Chris Mooney - The Killing House

‘The same code opens the door,’ Karim said. He handed over his phone, caught Fletcher’s puzzled expression. ‘Your phone number’s listed on it,’ he said, speaking rapidly. ‘Remove the battery so it can’t be traced. Shut off any devices you have that make noise and — ’

A booming sound erupted from somewhere downstairs. Fletcher glanced at the computer screen and saw that the front door had been blown open — an explosive had been used on the locks. The order had been given to breach the house.

‘Hold the door and it will automatically seal and lock,’ Karim said. ‘Keep your ass parked in here until I come for you.’

Fletcher pushed the false door shut. The suck of a vacuum seal, and a moment later the locks bolted home. He heard Karim rearrange the clothing and then the closet’s bi-fold doors slammed shut.

Quickly he removed the batteries from his phone. Quickly he removed the batteries from Karim’s phone, tucking everything inside his trouser pockets. He was standing inside a makeshift panic room. The area, with its three-foot-wide floor, could accommodate several people, if needed. Karim, always the meticulous organizer, had stocked it with every conceivable provision — cases of bottled water and meal-replacement bars; plastic urinals and neatly stacked portable cardboard toilets, the kind used by outdoorsmen. Fletcher found a defibrillator, an emergency first-aid kit and a ‘blow-out’ kit. Small and portable so that it could easily be stored inside a cargo-pants pocket, backpack or glove box, the blow-out kit contained a number of life-saving emergency items: QuikClot Combat Gauze, a decompression needle, Israeli Bandages and a pair of HALO chest seals.

Karim had installed lead shielding over the walls — a clever touch. Used mostly as a radiation shield, the lead would prevent the government’s new thermal-imaging devices from picking up a heat signature. An additional keypad had been installed on the wall near the false door, its numeric keypad glowing.

Muffled shouting on the other side of the wall: ‘ Stand down! I repeat, stand down! ’

On a top-right-hand corner of the computer screen Fletcher saw a view of the treatment room. The hidden camera had been installed somewhere along the ceiling so its parabolic lens could capture the bedroom’s entirety — in a fire alarm, he suspected, given the high angle.

Karim had dropped to his knees, his fingers laced together and resting on the back of his head as a pair of SWAT officers looked down the target sights of their weapons — HK MP7 submachine guns with extended 40-round magazines, shoulder stocks and collimating sights installed on the top rails. Fletcher knew of only one tactical unit that supplied its men with this new breed of Personal Defence Weapon.

He dropped to one knee in front of the computer. He recognized the brand of surveillance software installed on the system. A quick glance at the screen revealed that recording option for each camera had been turned off.

A tap of a key and the camera view for the bedroom enlarged and filled the entire screen.

Karim was no longer wearing his earpiece; he had tucked it inside the breast pocket of his coat, the tiny microphone end sticking out so it could listen in on the room. Fletcher could hear, over his own earpiece, Karim’s erratic breathing.

Now Karim’s voice: ‘I’m armed. Left shoulder holster.’

One officer stood guard while the other pushed Karim to the floor. Both men wore balaclavas; only their eyes were visible. Fletcher saw a patch on the right-shoulder sleeve of one of the men and zoomed in on it. An eagle patch. Not local or federal SWAT but operators from the FBI’s Delta Force-inspired Hostage Rescue Team. To categorize these men as a bunch of steroid-laced elite alpha males itching with buck fever would be both unfair and unwise, as HRT recruited only the brightest tactical minds.

HRT’s presence here meant several snipers were now watching the house.

One of the HRT operators had removed Karim’s weapon. The other yanked Karim’s hands behind his back and bound his wrists together with a FlexiCuff. Now the pair turned their attention to the closet. A slam and rattle as the bi-fold doors swung open, and then Fletcher heard a man’s voice just inches from where he stood: ‘ Clear.’

The two operators moved to the bedroom’s far wall so they could divide their attention between Karim and the door leading into the carpeted hall. Fletcher pressed another key and all six hidden cameras came back on the screen. On each one he saw both HRT operators and New Jersey SWAT officers swarming through the house. They threw open closet doors and overturned mattresses. They crawled through the basement with their tactical lights shining in hidden corners, behind objects and furniture, the video cameras mounted on their weapons capturing everything and sending it to their command post, which had no doubt been set up somewhere close to the house.

The top-left-hand corner of the screen contained a camera view of the driveway. An unmarked Ford Interceptor with flashing grille lights was parked at the top of the driveway, along with a SWAT van and two other unmarked vehicles. Plainclothes officers and SWAT stood armed and ready in a wash of light from blue-and-whites.

The driver’s side door for the Interceptor swung open. Fletcher tapped a key. The computer window enlarged and he saw a tall, burly man who hadn’t bothered to have his navy-blue suit properly tailored; the jacket had a tent-like effect on his stature. One look at his face and Fletcher knew this man was too young to be the one in charge.

But the gentleman unbuttoning his dark grey overcoat could very well be.

Diminutive in both size and shape, this man had his back turned to the driveway’s security camera. He had a folder tucked under his arm and stood a few feet away from the car, speaking to a cluster of law-enforcement officers. Fletcher couldn’t hear what was being said, but he had a clear view of the faces staring down at the Napoleonic man, and they all seemed displeased at having him in their presence; a federal agent, perhaps. That would explain the wide berth they had given him. A federal presence in a local investigation was treated with the same distant contempt as a leper at a skincare clinic.

The man brushed past the group and disappeared from the computer screen.

Fletcher found him a moment later, standing inside the living room and slicking back his grizzled, windblown hair with his long and delicate fingers. He wore a pair of aviator-style sunglasses. Fletcher was about to zoom in on the face when the man darted up the stairs.

Fletcher switched to the camera showing a view of the upstairs hall. The small man had taken off his sunglasses. The folder that had been tucked under his arm was now gripped in a gloved hand. Fletcher saw the federal badge hanging on the man’s belt, stared at it as he walked across the hall, on his way to speak to Ali Karim.

Fletcher felt as though he were an invisible spectator standing in the back of the treatment room. On the computer screen he watched as the federal agent stepped inside with a companion he’d picked up along the way — another Hostage Rescue operator, this one tall and burly, his face and head covered with a balaclava and a tactical helmet. Unlike the other operators, he wore a tactical backpack. Clipped to its side was a military-grade gas mask, one equipped with the new voice-amplification system. Fletcher, his senses vibrating like a tuning fork, was set to register any anomaly.

The two operators guarding Karim left the room. The new operator had his HK aimed at Karim, who was still lying face down on the floor. The federal agent conducted a leisurely examination of the room’s bloodstained items. When he turned to the bed where Nathan Santiago had been treated, Fletcher got his first solid, clear view of the man’s features — the razor-thin lips, weak jawline and pronounced forehead. The man appeared to be somewhere in his late forties to early fifties.