The Soul Collectors dm-4

by Chris Mooney

  Keats was clean. He was told what was going on, then opened the door and invited his men in. He told them to submit their weapons and they did so without complaint, handing them across the table to Casey. Then Keats told his men to strip out of their shirts. They did, and they all passed.

  An announcement came over the speakers to prepare for takeoff. Darby buckled in and waited impatiently for half an hour until the big Boeing levelled off to cruising altitude.

  Casey collected the groups and Darby did the exams, checking upper and lower lips, checking necks and chests. The only tattoos she found were those belonging to two embarrassed women — 'tramp stamps', as they were called, a butterfly and some Indian design located on their lower backs, right above the waistband of their trousers.

  Casey escorted her upstairs to cockpit. The two pilots passed. Next he took her to the lower deck. Deep in the belly of the plane a small army of federal agents worked in a mobile lab, hunting for evidence underneath the bright overhead lights. They were huddled around white worktops and workstations, studying computer monitors and printouts. They scurried around each other, grabbing phones and pens and laptops, their faces anxious and sweating and tired from lack of sleep and surviving on adrenalin.

  She followed Casey across a clear path that divided two distinct areas packed with banks of desks and workstations, leading to half a dozen or so doors. Casey opened the middle one. A guy somewhere in his thirties but with grey hair and a liquorice-coloured scar on his chin sat wedged behind a tiny white desk, the only furniture in the immaculately neat and windowless space. He swivelled the computer screen around so they could see it.

  An autopsy room. Eight male bodies drained of blood and stiff with rigor lay on stainless-steel gurneys, their white skin covered with frost from their time spent in the meat locker. Sergey had told her they'd been shot in the back of the head, and she saw the same exit wounds on each forehead and face. Today's date and a running time in bold white filled the bottom-right-hand part of the screen.

  Casey punched a button on a speakerphone. 'Drake, it's Jack. Can you hear me?'

  'Yeah. We're ready. I've got Hein here with me, manning the camera.'

  'Go ahead, let's see what you've got.'

  Someone picked up the camera — Hein — moved to the middle of the room and stopped next to a gurney holding an older male with fine grey chest hair and packing a considerable amount of weight around the midsection. His torso had been washed and Darby could hear water dribbling into a sink.

  She looked at the star-shaped exit wound. A crater now stood where the man's left eye had been, the resulting trauma taking out his nose and shredding most of his upper lip.

  'It's a mess,' Drake said over the speakers, 'but we managed to find it.'

  Darby watched as the man's gloved fingers pushed the ragged strips of flesh together. Now came the black light and she saw the tattoo, the same as the one on Rizzo and Smith.

  Drake said, 'His name is Richard Govornale. Forty-six, been with the Secret Service for fifteen years. Immaculate record, from what I was told. Secret Service has investigators here right now, but they've pretty much shut us out.'

  'Sergey's talking with their lead guy, Baxter.'

  Drake said, 'I took apart the outside A/C units and found a cyanide canister, a remote-controlled thing operated by a cell phone. Canister's empty. They pumped in enough cyanide to make them pass out and then came in and started shooting. Never seen anything like this in my life. What the hell is going on, Jack?' Casey handed her off to two young guys who looked like they had just graduated college seconds ago, their bright and eager faces ready to tackle anything the world threw at them. Their names were Louis and Gerrad, and they worked for the FBI's Video Enhancement Unit. They had hunkered down in one of the other white rooms, this one just as cramped but designed with an L-shaped worktop so the two men could be side by side, talk and compare notes.

  The tall, bony one, Louis, handed her an envelope and said, 'The pictures you wanted.'

  'I want to take a look at something specific on the video,' she said. 'There's a black spot behind the surgical table, what could — '

  'Right, right, I know exactly what you're talking about. I'll show you.'

  Gerrad said he was going to the galley for coffee. Just as well. There wasn't room for three people in there. Darby took a seat and, looking at the computer monitor, saw a close-up, frozen frame of Sarah Casey's face.

