The Killing House

70

Ali Karim had stripped one of the ground-level rooms in order to accommodate a large number of monitoring stations that provided a constant, vigilant watch over Park Avenue and the surrounding streets — and over each and every room inside the man’s massive home. The technical agent assigned to remove the hard drives from the monitoring stations, a young woman named Miranda Wolfe, thought the abundance of surveillance cameras was overkill; it reeked of Big Brother paranoia. People who deployed such excessive measures were more often than not trying to hide something — in Karim’s case, the nation’s most wanted fugitive.

She had finished bagging a hard-drive into evidence when she noticed trouble on the four monitoring screens showing the interior of the private garage.

When the Ford Expedition had pulled inside, the screens had flickered from some sort of electromagnetic interference. Now those same four screens had turned into an electromagnetic snowstorm. She couldn’t see the garage.

She put down the bagged evidence and turned to the controls.

M stood opposite the federal agent as the elevator chugged its way to the fourth floor.

The man was a neurotypical, a term her doctors used to describe what was more commonly known as a ‘normal’ person. Studying his facial expression, she sorted through the mental list of flashcards, drilled into her head by her teachers, that allowed autistics to understand the emotional dynamics and ranges of neurotypicals.

This man was… smug. Like he belonged here inside Karim’s home. She wanted to grab him by the neck and smash his face against the elevator panel. She could do it too. Easily. As a child and then later, through her teenage and early-adult years, she had got into numerous fights. She knew which blows could break bones.

The federal agent turned to her and said, ‘I can’t answer any of your questions.’

M felt the anger building; she diffused it by thinking of Malcolm Fletcher. Like Karim, Fletcher was a neurotypical. Like Karim, Fletcher understood how she was wired and didn’t judge her. Like Karim, she sensed Fletcher wasn’t trying to manipulate her in any way.

You’re going to see federal agents inside your father’s home, Fletcher had told her. Everything you see will be in a state of disarray. They’ll be sorting through his things — your things. Your first instinct will be anger. I need to know if you can control it.

She had told Fletcher she could. Through years of teaching — first in London, and then working with Karim — she had learned to bottle her emotions and store them on a shelf to be dealt with at a later time. Or she could leave them there to collect dust.

Some of these agents may try to touch you, M — not in a sexual way, but they’ll pander to you because they’ll view you as nothing more than a pretty little girl that Karim hired to be his assistant. Let them. Don’t show any anger.

The elevator stopped.

When you feel the anger mounting, think of Karim lying in that hospital bed, Fletcher had told her. Karim is depending on you to manage your rage.

The doors slid open. M had started to walk down the hall when the federal agent escorting her put out a hand.

‘Please stay right here.’

M looked down the hall. The door to Karim’s English library-inspired waiting room was open and blazing with light. She saw people invading the space, their gloved hands taking books off shelves and examining them. Gloved hands rooted through desks and drawers — and her desk. A woman with long brown hair pinned behind her head ran a forensic light over her antique secretarial desk and iMac computer.

Unable to bear the sight of someone touching her things, M forced her attention on to Karim’s office. A small group of suited men with badges clipped to their belts had gathered behind her father’s desk, their collective gazes fixed on the computer monitors. The man sitting in her father’s chair wasn’t wearing a suit, just a white shirt. This man was pointing to something on the middle screen.

She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but the group of male faces all shared the same expression: frustration. They hadn’t found a way to bypass Karim’s computer security.

And they won’t, she thought. There was no way the FBI could bypass it. If I could get to his computer I could -

A short man appeared in the doorway. He had a phone pressed against his ear. He saw her, said something into the phone and hung up.

The man approached her, smiling. This was the same man she’d seen on the video recorded inside Karim’s New Jersey home.

He held out a hand. ‘Special Agent Alexander Borgia.’

M shook his hand. It took every ounce of willpower not to break the man’s arm.

Over his earpiece, Fletcher heard Borgia introduce himself to Emma White. The hearing aid he’d given M not only allowed him to speak to her privately; it was also equipped with a separate, hidden microphone so he could monitor her conversations. They had purchased the hearing aids earlier in the day, at a store that specialized in surveillance gear.

Fletcher was on his back underneath the Expedition, staring up at the padded, hidden compartment. The false bottom, located in the rear of the SUV, was accessed by a square-shaped sliding door. He fitted his gloved fingers inside the grooves for the false bottom’s door and slid it up across his chest and face. Now he pushed up and the door for the false bottom locked into place, the sound producing a noticeable echo inside the garage.

The security cameras could neither see nor hear him. After M had parked, Fletcher had used his smartphone to activate a device he’d installed inside one of the Jaguar’s panels — an EMP unit that, on a low frequency, sent an electromagnetic pulse strong enough to scramble any nearby circuitry. The Jaguar had been properly shielded so it wouldn’t be affected.

M had parked next to the Jaguar, which made his next task much simpler. All he had to do was move himself eight feet to his right and he’d be underneath the Jaguar.

The Jaguar’s false bottom wasn’t as generous as the Ford’s, but his car offered one advantage: the rear seat slid forward, allowing him access to the interior. He would hide inside the false bottom, wait for M to leave, and then make his escape. The spare garage remote M had given him was tucked inside his trouser pocket.

Fletcher pushed the tactical belt and fibre-optic camera across the floor. He kept his phone. He pressed an on-screen button to increase the height of the car’s suspension. Now he would have enough room to slide underneath the Jaguar.

Fletcher pushed the phone across the concrete floor and then, lying on his back, began to snake his way out from underneath the SUV.

Special Agent Miranda Wolfe’s acting supervisor was a man named Stephen Ratner. She didn’t know him personally or professionally. Ratner had been flown in from Washington to oversee the technical aspects of the Malcolm Fletcher operation.

Ratner, his arms crossed over his burly chest, stared at the four monitors showing the garage.

‘Could be the cameras,’ he said with a sigh. ‘Some of the older models when exposed to the cold for long periods of time can — ’

‘No. Those bullet cameras are top of the line — and they’re fairly new. I can see one experiencing a problem, but all four?’

‘Then we’re looking at a faulty circuit.’

‘I think it’s some sort of electromagnetic interference.’

‘From what?’

‘The Ford SUV that pulled in. I’ve been here for three hours and the garage cameras have been working fine, no problems. Then the Ford pulls in and all four cameras go down.’

‘Where’s the driver now?’

‘An agent escorted her into the elevator.’

‘How long ago was this?’

‘Five, maybe eight minutes. I want to go take a look at the SUV.’

‘You’re familiar with the term CYA?’

Wolfe nodded. Cover Your Ass was rule numero uno of every federal investigation.

‘Let me call upstairs,’ Ratner said, reaching for his radio, ‘see what they want us to do.’