The River Murders

by James Patterson

  It took me a moment, but I recognized him. I just stared in shock as he walked through the office like he worked at a marketing firm. He looked in my direction, but didn’t acknowledge me.

  I said out loud, “I remember you.”

  The man said, “And I remember you, Mr. Mitchum.” He looked at Jackson and said, “Do we need to keep this guy alive? Nothing pisses me off more than seeing this turd.”

  Jackson said, “Easier to keep him alive for now, Dave.”

  I snapped my fingers. “David Allmand, that’s your name. You ran the prison in Marlboro.”

  Allmand said, “Which is where I’d still be if you hadn’t stirred up all kinds of useless shit. Now I’m in Afghanistan. Thank you very much.”

  CHAPTER 40

  ALLMAND PULLED THE rolling chair from his desk right next to my cage. He plopped down in the seat and leaned forward as if he was a priest ready to take my confession. He rested his elbows on his knees then looked up at me.

  The only thing I could say was, “Why?”

  “I don’t view the whole situation with you the same as my friend Mr. Jackson. He thinks it’s a game of some kind. You see, we get terribly bored here in Afghanistan. So he bet me a thousand bucks that he could get you to come over here. He risked almost a whole day’s salary on this crazy scheme. I would’ve been satisfied to pop you in the back of the head with a nine-millimeter whenever I got back to the States. But that’s me, I’m a nut for efficiency. But now that you’re here, you might satisfy some other needs we have.”

  “So this is just some kind of crazy revenge plot.”

  The Deep River supervisor shrugged. “I told you not to screw up our plans in New York. I gave you a chance to just walk away. You didn’t listen to me. Why should I explain things to you now?”

  There were some shouts from a room in the back of the house. Jackson and the younger man who had driven us earlier jumped from their seats and raced back. Allmand seemed content to keep talking to me. Even though he wasn’t telling me much.

  Now, instead of just learning Jackson’s routine and possible weaknesses, I had someone new to focus on. Clearly, he wasn’t rattled easily. I could hear shouts coming from the back of the house, but this guy wasn’t bothered by it in the least. He just kept looking at me with those calm brown eyes.

  As I was assessing this man, Jackson and his helper carried a moaning prisoner through the main room. His feet dragged along the floor with an arm across Jackson’s shoulders. Blood dribbled from the man’s nose and split lip.

  The man talking to me glanced at them, but made no comment. When I kept staring at them, he said, “They’re going to clean him up in the shower in the garage. Everyone gets cleaned up at least once a week.”

  As Jackson was about to follow the injured man out the door, he said, “He was freaked out because Parwez touched him. I had to smack him just to calm his ass down.”

  “Parwez is not contagious.”

  “Everyone is terrified. They don’t know he’s not contagious. He looks like he died already. It’s disgusting.”

  Allmand said, “I’ll check on him in a little bit.” He focused back on me.

  I said, “Why’d you pick this house, in this neighborhood, to house prisoners?”

  “A lot of reasons. Close to the Pakistani border if we want to buy anything to take back. The house is cheap and all the military cares about is if we’re warehousing the correct number of prisoners. No one has checked on us at either location in the months that we’ve been here. It’s kinda like our setup in Marlboro if you hadn’t screwed it up.”

  “And it doesn’t bother you that a bloody man was just dragged through the room?” I didn’t want to let him know how disturbed I was by it. There was nothing right about this whole setup.

  Allmand remained placid. “We have a very simple job. We take combatants delivered to us by the military. We hold those combatants until a determination about their fate is made. That determination is made by the US government. We do not capture anyone, we do not interview anyone. We just hold combatants. I am not responsible for how they behave. Our job is to keep them locked up. Looks like a lesson was just delivered.”

  Allmand’s matter-of-fact tone and demeanor were unsettling to me.

  I said, “So you guys have a pretty sweet setup here. And you were pissed at me. I still don’t see why you went to all the trouble to lure me to Afghanistan. I don’t believe a personal bet between you and Jackson justifies the effort.”

  He nodded his head slowly. “Very sound reasoning on your part. We have something we need to ship back to the US. One thing that’s not searched is coffins. We get you on a military flight back to the US and we enter the country with something we can all retire on.”

  I pointed at a box of statues and cups similar to the one I saw at the last holding facility. “You’re raping the country of its heritage and shipping these little statues and shit home with me.”

  Allmand reached over and picked up one of the statues. A female character in robes. She had big, colorless eyes. Then he slammed it against the edge of my cage and shattered it. “Most of this stuff is worth less than a dollar apiece. Just trinkets the guys like to give out or ship home. No, Mr. Mitchum, we have other plans for you.”

  That, in no way, made me feel better about my situation.

  CHAPTER 41

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER, I watched as David Allmand walked down the hallway to the bedroom where the sick man was supposedly scaring other prisoners. I knew that if there was a sick man in a cage next to me, he would be the least of my worries. Now I had to get serious about getting out of here.

  The only door ever used was the one on the side of the house that went into the carport. That made sense so the neighbors wouldn’t notice who came and went. I hadn’t heard much traffic on the street and wondered what would happen if I got outside. There was a window up high next to my cage. But it was too small to crawl through. It was some kind of venting window set about seven feet off the floor.

