Chris Mooney - The Killing House

‘To do errands for Mr Karim.’

‘Such as?’

‘Dry cleaning, post office and what have you.’

‘What about the basement?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘The in-ground apartment,’ Borgia said. ‘Have you ever stayed there?’

‘No.’

‘It’s the only locked place inside the house — secured by a steel door that can be only accessed by a code. Odd, don’t you think?’

‘I’m the man’s assistant, not his bloody wife.’ M had purposely expressed her anger, wanting to keep Borgia off guard. She let it linger for a moment, then said: ‘I apologize for my tone. It’s late, I’m tired, and I’m worried about Mr Karim, and I’m confused, as you can imagine.’

‘Have you heard him speaking about a man named Nathan Santiago?’

She pretended to think about it. She had seen the video of the room, all that blood. Santiago had left behind his DNA and fingerprints; Borgia had found a match in the federal databases.

‘The name doesn’t sound familiar,’ she said. ‘Who is he?’

‘It’s not important. Is this what you wanted to tell me? That you saw Fletcher on board Karim’s plane?’

‘There’s one other thing,’ she said, sliding the BlackBerry from her jacket pocket. ‘When Mr Karim left for New Jersey, he asked me to do him a… favour.’

‘What kind of favour?’

M didn’t answer. She read his face and found the corresponding flashcard: discomfort.

They were travelling along the New Jersey Turnpike now, the highway dotted with many lights but only a few cars.

‘If you know something, Miss White — if you’re in possession of information that can benefit my investigation, I would encourage you to tell me now before this escalates. I would hate to see you go down with your boss.’

‘Pull over. I have to show you something.’

‘Show me now.’

‘You can’t watch and drive at the same time.’

‘Watch what?’

‘This,’ M said, and tapped a finger on the screen to play the video.

M placed her BlackBerry in Borgia’s line of vision. The video played, Borgia’s confident voice echoing over the phone’s speakers: ‘ I’m going to go check your gun permit. When I return, Mr Karim, if you don’t tell me where you’ve hidden Fletcher, I’ll have tear gas launched inside every room of this house. ’

It was interesting to watch Alexander Borgia’s curious physical transformation. He sat up, rigid, a flash of surprise, maybe even fear, on his face. The confidence had vanished. His gaze widened and his jaw dropped, as if a deer had suddenly materialized on the highway directly in front of them. Then he remembered he was driving, righted himself and got control of the wheel.

‘Pull into the breakdown lane,’ M said. ‘Slowly. Try anything stupid and I’ll press a button and email this across the country.’

Borgia grew very still. She studied his expression and found the matching flashcard: fear.

He hit the blinker and, checking his mirrors, navigated his way across the lanes. M lowered the BlackBerry. She decreased its volume and then placed the phone on the seat between them. Her eyes never left Borgia.

They had come to a full stop. M unbuckled her seatbelt after Borgia had put the car in park. He left the engine running, and the video played between them, the sound occasionally broken by the whoosh of a passing car.

Borgia twisted around in his seat to face her.

‘Eyes straight ahead, Mr Borgia.’

He looked out of the front window. ‘That video gets out,’ he said, draping his arms over the top of the steering wheel, ‘you’ll condemn your boss. He’ll serve time; you know that. You’ll destroy his company, his reputation, everything he’s built. He’ll never recover.’

‘Why did you try to kill Karim?’

‘Sorry, but that’s above my pay grade. And yours.’

‘Meaning?’

‘What do you think is going to happen next? That you’re going to, what, walk away and live your life?’

‘Karim’s lawyers are in possession of this video,’ she said, which was true. She had given a copy of it as well as the others to Karim’s legal team. ‘If something should happen to me, this video will be posted on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.’

‘That’s not going to change your predicament, Miss White.’

‘You’re going to tell me — ’ M began, when Borgia reached for her.

Mistake.

M was ready, her fist was ready; she was already out of her seatbelt, and she had enough room to move. She deflected the blow easily with her right arm as her left fist came up. She hit him with a solid blow that broke his nose.

It didn’t stop him. Borgia was frenzied, like an animal caught in a snare. He had managed to unlock his seatbelt when she hit him again, and still he went for her. He grabbed the lapels of her jacket, clutching it as though she were the last-remaining life-vest aboard a sinking ship. He was trying to push her down against the floor.

Borgia was smaller than she was, and nowhere near as strong. She grabbed his head and smashed it against the console radio. When he screamed she gripped him by the back of the hair and smashed his face against the edge of the dashboard. She got to her knees and pinned Borgia against the seat and hovered over him the way the HRT operator had hovered over Karim and she hit Borgia again in the face and she hit him in the throat and kept hitting him until he went limp and begged for her to stop, please stop.

Special Agent Robert Ortega was back on watch patrol inside Ali Karim’s garage, but at least he had something interesting to occupy his attention this time around: a firm, heart-shaped ass. It belonged to Miranda Wolfe, and right now she was bent over the Ford Expedition’s engine block, her tight-fitting black trousers hugging every perfect curve. A bald guy with a noticeable beer gut hanging over his belt and — surprise, surprise, no wedding ring on his finger — stood next to her, holding a flashlight.

‘Miranda,’ the bald guy said, ‘do you feel that?’

‘Feel what?’ she asked.

‘The heat. I think it’s coming from the Jaguar.’

She moved to the car and pressed her hand against the side.

‘What the hell is causing this?’ she said, more to herself. She moved her hand away.

‘Your hand,’ the fat guy said. ‘It’s covered… it looks like black dust.’

The overhead rows of fluorescent lights hanging from the garage ceiling started to flicker.

The fat guy and Miranda Wolfe looked up, wide-eyed. Ortega’s attention was locked on the radio clipped to the woman’s belt. Smoke was rising from the loudspeaker. He was about to speak when the garage door started to rise.

Ortega flinched at the sound. He was standing near the elevator, only a few feet away from the wall controls for the garage; no one had pressed the button and yet the garage door was rising. He was still staring at it when the fat man said ‘Holy shit ’, and Ortega turned to see the guy and the woman backing away from the Ford, plumes of grey smoke drifting up from its engine block.

The overhead lights kept flickering.

Ortega called upstairs on his wrist-mike; didn’t get an answer. He grabbed his radio, pressed the push-to-talk button, got nothing but static.

He tried it again. The static grew louder. He looked at his radio, wondering why it -

Plumes of grey and white smoke rose from his radio loudspeaker; the LED panel was dead. He tossed the phone, the smell of burning plastic and fried circuitry filling his nostrils. The fat guy had his radio in hand and it was smoking. Wolfe had tossed hers to the floor; she had her cell in her hand and it was smoking.

A set of overhead fluorescents exploded. The woman screamed, glass shards raining down on her and tinkling across the garage floor. Smoke billowed from the security camera positioned in the corner and scattered in the wind blowing inside the garage.