An Evil Mind

Seventy

Hidden location.

Three days earlier.

She coughed and spluttered awake, or at least she thought she was awake. She couldn’t really tell anymore. Her reality was as terrifying as her worst nightmares. Confusion surrounded her twenty-four hours a day, as her brain seemed to be in a constant state of haziness — half numb, half awake.

Due to the lack of sunlight, she had lost track of time a while ago. She knew she’d been locked in this stinking hell-hole for a long time now. To her it felt like years, but it could’ve been just months, or even weeks. Time just trickled by, and no one was counting.

She could still remember the night she met him in that bar on the east side of town. He was older than her, but charming, attractive, well educated, very intelligent, funny, and really knew how to compliment a woman. He made her feel special. He made her feel like she could light up the sky. At the end of the night, he put her in a cab and didn’t offer, or even suggest joining her. He was very polite and gentleman like. He did ask her for her phone number, though.

She had to admit that she was quite excited when he called just a few days later and asked her if she would like to go out for dinner with him. With a huge smile on her face she accepted.

He picked her up that evening, around 7:00 p.m., but they never made it to a restaurant. As soon as she entered his car and buckled up, she felt something sting the side of her neck. He’d acted so fast she didn’t even see his hand move. The next thing she could recall was waking up in this cold and damp room.

The room was exactly twelve paces by twelve paces. She’d counted and recounted it many times. The walls were crude and made of brick and mortar, the floor of rough cement. The door, which sat at the center of one of the walls, was made of metal with a rectangular, lockable viewing slot about five feet from the floor. Like a prison door. There was a thin and dirty mattress pushed up against the back wall. There was a blanket that smelled of wet dog. No pillow. On one corner there was a plastic bucket she was told to use as a toilet. There were no windows, and the weak, yellowish bulb locked inside a metal-mesh box at the center of the ceiling was on 24/7.

Since she’d been taken into captivity, she’d only seen her kidnapper a handful of times, when he would enter her cell to deliver food and water, a new roll of rough toilet paper, and to swop her toilet bucket for a clean one.

So far, he hadn’t touched or hurt her. He never said much either. She would scream, beg, plead, try to talk, but he barely ever replied to her. On one occasion, his simple physical response scared her so much she wet herself. Out of pure fear, her subconscious mind kept on urging her to ask him what he wanted with her, what he would do to her. So one day, she gave in and asked him. He didn’t reply with words. He simply looked at her, and in his eyes she saw something she’d never seen before — unadulterated evil.

He would bring her food and water, sometimes daily, but not always. Though she had completely lost the concept of time, she could still tell that some of the intervals between rations were way too long. Certainly, way over a day or two.

Once, just after the third or fourth food delivery, she had waited for the door to open and tried surprise-attacking him with all the strength she had in her, clawing at his face with her chipped nails. But it seemed like he’d been waiting for it to happen all along, and before she was able to put even a small scratch on him, he punched her stomach so hard, she immediately doubled over and puked. She spent the rest of that day lying on the floor in the fetus position, contorted in pain, her abdomen sore and bruised.

Sometimes the rations were larger than others — more bottles of water, more packets of crackers and cookies, more candy bars, more loaves of bread, sometimes even fruit. Then he’d be gone for a long time. The larger the ration he brought her, the longer it would be before he came back, and the last ration she got was the largest of them all.

She didn’t know exactly how long ago that was, but she knew it was longer than ever before. Very quickly she learned to rationalize everything almost to perfection. By the time she was running out of food and water, he’d be back bringing new supplies, but not this time.

She had run out of food some time ago, maybe three or four days. To her it seemed longer. She ran out of water maybe a day or two after that. She felt weak and dehydrated. Her lips were dried and cracked. Because of how hungry she was, the cold and dampness of the room affected her more than usual now. She spent most of her time curled up into a ball against one of the corners of the room, wrapped up in that stinking blanket. But even so, she couldn’t stop shivering.

For some time, her throat had been feeling like it was on constant fire, but today more than ever. She desperately needed a drink of water. Her eyelids felt heavy and it required an effort of will to force them open. Her head ached in a way that every little movement she made felt as if it would be her last, before her brain exploded inside her skull.

She brought a hand to her clammy forehead, and it felt as if she was touching hot metal. She was burning up.

With amazing effort she lifted her head and looked at the door. She thought she heard something. Steps, maybe. Someone coming.

As crazy as it seemed, a smile came to her lips. The human brain is a very complex organ, and a fragile and shattered mind sometimes clutches at straws. Right there and then she didn’t think of him as the man who would probably rape her repeatedly before killing her. She thought of him as the man-savior who was coming to bring her food and water, who was coming to take away her overflowing toilet bucket that filled the room with stench and sickness.

She held on to the wall and slowly propped herself up on her feet. With the hesitant steps of a battle-weary soldier, she gradually made her way to the door and placed her ear against it.

‘Hello. .’ she called in a voice so weak that it seemed to belong to a scared child.

No reply.

‘Hello. . are you out there?. . Please?’

. .

‘Please can I have some water?’ Her voice was now strangled with tears. She was shivering so badly her teeth were shattering against each other.

‘Please. .?’ She began crying. ‘Please help me. .? Just a few drops of water, please?’

She heard nothing but absolute silence.

She stayed on the floor by the door with her ear pressed hard against it for a long time — a couple of hours, probably. There was no noise. There never was. Her tired brain was so desperate it was starting to trick her. Her fever was so high, she was starting to hallucinate.

It took some time for her sobs to subside. She wiped the tears from her eyes and her dirty cheeks, and with no strength left in her to get back up on her feet again, she crawled back to her corner and her blanket on the other side of the room.

She was losing her mind. She could feel she was losing her mind.

As she curled herself back into a ball again, she started whispering to herself. ‘Don’t give up. Stay strong. You’ll get through this. Stay strong. .’ She paused, frowning as her confused eyes circled the room. ‘Stay strong. .’ she repeated and paused again, forcing her brain to remember, but it was gone. She couldn’t believe it was gone.

‘I’m. .’

Nothing.

‘My name is. .’

Blank.

She desperately wanted to tell herself to stay strong, but she couldn’t remember her own name.

She began crying again.

Seventy-One

‘Madeleine,’ Lucien said. He was still sitting on his bed with his legs stretched comfortably in front of him. ‘Her name is Madeleine Reed. But she likes to be called Maddy.’

A prickling began to run deep inside Hunter’s body, as if soda bubbles were racing through his bloodstream in an expanding sense of urgency.

Taylor felt as if someone had just slapped her across the face.

‘What?’ she asked, leaning forward on her chair.

‘Madeleine Reed, or if you wish, Maddy Reed,’ Lucien repeated with a shrug. ‘She’s twenty-three years old. I picked her up on April 9, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but she was born in Blue Springs City, Missouri.’ He jerked his head toward the end of the corridor outside his cell. ‘You can go check it out if you like. Her family must be going crazy by now.’

Hunter and Taylor both knew that Adrian Kennedy was listening in on the interview. He would have the name and everything else checked in a matter of minutes.

‘April 9?’ Taylor said, her eyes wide with surprise. ‘That’s four months ago.’

‘It is indeed,’ Lucien agreed. ‘But don’t worry, Agent Taylor, I’ve got a little system that works. It’s been proven over the years.’ He smiled. ‘I leave her rations of food and water before I leave, and Maddy is very clever. She figured out very quickly that she had to go easy on it, or else it would all run out before I got back with more. And I’ll tell you, she became quite an expert at it.’ He opened his hands and studied the veins crisscrossing the backs of them. ‘But I was supposed to be back four, maybe five days ago.’

He allowed the seriousness of his words to punch everyone square in the face before he continued.

‘If Maddy ran out of food and water a few days ago, she’d be very weak by now, no doubt about that, but she’s probably still alive. Now, how long she’ll stay that way? I can’t tell you.’

‘Where is she?’ Hunter asked.

‘Tell me about Jessica Petersen,’ Lucien came back. ‘Tell me about the woman you loved.’

Hunter sucked in a deep breath.

‘Tell us where she is, Lucien, so we can save her, and I promise you that I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.’

Lucien rubbed the patch of skin between his eyebrows. ‘Umm.’ He pretended he was thinking about it. ‘No. No deal. Like I’ve said, now it’s your turn to answer my questions. I’ve given you enough.’

‘I will answer them, Lucien,’ Hunter said. ‘I give you my word I will. But if she has run out of food and water four days ago, we need to get to her now.’ The urgency in Hunter’s voice filled the air with electricity.

Lucien just looked at him, unperturbed.

‘What’s the point in letting her die this way, Lucien?’ Hunter pleaded. ‘Whatever satisfaction you got from killing your victims, Madeleine’s death will not give it to you.’

‘Probably not,’ Lucien agreed.

‘So please let her live.’

Lucien looked unfazed.

‘It’s over, Lucien. Look around you. You’ve been caught. By chance, but you’ve been caught. There’s no point in taking anyone else’s life.’ Hunter paused. ‘Please, there must still be something human inside you. Have mercy this once. Let us bring Madeleine in.’

Lucien got back on his feet. ‘Nice speech, Robert,’ he said, pursing his lips. ‘Short, to the point, and with just the right amount of emotion. For a second there, I thought your eyes would tear up.’ Sarcasm was like a second skin for Lucien. ‘But I am having mercy. My kind of mercy. And this is how it works. First I want to hear about Jessica; then, and only then, I’ll tell you the location of Karen Simpson and the other four victims’ remains in New Haven, and I’ll tell you where Madeleine Reed is. After that you and Agent Taylor can go be heroes.’

Lucien saw Taylor check her watch.

‘Yes, you are losing time,’ he said, nodding. ‘Every second suddenly became really precious, hasn’t it? You don’t need me to tell you that dehydration can have irreversible neurological consequences. If you don’t get a move on, even if you find her alive, by the time you get to her she might be nothing more than a vegetable.’

Lucien pointed to Hunter’s chair.

‘So sit your ass back down, Robert, and start talking.’

Seventy-Two

Hunter checked his watch, exchanged a quick, worried look with Taylor, and returned to his seat.

‘What do you want to know?’ he said, looking Lucien in the eye.

Lucien’s smirk was triumphant. ‘I want to know what happened. How come you never married the woman you were engaged to? How come you and Jessica aren’t together?’

‘Because she passed away.’

Taylor turned her head and caught Hunter’s gaze. Something glittered in his eyes, and she thought she detected great sadness in them.

Lucien saw it too. ‘How?’ he asked. ‘How did she die?’

Hunter knew he couldn’t lie. ‘She was murdered,’ he replied.

Taylor couldn’t hide the surprise in her eyes.

‘Murdered?’ Lucien frowned. ‘OK, now this is getting interesting already. Please do carry on, Robert.’

‘There’s nothing more to it. We were engaged and she was murdered before I had the chance to marry her. That’s all there is.’

‘That’s never all there is, Robert. That’s only superficial, and that’s not the purpose of this exercise. Tell me how it happened. Were you there? Did you see it happen? Tell me how you felt. That’s what I really want to know. The feelings deep inside you. The thoughts in your head.’

Hunter hesitated for a split second.

‘You can take as long as you want,’ Lucien challenged. ‘It doesn’t bother me. But remember that the clock is ticking for poor Madeleine.’

‘No, I wasn’t there,’ Hunter said. ‘If I were, it wouldn’t have happened.’

‘That’s a bold statement, Robert. So where were you?’ Lucien sat back down at the edge of his bed. ‘Feel free to start at the beginning.’

Hunter had never talked about what had happened to anyone. Some things he found it better to keep locked inside, in a place he barely visited himself.

‘At that time I hadn’t made detective for the LAPD,’ he began. ‘I was just a police officer with the central bureau. My partner and I were out doing rounds in the Rampart area that day.’

‘I’m listening,’ Lucien said once Hunter paused for breath.

‘Though Jess and I were engaged, we didn’t live together,’ Hunter explained. ‘We were making arrangements to, once I became a detective, which was only a few weeks away, but at that time, we still lived in separate houses. I was supposed to see her that night. We were having dinner together. She’d made reservations in a restaurant somewhere in West Hollywood. But that day, toward the end of the afternoon, my partner and I were dispatched to check on a domestic-violence disturbance in Westlake.

‘We got to the address in less than ten minutes, but it all sounded quiet. Too quiet. The husband must’ve seen our black and white unit approaching through the window. We got out, walked up to the door and knocked. Actually my partner, Kevin, knocked. I walked out to the side of the house to check the window.’

‘So what happened then?’ Lucien urged Hunter.

‘The husband shot Kevin with a sawn-off twelve-gauge shotgun through the letterbox flap on the door. He was hiding behind it, waiting for us.’ Hunter looked down at his hands. ‘The gun was loaded with heavy double-slug terminator ammo. From that distance, the round practically tore Kevin’s body in half.’

‘Wait,’ Lucien said. ‘So just like that, this guy shot a cop through the door?’

Hunter nodded. ‘He was high on crack-cocaine. He’d been high on it for several days. That was also the main reason for the domestic violence. His brain was soup. He’d locked his wife and his little daughter in the house, and had been abusing and beating them. His little girl was six.’

Even Lucien paused for thought. ‘So what did you do after he’d torn your partner in half with a shotgun?’

‘I returned fire. I pulled Kevin away from the door and I returned fire.’

‘And. .?’

‘I aimed low,’ Hunter said. ‘Lower half of the body. I wasn’t looking for a kill shot, just to maim. Both of my shots got through, but with reduced velocity from breaching the door. The first hit the husband on his right thigh, the second on his groin.’

Lucien coughed a laugh. ‘You shot his dick off?’

‘It was unintentional.’

This time it was a full, throaty laugh. ‘Well, if the scumbag was abusing his six-year-old little girl, then I guess he deserved it.’

Taylor found it rich that someone like Lucien would call anyone a scumbag.

‘He survived?’ Lucien asked.

‘Yes. I called for backup, but the amount of blood he was losing, together with being shot in the groin, scared him sober. Before backup and the ambulance arrived, he opened the door and gave himself up.’

‘But your partner didn’t make it,’ Lucien concluded.

‘No. He was dead before he hit the ground.’

‘Too bad,’ Lucien said, with no emotion in his voice. ‘So I guess that you never made it for dinner with Jess that night.’ He paused and studied Hunter. ‘Do you mind if I call her Jess?’

‘Yes, I do.’

Lucien nodded. ‘OK, I apologize and I’ll rephrase. So I guess that you never made it for dinner with Jessica that night.’

‘No, I didn’t.’

Seventy-Three

Los Angeles, California.

Twenty years earlier.

Hunter had helped place Kevin’s body in the coroners’ van before having to recount the details of what had happened to the detectives now assigned to the case. After that, he drove to the Rampart General Hospital to check on the progress of the man he’d shot.

A doctor came out of the operation room to update him. The man, who went by the name of Marcus Colbert, would live, but he would probably walk with a limp for the rest of his life, and he would never again have active sexual relations with anyone.

Hunter’s head was an absolute mess, but he still had to go back to his precinct and fill in several reports before he could go home.

Protocol dictated that after a shootout with fatal victims, any LAPD officer involved must have at least a couple of sessions with an LAPD shrink before, pending a psychological evaluation, being allowed to return to full duties. His captain told him that his first session with the appointed psychologist would be in two days’ time.

Hunter sat in an empty room, staring at the pen in his hand and the empty reports in front of him for a long time. The events that had taken place earlier that day kept on playing and replaying in his mind like an old movie stuck on an endless loop. He couldn’t believe Kevin was gone — cowardly shot dead by a paranoid crackhead on a drug binge. They’d been partners since Hunter had joined the LAPD, a year and a half earlier. Kevin was a good man.

By the time Hunter was finally done with the reports, it was coming up to ten in the evening. Understandably, he’d forgotten all about his dinner plans with Jessica. He gave her a call to apologize and explain why he hadn’t turned up or called earlier, but the phone rang a few times before going straight to the answering machine.

Jessica was a very pretty and intelligent woman, and she fully understood the complications that came with dating a law enforcement officer — the long hours, the last-minute cancellations, the worries for Hunter’s well-being, everything. She also knew that once Hunter made detective, those complications would step up a level or two, but she was in love, and to her that was all that mattered.

Hunter left a short message apologizing, but he didn’t go into any details; he would tell her everything when he saw her. But Jessica was also very sensitive, and though he’d tried to conceal it, he was sure that she would pick up the sadness in his voice, the seriousness of it all.

Hunter found it strange that Jessica hadn’t answered the phone. He didn’t believe she’d gone out, not at that time on a Tuesday evening. Maybe tonight, she was just a little more upset than the previous times he’d had to cancel on her right on the last minute. Despite his head being all over the place, he still managed to think straight enough to stop by a 24-hour grocery shop and pick her up some flowers.

He got to Jessica’s place just before 11:00 p.m. and, as he parked on the street outside and looked back at her house, he was overwhelmed by a dread sensation so intense it nauseated him. He’d never felt anything like it before. But then again, he’d never lost a partner before.

Hunter stepped out of the car and approached the house, but with every step, the dread sensation inside of him multiplied itself exponentially.

Sixth sense, premonition, gut feeling, whatever name anyone would like to call it, by the time he got to the door, Hunter’s was screaming at him. Something wasn’t right.

He had a copy of the keys, but he didn’t need them. The front door was unlocked. Jessica never left the front door unlocked.

Hunter pushed the door open, stepped into Jessica’s dark living room, and was immediately hit by a faint, metallic, copper-like smell that practically paralyzed his heart and sent a roller coaster of shivers up and down his spine.

Blood does not have any smell while flowing through one’s body. It’s only when it comes into contact with air that it acquires a very distinctive, non-chemical, metallic smell, very similar to copper. Hunter had been surrounded by that same smell that afternoon.

‘Oh, God, no.’ The terrified words dribbled from his lips.

The flowers hit the floor.

His trembling hand reached for the light switch.

As brightness bathed the room, Hunter’s world was sent into darkness. A darkness so deep he wasn’t sure if he would ever find his way out of it again.

Jessica lay face down in a pool of her own blood by the kitchen door. The living room around him was a mess — broken lamps, tossed furniture, open drawers — distinct signs of a struggle.

‘Jess. . Jess. .’ Hunter ran to her, calling out in a voice that didn’t even seem to belong to him.

He kneeled by her side, his trousers soaking in her blood.

‘Oh, God.’ His voice broke.

He reached for her and turned her over.

Jessica had been stabbed several times. There were lacerations on both of her arms, hands, chest, abdomen and neck.

Hunter looked at her beautiful face and his vision clouded with tears. Her lips had already faded to a pale color. The skin on her face and hands had acquired a peculiar shade of purple. Rigor mortis hadn’t set in yet, but it was well on its way, which told Hunter that she’d been murdered less than four hours earlier — around the time he was supposed to have picked her up for dinner. That knowledge sent the darkness inside of him plunging into new depths. His soul seemed to abandon him, leaving behind just an empty body, drowning in sorrow.

Gently, Hunter pulled her hair away from her face, kissed her forehead, brought her to his chest and hugged her tight. He could still smell her delicate perfume. He could still feel the softness of her hair.

‘I’m so sorry, Jess.’ A suffocating kind of anguish drowned his words. ‘I’m so terribly sorry.’

He held her in his arms until the tears stopped coming.

If he could’ve exchanged places with her, if he could’ve breathed his life into her body, he would’ve done it. He would’ve given his life for hers without a second thought.

He finally let go of her, and as he turned his head he saw something he had completely missed. Written in blood on one of the living-room walls were the words, cop whore.

Seventy-Four

As Hunter finally told Lucien about that night, a dark, endless pit, like an old wound that had never really healed, reopened in Hunter’s stomach, dragging his heart down, and bringing back an emptiness inside of him he’d fought for twenty years to leave behind.

Everyone was silent for a long moment.

‘So you lost both of your partners in the same night,’ Lucien said. If Hunter didn’t know better, he could’ve sworn there was a pinch of sorrow in Lucien’s voice.

Hunter blinked once, pushing the memory as far away from his mind as he could. ‘Madeleine, Lucien, where is she?’

‘Wait a second, old friend, not so fast.’

‘What do you mean, not so fast?’ Hunter replied. His eyebrows curved into an angry look. ‘You’ve heard all there is to hear about what happened to Jessica. That was what you wanted, wasn’t it?’

‘No, that was just part of it.’ Lucien lifted both of his hands in a truce gesture. ‘But since you told me what happened that night, I’ll give you something in return. It’s only fair. Are you listening?’

It took Lucien just two minutes to give them specific directions of how to get to the site by Lake Saltonstall in New Haven, where they’d find Karen Simpson’s remains, together with the four other victims he’d mentioned earlier.

Hunter and Taylor listened to everything very attentively and without interrupting, but they were sure that Adrian Kennedy would be taking notes from the holding cells’ control room, and within minutes he’d have an FBI team from the New Haven field office dispatched to the site.

‘Now,’ Lucien said when he was done, ‘if you want me to give you Madeleine, let’s go back to Jessica and what happened after she was murdered. Was the perpetrator ever caught?’

‘Perpetrators,’ Hunter corrected him. ‘Forensics found two sets of prints in the house, neither of which matched anything in the police archives.’

Lucien’s expression showed surprise. ‘Was it a sexual attack?’

‘No,’ Hunter replied, and his eyes glistened with relief, ‘she wasn’t sexually assaulted. It was a robbery. They took the few items of jewelry she had, including the engagement ring on her finger, her purse, and all the cash she had in the house.’

‘A robbery?’ Lucien found that strange.

So did Taylor.

‘So why kill her?’ Lucien asked.

Hunter paused. Looked away. Looked back at Lucien. ‘Because of me.’

Lucien waited but Hunter didn’t offer any more. ‘What do you mean, because of you? This was a revenge attack? Someone wanting to get back at you?’

‘No,’ Hunter said. ‘Jessica had several photographs of the two of us together scattered around the house. In many of them I was in uniform. Those picture frames had all been smashed. Some had the word “pig” written in blood on them. Some had the words “fuck the police”.’

As things became clearer, Lucien’s head moved sideways slowly. ‘So, once they found out that she was engaged to an LAPD officer, they decided to kill her just for fun.’

