Fatal Error

by F. Paul Wilson

  “No. You’ve got to read me my rights and take me in.”

  “Oh, I get it,” Jack said. “You think I’m a cop.”

  Hollander looked up at him in dazed confusion. He pursed his lips, beginning a question that died before it was asked.

  “I’m not.” Jack grinned. “Mooo-neeer sent me.”

  He waited a few heartbeats as Hollander glanced over to where Munir’s naked wife and mutilated child were trussed up, watched the sick horror grow in his eyes. When it filled them, when Jack was sure he was tasting a crumb of what he’d been putting Munir through for days, he rammed the heel of his hand against the creep’s nose in a spray of blood, slamming the back of his head against the door.

  He wanted to do it again, and again, keep on doing it until the gutless wonder’s skull was bone confetti, but he fought the urge, pulled back as Hollander’s eyes rolled up in his head and he collapsed the rest of the way to the floor.

  He went first to the woman. She looked up at him with terrified eyes.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “Munir’s on his way. It’s all over.”

  She closed her eyes and began to sob through her gag.

  As Jack fumbled with the knots on her wrists, he checked out the fresh blood on her left breast. The nipple was still there. An inch-long cut ran along its outer margin. A bloody straight razor lay on the mattress beside her.

  If he’d tapped on that window a few minutes later . . .

  As soon as her hands were free she sat up and tore the gag from her mouth. She looked at him with tear-flooded eyes but seemed unable to speak. Sobbing, she went to work on her ankle bonds. Jack stepped over to where the fallen sheet lay crumpled on the floor and draped it over her.

  “That man, that . . . animal,” she said. “He told us Munir didn’t care about us, that he wouldn’t cooperate, wouldn’t do anything he was told.”

  Jack glanced over at Hollander’s unconscious form. Was there no limit?

  “He lied to you. Munir’s been going crazy doing everything the guy told him.”

  “Did he really cut off his . . . ?”

  “No. But he would have if I hadn’t stopped him.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Nobody.”

  He went to the boy. The kid’s eyes were bleary. He looked flushed and his skin was hot. Fever. A wad of bloody gauze encased his left hand. Jack pulled the gag from his mouth.

  “Where’s my dad?” he said hoarsely. Not Who are you? or What’s going on? Just worried about his dad. Jack wished for a son like that someday.

  “On his way.”

  He began untying the boy’s wrists. Soon he had help from Barbara. A moment later, mother and son were crying in each other’s arms. He found their clothing and handed it to them.

  While they were dressing, Jack dragged Hollander over to Barbara’s mattress and stuffed her gag in his mouth. As he finished tying him down with her ropes, he heard someone pounding on the downstairs door. He ushered the woman and the boy out to the landing. His thigh throbbed as he went down and found Munir frantic on the sidewalk.

  “Where—?”

  “Upstairs,” Jack said.

  “Are they—?”

  Jack nodded.

  He stepped aside to allow Munir past, then waited outside awhile to give them all a chance to be alone together. Five minutes, then he returned upstairs. It wasn’t over yet.

  He found them huddled on the landing in a group hug. Now came the tough part. He was in a bad position here.

  “Okay. Decision time.” They looked up. “Robby needs a doctor. But there’s not an ER in the city that won’t be phoning in a child abuse complaint as soon as they see that hand.”

  “He was abused.” Barbara’s eyes blazed. “But not by us.”

  “I know a doctor who won’t say anything to anybody.”

  Because he couldn’t. Doc Hargus’s license had been on permanent suspension for years.

  “But can he reattach Robby’s finger?” she said.

  Jack shook his head. “That’s beyond him, I’m afraid.”

  Beyond anyone, Jack thought.

  He’d read somewhere that the last thing you wanted to do with a severed anything was freeze it. Keep it cold, yes, but freezing killed the cells. The finger was most likely already a goner by the time Munir received it. He thought he’d done the right thing, but sticking it in his freezer had been the coup de grâce.

