“Believe me, Rick, it’s real.”
Jennings frowned. “So are you saying they could make me believe they’re not there?” Jennings thought back to what he’d seen, or what he thought he’d seen at both recent crime scenes, and he wondered.
“Depends on your individual level of tolerance for things like hypnosis,” Spencer said. “Most people don’t have the strength to resist a strong hypnotic suggestion. So yes it’s reasonable to assume that it would work on you. Unfortunately the experiments had to be terminated. Early on it became apparent that the treatments were causing psychotic behavior in nearly all of the subjects.”
“And you don’t know how many more of these...subjects are out there?”
“We believe there are several but don’t yet have a workable number. And it’s possible that they’re in cahoots.”
“Some sort of conspiracy, huh?”
“Maybe.”
“What would be the motive?”
“Revenge,” Spencer said. “Someone is killing everyone connected to those tests.”
Chapter 86
The room went quiet. Jennings looked from Spencer to Robeson, knowing that these men were in the process of bullshitting him. “So you don’t think this Sam character is the killer?” he said.
“No, but we need to find him. We think he might lead us to the mastermind.”
“And you don’t have any idea who this mastermind is?”
“Only that we believe it’s one of the children grown up,” Spencer said. “Trust me when I tell you this person is a psychopath.”
Robeson said, “We have footprints from both recent crime scenes that point to a very large individual. And, as you know, the same prints showed up near that woman five years ago, along with a smaller set.”
“So you think the person who owns the smaller set of prints is this, ‘mastermind’?”
“We don’t know, Rick.”
Jennings looked from Robeson to Spencer. “Something doesn’t smell right,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t think you’re telling me the entire story.”
“That’s all we’ve got,” Robeson said, “and if you don’t start cooperating I’ll pull you from this investigation. I swear I will.”
Jennings turned on his boss. “Try it, Red, and I’ll blow the doors off your nasty little secret.”
“These aren’t normal human beings we’re dealing with here, Rick.” Spencer said. “These are monsters.”
“Monsters you assholes created,” Jennings exploded.
“Doesn’t matter now,” Spencer said. “It’s too late for any of that. They’re all unstable. Including Wolf.”
“Because of the shit the government did to them!”
“Irrelevant,” Spencer said coldly. “We need to find him and we need to find him fast.”
“You’ve known where he is for years,” Jennings said. “You could have had him anytime. What’s changed?”
Again Spencer and Robeson exchanged looks.
“You had better level with me!” Jennings said.
“The feds were the ones that got Wolf out of prison,” Robeson confessed.
“You fuckers ever stop playing games with people’s lives?”
“We thought his presence back in Portland would draw the others out of their hidey-holes,” Spencer said, ignoring Jennings’s comment. “We didn’t count on someone murdering young women in his name.”
“You think that’s what’s going on? You think someone is murdering these girls in his name?”
“It’s a possibility. I told you these people are psychotic.”
“Do you think the big guy and Wolf are connected?”
“Yeah, I think they are,” Spencer said. “Actually I believe he and Wolf are brothers.”
Chapter 87
Jennings almost fell over. “What makes you think they’re brothers?”
“After the fire the agency managed to retrieve undamaged records from the orphanage ruins,” Spencer explained. “They came to the orphanage together. Testing showed them to have the same rare blood type. It seemed obvious that they were related.”
“Are you kidding me?” Jennings said. “You’ve had these records all along?”
Spencer nodded.
“I want a list of names of all the kids that spent time in the orphanage,” Jennings said.
Spencer glared at Jennings. “Wouldn’t do any good. Most of them are living with aliases.”
“I’d still like the list.”
“Can’t do it.”
Jennings grinned. “No, of course you can’t. But you still want my help? You still want me to reveal my sources, right?”
“It would be the patriotic thing to do.”
“Ah, yes,” Jennings said. “God and country, huh?” His blood was boiling.
“I could think of worse reasons,” Spencer replied.
“I’m not one of your fucking soldiers, Spencer!”
“No, you’re one of mine,” Robeson said. “And I want you to start cooperating.”
“Not till I get some answers.”
Spencer looked over at Robeson. “There was a shrink named Hardwick,” he said. “He was one of the agency’s most promising young psychiatrists. He’s been doing contract work for us ever since. He’s the one that got Wolf out of prison. We’ve been watching Wolf for a long time. We knew he was having problems with memory and we needed Hardwick to work on him, see if he could help jog it.”
“What for?” Jennings asked.
“See if he could lead us to the remaining survivors. Now it seems that both he and Wolf have disappeared.”
Jennings grunted out a laugh. “Sounds like you boys have gotten yourselves in a fine little mess here,” he said.
“You listen to me,” Spencer said. “We want Wolf. No more fucking around. If you know where he is, tell us now.”
“Go to hell,” Jennings said. “I don’t work for you.”
“No, you work for me,” Robeson said. He was seething with rage and his entire face had gone the color of his hair.