Hunter said nothing. He didn’t even blink.

‘I’m not trying to teach an old dog new tricks,’ Lucien said. ‘But have you looked at gang members? Gang members have a never-ending hatred for the police hardwired into their brains, especially in a city like Los Angeles. The only other people who hate police officers as much are ex-cons, but if the fingerprints weren’t on file, then those are clearly ruled out.’

Hunter knew that full well; he and the detectives assigned to the case had hammered every single gang contact they had for information. They got nothing, not even a whisper.

‘We’re wasting time here,’ Hunter said, irritation starting to come through in his voice. ‘There’s nothing more to say about Jessica or that night. She was murdered. The people who did it have never been caught. Tell us where Madeleine is, Lucien. Let us bring her in.’

Lucien still wasn’t ready. ‘So you blamed yourself for her death.’ Lucien didn’t ask. ‘Actually, you did it twice, didn’t you? First for being a cop, because you knew that was the reason why they killed her. And second because you didn’t make it to her house for dinner as you were supposed to.’

Hunter stayed quiet.

‘The human mind is a funny thing, isn’t it?’ Lucien spoke in a practiced, therapist’s voice — deep, calm and reasonable. ‘Even though you know full well that neither of the two reasons you’ve been blaming yourself for years are actually your fault, even though you understand the psychology behind the “why” you’ve been blaming yourself, you still can’t avert the guilt.’

Lucien chuckled and got back on his feet. ‘Just because one understands psychology, Robert, doesn’t mean one is immune to psychological traumas and pressures. Just because one is a doctor, doesn’t mean one doesn’t get sick.’

Was that what Lucien was doing? Hunter asked himself in thought. Using Jessica’s murder as an example to defend his own sordid actions? Just because Lucien knew that killing people was wrong, just because as a psychologist he probably understood his urges and where they were coming from, it didn’t mean that he could control them.

‘And that’s the reason why, since then, you’ve always been a loner, isn’t it, Robert?’ Lucien said. ‘Because you blame yourself for what happened. She was killed because she was close to you. I bet you promised yourself you’d never let that happen again.’

Hunter wasn’t in the mood to be psychoanalyzed. He needed to end this. And he needed to do it now. Any answer would do. ‘Yes, that’s the reason. Now tell us where Madeleine is.’

‘In a moment. You haven’t satisfied the psychologist in me yet, Robert. What I really want to know about is what happened inside your head after Jessica was murdered. The earthquake of feelings that I know you went through. You tell me that, and I’ll give you Madeleine.’

After twenty years, Hunter had learned how to live with those feelings.

‘What is there to know?’ he asked evenly.

‘I want to know about the anger inside you, Robert. The rage. I want to know if you were angry enough to kill. Did you go after them?’ Lucien asked. ‘The perpetrators? Jessica’s killers?’

‘An investigation was launched,’ Hunter said.

‘That’s not what I asked,’ Lucien shot back with a shake of the head. ‘I want to know if you launched your own crusade to find her killers, Robert.’

Hunter was about to reply when Lucien interrupted him.

‘Don’t lie to me now, Robert. Madeleine’s life depends on it.’

Hunter could feel Taylor’s eyes on him.

‘Yes. I have never stopped searching for them.’

Hunter’s answer seemed to excite Lucien.

‘So here’s the million-dollar question, Robert,’ he said. ‘If you found them, would you take them in, or would you impose your own justice on them. . your own revenge.’

In silence Hunter scratched the back of his hand.

‘You would kill them yourself, wouldn’t you?’ Lucien’s smile was confident. ‘I can see it in your eyes, Robert. I saw it while you were reliving that night. I bet Agent Taylor saw it too. The anger. The rage. The hurt. Fuck being a detective. Fuck the law that you swore to uphold. This would take priority over everything. Over your own life. If you came face to face with the people who took Jessica from you, you’d murder them without an ounce of hesitation. I know you would. I know you’ve thought about it hundreds, maybe thousands of times.’

Hunter breathed in through his nose, and out through his mouth.

‘Hell, you might even torture them a while just to see them suffering for what they did. That would be fun, wouldn’t it?’

Lucien saw a muscle flex on Hunter’s jaw.

‘As I’ve said before,’ he continued, ‘under the right circumstances, anyone can become a killer. Even those who are supposed “to protect and to serve”.’ His dead stare could’ve melted ice. ‘Remember, Robert, a murder is a murder. The reasons behind it have no relevance, be it justified revenge or a sadistic urge.’ He brought his face to less than an inch from the Plexiglas. ‘So one day, you still might become the same as me.’

Lucien was indeed using Jessica’s murder to, in a sick way, give reason to the things he’d done,’ Hunter thought. First appealing to psychological reason, now the emotional ones. Hunter was sure that Lucien had read the police reports. Knowing Hunter as well as he had all those years ago, he would’ve figured out that Hunter had never stopped searching for Jessica’s killers. He had pushed for Hunter to tell the story purposefully, so that he could degrade it and use it as an example and rationale for his own twisted acts.

Despite Hunter’s anger, he still had only one priority in his mind. He’d figured that in his head, Lucien had achieved what he wanted. There was nothing else to say.

‘Tell us where Madeleine is, Lucien.’

Lucien chuckled. ‘OK. But I can’t just tell you the location, Robert. I have to take you there.’

Seventy-Five

It took Taylor a moment to register what Lucien had said. She scowled at him.

‘Come again?’

Lucien stepped away from the Plexiglas. His expression showed no concern at all.

‘I can’t just give you instructions to where she is, Agent Taylor. That won’t work. I have to take you there myself.’

Hunter didn’t seem surprised. In fact, he was expecting it. It was only logical. Because Madeleine’s life depended on them getting to her fast, it was too risky to rely on simple verbal or written instructions. What if when they got to the vicinity of where she was supposed to have been held captive, the instructions suddenly became unclear because the surroundings had changed? What if they took a wrong turn? What if there was a mistake in the instructions, deliberate or not? They would’ve lost valuable time trying to get Lucien to re-explain everything over a phone line, or video link.

No, Lucien had to go with them. He had to personally guide them there.

Taylor’s eyes sought Hunter. He gave her a subtle nod.

Lucien smiled. ‘There’s one more thing,’ he said, winking at her. ‘There will be only the three of us on this trip. No other FBI agents. No one following us either, by land or air. You, Robert, and I will go, not a person more, not a person less. That’s the deal. No negotiation. You break the deal, or I suspect that we’re being followed in any way, I guide you nowhere. Madeleine dies alone, forgotten and forsaken, and I’ll make sure the press finds out why. I can live with that. Can you?’

Taylor knew she was in a no win situation. Nothing had changed since they’d discovered that Lucien was the only one who could guide them to his victims’ remains. He still held all the cards, even more so now that there was supposedly a live victim. He could call the shots any way he saw fit, and at the moment, there was nothing either Hunter or Taylor could do about it.

‘As long as you understand that you’ll be hand-and ankle-cuffed, and we’ll be armed. You try anything, and I swear we’ll gun you down.’

‘I would’ve expected nothing less,’ Lucien replied.

‘We’ll be ready to leave in fifteen minutes.’ She stood up. ‘Where are we going?’

‘I’ll tell you when we’re on our way,’ Lucien replied.

‘I need to know if we need a plane or a car.’

Lucien nodded his agreement. ‘A plane first. Then a car.’

‘I need to know how much fuel we’ll need.’

‘Enough to get us to Illinois.’

As Hunter and Taylor took their first steps back toward the door at the end of the corridor, Lucien halted them.

‘I guess that day is closer than you think, Robert,’ he said.

Hunter and Taylor both paused and turned around to face Lucien again.

‘What day is that?’ Hunter asked.

‘The day that you might become the same as me.’ If Lucien’s voice had sounded cold and emotionless before, this time it sounded like it could’ve come from some ancient devil. . completely heartless. ‘Because for the past two days, my friend, you’ve been sitting before the man you’ve been seeking for twenty years.’

Hunter felt his stomach curl into a ball.

‘I was the one who took Jessica from you.’

Seventy-Six

Hunter didn’t move, didn’t breathe, didn’t blink. It was like his whole body went into lockdown.

‘What was that?’ Taylor was the one who asked the question.

Lucien’s gaze was cemented on Hunter, but other than the initial frown of confusion at his statement, he got nothing else from the LAPD detective.

‘You think I’m saying this just to get under your skin, don’t you, Robert?’

Despite the awkward feeling starting to gain momentum deep inside of him, Hunter still looked calm.

‘Which you obviously are,’ Taylor cut in. There was no disguising the irritation in her voice. ‘You ran out of tricks and now you’re just stalling. You know what? I wouldn’t be surprised if there is no Madeleine Reed held captive anywhere. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’d just made her up because you ran out of acts for this little performance of yours. I think your chamber is empty. You’re panicking, and now you’re firing blanks because you know the game is really up.’

Lucien faced Taylor, a smirk stretching his lips. ‘Is that really your argument, Agent Taylor? I’m firing blanks because I know the game is up? Is that the best you can come up with?’ He coughed a laugh before his stare turned to ice once more. ‘Wow, I could eat a bowl of alphabet soup and shit a better argument than that.’ Lucien jerked his chin at the CCTV camera just outside his cell. ‘Why don’t you go ask your people who have been listening in on us? Go ask them if Madeleine Reed is real or not. I’m sure they’ve been busy running a few checks.’

‘Even if there is someone named Madeleine Reed from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,’ Taylor shot back, still keeping her composure, ‘who has been reported as missing sometime after April 9, it doesn’t mean you’ve got her, or that you even know where she is. A list of names can be easily obtained over the Internet from every missing-persons bureau in the country. You are well prepared. You proved that. I’m sure that even someone as arrogant as you must have entertained the possibility that one day you might be caught. It’s reasonable to think that you’d have a few tricks already prepared for that eventuality. But even if you were the one who had kidnapped Madeleine, you can give us no proof that she’s still alive. You could’ve killed her months ago, and you know that there’s no way we can know for sure. So now you just picked her name out of the many that you’ve tortured and murdered, and are using her to give you a last chance outside.’

Taylor took a breath, looked at Hunter, and then back at Lucien.

‘I wasn’t joking when I said that we’ll gun you down if you try anything,’ Taylor continued. ‘If you think this trip will give you a chance at escaping and we’re not going to take decisive action because we think you might have information that’ll lead us to a live victim, you’ve got another think coming.’

‘Now that’s a much better argument than the firing blanks one, Agent Taylor,’ Lucien said, clapping his hands three times. ‘But as you’ve just pointed out, there’s no way you can know for sure. So when you find out that there really is a Madeleine Reed, who was reported missing in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, after April 9, can you really afford to call my bluff?’ He gave her a couple of seconds to think about it before adding, ‘Because if you do and I’m not bluffing, the amount of shit that will rain on you and on the FBI will last a lifetime.’

Hunter was barely listening. Lucien’s words were still bouncing around in his head — ‘because for the past two days, my friend, you’ve been sitting before the man you’ve been seeking for twenty years. I was the one who took Jessica from you.’

Every atom in his body wanted to believe that Lucien was just bluffing, but Hunter had seen something in Lucien’s eyes — a disquieting defiance that he knew usually only came with certainty.

‘I can see your eyes wild, Robert,’ Lucien said, taking his attention away from Taylor. ‘You’re trying to decide if I’m telling the truth or not. Maybe I can help you with that.’ He ran his tongue over his top lip. ‘Yellow-fronted house, number 5067 on the corner of Lemon Grove Avenue and North Oxford, in East Hollywood.’

Hunter felt his throat constrict. That had been Jessica’s address. But if Lucien had read the police reports, that information would’ve been very easy to obtain.

Lucien read his mind.

‘I know, I know,’ he conceded. ‘That proves nothing. An address is easy to acquire. But how about this. Out of the photographs you mentioned Jessica had scattered around the house, the largest of them all was in a silver frame on a small table by the dark brown leather sofa in the living room. The picture was of the two of you at some sort of LAPD dinner party or award ceremony. You were in uniform and proudly displaying an award. She was wearing a purple dress with a matching purse. Her hair was loose, but thrown to one side, over her left shoulder.’

Still with his gaze firmly set on Hunter, Lucien paused, giving his old friend’s brain a chance to try to match his words to the images locked away in Hunter’s memory.

And then he delivered a final blow.

‘But you know the real difference between that and all the other photographs that were vandalized in the house, don’t you, Robert? That was the only one on which the word “PIG” was written vertically, instead of horizontally.’

Seventy-Seven

Hunter felt his heart stall, his blood freeze in his veins, and the pit in his stomach turn into a black hole that threatened to swallow his soul into oblivion. He wanted to speak, but his voice seemed to have gotten stuck in his throat.

His eyes were focused on Lucien, but not his mind. All of his thoughts had traveled back to the night that part of him had died with Jessica. He didn’t need to search long. Every detail of what he’d seen that night had been locked away somewhere in his brain. Accessing those memories was painful, but simple. He could practically see the photograph Lucien was talking about, right in front of him — the smashed glass, the silver frame, and the word ‘PIG’ written in large blood letters — vertically. As Lucien had said, that had been the only photograph on which a word had been written that way.

Trying his best to think logically, Hunter somehow managed to restrain his anger before it boiled out of his body.

If Lucien had somehow managed to get his hands on the crime-scene police reports from Jessica’s murder, then there was also a possibility that he’d managed to obtain copies of the crime-scene evidence report and inventory, which Hunter knew were very detailed.

Hunter breathed out.

Lucien picked up on his doubt.

‘Still not convinced, huh? Isn’t the brain’s defense mechanism intriguing, Robert? To try to avoid the intense psychological pain that it can see coming, it will, sometimes, even subconsciously, try everything to find an alternative answer. It will even disregard facts and try to hang on to things it knows not to be true. But I can’t blame you, Robert. If I were in your shoes, I wouldn’t want to believe it either. But the reality is — it’s true.’

Taylor could feel on her skin how volatile the air had become down in that basement corridor.

‘You’re bluffing again,’ she tried one more time, her voice angry and a few decibels louder than before. ‘Robert said that there were two perpetrators. Forensics found two sets of fingerprints at the scene. Are you going to tell us that you had a partner this once? And. .’ she stressed before Lucien could respond, ‘we now have your fingerprints on file. One of the first things the FBI’s computer system does is to check the fingerprint of any apprehended individuals for a match against the records in IAFIS, which are linked to any unsolved crimes. If your fingerprints had matched any of the ones found inside Jessica’s home, or at the crime scene of any other unsolved crime, we would’ve had red alerts screaming at us from all four corners days ago.’

IAFIS is the Integrated Automated Fingerprints Identification System. After collecting a DNA sample, the FBI computer system also does the same check against the National DNA database.

Lucien waited patiently for Taylor to finish.

‘As I have brought to your attention before, Agent Taylor, you can be quite naive sometimes. Do you think that staging a crime scene is hard? Do you think that making a murder look like a by-product of a robbery is difficult? Do you think that acquiring and planting someone else’s fingerprints inside Jessica’s house would’ve posed a problem to someone like me?’ He laughed. ‘I can give you the names of the two men those fingerprints belonged to. Not that you’ll be able to verify it anyway, but I can also give you the location where you’ll find their remains. I wanted it to look like a robbery by gang members. I wanted the police to look for two suspects, instead of one. Why do you think the FBI had no clue I existed, Agent Taylor? Why do you think that after so many murders, your Behavioral Science Unit was never able to link any of them? Why do you think you haven’t been searching for a murderer who’s been killing people for twenty-five years?’

Defeat and anger began to draw lines across Taylor’s face.

‘It’s called deception, Agent Taylor. Making the police believe one thing, while the truth is something very different. It’s an art, and I’m very good at it.’

Lucien reverted his attention back to Hunter.

‘Maybe this will clear all the doubts from your mind once and for all, Robert. You said that all the jewelry Jessica had in the house was taken, but did you tell the detectives exactly what was taken?’

Hunter felt an awkward sensation crawling like a rash across his skin.

‘Of course not,’ Lucien said. ‘I doubt you knew every piece of jewelry she owned. But I can tell you exactly what was taken. She kept everything inside this cute little flowery box on the dresser in her room. Next to another picture of the two of you. A picture that wasn’t touched, wasn’t vandalized. The two of you at the beach.’ He paused, and in Hunter’s face saw the punch hit its target. But he wasn’t done yet. ‘I took the whole box. But from her body, other than the engagement ring you’ve already said was taken, I also took her two single diamond earrings, and her dainty necklace. The pendant on it was a white gold humming bird. Its eye was a tiny ruby.’

No amount of self-discipline would’ve been able to keep Hunter’s anger locked inside this time. He exploded forward and slammed both of his fists against the Plexiglas several times.

Tears welled up in Hunter’s eyes. The deep pain in them was as clear as words on a page. Without even realizing, and through gritted teeth, a single word escaped his lips.

‘Why?’

Seventy-Eight

Hunter’s outburst was so sudden and so violent that it made Taylor jump on the spot. Lucien, on the other hand, barely blinked. He was expecting it.

When Hunter’s fists finally stopped pounding the Plexiglas, the skin on his hands had turned red raw and was already starting to bruise. His whole body was trembling with rage, sadness and confusion. Lucien was simply enjoying the show, but he didn’t fail to hear Hunter’s question.

‘You want to know why?’ Lucien said.

Hunter just glared at him. He couldn’t stop shaking. At that particular moment, he was in a place very far away from his sane starting point.

Lucien gathered himself, lifting up as if what he wanted to say needed an injection of strength into the nape of his neck.

‘The real reason is because I couldn’t help it,’ Lucien explained. ‘I’d really missed you, Robert. I missed the only true friend I ever had. So eight months before the incident with Jessica, I decided to look you up in Los Angeles. I didn’t get in contact with you first because I wanted to surprise you. I wanted to see if you’d recognize me if I suddenly knocked on your door.’

Hunter allowed his hands to drop to the side of his body.

‘I found out where you lived,’ Lucien continued. ‘That wasn’t very hard. So I just hung around your apartment block one evening, waiting for you to come home. I thought that maybe after the huge surprise, or at least what I thought would be a huge surprise for you, we could go and grab a beer somewhere, talk about old times. . catch up.’ Lucien shrugged. ‘Maybe deep inside I had a masochistic desire to see if you would pick anything up — any psychopathic traits, I mean. Maybe I wanted to check if you could see behind my everyday mask. Or maybe it wasn’t that at all. Maybe I was so confident that I just wanted to put myself through a test, to prove to myself that I was that good. And what better test than to spend a few days in the company of the best criminal behavior psychologist I knew. Someone who was also a police officer, and about to become a detective. If you weren’t able to read the signs, Robert, then who would?’

Hunter’s stomach was in turmoil, and he had to concentrate hard not to be sick.

‘But that night you didn’t come home alone,’ Lucien proceeded. ‘I watched you park your car, get out and, like a gentleman, go around to the other side and open the passenger’s door for someone. Out stepped this beautiful woman. And I have to hand it to you, Robert, she was stunning.’

Hunter held his breath to stop his chest from heaving with emotion.

‘I couldn’t really tell you what it was exactly,’ Lucien said. ‘But one thing that my experiences had already taught me, was that despite all the desires, despite all the violent thoughts and impulses one gets, despite the unstoppable drive to take someone’s life, there still needs to be some sort of trigger to finally push one over the edge.’

Immediately, Hunter and Taylor’s thoughts went back to the passage they’d read in Lucien’s notebook, which Kennedy had showed them the day before.

‘With Jessica it was the way she looked at you when you took her hand to help her out of the car, Robert,’ Lucien moved on. ‘The way she kissed you right there in the parking lot. There was so much love between the two of you that I could feel it on my skin all the way from where I was standing.’

Hunter’s fingers closed into a fist once again.

‘I tried, Robert. I tried to resist it. That’s why I never approached you that time. I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to take Jessica from you. I left Los Angeles the next morning, and I did all I could to forget about her. If ever I tried to resist an urge, that was it. But what neither of you will ever understand is that once that trigger goes off inside your head, you’re doomed. The obsession drives you crazy. You can delay it, but you can’t contain it. It comes back night, after day, after night, hammering your brain, until you just can’t take it anymore. Until the visions take over your life. And that point came eight months later.’

Hunter took a step back from the Plexiglas.

‘So I planned everything to look like a robbery,’ Lucien said. ‘I killed two men just to get their fingerprints. I knew they would never be found, so no matter how hard and long the police searched for them, the prints would never be matched to anyone. I returned to Los Angeles. I saw the two of you together again, and then I followed her back to her place.’

Even Taylor was now starting to feel numb.

‘There was no torture,’ Lucien added. ‘No sexual gratification. I did it as fast as I could.’

‘No torture?’ Taylor interjected. ‘Robert said that there were stab wounds all over her body.’

‘Post-mortem,’ Lucien replied, his eyes seeking Hunter. ‘If the autopsy team was competent enough, they should’ve found out that her first wound, the one to her throat, was the fatal one. All the others were inflicted post-mortem. That was part of the “robbery-deception” plan.’

That fact had always intrigued Hunter once he’d read the autopsy report. He had put it down to a burst of anger from the perpetrators because Jessica was engaged to a police officer.

‘I staged the scene with the broken picture frames, the vandalized photographs, the disturbed house and the stolen jewelry and money. And that was it. That’s how it happened. That’s why it happened.’

Hunter’s eyes remained unblinking on Lucien’s face as he stepped up against the Plexiglas once again, the fingers on both of his hands still clenched into fists.

‘You were right before, Lucien.’ His voice was so calm, it scared Taylor. ‘Screw being a detective. Screw what I’ve sworn to uphold. You are a dead man.’

He turned and walked out of that corridor and basement.

Seventy-Nine

Ninety seconds later, Hunter and Taylor were standing inside Director Adrian Kennedy’s office. Doctor Lambert was also there.

‘I understand that this whole scenario has changed for you, Robert,’ Kennedy said, as Hunter stood looking out the window. ‘No one could’ve anticipated that sort of revelation, and I am deeply sorry. I’m not going to lie to you and say that I completely understand how you feel, because I don’t. No one does. But I have a pretty good idea.’ Kennedy’s voice sounded fatigued.

