Chris Mooney - The Killing House

‘Because the system’s offline,’ Karim said. ‘If they’re in there, they can’t watch us from the monitoring station.’

‘You mentioned earlier that it contained a hard drive.’ Fletcher had his attention on the rearview mirror, watching for movement. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Karim nod.

‘The drive is secured by a magnetic lock,’ Karim said. ‘If you don’t remove it with a special key, the drive is erased. I have the key with me.’

Fletcher put the car in park. Karim removed a sidearm — an updated version of John Browning’s legendary Colt design, the powerful BUL M-5 10-mm developed in cooperation with the Israeli Special Forces.

‘Stay here,’ Fletcher said, and withdrew the SIG from his shoulder holster.

He stepped out of the car. No one came running, and no shots were fired. He moved around the car and hit the garage-door button. The bay filled with the roar and clack of gears as the door lowered. He waited until it was halfway shut and then hand-signalled to Karim to kill the engine. Karim did and opened his door.

‘I’ll talk to you over this,’ Fletcher said, and handed over a small Bluetooth headset that clipped around an ear. ‘I’ll be wearing one as well.’

‘You’ve already found something, haven’t you?’

‘The garden hose on the side of the house, I used it last night. After I finished, I placed the spray nozzle back on top of the hanging rack. Now it’s lying against the ground.’

‘Maybe the wind knocked it down.’

Fletcher shook his head. ‘Someone used it recently,’ he said. ‘There are still some damp pockets on the garage floor that haven’t evaporated, and the remaining micro-fibre towels I saw last night on the shelves in here are missing, as well as three rolls of kitchen towel.’

Karim stared dumbfounded at the garage shelves.

‘I’ll contact you when I’ve secured the house,’ Fletcher said. ‘Until then, please remain here.’

‘Bollocks. Going in alone is — ’

‘I need to concentrate. I can’t do that while guarding you.’

Karim reluctantly waved his hands in surrender.

‘Thank you. Now put away your gun before you hurt yourself.’

Silencer in hand, Fletcher locked it in place with a quick snap of the wrist. He approached the door, reminding himself that he couldn’t shoot to kill. He needed to keep as many men alive as possible in order to find out where Nathan Santiago had been taken.

Fletcher grabbed the doorknob, turned and stepped back with his weapon raised.

The chilly hall of white walls and concrete flooring was empty.

Fletcher stepped inside, closing the door softly behind him. Another door was less than twenty feet ahead; mounted in the corner and watching, a security camera, its single green light blinking.

He raised the SIG as he threw open the door.

The morning’s dull light filtered through the gaps between the wooden blinds drawn around all the kitchen and living-room windows. The ceiling fans mounted in the rafters hadn’t been shut off. The spinning blades pushed the warm air down him, with its lingering smell of an extinguished fire.

No one came running. Watching and listening for movement, Fletcher crept towards the archway leading into the living room. Then he swung around the corner. The entire living room was empty.

Now he checked the security room. It was empty, the monitoring screen dark. The electrical cord for the security station had been unplugged. He checked the bedroom across the hall, found it empty. Same with the bathroom. The ground floors were empty.

The wind died down and the warm air inside the living room seemed to throb with silence.

Were they waiting upstairs?

Fletcher moved up the carpeted steps, mindful of his shadow dancing across the wall, announcing him.

The first-floor hallway was empty, the air significantly cooler and the three bedroom doors were hanging open. The first bedroom, the one on his left, was empty. The second one was empty. The last one was empty. Everything was in order. Slowly he moved down the hall and when it curved left he walked across the last part and entered the large room where Dr Sin had treated Nathan Santiago.

The hospital bed was still in the centre of the room, the plastic liner covering the pillow and mattress smeared with dried blood. Drops were on the floor, and the rubbish bin was full of bloody gauze.

Fletcher wondered if Karim’s surveillance cameras had captured anything useful.

Returning to the security room, Fletcher slid the plug for the console into the wall outlet. As the system turned on, he opened the unit’s metal cabinet. The Ethernet cable had been torn from the router, and the system’s hard drive was missing, prised from its metal clasps. The person who had performed the work had known exactly where to look. Only someone well acquainted with the design mechanics of security-system stations would be able to locate where the hard drive was housed, as the area was concealed and couldn’t be accessed easily. Someone had taken every available action to remove recorded evidence of what had happened inside the house.

The security cameras were back online but not recording. Fletcher spoke into his headset: ‘There’s no one here.’

‘What did you find?’

‘The hard drive is gone.’ Fletcher moved back to the foot of the stairs. ‘Dial Boyd’s number.’

No ringing, just the sound of the wind shrieking.

Karim’s voice came over his earpiece: ‘It’s coming from the BMW — the trunk, I think.’

‘I’ll be right there.’ Fletcher did not want the man to pop the trunk and witness Boyd Paulson’s manner of execution.

Opening the door for the garage, he found the BMW’s trunk already popped open, the small halogen light shining down on Boyd Paulson. A gunshot entry wound the size of a half-dollar had replaced Paulson’s left eye.

Dr Sin was not in the trunk. Had she been taken with Santiago?

Karim had a phone mashed up against his ear. Fletcher was moving towards him when Karim yanked the phone away and said, ‘FBI and New Jersey SWAT are on their way.’

Fletcher looked at the Range Rover.

‘Forget that,’ Karim said. ‘They’ll be here any moment. I’ve got to hide you.’

Karim whisked past him and darted into the hall. Fletcher followed.

‘My New Jersey people were monitoring police frequencies,’ Karim said over his shoulder. ‘They intercepted communications between the Feds and the Jersey cops and state police. They know you’re here, Malcolm. I don’t know how, but they know.’

Racing quickly up the stairs, Fletcher heard the rotor thump of an approaching helicopter over the wind roaring past the house. The sound grew louder when he followed Karim into the treatment room. Fletcher moved to the windows overlooking the back of the house and peered through the blinds.

A half-dozen or so SWAT officers dressed in black tactical gear, faces hidden by helmets and black balaclavas, were crouched in the brush and tall sea grass on the dunes overlooking the water, wind blowing sand and grit across their visors.

Karim had opened the bi-fold doors of a closet. ‘You’ll be safe in here,’ he said, pushing aside the hanging white lab coats. Then he turned to an alarm keypad unit with glowing numbers mounted on the wall.

Karim punched in a four-digit code. Fletcher committed the numeric sequence to memory as he heard a faint click of locks springing free, the sound followed by a soft hiss of escaping air pressure. The closet’s left-corner wall opened to a narrow room of dim and flickering light. Fletcher had to duck to enter, and immediately found the light source: a laptop computer on a small table, its fifteen-inch screen holding six camera views of different areas inside and outside the house. No sound, just images.