“We need to find Langbroek,” he said, finishing his thought out loud.
“I’m still working on it,” Gunnar said, “but I found Mikkelson. Believe it or not, he’s staying at another corporate property in Manhattan.”
“Why would two high-ranking Nautilus executives be in town at the same time when there isn’t a corporate headquarters?”
“This is the holiday season. Maybe Nautilus arranged some sort of company function for its executive staff.”
“Surely it would have put them up in hotels for something like that. Housing them in formal apartments implies they’re planning on staying for some length of time.”
“I’ll find out when they arrived.”
“That should at least help us narrow down—”
Mason’s federal cell phone buzzed from the pocket of his jacket, which was draped over the back of the chair across the aisle. He grabbed it, glanced at the number, and answered on speaker.
“Tell me you found Roybal’s contact,” he said.
“East Coast Transportation’s a dead end,” Layne said. “This place is the size of a shopping mall and no one seems to have any idea what they’re supposed to be doing. I couldn’t find anyone who recognized the name Roybal, and the only person who seemed to know anything at all about Nautilus was the representative handling its account, and he was all but useless. He said half the time he doesn’t have the slightest clue where the contracted trucks are, let alone where they’re going, and I’m inclined to believe him.”
The plane juddered as it passed through a wall of turbulence. Mason glanced out the window and saw the roiling black water of the Atlantic far below.
“What about someone in management? The consulting fee was paid from a corporate account.”
“The owner’s secretary said he didn’t come in this morning, which isn’t entirely out of character. We could try approaching him at home—”
“Don’t waste your time,” Gunnar said. “Ernest Winston—owner of East Coast Transportation Services—had his passport stamped in Puerto Vallarta eight hours ago.”
“Of course,” Mason said. “Have you heard from your guy at the army CIC about the older personnel records?”
“He got back to me maybe fifteen minutes ago,” Layne said.
“Finally.”
“Finally is right, but he didn’t have the information we needed. He said he had a guy at the National Archives all morning and he couldn’t find any of the personnel files we were looking for, so he contacted another guy he’d worked with before. The second guy was there for most of the afternoon and couldn’t find them, either.”
“How do you make official army records disappear from the National Archives?”
“That’s pretty much exactly what he said, only with a few more four-letter words.”
Mason clenched his fist in frustration.
“Here we go,” Gunnar said. “Mikkelson and Raymond have both been in the city since early October. They arrived within twenty-four hours of each other. Raymond from Houston and Mikkelson from London.”
“Any guesses as to why?” Mason asked.
“I don’t see an immediate connection, but I’m working on it.”
“What’s the address for Mikkelson’s place?”
“Seven sixty-five Park Ave. Penthouse A.”
“Did you catch that, Layne?”
“What’s the significance?” she asked.
“That’s where Andreas Mikkelson, managing director of Royal Nautilus Petroleum, is staying. He’s one of the Scarecrow’s final victims and the easiest of the two to get to.”
“If we’re right about Marchment, he probably already has his people watching Mikkelson’s place in case the Scarecrow shows.”
“He would have anticipated surveillance and implemented a backup plan.”
“We still don’t know how the hell he got Raymond into Central Park without anyone seeing him,” she said. “I followed up with Barbieri’s digital forensics team. They’d already combed through the footage from the cameras both inside and surrounding the park, going back a full ten hours before the theoretical time of entry, but they didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Nor did they find anything on the cameras outside the Mayfair.”
“Get to New York and scope out Mikkelson’s place,” Mason said. “We’ll catch up with you there in about…” He glanced at Gunnar, who held up two fingers. “Two hours.”
“Maybe less,” Gunnar said. “It’ll be after eight by then, so we will have missed the worst of the traffic.”
“Call me the moment you get there and let me know what you find,” Mason said.
“You said you’d tell me what you learned at Edgewood,” Layne said.
The tone of her voice was sharp, as though she were convinced he was going to withhold the information from her. While there were still details of the investigation he was unprepared to share with her—namely, their identification of Langbroek as one of the Thirteen—she’d earned her place on the team.
“They were all there in 1975,” he said. “Every single one of them. Edwards, Bradley, Danvers, Cavanaugh, Raymond, Mikkelson.”
“Marchment?”
“He was little more than a kid at the time and all of the others outranked him, but he was there.”
“And the Scarecrow?”
“There was a doctor named Ichiro Nakamura. He’d have to be in his eighties by now, though. No way the woman from the apartment across the hall from the Scarecrow’s could have mistaken him for a man half his age, but a doctor with that name was definitely at Edgewood while they were conducting the experiments.”
“The choice of aliases can’t be coincidental,” Layne said. “What do we know about this Dr. Nakamura?”
“I can’t find anything on him,” Gunnar said.
“Keep looking,” Mason said. “There has to be something.”
“No, Mace. I mean there’s nothing to be found. This guy doesn’t exist.”
“Try running him through your facial-recognition program. Surely he’s been captured on film at some point in his life.”