He walked over to his desk and picked up a printout that was by his computer monitor before retrieving his reading glasses from his breast pocket.

‘But there’s one thing that hasn’t changed,’ he said before reading from the printout. ‘Madeleine Reed, twenty-three years old, born in Blue Springs City, Missouri, but at the time was living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She was last seen by her housemate on April 9, just before she left her apartment to go out for dinner with someone she’d met a few days earlier in a bar. Madeleine never came back that night, which her housemate found strange, because Maddy — that’s what everyone called her — didn’t make a habit of spending the whole night with anyone on her first date.’

Hunter kept his focus on the world outside Kennedy’s window.

‘Two days later, she still hadn’t turned up,’ Kennedy added. ‘That was when the housemate, someone called Selena Nunez, went down to the police station and reported her as missing. Despite all efforts from the missing-persons’ investigators, they’ve got absolutely nothing. No one knows what this mysterious man who took her out for dinner on the evening of April 9 looks like. The barman at the bar Madeleine was the night before remembers her. He also remembers seeing her talking with someone who looked to be a little older than her, but he didn’t pay enough attention to the man’s face to be able to give the police an accurate description.’ Kennedy adjusted his reading glasses on his nose. ‘Madeleine worked for CancerCare. Her specific job was to provide support and friendship to children with terminal cancer, Robert. She’s a good person.’

Kennedy offered the printout to Hunter.

Hunter didn’t move.

‘Look at her, Robert.’

A few seconds went by before Hunter finally dragged his eyes away from the window and onto the sheet of paper Kennedy had in his hand. Attached to it was a second printout — a 6x4 portrait photograph of Madeleine Reed. She was a very attractive woman, with light and seemingly smooth skin, eyes that had a slightly oriental appearance and were green in color, and hair that dropped in a vibrant black sheen past her shoulders. The smile she had on when the photograph was taken looked pure and innocent. She looked happy.

‘The fact that Lucien might know where Madeleine Reed is being kept hasn’t changed, Robert,’ Kennedy said again. ‘You can’t walk away from this now. You can’t turn your back on her.’

Hunter studied the photograph for a while longer before returning the sheet to the director in silence.

Kennedy took the opportunity to press on. ‘I know you don’t work for me, Robert, so I can’t order you to do anything, but I do know you. I know your moral values. I know what you stand for and what you’ve dedicated your life to. And if you allow your emotions to dictate your actions now, no matter how hurt and angry you feel inside, you won’t be able to live with yourself later. You won’t be able to face yourself in the mirror. You know that full well.’

A headache was pinching and pricking behind Hunter’s eyes.

‘I’ve been searching for Jessica’s killers for twenty years, Adrian.’ Hunter’s voice was low and full of hurt. ‘Not a day has gone by since that I don’t regret not being there for her that night. Not a day has gone by since that I haven’t promised her and myself that I would find them, and when I did, I would make them pay, no matter the consequences to myself.’

‘I understand that,’ Kennedy said.

‘Do you?’ Hunter questioned. ‘Do you, really?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘She was pregnant,’ Hunter said.

The air was knocked out of Kennedy’s lungs. He looked back at Hunter with confusion on his face.

‘Jessica was pregnant,’ Hunter repeated it. ‘We had found out that morning, through one of those off-the-shelf pregnancy tests, but we both knew it was true. That was the reason for her booking the restaurant that night. We were supposed to be celebrating. We were both. .’ Hunter paused to catch his breath: ‘. . so happy.’

Taylor felt a paralyzing chill run through her. She wanted to say something, but she didn’t know what, or how.

‘Lucien didn’t only take the woman that I was supposed to marry from me, Adrian,’ Hunter said. ‘He took away the family I was supposed to have.’

Kennedy looked down at the floor in solemn silence. His way of paying his respects and recognizing Hunter’s pain.

‘I’m sorry, Robert,’ Kennedy finally said. ‘I never knew that.’

‘No one did,’ Hunter replied. ‘Not even her family. We wanted to wait until Jess had seen the doctor so we had official confirmation.’ Hunter’s gaze returned to the window. ‘I asked the coroner to omit it from the autopsy report. That was not the way I wanted her parents to find out, and I saw no point in adding to their pain.’

‘I can only imagine your pain, your anger, and how devastating that must’ve been for you, Robert,’ Kennedy said after a long and dark silence. ‘And I am so sorry.’

‘And nevertheless you still want to put me inside an enclosed space with the person who I’ve been searching for for twenty years and swore revenge on, without the security of the Plexiglas wall between us.’

‘He’s been caught, Robert,’ Kennedy said back, in a measured voice. ‘Lucien is sitting in an underground, escape-proof prison cell five levels below the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit. He is going to pay for everything he’s done. He’s going to pay for what he did to Jessica and to you.’ He pointed to the printout. ‘But this girl may die if you don’t get in that plane with Lucien. I know you don’t want to let that happen.’

‘You can send someone else.’

‘No we can’t, Robert,’ Taylor, who was standing by Kennedy’s desk, said, turning to face him. ‘You heard what Lucien said downstairs. You and me and him. Not a person less, not a person more. We break that deal, and if Madeleine isn’t already dead, she will die — alone — probably until the last second still holding on to some hope that someone will find her. We owe this to her, Robert.’

Hunter said nothing.

‘Courtney is right, Robert,’ Kennedy said. ‘If Madeleine isn’t already dead, we’re losing precious time here. We’ve got to act now. Please don’t let your anger and sorrow take away Madeleine’s chances of being saved. Her only chance of being saved.’

Hunter looked at Madeleine’s photograph attached to the printout once again.

‘She’s not dead,’ he said, not an ounce of doubt in his voice.

‘What?’ Kennedy asked.

‘You said, “If Madeleine isn’t already dead”.’ Hunter shook his head. ‘Madeleine Reed isn’t dead. She’s still alive.’

Eighty

The unwavering conviction in Hunter’s voice was reassuring and confusing in equal measure.

Taylor’s question came not from words, but from a slight shake of the head complemented by narrowing eyes.

‘She’s alive,’ Hunter told them again with a firm nod.

‘How can you be so sure?’ Doctor Lambert asked. ‘Don’t get me wrong, Detective Hunter. I do agree with Director Kennedy. I believe you must act now, but you must also be prepared for the fact that you could already be too late to save this poor girl’s life, or even for the fact that Lucien could be sending you on a wild goose chase. He’s a deceiver by nature, with years of experience. As Agent Taylor said during your last interview, Lucien might be looking at this as his last chance outside, which gives him a better chance at trying something than if he’s sitting in a cell five levels underground.’

‘That could be,’ Hunter replied. ‘But Madeleine is still alive.’

‘So I’ll repeat Doctor Lambert’s question,’ Kennedy took over. ‘How can you be so sure, Robert?’

‘Because Madeleine Reed is Lucien’s trump card,’ Hunter said. ‘He’s been holding on to it from day one. When did you first bring him here to the BSU?’

‘Seven days ago,’ Kennedy answered. ‘You know that.’

‘And yet he hasn’t mentioned her until now,’ Hunter reminded them. ‘As Doctor Lambert said, Lucien’s got a lot of experience. He’s been playing this game for a very long time. Even though he was caught by chance, every move he makes is calculated to the last detail. And an experienced player knows one major rule about trump cards.’

‘Never play them too soon,’ Taylor said. ‘You hold on to them until the best possible moment.’

Hunter nodded. ‘Or until it’s imperative that you do. You’ve all mentioned how impressive Lucien’s internal clock and calculations are, right? He knows exactly how much food and water he’s left Madeleine. He’s already said that she’d learned how to ration everything almost to perfection. He’s calculated the threshold. He’s known it from day one, and I’m sure he’s got a very accurate idea of where the point of no return is. And yet he saw no reason in playing his trump card until now. And that reason is — he wants to make this a race against time, because that puts us under tremendous pressure. A hell of a lot more pressure than just finding victims’ remains.’

Everyone breathed in Hunter’s words for a second.

‘And that’s also why he waited until now to reveal that he was your fiancée’s killer,’ Doctor Lambert said, ‘because that not only puts you under extreme pressure, but it also affects your state of mind. It destabilizes you. It makes you emotional, and therefore more vulnerable, more prone to mistakes. Lucien knew that fully well.’

Goose bumps ran up and down Taylor’s skin.

‘But that also makes Robert more volatile,’ she said. ‘If Lucien weren’t behind that Plexiglas wall, he’d probably be dead now.’ Her gaze moved to Hunter, who returned her stare with 100 percent conviction.

‘And maybe that’s exactly what he wants,’ Doctor Lambert said. ‘Not to try to escape while he’s outside with you both, but suicide by cop.’

Kennedy and Taylor frowned at him, but that was exactly what Hunter had been thinking about while staring out the window.

‘Why would he be looking for suicide by cop?’ Taylor asked.

‘Because whatever happens, Lucien wants to be remembered,’ Hunter said. ‘He wants the notoriety.’ He drew air quotations with his fingers. ‘The “prestige” that comes with being a famous serial killer. He wants his legacy to be studied in criminology and criminal behavior classes. That’s one of the reasons he’s been writing this encyclopedia of his, if that really is what he’s been doing.’

‘I understand that,’ Taylor said, ‘but that will probably happen no matter what. He doesn’t have to be killed to achieve it.’

‘True,’ Hunter agreed, ‘but he also understands that his reputation would get an exponential boost if he doesn’t end his days behind bars, or executed by the state. I’m sure that in his mind that would not be a suitable conclusion to his lifelong project. On the other hand, if he’s shot dead by the FBI while they’re trying to rescue his last victim. .’ Hunter shrugged and let the significance of what he’d said intoxicate the air.

‘He becomes a legend,’ Doctor Lambert agreed.

‘So, if you think Madeleine Reed is still alive,’ Kennedy said, addressing Hunter, ‘and assuming that Lucien’s got his calculations right, how long would you say we have, Robert?’

Hunter pulled a dubious face. ‘My best guess is that from the time he told us about Madeleine, we would’ve had around twenty hours to find her. After that, I wouldn’t hold out too much hope.’

Kennedy checked his watch. ‘So we’ve got to act fast,’ he said. ‘We can’t waste any more time here, Robert.’

Madeleine’s photograph was still on the desk. It looked like she was staring straight at Hunter.

‘Is the plane ready?’ he said.

‘It will be by the time you get to the runway,’ Kennedy replied, ‘but the two of you need to get ready first.’

‘Be prepared,’ Doctor Lambert said as everyone began moving, ‘because I think you’re right, Detective Hunter. Lucien will try to push both of you to the limit, and he knows that as things stand right now, he won’t even need to push that hard. I think that once he gets out there again, he will do whatever it takes not to end up back here. Even if it costs his life.’

Hunter zipped up his jacket. ‘And I’m fine with that.’ He looked at Taylor. ‘As long as I’m the one who takes the shot.’

Eighty-One

Before heading down to the SUV that was already waiting for them by one of the security exits at the back of the building, Hunter and Taylor were both asked to hand in their shirts so that two state-of-the-art, wireless surveillance microphones could be fitted onto them. The microphones were disguised as regular buttons, but so that a single button didn’t differ from the other ones, every button on both shirts had to be replaced. The one just above their belly button was the microphone. It connected via a small cable to a very powerful but inconspicuous satellite transmitter that resembled a stick of gum, strapped to the small of their backs. The microphone also worked as a GPS locator. Director Adrian Kennedy and his team would know their exact location at all times. But as soon as he got his shirt back, Hunter opposed the idea.

‘The fake buttons aren’t the same exact color as the original ones,’ he told Adrian Kennedy.

‘They’re close enough,’ Kennedy replied.

‘Maybe to most people,’ Hunter said. ‘But not for Lucien.’

‘Are you telling me that you think he’s noticed the color of the buttons on yours and Agent Taylor’s shirts?’

‘Trust me. Lucien has noticed everything, Adrian. He’s like a sponge.’

‘Well, this is the best we can do given our timeframe,’ Kennedy said back. ‘I need ears with you at all times, so we’re going to have to roll with this.’

This could be a costly mistake, Hunter thought.

Everything was already in place by the time Lucien was escorted out of the security exit by two US Marines, ten minutes later. He was wearing the same orange prisoner jumpsuit he’d been wearing throughout the interviews. His hands and ankles were shackled by metal chains that looped around his waist, restricting his movements — his arms would not come up past his chest, and his step would never go beyond one foot, making it impossible for him to run.

‘Something is missing from this equation,’ Lucien said to Taylor, as she opened the back door of the SUV to allow him to climb in.

‘Detective Hunter will meet us in the plane,’ Taylor said, knowing exactly what Lucien was referring to.

Lucien laughed. ‘But of course. He needs time to find himself and maybe check his emotions before this whole thing turns into a total fiasco, isn’t that so, Agent Taylor?’

Taylor didn’t reply. If she were to allow her emotions to take over, she would probably punch him in the face right there and then, and shoot both of his kneecaps off. Instead, she simply held the door open while both Marines helped him onto the backseat, locked his chains to the metal loop on the car’s floor, and handed the keys to Taylor.

‘I love your sunglasses, Agent Taylor,’ Lucien said, as Taylor took the passenger’s seat. ‘They’re very. . FBI. Do you think I could get a pair, just for the sake of this trip?’

Taylor said nothing.

‘I guess that will be a “no” then.’

Lucien looked at his cuffed hands for a short instant; when he spoke again his voice was controlled and measured — no excitement, no anger, just a robotic flat tone. ‘How do you think this is going to end up, Agent Taylor?’

The driver, an African American Marine who looked like he could probably bench-press that entire SUV got the car in motion.

Taylor kept her eyes on the road.

‘C’mon, Agent Taylor,’ Lucien insisted. ‘It’s a fair question. I’m very interested in knowing what your expectations are. You’ve done great so far. You’ve managed to obtain information that has led the FBI to retrieve the lost remains of three victims.’ His eyebrows popped up and down once. ‘Assuming that your team is competent enough to follow instructions, you should also find the remains of the five victims I left in New Haven. And you have also managed to acquire information that might lead you to a live victim, which, if you succeed in saving her, will make you into a hero, Agent Taylor. That’s not bad going at all for just two days of interviews. So I think my question is quite fair. How do you think this whole thing is going to end up? Do you think you and Robert will become heroes, or will this turn into your worst nightmare?’

Taylor saw the driver’s questioning eyes flick toward her for a fraction of a second.

What she really wanted to do was to turn around and tell Lucien that they were going to find Madeleine Reed and finally put an end to her torture. Then they would bring him back to the BSU so that he could tell them where to find the remains of all his other victims. After that, he would either rot in prison or be executed by the state. Either way, it made no difference to her because she would never have to look at his face again. But she kept her composure and didn’t say a word. She didn’t even look at him.

Lucien wasn’t deterred.

‘Do you think he will do it?’ he asked in the same robotic tone. ‘Do you think Robert will avenge Jessica’s death? Do you think he’ll forget everything he’s upheld for most of his life and let his anger take over?’

No reply.

‘Do you think he’ll shoot me or will he use his hands — beat me up until I stop breathing?’

Taylor didn’t look, but she could tell that Lucien had that sickening smile on his face again.

They exited the FBI Academy compound heading north toward Turner Field landing strip.

‘How would you do it, Agent Taylor? If I had violently taken the person who you were so desperately in love with away from you, and left you with nothing but doubts and a lot of blood, how would you take your revenge on me?’

Taylor felt her blood warming inside her veins, but still, she swallowed every word that threatened to come out of her mouth.

Lucien swopped tactics.

‘How about you, Muscle-Munch?’ he addressed the driver. ‘If I’d broken into your home and savagely murdered your wife, and you’d been searching for me for twenty years, what sort of revenge would you take when you finally came face to face with me? You look like you could crush my whole skull with one squeeze of those banana-like fingers you have. I bet you and your wife have great fun with those.’

The driver frowned angrily and his eye sought Lucien through the rear-view mirror.

‘Don’t even think about answering the prisoner, Private,’ Taylor said, looking at him. ‘You will completely disregard whatever he says, no matter how offensive. You understand?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’ The reply came in a deep bass voice.

Lucien laughed out loud.

‘Let me tell you what I think, Agent Taylor. I think he will do it. I think Robert will break, and he will finally get his revenge. And I think that the only way you will be able to stop him, is if you shoot him. The big question is — will you?’

Eighty-Two

Hunter and two US Marines were waiting by the small, custom-made, five-seater Lear Jet when the black SUV with Taylor and Lucien pulled up next to the plane.

In the sky, heavy clouds were starting to gather, making it feel like the whole day was changing moods — bright was being substituted by dark, blue by gray.

Taylor stepped out of the car and handed one of the Marines the keys to Lucien’s restraints. They took charge of unlocking him from the backseat and taking him onboard. As they walked past Hunter and took the few steps that led up into the plane, Lucien turned and looked into Hunter’s eyes. He saw nothing but hurt and anger, and he had to fight an internal battle not to smile.

Only when Lucien’s chains had been securely locked to the special metal loops built onto the floor of the plane by one of its seats, did Hunter and Taylor board the aircraft.

Lucien’s seat was at the rear of the cabin, enclosed by a metal cage equipped with a military-grade, assault-proof electronic lock that could only be activated through a button by the pilot’s cockpit.

Taylor placed her jacket on the seat just ahead and to the right of Lucien’s cage, but didn’t sit down. Hunter took the seat across the aisle from her. The pilot was patiently waiting in his cockpit.

‘So, where in Illinois are we going?’ Taylor asked Lucien.

‘We’re not,’ he replied matter-of-factly.

Taylor hesitated a beat. ‘What do you mean? You said we were going to Illinois.’

‘No, I didn’t. I said we needed enough fuel to cover the distance from here to Illinois. If we have enough fuel to get to Illinois, that means that we also have enough fuel to get to New Hampshire. That’s where we’re going.’

Lucien’s seat was stationary, but all the others in the plane cabin could swerve a full 360 degrees. Hunter didn’t swing his seat around to look at Lucien, he kept it facing forward, but he wasn’t surprised that Lucien was still playing games.

‘New Hampshire,’ Taylor said.

‘That’s correct, Agent Taylor, “Live free or die”.’

‘OK, so where in New Hampshire are we going?’

‘You can tell the pilot to just head for New Hampshire. I’ll give him more details when we enter their airspace.’

Taylor passed the instructions to the pilot and returned to her seat. Like Hunter, she preferred not to face the prisoner.

A minute later, the plane had taxied to the end of the runway, and the pilot announced that they were clear for takeoff. The jet engines came to life, and within twenty seconds they were airborne. As the plane veered right, the few rays of sunlight that managed to break through the dark clouds reflected sharply off the aircraft’s fuselage.

Hunter fixed his eyes out the window as the ground below him slipped away. To him, the plane’s bottled air felt denser than ever, as if it had somehow been polluted by Lucien’s presence.

Taylor sat still, eyes forward, clearly trying to organize the multitude of thoughts exploding inside her head. She had a bottle of still water with her, from which she took a tiny sip every minute or two. It wasn’t because she was thirsty, it was just a nervous reflex, something her body practically forced her to do almost unconsciously in order to try to calm herself down.

Hunter was also struggling with his thoughts, but this time he had twenty years of anger and frustration that were dying to break free to deal with.

They’d been flying for over half an hour when they heard Lucien’s voice again.

‘Do you believe that someone can be born “evil”, Agent Taylor?’ he asked.

Taylor sipped her water again while her gaze moved across the aisle to Hunter. It looked like he hadn’t even heard the question. His full attention seemed to be in the world outside his window, not inside.

In Taylor’s silence, Lucien moved on.

‘You do know that there are a great number of criminologists, criminal psychologists and psychiatrists who believe that a person can be born “evil”, don’t you? Some sort of evil gene.’

Nothing from Taylor.

‘If they believe in an evil gene, that means they also believe that being evil, or overwhelmingly violent, can be a genetic condition. Do you think that’s true, Agent Taylor? Do you think a newborn can actually inherit being evil, being a killer, just like one can inherit hemophilia or color blindness?’

Another silent sip of her water.

‘C’mon, humor me, Agent Taylor,’ Lucien said. ‘In your opinion, can being evil and a senseless killer like me be a product of genetic inheritance?’

The thought making headlines in Taylor’s head right then was, Why didn’t they equipped this plane with a sound-proof, Plexiglas cage instead of a metal bar one?

‘Twenty-seven,’ Lucien said, resting his head against the chair’s backrest.

Reflexively, Taylor’s eyes peeked at Hunter again. He was still looking out the window, but she was sure he’d heard Lucien. Had he just completely changed subjects and was now giving them coordinates? She spun her chair around.

‘Twenty-seven?’

‘Twenty-seven,’ Lucien confirmed with a single nod.

‘Twenty-seven what?’

‘States,’ Lucien said.

A thin mask of confusion covered Taylor’s face.

‘I’ve visited sperm banks in twenty-seven different states,’ Lucien explained. ‘All under a different name, and with a life résumé that would impress the Queen of England. It’s all part of a very long, ongoing experiment.’

Taylor felt the acidic taste of bile rise up in her throat.

‘So, if you believe that being a killer can be a product of genetic inheritance, Agent Taylor,’ Lucien said, ‘then, in a few years’ time, we might all have some surprises.’

Just being in the same enclosed space and breathing the same air as Lucien was making Taylor feel queasy.

‘You’re not only sick,’ she said with a disgusted look on her face, ‘you’re completely deranged.’

The cabin speakers crackled once before the pilot’s voice came through.

‘We’re approaching the border between Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Do I have any new instructions?’

Lucien’s face seemed to come alive.

‘Let the adventure begin.’

Eighty-Three

Hidden location.

Two days earlier.

Madeleine Reed’s eyes blinked slowly and dopily several times before she was finally able to open them. Focus did not come instantly. In fact, it took almost two minutes for shapes to start making sense to her broken and exhausted mind.

She was still curled up against one of the corners in her captivity cell, with the dirty and smelly blanket wrapped around her fragile body like a cocoon. But no matter how tight she wrapped that disgusting rag around her, or how small she made herself against that wall corner, she couldn’t keep the cold away. The fever might’ve gone away, or gotten worse. She couldn’t tell anymore. Every atom in her body ached with such intensity that she was constantly on the verge of passing out.

