An Evil Mind (40 page)

‘Where is she?’ Taylor asked.

‘There’s a light switch on the wall to the right of the door,’ Lucien told them.

Hunter reached for it.

A feeble yellowish bulb at the center of the ceiling flickered a couple of times, as if in doubt whether it would come on or not. It finally did, and it brought with it an electronic hiss that echoed annoyingly around the room.

They found themselves in a semi-bare room, twenty feet square. Two of the thick, solid concrete walls were adorned by a few handmade bookshelves, all of them loaded with books that were covered by a thick layer of dust. The wall to the left of where they stood had a single steel door set right in the center of it. The door had a dappled gunmetal look to its surface, as though it were meant to draw the eye. Against the wall directly in front of them was a console desk that must’ve been at least fifty or sixty years old, where a multitude of buttons, switches, levers and old-fashioned dial gauges could be found. A switched-off computer monitor hung on the wall just above the console desk. This was definitely the shelter’s main control room.

The floor was simple polished concrete. A plethora of metal and PVC pipes of different diameters crisscrossed the ceiling in all directions, disappearing through the walls. A couple of medium-sized square cardboard and wooden boxes were piled up one on top of the other in one corner of the room. They looked to be supplies.

Hunter’s eyes began searching the room.

How many victims has Lucien tortured and killed locked away in this hellhole
, he thought.

‘Madeleine is through that door,’ Lucien said. ‘I suggest you hurry.’

‘Which key?’ Taylor asked, holding the keychain up to Lucien once again.

‘Second to last key on your right.’

Taylor holstered her weapon and moved purposefully toward the gunmetal door. Lucien and Hunter followed and the formation inverted: Hunter took the rear, three steps behind Lucien.

Taylor slotted the key into the door lock and twisted it left. With two loud clicks, the lock chamber rotated 360 degrees once, then twice.

Taylor’s heart picked up speed inside her chest as she turned the handle and began pushing the door open.

Police instincts, hyper-sensitivity, training and experience, psychic ability, whatever it is that one has in these situations, Hunter and Taylor both sensed it at the same moment – a new life, a new presence, as if unlocking the door had given the cue for their cop’s intuition to kick in.

Once again, an identical thought crossed both of their minds:
Maybe we’re not too late. There’s still hope.

But that hope vanished fast, because that new life, that presence they’d sensed, wasn’t past the door ahead of them. It was behind them.

Ninety-Six

Click
.

They felt the new presence, but before Hunter or Taylor had a chance turn around, they heard the sound of a bullet being chambered into a 9mm semi-automatic handgun.

‘If any of you two fuckheads move, I’ll blow your fucking heads off. Is that clear?’ The voice that came from the opposite end of the room was sharp, firm and young. ‘Now get your goddamn hands up above your heads.’

Hunter tried to identify the specific direction where the voice was coming from. He was positive that the bullet chambering sound, together with the first few spoken words, had come from the general direction where the piled-up boxes were – probably the perpetrator’s hiding place, but there was barely enough space behind them for a midget to hide. His next sentence, though, had come from a different direction all together, which meant he was moving, but the reverberation inside the room coupled with the incessant light-bulb hiss made pinpointing the perpetrator’s exact location an almost impossible task.

Hunter was pretty sure that he could spin around and squeeze out a shot before the perpetrator realized what was happening, but that would only work if he knew exactly where to place the shot. Guessing wouldn’t cut it – if he missed, he’d be a dead man. He decided not to risk it.

‘Did you all fucking hear me or what?’ the young voice said again, but this time with a much more disturbed edge to it. ‘Hands above your heads.’

Hunter and Taylor finally lifted their hands.

Lucien turned and smiled triumphantly at Hunter as he moved past him.

‘I did good, didn’t I?’ the young voice asked. ‘I followed the instructions just like you taught me.’

‘You did great.’ Hunter and Taylor heard Lucien reassure whoever else had joined them in that room. ‘OK,’ Lucien said, now addressing them, ‘this is when I have to ask you both to put your guns on the floor, and without turning around, kick them back toward me, one at a time. Robert, you go first. Nice and easy. And let me add that my friend here has a very itchy trigger finger. And he never misses.’

A few hesitant seconds.

‘The fuck you waiting for, big guy?’ the young voice said. ‘Let’s go. Put your gun on the floor and kick it back before

I put a hole in the back of your head.’

