt through the corrugated iron of his prison - but it wasn’t clear enough to see much beyond the outline of his hand in front of him. He feared this was it - he’d come so close to finding Daniel only for it all to end in a lonely prison cell – but tried to keep positive.

  Mallard wasn’t finished with him. The sensible move would be to surrender to Mallard’s will and pretend he was one of them, that the whole experience had changed him. If he could gain Mallard’s trust, he could escape. But would Mallard fall for this deception? Or had he already protested too much?

  With the perpetual darkness he was unable to even guess the amount of time he’d spent in the prison. He fell in and out of consciousness, the distant memory of his dreams fading on waking. It felt like days since he was last supplied with food and water, and when the shutter of his prison door opened, light piercing his cell like a laser beam, it took all his strength not to beg for sustenance.

  ‘To the far end,’ came a voice from outside. ‘Feed your hands backwards through the opening.’

  Lynch shuffled across the floor to the back of the cell and placed his hands in a second trapdoor on the wall where his hands were cuffed behind him. He shielded his eyes as the prison door slid open and more light swamped the interior. He looked up in time to see a guard place a tray on the stone floor before the door was shut and he was returned to the darkness.

  He tried not to rush the meager rations, ignorant as to when he’d next be fed. He’d been given dried bread with a non-descript form of meat, milk, and water.

  He fantasized an escape route whilst trying not to dwell on thoughts of Daniel being stuck in such a place for all these years. He fiddled with the tracking device still in his jeans. If it had ever worked, it wouldn’t do so underground but the small device was his last connection to the outside world.

  In his darkest moments he reconsidered Mallard’s words. Were they so different? Mallard had been correct in stating they were both killers and his homily about his first kill had struck a chord with Lynch. He could picture his first kill as clear as any day of his life; the clear blue sky, the hint of sulphur in the air, the gang member’s lifeless body. The boy had meant to kill him but that hadn’t made it any easier. He still dreamt of that moment despite all the other lives he’d taken since. Mallard was correct, it did become easier, but Lynch could still recall everyone he’d ever killed. He knew their names, the dates, and could replay each incident with unwavering accuracy. He doubted Mallard would be able to do the same.

  Lynch rejected Mallard’s argument about moral justification. His kills had come serving the law, or latterly in his quest to find Daniel. Whatever their similarities, Mallard couldn’t really believe that Lynch would ever be one of them. Seeing the helpless woman in prison forty-nine was enough to clarify that. Mallard’s constant assertion that they were alike must be part of a secondary ploy. Lynch imagined he was involved in some form of experiment, the goal of which was to turn him into one of the Railroad.

  Lynch promised himself that would never happen, accepting his decision would ultimately mean he would lose his life.

  50

  Rose insisted that Haig accompany her back to his house. The threat of an attack was ever present as she made the journey, her eyes on constant look out for an ambush. Due to the risk of her communications being tapped, she didn’t call McBride.

  ‘It could happen to anyone,’ said Haig, as she pulled off the interstate.

  ‘You don’t need to defend your actions to me, Iain. If you really believe that, then fine. But if we switched positions would you have sympathy for me? You had the chance to come clean about your relationship with Laney that day your officer was killed. Yes, it could have ended your career but you would have left with some respect intact. Now, you’re little better than Razinski and the rest of them.’

  ‘That’s
not fair.’

  ‘Live with it,’ said Rose, pulling outside the deposed Captain’s house.

  McBride was outside, shades on, smoking with two other agents. ‘What’s he doing here?’ said McBride, approaching her as she left the car.

  ‘Thought I’d bring him along for the ride. Keep him where I can see him. What have you found?’

  ‘We’re trying to crack a floor safe at the moment, apart from that nothing.’

  ‘I may be able to help you with that,’ said Rose, replaying the information Haig supplied.

  ‘It could be a trap. He could have rigged the safe.’

  ‘The thought had crossed my mind. I thought we could get Mr Haig here to open the safe for us.’

  ‘I like your thinking.’

  Rose opened the back seat of her car and pulled Haig out, his body tense and heavy. ‘We need you to do a bit of safe cracking,’ she told him.

  Haig blinked at the setting sun. ‘I gave you the code.’

  ‘Then it shouldn’t be a problem.’

