Chris Carter - An Evil Mind

‘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.

‘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.’

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.