The Annihilation Protocol

by Laurence, Michael

  “That guy in there is locked down tight,” Ramses said. “No one’s getting in or out of that building without passing through their net.”

  “The Scarecrow would have prepared for this contingency,” Mason said. He thought of the pictures on the wall of the apartment underneath the one where the IED had been rigged in the telescope. “He studied Raymond’s habits and routines for months before choosing the perfect moment to take him. He would have done the same for Mikkelson.”

  “Even if the Scarecrow knows where Mikkelson’s going to be every second of the day,” Layne said, “he has to realize there’s no way Marchment’s letting him go anywhere without an escort. Allowing him to leave the apartment at all is a huge risk.”

  “We should assume that Marchment hasn’t told him.”

  “Hanging his own man out to dry?” Ramses said. “That’s cold.”

  “Mikkelson would have heard about what happened to Raymond,” Layne said. “There’s no way he’d set foot outside that penthouse without being certain he was in the clear.”

  “Like I said, the Scarecrow would have anticipated this eventuality and had a fallback plan in place,” Mason said.

  “If you’re this Mikkelson dude,” Ramses said, “tell me you’re just going to sit around waiting for this guy who’s killed all of your old buddies to show up at your door. Not when you have enough money to hire your own personal security team. Either he’s hiding out in a secure location on the other side of the world or he’s already dead.”

  He was right and they all knew it.

  “Damn it,” Mason said. He tapped a button on his earpiece and opened the direct line to Gunnar. “I need you to access the security footage around Mikkelson’s building and tell me when he was last here.”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “The Scarecrow grabbed Mikkelson before he took Raymond.”

  “I’m on it,” Gunnar said.

  “They’re surveilling an empty apartment?” Layne said.

  “Marchment had to know that the only way to draw out the Scarecrow was to use Mikkelson as bait, but he couldn’t afford to tell him and risk that he’d skip town,” Mason said. “He’d dangle him out there like a worm on a hook, knowing full well the Scarecrow’s victims have escalated in perceived value from the start and, after Raymond, Mikkelson would be next.”

  “How can you be certain?”

  “The men in the cornfield were all fairly low-ranking military members of the Edgewood staff. At second lieutenant, Edwards was the highest among them. Raymond and Mikkelson were on the medical staff and responsible for everything that happened there. They’re the real prize.”

  “Marchment was just a private at the time,” Gunnar said. “He ranked lower than all of them.”

  Mason recalled the photograph of Marchment leading Dr. Ichiro Nakamura down a hallway toward a room housing what he now believed to be children, one of whom grew up to become the Scarecrow, an inhuman monster who used the name of the Japanese physician to force the investigators tracking him to look into the doctor’s presence at Edgewood. In doing so, they’d found him with an enlisted eighteen-year-old who somehow orchestrated a meteoric rise to deputy secretary of the entire Department of Homeland Security, positioning him within striking distance of being in complete control of a quarter million skilled operatives already deployed on American soil. He’d used whatever he did at Edgewood to launch his career, but what could he have possibly done to the Scarecrow to make him the target of highest personal value?

  And then it hit him.

  “Marchment was the one who subjected them to the experimentation,” he said. “And not just the adult volunteers. The children, too.”

  The other pictures had shown him forcing one test subject to breathe a gaseous agent from an inhaler and physically restraining another while he stabbed him in the shoulder with a needle. If he’d done the same things to much younger patients, he would have become their personal bogeyman, the mere sound of his footsteps outside their room eliciting sheer terror and causing them to hide, but how could that trauma possibly be harnessed for use by Langbroek, the head of Nautilus, whose predecessors were directly responsible for inflicting that suffering?

  “There’s a security camera facing the front door of Mikkelson’s apartment building,” Gunnar said through Mason’s earpiece. “I’ve got him leaving early in the morning three days ago, wearing a gray suit and charcoal overcoat. Switch to the camera on the building across the street and you can see the doorman hailing a driver, who pulls to the curb in a black Town Car and waits for the doorman to usher Mikkelson into the backseat. He returns four hours later, only this time on foot, wearing a gray fedora and carrying a leather satchel. A traffic cam picks him up on the opposite side of Seventy-second, reading a newspaper. He waits until the doorman is engaged helping an older woman into a limousine before slipping past him and entering the building. The brim of his hat is angled in such a way as to conceal his face from the camera, but it does little to hide the fact that he’s about six inches shorter.”

  “You’re telling me someone else returned to his apartment wearing his clothes?”

  “No,” Gunnar said, “wearing identical clothes. I probably wouldn’t have noticed the difference in height at all had another man not passed him on the opposite side of the revolving door. He came back out fifteen minutes later in a black suit and fedora and disappeared into the foot traffic on Park Avenue.”

  “And he was able to hide his face the entire time?”

  “Not quite. Check your email.”

  Mason opened the message on his phone and found a somewhat pixilated image of the lower portion of a man’s face below the brim of his hat and above the top of a newspaper. Just enough to reveal the tip of a rounded nose, thin lips, and a weak chin.

  He realized with a start that he was looking at the face of the Scarecrow.

