by P. D. Martin
McCoy gives me a short, sharp nod. “Then we’re ready to go through the final door and get them out. You can come down now.”
“Great. Let’s go.”
I walk with him back the few feet to the door but we’re stopped in our tracks by an almighty bang. I instinctively look in the direction of the control room and sure enough a blaze of red can be seen on the horizon. Everyone looks uncertainly at each other, thinking about the teams over there. What went wrong? Are they okay?
“Sir!” One of the bomb-squad specialists pops his head out of the trapdoor. “We’ve been triggered.”
What the…? The radio trigger? How can it have been triggered? Could NeverCaught have access too?
We run to the trapdoor. “How long have we got?” McCoy asks.
“Three minutes.”
“What do you want to do?” He looks at me.
It’s my call—do I risk the lives of our team to save the two women? Can we make it in time?
I hesitate, but only for a second. I don’t have time to mull the decision over. “We’ve got to get them out.”
“Swanston, open that door, now!” says McCoy into his comms device.
The SWAT leader is right behind me, signaling to his team. But we don’t need SWAT and I’m not willing to risk their lives too. I turn to him. “Keep your men up here, and get some distance between you and the area.” The SWAT leader breathes in, ready to protest, but realizes there’s no time for discussion. I look at Darren and Dusk. “You guys too.”
Darren smiles. “Not on your life.”
I shake my head, but there’s no time to argue. I throw myself through the trapdoor feet first, and slide down the outside of the ladder. Darren and McCoy are hot on my heels.
We move quickly down the next ladder and get to a long corridor. It’s the corridor from my dreams. As we pass the rest of the bomb-squad members, who are scattered at various points along the tunnel, we send them up to the surface. The fewer people down here the better.
We sprint toward the end and we’re about halfway down the last corridor when we see two of the bomb-squad members coming toward us with two very confused women in tow. The bomb guys are literally dragging them along, and Susie and Clair are scared—but not of bombs, of the men who are trying to save their lives.
“It must be part of the show,” Susie says, but there’s uncertainty in her voice.
“Stop it, you’re hurting me,” Clair says.
Jesus Christ. If only they knew. I run down toward them.
Susie tries to plant herself firmly on the ground. “I’m not going with you. Who the hell are you anyway?”
“We told you, San Francisco Bomb Squad, now move it.” The guy holding Susie tries to pull her harder, his patience wearing thin. He knows what’s about to happen if we don’t hightail it to the surface.
I reach them and grab Susie’s other arm. “Susie, I’m FBI, we’ve been working with Jonathan to try to find you.”
“What? Working with Jonathan?” She’s moving, but only just.
Clair turns back. “Jonathan?”
“You have to move!” yells one of the bomb squad members. But his words have the opposite effect, and now Clair begins to struggle more, too.
McCoy pushes us all past him and now we’re all heading back toward the surface. “Pick ’em up!” he yells. “We’ve got one and a half minutes before this place blows.”
His team members follow the order and sling Susie and Clair over their shoulders in the fireman’s lift. Surprisingly, it does seem to speed us up.
We reach the first ladder. “Susie and Clair, you have to run. Up the ladder,” I say, knowing that the fireman’s lift will be too awkward for the ladder. “Trust us, please.”
Clair’s guy reaches the ladder first and pushes her up. Finally the urgency of our voices and our official appearance seem to be sinking in and Clair moves quickly up the ladder. Darren goes up next, but while Clair and her guy are moving up to the second ladder, Darren stays in the middle section and helps to haul everyone up. Again, I’m surprised by the strength in his wiry frame as his hand clasps my left wrist and he heaves me upward. I’m followed by Susie and McCoy.
“Come on, Susie,” I yell.
She seems to speed up somewhat but not as much as we’d like. We both realize that this one woman may cost us all our lives.
“Go!” Darren says to me.
I look at him but shake my head. “Not on your life.”