The only sound inside her cell was the afflicting buzzing of Hies flying around the overflowing bucket of excrement in the opposite corner from where she was.

Madeleine coughed a couple of times, and her dry throat together with her face and head immediately felt as if they were on fire and about to explode. The nauseating pain made her eyelids flutter like butterfly wings for a moment, and she rested her head against the wall, hoping she wouldn’t drift off into unconsciousness once again.

She didn’t.

As she gathered herself together one more time, she looked at her unrecognizable bony hands and fingers. Her nails were all broken and their beds crusted with dried blood. Her knuckles were red and swollen like an old lady’s who suffered from acute rheumatism. She had never been that thin. She had never felt so weak, so hungry, so thirsty.

Madeleine realized that there were parts of her blanket that were still wet. Probably from when her body was soaking wet due to her high fever. She was so desperate that in a moment of madness she brought the blanket to her mouth and eagerly sucked on it, trying to get some of the moisture from the fabric onto her cracked lips and dry mouth. But what she got was a mouthful of dirt and such an obnoxious taste it immediately made her gag.

When she stopped coughing, Madeleine looked around her cell, but dehydration and malnutrition had already started to affect her physiologically and neurologically. Her eyes didn’t have the strength to focus on anything that was further than about a meter away.

Empty plastic water bottles were scattered around the floor. Not even a drop was left in any of them, but that didn’t stop Madeleine from reaching for one and trying again. She brought the bottle to her mouth and threw her head back, crunching and squeezing the bottle with both of her hands.

She got nothing.

Exhausted by the effort, she let the bottle fall to the floor again.

Her eyelids fluttered one more time. She felt desperately tired and overwhelmed by sadness, but she didn’t want to fall back asleep. She knew that the extreme tiredness was her body shutting down. It just didn’t have enough energy to stay awake. It didn’t have enough energy to keep all of her organs working properly. It was like a huge factory shutting down certain departments because it didn’t have enough resources to keep them operational.

Madeleine remembered watching a TV documentary about that once. How a dehydrated and malnourished body would slowly eat itself away. First its fat storages, then the proteins and nutrients from the muscles until it was all gone and its energy all depleted. After that, the body would start shutting down. Main organs like the liver and kidneys would stop functioning properly. The brain, which is made up of approximately 75 to 80 percent water, would really feel the damaging effects of dehydration. Its response would vary from person to person, and it would be completely arbitrary, ranging from very vivid hallucinations to a total meltdown. At that point, the damage caused to the cerebral mass would be irreversible.

With no more nutrients, the body runs out of energy, becoming overexhausted. But nothing on earth is as complex and as intelligent as the human body and the human brain. Even under such intense duress, its defense mechanism will work to the best of its ability. To try to save the little energy it has left, and to avoid the person dying in agonizing pain, the exhausted body will force itself to fall asleep. Once that happens, the body will slowly and quietly shut itself down completely and mercifully. The person’s eyes will never open again.

Madeleine knew she was dying. She knew that if she fell back asleep, she would probably never wake up again. But she also didn’t know what else to do. She felt so tired that even moving a finger felt like running a marathon.

‘I don’t want to die,’ she whispered to herself in a weak and out-of-breath voice. ‘I don’t want to die like this. I don’t want to die in this place. Somebody, please help me.’

Then a crazy idea came to her. She’d heard stories of people who drank their own urine. As disgusting as that might sound to her, she also knew that to some people that was a sexual turn-on. But her fatigued brain was fighting to keep her alive. Anything else, disgusting or not, would come a very distant second.

Without giving it another thought, Madeleine reached for one of the empty water bottles again. With tremendous effort she got back on her feet, unbuttoned and unzipped her dirty and now ripped trousers, and pulled them down to her ankles. Her panties followed. Holding the bottle in the right position, she closed her eyes and concentrated as best as she could, squeezing her leg and stomach muscles tight.

She got nothing.

Her body was so dehydrated she had nothing to give. But she wasn’t about to give up. She tried it again, and again, and again. For how long, she had no idea. But finally, after what seemed like an eternity, a few tiny drops splashed against the bottom of the bottle. Madeleine became so happy she started laughing hysterically. That was until she looked in the bottle.

The few drops of urine she had managed to squeeze out of her were of a dark amber color, and she knew that that was a very bad sign.

The darker the color of human urine, the more dehydrated the body is.

If a person drinks a lot of liquids, like water, a healthy liver and kidneys will filter it very fast, taking in what the body needs and discarding the rest. The discarded liquids will fill the bladder. When the bladder is full, the person feels the need to go to the bathroom. Urinating is the body’s main way of getting rid of what the body doesn’t need, including toxins, but not always. If a person hydrates him/herself constantly, then the bladder will still get full due to all the excess liquid, but in that case, what the body is getting rid of is mainly the extra water or liquids the person has consumed. The toxin content of the urine will be minimum. The less toxins, the lighter the color of one’s urine. The opposite is also true.

Judging by the color, Madeleine knew that the few drops she had in that bottle were probably 99 percent toxin. If she drank it, it would be like drinking poison. It wouldn’t help her stay alive. It would speed up her death.

She stared at it for a long moment, the bottle shaking in her hand. She wanted to cry. In fact she did, but in her advanced stage of dehydration, her lacrimal glands could produce no tears.

Finally, strength left her and she collapsed to the ground. The bottle rolled away across to the other side of her cell.

‘I don’t want to die.’ The words barely escaped her trembling lips, but she couldn’t battle anymore. Her whole vision blurred as her eyes began closing. She had no more strength to keep herself awake.

She had no more hope.

She had no more faith.

She allowed her eyes to close, and began accepting what to her was now inevitable.

Eighty-Four

Since Lucien’s hands would not come up past his chest due to his restraints, he bent forward so he could scratch his nose.

Taylor had swerved her chair around to face him, while Hunter still kept his facing forward.

‘OK,’ Taylor said. ‘So we’ve entered New Hampshire’s airspace. Where do we go from here?’

Lucien took his time. ‘Damn, these are uncomfortable. You wouldn’t be so kind as to scratch my nose for me, would you, Agent Taylor?’

She scowled at him in silence.

‘Yeah, I didn’t think so.’ Lucien finally sat back up. ‘Tell the pilot to fly due north. Let me know when he is over White Mountain National Forest.’

The White Mountain National Forest is a federally managed forest that totals an area of 750,852 acres. About 94 percent of it is located in the state of New Hampshire. It’s so vast, no private aircraft flying over it could miss it.

Taylor passed the instructions to the pilot and returned to her seat.

They Hew for another twenty-seven minutes before the pilot’s voice came through the speakers again.

‘We’re just about to reach the south border of the White Mountain National Forest. Shall I keep on flying north or is there a new piece of this puzzle?’

Taylor faced Lucien one more time and waited.

Lucien was staring at the back of his hands.

‘Now it gets good,’ he said, without lifting his eyes. ‘Tell the pilot we’re going to Berlin.’

Taylor stared at him in disbelief. ‘Say that again.’

‘Tell the pilot we’re going to Berlin,’ Lucien repeated, casually. His gaze lingered on his hands for a while longer before moving to her.

Taylor didn’t move, but her expression went from surprised to angry in record time.

‘Relax, Agent Taylor,’ Lucien said, ‘I’m not referring to Berlin, Germany. That would’ve been too far-fetched even for me. But if you check the map of New Hampshire, you’ll find that just north of the White Mountain National Forest, there’s a small town called Berlin. Its municipal airport, interestingly enough, is located eight miles north, by another small town called Milan.’ He laughed. ‘How European, isn’t it?’

Taylor’s expression relaxed a little.

‘Tell the pilot we need to land at Berlin’s municipal airport.’

Taylor used the plane’s intercom to pass on the new instructions to the pilot.

Hunter had been thinking about this for a little while, and he could hardly believe how well prepared Lucien was. How long has he been planning this for? he asked himself.

The state of New Hampshire was one of the few that did not have a specific FBI field office. Its jurisdiction fell under the Boston field office in Massachusetts — way too far for Director Kennedy to have a backup team dispatched. Even though Lucien had given them detailed instructions that no one was to follow them, by land or air, Hunter knew Adrian Kennedy wouldn’t simply comply with the requests of a serial murderer. Kennedy would no doubt be extremely careful because he knew the life of a kidnapped victim was at stake, but he would also want to have a plan B in place. With no FBI field office in New Hampshire, that meant if Adrian Kennedy wanted a second, local team tagging Hunter and Taylor, he would have to contact the county sheriff’s department, or the local police department. Neither would be trained in high-profile surveillance, and that was a risk too far. Lucien had factored all this into his sick equation.

‘I’ve just contacted the municipal airport in Berlin.’ The pilot’s voice came through the cabin speakers one more time. ‘We’re clear for landing, and we’ll be starting our descent in five minutes.’

No one could see how much Lucien was smiling inside.

Eighty-Five

After being airborne for just under two hours, the Lear Jet touched down at the small landing strip in Berlin’s municipal airport in New Hampshire. It quickly taxied to a spot at the end of the runway, away from the other small planes, and waited. The pilot had already alerted the airport’s traffic control center that the plane was an official FBI aircraft on federal business, and not to be approached.

‘So what now?’ Hunter asked Lucien even before the plane came to a complete stop. This was the first time Hunter had addressed him since Quantico.

‘Now we get a car,’ Lucien replied, and pulled a dubious face.‘But this isn’t LAX, Robert, there are no car-rental companies in the airport’s foyer. Actually, there isn’t even a foyer.’ He jerked his head toward the window. ‘You’ll see. You’ll be lucky if you find a vending machine somewhere around here.’

Taylor threw a questioning look at Hunter.

‘You can call a rental company if you like,’ Lucien proceeded. ‘I’m sure you can get a number for one either in the town of Berlin or Milan, but it will take them about twenty to twenty-five minutes to get everything arranged and a car out here. If you don’t want to wait, I suggest you improvise.’

‘Improvise?’ Taylor said.

Lucien shrugged. ‘Commandeer a car or something. Like in the movies. You’re the ones with FBI badges. I’m sure the folks around here would be very impressed by them.’

Taylor considered what to do.

‘Remember that every second counts for poor Madeleine,’ Lucien added. ‘So feel free to take as long as you like.’

‘You stay here with him,’ Hunter said, already moving toward the plane’s door. ‘I’ll go.’

Taylor agreed with a nod. Right now she really didn’t want to leave Hunter alone with Lucien.

‘Let’s go,’ Hunter said as he stepped back into the plane.

‘We’ve got a car already?’ Taylor asked, jumping to her feet. Hunter had been gone for less than three minutes.

He nodded. ‘I sort of borrowed it from the guy who runs air traffic control here.’

‘Fair enough,’ she said. She didn’t need any more explanation. Taylor then unholstered her weapon and pointed it at Lucien. ‘OK, we’re going to do this nice and slowly. When Robert presses the release button to the door to your cage, the floor chain loops will also disengage. You will then stand up, slowly, step out of the cell, and stop. Do you understand?’

Lucien nodded, unimpressed.

Taylor gave Hunter a head signal. He hit the button by the door to the pilot’s cockpit before also unholstering his weapon and placing Lucien dead in his aim.

An electronic buzzing sound echoed loudly throughout the passenger cabin. Lucien’s cage door clicked open and retracted. The metal chains that kept his ankles and hands shackled together were also released from their floor and chair restraints.

‘Up slowly,’ Taylor said.

Lucien complied.

‘Now step forward and outside the cage.’

Lucien complied.

‘Walk toward us and the exit, nice and slowly.’

Lucien complied.

Taylor moved over and positioned herself behind Lucien. Hunter stayed ahead of him. He came down the steps first. Lucien and Taylor followed shortly after.

A red Jeep Grand Cherokee was parked just a few meters from the plane. Hunter walked over and opened the back door.

‘Nice car,’ Lucien commented.

‘Get in,’ Hunter replied.

Lucien paused and looked around him. There was no one about. Berlin’s municipal airport was nothing more than a landing strip of asphalt built next to a forest. There was no airport foyer, or lounge, or anything. Two mid-sized hangers, large enough to fit maybe a couple of private planes each, were located east of the runway. Just south of them were a few smaller administrative buildings. That was all there was, nothing else.

Lucien looked up at the sky. Night was fast approaching, and with it a cold breeze was settling in. His eyes stayed in the sky for a long while, searching, listening.

He saw and heard nothing.

‘Get in,’ Hunter commanded again.

With Geisha steps Lucien moved toward the car. Hunter held the door open. Like an educated lady, Lucien sat down first before bringing his legs in. With his hands and feet shackled to his waist, it was easier that way.

Hunter closed the door and signaled Taylor to go over to the other side. She did. Only once Taylor had taken her place in the backseat did Hunter get into the driver’s seat.

Taylor’s gun was still aimed at Lucien.

‘I want your back against the seat,’ she said. ‘And your arm on the door’s armrest at all times.’ She pulled down the back seat’s center armrest, creating a flimsy division between Lucien and herself. ‘You make any sudden movements, and I swear I’ll blow your kneecaps. Is that simple enough for you?’

‘Perfectly simple,’ Lucien replied.

Hunter started the car.

‘So where to from here?’ he asked.

Lucien smiled.

‘Absolutely nowhere.’

Eighty-Six

Hunter had been right. Director Kennedy would always have a plan B for any situation.

Exactly ten minutes after the Lear Jet with Hunter, Taylor and Lucien took off, a second jet left Turner Field landing strip in Quantico. This one was carrying five of Kennedy’s top agents, all of them expert marksmen skilled in covert operations. With them they had a satellite-tracking device that specifically tracked the GPS signal coming from Hunter and Taylor’s microphone buttons. They also had ears in the plane, as the surveillance microphones transmitted back not only to Director Kennedy at the FBI Academy, but also to the second jet and its agents.

Inside the FBI Operations Control Room back in Quantico, Adrian Kennedy and Doctor Lambert were following both planes’ progress on the radar screen. They had also been listening to every word that had been uttered between Hunter, Taylor and Lucien. As soon as their jet landed at Berlin’s municipal airport, Kennedy reached for the phone in his pocket.

‘Director,’ Agent Nicholas Brody, the team leader in the second jet, answered his cellphone before the second ring.

‘Bird One just landed,’ Kennedy said.

‘Yes, we saw,’ Brody replied. They were also following the first plane’s progress on their radar application.

‘Tell your pilot to start flying in circles right now,’ Kennedy said. ‘Do not, and I repeat, do not fly over airspace which is visible from the ground from Berlin’s municipal airport. I’ll call you back when you’re clear for landing.’

‘Roger that, sir.’

Agent Brody disconnected from the call, passed the new instructions to the pilot, returned to his seat, and waited.

Eighty-Seven

Hunter met Lucien’s cold eyes in the rearview mirror. The smile on Lucien’s lips was a mixture of arrogance and defiance.

‘What was that?’ Taylor asked, her patience more than wearing thin.

Lucien kept his gaze on the rearview mirror, his eyes battling with Hunter’s.

‘We’re going absolutely nowhere,’ he said again, his tone controlled and even.

Hunter calmly turned the engine off.

‘What do you mean, Lucien?’

‘I mean exactly what I said back in my cell,’ Lucien said. ‘The deal was — just the three of us, no one following. You break the deal, I take you nowhere. I thought I had made that perfectly clear.’

Hunter took his hands off the steering wheel and turned his palms up.

‘Do you see anyone other than the three of us? Anyone following us at all?’

‘Not yet,’ Lucien replied confidently, before his eyes moved up and to the right, ‘but they’re up there, probably waiting, flying around in circles. You know it and I know it.’

Taylor’s inquisitive eyes also found Hunter’s in the rearview mirror. He kept his gaze on Lucien.

‘No, we don’t know that,’ Hunter said. ‘And neither do you. You’re assuming it. So you want us to sit here while Madeleine runs out of time because of an assumption?’

‘My assumptions are always very accurate because they’re based on facts, Robert,’ Lucien said.

‘Facts?’ Taylor this time. ‘What facts?’

Lucien’s stare finally left the rear-view mirror and moved to Taylor. On its way, Lucien noticed that her grip on her gun had slacked just a touch.

‘Let’s see, Agent Taylor, we can get a move on as soon as you and Robert take off your shirts and throw them out the window. How about that?’

‘Excuse me?’ Taylor said. The offended look she managed to pull could’ve won her an Oscar.

‘Your shirts,’ Lucien repeated. ‘Take them off and throw them out the window.’

Silence from Hunter and Taylor.

‘You disappoint me, Robert,’ Lucien said. ‘Did you think I wouldn’t notice the buttons on both of your shirts?’

A muscle flexed on Taylor’s jaw.

Lucien addressed her. ‘It was a good try, but the colors don’t quite match the ones you had earlier.’ He lifted his right index finger and pointed at Taylor’s shirt. ‘Those are about two shades darker. I’m guessing that what we have here is a microphone, a GPS satellite transmitter, and perhaps a camera?’

There was no reply.

‘Disappointing. I’d imagined that the FBI would be more careful than that.’ Lucien shrugged. ‘But then again, I didn’t give you guys that much notice, did I?’

Hunter’s earlier thought came back to him: this could be a costly mistake.

‘So,’ Lucien carried on, ‘we have a few options here. You can both take off your shirts and throw them out the window. .’ He gave Taylor a provoking wink. ‘And that would no doubt add to my pleasure here in the backseat. Or you can rip the buttons off, one by one, and throw them out the window.’ Lucien was still staring at Taylor. ‘I bet you have a beautiful belly button, Agent Taylor.’

‘Fuck you,’ Taylor couldn’t contain herself.

Lucien laughed. ‘Alternatively, you can keep your shirts on with the buttons intact and just rip off the satellite transmitter, which I’m sure is taped to your bodies somewhere.’

Without even noticing it, Taylor looked like an angry kid who had just been caught on a lie.

‘Please,’ Lucien added, ‘waste as much time as you like thinking about it.’ He placed his head against the leather headrest and closed his eyes. ‘Let me know when you’ve made your minds up.’

Hunter unbuckled his seatbelt, leaned forward a little and ripped the satellite transmitter from his lower back.

With her weapon still aimed at Lucien, Taylor did the same.

Back in the Operations Room in Quantico, Director Adrian Kennedy heard a scraping sound. A moment after that, Hunter’s microphone went into complete silence. A couple of seconds later, so did Taylor’s. The two dots that represented both of them on the radar screen they were looking at faded to nothing.

The agent sitting at the radar station quickly typed several commands into his computer before finally looking up at Kennedy, who was standing by his side. ‘We’ve lost them, sir. I’m sorry. There’s nothing we can do from here.’

‘Sonofabitch,’ Kennedy whispered between clenched teeth.

Inside Bird Two, circling around the sky near Berlin’s municipal airport, Agent Brody ran his hand through his close-cropped hair and uttered the exact same comment.

Eighty-Eight

‘That’s much better,’ Lucien said, once Hunter and Taylor had both dropped their satellite transmitters out their windows. ‘Now, let’s be on the safe side, shall we? Take off your belts and drop them outside the window as well.’

‘That was the only transmitter we had on,’ Taylor said.

‘Noted,’ Lucien said with a polite nod. ‘But forgive me for not trusting you at this particular moment, Agent Taylor. Now, if you please, the belts.’

Hunter and Taylor complied, dropping them outside the window.

‘Now empty your pockets. Change, credit cards, wallets, pens. . all of it. And your watches too.’

‘How about this,’ Taylor said, showing Lucien the keychain that belonged to him. The one they had used to get access to the house in Murphy in North Carolina.

‘Oh, you’d better hang on to that, Agent Taylor. We’ll need it to get into this place.’

Hunter and Taylor dropped their watches and whatever they had in their pockets out the window.

‘Don’t worry,’ Lucien said. ‘I’m sure the pilot will collect everything once we drive off. Nothing will be lost. Now, since we’re on a roll here, let’s do the same with your shoes too. Take them off and leave them outside.’

‘The shoes?’ Taylor asked.

‘I’ve seen transmitters hidden inside heels, Agent Taylor. And since you’ve already abused my trust once, I’m not leaving anything to chance. But if you want to waste more time, you’ll get no opposition from me.’

Seconds later, Hunter’s boots and Taylor’s shoes hit the asphalt by the side of the car.

Lucien leaned forward slowly and looked down at Taylor’s feet.

‘You have very pretty toes, Agent Taylor.’ He nodded his agreement. ‘Red, the color for passion. Interesting. Did you know that it’s estimated that maybe as many as thirty to forty percent of men have some sort of foot fetish? I’m sure that there’re people out there who’d kill just to be able to touch those pretty toes.’

Cringing at his words, Taylor instinctively moved her feet back, as if trying to hide them away.

Lucien laughed animatedly.

‘And last but not least,’ he continued. ‘Let’s get rid of the cellphones, shall we? We all know that they have trackable GPS systems.’

As much as this was making them mad, Hunter and Taylor couldn’t argue. Lucien was still holding all the cards in this game. They did as they were told, and the phones were dropped outside their windows.

Satisfied, Lucien smiled at Hunter via the rearview mirror.

‘I think we’re good now,’ he said. ‘You can start the car again, Robert.’

Hunter did, and the satellite navigation system came to life on the 8.4-inch touchscreen on the dashboard.

‘You won’t need that,’ Lucien said. ‘There’s no road name, or number or anything. Just a dirt path.’

‘And how do we get there?’

‘I’ll guide you,’ Lucien said. ‘First thing we got to do is get the hell out of this shithole of an airport.’

Eighty-Nine

Director Adrian Kennedy stared at the radar screen inside the Operations Room at the FBI Academy in Quantico for a long time, trying to figure out what to do next.

‘We can try to track the GPS signal in their cellphones,’ the agent at the radar station offered.

Kennedy shrugged. ‘We can give that a spin, but this guy is too smart. He figured out the buttons just because they were a couple of shades darker than the original ones for chrissakes. Who notices the color of buttons on someone else’s shirt?’

‘Someone who knows what to expect,’ Doctor Lambert said. ‘Lucien never expected the FBI to simply bend over and accept his demands. He knew we would try something, and he was ready for it.’

