The Killing House mf-1

by Chris Mooney

  ‘The heat. I think it’s coming from the Jaguar.’

  She moved to the car and pressed her hand against the side.

  ‘What the hell is causing this?’ she said, more to herself. She moved her hand away.

  ‘Your hand,’ the fat guy said. ‘It’s covered… it looks like black dust.’

  The overhead rows of fluorescent lights hanging from the garage ceiling started to flicker.

  The fat guy and Miranda Wolfe looked up, wide-eyed. Ortega’s attention was locked on the radio clipped to the woman’s belt. Smoke was rising from the loudspeaker. He was about to speak when the garage door started to rise.

  Ortega flinched at the sound. He was standing near the elevator, only a few feet away from the wall controls for the garage; no one had pressed the button and yet the garage door was rising. He was still staring at it when the fat man said ‘Holy shit ’, and Ortega turned to see the guy and the woman backing away from the Ford, plumes of grey smoke drifting up from its engine block.

  The overhead lights kept flickering.

  Ortega called upstairs on his wrist-mike; didn’t get an answer. He grabbed his radio, pressed the push-to-talk button, got nothing but static.

  He tried it again. The static grew louder. He looked at his radio, wondering why it -

  Plumes of grey and white smoke rose from his radio loudspeaker; the LED panel was dead. He tossed the phone, the smell of burning plastic and fried circuitry filling his nostrils. The fat guy had his radio in hand and it was smoking. Wolfe had tossed hers to the floor; she had her cell in her hand and it was smoking.

  A set of overhead fluorescents exploded. The woman screamed, glass shards raining down on her and tinkling across the garage floor. Smoke billowed from the security camera positioned in the corner and scattered in the wind blowing inside the garage.

  Another set of overhead lights exploded as the Jaguar’s engine roared to life. It backed up, tyres peeling across the garage floor. Ortega pulled his weapon. He was looking down the target sight, advancing to the car, when the car turned around and faced him.

  More lights exploded and he screamed at the driver to stand down. The car’s headlights were turned off but eerie green orbs of light glowed and pulsated from the centre of the car’s front grille.

  The green lights exploded in blinding flashes of light. The colour burned his eyes and he heard the fat guy screaming ‘ Run, Miranda, get the hell out of the way ’ and Ortega couldn’t see, oh, God no, he had been blinded by that green light and he couldn’t see. He heard tyres squealing and he staggered around aimlessly as the Jaguar raced out of the garage.

  76

  Fletcher pulled into the destination he had researched earlier in the day — a self-service car wash located on the fringes of Manhattan that operated on coin-and-dollar-fed machinery so people could clean their vehicles any time, day or night. It had four wide bays equipped with sprayers and vacuum hoses, dented kiosks offering Armor All wipes, packages of micro-fibre towels and a wide variety of chemically scented air fresheners. The small shack, where a daytime cashier usually sat behind a bulletproof window to collect money or swipe credit cards for customers who pulled in for gas, was dark and empty.

  He would have preferred to wash the Jaguar inside one of the day-operated washes with their enclosed bays and powerful brushes. This would have to do. He fed the final dollar into the machine and the motor’s compressor rumbled and roared.

  He started with the front hood. The spray of water exploded with a hiss of steam. He moved the spray nozzle closer to the hood and the powerful spray peeled away cracked chips of black paint, sending them flying into the air. It took nearly forty minutes to clean away all the black paint.

  Now the Jaguar was white. The police wouldn’t be looking for a white Jaguar, and he didn’t have far to travel. Fletcher drove away, watching the streets.

  M had made arrangements for the use of another vehicle — a forest-green Jeep Grand Cherokee parked on the fourth level of a private New York garage free of security cameras. Fletcher parked next to it and got out.

  He reached underneath the Cherokee’s front bumper, found the magnetic box and took out the car key. He opened the hatchback and then returned to the Jaguar to remove a fresh set of clothes from a suitcase.

  After he finished changing, he placed his tactical belt on the backseat of the Jeep. He returned to the Jaguar and quickly collected the items he needed. Then he grabbed the final item, the netbook computer, shut the trunk and drove away in the Jeep.