He reaches down and grabs Susie’s arm, which is now within reach. I hold Susie back and let McCoy and the other bomb squad team member pass us. They make quick work of the final ladder.
“How long?” I yell.
McCoy keeps climbing, but calls back over his shoulder. “Fifteen seconds.”
Darren manages to push me up the ladder first, then Susie, then himself. I move much faster than Susie and I’m at the top and out while she’s only two-thirds of the way up. “Come on, Susie,” I plead, thinking about Darren trapped below her.
I look past Susie to Darren. He seems resigned to the fact that he’s not going to make it. “Come on, Darren.”
He comes out of his stupor and starts pushing Susie with his left hand, while holding on with his right.
“Move, Susie, move!” I yell.
On the surface, the others have run in the opposite direction to the underground corridors, getting away from any blast sites that might be underneath and cause a cave in.
“Go!” Darren yells at me from behind Susie.
I ignore him and stay put.
Susie’s only got a few rungs to go when the ground shakes. She releases the rungs but Darren, who’s literally right up her ass, manages to support her weight. She grasps onto the ladder again and pulls herself up the final rungs. She throws herself on the desert floor and while Darren takes the last few steps out of the trapdoor I manage to pull her up to her feet and drag her toward the others.
The ground shifts again as another charge goes off. The blasts are getting closer to us. We keep running, listening to each pop and feeling the ground shudder as the sequence continues.
Finally, six explosions later, we’re standing with the others, all safe. Hopefully the team at the control room shares our fate.
Susie and Clair are different shades of white-gray, still not sure what’s going on.
“Goddamn it!” Susie yells. “How can we keep doing the show now that the bunker’s gone?”
37
The SWAT team leader comes up to me, one of our SAT-phones in his hand. “I just heard from the other team. Everyone from the SWAT is okay, but…” he pauses and looks at McCoy “…we lost some of the bomb-squad members.”
“Shit.” McCoy rests his hands on his thighs and shakes his head.
“How many?” I ask, my voice threatening to crack.
“Four dead and three injured. At least that’s what they think. It sounds messy over there.”
Four? That takes the toll of this sick game to nine—Malcolm, Cindy, Janice, Brigitte, Danny—whose body still hasn’t been found—and now four of ours. The fucking bastards.
“What happened?” I ask, balling my hands into fists and hitting them off my legs.
“They think there must have been a trip wire, and when they set that off, it triggered the timer here.”
I nod, barely absorbing the information. Four people I led into this rescue mission are dead. Our evidence is blown—literally—and we’ve still got one member of the Murderers’ Club at large, doing God knows what.
“Sophie?” Darren puts his hand on my elbow.
Clair pulls away from the others and looks directly at me. “What’s going on?” Her father’s a cop, she’s not as naive as Susie.
I guess now’s as good a time as any to tell them what’s really been going on.
I look at the SWAT leader. “Tell them to head to the nearest hospital. I want the injured attended to. I’ll organize forensics.”
“I’ll wait for forensics,” Du
sk says.
I nod my thanks and turn back to Clair. I walk toward Susie and Clair follows. I feel like I should tell them to sit down, give them a shot of whisky or something, but we’re in the middle of the desert. There can be no props for the telling of this story.
I look at them in turn. “Susie, Clair.”
They look expectantly at me.
I take a deep breath. “This is not a reality TV show.”
“What?” Susie blurts, while Clair looks puzzled.
“But…I don’t understand.” Clair’s voice is uncertain as she tries to piece together the events of the last ten minutes. She’s just been saved by a SWAT team and a bomb squad. She’s probably overheard us talking about people dying. Perhaps the penny is dropping, perhaps it’s starting to hit her that the bunker was something sinister.
“This was all a setup,” I say.
Susie brushes some hair off her face. “Like a Punk’d type of thing?”
“No. Not like that at all.” Where do I start? “I’m Special Agent Sophie Anderson. I work for the FBI as a criminal profiler.”