  Jack couldn’t tell these people that. They wouldn’t believe it, wouldn’t want to hear it, needed to give their boy every chance at a full complement of fingers.

  Munir straightened. “He needs a hospital, the best surgeons. And now I’m free to tell the police everything.”

  And that would start officialdom down a road that might lead them to Jack. He clenched his jaw. This was why he stayed the hell away from kidnappings.

  “Except about me, okay? I don’t exist. You’ve got two victims who can testify against him, you have the recordings of his threats—an airtight case against the bastard. You don’t need me.”

  Munir nodded. “I owe you . . . everything. Without you—”

  “But that’s taken care of. Now your so-called justice system goes to work. It doesn’t know about me. I’d like to keep things that way.”

  “Of course. Anything you say. I am forever in your debt.” He looked back at the closed door of 2D. “I still cannot understand it. Richard Hollander . . . how could he do this to me? To anybody? I never hurt him.”

  “You fired him,” Jack said. “He’s probably been loony tunes for years, on the verge of a breakdown, walking the line. Losing his job just pushed him over the edge.”

  “But people lose their jobs every day. They don’t kidnap and torture—”

  “I guess he was ready to blow. You just happened to be the unlucky one. He had to blame somebody—anybody but himself—and get even for it. He chose you. Don’t look for logic. The guy’s crazy.”

  “But the depth of his cruelty . . .”

  “Maybe you could have been gentler with him when you fired him,” Barbara said.

  The words sent a chill through Jack, bringing back Munir’s plea from his first telephone call.

  Please save my family!

  Jack wondered if that was possible, if anyone could save Munir’s family now.

  It had begun to unravel as soon as Barbara and Robby were kidnapped. It still had been salvageable then, up to the point when the cleaver had cut through Robby’s finger. That was probably the deathblow. Even if nothing worse had happened from there on in, that missing finger was going to be a permanent reminder of the nightmare, and somehow it would be Munir’s fault. If he’d already gone to the police, it would be because of that; since he hadn’t, it would be his fault for not going to the police. Or for firing Hollander in the first place. Munir would always blame himself; and deep in her heart Barbara would blame him too. Later on, maybe years from now, Robby might blame him too.

  Because there’d always be one too few fingers on Robby’s left hand, always that scar along the margin of Barbara’s nipple, always the vagrant thought, sneaking through the night, that Munir hadn’t done all he could, that if he’d only been a little more considerate before the kidnapping, had been just a little more cooperative after, Robby still would have ten fingers.

  Sure, they were together now, and they’d been hugging and crying and kissing, but later on Barbara would start asking questions: Couldn’t you have done more? Why didn’t you cut your finger off when he told you to?

  Even now, Barbara was edging into the possibility that Munir could have been gentler when he’d fired Hollander. The natural progression from that was to: Maybe if you had, none of this would have happened.

  The individual members might still be alive, but Munir’s family as a viable unit was still under the gun.

  And that saddened Jack. It meant that Hollander might still win.

  Barbara hugged Robby against her side. “We need to get to the hospital. Now.”


  Jack said, “You can flag a cab on the street.”

  As they started for the stairwell, Munir held back.

  “I must speak to him. I have to ask him why.”

  Jack wondered if talk was all he had in mind.

  “Sure. Go ahead. We’ll hold the cab for you.”

  Jack led Barbara and Robby down to the steel front door. He grabbed a takeout menu flier from the floor, wadded it up, and stuffed it in the door’s latch hole.

  Might want to give the place a once-over before the cops arrived.

  Took a couple of minutes, but finally a cab cruised by and he flagged it. As Barbara and Robby slid into the rear, Munir stumbled from the building looking dazed.

  Had Hollander escaped?

  “What’s wrong?”

  “That is not Richard Hollander.”

  “Then who is he?”

  “I have never seen that man before in my life.”

