by Chris Mooney
‘Don’t talk, just listen,’ said the man on the other end of the line. His voice was rich and deep and surprisingly calm. Must be one of the two agents she hadn’t met – the ones monitoring from the house, she thought. ‘The keys on top of the cooler are for the boat. Drive out of the harbour. Get moving. We don’t have much time.’
The man on the phone told her where to find the switch for the lights. Marlena started the boat. The twin engines turned over, the floor vibrating beneath her feet as she increased the throttle and slowly eased the boat away from the dock with one hand on the wheel, the other pressing the phone tightly against her ear.
Something heavy landed on the stern. Marlena whipped her head round, her panic vanishing when she saw Barry Jacobs, dressed in the same dark suit as the catering staff, step inside the cabin.
Thank God, Marlena thought. Jacobs, red-faced and sweating, yanked the phone away from her and tossed it to the floor. Marlena stared at him, dumbfounded. She opened her mouth to speak, the words evaporating off her tongue as Jacobs shoved her up against the wall.
‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’
‘You told me to take the boat out.’
Jacobs dug his fingers deeper into her arm. ‘Don’t lie to me, or I swear to Christ –’
‘I’m telling you the truth. A waiter gave me a note written on a napkin. Your name was signed on the bottom. It said to –’
‘And you just came down here?’
‘Lee said if there was a problem, you’d get word to me and –’
‘Where’s this note?’
‘In my purse.’
‘Get it.’ Jacobs released her and took control of the wheel. He increased the throttle, and the boat lurched forward.
Glass shattered inside the cabin. When Marlena stepped towards the table, she saw that her wine glass had fallen to the floor. The cooler near the cabin door had moved. Drops of blood were leaking from the seams of the cooler’s half-opened top. Her heart thumping, Marlena reached down and opened the cooler.
As a forensic specialist, she had seen her share of dead bodies, the dozens of different ways human beings could be cut, broken and bruised. But seeing the way Owen Lee had been dismembered sent a nauseous scream rising up her throat.
‘Barry.’
Then Jacobs was standing next to her. He slammed the cooler shut and sat her down.
‘Take in slow, deep breaths,’ he said, digging into his trouser pocket. ‘That’s it, keep breathing.’
It took Marlena a moment to find her voice. ‘What’s going on?’
‘I don’t know. I’m going to call the command post.’
Jacobs held out his phone. Marlena stared at him, confused.
Something hot and sharp pierced her skin. Marlena looked down at her chest and saw twin metal prongs attached to wires; Jacobs was holding a taser. The charge swept through her body, and the next thing Marlena saw was her mother clutching her hand as they fell together through an electric blue sky burning with flames.
Marlena heard splashing. Her eyes fluttered open.
She was still on the boat, lying across one of the padded seats set up along the stern. All the deck and interior lights had been turned off, as had the engine. A cooler lay on its side, opened. It was empty.
Something heavy bumped against the boat. Marlena had an idea what was going on and went to push herself up, but couldn’t move. Her hands were tied behind her back, her ankles bound together with the same coarse rope. She swung her feet off the seat and managed to sit.
She was out in open water, far away from the harbour. Zigzagging along the sides and back of the boat were several distinctively shaped dorsal fins. And that was just the sharks she could see. Dozens more were swimming around and underneath the boat.
‘There’s no need to panic, Marlena. I’m not going to feed you to the sharks.’
She turned away from the water and looked up into Malcolm Fletcher’s strange black eyes.
Marlena backed away and fell, hitting her head against the side of the boat before toppling on to the floor. She lay on her stomach, about to roll on to her back – she could use her feet to kick – when Fletcher’s powerful hands slid underneath her arms and lifted her into the air, towards the water. She started screaming.
Fletcher dropped her back on the seat. ‘Relax,’ he said. ‘Despite what the federal government has led you to believe, I have no intention of harming you. Now I can’t say the same is true about Special Agent Jacobs. Lucky for you I was on board to put a stop to it.’
