The Soul Collectors dm-4

by Chris Mooney

  Deborah Collier, a special agent from the FBI's Boston office and acting spokesman for the Durham and Portsmouth police departments, had told reporters that Mark Rizzo, an accountant who had recently been laid off from a local NH firm, had turned to the lucrative world of methamphetamine manufacturing. Forensic agents from both the FBI and ATF reported finding traces of the highly addictive street drug on several debris samples recovered from the explosion. Special Agent Collier said that the remains of a fifth person recovered from the blast site had been identified through DNA analysis as belonging to Alex Scala, a 43-year-old meth user and distributor known to the FBI. Collier didn't have much information about Scala other than that the man's last known residence was in Dorchester, Massachusetts.

  The explosion that caused the deaths of seven New Hampshire SWAT agents and five police officers, all unnamed, had been attributed to the release of phosphine, a deadly gas that can be emitted during methamphetamine production. Several local residents, all unnamed, had been treated at hospital and subsequently released.

  None of the articles mentioned the 911 call placed by a man claiming to be Charlie Rizzo (although the Boston Globe article had briefly mentioned the boy's abduction in 1984, when the family lived in Brookline, Massachusetts). No mention of the unidentified man Charlie had shot and dumped in the bushes. No mention of the ambulance that had gone missing. And the coup de grace: not a single mention of the army's interest or involvement in the case.

  With no new information released about the explosion, New England reporters had turned to churning out stories about 'the new and explosive growth' of homemade meth labs that were popping up all across the country in houses, apartments and mobile homes.

  It was a great spin job — a brilliant spin job. The FBI spokesman had cleverly explained the explosion. Stories about methamphetamine were everywhere these days. The drug was cheap and easy to manufacture, provided the person knew what he was doing. More often than not, the labs were assembled by some meth-head who didn't have the first clue as to how to properly store highly unstable chemicals like anhydrous ammonia. If that didn't explode, they'd spill or mishandle some other volatile chemical and boom, the police had to wait for the deadly phosphine gas to dissipate before heading out to search for body parts.

  The spin job had worked. The Rizzo story had been confined to New Hampshire and neighbouring Massachusetts. The surrounding states had their own problems to report about, along with terrifying the public with article after article on the swine flu pandemic that, if the quoted experts were to be believed, would turn the entire country into the same kind of apocalyptic landscape Stephen King had written about in The Stand.

  Darby imagined Special Agent Collier and her PR cohorts standing inside her office. Imagined lots of backslapping and self-congratulations for launching yet another successful spin that had pulled the wool over the public's eyes. She probably corked a bottle of champagne for this one.

  Why had the truth been swept under the rug? Was it because sarin gas had been used? If that titbit of information had been made known, New Hampshire hotels would be doing brisk business trying to accommodate the swelling numbers of media outlets coming in from across the country to get the inside scoop on a chemical attack on US soil — the first, Darby suspected.

  The real inside scoop, though, wasn't the sarin gas but what had happened inside the Rizzo home. Imagine if that story broke. Ladies and gentlemen, we've received confirmation that the Rizzo family was held hostage by a man claiming to be their son, Charles, who disappeared without a trace twelve years ago. The only person who lived to see these horrific events transpire is Dr Darby McCormick, a former investigator for Boston's Criminal Services Unit.

  Which, Darby suspected, was the reason why she'd been locked inside the quarantine chamber; the feds needed some time to work their spin job and feed it to the media. Nine days later, after she put up a fight, they agreed to release their only eyewitness, provided she signed a thick stack of legal forms that prevented her from speaking to anyone. She was the wild card, the only one who could derail the spin campaign.

  And Charlie's 911 call, what had become of it? All 911 calls were recorded and copies were often made public. Not Charlie's. The feds must have confiscated it. The audio and video recordings from inside the mobile command centre — had those too been confiscated? She'd have to find someone in New Hampshire who would be willing to speak to her off the record.