“The only images we have of him are in the background of one picture and with his back to the camera in the other, but I can give it a try,” Gunnar said. “You said he wasn’t in any of the group photos, either, right?”
“What are you thinking?”
“I don’t know. I get a weird feeling about this guy.”
“He reminds you of the Hoyl.”
“You talk about people adept at not being captured on film and he does spring to mind.”
“The Scarecrow had to know that dropping Nakamura’s name with someone like the lady across the hall meant it would eventually get back to us when we started asking questions.”
“Precisely, so if he had a relationship with Nakamura, why would he leave just about the only clue that could help us discover his true identity?”
Gunnar was right. The Scarecrow had to know that by the time the investigators caught up with him in New York, the men he was hunting would already know exactly who he was, which meant that his use of the name hadn’t been intended for their benefit, but, rather, for the benefit of the investigators.
“The Scarecrow wants us to know who he is,” Mason said. “He used the Nakamura alias to solidify the connection to Edgewood.”
“Why would he do that?” Layne asked. “By doing so, he’d be giving us the only possible means of finding and stopping him before he can release the Novichok.”
Mason mulled it over. Allowing them to figure out who he was jeopardized the Scarecrow’s entire plot, both the personal and the professional. Either there was no fail-safe and the plan would go off without a hitch, regardless of what they did, or he was willing to sacrifice his professional life in favor of his personal life.
And just like that, everything came into focus.
“He wants us to figure out what happened at Edgewood in 1975.”
“Why?” Gunnar asked. “He couldn’t have been m
ore than a kid at the time.”
Mason opened the photo gallery on his phone and swiped through the images until he found the picture of Marchment and Nakamura heading toward the room at the end of the hallway, where shadows reminiscent of stars stretched across the floor. He zoomed in through the crack and onto the silhouette hiding behind the open door. It was barely taller than the middle hinge.
Roughly the size of a child.
“Because he was there,” Mason said.
57
ELSEWHERE
The Scarecrow looped the wire ligature over the man’s head, tightened it just enough that he’d feel it when he awakened, and replaced the straw hat on his head. It took hold of the ends of the rope it had slung over the branches of the tree and pulled them with all of its strength, watching the wooden cross to which it had bound the man rise, inch after painful inch, until, with a lurch, the upright post slid into the ground and stood on its own. The process had gotten so much easier each time that it was almost a shame this would be the last cross it erected. It had struggled mightily raising its first victims back in Colorado, the men who’d helped create the chemicals to which it had been subjected, who’d stood there with their ties and clipboards, taking notes about its suffering as though it were an animal in a cage. And for as much as it had enjoyed returning the favor, it would revel in this man’s fate even more.
It walked around in front of the post, untied the ropes from the crossbar, and tossed them into the bushes. There was no longer any reason to cover its tracks, especially after using Charles Raymond’s murder to ensure that the forensic investigators sealed off Central Park to maintain the integrity of the previous crime scene, granting it all of the time, space, and privacy anyone could ever hope to find in the midst of millions of people. Besides, if the men hunting it didn’t already know who it had once been, it was only a matter of time before they did. Either way, they wouldn’t be able to stop it in time.
The wind kicked up from the southwest, rattling through the trees and assailing the Scarecrow with snowflakes. Were it not for the sound of car horns in the distance, it might have been able to forget that it was in the busiest metropolis in the country, at least for one more day, until the city that never sleeps commenced its eternal slumber.
The Scarecrow stared up into the face of the man bound to the post and momentarily wished it had dressed him in a white lab coat rather than flannel and overalls, that it could see the monster one last time through the eyes of the child that had hidden underneath its bed and prayed for death to take it before the monsters arrived. It wanted nothing more than to give that child the opportunity to bear witness to the moment when the man realized that he controlled the only means of ending his suffering, to watch him draw his last breath. The remote feed would have to suffice, though. It glanced at the camera affixed to the tree behind it to make sure the alignment was perfect before confirming as much with the live feed on its cell phone.
It appraised the man on the screen, who was beginning to stir.
Yes, this would work. This would work just fine.
The man groaned and tried to open his eyes, but he succeeded only in revealing white slivers between his lashes. He shivered against the cold, his fingers and toes already taking on a purple cast. Snow had begun to accumulate on the brim of his hat.
The Scarecrow shoved the travois through the manhole and listened to it clatter away into the depths. It retrieved its backpack from the shrub where it had stashed it and opened the top flap. Tapping sounds reminiscent of sleet against a windowpane greeted it. Carefully, it removed the container from the bag and watched the creatures inside attack the glass with mandibles and stingers.
A sharp intake of breath.
It looked up and met the stare of the man bound to the cross. His eyes were wide, his mouth a rictus of terror. He understood what was about to happen to him, realized that his entire life had been leading up to this moment. It was the execution of a sentence handed down for crimes he might have committed in someone else’s name, but for which he’d always known he’d be judged, although perhaps not in this life. He must have thought no one would ever find out, clear up until the moment he’d gotten into the Town Car outside his apartment. Now, not only would he face damnation; those he left behind would learn that the man with whom they’d lived and worked, laughed and cried, had been a monster wearing the skin of a man they’d never really known.
