Cross Cut (33 page)

“You ordered those guys to kill us?”

“What? You thought Andonian was responsible for everything? Please, everything he ever did was my design. Although, for the record, I didn’t want any harm to come to you at that parking lot. I was saving you for now. But I don’t think those mobsters were expecting you to return fire. The idea was to scare you off.”

My eyes adjusted to the light. I pushed my neck forward, trying to get a better look at her, but it was useless. I just couldn’t accept what I was seeing.

“You look confused,” she said with deep humor. “You came so close to unraveling everything back at my office. Mere minutes and it would have been apparent I was associated with Andonian. The reason why you saw him parked across the street, was not because he was following you—”

“He was coming to see you—”

“Precisely. I see this taking a while if you’re going to keep interrupting, so let me just recant relevant history for you. I want this to end sooner rather than later. Tomorrow, I’m leaving this country.

“Now, as I have already told you, in another life, I was a soldier. I was a psychological operations specialist. During my training I learned a lot about human nature. About how powerful words can be, and how significant one single act can be, so as to affect not just one person’s opinion—but a whole nation. To cut a long story short, I fell afoul of the army, and their lack of appreciation of such methods. We were stuck sticking fliers to building walls that were just going to be blown up at some point. So I changed allegiance, and joined a group of like minded individuals, who planned the diversion of US assets intended for use in Afghanistan, while we were still employed in our various positions. Two of those men you already know about—Guy Lynch and his brother, Lee Lynch

“The process we had originally planned involved months of work. Our source in logistics organized routes, and we worked under cover of darkness. Transferring and altering shipping containers so no one would even suspect anything was gone until it was too late. No doubt you see a direct relation to what had been happening in San Francisco. It isn’t coincidence. In any case, somebody found out about us, one of the locals, and Guy struck him across the head, killing him. We originally thought of just dumping the body, but that’s when I saw an opportunity—an opportunity to divide and conquer, using my mindset. We would cause a panic throughout the location, creating a false set of killings that the locals would struggle to comprehend. People would fear to walk the street, making our work easier. Army intelligence would be likewise, and their efforts would be concentrated elsewhere. Obviously, I never counted on Kendra Ryder”

“So anyone who got in your way—” I stopped.

“Yes, we used them just as I’ve said.”

“But why the Cross—in such an area, surely no one believed it was the radicals.”

She laughed. “Perhaps not, but that’s just the beauty of it. The point was to never point anywhere at all. It was just a case of complete and utter confusion. Pure chaos. All people see in such an act is a message. It is in our nature to search for meaning. What better way was there to confound all parties? If you want to create the purest form of diversion, the best way is to give someone a yearning to seek out the truth, a truth that not only conflicts, but simply doesn’t exist.”

“All that to divert attention? Just like now—so pointless.”

“You just don’t understand the beauty of chaos, do you? The truth of it is, we as humans are so much more predictable in such circumstances. Live within reason, and you are also susceptible to it. But those who create chaos can choose to control it. The Cross Cutter was a great example of such a situation. All it took was a naive gang underling, seeking psychiatric help, and I, along with my associates, was able to manipulate this whole progression of events. After generating trust, I realize Andonian’s main concern was to prove himself to his boss, someone like a father figure to him. Through hypnosis, I provided him the confidence. And then I learn of his interaction with Guy Lynch, a man I’d lost all interest in for so many years, here, in the same state. Everything is coming into place, and I can’t believe my luck. Not only do I manage to extend Andonian’s gaze with the operation, I persuade him to use Guy Lynch much like I did all those years ago. Such a hilarious turn of events. All it took was for a psychologist
helping
the FBI to confuse matters even more, by pointing them in all kinds of directions that steer them away from the truth.

“Then I try to persuade Andonian another way to Cristescu’s heart was to hurt Kendra Ryder. A task he would never complete. It seems I was always going to be the one to see to that.”

“So what, you failed. The FBI busted the operation.”