Fletcher sat next to her. His face seemed darker than in the surveillance pictures, more gaunt. He was impeccably dressed in a dark suit without a tie.
‘I’ll untie you in a moment, but first I’d like a piece of information – and I’d appreciate some honesty. Will you promise to be honest with me? This is important.’
Marlena nodded. She took in several deep breaths, trying to slow the rapid beating of her heart. The rope was biting into her skin, cutting off the circulation in her hands.
‘Those postcards you purchased earlier, who were they for?’
The question took her by surprise.
‘I bought them for my mother,’ Marlena said after a moment.
‘She’s dead, isn’t she?’
‘How did – Yes. She’s dead. Why?’
‘Tell me what happened.’
‘She died on 9/11. She was inside one of the buildings – the north tower.’
‘Did you have a chance to speak with her?’
‘Not directly. She left a message on my machine.’
‘What did she say?’
‘She said, “I love you and remember to take care of your brother.” There was some background noise and then the phone signal cut off.’
Marlena thought about the other voice on the tape: a man whispering something to her mother. A friend at the FBI lab had enhanced it: ‘Hold my hand, Ruthie. We’ll jump together.’ The crazy thing was how much the man sounded like her father, who died when she was twenty. Or maybe she just wanted to believe her mother hadn’t been alone during her final moment.
‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ Fletcher said, and meant it. He stood. ‘Excuse me for a moment. There’s someone here who would like to speak with you.’
Fletcher ducked inside the cabin. Water splashed along the back and sides of the boat. A moment later, he dragged a hog-tied Jacobs across the floor. Fletcher propped Jacobs up into a kneeling position directly in front of her. A piece of duct tape was fastened across Jacobs’s mouth.
‘Remember what I said earlier about confession being good for the soul,’ Fletcher said to Jacobs, and then tore off the strip of tape.
Jacobs stared at the sharks circling the boat. He swallowed several times before speaking.
‘I sold you out to bounty hunters working for the Rousseau family,’ Jacobs said in a low voice, ‘Jean Paul Rousseau. His son Stephen was a federal agent, part of a team sent in to apprehend Fletcher.’
‘Those agents were sent to kill me,’ Fletcher said. ‘I acted purely in self-defence, but that’s a story for another time. Keep going, Special Agent Jacobs.’
‘Rousseau wanted Fletcher captured alive and brought back to Louisiana. That was the condition of the reward. The bounty hunters and people working for Rousseau, they wanted us to disappear. Everyone would assume Fletcher was responsible because he has a track record of making federal agents disappear. That way, it would keep the heat off Rousseau.’
‘I’m afraid Jacobs is telling the truth about the bounty hunters,’ Fletcher said. ‘I’ve been following Special Agent Lee for the past week. Naturally, I wanted to see what he was up, so I took the liberty of tapping into his phone conversations – the FBI’s encryption technology is woefully out of date. After Lee and Jacobs left your hotel, I followed them back to the house they’ve been using as a base of operations. You can imagine my surprise when, two hours later, five rather disturbing-looking men emerged from the back doors and carri
ed three oversized coolers to the fishing boat Lee used to transport all his surveillance equipment. I recognized one of these gentlemen from a previous entanglement – a professional tracker, or bounty hunter, who works for Daddy Rousseau. Now, Special Agent Jacobs, tell Marlena about what you had planned for her.’
Jacobs didn’t answer.
Fletcher whispered something in Jacobs’s ear. He looked terrified.
‘After you planted the transmitter, the bounty hunters were to move in and take care of Fletcher,’ Jacobs said, his voice quivering. ‘They wanted me to take you out on the boat under the guise of meeting up with Lee at the operations house. You were supposed to disappear, out here in the water. The sharks were going to take care of you. No bodies, no evidence, no case.’
‘And where were you going?’ Fletcher said.
‘Costa Rica.’
‘With how much money?’
A pause, then Jacobs said, ‘Seven million.’
‘It seems my price has gone up,’ Fletcher said, grinning. ‘Jacobs neglected to mention the part when I slipped out of the utility closet and caught him in the act of feeling you up. I think he was preparing to share a special moment with you before dumping you overboard. It’s not every day he has an opportunity to be intimate with such a beautiful woman. Did you tell Marlena about your colourful tenure in Boston?’
