Death Never Lies

by David Grace

  Kane aimed slightly toward the side of the bowl, closed his eyes and let go. A fraction of a second later he felt as if he had been dipped waist deep into molten lava. Because of the minerals and other waste products it contained human urine was highly conductive. The stun gun’s eight million volts were only slightly diminished during their trip through the salt water in the bowl and then up the stream of urine and into Kane’s penis. The charge roared through his groin and then down his legs and out through his heels. One second Greg was standing in front of the toilet and the next he was lying half conscious on the floor, fighting to draw a breath.

  As soon as the monitor showed Kane entering the bathroom Munroe hurried down the hall and slipped the bump key into the lock. He paused for a couple of seconds until Kane toppled off the edge of the iPad’s screen then he rapped the key and managed to turn the tumbler on the first try. Munroe abandoned the hand-truck just inside the door and raced into the bathroom where he found Kane shuddering on the floor in a puddle of his own urine.

  Munroe pulled out another stun gun and gave Kane a three-second jolt in the side of his neck then dragged him out of the bathroom. A few seconds later he had Kane’s ankles, wrists and mouth wrapped in duct tape. Munroe searched Kane’s pockets and removed his cell, wallet and creds. A few seconds more and Kane’s knees were taped together and his arms were secured tightly to his chest. Jesus, this guy stinks! Munroe thought. He removed the carpet from the closet, rolled Kane up inside it, then wrapped bands of tape around the rug’s top, bottom and center.

  It took all of Munroe’s strength to stand the rug up against the wall and then get the hand-truck’s blade under the bottom. Another two lengths of tape secured it to the hand-truck’s steel frame. Had he forgotten anything? The camera! Munroe pulled the stun gun from behind the toilet tank and then grabbed the Kleenex box. He stuffed them into a paper bag from the kitchen along with the roll of tape. Carrying it wouldn’t look right but he couldn’t leave them behind. He briefly considered dropping the bag down the garbage chute but that was the first place the cops would search once Kane went missing.

  Munroe did a final check of the apartment, carefully wiping down anything that he might have touched. Getting Kane and the rug out the door was a pain and a half but he did it, wiping his prints from the knob as he left. Everything went smoothly until he reached the lobby and realized that he couldn’t simultaneously open the front door and push the hand truck through it. He was looking around for something to wedge under the jam when one of the tenants showed up.

  “That looks like a two-man job,” the man half joked.

  “It’s heavier than it looks.”

  “Here, let me hold it for you,” the guy volunteered.

  Munroe spun the hand-truck around, pulled it through the opening and then across the street to the van. After half a minute’s more pushing and straining he manhandled Kane into the back and then he was gone.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  Kane couldn’t tell if he was awake or stuck in a nightmare that wouldn’t end. He remembered a horrifying pain then spasms then a searing jolt and then nothing. He couldn’t see. He couldn’t move. He almost couldn’t breathe. His body was a mass of throbbing pain. He seemed to be lying down. Had a bomb gone off? Was he trapped in the rubble of what used to be his apartment building? For a moment he panicked and thrashed violently but accomplished nothing. He could barely even draw a breath. Was he awake or asleep? He could feel pressure on his arms and the weight of his body against something hard. A faint chemical smell tickled his nose. Even in his dreams in Tommy’s Bar he’d never experienced such strong physical sensations.

  His brain slowly began to clear and Kane decided that he wasn’t dreaming. The floor beneath him vibrated and rolled him slightly left then right. He was in a vehicle he concluded. Someone had grabbed him. It wasn’t hard to guess who. The van took a hard left and Kane rolled against the right-side wall. He had no idea of how long they’d been traveling or at what speed but he started counting “one-thousand one, one-thousand two. . . .” just the same. At least it gave him something to do.