  15

  Dawn stepped off the private elevator into Mr. Osala’s duplex. She felt totally dazed and knew she looked like some sort of mental patient in her bathrobe and borrowed scrubs from the surgicenter. After she’d come to a couple of hours ago, they’d checked her over to see if she was all right, then stuck her in a cab. Lucky the doorman, Mack, recognized her and keyed her up in the elevator, or she’d never have been able to return.

  She felt totally awful and weird. She’d been trying to get out of this place for like nine months, and now that she had her chance to take off, she didn’t. She’d never thought she’d look at this place as home, but that was what it felt like at the moment.

  She passed a stack of cardboard boxes as she stumbled down the hall to her room, but stopped at the door when she found Gilda within. The older woman was scooping clothes out of her drawers and dumping them into a cardboard box, just like the ones in the hall.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  She started—so intent on what she was doing she hadn’t heard Dawn arrive. She straightened and gave her a cold smile.

  “I am packing your things.”

  “Why?”

  The smile became harder, colder. “You are moving out.”

  The words shocked her. Moving out? No. No way.

  “You’re crazy!”

  “Oh, no. Not me. The Master has called and told me to pack up your things. You leave tomorrow.”

  “Like hell!”

  The woman stepped closer. “Yes. He is kicking you out. And good riddance, I say. You have been nothing but trouble since you set foot in this house. No more will I have to listen to your whining and complaining. I cannot wait till you are gone. Then there will be peace.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “We will see. The Master will be here tomorrow to personally throw you out on the street.”

  No . . . he couldn’t. Not now.

  “Get out,” Dawn said.

  “I will not! The Master told me to—”

  Despite feeling she might collapse at any minute, Dawn grabbed the older woman by the front of her blouse and swung her around, then shoved her toward the door.

  “Get out!”

  Gilda stumbled backward through the doorway and almost fell. She steadied herself at the last instant just as Dawn slammed the door and locked it. Feeling too exhausted, too totally rotten to deal with any of this now, Dawn pulled back the covers on her unmade bed and slipped under them.

  Sleep . . . she needed sleep . . . she’d be able to deal with this once she got some sleep.

  16

  Jack peeked through the tiny glass pane set in the emergency exit door. Outside in the alley, Abe stood next to the open rear doors of his dark blue panel truck. He looked edgy, repeatedly glancing toward the street.

  The mystery man hung over Jack’s shoulder. Trussed head to foot in duct tape and wrapped in a sheet, he’d struggled at first. But the bouncing trip down the stairs had taken some of the fight out of him. Jack’s shoulder nestled in his gut and he had to be sore by now. The guy was heavier than he looked.

  Jack kicked the door to get Abe’s attention.

  “Get behind the wheel,” he shouted when Abe looked up.

  Abe nodded and bustled away toward the front of the truck. Jack gave him thirty seconds, then pushed the door open. An alarm bell began clanging, just as the sign on the door had promised.

  Jack dumped the guy into the back of the truck, hopped in, and closed the door behind him.

  “Go!”

  Abe hit the gas and they lurched into motion, out of the alley, onto the street, and into the traffic—a nondescript panel truck in a stampeding herd of other nondescript panel trucks.

  “Where to now?”

  Jack was slipping into a pair of work gloves Abe had had lying about. “Let’s just drive around while this fellow and I get better acquainted.”

  Before sending Munir and his family off in the cab, Jack had pulled him aside and told him to hold off as long as possible giving the address where his wife and boy had been held. None of this was making sense and he wanted a little time with the mystery man.

  But back upstairs he spotted a familiar scar through the tear in the guy’s shirt and realized the situation had suddenly become complicated. He called Abe and asked him to bring his truck downtown.

  He peeled back the sheet to free the guy’s bloodied, blindfolded face, then yanked the tape off his mouth.

  “Help!” he screamed as he started slamming his feet against the truck floor. “Help!”

  “No tumel!” Abe shouted from up front.

  Jack gave him a backhand slap across the face.