“Don’t,” he whispered. “Please.”
In response, the Scarecrow shook the container to agitate the creatures inside and raised it so he could better see.
“I was just doing my job.”
That single phrase enraged the Scarecrow more than anything else he could have possibly said.
“You … had … a … choice,” it said.
“I tried to protect you, to make the time between … treatments … bearable.”
“You … enjoyed … it.”
“I never enjoyed it, not like the others.” His voice rose an octave and took on a tone of pleading. Tears streamed down his cheeks and quivered from his jawline. “Not like Marchment.”
“His … time … will … come,” the Scarecrow said. It unscrewed the lid and cast it aside. “Your … time … I’m … afraid … is … up.”
It dumped the contents under the bib of the man’s overalls and watched the creatures crawl through the gaps between the buttons of his shirt, seeking warmth. He thrashed against the sensation of tiny legs on his skin, which only served to trigger the inevitable. He screamed in a voice filled with fear and agony, mimicking those he’d summoned from the Scarecrow all those years ago.
It closed its eyes and savored the cries echoing off into the deserted park for several seconds before heading back down into the darkness.
Marchment would soon spring the trap it had laid for him.
And the final countdown would commence.
58
Mason arranged to meet Layne and Ramses near Mikkelson’s apartment on the Upper East Side. The closest parking was in an underground lot on Seventy-second Street, across Fifth Avenue from Central Park. He backed the Escalade into a spot facing the street and left Gunnar, who needed more time for his program to work its magic on Dr. Nakamura, with the keys. He’d just struck off toward the rendezvous point when his old friend rolled down the passenger window and called after him.
“Alejandra’s on the phone.”
Mason knew exactly what that meant: Anomaly had made contact again. He jogged back to the car and climbed into the driver’s seat.
“What did he say?”
“Hang on a second,” Gunnar said, and put the call on speaker. “Okay, Allie. Mace is here. Tell him what you told me.”
“Hello, James,” she said. “Our anonymous friend wants to know what we learned about Rand Marchment.”
“It sounds like he’s fishing for information,” Gunnar said, “but I got the impression from our earlier interactions that he was trying to lead us toward some kind of epiphany, not use us to do his research for him.”
“I agree,” Mason said. “He knew about FEMA’s elevated activation levels and Marchment’s involvement before we did. We have to assume he’s trying to manipulate us and be careful not let on how much we’ve learned.”
“Do you think he knows the Novichok is in New York City?” Alejandra asked.
“If he does, it essentially confirms our suspicions that he’s in the upper echelons of the national security apparatus.”
“Which would potentially put him in a position of helping us monitor Marchment’s movements,” Gunnar said.
Mason nodded. That was their play. The Scarecrow would eventually come for Marchment, and if they hoped to find the Novichok before it was too late, they needed to be there when he did.
“We did not reply fast enough,” Alejandra said. “He sent the message again.”
“He’s getting nervous,” Gunnar said. “Something must be happening behind the scenes.”
“Type thi
s,” Mason said. “Marchment’s been dirty since the army. He used the connections he made there to advance his career and now he’s in a position to safeguard the current threat. We need assistance tracking him in real time if we’re going to eliminate it.”
“One moment,” Alejandra said.
Mason glanced at the dashboard clock as she typed. He could positively feel the weight of time bearing down on him.
“Here is his reply,” she said. “‘Where he is matters less than why he is still there.’”
“Anomaly definitely knows the Novichok’s in Manhattan,” Gunnar said.
“Is he suggesting that Marchment doesn’t?” Mason asked.
“If I’m interpreting him correctly, he’s insinuating that either there’s no threat of the Novichok being released here or Marchment’s not in on the plan.”
“There’s no doubt in my mind he’s in on it. He’s been running interference from the start.”
“That doesn’t necessarily mean he’s privy to all of the intricacies. He might be the deputy secretary of Homeland Security, but he’s just a pawn to someone like Langbroek.”
“The dialogue box closed,” Alejandra said. “Anomaly is gone.”
“Damn it,” Mason said. “Try contacting him again. If there’s even the slightest possibility that the Novichok is somewhere else, we need to know right now.”
“The Scarecrow wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t,” Gunnar said. “This is his show and, like you said, he’s been planning the final act for years. As long as Marchment and Mikkelson are still alive, we have a chance of stopping him.”
“Which means we need to keep them that way,” Mason said, and hooked the Bluetooth device that would allow him to remain in contact with Gunnar over his ear. “Let me know if you hear anything else.”
He climbed out of the car and hurried to meet up with Layne and Ramses, who were waiting in the dark courtyard of the Presbyterian church a block away on Seventy-third, which offered a view of Mikkelson’s penthouse apartment through a gap between buildings. They’d sent him pictures of the federal vehicles surreptitiously parked around the apartment complex, a fourteen-story redbrick and limestone building with a twenty-four-hour doorman and an average unit price of fifteen million dollars.
The Annihilation Protocol Page 34