“Criminal?” Clair is, once again, picking up the right words.
“Yes. I profile killers, mostly serial killers.” Here it comes… “And I’m afraid this was set up by a group of serial killers who call themselves the Murderers’ Club.”
Susie’s hands fly up to her face. “What?” It’s finally hit her. “What are you saying?”
“The others, except for Jonathan and Ling, are—” there’s no easy way to say it “—dead.”
“Dead?” Susie begins to shake. “But… How? And what about the audience?” She’s still having difficulty absorbing the information and navigating through the repercussions.
“The only audience was the four club members. A woman, who killed Malcolm but failed in her attempt to kill Jonathan, and three men. One of the men is in custody, one is dead, and I’m afraid we still haven’t caught the other one.”
“The others…the other contestants…they’re dead?” Clair suddenly has difficulty accepting the severity of the game’s stakes.
I take her hands. “Yes.”
“But not Ling? Not Jonathan?” she asks. Her voice when she say’s Jonathan’s name has more emotion in it, more desperation.
“Jonathan escaped. That’s how we found out so much about this club. And Ling was being held captive by one of the club members, but we rescued her a few hours ago.”
Clair sinks to the ground, collapsing into a cross-legged position. “Daddy always said people could be evil.”
I purse my lips together, but resist the urge to say, “He was right.” Instead, I grab a SAT-phone and dial Mr. Kelly’s cell-phone number. I hand it to Clair. “Your dad wants to speak to you.”
She looks up at me with wide eyes and takes the phone. “Daddy?… Yes, I’m okay.” The tears start and she stands up and walks away from us for privacy.
Susie shakes her head. “So we weren’t really on TV?”
“No. You were being watched, via a Web site, by the club members.”
“And Chester?”
“His real name is Heath. And he’s behind the whole thing. He’s the president of the club.”
“And Jonathan. Is he okay?” Susie asks. She rubs her hands up and down her forearms, almost clawing at her skin.
“He’ll be okay.”
“Was he…” Susie bites her lip “…was he hurt?”
“No. He managed to overpower his attacker. And he’s been instrumental in helping us track you down.”
Susie manages an ironic smile. “Thank God for Jonathan’s conspiracy theories.”
Clair comes back with the phone and hands it to me. “I…I don’t know how to thank you. I don’t know how we could be so stupid.”
“You weren’t stupid. It was a good scheme, a brilliant scheme. If it hadn’t been for Jonathan…”
She tries for a smile but it’s more of a wince. “And for you. Thank you.”
I smile—this is the reason I’m in this work. To save women like Clair and Susie and to put men like Heath behind bars—preferably forever. But truth be told, I don’t know how this would have gone down if Jonathan hadn’t escaped. Would my visions have broken the case? Would we have found Brooke or DialM some other way? I’ll never know.
We instinctively look up as the noise of a police chopper interrupts us. It lands and Jonathan runs out. He throws his arms around Susie and Clair.
After nearly a minute the three release their grip.
“I can’t believe…” Susie starts.
“I know.” Jonathan holds her hands. “They’ve told you about… about the others?”
Susie drops her head. “So it really is true.”
I guess she needed to hear it from her best friend.
“Yes.” Jonathan swallows hard. “They’re all dead. We were the game.”
I tear myself away from the reunion and focus on Gerard. “Any luck on NeverCaught?”
“No. He’s gone. He hasn’t been online and I can’t track him through his IP address.” Gerard puts his hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault. At least we got them.” I look back at Susie, Clair and Jonathan.
He nods, but I can tell he still thinks he failed.
“Don’t worry, Gerard, we’ll get him.”
He sighs. After a moment he asks, “Have you guys checked out the shack a few miles back?” He looks up and thumbs in a southerly direction.
“What shack? We flew in from the north.”
“It’s a small hut of some description.”