‘And that’s exactly what I mean,’ Kennedy said. ‘If he was ready for the buttons, I don’t think there’s a chance he would allow Robert and Agent Taylor to proceed carrying their cellphones with them. Even a ten-year-old kid knows that a cellphone GPS system is trackable.’ He looked at the agent at the radar station. ‘But by all means, give it a spin.’

The agent called an internal FBI application on his computer. ‘What’s the agent’s name?’ he asked.

‘Courtney Taylor,’ Kennedy replied. ‘She’s with the Behavioral Science Unit.’

A few more keyboard clicks.

‘Found her,’ the agent said.

The application he had called up on his screen listed the trackable GPS ID for every cellphone issued to an FBI agent.

‘Give me a few seconds.’ The agent began typing ferociously. A moment later, the word ‘locating’ appeared on his screen, followed by three blinking dots. Just a few seconds after that, the screen announced: ‘GPS ID found’.

A new dot appeared on the radar system.

‘The phone is live,’ the agent said. ‘The GPS is still transmitting, which means it hasn’t been destroyed, and the battery is still in it. The location is exactly the same as we had before. They’re still on the runway at Berlin’s municipal airport.’

‘Either that,’ Kennedy said, ‘or they were told to leave their phones behind.’ He looked at Doctor Lambert, who nodded.

‘That’s what I would do.’

The cellphone in Kennedy’s pocket rang. It was Agent Brody inside Bird Two.

‘Director,’ Brody said once Kennedy answered the call. ‘Our pilot has just been in contact with the pilot in Bird One. He said that the car with the target is gone, but they left behind a pile of stuff on the runway — cellphones, wallets, belts, even shoes. The target is taking no chances.’

Kennedy had his answer.

‘What do you suggest we do?’ Brody asked. ‘With no ears on the ground anymore, and no accurate target location, landing can be too risky, and even if we get away with it without the target noticing it, we don’t have a dot to follow once we’re on the ground.’

‘I understand,’ Kennedy said. ‘And the answer is: I’m not sure yet. Let me call you back once I figure something out.’ He disconnected. His tired brain was working hard to come up with an idea. And then a thought came to him. ‘The car,’ he said, looking at Doctor Lambert and then at the radar station agent. ‘Robert got the car from the guy who runs air traffic control at the airport. His name is Josh. We heard that whole conversation through Robert’s button mic, remember? Josh said he just got the car, a Jeep Grand Cherokee, a couple of months ago.’

‘And a lot of new cars,’ the agent said, picking up on Kennedy’s line of thought, ‘already come equipped with an anti-theft satellite tracking system. It’s definitely worth a try.’

Kennedy nodded. ‘Let’s get Josh on the phone right now.’

Ninety

As soon as he drove through the airport gates, Hunter found himself on East Side River Road.

‘Make a left,’ Lucien said, ‘then take your first right. We’ve got to cross the small bridge into the city of Milan. Unfortunately, it doesn’t quite compare to the one in Italy. No Duomo Cathedral to see here. Actually, nothing at all to see here.’

Hunter followed Lucien’s instructions. They crossed the bridge and passed an elementary school on their right before coming to a T-junction at the top of the road.

‘Hang a right, and just follow the road on,’ Lucien commanded.

Hunter did, and within a few hundred yards he drove past a few houses, some small, some a little larger, but nothing too exuberant.

‘Welcome to the city of Milan, New Hampshire,’ Lucien said, jerking his chin toward the window. ‘There’s nothing here but rednecks, fields, solitude and isolated places. It’s a great place to disappear, go under the radar. No one will disturb you here. No one cares. And that’s one of the greatest things about America — it’s riddled with similar towns. Every state you go, you’ll find tens of Milans and Berlins and Murphys and Shitkickersville. Just God-forsaken places where many of the streets don’t even have a name, where people don’t notice you.’

Taylor felt the weight of Lucien’s keychain in her pocket and thought back to the seventeen keys it held. Each one of them could belong to a different anonymous place scattered around the land. Just like the house in Murphy.

Lucien read her like a book.

‘You’re wondering how I come upon these places, aren’t you, Agent Taylor?’

‘No, I’m not,’ Taylor replied just to contradict Lucien. ‘I don’t really care.’

Hunter checked her in his rearview mirror.

Taylor’s reply didn’t deter Lucien.

‘They are actually quite easy to come by,’ he explained. ‘You can buy them for next to nothing, because they are neglected, abandoned, half-destroyed places that no one wants or cares about anymore. If there is an owner, he or she usually just wants to get rid of the burden, so any offer is an offer, no matter how small. No refurbishment needed either. On the contrary, the more fucked-up, dirty, rotten and putrid the place is, the better. And you know why that is, don’t you, Robert?’

Hunter kept his eyes on the road, but he knew exactly why: The fear factor. You throw an abducted victim into a soiled, rancid and dark place, infested with rats or cockroaches, and the place alone will scare the life out of them.

Lucien didn’t need an answer. He knew Hunter knew. Lucien moved his head from side to side, and then forward and backward to try to release some of the tension in his neck.

‘This particular house,’ he continued, ‘was sheer luck, but a great find. It belonged to someone I met while at Yale. His great-grandfather built it some one hundred years ago. The house was passed down from generation to generation, being refurbished twice before it finally ended up as my friend’s property, but he hated everything about this place — the location, the looks, the layout and, according to him, its legacy and its history. In his mind, the house was cursed, a jinx. His mother died in an accident in the backyard. A few years later, his father hanged himself in the kitchen. His grandfather also died there. He said that he never wanted to see this place again. If he did, he’d burn it to the ground. I offered to buy it from him, but he wouldn’t have it. He just gave me the keys, signed away the deeds and said, “Take it. It’s yours.”’

Once they passed the initial cluster of houses, the scenery began to change. To their right, following the banks of the river, were nicely cropped fields that stretched as far as the eye could see. To their left, nothing but densely populated forests.

After about two miles, Hunter started noticing several little dirt paths that sprang out from the main road, leading deeper into the forest fields on their left. From the road, he couldn’t see how deep they went, or where they’d lead.

Lucien was still watching Hunter through the rearview mirror.

‘You’re wondering which one of these will take you to where Madeleine is, aren’t you, Robert?’

Hunter locked eyes with him for a quick moment.

Lucien gave Hunter a tight smile. ‘Well, we’ll be there soon enough. And for your sake, I really hope we’re not too late.’

Ninety-One

He’s going to keep on pushing.

Taylor’s finger tightened around the trigger on her weapon once again, as anger began to boil her blood.

Lucien noticed it, and calmly leaned his head against the window.

‘Easy on that trigger, Agent Taylor. I don’t think you can, or want, to shoot me just yet.’ He winked at her again. ‘Plus, I’m sure that that would really piss Robert off. He wants that privilege for himself.’

Without any warning, Hunter’s memory threw several images of Jessica lying in a pool of blood in her living room at him. His grip stiffened around the steering wheel until both of his fists had gone white.

The road swerved slightly to the left, then to the right, then to the left again. There were no crossroads and no tight bends, just dirt paths every so often leading away from the main road and into the unknown. The forestland to their left seemed to get denser the further they went. There were no lampposts, and darkness began to clothe them like an ill-fitting suit, tight and uncomfortable. Hunter switched the inside lights on. There was no way he would allow Lucien to hide his movements in darkness.

‘How much further?’ Taylor asked.

Lucien turned and looked out his window before carrying his gaze across to the one on the other side.

‘Not long.’

The road swerved left again in a half-moon shape, following the contour of the river on their right. The nicely cropped fields were all but gone. Now they had only dense forestland on both sides of the road.

‘Keep your eyes peeled for a sharp left turn that’s coming up, Robert,’ Lucien said. ‘Not a dirt path.’

Hunter slowed down and drove for another one hundred and fifty yards.

‘Yep,’ Lucien said, and nodded, ‘that’s the one. Right ahead.’

Hunter bent left.

The road, now flanked by more forestland, seemed to stretch forever into undiluted darkness. Since they’d left the airport, they hadn’t crossed a single vehicle in their path. No one in their rear-view mirror either. The further they went, the more it felt like they were driving away from civilization and into some sort of twilight world. One thing was for sure: Lucien knew how to pick a secluded hiding place.

They drove for another mile before the road turned into a bumpy dirt path. Hunter shifted down and wondered if he should engage the four-wheel-drive just in case.

‘We’re lucky,’ Lucien said, ‘it looks like there’s been no rain lately. These roads can easily turn into a nightmare of water pools and deep mud when rain comes.’

Hunter slowed down a little more, moving from one side of the road to the other, choosing the best path, trying to avoid making the car jerk too much.

‘There’s a right turn coming up,’ Lucien announced, tilting his head to one side to get a better look at the windscreen. ‘We’ve got to take it, Robert.’

‘This one?’ Hunter asked, pointing to a turn about twenty-five yards ahead of them.

‘That’s it.’

Hunter took it.

They were now clearly driving through the middle of nowhereland. The last sign of human life they’d seen had been miles back. If a bomb exploded right where they were, no one would hear it. No one would care. No one would come.

The road got bumpier still. The next mile seemed to take them an eternity to cover.

‘One more left turn coming up,’ Lucien said, ‘and we’ll be almost there, but keep your eyes open, Robert, it’s a tiny path, and it’s quite hidden away.’

Hunter saw it after another fifty yards, but he almost missed it. It really was a minute path. If they weren’t specifically looking for it, no one would ever notice it.

Hunter veered left. The trail was barely wide enough for the Jeep to fit through, and everyone heard the shrubs and bushes scrape the side of the vehicle.

‘Ooh,’ Lucien commented, ‘I don’t think the air traffic controller back at the airport will be happy about this, but then again, since his car was commandeered by the FBI, I’m sure it will be federally insured.’

This time, Hunter had nowhere to go to swerve away from the bigger bumps and holes. Good thing that they were in a brand-new car and the suspension was strong and steady.

They had to sit tight inside the shakemobile for another half a mile, until the road came to an abrupt end. Hunter put the car in neutral and looked around him. Taylor did the same. There was nothing but forest surrounding them.

‘Did we take a wrong turn somewhere?’ Taylor asked.

‘No,’ Lucien replied. ‘This is it.’

Taylor looked out the window again. The Jeep headlights reflected on the shrubs and trees.

‘This is it? Where?’ she asked.

Lucien nodded toward the front of their vehicle. ‘We have to walk the rest of the way. You can’t get there by car.’

Ninety-Two

Hunter was the first to leave the Jeep. Once he was out, he unholstered his weapon and opened the back door for Lucien. Taylor followed shortly after.

‘Now what?’ she asked, looking around her.

‘Through there,’ Lucien said, indicating a few loose tree branches that’d been piled up against each other just ahead and to the right of where the Jeep was parked.

‘We’re going to go deep into this forest with no light and no shoes?’ Taylor asked Hunter, looking down at their bare feet.

‘Not much I can do about the shoes,’ he replied, before reaching back inside the car for the glove compartment. He came back with a Maglite Pro Led 2. ‘But we do have light.’

‘That’s handy,’ Taylor said.

‘I knew night was approaching,’ Hunter said. ‘And I wasn’t counting on Lucien’s hiding place being very straightforward. So I also asked the air traffic controller for a flashlight.’

‘Robert Hunter,’ Lucien said, nodding and pursing his lips as if he was about to whistle. ‘Always thinking a step ahead. Too bad you didn’t foresee the shoe problem.’

‘Let’s go,’ Hunter commanded.

They assumed the same formation as when they were leaving the plane. Hunter took point, Lucien came second, and Taylor stayed four to five steps behind Lucien, her weapon always trained on his back, just a couple of inches below his neckline.

Hunter quickly removed the branches Lucien had indicated, and it revealed a well-worn trackers’ trail.

‘Just follow it,’ Lucien said. ‘The place isn’t very far from here.’

Despite already being in a hurry, Hunter’s gut feeling filled him with an extra sense of urgency, as if something he couldn’t quite pinpoint was off, but he didn’t have much time to dwell on it.

‘Let’s move,’ he said.

The flashlight had an ultra-bright and wide beam, which made things a little easier.

They took to the trail and, surprisingly, Lucien didn’t try to slow them down with the excuse of his shackled legs. He didn’t have to. Pebbles and little rocks and sharp-edged dried sticks forced Hunter and Taylor to move a lot slower than they would’ve liked.

They had covered only about thirty yards when the track swerved hard right, then left, and then it really felt as if they had crossed some sort of twilight gate. All of a sudden the bushes, trees and scrub gave way to a plain field — a clearing in the middle of nowhere.

‘And here we are,’ Lucien said with a proud smile.

Hunter and Taylor paused, their eyes looking around in disbelief.

‘What the hell is this?’

Ninety-Three

Hunter shone his flashlight on the structure standing before them.

It was a stiff and squared, ivy-covered brick house, with white Romanesque columns that must once have been imposing outside the front entryway. Now, only two of the original four were still standing, and those had cracks running from top to bottom.

The house had been built one hundred years earlier, and then reconfigured again twice after that, so whatever remained of its first incarnation as someone’s grand hillside home was now merely memory. Add to that the disfiguration caused by the elements and a total disregard and lack of care for a property, and you’d end up with the carcass of a house they had in front of them — a battered shell of a home of long ago.

Three out of the four outside walls still remained, but they all had several holes and major fissures in them, as if the house belonged in a warzone somewhere in the Middle East. The south wall, on the right side of the house, had almost entirely crumpled onto a pile of rubble. Most of the internal walls had also collapsed, giving the place nearly no room separation, and filling it with what looked like destruction debris. The roof had caved in almost everywhere, with the exception of the old living room at the front of the house, the corridor beyond it, and the kitchen on the left, where it was still partially in place. Weed and wild vegetation had grown through the floorboards and among the debris just about everywhere. The windows were all broken, and some of the window frames had been ripped from the walls as if by some sort of internal explosion.

‘Welcome to one of my favorite hiding places,’ Lucien said.

Taylor blinked the surprise away. ‘Madeleine?’ she yelled out, taking a step to her right.

No reply.

‘Madeleine?’ she yelled again, this time even louder. ‘This is the FBI. Can you hear me?’

She got nothing back.

‘Even if she’s still alive, she won’t be able hear you,’ Lucien said.

Taylor looked at him with fuming eyes. ‘This is bullshit. There’s nobody here.’

‘Are you sure about that?’ Lucien questioned.

‘Look at this shithole. This is not a hiding place. How can you hide or keep anyone locked in a place without doors or walls? Where anyone can simply walk in, or out?’

‘Because no one knows this place exists,’ Hunter said, trying to analyze the area surrounding the house. ‘And no one will ever come looking for it out here.’

‘Right again,’ Lucien said, looking at Taylor. ‘Hence the term hidden place.’

‘This is bullshit.’ Taylor couldn’t hide the anger in her voice. ‘You’re telling us that you left Madeleine somewhere in this ghost shell of a house — no windows, no doors, no walls, and she never walked out?’

Lucien’s gaze went to Taylor and right then his eyes looked like dark vials filled with venom.

‘Not somewhere inside it, Agent Taylor.’ He paused and ran his tongue over his bottom lip like a lizard. ‘Buried underneath it.’

Ninety-Four

Lucien’s words sent fear crawling like a rash across Taylor’s skin. Her now confused gaze immediately returned to what was left of the house, before moving to the soil surrounding it.

‘Well, not exactly buried,’ Lucien clarified. ‘Let me show you.’ He lifted both cuffed hands and pointed toward the north side of the disfigured structure. ‘Through there.’

In a hurry, Hunter and the flashlight took point again. Lucien and Taylor followed.

‘My friend’s grandfather,’ Lucien said, as they started walking, ‘and by friend, I mean the person I got this place from, was a hardcore, old-school patriot. I was told that he had his best years in this house during the USA versus USSR era. You know, “death to all communists” kind of thing. And he really subscribed to that ideology. And there was plenty of talk about a very possible atomic war.’

As soon as they reached the side of the house, Hunter and Taylor understood what Lucien was talking about.

On the ground, halfway along the north wall, they could see a very large, external, thick metal, basement-entry double door. The doors were locked together by a Sargent and Greenleaf military-grade padlock, very similar to the one they’d found in the house in Murphy.

‘My friend’s grandfather,’ Lucien continued, ‘in his paranoia and deep belief that an atomic war was inevitable and imminent, refurbished the whole place, extending and adding a substantial bomb shelter to the original basement.’ He nodded at the padlocked doors. ‘The house might look like an earthquake site, but the shelter has more than lived up to its expectations.’ He indicated the padlock. ‘The key for that is on the keychain.’

Taylor immediately reached for it.

‘Which one,’ she asked urgently, holding up the bunch of keys.

Lucien leaned forward and squinted at them for a second. ‘The sixth one starting from your left.’

Taylor selected the key and reached for the padlock.

Hunter and Lucien waited, and as they did, Hunter’s awkward sensation that something wasn’t quite right came back to him. He looked around him for an instant.

‘What’s at the back of the house?’ he asked.

Lucien studied him for a moment, and then let his gaze move toward the far end of the house.

‘A very badly treated backyard,’ he replied. ‘There’s a large pond as well, which now looks more like a deep pool of mud. Would you like me to give you a tour? I have all the time in the world.’

Click. The padlock came undone. Taylor unhooked it from the doors and threw it away before grabbing one of the handles and pulling it toward her. The door barely moved.

‘Heavy, aren’t they?’ Lucien commented with a smirk. ‘As I’ve said, this isn’t a regular cellar, Agent Taylor. It’s a fallout shelter.’

‘I’ll do it,’ Hunter said.

Taylor stepped back while Hunter first pulled the right door open, then the left one.

They were immediately hit by a breath of warm, stale air. The doors revealed a concrete staircase that took them down a lot deeper than one would’ve imagined. There were at least thirty to forty steps.

‘Deep, isn’t it?’ Lucien said. ‘It’s a well-built shelter.’

Hunter went down first, and they all moved down in a hurry.

At the bottom, they were greeted by another heavy metal door with a very sturdy lock.

‘The seventh key,’ Lucien announced, ‘the one to the right of the one you used on the padlock.’

Taylor moved forward and unlocked the door before pushing it open.

The air inside the dark room beyond it was leaden with dust, and felt even staler, but there was something else in the air, something that both Hunter and Taylor could easily recognize because they’d been around it too many times.

The smell of death.

Ninety-Five

Sometimes sour, sometimes putrid, sometimes sickly sweet, sometimes bitter, sometimes nauseating, and most of the time a combination of everything. No one can tell you what death really smells like. Most would say that there’s no specific smell to it, but anyone who’s been around it as many times as Hunter and Taylor had been would recognize in just a fraction of a second, because as soon as you smell it, it chokes your heart and saddens your soul in a way that nothing else does.

As they sensed death, Hunter and Taylor were filled with a disquieting fear, and the same thought exploded inside both of their heads.

We’ve wasted too much time. We’re too late.

Hunter shone the beam of his flashlight into the room and moved it around the place almost frantically.

It was empty.

There was no one there.

Lucien took a healthy deep breath, like a hungry man taking in the aroma of freshly cooked food.

‘Wow, I’ve missed this smell.’

‘Madeleine?’ Taylor called into the room, her gaze chasing after the beam of the flashlight. ‘Madeleine?’

‘It would’ve been very stupid of me if I had left Madeleine locked inside the very first room one comes to in the shelter, wouldn’t it?’ A cryptic smile graced Lucien’s lips.

‘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.

With the room now under its own light, Hunter and Taylor could finally see the entire picture.

Madeleine was indeed naked, her hands were surely tied to each other behind the chair’s backrest. Her feet were tied to the chair’s legs.

As her eyes at last registered people at the other end of the corridor, she started shaking. Her breathing came in little gasps, as if there weren’t enough oxygen in the room.

‘Madeleine,’ Hunter said, reading the first signs of acute panic on her. He knew she’d been conditioned. She’d been tortured and scared for so long that her immediate psychological response to seeing anyone down in that hellhole was to flood her body with terrifying fear. Right now, to her, everyone was a threat, because everyone she’d ever met down there had tortured her.

‘Listen to me, honey.’ Hunter’s voice was as calm and as warm as he could make it sound. ‘My name is Robert Hunter, and I’m with the FBI. We’re here to help you. Stay calm and we’ll get you out of here, OK?’

Hunter felt so useless saying those words. He wanted to go to Madeleine, free her hands and feet, get her out of that fallout shelter, and reassure her that she was safe, that the nightmare was now over, that no one would hurt her anymore. But he couldn’t do any of that. All he could do was throw empty words traveling down that corridor, and hope that was enough to keep Madeleine from losing control.

Madeleine’s lips moved again; again, the sound of her words weren’t strong enough to reach anyone’s ears in the control room. But Hunter had no problem reading her lips.

‘Please help me. .’

Hunter quickly peeked at Ghost. He was standing by the control console, his weapon firmly in his grip, his stare burning a hole in the back of Taylor’s head. Lucien was standing just a step to his left, but his attention seemed to be everywhere — nothing would escape him. If Hunter tried anything, he’d be dead.

Lucien nodded at Ghost, who flicked a different switch on the control console. The door to the room Madeleine was in slammed shut, no doubt sending even more fear snowballing into every molecule in her body.

Reflexively, Taylor turned to face Lucien and Ghost. ‘No. Please, no.’

The suddenness of her movement caught Ghost by surprise, almost tipping him over the edge, his arm tensing even further and his finger half-squeezing the trigger on his gun.

‘You better stay where you are, bitch.’

‘Please,’ Taylor said, her hands up in a surrender gesture. ‘Shutting the door on her will make her panic even more.’

Lucien nodded in a carefree way. ‘Yes, I know.’

Anger radiated from Taylor. ‘You sonofabitch.’

‘Let her go, Lucien,’ Hunter said. ‘Let Madeleine go. You don’t need her anymore. You don’t need to take her life. She means nothing to you. Take me and let her go. Let Courtney take Madeleine out of here, and take me.’

‘You dumb fuck,’ Ghost said. His gun was still aimed at Taylor. ‘Reality check, big guy — we already have you, and the whore inside the room, and the pretty FBI bitch with the pretty toes here.’ He blew Taylor a kiss while rubbing his groin. ‘Soon you’ll be all mine, bitch. And I’ll make you scream. You can bet on that.’