‘I worked as a handler for informants.’
‘He’s being modest,’ Fletcher said. ‘Jacobs here was the handler for two very powerful figureheads inside the Irish Mafia. In exchange for lucrative payoffs, Jacobs ran interference so these two men could continue committing extortion, money laundering and murder. When his superiors got wind of what was going on, these two men suddenly disappeared. Any idea what happened to them, Special Agent Jacobs?’
‘I was cleared on those charges.’
‘You were never indicted for your activities because the president stepped in and invoked executive privilege in order to protect a member of his high-ranking staff – a member who once worked as your boss in Boston. The corruption went well beyond Jacobs, and the president wanted it kept quiet. How many people died to protect your secrets, Jacobs? How many people did you kill?’
Jacobs didn’t answer.
‘It doesn’t matter. I think we’ve heard enough.’ Fletcher taped Jacobs’s mouth shut again.
Then Marlena watched as Fletcher dragged Jacobs kicking and screaming to the back part of the boat. The idea flashed through her mind: Jacobs alone in the water, screaming out in pain and terror as the sharks ripped him to pieces. No part of her rose up in protest or tried to push the thought away.
Jacobs was pinned against the stern, screaming behind the duct tape as he stared, wide-eyed and terrified, at the water.
‘Do you want me to cut him loose before I toss him overboard?’ Fletcher asked her.
Marlena didn’t answer, her attention locked on Jacobs, aware of the intense feeling building inside her, the one she had when she held things like the postcards and the sweater.
‘The president who protected Jacobs and his friends is the same man who protected the terrorists who killed your mother,’ Fletcher said. ‘What would she want you to do?’
Marlena thought of her mother alone in that terrible moment, a woman who worked as a janitor and wanted nothing more out of life than to be a good mother, forced to make a decision between jumping to her death and being burned alive.
She spotted a bright light on the horizon. The light belonged to a boat.
‘That would be my ride,’ Fletcher said. ‘What’s your answer?’
She wanted Jacobs to suffer. Giving the order to do it, though, that was something else entirely.
‘I want to bring him in.’
‘At the moment you have no direct proof of his involvement with the bounty hunters,’ Fletcher said. ‘Jean Paul Rousseau is not a stupid man. And, despite his rather apish appearance, I’m willing to bet Jacobs covered his tracks just as well. It will be your words against his. I don’t have to remind you how those cases turn out, especially since Jacobs has connections in very high places.’
‘I’ll work the evidence.’
‘I doubt you’ll find any.’
‘I’ll take my chances.’
‘Your choice.’ Fletcher released Jacobs. ‘Turn round, Marlena, and I’ll untie your hands.’
The boat that pulled alongside them was a cigarette boat, a bullet-shaped race boat designed for incredible speed. Standing behind the wheel, a pale man with a shaved head and an odd-looking nose – Jonathan Prince.
‘Malcolm,’ Prince said. ‘We need to get moving.’
She recognized the voice as the one she had spoken to earlier on the mobile phone.
‘You had this whole thing planned out,’ Marlena said, more to herself.
‘I needed to move you to safety, and the only way to do it was to get you on the boat, away from the club. The cooler lock was easy enough to pick and, fortunately for you, Lee’s wallet and keys were inside.’ Marlena could feel Fletcher’s breath against her neck. ‘Those postcards and whatever other items you’ve bought since your mother’s death? I suggest you bury them.’
Her hands were cut free.
Fletcher stood. ‘I’ll leave Jacobs tied up, in case you change your mind. Good luck, Marlena.’
The cigarette boat roared away. She got to work untying the rope round her ankles. She didn’t rush. She knew there was no way she could catch up to Fletcher.
During the commotion, Jacobs had managed to rub off part of the duct tape from the corner of his mouth. ‘I have an account set up here on the island,’ he mumbled. ‘Name your price, and I’ll transfer the money to you. All I need is a laptop. You let me go, and I’ll disappear. You’ll never see me again.’