  Dawn had broken by the time he reached the back of a strip mall lot in New Brunswick, New Jersey. A silver Ford Mustang was parked by a nearby dumpster. The door opened and M stepped out, bundled up in a heavy coat and wearing sunglasses.

  Fletcher parked next to her. He left the Jeep’s engine running and, tactical belt in hand, got out and made his way to the hatchback.

  M joined him, hands tucked in her jacket pockets, breath steaming in the frigid air.

  ‘I listened to the news on the way here,’ Fletcher said.

  ‘I did too.’

  ‘So you know Borgia is missing, and since you were the last one seen with him, you’ve become a person of interest.’

  ‘They’re also talking about your escape, although they haven’t mentioned you by name.’ There was no emotion in her voice, just that flat, neutral tone. ‘The reporters camped out in front of Karim’s house got footage of what happened inside the garage — the smoke and the exploding lights. They’re saying an agent has been blinded.’

  ‘I installed a laser dazzler system in the Jaguar’s front grille. The blindness is only temporary.’

  ‘Is that the computer?’

  ‘Why?’ Fletcher asked. ‘Why did you go with him?’

  ‘To talk to him about Karim. Why else?’

  Fletcher sighed. ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Nothing useful. Maybe you’ll have better luck with him.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Hog-tied in the trunk of my car. I brought him here in case you wanted to speak to him. I relieved him of his clothing in case he was wearing some sort of device that would allow the FBI to track him.’

  ‘And his car?’

  ‘Someplace where they can’t find it — unless it has a hidden GPS or tracking unit. I also disconnected the battery from his phone, tossed everything on to the highway. Give me your computer. I want to get to work.’

  Fletcher handed it to her, and told her the name of the software program he used to analyse cell-phone data.

  ‘I’m assuming you have a location where you can work safely.’

  ‘I have everything I need.’

  ‘Any news from Karim’s Baltimore contact?’ Fletcher asked. M had emailed the homicide detective several images of the disfigured man who had killed Boyd Paulson and abducted Nathan Santiago and Dr Sin.

  ‘He left a message,’ she said. ‘The disfigured man is named Brandon Arkoff. He’s the co-owner of the funeral home in West Baltimore, Washington Memorial Park. His partner is a woman named Marie Clouzot. He said he released their images, along with the ones I gave him for Nathan Santiago, to the Baltimore press. He released copies to the newspapers. This morning he’s going to hold a press conference asking the public for help. Maybe something will come of it. Karim is awake.’

  ‘When?

  ‘As of an hour ago,’ she said. ‘I spoke with Karim’s bodyguard.’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘Being moved to Manhattan. He’ll be heavily guarded. Do you want to speak with Borgia, or do you want me to take care of it?’

  ‘I’ll take care of it.’

  ‘The keys are in the ignition. I also left a disposable cell on the seat. I wrote my number on it. I’ll get to work on analysing Corrigan’s cell-phone data. I’ll contact you when I’m finished.’

  Fletcher was about to speak when she turned abruptly on her heel and marched around the front of the Jeep.

  ‘M?’

  She looked
at him from across the Jeep’s roof.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said.

  M seemed genuinely puzzled.

  ‘For what?’ she asked.

  She didn’t wait for an answer. She slipped behind the wheel and drove away.

  Fletcher would have preferred someplace private to conduct his questioning. While Karim owned a good amount of both commercial and residential property within the state of New Jersey — some of which, M had told him, was unoccupied — Fletcher did not want any evidence of what he was about to do to be traced back to Karim. There was no need to give the FBI’s case against Karim any additional ammunition.

  The small town of Monroe, New Jersey, was a fifteen-minute drive from New Brunswick. Named after the fifth President of the United States, James Monroe, the picturesque town offered an abundance of farmland and thickly settled forests.

  Fletcher stopped when he spotted an ideal location: an undeveloped field that stretched for miles in every direction, no homes or buildings anywhere in sight. He scouted the edge of the forest and found an area where he could park without being seen from the main road.

  He performed a final check and, finding no witnesses or approaching cars, pulled off the road and drove across the field of frozen ground and dead grass. He parked in a spot offering a good amount of tree cover, popped the trunk and got out to speak with Alexander Borgia.