Taylor’s self-control completely escaped her.

‘Fuck you, you tiny pencil-dick ugly fuck.’

Maybe it was Taylor’s words, or maybe Ghost had just had enough of this game, but the overload switch in his head flicked.

‘No,’ he said, with so much anger it almost drooled out of his mouth. ‘Fuck you, you stupid whore.’ He squeezed the trigger on his gun.

Ninety-Eight

FBI Academy — Quantico, Virginia.

Forty-five minutes earlier.

It didn’t take the FBI long to get in contact with Joshua Foster, the air traffic controller at Berlin’s municipal airport. The call was immediately transferred to Director Kennedy in the Operations Room.

‘Mr Foster,’ Kennedy said, switching the call to speakerphone. ‘My name is Adrian Kennedy. I’m the director of the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime and the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI. I believe that you were in contact with one of our agents. His name is Robert Hunter. You handed him the keys to your Jeep.’

‘Ummm, that’s correct.’ Understandably, there was a nervous edge to Joshua Foster’s voice.

‘OK, Mr Foster, please listen carefully,’ Kennedy said. ‘This is very important. I understand your car was brand new.’

‘Yeah, well, I got it about two months ago.’

‘That’s great. Now did the car come equipped with a location transponder, a GPS locator, in case of theft?’

‘Actually, yes, it did.’

Kennedy’s face lit up.

‘But I don’t have the transponder tracking code with me,’ Foster said, anticipating Kennedy’s next question. ‘It’s back at my house.’

‘We don’t need it.’ The agent at the radar station took over. ‘All we need is the car’s license plate and I can find the transponder tracking code from here.’

‘Oh, OK.’ Foster gave them his Jeep’s license plate number.

‘Thank you very much, Mr Foster,’ Kennedy said. ‘You’ve been a great help.’

‘Could I ask. .?’ Foster tried saying, but Kennedy had already disconnected the call.

‘How long will it take you to find this tracking code,’ he asked.

‘Not long at all,’ the agent replied, already typing something into his computer.

As Kennedy waited, his cellphone rang inside his jacket pocket again. It was Special Agent Moyer, the agent in charge of the expedition sent to Lake Saltonstall in New Haven. They were looking for Karen Simpson’s remains, together with those of four other victims.

‘Director,’ the agent said, his voice firm but a little subdued, as if to show respect. ‘Sir, the information is one hundred percent legit. So far, we’ve dug out the remains of exactly five bodies.’ There was an awkward pause. ‘Would you like us to carry on digging? The area here is pretty vast, and if this was the perpetrator’s preferred burial ground, who knows how many more we might find.’

‘No, that won’t be necessary,’ Kennedy replied. ‘You won’t find any more bodies.’ He had no doubt Lucien had told the truth. ‘Just prep the ones you found for transportation. We’ll need them here in Quantico ASAP.’

‘Understood, sir.’

‘Good work, Agent Moyer,’ Kennedy said before hanging up.

‘Got the transponder tracking code,’ the agent at the radar station announced, as he entered a few more commands into his computer.

Everyone’s eyes were glued to his screen.

‘Tracking now.’

The seconds felt like minutes. Finally, the map on the agent’s screen repositioned itself to show the location of a bright, pulsating dot.

‘We’ve got the Jeep’s location,’ the agent said excitedly. A short pause. ‘And it doesn’t look like they’re moving anymore.’

‘Yes, I see that,’ Kennedy said, frowning at the screen. ‘But where the hell are they exactly?’

‘Right in the middle of absolutely nowhere, by the looks of it,’ Doctor Lambert commented.

According to the map, the Jeep was parked at the end of a nameless dirt path deep inside a dense forestland several miles from Berlin’s municipal airport.

‘We need a satellite image of the area instead of a map,’ Kennedy said.

‘Give me a second,’ the agent replied and immediately started typing again.

Two seconds later, the map on his screen was swapped for a satellite image of the area.

Everyone frowned at the screen for a moment.

‘What is this?’ Kennedy asked, pointing at what looked like a construction site not that far away from where the Jeep was parked.

The agent zoomed in on it and readjusted the resolution. ‘It looks like an old abandoned house, or building of some sort,’ he answered. ‘Or at least what’s left of it.’

‘That’s it,’ Kennedy said, ‘that’s where they are. That’s where Lucien was keeping his victim.’ He reached for his cellphone and called agent Brody inside Bird Two. They needed to land and get to that house — NOW.

Ninety-Nine

Hunter saw it before it actually happened.

He saw something explode inside Ghost’s cold eyes, as if he’d been injected with an overdose of pure anger and evil, and right then he knew Ghost had passed the point of no return. But even though he saw it, this time Hunter wasn’t able to move fast enough. He wasn’t able to get between Taylor and Ghost. Ghost’s trigger-squeezing reaction took only a split second.

As the hammer hit the firing pin in Ghost’s gun, it was like it’d activated a real-life slow-motion switch for Hunter. He practically saw the bullet leave the gun barrel, travel through the air and whizz past the right side of his face, missing it by just a fraction. In a reflex reaction, he began turning toward Taylor, but he didn’t have to. From that distance, even a novice wouldn’t have missed, and he could see in Ghost’s eyes that he was no first timer. A millisecond after the shot, he felt the warmth of splattered blood and brain matter hit the back of his neck and side of his face, as Taylor’s head exploded with the impact of the fragmenting bullet.

The air inside the room was immediately filled with the smell of cordite.

Hunter still managed to turn fast enough to see Taylor’s body be propelled backward and slam against the dappled gunmetal door, before falling to the ground. The wall behind her was immediately colored in crimson red with speckles of flesh, gray matter and blonde hair. The bullet had hit her almost perfectly right between the eyes. Due to Ghost’s diminutive height and his position in relation to Taylor, the bullet traveled in a slight upward and left-to-right angle. The damage was mind-boggling. Most of the right upper part of her head and cranium was missing, blown off by the devastating effect of the Civil Defense bullet — a special type of round designed to mushroom (like turning inside-out) and fragment on impact, sending tiny pieces in all directions.

Taylor never had a chance.

Hunter quickly turned back to face Ghost, whose aim had now moved to Hunter’s face.

‘Make a move, tough guy, c’mon, make a move, and I’ll blow your brains all over her rotting corpse.’

Hunter felt every fiber in his body go rigid with anger, and he had to use all his willpower not to lunge at Ghost. Instead he just stood there, his breathing labored, his hands shaking, but not from fear.

‘Yeah, that’s what I thought,’ Ghost said. ‘Not so tough after all, are you?’

‘WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?’ Lucien shouted. He looked even more surprised than Hunter was. ‘Why the fuck did you shoot her, Ghost?’

Ghost kept his weapon trailed on Hunter. ‘Because the bitch was getting on my nerves,’ he replied in a serious but unconcerned voice. ‘You know I hate when anyone talks about me that way.’

Lucien took a step back, running a hand across his forehead.

‘The foulmouthed bitch got what she deserved.’ Ghost shrugged, as if all he’d done was throw a dart at a dartboard. ‘What does it matter anyway? They were both going to die, weren’t they? They’ve seen our faces, Lucien. You and I know that they would never walk out of here alive. And all this chit-chat bullshit was pissing me off, so I just sped things up for her.’ He nodded at Hunter. ‘And you know what? I’m just gonna do the same for him.’

Ghost’s face burned with sadistic desire, and Hunter saw the same determination of moments ago flood Ghost’s eyes.

There was no time for a reaction.

Another squeeze of the trigger.

Just like before, the bullet found its target with amazing accuracy.

One Hundred

Sky above the city of Milan, New Hampshire.

Forty minutes earlier.

Inside Bird Two, Agent Brody and his team were starting to lose hope.

Their plane had been circling the outer perimeter of Berlin’s municipal airport for several minutes now. The pilot had already told Brody that he’d need a plan of action soon. The plane had enough fuel for another thirty to thirty-five minutes of flight time, but if they weren’t landing in Berlin, they would need to land somewhere else and refuel before flying back to Quantico. That meant turning the plane around and flying to a different airport.

The nearest airport to Berlin was Gorham municipal airport — about five to ten minutes due south depending on the wind. As a precaution measure, the pilot always allowed an extra ten minutes of flight time in case of landing traffic or some other unforeseen circumstance. That left them with a maximum of another ten, maybe fifteen minutes’ circling time. After that, the pilot was turning the plane around and heading toward Gorham.

Brody had his cellphone on the table in front of him. He was staring at its dark screen as if hypnotized. When he finally checked his watch, another seven minutes had passed. Three more minutes and this operation was over. He had to call Kennedy.

As he reached for his phone, it rang.

One Hundred and One

This wasn’t the first time Hunter had stared down the barrel of a gun. It wasn’t the first time he’d been in a life or death situation either, but Ghost was too far away for Hunter to be able to get to him in time, and he was too close for Hunter to be able to dive away from the bullet.

This time there was no way out.

In that split second before Ghost squeezed the trigger, all Hunter could think of was how sorry he was for not being able to protect Taylor, and for not fulfilling the promise he’d made Jessica all those years ago while he held his fiancée’s mutilated body in his arms.

Despite what he was facing, Hunter didn’t close his eyes. He didn’t even blink. He would not give Ghost the satisfaction. His gaze stayed on Ghost’s face. And that was how he was able to see his head explode.

It was a perfect shot. The bullet hit Ghost on his left temple. Its hollow-point cavity was immediately filled with fluids and tissue, forcing it to mushroom as it began traveling past the cranium wall and across Ghost’s brain, savagely ripping apart everything in its path.

The mushroom effect of a hollow-point reduces the bullet’s velocity considerably, and in most cases there will be no exit wound. The bullet will generally lodge itself within its target. But again, at such close range, the power of a .45-caliber round was more than enough to propel the bullet all the way across Ghost’s shaved head.

When it occurs, the exit wound of a .45 mushroomed Civil Defense bullet is impressive. In Ghost’s case, it was the size of a grapefruit. Half of the right side of his face, from his ear to the top of his head, exploded out as if an alien being had hatched out of a large egg. Bone, blood, brain matter and skin splattered against the wall and the control console to his right, covering everything in a sticky, gooey red mess.

The terribly loud sound of the fired shot made Hunter jerk, but he still kept his eyes open. He saw the anger, the determination and the evil dissipate from Ghost’s eyes, before his whole body was basically lifted from the ground by the force of the shot’s impact. It slammed against the control console and flopped to the ground like an empty flour sack. A pool of blood quickly began to form around his head.

His gun also hit the console, but it slid away to the other side of the room, ending somewhere behind the cardboard boxes.

Hunter’s heart was racing like a Drag car. Adrenaline had flooded every vein in his body, making him shake. His gaze finally moved to Lucien. He could still see a thin plume of smoke traveling in the air from Lucien’s shot, but again, before Hunter could react, Lucien had already aimed Taylor’s gun at him.

‘Stay right where you are, Robert. I really don’t want to, but if need be, I’ll put a bullet right through your heart. And you know I mean it.’

Hunter stared at him, unable to hide his surprise for what he’d just done.

‘I’ve never liked him anyway,’ Lucien explained in his usual matter-of-fact manner. ‘He was just a dumb, sadistic kid with no purpose, who was traumatized when young, and because of that he loved torturing and killing people just for the fun of it.’

Coming from Lucien, Hunter found the comment very rich.

‘And he just outlived his usefulness,’ Lucien moved on, not even a pinch of remorse or pity in his tone. ‘Like all the previous ones. They all do eventually, so I just find myself a new little helper.’

Hunter’s focus was on Lucien’s gun.

‘Believe me if you like, but I had no intention of killing Agent Taylor, unless I absolutely had to, but unfortunately she touched on a very delicate subject when it came to Ghost. You see, he came from a very dysfunctional family. Both of his parents abused him physically and psychologically in ways that are hard for even me to imagine. They forced him to walk around the house naked all the time, and they made constant fun of him, especially of his manhood, calling him a series of derogative names. Would you like to guess one of them?’

Hunter breathed in. ‘Pencil-dick.’

Lucien nodded once. ‘That’s the one. Unfortunately, the same name Agent Taylor threw at him.’

For a deeply traumatized and disturbed person, a single word, a sound, a color, an image, a smell. . a multitude of simple things can easily reopen a terribly painful wound. Usually the person’s reaction is highly unpredictable, but in the case of a violent person, violence is almost always present within the reaction. In the case of a psychopath like Ghost, that violent reaction is usually fatal.

‘When Ghost was seventeen years old,’ Lucien added, ‘he

finally had enough. He tied his father to a bed, castrated him, and left him to bleed to death. After that, he used a baseball bat to beat his mother’s head into a paste. He was too damaged. I knew I’d be getting rid of him soon anyway.’

Despite the bloody chaos of the control room, Hunter forced himself to think as clearly as he possibly could. His main concern came back to him, and he turned his head to look down the corridor behind him. His eyes caught a glimpse of Taylor’s body on the floor, and his heart sank yet again. He looked back at Lucien.

‘Let Madeleine go, Lucien,’ he said one more time. ‘Please. If you really want another victim, take me instead. She means nothing to you.’

‘True, and that’s exactly why I should kill her, Robert,’ Lucien said. ‘Because she means nothing to me. Now you were my best friend. We have some history. Why would I want to kill you instead of her?’

‘Because you already took half of my life when you took Jessica from me,’ Hunter replied. ‘And I know you don’t like to leave things half done.’

As much as Hunter tried to hide it, Lucien recognized real emotion in his voice.

‘So this is your chance, Lucien,’ Hunter continued. ‘Let her go and finish what you started with me, because if you don’t, I will kill you.’

Despite the seriousness of his words, Hunter spoke as if he were talking to someone inside a library, his voice quiet and steady.

‘OK,’ Lucien said, taking a step closer to the blood-covered control console, his weapon still targeting Hunter’s heart, ‘let’s see if you are a man of your word, Robert.’ He flicked a switch and the door at the end of the corridor swung open again.

Hunter turned and faced the hallway.

Madeleine immediately looked up. She looked even more petrified than before.

Hunter knew that she’d heard both shots, and they’d no doubt scared her imagination into fantasizing the worst as to what was happening outside and, worse, what would now happen to her.

She looked to be almost hyperventilating; right then, nothing in the world could make her stop shaking.

Lucien jerked his gun toward the hallway. ‘Let’s go join her, shall we? I have one last surprise for you.’

One Hundred and Two

Hunter had to step over Taylor’s body to reach the hallway. Lucien followed, but at a safe distance. There was no way Hunter could mount an attack before Lucien fired at least two shots at him.

As Hunter started down the corridor, Madeleine’s eyes met his and he could see only one thing in them — pure terror.

‘Please help me.’

This time Hunter could finally hear her. Her weak and quivering voice was drowning in fear.

‘Madeleine, please just stay calm,’ Hunter said in his most confident voice. ‘Everything will be just fine.’

Madeleine’s gaze moved past Hunter and found Lucien, and it was as if the monster that had been haunting her worst nightmares since she was a little girl had just materialized in front of her. Fear grew inside her like a hurricane, and she began screaming and wiggling her fragile body in the chair.

‘Madeleine,’ Hunter said again. ‘Look at me.’

She didn’t.

‘Look at me, Madeleine,’ he repeated, firmer this time.

Her stare moved to Hunter.

‘That’s right. Good girl. Keep your eyes on me and try to stay calm. I’ll get you out of here.’ He hated himself for lying, but in the situation he found himself in, there wasn’t much else he could do.

Madeleine still looked terribly scared, but something in Hunter’s tone seemed to work. She looked directly at him and stopped screaming.

‘Get in, turn left, walk five paces and kneel down, Robert,’ Lucien said as they got to the door.

Hunter did as he was told.

The room was completely bare, except for the chair with Madeleine and a small module with two drawers at the opposite end from where Hunter had kneeled down. There was a faint aroma of urine and vomit, fighting the harsher odor of disinfectant right inside the door, as if someone had been violently ill, and the clean-up had been sloppy.

Lucien entered the room after him, turned right and approached the module. He opened the top drawer and reached for something inside.

Madeleine’s eyes wavered toward him.

‘Look at me, Madeleine,’ Hunter called again. ‘Don’t worry about him. Keep your eyes on me. C’mon, this way.’

She looked back at Hunter.

‘You are very good with hostages, Robert,’ Lucien said, moving to the left side of Madeleine’s chair.

Hunter finally saw what Lucien had retrieved from the drawer — a stainless-steel blade, about five inches long.

‘You know,’ Lucien said, ‘I really hate guns.’ With a quick hand movement he released the ammo clip from Taylor’s .45 Springfield Professional. It fell to the floor, and he kicked it behind him, across the room from where Hunter was. In another very quick double-hand movement, he pulled back the slide, ejecting the bullet in the chamber.

Hunter kept his attention on him. He finally began to see a chance.

Lucien then moved the gun away from him and used his finger to depress the recoil spring plug. In no time at all he had completely stripped the gun, dropping all the separate parts onto the ground.

Hunter breathed out, his muscles tensed-ready as he wondered if he could get to Lucien fast enough.

‘Don’t even think about it, Robert,’ Lucien said, taking a step forward and positioning himself partially behind Madeleine’s chair. The blade, now in his left hand, moved to her neck, while with his right one he pulled her head back by the hair. He could see that Hunter was dying to lunge at him. ‘You move a muscle, and I’ll slice her neck open.’

Madeleine felt the cold blade dig at her skin and her heart almost stopped. She was so petrified that this time she wasn’t even able to scream.

Hunter held steady.

‘I know you despise me, old buddy,’ Lucien said, smiling slightly, almost apologetically. ‘And I don’t blame you. Without knowing the real purpose behind everything I’ve done, anyone would. To everyone I’m just a psychopathic sadistic killer who’s been torturing and killing people for twenty-five years, right? But to you I’m much more than that. I’m the person you’ve been hunting for twenty years. The person who so savagely mutilated the only woman you’ve ever loved. The woman you were going to marry. The woman that would give you a family.’

Hunter felt the anger and rage inside him start to gather strength again.

‘But I’m much more than that,’ Lucien said. ‘In time you’ll understand. I’m leaving you and the FBI a gift.’ He jerked his head in the corridor’s direction. ‘You’ll have no problems finding it. But that will come later, because right now I’m going to give you a chance to fulfill the promise you made to yourself and to Jessica all those years ago, Robert. And this is going to be the only chance you’ll ever get, because if you don’t kill me now, you’ll never see me again. Not in this lifetime.’

Hunter’s heart shifted gears inside his chest.

‘The problem is,’ Lucien continued, ‘the moral dilemma that is about to storm through your head and throw your conscience into a tormenting mental battle, old buddy.’ Lucien’s gaze flicked to Madeleine for a moment before returning to Hunter. ‘Let me clarify what I mean by asking you one single question.’ He paused, his stare almost drilling holes into Hunter’s eyes. ‘And that question is: If you come after me now, how are you going to contain her bleeding and get her to a hospital before she bleeds to death?’

In a super-fast movement, Lucien moved the knife from Madeleine’s neck down to her body, and stabbed her on the upper left-hand side of her abdomen, just under the ribcage. The blade penetrated all the way to its handle.

Hunter’s eyes widened in shock.

‘No!’ he shouted as he sprang forward, but Lucien was ready for it, and before Hunter could get to his feet, Lucien used the sole of his boot to kick him square on the chest. The powerful blow sent a winded Hunter tumbling backward. Lucien extracted the knife from Madeleine, opening the wound and causing it to start bleeding profusely.

‘Keep your promise to Jessica, or save Madeleine, Robert,’ Lucien said as he moved toward the door. ‘You can’t do both. Make your choice, old friend.’ He disappeared down the corridor.

One Hundred and Three

It took Hunter a couple of seconds to be able to breathe again, and when he did, his lungs and his chest burned as if he’d sucked in hot coal. Reflexively his hand moved to his chest, and his eyes to the door. His socks scrambled across the floor, trying to maintain some sort of grip as he fought to get back on his feet.

Once he finally did, his primal instinct kicked in and he dashed toward the door. There was no way he was letting Lucien get away from him. He knew Lucien meant what he’d said — if Hunter didn’t kill him now, he’d likely never get another chance again. Lucien had surely planned his escape to the last detail. It had taken then FBI twenty-five years to apprehend him the first time — who knew if they ever would again?.

Hunter had taken only three steps in the direction of the corridor when his eyes caught a glimpse of Madeleine. Blood was pouring out of her open wound in volumes. Her head had slumped forward again. Her eyelids were half-shut. Life was fast draining out of her.

Hunter had a pretty good understanding of anatomy. The wound was to Madeleine’s upper-left side of the abdomen, just under the ribcage. The blade Lucien had used was about five inches long, and he had driven the entire blade into her flesh. Judging by the amount of blood she was losing, Lucien had punctured a vascular organ.

Left upper side, Hunter thought. The blade has punctured her spleen.

He’d also noticed that Lucien had twisted the blade as he removed it from her body, enlarging the rupture to the organ and the entire wound-channel. If Hunter didn’t contain the bleeding now, in three to five minutes Madeleine would be dead from loss of blood. Even if he managed to contain the external bleeding, there was nothing he could do about the internal hemorrhaging. He still had to get her to a hospital and an operation room fast.

Hunter blinked once. His priorities were colliding just as Lucien had predicted.

Lucien was getting away.

You’ll never see me again. Not in this lifetime.

Hunter blinked again. The mental battle Lucien had talked about was now in full flow inside his head.

Keep your promise to Jessica, or save Madeleine, you can’t do both. Make your choice, old friend.

Hunter blinked one more time, and then rushed toward Madeleine.

He immediately kneeled down next to her, ripped his shirt from his body, jumbled it into a ball and, using his left hand, placed it over the wound, applying just enough pressure. The shirt immediately became soaked in her blood.

‘Look at me, Madeleine,’ he said, while he stretched his right arm out, reaching for the blade that Lucien had dropped. ‘Look at me,’ he said again.

She didn’t.

Streeeetch. Got it.

‘Madeleine, look at me.’

She tried, but her eyelids began to flutter.