Marlena didn’t answer. She tossed the rope on the floor and stood up.
‘Seven million,’ Jacobs said. ‘That kind of money can buy you a lot of things.’
But it can’t buy me what I need, Marlena thought, and went to start the boat.
‘Wait, let’s talk about this,’ Jacobs said. ‘We can come to some sort of agreement.’
Marlena drove towards the bright lights of the island. She heard Jacobs screaming over the roar of the engines and wind, pleading with her to make a deal. Marlena drove faster and thought of her mother falling through the sky and tried hard not to dwell on the limitations of justice.
Read on for a taster of the next Chris Mooney novel:
The Killing House
Coming in August 2012
1
Theresa Herrera stumbled out of her bedroom, fighting to keep the scream caged in her throat. Screaming wasn’t allowed; that was one of the rules. The first rule she’d been told. The most important one.
Oh my God, dear Jesus in heaven, this isn’t happening.
A phone rang. Not the familiar ring of the house phone or the chiming bells of her cell but a new and completely different ringtone – a constant, high-pitched chirp bordering on a screech. She forced her attention away from the bedroom, away from what had happened to her husband, and started running down the long, brightly lit hall, heading for the bedroom off the top of the stairs – her son’s bedroom.
Ring.
The bedroom door was open, always, and everything inside was just the way Rico had left it – the posters of Batman and a futuristic soldier called Master Chief hanging on the walls, the shelves crammed with assembled Lego Star Wars ships, books and thick encyclopedias containing the histories of superheroes and popular sci-fi characters from movies and video games. The hamper was still full of his dirty clothes, his desk was still crammed with his drawings, and his bureau was still packed with his scruffy and broken toys. Not a single thing had been moved. Missing did not mean dead. There was always a chance. Always.
Ring.
Theresa raced into the bedroom, her attention locked on the red Spiderman quilt. There it was, just as she’d been told: the disposable cell phone. She picked it up, nearly
dropping it in her shaking hands. In the strong light coming from the hall she found the TALK button. She punched it with her thumb and brought the phone up, her mind and body swimming with a dizzying mix of excitement and pure terror.
‘Rico? Rico, baby, is that you?’
There was no answer. Could he really be alive, or was this some sort of cruel trick? Four years ago, Rico had been asleep right here in this bed while she attended an awards dinner with her husband. As Barry was being showered with praise for providing free psychiatric care to troubled children and teens, someone had used the aluminium ladder he’d left outside to paint the porch, climbed up to the first-floor window, cut the window screen and abducted her sleeping ten-year-old son from his bed. The babysitter, downstairs watching TV and talking to her boyfriend on her brand new iPhone, hadn’t seen or heard a thing.
‘Rico, it’s me. It’s Mom.’
No answer. Theresa pressed the TALK button again. Spoke his name again. Then she realized there was no one on the other end of the line. It was dead.
He’ll call back, she told herself. Beads of sweat rolled down her face and the small of her back, her heart was beating fast – much too fast. She was terrified, short of breath and on the verge of throwing up her Big Mac combo dinner. The only thing keeping the food down was hope.
Before Rico’s abduction, Theresa had developed a love of true-crime programmes. The Discovery Channel played them around the clock, the cases narrated by veteran detectives and FBI experts. When it came to child abductions, they all gave the same frightening statistic: if a child wasn’t found within the first forty-eight hours, the chance of their being found alive dropped to zero.
Hope came from the real-life case of Elizabeth Smart, a fourteen-year-old girl from Salt Lake City, who, like Rico, had been abducted from her bedroom. The Utah teenager was found nine months later – alive. Theresa’s nasty, pragmatic side liked to remind her, too much and too often, that nine months wasn’t the same as four years. Still, nine months was an incredibly long time to hold out hope, and Elizabeth Smart’s parents had never given up. Theresa had drawn courage and strength from their example, and now, after all these long and painful years, her faith was finally about to be rewarded … maybe. Possibly.
