The Killing House

by Chris Mooney

  SOC Cronin would take the hit for Fletcher’s escape. Fletcher had slipped through his fingers. Borgia recommended to the Director that Cronin should be served up as bleeding meat for the media. The Director agreed, and Borgia spent the rest of their phone call strategizing the best way to spin the story.

  Brandon Arkoff pinned Nathan Santiago’s face against the operating table as Marie swivelled the light to the man’s bare back. With her fingers she prodded the middle area between the shoulder blades – there it was.

  Santiago flinched when he felt the scalpel. He tried to fight it but his wrists had been tied.

  Another hit with the Taser settled him.

  Marie picked up tweezers, reached inside the fresh incision and removed a glass capsule the size of a Tic Tac. She doubted the people who had abducted Santiago knew about the RFID tag, but she wasn’t about to take any chances. She carried the tag to a wall-mounted steel table and smashed it with a hammer. She collected the fragments and washed them down the sink.

  Brandon stepped up to her and said, ‘The police could be on their way here.’

  Marie shook her head as she washed her hands. Santiago moaned from the table.

  ‘They can’t find us,’ she said.

  ‘Why take the chance?’

  ‘You know why. Santiago has a rare blood type. His first kidney went for two hundred thousand, and now we’ve got a buyer lined up to pay half a million for the other. The other buyers we have lined up –’

  ‘I know what they’re offering.’

  ‘And you’re willing to walk away from it?’

  ‘We have more than enough money to survive.’

  Marie dried her hands on her coat.

  ‘Get him ready for surgery.’

  ‘She’s not going to do it,’ Brandon said.

  ‘I’ll talk to her. Woman to woman.’

  60

  Fletcher had exchanged the Camry for a white BMW parked inside an Atlantic City hotel garage free of security cameras. He had also changed his appearance.

  After ditching the blood-stained tactical trousers, he entered a hotel and washed up in the lobby’s private bathroom. The small lobby shop offered a garish assortment of clothing. He purchased a roomy windbreaker with ATLANTIC CITY embossed on the back to hide his tactical belt and then ditched the jacket after purchasing several new items from a store that specialized in outdoor clothing and gear.

  From a drugstore he purchased blond hair dye and a self-tanning lotion. He dyed his hair and eyebrows inside a gas-station bathroom, cleaned up, and was now back on the road, heading for Baltimore.

  He dialled M’s cell. When she didn’t answer, he removed the battery.

  Fletcher had tried to call her twice over the past hour and she hadn’t answered.

  He phoned again just as he was nearing Newark, and she picked up.

  ‘The FBI has locked down Karim’s home.’ M’s voice was cool, almost robotic. ‘I couldn’t get anywhere near it.’

  The Jaguar had his prints all over it, hair and fibres. The contact lenses stored in the console would contain his DNA. Locked in the trunk were his cases full of tools and equipment; more damning evidence against Karim – if they could get inside the car. Unless they found the hidden key, there was no way they could open the car. The windows were shatterproof.

  M said, ‘Karim’s personal bodyguard, a man named Bar Lev, is at the hospital along with some other trusted people. I don’t have an update for you – Karim is still in surgery. Karim’s lawyer is there. He insisted on meeting me before he drove down to New Jersey. Karim had given him explicit instructions to hand-deliver a package to me in the event he died or was incapacitated in any way. I have two envelopes here with me, one of which belongs to you.

  ‘Federal investigators are at our main office right now, armed with warrants. They’re pulling security tapes, raiding the computer network, everything.’

  ‘Did Karim give the evidence bag holding the drinking glass to the lab?’

  ‘I have it here with me,’ she said. ‘I can’t drop it off. I spotted three men trying to follow me. I think they’re federal agents.’

  ‘Where are they now?’