  Haig glanced at McBride’s unreadable face. ‘You think I’ve put some form of trap on the safe? Why would I do that? We have a deal, don’t we?’

  ‘That’s up to you. You help us find Samuel Lynch, lead us to the Railroad then yes. It starts with you opening the safe and it not going bang,’ said McBride.

  ‘This is absurd,’ said Haig, stony-faced.

  ‘Shall we go?’

  The house resembled the aftermath of a college party. Furniture was overturned, books and files thrown to the floor. The agents had ripped apart all the electrical equipment, Haig’s television lying in a hundred tiny pieces, the screen cracked. Despondent, Haig glared at the agents still going through his belongings but stopped short of complaining. The transformation in Haig’s life would be hard for the man to accept. Hours ago, he was still a law enforcement agent and now his future was uncertain. At best, he would avoid jail time, his reputation forever destroyed. At worst, he would never see the light of freedom again. Rose pushed him forwards, her compassion for his situation limited.

  ‘You found it then?’ said Haig, walking into the bedroom where an agent was working on the floor safe.

  ‘It’s hardly the greatest hiding place,’ said McBride, removing his shades. ‘Jack, can we have the room.’

  ‘Do your stuff,’ said Rose, removing her gun from its holster.

  ‘There’s no need for that,’ said Haig. ‘These?’ he said, rattling the cuffs.

  She handed the keys to McBride, gun aimed squarely at Haig’s chest. ‘Don’t give me a reason,’ she said.

  Haig shook his head, groaning as he bent down towards the safe and punched in the five numbers. ‘There,’ he said, pushing himself to his feet.

  ‘Hands back behind your back,’ said McBride.

  Once Haig was re-cuffed, Rose retrieved the contents of the safe. Could it really be this simple? She scanned the piles of dollar bills and documents until she found what she was looking for. ‘This it?’ she asked, holding up the pamphlet.

  Haig nodded and Rose instructed McBride to take him back to the car. The pamphlet was called the Railroad. Rose skimmed the content, stopping on the highlighted page Haig had mentioned. A fading black and white picture showed one set of parallel train tracks on a dust road, a wooden sign with the station’s name, St Bernadette’s, knocked into the ground. On the same page was a crudely pixelated picture of St Bernadette’s church.

  If Haig was correct and the railroad station and church didn’t show in the record books, then that meant one of two things. Either the Railroad had somehow eradicated all mentions of the area from the history books, or that the book she was holding was a fabrication.

  McBride returned and she showed him the entries. ‘The station looks temporary. I’m sure there were hundreds of these little stops on the railroad which were never officially recorded,’ he said.

  Rose agreed that was plausible. ‘What about the church?’

  McBride studied the picture of the derelict building. ‘A brick building. I can’t see how that goes unrecorded.’ He snapped the book shut, brushing dust off the cover. ‘Lionel Reeves. We only have this author’s word that the building is actually a church.’

  ‘Let me see,’ she said, taking the book from him. The language inside was stilted, hesitant. The book pertained to be a history of the lesser-known railroad tracks and stations, but the first ten pages didn’t suggest the author was an authority. Reeves had worked on the construction of these additional lines and his testimony rambled and was clouded in anecdotal remembrance rather than cold facts. As McBride suggested, the train stop may not have been official. If there were no records for St Bernadette’s church, it might not be official either, brick building or not. She took pictures of each page on her phone and handed the book back to McBride.

  ‘Let’s get some proper researchers on this. Even if the names are incorrect, this place exists or existed in one form or another. If it was so important that Gunn was killed over it then Haig might be right. This might be where they’re hiding.’

  ‘Okay. Nothing much is going to be achieved today.’

  ‘Continue searching the house. Take up the floorboards, and we can question Haig tomorrow.’

  Outside, she called Miller and explained the finding.

  ‘It matches what Haig told us?’ said Miller.

  ‘To a certain extent. Sir, considering the scope of the land surrounding Otisville, if we’re going to find this place then I think we need to do a fly over.’

  ‘Do you now?’

  Rose didn’t answer. Miller had been tough on her throughout the investigation but it would be pointless for him to stop her progressing at this point.

  Eventually he relented. ‘I’ll arrange a helicopter for tomorrow. ‘The ice is so thin that you could breathe on it and it would crack. Do you understand me Agent Rose?’

