MINDFRACK

  “Adams still across town?”

  “Yeah. Now can we please get on with this …?”

  Logan sidled up to the edge of the door and bobbed his head around the frame. His nerves were strung out like piano wire and it wouldn’t have taken much for him to turn around and forget the whole thing. But what he saw took him by surprise. Inside was a small kitchen with a central island. And on the worktop was the large forensics box Adams had taken from the lab.

  The glass was toughened; he could tell by putting his head against the pane and looking across to the opposing edge. It would hold off a sledgehammer. But he didn’t need brute force, as he had his favourite gadget within his hastily put together break-in DIY kit. He reached into the bag and pulled out a small grey box. It was something he’d retained from another investigation, finding it both fascinating and audacious since it had a brand name, Piklok, with a Chinese-looking picture character next to a man in a stripy T-shirt and mask. The gadget was about the size of a cigarette packet and had different probe-like attachments that slid into a slot at the front. It had a sensor that required its user to hold it against the lock, after which it would state the correct attachment to use.

  Once set up, Logan crouched down and pushed the probe it into the lock and listened to the whirring noise the device was producing. It made a succession of clicks. A small display told him it was making progress going through the lock’s internal levers. A green thumbs-up signalled success.

  He pressed on the handle and cracked the door open an inch, allowing the spycam to fly into the kitchen, guided by iSense.

  Annoyingly, the spycam couldn’t see into the box as the flaps were closed. He flew the cam out of the kitchen and down a hall into the remainder of the apartment.

  All clear.

  Logan steeled himself, pulled down a makeshift mask – a winter hat stretched across his face with a couple of scissored eye-holes – opened the door fully and walked in.

  He checked out the box.

  “Damn,” he whispered, “it’s empty.”

  He didn’t spend long deliberating, and made straight for cupboards and other storage spaces. No robot parts revealed themselves. To his frustration, the other rooms of the apartment yielded nothing either.

  There was, however, a locked basement door. It was the least attractive option, but ...

  Logan brought out the gadget for the second time and it made quick work of the simple mortise lock.

  Wooden steps led down into darkness.

  “Send the spycam down, Mac,” said Diaz, picking up on Logan’s hesitation.

  “It’s real quiet. I’m going down.”

  He found a light switch that powered a meagre bulb hanging off some curly wire, just enough for his smartlenses to work with. Another switch at the bottom of the stairs lit up a tight passageway lined by rough blockwork. The area below had been converted into a labyrinth of small rooms.

  The first couple of rooms contained storage boxes and electrical goods, which, he guessed, were the spoils of Adams’ criminal activities.

  Logan hissed an excited “Yesss!” when he entered the third and larger room. His surprise was accompanied by a “whoop” and a clap from Diaz in the background. There, laid out on a table, was Carrie’s torso and other body components, but not the head. There were tools scattered around, including a handsaw. He looked around and found the head in a separate container.

  Rather than go back up to the kitchen, he spilled the contents out of another box and refilled it with Carrie’s parts. He would transfer the parts to the forensics box on the way out.

  The box was awkward and heavy and Logan gained a new-found respect for Adams.

  He staggered up the stairs.

  Reaching halfway, his eye caught a shadow moving across the stairwell. When he looked up, his eyes met with the skinny outline of Adams framed in the doorway.

  He heard Diaz gasp. “Can’t be … he’s over in Harlem … I saw him.”

  They stared off for a couple of seconds. Logan could think of nothing better to do than to shout out, “Police – stay where you are!”

  Adam’s slammed the door. Logan heard him swear, something about a key. There were rapid steps as though he was running across the hallway floorboards. Logan guessed he didn’t have the key to hand else he would have surely locked him down there, his worst nightmare. He quickened his pace up the last few steps, thinking his warning had done the trick and Adams had left the building.

  Logan used the box to push down against the handle and shouldered the door open. He checked up and down the hallway before making for the back door. He almost made it to the kitchen when he was hit from behind. He dropped the box and sprawled across the floor along with Carrie’s parts.

