The Killing House

by Chris Mooney

  ‘And the body in trunk?’

  ‘Boyd Paulson. That’s what I’m doing here, Mr –’

  ‘Alexander Borgia. I’m with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.’

  Karim feigned surprise. Then he said, ‘I hope you have a warrant.’

  Borgia nodded. He removed a piece of paper from the folder and placed it on Karim’s lap. Karim, not wearing his bifocals, had to slump forward in order to read it.

  Borgia’s gaze roved over the shelves packed with supplies. ‘Are you opening up some sort of medical office here along the seashore, Mr Karim?’

  ‘A plastic surgeon is.’

  ‘And this plastic surgeon, does he have a name?’

  ‘She does. Dr Dara Sin, from Manhattan.’

  ‘And where can I find this Dr Sin?’

  ‘Good question. She’s missing. She called my business partner because she was worried about someone stalking her and he came here to investigate.’

  ‘What happened in this room?’

  ‘I don’t know, and I’m done answering your questions. I want to talk to my lawyers.’

  Borgia sighed. ‘Where is he, Mr Karim?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Malcolm Fletcher. We know he came here with you. We’ve had you under surveillance since you left New York.’ Borgia’s voice was cordial, but his eyes had taken on the spit-sheen of a rat. ‘Where did you hide him?’

  ‘I came here alone. But, please, feel free to take a look around – oh, wait, you’re already doing that.’

  Fletcher’s heart rate hadn’t accelerated, but his mouth felt dry. Colorado, he thought. Somehow the FBI found out I was at the Herrera home.

  And then Borgia said it: ‘Let’s talk about Theresa Herrera. I understand you agreed to look into the disappearance of her son, Rico.’

  Karim didn’t answer.

  ‘And from her phone records,’ Borgia said, ‘we know you spoke to her twice on the day she died. You told the local police you were planning on meeting her at her home the following afternoon – Saturday. Am I correct?’

  Karim didn’t answer.

  Borgia opened his folder again. ‘Right up the road from the Herrera home there’s this … a retirement community, I guess you could call it. They have security cameras installed at the front gate. The night Theresa Herrera and her husband died, the cameras captured this.’ Borgia placed a photograph on Karim’s lap. ‘This car, an Audi A8, drove right past the cameras roughly ten minutes before the bomb went off. It was the only car spotted in that area that night.

  ‘The car is registered to a New York man named Richard Munchel,’ Borgia said. ‘The man doesn’t exist. The windows are tinted, so you can’t see the driver – not yet. Our lab is working on that. Now let me show you this. It’s a photograph we took this morning.’

  Borgia placed it on Karim’s lap. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I don’t have my glasses on,’ Karim said.

  ‘Then I’ll describe it for you. The car is a Jaguar with tinted windows. If you had your glasses on, you would see that it’s driving down the ramp leading to the entrance of your home’s private garage. This car is registered to a man named Robert Pepin. You invited this man into your home, but here’s the strange thing, Mr Karim. Robert Pepin doesn’t exist either. But I have a feeling you already knew that, didn’t you?’

  Karim said nothing.

  ‘Of course you did,’ Borgia said. ‘You can’t see it in the picture, but the Jag has Chicago plates. Here’s where the story gets interesting, Mr Karim, so please pay attention.’

  55

  On the computer screen Fletcher saw a slight grin tugging at the corner of Borgia’s mouth. The federal agent couldn’t keep the satisfaction out of his face. He beamed with the pride of a hunter who had finally ensnared his elusive prey.

  ‘Less than a week ago, early on Monday morning, you boarded your private plane with your assistant, Emma White, and flew out to Chicago. There you picked up a third passenger, a man named Robert Pepin. We know this because your pilot wrote the name down on the passenger manifest. According to the pilot, Robert Pepin bore a rather uncanny resemblance to Malcolm Fletcher.’

  Borgia let the words hang in the air for a moment, then continued: ‘The pilot told us he flew the three of you to the Dothan Regional Airport in Alabama, where Mr Pepin departed for a number of hours. We know Mr Pepin went to the Hertz counter and rented a burgundy-coloured Ford Escape and drove approximately 126 miles. When he returned to the airport, you flew Mr Pepin back to Chicago.’