  Louis's hands flew across the keyboard. Windows menus popped on the screen and disappeared as Louis worked the mouse, pausing every moment or so to hit a key or type in a command. The video whooshed by and then stopped on the spot where she'd seen the blackened area.

  Now Louis enlarged it. He pressed a series of buttons and applied what she guessed was some sort of light filter. The blackness disappeared and she saw an archway made of human skulls, their hollowed sockets looking down on Jack Casey's daughter.

  Darby leaned forward. 'I can't make out what's beyond the archway.'

  'Just give me a minute… There.' He got out of his chair to give her a better view.

  A wall constructed of legs and arm bones stacked on top of each other, like logs. She could make out the curved ends of tibias, more skulls, hundreds and hundreds of bones, maybe thousands.

  Louis said, 'You have any idea what that place is?'

  'Some sort of ossuary would be my guess.'

  'A what?'

  'A place that holds the bones of the dead. Can you print out a copy of this?'

  'Already did. It's in the package I gave you.'

  'What else did you find?'

  'Some shadows that still need to be enhanced,' he said. 'We've got to examine each frame. It's a painfully slow and tedious process. There's nothing we can do to rush it, unfortunately.'

  'What about audio?'

  'Sent by courier to our actual lab,' Louis said, sounding both sad and apologetic for some reason. 'Stuff the audio guys use is too bulky to fit in here, plus they need the actual source and not a digital copy. You've been doing this a long time?'

  The question took her off-guard. 'Doing what?'

  'Investigating cases like this.'

  'Yes. A long time.'

  She stood and saw Louis standing with his hands behind his back, staring down at the computer screen, mournful and solemn, as if it had turned into a coffin. Darby went off to search for either Casey or Sergey. Twenty minutes later she found both men on the top floor of the plane — Sergey seated behind the former presidential desk, rubbing his forehead with one hand, the other pressing a phone against an ear.

  Casey sat in a chair, gazing out of the window at the rolling clouds floating on the black sky. She approached him, trying to take his measure, trying to see if there was any evidence he was about to crack. Whatever he was feeling, he was keeping it well hidden. Guarded.

  She handed him the stack of pages.

  'What's this?'

  'Pictures of where your wife and daughter are being held,' she said gently. 'If we're going to strike out into the woods, I think we should go to see Darren Waters before we do so — show him the pictures and the video, see if he can tell us where this place is.'

  'He can't speak. He doesn't have his tongue, remember?'

  'I remember. I was assuming that after all this time he was taught to read and write.'

  'He suffered too much brain damage when they gave him the lobotomy. He knows sign language and some basic words and that's it.'

  Casey's voice was stripped of colour — stripped of everything. She then realized that the flat tone she kept hearing in his voice wasn't an ability to disconnect from what was happening. The man had nothing left. If he didn't find his family, he'd find a way to eat his gun.

  'Where did you move him?' she asked.

  'Here. On the plane. Only safe place we could think of.'

  'I'd like to speak to him.'

  Casey stared at her for a moment, considering the question.

  'It's not going to help
,' he said.

  'What would you suggest I do, then?'

  Casey handed her the pictures. 'He's in the back.'

  'Anything I need to know?'

  'Yeah. Keep the lights off.'

  73

  The two sleeping paramedics Darby had seen upon entering the plane were posted outside a door, its window dark. They were playing cards — poker, by the looks of it — and they didn't look up at the bumping sounds coming from beyond the door.

  'You here to perform another strip search?' This from the pudgy one with the goatee and man boobs that could fill a B-cup bra. The plastic nametag pinned to his chest read ROY.

  'I'd like to speak to Darren Waters,' Darby said.

  'He can't talk.'

  'I know. I was told he could write, though. Simple words.'

  'What's that in your hand?'

  'Pictures.' She had already sorted through them, taking only the ones showing the skulled archway and boned wall.

  Another bumping sound and then Roy's partner, a black guy with thick glasses and a short grey Afro, picked up a King of Hearts from the deck.

  'What's he doing in there?' Darby asked.