  Jackson joined Allmand in the back room. I watched with interest over the next half hour as one man or the other came out and looked up things on the computer. Then they’d go back to the other room. I couldn’t figure out what they were doing other than looking up symptoms on WebMD.

  Their next move surprised me. They brought the man out on a makeshift stretcher. A towel with knots tied in the corners for handholds. Jackson and Allmand carefully set down the man on the floor near Allmand’s desk. Jackson rushed and brought him back a glass of water.

  The man did look sick. That was an understatement. He was from somewhere in the region, but had lost all the color in his face. His hair was falling out in clumps. Some of it was still on the shoulder of his nice button-down oxford shirt. He was not dressed like any of the other prisoners. With his jeans and button-down, he could pass for someone in the Midwest easily.

  Blood started to gush from his nose. Allmand rushed to hand him a paper towel. It was about then I noticed they weren’t treating this man like all the other prisoners. I didn’t think it was just because of his illness.

  The man said in English, “I must go to hospital.”

  Allmand said, “We’re working on it, Parwez.”

  I saw an opportunity here. Sow a little dissent and reap the benefits later. I said, “What’s wrong with him? He looks terrible. He looks like he’s going to die.” I hid my smirk.

  It worked just the way I expected it to. The man looked up at me in a panic, then at Allmand. He wanted to say something, but vomited next to his towel on the floor. He didn’t even have the strength to move out of the way.

  Allmand glared at me. “Mind your business. Not another word.”

  “You mean, not another word about how this poor man is going to die if you don’t do something right now?”

  Jackson had walked back in and stooped down to check their sick prisoner.

  I called out from my cage again. “This man needs a doctor. Like right now. You still didn
’t say what’s wrong with him.”

  Jackson looked up and said, “He ate something that didn’t agree with him.” Then Jackson looked at Allmand. “What do we do with him? The doctor is going to ask too many questions.”

  Allmand motioned for Jackson to pick up the makeshift stretcher. They carried the man into the back room, by the sound of it. I was pretty sure the room was empty, but the monitor covering that room was at an angle where I couldn’t see. My head snapped up when I heard a single, muffled gunshot.

  The other prisoners heard it, too, and started to shout and bang against the cages.

  After a while, Allmand and Jackson dragged a heavy garbage bag out to the carport. I knew what was inside the bag. Before the outer door closed, I also heard Jackson say, “What are we going to tell our Pakistani friends?”

  Allmand sounded agitated. “We tell them he must’ve gotten intercepted after he made the delivery. This whole place is the Wild West. We can’t be responsible for everyone.”

  That was the best intelligence I’d received since I’d been locked up. The man they had just murdered was working with them. That’s why he didn’t get treated like a normal prisoner. Now I had to figure out what it meant.

  CHAPTER 42

  I HAD NOT made much progress on escaping, even though I spent half the night checking to see how soundly Jackson, Allmand, and their assistant slept. I couldn’t figure out how they slept with all the security monitors and various lights flickering. I could look into most of the rooms via the monitors and I now knew there were sixteen prisoners in the house counting me, assuming the room where they murdered Parwez was empty.

  I dozed off and woke up the next morning to the sound of someone pounding on the front door. It was fun watching my captors race around trying to get a clear view on the security monitor of who was at the door.

  I could tell it was a woman. She was small and her burqa covered her face. She knocked again and called out something. I couldn’t hear what she said.

  Jackson said, “It’s Jamal Hasadi’s mother. The one that hired a lawyer.”

  Allmand said, “How the hell did she figure out we were here?”

  “The family has some money. Enough to hire an attorney. Plus, they know the guy we let go after his family paid the ransom. Maybe he told them.”

  I was starting to see how these guys made so much money. It’s not hard when you have no ethics whatsoever.

  My captors had a discussion about if they should confront the woman. But Allmand read the situation and was clear on his intentions. “We sit here and keep quiet. We don’t add any ammunition to her arguments. We’ll be out of here in a few days anyway.”

  An hour later, I heard Jackson call out, “She’s finally left.”

  Things went back to normal for a while. By normal, I mean I sat on my cot and watched the comings and goings of my captors. Then I was startled by a loud crash and breaking glass.

  Jackson scrambled over to look at the security camera monitors.

  I heard another crash.

  Jackson yelled, “The woman is back. And she’s got men with her. They’re throwing rocks at the windows. Guess they don’t realize the windows are all blocked up from the inside.” He paused, looked at the security monitors, and said, “Now they’re just milling about in the front yard.” His call brought Allmand up from the back of the house.

  He looked at the monitors, then both he and Jackson stuck pistols in their waistbands and pulled their shirts over them. Allmand said, “We’re going to have to move quick.”

  Jackson said, “We’re not nearly ready.”

  That was followed by another crash outside. It rocked the whole house. Someone threw a heavy rock against the side of the house. It was the most serious message someone from outside had sent us.

  My captors raced around the room gathering documents and other things. Allmand shouted, “We’re out of time. Grab the box.”