  Heading back to Google, she typed in the tattooed words she'd seen on that thing's neck. The phrase Et in Arcadia ego came back with pages and pages of hits. Most of the info underneath the links referred to a pair of paintings by a French classical artist named Nicolas Poussin. She clicked on one and found that the Frenchman, born in 1594, had created two highly influential pastoral landscapes in which shepherds come upon a tomb. The more famous of the two versions hung in the Louvre in Paris. According to several scholars, the tomb housed God.

  Darby was more interested in the meaning of the actual words. There were more links, more pages and pages of information, some of it quite detailed.

  She checked her watch. Fifteen minutes until the last FedEx pickup of the night. She shut down her computer and grabbed one of the flat FedEx mailers on her way out the door.

  28

  Darby emerged from the police station and managed to hail an empty taxi on Tremont Street. She hopped in the back seat, checked her watch and told the driver to take her to the Boston Garden. Then she remembered it wasn't called that any more. Fleet Center or TD Bankgarden North, she forgot which and didn't care. For her it would always be the Boston Garden, not the name of some bank which had paid for naming rights.

  Twenty minutes later, when she reached Causeway Street, traffic slowed to a crawl, then came to a jarring stop, just as she suspected.

  'Celtics game is over,' the driver said. 'We could be here a while.'

  'They win?'

  'By two. My boy Pierce dropped a three with ten seconds left.'

  'They'll need to get Garnett and Wallace off the DL if they're going to go through to the playoffs.'

  'True that.'

  She handed the driver a ten, told him to keep the change and got out.

  Darby took her time walking. She didn't bother trying to spot her tail. She had the tracking device in her jeans pocket, so they could afford to hang back and watch from a safe distance.

  People were pouring out of the Garden, flooding the streets and packing the sidewalks. She slid her way through the bodies, taking her time as she made her way to Staniford Street, which would take her right back to the top of Cambridge. Once she'd crossed that, she'd be on Temple. She wanted the people tailing her to think she was heading home.

  She slid the tracking device from her pocket, about to toss it on the ground, when a new thought occurred to her: use the tracking device to draw them out. She had no idea how many were watching her right now, but she needed to capture only one — so that he could tell her what had happened to Mark Rizzo.

  Instead of making for home, she turned right and ducked on to William Cardinal O'Connell Way, the street named after the Archbishop of Boston who, at one time, had urged his priests not to give Communion to women wearing lipstick. Darby knew the deceased prelate by his more recent headline-grabbing accomplishment: he'd been one of the high-ranking clergymen who had helped shift well-known child-molesting priests to other Boston parishes.

  The parking garage had a back entrance for those who paid for monthly spots. Darby unlocked the door and then took the stairs to the ground floor.

  Her last car, a vintage forest-green Ford '74 Falcon GT Coupe in pristine condition that Steve McQueen would have been proud to own, had been stolen by one of Christina Chadzynski's henchmen on the night she'd been abducted from Coop's house and taken to the abandoned auto garage to be killed. With the car most likely dumped at the bottom of some river or quarry, and the insurance company's auditors haggling about the car's actual cost and not its perceived cost, Darby
decided to make do with a beautiful, old-school motorcycle: a black 1982 Yamaha Virago 750. It had been well cared for by the previous owner, and she changed only one thing: the drag bars, preferring ones a little bit lower for a more comfortable ride.

  The parking spot offered a decent light, but she removed her flashlight and began a thorough inspection of her bike. It didn't take long. She found the tracking device mounted underneath the hugger, secured to the steel by a tiny adhesive Velcro strip. At least the person who did this had taken the time to spray-paint it black so it would blend in with the paintjob.

  She left the device where it was, then put on her helmet and hopped on her bike. Darby hooked a sharp right and turned on to Moon Island Road, the mile-long stretch of causeway that ran over Quincy Bay and led to the 45-acre island sitting smack dab in the middle of Boston Harbor. As she drove she could make out, in the distance, the dark silhouettes of boats rocking lazily on the calm water. The road was pitch black, and the only source of light came from the single lamp set up on the desk inside the security guard shack.

