Chris Mooney - The Killing House

Now he crept across the roof, his attention locked on the window he couldn’t access from the roof, the one for the occupied bedroom. Monocular in hand, he looked through the window and saw the glowing heat signature still lying flat and level. A press of a button and the bright and swirling colours gave way to the green glow of night vision. The filmless micro-channel plate and auto-gated power supply with its reduced halo effect provided remarkably vivid details.

A man lay on top of a twin bed. He was bald and barefoot. He wore trousers and a collared shirt. Fletcher couldn’t see the man’s face; it was turned away from the window.

The man didn’t pose a threat. His hands hung above his head, his wrists were bound to the headboard’s spindles with what appeared to be zip ties. Fletcher zoomed in and discovered that that was, in fact, what they were. The man’s left shirtsleeve had been loosened and pulled up across the elbow to accommodate an IV needle, which was connected to a hospital-grade piggyback IV stand holding two bags of fluid.

Fletcher switched back to thermal imaging and turned his attention to the window for the accessible bedroom. No heat signature; the room was unoccupied. He crawled his way to it and then used night vision to examine the window. It contained no glass-break detector or magnetic sensors. The window had a tight seal, and it was locked. He couldn’t use his tactical knife to prise the clasp loose. He tucked the monocular away and stripped off his Kevlar gloves, revealing the latex ones he wore underneath. The latex would allow him to handle the tools he needed.

Fletcher placed a suction cup on the thick pane around the window clasp and, glasscutter in hand, went to work. It took him less than a minute to cut through the glass. The suction cup kept the square-shaped section from falling. He pulled it loose, turned and flung it far into the garden. He didn’t hear the glass break. He unlocked the clasp and used his tactical knife to open the bottom part of the window. It slid open easily. He went in feet first, stood and eased the window shut.

The bedroom door was open; muted voices came from the hallway. Television voices. A man and woman arguing about how the president was bankrupting the nation with his universal health-care programme. The arguing stopped, and was replaced by a commercial for a new medication to treat erectile dysfunction.

Fletcher entered the hall and turned right, the carpet masking his footsteps. The door to the occupied bedroom was also open. He slid inside the room. The man was still lying on the bed, still unconscious. He appeared to be of Hispanic descent, early twenties, and relatively short in size and stature. Not bald but a shaved head thick with stubble. His jaw hung open, and he was breathing rapidly. The damp skin smelled of soap.

The piggyback IV stand was by the side of the bed facing the window. Fletcher moved to it and read the labels in the dull light: a ten-litre 0.9 per cent normal saline in one bag, the other holding a wide-spectrum antibiotic used to treat severe bacterial infections.

Fletcher pressed two fingers against the man’s damp, hot neck. The man did not stir or register the touch. Fletcher tracked time in his head. After a minute passed, he moved his hand away.

The young man had an elevated heart rate, and he seemed to be suffering from a fever.

Fletcher used one of the surgical-spirit prep pads on the nightstand to wipe the screen of his smartphone. He used it again to clean the man’s fingers.

Fletcher pressed the fingertips of the man’s right hand against the screen, holding them in place as a narrow beam of light scanned them. He wiped the screen and scanned the man’s thumb. Then he did the left hand. He sent off the prints to Karim’s private email, traded his phone for his sidearm and moved back into the hallway.

Fletcher found the stairs easily in the dark.

His movements were slow and smooth as he crept down the carpet runner, listening for movement and watching for shadows. He reached the foot of the stairs, stepped into the roomy kitchen and waited. No sounds, no movement. He walked across the tiles and followed the television voices, his footsteps whisper-quiet against the floor.

Sidled against a wall, he peered around a corner and found a large living room decorated to resemble a politician’s lair — burgundy-painted walls and dark leather sofas and club chairs arranged on a sweeping oriental rug; side tables holding crystal ashtrays and coasters. He could see part of a bar, the polished mahogany shelves stocked with top-shelf spirits.

In the room’s centre were three faux Chippendale armchairs made of cherrywood. They were arranged around a coffee table. Each chair faced a flat-screen TV above a black marble fireplace crackling with wood. An older Caucasian male sat in the middle chair, watching the TV. Fletcher could see only the back of the man’s head, the carefully combed white hair and the left elbow propped on the armrest. The man held his arm at a ninety-degree angle. Gripped in his hand was a hard rubber blue ball. He squeezed it and then relaxed his grip, squeezed and relaxed, all the while watching the television.

Minutes passed and then the man dropped the ball on his lap.

Now his left hand moved to the side table, which held an ashtray and a column of stacked coins. The man pushed the ashtray aside. His longer fingers gripped the top coin, a quarter. He held it in the air, studying his hand for a moment before placing the coin down on another part of the table.

The fingers moved back to the stack and picked up a dime. Again the man studied his hand before placing the dime on top of the quarter.

The man went back to watching the television as he repeated the process again. Again.

Fletcher holstered his SIG. He removed a leather sap, slid around the corner and entered the living room.

The man heard the heavy thump of footsteps. Startled, he jumped to his feet. He was tall and wore a navy-blue suit and a white shirt without a tie. He had half turned when Fletcher raked him hard and fast against the temple with the sap. The man’s knees buckled, and he dropped to the floor and lay as still as a clubbed fish.

Fletcher found the remote and shut off the TV. Kneeling, he grabbed the tactical knife strapped behind his calf muscle. A series of quick cuts, no more than a few minutes’ work, and the man’s clothing lay in a shredded heap on the carpet. He bound the man’s wrists and ankles with police-grade FlexiCuffs. Beneath the man’s cologne Fletcher caught a subtle yet distinctive medicinal odour.

He scanned the man’s fingerprints, stood and left the living room. Having already memorized the home’s layout, Fletcher knew the quickest route to the alarm’s main control panel in the basement. This he filled with liquid styrofoam, which hardened and immobilized the system. He darted back upstairs, found the security-alarm panel next to the front door and filled it with styrofoam. The remaining alarm panel was upstairs. He would deal with that in a moment. First, he took a moment to examine the surrounding rooms.

The dining-room table was covered with white Irish linen and held six place settings with crystal wine glasses. The man had smartly opened two bottles of Brunello di Montalcino, one of the best and most expensive Italian reds on the market, to allow the wine to breathe. Apparently he was expecting company sometime this evening.

Fletcher took a moment to consider his next course of action.

Returning to the living room, he found the man still unconscious. The left side of his face had started to swell. Fletcher saw a long camelhair overcoat draped over the back of a chair. He examined the coat and the torn clothing on the floor for a moment before rooting through the pockets. They held an iPhone, an elegant black leather billfold and a sterling silver Tiffany key ring. According to the man’s Baltimore driver’s licence, his name was Gary Corrigan, aged forty-eight. The credit cards had been issued in the same name.