“This is the reality,” Spencer said. “We thought they were all dead. As it turns out, they’re not. Now we need to deal with it.”
“What’s going to happen if you find them?” Jennings said.
Spencer glanced over at Robeson then back at Jennings. “I’m not going to lie to you. I have my orders. They’ll all be quietly terminated.”
Jennings stood above Spencer, seething, fighting to keep his emotions in check. He wanted to encircle his hands around the asshole’s neck and choke the life out of him. “You took them when they were just kids!” he thundered. “You experimented on them, and then you denied them a future! Now you want to destroy them?”
“They’re monsters!”
“Bullshit! They’re human beings. Or they were before you assholes got your dirty hands on them.” Jennings headed for the door. “You’re on your own,” he said. “I’ll be no part of this.”
“Come back here!” Robeson called after him. “This isn’t over.”
“You’re goddamned right it’s not over,” Jennings said and slammed the door on his way out.
Chapter 88
In the dark bedroom, the man and the woman, just vague shapes beneath wrinkled sheets, lay holding each other, lost in the afterglow of the moment.
“Is he resting?” the man asked.
“As well as can be expected,” the woman replied. “After he told me where they were, I fed him and told him that this was it, that tonight we would go home for good.”
“Do you think he’ll betray us again?”
“He didn’t betray us. I told you Danny came along and confused him and he ran away. That’s all it was.”
“Danny again,” the man said with a sigh. “I’m so sick of that asshole. I’m so sick of having to do everything in his name.”
“You know he’s important,” the woman said.
“He’s important to you.”
“Sometimes I think you’re in love with him.”
“I’m not in love with him. I’m just trying to protect him.”
“Bullshit. You’re jealous of his women and that’s why you’re killing them. It has nothing to do with our plan.”
“That’s not true and you know it,” the woman said, trying mightily to keep her anger in check. “It has everything to do with our plan. Those tramps are trash. They’re demons, sent here to make him lose focus. And I can’t afford for him to lose focus.” The woman stopped and heaved a deep sigh. “What I’ve done had to be done. It was the only way.”
The man sighed in resignation, knowing that she was as crazy as a shithouse rat, but it didn’t matter, he was totally incapable of saying no to her. He was caught like a fly in the web of a black widow spider and he didn’t care. “Well what about Sam?” he said. “Why do we need him over there? Can’t we finish this without him?”
“No,” the woman said. “I’ve already explained this to you. Just like Danny he’s necessary to the final outcome. Nobody else can do what he can do. They won’t be expecting him. I promise.”
The man turned back around staring intently at the woman. “It’ll be good to have him out of our lives.”
“I’ve grown attached to him,” she said. “He has a beautiful soul. But you’re right, it will be good to finally be free of him.”
“So this is it,” he said. “Finally, the end of it all. The end of everyone except us. We can finally be free.”
“Yes, this is the night they’ll pay for what they did to us. They don’t have a clue that I know what they’re up to. I intend to turn their nasty little surprise against them. They have no idea who they’re dealing with and they’ll never see me coming.”
“Tell me something,” he said. “Once everything is set in motion, how are we going to get off the island?”
“Don’t worry, I have a plan.”
“Don’t you think it would be nice if you shared it with me?”
“We have the boat.”
“But is it going to be fast enough?”
She brushed her hand gently across his cheek. “Please,” she said, looking imploringly into his eyes. “You have to trust me. Have I ever lied to you?”
He shook his head.
“Hasn’t it been good with me?”
He gazed into her deep, soulful eyes, feeling something give way in his mind. “I’ve never felt this way before,” he said.
“Then trust me.”
Chapter 89
Wolf followed Laura up onto an open porch. There was a security lock on the door; a keypad just like that on a touchtone telephone. She took a folded sheet of paper from her purse and began punching numbers. “Been a while since I’ve been here,” she explained with a sheepish little smile. “I never can remember combinations.” The door opened and Laura stepped through. Wolf found himself in a long hallway. Laura surveyed the deadbolt-style lock on the door. She secured it. Then she went to a panel on the wall that showed a series of red LED lights. She opened the panel and hit a switch. The lights went off.
“What’s that?” Wolf asked.
“Security alarm. I just turned it off.”
“But—”
“It won’t trip if someone uses the proper combination to open the front door, but if you try to get in any other way or use the wrong combination it shows up at the security company’s home office and they notify the cops. It’s okay now, I deactivated it.” Laura turned on lights as Wolf followed her through a spacious living area with walls of natural wood and a cathedral ceiling with exposed beams that rose to a decorative architectural peak high above them. Directly ahead was a huge wall of glass that looked out over the lake. It was an impressive sight with the rising moon reflecting on the water. She went to a thermostat on the wall and adjusted it. Almost immediately Wolf heard a distant rumble signaling that a furnace had come on somewhere in the bowels of the house. “Good,” Laura said. “There’s oil in the tank.”