  A second picture from a broader angle showed a woman glancing back at him over her shoulder, an unguarded expression of revulsion on her face.

  “I traced Mikkelson’s movements using the GPS on his cell phone,” Gunnar said. “Whoever that is brought his phone back and left it in the apartment.”

  “Where did they go in between?”

  “According to GPS records, they made half a dozen stops. A coffee shop in Midtown. An office building on William Street downtown, near the New York Stock Exchange. A nearby Italian restaurant. A building at Eighty-fifth and Central Park West. A pharmacy a couple blocks away. And, finally, the parking structure underneath the apartment building across Seventy-second. You can see whoever’s pretending to be Mikkelson emerging from the front door with his head lowered and the collar of his overcoat turned up.”

  “Are there any variations from his normal routine?” Mason asked.

  “He hits the same coffee shop on the way to the same office building every day,” Gunnar said.

  “I didn’t think Nautilus maintained an office here.”

  “It doesn’t.”

  “So where does he go?”

  “The building on William Street is thirty-two stories tall and houses as many companies. All I can tell you is that he goes inside and the beacon remains static until he leaves.”

  “Who are the tenants?”

  “Your standard mix of real estate management firms, brokerages, and insurance companies. A law office, an executive recruitment agency, a couple of government contractors.”

  “What kind of contractors?”

  “The New York City Housing Development Corporation and the Urban Development Corporation,” Gunnar said. “I’m betting on one of those two entities. With as much time as Mikkelson spends there, I can’t imagine he’s hanging out with his brokers or lawyers.”

  “What about the building near Central Park?” Mason asked.

  “It’s an upscale apartment complex with street-level tenants, including a pediatric urgent care and medical wellness center.”

  “That’s a holistic place, right?”
<
br />   “It appears to be.”

  “And he goes from there directly to a pharmacy?”

  “I don’t see an oil company executive seeking treatment from a doctor who doesn’t believe in pharmaceuticals any more than I buy a doctor of the holistic arts prescribing them.”

  “How close is that to where they found Raymond’s body?” Mason asked.

  “Not even a quarter mile.”

  “That’s where the Scarecrow got Mikkelson out of the Town Car. Find out everything you can about the owners and tenants of the surrounding buildings. And check video surveillance from the corresponding time frame,” he said, and turned to Ramses. “Where’s your car?”

  “In a garage about two blocks away. Why?”

  “We found the Scarecrow.”

  59

  “The building’s called Rossleigh Court and it faces the Great Lawn across Central Park West,” Gunnar said. “It abuts the building next to it, which is practically identical. Together, they form a backward C, inside of which is a small courtyard with limited patient parking, accessible by alley from both Eighty-fifth and Eighty-sixth. The only camera I can find covers the lot itself but neither of the alleys. You could park for a short amount of time in either and have access to the backyards of any of the adjacent properties with minimal exposure.”

  “The Scarecrow didn’t drag Mikkelson up the stairwell of an upscale apartment complex in the middle of the day,” Mason said.

  “Especially not considering both are access-controlled and have doormen on duty.”

  The tires screamed as Ramses wove through the sluggish late-night traffic. Mason covered his free ear to tune out the horns blaring from all directions at once. Layne leaned over his shoulder from the backseat in an effort to hear Gunnar through the earpiece.

  “What about the neighboring buildings?” Mason asked.

  “They’re all four-story row houses. Most of them divided into rental units.”

  Ramses slewed sideways onto Central Park West. The tires regained traction with a lurch and propelled the SUV toward Eighty-fifth Street.

  “If you were planning an abduction in one of the most densely populated cities in the world and needed to get a body out of a car and into one of the buildings right there without any witnesses, which would it be?”

  “The first of the row houses, right next to the alley. The backyard is contained by a retaining wall with an inset iron gate. You could almost pull right up to it, drag someone out of the trunk or the backseat, and only be visible to the uppermost levels of the surrounding apartment complexes for the amount of time it took to get the body across the yard.”

  “Then that’s our place. Who owns it?”

  “Next right,” Layne said.

  Ramses slammed the brakes and whipped the vehicle around the turn. Jerked the wheel to avoid a parked car. Skidded to the curb and nearly slammed into the back of a panel truck.

  “A Manhattan-based real estate holding company called Integrity Group International,” Gunnar said. “It owns a handful of other residential and commercial investment properties around the city, not to mention a couple dozen more overseas. The name on the lease is Verne Rasmussen, whose initial application lists him as an engineer with a nonexistent biotech firm and includes references with phone numbers no longer in service. His checks are drawn from a local account with a balance that never varies by more than fifty dollars from ten thousand. Seventy-five hundred goes out for rent, and the same amount comes right back in.”

  A frame composed of metal pipes supported a construction awning erected over the sidewalk. The banner hanging from it read THE FUTURE IS NOW and showed a picture of Times Square. It nearly concealed the mouth of the alley and the majority of the lower level of the adjacent row house, the first in a series that looked like the spines of so many books shoved unevenly onto a shelf.

  Mason turned to Ramses.

  “You stay here and keep an eye out. And watch the front door. If he’s in there, we’ll flush him right to you.”

  “He won’t get past me,” Ramses said.