  77

  Having spent the last hours caged in darkness, Agent Borgia winced in the sudden light. Naked except for a pair of grey boxers, he lay on his side against a bright blue polyurethane tarp, his arms stretched behind him. M had used several zip ties to bind the man’s ankles and arms together and then used a final pair to hog-tie him.

  She had also worked him over. His face, a swollen, pulpy mess of split skin and drying blood, was almost unrecognizable. Fletcher put his foot up on the back bumper and rolled up his trouser leg, wondering what Borgia had done to provoke her.

  Fletcher removed the knife from its sheath. A favorite among scuba divers, this knife had a long blade with a serrated edge that could cut through cartilage and muscle with minimal effort and, if needed, bone.

  Borgia groaned as he turned his head, his good eye staring up at the knife. He tried to speak, but his words were muffled by the rag that had been stuffed in his mouth.

  ‘Relax, Mr Borgia. I have no intention of treating you the same way Miss White did. I promise you, I won’t be anywhere near as kind.’

  Fletcher slit the zip ties binding the man’s ankles. He tucked the knife into his pocket and hoisted Borgia out of the trunk — an easy task, given the man’s rather diminutive size.

  Fletcher searched the trunk, found the usual assortment of offerings: jumper cables, reusable shopping bags and a plastic container stocked with bungee cords. He selected the jumper cables, shut the trunk, and, with one hand gripping the back of the Borgia’s neck, marched the barefoot man across the bumpy mat of dead leaves, twigs and small rocks.

  Fletcher didn’t speak as he led Borgia deeper and deeper into the woods. The only sounds were Borgia’s footsteps and his laboured breathing.

  The man’s frame held barely any body fat. Without this much-needed insulation, he couldn’t stop shivering. He fell several times. Fletcher lifted him to his feet, and he kept stumbling about, disorientated, until he fell again.

  Ten minutes had passed; it was enough. Fletcher shoved Borgia face first against a tree. He used the jumper cable to secure the man’s neck against the trunk.

  Borgia had turned his head so he could watch the forest with his working eye.

  ‘Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “A man must ride alternately on the horses of his private and public nature, as the equestrians in the circus throw themselves nimbly from horse to horse.” Emerson was referring to a man’s conscience.’ Fletcher tapped the blade against Borgia’s forehead. ‘Now let’s see if we can find yours.

  ‘I don’t know what you’ve read or heard about me, Mr Borgia, but know this: I find dishonesty unspeakably ugly. Please bear that in mind before you answer.

  ‘We’ll start with the most obvious question: why did you order one of your HRT operators to kill Ali Karim?’

  Fletcher pulled the rag from Borgia’s mouth. More than one tooth had been knocked loose during his altercation with M.

  ‘You forgot something, Malcolm.’

  ‘Please, enlighten me.’

  ‘I’m not afraid to die.’

  ‘That remains to be seen,’ Fletcher said, and grabbed two of Borgia’s fingers. A quick turn of the wrist and they broke.

  Borgia screamed. Spittle mixed with blood sprayed against the tree bark.

  ‘Why did you try to kill Ali Karim?’

  Borgia started to giggle.

  ‘Did that give you an erection?’

  Fletcher broke two more fingers.

  Borgia gave another scream. When it subsided, the manic giggling returned.

  ‘I know who you really are,’ Borgia said. ‘I know what you did.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Go ahead, Malcolm. Use the knife. Go ahead and cut me and make me bleed. Do what you were born to do — what you love to do.’

  Fletcher stuffed the rag back inside the man’s mouth.

  ‘Goodbye, Mr Borgia.’

  The man was still giggling. Fletcher turned and walked back through the woods, heading for the car. He would wait there for fifteen, maybe twenty minutes; any more than that and he would risk losing Borgia to hypothermia. Then he would return, and if Borgia still failed to answer his questions, Fletcher would be forced to take the man to one of Karim’s nearby properties.