  Stunned, he turned around and his eyes met with the end of a long gun barrel, or rather a gun plus silencer, and beyond that, coming into focus, a wide nervous grin. Adams shoved the barrel up below his makeshift mask, levering it upwards, close enough to smell its smoky-oily workings. The metal was a lot colder than it should have been and it dawned on Logan that Adams hadn’t taken flight, he’d run off to retrieve the gun from the freezer and then he’d run around and come in through the front to catch him out from behind. He felt sick with himself for being outwitted so easily. His mask was roughly snatched off his head, and he felt strangely vulnerable without it.

  Logan heard himself say, “You pull that trigger and it’ll be raining crap. People in the Police Department know I’m here.” Adams pulled the gun away from his face, only to bring it back down hard, its impact driving an explosion of pain through his jaw. The starburst lingered in his eyes for a second, before melting away, but he was left with a ringing in his right ear. He tasted blood.

  He heard Adams clear enough through his left ear.

  “Piece of shit, I’ll do the talking. I’m in control here. You’ve no idea what you’re dealing with.”

  He pulled his gun back again and Logan flinched. Adams laughed. “Balls not so big now, huh?”

  Logan’s instant impression of this ugly guy was that he was a low-life playing Mr Big. He was edgy, uncertain. Luckily, he hadn’t recognised Logan from their collision at the hospital.

  “Look,” said Logan, thinking fast, “We know you had Carrie, the plan’s changed. I’m here to take it away. Let me do that and we’ll forget what happened.”

  “Mac, Mac – shall I call it in …?” It was Diaz. Her voice was tight with panic.

  Logan emoji’d: no, back at her.

  “You aren’t with the cops or you’d have back-up outside and all that shit,” Adams rasped, sticking his bony chin out. “And what sort of cop wears a fucking mask like this? Who the fuck are you? And how’d you know it was here? Tell me – or I’ll blow your fucking jaw off or maybe your knees first.” He pulled the barrel away from his face.

  Logan locked his eyes on the gun as it journeyed down to his legs.

  “Which one …” Adams waved the gun back and forward, from knee to knee.

  Logan pushed himself backwards until he met with the wall, his breathing coming in shallow gasps as fear sucked the air from his lungs.

  “Last chance!”

  Spittle broke through Logan’s paralysis. “Wait,” he blurted out, “let me get my ID from my pocket …”

  “Don’t try anything clever.”

  Adams pushed the barrel up into Logan’s crotch, hard, and he wanted to puke with the pain. “Here – here …” He raised his hand to his jacket, peeled it open slowly with two fingers and gently fished out his civi badge. He had no idea how Adams would react; would he shoot an NYPD employee?

  “What the shit? You are a fucking cop.” Adams hadn’t inspected the ID properly. He’d registered the hologram of Logan’s head that had popped up and rotated from side to side but ignored the text at its base. The badge confused him. Peeved, and unsuccessfully hiding his mounting concern, he said, “Did he send you? Are you working for Crusoe?”

  Now Logan was the one confused,
but he played along and said, “How the fuck did you think I knew the robot was here, Adams …?”

  19

  Pic was splitting his sides at the situation playing out in front of him.

  He decided playing God was his forte.

  It was simple to make Diaz’s systems tell her that Adams was elsewhere.

  And Adams was a monkey on the biped gauge. Got him to go back to his apartment with a simple message about a delivery.

  He’d hacked into the detective’s spycam and was watching the fruits of his labours.

  Their faces! He snickered again.

  With some effort, he pulled his flaccid body up, and without taking his focus off the unfolding drama, dipped into his bag of Twinkies.

  20

  Adams took a step back while distrust and indecision ploughed lines across his brow. Scrawny features, rubbery lips and weasel eyes that sat too close together reminded Logan of Pinocchio’s older, ugly brother. He rested his gun in the crook of his arm, keeping it trained on Logan’s gut. “Stay the fuck where you are or I swear I’ll drop you right there.”