  “Don’t waste your breath. You’re in a truck with no rear windows in the middle of downtown traffic.”

  “Just turn me in.”

  Jack shook his head. “Not gonna happen. Who are you?”

  “Richard Hollander.”

  “Nah. You went to a lot of trouble to make people think that, did everything to make this look personal—fooled me on that one—but Munir has met Hollander and he says you’re not him.”

  His face twisted. “You believe a lying sand nigger over—”

  Jack backhanded him again.

  “None of that,” he said as he wiped the blood off his glove onto the man’s shirt.

  “You’re pretty brave with me tied up.”

  Feeling the darkness struggle to get loose within him, Jack leaned closer and spoke through his teeth.

  “Do you have any idea what I want to do to you? You mutilated a little boy! And you made his mother watch! People like you—”

  “Worthless mongrel,” he muttered.

  Jack hit him again.

  The guy clenched his teeth. “Be a man. Untie me and we’ll see—”

  “What? See you running away like you did when I came through the window—even though you had a meat cleaver? If I hadn’t grabbed the back of your shirt, you’d’ve been gone. But I’m glad it happened that way, otherwise I’d never have seen the brand.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “How long have you been a member of the Septimus Order?”

  “I’m not—”

  Jack poked the guy’s chest and he flinched.

  “Uh-uh. I know the brand.”

  “So, you know the brand. Big deal.”

  “Is the Order behind this?”

  “Of course not.”

  “What’s the Order got against Munir?”

  “Absolutely nothing. This is personal.”

  “Where’s the real Richard Hollander?”

  “You’re looking at him.”

  Jack shook his head again. “You left all the evidence where it could be easily found, so that when this was over, everything would point to Hollander. Where is he?”

  And then, in a strobing epiphany, it all became clear. Jack sat back, stunned.

  “Hollander is dead.”

  “Ridiculous.” But his voice carried no conviction, no sense that he’d be believed.

  “I just reali
zed . . . you weren’t wearing a mask when I broke in. Barbara and the boy knew your face. But you didn’t care if they could recognize you, because you were planning all along to kill them. Hollander would get the blame, but Hollander wouldn’t be able to defend himself because you killed him first and probably disposed of his body. The cops will be looking for someone they’ll never find while you roam about free as can be.”

  “You’re obviously on drugs.”

  Jack stared at him. “Why?”

  The man’s face twisted into a snarl. “Because he’s a no-good Arab piece of shit!”

  No act there. The naked rage in his eyes said he was speaking what he felt.

  “But why this particular Arab?”

  The face went slack. Not going there. Hiding something.

  “An Arab’s an Arab,” he said.

  Jack couldn’t buy that. Something else going on here. Very good possibility the Order was involved. And if that was the case, then Jack needed to be involved.

  As he slapped the tape back over the guy’s mouth, he began twisting and kicking and making frantic noises.

  “What’s that? Take off the tape?”

  The guy nodded.

  “Why? You’re not telling me anything. I think we’ll let you marinate awhile. Maybe you’ll be feeling more loquacious in a few hours.”

  As the guy made all sorts of protesting sounds, Jack slipped the sheet back over his face.

  Needed to find a way to make him open up.

  He’d come up with something.

  17

  “Christ, it’s cold,” Russ said, hugging his arms around him as the wind off the water cut through his coat.

  He was surprised he could feel cold at all after all he’d had to drink.

  This Belgiovene guy was all right. This morning he’d explained all the intricacies of getting his parole modified to allow him back online. Cruel and unusual punishment, banning him from the Internet for ten years after his release. Russ didn’t tell him he was already online under various identities. He’d be FUBAR without the Net, but the risk of discovery hung over him like the sword of Damocles. If word got back to his parole officer, some hard-ass judge could lock him up again. Yeah, it might be federal soft time, but time was time. Outsiders called them country clubs. Screw them. The two years he’d spent inside had sucked. Royally. He’d come this close to offing himself.