radar, the island and the once-magnificent home were the perfect location to be forgotten. During the first half of the ’80s, it had been used for everything from a safe house to a refuge for Russian defectors at the end of the Cold War. In recent years, its location and function had fallen off even the radar of the government.
Dorran led Jack and Peter up the gangway and ushered them into a waiting golf cart. He drove up the long cobblestone pathway, the sides of which were overgrown with knee-high grass and weeds that poked up through a dusting of snow. Several felled trees, evidence of hurricane season, had yet to be removed, their haphazard patterns adding to the ominous appearance of the mostly wooded island. The enormous Georgian mansion was overrun with ivy that wove and flittered along its stone, giving it a Gothic feel.
A belching choke filled the night, as a generator muscled to life in the distance. And almost immediately, lights around the estate began to go from a dull orange, intensifying like the rising sun, into a full glow. The shadows around the mansion were chased away as walkway lights and decorative sconces flanking the entranceway lit the stone home into a semblance of its former glory.
Arriving in the circular courtyard, Jack and Peter hopped out of the cart and walked past two large stone lions that flanked the slate step and led to an enormous mahogany entrance door.
The choice of venue was Jack’s, which Peter, the FBI, and the Justice Department quickly agreed to in order to avoid the prying eyes of the press, or worse. It was the perfect location to hold Nowaji Cristos, the perfect place to conduct his interrogation.
Jack followed Dorran and Peter through the large doors and couldn’t help pausing in wonder, looking around the place that only existed in his dreams, a place that had sat two miles from his childhood home. It had lived in his imagination, in tales from a bygone era, when high society arrived in magnificent yachts for weekend parties that dragged on all summer. He couldn’t help picturing flappers and Gatsby types dancing until dawn, sipping champagne, the jazz band never tiring.
He had only seen the island from the perspective of sandy beaches and the overgrown graves in the potter’s field on the far side. He had never thought that the grandeur might exceed his imagination. The marble foyer was cavernous, his footsteps echoing off the decorative floors and dark-paneled walls. Dual staircases mirrored each other, their polished banisters and maroon carpeted stairs leading up to fourteen bedrooms.
As they walked, Jack peered into the library, an Old World room wrapped in floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with books and ghostly mementos of those long gone. The fireplace was enormous, speaking of an age before furnaces and heat. The oversized mantel and the shelves and furniture were caked with dust.
They walked past a billiard room and a parlor, through a chef’s kitchen that hadn’t known the smell of food in years, and came to a stop in the rear service hall.
“Bit of a surreal setting,” Peter said.
“Yeah, especially when the ghosts from the potter’s field come out and you realize you’re isolated on this island.”
“Did you get a look at this guy yet?” Jack asked. “Any sense of what we’re dealing with?”
“There is something in his eyes. A coldness. I don’t know if he’s practiced the look or it comes natural.” Dorran shook his head. “Cute name, Nowaji Cristos, loosely translated as ‘risen ghost.’”
“Nice,” Jack said. “Safe to say that’s not the name his mama gave him. Is this guy stable, or are we thinking he’s going to play the insane card?”
“The docs will check him out, but I don’t think he’s insane at all. A sociopath, yeah, but his mind knows what he is doing. There is no disconnect.”
“Do we have a file on him yet?” Jack asked.
“Beyond a name, we’ve got nothing else,” Dorran said. “No intelligence, background, nothing. CIA, Interpol, all came up blank so far.”
“No one has spoken to him, correct?”
“He was taken into federal custody, under my orders,” Peter said. “Not a word was said.”
“Think he was working alone?”
“Yes and no. He’s a hired gun. Someone was paying his way, though he seems too fastidious, too confident, to rely on any accomplice. Weapon, clothes, watch, all expensive but untraceable.”
“Any thought on who hired him?”
“CIA sent an operations officer; he’s here somewhere. He’s the expert on the political machinations of Pashir.”
“He’s not going to try to jockey for position, is he?”
“No, within our borders, it’s just you, me, and Dorran’s FBI,” Peter said. “Consider him a source for all the things you can’t find on Google.”
“Seriously,” a thin, prematurely balding twenty-five-year-old said as he came out of a side room. “I’m reduced to human search engine?”
“Cyril Latham,” Dorran said as he pointed at Jack and Peter. “Womack and Keeler.”
Latham handed them each a file. They quickly scanned them as they continued to walk. Peter finally looked up and said, “So, this guy he killed, this general, he’s a despot?”
Latham nodded. “The list of people who wanted him dead is long. We’re running ballistics against both ours and Interpol’s database. We’re cross-referencing everything Carter has given us against the world stage. This guy was bad news. The only person who would truly mourn him is his mother, but he killed her years ago.”
“Nice,” Peter said.
“As terrible as the general was,” Latham said, “the United States has an international obligation to try this man.”
“And the Pashir government isn’t looking for extradition?”
“They barely have laws,” Latham said, “let alone a judicial system. They want him tried and hung on our soil so as not to create a martyr or make a mistake.”
“And the CIA’s position on him?” Peter asked.
“Unless we can somehow tie him to some other activity, Director Turner will not stand in your way. He’s currently an unknown to us.”
“I suggest the three of us do the initial interrogation,” Peter said to Jack and Dorran. “Let’s see where this goes.”
“I’ll lead,” Carter said. “Feel free to interject, ask questions, whenever you want.”
Jack was actually a very skilled interrogator; he was good at getting people to speak, whether it be on the stand, in an interrogation room, or at a party, but he was happy to defer and step in when needed.
A man approached from the opposite end of the hall.
“This is Alex Casey,” Dorran said, introducing Jack to the red-haired FBI agent.
“Mr. Casey will escort us and remain during the interrogation.”
Jack looked the man over. He was dressed in dark loose-fitting clothes, not the usual dark suit and tie or blue windbreaker of the FBI. Like the other guards, he had a Sig Sauer 9mm pistol at his side, while an HK submachine gun was strapped over his shoulder. Casey possessed the lean, strong body of a swimmer, his eyes focused and alert. There was no question about the man’s abilities.
Casey slipped his key into the lock, opened the door, and ushered Dorran, Peter, and Jack into a dark room. The only source of light leaked through enormous red velvet curtains that had been drawn across a picture window.
Casey flipped a switch, flooding the room with a harsh, bright light courtesy of a temporary flood in the corner of what was now seen to be a parlor. The walls were covered in chintz wallpaper, the floor in wall-to-wall burgundy carpet. A guard stood silently in the corner, his rifle clutched tightly against his chest.
All furniture had been stripped away except for a metal table in the center of the room and several hard wood chairs. Casey drew back the curtains, revealing an eerily lit backyard, the leaf-filled pool, a tennis court with a torn net. The picture window was obscured by a chain-link fence that reached from floor to ceiling; its galvanized metal links stood in sharp contrast to the room’s decor.
In the center of the room sat Cristos in a large wooden high-backed chair, his wrists cuffed to the thick oak arms, his ankles chained to the heavy legs. He was dressed in the dark charcoal-gray suit he was captured in; the knot of his blue tie was perfect. His hair was pulled back in a ponytail. The day’s growth on his face only served to enhance his ominous appearance, which agitated even the guards. It was as if they had caged Satan and were awaiting his retribution.