  'Exploring,' Roy said. 'This is his first time on a plane. He's been acting a little skittish.'

  He folded his cards and tucked them in his breast pocket as he looked at his partner. 'I'll keep these here, Avis, and we'll continue my winning streak when I get back.'

  Darby blinked in surprise when she saw the pudgy guy pick up a pair of night-vision goggles.

  'Darren don't care for light,' Roy said. 'Throws a fit if you go in there and turn it on. So he may not want to look at your pictures, and there's nothing I can do to force him, okay? I wear these night-vision goggles as my eyesight's for shit.'

  That got a soft chuckle from the black guy.

  'Darren,' Roy said, 'knows some basic sign language, so if he uses it, I'll be able to see and interpret it for you. Remember, he's got the mentality of a toddler, so use simple, direct words.'

  Darby nodded. 'Anything else I need to know?'

  'Don't look upset when you see him, he's very sensitive to that. It'll get him upset, and we can't really give him anything to calm him down. Guy's got Graves' disease and, on top of that, a bad ticker. Play it cool and calm and he can be a teddy bear.'

  Roy cracked open the door. 'Hello, Darren. It's me. Roy. Your friend.'

  A thump of footsteps and then a moan creaked through the darkness.

  'Do not be scared,' Roy said, enunciating each word. 'I am coming in to say hello. I have a friend with me. A nice lady. She wants to meet you.'

  Roy put the night-vision goggles over his head and stepped in first, Darby following into the semi-dark cabin. It had a window, and the flashing lights on the wing parted the darkness and revealed that the furniture had been removed. She could see the holes and bracket marks left on the carpet, the paper and crayons and clothes. Hospital smocks, she guessed, along with dirty socks and a pair of soft-soled white sneakers with Velcro straps.

  To her left was a small room, its door removed, and she could make out a tangle of bare, crooked limbs trying to hide.

  Roy grabbed her upper arm and gave it a small tug to keep her from moving forward.

  'Darren,' Roy said, his voice kind and gentle. 'Come out and say hello to my friend.'

  The limbs unfolded — she still couldn't see him — and then Darren Waters plodded out of the room backwards, nude, a Frankenstein mess of deformed bone. He was severely hunched from osteoporosis, and she could make out the crooked vertebrae bulging from the deathly pale skin covered with row after row of round, welted scars. They covered his back, buttocks and thighs, and she thought of the puncture wounds she had found on Mark Rizzo.

  Darren Waters kept his face pointed at the corner wall, out of view.

  'Do you feel shy?' Roy asked.

  Waters bobbed his head up and down, up and down. He rocked back and forth.

  'How about we all sit down and colour?' Roy asked. 'Would you like that?'

  'Aye-ah,' Waters garbled, and turned. She caught a flash of a crude scar the size and thickness of a bicycle tyre left from his castration, and most of his right ear had either been chewed or torn off.

  Waters plodded over to the crayons. He was about to sit when he noticed her and then decided to come over for a closer look.

  'This is my friend,' Roy said, and she felt his finger dig into her arm. 'Her name is Darby.'

  'Hello, Darren.'

  Jagged scars the colour of jelly and smaller, neat ones left from a scalpel were slashed across a face of missing eyebrows. Goitres, the result of his Graves' disease, covered his neck and half of his left cheek. His nose had been broken she didn't know how many times and what was left was a pulpy, crooked mess. He tried to smile but the lips twitched. No teeth, just like the thing with the egg-white skin she had tied to the tree.

  He snatched the envelope from her hand and then retreated to the corner, making some sort of nasal but gleeful sound as he went to work tearing off the paper like it was a Christmas present.

  The pictures spilled across his lap. He picked up one, turned it over and looked, then tossed it aside and went after another one. Darby watched him do it six or so times before his head darted up, his hand waving a sheet at Roy.

  'It's a picture,' Roy said.

  Waters performed some sort of sign language, then picked up one of the photographs and held it close to his face.

  'Then you need to turn on a light,' Roy said.

  Waters kept shaking his head.