‘No, no, no. Stay with me, honey. Don’t close your eyes. I know you’re tired, but I need you to stay with me, OK? I’m going to get you out of here.’

Hunter took a quick look behind the chair. Her hands were tied together by a plastic cable tie, just like her feet to the chair’s legs. Still applying enough pressure over the wound with his left hand, he tilted his body to the right and used the blade to slice through the cable tie behind the chair.

Madeleine’s hands fell loosely by her side, as if she were a ragdoll.

Hunter quickly sliced through the two cable ties at her feet.

‘Madeleine. .’ He dropped the blade and reached for her face. Touching her chin, he gently shook her head from side to side. ‘Stay with me, honey. Stay with me.’

Madeleine’s drowsy eyes found his face.

‘That’s it. Keep your eyes on mine.’ He reached for her left hand and placed it on the shirt over her wound. ‘I need you to hold onto this and press it against your body as hard as you can, do you understand, honey?’

He reached for her right hand and placed it over her left one, now making her hold the shirt against the wound with both hands.

Madeleine didn’t respond.

‘Hold onto it and press it against you as hard as you can, OK?’

She tried, but she was way too weak to be able to apply enough pressure to properly contain the bleeding. Hunter had to do it himself, but he also needed to carry her out of that fallout shelter, into the Jeep outside, to which he still had the keys in his pocket, and on to a hospital. Unless he became an octopus in the next second or so, pulling that off would be a very hard task to accomplish.

Hunter placed his left hand over both of Madeleine’s, helping her apply pressure to the wound.

Think, Robert, think, he told himself, looking around the room. There was absolutely nothing he could use.

He thought about running back to the shelter’s control room and searching the place for some sort of tape or rope, something he could tie around her body to hold his shirt in place, but that would take too much time, and time was something he didn’t have.

Think, Robert, think. He was still looking around the room.

That was when his thought process went from A to Z in a split second — Ghost. Ghost had a small frame, with a very narrow waist, but Madeleine had lost so much weight that he was sure Ghost’s belt could loop around her torso.

‘Maddy, hold on to this shirt as tight as you can. I’ll be right back.’

Madeleine looked at him with dopey eyes.

‘Hold on tight, honey,’ he repeated. ‘I’ll be right back.’

Hunter let go of her hands. Immediately, more blood flowed out of her wound. Madeleine simply didn’t have enough strength to keep applying the necessary pressure. Hunter had to move fast.

He got to his feet and dashed down the corridor like an Olympic sprinter. He reached the control room and Ghost’s body in three seconds.

Ghost was wearing a cheap black leather belt with a conventional square frame and prong buckle. Hunter undid it and pulled it off his waist with a single strong pull. In no time at all, he was flying back down the corridor. By the time he reached Madeleine again, he’d lost only nine seconds.

Madeleine’s hands had almost let go of his shirt.

‘I’m here, Maddy, I’m here,’ he said, grabbing the shirt with his left hand and reapplying enough pressure to partially contain the bleeding.

Using his right hand, Hunter lifted Madeleine’s back from the chair’s backrest, and wrapped Ghost’s belt around her torso and over his blood-soaked shirt.

‘This is going to feel a little tight, OK?’ he said, and gave the belt a strong tug.

Madeleine coughed several times. No blood in her mouth. That was a good sign.

Perfect fit. The buckle slotted into the first hole.

‘OK, honey, I’m going to pick you up, and we’re getting the hell out of this place, OK? I’m going to get you to a hospital. Stay with me. I know you’re tired but don’t fall asleep, OK? Keep your eyes open. Ready? Here we go.’

Hunter picked her up from the chair with both arms and got to his feet. The belt tourniquet held in place. Madeleine coughed again. Still no blood.

Hunter dashed out of the room and down the corridor as fast as he could.

One Hundred and Four

Outside darkness was almost absolute, but after coming out of what could easily be considered Satan’s basement, breathing the fresh night air felt like a god’s touch.

‘Madeleine, stay with me. Don’t close your eyes,’ Hunter said as he paused almost at the top of the long staircase. He couldn’t really see if Madeleine had her eyes open or not, but he knew that he had to keep talking to her. He couldn’t allow her to doze off.

He still had the Maglite in his pocket, so he adjusted his position on the steps — left leg two steps higher than the right one — and awkwardly reached for the flashlight with his left hand. Grabbed it. Switched on.

Madeleine was struggling with her eyelids.

‘You’re doing fine, honey. Stay awake?’

Hunter’s sense of direction was as sharp as they came. He remembered that they had approached the basement entrance from his left, so he turned and started moving that way fast.

Debris, rocks and sticks began digging at the soles of his feet, but he gritted his teeth and blocked out the pain as best he could.

‘You’re doing great, Madeleine. We’ll be in the car in just a moment, OK?’

Madeleine didn’t reply. Her head dropped to Hunter’s shoulder.

‘No, no, no. . hey, no dozing off now. Tell me your name, honey. What’s your full name?’

‘Huh?’

‘Your name. Tell me your full name, honey?’

Hunter also wanted to test her level of consciousness.

‘Maddy,’ she replied.

Her whisper was getting weaker. Despite the tourniquet, her blood was now covering Hunter’s arms, the whole lower half of his torso, and beginning to soak the top of his trousers. Because of the running action, some had also spurted upward, spraying his chest and face.

‘That’s great. That’s really great. Is Maddy short for something?’

‘Huh?’

‘Maddy is short for something, isn’t it?’

‘Madeleine.’

‘Wow, that’s a beautiful name. But what’s your last name?’

No reply.

‘Maddy, wake up. Stay with me, honey. What’s your last name? Tell me your last name.’

Nothing. Hunter was losing her.

He took his eyes off his path to look at her face, and that was when he felt something cut into the sole of his left foot. The pain shot up his leg like a rocket, making him stumble awkwardly, lose his balance and almost fall to the ground. The shake and stumble movement jerked Madeleine awake. Her eyes butterflied open and she at last looked at him.

Despite the pain, Hunter smiled. ‘We’re almost there. Keep your eyes open, OK?’

Hunter’s running had turned into a desperate limp, as his left foot screamed in agony every time it touched the ground.

They finally reached the front of the house.

‘FBI, stop right where you are or we’ll put you down.’ The shout came from Hunter’s left. He turned his head in that direction, but a light was immediately shone on his face, preventing him from seeing who had called the order.

Hunter came to an abrupt halt.

In the next second, four other lights appeared out of the darkness — one more to Hunter’s left, two to his right, and one directly in front of him. All the lights together provided enough brightness for Hunter to better see what he was faced with. He was surrounded by FBI agents. All of them had their weapons trained directly on him. No doubt this was Kennedy’s backup team.

‘Place the woman on the ground and take three steps back, nice and slowly,’ the same person who had instructed him a moment ago yelled out.

‘I’m with the FBI,’ Hunter shouted back, a touch of anger overshadowing any relief in his voice. ‘My name is Robert Hunter. I had to dispose of my credentials back on the runway of Berlin’s municipal airport. You can check with Director Adrian Kennedy, if you like, but do it in your own time, because this woman needs immediate medical assistance.’

Agent Brody, the one who had called out the commands, took a step closer and squinted his eyes at Hunter. It took his memory an extra couple of seconds to match Hunter’s blood-streaked face to the photograph Director Kennedy had emailed him.

‘Stand down. He’s with us,’ Brody instructed his team, urgently moving toward Hunter. ‘There are supposed to be two of you,’ he said as he got to Hunter. ‘Agent Taylor?’

Hunter gave Brody a subtle headshake that told him everything he needed to know.

Two other agents joined them. The remaining two kept their distance, their flashlights and weapons checking the perimeter.

‘And the prisoner?’ Brody asked, as they started moving toward where the Jeep was parked again.

‘On the run,’ Hunter answered. ‘Where’s your car?’

‘Parked behind the Jeep you took from the air traffic controller.’

‘When did you get here?’ Hunter asked.

‘About a minute ago. We were just moving toward the house when we saw you come out.’

‘And you didn’t cross paths with Lucien?’

They reached the cars. Brody’s team had a GMC SUV.

‘No.’

One of the agents opened the back door. The other helped Hunter place Madeleine on the backseat. He gently brushed the hair from her forehead.

‘Madeleine, stay awake, OK. We’re almost there.’

Madeleine blinked tiredly.

Hunter looked at the agent holding the car keys.

‘You need to get her to a hospital now.’

The agent was already jumping into the driver’s seat.

‘I’ll get her there.’

Hunter turned to the second agent. ‘Get in the back with her. Do not let her fall asleep. Tell the medical team that she received a stab wound to the left upper side of her abdomen, approximately five inches deep. The blade reached the spleen, and was twisted counterclockwise on its way out.’

The agent nodded and jumped into the car.

Madeleine’s lips moved.

‘What was that, honey?’ Hunter asked, leaning down. His right ear came within an inch of her lips.

‘Please don’t leave me.’ Her voice was now barely audible. Shock was settling in.

‘I won’t. I promise. These men are going to take you to a hospital now so they can treat you, OK? I’ll be right behind them. I won’t leave you. First, I’m just going to get the bastard that did this to you.’

Hunter closed the door and looked at the driver. ‘Go, now.’

One Hundred and Five

As the car drove away, Hunter faced Agent Brody.

‘You came in this way and you didn’t cross paths with Lucien?’ he asked again.

‘No,’ Brody confirmed.

Hunter’s gaze moved to the forest surrounding them.

‘There’s another way to get to this house,’ Brody said.

Hunter looked at him.

‘You can see it if you look at a satellite picture, or a map.’ Brody explained. ‘It goes around the long way. It takes you up to the back of the house.’

Hunter had suspected that there was another way to get to the house when he saw Ghost, because he had to have driven here. No way would he have walked.

‘Let’s go,’ Hunter said.

They quickly moved back in the direction of the house. The other two agents saw them, and promptly joined them. They moved past the stairs that led down to Satan’s basement and carried on toward the rear of the property.

The house’s backyard was as dilapidated as the building itself. Lucien had told the truth. There was a small pond, or something that once had been a pond. Now it was just an ugly pool of mud. There was also an ample concrete pathway, most of it cracked and full of holes. Parked on the right-hand side of the dirt path that led away from the house was a beat-up fifteen-year-old Ford Bronco. They all drew their weapons and approached the car slowly and carefully. It was empty. No doubt that was Ghost’s vehicle.

This time it was Brody’s turn to study the forestland surrounding the house.

‘Do you think he’s on foot?’ he asked. ‘Tracking away through the forest?’

Hunter walked over to the dirt path, kneeled down, and used his flashlight to check the ground.

‘No,’ he replied after a few seconds. ‘He’s got a motorbike.’ He pointed to the tire tracks he found.

‘What kind of head start has he got on us?’ Brody asked.

‘Five to six minutes, maximum.’

Brody reached for his cellphone. ‘He can’t be that far then. I’ll call Director Kennedy. He’ll be able to organize roadblocks all around this perimeter.’

Hunter closed his eyes and cursed himself again for not seeing this coming. He said nothing to Agent Brody, but he knew roadblocks wouldn’t work. Not in this forsaken place, and not with the minimum amount of time they had.

A perimeter airtight roadblock requires manpower, and a hell of a lot of vehicles, something Hunter was sure the city of Berlin or Milan in New Hampshire didn’t have. He’d be surprised if both of their police departments together mounted up to more than eight men and four cars. Kennedy would have to request the help of the police departments in adjacent cities. The closest FBI field office was a whole state away. By the time Kennedy managed to gather together the manpower he needed to shut the roads and pathways to try to contain the area, Lucien would certainly have already crossed state lines.

Hunter knew that none of this had been coincidence. All of it had been planned. Lucien had left absolutely nothing to chance.

One Hundred and Six

Four hours later.

The entire fallout shelter was now swarming with FBI personnel. Courtney Taylor’s body together with Ghost’s had both been placed in zip-up body bags and taken to the airport, where they were to be flown back to the chief medical examiner in Quantico.

Brody’s team agents had made it to the Androscoggin Valley Hospital in Berlin in record time. Madeleine Reed was still being operated on, but the doctors had told both agents that due to the precarious condition her body was in — very malnourished and partially dehydrated — her chances of survival weren’t the best. But as long as there was a chance, there was hope.

Hunter and Director Adrian Kennedy were in the shelter’s control room. Hunter had run Kennedy through everything that had happened since they’d lost their satellite communication back at the airport.

Kennedy had listened to everything with a somber expression on his face, and without interrupting. When Hunter told him how Agent Taylor was executed at point-blank range, and the reason for her execution, Kennedy squeezed his eyes tight and let his chin drop to his chest. Hunter actually saw him quiver with rage.

‘How did this happen, Robert?’ Kennedy finally asked when Hunter was done. ‘How come this Ghost character was here waiting for you? He couldn’t just have been here the whole time, could he?’

‘Probably not,’ Hunter replied.

‘So how come he was here waiting for you? How come he knew exactly when you were coming?’

‘He didn’t.’

Kennedy pulled an annoyed face. ‘What do you mean, Robert?’

Hunter had been thinking about this for some time.

‘The FBI has certain secret procedures that will only come into action if a code word is spoken, or a code number is keyed in, or something along those lines, right?’

Kennedy nodded and paused for a second. ‘You’re saying that Lucien had a dormant procedure in place? A preplanned strategy in case he was captured?’

Hunter agreed with a head gesture. ‘I’m sure he did. There’s a reason why Lucien has managed to torture and kill so many people for so many years without anyone suspecting a damn thing, Adrian, even people close to him. And that reason is: he’s too well prepared. He’s methodical, meticulous, disciplined and he’s very well organized. What happened in here was planned a long time ago.’

While he pondered over Hunter’s words, Kennedy let his eyes circle the room once again. They paused on the pool of blood by the door that led into the corridor — Agent Taylor’s blood. Sadness and anger collided inside his eyes.

‘I’m sure that Lucien had told the truth about having left Madeleine with enough food and water to last her just a few days,’ Hunter carried on. ‘But a simple code word or signal would’ve gotten this whole plan in motion. If he weren’t already here, Ghost would’ve made the trip from wherever he was to keep her from dying. He obviously got here with plenty of time because he managed to feed and rehydrate her enough. He knew that within days of the code signal, Lucien would’ve made whomever had him under custody bring him here.’

Kennedy stayed quiet, his mind grinding through the information.

‘Ghost wasn’t his first ever “apprentice”,’ Hunter added. ‘Lucien said so.’

Kennedy looked at Hunter, intrigued.

‘Lucien said that Ghost had outlived his usefulness, like all the previous ones. He said that they all did eventually, so he just finds himself a new little helper.’

A thoughtful pause from Kennedy.

‘I’m sure that the only reason Lucien found apprentices was so that plans like this could work if he ever needed it. He probably found them, taught them the procedures, kept them for a while, then got rid of them and found a new one, and the process would start again.’

‘Because in the long run they’d become a liability,’ Kennedy said. ‘A risk he didn’t need.’

Hunter nodded.

Kennedy still looked uncertain. ‘But to get the procedure in motion, Lucien would’ve had to have gotten the code word or signal out to this Ghost character. So how did he do that?’

‘Phone call?’

Kennedy shook his head. ‘Lucien did not have access to a phone. He wasn’t granted any phone calls. He was incommunicado at all times.’

‘Since he was taken in by the FBI, you mean,’ Hunter said back. ‘But he was arrested by the sheriff’s department in Wheatland, Wyoming. Any calls then?’

A pause, then Kennedy shut his eyes for a second as if in pain.

‘Sonofabitch,’ he whispered. He now remembered reading in the arrest report that the arrested subject was granted a single phone call. The call went unanswered. A code telephone number — a dead line that was never supposed to ring, unless. . That was the code signal.

‘How did this Ghost guy get in here,’ Kennedy asked. ‘You said that the door to this hellhole was padlocked from the outside.’

‘Last room on the right down the corridor,’ Hunter answered. ‘There’s a door inside that leads to another passageway, which leads to an exit at the back of the house. Ghost got in through there. The first room on the left,’ Hunter said, pointing to the corridor, ‘is an observation room with two computer monitors. Lucien had eight motion-sensor equipped CCTV cameras hidden outside. As soon as anything moved within range of the cameras, a red-light alarm would go off inside the whole shelter.’ Hunter indicated a red bulb on the wall behind Kennedy. ‘One of the cameras is set on a tree at the end of the dirt path that leads to the front of the house.’

‘Where you parked the Jeep,’ Kennedy said.

‘That’s right. That would’ve given Ghost more than enough time to pull Madeleine out of her cell — the last room on the left — tie her to the chair, and come hide inside that box.’

Kennedy turned and looked at the cardboard boxes pushed up against a dark corner.

‘He hid in there?’

Hunter nodded. ‘He had a small frame, and according to Lucien it sounded like he also had the flexibility of a contortionist.’ An awkward pause. ‘This was all rehearsed, Adrian. We walked into a trap, and I’m sorry I didn’t see it coming.’

‘A very well-prepared trap,’ Kennedy said. ‘Lucien put you and Agent Taylor under incredible time pressure to save a hostage’s life. He put you under even more mental pressure by revealing he was your fiancée’s murderer just minutes before forcing you to bring him here. The door was padlocked from the outside, and we all believed that Lucien always worked alone. There was no reason for you or Agent Taylor to suspect that there’d be someone in here waiting for you.’

‘I still should’ve checked the room properly,’ Hunter said. ‘I’m so terribly sorry for what happened to Courtney.’

No one said anything for about a minute.

‘He’s not going to stop killing,’ Kennedy finally said. ‘We both know that. And when he kills again, we’ll pick up the trail and we’ll hunt him down.’

‘No, we won’t,’ Hunter said.

Kennedy glared at him.

‘He killed for twenty-five years without anyone ever knowing, Adrian. No links. Lucien doesn’t follow a pattern. He doesn’t repeat the same MO. He experiments. He kills indiscriminately — old, young, male, female, blonde, brunette, American, foreigner. Nothing matters to him, except the experience. He could kill someone later today, he could have done it already for all we know. We could find the body, search the crime scene, and we still wouldn’t be able to say with any certainty if the killer had been Lucien or not.’

‘So you believe what he told you?’ Kennedy asked. ‘That we’ll never see him again?’

Hunter nodded. ‘Unless we outsmart him.’

‘And how do you suppose we do that?’

‘Maybe we can find something in those books.’

Kennedy’s gaze moved to the dust-covered books on the shelves.

‘Those are the notebooks you were looking for,’ Hunter explained. ‘Lucien told me that he was leaving us a gift. Well, that’s it. There are fifty-three books in total. All of them are somewhere between 250 and 300 pages long.’

Kennedy approached one of the shelves, randomly picked up one of the notebooks, and flipped it open. The pages were all handwritten. There was no date stamp, no mention of time whatsoever. Groups of written pages were separated by a single blank one, as if to isolate them into numberless and nameless chapters.

‘I don’t know exactly what we’ll find in them until we go through all of them thoroughly,’ Hunter said. ‘But I did have an idea.’

‘I’m listening.’

‘I skimmed through a couple of them before you got here. Judging by what I saw, these books will not only contain Lucien’s emotions, frame of mind, how he felt during the build-up and aftermath of a murder, his different MO’s and so on, but also everything he did, everyone he met, and everywhere he’s been since he started this murderous encyclopedia, including hide-out places like this one. Places no one knows about.’

Kennedy caught on fast. ‘And right now Lucien needs a place to go. A hiding place. And the house in Murphy and this fallout shelter are probably not the only two hiding, or captive, or torture places he has under his wing.’

‘Precisely.’

Kennedy thought about it for a beat. ‘Our problem is that if you’re right, Lucien might be halfway there already, and I’m sure he won’t hide in the same place for too long. He’ll get organized quickly, and then he’ll probably vanish.’

Hunter said nothing.

Kennedy looked back at the shelves. Fifty-three books, each about 300 pages long. Hunter could see the doubt in his eyes.

‘How quickly can you organize a team of the best speed readers you can find, Adrian?’ he asked. ‘People who can skim through pages fast, looking for something specific. In this case, a location.’

Kennedy checked his watch. ‘If I get on to it now, by the time I get these books back to Quantico, I’ll have a team there waiting for me.’

‘So if we’re fast enough, we’ll have our list by the morning,’ Hunter said.

‘Then we’ll hit every place on that list at the same time,’ Kennedy agreed.

‘I know it’s a long shot,’ Hunter said, ‘but with Lucien, we need to take every shot we get, because we won’t get many.’ He walked over to the bookshelves and collected eight random books.

‘What are you doing?’ Kennedy asked.

‘I’m the fastest speed-reader you’ll find.’

Kennedy knew that to be true.

‘I’ll go through these, and you can get your people to go through the rest. You’ll have my list in a few hours.’ Hunter started moving toward the exit.

‘Where are you going?

‘To the hospital. I promised Madeleine that I would be there.’

Kennedy knew that going after a list of places wasn’t the only reason Hunter wanted to go through those notebooks. If he could, he would’ve taken them all.

‘Robert,’ Kennedy called out.

Hunter paused.

‘Finding Jessica’s passage in one of those books will not soothe the pain. You know that. On the contrary, it will feed the anger and the hurt.’

Hunter studied Kennedy for a brief moment. ‘As I’ve said, Adrian, you’ll have my list in a few hours.’ He took the stairs out of Satan’s basement.

One Hundred and Seven

The doctors had just finished operating on Madeleine Reed when Hunter got to the hospital. They told him that she had lost a lot of blood. A minute or two longer getting her to the theater and there would’ve been nothing they could’ve done for her. But whoever had contained the external bleeding with the belt tourniquet had done a good enough job. If not for that, she would’ve died from loss of blood five minutes before the agents got her to the emergency unit.

The doctors also told Hunter that the operation had gone as well as they could expect. They had managed to contain the internal bleeding and suture the spleen wound shut before the organ failed, but Madeleine’s strength was already at its minimum before they operated. Now, all they could do was wait and hope that Madeleine’s weak body would somehow find the strength to wake up and breathe on her own. That her will to stay alive would be strong enough. The next few hours were absolutely critical. At the moment, machines were keeping her alive.

