force assigned to find you, I was given access to all sorts of classified files and evidence. I know how you and the other agents from Behavioral Analysis who started the Behavioral Modification Project worked — ’
‘I had nothing to do with that,’ Fletcher said, surprised by the heat in his voice. ‘I was trying to expose it.’
Borgia wasn’t listening. ‘I read the files,’ he said. ‘Your war crimes are all laid out in black and white, everything you and the others did.’ He spoke with great fervour, working himself into a near-religious mania. ‘I know how you all got rich by working in collusion with select pharmaceutical companies developing this miracle vaccine to eliminate male violence. How you picked the test subjects. I know you helped bury the bodies — the ones you didn’t cremate at the psychiatric hospitals — and I even know how you and the others doctored the paperwork.’
‘I tried to expose the project,’ Fletcher said again.
‘Next you’ll try to convince me you didn’t kill the three agents who came to arrest you.’
‘They were CIA operatives, not federal agents. They had been sent to my home to kill me. The FBI retrieved the evidence I collected on the BMP, all the — ’
‘Lie to me all you want, Malcolm. I know the truth.’
‘You mean your truth.’ Fletcher tilted his head to one side, his gaze narrowing. ‘Have you read any patient files? Seen any documentation on the Behavioral Modification Project?’
Borgia didn’t answer.
‘I didn’t think so,’ Fletcher said. ‘You haven’t been able to put your finger on any patient files or any documentation regarding the project because they don’t exist. The FBI destroyed every last shred of documentation to keep the truth from seeing the light of day — and, it appears, conveniently used me as their scapegoat.’
‘If you tell me, I’ll show you mercy.’
‘Tell you what?’
‘Where you buried my brothers and sisters,’ Borgia said.
80
‘You’re a patient,’ Fletcher said, more curious than surprised. ‘A former patient of the Behavioral Modification Project.’
Borgia’s head craned back. He stared up at the ceiling as though there were a hole up there through which someone was speaking to him.
‘Which hospital?’
‘You tried to save Ali Karim,’ Borgia said. ‘You risked your life and your freedom to keep Ali Karim from dying.’ His head snapped forward, and he looked back through the chain link. ‘You’re capable of empathy.’
‘Unlike you.’ Fletcher motioned with a sweeping hand to the others in the room. ‘How many people have you tortured and killed, Special Agent Borgia? How many children?’
The man blinked, confused. ‘I didn’t kill anyone,’ he said. ‘All I did was find them.’
‘Them?’
‘The doctors and nurses from the hospital, the ones who helped engineer a private mass murder,’ Borgia said. ‘All those patients who died, and what happened to the doctors and nurses who killed them? They were placed inside witness protection. They were given new identities and new lives and allowed to go back to work in psychiatric facilities all over the country. The Bureau couldn’t let their sins — or yours — become public knowledge, so they did what they did best — sweep everything under the rug.’
Fletcher thought back to Theresa Herrera’s missing medical records. WitSec had expunged them along with any other traces of her former identity when they placed her into witness protection. And the other families he had found — their medical records too had been obliterated.
‘And you found their new identities,’ Fletcher said. ‘And you gave them to Marie Clouzot and Brandon Arkoff.’
A thin, knowing smile and then Borgia added, ‘You did provide me with one piece of inspiration, Malcolm.’
‘Do tell.’
‘You taught me the importance of taking justice into one’s own hands. It’s the only way to mete out a punishment that properly fits the crime.’
‘One difference.’
‘What’s that?’
‘I didn’t dissect innocent children and sell their organs.’
‘I have nothing to do with that. My job was to find out their new identities and make sure they were properly punished.’
‘You mean tortured. I’m assuming your two companions are patients like yourself.’
‘I didn’t kill anyone,’ Borgia said again.
‘Spoken like a true psychopath.’
Borgia pressed himself up against the kennel door. His eyes were hot. Wet.
Was he crying?
He was crying.
‘Don’t you want to clear your conscience?’ Borgia asked. There was no real emotion in his voice, but the manufactured tears continued to spill down his cheeks. ‘Or are you really the soulless psychopath they say you are?’
‘Your name — your real name. We’ll start there.’
Borgia swallowed, his jaw set. ‘Terence Davidson,’ he said. ‘I entered the project when I turned fifteen — the Spaulding Psychiatric Center in Philadelphia.’
‘Why? What happened to you?’
‘A neighbour’s dog kept shitting in our backyard, so I decided to take care of the problem. The neighbour’s daughter caught me with the dog before I could do anything, and when she threatened to tell everyone, I… made sure she wouldn’t be able to talk.’ Borgia voice’s contained no shred of shame, regret or guilt. ‘Instead of juvenile detention, the judge said I could undergo psychiatric help at Spaulding, and you know what happened there. You know what you did.’
‘And your two companions, Marie Clouzot and Brandon Arkoff?’
‘They were at Spaulding.’
‘I want their names. Their real names.’
‘Marie Clouzot and Brandon Arkoff. Now tell me — ’
‘No,’ Fletcher said. ‘When were you released from Spaulding?’
‘I wasn’t released, I escaped.’
‘How?’
Borgia grinned. ‘Marie freed us — all of us. Brandon, Marie and I — we fled together. She took care of us. We stayed together, we lived together — we survived. Together.’
‘How heartwarming,’ Fletcher said. ‘Why did you try to kill Ali Karim?’
Borgia recoiled as if slapped. ‘I didn’t kill him,’ he said.
Fletcher sighed. ‘Why did you give the order to have him killed?’
‘That came from above. The Director himself. You’ve made a lot of enemies, Malcolm. We can’t afford to have you or anyone associated with you running around the country — who knows how many people know your dirty little secret.’
‘I’ll say it again. I had no involvement with the Behavioral Modification Project. I was trying to expose it. Ali Karim spent a small fortune hiring forensic archaeologists to try to find out where the hospitals buried the bodies.’
Borgia’s eyes widened, surprised and possibly offended. ‘Karim,’ he said, his voice rising, ‘was helping that murdering whore the world knew as Theresa Herrera find her precious little boy. Karim was helping to hide you all these years — you, a murdering psychopath who had helped to orchestrate a secret mass murder. Karim protected you, the Bureau protected their murderers — gave them new identities, relocated them, paid for everything — and