  Another dramatic pause, and then Borgia added, ‘We know all of this because your pilot is one of our informants.’

  Fletcher’s gaze narrowed in thought, knowing where Borgia was heading.

  Borgia leaned forward, close to Karim’s shoulder, and said, ‘Your connection to Fletcher is no secret. Your son’s murder was similar to a number of others at the time; New York homicide thought they had a serial killer lurking in their city and called the Bureau to consult. Guess which profiler we sent?’

  Karim didn’t answer.

  ‘That’s right, Malcolm Fletcher,’ Borgia said. ‘We sent Fletcher and your son’s killer … well, no one knows what happened to him as this person was never caught.’

  And never will be, Fletcher thought. Three men had killed Jason Karim – three young men whose gang-initiation rite involved the murder of a wealthy Manhattan resident. Fletcher had scattered their remains along the bottom of the Hudson River.

  ‘And then we have Boston,’ Borgia said. ‘Five years ago you offered your services to a wealthy businessman whose daughter was, in fact, a victim of a serial killer. We know Fletcher was involved because a Boston forensic investigator named Darby McCormick met Fletcher face to face – twice. We couldn’t prove your involvement with him then, but I can certainly prove it now, as we know Fletcher came here with you.’

  Borgia straightened and resumed his position in front of Karim. ‘The penalty for harbouring a fugitive carries a maximum five-year sentence. I’d quote you the six-figure fine involved, but the amount is a drop in the ocean to a man of your financial means. What’s more disconcerting – what I suspect you’re thinking about right now, Mr Karim – is what will happen if the news gets out that you, the owner of one of the country’s most respected and highly visible security firms, are not only working with but hiding the nation’s most wanted fugitive.’

  ‘I want to speak to my lawyers,’ Karim said.

  Borgia went on. ‘Fortunately, I’m in a position to bargain. Tell me where you hid Fletcher and not only will I guarantee no further damage to your house, I can guarantee you probation, no more than six months. More importantly, we’ll keep your name out of the papers.’

  ‘I want to talk to my lawyers.’

  Borgia, unfazed by Karim’s defiance, turned his attention to the HRT operator and said, ‘I understand Mr Karim was armed.’

  The operator nodded. ‘We confiscated a 10-mm sidearm, a BUL M-5.’

  ‘Any other weapons?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Does Mr Karim have a permit to carry in the state of New Jersey?’

  Karim answered the question: ‘The permit’s in my pocket.’

  ‘Untie him,’ Borgia said.

  ‘Sir?’ the operator asked.

  ‘I think Mr Karim’s bindings are cutting off the blood supply to his head. He might as well be comfortable while we talk. You won’t be any trouble, will you, Mr Karim?’

  Karim didn’t answer. The operator didn’t wait for one. He clipped the submachine gun to his vest. The video camera mounted to the weapon had been turned off.

  Why? Fletcher didn’t know but wanted to warn Karim, had no way of warning him. Karim was no longer wearing the headset, had tucked it in his breast jacket pocket.

  Fletcher watched as the operator removed the nine from the holster strapped to his leg. Then the man unsheathed a tactical knife, cut Karim’s bindings and stepped back with the nine raised.

  Slow
ly Karim reached inside his back pocket. He came back with a thin leather wallet and placed it on Borgia’s waiting palm.

  ‘I’m going to go check your gun permit,’ Borgia said. ‘When I return, Mr Karim, if you don’t tell me where you’ve hidden Fletcher, I’ll have tear gas launched inside every room of this house. If for some reason Fletcher doesn’t appear, I’m going to have Hostage Rescue, New Jersey SWAT and every other officer I brought here take a sledgehammer to each and every wall – I’ll raze the foundations if I have to. We will find him, Mr Karim, because we know he’s here. You, sir, will go to jail and you’ll be all over the news. I already have a press release prepared.’

  ‘I want to speak to my lawyers,’ Karim said for the third time.

  ‘This is a limited, one-time offer, Mr Karim. Take a few minutes to think it over.’

  Borgia left the bedroom. Karim stared after him, absently rubbing the red circulation marks left on his wrists. The operator was pulling something from underneath his watchband.