  Months earlier Munroe had rented a self-service storage locker in Arlington as a bolt-hole in case something went seriously wrong. He had picked the place because it was completely automated. He arrived at a little after eight and swiped his RFID card across the scanner. The gate rolled out of the way and Munroe headed for his unit which was at the end of the third row of stucco buildings. At twenty by thirty feet it was the largest size they offered. People who had lost their homes had been known to camp out in their lockers jammed in between their living room set and their old bicycles, though officially the management prohibited the practice.

  In reality, if you were quiet and kept any smells and smoke to a minimum you could pretty much do anything you wanted except manufacture meth or grow weed. Those activities were disallowed not because they were against the rules but because there was no gas service for the former and insufficient electrical power for the latter. Munroe’s unit was at the end of the row and the next two spaces up the line held only furniture and office equipment. Kane could make as much noise as he liked and no one was going to hear him.

  Munroe rolled up the door and pulled the van inside. Along one wall he’d set up a couple of pole lamps, a table, two aluminum chairs, a cot, a small fridge, and an induction hot-plate. All the comforts of home, he thought as he opened the van’s doors and dragged out the rug. He heard a faint grunt when it hit the concrete floor.

  It took half a minute to unroll his captive and then manhandle Kane into one of the chairs. Munroe wished he had bought a model that had arms so that he would have had supports that he could fasten Kane’s wrists to. Well, they would just have to stay taped against his chest. He juggled his prisoner like an unruly sack of meat and then ran another length of tape around each of Kane’s ankles and the chair’s front two legs. One final strip around the agent’s chest and the chair’s aluminum back and he was done.

  Throughout the process Kane watched Munroe with hate-filled eyes. When he was done Munroe ripped the tape from Greg’s mouth.

  “You can scream all you want,” he said, smiling. “No one’s going to hear you. . . . Go ahead, give it a try.”

  Kane looked around the bare room then shouted, “Hello! Can anybody hear me?” Hello!” Munroe opened his hands as if to say, “I told you so.”

  “Now that that’s out of your system we can get started. Here’s how it’s going to be. I’m going to ask you questions. Eventually, you’re going to answer them. Every time you refuse to answer you’re going to be punished.” Munroe held up his stun gun and triggered a blaze of sparks. “If you lie to me, you’re going to be punished.” More sparks. “You’re too smart to believe me if I told you that I was going let you go so I’m not going to bother lying to you. I will promise that if you tell me what I want to know then when we’re done I’ll give you something to eat and drink and I’ll let you take a piss before I put you out of your misery. Nothing is going to save your life but this can go easy or it can go hard, depending on how cooperative you are.” Munroe paused for a second but Kane just stared at him. “OK, let’s get started. Do you have Mearle Farber?”

  One school of thought was that prisoners should say nothing, not the name of their dog, not the time of day, not the color of their hair. Nothing. The theory was that the first answer you gave was like boring a hole in a dam and that with every subsequent response the structure would be further weakened until it eventually collapsed. The problem with that strategy was that it vastly accelerated the interrogation and the amount of pain the prisoner would suffer. If Kane’s hunch about Bellingham was correct and if Munroe was reporting to him then the FBI might pick up a phone call passing between them. It was a thin chance but it was something, provided that he could survive long enough to be rescued. Kane needed to play for time which meant that he had to draw out the interrogation with a mixture of truths, half-truths and outright lies.

  �
��Don’t you read the papers? We’ve been beating the bushes for Farber for almost a week.”

  Munroe cocked his head as if deep in thought. “Somehow, I don’t believe you,” he said and jammed the stun gun against Kane’s stomach and pressed the button. “Try again,” Munroe ordered when Kane had stopped screaming. “Do you have Mearle Farber in custody?”

  “Absolutely not,” Kane said truthfully. Technically, it was the FBI who had Farber. Munroe raised his eyebrows but didn’t trigger the gun again.

  “Do you know where Farber is now?”

  “No.”

  “Do you have a plan to capture Farber?”

  “Hope springs eternal,” Kane said with a weak smile.