Hunter sat in an armchair pushed up against the corner, just a few feet away from Madeleine’s hospital bed. She lay flat and still under a thin coverlet. Different-sized tubes came out of her mouth, nose and arms, and connected to two different machines, one on each side of the bed. Even with the coverlet, Hunter could tell that her abdomen was heavily bandaged. The heart monitor on the right side of the bed beeped steadily, drawing a hypnotic peak line on its dark monitor screen. While that line peaked, there was still hope.

Before taking a seat, Hunter had stared at Madeleine’s face for a long time. She looked peaceful, and for the first time in God knows how long, not scared.

Her parents had been notified just about half an hour earlier, and they were on their way from Missouri.

‘I know you’re strong enough, Maddy,’ Hunter had whispered to her. ‘And I know that you can beat this. This time Lucien won’t win. Don’t let him win. I know you’ll walk out of here.’

Hunter had been flying through Lucien’s notebooks all night. It was 4:18 a.m. and he’d already skimmed through six out of the eight notebooks he had with him. So far, his list contained three different locations Lucien had used as a torture chamber. Each one in a different state.

He hadn’t come across any mention of Jessica and what had happened that fateful night twenty years ago in Los Angeles. Truthfully, he didn’t really know if he was relieved or angered. He wasn’t sure how he would feel if he did come across the pages that described that night’s events.

Hunter sped through the pages for another twenty minutes when something made him stop. It wasn’t something on the page he was on, but something his eyes had gone over a couple of pages back, but his tired brain took a few extra seconds to process it. He quickly flipped back to the page and read the passage again.

Where had he heard that before?

Hunter wracked his brain for a few minutes searching for it.

And then it finally came to him.

One Hundred and Eight

Hunter quickly exited Madeleine’s room and found a bathroom down a long and empty hallway. Once inside, he reached for his cellphone and dialed Kennedy’s number. He knew Kennedy would still be awake.

Kennedy answered his phone with the second ring. ‘You’ve speed-read through all eight notebooks already?’

‘Almost there,’ Hunter replied. ‘One more to go. How’s your team doing?’

‘They’ve each been through four of the notebooks,’ Kennedy explained. ‘But I’ve got nine of them on the go, five notebooks each. At this rate, we should have a list by dawn.’

‘That would be great,’ Hunter said. ‘But you’ll have to ask them all to go back to the beginning and start again. They need to look for something else other than the locations. Create another list.’

Hunter could practically hear Kennedy frown.

‘What? What do you mean, Robert? What else? What other list?’

Hunter quickly told him.

‘Why?’

Hunter explained the reason why, and now he could almost hear Kennedy thinking.

A long pause.

‘I’ll be damned,’ Kennedy said in an outbreath. ‘Do you think. .?’

‘It’s another shot,’ Hunter replied. ‘And we agreed to take every shot we could.’

‘Absolutely. .’ Another thoughtful pause. ‘If you’re right, Robert, we might get a result. The problem is that that result could come tomorrow, next week, next month, or any time in the next twenty or thirty years. There’s no way of knowing.’

‘To get my hands on Lucien, I’m prepared to wait.’

‘OK,’ Kennedy agreed. ‘But the team is just about to finish with the locations list, and you know that we can’t lose time on that, so let’s get that list first and then I’ll tell them to start again.’

‘OK. You’ll have my list of locations within the next hour.’ Hunter disconnected and went back to Madeleine’s room.

He finished skimming through the last notebook he had with him in thirty-one minutes — no new locations. His location list contained three entries. He texted Kennedy his list, went back to the first notebook, and started it all over again.

When Kennedy called Hunter at 11:22 a.m., Hunter’s eyes were strawberry red from tiredness and reading fatigue.

‘I thought you’d like to know,’ he said. ‘We have fifteen locations in total, spread across fifteen states. FBI and SWAT teams are getting ready as we speak. We should be ready to coordinate a mass crackdown in about an hour to an hour and a half.’

‘It sounds good,’ Hunter said.

‘How are you doing with the second list?’

‘Almost there. Give me another half an hour. How’s your team doing?’

‘Exhausted and overworked. Living on strong black coffee. People here are calling them “the pink-eye squad”.’

‘Yeah, I guess I can relate.’

‘They should also be finished in the next hour. How’s Madeleine doing?’

‘Still unresponsive.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

‘She’ll come out of it,’ Hunter said. ‘She’s a strong woman.’

Kennedy had to admire the confidence in Hunter’s voice.

‘Once you get the new list, you know what to do, right, Adrian?’

‘Yes, of course.’

They disconnected.

Back inside Madeleine’s hospital room, it took Hunter just another twenty-four minutes to complete his new list. This time he had four entries. He texted the new list to Kennedy and received a reply back in five seconds: ‘Will initiate procedures as soon as I have all the entries. Locations crackdown will be in T–53 minutes. Will keep you posted.’

One Hundred and Nine

Hunter received the next text message from Kennedy in exactly fifty-three minutes.

‘Locations crackdown is a go. Will keep you posted. Second list now completed — every procedure initiated.’

There was nothing Hunter could do now but sit and wait. He massaged the back of his neck for an instant. Exhaustion had slowly worn its way into his brain, joints and muscles. Every time he moved, he could feel the tendons pulling tight across his whole body, as if they were about to snap. He closed his eyes only for a moment, and the next thing he felt was his cellphone vibrating in his chest pocket.

Hunter had dozed off for eighty-four minutes. To him, it felt like two seconds. He quickly left the room and answered Kennedy’s call.

‘We’ve drawn a blank, Robert,’ Kennedy said. ‘Lucien was in none of the locations.’ Kennedy’s voice sounded defeated, as if all hope had gone out of him. ‘And it doesn’t seem like he’d been in any of them for weeks. Judging by the photographs I’ve received back from the crackdown teams, some of those places were a torture haven, a slaughterhouse. You wouldn’t believe the torture paraphernalia found in them.’

Hunter was sure he would believe it.

‘It will take our forensics teams weeks, maybe months, to sift through everything in those fifteen locations, and it still might give us no clue to Lucien’s whereabouts. I’d say that those notebooks are our best bet of finding anything. . if there is anything to be found. But they have to be read thoroughly and scrutinized to the minutest detail, and that will also take a long time.’ Without realizing, Kennedy let out a beaten sigh. He had no doubt that by the time they finished analyzing everything Lucien had left behind, the killer would be long gone, vanished forever. As Lucien had said, they’d never see him again.

One Hundred and Ten

Hunter came to a sudden stop as he returned to Madeleine’s bedroom. All the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. Madeleine was still lying flat and still, but her eyes were open, or semi-open, her eyelids struggling with their own weight.

Hunter rushed to her bedside.

‘Madeleine?’

She blinked hazily.

Hunter gently touched her hand. ‘Madeleine, remember me?’

She blinked again and her eyes finally found his face. She didn’t say a word, but her lips stretched into a thin, but very truthful smile.

Hunter smiled back. ‘I knew you’d beat this,’ he whispered. ‘I’m going to go get a doctor. I’ll be right back.’

She gave his hand the faintest of squeezes.

Hunter rushed out of the room, and in less than a minute was back with a short and plump doctor who walked as if carrying his body weight was an everyday penance. As the doctor approached Madeleine’s bed, Hunter felt his cellphone vibrate in his chest pocket again. He excused himself and quickly left the room.

‘Robert,’ Kennedy said as Hunter answered it, ‘the second list, the idea you came up with?’

‘Yes, what about it?’

‘You’re not going to believe this.’

One Hundred and Eleven

Seven hours later.

John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York.

‘Would you like a drink while we wait for the rest of the passengers to board, Mr Tailor-Cotton?’ the young stewardess asked with a bright smile. Her blonde hair was pulled back and styled into a perfect bun, and her carefully applied makeup accentuated her facial features perfectly. ‘Perhaps champagne, or maybe a cocktail?’ she offered.

Champagne and cocktails were some of the many perks of flying first class.

The passenger’s eyes broke away from the window and found her pretty face. The nametag on her blouse read KATE. He smiled back.

‘Champagne would be perfect.’ His voice was soft, with a gentle Canadian accent. His dark green eyes had an intense, but knowledgeable look in them.

The smile never left the stewardess’s lips. She found Mr Tailor-Cotton mysteriously charming, and she liked that.

‘Great choice,’ she said in reply. ‘I’ll be right back with a glass.’

‘Excuse me, Kate?’ he called, as she was turning away. ‘How long before we take off?’

‘We have a full flight tonight,’ she replied. ‘And we just started boarding all the other classes. If no one is late, we should start taxiing toward the runway in no more than twenty to thirty minutes.’

‘Oh, that’s great. Thank you.’

‘But if there’s anything I can do to make this short wait more comfortable for you, just let me know.’ Her smile gained a flirtatious sparkle.

Mr Tailor-Cotton nodded, with a flirtatious smile of his own. ‘I’ll keep that in mind.’

His gaze followed her as she started down the aisle. When she disappeared past the dividing curtain, his attention returned to the window. He’d never been to Brazil before, but he’d heard great things about it, and he was really looking forward to spending time there. It would be a nice change.

‘I’ve heard that the beaches in Brazil are simply breathtaking,’ the passenger sitting directly behind Mr Tailor-Cotton said, leaning forward. ‘I’ve never been there before, but I’ve heard that they’re like paradise on earth.’

For a split second Mr Tailor-Cotton’s heart almost froze, then he smiled at his own reflection staring back at him from the airplane window. He would recognize that voice anywhere.

The passenger behind him stood up, moved forward, and casually leaned against the armrest of the single seat across the aisle from Mr Tailor-Cotton.

‘Hello, Robert,’ Mr Tailor-Cotton said, turning his head to look at Hunter.

‘Hello, Lucien,’ Hunter replied calmly.

‘You look awful,’ Lucien commented.

‘I know,’ Hunter admitted. ‘You, on the other hand, have done a great job on the look. Different hair color, contact lenses, the beard is gone, even the scar is gone. All that in the space of just a few hours.’

Lucien looked like he was accepting a compliment.

‘You can do wonders with makeup and a little prosthetics if you know what you’re doing.’

‘And you have mastered that Canadian accent to perfection,’ Hunter admitted. ‘Nova Scotia, right?’

Lucien smiled. ‘You still have a great ear, Robert. That’s right. Halifax. But I do have a collection of accents I’ve mastered. Would you like to hear some of them?’

That last sentence was delivered with a perfect Midwestern accent — Minnesota to be precise.

‘Not just right now,’ Hunter replied.

Lucien looked at his nails, unconcerned. ‘How’s Madeleine?’

‘She’s alive. She’ll make a full recovery.’

Lucien looked back at Hunter. ‘You mean physically, right? Because mentally, she’s probably fucked-up for life.’

Hunter’s stare became even harder. He knew Lucien was right again. The trauma Madeleine had experienced would stay with her for the rest of her life. The true extent of its consequences wouldn’t be known for many years. Neither would the lasting psychological effects.

There was a long, silent break.

‘How did you find me?’ Lucien finally asked.

‘Your notebooks,’ Hunter explained. ‘Your lifelong project. Your “gift” to us, as you put it. Or, better yet, your encyclopedia.’

Lucien looked at Hunter, curiously.

‘Yes,’ Hunter said, ‘I still remember the day you mentioned the idea to me back in Stanford.’

Lucien smiled. ‘You thought it was a crazy idea.’

Hunter nodded. ‘I still do.’

‘Well, the crazy idea became a reality, Robert. And the information inside those books will forever change the way the FBI, the NCAVC, the BAU, and every law-enforcement agency in this country, maybe in the world, look at violent and sadistic repeat offenders. It will make you understand things that up to know no one ever did, and otherwise the world never would. Intimate things and thoughts that have never been explained. Things that will exponentially better your chances of capturing those offenders. That’s my gift to you, and to this fucked-up world. My work and those books will be studied and referenced for generations to come.’ He shrugged. ‘So what if I took a few lives in the name of research? Knowledge comes at a price, Robert. Some much higher than others.’

Hunter nodded as his eyebrows arched. ‘All that knowledge about psychology and criminal behavior, and you failed to see your own psychosis. You’re not a researcher, Lucien, much less a scientist. You’re just another run-of-the-mill killer, who, to justify your actions and feed the sociopath inside you, deluded yourself into believing that what you were doing was for a noble cause. It’s pathetic, really, because it’s not even original. It’s been done so many times before.’

‘Nothing I’ve done has been done before, Robert,’ Lucien shot back.

Hunter shrugged carelessly. ‘I’m not your therapist, Lucien. I’m not here to help you and this isn’t a session, so you can carry on deluding yourself as much as you like. No one cares, but the good thing was that in your books, you were kind enough to note absolutely everything concerning your experiments — locations, methods used, victims’ names, and much more. I spent the night going through some of them.’

‘You read through fifty-three books in one night?’

‘No, but I managed to skim through eight of them. And that’s where I got lucky, and you didn’t.’

Lucien’s expression showed interest.

‘While skimming through one of them, I came across the name of one of your victims that I knew I’d heard somewhere before — Liam Shaw.’

Lucien’s eyes went cold.

‘It took me a little while to place it,’ Hunter said, ‘but I did eventually remember. That was the name you were using when you were first arrested in Wyoming.’

Lucien stayed quiet.

‘You were also kind enough to very thoroughly describe all your victims,’ Hunter continued. ‘And that was when I realized that Liam Shaw shared several physical characteristics with you — same height, same body type, same skin complexion, same facial shape, including the shapes of his eyes, nose and mouth. You were also of similar age.’

Still silence from Lucien.

‘Then I remembered something else you’d said in one of our interviews. You told Courtney that the reason you were caught wasn’t merited to the FBI. They weren’t investigating any of your murders, or any of the aliases you used.’

Lucien shifted on his chair.

‘Well, that got me thinking, so I went back and checked for all other male victims you described in the books. There weren’t that many, but all of them shared those same physical characteristics with you.’

Lucien scratched his chin.

Hunter tucked his hands inside his trouser pockets. ‘And that was why you picked them. Not because you wanted them to be part of your encyclopedia of torture and death, but because you were creating a list of identities you could steal at the drop of a dime.’

Lucien’s gaze moved back to the window and the darkness outside.

‘Some of your male victims were prostitutes,’ Hunter moved on. ‘Some were people who were down and out on their luck, but all of them had one major thing in common — they were all lone souls. People who were misunderstood and probably cast aside by their family and friends somewhere else. People who had left their lives behind to start something new in a new city. People with no attachments to anyone. The ones who’d never get reported as missing. The forgettables. The ones no one would miss.’

‘They’ve always made the best victims.’ Lucien still sounded unconcerned.

‘Because of their natural physical resemblance to you, taking their place was never a hard thing to do — a little makeup, some hair dye, maybe some contact lenses, a new accent, and, “Goodbye Lucien Folter, hello new identity.” In this case, Anthony Tailor-Cotton, from Halifax in Canada.’

Lucien finally caught up with Hunter. ‘So you and the FBI spent the night flying through those books, looking for every male victim’s name you could find.’

Hunter nodded. ‘A nationwide APB was put out for every name in the list we came up with. But I’ll admit that our hopes were very, very low. The best we were hoping for was that maybe, if we were very lucky, a few years from now one of those names would show up in a credit card transaction somewhere. Just a sniff of a clue to where you could be. Now, you can imagine our surprise when within a couple of hours we got word that Anthony Tailor-Cotton, holder of a Canadian passport, just like one of the victims described in one of your notebooks, had purchased a ticket for a flight to Brazil tonight.’

‘I guess I should’ve taken an earlier flight,’ Lucien commented.

Hunter could easily see Lucien’s logic. Initially he had two options. One was to stay in the USA and lay low for a while. . a long while, and while doing so, he would probably have to live under the shroud of a disguise. His name would’ve made the list of the top ten most wanted by the FBI, and his picture would’ve been circulated to every police department and sheriff’s office in the country. Lucien Folter wasn’t the unknown ghost of a killer he used to be anymore.

Option number two was to disappear quickly, preferably somewhere outside the USA. Hunter knew that Lucien didn’t underestimate the FBI. He knew that his encyclopedia would be scrutinized to the tiniest detail, because that was exactly what he wanted. He was counting on the Bureau linking the name of one of his victims to the same name he was using when he was arrested, and then making the physical connection between all of his male victims and himself. So, if Lucien disappeared quickly and to somewhere outside the USA, then when all those connections were made it wouldn’t matter, because the FBI wouldn’t be able to get their hands on him anyway. He just never imagined that the Bureau would’ve managed to connect everything in a matter of hours.

‘Maybe you should’ve,’ Hunter said. ‘Like I said, this time I got lucky and you didn’t, because the name “Liam Shaw” so happened to be in one of the eight books I had with me. If I hadn’t come across that name, it would’ve probably taken the FBI a few months to connect the dots, by which time you would’ve been long gone.’

Hunter’s eyes finally left Lucien’s face and moved down the aisle toward the dividing curtain at the front. All of a sudden the curtain was pulled aside and Director Adrian Kennedy, together with four FBI agents, began making their way toward Hunter. At the opposite end of the aisle, four armed NYPD SWAT officers had appeared, and were also making their way toward them.

For the first time, Lucien showed real surprise.

‘You’re going to hand me over to the FBI?’

Hunter said nothing.

‘That’s very disappointing, Robert. I thought you were a man of your word. I thought that you had promised not only yourself, but also the memory of your murdered fiancée, that you’d find who’d so violently taken Jessica from your life, and kill him. That’s what you’ve been searching for for twenty years, isn’t it? To avenge Jessica’s death. Well, here I am, old friend. All you have to do is put a bullet through my head and your twenty-year-long search is over. You can be proud of yourself.’ Lucien quickly checked the aisles. ‘So c’mon, Robert. Here I am, a sitting duck. I promise you I won’t react. It’ll be an easy shot.’

Hunter shifted on his feet.

Kennedy and everyone else were getting closer.

‘I thought you’d said that more than anything else, Jessica deserved justice. Are you telling me that you’re going to betray that promise, Robert? You’re going to betray the memory of the only person you ever loved? The woman who you wanted for your wife? The woman who was carrying your baby?’

Hunter froze.

Lucien saw the hurt in his face. He pushed.

‘Yes, I knew she was pregnant. She told me when she begged me not to kill her, but I did it anyway. And did you know that yours was the last name that came out of her lips before I cut her throat open? Before I murdered her and your child?’

Hunter saw red as his blood began to boil. The thoughts inside his head made no sense anymore. His actions were no longer guided by sense and logic, but by pure rage. His hand was shaking with devastating anger when he reached for his gun holster.

Kennedy saw the look on Hunter’s eyes, but he was still several steps away from him.

‘ROBERT, DON’T DO IT!’ he shouted down the aisle.

Too late.

One Hundred and Twelve

Hunter had acted so fast that his hand had moved onto his gun holster and then back in Lucien’s direction in just a split second.

Lucien flinched and Hunter saw his body go rigid, but not from fear — from expectation — from satisfaction in his accomplishment. That satisfaction was short-lived.

Hunter dropped a pair of handcuffs on Lucien’s lap.

Lucien looked up at him, confused. Hunter was holding no gun.

‘You’re right,’ Hunter said. ‘Jessica deserves justice. Her parents deserve justice. My unborn child deserves justice. And I deserve justice for what you’ve done. Nothing would please me more than to put a bullet in your head right here, right now. But we’re not the only ones who deserve justice for what you’ve done, Lucien. The parents, the families, and the friends of every single victim you tortured and killed over so many years deserve justice too. They deserve to know what really happened to the people who most of them still believe and hope are just missing. They deserve to know where the remains of their loved ones are. They deserve to be able to give them a proper burial according to their beliefs. And most of all, they deserve to know that the monster who killed those loved ones will never kill again.’

Hunter looked at Kennedy, who was now just a couple of feet away, and then back at Lucien.

‘For that reason, yes, I’ll betray my promise to myself and to Jessica. And this time, there will be no more interviews, no more talks, Lucien. You have no more bargaining power, because we have your books, and everything we need to know is in those pages, including the location to the remains of every one of your victims. This really is where it ends for you.’

Hunter nodded at the SWAT agents to his left. ‘You can take him now.’

One Hundred and Thirteen

Despite his insomnia and the carnival of thoughts dancing around in his head, Hunter was so exhausted that he finally managed to sleep for a total of four hours.

After Lucien’s arrest, he had flown back to Quantico. As Kennedy had put it before, he was still officially ‘on loan’ to the FBI and, as such, he needed to fill in his last report. That was done late last night.

Hunter had woken up before dawn. Kennedy had arranged for an FBI jet to fly him back to Los Angeles early in the morning, and Hunter couldn’t wait to get out of that place. Everything still felt too surreal in his mind. Only a few days ago, he was supposed to be boarding a plane to Hawaii, his first vacation in so long, he couldn’t even remember the last time he had one. Instead, he was whisked away to the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit in Quantico, and into something that could only be described as a hellish nightmare. So much was revealed in so little time, his head seemed like it would never stop spinning.

Hunter was all ready to go. His few belongings were already packed into his rucksack, and he had nothing else to do but wait for the driver to come pick him up. He walked over to the window on the east wall and placed his cup of coffee on the ledge. Outside, still under the cover of the night, several FBI recruits had already started their grueling exercise and running routines.

Hunter looked up at the star-filled sky as he reached for his wallet. From it he retrieved a twenty-year-old photograph. The colors had partially faded, but other than that, the picture was still in pretty good condition.

Hunter had taken that photo himself, a day after he and Jessica had got engaged. She was standing on Santa Monica pier, smiling at the camera, her eyes glistening with an overwhelming happiness. Staring at the photograph, Hunter’s heart was filled with a barrage of old and brand new emotions. He felt a knot coming to his throat, but then he remembered the words Director Kennedy had told him in the early hours of the morning.

‘Before you go, Robert, I want to make sure you understand something. I’m not going to pretend I know, because I can’t even begin to imagine what’s going on inside your mind right now. But I can tell you this, no matter what; you must stand proud, because thanks to you, we estimate that we’ll be able to bring closure and final peace of mind to at least eighty families around the USA. Lucien’s twenty-five-year murderous spree is finally over. You ended it. Don’t ever forget that.’

Hunter knew he never would.