She grinned. “On the contrary. My associates never had anything to do with Andonian’s initial operation. The whole idea was for them to be caught. Such a high capacity seizure of evidence is then taken to an evidence storage facility under FBI guard. Relatively easy to divert when you have people in the right places.” She gave a low chuckle. “Who did you think tipped the San Francisco FBI off?”

“So it was one of your guys that shot Andonian—”

She nodded.

Kacie was making noise in the corner. Dr Bishop approached her, held out a knife, and didn’t say a word. She simply looked at her, and Kacie became quiet again. Dr Bishop then walked to the other side of the room, where she brought forward a stool, leaving it in the middle of the room. She then took out a small video camera from a bag at the foot of the stairs, placing it on top of the stool.

“Okay, let’s finish this,” she said.

“What are you doing?”

“Why do you continue to ask questions you should know the answer to? I’m going to film you and your friends’ demise, and send the video to Kendra Ryder as a departing gift.”

She didn’t stutter at all, and her calmness fazed me to a definite degree. Bluffing her out of it seemed a losing tactic, but I had nothing else to go on.

“You can’t—you always manipulated people. You’re not a killer,” I said.

She sighed. “Directly, I have killed five people. In any case, who do you think started this? It was I, not Guy. After his blow killed that poor civilian, I devised and carried out the further methods. He merely took over from the second time in Afghanistan.” She looked at Kacie, against the wall, Melissa, on the floor, and then me. “It’s only right that I finish this. That stupid girl who killed Guy will not be the last person to use my original method.”

She turned the camera on and moved toward Kacie. “I think I’ll start with you,” she said, tugging at the chains. She removed them from the piping and quickly kept Kacie’s arms behind her back. Kacie looked too weak and dazed to do anything about it. Dr Bishop had obviously denied them food, perhaps even liquid.

Against the right wall was a wooden table, old and ragged. It could have been an old style workbench, but I couldn’t really see from my position. Dr Bishop had the strength to push Kacie up and over the tabletop. Kacie struggled mildly, but it didn’t help. Dr Bishop worked her way around the table. At each corner of the table there were what I could only describe as metal rings embedded into the wood, and she used these to tie wrap Kacie’s hands securely. She struggled with the feet, forcing them inside without any care of which bones would break.

A readjustment of the camera on the stool, and the preparations were set. By now my throat was sore, but it didn’t stop me from screaming for help. This seemed to worry her somewhat, as she made her way toward me, the butt of her knife striking me in the temple.

“No one can hear you. Do that again and I’ll only make your turn last longer.”

She went over to the table again, and I struggled with the tie wraps some more. My wrists were bleeding. Dr Bishop walked around the table, staring down at Kacie from behind with the knife in her hand. I struggled some more, and as Dr Bishop began the first incision, my head flinched backwards, all the while I groaned in anger as the knife made its way down Kacie’s body. It took ten seconds for the blood to drip down off the table and onto the floor. The tiny patter of the drops echoed throughout the basement and Kacie gave out intermittent groans. By this time I could no longer look. Dr Bishop’s face was as emotionless as Ryder’s. No sign of remorse, or even enjoyment, just strictly businesslike.

Turning to my left, as Dr Bishop continued, I could see faint movements from Melissa. Her arms and her legs twitched on the concrete floor, and her upper body jerked upward. She supported herself with one hand against the floor and looked at me, letting out a startled gasp. The light from the stairs shone across the left side of her face. By now, Dr Bishop realized she was awake. Knife in hand, gleaming crimson and dripping, Dr Bishop walked over to Melissa. Melissa was pushed back to the floor and with her other hand, Dr Bishop dragged her across to the chains that had held Kacie previously.

“Shut up,” Dr Bishop said. She fumbled with the chains and eventually sacrificed the knife to use both hands. Melissa jerked her head forward, as if she were trying to bite Dr Bishop. Dr Bishop pushed her back and said something, but I was concentrating on something else—the knife on the floor. If I could somehow break free and retrieve the knife, now was the time to do it. But the more I exerted effort in doing so, the more blood escaped my wrists. Any harder and I would have cut into the veins. If I was a defeatist, that would’ve almost felt preferable. It would have been far better than allowing Dr Bishop to butcher me.