  She stopped in front of the gate and, leaning her foot off the bike, followed the protocol: took off her helmet so the guard and the single security camera mounted above his sliding glass window could see her face; unzipped her jacket, picked up the laminated badge hanging around her neck, held it up to the camera and then showed it to the guard.

  He ducked his head back inside his shack and entered her name into the computer to see if she was authorized to enter. She doubted she'd be turned away. During her suspension, she had logged a lot of time at the shooting range and practised SWAT exercises during odd hours of the night without a problem or complaint — unless Leland had decided sometime during the day to call here and get her privileges revoked.

  He hadn't. The gate lifted, and Darby drove a few feet along a stretch of dark road. She stopped, parked her bike and left her helmet on the seat. From the small trunk she removed a pair of field glasses and jogged back through the dark to the gated security post.

  She found a spot and, leaning back against a tree, checked her watch and recorded the time. Then she watched the causeway through her field glasses. There was no light source down there, but her eyes had adjusted to the darkness and she could make out the road, the shape of the trees. She would be able to see movement.

  When it came to counter-surveillance, the first law was never to assume anything. If the people following her were from out of town and didn't know this area, there was a chance her tail might make the mistake of trying to drive across the causeway. The posted no-trespassing signs were visible only after you turned on to the road.

  She kept track of the time, counting the seconds off in her head. Four minutes and twenty-two seconds later, a car turned slowly on to the causeway.

  29

  Darby zoomed on the car, which had come to an abrupt stop.

  Must have seen the signs, she thought, catching sight of the BMW hood ornament as the car backed up. It was black or a dark blue, and the tinted windows prevented her from seeing whoever was inside the car.

  She watched as the BMW drove down Border Street and slowly turned right into Bayside Road. They look for a place to wait, then follow me after I leave. The red brake lights glowed on the dark road and then the car took another slow turn into Monmouth. The BMW's headlights went out but she could still see it, watching as it did a three-point turn. It came to a stop in front of a house near the end of the street, and looked like just another ordinary parked car. That spot offered a clear, unobstructed view of the causeway, the only way off Moon Island.

  A moment later she saw a white glow coming from inside the BMW. Too bright to be the light from a cell phone screen, she thought. A laptop, maybe.

  Darby walked back to her bike. She started it up and drove through the dark stretch of road that led to the shooting range. The floodlights were on, illuminating the grassy, empty field. There were no lights on inside the small one-floor building where she housed most of her tactical equipment. She parked her bike and took her keys with her to access the building.

  From her locker she grabbed the spare sidearm she had recently purchased at the urging of her SWAT instructor: an MK23 SOCOM, the same tactical sidearm commissioned by the United States Special Operations Command. The.45 calibre pistol had a great sound and flash suppressor, but what had impressed her most was its high accuracy — even without the use of its laser-aiming module.

  Next, she grabbed the spare nylon shoulder holster she used for SWAT exercises. She slipped it on and adjusted the straps, tightening them to the point of being uncomfortable. The MK23 wasn't much good as a concealed weapon, especially with this snug jacket. She zipped it up and could see and feel the handgun bulging against the leather. She could live with it for now. She could have used a smaller handgun but it wouldn't have the MK's one-shot stopping power. She needed that for the moment when one or more of her new friends decided to make a move and try to get close to her.

  Now, the final item: the duffel bag. She couldn't carry it with her, and she could only fit two or three pieces of tactical equipment inside the motorcycle's small trunk box.

  She placed the duffel bag on the bench. Unzipped it, removed each item and placed it on the long piece of wood. Hands crossed over her chest, she stood over the bench examining each item, thinking about a strategy.

  The person or persons sitting inside the BMW had to have brought others. She didn't know this for a fact but it would be a smart tactical move to do so. These people might just want to follow her for a while, but at some point they would want either to grab her or to take her down.