  ‘Sir. Thank you,’ said Rose, hanging up before the man had time to change his mind.

  At home, Rose printed the photos she’d taken of the book and emailed copies to McBride. Glass of wine in hand, she read the book from beginning to end and started again. By the second read she hadn’t mustered much love of the author though his tale was a fascinating one, describing his work on the gangs who’d laid the railroad in the early days of the rail network.

  The great wealth amassed by the owners and operators of the railroad had not trickled down to the workers. The conditions Reeves worked under were horrendous, many of his compatriots dying only to replaced by new, eager workers. What caught Rose’s attention most was the occasional foray into the branch lines, the tributaries off the main railroad. According to Reeves, this work was often secretive and Rose made a note to confirm the veracity of Reeves’ claim with the Bureau’s researchers.

  Most of all she stared at the picture of the St Bernadette’s railroad stop, and the collapsed steeple of the church and wondered if Lynch was somewhere nearby.

  Pouring the dregs of her wine down the sink, she decided to shower before attempting sleep. The smell of the day’s exertions slipped from her body as she scrubbed the dry sweat and dust from her skin. Tiredness seeped through her, a dull ache she was doing her best to ignore.

  Haig was still in custody, the validity of the railroad book still in question. Rose didn’t share the former Captain’s unwavering belief that whoever was responsible was stationed in the region surrounding St Bernadette’s, wherever that may be. Everything hinged on Gunn’s relationship with Hanning Industries, and the fact that Gunn had gone to so much trouble to hide the book with its underlined passages. They would know more tomorrow, but if what he claimed was true - that St Bernadette’s had been erased from history - then it might be one coincidence too many.

  The phone rang as she was getting dried. She ran naked into the living room catching the phone on the last ring. ‘Abigail,’ she said, breathless.

  ‘Rose,’ said her sister, sounding distant.

  ‘What is it, Abi?’

/>   ‘It’s Mum,’ said her sister, crying. ‘She’s awake.’

  Rose tensed, trying to comprehend what she was being told. ‘Is she lucid?’

  ‘She doesn’t recognize me, doesn’t recall having children. She’s worse than before in many ways but she’s alive.’

  Beneath the grief and despair, was a harder edge to her sister’s voice. It was a warning to Rose. That, as before, her mother’s condition didn’t matter, that she was alive was enough.

  Rose refused to get into an argument. ‘That’s wonderful,’ she said.

  ‘When can you get here?’ said Abigail, her words leading and cold.

  The helicopter was booked for five hours time. It would take longer than that to reach Austin and back. At any other time she would have rushed to her mother’s side, but there was nothing she could do for her mother in the hospital. Nothing had really changed. It was heart-breaking to admit it, she would probably never forgive herself, and Abigail would consider her attitude monstrous, but their mother was gone. She wanted to be there for Abigail, but she needed to find Lynch; needed to hunt down the monsters who’d caused so much misery to countless families.

  ‘I’m sorry, Abigail, I can’t come straight away,’ she said.

  ‘Save it. I knew you would do this.’

  ‘Abi, I’ll get there when I can. I need to do something first,’ said Rose, talking to an empty line.

  51

  The music started every time Lynch fell asleep. Sometimes wild, jarring noise, discordant and electric. At other times, simple nursery rhymes repeated on loop for hours on the end. The same, mundane lyrics and basic chords rattled in Lynch’s head. It was a well-known torture device, brutal in its simplicity. The mixture of repetition and sleep deprivation designed for full psychological impact on its captive.

  Every time Lynch tried to sleep, they increased the volume or changed the tempo or tone of the music. Occasional snippets of time would pass where Lynch managed to block out the noise. He couldn’t be sure if he’d slept or if his mind had gone into a fugue state. Desperate to keep his wits about him, he played memory games. He recalled everything that had happened since that day when Special Agent Lennox knocked on his door. His memory struggled, the words he used to recall lost within the continued strain of the noise filtering through the speakers. He began thinking only in images, picturing events as if watching a silent movie. Lennox and his two oversized henchmen, Sandra Rose and the compound, the ambush and all the subsequent events played on a continued reel, sound tracked by a toy piano and a high pitched rendition of ‘Here we go round the mulberry bush’.