  Darby felt Roy release his grip. He reached into his trousers pocket, came back with a small flashlight, placed it on the floor and sat next to Waters in the corner.

  'Darren, would you like to use this?' Roy asked, tapping the floor where the flashlight lay.

  Waters tilted his head to the side. He made some signs again and his gnarled fingers scooped it up.

  'You're welcome,' Roy said. 'Can my friend Darby sit with you?'

  'Aye-ah.'

  She sat next to Roy. Waters turned on the flashlight and she felt her stomach slide south — not from fear of seeing his ghoulish face with its scars and lumps but more so out of anger and piercing sadness. This group had abducted Waters at four, tortured and beaten him over decades and turned him into this ghost of a human being.

  Why in the name of God did they do this to you?

  'Darren,' she said.

  He looked up from the picture.

  'Do you know Mark Rizzo?'

  No reaction.

  'Can you tell me anything about this?' She pointed to the picture in his hand, the one showing the archway formed from human skulls.

  No reaction.

  'Do you know this place?'

  Water picked up a blue crayon and began colouring one of the skulls.

  'Too many words,' Roy said to her. 'Darren knows only basic language.'

  'Darren,' she said kindly.

  He looked up, tilted his head to the side.

  'This,' she said, tapping the picture. 'Where?'

  She pointed down. 'Below the ground?'

  He didn't understand.

  'Darren, can I use a crayon and paper?'

  He didn't understand and looked at Roy, who used sign language. Darren nodded and handed her a piece of paper and his box of crayons.

  She drew a quick, crude picture of an outdoors scene dotted with trees and flowers. Below it, she drew a tunnel; inside it, a floor and the archway.

  She put the drawing on the floor. Pointed to the picture of the archway he was colouring and then pointed to the one she had drawn.

  Waters brought his hands together, kissed his palms and then made waving motions with his hands, like rising flames of fire.

  A voice came over the speaker: 'Darby McCormick, report to Situation Room 102.'

  Darren Waters pressed his hands over his deformed ears.

  After she stepped outside with Roy, she said, 'That sign language at the end, what was he t
rying to describe? Hell?'

  Roy shook his head.

  'Heaven,' he said.

  74

  Her face flushed, Darby opened the door to the situation room and found three men dressed in SWAT gear picking up weapons from the table.

  Casey wasn't here, but Sergey was, leaning back in a leather chair with his legs crossed. He had loosened his tie and was eating peanuts from a bag, reading a stack of papers.

  'What took you so long?' he asked, a half-grin cocked on his face.

  'I had to ask someone for directions.' She nodded to the papers on his lap. 'That Ross's stuff?'

  He nodded. 'Religious theory on Gnosticism, stuff about these Archons. They like to bend people to their wills and wage war. Creates unity.' He shook his head. 'Load of useless mystical propaganda created centuries ago.'

  'And this group, for whatever reason, has bought into it.'

  'Sure looks that way. And none of it is going to do us any good.'

  He tossed the stack on the table, ate another peanut. 'I've got guys checking on customs logs to see who's tried to import any of the spiders Perkins put on his list. No hits so far, but we've only just started.'

  'I didn't know you carried SWAT on board.'

  'Former Hostage Rescue guys, on loan to us. Your stuff is in the back. They could use an extra body, and with your training I figured you wanted in.'

  'What about transport?'

  'You're going to love this.' He crumbled his bag into a ball and threw it into the trashcan bolted against the wall. 'It's a Huey, a Bell UH-1H, one of the new ones with a four-blade rotor system and dual GE engines. Powerful but quiet. And it's got just about every piece of equipment we need to stage a military coup or mount a search and rescue.'

  'How did you score that?'

  'Pure luck.'

  'What about ground support?'

  'SWAT, local police and ambulances,' he said. 'Jimmy Blackstone from the Connecticut field office is overseeing everything. Good guy, he knows what he's doing. He's going to go in quiet when he gets close to the transmission corridor. He's going to have to wait for us to scout out the terrain first.'