  Adams’ focus shifted to middle distance; he was iSensing someone. Probably rendered one smartlense, but people could rarely split their attention effectively. Logan surveyed the floor around him slyly, to see what had been scattered from the box. None of Carrie’s parts leapt out as being an assassin’s weapon. Close to him was the pheromone diffuser. He’d had a good look at it in the lab, with Diaz, and knew it was a simple aerosol operated by a solenoid that was engineered into a modified cavity within Carrie’s head. He reached out with his fingers and harvested it into his palm. The movement drew Adams’ attention to him and he froze. Adams looked away again, past Logan and down into the hall. Logan pulled the diffuser to him incrementally and felt for the nozzle and the button.

  To someone else, Adams said, “I know I shouldn’t have, but I have a problem … Yes … Look, did you send someone to pick up the playmate ... Yes, that’s what I said.”

  Adams was listening intently, confusion building on his face. He was also distracted. Logan slowly raised his cupped hand to his head, making out he was in pain, before turning it towards Adams and hitting the button.

  Nothing happened.

  Caught like a rabbit in headlights, he watched Adams’ attention jerk back to him, though he didn’t lash out; instead, he reacted as though he was watching an unconvincing conjuring act, unsure of what Logan was up to, but not seeing his activity as a threat.

  Logan squeezed the device again, as hard as he could. Something gave. The diffuser made a hiss and sent out a stream of white gas straight into Adams’ face. He’d emptied the whole canister in one go and not in precise amounts as Carrie would have done. Adams screamed, thinking he’d been sprayed with acid or something equally dangerous, and wiped at his face frantically before realising he was unharmed. Sneering, he raised his gun, but the barrel wavered erratically. He screwed his eyes up and shook his head. Backing up against the hallway wall, he batted away an invisible pest, his expression alternating between confusion and some obscure and dubious fantasy. Remembering what Forensics had written up about the contents of the spray, Logan thought he might be sexually aroused, a disturbing thought. Adams’ gun swung away from Logan and he knew he had to make his move. He grabbed one of Carrie’s arms by its wrist, and in a single movement he swung it up from the floor.

  The solid servo end of the robot limb arced through the air and connected with Adams’ head and Logan expected him to drop like someone had cut his strings, except he didn’t; he remained standing like a boxer being counted out on his feet. He squinted a couple of times and registered Logan through his daze. His gun-hand started to come up, but it was already too late. Logan was on his feet and had launched himself forwards, his priority the weapon, and as they connected he grabbed Adams’ wrist and pushed the gun away.

  They grappled with each other like two kids in a schoolyard: no clever judo moves, each just trying to gain a superior hold on the other. Logan was more muscled and heavier, but despite his skinny appearance Adams was easily his match, or maybe it was the diffuser drugs running rife in his system; he had, after all, received the motherload of the chemical mix.

  They stared wildly at each other, their eyeball-popping faces uncomfortably close. Logan could smell Adams’ sour breath as they strained and grunted.

  The gun went off and for a horrifying moment Logan thought he’d taken the bullet.

  Adams’ face drained of colour and took on the vacant stare of a man gripped by a life-changing epiphany. He released Logan’s arm and they looked down in unison. Both sets of eyes watched the red stain spread across Adams’ chest like they were trying to make sense of a growing Rothschild pattern. He wheezed, “Mother-fucker …” and crumpled to the floor.

  Logan stood motionless, his heart banging in his ears, watching Adams like a hawk, ready for any move he might be about to make.

  Adams held his gun tightly, but it remained pointing inwards to his own chest. His body had curled in on itself like a withered autumn leaf, the slick blush of crimson continuing to make steady progress across his shirt.

  There was a distant voice and for a dream-like moment Logan thought it was his conscience connecting with him. It was Diaz. The young lab tech had experienced everything except for the physicality of their fight.