Hunter cursed himself, because the little voice inside his head had been telling him that things didn’t feel quite right since they’d got to the derelict house. But in his hurry to try to save Madeleine Reed, he’d disregarded his instincts and proceeded inside the fallout shelter without properly checking the control room.

‘Do it, Robert,’ Lucien said. ‘He really will blow your brains all over these walls.’

‘Fucking right, I will. You think this is a game, big guy?’

The voice had moved closer. Hunter was almost certain that he was just a little to his right. But Hunter was now holding his weapon high above his head, while the kid behind him had his directly aimed at Hunter’s skull. The advantage had swung the other way. Hunter had no way out.

‘OK,’ he said.

‘Nice and slowly,’ Lucien commanded. ‘Squat down, place your gun on the floor, then get back to a standing position again before kicking it back toward me.’

Hunter did as he was told.

‘Your turn, Agent Taylor,’ Lucien said.

Taylor didn’t move.

‘Bitch, did you hear what he said?’ the young voice asked with overwhelming anger.

Lucien lifted his hands, signaling his accomplice to give him a minute.

‘I’m well aware of many of the FBI’s protocol field rules, Agent Taylor,’ he said, keeping his voice steady and unthreatening. ‘I’m also aware that some of those rules are not supposed to have any exceptions whatsoever. High on that list is the rule that mandates that an FBI agent shall never surrender his or her weapon to a suspect or perpetrator during a hostage situation.’

Taylor clenched her teeth in frustration.

‘Make no mistake here, Agent Taylor, this isn’t your typical hostage situation. This is a life or death situation . . . for you and Robert, that is. If you don’t slide your weapon over to me, you
will
die. It’s not a threat. It’s a certainty. You need to make a judgment call, and you need to do it sharpish.’

‘Fuck this explaining bullshit, Lucien,’ the young voice blurted out. ‘Let’s just kill these two fucks and get it over with.’

The new ring to the kid’s voice told Hunter that he was right on the edge; going over it wouldn’t take much.

‘Your call, Agent Taylor,’ Lucien said. ‘You’ve got five seconds, four . . .’

Hunter’s gaze was fixed on Taylor’s tense body. ‘Don’t be a fool, Courtney,’ he said under his breath.

‘Three, two . . .’

Hunter got ready to move.

‘OK,’ Taylor said.

Hunter breathed out.

Taylor proceeded to slowly place her weapon on the ground before using her foot to slide it across the floor toward Lucien.

Hunter and Taylor heard the sound of metal chains scrapping the floor for an instant.

Lucien had picked up Taylor’s gun.

‘Nah ah,’ the young voice said as Taylor began to turn. ‘No one told you to turn around, bitch. Keep your eyes on the Goddamn door in front of you, or I’ll blow your fucking head off.’

Taylor paused.

‘He really means it, Agent Taylor,’ Lucien said.

‘Does this bitch think I’m kidding?’

Even without looking, Hunter and Taylor could sense that the newcomer’s aim had moved to the back of her head. All he needed was a reason.

Taylor didn’t give him one. She finally complied, and her eyes returned to the door.

‘Now I’m going to have to ask you both to kneel down, and put your hands behind your heads,’ Lucien said, while at the same time, unseen to Hunter and Taylor, signaling his accomplice. ‘Do it now.’

Once more, Hunter and Taylor had no way out. They had to do as they were told.

‘So what now?’ Taylor asked. ‘You’re just going to shoot us in the back?’

‘Not my style, Agent Taylor,’ Lucien replied.

Clunk
.

They heard the sharp sound of metal cutting through metal. A few seconds later they heard it again, this time followed by that of a chain running through a loop before falling to the ground.

‘I was just being cautious while I got rid of these chains. Oh, now this is much better.’

The next sound Hunter and Taylor heard was a loud thud, as a heavy metal object was thrown across the room to the other side and collided with the wall.

‘Now please, stand up and turn around,’ Lucien commanded.

They did.