  Jackson started to pull a long box from under a table at the far end of the room. Allmand moved over to help him. The box was clearly not empty. It looked like a simple pine box, probably the one they intended to use as a coffin for me.

  When the box was in the middle of the room, they pried open the lid, then they scrambled to remove a false bottom. It took all of Jackson’s strength to lift out a heavy metal case from the bottom of the coffin.

  I watched, trying to figure out what was going on.

  Then something came right through the drywall that was covering up the front window. Protesters outside had knocked out the window and someone threw a rock about the size of a navel orange through the drywall.

  Now they knew how to get inside.

  CHAPTER 43

  I WAS SO caught up with what might happen to Jackson and Allmand that I didn’t consider my own situation. If these people got into the house, they wouldn’t make a distinction between me and the jailers. We would all be Americans. They would associate me with these two assholes. It didn’t matter if I was in a cage.

  When Allmand drew his pistol from his belt line, I started to get worried. There was no telling who he was going to shoot. I didn’t think I was one of the targets. I posed no danger to him. But knowing the way he thought, I was worried that he might walk through the rooms and murder all the prisoners.

  Jackson spoke up. “You can’t fire that here. It’ll only draw more people to the house.”

  I could hear rocks bouncing off the roof. The pace had definitely picked up in the last minute.

  Allmand laughed. “Attract more people? Are you insane? There’re already fifteen out in front of the house. If you noticed, they’ve slashed the tires on our car. Joe ran off somewhere, so now it’s just the two of us. I say we blast the first couple through the door and hope someone comes to rescue us. I just sent an emergency email to the coordinator at Bagram.”

  He turned from the door to the hole in the wall where the window should’ve been. Someone was trying to squeeze through the hole.

  Jackson said, “No guns. Trust me. It’s for the best.”

  “What great idea do you have?” He pointed at the man halfway through the hole.

  Jackson moved quickly for a big man. He picked up a broom sitting in the corner of the room. He turned and swung like a big league baseball player. The handle of the broom cracked across the head of the man crawling through the hole. He fell unconscious with his arms dropping almost to the floor. He looked like a piece of old fruit caught in some kind of slicer.

  Jackson said, “And the hole is plugged for a little while longer.”

  Both men quickly gathered whatever personal belongings they needed. They snatched up papers, thumb drives, and mementos like photos and some kind of ceremonial shot glass with a lightning bolt on it.

  Allmand kneeled by the rough pine coffin. He took the box Jackson had removed from the bottom compartment earlier and carefully inserted it into a backpack that had more insulation and padding.

  He slipped the heavy backpack onto his shoulders. It made his knees buckle. He stabilized himself then felt the pack on his back.

  I had to say from my cell, “What the hell is that?”

  Allmand smiled. “Our retirement.” He yelled for Jackson to follow him as he rushed down the hallway toward the back of the house.

  Jackson smashed his computer against the floor. He jumped on the hard drive until it broke loose.

  There were more sounds of people trying to get inside.

  Jackson rolled up a wad of papers and grabbed a lighter out of his desk. He lit the end of the papers like they were a torch. Then Jackson looked at me. “Sorry, Mitchum. This isn’t what I intended. But the only way to clear out evidence is a decent fire.”

  He stood, holding the burning papers, looking for what needed to be burned.

  I tried to keep my voice calm when I said, “You know Allmand is gone. He’s left you to take the brunt of everyone’s anger.” That made Jackson hesitate. That was my goal.

  Jackson said, “Allmand is scouting an
escape route.”

  “Really? Because I don’t hear your phone ringing with any instructions.” He leaned down to light a huge pile of papers in the middle of the floor.

  I could already smell smoke as the papers smoldered for a moment. I wasn’t going to last long inside a cage and I had no way to get out.

  CHAPTER 44

  THE PAPERS WERE starting to catch fire. Jackson just left his burning torch next to his desk, hoping it would catch fire as well. A hazy smoke filled the room.

  I had nothing to lose now. I leaned back and kicked at the door where it locked on my cage. It barely moved. I picked up the cot and tried to use it as a battering ram. But it had little effect.

  The door from the carport burst open. Four men flooded into the room quickly. Two of them barreled into Jackson and knocked him off his feet. Suddenly there were more people pouring into the house.

  Now there were four men holding him. One on each arm and leg. Even a powerful man like Jackson could do nothing. He couldn’t even reach for the pistol he had stuck in the small of his back.

  The smoke was getting thicker. I took the pillowcase off my pillow and wrapped it around my face as a makeshift gas mask. It also hid my face from anyone who strayed too close to my cage.

  I had to turn my head when Jackson started to scream. I didn’t see what they were doing, but it wasn’t anything I needed to witness. I don’t care what the guy did to me or my family.

  His screams moved from curses to pleading for his life. When I heard someone fooling with the lock on my cage, I turned. An older man had taken the keys from his pocket and was trying them on the lock to my cage. He spoke to me in Pashto. It sounded like he was trying to reassure me. Suddenly the door opened. The man reached in and helped me out. I kept the pillowcase tied around my face. The fire had spread to a desk. The papers were now scattered all around the floor. Each fueling its own little flame.