Chris Mooney - The Soul Collectors

'So you have a choice to make. You can bring me inside your inner circle, where I can help you out, or I can do it on my own. Either way, I'm going to get in front of this. I'm not going to spend my time sitting in some safe house. And I'm sure as hell not going to spend the rest of my life living under different names and hopping from state to state praying to God that these people don't find me.

'Ball's in your court,' she said. 'How do you want to play it?'

Casey weighed the question on his cold scales. The only sound came from the hum of the overhead lights.

Then he looked down at the scuffed floor between them. Looked at it as if something expensive and rare had shattered there and was lying in pieces.

He let out a rush of air through his nose.

'You're right,' he said.

His expression had changed. Become more haggard.

'Okay,' he said. 'I'll bring you on board. Probably better that way. I can keep a close eye on you.'

'And Coop. That's the man who was sitting in here with me, Jackson Cooper. He stays next to me. That condition is non-negotiable.'

Casey thought about it for a moment, then finally nodded.

'Now let's talk about Darren Waters,' she said.

Casey rubbed his eyes. 'He was abducted in July of '76. He lived in Washington — the state, not the city. He was four when they took him. Mother put him down to sleep and the next morning he was gone. He suddenly reappeared in the summer of 2001.'

Darby ran the numbers in her head. Disappears in 1976 when he's four, then reappears in '01, which puts his age then somewhere in the neighbourhood of twenty-nine, which means now he's — Jesus — thirty-eight years old.

'Police in Reno, Nevada, picked him up,' Casey said. 'He was rooting through a restaurant dumpster. Wasn't wearing a stitch of clothing. An employee came out, tried to shoo Waters away from the dumpster, and the guy ended up with two broken arms and a concussion. Police came and Waters was just sitting there eating scraps. It took three policemen to take him down.'

'And the police knew to call you?'

'No. The Bureau asked me if I'd be willing to consult.'

'The Bureau found out because his fingerprints had been coded.'

He sighed. 'Yes, we had his prints coded. I was called and asked if I'd be willing to consult and talk to Waters because of my prior experience with these people.'

Darby wanted to know more about Casey's experience with 'these people', but decided to stick with Waters for the moment. 'How do you know they were the ones who abducted him? No, let me guess. He had a certain Latin phrase tattooed on his neck.'

Casey nodded. 'Et in Arcadia ego. Literally translated, it means "Even in Arcadia, I exist" — the "I" being Death. We believe it's a reference to someone who once enjoyed the pleasures of life and has now been transformed in death. That's all we know.'

'Waters didn't shed any light on it?'

'His tongue and vocal cords had been removed.'

Darby flashed back to her first encounter with the pale-faced creature with the missing tongue and teeth and said, 'Did he have a black plastic device sewn into his back and above his spine?'

'No.'

'Where's Waters now?'

'Someplace where they can't find him.'

'Not even his parents?'

'They died in a car crash, a couple of months after Waters disappeared. Police think the father ran the car off the road on purpose. I read the reports and I'm inclined to agree.'

'How did his fingerprints wind up on your forged army forms?'

'I had a Bureau lawyer draft up the forms so they'd look legitimate. I had them with me when I went to see Waters, and he-'

'Why did you go to see him?'

'To make preparations to move him to another hospital. The Bureau moves him every couple of years. But, with what happened in New Hampshire, I wanted to move him again as a precaution. I wanted to oversee everything myself so there'd be no mistakes, no way to find him.' Casey sighed. 'Darren Waters grabbed the forms from me and took them over to his table and his crayons and markers.'

'You're telling me a 38-year-old man thought you had, what, brought him a colouring book?'

'Physically, he's an adult. But he has the mentality of a child.'

'What happened to him?'

Casey blinked away whatever image had appeared in front of his eyes. He was about to speak when the door swung open.

Darby turned and saw the army man she had met at the BU Biomedical Lab, Billy Fitzgerald, aka Special Agent Sergey Martynovich. The man had traded his army fatigues for a stylish navy-blue suit.

He came into the room alone but didn't shut the door behind him. She saw a mass of dark suits and ties huddled outside, an unknown sea of faces except for one: the well-groomed man she'd met at the BU Biomedical Lab, the head of security, Neal Keats. The man towered over the other agents and wore an earpiece, his gaze locked on Casey.

Security, she thought. A standard-issued fed, maybe Secret Service.

'Sergey,' Casey said, 'I've decided to let Dr McCormick into the investigation.'

'And Jackson Cooper,' she said.

Casey nodded. 'And Jackson Cooper.'

Sergey didn't so much as glance at her, but she caught the hardness in the man's gaze, a single-minded determination fighting like hell against a mounting horror.

'I have the plane in the air, with the lab people,' he said. 'Everyone we need is on it. Brightest minds and the best equipment.'

'What's going on?' Casey said.

Sergey's voice was calm now, like a doctor steeling himself before handing over a terminal diagnosis to a patient. 'You need to stand here and listen to me. You need to hear all of it.'

'Tell me now.'

'The bastards found the safe house. Taylor — wait, Jack.'

Sergey had blocked Casey's path. Pressed both hands against Casey's chest and pushed like a man keeping a stone statue from toppling over. Casey was a good foot taller than Sergey and three times as wide and doing everything in his power to shove the agent aside and then race through the blockade of suits crowding the doorway. Darby could only think, You're going to need more bodies.

'Taylor and Sarah aren't there,' Sergey said. 'Did you hear me? Taylor and Sarah aren't there.'

'The implants, you said — '

'The satellites locked on to their signals. We got a blip in Connecticut and then the signals vanished, we don't know why yet.

'Now listen to me, Jack. Listen. The plane's going to touch down in Florida at any minute. I've been on the phone with the Sarasota police. They're at the house now, and they promised not to go inside the house until our people arrive. We're going to get the crime scene fresh. The forensic guy you like, Drake? He's going to go into the house. Alone. He's going in with a video camera. We're going to have it linked up to a secured satellite link and you're going to be able to see and hear everything inside the techs' van. We're setting up the equipment right now. We're — '

'Are you out of your goddamn mind? I'm not staying here — '

'Listen to me, Jack. Listen. They're bringing your wife and daughter here. Here. The Boston office received a phone call from a young girl claiming to be your daughter. Came in a couple of hours ago. I heard it. They patched the recording to my phone. It's her voice, Jack. Sarah's. It didn't sound doctored or spliced together. It was Sarah's voice, Jack, I'm certain of it.'

Something — maybe the relief of knowing his wife and daughter were alive, or maybe just the hope of it — made Casey back off. Sergey's hands dropped and fell to his sides. His olive-skinned forehead shone with perspiration.

Casey, to his credit, forced himself to stay in the room. His attention retreated inward, but the fear and worry and panic were all still there, radiating off him like waves of heat.