pale green where a bank of cabinets had been ripped from a wall. And it was in the area that held most of the blood and bone and brain matter and scalp and hair and teeth and flesh of the victim.
Gary and Cliff were saying hello, but Ren wasn’t registering it. Her head was swimming. She finally reached them and looked down at the leftover face of a man who had obviously been shot at close range with a high-caliber rifle. The leftovers were scraps of scorched skin, a partial jawbone, a creepy skeleton half-smile, made more grotesque by the few ragged teeth.
‘No ID,’ Cliff was telling her.
‘Really?’ said Ren. ‘How come we’re here?’
‘The call came into me,’ said Gary. ‘Anonymous. Just “get to blah warehouse”. Nothing more dramatic than that. I called Denver PD when I got here.’
Ren’s heart felt like it would explode out of her chest. ‘Well, blah warehouse certainly gave up the goods.’
‘I was at that concert,’ said Gary, pointing down at the blood-soaked AC/DC T-shirt.
Ren glanced down again at the body of the man she had just been watching in a different kind of Technicolor.
Denver’s Most Wanted number four: Javier Luis, DOB 1973, 5’ 2”, 160 lbs.
Ren got back to Annie’s as quick as she could after the scene was processed. She rushed in the door and grabbed the remote control. She hit Rewind, then Play.
Javier Luis’ voice seemed louder. He continued: ‘On the evening of December twenty-eighth, 1998…’
As he spoke, Ren could not take her eyes off the man beside him. It was James Laker, Gavino Val Pando’s biological father. Laker was blond and rugged, a regular guy in a button-down shirt and jeans. His eyes were warm, clear blue, his eyebrows heavy.
Luis was smiling up at Laker, goading him into the revelation that Ren knew was coming. Her heart pounded.
Ren heard a voice off-camera shout, ‘We don’t have fucking time for this shit. Laker, tell your fucking story and we’re out of here.’ Fear flashed in Laker’s eyes. He shifted in his chair. When he finally spoke, his voice, the one she remembered, had none of its old warmth. He stared at the floor.
‘My name is James Laker. I worked for Augusto Val Pando from 1990 through 1998. Up to that point, I had been a Chief Investment Officer for a proprietary hedge fund—’
‘We don’t need your fucking resume,’ said Luis.
Laker’s eyes flared with anger. He continued. ‘Personal problems led me to work for Augusto Val Pando…’ He stared up at the ceiling. ‘My addiction in the late eighties to cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamine. I had defrauded the company I worked for out of millions of dollars, all of which was repaid to them by Augusto Val Pando. In return, I went to work for him. He gave me unlimited access to the drugs I so desperately required. But by October 1998, I wanted out. I befriended Remy Torres, who was, in fact, FBI Special Agent Ren Bryce—’
‘I told FBI Special Agent Ren Bryce of my desire to enter a rehabilitation facility so I could return to regular employment and build a life for myself outside the criminal world. I begged for her help in doing so. The compound was heavily guarded and FBI Special Agent Ren Bryce—’
‘—appeared to be trusted by the Val Pandos.’ Laker turned to whoever was behind the camera. ‘It’s too long, calling her that name. I’m just going to call her Remy – I’ll tell the story quicker.’ He stared ahead. ‘Remy came to me late on Christmas Day and told me that she would find me a way out of the compound, but that it would have to happen within four days. She appeared to be intimately acquainted with the security systems, the staff’s shifts and the safest routes to take to avoid detection and to reach the perimeter without difficulty. I can see now that this was due to her own situation, preparation and training as an FBI agent, something of which I was unaware at that time. I believe that because of my sexual relationship with Remy—’
Ren screamed at the screen, ‘What are you DOING?’
‘—she had developed an attachment to me,’ said Laker, ‘that led her to defy her superiors and aid my release.’
The camera panned down to the table where a dirty piece of folded paper lay. He held it up to the camera. ‘Here you can see the plan drawn up for me by Remy, which includes all the details I mentioned above. Although, for obvious reasons, this plan was not signed, I’m sure a graphologist could confirm the writing as Special Agent Ren Bryce’s.’
Luis laughed. ‘And for how long did you attend rehabilitation when you left Augusto Val Pando’s employ?’
‘Shut the fuck up,’ said Laker.
Luis froze. His face was half-smile, full fear. The camera zoomed suddenly, blurring the picture, then it slowly came into sharp focus, so that all Ren could see was Javier Luis’ face. It had a puzzled tilt. Ren would have closed her eyes, but she wanted to watch. She could not take her eyes off him.
It wasn’t what she expected. The first bullet was off-target. It grazed the side of Luis’ neck, stunning him, but giving him a chance to turn in his chair to get away. So Ren didn’t see the next bullet rip through his face. Instead, she saw the back of his skull explode and a flap of scalp and hair shoot up in the air and land back down as Luis hit the floor, spattering the marble tiles with blood and brain.
Two more bullets were fired off-camera and she heard James Laker cry out. But it was the sound of his words that echoed louder.
45
There was not one person in the world who could see this DVD. Because her career would be over.
For one year, Ren had lived in a world stripped of humanity. It had been that way long before she ever showed up, it was that way after she left. It wouldn’t end with the dismantling of the organization. It would travel with the people who had created it, wherever they went. It would fester in prisons, in homes, it would multiply.
Mission number one: leave Ren Bryce behind. Mission number two: seduce Domenica Val Pando into believing that there was a woman called Remy Torres, who was twenty-six years old and who had just suffered the harrowing experience of losing her four-month old baby. Mission number three: seduce Domenica Val Pando into trusting Remy Torres. Mission number four: use that trust to find out everything there is to know about Domenica Val Pando.
Part of Ren wanted to stand by what she had done. She understood why she had done it. When she got to know James Laker – she thought he was kind, she thought he saw the world like she did – she latched on to what was the closest thing to normal she had found in the compound. She wanted to help him and she wanted to help his seven-yearold son. Javier Luis had not been part of the bargain. And, until Laker had been forced to do otherwise, Javier Luis had not been part of the bargain in his eyes either.
Whatever Erubiel Diaz did was out of Ren’s control. But she felt responsible for Luis. She knew now that in releasing James Laker, she had released Javier Luis to rape and kill.
What she had done then seemed so different to what she would do now. It had gone against all her training. It felt like it was a decision made by a completely different person. Looking back, she felt she had been detached from reality. That ability made more sense when she was diagnosed. Being bipolar, she had a natural tendency to
