Chris Mooney - The Killing House

‘Mr Weeks, the last person who professed his innocence attacked me while I was driving and almost got me killed. If you’re as innocent as you say you are, then you won’t mind wearing these until we arrive at your home. It’s for your safety, and mine. If you refuse, I’ll place you under arrest.’

Jimmy’s mouth felt like cotton. He swallowed dryly.

‘We can talk to your parents at your house, or you can call them from our federal office. What do you want to do?’

Jimmy, frightened by the idea of being arrested and having to call his parents, turned around in his seat. He stared out of his window and, heart thumping at a frightening and furious clip, placed his hands behind his back.

This is some sort of mix-up, he told himself as the woman tightened the cuffs against his wrists. I didn’t rob a pharmacy. My parents know where I was yesterday. There are at least, what, a dozen witnesses who can tell this agent I was -

Something sharp pierced his lower thigh. Startled, he swung around in his seat, knocking his head against the side window as a hot and stinging liquid flooded his muscle; FBI Agent Clouzot had stuck a needle into his leg, and her thumb was pressing down on the plunger of a syringe.

He tried to twist away, his shins slamming into the glove box. The woman reached up, grabbed him by the back of the neck and sent his face crashing down against the console separating the two seats.

The impact broke his nose. Jimmy felt it crack, heard the sound boom through his head, certain that bone fragments were flying through his brain. His eyes watered, and blood poured out of his nose and down his throat, and he kicked underneath the glove box. He couldn’t move his head; the FBI agent was placing all of her weight down on his neck, like she wanted to snap it. With his face smashed against the console, Jimmy let out a garbled scream, spitting blood against a brown leather sunglasses case.

As a federal fugitive, Fletcher no longer had the luxury of commercial flight. In the wake of 9/11, the Transportation Security Administration, the government agency responsible for safe air travel, had been moved under the Department of Homeland Security. His visage, fingerprints, age-progressed photographs and other distinguishing characteristics were stored on its database, which could be accessed easily by any TSA agent or passport official.

The TSA had also implemented a number of security measures designed to stop a terrorist from smuggling a bomb on to a plane. Careful attention was paid to clothing: shoes, coats and belts were checked — and now underwear, thanks to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a young Muslim man who had managed to board a Northwest Airlines flight en route from Amsterdam to Detroit, Michigan, with plastic explosives smuggled inside his pants. Fortunately, the bomb had failed to detonate.

While luggage X-rays, full-body scans and searches amounted to nothing more than theatre — a performance meant to impart a false sense of security to commercial-airline travellers — people who owned a plane or had the financial means to charter one weren’t subjected to the same scrutiny. Lobbyists working for the highly lucrative domestic private air-travel industry had thwarted the TSA’s attempts to implement similar security measures for people flying by general aviation aircraft. These travellers were allowed to access their planes directly, bypassing all security checkpoints.

Before leaving the townhouse, Fletcher had changed into clothing more suitable for surveillance work. Wearing sunglasses, he pulled a rolling suitcase behind him as he followed Karim across the windy tarmac. In addition to his sidearm and MTV vest, the suitcase contained a wide assortment of tools and equipment.

Fletcher had made no effort to hide anything; Karim had assured him that the suitcase wouldn’t be subjected to a search. Karim had also assured him that they could speak safely on the plane. His people swept it for listening devices, always, prior to takeoff.

Karim, Fletcher knew, considered owning a plane a waste of money. His business, however, sometimes required him to fly at a moment’s notice. The man had purchased a Cessna Citation, a modest jet compared to the lavish corporate Gulfstream parked near by. A Gulfstream could seat a dozen people comfortably and offered a host of amenities, such as an area for conferences and multiple flatscreen TVs with innumerable entertainment choices.

Karim didn’t indulge in such pomp and circumstance. The interior of Karim’s Cessna was entirely practical, consisting of six comfortable and spacious tan leather executive seats strategically arranged to maximize space. High-gloss veneer tables bolted to the floor and cabinetry with polished gold accents decorated the cabin, along with a beige carpet that showed no sign of wear.

The pilot stood outside the cockpit door. Karim shook the man’s hand and introduced Fletcher as a business associate who would be accompanying him to Alabama. The pilot didn’t ask for Fletcher’s name or passport, and he didn’t ask to search his suitcase. He retreated inside the cockpit, shutting the door behind him.

Blocking the aisle leading to the rear of the plane was a tall, thin woman dressed in a form-fitting black jacket and a matching pencil skirt. A long, side-swept fringe of stark white hair concealed her right eye, its tips hanging like daggers across her cheekbone. All of her hair was white, the sides cut short, the back cropped. Fletcher had seen this type of haircut on a good number of young cosmopolitan women. It complemented her sharp, angular features.

She held out a hand a good arm’s length away and said, ‘Your coat and suitcase please.’

She was British. Her accent suggested she had been raised and educated in the Midlands — Birmingham, Fletcher suspected.

‘There’s no need for that,’ Karim told her. ‘This is Robert Pepin, an old, dear friend and colleague. This is my personal assistant, Emma White.’

Fletcher extended a hand. ‘A pleasure to meet you, Miss White.’

She shook his hand and he felt the strength in her grip.

‘I’m not anyone’s miss,’ she said, polite but firm. ‘M. As in the letter.’

‘Yes. Right,’ Karim said. ‘Now let’s get — ’

‘I’m sure Mr Pepin won’t mind a security search,’ she said.

‘ I mind it,’ Karim replied. ‘Please step aside and let Mr Pepin through.’

The young woman complied but didn’t hide her disapproval. Her face, stark and severe in its beauty, expressed clear Teutonic characteristics — pale, almost translucent skin and a thin but strong nose in profile. She had applied a light touch of eyeshadow and lipstick to her porcelain features, but there was nothing delicate about her.

Fletcher moved to the end of the plane and stuffed his suitcase and jacket in the overhead compartment. Knowing he had aroused Emma White’s suspicions, he decided to take a seat facing the cockpit so he could keep a close eye on her.

He watched her behind his sunglasses. Emma White — M, as in the letter — reminded him of another woman he’d met several years ago, a Boston-based investigator and forensics expert named Darby McCormick.

The McCormick woman still fascinated him. Much like Emma White, Darby McCormick possessed a distinct and savage beauty. But it was the woman’s fierce intellect that had drawn him, and her physical mettle brought to mind comparisons with the legendary female Amazon warriors from Greek mythology. Fletcher wondered — and not for the first time — what it would be like to know Darby McCormick more intimately.

Karim strolled down the aisle, holding a cardboard box stuffed with pastries.

‘Would you like one? Coffee?’

‘No, thank you,’ Fletcher said. He leaned forward in his seat, and in a low voice added: ‘You neglected to mention that someone else would be on board.’