  “I consider that nonresponsive.” Munroe jammed the gun into Kane’s stomach for a two-second burst. Greg screamed and tried to bend forward but was restrained by the tape. Stall, stall, stall, he told himself, grimacing and gasping for breath.

  “Give it a rest. I didn’t hurt you that much,” Munroe told him. “Let’s try this again. Do you have a plan to capture Farber?”

  Greg eyed the gun but knew that he needed to make Munroe work for every answer. If he gave up information too easily Munroe wouldn’t believe the lies he told later on down the road.

  “Our plan is to keep looking until we find him.” Munroe didn’t even bother speaking. He just hit Kane with another jolt.

  “What’s your plan for finding Farber?” Kane hesitated and Munroe raised the gun.

  “All right! Wait! . . . Farber’s got a girlfriend. We’re staking out her place in case he shows up.”

  “What’s her name?”

  Kane hesitated then eyed the gun and spit out, “Giselle.”

  “How did you find out about her?”

  “I don’t know. My partner–”

  Munroe jammed the contacts against Kane’s shoulder and pressed the switch.

  “Stop lying.”

  “My partner,” Kane repeated, breathing heavily, “is the paperwork guy. He pulled Farber’s credit card statement and found something that led him to the woman.”

  “What, specifically?”

  “I don’t know.” Munroe gave Kane another jolt. “I don’t know! A charge at a restaurant, a piece of jewelry, whatever. It’s not important. He’s a kid! I tell him to find me something and he comes back with an answer. How he does it isn’t my concern.”

  Munroe gave Kane a long look then slipped the stun gun back into his pocket.

  “Who am I working for?” Munroe asked.

  “Don’t you know?” Out came the gun. “Jesus! If I knew that I’d have already arrested him.”

  “You’d need evidence first. Who do you suspect who my boss might be?”

  “Someone who wants to manufacture a new kind of drug,” Kane answered.

  Munroe raised the gun. “You can do better than that.” Kane lowered his head and Munroe gave him a five second burst. Kane screamed then slumped against the tape. After half a minute Munroe threw a cup of water in Kane’s face and slapped him awake. “Who do you think might be my boss?” Kane shook his head and slumped in his chair. “All right, we’ll do this the hard way.” This time the gun snapped and hissed for a full ten seconds and Kane lost consciousness. Two minutes later Munroe asked again, “Who do you think might be my boss?”

  Kane looked around blearily then seemed to pass out. Another jolt provoked almost no response. Munroe slapped Kane’s face but got only a few mumbled words in return.

  “Who’s my boss!” Munroe shouted followed by another slap.

  “Bugs,” Kane muttered. “Sterilize the bugs.”

  Another slap had no effect and further use of the stun gun elicited only groans until the battery ran down. Munroe checked Kane’s bonds then slipped outside and made a call.

  “He claims they don’t know where Farber is,” he said as soon as the line was answered.

  “Do you believe him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you know?”

  “He’s a tough guy. All I managed to get out of him was something about bugs.”

  “What about bugs?”

  “He was out of it, babbling. ‘Bugs, sterilize the bugs.’ That’s all he said before he passed out completely.”

  “Could he be faking?”

  “Anything’s possible but I ran the stun gun’s battery dry. It’s going to take half an hour to get enough of a charge in it to go back to work on him.”

  Bellingham tried to organize his thoughts. He’d half-convinced himself that as long as the authorities didn’t have Farber he was safe but Kane’s cryptic comment about sterilizing bugs sounded like a reference to him. Did Kane know something or was he just suspicious or was his comment merely the ramblings of an addled mind? And if Kane did know something, or thought he knew something, had he told anyone? He was a policeman and until he had some real evidence Kane might have kept his suspicions to himself. Bellingham struggled to control his fear. He needed answers and he needed to protect his identity. He had worked very hard to keep Munroe from learning who he was. His only option now was to get Munroe out of the room and finish Kane’s interrogation himself. He had been so close. All he needed was a few more months. He had gambled that Kane had nothing but now it seemed as if he might be wrong.

