The Hunted

PROLOGUE

The United States Attorney stood on the courthouse steps, the hot August air oppressively still and heavy with humidity. Reporters were gathered around him, microphones and digital recorders shoved toward his drawn face.

“I only have a brief statement for you. At twelve-thirty this afternoon, Judge Richard Noonan held a hearing on newly discovered evidence in the Anthony Scarponi murder conviction of six years ago. The defense has secured what Judge Noonan has determined to be a credible witness who can provide evidence of Mr. Scarponi’s innocence. Collaterally, the Department of Justice has failed to locate former FBI agent Harper Payne, who was the central witness for the government in the original trial. As a result, Judge Noonan has ordered the release of Mr. Scarponi on two million dollars bail pending the scheduling of a new trial.”

A flurry of questions burst forth from the press corps. Instead of answering them, the U.S. Attorney turned and walked back up the courthouse steps. A screaming headache was beginning to take shape, and the last thing he needed was two dozen journalists asking the one question he had been asking himself repeatedly the past several days: How could this have happened?

The apartment was a sparsely decorated studio on the outskirts of Washington, D.C., secured by contacts he had maintained while incarcerated in the maximum security prison in Petersburg, Virginia. He had hoped the day would come when he would be out on his own again, free to roam the streets like a jaguar prowling for its next quarry.

Anthony Scarponi knew that to have true freedom, the tiny tracking device implanted in his buttock had to be removed. Some foreign physicians would perform such a procedure without asking questions, but finding one in the United States would be time-consuming and dangerous.

There was only one possible course of action.

He stood with his right leg up on the edge of the bathtub, a large magnifying makeup mirror perched on a step stool beneath his buttock. A high-intensity halogen light lay on the floor, flooding his skin with enough brightness that if he looked away, he would have a temporary blind spot. His paraphernalia was laid out across the bathroom counter, within reach of his left hand: syringes filled with lidocaine hydrochloride solution, sterilized stainless steel probes, a scalpel, forceps, clamps, gauze rolls, pads, and suture kits.

After injecting the surrounding area with anesthetic, he began by opening a long slit overlying the tiny, delicate scar line left by the surgeon’s original incision. It was tedious work at first, as he had to locate the exact position of the microchip they had implanted. That it was buried toward the rear of his buttock made the probing more difficult. Though he was not supposed to know this had been done to him, he had sources. Even inside a maximum security federal prison, he had sources.

According to his informants, a couple of guards had taken him from his cell on a Monday — and didn’t return him until the following Sunday. Scarponi surmised he had been drugged, then kept sedated until he could heal. It took a few months, but he eventually learned what they had done to him.

An hour later, the lidocaine syringes lay empty, the last one having been injected forty minutes ago. He was now working on sheer determination, grit, and guts, using the skills of discipline his Chinese mentors had taught him. After much tedious probing and searching, he finally found the tiny device. Carefully, he extracted the foreign body, which was a quarter the size of a penny, and placed it gently into a Pyrex dish filled with saline solution.

Ten minutes later, he tied off the last suture, packed away all evidence of his crude surgery, then chased down an ampicillin capsule and a Vicodin tablet with a glass of water. Scalpel in hand, he walked over to the rat that was lying still in its cage. It was fast asleep, the drugs he’d given it two hours ago having done their job in marked contrast to the largely ineffective lidocaine he had used on himself.

He suddenly realized that he should have chosen a guinea pig instead of a rat. Then it would have mirrored his own situation so closely the feds couldn’t help but see the irony in what he’d done. In the end, though, it didn’t matter, because he wouldn’t be around to feel their shock, taste their hatred.

He removed the rodent from its tiny prison, made his incision, and did his deed. He stepped back and laughed a shrill howl, marveling at his masterpiece, intrigued by what the feds would think of his latest feat.