  Fletcher ran down a slope, branches snapping underneath his boots. The car came into view and he caught a blurred shape rising on the other side of the hood. Quickly he turned to his left, his hand already inside his coat and ripping the SIG from his shoulder holster, when the person near the Mustang fired — not a gunshot but a hiss, like compressed air escaping.

  Fletcher was moving into the woods, when a man emerged from behind a tree, a man with a disfigured face and holding a handgun. The man who had killed Boyd Paulson and abducted Dr Sin and Nathan Santiago from Karim’s New Jersey beachfront home. Brandon Arkoff.

  Arkoff fired. A pop of compressed air escaping and something shattered against Fletcher’s bulletproof vest. Arkoff kept firing and the person near the Mustang — his partner, Marie Clouzot — was firing too.

  Fletcher felt something sharp pierce his thigh, like a needle. Warmth trickled through his muscle as Arkoff ducked behind a tree. Fletcher fired off a round, saw the exploding tree bark. He fired again and felt another needle-sting on the back of his head.

  He ran, stumbled and quickly righted himself. He pressed ahead until his legs gave out.

  Fletcher collapsed against the hard ground. He had dropped the SIG, could see it lying just a few inches away among the brown dried leaves. He went to crawl for it, collapsed. His arms had turned limp, and his vision was fading. He saw a tranquillizer dart sticking in the meat of his thigh.

  He heard approaching footsteps and then he saw a rifle. Looking down the gun sight was the pale, almost bloodless face of Arkoff’s partner, Marie Clouzot, the woman who had tried to kill him in Colorado.

  IV

  The Killing House

  78

  Malcolm Fletcher awoke to warm air and voices.

  ‘Sit still. It will be over before you know it.’

  A woman’s voice, deep and husky. The kind cured from a lifetime of cigarettes and hard liquor.

  ‘Why can’t you give me Novocain?’ Alexander Borgia’s voice, and it was coming from the same direction as the woman’s — someplace straight ahead, only a few feet away. ‘Don’t you have any of that shit down here?’ Borgia asked.

  ‘Just grit your teeth and bear it,’ the woman replied. ‘You’ve been through worse — and you’re goddamn lucky I installed this thing. Otherwise, I never would’ve found you, and you’d still be freezing to death out in the woods.�
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  A great fog filled Fletcher’s head, but his senses were working, alert: he was lying on his left side, his cheek pressed against something cold and hard. It had the rough, gritty texture of sandpaper. He didn’t feel any bindings on his wrists or ankles. His mouth felt dry, and there was a throbbing in his forehead, a tight band of pressure that had the feeling of a hangover. The sedative loaded in the darts. One had hit his thigh and the other had grazed the back of his neck.

  New sounds, some near by, some faint: a low, guttural moan. The rattle of chain link. And everywhere, raspy, sickly breathing. There was a pervasive reek of blood and unwashed skin, and, behind it, the distinct and overpowering stench of human decomposition.

  His eyes slit open to a tight cluster of intensely bright lights. A pair of blurry figures stood on either side of what appeared to be a very long and very tall stainless-steel table.

  Fletcher didn’t move his head or body; he wanted Borgia and the woman to think he was unconscious. He blinked, and kept blinking, until everything came into a sharper focus.

  The light came from a portable floor-standing surgery lamp, its wide, twenty-inch elliptical reflector dish positioned over a stainless-steel operating table. Borgia stood behind the table. His face was still grotesquely swollen, but it had been cleaned up. A surgical mask covered his mouth and nose, and he had changed into a grey sweatshirt several sizes too big.

  Fletcher glanced over Borgia’s shoulder, at the wall and corner shelves packed with sterilized bags of surgical scrubs and towels. He saw boxes of latex gloves, vials and syringes, and a wide assortment of medical equipment.

  An operating room.

  Back to Borgia: the man’s left sleeve had been rolled up and he leaned slightly over the table, his hand splayed across the stainless steel. His skin was covered with a dark liquid that was, most likely, Betadine. Borgia hissed through gritted teeth as Marie Clouzot made a small incision on the webbing between his thumb and index finger. Then she traded the scalpel for a pair of surgical forceps, dipped the ends inside the wound and came back with something small pinched between the prongs. She set the tiny object on the table, not far from Borgia’s hand.