Chris Mooney - The Soul Collectors

'Talk to her, she's already got a plan, a solid one.'

Then Casey whisked past them, and Darby saw the ghosts of his dead wife and unborn daughter hanging in the man's frightened eyes. She watched him open the door and push his way past the bodies, wondering how much violence and suffering a person's mind could take before it broke him.

The door shut and Darby looked at Sergey, expecting to see some of that brash cockiness she'd witnessed at the BU Lab when the man had played the role of the army officer, Billy Fitzgerald, the second-in-command of the facility. She didn't see any, but he straightened, puffing up his chest as he took in a deep breath. With Casey no longer in the room, Sergey was going now to give her the lay of the land, take this moment to lecture her about who was in charge around here. He came up to her and she was surprised to find what looked like compassion swimming in his tired brown eyes.

Darby said, 'You have a problem with me being here, let's get it out on the table right now before we get moving.'

'I wish you weren't here, but not for the reasons you think. I'm assuming Jack told you why he wanted you kept inside the quarantine chamber.'

She nodded.

'He was adamant about that — about not wanting you anywhere near this,' he said. 'Truth be told, I wanted to bring you into the fold from the beginning, after we found out what had happened at the Rizzo house. I told Jack you'd seen these people up close, for one, and with your background and experience, I argued it would help to have a pair of fresh eyes. I've been working this thing far too long now.'

'How long?'

'Since they took my son.'

He saw the confusion on her face and said, 'Jack didn't tell you about Arman?'

'No.'

'They took him when he was five,' Sergey said. 'Came into the house in broad daylight and shot my wife when she answered the door. Fifteen years ago, this happened. Arman would be twenty today.'

'I'm sorry.'

'My fault. I should have… I was a young hotshot profiler full of drive and ego and thought I could crack this group. Maybe you can help me now. Let's hear this plan of yours.'

She told him. The man listened to her intently, without interrupting, and when she finished, he thought it over for a moment and then nodded.

They discussed equipment next, Darby giving him exact names and specifications.

'I can do that,' Sergey said. 'Okay, let me make some phone calls. I'll meet you out front in a few minutes.'

'What about the gun charges?'

But he had already opened the door and run off. The crowd blocking the doorway had dispersed, and when she emerged into the bullpen she saw that it had gone back to normal, everyone working the phones or their computers, people flipping through case files, people moving in and out of doorways, everyone busy.

Coop stood off to the side, waving to her.

'Freedman here?' she asked.

'No, he left about an hour ago. Gun charges have been dropped. Didn't take much time since it was bullshit to begin with.'

'I've got to get my stuff from inventory.'

The cop seated on a stool behind the grille rose slowly from his chair and then took his sweet goddamn time to collect the envelopes storing her wallet, keys, cell phone, belt and shoulder holster. She was without a sidearm. Her MK23 had been confiscated by the state's lab techs for testing.

Two men, mountains of pale flesh poured into black suits, blocked her path to the front door. They wore earpieces and she could see the outline of their Kevlar vests underneath their shirts.

'You need to wait here, Miss McCormick,' one of them said. 'You too, Mr Cooper.'

Bright light poured through the glass front door leading into the warm lobby. From where she stood she could see the hard blue sky, cloudless, the sun bright and strong. She moved closer and then saw part of a black sedan parked a few feet away from the entrance, the driver's-side window down, a Secret Service man seated behind the wheel, talking into his wrist mike.

One of the lobby's Secret Service agents held up a hand and said, 'Back up, Miss McCormick. We'll tell you when it's safe.'

She nodded and took a step back. Breathed deeply and smelled the coppery stench lining her nostrils. John Smith's blood, his wife's blood. Her fingernails and the callused parts of her palms and fingers were stained near-black and she saw John Smith's face exploding into bone and hair and skin. Saw Mavis Smith, remembered the feel of the woman's blood spurting out against her fingers — and then the enormity of it hit her, how she'd be forced to live her life going forward, under constant guard, her every movement scrutinized. Travelling from state to state, from safe house to safe house, switching names and identities, living on the run until this group was found. Until every one of its members was arrested or dead.

But how many were there?

The question swelled inside her as a fragment from her conversation with Casey rolled through her head and made her skin turn cold. These people were lurking somewhere beyond these walls, waiting. Watching and planning and sharpening their knives. Cleaning their guns.

Coop placed a hand on her shoulder and some of the cramping tension inside her chest and shoulders loosened. He led her to the far corner and they turned their backs to the agents so they could have some privacy.

He kept his hand on her shoulder when he leaned in close and said, 'You okay?'

She nodded. Coop's eyes searched her face. The green one was the most interesting. Flecked with tiny specks of gold you could see only when you stood this close. She felt his hand and she could smell him and thought, incredibly, under the circumstance: So this is what it's like to find your other half in this world.

'I'm fine,' she said. 'Thanks again for coming.'

'Anytime, Darbs.' He grinned, picked something out of her hair and tossed it to the floor. 'You could use a shower at some point. I'm just saying…'

'How long can you stay?'

He shrugged. 'It's open-ended. Family emergency, I told my boss. He said to take my time. The Brits are good about holidays — that's what they call vacations over there.'

'Let me start at the beginning,' Darby said.

Darby had finished explaining last night's conversation with John Smith when word came down it was time to move.

The Secret Service agents escorted them to an oversized black van parked a few feet away from the main doors. They stayed close, holding their arms, and in the space of a few steps, she saw a scattering of Secret Service agents guarding the area. Saw them standing on street corners. Caught a flash of one with a pair of binoculars on the roof across the street, saw another standing guard near the side door of another black van. Casey was in there, clamping down on his fear as he watched a man hundreds of miles away searching the blood-splattered walls, floors and bodies for evidence, clues to help him find his wife and daughter before they joined the dead.

She stepped up inside the van, Coop moving right behind her, and saw Sergey sitting hunched forward at a small desk, phone pressed against his ear and his forehead resting on the heel of his palm as he listened to someone on the other end of the line.

The side door slammed shut and the van started rolling, slowly at first, then gaining speed. The warm interior, lit from the half-dozen computer screens, blinking lights and a small desk lamp next to Sergey, had that pleasant new-carpet smell.

This was no cheap five-and-dime surveillance rig. Looking around, she saw the new encryption packs developed by the CIA on the wall-mounted phone. The wall behind Sergey contained another desk, this one longer, with an array of forensic tools, each one bolted to the surface: dual-slide microscope, a scanning electron microscope and portable mass spectrometer. In the back, to her left, was a locked metal gun cabinet.