what I’m doing. He said to trust you implicitly, and that’s what I’m doing. I know you removed your phone battery so I couldn’t trace you, but I should tell you I’ve been assisting Karim in researching this… project, and I — ’
‘What about Dr Sin’s cell signal?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Keep searching.’ Fletcher hung up and removed the battery.
Marie Clouzot’s heels echoed loudly as she walked across the wide, cavernous space of cold concrete inside the old printing press. Fractured sunlight filtered through the building’s grated windows, the dank, frigid air smelling of rust and ancient machinery.
The light faded as she moved down a corridor of closed doors. She opened the last one.
The Asian doctor she’d found treating Santiago in New Jersey was sitting in the corner. Brandon had bound the tiny woman’s wrists and ankles.
Marie, bending stiffly, removed the strip of duct tape covering the woman’s mouth. ‘Your driver’s licence says your name is Dr Dara Sin.’
The woman didn’t answer. She swallowed, shivering in the cold.
‘I need you to perform some surgery for me, Dr Sin.’
‘I can’t help you.’
‘Of course you can. You’re a doctor. You’ve performed surgery before.’
‘I can’t. Look.’ The woman turned to one side, and Marie saw the broken fingers.
Brandon hadn’t done that. He had been careful handling her — had made her comfortable before locking her inside the trunk next to Santiago.
‘You broke your fingers,’ Marie said, more to herself. She blinked at the sight, as though she could wash it away, and then snapped her head to the woman. ‘You broke your fingers.’
‘I can’t help you,’ Dr Sin said again, and Marie swore she saw the woman grin.
Marie gripped the woman’s throat as a high-pitched keening roared past her gritted teeth. The doctor fought back, her bound limbs and wrists kicking and thrashing, but she had no place to go, and she was too small and too old to mount a fight. Marie, considerably taller and heavier, straddled the woman, choking her, slamming her small head against the floor. Marie felt the small crucifix on the thin gold chain bouncing against her chest. She didn’t ask God for forgiveness. She had given up on that business a long time ago.
The cheap gold chain and crucifix, a gift from her mother, was a relic from a former life. A reminder of long months locked inside a caged room. Tears burning her eyes, she had prayed to God for help until her knees were callused. He had rejected her because He had decided she was not worthy of His love.
With the rejection had come a revelation: at age fifteen, she had discovered God did not care. The world, made in His divine image, contained no feeling or mercy. Men could rape and pillage and murder without consequence. God and His world didn’t pause to grieve for the dead; they continued their deaf forward march.
But you had a choice. You could suffer in silence or you could find a way to cope.
The doctor finally relaxed. Marie kept her grip firm through the death spasms and then it was done.
Marie slumped back against the floor, sitting, her face flushed from the exertion.
Brandon was watching her from the doorway. The dim light coming from the hall behind him highlighted the worry etched on his face.
‘Our assistant funeral director has left several messages on my phone,’ he said. ‘The Baltimore police are at the funeral home, asking questions. It’s time to leave.’
‘They can’t find us here.’
Brandon, she could tell, wanted to fight her on this. But he had no fight left in him.
‘You can go if you want,’ she said, wrapping her arms around herself. ‘I’m staying here.’
Brandon shoved his hands in his pockets, jingling his change and keys as he stared down at her from the doorway. Marie didn’t stare back — she didn’t want another argument, and she had made up her mind. It wasn’t a foolish decision, deciding to stay here. She was safe. She could stay here as long as she wanted, tucked in this womb of concrete half buried beneath the earth. There was no reason to leave, not yet.
Brandon cleared his throat. ‘How much longer?’ he asked, his question barely above a whisper.
‘Until I’m satisfied,’ Marie said, wondering if such a thing was possible.
61
Fletcher was closing in on Baltimore, the winter sky beginning its rapid shift into darkness, when he replaced the BlackBerry’s battery and called M.
She didn’t give him a chance to speak. ‘The Feds have accessed Karim’s computer network. I need to shut down, and we need to meet so I can show you the videos.’
‘What videos?’
‘The ones taken inside Karim’s New Jersey beach home,’ M said. ‘I saw what happened to Karim, to Boyd Paulson and Nathan Santiago, all of it.’
Fletcher sat up in his seat. ‘The security software on the laptop in the panic room wasn’t set to record video,’ he said.
‘Correct. You set that software to record, and the hard drive fills up quickly.’
‘Then how did you come by these videos?’
‘I disabled the security software and replaced it with my own — a program that runs in the background. Any time a camera’s motion tracker detects movement, the recording starts, and the video images are temporarily stored on the computer’s hard drive before this program that I wrote compresses the files and uploads them to an FTP server, where they can be downloaded and viewed. That way we have copies in case a laptop is removed from a panic room, or damaged.’
‘Sound?’
‘Inside the house, yes, but not outside,’ she said. ‘I heard the entire conversation between Borgia and Karim. I saw what transpired inside the treatment room. How you intervened and saved Mr Karim’s life.’
‘What happened to Santiago?’
‘A man took him and placed him in the backseat of a Lincoln Town Car — the same man who shot Boyd Paulson inside the garage. The man has some sort of facial disfigurement.’
‘And Dr Sin?’
‘The man pulled a gun on her inside the treatment room. Then he trussed her and placed her in the trunk of the Lincoln.’
‘Alive?’
‘Alive. Hold on.’
On the other end of the line Fletcher heard the tap of computer keys. He thought about Santiago and the doctor. They were alive when they were taken, but where had they been taken?
Then he thought about the netbook. It contained the information downloaded from Corrigan’s phone — addresses and phone numbers, GPS data. The netbook was locked inside the Jaguar’s trunk, and he had no way to access it.
M came on the line and said, ‘The Feds just found the FTP site, but they won’t find the video files. I erased everything.’
‘There’s always a trace.’
‘Not if you know what you’re doing.’ For the first time Fletcher heard a note of anger in her voice. ‘Trust me, they won’t find a bloody thing on the laptop or the server. I need to shut down and get going. What else do you need me to do?’
‘See what you can find out about Alexander Borgia.’
‘I’ve already started,’ she said. ‘Now, when and where do you want to meet?’
III