  It was a folding knife.

  Fletcher found himself reacting as though he was actually standing inside the room – as though he could grab the operator’s wrist and disarm the man.

  On the screen the operator opened the knife and dropped it to the floor. Karim saw it, and was about to stand when an elbow smashed across his jaw.

  Fletcher was already on his feet. Over his earpiece he heard a garbled scream from Karim. He punched the code into the glowing keypad, knowing that if he didn’t act quickly Karim would surely die.

  56

  Special Agent Alexander Borgia slipped on his sunglasses when he reached the living room. The local SWAT agent he’d put in charge of guarding the front door, a former Marine who had seen plenty of combat in his time, hand-signalled to the nearby officers to stand down. Borgia was glad to see the man bark a quick order into his chest mike. At least this one knew what the hell he was doing.

  The cold wind blew sand across the driveway packed with FBI and New Jersey police officers. They wore bulletproof vests underneath their winter jackets, each man braced behind the vehicles and holding their weapons on car roofs and hoods. FBI snipers were set up on the dunes around the house. Technical Investigative Equipment teams had finished setting up auditory surveillance devices mounted to stationary platforms.

  As Borgia moved down the driveway, threading his way through the bodies, he caught men glancing away from their gun sights, their high-powered binoculars and thermal-imaging devices, to take the measure of him, to see if they could read something in his body language that would hint at what had happened inside the house. Everyone here knew this wasn’t an ordinary fugitive situation.

  Borgia wasn’t a natural gambler; he hadn’t felt entirely comfortable rolling the dice on this. While all the information he collected pointed to Malcolm Fletcher’s involvement with Karim (especially the description from Karim’s pilot), Borgia still had no visual or auditory confirmation that Fletcher had been inside Karim’s home that morning. The agents had tried. Their thermal-imaging devices couldn’t penetrate through Karim’s garage door or his mansion walls. The laser mikes aimed at the windows had failed to pick so much as a single noise – not entirely surprising, as Karim was in the security business and had access to the same counter-surveillance toys the federal boys played with. The man had remodelled his home to prevent every conceivable surveillance scenario.

  But when Karim’s Range Rover had pulled out of the garage, agents had picked up not one but two heat signatures sitting behind the tinted windows. Karim had brought someone along for the ride, and Borgia’s gut told him that that someone was Malcolm Fletcher. Borgia imagined the positive swells he would receive for capturing the elusive fugitive and, gripped with the fever of a man enraptured, had given the go-ahead for Hostage Rescue to breach the house.

  Borgia reached the main road. Tactical Operations Command had set up a post within the inner perimeter. He opened the door for the mobile trailer and entered the warm space, grateful to be out of the cold. Agents sitting at the long consoles kept a close eye on their surveillance monitors while listening over their headsets to incoming radio-intelligence information from TOC agents set up in sniper positions.

  Special Operation Commander Howard Cronin stood in the room’s centre with the thumbs of his meaty hands hooked in the pockets of his Wranglers. Tall with a beer-belly neatly hidden by a generous-fitting khaki field shirt, Cronin took great delight in swinging his dick to let everyone know just who the hell was in charge. Red-faced and wearing a headset, he saw Borgia and yanked the phones away from one ear.

  ‘What’s with this bullshit with the radio and camera silence?’

  A few men flinched. Cronin had been in a foul mood since he’d been informed that Borgia would be speaking to Karim. Alone.

  Borgia kept his cool – a task made easier by how much he detested the man. ‘Karim’s a security expert,’ he said. ‘He knows everything he says and does is being watched and recorded. I wanted to try a more informal approach first – try to strike a deal with him, so I told Operator Jackman to turn off his radio and camera.’

  ‘I don’t give a shit if the man asked for Jesus H. Christ himself, you don’t –’

  ‘It was my call, since I’m the one in charge of this operation,’ Borgia said. ‘If you have any questions about the scope of my role, you can call Director Oberst and ask him –’

  ‘Did Karim give up Fletcher?’

  ‘I gave him a moment to weigh his options while I checked out his gun permit.’

  Cronin looked like his head was going to pop off his shoulders.