  ‘I ditched their tail. They don’t know where I am.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Someplace where they can’t find me,’ she said. ‘Karim gave me explicit instructions to help you, and that’s what I’m doing. He said to trust you implicitly, and that’s what I’m doing. I know you removed your phone battery so I couldn’t trace you, but I should tell you I’ve been assisting Karim in researching this … project, and I –’

  ‘What about Dr Sin’s cell signal?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Keep searching.’ Fletcher hung up and removed the battery.

  Marie Clouzot’s heels echoed loudly as she walked across the wide, cavernous space of cold concrete inside the old printing press. Fractured sunlight filtered through the building’s grated windows, the dank, frigid air smelling of rust and ancient machinery.

  The light faded as she moved down a corridor of closed doors. She opened the last one.

  The Asian doctor she’d found treating Santiago in New Jersey was sitting in the corner. Brandon had bound the tiny woman’s wrists and ankles.

  Marie, bending stiffly, removed the strip of duct tape covering the woman’s mouth. ‘Your driver’s licence says your name is Dr Dara Sin.’

  The woman didn’t answer. She swallowed, shivering in the cold.

  ‘I need you to perform some surgery for me, Dr Sin.’

  ‘I can’t help you.’

  ‘Of course you can. You’re a doctor. You’ve performed surgery before.’

  ‘I can’t. Look.’ The woman turned to one side, and Marie saw the broken fingers.

  Brandon hadn’t done that. He had been careful handling her – had made her comfortable before locking her inside the trunk next to Santiago.

  ‘You broke your fingers,’ Marie said, more to herself. She blinked at the sight, as though she could wash it away, and then snapped her head to the woman. ‘You broke your fingers.’

  ‘I can’t help you,’ Dr Sin said again, and Marie swore she saw the woman grin.

  Marie gripped the woman’s throat as a high-pitched keening roared past her gritted teeth. The doctor fought back, her bound limbs and wrists kicking and thrashing, but she had no place to go, and she was too small and too old to mount a fight. Marie, considerably taller and heavier, straddled the woman, choking her, slamming her small head against the floor. Marie felt the small crucifix on the thin gold chain bouncing against her chest. She didn’t ask God for forgiveness. She had given up on that business a long time ago.

  The cheap gold chain and crucifix, a gift from her mother, was a relic from a former life. A reminder of long months locked inside a caged room. Tears burning her eyes, she had prayed to God for help until her knees were callused. He had rejected her because He had decided she was not worthy of His love.

  With the rejection had come a revelation: at age fifteen, she had discovered God did not care. The world, made in His divine image, contained no feeling or mercy. Men could rape and pillage and murder without consequence. God and His world didn’t pause to grieve for the dead; they continued their deaf forward march.

  But you had a choice. You could suffer in silence or you could find a way to cope.

  The doctor finally relaxed. Marie kept her grip firm through the death spasms and then it was done.

  Marie slumped back against the floor, sitting, her face flushed from the exertion.

  Brandon was watching her from the doorway. The dim light coming from the hall behind him highlighted the worry etched on his face.

  ‘Our assistant funeral director has left several messages on my phone,’ he said. ‘The Baltimore police are at the funeral home, asking questions. It’s time to leave.’

  ‘They can’t find us here.’

  Brandon, she could tell, wanted to fight her on this. But he had no fight
left in him.

  ‘You can go if you want,’ she said, wrapping her arms around herself. ‘I’m staying here.’

  Brandon shoved his hands in his pockets, jingling his change and keys as he stared down at her from the doorway. Marie didn’t stare back – she didn’t want another argument, and she had made up her mind. It wasn’t a foolish decision, deciding to stay here. She was safe. She could stay here as long as she wanted, tucked in this womb of concrete half buried beneath the earth. There was no reason to leave, not yet.

  Brandon cleared his throat. ‘How much longer?’ he asked, his question barely above a whisper.

  ‘Until I’m satisfied,’ Marie said, wondering if such a thing was possible.

  61

  Fletcher was closing in on Baltimore, the winter sky beginning its rapid shift into darkness, when he replaced the BlackBerry’s battery and called M.