Laura unlocked and opened a door that led out into the garage. Wolf followed her. She flipped a switch and an overhead light came on. She looked around the garage. “There,” she said pointing at the back wall. “They left a stack of firewood for us. Why don’t you lug a couple of armloads in while I stash the car?” Laura flipped another switch and one of the garage doors began to trundle open. She went out into the night and Wolf stared after her, feeling uneasy. He was picking up sticks of wood when he heard the car start and the next thing he knew Laura was pulling it into the garage. She got out as the garage door rattled to a close behind her. Wolf noticed a bulky black bag slung over her shoulder that he suspected was a laptop computer. She took bags of groceries off the seat, kicked the door closed and went into the house. By the time she’d put the groceries away Wolf had a fire blazing in the fireplace and the big room had begun to warm up.
Wolf saw that Laura had taken off her jacket. The shoulder holster which contained her sidearm hung off the back of a kitchen chair. He shook his head in amazement.
Laura had two steaks out on the counter where she proceeded to season them with spices she’d found in the cupboard. Wolf watched her move around the kitchen, her slight feminine form graceful and fluid. “Hungry?” she asked, and he could tell that she was aware of his scrutiny because she seemed self-conscious.
“Starved,” Wolf replied, looking away and staring at the fire. Laura washed two medium sized potatoes at the sink and put them in the oven, then went about the task of throwing together a simple salad of lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber and green scallions. In the meantime Wolf had uncorked one of the two bottles of wine Laura purchased, an interesting looking Cabernet Sauvignon, and poured two glasses from a set of long stems he’d found in the cupboard.
Laura went around and turned out lights, leaving on only those that were necessary. The natural wood of the place glowed with a beautiful golden ambience. “No point in attracting unnecessary attention,” she explained.
“How close are the nearest neighbors?” Wolf asked.
“Not too close,” Laura replied. “My mother and her husband own nearly a thousand feet of shore frontage and this place sits in about the middle of it. Unlike this house most of the residences are seasonal so I don’t think we have to worry. Just the same, no point in tempting fate.
While the potatoes cooked and the steaks seasoned Laura curled up beside Wolf on the gorgeous leather-cushioned Mission Oak couch in front of the fireplace. Looking around the place Wolf noticed that the entire house seemed to be furnished in the Arts & Crafts tradition. He knew that period furnishings of this style from the early twentieth century were very expensive. The place had a quintessentially masculine feel to it.
“Where is your step-father from?” Wolf asked.
“Portland,” Laura replied. “He doesn’t live there now but it’s where he grew up. It’s where he met my mother, at a party not long after my dad died.”
“What does he do for a living?”
“He started out as a music professor at Berklee, and then he became an agent, now he owns a record label.”
“A record label?” Wolf said. “You’re kidding. Which one?”
“Blue Sapphire. It started out as a rock label but a few years ago Ruben realized that rap and hip hop were the future. They now have some of the biggest acts in the business.”
Wolf’s mouth fell open. “Are you talking about Ruben Van Horne?”
Laura stared. “What? You know him?”
Chapter 90
After leaving the chief’s office, Jennings went downstairs into the archives and did some looking around. He pulled up the file on Wolf’s manslaughter trial and leafed through it. He was not surprised at the details of the trial, he’d been somewhat involved in it. What did surprise him was an old worn photograph he found stuck in the back of the folder. He picked it out and gazed at it. The figure was grainy but identifiable. He made sure no o
ne was looking and slipped the photo in his pocket, closed the folder and replaced it, then left the office.
Next he went upstairs and talked to some of the officers on duty. No one had seen or heard from Cavanaugh. For some reason the asshole had dropped off the face of the earth. Just like Wolf and Laura. Just like Hardwick. Something very weird was happening in this town.
They’re monsters.
Jennings’s couldn’t quite wrap his head around that. He knew who the real monsters in this story were.
His hope was that Cavanaugh was on Wolf and therefore knew where Laura was. But if so, then why hadn’t he called in?
His worst fear, of course, based on Cavanaugh’s history, was that he wasn’t watching Wolf at all but stalking his estranged wife instead. The bastard better not be. There would be hell to pay.
He could not stop thinking about the things he’d learned from Spencer and Robeson. He could not believe the United States Government—his government—could be so callous, so mercenary, that they would even consider the systematic extermination of human beings. Monsters.
He drove the thought from his mind as he tried to decide how to proceed. He needed a clear head. And then another thought struck him. The bible was still on the seat beside him. He turned the cover over and glanced at the second—much newer—inscription.
Judgment day. I have risen from the ashes and vengeance will be mine. Cross my heart and hope to die.
He wasn’t entirely certain when this later inscription had been entered but what if it had been recently?
Judgment day. Vengeance will be mine.
A trap had been set. It was obvious that the killer had designed it so that someone would die in the explosion of that abandoned building. But what if judgment day meant something else entirely? What if judgment day hadn’t come yet?
This was a game.
Someone very smart had led them right to that building.
And everything pointed to Danny Wolf.
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