It doesn’t take us long to assemble a small team of Darren and I plus two bomb-squad members. Flying south in the police chopper, we spot the shack within a few minutes. As soon as we’re out of the chopper, Darren and I draw our guns. This could be part of the Murderers’ Club or it could be unrelated.
The two bomb-squad members complete their sweep on the sparse, hastily erected wooden structure. It looks new and the door is padlocked. Already I’ve got that sinking feeling that we’re about to find something horrible. Who knows if it’s logic, cop intuition or psychic knowledge. I decide it’s probably logic when I see Darren’s face—he’s preparing himself for something too. Like me, while his gun is pointed at the ground, his grip is two-handed and I can tell he’s ready to fire. We look at each other, but don’t need to voice our concerns about what might be in the shack. Another booby trap?
Once we’ve got the all clear on the building’s exterior, I put my gun’s muzzle against the padlock and squeeze the trigger. The gun jumps from the recoil, but the lock is broken. I pop what is left of the padlock off the door frame. Again, I stand back and let the bomb squad check around the door. They give me the nod and I push the door open. It creaks and I open it slowly, holding my gun out in front of me. I take one step inside and my senses are immediately assaulted. I don’t know which hits me first, the ungodly stench or the visual of a large pit. Even though it’s dark, the smell tells me what’s down there. I teeter on the edge, but Darren grabs my hand to stop me from falling into the mess. I peer into the darkness and my eyes adjust fully. Finally they can see what I know is there, and I’m staring at bodies, piled into the pit in a mass grave.
Darren’s eyes adjust at the same time as mine. “Jesus,” he says, peering over my shoulder.
Most of the bodies are partially mummified from the desert heat, but on top is a fresher corpse and it’s this one that’s the source of the smell. Bile rises in my throat, but I swallow the bitterness down.
I back away. “Shit!”
“What is it?” asks one of the bomb-squad techs.
“Bodies,” I say. “More bloody bodies.” I move away and can still smell decomposing flesh, the stench clinging to my nostrils. I take in a few deep breaths of fresh air, trying to get rid of the sensory memory.
“You okay?” Darren asks.
“I’m mad as hell is what I am.” I force myself to put my gun away, even tho
ugh all I can think about is killing whoever put those bodies in the ground. I take another deep breath, finally rid of the smell, and open my comms link. “We’ve got bodies over here.”
It’s Dusk who answers me. “What?”
“Looks like maybe eight or nine,” I say, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to take another look and confirm numbers. It’s not that they’re dead, nor is it the smell that really bothers, it’s the fact that they’ve been thrown into a pit on top of one another, with such obvious disregard for human life. I know that shouldn’t surprise me, I’ve seen bodies treated worse, but the image of them piled on top of one another is a visual I’ll never forget.
Two days later I sit in one of the meeting rooms at the FBI’s San Francisco field office, finalizing my last report before heading back to DC. The door opens and Darren strides into the room, a file in his hand. “We’ve got some IDs.”
“And?”
“Danny Jensen was the most recent body in the pit. Bug activity puts his death at around ten days ago.”
“That’s in line with Jonathan’s statement. Danny was taken a week before him.”
“Yes.”
“And the others?”
Darren opens the file under his arm. “We’ve got IDs on five of the eight victims. Four of them had a record and one was ex-army. All were truly down and outs.” He sits down and passes me a photo of a man in his army uniform; he looks about twenty-five. “This is Corporal James Cook. Served in Iraq but was dishonorably discharged for misconduct. He had alcohol and drug problems and was broke, so he’d certainly hit rock bottom.” Darren passes me another photo, this time of an older man, around forty, but it’s a mug shot. “Richard Steiner, served time for armed robbery but was living on thestreets forthe pastsixmonths.” Darrenlooks upat me. “You getting the picture?”
“Yeah. Easy targets, high-risk victims. The three we can’t ID were probably homeless too, invisible in the system.”
Darren nods. “But I know what they were doing there.” A slight smile plays on his lips.