  ‘I wanted Karim to stew in it for a bit,’ Borgia said. ‘He’s got a lot to lose here – his reputation and his business if this makes the papers and – what’s going on?’

  Cronin had slid the headphones back over his ear. Two quick steps and he plopped himself down on a chair, his attention swinging to the monitor showing a grouping of windows. Borgia saw shattered glass, the drawn blinds shaking in the wind.

  Borgia beckoned with his hand for a pair of headphones. A nearby agent quickly handed his over, stood and moved away.

  Over the headphones Borgia heard a clear voice shouting over the wind: ‘Repeat, two shots fired from inside the master bedroom.’

  Not from Karim, Borgia thought. The man had been searched for weapons. Has to be Jackman, but why? The HRT operator had been instructed to drop the concealed knife on the floor – a knife that Karim had had in his possession but was missed during the search. Then Jackman would radio in that Karim had attacked him, and during the confrontation Jackman had had no choice but to defend himself with his own knife.

  ‘Let’s flush the son of a bitch out,’ Cronin said. ‘Alpha Team, move into position. Jackman, report.’

  Borgia watched tear-gas canisters being launched and then the sound of shattering glass filled his headphones. A quick glance to another monitor and Borgia saw Alpha Team, wearing gas masks, funnelling through the front door.

  Three gunshots rang out over the headsets.

  Cronin again: ‘Jackman, report.’

  Over his headset Borgia heard coughing followed by a Darth Vader-like breathing.

  ‘CP, this is Jackman. I’m hit.’ Jackman’s painful wheezing voice had a mechanical, robotic tone; he was speaking over the gas mask’s voice-amplification system. ‘Tango is armed and on the move. Fired three return shots.’ A long wheeze and then Jackman said, ‘I think he’s hit.’

  Borgia stirred with excitement. Fletcher had been inside the house, but where? Where had he been hiding?

  ‘Stand by, Jackman, help is on the way.’ Cronin covered his mike with his hand and, turning over his shoulder, barked at the room: ‘Move SWAT paramedics into position.’ He released his grip on the mike. ‘Snipers, if you have a clean shot, take Tango down. Jackman, keep talking to me, son.’

  No answer from Jackman, just that sickly wheeze. Had he been shot? All the operators wore bulletproof vests. But if Fletcher
had used armour-piercing rounds …

  Borgia prayed to God Jackman had managed to get in at least one critical stab wound. If he had, Karim would die before he reached hospital.

  Borgia’s stomach climbed with equal measures of hope and fear. Please, God, let Jackman be dead along with Karim. Three could keep a secret if two were dead.

  Cronin again: ‘Talk to me, Jackman.’

  On another monitor, grey smoke billowed from the front doorway and scattered in the rough wind. Over the headsets came the sounds of heavy boots crunching over broken glass. No gunshots, not yet.

  Elbows on the console top, Borgia rested his chin against his folded hands and stared at the front door, watching and waiting.

  HRT operators emerged from the smoke, one of their own slung between them – Operator Jackman, head bowed and bobbing, chest and gas mask smeared bright with blood. Jackman’s boots bounced against the steps as he was dragged away. When the trio came into closer view, Borgia caught sight of the bullet holes on Jackman’s chest, right above the heart. If Fletcher had used armour-piercing rounds, Jackman was as good as dead.

  SWAT paramedics came next, holding a gurney, an unconscious Karim strapped down to it. The man’s head swayed back and forth as he was whisked down the steps. Borgia nearly collapsed in relief when he saw the large amount of blood covering the man’s clothing, the multiple pressure bandages covering the man’s chest and stomach. No way Karim survived that.

  Borgia thought of Fletcher, felt his heart tripping with pleasure at the thought of standing in front of all those cameras, telling the story of how he’d found and captured the former profiler. His story would hold up, even if Karim survived. It would be Karim’s word against the actions of an FBI agent with a pristine record. Karim had hidden a wanted fugitive. He had attacked and, God willing, killed a federal agent. If Karim survived, he would spend his remaining years behind bars.

  Karim didn’t matter. Fletcher was the prize, and Fletcher was pinned down somewhere, in agony from the tear gas, choking on it. Any second now and they would have him. The monster couldn’t ride or hide any more.