  “… Mac, Mac …!” She sounded distraught.

  “Diaz … I’m here,” gasped Logan. “I’m okay.”

  “Thank God – I couldn’t tell if you’d been hurt as well.”

  “He’s dead, Diaz. I killed him.” He slid down the wall into a crouch, his eyes remaining locked on Adams.

  “You had no choice. You defended yourself. He shot himself … Mac?”

  Logan knew what the kid was doing. Instinctively, she was trying to bring him back to the here and now, make him step out of the ring, get him to think rationally.

  “I hear you. I’m all right. Just shaken up a bit.” He was trembling like Bambi.

  “You’ve got Carrie – I saw the box.”

  “Uh … yes,” said Logan, absently patting Carrie’s torso.

  “You need to get it all back into the forensics box and get out of there.”

  “Yes – you’re right.”

  Shakily he stood back up and patted himself down, checking for wounds.

  He went into the kitchen and returned with the empty forensics box and began filling it. When he was done he looked back at the lifeless form curled up on the wood floor. He paused a moment before making his way out of the apartment.

  With the spoils in his arms, he should have felt victorious. Instead, he was in a daze, moving on autopilot, with the image of Adams’ lifeless body etched into his mind.

  Diaz kept up the conversation, trying to distract him, and, as he put distance between him and Adams’ apartment, he began to think again.

  “Diaz, you need to do something.”

  “What?”

  “Give me two hours, then go ahead and report Carrie as missing evidence, as we originally planned. Then contact Merv and tell him directly what we found through the LDNP.”

  “Everything?”

  “Yes, everything. Me on the security. Adams leaving the labs. Our tracing him to his apartment. Just leave out what happened thereafter – you know nothing about what happened here, you understand?”

  “But what about you?”

  “Listen to me. Delete your iSense records of this. As far as you’re concerned I left the lab to go back to my apartment. I’ll drop your car off where you usually park. I took it without your permission – you hear?”

  “But what about your bioprofile, your DNA will be all over Adams.”

  “That’s my problem.”

  “But –”

  “Look, this was my dumb idea, right?”

  Diaz didn’t respond.

  “Right …?”

  “Okay. But how are you going to get out of this?”

  “I honestly don�
�t know.”

  21

  Emmett was alone in the back of his Mercedes limousine as it coasted east along Interstate 20 to Fort Worth. He was prepping for an after-dinner speech to a gathering of local ranching aficionados when he received a call from a man called Crusoe.

  The interruption gave him cause for concern and he hit the privacy button on his armrest, insulating the passenger area of the limo. His human chauffeur and bodyguard up front gave the slightest of nods as he was used to Emmett’s secretive dealings.

  Crusoe was Emmett’s top asset, a contract killer and solution provider. Mainstream intel agencies had profiles on him, but the details held within those files were remarkably scant given his notoriety. Other than his known hits, the only other descriptive notes held on Crusoe made reference to a number of superlatives, which irritated the agencies’ executive ranks as the descriptions gave him celebrity appeal: ex-Seal or other special services background (deduced from MO); uncanny skill to shoot with pinpoint accuracy (with either hand); supernatural ability to disappear and emerge again; and no facial image or true voice record. He never left DNA traces behind, defying any attempt to bioprofile him.

  No one from the agencies or any police department had confronted Crusoe, except for Emmett. He had stood toe to toe with him, once, and he was not entirely sure whether Crusoe had worn a disguise due to the unusual circumstance of their meeting. A mutual respect had grown between them and over the years a symbiotic relationship resulted that had proved profitable for both, along with a trust born out of deep clandestine workings.

  Emmett’s smartlenses rendered fully, showing Crusoe’s avatar as a laughable, middle-aged, fat, bearded man.

  “Apologies for the call – but the parameters have changed,” said Crusoe.

  “Explain.”

  “The postman called me. I came straight here. The package has gone, the postman has fallen. Quite a mess.”