The Killing House

87

Malcolm Fletcher drove his new vehicle, a used but sound Volvo, out of Boston. He was heading to the western part of the state, the Berkshires, where he had rented a secluded home under the name Francis Harvey.

He had grown up during a time when payphones dominated nearly every city corner, restaurant and hospital. Cellular phones had slowly killed off the market, and, while payphones still existed, he had to use the Internet to find one.

The payphone he used to speak with Karim was located several miles from his rental home, at a gas station, which was conveniently closed for renovations. Fletcher parked his car and walked through the cool evening, the surrounding woods throbbing with crickets.

It was now mid-April and Karim was still inside Manhattan’s Sloan-Kettering Hospital, undergoing rehabilitation. Three evenings a week, at quarter past nine, his bodyguard would wheel him into a different hospital room to use a different phone. The FBI was still monitoring Karim’s home and business phone lines but had failed to secure a wiretap for the hospital switchboard.

His lawyers were still in negotiations with federal prosecutors, who were working feverishly to prevent him or one of his people from leaking the surveillance video of Hostage Rescue Team Operator Daniel Jackman’s attempted murder of Ali Karim. Karim was using the video as a bargaining chip to force the FBI to go public with the names of the patients and doctors involved in the Behavioral Modification Project.

Fletcher used his smartphone to check his email. M had sent him an encrypted message telling him the number of the room where Karim would be this evening. Fletcher fed the quarters into the payphone.

‘Always.’

‘I don’t have any news for you, I’m afraid. The drinking glass from the closet had fingerprints on it — ’

‘And since the FBI owns and operates the fingerprint database, they won’t release Marie Clouzot’s real identity.’

‘Exactly,’ Karim said. ‘The Bureau is maintaining its stance that the Behavioral Modification Project, along with its doctors and nurses, never existed. As for the parents of James Weeks, they’re under federal protection. My lawyers can’t get access to them. I don’t know which one was involved with the project, but haven’t given up hope. My people are still working on it. We’re using the video as leverage to get either the mother or the father to come forward and admit their role in this and — ’

‘You need to stop this.’

Karim laughed and started to cough.

‘I live for this.’

‘The FBI will never stop searching for me, even if you clear my name. You know that.’

‘What do you suggest I do?’ Karim asked. ‘Roll over?’

‘ “There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times.” ’

‘Voltaire would think differently if he had to deal with the US government.’

‘Use the remaining videos to protect yourself — and M. As long as you have those videos, the FBI will leave you alone. You’ll be safe.’

Karim was silent for a moment.

‘Until our next adventure, then.’

Fletcher softly replaced the phone on the cradle. He was examining the night sky when he heard a woman’s scream.

The sound came from the dark woods directly in front of him.

Fisher cats and foxes, he knew, produced shrieks that mimicked a woman’s. The fox was especially prone to do so if it discovered its mate dead.

He waited, listened for another scream. Seconds passed, and the only sound he heard came from the leaves rustling in the spring breeze.

Malcolm Fletcher walked through the darkness to investigate.