  She didn’t give him a chance to speak. ‘The Feds have accessed Karim’s computer network. I need to shut down, and we need to meet so I can show you the videos.’

  ‘What videos?’

  ‘The ones taken inside Karim’s New Jersey beach home,’ M said. ‘I saw what happened to Karim, to Boyd Paulson and Nathan Santiago, all of it.’

  Fletcher sat up in his seat. ‘The security software on the laptop in the panic room wasn’t set to record video,’ he said.

  ‘Correct. You set that software to record, and the hard drive fills up quickly.’

  ‘Then how did you come by these videos?’

  ‘I disabled the security software and replaced it with my own – a program that runs in the background. Any time a camera’s motion tracker detects movement, the recording starts, and the video images are temporarily stored on the computer’s hard drive before this program that I wrote compresses the files and uploads them to an FTP server, where they can be downloaded and viewed. That way we have copies in case a laptop is removed from a panic room, or damaged.’

  ‘Sound?’

  ‘Inside the house, yes, but not outside,’ she said. ‘I heard the entire conversation between Borgia and Karim. I saw what transpired inside the treatment room. How you intervened and saved Mr Karim’s life.’

  ‘What happened to Santiago?’

  ‘A man took him and placed him in the backseat of a Lincoln Town Car – the same man who shot Boyd Paulson inside the garage. The man has some sort of facial disfigurement.’

  ‘And Dr Sin?’

  ‘The man pulled a gun on her inside the treatment room. Then he trussed her and placed her in the trunk of the Lincoln.’

  ‘Alive?’

  ‘Alive. Hold on.’

  On the other end of the line Fletcher heard the tap of computer keys. He thought about Santiago and the doctor. They were alive when they were taken, but where had they been taken?

  Then he thought about the netbook. It contained the information downloaded from Corrigan’s phone – addresses and phone numbers, GPS data. The netbook was locked inside the Jaguar’s trunk, and he had no way to access it.

  M came on the line and said, ‘The Feds just found the FTP site, but they won’t find the video files. I erased everything.’

  ‘There’s always a trace.’

  ‘Not if you know what you’re doing.’ For the first time Fletcher heard a note of anger in her voice. ‘Trust me, they won’t find a bloody thing on the laptop or the server. I need to shut down and get going. What else do you need me to do?’

  ‘See what you can find out about Alexander Borgia.’

  ‘I’ve already started,’ she said. ‘Now, when and where do you want to meet?’

  III

  The Wages of Fear

  62

  The bureaucratic powers working overtime at FBI headquarters had been convinced by its Media Office that it would be wise to get in front of the Malcolm Fletcher story before the story got in front of them. A targeted national media campaign would not only be the best way to spin the story, it would also be the most effective way to flush out the fugitive from hiding.

  The Bureau’s top media experts crafted a succinct press release. The terse paragraphs, along with a handful of accompanying colour photographs of the former profiler they had on file, were released to every major newspaper before press time. Then they went to work on devising commercials that would run in heavy saturation on the daytime shows. They had used this same strategy, to great success, to apprehend another fugitive.

  The Bureau focused on the surrounding Tri-State area and then shifted its efforts to New England, an area Malcolm Fletcher seemed to favour, based on reported and confirmed sightings. In the past, such an aggressive campaign would take days; now, thanks to the Internet and its high-speed delivery system, the task took only a few hours.

  New York, New Jersey, Boston and Connecticut field offices personally hand-delivered media packets to all taxi and rental-car companies, stressing the significant reward being offered for information leading to the former profiler’s capture.

  The Bureau knew Ali Karim had been aiding and abetting a fugitive inside his home in Cape May, New Jersey. Agents had found a lead-shielded panic room hidden behind a false-wall installed inside the closet. At some point Malcolm Fletcher had emerged, broken Daniel Jackman’s neck and then, after dressing in the agent’s tactical clothing, thrown Jackman inside the closet. Agents had also discovered Fletcher’s overcoat, shoes and a suit jacket.