  “Hello? Are you there?” Munroe called.

  “You’re at your safe house?”

  “Yes.”

  “I need to question him myself. With some luck I should be there in about ninety minutes. Don’t do anything until I arrive.” The line went dead.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  Ron Franks smiled as Raylan Givens blew away yet another inbred, hillbilly drug dealer. Damn, I wish we could do that, he thought as Marshal Givens swiveled and blasted scumbag number 2. At the crack of the pistol Franks’ wife snuggled a little closer against him. Then his cell phone rang. Without being asked she disengaged herself and hit “pause” on the remote.

  “It’s work,” Franks said.

  “I recognize the ring. I’m going to go pee.”

  “What’s up?”

  “We’ve got activity at the house. Calls between a burner phone and an unregistered cell in Alexandria.”

  “Do we have an address?”

  “The caller hacked the GPS chip. All we’ve got is the cell tower location. The content is interesting though. It looks like the guy in Alexandria has got somebody under forceful interrogation. He’s apparently using a stun gun. They’re trying to find out if Farber is in custody. Whoever they’re working on told them ‘no’ but they don’t necessarily believe him. The subject also said something about sterilizing bugs. That seemed to upset the guy in the house.”

  “That’s what his company does,” Franks said, his brain racing. “It makes some kind of chemical that sterilizes bugs.”

  “Well, it got our guy’s attention. He’s going to the Alexandria location to question the prisoner himself.”

  “Follow him and don’t lose him,” Franks ordered.

  “It’s a long way from here to Alexandria. I wish we’d put a tracker on his car.”

  “If we had put a tracker on his car he probably would have found it and then he wouldn’t be going anywhere. Call the team set up on his office and have them meet you on the I-95.”

  Franks hung up and called Kane’s cell. It rang four times and went to voice mail.

  “Shit!”

  “What’s wrong?” his wife called from the kitchen.

  Franks pulled out his notepad and dialed the number Kane had given him for Danny Rosewood.

  “Hello?”

  “Agent Rosewood? This is FBI Special Agent Ron Franks. When’s the last time you talked to your partner?”

  “Agent Kane? Uhhh, sometime after lunch today. He said he had to meet someone. Why?”

  “I just called him on his cell and it went to voice mail. Do you have another number for him?”

  “No. That’s the only one he has as far as I know. Is there something wrong?
”

  Kane said he could trust Rosewood but as far as Franks was concerned Kane’s partner was only a voice on the phone. He wasn’t even FBI. But somebody was being tortured for information about Farber and Kane wasn’t answering his phone. Two plus two still made four.

  “Can you run a GPS trace on Agent Kane’s phone, find out where it is?”

  “I can do that from my office. Why? Is he in trouble?”

  “He could be,” Franks said after a slight hesitation.

  “What kind of trouble?” Rosewood asked, the concern clear in his voice.

  “Bad trouble. How fast can you run the trace?”

  “Give me fifteen minutes.”

  “Call me back as soon as you’ve got an address and I’ll send agents to his location.”

  Danny hung up without saying goodbye and ran over to the bookcase where he had left his wallet, keys and gun.

  “What’s going on?” Diane asked, half a turkey sandwich in one hand and a Snapple in the other.

  “Gotta go,” Danny called out, pulling on his coat. “Agent Kane’s in trouble.”

  Diane was wearing her pink slippers and pink flannel pajamas with the ducks on them and Danny thought she was the cutest thing he’d ever seen. Halfway across the room he stopped, ran over, kissed her, and then raced for the door.

  “Be careful!” Diane shouted after him.

  * * *

  The trace on Kane’s cell came back to his apartment. Danny figured that if he drove full out that he could get there faster than any agents Franks might send. When he arrived he buzzed the building’s manager.

  “Open it,” Danny ordered after his pounding on Kane’s door drew no response.

  “Do you have a warrant?”

  “There’s no time for a warrant. Open it.”

  “The master key’s in my apartment. Maybe I should call a lawyer–”