It was useless, though. As Dr Bishop continued with the chains, I leaned back and shut my eyes. Was this it? Was this how it all ends? In a basement with a complete lunatic of a woman? Nerks. But that’s how it looked. Cassandra Bishop had chosen her own brand of chaos, and she was controlling it. And whether it be fate or synchronized realization, there was only one person I could possibly think of that could break such chaos, and it was her face I saw; peering at me from the trap door from above, like she was some goddamned angel waiting to take me to heaven—the face of Kendra Ryder. In an ethereal blur as my eyes struggled to focus, but it was Ryder nonetheless.

I was hallucinating, of course—surely. Ryder was back at home. Sleeping, as she contemplated the
success
of her solution. A thought came to me, though, however hazy; the fact that Swanson knew Andonian had
someone
from the FBI under his thumb—surely the person he was referring to was Dr Bishop. If that was the case, what of Agent Gibbs? Were they both in on it? Would Gibbs have eventually ratted on Bishop? Did she even know Bishop was involved? Hell—was Gibbs likely to go the way of Andonian?

Too many questions, and in that moment I was losing myself. The vision of Ryder coming down the stairs didn’t feel real. More like a tempting siren, offering to take me away from this place at a price. A price I wasn’t willing to pay. I couldn’t just leave Melissa and Kacie here.

Dr Bishop finished with the chains and turned around. She looked up to the stairs and, to my surprise, she could see it too. I’d never seen her betray uncertainty before, but at that moment she froze. It felt as if she was sharing my insanity, as she clambered for the knife and pointed it at the stairs.

Ryder’s glow was fading, but her body remained. She was holding the Beretta 92 in her right hand, the other still in a sling.

Dr Bishop said, “Kendra Ryder, as I live and breathe. You were an annoyance once before, but this is unacceptable.” Unless she had her own gun in her pocket, she was at a disadvantage, and she knew it. She quickly sought to remedy that the only way she could—by using a deterrent. She retreated quickly to Melissa, and placed the knife across her neck. “The one over there is as good as gone. You don’t want to lose another, do you?”

Ryder didn’t move her body or avert her gaze. She didn’t even look at me.

“I’m genuinely at a loss for words,” Dr Bishop said. “How long did you know about me?”

Ryder kept her arm steady. “Ever since the day Ader met you, it became apparent, at least to me, who you really were. You even told Ader, directly, that everything revolved around me. With that in mind, anyone and everything heading my way was suspect, but I would naturally give some leeway to certain people. People that
should
be heading my way, be they authority or criminal. So when a psychiatrist unknown to me, merely a contractor to the FBI, starts taking an interest in my assistant, I was weary. I also had my other assistant do some research on Lee Lynch’s life in Leavenworth Prison. No one suspected he was in touch with anyone. Indeed, the files say as much. He talked to no one—but, that wasn’t completely true. The files talk of continuing psychiatric evaluation, which obviously required a psychiatrist. God knows how you managed to get into such a position, and you definitely looked different from what my assistant tells me, but that psychiatrist was you.”

Dr Bishop managed a grin. “Nice to see what happened to you never dulled your senses. But I still fail to see why you are here.” She paused for a second, and smiled still. “—of course, you ignored my guilt at your home, so as to wait for me to lead you to where your precious Melissa was. Very risky.”

Ryder nodded. “I knew Melissa and Agent Cordell had been abducted ever since you coerced them to phone Ader, in an attempt to dull our concern. That was a mistake. Myself, Ader and Melissa make a habit of using code when communicating amongst company. When they both used the word
broke
, it may have seemed odd, perhaps even suspicious, but I doubt you would have thought anything of it. What you couldn’t have known is that
broke
is the code word we use for trouble. Something Melissa sought to take advantage of.