  Mason and Layne climbed out of the car and headed down the pitch-black alley. The few lighted windows on the back side of the complex produced just enough illumination to get a good look at the enclosed parking lot and the barrier separating it from the yard of the adjacent row house. The wrought-iron gate in the eight-foot brick wall was padlocked and reinforced with a sheet of plywood to prevent anyone from looking inside.

  They were going to have to do this the hard way.

  Mason ran straight at the wall. Jumped. Planted his right foot squarely against the bricks and used the leverage to propel himself higher. He braced his palms on top, drew his legs up underneath him, and perched like a gargoyle.

  The yard below him was barren, the grass patchy and the slate path cracked. The lone elm tree was half-dead and surrounded by pots filled with sunbaked soil. Trash and debris had drifted into the corners. He glanced up at the buildings towering over him but neither saw nor sensed anyone watching him. It was a location as private as any in the heart of an urban center this concentrated.

  “Gunnar,” Mason said. “See if you can access the interior layout.”

  He dropped down on the other side. Drew his Glock. Advanced toward the shadowed back porch in a shooter’s stance.

  “The back door enters on the garden level,” Gunnar said. “You’ll pass through the dining room first, then the kitchen and a hallway. The stairs to your right lead to the basement. Past them, you’ll find a bathroom, a bedroom, and the main staircase.”

  Layne alighted behind him with a thud and a whoosh of expelled air. She fell in behind him as he approached glass doors crisscrossed with wooden lattices. They were the kind designed to be carelessly thrown open on a hot summer’s day, which meant the locking mechanism between them was inherently weak. A solid tug on both handles at once confirmed as much and they entered a completely empty dining room.

  Mason switched on his mini Maglite and aligned the beam with his pistol. The hardwood floor creaked underneath him as he made his way into the kitchen. Layne’s light bloomed behind him and stretched his shadow across the floor.

  “There are three levels above you,” Gunnar said. “You’ll come up on the next level in the foyer, facing the front door. Behind you will be the living room, the study, and the stairs to the third level, which houses the master suite and bathroom. There are four smaller bedrooms on the top floor.”

  The kitchen was eerily silent. The refrigerator didn’t hum and no heated air pinged through the ductwork. The appliances sat lifeless and neglected, the sink empty. A patina of dust had settled on the countertops.

  “This is definitely the right place,” Layne whispered. She shone her beam at the floor and revealed a smear of dried blood. There was another at the top of the staircase leading into the basement.

  “You clear the upper levels,” Mason whispered. “I’ll go down.”

  “Not alone you won’t.”

  “If anyone else is in the house, they’ll have us both trapped down there.”

  She pursed her lips, reluctantly nodded, and turned her back on him.

  Mason stood at the top of the staircase and shone his light down into the darkness. The landing at the bottom bent to the left and around a blind corner. He started down slowly, cautiously. The temperature dropped with each step, until a cloud of breath blossomed from his lips. He paused on the last stair and listened for any sound to betray the presence of someone waiting for him. He detected a faint whistling sound, like the movement of air through a hollow space. Smelled mildew and earth, the kind of dampness he equated with the aftermath of a rainstorm.

  He went around the corner. Low and fast. Shone his beam from one side of the narrow hallway to the other, taking in his surroundings as quickly as possible. To his right: the utility room, the furnace and hot-water heater silent and nearly concealed behind a mountain of broken concrete. Straight ahead: the barren laundry room, ductwork and pipes protrud
ing from walls connected to the ceiling by cobwebs as thick as ropes. To his left: a large room made small by the mound of fractured concrete and dirt in the center, and what looked like an animal cage in the corner. Tongue depressors tied together with yarn hung from the ceiling, casting star-shaped shadows he immediately recognized from the picture at Edgewood onto the back wall. He plucked one from the hook above him, tucked it into his jacket pocket, and followed a trail through the construction zone. A ragged hole had been cut through the foundation and the underlying soil had been excavated. There was a ladder inside, at the bottom of which was the dark mouth of a tunnel that ran horizontally away from the house and underneath the backyard.

  “Talk to me, Mace,” Gunnar said.

  Mason tapped his Bluetooth microphone to let Gunnar know he was all right, but he remained silent, for fear the Scarecrow might be down there at that very moment, waiting for him in the darkness. He transferred his flashlight to his mouth, aimed his pistol down between his feet, and used his free hand to hold on to the ladder as he cautiously descended.

  When he reached the third rung from the bottom, he let go and landed in a crouch, his weapon pointed straight into the tunnel.

  There was no one inside.

  Mason blew out his breath, slowly, quietly, and focused on slowing the thudding of his pulse in his ears. There was barely enough room for him to maneuver his body into the tunnel, which was snug against his shoulders and just high enough for him to enter on all fours. The packed earth was cold and hard and slanted downward at a steady rate. It had to be a good twenty degrees colder, and the dusty scent of age mingled with others he couldn’t quite place, creating an almost industrial smell.

  He was barely a dozen feet in when his beam limned the jagged edges of the end of the tunnel and diffused into the open space beyond. He saw bricks, discolored by time and stained by water, felt cold air caress his face.

  “What runs underneath this block?” he whispered.