Standing next to Lucien, holding a Heckler & Koch USP9 semi-automatic handgun, was a wiry and small man, a little like a professional horse-racing jockey in build, who looked to be only about twenty-five years old. He wore a crooked smile that seemed to bend in the same direction that he hunched his shoulder, giving him a skewed and somewhat menacing look. His head was completely shaven, and his blue eyes glowed with an intensity that was unsettling. He had a large, badly healed scar that ran from the left side of his chin, all the way to the back of his right ear, crossing his right cheek. Even from a distance, Hunter could tell that the scar had been made either by a blunt knife, or a thick piece of glass. Across the room he also saw the heavy-duty, 48" bolt cutter that Lucien had used to free himself.

‘Remember when I told you that it wouldn’t be hard for me to find an apprentice if I wanted to?’ Lucien said with a lopsided grin. ‘Well, I did want to, and just as I’d said, it wasn’t hard at all. So let me introduce you to Ghost.’ He gestured toward the shaved-headed man to his right. ‘I call him Ghost because he moves like one, so light and silent you won’t ever hear him coming. And due to his size and amazing flexibility, he’s able to hide in places you can’t even imagine.’ Lucien allowed his gaze to move to the cardboard boxes. ‘I know it’s hard to believe, but he was actually inside one of those.’

One of Ghost’s front teeth was chipped. Every few seconds he nervously ran his tongue across its jagged edge, giving him a very edgy look, as if he was about to lose control.

‘I like her,’ Ghost said, his gaze falling over Taylor as if she were naked. ‘And she’s got pretty toes. I
reeeeally
like that. Let’s just kill the big guy and take her with us. We can have some fun with her.’

Taylor didn’t shy away from Ghost’s eyes, the anger in her stare colliding with the desire in his.

‘Did you arrange everything the way we’d planned?’

Ghost nodded. His attention was still on Taylor.

‘I don’t want you to think that I’ve been lying to you all this time,’ he said, ‘because I haven’t. Why don’t you open that door, Agent Taylor?’ He indicated the gunmetal door. ‘And see what lies behind it.’

Taylor held Lucien’s stare for a while longer before turning around and pushing the door open. On the ceiling of the corridor beyond it, two very weak fluorescent tube lights flicked and hissed as if they were about to blow. Their light seemed to travel down the hallway in slow motion, and as it reached the end of it Taylor’s heart almost stopped beating.

Ninety-Seven

Hunter had also turned to see what lay beyond the door.

The corridor was long and narrow. The walls were made of solid concrete, just like the shelter’s control room. There were several doors on both sides of the hallway and one directly at the end of it. All of them in the same dappled gunmetal color as the one Taylor had just opened. They were all shut, with the exception of the one at the far end.

The light that propagated from the fluorescent tubes wasn’t strong enough to properly reach the last room, so all they got was a sort of hazy silhouette, but even so, Hunter and Taylor had no problem identifying the shape of a naked woman’s body. She was sitting on a chair. Her head was slumped forward awkwardly. Her hands looked to be tied behind her back, and she didn’t seem to be moving.

Taylor felt a nauseating shiver start right at the pit of her stomach.

‘Ghost,’ Lucien said, ‘the lights.’ He nodded at the control desk.

Still with his attention locked on Hunter and Taylor, Ghost took a couple of steps to his right and flicked a switch on the old-fashioned control console.

Inside the room at the far end of the corridor, another weak light bulb struggled to come to life for a few seconds before finally engaging. It bathed the room in a pale yellowish glow, and right then every muscle in Hunter’s body tensed.

Madeleine Reed wasn’t dead. On the contrary, she was pretty much alive, but compared to the picture they’d seen of her inside Director Kennedy’s office just hours before, she wasn’t even a shadow of the woman she used to be. Her weight had drastically plummeted. Her smooth skin looked like it had aged forty years in just a few months, and it now clung to her bones as if she were a terminal cancer patient. The dark circles under her eyes were so intense they looked like surgical bruises. The eyes themselves seemed to have sunk into her skull just a little, but enough to give her a cadaver’s appearance. Her lips were dry and chipped, and her body looked weak and extremely fragile.

As the light inside the room came on, Madeleine blinked desperately several times, her sad and confused eyes struggling with the brightness after who knows how many hours of darkness. Focus took a while, but when it finally came, her drained brain had to battle to understand the images in front of her. She slowly lifted her head, and the look on her face went from puzzled, to hopeful, and then to pleading, before at last settling on desperate. Her lips moved, but if any words did come out, their sound wasn’t strong enough to reach anyone at the other end of the hallway.