The Soul Collectors

22

Darby glanced up at the ceiling, looking for security cameras. In a place like this she wouldn't have been surprised to find one peering down at her, but the white walls were bare. She removed the Velcro straps and tossed them into the metal trash bin sitting next to the toilet. Then she got to her feet, pulling the folded sheets free from her thighs, and locked the door.

Billy Fitzgerald's parting words with their smug tone echoed through her head: Remember to behave yourself out there, missy.

Don't worry, I will, she thought, about to rip up the sheets and flush them down the toilet when another thought, this one more pleasing and appealing, occurred to her: Billy Fitzgerald had touched these pages. She could run his prints through the automated fingerprint database. Military personnel and law enforcement officers were required by law to submit their fingerprints to IAFIS.

Is that right? Billy Fitzgerald asked in her mind. And why, pray tell, are you going to do that?

Because I don't believe you're in the army.

She didn't have any proof, just a gut feeling based on the military men she knew who had served in Iraq or Afghanistan. Almost every one of them had some sort of military tattoo proudly inked on a forearm or bicep. It was a rite of passage. Her father, a former marine, had ink on both of his meaty biceps: the USMC emblem in faded blue on his right arm, and on the left, this one more colourful and intricate, the classic USMC bulldog with the words Semper Fi.

Billy Fitzgerald didn't have any tattoos, and, while that wasn't necessarily odd — not every military man got tattooed — he didn't have a military-regulation haircut. And he hadn't shaved either. If he wasn't military, why was he pretending?

Darby folded the sheets into a small square. Wrapped them up in a paper towel and tucked that in the front of the big hospital granny-panties they'd given her. You couldn't see a bulge under the baggy scrubs. She kicked the toilet handle with her foot and then went to the sink to wash her hands.

Walking out of the bathroom, the GI Joe named Anthony barked at her to park her ass back in the wheelchair.

Darby rolled it out of the bathroom, thinking about how easy it would be to take both these young bucks down. The big ones packed with show muscle weren't used to getting hit, especially in the way she did, especially by a girl. Two punches each, maybe four, and she could have them on their knees, sobbing.

But this wasn't the time or place. She sat like a good little girl and then waited as Anthony's partner, Weeks, went into the bathroom to retrieve the straps.

Once she was bound again, Weeks approached her holding some black-foam material shaped into one of those eye-masks people used to block out light when sleeping.

'What is that?' she asked.

'A blindfold.'

'For what?'

Weeks didn't answer, just pressed the spongy material against her eyes. He held it in place for a moment, and when he released his hand the wheelchair started rolling.

Darby moved her eyes around, hoping to catch sight of something along the cracks. But the eye-mask blocked out all the light.

But she had her other senses, and she paid attention to her surroundings. Weeks and Anthony didn't speak — nobody did. Beyond the occasional squeak of a footstep moving across the polished linoleum floor, the only sounds she heard were buzzers followed by electronic steel locks clicking back. The wheelchair never stopped moving; it just kept rolling through what felt like an endless corridor of warm air smelling faintly of some sort of industrial-grade antiseptic chemical.

Finally, the wheelchair stopped moving. Doors slid shut behind her. The floor rocked slightly and then she was heading down, down.

Then the elevator stopped moving, the doors parted and she was being wheeled across what was probably an underground garage. Cold air and exhaust fumes. Echoing footsteps. Now the unmistakable sound of a car idling. The wheelchair stopped. Hands worked at the Velcro straps. Hands gripped her wrists tightly and lifted her up. She felt cold concrete beneath her bare feet.

'Walk,' Weeks said.

She did. The guy had a thick Boston accent. A local boy. Good.

'Stop,' Weeks said.

She did and a hand touched the back of her head and pushed it down. Inside a car now; she felt cool leather beneath her fingers, warm air blowing from vents. Using her hands, she got her bearings as the door slammed shut.

The car started to move. She touched the blindfold with her fingers. Thick and rubbery, stuck to her skin. She gripped an edge and began to peel it away, then clenched her teeth, hissing in pain.

'Shit,' she muttered as the car started to move.

'The blindfold stays on until we get to your condo,' Weeks said. He was sitting next to her. She could smell the cigar smoke baked into his clothes. 'Try to rip it off and you'll take off your eyebrows and a whole lot of skin.'

Darby sat back against her seat, fuming silently to herself as she wondered what was behind all of the cloak-and-dagger bullshit. She knew its location — anyone could find it with a simple Google search, thanks to all the publicity the controversial lab had received. Local residents and community activists had been up in arms when the news broke that Boston's South End was going to be the new site of a lab studying infectious diseases that came with a Biosafety Level 4 rating, a first for the city. Those same articles had described, in gruesome detail, what would happen if a worker suffered accidental contamination; if there was a building fire or a chemical leak. The protests kept going, but when the lab went operational, that was the end of the matter — at least in the papers, anyway.

She paid attention to the turns. Counted in her mind as the car travelled a stretch of road before turning again. The driver was trying to confuse her, taking sharp rights and lefts and then going back across the same ground. He didn't want her to know the location.

Had she been housed in a bona fide army facility? She didn't know of any in or out of Boston. If she had, in fact, been treated in an army facility, it was most likely classified, which would successfully prevent her from finding it through any normal channels.

The erratic driving continued. She stopped paying attention and instead spent the time counting seconds. Minutes stacked up.

The car stopped. The door to her left opened and shut. She made note of the time: seventy-three minutes.

Then her door opened. A rush of fresh air blew past her.

'I'm going to spray something to get that blindfold off,' Weeks said. 'Keep your eyes shut until I tell you to open them.'

The hiss of an aerosol can and the spray of a cool chemical across her face. He grabbed one edge as he kept spraying, and she felt the blindfold peel away from her tingling skin without any pain or discomfort.

Weeks grabbed her wrist and put something soft and damp in her hand.

'Wipe your face,' he said.

She did. Her skin still tingled. When she opened her eyes, she saw, directly in front of her, a black divider separating the back seat from the front. Not a limo, more like a town car, she thought. Tinted windows and lots of black leather.

Her door hung open to cold darkness. The streetlights were on, and she could see the familiar set of stone steps leading up to the front door of her building.

Weeks dropped something on to her lap and moved away. Her keys, a rubber band holding her licence and credit cards.

Darby picked them up and climbed out of the back.

'Thanks for the lift, soldier.'

Weeks climbed back inside. He shut the door as the car — a scratched, beat-up black Lincoln with a dented rear panel — pulled away from the kerb with a small screech of tyres. No back number plate. The Lincoln drove to the end of Temple Street and then, without stopping, took a sharp right on to Cambridge. A tiny white Honda slammed on its brakes. Car horns blared and then the Lincoln disappeared.