  Darby stood in the locker room's cool and musty silence, thinking. She had all night, could stand here for as long as she wanted. And she wanted to make them wait. Let them sit there and wonder what the hell she was doing. They didn't have the answers, but they would keep turning the question over and over in their minds, and it would make them anxious. Nervous. They might decide to do a rush job, which would cause a tactical mistake.

  Before leaving Moon Island, she used the computer at the front desk to log on to the Internet and map out the quickest route to the Rizzo home — the blast site.

  30

  Darby reached the highway and pushed the bike past eighty, weaving across the four lanes and keeping a close eye on both rear-view mirrors, on the alert for the BMW or any vehicle that decided to get too close. If these people wanted to take her out, this would be the time to do it. Driving across a dark highway virtually free of traffic, they could easily knock her off her bike. One good push and she'd lose control and be bouncing and skidding across the pavement. By the time she came to a stop she'd be a mess of broken bones, unable to get up or move — and unconscious, if she got lucky. That was the best-case scenario.

  Forty minutes later, Darby reached the Portsmouth exit. Her new friends had decided to keep a safe distance — at least for the moment. Maybe they wanted to see why she'd decided to head to New Hampshire. Hopefully they'd hang back. Her plan depended on it.

  Downtown Portsmouth hummed with activity. People bundled in coats walked along sidewalks lined with green store-front canopies. They entered and exited bars. They examined the restaurant menus displayed in glass windows and doors. Too many witnesses here for her friends inside the BMW to try anything.

  Three miles later the neighbourhoods grew quiet. Ten miles later, coming up on the spot where the APC had first dropped her off, the streets grew dark and then pitch black. Another mile or so and she came to the spot where the mobile command trailer had been parked. It was gone now, but in the bike's single headlight beam she found a wide and deep tyre impression in the soft dirt. Saw the deep grooves the tyre had left as it was moved off the soft dirt shoulder and hauled away. She drove up the road, the same route she had taken while standing on the back of the APC.

  Up ahead she saw police tape hanging over the street, strips and strips of it creating a flimsy yellow barrier that shook in the wind. She looked to he
r right, at the house where Trent had placed the sniper and spotter. The explosion hadn't knocked the house off its foundations, but it had torn off most of the front, exposing upended furniture inside the rooms that were visible.

  When she reached the police tape, she kicked the heel of her boot to release the kickstand. She took off her helmet and breathed in the cool air still carrying the faint odour of charred wood.

  A big steel dumpster, the kind used on construction-job sites, had been set up just beyond the tape and blocked access to the street. She spotted another one further down the road. The street was bare, clean. During the time she spent quarantined, the debris had been cleared away. And whatever had remained of the Rizzo home had been bulldozed. Nothing left but a black hole in the ground, a few dumpsters and a collection of burned trees, mostly pines, neatly stacked and awaiting removal.

  The entire perimeter of the blast site had been cordoned off by police tape, so why wasn't there a cruiser parked here? In Boston, it was standard procedure to keep watch on a blast site to make sure no photographer, reporter or local yahoo ended up tripping on the debris and bumping their head, only to turn around and launch a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the city for negligence. It had happened too many times in Boston, and they all had been settled out of court with taxpayer dollars. Maybe the Dover police had a different policy. Maybe this place was so remote they didn't have to worry about someone stumbling along and getting hurt. Or maybe, like every other law enforcement agency, they'd been hit by budget cuts and forced to do without things like patrolling a blast site where there was nothing left to see. Darby killed the engine. The headlight went off and she was plunged into a near pitch-black darkness. No stars out tonight, no moon. A soft but biting cold wind rattled through the trees and shook the branches as she took what she needed out of the trunk box. All her pockets were stuffed, so she had to carry the night-vision goggles and tactical belt. She ducked underneath the tape, estimating that the BMW was about five minutes behind her. She had to find a vantage point.