Chris Mooney - The Soul Collectors

'Then you need to turn on a light,' Roy said.

Waters kept shaking his head.

Darby felt Roy release his grip. He reached into his trousers pocket, came back with a small flashlight, placed it on the floor and sat next to Waters in the corner.

'Darren, would you like to use this?' Roy asked, tapping the floor where the flashlight lay.

Waters tilted his head to the side. He made some signs again and his gnarled fingers scooped it up.

'You're welcome,' Roy said. 'Can my friend Darby sit with you?'

'Aye-ah.'

She sat next to Roy. Waters turned on the flashlight and she felt her stomach slide south — not from fear of seeing his ghoulish face with its scars and lumps but more so out of anger and piercing sadness. This group had abducted Waters at four, tortured and beaten him over decades and turned him into this ghost of a human being.

Why in the name of God did they do this to you?

'Darren,' she said.

He looked up from the picture.

'Do you know Mark Rizzo?'

No reaction.

'Can you tell me anything about this?' She pointed to the picture in his hand, the one showing the archway formed from human skulls.

No reaction.

'Do you know this place?'

Water picked up a blue crayon and began colouring one of the skulls.

'Too many words,' Roy said to her. 'Darren knows only basic language.'

'Darren,' she said kindly.

He looked up, tilted his head to the side.

'This,' she said, tapping the picture. 'Where?'

She pointed down. 'Below the ground?'

He didn't understand.

'Darren, can I use a crayon and paper?'

He didn't understand and looked at Roy, who used sign language. Darren nodded and handed her a piece of paper and his box of crayons.

She drew a quick, crude picture of an outdoors scene dotted with trees and flowers. Below it, she drew a tunnel; inside it, a floor and the archway.

She put the drawing on the floor. Pointed to the picture of the archway he was colouring and then pointed to the one she had drawn.

Waters brought his hands together, kissed his palms and then made waving motions with his hands, like rising flames of fire.

A voice came over the speaker: 'Darby McCormick, report to Situation Room 102.'

Darren Waters pressed his hands over his deformed ears.

After she stepped outside with Roy, she said, 'That sign language at the end, what was he trying to describe? Hell?'

Roy shook his head.

'Heaven,' he said.

Her face flushed, Darby opened the door to the situation room and found three men dressed in SWAT gear picking up weapons from the table.

Casey wasn't here, but Sergey was, leaning back in a leather chair with his legs crossed. He had loosened his tie and was eating peanuts from a bag, reading a stack of papers.

'What took you so long?' he asked, a half-grin cocked on his face.

'I had to ask someone for directions.' She nodded to the papers on his lap. 'That Ross's stuff?'

He nodded. 'Religious theory on Gnosticism, stuff about these Archons. They like to bend people to their wills and wage war. Creates unity.' He shook his head. 'Load of useless mystical propaganda created centuries ago.'

'And this group, for whatever reason, has bought into it.'

'Sure looks that way. And none of it is going to do us any good.'

He tossed the stack on the table, ate another peanut. 'I've got guys checking on customs logs to see who's tried to import any of the spiders Perkins put on his list. No hits so far, but we've only just started.'

'I didn't know you carried SWAT on board.'

'Former Hostage Rescue guys, on loan to us. Your stuff is in the back. They could use an extra body, and with your training I figured you wanted in.'

'What about transport?'

'You're going to love this.' He crumbled his bag into a ball and threw it into the trashcan bolted against the wall. 'It's a Huey, a Bell UH-1H, one of the new ones with a four-blade rotor system and dual GE engines. Powerful but quiet. And it's got just about every piece of equipment we need to stage a military coup or mount a search and rescue.'

'How did you score that?'

'Pure luck.'

'What about ground support?'

'SWAT, local police and ambulances,' he said. 'Jimmy Blackstone from the Connecticut field office is overseeing everything. Good guy, he knows what he's doing. He's going to go in quiet when he gets close to the transmission corridor. He's going to have to wait for us to scout out the terrain first.'

'We know anything about the terrain?'

'Woods. Lots and lots of woods. We're going to fly in and scope it out using FLIR thermal imaging. Never seen it in action before.'

'It's good, unless you're going into an area with fog or poor visibility, like tree cover.'

'FLIR won't pick that up?'

'Depends,' she said. 'It'll probably pick up warm spots as opposed to hot spots — the thermal image of the target won't be entirely clear.'

He broke out in soft laughter.

'What?'

'You are one goddamn remarkable woman, you know that?' He raised his hands, still laughing. 'I mean, Christ, how many women look the way you do and can kick the ass of every guy in this room and also know the specs on FLIR?'

She smiled back, and it eased some of the tension. 'Thank you.'

'You're welcome.' He stood and pointed across the table to a guy with a shaved head and a square jaw. Marine, she thought. The only thing he was missing was a cigar jammed into his mouth.

'That's Knowles,' Sergey said. 'He's heading up the operation, and he'll brief you.'

'You said "we" a moment ago. Are you coming along?'

Sergey nodded. 'Jack too. He's already dressed.'

'Does Casey have SWAT training?'

'He has training.'

'That's not the same thing, Sergey, and you know it.'

'Of course I know it. Jack knows it too. But he wants to be on the ground if you find his wife and daughter.'

'You think that's wise, given what's on the video?'

Sergey knew what she meant. She saw it in his eyes.

'Jack's not stupid, Darby. He knows the score. If the bodies of his wife and daughter are in those woods, he wants to be the one to bring them home. And that's the least I can do, given what the man's put on the line for the Bureau.'

Darby nodded. 'Any news on their signals?' she asked.

'Nothing.' He shook his head, sighing. 'Sandwiches and stuff are on the table in the corner. Dig in now. You could be in for a long night.' The FBI helicopter was perfect. Two sliding aft doors had enough room to allow two to three people to rappel from either door. The cabin, specially lengthened, had an internal rescue hoist and passenger seats that, if detached, could accommodate the six stretchers stored in the back.

Right now there was plenty of space to spread out. Darby took a rear seat, the pleasant roar of the engine throbbing through her limbs. The men filed inside, along with Casey. She didn't look at him. She didn't want to see whatever might be on his face, didn't want that in her head right now.

Sergey had climbed in next to the pilot. The team leader, Knowles, slid both aft doors shut, then pounded twice on the wall behind the pilot.

The copter lifted off the ground. ETA was thirty minutes. Nobody spoke.

Having already checked and prepared her weapons, Darby closed her eyes and meditated, wanting her mind clear for whatever was waiting for them in the darkness.

Knowles's gruff voice barked across her headset: 'Mount up, people.'

Darby stood, crouching forward, and grabbed an O-ring on the ceiling for balance.

'Our FLIR picked up a collection of warm spots,' Knowles said. 'These images aren't clear because of our current distance from the site and because of the tree cover. We don't want to risk flying in for a closer look and alerting anyone who may be down there waiting for our arrival. These warm spots aren't moving.'