  The Bureau decided to keep this information from the public. At the moment, Karim was lying in a coma; if the man woke up, they could use it as a bargaining chip to get him to open up about his connection to Fletcher, as little was known about the former profiler’s movements over the past two decades.

  The Bureau’s public-relations experts argued that the public would want to know why – and how – the former profiler kept eluding capture. To show that the Bureau’s interest and determination in apprehending one of their own hadn’t lapsed or diminished, it was decided that Alexander Borgia should act as the Bureau’s face. He was a natural choice, they said. Borgia had a commanding voice and, despite his short stature, carried a lot of presence. With significant media training already under his belt, he could handle any question thrown at him and spin it effectively.

  Borgia was informed of the Bureau’s decision shortly before midnight: FBI Director Oberst had telephoned him over an encrypted line. They spent much of the conversation discussing the laptop found inside Karim’s well-crafted panic room.

  Borgia had examined the computer himself. The security software had not been set to record, and the hard drive contained no video images. Forensic analysis by computer techs from New York’s Evidence Response Team revealed, however, that this was not the case.

  Karim had installed motion-activated security cameras inside the fire alarms of his New Jersey home. Once a camera was triggered, it started to record; the video images were temporarily stored on the hard drive. Then, a separate program on the laptop uploaded the video files to a secured FTP site on one of Karim’s servers before erasing them.

  Examination of the laptop’s hard drive confirmed that video footage had been captured inside the house during a 48-hour period, uploaded to an FTP site, then downloaded and erased from the server during a single session the previous afternoon, starting at 12.34 p.m. Using sophisticated software, the ERT geeks had discovered the location from which the FTP site had been accessed – a four-unit townhouse in Brooklyn. Malcolm Fletcher hadn’t downloaded the files. There was no way he could have reached the townhouse in time.

  Agents forced their way inside the townhouse and found the first three units empty of furniture. The unit on the top floor contained computers and illegal equipment that allowed a user to trace a cellular signal. A forensics team was currently working on processing the rooms for prints, DNA, hair and fibres. New York agents were investigating who owned the Brooklyn building while ERT tried to break into the computers. Everything had been password protected with a sophisticated encryption algorithm. The geeks were work
ing methodically to try to break it, afraid of tripping some sort of digital landmine that would permanently erase or destroy the computer’s hard drive.

  Borgia had already interviewed two of the seven employees who regularly worked out of Karim’s Manhattan home. Borgia was more interested in the young woman who had been aboard Karim’s private plane: Emma White. Agents watching Karim’s Manhattan home had spotted the woman and her shock of white hair entering the house at 6.36 a.m. She left at 8.43 – with a package, a large yellow mailer. The three agents who had tailed her had lost her somewhere in the subway system. The woman hadn’t returned to Karim’s home, the Brooklyn townhouse or her apartment.

  FBI Director Oberst gave Borgia his personal phone numbers. The Director wanted to be updated every two hours on the progress of the investigation. Neither Oberst nor Borgia discussed what would happen if video footage of a Hostage Rescue Team operator planting a knife at a crime scene made its way on to the news or, worse, the Internet.

  The first stop on Borgia’s media blitz was the ABC office building. After his appearance on Good Morning America, he would be shuffled off to do an interview for 60 Minutes. The popular CBS-owned programme agreed to run a profile on Malcolm Fletcher that would air the following Sunday. Borgia’s afternoon would be spent at Fox News. The Bureau’s media experts were currently locked in a heated debate about which Fox News programme had the better ratings.

  At 7 a.m., Borgia sat down for his first interview, conducted by the always affable and courteous host Dan Harris. Manhattanites hustling through the cold streets surrounding Times Square saw the interview being played on the massive LED screens prominently displayed on the front of the ABC building.

  Borgia sat down looking sharp and confident. His media escorts had prepped him about the importance of body language, and they had provided him with a new wardrobe. The suit-and-tie combination chosen for this interview had colours that, according to extensive research, projected warmth and trust.